The 11th Hour

I just love American idioms and I also love learning about their origin.  The "11th hour" of today, refers to coming to a deal at the last moment, when almost all hope of coming to a successful deal appears to have vanished, but alas it hasn't!  It can also refer to accomplishing something at the very last instant, such as what a procrastinator might do, or being up against the wall in a "do or die" moment.

The origin of this phrase refers back to Matthew: 20.  In which it is stated: "For the kingdom of heaven is like unto a man that is an householder, which went out early in the morning to hire labourers into his vineyard. And when he had agreed with the labourers for a penny a day, he sent them into his vineyard. And he went out about the third hour, and saw others standing idle in the marketplace, And said unto them; Go ye also into the vineyard, and whatsoever is right I will give you. And they went their way. Again he went out about the sixth and ninth hour, and did likewise. And about the eleventh hour he went out, and found others standing idle, and saith unto them, Why stand ye here all the day idle? They say unto him, Because no man hath hired us. He saith unto them, Go ye also into the vineyard; and whatsoever is right, that shall ye receive."  And further: "And when they came that were hired about the eleventh hour, they received every man a penny. But when the first came, they supposed that they should have received more; and they likewise received every man a penny."  And finally we have: " But he answered one of them, and said, Friend, I do thee no wrong: didst not thou agree with me for a penny?  Take that thine is, and go thy way: I will give unto this last, even as unto thee.  Is it not lawful for me to do what I will with mine own? Is thine eye evil, because I am good? So the last shall be first, and the first last: for many be called, but few chosen."

First a little background on the hours as described in this passage.  In the United States we are use to the daylight being longer in the summertime and consequently the daylight being shorter in the wintertime,  because with our modern clocks we divide time into equal hours of equal length throughout the year.  In Roman times, there were also twelve hours of daylight and 12 hours of darkness, but the amount of physical time of those hours would vary depending upon the season, so the 11th hour in Jesus' time really did refer to the absolute last hour of daylight.

A first reading of this Bible passage brings to many readers a feeling of injustice, after all, the initial laborers had to labor all day in the sun and heat of the day, whereas the latecomers had not had to deal with that burden, nor the length of the time in the vineyard, yet each laborer received exactly the same payment.  This seems wrong, but is it?  The householder has not broken his agreement with the initial laborers, they were paid exactly what they had contracted for, so the complaint becomes one of "I did more and they did less for the same compensation."  But isn't that envy at its worse or possibly regret that you were the early bird? 

A further interpretation is to take the above passage as an allegory in which the householder is God, and the laborers are me and you.  Our laboring in God's vineyard and his invitation for us to labor there is a call for us to come to him and join him in our salvation.  Looking at it this way, we should rejoice if we were amongst the first that went into the vineyard for that means we not only listened to but we also obeyed the word of God.  For those, that came later, they too rejoiced for having being saved up and till the 11th hour.  For we must be mindful to remember we can only truly be saved when we are still within the daylight or "light" of God's presence and not in the darkness of denial or abandonment. The payment for all of us laborers should be the same, which is paradise for all.  There is not a lesser paradise for latecomers, former sinners; it is all the same salvation.  That is our precious payment.  That is the grace of our all merciful God. 

Unsecured Debt

There are two basic forms of debt in this world, unsecured and secured debt.  Your preference when creating debt is for unsecured debt, because unsecured debt basically means that the creditor is relying upon your good faith to pay the monies owed back, whereas with secured debt the creditor will not hesitate in "securing" their debt back from you, by seizing or re-obtaining their collateral such as an automobile or home through implementing the terms and conditions of the contract which you executed with them.  Consequently, this means that with a car loan, that "your" car can be re-possessed when you are in material default of your terms and conditions with your lender without notice to yourself.  Simply stated, it is a misnomer to believe that you "own" a vehicle or a home if you have a car note or mortgage payment, you will only own these items when you have the proper deed or title to them and that is accomplished only when they have been paid in full.

Credit cards were once given out to a select few, but in recent years, credit cards have become available to virtually everyone, even students, with no demonstrable income.   Credit cards are the prime example of unsecured debt; the cards are issued to recipients as unsecured loans, in which the credit card issuers believe that they will receive in return at least a monthly minimum payment from their recipients.  However, for various reasons, there are a significant amount of credit card users who are unable to make their payments on time, or to pay even the minimum, due to loss of job, a combination of too much debt and too little income, health problems, irresponsibility, or other reasons. 

On the surface, because the debt is unsecured, it appears that the consumer is ahead of the curve, after all they still have the material goods, or the memories of delightful dinners or nightclub experiences, and the creditor cannot legally collect or re-possess any of the items purchased by the credit card user.  However, unfortunately, that is just the short-term viewpoint.  The end result of failing to live up to your credit card obligations will often result in a damaged credit score which leads to higher insurance rates, higher loan rates, and in some cases reduced employment opportunities because the potential employer when seeing a low credit score marks it against you as someone that is in lacking in maturity, discipline, or decision-making.

However, it does get worse, credit card issuers can attempt to get a court judgment against you, which will allow them to assert their rights to collect their debt.   Many consumers ignore their court summons to their regret and are thereby subject in most cases to a court judgment against them.  Not appearing in court and not defending yourself is a critical consumer misjudgment.  Creditors that apply for court judgments are counting on two things; the first is that you won't appear and that they will therefore win, the second is that you will appear and that a settlementwill be agreed to (perhapsat 50% of what is owed)  which will be then be legally binding between both parties with specific payment terms.   There is, however, a third possibility, even if the facts appear to be against you, often the creditor has information that is missing or is in conflict with your own records of your statements, payments, fees, notes, and penalties.  It behooves you to dispute those discrepancies and to state so in front of a judge.  No judge, in good standing, will rule against you, but will instead postpone the hearing or transfer it to a higher or different court.  This postponement may be enough for the creditor to lose heart in pursuing you and your debts.  Creditors and debt collectors look for easy targets that will wilt when subject to a court of law. 

You shouldn't wilt, and you should recognize that most, if not all, unsecured debt can be discharged in bankruptcy, and in most cases that bankruptcy will erase any unsecured judgments against you.  While bankruptcy should never be your first option, it is the trump card that bears witnessing to, because in bankruptcy the creditors of unsecured debt will receive in almost all cases, nothing.

Sheriff Joe Arpaio

I don't even know the Sheriff's name in my own community and I can only list one other Sheriff's name in the entire country and probably that is because of some sort of notoriety.  I don't live in Arizona, I really don't understand why anyone does, all that dry heat and it's not Las Vegas, I mean, what's the point.  Anyway, I digress, the one sheriff that I hear about time and time again is Sheriff Arpaio of Maricopa County, which contains Arizona's largest city which is Phoenix.  Although, it has been a couple generations since Barry Goldwater, Arizona's favorite son, ran as the Presidential candidate in 1964, the Republican power still controls most of the reins of Maricopa County.  It that wasn't the case, Arpaio, a Republican would not be the six-time elected Sheriff.

At age 81, Arpaio appears to be the type of man who wants to leave this world with his proverbial boots on.  Arpaio isn't someone that is easily intimidated, he has his power, he is happy with that power, and he will fight you hard to maintain that power and make you regret fighting him should you do so.  Arpaio is not the type of man who goes down quietly, fights dirty, enjoys the limelight, and embraces the stigma of being considered a xenophobe and a demagogue.   Arpaio portrays himself as being "America's toughest Sheriff", tough on crime, tough on criminals, true to the American flag, supports his fellow officers, and that plays well with the conservative core that supports him.  Of course, essentially, he is a man that believes in a police state with himself being the sole determinant of what he judges as being right or wrong.

Sheriff Arpaio is a case in point as to why we should have term limits for elected public servants.  The longer a man like Arpaio is in office, the more power, the more beholden the other players must be to him.  Arpaio has been accused again and again of racial profiling specifically against Latinos and a recent Federal Judge's ruling affirms that Arpaio's policies violated the Constitution and the Civil Rights Act.  As for the inmates that Sheriff Arpaio is so tough on, this too has been found by a Federal Judge to be a violation of their Constitutional rights.

A fundamental way that Arpaio has maintained his power is to have a grand jury constantly indict Board of Supervisor's members that do not conform with his megalomania or don't properly support Arpaio's law-enforcement ambitions or goals.  Arpaio is built from the mold of those that feel that they are above the law,  and Arpaio uses the law as his own personal bully pulpit, under the guise of upholding the law that he is do disdainful of when applied to himself and his and his cohorts' actions.  Those that support Sheriff Arpaio most vociferously are those that are in no danger of being harassed by Arpaio and consequently have nothing to fear from him or his actions.  To them, Arpaio is like their own personal guard dog, but in reality Arpaio is a thief.  He steals from the public virtue, he steals from our Christian values, he steals from the American dream, and he locks down the Golden Door.

The Hypocrisy of being Pro-Abortion and Anti-Smoking

Life is full of plenty of hypocrisies that have glaring holes in them; I'm going to concentrate on one of the most blatant examples of pure hypocrisy which is those that are adamant supporters of a woman's right to chose and at the same time hold a viewpoint which is vehemently anti-tobacco.  Those positions are not consistent to each other and the implication of this has disturbing consequences.

Per current American law, a legally-aged woman is the sole determinant of whether she desires to have an abortion or not, subject to certain State laws.  Currently, it is estimated that around 90% of all abortions are performed within the first trimester, in which a trimester is defined as the first twelve weeks after gestation, even though it's general accepted that at eight weeks the embryo has become a fetus.  Being what that may, the abortion laws are clearly written in a way that it is the woman that controls the decisions about her body in regards to the embryo or the fetus that she carries within.   It is the woman that is the master of her own body, enough so, that she has the legal right to terminate a potential and viable life within her own uterus.  This means as a consequence that the embryo or fetus that she carries within her has no rights, subject to certain States' restrictions. 

In regards to smoking, in general it's legal to smoke at age eighteen, although there are exceptions to this rule, with the most notable exception being in NYC in which the smoking age was recently raised to 21.  There are in addition, quite a few restrictions associated with smoking which varies from state-to-state or county to county, or community to community, such as: prohibition of smoking in public places, such as bars, restaurants, and some public housing; prohibition at work, and even prohibition in public outdoor places.  

The ostensibly primary reason that a woman is allowed to abort a fetus legally is that it is her choice, it is her body, yet that abortion will terminate with prejudice a potential human life.  A person, who smokes, however, may or may not harm their own physical body by smoking, depending on numerous factors, yet the restrictions on smoking are increasing, it appears, day by day.

In fact, those that are pro-abortion and anti-smoking are also quite restrictive on most other things.  They are for carbon emissions restrictions, mandatory health insurance, re-distribution of income, stricter health standards, and always and forever more restrictive laws, more restrictive regulations, and more restrictive penalties for those that do not conform to their specific form of thinking.

The truth of the matter is that those who are pro-abortion and anti-smoking, are pro-abortion because they do not want "those other people" to have children; their feeling is that there is enough poor, unintelligent and morally inept people already, that it is therefore their higher duty to see that those misguided people don't add to our collective misery by accidently procreating while in reality all they really wanted to do was just have some sex.  As for smoking, well, that is something that is so uncouth, so dirty, smelly, and disgusting, that it shouldn't be permitted at all, or if permitted, should be well hidden from the public.

Those that are pro-abortion and anti-smoking are in fact, promoting their own sick utopian society.  In that society, everyone will know their place, and everything will be controlled just so. 

Everett Dirksen -- Civil Rights Hero

In this year of the 50th Anniversary of the historic Civil Rights Bill that passed in 1964, there are many people that deserve our credit and praise for the passage of this important landmark bill in which its passage mandated that voting rights were liberalized and applied equally, desegregation was banished, and equal rights were provided to all.   While this was not the end of discrimination in the United States, this legislation helped to build a solid foundation to enable the disenfranchised to be established on a more equal footing now and into the future and this battle continues onto this day.

While one most give a great deal of credit to President Johnson who signed the legislation and as former Senate Majority Leader had the connections, the persona, and the power to persuade recalcitrant Senators to cast their votes for the Civil Rights Bill, LBJ was not the man of the hour.  That man instead was none other than Everett Dirksen of Illinois, the Senator Minority Leader. 

In 1964, the Civil Rights Bill passed the House on February 10, 1964, and was then submitted to the Senate in which when the bill was submitted, the "Southern Bloc" began their effective filibuster, and unless the Senate was to come up with a 2/3rd majority to force cloture on the filibuster, then the Civil Rights Bill would be stuck in the Senate and therefore not come up for vote and consequently it would fail.   From 1927 to 1963, cloture had been attempted on eleven filibusters and each and every time it had failed.  During the time of this filibuster, Senator Dirksen began a collaboration with Senate Majority Whip Humphrey, Senate Majority Leader Mansfield, Senate Minority Whip Kuchel, and Attorney General Kennedy to make modifications that would allow Dirksen to convince fellow Northern Republicans to support the Civil Rights Bill without substantially weakening it or changing the bill in such a way that the House would no longer support it.   In addition to that collaboration, Dirksen's further responsibility was to convince his Northern Republican cohorts that their true interests laid in supporting the party of Lincoln, of emancipation, of the freedom of all men, in conformance with our great moral principles, and to not forge an alliance with the Southern Democratic party against these civil rights and thereby to join hands with the Southern extremists and the remnants of a nation once divided and at civil war.

 On June 10, 1964, Dirksen made his speech to the Senate in defense of the cloture and the civil rights bill in which he invoked Victor Hugo that: "stronger than all the armies is an idea whose time has come."  Further he went on to say: "The time has come for equality of opportunity in sharing in government, in education, and in employment. It will not be stayed or denied. It is here."  Dirksen referenced the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments, and he discussed also the sacrifices in blood, sweat, and tears of our Black American brethren in wars fought on behalf of America.  He also referenced Lincoln, Jefferson, the Declaration of Independence, our Constitution, and Gettysburg.  Later that day, cloture was passed in the Senate and the filibuster was over.  On June 19, 1964, the Senate bill passed by a 73-27 Senate vote in which 27 out of the 33 Republican Senators voted in the affirmative, a higher percentage than the Democratic vote of 44 out of 67.  Of the 21 Southern Senate Democrats, only 1 voted for the Civil Rights Bill, Yarborough of Texas, with the end result being that the infamous "Southern Bloc" had been vanquished.

President Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act on July 2, 1964, and said this: "We believe that all men have certain unalienable rights. Yet many Americans do not enjoy those rights…. But it cannot continue. Our Constitution, the foundation of our Republic, forbids it. The principles of our freedom forbid it. Morality forbids it. And the law I will sign tonight forbids it."

Costco CEO Pay

There is no better way to lead than by example.  Way too many CEOs of publically held corporations make way too much money despite the fact that they are beholden to a Board of Directors and that their salaries and their compensation package are for the most part, quite transparent.  Many articles have come out in recent years in which it is stated that CEO pay in ratio to worker pay has exploded and in fact according to the Huffington Post: "today Fortune 500 CEOs make 204 times regular workers on average, Bloomberg found. The ratio is up from 120-to-1 in 2000, 42-to-1 in 1980 and 20-to-1 in 1950."  Are CEOs 204 times more valuable than the average worker, which is an increase of over 1000% since 1950?  That answer is absolutely not.  What has increased 1000% over the ensuing years is the CEOs rapacious greed, which has been rubberstamped by their dereliction-of-duty Board of Directors.

Fortunately, not every public company follows this footprint.  For instance, there is Costco which ranks as #22 on the Fortune 500 list with yearly revenues in 2013 of nearly $100 billion dollars.  Their current CEO is Craig Jelinek, who replaced former CEO James Sinegal (co-founder) in 2012.  Jelinek's salary is $650,000 annually with a bonus of up to $200,000, and stock compensation based upon company performance which can add a couple more million dollars in compensation to him.  According to Costco the average worker makes $20.89/hour, before overtime and benefits, or about $43,451/year.  Additionally, the annual turnover rate is less than 6%, which is incredibly low for a retailer, with nearly 88% of all Costco employees receiving health insurance.

This Costco philosophy of being fair to their employees is also part and parcel of their business model to their customers in which Costco is known as marking up their products no more than 14-15 percent over cost.  The reason behind this belief is that Costco feels that they only offer a limited amount of value by providing products to customers and therefore they pass those savings onto their consumers. 

Additionally, one of the things that Wall Street seems incapable of understanding and comprehending is that the worth of a company, the value of a company, cannot always be determined simply by stating that if we lowered that cost our profit would rise, or if we increased that selling price our margin would increase.  There are intangibles in any business model that don't easily translate into numbers, and some of those intangibles involve doing the right thing for your customers, for your employees, and for your collective moral climate.  I do believe that customers take more pleasure and satisfaction out of shopping at a store in which the pricing is fair to them and in which the employees are paid a fair wage. Henry Ford put it best one hundred years ago, when he raised the compensation rates for his employees not only to improve employee productivity, retention, and well-being, but also to put more money into their pockets so that they too could afford to buy the very automobiles that they were assembling.

Corn Ethanol

I eat corn and most people eat some sort of corn product or utilize it in everyday things; for instance, high-fructose syrup which you will find in many sodas is corn based, yogurts, gum, salad dressing, toothpaste, and even perfume all utilize corn.  Corn is used extensively in livestock feed, it is a food staple throughout the world, and the United States is the largest producer and exporter of corn in the world.

With over 850 million people worldwide suffering from undernourishment, it is surprising that corn is now also being utilized as a fuel.  This would imply that corn ethanol is so sufficient, so cost-efficient, so abundant, and in such high supply, that utilizing it as a fuel is the most efficient thing and the most practical use of corn and that this therefore is the right thing for the United States to do.  The facts, however, don't support this thesis.

First, putting aside the obvious fact that corn is a wonderful and efficient food item with a multitude of uses, when one considers corn ethanol as a fuel, you must first rate this ethanol in comparison to the gold standard which is oil.  Is corn as efficient with BTUs as oil?  For instance, using E85, which is a blend of 85% ethanol and 15%, Oak Ridge National Laboratory reported that "…25-30% tank loss in mileage due to the lower energy density of E85."  So clearly, E85 ethanol is not as efficient as oil. 

The next question to ask is how much energy does corn ethanol use in order to produce its fuel energy in comparison to oil.  While experts have weighed in on both sides of the equation, theoildrum.com, states: " …that energy conversion efficiency of gasoline is higher: roughly 1 unit of fossil fuel energy to create 4 units of gasoline compared whereas 1 unit of fossil fuel energy to create 1.3 units of ethanol."

I don't think that there is any doubt that oil is a much more efficient unit of energy.  However, surprisingly, the Model T which was first brought out in 1908 could initially run on gasoline, kerosene, or ethanol.  Henry Ford said "There's enough alcohol in one year's yield of an acre of potatoes to drive the machinery necessary to cultivate the fields for one hundred years,"   and Ford believed that alcohol as a fuel was the fuel of the future, but history to date, has proven him wrong.

This leads to a further question, is it possible that corn ethanol is on the right track as an alternative fuel but it itself is not the most efficient renewal fuel to develop?  That answer would appear to be yes.  Putting aside the usual political shenanigans, the agricultural subsidies for votes, the lobbying, dirty money, cronyism, and other nonsense, there are plenty of other possibilities, limited only by our own imaginations and dreams.  For instance, former Secretary of Energy Samuel Bodman, said, "cost competitive, energy responsible cellulosic ethanol made from switchgrass or from forestry waste like sawdust and wood chips… …. contains more net energy and emits significantly fewer greenhouse gases than ethanol made from corn."

Perhaps the great Henry Ford was a visionary and was right about alcohol (ethanol is a type of alcohol), and we just have gone about it the wrong way.

Communes and America

As more and more Americans seem more and more willing to become wards of the State, to want the State to be all and provide all, to sacrifice some of their liberties in order to have more of something else provided to them by the State; it makes one think that this is really a version of a Socialism.  If you were to break down Socialism to its core, or to scale it way, way down, it would be a commune.  A commune is a group of like-minded individuals who have sacrificed their individual identities and possessions in order to reap the benefits of being with a group of people that work together, share together, live together, and prosper together.  It's all for one and one for all.  On the surface, for certain individuals it sounds like nirvana, a truly democratic society in which no one person is above it all, the fruits of the commune's collective efforts are shared together and the joys of true brotherhood are experienced.

Yet with the exception of communes that are faith-based, communal living in America has done quite poorly over the long-term with virtually no real success.  While there may be many reasons for communal failing in America; even reasons of our current State interfering, infiltrating and actively trying to bring down the commune, most communes fail because the people participating in it lose their desire to continue with the lifestyle that they once voluntarily embraced.  Like government programs, communes when they initially start are well-meaning and sound good, but living in them day after day, year after year, takes its toll.  When everything is owned in common and it is the collective work-rate that determines how much food is produce, clothes that are created, housing that is built, medical care that is provided, it is easy to say to oneself, "I'm doing more than the others, I deserve more," or to say, "I'm not here to be anyone's slave, I will work at the rate that I find to be satisfactory, nothing more, nothing less." 

It is human nature that the goals and visions of one's utopia differ than another's.  Because of those differences you will create conflict and because of that conflict the whole edifice is in danger of collapsing upon itself.  Additionally, communes have rules and responsibilities, whereas there is a significant amount of people that believe that life consists of hand-outs that have no strings attached, but in fact, the old proverb "there's no such thing as a free lunch" is not just a proverbial truth, it is truth itself.  Communes without a higher God to answer to, but simply based on people working together for a common purpose will find that that common purpose is hard to lock down and defined.  Additionally, while adults are capable of making decisions and sticking to them and their vision, children are an entirely different prospect.  While some children may be delighted to be living in a communal situation with other children who are like their brothers and sisters in-kind, others will find the need to answer to the siren call of the real world.  As a commune gets older, gets more mature, it must have new blood, new recruits to sustain those that are no longer able to produce or perform at their previous work-rate so that if the children fall away, the commune itself is in danger of following suit.

For those communes that are faith-based, however, while their success and sustainability are not guaranteed, they have required a sacred sacrifice on the part of their adherents and it is that sacrifice and commitment that enables that commune to have a good chance of survival and the tools thereby to thrive.  Communes, who necessitate a "weeding out" process to ascertain your true intentions and to determine your suitability for their mission, for their purpose, are essentially the only communes with sustainability. 

Men with a common purpose that is above their selfish desires, that live for a higher purpose, are the essence of a good commune and Christian thinking as a whole.

Christ as the Lamb and the Lion of God

Most of us are quite familiar with the images and the persona of Christ as the Lamb of God.  Scripture underscores this in several passages such as:

                The next day John seeth Jesus coming unto him, and saith, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world. (John 1: 29)

                The place of the scripture which he read was this, He was led as a sheep to the slaughter; and like a lamb dumb before his shearer, so opened he not his mouth. (Acts 8:32)

                And cried with a loud voice, saying, Salvation to our God which sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb. (Revelation 7:10)

These above passages signify that Christ sacrificed Himself willingly on the cross as the ultimate sin offering to God and consequently for the redemption of humanity that in their collective ignorance had lost their way.  The amount of humility, discipline, courage, and self-control exhibited by Jesus the Christ to perform this sacred duty for our behalf was incredible and worthy of our utmost respect and love.  For a man, any man, let alone the Christ, to be subjected to painful and bloody beatings of his body, mocked and scourged, and then crucified like a common criminal when Christ, himself, had committed nothing to warrant these actions is excruciating to know.  This is the Chosen One of God, innocent, the Lamb of God, treated with abject contempt.

But fortunately, the story does not end there.  How could it?  Christ sacrificed his physical body and emptied his ego for our behalf to demonstrate that the greatest of us all surrenders Himself to God, and that our Spirit, our Soul, forever triumphs over our physical body that so many of us wrongly place too much attention to.  Still further to the point, Christ then resurrected Himself physically for our benefit to prove to us that it is the Spirit that manifests the body and not the other way around; and it is this bodily resurrection, this reconstitution, that built the foundation of the Christian religion as we know it today. 

The former is of the Christ, as our redeeming Lamb, but what of the Lion?  We read:

                        And one of the elders saith unto me, Weep not: behold, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, hath prevailed to open the book, and to loose the seven seals thereof. (Revelation 5:5)

The Lion as referenced in this scripture refers to Christ, who is of the tribe of Judah, which is the lineage of King David of the Old Testament.  It is important to understand Christ as the Lion, whose symbolic reference is one that is a King, fearless, majestic, and all mighty.  There is no God but our God, who is second to none, He is All and will ever be All, He is unchanging, He is justice, He is Truth, He is love, He is our King, and His Son is our Lion, who will forever protect us, guard us, redeem us, and when necessary will correct us, for God's justice will not rest forever.

Bullying

With the exception of Montana, every state in the Union has some form of anti-bullying legislation for school-age children as part of their law and all of this has occurred within the last few years.  While press conferences celebrating this legislation are often applauded and praised, I do take exception to all of this unnecessary legislation which while well-meaning is misapplied.

Going through adolescence is a difficult process and within this growth there are bound to be plenty of tests, turns, and trials.  Bullying is often a rite of passage in which some are bullied, some are the bully, and some aren't impacted by bullying at all.  The basic question comes down to whether or not children are mean and nasty to one another.   Well, yes, often many adolescents are.  We may not wish that that is the case but the fact of the matter speaks for itself.  Anti-bullying legislation won't stop that behavior, it will simply be another case of an unnecessary bureaucracy interposing itself on children, with the mistaken vision that this law will allow us to get along and that justice thereby will be served. 

Before I go any further, let me allow you to know a little background of my own life in being bullied.  I was always physically the smallest or nearly the smallest male while going to school, in which some of my contemporaries were 60% larger or even bigger in size than I was.  I would say most of my bullying incidents mainly came about because of my smart-ass mouth but certainly not all of them.  Perhaps I would make a comment in class that would embarrass one of my bigger classmates and he would want to take it out on me later, so I had more than one of these confrontations.  Well, being bullied, being threatened or even hit, by a bigger boy that I could not possibly beat up is not an enviable position to be in.  The best defense in those types of situations is to try to make peace, apologize, humor, cry, or a combination thereof.  In really bad situations I would tell my parents and something would be worked out, in others, I learned to avoid that bully, and quite frankly I don't ever remember becoming good friends with a bully.  Now, the above all has to do with me being clearly outclassed in regards to size and strength, but that wasn't always the case with every bully I came across.  Sometimes, the person bullying me was perhaps only 30% bigger than me and in those cases, given the right circumstances, I would fight back, and I usually after a push by my foe or something to that effect, I got the first real punch in.  In those situations, and probably without exception, fighting back, no matter the end result (and usually that result was a good one for my fighting self), I garnered a lot of respect from my contemporaries, and quite frankly it made me feel good about myself. 

You could say that bullying was never always a negative, it taught me that there are consequences to your own actions in regards to what you say and what you do, and that there are times in which you must be a doormat, but there are also times in which you are called to be courageous.   I remember one embarrassing incident during gym, when a much bigger and mean-spirited boy deliberately splashed hard on a water puddle in which the water got all over the front of my gym shorts, and then had the gumption to turn to a couple girls that were walking our way and say, "he just peed in his pants".   I quickly thought of a lot of possible responses I had, but none of them made any sense, I mean to deny that I peed in my pants would serve to confirm that I actually had, to explain the real situation to the girls would take too long and wouldn't be believed anyway, and ultimately I didn't say a word at all but went about my business, and later I had a good chuckle about it, because although quite mean, the bully had played it well.

Anti-bullying legislation isn't necessary and isn't warranted.  You have a voice, use it; you have a body, use it; you have a mind, use it; you have parents, use them; you have school authorities, you can also use them.  Whatever that you do, don't quit on yourself; I never did and neither should you.

Annex Baja California

California is our most populous state and directly south of California, across the border in Mexico is Baja California which is subdivided into Baja California and Baja California Sur.   It should be a desire of the United States to annex Baja California, but first a little historical background.  Two hundred years ago, Mexico was a country that was twice as large as it is today.  Our states of Arizona, California, New Mexico, Nevada, and Texas (our second most populous state) were all once completely within the confines of Mexico.  Additionally, the states of Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Wyoming have territory within them that were also once part of Mexico.  The United States of America would not be the country it is today without these states and the territories that we captured or won via war whether foul or fair.

America has a contiguous border on the north with Canada and on the south with Mexico.    In regards to Canada, their per capita income and their per capita wealth is comparable to the United States; unfortunately, the situation in Mexico is pathetic, with per capita income at very low levels and the distribution of this income skewered to an elite and consequently the vast majority of Mexicans are quite poor, and this despite the fact that the wealthiest country in aggregate in the world shares a 2,000 mile long border with them.

The idea of annexing Baja California is something that was attempted previously through conquest by William Walker with a small group of adventurous men in 1853.  Walker's efforts, however, were not backed by the United States, and in fact Walker would be tried for violation of our Neutrality laws, and additionally his mission of conquest of Baja California ultimately ended in failure and defeat.  Fast forward to the present time and Baja California looks like a land that under the right aegis could become a future paradise.  Baja California is an 800 mile peninsula with the Pacific Ocean to its west, and the Sea of Cortes to its east; it's perfect for tourism, agriculture, shipping, and manufacturing.

Of course, Baja California is already populated by a few million peoples and they are of mainly Mexican descent.  The annexation of Baja California would not forcefully remove historic residents from Baja California although as part of eminent domain within the annexation there would be a movement of some of those peoples.  Also, the annexation of Baja California would provide better income opportunities, education, and a pathway for those residents to apply for United States citizenship. 

To effect this annexation, eminent domain would be necessitated and would include all of Baja California with the exception of the major cities of Tijuana, Mexicali, and Ensenada which would be separately dealt with.  The annexation of Baja California would be accomplished with probably the largest bond offering in the history of America, and therefore the world.   This process of change would take time, logistics, and no doubt leave some trail of tears.  However, one need only look at the material difference between our two countries to understand that this leap of faith, would be of massive mutual beneficence and I do believe that Mexico would be amendable to the right overtures and the right deal.

The Water Scam

The Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) was passed in 1974, in order to protect the public from contaminants in our public water and to promote the safety and protection of these waters.  Overall, in aggregate, our tap water is quite safe and is regularly tested for pollutants to protect the public.  Since safe water is essential and fundamental for our good health it is imperative that our tap water continue to remain safe now and into the foreseeable future. 

Many people do not like to drink tap water unfiltered and the filtering of tap water by the consumer is relatively low-cost and worthwhile.  One must recognize, however, that the filtering of tap water will not purify the water, but it will help considerably in removing chemicals, such as chlorine, and sediment from the tap water.  However, in order to purify tap water, one must purchase a water distiller purification system, in which the water is first heated to the boiling point, which then creates steam which is collected by the water purification system and ultimately that steam is converted back into liquid form, but without the contaminates. You can also purify tap water given the property tools through de-ionization or reverse osmosis.

The above would indicate that there are plenty of tools at our disposal to assure ourselves that our drinking water is clean, especially if the tap water is essentially safe to begin with.  In cases in which the tap water within your community is contaminated, the usage of such water for drinking purposes without taking the necessary steps to purify it, would most definitely put your health in danger.  Fortunately, in those communities in which the water has tested poorly, we have ready access to plenty of good, safe, bottled water which is a blessing.

What is puzzling; however, are those that deliberately purchase bottle water in which their tap water gives every indication of being safe.  Not only that, depending upon what type of water that you purchase, you may be purchasing tap water itself in which the sole difference is the area of the country that the tap water originates from.  While there is water that you can purchase that is labeled as carbonated, underground, glacial, artesian, or as spring water, you will pay dearly for the privilege of drinking it.

For instance, for 2012, Americans spent a staggering $11.8 billion dollars on bottled water, in which for most of us, free tap water is readily available.  I mean I know people that instead of providing tap water for their pets to drink provide them instead with bottled water.  Why? I believe that Americans buy so much bottle water because they treat water as if it is a special beverage, worthy of its own packaging, its own cachet, and its own place.  For instance, when you have company over, and you offer them something to drink, you can't possibly consider giving them a chilled glass of tap water, or tap water on ice, or tap water poured from a pitcher; no, you must provide them with their own bottle water, hopefully from the right company with the right prestige. 

The Last Great Hope for the Republicans -- Win California

I've previously discussed that the Democrats have a stranglehold on the Presidency and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future.  The reason that I say this is the mathematics of the present era in which over the last six Presidential elections, or twenty-four years, there have been eighteen states and the District of Columbia that have voted Democratic in each of those years.  The total electoral votes for those eighteen states and DC, which includes California, is 240 electoral votes in which the President need only 270 to be elected.  The Republicans on the other hand, however, have just thirteen states for a total of 102 electoral votes that have voted for the Republican candidate in each of the last six elections.  The difference between these two numbers are so great, that it is essentially a foregone conclusion that the Democrats will win the Presidency unless the biggest State of the Union was to flip to the other side, by backing a favored son.  California was not always a reliable Democratic ticket, as seen by the fact that first Nixon and then Reagan were able to carry the state.  However, since that time, the demographics of Republican registration has slipped considerably, so that today registered Republicans make up a mere 30% of the registered voters in California.

But all is not lost, because first in 2003 through a recall election, and then in 2006 when re-elected, an Austrian born body builder and actor, Arnold Schwarzenegger was elected the Governor of California.  If a man such as Schwarzenegger can do it, it would be considered reasonable to believe that the right candidate could do it on a Presidential scale in the near future.

California is the key to any hope for the Republicans in future elections, as a successful carrying of California would subtract 55 electoral votes from the Democrats and add 55 electoral votes to the Republicans, narrowing considerably the Democratic certain numerical advantage from 240-102, to 185-157, which makes it a real horse race.

But whom would the Republicans run?  They could only consider running someone with a highly favorable public perception that is either from the entertainment world, the sports world, or possibly the corporate world.  This particular person need not currently be a registered Republican, in fact in all probability that person would probably not be a registered Republican, and so the flipping of that particular registration would probably be done behind the scenes, and would remain unknown until such time as it became appropriate for a coming out party for said candidate.

For those who are appalled that someone that is not a professional or experienced politician could have the audacity to run for President, the answer to that would be the public approval rating of politicians in general which is abysmally low so to be perceived as an outsider, would be considered by a significant portion of the people to be a breath of fresh air. 

Although there are many reasons why people vote for the people that they vote for, often times, it does come down to people voting for people that they like, and it's as simple as that.

The Money-changers and Jesus

Each of the four gospels has the story of Jesus and the money-changers, John's story is earlier in Jesus' ministry, and the other three synoptic gospels place the money-changer story at Jesus' final Passover.  The story itself seems out-of-place, Christ the Redeemer, losing his temper, losing his cool; Impossible!  But that perspective isn't correct and first a little background on this passage.

In Jesus time, the Passover was one of the festivals in which Jews from all over the land, made the pilgrimage to the Holy Temple of Jerusalem.   As part of the process of the pilgrims showing their humility and thankfulness to God, sacrifices and/or temple donations were mandated to the temple religious authorities.  In Jesus' time, there was no common currency between distant communities; additionally it was considered a sacrilege to donate coinage with graven images (i.e. Roman coinage) as opposed to appropriate Jewish coinage so monies therefore had to be converted to conform to Temple policies.    All of this seems both practical and reasonable.  However, we read: "And Jesus went into the temple of God, and cast out all them that sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the moneychangers, and the seats of them that sold doves,   and said unto them, It is written, My house shall be called the house of prayer; but ye have made it a den of thieves."  (Matthew 21:12-13)

This seems like an extreme overreaction by Jesus.  For instance, nowhere within the gospel do we read that the money-changers were cheating their clientele; it seemed on the surface that the money-changers were merely providing a well needed orderly market and service for the pilgrims.  What then is the problem?  The problem fundamentally is that the material world has polluted into the spiritual temple of our hearts and our minds.  The purpose of Passover is to show devotion to our Lord, everything else that takes us away from this purpose is at odds to it, what should matter to use is our right relationship with our Lord, especially on the very days and times that we have specifically set aside to worship Him.

Therefore Jesus' overturning of the tables and the casting out of the money-changers is to dramatically show us that our behaviors and our minds are not right thinking and that consequently we need a "wake-up" call to re-orient ourselves to our primary purpose which is devotion to God and nothing else.  Jesus cast out the money-changers to shake us out of our lethargy and to admonish us that our primary purpose is to love our Lord our God with all of our heart, with our entire mind, and with our entire being.  Jesus had no choice but to treat us as recalcitrant children in which a mere gentle admonition would not be enough to garner our attention and to protect us from our own errors and thereby place us back onto the straight and narrow path.

Jesus never lost his temper in this instance, he instead inserted his Divine Presence to rebuke those who mean well but are fogging the Divinity of God to our ultimate disservice.  Our enemies are not always those that are our fiercest rivals but those that think they know right but are wrong.

The Great Migration

The Emancipation Proclamation was implemented on January 1, 1863, legally freeing all slaves in any State that was still in rebellion against the Union.  The South was officially vanquished on April 9, 1865 with Lee's surrender at Appomattox.  Soon thereafter, the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments were ratified to our Constitution.  These Amendments eliminated slavery, made citizens of all native born peoples, and gave the vote to all men.  These Amendments in principle thereby gave all Constitutional rights to those that had previously been enslaved and treated as property.  Unfortunately, despite some initial progress for blacks after the Civil War, the South would rise again and essentially subjugate the blacks within their borders to conditions that were alike to slavery but not called slavery.  These became known as "Jim Crow" laws in which blacks were subjected to unequal treatment, arbitrary law, denied their civil liberties, and segregated from whites in employment, education, and social interaction.

It was during World War I that the beginning of the great migration was first enacted.  The industrialized north had relied upon immigration from Europe to fuel its needs but when the War began, that immigration from Europe came to a halt and with America officially entering the war in 1917 and having to build up its military forces and armaments for its own use and its allies, there was an acute labor shortage in the North.  This labor was fulfilled by recruiting blacks from the south and this recruitment became an exodus of over 400,000 blacks between the years of 1916 to 1918 that migrated from the South to the North, at a time in which the black population in the country as a whole was only about 8 million blacks.

It was these migrating blacks, the Northern newspapers such as "The Chicago Defender", and the trains that ran south to north, east to west, which became the foundations that would enable blacks to escape from the oppression of the South to the possibilities of the North.  Was the North that "promised land" that so many blacks had hoped for?  It was and it wasn't.  But at least in the North, there were no segregated trains, no segregated movie theaters, no segregated schools, and no lynching,   Additionally, in the North there were opportunities for employment, for home ownership, for voting, which simply didn't exist in the racist South.

In the North as well as the West, a diligent black man, reliable and with good work habits, was desired, employable, and could make a living wage despite the fact that he was limited to only certain jobs, often denied promotion, and was paid less than a white man for similar work.  Also in the North, a black man could own property in certain areas of the city, have a family that he could provide for and protect, and begin to become part of the American dream.  In the South, a black man could never truly be a man, because the South feared the black man and thereby oppressed, emasculated, and abused the black man because he was perceived as a threat to the Southern way.

It is a blessing though, that in America, people can vote with their feet.  Before the great migration around 87.5% of blacks lived in the South.  After the great migration ended, around 1970, it was about 50:50.  To leave your place of birth, to leave the only thing that you have ever known, to face the unknown and the uncertain, takes great courage and can put your very life in peril.  These men, women, and children that were part of this great migration are the true trailblazers and the forefathers of the civil rights that were achieved many years later.  We owe them a great debt of gratitude because their sacrifices came with much blood, sweat, and tears.

Golden Parachute

Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) have never been compensated any better than they are today, in which their corporate salaries, perks, and bonuses routinely crush the average pay of other employees at their conglomerate.  To make matters worse, somehow it has become standard for CEOs and other high executive officers to get a golden parachute payment for retirement, replacement, or even for dismissal.  That's a crying shame, a sham to the stockholders, and a disgrace to those who are in charge of corporate governance.

The so-called reason for CEOs to receive a golden parachute is in case of a merger or acquisition in which the CEO might be terminated upon the consummation of the deal.  Give me a break!  CEOs and other highly compensated executives make enough money in one year than most people make in their lifetimes!  These executives are highly placed and most will have no problem with finding some sort of suitable employment at a high salary with some other corporation or end up working as a highly-paid consultant.  In any event, for a real CEO, a golden parachute shouldn't be necessary.  Either he is as good as he claims to be in which case he is already richly compensated or he is some sort of failure and throwing good money after bad is a very bad business practice.

Golden parachutes help to give CEOs a Messiah complex, that is to say, that these particular executives are so important, of such value, that it is the corporation's duty, its obligation, to pay them onto perpetuity.  What rot!  The CEOs primary duty is to the shareholders and not to himself.   Therefore, every dollar, every perk, every benefit given to the CEO is taken from the stockholders as a whole.  It is up to the Board of Directors to quit rubberstamping corporate pay, corporate perks, and corporate golden parachutes and make decisions that are in the best interests of the corporation and its stockholders.  Every man likes to think of himself as irreplaceable, but the fact of the matter is that graveyards are full of people who thought the same thing, and the world still goes on. 

Golden parachutes are simply not necessary for executives that are highly compensated and rewarded well enough to begin with.  However, I am not completely opposed to a golden parachute for a merger as long as the condition would read that all employees that are terminated, replaced, or retired, because of the merger or takeover are compensated with the same percentage compensation package as the CEO.  After all, it's only fair that what the goose receives, the goslings should receive in kind too.

In absence of that sort of democratic and fairness in regards to a corporate golden parachute, then golden parachutes should be retired to the dustbin of history.  At a date and time in which so many employees are employed "at will" and therefore can be terminated at any time for virtually any reason, those that are far higher up the food chain, should also be employedunder those same trying conditions. 

The golden parachute for CEOs is nothing more than "gaming" the system, and the system is gamed far enough already.  Game over.

Fractional Reserve Banking

Fractional reserve banking is a fraud upon the American people and other countries in which their central or controlling banks practice the same thing.  The very definition of fractional reserve banking should send shivers up and down one's spine.  Basically, a deposit is made at a bank, and by law the banks need only hold a portion or a fraction of the demand deposits place into the bank and can thereby loan out the remainder of the money to the public at large.  To translate it another way, you make a deposit into your bank in good faith in which you can demand your money back at any time for any reason from the bank.  Instead of safekeeping your money and possibly even charging you a fee for doing so, the bank instead, loans your money out and hopes that you won't come a knocking on the door and demand your money back.  It's quite clearly a formula for disaster and is deliberately duplicitous in its nature.  The apparent purpose of fractional reserve banking is to keep the money flowing and in circulation to the public at large, noble goals for what they are worth, but fractional reserve banking is not the ideal way to do this.

In actuality, fractional reserve banking benefits the banks most of all through the power of leverage.  They banks are protected by law and afforded the opportunity to lend out monies that they no longer have on demand and thereby make profits from doing so.   This is a beautiful system for the banks as long as the public doesn't make a rush to retrieve their monies all at once. If, however, there is a run on a particular bank or banks, and people who made these deposits in good faith, demand their deposits back now, the whole house of cards is in a position of imminent collapse.  This is the fundamental problem and error of allowing fractional reserve banking for demand deposits. 

Far better it would be to have our banking system return to full reserve banking.  Within full reserve banking, a depositor would be given the opportunity to either make his deposit, a demand deposit, and thereby the bank acts in a fiduciary capacity to protect his deposit and in all likelihood would charge a fee for doing so, or the depositor could take all or portion of the monies deposited and be issued a certificate of deposit, or a time deposit,  in which a particular term length amount and interest fee would be assigned to the depositor for the term completion of said loan.  All of this would be on the up and up, in which no money is being created out of thin air, no leverage is being utilized by the bank, and money itself maintains its utility and its usefulness.  This would bring back sound money to our country and would substantially stabilize its value.  In fact, with full reserve banking, our government could still issue fiat money and not have to revert back to the gold or silver standard, so that there would be no return to the brow of labor being crucified on a cross of gold.

Fort Knox

“Goldfinger” is one of my favorite movies, the plot is a little bit difficult to swallow, but suffice to say that the villain, Auric Goldfinger, really does believe that Fort Knox is the biggest repository of gold in the entire world and his sinister operations center around compromising that gold, and thereby making Goldfinger’s gold much more valuable and he, much more powerful.  Now fifty years later, questions have continued to be asked as to whether Fort Knox has as much gold as it purports to have.

Fort Knox is estimated to have 147.3 million troy ounces of gold, in which with gold priced at about $1250/ounce this is worth somewhere in the neighborhood of $184.1 billion.  Incredibly, the reserves at Fort Knox have not been audited since 1953, and it is questionable what that audit even accomplished.  What should be done at Fort Knox is a complete and thorough audit of the gold, to determine not only its quantity, its weight, but also its purity, as urged by Ron Paul and so many others.

The audit of Fort Knox is a no-brainer.  Yearly physical audits are a requirement for most companies and not to have an audit for over sixty years of a task as straightforward as determining how much physical gold Fort Knox contains is inexcusable.  The lack of transparency and the absence of an up-to-date audit is prima facie evidence that all is not sound at Fort Knox and the estimates of the gold that is contained there is thereby highly suspect.

Our government has an obligation to be a good steward of our money and to be forthright and honest in regards to what or what isn’t contained at Fort Knox.  If there isn’t a story at Fort Knox, that all the gold that is supposed to be there, is there, than why not take the steps to document that information in such a manner as to prove that to the American people beyond a reasonable doubt.  

In fact, the government for its own purposes, even if not publicly disclosed, should desire to know how much gold is or isn’t at Fort Knox.  Quite frankly, I don’t believe that anyone alive actually knows how much gold is at Fort Knox and apparently those in power deliberately do not want anyone to know.  Smoke and mirrors can only work for so long and I am amazed, that Fort Knox, gold, and how much or how little gold there is, has survived this long without the ghost being given up.

Gold has been currency in many civilizations over long periods of time, because of its scarcity, its malleability, its lack of oxidization, and its desirability.  Any government can print reams and reams of paper money, can create fiat currency, but that currency will at some point become worthless or nearly so because governments come and governments go through conquest, abandonment, or decay. In fact, gold is the real deal and that is why alchemists tried so hard to change base metals into gold for so many years.  Is Fort Knox the real deal?  In absence of any verified proof, the answer is clearly no.

Federal Deficits

This is a country that lacks both the courage and the conviction to raise taxes on its population in order to balance its budget and thereby run a sound and fiscal federal government, nor does our country have the will to reduce expenses, expenditures, and budgets in order to help accomplish that goal.  While there are plenty of other nations that suffer from the same problem, none are of the size, the girth, and influence as the United States.  Additionally, there are numerous countries that don't run a fiscal deficit; in fact they currently have surpluses, in which of note we have South Korea, Norway, and Brazil.   America has not always been this profligate, and we need only go back to as recently as the years of 1998-2001 in which our federal government actually ran a surplus in each of those years to demonstrate that, but since that time American has become especially imprudent as in each of the years of 2009-2012, our deficits were the highest the country has ever experienced since its creation, even adjusting for inflation for the World War II deficit spending years.  That obviously bodes very poorly for our country's fiscal responsibility going forward.

These massive federal deficits are essentially an unfair and unauthorized taxation on our youngest generation and on generations of Americans to come.  America has borrowed again and again against its future to pay for guns and butter today.  To make matters worse, the United States simply won't own up to the fact that its spending and deficits are out of control and fiscally irresponsible.  To hear House Minority leader, Nancy Pelosi, recently state that: "the cupboard is bare, there's no more cuts to make," in regards to the federal budget is to know that America is morally bankrupt and on firm footing for complete fiscal bankruptcy. 

Business cycles of booms and busts are pretty much the historic norm, despite the belief that government can control or mitigate these cycles.  Consequently, in lean years, it is not surprising that our federal government will run a deficit that is to be expected, but within those lean years, there should be mandated a fiscal tightening on the government itself, but in fact that isn't happening at all.  While incomes for the majority of Americans have been stagnate for almost two generations, those that live and work in the surrounding areas around Washington DC have seen an explosion in their income gains.   The reason for this is as simple as the closer you are to the power source, the further up in the food chain you are especially to the contracts, contacts, and to the lobbyists, the bigger the slice of pie that you will reap and those that touch the money first always get the most benefit from it.  Those that are connected will reap the biggest benefits of a federal budget currently in the neighborhood of $3.5 trillion. 

America is playing a shell game with its taxpayers, it's rigged, it's wrong, and it can't go on forever.   No child likes to be told "no", no man likes to be denied, nobody really likes to lose, but the reality of the situation is that when anybody tries to be all things to everybody, in-discriminatory, undisciplined, unprincipled, unscrupulous, self-centered, and double dealing, it will end with everybody receiving a really raw deal.

Drugs

One of the biggest scourges in America is the abuse and over-prescription of drugs, be it legal or illegal.  What is this lure that gets reasonable men and women to keep making decisions that are poorly thought through, with detrimental effects, and devastating negative consequences?

While there are a lot of reasons why people voluntarily take drugs I will discuss some of the most prevalent.  For some people, there is somewhat of a misimpression that drugs will help them to cope better, to feel better about themselves, and/or to function better in society.  The error in this type of thinking is not to acknowledge that life itself will have its up and downs, its highs and lows, and its challenges.  Drugs don't necessarily solve the inner problem, but more often than not help to mask the problem, but the problem still remains.

For most people, you don't need drugs to feel better about yourself or your situation.  You may think you need drugs but that judgment is often erroneous.  People who consider themselves to be in dead-end jobs, or a dead-end life, or dead-end dreams, often turn to drugs because their life is so humdrum, but the taking of the drugs doesn't improve the life or the situation, it only possibly helps to alleviate it temporarily but the underlining problems are still there, unaddressed and unanswered.

To take away the need for drugs, often you must find a purpose in life that is outside of yourself, a drive to better the world, or to improve your neighborhood, or to help someone in need.  When you have a determined purpose in life, when life has meaning to you, the need or the desire for drugs is dissipated.  Additionally, one must stand up and take responsibility for their decisions and their life in order to beat-down the lure of drugs and its culture.  A man with a purpose in life, a man with focused goals, will not allow himself to get sidetracked by the smokescreen and falseness of drug intoxication.

Man has a yearning desire to feel peace, to be blissful, and to be calm and centered.  He wrongly believes that through drugs he can achieve these goals but in fact drugs deadens the senses, deadens the mind, and turns off the very light that man needs most.   The lure of drugs is the delusion of shortcuts that man wrongly believes will bring lifelong bliss with little or no effort.  Every time that you take a shortcut, you have in fact, wandered away from the straight and narrow path and have instead taken a side path to nowhere and to darkness. 

While drugs rightly prescribed and taken under supervision have their place and their effectiveness, recreational drugs seldom do.  While taking these recreational drugs you feel fortunate if you achieve euphoria or even bliss, but this will dissipate to be replaced once again with emptiness and hollowness.  Therefore you will desire to repeat this cycle again and again, but like a rat in a cage that gets up on his exercise wheel and falsely believes that he is running to freedom or better days, you will instead be on the wheel of life that goes nowhere, takes you nowhere, and ends nowhere.