This Year is Almost Over

I could talk about the 7 plus earthquake in Vanatu but I have nothing to add to the story. Lots of big quakes the last couple of years. I know I spelled Vanatu wrong.

The last few years have been complete insanity for me. The next one looks to be a lot simpler. Yet, we shall see. At a minimum it will be different. I wish for everyone that 2011 will be a better year; but, I am afraid that for most it will not be.

2011 is the year when the pensions, 401ks and social security will all be exposed for the true depth of the problems. Our currency will likely be greatly devalued and there is the very real possibility that the federal reserve will be fundamentally undermined. On the housing front, expect houses to lose even more value.

I expect little help for the unemployed, I expect a structural change in unemployment benefits. Europe will see more protests and riots. Expect large protests at the royal weddings.

Next month I a moving. At a minimum I will not be in this house. Life does indeed throw curves. I have four years left before I retire. Sometimes I forget how old I am.

We used to live in caves and our best tools were stones. Today most people are afraid of losing their internet connection and being unable to play online games. Historically people wanted to know more and be better, to advance as people. Today people want to rest as much as possible and find growth and learning an annoyance. Something is wrong.

I have noticed some trends that you might find interesting. Do a search on the words "spiritual awakening". If you did it in quotes you will get 15,000,000 hits on Yahoo. That is a fair amount. Then I want you to watch some of the videos or read the articles. Why are so many people convinced that we are going to have a consciousness expanding awakening and what do they believe we (the average person) will come to "understand".

I am not proposing that any such "awakening" will occur. I am asking why so many people think it is coming and what they think it will be and mean. Too often we look at things from the lens of whether or not we believe it instead of asking why anyone believes it.

Consider the popularity of the book that Oprah pushed called "The Secret". The secret was that you can have anything you want by using the "law of attraction". Basically witchcraft. You ask the universe for what you want, focus all of your attention on the object and prepare yourself to accept the result.

I want to talk about the occult "sciences" for a moment. All occult sciences eventually come down to the same thing. If you perform certain acts in the proper manner than you can control others. The Kabuki dance if you will. Occult does not mean that the people believe in Satan and many don't. Why do so many people believe in these types of practices? Look at the explosion in the number of wiccans, why is this occurring and why is it occurring now.

What had traditionally been seen as occult has crept into everyday life and is barely noticed. "Visualization" is now taught as a business practice. Try and find a newspaper that does not have a horoscope section. Consider the rise of Yoga and Transcendental Meditation. Every town I pass through has "Psychics". It didn't use to be so common.

So what is going on? What do these people believe they are getting or avoiding? Why is superstition increasing in an increasingly technical world. My belief is that as the world gets more complex, people seek occultism in the belief that it gives them some sense of control over their lives. If I am correct than occultism will increase even more in the coming years.

Look at television, the movies and books. The hottest trends are with witches, werewolves and of course vampires. I don't even watch television or movies except very rarely and I know that it is a trend. I hear people talking about it all the time.

In Haiti voodoo practitioners are being killed by a population that believes they are to blame for all the troubles that have befallen that country. I don't really care if people believe they can do magic. Not my issue. People who believe they have magical powers don't bother learning how to change things using reality. Superstitious populations are more easily controlled.

Here is an article from "Natural News" that attempts to prove that science has proven astrology to be true. Now I want to return to discuss the "awakening".

What do these people think we will be awakened to? Some say that we will become aware of aliens in the universe, some believe there will be a tremendous spiritual awakening where we discover we are all one and the same. Many attribute this change to the year 2012.

Whatever you believe, how do we get people to focus on making things better by acting better? There are millions of people who focus more on their virtual lives than they do on the very real world around them. People create avatars to represent themselves and live as elves, warlocks, witches, ninjas and such. They then spend most of their days casting spells and doing magic. If you are not familiar with "World of Warcraft" or "Final Fantasy".

If we are going to fix our industries we need to focus on learning our jobs and skills that will help. No amount of voodoo, hoodoo or magic is going to do it for us. Well, I hope you can see what is going on around you. Be well.

Merry Christmas

To anyone who reads this blog I wish you a very merry Christmas. Personally I have so many things to be thankful for that I cannot count them. I may be losing my house but I am not on the streets tonight and it is unlikely I will ever be because of the wonderful friends and family that I have.

I am truly blessed with family and friends who are unwavering even when I screw up. I love them all very deeply. I don't need any toys or trinkets, just loved ones and I have the best around me. I pray they know how they have blessed me. Be well.

My Christmas Music

What I am listening to tonight.

The Doors - Five to One

The Doors - The River Knows

The Doors - LA Woman

Elton John - Love lies bleeding, Funeral for a Friend

The Beatles - Julia

The Turtles - Happy Together

The Monkees - You Told Me

Monkees - What am I Doing Hangin Round

The Monkees - Love is Only Sleeping

The Monkees - Daily Nightly

The Monkees - Papa Gene's Blues (This is a great song)

Chris Rea - Fool if you Think It's Over

Jefferson Starship - Miracles

Helen Reddy - Peaceful

Helen Reddy - Don't Know How to Love Him

Beach Boys - Wouldn't it be Nice

Merry Christmas

Santa and the New World Order

Come on, I come up with some good titles. LOL.

It is Christmas Eve and I am enjoying a lovely pork chop in my bedroom while listening to some music. I wish all of my readers a Merry Christmas and if they do not celebrate such a thing I wish them a great day.

This will be a short post; but, I hope you like the question. In the Book of Revelations it talks about a one world government being in the last days. Here is my question, how could they even conceive of such a thing? I hope you understand that 2000 years ago the Romans were still fighting with tribes in Africa and Europe. The person that wrote Revelations didn't even have any idea of how big the world was or how to communicate with people in other places that had yet to be discovered.

Maybe I have not explained myself well enough. I have had people attempt to tell me that Revelations was talking about Nero as the anti-christ. I have to point out that they are imbeciles because everyone did not have a mark and the writer would have known that.

Revelations was written at a time when each year people learned of new peoples. Revelations also speaks about every nation knowing about Jesus at a time when the writer knew that he did not even know how many nations there were as more were being discovered. Am I the only person who finds this odd?

It would be like me telling you that someday we will have a one universe government, we haven't even met any aliens yet. Having said that, here we are with a United Nations and International Maritime Law. Hey, that guy was a good guesser.

Now I will show another possibility. Revelations says that everyone will need a mark to buy and sell. It did not say we would have only one currency. Hmmmmmm. There is a lot of talk about having a one world reserve currency in the news; but, it says that all who buy and sell will need to receive a mark, it didn't say have one currency or any currency at all.

For any faithful readers, I wrote a story in bits and pieces at the ends of posts. I was a Christmas story. It ended with me on a plane. LMAO. Merry Christmas.

Norway loves strange lights

Remember the Norway Spiral. Those darn Norwegians, they are up to it again. This time they are playing with light beams. An article with links to the pictures.

Turn off your darn lights you frickin Norweigeian fakes. LOL. It's a good trick but how come they won't tell us how they do it. Trying to say that it is from ice cannons or Northern lights is just funny. They are straight beams, you look at them. Hugs and kisses.

Christmas at Area 51

Just a passing thought. How does Area 51 prepare for Christmas. I mean it is protected air space. Will they attempt to shoot him down, the fools. He flies past Mach 10.

Lack of Education

There is a test called the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery or ASVAB. The test is given to see what jobs someone can hold in the military. When I was in high school every man had to take it in his senior year. I don't know if it is mandatory anymore as there is no draft.

The ASVAB is a pretty simple test and I am guessing many of my American readers have taken the test. I wish to be fair in what I am about to say. When I took the test I scored in the top 1 percent. That is not why I think the test is easy nor related to my coming comments.

This year one in four high school graduates failed to get a score high enough to join the military. This is pitiful. This is worse than pitiful. We are indeed failing to teach anything in school. I do not compare others to myself, I am looking at the passing rates from the past.

Why can't high school graduates pass a basic test? Simple answer, they don't know the basics and get passed not knowing much. Prior to the Vietnam war kids were taught the basics in school and more. A high school graduate could write a paragraph and a report. You cannot twitter a report.

While in college I was a teaching assistant for a class in political science. The class was designed for business majors. I graded their exams and was appalled by what I saw. In my opinion one quarter of the students should have been failed. Some of the exams I read indicated illiteracy.

Over the last 40 years I have witnessed a continual degradation of students abilities. There are still smart kids, problem is the others are allowed to not learn. Over the same period we have seen numerous attempts to teach kids better and all have worked less well.

The media responds with a blathering mess of finger pointing. I don't buy any of it. We search for solutions and cant seem to find any. Here is a solution, teach kids the way we used to. Teach the basics first instead of focusing on opinions. Make them write a short paper every week and go over their mistakes. Yes, mistakes.

In the last 20 years there has been a push to focus on what kids have done well. In school every kid would get an award so that their egos would not be deflated. We have become a Narcissistic culture that is unwilling to be corrected. In that situation fewer and fewer learn. We learn from mistakes; but, only if they are pointed out and we are willing to see that we can still improve.

The beginning point in all learning is language. I cannot teach someone math or science or anything else if they do not have the vocabulary to learn it. Learning to use words with precision allows for deeper thought in every field. The next step is learning to put words together in a understandable manner. I am amazed at how many college graduates cannot write a simple document.

We were the richest nation in history and undermined ourselves by not teaching children to read and write well. I don't blame the teachers or the parents as much as I blame the methods the teachers were taught to use. Those methods failed.

We have raised a nation that wants leisure and comfort. Both need to be earned. When I talk to people who are under 30, most cannot tell me when World War I was or when the middle ages were. They have no world perspective and no understanding of the history of other nations. As G. Gordon Liddy told one person, "In the battle of wits you are unarmed."

One of the biggest mistakes that occurred was to grade on the curve. The normalization and comparison to the others that are uneducated. Another mistake is to have children do group projects. They need to know the basics before being graded as a group. Grading on group projects allows those who have not learned the basics to be hidden and holds back the best.

Schools are often paid in a way that prevents them from spending the time needed to teach students who don't get it off the bat. Schools often are paid based on how many students pass. The teachers therefore and the school system itself is rewarded for passing students rather than teaching them.

I know people who graduated high school and could not read. I mean they were functionally illiterate. Why is this acceptable? The current system teaches children who don't get it right off the bat to hide behind those who do. Worse yet, it teaches kids that do get it off the bat to look at those who don't as stupid. As the years progress the gap gets larger because those on the bottom never learned the basics so they cant learn the intermediate or advanced. Everyone can learn the basics if we spend the time to teach them.

The bar exam is given in every state. California and New York have traditionally had the lowest passage rates. As a consequence their attorneys tend to be better. Some states have over a 90% passage rate. Those states don't have enough attorneys so they pass just about everyone who graduates. This is pitiful.

An application has been developed that allows people to put their phone over foreign languages and it is shown in English (or whatever language you choose). The tower of Babel has risen again and we now can communicate without learning the languages of others. If you cannot read you own language an application will translate what is written into verbal communication. Sounds great but it has consequences. Why bother learning another language if you don't have to. Yet the writing doesn't give the context, learning a language requires that you learn about a culture.

As we rely more and more on technology to think for us, we become less able to think. In the land of the blind the one eyed man is king. What happens when the technology fails? Then we enter a new dark age.

How many stories have you read about people who were using GPS and drove off the road because the GPS was wrong. They relied on the technology and ignored what their eyes told them. There are now people seriously talking about melding technology with humans, the Transhumanists. I have written about this before.

We don't live in the Matrix yet; but, we are creating it. We are willingly relying on technology to make our decisions. With the advent of cloud computing this will only increase and the conformity of thought will be oppressive. We need to move away from simplicity and comfort and seek the strenuous life. We grow more from strenuous learning than we do from varied experience.

Ringo Starr - It Don't Come Easy

UPDATE:

After writing this post I came across a video saying what has happened to the educational system. I don't agree with all of what he says; but, the video brings up some good points. I still have not decided what I think about the fluoride debate so I will not comment on what he says about that at present.

This second video is in direct contradiction to what I have written. This famous educator wants us to go even further down the road that we have travelled. If you watch the video you will find that he declares that 98% of all children are geniuses who are dumbed down by schools. Nope, it might feel nice to believe that every child is a genius but they are not.

If we teach people that are below average that they are geniuses who are being held back then they don't bother trying to be the best they can be. The educator proposes that copying and reading the answers rather than learning them is a better way. This is also societal poison. It is teaching people that they cannot learn and should follow those who did. It is teaching to not think for yourself.

We are all born with a set level of ability; but, what we do with that ability determines how far we can go. The educators answer is to teach people by grouping them not according to age; but, according to where they are in their learning. Put the dumb with the dumb and the smart with the smart. That leads to little if any learning on the lower end and conformity in thought.

Ayn Rand feared a world where the best and the brightest were held back to prevent anyone from excelling. I fear a world where the average and below are kept apart from those who do know better. We want people to try harder not to try less.

The educator wants to teach that there are no answers only unlimited possibilities, this is garbage and is what we see in the educational system now. People are not taught to seek the truth and all answers are considered equally valid. All are not equally valid. By refusing to ask the questions properly all answers cease to be valid at all.

The educator attempts in the beginning of the video to downgrade the value of a traditional education. He does this by saying that in the past we were taught that if we learned in school, worked hard and got a college degree then we would get a job. He says this is wrong because there is no guarantee of getting a good job. This is garbage that has been spread for the last two decades.

The reason we should study hard is so that we can LEARN. If we learn then we are less easily led and are more likely to come to a greater understanding. Education is not primarily about getting a job, it is so that we can understand our life and our experiences in a better context.

The teaching of relativism is what has completed the destruction of learning. All knowledge has value including geography, history (with dates but not the focus) and the aberrant and amazing. We do live in an amazing world and we don't teach that. We are capable of so much more than we do. We are capable of greatness, individual success, the achievement of what we can get out of ourselves.

We are trained that the goal in life is to retire and take things easy. We are trained to use the least amount of effort to get the most amount of reward. This is wrong, the goal should not be the reward the goal should be to push ourselves as far as we can and then to share what we have learned with others.

How can we excel as a nation if we fail as individuals? How can we understand the complexities of the world if we don't bother to learn the basics. We should learn not because it is easy but because it is hard. We should learn because otherwise we allow ourselves to be marginalized. We should attempt to understand our world because we can then understand our place in it.

We are taught that there is no God, we live and we die and we don't matter to the universe. After telling kids that enough the logical conclusion they come to is that they should seek out all the experience that they can. This is a simple and foolish belief set. Experience is a distraction from growth. Growth is the goal.