A Variety of Thoughts About Everything

In the very beginning of the United States while the nation was still trying to figure out what it really was, the Government was a very loose Confederation in which every state was an Independent Nation in Confederation with the other states, there was a big argument going on about the media. In those days Newspapers and Printing houses putting out Pamphlets. They were trying to figure out how much freedom to allow the Press and people who wrote Pamphlets. For example, Tom Paine's Common Sense and American Crisis, written during the Revolution, and The Rights of Man, written about the French Revolution, were all considered Pamphlets. They recognized that a Free Press could be very damaging, yet it could also be vital to Freedom. As that argument went on Thomas Jefferson said, in 1787, probably during the Constitutional Convention, that "were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitat...

 In 2022 I was working a fairly decent job. It paid well and had benefits. It had it's low points as well. It was a pretty standard American Job except good pay and decent bennies And one day, driving home after work, something really weird happened with my car. The rear end did some really funny things. Fortunately I was on a secondary road and not going very fast. I got out and looked and could not figure out what was going on. Fortunately I was only a few miles from my house and was just coming into town. So I threw on my hazards and taking it slowly drove back to my house. I put the back end into the air and looked and I could see that a very important piece of rear end stabilization had literally torn. Inch thick metal had corroded enough, New England after all, that the metal had deteriorated enough to tear in half. I looked it up and fixing that would have cost more than the vehicle was worth. And I did not have that much cash readily available. Ugh... So, I went and bought ...

 In 1977 I was 14 years old. I had heard about this Science Fiction movie that had come out called Star Wars. Was tangentially interested. I was a reader of Science Fiction and snobbishly felt that a Book would always be superior to a movie. In the middle of the summer I was sent up to Canada to my once yearly month long visit with my Father. I did not usually enjoy those visits. My father worked as a Taxi driver in Mississauga ON, a suburb of Toronto, and lived in Oakville, just over the border from Mississauga, in the middle of farm country. To get anywhere that had anything going on was money and a long bus ride. Bus and subway if going into Toronto. So, very boring. After I had been there a couple days my father came back to the house in the late morning and asked me what I wanted to do for the day. So I said something like I guess I'll go see that Star Wars movie. He handed me just enough to go see the movie and then catch a bus back to the corner of Winston Churchill Blvd and...

 Lately there has been a lot of talk about the failures of Government. Some are public debates written in various different forms and/or broadcast in a variety of contexts. And I have participated in this. I have written about this and talked with a variety of people. So, before I begin this little exposition, let us go to dictionary.com and see what the recognized definition is. And then we shall begin: Government : noun 1) the political direction and control exercised over the actions of the members, citizens, or inhabitants of communities, societies, and states; direction of the affairs of a state, community, etc.; political administration. Government is necessary to the existence of civilized society. 2) the form or system of rule by which a state, community, etc., is governed. monarchical government; episcopal government. 3) the governing body of persons in a state, community, etc.; administration. 4) a branch or service of the supreme authority of a state or nation, taken as ...

 From the very beginning of writing this blog, March 26th 2023, my how time has flown, I have invited people to partake in discussion on this platform on the things that I write. I would really like you to tell me what you agree with, disagree with, are indifferent to, etc. Let us have an adult discussion about this. And, every once in a great while, someone will put a very short and anonymous blurb at the bottom. Usually a yay you type of thing. And every once in a while a thoughtful, and very gratefully received by me, anonymous little piece about something in what I wrote and how it landed for them. And I write a reply. And that is the end of it. And being anonymous I cannot get in touch in any other way to ask more about it. So why the title you ask? Well here is my answer. I was thinking about this last night and it came to me that we, as a society, have been so conditioned by all the different forms of media to just passively take things in. We have become so used to being pl...

 As anyone who knows me or has been reading this blog for a while knows I am an addict in recovery. I have been clean in Narcotics Anonymous for a little over 28 years. I am NOT any type of spokesperson for NA or any other way of recovery. I am now, and forever, only speaking for myself. It is my thoughts, experience, and opinions that I speak, write, or in any other way share. Having said all of that I think that I have a voice, a voice that is completely missing from this topic, in what is going on in drug policy, and especially the so called "War On Drugs", in the country and world. A little bit of a back story. I grew up in a small town in New England that was, quite literally, the back end of nowhere. And in this town growing up, mostly in the 1970's, you could get pretty much any drug you wanted. Same as in the big cities. It might be stomped on a little harder, and there might be "supply chain issues", IE a dealer busted, that might temporarily cause a sh...