Category Archives: Gender identity and politics

Just to Clarify

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A recent communication from a good friend pointed out that a description of some people, in my last blog as “stupid” was probably not the best choice of words and as a result somewhat detracted from the point I was trying to make. In retrospect he was probably correct. I undoubtedly could have been a bit more, well considerably more, diplomatic.

When I was in early sobriety and learning to assess my previous behavior in an honest and forthright manner, I was told in confessing my transgressions that when I followed up my confession with, “but” such and such or so and so did such and such to cause my behavior that I totally negated my personal responsibility in the interaction. So, no “buts” here.

I am angry. And I feel justifiably so. I will apologize for using the term “stupid” but not for the assessments that followed the term. I know that I am only a single voice in the choir and that I have, in that respect, a total inability to carry a tune. But I will not let that keep me from singing as loudly as I can.

All that being said, I need to express an opinion regarding gender identity politics and what I see as a major flaw the thinking of many in our community. That flaw is the idea that everything we express must be expressed from the platform of our gender identity.

When I first became involved the activities of the world of the transgendered, I of course was primarily concerned with being an accepted part of the community. Having always been outspoken about my political views, which by the way included my religious views, I saw no reason to suppress those views just because I was wearing a wig and a dress. I immediately found that, for many in the organization, I was a heretic. After all, conservative religion and politics were joined hand in hand in the denunciation of the transgendered community.

While that was true to a certain degree it was definitely an overgeneralization of the situation. If you have followed my blog over time, you know that I certainly have not let the opinions of those I disagree with stifle the expression of my views. If I had a bigger following, I would probably be banned from Facebook and Twitter, but so far, I have not.

Enter stage right, Caitlyn Jenner.

She is the embodiment of what I have felt and expressed in the past. She is what the transgendered community needs badly because what she is saying, to me at any rate, is that gender identity is not going to keep her from expressing her conservative political opinions. To date I have not heard anything from her that reflects her gender identity. She has been strictly focused on issues that have nothing to do with gender; issues that affect average people in her state. If her gender identity is brought up it’s the interviewer who brings it up and not her. So, what if her transgendered status draws attention. It has nothing to do with what she feels the people of California need from the point of view of a very successful businessperson.

She should be an example to the transgendered community to put gender identity aside and be a contributing member of society … like any “normal” person would do without making gender the issue.

My parents never expressed an opinion of anyone based on issues they had no control over, ie … skin color, sex, physical handicaps. As a result, I learned to look at the character of people in my life. Did Caitlyn have a choice to visibly express her gender identity? Absolutely! But she had no choice as to the set of emotions she was born with and that is what she is expressing in her appearance … and to my way of thinking, an expression of her character.

In closing this blog entry what I want to say is, to our transgender community, stop with the gender identity excuses for not living up to your potential. Stop with the gender identity excuses for thinking you are a victim. Stop parroting the opinions of those who are telling you that you are a victim. There are no victims here, only people who have been convinced they are victims by those who need victims to support their own self-centered aims of controlling other’s lives … since most of them, from what I see, have had trouble controlling their own.

A Lack of Morals?

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When I was much younger than I am today, I lived with the sense that even though I didn’t agree what many people felt or believed about what our government should or should not do for us, I felt the best interest of our country and the freedoms it represented were their primary intent. If I hadn’t been disabused of that naïve belief before, I certainly am now.

What is happening in our country, in our capitol, in the hands of our elected leaders, (and I’m not referring to the ones that fall on the “red” side of either branch of our government) is nothing short of the worst possible scenario any screen writer or novelist could conceivably come up with. When I listen to the promises and the proposals that are being foisted upon us with regularity, I can come to only one conclusion. There is now a total lack of morals in the democrat party, with damn few exceptions.

Why on earth would anyone with a conscience want to burden future generations with the astronomical debt that congress has now saddled the country with? Why? It certainly isn’t because they sincerely want a better life for future generations. It is economically impossible for this country continue to add to our debt load without totally destroying an economy that has, up until now been the envy of the world.

It has long been said that people vote with their pocketbooks in mind. Well, how stupid can people get? Do they really think that all that money is going buy them more than what they can by today? Apparently, they do. You would think that if the average citizen had even a modicum of understanding of principle of supply and demand that they would soon figure out that what makes a dollar worth more is not having more of it. It’s the exact opposite. The supply of any commodity, including the dollar directly affects its value.

The democrats know that and that, to my mind, makes them criminals. They don’t care about anyone or anything that detracts from their power to control the lives of anyone they consider less than themselves or their ability to enrich themselves at the expense of the very people they claim to represent. So, how is it that supposedly educated people fall for the obviously wrong-headed ideas?

They are in fact, obviously very uneducated. Sure, they have college degrees of every sort, but the degrees are absolutely worthless when it comes to an understanding of real economics. The result is voters who buy into the notion that free college education, free childcare, free everything is actually free. That is what our education system has given us … a country filled with educated stupid people. And the democrats know it.

The democrats know that and that is why they are getting away with things like “woke” culture, whatever the hell that is. It’s supposed to mean that “woke” people have “woke” up to the injustices of our culture and history. In my opinion, it primarily means that they have “woke” up to one simple fact. With control of the media, career government employees and now congress and the white house they have “woke” up to the fact that they can lie about history and get away with it. If that isn’t a lack of morals, I don’t know what is. There is absolutely no moral basis for anything “woke” culture has produced. “Woke” culture is totally and completely void of any moral compass.

So, what is the solution for those of us who still have a moral compass? Maybe we need to follow Maxine Waters advice and “get up in their face”. The conservative moment has been too complacent and tried too hard to maintain a sense of decorum. Look at what that has gotten us.

We as a free people are at a precipice in history and if we don’t step back and take a few pages from the play book used by the democrats and their socialistic progressive allies we will be beyond redemption and our grandchildren will never know the promise of the United State of America.

A lack of morals? Without a doubt.

So How Did We Get Here?

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So, how did we get here? How did we get from the nation that I grew up in, a nation full of promise, a nation capable of landing a man on the moon, a nation that looked at its faults with an eye toward actually correcting the faults and not perpetuating the faults? How did we get from a nation of hopeful high school and college graduates whose worst crime might have been hanging a disagreeable professor in effigy instead of reality, from a tree in the center of the campus? How did we get from there to a nation where students march in masse protesting something, they have no actual knowledge of, while cheering the burning of our flag and destruction of the dreams of small business owners in the name of racial justice?

On the flip side, how did we go from nation of law-abiding citizens who identify themselves as conservatives; from a nation of people who accepted the outcome of an election regardless of who won because we trusted the system that counted the votes to do it honestly and let the chips fall where they may. How did we get from no need for conservative voters to gather in-masse, to support a president who, in spite of all the good he did, was not re-elected under a cloud of suspected corruption of officials in 5 states?

We didn’t get here overnight. We didn’t get here in a year. We didn’t even get here in a decade. We got here after years of careful and deliberate efforts of groups who had a fear of individual accomplishment. People who achieve through individual effort are feared by others who only find comfort in group think and group function.

When I was on the high school debate team one of the questions was “Should the federal government aid in funding public education?” (I paraphrase that question). One of the primary arguments on the negative side of that question was that local education systems would become too dependent on that source of funding and the result would then be encroaching federal control of the school curriculum. In other words, if you’re going to accept our money then you must accept our directions on what to teach and what not to teach. What was never expected was how non-government entities would eventually have far more influence than state and national government edicts.

It wasn’t the fault of politicians in spite of what we have come to think of them. It was the realization by non-governmental entities that what they had in their possession was something far, far more powerful than any government. Think about it … Who were the majority of those marching in support of Black Lives Matter and the call to defund the police? They were students. Black, white, brown; the color didn’t really matter. They had been conditioned by 12 to 20 years of sitting in front of “educators”; a group that had under their influence, as Rush Limbaugh would say, “young skulls full of mush” for a minimum of four to six hours a day. How many hours a day does the average parent spend on the mental development of their children? One? Two, maybe?

So, what kind of ideas are being stressed during those four to six hours a day? Well, as I noted in my last blog, 96.1% of the political donations made by the NEA in the last fifteen years have gone to democrat candidates. What kind of world to democrats want for our children? The last ten days should be your answer. They want to squelch any form of dissent to their ideas and their ideas are based on their belief that the average person is not capable of making rational decisions about their own lives. In addition, to that arrogant opinion of the average person’s intelligence is the belief that anything, and I do mean anything, they have to do to gain and hold that control is justifiable as evidenced by the obvious irregularities in the election results in five states during the last election. They have no moral compass whatsoever.

If you want to know then, how we ended up with such corrupt victors in our last election, look not to the politicians, look to how the people who elected them and the people who got them elected arrived at their justifications for their behavior. Those were arrived at through years of being under the influence of educators who themselves spent years under the influence of those who went before them.

I ask myself how did two educated conservatives such as my parents raise two broad minded conservatives, my brother and me, and then a decade and a half later a relatively narrow minded extreme liberal like our sister? It was a matter of how we were educated, when and where. Our parents didn’t change, the education systems changed.

I said in my last blog that if we are to effect lasting change in our country it has to start in our schools by getting involved with the local school board and administration. Weed out anyone who believes that their job is to shape minds. It isn’t; it’s to teach the basics not the morals of the teachers. It’s the parents’ job to shape the minds of their children.

Security vs Freedom

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I recently referred to our not-over-yet election period as the silly season. It wasn’t silly at all. It was tragic. As a person with a gender identity at odds with much of society I am supposed to be a liberal democrat and I am supposed to stick to gender identity issues. I’m sorry but that’s just not me.

I have been berated and chastised by many in that group referred to as LGBT, and whatever other capitalized letter of the alphabet that people choose t0 attach to their personal identity. I suppose that would be appropriate if I chose to make my gender identity the major issue of my life, my interests and the north pole of my political beliefs. But I don’t. I am a human being first, a Christian second and a conservative third.

Regardless of whatever point in my life I have found myself at, I have always had very specific beliefs and understanding of what makes a society great or not so great. President Lyndon Johnson ushered in what was referred to as “The Great Society”. A society that was supposed to cure all the ills of our republic; eliminate poverty, equalize outcome regardless of effort or ability. In case you haven’t noticed, all the things that “The Great Society” was supposed to cure, have for the most part remained. Why, you ask, is that the reality of our nation?

The reality is, that whether or not the intention behind that effort was to actually improve lives it actually perpetuated the very ills that it purported to eliminate. So, how did that happen?

I am not an expert on the subject, but I am a keen observer. Part of what was included in the Great Society was a program championed by Johnson’s wife, Lady Bird. It was called “Headstart” and to my knowledge it persists today. The idea was to help the less fortunate children get a leg up on the rest of the education that lay ahead of them in the normal public education system. I can’t give you any statistics that support my theory, but from the current condition of the communities it was intended to help I would venture a guess that it has been a near total failure. Before you jump to point out some successes of the program, accept my acknowledgement there have certainly been some successes, albeit few and far between. Otherwise, the overall success would be shouted from the roof tops of Washington.

If one could point to any success in that program it would be the success of beginning the conditioning of young minds to accept whatever ideology was headed their way once they entered the remainder of their educational process. That primary ideology is what is on full display in the Democrat Party and the people who adhere to the principle that government is more suited to making decisions about the lives of the people it claims to care so much for.

The continuation of shaping the minds of the youth of this country is the sole aim of the National Education Association. And their goal is not the goal of teaching our youth to think for themselves. If it were, their contributions to political candidates would be evenly split, which they are not.

In the last twenty years, the NEA has donated in excess of $153,000,000 to political causes and candidates. Of the at amount 96.1% has gone to Democrat candidates and causes. A mere 3.9% has gone to Republican candidates and causes. Is it any wonder, then, that the vast majority of the marchers in last spring and summer’s demonstrations were, from casual observation, under the age of 30? Is it any wonder why the politicians from Democrat cities and states feel justified in enacting ordinances limiting the activities of the people they are supposed to present, but feeling above adherence to those same edicts?

Our education system, with the support of Democrat politicians, I believe, has intentionally dumbed down the last two generations in preparation for what our country is now facing in Georgia. The last two generations of voters don’t have a clue what Obama meant by “It’s time for a change”. I don’t have to be a mind reader to realize that what he meant was that it was time to change from a nation of self-sufficient freedom to a nation of people who want to live with their hands in the pockets of others.

There is no moral compass left in the hearts of Democrat leaders. The country I grew up in is no longer a place of opportunity for all. It’s become a place of equal outcome for all regardless of contribution or effort. The mere fact that Democrats, liberals and progressives are so close to destroying what so many have died for in the last two hundred forty-four years means that all of those lives will have been in vain. The country they sacrificed for will cease to exist. It is a hopeless feeling for those of us who love our heritage.

If there is any hope at this point it is that ordinary people who have a moral compass get involved, beginning with the school board, local city elections, county elections, state elections and finally national elections. We didn’t get here in one generation and we certainly won’t get back to our roots in one generation, but we have to start somewhere.

And when your children come home with some stupid pronunciation that socialism is better than capitalism do what my mother did when I came home with the stupid notion that communism was good for some countries, a statement from my history teacher. She set me straight immediately. We need more parents like her.

Dear Mom and Dad, P.S.

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P.S.

A lot has changed since I last wrote to you … a lot! I hardly know where to start. But, I’m going to give it a try.

I’ll start with what’s happened in the nation in general. The panic over the nation of Islam and the terrorists it spawned has pretty much subsided. We endured eight years of a Democrat in the white house who was elected primarily because he’s African American on his father’s side. And then re-elected because the Republicans nominated a gutless wonder by the name of Romney.

The damage of that eight years was nearly irreparable, but one of the most unlikely people to be nominated by the Republicans and then elected president, Donald Trump began cleaning up the swamp. The only reason he doesn’t have a lock on election this time around is a Chinese originated virus that has killed over 150,000 people. The democrats and their willing accomplices in the press have done a pretty thorough job of blaming him even though he was the first president to stand up to the Chinese and begin the process of renegotiating all of the previous administrations’ bad trade deals. I can’t help but wonder if the Chinese didn’t deliberately spread the virus world-wide in order to derail those talks.

Now the democrats have swung so far to the left toward a near totally socialist agenda that even Granny would have to vote Republican, and you remember what die hard democrat she was. You should ask her about it. I’m sure she’s around up there somewhere.

So much for that. In my world, things have changed a lot too. After my letter to you was published with visions of royalties just pouring in and offers of a movie deal coming in by the day, I started working weekends at bar in Phoenix called The Cash Inn. And no, I didn’t start drinking again. I just liked being there and made a lot of friends there over the ensuing 5 or 6 years. The owners at the time Lisa and Adele, especially Lisa were some of my biggest supporters.

I got a considerable amount of support from others in the LGBT community. Keith, who I identified as “Keifer” hired me to help him re-model two houses. Unfortunately, he died suddenly one day owing me a substantial amount of money and his partner refused to pay me the balance.

Then I went to work doing remodel and repair work on another bar, Plazma in Phoenix. I got to know the owner Jim through my pastor, Jabowa Whitehead. We used to go over there after church on Sunday afternoon and spend time getting to know other people in the church. At one time Jim gave me an advance on work I hadn’t done yet so I could buy books to sell at a college in California. Which brings me to another person; someone who has become just about the best friend I’ve ever had, with one exception, that of course being The Blue Magnet.

I have to admit that I don’t remember exactly what year it was when Christine Curtain, The Little Green-Eyed Blonde introduced me to Jimmy Urbanovich, but it had to have been at least eleven or twelve years ago. Since that time, he and his wife Renee’ have become not only important supporters but have also become good friends. Jimmy has invited me back to speak at Crafton Hills College in Yucaipa every year but this year and that being the result of Covid-19. Renee was instrumental in getting a promotional video produced by her son for me to use, in an effort to book speaking engagements, but before any could be arranged Covid-19 hit.

However, the really big, I mean REALLY big events of my life have been one event leading to another, leading to another.

Seven years ago, this last June my financial situation had become desperate. I had been applying everywhere for jobs; Circle K, Quick Stop, Walmart, Lowe’s and Home Depot just to mention a few. I was really desperate. The leasing agent I leased my townhouse from had given me notice that they would no longer accept post dated checks for half of my rent. It was either pay all by the third of each month or face eviction. I would have taken any job offered at that point.

The last Monday in June I received an e-mail from The Home Depot central hiring in Atlanta. It said they had attempted to call me for an interview the previous Friday, but I had not answered. Was I still interested in applying for a job there? I couldn’t dial the number fast enough. After an initial phone interview at that time an interview was scheduled for 8:00 AM the following Tuesday at Depot 469 in Mesa.

My interview with ASM Vicki went so well that she asked if I could possibly return for an interview with the Specialty ASM Jeremy the next day. I said “Of course.” Then she asked if I was willing to come back that afternoon. “Heck, I’ll wait if it’s this afternoon.”

She responded that Jeremy wouldn’t be in until 1:00 PM. So, the appointment was set for 2:30 that afternoon. Jeremy and I talked twenty minutes or so and then he took me out to the kitchen showroom and asked me to sell him every product they had. I honestly don’t think he believed that I had as much experience as I did. At any rate he said he would call me the next day. I thought, “Sure you will.” Several years before I had been told that by another Home Depot and never heard a word. But, he called me the next day and said I was hired.

My first official day was July 17, 2013. I anticipated a year or so at The Home Depot. But seven years later and I’m still there.

In the meantime, Mom passed away the last week of September 2014. After all was settled and her home sold, I was the recipient of a third of her remaining estate. On my way home from Utah after having emptied her home of seventy-five years of memorabilia, treasures and personal things of no value to anyone but family, I realized that something I had thought would never be possible, would be.

I had been living and working as Georgia for more than seven years even though the name change hadn’t been legally official until January 5, 2009. At the court hearing for the name change, when it was my turn to stand before the judge, he looked over the papers, and then looking at me said, “I think this is very appropriate. Petition granted.”

I had been on hormone therapy for almost as long and had become used to the idea that whatever was under my skirt wasn’t nearly as important as what was in my heart and head. So, with the realization that a complete transition was now possible, but also having witnessed the tragic result of hasty decisions in regard to Gender Reassignment Surgery I decided to take my time and be sure it was the right thing for me to do. So I waited and I considered all the implications of what I was contemplating.

The first person to learn of what I was considering was Christine. The first Thanksgiving after we met, I had spent with her and family and friends. After all the hoopla was over and everyone had departed and we were alone I had asked her if it would make any difference to her, regarding our relationship if I ever did take that step. Her reply was, “Of course not and she would go with me wherever I needed to go and hold my hand as long as necessary.”

I called her sometime in the middle of December and asked her if the promise was still good. She said, “Of course.” I told her I hadn’t made a firm decision but was thinking about it.

I waited until sometime in February to contact Dr. Marcy Bowers. Over time I had always known that if I ever took that step, she was the only surgeon I would consider. That was because she, herself was a transsexual and had taken over the practice of Dr. Stanley Bieber in Trinidad Colorado.

My first appointment with her was on March 30th, 2015. I still wasn’t sure that I wanted to go ahead and planned on waiting another couple of months before I made a final decision.

Naturally I gave her a copy of “Dear Mom and Dad” when she entered the examination room and after introductions she asked me if I had any questions for her and I said,

“Am I too old?”

“Why do you think you are too old?”

“I’m seventy years old.”

“You’re what?”

“I’m seventy years old.”

“When I first saw you, I assumed I was dealing with someone in their mid-fifties.”

I could have kissed her right then and there.

But to answer my question, she said that I wasn’t too old. She had performed the surgery on people in their eighties.

As the interview was winding down, she said that her good fortune was my misfortune because she was booked out for two and a half years. My heart sank. Then she added, “But for you, I will get you in within nine months if I have to work an extra day of the week.”

Before I left the office, I filled out the necessary paperwork and left a deposit.

About two weeks later I got a call from her practice manager, Robin. She was calling to verify my insurance information that Aetna was my primary through my employer and that Medicare was secondary. I told her yes but that I didn’t want Home Depot hassled about coverage; I had the money.

Robin said she didn’t know what I had heard but that they didn’t hassle the insurance company. All they did was send a letter asking if it was a covered procedure. I said that if that was all they did then fine, but the answer would be “no”. Then I went on with my life.

The last week in June, I was preparing to go on vacation in Monument Valley and Durango when I received a letter from Aetna. There’s my denial of coverage letter I thought. I opened it up and started reading. In the middle of the page was the following:

“Gender Reassignment Surgery: Covered procedure.

What? No! That can’t be right. I folded it up and put it back in the envelope. I waited a few minutes and took the letter out again and re-read it. Yup! That’s what it said. “Gender Reassignment Surgery: Covered Procedure”

I called Robin the next morning and told her about the letter and asked if she had been notified. She said no, but they usually didn’t hear until a week or so after the patient did. So, I went on vacation and returned to work on a Thursday in mid-July. The next day, Friday, Robins office was closed at noon, so I e-mailed her and asked if she had received confirmation of coverage.

Monday morning, about 10:00 my phone rang. It was Robin. She said yes, they had received a confirmation from Aetna and that all I owed was $4,000. Then she said,

“So, how about September 2nd?

“For what?”

“Your surgery.”

I was speechless. I couldn’t breathe. Finally, Robin said,

“Are you there?”

“Uh Yeah.”

“Do you want that date?”

It took a few seconds for it to sink in; that the final decision moment had arrived. I finally said, “Yes, I do.”

“Do you want Dr. Beck to do the breast implants at the same time?”

“If it’s going to happen that soon, yes I do.”

“Then the date is September 1st.”

It had been just five months since Dr. Bowers had said she would get me in in nine months if she had to work an extra day of the week. I called Christine and told her I was making plane reservations for August 31st.

The only other thing I’m going to add is this; I had not been anesthetized since I had my tonsils out when I was 5 years old. I had no idea what to expect. The anesthetist came in to pre-op and said he was going to give me something to relax me, then something to put me to sleep and then would use general anesthesia for the surgery which all together would last six to seven hours.

The next thing, I’m awake and wondering when are they going to get started? Then,

“Oh crap, it’s all done!”

Then, what I knew was possible but didn’t think would happen to me, happened.

“Oh my God, what have I done. I’ve made a horrible mistake.”

But there was no turning back now. I had crossed the Rubicon. I immediately went to work on my own emotions and within two hours I was okay and have never looked back since. It was the right thing for me … Georgia.

George? He’s still there … in my subconscious now just as I was in his for sixty plus years. And he gets in his two bits worth from time to time just like I did to him.

It was not quite a year later that the love of my life, Georgia’s life, entered my life and has made me happy beyond belief. The Blue Magnet makes every day memorable and generally fills it with laughter.

If you are new to my blog, you can read about her and our relationship in posts of February 21st, 2017 and again September 3, 2018.

And the last thing of importance, though tragic, has been the untimely death of my pastor, brother and friend, T.C. “Jabowa” Whitehead. A blog entry on June 2 of this year is a tribute to him. His importance in my life is one of the very last things I wrote about in “Dear Mom and Dad.”

Well, Mom and Dad, that’s pretty much all that’s happened in the last 8 years and not that I don’t look forward to seeing you, I’m just not ready to call it quits down here. I still have books to write and I haven’t had near enough time with The Blue Magnet yet.

Love,

Georgia

P.P.S. And oh yeah … I’ve been ordained an Elder in my church and have actually delivered 3 sermons in the last 2 months, not to mention a lot of introductory messages over the last 4 or 5 years. You can catch them on my Facebook page when you have time.

Need I say more?

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This is exactly how I feel right now. I am so sick and tired of so-called intelligent people belittling my personal beliefs with nasty comments on Facebook and in e-mails that I just want to scream “You can’t handle the Truth”. What it all boils down to is this. I don’t have a college degree. I do have a degree in common sense. And that common sense tells me that making life’s important decisions, like who you vote for, based on “feelings” is just plain stupid and ill informed.

Have you ever been in a public situation, say a restaurant for instance, and had your otherwise pleasant experience interrupted by one or two unruly whining little brats whose parents have absolutely no interest in disciplining the little urchins? Of course you have. And you wonder what kind of adults those children are going to become?  Well, now you know.

They are out there tearing down statues, the meaning of which they have no basis in knowledge as to why the statue was there to start with. Why don’t they? It’s simple. They received, and in some cases continue to receive, substandard educations in actual history and the context of the history they do learn. So back to the brats in the restaurant.

Those same parents have totally abandoned their responsibility to society to produce intelligent, productive adults. Under Obama, a child’s health care became the responsibility of the parents until the child’s mid-twenties. So, my question is: Why isn’t their behavior the responsibility of the parents until the child reaches, oh say, twenty-five years of age?

The fact is, that the parents “can’t handle the truth” of what their responsibility is in the behavior of that young adult who is out marching and destroying the property of others. Their solution to the problem is to blame other people for their failure. If you don’t believe me just look at the way they vote the first Tuesday of every other year. They vote for the politician who promises to absolve them of their duty to society. And, in most cases they don’t even have a clue that that’s the reason they voted that way.

Another truth that people can’t handle is, that after decades of pulling that “Blue” lever on the voting machine, in the hopes that in giving up one more piece of their freedom, the politicians who have been making those promises have still never made their lives better. But, you say, “my life is much better than my parents.” In some ways that’s quite true. You have two cars, two incomes, two this and two that, but your education has left you woefully inadequate to assess the cause and effect relationship of that better life. And even when that relationship is addressed, “You can’t handle the truth.”

That truth is this: That better life is not the product of politicians; except that rare circumstance where they have gotten out of the way like what has been happening for the last three plus years; that better life is the result of the “free” enterprise system working toward the betterment of every person’s life. Politically liberal policies only promote the betterment of the lives the people who have become totally dependent on those same liberal policies and are totally reliant on the benefits of free enterprise.

So, in closing, if “you can’t handle the truth” of common sense or any of my Facebook posts or my blog, the solution for you is simple. Unfriend me. But bear in mind that I have never unfriended any of you in spite of some of the nasty, insulting comments you have left on my page and I don’t know that I ever will. I might, but I doubt it because as Sun Tsu the brilliant Chinese military strategist and Al Pacino of “The God Father” say, “Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.”

Frustration is turning to Anger

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My frustration is turning to anger. Maybe the final straw was seeing a mob; that’s the only word for it; pulling down a statue of Francis Scott Key in San Francisco. So what if he was a slave owner. If what I recall of my education is correct; and I’m pretty damn sure it’s because the NEA hadn’t corrupted the system yet; most of the signers of the declaration of independence were slave owners. My guess is that there wasn’t a single one of those fools involved in the destruction of that statue that’s had any seriously accurate education in our history.

It’s highly unlikely that any of the people who did own slaves were the ones to go to Africa and kidnap the people they “owned”. The slave traffickers in many cases weren’t even the ones to kidnap the people they trafficked in. In most cases the unfortunate people to be sold into slavery were captured and sold by other black tribesmen or Arab Muslim slavers.

But all that knowledge is secondary to the root cause of all the turmoil in our country. That root cause is total and complete lack of basic education and sense of responsibility for one’s own actions. Parents are turning the education and upbringing of their children over to the state. And the cities and states that are the most affected with the problem are those run by liberal politicians like Bill DeBlasio of New York City.

I know that conservative news and commentary outlets see this, but why don’t people on the left at least give lip service to the issue? Can it be possible that they really don’t want to see it because it’s such a glaring example of what liberal progressivism does to the soul of the communities it has taken root in? I tend to think that is the case.

Everything Marxism and Maoism teach is on full display with each and every march and riot that’s occurring on a daily basis. Has our education system become so badly directed that the average person is totally convinced that they owe nothing to the society they live in and that the government is there to provide them with not only the necessities of life but all the goodies that come from a free enterprise form of economy?

So yes, I am angry that people I know, people I care about and people I love are so totally ingrained with an attitude of hatred toward everything that has made this country the one place on the face of the earth where everyone wants to live.

I’m angry that everything about this country that I love and hold dear has become a target of hatred and a form of reverse prejudice.

I’m angry that the press in general, the liberal politicians, the entrenched bureaucracy in Washington, the public education system have all been co-opted by the notion that only a relatively few elites have the vision and correct idea of what is right and what is wrong.

I’m angry that those same people who have made common sense a thing to be laughed at and belittled, are the ones making decisions that affect my life and the pursuit of happiness embodied in our declaration of independence.

And I’m angry that those people who are supposed to be the defenders of free speech; the educators, the liberal politicians and most of all the press, think that I am ignorant because I am a Christian, a politically conservative Christian, a politically conservative Christian trans-sexual; that since I’m all these things, I can’t have an opinion worth voicing.

I could go on indefinitely about what started out as frustration and has now become anger and how that anger makes me want to lash out, but I don’t believe that’s productive, so I won’t.

If you’ve read this far, I think you get my point. I’m angry.

Jabowa

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I don’t know quite where to start. So I will start with a passage from the next to last page of Dear Mom and Dad …

“Within minutes of walking in the door, I felt that I knew why God had closed the Healing Waters door. He’d been holding open the door of New Foundation Christian Fellowship for me all along. I was home at last. I sensed blessings of our maker in the face and presence of everyone, but most of all Pastor Jabowa Whitehead, in a way I’d never felt before in any church. The peace and sense of purpose we’d searched for all our combined life was finally ours.”

Yesterday evening June 1st 2020 at 5:33 and 59 seconds Thomas Cohen “Jabowa” Whitehead took his leave of this world and in so doing left in his wake a multitude of lives much better off for having known him and having been loved by him. And I say “loved” by him because he did love everyone who entered the sphere of his life.

I have met many people who claimed to love everyone, but there has always been a somewhat hollow tone to their claim. Not so with Jabowa. He did genuinely “love” everyone in his life. It was that quality that allowed him to change in some way every life he touched. When one loves as genuinely and completely as did Jabowa Whitehead one cannot help but leave a lasting mark on the lives one touches.

I will never forget the first moment I saw Jabowa. I had been talked into attending a church service for which I held no expectations or even hopes of some healing sense of what I would experience there. As I entered the “Upper Room” as I came to refer to the place on 16th Street and Osborne in Phoenix, he was busy at the front of the room but he glanced up and flashed that Jabowa smile at me. It was a brief but knowing smile that said, “I’ve been expecting you.”

Was our relationship flawless and without chuck holes? No, of course it wasn’t. In fact, at one point I walked away from New Foundation convinced that my time there was at an end and it was time to move on, so I did. But, true to his character, 4 months later I got a text from him. It said he would understand if I chose not to, but he wanted me to know that he would like it if I would worship with him the following Sunday. I responded that I would talk to Abba about it and if He said I should, I would. On Saturday I received another text from him asking what the answer was. I responded that Abba had been totally silent so I took that to mean that He was leaving it up to me so I would probably be there. And I was.

I have not looked back since then. A testament to what he had created was the reception I received when I entered the room, not from him, but from the “family” I found there overwhelmed me. It took awhile for the two of us to heal our relationship, but he had such a forgiving and loving heart that I had no choice but to forgive and heal.

It is important for people who read this to understand what Jabowa’s vision for New Foundation was, as he shared it with me.

It was first and foremost a place for everyone to worship. No formal membership required. And by “everyone” he sincerely meant “everyone”; the broken, the cast offs of society and organized, mainstream churches. As he frequently put it, “gay, straight, trans, bi, Methodists, Baptists, Pentecostal, or as he would phrase it, Methobapticostals; All had a home at New Foundation Christian Fellowship.

The second part of his vision was a fellowship in the form of what the early church was like before Emperor Constantine of Constantinople had his vision of the cross before his victorious final battle with Rome and attributed that victory to the God of the Christians. That vision led ultimately to the Holy Roman Catholic church and the endless requirements of organized Christianity today.

The Christ of Jabowa’s faith was a friend and a brother to be talked to and listened to on a nearly continuous basis. I wrote in Dear Mom and Dad that none of us is ever going to be completely privy to another’s relationship with our maker, and as open as Jabowa was with his faith and his prayer life his most intimate relationship with God is something none of us will ever know.

When I try, through the tears, to understand why he was called home so soon I can only think of it this way. In a forest there can grow a giant pine tree and over time it sheds many cones which lie dormant for years never giving rise to new trees. Only when a forest fire destroys that tree does the heat from that fire cause the many seeds the tree has shed over its lifetime, to break open and germinate. Only then does the promise of a future for other life to grow, uninhibited by the shadow of the giant tree.

The giant tree, in the person of Jabowa Whitehead, is no longer here among us, but we as the seeds of his love and acceptance must now germinate and give life to his vision. His vision must now be our vision. His mission must now be the mission of every life he ever touched.

A Memorable Memorial Day of Critical Thinking

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It is Memorial Day 2020 and as with, I believe everyone, it is the most memorable in my life and probably the most memorable in our history. The networks are busy giving lip service to those who have sacrificed all for our country before they launch into a litany of reasons why Donald Trump has handled the Corona Virus pandemic worse than anyone else could have. They back up their opinions with interviews with carefully selected notables who share their narrow views, thus negating any effort they might have made at honoring the people who have giving their all so the very same pundits can spew whatever vitriolic blather they choose.

What I’m wondering, as I sit here, is how we reached this point. Was there a specific event in our history on which the mission of the Fourth Estate changed from reporting facts as they existed to reporting facts as they were desired to exist.

I am not naïve enough to be ignorant of the fact that there have always been divergent views of the facts in any reported situation. But wasn’t there a time when the facts were stated plainly and accurately first then followed by diverse opinions of people capable of critical thinking. I’m try desperately to remember a time in my adult life when I felt I could trust implicitly the facts being reported.

The closest I can come to setting a date or an event when that the seed of doubt was planted. It was sometime in the late ‘60s or early ‘70s. Try as I may, I cannot remember the exact details but two of the circumstances involved reporting programs like 60 Minutes and 2020. We were still on the farm and one such incident involved the efforts of Caesar Chavez’ to organize the lettuce workers in southern Colorado. The other circumstance involved the National Farm Organization and its efforts to unionize the farmers and ranchers. In both cases the facts that were reported about the situations were simply wrong and obviously wrong intentionally.

Why would they do that?

Even to my ill-informed mind the answer was obvious. The reporting was agenda driven; subtly driven, but just the same agenda driven. And that agenda was driven by the notion that the average person was not smart enough to think for themselves, and if they were, stating a lie as fact often enough would change enough of those minds to make a difference in any political outcome.

Over the intervening years I became more and more cynical about the news I heard and saw. It became an automatic response to doubt the veracity and integrity of each and every personality the major networks put before the camera. I am now at the point where I have begun to doubt that the average human being in our country is capable of actually thinking for themselves and arriving at well thought out beliefs in right and wrong.

A personal friend of mine, Professor Jimmy Urbanovich teaches a class at Crafton Hills College in southern California which I believe should be a requirement in every college curriculum at least, and in every high school curriculum at best. The class is titled “Critical Thinking through Argumentation and Debate.” Of course, it would “critical” for the class to always be taught and facilitated by a person, like Jimmy, who is eminently qualified by the very nature of their own ability to think and debate critically.

Alas, that I’m certain, is a pipe dream which will never see the light of day in this age of tunnel visioned Facebook, Google, Twitter controlled information.

Some Failure Are Just Too Obvious To Ignore

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That’s right … some failures are just too obvious to ignore. I’m talking about the failure of our education system. The fact that there are so many people in this country who are totally incapable of rational, intelligent decisions about their own health care in the midst of the current pandemic crisis is making that painfully obvious.

I was taught from an early age to think for myself. Sometimes it was a painful exercise. One such exercise came about as a result of repeating to my mother a statement made by my history teacher. The comment he made was that communism was good for China. That brought about a swift and direct correction from Mom. I don’t remember the exact words she used but I do remember that I made a lasting decision to always question opinions made by educators and at times their facts.

Up to that point I had been taught to respect my teachers and their opinions. But that changed dramatically from that point on. The lesson I learned from my debate class experience and having to seriously defend both sides of an issue was that there could indeed be two sides to every issue. Where I ran into trouble and ultimately lost a given side on certain issues was the fact that I was arguing against my own sense of logic. The result was a half-hearted defense of that issue.

I remember hearing a missionary recently returned from southeast Asia talking about the potential influence Christianity could have in that part of the world simply by getting involved with educating the youth. I used that information in one of my negative arguments to the need for Federal aid to education in this country. The premise was that we should spend said money influencing the education systems of those countries since the danger communism posed in uneducated populations was more dangerous than any faced in this country. Needless to say, my partner and I didn’t win any debates with that argument either.

I was fortunate to have been guided in my youth by parents who insisted that I learn the difference between respecting authority and respecting the personal opinions of said authority. As I was to learn, entirely too many people didn’t understand that difference and some of those who did used that knowledge to manipulate others to the detriment of our society.

Over time I became more and more aware of the growing liberal influence of the National Education Association. If money could influence the education systems of southeast Asia it could certainly influence the education systems of this country. The current heath crisis in this country and the stark fear that has been fueled by ignorance of so much of our population is a prime example.

Over the last five or six decades we have been conditioned to rely on the opinions and knowledge of people who really don’t have our best interest in mind. The negative aspects of this pandemic have repeatedly been blamed on President Trump and his advisors for one reason and one reason only … political gain in the next election. Former White House chief of staff and close friend of former President Obama was the epitome of that attitude when he said, “never let a crisis go to waste.”

The opinions of the press are absorbed and repeated by a populace that has been cultivated to believe that if it is seen on national news networks it must be true. The NEA, in my opinion, is largely to blame for the success of the campaign of disinformation. They have created at least two generations of intitled citizens who are totally reliant on others to do their thinking for them without assuming responsibility for the condition of their own lives and/or predicaments.

Parents, who themselves are the product of that same education system, have been conditioned to turn over the education and nurturing of their children without ever stopping to examine the results.

Ronald Reagan had it right when he said, “The most dangerous words are, ‘I’m from the government and I’m here to help.’” So, in that light I would suggest that the second most dangerous words are, “We’re from the NEA and we’re here to teach your children.”

We are fortunate that we have a system of free enterprise and a president who recognized the importance of getting the government out of the way so that system could do its thing and come up with a vaccine as quickly as it appears to be doing.

If you have children at home, use the time to teach them to think for themselves and not to wait for a teacher, bureaucrat or journalist to do their thinking for them. So, in the current debate I think that I stand accused and guilty if I take the negative argument regarding the importance of federal aid, aka federal influence in education.

I’m in that age bracket that is most threatened by the virus, but in closing I will quote Patrick Henry in spite of it seeming a bit too extreme.

“Give me liberty or give me death”!