Trying to Stop being Clever

I understand the appeal of Donald Trump. I understand the “badass” attitude of not giving a f*ck and just “going for it” when it comes to national security. I understand the concept of not taking crap from anyone and being bold and brash and hardcore. I understand the mentality that this is “our country” and the need to do whatever it takes to protect it. I understand the heroic aspect of going after the bad guys and kicking their asses. The problems with this are numerous. For one thing, we’re no longer a fledgling of a country who’s rebelling against the oppressive “mother” country, insisting we can do it on our own. We’ve proven that. We are a full-fledged world power. We should act like it. The things Donald Trump and many of the Republicans are saying, they sound like little kids talking about what they would do if they could. It’s not realistic. It’s not mature. All this “tough talk” is for someone who is trying to convince others of their power. We don’t need to convince

In the last two days a small transformation has taken place. I have been reading a lot of public commentary on the American presidential primaries. I've seen a lot of people get really mad at each other for their opinions. I wrote some of my best stuff on a Bernie Sanders thread that seems to have been since deleted. It's a shame, because I wanted to copy my wise words and paste them here. What I learned from that exchange, and my passion for my responses, was that keeping calm and not descending into insults and blaming leads to much clearer, truer statements. Also, when I remove much of my opinion from it and stick to facts what I say has a lot more power. I have often read over things I have written, sometimes years ago, and I find myself cringing at some of the things I chose to write. There may be a few nuggets of wisdom in there, but I typically don't even finish the sentence of truth before I've gone and added something that makes my face and palm meet. I

I drove around with a gun today. I had a loaded pistol in my car as I drove to work, to lunch, back to work, and I will have it on the drive home. Everywhere I went I found myself thinking that I could use it on somebody if they made me too mad. I also thought that I might be able to use it in the event of a robbery or shooting. I wondered if I would be able to get it out without the other gunman seeing me and shooting me dead. I didn't question whether I would be able to hit him if I tried. I didn't wonder if I would hit someone else accidentally, or if my bullet would go through him and into some unsuspecting citizen behind him. My thoughts were mostly "I don't want to leave my kid without a father because I got myself killed or imprisoned because of this." When I am driving is when my anger gets the most out of control. During that time I was thinking, "would I be able to even hit the car in front of me shooting with my left hand? How bad would it be to

I know I'm coming late to this party, and I have not had the experience of watching Pimp My Ride, but I recently purchased this disc from my local Rhino Records. I like the production on this album. I like the minimal instrumentation/samples. Most tracks have a good solid beat and not a bunch of nonsense. Xzibit has a really poetic way about him. He says profound things with conviction and intensity. There are only about 3 lines on the album where he says something I consider silly. I think at one point he says that he's "build Ford tough." In Ride or Die he speaks of "real gangsters" and how they don't say they're going to shoot you, they just "hit the trunk, cock it and spray it" then he says, "Light up your Christmas" which sounds silly. I don't know what Christmas has to do with it. The "Steady Gang" of Strong Arm Steady does a great job of supporting him and they provide a welcome variety to the tracks.

A couple of years ago I wrote a post about how we see ourselves (" Who Do I See? " Jan. 18 2013), about how our reflection in the mirror is what we think of when we think of ourselves. I guess these days the way we look in our selfies is how we see ourselves. It's why you'll notice, as soon as the selfie is snapped, everyone crowds around the phone to see how they turned out in the picture. One person will say, "No, delete it, that's terrible" when all they are looking at is themselves, not even noticing how the other people in the photo look. That's when I realized something. It's not universal, or even that common, perhaps, but for some of us with low self-esteem the worst pictures we've ever seen of ourselves is how everyone sees us on a day-to-day basis. If we ever look okay, it's fleeting and nobody remembers it. It's always that worst angle, that most unflattering of light, all the shadows in all the wrong places, that people

The problem with the current gun laws in America is that there is nothing we can do to stop mass killings. With the gun-ownership sympathizers, there appears to be no legal recourse to prevent such things. People are allowed to own whatever guns they want, they are allowed to buy and keep as much ammunition as they want, and in many states they’re allowed to walk around with their guns. It’s not until they actually start killing that they’re breaking the law. So that’s the line we want to draw? It’s all fine and good until you actually start shooting people. If gun laws were more strict (I’m not talking about disarming everyone, just using some common sense) we could make it illegal at some point before the killing begins. If it was illegal to buy certain weapons of mass killing, that would reduce the number of such devices that are available. Fewer would make their way into the hands of would-be killers. If it was illegal to walk around with a gun, people could be arrested just f