Hungry Crocodiles, Thieving Monkeys, and Minimum Wage Laws: Singapore, Bali, and Australia

2023 was quite a year!  I got married in April, and I recently got back from a three-week honeymoon cruise through two oceans, two continents, and seven stops across three countries.  As always when traveling, I observed and learned a lot that I want to share.  Here are the highlights from each stop along the way.

Singapore

Our trip started with a 17-hour flight to Singapore.  This tiny country is a very unique place.  The first thing you see, obviously, is the airport.  Normally, that would not be worth mentioning, but the airport in Singapore is different.  They have what they call The Jewel, which is a giant, 5-story, indoor mall area built around a massive, man-made waterfall in the center.  We spent about 5 hours there!  I went through two mazes, a giant canopy of nets that you can walk through, high above the mall, three big slides, and a beautiful garden, among other things.  We also got ice cream at Swenson’s, which reminds me of celebrations with my grandma.  Swenson’s is no longer in the United States, so I had not been there in years!  I also tried a different flavor, Durian, which is known as the world’s smelliest fruit.  I was not a fan.  It tastes a little like gym socks and garlic.  Fortunately, we also got a scoop of Sticky, Chewy, Chocolate, a favorite from my youth.  We even called grandma from the table.

Before the trip, my wife made me watch the film Crazy, Rich Asians, which is set in Singapore.  We actually stayed at The Marina Bay Sands, the hotel featured in that movie.  It was extravagant.  In fact, the whole country is pretty fancy.  As one friend put it, “That whole place is like a big country club.”  The hotel itself was just like being in Las Vegas, complete with a giant casino.  Interestingly, tourists are able to enter the casino for free, but Singapore residents have to pay a membership fee to go in, because they prefer the locals not gamble away their money.  We also went to The Raffles Hotel, the birthplace of the Singapore Sling, a tasty cocktail invented by a bartender there because women were not allowed to drink alcohol at the time, so he made it look like juice.

It seemed like Singapore has about a 1 to 1, restaurant-to-person ratio.  Everywhere you walked there was food.  They have renowned hawker markets, with Michelin star-rated food stands.  The best things we ate there were souffle pancakes, which are large, fluffy pancakes that are soft like marshmallows, and croffles, which are waffles made with croissant dough.  The most exotic thing I tried was shark fin soup, which is outlawed in many places.  It tasted fine, but the bigger thrill is angering crazy activists who want to tell people what they can and can’t do.

My biggest political observation from Singapore is how much they are pushing the “climate change” agenda.  Multiple people that we talked to brought up their fear of global warming.  The government of Singapore is pushing the idea that ocean levels are going to rise and flood the country.  Many of their attractions are very centered around global warming propaganda.  One example is a giant, domed, Avatar-themed sky forest.  It is very cool, and visually impressive, just like the movie.  Also, like the movie, it pushes the false narrative that humans are evil, planet destroyers.  Singapore even brags that they have a “vehicle quota system” that caps new cars in the country and sets a zero-growth rate for cars and motorcycles.  I did not realize how widespread this propaganda has reached.

Bali, Indonesia

From Singapore, we got on the cruise ship, Celebrity Edge, and set sail for Bali, where we were in port for two days.  We had arranged for a driver, Putu Dedy, months in advance to take us around the island.  I highly recommend him.  The first day, we went to a giant swing, that swings out over a cliff above a riverbed far below.  It was a rush!  The place also had a menu with a full page of different coffees, including the most expensive coffee in the world, Kopi Luwak Coffee.  It is made by feeding coffee beans to an animal called a civet, which looked to me kind of like a possum.  When the civet poops out the beans, they pick them out of the feces, clean them, and make coffee out of them.  It costs $50 for a cup!  I did not try it, but I did try Luwak chocolate, which was made with the same beans, and actually tasted really good.  We brought a bunch home with us to give to friends and family.  We got some great reactions when we told them how it was made, after they had tried it.  Next, we went to a restaurant, Bebek Tebasari Resto, where our driver got us a table on a bamboo bungalow over a koi pond, with a great view overlooking rice paddies.  They even give us fish food for the koi.  Finally, we went to one of the many beautiful waterfalls on the island before heading back to the ship.

The next day, we got up early and started with a trip to the GWK Statue.  It is a massive statue of the Hindu deity Vishnu riding on his mount, Garuda.  You can see the statue from many miles away and it is the first thing you notice when arriving from the sea.  The area around it is a cultural center, where they have a traditional Balinese show, with musicians and actors.  I got picked out of the crowd to be in the show, where I got to wear a monkey mask and act like a monkey on stage.  It was a blast!

From there, we went to our favorite place in Bali, the Uluwatu Temple.  It is a Hindu temple in a forest along a breathtaking cliff, overlooking the ocean hundreds of feet below.  What makes it extra fun is that there are monkeys who live at the temple.  We hired a guide to show us around because the monkeys are mischievous.  We were warned in advance not to wear hats or sunglasses, because the monkeys will steal them.  If they do, the guide is there to trade fruits or nuts to the monkey for your stuff back.  Our guide had a slingshot to keep the worst monkeys away, because he knew the ones to look out for.  We did, in fact, see two people who had not hired guides, get their glasses stolen by monkeys.  Then they had to pay extra for guides to trade for their stuff.  Our guide did let us hand-feed peanuts to the monkeys.  The funniest part was at the end.  We asked him, “Do the monkeys ever bite people?”  His response, “Yes.  All the time.”

After that, we went shopping and stopped at a place where they have fish pedicures.  Hundreds of tiny fish eat the dead skin off of your feet.  It tickled.  We finished the day by going to a resort along the Indian Ocean for some food, and a dip in the ocean. 

There were some things I learned from our driver that were pretty interesting.  We learned that while Indonesia is mostly a Muslim country, Bali is the only island that is not majority Muslim.  Most people in Bali are Hindu.  We also had a very interesting conversation about the Covid lockdowns in Indonesia.  He was angry about the lockdowns and the masks and the harm that it caused.  For someone who earns his living driving around tourists, he was crippled by the tyrannical edicts of the Indonesian government and had to sell all but one of his vehicles.  He barely made it through.  Then he told us that later he was pulled over by police because he was driving with somebody else in his car without a mask.  The other person was his wife.  Dishonest, stupid governments are a worldwide phenomenon.

Darwin, Australia

Our next stop was probably my favorite.  Darwin, Australia is at the very top of Australia, and was the most like I had envisioned Australia in my mind.  By that, I mean the most like the movie, Crocodile Dundee.  The city itself was small.  We went into multiple shops that had cool souvenirs, like boomerangs, hats with crocodile teeth, kangaroo testicle keychains, didgeridoos, and back scratchers with crocodile or kangaroo claws. 

Then, we got on a bus that took us to a boat on a river, where we got to see huge saltwater crocodiles in the wild.  Our bus driver told us that our tour guide on the boat used to swim in one of the lakes in the area as a kid.  They would just throw some rocks into the water, and if nothing moved, they would jump in.  Then one day, a schoolmate of his got eaten by a crocodile.  I looked it up.  It really happened. 

Once on the boat, the tour guide would tie a whole chicken to the end of a pole and hang it out over the water, where the croc would jump for it.  We saw a female, which we learned grow to about 3 ½ meters.  Then we saw a baby croc, which was cool because it could jump really high and get its entire body out of the water.  We learned that crocodiles are cannibals and that the females care for their young for about 6 weeks, and if they are not gone by then, they eat them.  Another interesting thing was that males sometimes bite off the arms of the female while mating, but crocs can turn off part of their heart so that blood stops pumping to that extremity and they survive.  They use their tail to get around, so the arms are unnecessary.  At the end, we saw a huge male crocodile.  Male crocs do not stop growing at 3 ½ meters like the females.  This one was about 4 ½ meters long, and scary!  We also got a nervous chuckle at the beginning, because they are required to show us where the life jackets are in case the boat sinks.  “I’m going down with the ship,” my wife said.

It was an extremely hot day, so when we returned to shore the tour bus took us to the world-famous Humpty Doo Tavern for a drink.  The bar is famous because, as the story goes, the Humpty Doo Tavern sold a giant, 2-liter bottle of beer called Darwin Stubby.  They would have a drinking contest to see who could finish a Stubby the fastest.  The Humpty Doo Tavern also used to allow animals inside, so people would bring all sorts of pets with them to the bar.  The most well-known was a cow named Norman, who would drink the Darwin Stubbies in record time.  People would come from far and wide to try to beat Norman, but nobody ever could.  Animals are no longer allowed into the bar, but it was still a fun place to stop.

Cairns, Australia, and the Whitsunday Islands

The next two stops were snorkeling trips.  The first day was near Cairns, Australia on the Great Barrier Reef.  The most interesting thing we saw there was a large sea turtle, snacking on jellyfish right next to us.  The next day was in the waterways between the Whitsunday Islands, which is a quaint, vacation spot for Australians.  There, we saw a massive stingray that was probably 5 feet across, with a huge barb at the end of his tail.  Crikey!  We also saw a small shark swim by us.  I may or may not have hidden behind my wife when it passed.

Sydney, Australia

The cruise ended in Sydney.  We only spent a day there, and it was plenty of time.  It is just like many other big cities around the world.  We did hit the two main tourist sights that people think of when they picture Sydney:  The Sydney Opera House and Bondi Beach.  We found a really good gelato place in Bondi called Anita Gelato.  I just looked it up and it turns out there is one in Los Angeles, too.

Melbourne, Australia

We took a short flight down to Melbourne on Quantas.  Quantas never crashed, you know?  We stayed with my wife’s friend, who moved there a few years ago.  He works in the restaurant industry, so he knew some good places to eat, like the best place we ate on the trip, Dumpling Palace. 

Our host, Brian, was also able to explain a phenomenon that many Americans do not understand, with the most clear, real-world example that I have ever seen.  Back in a restaurant in Sydney, I saw a sign promoting a drink special that I was curious about.  It had a picture of the drink and the special price, and then it had a higher price for Sundays and holidays.  I wondered why that was, but didn’t give it much thought.  Then in Melbourne, Brian told us that his restaurant closes pretty early in the evening.  In fact, he explained that there are almost no restaurants open late in Australia because they have what they call “penalty rates.”  Basically, the minimum wage goes up after a certain time at night.  Can you guess when else there are penalty rates?  Yep.  Sundays and holidays.  It made perfect sense.  The businesses were forced to raise their prices to pay for the government-mandated, artificially high wages.  In other words, raising the minimum wage causes inflated prices.  Either that, or it forces businesses to make up their costs in other ways, like closing down when the wages are higher.  Government interference in the economy should be the scariest thing you learn about from this article, even more than the crocodiles.

We also went to a cricket match between the Melbourne Renegades and the Perth Scorchers.  I do not know much about cricket, but it was a fun experience.  The match ended in controversy because they stopped it early due to bad field conditions.

Of course, when you think of Australia, you think of kangaroos, so we went to Gumbaya World.  It is a combination zoo, amusement park, and waterpark.  We bought some animal feed and walked around the zoo section, where we saw tropical Australian birds, koalas, wallabies, dingos, kangaroos, and emus, among other animals.  The kangaroos were super lazy, and if you tossed food to them, they didn’t even move.  We had to walk right up and hold it in front of their face before they would even show interest.  The emus, on the other hand, ran over to the fence and were very aggressively going after the little pellets of food.  Had there not been a fence between us, they would have attacked.

The Captain The last interesting story was from the final day on the cruise ship.  The captain did a question-and-answer session with the passengers, and one question stood out.  Many of the passengers had been on the ship since it left Rome, 52 days earlier.  They had gone from Rome, through the Suez Canal to Singapore, with many stops along the way.  One of the stops was supposed to be in Petra, Jordan.  After the Hamas attack on Israel and the instability in the region, that port had to be skipped.  One of the passengers who had been on the whole trip asked the captain, “Were the three American warships that were in the locks with us through the Suez Canal there because of what was happening in Israel?”  The captain’s response, “I can’t say much, but it was not a coincidence that the U.S. warships were with us in the locks.”

High Hopes, No Expectations

Rocky Balboa.  The “Miracle on Ice.”  300 Spartans versus the Persian Army.  The Bad News Bears.  John McClane at Nakatomi Plaza.  Most of us love an underdog story.  Do you know who doesn’t love an underdog story?  The people who were expected to come out on top.  As an athlete, and a very competitive guy, there are few things worse than going into a competition as the heavy favorite and losing.  In some ways, it is better to be the underdog, because if you win, you are a David who overcame Goliath.  If you lose, it is no big deal because nobody expected you to win in the first place.  The pressure is all on the favorite.  If they lose, they are chokers.  If they win, they are just doing what everyone already thought would happen. 

As a player, and especially as a coach, you need to deal with this problem, and I have come up with a mantra to help.  “Have high hopes, but no expectations.”  I can hear some coaches out there saying, “If you don’t have confidence that you are going to win, you will lose.”  Confidence is different than expectation, though.  Confidence is knowing that you are prepared and can win.  Expectation is more of an assumption that you will triumph.  If you expect things to go your way, when they don’t, you will be crushed with disappointment and a feeling of failure. 

I came to realize that this mantra is true outside of sports, too.  Last Sunday at church, the pastor preached a great sermon with the same theme.  He was teaching about how people can make the best of life in a fallen world, and pointed out that life will hurt more if we set the wrong expectations.  He noted that many people expect pleasure and are surprised when bad things happen, making it feel worse.  That is actually the opposite of reality.  Instead, he said that suffering is the norm and blessings are a gift from God.  This adjustment in expectations will greatly improve your life.  If you do not expect anything, you are more grateful for all of the good things that do occur. 

Be careful with what I am saying.  Some people might think I am saying to have low expectations or to expect the worst.  I am not.  That would cause a ton of anxiety and a pretty miserable existence.  For example, I could walk outside and get stabbed by a bum.  This is, after all, California.  I don’t expect that to happen, though.  That would turn me into quite a stressed-out, paranoid person.  Instead, just eliminate expectations, both bad and good.

People realize that this is wise when we talk about things that are very unlikely.  Very few people buy lottery tickets and expect to win the jackpot.  We all can see the folly in that.  Almost everyone goes their entire life without winning the lottery, so you are almost guaranteed to be constantly disappointed if you expect to win.  It is harder to see on other things with better odds, or even things where the odds are in your favor.  As a poker player, there are obvious examples.  When most people are dealt pocket aces, the best possible starting hand in poker, they expect to win.  The problem is, even if the other person has 7-2 off suit, the worst hand in poker, there is still about a 12% chance that the pocket aces are going to lose.  Anybody who has been at a poker table when this happens knows the disappointment and frustration that it causes.  It is often accompanied by colorful language or nasty comments to the other player or the dealer.  The high expectations are what cause this reaction. 

This is where the hope part of the equation comes in.  Some people overcompensate and give up when their expectations are not met.  I have heard many poker players say, “Next time I see aces I’m just going to fold them face up.”  That is, of course, ridiculous, because you are going to win most of the time.  You have to remain hopeful.  Hope is what keeps us going.  Without hope, we give up and see no point in trying.  If we don’t try, we will never succeed.

This is true in all areas of life.  In the past, I would go on a few promising dates with a girl and start to think, “This is the girl for me!”  Then, when those expectations were not met, it was awful and heartbreaking.  I had allowed myself to get high expectations.  Thankfully, I remained hopeful.  Had I lost hope and given up, I would never have met my wife.  Hope keeps us going.  As the Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoevsky put it, “To live without hope is to cease to live.”

There is an exception to my rule.  I expect effort.  Everyone fears failure.  Get over it.  Try your best.  If a player I am coaching drops a ball, it is not ideal, but I will not yell or get angry.  If, on the other hand, they are worried they will drop a ball, so they slow down and don’t try their best to get to it, I will get mad and call them out for their lack of effort.  You cannot control results, but you can control your effort.

Now, whether it be in competition, business, love, or any other area of life, have confidence, keep the hope, and give your best effort, but eliminate your expectations.  You will be a lot happier, and probably more successful.

A Compromise to End the Divisiveness

On the morning of June 14, 2017, James Hodgkinson went to a park and opened fire on Republican lawmakers at a practice for the annual congressional baseball game, injuring 4 and leaving Majority Whip Steve Scalise in critical condition.  To many people, this was not surprising because of the polarized climate of political discourse in the United States.  According to a 2022 NBC News poll, 80 percent of Americans believe that their opposing political party poses a threat to the country, and if not stopped, will destroy it.  Most politicians claim to want to end the divisiveness and bring people together.  Many regular Americans are fed up with the division in our country, especially in Washington.  We should all want to stop this division from becoming violent.

In light of this polarization, I thought it would be the perfect time to propose a compromise that should unite Americans on one major issue.  It turns out Hodgkinson was a strong supporter of Senator Bernie Sanders, who ran to be the Democrats’ presidential nominee in the last two elections.  His Facebook page was reportedly covered with posts about a major talking point of Senator Sanders and the Democrats:  income inequality.  For years now, the main strategy of Democrats to win elections has been to divide people into groups and tell one side that they are victims who need to vote for Democrats to fight for them.  They divide people into black vs. white, male vs. female, gay vs. straight, and Christian vs. non-Christian, but maybe the biggest division they push is rich vs. poor. 

You have probably heard Senator Sanders or other Democrats talk about “the top 1 percent” or how “the rich need to pay their fair share.”  Democrats consistently propose that we raise taxes on whoever they deem rich.  They want us to keep our progressive tax system, where the percentage of income that you are forced to give the government in taxes goes up as you earn more.  Not only that, but they want to raise taxes at an even steeper rate.  In fact, the shooter at the baseball practice was shown in a photograph holding a sign that reads “Tax the rich like Congress did for 70 years till Reagan’s Trickle Down.  We need 20 brackets – $20 million.” 

Republicans often refer to this rhetoric as class warfare.  They note that somebody else’s success does not hurt the people on the bottom, and in fact, it helps them.  Most Republicans prefer a flat tax system, where everyone pays the same percentage of their income in taxes.  This still means that people with higher incomes pay more taxes, but not at a higher, disproportionate rate.  A flat tax is without a doubt the most fair tax system.  Unfortunately, there is too much opposition by Democrats to get a flat tax system in place. 

This is where my compromise comes in.  This may even sound like a lopsided win for Democrats at first glance.  I propose that as a compromise, we keep the Democrats’ progressive tax rates that we currently have.  The current tax brackets range from 10% at the bottom up to 37% at the top.  Here is the catch that should unite Americans.  We should lock all of the tax brackets together on a sliding scale.  By this, I mean that if the top rate is raised by 5%, to 42%, the bottom bracket goes up equally to 15%.  If the top rate is lowered to 32%, the bottom rate is lowered to 5%.  The result?  Every American would now be on the same team.

Many Republicans are going to balk at this idea because it is unfair and a progressive tax system punishes achievement.  I agree.  As I said, the only fair tax system is a flat tax.  Hear me out, though.  Think about the results of this compromise.  No longer could someone say, “Raise taxes on that guy over there, as long as you don’t raise mine.”  Very few people will want to raise your taxes if it also raises theirs.  Democrats would not be able to pit people against each other like they always do.  At least, not on this issue. 

This is, ultimately, the best way to unite Americans.  Align their interests.  That way, when Democrats fret that Republicans want tax cuts for “the rich,” people will all be happy because that means lower taxes for them too.  When Democrats want to raise taxes on the rich, who will support them if that also means raising their taxes?  While at first glance this idea might seem unfair, the practical effect would be to unite rich and poor, eliminate tax hikes, and likely end the career of politicians who try to raise taxes. 

When Americans are united on a cause, it generally leads to success.  This is one of the rare instances that unity can be easily achieved.  I do not make a lot of money, but I want to lower your taxes.  Do you want to lower mine?

Ay Caramba!  What Happened to The Simpsons?

As an 80s kid, The Simpsons has to be in my top ten TV shows of all time.  We grew up with Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa and Maggie getting into all sorts of crazy situations.  Who can forget when Bart cut off the head of the Jebediah Springfield statue, or when Bart was being bullied at school by Nelson, and Homer advised him to hit him in the family jewels?  What about when Homer became “Dancing Homer,” the mascot for the Springfield Isotopes baseball team?  Just a few weeks ago, my sister was sitting at the top row of stadium bleachers and was freaked out that she might fall, and I said, “Isn’t that how Maude Flanders died?”  (I was right.  It was.  Check it out here.) 

Many of you probably do not remember that The Simpsons was very controversial and edgy when it started, way back in 1989.  Before that, cartoons were played on Saturday and Sunday mornings, or after school on weekdays.  They had innocent, fun, playful stories, and were geared towards kids.  Then came along a dysfunctional cartoon family with a foul-mouthed, troublemaking son on the airwaves during prime-time television.  Some families at my church would not allow their kids to be exposed to such a show.  Despite the controversy that surrounded The Simpsons, the show was a massive success.  It was too funny not to be.

Surprisingly, The Simpsons remained funny for about 25 years, and even more surprisingly, it is still running today.  It is impossible to keep a show funny forever, and The Simpsons did eventually lose its edge.  The big laughs became chuckles, and then the chuckles started getting fewer and farther apart.  It is rare that I watch anymore, but last Sunday I decided to flip over to The Simpsons.  I was very disappointed.  Unfortunately, it was not because it wasn’t funny.  I expected that.  What I did not expect to see was leftist, anti-religion, anti-charity, big government propaganda.

The episode, titled “Write Off This Episode,” starts with Marge and Lisa starting a charity to help the homeless.  Then, Marge gets sucked into fundraising and “raising awareness” instead of actually helping anybody.  The problem comes at the end of the episode, when the charity is holding a ritzy gala to celebrate the opening of their giant, glamourous, new headquarters.  When Marge sees her folly, she opens up the center to the homeless to come in and eat.  The rich donors are upset, and the villainous Mr. Burns stands up and gives this speech:

Enough of this do-goodery.  Open your eyes, rich people.  We’re not here to help the less fortunate.  We’re here to bask in our fortunateness.  If we really wanted to make a difference, we’d do the one thing we spent our lives avoiding… paying our taxes!  Then, one organization, the government, could tackle all of society’s ills.  Instead of leaving it to 1.5 million separate, ego-driven, micro-bureaucracies called charities, including, get a load of this scam, religions.  But no one here wants the rational way.  We all want the United Way, because that’s the American way.

 

Ay caramba!  Not only was it irrational and not true, but it was unfunny.  Look.  It is OK to make fun of charities and religions. (Or, most religions.  Some may chop off your head.)  Most Christians have a sense of humor.  However, it has to be funny!  The Simpsons, in fact, have done it since the beginning.  One of the most familiar characters is the goody-two-shoes, hyper-religious, next-door-neighbor, Ned Flanders, and he is funny.  There have been many episodes based around church, or Reverend Lovejoy, that are hilarious.  This episode, on the other hand, was not even intended to be funny.  It was just a setup for a government propaganda speech based on a dangerous, flawed premise.

As someone who started and ran a charity to help addicts, I know something about this.  While there are some bad charities and some bad churches, there are some major problems with the message that The Simpsons was clunkily shoving down our throats.  Here are three big ones:

  1. Efficiency – Government is HIGHLY wasteful, inefficient and ineffective.  Bureaucracy is defined by Investopedia as “a complex organization that has multilayered systems and processes.  The systems and processes that are put in place effectively make decision-making slow.  They are designed to maintain uniformity and control within the organization.” The government is slow, and to get anything done, you have to cut through red tape like you were hacking your way through the jungle with a machete.  It is expensive to do this.  Good charities, on the other hand, often only spend 20% or less of their donations on administrative costs, meaning that 80% or more of what you donate is used towards the cause.
  2. Choice – Taxes are coerced, so when the people see how inefficient the government is at solving problems, they cannot withhold their funding.  The government has little reason to be efficient because they can take your money either way.  Since taxes are mandatory and people cannot choose whether to give, the bureaucrats in charge of programs actually have an incentive to make problems worse, so that they can say that they need more funding.  Conversely, charitable giving is voluntary, and people can choose which charities they give to.  This is a massive difference.  As I said, there are some bad charities and some bad churches, but you are not forced to give anything to them!  This makes the charities accountable to their donors and forces them to show results.  If they do not show results, they will lose donors.  If you are looking into donating to a charity, there are watchdog organizations, like Charity Navigator, where you can find out what percentage of their donations are actually used for the cause.
  3. Proximity to the problems – The government, especially the federal government, is far from most of the problems in our country.  This leads to impersonal, cookie-cutter solutions to problems that only work for very few of the people who need assistance.  Churches are, without a doubt, the best, most effective organizations to deal with societal problems.  Contrary to Mr. Burns’ assertion, they are not generally as bureaucratic.  Most have boards of deacons or church elders to run things by, while other churches just have pastors with broad decision-making authority.  After that, the people involved are the members of the church, who live in the affected communities and often know the people who need help.  They are close to the problems and can deal with them in a much more personal way. 

These three things just scratch the surface as to why charities and churches are far superior to the government when it comes to helping people.  When Alexis de Tocqueville traveled through America in 1831, he was impressed by how Americans gathered together in charitable associations to help each other and thought that this was one of the big reasons why the young country was so successful.  He noted, “I have often seen Americans make large and genuine sacrifices to the public good, and I have noted on countless occasions that, when necessary, they almost never fail to lend one another a helping hand.”  He was correct.  If you want to make a difference and help people, give to charities and get involved at your church.  If you want to waste your money, give it to the government.  Actually, you have to.  D’oh!

Taylor Swift:  A Concert Experience

My wife and I have won “aunt and uncle of the year.”  For Christmas last year, we got my three nieces, who live in North Carolina, tickets for the Taylor Swift Eras Tour at Sofi Stadium in Los Angeles with us.  We also took my two sisters.  My oldest niece is 15-years old and a huge Swiftie.  She has seen Taylor Swift twice before and knows all of the inside information that Swifties know.  My other two nieces, who are 12 and 9, are Swifties in training.  As the concert was about to begin, my oldest niece told me that it was going to be more than just a concert.  It was going to be an “experience.”  She was right.

Taylor Swift put on a concert like no other concert I have ever attended, and I am not an amateur concertgoer.  Just in the past year, I have been to two other big concerts at Sofi Stadium; Paul McCartney and Billy Joel, as well as seeing Styx, Cheap Trick, 3 Doors Down, The Doobie Brothers (in Phoenix), Rod Stewart (in Las Vegas), Sting (in Las Vegas), and The Cure (in England).  Here are some of the things that make Taylor Swift stand out.

The Bracelets – The experience actually starts way before the concert.  In one of Taylor’s songs, there is a line about making friendship bracelets.  Her fans took the line as a call to action, and now they make friendship bracelets to wear and trade at her concerts.  My wife and I had heard about the phenomenon, so we bought some bead kits from the local craft store, and when my nieces arrived, we had a bracelet-making party at Grandma’s house.  We listened to Taylor Swift music while we made bracelets that spell out album names, song lyrics, or other Taylor-related tidbits.  When we arrived at the concert, everyone had them.  My wife’s biggest takeaway from the concert was that everyone was so open and friendly.  Nobody was shy, which I love.  From the moment we arrived, complete strangers were walking from person to person trading bracelets, having conversations, and making new friends.  Even celebrities have been spotted participating.  This seemed to be my youngest niece’s favorite part, because we could barely drag her away from trading bracelets to leave at the end of the night.

The Clothing – My wife asked me what to wear to the concert and my response was, “it’s not the theatre, it’s a concert.  I would guess people just dress casually.”  Then, I asked my oldest niece.  I was wrong.  She said a lot of the people dress in outfits from Taylor Swift album covers or performances.  She had already picked out a very sparkly dress that looked kind of like a disco ball, along with disco ball earrings.  When we got to the show, there were thousands more sparkly dresses, along with ringmaster outfits, elegant flowy gowns, and other elaborate getups that I don’t even know how to describe.  My mom dropped us off and picked us up from the stadium because parking was over $200, and she said it was worth the drive just to see all of the outfits.  Then there was the number “13” written on most of the girl’s hands.  That is, as you might guess, because 13 is Taylor’s lucky number. 

The Technology – After seeing the Taylor Swift Eras Tour, I was left pondering if there was ever a show in the past that was even close to comparable visually.  The best comparison that I could think of was KISS, who was famous for elaborate outfits, crazy makeup, and breathtaking pyrotechnics.  Technology from the past could not compete with what they were able to do for Taylor Swift.  There was a huge video screen on the back of the stage.  Since the Eras Tour was over 3 hours long, covering her 17-year career, the videos and images on the massive backdrop denoted which “era” of her career she was on. 

The gigantic stage went out into the crowd about 80 yards for Taylor to dance and sing down with her backup dancers.  It had hydraulic platforms that would lift her up from the stage at different times during the show, as well as trap doors that she could drop down into between songs for costume changes. (She probably changed costumes more than 10 times.)  It was also a video stage, which allowed for cool effects like snakes striking at dancers, bicyclists leaving tracks around the stage, and one point where Taylor Swift dives into a trap door and appears to swim from the front end of the stage all the way to the back.

Finally, the coup de gras.  I remember when I first started going to concerts and a ballad would come on, and people in the crowd would hold up a lighter.  Then a few years later, when they became more common, people started to hold up their glowing cellphone screens.  At the Taylor Swift Eras Tour, as you walk into the stadium, you are handed a wristband.  This wristband has a geolocator inside that knows exactly where in the stadium you are.  Then it lights up and flashes different colors depending on where you are standing.  This allows for some amazing effects.  They can flash with the beat of the music.  They can create waves of light or colors, almost like when people do the wave at a sporting event.  They can also make patterns of light in the crowd.  For example, at one point there are hearts made of light on either side of the crowd.  It was astonishing.

The Music – It is, of course, a concert, so the music is what matters the most.  Now, if you have read some of my other articles where I talk about values, politics, and religion, you may think I am exaggerating when I say this, but I am about to say the most controversial thing I have written yet.  Taylor Swift has songwriting chops in the same league as Lennon and McCartney.  As a huge Beatles fan, that is almost blasphemous to say, but she really is a brilliant songwriter.  Just like Lennon and McCartney were able to churn out catchy hit after catchy hit in the 1960s, Taylor Swift is already able to play an over three-hour concert with songs that people sing along with, and most of them you would recognize even if you are a little older than her target audience.  Not only that, but she is still in her songwriting prime, so I am sure there are more chart-toppers to come. 

Speaking of singing along, before going to her last Taylor Swift concert, my oldest niece wanted to be surprised by the setlist, so she didn’t look it up.  She did, however, want to be able to sing along with anything Taylor played, so she looked up and learned the lyrics to all her songs!  Apparently, that is not uncommon.  At one point, Taylor Swift asked the crowd if anybody did any lyric memorization for the show, and there was a thundering response.

The Excitement – The excitement is palpable.  I had only ever seen anything like it in old film of the Beatles.  There were a group of girls sitting near us who were literally sobbing through most of the show.  People (including men) were screaming “Taylor!” at the top of their lungs.  At one point in the show, she finishes a song on the piano and looks up into the crowd and lets everyone go crazy.  It was possibly the loudest I had heard a crowd since being at the Kirk Gibson game at Dodger Stadium.  My niece looked over at me and said, “Last time this ovation lasted 8 minutes before she started again.”  After 8 minutes this time, the ovation was still going for another minute or two, and might have continued longer had Taylor not started talking.  It certainly was an experience I will never forget. 

A Wartime Consigliere

“I think it’s sad that these are our choices.  It seems like we can do better than Biden or Trump.”  This sentiment was recently overheard at a barbeque I attended, and it is not the first time it has been proclaimed as we lead up to next year’s presidential election. 

With an incumbent president who has given us massive inflation, rampant crime, porous borders, unparalleled corruption, and shown weakness to our enemies worldwide, it seems obvious that he should be replaced in 2024.  The part that is not obvious is who should replace him.  Under normal circumstances, there would be a clear candidate.  We have a former president running with an impressive record on almost all of the important issues.  He was feared by our enemies, leading to unprecedented peace treaties in the middle east, and putting China, North Korea, and Russia in a holding pattern until America became weaker.  He was a great friend to Israel.  He fought to protect our borders.  He lowered the government’s interference in our lives, leading to a booming economy.  He appointed three Supreme Court Justices who make rulings based on the Constitution instead of the political whims of the day.  That person, of course, is Donald Trump.

With all of that in mind, it seems as though the case should be closed.  President Trump should be the easy pick.  Unfortunately, there are obstacles that come with President Trump.  He has an unpolished image and often says things that turn off large swaths of the population, including many conservatives.  He has been attacked by the media and entertainment industry obsessively for 7 years, and some of it has poisoned the opinions of many people who agree with almost all of his policy decisions. 

The supporters of President Trump try to use logic to point to all of the great accomplishments that he had in office.  Then, they are frustrated that logic does not make much of an impact.  Those on the left simply hate his guts.  They will never change their minds, but they will feel the same way about Ron DeSantis or any other conservative candidate, so their opinion should be irrelevant. 

The problem is the many otherwise conservative people who cannot stomach his antics.  Their concerns are not imaginary.  His unpolished persona and sometimes outlandish rhetoric contribute to his unlikability in some circles.   These are the ones who prefer candidates like former Vice President Mike Pence.  Many Trump supporters are incensed by Pence and call him a RINO (Republican in Name Only).  He is not.  Mike Pence holds conservative positions and is a very nice Christian man.  This is what those conservatives long for.  They want a candidate who is nice.  The problem is, nice only works with a nice opposition party and an honest media.  The United States today has neither of those things.

Our opposition party, the Democrats, is relentless in its dishonest attacks.  Our media is their propaganda wing, and will stop at nothing to destroy anybody with an R after their name, or who espouses traditional Judeo-Christian values.  They vilified President George W. Bush as a far-right monster, and he was a moderate, and a nice man.  They even crucified candidates John McCain and Mitt Romney as extremists, and they are not even close to conservative.  The media will cover for Democrats who do unethical things.  Then they will dig and dig and dig to find the smallest piece of dirt, real or imagined, on Republicans, and never let it go.  They are at war with us and they fight to win.

A nice candidate has not, and will not work in this climate.  I recently rewatched one of the greatest films of all time, The Godfather, and there is a scene that seems relevant to the situation we are in now.  After things have gotten out of hand and the five families are at war, Michael Corleone returns from hiding in Italy and becomes the leader of the family.  He gathers together all of his top men and lays out his plan for the future of the Corleone family.  During the meeting, he does something that always seemed a little unfair to me.  He tells the consigliere (the top advisor in the family), Tom Hagen, played by Robert Duvall, that he is no longer the consigliere.  Tom Hagen was Vito Corleone’s adopted son, a savvy lawyer, extremely smart, and very loyal.  Tom protests.  Then Michael says, “You’re not a wartime consigliere, Tom.”  I did not understand it until recently.  I thought Tom was cunning and completely trustworthy, so why would you want to demote him?  Then I realized what Michael meant.  Tom is a pretty strait-laced guy, who likes to work within the system and avoid getting dirty.  As the narcotics trafficking Virgil Sollozzo says earlier in the film, “I know you’re not in the muscle end of the family, Tom.”  As much as you can be in a movie about mobsters, Tom Hagen is the nice guy.  This is what my conservative friends who wish we can do better than President Trump remind me of.

This is not an endorsement of President Trump.  I have still not decided who I am going to support.  It is, however, a defense of his tenacity and combativeness.  He calls out the left for their lunacy and he calls out the media for their hypocrisy and bias.  At this moment in time, those qualities are a necessity.  Maybe DeSantis, Larry Elder or some other candidate has that fight.  Hopefully, they do.  We need a lot of fighters.  The people who are hoping for a better candidate are looking for an unrealistic candidate.  They want someone with the looks of Brad Pitt, the kindness of Mr. Rogers, and the magical ability to unite people who hold biblical values with people who think that men can get pregnant.  That person does not exist.

If we try to play nice against people who are playing dirty and playing for keeps, we will continue to get used as a punching bag, and we will lose.  In the past, both sides shared Judeo-Christian values and wanted America to prosper and lead.  Now, the Democrat party stands for the destruction of Judeo-Christian values and no longer wants a prosperous, powerful United States.  This is not the time for compromise.  We need to utterly defeat the left and we need a leader who will push on without regard for what the left thinks.  For those of you who want a nice president, instead, let’s make them an offer they can’t refuse. *

*My proofreader suggested I change the last line because the left might accuse me of making a threat and use it to attack me.  While I think it is naïve to think that the left needs a reason more than that I disagree with them to attack me and try to silence me, I will clarify.  That line is not a threat or a call for any horse head shenanigans.  It is just a tie-in to The Godfather, and it means that we should support a candidate who will be uncompromising on any issue of importance.

In Defense of Rainbows

If leprechauns really hid gold at the end of rainbows, June would be the month to search.  There seem to be rainbows everywhere.  It used to be that everyone loved rainbows, but now they are divisive and provoke a negative reaction in a large segment of the population.  This is, of course, because our culture has changed the symbolism of the rainbow.  The rainbow is now seen as the symbol for pride.  Not pride in some great accomplishment, but instead, pride in choosing to have sex with people of the same sex, or pride in thinking you are a different gender than you are. 

This new rainbow symbol has caused a lot of controversy.  Target stores have been the subject of boycotts because they are featuring pride displays with LGBTQ+ geared products.  I walked into the Target by my house to see for myself, and sure enough, right near the front was the pride section, with rainbow clothing, dresses for men, and lots of pride slogans.  I was even more surprised when I walked around the store and saw a pride pet supply section with rainbow frisbees, chew toys, and bones.  Presumably, this is for your boy dogs who think they are girl dogs.

Major League Baseball has also made headlines recently.  Last season, five Tampa Bay Rays players caused a stir when they declined to wear rainbow pride logos on their jerseys.  Then, this season, the Los Angeles Dodgers took criticism for celebrating a pride night where they honored the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, an organization that mocks Catholicism in the name of pride in their sins.  (Their motto is “Go forth and sin some more!”)  Now, to avoid further divisiveness and controversy, Major League Baseball has quietly instructed teams to eliminate rainbow pride logos from their Pride Day uniforms. 

While it is frustrating that the meaning of rainbows has been twisted in that way, they should still bring joy and hope.  Rainbows, along with being beautiful, have a very specific meaning.  When we see all of these rainbows, it should be looked at as an opportunity to tell people what they really mean.  The true meaning is found in Genesis 9:8-17.  After a time similar to the times we live in now, where people did what was right in their own eyes, God punished the world with a flood, saving only Noah and his family.  Then God made a promise to Noah that He would never again destroy the earth with a flood.  He set a rainbow in the cloud as a sign of that promise.  That is what rainbows really mean.

This is amazing news for so many reasons!  This not only shows God’s love and mercy, but it gives us a great chance to steer the LGBTQ propaganda back to God.  Not only that, but it destroys another political attack that is being used against us to crush our way of life.  All of you who have heard about “The Great Reset” know that it would ruin our economy and our culture, and the cornerstone of it working is the “climate change” agenda.  They try to scare children that rising temperatures will melt the ice caps, and the oceans will rise and wipe out the planet with a flood.  Since we know about the rainbow and God’s promise that it represents, we also know that there is no chance that this will ever happen.  There is literally a greater chance that the Oakland A’s will win the World Series this year than of rising sea levels causing a global flood.  Paulie Shore has a better chance of being appointed to the Supreme Court than there is of global warming flooding the earth.  I would gladly bet everything I own on this; because God does not break His promises!

The next time you are walking around and see rainbow flags, instead of getting upset, use that opportunity to tell someone about the true symbolism of rainbows.  Remember, we already have the book.  The good guys win in the end.  Stay positive!

I See London, I See France

Hello and bonjour!  As many of you who follow me on social media know, I recently took my first trip to Europe, and I promised to share my observations from overseas.  It actually started in an Italian restaurant on a baseball trip to Scottsdale, Arizona, in October.  After some wine, my girlfriend (now fiancé) asked me if I like the 80s band, The Cure, and if we should go see them in concert.  I said, “yeah,” and she preceded to go on her phone and get us tickets.  After she bought the tickets, she told me that the show was on December 12 in LONDON! 

When booking flights, she decided that we should go across the channel to Paris for a few days after the concert.  Here are highlights from the trip, with some observations, pictures, and recommendations!

  • We arrived in London on Friday afternoon after a redeye flight from LAX.  We stayed at the “Grand Royale London Hyde Park,” which was built by King Edward VII for his mistress, actress Lillie Langtry.  My favorite part about the hotel was the full English breakfast each morning, which ranged from normal stuff like eggs, bacon, and sausage, to things like sauteed mushrooms, marmalade, baked beans, and of course, many kinds of English teas. 
  • We went on a Paddington Bear-themed double-decker bus tour of the city, which included English high tea with sandwiches, scones, cookies, cheeses, and marmalade. 
  • After getting mulled wine in Trafalgar Square, we wandered the wrong direction back to the hotel, leading to a six-mile walking tour through the streets of London.
  • Saturday night was the World Cup soccer match between England and France.  While I am not a soccer fan, I thought it would be a fun atmosphere to sit in a pub and watch with the English fans.  Unfortunately, the pubs were so crowded that many of them would not let anybody else in, and the ones that did were so packed that we could not even move.
  • Since we were there on a Sunday, we decided it would be cool to attend the church service at Westminster Abbey.  The service had a solemn feel to it, with an organ and a boys choir that sounded eerie and echoey because of the giant building and very high ceiling, combined with being otherwise quiet.  The most interesting part was the markers for all of the people buried in Westminster Abbey, from kings and queens, to scientists like Isaac Newton and Charles Darwin, to writers like Rudyard Kipling and Charles Dickens, to politicians like Neville Chamberlain, who is off to a side, and Winston Churchill, who is actually buried elsewhere, but has a large memorial marker right in the middle near the entrance.  I would like to go back when services are not going to read the markers.
  • The Tower of London was recommended by a friend and I also highly recommend it.  I know a ton about U.S. history, but my European history is a little lacking, so I learned a lot.  The tower is a castle that was built in 1078 and has been vital to the defense of the city for centuries because of its location along the Thames River.  It has been used as a royal residence, an armory, a mint, and a prison, among other things.  It now houses the Crown Jewels of England, which you can look at.  There are old weapons and armor on display in the White Tower, which is the oldest section of the castle.  There are also old torture devices, like the rack, that look horribly painful.   You can also see ravens that are kept at the tower because as legend has it, if the ravens ever leave the Tower of London, the Crown will fall and Britain will be lost.
  • It snowed!  We were inside a pub when it started, so we went outside and played in the falling snow, making snowballs and taking plenty of pictures.  It was beautiful!  For a guy from near the beach in California, it was definitely quite a memorable experience.

  • One of the other recommendations given to me was the Churchill War Rooms, and it may be my favorite thing we saw on the trip.  During World War II, Winston Churchill had a complex of rooms and tunnels built and reinforced under a building in London.  Since the Germans were dropping bombs on the city, the allied war effort was orchestrated from the bunker, which included meeting rooms, sleeping quarters, a room for the typists and secretaries, and the map room, which has been preserved in the condition it was in 1945 when they left it, with the original maps up on the walls.  It now also includes the Winston Churchill Museum, where you can get a very good look at one of the greatest men in history.
  • The concert was at Wembley Arena.  The Cure frontman, Robert Smith, was quite an interesting looking guy in the ‘80s, and he still dresses in the same style, making him look a little like if my dad dressed in Goth.  The set list was strange, because although The Cure has enough hits to spread them around, they saved almost all of them until the very end.  In fact, they left, came back for an encore, still did not play hits, left again, and came back for a second encore where they played a bunch of hits in a row.  They sounded good, and when they finally did play Just Like Heaven and Boys Don’t Cry, the crowd ate it up and sang along.
  • Abbey Road!  As a huge Beatles fan, I had to go see Abbey Road and get a picture in the famous crosswalk from the cover of The Beatles final album.  As Paul McCartney found out, you have to be careful, because you have to dodge traffic to snap your picture!

After London, we got on the Eurostar train under the channel to Paris.  My guess was that I would like London better, mostly because they speak English there.  I had also heard from quite a few people that Paris is overrated and dangerous.  Besides that, I had many assumptions about France being full of rude, snooty people, and of course that the French are wimps and ultra-woke leftists.   Here are the highlights from the City of Light.

  • Pay to pee?  When I got off the train, I went to the restroom.  There were turnstiles at the entrance and it cost a Euro to go in!  How does the whole city not smell like urine?
  • Here is where my assumptions started to fall apart.  We took an Uber to our hotel.  The driver seemed like a standoffish grump at first, but then he started using a translation app on his phone.  He was a really nice guy, who pointed out sights and gave us some recommendations for places to go.  In fact, none of the people we met were rude to us.
  • Statues!  The next assumption that turned out to be incorrect was that the French would be ultra-woke whiners.  Sadly, Americans are in many ways far worse.  One example is that Paris is blanketed in monuments commemorating their history and the men who were a part of it.  Nearly every block has a memorial to Napoleon, de Gaulle, or some other French historical figure.  In the United States, we tear down our statues.  Point for France!
  • Street cafes!  When I thought about going to Paris, I wanted to sit in a street café, eat, and drink wine.  We walked from our hotel to “Le Campanella,” and had a fantastic meal of French stew and a lot of wine.  Magnifique!
  • Museums.  I am not a big art museum guy, but everybody who goes to France wants to see the Louvre.  The most famous art museum in the world holds many renowned paintings and sculptures, including the most well-known painting of them all, the Mona Lisa.  While I enjoyed the Louvre, I surprisingly was more impressed with another art museum in Paris, The Musee d’Orsay.  This museum holds paintings by Monet, Renoir, Van Gogh, and many more.  It was interesting to see how different each artist’s style was. 
  • My last assumption that was shattered was that the French are wimpier than Americans.  When we went to the Champs-Elysees on the night of the World Cup soccer match between France and Morocco, there were literally thousands of armed police officers, police cars, and armored vehicles lining the street and blocking shop windows.  Apparently, Moroccan fans had gotten out of control the last time they played, so the French put out such a police presence that nobody would dare cause any trouble.  In America, we let lawless BLM thugs run amok in our cities for much of 2020, breaking windows, burning buildings, and looting.  France for the win!
  • The Eiffel Tower is obviously a must-see.  We had tickets to the top of the tower, but because of weather, the highest platform was closed.  We were able to go up to the second observation deck, which is still quite impressive.  My girlfriend was a little disappointed because she had hopes of a proposal.  That seemed too obvious, though.  My proposal came two weeks later and was a complete surprise!
  • We took a riverboat tour on the Seine, which was beautiful, although very cold!
  • Moulin Rouge!  We got tickets to the famous cabaret theatre where the can-can was born.  The show was very entertaining, with strong-man acts, acrobats on roller skates, gymnasts, and a girl who swam with very large pythons.

  • On our last night, we decided to get a closer look at the Arc de Triomphe.  We did not realize that it closes, and we also did not realize that there is an underground tunnel that takes you across the 6-lane, busy traffic circle to get there.  We, of course, ran across the road like crazy people.  Once we were there, we looked around and read the inscriptions, until a French police officer came out from said underground tunnel and asked what we were doing there after closing.  We told him that we didn’t know it closed, and asked if we could use the tunnel to get back across.  He said the tunnel is closed, too, and when my girlfriend asked how to get back, he smiled and said, “run.”

How Democrats Have Ruined Election Day

On election day, 1980, my dad took me at 2 years old to walk a precinct to get out the vote for Ronald Reagan.  In the first 7 presidential elections of my life, I continued the tradition and volunteered to go door-to-door, asking Republican households to go vote.  Afterward, I would go home and eagerly watch the returns come in and races get called. Election day in the United States used to be fun.  It was an event.  To political nerds, it was like Super Bowl Sunday.

Unfortunately, election day is no fun anymore.  Democrats have ruined it, like so many other things in America.  This is not because the results of the midterm elections were disappointing.  It has little to do with who wins or loses.  It is about the mechanics of the election itself.  There are four main reasons why that special Tuesday in November no longer holds the magic that it once did.

  1. We don’t get results. –  Back when there were VCRs, my parents tried to record the Alfred Hitchcock classic, North by Northwest.  The only problem was that the tape cut off with Cary Grant hanging from Mount Rushmore, a literal cliffhanger.  We had to wait until we could go to the video store and rent it to find out what happened.  Nobody wants things left up in the air without a resolution.  This is, sadly, how election day is now.  We go to bed without knowing who won.  It took a few days to find out who had won the Senate, and it took 10 days before we finally found out that Republicans had taken control of the House in last month’s midterms.  That is partly because, after the 2000 election, nobody wants to call a race incorrectly and have to pull it back.  However, the bigger culprit is that there has been an assault by the Democrats on election day itself for years.  Now, there are mail-in ballots and ballots dropped off anonymously at drop-boxes, with at best, questionable authenticity, that take days to count.  There is no good reason for this.  For most of my lifetime, people voted in person on election day, and we had far more trustworthy and reliable results, and knew most of them on election night.
  • Early voting. – In many states, there is early voting for weeks prior to election day, before the campaigning is done.  This means that if somebody is persuaded in the final weeks of the campaign after they cast a vote, they are out of luck.  This also eliminates the ability of voters to take into account some late-discovered information about a candidate.  For example, some people believe that the FBI’s reopening its investigation into Democrat nominee Hillary Clinton’s staff and their use of a private email server swung the election to President Donald Trump.  Now, many people have already voted, so late-breaking information is too late. 
  • News coverage is terrible. –  Years ago, the media was biased in favor of the Democrats, but they generally tried not to turn off half of the country by openly and obviously attacking Republicans and rooting for the Democrats.  Now, most of the television news coverage is so bad that it is unwatchable.  On an election day when the Democrats had destroyed the economy, leading us to a plummeting stock market, massive inflation, and small businesses struggling to survive, the news coverage steered the conversation away from that and towards whatever sideshow they could come up with.  One example was an interview by ABC news anchor David Muir with a moderate Republican, New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu, at his victory party after he won re-election.  While Governor Sununu tried to focus on his supporters and his vision for New Hampshire and our country, Muir kept trying to segway into irrelevant things, like the 2020 election, and the media’s favorite target of hatred and vitriol, President Trump.  It was uncomfortable to watch.  The media will bend over backward to avoid any subject that will be damaging to Democrats, no matter how obvious.  This election, the crumbling economy was the elephant in the room, but what you heard on election day was, “yeah, yeah, inflation, but what about so-and-so?”  Every single one of you, whatever your political leanings, know that if the Republicans were in power with a bad economy, the media would be laser-focused on it.  The last time the news was fun to watch on election day was in 2016, and not because the coverage was good, but because most of the “journalists” looked like they were about to burst into tears.
  • Distrust of the results and fear of cheating. – Whichever side you are on, you cannot deny that a large portion of the country does not trust our elections right now.  This is a problem.  When things are going poorly, people need to be able to vote out those in power.  If they distrust our elections and feel like no matter how they vote, the elections are rigged, it leaves them backed into a corner with no other recourse except to fight in other, possibly less peaceful, ways.  We need to restore accountability and faith in our elections.  When I see a close race on election night, I get a sinking feeling, because I know that they will find enough ballots, however they do it, to make the Democrat win. I don’t trust the results, along with a whole lot of other people, and while there is an easy fix, Democrats refuse to do it because they don’t care if people have faith in our elections as long as they stay in power.  If anybody honestly cares about preserving our democracy, they would want to alleviate these fears.  Calling people “election deniers” and trying to vilify them does not work.  Neither does saying, “you can’t prove fraud.”  That is the point.  Due to mail-in ballots and a refusal to verify voters with ID at polling places, there is nearly no way to prove fraud.  That does not prove that cheating is not rampant.  It just proves that we have no way of knowing how much cheating is happening.  Instead of gaslighting people who have concerns about our election security, just prove to them that our elections are secure.  It is actually very easy to do.  Simply require voters to show ID when they cast their ballots, in person, on election day.  If we do this, it makes it very difficult to cheat. 

Election day can be fun again if we fix these four things.  Hopefully, we can do it.  If not, what is left for Democrats to try to ruin?  Groundhog’s Day?

Don’t Be Shy

Have you ever taken one of those Myers-Briggs Personality tests?  It asks you a bunch of questions and gives you a four-letter categorization of your personality based on four different characteristics.  The first trait it attempts to evaluate is whether you are an introvert (I) or an extrovert (E). The letters are not supposed to mean that one or the other is necessarily better or worse.  It is just supposed to tell people which way their personality leans.  There is, by the way, some difference between introverted and shy.  A shy person fears negative judgment by others and feels anxious in social situations, so they tend to avoid them.  An introvert is usually introspective and feels overstimulated by social situations.  They often prefer quiet, alone time to think instead of being around people.  While they are not the same, there is some overlap between shy and introverted, namely, that both will often avoid social situations.  For this reason, I believe that one possibility actually is better than the other.  I encourage you to act like an extrovert.

If you are shy, or an introvert (which I will use interchangeably from now on), please do not get defensive.  This is not an attack or even a criticism of you.  In fact, when I take the Myers-Briggs test, I am an INTP.  There is nothing wrong with being introverted.  By that, I mean that there is nothing immoral about being shy.  Someone is not a bad person because they are shy.  This is entirely a qualitative assessment, not a moral one.  I want all of us to have a higher quality of life.

What led me to this thought was a friend on social media.  You probably have some friends online whose posts make you think.  This particular friend of mine often posts stories and memes about being an introvert and trying to avoid going out and spending time with others.  They are amusing and good-natured posts, but whenever I see them, it makes me feel bad for her.  She is missing out on so much in life!

Don’t get me wrong.  Sometimes spending a night alone at home watching TV is great.  That being said, almost all of the most memorable moments in life are spent with other people.  Let’s be honest, people are interesting, and the only way to meet them is by putting yourself in a position to.  My suggestion is to seek out opportunities to go interact with people.  Join a club.  Join a team or go to sporting events.  Go to parties.  Travel and mingle with the locals.  Sing karaoke.  Don’t worry about what people might think.  Most people are too worried about what others think of them to be too critical of you.

Another great idea is to get a social job.  Many of the articles about introverts suggest that they get jobs that do not require much interaction with other people, like computer jobs or cubicle jobs.  Those articles imply that these jobs are a good idea because it fits the personality of the introvert.  The better idea is to do the opposite.  I once dated a girl who was bartending when I met her, but I soon realized was pretty shy.  She said that she got the bartending job to force herself out of her comfort zone and meet new people.  It worked, and her life was richer for doing it.  Heck, she met me.

As I said, I lean towards introversion.  It is all right if you think quietly at times.  Occasionally, someone will notice I am not being talkative and will ask what is wrong.  Most of the time, nothing is wrong and I am contemplating some deep issue of life, or some idea for an article for this blog.  Being contemplative is perfectly fine.  I am not suggesting you have to constantly be the loud, crazy, life of the party.  Thinking before you speak or act is usually a good idea.  People see the strong, silent type in a positive way for good reason.  That being said, never let your feelings stop you from fully experiencing life.

The movie Yes Man with Jim Carrey is a fun, silly film, but it helped me to this realization.  In the movie, Jim Carrey hears a motivational speaker who tells him to say “yes” to every opportunity that presents itself.  When he does, he begins to thrive and succeed in many areas of life because he is putting himself in the position to do so, when previously he never would have had those chances.  Of course, you can’t say “yes” to everything, and eventually, he figures that out, but the principle of being open to more opportunities is a good one. 

My general rule is that if somebody suggests that we do something or go somewhere, as long as it is not immoral, I will say yes.  If a friend calls and wants to go out, say yes.  If somebody invites you on a trip, go.  If you don’t feel like going, ignore that feeling!  It will make your life fuller.

Now, I am going to follow my own advice.  Instead of watching the rest of the baseball playoff games here in my hotel room, I am going to head out to a sports bar in Phoenix to watch.  Maybe I will meet some new people and some fun adventures will ensue!