My Hot Button Election Time Issue

 

We should all be so courageous as the man on the right. For me I can't believe this is still an argument, otherwise rational people still can't get over the simple concept of homosexuality. They demonize it in any way they can think of, and treat the people whose lives they disrupt as second class citizens whose feelings won't be hurt.

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

 Perhaps that quote doesn't carry as much weight as it was written by man and not the "Holy Father" but as far as man's law is concerned in this country, it seems pretty cut and dry that that Homosexuals are allowed the same rights as the straight man, they being Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness...

But we don't allow them those inalienable rights, and why? Something about hellfire and brimstone raining down on the Vegas of biblical times... Sodom and Gomorrah. Cities by the way, no one can find and prove, and I'll also point out that the same fate never befell Greece, Rome and San Francisco where butt sex is apparently just as popular if not more then the good old days in the bible.

 I am an atheist so my tongue in cheek biblical arguments are a moot point, but I do think I have a basic understanding of what is right and wrong... and in a free and democratic society it shouldn't matter whom someone shares their lives with. We shouldn't try and change our neighbors behavior if it doesn't hurt us and just differs from our own. And if someone chooses not to be "saved" let the sheep wander... cause after all not all who wander are lost. 

The Economy as I see it

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Ronald Reagan, the 40th president of these here United States & Territories of America. He was the leader in a time where our futures seemed certain. America was the greatest country on earth and we its people, were the best, the brightest and most hardworking industrious people the world could offer.

As a GI Joe watching young man I believed in the America we all pledged our allegiance to every morning. I knew I could be anything I wanted to be but first wanted to be a marine so that I could help take down those commie bastards that threatened our freedoms of Compact Discs, Cable television and Pepsi-Cola.

The bright future that I may have grown up thinking was my birthright as an American seemed to have been misplaced in 1996 when I went out into the world to make my mark. Reagan era policy lead to businesses looking closer and closer at the bottom line. Policy made the rich richer and divided the gap between them and the people who work for them.

The trickle-down theory never really took full swing. The people that had the money kept inventing new and innovative ways to keep their money. I don't really blame them, it is after all, the American dream to make a bunch of money isn't it?

Now, we're in what has been called the greatest recession since the great depression. Thinking about that, the answer to this generations dilemma is almost clear... except on how to do it. I'll leave that part of the answer to a better thinker. I hate to be cliche' but it's to be American again, pull ourselves up by our boot straps and reinvent ourselves. With all do respect to our grandparents we can answer the call and become the next "Great Generation".

It's time to get back to the basics. Stop the fighting, stop the war, and start making America great again...

On a side note, I wish John Lennon was still around.

Erosion

When I was growing up, we had the luxury living next to a lush patch of jungle that was full of wonder and adventure for the young rambunctious boy I once was. Maybe some older kids had known about it, and surely the old man whose house was a lot closer then my apartment knew of its existence... at 7 years old I found the crown jewel in that patch of jungle, our beloved local waterfall and swimming hole.

I got home and my parents were worried sick, apparently I was supposed to do something else that day, as well as being an absolute mess of red dirt and cuts... I was not allowed to enter the jungle any more. As time wore on, my parents seemed to forget about the day and allowed me to start venturing back into jungle and I frequented that waterfall every opportunity I had.

The jungles of Guam aren't always peaceful, in memories that are reminiscent of Goonies movies, I scaled cliffs, climbed trees, jumped into rivers, fell into mud slides that in turn shot me into rivers that rivaled the water slides at PIC.

In my teens I had moved away from that apartment complex, but luckily a couple years after I left, my dad who didn't live with my mom and I moved back into that complex and I had access to it on the weekends again. When I was able to drive I started taking friends there, these guys by Guam standards were kind of city boys.

We continued adventures at this somewhat sacred ground to me at this point well into young adulthood. That also happened to be when the changes really started to happen as people started buying the plots of land and building houses on them. Something I was weary of as a child in fact, as I have many memories of trying to disrupt land surveyors buy stealing their markers when they weren't around. Whether or not I was effective in my attempts or did any good at the time are debatable. 

I haven't been there in years, I heard the waterfall was filled in with a backhoe. It had been eroding inward for years making the river noticeably more shallow every visit I made. I guess it became a safety issue, or maybe people didn't like mosquitoes breeding near their homes. Who knows?

It's a shame though that the kids growing up there aren't privy to the adventure I had growing up. I fancied myself a Goonie that would never die, or some sort of mix between Tom Sawyer and Tarzan. Of course, they have grand adventures of their own, in city's far away or even planets across the universe on that game system. Maybe they wouldn't notice anyway.

But the erosion of the land is still a concern of mine. What happens when 20,000 to 80,000 more people hike in the unstable red clay. What happens to the rivers then? Where do I go to escape the heat of concrete and asphalt? 

I hope there is a point where people says enough is enough. My dad would always look at the development around the island as I was growing up and say to me "some people won't be happy until this island is one giant parking lot." I sometimes fear he's right.

Thought I'd give it a whirl

Decided I'd join the century and start blogging. 

Art, Politics, Music, you know the necessities in life... anything I can bitch about really... I'll tap into.

But now I gotta get ready for work. Will post Later. Peace.