Acceptable Lethal Power -- Part Deux

It's sad and well overdue that I am now presenting my analysis on maximum lethal power.  I talked about it in a blog I posted a few years ago.  I called it Acceptable Lethal Power.  But I never presented my math on the subject.  The math is easy.  What's not easy is taking on the 2nd Amendment. But that's not my objective.  I believe in the 2nd Amendment.  It shouldn't go anywhere. My goal is to start a dialogue which generally just asks the question, how much lethal power should we allow citizens to carry into the public square.  And that discussion should lead to tangible ways to view what could end with a reasonable understanding of what should and should not be allowed. Personally I think the numbers speak for themselves.  But first the math...

Energy kills. We already draw the line at what is too much energy.  We don't let citizens have hand grenades, machine guns, or MK 82 general purpose bombs.  It's easy to make that distinction...but I think it's also apparent that we should move the line and here is my rationale.

We should draw the line at the energy sufficient for there to be somewhere between 4 and 5 victims of a murderous rampage.  How can I allow one murderous rampage and disallow another one?  Because we cannot stop all murderous rampages.  In particularly we cannot stop any member of a family from killing the other members of their family.  Unless we all sleep with an on duty officer in our homes at night we can't prevent it.  Whether it be with a gun, a knife, a fire, or other act of negligent stupidity, a family will die and it will be tragic.  If we say the average family is 4 or 5 you've just done the victim math.  The second way you can draw the line at the energy level to kill 4 or 5 in a murderous rage is to examine the most lethal energy we all possess.  And that is the automobile.  It is within our power to drive our car into a crowd on any given day.  Sadly we've been seeing this method of terrorism increase.  But what's clear is that this is not that effective a method of obtaining mass causalities.  A car if driven into a crowd, even at high speed, will lose energy very quickly.  The first few contacts will be fatal.  But beyond that the energy will decrease.  There will still be a number of injuries but beyond 4 or 5 few will be lethal.

So now that I've established the selection criteria I will do the math and show you the result. Here is a table the compares the lethal energy of a number of fire arms common in the US today.  Drawing the line at 4 or 5 casualties it's simple to pull off where I believe we set the standard.  Many of you will disagree.  The question then is over to you.

If you are having trouble understanding where the line is in practical terms, that is if you buy into my argument regarding maximum lethal energy,  it should be clear that assault rifles are out, unless you restrict them to single shot rifles.  And high capacity clips or magazines are also out.  You can still have hunting rifles, handguns, revolvers, and shotguns.  Do we really need AR-15's and AK-47's?  And it appears shotguns with large magazines as well as the highest power hunting rifle should also have magazine restriction.  It's important to note, our latest US shooter did everything right. He accomplished his goal whatever twisted and demented objective he was after. All the fire power and  concealed carry in the world couldn't get to him at his vantage point before he unleashed his murderous rampage.  In my opinion restricting his lethal power would have changed the outcome significantly.  Pleas note the last row of the spreadsheet shows the lethal energy in the single shot musket loaded with black power and minie ball.  It doesn't have the lethal energy to kill in a single shot. This is an important fact should anyone ever want to argue 2nd Amendment rights based on energy alone.

Look at the energy numbers in the table.  Please note the caliber of the AR-15 and the 22 rifle are the same.  The energy in the AR-15 is 10 times that of the .22.  Speed kills just like when driving a car.  It's not the individual behind the gun (or wheel) that causes the fatalities.  It's the energy that does the killing.

For those of you into math here are the actually energy calculations for a single round fired from each weapon.  Weight of each round and muzzle velocity taking from the comprehensive details of Wikipedia.

Free speech protected. Terrorism not protected.

Last week I posted some of my feelings regarding the events in Charlottesville and lost a friend.  I did some things that were my fault, perhaps, because my post was not clear. I mixed in the recent ramblings of the Googler, who’s sexist manifesto pointed out a blind spot in the conservative understanding of corporate diversity in the same sentences as I discussed the existence of racism in my home state.  That was a mistake although there appears to be a link regarding blind spots to be investigated at some later time.  That said, I do not believe my former friend to be a racist. I believe, however, that a huge blind spot exists in his ability to separate rational thinking about free speech protected under the 1st Amendment and from his emotional attachment to our liberties.  We must surmise then that he, like many other Americans, are simply confused by their upbringing, their ignorance, their blind spots, and the current turmoil in our political climate.   After a week of thinking it through I would now like to clear up a few things. Not for him but perhaps for some other friends who might  still be confused.  I fully anticipate losing a few more friends when I am done. I hope not...but perhaps our only hope is to change the future by getting correct thinking out there to our millennials before it’s too late. It’s 2017.  The events of 1861, 1941, and 1961 have advanced our ability to live in society significantly yet we have clearly regressed as the events this past year of illustrated.

To start, there certainly are limits to our Constitutional protections.  Thus, we should not be out there dying for our Country to protect the things that are not protected.  There always have been limits. This primarily comes about because we must live in a society with other people.  You can choose to live in the middle of nowhere, off the grid, outside of society, you are free to do so. Dance naked outside, fire your gun into the air, worship a tree. There are many remote areas of the world where you can disappear into the wilderness, live off the land, fend for yourself, live on a pond, live in a cabin, live in a tent, live in a cave, and write your manifesto.  We’ve seen examples of that kind of liberty many times.  Here are two examples of note.

The first example is Henry David Thoreau. His book “Walden” has inspired Libertarians and civil disobedience for decades.  There is nothing wrong with a little civil disobedience. I can argue that civil disobedience is perhaps the greatest protection of our freedom. Ironically civil disobedience isn’t even protected by our constitution.  You could certainly be arrested.  Your protection comes in the form of a justice system that will not lock you in jail and throw away the key without due process.  That justice system must be preserved because is the corner stone of our civil liberties.  Not just because the Supreme Court (not the Bill of Rights), determines what liberties are protected by the Constitution, but more importantly what behavior in not protected by the Constitution. At its core, a non-violent protest is civil disobedience when certain laws our broken.  When that occurs, people are carted off to jail. Civil disobedience is against the law.  However, in our Country, those law breakers will not be beaten, tortured, or killed. They will appear before a judge to have their behavior judged. Those who engage in such behavior are putting their trust in the hands of our system.  They trust that our law enforcement will behave in a controlled and civilized manner.  If you can’t trust the system to protect you, a non-violent act of civil disobedience ceases to be an option.  Some of the greatest men in history were advocates of the non-violent protest and threw all of their trust in their own systems to resist in a peaceful fashion…Gandhi, Mandela, and of course MLK. As a note, if you believe Hitler and what he stood for are somehow equivalent to what these men stood for and thus entitles you to speak in our society, you are not a friend of mine.  Recently, the ACLU, has been rethinking their very own position on this particular topic.

The second example is Theodore John Kaczynski, and he, of course, was a terrorist.  He is a terrorist of a special class.  He is just like the cockroaches within ISIS who we are currently in the process of exterminating.  As the Uni-Bomber he was a domestic terrorist.  Both classes of terrorist are threats to our country and our way of life.  ISIS is a foreign terrorist organization which has targeted our way of life externally…to be clear, although they are radical Islamic terrorists, they do not represent Islam.  Kaczynski is a terrorist who targeted our way of life from the inside.  Unfortunately, there are many other domestic terrorist organizations (DTOs) within our Country.  The KKK is perhaps the easiest example and best known DTO that I can point to.  They are the poster child for a DTO.  But there are others…so let me pick on the far left for a moment.  The Earth Liberation Front, or ELF, is a DTO. Their activities are dangerous because they have chosen to add violence to their repertoire of political protest.  In fact, Craig Rosebraugh, the former spokesperson for the ELF wrote a book, or manifesto, entitled “The Logic of Political Violence”.  These days he seems to have chilled out and while he continues to be an activist for extreme causes, he has backed away from violence.  His book remains a manifesto of interest for radical groups justifying their cause. He should be in jail.

So, unless you are Thoreau or Kaczynski, you have decided to live within the bounds of society. That means you ascribe to the precepts of governance.  That means government.  That means laws.  The two are one and the same. Government and society cannot be separated.  That means we must exhibit decent societal, not necessarily moral, behavior.  That means you can be a slob in your appearance, bulging, smelly and unwashed, unshaven, with a shirt that is borderline obscene, or with pants drooping down to your knees, and in some cases, wearing a holster with a fire arm in the open, into the public square. You cannot walk around in the same public square with your junk hanging out.  You can live homeless, without a job, live in your parent’s basement, live on welfare, or basically be a freeloader all your life.  You can’t rob banks, defraud senior citizens of their savings, or set fire to things.  You can set fire to the American Flag.  And of course, you can cheat on your wife, watch porn on the internet, or go to strip clubs.  You can’t rape or sexually molest anyone. There is no difference between the rules that bind society and the rules that are set up by our government for us to live in peace.  Oh, by the way, in the United States, our founding fathers set up this little thing called the separation of Church and State, which means, morality cannot be dictated by the state.  Laws so we can leave in peace, are dictated by the state.  You don’t have to like your neighbor, you don’t have to believe what you neighbor believes, you do have to tolerate their behavior if they abide by the rules.  You do not have to tolerate their behavior if they break the rules.

Everybody, I hope, already knows most of this.  Nobody tolerates a murderer or a rapist. If that’s the case why would anyone tolerate a terrorist?  To be clear, the KKK is a terrorist organization.  To allow the KKK to march in our streets is exactly equivalent to allowing ISIS to march in our streets…even if ISIS vows to do so in a peaceful fashion. Just because I know it’s coming I will say for the record we also do not tolerate the ELF or ALF marching in our streets.  To tolerate such activity is to sympathize with their cause. To compare terrorist organizations with protest groups is to sympathize with the terrorism. Whereas we do need to tolerate a skinhead buying a Twix Bar at the 7/11 we do not tolerate the KKK marching with torches on the street.  Whereas we do need to tolerate PETA protesting at the local puppy mill distribution center, we do not need to tolerate the Animal Liberation Front bombing a rendering plant.  Whereas we do need to tolerate the protesting of Planned Parenthood with a picket line, we do not tolerate the Army of God bombing an abortion clinic.

The KKK, simply from their violent history of murder and hate, have come to symbolize terror.  From their white hooded robes, to their torches, the nooses used for lynching their very presence meets the definition of terrorism.  They threaten violence regardless of whether or not they commit violence on any given day.   “It’s ain’t armed robbery if the gun isn’t loaded”. To quote from the movie Raising Arizona. How many American’s believe this line?  I hope no one…but the steady stream of support for allowing KKK protests under some misguided delusion that their speech is protected makes me wonder.

The best example of this aside from the protests in Charlottesville, sadly occurred back in June when a noose was found left at the National Museum of African-American History and Culture.  This was seen by some as protected speech.  It is not protected speech.  It was a threat of violence.  Just because the noose didn’t explode didn’t mean it’s not an act of domestic terrorism.  Just because the gun isn’t loaded doesn’t mean it’s not armed robbery.  If one tourist is dissuaded from visiting the museum out of fear it is a terrorist act that compelled them not to go. 

The Swastika was usurped by the Third Reich and became a symbol of the holocaust.  It evokes terror in the hearts of populations worldwide.  In a similar fashion, inside the United States, the Confederate Flag has been usurped by white supremacy groups as a symbol of terror.  If you believe the confederate flag is a symbol of southern pride, hospitality, large front porches, sweet tea, lazy Sundays, or the Crimson Tide, it is not. It has been stripped of any previous nostalgic southern pride.

Southerners should have tried to take it back from the KKK and other white supremacy groups long ago.  It was not important enough to do so thus they have lost it forever as a symbol of the south. It’s important to point out here that even if you still feel nostalgia for the Confederate flag and do not feel terror, it is because you are not the the one being terrorized.  A class of our American brothers and sisters are being terrorized.  If you cannot understand that fact and do not want to protect your fellow American brothers and sisters from this terror you are not an American that I can respect.  If you waive the Swastika or the Confederate flag out of some misguided belief in free speech, you have become, even if by proxy, a domestic terrorist.  You might as well be waiving the Black Standard (The flag of ISIS). You are not a friend of mine.

If you believe marching with torches (even ridicules bamboo Tiki torches purchased at Bed Bath and Beyond) is a valid expression of protest, you are wrong.  In the context of a white supremacy protest you are siding with the KKK and have formed the symbolic equivalent of a lynch mob.  You are not protesting. You are now a domestic terrorist. You are not a friend of mine.

If you believe that the KKK has the moral equivalent of a group such as the Black Lives Matter movement and make such a comparison to downplay the behavior of the KKK you are sympathizing with a terrorist group. BLM is not a hate group brought together by an ideology of hate.  BLM is movement of non-violent protest borne out of necessity to address a social injustice. Should BLM turn to violent protest they could be considered criminals but certainly not terrorists.  They are not enemies of the state as are the DTO I've described trying to achieve political influence through terror. Should BLM eventually advocate for violence for some other reason yet to be understood, such as the Black Panthers did in the 60's, they would be considered a DTO.  This is why at least one high ranking US Official is now under fire and must back away from these sympathies with what happened in Charlottesville.  If you express sympathies toward a terrorist group you are not a friend of mine. 

I don’t think I can make it any clearer.  Free speech protected.  Terrorism not protected.

The Day the Earth Stood Still (Or When We Told the Planet to F**k Off)

Everyday I wake up and say to myself, “Self,  today I’m going to understand the other perspective”.  I think to myself we have a Commander in Chief who I just finished defending in the face of disgusting humor (if you can call wishful bloody be-headings humor).  I even publicly expressed my willingness to die to defend our President, as I would most certainly do for our Country.  But everyday when I wake up I now must face the challenge of having to be my own researcher, my own scientist, my own constitutional scholar, my own journalist, my own fact checker, my own lawyer, my own statesmen. I’m compelled to be a critical thinker, we’ve lost that skill. Don’t read the headlines, it’s all a bunch of crap.  Think for yourself.  Well to all of that I now say bull shit.  I don’t have the time for that crap.  I have a job.  I have a family.  I have a life. I don’t want to think anymore.  I've been reading, thinking and writing so much my head hurts. The flood of material is overwhelming and so  many other people are contributing to the huge ocean of random thought. They have also been reading thinking and writing as well.  What's blowing my mind is that we are still coming to different conclusions.   

So here we are.  Trump has decided to pull the United States out of the Paris Accord. In 2001 when Bush dumped the Kyoto protocol I was done with the Republican Party...the following morning I held a press conference and declared officially that I was an independent (I didn’t actually hold a press conference). Now, 16 years later, I’ve been asked to “read the Paris Accord” so that I can decide for myself if Trump has made the right decision.  Bull Shit.  He’s the President.  He negotiates the treaties.  He should read it.  I seriously doubt that he has. Why?  Because I didn’t have to hold my breath awaiting his decision from the Rose Garden.  We all knew he was pulling out of the Accord.  That was a campaign promise. If he doesn’t pull out he’s a liar. It’s also spectacular theater. And Trump thrives on spectacular theater.  Nothing wrong with giving the entire planet the middle finger to make a headline.  I actually like it, giving the finger.  Sticking it to the man.  When your local municipality cites you for violating an ordinance, maybe you didn’t mow your lawn, maybe you didn’t put your trash cans away, maybe you’ve been secretly keeping chickens in your backyard.  Don’t you just want tell the City to “Fuck off!”.  I do.  But then I have a few sleepless nights and I go out and I talk to my neighbors.  Trump doesn’t appear to do that.  He appears to literally raise his middle finger to everyone.  Recently he did so to the Italian prime minister.  A spectacular international incident that didn’t receive as much coverage as it should have.  Just for the record, I’m all about giving the finger, particularly when I’m driving in rush hour traffic and I see someone driving with their head up their ass.  But I really don’t want my President to tell another head of state to fuck off...it’s not very diplomatic...I’m surprised a fist fight didn’t break out.  Or worse, a war.  Yet I recognize there’s a bit of a romance in having the backbone to stand up to the man, to give the finger.  We all do like a strong man...when we need one...

But now our strong-man has officially told the world to fuck off.  He’s told the planet to fuck off.  He has told the entire universe, 14 Billion years in the making, to fuck off. The United States officially doesn’t care about the planet.  The irony here is that he is the one driving with his head up his ass and he’s giving the planet the finger at the same time.  Apparently his supporters care about something but no matter how much research I do I cannot actually find it.  Which means I can’t fight it. I’ve been looking for that evidence for over 15 years now, that we actually are not destroying our planet.  I’m listening to the other side.  But I can’t find their evidence.  All around me there are signs that exactly the opposite is happening.  Their arguments about faulty science make no sense. They can’t see that the forest is dying because there are so many trees in the way.  I can’t argue that the merits of one course of action over another because there is no other course of action that actually exists. There is nothing.  The evidence is simply denial.  Head in the sand.  Head up your ass.  It’s the same thing.

Yet, somehow with nothing, Trump will renegotiate better terms.  Good luck.  He’s now negotiating terms for the evolution of our planet. The arrogance, the selfishness, the lack of understanding, the ability to be so disconnected from the world we live in and what’s happening around us, the crackpot belief in some higher virtue that will come and save the planet.  My fellow American’s we’ve literally just failed the big exam. If Keanu Reeves is watching us right now, we’ve just been selected for annihilation. We’ve been worried about Trump having his finger on the nuclear button.  Well, he just pressed it.  We might not be annihilated in the next 20 minutes by a nuclear volley and Klaatu may not actually be watching us, preparing to do the same thing, but we’ve just signaled to the world that the United States does not think the planet, or our species, is worth saving. There is simply no other answer to the most profound question of our times.  Are we worth saving?  No.

To my friends who believe the Paris Accord will do nothing to help you may actually be right.  But that’s because we are already too late, not because nothing is happening.  As our numbers grow and our resources shrink we will suck our planet dry.  To think differently is to drive with you eyes closed.  If you drive with your eyes closed  I reserve both middle fingers for you.  But just like with Trump, you too are driving with your head up your ass, you don’t do so consciously.  You don’t consciously cut someone off on the highway just as you are not consciously  aware that you are raping our planet.  I know I don’t feel malice toward the planet when I don’t recycle or drive to work or leave a light on or run my air conditioner all summer. And then even if we do everything we can to reverse the effects of climate change we still face countless other challenges as our population grows like a plague  and continues to be the most devastating force.  It is our destiny.  And we don’t care.  That’s really what pulling out of the  Paris Accord means.  We don’t care.

The Rise of the Robber Barons

When I talk about Florida, having lived there for a few years, I typically refer to it as a 3rd World Country. Florida lost it’s 1st world status a while back--if it ever had it.  For me, Florida fell into 3rd world status right about the time the “hanging chad” entered our vernacular.  Oh it’s fine to vacation in Florida, but don’t travel too far outside one of the major cities or resort areas.  Make no mistake, it’s 3rd world. Yes, I have many friends and family in Florida, so hope they will forgive me.  Please know that this is nothing personal and if you don’t agree with me, that’s fine.  I’m just basing my opinion on my three years of observation, not a lifetime of living there.  Many people love Florida. And in the end I’m just using Florida as a metaphor. Hopefully the rest of the country will understand.

I always think that Florida residents will eventually lift themselves up and out of their 3rd world status...but then something happens to make the news and the entire world watches as Qurans are burnt, vigilantes shoot neighbors,  alligators the size of small dinosaurs march the street, and of course terrorists are trained at local airports.  I realize that the Floridians who live there may actually like it that way.  It’s exhilarating to live in the wild wild west.  It’s exciting to never know if you are actually involved with organized and trained law enforcement or just part time, small town militant thugs hired to keep the peace.    It possible that more than a few American’s, perhaps just over half, may actually want live on that brave frontier.  Hey, let’s abandon law and order, holster a revolver and head into town.  Not all of us, however, have that cowboy spirit.  Many of us simply want to live in peace, stay healthy, raise our kids, tend to our hobbies, and have a beer on the weekend. Politics never enters that equation.  Sure, I’m joking, but not by much.  I’d like to shrug off my problems with Florida with a laugh, but it’s a rather nervous laugh.   And again, at the risk of being accused of hate speak, I’m not writing this post is simply rag on Florida.  I’m writing it to sound a  warning to the rest of the country.  If we behave like we are a 3rd world country we will become a 3rd world country. It’s a self fulfilling prophesy. Ironically, one of the current heros of conservative thought,  Rudolph Giuliani,  learned this rule in New York City of all places. And he did something about it.  If you let your citizens break windows and write on subway cars they will break more windows and write on even more subway cars.  If you keep your house clean and in good repair, people who come to visit your house will keep it clean and in good repair.  If you disrespect your own house, everyone will disrespect your house when they come for a visit.  There are many more analogies in this lesson and perhaps I will list them later...but the real story awaits...

For the longest time, we have been, or the United States has been,  heralded as the fabled city upon a hill.  We should be proud of what the entire world thinks of us.  Not arrogant, but proud. It’s different.  Regardless, the vision of what we represent (life, liberty) and the opportunities (a chicken in every pot) have long been the attraction of the US, the land of milk and honey.  Perhaps we no longer present as much liberty, as say in Europe, or as much opportunity, employment (it’s now technology vs industry) as a country, but we still are held in very high regard.  We are still great, to suggest we are not great, is an opinion I find hard to understand.  But, friends, we’ve been fooling ourselves into believing that we will continue to be that fabled city.  In fact, if we follow the script, the current recipe, for making America great [again], we will do just the opposite.  We will no longer be the city upon the hill. We will become Florida.  Countries like France will invite our best and brightest to come live with them (that just happened).  And sadly, of course,  in about 50 years, Florida will be underwater.  That’s still a metaphor.   And remember, not everyone in Florida will be underwater. Those who can afford it will simply  lose their investment and live elsewhere.  A few resort cities will build huge walls and become resort islands. The rest of the Floridians will become refugees or will be sorted out of the gene pool.  Can you say Great Flood?  These poor souls will only be remembered as sinners and referenced only in some parable about God some 20,000 years from now.  Meanwhile, the true sinners, locked behind the walls of water and debauchery that is Palm Beach, will live on.

For the longest time most of us in the United States has seen only 1st world problems.  Many of the problems that plague the 3rd world, are now right on our doorstep.  Corruption. Pollution. Failing infrastructure. Divided classes.  The list goes on.  Again, we need only look to Florida to find representation of what this grand social experiment of making us great again will look like in the future.  In Florida, the haves will still have.  Everyone in Palm Beach will continue to have their vacation home cleaned, their pools vacuumed weekly, their lawn mowed, and their trash removed.  They will have access to clean water, abundant power, and a guard at their front gate.  The have nots, will have much less. I hope the have-nots are listening because it’s the haves that are now running our country and they want even more. They are a new breed of Robber Baron and they will want an even bigger share of our American pie.  Perhaps you haven’t taken a trip to Palm Beach and driven through one of their exclusive neighborhoods...oh wait, unless you are one of the have-nots that work for less than minimum wage on the inside you are not getting through gate because another have-not is standing guard, at less than minimum wage.  

That brings us to the wall.  The current haves seem to want all of us to live inside that gated community.  A country that is gated.  Except the gate is an illusion.  Don’t think for a second you are actually going to live inside a real gated community, or will even want to.  Right?  You live in Florida, it’s paradise, right?  No, it’s paradise if you live in Palm Beach.  The rest of Florida is a hot, sweaty, sandy place, with bugs, and alligators.  There are also sinkholes, hurricanes, and far more snakes than cows...and there are a lot of cows in Florida, just under 2 million.  To live in Florida is to pretend you are a part of the dream. And perhaps twenty or thirty years ago, you were a part of that dream.  But the rising tide didn’t lift all boats. The rising tide only advanced the rich.  Slowly but surely, your piece of Florida was eroded.  And that’s not a metaphor.  Most of the beaches are rebuilt, year after year.  Beaches attract the money.  Meanwhile,  the haves continue to take and the have-nots continue to be took.  And the sand is pumped back every year.  Floridians are waiting, hoping, and praying, for the tide to rise and lift them too all.  That water is still rising friends.  But it’s not lifting you up.

We own this country.  We the people.  We own the park land.  We own the infrastructure.  We own the education system. And we own a lot more...but that’s true only if we own the government.  We no longer own the government.  That wall that the government wants to build across our border, or the executive order to keep immigrants out, is not just a wall to keep "them" out.  It's a wall to keep you out.  That wall stems the coming tide of immigrants that will continue to keep our country democratic. Diversity built this country...literally, not figuratively.  Talk to any ethic group about their role in the American story and you will gain an understanding of how diversity built this country. The wall, on the other hand,is a last ditch attempt at the most sinister gerrymandering one group in power will ever dream up.  And it’s not the republican party, by the way.  It’s the party of the rich. The party of the have’s.  It’s the party of rich white men.  It’s a party I aspire to be in, it’s the American dream, except I would never do so on the backs of the less fortunate.  And I’ll caveat that by saying it’s the party of the unselfish rich white men that I aspire to.  Not the ones who have just taken over. 

Although their interests are similar, the unselfish haves would rather see the individuals they exploit living healthy and above the poverty line rather than, sick, impoverished, and used up. There will always be more cheap labor to exploit, why put one extra cent into a labor force than you have to? This is the struggle.  Back to the robber barons from history class.  They still exist and they will always refuse to show you their their tax return.  Of course they will want to see your tax return to know exactly how much they can take from you and ensure can’t make any significant gains on them. Try to remember the USA is our brand.  We represent the American dream.  We are real and our dream is real.  Our brand, however,  was stolen by a developer named Trump. Who’s not even a developer.  He’s a con man delivering the American dream through his name.  He sells his brand, which is really our brand, worldwide.  Rockefeller, Carnegie, Vanderbilt, all names of Robber Barons, and you can now add Trump.  Except these other men, actually built something, actually made the country rich and productive, as they feathered their coffers, on the backs of our diversity. Trump is only interested in his own enrichment.  He is exploiting the American dream and want’s to control our part of it within the walls of the  theater of his making.  With a lot of help from Twitter.  It is a puppet show at best.  It will weaken us.  It will not make us stronger.  That’s not his objective. Think about it.  Making America great is his brand, it makes him rich.  Making America strong is us, we the people. That’s to be avoided at all costs when you are the one in power.  

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To my friends on the left I say embrace this theater of democracy and protest peacefully.  To my friends on my right I say embrace this theater of democracy for what it is, a puppet show.  Think of what comes next and let's move there quickly.  At no time in our history has the United States of America been so alive and also so near death. These are exciting times.  Our democracy is either stronger than it’s ever been...or it’s buckling at the knees.  This is a true test of our strength so long as we can recognize that it’s We the People who own it.  Not those who run it, or those who would like to own it.  That’s Russia.  We are heading in that direction.  And while we are at it, remember there is no need for violence of any kind.  Political violence belongs to the third world.  The third world creates it.  The third world is what many are trying to escape  when they see our beacon of light upon the hill.  If you struggle to make ends meet.  If you wonder how you are going to pay the rent or put food on the table or take your kids to the doctor.  Think about the 11 million in this country who are already here illegally.  What do you think they are eating?  Where do you think they are sleeping? How are they paying the bills?  They don’t seem to be complaining.  That's because they have no time.  They are trying to make a better life for themselves. They are chasing the American dream. You can too.  It doesn’t start by keeping them out.  It starts by recognizing that it is you that is being kept out.  There is nothing to fear. We are in the majority.  We are the 90% of the population, the have-nots.  Although we are legion, we have no power if we cede ownership of our Country over to this new generation of robber barons...the ones that are corrupt, pollute, exploit, divide us into classes, and fail to fix our infrastructure.  At least the robber barons of yesterday fixed our infrastructure. Think about it.  

Virtual Reality, Adrenaline, and a Day in Sin City

Here I am atop the Stratosphere in beautiful downtown Las Vegas. Just off my left shoulder, if you are unfamiliar with the city, is the Las Vegas White House. See how gold and shiny the building looks in the setting sun. If you happened to have orange hair and observed your reflection in the glass you would almost think you look normal...almost. Architecturally speaking, apart from the gold glass, it’s actually not that interesting of a building. Scan the city. There are so many other properties that someone took some financial risk or added a few extra bucks during the design phase of their construction. The Trump Tower is a simple golden monolith in the vast valley that is Sin City. I guess I should check to see if Trump actually owns this tower or if it’s just a purchased licence to use his name at the top before I speak too harshly. Nah, that would be a waste of my time today and it’s not the point of this post. If you happen to know the truth please speak up.

Let’s get back to the top of the Stratosphere. Do you know you can jump off from way up here? That’s actually why I ventured up to the top to begin this adventure. I wanted to assess exactly how brave I would have to be in order to jump. I’ve heard various things about the plunge. It’s a bungee jump...which would be a terrifying free fall. I’ve also heard it’s a Hollywood stunt using a cable to slow your descent. As it turns out...it’s more like the stunt, and perhaps even less so. The mechanical set up appears to be more akin to a very fast moving elevator. You are attached by body harness to a cable and the cable plays out from a drum (similar to an elevator sheave that a cable wraps around). It still looks like it take major balls to step off the platform, but it’s a fairly controlled descent (not free fall, about 40 mph). So you could close your eyes the entire way down and pretend it’s just a bad dream. At the bottom you unhook from your thin cable elevator. It’s definitely a thrill ride to consider...and I will be returning to Vegas frequently. It’s all about having the nads to step off the platform and into thin air for the first time. When I conquer that fear I’ll be back to take the step. Stay tuned.

Moving on. So after deciding not to jump off the Stratosphere, literally, and not figuratively, after throwing up in my mouth having viewed the gold monolith that symbolizes our next four years, and seeing that I was still hours away from my midnight departure on the red-eye back to IAD, I decided to go see the Star Wars movie “Rogue One”. Why not? Go to Vegas and see a show...even if this particular show is available everywhere else. Also, the guys with me were unencumbered from the necessity to ask their wives if they could go. So we were all in. We headed down Las Vegas Boulevard to the Town Square where there exists a rather large AMC theater. Showtime was 7:15 pm.

We still had a few minutes to kill, so what better place to spend some geek time then inside the largest electronics store I have ever seen. Fry’s Electronic's sits right there in the Town Square. What an amazing place. It’s like a Best Buy, MicroCenter, and Radio Shack, all packed under one huge roof.  It would take days to explore everything, but we only had 30 minutes. How do you decide? Drones, 3D Printers, or Oculus Rift. Those were the three things I thought would be perfect to check out. I also knew I wasn’t going to take anything back on the plane so chances of me buying something large and expensive was remote. Turns out Fry’s doesn’t carry Oculus Rift. Instead they carry the HTC VIVE - Virtual Reality System. This is a must buy. After donning the headset the salesman handed me the two largest weapons I have ever held, of course I was already viewing them through the headset. And as I took a step back, and lifted up my head I was standing in the middle of the Star Trek Holodeck, except completely white like the Matrix, but with the Holodeck grid lines. I had arrived. I was standing in huge white room with large square grids surrounding me...there was no doubt I was there. I heard the salesman tell me to select the option on the menu in front of me by firing at it with one of my huge weapons. I did. Immediately the game was on. The holodeck disappeared and I was in a gigantic battle arena. Flying orbs began firing at me. I lifted my weapons and returned fire. I instinctively dodged, ducked, and dodged again as incoming fire rained down.  I was completely immersed and completely fooled into believing I was actually there.  I didn’t feel any waves of motion sickness. I think because I was on my own two feet. Had I been moving around in a vehicle or spacecraft, perhaps, or spinning, things might have been different. When the game ended, I was once again standing in the large white Holodeck, wondering why I already didn’t own one of these amazing systems.  I’m not gamer. Why do I need one? I need one because the virtual reality of doing battle and firing weapons against monsters or flying robots is but a small aspect of VR. I need one because I want to jump off of the Stratosphere without fear that the single carabiner that will attach to my harness has been properly tested. I want one because should I care to climb Mt. Everest this year, I don’t have to foot the bill or spend several years planning and training. I want one because Virtual Reality is teetering on the brink sensory reality. What is sensory reality if not our brain experiencing all the stimulus of the real world in real time. This opens up medical science, an in particular, mental health research.  The bandwidth to fool our eyes, ears, and brain, is already here. Why not use it to stimulate our brain into health rather than by taking drugs or medications.  I want to own the type of band width that can create those types of effects. I’ve already set up my home computer to be VR ready...with Oculus Rift in mind. That was the first step. The jump into full VR is now only $800 dollars away. It would be foolish not to go.

Yet again I digress. Now it’s time to talk about Rogue One. Here is where everything comes together in one big attempted rush at adrenaline. Advanced  weapons, computer generated imagery, fear of high places, and of course, rogue rebels fighting an imperial force bent on taking over the galaxy. Forget, for a moment, the adrenaline rush of explosions, speed, drama, and of course the fear of falling from ridiculously high places, while hanging on by one's fingertips.   It’s funny when you think about it since we love this movie and in general all the movies in the Star Wars franchise.  And we do so for one reason and one reason only (maybe a few more but I’m trying to make a point). Adrenaline aside, we love it because we love the underdog. It’s ironic to think that we, as Americans, believe we are the underdog. We are not. This has been said before, it’s not intellectually insightful. What is more insightful, however, is to really understand who is the underdog. And if they were to watch the movie, whilst out on their date night accompanied by their pet goat, would they naturally sympathize with the Empire and their  Imperial Death Star or the unrelenting, unabashed, rebellion that unfolds throughout Episode IX?  I’m thinking the terrorist see themselves as the rebels in this one.  In fact, with the clear alien invasions we witness in Independence Day, War of the Worlds, Aliens, etc, Star Wars remains the subtle spokesman for armed rebellion worldwide (Avatar being the spectacular spokesman for open rebellion). Success of the franchise appears to be due to a yet heretofore undefined physiological condition I’ll refer to as “Stickin it to the Man Syndrome”. It’s the slogan of choice for the oppressed.  The irony here is that somehow, someway, at some point, the Man in our country began to feel oppressed.  Picture legions of Stormtroopers commiserating together about how poorly they are being treated by the Empire and their deep desire to make change in leadership.   That’s not what’s happening.  Instead, rather, the Stormtroopers have come to believe that they are the rebels, they are the oppressed.  Power to the people.  Stick it to the Man is what they must be thinking. They stuck it to the man for sure. They have failed to recognize that they remain the Empire, they remain the Stormtroopers, they are, in fact, and will continue to remain, the Man.  Electing, Darth Vader, for instance, doesn’t change that fact, nor does it highlight this important reality.  I think ultimately that important message gets lost in the search for adrenaline.  The search for a movie that takes us on that virtual roller coaster of action and emotion.  That is what we are after, not the political commentary, regardless of who is right and who is wrong.

OK, to wrap this up.  My next trip to Vegas I will jump from the Stratosphere.  Rather than proving that I have large huevos, I will, perhaps demonstrate only that I am dumber than a box of rocks. However, I will assess my adrenaline level directly after the plunge. That’s what it’s all about, after all.  Will the adrenaline stay with me?  Can I invoke another surge of adrenaline simply by thinking about the plunge?  Will I have nightmares? Will I want to do it again?  All of this leads to the determination and efficacy of current Virtual Reality systems.  If the VR can lead your brain into releasing vast stores of adrenaline, in the same way jumping off a building, or out of an airplane (to do it right), we have arrived.  This is science.  This is important. This will affect the evolution of the human brain is ways we have yet to conceive. We are not there yet but it’s time to start taking notice. I will do so in the near future with the coming purchase of the HTC VR system.  I can’t wait.