Author Archives: Commentary about the Blue Marble

Times Have Changed

24 Wednesday Sep 2025

Posted by in Lies, Lies and Graft, President Trump

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        Times have changed since I was a little kid. If I told lies like Donald J. Trump does almost every day my Mother would have burned my butt with a belt. Today we elect people who lie, cheat, harass, demean, and threaten people and companies with dire things.

            Millions of Americans have come to believe half truths and lies as being factual. The constant barrage of these non-facts and lies has caused the majority of Americans to believe we have been screwed by all other countries, that climate change isn’t happening in spite of what we can see, and vaccinations are dangerous among other fictions.

            A few decades ago Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan made a statement which applies in today’s culture of lies. He said, “Everyone is entitled to his own opinion but not his own facts”. Today anyone with any sense can tell the President lies to cover the lies he has already said. He has built a fantasy world which is getting farther from reality every day. Bad things happen to anyone who goes against his reality.

            Trump has not just changed today’s reality he has ordered Federal, State and Local Museums and organizations to change history to suit his views. Slavery gave poor people good jobs and other rubbish. Of course, all reference to his losing an election or any of his crimes and lies about trying to overthrow the election must be removed or be closed.

            I saw a cabinet meeting where Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said, “You’ll like these numbers Mr. President! The tariffs have produced over 300 million dollars on the way to your planned 500 million.” The next week the Customs Agency said they had collected 72 million. So where is the other 218 million?

            One other thing this administration has in common with other authoritarian governments is control of the news media. Putin, Xi, Erdogan, Un, and a few others mostly or completely control all media so lies and other misinformation can be dispensed. Putin killed or locked up reporters who didn’t follow his line. Trump threatens to stop mergers or pull licenses if they continue to print or televise the truth about him or ridicule him. A bad precedent was when ABC gave ten million to an entity under his control. Since then Trump has sued for billions to try to keep newspapers, magazines, and authors from dispensing the truth.

                An old saying is “The Truth is out there.” Unfortunately the truth is way out there and I fear it may not come back in my lifetime.

Dim Future

25 Monday Aug 2025

Posted by in Inactivity, Politics

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        The future is not bright because our elected officials of both parties are more concerned about how to make sure they are re-elected in the next election than the distant future.

            Everyone knows we are running full speed into a debt disaster yet they keep cutting taxes and exempting more and more income from individuals and businesses. The longer those sitting in the capitol building run up the debt, the harder it will be to fix it. Remember, the economy boomed during the President Clinton Presidency and that tax rate while paying down the debt. Congress should go back to that rate and do away with more corporate exemptions lobbyists paid for. The longer they worry about re-election, the more painful it will be to ninety-nine percent of us.

            Social Security and Medicare are not being replenished by today’s workers. Again Washington knows how to fix it and most of us know also. A quick change to push the problem farther away is to remove the salary cap so all incomes pay into it whether it’s a wage or an investment. Cap all payouts to anyone with an income of over $150,000. As more robots replace humans, the human cannot pay into Social Security so a solution would be for the company to continue the social Security payment for that replaced human.

            Only a duped fool cannot see global warming is here and getting worse every day. Today’s Congress is bent on increasing the country’s contribution of carbon dioxide and methane. It seems we read every day they have done something to peel back laws and regulations designed to try to save humanity from a very ugly future. The future is much worse than today.

            Congressional members need to be more concerned about us than keeping their chairs.

Youngsters and Inflation

16 Saturday Aug 2025

Posted by in Inflation

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        What is inflation and how does it affect people? I am 77 years old and I didn’t understand what it was until I was in my late twenties. A friend told me it was better to own a home than to rent because the value would go up and I could write off the interest on the mortgage. Then when building it I noticed a clipping under a glass countertop about how much a pair of tennis shoes would go up based on the inflation rate. The house we built has quadrupled in value plus some.

            In the early 1960s Dad was filling the Pick-up with $.27 a gallon of gasoline. When I got my GTO in 1967 I paid $.33. My first year at Murray State University the tuition had gone up a third to $120 a semester. My entire cost for a dorm room, five day meal ticket, and books was less than $1,000. My girl friend, now wife, and I drove the 125 miles back home on every other weekend for less than five bucks.

            The second year we didn’t get a full meal ticket and ate at restaurants for dinner. Several places had specials on certain days. Gino’s plate of spaghetti was less than a dollar, KFC on Sunday was a three piece for $.89, a big boy sandwich was large and it was still less than a dollar with a drink; fries and two drinks was just $.50 more. We became friends with the Thoroughbred Drive-in became we ate there several times a week. I could buy us 6 corn dogs or 7 hamburgers for a dollar. Fries and two drinks was $.50 more.

            My taxes for our house were $620 for the first few years. Now with our senior deductions we pay over 12 times more. My two year-old GTO cost $1,800 including taxes and today the taxes would equal that much for most two year-old ones.

            Yes, I really understand inflation now.         

Nuclear Power in Illinois

14 Thursday Aug 2025

Posted by in Nuclear Plants, Nuclear Power

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        I worked at the Braidwood and LaSalle Nuclear Stations as a construction engineer and did inspections of the company’s equipment at Dresden and Quad Cities. Braidwood was supposed to be a twin of Byron but the Braidwood Superintendent for Commonwealth Edison decided to put in piping systems in a different order than Byron did. If we encountered a pipe that Byron had installed in one route we might have to change its route to avid one we had already installed. Designing while building increases time and cost.

            Byron, Braidwood, and LaSalle are 1,000 plus megawatt nuclear generating stations. Each has two reactors with two turbines to generate electricity from the steam produced in the reactors by fission. Byron and Braidwood are pressured water which does not go through the rod bundles and thus does not have a chance of becoming contaminated. LaSalle is a boiling water system which the water goes through the reactor producing steam.

            Both types take a couple of decades to build from the start to producing power. Theoretically a cookie cutter design and construction could shave a few years off the time. Pre-fabrication of some systems and hangers might shave a few more months off but I can’t see the time being cut to less than 15 years.

            The next generation reactors China is producing takes a lot less time and they are supposed to be building at least twenty now. We are looking at building smaller 300 megawatt reactors and micro ones producing 50 megawatts. Both could be mostly pre-fabbed in a shop and shipped to the site. My concern is one of safety. Existing stations are full of security people and equipment. Will the smaller ones be as safe or an easy terrorist target?

Imminent Disaster

14 Thursday Aug 2025

Posted by in National Debt, President Trump

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        Donald J. Trump is famous for business bankruptcies and leaving partners and banks with losses. He is doing it now for the United States. His tax cuts benefits him while running up the National Debt even with a good economy. As we all know every good economy is punctuated by a poor economy which cuts tax income.

            A simple solution is for all the tax cuts to be rescinded when the debt reaches forty trillion dollars and stays rescinded until the debt drops to twenty trillion. If the debt continues to grow the corporate tax and the personal taxes will increase two percent for incomes over 100,000 dollars when it reaches forty-two trillion and two percent for every trillion afterward.

            American has a choice; fiscal responsibility or collapse of our economy by bankruptcy. It is a little pain now or a total disaster later. There is no third choice. Both parties are responsible and voter pressure is all that can avert disaster.

The Future Has Many Roads

23 Wednesday Jul 2025

Posted by in President Trump

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        At least four plots and one attempt to assassinate President Donald Trump have already occurred. How many more will take place before he leaves office is completely unknown. Many people and groups feel they cannot wait until 2027 to see if the expected majority of Republican Representatives and Senators will be kicked out of office and another impeachment occurring. Many remaining Republicans would vote for removal.

            The question is would Vice-President Vance be the same or might he see his time would be short if he went down the same road. After President John Kennedy’s death, President Lyndon Johnson kept JFK’s people, who didn’t like Johnson or him they. They were gone later and he had new ones after his election. Congress has the power to remove them thus making Vance put acceptable people in charge of agencies and departments. They can undo Trump’s destruction that he did without legal consent from Congress. Would Vance be like President Gerald Ford and just finish the term of a disgraced President? No Trump supporter would be confirmed as the new Vice-President.

            If Vance kept following Trump’s advisors and those who wrote the 2025 document he would be subject to impeachment also. If that happened before a new vice-President was appointed and confirmed, the Democratic Speaker of the House becomes the Forty-Ninth President.

            The question is how much commotion will happen if someone kills Trump. He has yet to sacrifice his militant supporters like the Neo-Nazis and the other far right militias. What supporters he still really has could be expected to protest with marches and burn up the internet sites. Would the Trump haters march too, or just be satisfied with staying home?

22 Tuesday Jul 2025

Posted by in Maurene Comey, President Trump

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Well Said

        Sometimes I am impressed with how someone says or writes something that I can’t believe there could be a better way of getting the point across. The writer I so admire is a lawyer and trained to put words together to get her point and mine across to the masses. The writer is Maurene Comey, a Department of Justice Prosecutor, who was fired on President Donald Trump’s orders. Why, since she was very good at her job. Was it because she had been the prosecutor on the Jeffery Epstein case or because her father is the former FBI Director, James Comey, which Trump fired for doing his job correctly?

            Quoting some of her letter she wrote to colleagues, she elegantly said: “Fear is the tool of a tyrant, wielded to suppress independent thought.”     In advising other Federal Prosecutors, she wrote: “Instead of fear, let this moment fuel the fire that already burns in this place. A fire of righteous indignation at abuses of power. Of dedication to truth above all else.”

            Comey is just the latest in the series of firings of DOJ Prosecutors who ran cases Trump was worried about. Those fired are all the January 6 insurrection prosecutors, any who worked with Jack Smith on Trump’s crimes, and, of course, anyone involved in the Epstein sex crimes. The FBI investigators were transferred to far off offices in this country and some to other countries.

            Even the people Trump has appointed are fearful of his ire and kowtow to his every wish without any hesitation. Remember Comey’s words which are so well elucidated in her letter because it is so true. “Fear is the tool of a tyrant.” American across the political spectrum must stand up and put the tyrant into a cage before it is too late!

Hip Boots

14 Monday Jul 2025

Posted by in Washington DC Swamp

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        There is an old saying my generation uses when the flip side of an issue occurs and the people who were against the first side are quiet after the flip. It is “The shoe is on the other foot now”. I remember the prime movers of Watergate were Democrats but many Republicans joined to oust President Nixon. That bi-partisanship was notable. I remember the Republican created scandals involving the Clinton’s and their finances. Another is the Billy Carter Beer endorsement. Recently it is the money the Obama’s has made selling their biographies after they left Washington. Of course, we can’t forget Hunter Biden doing the same thing the Bush boys did with their Daddy’s job. The other party usually made a scandal out of the situation real or created.

            Today’s antics, graft, and corruption in the Oval Office and in much of the administration is like hip boots to the bath slippers of past Presidents. We just heard the convicted and imprisoned leader of the gangster disciples was freed from Federal Prison after his sister donated $1,500,000 to Trump’s campaign fund. It is over $600 million now and he wants it to reach one billion. This isn’t the first time he has pardoned a felon for money. One felon pardoning another!

            The corruption in Trump’s business dealings is evident because they are usually announced by the White House Media People. The ear of the President can be bought by buying a million or two of his stable coin and attending the dinner for the big donators in the White House. The biggest buyers get face time.

            When will the cowered Republicans finally act? The scandals already require hip boots.
When will the Republicans need chest waders to wade in the Trump swamp? The order of this presidency has encircled the world. They know he can be bought and are doing it with a plane, loans, partnerships, or land. How far is President Trump willing to go?

Things Change

30 Monday Jun 2025

Posted by in Cultural Change, Racism

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Things are constantly changing for good or bad. Life used to be fairly simple compared to how we see them now. I was born and grew up in Southern Illinois in a town with only a 3,000 population. It wasn’t until high school I knew we had an extended family of ethnic Germans in the county. They were in a different school district for grade school. We had no non-white people living in the county and the only religious strife was Baptists sects against each other and both against the Pentecostal and Catholics. No fighting but lots of meaningless debating. It was a rare county to some extent because we had no non-white people in it. My family wasn’t racist because of my mother.

            At the time most of the names I knew were English so when I went to college I encountered other colors and saw nothing to be concerned about. They were just people like me. My first knowledge of racism in the Southern states was a girl who had moved up for junior college from a Jim Crow state. She had a huge inferiority complex and was uncomfortable around the rest of us and talking with us scared her. I hope she overcame it.

            My source of the wider world was the television and its programs. I had seldom watched the news so a university with Viet Nam protests and veterans, racial strife with Martin Luther King’s murder, studying population, food, and climate change was an eye opener. I started watching the national and international news and now I am a news junkie.

            Age old American Companies are now owned by foreign companies with CEOs who have distinct accents from the rest of the world. The internet companies have ethnic Asian Founders and CEOs. Oh, I have several Asian friends and my niece and nephew married into that ethnic German culture. Times have changed for the better for me but I still live in the good old days.

The bad is evident and I think the invention pushed by Al Gore is the basis for much of today’s problems. The newspapers and television were worried about not telling the truth about something and getting sued. Today we have media on the TV and internet that are so completely as to be propaganda status.

            Civility in politics has gone for the most part. Name calling and demeaning an opponent’s race and sex is now common. Having an immoral and despicable personality means nothing for millions of people. Lying has become an art form for some politicians. Religious people who run from any person wanting their vote now say they are not the second coming. What has happened to morals being their basis for supporting a person?

            Climate change has finally become evident with record high temperatures, and five hundred and thousand year storms are occurring every year. Home often are still in repair when another swamps it. Where I live in Northern Illinois a winter night reaching zero is extremely rare. Just a few decades ago that was a high temperature for days. Insects that burrowed down froze and died, but today the ground barely freezes.

My Favorite Teachers

28 Saturday Jun 2025

Posted by in Education

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        My high school years were in McLeansboro, Illinois where I had very good teachers and a terrible one. He taught Geography and his method of teaching was for each student to read a paragraph out of the textbook. I counted the number of students before me so I knew which was my paragraph and did something else until my turn. About a week into the quarter the Principal said he had some seats in shop if anyone wanted to change. My hand shot up first. Oddly I have a Master’s of Science in Geography.

            One of my two favorite teachers was Mr. Arnold, the shop teacher. He taught me how to design a house which I did and built it out of Balsa wood. Twelve years later I designed and did much of the work on the house I live in now. I wired it, did the plumbing and hot water heat, painted and paneled it. Without him I wouldn’t have thought about doing it. He moved to Salem a few years later and I often drove by Salem always thinking I should stop off and see him. He made me an officer in our chapter of Shop Clubs which was a starter to be President of Murray State’s professional Geography’s chapter of Gamma Theta Upsilon.That gave me the ability to be a Rotary Club President, run many committees and then a District Governor.

                My other favorite was Mr. Hallum who taught American History. It was a real treat each day to listen to him and his enthusiasm. I have a twenty-seven semester hour minor in History. No other history educator had the same effect on me. I have over a hundred History books in my library. I think it was Robert Hallum who inspired my desire to learn about how we got to where we are today. I love documentaries about life’s changes from thousands of years ago to now and how the Earth evolved and continues to do so. I owe a big thank you to Paul and Bob!