CNN should send me to Tampa because countless “real” Americans have given up on politics. They don’t believe their lives will change, regardless of which candidate or party wins. I want to help real people understand what’s at stake for them and their families.

While teaching for 25 years, I’ve seen the struggles of thousands of children and families in middle class, suburban settings as well as impoverished, urban areas. Many have given up on some of the principles and leadership of today’s America.

I’ve retired from teaching but not from education. I’ll help others better understand the campaign and election process. I’ve taught students to listen, formulate thoughts, and express themselves through essays and research papers. That includes asking questions and evaluating if the answers have addressed or avoided the questions. My goal is understand why the GOP believes their ideas will give America a better tomorrow.

I’m not psychic. In my opinion, nobody is. However, that doesn’t mean it’s not fun to be a psychic, especially when you get paid for it. Those of you who are psychic, you somehow probably already know this whole story, so don’t bother reading. The rest of you, well, you’ll have to suffer from your non-psychic disability and read it.

I was a chatroom surfer back in the late 90’s and early 00’s. I spent hours at night jumping in and out of random “places” all in search of communication, someone to talk to. I had recently separated and was en route a divorce and living far away from friends and family. The social media explosion was roughly in stage 3 of 10, and advancements were expanding by the week. I was in charge of technology at work, so it was my obligation to keep ahead of the curve, stay informed so I would be able to answer questions from those I was supposed to be ready to help.

Most time spent in chatrooms was wasted. It’s not like anyone was “real.” Most people were pretending to be someone other than themselves, which is part of the beauty of computer lives: you can be anyone you want to be, haven’t been, never could be, or haven’t yet become. Of all the chatrooms, my favorite was always the “psychic” rooms. The main thing there were people either asking for or volunteering to give psychic readings. You’d find someone in the chatroom, then break off into a private chat to participate in the personal psychic experience.

Not only am I not psychic, but I don’t believe in any of it, and I am certain it’s complete crap. However, I love the idea of the potential possibility of maybe-ness that people can actually have those visions. I love stories from those who believe they can talk to the dead or have seen spirits, auras, or any kind of visible version of the non-living.

When I volunteered to give psychic readings, it was never in a private chatroom. I wanted everyone in the room to see what was going on. Call me an exhibitionist, in more ways than one. I wanted everyone in the room to see the absurdity of the activity. When it came to the psychic readings, I didn’t even wait for a request. I would just being my proclamation to all 20-something people in the room:

I have a vision! Tomorrow there will be an event to behold! There will be a great light in the sky, probably around 5, 5:30. This great light will increase its intensity during the day, reaching its most brilliant point at about lunch, if you’re on the day shift. Then! This great light, after having examined us and chased away the puddles, this great light will begin its downward slide. It will fade, little by little right up until about it’s time for World News Tonight on channel 6 (if you’re in the Philly area). Do not be surprised if it happens again tomorrow! If not, then I declare the likelihood of things falling from the sky. Don’t worry. It’s just water…

I could never tell just how many people were thinking, “Yeah, this is stupid. I’m going to get some ice cream.” Or, “I feel like an idiot. For this and for not being able to help my 4th grader with his homework.” But that’s not what this is about.

One particular chatting night I received an invitation for a private chat and naturally accepted. It went something like this:

Them: would you be interested in working for the Psychic Hotline?

Me: no, because there’s no such thing as psychic ability.

Them: doesn’t matter. We need people who can keep callers on the phone for a long time. Engage them in conversation. Keep it going because they pay by the minute. Y’know?

Me: I know, but it would feel weird because I’d be tricking people into something I don’t believe in.

Them: it pays $12 an hour and you never have to leave your home. They call you.

Me: ok. I’m in.

That resulted in a few e-mails to explain everything and some papers that arrived in the mail two days later. After learning how to dial in to a phone server system and how to use tarot cards in a very basic way, I was ready to go. Before I started, I reviewed a few other things, including a friendly suggestion that I might want to light some candles before I start. “Why?” I wondered. The answer was because candles are “white light” and can keep away “dark light” just in case some bad or evil forms of light entered the room while I was “reading.” It was hard not to laugh. However, since I was accustomed to having candles lit anyway, I sparked a couple.

I had to dial in to a phone server in order to enable my number into the psychic system. Then, when people called in to find a “psychic,” I was in the pool of random people on call. I lasted about a week, and – because that was about 10 years ago – I can only remember three specific calls of the many I answered, but they were memorable for a reason.

Tarot cards are very complicated, so much that I can’t remember a damn thing about them except that there’s a long and a short way to give a tarot card reading. I was only capable of the short version, which basically had a list of characteristics associated with each card. If someone asked you a question, you could pull a card and draw a prediction from the symbolism of the card to the situation involved with the question. While a regular deck of cards has 52, a tarot deck has 78. Instead of suits like spades, hearts, clubs, and diamonds, a tarot deck has wands, swords, cups, and pentacles. On one particular phone call, I was asked three questions. Even though I rigorously shuffled the deck after each question, I selected the exact same card each time. The mathematical chance of that happening is 1 in 474,552. That’s interesting, and it made me a little dizzy.

Another call was from a woman who wanted to know if she should take a new job she was offered. I asked her a series of questions such as which job was further from home, the difference in pay, health benefits, hours at work, etc. I then told her which job she should take, but my mistake was telling her how I came to that conclusion – the answers to her questions. Her reply was, “That’s not psychic. That’s just common sense!” Enough said there.

Last was the reason I quit after just a week. A lovely, elderly woman from Kansas called because it had been about a year since her husband had died. Originally, she wanted to ask questions about him. Where is he? What’s he doing? Does he remember me? Is he waiting for me? I don’t remember if we got to any of those questions, but I do remember having a wonderful conversation in which I asked her a million questions and she smiled a million times giving a million answers. After a while, she asked, “How long have we been talking?” I hesitated to answer, saying I wasn’t sure. She then said, “Oh my, it’s been about 45 minutes. Do you have any idea what this is costing me?” I said, “I don’t really know anything about that part of the business.” She kindly thanked me for talking to her and was then going to bed.

After that, I hung up the phone, put the tarot cards back in the box, blew out the candle, and dialed the special number to disconnect my phone from the psychic hotline server. I never reconnected again. I also never mailed in the time sheet for the calls I took and the money I was supposed to make for my services, no matter how accurate I might or might not have been.

I don’t “love” many things, but I do love travelling…traveling…going places. It makes me feel important to go places, like I have “business” to take care of here or there. Airports have always fascinated me, train stations too. This week I’m in Baltimore, Maryland, the Inner Harbor area for an education conference and a mini vacation. So far, very little has gone well.

1. You’d think that the people arranging the hotels would have arranged for a Monday night arrival because the first day of the conference was Tuesday morning at 8am. Not everyone lives close enough to drive here Tuesday morning, and I’m sure those people were here last night. Not me. Why is that important? See #2.

2. The headline in today’s paper says, “Water Main Break Disrupts City.” That means it took almost two hours to get from the edge of the city to my hotel room. I’m on Light Street. At least a block in each direction is closed to traffic. I had to park two blocks away and walk to the hotel, check in, then walk four blocks to the convention center in order to be two hours late. In the picture below, my hotel is the large building right-center. The positive is that I can walk around easily without getting hit by a car. Helps when walking the damn dog, which they luckily allow here for an extra fee of $100.

3. I hate conference presenters. They made you do stupid things just to kill time. They LOVE these friggin’ things they call “ice breakers.” It’s a dumb thing to get you in a conversation with others, and it helps the presenter waste about 15 minutes. It’ll go something like this: “Okay people. You’ll each find an index card in front of you, and a pen. Just write the month in which you were born on the card. Okay, now everyone who wrote a 1, 2, or 3, you gather in this corner of the room. Those with 4, 5, and 6, this corner of the room…” And then we just introduce ourselves and pretend we don’t want to punch the presenter.

4. I hate conference presenters. Our agenda for the day says lunch is from 11:45 to 1pm. The presenters said, “Hey everybody, we want to help get you out of here as early as possible (translation – WE want to get out of here a.s.a.p.), so if you want, we’ll cut lunch to 45 minutes instead of an hour 15 minutes, and then we can all leave 30 minutes early. Okay? Raise your hands if you’re good with that.” And then pretty much everyone raises their hands. And then I sit quietly, and then I stand and raise my hand and say, “Excuse me, sir. Here’s the thing. You gave us an agenda that said lunch is until 1pm. I made plans to have lunch until 1pm, and it’s a little unprofessional to put people on the spot with that request. If 99% of us raise our hands to end lunch early, that puts unfair peer pressure on the 1%. So you can do whatever you like, but I’m not coming back until 1. Just letting you know now.”

This does two things. 1. It lets me take my time at lunch. B. It asserts myself so that neither the presenters nor anyone else is going to mess with me the rest of the week.

5. I hate conference attendees. They’re rude. They carry on conversations and ignore the presenters. They are just happy to spend a school district’s money on hotels, bars, restaurants, and have no interest in learning what they’re here for. Meanwhile, I can’t hear the presenter, and I have this stupid empathy thing that causes me to feel the embarrassment that I imagine the presenter is feeling. Also, I know the presenter hates the disrespectful attendees, and then I feel part of a group that’s labeled disrespectful instead of being judged as the individual that I am.

6. I do stupid things. The door across the hall from mine had two different door knockers and peep holes, one at a more expected height and one much lower. I thought it was the cutest thing. When I saw a hotel staff member approaching, I asked, “Hey, that door. That’s cool. Is that for kids?” He said, “No, sir. That’s for disabled people, like those in wheelchairs.” All I could do was imagine that someone was wheeling up behind me right then and there to give me some kind of evil eye, which would be fully deserved.

So, day One is over, it’s officially 101º, and of course the local baseball team is playing away, so there’s not much to do except – complain.

I hate to break the news to you, but Fall will be here before you know it. Fall means two important things: baseball playoffs and football.

Football means two important things: college and pro.

College football means two important things: fans gambling and illegal activity in the program.

Most illegal activity involves players receiving money and gifts in order to attend or remain at a particular school. Many players come from such poverty that without assistance from the program, they might not even have enough money to buy the pens that they never use in class. Illegal activities usually involve everyone from players to coaches and recruiters to agents. Usually, the goal is to give players as much money and “stuff” as possible in order to keep them at the school. Two important things will then happen: 1) The school gets a big payday from television rights and bowl games, and 2) those people helping out the athlete will be paid back many times over when that player makes his millions in the NFL.

This is why ESPN and other sports outlets are revisiting an on-going question: should college athletes get paid? One knee-jerk reaction is “yes” because the school literally makes millions off the players’ backs, such as selling jerseys and collecting television money, so perhaps that talented individual should share in the wealth. The other knee-jerk answer is “no” because the university has already given that player about $100,000 worth of education for free as well as providing the opportunity to make millions if the student turns professional. While all of that is mightily important, none of it is what I really care about. My focus is on the common but incorrect term, student-athlete. It’s wrong, and I’ll prove it - with crayons.

Think about a box of 64 or 128 Crayola crayons, the box with the built-in sharpener. There were some wonderful color names like aquamarine, periwinkle, and mahogany, but there were other names that were a little confusing. For example, blue-green: is it more like blue or more like green? Same thing with orange-red. Here is how you figure it out. The second word is a noun, which is the real color, and the first word is an adjective, which is an influence on the real color. Therefore, blue-green is really green but with a bluish influence. Let’s apply that to college football players.

According to the term student-athlete, the individual is first and foremost an athlete. Secondarily, this athlete also happens to be a student. That seems unfortunately accurate when you look at the reality of the situation, but it’s backwards. You can have a school without an athletic program, but you cannot have scholastic athletics without a school. The young people involved are students for ten months but athletes for only about three months. It is likely that every one of these institutions includes the words “college” or “university” on the stationery. Also, you can fail at sports while continuing to being a student, but failing as a student – theoretically – will remove you from sports. It is “theoretical” because it seems as if top athletes never get a failing grade, even if they never once set foot in the classroom. So instead of student-athlete, they should instead be called athletic students.

College athletes actually do get paid, but it’s by subtraction and it’s delayed. Athletic students are passing up a handful of bucks now in order to collect a truckload of bucks in about three years. Four if they actually graduate. The average college student graduates with about $10,000 owed in student loans while also cramming in a few hours of part-time work just to keep some ramen noodles in their dorm fridge. Conversely, many athletes not only graduate without loans to repay, but they’re likely to have a few million in their pocket before the caps and gowns have been hung up in the closet. That doesn’t include the ones who run wild in the fall, get their names written in Sports Illustrated in the winter, and then quit school early in order to jump into the pro draft before their first Spring Break.

I don’t watch much television, maybe only three shows: some sports, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, and I occasionally watch House, but only because someone else is watching it and I’m in the same room. Although the character of Gregory House is very interesting, it still comes down to the show, and it’s a stupid show because every episode is the same 12-step program:

1. patient with something unusual gets brought into the hospital.

2. patient has symptoms that seem to be obviously something.

3. House makes a racial joke about Foreman

4. treatment begins, and House is wrong

5. new treatment, still wrong, patient now critical

6. House will flirt with Cameron, whose hair color changes every week

7. new treatment, still wrong, patient really critical

8. yet another treatment, still nothing, patient about to die

9. House wants to try a controversial treatment/operation and pesters his boss, Dr. Cuddy (usually sporting an inappropriately low-cut top, a mop of sad hair, and a nice ass depending on the camera angle) into approving the treatment/operation. Before leaving her office with or without approval, House makes a comment that constitutes sexual harassment.

10. with or without permission, House orders the controversial treatment/operation even though the treatment/operation itself might kill the patient

11. just before the treatment/operation begins, House sees a random thing that causes him to realize what the problem really is.

12. House limps in to stop the treatment/operation and explain to the dying patient that he or she will not die and also that the patient is stupid in one way or another.

The other characters constantly make mention to the “fact” that House is never wrong, but that is far from correct. If House were never wrong, then these patients wouldn’t be on death’s door so often, nor would they need to be saved by such randomness. In one episode, it was a chess piece that triggered the realization. One of my favorites was when a woman was dying because of an irregularity that was connected to her period. House was talking to his boss and mentioned an “Aunt Flo.” So the word “Flo” made him think of “flow,” which made him think of menstrual bleeding. the writers were really hurting that week. My real favorite was when he was leering at a 16-year old girl as she walked away from him, and her red thong was visible above the waistline of her jeans. The color red made him think of Rocky Mountain Red Spotted Fever. So I guess if he weren’t staring at a teenagers ass, the patient would have died? And this man is a genius? Not in my world. In another episode, a woman was about to have a brain operation until the random thing happened – which was a cat sitting on House’s computer. They even mad mention of the randomness in that episode. If this were baseball, his batting average would be about .100 because it takes him about ten tries an episode before he finally gets it right.

ps. Cameron (Jennifer Morrison, who has since left the show) is incredibly pretty and looks startlingly like an ex-girlfriend who also worked in a hospital and now is a forensic investigator for the FBI.  I don't watch CSI, but I hear those people can find anyone.  So you can be sure I’m not saying any names.

Article the Second

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

I’m not against guns.

I’m against idiots with guns.

I’m not against the right for citizens to own and keep guns.

I’m against citizens owning and keeping guns like AK-47’s that have only one purpose: to kill as many people as possible in as little time as possible.

I’m not against gun ownership.

I’m against irresponsible gun ownership, such as the people who allow children to get hold of loaded weapons to the tune of 500 kids killed a year through gun accidents, not including homicide or suicide.

I don’t argue with the idea that “guns don’t kill. People kill.”

I do argue that it’s a lot harder to kill someone without a gun.

All that being said, let’s look at the long-standing disagreement about the interpretation of the second amendment, which reads above:

A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

For those who support the NRA and love to play paintball so you can play “war” like we did in 5th grade, yes, I see the words that read the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed. Those words seem to indicate that our founding fathers wanted average citizens to keep themselves armed and ready. But why? Just…because? Not so.

You can’t ignore the first half, which reads A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State. The first half of the second amendment clearly, I repeat, clearly shows that the purpose of “the people to keep and bear arms” is to have a militia. It also clearly states that the purpose of the militia is for the security of a free state. That doesn’t mean security against the guy who you think might possibly rob you in the Harrah’s Casino parking lot. It means security in case this “free state” is attacked by another “state.” Free or not.

If it makes you feel cool or powerful to own a gun, great, good luck. But at least keep it locked and safe. And at least get one that’s not designed to kill a small village in about four seconds.

Am I asking too much?

this was accidentall posted and should be deleted - but i don't know how.

I know the next shooter.
He’s between 19 and 25. He’s white. He is known to be very smart, perhaps brilliant, but socially awkward and withdrawn. Classmates from high school barely remember him because he did very little to stand out. He felt ignored, unwanted, and disliked by most people. He is thin and doesn’t do much with his hair, often looking kind of messed, even wavy. But he might now have a buzzcut. He spends a lot of time on computers because he can choose which virtual world is better for him. He probably spent time in therapy, maybe even took some medications to help him cope. He either argues with his parents or just seems indifferent to them. He’s probably an only child, not from a big family.

But the most important part is that now – right now – today – he’s watching television. He’s watching CNN and other channels. He’s seeing the attention the Connecticut shooter is getting. It’s the attention he never got in school because he didn’t know what to do to get that attention.

But he knows now.

There is a discussion going on that may, for some, literally be the difference between life and death. Like most discussions, this one started with questions that then produced answers. Although that seemed like a logical progression, it did not continue, and this is why gun discussions are failing. Questions are being asked, but they are not being answered, at least not correctly. Questions are being misdirected and avoided completely. Instead of addressing an issue, the answers are only causing frustration and mistrust. People at each end of the table are yelling at the other end, but neither side is listening to the other. They have their lists of talking points, shout their questions, wait for the others to stop talking, and then shout another question or an unrelated answer. Through this, it could be learned that sometimes the best answer to a question is “I don’t know."

One thing is clear - nobody anywhere is talking about a complete gun ban. That would be a bad idea. However, the present state of guns is also bad. What should be done is unclear. Certain questions, when answered honestly and specifically, will lead us to an answer to the biggest question, “What – if anything – should we do about guns?”
There are three groups of people attempting to be heard here.

Group A wants to completely eliminate guns.

Group B wants to regulate or control which type of guns can be owned and who can or can’t own them.

Group C wants pretty much anyone to be able to own pretty much any gun they want.
_______________________________

Group A is nuts. Guns will never be completely eliminated. If you know anyone in Group A, give them a cookie, pat them on the head, and encourage them to play with Lego blocks.

Group B seems to be willing to talk, is worried about death, and deserves to be heard.

Group C has several things on its side including history, numbers, politics, and money. On that alone they deserve to be heard, especially because they might be packing heat.
_____________________________

Here are some questions for which we have not heard good answers. There might very well be good answers out there. If you have any of those answers, share them here because it might cause someone in Group B to join Group C. Or, vice versa.
As for Group A, just get them some more cookies.
_______________________________________

Question 1: from Group B "Why are you against background checks?"

Answer 1: from Group C “Background checks have not been proven to stop anyone. Plenty of murderers passed a background check. Also, plenty of people who were turned away have found other ways to get guns and kill people.”

Examination: Well, that cannot be proven either true or false. If a background check prohibits someone from getting a gun, there is no way to know if that person would have killed anyone. Conversely, anyone who passed a background check and later killed someone was probably not thinking about killing anyone at the time they were given a weapon. When people buy cars, they do not plan to drive drunk and kill anyone. That is unpredictable. However, here's where the background checks can help. There is - or was - something called a "waiting period." Its purpose was to stop an angry person from getting a gun and killing someone while in the heat of an angry moment. Opponents would ask Why must I wait? I'm not going to do anything wrong? Advocates would answer with, Do you really need a gun immediately? If you know you are going to need a gun on a certain day, then apply a week ahead of time. What is the big deal? Calm down. Relax. A waiting period allowed that angry person to have some time to relax, cool off, and then realize that a gun would not be the answer to anything. Except maybe a Jeopardy question.
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Question 2: from Group B “Why are you against closing the “gun show loophole” or what is called a "universal background check"?

Answer 2: from Group C “Criminals do not buy guns at gun shows.”

Examination: Well, again, yeah, but that does not answer the question. It is a true statement that distracts from the answer. There are professionally licensed gun dealers who sell guns at gun shows but must complete a background check. However, at that same gun show, there are private citizens who legally sell guns to other private citizens without requiring a background check. That is the loophole. Group C is correct when they said “Criminals don’t buy guns at gun shows. They get them on the street.” However, Group B is not following up and explaining how those guns get on the streets. People go to gun shows, buy guns without background checks, and then make a lot of money selling them to criminals on the streets. Lots of money to be made there.
___________________________

Question 3: from Group B “Why are you against limiting magazine capacity to 10 rounds instead of 30?”

Answer 3: from Group C “It infringes on my 2nd Amendment rights.”

Examination: No it doesn’t. Limiting the number of bullets you can fire before taking a break is not a 2nd Amendment violation. Eliminating bullets – that would be a violation. Not limiting.
____________________________

Question 4: from Group B “Why are you against banning semi-automatic and/or assault-style weapons?”

Answer 4: from Group C “Semi-automatic weapons are not machine guns in gangster movies. A semi-automatic weapon still shoots only one bullet for each pull of the trigger. It is no different than even a simple hand gun.”

Examination: True, I know, but there is still a difference. For example, an AR-15 is designed so that you can easily fire four, five, even six rounds per second, depending on how quickly you can pull the trigger repeatedly. That could be six or more deaths per second. Of course, the magazine capacity will dictate how many rounds are fired in how many seconds until the clip has to be removed and replaced with a full one. More standard handguns will not fire as many bullets in as little time. That would limit how many people might die per second when compared to the semi-automatic weapons. It should be noted that a six-shot revolver also shoots one bullet per trigger pull. However, the effort it takes to pull a revolver's trigger is greater than that of the AR-15.
___________________________

Question 5: from Group B “Why are you against gun registration?”

Answer 5: from Group C “REGistration is the first step to CONfiscation. Once the government has a list of all the guns and gun owners, it is only a matter of time before they show up for a gun grab.”

Examination: Where to begin? The first follow-up question to this answer would be, “What reason do you have to think that the government is coming for your guns? It is completely impossible. Do you realize that you sound a little paranoid?” The second question would be, “Cars are registered and documented on a yearly basis. One of the benefits is so that if there is a car accident and a driver flees the scene, perhaps someone will get the license plate number. If so, the driver can be located and held accountable. If we make an effort to hold automobile owners liable for mishaps, why shouldn’t we also hold gun owners liable for mishaps? Are not guns more deadly than cars? Are not guns at least an equal or possibly more significant item to track than cars?"
___________________________

Question 6: from Group B “Why are you against any kind of weapons ban or limit?”

Answer 6: from Group C “Because law-abiding people should not be punished for what a few crazy people decide to do.”

Examination: The flaw in this logic is big. The problem is that EVERYBODY starts out as a law-abiding citizen, until they decide differently. By then, it is too late and completely impossible to predict or determine what any given individual might do. That seems stringent, as if we are taking toys away from the good children. However, there are plenty of other toys