Hi.

Are there enough problems in the world for you? Imagine how Pope Francis feels? He has to worry about one fifth of the world's population. That is not an easy job. 

I consider 'the home' to be a place of comfort. Comfort is a very big dynamics in surviving a stressful world. It has been my experience when raising children, home was a place they came to and brought their friends/peers/whatever when they found comfort as the overriding principle. They were never estranged. I had rules in the house. I wasn't going to be walked all over. But, they were simple and respectful rules the boys grew up with.

SO. 

Just when you thought you were getting your act together, comes domestic gun terrorism.

October 4, 2015
 

Philadelphia (WPVI) --

The FBI and ATV (click here) (I think the ATV is a typo. Should it be ATF?) have sent out a warning of a threat of violence against "a university near Philadelphia" for Monday.

In an email, the FBI stated, "Out of an abundance of caution, the FBI Philadelphia Field Office notified local colleges and universities of a social media posting which threatened violence at a Philadelphia-area college or university for Monday, October 5. No specific college or university was identified in the posting. We encourage students, faculty, and employees at area colleges and universities to follow the guidance of their campus security officials. The FBI will continue to work with our federal, state, and local law enforcement partners to investigate threats of violence, and, as always, we ask the public to report suspicious activity to law enforcement."

In a tweet Sunday afternoon, Temple University alerted their community to check their emails for an important public safety message from Temple police.




This is anarchy enforced by the gun lobby. Black powder lends itself to bombs. The domestic picture is looking hideously violent. This is the USA in 2015? Really? There needs to be laws to stem this violence. This is disruptive and unproductive for a First World Country that claims to be the pinnacle of democratic success. It seems as though the USA is living a lie. A very deadly lie.

October 4, 2015

This season, Ben Bernanke (click here) was able to sit through an entire Nationals game.
During the financial meltdown in 2008, the then-chairman of the Federal Reserve would buy a lemonade and head to his seats two rows back from the Washington Nationals dugout, a respite from crisis. But often he would find himself huddling in the quiet of the stadium's first-aid station or an empty stairwell for consultations on his BlackBerry about whatever economic catastrophe was looming.
"I think there was a reasonably good chance that, barring stabilization of the financial system, that we could have gone into a 1930s-style depression," he says now in an interview with USA TODAY. "The panic that hit us was enormous — I think the worst in U.S. history."
With publication of his memoir, The Courage to Act, on Tuesday by W.W. Norton & Co., Bernanke has some thoughts about what went right and what went wrong. For one thing, he says that more corporate executives should have gone to jail for their misdeeds. The Justice Department and other law-enforcement agencies focused on indicting or threatening to indict financial firms, he notes, "but it would have been my preference to have more investigation of individual action, since obviously everything what went wrong or was illegal was done by some individual, not by an abstract firm."...

Well, Ben. It is probably a very interesting book, but, the title does not reflect the need for prosecution and prison. Who was it that was suppose to have the courage to act regarding prosecutions? It isn't as though legislators weren't struggling to justify all that transpired before, during and after the 2008 Global Economic Collapse. 

I think the statement by Mr. Bernanke about jailing people responsible defines the idea there are 'Bad Actors.' That is ground breaking. Right now the "Bad Actors" are superstars.

They're back. Can we please get on top of them. Maybe?

Active Fire Incident Map
October 2, 2015 (click here)

If the firefighters put out the same effort as they did a few weeks ago, the US Forest Service can develop a PRE-Emptive routine. It will reduce the fires and increase the safety of the firefighters. Wouldn't it be great to have a bored firefighter?

U.S. Drought Monitor (click here)
September 29, 2015

The 29th is the most current map.

So, where to go from here, but, to world turbulence rather than natural turbulence.

RT just published a collection of speeches at the UN General Assembly. It is worth the investment to listen to them as the week progresses.

5 October 2015

Not long (click here) after the 70th UN General Assembly wrapped up in New York, RT takes a look at the most significant speeches given at the weeklong gathering.

President Putin, President Obama, Cuban President Raul Castro (He was very well received), Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani, Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu and Ukraine President Petro Poroshenko.

This is a Von Karman vortex street.

Note the 'double headed' OSCILLATION. If I am wrong I'll eat my hat, not my taco. This form of street has been seen most commonly in the Arctic clouds. There have been such streets that have shown up across the planet since the warming, but, never anything like the current storm.

There is no magic looking at the video. Just look at it straight on. 

These vortex streets were recorded on this blog when it went across the hemisphere in lower latitudes. I won't claim I have every instance on this blog, but, probably in my notes. The ones on the blog are examples, but, nothing like this storm within a storm today. 

I mean it when I say dangerous. We lost a very large ship because of it and it's effect on the ocean.

I defy anyone to tell me this was the cone of uncertainty.

October 4, 2015
2330.20z
UNISYS Water Vapor GOES East Satellite (click here for 12 hour loop)

This is a climate crisis storm. And it looks like the upper limit of storm is New Jersey.

I have never seen a storm that manifested inside a von Karman vortex formation. Not on Earth anyway. 

President Obama needs to task NASA to get on top of this because this is huge and dangerous. 

The ITCZ is completely disrupted.

October 4, 2015
2330.20z
UNISYS Water Vapor Satellite of north and west hemisphere (click here)

 

This is an easy one? 

How many knew it was "National Taco Day?"

Last year Americans (click here) ate over 4.5 billion tacos!
That’s 490,000 miles of tacos, which could take you to the moon and back or, if you prefer, could, at 775-million pounds, equal the weight of two Empire State Buildings.

I like bean burritos. GMO free of course.

Now, out of the family room and into the sanity room.

I don't know former Secretary Colin Powell personally. Kindly listen to his views of the world. 

Before I move on...

...parents should never be afraid of parenting. Never. Don't let ideas enter the scene as a corrective method to ADJUST the love of a parent for the child(ren.)

Parent your children. Love them. They thrive on love and embrace. Tactile expressions of affection are always okay. If an eight year old squirms as if to reject the expression of affection, so what. They are doing what they are suppose to do and the parent(s) are doing what parent(s) are suppose to do.

Good humor is a gift to the family.

I reject the idea of "Helicopter Parents."

Indiana University psychologist Chris Meno (click here) counsels over-parented students in much the same way she addresses addiction: "I'll make suggestions like, 'Catch yourself when you are about to call home, and ask yourself if there is any way that you could figure the problem out on your own,' or 'If you are calling four times a day, try to get it down to one.'" She said that over-involved "helicopter parenting" is taking a serious toll on the psychological well-being of college students who have not begun to negotiate a balance between asking for consultation and independent decision making. "It's amazing how non-independent students have become," Meno said. 

If a parent and child are so close they have to reassert their love frequently; there is treatment for that. Seriously. Psychologists and Psychiatrists get well paid through health care insurance.

Love the family. It is a good thing. It is okay to stay together for the kids. Parents don't have to, but, any excuse for loving a child is not a bad excuse. If adults can get used to living at opposite ends of the house in old age, what is the difference?

Be happy.

Back in the day of the Neanderthal, lived a woman psychiatrist.

Hungarian-born psychiatrist Margaret Mahler (1897-1985) (click here) worked first in her native Hungary, and then in Britain, and finally in the United States.  She is best known for originating the Separation-Individuation theory of child development.  In her theory Mahler speculates that after the first few weeks of infancy, in which the infant is either sleeping or barely conscious, the infant progresses first from a phase (Normal-Symbiotic Phase) in which it perceives itself as one with its mother within the larger environment, to an extended phase (Separation-Individuation Phase) consisting of several stages or sub-phases in which the infant slowly comes to distinguish itself from its mother, and then, by degrees, discovers its own identity, will, and individuality....

The normal growth and development of children and adults has been the topic of many research papers. My favorite is "Separation - Individuation" in the parent - child relationship.

Ready for this?

Sure?

Dr. Mahler uses words such as hatching and fledge. Those are terms found in birding. Hatching is when the young bird emerges from the parented incubated egg. Flege is when the young bird has developed strong wing muscles and a covering of feathers. They are romantic terms. Mother bird - baby bird. All a very romantic idea.

Hatching (5 to 9 months): The infant becomes aware of the differentiation between itself and its mother.  It becomes increasingly aware of its surroundings and interested in them, using its mother as a point of reference or orientation. 

Practicing  (9 to 16 months):  The infant can now get about on its own, first crawling and then walking freely.  The infant begins to explore actively and becomes more independent of its mother.  The infant still experiences itself as one with its mother.

Rapprochement (15 months and beyond): The young child once again becomes close to his mother, but begins to differentiate itself from his mother. The child realizes that his physical mobility demonstrates psychic separateness from his mother. The toddler may become tentative at this point, wanting his mother to be in sight so that, through eye contact and action, he can explore his world.

Mahler is very old world and rarely refers to father - child relationships. In her time women were not those of the 1960s. Referring to Dr. Mahler is not to entrench women in years gone by, but, simply to understand there are normal phases of growth both by the parent, be it mother, father or two fathers and the child. Application of any understanding is a matter of adaptation as a society grows and changes.

Mahler further divided Rapprochement into three sub-stage.

 Beginning: The young child is motivated by a desire to share discoveries with his mother.

 Crisis: The child is torn between staying connected with his mother and venturing out from his mother and becoming more independent and adventurous. 

Solution: The child resolves the above Crisis according to the dictates of his own newly forming individuality, to his fledgling use of language, and to his interaction with the temperament of his mother.

Remembering Doctor Spock.

In the good old days there was always an owners manual. What happened to that? What happened to that one voice in American culture that could be counted on to bring dialogue regrading children? I don't care if the person seems hideous and interfering, it was good and a common place for parents to understand their love for their children.

There is such a thing as growth and development.

Don't laugh too hard, this is from the "Merck MANUAL" (click here). See, an owners manual does exist.

Development is often divided into specific domains, such as gross motor, fine motor, language, cognition, and social/emotional growth. These designations are useful, but substantial overlap exists. Studies have established average ages at which specific milestones are reached, as well as ranges of normality. In a normal child, progress within the different domains varies, as in the toddler who walks late but speaks in sentences early (see Developmental Milestones*)....

"Spock Lives."

Talkin' about the news tonight.

A few weeks if not months have gone by where I was discussing the Pope's Encyclical. I will scan the horizon and find topics I have given some thought to.

Before that begins, what I would like to do is bring to the surface how strange our society has become.

In our hearts, newspaper boys, have always been an expression of capitalism and ambition. Newspaper boys were always the topic of humor as they pitched newspapers into the shrubbery or through a plate glass window. There was a morality within that reality of a newspaper boy. How much did you tip him this week, one neighbor would ask of the other? Of course, there were the newspaper girls, but, they were a minority expression of ambition.

I am not sure how it happened or why, but, the newspaper boy ended and now adults deliver newspapers for not much more income as the newspaper boys collected and probably without a tip. That reality is about as sad as the American democracy and capitalism in the 21st century.

Along with the idea a boy loved his bike, there is an extremely sad scenario about a young boy abducted as he carried out his paper route. He was kidnapped and was put into human trafficking. At least that is the story.

Missing Since: September 5, 1982

Johnny Gosch (click here)

It’s a story that shocked communities and catapulted Iowa into the national spotlight, changed state law and forever changed the way parents monitored their children’s activities.

Twelve-year-old Des Moines Register paperboy Johnny Gosch left his West Des Moines home on Sunday morning, September 5, 1982, to begin his paper route.  Normally, his father, John Gosch, accompanied him on the route, but on this day Johnny went alone.

He never came home....

Let's get something straight. Children are vulnerable. I don't care if they are girls or boys. There is no time of day they aren't hunted or desired.

Not long ago a young Jewish boy demanded of his parents to walk three blocks on his own to a summer youth program. Maybe I remember that wrong, because, the news report of his killer states the activity of the boy differently. What I remember were two parents that deeply loved their son and never wanted him to walk anywhere along.

Leiby Kletzky was eight years old and wanted to be regarded as mature enough where he didn't need his parents to walk a simple three blocks in a Jewish neighborhood.

He was abducted in that very short time, killed and dismembered. It shocked the entire Hassidic Jewish community of New York City. There was sincere mourning across New York and dare I say this country when the Leiby's remains were found.

August 29, 2015
By C. J. Hughes

A hardware store clerk (click here) killed and dismembered an 8-year-old Brooklyn boy in 2011, stunning both the close-knit Orthodox Jewish community where they lived and the city, was sentenced Wednesday to 40 years to life in prison.

Levi Aron, 37, who kidnapped Leiby Kletzky as he walked home on a summer day in Borough Park before killing him and stuffing some of his remains in a suitcase, barely spoke during the brief proceeding in State Supreme Court in Brooklyn.

When asked by Justice Neil J. Firetog to comment before being sentenced, Mr. Aron, who sat slumped in an orange prison jumpsuit, a skullcap atop his head, whispered a “no” that was barely audible in the courtroom.

Mr. Aron, who has a history of mental illness, had faced the possibility of a life sentence. But under a deal worked out with the district attorney’s office this month, Mr. Aron pleaded guilty to one charge of second-degree murder and one charge of second-degree kidnapping, which carry lighter sentences.

The plea, on Aug. 9, also came after psychological tests concluded that Mr. Aron’s mental problems would not qualify him for an insanity defense....

Keep them close. They'll grow up fast enough to find out how cruel the world can be.

It's Sunday Night

These are newspaper skinny jeans. (click here for E Bay)

If Bob Marley is your passion there are newspaper jeans of him, too. (click here)

"Jimmy Brown the newsboy" by Flatt and Scruggs (click here for official website - thank you)

I sell the morning papers sir my name is Jimmy Brown
Everybody knows that I'm the newsboy of the town
You can hear me yellin' Morning Star runnin' along the street
Got no hat upon my head no shoes upon my feet

Never mind sir how I look don't look at me and frown
Sell the morning papers sir my name is Jimmy Brown
I'm awful cold and hungry sir my clothes is mighty thin
Wander bout from place to place my daily bread to win

My father died a drunkard sir I've heard my mother say
I am helpin' mother sir as I journey on my way
My mother always tells me sir I've nothing in the world to lose
I'll get a place in heaven sir to sell the Gospel News

I sell the morning papers sir my name is Jimmy Brown
Everybody knows that I'm the newsboy of the town
You can hear me yellin' Morning Star runnin' along the street
Got no hat upon my head no shoes upon my feet.

Voting is important to local economies.

The backbone to local economies are very important to the stability and prosperity of a successful local economy. 

The methodology behind a voter ID is counter culture to local economies.

We know that local economies are a very vital to America. The understanding about local economies is that they are the place where the details are located. A local economies can be discerned as successful or failure based on the actual witness of it's hardiness. The details are not lost in local economies and it is the details of failure that can be stemmed which are disregarded in Wall Street's boardroom. The definition of success is drastically different. 

So, in understanding a local economy is known in it's characteristics, strengths and dynamics is to understand how open voter laws that invite participation are paramount to the local economy. 

There is a great deal of difference between voting and showing a passport at an airport gate or using a credit card with state issues ID/drivers license. The State ID is depersonalized for easy use in a wide platform of demands for it.  

The state ID is issued for law enforcement primarily, however, over the years since the invention of the car the state ID is used in commercial activities of the driver. That is not necessary in voting. The state ID is an enforcement tool in public and private venues. But, with the state ID is an understanding the owner is a mystery. The person is taking part in an activity where they are in a random population and MUST have definitive definitions for legal purposes. 

Voting is local. It is not only local, it personal. There are districts within the local population where voters live. The small UNIT of population within a district screams familiarity. 

ie: "Hi, Margaret, come out to vote today? Sign here please and here is your ballot." That type of familiarity will rarely be found in commercial and larger public activities. Make no mistake, voting and the polling place is very much a public activity, but, it is an activity within a very small population of FAMILIARITY. 

Since the first days of our US Constitution no one called for OFFICIAL ID. It was never necessary, albeit for the racial poll tax. But, in the case of the poll tax, there was deliberate demands to remove the participation of African Americans. Is that not what the state ID is? Regardless of the 'FREE' state ID, there are expenses that accompany it and are prohibitive. 

Voting is a vital activity for the poor. They are the ones that should benefit the most by elections. They are the ones most profoundly effected by decisions made on their behalf or completely ignored and neglected. 

By the very definitions of "poor" comes an OBVIOUS status of lacking funds that make quality of life changes. With the new world poll tax called the Voter ID comes financial burdens that are not affordable.

Example: When I ride the public transit system I have to pay for that form of transportation. None of that public transit is free and yes $4.50 when I enter the bus at the beginning of my day is significant. It is not dime or a nickel or a penny. It is not even a quarter it is the cost of a 2 loaves of bread or a loaf of bread and a half gallon of milk. 

The reason voting has survived since the beginning of the US Constitution is because we know we are doing. We understand our local community is attached to a greater community and as we walk up the ladder of elections it defines us. We have a local mayor and council, country supervisors, state legislators and federal representatives. The very basis of such a system is the voter. The way voters find their participation is through an organized district with the ability to know exactly where one lives. 

Very districts are very small in geography. The people understand their mind maps. It usually is very easy to look at a voter and know them as a local. There is a quality of life and economic definition. But, voting districts and the BALLOTING PLACES within them are simple and the most important aspect of the USA democracy. 

Requiring state IDs is a burden. It is a burden financially, aesthetics, emotionally and psychologically. A state ID tells the voter they are untrustworthy without it. The state ID dehumanizes citizens. It takes away their robust presence in voting and replaces it with a piece of plastic. 

State IDs when required removes the idea a citizen's signature or mark as a statement of their BELONGING and an affirmation of their citizen's rights. The very same person that has lost or forgotten their state issued ID will be denied as a real human being come to carry out their choice of persons in power over their very lives. 

I know my local government by name, reputation, profession/job and how their vote effects my life. I can attend meetings of the mayor or council OR as in my local government I can turn on the local closed circuit states and view a meeting that I was not able to attend. Witnessing those meetings help me decide my choices in elections. 

The USA has pegged people into classes within it's society. These sigmas are based economic understandings and taxes paid. Those at the top of these definitions of economic standing have absolutely no trouble voting. Heck they are probably on their way to relatives for an extended vacation for Thanksgiving and submitted an absentee ballot.  

And the absentee ballot is filled out and mailed in. It doesn't have an identity requirement. 

State IDs are not necessary to vote. People can vote without an ID. Voting doesn't cause liability. It does not witness financial facts to assign responsibility for traffic accidents. Voting doesn't cause accidents. There is no such thing as voting insurance. 

Voting is an act of citizenship with the highest esteem within a democracy. Those demanding voter ID don't care to understand a democracy is based in participation of the greatest number of people within it. They don't bother understanding in order to uphold that democracy, it has to find a way for the most burdened voter to act to effect their lives for greater benevolence. 

It is a known fact Voter ID victimizes citizens and is an obstruction to the right of every citizen throughout our socioeconomic democracy to participation. Why then does it exist? Because the poor are African Americans in greater numbers than any other ethnic group in the USA. This is racism. This is a poll tax and it should never exist.

Voting is a right. Driving is privilege. There is no equating the two. It is just a fact of life.

A comparative study of other democracies and the USA shows Voter Registration is an enemy to participation. Imagine that.
October 1, 2015
By Eric Black
 

...Most of us are not parties to that conversation (click here) — including me until I started asking — but I was quite impressed with the list of structural, legal and procedural elements of U.S. elections that seem to contribute to our poor turnouts. Here are some of the U.S. practices:

Requiring registration

Most scholars who seek to solve the riddle of low U.S. voter participation start with this explanation. Personally, I was shocked that the United States' voting system is rare among world democracies in that it requires voters to register to vote. But, for me at least, this is one of the main benefits of looking at other democracies.

Turns out, in most of the rest of the democratic world, there’s no separate step called registration. It happens automatically. Or, to put it a bit differently, in most of the democracies, registering citizens to vote is the responsibility of the government. In general, the governments know the names, ages and addresses of most of its citizens and — except in the United States — provide the appropriate polling place with a list of those qualified to vote. The voter just has to show up....