My favorite TV show as a child before Star Trek came along

https://www.inverse.com/entertainment/the-twilight-zone-finale-60-year-anniversary

My five rules of "Reciprocal Ethics"

1. I don't comment on the sartorial choices people make. That gives me the right to demand that they don't disparage how I dress.
2. I don't tell people how to raise their poorly behaved, undisciplined, soon-to-be career criminal children. That gives me the right to demand that they don't complain about how I raised my kids.
3. I don't tell you how to run your crappy little country or state. That gives me the right to demand that you don't comment on mine
4. I don't make unsolicited comments about your weird, fat, criminal, tattooed-like-a-freak, or ugly spouse (Significant other). So I can demand you don't complain about my wife.
5. I don't complain about your culinary proclivities. So don't complain about mine.

Until Next Time

Fai Mao

The Blogger resembling a grumpy old man

On Nightmares

I've had vivid nightmares and anxiety dreams since I was a child.

The first one I can remember was being chased chased by a fossilized dinosaur and watching it attempt to eat cars driving down the street. (Note this was a good 30+ years before Jurassic Park movies) It was scary enough that I can still remember the dream to this day over 55 years later. While the description is comical it wasn't funny when I was 7 years-old.

Most of the time the dreams were during stressful times but not always.

What is also strange to me is that often the dreams recur multiple times over multiple nights, weeks, or even years. Some of the common dreams have been, standing on a pole or pillar that is thousands of feet high with no way down. I've had dreams where shadowy ghost or spirits talked to me and left me wide awake and trembling. Once I dreamed that there was a man with an ax standing over me about to chop me in two. This one ended with me standing up in bed, punching the ceiling and yelling “No!”.

One less scary but frustrating dream that was repeated probably 7 to 10 times, had me driving a car, normally with another passenger. In the dream we are driving to a city, but must avoid a different city at all cost. The cities have changed over time but let us call them Houston and San Antonio. I keep taking the splits or exits for Houston but as I do, I get further from Houston and closer to San Antonio. I think I wake up n the middle of this one. I don't really remember how it ends.

Several times I've dreamed of having to cross a swamp full of monsters, snakes, or alligators to get to an MTR station in Hong Kong. If you've ever been to Hong Kong you'll understand how strange, and borderline funny, that is.

One particularly frightening nightmare occurred several times. It is a lucid dream, I knew I was dreaming. In the dream, I wake up and there is someone standing beside my bed, just at the edge of my sight. As I turn to see who it is, they backup. So no matter how far, or how fast I turn I can never see who is there. I just keep turning until I yell, “Enough!” and truly wake up.

I had a new dream last week. A strange one.

In the dream I was living in a dark and scary place with almost no light. Everything was in shades of grey. I thought of getting a dog but it was too big and more frightening than whatever I was scared of. So I decided to just leave. As is common in dreams, there was no transition I went from standing in a yard to standing on the sidewalk of wide city street. I could see the shape of non functioning traffic lights when I looked up the street. But everything was deserted. For some reason, I had to push a dumpster or skip across the street to check for invisible cars. Then I was across the street and entered another house. There was a man in the house who gave me a guitar and asked me to play a song. He was the first person or thing in color in the dream. I haven't really played a guitar in decades but I took the guitar and started to play. As I did the dream changed perspective. I saw the dark city from a bird's eye view. My house, where I was, was the only point of light in the dark city. The overarching theme of the dream was loneliness.

This dream has haunted my thoughts for a week.

I don't place any psychic or prophetic importance to my dreams. I am not a pharoah who needs Joseph to interpret my dreams. If standing on a pillar in a dream is just a dream then this one was too. And yet, I am not an irreligious man.

The prophet Joel wrote;

“And afterward,
    I will pour out my Spirit on all people.
Your sons and daughters will prophesy,
    your old men will dream dreams,
    your young men will see visions.”

All I can say is that if the dreams of an old man are so intense, then I don't want to know the young man's visions.

Until Next Time

Fai Mao

The Blogger who dreams the dreams of an old man

Hearing Aids

About 1 year ago I got hearing aids. It took a few months to get used to them and overall I really like them. But being able to hear got me thinking about the philosophical aspects of hearing.

Scientists who study such things tell us that senses like sight and hearing are adaptations that allow us to hunt for food or mates or avoid being hunted for food or mates. I guess that's true, though I wonder how a little organism that has neither the ability to hear nor see could even realize that light and sound existed?  

But anyway, I enjoy not having to continually say, "I'm sorry. Can you repeat that?" The hearing aids work with my phone so the phone call is piped directly into my ears. So unlike way too many Yahoos, I don't yell into my cell phone because I can hear what's being said on the other end. I can also listen to radio stations via the phone which is nice if I want to hear something in a crowded room and don't want to bother other people.  Lastly, the warning beeps and chimes in the car now play directly into the ear as well as out loud 

All of this leads me to ask two questions.

1. How much of the world do I actually want to hear?

2. How much of What I hear is actually worth listening to?

Do I really want to hear the world around me? Often time the answer is no. 

And, much of what I hear is worthless.

It makes me question the need for hearing aids/

Until Next Time

Fai Mao

The Blogger who isn't sure if liked being deaf better

 From my FaceBook page

On Collecting Quotes

On FaceBook, the only thing I post that gets even 1/3 the likes as pictures of my really smart, still looks like she’s 35 years old, loving and gracious wife, are quotes. I can understand why people like to see photos of Kim, especially those in my extended family who may have never met her. The likes for quotes were harder for me to understand.

It was, I think, the American philosopher Richard Rorty who said, “90% of everything philosophers say is wrong. But, the 10% they get right explains 90% of everything.” Quotes are like the philosopher's 10%. They distill the essence of an idea down into a pithy, insightful, humorous, or provocative statement condensing a whole book’s worth of wisdom into a sentence or two.

For a long time, I didn’t realize that you could collect quotes like people collect silver spoons or stamps but you can, and evidently, I have. I didn’t think of myself as a collector of pithy sayings until recently. I sort of approached my list of quotes like the actor Edward G. Robinson did cigars when he quipped, “I didn't play at collecting. No cigar anywhere was safe from me.” Quotes were things I used like he smoked cigars. They were references for research papers and the dissertation. They were tools to advance a career.

And yet, I have a word-processing file that is several pages long with just quotes. In fact, I’ve had several such lists over the years, and a couple of them have gotten lost. I don’t know the number of insightful quotes, limericks, or oneliners I’ve tried to keep. Many were made by people who are unknown to me; I have no idea who they are or were. I have some favorites but others I just found.

I’ve been thinking about this over the past several days.

Why do I collect quotes? I can't really say. However, I think that if, "joy is," as C.S. Lewis wrote, "the serious business of heaven," then quotes are the everyday business of wisdom. Look at Western Philosophy. It starts with Aesop and his fables. Notice how most of those fables end with a pithy saying or proverb. Something easy to remember and that cuts to the heart of the moral issue being presented. That's what good quotes do.

David Furnish said, “A good art collection is emblematic of the people collecting it.” Quotes are, I think like art. The sayings you remember, the words that inspire you reveal a lot about who you are.

What is particularly interesting to me is that some of the best quotes come from fiction and fiction writers. Great scientists, politicians, philosophers, theologians, and engineers do not seem to have the market cornered in truth or wisdom. Maybe that shouldn’t surprise me, but it does. In the end, I guess I have to agree, as I so often do with Mark Twain's acerbic remark that “It’s no wonder that truth is stranger than fiction, fiction has to make sense.”

That evil genius Nietzsche thought that “All truly great thoughts are conceived by walking.” I don’t agree. Most of my truly great thoughts occur when I am trying to sleep but can’t. There seems to be something about the conscious process of relaxing, trying to sleep that on a subconscious level triggers my mind. While trying to get to sleep last night, tossing and mumbling to myself in bed at 3:30 in the morning, I had a much more extensive essay planned out. Now, in the light of day with the grass begging to be mowed, the flowerbeds wanting weeding and the floor screaming to be mopped, I can’t remember half of what I wanted to write.

But, as the French say, "C'est la vie"

 I want to start blogging again. Not that I have any readers left. But, it helps me cope

5 Laws of Government
#1. Never underestimate the stupidity of bureaucrats.

#2. Any power that a government has will eventually be abused.

#3. It is far easier to never give government power than it is to recover power after it has been given to a government. In fact, retrieving power that has been abused by a government almost always requires force and bloodshed

#4. The sole purpose of any government is to perpetuate itself. Government does not exist to aide, help, protect or serve those governed; only to ensure that the structures and systems of the government endure.
 
#5. The scariest sentence in any language is: "We're from the government and we're her to help you!"

There are no exceptions to any of these rules

The Tropical Christmas Carrol this year

I'm Dreaming of a Tropical Christmas

I'm dreaming of a tropical Christmas.
Just like I'll have right here on Guam.
Where the seaside glistens and tourists listen to the sound of wind in the palm trees.

I'm dreaming of a tropical Christmas
With every Christmas card, I write.
May your days be merry and bright and may the sand this Christmas be white.

I'm dreaming of a tropical Christmas.
So unlike the ones I used to know.
I find myself pining and sometimes whining for those holidays so long ago

I'm dreaming of a tropical Christmas.
With every Christmas light, I see.
How I wish that we were all here! And may we see each other next year.

Merry Christmas Everyone.

A quick and simplified (but essentially accurate) history of Astrology and why it is Bogus.

Imagine that you are a guy or gal in ancient Babylonia. One day you happen to get up before dawn because you have a cramp in your back and decide you need to walk a bit to stretch it out. So, as you take your exercise doing laps around the top of your ziggurat, the sun begins to rise.
You are struck with a moment of pure genius. The sun moves! It makes a circle around the Earth which is flat and standing still. You know the Earth is stationary because it is obvious. You can’t feel it move. It is stationary. You know it is flat because you’ve just looked from the top of your ziggurat across the Mesopotamian plain. The Earth is flat as far as the eye can see.
Once you’ve figured out that the Sun revolves around the flat Earth, you begin to see that other things revolve around the Earth too. The moon, the planets, and stars all follow more or less the same pattern. Everything, except for planets that will temporary appear in retrograde motion rise in the East and set in the West.
As you keep watching you see patterns in the stars. These look like animals and people. You figure out that the sun moves in the closest circle around the Earth because it provides so much heat. Then the moon because it is so big, then all the planets in another plane or sphere come next. Finally, all the stars are in the outmost sphere at an equal distance from you. You, who are obviously a child of the gods, are standing at the center of the universe. This is wonderful!
As you keep looking you realize that the stars are grouped together to form the outlines of people and animals. They must be divine! They must be trying to tell you something. So, over time you develop a system of interpreting what you believe the stars are saying to you. This system is eventually so popular that it is borrowed by the Egyptians, the Greeks those guys down in India and even the Chinese, Roman, Arabs and Medieval Europe. You have invented Astrology.
Here’s the problem. Almost none of the stuff you based the system on is true. The Earth is not flat. The sun, the planets, and the stars don’t revolve around the Earth (Though the moon does). It is the Earth moving about the sun and rotating that causes the apparent movement, not the sun moving. Lastly, and really importantly, as far as we can now tell the Earth is not the center of the universe. Yet, all of those things I listed must be true for astrology to be true. Because they are not true Astrology isn't true.
The Planets all have independent orbits, they do not revolve in the same plane or sphere, and they are not all located the same distance away. Furthermore, the stars are not equidistance from us. Some are literally thousands and hundreds of thousands of times farther away than others. What this means is that what we perceive as constellations aren’t really groups of stars at all. For example, the three stars in Orion's belt are many light-years away from each other. One is, I think actually closer to us than it is to the other two. What we see when we look at constellations is a phenomenon called pareidolia. Our brains are hard-wired to see faces and animals that are hiding. If you lived in a grass hut near lions or wolves, it is a good ability to have. Sometimes this ability tricks us into seeing things that are not there.
But, your troubles are still worse. Due to wobbles in the Earths rotation the appearance of the constellations changes over time and indeed has changed in historical times. So the star charts created by you the Babylonian guy or gal all those years ago are worthless, and astrologers have had to surreptitiously update them over the centuries.
Almost nothing about the system you, that ancient guy or gal in Babylon created is true. About the only thing you got right was that the moon revolves around the Earth. But, even there you were wrong because you thought that the moon was farther away than the sun. You didn’t have enough information. You didn’t know how the solar system actually worked. Your system of astrology is simply bogus. The fact that it became so popular in the middle ages was simply a by-product of the guys in the middle ages not knowing how the solar system worked either.
Astrology cannot be believed by ANYONE who understands how the solar system and universe works.
Astrology is simply a gigantic waste of time.

4Chan just Trolled the CIA!

Don't be fooled

California Democrats legalize child prostitution

California Democrats legalize child prostitution: Beginning on Jan. 1, prostitution by minors will be legal in California. Yes, you read that right. SB 1322 bars law enforcement from arresting sex workers who are under the age of 18 for soliciting or engaging in prostitution, or loitering with the intent to do so. So teenage girls (and boys) in California will soon be free to have sex in exchange for money without fear of arrest or prosecution. This terribly destructive legislation was written and passed by the progressive Democrats who control California's state government with a two-thirds supermajority. To their credit, they are sincere in their belief that decriminalizing underage prostitution is good public policy that will help victims of sex trafficking. Unfortunately, the reality is that the legalization of underage prostitution suffers from the fatal defect endemic to progressive-left policymaking: it ignores experience, common sense and most of all human nature — especially its darker side.

TURN! TURN! TURN! (Lyrics) - THE BYRDS

Traitors Within - Spies Who Sold Out America

My guess is that the political left in the US eill engage in treason again to try and foil Mr Trump

The Electorial College

Have you ever wondered why the US has an electoral college?

Here is one reason.

Just for reference - Guam (Where I live) is a small island in the middle of the Pacific with a total of 212 Square miles so the 255 approximate square miles that make up four of the five counties of NYC that Mrs Clinton won are only about 35 to 45 square miles larger than Guam though the population here is only about 170,000 and NYC has a population of millions.

There are 3,141 counties in the United States.

Mr. Trump won 3,084 of them; Clinton won 57.

There are 62 counties in New York State and Mr Trump won 46 of them; Clinton won 16. We will look only at 4 of the 5 heavily populated counties in and around NYC. This was one of the states she did better and represents about 28% of the counties she won.

Ignoring the voter fraud which which is always committed by democrats and assume that every vote was honest with no votes by dead people, illegal aliens and that nobody voted more than once and accept the claim that Mrs Clinton won the popular vote by just over 1.5 million votes. She received well over 2 million more votes than Mr Trump in just the 5 counties that make up NYC. (Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, Richmond & Queens. Clinton won only 4 of these counties; Trump won Richmond.) Therefore, these 4 counties alone more than accounted for Mrs Clinton's edge in the popular vote in the nation at large.

These 5 counties occupy about 319 square miles, if you subtract Richmond which Mr Trump won you get about 255 square miles. This is a tiny area, not much larger than Guam, when you consider that the United States covers almost 3.8 million square miles.

When you have a country of almost 4 million square miles it would be manifestly unjust to even suggest that the vote of those who inhabit a mere 255 square miles should dictate the outcome of a national election and its effect on the rest of the country. I think that NYC actually needs the rest of country far more than the rest of the country needs NYC.

Happy Trumpgiving

I have read several of these the past few days and they are all wrong. (At least in my opinion) This one is giving advice to conservatives talking to leftist family members and is a little more sane but is still wrong and the ones dealing with the leftist college student going home to Trump supporting family are just a bit to histrionic. So in an attempt to set the record straight let me make a few suggestions for the special snowflake, SJW going home for Trumpgiving.

1. Be gracious. Many of the articles like this I've read start off with a person saying something like; "How can I sit there in a room when I know that they voted for such and evil man? Why are my family such bigots? I'm ashamed of them. I just wish I didn't have to go!" Two things. One you are proving you are not as multicultural as you think you are. If all cultures are equal and should be celebrated then you should accept your relatives point of view and enjoy the meal. Just don't talk about politics. If someone ask simply say "I don't want to talk about it today." Two, the family members probably feel the same way about your politics as you do theirs. They still invited you. Ipso facto they are exhibiting more tolerance to your views than you are to theirs since they want you there and are you are wishing you didn't have to go. So buck up buttercup! Graciousness goes along way.

2. Remember Godwin's Law: "The first person to call the other a NAZI or racist loses the argument. Really, your family, unless they are way, way, way out there harbor no ill feeling for people with different skin pigmentation. They probably want everyone to do well and wouldn't mind them living next door so long as they keep the lawn mowed and don't throw parties more than once a year or so. Trying to make arcane and ultimately, nonsensical (At least to them) arguments about "White Privilege" or "Structural Racism" are both inflammatory and insulting to people that actually remember the bad old days of Jim Crow and lynchings. To have a 2nd year college student (Or even a grad student) tell them that they need to feel guilty for being Caucasian or middle class is simply insulting. Bite your tongue or better yet read some real history and admit how far the US has come in race relations.

3. Learn a little humility. Realize that you may be wrong about some things. You don't have all the answers any more than your family does.

4. Be Honest with Yourself. Realize that Mrs Clinton was a horribly flawed candidate in many ways. Admit you see her short comings. She was a candidate that has been hounded by at least 15 scandal since the 1970's. These were not simply creations of some vast right wing conspiracy. If you are honest you will realize that you supported Mrs Clinton IN SPITE of her flaws which are easily as great as Mr Trump's because of the platform she espoused. You should give your family the same right a flawed candidate because of the platform.

5. Understand that the democrats have nobody to blame for Mr Trump than themselves. My figures may be slightly off as some states have just gotten their final vote tally but basically Mr Trump received about 750,000 fewer votes on average than either John McCain or Mitt Romney. Mrs Clinton received about 8 million fewer votes than Mr. Obama did on average. If democrats had turned out then Mrs Clinton would have won. This gets back to flawed candidate mentioned above. There were a large number of people that didn't vote for either person.

6. Educate your self a bit. There have been a lot of fake stories about Mr Trump carried in news sources. Look at what he actually says NOT what has been reported he said. Often times it is quite different. He isn't quite the monster the Clinton favoring media makes him out to be. This sort of gets back to #3 but is more insidious in that you need to realize that the media was lying to you. For example; the violence at Trumps rally was almost always instigated by protesters not his supporters. We KNOW because of the Wikileaks data dumps that many of the protesters were paid by the Clinton campaign. A man was fired over this. Trump's supporters are not violent. They have generally been the victims of violence.

7. Practice what you preach. This is a biggie. I get really upset with people that make all sorts of false claims about what I am or believe based upon some form of political or sociological theory that has NO BASIS in the actual events or activities in my life. Let me give you an example that, honestly I don't like to talk about. My wife and I support 15 children through various charities that feed, cloth, house and provide education for underprivileged children from all over the world; none of them, incidentally Caucasian. If everyone who voted for Hillary Clinton did 1/2 that there there would be no starvation in the world. In fact if everyone that voted for Hillary Clinton supported just one child faithfully and steadfastly for years then no child would ever die of starvation. It is easy to go to a protest. It is easy to ride your fake moral high horse and say how much you care or how you've set aside your privilege. It is easy to spew blanket condemnations about those evil "conservatives" It is easy to agitate for governments to do more (Especially when you don't pay any taxes yourself) It is easy to ignore the fact that on average conservatives donate more of their income as both a percentage and total amount than people on the political left. It is easy to say the rich don't pay enough. If you want me to take your Social Justice Ware buffoonery seriously then put down the protest sign and start donating to charities. Put your money where your biog fat mouth is. When you, who are so concerned match the 25% of our income that my wife and I give to charities rather than the (Statistically speaking less than 2% given by leftist ideologues) then we'll have a conversation my bigotry, racism or whatever. Until that time if you are at my table then keep your politics to yourself. And, just to let you know, we've been doing this since we were first married and made $1000.00 a month or less.

8. Relax a bit. Remember that the government is a huge bureaucratic machine. It takes years and years to really change anything and nothing that is done or undone cannot be corrected at a later date.

Your Thanksgiving guide to explaining Trump to your liberal relatives

Dear conservative reader, I'm sorry about Thanksgiving 2013. I got carried away. The Obama administration and seemingly every liberal website were putting out…

washingtonexaminer.com

Deck The Walls - A Christmas carol for the Tropics

This Years Tropical Christmas Carol

Deck the Walls

Deck the walls with fronds of palm trees,
Fa,la,la,la,la,la,la,la,la

At the beach, we get our jollies,
Fa,la la la la la la la la

Don we now our swim apparel,
Fa la la la la la la la, la,la!

Fill the plastic beverage cooler,
Fa, la,la,la,la,la,la,la,la,la!

See the blazing grill before us,
Fa la la la la la la la la, la!

Strike the match and light the charcoal,
Fa la la la la la la la, la, la!

Follow me in snorkeling pleasure,
Fa la la la la la la la la la la!

While I tell tales of pirate’s treasure,
Fa la la la la la la la la la la!

Fast away the old year passes,
Fa la la la la la la la la la la!

Hail the new, ye lads and lasses,
Fa la la la la la la la la la la!

Sing we joyous all together!
Fa la la la la la la la la la la la!

Enjoy the tropical wind and weather,
Fa la la la la la la la la la la!