The Dwayne Johnson Rule

 I would like to enact the Dwayne Johnson rule.

It's really quite simple and I hope will bring some much needed peace and tranquility to our world.  But before I explain this glorious tool for future communication in the digital world, first let me briefly explain why we need such a rule. 

The internet, and social media in particular, has become a license for us to be our worst selves.  Not unlike when you are in you car, alone, and the idiot two lanes over cuts you off without a turn signal.  You proceed to curse and yell, informing this hapless driver of all the imaginative things you think of him as a person, only to realize you are going to the same place.  You then awkwardly and politely walk by as you pass him on the way into the supermarket.  On social media, this same effect of semi anonymity allows us to feel safe to rant and rave, to spew hate filled tirades, and to splinter into factions fueled by falsehoods and conspiracy theories.  Although road rage has its own not so innocent consequences in some cases, most of the time these rants in your car go unheard.  Perhaps chalked up to simple cathartic expression.  This is not so with social media.  People are listening.  Your voice is going beyond the metaphorical car and out into the world.  And as recent events have clearly shown, there are consequences.

So, the Dwayne Johnson rule...  

If you are going to voice something on social media, whatever it might be, personal opinion, political position, your stance on race relations, how much you hate tofu, whatever it is, stop and imagine yourself saying it to the Rock's face.  Actually picture yourself, no doubt for most of us, looking up into his face and saying "Mr. Johnson, I think, I feel, I believe _____"  If you think that you would not have a problem doing that, then by all means, carry on with your post.  If not, keep it to yourself.  Perhaps seek some therapy or snuggle with something warm and fuzzy instead.  I suggest a labradoodle.  

Now, I love the Rock, but it doesn't have to be him.  You can alter the rule to make it a better fit for you.  You could imagine John "the Bones" Jones, or perhaps a friend of a friend who happens to be a navy seal. Think outside the box.  You could imagine voicing your opinion in a crowded barber shop or in front of a platoon of marines. Just be sure, when applying the rule, you are alone.  It doesn't count if you are picturing yourself with your fellow Nazi buddies or your local Stalin MMA club.  Group think, as social psychology tells us and mobs and riots show us, can be just as bad.

Now go out there and post with confidence knowing that with the simple application of the Dwayne Johnson rule, you are no longer contributing to the downfall of our society.  

Quick Thought: United States of Rome

As a boy, I believed that the United States of America was eternal. In fact, it seemed such a permanent thing that I didn’t really give it much thought, only grew into adulthood in the secure feeling of stability a world superpower provides. As a middle-aged man, faced with current events, my mind wanders to ancient Rome, and boys and young men who grew into their adulthood in one of the greatest, most powerful civilizations to ever grace the planet, and how permanent it must have felt. How their home managed to survive as their republic was taken away, to be replaced by the Tiberiuses, Caligulas, Neroes, and Commoduses. And yet, still the great empire endured—until it didn’t. 

Unfortunately, our civilization, that began as an experiment in democratic republican government, is not eternal. There is no inevitability to our success and future. Like all worthwhile endeavors, it must be earned, renewed, and sacrificed for. We cannot allow people to exploit the freedoms our government and constitution provide for greed, power, hate, and misguided individualism. 

"Government is instituted for the common good; for the protection, safety, prosperity, and happiness of the people; and not for profit, honor, or private interest of any one man, family, or class of men; therefore, the people alone have an incontestable, unalienable, and indefeasible right to institute government; and to reform, alter, or totally change the same, when their protection, safety, prosperity, and happiness require it."
-John Adams

Facing the Nation

The day will come when men will recognize woman as his peer, not only at the fireside, but in councils of the nation. Then, and not until then, will there be the perfect comradeship, the ideal union between the sexes that shall result in the highest development of the race —Susan B. Anthony

In the wee hours of this morning, over half of this country’s voters woke to heart break and bewilderment.  Just under half, to vindication and conceit.  What had seemed marked for a historic occasion, instead brought to millions of American’s a dawn of real fear and uncertainty—about their rights to equal treatment, their ability to keep their families together, and the nature of what it means to be an American.  They had to figure out how to explain that the words their children heard spoken by the new President Elect during his campaign were not something to emulate, but would in fact get them expelled from school.  That while you can rise to the highest office in the land degrading women and speaking of them and treating them as merely sexual objects, that is not how women deserve to be treated and it not something women should ever tolerate.  That the proverbial melting pot that is the great American experiment is, for the moment, only for those with backgrounds as diverse as English, Irish, German, and Swedish.      

So, as I say good-bye to an America that eight years ago elected a biracial African-American man on a message of hope, diversity, inclusion, and compassion, I face this nation with renewed vigor to demonstrate to my daughters how a good man behaves.  How a good man treats his wife, his children, his mother, and his female coworkers, friends and neighbors.  How he treats those less fortunate and how he responds in both the face of adversity and loss, and in prosperity and triumph.  I face this new nation, so divided by hate and anger, ignorance and malice, with a call to service.  To help teach those like our new President Elect, that science is not magic or fantasy, but the collected human understanding of the natural world and the threats our magnificent earth faces.  To show that fear of what we don’t understand is not cause to turn away, but an opportunity to grow as individuals and expand the boundaries that hold us back from reaching our full potential as a nation.  To demonstrate that compassion is not weakness and that there is a way to stand up for what you believe in, even to defend yourself against the vilest of enemies, with grace and honor. 

A Few Ridiculous Ways to Fix Our Government

As are most Americans, I am a bit frustrated by the lack of governing that seems to be going on with our government.  While I try to stay away from any partisan ramblings, as this is after all my author blog, I couldn't help sharing some of the more outrageous ideas I have come up with for helping fix our political ineffectualness.  

Wikipedia: Public Domain

Number one: We should chemically induce amnesia in all members of Congress so that they have no recollection of whose money enabled them to get elected.  They would then be locked away from all media and outside influence in small groups composed of both Democrats and Republicans, although that information will also be kept from them.  They will them be presented with all the issues that are currently plaguing our nation.  Only scientific facts from published studies (without any knowledge of where or why the studies were originated) will be presented to aid in there decision making.  The group sampling, method, statistical variation will also be made available so that their validity may be judged by the members.  After several months, Congress will reconvene as one and make laws and decisions. Then they can have their memories back and realize that although they will probably have angered some formerly powerful groups with letters for names and little in the way of conscience, they will have done what they truly feel is best for their country.

Number two: Henceforth, anyone who affiliates with a political party, for instance, rather than as a human being with individual thoughts on the issues that face their fellow homo sapiens, will be forbid from running for office.  No more parties fighting for control.  Only people fighting for what they feel is right.

Number three: All elected members of the federal government will have to take truth serum and call their mothers to explain their future actions and motives before going forward on any bill, decision or legislation.  Actually, that should probably be number one.

 

Number four: All members of Congress must spend one week a month while they are in office living in the most impoverished, downtrodden town in their state.

Number five: Don't pass a budget, you're fired.  New election, try again.

Number six: Anyone attempting to add anything in a bill that is not relevant to the subject of that bill will be put in timeout for 1 minute for every year of their age.  Then they must refer back to Number Three and apologize. 

That's as far as I got.  Please feel free to comment with your own ideas.  Hope my six made you smile.  It's getting a bid hard to do when thinking of politics these days.

President George Obama is out to get Me?

As many of you know, I'm am taking a year long class through the fire department to upgrade from a firefighter/EMT to a firefighter/paramedic.  The instructor, as part of our morning routine, has us give a news story.  Now this story can be anything we wish and it proves to be a great way to start the day with a little debate, a laugh or two and a bit of trivia before starting the day's serious learning.  Until this class, I had done my best to avoid the news and the programs that "report" it.  I find the news to be often depressing and worst of all, as is the subject of this post, extremely bias toward one political affiliation or another.  And now that I have been reintroduced into the news world after several years, my feelings have only intensified in my older age.
It is my naive and perhaps immature belief that the news' purpose, whether it be the six o'clock TV variety or the local news paper, is to report facts from events that have occurred throughout the world that we might night otherwise be aware of in our individual microcosms.  I didn't realize that in addition to telling us what's happened, the news was also tasked with informing us how we should feel about said news, how they feel about it, and orchestrate the stories in such a way that their bias infringes upon the actual, simple facts.  Fox News obviously is a popular entity to pick on for their obvious Republican slant, but they are certainly not alone and the Democratic party has plenty of news programs doing the same thing.  And this might not be so bad if it weren't for the fact that a great number of people don't see this obvious manipulation and, God forbid, take the reported news as fact.
I don't really know if the news was ever reported in such a way that manipulation wasn't the main goal and anytime there is a human element there will always be a certain degree of personal bias being delivered.  But shouldn't there at least be an attempt to be impartial.  To report, accurately and faithfully, the facts.  To use an example that will be bipartisan (don't want to put a bias on any particular culprit) if it's going to rain tomorrow, I want the news to tell me when it is suppose to rain, how much, how long and what is the accompanying temperature.  What I don't need is for them to tell me is that the rain is an evil, political right wing, left wing conspiracy that is poised to destroy the sanctity of America's values.  I will decide whether or not the rain is out to get me, you, news, just tell me its coming.
In just one morning of searching news articles I learned the following: President Obama is actively trying to bankrupt the United States of America, Gov. Mitt Romney is animal abuser, President Obama is against religious rights and is starting a war on marriage, the Republican party wants to destroy the environment and President George W. Bush is tanking our economy with his phone bill.  Really.  This is news.  There is an outlet for this kind of thing.  Many of them in fact.  Editorial columns, debates, blogs, commentator programs, satirists cartoons, a soap box on the Capitol Mall.  Just not on the five o'clock, six o'clock news.  Not in the newspaper (other than editorials).  And not on news radio.  Call yourself opinion radio, the five o'clock opinion or the opinion paper and manipulate facts, be selective on what you report and try to tell me what to think all you want.  And when I turn on or read the news, please just tell me, wait for it, who, what, when, and where!
P.S. If your some kind of scientist you can attempt to tell me how and why.