There is a dichotomy that exist in most folks that I know.  That is where to live and why?

Most young folks want to live in some loft downtown somewhere with access to food, entertainment and the arts.  I am guessing that being around others in their age group doing the “in thing” or whatever is in vogue, is the cool thing to do.

Even us folks with a little “experience” behind us want to have access to some sort of night life.

The trick is to juxtapose the nightlife with the serenity that one needs to have a healthy mind and lifestyle.

The perfect example of this is the movie Doc Hollywood.  In this movie he finds himself going from the city life to the small country life of some small town that if you found; you might think that you had fallen down the rabbit hole or perhaps ended up in Brigadoon!

Often we take refuse in such places through the literary efforts of a few authors who too long for such a place and create them.  We also find them in some movies.  Turner Classic Movies has the draw that they do because they are from a simpler time.

Xanadu was such a movie that brought the dreamer together with dream.

We hear often that the grass is always greener, but is it?

Technology to a large extent has made “generic” those things that set some things apart in the past such as the small town from the large town.

I remember hearing live gunshots from Vietnam over the radio.  While the war or whatever we called that was a world away through technology, it was now coming from my radio making it very real.

Today “this very blog” may be read by anyone, anywhere in the world, who has access to unfettered internet. Today you and I can share ideas that not too long ago were controlled by governments wishing to use their media for purposes of propaganda. Many governments around the world still do.

During WW2 the different governments used such things to get people to get squarely behind them much like different football or baseball teams from the days of high school or college.  Kill or Crush or what have you was often the slogan before the “big game.”

Today with technology, people around the world can actually talk with others and learn that we are more alike, than different, that what we think we know and believe, may not be true.

Religion among other things are often the tools used to divide people and get them to get on-board and thus relegate people to slavery.  If I can control your input; I can affect the output.

There are days however when I just want to un-plug.  I don’t know about you, but television has just about been something that I do not watch.  If I watch an hour a week that is probably too much.

Why you ask? 

Let’s look at why.  Firstly you must know that most of what is on the tube or now the flat screen comes from the uber-liberal left.  Hollywood is the propaganda machine of the millennium.  From sitcoms to movies some writer who has an ax to grind and writes his or her “beliefs” into the script.  Now some sentence condemning the GOP coming from a well-known respected   actor even though it is a show will carry a lot of weight with many viewers who don’t happen to know who the VP is but, they will remember that sentence and they might even think it is fact.

Unplugging from TV is a good start however; being totally unplugged means that I don’t know what is going on unless I happen to read news from many different sources.  Even from Russia Today there is some modicum of truth.  The trick is to read enough news from enough sources to actually be able to read between the lines.  If you are too unplugged you run the risk of becoming xenophobic and thus will believe most anything that you can be convinced is true through hook or crook.

If you read the news as I have suggested and are dogmatic about it all of the stories will make sense, the why’s and the how’s will come together in that ah-ha moment.  I am not saying that you should not have a religion but I would be suspect if that religion calls on you to give too much of anything including your time.  Think for yourself.  If you let others think for you…. “Hello Stepford wife…. Is dinner ready and my feet need rubbing, don’t talk just bring me a beverage and wait patiently for my next command… “

Does the small town with the gourd festival really exist?

Does such a place where man values his fellow man exist today, here in this country?

Does it exist in any country, anywhere? Are we all so self-absorbed that we really don’t give a damned about our neighbors or family?

I read a story recently where a man was visited by CPS because he allowed his children to play in a park and then walk the mile from the park to their house.  The man was from Germany and recently came to this country.  His children were 9 and 12 and they were in DC.

When I was young I could wander the neighborhoods all I wanted, without fear of being abducted. What happened?

I like technology but I must admit that I still like the feel and touch of a book and newspaper.  I enjoy that tactile experience of flipping a page and I even like the smell of some magazines.

I like the smell of fresh cut hay and even though it might make me sneeze, that is okay!  There is something to be said for sipping ice tea on the front porch waving at the neighbors or listening to the birds.  Life goes by and we miss it!

We have so many screens from so many different devices!   From the laptop to the desktop to the tablet and even the smartphone not to mention some hand held game, we have ample distractions.

On a recent cruise I was rather delighted when none of the signals to my smart devices were active!  At the dinner table we actually talked, without the distraction of odd noises emanating from purses or pockets.  For 90 minutes it was simply us talking about the day, and what was going to happen tomorrow.

Maybe that is the ticket, live on board a cruise ship and only catch up with the world when you come into port.

The people of this world are predictable and are going to do what they are going to do with or without you.

The rich will continue to get richer by taken advantage of the privileges and relationships that their status affords them.  Whether it is by breaking or bending laws, or creating new ones just for them, that is the way of the world not only in this country but I suspect every country.

The poor will continue to do what they do because that is what they know.  The rest of us well, we will continue to pay for the rich, and the poor, because that is all we know.  While we detest being taken advantage of by those that should not we know that some really need assistance and we don’t mind a hand up offered to them on our behalf.

Animal Farm should be required reading before we ourselves end up being considered parasites by those in power.

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-Best