The Story of Man

    

The Evolutionist's Story

     Evolutionists, or as they prefer to be called, scientists, ascribe to the Big Bang Theory and estimate that the universe was created in a single, stupendous light show about 10-billion years ago.

 

     Our own solar system, including our Earth and 7,8, or 9 other planets, depending on what day it is and who’s counting, entered the cosmos with all worlds spinning around five and a half billion years later. Because the Earth was pretty damn hot in the beginning, cockroaches didn’t show up until at least a few months had gone by and things began to cool down.

 

     Around 3.8-billion years ago, living cells began floating in the oceans—floating because they were only single, lonely cells without a clue. Double living cells came later but were not much better than one and pretty much just as lonely. In fact, two is just about the loneliest number of cells since the number one, but they were able to advance our culture in a small, incremental two-cells-at-a-time manner—and so, evolutionists claim, it was around the time that double living cells showed up that cells stopped floating and began experimenting with the basic dog paddle.

 

     Dinosaurs made their entrance around 225-million years ago, hung around for a truly uneventful 150 million years, and then all of a sudden, around 65 million years ago they just decided they had had enough, called it quits and started digging their way to the center of the Earth to get away from it all.

 

     It wasn’t a good idea and they only got a few thousand feet before hitting a stone wall. This is what is generally referred to in geological terms as the end of the dinosaur and the beginning of petroleum.

 

     Man showed up about three score and three million years after the dinosaurs left, unaware that dinosaurs had ever even existed, until about 150 years ago. This explains why man gets so excited every time he finds a dinosaur bone in his back yard, no matter how small, and curses for all to hear, “Well dad-gummit, there’s a bone that I could have used in my gas tank.”

 

     Around 25 million years ago, the first deer set four feet on the planet—roughly 23 million years before man, 24,999,500 years before gunpowder and 24,999,900 years before the invention of the automobile. One would think that this was more than enough time to prepare for being the animal that man most liked to sneak up on and surprise the hell out of, but one would be wrong. We still get that “Where the hell did you come from” look from a deer every time they see us.

 

     Although he has been a significant addition to the earthly landscape over the last 2-million years, scientists are quick to point out that man had been, more or less, good for nothing for more than 99% of that time, not  making any truly memorable mark in history until about 10,000 B. C. But when he made his move, he did so in a big way.

 

     It wasn’t a big bang kind of way. No explosives were used in any way although some animals were hurt in the process. Man’s biggest accomplishment at first was just getting off his knees and standing up—"one small step for mankind but one giant step for monkeys." Once he was up, there was no holding him down.

 

     Sure, mistakes were made. It’s been rumored that an early ancestor of Benjamin Franklin rubbing two stone wheels together in a primitive attempt to make fire created mankind’s first rapidly advancing prairie fire—driving hundreds of families out of their caves. But in time, man became the master of his environment moving quickly from the production of tin cans to bronze statues and the next thing you knew, there’s a 450-foot pyramid sitting there in the middle of the desert, saying, “Hey world, look at me.”

 

     And that was just the pyramid talking. The men behind the pyramids were even cockier. They would balance themselves at the top of those peculiar, pointy pedestals, gaze up at the stars and the moon and boast,

     “This is just where I’m going when I’m dead. You ought to see my beach house. I LOVE being a Pharaoh.”

 

    It would be just a few thousand more years and man would be flying to those same stars and hitting golf balls on that same moon.

 

     Yes, mankind certainly knew how to put on a show and he wasted no time in turning Earth into his own private little playhouse. Hell, ten thousand years of evolution for the dinosaurs, even the last ten thousand when they should have been getting the hang of it, never amounted to more than poking another spike out of their back or finding room for another row of teeth.

 

     Evolution has been very good for man and man has been very good for evolution. You couldn’t write a better autobiography for a species than the story of evolution.

(to be continued) 

 

Too many hours, Not enough news

Everyone complains about the 24-7 news cycle. A common complaint is that there isn’t enough real news to justify round-the-clock reporting. Whether its Fox, MSNBC, CNN or any other station, we get the same old news rehashed over and over again, and when even the newscasters can’t stand it anymore, we get stuff that isn’t even news—stuff that a few decades ago would have been called anecdotes, at best.

CNN didn’t so much fill a need, but rather created a product, and little did they know that someday that product would be bigger than Coke—and even tastier. CNN’s initial broadcast began at 5:00 P.M., on June 1, 1980, because even on the first day of 24-hour news, there was only about five hours of news to relate. Today, the airways are saturated with cable news programs.

Some of the people doing the very least in government are making the very most of being heard, telling us, in  short sound bite clips, what they think, which is usually what they think their constituents want them to be thinking about.

But the biggest problem resulting from never-ending news reporting is not that there isn’t enough news. The biggest problem is that for a lot of politicians, getting elected is the endgame. To do any less is seen as failure; to do any more is seen as a non-priority. The best way to get elected is to make the news. And the best way to make the news is to say something outlandish that someone else will hear, record and repeat.

We are told that money is speech, and as with all things money, inflation plays a role real speech. There’s a lot of speech being spent and it is all practically worthless. The key is to say something so worthless that it can only rise in value. Value to who? Value to a news station with 1500 minutes of air time to fill. Sometimes a politician will even have to make a fool of himself but no one ever said politics was easy.

There was a time when men and women went to Washington to do something. People told their representatives what they thought and those representatives put those ideas into legislation—something so rare in Washington these days that Parker Pens is said to be bailouts to compensate them for losses incurred by fewer bill-signings.

To win a national election, an individual might have to run on his record, but a candidate in a gerrymandered district can be elected or reelected by merely catering to his ideological base. Legislation that would please the base is generally out of the question because a nation is bigger than an ideological base—and is, in general, looking for more than a narrow-minded answer to big problems. But that doesn’t stop someone from talking.

It wasn’t that long ago that access to a microphone was limited to big name, recognizable politicians  who could stand on a record of accomplishments.

Sam Irvin had a long Senate career before he became a household name by chairing the committee to investigate Watergate—an actual scandal that resulted in real consequences. The Watergate break-in occurred on June 17, 1972. The Senate Committee investigating it convened on May 17, 1973 and ex-president Nixon was on a plane home by August 9, 1974. That is the definition of getting to the bottom of things.

Today, everything is called a scandal and every so-called scandal is investigated and those so-called investigations are discussed daily on cable news. Why? Why to win the next election, obviously.

James Fulbright was elected to the Senate in 1944. By 1946, Legislation bearing his name established the Fulbright Program to promote cultural education opportunities to over 350,000 individuals, many of whom have gone on to win Nobel and Pulitzer Prizes. For over 30 years he was a major force in the Senate. Maybe, if they had 24-hour news shows in those days, he would have been a frequent visitor, but my guess is he would have been too busy doing things.

The Senator getting the most attention today is Ted Cruz (TX), who in two years hasn’t had his name attached to any significant legislation but can be seen daily on the cable news networks. Some of his most newsworthy appearances have him reading a child’s book on the Senate floor. By most standards, he hasn’t done much in the Senate except try to shut the government down, but his supporters love him. One can only assume they love him for what he says on TV and not what he does in the Senate.

Politicians on both sides of the aisle have found homes on cable news; and cable news on both sides of the political spectrum have found politicians willing to drop in.

No, 24-hour news is not all it was cracked up to be. It’s either no news, old news or opinion, and worse—opinion that usually coincides with our own opinion. To paraphrase Dylan, listening to them is like listening to me. It is self-serving entertainment—self-serving for the reporters, for those being reported on, and for the listener being reported to; but it’s definitely not news.

 

Cutting Old Folks Some Slack

An 82-year-old sheriff in New Hampshire refers to a black president using the N-word.

A 78-year-old NBA team owner is caught inferring that he doesn’t want his girlfriend bringing black people to his games.

A 67-year-old cowboy in Nevada doesn’t believe in the legitimacy of the Federal government, but does think blacks would be better off under slavery.

The list of old folks making fools of themselves and throwing their careers down the drain is endless—Al Campanis, Helen Thomas, Clint Eastwood. What are we to do about old people?

Obviously our nation is in a place it has never been before because old people, on average, have not been this old before—or talkative. Today, in this great nation of ours, there seems to be an old person standing on every corner and a young person sticking a microphone in his face.

Old man talking is the new dead man walking. It’s embarrassing the way we treat old people simply because they can’t talk and make sense at the same time.

Of course, old people are not entirely blameless. If they’re not going around the block for the first time—and they insist they aren’t—then perhaps it’s not too much to ask that they know something about the block. Just because they were born in the megaphone age doesn’t justify brain freeze when a microphone is placed in front of them.

The question, “What do you think about…?” is really implying, “As a thinking person with your long and varied experiences, what do you think about…?” There’s simply no excuse for saying the first thing that pops in your head. Even a five-year-old, caught in the act of misbehaving, and asked what he or she is doing, will pause to consider the consequences of the answer they are about to give.

If we are to believe the Bible—and it seems to be pretty cut and dry—Methuselah lived to be 969 years, and then he died. In all that time, again if we are to believe the Bible, he apparently said nothing worth recording—at all, good or bad, but most importantly, he said nothing bad. Methuselah should be a model for all old people. Don’t make waves. I mention waves only because there are some theories that Methuselah was still around at the time but didn’t survive the great flood.

It would be interesting to know why but apparently none of the other old folks were talking either.

The question for today’s youth—and by youth I mean anyone who is not already old—is what do we do about old people speaking their mind? My suggestion is we cut them some slack. We don’t send their rants out over the airwaves making it necessary for them to explain themselves even more; because I think we all know where that is going.

We simply nod our heads, ask them if they’re warm enough and would they like some tea. Ask them what they like best about growing up without television and what, “Mairzy doats and dozy doats and liddle lamzy divey,” actually means. They can do this and would welcome the opportunity.

And my advice to the old folks, who I know won’t take it, but I’m offering it just the same. Take a lesson from Old Man River, He don’t say nothing. He must know something, but he just flat out, no matter how many times you ask him, won’t say nothing—at all.

Who's to blame when nothing trickles down?

From Sunday's Virginian-Pilot. This started out referencing Hank Williams' "My Bucket's Got a Hole In It." No matter how you slice it, someone isn't getting his fair share, whether it be beer or wages.

Capitalism under President Obama has fared better than ever before.

Corporate America is sitting on between three and five trillion dollars of cash reserves stashed in American banks and overseas accounts.

The top 1% of the top 1%—that’s .01% have done even better in the last thirty years. This group of the top 400 billionaires, plus those billionaires left over who couldn’t quite break into the top 400, what I like to refer to as the poorer billionaires, sit at the head of America’s corporate boards. In 1979, there were about three billionaires.

At first glance, the country seems to be doing pretty well under its first Socialist president. Certainly better than anyone would have guessed. Corporate taxes are lower than ever, corporate incentives—they don’t like the term loop holes—are higher than ever at $92 billion, and corporate profits are going through the roof.

The only aspect of Capitalism that isn’t working, as luck would have it, is that aspect that actually affects the workers—the trickle-down.

Apparently—and you would have to ask the CEOs why this is—but apparently nothing is trickling down. It appears as if everything is being sucked up. In 2013, the average CEO salary was $13.9 million, a 9% increase over 2012 while the average minimum wage worker took home about $15,000, the same as he did in 2012, 2011, 2010, and 2009.

Half of the workers earning that minimum wage were over the age of 25. They weren’t teenagers earning movie money.

Investors have done as well as CEOs. Apparently, raising their tax rates a few points hasn’t discouraged them to the point where they don’t even want to get out of bed in the morning. That’s a good thing because America does need investors. These so called job creators do have a role to play in the free market.

Job creators are important. But job creators are not more important than the people doing the jobs.

While the right wing attacks Socialist America and the left wing attacks Capitalist America, maybe common sense America should be leading the charge against the real culprits—greedy America.

Everyone from Reagan to Roosevelt, Carry Nation to Tea Party Nation, Rand Paul to Paul Ryan to Paul Bunyan should know what greed is. Greed is what’s doing the country in. No defender of Capitalism should be a defender of greed.

Ted Williams

Ted Williams broke into major league baseball with the Boston Red Sox on April 20, 1939. Because there is so much going on in today’s world and because baseball plays such a minor role in today’s world, that anniversary went unnoticed. Even in Boston, the big news yesterday was today’s Marathon—and that’s all right.

  

Ted Williams wanted to be known as the greatest hitter ever and the general consensus is that he was. By its very definition, being the “greatest” anything puts one on a very lonely plateau. You are separated from the common man by your uncommon skill and the common man is separated from you.

While Ted Williams wished to isolate himself from everyone else when it came to hitting a baseball, in every other sense, he was very much a part of the world we all live in. And that might be his greatest legacy. He never allowed his greatness to exclude him from responsibilities that even those who are not great must perform.

Many athletes, today and in the past, as well as singers, actors and other famous “stars” use their celebrity as a ticket to be aloof. Maybe they have that coming. Maybe everybody deserves a private life, but taken to an extreme, many stars abandon the real world for a fantasy world where only the rich and famous live.   

The problem is not so much that they lose contact with the real world but that the real world is unable to connect with them. The common man cannot touch greatness. 

  In World War II and again in the Korean War, Williams went from being the greatest hitter ever to being a fighter pilot trainee and then a fighter pilot. The standard line applied to this action is that he was patriotic enough to do his duty, but that it prevented him from setting records that might be unapproachable even today. But there is something else that needs to be recognized.

In 1941, there were just 400 major league baseball players and Williams was arguably the best. But there were millions of soldiers and sailors, and tens of millions more people supporting the war effort. For five years, in two wars, he wasn’t one of them—the 400; he was one of us—the millions.   

My mother became a part of this team of proud Americans from all walks of life who put their lives on hold to serve their country. Of course, she wasn’t coming off of a .406 season, but everyone gave up something. When she joined, she became a teammate of her future husband, her brothers and brothers-in-law, and Ted Williams.

In fact, she was trained as an airplane mechanic and like Williams, was stationed at Pensacola. Although she was just a very casual baseball fan, she did grow up just 25 miles north of Boston, and so was familiar with the Red Sox and with Ted Williams. But baseball wasn’t a big part of her life. Certainly my father and uncles were bigger fans.

Nevertheless, when I was growing up she would tell us about her Navy days in Pensacola, stories that almost always included, "Ted Williams was stationed there at the same time.

She could say this because Ted Williams chose not to stay up atop the mountain, but rather to come down in the valley with the rest of us. It was good of him to do this, no matter how many hits and home runs he lost. But it was good for everybody else to have him on their team.

 

 

 

 

Alms for the rich, Alms for the rich—that's money talking

I wrote this article last Thursday after reading the morning paper. It seems that there were several articles and columns that, although not intentionally, appeared to be related. I tied them all together and sent it off to the paper. Then I checked my email and learned they wished to publish “Here comes the sun, let’s use it,” which I had sent in several weeks earlier

Now I can understand why everyone likes a good dinosaur story. They're so cuddly as little plastic play toys. And if you can tie dinosaurs into global warming, they are almost irresistible.  

The problem is that this piece, because it refers to specific articles in the paper, has a shelf life of about three days. I'm posting the story on the blog because I firmly believe this story has to go somewhere, and there just aren't that many options for this one. The links should take the reader to the original articles.

 

The American Revolution is what you get when intelligent men and women are willing to risk everything they have to be free.

The French Revolution is what you get when the rich and powerful become so arrogant that the poor and weak are willing to risk everything just to get even.

There was no middle road in the days leading up to the French Revolution because there was no middle class. Too bad because a middle road, a road of compromise, could have prevented the revolution from happening and maybe saved some heads in the long run. But you need a middle class to have a middle road.

Middle class gives revolution a bad name. Its people are comfortable, have enough money to eat, dress and live well, and enough education to recognize how well off they are. They have enough morals to treat one another fairly and enough drive to try and get the better of one another. The last thing they want is a revolution. A long, hard fought revolution can knock someone right out of the middle class and into the bread lines.

While it’s hard to have a revolution with a strong middle class it’s pretty easy to have one without a middle class. In fact, the absence of a middle class is what usually causes a revolution, although no one wants to look too deeply into this fact.

Thursday Pilot contained a wealth of information about what’s going wrong in our country. Americans don’t like to hear about class warfare because it sounds so un-American, as well as something only the poor would promote. But class warfare is universal and as old as the Appalachians. Americans would do well to understand this. The same people who don't want to hear about class warfare probably don't want to hear about the French Revolution.

Here comes the sun, let's use it

 Sun coming up on the USS Corpus Christi Bay in 1971 in the South China
Sea. Maybe it's time we get more out of sunrises than pretty pictures. 

 

This article appeared in the April 5, 2014 Virginian-Pilot. There seems to be an abundance of facts on the subject of climate change and global warming, and countless ways to deny the facts. You won't find any facts in this piece so there isn't anything to deny.



THERE ARE numerous differences between man and dinosaurs. In general, dinosaurs were bigger and did nothing but eat and sleep all day. Humans do that but also watch TV. 

We know, with near certainty, that dinosaurs did not wear clothes and that they spoke mostly in grunts and groans.

Oh, and one more thing. Dinosaurs couldn’t reason.

So, whether it be a looming ice age advancing or a speeding asteroid closing in, all they could do was twiddle their fingers and wish they had thumbs so they could raise their fists in anger at their impending doom.

We can be reasonably certain that there was nothing they could do to stop the ice age, asteroid or any other catastrophic occurrence. Because there was nothing they had done to set them in motion.

Sometimes you just are in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Luckily, we’ve come a long way, baby, from the dinosaur days. We can do something when something needs to be done. We know from the movies that there are several ways to handle an approaching asteroid. But asteroids don’t appear to be the immediate problem.

The immediate problem seems to be the melting ice caps and rising sea levels. We might not know the cause, but obviously something is going on with the climate.

Thank God, we’re not dinosaurs. Thank God, we can figure things out. Thank God, we can do something. The problem, what seems sometimes like the biggest problem, is getting everyone on the same page. There is a lively discussion about whether man is causing this climate change — a discussion the dinosaurs never had.