Arranged Marriages

Arranged marriages in America appeared to have gone the way of the Dodo bird, but in fact, that really isn't quite true.  Arranged marriages are still valid in America today, to which some of three specific groups of people still maintain this tradition, they are:

1.       Conservative religious people

2.       Highly educated, 1st generation Americans

3.       The rich and powerful (but typically not nouveau riche)

The reasons that these certain people are still abiding by arranged marriages is the basic understanding that rather than "love" being the primary factor in the preferred selection of one's lifetime mate, that there should instead be the careful consideration of the qualities of the proposed mate, which often includes their personality, family background, religious affiliation, economic aspects, political affiliations, heritage, long-term considerations, and the "big picture".

Another factor that isn't quite the same as an arranged marriage is the falling out of favor, of the asking of the permission from the father of the proposed bride, for the hand of his daughter.  This in of itself would do far more to remove frivolous and/or irresponsible marriages from the table to begin with than virtually anything else.  If you're proposed spouse isn't able to stand up to his future father-in-law face-to-face, at the beginning of a relationship which has progressed to a serious and mature stage, taking that time to identify himself and his future prospects, but rather on the other hand, prefers some sort of subterfuge to win the hand of his spouse with our without his future in-law's approval, that doesn't necessarily bode well for the stability or the reliability of the marriage to be.

While there are many negative things to criticize about arranged marriages, such as essentially taking away your right to choose your spouse, and also the inherent interference and complexity of trying to please everyone within the family dynamic, there are many advantages to basically having each party display their intentions and their prospects out and into the open to be reviewed, looked at, and carefully considered.  You can certainly make the valid point, that the more people that are involved in the contemplation of a proposed arranged marriage, makes for more people that have a vested interest in therefore having a successful selection andthereby a successful fruition of said relationship.

While there may not be any highly reliable statistics that demonstrate the success or lack of for arranged marriages, it is probably fair to say that the expectations for arranged marriages are pictured far differently than marriages between couples that simply fall in love.  For instance, marriages between extremely devout religious people, between highly educated and overachieving couples, as well as marriages between the rich and powerful, are marriages that conjoin those forces for a specific purpose and the breaking of that purpose will not be done for frivolous reasons.

While many Americans believe that having the choice of one's spouse, is a wonderful freedom, there are situations to which having too much choice, precludes someone from ever making that choice, as they keep searching and searching for that perfect spouse, only to discover one day, that the party is over, and they have no one left to party with.

Apprenticeship

In the United States it is compulsory for all citizens to attend school until at least the age of 16, unless said student is incorrigible, in which case he may be expelled earlier.  Having attended school, it is clear that there are some "students" who simply aren't interested, aren't motivated and aren't engaged with their scholastic studies.  The fact that day after day they sit in the class either bored, disruptive, or worse, isn't the best usage of their time nor is it fair to the other students in the class.  While I do applaud any programs, teachers, and student assistants, that do attempt to motivate these reluctant students, there are definitely many cases to which nothing will work for them because they simply don't have the tools, the desire, of the maturity to do well within this educational environment.

The fact of the matter is that school is not necessarily the best place for all teenagers in America and will never be.  While I can think of several things that will help to motivate teenagers, near the very top of this list has to be the ability to make money.  Most people of any age, understand that money has value, has utility, is desirable, and if there is a path that will bring forth money to them, they are at a minimum interested in at least pursuing it for some duration of time and perhaps for much, much longer.

What has fallen out of favor in America is apprenticeships, to which in lieu of going to school, or even attending a trade-school, one can learn the art of a particular craft, be it plumbing, home repair, carpentry, or other tradecraft, from an expert tradesmen in his particular field of endeavor.  There are many people who have little natural skill or desire in book reading, or have the patience of sitting still in school, but have a natural aptitude for working with things with their hands and/or tools, and have a good conception of how things go together while also appreciating the art of a craft that brings forth immediate results, such as seeing a sink that is stopped and non-working, that is  brought back to life as if it was new, all in the span of a few minutes or an hour or two.

The best time to grab a teenager's mind is while he is still interested in learning, still amazed by certain things that later on he won't care about or will be cynical of.  It would be far better to have programs initiated within schools, or within communities, that allow teenagers to opt-out of school earlier, or to allow them to reduced their school hours, while giving them the opportunity at a young age instead to be mentored by an experienced and skilled tradesmen to thereby learn a craft that will give them the chance to make their own money and to be their own person with valuable self-worth in the future.

No doubt, apprenticeships will not work out for everyone under every circumstance, but when students have already begun to tune out of school, or are tuned out, for one reason or another, there is only a short period of time to re-engage this teenager to apply himself to something of real worth, before he in essence becomes a ward of the state, for the rest of his natural life.  We would be far better off recognizing that mentorship is essential for our youth, and that not everyone is ever going to be, nor desires to be college material, so why not provide a real alternative path, and bring back apprenticeships.

Think Carefully before Selling your Cell phone

Smart cell phones in a lot of ways are like mini-computers, because they browse the web, store and send email, store pictures and other pertinent information, and also keep a historical record of all of your activity.  While data can be stored in a cloud, much data is commonly stored on a micro SD card specifically made for cell phones, and/or SIM cards, and also data is stored in flash (ROM) memory.  As a user of a cell phone, you often don't consciously care where your data is stored, how your data is treated, or anything to that effect, but in actuality you should care deeply about this.

For instance, a brand-new cell phone will, by definition, have none of your personal information on it.  The cell phone will have however the programs, directories, and the operating system necessary for your smart phone to function properly but the balance of the storage information on that phone will be unused, only awaiting your input.  Once you begin using your smart phone, data will be stored, further, data that you delete will often not be deleted from the phone itself but merely be put into a different directory or location of the phone, to which it may or may not ever be permanently deleted, depending upon a multitude of factors.

People upgrade and replace their phones quite often; some do it as often as once a year or even more frequently depending perhaps upon whether they have a contract with a carrier which promotes more frequent upgrades as part of their plan.  Some consumers upgrade every two years, and others upgrade only when they feel out-of-date or their phone is malfunctioning, or when they have the extra funds.  When upgrading, for some people, they have no choice but to turn in their phone, to which they are promised that their previous cell phone will be wiped clean by the vendor, whereas some people sell their old phones, and others simply allow their phone to gather dust.

In the cases, to which you voluntarily relinquish your phone to your vendor or sell your phone, it is inherently your responsibility to protect your personal information, to which your smart phone may have an incredibly amount of both compromising and sensitive information that you would not normally desire to be in the hands of someone else, yet this mistake happens all the time.  While I do commend the people that perform a system reset to their phone, under the belief that this will permanently erase all personal information, the sad fact often is that your personal data is still on the phone mainly because the data has only be re-allocated on the cell phone, but not truly overwritten or truly erased. 

For all practical purposes, a system reset is simply not good enough to erase all your personal information.  Instead, you must often procure a well recommended "app" that will truly erase all of your personal information.  Additionally, and ideally, you should maintain control of your micro SD card and/or SIM module and not include these as part of the exchange of your old cell phone.  Hi-tech criminals are not stupid and they are extremely motivated to pick up, on the cheap, old smart phones that were once state-of-the-art in their day, and will actively use all of their powers and tools to retrieve bank information, credit card information, and any other compromising communications that they can successfully monetize. 

The consumer must recognize that when he relinquishes his cell phone without adequately obliterating his personal data, he may well also be relinquishing a pathway to identity thief, personal embarrassment, or even worse.

Small towns in the USA

Occasionally you hear people complaining about how crowded the United States is, how many people that we have, and that there just isn't room enough for all of them.  Unless you are living in NYC, or have never traveled out of your community which resides in a large city, most of the United States, especially the western parts (but not the coast) are practically barren.  In fact, the density of America in peoples is 1/10th the density of Japan, 1/15th the density of South Korea, and as listed by worldatlas.com, the 142th densest country in the world out of 192 countries.  If we take any time at all to fly, to drive, to take a train or a bus throughout America, you will see acres and acres, miles upon miles, of places that are practically devoid of human life.  While American living is primarily urban, with just 16% of Americans living in rural areas as of 2010; a percentage, by the way, which continues to drop as smaller communities age and younger residents of such communities leave for bigger urban areas, there are still, however, quite a few small towns in America.

I've driven through small towns and communities, visited small towns and communities, and walked around and stayed in small towns and communities, to which fairly quickly one is able to discern that they aren't the same as large metropolitan areas.  While small towns come in all sorts of varieties, such as towns that survive on needed outside tourist dollars, towns that are strictly agricultural or livestock, or towns that have one large manufacturing plant, each small town seems to have its similarities.  For instance, small towns aren't a good place to be anonymous because they do want to know your personal business, there is a distinct hierarchy in towns, tradition also plays a big part in small towns, and seemingly minority opinions about virtually anything aren't readily accepted in towns.

While there is a lot of good that can be said about small towns taking a personal interest in you, lending you a helping hand, and desiring to make you a part of the town mindset and principles, there is the other aspect of group pressure to conform to community standards.  After all, no man is an island, and small towns will quickly make this inherent fact known to you, so unless you are very skilled and capable of providing all that you need on your own, you will often find yourself instead forced into situations to which your best interests lie in simply adhering to the expectations and hallmarks of your community standards.

For those that have live in small communities for all of their life, there is something to be said, about knowing that you need not worry about being misidentified, railroaded on false charges, or treated in a manner that is not consistent to your bearing within the community.  Those aspects are very positive to which too much of urban life consists of bogus laws, rules, and infractions, which are basically used as a way to augment budgets or to keep certain denizens under the thumb of the powerful and connected.  Therefore, it can be a very welcoming experience to be in a place where you are truly known by your name and by your reputation and thereby feel more part of the fiber and being of said community.

Small towns at their best can be a welcomed sanctuary, a good fit for some, not so much for others, and often a throwback to simpler times and ways where character really matters.

The Politics of Abortion

Abortion has to be one of the most divisive issues in all of American politics to which there are extreme positions on either side.  It is fascinating to see such strong viewpoints held by people that are in complete loggerheads to one another.  Although I do believe that both sexes have all the incumbent rights to say, write, and to defend their beliefs in regards to abortion, one has to give additional emphasis to the female viewpoint since it is only the female sex that are capable of child-bearing, consequently I must say that no matter their position on abortion, the primary voice should be feminine and not masculine.   Through it all though, because this is a nation of laws, is the fact that the Supreme Court has weighed in on this matter in regards to abortion, under the somewhat dubious ruling that a woman has a Constitutional "right to privacy", but that hardly seems to be the real sustaining issue in regards to abortion.

Be that as it may, abortions are legal in all of the 50 States, albeit with additional limits or sanctions regulating abortion within the State.  Further, just because abortion is legal, doesn't mean that abortion will be easy to achieve, easy to find, easy to accomplish within a given State as not only are clinics or hospitals that perform abortion typically in short supply, often the doctors and medical staff needed are alsonot widely available.  This effectively means that it is the people within their respective States that have been effective in dealing with the abortion controversy in their own way as is their right.

When it comes to party platforms, the Democratic Party has made it their policy that they believe it is the woman's right to choose, that it is her choice as to whether to have an abortion or not, and further that this right should not be truncated by an inability to pay for this particular medical procedure.  Whereas the Republican Party has made it their policy to assert the sanctity of all human life, including the unborn child and that abortion should therefore be made illegal, and the funding or promotion of more services for adoption should be provided.  Clearly, these party positions are at opposite ends of the spectrum, one making the mother paramount, while the other makes the fetus paramount.

Consequently, when it comes down to voting on issues during public elections, one must carefully consider the party platforms of the two major parties.  For some people, abortion is the issue, the only issue, so you can certainly take that leap of faith that if this is so, whichever side that you support, you should simply vote for the party representative that represents your viewpoint and pay no mind to what the politician says himself in regards to the issue, because most politicians like to present themselves as being for whatever you are for, and being against whatever you are against, simply for the expediency of receiving your vote.  The bottom line is that no good Democrat, nor no good Republican, can go against the political party line of their respective parties.  This simply means that a vote for a Democrat is a vote for abortion and a vote for a Republican is a vote against abortion.

 Having said this, I would far rather see all of the men take a backseat on this issue and instead let the women come to the forefront and truly have their say.  The result couldn't be worse than what we have currently and it may very well may be poignant, insightful and significant.

Police, Lethal Force, and Capital Punishment

There would appear to be a huge dichotomy between the fact that a police officer has the right to use lethal force and the fact that according to http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org, as of 2012 the average length of time between sentencing and execution for prisoners convicted of capital punishment is at 190 months.  This essentially means that a police officer in perhaps less than 19 minutes can take away the life of a human being, whereas if brought to a court of justice, it would take on average 190 months, if the perpetrator was convicted and sentenced to capital punishment which is of itself, currently legal in just 32 of our 50 states. 

According to usatoday.com, there are no complete statistics that tell us exactly how many people are killed by police forces throughout the United States, however, usatoday.com states, "nearly two times a week in the United States, a white police officer killed a black person during a seven-year period ending in 2012, according to the most recent accounts of justifiable homicide reported to the FBI."  While, regrettably there are times where lethal force is necessary, the prevailing reason why lethal force is exercised as often as it is in America, is because the weapons that the police use in so many communities are extremely effective in the taking away of life.  It should not have to be that way.

The most significant problem that our police forces have today is the massive amount of weapons and firepower that they have in their hands or in their vehicles or available as backup.  It doesn't take a genius to determine that the more firepower that you provide to a given police department, the more firepower that will eventually be utilized or deployed, especially if the prevailing mindset is to go into a situation with overwhelming force.  I sincerely doubt that there is a single criminal alive today who in his right mind believes that he can out-think, out-gun, or out-maneuver an experienced police force.  That being the case, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense for police to escalate a dangerous or a volatile situation to which there does not appear to be any real justifiable reason to begin the firing of their lethal weapons.  Police forces often have the manpower, the sophistication, the technology, and the experience to deal with a multitude of situations in which time is often on their side and sudden swiftness of lethal force is not required, nor necessitated.

The usage of alternatives to lethal weapons which are not typically lethal such as TASERs, batons, rubber bullets, pepper spray, strobes of light/noise and other devices should be a first consideration within any respectable police force.  The objective, except in situations of extreme urgency, should be to neutralize the target so that the person(s) can be brought to justice and not to terminate their life.  The killing of another human being by a police officer cannot be undone, it cannot be corrected, it cannot be amended, and while I certainly admit there are times when lethal force is necessary and right, in order to reduce those situations, you must first reduce the usage of the very weapons themselves which take away human life.

Not Your Momma's Cookies

The internet is a wonderful tool, at its best, it allows you to communicate in real-time, access critical and important information, communicate, and also keeps you up-to-date on all the news that fits your particular desire.  The browser that you use to access the internet is a facilitator for accomplishing the given tasks that you desire while utilizing all the wealth and breadth of the internet.  The activities that I accomplish on the internet I consider to be a fairly private interaction between me and other web sites and also people, and not something to which I would desire to have some unknown or undisclosed 3rd party, keeping track of my activities, my proclivities, my keyboard clicks, my IP address, my location, the date and time of my browsing, the page that I am viewing, or a unique ID assigned to myself by the cookie, the correlation of any information that I filled out about myself on their website, which are all typically stored as cookies on my computer.

If you are wondering whether you should really be concerned about cookies and the invasion of your privacy, you should ask yourself a couple of questions.  First, you should ask, to whom were cookies developed, for the consumer, or for the particular website, itself?  The next question you should ask is for whom does the cookie benefit, the consumer or the particular website issuing the cookie, itself?  Finally, you should note that most browsers default to accepting "all cookies", and when you change your browser settings to reject all cookies, messages such as: "Oops! Your browser seems to have cookies disabled. Make sure cookies are enabled or try opening a new browser window," pop up.

While there are obvious benefits to having websites that have a good beat on your shopping habits and desires so that they can possibly market you products that you desire or provide you with discounts that you are happy to receive, there are far more negative connotations on having a multitude of different corporations, marketing websites, and other agencies, that don't have your best interests in mind, and are definitely willing to sell your information to the highest bidder, in conjunction with having in their database pertinent information that you would not normally wish to be made available for public consumption whether by design or inadvertently.

When you speak to an attorney or to a medical doctor, you have the explicit right to attorney-client or doctor-patient confidentiality that protects you and your private business from prying eyes.  The internet, instead, offers you no guarantees and appears to be "gaming the system" so as to monetize your inclinations and habits to partially benefit yourself, but mainly to benefit parties that you are completely clueless about and that do not have your best interests in mind. 

Cookies are primarily a very effective way to exploit the consumer, essentially unbeknownst to that particular individual.  Cookies are a wolf in sheep's clothing, pretending to be your aid, pretending to be your friend, pretending that it's just a little, cute, tasty cookie, but it isn't, it's intrusive, it isn't necessary, and it's hidden.

Jesus between 12 and 30

There is no historical or religious figure of more prominence, of more importance, than the One who is known as the Son of God.  The Holy Scriptures prophesized about Him, to which his mission was fulfilled as Christ the Messiah as recorded in Scripture.  Yet, we know almost nothing in Scripture concerning Jesus between the ages of 12-30, to which his very birth was recorded as of divine importance, and later his death, resurrection, and ascension to the right hand of His Father were too recorded, and history itself was transformed by His mission and His message.

In the New Testament, the last recorded record of Jesus, before His ministry began at age 30 is in Luke 2:41-47, "…. And when he was twelve years old, they went up to Jerusalem after the custom of the feast….. And it came to pass, that after three days they found him in the temple, sitting in the midst of the doctors, both hearing them, and asking them questions. And all that heard him were astonished at his understanding and answers."  Then, incredibly, we hear nothing directly about Jesus, His wisdom, His life, or His mission, between the ages of 12 through 30.  The New Testament offers us no stories and no insight on Jesus during this crucial time in His life, which is astonishing.  Many Biblical scholars take passages such as Luke 2:51-52, and Mark 6: 2-3, as proof positive that Jesus' wisdom and learning increased during this time as He worked as a carpenter in Joseph's shop, awaiting the time when God would call Him forth to carry out His supreme Mission on earth, but their arguments appear weak.

The above theory does not hold much water because great gifts, great missions, in any endeavor, must be developed over a period of time, through either great teachers or great mentors.  I submit to you, that not even the Son of God can be the Son of God in human form, without first developing and drawing upon all the wisdom, experience, and training that is incumbent upon Him as God in flesh.  Jesus and his great wisdom is no happenstance, it is indeed a path taken only by one devoted and dedicated to propagating the proposition that through Him we all are saved.  Additionally, the absence of the discussion or the imparting of these critical years of development for Jesus, hints strongly that these passages in the life of Christ, were excised from Holy Scripture, in the mistaken belief that those that approved Biblical canon knew better what holy words should or should not be brought forth for the people and for man's wisdom and instruction.

Consequently, it is far more likely that during the ages of 12 through 30, that Jesus was instructed, trained, and guided by other Masters, or prophets, skilled in their knowledge of God and scripture, and certain in their recognition of Jesus' divine mission.  It cannot be any other way, as it is the height of arrogance to believe that divinity, wisdom, and perfection, comes without sacrifice, humility, and a purity to accept and to replicate God into their very soul.  Jesus could only be ready for His mission, when he was attuned to the Divine Presence that governs all life, which is signified with his baptism by John as we read in Matthew 3:16, "And Jesus, when he was baptized, went up straightway out of the water: and, lo, the heavens were opened unto him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and lighting upon him."

In truth and in light, we may wish that we go to Heaven; instead it is fairer and truer to state that we grow to Heaven.

Double Doors on Airlines

The successful terrorist attack of 9/11/2011 brought home the valid point that ceding control of the cockpit willingly or not, was no longer a valid response to a hijacking.  Instead, it would now be paramount that maintaining control of the cockpit was not only essential for the safety of all, but that it was also mandatory in order to make any nefarious plans for attacking the cockpit, an exercise in futility.  The response within America after 9/11 was to increase the security for the cockpit by better locking mechanisms, the usage of double-doors within the cockpit, the usage of security cameras and certain security protocols in conjunction with flight attendants, human security marshals on random flights, and a motorized Kevlar-type material that blocks the hallway to the cockpit.  All of these items have helped considerably in maintaining control of the cockpit, along with the obvious foreknowledge that the pilots of these airlines have a responsibility and a duty to police their own domain.

While one can make several arguments of the superiority of one security device and/or procedures over another, it doesn't take any real stretch of the imagination to recognize that if the pilots never leave the sanctuary of their cockpit, or their secured cockpit area, and are never visited by any airline personnel whatsoever during the duration of a particular flight, that this provides the highest conceivable security possible, to which a double-door system appears to be the most useful.  In fact, double doors can be readily designed through a system that provides a small area for a bathroom, first aid supplies, refreshments for the pilot crew, and at the same time absolutely minimizes the need to engage with anyone outside of the cockpit, except for reasons of pilot relief, incapacitation, or wing visual inspection.

Additionally, currently on American flights there are the monotonous pre-flight safety instructions which should be immediately augmented with something much more meaningful which is the responsibility that each passenger has to the whole of the aircraft, that is to say, in situations to which there appears to be something that is happening outside the bounds of normalcy, passengers have a responsibility and a duty to respond to this potential crisis, such as what occurred on United Flight# 93, or the underwear bomber crisis on Northwest Flight# 253.  This additional potential help would in of itself, be of immense importance in the securing and the prevention of a hijacking, or a detonation, or some other mayhem on a flight. 

The double-door concept or similar is the same type of safety that should be employed on other mass transit transportation drivers.  Clearly, in situations to which all sorts of havoc can be created by the loss of control of a mass transportation vehicle, integral steps must be taken to reasonably preclude the success of any particular hijacking.  I believe that it is fair to say, the greater the mass of the transportation device, the greater the measures that should be taken for good, solid security to protect the public and our commonwealth.

Car Rental Con Games

Perhaps your car is in the shop and you need a rental vehicle to get to and from work, or perhaps instead you are traveling in a city away from home, and desire a car rental to get around that destination and its tourist spots, if you are age 25 or above, you are probably going to get a car rental.  If you are under 25, you still might be able to get a car rental, it just becomes more problematic and expensive for doing so, and that should be your first hint that car rental agencies are all about one thing: making money.

Anytime you purchase anything, you should pay close attention to any extra items the store manager, or clerk is pushing you to purchase.  For instance, when you go to a grocery store, do they push anything extra on you, unless you have some sort of club membership, i.e. Sam's Club, they never do.   However, when you go to a Best Buy and purchase some electronic merchandise, you are almost invariably hit with a request for an extended warranty in which a simple "No", is usually not good enough for the cashier to shut-up, as they drone on and on and on.  Car rental agencies have their spiel down to a science and you should pay very careful attention to it.

When you sign up to get a rental car, you will be subject to all sorts of potential upgrades, ruses, and con games that you often do not need, to which most of them are just another avenue for the rental agency to get their hand into your pocket.  Let's look at the most common instances, one-by-one:

1.       Upgrade to your vehicle. When you pre-selected your vehicle type such as compact or SUV, unless you are running a con game of your own, it is assumed that this is the vehicle type that you actually want to drive or have the budget for, consequently when you are asked for an upgrade that is additional money, it should be a fairly straightforward decision to shoot it down.  The only reason not to turn down an upgrade, is if the upgrade is free of charge, mainly because they don't have your type of vehicle on the lot (by the way, if they downgrade you, you should always request a refund), or you purposely booked a lower vehicle grade, hoping that some "sweet talk" will allow you to upgrade for a reduced amount of money or possibly for free, but it's difficult to out-con a conman.

2.       Insurance.  It isn't legal to drive a vehicle in the States without car insurance, and most car insurance will be sufficient coverage for car rentals, in addition to the fact that most credit card companies will also offer you supplemental protection at no charge.  If you are diligent, you will actually call both your current car insurance company and your credit card company to ascertain what they do or what they do not cover.  Further to this point, there isn't anything that prevents you from getting your own additional car insurance coverage and setting that up ahead of time.  The sheer amount of signatures and initials that you have to put to your rental agreement for turning down extra insurance should send an immediate signal to your brain cells that car rental insurance is a big ticket extra money-maker for them, to which they try to apply the fear factor to "goat" you into signing the agreement.

3.       Gas. In America, there are a plentitude of gas stations, so pre-paying for gas as some sort of convenience, is a waste of your money, because the cost of their gas is so much higher than the street cost, this is a prime example of them "nickel and diming" you.

4.       Toll charges.  This particular charge is a new money maker for rental car agencies, mainly because they have added devices to their vehicles that allow automated tolls to be credited against the car.  Whether these tolls are even legitimate tolls in the first place is debatable, that is to say, you could be in the lane adjacent to the toll lane and your vehicle will inadvertently be charged for the toll.  Additionally, you are often in a strange city, to which you cannot say for a certainty that you didn't pass through a toll without paying.  What is not in issue is the price of the tolls is usually trivial, perhaps $2.50 or $3.00, and hardly worth disputing on their own, however, you won't see this charge when you return your rental car, for two reasons.  Reason#1 is that hidden deep within the Terms and Conditions the rental car company is allowed to charge your credit card for any additional incidentals upon the return of their vehicle, and Reason#2 is that the rental car company will attempt to pull one over on you by adding an administrative fee for this toll of perhaps $15, $25, $30, or even $50 for each toll violation.  If you, do not notice this on your credit card bill which could show up as a charge even weeks later, you will have been suckered into their most profitable item of all.

While it's nice to have the convenience and comfort of driving a car rental, you should always keep in mind, that the entire time the vehicle is in your hands, the car rental agency will be continually angling to get theirs.

Bloodletting

You don't hear too much about bloodletting in modern-day America, but bloodletting has a long history to which blood was considered one of the four "humors", which also consisted of phlegm, yellow bile, and black bile and therefore the lancing of veins in one's body was performed or the usage of leeches were done to help balance out the four humors to which blood was considered to be a substance that must be "let out" because the prevailing belief at that time was that blood was stagnant within the body.

Bloodletting was a common practice for nearly 3000 years and was considered to be a necessary and absolutely vital step to bringing a patient back to good health, when such a patient was obviously suffering from some sort of illness or discomfort.  So common of a procedure was bloodletting, that when George Washington was complaining of a throat infection, he had a massive amount of blood removed from this body within a very short period of time, which was probably and unfortunately the main cause of his death only a few hours later.  That a man of Washington's stature and renown, the father of our country, would be treated in this manner is but a reflection of how mainstream bloodletting was back in its day.

Bloodletting eventually began to disappear out of favor within the last 100 years as medicine became more modern and more knowledgeable, to which the indiscriminate bleeding of patients was no longer considered to be in the patient's best interest.  However, believe it or not, bloodletting has not completely disappeared within the medical annals of today.  For instance, bloodletting with leeches is effectively used for certain microsurgical procedures because of the anticoagulant capabilities of leeches which are critical in preventing blood clots. 

The donating of blood is considered to be a form of bloodletting which benefits the recipients of the blood but probably also benefits the giver of blood too.  That is to say, the giving of blood will help to lower blood pressure which is a known benefit for most people because hypertension is debilitating.  This implies that the voluntary giving of blood, or bloodletting, for those that suffer from hypertension and/or for those who are obese, is something that should be seriously considered.  Another consideration, for modern-day bloodletting is that the giving of blood helps to dispose of excess iron within the blood for those that are predisposed to hemochromatosis. 

In ancient times, bloodletting was used too often and too indiscriminately, with results that frequently were not beneficial or were chimerical for the patient.  Today we are much wiser and more readily recognize that bloodletting does have its place in certain, specific circumstances and for particular patients.  With so many pills, potions, and surgeries in our world today, those that suffer from hypertension and/or obesity may find that regular bloodletting allows them a path to better health and a more fulfilling life.  These areas of bloodletting show much promise and are certainly worth our time and our consideration to explore and to test further.

Why Aren't Abortions Performed In Hospitals Anymore?

America has many great and technologically advanced hospitals which are utilized every day for all types and kinds of medical procedures and surgeries.  Additionally, we also have many small medical centers that attend to the normal day-by-day checkups and routine procedures that are necessary to verify that one's health is satisfactory; it seems rather strange though, a bit out of sorts, that we also have abortion clinics that are stand-alone centers throughout most of our country.  You would think, logically, that since there are over one million abortions that are performed in this country each year, of which the procedure involved to carry out the abortion varies significantly depending upon the length of time since conception, that it would be safer, and far more effective, to have those abortions done within a hospital as opposed to an abortion clinic which often has no full-term medical doctor on staff.

Somewhat surprisingly, we find that when we go back in time to the Roe v. Wade decision of 1973, abortions in this country actually were commonly performed in hospitals, to which 80% of abortions were performed in hospitals in 1973, whereas today over 90% of abortions are performed in clinics specifically setup to handle what is an Obstetrician-Gynecologist surgical procedure.  Not only have abortions moved out of the hospitals to abortion clinics, but according to the NY Times, "in 1995, the number of OB-GYN residencies offering abortion training fell to a low of 12 percent." These above actions clearly indicate that it is medical doctors themselves, which have clearly retreated from providing abortion on demand.

Hospitals have turned their back on performing abortions within their facilities for many reasons.  For instance, abortion is at best the termination of the embryonic phase of the normal development of a human fetus, and is at worst a form of infanticide.  This, in of itself, screams of being of a procedure which is at loggerheads with the primary purposes of any hospital which is to help alleviate pain and suffering, to do what is necessary to extend and to save life, and in those circumstances to which physical life has reached its end stages, to provide dignity and care to their patients.   Additionally, protestors against abortion have become quite knowledgeable and vocal in demonstrating their disapproval of abortion through the picketing of hospitals in order to shed light and to embarrass the hospital administration into making changes; this becomes especially effective and poignant whenone recognizes that often a considerable and meaningful portion of the very people that work within the hospital itself, such as doctors, nurses, and the administrative staff, are not themselves supporters of abortion within that hospital.

This means that hospitals will probably not soon again become a ready avenue for abortions in America.   Instead, abortions will continue to be done in stand-alone clinics throughout most of America, and the motivated protestors against such clinics will continue to pick them off, one-by-one, with certain medical doctors reduced to surreptitiously plying their trade like thieves in the night.

We are not our Body

The greatest error that has been made in the western world, and disappointingly so in America, is the assumption or presumption of so many people that all we are is our body and brain, and once that is extinguished, than our existence for forever more is also gone.  That statement is so false, so much in error, and is the indirect or direct cause of so much tragedy and wrong in this world.  It is especially unfortunate that this nation, founded by people of great religious faith, in humility to God, have seen their influence be pushed aside by the secularists and materialists of today's faith.  None of this has brought much good to our country, and much of it has brought much wickedness and disgrace to this nation once as proud and honest as to declare that our essential essence comes from our Creator who is our eternal benefactor.

The most significant problem with the viewpoint that we are our body is that our body becomes the be-all and end-all of our existence.  In any situation in which your body and your brain is treated as if this is your entire existence, your greed to satisfy its needs will be never be satiated, no matter the cost or the cause.  Yet, it doesn't take a genius to determine from a mere cursory examination that nothing physical lasts in this world, all will decay, all will die, all will effectively disappear or will be transformed or will be absorbed.  So those that are materialists have created a false foundation built on sand, which will hardly last through the tides of time that respects no physical man.

You are not your body; your body is merely the encasement of your soul and your spirit.  The normal condition of he who was created by God, is spirit, not physical.  The physical merely houses the spirit for a time, for a while, for a purpose, and when completed or exhausted the spirit will exit that physical realm as easily as the spirit arrived to it.  If life was truly only physical, to which your body determined whether you were alive or whether you were dead, than earth itself would be a cruel trick on mankind, a game with no meaning and with no purpose.  Additionally, all of the great saints would have lived lives of utter futility, because of their inability to escape the hands of physical death.

However, the message of the empty tomb of Christ or the empty sarcophagus of the King's chamber of the Great Pyramid of Giza is exactly the same, that there is no death.  Too many believe that physical death is absolute death, but it is not, instead it should be seen as the natural return of spirit to the realm that it belongs to, a "freeing" of the spirit from its physical imprisonment. 

In the western world, the secular message is clear, that we are what we feed upon.  So that if you believe that your physical needs trump all, you will live according to those needs, and when your body becomes ill, or old, or decrepit, you will cry crocodile tears of great sadness because you will believe that life as you know it is over.  The correct and more satisfying viewpoint is to understand truly that your body merely encases your soul and your spirit, wisely feed instead upon those things that will bring eternal joy, and there you will find everlasting treasure and riches, never to depart.

There are Three Americas'

Far from being some sort of egalitarian utopia, America is a nation clearly divided into three very distinct classes.  First, there is a large underclass, at best barely able to sustain itself, which is primarily subsidized heavily by the government and its agencies, to which they have the worst housing, the worst crime, the worst health, and the worst schools.  In the middle is a huge swath of Americans, which are the hard workers that pay their taxes that play by the rules that work from adulthood through retirement, to which they are considered to be good red-blooded Americans that believe in the American experiment.  Finally, there is the smallest group of all, no more than .5% of all Americans, and probably substantially less, these are the true power in America, if not the world, not all care for politics, not all care to be identified, but all have a deep and abiding interest to protect their own, and the rules of the road will make sure to accommodate this need.

These privileged elite are politically connected, but not in the manner in which their alleged party affiliation makes much difference.  At the ground level they are connected locally, to which their first line of business is to live in an enclave that affords them special privileges.  For instance, it is of prime importance to these people that their safety and their privacy of themselves and their children be second to none.  Consequently, within their community there may be their own private security force that will track through cameras vehicles that enter and exit their community.  For a certainty, they will know the business of all that come there, whether they are maintenance men, family, friends, business associates or the like.   The demeanor of the interaction with these visitors is invariability polite and to the point, data will be gathered, databases will be updated, information will be stored and analyzed.  As for the law enforcement, itself, these instruments of the State will be utilized as the citizens of these enclaves best see fit.  For a certainty, there will never be instances of the police harassing or interfering with the actual residents of these complexes, any dealings with this particular population will be in accordance to their power and influence and any "cowboy" cop that doesn't recognize this, will be replaced.

The privileged elite have access and massive influence to layers of power, to the law, to government, that the balance of America does not.  Those that have the titles of mayor or police chief may or may not be part of these same elite, but all know who pulls the strings, and is the real power behind the curtain.  Sometimes a few of these privileged elite must be thrown to the dogs, as scapegoats and sacrificial victims, to sell the illusion that America is a country of laws and justice, whereas it often comes down to bad form, frayed connections, and stupid indiscretions that lowers the boom on them.

If you are very successful and question as to whether you might be part of this select elect, if you don't know that you are, than you aren’t.  This is the club of all clubs, there are rules, there are responsibilities, and there is also that knowledge that you are always right, and that the balance of America is your footstool.

Police Cameras

Depending upon the community that you live in, you may already be inundated with cameras at traffic lights, cameras at intersections, cameras at daycare, cameras outside stores, cameras inside stores, and whatnot.  It would appear that in today's world virtually any activity that is done in the public square is subject to being recorded.  Perhaps that is good, perhaps that is mainly bad.  What this does mean, more or less, is that the public and society in general is more accepting of their activities being recorded.  Further, the type of activities that are in the most need of being recorded are situations to which a citizen is interacting with an officer of the law, because police officers have what appears to be incredibly broad capabilities of arresting, interfering, helping, hurting, or apprehending citizens.

While some police officers may balk at being recorded while performing their duties their primary duty is to protect and to serve the public, not to be the law, not to be above the law, but to see that law is fairly applied within their domain.  I do not for a minute; believe that being a police officer is an easy job, or an easy duty, it is a massive responsibility, not easily accomplished, which entails a strong devotion to principles, discretion, and self-control.  It is also very important to remember that police are however never our masters, they are public servants, receiving their money, their livelihood, and their budget, from the taxpaying citizens of their community to which they must answer to.

When it comes down to police footage of the automated tape of incidents engaging the public, the question must be asked as to who the master is of that recording.  The answer should be it should never be the law enforcement agency itself, because once you decide that law enforcement can both record events and subsequently also be the master of its fate, you have defeated a significant portion of the purpose of the recording in the first place, because it doesn't take any stretch of the imagination to quickly understand that situations that are culpable to police activity will have a tendency to either disappear, become lost, compromised, delayed, or edited, meaning that true events have been modified.  Instead, the recordings themselves should actually be vetted by the same kinds of people that make up a grand jury, as it should ultimately be the people themselves that monitor the policing actions within their community.  Additionally, the beauty of a grand jury type system for this type of oversight is that grand juries, by definition, have basic terms of approximately 18 months, which essentially means that you need not excessively worry about the watchers becoming in cahoots with the watchmen.

On-body police cameras are a significant step in the right direction; it virtually mandates transparency in the interaction of our police force within the community.  In fact, for communities that utilize on-body police cameras exclusively, it is wise to let the general public know this, as just the knowledge that one's activities are being recorded, affords the opportunity to give-in to the better angels of our nature.

People are Living Longer and in Better Health

People are living far longer than they did at the start of the 20th century, a remarkable fact, that is arguably the greatest event that happened in the 20th century, to which in America the life expectancy was previously less than 50 years when the 20th century began, which became nearly 80 years of life expectancy when the 20th century ended.  While there are a multitude of reasons why our life expectancy has greatly increased, the primary ones can be attributed to the vast improvements in health standards, hygiene, medical technology, drugs, immunizations, prenatal care, and nutrition.  For instance, Infant mortality has dropped to just 6.14 infant deaths per 1000 births in America, whereas in the early 20th century that rate was calculated at the chilling rate of 140 infant deaths per 1000 births in America.

Infectious diseases created primarily by bacteria and viruses that were lethal or debilitating to Americans such as cholera, smallpox, influenza, tuberculosis, and yellow fever, have been negated today through immunizations and antibiotics.   The great ability and effectiveness of modern medicine to stop epidemics and pandemics before they even occur is that phenomenal giant leap forward that mankind took during the 20th century and to which all of us should be forever grateful.

While there is a great deal to be said about our remarkable achievement in the extension of life, one must give just as much credit to the fact that the quality of life has also improved tremendously.  That is to say that not only are we living longer but our ability to do things, to stay active, and to enjoy life has also grown longer, until the very late and terminal stages of physical life.  This means that our pursuit of happiness has never been better than it is in today's world.

The next big question to ask is can we continue this increase in the progress of health in the 21st century, much as we did in the 20th century.  That is to say, in the 20th century, life expectancy increased 60%; can we accomplish 60% again, 30%, or perhaps 10%?  To put this in perspective, a 60% increase from 80 years of age would be 128 years of age, an age that no known modern human is said to have achieved.  Yet before we dismiss this as outrageous, recognize too that all that has been accomplished before has been equally seen as miraculous, to which medicine, the health industry, and individuals, are motivated to build on previous success, especially considering the not so welcomed alternative.

It is therefore certainly no stretch of the imagination to believe that our lifespan and quality of life will continue to improve, but it is also conceivable, that we may soon reach the point where accomplishing such a thing may be limited to a select few, because unlike great antibiotics and drugs of the past, which are readily available at a reasonable price for all, future life span extensions may be something that is specifically targeted and priced for certain people that is distinct within that person, and consequently is not something that can be "scaled up" to the general public.

After all, essentially the people of the richest countries live the longest, and within that dynamic, there are motivated and successful rich people who are willing to actively do what they need to do in order to achieve an even greater and better quality lifespan, to wit not all of those people are particularly concerned about whether me and you are also able to enjoy those same privileges.

Multi-generational Living

It seems rather strange that today's newest homes are nearly 1,000 sq feet bigger than in 1973, whereas conversely household size has decreased about 1/2 a person over the same time span as reported by aei-ideas.org.   Although, people are marrying or having children at much later ages than has been the historic norm, one must take into account that the life expectancy in America has increased from the beginning of the 20th century which was about 47 years of age, to nearly 79 years of age presently.  So in actuality, it is highly unusual for children today not to have grandparents, with the additional possibility that they may too have great-grandparents.

All of the above makes one ask the question, if all this is true, why aren't there more multi-generational families living under the same roof, as it would appear that it makes more economic sense along with the obvious benefits of having a multitude of people that can perform, aid, or assist in a multitude of tasks.  Of course, this hasn't even taken into account the benefits of being around people that you often love and cherish; your family and your extended family members that are in essence the most important and the most meaningful parts of your very existence.

According to pewsocialtrends.org multi-generational living under the same roof is in an upward trend, but this statistic is somewhat deceptive, to the fact that it is minority groups predominantly that are much more likely to be in multi-generational households in the first place, and minorities today make up a greater percentage of our population as compared to 1980, to wit "Asian Americans were the most likely of the major racial and ethnic groups to live in multi-generational arrangements (27%). By comparison, 14% of non-Hispanic whites lived with multiple generations of family."  The most probable reason why Asian Americans lead in multi-generational households is that their historic culture has impressed upon their people the interconnectedness and inherent responsibilities of children to parents and to grandparents.

While it certainly can be said that if you are not living in the same community that there isn't any conceivable way that you can still live in the same house, a significant percentage of relatives actually live within close proximity of each other.  In situations, to which family members do not have a healthy respect or regard for other family members it does make sense that living under the same roof would bring in much more tension and unfortunate dramatic situations to make it seemingly untenable.  However, what must also be recognized is that the cycle of life follows all of us around, so that it certainly isn't unfair to believe that we have familial responsibilities that are incumbent upon us to attend to and to embrace.

In an era in which it is common that both parents work, and/or that single parents are overworked and stretched to the limit, there is safety and prudence in embracing a multi-generational family unit that will often be beneficial for all parties involved as each is able to contribute and each is able to receive according to their needs.

Katrina, New Orleans and Levees

Most people are well aware of the disaster that struck New Orleans in 2005, when Hurricane Katrina, a category 3 storm made landfall, but most media outlets were deceptive or outright wrong as to where Katrina made its biggest impact, its category 3 impact, which was not New Orleans, but east of New Orleans, and on the Mississippi gulf coast.  It was primarily the Mississippi gulf coast, not New Orleans that suffered the true category 3 damages of the Katrina hurricane.  In actuality, Katrina first made landfall near Boras, Louisiana, before traveling north and making landfall again at the Louisiana/Mississippi border.  Hurricane Katrina did not directly hit New Orleans, yet within 24 hours, New Orleans began to flood. Why?

The answer to that question was studied and evaluated by several different groups and agencies, including ce.berkeley.edu, a group made up of researchers and professional engineers from academic institutions, private sector entities, and government agencies, with extensive forensic experience and knowledge.  Their report states succinctly that "the flood system surrounding New Orleans was pervasively flawed."  Further that, "the flood protection system was characterized by embedded flaws and inadequacies.  This is a result of a dysfunctional organizational system that created it."  The conclusion is obvious that although Hurricane Katrina was an enabler of the flooding that inundated New Orleans, it was also a manmade disaster that could have and should have been prevented had monies and engineering allocated to the maintenance of levees within New Orleans been properly administered.

This means that rather than looking at Hurricane Katrina and the loss of lives, property, and the flooding of New Orleans as an "Act of God" which was not preventable, we would be far better served to see it for what it really was, a disaster because of man's inability to take the steps and to appropriate the engineering and knowhow to fix or to design the levees to take care of the situation ahead of time.  The basic problem that New Orleans has, is that a significant portion of the city, lies below sea level, consequently it doesn't take a genius to understand that water, storm water, flood water, any type of water in excess is a significant problem that needs to be addressed ahead of time.

Consequently, the only real things that prevent New Orleans from flooding or being susceptible to flooding are levees which hold the waters back in conjunction with the needed ability to pump water out from the city when excessive water gets into it.  In both of these cases, New Orleans was unprepared or inadequately prepared, yet it had all the time in the world to prepare, so that on a fundamental level New Orleans and its disastrous flooding along with its aftermath of 2005, was a preventable catastrophe with tragically real human death and property damages.

New Orleans is the lesson that America must learn from.  Throughout all of America, there is infrastructure to which a basic assumption is made that it will always work, until it doesn't.  The fact of the matter is we usually have a very good foreknowledge of infrastructure that needs to be amended, addressed, fixed, maintained, or repaired.  As the old saying goes, "a stitch in time saves nine", New Orleans demonstrates the folly of ignoring this sage advice.

Food Distribution for the Poor

In America, we don't lack for food; its availability and its general pricing are excellent.  While we should be concern about food and good, clean water in a real emergency, for the most part we can take food for granted, because the process and logistics of food distribution are without parallel.  The long and short of it is, that we eat food that is about as fresh as you could possibly imagine giving that most of us neither live on farms nor have vegetable gardens or fruit trees within easy walking distance.  Therefore, we take the eating of food for granted, which is a fortunate attribute for Americans, but certainly has not been the norm in history, to which the fight for food and survival, has often been virtually the sole drive of human existence.

Today, there exist many countries or pockets within countries that lack both easy access to food or to clean water, and therefore starvation is a real and frightening problem.  One way to help alleviate this problem is to look at new and unique ways to feed populations.  For instance, fresh food is often both bulky in conjunction with limited shelf life, but food product life can be enhanced tremendously and compacted enormously when food is processed in such a way as to freeze-dry it or to dehydrate it which reduces the bulk size of the food to minimal and manageable dimensions which is the exact way that food is handled for astronauts.  For our military under "Meal, Ready-to-Eat" (MRE), food was created and packaged for a very long shelf life in that it was pre-cooked, consequently this food can be eaten without access to clean water, although the availability of water is highly desirable for its palatability and sustainability.

When it comes to easy access to food that will sustain human life, the main considerations should be cost and the logistics of accomplishing this goal, as compared to the far lesser consideration of taste, texture, or content of the food itself.  This should be a very high priority for our charitable missions along with anything else that can be provided that will help in the ease and usage of good, clean, sustainable water. 

The nutrients, fats, proteins, and carbohydrates in food that are needed to sustain human life are known factors and consequently there isn't any reason why pre-processed food can't be utilize for not only short-term but in exigencies of need, for the long-term survival of humans.  In times of war, of disaster, of famine, of governmental corruption, of persecution, of civil unrest, it is needlessly inhumane for civilians to be starved to death.  It is therefore our duty, as the leaders of the free world, to provide the necessary assistance and the humanitarian aid to preclude the unnecessary genocide of certain peoples.

The right to food is a basic human right, we are fortunate to live in such times as to be able to provide food to all, and we should make it a high priority to see that we are doing all that we can to take care of our fellow brothers and sisters, in their time of need.

Darwin's Most Famous Book and its Complete Title

The teaching of evolution is an integral part of our public school system and the acceptance of evolution as being a biological fact is accepted by most scientists.  This does not mean, however, that evolution is a fact, accurate, or even pertinent to mankind itself.  Take for instance, the infamous hoax of Piltdown man, "proving" the vital link between apes and man and "discovered" in 1912 in the United Kingdom.  The fact that this hoax was so easily perpetrated on so many esteemed scientists and experts  for so long is proof positive that evolution in regards to apes evolving into modern man is a theory lacking foundational proof, to wit the missing link that is so richly sought has still yet to be discovered.  The man most often championed for the evolutionary theory is Charles Darwin and his most famous book, still widely used and discussed today, is "On the Origin of Species".  But in fact, the full title of the book as originally published in 1859 was "On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life."  Later, Darwin would follow up this tome with his "The Descent of Man and Selection in the Relation to Sex".

I suspect that there are few Darwin defenders that are fully aware of Darwin's complete title, to which its meaning is both chilling and very real.  The complete title of Darwin's book is hardly happenstance, it is there for a very valid reason which is to emphasis and to clarify to the reader of the book what the book is actually about, which is that evolution as expounded by Darwin specifically supports the superiority of favored races in the struggle for life.  Consequently, Darwin's book is meant as a clarion call specifically to the Caucasian race that it has evolved far further than, for instance, the aborigines of Australia or the native Africans and that therefore these "less-favored" species of man would consequently either at best be subservient to the Caucasian race or, even better, would be exterminated or replaced in their entirety at some future period of time.

The greatest and grandest disservice which Darwin did to mankind was to lower mankind from being just "a little lower than the angels" to replacing God's handiwork with the thought that mankind was nothing more than an advanced ape to which some of these primates had the right to marginalize or to annihilate other primates because this was all part of the struggle of life, to which the superior species would invariably win out if they only asserted themselves.  This is the true meaning of Darwin's thesis and this is the template that was subsequently successfully used by the eugenics movement in the United States and throughout the world, most notably in Nazi Germany, to justify man's inhumanity to other men, and consequently the liquidation and the cold-blooded killing of unarmed civilians, whose only crimes were their faith, their skin color, their physical disabilities, their sexual orientation, or their tribal or social affiliations.

The legacy of Darwin's evolutionary theory are clear in the horrors and the aftermath of these truest believers.  Those that believe that Darwin deserves a place at the table of knowledge, that Darwin deserves to be in our classrooms, must have the intellectual honesty and candor to title his book as it was titled upon its inception so that his true agenda is out in the open for all to see and to recognize.