View From Here

Just thought I would check out my congressional district. Political ads come from many congressional candidates. I know the district borders have been redrawn from time to time, so I just thought I should check it out. This is what I learned: The computer system tells me my congressman is Casten. He is in the 6 th Illinois Congressional District. The computer goes on to tell me my actual district is #7 per my mailing address, but when queried it still gives me Casten’s name when it should be Lauren Underwood's. On the voter registration card recently received from the DuPage Election Commission, I am told my congressional district is #3. When checking the district mapping, I learned #3 is in Chicago down through the southwestern suburbs. Now, will someone tell me which district I truly belong in? I am a well-educated, interested and involved citizen who has followed government and politics for most of my life. I am now 79 years old. Believe me when I say that never has...

Memorial Day is the day set aside to appreciate, value and remember those of our citizens who have died serving our country. Our nation. Our society. Our way of life. The military men and women who gave their lives so we could live free and prosper are the focus of our attention this day. And well-remembered they should be. Imagine the sacrifice, the pain, the sorrows of their families and loved ones! Imagine the loss of their presence going forward among us. And yet, they are among us. We live open, free lives because they cared. On this Memorial Day, I would like to expand our recall of special people who gave their lives so we can live the way we wish. Let us take a look at those we have lost in the name of unfettered ownership of guns, ammunition, and right to carry. Remember the carnage in classrooms, shopping malls, nightclubs, street corners, expressways and movie theaters. Recall the lives lost in those settings. Feel the impact of that bullet as it tears into the body of the p...

23 Dead : a grandmother, 19 elementary grade students, two teachers and the gunman. That totals 23 souls extinguished from one community. The kids, the teachers, the grandmother and the gunman were all Hispanic. The shootings do not appear related to eliminating Hispanics. We may never know the motivation behind the gunman’s thinking and actions. It just doesn’t make sense to us. Not now. Maybe never. Certainly, there was logic behind the gunman’s actions. It made sense to him and so he acted. Twisted, disjointed maybe, but logical to him. For the rest of us we need to tally the cost of our inaction. How many more children, teachers and family members will die from gun violence before we require our legislators to solve this one aspect of our social order? Will our system of governance do its job? Or will we prove to be ungovernable? So far, our record is clear on this issue. Cancel Culture : we cancelled native American culture. We slaughtered hundreds of thousands Native Americ...

It took years for me to truly understand the meaning of ‘commencement’ with regard to school graduations. But understand I did and do. The end of anything is the start of something else. Being fired from a job or resigning from one, is the end of one thing – the job – but the beginning of another chapter in employment, career, exploration of life. Beginning the new thing is exciting, exhilarating and often liberating. It is also scary. What will happen? What paths will I take? And where will those paths take me? Last week one of Rocky’s grandsons, Ben, graduated from high school. He will enter the Marines in June and fly off to Camp Pendleton in California for boot camp. He has chosen his next phase of life – the military and all that includes. Where he will take it for the rest of his life only time will tell. But for now it is a solid path chosen. We wish him well! This week my granddaughter Kira, graduated from high school. In fall she will enter DePaul University in Chicago t...

As promised, we returned all the equipment to Comcast a week or so ago. We now have wi-fi from T-Mobile. This drives our computers and televisions. Exchanged a $167/mo bill for one of $50/mo. Rocky has a few streaming services but we had those before. Cost savings are real. There was an overlap month, and we haven’t received a final accounting from Comcast, so we don’t know if we owe anything more. Even if we did, it would take a month or so to save the difference. I had no trouble switching the computer to the new service. Rocky struggled a bit but a few hours later figured it out. His computer and I-pad are live and thriving. The TV portion of the project has been more problematic. At the beginning of this discussion, I remind you I am a total klutz with electronics. My granddaughter Kira had to walk me through my new phone a year or so ago. She and my son finally figured out how to change my car’s clock off of daylight savings time last Thanksgiving. Now I need their help to adj...

I have a client attempting to lessen the trauma felt by people of color. This also includes indigenous peoples. I was intensely interested in the concept of trauma by difference. Any difference. What was the trauma, how is it recognized, what do we do about it, and so on. I am different. In many ways. I’m male for one; old (79) for another; and gay for a strong third. I have felt discriminated against for my gender, my age and my sexual orientation. Certainly the orientation is the most marked of my differences, and I have been hurt many time. Does the hurt rise to the level of trauma? I think yes, but I ignored it most of my life. Now, I’m not so sure. Readers of my blog know that I am open to immigrants from all over the world. I think we are the beacon of freedom and opportunity to most immigrants. I think the reputation is well-earned, but I know that harsh rhetoric condemning immigrants, especially those with skin color different from our own, is constant in public discourse...

Go ahead. Name an ideology. Press it in your conversations, your blogging, your political Facebook comments and feedback. Keep at it. Just understand that every ideology under the sun is doing the same. It educates no one. It advances the understanding very little. Attitude drives serious people away from your message. This is not a left or right political comment. This is across the board ideology. Libertarian? Good luck on defining it so others understand what it is, where it stands, and what it will try to achieve. Far right or soft? Hard left or soft? Democrat or republican? Middle of the road, perhaps, a centrist! If so, how wide is the centrism before it enters left or right territory firmly? You see what I mean? Political discourse in our country is so fractured there is little chance for cohesion to form during an election that achieves anything of value. The fight goes on and on. Rarely pleasant, often nasty and insulting. That is why I focus on desired outcomes. Most of...

Yes, again. More deaths. Multiple shootings at one location. Schools, parks, nightclubs, churches and shopping centers. Wherever people gather, there are the targets for sick minds. Sick minds that have guns and ammo. It is not the gun’s fault. It is the fault of the user of the gun. It is the fault of a society that does not provide mental health care sufficient to avoid twisted minds and violent ends. But then, no society can possibly end all violence and twisted minds. It is the nature of society that twisted minds will be present. Against the norm, they are; so non normal they ‘see’ the social order as a place of injustice and powerlessness. The equalizer is the voice of the sufferer. The voice is magnified by guns. The rest happens in due course. We have argued over this issue for many lifetimes. The US Constitution was written in 1787. It was ratified a few years later. It took time for citizens to approve the new document. It made sense at the time, filled with compromises t...

No. The current state of the world’s politics is not about East vs West, North vs South, or any other direction. The state of the world has more to do with peace vs safety. Also, poverty vs wealth. Always has been, really. Check your history books. We tend to look back on history through a distorted lens. Human nature drives people to be ‘correct’ even when they are not. Hitler blamed the world’s condition on two things: antisemitism and a bad treaty ending the first World War. He puffed up hatred among his people so he could go to war. And the hideous happened. In so many ways bad things happened. The rest of the world felt good about the outcome of World War II. We pumped ourselves up thinking we were on the right side of history. In many ways we were on the right side of history. But not in all things. There are always the details to get right, and in victory of an awful period of war, destruction and millions of deaths, we were all ready to forget the details. To our credit, ...

Hardships passed. Relief registers. Tight muscles relax to nothing. Sleep embraces the body. Daytime nap or nightly repose, sleep is a tonic. From somnambulance to raring-to-go. On to the next challenge! Minutes pass and a hiccup appears. A snag. Oh well, the raring-to-go was short lived this time. Let’s see, computer is on; normal websites are up and ready; blogger post support in place; SCORE assignments laid out and ready to go; email is ready to read and respond. What could possibly go wrong? Well, a lot. The lights blink out; once, twice, then black for 3 minutes. Lights return. Check computer. Reboot. Check appliances; no blinking clock faces. All appears good to go. After the reboot the computer functions well, even faster. No problems on that front; just a bit of nagging worry. What was the power interruption all about? Time to visit the drug store. Drive-up is backed up. Once again someone is using the drive through as a doctor’s advice site, discusses fine points of d...

One person. Alone. Sitting at a desk, computer, book, or behind the wheel of a car. Pause for breath. Pause for a stoplight to change. Pause to think. Time to absorb what surrounds. Putting things together to understand meaning. Yes, alone we face the world. Always have. We lean on others, hope for their presence, and mention our questions and doubts. The interchange is delicate. What do you think of this, or that, or whatever? Does this help me build my own thoughts on the subject, and lead to conclusions and understandings? Yes. And no. It takes bits of these interactions to accumulate into general meaning. Using those conclusions is yet another matter. Building actions on fleeting understanding is a dare. But we do it. Inch by inch we move toward another point of equilibrium, a dot of balance. Perilous this is, but moments chance the nature of the balance, and we are off to consider yet other applications of logic. When I think of America, I think of our history of creation. T...

Afghanistan’s Taliban substitutes theology and religious rite for government. They hide their women behind head-to-toe clothing, face coverings and enforce such modesty with death by stoning, beating, raping and beheading. This is their way of respecting women, by diminishing them or killing them. Religion is everything in Afghanistan. It also belongs only to males. I do not know how such ownership differentiates among adult males and minor males. I am not sure such differentiation makes much difference given the extreme ends visited upon females. Their point is full subjugation of women. All in the name of religion. Or at least they want others to believe this. America has a similar divide. We don’t speak of it much, but it is there. Men preach religion of all sorts and wonder why so many shed beliefs and become atheists, non-church goers and hostile controllers over others. The GOP is like that.  Whether Roman Catholic, Methodist, Baptist or any of several other evangelical...

Rogue Nation Behavior : So, North Korea threatens the global community with nuclear missiles with international reach. Empty rhetoric. They have been coddled for many decades to bring them into the comity of the global community. No more. A brat child does not deserve any more largesse. North Korea, your people are starving. Your people are undereducated. Your national culture is pitifully small and embarrassing. Your economic development relies solely on international charity. And your newfound military might is built through donations from Russia and China as they play their chess game of foreign relations and sleight of hand. Only problem? The world community knows Russia and China have propped up North Korea for generations. If these players wish to truly effect change on the global stage, they simply have to work on solving worthy problems. Get serious and work for common goals the rest of us are struggling with. Then you will earn serious listening by other nations. Until then,...

This blog is a commentary on life and current events of a person of my age, as well as the aging process. I will be 79 in less than 5 weeks. The pandemic caused life changes and routine shifts. Now that things are loosening up on that front, I am finding going back to normal unsatisfactory. I want to keep meeting my SCORE clients on Zoom. I want to avoid travel to countless Panera’s and Starbuck’s. I want to avoid the wear and tear on the car as well as the expense of gas and maintenance. I want to save time taken to travel to and from face-to-face meetings. I want to retain the focus I have in Zoom meetings. The client benefits. I remain productive and efficient, so we all benefit. When the pandemic started, working over Zoom seemed very odd. Now it doesn’t. The statistics of my work with SCORE have doubled, more than doubled using the electronic supports. Why ditch those benefits with face-to-face meetings? Rocky is mostly homebound. He no longer drives. He still needs a state ...

The saying was ‘free for all’ when I was growing up. It did not refer to getting something for free, or a wild binge of giving a lot of people a lot of things. Rather, it referred to wild, exuberant behavior by a crowd of people (from 4 or more people). Such behavior witnessed a bobble of activity in which people pretty much did what they wanted to do without concern of what others thought. Grabbing for candy from a large bowl, hogging the popcorn while watching TV at home, yakking loudly on the phone in the presence of others, conversation that breaks out in groups throughout the room, then switches to other teams of talkers, you know, sort of an unorganized bedlam. Nothing bad, really, just rambunctious, good natured and fun. Well, the term today is fear for all . News stories, however innocent, contain hints of ideas that bode ill. For someone, somewhere, the bad lurks ready to pounce. A housing bubble awaits its move and outcomes. What will it be like? A major collapse of sup...

Gas prices restrict movement of people. Going to church may cost you $5 roundtrip each Sunday. Do you attend or stay home? With the worship service streamed over Facebook, why not stay home and save the gas? Would like to eat out, but that is a choice, a luxury even, and easily avoided. A sandwich will do, or a bowl of soup. So much cheaper but think of the gas money saved.   That’s how most of our mind’s work. I once had an owner of a family restaurant tell me his business would suffer if pump prices kept rising. This was years ago, but I watched his patron traffic dwindle sharply as pump prices rose. We discussed this; he said it is simple: more costly gas makes drivers feel instantly poorer. They feel obligated to balance out the rising expense by cutting out something else. Eating out is one those things easily cut from the spending habit. In 2022 gas prices are at historic highs. Yes, cars are more efficient, but still, $50 to $100 to fill the tank? Now, place that reali...

As the third branch of the federal government, the Supreme Court is the bulwark of the US Judiciary. It is the highest court in the land that has one job: ensure the US Constitution is followed by all three branches of the government: Legislative, Executive and Judicial. The legislative branch writes laws. Are they keeping with the boundaries framed by the Constitution? Lawsuits challenging such laws are adjudicated by courts at several levels. If the issue is not settled at lower courts, the suit rises as far as it needs to go before the parties are satisfied. If not satisfied, the issue comes before the Supreme Court. That is where the final test of constitutionality is settled. The executive branch implements the laws written by the legislative branch (Congress). If the executive branch takes liberties to construct administrative process that are contrary to the Constitution, lawsuits can be brought against the executive branch to stop administration of the process in question. ...

Reliable Trading Partner? Russia spent decades developing its energy industry to become a world trading partner. The result was enormous cash flows into Russia enabling her to buy what she needed on world markets. Luxuries, food stuffs, minerals and manufacturing supply chain participation. Good things happened in Russia. Entrepreneurs (arguably favored oligarchs) became multibillionaires. Household incomes grew throughout the nation fueling a rising standard of living. Russia was on the make and showing signs of international stardom. Then it all came crashing down. Putin risked it all to play his game of rebuilding the USSR now defunct 30+ years. The war against Ukraine is clearly Putin’s gamble to enlarge Russia’s landscape and borders. It is Putin’s means of threatening NATO countries by moving her borders right next door to NATO nations. The bully at work and without apology. The pushback from the global community has been swift. Economic sanctions have effectively cut off R...

Markets : Russo-Ukraine war upsets supply chains, markets and international trade balances. Prices rise on the instability. Supplier’s eye higher profits. Customers pay up or use less; or stop using the product if possible. Substitute products appear on the market to further upset markets. The shakeout of supply and demand plays out in the marketplace. All sorts of causes upset market balances. Housing. Food. Transportation. Energy. Water. You name it, unsettled circumstances unsettle markets. Price volatility remains with us until it doesn’t. Energy sources : coal, oil, gasoline, natural gas, hydroelectric dams, tidal power, wind and solar power. Thermal, too. Fossil fuels have been our go-to source of energy. That supply is finite. We have found new supplies in unlikely places and engineered extraction methods to supply the demand for energy. Still, the fossil fuel energy pollutes, alters land use and climate conditions. Finding new supplies and types of energy addresses supply iss...

Reliable Trading Partner? Russia spent decades developing its energy industry to become a world trading partner. The result was enormous cash flows into Russia enabling her to buy what she needed on world markets. Luxuries, food stuffs, minerals and manufacturing supply chain participation. Good things happened in Russia. Entrepreneurs (arguably favored oligarchs) became multibillionaires. Household incomes grew throughout the nation fueling a rising standard of living. Russia was on the make and showing signs of international stardom. Then it all came crashing down. Putin risked it all to play his game of rebuilding the USSR now defunct 30+ years. The war against Ukraine is clearly Putin’s gamble to enlarge Russia’s landscape and borders. It is Putin’s means of threatening NATO countries by moving her borders right next door to NATO nations. The bully at work and without apology. The pushback from the global community has been swift. Economic sanctions have effectively cut off R...

Questions! We have Questions! It seems unthinkable that the party of personal freedom and Red, White and Blue, is showing other colors of restricted freedom. Laws against women controlling their own bodies is once again in play. Abortion bans are appearing in Republican strongholds. Blocking free speech in Florida (Don’t Say Gay legislation) complete with hideously overplayed consequences levied against the state’s largest private employer, is in full view. Once again telling teachers how to do their job by people who have no clue on how to teach in the first place, are driving legislation in GOP led regions of the nation. I guess we are to suppose that only men know what to do with their penis without regulation. That teachers can do their job within legal restrictions only with duct tape firmly planted across their mouths. It is a wonder any children are born in this climate. It is another wonder that we even attract teachers to the profession in the first place. What will be t...

Putin warns the world to stay away from their dispute with Ukraine. Putin claims Ukraine did not do as they were told. Other nations told to stay out of the situation. Putin defines interference as anything that hampers Russia’s progress in and through Ukraine. Well now, the entire historic episode of Russia vs Ukraine is defined by Russia and no one else. According to them, they are the sole definers of the issue. Thus, if you disagree with them, you are an enemy and are in danger of violent retaliation. OK. That set’s the record straight. But does it? Seems to me Putin has backed himself into a corner. No one has attacked Russian assets on Russian soil. They have attacked Ukrainian assets on Ukrainian soil, however. They are not at war? They are not to be retaliated against. Really? That would be true only in the vocabulary of the school yard bully. The world community is coming together to help Ukraine in a David and Goliath moment. Ukraine has been boosted a bit, but their ...