Why am I on a soapbox so much lately?

E commerce, E banking, E bill pay, E what ever involving money bothers me. Certainly I do a fair amount of this only because it is sometimes the only way to get the things that I want, for example my paycheck. In both of my current places of employment I no longer have an option to have a physical check handed to me as payment for my work, even less likely would be to have actual currency given to me. There is no choice in the matter. More and more banks are controlling everything we do via computers and the internet, which is more than a little scary. Now you may say the amount of transactions which are completed every single day without issue are enormous compared to the problems which exist. Sure one needle in a haystack isn’t a problem unless you are the farm animal that has to eat that haystack. There is not a single day that goes by where I don’t read, see or hear about someone being hacked, defrauded or missing money because computers are being used to attack people. Our police are woefully ill equipped to investigate these crimes and good luck getting someone to even take a complaint because of jurisdictional issues. Our legislative bodies are worse because 99% of those in power have no clue how computers work enough to do anything at all on one let alone make laws which are effective at governing the use of computers to prevent crime. To paraphrase Shakespeare, “computers crimes are thievery most foul.” There is little way for the victim to know that they have even been attacked and if they are attacked they have to prove that they are not actually the offender. I am all for progress, however the banking industry and commerce industry have to really make things safer for the public to use them electronically. The banks and businesses simply do not care because it isn’t their money; it’s your money that is being taken. Law makers and law enforcement agencies need to step up their game in dealing with these problems. Until people start to feel the sting of this wrong doing, it will continue to grow and grow because there is little or no chance that they will be caught and if they are they will not have to pay any money back and will unlikely see any jail time. Do what you can to protect yourself, however eventually you will find the needle in the haystack and most of the time it will not be a pleasant experience and will probably end up costing you a lot of time and some of your hard earned money. Well, that’s all for now, other stuff to follow most likely Happy Birthday if it’s your birthday and a very merry un birthday if it isn’t your birthday Thank you for reading, please subscribe, Have a great day and play nice in the neighborhood. Ciao, PS 3 Gamer Tag: invisible don PO Box 4425 Roanoke VA 24015

1984 4891

Perhaps it is time to read 1984 again and really look at what was said by Mr. Orwell and if you can’t see the correlation between what happens in the book to what is happening now, how do I put this lightly, if you have a position of authority and you don’t get it you should probably; retire, resign or otherwise vacate your seat. If you do see it and you think things are fine. Well I just don’t know what to say to you because I don’t think we can be friends because things are not fine. I will not spell out all the similarities and things that are going on in our version of Oceania that make me want to leave society and I would were it not for my love of coffee, sidewalks and video games. I am caught in the rat trap but at least I see the bars of the cage. The thing that should alarm every single one of you is the same thing we supported when it was going on in other places around the world. Why are our government officials, employees, agents and other persons in authority afraid of a person with a cell phone camera or video device? No one likes to have someone watching over their shoulder as they do their job but if you are doing your job correctly then why do you care if you are recorded, the only thing it will do is support your side of the story in an unbiased medium. We would certainly be very unhappy if we were monitored every minute and would complain if this were happening on our jobs. I am not saying this to defend the officials who are upset about being recorded, just as a point of empathy that they are flawed humans too. They have the same problems we all have; bills to pay and a paycheck which is just big enough but barely, relationship roller coasters, dreams unfulfilled, and the list of problems goes on. That said while on the job it is important to put aside your personal thoughts and opinions. It isn’t easy to call someone sir or ma’am when they are calling you an idiot or something or other which is less than polite. The thing that is missed is that the two sides are caught up in the web of people above them. Other people telling you that this is the way it is, people who do not have to go and do what you do. I’m not talking about your boss or supervisor. It is probably someone you haven’t even met and would not give a rat’s ass about you if you ever did meet them. Because you and even the official do not matter to them, to the person behind the scenes each person, oppressed or oppressor, are just pieces on a board. Both sides salute some version of the party line, and I am not sure which is sadder the “proles”* who are being stepped on by the boot of the official or the person wearing the boot who can not see they are just as controlled as the person they are standing on and in some cases even more than the “prole”*. The issue does not matter both sides are playing the part which they are supposed to play and what “They” are most afraid of is that the “proles”* will stop fighting over the issue of the day, and they will rally together and stand up and no longer follow along. The video camera / cell phone camera/ social media allows a platform for us “proles”* to come together but it is also being used against us to keep all the “proles”* fighting amongst themselves rather than focusing on the people holding the strings. You are a puppet to the party and so am I. Well, that’s all for now, other stuff to follow most likely Happy Birthday if it’s your birthday and a very merry un birthday if it isn’t your birthday * Prole – the masses from Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-four Thank you for reading, please subscribe, Have a great day and play nice in the neighborhood. Ciao, PS 3 Gamer Tag: invisible don PO Box 4425 Roanoke VA 24015

We let our battles choose us...

We let our battles choose us Bad choices, I have made more than my share whilst on the mud ball. Perhaps you are no stranger to the lingering questions that remain following a questionable choice in your life. Whether that choice was, I’ll just play one more round of this game (three hours later) or, hey I think I’ll take my 9 year old to shoot an Uzi today. The consequences of these bad choices range from the burning eyeballs brought on by lack of sleep to in the case of the latter explaining to the child no honey it isn’t your fault the man died from the weapon you were shooting. Not to make light of someone’s death or to make fun, but bad choices have consequences. Sometimes an apology isn’t enough to make up for the lack of forethought into the things we do. “Hey you all watch me do this” or some variation of this so called rally cry of the stupid is uttered all while filming our bad choices to be posted later on the world wide web. That is to say your bad choices, not mine. I have no way to film mine, unless you count surveillance camera footage which is not in nearly as a many places as you might think. The owners of the cameras are also not usually willing to let you borrow the footage for your own purposes. Don’t ask. Helpful hint; it is always a good idea to check and look in the trees for cameras, people are sneaky bastards and are hiding them there. It can pay to know who is knocking on your front door, especially after a bad choice or five. The point is everything we do has a consequence. It isn’t even that hard to be prepared in elementary school science class they teach cause and effect. Something you do causes something else to happen. Like you put water in a freezer you get ice. You hit your friend with a brick they bleed. You bring a ratchet home you end up with a fair amount of your high dollar stuff missing or a new roommate who doesn’t pay bills and drinks all of your beer. I won’t go for the obvious follow through about the kid. No, not that kid, the kid with the fully automatic submachine gun, you have to pay attention here. Certainly you can’t account for every eventually when you do something and if you don’t think before hand you won’t account for any of them. Still it is amazing the reaction that most of these non thinkers have when something goes wrong and it is something like, “well I guess I should have known” or “I thought something like this might happen.” Really???? You thought something like this might happen. Option one that is a most likely a lie because I doubt seriously that you thought of anything beyond, “Hey, you know what will be cool”… fill in the bad choice of the moment, or option two. Option two being that you did somehow manage to think of something that might go wrong and then though ah firetruck it I’ll do it anyway. If option two is the actual answer, then you are a bigger idiot than the idiot in option one. At the very least in option one you have the excuse I didn’t think. Indeed captain obvious you did not think or you wouldn’t have done said stupid shit. All you have in option two is mea culpa, mea culpa but as I mentioned before apologies don’t clean up all the consequences. You have the right to be as stupid as you want; you also have the responsibility to own your own bad choices once they come back around to bite you on the ass or someone else. It’s fine to remove yourself from the collective gene pool but leave the rest of us to our own bad choices. Well, that’s all for now, other stuff to follow most likely Happy Birthday if it’s your birthday and a very merry un birthday if it isn’t your birthday Today’s title: Lyrics from Glory and Gore by Lorde Thank you for reading, please subscribe, Have a great day and play nice in the neighborhood. Ciao, PS 3 Gamer Tag: invisible don PO Box 4425 Roanoke VA 24015

Hope bites the dust behind all the closed doors

The one thing that makes me tired of all the connectedness and not just being connected 24 seven, is just other people in general. Everyone thinks they are right all of the time, without any discussion or presentation of fact. They are right and you are wrong. No one bothers to listen or give anyone a chance to speak or explain. They talk over, ridicule, steer the conversation off topic if you can even call it a conversation, bad mouth, scream, rant, rave, they will do almost anything but hear what the other person has to say. It is like our ears have atrophied from lack of use. So much of what I see out there are problems of all or nothing thinking. Someone draws a line and unless you bend 100 percent to their way of seeing things nothing productive happens. They are inflexible, even in the face of reason, rational discourse, fact, and scientific proof, they will argue to opposite just to be objectionable, just because, and for no other reason than to be the thorn in the side of the other person. If I can not get what I want completely, well I will make you regret ever trying to get anything. I’m not immune, no one is, every person, has a vested interest in their own success. Every problem ultimately will require you to do something. You can choose to do nothing, which ultimately will cause something to happen, perhaps what you don’t want to happen. How did compromise become such a bad thing? Argument for the sake of argument is fine in a philosophical debate where the consequences are not real and no one is ultimately affected by a poor choice. Debate is useful and even enlightening. However it does require a skill we seem to ignore. That is listening to the other side of the argument. We can see where pit falls may occur but there does come a time when debates have to end and progress has to occur. This isn’t just a person to person level problem whole governments have this problem. Our government has it on every level, and around the world, 3 entire governments were dissolved this week. Why? The simple inability and unwillingness to listen, to communicate, or to compromise, to a point where those in leadership were left with no other option than to say, well this is just not working, you are all fired, we are starting over. Sadly though the same people are likely to be elected right back into office and nothing will happen again. Stubbornness can be a virtue when it means that you are unwilling to stop trying to improve yourself. However doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results and not seeing why you are failing isn’t stubbornness it is insanity. Every good manager, leader, chief, or person in charge worth a damn in my life has had the exact same thing in common. They would listen to what you had to say and if you had a gripe, bitch, or complaint about anything they all said the same thing. What can we do differently? If you had a plan they would listen, they would debate, and they would try to sink your idea. Not to be shitty about it, but to used debate and experience to see if it would unravel the idea. Very few times was a logical alternative that would work or make things better was ever turned down. When it was it was because resources were not available to make the plan happen but those good leaders took the ideas to the next level and tried to make them work. We need to have more discussion, open and transparent, with no hidden agendas, real cooperative progress, that makes a difference for both sides of the discussion. All or nothing usually ends with nothing for either side in the end. Well, that’s all for now, other stuff to follow most likely Happy Birthday if it’s your birthday and a very merry un birthday if it isn’t your birthday Today’s title: lyrics from “Rat Trap” The Boomtown Rats Thank you for reading, please subscribe, Have a great day and play nice in the neighborhood. Ciao, PS 3 Gamer Tag: invisible don PO Box 4425 Roanoke VA 24015

ALS Challenge

Being that I am lacking in technological gadgetry and other expensive recording devices, I am at a crossroads in my life. How often do we find ourselves in a situation of wanting to please others? We want desperately, or not so desperately, to show those who have made a request of us that we would indeed fulfill what is being asked of us however we are unable to meet that request. It is a maddening place to be. Wanting to do the “whatever” which has been asked and not being able to do the whatever. Worried that others will look on our failure to meet said request as something bad, that they may make a negative judgment or that they will think you are insensitive to the request and many other unpleasant things. You may be wondering what is going on that has me so perplexed. Simply put it is the ALS ice bucket challenge. As much as I would truly love to record a bucket of ice water being poured on my head. I say that without any sarcasm at all, I don’t have a gift for that style of speaking or writing and because there is not a font for that type of language. I have a bucket. I don’t really have ice though. The ice maker in my fridge broke and Stunt boy and I don’t really put ice in our drinks. So I would have to buy ice which isn’t terribly expensive or drastically all that far away either. But it complicates the effort just a bit. The bigger thing as I mentioned earlier is that I don’t have a way to record video of me doing the challenge and that is rather costly. Now I do have a camera and I could photograph the event. One of the bucket of ice and water Then one of me wet or some stage of not dry Then another of an empty bucket. You wouldn’t really know if I had just dumped the water out and then got into a nice warm shower then tramped down the stairs back outside and then took the wet picture. I’m smart enough to dumb the water and ice where I would be standing and to take my shirt into the shower too to get it wet. Because I’m not taking any photos shirtless. You’re welcome. However my camera isn’t charged so there is that and time is running out. So not pictures either. So with no way to really fulfill this challenge in some meaningful way or at least in some way that people will fully believe what I’m writing to you in this issue of my blog, journal, note, whatever this “this” is to fulfill my not one, not two but three requests that I am aware of to do this ALS ice bucket challenge. I am still under the clock on all three of them as I did not become aware of any of these until about 10:00 p.m. last night but all three of these challenges were several hours old once I saw them, one of them a full day old. But as I was not aware of said challenge I can’t really be held accountable as I did not get a phone call saying I was nominated So those of you who are reading I have been nominated by 1. KL USAF 50th Security Police – he challenged me as I was stationed with him at Hahn AB along with every other member of the 50th SPS who has also been challenged. 2. The Peacemaker – my brother who challenged me along with my other brother and a few others. 3. City Manager – who is the city manager of the City of Roanoke and I’m not clear if he challenged all citizens of Roanoke or all City Employees. Either way I fall into his request 4. Any challenges for which I have been named and as of yet I am unaware As far as you know the following is true Beside me right now is a bucket of water with ice floating around in it and some dirt, probably should have cleaned the bucket but I didn’t. It’s a blue plastic bucket rectangular in shape and holds about three gallons of liquid. Mainly it holds water but it is a multipurpose bucket I could put nearly any liquid in it and it would remain in the bucket. Now I’m going to go outside and dump the contents of this bucket on my head. I’m sure it will be refreshing. Be right back. Pause for water dousing Okay, I’m back. Miss me? I have to say really cold water wakes you up and takes your breath away. Kind of thrilling and painful the dog did not think this was very smart. Fortunately the neighbors weren’t watching me do something which is really rather odd. Now for the ALS part of the challenge I have gone to the ALS website and I have made my donation. I have donated for my son who misunderstood the challenge and while he did have a bucket of ice water dumped on his head, well mostly the water missed him, but none the less he was somewhat wet. I am also donating for myself and on behalf of my daughter. Who as far as I know has not been challenged or randomly dumped ice water on her head. So the money bit is taken care of Now on to the challenge part. In the interest of saving time I’m only going to make two nominations. 1. My daughter because I love her and I already paid the money so go. I would nominate other family members but they either have been nominated already or fall in to the next group of people. 2. Anyone who lives on the planet earth regardless of nation, age, gender or any other demographic qualifier you want to put in here I nominate all humans who live on the earth to donate what you can to a charity or research organization of your choice. If you donate to ALS, great, if it is another charity or research organization that is great too. The point is to give and to raise awareness of these issues which are under funded for a lot of reasons, which I will not get into right now. Give what you can. I won’t specify any amount because maybe all you can afford is 5 dollars. Maybe you can’t afford that. Give your time volunteering or pay it forward by doing something for someone who needs help. Feed someone how is homeless or something else. Whatever you do, do something that makes the world a little better. Not because you will feel better about it, or you can post something on social media to say hey I did this or you will make some money but because it will help someone else. You have the rest of your lives to do something good hopefully you choose to do something every 24 hours that makes the world better. Not because it pays well, not because it feels good, not because you’ll get something back. Just because you can, so go… the world is waiting for you to do something amazing. Well, that’s all for now, other stuff to follow most likely Happy Birthday if it’s your birthday and a very merry un birthday if it isn’t your birthday Thank you for reading, please subscribe, Have a great day and play nice in the neighborhood. Ciao, PS 3 Gamer Tag: invisible don PO Box 4425 Roanoke VA 24015

A thousand years in one piece of silver

School starts anew already for some and coming very soon for others. Stunt boy returned this week for his final year of high school. Hardly seems possible and that Doodle, his sister, just started school not so long ago the day after he was born and now my son is a senior. Next fall he will most likely be off to college and on the first legs of his life away from home. Empty nest syndrome has been something that I’ve gotten to experience a bit in that my kids have split their time with me and with their mother over the last bunch of years. I have an empty house, then I don’t, then I do, then I don’t and on it has gone. Soon that will stop and they will be gone. Doodle has been out there on her own and not without a bump or two along the way for a while now. I see her like I see my mother, special occasions and holidays. Stunt boy will start that soon, far too soon for my liking and probably not soon enough from his point of view. I remember being in their place finishing high school leaving home and familiar things behind and striking out on my own, falling down only to get back up dust myself off and try again. I don’t think I ever really looked back and thought how it must be from the point of view of my parents. Or if I did I didn’t really understand what it was they may have been feeling. Probably was easier when I left because my brothers were still at home, until they weren’t, just as it was easier for me when Doodle left because Stunt boy was still at home. Now soon he won’t be either and it makes her absence more evident. As much as I lament their leaving the “nest” I am happy for them and try to separate my role in their life as parent and provider to parent and adviser. They are my adult children. Their lives are theirs and no matter what I’ve imagined would be their lives. Their dreams are now their road map and it is their life to choose the paths they will walk, even if they aren’t the ones I would pick. They will fall down and I will be here if they need me to help them, what ever that means. I have to be okay if that help is only to stand by and be silent as they dust themselves off and try again. It’s a hard shift to make at least for me and I’m sure many others. I don’t know if I really like the new role I’m in but I still have a year to get used to the change and I’ve been thinking too about what I’ll do next year, now that I finally got stunt boy to mow the grass only to have to take it back up again next year. A year off is better than none. I won’t have to give up the big TV for him to play Xbox when I really want to play on the Play Station. I can’t really say, “But I want to play my video game” and still sound like a parent. I mean I have said that and used the dad trump of, “I pay the bills for the electric and such, so un-ass the machine son” when he complained. I feel a bit odd doing that so mainly I don’t but sometimes I do. It’s good to be the king, but soon I will be the king of an empty kingdom. Well except for being the King of the Bastards but that is something entirely different. I mean the cats will still be here but they really think this is their house and I’m the hired help. Well, that’s all for now, other stuff to follow most likely Happy Birthday if it’s your birthday and a very merry un birthday if it isn’t your birthday Thank you for reading, please subscribe, Today’s title: Lyrics “A punk” Vampire Weekend Have a great day and play nice in the neighborhood. Ciao, PS 3 Gamer Tag: invisible don PO Box 4425 Roanoke VA 24015

Mother Nature thinks you are an idiot; I'm reserving judgement for now

When ever I read something about someone meeting their end out in the wild, I have to wonder is this just some accident or did the person not really know what they were doing in the first place. I don’t like reading about people dying, no matter what you may have heard about me. Well I do like Game of Thrones/ Song of Ice and Fire series so there is an argument that I do enjoy reading about death. However those are fictional deaths and not the real dead. It seems there are more and more of these adventure type deaths occurring all the time. Which leads me to thinking many people have lost sight of the fact that Mother Nature doesn’t like people, it isn’t just you in particular she hates us all. No matter how nice you are to all the fuzzy little critters or how much you recycle, Mother Nature does not care if you live or not. She doesn’t get all weepy about anyone she kills, she is a mean old bitty and you best not get on her bad side. There is no sign at the edge of the forest that says you must be this tall to ride this ride. Just because you can buy a jet ski, speed boat, climbing gear, GPS and camping gear, or whatever gadgets that are available at hey you all watch me do this dot com. Most likely you don’t know how to use the stuff you just spent too much on, you are not as fit as you think you are, you have no idea what is out there or have a plan for what to do if Mother Nature decides that she is in a really bad mood and you just happen to be in the vicinity. What baffles me is these same people will just walk right up to wild animals. And not the little furry cute ones, oh no they walk up the ones which weight several hundred pounds more than any person. Animals that if you hit them with a car might look at you with disgust and head butt your car and saunter on into the forest. The great wide world is not an amusement park where if you buy the gear you have an all day ride pass and can do what ever you feel like doing. Launching rescue efforts to save your dumb ass puts the lives of people who do know what they are doing at risk. It wastes money and resources. And worst of all you have probably dumped a bunch of trash and toxic crap out in the wild which will cause other problems. However, this is becoming not just an out there in the middle of nowhere problem either. No sadly, this species of human, (homo headuptheirassious) is bringing the all idiot road show right to our neighborhoods, in to parks and recreational areas. Now not only are these tour-ons a hazard to themselves they are bringing it to others. Free for the viewing but not so much on the clean up. I don’t even know how many times I’ve seen someone crashing some sort of recreational something; bike, boat, other vehicle into people or things, or worse yet not operating them in a safe manner. It isn’t that I lack any sympathy for the people who have died or become severely injured. The thing is when you read the follow up on these folks. They were not experienced enough to do what they were doing, they had no training at all, were perhaps under the influence of something. Makes me want to move far, far away from people, but I don’t because I don’t have the necessary skills to live so far away from sidewalks, grocery stores and indoor plumbing. Well, that’s all for now, other stuff to follow most likely Happy Birthday if it’s your birthday and a very merry un birthday if it isn’t your birthday Thank you for reading, please subscribe, Have a great day and play nice in the neighborhood. Ciao, PS 3 Gamer Tag: invisible don PO Box 4425 Roanoke VA 24015

This is the one where I might piss some people off

My two cent, about police brutality, an issue which is not as clearly defined as you might think it is and each officer / citizen encounter is going to be different every single time, even when it is the same officer and the same citizen. Ferguson Missouri has this issue being bounced around and fingers are pointing from both sides. The police are wrong or this kid is no saint, the police department is corrupt, racism is rampant, rioters in the street and on and on. The mentality of one upping the opposing view with some other complaint is used too often and accomplishes nothing and devolves the discussion further and further from the issue. Our country, sadly, is a pot ready to boil over and not just in Ferguson/St. Louis. Racism is alive and well in this country. It goes all directions each race has people who dislikes, distrusts, abuses, and takes advantage of any person not of their own race. So it doesn’t matter what your skin color is there are people who are racist against every person who is not their race. We are a country of poverty as much as we are a country of prosperity. People everywhere in this country are finding it harder and harder to make ends meet and are angry all the time. It may not be fist slamming anger or cussing up a storm but there is an underlying level of I’m ready for a fight. Things are not just unfair they are unbalanced and there is a difference and citizens are tried of being on the losing end of everything. Tied to the poverty issues are unemployment, inflation and greed of shop owners, landlords and any business really. An infrastructure and government which are falling apart and division is the practice of the politics and even the media. Cities and towns all across the country are falling apart. Roads washing away. Power lines falling down in any storm. Bridges which are not safe. Buildings which are structurally unsound. Nothing works the way it should. Our leaders are more concerned about getting re elected rather than trying to do something for the communities they serve. And the media just want to sell ad space and don’t care about reporting. Is the United States still one of the better countries in the world? I think it is and I will not say it is the best because it isn’t. No country is. We are ignoring too many problems to be considered the most perfect place to live. We are still better than many and worse than others and in some areas we are a lot worse. However, changes have to be made because Ferguson isn’t the first place where there has been a shooting by officers which may or may not be a legal shooting. It won’t be the last if things don’t change. All police officers are not criminals out looking to hurt and kill people. They are hard working men and women doing a very tough job that very few people respect or would even want to do. Most of them do their jobs fairly and justly. You may not like it when you have broken the law and the officer is arresting you but they are doing their job correctly. On the other side all people in this country are not criminals even if they live in bad areas where lots of crimes occur. Citizens regardless of who they are or where they are have the right to question what a police officer says. If they do question something it does not mean they will not comply with a lawful order but it should be clear why they are being given an order. Officer: Get off the street. Citizen: Why? This is a legitimate question at this point for every citizen to ask of a police officer. Is this a situation like in Boston where the police are looking for a suspect and there is a threat to public safety or is the person being challenged braking or infringing a law. Fair or not, the burden is on the police to be CLEAR in what they are asking or telling citizens to do. Citizens once an officer has made a CLEAR statement as to why they are making the request the law is on their side and you should comply or face possible consequences. What those consequences are is where the waters muddy. What is reasonable and what is necessary. This debate has so many what ifs that it could be debated all day and still not accomplish a thing. Officers are in danger everyday they go to work. Not every second of everyday but there are times when they are in life threatening situations. However, as their job is to protect and to serve again the burden is on them by the law to make sure this is done in the best way possible. I don’t think police are overly armed, because there are criminals out there armed as well or better than the police. The police need the tools to protect themselves and to protect others. They also need to know how to operate and use the equipment. Sometimes that means officers will need armored vehicles to breach a building, to provided cover from fire bombs and gunshots. It is necessary to have to protect the communities from every possible threat and to aid neighboring jurisdictions if needed. How do you accomplish this and still be effective. Well technology has afforded our peace officers a lot of various tools to do the job. Less than lethal or non lethal methods are being employed all of the time. Tasers, pepper spray and pepper pellet guns and many other tools. Was the officer in Ferguson attacked or not. I don’t know and neither do you. Was the young man who died a good person or a criminal? I don’t know and neither do you. Was the officer a good guy or a hot head? I don’t know and neither do you. However, it is time for officers to employ less than lethal weapons/non lethal weapons as their primary sidearm. Then if they are over powered or have their side arm taken from them, or otherwise loose control of the weapons it isn’t a lethal threat. Regular ammunition can be carried in additional clips on the officer’s utility belt. It isn’t a perfect solution but nothing is and you can make the what if this or that arguments all day it does not change the fact that in most cases of officer / citizen encounters there is not a need to draw their side arms or to employ a lethal weapon at all. In a majority of the encounters where officers do need to draw a weapon a non lethal response is all that is necessary to bring the incident to a point where the treat is eliminated. The burden is on the police to do their job safely and within the scope of the law. The argument that the criminal with a gun will have the upper hand on police all of the time if the police use non lethal weapons is just not valid. Criminals have guns now and are not on equal footing with trained officers even when the criminals have higher caliber weapons or even more weapons. Officers can be just as effective using non lethal weapons and probably even more effective than with only lethal weapons. Before you start saying what do you know; I will qualify my opinion with that I’ve been in the military and served as Security Police in the US Air Force. I have two degrees in Criminal Justice and continue to teach this subject to this day. I work with officers as a part of my job regularly and have to go into the homes of citizens and confront them about why they may or may not have abused their child. No one is ever happy to see me on their doorstep. I do this without any weapons. How you deal with people 99 percent of the time will dictate how they deal with you. Yes there will be times when there is a lot of danger and I’m not saying take away the guns, and the armored vehicles and other tools. I’m saying add these non lethal tools to the arsenal and employ them are your primary tools and use the lethal weapons as the secondary weapons. On the other side of this issue are citizens attacking police, burning down buildings and cars, looting, stealing, and creating a public threat is not the way to protest police misconduct. Citizens are committing crimes and are increasing the threat to public safety which will be responded to with force enough to end the threat. One upping the violence only leads to more violence. Instead go to City Hall stand in protest, go in and form lines to file formal complaints hundreds or people deep with every worker. Call into the government offices, take up their time ask questions about how they are protecting you and your property. Do it with every government office. If you do this peacefully you will effectively force the government to take action without committing a crime. Because they will not be able to do anything else except deal with the issue, the media will be on the side of the protestors to find out why this is going on and why the government isn’t doing anything. Where as right now they are reporting the conflict between the two groups and debating about who did what and not getting answers. In a peaceful protest other government agencies not involved will begin to take up issue and ask questions of other agencies because their effectiveness in doing their jobs will be hindered by the protest. Be prepared to document abuses of authority. If officers or other officials commit crimes against truly peaceful protesting then they are the only ones who are in the wrong and it will be glaringly obvious they are in the wrong. Meeting violence with violence only creates the argument of who was less wrong and who is more right and breeds more violence. Peaceful protests can work, they have worked, and continue to work. If change does not happen something like what has happened in Ferguson may ignite riots in other cities. We are too connected as a country, not too see the issues like the ones in Ferguson are a national problem. These are issues that every community must address or they may face very similar scenes on their own streets. Fair or not it is the responsibility of those who govern to lead and make the changes first to how they best serve their citizens. It is the responsibility of those in public office to find the better way to do something. It is the responsibility of those who voluntarily take these jobs to do them legally without bending the law, breaking the law, circumventing the law and to take the higher moral ground even in the face of illegal actions, ridicule, and disrespect. No it is not fair, it won’t ever be, if you don’t like that burden find a different line of work. If you are a citizen and you don’t like being arrested don’t break the law. If you don’t agree with the law, work to change it but do it legally. You might be surprised to find there are officers who agree with you and who will be willing to help you legally protest and challenge something that is not being done right. Well, that’s all for now, other stuff to follow most likely Happy Birthday if it’s your birthday and a very merry un birthday if it isn’t your birthday Thank you for reading, please subscribe, Have a great day and play nice in the neighborhood. Ciao, PS 3 Gamer Tag: invisible don PO Box 4425 Roanoke VA 24015

Happy Shark Week

Today’s issue in the sometimes amusing and still further adventures of invisible don and in honor of shark week we bring you shark stories. Well only one of them involves a shark and the other two are not shark stories but related shark stories. The first is from a family vacation. We all had gone to Ocean City, Maryland for family fun time. The whole family piled into the family vehicle which I think at the time was a bronze colored Chevy van without any side windows. The parental units were both there and the brothers; the peacemaker and the other one also as well as yours truly. Upon arrival at the beach my brother the peacemaker took his fly fishing rod down to the ocean to catch some fish. I was not going fishing and told him he was wasting his time. My primary interest was sleep and not the ocean. So I fell on the bed and was fast asleep just like goldilocks without the bears or the porridge. To my horror I was awoken to the sight of a somewhat small but very near my face shark gasping for breath. Is it breathing if you pull water through gills to live? Not really breathing is it? What ever you call it, the shark was failing at it because it was not in the water but suspended in the air in the somewhat firm grasp of the peacemaker who was thrusting the unhappy shark toward my face. “Look what I caught, told you I would catch something see what you know”, or something little brothers say when their older brothers are wrong. I was less than thrilled about the shark being poised to literally eat my face off; the shark was less than happy about being waterless, and the peacemaker more than happy to torment us both. Somehow I was able to bounce from one bed to the other bed in the room in a single motion. Almost cat like but I had learned the previous Halloween that I did not possess cat like abilities when I attempted to sleep off a drunk in a tree and failed. So the peacemaker ran back to the ocean to release the traumatized shark and I wandered about on the beach and made a new friend of the female variety and we did nothing shark related. The second shark story was another beach vacation this time post military and in South Carolina. My brother, the other one, was living there at the time and he was trying to teach me to surf. I’m not naturally athletic but I’m not utterly helpless either. I have to practice but eventually I get to where I hold my own. I think I would have been better on a boogie board but the other one said that was for pansies and I wasn’t a pansy so I tried to surf. Paddle out. Watch for a wave. Paddle with the wave. Try to ride in and stand up. Fall. Repeat. Well that went on for a while and I figured I need to master some balance for this to work and get a feel for the board under me on water. So I thought I will just sit on the board and keep from falling off, which is harder to do than it is to say. I practiced this and could sit on the board, complete without falling off and look somewhat convincing that I knew what I was doing. Except that I did not know what I was doing. This must have been less then entertaining for the other one. Who decided that he should swim under me and yank me under the water by my leg, which is exactly what he did. I’m sitting on the board thinking you know I think I have this… now suddenly I’m under the water and being pulled down Holy SH*T I’m getting eaten by a shark. I’m kicking and pulling to get to the surface. I get to the top of the water frantically trying to regain my surfboard and there is the other one bobbing around in the water laughing hysterically. “Thought I was a shark”. Snicker, snicker, hee-hee and he spit water toward me Yes, I did. He swam off before I could drown him, pretty funny today though. Story three does not involve any water or an ocean or a vacation. I was at home one day a couple of years ago and stunt boy my son is playing “Little Big Planet” and I look over and watch for a bit. I see this blue shark looking thing flopping around the map much like a fish out of water. Like the shark in story one except this one is pixels and not a real thing. I ask my son, “Why are you dressed like a shark” His avatar not him. He knew what I meant. Stunt boy says, “I’m not dressed like a shark, I’m dressed like a penguin. I’m wearing a shark hat so it looks like I’m being eaten by a shark.” I say, “Ok” I don’t bother asking why this is so, because at some point previous stunt boy has laid out the logical argument as to why ninjas are better than pirates with a closing argument of pirates being full time drunks and ninja’s always being on task. A few months later though I’m looking in a catalog and I see a shark towel and I think this is perfect. It is a towel with a shark head as a cap to put on your head and the towel part drapes down your back, so it looks like you are being eaten by a shark. MUST HAVE. I order it complete with the story as to why I must have this product to the catalog lady. I gave it to Stunt boy as part of his birthday present and he still games with it on from time to time. Happy Shark Week. Well, that’s all for now, other stuff to follow most likely Happy Birthday if it’s your birthday and a very merry un birthday if it isn’t your birthday Thank you for reading, please subscribe, Have a great day and play nice in the neighborhood. Ciao, PS 3 Gamer Tag: invisible don PO Box 4425 Roanoke VA 24015

It houses circus freaks, temptations and bad trips.

Recently a milestone came and went for me and I didn’t realize it until yesterday but I had already made up my mind about what to write for the day. The thing is that this was a big part of my life and is no longer. No, not my ex wife, unfortunately that saga has not ended. 6 years ago, and it is odd in that it doesn’t seem that long ago but it also seems to be longer too. The big part of my life was cigarettes. They were my buddy, they were my friend. When I needed to think they were there, when I needed to mourn they were there, when I needed what ever they were there. Cigarettes were my, I’m mad as hell buddy. Pulling smoke and burning a cherry, red hot and half an inch long. Cigarettes were my, I’m bored I’ve got nothing to do time filler. They were my OCD, ashes in one ash tray butts in another. Keep me awake on the drive, celebrate this thing or that. Post coital bliss enhancer, lying in the bed blowing smoke up to the ceiling with that other person. Thousands of memories are tied to my paper wrapped tobacco pals. Cigarettes were my wing man, ice breaker, confidence and false bravado all in one. I smoked a lot of brands in my career as a smoker. Stealing my dad’s Winston’s or my grandmother’s Virginia Slims at 12 years old. They were both carton buyers so they didn’t miss the odd pack here or there and were both heavy smokers so they would just assume they smoked more than they thought they had. Yes I smoked Virginia Slims. Hey when you are getting them at the five finger discount store you don’t quibble about what is in stock. Eventually, I started buying my own and changed brands to Marlboro Reds because that was not anyone in my families brand. I’m sure my parents knew I smoked before I admitted it to them. If they didn’t they were outsmarted by the sister of a girlfriend I had who figured it out and would smoke with me. Not sure what ever happened to her, the sister, not the girlfriend. The girlfriend dumped me, which was, even then, a reoccurring theme in my life. Not today’s story. Cigarettes got me through every break up until the last one or next to last one. I’m pretty sure it was the last one because the one after that wasn’t so much a break up as it was oh we don’t do that anymore sort of a thing. And everything after that hasn’t really gotten much past the dating thing so those just sort of end and aren’t really break ups. Somewhere along the line though, those little cigarettes became more than just a fixer of problems but a real problem in my life. They controlled things like how I spent my money. I would buy cigarettes before food. I wouldn’t eat if it meant not buying cigarettes for the day. I had to have at least two packs in the house at all times. Toward the end I was smoking over a pack a day and probably close to a pack and half most days. They were the first thing I did in the morning lighting up on my way to piss and the last thing I did before going to sleep. Quitting smoking was something I had done a lot too. I chewed the gum which tastes like ass by the way or orange flavored ass if you buy the orange gum. The patch was fun, I always enjoyed the nicotine fueled nightly cinema that were my dreams on those smelly, sticky, itchy squares induced once you dropped in the REM sleep. I would quit for a few weeks, a few months but never more than 6 months at a time. Then old smoky would roll back into town and I’d be back on them and back to my levels of smoke stack, steam locomotive or other analogy for a heavy smoker within a day or two. However this last time I took the Chantix pills which did work for me. The success rate is only around 50 percent and in my own completely unscientific and totally casual observations seem to have a better success in helping men quit than they do with women. The warnings for these gems are interesting as in they may cause vivid dreams. I thought well they can’t be worse than the patch. If the patch is like watching a movie, Chantix is like IMAX in HD and 3D but not nightmarish but I have particularly strange dreams without the aide of chemicals so what I think is normal for REM theatre might leave others with a case of insomnia muttering can’t sleep they will kill me and rocking in a corner. Another side effect is the thoughts of suicide. Now this is interesting too because they’ve changed the wording on that a few times. From just plain may increase thoughts of suicide, to thoughts of suicide which are not normal for you, to something like may cause thoughts of suicide. Wow, really can’t escape the theme of the week. Anyway, I didn’t get any new ideas so I think I was in the second set of wording as in the thoughts I had were normal for me. No worry warts I don’t want to off myself and I don’t have a plan. Now there is perhaps one person without a y chromosome who would like to see me take a dirt nap but I’ve not had any threatening notes as of late. I think she still prays for buses to run me down or lightning to strike, or some other something that gives her an alibi and a reason to dance on my grave. Hey we all have wish lists. Mine are for more practical things like a gaming computer or graphics programs/computer but everyone has their favorite things. So the pills helped me quit interesting dreams aside, the only side effect I had was lava hot heartburn for 6 solid days. It never went away and felt like the earth’s core was in my stomach. Then that went away and I went from smoking a pack and more a day to one pack for the week you can smoke on the pills to no cigarettes. 6 years down, and now year 7 is already a few days started. Now I have to get on a program to unfat myself. I’ve gotten the UFO disorder these days which is Ugly, Fat, and Old. I don’t know that I can do much about the ugly and old at least not on my salary but I can do something about the fat guy stuff. I will not be Santa for your Christmas program so don’t ask. Now I have a project to work on and maybe for next year’s celebration of I’m a non smoker I will only have UO disorder which is better than UFO disorder. If you are trying to quit, keep trying you can do it. If you want to quit, do it you will love yourself because you did. No the cravings never go away but they don’t last long when they do surface. I still have them from time to time and even dream about smoking monthly but that doesn’t even come close to the oddity which is my REM sleep. If you haven’t quit I’m not going to say you should quit because I hated it when people told me I should quit when I was a smoker. However I’m willing to bet you sometimes wish you would quit or could quit them and if you do have those thoughts try to quit you may not quit on the first try or even the tenth or twentieth . There will be a time that works and then you’ll be done with them. Well, that’s all for now, other stuff to follow most likely Happy Birthday if it’s your birthday and a very merry un birthday if it isn’t your birthday Thank you for reading, please subscribe, Today’s title: Lyrics from Cigarette by The Clarks. Have a great day and play nice in the neighborhood. Ciao, PS 3 Gamer Tag: invisible don PO Box 4425 Roanoke VA 24015

What does she feel if she doesn't have the feeling that I have in my fingers

What does she feel if she doesn't have the feeling that I have in my fingers. Many people have been debating suicide lately because of the recent death of Robin Williams. My issue yesterday concerning this was specific to that one death and not suicide as a whole. The debate ranges from it is a sin, a cowardly act to it is our right as a person to stop living if we want and everything in between. It is a hard thing to understand from the outside. Seeing a person you know, gone by their own hand has no answers and leaves us wanting to understand what we did not know and can never know. It can haunt those close to it for years. I’m not sure this was always the case and is a problem unique into how your culture looks at self death. I’m not sure when the shift happened in history from choosing to die being acceptable to when it became a bad thing. People have willingly gone to their deaths as long as there have been communities and social groups. The distinction between what is an honorable death and what is not has not always been as clear as it might seem. Every culture that I’ve studied has some form of chosen death be it Seppuku, a return to the earth, soldiers volunteering for dangerous missions, ritual deaths, or another form of euthanasia. Most chosen deaths were a part of the moralistic code of the culture and the people dying welcomed death willing. That is not to say that these were melancholy people, the exact opposite appears to be true these people were proud, happy and loved life. However death is part of living and there is no escape from it eventually everyone one alive today will be dead. Sacrificial deaths seem to be bizarre but many people went to these deaths gladly and willingly and believed that what they were doing would benefit their family or community. When these sacrifices were captured people who wanted no part of their dying in this manner that is a different thing entirely because it isn’t the person’s choice. Somehow quantity of life regardless of quality of life became more important. Many of us can empathize with the idea of escaping unending physical pain from an illness which has no cure. However even then allowing a person to medicate themselves to death is bad but it is okay to sign a piece of paper that says if I die from this illness it is okay not to attempt to revive me. How is one any different than the other? Why should a person have to suffer for months knowing they will never get any better and only get worse? What makes one illness worthy of death over another? What about mental illnesses? There are some illnesses where there is no escape from being ill but only being managed to a point of stability. Most of us would not want that to be our own fate but others must continue on because of our own morality versus their desire not to go on. Why is it honorable to fall on a grenade but not to end the pain of cancer or to end the loss of self through dementia and Alzheimer’s? In the case of illnesses why would a person want to drain all their assets and leave their family nothing for the same end result but only prolonged their life artificially. Why is it okay to refuse any medical treatment but not to ask for right to die by one’s own choice or on one’s own terms? We can not know what one person is experiencing, no more than we can really know what they are truly thinking. What is bearable for you may not be for another. Certainly living is wonderful and most of us do not want that to end our lives because we see it from where we are and from a place of comfort. Our view might be different under different circumstances and perhaps it is more compassionate to allow those who want to leave to go on their own terms and not to worry about what we don’t understand about why they left. You don’t ever find those answers no matter how hard you look. Today’s title: Lyrics from Hefner’s Hymn for the Cigarettes Well, that’s all for now, other stuff to follow most likely Happy Birthday if it’s your birthday and a very merry un birthday if it isn’t your birthday Thank you for reading, please subscribe, Have a great day and play nice in the neighborhood. Ciao, PS 3 Gamer Tag: invisible don PO Box 4425 Roanoke VA 24015

I might be out on a limb here Jack but you don't seem like a happy camper

Robin Williams is dead. Because he was well known this means something to everyone who knew the actor and comic. We didn’t really know him, we knew his work but what drove him is a mystery to most of us. It is a tragic end of a man’s life for his family however for the rest of the world is only a loss of what would have been or could have been not of who this person was but of his work. For most of us we still have the Robin Williams we love and it is really the same whether it be; the Fisher King, Professor Keating, Mork, Ms. Doubtfire, the stand up comic, the Centennial Man, Leslie Zevo or the many other characters brought to life by a vibrant actor. We have the Robin Williams we knew and can have him back on Prime, or the Flix or any station that is showing something of his body of work. He is gone for those closest to him never to come back. We the many mourn his death but we have not lost anything. The muses, Thalia and Melpomene, Comedy and Tragedy, The two faces for Theatre or acting you can’t have one without the other. It seems too that with great comedic actors there is a darkness that envelopes their lives, that the Yin and Yang life is that suffering is necessary to understand joy and to truly know loss you must first know joy. The work I do many people develop what is referred to as gallows humor. What we see isn’t enjoyable but is rather very tragic. To help others you can not allow yourself to carry the weight and be mired down by emotion so you find the humor in what is tragic. Eventually it becomes too much for many and they leave the work. What a weight Mr. Williams must have carried. Suicides impact our lives in a way that many other deaths do not. The “what” that killed the person is the person we mourn. There is no murderer unless you call the person a murderer which is what a suicide is, a self murder. We don’t want to think about the lost person in that light but we do on some level so we get angry at the person because we don’t understand why they did this to themselves and we say it is selfish. It isn’t like cancer or an accident where the illness is to blame or just happenstance is the culprit. In those times we assuage our feelings of loss in consoling words like, “it was their time” or “it was meant to be”. However our theologies tell us that suicide is an unforgivable sin, a hell worthy trespass so the solace of faith doesn’t always help us understand why this person has left us. I don’t know what demons Mr. Williams wrestled with, nor do I know the tragedy he saw in the world to allow him such a gift in bringing joy to others but not enough for himself. Whatever his reasons to leave this life behind are his and his alone. The loss is not ours or even the worlds but his family and his friends. That does not mean it isn’t sad for the rest of us who appreciated his work and were given moments of joy. To me his best works were his dramatic roles and not the comedic ones I always found them to be somewhat manic at times. And I wondered then as now was Robin leaking through all this time and we were all too busy laughing to see the burden on his shoulders. I don’t know. My prayers are for his family, for them he is gone and that they may find peace and understanding in his departure from their lives. The title today is a line from the film The Fisher King. Well, that’s all for now, other stuff to follow most likely Happy Birthday if it’s your birthday and a very merry un birthday if it isn’t your birthday Thank you for reading, please subscribe, Have a great day and play nice in the neighborhood. Ciao, PS 3 Gamer Tag: invisible don PO Box 4425 Roanoke VA 24015

Am I me? Are you, you?

Who are you? How is it that you define you? When people ask who are you, what do you say? What made you decide that is who is you? Maybe you don’t know. Perhaps you define you by what you do. I do a lot of things but I wouldn’t necessarily say I am that thing. I walk but I’m not a walker, I sit but I’m not a sitter, I eat but I’m not an eater and so on and on and on. Which of the things we do becomes the thing that we see as ourselves. Is that me I see the same thing others see when they see me? Do they see a different me, not a better or worse me but just not what I see when I see me. Do they see that you do what you define as you or not. Have you ever asked someone who you are? Say you are an actor and your friends have never seen you act. Are you an actor or are you just their friend or a sister or brother or some other role in their life that you don’t necessarily have from them in your life. Well the sibling thing is different but is that all you are to them and not the “you”, you see as you. It doesn’t mean you aren’t an actor but to them you aren’t because it isn’t real for them in how they see you. I see myself a lot of ways but I’ve always been able to separate out that what I do for money as this isn’t really who I am as me, not entirely at least. I like what I do mostly but that isn’t me in total. I don’t know if I really know me. Part of me is a writer but do I write enough to be a writer. What is enough is there a limit or a sign you much write this much to be a writer. Do people have to acknowledge what you do for it to be what you are? Do they have to approve. Did Warhol call himself an artist or it that what other people have called him and the fact that I don’t think what he did is art make him not an artist. I don’t do enough doing of stuff that isn’t work or just not doing something. I work and I am a worker but that isn’t the “me” I see. I watch but I don’t see myself as a watcher. I game and I do think of myself as a gamer but I don’t know that I’m good at that and by some standards I’m not very good at being a gamer. However I like that I am a gamer. There are things I want to be but I’m not or at least not anymore. I’m alone but I’m not really a loner and I entertain myself well enough that I’m not lonely in my aloneness. Still I am alone. There are things I am but I no longer have to do. I am a parent but I don’t really have to parent my children anymore or at least not in the way that most of us think of parenting. Our roles change and we change or we don’t change. Either can be problematic but because you don’t have to perform tasks related to the you, you are doesn’t mean that isn’t who you are. Doing not doing, being not being? What does it all mean? I felt for sure I would have it all figured out by now. I still look at other people and think surely they have the answers they know who they are and what they are. Perhaps or are they like ducks on a pond above the surface it always looks calm but under the water there can be churning feet to move against a current. Maybe no one really has it all nailed down and they just fake it. I need to do more doing of stuff that defines me as me, the “me” I want to be, not necessarily the “me” you see. Do you need to do more stuff that makes you, you? Perhaps you are happy being the “you” others see as you or perhaps you are not. Well, that’s all for now, other stuff to follow most likely Happy Birthday if it’s your birthday and a very merry un birthday if it isn’t your birthday Thank you for reading, please subscribe, Have a great day and play nice in the neighborhood. Ciao, PS 3 Gamer Tag: invisible don PO Box 4425 Roanoke VA 24015