The intent of this blog is to promote human equality, human progress, human peace and justice, and optimism. To accomplish this, to encourage the discussion of ideas after identifying and discovering problems, and then creating positive solutions for "we the people," in order to provide for the "general welfare" and "domestic tranquility" of America now and its "posterity" into the future. To encourage an emphasis on separation of religion and state for all, no matter if this is for those "of faith" in a Maker / Creator (Deists, God-loving people, Christians, various people of spirituality) and atheists or agnostics.

Archive for the ‘Reviews’ Category

Review of CBS News Report: Social Media Used to Embolden Kids to Vandalize and Attack Teachers: Sounds like a Bunch of Uncivilized and Ruthless Bolsheviks or Hitlerites

The National Education Association, for which I am a member (with AFT) is encouraging “social media”” to regulate what is published. The excuse given by Tik Tok is bizarre. Having worked with the Internet as a pioneer in the age of infancy of the Internet (even DARPANET), I can say that Tik Tok’s excuse is a flimsy one, at best.
We used moderators for anything published in forums and what not and we had no difficulties. Just as articles or letters to editors are submitted to editors who review for accuracy before publishing, a moderator on a forum (forerunner to blogs) moderates by reviewing for accuracy before publishing. It takes time and yes, we need to employ more people to do it. What a shame, right? Employ human beings rather than using computers and robots?
Those days were also the days when the Fairness Doctrine in media still existed. Republicans like Reagan and Bush tore down that doctrine which was established in a bipartisan agreement following World War II and gave us a more civilized nation rather than one with the mentally ill encouraging and emboldening young people to do acts of vandalism and assault. Hatred of fellow human beings was not allowed, especially when it is based on rumors, false conspiracy theories, and other false information. Once the Fairness Doctrine was destroyed, talk radio of hatred and false information sprang up, particularly that of Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck. Then we ended up with “social media” and no controls over it. If someone tries to control it, then the mentally ill who propagate the hatred proclaim such regulations go against “free speech,” liberties, and is a form of censorship. I argue that it is NOT any one of these things because regulation and moderation of such information means the stories are not banned, but are evaluated for accuracy and, if there is partial truth, then the stories are so notated. That takes time and pushes the mentally ill who want instant gratification, like little brats in a sandbox kicking sand at one another – little bratty kid attitudes – upset. They should be upset when someone tries to kick their buttes and stop them from being little children, grow up and mature and become the adults ina civilized world.
CBS News needs to include this aspect for which I am discussing here. But CBS and other media outlets do not do this. Shame on them all. Rather than call this junk in Facebook, Twitter, Tik Tok, or other sources “social media,” let us call it what it is. “Social technology.” “Social online portal.” “Social online platform.” It is NOT news and information and shame on the media for not pointing this out. What kind of fear do they have? Losing money? If so, shame on such a media where LOVE OF MONEY predominates. Love os money is evil.

My thanks to those of NEA who were given a chance to speak up on the CBS report this morning. So many of us are not given that opportunity and that is sad, too.

To establish power in Russia, by the Bolsheviks, they used hate speech and propaganda (false news) to accomplish the goals of vulgar and vicious people. To establish the Hitler Youth in Germany, there was the use of lies of propaganda for vulgar, vicious, and uncivilized and barbarian attacks on other people. Let us stop this in America and stop it now. Don’t “appease” the other side by going along with their crap about “censorship.” Civilized society needs to moderate the barbarism and stop it. That is NOT censorship, so stop it, and stop it NOW. it is important for America and important for keeping civilization civilized.

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Commentary, Television & Radio Reviews

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Commentary on Recent Dr. Oz Show

​It is sad, but i cannot obtain an email address to write directly to Dr. Oz. Either Tweet him or use an online form. I refuse to do either, so I write to the overall media. Don’t get me wrong. I like Dr. Oz. I just don’t like Twitter which is called part of a “social media.” It is NOT media, so I write to the media. Twitter, Facebook and others are social technology or social portals or social platforms. They are NOT media. But of course, who listens to my perspective on this topic. I was only involved in the early days of the development of the Internet in the DARPANet project. But not as involved as Tim Berners-Lee or Vannevar Bush or… So I am just chopped liver and a stupid idiot, right? 

However, I feel compelled to comment about a recent episode of Dr. Oz. It was about the guy in South Carolina whom, it is believed, had people murdered and then arranged an attempt to have himself murdered. A bizarre and perverted tale, for sure. Just proves the irrationality of so much of America today, the land I grew up loving, due to people in the Binghamton, NY, area like George F. Johnson and Thomas J. Watson, plus others. Shame on me for being inspired by such people who actually provided healthcare and other benefits for their employees. That is another topic for another day.
Dr. Oz went into the increase of murder in the USA today. How sad, for sure. He said there is evidence there are too many who are “getting away with murder.” That, too, is sad and sounds like the bizarre sheiks of Saudi Arabia, the Taliban, and Putin of Russia, among others in the world. Oh, that’s right. Obama and Biden administration made certain that Bin Laden DID NOT get away with the mass murders he committed while Bush with his (and his father’s) personal vendetta against a leader hated by the Saudis and the Taliban (Hussein) was brought down and attention drawn away from what was necessary to do to track down Bin Laden. Yet, the freaking media goes after Biden in the past few months regarding Afghanistan, after nothing was accomplished there by Bush. In effect, I can say, Bush, too, gets away with murder. (Meanwhile, today, the dismal and wimpy Democrats are being laughed at by freaking lousy people like Rick Scott who got away with stealing money at a hospital in Florida. People there KNOW what happened, but Rick Scott pleads the “fifth” and gets away with it with the help of stupid freaking lawyers in America).
What I also need to add to this Dr. Oz discussion is historical information. According to a documentary on the History Channel, the one with the large signature on our Declaration of Independence got away with murder. It is a hidden thing. Yet, we talk about our “john hancock” signature like it is a wonderful patriotic thing. I contest such vile things and wish America would come to its senses. So hearing Dr. Oz describe those who, today, “get away with murder,” is appalling, to say the least.

I wish to sing a song, “Where have all the lawyers gone?” Because they spend their money on commercials about their lousy jobs with personal injury lawsuits and workman’s comp and allow things like murder to pass us by. In this respect, lawyers are negligent in not doing the jobs they SHOULD be doing. Protecting Americans against murder and mayhem. They take money from our government by filing frivolous lawsuits and refuse to seek tort reform, as what exists in Britain. It was a British agent trying to stop John Hancock from illegal importation of rum from the Caribbean who got murdered and then we had a war in the name of John Hancock. Makes me ill to think about this. And the lawyer who ended up helping John Hancock and his friend, Sam Adams? John Adams, the 2nd president of the USA. It is a disgusting thought, to say the least. But this was not discussed on the Dr. Oz Show and perhaps it needs to be discussed.
Don’t get me wrong. We were dealing with a mentally ill jerk named King George of Britain. He was like Trump in his mental illness. George had no sense of what it takes to be a king, let alone a good leader. The democratic process in the British parliament actually attempted to put down George and curtail some of the taxes for which the American colonists objected. But no. The mentally ill king prevailed and we had a civil war. We call it the American Revolution, but in effect, it was a civil war because America was then part of the British Empire.

I know. I speak as if this is not the “norm,” so how stupid I am, right? We don’t want the words of Mister Doug published, so let us rip him apart in every way possible and never take into consideration something Mister Doug says which goes against the norm. Mister Doug may speak with metaphors and parables. But Mister Doug is just plain stupid. Wait! Was there not someone else in history who spoke in metaphors and parables? Got milk anyone?
Thank you, Dr. Oz, for the information, not conspiracy theories like that of a Mark Levin and others, which seem to predominate the lousy brain cells of so many people and with no evidence at all in something we call “social media.” It’s not social media. It is social portals or social platforms and part of social technology. Just the facts, ma’am, just the facts. That is media. Where art thou, media?
—

Professor Douglas Willet Cornwell (Retired)

Newark Valley, NY

bibsinger@gmail.com

———————————“Love your neighbor as yourself.” “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” “The problems of the world are not that some people love in a different way. The problems are that so many people don’t know how to love at all (CGA, 1970).” A Puritan is someone in fear that someone, somewhere, is having a good time. “Liberty and justice for all [not priorities on individual and selfish rights].” “Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”  “We the people, in order to form a more perfect union [and overall wealth of American society]…” 
​Benjamin Franklin: “​Justice will not be served until those who are unaffected are as outraged as those who are ​affected.” Stacey Abrams: “Compromise about actions, but not about values.”  Oscar Wilde: “​​​I have the simplest tastes. I am always satisfied with the best.”  Oscar Wilde: “Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.” Benjamin Franklin: “Early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.”  Whoopi Goldberg: “To handle this COVID-19 pandemic effectively, we all need to get on the same page.”  Note: To be clear, I do not like being patronized. I do not express my disdain over what happens to my fellow humans just for my own sake and to pursue favors and handouts. I do it in order to gain R – E – S – P – E – C – T for me and for millions of other Americans of any race, ethnicity, religious belief, or sex and sexual identity who try to walk in integrity as they attempt to achieve, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.  PERIOD.  One nation under God [our Creator] with liberty and justice for all.

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Book Review by Paul Krugman RE: Fight over How Extensive Free Markets Should Be

Paul Krugman was right on the mark with his book review of Nicholas Wapshott’s Samuelson Friedman: The Battle Over the Free Market (3 Aug. 2021).

As a historian, not an economist, I take a look at this free market idea through the lens of a historian. Paul Krugman, the economist and his ideas from the perspective of an economist agree with what I have been writing for so long.

As expected, Krugman delves into the ideas for free markets which were pushed by Friedman and opposed by Samuelson. He also identifies Reagan and Greenspan as perpetrators. I so agree with that. I would also ad the queen of “virtues of selfishness,” Ayn Rand, as well. The net result of what Reagan and his goons did in the 1980s has been monopolized business by big corporate giants who resemble Goliath in the Bible and work to destroy capitalist competition, on the notion that this is a prime example of “free markets.” In fact, destruction of competition is annoying as it destroys the ideas of regulated capitalism which is designed to help both supply AND demand. Reagan’s notions of “deregulation” have resulted, besides promoting a “trickle-down” philosophy, is “reregulation” done by the corrupt practices of privatized huge corporate conglomerates. We might think we the people have no voice, but with privatization by the supply-side big fat cats.  Business in the hands of the big fat cat supply-siders, similar to plantation-style, manorial, and feudal economics of the Medieval period is more atrocious because it can more easily shut down the voice of the people than can be done with government (especially when there is more predominance of the existence of government controlled by the big fat cats, as a result of a dim-witted U.S. Supreme Court (SCOTUS) decision with a propaganda-style title of “Citizens United” and its hidden agenda).

Case in point. Privatized forms of government called homeowners’ associations which are given more teeth to do injustice to people by the Republican one-party state in Florida. The HOAs of Florida have come to be known as the “condo commandos.” However, the HOAs have spread more widely than just condos, as yours truly had to pay a HOA fee when he owned a single-family home, not a condo. The HOA played the role of the local nearby government where I also owned a home. They would inspect lawns, as the local government did, and cite us if it was not cut correctly. Both village and HOA did the same thing (there was no HOA in the village). Big, big difference. The annual HOA fees were far higher than those of the village and we had no recourse to go to a village board meeting and express disdain over the regulatory practice of inspecting lawns. Compared to a local village in upstate New York, the HOA fees were three times higher than this village and its taxes.  The village shed itself of a police unit, so it became more like a HOA, but at much less the cost of a HOA. Yet, people here complain about the tax of this village. Be careful for what you wish for.
My point being that privatized supply-side businesses are vicious, malicious, and bullying. They are the ruination of local business and local control. Case in point also about the privatized hospitals created by a man who sits in the U.S. Senate: Rick Scott. With an overall consideration, even hospitals still run by religious organizations are far better at dealing with the demand-side – the patients (consumers) – than privatized hospitals and nursing homes. I have plenty more personal experience examples I can share. Certainly, there are plenty of facts and statistics to validate my experiences.
The historical examples are about the “norms” established by the aristocratic wealth and royalty when Adam Smith drew up his ideas of capitalism which were meant to challenge the supply-side economics of feudal economies run by aristocrats. I am able to prove that the aristocrats were one step ahead of Adam Smith. They embraced the “new” idea of capitalism in the late 1700s and early 1800s, as if it was their own baby for which they gave birth. When Marx went to England to generate interest in the common folks of the demand side of the market, he blamed capitalism because the supply-side aristocrats were the ones coining the phrase of capitalism for themselves. America had plantations in the South and the North thought it was better with its “industrial revolution” consisting of crap like sweatshops and so forth. Those sweatshops may have paid workers earnings, it was dismally small and not a living wage, while the big fat cats became just as wealthy as the plantation owners of Dixie. They were better in not putting African slaves in chains, but were they really any better, just because they did NOT enslave people, as they used immigrants in the sweatshops?

In the 20th Century, Gov. Teddy Roosevelt of New York State began to intercede for workers. From child labor laws to many other laws, Gov. T. Roosevelt, worked with people. Gov. T. Roosevelt also became known as the “trust buster” as he busted the organized syndicates with Boss Tweed and other sources which, with their corrupt practices, controlled the supply-side economics as well as government.  America became great due to the trust buster, unions, pooled finances in retirement systems which were really designed to be capitalist returns on investments. Same thing with the “health savings account” we call Medicare, where there was an intent to have a return on investment.  The original intent for these resources was not to have lousy corrupt representatives propagandize false ideas that such resources were “taxes” and then steal such money for other purposes. They stole from such funds for projects “back home,” in order to keep their constituents happy and then get re-elected in the process. Using propaganda, such corrupt politicians and lawyers destroyed the ideas of long-term capitalist investments into short-term, “I want it now” instant gratification ideas. With the older ones dying off and the younger ones not worried about long-term investments, those corrupt people in a representative democracy convinced people to do the things most beneficial to the wealthy fat cats at the top. Shall I go into actual examples of what I am talking about?
Krugman expressed his ideas in terms of economics and academia. His explanation is very good. But someone needs to address this to those who do not follow the details of economics.  Meanwhile stupid people like Mark Levin and others from Fox, rely on not presenting facts, but only emotions. The best seller lists contain books by such people which are false. And yes, I challenge Mr. Levin as a dumb jerk with his emotionalism being the sole means of capturing the hearts and minds of people. I don’t challenge Mr. Krugman, but wish someone could put what he says in the words more conducive to the “lay person.” It would really help cut down on the chaos and contention of pitting American against American. Let us shed the damn emotionalism and traditionalism which pervades the land and get back to rationality and common sense.

—

Professor Douglas Willet Cornwell (Retired)

Newark Valley, NY

bibsinger@gmail.com

———————————“Love your neighbor as yourself.” “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” “The problems of the world are not that some people love in a different way. The problems are that so many people don’t know how to love at all (CGA, 1970).” A Puritan is someone in fear that someone, somewhere, is having a good time. “Liberty and justice for all [not priorities on individual and selfish rights].” “Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”  “We the people, in order to form a more perfect union [and overall wealth of American society]…” 
Benjamin Franklin: “Justice will not be served until those who are unaffected are as outraged as those who are affected.” Stacey Abrams: “Compromise about actions, but not about values.”  Oscar Wilde: “I have the simplest tastes. I am always satisfied with the best.”  Oscar Wilde: “Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.” Benjamin Franklin: “Early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.”  Whoopi Goldberg: “To handle this COVID-19 pandemic effectively, we all need to get on the same page.”  Note: To be clear, I do not like being patronized. I do not express my disdain over what happens to my fellow humans just for my own sake and to pursue favors and handouts. I do it in order to gain R – E – S – P – E – C – T for me and for millions of other Americans of any race, ethnicity, religious belief, or sex and sexual identity who try to walk in integrity as they attempt to achieve, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.  PERIOD.  One nation under God [our Creator] with liberty and justice for all.

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Book Reviews, Commentary, Economics, Regulated Capitalism, Commerce

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Additional Comments About Ross Douthat and “Odd Juncture on Race”

Correction: Adam Serwer is a staff writer for The Atlantic.

My additional comments about Ross Douthat’s op-ed, “Odd Juncture on Race,” (title is headline as it appeared in the (Scranton, PA) Times-Tribune) are blunt and to the point.

Mr. Douthat attacks the 1619 project, plus many other very positive and good things about America and its multi-cultural history. My families arrived on the shores of what became the USA, the nation for which I have loved because of the resulting melting pot and multi-cultural society we have, in 1638. I love such a nation and do not like it when people like Douthat believe they are doing America a service by being negative about attempts to fix systemic racism. Systemic racism does exist in America, ladies and gentlemen.

My Cornwell / Cornell family arrived in the Boston Colony from Saffron Walden (County Essex), England. It is figured they arrived here on a boat during the Great Migration in 1638. Mr. Douthat attacked changes in education because of the teaching about the firsts Africans arrival in 1619, prior to my own family’s arrival. My Albro family and various other ancestors arrived in New England about the same period of the Great Migration, perhaps earlier than my Cornwells and perhaps earlier than the first Africans in Virginia. I really don’t care about the time frame because I had a few others who “coming to America” was in the 19th Century.

My progenitor, Thomas Cornell, arrived with his family in 1638. Thomas Cornell, Jr., has the line in which Stephen Cornell was derived. Follow this line to the 19th Century and we have the line consisting of Ezra Cornell, one of the founders of Cornell University and Western Union.

On the other hand, my Cornwells descend from a brother to Thomas, Jr., (Richard Cornwell) who had departed for Flushing at the time the Dutch were in control in the jurisdiction now known as New York City. Ezra Cornell was one of the first Republicans and a TRUE Republican. Ezra Cornell was an abolitionist in Upstate New York.

Early in the time sequence of the history of Cornell University, during the time of Jim Crow in the South, it had an integrated population of students, which included Simon Haley, the father of Alex Haley. On the opposite side of Ithaca, from Cornell University, was Ithaca Conservatory of Music, now Ithaca College. This was where Alex Haley’s mother, Bertha Palmer Haley graduated in 1925 (according to the footnotes in Haley’s book, Roots). This was the same year my grandmother graduated from Ithaca Conservatory of Music. Within two or so years following my grandmother’s graduation, she gave birth to her first son, my uncle. Alex Haley, too, was born about that same time. My grandmother’s line is an English line which came to New England and then to New Jersey and Philadelphia in the early 1600s as well. One who watched the mini-series, Roots, would know that Bertha Palmer Haley descended from Kunta Kinte, an African slave forced to these shores on a boat with squalid and horrific conditions.

Yet, Mr. Douthat apparently believes my grandmother was better than Simon and Bertha Haley. With Douthat’s foolish account, we are led, falsely, to the true account the history applicable to the Haleys should not be shared in the public schools. To which I say, Mr. Douthat is nothing but a fool for saying this. As a college student of the 1970s, in upstate New York, we were assigned portions of Haley’s book to read, as it was published in sections in The Reader’s Digest. In high school in upstate New York, we had units we could choose in black literature. All of this was a great learning experience and no foolish cruel Republicans or Douthat should be smearing such education. I resent such fools doing this. And, a further note. The Haley book was given to me as a birthday present when it was published. The note in the front was a teaser written by the person giving me the present, stating, “bet in a year you will not have completely read this book.” Wrong. In just a month or two, I read that book and I have continued to read that book many times over.

I have heard white genealogists condemn Haley for errors in the book. It is a piece of historical fiction. It is very clear with the documentation Mr. Haley provided at the end of the book that there are records used to support the information in the book. Historical fiction, though, can be based on true facts, but the fiction part of it indicates there may be fiction to fill the voids in the historical evidence. A white man like Bernard Cornwell writes historical fiction and he does the same thing.

Yet, the 1901 author, Rev. John Cornell, of supposed non-fiction, the genealogy of the Cornell family, has many errors in the genealogy and unsubstantiated facts. One such error is the claim that Thomas Cornell accompanied Roger Williams in seeking the charter for Rhode Island before the British Parliament. Genealogical researchers about a decade ago, determined they were not able to find anything to substantiate the fact that Thomas Cornell was on that boat. A piece of historical fiction, but not identified as “historical fiction” and written by a white man of the clergy class in America. It was a nice feeling to have, thinking my ancestor was one who helped obtain the charter for Rhode Island, but it is fake news and there are those who are able to validate it as such.

Douthat is foolish in defending those who are actually with a complex of white superiority and proclaiming, “there is no systemic racism.” They all are liars who entice other white idiots who feel insecure. Perhaps Douthat needs to read what New York Times staff writer and author of a forthcoming book titled, The Cruelty is the Point: The Past, Present, and Future of Trump’s America, Adam Serwer, says in the New York Times op-ed, “The Cruel Logic of the G.O.P.” It is no surprise that I feel as if I am the focus of Trumpicans who can behind the scenes cause trouble on my computer and cell phones because I speak out against the Trumpicans. Yet, people who follow the line of Democrats at times (plus I follow the line of logical and intelligent, reasonable Republicans who don’t follow Trump – yes, they do exist, but they are in hiding, out of fear and are being “disenfranchised, according to Serwer) and believe in the true multi-cultural history of America, noticing that Thanksgiving is more than what is described in New England, but also about Spanish-speaking people of St. Augustine, FL, of the late 1500s, and a Thanksgiving with pork, not turkey.

The title of Douthat’s op-ed is: “Odd Juncture on Race” (headline used by the (Scranton, PA) Times-Tribune. The one who is odd is Douthat and any followers of him who have white skin and are insecure out of fear that their culture might be changed, due to the skin color of Americans in the wonderful melting pot we have. The people of this melting pot have also helped settle and build this wonderful nation of ours beginning in the late 16th Century and continuing to today. We need to give all people of any race, color, creed, ethnicity, sex, or sexual identity credit for this. Changing history to reflect this part of our history more accurately and effectively will do the job.

This nation is not great because of white people who control the nation with a dictatorial iron fist over the others using vigilante groups with Jim Crow lynching and the shooting of black slaves (justified by the 2nd Amendment). This nation is not great due to a dictatorial iron fist of control and shutting up those of us who are white who find life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness in such a melting pot of a nation.

In spite of white Republicans who may have ruined our finances and our happiness about living in this nation, we move on. It just happens that I am blessed because when a white Republican I name as “Rick the Prick” Scott devastated my finances in a dictatorial way and against the will of the voters – the PEOPLE – of Florida, I suffered due to it. I had to pick myself up by my bootstraps and move on. The incident does leave a sour taste in my mouth when we should have leaders and politicians who try to gain support with honey, not lemons and “cruel logic” with lies (referring to the Serwer op-ed, titled, “The Cruel Logic of the G.O.P.”). The honey, too, can be better for all, rather than feeding people sour crap after the Republican-supported white fat pigs at the top trickle down what they think is necessary for us to survive. Perhaps I should be positive and say, at least it’s sour lemons which trickle down, right? But is that not exactly the way these fat white pigs want us all to feel?

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BOOK REVIEW: Bright-sided by Barbara Ehrenreich (v. 2.0)

As a benchmark to what I am about to write, I am offering the review of Barbara Ehrenreich’s 2009 book, Bright-sided, as a starting point. I have not read this book, so I am going by the review. I should read it, but lack of funds and a library system which makes it hard to get a copy of a book precludes me from obtaining a copy, sad to say. This also is commentary to contest another Ehrenreich book (2010), Smile or Die: How Positive Thinking Fooled America and the World. If you take the time to read my commentary, you will find that I contest Ehrenreich’s use of a predominance of a perverted version of positive thinking which borders on perverted optimism and in denial of the truth about positive thinking. Her words help to destroy what positive thinking is intended to be. Read on.

Also, I have been attempting to contact WordPress.com to learn how to do several things. One is to indent a quote like this. I have spent minutes and minutes on attempting to do this on this blog and have still not been able to learn it. Thanks so much to WordPress.com for helping out. Thanks so much for other blog services for (not) answering my questions about how I can convert my blog to another blog service. Thanks (not) so much to the monopolized business of America, run by billionaires who don’t pay taxes, while I do pay taxes.

Here is the review of Bright-sided on Amazon.com:

“A sharp-witted knockdown of America’s love affair with positive thinking and an urgent call for a new commitment to realism

Americans are a “positive” people―cheerful, optimistic, and upbeat: this is our reputation as well as our self-image. But more than a temperament, being positive, we are told, is the key to success and prosperity.
In this utterly original take on the American frame of mind, Barbara Ehrenreich traces the strange career of our sunny outlook from its origins as a marginal nineteenth-century healing technique to its enshrinement as a dominant, almost mandatory, cultural attitude. Evangelical mega-churches preach the good news that you only have to want something to get it, because God wants to “prosper” you. The medical profession prescribes positive thinking for its presumed health benefits. Academia has made room for new departments of “positive psychology” and the “science of happiness.” Nowhere, though, has bright-siding taken firmer root than within the business community, where, as Ehrenreich shows, the refusal even to consider negative outcomes―like mortgage defaults―contributed directly to the current economic crisis.

With the mythbusting powers for which she is acclaimed, Ehrenreich exposes the downside of America’s penchant for positive thinking: On a personal level, it leads to self-blame and a morbid preoccupation with stamping out “negative” thoughts. On a national level, it’s brought us an era of irrational optimism resulting in disaster. This is Ehrenreich at her provocative best―poking holes in conventional wisdom and faux science, and ending with a call for existential clarity and courage.”

From my perspective, after reading and spending a great deal of my life learning about Rev. Dr. Norman Vincent Peale’s books about positive thinking, Ehrenreich describes a perversion of positive thinking which is just as perverted as the view about what capitalism is supposed to be about, as defined by Adam Smith (who also wrote, The Theory of Moral Sentiment). Whether education, psychology or business, people have grabbed at the ideas of positive thinking and used them to maintain their status quo about life. Typically, if I hear someone comment about positive thinking, I usually say, “you are talking about wishful thinking, not positive thinking. Go read Dr. Peale’s books.” In other words, people are writing about positive thinking (and capitalism, too) from their own individualistic eyes in order to massage their egos. Mary Trump, niece to Donald Trump does the same thing and from her perspective in psychology. She and the others are wrong in this sense and I believe I have a better knowledge of what positive thinking is about because I have read about the basics of those thoughts.

The reviewer mentions what I consider to be a misinterpretation of positive thinking. The review says, “…it leads to … a morbid preoccupation with stamping out ‘negative’ thoughts.” In fact, I have been criticized for trying to solve problems with a positive attitude by bringing up the problems and sounding negative by doing so. I am awe-struck at the predominance for “stamping out negative thoughts.” For Donald Trump himself, a number of times, I have tried to be positive about what he intends to do, but when I come up empty-handed and disappointed about his actions, I comment about this. For Trump, this criticism means a negative thought, not constructive criticism. Trump has acted like this over and over again, in line with this predominant attitude about putting down “negative thoughts,” wrongly associated with positive thinking. I do believe that both Dr. Peale and Dr. Schuler (Crystal Cathedral in California) have talked about constructive criticism, even if they have not used that particular phrase. People’s minds are messed up in this regard. I say this by way of constructive criticism, not negativity, but no one seems to understand what I say in this regard. Instead, we have “irrational optimism.” To me, it sounds like pessimism based on self-hatred.

My comment about the reviewer’s statement about Ehrenreich’s book regarding positive thinking: “…it leads to self-blame…”

Please read books: A Stranger to Self-hatred: A Glimpse of Jesus (Brennan Manning, 1982). Diana Butler Bass’s books, Christianity for the Rest of Us (2007), Christianity After Religion: The End of Church and the Birth of a New Spiritual Awakening (2012), and A People’s History of Christianity: The Other Side of the Story (2010). Theologian, Adam Smith’s, The Theory of Moral Sentiments (published in the 18th Century, reprinted, 2018). Father Matthew Fox’s Original Blessings (2000); I condemn the American bishops for their recent proclaimed judgments which are blasphemy when considering God does the judging, and what these bishops are dictating – DICTATING – are that all Catholics believe in only one way (as a woman I once dated forced upon others in thought); the Roman Catholics who pushed this dictatorial way which led to the the excommunication of Father Fox, the English civil war of the 17th Century, and my ancestors who came to America to escape that BS in England. Read books by Roman Catholic layperson, Gary (or Garry) Wills, What Jesus Meant (a 2007 New York Times best seller) or What Paul Meant (2007), etc. who offers a very insightful view of Christianity.

Read a recent article in The Economist about the pervasive individualism in America today (“How Many American Children Have Cut Contact with Parents?”, 22 May 2021) which, with evidence, the writer claims the problems in America are due to the individualism which inundates and pervades society, not positive thinking.

Individualism has perverted the ideas of positive thinking so as to consider “…it leads to self-blame” and destruction of confidence with self-control and self-sacrifice for community and nation. Original sin leads to guilt of one’s existence and destroys ideas of confidence for “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” Instead, we end up, to the delight of Trumpicans, evangelical puritans, and Roman Catholic bishops, to a dictatorship with a vicious person at the head who can more easily control the people, rather than educate them and provide opportunities for all. The overriding impact of considering sin and guilt to be so important leads to self-blame and self-hatred, not positive thinking.

While I agree with the reviewers identification of positive thinking as the problem, my view is that Ehrenreich and others are viewing a “perverted” interpretation of positive thinking as being the blame, and they are correct, but only in that sense. I have to disagree with this assessment because, as Karl Marx did in blaming capitalism, it takes a toll and leads to an implosion which puts us on a downward slope.

This leads us to the downward slope the ancient Chinese experienced centuries ago. It had a society with opportunities for all by way of small business and academics, but a mean and vicious mentally ill emperor created ended up creating a very two-class society consisting of the wealthy and the impoverished. Fareed Zakaria gave us red flags because this possible implosion can push America into a similar implosion to what happened with a vicious emperor in Ancient China which lasted for centuries, until Mao Tse-Tung. The best example of capitalist democracy is on an island called Taiwan, but Mao Tse-tung lovers want to take that and turn it into rotten centralized planned economy with a dictator to suppress the masses. Read about the Ancient Chinese in Fareed Zakaria’s book, The Post-American World (2nd ed., 2012). His book sounds like a “negative” title, so it should be trashed, right? So why did yours truly, with a belief in positive thinking, read it? The book reviewer sums it up this way: “This is not a book about the decline of America, but rather about the rise of everyone else.” In other words, the book becomes a teachable moment, not a negative one. When Zakaria first wrote this book he included solutions as to how to overcome “what everyone else” is doing. It was ignored as being “negative.” As a result, American life has headed even more on a slippery downhill slope.

Shall I lay judgment on the Roman Catholic bishops? They have condemned the very people who are attempting to move America off that slippery downhill slope defined by Zakaria. When President Biden attempts to head us back up the slope, there is too damn much opposition to him, rather than lending him support to lead and do it. All based on a warped view of what are “negative” thoughts and ignores the truth about what it truly represents.

“Science of happiness?” Are you kidding me? There is no such thing as the “science of happiness.” It is the “art of happiness.” Yes, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. But for people to use individualism to project their happiness in a dictatorial way on all Americans is sickening and makes me nauseous and wishing to vomit. It makes the Roman Catholic bishops to force their happiness (power and control) on everyone else and I am sickened by that, too. I believe in Christ as the ONLY representative of God on earth and refuse to listen to a bunch of strong-arming heathens with power and control, heading up the American bishops. But I am not God and I cannot judge these bishops, Trumpicans, or evangelical s**t of puritans who become disgusted because someone, somewhere, is having a good time. Jesus Christ, a “stranger to self-hatred.” Yet, Roman Catholic bishops wish to FORCE self-hatred on members of its flock.

Do I make any sense or am I being negative?

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Law Enforcement in America: CBS News Sunday Morning

Thank you, CBS News, for your report today (Sunday, June 6, 2021) about the state of policing in America. The story about the pastor in a small town not much larger than where I reside in upstate New York really helped to understand the need for improving police coverage. That pastor had become the sole police force in the town. Here in this town, the one-man police force was abandoned and essentially, “defunded,” as the law enforcement was given to the county sheriff and deputies. The one-man police force was a disaster in his attitude towards people, so that was what inspired the change to sheriff and elimination of the one-man force which was the same as in this town in the story here.

The results have been passing law enforcement to a Republican sheriff who refuses to work with the Democrats who run this state and help to reform the attitudes of law enforcement. Rather than this little village being able to fire the other guy and find someone like this pastor in Moville, they abandoned it to a force run by someone even worse. Pastor Edgar is Police Chief Rodriguez. He exemplifies what should be in law enforcement. He represents someone who is not so interested in WHAT the offender did, as to getting to the details of WHY the offender ended up doing what they did.

Police Chief Rodriguez reminds me of a retired NYPD police officer who, upon retirement, heard the call of God and trained to become a pastor. In speaking with this former NYPD police officer, much of what I heard him say some of the same things Pastor Rodriguez said in this account. Yet, some of the most adverse opposition to reforms in policing have come from interviews of NYPD union people in New York City. For shame on those men. For shame on any sheriff who resists the reform.

The final statistics in the report today was to report statistics from polls in America which indicate that slightly more than 50% of Americans are opposed to “defunding,” while only 18% support it. I am part of the percentage not reported by such a survey in being supportive of NOT defunding police if they demonstrate a strong movement to reforming to follow the ways of Pastor Edgar / Chief Rodriguez. Otherwise, if the question were asked properly in the survey, I would be part of that larger number. I would wager that, should the question be tailored about whether the support for NOT defunding would be only if the reform was enforced properly, the results in favor of this move would be far higher than the slight number above 50%. Whatever the questions were on this survey, if there was a “not sure,” I would have been part of the “not sure” crowd. Because support or not, the third choice being “not sure” is the ONLY answer I would give.

Thanks, again, CBS News, for your report this beautiful Sunday morning.

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GODDAMN WORDPRESS FOR BLOCKING ME SENDING MY BLOG MESSAGES TO MY EMAIL – WHAT IS THE INTENTION? ONE OF MOCKERY AND PATRONIZING ME?

Go to h-e-double-hockey-sticks WordPress for blocking my blog posts from being sent to my Google email. What do you bastards hope to accomplish?

I just tried sending a blog to my gmail at least two dozen times and never once did it send it. Instead, it gives me these stupid “captcha” images asking me to identify motorcycles or tractors in such tiny images that someone who is visually impaired and zooms the pictures to see them and it is difficult to view. Must be no one enforces the ADA, as we were supposed to do when I was doing websites, web pages, and wikis. Go to h-e-double-hockey-sticks, you younger generation who are the crux of this matter. OK. I apologize if I ever offended someone at a younger age who was visually impaired. Maybe you want to rub my fingers in broken glass.

Ameri3an tycoons with their autocracy, go to hell, pound salt, suck eggs, and eat shit. You are disgusting people.

I hope a dog pisses on your captcha fire hydrants and destroys them. You push me into a corner and take away my control over my own computer and blog that you make me angry. If I bury the anger than it leads to depression and you bet I won’t do that. Go to hell.

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Reply to Daily Kos / Labor Article: “Las Vegas restaurant manager shows exactly why he might be having trouble hiring workers”

My reply on Daily Kos article, “Las Vegas restaurant manager shows exactly why he might be having trouble hiring workers”:

Someone replies with, “We often seem to forget that these are localized phenomena, as is the notion of a living wage.” Agreed. This statement describes part of a complex problem. I believe minimum wage and unemployment numbers need to be set at a more local level. I must say that when one is searching for a job, they should inquire as to the rate of pay. What is the sense otherwise? With benefits being trashed and other really bad treatment of employees, what gives incentive to work? I don’t think it is the amount in an unemployment check. With that being said, I can also explain what local management in Florida did when we, in a union, tried to ask for a salary comparable with the higher cost of living. In an area in Florida, just to the north of us, the workers were getting a higher salary with a lower cost of living. If cooks find this to be happening, then I say they should go for it. But they are not lazy in doing so. As a company man in a corporation, I was loyal to the company. Then Republican lovers of money came in to take over the corporation in order to merge it with others and create a monopoly. Employees may have been loyal to the company, but these Republican jerks could have cared less about loyalty, as in the days of Thomas J. Watson at IBM and other corporations. In the case of our union in Florida, we lost employees to this other area with a lower cost of living. Also, there was a different union representing the employees there. This opens up other methods to fix the problem. Change the union or move to where the union is negotiating something better. In today’s world, if there are plenty of jobs, then capitalist supply and demand dictates the process. Or else the union which is being trashed with lower salaries than what is affordable with a higher cost of living is fortunate enough to negotiate a better price. But if the management then turns and uses denial about the cost of living (denial is a word which frequently describes many Republicans in management today), and refuse to negotiate, like McConnell in the U.S. Senate, then what can be done? A management which tries to use the cost of living overall in the southeastern United States rather than the cost of living in the Miami metropolitan area are absurd nutso people. But they dig in their heels and refuse to listen and compromise. This is why I say this is a very complex issue which requires people ON BOTH SIDES to hold to their principles, but compromise on the actions taken. Also to not be in denial about what the cost of living really is. And I have other examples. Such as a county in upstate New York where one end of the county pays a higher teacher salary than at the other end of the county, due to which union represents the group and the cost of living in each area of the county.In this case, unlike the dismal experience with a south Florida bunch of idiots in management where it ended up the area with a lower cost of living received a higher wage, in this upstate NY county, back in the 1970s, the salaries better matched the cost of living in each part of the county. This is where I say minimum wage should be determined at a more localized and/or state level. The Scandinavian countries are socialist democracies. Yet, they have no minimum wage because the cost of living is somewhat closer across the board in those nations. What if the European Union decided to impose a minimum wage across all of Europe? Do they do this? I doubt it, but correct me if I am wrong. At any rate, such an event, if true, would likely not set well in the socialist democratic nations of Scandinavia where, in Denmark, the people have been surveyed, along with all around the world, and the Danes come up as the happiest people on earth. How does that compare with a survey which combines all people in the European Union? The last survey like this one and the USA ranked down about 26th. I began this reply agreeing with the statement: ““We often seem to forget that these are localized phenomena, as is the notion of a living wage.” My experiences and observations validate this as being a rational thought.

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Short & To the Point: Face the Nation & Bernie Sanders

Kudos to Bernie Sanders when he appeared on Face the Nation today (May 23, 2021). He brought out some very interesting points about the conflict in Israel and how the right wing in Israel is helping to inspire anti-Semitism among American Jews (and Jews in other areas of the world). Not a surprise, for sure. He gave President Biden a good review about handling the situation in the Middle East, to which this listener is in full agreement. Stop the anti-Semitism, America, and wake up to what is TRULY happening among the extreme right wing. The Trumpicans are false about accusations of “extreme” left because we don’t see extremism, just a mood for progressing in this world by solving the problems of the world, not by hatred and bigotry by an idiocratic autocratic puritanical bunch of fart faces. Is this enough for short and to the point?

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Short & To the Point: CBS News Sunday Morning Report on Homelessness

Kudos to CBS News Sunday Morning and its report today about Homelessness and Housing First. The report about the Colorado mayor hiding and living among the homeless population in his area was very interesting. No surprise that he found the biggest hurdles were economic instability and not being able to pay for the high cost of housing, addictive disorders, and mental illness. His experience reminds me of the inside information I had from a person working within the Mario Cuomo administration in Albany and reporting how Cuomo went out each day for a walk. He found homeless people and talked with them. He thought most of the homeless did not want the help. In working with homeless in Florida, I find this assessment by Cuomo to be bizarre. As a professor, I tutored one veteran and watched as he really DID desire to lift himself out of the position of homelessness. I find the Cuomo assessment several decades ago to be rather bizarre. Then, perhaps it was a time with different circumstances and situations? I also wanted to add to this story from CBS News about a program at my church in Florida called Family Promise. Churches came together and provided homes for the homeless as they worked to get back on their feet. In these days when Republicans claim to follow family interests but then boo Mitt Romney off the stage. This idiocracy based on Trump is teaching a false herd mentality about what a family is by working to make it illegal for gay couples to adopt, in states like Tennessee. My denomination accepts gay people and also supports the Family Promise efforts by opening the doors to our church for homeless families to live and do the activities they need to do. There are some very good people from our church who do this. In these days of rift between the idiocracy of puritanical crap about families, would it not have been a good practice on the part of CBS News to add this part about Family First and the Christians who are true Christians and reaching out to help? Oh, that’s right. We cannot go into details because it takes too much information to be presented to people. Keep it short and to the point, don’t you know? Nevertheless, gracious thanks to CBS News for presenting this report this morning. The statistics about the success of Housing First was really eye-opening and should have been to Americans today who fight this idea to help the homeless. Kudos to Housing First and to Family Promise for the success in helping homeless people get back on their feet. Sad that in one of the wealthiest nations on earth, we have lovers of money controlling real estate and pushing the prices so high that we have such a homeless population. At one time, the frontier was open in America, so people could head to the frontier and start a new life. The veteran whom I helped at been living in a nearby public park, along with so many other homeless people in Palm Beach County, Florida, not far from Trump’s home across the intracoastal waterway. The frontier closed and that was one of the reasons FDR introduced a “New Deal.” The “New Deal” was and is rejected by the stupid idiocracy of autocratic Trumpicans who are in denial about homelessness. They are worse than the Republicans who fought FDR in the 1930s and 1940s. Paranoid idiots are the Trumpican autocratic idiots. Love of money before love of the human species is becoming a “norm” which we need to reject and toss away. It takes more than just my words to do so. The French Revolution was fought and Napoleon ended up in charge. He, too, was a criminal on the level of King George of England and Donald Trump. Neither of them got executed and King George ended up secluded at the end of his life, due to his mental illness. Napoleon ended up being tried and banished to a heavily secured island. THAT is law and order, my friends, not the law and order defined by Trumpicans or Giuliani or others in the idiocracy of wealth and love of money. Am I short and to the point enough? Too bad if I am not.

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