Potpourri of Issues

We sure have a lot of problems. We also have a lot of debate on how to solve them. I can't solve them here but I'll give you my attitude on what these issues are. For sure, I am always opinionated. Some solutions are offered here too, can you hear me now?

Health care: Obamacare/ the Affordable Care Act really isn't that affordable from what I hear. People are losing their old plans for new ones. Taxes go up. I just went on Medicare so I'm in the mix now; so far I've got a no-premium HMO saver plan though with Plan B I still get $104 deducted from my Social Security deposit each month. When I tried to get a referral on a dermatology visit through the PCP, personal care physician, I got a very impudent, snobbish response and dropped from the doctor's receptionist. I reported the incident to my insurance and requested a new PCP as a male too, and got one. As for the VA it took me THREE VISITS to get my photo taken for the new cards coming out. The VA data network includes Obamacare using an outsourcing contractor which told me I was ineligible for the updated card. Hogwash! I protested rather loudly, speaking to the chief of staff, explaining our veterans cards are based upon our service, qualifying us for ALL our benefits-not just based on their means test or income. Very demeaning. A third experience involves the state system called MassHealth which after 10 months tells me I have to fill out a SECOND APPLICATION because their website hasn't worked properly and my benefits will be jeopardized if I don't reapply before 2015.  Shameful! Their problem will not be my problem and I told them so.

War and peace: In retrospect Bush didn't start war, the terrorists did. The 2007 surge cleaned out Anbar Province only to have Obama lose Iraq by bringing US troops home to assuage his 2008 election promises for approval by his constituency. Obama found out he couldn't close Guantanamo, defeat the Taliban in Afghanistan nor remove Assad from Syria. His "redline" was a fake vs Syria after the chemical weapons were used. Obama's empty threat resulted in the build up of ISIS in both Iraq and Syria. In Libya at least NATO helped out, and Kaddafi was later killed. The Benghazi attack on our embassy was dismissed and covered up for Obama's re-election in 2012.  Okay you say Obama got bin Laden and he did, but that success really belongs to Bush in part- because W went after al-Qaeda after Sept. 11th. After all the talk with a new Iranian president, Iran is still hosing us with their secret centrifuges for nuclear weapons-contrary to their pleas regarding sanctions. America and the European Union just watched while Putin went into Crimea and now eastern Ukraine, because Obama is viewed as a weak leader. Meanwhile he challenges Congress.

On immigration: Obama will go around Congress to suit him after all the patronizing speeches for Congress involvement in war. Yes this country was founded on immigrants, but amnesty for the illegals already here will only encourage more illegal immigrants coming across our weak southern border. Some say we don't welcome legal immigrants? A lack of English speaking and desire for US  citizenship is an awkward mix; I'm for the legal process with papers and identification which is the basis for how America does business. All persons are created equal, but an illegal status does not entitle them to citizen rights if they are not legal citizens! Am I missing something? If Mexico, Brazil, Chile, Honduras etc. want in- apply! The green card visa a valid way; guest workers should be allowed to enter if they want jobs in agriculture. However I still oppose handouts, driver's licenses to illegal immigrants as a path to citizenship, or our laws/ screening standards for citizens mean nothing.

Energy: Oil prices, gasoline down for now but will we ever learn our lesson? North Dakota's oil boom has reduced our dependence on overseas imports; we're drilling off shore in the Gulf and Alaska. I say we need to drill ONSHORE in Alaska as spills on the land are less harmful than the likes of BP in 2010 Louisiana. And the Keystone XL pipeline from Canada's tar sands should also be approved and built. The Democrats want jobs but still think Washington DC can pay for all our problems with   "monopoly money" we're broke, remember? The oil companies have LOTS of real money to hire workers, but with prices down the drillers & producers now lose money. After the 40 year ban on oil exports by the US we could now sell oil, natural gas to Europe, Ukraine to help our Allies, and hurt Putin. We still need coal to keep the miners and railroads in business too. I'm all for wind farms and solar energy where appropriate. The Northeast has a sun shortage and higher prices for heating than rest of the nation. Why wouldn't you want a natural gas pipeline? And LNG tankers offloading out at sea terminals safe from the cities? You cant power cars on hot air!

National Security: We're at war against suicide bombers, therefore our intelligence secrets are not to be compromised by Edward Snowden and other self-appointed liberal crusaders. Spying on our Allies' cell phones crosses the line however I think. I've no problem with NSA, FBI, CIA, Secret Service and law enforcement monitoring US citizens phone & internet activities. Got something to hide?

Ferguson: I hope the police officer is exonerated as the kid went for his gun at the police car. Racism isn't just for whites you know. The OJ Simpson murder verdict was a breach of justice. Travon Martin was pursued by that man and killed after the dispatcher warned him not to chase the kid who was unarmed.

Other: The Colorado ski industry must be involved in the widening of I-70 into the mountains, with a guideway train already proposed by CDOT. If energy can pay extraction fees, why can't Summit, Vail pay to help the state?  The NOAA ban on cod fishing hurts like hell but can the fishermen outfit for dogfish, mussels, scallops and swordfish instead? Funny how GM and Chrysler got ignition switch recalls-weren't they bailed out by Obama's stimulus hoopla in 2009? Ford didn't take the money and didn't have these issues, am I on to something here?  If Massachusetts wants jobs then let's have casinos, even if you don't like gambling as I don't, the hotel buffets need food service and room attendants.  The pine beetle kill out West is turning whole mountainsides into red, dead trees a real fire hazard. The US Forest Service and private industry needs more fire fighters, and slurry planes, helicopters to combat drought-caused fires; loggers to mitigate dying forests to reduce this threat. Better research warning programs are needed to predict earthquakes, avalanches & landslides. At least two drones crashed into geyser basins in Yellowstone National Park; stricter enforcement stopping this kind of vandalism needs to be more vigilant.  Better sub-division planning coupled with more dams will prevent the flooding as seen in northern Colorado last year.

In summary the Federal government needs to operate on a balanced budget, not more feckless spending! We need to make our enemies pay too, reparations maybe? End foreign aid to rogue regimes and uncommitted nations, Turkey? Syria? Jordan? India? Pakistan? Latin America? Mexico? Our state governments need more independence from Washington DC, stop trading votes, money and pork. Priorities need to be set by somebody. The rural West embraces independence while the East and California can't manage nor afford to fix their urban problems like crowding, crime, traffic and transit. We are a divided nation because our respective cultural values are so different. Guns for example, energy and agriculture again. United we stand. But without a stand we stand for nothing!

Rust, Silver and Gold

I-155 approach to Mississippi River near Caruthersville, MO. I'm somewhere between my New England childhood home and choices for an adult home. I don't forget where I come from, but still stay focused ahead.
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Back East I really have no standing; I am nothing here only revenue, a cog in their wheels of government, justice and economic expectations. Individuality is not respected here, only the law and authority. Power clings to protective patronage. It's the money chase and the put on for a false show of compassion and sophistication. We know what's best for you. Narcissism, the herd instinct: keep up with the Joneses, the Sullivans, the Kennedys and Kelleys!  Irish flag license plates. Self-worth by ancestry and birthplace. Turf wars and class consciousness. Possession through bullying- aggression prevails. Outdated crumbling infrastructure. Bureaucratic entities cover their own rear ends at the expense of responsibility for the common good in the name of a commonwealth.

The Harvard/ Amherst rabble. Mafia cronies. Tatooed, pierced body parts, metallic boom box rap crap in-your-face vandal vulgarity. You're on your own in the merry-go-round screwball madhouse, perpetuated by neglect and disrespectful apathy. Winter's dark days of icy overcast gloom and chill stretch from November to March in an endless pile up of cold steel and salt. Curt abrupt strangers rush up behind my rear view mirror, pushing me to get out of their way. Wait in line for everything. Fearful multitudes elbow each other in reticent subway caverns of tabloids, urine odors and panhandlers.

Away from the bumper crop of car commercials and news center insanity is a place of rest somewhere, sometimes the tension and gall lifts in a whiskey glass or a bottle of wine. A roaring fire brings warm comfort in the North Woods beneath a New Hampshire birch. Swells and seabirds ride a breeze upon a beach, sometimes accompanied by bikini-clad beauties for a middle-aged man to enjoy. The bounce of a sailboat in a port tack relieves the dreary soul of suburban stress for an open breath of birth rite. Those dark winter skies aren't so bad after a day's skiing above the snarl below.

Then there's an open interstate free of tolls and taxing tailgaters, leading me once again over the Alleghenies to the corn belt flat horizons. The restrictions of a structured culture ascends for an individual on the road, tall in the saddle and high in the chin! Open ranges of sagebrush chaparral with Chihuahuan-Sonoran-Mojave-Colorado Plateau-Great Basin desert zones get shared with antelope, owls, rabbits and coyotes. Cattle guards, runaway truck ramps, snowplows, elk crossings and hushed evergreen forests mark the Rocky Mountains separation from so called civilization in a measured pace of deference.

Westerners don't recognize class; everyone is a class to one's self; identity is accepted inherently with your presence-everyone shares the common bonds to a county, a creek, a ranch, a resort, a small town, the land itself, providing a culture outdoors. Geography is measured by miles, not miles per hour, People say hello to one another usually with a "howdy" and a "you betcha." And the sky is almost always visible overhead with occasional abrupt changes, but the dry southwest wind patterns usually last longer than the stormy stretches. There are no fences in a national forest, BLM or national park beyond the private land boundaries. You are free. You've left behind the emphasis on crusading social issues and pretenses of reform through cookie-cutter, chaotic fitting in. Instead you get a tip of the hat pardner and a warm handshake in a less violent, virulent society.

What's Next In Space?

Since the early years of Mercury and Gemini manned flights, Apollo to the moon, the Sky Lab, Salyut,  Mir to the International Space Station, I've been hooked ! I recall Vanguard, Tiros, Sputnik, Explorer, Vostok,  Ranger, Mariner, Surveyor, Lunar Orbiter, the two Voyagers, Cassini, Magellan, Messenger, Soyuz and more- both unmanned and manned. The Mars missions particularly compelling like Viking, Sojourner-Pathfinder, Mars Express, Phoenix; the Spirit and Opportunity rovers as well as the latest Curiosity just wet the appetite for more knowledge-and the fabulous pictures. Shown here is a watercolor of the last Hubble repair mission. An even bigger James Webb telescope is planned for 2018.

Sorting out the latest new thing takes some catching up to do. This past September 2014 NASA announced the two winning candidates for a space taxi to resume US launched flights to the space station above. Boeing to build the CST-100 with a maximum capacity of seven astronauts, replacing our Russian partner's Soyuz hitch-hiking since the end of our shuttle program. CST be launched by the Atlas 5 rocket with a five year success history of 26 lift-offs. We should've kept one orbiter available in this gap, but President Obama put 7,000 out of work, ending STS as well as the proposed Ares plans; we even had a successful launch of the Ares 1 in 2009-10. The other space taxi contractor is Space X, short for Space Exploration Technologies; their capsule Dragon is already being used as a cargo ship, lifted by their Falcon 9 rocket. Recently the ESA, European agency completed a space plane mission in earth orbit, unmanned. They also put Philae, released by Rosetta, onto a comet called 67P after a 10 year transit around the inner solar system, a remarkable triumph.

Other attempts in this new commercial crew program include the Orbital Sciences Corporation's recent failure of their Antares rocket vehicle carrying the Cygnus payload; allegedly the Russian- made engine failed on launch and was destroyed over the pad at Wallop's Island VA. Within a week a second setback occurred over the Mojave Desert as the SpaceShipTwo tourist thrill ride by Virgin Galactic broke apart after the tail feathers were deployed prematurely before apogee and descent, killing one; the other test pilot survived.

As for the Russians their space agency called Roscosmos completed a ground experiment called Mars 500 whereby a crew quarantined themselves for 519 days. Russia of course uses Progress cargo ships and the Soyuz to bring crews to the ISS, and home again. The current contract with them calls for 6 US replacements to go up with Russia in 2016, returning them in June 2017. By then we hope to be independent of Russia for space station transportation. Russia has plans for updating, extending their spaceports and cosmodromes; launching a Mars vehicle 120-150 ton capacity, a Liquidator satellite that cleans up space junk in a geostationary orbit, a meteorological Meteo, other high tech satellites at $9.7 billion, and a moon base by 2040 utilizing cranes & mining hardware! 

China is in space now having succeeded in landing a rover on the moon, as well as docking with a laboratory in earth orbit with their Shenzhou 10 spacecraft. I believe India has done some unmanned launches as well. North Korea has also put something up amidst their saber rattling propaganda. I would like to see NASA and ESA work with China, welcoming them to the club!

On December 4, 2014 America hopes to test fly the Orion atop a Delta IV Heavy in a four hour unmanned trip through the radioactive Van Allen Belts at 3600 miles up, then re-entering earth's atmosphere at 20,000 mph to test the ablative honeycomb heat shield made by Textron in Wilmington MA.  The drogue chute to slow the craft to 175 mph with main chute splashdown at 20 mph if all goes well. The contractor for the Delta IV is United Launch Alliance, partnered with Lockheed Martin, a Colorado company. Boulder's Ball Aerospace is also involved.

The SLS, Space Launch System replaces the Ares program for the heavy lifting to Mars.  I can't conceive an Orion crew going to Mars with a single rocket for all the cargo, supplies and a lander needed, therefore I presume another SLS launch vehicle will provide these inherent essentials! The first SLS test comes in 2018 if we don't delay; it also is to be built by ULA/ Lockheed Martin, making both these rockets a cousin, descendent to the old Titan.

So that's the plan. I submitted an interest in the Orion "boarding pass" offer and my number will ride with it, J2M000001082691, that last one is me! The longer we delay the longer it'll take to reach our goals.        

More compiled data:  The Orion test flight last December 5 was a huge success. I watched all four hours, following the launch in a spectacular fiery orange lift off, the Delta IV separations, fairing and escape tower jettisoning. The second stage re-ignited pushing the craft up to 3600 miles above Earth with fantastic blue pictures of our world the curvature the size of a basketball.  The heat shield did its job as the drogue & main chutes gently set Orion onto the water 600 miles south of San Diego with the Navy in the recovery zone.

March 28 of the new year the launch date for Soyuz to bring Scott Kelly and Mikhail Kornienko up to the International Space Station for their one year duration flight. The Kelly twin brothers are to be featured in TIME magazine, Scott on the cover. The longest record for an American in space will take 5,920 orbits in the station the size of a 747 jumbo jet with 14 modules, 358' length, or about the size of a 4 bedroom house. Time spent will consist of science, health monitoring/ exercise and maintenance. They'll be joined and left behind by other expedition groups of astronauts. Books, movies and TV show requests will be available with their e mail/astronomical/photographic pastimes.

I've learned the Boeing space taxi CST-100 will be using four "pusher" thrusters at the capsule's base for a newly-advanced emergency escape system, instead of the tower configuration Mercury, Apollo and Orion had. The Space X Dragon also will use this new plan.

The Webb Telescope consists of an infrared camera to look at the first stars and galaxies, seeing further back into time than Hubble. These heavenly bodies are so far away their light can only be seen by detection of red shift in the spectrum; it takes millions of years for the Creation to reach us!

Venus? I read an article about a notion to send two astronauts in a spacecraft that would land on high ground, then inflate for habitat module; a 30 day orbital mission would be called the High Altitude Venus Operational Concept. The premise Venus tempertures are only 17 degrees higher than the hottest on Earth at an altitude of 50 kilometers or 30 miles up! Venus is somewhat closer to Earth with a 440 day round trip, compared to Mars at 650-900 days round trip. Isn't that something?!       

July 11: NASA announced the names of four military/ astronaut veterans to begin the commercial crew missions to the ISS, probably in 2017 or after. Following the recent Space X cargo rocket launch failure it'll take more money & testing for the CST-100 "space taxi"to be man-rated for flight by both Space X and Boeing. The astronauts picked for the first flight are Navy Capt. Sunita Williams with 322 days in space, holding the space walk record at 50 hours, 40 minutes combined; F-22 test pilot Robert Behnken USAF with two shuttle missions, USAF Colonel Eric Boe of 55 Southern Watch Europe-Mideast sorties/ two shuttle trips and Douglas Hurley USMC also two shuttle trips. I believe the most days in space for a woman is now held by ESA Italian astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti recently returned to Earth.

The exciting news occurs in deep space as the New Horizons probe fast approaches Pluto for a fly by through the Kuiper Belt at 7:49 am July 14, 2015! From early appearances Pluto looks red-similar to Mars except methane gas mixes with sunlight giving this far out dwarf planet its icy red hue.

Scott Kelly has just passed over 100 days in the space station so far, about 1/3 into his one year mission. He has been on Twitter showing strange algae in the waters, landforms, as well as photos of Boston, London and other points of interest below him!

Semi-Native

Self-worth doesn't have to be earned, only discovered by the self.  Money, materialism and rank are not the measure of a man, only his enlightenment of what feeds his soul-that is what belongs to him.

Code of the West:    Live each day with courage     Take pride in your work     Always finish what you start    Do what has to be done     Be tough but fair     When you make a promise keep it      Ride for the brand    Talk less and say more    Remember some things aren't for sale    Know when to draw the line  -author unknown     

The Men Who Don't Fit In:    There's a race of men who don't fit in, A race that cant stay still; So they break the hearts of kith and kin and they roam the world at will.  They range the field and they rove the flood and they climb the mountain's crest.  Theirs is the curse of the gypsy blood and they don't know how to rest.  -Robert Service    

I can relate to this poem with my skiing, birding, camping, driving across country, national parks quests, living & surviving odd jobs, alone roaming our deserts, canyons, plains, ranges and seashores seeking the Holy. I identify with other personalities like Thoreau, Abbey, Muir, Amundsen, Miller, Killy, Magellan, Washburn, Cameron, Grissom, Schirra, Powell, Fossett, Smith and my grandfather Griscom; they all possessed this spirit of adventure, and being the best to themselves!

A few more thoughts from others:  The way one lives is social work itself.  -Krishnamurti 
Faith resolves doubt.   -Billy Graham       You are responsible for your own behavior.  -my brother
Time is wealth.  -Allen Ginsberg     Don't do anything foolish.  -my Dad   What's left but our separateness and our dignity to bear it?  -from Route 66 TV series   Bad roads=bad driving !  -me 
The rocks live forever.  -Geronimo

Journalism Ethics/ Copyright Protection

The purpose of my blog here is to openly share my take on life, views on the issues and publish things both current as well further back that have been sitting just filed away! Be advised I do have original work here and it is protected by the U.S. Library of Congress, Registration #VAu 1-178-051 effective December 20, 2012 for all text, two dimensional artwork including photographs and paintings, titled Daley Art. Some of my photography and watercolor can be viewed by clicking my profile, to my You Tube Channel Art which is part of my Google account. I do subscribe to others' videos on You Tube, but WILL NOT UPLOAD others' stuff obviously and I don't know how to upload my own videos; I don't make videos anyway! Furthermore if I quote, borrow from another writer it is my intention to reveal that source,  as well as protect myself. I hope you'll enjoy my posts here and find them stimulating, contentious, agreeable or thoughtful. Thank you.

Philosophy Thoughts and Meditations

You get appreciation from yourself which is the reward in giving in life, love, family, philanthropy, social crusades or whatever; the joy is in the giving. We are programmed to receive- (Eagles) which causes all the conflict when what we expect or demand from others is not received.

Character is a system of values personally chosen by and for the individual in growth. For me it's resiliency, adaptation, curiosity, personal discipline, determination, fortitude and listening too. Philosophical reasoning and the quest has to be a unity of subjective and objective knowledge.

I don't believe authority figures can impose character on someone else, not God, clergy, teachers, politicians, police, courts, parents or employers. It has to come from within, again chosen. Choice. Otherwise why mince words like freedom and liberty when power and law asserts itself for power's and law's sake? The purpose and translation gets lost in the assertions, enforcements whatever.

There can be guidelines, rules and laws for the general good, but the motive and goal remains for the general good-NOT for the ones doing the guiding and ruling!

Mesa Verde (or______________) always tells the truth. The land opens us up to the agelessness of the Earth and our age within it. This world has no boundaries except those we humans construct to shut each other out elsewhere. Here on the land the only thing we can attempt to shut out is our own Truth-and it wont let you do that. Where I go, what I seek and see is who I am.

Vietnam on Another Veteran's Day

I didn't know how to upload a previous file on my desktop to this new blog so I'll just summarize to begin here. At 65 I don't have combat experience to comment on the Vietnam War, but I was stateside in the Navy, observing events like the Tet Offensive in 1968, the assassinations of King and RFK, the Chicago riots and Johnson's decision not to seek re-election. Looking back and using several books as reference material my conclusion is our leaders, including the higher brass didn't really care about winning the war, just covering their own rear ends to convince the American public opinion why the war was justified; and they lied, manipulated body counts, even composed speeches for the likes of Thieu, Ky, Khanh and Diem, the South Vietnam prime ministers of the era to legitimize their authority. Less focus was placed on respect and more focus centered on how many GIs can we sacrifice for so many a number of North Vietnamese regulars. I got the impression our people were ignored or forgotten as like the siege at Khe Sanh for example. This policy was known as attrition, cutting our losses to suit our aims, which is a pretty harsh thing to say. The draft brought green recruits into the jungle and booby traps; the lucky got through their one year tour to go home. And there was My Lai and presumably other episodes of innocents killed, villages burned. Yes the Viet Cong used people to hide grenades, even children and our people didn't have much choice. During Nixon/Agnew there were enemy lists, Christmas bombings on the North and the Watergate scandal-which led to the impeachment and resignation of his presidency. What a tumultuous period of history! I believe in a strong foreign policy, during Ford, Reagan and both Bush administrations I had to separate the self-defeating "Vietnam syndrome" loser's self-fulfilling prophesy- from the later crises that came along like the 1979 Iranian hostages, USSR in Afghanistan, Bosnia/Kosovo, Saddam in Kuwait, 9/11 and our present War on Terror-in order that we succeed in these justifiable, righteous campaigns. Vietnam was one theater of the Cold War like Korea, Berlin and Cuban Missile Crisis all were. Thankfully the Soviet Union gave it up in 1989 for which Gorbechev, Reagan and Bush 41 get credit! Today we use a professional soldier instead of a draftee. I think if we go to war to preserve freedom and the peace, it has to be done with integrity and the right reasons, with compassion for the innocents as well as justice for those who commit the atrocities like ISIS, al-Qaeda and the Taliban. These are determined enemies, but if our leaders can LEAD and remain firm, focused on the objective-instead of opinion polls-we can prevail and hold up ourselves with pride, self-honesty. We can learn from the Vietnam era to go forward while never forgetting those who did what they were told, serving honorably in a terrible situation-mismanaged up the Chain of Command at the time.