Not a Radical

I discovered something the other day. I was referred to as a radical.
Let me explain why I'm not a radical, I just believe that things are fucked up and they need to change.

Supporting a whistle blower is not being a radical.

Supporting someone who said the government isn't representing your best interests abroad doesn't make me a radical, it makes me someone who believes our government doesn't have my best interests in mind when they're starting wars for false reasons.

Supporting someone who told the American people and the world that the government is breaking the fourth amendment on a daily basis doesn't make me a radical, it makes me a concerned citizen and someone who doesn't believe the bullshit the government shoves down my throat through mainstream media outlets.

I think my children should attend decent schools and be taught by teachers who know what they're talking about and not have religion shoved down their throats at a "Public" school paid with my tax money.

My daughter if she's raped shouldn't be told, "You can't do that here."  is she chooses to abort the fetus caused by the rape because a Senator or Congressman has issues with women based on a God and a book that I don't believe in.

I think my children should have healthcare paid by the government, not because I'm a liberal or because I want a welfare state, but because if you're really doing what your God says, you've read the wrong bible.

I believe anyone who bases their prejudices on a book that is thousands of years old needs to reevaluate their reading material, it's 2013!

Not letting someone marry another human they're in love with isn't based on a book, it's based on prejudices that you've carried because your grandparents talked down about gays the way their grandparents talked down about African-Americans. It's not doing what God wants, it's what you want because you're a bigot.

Wanting poor people and the mentally ill to be taken care of doesn't make me a radical it makes me compassionate.

Wanting my government to treat everyone equally, and not base that equality on how much money is in my bank account, the color of my skin, my sexual preference or disability.

Is it really radical to want the troops who've fought in wars which were fought on bullshit pretenses to be taken care of. Whether they have PTSD, been mangled by IED's or have another ailment that should be taken care of by the country they've served valiantly and without complaints. Does that really make me a radical?

If you still believe I'm a radical for all of the reason I've listed, fine, I'm a radical, but you're a sheep.

Lack of Empathy in Corporate America

When I look around at where I am, I think about where we are as a country. I can't help but think this because our mentality has changed. We've moved from the unity we had after 9/11 to a division that will sink us.

Corporations don't care for their employees. They're trying to take away their bargaining rights, eliminate their healthcare and make them work less hours. Their reasoning is, "It will save them money." Meanwhile these same corporations are making record profits. The executives are getting bonuses that are greater than the wealth of some countries and their reasoning is, "We deserve it because we run the business."

But, they don't really do they?

Here's why I think they don't.

• Limiting bargaining rights takes away a safety net for the employees, which in turn will make them less likely to enjoy their job and reducing productivity.
• Eliminating their healthcare will cause them financial problems, which will lead to higher overall healthcare costs.
• Making them work less hours will cause them financial burdens which will cause the economy as a whole to suffer, if people don't have money they can't buy things. 

Lets look at that last bit more:

The average wage in the U.S. is $42K (Social Security Administration).

Two kids average $12k a year. Mortgage/Rent of $1k. One car which is $446 a month on average for the U.S. times 12 month is $5520 for a year. You're left with a few hundred dollars. Which won't pay for healthcare, gas, utilities, other medical bills that may come up or if they have more than two kids, which some do.

This is only for a single parent, which most workers are.


The people under the company exectuives run the business, they just oversee it. Some of them haven't done the grunt work of working on an assembly line, dealing with angry customers, creating a work schedule or walked a work floor and stood on their feet during an eight hour shift.

They say they don't need to do these things, yet the companies whose executives are close to their employees...i.e. Google, Apple or Yahoo. These companies make great profits and their employees are more satisfied.

So, here's the question I leave you with. Why are companies so disconnected from their employees, and why does it seem they don't care?

My Bad TSA Experience.

The event.

This past weekend I attended a book signing for Neil Gaiman in Santa Rosa, CA. The event itself was awesome and I learned a lot from Neil. He's a very funny man and although I didn't get to tell him how much Sandman meant to me growing up, I did get my Absolute Sandman signed by Neil, which was the coolest thing for me.
What happened the day after the event is something different. I've only told my wife this and now, I'm sharing it on One-Zero-One.

I arrived early to the airport, I wasn't sure how many people would be on the flight and I wanted to make sure I got my rental dropped off and everything was situated with my flight.
I turned in my my keys and rental agreement and proceeded toward the security screening, which is rather small since Santa Rosa's airport is a municipal airport and only gets Turboprop and private aircraft.

When I started at security I knew it was going to be interesting when the agent doing the screening asked if I had a laptop in my bag--I'm a writer, I always have it--I told I did. "Could you take it out so it could go through the x-ray machine?" I told him, "sure."
I took it out, placed it one of the grey bus-tubs and sent it through with my shoes, hat, phone, roll
away carry-on, keys and the other things I had in my pockets.

I went through the detector, it went off, I had to take off my belt. They sent me through the second time, nothing went off. I went to grab my stuff, and I was selected "At Random" to have my shoes swiped and put into the analyzer for the chemicals that are in explosives, it tested positive.

Now the fun began, I was told, "Your shoes tested positive for chemicals that are known to be used in explosives." The types of things that use chemicals associated with explosives are toothpaste, hand lotion, shaving cream, powder from fireworks and a number of other chemicals.

Then they told me, "We're going to pat you down, would you prefer to have this done in a private area?" What am I supposed to say to this, "Yes, I would prefer you take me away from the public so you could screen me and violate my rights a little more." I wanted to say that, but since I wanted to get home to my wife and kids, I kept my mouth shut.

They went forward with their pat down, and I thought about make a smart ass remark about not going to dinner first with the guy who did the pat down, but I thought better of it.

I looked at the people going through security as I was going through my pat down, some of them had "The look of fear" in their eyes, which made me feel like shit.

I didn't think anything about the screening process at the airports, it was just another hassle at the airport, that changed in Santa Rosa this past weekend. I'd never felt humiliated in public before, this was the first time.

We see our privacy rights stripped from us, and now we know how heavy handed the government has been with the Snowden leaks.

I don't know why I was pulled out of line for the test, it didn't seem random to me. How random, do they "flip a coin", play "Eany, meany, miny, mo." What do they use as a measurement for their randomness.

I didn't like being treated that way, and I especially didn't like the looks I received from my fellow passengers while I was being held for my pat down.

I've never felt like my rights as a U.S. citizen had been violated before this instance. Now I believe every time we're pulled out of line, every time we don't say anything about what we now know the government is doing for the sake of "Security" is a violation of the U.S. Constitution.

Someone recently told me that if we stop one more 9/11 with these security checks and the things the NSA is doing they're fine with it. Really? You're okay with giving up the rights of 350,000,000+ people to save 3,000?

It sounds like a bad trade off to me, but what do I know? I'm just a white boy writer from Wyoming.

The only thing this had to do with Neil Gaiman is the signing. I wrote this, Neil is his own person and has his own opinions, I'm not sure of his stance on this, and thus this has nothing to do with him.

The Marching Bureaucracy

Marching as they're charging and letting the lives be changed.
Adjusted, falsified, rancid and resting.
Ignorance and indifference are the new thug life.
Who cares about the world, let the fucker burn.
The soiled and rotten run through the jungles of bureaucracy bringing their guns, money and false hopes of the poor with them.
What are the dreams, hopes and cares but another lie they say is within reach.
Ignore what you're told. Find your own truth. 

America and the Elephant

When I was growing up in the 80's I remember hearing that Russia was evil and that America was better than "Them".

Now it's 2013 and are we any better than them now?

There's the story of the elephant, who when he's young he's tied to a stake and as he grows older--and stronger--he doesn't break the stake because he learned as a young elephant that he couldn't break it and gave up trying.

America is the elephant tied to the stake.

We see things going on around the world, we've watched the fall of Libya and Egypt. The riots in Brazil and Turkey. The civil war in Syria.

But even when we're told that our government is doing things that go against the constitution and everything we're told our government is, we ignore them because we feel safe in our ignorance.

We don't want to rock the boat. We're afraid to do something about the PATRIOT Act, or stand up for poor people who are being screwed by the government on a daily basis.

Why are we afraid?

We're the Elephant tied to the stake.

We believe we'll never break the chain of what happens in our society because our government is too big, too strong and we'll never beat them.

We're too comfortable in our lives to let the anything disrupt it. We love our iPhones, our Xboxs, our junk that doesn't mean anything if we sacrifice who we are for the sake of owning things that don't do anything for us but collect dust after we're gone.

If we'd follow what other countries are doing we'd have a government that listened to us, but we're the Elephant tied to the stake.

Things Haven't Changed That Much...

This week we've seen the darkest of human nature. The creature that lies inside each of us has come to roost in those who conceived and carried out the acts in Boston.  The people who did these acts have not come forward and may never do so, but the people of Boston will remember the day it happened and they've come together as Americans often do in tragedy.

What has journalism become but a shoddy mix of jumping the gun and posting things that are fabrications and lies of the sort that in other countries would be punishable by death, but we don't do that in the States, because it's not who we are. We point, laugh and other journalists point and ridicule them.

Someone said that the world is more violent than it was when they were younger, I disagree. I believe it's just as violent, we just don't have the filters we used to have.

We see the things on the TV, our smartphones and internet and it comes instantly. The explosion of the plant in Texas is a perfect example. The man who took the video that is making its rounds around the internet was posted shortly after the explosion, but things are more violent now?

I remember watching the Berlin wall come down, the aftermath of Oklahoma City, Reagan giving his speech in front of Brandenburg Gate and the time Gorbachev was held hostage by his own party.

These moments are no different than the ones we see now, they're just diluted by the passage of time.

We get information faster than we have in the past. The destruction is the same, but we're getting it a faster rate than we would have twenty years ago.

Without the advance of technology we'd still be waiting to hear about these things. I'm glad I've seen the things that have happened in Boston, not because it's a tragedy, but because it reminds me of the will of evil men to do unspeakable acts in the name of what they think is right.

Americans have dealt with evil men before and evil acts, but just as we have before our spirit and our will to push on and push through to another day and to stand in front of the sun on another day, another year makes us who we are and what we believe we stand for.

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.

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.