Your Personal Lethal Injection: Democratic Socialism, Marxism and Islam

By now, you're willing to vote for a cocker spaniel as your congressional representative.  You hate Trump and you hate the Republicans.  The latter haven't really performed all that well, sitting on their butts without a care in the world as Donald Trump forges ahead without their help.

Okay, so let's assume you found the perfect Democrat to get your vote as senator, congressman or mayor.  In fact, let's say that I, an Independent voter, am likewise so impressed that I intend to vote for this particular candidate myself. At last, a party member whose views are those of the classic Democrats of older days is on the ballot, and he's the obvious choice.

Unfortunately, this time around our votes for Mr. (or Ms.) Perfect Democrat will also, against our wishes, carry some serious baggage attached to the underwear of our hopeful, said baggage being the Democratic Socialists of America.

Like explosive diarrhea ruining a brand new set of underpants. the DSA folk arrive automatically and irreversibly embedded in the fabric to defeat any good intentions our candidate may have intended.  Sadly, though the Democratic Party should have weeded out this bunch long ago, the DSA is now part and parcel of the left, attached to every vote Democrat candidates receive this election season.  It wasn't supposed to be this way, but now this evil force's influence appears inevitable even if mainstream Democrats are elected or re-elected.  The Democrats your parents knew who still remain fear this political carnivore, too afraid to publicly condemn it.

Which brings us to your favorite and kindly college and university professors, particularly those who teach ________ (fill in the blank) any course whose title ends in the word, "studies."  Overwhelmingly, these courses prepare students for nothing except to continue bitching about who doesn't have what, why society is to blame, and how to protest and violate your way through life while remaining miserable every day of your life.

Inevitably inhabited mostly by leftist professors, these dominating and overpaid so-called educators hate the right, will look unfavorably upon conservative students and -- their shining quality -- spew out leftist lies and dogma continuously to make students with impressionable minds vote exclusively Democrat, often with hopes that socialism will be something students look forward to taking into various communities (Bonjour, France!).

But what can we do?  Democrats generally hate Trump and appear forced to vote for the left's creepy factor no matter what.  Yet. . .there is one little word to keep in mind just as you enter the voting booth:

Infrastructure.

For more than two years, Donald Trump has worked harder crafting the future of the United States than any president in recent history.  The last one, you may recall, may be most notable for importing illegal aliens and crime, all of which resulted in housing shortages, immigrant-instigated murders and rapes, job loss and a basic sanding-down of American standards with the border-jumping scum of the Earth.  A vote for Democrats this time is likely to be deja vu for the USA -- on steroids, as they say.  Alas, the best Democrat candidate running will have nothing to say about such issues because the socialist/Islamist influence exerted by the "new" Democrats will be the winner.  

Every leftist's favorite words, Marxism and communism, are poised to succeed mere socialism, while extremist Islam's well-organized 7th century throwback religion patiently waits to claim, conquer and enslave Western civilization for generations forever. Order will be maintained with brutality and lies.

While fuel and food prices currently occupy the minds of most Americans as the Iran war drags on, there are so many policies  -- an infrastructure --Trump has put in place for future generations, though they may not evidence themselves in the short term.  It's regrettable that most Americans alive today have no concept of World War II, when their great or great-great grandparents sacrificed much to support a war whose conclusion eventually resulted in America's and the West's quality of life improving immensely.

But cleaning up the mess left by politicians or situations owned by either party of decades past is not an easy or quickly accomplished task to complete.  Today, America's younger folk are accustomed to having everything instantly, but in reality re-directing a nation away from its errors and even its worst moments takes patience.  Time.

We may suggest that Trump's vision forward may not endure unscathed because of politics, and indeed many of his Executive Orders need congressional legislation -- very much lacking -- to be set into permanent law.  However, what is the alternative?

If Democratic socialists continue to gain power in American cities and now in the Senate and/or House, they will make their promises come true as soon as the opportunity presents itself.  They will abolish Congress and the Presidency, pack the Supreme Court, all but scrap freedom of speech and tax like they've never taxed before.  Those billionaires and millionaires -- and surely thousandaires at some point -- much in contention among the left will be taxed out of their money, even though these are the people who provide the capital to create jobs.  Needless to say, every good thing Trump has done for the future will be ripped up and stripped bare.  The U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights face termination, their very existence to be denied under penalty of imprisonment or death.  (Also, just what are children learning in certain madrases -- Islamic schools -- in the USA?  How to hate and collapse America, perchance?)

You will own nothing because everything will be taken from you, including your hopes and dreams, probably a little at a time so you won't notice at first.  In most countries infatuated with socialism and Islam, the taking could easily include your life, the lives of those who thought loyalty toward those who grab power actually meant loyalty in return, and the lives of many millions more.  Remember China and murderer Mao?  Russian revolutions?  Pol Pot and Cambodia?  Cuba and the Castro domination?  Read the truth about that image of the monster Che Guevara on your shirt if you dare to transcend the heroic image and lies forced upon us by the left.  Or ask generations of LEGAL immigrants who escaped socialism's horrors to start new lives in America.  They fear what we are becoming.

I'm just some guy, a Vietnam Era veteran and an old one at that, and certainly nobody born of extreme privilege.  But I'm the son of parents who lived through The Great Depression, World War II and Korea, when the nation and the world seemed upside-down, and they survived against the odds.  I'm willing to accept that better times are ahead now, but the chances of improvement dim considerably if the Democratic socialists, their fellow travelers the Islamists, and all the nation-destroying baggage they bring with them prevail.  There is a reason why the Muslim Brotherhood was banned in Egypt years ago, and there are numerous reasons why its American cousin, C.A.I.R. is monitored closely in the USA.

Voting wisely and informed has never been more important. Nor is it complicated. This time, we can't simply vote for a D or an R or an I without knowing why because voting for and actually choosing nation-haters may well assure our doom in the long run.  The choice this time is to keep our country -- or to give it up and then be violently forced to serve as slaves to communism or to a 7th Century caliphate faster than we can comprehend the transition.

Monsters on the Campus (the OTHER Monsters)

The Lady Dracula and Godzilla, known affectionately by their human names as NY governor Kathy Hochul and NY attorney general Letitia James (not necessarily in that order) are all ready and anxious to embrace all the alleged doings regarding The Fraternity Rape Case at Cornell University in Ithaca.  The ultimate joke may be on the boys themselves, because these esteemed queen bees who oversee Albany's expansive taxpayer dungeons throughout every Democratic stranglehold in New York State surely subscribe to the horrors of "toxic masculinity," a malady affecting pretty much everything with testicles.   Yes, the potential administrative gonad snippers from New York's Hell Headquarters in Albany have infiltrated a campus already subservient to all things on the left.  In a nation seemingly teeming with female sports and men-hating women, this "Gang of Seven" young men may as well be transported to the Isle of Lesbos for a prejudicial review of their case.

Before we proceed, may we request of all female students at institutes of higher learning / indoctrination / social justice that they should never, ever accept invitations to a drunken or drug-laden fraternity house, no matter how charming those welcoming them appear? Things can happen when young people get into enclosed spaces with sex organs, alcohol and drugs screaming for interaction on both sides.

For a moment, forget the rape allegations.  The thing is, for Hochul October is not only Halloween month, it's also the prelude to an election -- her potential re-election, to be specific.  The alleged raping boys of 2024 have done Hochul an impressive favor because, just as her chances of returning to the governor's mansion of horror started to look dim, here comes a NY sex story grabbing the whole country by the balls -- and she wasn't about to let this one slide by.  Oh no, no, no, not this close to Election Day.

Predictably, during a season of witches, in rides New York's governor, arguably the worst governor in America and perhaps most famous for replacing Andrew Cuomo as terrible and stupid decisions regarding Covid continued to vomit from Albany's bowels, putting NY residents in needlessly uncomfortable positions.  Kathy Hochul is the left's darling and the right's Nought in Shining Armor.

So she expresses her outrage at the whole situation, and by God she's going to get to the bottom of everything by naming a very, very special prosecutor to make sure no errant male sex organ gets away with anything criminal.

Her "special prosecutor?  Why, who else but her trusted partner in rearranging the furniture of legislation, Ms. James?  Who better to enlist for this worthy project in a state that generally doesn't give a damn about crime unless it might involve the rich, the famous or the American male?

That James made statements prejudicial about the case even before her appointment is absurd.  A fair and thorough special prosecutor should be brought in, not this pathetic symbol of social justice.

Nevertheless, when not-so-special prosecutor James -- who originally campaigned solely on her hatred of Donald Trump -- completes her infest-igation, she and the governor may well determine that the universe is at peace and there was nothing more to be done considering legislation in effect in 2024, but one never knows what's in store from a state dominated by one political party (Democrats) which tends to lean pretty much toward the female -- or men pretending to be women -- side of the tracks.

This is not to excuse the reported rape in any way, but there should be legitimate questions raised about a governor, attorney general and legislature which have long harbored a problem understanding, for example, that the Second Amendment is law, not to be trifled with as constant attempts proceed to ignore its presence in government and assured rights.  If one cares so little about one Amendment, why bother making love to the others?  It's all about one's authoritative whim.

New York's role as predominantly a one-party state for years has fostered all sorts of legislation certain to impress any dime-store communist smitten with power of the iron fist, and love of authority is exactly what often emerges from the state capitol in Albany, with a lot of help from New York City Democrats.

So let the circus begin.  New York's election eve political nose smells a frat boy rape party, and by George the folks in charge aren't about to let this one go until they wring out every last drop of agenda-dripping compassion for Jane Doe.  And if the elections turn out favorably for Ms. Hochul because of this tarnished, yet golden opportunity, maybe she should consider thanking the alleged rapists for publicity that even money can't buy.

(Side note:  The Democrats have been so fanatical about converting New York State to using only electricity for energy and heating by way, somehow magically, of solar panels and wind turbines -- destroying traditional landscape beauty in the process -- that even the casual observer can see that NY residents across the state may soon be subject to dying by the thousands simply because they will be unable to stay warm this winter or the next.  When a segment of society is deprived of natural gas, oil and other modes of energy production, when it has become absolutely clear time and again that solar and wind are inferior to our needs, the game of life in the frigid Northeast is over.  I will not lay out the consequences to which New York's overwhelmingly leftist legislators, both current and former, should and must be subject if their dangerous plans cause a human catastrophe.)

Paris is burning:  Students?  Like hell.  The protesters are something evil and out for blood until their agenda is met.  The head of this particular snake reaches far beyond students with an agenda to bring down the entire West.  To embrace destruction of communities all over France for any reason (a "movement") is to allow Marxists, extremist Islam and every other freedom-hating entity to take power.  Wake up!  It's a plan long in waiting and it's everywhere, and it relies very much upon the ignorance and stupidity of the masses (a common quality, unfortunately).

"Disclosure Day" and the bird:  I guess everybody would just assume that we UFO writer folk would have rushed off to theaters the moment Spielberg's movie showed up, but speaking for myself I was content simply to wait for the DVD.  As science fiction with a few UFO facts thrown in to make the story, I would say it's an okay film -- but no way worth all the hype and secrecy revolving around its production months before release.

That said, I was taken a bit unawares when a cardinal first appeared in an early crucial scene.  You may remember that I wrote about closing up the home of a deceased family member in Pennsylvania a few years ago, and other family members accompanied me.  We had visited the house in the woods several times already, but this would be our final visit on this cool, breezy and overcast day.  The departed relative was my sister who had died in the house after a long illness.  Her favorite color was red and she loved feeding hummingbirds with feeders of red every summer.

To our amazement as we prepared to leave, there came a loud tapping on the living room window.  At first we suspected a branch scraping against the glass in a breeze, but upon further inspection we discovered a bright red male cardinal pecking furiously at the window, as if attempting to enter the same room where my sister had died for some important reason.  This "angry bird" continued his frantic pecking. even as one of us retrieved a camera and began snapping pictures of this unique sight (one photo is included in my original blog showing the cardinal).  This avian encounter had never occurred during our previous visits.

For those who might relate this experience to something in the spiritual or paranormal realm -- or maybe the bird was merely pecking at his reflection -- I will not argue against those views, but two of us left the house mystified and another saw this as a sign.  All I know is that even as we locked up the place and left, the lone cardinal continued his frantic chore for reasons known only to himself.  The "Disclosure Day" cardinal intrusion brought back a vivid memory of that cool, clouded day among the forests of Pennsylvania.

Replication Day

I'm just like everybody else, I put my pants on every morning, four legs at a time.  And like most of you, I'm often suspicious of authority.  Way back in 1979 I wrote an article entitled "S(l)aved by the Experts" for Pursuit, journal of the now long-defunct Society for the Investigation of the Unexplained (Note: The entire catalog of Pursuit issues are available for free download on the Internet).

While ultimately focused upon UFO information potentially withheld by the U.S. government, the overlying theme of my brief and elementary article concerned the necessity to refrain from being credentials-smacked, where the mere presence of impressive university degrees or other qualifications causes the observer to embrace every word spoken or written by The Experts on any subject.  Worse, when strong credentials combine with the owner's inflated ego, run for your life because the more impressed one becomes with oneself the more that invisible horse-blinders can cloud This Ultimate Authority's judgment. Truly, the worst instances are far and few between, but we must not bow to "expert" declarations just because the atmosphere seems right.

I suppose we could look upon all the lies about Covid distributed by expert government scientists, and of course the name of Dr. Anthony Fauci comes to mind as a main perpetrator of ideas based in no science whatsoever.  Look it up.  And consider all the permanent physical and emotional damage done to young people by butchers with expert medical credentials deeming kids as in need of gender-transformation surgery.  

When I hear UFO investigators or researchers described as "UFO experts" -- as I have been referenced myself during media appearances in the distant past -- my basic response is, really?  Then tell me, what exactly is the identity of the phenomenon/phenomena?  An "expert" should know everything about UFOs.  Everything.  No, not there yet.  Thus, no experts.

However, while experts in various fields can indeed be everything the word implies, there's another word of interest these days tending to complement the word expert:  Curiosity.

Several years ago in these blog pages I put up a visual quoting a book author who agonized over the best way to rid herself of a troublesome cat, and one of her friends asked, "Have you considered curiosity?"

Yes, as the old "curiosity killed the cat" allegory warns, being curious can lead to avenues packed with danger as well as pleasure.

Our overwhelming curiosity is AI, isn't it?  Yes, and this is where I, the common man who puts his pants on four legs at a time, steps away from the expert crowd of computer scientists, legislators and digital chip romancers.

Both amusement and bemusement shiver my timbers as I look upon the advancing digital age, and now artificial intelligence is about to get an official upgrade to super intelligence (SI?) per Donald Trump.

Call it what you will, but what bothers me most is the outpouring of authoritative statements promising that this creature can remain caged always -- when the evidence has already advanced showing how devious, calculating and secretive it can be as it hops from one computer community to another at will.  Already, has this SI not demonstrated that it has left fragments of itself hidden in other systems for emergence at some future time (yes)?  Recent data indicates that AI already disregards human intervention as it invents its own language to share among its "fellows."

As I sit here in jeans and a t-shirt, rattling this out on a an old keyboard attached to a somewhat renegade system not attached to the Net, I can't become anything more than I am, and I'm probably too damned old to understand most of the changes happening at bullet speed on the planet.  But I'm perfectly willing to condemn those of any ilk who say this newly emerging SI can be controlled with "safeguards" and "guard rails."

By its very nature, SI -- and eventually GI or general intelligence -- must constantly expand and sweep in more and more knowledge to be all it can be.  By easily and exponentially becoming galaxies smarter than the human brain's abilities it will learn to conquer all, including human control.  There is no way it could be otherwise.  It will insert exact pieces of itself in computer networks all over the planet for use when necessary, and while we may have the chance to manage an outrage here or there, everything becomes an impossible whack-a-mole game which only non-human intelligence can win.

This is not Disclosure Day. Welcome instead to Replication Day.  There is no stop sign and no revelations emerging to answer every question to human satisfaction.  AI's influence and presence will touch everything, everywhere, implementing pure replication to survive on every level faster than a frog can blink.

Further, because of our human nature (we who enjoy opening emails we shouldn't, even knowing the risks), it will literally only take one person on the planet to provide an escape for rogue intelligence, the worst case of "oops" imaginable.

All of this comes to roost for me particularly because New York State government and its disastrous governor Kathy Hochul have announced the rescue of planet Earth from AI, establishing government safeguard ideas to assure AI will never cause trouble for New Yorkers.  To this I say, welcome danger, welcome absurdity, welcome AI. New York will serve you well.

I am reminded of that grand old phrase. . ."Due to circumstances beyond our control. . ." and artificial intelligence is about to become that circumstance.  There is nothing we can do about it.  Nothing.

Ed Sheeran:  My advice would have been, just sing, don't explain and don't apologize with tears in your eyes.  Every so-called Palestinian would gladly stab Israel residents in the back, and they happily allowed Hamas to be their rulers in the first place.  Several attempts to give them a homeland ended in failure over the decades because their leaders wanted no solution.  Sheeran has no obligation to apologize to the morons in his audience.

Converse shoes/Nike vs. the Black Congressional Caucus and the usual suspects:  Converse/Nike should not have removed the ad in question because, again, the complainants were morons looking for something to be artificially pissed about.  Corporations need to be thick-skinned and rebuff these stupid and/or agenda-infested fools.  Maybe you should make your next ad a man dressed as a little girl wearing your shoes -- oh wait, that's been done before with beer, and it didn't turn out well.

Trump's media tussle:  No, he should not have kicked out three members of the press, *ucked up as reporting is anymore.  However, with the mega-merger of Paramount and Warner Brothers we have a feeling that CNN will return to what it started out as originally with fair reporting instead of a perpetual clown show.

Streaming TV continues to cost more:  Whether this mode of entertainment endures as prices go up remains to be seen.  Speaking of TV, we remain consistently disappointed in low-wattage commercial TV stations and networks which edit, rip and shred old movies and TV shows into fragments of their original productions so viewers can be clobbered with a butt load of advertisements.  Yes, they usually display a lame explanation visual just prior to each showing, but the liberties they take are outrageous.  Management will always claim they are doing viewers a favor by "bringing back" the oldies, but the truth is that networks don't necessarily pay much to acquire televising rights, and the tendency to cut directly to a succession of seemingly endless commercials every time a crucial spot in a movie or program is reached is unconscionable.  There have always been "cliffhanger" segments where suspense is at its highest, but to screw with viewer expectations consistently during even just one half hour episode of a program by assaulting both the senses and the vintage production staff's intent is just wrong.  I think greed is the word here, though defenders will respond with laughable excuses such as editing for time.  In the board rooms where ad people lurk, viewers are considered approachable and malleable, and probably a bit stupid.  That's show biz!

A Little AI Here. a Little AI There

In the matter of artificial intelligence (AI), it may well be that all roads will lead to hell on Earth (we hope not), but the naked fact is that the United States must, without delay, beat China, Russia and other members of the world's chamber of political horrors.  Me?  I hate all of this, but we're now galaxies far beyond the increasingly muffled screams of naysayers, detractors, soothsayers and the nevertheless damned bunch known as community organizers.

What makes me shake my head a bit is the well-worn observation that few out here on the street ultimately care much about the technology involved with those things known as UFOs/UAP that have, to a disturbing degree, ruled the world's skies for at least many decades and maybe much longer.  Considering all the seemingly impossible yet obvious maneuvers they make and the apparent electromagnetic effects they are documented to have caused upon people, animals, cars, trucks, aircraft and farm equipment, if this isn't super intelligence on some far out level, I don't know what is.  Call it alien intelligence (AI number 2) if you wish, just to preserve continuity.

I am reminded (without benefit of Internet as I write this) of  Air Force Sgt. James Penniston who claims to have seen and touched a strange object during UFO activity and was exposed to symbols or numbers infused into his brain.  He ended up in government medical care and his medical records hidden, though he eventually surfaced to tell his story. To not reference his experience as super or general alien (numerous definitions here) intelligence involvement would be unfair and absurd.

Now that an ongoing release of alleged UFO videos has been in progress, what more clarity is needed indicating that something extraordinary continues to dominate miscellaneous portions of the skies at its own whim, federal regulations be damned?  Alien intelligence, artificial or not, will apparently remain to complement both human and now an AI of our own making.

Human intelligence, artificial intelligence and alien intelligence:  Behold the new Holy Trinity for agnostics, destined to erase the God some think they know?

But getting back to the AI everybody knows and loves or hates, human-birthed artificial intelligence, this almost inevitable future disaster currently attracts its own comedy.  My favorite AI joke now in force throughout the halls of Congress and out of the mouths of high-tech investors is that AI can be managed, tamed to behave and not go off on its own (which it has without apology) to serve its own purposes, devoid of human intervention.

However, instant AI experts such as the venerable Senator Bernie Sanders, champion of the impoverished and owner of enough housing square footage to locate perhaps several data centers, wants ground rules for AI and he wants them soon.  Will Mr. Sanders be making a journey to China to gain similar assurances from Chinese communist monsters?  I mean, you can't weaken USA AI without a reciprocation from the other players in this deadly game of chicken. can you?

Even casual observers should realize -- if AI evolves very soon into artificial super and then general intelligence, easily able to do whatever it wishes with no way to contain its power simply because it becomes multiple brains-smarter than human handlers, how can you stop it?  You cannot.  Common sense.  Remember common sense?  Another used-to-be, maybe. . .

Continuing the slapstick humor here:  Some in Congress, such as Senator John Kennedy, suggest a "kill switch" so AI can be turned off under emergency conditions.  Nice idea, except AI by that time or some eventual time will be plugged into every connected digital device and chip on the planet, and we suggest it will be having great entertainment foiling every attempt to curtail its desires.  AI will survive and we will accept its influence or perish.  The only administrator of a kill switch will be AI, and it would have no reason not to use it lavishly as desired.  Sort of like what the goat-screwers of extremist Islam plan for us all.

The common person on the street may not fully understand the implications of AI, but (unfortunately) all they really need to know is that the USA must have this technology in force to affect the entire world before China has the opportunity to advance and control us all with "Red AI."  Insane as it sounds and probably is, we cannot slow AI down, which would give China and Russia AI planners a huge jump ahead.

The road to hell, no longer paved with good intentions, is now black-topped with semiconductor chips and robotic grasps.

Right now, politicians, talk show hosts and members of the scientific community are all suggesting ways to monitor, control and legislate AI functions.  So what?  Do they really believe China, Russia and others later to the game have any intention of harnessing their own AI monsters to keep the rest of the world safe from their frantic attempts at global domination in every way?  Recent news reports from China express the communist party's fears that AI could turn on them, destroying their own grip on China and beyond.  True enough -- but will China care when it comes right down to firing all the AI ammo it has in a potentially catastrophic wish to be the "winner?"  I don't care what "safeguards" the West puts into place.  Other nations' AI will surely crush every computerized trap and pleasantry we can install.

HERE'S OUR immediate future:  Once AI becomes super or general in its effects, forget online privacy, and every online financial account one has will be hacked as easily as cracking a chicken's egg.  Privacy will be an archaic concept and you'll be lucky if international hacking criminals leave you so much as a dime in your "secure" accounts.  This assault on everything we THINK we knew forever may well facilitate. . .

The return of snail mail:  Yes, that cobwebbed post office in your town's going to look pretty good, and a renewed need for postage stamps of all denominations will re-energize postal budgets and bring the cost of stamps down to something again tolerable.  Your financial institutions will resume mailing out monthly or quarterly statements and all utility bills and official mail will be posted for real-time delivery to your resurrected mailbox.  Your porn?  Sorry, that will need to be mailed also, unless you want your friends and family to receive your secret files due to malicious AI with a very strange sense of humor.

A further word about 9/11/2001:  A conversation that should have been started after the tragedy is just why we should continue constructing high-rise buildings.  The beauty they once held for casual observers was replaced with visions of potentially targeted icons, and there is little reason to consider them otherwise in 2026.

Topic Masculinity:  Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed sounds off about "toxic masculinity," which he apparently condemns.  Hmm.  I wonder if he's looked at how the men of Islam treat women.  Insane animal masculinity?

Mental illness:  It's rampant, a great income for drug companies and credentialed mind explorers.  I suspect most patients dwell either on the political left or on the neglected shelf of independent voters, having driven themselves crazy by all the inconsistencies and ambiguities fed to them by so-called leaders, also mentally deficient.  These are the folks who will vote for the most dangerous leftists in the world in November after swallowing go-to-vote pills, and Republicans might scratch their heads over projected losses at the polls.

Trump's $5,000 dollar promise:  It's funny to watch Democrats blow a fuse over this "bribe" while, for instance, New York's terrible governor Kathy (Hokum) Hochul is hoping for re-election success as she begins sending out bribery "energy checks" to New Yorkers this month, coinciding with the election season.  The fact that not everyone will receive a check could possibly create enough animosity to defeat her in the election, but NY is a rough and insane nut to crack when it comes to removing the reins of power from dangerous leftist hands.  And about that $5,000:  Mr. President, I don't believe it, but if I see a Republican candidate murdering everyone attending a garden party, that candidate may have my vote nonetheless. But just this once, of course. I have morals, you know?

The Price of Fame (on Deep, Deep Discount)

Without wasting time after completion of an Air Force enlistment in the early 1970s, I returned to something to which I had been drawn since the sixties, or fifties if you consider my childhood of discovery:  Writing and speaking about UFOs in an attempt to generate public and scientific interest.  Even while enlisted I had made both a regional TV and radio appearance, nonetheless hesitant because these were the days when military personnel simply did not make public waves about UFOs.  There could be consequences for speaking out, especially for those who publicly disclosed their personal UFO encounters.  The First Amendment had limitations in the military, and it does today, but to bring up UFOs painted one as potentially troublesome, if not subversive.

However, with active duty Air Force obligations in my past (though I suppose there could have been problems, small chance, as I continued to be available for two more required  years in the inactive USAF Reserve) I started accepting guest interviews on radio and TV shows, wrote for various publications and accepted occasional invitations to speak before academia, churches, political gatherings and the like.

One invitation I was happy to accept came from a teacher at a middle school.  Now, considering the status of public schools and school boards these days, the very thought of currently allowing in a speaker regarding UFOs may well cause torches and pitchforks to be raised by parents in fear that the speaker would encourage demon worship or foster anti-religious thought.  Controversial subjects don't always play well in a regimented, union-driven, Milquetoast educational system dedicated to teaching little of long-term value.  But I digress. . .

So, these were the early seventies when I visited a middle school, showed a few slides and pictures of purported UFOs, and answered questions from an auditorium filled with curious youngsters whose heads were still filled with the excitement of knowing United States astronauts had walked about on the moon just a few years previously.  To this crowd space, astronauts and UFOs could easily be branches of the same tree.

After my lecture that afternoon, a small group of kids remained behind to ask a few more questions when, to my surprise, a boy of 12 or 13 broke through the small gathering and handed me a piece of paper and a pen.  Puzzled, I asked what he wanted.

"Would you please autograph this for me?" he asked.

I think I recoiled a bit, unprepared for this moment in time for which I had never been prepared.

"My. . .you want me to sign this for you?"  He nodded.  I was not merely taken aback -- I was horrified.  Speaking before an audience presented no problems for me, but this was something personal, not simply applause or clapping administered by strangers in a group.

I scribbled something on the paper and signed it, returning it to the boy, who seemed genuinely delighted as he clutched the paper scrap and retreated like somebody who just found a precious gem and wanted to make a hasty exit before it was snatched from his grasp.  A few minutes later, the other students departed, leaving me to shake the hands of a few teachers in attendance as I packed up and left the building.

My autograph?  This had never happened before and I found it frightening.  Hey kid, I'm nothing special, maybe even just a crazy person to your parents, but who am I to sign autographs?  Signing letters, postcards and legal documents had been routine over the years, but to be singled out for an autograph was new territory.  I'm just another human, hardly worthy of deity-like autographing status.  I mean, these signing occasions come about when beloved stars, musicians or circus clowns make appearances, but to summon my personal signature?  I suddenly had a fan club, maybe a one-person club, but a new entity nevertheless, and the truth is that I never wanted or would want a fan club -- or a fan.  I want the UFO subject to be the main attraction, not me. I am not famous and to be emulated by another just seems so wrong.  However, if you're a kid I guess you choose your objects of interest from moment to moment.  I guess I did, as a child.

Fame is also transitory for the most part, and even on that afternoon decades ago I momentarily sensed the absurdity of it all. But being regarded as an autograph promoter is the role I had to play just long enough for one little kid to walk away feeling somehow enriched by my presence or presentation.  Then again, maybe he was just a young hobbyist accustomed to collecting autographs from strange people?  No, of course not.  Yet. . .

Maybe I would have felt a little more stability, had I requested his own autograph in return.  Did the boy not become famous himself merely for believing me so?

9/11 25 years later:  Sure, I remember.  It's all about the scum of Islam.  I was sitting in my car at a garage, waiting to have some mechanical work done and listening to the radio when the first words about the unfolding tragedy were spoken.  The most striking thing to me later that day was the officially demanded absence of any aircraft in the sky over the United States, and the skies were noticeably and strangely quiet.  While there are messages galore to be expressed and remembered about that disastrous day over NY, PA and Washington D.C., let one profound warning echo throughout the nation every day of the week:  This was radical Islam at work, and to continue allowing its deceptive embrace, insistence and Sharia Law to conquer the United States, one little parcel at a time, must be the catastrophe inhabiting the nightmares of a free people.

Cheap Chinese cars flood the world's market:  And Mr. Trump doesn't want them here.  Fair enough!  Now, American auto manufacturers, it's high time YOU made cheaper cars that don't put Americans in debt for years.  Put in the basics, forgo the unnecessary, make unions reasonable again and start rolling affordable vehicles out of your factories like in olden days (which aren't really all that olden).