Let’s Get Sensible
and STOP the World From Going Crazy
Today we started asking, “What in the world is going on, the whole world has gone crazy!” And when any of us look around, that is what we see. Everywhere, every attempt at sanity and love is being attacked by madness, insanity, and hate. It is as if the very gates of hell had been opened and the minions of darkness freed to assault us. There are Christians shooting up churches and Muslims trying to bomb mosques. Teachers are preying on students, Army reservists are shooting at police, and fathers are killing their children. Then the pretty people on the television cry and wail and bemoan the fact the ‘the people in charge do not have enough control on the rest of us and we need more laws.’
Are more laws really what we need, are more laws actually good for us or is the ‘More Laws’ idea just another construct of the privileged rich to protect themselves. To quote Pearl S. Buck, "The rich are always afraid."
What is it the rich could be afraid of? Nothing to eat? Nowhere to live? No medicine when ill? No, the very rich are afraid of the rest of us. They are afraid that we might want them to share the wealth a bit more fairly.
They can't come out and say that, though. But they can divide us and use those divisions to deflect the anger back at ourselves which further divides us.
Remember the 'Occupy Wall Street' movement that began in 2011? That was supposed be a 'people powered' movement to get the mega-financial powers to relinquish their hold on the world and treat people like humans and not tools. It had a fine start in the fall of 2011, and spread across the world.
But, before the end of 2012 Travon Martin was killed, James Holmes shot up a theater, Wade Page shot up a Sikh temple and people high on a new synthetic drug called 'Flacca' were running about naked and biting chunks out of people. They seem unrelated, but in 2012 these 'unrelated events' combined to fracture and divide all of the unity gained just a year earlier, when we, as normal, sensible people turned our attention to the real problem in this world, Wall street and the obscenely rich.
And the more obscene the wealth, the more they connive to make certain that their opposites, the desperately poor, not only have nothing, but have almost virtually no way of moving themselves out of that nothing.
And this is, finally, the basis of the problem, the disparity of educational services based on income levels. Sir Thomas Moore (Aka Saint Thomas Moore) wrote in his book, Utopia, "If you suffer your people to be ill-educated ...and then punish them for those crimes to which their first education disposed them, what else is to be concluded from this, but that you first make thieves and then you punish them?"
The rich make laws designed to punish the rest of us for not being rich. When we can't pay their 'fines' (late fees and usurious interest rates), they take away our homes and make us homeless, and then they criminalize homelessness and let buildings stand empty when they could become homes and throw good food in a dumpster and make it illegal to retrieve it.
It is time to put down the divisions and come back together and focus on the real problem: 99% of the people spend their lives struggling, while the rest seem to be blind to what struggle really is. They have their walls of wealth and bankers to manipulate the rest of us so we never get our act together and stand up for ourselves. It is time to get together, stop killing each other, and make certain we get our fair share in a sane and responsible way. As Pearl S Buck wrote in her book 'The Good Earth' "When the rich are too rich there is a way, and if I am not mistaken, that way will come soon."
Join The Movement
There are only a few companies that can be proved to deal in landmines. Generally, they are privately held companies that are allowed to keep to themselves. What these companies do very well is to find smaller companies, also privately held, who each will produce and assemble components of the mines. This makes them harder to track since they carry inventory monikers such as ‘Miscellaneous Spring Switches’ or such
Princess Diana understood the terrors of landmines and the damage they can cause to a small community. These farmers live a subsistence lifestyle; there is no money for artificial limbs and a crippled farmer will have trouble feeding himself and his family. Before her death in 1997, her participation in the international Organization to Ban landmines, raised awareness globally. Her organizations raised significant funds and made a great deal of headway removing landmines in various countries globally. But after her death the awareness campaign has gradually been pushed to the back burner, almost as if landmines don't exist anymore.
But they do!
Only constant vigilance will curb the production of these devices and their components. Some of the largest ‘producers’; actually companies who get government contracts and then later farm out the component work to smaller companies; are companies like Fiat in Italy and RCA in theUnited States. There are others, including a small plastics company in Laurel, Maryland in the USA
Through vigilance and hard work the deaths, at least began to fall. In 2011, less than 400 per month were recorded. But one has to wonder about these men who build easy to assemble component devices that kill so easily.
Only through work with organizations such aswww.ICBL.org; www.halousa.org, &www.uscbl.org will the world begin to get these dangerous seeds of wanton destruction removed from our Earth. Please visit these websites today!
No DoucheBags Allowed
Let’s be Sensible:
When Hunting is Murder, and Murder is out hunting for someone to happen to…
There was this guy named Cecil. Everybody loved him. He had black hair and he loved to pose for pictures. He worked for a scientific group and had some cool electronic ‘bling’ around his neck. One evening, when he was relaxing and lying around his yard with his wife, kids, and a couple of ‘ex’s’ and even a mistress or two…all in perfect harmony, something attracted his attention.
Normally, his wife or an ex deals with this, but this evening, he decided to deal with it for himself. It was very interesting, so he decided to check it out.
So, he got up and left his family and went out into the dark.
Cecil traveled for miles before he was attacked. He realized he was out numbered, that this was a bad situation, so he tried to get back to his wife for aid. Instead he was followed, shot at and eventually killed. Because…why?
Because Cecil was a lion and not a person, or was he?
What would your family do if someone lured you from your home and shot you…
Think about it. What if someone lured you from your home and shot you.
In Cincinnati, Ohio, on July 19, 2015, a University officer named Tensing, shot an unarmed man named Mr. DuBose to death over a missing front license plate. He pulled him over citing a trivial offense. Even the State prosecutor has said it was trivial. This is not a criminal offense, but the so called officer chose murder over reason the same way that the dentist from Minnesota, Walter Palmer, gunned down a lion.
Mr. DuBose, from all accounts, was a nice man with many friends. He didn’t do anything to deserve being murdered by a police officer. None of the unarmed Americans murdered by local police forces deserved to be murdered. Yet, they were ‘hunted’ after a fashion and set up for the kill by a few, unfortunate psychopaths who managed to fool the psychological portion of the police exam.
Dentists evidentially are exempt from psychological evaluations before they buy guns. Go figure.
Mr. DuBose’s tragic demise should be a kick in the face of all the people who decided it was all settled after Baltimore. Get it together, folks.
Cecil was not only a lion, but the national symbol of Zimbabwe. He never killed any people. He was not a ‘rogue lion’. He certainly did not deserve to be murdered, beheaded and skinned either.
Cecil should stand as the symbol of lives worldwide.
There are many petitions out that call for an end to this madness. If one should pop up on your Facebook or Twitter account, do not hesitate to be sensible and sign it.
Sensible Thoughts
Essays From The Sensible Man
Getting Sensible About the Red Bull- Destiny Promotion Cheaters
Yes, it was 'cute' when Red Bull settled a law suit because people did not actually grow wings? Well now Red Bull has become the douchebag company of the year by first announcing and then implementing a ‘promotion’ that was nothing more than a well-orchestrated scam. Red Bull announced that along with Destiny-Bungie those players would be allowed to get special game rewards when they got codes on cans of Red Bull. The coded cans would only be available at 7-11 stores.
Well, anyone could see the flaws in this. There was a Doritos promotion years ago and people just went into the store, copied the codes off of the bags and use them. Leaving unfortunate people who actually paid for the product, cheated out of their due. Perhaps Red Bull thought it was being clever by hiding the code under the flip tab. It didn’t work that way. The code sequence was so easy to guess that it was posted on line HERE. In days every code on every container can be entered causing the can, which is sitting in a 7-11 somewhere to become useless to the person who takes the trouble to buy it for the code.
How is it that the people at Red Bull didn’t understand their target audience were gamers, people who LIVE to crack codes. A better question is why their partners at Destiny-Bungie didn’t recognize the flaws in issuing gamers sequential codes. Considering that during a promotion like this, many people will purchase the product for the code alone, this means people are being defrauded.
Considering that 7/11 is not known for giving customer’s receipts, there is no recourse for the unsuspecting gamer. But, has Red Bull done anything to address this problem? Surely it was apparent when they were snowballed with codes yet had no corresponding increase in sales.
And you cannot tell me that there is not someone working in the promotion department who knew full well that the codes could be easily hacked. Even if you are not a drinker of Red Bull, you should be appalled at this abysmal and total lack of regard for their customers.
Getting Sensible About Myself:
May 1, 2014
I was born in the early 1960’s when everything was vitamin fortified, and if the scientists said it was safe to eat and good for you, our parents fed it to us.
Like most children, after my morning glass of milk, I was given soda to drink. After all, if they sold it in the grocery stores, it was good for you.
My grandmother had RLS, Restless Leg Syndrome. It had bothered her most of her life. I had it too. My family thought it was an inherited thing; we didn’t use the term ‘genetic’ much. When it got troublesome, and kept me awake, my grandmother would massage my legs until I fell back to sleep.
Once I was grown and on my own, I would wake several times a night and have to walk and massage my legs until the pain was gone enough so I could sleep. During several lucky periods in my life I had a girlfriend who would massage my legs for me. I still woke up several times at night, but I didn’t have to walk the pain off.
But, as I entered my late 40’s the pain became more severe, and kept waking me more often. I began looking into various medications, such as ‘Horizant’, and over the counter things like ‘Calm Legs’
My current lady friend, who is somewhat of a health nut, started looking into those medications and was very worried about the side effects,. She discovered a study where the symptoms of RLS were held at bay by drinking 8 oz of tonic water before bedtime. The quinine was supposed to relieve the neuropathy.
Well, tonic water tastes horrid, but it worked. I started sleeping through the night. I experimented with a half dose and that continued to work.
I began doing some reading on my own, and decided to begin drinking more tea. I began substituting a glass of tea for one of the half dozen cans of soda I drank daily.
I eliminated soda altogether.
I ran out of tonic water.
A week later the RLS had not returned.
A month later the RLS had not returned.
Six months later the RLS has not returned.
I am not saying that drinking a lot of soda caused my RLS and I am not saying that Tonic water and no more soda cured it.
But considering how good I feel, and how much energy I have now, I firmly believe that, in this case, getting sensible about my diet has more than improved my life.
Essays from the:
–6/11/2013
Let’s Be Sensible about Climate Change Refugees
In 2011 there was the tsunami in Japan that forced people to leave their homes, and many of these people have yet to come back. In Sudan, the rains still did not come, forcing the country into a second year of drought. Many of those people have no choice but to stay. The USA began to relive the ‘Dust Bowl’ as an area the size of several Sudans dried up as wildfires burned across Canada. There was flooding in Thailand, Bangladesh, and in Europe. Where did these people go when disaster struck? The lucky stayed with friends or family; the unlucky fled to shelters. And when the event was over, many of those people had the option to come back, if they had anything to come back to.
Everywhere on the planet, climatological occurrences force people to relocate. The three hundred fifty residents of Holland Island, Maryland, watched the Chesapeake Bay rise around their island, sinking their homes. The 1,700 residents of Carterets Island in Papua New Guinea have to leave their island before it sinks and Bangkok, Thailand, home to ten million people is sinking 10 cm a year. It could be underwater in 20 years.
Where are these people going to go?
Between completely natural geological occurrences such as earthquakes and volcanoes, and human influenced climate change, glaciers are melting, sea levels are rising and land is being lost at an alarming rate. Bangkok is only one of the global mega cities located in the path of this inevitable costal deluge. Billions of people are going to find themselves homeless in the next 20 years and some of these people are going to be without countries.
Where are these people going to go? They are going to go to higher ground and in most cases they will move a few miles further inland. But these areas, by and large are already occupied. What are the people of Lop Buri going to do when ten million Bangkok citizens move in to their suburbs? More importantly what is the population of Atlanta going to think when nineteen million Floridians come to stay? With the exception of a few Pacific island nations like Papua, New Guinea, world governments have done nothing.
There are many things the people of the world can do to prepare. First, there needs to be action and not talk. Countries with high coastline population risk should form business centers a safe distance inland to encourage early migration. Secondly, where ever possible, private owners of coastal property should be bought out and that land turned into a national park and returned to a natural state. That, alone, will provide a much needed buffer to coastal erosion. Third, there need to be laws enacted to prevent the construction of sea walled communities in or near waterfront wilderness areas.
This is not two thousand years ago, when half the planet was empty and entire populations could move away from floods and volcanos. The population of Japan cannot move to Nebraska nor can the population of Italy relocate to India. The world governments have to have a plan or what we will see in twenty years will be total chaos.
We can start here in the United States. We can relocate homeowners and communities that seem to flood yearly. We can stop the overdevelopment of coastal communities that are subject to violent annual storms. We can stop subsidizing unsustainable development on the fringes of buffer wetlands, and we can promote healthier farming methods in the Midwest before we experience a dustbowl worse than the 1930’s.
It is time for sensible people to start thinking and planning ahead.
Essays
-8/2/2013
Let’s be Sensible about Immigration Policy
Climate change is driving immigration in to the United States, but this Sensible Man doesn’t think anyone in Congress realizes that. Now is the time for a reality check; if we don’t adjust the U.S. immigration policy we will see at least 20% unemployment before 2050.
To some this may be a stark assessment and to others a sage truth, but I’m a sensible man and I promise you it is a common sense conclusion based on several simple truths:
1) The World Population is at 7 billion and rising.
2) Many places of the world are experiencing critical water shortages.
3) In every year since the 1920’s the world has been using more resources than it has the ability to replenish (in that year).
The USA occupies a significant portion of one of the earth’s more recently settled landmasses, and it is poised to be the leader in global reform. But not unless our Congress gets off its collective asses and does something for the good of the people.
First: We need to know of everyone here now, who has come to our country, legally or illegally. Then it is simple – everyone who has come here legally, for any reason, should be given the opportunity to stay and become a citizen, unless they have a criminal history.
Second: Everyone EVERYONE who is where they are 'illegally' should be given the opportunity to stay here and become a citizen, after they pay a fine, unless they have a criminal history.
These two are givens for reason of national security. We want to retain people who are already familiar with the system and understand the way things work. We don’t want these people going to some psychotic and deteriorating government with skills learned here.
Then we close all immigration for five years. Period. Congress must tap the Brookings Institute to get the details straightened out. No more ‘born on American soil’ exceptions; if the parents weren’t both living and working on American soil continuously for 2 years prior to conception, the child is not a citizen.
Why would this sensible man want to do this? Look to 1, 2 & 3. Focus on 2. People go to where the fresh water is. As deserts spread and land sinks into salt marshes, the people who live there migrate somewhere else. Once the population of the new area has absorbed all the excess it can, the land becomes depleted, the wells go dry and the people move on. As land is lost, people move to cities and take unskilled jobs or tap into public welfare. Some are trained to operate the machines, but if you only need one skilled operator for 40 unskilled workers, what are the rest to do?
An average person might say the answer is more machines to make more things to give more people jobs.
And this is where the problem lies. We already have machines that make the machines that make the machines that make things for us. In the future, every home could have a 3-d printer making our everyday household items without us ever having to leave home. There go most of our factories. Several companies are trying out cars that drive themselves; in the near future, this could mean totally automated municipal services. Trash trucks, buses and meter readers all running remotely controlled, on a pre–programmed route. Interstate trucking will be done with no truck drivers to ‘inconvenience’ their employers by having to sleep.
And are these machines that replace people going to buy homes, fast-food, cars, clothing or movie tickets? I think not. So there go those jobs.
We are going to lose billions of jobs in the next fifty years with nothing to replace them. Those people are still going to need food and water and a place to live. Unless we do something now, there is a grim future ahead.
It is time to stop, take inventory, and evaluate the impact excess population will have on the carrying capacity of the land.
In simple terms, it is not nice to invite people into our county and them make them live in marginal, dangerous and unhealthy conditions because of poor planning on our part.
Now is the time to focus on a solution, before our world gets near a 50% unemployment rate, when only the most draconian choices remain available.
I think five years is a sensible amount of time to evaluate how the USA can best work with the rest of the world to discover the right series of reasonable actions to take.
We also need to remember, this huge human migration is fueled by over population and hoarding of resources,by the rich.
Lets' Get Sensible about the 'Weird Madness'
Nazis are marching in the streets in the United States, these days. This is a shocking statement to make, especially when, only 65 years ago, this is the same country that fought to end Nazism and Fascism across the planet. Didn't hundreds of thousands of Americans die fighting Nazis? Almost everyone I know had a parent, grandparent, Uncle or Aunt die fighting Fascism. So how is it that the people of the United States Allow Nazis in their streets?
The Japanese government remembers that Japan was a Nazi ally in WWII. YET the Japanese Government does not allow Nazis to march in the streets. The Chinese government does not allow Nazis to march in the streets. In every single video game, movie and novel written since WWII, we get to relive the reasons why Nazis are evil.
The last time the Nazis and Facists were tolerated, it resulted in the deaths of 85 million people on the planet Earth - and the development of weapons of war that would sterilize this planet, and now these people are just being allowed to practice their particular type of insanity without even a modicum of counseling?
In reality, the tolerance without question of any ideology that preaches hate and eradication of anything that is simply going about its' life and being a productive member of this planet is a dangerous slide into psychosis. It should be questioned thoughtfully and then replaced with the humanity which will guide us with love and joyful bounty to the future.
Americans: You are lucky YOU can write to your senators and representatives and tell them to STOP HATE :
https://www.senate.gov/general/contactinformation/senators_cfm.cfm
Everyone else: you can nicely and respectfully request that your American friends write to the people in their government (above) and request, with kindness, that they Stop Hate.
Let's Get Sensible about Millionaires
Some people both earn and deserve that money, others should not be that privileged.
Who really needs a Million Dollars a year to live on? 99% of the people on this planet could live happily for 40 years or more if they received One Million Dollars today. Some people say they need that kind of money. The people who say this are not teachers or firefighters or nurses. No, the people who say this are bankers, Hedge Fund Managers and Pharmaceutical Executives.
Pharmaceutical Executives like Heather Bresch, the CEO of Mylan Corp; the company that makes the Epi-Pen.
So you ask, ‘why should I care that someone makes millions of dollars from a pen?’
The Epi-pen is not just a pen. It is a device that saves lives. The Epi-Pen contains the drug epinephrine, which will save your life if you suffer an allergic reaction to something - like a bee sting or if you have a food allergy to common everyday foods like peanut butter or shellfish.
Epinephrine is not an expensive drug; as a matter of fact it costs less than $5.00 a dose. The pharmacy used to sell it in a two pack for about $80.00 which means the total cost breakdown is: the drug-$10.00 and the ‘injectors’ $70.00. That is expensive, but the drug companies do have employees and researchers.
But Heather Bresch, like Martin Shkreli wanted more money. Ms. Bresch wanted a lot more money. And she knew where to get it. Raise the price of a lifesaving drug, a drug that people MUST BUY TO STAY ALIVE, and that will give her the millions of dollars she needed to send herself and her investors on vacations.
Her father is a US Senator, so of course that made it easy for her to take millions of dollars from poor , sick people just to buy pretty things that she uses once and throws away.
The price of an Epi-pen went from $80.00 for a two pack to over $600.00 for a two pack. The cost to manufacture the drug did not go up, it went down. That means that Heather Bresch of Mylan Corp is suddenly pocketing $590.00 per two pack sold.
Mylan Corp sells close to a million of these things every year. That means they put close to $590 million dollars in the Mylan Corp bank account every year. Every year from this one life saving drug alone, they are pocketing what can only be called ‘blood money’ for their own wealth and relaxation.
Yes, the people who say they need a MILLION DOLLARS A YEAR, like Martin Shkreli and Heather Bresch and others, are the overpaid executives who think they need to eat $400.00 a pound steak sprinkled with gold flakes, ‘once in a while’.
Why would a person need that in order to live?
These people are the very people who put their children in the most exclusive of private schools because they cannot have their children associating with the children of those ‘destined to be less successful’.
These people fear and hate anyone who earns less than they do because they have convinced themselves that everyone wants what they have. They gather together behind closed doors and iron gates and private security and tell each other how much we the 99% hate them and how we want to take everything they have. Then they use that as an excuse to hoard their cash when, if they would use it to better world society, they would actually have less to fear from the world around them.
Pay more taxes for better healthcare for all and you will eliminate infectious diseases that are bred in poverty. Make the rich understand that people who are well fed and healthy prefer honest work to greasy handouts.
Pay more taxes for better education for all and you will eliminate the crime that is driven by lack of opportunity.
It Is Time to Get Sensible About Landmines:
People have the right to live their lives without having some army march across their land, destroying their crops and killing their animals and worse. The worse comes when those armies sow the land with mines and leave them with no intention of ever returning to remove them.
Let's get this straight, these plastic landmines stay activated for many, many years after the wars have ended. They are anti-personnel devices of civilian havoc, and can cost an army as little as fifty cents each to have made. The removal cost, however can be as high as $1,000.00 each, so there is little incentive to remove them. Therefore when the farmers who have survived these senseless conflicts return with their families to the land, they bring their herds and seed to plant, then often become victims of these devices that were sown in the fields and forgotten. Children, most often; women and men lose limbs, vision and lives while pursuing nothing more complicated than the quest to tend their sheep and plant crops.
In 1993 there were an estimated 2,000 deaths per month from landmines and the startling fact is that most of these deaths were children, because it only takes 30 pounds of pressure to set one of those things off. Some are set off with as little as 20 pounds of pressure. 20 and 30 pounds is not the weight of a full grown soldier in battle gear, it is the weight of a child.
It used to be that landmines could be detected with metal detectors and removed, and that saved the lives of some women and children, but the landmines that killed in 1993 and continue to kill today are made of plastics and do not contain very much metal. They are hard to find using conventional means and that means they remain hidden in the landscape until someone steps on it and sets it off.
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