Why Trumpkins Get Dumped As Friends

Most trumpkins surround themselves with people that agreee with them.  They haven't realized they did this, and if you point it out, they will instantly claim it's by design.  It's your fault you don't want to be around them anymore.  Anyone with family that they are not speaking to over Donald Trump understands this better than anyone.  Family for most people is the one bond you overlook those annoying flaws of your drunken uncle and at least tolerate him at family gatherings.  Yet, not anymore. People have divided from friends and even family over what can only be described as a cult response on a unrecognizable level since Nazi Germany.  

Four years ago, a good friend said she wasn't talking to her parents anymore. What?  She and her parents had always been close, yet suddenly her father, and even her mother, would yell and scream at her about the fact she didn't like Donald Trump.  They watched Fox news, read only Breitbart if they read anything other than memes that agreed with Fox on Facebook.  She was at her wits' end.  She did Thanksgiving but refused to do Christmas.  Her husband's mother was an independent and couldn't stand Trump.  They felt more comfortable there.  Her parents haven't barely spoken to her since 2016.  She doesn't call them because she doesn't want to get yelled at, even now, about the "hoax".  She's worried about them but for the most part has given up. 

Does her story sound familiar to you?  Either side?  If you think you are the parents here, and even if you don't, the parents literally think she's the one that needs to come to her senses.  But does she?  I mean parents tell you what they think when you are doing something they think you shouldn't, right?  But they don't call her. It's like tough love, but not over drugs, alcoholism, stealing or some criminal activity.  They literally have no desire to talk to her over Donald Trump.  Is this still you?  Have you screamed, yelled, name called, carried on, about how great Trump is to the point you've forced someone to decide they can't stand you? 

Yes, I know the standard response here is "they were yelling at me".  Funny how that works. You yell and they respond with yelling.  You name call and they get upset.  You insist Trump is the best of the best and just keep insisting even with example after example of some of the most ridiculous stuff anyone, not just Presidents, has ever done. You don't care. You scream how great he is. That's it.  They didn't even have to say a word.  A friend's husband, who has never been that fond of me anyway, just started yelling at me, drunk, about Trump.  Not even because I brought him up, because for her sake I was avoiding it completely.  Didn't matter he started ranting, she made him calm down and I cut my visit short. I haven't talked to her since other than in text and only because he's been extremely sick.  But otherwise, why bother? Besides the fact he doesn't need to get hyped up over me versus Trump. I don't want to listen to that crap just because you know I disagree with you.  No one does.  But rather than try to discuss or argue it out, anyone anti Trump have had to decide whether they have to cut people like that out. 

Here's my favorite example, only from my own life.  A friend's husband allowing someone to call me racist names online because he was a "Korean War" vet and deserved to be able to say whatever he wanted.  He served in Korea in the 1960s after the shooting stopped. I served in the Gulf.  He saw less action than I did.  That was disrespectful of me to point out anything anti Trump. Really? But it was perfectly fine for this ahole to call me a couple racist slurs during his rant at me. I'm born and raised American citizen but because I'm not white male enough, my service compared to his service was nothing they BOTH mansplained to me. I cut him out and as a result his wife.  The hypocrisy and disrespect was aimed at me and the only thing I did, no name calling even, was say I didn't like Trump and point out a couple of the idiotic things Trump has done. We all have experienced it if we don't like Trump. 

Don't believe me?  Go to a trumpkin and point out Trump still hasn't responded to the fact we know Putin has been putting bounties out on American military in the Middle East. Nothing. Nada. Zip. Zilch.  They will respond with some crap about Clinton or AOC or Biden's "dementia".  Biden's "dementia" is completely hilarious considering Trump bragged about a one page cognitive test that asks you to draw a cube and identify 3 wild animals.  Let alone on top of it, claiming how hard it is.  O-kay. Biden's real problem is he grew up with a stuttering issue.  Some of the most intelligent people in the world suffer from stuttering and other similar issues.  

Still a trumpkin reading this will tell you or me or anyone that will listen that I'm just a hater.  A liberal. Snowflake. Pansy. C*nt.  Dumb b*tch. Just mad because Trump doesn't like illegals. A slew of racist terms that don't fit because I'm not "white enough" in their minds.  Yes, these things have literally ALL happened over the last 4 years.  From friends I've known and thought the world of for years, a couple even decades. Friends.  At what point do you say enough?

Trumpkins will tell you it's you. Gaslighting you into thinking it's you not them.  But I snapshot the Facebook interactions when they happened.  I recorded some of the verbal interactions.  It starts off with them yelling and me trying to stay calm.  It starts with them starting to call names and me trying to explain my position.  And eventually one of two things happened at these exchanges. Either I got mad and they danced around like idiots pleased because now they claimed I was the one that got mad first (if they even admit they were screaming and name calling at all).  Or I got fed up and cut them off.  I've got over 2 dozen of these exchanges that I kept for review because I am one of these people who had dated an abusive asshole (maybe a couple).  One thing that is recommended is to prove to yourself you are correct.  Documentation helps to prove to yourself you are better off without the abuser. 

When you do this?  It's like my friend with her parents.  They were good parents but when she went back through things her father said, so hateful.  She had even had a confrontation after Charlottesville with him where he said something very similar to several friends of mine I've cut off. Something along the lines "I'm more prejudice/racist now" than this or that or then.  I've gone back and can say at least half a dozen of my so called friends said crap like that too.  But she pointed out that it wasn't that they were "more" now.  It was they were not "allowed" to be before. Society frowned on it, but with Trump, they were free to say and be "more" racist. It wouldn't be Trump's fault except the only thing all these half a dozen plus have in common with each other and her dad? Trump and they are "white" in their minds. (I'm not getting into the "white Hispanic" nonsense other than to point out to be Hispanic means you have a mix of some South/Central America Native blood which makes "Hispanic" therefore white Hispanic is an oxymoron.)

Can we wake these people up? I look back at my grandmother who loved Richard Nixon.  Nixon was a power hungry, insecure, albeit smart man. He had stepped down in shame, caught in a criminal conspiracy.  She didn't believe it. Even with the majority of the country agreeing he was.  By the very last live interview with David Frost, my grandmother was convinced Nixon was still the good man she dressed him up to be in her mind.  Right up until Nixon lost his cool, screamed at Frost that he had done what he was accused of, and how dare anyone question him.  She never talked about Nixon again.  You couldn't even mention his name without a dirty look of quiet rebuke.  And Trump has done far worse than Nixon ever did and in the 1970's a shit ton more was more acceptable compared to today.  It's almost bizarre to watch Trump get away, even brag when he does something heinous, and people like my grandmother just keep defending him. Bizarre is probably an understatement, but definitely makes it questionable whether short of Trump going to prison.... Well.... If Biden wins, NY State has the indictments waiting....

The third party myth that Libertarians swear by

So I'm just going to point out that there's never been a true third party win in a presidential election. It's a myth. 

Back in the 1859-60, where the famous myth forms, there were two parties. The Democrats and the Whigs were twists of the original two parties that formed from the Jeffersonian democratic thinkers and the Hamilton republic thinkers. There's always been just two main parties.

These two parties right before the Civil War were both of divided minds. The Southern and Northern Democrats who were divided only on the issue of slavery.  All races were still inferior to white.  The Whigs had a bigger problem because of the time, they were the "intellectuals".  So they were all opposed to slavery, but they had differing views on what the end of slavery meant. Full equality? Give them passage to the Caribbean or Africa? Or some brand of Jim Crow?  The first two grouped together whether they agreed on full equality or not.  The third group, incensed by the idea Natives, Africans, etc. could be equal, ran their own candidate, as did the Southern Democrats.  So you had 4 candidates from the 2 major parties.  The main body of the two parties ran a Dem who wanted to keep slavery legal but "free new births" or some other hocus pocus, basically find a nice way to end slavery.  The third group of the Whigs (the smallest but most vocal ironically) ran a guy who was basically the same.   The Republicans (the Whigs who wanted an immediate end to slavery and the majority of the Whig party at the time) ran Abraham Lincoln. 

We know that Lincoln won. What we rarely know is he represented the majority of Whigs.  It was not a third party coup d'etat.  It was the majority of a party taking their party back from a minority who kowtowed to the money and power base. 

There's no third party winning historically. A myth to try to transform the Republicans of the late 1800s into a wrongly elected end to slavery.  In a strange twist, the Republicans used a repackaging of the third party myth to make themselves the "Grand Ole Party", aka. GOP.  The myth it could happen again when it's really never actually happened before?  Some feel good nonsense for the disgruntled to think they can find a way to fix what they view as wrong.  

However, right now as our laws stand it's actually an impossibility.  The two major parties "own" the Presidential debate as they always have.  The last 3rd party candidate to be allowed in the debate was Ross Perot, only because of a massive donation he made.  Next, even if the 3rd party candidate can get on the stage, he/she would need to be on all 50 states ballots.  Since Perot, only Gary Johnson in 2016 was able to pull this off.  And finally, the Electoral College.  So many want to talk about how it should be abolished.  It can't be.  The whole reason it exists is so lesser populated states have a fair effect on the outcome of the Presidential election.  (Believe it or not, it works exactly as the Founding Fathers' planned.)  

We know only 2 out of 3 are fair right now for a 3rd party candidate.  Lawsuits to force the debates to allow the 3rd party candidates still haven't managed to get all the way to the Supreme Court.  This won't change until it gets that far, if it does then.  Even if it gets the SCOTUS okay (it should, not the point), the CPD will still be able to place limits like having to be on all 50 ballots.  But the big hurdle is the Electoral College.  All but two states, Nebraska and Maine, give 100% of the electoral votes to the majority vote.  In Nebraska and Maine, a candidate gets what percentage of the state they take.  In Nebraska (5 electorates), if a candidate gets 20%, they get one of the 5.  This would actually open up the ability for 3rd parties to overcome the electoral hurdle.  It would also mean where votes are close, people in certain states wouldn't be disenfranchised that their vote doesn't "count" because they are "red" in a "blue" state or vice versa.  However, you can see where neither party can be very invested in making this happen.  Red or blue is pretty much in their favor, so why would they encourage a change that means both might lose?  

While I'm all for both being changed and those 3 things that keep us couped up with only 2 "real" choices, I have had plenty of conversations with Libertarians that have no idea what the hell they are talking about.  They talk about the government being limited, but ramble on about walls and protecting ourselves from some real and mostly imaginary threats.  Or likewise, others (same party) who ramble on about no infringements at all.  Mostly they don't want to pay any taxes.  (So unrealisitic that's all it will get.)  They can't even organize around the definition of what is or isn't "big" government.  So it's not going to appeal to anyone until the majority in their party are on the same page.  But does it really matter?  Maybe, maybe not.  If we ever break the winner take all for the electoral college votes for each state, then we all might feel better about being 49% of the population in our state, regardless of what the 51% are.  Until we address that, a third party is nothing but a joke.  A group or several that can't agree on what they want to believe in, let alone pitch it, with no hope of ever winning an actual election. 

Trump's Deep State

Facebook is just as culpable for last night's shooting as Fox news and OANN. (Lincoln Project shared proof, added in comments.)

FAKE information and home grown terrorist organizations have been allowed to flourish here.  So much so, these groups act here unencumbered by any sense of decency. Even reporting various threats get ZERO response from Facebook.

“Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right.”

When George Orwell talked about "big brother", this is what he meant.  Home grown terrorists who would take over by elections and then terrorize the rest of us into submission.

"We shall squeeze you empty, and then we shall fill you with ourselves.”

When these types of people come into power, they use divide and fear as their hoist to more power. More hate, more anger, more intimidation, more killing.  They do not denounce it, because they feed on it.

"Always, at every moment, there will be the thrill of victory, the sensation of trampling on an enemy who is helpless."

When people talk about the "deep state", Trump's created it.  The people who pretend to be paranoid about it are it.  They are the weapons that have been mobilized. They don't see how the deep state was the people held at bay, that lied and still lie, to feed their own power, their own ego.

"...always there will be the intoxication of power, constantly increasing and constantly growing..."

And when it's finally over and all of people who have been organized and pulled into this feeding frenzy decide they want their say, they will find there was never any voice for them either. Just obedience with Trump. 

"The heresy of heresies was common sense.”

I truly want to believe the United States of America that I fought for, that ALL People have Inalienable Rights of LIFE and LIBERTY, still exists to grow and flourish. But anyone with a gun against a fellow American must realize that is against everything we declared we are about.  The RIGHT TO LIFE AND LIBERTY for ALL. That's what I fought for.  NOT Americans KILLING other UNARMED Americans...

"...a nation of...fanatics, marching forward in perfect unity, all thinking the same thoughts and shouting the same slogans, perpetually... persecuting..."

I fear this has gone too far. That November will not be the end of this, but just a rocket boost into the depths of a hell this entire planet thought we ended with World War II.  And even if it ends the way I hope and pray, that the glorification of hate is too enticing.

"We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it.”

Maybe it will be fine.  November's election will come; there will be skirmishes. But, 95% of us well be relieved it's over and want to move forward, forgetting what brought us here.  The brink of Trump's deep state from '86 to '16 to seize power almost destroying a Nation that only 80 years ago was so full of resolve. They will need to be exposed fully, instead of us breathing a sigh of relief. 

"..the object of waging a war is always to be in a better position in which to wage another war.”

 Or they will regroup, try again, over and over, until they succeed. 

Vote Biden not because you like him. But because the Deep State has always and still is people like Trump greedy for power and money.  He is the Deep State, for God's sake.

The Way of the Brontosaurus

When I was in elementary school, my father took me to the Met, as in NYC Metropolitan Museum of Art from the front entrance on 5th Avenue.. The architecture of the building was a bold statement that even people that have never been to New York recognize.  It's an icon often used on TV.  My favorite exhibit was the dinosaurs and my favorite dinosaur was the Brontosaurus.  We knew they traveled in herds, are plants and were bigger than a T-Rex.  The sight of the skeleton was humbling.  Then in 2012, a discovery made the Brontosaurus go away.  Just like that one of my favorite "animals" was gone, much like Pluto was no longer a planet.  Did I scream denying conspiracy theories all over YouTube?  No.  Rush to fight over school books and lesson plans?  No.  Scream that scientists were wrong?  No.  Frankly, because I'm not an idiot and it's not my field of expertise. A couple years later, the Brontosaurus was back, because science had found another piece of evidence that proved there were three, not two, similar animals. I was quite pleased. So I understand some people have a hard time wrapping their minds around "new" science, and how things like the disappearing, reappearing Brontosaurus might be confusing 

Sometimes things exist or are accepted to exist until something proves it was incorrect. Certain things have been proven.  Gravity for example.  Sir Issac Newton "discovered" gravity, that it had a fixed rate of acceleration on Earth and a formula that has been proven consistently over and over.  There's no doubting gravity. Yet suddenly we have people believing in "flat earth" nonsense.  (I'm just going to call it what it is.)  These people want it taught in schools to your kids.  Forget that gravity wouldn't actually exist without the rotation of the sphere we call Earth.  Forget that Magellan sailed around the world literally in 1519, 500 years ago, proving the Earth was round. US Navy carrier groups often do *world cruises". Thousands of Marines and sailors each time would have to lie and/or be fooled on every single one for more than 2 centuries.  Yes, that's how absurd the flat earth conspiracy "theory" is.

So one huge problem?  We need to stop calling these "theories".  Theory in science means it's been hypothesized, then verified by multiple other sources. A hypothesis hasn't been proven and independently verified. Scientific theory has been verified by multiple scientists and data.  We have done a great disservice by using the term "theory" colloquially for any lame brain idea that pops into some idiot's head and gives their conspiracy nonsense some semblance of reality, even with every known fact flying in the face of the nonsense. Flat earth conspiracy is just one of the dumb ideas nutjobs around this country want to teach your kids. 

Who cares?  Why do I need to know?  Because these snake oil salesmen are pushing schools to teach this garbage and the current GOP is making it happen. How dumb do you want future generations of Americans to be?  We are talking 3rd world level hocus pocus, fear based, nonsense that would weaken our nation.  How can we compete if the next generations are basically educated like this is 1620 instead of 2020?

Maybe the most horrifying is the story of Adam and Eve  Creationism is on the rise again.  Most educated people are familiar with the monkey trials in 1950's Tennessee. This was already decided. Creationism is a religious thing. It in fact is an Abrahamic thing; only Christianity, Judaism and Islam believe the world was created this way.  Buddhists do not believe God created the world. The world just is. It has no end and no beginning. It is ever changing much like the shoreline does as tides roll in and out. The universe as a whole just ebbs and flows.  Wicca believe Mother Earth created the world as we see it but nature only. It's unclear who created the rock nature is built upon.  Neither of those religions agree with the Abrahamics. In fact, no other religion agrees.  These 3 can't even agree. Christianity, the youngest of the 3 claims the Sabbath is on Sunday. Muslims claim Friday. And Judaism is Saturday. All 3 have the exact same book of Genesis as their reference.  Even if their views were exactly the same, why as a Taoist would I want my kids taught what I find completely unacceptable both from my religious beliefs and scientific knowledge?  More importantly, why would any Americans want our kids to be taught something that has no basis in actual science in a science class?

Back to flat earthers. What is this?  Complete nonsense. Yet, 650+ attendees at the last "Flat Earth" convention.  It's like Scientology minus Tom Cruise.  It's one man's ramblings on YouTube rather than in a book. Nevermind if  lthe flat earth conspiracy were true, you couldn't fly from Hawaii to Hong Kong in 12 hours and to San Francisco in 5 hours. They cut the Pacific in half.  So you could do one or the other but not both. The whole premise of a flat earth is idiotic. Yet people who are "home schooling" their kids are teaching this crap because they don't have the educations to be teachers in the first place.  This YouTube clown is convincing them even though we have over 500 years of proof he's an idiot.  Worse?  Now, he wants your kids to be taught this garbage in real schools.  As if it couldn't get worse, some GOP elected officials believe this nonsense and agree with him.

Now, if flat earth and creationism don't scare the bejeebies out of you?  There's also a group that teaches the moon is a hologram. Nevermind we don't have the technology to create a hologram that large.  Seriously, these people don't believe we can build rockets capable of going to space but they believe we can create a hologram hoax of the moon for thousands of years.  Nevermind the proven fact the moon's mass controls the ebbs and flows of the tides--because that's all faked too on flat earth.  Nevermind its gravitational pull is what keeps our atmosphere just right.  The moon is a hologram. The moon landing was a hoax.  The pictures astronauts and cosmonauts alike have taken from the space station of the beautiful sphere we call Earth are all faked. You've got to be thinking this is ridiculous.  However, think back to the dumbest kid in your 3rd grade class, not paying attention, and only listening to the dumbest people in his family, now 40 something with his own YouTube channel.  Voila. Suddenly that guy has got all kinds of people believing this nonsense and wanting to teach it to your kids, in public schools you fund with your taxes.  Never happen?  Yet 7% of Americans believe this and are home schooling their kids and... and vote almost exclusively GOP. 

Sure 7% is pretty low and most people don't believe that garbage.  Yet, 20 years ago only about 30% of Americans believed in Creationism.  Today?  Around 40%.  *eye roll* How is that even possible?  Does it even matter?  Yes, it does  In the SE USA we allowed the states to teach that African Americans liked being slaves all the way up into 2010's in one state.  As a result, I know people in their 40's and up that still believe that because that's what they were taught IN school.  Nevermind the idea of being a slave goes completely against our own American Doctrine that happiness is tied to liberty and freedom.  Only a complete idiot would believe anyone liked being a slave, right?  But kids are basically idiots with a sponge for information. If the information you put in there is garbage, they will think the garbage is true for what may be the rest of their lives. 

Hell, scarier? Yes these conspiracies get even more ridiculous.  How old is the Earth?  Geologists say 4.5 BILLION, yes billion, years. Yet, 40% of Americans now believe it's only 6000 years old. That we lived and rode dinosaurs.  Obviously people who have never actually seen an actual Brontosaurus skeleton. 

These people aren't screaming to reopen libraries and schools. They are screaming for us to reopen churches and bars. That tells you everything you need to know about them. Make no mistake; some college educated are this undereducated too. They majored in business, basket weaving, even some in engineering and sciences (although so minute in comparison).  They just didn't pay attention in elementary to high school, or worse, this is the crap they were taught not just at home but in schools. So they want to take a giant leap backwards as every other westernized nation moves ahead of us in the sciences because we are letting these conspiracies run rampant thinking facts will win out.

When you vote for a Republican, and especially Trump which is crazy since he doesn't even go to church at all (unless we count Twitter), this is what you are voting for.  Not just the dumbing down of America. Complete and utter stupidity where we will have multiple generations of people so undereducated they will be slave labor for everyone else on the planet. Science may be taking a beating and starting to look like the loser here.  But it's time for a big comeback like the Brontosauruses, for the sake of our kids, multiple generations of Americans to come, and for God's sake, for truth. God didn't make fools. They choose to be and then they want to spread it like a cancer.  I've used a quote from the Dalai Lama before in similar blogs. "If science proves (a fundamental religious belief) is wrong, then we simply quit believing in it.". 

How to Live With a Guilty Conscience

Many years ago if my boys want to tell you they will tell you that two amazing women helped me raise them.  The first one because as a mechanic/electronics/maintenance tech in a plant, third shift was my only option, and this amazing woman, who was really like a sister to me, negotiated with her supervisor to leave her second shift job just couple minutes early to take my boys home with her, provide them a good night's sleep and be like we expect family to be.  A few years later, another friend, an empty nester whose children were grown, college bound, and who had so many indirect familia ties, also helped.  She was so like we expect family to be that my boys referred to her and her husband as Aunt and Uncle.  It's really debatable if her husband was really ever more than an unwanted brother in law, but that's family, yeah?  Both of these amazing women helped take care of my boys for the better part of a year and a half to two years. Both were absolutely like family to me. These two women are my sisters.  I would never forsake them like I have my blood family at times.  Yet, a couple years back, I had to realize that I didn't treat them the same.  What?  Was one more unfair?  Was one less giving?  Was one or the other a better friend?  Was one more consistent?  No, no, no...no to all of.  Both fantastic to my boys, like they would be to their own children.  These women, in spite of husbands or real family or even ugly so called friends, were amazing to me and to my sons.  Both of them unquestionably my sisters, unquestionably family.  So why did I raise my sons to call only one of them "Aunt"?

If you've read this blog, you know a couple years back I was attacked by some "white" asshole in a very nice brand hotel for not being "white" enough.  He assumed, wrongly, that I was Hispanic in descent.  It wasn't that it was the first time.  I went to Clemson after getting out of the military.  Clemson was an oasis, but 15 minutes back then in any direction and I learned, very unpleasantly, that as "white" as I had always been treated all over the USA, I wasn't "white" enough for some people.  It was a rude awakening, and yet none of those experiences came close to this "white", supposed-self identified CEO of a company, self identified graduate of the University of Wisconsin, screaming at me in a drunken stupor that I had no Rights in the country I was raised in, that I served in a war, that I was a various number of Hispanic slurs AND NOT A LICK Hispanic.  Yes, it bothers me still.  I can't imagine what it would be like to fear some random asshole acting like that to me daily.  While I was at Clemson, late 90s and early 2000s after serving my country, yeah, I never imagined.  But over the years, I've met men like him. Way more than anyone should ever have to, but I would stand there stunned as the on-lookers at the hotel did.
A racist schmuck screaming bloody epithets.  Inciting.  Hurtful.  Cruel.  Just based on the color of someone's skin tone.  I'm a light olive. I look Italian, Slavic, Polish, Hungarian.  No joke.  I should I'm descendant of at least two of those. Yes, that is me being smart-ass-ish, but I grew up "white", or so I thought.  And no one was changing that in the Deep South, but he wasn't Southern and we weren't in the Deep South.  We were in Michigan, at a higher end hotel, both I presume for work.  It was a really rude awakening.

I had to process.  It was devastating. At the same time, one of my former friends, beautiful, blonde, blue eyed, 1970's stereotype of "All American" ran a DNA test.  She decided she wanted to know about her ancestors.  There were blanks in her family tree and she was hoping that a DNA test would fill those gaps.  Imagine how she reacted when the blanks traced back to a black slave who was so "high yella" (yeah I didn't know what it meant till I came South but it's just a rude way of saying "white" enough black to pass for "white")....Are you picturing a Cheryl Ladd look-alike?  Maybe more like Farrah?  Somewhere between.  That'd be about right.  Her DNA came back 1/8+ African American.  So what, right?  Two grandparents had "black" blood.  It was 2018, yet she went ballistic.  That might even be an understatement.  She was ill, pissed, angry to the point of accusing the DNA companies of lying.  Like yeah, they would lie. They don't even know her.  Our friendship was destroyed by this revelation.  She was "white".  Well, by visual, absolutely.  But one thing most people don't know about the falling out, was it was shortly after I had been attacked and she said to me that I couldn't possibly understand how "important", HOW IMPORTANT, it is to be "WHITE".  How fucking important is it?  Like that statement in itself screamed "white privilege", superiority, how she viewed herself in reality better than anyone that she perceived as less white and suddenly I saw her for what she was.  A bigot, a racist, and the worst kind.  Nice to your face while sub-consciously believing down to her core she was better just based on the color and heredity of her skin.

The silence in that conversation could have choked both angels and demons alike.  I grew up  "white".  Slavic, Polish, Italian, Eastern European, Hungarian,...I grew up with people that looked just like me.  In the Deep South, she had grown up that if you looked like me you were either "black passing for white" (her words in another forthcoming spew of shit) or Native.  "My people", the Natives she presumed, were mistreated-ish, but now they have casinos and money so it all "evens out".  Tell that to the Navajo Nation...."eye roll".  But I'm not any of those, so it all just made me more angry and more ridden with guilt.  I'm not "white" but I lived where I could assume I'm "white" so I'm "white" until I meet someone, worse a friend, who just threw it in my face that I'm not "white" and therefore "obviously" I would take the non-white position???  Wow.  Not "white enough" and i "already knew that".  That experience in Grand Rapids Michigan had happened before.  But not really.  Only in South Carolina.  Never anywhere else in the USA until the racist f*s crawled out from their rocks.  Everywhere else in this country, no.  She thought that was the norm, ALL MY LIFE, EVERYWHERE in the USA, because it was normal in her minute little world of 25 miles radius around where she was born and raised.  Just another day in paradise in her mind.  I had no reason to be upset with her, afterall, she had treated me "white" and not allowed anyone like this asshole in Michigan to treat me as less than "white".  But I was "less than white" in her opinion.  We had never discussed it.  I assumed it didn't matter.  I assumed that it wasn't even an issue to be discussed.  She assumed I wasn't "white" and knew I wasn't "white" and therefore there was no discussion necessary.  

What a rude awakening.  I wasn't "white" enough.  I really never had given it any thought until then.  My sons are blond, blue, hazel and green/blue/grey'hazel (changing colors based on mood).  White.  Dimples.  Surfer looks.  Farm boys.  They look like my grandfather or my ex or Parker Stevenson.  I wasn't "white" enough.  She didn't say it direct.  She didn't need to.  She made it clear.  Only a "white" woman could possibly be upset by finding out they aren't "white" and she was "white" no matter what some "bullshit" DNA said.  Three DNA tests...She's still "black", whether we're friends or not.  The end of our friendship didn't change that.  According to Blue Book laws here, she's less than 95% "white" and therefore she's a mulatto.  Her path of acceptance has been a long one as we have a mutual friend still.  I'm not sure she's there yet.  But this isn't about her, but the opening to me to do some real self evaluation.  

What started to change?  My own views. The one experience was the catalyst and the other the push forward.  Did I have my own sub-conscious issues?  My grandparents were racist, but by 1960's standards quite progressive.  Times do dictate appropriate.  As we grow, what was appropriate is considered inappropriate as we consider others' feelings and equality.  I know most people don't self analyze like I do.  But I look at everything that happens to me as a learning experience.  I take the Buddhist, Taoist view, that each experience is an opportunity to see something in myself.  I wanted to understand, maybe release myself, from my own racism.  Most "white" people see racism as they are blatant racists or they are not.  They either use racial epithets or they don't.  They refuse other races or they don't.  They hate or they don't.  But life isn't really black or white, is it?  Puns intended.  Life is a hue of everything, and each of us harbor what we grew up with whether we want to acknowledge it.  Whether we recognize it or not.  Suddenly I had to think about my view of the world.  I'm not racist.  I would've stood up and defended a woman in my position with some jerk screaming racist insults at her, whether I knew her or not.  I call people on that behavior, both in my past and to this day.  I don't allow that behavior in my presence.  I'm not racist.  Yet, neither was my blond bimbo friend either in her own eyes.  Deep breath.  

So I asked my friend, the one who had arranged to get off work early to help me with my young boys, who treated them like her own, who's son is like my own.  My fair skinned "black" friend.  She let me off the hook.  I could've taken it.  She told me that because I was "ambiguous' looking it was just how some people were.  I'm still "white" enough was the basic message, but I didn't want what I wanted to hear.  I wanted her view.  Her view?  She prays everyday for her son.  That he won't be in the wrong place at the wrong time.  That he won't move too fast or too slow and spook at cop at what should be a normal traffic stop.  How everyday she knows her son is an amazing educated young man, but how she worries he might be driving the wrong car, look at the wrong person, lean over the wrong direction.  What.  The.  Fuck.  Suddenly, I was a bit guilt ridden.  I hadn't gone through this.  I worried about wrong decisions my sons might make.  That I might not have been the best parent.  She worried about those things too, but she had this other worry that I didn't even imagine, let alone think about daily.  

Over the last two years, I've cut off a lot of my "white" friends.  I was so shocked as I discussed these things with some how they would tell me that "of course" I would be "sympathetic" because i wasn't "white" enough.  Or how, "those" people ask for it.  Or how I was obviously stepping out of my "zone".  Sigh..And I'm not racist, but somehow I seemed to have a LOT of racist friends...

But that wasn't the worst of it.  Suddenly, I realized that I had two women that were like family.  Helped me with my boys.  One was Aunt and one was not.  The two both gave so much I could never repay either.  Yet, the Aunt was the "white" one and the one that was not?  Was not.  I'm not saying one was more or less than the other.  In fact, quite the opposite.  They were both so good to me and my boys.  They were both my sisters and my sons' aunts.  They both earned that.  So it hit me like a ton of bricks.  Why was one "Aunt" and the other was not?  It was my own, bit of sub-conscious racism. Both are family.  I just didn't openly acknowledge my non-white friend was an aunt to my sons and a sister to me.  They, both of these women, deserved the same level of respect.  I had just been inconsistent in applying that respect.  

What's the take away?  If you are "white" America and you think you aren't "racist" because you aren't blatant, you aren't screaming at other races, you smile, you are polite, you do your "best" to be a "good" person?  That doesn't mean you aren't racist.  What means you aren't racist is you self analyze.  You recognize you have no non-white friends and you make the effort to change that.  We all work with multiple races, so you can.  You don't roll your eyes when you see a couple kids of another race.  You don't assume too brown, isn't it nice they are Native, brag how Native you are when you look "whiter" than bread.  You simply start to acknowledge we fail no matter how "non-racist" we are.  I'm not saying go out there and kiss ass.  I'm saying the Indian couple whose wife wears the full garb and with the Hindi dot on her forehead aren't weird and why did they move into your neighborhood isn't a problem for you.  I'm saying the asshole neighbor who you drink beer with twice a week who's bitching they moved in?  You tell him to shut the hell up nicely once and then if he keeps saying shitty things?  You quit drinking beer with him until he realizes he's being an asshole.  If he never realizes he's an asshole?  You go over to the Hindi neighbors with a fruit basket because you looked up that food baskets are considered respectful and you are making the effort, no matter what that asshole you thought was a good guy says.  And when he asks you?  You tell him flat out.  Nice neighbors.  Different?  Yeah, you suppose, but you like diversity and how amazing the wife's stuffed grape leaves are.  It's not enough you are not blatantly racist.  You have to try to overcome the underlying racism that we all have, the underlying racism so many of us allow by inaction.

Here's my way.  I am so sorry to one of my best friends, a sister, that my sons didn't call her Aunt.  She earned that.  I just had underlying racist beliefs, ones that should never have endured.  I'm not using them as an excuse for my guilty conscience.  I know it was wrong.  I'm sorry it took me this long to know it, and that it took even longer to grow a pair and admit it.  I cannot correct it.  My sons are grown.  I'm just glad that I did everything to teach them that I wasn't perfect and that skin hue was never a reason to judge anyone, whether capabilities, intelligence or friendship.  I just wasn't completely consistent with my message.  Fortunately for me, they knew I was wrong before I did.  

Survey Says... That was a lie.

This morning I opened my news app and a Newsweek article about a Pew Research poll that liberals don't want to date Republicans or Trumpers.  (Let's not get into the fact it's disturbing that my news app knows I'm single.) I read the article and it went on and on but lacking substance, as in statistics.  It didn't go into male versus female or age groupings.  Just on and on ramblings for what at best sounded like a "praise be you" to Trumpers.  Well, if you know me you know, I went and looked up this magical poll.  I mean I participated in a You Gov poll last fall/winter and it's results were like 53-47, Dems and Trumpers not willing to date the other. Okay, so what are we missing here?  Besides the Newsweek article reads like a pat on the back for the good old boys. 

So I found the Pew poll.  It was showing 47 of Trumpers were not willing to consider dating people who voted for Clinton and only 24 of the Dems were willing to date a Trumper.  But wait. Did you notice what I left out?  Percentage, as in % symbol.  I realized as I reviewed the "poll" it was not a population percentage.  These were numbers.  They talked to less than 100 people each who they already knew were Dems and Republicans, Trumpers and non-Trumpers. Even better. Newsweek wrote about this like it was recent.  It was last October.  Like right after the YouGov poll that apparently was done in mid-October.  The YouGov poll showed about 53% of Dems didn't want to date Trumpers and 47% of Trumpers didn't want to date Dems, Never Trumpers, etc. Yours truly participated in that poll which is why I remembered it. It was more in depth. Took about 30 minutes. The analysis asked about friends with other views, dating people with other views, etc.  But it pointed out that women 48% are more uncomfortable than men 40% dating across party lines.  It didn't say what percentage of women were in each party though.  

So I looked up party demographics   In 2017, women were 56% Dem or Dem leaning. Now, women are 65% Dem/Dem leaning. Men were 48% GOP/GOP leaning.  Now, not to disturb you ladies, but now they estimate 42% of men still lean GOP.  And if they consider themselves Euroamerican males (some Hispanic men do which is why the census asked straight up "White, not Hispanic"), that percentage of GOP leaning jumps up to 61%, compared to only 47% Euroamerican women. 

There's a distinct disparity here where it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out why Dems are less likely to want to date a GOP, particularly one who's a Trumper.  They are more likely to be female.  Males are typically less intimidated by women who have their own point of view.  Except, now 65% of females view themselves as Dem or Dem leaning whether they want to say it outloud or not. So, it's not really surprising women who don't really feel comfortable standing up for themselves just prefer not dating anyone who they might feel "bullied" by. 

Bullied?  Honestly, yes, I get plenty of Trumper, GOP, conservative guys swiping right for me. And I've gone out on a couple dates here and there with a couple different Trumpers.  First, every one of them is a miserable date.  They are more likely to brag about how much money they have. I don't care, especially when I make more than the ones who brag. It's not that I'm looking for someone who makes more than me.  It's that they are insulting me indirectly by assuming I make less than they do.  It's almost laughable now it has happened on every date with a Trumper.  I'm tits and ass and fairly attractive for my age, so I couldn't possibly be making more money than them.  The one that was living off disability was actually so laughable I sat there smiling the whole time trying to pretend I didn't want to strangle him.  If they go to politics, I tell them I'm a moderate.  If they push, I tell them I am a fiscal conservative.  Oh yes, I know, I'm dodging the question.  They're just not smart enough to.  "Who did you vote for?" Three out of 5 had to push it there.  I voted for Johnson I reply.  You would think at least I didn't vote for Clinton and they would drop the conversation like a hot potato someone just shoved up their butts.  Ah but no.  One of them got so irate he was screaming at me by the time he worked himself into a tizzy that I was a femi-Nazi bitch and I could've put that into my profile instead of "wasting his time".  

Right now all of you are thinking this may have ended with him eating his teeth, but you don't remember seeing me in one of those jailbird magazines some of you buy religiously. But my friends that know me, know I get quiet, cold and calculating in these types of situations.  I was completely aware that everyone in a 15' radius was at a stand still waiting for this to play out.  When he took a breath, I simply stood turned to him and said loudly enough for the immediate peanut gallery,  "Well, this has been a horrible experience." Grabbed my coat and purse, and punchlined, "if I were a femi-Nazi bitch, I'd pay the bill.  Instead you are."

Honestly, I can see over half my friends in tears, regardless of their political affiliation.  Which may have prompted God knows what.  More screaming with "snowflake" or "pansy ass liberal" or any other slew of insults most Trumpers like to hurl like they were raised in seaside brothels by whores and sailors.  I can't imagine why most women wouldn't want to endure that. I promise you that's my last time enduring it.

Now, since that nightmare, I've basically hardly bothered with dating at all. I don't swipe right for anyone claiming to be a "conservative" anymore.  Just the sight of a guy in his profile with that MAGAt hat makes me cringe. I imagine at least some of the conservatives I'm swiping left on are Never Trumpers.  But I don't care. I don't want to experience that ever again.  The next time, the guy might be lucky to walk away with his trachea intact. I don't care what your political beliefs are. You do not have that right to scream at me or any other woman like you are a 3rd grade bully telling me I can't play with the ball.  And I'll tell you right now, I don't care how strong any of the women I know are.  None of them want to put up with it either.  

So Newsweek and their article can kiss my ass and probably at least 65% of the women out there feel the same way.  Same goes for Pew Research.  If you aren't going to take full demographic data and analyze it your results are shit.  Here's the facts fellas.  Women are still tired of being crapped on.  We almost all have been, and if we haven't been, we know someone who has been. One of our good friends has definitely put up with some man's crap. We are tired of it and you can scream MAGAt at the top of your lungs.  Most of us realize what you really want is to dial back when boys were men and men were boys.  Women were property, arm candy, barefoot and pregnant, and held by financial "gunpoint" in dependency.  Some feel "good", "I'm a man", skewed poll isn't going to change most women don't want to go back there, if they remember how bad that really was. 

What we want are partners, respect, someone who understands give as much as take.  What we don't want?  To be bullied into submission.  So yes, most Dem/Dem leaning being a majority of females?  It doesn't surprise me 71% don't want to date you in a tiny skewed poll.  What surprises me thinking about it now is that a statistically sound poll showed 47% of us were willing to last October.  I was one of them.  Thank your MAGAt behavior for turning me into one of the 65% of Dem leaning women when I've been registered GOP all my adult life. Leaders lead by example because followers mimick.  Donald Trump is a pig and you decided that meant you could be too. Survey says, that was a lie.

How to piss off a Trumper

1. Don't like Trump.

2. Make it clear you don't like Trump.

3.  Say anything with the word "Trump" in it after #2.

That's it. No repeat necessary.  Trumpers will keep coming at you until you give up.

Hoaxers and the Dalai Lama

You have to be a very strong person to make points to Hoaxers. You have to have the facts, be ready to share them and be able to post the links yourself because Hoaxers can't Google. Often you will have to have legitimate medical sites, proof of anything you share with credentials. 

Even educated ones will try to jump all over you as long as they outnumber you and can "bully" their view. They have a tendency to get snarky with no facts. It's hard not to get snarky back.  Afterall, you've got facts.  They've got an opinion based on other opinions, often devoid of any relative facts.  Sometimes devoid of any facts at all.

What I find most interesting is how often facts just aren't enough with them. They've tied their egos up to something that seems trivial.  Should a person's ego be tied up so tightly to the idea something is a "hoax"?  Should a person's ego be so tied up to incorrect information?  Is this really normal behavior?

For example, I have friends that are very tied to certain religious beliefs. Their religion gives them strength through hard times. Makes them thankful for what they have. Often helps them cope with daily life and sometimes tragedy. They often believe in intangible things.  Things we can't see. Things they take on their faith.  To some degree, we all do.

Using my own beliefs further to my point, I believe in reincarnation. I also believe in Karma.  I often see posts by some of my Christian friends posting a vengeful version of karma.  That's not really what Karma is in teachings. Karma isn't good or bad, so much as lessons.  Some might view good Karma as a reward. But in teachings, it's not a reward. It's an opportunity to grow more.  I don't point this out. My friends that share this aren't talking in facts. They are talking in opinions and views and interpretations.  They interpret the word "karma" as they perceive "heaven" and "hell", rewards and punishment. 

Could I explain this difference?  Sure, I could. And honestly, since most of my friends are not tied to my religious beliefs, it might confuse some, interest others, but I doubt any of them would then have 3 to two dozen people pelting me with arguments like bullies in a school yard.

Even if they did, would they all be right or wrong?  I have no way to prove reincarnation.  There's no science behind it really.  I cannot prove their interpretation of karma isn't really correct. It's like splitting hairs at that point.  Am I tied to my beliefs?  Of course I am. But I have no proof. I have religious texts but those are not scientific proof. I cannot share a Harvard Medical study showing how Karma works. There are no facts, just my belief.

Yet, medicine works in facts.  There is science behind it.  There are studies, lots and lots of them.  There are experts who can show you pictures of the viruses and bacteria and who have scientific proof of exactly how the body's immune system works.  Do they know everything?  No, but they know, factually, way more than any one else.  

When someone says, I don't care what the facts are and accepts a narrative with false facts, we call that beliefs.  It's not. Beliefs are in things with no facts. Zero, none, zilch.  Beliefs we take on faith. Like some of my friends take on Faith God is there for them. Or that heaven or hell will be where they or others end up.  Even my own beliefs in reincarnation and Karma.  These are beliefs. We have no proof; we just believe. 

Hoaxers have somehow tied themselves up into fact denying, twisting, even faced with the numbers of the dead. They believe. They use all kinds of weird things that often don't make sense factually.  But the strangest part is they ignore facts. I said a few days ago, dead is dead. 16,700+ today. Somehow the Hoaxers have let go of the 2009 flu narrative of 16,000+ in 6 months was bad and moved on to "new" numbers.  It's a moving scale for them.  How in the hell is that even possible?  I think the answer is clear.  Ego.

Years ago, the Dalai Lama was asked an interesting question in an interview. 

"What would you do if science proved there was no such thing as reincarnation?"

The Dalai Lama replied, "We would stop believing in it."

Hoaxers, regardless of religious beliefs, you could learn a lot from the Dalai Lama. Even if your ego, everything you believe is tied into something, in the face of facts you quit believing.  No one's ego is more than facts.

Is it really that bad? Coronavirus versus the Flu

I have seen a couple of comparisons of the newest Coronavirus to the Spanish Flu in 1918 from both the worry warts and the naysayers, along with more and more desperate attempts to even compare to diseases that we have vaccines and cures for but simply never get distributed to the poorer countries.  I think we all need to understand what's actually known versus not, so we can attempt to protect ourselves.

The overly worried point out how quickly this new virus has spread similar to the "Spanish" Flu, how there is no cure in either case, and how the government has lied or mislead about the severity making the spread worse.  All true. The naysayers point out how the Spanish Flu killed millions, how it had no cure and that this is mild in comparison.  The first 2 are true.  But the 3rd is representative of exactly why the "Spanish" Flu was so bad in 1918.  So here's an explanation of the differences.

COVID19, The newest Coronavirus

Let's start with the "Spanish" Flu. This is the H1N1 virus. If it sounds familiar, that's because H1N1 was redesignated as "Swine" Flu and we had a huge surge of it in 2009.  Same bug. Not all Influenza viruses are H1N1.  But they are, as far as I have researched, given an H and N designation. Now, I'm guessing a couple of you are scratching your heads. Why call it the Swine Flu if it was the "Spanish" Flu?  Probably two or three reasons. First, the US government mislead the American public.  H1N1 started in Kansas at what is now Fort Riley.  The US government refused to discuss the outbreak and did everything to keep the news from reporting it.  The Spanish, as in Spain, were the only country reporting it regularly in their news.  So the public incorrectly designated it as the "Spanish" Flu. Secondly, the "Spanish" Flu still strikes fear if you were to Google it.  The death toll was super high.  No one wants people panicking.  Third, well, they figured out where it started, with pigs.  Why not just call it H1N1? No idea.  We like to give scary things fluffy names I guess.  Make them less scary and more comical. 

So H1N1.  It still kills, even today.  It attacks 20 somethings faster than most.  In 2009-10, they estimated it killed up to 575,000 globally.  In 1918, they estimate it killed 50M globally, 675,000 in the USA alone.  Wow, right?  How come the number is so much less, if it was the same bug from 1918?

Medicine and our knowledge of how these diseases start and progress in 1918 versus 2009 was very different.  We have vacc;ines to help prevent the different strains of the flu.  Hell, in 1918, we didn't even know what caused it.  The H1N1 virus was not identified until 1931 in pigs.  In 1933, it was isolated as the same as the "Spanish" Flu and probably why scientists renamed it then.  By 2009, they saw no reason to call it the "Spanish" Flu. Yet, it still kills, because we don't actually have "cures" for these bugs.   The death rate was lower because we know more about how it spreads, what helps and what doesn't, and more importantly, we have become more accepting of the science behind how these things work.

H1N1 aka. Swine ("Spanish") Flu

We know how flu viruses are transmitted.  We also have developed vaccines for them.  Plus, we communicate faster, more effectively what the risks are.  In 1918, the main treatments were blood letting (yes taking people's blood out), putting them side by side in huge rooms or tents, telling people to stay outside, and trying to reduce the fever.  There were no drugs they knew would help.  Some doctors would give morphine because in later stages the eyes and ears would bleed.  Until recently, we thought the morphine may have made it worse.  Recent studies do not support that. But back then, no one knew what was causing it, so there was no way to establish what would work or not.  They were experimenting with the sick.  If the sick died, they assumed it wasn't working, or if they didn't, they assumed it did. 

By 2009, we knew what caused it.  We knew how it was transmitted host to host.  This made isolating the sick from the healthy important versus shoving them in beds side by side.  We knew how to protect medical workers.  We also discovered how to treat the symptoms better.  Keeping the fever down. Keeping the sick hydrated.  Amazingly, back in 1918 no one realized dehydration was causing the body to shut down on top of fighting the virus.  Still, as we saw in 2009, no cure.  People still can die from H1N1 and even from its less potent family members.

Now, I intentionally picked pictures that made the two above similar looking with the color but that's really from the microscope used.  What they really look like when dissected doesn't look as similar.  If you look at the pictures below, you see that the interior and the exterior of the two are different.

H1N1 dissection

COVID19 dissection

The two are similar with hemagglutinin, but notice the new spikes on the Coronavirus referred to as Spike Glycoprotein. No, I'm not about to get into a whole discussion about what this is. I have no idea and that's what some scientists way smarter than me do for a living.  I'm just providing layman's information.  Suffice to say in laymen's terms, these are different and they can't automatically be assumed to be similar in treatment, transmission, or even life spans. What we do know about the H1N1 is it has never been eradicated, and the biggest problem with the Coronavirus is, by the best information we have, neither will it. 

Which brings us to the worry warts.  Yes, they are right. COVID19 is highly contagious.  It is harder to kill than the H1N1.  There's no cure and right now treatment is only an educated guess.  The government has been very misleading which we know makes it worse not better from 1918's experience. It got the opportunity to spread when it shouldn't have.  But does that mean you should stop and worry about dying from it?  Probably not.  Kids seem to be near immune.  NEAR.  It doesn't attack them like the H1N1 attacks younger hosts. H1N1 favored younger, healthy hosts.  For COVID19, the elderly seem to be the most susceptible.  To the worry warts points though, how many of us don't have elderly family?  Smokers and people with other conditions seem to be affected also.  So some of us may need to be more careful, if not for ourselves, for our loved ones.

Now further to the worry warts points, almost nothing we know about this Coronavirus is actually based on it.  Instead most of it is based on the two previous ones, SARS and MERS.  (See below.)

SARS virus dissection

MERS virus dissection

Now, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to see there are similarities and differences.  This is why we cannot assume what we know about one applies to the others, but also why we assume that at least some, even a majority, of what we know about one applies to the others.  It's not an ideal science at this stage.  Researching these things takes a lot of man hours and a lot of people with the dedication to study these things.  Time is never on their side.

Now, the comparison to H1N1 that I eluded to earlier that makes scientists of any caliber cringe. H1N1 was a nasty little devil. It appeared towards the end of the winter in 1918.  When it started to warm up, the transmission rates lowered. This is because the most common ways these are distributed is via droplets of saliva when the sick cough.  This is why we eventually started telling people to cover their mouths.  Back then, no one realized this was the primary route of transmission.  In fact, up until the last 10-15 years, we also thought it was okay to cough in your hand and it wasn't transmittable.  Then we realized these things have a shelf life outside the body.  H1N1 for the most part lasts up to 8 hours on almost all surfaces.  After that, it's dead, even without cleaning. But from the other two coronaviruses, we know these babies have a shelf life for days on some materials.  They haven't actually established for certain the shelf life of  COVID19 is the same, yet.  We also know how to contain H1N1 and provide better treatments.  We know that because we had over 70 years to test it.  H1N1 was "discovered" in 1931 and traced to pigs. In 1933, it was confirmed to be the same one from the 1918 epidemic.  By 2009, we knew a LOT about it.  But it still killed 575,000 people globally in 2009. We only have had a little over 16 years to study the new coronaviruses.

Believe it or not, none of that is even the scariest part.  The one thing we know about H1N1 that scares scientists when they have a new virus to deal with?  In 1918, they thought it was gone, eradicated by summer.  They had no idea why.  The reason that these viruses start to dwindle off in the summer?  Because the way the moisture in our voices, in our coughs dissipates.  In the winter months, these droplets remain larger.  Bigger carriers with more likelihood to get into a non-sick person.  By summer, the temperature makes these smaller.  They dissipate faster and they become less communicable.  That all sounds good, right?  By summer it's gone?  Not exactly.  First, I already explained these babies are never completely gone. Neither flus or the coronaviruses go dormant.  Instead, they mix with other viral strains, effectively mutating.  As I've already explained, H1N1 in 2009 is the same H1N1 in 1918.  The coronaviruses are exactly the same.  They just mutate, mesh with other viral infections.  Nice, right?  But, they hold on--going from place to place, maybe even person to person during the summer months, lying in wait.  At least that's what H1N1 did in 1918.  Most of the deaths from H1N1 were in the fall and first half of winter in 1918, not the spring of 1918 when it first appeared.  It resurged because the virus held on and no one was protected.  They didn't know how.

So in 2020, scientists don't know how long before they can figure out how to contain it.  The things they are telling us aren't based on what they know about COVID19.  They are basing it on the previous two novel coronaviruses.  Isn't that special?  Looking at the dissections of the 3, you can see how that would work, but you can also see how that might not.  They are similar but not the same.  When they talk about the first two meshing to form a third, you can see how COVID19 has a mix of the SARS and MERS inside its "shell".  They are best guessing that it has the best of both right now to treat it, but it's an educated guess, which is still just a guess.  They also know they are working against the clock.  It took over 20 years to know what caused H1N1.  It took decades after that to understand as much as they do about Influenza.  Science and its equipment, even the scientists now, are better with more accumulated knowledge from the past and present.  But that clock for them will continue to tick until next winter.

Resurgence is the bigger concern then.  SARS was found in 2003 did not resurge.  That doesn't mean COVID19 won't.  Right now, they think it's a mesh of SARS and MERs.  MERS first strarted in 2013.  It resurged last year, 2019.  COVID19 has taken more lives than both.  When someone says summer can't come fast enough.  They're right.  It gives scientists some time to try and figure out how to combat it.  It also gives a little hope that it won't resurge, but that depends highly on us keeping it contained to a minimum number of people.  If everyone is running around like this is no big deal like they did in 1918, well, that can help this virus resurge in the fall.

I've said it over and over.  No reason to panic, but no reason to be irresponsible and ignore history either.  The winners here are the worry warts.  The naysayers do not have history or science on their side.  History and science tell us keep this thing to a minimum.  Take care of yourself.  Don't intentionally take risks that aren't necessary, but don't be completely worried and home bound unless you are in the at risk categories or sick.  It's that simple.  Listening to the naysayers increases our chances of this thing getting worse.  

***

I'm not even going to go into the whole virus versus bacterial and parasitical diseases some people have taken to trying to compare this to.  There's literally no comparison.  Total different root causes and total different solutions.  If I see a whole bunch of that nonsense, I will, but I would like to think most people remember a tiny bit of high school biology.    

Every Flawless Diamond Started in the Rough

My boss told me the other day that I take constructive criticism well.  I think this was a very high compliment.  I am always trying to be a better me, and I feel even inputs I don't agree with are opportunities for self reflection and improvement. We are all diamonds in the rough.  I'm no exception.

Constructive criticism is a positive.  We are often told it isn't, but that's because a lot of people don't do constructive criticism.  The stereotype is criticism is bad.  It can be. It depends on the delivery.  There certainly are people that only criticize others to drag them down, put them in their place, make them feel bad about themselves. Positive criticism isn't that way.  The person genuinely wants you to succeed.  They see an inclusion that needs to be polished or filled. 

Now I know a couple of my friends look to improve themselves and always listen and then self evaluate.  I also know some of you let someone tell you everything they think is "wrong" with you.  Some of you internalize what's being said, but it's often because you've been over exposed to negative criticism ~ how you aren't good enough and never will be or you must conform to their wants, their lives, who they are.  That's not constructive criticism.  Nasty people like to pretend they are "helping" while tearing you down. They don't want you to be your best because they aren't and will never be their best.

Sure, we all have our rough edges in certain aspects.  No diamond is perfect.  Even a "flawless" diamond has inclusions.  They just aren't visible under 10x magnification.  None of us will ever be "flawless".  You have to accept that, and when those negative ninnies are telling you how "wrong" you are in their minds, you give that the value that you give the person talking.  Are they a positive in your life?  Are they dragging you down? Sometimes we value the opinions of people who only want to see us fail.  These are the people who we should give little value to their opinions. It doesn't hurt to give it some thought, but don't overwhelm yourself with it.

If it's constructive, and if you know yourself you know what positive, constructive criticism should look like, then you take that opportunity to improve you.  But never let anyone beat you down.  You aren't perfect, but no one is.  All we can do is try to improve ourselves everyday, and constructive criticism affords us the opportunity to see what we may have missed.  Not all criticism is bad and you shouldn't shirk from it. Never, ever let negative people criticize you to the point you "lose" your ability to work towards your "flawless".  Be as brilliant as you can be and work every day to be even more brilliant.

Those who can't, teach, or some such nonsense

I often have heard people say, "marriage is work". These people if you sit and listen to their stories often regale moments in life they had to give a piece of themselves up or vice versa.  They required their spouse to give up a piece of themselves.  This is work.  Giving up a piece of who you are.  I have no doubt this can "make" a marriage work, but from observing many truly happy, great marriages over the years, if it is "work" or ever was, it's not a good marriage, let alone a great one.

Now I know I never had a great marriage, but as the old adage goes, those who can't, teach. I think it might be because it's much easier seeing how these things work best, pun intended, when you are on the outside looking in.  There's only one ingredient needed to make a great marriage, yes, one.  But, it must be from both sides, it must be genuine, and it must be understanding.  Love.  As another adage goes, "Love conquers all."

Oh nonsense?  My grandparents appeared to have the most amazing marriage looking at it on its face value.  It was years in the making, not even sure I've fully reconciled, that my grandparents, especially from my grandmother's side, hated each other.  Certainly my grandfather seemed extremely proud of some of my grandmother's accomplishments.  A welder during WWII for example.  Yet in hindsight, I see a man who thought he married one woman and got another.  He probably married more for money than my grandmother did.  He came from a farming family, so not rich albeit not poor.  My grandmother on the other hand was the daughter of a banker.  I don't need to explain my great grandfather had money.  My grandfather married a sassy, independent, outspoken woman.  So when that was squelched by the world around her, marriage, not being able to work in anything that she really wanted to, and my grandfather out drinking, having a life, while she stayed at home and waited, taking care of children, the house, cooking and cleaning with little else for herself, eventually that alone was too much for her.  Whatever love she had for him died in a house she felt trapped in, slowly, as if dying from a hidden cancer, until it was replaced with contempt, loathing, and hate.  Sadly, as was the lot in life for a lot of women then (you married and there was no divorce), she simply made "peace" with it and then it was just "work". 

Their marriage was never work for my grandfather.  He probably perceived it as such.  As I stated earlier, the woman he married was not the woman my grandmother was forced into.  It wasn't necessarily either of their choices what her lot in life was regulated to. He loved the woman he married, he knew it was the same woman, but there was no denying she wasn't her anymore.  So he longed for what was gone and regaled me in stories of who she was to remind himself.  Oddly, I don't believe it ever occurred to him that it was partially his fault she withered away from him.  In his imaginations, he just didn't see that he could've easily encouraged her to have her own business freeing her from the fetters of society and not been out carousing with his male buddies while she silently suffered alone as the maid, the cook and the caregiver. It simply never occurred to him that he was just as much to blame as society for crushing the flower he once loved. 

Love is precious. I might be deluding myself that they ever loved each other.  But I also know my grandmother would say "it's just as easy to marry a rich man as a poor one." Is it?  What she was really telling me was the difference between her father's choice, another man from similar upbringing and wealth, versus my grandfather.  We're they ever in love?  I believe so. 

We certainly repeat the mistakes we see as children. What I thought I saw was a "perfect" marriage, at some subconscious level.   As a result, my marriage was a mirror of theirs.  A man who thought a woman's place was in the home but still tried or feigned it wasn't.  When I realized that was the track I was on, I understood that was going to be "work" and wanted no part of the lives they had at a conscious level.  

Oh yes I know. That's examples of failure. How is that proving love is the only ingredient?  So you hear these words compromise, commitment, dedication, loyalty, friendship, never go to bed angry, these all are great advice.  But these alone, hell every single word you throw out there on how to make a marriage "work" is bullshit if you don't love someone.  Love is selfless, bending (not breaking), kind, forgiving, supportive... Love is the glue. One of my favorite sayings when not happy with someone I love, "I love you but I don't like you right now.". You don't always like, approve of, or even want to be around the person you love.  Anyone with kids that they love understands this saying.  The difference with a spouse is you choose this person.  They chose you.  It's not implied as it is for a parent.   If you kill it, all the compromise, dedication, loyalty, etc in the world won't change the rest of your marriage is going to be "work".  Selfish behaviors are often the slow cancer that kills love. Affairs eat at a person's ego, eventually cutting deep enough to end any love that was ever there. Again this is from long term observation of marriages marred with this behavior.  Even if they stay married like my grandparents had to, the smiles and niceties, masks of toleration, don't hide the truth.  Even a child will see it even though they don't know what they see.  

Friendship often can't repair the damage done. It doesn't hurt, but then that friendship, something that takes time to cultivate, can't be the main ingredient.  Why? Because so many people that marry for love only 2 or 3 months in and last a lifetime.  Or the guy who meets a girl and says immediately by the end of that evening that he's going to marry that girl and spends the rest of his life head over heels for her.  Doesn't happen, right naysayers?  George HW and Barbara Bush.  That's actually their story and while extremely rare not actually uncommon for those couples that make it the long haul.   Love, true love, is then the glue holds everything else in place.  

There are lots of movies where we see women of the Silent and Boomer generations hate the men they married.  It's a slow process to that point because it had to be.  When you were stuck married for your livelihood or for your children, you keep trying to tell yourself it's what you want. You can work through it. You can "fix" it.  You can't. Once there, it's like the trap that goes around and around.  In a movie (bonus if you know the movie), a strong, wealthy, Southern matriarch tells her only son's wife when the younger woman catches her husband, the son, cheating that if she wants to be married to a man like him (wealthy, arrogant, etc) she's got to be stronger, put her foot down and accept on occasion this will be an issue because he's a wanderer.  Oh for fuck's sake. 

No, no, you don't.  A man has never, NEVER, had to put up with a woman running around unless he's a geezer married to arm candy and doesn't want to be embarrassed by having to admit he was taken in by a gold digging ho-bag.  So bluntly, no woman should have to either. If you make this choice, then own it.  But again, settle on the fact your marriage will always be "work" and no matter how much you love him, or her, there will be times that you won't believe he (she) loves you. In fact, at those times, he/she probably doesn't.  Love isn't selfish and it drives you passed most of those more selfish behaviors if you really love someone. A single mistake can be a learning moment.  Several of the same mistakes is a pattern for contempt and loathing.

Sure, I do know people who love each other who have made it over a rough patch.  Not many.  Most honestly end up divorced sooner or later.  Again, once the love is gone a crack in the relationship becomes like a cancer that's only treatable in the very early stages.  There's always one trying to cling to what's left.  The other one staying for a myriad of reasons.  It goes back and forth for several years and then crash and burn.  The only exceptions I've seen are where they come to some mutual benefit view. 

Let's call this mutual benefit the Clinton theory. No one in this country believes Hillary and Bill Clinton love each other, even themselves.  His very public affairs alone make both men and women cringe and cause even their most ardent supporters to acknowledge theirs is much more a business relationship than a marriage.  As the advice of that matriarch says it in so many words. Suck it up buttercup and get what you want out of this relationship.  Hillary Clinton set women's rights back 20 years with her version of Stand by Your Man.  No one I know ever denies she stayed and got what she wanted out of it.  Whether a Senator seat and almost the Presidency or a cushy retirement, financial stability, maintaining status quo, people that make these compromises to make a marriage "work" become embittered.  Sure some of you say Hillary isn't bitter.  No probably not anymore, but I bet after the 1st, 3rd, 5th, she was.  Eventually she came to terms with it.  

The Clinton theory is simple.  You feel screwed and you decide to get yours.  You give up on love and make peace with the fact that you've worked your whole life to some end. And a divorce will, in your mind, end everything you worked for to date. You will start over.  You don't want to do that. Doesn't matter why. You've come to that conclusion.  Your marriage is now not a loving relationship but a business partnership where you overlook your partner's failings.  In a loving relationship, you overlook or even find those failings endearing. In these partnerships, they grate you, but it is what it is. You "work" through it for the business partnership and ignore any further dilemmas regarding a real marriage. 

What's a great marriage look like?  Love.  I know this wonderful older couple. They have been married for 57 years and they love each other like it was just yesterday they married.  This is a man who never cheated even though he could've because he loved his wife so.  This is a woman who could've found better options if she had wanted, more money, more this, less that, but never gave those things a second thought because of how much she loved him.  They don't describe their marriage as "work" but as love.  They don't deny they have had tough and rougher patches.  But those aren't how they describe their time, their lives together. They still are just this adorable loving couple.  But neither of them ever forced the other to compromise their love and make it "work".  They may look older but the sass, the joking, the loving looks, all those things we picture as the ideal marriage after so many years, they still have. That's all rolled into one word, Love.

Of course, there are limits each of us have.  Almost all, I'm sure there are some rare exceptions, believe cheating is a deal breaker. Men will almost always cut it off faster than a woman will faced with their spouse cheating. But cheating isn't the only one.  For some it might be a handful of things that add up to a limit.  If we think about our limits, those things we will or can't live with, then we know our deal breakers.  Ideally, we have no shame in sharing what those limits are when we fall in love and vice versa.  When those limits are crossed, especially if they have been vocalized as to not being ambiguous, then there's only two options.  The Clinton theory aka. "work".  I'm not talking about who takes out the trash.  If you can't overlook the petty ante stuff, you shouldn't be married to that person in the first place. But if you thought it was going to be split chores and suddenly you are taking out the trash, mowing the lawn, doing the dishes, laundry, vacuuming, dusting, toilets, while Billy Boy (or Girl) sits on the couch drinking beer and scratching himself? Well over time even that can kill love.  It's a small crack that propagates into the cancer, and when it's over, it's over.  In the in-between, the whole thing will be... You got it. WORK.

My boss would tell you I love work. Even most of my previous bosses would say that, but they would all be referencing my actual work. Job.  A relationship shouldn't be a job.  A relationship can try your nerves, but love really does conquer that. You find those things become the most endearing eventually.  The thing you wouldn't change because it's become your special thing about the person you love. Something you would be annoyed by with anyone else but somehow it's not in the least bit bothersome because of love. Think about it from another perspective. I love my boys.  They could grate my nerves but the love I have for them has always made it easy to continue to try and help them become the best men they can be.  Sometimes I'm really not happy with them, even not liking what they have done, but I still love them and still want to find a way to help.  That's what love is. It's the glue between us and our children when they drive us crazy.  It's the same glue when your spouse does something ridiculous.  Eventually love makes you look back at it in humor.  Once love is gone? It's just one more thing that you hate.  

Sure I'm not really the one to be giving advice, but truth is simple. I've never remarried again because I've never been in love again.  I've never gotten to that point that "this is the one" again.  I've seen it happen for other people. Divorced isn't the end of the world.  But if we've ever been in love, we know the difference. Initially there's just something that happens.  You can't put your finger on it. It's intangible.  A moment where you just know. Not a moment where you think. Not a moment where you settle. Just that split second where it comes into focus. I'm not sure it happens at the same time for both parties. I suspect it doesn't since we are afterall still individuals.  So then it has to happen for both to have that perfect equation.  Maybe as we get older, we get less bright eyed and everything looks hued over.  Maybe I just figure if I'm going to do all the "work" I may as well be single. But being single has given me the luxury of looking in and at some of the most and least successful marriages without my own cluttering my mind.  Those who can't, teach, because those that can't see the good and the bad of everyone else's choices.

Fake it until you're still just faking it

We live in a world of phonies.  I think when most people think of what made America "great" we tend to idealize it.  When men were men and women were women, when hard work paid off, when kids could play in the street from dawn to dusk and no one had to worry.  Then our rose colored glasses got stripped off.  Men beat their women to pulps and everyone turned a blind eye.  Hard work didn't pay off.  It meant you worked for the guy who was a total asshole who would back stab you if you crossed him faster than diarrhea.  Where rich men got rich off other men's hard work.  Rockefeller, Vanderbilt, Carnegie, Edison, JP Morgan, Westinghouse.  These were our idols growing up.  Successful businessmen.  We are only now realizing, in spite of books and news articles of the times, often portraying these men as vindictive, uncaring, making their money off other people's hard work, we somehow began to idolize the idea of being an asshole to be successful.  As far as kids being kids, well, I left the house regularly in the summer at the break of dawn on my bicycle, bag lunch in tow, to go hangout with my friends on the shores of Lake Erie several miles away.  We thought nothing of this.  But I remember when they first started putting kids pictures on milk cartons also.  I don't remember ever seeing the same one twice, although I'm sure I might have.  To my point, there were a lot.  We just didn't realize how big of an epidemic abductions were.  The world of phonies had re-written history quietly turning themselves into heroes and scarring our make up for the last 100 years, if not the next.  Phonies and bullies are who we idolize most.

The first time most people got a glimpse, and some still haven't, at what phonies were in control back then was when the Tesla story came out.  We knew him, if we knew him at all, as a brilliant scientist that died a destitute drunk loner.  These images couldn't be further from the truth.  Tesla is the reason we have just about everything we have developed in the last 100 years.  Tesla in his creative ideas expanded our capabilities exponentially.  Wireless power?  Tesla.  Water power on a mass scale?  Niagara Falls ringing any bells?  Tesla.  Wireless communication and radio?  Now credited correctly to Tesla instead of Marconi.  DC, aka. direct current?  Many people gave Edison credit for this even now.  However, this is in fact laughable upon closer examination.  Edison was notorious for running around the country stealing other ideas (more than 2000 of his patents invalidated due to theft).  Tesla was under his employ when he supposedly "developed" direct current.  In fact, Edison did create one thing--the intellectual property contract.  Everything that Tesla developed under Edison belonged to Edison.  In fact, Tesla's rarely mentioned in anything Edison "did" while Tesla was in his employ.  It is therefore to this day in debate whether Edison or Tesla actually created DC.  We know the famous light bulb was a mistake--not even Edison's mistake.  A glass blower's.  We also know that everything that Edison's labs created from DC were in fact Tesla's from Tesla's research books.  Therefore, it's highly unlikely that Edison ever created anything except a mistake and a contract.  In support of my opinion, I would point out that even the patents that have not been revoked that still remain in Edison's name would require that he was submitting a new patent for approval every 3 days from his first to his last.  Add in the known stolen intellectual property that resulted in half being revoked, he would've been creating a new patent every 1.5 days.  Really.  Yeah, any idiot that knows anything about new ideas, 1.5 days would have been impossible, even for Tesla.  And Edison, in spite of all his blustering, was no Tesla.  

Why then did Edison for a century have this admired reputation?  Because Tesla was a genuinely nice guy.  He worried about other people.  He had empathy.  He was not a loner.  One of his best friends was Mark Twain.  In fact, when Edison was telling everyone how "dangerous" the Tesla coil was, Tesla's initial experiment to prove wireless power was safe, Mark Twain (Samuel Clemmons for you pickier people) volunteered to help Tesla prove to the world otherwise. 

Mark Twain holding a Tesla Coil 1894

Almost all of you have touched a Tesla coil.  They were super popular in the 1970's and 80's and anyone could buy them at their local mall in Spencer's.  None of you died from it as Edison had claimed.  Surprise, surprise.  But Edison had made it his life's mission to "end" Tesla and erase his name from history.  Tesla had several patents on the radio way before Marconi.  Yet, for decades, even after the Patent Office had invalidated Marconi's patent for the radio in 1943, schools and universities, yes universities, were still teaching Marconi had invented the radio in 1901 as late as 2010.  In fact, Tesla had done so 5 years earlier, patent and all.  Yet, again, Edison would praise Marconi for decades.  Edison was a vindictive, petty little man, and when I was 7 he was my idol.  If you didn't know he was a fake, you probably still are idolizing him.  

The reason the Tesla versus Edison story is so poignant?  It illustrates the greed, vindictiveness, lies they were willing to tell, just in their petty grab for cash and notoriety.  Tesla is also unique in that he crossed paths with Westinghouse and JP Morgan, who also would abuse Tesla and his memory relentlessly.  Westinghouse's contract with Tesla is well known today--he paid Tesla $60,000 for his patents (1887's $60,000) and $2.50 per hp (horsepower) of electricity sold, plus a salary as a consultant.  Edison and Westinghouse had long been rivals prior to Tesla entering the picture, but Edison's attacks in the news media and his propaganda ads purchased in various medium had some people terrified of both.  Westinghouse went to Tesla with a sob story about losing everything, and Tesla famously tore up the contract.  Westinghouse no longer paid him the $2.50 per hp, and Tesla's money dried up.  Arguably, this shows Edison was a petty little man and Westinghouse's greed trumped any friendship anyone thought they had with him.  Tesla' interactions for funding then lead him to JP Morgan who had become a true believer in wireless power.  That ended abruptly when Morgan found out that Tesla had no way of measuring the power once delivered and Tesla in fact wanted to distribute "free" power to everyone on the planet.  JP Morgan had no vision.  No real intellect.  An actual intelligent man with any vision would've realized that once the wireless power was created a tracking system could be created.  He was not as vindictive to Tesla as Edison or scheming as Westinghouse, albeit he did make it impossible for Tesla to gather any further funding.  These men were not visionaries.  They were greedy and they didn't care how they got rich so much as they got rich.  

Rockefeller Political Cartoon in reference to concerns of his creating a monopoly via legal and illegal means

All 3 of those men though didn't hold a candle to Vanderbilt, Carnegie and Rockefeller in their quests for money and power.  These men didn't work hard.  They were notorious bullies earlier in their quests.  We now know that Vanderbilt was horrible in their treatment of the Irish and Chinese immigrants they brought over to build the railroads.  These men and their families treated like indentured servants, little more than slaves even after we abolished slavery.  Carnegie was known as a brutal boss who hired Pinkertons to bully (possibly even kill) workers' leadership and workers who didn't like the long hours and shitty pay.  Ironically, he's the most hypocritical of all, with one famous saying attributed to him, "The man who dies rich dies disgraced."  Perhaps, that is why Carnegie in his old age began to fear for his soul.  One of his most famous donations was to his wife's cousin to start a university in Tennessee that we now know as Vanderbilt University.  His extensive giving includes the now famous Carnegie Hall and an endowment that keeps it up to this day.  It's certainly debatable whether it was more on his wife's fears for his soul than his own that he became such a benefactor of the arts and education, but in Vanderbilt's case, he was actually demonized fairly regularly.  Older than the other two, we as a society let the bigger dogs eat the smaller dogs back then.  So Vanderbilt's only philanthropic donation of his entire life, shortly before he died, was to a university made in his name to the same cousin Carnegie donated to (yes, these families were so intertwined it's a bit of a straight tree back then).  In fact, both Carnegie and Vanderbilt are given credit for the "founding" with their initial donations for the university to Minister Holland McTyeire.  Who?  McTyiere's wife was second cousin to Vanderbilt's second wife and Carnegie's wife.  Seeing a pattern here?   It was the wives more likely that pushed for their husbands' souls.  Eventually both families turning into quite active philanthropists, but a couple generations later--not the men who we supposedly revere.  William Vanderbilt was more demonized than his father Cornelius, albeit this was arguably because newspapers of William's time were no longer owned by only a handful of rich people that used them exclusively as propaganda.  William faced even more trouble in the papers with his anti-people rhetoric.  These men we somehow have been convinced were "good" because they wore a smile, while stabbing their friends, their competition, and anyone who they perceived as crossing them as disloyal and something to be crushed, bullied, ended...Sound like anyone you know?

William Vanderbilt Political Cartoon circa 1890's: Running over and holding up the average man

Arguably, anyone that worked for one of these men, hard work didn't actually pay off.  Finagling, learning when to dodge a bullet, kissing ass, doing questionable things both legally and morally questionable, was the order of their day and failure to comply was the end of a career.  Worse with a vindictive nightmare following you around until the day you died preventing you from being anything but a milkman.  Their companies had notorious harsh work environments where men and women from the lower classes would work 12-20 hour days, often 6 to 7 days a week.  Where children would start working as young as 9-14 years old.  There was no medical coverage.  There was no dental coverage.  There were no breaks, just a lunch once a day.  Workers were expected to do as they were told regardless of the danger that might entail and regardless of whether there was a better way.  Ideas from non-management were non-existent.  They didn't want to hear your ideas.  "Shut up and do your job" was how both my grandfather and my father describe most managers.  Why both eventually went to work for themselves one in the late 40's and one in the late 70's.  Not much had changed in 30 years.  Hell since the 1800's.  These men would walk through and smile at everyone, and then arbitrarily tell managers and supervisors to fire people because they didn't like the way they looked.  God forbid you tried to explain you had an idea that might make your job easier or more efficient.  They might blackball you from town.  This was the world for almost all workers, regardless of education into the 1980's.  Hell, who am I kidding?  This is still the world for some people here in the USA.  Except we do have laws to protect the hourly.  You can't work 20 hours a day legally unless you are salary.  You get health benefits if you work a full time job (40 hours or more).  You have legal recourse if certain laws are not followed.  So, yeah, not exactly the same.  Unless you are salary.  Then you better work for a good company and good boss or some of what I'm describing might still be part of your daily routine.  Things weren't better then.  People just didn't have enough time to think about it and they were too tired to fight about it if they did.  

Pullman (which would eventually become Pullman-Eastman then Kodak):  Using the "mill hill" to keep wages low and then charge the same workers high rents for property owned by Pullman.

What we did find time to fight for? Our kids' futures.  My grandmother was a young girl, pre-teen when women were fighting for the right to vote.  She and her older sisters had spent more than one night in jail for being "difficult" young ladies "fighting" for the right to vote.  We call them Suffragettes.  Yet, it's hard for most of us to fathom that women only were given the Right to Vote 100 years ago this year.  She had also been a welder in the Jeep plant during WWII.  The "taste" of her own accomplishments, her own "real" paycheck (female welders in WWII were still paid way less than male counterparts), and her own sense of dignity?  It was priceless.  To be sent back to being just a teacher?  I think it was humiliating.  My grandfather would often tell me while sitting in the barn working on Bertha that my Grams was the best welder he had ever seen.  Her other grandchildren had no idea.  She never talked about it, like when a piece of you dies because you know you will never be able to see, do or hear something again.  The one time I asked years after my grandfather had passed.  She looked at me blankly, a tear rolled down her faee, and she said, "I haven't thought about that in years." Why not, I had inquired.  "It's not something I like to think about, but you girls can do anything you want to do now because of us."  It was a bit gut wrenching (still is) when I think there were others just like her that found they could do something a man could do and love it...but couldn't, simply because they weren't men.  Half of our population limited in what they could contribute because of one chromosome.  Wrong chromosome meant you had to fake being happy being a housewife.  Sounds silly, doesn't it?

1920's political cartoon: "PROTECTION Motherhood is the noblest profession in the world.  Therefore, You must be given inferior jobs; the lowest pay and your hours for work shall be limited.  (Except in the HOME)"

Sure, we knew, at least the women of the day knew, that we were needlessly limiting our children.  But there were men also who knew.  How difficult would it be to have a son who you knew was an Einstein, or at least a genius, that was never going to be anything more than a coal miner in our society because you were a coal miner?  True story.  Homer Hickam Jr. (b. 1943) was the son of a coal miner who was very intelligent and didn't quite fit with your average coal miner.  Inspired by watching the launch of Sputnik, young Homer wanted to figure out how to launch a rocket.  His father more than once told him it was a pipe dream, accept his lot in life.  Born to a coal miner meant you were going to be a coal miner.  End of story.  Lucky for the United States that didn't happen.  Homer Hickam Jr and his friends solved a rocket propulsion issue.  Hickam Jr would eventually join NASA and work on the Space Shuttle missions.  Where would we be if some of these geniuses were pushed into their "lot in life"?  I don't know.  I still hear idiots who say to their own children, "It was good enough for me; it's good enough for you." That is what is killing the American Dream and has been slaughtering before it got started even when we look back 100, 200, 400 years.  What if Homer Hickam had decided to fake it as a coal miner to appease his father?  The only reason the Dream keeps living are the Homer Hickam's out there that ignore nonsense talk and march to their own drummer.  

Herman Pulk, age 9 in 1911, working in a canning company for $0.25/day

Still how many of those Homer's were beaten into submission by their fathers? We have learned over the last 50 years how children have been abused by their own.  Abducted and murdered without a single trace.  It's not that these things weren't happening.  It's that we didn't all have phones that vibrated with an Amber Alert as soon as one goes missing.  Remember I mentioned those milk cartons.  I know anyone 40 or older remembers these.  I honestly never gave them a thought.  I would glance as I ate my cereal usually imagining it they were abducted by an estranged parent.  We know that's not true now thanks to how quickly we get information now.  We lived in a bubble.  The bubble wasn't really a bubble though, was it?  Those monsters were very real and still existed.  We just had rose colored glasses on that made us naive and think those things didn't exist.  But talk to an old cop.  They all know of that one case, if not more, that haunts them to this day.  Child, woman, sometimes even a man, went missing.  No trace.  I've never met a retired cop that doesn't have one of these stories, and they usually are more than willing to share if you ask.  That hope of finding some random stranger that might unravel the whole thing so they can finally bring peace to the families, to themselves.  It wasn't a safer place.  We just were unaware it wasn't as safe as we thought.  The world was worse, because we literally had no idea unless it happened to us or someone we knew.  Worse, we know now that many of these predators can fake being the most amiable person you've ever met.  We would still be looking at all the homeless guys and blaming them, like was the most common assumption for decades, if not centuries.  Centuries?  Really, centuries.  Little Red Riding Hood got eaten by a wolf?  Or was it a story that little girls shouldn't be walking alone after dark because some crazed man might abduct them?   Hansel and Gretel?  Same story only now a woman abducting a boy and girl.  We tell these horrific stories to our children to warn them in some "cute" story...for centuries.  These human monsters have been around for as long as we can remember.  We just didn't realize how many of them there were, because we allowed them to fake being nice, fake being good neighbors, and if they could fake it really well, we ignored anyone who tried to voice concern.  How often have you seen interviews with so many people (ID channel will have you sick to your stomach in just a couple hours) go on and on about some sociopath was such a nice person and only one seems to be like "oh you knew something was wrong with him"?  Yeah, fake it till everyone else thinks you are what you are not.  

Children in a southern cotton mill working for an average of $0.11/day in 1909

The United States was founded by a bunch of men that didn't necessarily know what all these things were, meant.  They were not all geniuses.  Some of them just didn't want to pay taxes.  Who does?  But what the smarter ones in the room knew, and were able to convince the others of, was we can grow.  So they wrote the framework, the Constitution, to be a living, breathing document.  It was to be the backbone of a society that would endeavor to be better with each new generation.  Sometimes, that has been realizing we were wrong.  Sometimes, that has been rallying our strength.  Maybe the Silent Generation faced both.  They were wrong about WWI; it was not the war to end all wars.  The verdict is still out whether they set us on the path where WWII would be the war to end all world wars.  The Founding Fathers intent was never for us to move backwards in an effort be "great".  It was always intended that we would move forward, dealing with obstacles with the knowledge we accumulated as a collective.  

Were any of them "faking" it?  A new country? Maybe, but probably not.  Our systems from Congress, the Courts, even our military structure still follow a very similar structure as the parent they kicked out--England.  They built upon what they already knew, and then tried to improve it moving forward.  They didn't dream of going back to being a colony.  The Silent Generation didn't dream of going back to 1840, like some dream, or delude themselves, that 100, hell 50, years ago is better than now.  If you look back at papers we knew who some of these bad men, like Edison and Vanderbilt were, but we let them write their own version of reality.  Most of which now we all know was crap.  They didn't work hard to get where they were.  They did on the backs of those that worked hard for them.  We have allowed "fake it till you make it" to become the genre of the American Dream.  You can't be a great basketball player by faking it.  But unlike in sports, those that have actually worked hard, often go completely unrecognized in our society.  They may or may not have mild to middle level success, but that's on us.  Men (and women) who are good at what they do, but not cut throat, backstabbing nutjobs, those like Tesla just always doing the "right" thing, still are often mediocre in our collective view.  Fake tax cuts, fake economic boosts, hiding real issues like market instability, savings and retirement savings at all time lows, average middle class families one to two paychecks away from losing everything.  "Faking it" isn't working, and fake is not the American Dream.  There's a never ending cycle to those faking it.  It never stops because it's lie upon lie and still another lie upon that.   The one thing we all know, whether we admit it or not, no matter how well you fake it, you are still just faking it.