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I want to write right now, but feel so overwhelmed by the sense of awe I have at the wondeer of how far gone wrong things are at the moment. I mean, at one point in the past, I think it was during Obama’s Presidency, I felt like there was a genuine possibility of achieving world peace, or a mutual understanding and cooperative agreement that would at least send us in that general direction. We had a Statesman in charge, and we were going in the right direction. Well, I remember feeling that general sense of optimism. The world keeps a Doomsday Clock to measure our general doom, and I measure in a personal sense of optimism that is sort of the opposite to that. Since the election of our current President, my sense of optiism has sunk from a general dread to a more specific depression, and I hate it.

For me, I feel the loss as a Citizen, and as someone who brought other people to this country believing it would be a great place for them to live. It is good, don’t get mer wrong, but ever since the nation set about the business of Making America Great Again, whatever that harkens back to, it has progressively got worse. There has been the attitude towards immigrants, which a large portion of my family is, and the racial divisions, which affect my family directly because racism and nationalism are not that far off from eachother. The economy is supposedly in a boost, and I think our family feels that. At the same time, our investments in the market are extremely unstable, and that is up and down like a roller coaster, taking the mood along with it. I want to just ignore it, but that is hard to do when I keep wondering if I should sell out and leave it be for a bit, or if I should be trying to manage growth by selling high, buying low, and doing it in quick succession to create better growth. I just don’t know. There is a name for that, and I don’t even know that.

This weekend, two mass shootings took place. They were unrelated, except maybe one triggered the other. Whatever, it is just a highlight to a huge problem that this country keeps trying to ignore, like bad plumbing, as if it hopes it will just go away, or stop itself up with the debris or hard water in the pipes. Perhaps, but the best solution is to get the work done and gex a proper fix in place. We know what the problem is. We know what the solution is. But we have those among us who would rather plug our ears, close our eyes, and scream, and pretend that doing nothing is the best solution.

Right now the media wants to lay this all at the feet of one US Senator. Of course, that is Mitch McConnell. They are calling him Moscow Mitch, which I think is stupid and childish. Labels are never a solution, and applying such to him is no different to calling immigrants rapists and murderers. The media is promoting the idea of not naming the gunmen in the shootings. This more aligns with what should be done with Mitch McConnell. He needs to be removed and forgotten, erased from histoical prominance, and put in a dung heap. The man has been a waste of air for at least as long as since he vowed to obstruct all legislation that Obama wanted to put forth, based on what? Ideology? Or race? Come on Mitch. You are a transparent racist. You are a relic that needs to get out of the way so the nation can heal, progress, and move towards a future that is worth having. Could it be any more obvious what you are when the people you obstruct and fight against are called “progressives?”

Our lousy President is a market manipulator who refuses to disclose his taxes. What could be going on? Ithink the obvious conclusion is that he is making a fortune in his position, while wagging the dog in monumental ways. I don’t think there is an inch more depth to him, or his policies, than that. He is using his position for self-enrichment. He is waving around ideologies and policies that distract the public like a big yellow flag, while dark deeds are done in dark corners, away from view. Why the Hell would he be so vile to our allies and embrace our national enemies? True it is that I think this nation is misguided in how it deals with Russia, North Korea, Iran, and others, but this guy wants to throw our relationships with Europe under the bus for no apparent reason? Well, market destabilization, which is when the money is to be made, especially when you can control the timing of it.

Sure, this writing is an opinion piece. It is not even that. It is an exasparation piece. I am just a man after a simple life. I mostly keep to myself. I have all but given up on trying to make friends in this world. That’s mostly because I am in an area where people don’t like to befriend people who are not of their religion, and I am damn sure that all religion is just a money and power scam. I have watched as my poor grandmother has buried four of her children over the years, then raked money over to a Church from which she gets a fairytale that comforts her with false hope of seeing them again, and I have observed as that Church has become one of the richest organizations on Earth, untaxed, and upon the demands of payment, while holding people’s happiness at the ransom of their fairytales. It is basically pay, or lose the hope of being with their family after they die, which is of course a promise the Church cannot possibly fulfill. Ironically, the obligation to fulfill that promise ends on the death of the person to whome it was made, leaving the Church holding the money. In this, I have watched the poor widow pay a fortune, and go broke, and now, where is the Church? They don’t even check on her, let alone help her. Yet she still believes with all of her subborn mind that she has done the right thing by paying, by praying, by having faith. She has treated me and my family like shit because I let go of her fairytale. It all started when she asked me if I still believed, and I told her no. That was the very day things changed for us, and she started talking to me differently.

Well, as I said, this is an exasparation piece. I need a change. I feel that right down in my boots. That requirement is no threat to my wife, my family, or my life. Those things are stable. But it is time to clear the stage, and set a new scene. It is time for some of the actors to leave, but the main cast remain. This play has worn me down from so many sides. I have processed it to death. It has not helped me to grow in any positive direction. It has only worn me down to almost nothing, wether we are on the political outlook, or the personal one. I don’t feel depressed. I don’t feel depressed like I was in high school. Maybe I am, and I just don’t know what it feels like because it is a different depression than it was in school. It is something I need to explore more. It is probably the rut I feel like I am in. A change needs to be made. Maybe that comes in the form of a new hobby. Maybe it is time to write that book that I have been waiting to appear in me. Maybe it is time to fix a cup of coffee, then throw it on the ground, just to do something I have never done before. Ground. Ground the beans, then throw their tea upon the ground. Do it before I end up in the ground. There is something grounded in that.

Time to end this senseless ramble.

KJB

In 2016, Trump rallies were packed with people chanting “Lock her up!” Of course this was against a woman, Hillary Clinton.

This week Trump began an attack on Ilhan Omar, and his followers in North Carolina joined him at a rally and began chanting “Send her back.” This was against an immigrant woman, Ilhan Omar.

I think as we carry on with crowds of people chanting what Trump seems to attack, and remember, when we can’t run, we fight what we fear, we are getting closer and closer to what Trump truly fears. Melania Trump.

Just a thought.

I am writing this down as an immediate impression of something Ijust read on CNN. Iam putting it down so when I say in the future, “I’ve been saying it,” I can point to the moment I saying it. Britain is doing something stupid.

Alan Turing will be the face printed on the £50 note. Alan Turing was of course the father of modern computing, but he was also convicted and castrated under Victorian law. Castrated. Those were laws in place to prevent someone who was gay from reproducing. Naturlly, that makes no sense at all. But it is a physical attack on someone for being something.

Anyway, you probably get all that. What you many not get if you don’t live in the UK is that the £50 note is the least common bill exchanged in the UK. In fact, I lived in the UK for eight years, and even worked a job for over a year that required cash handling. In that entire span, I only once even saw a £50 note. So, basically, what they have done is said, “well, we’ll acknowledge him. We will give him a place of honor. But only if he stays in the closet.” It is reminiscent of the story of the English gentleman who kept a portrait of George Washington in his water closet. Honored with a portrait, but kept in the least prominant place in the house!

Britain, you have dissapoointed me with your two edged wisdom. Irony is your forte, so surely this has not gone over unnoticed on you! If you want him seen, put him on the £20, which everyone sees, for a moment or two, anyway!

KJB

It was the 4th of July, 2016, just three years ago, when I was sat on the front porch thinking about life, Independence, and the importance of being properly represented in life by oneself, really. Mom had only died that April, sort of suddenly, and unexpectedly. I had expected to be able to see her again, but life did what it does best, and surprised us. Independence is just a quality of the holiday Americans tend to think of at this time of year.

The last issue, representation of self, is a lot more complex than I can put into a sentence or two. But I had been continuing a lie by giving false hope to someone whose feelings I no longer cared to preserve over my own sense of being.

When I was in my late 20’s I had finally wrestled with the question of religion and the existence of divinity long enough to boil the issue down to a last test. That test was “what if not God?” I had tried every argument available to my mind to try to decide if there were a God. I had done as the religion of my youth had asked, and prayed feverently for an answer to the question. But I had never conceded to the possibility that I was just setting up a false imagination in my mind and looking for things to fulfill it. The final test was to try understanding life, the Universe, and everything through a paradigm that did not assume any kind of God. From that moment on, I found it all made so much more sense. For the first time I was able to be really and truely happy. Instead of questioning the bedroom ceiling at night for the reasons why horrible things happened, I was able to focus on what it takes to fix those things. I had spent my life before as a victim of religion through a willing proxy, me. They put the ideas in my head, I perpetuated them, and I was onder their control. By my late 20’s, Ifinally decided to try setting myself free.

But in all the time from then till my mid 40’s, I had not truely sey myself free of the Church that I had been taught all my life was the only true Church on Earth, a powerful claim, if it were true. I had been brought up Mormon, and taught that I had to pay my money to the Church, and give my time to the Church, and spend my every moment looking beyond all that to the God that supposedly stood behind the Church. It’s a great diversionary tactic as old as religion itself. “You keep your eyes on the big guy, while we rummage through your life, your wallet, and your belongings to take what we want. And if you look at us, then we will point our finger at you and tell you something you are doing wrong to distract you while we carry on.”

Because I had not set myself free of them, they managed to send two of their people to my door to ask for me by name, which would not have surprised me so much if I had not been living in another country at the time. Luckily God must have been on my side, because I was sick in bed that evening, and my wife came to the door and had no trouble shoeing them off like a couple of flies at her picnic.

I kept my membership in the Church in tact because of my grandmother. I did not want her to lose her last shred of hope in having brought me up right, or at least, how she thought was right. But by the time of three years ago, grandma and I had already had ‘the talk,’ where she asked me, “so, you don’t believe in the Church, or you don’t believe in God altogether?” From the moment she got my answer, she started to treat me with utter contempt and disrespect, and in turn, our whole relationship fell to pieces.

Fast forward to Independence Day, 2016. I was sat on the front porch thinking, and it occured to me that I was no longer in posession of the concerne for grandma’s hope. I had been living the same lie that I was when I was still going to Church and trying to convince myself that it was all true. Instead, I was now keeping myself associated with a dreadful organization to preserve someone else’s hopes! Yet, I knew for myself that it was not even close to something I wanted to be associated with, and moreover, I did not want members of that Church to think in any way that they had any power over me, which they tend to do when you subject yourself to them by allowing your name to be on their rolls. I am confident that the change in status from member to non-member is nothing more than a check-box in their extensive records, and that those records are kept in tact, even though I would much rather they not. I am as confident of that as I am that at some point after I die, they will perform a proxy baptism in my name during one of their Temple ceremonies, in order to put me back where they want me, on their rolls. This too, I would rather they did not do. I totally reject it!

Is it important that they try to make me a Mormon after I die by doing a proxy baptism in my name? They told me that Jesus overcame death, and that because of it, everyone would live forever. Yet, they are the ones who overcome death, and put people in their religion, by doing baptisms for the dead. It is clever, and true, it does nothing for me. But it does something for them, and that, I object to. It is a ceremony usually done by teens in the Church, and it is put upon them as some sort of critical ritual that they have to perform for the sakes of those who have passed on. In other words, they guilt kids into doing it. The act itself reinforces to the kids that what they are doing is not only right, but that everyone, dead or alive, is coming to the Church. In othr words, it hardens their resolve to stay in the Church, even against logic.

In my area, there are lots of people who die, and whose obituary touts Church service. Often times, most of the article is about what the person has done for the Church. When my time comes, I would like it to read quite differently. I want it to talk about a life lived true to self, and in helping others to be true to themselves. My experience is that that is where happiness is found. Living up to false ideas is only a cause for stress, self-doubt, and judgement of others. I would rather be remembered for setting my own good standard and living up to it using logic, reason, and the obvious moral obligations of social living. In fact, nevermind those, “don’t kill, don’t steal, don’t hurt others.” I prefer to do good, and make better. But to do that requires no religion.

On July the 4th, 2016, I sent an electronic communication to a lwayer to request he take action to cause the Mormon Church to remove my name from their membership records, at last setting me free of that organization, and the control of its henchmen. My life would be my own, just as I hope that eventually my death will also. If they finally do come to get me in the end, then let that act speak for itself, because that is the act of a shark, a monster, a dicatator, or a killer, not an act of benevolance. It is not kindness that forces someone to be something they don’t want to be.

Three years I have been free of the Church. My sense of self, and my ability to claim my own identity has never been stronger, or healthier. I am responsible for me, and I am clear about that to anyone else because I am not subject to the creeds, doctrines, and imaginations of any religion. And that is deeply satisfying.

Early this morning we skimmed across the top of frost, less than half a degree above freezing in the garden. Yes, it is the first day of summer today, the 21st of June. I am a bit surprised by this cold! It seems really late into the season to be thinking of it, and I have been that the latest frost on record is the 11th of June. This seems to be one of those years!

Looks like a dip in the jet stream has caused our latest weather malignment. Well, it’ll do for now as the farm is not a fun place to work when it is hot as Hades outside! The forecast for the coming ten days shows a steady warming up to 89, which will see us buying a big fan, I think!

So, about that first day of summer…

Yesterday I scythed down the road at the East Pasture. Iam only taking down the grass next to the road, which is about 175 feet by 30 feet or so. The grass is tall, and my technique is aweful, so it is enough work to hurt a bit, especially at 48. A tractor and a sickle bar mower would sure come in handy right now! I need to put some money by, and start shopping. I want to do this for years to come, but my body is telling me otherwise. Ineed to muster up the will to go finish that section, then get down to the next section and cut down a little smaller patch of grass Ihave been taking the feed from so far this year. Yesterday Kirynie and I put the llamas out in the service yard to take that down again, and to sort out their feed for a bit.

It is getting time to seperate Hedwig from his mother. He is trying it on with Mystique, and while he is still too young to get her, it is probably not a good habit for him to be getting into. This is going to cause a bit of a panic among them, and soon we will find them standing as close to eachother as they can from across the street. My plan is to put Mystique into the field across the street with the other females. There is plenty of feed there! I’ll keep Hedwig over this side, and he should do fine on the service yard and only a little feed. The only conflict is that I am building the hay bunks in the service yard, which he would be able to eat from when I load them. Perhaps that is okay, and perhaps it would be best to put him in his field, ration his feed, and cut the service yard to length from here on out.

We have options with grass clippings here. We can compost them, or we can feed them to goats, rabbits, llamas, or pigs. Any of those animals will make quick work through a pile of fresh grass from the mower bag. It’s one of the things I love about summer, and one of the things that makes me feel very fortunate, and even a bit rich.

The priority for today should be watering in the gardens. Last night I finally got around to putting water on those pumpkin seed I put in the other day. There are some gourds needing the same attention today, as well as a general garden watering wanting.

The kids are having their summer schedule re-worked. They are getting into the habbit of watching their screens all day, and that is a bad habbit to be in. Their chores have been suffering for it as they are short-cutting. So I have told them that I own them till lunchtime. From wake-up till after they clean up their lunch mess is the work day, and after that it is time for all the fun they can possibly have till supper. No more messy house, no more snippets of care for the animals and the farm. It is to be a well looked after place, with them learning how to do the things they need to in order to keep a place of their own one day.

Happy Summer!

KJB

My thoughts today run towards some lyrics from the song The Gambler, by Kenny Rogers. Every hand’s a winner, and every hand’s a loser, but the best that you can hope for is to die in your sleep. Not sure if I have got that exact or not, and it doesn’t really matter. The point is the same.

My heart was heavy yesterday when I walked through the cemetary at Lyman, Wyoming. Many years ago it was a typical western cemetary filled with a few old graves, scrub brush, and exposed soil. But my great-great grandmother put herself to work with her friend, and beautified the place up so that today it is a grassy place, well cared for, covered with a variety of flowering shrubs.

But what also grows out of that place is a collection of headstones. The bottom third of the central part of the cemetary is filled with primarily three family names, Walker, Bluemel, and Fackrell, all three of them family names on my mom’s side. Extra heavy on my heart was the gravestones with familiar first names belonging to people I have heard about in vivid detail many times, or the names of the people who told me those details.

Today my oldest daughter is hurting over the failing health of a young kitten that she has become attached to. Juxtaposed against yesterday, It left me feeling more than ever that while the best I could hope for was to die in my sleep, the thing I should live for is the best of every moment I am alive. A kitten is a young thing, a lifhat is short so far. Nobody knows when they will go, so to live the best of every moment is so important. Life is a collection of those moments, and why let any of them go by as bad ones if that can be helped? That graveyard represnts both the lives of the people who lie there, and the deaths, in more ways than many other places I have been to. It is a labor of love from Carrie Kemsley Walker, for whome my mother was named. Carrie lays there next to her husband, and they are there with so many of the family from their time. The moments are all gone.

Whenever we go, we go. But till then, may the moments that last be good ones!