Fathers of shortstops and baseball. baseball and more baseball.

                He thought possibly he had come to understand the axiom You just live with it.
                Yes, he thought, you don't confront and overcome it; you don't accept it stoically;
                 you just carry it around like a tumor and ignore the black lines that spread along
                 the veins.
                                        James Lee Burke
                                        (From short story Taking a second look)


Summer officially started yesterday and millions of people will increase their interest of our national pastime.....Baseball.  The debate can be made for most popular sport but after everything is said and done, nothing comes close to how baseball resides in the national psyche.  Now of course the expression everything said and done opens a very wide chasm regarding who thinks what about what and who is one person to say what someone else thinks regarding what millions of people might or might not be doing during the summer.

It's a conundrum of sorts but then again please let me know what isn't a conundrum of sorts except of course that at this very moment in time you are reading these grouped letters.....and in truth you might just have stopped reading these grouped letters and decided you have much better things to do.

I can't worry about that and therefore I shall continue with the simple idea that not only are you still reading but you might be asking yourself.....wtf?  And where's the baseball stuff?

Please remember that I get three strikes before heading back to the bench so imagine that the count is 3-2 and I'm about to foul off 20 pitches in a row.

Whether I get a hit at the end or make an out matters little if I manage to consume that much of your precious time.  You are the umpire of this piece and hopefully an instant replay won't be needed.

There are approximately 2.6 million Little League participants in America and about 6 million total baseball players between the ages of 6 and 17 when you add other baseball organizations. That number increases even further when you consider kids playing outside of organized teams.  Let's just round the number up to 8 million and include all softball players.

If you then mix ages 17- 22 and include every high school and college team and then throw in adult leagues and professional teams from Independent leagues and finally add teams that are affiliated with Major League Baseball from Single A to the parent team, of which there are 30 members, you probably have close to 10 million participants in the sport of baseball.

Now add 74 million people who attended Major League Baseball games in 2016 and there is no denying that the sport of Baseball plays a major role in who we are as Americans.

The fact that there are only 750 adult males in the United States who play the sport at it's highest level should give you an indication of how difficult the game is......

Every father who coaches in Little league and has the privilege of watching his son or daughter be the shortstop of his team has a unique perspective of the process.

The shortstop is the heart of the team when it comes to youth baseball.  That actually doesn't really change as the level of competition rises but arguably other positions can start to dominate depending of course on the individual talent of any one player at any one position.  Right field is where you try to hide your weakest player but tell that to Hank Aaron and Babe Ruth. The center fielder can become legendary but most likely he was the shortstop in Little League.

IN FACT.....I'M GUESSING THAT EVERY ONE OF THE 750 PLAYERS IN MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL PLAYED SHORTSTOP ON THEIR LITTLE LEAGUE TEAM. THEY WERE ALSO MOST LIKELY THE BEST PITCHER.

SHORTSTOP IS THE STARTING POINT WHEN YOU ARE THE BEST BASEBALL PLAYER
AND THAT ONLY CHANGES AS YOU START ENCOUNTERING BETTER SHORTSTOPS.

Catchers end up being managers and coaches but that's another story for another time.

Today we are focusing on shortstops and what it's like to have a son as your shortstop.

The pride of having a son who is also the shortstop can only be experienced by a father whose son is the shortstop.  In the last 15 years there are most likely some fathers whose daughters are the shortstop and that pride settles on another level.

I'm not diminishing the pride that any parent has for their child, no matter what position they play in any sport, but having the shortstop be your child just sits on a slightly higher plane.

I can't even imagine how a father feels whose son is still playing shortstop at the Major League level.

Currently there are only 30 of those men.....and probably only 20 who feel secure that their son will the shortstop next year.  Shortstops have a tendency to move to third base or the outfield due to the simple fact that another shortstop comes along who is just a tad bit better.

The memories of my son playing shortstop have taken on entirely new dimensions and have reached heights of flawless perfection that I know can't possibly be real.  The reasons for this potential inflationary perspective is quite simple.....he only got to a certain level before he changed levels in a much bigger game so I've enhanced every single moment because....I've just had to live with it.

Life can be compared to a game when one considers rules, regulations, expectations, practice and execution and when I recall how Sean approached the game of baseball from the age of 3, I fully understand why he was the shortstop.

The physical fluidity with which he moved on the field was easily recognized by anyone who loved the game of baseball.  His throwing motion was correct and his fielding was as smooth as smooth can be.
In my opinion he would have become a center fielder because his natural ability to go catch fly balls was simply obvious.  He taught himself at the age of four how to catch balls that he threw in the air....and he would do it for hours on end.  By the time he was 6 and entering T-Ball he could catch fly balls better than most 12 year olds.

Little League shortstops are also usually the best pitchers and Sean had some amazing moments on the mound but generally wasn't excited about pitching.  He found it very hard to accept players making errors in the field, while he was on the mound.  He much preferred to be in charge of the infield.

But when I look back on those times I can remember when his pitching exploits made him really proud and excited.  The look on his face after pitching 9 innings in Malibu during the All-Stars tournament against North Venice is still something that I will always remember.  He was in charge of his emotions and he knew how to fool batters as well as blow them away.  It was an epic moment and I think he proved to himself that he could go as far as he wanted in the sport. Advancing up the chain of competition in baseball is a hard thing to predict and it usually comes down to an individuals desire to work harder than anyone else.  After high school the competition becomes unbelievable due to the fact that all the shortstops are now playing other positions and they are really really great baseball players.

Imagine an All-League shortstop at a Los Angeles High School goes to a college and his competition is an All-State shortstop from Ohio and then he gets drafted and reports to a Single A minor league team and his competition is an All-American shortstop from Stanford....and then he makes the Major league team and his competition is Corey Seager.  Baseball is an extremely hard sport to excel at and predicting any players future at the age of 15 is really a crap shoot....except for Bryce Harper who appeared on the cover of Sports Illustrated when he was 16.  That's just a flat out freakin anomaly.

Being proud of my son was not hard since most everything he did he did well.  His writing ability was obvious and his artistic renderings are still captivating to look at.  He drew things in min-scale and math was easy for him so his spacial perspective was spot on and he planned on being an architect....after his baseball career was finished, of course.

I've often told people that he was the best shortstop I've actually ever personally known and I get odd looks from time to time depending of course how on little or how much the person I'm talking to cares about baseball.  If I'm talking to a father who had the honor of coaching his son and who actually played shortstop then that person knows exactly what I'm talking about.

Knowing that we will never know how good he could have become as a shortstop
just makes it an incomplete baseball story.  Wondering about what he could have accomplished as a human being makes it an incomplete human story.

The baseball part of the story has actual memories.

I've had many people in the last 23 years ask how I've been able to deal with it and I always make remarks like......"who says I have?" But last night while reading a short story by James Lee Burke the words at the top of this piece just made complete sense.

"YOU JUST LIVE WITH IT"

Every baseball game I watch and every baseball game I listen to has a moment when I see Sean field a ball or stretch a single into a double.....that's just the way it his when you lose your shortstop long before the game has ended.

Things he might have achieved in life as an adult don't really come up because I never saw him as an adult....but I sure saw him play shortstop and he was really really really good.
The best shortstop I ever personally knew......

......and the only son I will ever have.

"You don't confront it and you don't overcome it.....you just live with it"


Michael Timothy McAlevey

By the way.....if you haven't read James Lee Burke....shame on you.
Sentence construction and descriptions...... best I've ever read
from living writer.

Waste that just won't go away

If you've read Mind Jazz in the past than you already know that Nuclear Waste is one of my more depressing topics.  The Superfund cleanup sites are probably going to be even more ignored under the the new EPA leader Scott Pruitt. 

I'd like to watch a video of Mr. Pruitt walk through a Superfund clean up site and listen to his comments on how cleaning up the mess is bad for business.

I'd like to see Mr. Pruitt examine a coal mine and tell us that it seems like a good idea to be working in a coal mine....and then once more repeat how burning coal is good for business.

This is a map of Superfund sites

This is a map of Nuclear Waste sites

You can quickly notice that Superfund sites outnumber Nuclear Waste sites by a rather large margin

but the odds of cleaning something up at a Nuclear Waste site are so far off the chart that it's hard to calculate.

When something goes wrong with Nuclear ANYTHING then all hell breaks loose and YET

THIS SUBJECT

NEVER

GETS

DISCUSSED

BY 

ANY

ELECTED 

OFFICIAL

and is

very rarely brought up by political reporters during interviews.

It's hard to discuss things that don't have answers and what to do with Nuclear Waste is one of those subjects that doesn't have a solvable solution....except to bury it somewhere and usually that somewhere is somewhere where someone else doesn't want it buried.

Every so often a story might appear in the newspaper like last week on Page 5 in the LA TIMES.

(An article entitled TOXIC WASTE VS CLIMATE CHANGE by William Yardley) It's worth reading if you need to be a bit more nervous about President "Biff" and Scott Pruitt.   The fact that a Climate Denier is head of the EPA makes me want to put a pillow over my head and sleep until 2020.

Every time I bring this topic up I think of Japan and the 54 Nuclear Reactors built on a volcanic mountain and wonder what could possibly go wrong there........

By the way have you ever considered the irony regarding Nuclear Waste that continues to be dumped in the ocean at Fukushima and then enters the ocean currents and travels directly toward......the western United States.  Are they giving us back radiation from 1945 events?

Seems extreme doesn't it?  Kinda like an Alex Jones thought....which seems so wrong that it's time for some music.

Michael Timothy McAlevey

Neo-Illumination #17

My most viewed Mind Jazz article in the last five years was posted on March 29th of this year and was titled Neo-Illumination #14......

By the way,  I'm stunned by how many different things the word NEO gets attached. Neo-Illumination was named in August of 2002 and at the time I think the only NEO I knew about was from the Matrix.
But since Neo-Illumination was suggested by my friend Tom, to name what I was doing, I can't really
take credit in the naming area.

I've always considered #17 to be extremely important and it contains two very relevant messages.  I say relevant because of the what appears to be separating human beings from a joint understanding and cohesive effort to improve human life on earth is the core of #17.  The core that I'm referring to will be shown in yellow.

But before I remind (or introduce for the first time) you of #17 I wish to address the latest President "Biff" gesture toward trying to undue any and everything Barack Obama did during his eight years.

I'M JUST GOING TO REMIND YOU THAT THE GOP HAS DONE ANYTHING AND EVERYTHING TO PREVENT BARRY FROM DOING ANYTHING FROM THE BEGINNING.....AND THAT STARTED TWO WEEKS AFTER HIS ELECTION IN 2002....AND HAS CONTINUED RIGHT UP TO THIS POINT BY TRYING TO REVERSE ANYTHING HE DID DURING HIS EIGHT YEARS IN THE WHITE HOUSE.

Keeping that train of thought in the forefront of your mind I ask you now to explain how in God's green earth would reversing the Cuba situation benefit the United States on any level?

 "Little Sen.Marco Rubio" is anti-Castro, and that's not a secret but realizing he suddenly has influence in the White House regarding this matter just makes no sense.  The amount of business that has been conducted since restrictions were lifted should be the only thing that matters.  Introducing Free Enterprise and private ownership of businesses to that country, 100 miles from Florida, should be the goal.  And although it might only be happening at around a 20% clip, that beats the hell out of 0%.  

The actual companies in America that have benefited from lifting the trade restrictions can be looked up rather quickly.  (Go ahead check and do your Google thing....I'll wait a few minutes)  

Did you finish the assignment or just say FI?
Maybe you said FU or FO or FA  or maybe you just kept reading and are waiting for me to get back on point.

The point is....IF policy is reversed on Cuba by the United States than opening up doors and windows for Russia and China will increase substantially and since Russia has been an ally of Cuba since Castro took over in 1959 I'm sure in their new faux capitalism government they will be able to get much deeper if the US starts backing out of their new relationship with Cuba.  Increased military presence by Russia in Cuba is not something we want.

But maybe that's the President "Biff" and Russian plan....from the get go.  Conspiracy theories do not have to be limited to the right wing nuts like Alex Jones.

 Let's make one right now.

DT promises Putin that he will reverse Obama's moves in Cuba if he (Putin) can help out with a little bit of untraceable hacking during the election.  And the only restriction is that Russia can't put Nuclear weapons on the island and no military base within 50 miles a Trump Hotel Resort.  

By the way, when weapons are inserted within a hundred miles of the United States the weapons don't have to be ICBM's to create horror.

And now would be a good time for #17

                                         THE UNIVERSE HAS A SYSTEM

   OF

     ORDER AND CHAOS

The Human experience is a

tangent

of

that system

  that can 

both

   establish order 

and

create chaos

                BELIEF SYSTEMS DIRECTLY LEAD TO CHAOS

                     Acceptance

                             with investigation 

                                           and introspection

                                 CREATES

                                    MORE

                                   ORDER

The mysteries of the Universe will always outnumber the known                                          realities 

                                      and

                                  Chaos will

                                  forever exist

       OUR JOB, AS HUMAN BEINGS, SIMPLY MIGHT BE

                                        TO

                             AVOID EXTINCTION

*****

and then with my new found knowledge of cosmology and with the help of amazing technological advances in the field of scientific research into the beginnings of the Universe by Particle and Theoretical Physicists throughout the world....we only have a few billion years to figure out how to make sure that doesn't happen....unless we really do something stupid in the meantime by trying to enforce a belief system down someone's throat....and unleashing horror in the form of viruses or Nuclear annihilation that prevent us from traveling beyond this galaxy.

Of course a giant meteor could be lurking out in the Oort Cloud just waiting for the right disturbance to send it on it's way to Earth.

All of President "Biffs" tweets just might be the beginning a the disturbance....

I hope I'm giving him to much credit....and I hope I haven't eaten too many cookies.

Now let's sit back and see how many views #17 gets.

I know it got one 

because

of

YOU.

Michael Timothy McAlevey

Paris and a worst decision.

The guy in the White House, while running for the top job, told us that he wasn't a Climate Change advocate even though he thought something was happening and that he would do more research on the matter.

Deciding that 197 countries were traveling down the wrong path, our leader announced this week that the United States would pull out of the Paris Accord and focus on the problems of the remaining coal mining states, which by the way are already replacing their coal operations with natural gas extraction facilities.

The list of decisions that are contrary to a peaceful and environmentally healthy planetary atmosphere are growing on a daily basis. 

And it appears much of the direction being carved out is coming from Steve Bannon.  It seems that since he was removed from the National Security Council he has gone out of his way to push agenda's that go against not only common sense but intensify the war against poor people and the disenfranchised. And the odd part is that when you read about him, he never tried to hide behind some political spin.  He flat out believes that his actions are beneficial for the United States of America.

Isolationism can be camouflaged in many different cloaks of many different colors and dissecting    those differences later can prove to be troublesome, especially when attempting to determine which cloak or which color caused the biggest problem.

When it comes to political issues large problems start with small decisions and that's generally done on purpose to confuse the accountability level.

Politicians don't like to be blamed for problems and that's just the nature of the beast.  And by the way stop saying that President "Biff" isn't a politician......when one decides to run for President of The United States one automatically becomes the ultimate politician.  I believe that his stretching the truth and telling flat out lies is why he knew he could be a great politician....and in his mind he is the greatest politician in the history of the planet.

He might even think he's the greatest leader to have ever lived.  I'm not sure how far out of whack his ego is, but I'm pretty sure he's on the borderline of egotistical insanity.

I almost hate to say this....but he might be crazy.  Maybe one of the wealthiest crazy people to have ever lived. ( But most of the tyrannical leaders throughout history managed to accumulate hordes of wealth at the expense of others.  When you address the four bankruptcies of his corporations you can see that others paid a high price to be involved with his projects)

The Tweeting addiction, alone, indicates a strange oddness and I'm sure there are psychological tests that if taken would show some technical mental disturbances.  And then when you add the Steve Bannon evaluation to the mix it turns into a............serious question mark of behavioral patterns that don't appear healthy and for sure don't indicate a high regard for the concepts of love or compassion, not to mention a total disregard of fellow human beings, unless of course they are wealthy or run a country.

Then you add the BLING to the thing and the equation becomes quite obvious.

Maybe Napolean reincarnated?

Maybe Scrooge McDuck morphed into a human being?

Maybe Nero?

The entire situation is so COVFEFEING.

The removal from the Paris Accord is actually not as weird as naming Scott Pruitt head of the EPA.  That appointment in my mind will prove to be the worst decision ever made by a President of the United States.
It's our ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY
AND
THOSE ARE
OUR RULES AND REGULATIONS
TO HELP
CONTROL
MULTI-NATIONAL CORPORATIONS
FROM 
F**KING UP
OUR
LAND
OUR
WATER
AND
OUR
AIR. 

And the guy in charge of the EPA wants to eliminate the entire agency.....and has said so multiple times.  And his boss. along with Mr. Bannon, have given the green light to making that happen.

All the countries of the planet are coming together on Climate Change and that ship has sailed and focus is aimed in the right direction by 197 countries.

Our environmental focus is being controlled by 
one man
named
Scott Pruitt
and
nobody seems
to care.....

I'm pretty certain that Steve Bannon has regular meetings with Scott Pruitt and that truly scares the s**t out me.

Leaving the Paris Accord....
not so much....due to the overwhelming numbers of countries who are involved.

And one last thing to remember....it's not the planet that will feel the pain of Climate Change disasters....
it's you
me
your children
and
their
children
and so on and so forth.

Michael Timothy McAlevey

Traveling and contradicting everything he said during the election......

I was going to point out all the contradictions that the current President has displayed since he was running for the office and then I decided that those of you who know don't need to hear more and those of you who don't think he has made any contradictions about anything previously said aren't going to absorb the reality......so I've decided it's just time for more music.

Few of my all time favorite

and then my favorite song of all time

Now seriously.....wasn't that better than rambling on about President "Biff?"

Humbled and asking questions while working with The People.....

It's quite a blow to the ego, or the illusion created by the ego, when an artist of my stature (and I will thank you to stop laughing and giggling while I'll explain the conundrum which has transmigrated into a full blown anomaly) has to take a part time job in a bakery department of a large corporate retail food purveyor.

My friend Tom explains that it might be an important time for me to learn what The People have to experience....and that working with The People should be a valuable life lesson.

It would seem that the life lessons I've had to endure by my current calendar age would have fully manifested themselves before now and that this time should be totally devoted to delivering the messages instead of having to continue receiving them.

I understand the concept of human beings always trying to expand the learning curve and knowing that one should never stop trying to broaden one's knowledge.....but there comes a time when sharing the accumulated knowledge should be exercised.....especially if one has the tag "artist" attached to their name.  I don't think I asked for this but maybe I did.....it's hard to understand unless you are an artist.

First let me explain the artist of my stature comment.
Notoriety can not be the only tangent that determines stature, but most likely it is the only one that allows continual financial security for one to be able to devote all of their awake time to their work.  Not getting paid for one's work might recluse the word work from the equation but those of us who have spent untold hours working on their art know that the word work has to be applied. Acceptance of what one does by others is obviously a criteria that allows the work to continue.  I have a short list of others that appreciate what I do but obviously the list is not long enough or I won't be decorating cupcakes and baking sourdough baguettes.
.
When I bring up the word stature I generally refer to subject matter and uniqueness of the endeavor.  I have spent numerous hours surveying art venues with the soul intent of finding other artists who work on projects somewhat similar to what I do....and I'm confident that if there are others they work for NASA or Mr. Musk at Space X....or directly for the CERN project in Switzerland.

I'm not speaking of the Single Line Flow Motion Design Style work that I do....

......but am specifically referring to my Particle collision proton colliding CERN motivated images that are the corner stone of The Other God Particles display and "show."

And the next phase of the project will include equations, Black Holes, Dark Matter and Dark Energy, of which I have created small images which will be large images if and when the Universe decides that my time is better spent creating images instead of baking bagels and working with The People.

When I refer to the stature of my art I'm literally referring to the subject matter and am fully aware that very very very very few people actually care about the origins of the Universe and all the mysteries that surround us....and then add the non-physical realities of Neo-Illumination and yes I am stranded on an island of creativity that appears to be of very little interest to the general public.

I have confidence and conviction....I just don't have the rent.

And as I experience the part-time work force of corporate America I am fully amazed that people are actually trying to live while working only 24 hours a week.  I've learned that most people need to have two jobs in order to survive and those people are extremely concerned about the changes to the Affordable Health Care Act.  Our current President has no concept of what part-time workers have to do to try and make ends meet, and from what I've been watching over the last three months it seems his main concern is to create extra hardships for the people who truly need help.  Of course that's nothing new for the Republican party but President "Biff" seems to be taking it to another level.

OUR PRESIDENT APPEARS TO HATE
POOR 
PEOPLE
and
that
is not
a
good
character trait.

I'm with The People right now and I'm punching a time clock and the last time someone made me punch a time clock I ended up in the hospital.

Hopefully I have a better grasp of what this present experience is supposed to render.

Hopefully.

But just in case you are wondering.....yes I do have artwork for sale and yes I do plan on having another show and yes I believe in the Fairly Godmother and yes I think the Dodgers can win another World Series in my lifetime and yes Blue is my favorite color and yes I think The Universe was started with a thought followed by an action and then things just kept expanding....

I know for a fact that our current President should not be President.....and I'd like to expand on that thought
but
time to go
make
some
bread....literally......and work with The People.


Michael Timothy McAlevey

Listen a little and then get up and dance.

Earth Day once more

I wrote this in 2003.  I post it every year on Earth Day.  I've never been more concerned about how politics can adversely affect our plight of environmental safeguards then I am today.  I thank the current administration for that concern.

The words came to me as I listened to an instrumental tune "Farewell" by John Doan.   I heard the words so clearly.  It was one of "those moments" if you know what I mean.

If you click on the Farewell link below and listen, while you read, you just might get what I mean.
Farewell

There's a soul in the life of the land where we live

IT'S CLEAR

IT’S CLEAN

IT’S FRESH

AND IT’S OURS

IT DOESN’T CARE WHERE WE’VE COME FROM

IT DOESN’T ASK WHO WE ARE

JUST

DO WE LOVE

WHERE WE STAND

AT THIS TIME

WE CAN DRINK ALL THE WATER

AND MINE ALL THE COAL

BUT WHEN WE MIX THE TWO TOGETHER

IT TROUBLES HER SOUL

WE CAN TEST ALL THE BOMBS

AND DESTROY EVERY LAST TREE

AND THE ONLY THING IT REALLY DOES

IS ELIMINATE YOU AND ME

THE HARM THAT WE BRING

DOESN’T BOTHER THE LAND

WE ONLY HURT OURSELVES

BY FAILING TO UNDERSTAND

THAT THERE’S A SOUL IN THE LIFE OF THE LAND WHERE WE LIVE

IT’S CLEAR

IT’S CLEAN

IT’S FRESH

AND IT’S OURS

IT DOESN’T CARE WHERE WE’VE COME FROM

IT DOESN’T ASK WHO WE ARE

JUST

DO WE LOVE

WHERE WE STAND

AT THIS TIME

WE ARE GIVEN ALL THE TREASURES

THAT ANYONE COULD USE

BUT IF WE DON’T HAVE VISION

THEN ALL WE DO IS LOSE

WE DUMP OUR PROBLEMS

IN EVERY OCEAN, RIVER AND STREAM

WE LIVE BY A CODE OF CONSUMPTION

THAT DARKENS EVERY DREAM

WE THINK THAT OIL IS OUR GOLD

BECAUSE IT MOVES MACHINES AND MAN

AND ALL IT REALLY DOES

IS REMOVE THE SPRINGS OF LAND

WE NEED THAT SPECIAL CRUDE

BECAUSE WE’VE IGNORED OTHER WAYS

AND ALL WE’VE ENDED UP WITH

IS COUGHING THROUGH A HAZE

OUR CHILDREN’S CHILDREN

WILL REALLY PAY THE PRICE

AND JUST THAT THOUGHT ALONE

DOESN’T MAKE US VERY NICE

AND WHEN THE DUST HAS FINALLY SETTLED

AND ALL THE BILLS HAVE BEEN PAID

IT IS ONLY THE SIMPLE FACT

THAT’S THERE’S ONE MISTAKE WE’VE MADE

WE THOUGHT WE CONTROLLED THE EARTH

BY DOMINATING THE LAND

AND IT SIMPLY COMES DOWN TO ONE THING

THAT WE JUST DIDN’T UNDERSTAND

THAT THERE’S A SOUL IN THE LIFE OF THE LAND WHERE WE LIVE

IT’S CLEAR

IT’S CLEAN

IT’S FRESH

AND IT’S OURS

IT DOESN’T CARE WHERE WE COME FROM

IT DOESN’T ASK WHO WE ARE

JUST

DO WE LOVE

WHERE WE STAND

AT THIS TIME

Have a nice Earth Day

Military was prepped and now is responding....are you getting nervous yet?

When our new President presented his annual budget with a military spending increase of 58 BILLION dollars it just seemed logical that weapons usage would increase. ( Keep in mind that the previous administration had dropped 25,000 bombs on ISIS held territory in the last 16 months)

A week ago 59 Cruise Missiles were used in response to a chemical attack in Syria.  That chemical attack is being attributed to Bashar al Assad and the missiles were directed at an airbase controlled by Syria, from which they (everybody except Syria and Russia) say the chemical attack was launched.

There appears to be questions about who actually used the chemical weapons.  I sure hope this isn't one of those tactics used to misdirect.  A few days seems awfully quick to respond.  I would have thought some deeper investigation necessary  before launching missiles.

There's obviously a huge difference between bombs and missiles.  And since we've never seen a video of the 25,000 bombs dropped by the previous administration and there was an immediate video of the missiles being launched from our ships in the Mediterranean I'd say that's a huge policy shift.

The weapons manufacturers probably like to show their stock holders where their revenue is generated.....and our President, who actually lives in Florida, in case you haven't been paying attention, is a bit of a braggart so basically it's showtime.  And it's going to get louder and louder until someone steps in and says.........ENOUGH!  I'm pretty sure that someone has to be the American people.


Then two days ago our government dropped the largest non-nuclear bomb ever used on a remote mountainous region in Afghanistan. That bomb is called the MOAB....with the nickname being Mother of all bombs.

 
The next day there was an actual video showing the MOAB cloud as it detonated.

It appears that we are entering a new phase of live action coverage....which resembles an old phase that I recall from the Vietnam time period.  Those nightly video's of the war in South-East Asia were fundamental in helping to establish  a vocal opposition to not only that war but war in general.

Perhaps the Nobel Peace prize President from Chicago understood that principle and therefore didn't allow media coverage of all the bombs being dropped on ISIS held territory.  You know there are video's of every single one of the 25,000 bombs dropped by the US led coalition....but have you ever seen even one?  Ten years from now they will be shown on the History Channel.

Oh and by the way......apparently Russia has the Father of all bombs called The FOAB, which they say is considerably larger that The MOAB.

I'm thinking that there's a good chance we might see a video of that big daddy some time in the very near future. 

Tit for tat and so on and so forth.

Our President did say, during the election process, that he would bomb the *%#! out of ISIS and I always thought it was odd to ignore the fact that Obama was already bombing the *%#! out of them.  I guess our new leader simply meant that he would be using bigger bombs.

And so I simply ask......what's the next size weapon to be used?

And then we have this other new development......
Press release;

WASHINGTON — The commander of American forces in the Pacific has ordered an aircraft carrier and several other warships toward the Korean Peninsula in a show of force by the Trump administration just days after North Korea tested another intermediate-range missile.

The officer, Adm. Harry B. Harris Jr., the head of the military’s Pacific Command, diverted the aircraft carrier Carl Vinson and its wing of fighter jets from a planned series of exercises and port calls in Australia, the command said in a statement. The Vinson and three guided-missile destroyers and cruisers steamed out of Singapore on Saturday for their new mission in the Western Pacific.

(April 19th update) Apparently this "armada" wasn't doing what the White House originally reported......and then yesterday the article in LA TIMES said it was moving toward the Sea of Japan so your guess is as good as any. time for personal research. Let's call Bill O'Reilly.....he's got some time on his hands.

 The problem with North Korea vs ISIS is that the leader of North Korea actually has an army with uniforms and tanks, a Navy with ships, an Air Force with planes and last by not least.....an undisclosed amount of Nuclear weapons.....oh and did I forget to mention that that leader is bat-s**t crazy.  Add that mix to a population of 26 million people that appear to be undernourished and all dress the same and you have a recipe for a major horror story.  My guess is that if you live in North Korea and you aren't in the military....you will be soon.

It seems we've relied on China to keep NORTH KOREA in check but from all indications China has no idea  how to  put limitations on the ETERNAL PRESIDENT, Kim Sung 111, or Jr or whatever he likes to be called. Even a scarier thought is that China doesn't want to limit Jr's behavior.  Maybe they like the war machine that North Korea has become....and the reason they like it is because they know whose side they will be on when the ultimate s**t hits the fan.

I'm not predicting that the ultimate s**t will hit the fan but allowing a certain type of personality  to be in charge of the most powerful military that the planet has ever known and then letting that person convince the general population that the military needs to be stronger and  bigger just doesn't seem like a scenario with a reasonable or peaceful ending.

I think back to those wonderful cold war times when only two countries had Nuclear capabilities.....

Where's Elvis when you need him? 

Oh yeah I forgot......he was also a military guy.

Those of us who aren't military minded just seem to be totally outnumbered. 

I sure hope those of you are are military minded have a clue on how all this is suppose work out without f**king up the entire planet....or more specifically, the entire human race. 

I think it's really important to elect calm, rational  and highly intelligent people  to positions of power and authority.....but that's just me.

Are you getting nervous yet?

Michael Timothy McAlevey

 

THE WAKE-UP CALL

I was 22 years old in 1968 when I heard the FNPWUCA

First National Political Wake-Up Call Alarm

The undercurrent of tension had been semi-soft since November 22, 1963 and then following the MLK and RFK murders the vibration and intensity increased substantially and on November 5 1968 the sound became something that wasn't going to subside anytime soon. The music got louder and the parties and gatherings got longer and the drugs got more colorful and then the campus protests became more frequent following the 1968 Presidential election.

Richard M. Nixon received 302 Electoral College votes 

and 
Hubert H. Humphrey received 191.   

THAT WAS A WAKE-UP CALL for so many young people not only in America but around the world, regarding how the people in power were being allowed to carry out their agenda due to overwhelming support from the American voting public.

As the internal awakening of the youth movement on campuses increased and the White House's paranoid agenda strengthened, especially regarding law and order, and as our involvement in South-east Asia intensified, the Peace Movement protests grew in sizable numbers with the tension reaching  an horrific  peak on May 4th 1970 when four students were gunned down at Kent State.

Suddenly the Peace rallies were less peaceful and the paranoia from within the Administration became epic until all we heard was a call for restoring Law and Order throughout the land.  Richard Nixon was attempting to strangle all forms of protest through whatever means possible and historical documents uphold that recorded paranoia (except for the infamous 18 minutes) but first another election was upon us and George McGovern was hosting the Democrats banner of peace and hoping to strengthen the Progressive movement, which at the time was simply referred to as being the Liberal left....or f**king commies and dirty hippies, depending on who was talking.

THE NEXT DECIBEL LEVEL OF THE WAKE-UP CALL CAME ON NOVEMBER 7, 1972

Richard M Nixon....................521 Electoral College votes
George Stanley McGovern.......17 

The shock waves reverberated throughout every true liberal heart and soul in America and since the Electoral College vote was so lopsided it had to indicate only one thing.....the liberal or Progressive movement in America was virtually crushed.....almost into oblivion.  

Ironically the county I lived in, Marin County, was one of McGovern's victory areas. I often refer to how out of touch we were in Marin due to the simple fact that everybody in that county was positive McGovern was going to kick Nixon's ass.

From the election of 1972 to the resignation in 1974 Richard Nixon's entire agenda was an attempt to ward off the bad press, the odd stories of paranoia, the resignations of his inner circle cohorts and to quiet a very loud and foucsed wake-up call.

It was extremely loud....
and it basically was saying....."don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out."

I'M ALREADY HEARING THAT TYPE OF WAKE UP CALL REGARDING OUR CURRENT PRESIDENT, WHO HAS ONLY BEEN IN THE WHITE HOUSE FOR A LITTLE OVER 2 MONTHS.

I'M PRETTY SURE THE SOUND IS LOUDER or at least as loud as ANYTIME DURING PRESIDENT NIXON'S FIRST TERM.

And it's not going to get quieter anytime soon because every single day decisions are made that simply wake people up  (and many of those people supported The Donald) to the reality that not only is he out of his element but that his people are hell bent on ignoring anything having to do with creating a safer, cleaner, compassionate future for America.  The denial of scientific information adds its own unique decibel level to the wake-up call.

The only question is will the wake-up call be answered before the mid-term elections in 2018 or will it be answered even sooner?

WAKE-UP calls cannot be ignored forever......no matter how hard one tries to block out the obvious reality.

(It's always struck me funny how oblivious and obvious look so similar with just a little li creating the difference)

I personally hear the rooster quite well and even if someone chops off his head and has a tasty BBQ chicken dinner......there are millions and millions more roosters.....and it looks like they might be gathering together for one extremely loud.......

WAKE-UP CALL.

Michael Timothy McAlevey