Pot bellied fools.

Bleeding, retreating, the pot bellied fools come eating.
Seeing their faces scarred with blood, the sand and the devil's sin
Gracious, desired the pot bellied fools see no end.
Noxious, intoxicating and they wonder when they'll be feeding.
The lambs have come, they stand to the side.
"We're no longer your food", they yell.
"We're fighting back, because we have to."
"You don't know what you're doing", the pot bellied fools say.
"We're doing the same thing people like us have done for millenia. We're taking a stand" The lambs say.
"But you can't you mustn't. What will we do?" The Pot bellied fools ask.
"You will let us live."

The Election Showed Republicans A Changed America.

The country has changed, that's what the election told us. Whites are no longer a majority of the population and nowhere was this more evident than the reactions the right had to President Obama's Reelection.

The Republican party ran their race as if the demographics in the country were the same as twenty years ago, they're not. They thought they could win by alienating the fastest growing population in the electorate, Latinos.

When the dust settled on Tuesday night, they discovered the country had changed, and changed while they were arguing over abortion, gay marriage and tax increases for the wealthy, while polls showed the majority of Americans believe abortion should be left alone, gay marriage isn't a big deal and the wealthy should pay more taxes.

While conservatives believed they'd won the election, Karl Rove's meltdown on Fox News was a sure sign of that. They are failing in the aftermath to understand why. They're only pointing fingers and calling names, they're not thinking about the future, if they were, they wouldn't want to us the tax plan of the losing candidate as a guide.

The Republican party lost the election because America is no longer the country they believe it is. They believe it's a Christian country, polling says more Americans are losing faith in religion and are becoming atheists.

The Republican party is behind the thoughts of the rest of America. The election showed them a new America, one they weren't ready to deal with and one they're scared of. If they weren't scared of it there wouldn't have been so many Republicans decrying the election as a sham and rumors of vote rigging.

America has changed and the Republican party has to change or it faces the possibility of being non-existent in future elections.

Why I Vote!

When  I was younger and more impressionable about politics, my grandmother and my aunt told me why they voted for Democrats.
For my grandmother it was matter of how she grew up. With an immigrant father from Scotland, she found out it would be easier to vote for Democrat than a Republican.

When she was older, and the Great Depression hit, she stood on bread lines, waited for food and watched as rich people became richer, while the poor suffered in breadlines and soup kitchens.

My aunt, who wasn't really my aunt we just called her that, but she was more of grandmother to us than anything else.

My aunt and her mom were a Republicans before Hoover and the Great Depression. When breadlines and soup kitchens became normal, and rich people became richer, her mom decided to change parties, rather than see another crash like the Great Depression, which was brought on by rich people making more money and putting the burden on the poor.

Now that I vote in elections, and have for a while now, I think back to what they said about Republicans and the rich.

When it comes time to talk to my son about politics I will tell the story of two ladies who made the biggest influence on my life, politically and personally. They were always the first to tell me I could do anything I wanted, and never criticized my decisions, even if they didn't agree with them.

We've come a long way as a Country, don't call it a Republic or a Democracy, it's neither.

Our values are not what they used to be, they're nothing like they were when my aunt and grandmother first started voting.

I miss my aunt and grandmother every day, especially around my birthday. They taught me wrong from right and showed me which party to vote for. I trust what they said more than I will ever trust anyone else.

When you're watching the debate this week, think about my aunt and grandma and why they voted Democrat.

47% - The Foot-Soldiers Of The Economy

Feature Image Courtesy Creative Commons Via Defence Images

We are the foot-soldiers of the economy.
We are the bartenders, waiters, cubicle cowboys and delivery truck drivers.
We run the economy.
We may work for a corporation, but we are not owned by a corporation.
We deal with the public, we may serve them food, deliver their packages and handle their credit card issues.
We are the ones you berate for your own benefit.
We see you at your weakest and strongest.
You berate us for not having a college education, but you cause college education to be out of our reach.
You think we're simpletons and uneducated.
You believe we're the ones who have the problem with your wealth, when it's you who have the problem with our middle class and poor.
You don't know who we are, but you will.
We are not the beggars and thieves of Dickens.
We are the foot-soldiers of the economy.
Without us the economy doesn't work
We stood by and watched you get your bailouts, while we suffered, lost our homes and were ridiculed by the banks.
Your power is in your money.
Our power is in our number.
We are the 47%

How Infection Starts

Infection may happen in a few ways.

1. You start watching something that you normally wouldn't on that news channel you know is nuts.
2. You hear something from a less than reliable source. You read it, and blam, you think like they do, but you really don't want to.
3. You see something on the news that is questionable. You look into it and you start seeing all these things that make go, damn, maybe those people are right.
4. You listen to a spouse that doesn't think the way you do. In the process you change your mind about things you never would have before.
5. You want to see what the other side of the aisle is really thinking, so you read one of their newsletters or start following them on Twitter or "like" them on Facebook.

There is only on cure to infection. It is tried and true and never fails.

Think for yourself. Don't listen to the pundits from either side of the aisle. Use your own brain to come up with a conclusion that makes sense.

There are ways to avoid these five things.

1. Read up on the subject, that's what Google, Wikipedia and books are for...some books will lead you astray, beware, and read the in leaf.
2. Judge things according to your moral beliefs, religion shouldn't be why you choose your politics. 
3. Listen to the news in small doses, or get rid of TV altogether. Never sit in front of the TV for hours watching the same thing, getting angrier at people you don't know talk about things that don't effect you.
4. Don't listen to your spouse, make up your own mind. Just because you're married doesn't mean you have to vote like they do.
5. Take bits from both sides and make up your own mind.

Politics isn't personal and responding to a post on Facebook or Twitter that is derogatory or in some way defaces someone's wall is irresponsible and arrogant. On second thought, don't read the political posts on Facebook.

Have We Learned Anything From The Great Recession?

With the world and the U.S. getting past the Great Recession, I've been wondering what we have learned from the Great Recession.

Are we learning to manage our personal finances better? Are we learning to spend less on things we want and spend on things we need?

As I listen to people I work with and people I serve drinks to the answer is no, at least for a lot of people.

I've learned to spend less on things I want, like a new TV, new video games for my son and I and I'm managing our budgets a lot better than before the Great Recession took place.

People I still blow their savings on vacations, when they should be using it for something else, like a just in case fund.

We should be planning for future Recessions, because their going to happen regardless of the election outcome, there's always one around the corner, whether we like it or not.

As a race we've been conditioned, lately, to only pay attention to things in the short term, and that was one of the causes of the Great Recession. The only people who had money put away were those that knew how to handle there money, I wasn't one of those people until recently.

I see people slipping into the same habits after a bankruptcy, loss of their homes, not enough money for their kids, adults who still buy toys for themselves when they should be saving up for college for their kids. It feels like a lot of people want more for themselves, in the short term, than they do for their kids in the future.

Habits like I've described above led us to spend money we don't have on things that we don't need or will be outdated in a year or less.

This constant turn over isn't only our fault, it's the fault of corporations giving us things they think we want. 

If the power were to go out in the world tomorrow how would you feel about the objects you own? Would you be angry, jealous, despondent or would you go on with your life the best you could, taking care of your kids, family and spouse?

Are you doing things differently since the Great Recession? Why or why not? Answer in the comments.

Zombie Lost

Poor and uncared for, lost and broke. The spiral wind winds around the lies and falsities.
Who listens to the poor? Who judges the lies?
We fall as one while the groups fight over our corpses.
We are the zombies of the nation.
Voting for what their told in church. Ignoring their own situation.
Discovering the lost days of a nation, we find the nation gave into its religion and gave up on its morals.

Abyss Is Near

Here's what I don't understand about Christians voting Republican.

The right wants you to believe that you shouldn't help the poor, which goes against the teachings of Jesus Christ.
They want you to think that every life is sacred, men have no place deciding what a women does.
The belief that voting for a Republican will somehow change the world, when sorry, we're behind the rest of the world in Education, Gay rights, Healthcare and the way we treat our elderly, because of the choices of a certain Republican President.
There is no place in civilized society for the things the right is saying.
When we stare into the abyss, the abyss stares back.
We are on the footsteps of our abyss. This country is heading for a cliff financially, educationally, morally. That last part, morally is what grabs me.
When we look at our fellow Americans do we see them or their religion, political affiliation or their monetary situation?
Following the right leads us to the slaughter. Do you want to be the sacrificial lamb? DO you really believe your guns will be taken away. Sorry, not going to happen. IF you believe that, you're not worth saving.
The corpses of Americans will litter the streets of its cities if we have a new revolution, and it's coming. If you don't believe it's coming, you're lost.
At no time in human history has there ever been such a difference in the classes and the poor, downtrodden and meek not stood up and started to fight back.
Occupy is the first step toward those who can't speak for themselves will be helped.
Welcome to the revolution!

Dead Society

Cacophony of crows overhead. Buzzards circling the corpse of a dead society. One filled with hate for things others don't have, through no fault of their own.

Cascading rapids of loss sliding through cracks of lasting pain. Filling in for the gradual pain they feel for one another.

The lost group of Americans, the poor, the hungry, the feeble masses. Forgotten in the realms of life. Their only want, to be recognized for who they are. The lost of America, the forgotten of time and remnants of a dead society.

B³

Lost Dreams Of The American Poor

New days, old way.
We're finding life to be enough about the crazy stared and driven ways.
Faith and politics is driving the argument.
Who are they to take the front, guiding the guillotine on the throats of the poor.
Hated, rated and influenced by the rich.
The poor gather in their holes, hiding, squirming and hoping.
Hoping to get another chance at another life.
Hiding to keep the lives they've lost out of the spotlight.
Squirming to stay afloat, while watching the boat sink.
Watching their lives stink, jaded, glazed over for that promotion.
Annoying the hell out of the right, the listening of the fallacies, the false hopes, the new dopes,
the craziness of the fallen trope, the new found hope of the lost and dying poor.
Lying to them, telling them they'll be fine.
Vote for the crazy man who's going to take away your gun, when you should be worrying about the crazy man that's going to take away your healthcare, your money and the livelihood you have left.
The hope that you're not falling off a cliff, the scattered, tattered and lost dreams of the poor in America.

Who am I, really?

Let's start introduction for this blog, but first this blog is mainly somewhere to vent my personal feelings. Either in prose or comments.

I've been writing for the last twenty years, it's only in the last six years I've taken my writing seriously and began to focus my energies toward it.

I've written two books, one a horror novel set in Las Vegas. The other is Y/A-Science fiction that is along the lines of Dune, John Carter of Mars and Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe in one book.

The Y/A-Sci/Fi book is my most recent.

I have short stories that are sitting in my hard drive, too many to count actually and I'm finding that my writing is my best form of working out my personal demons with my childhood and growing up with divorced parents.

I've thought about doing a political or rant blog for a while. My only reasons for not doing it is my schedule.

So, here is what I'm going to do with What Not? I will write one post a week, it may come out of left field, it may be poetry, but it will have me in it.

My other blog is more about writing and my feelings about writing. What Not? is about truth. Who am I and why am I writing. This feels more like something I should do to clear my head and get it back on my projects.

I will post probably on Thursday, since that is the only day available on my writing and day job schedule.

I hope you follow along and will enjoy reading my posts.

B³

Leaving The LDS Church Isn't Easy

I've been fighting with myself about writing this post for a while. But after today, it has to be written.

“Feature image courtesy of Seantoyer via Creative Commons”

My wife was raised in a mostly LDS household, her father went on a mission, her mother was raised in the Mormon colonies in Juarez. Her mom is a Romney, yes she's related to Mitt Romney.

My father-in-law left the church when my wife was little girl. My wife was baptized in the church when she was eight, much to father-in-laws disappointment.

My wife went through a change in her beliefs, like I did, when she was younger. Mostly guided by her fathers issues with the church and not his lack of faith in Christianity.

When I met my wife I was an atheist and nothing else. The reason for this is because of my being raised non-Mormon in Utah. Something  I wouldn't wish on anyone. I couldn't do scouts or any number of other things young boys do, because of being non-Mormon.

Recently my wife had been trying to resign from the church and have her name taken off the records, something that no other church does. Her reasons for this are her non-belief in the teachings of Joseph Smith and The Book of Mormon and her lack of belief in Christianity as a whole.

A few months ago she started the process of doing this. She contacted the LDS church headquarters in Salt Lake City with a letter. This is something that must be done in order to "leave" the church.

After sending the letter she did not receive a response from the church for three weeks, and only then it was to acknowledge that they'd received her letter. It took a few more weeks to have the Bishop of the Ward, that we'd never been to, to show up at our house and ask my wife if this is what she'd wanted to do.

Today, this all changed she received a letter from the Home Teachers. The Bishop told her she would not receive any further contact from the church, but yet she receives this letter.

This is not my usual type of post, but I want people to know that you can't just stop going to an LDS church once your name is on their records.

We had missionaries, home teachers and others come to our house after we moved to Las Vegas. How they found my wife is beyond our understanding, and why they keep harassing her is irritating.

I hope this helps someone who is going through the same thing she is.

Here is a place you can look for help leaving the LDS church.

Ex-Mormon.org 

Could Be

Finding, delivering and chasing the rabbit until you consume it. We find ourselves trapped in a never ending game of who's better, who's lost and who isn't here.

Stop playing games and start following names. Learn who you are, stop who you aren't and begin to find what you could be.

Throat Grab

Close up, mash up. Throw the damn lives up. We listen, we live. What the hell is the world doin. We see it, we dream it, we're dying to get through it. I see the waterfall hiding in the cave. Another dead man is lying in his grave. What sport, what hobby? I don't see anything but more fucking bodies.
We see the disaster of life never living ever after. We fall, crawl and wait for the bombs to fall. Our life is chaos, it's reigning down. What do we see that should be so profound?

It pours into us, it grabs our throats. I don't feel anything but another force choke. It's dying all around. Our cities, our government and us are letting it go. When are we going to stand up to our government and say HELL NO!

However

When we find writing and dreams staring at us, what do we do with them? Do we stand by and stare or do we fall down and rise again?

Our lives are under our control, our world is as well. What do we do with a world that is falling apart at the seams and we can't stop bandage it fast enough?