A Curious Instrument

I find myself barraged by reasons that others wear a mask during this CoVid-19 hysteria. I will tell you why I can be seen wearing a mask. It is probably for different reasons than justify those around me. Unlike so many others, I don't do wear the mask to protect the health of someone else or the health of myself. I firmly trust that as this virus moves throughout the population (sooner better than later), individuals will either build up an immunity to it or die. I believe that mask use, "social distancing", and curbs on commerce designed to "flatten the curve" only serve to destroy an otherwise healthy economy and empower evil people with copious amounts of time to devise nefarious ways to dominate others and destroy our sacred American liberties. I firmly hold that  everyone  will eventually be exposed and either survive their exposure or not and we should not allow any time for terrible people to find ways to capitalize on people's fears. I see the ...

I recently published an intriguing little booklet called Feeding the Soul of Steve Jobs , which is about finding the sort of life and success that Steve Jobs enjoyed. It dove-tailed so well with my popular blog-post about The Psychic Proximity Principle that I used it as the framework for the booklet, giving all of you a wonderful case study in putting the power of weak magnetism to work! As I was writing, I went off on a tangent about the evils of acquiring money for its own sake. I was going to use it as a bonus chapter in the booklet, but I decided against it.  I still find it useful, so I decided to put it here for your "fun and profit"!  Enjoy! For those of you who have no interest in realizing your potential beyond a low money-grab, I will happily share two legal and honorable methods for becoming "well-off". I and several friends have used these two methods to become financially "set".  Either will provide anyone with enough money to get th...

In my time working for the military, I have been introduced to the concept of the "rat-hole". This is a situation where a lot of time, money, and other resources are spent on something that ultimately accomplishes very little or nothing. There are rat-holes all around us and we often don't realize it until they have already stolen a lot of our precious time and money! I'll tell you about one of the bigger rat-holes where I have wasted a lot of life: disability exemptions. Many people know my son Matt, who was diagnosed with autism just before his third birthday. If you spend time with him, you will quickly learn that he is disabled. He doesn't have the judgment needed to live independently, to contribute as an equal partner to a marriage, or to lead a family. He was determined by experts to be disabled . A determination of disability is essential to help a person get the added help they need and to get recognition by society that such aid is justified and need...

In my continuation of verse-by-verse scripture study, I have been reading about the rise of Amalickiah and Captain Moroni's response to it. If these names or things don't mean anything to you, I would suggest that you read a bit of a tome called " The Book of Mormon " (forget the trashy, tawdry, and cynical play by the same name - the book is better) which I have dubbed "the Field-book for Our Times".  Hopefully, after reading this, you will see one reason why I call it so. Amalickiah wanted to be king of the Nephite nation. The Nephites were founded on this kooky idea that God had granted people their liberty and their government was formed to support this. The Book of Mormon's editor, a man named Mormon (it's his book), goes so far as to reveal Amalickiah's methods.  He promised lower government officials positions of expanded power under his kingship in return for their support. In a word, Amalickiah employed "flattery" to win suppo...

As a matter of disclosure, I am not a Republican. Before most of you scamper off in the face of a Limbaugh "program caller", I also have no love for Democratic ideals or either of the potential Dem candidates. Actually, I am not a member of any political party and am a registered "Independent" at the local courthouse. Hopefully, I won't be perceived as some underhanded double-agent of your political enemies trying to snooker you. I truly want to help you, my beleaguered friends of the Republican Establishment! Okay, you Rep leaders don't like Trump but he is winning in the polls. If you try to undermine him and replace him with someone more to your liking, you likely alienate the disgruntled (at you?) majority that keep pulling the large wins in for the Donald, against your supreme political wisdom. What is a misunderstood, under-appreciated, and apparently ineffectual major party apparatus to do? Some people say to undermine Trump, quietly help Hill, an...

Every now and again, I write fiction.  Then for some unfathomable reason, I give it away.  Today, you can read my first published short story right here .  If you like it, please pass the link around to others by commenting and "liking" it on Facebook.  If you want to support my writing, you can purchase the Kindle version of "The Miracle of the Quilt" which is the first story in The Joys of Autism and Christian Ethos e-book. If you like "The Miracle of the Quilt", you will absolutely love my best story ever, Rachel and her Knight in Shining Armor , also available as an e-book. Without further ado, I hope you enjoy " The Miracle of the Quilt "!

Jason uses a few marketing gems to help you become the amazing philosopher you always wanted to be! Here is how the "master" does it! Check Out Culture Podcasts at Blog Talk Radio with Xenos Now on BlogTalkRadio

I am happy to note that Lisa and I have been married for 25 years this coming Tuesday!  We will be off somewhere and sleeping in and having the sort of fun we tend to have, which is probably terribly low-key compared to most... I also calculated something else and it has been fifteen years since "The Great Writing Year", where I penned many of my short stories, the awesome novella Rachel and Her Knight in Shining Armor , and wrote the first complete draft of a book from The Navigiary Series .  That was 1998, while I was bobbing about on the waters off the US Gulf Coast and the west coast of Africa as a seismic navigator. To celebrate the 15th anniversary of my big writing push, I am giving everyone  A Free Copy of "The Joys of Autism and Christian Ethos" , which is a collection of many of these stories that is available from my Amazon store .  The book will only be free for a few days, so don't hesitate to get it right now! Of course, I welcome your kind rev...

The BBC today reported what I would consider to be a rather local story of a circumstance in Ohio where two young American football players were convicted of raping an supposedly unconscious girl at a party. I suppose what makes this, on any level at all, international news is the fact that this incident was played out on Facebook, complete with pictures of the act and is creating quite a stir. Let me say that I have not studied this Ohio incident at all and that I will make some assumptions in the case. I think this is a honest thing to do, as I seriously doubt that any media reports I could find to expand my knowledge of the matter would be rather tainted by one side or the other in the legal battle, therefore run through with misdirection and half-truths. I really don't want to study it and I don't want to particularly hear the rationalizations on either side on the matter. In the short report that I heard, it was obvious that significant camps on both sides were making exc...

UPDATE! The Psychic Proximity Principle is all grown up now, rendered as a Kindle booklet, and even fools around on the altar of Steve Jobs! Check out Feeding the Soul of Steve Jobs today! From Fiddler on the Roof : Tevye :  [ to Cha va ]   As the good book says 'Each shall seek his own kind'. In other words a bird may love a fish but where would they build a home together?  The Psychic Proximity Principle: You will gravitate toward a place and circumstance that actually fit you and your nature. So, if you are unhappy: You might be in the wrong place. You might be in the wrong circumstance. You might be ignoring your true nature. You might like fighting gravity or inertia a little too much. Hey, I believe in God and I believe that God wants us to reach our potential and find happiness. I also believe that God knows how to accomplish these goals better than we do. Therefore, we have a really secular-sounding thing called "The Psychic Proximit...

I remember watching television re-runs of the television cartoon "The Jetsons" as a child. I actually liked it for its social commentary, for which I don't recall that it was known for. Honestly, I found the whole idea that George Jetson's job, that he was often complaining about and desiring a deserved pay-raise, was pressing a button. I don't remember him having to press that button very often, but it seemed vital to things, for the constant threat of a firing always seemed to dissolve away in the twenty or so minutes of any episode that featured his boss' angst. This was my first exposure to "monkey-work", which I define as paid work that trained monkeys could easily do. On "The Jetsons", George's "monkey-work" was a funny running gag that probably would be a little embarrassing in today's world as almost all of us just press occasional buttons as employment these days. Monkey-work is everywhere. In my first job at a ...

It is my thought that this world and circumstance must be among the lowest in the domain of our Heavenly Father.  There has always been stories of how this world was the only one in which the Christ would be crucified, but as I read scripture and view the expanse of history, I can come to the conclusion that righteousness is a very rare commodity here on Earth and often taken away from this place to find its promised thriving elsewhere. I think of the people of the city of Enoch, who built a Zion Society that lasted for perhaps 400 years and then "fled", literally taken off of the Earth.  We also have a little reference to a group that was assembled at Salem, led by the great high priest Melchizedek, who are mentioned once and never heard of in scripture again, perhaps also removed from this sphere. We also have the case of the "lost" ten tribes of Israel, who legend says repented whole-heartedly of the behavior that led to their capture by the Assyrians and were ...

After years of effort and trying to walk away from the thing, the first book of the Navigiary series: Escape , is finally out and available on the Kindle store. There is also another blog that I have just for Navigiary . Surprisingly, I also allow commenting on that blog as well! See what I have been working on all these years but know that Escape is but an introduction - the meat of the story is yet to come!

A while back, I talked about my George Bailey circumstances .  Of course, some people will get confused and say that I am some sort of altruistic credit union sort, which I can be on the odd Thursday. Archibald (Harry) Tuttle I am more like Archibald (Harry) Tuttle, the rogue heating engineer in the Terry Gilliam movie "Brazil" . Harry Tuttle : Listen, this old system of yours could be on fire and I couldn't even turn on the kitchen tap without filling out a 27b/6... Bloody paperwork. Sam Lowry : I suppose one has to expect a certain amount. Harry Tuttle : Why? I came into this game for the action, the excitement. Go anywhere, travel light, get in, get out, wherever there's trouble, a man alone. Now they got the whole country sectioned off, you can't make a move without a form. Like me, he tends to be competent, efficient, quietly conspiratorial, and appropriately paranoid.  Harry understands how his world really works and has found his own ways to cop...

I was a kid in Clovis, New Mexico and one of the things that my family did occasionally, as a treat, was visit the local Baskin-Robbins Ice Cream Shop.  They had all those flavors (31 varieties was advertised at the time) and I could get a scoop of anything I wanted, although I was very, very shy and always went conservative with "Rocky Road" or some such.  It was a nice memory and good ice cream! I don't know when I noticed it, but I finally figured out the concept of "taste spoons".  I suppose I was watching other kids and they would buzz around the counter like flies and constantly ask for a stream of free tastes of ice cream.  It didn't take me long to decide that these little devils were working some kind of pre-adolescent scam, abusing the marketing generosity of the shop just to "score" some free ice cream with no intention of ever really legitimately buying anything. The shop in Clovis is now closed and I can only think it was because ...

I don't even like to talk about how many sleeping bags I have. For years, in my camping and hiking adventures, pathetic though they may seem, I have always struggled with the problem of sleeping bags.  I am too tall apparently, and only relatively short people are supposed to do such things.  Of course, I am an anomaly in a lot of ways from other camper/hikers (besides all the other anomalies I have generally with humans), as I prefer my equipment ultra-cheap and relatively light, in that order.  If I pay more than $50 for a piece of equipment, I must really, really think it is going to save the world or some such. Over time, I have collected an assortment of bags, each with features I had hoped that I would like, hoping one day to stumble upon that "holy grail" of fit, comfort, and utility.  Lightning hasn't struck yet, but even so far as yesterday, I keep trying. Of course, when it comes to sleeping bags, cheap and light rarely come togeth...

I was just looking at other people's blogs and all the interesting comments that get attached to each post.  I suppose "interesting" is a bad word to use as I find many of them inane and just pointless. When I started this blog a few days ago, I decided against entertaining comments.  I have seen too many creative people eaten alive by trying to interface a bit too much with their readers.  I once read the blog of a writer that I enjoy (the writer, not the blog) and it seemed like he was having such a time in the give-and-take of corresponding that he didn't have time to actually write books anymore.  He was busy answering endless questions about what his favorite food was and describing his writing process over and over again.  All this chatter just seemed to be hero worship and buzzing static, which I could never personally manage to work with or even alongside. I long for the experience of writers from a hundred years ago.  You write a book.  It...

After I got rid of offense from the vocabulary of children in a previous post (vaguely Orwellian, I know), I recall how I excised the word fair from the household some years ago.  I made the kids stand up at the dinner table if they used it (which is not effective for hyperish kids like our twins), typically in phrases like "That's not fair" .  The kids just used riaf  (yes, fair spelled backward) as a substitute for "not fair", but it put the point across that one should not be expecting equal treatment, no matter what society promises. Of course, this bothers lots of people, but my point is that you should not be expecting something that you are never going to get, as it just breeds a long stream of disappointments that tear the happiness from life.  Also, it may prevent the universal sin that many people have of being demanding , especially in matters that make other people's lives miserable.  The only thing worse than being...

Everyone always focuses on a person who is being offended , their tender feelings, and moving mountains in defending that tender heart. I think it is high time we spend a bit more time on those who offend , what makes them so offensive, and either helping them or, more often, ourselves to change. Now, I am certainly not advocating for some "anything goes" attitude about something as important as how people live.  There are such things as community standards and these need to be honored when we are out in public.  It is sad to see some glorified "do-good-er" from a far-away, culturally-denuded place come to an area and immediately begin working diligently (as only "community activists" can) to remove aspects of life that, here it comes, they find offensive . As an eleven-year-old, I attended a tiny country school in a village called Grady in the arid grasslands of eastern New Mexico.  I was not a hunter, nor were my parents or grandparents, bu...