Morning Walks
 
In the morning we walk
Too many years now to count
I listen, he always will talk
 
There are other walkers, they say hi
They know us, or so it seems
Scotty talks to all, as old friends, by and by
 
Then he tells me a car name
It just went by, loud
I said it sounds broken all the same
 
He says it a cool car, some mustang or other
What makes it cool I inquire?
Because it has some five-point-oh or another
 
What about that next noisy one?
Not cool, it needs tuning, brakes or some more
He tells me fast car growl is fun
 
So, I ask what about Tesla, is it cool?
Yes, that is a cool car he exclaims
Clearly then sounds can often fool
 
He hyperlinks to another topic, tax
I think, I actually know but pretend I don’t
He goes, on as if I know all his connecting facts
 
A car goes by small, but loud I allow
But looks like a golf cart with a lid
It’s electric, with speakers, to drive growl
 
He and car companies, men’s desire found
I know but, I walk on feigning skeptical
Unwilling to say more on car sound
 
So, I listen as the next topic is looped in
While my stomach growls
And we pass the same people once again
 
 
 

The Fourth Putt

Stubborn ball, doesn’t like dark places

Then there’s greens with fast paces

An elephant buried here

A mark from idiot before us there

A mountain slopes that way

Grain grows to the Sun’s end of day

What a dumb game

But we play it all the same

Get a ball into a hole so small

Using my talent to make it fall

Or rather how-a-about a gimme? I’d ask

For my fourth putt appears a difficult task

Surely, you’d see a grown man cry

If I had to make a fifth putt try

Room to Grow

Impressionable minds, eager to learn

Or maybe just millions to earn

Or both as it may be

A collective opportunity

Push the wheels of progress

Change unnatural congress

It is youthful energy needed

For the future to be seeded

And yet there is the past

Wisdom’s at half-mast

For the ones that gave

For those they save

To those we’ll remember

Even in their December

Gifted us at least this day

Hope, in sense of a ray

All is connected as one

A stream never undone

A flow, turbulent at times

Of endless sounding rhymes

March on to legacy

Do it all in harmony

For with no spring

Colors of fall never sing

It all is one in the same

Part of the life game

And what came first

The wisdom or the thirst

It matters not to me

Or if you even believe

But that you should know

That you ever have room to grow

2019

Three predictions:

1. Pivotal Year for Climate Change – Global Warming Gets Real
2. The Hot Mess in the Middle East gets a Whole Lot Hotter and Messier
3. Trump Claims Mission Success – Met His Campaign Promises Early and Will Not Run Again – Changes His Mind and Resigns – Being he’s done early

I imagine 2019 as a pivotal year.  The relative quiet of the past few years will not sustain.  Yeah, I’m sure your thinking, what was quiet about the last few years.   Well, actually although there is a lot of tweet caused turmoil, and a revolving door for staffers at the White House, the truth is ISIS is in retreat, North Korea stopped testing nukes and launching ballistic missiles, and domestic protests have lessened. The stock market is erratic but that is not the major measure of the economy.  The economy is really good, with growth in corporate profits, unemployment at an all-time low, and wages on an upswing.   There are things that should be fixed, such as containing Russia and Iran, and we could use some real progress on gun control. The immigration issue is a red-herring, and not worth all the attention it gets, except the great immorality of treating people terribly for political purposes.   

1. Climate Change:

I think that 2019 will be the year the world finally understands that more must be done to address climate change.  If not an existential threat, it is an accelerating, science proven trillion-dollar problem that is at our doorstep.  There is a glacier in Antarctica (Thwaites Glacier) that has a wedge-like shape.  It’s thinning side is becoming more fragile because warming waters are undercutting its support.  This massive almost 4000-foot-thick, at the thick side of the wedge piece of ice, has the area of the size of Florida.  Maybe it will be alright for the next 10, 50 or more years, but at some point, it will likely cause a significant sea-rise. Some models indicate a three-foot rise in sea levels, some higher.  Three-feet seems almost impossible to consider, as something like 80% of the world’s population lives within 60 miles of a coast.   From Wired Magazine: https://www.wired.com/story/antarctica-thwaites-glacier-breaking-point/

This is just one of many major challenges the world will face.  Weather patterns are changing, and we are poorly prepared.  My prediction and hope is that the press will start paying more attention to such issues, driving legislators and executive leadership to be responsive to this enormous problem.  NBC’s Meet-the-Press had an hour-long segment on this topic on the last Sunday of 2018.  I’m sorry I missed it, but I feel it important that we pivot our focus from relatively non-consequential issues, to enormous issues that will demand our attention and consume enormous resources throughout the next century.  Truly the issues of immigration and border protection are simple compared to the growing consequences of global warming.  I predict 2019 is the year the US and the world starts waking to the consequences of global warming and optimistically our business technological leaders, press, insurance industry will start driving toward long-term solutions. As well as, driving our education and consequently our political process.  It will be a negative pivot for the year if this prediction is not correct.

2. Middle-East

What a mess.  Saudi’s in proxy war with Iran in Yemen.  Russia helping prop up a despotic Syrian dictatorship.  Iran strengthens Hezbollah further, threatening any semblance of balance in Lebanon.  The Israeli’s are moving their capital to Jerusalem, and threatening Iran’s influence in Lebanon, because they cannot have the balance of power shift toward Tehran.  Then Turkey’s Erdogan convinces Trump it’s OK to leave Syria.  They’ll take over the fight against ISIS.  What they really mean is they will take the fight to the Kurds, a longstanding ally of the USA.   Russia says that it’s a good idea for the US to pull back our troops.  Well why wouldn’t they?  It enhances their influence in the area, and moves attention away from what they are doing in the Ukraine.  So, this hot mess, gets a whole lot hotter and messier. 

The Saudi’s want to be a major player in the region, and with a new and aggressive leader that outlives the minor slap on the wrist for murdering a Wall Street Journal reporter, they are changing the balance of power.  Iran cannot allow that, so they step up their game.  The Israeli’s have to respond, and then enter Turkey and Russia as major players. 

We may get out, but our interests are too great and there are too many implications to a hot war in the Middle-East. Radical Islam is not defeated, it is constantly nurtured by the wars and turmoil of sectarian violence.  As long as democratic principles and moderate views are suppressed while sectarian divides are inflamed to further political and power aims, there will be no real peace, just a smoldering fire.   I predict this will become a much hotter region and a new fire will need to be put out in the future.  Centuries of problems pivot on what happens in this coming year.  I hope for a better outcome, but I fear and predict that it will get much worse this year, and this year will set the stage for the next century of turmoil. Unfortunately the US will be self-involved with internal political battles, and others will determine the future of the region, and millions more people will suffer.

3. Trump

For most people this is the good news part of my predictions, regardless of what side of the Trump divide you sit on.  For those that are Trump fans, well, he’ll claim completion of his campaign promises this year.  For those that are not Trump fans, well, he’ll tell us he’s ready to return to his businesses.  Everyone will be happy.  Well not quite happy, I suppose, but each will get something of what they want.  I predict that he is in a rush to complete his campaign promises.  The Syria pullout, the “wall” for the border are recent pushes toward that objective, as is the new NAFTA agreement and the 90 days toward an agreement on trade with China.  Against his promises, he’ll be able to claim “mission accomplished” in 2019.  He will claim success on:

• The rolling back the individual mandate on health care,
• Tax overhaul,
• Business regulation overhaul,
• Prison incarceration reform,
• Two supreme court justice appointments,
• Resetting the relationship with North Korea,
• Getting our NATO alliance partners to pay more,
• Lowest unemployment in decades,
• Wages rising,
• Overturning the individual mandate in ACA,
• Tearing up and replacing the NAFTA agreement and China Trade,
• Getting border wall funding (maybe only paltry $1.3B for security, but success claimed),
• Containing Iran – throwing out the “worst deal” ever and reinstating sanctions,
• Pulling out of Syria, and reducing footprint in Afghanistan, and
• Lastly, he’ll claim to have cleaned up the swamp … maybe hard to buy, but there is no objective evidence that can be applied, except in the negative with the number of administration or campaign members pleading guilty or being indicted.

He will announce then that he will not run for president in 2020, that he is going to go back to run his business. Then as the pressure continues from Mueller, he will consider resigning in exchange for a release from Mueller, or pardon from Pence.   Especially as the probe and pressure gets close to his kids and knowing that he cannot escape. Except by saying Mission Accomplished, and working a deal for resignation.   He’ll claim to have MAGA in two in a half-years instead of four, the best ever!  Then be gone.

For those of you disappointed he doesn’t go to jail… don’t forget that a federal pardon doesn’t relieve him from charges by the state of NY or other jurisdictions.  Then maybe the USA will be able to recover from this aberration of a president and continue to be a great and free democracy by the people and for the people… this too will be pivotal in our history, affecting everything from presidential politics, to the role of congress, and to the conservative leaning of the supreme court for the next couple of decades.

2019 will be a pivotal year, I predict.

Birthday Boy

Little boy just turned one

Learning, growing having fun

Imprints of behavior, and thought

With help that mom’s ‘No’ brought

No memories of what’s good or bad

Yet further imprints to be learned from dad

Toys colorful, bright, just right for play

But pots, pans, remotes keep him busy all day

What thoughts, and what dreams borne

They lay hidden behind words without form

Birthday cake to celebrate and great and funny mess to be made

Not remembered, but loving the great joy in the moment of today!

I read an article in the Wall Street Journal, about “How The Movies Invented Christmas” https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-the-movies-invented-christmas-11545321446?mod=searchresults&page=1&pos=2

… It makes a case for how the movies, along with Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol” really defined a secular Christmas, and then planted an image in our minds of what Christmas is and what it means.  The ironic beauty of it, is that even if you are not Christian, you can still enjoy that break from the darkness of the world and enjoy the spirit of giving, joy of Christmas, as if there is an intrinsic Christ gift through the employ of believers, and non-believers alike to bring His message of hope and love to the world.

Christmas Imagined

It is the spirit, it is love and care

That joy of Christmas we can share

For a moment a world perfect

Free from discord and defect

Placed in winter clarity of white

Snow as a blanket of beauty right

Colored lights, gifts, decorations red and green

Borrowed from ancients, this spirit of evergreen

A perfect setting for redeeming ourselves

For believing in each other and Santa’s elves

For knowing Angel’s get their wings

When hearts sing and the bell rings

And a child’s birth allows the world to cope

As the child in us smiles with wonder and hope

Everyone regardless of their belief can openly share

Our Christmas miracle, by opening hearts of loving care

A Violent New Day Dawning

Like a wolf in the night

Wind is howling

Driving rain, sounds like a handful of pebbles thrown at the windows

It’s morning dark, very dark but a noisy dark

Then it stops for just a light sprinkle

A tingling spray dancing on the windows

Only for the next wolf to howl

As the gales of winter blow

Perform as an orchestra in a crescendo

And rhythm of a heart plays

It howls at darkness of worry and concern

It throws stones at that which interrupts

The bliss and beauty of morning star

Then to settle back to a rhythm

A calmness of confident peace

That all that is good will be right

There are no more wolves in the night

That joy and peace of mind will prevail

The darkness never lasts, and love is right

The sun rises, and calms the air

The beauty and glow of new day extraordinaire