Borrowed Life

Ethan Hawke told his superior brother, genetically designed to be better than the godborn child of the might not live as long or have a perfectly strong and effective heart
same parents who chose a genetically perfect the second time around, one who wouldn't die of an imperfect heart, one who would use his genetically perfected DNA to rise to the top of the heap not by chance but by choice. And yet godchild's brother never bested him at swimming -- or caught him before he blasted off into space to live among the stars. He had dreamed of navigating the imperfect system on planet EARTH, studying space mechanics and working hard to perfect his imperfect body. In the end, even without the perfect genetically designed life, he made his dreams come true, not only with his hard work and dedication to his dream, but with a borrowed ladder, the designer DNA that wasn't good enough to earn international swimming star, Jerome Morrow, more than a silver medal at the Olympics. Second best in all the world, but the fault wasn't in his genetic profile. The fault lay in Jerome's actions that kept him from being the best in the world, gold medal swimming star, and in Jerome's entitled attitudes and over arching arrogance.

Relying on genetically designed DNA is one thing, but it all falls apart without the hard work and mental/emotional fortitude that can turn a faulty body with a fate chosen through determination -- or mother and utopia planned -- results. Unlike the valid Jerome Morrow who threw away his future with drink and sybaritic excess, Ethan Hawke, the borrowed ladder who focused his whole being, dreams, and hard work on the stars, disproved the efficacy of a system designed to improve on the lottery of love and caring for someone else. Once again, natural talents and gifts are no substitute for plans, schemes, and scientific promises. The best laid plans of mothers and men will always be undone by hard work versus entitlement and scientific design.

The same is true in the end. No matter how much Russian money and misguided rich girl dreams, the gods of hope and change will stand -- and fall -- when balancing on clay feet.

Here in the real world where Hollywood remains a dream factory and the reality is as tenuous as tinsel and the golden glitter on the Xmas tree, it is all garbage that will end in the after holiday bonfire or mingled with the trash of wrapping paper, tangled ribbons, and dried out fir tree twigs and branches accented with the detritus of too much eggnog and booze and sprinkled with cranberries and used condoms -- or cigars. Not even the gold and silver of shiny ornaments and tinsel can survive long after Xmas day or New Year's eve.

Actors may gain fame from their heartfelt portrayals of other people's dreams and visions of fictitious reality, but only while youth and energy last. It is unfortunate that youth and energy are limited commodities, especially when limited by entitlement and sybaritic excess. An actor can learn his lines, but exists only on the screen, captured digitally or on fragile celluloid, and is ephemeral at best. Even in real life memories remain as long as someone exerts the focus and concentration, often aided by photos where youth and energy were captured for a brief moment in time, and more than often undone when excess overrules the strength of the borrowed ladder -- or life.

You may have fond dreams polished and bright in memory and ultimately undone by the foul taste of fact and reality. One can live in a dream only so long as viewers are willing to lose themselves in the dark for as long as they can afford to keep the movie running and the film stock intact. Too bad for most the time runs out. Biology forces us all to bow to the results of drinking and eating so much. Inevitably, nature beckons and the call cannot be ignored long or urine and feces must be wiped and flushed down the plumbing or scraped and dried off before laundering out the clothing and linens. Oh, the ignominy of nature intruding where dreams and promises, once so bright and shiny and new, become just another layer in the landfill or ashes on the winds.

No matter who good the borrowed life and no matter how much money you throw at the fake, all is for naught in the end. The day after Xmas will dawn and the sun will come up after New Year's eve. Time marches on and so must shattered dreams no matter how long one believed Xmas and the party would last.

That is all. Disperse.

Orwell's Animal Farm in the United States

I read Animal Farm in grade school and remember the book and the cover posted here. I don't remember having actually read the book and yet I must have since we discussed the themes in class and I wrote a book report that earned me an A. None of the book seemed familiar to me as I read the book again yesterday and that is even after having seen two movie versions of the book recently. It's the same story with George Orwell's other futuristic book, 1984, which I also failed to remember when I re-read it again recently, and yet I know I read 1984 as well.

That is the problem with teaching seminal books like Animal Farm and 1984 to middle grade students, they have no frame of reference and no experience to make sure the themes stick with them, the children.

As I read Animal Farm, I was first struck by the utter lack of familiarity with the story, even though I could repeat the tale verbatim. Then I realized as I read that though Communism was the basis of the book, the book might as well have been about Socialism or Democracy -- or even a Democratic Republic like the United States. You think I jest?

Napoleon's tactics are evident in U. S. politics and, like Napoleon's increasingly bolder stances, more obvious every day. I see it in the sheep bleating, "Four legs good, two legs bad," whenever anyone questions the status quo. "Four legs good, two legs bad" bleats have become the catcalls of conspiracy theorist, tin-foil hat wearer, liar, mental deficient, and ignorant idiot who will believe anything but the truth, the bleating sheep drowning out Snowball's voice of reason, except the bleating sheep are now televised news reporters who are paid to discredit and drown out the questions and demands for proof instead of conjecture and empty rhetoric. At least Napoleon with his barking dogs had the sense to say as little as possible while the pigeons spread lies and the sheep bleated loud enough to drown out any voice but Napoleon's until the barking dogs were set upon the nay-sayers and chased Snowball from the farm.

Like Napoleon, Obama and Hillary have set the Democrats bleating loudly while the dogs, Pelosi, Reid, Lynch, Holder, and the rest of the DNC pack, snarl and snap at everyone who offers a different view. Bernie Sanders found that out to his as the dogs and sheep cowed Bernie into submission and suffered for faltering in the traces like Boxer as he limped along until his hoof healed, repeating his mantras of "I will work harder" and "Napoleon is always right" with less confidence and belief.

I thought only Communism could be so duplicitous. I was wrong. Even a Democratic Republic like the United States will become corrupt as Napoleon's offspring spread out in an ever-widening tide of power fueled by mendacity and greed.

That greed can become a goal to strive toward and a virtue would seem impossible. That too is wrong as I have learned during a discussion with a man who believes we have greed to thank for the heights mankind has reached. He points to Michael Douglas's speech in the movie, Wall Street, when Gordon Gecko counts all the ways that greed has drive humanity and society toward ever greater heights. Though not Roman Catholic, I do know that greed is one of the seven deadly sins and marches alongside gluttony, pride, sloth, wrath, lust, and envy. In the Roman Catholic canon, one of those sins will end in an eternal roasting in Hell. But greed is good.

Napoleon would agree that greed is what made him more equal than most, as Squealer demonstrated when he changed the original 7 laws of Animal Farm to reflect Napoleon's new views from his new home in Farmer Jones's house while sleeping on Farmer Jones's bed (without sheets) and eating at Farmer Jones's table from the best of what the rest of the animals worked so hard to produce. Like the Tsars of Russia, the new ruling elite took from the working classes more than their share and bettered the Tsars by getting the working classes to love them as they continued to sacrifice in the name of progress.

Greed is not good. Greed did not propel humanity to reach farther, climb higher, or build greater. Greed is the parasite that demands more, more, more until it hurts as long as it doesn't hurt -- or even touch -- the powerful elite reaching for more, more, more until there is no more. Napoleon had Squealer add a new first law to the 7 laws on which the revolution was founded: All animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others. Napoleon had exceeded Farmer Jones in greed to the point where he and his followers chose two legs over the four they had been born with, donning Farmer Jones's Sunday best and parading their conversion from animal to man for the rest of the animals to marvel.

It is said Obama left his first meeting with the U. S. version of Napoleon and his vicious dogs to find a quiet place where he buried his head in his hands and wept before he became Napoleon's Squealer changing the original laws set down with his Executive Pen where he could and brushing off Congress and the Supreme Court of the United States when the Executive Pen failed him, parading his picture perfect family for Americans to marvel at his Saville Row and Armani Sunday best as he slipped the ever changing rules past the less equal workers. Napoleon at least was wise enough to know not to stop feeding his attack dogs the best available lest the dogs turn and rend his Sunday best, a lesson that Obama never learned or heeded as he tears down Farmer Jones's house before he leaves for good. Of course, Napoleon did not have to face Snowball again while the dogs he had raised from pups turned on him.

Reading Animal Farm again with the experience earned over the intervening nearly 50 years was a cold slap in the face as I witnessed Communism turn into the Democratic Republic of the United States with its slow slide into corruption and lies from Nixon all the way down to Obama. I do not know what Trump's inauguration will bring, and have little hope for a miracle to right the U.S. Ship of State, but I will keep Animal Farm handy lest Trump change the name back to The Manor Farm and dispossess those who worked for and believed in him enough to cast their precious votes for him. At least that illusion, the illusion that a democratic election sealed by Electoral College votes, has not yet crumbled to ashes.

That is all. Disperse.

Trickle Down Socialism

A utopian paradise is possible as long as there are no people. The Shakers had it, but they all died out because sex was not an option, not even for procreation. No sex = no offspring = oblivion for the sect.

Thomas More died for his utopian beliefs, and because he wouldn't agree that King Henry VIII's first wife, Catherine of Aragon, was not his real wife, that the marriage was a lie because Catherine had been his brother's wife first and was not a virgin when Henry married her. That belief set the religious and spoiled Henry on a tear that resulted in a religious schism and strenthened the protestant movement away from the Catholic church.

Utopias begin with the idea that if everyone has enough and takes care of his neighbors everything will be light and happiness. That's not the case. Where there is a way to cheat the system, or the idea, someone will find a way and exploit it. Now politicians bent on saving the rest of the world and humanity cry out against poverty and want. Everyone should have enough to eat, a doctor to care for their needs, and money to fund it all. Share and share alike is the motto as politicians and do-gooders prey on the hearts and minds of their fellow citizens.

Share and share alike was at the heart Marx's utopia. Everyone works and everyone eats. No one gets more than anyone else. Cuba embraced it but Russia embraced it first in the wake of World War I when the Tsar's family was ousted, imprisoned, and murdered. There was no need for royalty or a ruling class. No more ostentatious wealth stolen from the middle class and poor. No more haves and have nots; everyone would have. Except that's not the way it worked. The Soviets had a ruling class and they were ruling from the top in the tsar's palaces and the homes of the ousted royalty and very rich. The ruling class was the government built on the backs of the poor who still didn't have enough and worked for their share of the profits, except none of the profits trickled down. The poor were still poor and the rich and privileged were just as rich and privileged. They wore uniforms and suits, and kept the ermine, jewels, and fabulous art hidden from view.

Prick a liberal and they bleed and the blood trickles down.

It is a shame that there have to be poor who don't have the money to get good dental care and cannot afford doctors and hospitals. It's unfair that they cannot have as much food as anyone else. The cry goes out and laws are passed. Welfare is born. Food stamps are distributed and Welfare gives money for families with children; they need help the most. Food stamps don't cover toilet paper, Kleenex, and household products to keep the house and family clean, just food, and not food that is already prepared. They must cook the food themselves, although chips and dips are perfectly acceptable. They can buy a lobster if they like, but they must cook it themselves or food stamps won't cover it.

The madness continues and the cost trickles down.

The poor are still poor, but for a few days or weeks in the month they eat as well as anyone else -- until the food stamps run out. They trade food stamps for money to buy cigarettes and drugs and booze, or just trade for cigarettes, drugs, and booze without the money. One way or another, they get what they want. They go to the doctor and the dentist on the taxpayer's dime but don't get the same level of care that someone who can afford it gets. It's enough. One finger in a hole in a dike is sufficient for the area it covers. Someone else will have to cover the other holes in the dike.

Socialized health care is a good idea, but it's not workable. If the disease is too chronic or the illness will cost a great deal to heal or manage, take a number and wait in line. At least you're covered. When isn't important. You're covered.

Where does all the money come from? The taxpayers. The fast disappearing middle class. It certainly doesn't come from the richest citizens. They don't pay taxes, not with all the loopholes and government worker palms they cross with silver or gold. Pay for a junket, pass along an envelope full of cash, or a suitcase full of stocks or gold, and th law works in your favor. The rich are still rich and getting richer and the middle class, the engine of the country's economy, gets poorer and join the growing hordes of the poor. They're honest, hard-working people and don't have generations of living on Welfare to know how to work the system, how having more kids means more money and how to turn inadequate food stamps into luxury items and fund their vices. They'll learn.  They have time to learn as jobs dry up and the economy falters.

In the twilight of one of the greatest nations on earth, the rich will still have money and they won't care what happens to the poor who are so much unwashed, lazy people unable to work their way up the ladder. Wouldn't matter if the did. The rich don't given countenance to the nouveau riche or the social climbers, except to use them until there is nothing left to use.

The demands for more trickle down from above and stop in the middle class where the money is made, sucking out the life blood, while the benefits trickle down to the poor. Panhandlers pop up everywhere, and not just the drop-outs and recently poor, but the con artists that doff their rags and wash off the dirt before they go home to their well appointed homes to eat roast beef and ice cream and play with their children in comfortable homes where the roof never leaks and the plumbing always delivers hot and cold while flushing away the debris.

A seesaw works on a fulcrum. A long board goes up and down depending on the weight and thrust of each end, pivoting on  strong center. If the center is weak, the board falls to the ground or it breaks and casts the riders to the ground. It doesn't hold. It won't work.

And the money keeps trickling down.

All the social services come from the working class, the middle class, not from the wealthy and privileged, and the poor benefit. Some poor benefit. The rest eke out a meager existence little better than what they had before Welfare and socialized medicine, but that's all right. Consciences have been salved and the poor are taken care of -- barely. What happens when there is no more middle class to fund the social services? Will the rich pitch in ? Don't count on it.

The top 1% will never pay a dime and most of the rest of the rich will pay as little as possible. The middle class will sink under the demands of a liberal and utopian society while the grafters and grifters will skim off the cream and send the rest to trickle down to the poor, most of whom live better than the people working for a living -- the poor's living. Utopia once again dies like a sinner under the weight of rocks piled on his chest, crushing the heart and leaving the blood to trickle down.

I'm not against providing assistance to those that really want to better themselves, but I refuse to pay for the theft and fraud that the rest exact as their brutal toll on the sensibilities of the working class. Immigrants come to our country and work their way out of Welfare and socialized assistance, working hard and bettering themselves, and become part of the middle class. They won't be there for long, not at the present rate of self-destruction. The poor remain as they have always been and will always be.

Sharing out the profits of a hunt when man lived in caves was workable, but not when man moved together to build towns and cities and countries. The difference between rich and poor was well defined and some went hungry. When we lived in caves, someone who was broken down by ill health and old age was cast out or left to die along the road. The tribe's resources would not stretch to carrying dead weight from those who could not or would not work and they were left to their own devices, or to be preyed upon by wolves, hyenas, and other predators, becoming a part of the cycle of life, a titbit in the food chain.

When we became civilized, it was no longer right that the sick and old should be cast out. There was room and as long as someone was willing to feed, clothe, and house them, they would live until death took them in the course of time. Caring for the sick, the old, and the helpless is still a good idea, but at what price? How long must others bear the burden of caring for them? How much must be taken from someone who has worked hard to give themselves and their families a good life? How much must they be forced by legislation and guilt to give up?

Socialized medicine is a good idea, as long as the money to fund it comes from those who can really afford it, the people who live in one of their many mansions and throw away money on parties for their friends and supporters, vacations in exotic lands, fruits and vegetables and meat and seafood flown in from around the world at the peak of freshness. People who think nothing of buying a jewel-studded toilet seat or paying millions for art that no one will ever see in their private collection vault. Let them fund the programs for the poor since they helped to make and keep them poor. Let the ultra rich oligarchs put their money to use funding factories and businesses that employ the poor and pay for health, dental, and eye care for their employees. They will still have more money than they can spend in 10 lifetimes, but they will do some good.

How much money can one person or one family spend? What good does it do to have such fabulous and obscene wealth except to say you have it? It would be better to own factories, businesses, and stores than piles of cash and the result would be  strong economy that employs more people than anywhere else on earth and gives them a living wage. The middle class have paid all they can stand to pay. Lower their taxes and give them the kinds of breaks the poor get in colleges and universities and businesses and watch them flourish.

Charities get more money from working class people, from the middle class, than from the oligarchs. When times are tough, the charities get less because there is less to go around. That doesn't mean that some rich don't fund charities, and not just for the tax break. That kind of funding won't make a dent in their overall assets.

It's time for the wealth to trickle down, which does not mean I hate the rich and blame them for all the ills on earth. Governments handle that quite nicely on their own. Absolute power and absolute corruption. The rich need to pitch in. After all, how many Rolls Royces and Jaguars can one man drive? Let the funds for socialized guilt trickle down from the wealthy -- legislate it if that's the only way to get it done -- and let it trickle through the middle class and down to the poor. Let the money build a strong middle class and lift the poor, but not at the cost of no more middle class. Kill the engine and the vehicle stops and will move no further.

I don't think we need to get to the point of casting out the members of the tribe unwilling to work to maintain their position, but I do think it's time to be realistic. We cannot save everyone and we cannot abolish poverty. Someone will always get lost in the shuffle. What we can do is be smart and realize that nothing trickles down where nothing remains. If we don't get this right, there will be a revolution of the poor and unwashed, the disenfranchised members of a dwindling middle class, and they will tear down the palaces of the rich and set them against the wall with guns blazing. The fall of the tsar will be nothing to the bloodshed that will follow the collapse of the middle class as prey becomes predator and set their eyes on the wealthy. Chaos will follow and eventually a new wealthy class will arise from the ashes of the old to oppress the people not quick enough or unscrupled enough to get their share. All that will be left is blood trickling down and the argument begins anew.

That is not a world I want. Do you?