Sunday Morning Coming Down

 A high school classmate shared on FB, something from a 64 year old commercial pilot who had passed a exam to fly on of the latest jets in their fleet of aircraft.  I was also aware of an FAA rule about retirement at age 65 for commercial pilots.    In the U.S.,  there are no  FAA  age limits for pilots except for commercial airline pilots employed by airlines certificated under 14 CFR Part 121 . These airlines cannot employ pilots after they reach the age of 65. However, these pilots may stay on with a Part 121 carrier in some other role, such as flight engineers. I then went on a digression about the retirement of folks in professions like law or accounting.  From my own experience 30 years at a job or working for an employer is a very good time to start serious planning for the next chapter in your life.   And for my efforts at explaining my work history, working with folks who lost their jobs through no fault of their own.  I wa...

Early voting and mail in voting will take place before November 5, 2024. And on a related front I hope people will notice that it does not take four years of partisan snark and sniping for the voting public to make a decision about who the next president will be.  I voted  in the Florida primary for the November Election on August 20, 2024. Locally, the mood of the electorate in Miami has changed.  A few weeks ago I just couldn't imagine a person born in 1942 running for reelection as president or a person with as much baggage as an ex-president running for office, who could legitimately be understood to be running for office as a strategy for not going to prison.  Assuming he would win, he could, stop any prosecutions and if he lost he could further question what democracy is.  And it is no surprise that the former president has started complaining about an election that hasn't happened and claiming that the opposition will have stolen the election if he does n...

 A cursory review of today's Miami Herald spotlights an editorial from the Chicago Tribune regarding the 2018 Farm Bill.  Food assistance and farm production are combined in this legislation.  At one time it was a simple way to compromise two good ideas. Encourage farmers to produce for domestic and foreign markets and at the same time make sure that folks in this country are fed and not hungry. The SNAP program distributes food to those who face food insecurity and the remaining Farm Aid Bill supports farmers and agribusiness that provide food for people on a world wide basis. The farm bill can also promote conservation of soil, water and livestock.  If we were all closer to the land and had a better understanding of where our food comes from I can think of many benefits.  I'm not a farmer but a cursory review of the literature on the subject of "better farming", the following subjects keep showing up. 1) Better soil preparation 2) Crop rotation 3) More bio-div...

 I would guess most people would understand what Official means.  Just because a person holds a public office doesn't mean everything he might do is official and everything he might not do is official as well. “The modern conservative is engaged in one of man’s oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness". from J. Kenneth Galbraith interview. And oh, by the way, moral justification at times isn't much more than a fig leaf, you can bet someone got screwed or got the proverbial get out of jail free card.

 If you never had a paying job, if you lost your job, if you are underemployed... Living these days is a simple challenge.  How do you get to the point of paying for stuff, having a place to live, trying to maintain your health and getting around to doing all these things. Meanwhile there is a huge issue regarding the distribution of wealth in this country and worldwide. Yesterday was the 80th Anniversary of D-Day.  Many of those that survived that invasion spoke eloquently that freedom isn't free.  Who pays that bill and who is getting exploited.  It's like occupational therapy 24/7. This morning I read that the total national debt is approaching 35 trillion dollars. The interest on that debt no doubt stymies some good things and some good people who could live better lives with better skills, simplified universal healthcare, and a safer place to live.

 The Miami Herald reported this morning that a local attorney, whose father was the former owner of the Tampa Bay Bucs made a $500,000 political donation. Whoever got the donation isn't that important.  I just feel that the money could have been used in a better way. There are a lot of issues where $500,000 could do good or make things better. The problem is bi-partisan. It is a subset of self enhancement bias. The very rich can do things I can only dream of many times over. People will take their phone calls.  Institutions will accept their gifts.  But the very rich are not perfect. How they use their vast resources should be more transparent.  Sometimes wealth is confused with worth and dignity. Life is not a board game.

The presidential election of 1800 was very similar to the 2020 presidential election in that it was very close and politics as in partisan politics had its 'birth". You might think the 2020 presidential election was the absolute worst one in history.  You might be right if the Supreme Court decides by not deciding allows a president is effectively above the law.  If the former president is reelected this November, and even if he loses the consequences of complaints about a rigged process will not stop. Until 1845 States could hold their elections for President within a 34 day period before the first Wednesday in December.  Can you imagine if that had been the process in 2020. The country was blessed when George Washington was elected, reelected and then retired from office. Thomas Jefferson was elected President in 1800 for two terms.   "Those who labor in the earth are the chosen people of God" asserts Jefferson in his well-known support of the "agrarian ideal,...

 There are many questions and not enough time to answer them all.  The rest of this post is from Ms Ledbetter who wrote this for the Tribune News Service that was picked by the Miami Herald. For those who do retire, many find it’s not enough to play pickleball, travel and spend time with the grandchildren. Because eventually, the sands of time feel like hail drops, and at some point, we’re all awaiting the final diagnosis. If you believe the final act is the last chance to leave a legacy, look to former President Jimmy Carter for a master class in aging with purpose, dignity and humility. Indeed, his post-presidential life was more successful than his presidency. After facing international challenges such as the Iran hostage crisis and domestic difficulties including inflation, he and Rosalynn left Washington in 1981 to return to their home in Plains, Georgia. Instead of accepting lucrative speaking gigs to enrich himself, he quietly championed the causes he cared about. He wo...

 Last Saturday night the time on my phone and television changed and I slept right through that change.  Sunday Morning Coming Down saw me take out the dog in the very early morning and pick up some trash along SW 56th Avenue near, where I park. It's kind of a fool's errand because the Saturday Morning Bicyclists are not garbage neutral. Three days into daylight savings time 6:30 AM isn't daylight and 7:30.PM isn't dark.  The bph of things has its own schedule which according to experts in the field is unavoidable.  Amazon also seems to have adjusted. Stuff gets delivered overnight and if you spend enough it is still kind of free delivery. I bought Aloe and pet shampoo to reach a $25.00 minimum for free and quicker delivery. The new paperboys are the early morning Amazon deliverers.  The hard copy of the newspaper rarely had sports scores that the online version has. Doctor appointments are fraught with uncertainty and are taking longer than they used to. Insura...

The title of this post is the first line of "Seasons of Love", from the play and movie "Rent".  The song asks the question how do you spend your life?  And down the rabbit hole we go. This morning a high school buddy posted the first verse from "In My Life", by the Beatles. " "There are places I'll remember All my life, though some have changed. Some forever, not for better; Some have gone and some remain... On Sunday, the UU guy that plays the piano for the choir and chooses a lot of the other music we listen to, Joseph Telleda played: "Imagine", by John Lennon. And this morning I researched the Spiritual Songs of The Beatles and found that Apple had already curated a list. In My Life Mother Nature's Son All You Need Is Love Here Comes the Sun Across the Universe The Word... I really did not remember "The Word" and listening to it on You Tube wasn't much help. And without skipping a beat, You Tube played an ad t...

 Hours before Sunday's Super Bowl I went to check my numbers in the Pool at the Moose Lodge.  Steve, sitting across the bar started playing CCR songs.  His tastes and mine are similar.  I think I'm going to add some CCR to my phone playlist and skip the juke box. 8:00 AM is a little early for a doctors appointment.  There probably isn't an ideal time. It all depends.  Yesterday, I spent more time waiting for my car in the valet parking lines than I did in the Dr.'s Office, had a $20.00 co-pay for drawing blood for another appointment in two weeks, which to my mind means all the other tests I have taken in the past six weeks have been overblown in importance. Sunday Morning at church I arrived to discover three functional banana trees cut down, so that there could be other plants planted in the same place.  Some things will be eternally a mystery, even if they can be rationalized.  There is always a backstory. Joy Klein of Miami Dade County's Divis...

Your speech and your actions may be full of contradictions.  Sometimes your actions can be the source of both conflict and contradiction.  And yet I have come to understand that there are folks that are unaware of how they set things up to maximize contradiction and possibly conflict.  It may also be entirely intentional, as in "scrambling eggs to make an omelette." Did anyone ask the chicken how she felt about that?  Luckily, she probably doesn't care, even though she instinctively sits on her eggs until they hatch. A guy who lived on a farm before electricity, once explained this to me: "If the price of eggs is down, raise more chickens, if the price of eggs goes up, raise more chickens".  He left the farm to serve in the army and became a banker but always remembered farm wisdom and bucking hay. To be continued.

Just because you have an obscene amount of money does not necessarily make you an expert beyond your field.  Celebrities are often chastised for using their popularity to promote their views on public issues.  They may not have an obscene amount of money but their opinion may be overvalued because of their fame. The Uber rich can buy experts and their opinions to back up their own ideas.  Using other people, and social media to attract other people has become a way for rich folks to become "influencers" beyond what elected officials are.  It's the bully pulpit without standing for election.  And the wealth they have gathered can also insulate them from down turns in their popularity should they make a serious faux pas.   The Uber rich can literally buy something that may rightly be considered a public good or resource.  The Miami Heat Basketball Team was able to score waterfront property and move "uptown" from "Overtown" and get subsidies for thei...

Freeman, Darryl, Don, and I all pretty much retired from our jobs at the same time.  Since retirement we made an effort to get together for lunch on a monthly basis. Getting together with friends is a huge thing these days.  Much has been written about the importance of these kinds of connections for any number of reasons that relate to our overall enjoyment of life.   I'm currently reading a book by David Brooks, "How to Get to Know Somebody".  The short answer is: make sure they are seen, heard, and understood. This may take some time and  effort to get connected and do a better job of communicating. Speak less, listen more, I have opinions about way too many things and may fall short in listening and probably feel I should be heard more than listen to others but that is something I'm really working on and with some success. E-mails, text messages, and zoom meetings don't work as well for me, and others may think they are sufficient, a red herring type of...

June 25, 1973: White House counsel John Dean recounts his meetings with President Nixon to the Senate Watergate Committee: “I began by telling the President that there was a cancer growing on the Presidency, and if the cancer was not removed, he President himself would be killed by it.” If you were at home and watching the television you might have seen President Trump calling for people to walk to the Capitol and he would be with them on January 6th, 2021 .  Later in the afternoon it got ugly, and violently dangerous.  Some in the crowd were calling out to hang Mike Pence. Two Impeachment Trials, criminal indictments, and civil fraud, defamation and sexual abuse judgments are not the stuff of witch hunts and victimless crimes.  Chris Christie:  "He'll burn America to the ground to help himself," Christie said, in a direct address to the camera. "Every Republican leader says that in private. I'm the only one saying it in public."   In many ways the legal iss...