Pioneering in the 21st Century

Pioneering in the 21^st Century

Imagine:

Living in a place where there is no crowding.

Where there are mountains you could be the first to climb.

Where there is no crime.

Where there are no traffic jams

Where you work from where you live.

Where you don’t need money or a credit card.

Where you don’t have to pay taxes!!

Where the only artificial sounds are the ones you make.

Where you don’t have to worry about being flooded or wildfires.

Where you needn’t worry about getting a sunburn.

Where you never have to worry about bugs biting you.

Where there is no pollution, or disease, or garbage.

Where you can feel light as a feather.

Where the winters are a year long.

Where the outdoor temperatures averages about -80°F

Where the sun is small and weak.

Where winds and sandstorms blow for months at a time

Where everything-even the sky-is red.

Where there are no cities, no restaurants,no highways.

Where there is no television, no internet, no movies.

Where you can never go outside wearing anything other than a spacesuit.

Where you live with a few other people who you may not like.

Where you will be working non-stop just to survive.

Where it takes 8 months for a delivery of anything.

Where there are no mechanics or surgeons.

Where you will by necessity be a vegetarian

Where you will never be able to eat a steak.

Where you will never be able to have a pet.

Where you are bathed constantly in cosmic radiation.

Where you can’t quit your job and go back home.

Where there is no life whatsoever.

Where there is no liquid water.

Where there is no oxygen.

This is what life on Mars will be like.

From NASA archives

The rich 1% have killed off the middle class

"Since millennials first started entering the workforce, their spending habits have been blamed for killing off industries ranging from casual restaurant dining to starter houses. However, a new study by the Federal Reserve suggests it might be less about how they are spending their money and more about not having any to spend.

A study published this month by Christopher Kurz, Geng Li and Daniel J. Vine found millennials are less financially well-off than members of earlier generations when they were the same ages, with "lower earnings, fewer assets and less wealth."

Copied from NPR News, "Why aren't Millenials Spending?", 30 Nov 18

Well, Duh.

   The generation of 'millenials'..those folks born between 1981 and 1997 (who  decides this sort of sorting?) were caught in the pincers of a lot of deleterious situations. The lack of jobs in the 80's...trust me, I know this from hard experience:, the crash of 1987..yes, there was a stock market crash dubbed  'Black Monday" in 1987, before there was the shopping frenzy shifted the name to Friday; the insane and meteoric rise in student loans, the insistence that you Had to go to college in order to get a job (that were sent off shore in the 90's), (9/11 and the subsequent re-inventing America from a robust economic democracy to what is now a plutocracy,) and let us not forget the Great Pumpkin currently in the white house, who is merely the manifestation of the rich purchasing the House of Representatives, the Senate, and the Supreme Court. They...the rich CEO's and upper class destroyed the underpinnings of the middle class economy by "downsizing"..a name for cutting the work force (but not management):, disposing of things like  pensions, health benefits, a decent wage, promotions, full time jobs, sick leave, family leave; and (in the Reagan era of "trickle down economics", broke the backs of labor unions.

 Note, however, that members of Congress and Senate still get fat pension ((equal to their highest paid year of office)),  free housing, franking privileges, and free health care, that they have insured will never be gotten rid of.   

All these factors  created a flood of money to the rich at the expense of the middle class. Now there is no middle class. Now it is the upper poor, the poor and the very rich. 

So you have the millenials, who dutifully went to college to gain degrees...mostly masters, (academic staff and colleges made their money) and can not find a job in the field they chose.  IF they can find a job, it is usually part time, has no benefits, and is paid a minimum wage (that the corporations have also refused to raise, and the legislators allow it.)

Now you have a rich upper class and corporations that pay the same tax rate that the guy working at Burger King.  And even then, they have it arranged so that they pay no taxes at ALL. 

Thank you, Reagan, Bush and Trump.

SO for the companies...like the 'casual dining restaurant" industry, the car companies, and the rapacious home building (and real estate) industry, the reason why millenials aren't buying is because they're POOR. You made us all this way. I can no more afford to buy a new car than I can afford to pay for a first class ticket on an airplane.  The rich have made it so that the 'little man' is carrying the entire load and being paid NOTHING. You have turned us into serfs and slaves, so don't bitch. 

You got what you wanted...disgusting amounts of money that you have never shared a dime of, and treating the average American like shit.  Don't start bitching when we, the little people, don't spend the pennies we have on your shit. We're living in shacks and eating cat food. This is what you wanted. 

You can go fuck yourself. Choke on your money. 

If Hillary runs, it guarantees a Trump re-election

NO,

Hillary,

NO.

You are un-electable. In 2016, I held my nose and voted for you solely due to Trump.

We do not want you. If you run, you will GUARANTEE Trump’s re-election.

We want new blood. We, the Democrats of the US, want someone else. We don’t want you. We don’t want Pelosi.  We want the DNC to LISTEN to us, instead of running the same old horses.  We want someone other than you. We want someone who can WIN, not spend time and money campaigning in some districts and ignoring the Democrats that don’t look like you.

Go AWAY. Stop thinking you can be President. You aren’t Presidential timber. Neither is Trump, but you handed him the White House. Yeah, so you got more votes, but Trump got the electoral college and that was the ones who saw through you.

Go AWAY. Stop bothering us. We need someone else. Not YOU.  

If you run you will guarantee Trump wins. Because this time I won't vote Democrat OR Republican, I will write in someone who could possibly win. It won't be YOU. 

Yeah, okay. I guess I am selfish

     Recently I read an article that accused /dismissed childless people as being ‘selfish’.

     I thought this condemnation unfair.  While the article never said so, it was aimed at childless women, (as opposed to childless men).  Apparently the author was unaware it is absolutely impossible for a female human to get pregnant without a male human contributing sperm. (or, perhaps, the author was a misogynist). To demonize only one side of the equation, as it were, is disingenuous-and bigoted.

     Nor did the article breathe a word about abortion. I’ve never been pregnant. Personally, I don’t care for abortion, and was always careful in my sexual activities. If the guy said he didn’t want to wear a condom, I said “Then you’re not having sex with me.” There’s more than one time I slept alone that night, but that’s fine with me. If he doesn’t have enough respect for me to wear a condom, he doesn’t deserve me.

    However, I’m a firm believer in legal abortion. The anti-abortionists all seem to be rich white people. The loudest and most offensive of anti-abortionists seem to be men. I’ve never seen a black woman protesting abortion, but I sure have seen plenty of poor black teen-aged mothers. They don’t get abortions because they can’t afford them, not because they don’t want one.

    It also amazes me that the anti-abortionists never attack the boys who get girls pregnant. The boys get a pass, it seems, whereas the girl is vilified.

    The article never really mentioned WHY I should be considered selfish for being childless. It really makes no sense. Actually, I’m selfLESS when it comes to never having had kids.

   My never having children means I’m using only my share of the natural resources of this planet-the air, the water, food, etc. My contribution to the human population explosion is zero.

  I’ve never had children, however, every year I’m paying taxes for other people’s children to go to school. And it never ends. I’m paying for as long as I own property. I’m paying for generations of children, not just one. I went to public middle and high school.  I paid for my Bachelor’s degree all on my own. No loans, no grants, no scholarships. You’d think I should be allowed to opt out of paying for thousands of children to attend school.

    I’ve never had children, yet I am constantly being challenged with more and more obstructions to things I want to do because of them: opening a pill bottle, for instance. The warning labels on my plant rooting powder will scare you to death and make you a carnivore forever, but you can open it with a twist of the wrist. 

My vitamin C bottle, however, has a plastic wrapping, a security tape shrink-wrapped around the cap, and an impervious liner to the opening itself.  One needs a vice, a wrench, and a blowtorch to open it, all to prevent some unsupervised kid from ingesting vitamin C. If a breeder depends on The System to protect her kids from ingesting pills or poisons, why must I pay the price for her lack of supervision?

  I’ve never had children, and yet everyday, more and more laws are imposed upon me because Someone Else didn’t supervise THEIR kids. I cannot buy a bottle of beer without being carded. While I don’t smoke, I can’t buy a pack of cigarettes from a machine any longer. We’re the only country on the planet that imposes such ridiculous rules on its population. 

Most countries…..and we’re not talking third world nations, we’re talking Germany, England, Japan; depend on the parent to parent, not the government. Our government imposes laws on children to abstain from drinking, smoking, etc, and then decides that at the age of 18 they are suddenly, voila! adults. The govt apparently thinks that the parents are training the kids to handle substances, when it’s anything but. And how can one train a kid to drink responsibly when he’s not allowed to drink before he’s considered an adult? Duh, there’s a catch-22 here.

    I’ve never had children, however, I run the risk of being maimed or killed on the roads, because the same children who aren’t considered mature enough to drink or smoke until at least 21, are considered experienced and mature enough to drive a high powered car at the age of 16. In many cases, they are on the phone, or worse, texting. Most completely ignore speed limits. They race each other on the interstate.

   This is ludicrous. Not only do kids think they’re immortal, they don’t need booze or drugs to get high on plain old horsepower. A fast car is intoxicating all on its own, no matter how old one is.  Not only are the cars faster and more powerful, but the kids have plenty of peer pressure, cell phones, loud music and whatnot to completely distract any scrap of their miniscule attention spans from driving safely.

    I’ve never had children, however, I’m exposed to unruly, uncivilized, foul mouthed, spoiled brats every day. They don’t consider cheating at school to be bad. While they cannot read, spell or do math, they have tons of self esteem and a highly cultivated sense of entitlement.  

   Just recently I caught a ten year old boy teasing my neighbor’s geriatric dog, on their property, through their fence. When I told him to go away and stop tormenting a defenseless animal, he cursed me, laughed and flipped me off. And I could do nothing.

   When I was a child, any adult in the neighborhood could-and did-dispense badly needed justice to any offending child with a good swift swat on the fanny. It only took once or twice for the child to realize that he is NOT a god, he is obligated to the same rules and morals as adults. But these days, the kids are given “time outs” because discipline will hurt their developing psyches. Because “violence begets violence” (but only when it’s a parent admonishing a child. Turn about, in this case, is not fair play.)

Lack of discipline turns them into bullies and manipulators.

   Even little ones must be handled with kid gloves.  Toddlers are ‘reasoned with”. This is crazy. To quote Heinlein, a toddler “can no more think like a human than he can think like a bee.” Toddlers may be small, but they sure in hell know how to push adult buttons.

   Older kids get put into any sort of ‘program’ so that mom can be rid of them. You can’t even walk into a public library and study anymore. It’s now a free daycare facility. The kids run riot, hunt for porn on the free computers, and all of them are incapable of reading or even being quiet.

  The kids grow up to be demanding monsters. Their parents abdicate all responsibility for their obligation to raise a child.

  Had I so much as chased the dog tormenting boy off the property, I’d probably be in jail for assault, child abuse, etc.

  Don't think that kids don’t know their power. They do. They know without a doubt that they are free to do whatever they like, be it stay out late or steal a car-and nothing will happen to them, as they are ‘minors’.

   They rub our faces in their messes and the parents quiver or, worse, absolve the child of all wrong doing.  Not because they love their children. No, it’s because they don’t want to admit to the truth, that they are lousy parents who cannot control their kids. They turn any sort of request to parent their children into a 'personal attack'. They refuse to admit that they are failures at parenting. They turn their children's rotten behavior into MY problem.

   If you ask me why I never had children, I have several reasons. Part was due to the fact that I was bullied mercilessly, on a daily basis, at school by several neighborhood children, and at home by my truly wicked sister. My father, who favored my sister, alternately emotionally abused me or neglected me. He didn’t love me, never wanted me, and in all my life, never gave me a lick of credit for anything. Need I say he never ever said “I love you”?

  At the age of 13, when I decided to never have children, it was because I didn’t want the awesome responsibility.

  I didn’t care for the religion I was raised in. I was told from first grade on that my sole purpose on the planet was to birth other people, preferably boys. My desires, my dreams, my goals, were nothing. I was told often (by my father as well as by the church) that females were below males in everything. Thus I grew up hating being female.  God, of course, was male, and had his cruel joke on me by making me female and intelligent, so that I was punished for something  I had never had a bit of control over, and smart enough to know it.

    I didn’t want to be saddled with a child, being expected to give the child what I had never received: love, attention, guidance, opportunity.

     Being female meant I was expected to breed. Being female was being kicked out of the house at 19 because father was certain I was going to get pregnant on his dime.  To totally demonstrate his monstrous ego, insisting that, now that I’m old enough and on my own, I should be making grandchildren for him.

   Being female meant that I was not given the same opportunities that boys/men had. Being female means doing twice the work as my male co-workers but only get paid half as much.

   Being female meant that I was supposed to have this mothering instinct that made me want to cuddle infants, worry about the prom, play with Barbie dolls and want to be a mommy or a teacher or a nurse.  Women weren’t scientists. Women weren’t veterinarians, or mechanics, or soldiers. Women were things that joined the convent, or worked in the house and made babies.

  But in retrospect, I guess the writer accusing me and others like me of being ‘selfish’ is right.

   If enjoying my life without burdening myself with a child is selfish; if not contributing to the 7 billion plus number of people on the planet; if not having to deal with a government that prevents me from raising a child they way they should be-with love, guidance, discipline, and a sense of responsibility for one’s actions; if not claiming a tax credit for a child (thereby paying more taxes); well, then, I suppose they’re right. I am selfish. I am also a scientist, a retired career soldier, a writer, a horseman, who is happily married to a man who doesn’t want children EITHER.

    I’m successful, intelligent, and happily childless, and it all came from my own doing. It wasn’t handed to me on a plate, like it’s given to males without thinking. I’m happily atheist and happily childless.  I don’t like children, never did, and don’t really give a rats’ ass if the breeders think I’m selfish.

  It sounds like sour grapes to me.

How can you trust a president who doesn't have pets?

It's no secret I absolutely loathe the great Trumpkin, and the spineless bootlickers who are his party supporters.

Witness the recent depravity of the repubs at the hearings for Supreme Court Justice nominations. I have never in my life seen such a disgusting display of hissyfit tantrums and outright bipartisanship as at those hearings.

These are the same people who spit in Obama's face when he tried to nominate a relatively neutral man to the Supreme Court, and McConnell flat out told him no. But when the repubs wanted this new joker, and the people of the country said no, the repubs went batshit crazy.

But as I was Not watching the procedures, I came upon this picture:

The trophy wife of the clown in the White House, touching an elephant. Photo by Doug Mills of the NY Times.

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is Melania Trump, wife no. 3 of the great trumpkin.

Look at her body language. She's only just barely touching the elephant. She's as neat as a pin in where the hell am I Africa. Everyone else looks like they've been outside in the sun. The rest of her body is as far back from the elephant as is possible.

She is touching the elephant but not really liking to do so. The elephant was brought out for a photo op which she would much rather have done without, thankyouverymuch.
She clearly does not like touching the elephant  despite the calf being as cute as an elephant can get.

It's who she is...a city girl who probably has never touched an animal, much less been able to identify one.
And that is what brought me to the topic for this post: Presidents and pets.

In my lifetime, at least, I cannot think of a single occupant of the White House who didn't have pets. The Kennedy's had horses. Johnson had his beagles. Ford had Golden Retrievers. Carter's kids had cats.
Reagan had animals, Kings George the First AND Second had dogs, and Obama had two adorable water spaniels.

Trump?

You would think that someone like the great trumpkin would be a natural for a dog...a creature that will slaver at your feet no matter how badly you treat it, one that says you are god to me.

But he doesn't, nor does his wife, nor do his kids.

There's something...sick about that. A person who doesn't like animals also usually doesn't like anybody but himself. A person who doesn't like animals finds it easy to abuse them, and usually, humans as well.

Not to say all folks who are pet less are animal haters. No, some just don't have them because they move around a lot, or their lease forbids pets, or they travel, and find it better to be pet-less than have to worry about leaving them in the care of others.

Some folks don't have pets due to allergies, but the many allergic folks I've met over the years all longed passionately for a dog, a cat, a horse. They all felt as if a very important part of being a human was missing from their lives.  I feel sorry for them.

But these bozos? No animals. None. Nor do they seem to have any appreciation for animals, wild or domesticated. Trump has shown a dreadful disregard for the natural world in general. If he had his druthers, the jungles, the forests, the prairies would all be turned into...golf courses and hotels.

Some people don't deserve to have pets. I think the Trumps are that sort. 

I'm not saying anything new...that Trump is a highly disturbed piece of s...t, one who should be either behind bars or in a mental hospital. Instead, he's in the White House. But the fact that there are no pets is just a glaring example of it.

Bridezilla her own worst enemy

     Joan, an acquaintance of mine, owns a small catering business. Most of her work consists of wedding receptions. Like most small businesses these days, hers is right on the edge of profitability: she cannot afford to hire someone. She, her husband, and their two grown children do virtually all the food preparation, set up, serving and take down. They don’t make the fancy wedding cake.

     Recently Joan told me of a disaster of a wedding.

    The bride-to-be contracted her to cater the reception.

    How many people would be invited to the reception? Joan asked.

    “Oh, I think about 70-80 people.”

    That was a little bit more than Joan is able to handle without hiring a temp to work, something she’s done in the past with varying results. 

    “I usually don’t do parties that large.” she said. 

    The girl started crying. “You’re the third caterer I’ve talked to, the other two didn’t want to do it.”

   Joan thought, uh, oh. She knew the other two caterers, and they, like her, usually didn’t turn down a gig unless the bride didn’t have the money to pay. She prepared to turn the girl down.

   “I usually do smaller parties. If I do yours, I’ll have to hire two more people. That’s going to cost you more.”

   “I have the money, I swear it.”  

    The girl had the money. The problem was that the girl demanded an all vegetarian meal. No meat whatsoever, not even salmon.

   “You might want to have something like ham or turkey as a courtesy to your guests that are not vegetarian.”

   “It’s MY wedding. I’ve been a vegan (she pronounced it “vee-gun”) for five years. I won’t eat meat. It’s disgusting, just the smell of it makes me sick.”

   Joan realized now why her competitors had turned the girl down.

   She tried to tell the girl that many people eat meat, and that having some form of meat available for her guests would make for a nice reception.

    The girl turned into a shrew. She proceeded to tell Joan in great and unnecessary detail the sins of eating meat, until finally Joan decided, I don’t need this.

    “I’m sorry, then, I can’t cater your reception. I’d end up throwing away an awful lot of food, and that is a sin, too.”

    The girl started crying again. She was desperate, couldn’t Joan see, how could Joan eat an animal, didn’t she understand?

   Joan DID understand, all too well. Here was a Bridezilla, just one of many she’s seen over the years. The best way to get rid of them was to hit them with an outrageous price.

   She did the math for hiring two extra people, added a hefty addition for her trouble, effectively tripling her normal price, and “I’ll do it for $------“

    To her dismay and astonishment, the girl stopped crying and said DEAL.

    Wisely, Joan got her payment up front.

    Because on the day of the wedding, the trays of eggplant and tofu and quinoa, all the vegetarian dishes the girl had insisted on having, went uneaten. 

    Only twenty people showed up, just the immediate families who were probably obligated to attend or who were members of the wedding party. As Joan had warned, she had to throw away virtually all of the food.

    To say the bride was upset was putting it mildly. 

     Joan said, “I feel so sorry for the groom. He came up, looked at the food and said, “There’s nothing to eat here.”

    Her husband said, “You know, if he’s smart, he could get an annullment."

Where should we put pedophile and sexual predator priests?

Prison.

Teenagers: we need your help!!

To all School kids.

This is to all High School kids, but also middle and elementary kids.  If you haven’t graduated from High School yet, this is for you.

We are all still reeling-and crying- from the many shootings of your classmates and friends, this February 2018. I’m not talking just about Parkland, Fl. That’s just the latest of a horrific number of shootings in such a short amount of time.

This year, hundreds of people have been shot and killed by monsters with assault weapons. Almost all of their targets have been YOU. Your friends. The girls who sit next to you in class. The boys on the football team. The nerds and geeks, the cool kids, your siblings. You are targets for anyone with a gripe and a gun.

Your legislators: State Representatives, Senators, Congressmen, etc....always say the person who kills you is ‘mentally ill’. Sometimes he is. Most of the time he is NOT at all mentally ill. Nikolas Cruz planned the murder of you with meticulous care.  So did Adam Lanza, Dylan Roof, all the monsters who murder.  Cruz was smart, not ill. It takes a lot of smart thinking to pull the fire alarm. This got you out of your classrooms where he could shoot you at will. He took great care to hit as many of you as he could. Then he hid amongst you to escape, pretending he was one of you. You were scared. You were crying. You didn’t know if you were ever going to see your family again. He was smirking, laughing, and right in your midst.

Then he went to get something to eat. Is this the workings of someone who is mentally ill?

No.

He did it for FUN. Just like the others. For FUN. To see you scream in terror and die in agony.

The Florida legislators, when they heard you were coming to Tallahassee to ask them to fix this horrible problem, IMMEDIATELY made a decision: that they weren’t going to listen to you.

Why?

They don’t GIVE A DAMN ABOUT YOU. You’re a kid. To them, you're merely a self centered, entitled, vain, self absorbed, smart phone enthralled kid.   You’re nothing to them. Nothing.

They don’t give a damn that you are dying. They don’t give a damn that someone has the ability to go and shoot you with assault weapons and handguns for no reason other than he’s enjoying it.   

They don’t give a damn about you.

All politicians have one goal in mind: to keep their well-paid position. That means getting re-elected. It takes money, a lot of it, to run an election campaign. The National Rifle Association ‘donates’ billions of dollars to every politician who says he or she is pro-gun.

The NRA gets its money from rich men, from gun and ammunition manufacturers, from gun nuts who love guns more than  the life of an innocent person.

The NRA has ‘lobbyists’ that spend every day in the capitol of your state, bribing your  legislators to vote against gun control. The pitch is simple:  we will pay you to vote against any form of gun control. That’s it. It’s just that simple.

Think of this: how many kids in your school have parents who are lawmakers, or are CEO’s, Congressmen or senators?

Can’t think of a one, can you?  Why?

They don’t send their kids to your school.

They don’t want their kids to mingle with the likes of YOU. They send their kids to a private school, one that probably has a really good security guard. Their kids don’t ride the bus. They don’t sit in your classrooms.
They don’t want THEIR kids shot dead.

By the way, the taxes your parents pay also pay for those kids to go to a private school. Legislators and politicians (like Donald Trump) have a way of getting out of paying taxes. They’re rich, and can afford a lawyer who get them out of taxes. One very rich woman, Leona Helmsley, when asked why she didn’t pay taxes, said, “Only the little people pay taxes.” 

You, my friend, are one of the ‘little people’.

You’re just a peasant.  You mean NOTHING to them.

In fact, all of us are nothing to them. They hate us. They are owned by the very, very rich, who pay them to make laws that keep the rich rich and the poor poor. Just look at the recent ‘tax reform’ bill Trump signed into law. It will make the rich richer and everyone else poorer. Do you eat a school lunch? That’s one thing that is going to go away. That’s just one.

The rich have made it so that the middle class (which no longer exists in any numbers) and the poor eat the entire tax pie.

The minute someone shoots up a bunch of you, or people at a concert, or in a movie, or in church, the NRA and the politicians start talking. “It’s too soon to talk about gun control.” Today, Wayne LaPiere, head of the NRA is BLAMING YOU for trying to get assault weapons off the street. He is screaming that you want to 'eradicate the Second Amendment". The NRA IMMEDIATELY went into 'damage control mode'.

Why?
The NRA wants to divert your attention. It wants you to be confused. It wants you to 'think about the controversy, consider how dangerous it is to  tamper with the Second Amendment. Most of it, it wants you to FORGET.

They know you’re going to scream and bitch, but in a few days, you will forget about gun control. You have a life, and life has a way of concentrating your attention elsewhere.

They count on it, and it works.

Of course, the families who lose a kid, a parent, a friend, etc, don’t ever forget. But they’re NOTHING, they are like dog shit to the legislators and politicians.

Let me warn you kids.

As long as the politicians refuse to ban assault weapons, you are going to continue being murdered.

Right now there is nothing you can do. They will ignore your demonstrations. You are nothing to them.

But in a few years, you will be something to them.

You will be a voter. Only then will you become something more than just a dumbass kid. They want something from you. That is: your vote. They will make all sorts of promises to you. They lie.

There’s a saying, “How can you tell when a politician is lying? When is lips are moving.”

 So they will tell you whatever it is you want to hear: we’re going to fund schools. We’re going to fix the highways. We’re going to do this do that (but NEVER will they say, we’re going to ban assault weapons.)

The NRA pays them good money to avoid that issue.

Once they’re re-elected, all those promises will be forgotten. Just like your deaths.

They say “it’s not fair to law abiding gun owners to take away their assault weapons.”

What they don’t say is “But we are perfectly happy to see kids get their heads blown off by someone using one.”

To them, what is fair is that you die.

Hear them deflect the issue. You said to Trump, ban assault weapons. What did he say today? (21 Feb 18)? “More emphasis on treating the mentally ill.” “More ‘study’ of background checks.”  Not once did the words ‘assault weapon” cross his lips.  I screamed at the TV: IT”S THE GUNS, STUPID!

He will NEVER go against the wishes of the NRA. He and his party that holds both the House and the Senate will let you demonstrate all you want, but will never lift a finger to getting rid of assault weapons.

About fifteen years ago, someone in Australia killed a bunch of people with an assault weapon. The Australian government banned all assault and semi–automatics weapons. They bought back all the guns (people can still own single shot rifles and shotguns), and do you know how many mass shootings they’ve had since?

NONE. ZIP. ZERO.

And all the Australian men still have their balls, and the world didn’t end.

We want assault weapons off the streets.  We ache every time someone is murdered by someone using a gun. We especially hurt when the murdered one is one of you, a young person with all the future ahead of him or her, and then it’s taken away by someone exercising his Second Amendment right to own an assault weapon.

So.

Please.

Young man, young woman, young trans, queer, gay, straight, undecided, black, white, brown, yellow, red, biracial, it doesn’t matter what you are.

Please.

We need your help.

We adults...people like me and your parents, are helpless. We can’t do it by ourselves. We have tried, trust me. The rich plutocrats, the NRA and their paid for politicians in Washington D.C. ignore us. They have cheated their way into power and intend to keep it forever. The presidential election was stolen (Clinton had 2 million more votes) by paying off the electoral college and they will do it again.

Through a lot of underhanded cheating, the GOP is in charge and has no intention WHATSOEVER of doing anything to stop you from being murdered.

Kids, it’s up to you. You must register to vote at the first opportunity (I think the voting age in most states is 18 but I may be mistaken).

Then you must use that vote.

VOTE!

VOTE THESE GREEDY, UNCARING BASTARDS OUT OF OFFICE.

TOGETHER, with your vote and mine, we can get these people who abdicate morality, who don’t care if you die, out of office.

The one thing we have is our numbers. The politicians are few. We are many and it is time we put our numbers against their bias, their greed, their hatred for us. They want us to fight amongst ourselves. They want us to kill each other. Don’t think those attacks on David Hogg weren’t planned. What the GOP and the NRA are doing is nothing short of propaganda intended to divide us.

We need your young voices to be heard. We need you to help us get assault weapons off the street.

When you can, VOTE.

Vote against any one of them who takes money from the NRA. Vote against any politician or legislator who doesn’t sponsor or back an assault weapons ban, any form of gun control.

That’s the only way you’re going to be able to stop the bloodshed.

You have the internet and media smarts that we old farts don’t. I personally have no idea how to text. I don’t have a smart phone. I need a teenager to fix my computer when it effs up.

You have the media savvy and internet power. Soon you will also have the power to vote. It’s not in your hands, yet. It will be soon.

If you want to live a full life, without having to worry about being blown away with an AR-15, or an AK-47, you have to make sure that the people in office have banned them.

I will be marching with you on March 24. I might be old, but I am sick and tired of children and teens being murdered and of the politicians who don’t give a damn about you. Or me. Or anyone who isn’t a rich man  or the NRA.

In the meantime, kids, be situational aware.

If you see something, say something. If someone you know says they’re going to shoot up a school, tell someone! It’s not snitching. Make them listen! Tell a cop, your parents, your principal, tell someone. You’re not snitching. You’re trying to stay alive.

Keep your eyes and ears open.  Be careful. Look out for each other. Don’t bully or allow a bully to hurt any of you. Your school may be next.