You May Say I'm A Dreamer: Saturday Political Soap Box 122

Thanx and a hat's tip to John Lennon and the song Imagine.

We all have quotes that mean a lot to us, words that we strive to live by, words that inspire us, words that help us maintain focus on what it really important to us.

These are the words that inspired me when I was young -

"Some men see things as they are and say why?  I dream things that never were and say why not?"

This was on a poster in my bedroom as I grew up.  It inspired through the high school and college years.  It was originated by the turn of the century playwright George Bernard Shaw, and then later used by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.  The version above is the one said by Ted Kennedy at Bobby's funeral.    I firmly believe that the assassination of Bobby Kennedy was an event that altered the course of American history, and not in a good way.

I want the politicians I support to dream big things.  I want their policies to push us to be our best, as individuals and as a country.  I want a society that gives everyone opportunity and leaves no one behind.  I want us to aspire to our better selves.

Yes, I was attracted to Barack Obama in large part because of his message of hope and change.  Did he meet resistance with that?  Yes, but so what?  The election of 2010 eliminated most ability for him to make dramatic improvements, but he did not quit.  He has not let being able to achieve everything he hoped for get in the way of achieving what he can. He has done so in a pragmatic way, and sometimes I feel like he is conceding more than he should.

Senator Bernie Sanders is a dreamer.  His vision exceeds that of any politician since RFK.  At the same time, his whole career has been about reaching out to the opposition and working with them wherever he could.  Unlike a Ted Cruz, he is accepted and respected by his colleagues.  Will Bernie be able to achieve everything he dreams of?  No, of course not.  But at least he starts in the manner of the quote above.  He will dream and ask why not?

And now, the other candidate in the race, Hillary Clinton, is trying to inch ahead of him in Iowa and New Hampshire by saying that Bernie cannot accomplish what he says he can, that what he wants is just too bold and grand to be practical one.  She wants us to settle, with holding the line (if possible) and maybe (maybe) with some tinkering at the edges.  She wants to increase regulation and bureaucracy, make the rules more complicated in an attempt to expand medical coverage or control Wall Street.  She wants to continue the useless and stupid war where the government attempts to regulate (using rules mostly written by corporate lobbyists) and then for those regulated to use a fleet of lawyers and accountants to figure out loopholes, and then drive Mac Trucks through them.  The never ending American Con Game, forever and ever without end, amen.

Clinton is a Corporate Democrat, I understand that.  But so is Barack Obama, and although not perfect, he at least had the semblance of hope and change.  Clinton, in an effort to contrast with Sanders, is in essence saying to me, "STOP DREAMING!  You can never get what you want, so you need to GROW UP and SETTLE for me!"

This has to be the worst slogan ever for a politician to use to win my vote.

Because I will never stop dreaming.  I will never stop reaching for the "why not?"

Yes, I can accept pragmatic compromise.  But I can never stop the dream, and strive to achieve everything we can.

Will I vote for Hillary as the Democratic nominee in the fall?  Of course.  What choice will I have?  Holding the fragile line is better than galumphing backwards as the Republicans want to do.

But my heart belongs to the dreamer.  It has, and always will.

Feel the Bern!

I dream it.  I feel it.  Progressive majorities by 2020!

I dream it.  I see it.  I say...

Why not?

Like Shooting Fish in a Cracker Barrel

Is there a Cracker Barrel comin' ta Waycross?  Rumors abound!

Rumors abound about another large chain restaurant coming to our area.  It's always hard to tell around here.  Are we growing or shrinking, or just holding our own?  Some of these big chains we attract, and they thrive, others fade almost as quickly as they arrive.

I have a friend who has expressed regrets over the arrival of these big chains because it made the experience of visiting them when one when out of town less special.  It was something to look forward to visit one of these while traveling because it was something you couldn't do at home.

Oh, no, no, no.  A thousand times no.  That is not what Alison and I find fun when we travel.  It's not a major cuisine goal to find a big restaurant chain that hasn't yet arrived in our local area.  We love to find a restaurant that is special and unique to the area we are visiting.  The taste of the undiscovered flavor, the quirky atmosphere, the promise of attentive staff - it's what we seek.

Taking a chance on someplace new is always risky.  But there are many newfangled apps and websites that can help steer you to the best bet for your tastes and interest.  Alison carefully thumbs through the ratings and reviews, and it increases our odds of hitting the right place.

Before the advent of phone apps in the palm of your hand, and still a strong supplement to it,  we would ask locals what their favorites were.  We would also do the drive-by test.  Those with lots filled with local customers became prime opportunities to try.  We found a great Italian place in St. Augustine using that method - the lot test proved to be a winner!

We found a great local pizzeria in Milledgeville, a wonderful Mexican restaurant in Cleveland, Tennessee, an amazing pancake house in Nashville, a superb Greek restaurant in Savannah, a BBQ road stop at St. Simon's Island, a German restaurant in Rincon, the perfect pie place in Lansing, Michigan.  Our travels are dotted with the discovery of great local restaurants.  And there is nary a chain among them,

Have we occasionally come across a cropper?  Someplace where the food or service or cleanliness was disappointing?  Yes, absolutely.  But that's part of what makes the discovery such a thrill.  What fun is there in always hitting the jackpot?

And we have jackpot places right here in our local area.  We have a Chinese restaurant that is good we rarely try Chinese out of town, because we know we'll be disappointed.  And we delight that we can have food in any way or combination we want - all we have to do is ask.  We don't have to go to a national burger joint - we have a great local chain right here.  We have diners filled with good food and great local conversation,  And I could go on and on.

So I welcome the big chain's arrival - variety is always nice,  Sometimes familiarity is a comfort, too.  But there is hardly anything that compares with the discovery of the new and exciting.  Like it is when you discover a new band that you know is great, but not everyone is into yet.  And then when they hit it big, you say, "Oh, but I was there first!"

You know.  Sort of like going to The Green Frog in Waycross, long before the Dardens became the holders of some of the biggest franchises in America.

Who knows?  Maybe one of these small favorites you go to will be the start of the next big thing!

Of course, by then, we may have moved on to another small upstart.  Boy, it's fun to be in on the beginning!

To Post or Not to Post

Benjamin Strait as William Shakespeare, part of the Living Museum he participated in when he was at Blackshear Elementary.

To post or not to post - that is my pondering

Whether it is better to leave blank page

Or to suffer the misses and barrows of outsized emptiness

Or instead to take pen against a sea of fogginess

And by writing dissipate them. To divest - to sleep -

No more. And by sleep to say we forego 

The failed writing experiment, and the thousand disses

The social media is heir to. Whoa!  There's the rub!

For in that writingless vision, no dreams will come,

And when I have shuffled off this mortifying internet

It makes me wonder.  There will be no applause

That makes me get through my calamitous day job,

For who in my field would bear my meandering time,

The actor's song, the proud writer's misphrased longing,

The pangs of silenced creativity, the dreams delayed,

The silence of my attic office, and the inadequacies

That my lack of true merit takes on me,

When I might with written word make

With a bare sheet of paper? But who would care

If instead I grunt and sweat in weary career,

But forego the risk of something post-accounting -

The undiscovered creative kingdom, from whose path

No traveler truly arrives - puzzles my hopes

And makes me rather bear the career I have

Than to fly to one we know will not pay the bills?

Thus conscience turns me into a wimp,

And so my truest desire on these foggy morns

Is fickled over with the pale cast of fear,

And creative enterprises of great wish and moment

Are on these cloudy minded days turned away

And lose the hope of action - Darn it now!

The fair Blogland!  Strait Line, in thy horizons

Be all my disparate thoughts regarded.

Better luck in the 'morrow

Here Comes Tommy!

Be the first on your block to sample and buy this great new book by the up and coming author, T. M. Strait!*

The universal experience of being young and going through childhood are explored in these autobiographical stories, showing that growing up in the sixties can share similarities with growing up today. The struggle to keep imagination alive in a world that would rather you just let it go. Whether it's watching your first grade teachers fight over each other for bathroom privileges, or growing up Martian in fourth grade, enjoy the humor and pathos of growing up an imaginative child in Michigan during the sixties and seventies. 

A recent review from Debbie Sheuring:

In a world where families are frequently separated, and family histories are ignored or forgotten, Mr. Strait reminds us of why these stories should be treasured and shared. Beautifully illustrated with family photos, and filled with humor and insight, this book will bring back memories for anyone born during the 40s, 50s, or 60s - a unique and wonderful time period in American history, no matter where one lived.


Thank you, Debbie!  


* in the interests of full disclosure, I have to inform you that T. M. Strait done be me, the very same owner and writer of this world famous* blog The Strait Line.

*world famous falls into the category of sheer advertising puffery

Football Fades and Other Monday Musings

With farflung followers, all over the United States and even the world. I am sure I have some who, because of where they grew up or an attachment to a team they follow, still care about one of the two teams headed to the Super Bowl.  I am not one of those people.

There are some who hear the name Coldplay and look forward to the musical purgatory that they will unleash upon an unsuspecting Super Bowl halftime.  I am not one of those people.  They are a scant nickel above Nickelback, in my mind.

It was mortifying to me to hear the announcers gush that this was "only" Carolina's second trip to the Super Bowl since they began their existence in 1995.  I mean, really.  Do they not know what true confinement to the outer rings of pro football hell is?  Alison's beloved Atlanta Falcons were in only one Super Bowl, some EIGHTEEN years ago, and were promptly crushed by the Denver Broncos, who are now going to the Super Bowl for the EIGHT time?   Or you want true, pure unadulterated frustration?  Try being a Detroit Lions fan, who have gone to the Super Bowl exactly ZERO times, and had their last national championship in 1957.

So once again, we're down to fast forwarding to commercials.

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The weekends are getting shorter, and the work week is getting more intense.  I will continue to make every effort to write, but the thematic structure may become a bit more chaotic.  More musings, tidbits and wanderings. It is hard to concentrate long enough to gather together the more intricately plotted and conceived blog posts.


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MEANWHILE.....I did find the opportunity to put my second ebook on Amazon.  It's the 85 page autobiographical opus Here Comes Tommy!  This is the Old Pat T collection that is available for sale at the Okefenokee Heritage Center renamed.  I will, of course have much more promotional stuff about it as the week progresses, but it is available for your Kindle or Kindle App for only $2.99.

The first day, my postings of this ebook on social media generated a great deal of enthusiasm, and six actual purchases.  The second day I continued to promote but received no sales.  That was discouraging, as these ebooks tend to quickly slip into oblivion.  I have received one review, which I am very, very grateful for. Positive reviews are one of the biggest things that will help my standing as to where Amazon ranks it, and increases the number of people exposed to it.

I hope  this next weekend to add a third ebook for sale,  the young adult/middle school scifi story, Eric Reid and the Time Team, with a cover that will feature Benjamin Strait and Emily Beck,  I also hope to add an Amazon Page where you can look up my name, and see all of my ebooks for sale in one place.

So far, I haven't made enough to pay off the house, but I am getting close to being able to get a Happy meal. Woohoo.

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The Iowa Caucus is only a week away.  My Saturday Soap Box speculated that Ted Cruz would narrowly win it. Recent polls indicated that he was losing ground to Trump.  Amazingly, Trump said that he could shoot somebody and still gain support.  And guess what?  He's gaining support.  It's as if a large swath of the Republican Party is determined to nominate an a-hole and nothing is going to dissuade them from doing it.

Don't do it, my Republican friends.  You care for your country too much to allow this to happen.

Until next time,

T. M. Strait

How Trump & Cruz Lose the Republican Nomination: Saturday Political Soap Box 121

The fear in the Republican establishment is palatable. Will it be the misogynist racist Trump whose policies (such as they are articulated) are borderline fascist?  Or will it be Cuban-Canadian Ted Cruz, who brags incessantly about his unwillingness to compromise and who is hated by virtually everyone who has ever had to work with him?

In my opinion, you don't have to be an establishment Republican to fear these two.  You just have to be a thinking conservative who loves this country, and wants to actually see it governed effectively.  I have many conservative friends who are afraid that they will have to make a choice between these two, that all their other options won't be viable.

Well, I am here to show you light at the end of the tunnel.  I do this not to entice you into picking out a candidate that will be easy to beat by Bernie or Hillary.  You're already doing a fine enough job of that yourselves. No, I want the Republicans to pick their most capable candidate, someone whom even if I didn't agree with, has the basic competence to run this country.

So here's how:

IOWA:

Cruz narrowly beats Trump in Iowa.  This keeps Cruz as a contender, but not a very impressive one when we turn to larger states with a more diverse voting block.  It is easy to destroy Cruz with ads, and virtually no superdelegate (the ones selected by the Party and not bound by primaries or caucuses) will vote for him.  Like many Iowa victors in recent years, Cruz peaks and fades.

This scenario works if Trump edges Cruz.  Cruz just fades even faster.

One of the mainstream Republicans comes in third, in a fashion that exceeds expectations.  Right now, Rubio polls in third, but momentum is shifting fast.  Whoever it is will be a surprise, something that will create a small buzz in the mainstream media.

NEW HAMPSHIRE:

Trump narrowly beats a mainstream Republican.  Cruz finishes fourth or lower.  That mainstream runner-up will quickly consolidate mainstream support around him, as the others either quit or stay in the race, but are like a snake who hasn't realized yet that its head has been cut off.

I've examined the summary of polls that Huffpost runs each day.  Who has made the most progress since the first of the year?  That may tell who does or doesn't have momentum.  Ben Carson, Carly Fiorina. Mike Huckabee, and Rick Santorum have all had sharp percentage drops in support.  Ben Carson is the champ in this regards, with his support declining by 194% from what it was, from 5.3% to 1.8%.

Marco Rubio has gone down from 12.5% to 12.4%, less than a 1% decline, but a downward thrust nonetheless.

Other have had modest increases, something less than a 10% surge.  Trump has risen from 28.7% to 30.8% and Cruz from 10.8% to 11.3%.  Christie, Bush and Rand Paul all have slight increases,  but all are still polling less than 10%.

Who has risen the most substantially since the first of the year.  John Kasich, the Governor of Ohio, the one that I've been trying to tell you about for MONTHS, as faithful Strait Line political followers would know. He has risen from 9.5% to 12.2%. a rise of 22% in just a three weeks.  He is now nipping at the heels of Marco Rubio, and is surpassing him in some of the most recent polls.

SUBSEQUENT PRIMARIES AND CAUCUSES:

It's possible, even likely, that Trump and Cruz continue to win some contests.  I get the impression, however, that Trump doesn't play well from behind.  He will either unexpectedly give up, or say more and more aggressively stupid and offensive things, alienating himself from more and more voters.

With primaries and caucuses being spit three ways, the edge will be to the one who can attract superdelegates.  If it's only between Trump and Cruz, I am afraid the vast majority will break for Trump.  But they won't have to do that, because there will be a viable mainstream alternative.

CONVENTION:

Will there be a brokered convention?  Probably not.  Trump, if he cannot clearly win, will likely take his marbles and go home (as to whether he creates a third party or not, I don't know - although my quick impression is that he is too lazy and undisciplined to do the hard work to make that viable).  Cruz could be a force, but without the superdelegates and some of the more mainstream states, he will most likely be more of an irritant than a viable nominee.

Therefore, the nominee will come from the mainstream (mainstream for far right Republicans, that is).  My opinion is that will be Kasich.  He certainly would be your best shot to beat Hillary, which seem to be something you want to do.

THE MOST IMPORTANT THING:

And most importantly, my conservative friends (and I mean that sincerely - many of you are people I like and hold dear), I want you to understand that YOU HAVE A CHOICE!  Don't be cowed into thinking that you have to pick between Trump and Cruz.  YOU HAVE THE POWER to bring about a different outcome.

Vote for your best interests.  Vote for the best interests of the country.  Heck, for the best interests of the planet!

Oh.  That would be Bernie Sanders.

Anyways, I would settle right now for you just voting for somebody besides Trump or Cruz.

Please.  For the sake of us all.

Arriving Late to the Squirrel Party

This was yesterday?

Another holiday missed as the great tax season bubble continues to subsume my mental processes.

But I will fight back!

Maybe.  We'll see.

The squirrel in the picture above is surrounded by a falling snow.  As much of the east coast will be today.  A mighty blizzard will make things treacherous in much of the east, including North Georgia.

But not us down here.  There is a remote statistical chance we may get something, briefly, fleetingly. Most likely not, though.

I like snow and change of seasons.  That however, does not include deluges and blizzards that endanger people's lives.  Thoughts and prayers to everyone in the path of this massive storm.

Squirrels are about the only wildlife that dares to enter our backyard.  They find our oak tree and acorns too much to resist.  Our dogs give chase, but the squirrels are too quick and clever to be caught. It provides massive entertainment for dog and squirrel alike.  The cat watches from the screened-in porch, amused at their incompetence, and turns to us, beseeching "Put me in, Coach".

I'm not sure I'd want squirrels as pets, but they are fascinating to watch.  And I guess, given the attraction of our oak tree, they are a kind of free range pet.  Certainly cheaper to feed than our dogs and cat.

My favorite fictional squirrel is Rocky J.  Yes, I am a big fan of The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle.  Great cartoon, one of the first cartoon TV series to have a satirical edge, with jokes that both kids and adults could appreciate.

Well, that's all the time I've been able to "squirrel" away for writing.

Have a good Friday, everyone!

Let My People Drink

I grew up near one of the largest bodies of fresh water in the world, beautiful Lake Huron.  It is a pure lake, fed from glacial waters.

In Saginaw County, we got our water from this mighty lake.  It was excellent water, delicious right from the tap, and safe,  We had a great water filtration system, the Saginaw Water Works.  I remember hearing that our water was considered the finest in the world.  It sounds like hyperbole, but I believe the water won in some competitions, so there was some justification to believe it to be true.

A community about 30 miles away from us also had fine water from Lake Huron.  That community, Flint, was at the height of middle class comfort in the 60s and 70s.  The GM workers were paid enough that they could own their own homes, send their kids to college, take vacations.  Poverty and it's ill effects had been significantly beaten back.  It's citizens helped make GM the strongest company in the world.

All that evaporated over the last thirty years.  Largely abandoned by the company it built, the city went into serious decline. Instead of exemplifying the great success story of the emerging middle class, it now represented it's decline under the Reagan/Bush years, and a global economy where every worker has to compete against the lowest common denominator.

The city government became harder and harder to manage, as the tax base melted into oblivion.  The state came up with an emergency management law that allowed the state to come in and, in essence, eliminate the power of the local officials, to overrule their ability to lead, and put themselves over the will of the local residents.

But the goal of these state-imposed managers was not to benefit the city, improve it's resources, put the money into it that it needed to recover.  No, the goal was austerity.  Strip the locality of it's community services, and replace them with nothing, or the emergency manager's private cronies.  Somebody's getting rich off this law, and it ain't the state or the locality.  It's private entrepreneurs, human vultures and con men, swooping in to pick off the remains.

In Flint, the State Emergency Manager got rid of the pure water that Flint was drinking and replaced it with water from the contaminated, polluted Flint River.  To save money.  Yes, to save money.  For those of you blaming the Flint city government, just stop.  Please, just stop.  They have no more ability to make financial decisions than an elementary school student council (probably less).  They rubber stamp what Flint's dictator, the state appointed Emergency Manager, comes up with.

So now, everyone in Flint has been poisoned.  The amount of lead in the water is unconscionable.  An entire generation of children have been damaged.  And all in the name of austerity and crony capitalism.

The State Emergency Management legislation needs to go.

The State Emergency Manager responsible for this needs to be indicted.

 The Governor of Michigan needs to resign.

And most importantly, Michigan needs to stop being at war with itself.  Those in the rural and white areas of the state need to stop looking at other areas of the state as alien and tax drains.  Michigan either survives and prospers together, or it goes down together - hard.

Flint and Saginaw and the besieged area I grew up in will never be the same, until the average working person understands he has more in common with the struggling workers in urban areas than they do with the crony capitalists who want to get rich off the backs of those who are striving just to feed their families, and give them access to clean drinking water.

The American dream is not dead.

It lies in the pristine waters of Lake Huron.  The waters of hope and kindness lie just offshore.  We just have to reach out to them, reach out to each other.

If you seek a beautiful peninsula, Michiganders, look about you.  The means are there to be one of the best places to live on Earth.  But you can't do it if you view your fellow man as your enemy.

Come together.

Get the sweet waters flowing again.

The Trombones are Assembling!

Everybody get ready!  The Music Man will soon be coming to town!

Benjamin and I are both part of the great cast and crew that has been assembled to get be a part of this fantastic production!  I know I said that I was going to stay out of theatre for awhile.  I know it's tax season.  But when Benjamin said he wanted to be in WACT's musical, how could I not join in?

It's been fifteen years since I've been in a WACT musical (Shenandoah in 2001), and that one was in the Academy, not the Ritz (this was in the seasons that were done while the roof was being repaired).  I am impressed not just by the cast, but by the tremendous crew and support staff that has been assembled to support this production.  This is a musical that is truly taking a village to put on, and I think the results will show.

Looking forward to seeing you in River City!

Cover Weekend and Other Monday Musings

Benjamin Strait as Eric Reid and Emily Beck as Princess Tamani posing for a possible cover to Eric Reid & the Time Team.

It was very exciting!  We actually got out to take pictures for an ebook cover for something I wrote!  My son, Benjamin, is posing with Emily Beck, the daughter of my good friend Kimberly Back.  Emily is the outstanding young actress who recently played in Anne Frank in Purlie Production's presentation of The diary of Anne Frank,

I now have potential covers for Eric Reid & the Time Team, and also Old Pat T and the Great Bathroom Wars and Other Tales of my Youngin' Days!  When will I actually get them on Amazon?  I don't know.  I pretty much need a full day to handle the problems and aggravations that will occur in trying to set them up.  When that will happen is any one's guess.

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After the "photo shoot" we went to a new restaurant in Waycross, Thai Smiles II (I being in Folkston).  Was the food good?  Yes.  But more importantly, the service was exemplary.  You really got the impression that they were glad to see you and eager to keep you happy.  Maybe that's why they call it Thai "Smiles".   They get the Strait/Beck seal of approval, and will definitely be a part of our restaurant rotation.

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With Green Bay's unfortunate loss, the football season comes to an end at the Strait household.  We like Green Bay because it's the only fan-owned professional football team.  It's a fantastic idea that helps sustains the Packer's remarkable success in the smallest media market, in a city far smaller than any other pro team.  It's so successful that I wish other teams would emulate it.  If so, maybe St. Louis could have kept it's team (their original team - the Cardinals).  But surprise! - the billionaires that own the other teams have forbidden the  Green Bay scenario of ownership from ever happening again.  Disgusting.

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The Democratic Debate last night was very illuminating.  I don't see how Hillary Clinton expects to win my vote by conceding that she is willing to settle for half measures, particularly concerning true universal health care.  Yes, we need a President (and Congress) that is willing to compromise, but we don;t need to start the negotiations with Republicans on our five yard line.

This is what I got out of the debate - Sanders is for revolutionary change (hello, Tomorrowland!), Clinton is for evolutionary change (hello, 1990s!), and the Republicans are for devolutionary change (hello, 13th century feudalism!).

Your call, America,

Until next time,

T. M. Strait

My Lotto Results - Guess Who's going Back to Work Today?

I'm not a compulsive gambler.

Not because I think of gambling as a sin.  Not because I  know enough about math that I know how astronomically low the odds of winning are, not just for the big prizes but to even come out ahead on the smaller prizes.  And not because I don't feel the temptation to try.

It's because I take rejection so hard.  Rational or not, when I lose, I take it personally.  My disappointment is so high that it takes me weeks or months that I buck up enough to try again.  This sense of taking it personally is what prevents me form spending my life in a casino, or scratching off an endless stream of tickets at a convenience store.

And no, winning small amounts does not impress me.  They just get re-invested into more tickets (which I'm sure is what the game designers want) until I finally crap out, and my heart lies just as smashed as if Betty Lou turned me down for the high school dance.

I remember from my favorite novel about a dystopian future, 1984, how a brutal dictatorship help control the masses, the proletariat, their put upon and increasingly declining lower middle class.  They keep them entertained with inane sitcoms and banal TV programs, they watch violent sporting competitions, the news keep them hopped at all the wrong people, they are built up to hate the other and go along with foreign wars to keep them at bay.  And they have the lottery, where they gladly give away their meager savings to have a statistically impossible chance to win big money.

The Powerball lottery was ginned up a few months ago to pay out the big prize on a less frequent basis. They realized that participation went up when the payouts got big enough for people to take notice.  Apparently 250 million dollar payouts were not enough to attract attention anymore.  While increasing the range of numbers used for the regular numbers, they lowered the range for the powerball.  This increases the chance for a low rung prize, making more people think that they just missed out, and why not reinvest that small amount into more tickets?

Knowing all this, guess who still bought tickets?  That's right. I did.  And guess how much I won?

Well, I'm headed to work this morning, ain't I?

Maybe another time.  If I can get over the rejection.  The lottery and Betty Lou - like two peas in a pod.

The Final SOTU from our current POTUS

I love our President.

I wish I had time for an in depth review, but I don't.  I am proud of him.  He is not perfect.  No one is.  But I believe he has done an outstanding job of getting this country back on track.  Many problems remain, but I cannot fathom where we would be if he had not steered our economic ship out of the terrible ditch that it was in, if he had not revived the auto industry, if he had not brought health care access to millions, if he had not moved to judiciously extradite us from Iraq.  Some measures seem daring, while others are the best steps he could take to begin to move us forward.

And he has achieved all this in the face of the most brutal and ugly and unreasoned opposition I have seen in my lifetime.  An opposition that has led to the cratering of our civic responsibility, as more and more of us get our news from sources pushing us away from each other, from those whose major goal is to see those on top stay on top and increase their hold.

He has urged us, in his last State of the Union address, to move to the future with hope, and to find ways to resolve our differences and find solutions together.


I am proud to have had the opportunity to vote for this man four times.  I pray that our choices in 2016 will be between intelligent people, all who want to do the hard work of moving us forward, with respect for every one's input, and compromises that combine the best from all political ideologies.

Looking at the candidates running for President, particularly the leading contenders in the Republican party, I fear that will not be true.

Fast Forwarding Onto the Highway of Life

Uh-oh.

Looks who's now behind the wheel!

That's right.  It's the BenJerMan.  The little boy who made the Eye of the Tiger videos, who wanted to see Dumbo every single day with his MeeMaw, who needed to hold our hand to cross the street, who played goalie by sitting down in front of the goal and playing the dirt, who was knee high to my knee high, who spent almost a week at a Savannah neonatal care unit when he was born, who played with super-hero figures and had the villain warn the good guys "I am going to refeet you!", who could recite the words to the Dora the Explorer cartoons, who did his first high school play when he was just in third grade, that 'little' boy is now behind the wheel of a car.

It doesn't seem possible.  But there it is.

Yes, it's just a learner's permit.  Yes, he'll need to go through driver's training and he;ll need to turn sixteen. But it's enough of a step.  It's past where Alison and I want it to be.

But ready or not,  it's happening.

Benjamin tooled around the Board of Education parking lot.  He did not crash into anything.  He made turns.  He even parked the car.  All while his mother sat next to him, holding her breath most of the time.  I stood on the side trying to take videos, and getting out of the way when I saw him moving too close to me.

Time hurtles us down the highway of life, and there is little we can do about it.  Except wave at the new drivers that are joining us.

But if you do see Benjamin on the highway, don't wave to him too big.  We don't want to distract him.  Let's let him concentrate.

Oy.  I can't believe this is happening already.

Mr. Stein's Off Day: Saturday Political Soap Box 120

Yes, class.  Do you see?  Isn't that terrifying?  That someone might not be a citizen and still have their basic human health care needs taken care of through the bureaucratic incompetence of a bloated federal government?  Of course, measures could be put in place that could help minimize this, but that's not the point, is it?  The point is to make people as queasy as possible about the dreaded Obamacare and immigration.  Frighten them with fear of the undeserving other, and the possibility that someone may get a benefit that you worked for and they did not.

So, class, can anyone think of a what to replace that pesky Obamacare with, and still provide basic health care coverage to every true citizen of the United States?  Bueller?  Bueller?  Anyone?  Anyone?

No, Bernie, I didn't say you.  When I said "anyone" I didn't mean to include you.

Yes, Bernie, a single payer system like Medicare For All would cover everyone, but that's socialism.  And as an economics professor, I can tell you that socialism is an unworkable system that will lead to our inevitable destruction.

Yes, Bernie.  I know you are talking about "democratic socialism", which works more as a check and modifier of capitalism than a replacement.  But that's never worked anywhere.

Yes, Bernie.  I know about the Scandinavian countries, and their successes with democratic socialism.  But we're Americans!  We don't want to eat strange fish dishes with eyeballs in them, and drive small cars, and pay exorbitant prices for gasoline. We don't want to pay higher taxes to insure medical care and free college. It is so much better to let the poor flood emergency rooms and for the middle class college students to take out student loans at high interest loans and be saddled with debt for the rest of their lives.

Yes, Bernie. I understand that in most other countries that have universal health care....what?  Don't interrupt me, Bernie!  I realize that virtually all other industrialized countries on Earth have universal health care and we don't.  And I realize that we spend two to three times more per person on health care here than in those other countries.  You have to think of all the jobs created by the layer of private insurance and hospital/doctor healthcare insurance facilitators, not to mention the lawyers and accountants we have to manipulate and game the system.  We take pride in our healthcare con men and profiteers!  After all, Florida elected Rick Scott governor of Florida, didn't they?  He oversaw the largest Medicare fraud in our history while CEO of Columbia/HCA.  Now if that bothered Floridians, why would they have elected him twice?

No, Bernie.  There is a difference between government bureaucrats and private bureaucrats.  Don't you see? We love the private ones - we honor their cleverness.  But we hate government bureaucrats, whose malfeasance would actually be easier to catch if we used the proper oversight instead of letting our Congressman be bought out by the largest corporate and super-rich bidders.

I tell you what, Bernie.  You like government bureaucracy so much?  I want you take this form to the central office, and please, take your time.

Ok, now we can back to the real discussion.  Can anyone think of  ways, not including Bernie's ridiculous idea of Medicare For All, that we can repeal Obamacare and improve our health care system?

Bueller?  Bueller?

Anyone?

2015: The Year in TV Comedy/Talk

Yes!  Another fine list from T. M. Strait!  Why?  BECAUSE I LIKE LISTS!  And what better excuse than a year end wrap up!

Unlike dramas, I don't have much that fits on this list other than the ones here.  I've enjoyed clips from The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, and The Daily Show - but I don't watch whole episodes.  After three years of on and off viewing, we finished our streaming of The Office - a great show whose characters we are going to miss.  I also need to mention The Rachel Maddow Show - she puts the news in a fashion that increases my comprehension and knowledge about how things fit together - her story on the horrible (and criminal) water crisis in Flint, Michigan is Pulitzer level stuff.

And now, (drumroll)...the list!

5) Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt (Netflix) was a marvelous treat. It has 13 episodes that we streamed over the course of the year.  Ellie Kemper of The Office stars, playing off the same kind of ditzy character.  She plays a "mole woman" - held hostage underground by a doomsday cultist for almost two decades.   

4) Blackish (ABC) is another family comedy that Alison and I have grown to love. It reminds me of the golden age of sitcoms, with shows like All in the Family, where not only were they side-splittingly funny, but they were also social relevant.  It does have a slight Simpson thing going on, in that the situations seem somewhat independent from one episode to the next.  If everything that happened to them in the past was true, it would create a quite voluminous and possibly contradictory back story.

3) Speaking of family comedies, here is the Modern Family (ABC) supreme!  Yes, it's been on awhile, and I don't laugh quite as much as I used to, I still enjoy the characters and the threefold family nature of it.

2)  Parks and Recreation (NBC) ended its fantastical run in 2015, and what a joyous romp it was!  I would place Amy Poehler's Leslie Knope in the top 10 comedy characters ever on television.

1)  Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO) - I actually get jittery if I miss my weekly dose of this great show.  It is very funny - political and social satire at the very top of it's game!  But it also incredibly insightful, putting into focus important stories that the lazy mainstream media just passes over.

Cold at Last on a Thursday Morning

Heading into the submarine for yet another tax season.

OK.  Granted, it's not cold by Michigan standards, but it's certainly much colder than it was in December, where many days hovered into the mid-eighties.  Right now it is 47 degrees, with the high of 64 expected. Monday shows a low of 33 with, of course, no precipitation expected.  The general pattern here is that if the temperature here is at or below freezing, the conditions are dry, and that when the temperature go up is when it more likely to rain. In the next fifteen days, the greatest chance of rain (60%) is this Saturday night, with the low being no lower than 44.

Meanwhile, the weather matters less as I am headed into the submarine, and really don't get many opportunities to be outside.  Hopefully, if it does snow, I will be alert enough to go out and see it. The last snowfall of any significance here was Christmas Day of 1989.

Sometimes I forget how far south I am.  I have a friend who lives in Sedona, Arizona, who was reporting a snowfall in her area.  I wondered if I lived farther south than she did.  She said she was parallel with Little Rock, Arkansas, which, if you check a map, is a good chunk north of Blackshear.  I looked at Sedona, and moved South until I found something parallel to Blackshear's latitude.  What I found was Nogales, Arizona, right smack next to to the border of Mexico.

What I found in further research was that there were parts of Mexico that were north of where I live.  This took me by surprise.  This Central Michigan boy, who fantasized about moving to Bismarck, North Dakota, because he didn't feel like he was far enough north, was now living in a place that was south of parts of Mexico.  

Oh, well.  It could be worse, for someone who doesn't mind a little winter now and then.  I could be in Key West., or Hawaii.  There is at least an extremely remote statistical chance of a snowfall here, whereas there is none in Key West or Hawaii.

I like a change of seasons.  That is very mild to nonexistent here.  And much of whatever mild winter we have I miss, because I'm in the tax season submarine.  But if it does happen, I hope I at least get a chance to get out in it a few minutes.  That would be swell.

Come to think of it, if it snows down here, even just a few inches, I'd probably either be trapped at work or at home, as traffic here would be absolutely paralyzed until it melted off.  

I vote for home.

Back to Work Monday Musings

Nice meme, but tomorrow is now today, and it will turn into yesterday soon enough.  It's the beginning of the long stretch.  The next formal day off at my workplace is....Memorial Day.

The break was nice.  I could get used to it, if it wasn't for those pesky bills and that gosh awful sense of responsibility.  One thing I am sure of - I have the infinite capacity to keep myself busy and entertained even if I'm not working in accounting.  I've helped reformulate my plans to make what I need when the time comes, and I'm satisfied that I can do it - at least pursue it, and with good luck, achieve my basic goals.

I have failed to stay away from theatre.  I was in the special showing of The Diary of Anne Frank in December, and now I am cast, along with my son, Benjamin, in The Music Man, a production to be done in early March.  It is my first tax season musical.  The last time I was in one was Shenandoah in 2001, and that way a May musical, not a March one.  It's hard to say no to theatre when your son wants to participate too.

My writing has slowed, as I am stressed about the stories, novels and collections I have completed but have not published.  I have basically decided to self-publish, but I am slowed by covers and other road blocks, including my own inertia.  I don't suffer from writer's block, but I do suffer from publisher's block.  I'm not quite sure why, but I can't afford the therapy to find out.

We finally saw Start Wars on December 30th.  I am not a hater of the second trilogy from the late nineties. Those movies seemed okay, and I was just excited to see the saga continue.  Nevertheless, I must say that this new one is the Star Wars I have been waiting for.  It was an exciting mix of new characters and old characters.  Daisy Ridley as Rey was the perfect protagonist, and played it with an Oscar worthy range of emotions and depth. Star Wars: The Force Awakens is clearly the best picture of the year, but I highly doubt if Hollywood will recognize it as such.  They will probably opt for something much smaller in scale, a movie that easily could have been a made-for-TV movie.

Football season is finally at an end,  Yes, I realize that they are still bowl games and playoffs left, but our teams (Michigan and Georgia, Detroit and Atlanta) are not involved, and I'm not enough of a fan of the sport itself to watch games without favorites.  We may catch the Packers, but that is about it.

We begin the year with Trump in first place and Cruz in second.  The Republican Party base seems determined to serve up the worst of the worst.  I don't know what makes their base so angry and vile - they must live in some other universe than the one I do.  I don't know if there are enough voters who believe the way they do to carry the day, but I don't want to find out.  I don't want some event or strange Clintonesque pseudo-scandal to warp one of these morangos into Presidential control.  I'm not being hyperbolic when I say that I don't think the Earth can stand it.  Ignoring global warming alone will be sufficient to destroy the course of civilization.

My weight is up as I begin the New Year's diet time.  Not as bad as last year's starting point, but disappointing enough.  Well, all I can do is take a deep sigh and go back to the diet drawing board, and do my best to make sure we don't have to widen any doors.


Until next time,

T. M. Strait

The Year 2015 in Politics: Saturday Political Soap box 119

Our President, Barack Obama.  I am proud to have voted for him four times.

Well, yes.  It would be awesome if I took the time to research and did a month by month review, source-ripped from the headlines.  Instead, we're going to have to settle for my general impressions of the year as a whole.

The President has had another very good year.  Given the fact that he deals with a tea party dominated Congress that is much more interested in his political destruction than they are in actually leading, I would say he has done very well indeed.

Economically, unemployment is at 5%, a rate lower than the entirety of the Reagan administration, and lower than anything conceived possible when we were in the depths of the Bush Recession. The Stock Market is up dramatically from the Bush Jr. years, although it slid slightly in 2015.  GDP (Gross Domestic Product) is up, and manufacturing is on the rise.  We are on the longest streak of positive private job growth in American history. For better or worse, we are producing more oil than ever before, and the price of gas is much lower than any 2012 Republican contender thought it would be.   The budget deficit has been reduced to a degree that I didn't think was possible.  We may actually have something close to a surplus in the last year of Obama's presidency.

There is still a great divide between the rich and poor, with a shrinking middle class.  These are institutional problems dating back at least to the Reagan years. It would seem the President has slowed this shrinkage, but has been unable to reverse it.  I don't see how anyone in their right mind could conceive of how returning to the Republican policies that sparked this decline, would in any way improve things. Until we receive a Progressive majority in Congress, I can't see how this gets reversed.

The debt continues to be a problem, but many economists believe it to be a manageable percentage of the GDP.  The government budget IS NOT THE SAME as a household budget - households can't print money.  Governments must run deficits in the bad times and surpluses in good times.  Balanced budgeting is a silly idea, at least consistently from year to year.  Besides, the only way to eliminate the debt is to take in more than you spend (by A LOT), and use that extra to pay off the debt.  Republicans will NEVER allow this to happen.  This is historically proved with Bush Jr's coronated reign - he took the surplus left him by Clinton, and returned it, mostly to the very wealthy.  Republicans will never allow a surplus - they will demand the money be returned via tax cuts or rebates directly to the wealthiest taxpayers.

Domestically, we saw Obamacare successfully defended for the umpteenth time, and is performing better than almost anyone expected.  The perfect solution, Medicare for All, continues to lie out of political reach. Gay marriage is now the law of the land, honored throughout the entire country. There is beginning to be a recognition that there is an excessive amount of police violence, especially against minorities.  There are now more people returning to Mexico than coming to the United States.  Immigration from that section of the world is now a negative number. A number of conservatives, especially in South Carolina, recognize the Confederate flag as the divisive symbol of racism that it is.

But hate and vile continue to flow.  The forces of bigotry are becoming louder, even if they are outnumbered.  We have many battles to go, and as tiring as it is, we must continue to oppose their embittered voices.  Domestic terrorism is real, and exceeds any threat from foreign terrorists.

In foreign policy, you have the mixed bag you ALWAYS have with other countries and situations you cannot fully control.  No matter what you do or don't do, there is always unintended consequences. Nevertheless, the Iran Nuclear Treaty, and the Climate deals, with China and with the world as a whole, are big deals and major steps forward.

The greatest crisis that the United States and the world faces continues to be global warming.  You don't think so?  Even the problems in Syria have been exacerbated by climate change, as massive droughts eliminating large chunks of farmland is one of the major reasons the population was displaced and made vulnerable. Much of the Middle Eastern unrest can be pinned to food shortages, as much or more than it can be to those who misuse Islam for political ends.

In the Presidential race, I have been pleased at the rise of Bernie Sanders.  The fact that a 74 year old self proclaimed Democratic Socialist could be a legitimate contender for the Democratic nomination is one of the most hopeful signs I have seen in a long time.  This despite the fact that he has almost been completely shut out of mainstream media.

On the other hand, one of the least hopeful signs I have ever been witness to, is the dominance on the Republican side, of the worst, most dangerous candidate of modern times, Donald Trump.  He represents the very dark side of American life, and the fact that this foul-mouthed, misogynistic, racist, spoiled rich kid is the number one contender for the Republican nomination makes my heart sick.

Here's to hoping that 2016 will play to the more positive trends of 2015!

The Best of 2015: TV Dramas

I used to love to do blog and Facebook polls, get everyone's input, and announce the best as picked by my friends and followers.

No more.

I can't get enough people to comment to make it worthwhile.  That may be my fault.  That may be a reflection of lack of traffic.  It may be the way social media works now.

So I'll just share my choices.  If anyone else (Bueller?  Bueller?  Bueller?) has any choices or other input of their own, I would love to have it.  In fact, if it happened, I would be dancing in the aisle.

BEST MOMENT ON TELEVISION

Well, that isn't precisely the moment, but it is the right TV Show,  Yes, Supergirl brought the best moment of the television year for me.  It was in a recent episode where she found herself temporarily without powers, and she decided to confront a gunned robber in  a convenience store.  She just did it by talking to him, in a caring way, that caused him finally to put down his weapon.  It was the reason I am such a fan of the Superman family, and was such a sharp contrast to the mindless mayhem on the TV show Gotham.

Other shows, in addition to Supergirl, worthy of an honorable mention:  The Flash , Better Call Saul, The Americans, How to Get Away With Murder, Wayward Pines and iZombie.

5) The Leftovers (HBO).  This show is mystifying, maddening, miraculous - an imaginative extravaganza filled with great characters.  Episodes go in surprising directions, and then reweave at the end to jaw dropping results.  If you can't catch it on HBO, be sure to see it when it becomes available on other streaming platforms.

4) The Walking Dead (AMC) is the ultimate zombie show, both for those who like zombie shows, AND FOR THOSE WHO DON'T.  Marvelously character driven, virtually every character is beloved by somebody, and every character is at risk.  It seemed as many or more people were caught up on whether Glenn survived as were speculating decades earlier as to who shot J.R.!

3)  Yes, you know the drill, my frequent followers.  Agents of SHIELD (ABC) is the BEST show on broadcast TV.  It's the best program on still making 22 episodes a year.  Thank you, Joss Whedon, for the best plotting, dialogue and characters on broadcast TV.

2)  Winter is coming (although you would be hard pressed to convince most South Georgians of that).  Game of Thrones (HBO) continues to excel and bring us first rate storytelling, with breathtaking moments, both small and large scale.Is it better than the books?  I refuse to be drawn into that.  I love them both.

1)  As much as I love the other shows on this list, I have to concede, there has been nothing on as good this year as Fargo (FX).  Unlike the others on this list, it is not science fiction or fantasy (although...there is a moment).  It is just great storytelling with the most colorful characters on television.  Kirsten Dunst will and should win awards for her portrayal as Peggy, the sociopathic hairdresser.  Seek this one out, along with the first season, and join the Fargo brigade, eh!

Coming up, as time allows...TV Comedy/Talk, and also My Year at the Movies.