As the slaughter of innocent Palestinian women and children continues by Netanyahu and his IDF forces, there are several constants on the part of the United States in terms of our reactions. The First Constant is for Biden and Blinken to keep sending more ammunition and bombs to Israel even without authorization from the US Congress.
“For the second time this month the Biden administration is bypassing Congress to approve an emergency weapons sale to Israel as Israel continues to prosecute its war against Hamas in Gaza under increasing international criticism.” — Associated Press, Fri 29 Dec 2023, Guardian
The Second Constant is for both Biden and Blinken to keep calling for Netanyahu to be more careful where he drops his bombs. “US Secretary of State Antony Blinken who has repeatedly urged Israel to do more to protect Palestinian Citizens is expected in the region next week.” — Casa Grande Dispatch, January 2, 2024
Bibi and Blinken will have a hug fest while Bibi tells Antony, “Yes Mr. Secretary, I will be more careful. But don’t you realize that the plan is to get the Palestinians out of Gaza permanently either dead or alive?” 
Surely Biden and Blinken are not stupid enough to think that the majority of Americans do not see through this hypocrisy. A Secretary of State who is a war mongering hawk with little concern for diplomacy is bad enough, but the continuing effort to silence anyone on the left or right who opposes bombs to Israel with screams and accusations of Anti-Semitism is an egregious hypocrisy of everything that our First Amendment and America stands for.
Trying to think what I can do to help ameliorate some of the atrocities associated with this war, I decided that perhaps I could contribute some ideas that would help Bibi, Blinken and Biden with some more concrete means of PROTECTING innocent Palestinians. I came up with the following list. I will briefly explain each of my ideas. If you have any contacts with the US State Department or President Biden, please feel free to share these ideas with them.
- Drop leaflets showing where the bombs will fall
This would help innocent Palestinians to get out of the way before the SMART bombs hit. Sadly, it would not work against many of the dumb bombs that America is sending over since these dumb bombs cannot read.
- Schedule bombing runs on alternate sides of the street. One day for odd numbered streets and the next day for even numbered streets
In Minnesota and Wisconsin, we do the above for snow removal. It helps residents with parking their cars and avoiding towing and snow fines. You get to alternate which side of street you can park on so that the snowplows can do their job. This idea would allow the IDF to destroy as many homes as possible while avoiding killing innocent women and children.
- Schedule bombing runs on alternate days. On Monday, Wed and Friday, bomb North Gaza and on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays bomb South Gaza
This is a variant of idea number 2.
- Setup a phone ring and have Palestinians alert other Palestinians when bombs are expected to fall in the neighborhood
At my wife’s church in Wisconsin, they have a group of phone callers who in an emergency all call different members of her church. This works very well for getting help to people that need it and for alerting all church members of any impending disasters. I think a modified version of this phone network could work in Gaza if the IDF were willing to give just a little advance notice of their bombing schedule.
- Drop shekels with the bombs so the Palestinians will have the funds to rebuild their homes.
This was suggested during the Vietnam war since many Americans with a monetary bent figured that it cost roughly one million dollars for every Viet Cong soldier that we killed. I thought that if Israel dropped some shekels, stocks or bonds with their bombs, it would help the Palestinians rebuild Gaza or at least move to someplace else like Miami or Houston.
- Try to only hit Schools, Mosques, Tunnels and Hospitals where bona-fide Hamas members are hiding out.
Much of the public outrage against the Gaza massacre has come about because of the pictures of dead children and babies in bombed out hospitals and elsewhere. The IDF needs to get better Intel and only bomb places with bonified Hamas members.
- Play public service announcements letting non-Hamas Palestinians know that the bombs are not for them and that they should not take it personally.
Perhaps a good Madison Avenue marketing campaign could be developed to show the Palestinians that the IDF really is trying to protect them. As with most such campaigns it would all be smoke and mirrors, but advertising is very effective and would dampen down some of the criticism. Israel needs to do more to show that “They Really Care.” That would make a good campaign slogan, “We Really Care.”
- Play some mood music during bombing runs that will encourage Palestinians to relax more
I realize that this is not one of my best ideas but you know the old saying “Music sooths the savage beast.” When I am worried and upset a bit of good music helps me to relax. Perhaps some good music along with the bombing might help to address Palestinian anxiety and make them feel more cared about.
- Create a Bill of Rights for Palestinians like we have in the USA
From everything I have read, most of the laws impacting Gaza are very similar to the Apartheid Laws that had been enacted by the White government in South Africa during the Apartheid regimes. Maybe if Israel and Palestine could work out a Bill of Rights like in the US Constitution, the Palestinians would be able to live side by side with the Israelites and not allow groups like Hamas to engage in indiscriminate slaughter of innocent women and children in Israel
10. Sign a petition to send to Antony Blinken and Joe Biden encouraging them to talk more frequently with Netanyahu about protecting the rights of Palestinian Citizens
I doubt this would work since both Blinken and Biden are really shills for billionaires in the US who realize that Israel is essential to US financial interests. The Palestinian people are simply in the way. Just like the Indigenous Native American people were in the way of US progress and “Manifest Destiny” so are the Palestinians in the way of a greater Israel. No one bleeds for people in the way of “progress.”
So, there you have my ten ideas for helping Biden and Blinken find ways for Bibi to better protect the Palestinian people while he drops thousands of bombs on their homes, hospitals, schools, and mosques. If you have any ideas, please feel free to add them to my list before sending to the US President or State Department.
Every year since Karen and I were married we have put up a Christmas Tree. Putting up a tree was once something I hated almost as much as I hated the entire Christmas event. I would be more than happy to forget that Christmas ever existed. I made my first wife miserable with my incessant complaints about Christmas and made a promise to myself not to let my hatred of Christmas get in the way of Karen’s love for the holiday. So very dutifully I unload the tree and boxes of ornaments, put on some Christmas songs, and help Karen decorate our tree. 
I saw another shadow ahead. The shadow became more defined as I came closer, and I realized that it was my father. He was standing there shaking his head. He started yelling at me. “You can’t do anything right. You fuck everything up. Leave it alone, I will do it myself.” I stopped to tell him that I was sorry. I always tried but it was never good enough. He just shook his head. The light moved on again and I followed it down the path.
Soon, I could make out two more figures on the path as I approached their shadows. One was my former wife, Julia. She was sitting on a rock with my daughter Christina. Christy was seven or eight and they were both crying. I remember the scene well. I had taken a picture of them both that day amid that dismal moment. I was oblivious to their pain and heartache. The picture is in a scrapbook that I left with Julia when we divorced. It has often haunted my thoughts. I can see the picture in my mind just as clearly as if I were holding it in my hand. I was the reason; they were both crying and trying to comfort each other. Thinking of the pictures reminds me of the bastard that I once was and how horrible I had often been to Julia and my daughter Christy.
The other is anyone who you do not identify with. It is anyone who is on the other side of the fence. It is anyone who does not belong to your tribe, religion, political party, sports team, demographics, ethnicity, country club, neighborhood, gated community, state, country, or hemisphere. It is someone who looks different than you do. It is someone who thinks differently than you do. It is someone who behaves differently than you do. It is a stranger from a strange land. It is a poor person who needs a handout. It is a rich person who does not have to work hard. It is a very educated person or perhaps a very uneducated person.
One of my best friends and I were recently discussing the current mania with “Identity.” There has been much talk these past few years over the issue of Identity politics. Identify politics has been defined as:
This mania with identity presents a problem in the political arena where compromise has long been a foundation of good government. The concept of Identity has so polarized people that they now view the “other” side as having no validity and even in many cases being EVIL. The problem of Identity has metastasized from the political arena to the wider social arena which includes almost every aspect of life on the planet. I think it is safe to say that Identity has always been at the heart of conflicts since the Tower of Babel and perhaps Adam and Eve. Did Eve feel inferior to Adam and want to one up him? Some recent headlines about the concept of Identity include:
Mark Twain wrote a famous story which he asked not to be published until after his death. The story was called “The War Prayer.” A church service is being held at which several soldiers are getting ready to go off to war. The chaplain has just given a prayer for the soldiers welfare and victory. A stranger enters the church and asks the chaplain to say a few words. Reluctantly the chaplain agrees. The stranger starts off by referring to the war prayer that the chaplain gave to instill morale in the soldiers. The stranger notes that there are really two prayers that have been said. One has been spoken and the second one unspoken. The stranger then says that he will speak what was really asked for in this prayer:
We have a world where humans have begun to take war for granted. It is either too easy to do nothing about war as we watch our favorite sports teams fight it out or Osho is right, and we crave the excitement that death and destruction bring to the planet. If we truly want to end war and violence, we must start to see everyone on the planet as a people that we are part of. There must be no “others.” We are all part of one large tribe. Just as the water, soil and air are part of a seamless whole, so is humanity. Benjamin Franklin said, “Either we all hang together, or we all hang separately.” I think we might say something similar for humanity. Either we all live together peacefully, or we shall all die separately apart.”
Suffice it to say, I am awestruck by the reply from ChatGPT. She/he might just eliminate the need for many experts including pundits like me, psychiatrists, doctors, lawyers, professors, sociologists, psychologists and even you. I am scratching my head as to what I can add about the subject that ChatGPT did not provide you. I can tell you a story though that ChatGPT cannot concerning a major non-closure in my own life. One episode among many that has left me with regrets. I can also tell you that it is not always easy to get closure on incomplete episodes. Many things can get in the way. Perhaps the primary barriers either being the unwillingness of one party to try or to reciprocate an effort and of course our own egos.
few years later, I decided to reach out to him again. You can guess his reaction. He was angry and insulting. I decided to drop my effort. Over the years, we have had some interactions by phone or email but nothing that has substantially reinvigorated our former friendship. I am not sure whether he feels any loss, but I can honestly say that I miss him. He had many good qualities and there were many times that we spent together that I fondly remember. I have been the one over the past few years to try to reach out, but my efforts have gone nowhere. At this point, I have decided that “people change” and that he is not the person that he once was. This is a good excuse or rationale for my letting go and forgetting him. You can no doubt pick many holes in my logic.
I could point out that few things worth having ever come easy. The problem is that too many of us grow up today with the fantasy that as the song in My Fair Lady goes, “With a little bit of luck, you can have it all.” I grew up with a phrase that was popular in my neighborhood that went “He got the breaks.” This meant basically that he/she got what they got cause they got lucky. They did not have to work hard. They did not have to practice. They did not have to study. They simply had to get the “Breaks.” It took me years to realize the fallacy in thinking that luck has much to do with what one gets in life. Two of my now favorites quotes are:
A life without closures will be a life not really lived well. The more closures we can accomplish, the more satisfying our lives will be. Perhaps only a life lived with closures can be a life lived without regrets. We will all have regrets in our lives. Our incomplete episodes are links in a chain that we forge as we go through life. A key question is “how long do we want our chain to be?” The more effort we make to complete these episodes, the shorter our chain will be, and I think the happier our lives will be. Look at the incomplete episodes in your life today. Which ones still cause you heartache and regrets. Is it too late to do anything about them? Would it be worth the effort? What would it cost you to try?
Holiday time or Holy-Day time? Each holiday season, I wonder what time people are really celebrating. Christmas becomes X-Mass. Holy-days become holidays. Days of remembrance become good days to host a backyard barbecue and Thanksgiving simply becomes the springboard to “the shopping season.” The big kickoff being “Black Friday.” Where is our soul? Where is the spirit in our natures? Is time off meant to be simply another day to watch the “big game.” Are holy-days meant to be spent shopping? Is Black Friday now the most important day of the year? Is Santa Claus a Good Christian because he gives toys to tots? Was that Jesus Christ’s message, to spend Christmas roasting chestnuts round an open fire singing Jingle Bell Rock?
Please note, it is not my intention to sound like the Grinch or to “cast stones” at others. We all need time to relax and we all need time for fun and games. However, when do we say enough? What about the meaning of the time that we are granted? Do we simply see our time off as a holiday or do we embrace this gift of time to remember our dead, our veterans, our special leaders and those that helped pave the way for the lives that we can live today. These “holidays” we are given each year, whether in remembrance of a religious or civic event should not pass by without our taking the time to remember what their true meaning is.
I have so much but I am continually looking at people that are more successful, make more money, have more friends and are in better condition. Yet once I pause for just a few seconds to reflect on my blessings, I realize that I have the greatest wife in the world and I am healthy and moderately well off. I have six happy and wonderful grandchildren. I have more friends than I have time to spend with. In short, I have nothing to complain about. I have nothing to be selfish or greedy or jealous about. I have been blessed with a wonderful life and yet I hardly ever stop to say “thank you God for what you have given me.” I am usually too worried about what I have not been given.
