No Kings Day Protest Marches in America

We strongly support all the No Kings Day Protest Marches in the United States. Today, 3/28/2026, millions will walk and talk about how we can be become a better Nation. We respect and admire these loyal real Americans.

The current MAGA Republican crumbly Krew and the incompetent and sick demented pedophile thief President Tumper Dum Dum must be immediately removed. Return to our Real and Honorable American Ways.

We both worked until age 70, paid taxes and Social Security for 54 years, and I served in the US Air Force for four years, and we both voted Democratic in every election since 1967.

More Democrats and Independents need 1) Vote in every election, and 2) root out their unconscious mistreatment of women, minorities, gays, the sick, the impoverished, and the downtrodden. We want peace, we want DEI, we want a good economy, we want a better future for our grandchildren, we want a Real Respected America.

Stop the billionaire class from dominating American lives in the national media, and in their bribery and illegal manipulations of laws to further their outrageous indifferent Greed!

We want the USA Department of Defense to Return. We want our troops brought home. We want Veterans benefits restored and improved.

Peace, Sisters and Brothers, Love Not War

Harmonica: This Land is Your Land

 

Harmonica: This Land is Your Land

Woody Guthrie wrote the song “This Land is Your Land” in 1940.
My harmonica teacher, Luke, says “it was a critical response to the song God Bless America.”

Key of C.  Chords: C7 F C G G7

Woody Guthrie (1912-1967)  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woody_Guthrie

 

This Land is Your Land

4    -4   5  -5   -5  

This land is your land

 -5    4  -4  5   5

This land is my land

 3   4 5 -4 -4  -4  -4  4   -4   5  5

From California to the New York island

 4    4   -4  5  -5 -5 

From the redwood forest 

 -5 -5   4    -4    5  5

To the Gulf Stream waters

 -4   -4  -4   -3   3  -3  -4   4

This land was made for you and me

 

Living in America - James Brown

 

James Brown (1933-2006)

I Live in America: San Fran, Seattle, Portland, Vancouver, WA!

'Somewhere along the Way, You must find out who you are!'

Watch and listen to James Brown, "Living in America"

Flag Up for Fourth of July!

Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving Day 2024

Best wishes for a peaceful and happy day to all.

The Horrors of War

A repost from May 30, 2016:

Today is an American holiday called 'Memorial Day.'  It is a day to remember American soldiers who were injured or died in wars of the past.  I take some time to think about and grieve for all the the men and women lost in the horrors of war, both good soldiers and civilians.  Yes, sometimes fighting in wars is necessary in self-defense; but, still an evil and not to be glorified.  

Really, though, a "holiday?" Something is amiss here; something is disrespectful.  Most Americans party, celebrate, treat it as a three day weekend to kick off summertime fun.  

"In my opinion, there never was a good war, or a bad peace.  What vast additions to the conveniences and comforts of living might mankind had acquired, if the money spent in wars had been employed in works of public utility."
- Benjamin Franklin, 1783

Even the god Krishna tried to convince Arjuna (a professional soldier) in the Bhavagad Gita that fighting and killing, even his relatives, was a duty and a necessity.  The Bible and Koran tell of how "God" slaughters people, and how murder is acceptable to punish "sinners" and non-believers.  Fervent religious people are often quite pleased with killing other people.  Ruthless dictators and misguided politicians manipulate and force people into killing and dying for the Fatherland by inflaming patriotic, xenophobic, ethnic and racist emotions.  The carnage that results is horrific - revolting and beyond comprehension.  

Scores of millions of people have died in the many useless, stupid, tragic, horrible, cruel, and crushing wars of the past. Most of the men that started or fought in these destructive rampages were merely conscripts and pawns in the hands of nations or dogmas or greed or dictators or petty warlords.  There were a few heroes, and many evil macho men, and mostly just extremely scared people crying and screaming as the bombs exploded and bullets whizzed by and their loved ones and friends were torn apart and murdered.  

So, let us instead remember on this Memorial Day to celebrate the real joy that everyone felt when we heard "The War Has Ended" and people could live again in peace.  Let us remember the millions of civilians slaughtered by soldiers marching under ten different flags.

I recommend that we adopt an amendment to the U.S. Constitution to Limit the War Making Powers of the U.S. Government. 


I served in the United States Air Force from 1969-1973.  I served because the United States of America forced men of my age, through "The Draft," to serve in the Vietnam War.  Penalties, social ostracism, employment restrictions, and imprisonment were imposed on young men if they did not "serve their country" in the military.  I had been indoctrinated in my youth in Catholic Schools to hate communists, and have few moral reservations about killing atheistic communists.  Again, sadly, we were merely pawns in the hands of nations or dogmas or ideology or religions or greed or dictators or petty warlords.  Was killing our "enemies" in Vietnam justifiable on the grounds that doing so was crucial and vital to our national self-defense? - hardly!    

When I hear women and men talking these days about how we need to fight and kill those cruel Islamist ISIL brutes in the Middle East, and that President Obama is not "tough" enough, and these same warmongering people never gave one single hour of their life in being a soldier and/or seeing and smelling the carnage of battle, it makes me want to vomit.  

In the Iraq-Iran war in the 1980's over one million soldiers and civilians lost their lives, and countless more were injured or maimed, towns were destroyed ... Shites and Sunnis and Jihadhis fighting each other.  They are still fighting today in 2016 in the Middle East.  Likewise, we have our own real threat from "terror" from all the bozo angry Americans with boxes of guns in their homes - over 11,000 Americans are murdered every year in the USA.   

Peace and Memorials to Peace, Less Thinking about War "Heroes"  

Beware of worshiping flags, signs, emblems, and symbols.  We, and every other  nation, including our "enemies," indoctrinates its ruled population to stand up and show worshipful reverence to their own nation's flags and favored religious symbols and fallen soldiers and heroes.  On Memorial Day the graves of dead soldiers in America are decorated with U.S. flags, and the Christian cross, and gunfire salutes to them for loyally following orders.  But, remember, the map is not the territory.   

Be very wary of demagogues that want to 'Make America Great.'  I am quite satisfied with making America decent, making steady improvements, being respectful of one another, and enjoying peace.  

I recommend that we adopt an amendment to the U.S. Constitution to Limit the War Making Powers of the U.S. Government.  


"I confess I am a little cynical on some topics, and when a whole nation is roaring Patriotism at the top of its voice, I am fain to explore the cleanness of
its hands and the purity of its heart."
-  Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1847

I am sure the Germans cried over their brave Nazi soldiers who died in battle, and so too did the Japanese honor their brave soldiers of World War II. And, along the way of glory, these brave warriors, from many nations, including America, just laid waste to scores of cities and over 60 million people died.  

Before you get too nostalgic and weepy this Memorial Day about our military "heroes," our brave fighting men, our courageous American soldiers ... please recall just a few of the cruel acts they did to earn such glorious distinctions, to wit:


"On March 9, 1945, United States military warplanes launched a bombing offensive against Japan, dropping 2,000 tons of incendiary bombs on Tokyo over the course of the next 48 hours. Almost 16 square miles in and around the Japanese capital were incinerated, and between 80,000 and 130,000 Japanese civilians were killed in the worst single firestorm in recorded history."  

 

The United States military, during Operation Rolling Thunder, killed over 90,000 civilians in North Vietnam from 1965-1968.  Listen to a "heroic" professional U.S. soldier tell of "silencing" the Hanoi defenses to rescue one downed pilot, and the "business" of war.  

On February 14, 1945, the United States and Royal Air Force military planes dropped 3,900 tons of bombs on the city of Dresden in Germany, and killed over 25,000 civilians.

The United States military dropped atomic bombs on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 and killed over 129,000 civilians.  

The United States military killed over 550,000 civilians in North and South Vietnam from bombing, artillery attacks, machine guns, napham, and heavy weapons attacks.

 And, recently, we made a "mistake" about Iraq having any weapons
of mass destruction and for having anything to do with 9/11 in New York.
American military soldiers killed over 120,000 Iraqi noncombatant civilians.  

 

Heroes?  Artillery men, air bombers and gunners, snipers, infantry men, tank gunners ...

Only crying on Memorial Day.

Yes, the horrors of war and the intense survival necessities of battle for the conscripted soldiers is nearly unfathomable.  

 

 

"The worst barbarity of war is that if forces men collectively to commit acts against which individually they would revolt with their whole being."
-  Ellen Key, War, Peace, and the Future, 1916

Only crying on Memorial Day.
      Not a "holiday."

Memorial Day:
Sorrow, Guilt, Shame, Revulsion, Loss

Mixed Feelings, Regrets, Sadness
Paradoxes, Dilemmas, Ambiguity

Nevertheless, I, like others, do mourn our dead soldiers.
I cry along with their grieving families.

In Memory of Staff Sgt. Daniel A. Quintana

Semper Fidelis

God's in the Morning Papers

 The Day After Sunday

By Phyllis McGinley (1905-1978)

"Always on Monday, God's in the morning papers,
     His Name is a headline, His Works are rumored abroad.
Having been praised by men who are movers and shapers,
     From prominent Sunday pulpits, newsworthy is God.

On page 217, just opposite the Fashion Trends,
     One read at a glance how He scolded the Baptist a little,
Was firm with the Catholics, practical with the Friends,
     To Unitarians pleasantly noncommittal.

In print are His numerous aspects, to: God smiling,
     God vexed, God thunderous, God whose mansions are pearls,
Political God, God frugal, God reconciling
     Himself with science, God guiding the Camp Fire Girl.

Always on Monday morning the press reports
     God as revealed to His vicars in various guises-
Benevolent, stormy, patient, or out of sorts.
     God knows which God is the God God recognizes.

[Published in The New Yorker in 1952.]

"What God lacks is conviction - stability of character.  He ought to be a Presbyterian or a Catholic or something - not try to be everything."
-  Mark Twain

"It is pathetic to observe how lowly the motives are that religion, even the highest, attributes to the deity .... To be given the best morsel, to be remembered, to be praised, to be obeyed blindly and punctiliously - these have been thought points of honor with the gods."
-  George Santayana  

Values, Ethics, Virtues, Survival, Morals, Customs, Habits
Correlation, Combinations,  Mixes, Patterns, Associations
Patterns, Associations, Correlation, Combinations,  Mixes
Survival, Values, Ethics, Habits, Customs, Morals, Virtues
- concrete mpg

It's Over When It Ends

Yogi Berra, baseball hall of fame player, coach and manager died Tuesday at the age of 90.  He won 10 World Series championships with the New York Yankees, an 18 time All Star player, and was a three time American League Player of the Year.  He took 21 teams to the World Series as a player, manager, or coach.  He also served in the Navy during World War II.  He was a decent and humorous fellow, and many Americans, especially Italian-Americans and New Yorkers, held him in very high regard.  

Yogi was also known for his humorous stories, jokes, quotes, misquotes, and malapropisms, to wit:

"You can observe a lot by just watching.
It ain't over 'til it's over.
I’ts like déjà vu all over again.
The future ain’t what it used to be.
We made too many wrong mistakes.
When you come to a fork in the road, take it.
You should always go to other people’s funerals; otherwise, they won’t come to yours.
A nickel ain’t worth a dime anymore. 
Nobody goes there anymore.  It’s too crowded.
You better cut the pizza in four pieces because I’m not hungry enough to eat six.
You wouldn’t have won if we’d beaten you.
It gets late early out here.
Baseball is 90 percent mental.  The other half is physical.
I can’t think and hit at the same time.
I knew the record would stand until it was broken. 
We have deep depth.
If you can’t imitate him, don’t copy him.
I usually take a two hour nap from one to four.
I want to thank everyone for making this day necessary.
Never answer an anonymous letter. 
Pair up in threes. 
If people don’t want to come out to the ballpark, nobody’s going to stop them.
You’ve got to be very careful if you don’t know where you are going, because you might not get there. 

His wife of 65 years, Carmen, once asked Yogi where he wanted to be buried, in St. Louis, New York or Montclair.  "I don't know," he said. "Why don't you surprise me?"

Crying Over the Dead

Today is an American holiday called 'Memorial Day.'  It is a day to remember American soldiers who were injured or died in wars of the past.  Yes, sometimes fighting in wars is necessary in self-defense; but, still an evil and not to be glorified.  

Even the god Krishna tried to convince Arjuna (a professional soldier) in the Bhavagad Gita that fighting and killing were a duty and necessity.  The Bible and Koran tell of how "God" slaughters people, and how murder is acceptable to punish "sinners" and non-believers. Fervent religious people are often quite pleased with killing other people.  

Scores of millions of people have died in the many useless, stupid, tragic, horrible, cruel, and crushing wars of the past. Most of the men that started or fought in these destructive rampages where merely pawns in the hands of nations or dogmas or greed or dictators or petty warlords.  There were a few heroes, and many evil men, and mostly just extremely scared people crying and screaming as the bombs exploded and bullets whizzed by and their loved ones and friends were torn apart and murdered.  

So, let us instead remember on this Memorial Day to celebrate the real joy that everyone felt when we heard "The War Has Ended" and people could live again in peace.  Let us remember the millions of civilians slaughtered by soldiers marching under ten different flags.

I recommend that we adopt an amendment to the U.S. Constitution to Limit the War Making Powers of the U.S. Government. 


I served in the United States Air Force from 1969-1983.  I served because the United States forced men of my age, through "The Draft," to serve in the Vietnam War.  Penalties, social ostracism, and imprisonment were imposed on young men if they did not "serve their country" in the military.  I had been indoctrinated in my youth in Catholic Schools to hate communists and have few moral reservations about killing atheistic communists.  Again, sadly, we were merely pawns in the hands of nations or dogmas or ideology or religions or greed or dictators or petty warlords.  

When I hear women and men talking these days about how we need to fight and kill those cruel Islamist ISIL brutes in the Middle East, and that President Obama is not "tough" enough, and these same people never gave one single hour of their life in being a soldier and/or seeing and smelling the carnage of battle, it makes me want to vomit.  

Peace and Memorials to Peace, Less Thinking about War "Heroes"  

Beware of worshiping flags, signs, emblems, and symbols.  We, and every nation, including our "enemies," indoctrinates its ruled population to stand up and show worshipful reverence to their own nation's flags and favored religious symbols and fallen soldiers and heroes.  On Memorial Day the graves of dead soldiers in America are decorated with U.S. flags and the Christian cross and gunfire salutes to their following orders.  But, remember, the map is not the territory.   

Before you get too worked this Memorial Day about our military "heroes," our brave fighting men, our courageous soldiers ... please recall just a few of the cruel acts they did to earn such glorious distinctions, to wit:


"On March 9, 1945, United States military warplanes launched a bombing offensive against Japan, dropping 2,000 tons of incendiary bombs on Tokyo over the course of the next 48 hours. Almost 16 square miles in and around the Japanese capital were incinerated, and between 80,000 and 130,000 Japanese civilians were killed in the worst single firestorm in recorded history."  

 

The United States military, during Operation Rolling Thunder, killed over 90,000 civilians in North Vietnam from 1965-1968.  Listen to a "heroic" professional U.S. soldier tell of "silencing" the Hanoi defenses to rescue one downed pilot, and the "business" of war.  

On February 14, 1945, the United States military dropped 3,900 tons of bombs on the city of Dresden in Germany, and killed over 25,000 civilians.

The United States military dropped atomic bombs on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 and killed over 129,000 civilians.  

The United States military killed over 550,000 civilians in North and South Vietnam from bombing, artillery attacks, and heavy weapons attacks.

 And, recently, we made a "mistake" about Iraq having any weapons
of mass destruction and for having anything to do with 9/11.
American military soldiers killed over 120,000 Iraqi noncombatant civilians.  

 

Heroes?  Artillery men, air bombers and gunners, snipers, tank gunners ...

Only crying on Memorial Day.

Yes, the horrors of war and the intense survival necessities of battle for he conscripted soldiers is nearly unfathomable.  

 

 

Only crying on Memorial Day.

I recommend that we adopt an amendment to the U.S. Constitution
to Limit the War Making Powers of the U.S. Government. 

Memorial Day: Sorrow, Guilt, Shame, Revulsion

Will the Real Terrorists Please Stand Up

I seldom comment on the larger social and political matters that are reported and commented on each day on television news, radio programs, blogs, and newspapers.  “Expert” commentators and leaders, and political entertainers, can keep you tense and occupied for hours each day - if you allow them to do so.  I don’t!  

Far too many Americans are prone to anger, violence, and hatred.  Each year, around 14,000 people are murdered in America. Television programs feature sex and violence, video games are violent, and news reports are filled with the horrors of unending violence in America.  I think too many Americans find violence entertaining.  Lately, the Christian fundamentalists and Islamic fundamentalists are waving their scriptures and shouting out their condemnation of homosexuals, womens’ rights, atheists, people of other religions, cartoons, science, secular states, and whatever else strikes their angry superstitious fancies.  Racists and ethno-phobes are everywhere.  The drums of war make many Americans much happier.  Americans are prone to gun mania and gun worship, and enjoy killing animals … seriously, with this kind of prevalent mental illness it is no surprise that 14,000 people are murdered each year in America, and that 724,000 aggravated assaults occur each year in America.  The incessant American worries about "Islamic terrorists” seems weirdly disproportionate to what Americans really do to themselves in fits of rage, anger, meanness, criminal intentions, gang bravado, stupidity, drug induced stupors, insanity, and callousness.  

We spent over 3.5 trillion dollars fighting in Iraq, and a total of 4,491 U.S. military service members were killed in Iraq between 2003 and 2014.  After all that considerable effort to be aggressive and “a World Leader,” and fight the War on Terror, have we really stabilized Iraq and helped it become a highly productive or peaceful place to live in?  Americans killed over 109,000 people in Iraq since 2003; a nation not involved in the 9/11/2001 attack in New York, poor, and with no weapons of mass destruction.  Just another example of the penchant for violence that grips the American soul.  Give an American the most trivial excuse for bullying or anger or hatred or revenge or rage ... and bang bang your dead.  

On the other side of the coin, I've read that 90% of Americans own guns.  However, we rank at around 107th in murder deaths per 100,000 persons compared with other nations around the world.  If we would not count the impoverished areas of some large American cities, with their high unemployment among youth, gang affiliations, and drug business; murders per 100,000 would be substantially lower.  So, are Americans safer here?  Yes ... but, 14,000 murders per year still is shocking along with 724,000 aggravated assaults.  Americans bent on causing terror and violence is still our real threat.   

What solutions do I propose?  Few, really!  First, honesty about where the real violence occurs in America, and where the real dangers exist.  Second, high employment and better wages for the lower economic classes in the U.S.  Third, stop encouraging and preaching hateful and angry talk about others; and focus on self-reform, kindness, compassion, and patience. Fourth, acknowledge that Americans are prone to gun worship, and take delight in violence.  Fifth, stop being fooled and corrupted by macho motion pictures, violent video games, blowhard preachers, power hungry politicians, and political entertainment news; and, focus your daily actions on wholesome activities and constructive thoughts.  Sixth, be very suspicious of American warmongers.  

So, I turn off the TV and radio, read uplifting literature, walk and exercise, work in a decent occupation, stay at home, give money to good causes, mind my own business, and garden.  I try my best to not cause more violence, and try to discourage others from embracing hatred and violence. An old man like me can't do much more. 

Independence Day

We will enjoy the holiday at home.  We will spend our time gardening, reading, and relaxing.

Another day in Red Bluff, California, with very hot temperatures over 110F with humidity of over 40%.  Heavy clouds and thunderstorms are coming.

We start our day at 4 am doing indoor chores, walking and Tai Chi practice, watering, and gardening before temperatures climb over 90F. 

Fortunately, we live in a country and state in peacetime.  Food is plentiful for people working in America.  Governmental and private support networks help the impoverished.  Electricity and water systems are working.  Most people are relatively sensible and don't feel the urge to enslave or kill others over religious and political differences.  Hopefully, we can remain at peace.

Many thanks to all the decent and hardworking men and women, blue collar and white collar workers, homemakers, and service providers that have greatly contributed to our prosperity.  Thanks to all the men and women working in educational services, human services, fire and police protective services, and medical services that have improved and enhanced our lives.  

I thank all the men and women that have served in the Armed Forces that help keep us safe and secure.  May our governmental leaders make wise decisions to keep us at peace and encourage us to contribute to the continued prosperity we enjoy.  I was a volunteer in the United States Air Force from 1969-1973; hopefully, others will also help in their communities in America in some constructive ways.  May peace and productivity return to the many war torn countries around the world. 

Have a safe and responsible Fourth of July!

Rebuilt in America

Create, Rebuild, Be Strong, Take Pride, Seek Peace, Support Freedom
We are proud of you, New York!

Meanwhile, yesterday, tomorrow, today, now, somewhere in the world the deranged Soldiers of Islam are also trying to remake the world in their image of "justice" by hating, threatening, hurting, and killing anyone who does not want to bow down and submit to their delusions regarding Allah and macho manhood. The Old Testament and the Koran are both filled with "inspired" verses that advocate remorseless cruelty in support very narrow minded and tribal exclusivity.  Both ultra-conservative Christians and Moslems are shamefully and unreasonably addicted to worshiping a book, the Bible or the Koran, and have abandoned the essence of true spirituality and loving-kindness.

We know now that September 11th is the start of a week long religious holiday for the Neo-Nazi Sharia Koran hoodlums around the world.  The "men" will celebrate by leaving their mosques screaming mad, spitting on their straggly beards, shooting guns in the air, raising their fists in anger, marching like locusts, vandalizing property, burning buildings, rioting, killing innocent people of other religions, killing policemen, burning US flags and pictures of our Presidents, and having a grand old time being bearded rowdy bullies.  They will make some pathetic excuse for these destructive riot parties like seeing a short crude video on UTube "insulting" Muhammad, some comedian making jokes in a routine about them, some obscure fundamentalist preacher in Georgia tossing a Koran in a fireplace, some artist in Sweden drawing a cartoon of Mohammad with a bomb in his cap, or another filthy Jew in Israel winning a Nobel prize.  Ho Hum ... what else is new or productive or creative from these buffoon zealots.  Don't they need to go to work peacefully and preserve property like the rest of us?  They insult all of us "infidels" all around the world every day with their ignorant and intolerant rants and threats of violence, but we have enough common sense, patience, and courage and don't run out screaming in anger and burn down a mosque.  Religions that encourage anger and hate are worthless.