Trouble Right Here in River City

"“The world is not a ‘global community,’” H.R. McMaster and Gary Cohn, two of the most highly regarded Trump advisers, wrote in The Wall Street Journal, “but an arena where nations, nongovernmental actors, and businesses engage and compete for advantage.”

If something is bad for the rest of the world, it’s probably good for America, according to this view."

Breathtaking in its ignorance of international affairs and relationships, the statement is a testament to the unwillingness of the current administration to "see" the Earth as one home, the only one we have. So they will consider pulling out of a global agreement to do what? Feed the wealthy in this country in spite of the damage to it.

And who will the current occupant of the Oval Office blame when his personal financial world collapses? He will blame the Democrats, the loss of the election, the "Fake Media," and he will point his 8-year old Twitter cannon-mind anywhere but where it should be pointed...at himself, his own ignorance and arrogance, and his total disregard for anything but the targets to which he should be directing his wrath.

"Mothers of River City!Heed that warning before it's too late!
Watch for the tell-tale sign of corruption!
The minute your son leaves the house,
Does he rebuckle his knickerbockers below the knee?"

Read more: Music Man - Ya Got Trouble Lyrics | MetroLyrics

A Frustrated Thought on Memorial Day, 2017

At the risk of irritating those who may not understand, I am going to say this, at the end of this Memorial Day, when my Facebook timeline is filled with 'thanks' to those who "gave their all" and/or "laid down their lives."

I fought in a miserable war and I can tell you that, yes, I and many others volunteered to serve in our military. Many others were definitely not volunteers, but nobody "gave" their life. To give and to lay down are active verbs, presupposing some manner of thoughtful consideration followed by the action of giving something away.

Their lives were taken away, against their will, whether volunteer or draftee.

Sure, we all knew we could die at any time, in myriad horrid, slow ways or instantly and nearly painless. Everyone who fights in a war or combat situation of any kind understands that.

But not one of us gave our lives away.

Not one of the soldiers killed by punji stakes or Claymore mines in Vietnam.

Not one of the soldiers blown up by a roadside IED in Afghanistan.

Not even those thousands of soldiers who were the first off the landing craft onto the beaches of Normandy, knowing that they would be the first to face the withering, deadly gunfire of the entrenched German fortified pillboxes and the first to die "gave" their lives.

Not. One.

Every one of those lives was taken away by duty, not given away.

So, on days like this, thank them and their relatives for their service, but please do not make their wartime deaths more than what they were...tools of a political war machine's decision to make war on warriors. 

If you believe the hype, the last "good" war our country fought was World War II and those soldiers were "the greatest generation." All the conflicts, military actions, and just plain stupid wars after that were "bad" wars started by short-sighted or greedy politicians who wanted something. 

No plants shut down temporarily for re-tooling to support the Vietnam or Korean wars. 

No towns emptied of their young men, whose jobs were then taken over by women who worked valiantly to support a just Afghanistan conflict.

No, there have been no "good" wars since WW-II, just wars that kill people against their will. The dead bodies of our soldiers, then and now, have been just as dead.

At the end of this Memorial Day, when we see photos of soldiers, Cub Scouts, and family placing flags on graves of their departed family members, neighbors, and countrymen, please...instead of just "thanking" those who served and were killed, put pressure on your political leaders to stop the killing.

The killing continues. In fact, now, even women are allowed to take combat positions. How despicable is that? Which Dad will say his daughter "gave her life" for some greater good while serving the military machine? My guess is, not many.

I know I would not.

What's with Twitter, anyway?

I admit it. I was a Twitter addict. I had Twitter followers; how many, I cannot recall. I had professional sports players as followers. I had professional musicians as followers. Heck, I even had one of my early favorite singers, Anita Baker, as a follower.

All of that is past tense. I am no longer a Twitter account holder. But like a sober alcoholic, I am still addicted.

What is it with the power of Twitter, anyway? 140 characters and a weird, specific shorthand to meet that limitation. A lot of anger. And a lot of apparent racism.

A. LOT.

I say 'apparent' because maybe the writers are just acting out parts. I have done that. Not on Twitter, but at the live taping of a television talk show long ago. I played the part of a contrarian to one of the guests

It got me into some trouble. You see, he did not know I was acting. He thought I was serious.

People get serious when they think you're serious.

There's not much of earthshaking importance on Twitter, either. The news is not really revealed on Twitter, though the reporters love linking to their stories - makes for increased clicks, you know. The government does not seek your opinion on important questions on Twitter.

But everyone else has an opinion on Twitter. Right?

So, what is it about Twitter, anyway?

Birds In The 'Hood

One of the benefits of having the house I have with the view from my kitchen window onto my fairly large backyard is I get to see all kinds of bird activity. I have had a large, portable bird feeder on my deck for many years and that feeder has attracted a wide assortment of winged creatures.

In today's episode of Birds In The 'Hood, I will tell you about a blue jay. But first, let me say that this Spring season, in addition to the regular visits from an assortment of 'normal' birds - finches, starlings, robins, even brown-headed cow birds - I have two birds I have never seen here before, a male and a female cardinal. The male is the bright red one; the female a much-more muted red. You may have read my Facebook postings about the two killdeer birds, male and female, that I assumed were tending to their newly-created nest in my inoperable recirculating stream - though, after learning more from a helpful biologist, I am no longer so sure; that is why I mentioned the brown-headed cow birds.

Today, I had the bounty, short-lived as it was, of seeing another unusual, never-before-seen-in-my-backyard bird.

I saw a bluejay. Its visit to the area of my bird feeder took only about 15 seconds or so, but there it was. Large and blue.

Unfortunately for the jay, some of the much-smaller starlings have become very territorial about my bird feeder; two of them almost instantly ganged up on the jay and chased it away, first to the nearby tree that sits in my backyard, then, almost as immediately, completely out of the neighborhood. I have not seen it return and doubt it will.

I also just saw a huge crow, carrying what appeared to be a baby rabbit from a recently-disturbed burrow it had just caught, being chased away from the backyard by a much smaller bird.

I guess the "local" birds do not appreciate and will not tolerate uninvited visitors to my backyard.

Things That Will Soon Disappear Forever: Your Privacy

If you are online, you had better assume that you already have no privacy and act accordingly. 

Every mouse click and keystroke is tracked, logged and potentially analyzed and eventually used by Web site product managers, marketers, hackers and others. To use most services, users have to opt-in to lengthy terms and conditions that allow their data to be crunched by all sorts of actors.

But is not just computers.

The list of tracking devices is set to boom, as sensors are added to appliances, lights, locks, HVAC systems and even trash cans. Other innovations: Using wifi signals, for instance, to track movements, from where you're driving or walking down to your heartbeat. Retailers will use the technology to track in minute detail how folks walk around a store and reach for products. 

Also, facial-recognition software that can change display advertising to personalize it to you; time for a mask? Transcription software will be so good that many businesses will soon collect mountains of phone-conversation data to mine and analyze.

And think of this: Most of us already carry around an always-on tracking device for which we usually pay good money — a smart phone. Your phone is loaded up with sensors and GPS data. Is it linked to a FitBit perhaps? Now it has your health data.

One reason not to fret: Encryption methods are getting better at walling off at least some aspects of our digital lives. 

But living the reclusive life of J.D. Salinger might soon become real fiction.

Happy Thought for the Day

Yes, there is ugliness in the world. An unending supply, it seems, but if one only stays open to the Happy Spirit that is always around, yet invisible, one can glean some measure of joy in the ugliness.

Yesterday, I learned of the passing of a relative, a Viet Nam veteran like me, who died of several diseases related to his addiction to alcohol. That was my ugliness for the day, my sadness.

Yesterday, I also joined a Facebook group related to my childhood home, Wilton, New Hampshire. I have not been there in 50 years or more, but it is the place most of my USA ancestors are buried, having lived there since their immigrations in the early 1900's. Though I am a Traveler at heart and cannot identify any one place as "home," Wilton is where my parents' and grandparents' "are from." And really, it is also my "hometown."

The urge to return, if only for a visit to touch base with my ancestors' gravesites, is strong. It is something I must do before I, too, take that last journey to the ground somewhere.

I did not expect anyone to remember or even know me. After all, I have not been there in 50 years, only attended the first few grades of elementary school there before relocating to Amman, Jordan, where I would live for most of my childhood, before returning to the USA. And there have been many changes to every 'small town', including Wilton, NH.

Imagine my surprise after making my first post, a short one about Burns Hill, the hill on which my paternal grandparents, Fred and Minnie Wilkinson, lived in a mobile home after downsizing after their retirement from Abbott Mills, selling their house on Forest Street, and relocating.

A woman whose name I do not recognize wrote this:

"Ahhhh one of the five Js...."

That might not seem significant, but it is huge. Just YU-U-UGE. (Okay, sorry.)

You see, I have four siblings and my parents, Fred James and Beverly Wilkinson, gave us all first names starting with 'J'. My grandfather, Fred Wilkinson, had a New Hampshire vanity license plate on his car: JJJJJ, and everyone around town knew us as the 'five J's.'

So reading that from a woman whose name I do not recognize means she knows me. Perhaps she is a relative or a neighborhood friend. No matter.

The draw to return to Wilton got stronger yesterday. Much stronger. That was my happy moment.

Garbage and How it Gets Into The Truck

While sitting here in my house on this relatively mild Tuesday, with the wind blowing outside, I had a thought.

Today is trash collection day for many of my neighbors. The garbage trucks from the four commercial companies that service my little neighborhood here in Western Michigan are all privately owned, contracted by property owners, not a governmental agency ... and are operated by one man.

He (they are all males) drives, manipulates several levers that control various mechanical arms that extend, grab the can (all of which are provided to the customer, so they are all exactly alike) lift it, empty it, return it to the ground, and then retract. The whole process takes seconds and the driver moves on to the next house. The driver is not subjected to any physical strain at all.

On the other hand...

While I was spending a lovely month with my daughter, son-in-law and grandchildren in suburban Baltimore, Maryland, I noticed the garbage trucks there are operated by THREE people...one driver and two others who dismount as the truck nears its goal. These trucks are operated by a governmental agency and the driver and workers are employees of that agency.

When they arrive at a house, one or both of them lug one or more cans to the back, and then EITHER...

operate a control that hooks an arm to the can, lifts it and dumps the contents into the back, then lowered to be lugged back to the lawn by one of the workers OR... (and this is mostly what I observed)

...the workers lug the cans to each side of the rear repository at the rear of the truck and manually lift the cans (hopefully, though hardly ever, using legs and good body mechanics to lift; mostly, they use youthful arm and shoulder and back muscles) dump it, and either lugs it back (if it is large enough with wheels, say) or just throws it in the direction of the lawn.

Those guys probably do not last long in such a physically-demanding profession and I bet the company's workman's compensation premiums and claims are sky-high, to say nothing of the fact that forking out payroll, compensation, and benefits for THREE employees per truck as opposed to one must cost the government agency a ton in tax revenues.

One would think they would see a good way to cut costs.

Values, Beliefs, and Behavior

How do they relate to each other, if at all? It is simple and not so much.

Values  +  Beliefs  =  Behavior

Know a person's motivations in the context of their values and beliefs and you will better understand the "why?" of behavior. This understanding is critical in our world today as politicians seem to become more and more populist and less and less moderate. They speak for and to a smaller and smaller but more vocal segment of society with harsher and shriller words. WHY they do what they do is a function of the equation.

Values govern behavior; it is the motivation for our actions.

Beliefs are how we express our values to ourselves and to others, how we operate them.

When you understand the concept of how they work together, you will understand human behavior better than 90% of the world's population.

Think about that the next time you are angry at the Trumps or Le Pens or Putins of the world's governments. It might help keep your angst and blood pressure down a bit.

What 'The West Wing' Taught Me

I have done it. I have made it through seven, 22-episode seasons of one of the best television shows ever made.

Two, four-year terms of the Bartlett Administration are in the books. The president contracted MS. The actor that played Chief of Staff Leo McGarry died during the filming of Season 7, thus changing the arc of the show, I am sure. Charley came up from almost nothing, dated the president's daughter, then got early-admission to law school.

And somehow, I survived, relatively unscathed.

I have learned some other things:

• I thought I had already seen all the seasons. Not so. There is much I missed in the last three years. 
• The horrible effects of MS appear to peak then diminish as ones presidential terms come to an end. Probably for dramatic impact, maybe. 
• Apparently, being selfish, self-centered, unable to manage personal relationships, and being a completely ego-maniacal spoiled brat is not an impediment to success, even advancement, in the White House. Oh, wait... 
• Also apparent is the decisional conflict one has to make at the end of eight years between two more years helping an inexperienced president's staff learn their ropes or heading up a $10 billion fund to pave roads in Africa to facilitate getting life-saving medicine and food to starving people. (P.S. That would be after already having spent eight long, tough years in the White House, after having been plucked from obscurity and moving on up to become the Chief of Staff to the president. 
• And the last thing I learned was this: when they left for the last time, not once did POTUS or anyone in his family thank their Secret Service detail for SAVING THEIR LIVES. I hope real presidential families are not like that. 

It is now on to other endeavors for me.

A child's memory of school, foreign service style

I was a quiet kid, the oldest of five children. Unlike my two brothers and my two sisters, I had a room to myself. I was the oldest; thus, I was given the honor of sitting on the right side of my father at one end of the dinner table. My mother sat at the other end.

After serving in the U.S. Army in World War II, my father went to college on the GI Bill, against the wishes of his father, an English immigrant who believed that staying in their hometown of Wilton, New Hampshire, and taking "a good job" at one of the Sam Abbott-owned mills in town was the way to support his growing family.

• As an aside, the Abbott family was one of the wealthy business families who supported hundreds of European immigrant families in southern New Hampshire to work in the textile industry. My paternal grandparents both worked in the Abbott Worsted Mill that made fancy men's fabric (for customers such as Brooks Brothers) and my maternal grandparents worked in the Abbott Machine Shop.

After developing a successful career as a teacher - he started in a one-room schoolhouse in Greenfield, New Hampshire - and eventually working his way up to vice-principal, principal, assistant superintendent, then superintendent of various school districts while completing a Masters degree from Boston University and being accepted into Harvard University's Graduate School of Education, he went to work for the U.S. State Department in what was first the International Cooperation Administration's Operations Mission in Amman, Jordan, in 1959. Two years later, ICA's Operations Missions combined with other U.S. governmental foreign assistance organizations to become the United States Agency for International Development, USAID, under President John F. Kennedy, whose international visions and outreach created USAID and the Peace Corps.

My Dad completed his doctoral work at Harvard while working on creating a university system for teachers in Jordan where there had been none before. The reason my Dad stayed in Jordan as long as he did - normal tours would be four years, two, 2-year tours - was at King Hussein's specific request to the U. S. Secretary of State.

Being a youngster growing up and going to elementary school in Amman, Jordan, was an interesting time of my life. At first, there was no formal 'schoolhouse,' as such. The young students, all children of Embassy personnel, were schooled in a vacant house rented by the government. The teachers were wives of the Embassy men; some were trained teachers, most were not, and all used the Calvert System for texts and lesson plans.

Every Monday, the students would go to school and find their Calvert boxes on the tables. These boxes contained the week's assignments and materials, including any new textbooks, the dreaded 'blue books' - those little books in which our assignments and homework were written to be returned to Calvert for recording and grading (Calvert was an approved school based in Maryland, near the nation's capital in Washington, D.C., and was geared to American students in remote countries around the world long before distance-learning schools became popular.) The boxes included everything we needed as students and teachers, including scratch paper, pencils, and rulers.

I still have a clear memory of the excitement of opening my "Calvert box," as they were known.

I Did It

I bought two items on Amazon.com today, a waffle maker and a toaster. First, let me tell you about the waffle maker.

The unit I have is a rotating Belgium waffle maker made in China by Oster. 'Rotating' means the unit turns after the batter has been put inside. Think hotel breakfast style waffles. A Belgian waffle is a thick waffle with much deeper holes than a conventional waffle; the person making the waffle can put things like fruit or chocolate chips in the batter more easily with less 'stickage' to the plates. A Belgian waffle maker is not really what I wanted since I don't add anything to the waffles except butter and syrup. Plus, I bought it when I first moved here a decade ago for probably less than $20. I do not use it very often, probably two or three times a year.

This morning, while making waffles with the top open to remove the finished round waffle, it tipped over, something it has never done before. Trying to right a tipped-over, hot waffle maker, while holding a finished waffle in one hand made me realize that, since it was getting old and starting to fight me and never really made the waffles I wanted, I decided it needed to go to Goodwill.

It was then I started considering the toaster, too.

I have owned the toaster for a very long time; in fact, it was made in the USA and you know how long ago anything was made in the USA, right? But the heating elements were going bad, so I was getting almost burnt-undone differences on my bread and that just is not okay. I like bread and I like toast; I want my toast to be properly toasted, a simple task at which my current Cuisinart unit was failing.

While checking around, I learned the only toasters made in the USA these days are $1,200 commercial toasters. I don't think I need that...but it would have been nice. There is a company (one person, really) in New York who refurbishes very old USA-made toasters and resells them...for prices starting at about $250-$300. One can buy a pretty good foreign-made toaster for that much.

My search then went to Amazon.com, my primary source for "things." It was there I found and bought a new waffle maker and a new toaster. After spending some time considering things like style and price, I made my choices and punched the keys to buy them.

The toaster has been replaced by a 2-slot new unit from Cuisinart, my favorite kitchen small appliance maker, and a new regular, square waffle maker from someone else...Cuisinart has a good unit for $85 and I just couldn't see spending that much. (Famous last words?)

I then spent the better part of two hours cleaning the two units. The waffle maker has a noticeable amount of oil residue and the toaster has cooked-on burn spots, so both of them went into the sink, into the water - I know what you are thinking, that one should not submerge an electrical unit in water, but that only applies if one plans on using it soon. I do not and I plan on letting them sit on their shelves for a week or more to dry out before shipping to Goodwill using my favorite GiveBackBox.com.

So my replacement kitchen appliances arrive Tuesday and I will check out the result. Hopefully, I will get better waffles and great toast. Perhaps the greatest, most beautiful toast anyone has ever seen.

Oh, wait. Those are someone else's words...

What is the difference between "quit" and "resign?"

To quit. To resign. We all do them and often under similar, but different, conditions. Not only in the job market sense of the word, really, though I am sure there are similarities.

Quitting a job has the feeling of leaving employment without good feelings toward the employer, while resigning a job, though the reasons for departure might be the same, connotes some moderation of the negative feelings, even if kept inside. Many of us are familiar with that; we have all quit and/or resigned. Job security, pay, compensation or benefits, family- or health-related are all reasons for leaving one job going to another.

This thought is much larger than a job or career. It can be a reason for leaving work, but it really relates to the internal feelings one can develop when the external stimuli become almost overwhelmingly difficult or incomprehensible.

Quitting life in certain ways short of death. Resignation of ones spirit.

These can happen for many reasons, but this thought of mine relates to what has been happening in our world for the past couple of years. We have witnessed a disturbing increase in violent behavior in parts of the world, overt political corruption in others, and a seeming departure from civility among some of the world leaders.

Eight years ago the United States did something few, if any, people thought was possible. They elected an African-American president. Many thought this was a step in the direction of unify and reducing the impact of deeply-held racist feelings that affect pretty much everything that happens in that country. On the other hand, many also saw it as an abhorrent result of an election that insulted people of a certain race.

The stress only increased for the next eight years. Political differences and decisions, ways of communicating or not communicating with segments of society increased the chasm between the races and between the political opinions. Then the voters did something nobody expected, including the winner.

They elected an narcissistic, self-centered, thin-skinned, billionaire TV reality star non-politician as their next president. And the stress increased as the racial and political divisions became more stark, pronounced, and overt. What used to be private or quietly shared among like-minded people now jumped onto the big screen. People felt no remorse when badmouthing "them" or when violently, physically assaulting "them" merely because they did not believe like "we" do.

Us. Them. Yes. No. Black. White. All. None.

What the world has come to be; segregated by politics, by nationalism, by racialism, by materialism.

In short, by any and all man-made boxes.

For me, the stress has almost become unbearable. I struggle with conflicting feelings. I deeply believe in the oneness of mankind as the pivot around which unity of the world's peoples must revolve. Yet I also am unsure how to get there, whether my yet unborn granddaughter and her own siblings and cousins will live to see it.

Makes me want to quit. Just to get away from all this. To stop. To get into a place of comfortable misery, I guess. I have already cut way back on reading social media posts. I do not read much news. I long ago stopped watching broadcast television, so I do not watch any news program, cable or otherwise.

In short, I try to focus on things that will not damage my already-injured psyche anymore.

I am not always successful and it makes me just want to quit. Not resign, with the feelings of moderating negatives. Just quit. Cold.

I just want the madness to stop.

You have 30 days left to live. What would you do?

I read an article on Medium this morning. The author wrote about choices made and regrets held. Making choices at an early age can seem easier and less results-oriented and some of those choices can lead to regrets later in life.

Reading the article led me to ask "What would you do if you only had 30 days left to live?"

It is not as macabre as it sounds and does not mean one should plan every minute of every day for the rest of ones life. Perhaps many people would answer the question with things like these, which we have all heard almost ad nauseam - thank you, Hollywood script writers:

• I would quit my job.
• I would travel as much as I could. 
• I would visit my children, grandchildren, parents, college or high school buddies. 
• I would stop paying my debts and spend the money working on my hobby.
• I would...

While those are all well and good, to me they have a desperate sound of a person who has not lived a life so far and now wants to make up for it by cramming "activities" into a 30-day period. I wonder why.

For me the answer to the question is pretty simple: I would not do much different than I do now.

I have done pretty much everything I ever wanted to do in life...except fly helicopters for the tuna fleet. I have owned and raised an Old English Sheepdog, been married, been a firefighter and a paramedic. I have driven an 18-wheeler and a taxi. I owned a boat, and flew aircraft of all kinds for a living.

I have traveled to every state in the United States and several of the non-state territories like Puerto Rico. I lived in a bunch of those states and several foreign countries. I went to elementary and high schools in four countries, Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey, and the USA.

I fought a war in the rice paddies and rivers of a faraway country and returned home in one piece but not so much in peace.

I bought fish off a commercial fishing boat in Homer, Alaska. I swam with sharks in San Diego Harbor, and I saw Janis Joplin and the Moody Blues in concert. I attended one of Buddy Rich's concerts on stage not long before his death.

In short, I have done almost everything I ever wanted to do and then some. My childhood dreams have all been met.

Have yours?

If one tries to jam a bunch of activities into the last 30 days of life, I am sure the end result will not be one of happiness, but one of deep regret for not having done some of the activities earlier in life.

So, if you do learn you have only 30 days left to live, well, simply live each day as if you have 30 days to live and you will have a happy life. Do otherwise and you will be a sad being, regretting the things you did not do and blaming someone or something for not having done them. Those last 30 days will be filled with angst, remorse, anger, frustration...and probably a lot of other negative feelings.

Start now.

Live.

Random musings

We are about two weeks into the new administration in the United States and what a tumultuous time it has been. Protests, marches, even school children in New York City ditching classes en masse to protest the confirmation of an entirely-unqualified billionaire, Betsy DeVos, to head up the U.S. Department of Education. She was probably put there by Trump to dismantle the Department my father worked for so long; I do not have respect for either of those people.

I have been working diligently on my genealogy blog and notice the readership has increased slowly. I have nowhere near the thousands or more that read many blogs, but increased numbers was never the goal. Hopefully, at least one new reader working on his or her own family tree will glean some helpful hints on the journey.

My last W2 form came today, so I will work on finalizing 2016 taxes and get it out of here. I feel just a bit that this will be a final cap for what was, for me, a truly miserable year, and not only in the political sense, though that certainly contributed. I spent the year driving the truck, really pushing myself to make money to cut some of these bills I have down to size. I think it worked, but it also took a big chunk out of my life-energy. I want this year to be more relaxed and enjoyable.

I have also volunteered to be a transcriber for Baha'i Center web talks. So far, I have done one, and it was a good one. It was by Annette Reynolds, a South Carolina Baha'i. She spoke of what we used to call the "mass teaching" efforts there and the lessons learned from those efforts in a highly racially segregated state. This will prove to be a valuable, educational exercise for me, I hope.

It was always there. Wasn't it?

The realization came to me tonight as I watched a 2010 Netflix movie starring Ewan McGregor, "The Ghost Writer," that is shot primarily at a seaside house.

I love the sea.

I spent many hours standing on the forward passenger observation deck of the Alaskan ship, SS Malaspina, on one of my many voyages on the Alaska Marine Highway System. The cold sea splashing against my face, the rolling of the ship in the waves - sometimes rather violent waves - and the faces of the other travelers inside, looking a me. Wondering what crazy person was sharing the boat with them. It reminded me of the few months I spent on a ship at sea in the Navy long ago.

I love the sea.

Why did the realization take so long?

Who knows...

Here we are, 11 days into a new president and his administration and you would think the world has been knocked off its axis. Things we thought we knew and things we took for granted like a certain level of civility among the professional political crowd has been disappearing for some time...and now seems to be totally gone.

Did the sun rise in the East this morning? I do not know; I have not seen the sun in several days.

We used to welcome immigrants because we are a country of immigrants. We now have a president that has banned immigrants of one religion from seven countries, none of which, by the way, among those with whom he does business.

None of their residents or citizens have inflicted terrorist acts on the United States, but they are on the list, anyway. On the other hand, the one country that was proven to have 11 of 19 hijackers on that fateful day, September 11, 2001, Saudi Arabia, is not on the infamous List of Seven.

Of course, the reason that country is not on the list is that the president has business relations with them and they still produce a whole lot of our oil. Bad idea to piss them off.

Yet no matter how violent their citizens, no matter how extremist and antiquated their legal system, no matter how much they ignore basic human rights - things we used to support back when - no matter how far their efforts go to fund and push extremist Muslim beliefs worldwide go, irritating the Saudi royal family is not a good thing for Trump. He is all about Trump and would stand to lose a lot of money. He does not care about what happens to the American middle class or the cost of gas we pour into our gas-guzzling vehicles or even his own family. He does not care about Melania or Barron or being president.

He only cares about Donald J. Trump.

He now has more power than any one man in the world, in addition to his money. He has stacked his own National Security Council with his insiders as he has stacked his incoming Cabinet with professional billionaires, Wall Street insiders, military generals, and others with no governmental experience at any level.

He says he want to "drain the swamp."

But instead of depending on the counsel of his appointed department heads to do anything like "drain the swamp," he relies, as he always has, on a very small, very tight group of insiders, including his own son-in-law, to do what he wants. He sees himself as the CEO of a large company called the United States and he expects his underlings to do his bidding, right or wrong, legal or illegal, factual or alternative factual. Without question or delay. Or hesitation.

That got him into a bit of heat - which he loves and attention he craves - when he fired an acting head of the Justice Department, a former Obama Administration appointee who was kept on, after she failed to tow his line on a Draconian immigration prohibition policy that was written by his insiders and, strangely enough, senior staff of congressional representatives, without having the new ban vetted by experts who know what they're doing.

If there was ever an indication of the need for spiritual rebirth, this is going to be yet another one for us. We lived through the 1960's, when people in the United States rebelled against war and the politicians who created them and we survived - barely - a president who committed criminal acts and became the only president in United States history to resign in disgrace.

Much of what Trump is doing is now being compared to three people in history: Andrew Jackson, a president very much like Trump; Richard Nixon, a president who was a paranoid and distrustful as Trump; and Adolph Hitler, a man who seized power through a one-man coup and who, in my view, committed acts and came to power in ways very akin to the actions that Trump is taking.

I think it is a time to be afraid.

I am now a domain owner

Sure as can be, I bought and am now the owner of a new Internet domain, www.wilkinsongenealogy.info. I am not really sure why I did it; doing so will cost me $12 per year just for the name and if I create any email addresses attached to it, they will cost and additional $5 per month. Somehow, I thought owning a domain related to my new, soon-to-be-created blog about my family tree journey was something I needed to do since others have done it.

But $12 a year is an expense I can bear and who knows? Maybe I will find a need for it. Until I do, I can spend some time designing and building it as a home for my new Blogspot genealogy blog...though I am pretty sure it does not need a 'home.'

Where does the time go? No, really. Where?

As I write this, the day is January 13, 2017. The first Friday The 13th of the new calendar year. That has no relevance to me since I am not superstitious (knock on wood :) ) and think any result from my actions or inactions result from them, not from the day of the week. Nonetheless, I have not written here since August 2016. That is too long; one wonders where the time goes. And why I chose not to spend as much time here as I should or wanted to.

Keeping in mind that one of my stated purposes was to write more for stress-reduction purposes, I might just get my chance to do exactly that.

As a reader might know, I have been working on my own family tree for a few years. The reason is pretty simple. As I age, learning more about my near- and far-ancestors becomes more important to me. I grew up somewhat detached from my grandparents and all relatives living in the United States because I grew up the son of a US diplomat in the Middle East. I spent those formative years mostly in Jordan but also in Beirut, Lebanon and Ankara, Turkey. Those were experiences I would not change but they were not all positive. Looking back, I see how much I missed; not really having a "home town" or lifelong friends or, really, even roots. I recently read that the only person whose name I remember from my time in elementary school in my parents' hometown of Wilton, New Hampshire, before leaving for Jordan, Harley Savage, has died. He was one person I hoped to visit; I cannot do that now and that leaves me a bit sad.

It is the connection to my past through my parents and Wilton, New Hampshire, that has driven me to try to sort out the leaves on my own family tree. Formally, doing so is called genealogy, the study of family history. I have joined and spent money on the largest of the genealogy source sites, Ancestry.com. This organization is closely tied to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Salt Lake City, Utah, the largest, most accurate repository of genealogical records in the world. The Mormons have been serious genealogists, professional and otherwise, for their entire history and have collected family histories for that long. They make much of it available to the non-LDS public for free and their Family History Center in Salt Lake City can be very helpful doing family history searches.

Until the advent of the Internet and recognition of a possible revenue source, one had to visit there in person. Now, however, companies have been created to funnel some, if not all, of that information around the globe. So it is with Ancestry.com. And so it was with my becoming a member.

A few days ago, a Facebook contact of mine, a professional genealogist, recommended that I start a blog as a non-professional 'beginner.' She thought my description of my journey to fill out my family tree would be valuable for other beginners. Since I like to write and have been looking for ways to increase the time I spend writing - in hopes of improving my skill - starting another blog sounded like a good idea.

I gave some thought to just adding to this one, but quickly enough cast that idea aside. This blog is really a place for me to vent, to keep these fingers typing, and to be a bit of therapy. Whether anyone reads or not is not the purpose and, honestly, is not that important. It is for me. Writing a 'genealogy for beginners' blog would have an entirely different purpose. Finding readers would be important, so I decided to create another Blogspot blog.

That is the first of many steps and I plan to spend this day, Friday the 13th, working some of the details out. I have a support system; remember that Facebook friend I mentioned? The professional genealogist? She is probably a cousin since her maiden name is also Wilkinson and she writes a very popular New England genealogy blog. She has offered her help, has given me the contact information for some other bloggers, and knows that what I would write would fill a bit of a void...not many bloggers are from the area of southern New Hampshire my own ancestors lived in.

So there it is, dear reader. I have an idea, a laptop, a desktop, time, energy, and the willingness to put all of them together for a purpose. Doing a new blog will be difficult, frustrating at times, and almost always entirely enjoyable. I will explain what I do in my own family history search, what I find, how I validate a finding, why I reject any that do not meet my comfort level, what roadblocks I encounter and how I overcome them, if I do.

Hopefully, you will come along on the journey with me. Road trips alone can be just a trip from Point A to Point B. Road trips with others can be a journey, almost a vacation. Let's make it together. Heck, I might even pique your own interest in learning about your own ancestors.