Priorities (Issue #2 of COVID 19 LAWYER) – by GARY SMOLKER

 

WE NEED TO THINK AND TO RETHINK

Many of us are living in completely different information eco-systems.

My position is:

• CAPITALISM is the best economic system the world knows.
• Democracy is the best system of government the world knows.
• America is always improving – that is what makes America great.
• The only constant is change.

CAPITALISM IS THE BEST ECONOMIC SYSTEM THE WORLD KNOWS

This was the longest week in American history.

We saw the collapse of civil society as we knew it and the birth of a better one.

I was so busy keeping up with current events I couldn’t finish writing Issue #2 of COVID LAWYER 19 during the week.

CHANGE

We are witnessing capitalism making changes in response to needs.

Capitalism and democracy are changing.

They are undergoing creative destruction – positive change – making everything better for every one.

STATUS QUO

Americans are never satisfied with the status quo.

They always strive to improve things, and they do.

EFFICIENTLY DRIVEN CHANGE IN CIRCUMSTANCES CALLING OUT FOR CHANGE

Capitalism is an effective instrument for responding to needs.

The Republican National Committee was planning for a gathering of 50,000 at its convention  August 24 – 27 in North Carolina.

In North Carolina, currently, gatherings are limited to 10 people indoors and 25 people out doors.

Other states are asking the Republican National Committee to hold its convention in their state.

DURING THE PANDEMIC CAPITALISM IS FLOURISHING IN AMERICA BECAUSE AMERICANS  LIVE IN AN ATMOSPHERE PERMEATED WITH AND EXUDING FREEDOM AND LIBERTY

Capitalism flourishes in an atmosphere of freedom and liberty.

Capitalism is a mechanism that facilitates exchange.

People keep on thinking up new things and keep on creating NEW things to exchange and new ways to exchange.

Capitalism is like the discovery in astronomy that we are living in an expanding universe.

Nothing stays the same.

DEMOCRACY IS THE BEST SYSTEM OF GOVERNMENT THE WORLD HAS EVER KNOWN

Democracy works.

George Floyd’s horrible brutal racially motivated killing united all decent Americans.

All decent Americans are taking peaceful action to make equal justice for all to happen.

This is a moment in history where we all bare witness to the American people (living in their American democracy) peacefully non-violently make righteous things happen.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP

On Monday, President Trump mobilized federal forces, including a Black Hawk helicopter, to scatter swatches of peaceful protesters in Lafayette Park next to the White House.

We saw orderly demonstrators routed by flash grenades and tear gas so that President Trump could hold up a Bible as a prop.

President Trump was immediately condemned by religious leaders, by civil activists, by ordinary citizens, and by retired military personnel.

Former Secretary of Defense General James Mattis said:

“When I joined the military some 50 years ago, I swore an oath to support and defend the Constitution. Never did I dream that troops taking that same oath would be ordered under any circumstances to violate the constitutional rights of their fellow citizens – much less to provide a bizarre photo op for the elected commander in chief, with military leadership standing alongside.

“Donald Trump is the first president who does not try to unite the American people – does not even pretend to. Instead he tries to divide us. We are witnessing the consequences of three years of this deliberate effort.”

Retired Navy Admiral Michael Mullin, a former Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman, said:

“The military should never be called to fight our own people as enemies of the state.  We have a military to fight our enemies, not our own people.”

On Sunday, June 7, 2020, President Trump ordered National Guard troops to begin withdrawing from Washington, D.C. saying, “Everything is under perfect control.” as anti-racism demonstrations continue worldwide.

That incident created a deep rift between the White House and the Pentagon.

The Pentagon ordered the National Guard deployed in Washington, D.C., to not use firearms or ammunition.

POLICE REFORM ACTIONS ARE TAKING FORM

On Capital Hill, Democrats powered by the Black Caucus are drafting sweeping packages of police reforms to overhaul the way law enforcement works.

Los Angeles City Mayor Eric Garcetti has submitted a new city budget proposal which defunds the City of Los Angeles’s police department.

Mayor Garcetti said he will direct $250 million to youth jobs, health initiatives and “peace centers” to heal trauma and will allow those who have suffered discrimination to collect damages.

The money would have to be cut from other city operations.

As much as $150 million would come from the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD).

DEFUNDING LAPD

That is a striking reversal from the budget Garcetti put forth in April, which proposed a 7% spending increase for LAPD, including a previously agreed upon package of raises and bonuses for rank-and-file officers.

In the budget he released in April the LAPD got 53.8% of money not designated for other specific uses.

The police department now stands at 9,985 officers.

Leaders of the union that represents LAPD officers said they found the shift abrupt and disingenuous.

They said to place the blame of Los Angeles’s social problems on our officers is hypocritical and political doublespeak of the highest order.

Jerretta Sandoz, vice president of the police union, in a statement said: “It was one of the most craven, disingenuous political sleights of hand we have seen in some time.”

BLACK LIVES MATTER LOS ANGELES

Black Lives Matter Los Angeles leaders said they would like to see the share of L.A.’s general fund devoted to police reduced from about 50% to 5.7%.

NEVER HAVE SO MANY THINGS WORTH COMMENTING ON HAPPENED SO RAPIDLY IN SUCH A SHORT SPAN OF TIME

   

 

RAPIDITY OF CHANGE

 

     

Things have gone from business “as usual” to “business unusual” in the blink of an eye.

PANDEMIC COVID 19 CHAOS IN A TIME OF COMPLEXITY

Complexity is an extension of the world in which we already live.

Chaos brought about by the coronavirus and COVID 19 is frightening.

For the past eight plus weeks: we have lived in a world which seemed to be completely unpredictable.

Things went totally out of control.

Businesses were not allowed to operate.

People were ordered to stay home; people were ordered to maintain at least six feet of physical distancing; people were ordered to not gather in large groups; non-essential business were ordered to close and to stay closed.

THE BRUTAL MURDER OF GEORGE FLOYD

About a week ago, on May 25, a black man named George Floyd was murdered by a white police officer pressing his knee against George Floyd’s neck making it impossible for George Floyd to breath.

At the time George Floyd was handcuffed, pined to the ground, and one police officer was on top of him pressing his knee against his neck three other officers were involved.

Two other police officers helped pin George Floyd down while the fourth officer directed people away from watching one police officer pressing his knee on George Floyd’s neck while George was handcuffed and pinned down.

George Floyd cried out that he could not breathe.

The three nearby police officers, heard George Floyd’s cry for help, watched the fourth police officer continue to press his knee on George Floyd neck for over eight minutes – for almost nine minutes – and did noting to stop what was going on.

After the public saw a video of what had happened to George Floyd, mass protests erupted.

Mass protests against police brutality spontaneously occurred all over America and sympathy protests spontaneously took place in many foreign countries.

Looting, destruction of buildings, and burning of police cars took place.

In some places, policemen watched while looters ransacked buildings, destroyed stores and stole merchandise.

Videos circulated on social media showing nearby groups of police officers standing by without doing anything while looting and destruction and theft of property took place in front of their eyes.  They did nothing to stop or impede the looters or to stop or prevent the destruction of property going on in front of their eyes.

Yesterday, President Trump ordered active US Military personal to fire tear gas and pepper spray into a crowd of peaceful protestors in front of the White House.

He gave that order so that he would not have to walk through a mass of assembled peaceful protestors in Lafayette Square while walking from the White House to a nearby church.

President Trump had not been invited to the church, was not invited to visit the church.

President Trump did not tell anyone connected with the church that he was coming.

When President Trump arrived at the church, his daughter handed President Trumpt a Bible.

President Trump held the Bible.

Then photographs were taken of President Trump holding the Bible.

After photographs of President Trump holding the Bible were taken, President Trump and his entourage walked back across Lafayette Square to the White House.

President Trump’s conduct was universally condemned by religious leaders, by civil rights leaders, by the public at large, and by high ranking retired military personnel and by prior presidents of the United States.

MISTAKES AND MISDIRECTION

There was a lot of misdirection given to the American public from the start with respect to the coronavirus pandemic,  beginning in January, 2020.

There were many mistakes made by American leaders and by the media in January, February, March, April, May and June 2020.

This is going to be a famous year in history: 2020 is a year that will be go down in history books.

MANIPULATION, POOR LEADERSHIP, AND LOSS OF PUBLIC TRUST

Many people now think they were manipulated by the Chinese government, by the World Health Organization, by many governmental institutions, and by many leaders of governments in many countries.

People complain our economy (the US economy) has been strangled by the pandemic, by the Coronavirus, by governmental actions, by governmental leaders, by governmental institutions.

Some of those people continue to complain the economy continues being strangled by misdirected governmental actions or by actions undertaken for political gain, actions taken for political purposes.

More than 40 million Americans lost their jobs due to stay in place orders issued by governors and public health officials in the United States.

People complain that state governors needlessly devastated our freedoms by issuing way too broad and unnecessary stay in place orders which not only shut down the US economy but needlessly devastated the US economy.

People complain their constitutional rights were infringed and are continuing to be infringed by restrictive coronavirus related orders made for the “ostensible” purpose of impeding the spread of the coronavirus pandemic.

Some people suspect that foul play is involved.

THIS IS A CULTURAL MOMENT

People need information to make decisions.

Information is the currency of democracy.

The same set of facts can be put together many different ways.

Social commentators, such as myself, interpret what is going on.

Social commentators tell us what the facts mean.

Social commentators tell us what is going on – contextualize stories – carry the memory of the past into the present moment.

CORONAVIRUS CHANGED THE WAY PEOPLE WORSHIP IN THE UNITED STATES

At the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, California Governor Newsom issued orders which prohibited people from attending religious services.

Over 1,000 faith leaders delivered a letter to Governor Newsom informing Governor Newsom that they were going to defy his order prohibiting worshipers to worship in their churches if his order prohibiting worship in churches was still in place on Pentecost Sunday, May 31, 2020.

Governor Newsom relented.

Governor Newsom modified his order prohibiting worship in churches.

Governor Newsom’s modified order allowed churches to operate at 25 percent of church capacity but to allow only up to a maximum of 100 congregants to attend a church service at one time.

That did not satisfy people who wanted to exercise an unfettered right to attend church services.

A lawsuit challenging Governor Newsom’s power to limit worship in churches to 25% of church capacity, coupled with a limitation on church attendance to not more than 100 people worked its way up to the United States Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court heard arguments submitted by interested parties in briefs filed with the court, and in oral arguments.

Some state health officials and the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) linked church attendance to outbreaks of COVID 19.

In one example, the CDC said 38% of those attending a rural Arkansas church in early March caught the virus resulting in four deaths.

The State of California argued that California would lift or loosen the attendance restriction when the attendance restriction proves unnecessary. “In light of tremendous uncertainty continuing to surround this new and deadly virus, however it would be rash to do so today.”

Chief Justice Roberts, who cast the deciding vote, stated his reason for upholding Governor Newsom’s power to restrict church attendance: “Choosing when to lift restrictions during a pandemic is the business of elected officials, not unelected judges.”

THE UNITED STATES IS A NATION OF LAWS, NOT A NATION OF MEN

The United States Supreme Court makes decisions based on the vote of nine Supreme Court Justices.

The United States, after President Trump’s appointments of Supreme Court Justices, has more “conservative” than “liberal justices.”

Many people thought the Supreme Court would rule against Governor Newsom’s restriction on religious worship.

United States President Trump, Vice-President Pence, and many religious leaders believe and argued publicly and to the Supreme that (a) freedom of religion is inviolate, (b) it is a violation of a constitutional right to limit the number of people who may worship together.

They argued that the First Amendment guarantees “Freedom of Religion” — they argue that any restriction on the freedom of people to worship together is a violation of that freedom.

There were other arguments against allowing a legal restriction to be put on the number of people who may legally worship together,such as:

• People questioned the expert opinion that there would be a net benefit to enforcing Governor’s restriction on the number of people who could assemble to worship, and also questioned the net benefit of having everyone ordered to stay at home.
• There were questions raised as to who is an expert on the risk to health of the pandemic? Whose expert opinion is to believed? Whose expert opinion is to be acted on?

The overall question to be answered is and was: What is an appropriate way to mitigate the risk of spread of the coronavirus?

BATTLE OF THE EXPERTS

Stanford University biophysicist Michael Levitt, who won the 2013 Nobel Prize in chemistry, has said he believed other health precautions such as enforcing the use of masks, would have been more effective in combating the pandemic.

“I think lockdown saved no lives.  I think it may have costs lives.

“There is no doubt that you can stop an epidemic with a lockdown, but is a very blunt and very medieval weapon and the epidemic could have been stopped just as effectively with other sensible measures (such as masks and other forms of social distancing.)”

“It will have saved a few road accidents lives, things like that, but social damage – domestic abuse, divorces, alcoholism – has been extreme. And then you have those who were not treated for other conditions.

“We should have seen from China that a virus never grows exponentially.  From the very first case you see, exponential growth actually slows down very dramatically.”

“The problem with epidemiologists is that they feel their job is to frighten people into a lockdown, social distancing.

“So you say ‘There’s going to be a million deaths’ and when their are only 25,000, you say, ‘It’s a good thing you listened to my advice.’ This happened with Ebola and with bird flu.  It’s just part of the madness.”

 

PROTESTS AGAINST POLICE BRUTALITY AND RACIAL INJUSTICE

After George Floyd was murdered by a police officer who crushed George Floyd’s neck making it impossible for George Floyd to breathe (while Floyd was hand cuffed and pined to the ground in police custody) … all Hell broke loose.

If equal justice under the law had applied to George Floyd – justice equal to that applied to the four cops now charged with his murder have received – he never would have been arrested in the first place.

On Memorial Day, Monday, May 25, 2020, a store clerk in Minneapolis called the police because he thought Floyd had paid for a pack of cigarettes with a counterfeit $20 bill.  The call should have started an investigation; that’s not what happened to Floyd.

Instead within minutes of the arrival of four police officers, Floyd was face down on the street, hands tied behind his back with Derek Chauvin pressing his knee into his neck for nearly nine minutes, while two other police officers restrained Floyd by pressing down on his back and legs, and the fourth police officer kept distressed passersby from intervening. Floyd pleaded for his life, telling them he couldn’t breathe.

Chauvin was caught killing a black man on video by a passerby, while several eye witnesses pleaded with him to stop.

On the video, Chauvin seems completely calm, bored even, with one hand nonchalantly in his pocket even as Floyd died beneath his knee.

No police cars swarmed the area to arrest the four officers. Chauvin went home that night a free man, and stayed a free man for the next three nights as well.  The other three police officers were not arrested until Monday (June 1, 2020).

At first, Hennepin County District Attorney Mike Freeman said there was not enough evidence to arrest anyone, adding, “there is other evidence taht does not support a criminal charge.”

It took for days after the killing for the D.A. to arrest Chauvin – and only after protests over George Floyd’s murder began in nearly every major American city.

It was not until Wednesday (June 1), after Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison took over the case, that felony aiding and abetting the murder were filed against the other three other officers.

At the moment, we now are facing all things ripple effects brought about both by the coronavirus pandemic, fear of the coronavirus pandemic and fear of COVID 19,  and the ripple effects brought about by the injustice that began at the moment George Floyd was arrested and continued as he was murdered which was amplified by the complete indifference of the police department and local district attorney to the murder.

PEACEFUL PROTEST RALLIES TURN VIOLENT

Peaceful protest rallies in many cities in the United States followed the showing of a video of the injustice of what happened to George Floyd.

Several of those rallies turned violent.

• Police cars were burned.
• Buildings were burned.
• Rocks and bottles and bricks were thrown at police officers.
• Buildings were set on fire by rioters.Businesses were broken into and looted by rioters.

Chaos rained in several major cities in the United States.

Curfews were imposed.

CURFEWS

 

 

Curfews were imposed in cities and counties throughout the United States

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA

I live in Los Angeles.

Peaceful demonstrations in the City of Los Angeles began on Friday.

They turned into riots Friday night (May 29), which continued all day Saturday and Saturday night (May  30).

Friday night and Saturday night a citywide and countywide curfew was imposed.

On Saturday night, California Governor Newsom deployed 1,000 National Guardsmen to Los Angeles to assist local law enforcement.

A citywide and countywide curfew stayed in place until Sunday night (June 7).

REALITY OF LIFE IN CONFINEMENT

A woman’s nails are important to her.  They are a part of her identity.

Getting her nails done is very important to many, if not, all women.

Nail salons are essential businesses, essential for everyone’s well being.

Can you imagine having to be locked up in a house with a woman who is used to having her nails done once a week, when she can’t get her nails done, has not been able to get her nails done for over two months?

Some ladies are doing their nails themselves.

Some ladies are going to another woman’s home to have their nails done.

Thus stay at home (shelter-in-place) don’t go to nail salon orders are turning many of our women into criminals.

By the way, in San Francisco, California, it is currently against the law for women to get their nails done at a nail salon until August.

Nail salons will not legally be open in San Francisco until August, 2020.

LESSONS LEARNED

We have learned lessons during the coronavirus pandemic and the George Floyd mass protest rallies.

It is best to:

• Observe, listen, and get input from multiple and diverse perspectives.
• When laws are imposed there will be unintended consequences.
• Stay vigilant – almost everything will evolve and change.
• Change happens all the time.
• Ask yourself: What might be missing that’s outside my own frame of reference?

WHAT IS REALLY GOING ON

Below are four opinions of what is really going on with respect to the motivations of people in charge and the consequences of their actions.

• The first opinion is the opinion of a Beverly Hills entrepreneur about the impact of the coronavirus on business and business people. I have known this entrepreneur for approximately forty years.
• A member of the international farming community heartedly agrees with the Beverly Hills entrepreneur’s opinion.
• He is a friend of mine, who lives in the State of Washington.  His business is deeply enmeshed in the international farming-agricultural industry. As a result of the coronavirus pandemic our food supply chain in the US was disrupted.
• The second opinion is the opinion of my office-mate, Daniel Cheren, Esq.  Daniel is an East Coaster and a worldly man.  Dan currently practices law in the United States and in Israel.
• Dan was born in France, has degrees from Harvard University, Columbia University and Boston University, and practiced law while living in Israel.
• Dan and I work in the same law office suite on Ventura Blvd., in Encino, California. Dan practice involves people, cases, and clients from all over the world.
• The third opinion is the opinion of a friend of mine who is a mathematician. He lives and works in Boston.  He is a health-expert who has expertise consisting of specialized knowledge on how to conduct clinical trials of new medicines in order to obtain FDA approval.
• He has a PhD degree from MIT in nuclear physics, a MD degree from the University of Pennsylvania, He has lectured at the Harvard University School of Public Health and is totally plugged in to the business world, the academic world, the political world and the regulatory world.
• The supplemental information provided about how life in China is controlled was provided by a businessperson who does business in Mainland China, with Chinese nationals, who visits Mainland China on business trips many times each year.
• The fourth opinion is my opinion of how the impact of the coronavirus pandemic and the murder of George Floyd have changed our lives and will change the lives of future generations.
• It is my opinion that what is now happening as a result of the pandemic and as a result of the killing of George Floyd will have more impact on the American people than did President Lyndon Johnson, President Richard Nixon, the Vietnam War, General William Westmoreland (US Army officer who commanded U.S. forces in the Vietnam War from 1964 to 1968), Watergate, Martin Luther King, Jr. and Mohamed Ali.

CAPITALISM EFFICIENTLY FILLS NEEDS

I agree with American Billionaire Entrepreneur Mark Cuban (net worth $4.311 B according to forbes.com):

We need to create permanent jobs, jobs that are needed to make our economy function, jobs that will give people security and a state of mind necessary for them to be willing to spend money.

We need coronavirus contact tracers.  The federal government should provide funds to train contact tracers and to pay them.

Any funds given to big companies should come with restrictions — Any funds used to pay top executives should be paid in the same percentage to all workers in the company. Any stock options or warrants given to top executives should be given in the same percentage to all workers, and should be given in the exact same amount to the US Government.

US Government leaders should negotiate with big companies who are loaned money by US government, or given money by US government, or given grants by US government on behalf of US Taxpayers.

Rebuilding American economy should and will come from the bottom up, not from the top down.

The government should provide for and/or pay for day care centers available to working parents to leave their children when they go to work.

The government should pay for and provide after school programs for school children to be able to attend after school and to be able to attend on the weekend.

I agree with other American Billionaire Entrepreneurs that the US Government should invest additional funds in social programs – at a minimum an additional amount of money – equal to any loss to the US Treasury of tax revenue from tax breaks given to big corporations and to affluent individuals.

[ASIDE: I have been told that the entire US Tax Code could be written in three pages.  The only reason it is longer than three pages is that all the additional pages represent tax breaks lobbied for and given to special interests.

The minimum wage should be raised so that a working person will make enough money working at one job to support himself or herself, and have health insurance, sick leave, and a time off to have a vacation.

Attendance at community colleges and at state universities should be free, at no charge to students.

Everyone should have access to basic health insurance which will provide payment for basic medical care.

FIRST OPINION

On May 26, 2020, I posted a cartoon on Instagram of an old man accompanied by the caption, “I wonder – out loud – if the spread and misinformation about COVID 19 and government action to prevent the spread of COVID 19 is a plot to rid the world of old people residing in rest homes.

The Beverly Hills Entrepreneur replied:

“Yes it is.

“First they want to bankrupt all the businesses and the rich.

“Then they want to kill all the old.

“I wonder why they don’t kill the homeless as well.

“Maybe they wait for their votes, then kill them as well.

“Not many people die because of COVID 19.

“Any patient that dies they put a COVID tag because that way the hospitals make a ton of money from the government.”

A friend resided in the State of Washington, replied:

“Here is Washington State we add gunshot victims to the COVID list. Any questions.

“All science is now politics used to reinforce Progressive Ideology. 

“Any science that that does not do that doesn’t see the light of day. 

“Refresh my memory.

“I’m a little slow. 

“Has anybody ever heard of a computer model that has been even a little accurate?”

The Beverly Hills Entrepreneur replied, “I bet they do.”

Someone who follows me on Instagram @garyspassion replied, “It lowers the Social Security burden to kill old people, it gets them off the social security rolls.”

An entrepreneur on the East Coast added: “Yes it is a plot to get rid of old people.  They want to get rid of old people because old people are Republicans.”

Another friend replied: “The end game is to take down capitalism.”

SIDE COMMENT

Various people have expressed the opinion that the coronavirus pandemic was either purposefully caused by the Communist Chinese government in Mainland China or was originally negligently caused by the Communist Chinese government in Mainland China and then knowingly and purposefully allowed to spread by the Mainland Chinese government.

But, nobody has proposed to me that the evil reason for the coronavirus pandemic “justified” shut down of all businesses in the United States was and is to purposefully create over 40 million unemployed people in the United States not only for the purpose of ruining the US economy but to also to create a mass of unemployed people available to protest an act of racial injustice.

Or that as part of this diabolical Chinese Communist plot/plan George Floyd was murdered for the sole purpose of creating social disorder and loss of face to the United States.

According to this, as yet unstated theory, the Chinese Communist Party leadership not only wants to destroy the United States and its economy, Chinese Communists want to make sure President Trump is not reelected President of the United States.

The Chinese Communist Party leadership does not want President Trump reelected president of the United States because President Trump has taken affirmative action to put an end to Communist China’s unbounded predatory trade practices.

SECOND OPINION

Gary – I do not think there is a serious argument that Covid is a plot against old people.

I think the proper historical reference is WWII and the emergence of the US as a superpower.   Prior to WWII – Western Europe, primarily England and France, ruled the world militarily, economically and politically.  The U.S. was still an emerging power, struggling in the Depression and very much isolationist.  After WWII – the French and British Empires crumbled, their power and influence waned – and the U.S. quickly assumed dominance of western culture throughout the world.

How did this happen?  I would posit that it was less the brilliance of American minds and industry and far more the simple fact that Europe and east Asia destroyed itself in the war.   There, a whole generation of young men was decimated.  Their cities and industries were bombed and destroyed.   On the other hand, the U.S. was never bombed – and the number of American soldiers that died (75,000) while tragic – did not change the demography of the U.S.  So after the war, the U.S. was able to dominate the world economy simply because there was no competition.

The Chinese are very conscious of history in general and no doubt are fully aware of the secret behind America’s success.

As the Western countries shut down their economies in the wake of the Wuhan virus – damage, perhaps irreparable damage, is being done.  Millions of businesses are going bankrupt, millions of people are unemployed, the economy is slowing down, demand is drying up, and trillions of dollars are being borrowed in order to prop up our failing economy.  China is taking advantage of this — economically, militarily and politically.  Lending money, buying up strategic assets, expanding its power in east Asia, and making in-roads into the Middle East, Africa and South America.

While Americans have been focused on the specter of Russia Russia Russia – like a magician’s sleight of hand distraction – China has engineered an economic coup that may precipitate the collapse of the West as the dominant superpower to its advantage.  In other words, a plot far more sinister than ridding the world of the elderly.

Daniel J. Cheren, Esq.

CHEREN AND ASSOCIATES

16055 Ventura Boulevard, Suite 525

Encino, CA  91436

Tel.  (818) 990-7700

Fax. (818) 990-9888

THIRD OPINION

My third friend immediately responded to Dan’s opinion, stating

1. American deaths in Word War II were far greater than 75,000. In World Word II over 405,000 Americans gave their lives.
2. A pro-Hong Kong resolution at a British university expressing support for Hong Kong pro-democracy movement was recently voted down at the University of Warwick in England, after opposition from mainland Chinese students.

He sent an article to me which describes the purposeful actions taking place by the the Communist Party Government of Mainland China to influence world events.  According to that article.

Chinese state media in the mainland have portrayed the protestors as the “violent pawns of hostile foreign forces.

The University of Warwick has about 27,000 students. Of those, about 3200 are Chinese International Students.

Chinese students compromise the largest group of international students in Britain, with around 120,000 Chinese international students currently studying there.

Chinese embassies and consulates maintain close relationship with Chinese student groups, providing funding, occasional political directives, and paying them to attend pro-China demonstrations.

On February 3, 2020, the University of Warwick student union met to discuss a motion that would condemn the “abhorrent human rights abuses of the Hong Kong Police Force and the Hong Kong SAR Government.

During the 2019-2000 academic year, there were a total of 11 resolutions.  Each of these resolutions with the exception of the Hong Kong resolution was voted on by around 1,000 students; most passed by a wide margin.

The Hong Kong resolution failed: 2,041 votes against, and 977 votes for.

CONTROL OF CONSCIOUSNESS IN THE DIGITAL WORLD

A business person who goes to China frequently.

According to that person.

Every time a person goes to China it is necessary to get a new Chinese phone because their regulations on phones (e.g. how to set them up, get a phone number, etc.) change regularly.

For many years now, China has blocked Google/Gmail, Twitter, and Facebook access for all people within the borders of China and replaced them with Chinese companies (essentially copies) such as Baidu, Weibo, and RenRen.  This creates a controlled information loop in China. Chinese people then use VPN services to access blocked websites and apps on their phones and  computers.  VPN services essentially reroute a computer’s access while disguising their IP address.

In May (last month) China demonstrated it now has the cyber ability to disable VPN in personal phones and computers by doing so.

American spirit, love of free speech, is the greatest force in the world to withstand this global force to control the free flow of information, ideas, concepts, different opinions and “fact based news.”

SIDE EDITORIAL COMMENT

When people base their understanding only on the devices in their hands, when they don’t read books, when words and text can be altered digitally, when access to truth can be turned off… then we are talking about a mass control of consciousness.

The Chinese leaders are masters at this.  They have been practicing for decades for now.

Perhaps they have been teaching and sharing their techniques with other global leaders.

If so, it is not too far fetched to suspect there are powers at play to either create or spread the coronavirus or to use this catastrophe to increase mass surveillance and control.

We must remain vigilant and cautious.

We must get closer together and communicate through trusted means.

We need places like churches to meet in person and discuss ideas since we cannot depend on the realities displayed to us through our phones.

We must do this together.

We must not stop communicating with people of different political backgrounds or who share varying views.

We must radically embrace different voices and allow free expression or else …. we will be come robots to whatever reality is told to us, outside of our control.

One of the many great things about America is freedom of speech, open debate of ideas an opinions.

The more pieces of the picture we see, the more clear the picture becomes.

A SUPPORTING POINT OF VIEW

Another friend, expressed in an email the following supporting point of view (addressed jointly to me and to the China expert).

Thank you for shinning the light on a truly toxic long-term problem that will outlive this current crisis – the control of access to information and the reduction of information nodes that China’s government uses in order to control its citizens and avoid accountability for its institutional crimes.

Now social media platforms like Facebook and YouTube are reflecting this extreme Chinese-style censorship with the ongoing bans of videos and statements from eminently qualified medical doctors, epidemiologists, chemists and structural biologist who are questioning Dr. Fauci’s assertions and also questioning the Beijing-style lockdown policies embraced by several US states – including lockdown policies in the State of California.

Our society is ablaze in lies.

Nowadays epidemiology is largely data science.

In late January, Dr. Fauci was repeating the lies put out by the Chinese Communist Party and their enablers in WHO – that COVID was not a threat to the world.  You can Google’s Fauci’s interview with Newsmax TV to see the video where Fauci stated Americans had nothing to fear from this virus.  Then four weeks later Fauci gets exposed for being way wrong and decides to atone for his failure by cosigning Neil Ferguson’s alarmist projections and throwing in with the lockdown crowd.

Neil Ferguson is an epidemiologist of Imperial College London who is known to be consistently wrong on his projections going back 20 years – with disastrous results in his home country – ruined farmers from his hoof and mouth disease alarmism, magnitude of failure on his team’s projections on mad cow, bird flu, etc. Neil Ferguson’s modeling has been revealed to be a sham many times. He has spit out failed predictions time after time.

FAUCI DEPENDED ON AN OUT OF BOUNDS EPIDEMIOLOGIST’S MODEL OF FATALITIES.

THAT EPIDEMIOLOGIST HAS A LONG HISTORY OF ALWAYS GETTING EPIDEMIC PROJECTIONS WRONG.

So do we now have any responsible news platform questioning the basis of this entire lockdown effort or putting hard questions to Dr.Fauci about his rationale for destroying people’s lives and livelihoods?  Hell no.

We here now in this “Information Age” are being rendered ignorant by the messengers and their medium with data deluge.  Indiscriminate, unintegrated, unintelligible noise voiced by personalities to attempt a credibility that is fake and phony.

The cable news TV viewing audience and the YouTube viewing audience are accomplices in this crime.

In that regard, there is video posted on YouTube with the title “Italian residents hug Chinese people to encourage them in coronavirus fight.”

This video was taken while Wuhan was shut down, before widespread coronavirsus infections decimated Italy.

It depicts the Mayor of Florence’s “hug a Chinese program” – which was going on full blast while Wuhan was a coronavirus hot spot.

In this video Italians (people in Florence) are shown hugging a Chinese man in an act of solidarity — the English subtitles in the video state: “I’m not a virus.  I’m a human.  FREE ME FROM PREJUDICE.  ERADICATE THE PREJUDICE.”

Stupidity is static.

Stupidity doesn’t follow Boyle’s Law, Kepler’s Three Laws of Planetary Motion, Einstein’s Theory of Relativity, or even String Theory.

 

CHINA CONTROLS CRITICAL SUPPLIES

Someone sent me an article which states China controls critical medical supplies, supplies most of the critical medicines consumed in the U.S.A. The article also states American companies couldn’t/can’t complete because the Chinese pharmaceutical companies are subsidized by the Chinese government.  They drive down the price of medicines to the point where American manufactures can’t manufacture their medicines at a profit.  Later, after the American manufacturers no longer manufacture a particular medicine, the Chinese company that manufactures that medicine raises the price it sells the medicine at.

Another person sent me an email in which the claim is made that Chinese companies manufacture many if not most of the smart phones and computers used in the United States.

MY OPINIONS

COVID 19 TRANSMISSION DURING PROTESTS

WE have to make sure these protests do not become super-spreader events.

Anyone attending a protest is facing a risk of contact with coronavirus.

Distancing is most important to reduce risk of spread of COVID 19.

Police and protestors should wear masks.

Use of tear gas and pepper spray by police will cause coughing, sneezing, and touching face.

Sneezing and coughing will spread virus further – get it on you and others.

People put in custody should be given masks, and transported and processed while maintaining physical distancing of at least six feet.

Large congested crowds create the perfect conditions for the virus to be transmitted.

Shouting and singing, which are common at protests, have been shown to hasten the spread of the virus via droplets.

 

On May 30, 2020, a 22 year old Ohio State University grad, Sarah Grossman, died shortly after being sprayed with tear gas kneeling at a Columbus, Ohio rally protesting the death of George Floyd.  She stood up to protest police brutality and was tear gassed as a result.

The City of Columbus, Ohio has opened an investigation into her death.

LISTENING

Experts and Black Live Matter leaders tell us

1. Policing is not a war.
2. Police should have a ‘neighbor mindset’.
3. The people police deal with are their neighbors. They should be treated as neighbors.
4. Police should be trained to have a neighbor mindset.
5. Spending money on something that doesn’t work (police) is a waste of money.

 

Black mothers in radio interviews and on YouTube videos tell us what it is like to be a black mother.  They tell us that they tell their black son’s “the story.”

Beginning when their sons are very young Black Mothers tell their sons, “don’t wear a hoodie,” “don’t do anything that will alarm a white person,” “be passive around white people.”

Black women tell us in radio interviews and on YouTube videos that the thing they fear the most is they will get “the call,” a call in which they are told their husband or their son or their daughter has been murdered by a white person.

A day or two ago, the President of the American Psychological Association (APA) stated, in writing, “We are living in a racism pandemic.”

According to the APA, racism is associated with conditions such as depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder, and substance use disorders.  It can contribute to the development of cardiovascular and other “physical diseases.”

Black people are three times more likely to be killed by police than white people.

Through black people make us 13% of the U.S. population, they account for 24% of the deaths where race is known.

Racism is a belief system that makes us all sick.

Living with diminished respect makes us more vulnerable to pathology and premature death.

Our minds and bodies are interrelated.

Our beliefs are the most important force in our life.

The belief that people have a descending order of value depending on their race (belief there is a racial hierarchy) is racism.

I agree with Colorful American Billionaire Entrepreneur Mark Cuban’s statement:

“Treating people equally means treating people with equal amounts of respect for who they are and for what they have experienced.”

UNCOMFORTABLE CONVERSATIONS

We get more accomplished when we listen then when we act.

Interacting with people who have different views than our own, allowing ourselves to understand their motivations – what motivates them – expands our perceptions, leads to empathy, develops emotional intelligence.

Knowledge changes perspective.

The more we know the more we see.

The more we see the more we understand.

Listening and talking to people in uncomfortable conversations gets people to see their humanity, to share their humanity, and as a consequence people come together with love, respect and honesty and act more intelligently.

We have to understand what is going on, because when we don’t we are a danger to ourselves and to everyone else.

Our beliefs are the most important force in our lives.

IN AMERICA DEMOCRACY WORKS

     

“‘Whose the greatest.’ he asked all the children, and they all shouted his name. ‘Who upset the world?’ and they all shouted his name. ‘I am the champion.’ He told them, ‘and that means all of us are champions. I showed you all what we can do..'” – Sports Illustrated March 9, 1964

On May 17, 1965, the young heavyweight champion of the world stopped for a bite to eat on the Florida-Georgia border – and was told to eat out back with his kind.

That would not happen today.

 

Gary Smolker

 

Copyright (c) 2020 by Gary Smolker, All Rights Reserved

Be Magnificent – by Gary Smolker

Don’t Underestimate the Importance of Being Fun

Empower Yourself to Be Magnificent

POWER is having fear and taking action in spite of it.

COURAGE is taking action to make a contribution in spite of being afraid.

Everyone is afraid.

Show UP

Show up for yourself in your own life.

Don’t be a doormat.

You can bring life into other people’s lives.

You are the catalyst for change in the world that surrounds you.

Empower people to make happen what ever they care about the most within reason.

If people around you are not having a great life it is literally impossible for you to have a great life.

Pursue Success from Your Own Passion

Pursue success from your own passion not from external pressures.

Below is a sign that was in the entry to a warehouse in Canoga Park, California where a laser-light show rave dance was put on by my friend King of the Dance Hall Dash Senter, which I attended in October 2016.

Be Present

Everyone present had a great time at that dance which lasted from 7:00 p.m. on a Saturday night until 3:00 a.m. Sunday morning, the next morning.

Photos below are some of the photos I took when I paused for a moment on the dance floor.

Get Off On Authenticity

If you have any resentments kill them.

Your resentment is a jail cell.  Get out of your self-created jail cell/prison.

Instead move on with your life …. be brilliantly present to what empowers you.

If you don’t let go of your complaints you will live a lifetime of unhappiness, misery and bitterness.  You will lose self-esteem, you will lose your ability to trust, you will become untrustworthy, you will lose your ability to connect and you will lose your peace of mind.

You are the generator of who you are and what you have.

Go For It

Don’t live a settled life.

Raise the bar.

Play “full-out.”

Encourage other people to achieve greatness; spend your time always making positive supportive contributions to other people’s lives.

If you don’t play “full-out” you will never find fulfillment.

Focus on the Good

Its Only Seems Impossible Until Its Done

Bringing Peace to the World

Let’s all get together and bring peace to the world.

Aliveness

Don’t kill off aliveness.

They say a good friend will visit you when you are in jail.

A really good friend will help you hide the body.

Be in good humor.

Have a sense of humor.

You are a catalyst for change in the world which surrounds you.

There is a train of love beginning right here.

Jump on.

Gary S. Smolker, gadfly at large

Copyright © 2017 Gary S. Smolker, All Rights Reserved

Gary S. Smolker, Publisher, book reviewer, movie reviewer, social commentator
The Gary S. Smolker Idea Exchange Blog
www.garysmolker.wordpress.com

Gary Smolker, Fashion Blogger
Dude's Guide to Women's Shoes
www.dudesguidetowomentsshoes.com

Instagram @garyspassion

A Comment on Visionary Tom Ford’s Newest Movie “Nocturnal Animals” by Gary Smolker

CONSTANT CONTACT

I constantly come in contact with young and old men and women (married and unmarried) who are lonely.

That is why I am writing this blog post on the issues raised in Nocturnal Animals.

My Soul

Tom Ford’s newest movie Nocturnal Animals touched my soul the first time I saw it (which was at its North American Premier in Toronto at the 2016 Toronto International Film Festival 0n 12, September, 2016).

I haven’t been able to get Nocturnal Animals out of my mind.

“Nocturnal Animals” Is An Interesting Conversation Piece

Nocturnal Animals was the topic of conversation I had with two hip people at a high hip quotient networking brunch I attended in Brentwood, California on Saturday October 22, 2016.

Neither of the two hip people I spoke to at that brunch (which was a hip people only affair) had seen Nocturnal Animals yet, but both told me they plan to see Nocturnal Animals soon.

One of those two people (a writer) asked me: “Why do half the people who see ‘Nocturnal Animals’ hate it and the other half love it?”

The other person (a music composer) told me: “I can’t wait to see ‘Nocturnal Animals.’  It won at the Venice Film Festival.”

The Cause of Heart Break and How To Get Over A Broken Heart

Nocturnal Animals is about two painful real-life topics:

• the cause of heart break and
• how to get over a broken heart.

That is why half the people who see it hate it and the other half love it.

Today, the pain arising out of “heart-break”, out of having a “broken-heart”, and being suffered by the large number of heart-broken people in America while they are trying to get over a broken heart is in everyone in America’s face all the time.

Saturday  NIGHT (October 22, 2016): I Was Presented with One Side of the Pain of Heartbreak – The Woman’s Side

Saturday night, I had a quiet dinner with a gorgeous sophisticated spiritual world-wise delightful woman (GORGEOUS AND DELIGHTFUL) who can’t accept the fact that many American men are marriage phobic.  She discussed with me how frustrated she is by

• the marriage phobic state of mind of dashing physically and mentally attractive men she dates;
• their deep seated widespread fear of marriage has emotionally and romantically paralyzed these men;
•  these men want to see her only once or at most twice a week and to be free the rest of the time; and
• she feels all women her age have been trapped by
• the social hierarchical reality that men are supposed to be dominant which currently exists in America;
• this leads to men being overly competitive,
• MALE OVER COMPETITIVENESS has created a society in which men are commitment phobic,
• men are more committed to making money and to their money than to having a committed relationship;
• this limits women’s options,
• their (a woman’s) limited other options “force” women in America to be manipulative,
• because they are manipulative in their relationships with men, they can not get close to men and men cannot get close to them.
• IT HAS BEEN HER EXPERIENCE THAT ROMANCE IS DEAD IN AMERICA.

Many men pour their money into a nonreciprocal (sexually oriented) relationship with all the women in their lives.

DELIGHTFUL GORGEOUS acknowledges she is a “fool” to still “want” to be with the emotionally paralyzed commitment phobic unromantic men who “stole/steal her heart.”

Painfully, DELIGHTFUL GORGEOUS can’t get over them even though she realizes because of the high value she places on ROMANCE (romantic involvement) she has to move on until she finds a romantic partner.

Sunday NIGHT (October 23, 2016): I Was Presented with The Man’s Side of Heartbreak

• Sunday night (October 23, 2016)  I went to an “Emancipation Party” thrown by a man who just paid his wife a “pretty sum” to get her out of his life.
• He was miserable for many years of the past years he was married to her.
• To his relief she moved out of his house about two days ago.
• At his party, he reported to me: “The morning after she moved out was the first morning he woke up with a smile.”
• Male dissatisfaction with marriage is a widely and strongly held sentiment among the many wealthy men I am in contact with.  For example: The other day, another very wealthy friend of mine asked me: “Do you know why divorce is so expensive?  I replied, “Why?” He answered: “Because it is worth it.”

These unhappy men, feel that their wives are using them.

I tell my male friends and my female friends:

• In order for marital and other personal relationships and business relationships to work all parties have to pull their own weight.
• Each partner has to be genuine, sincere, honest and authentic or their relationship is going to fall apart, it isn’t going to work.

TOM FORD

TOM FORD, the Director writer of the screen play and one of the producers of Nocturnal Animals lives in London.

TOM FORD was previously the design director for Gucci, Yves Saint Laurent Rive Gauche, and YSL Beaute before launching his own fashion brand, the Tom Ford brand. in 2005.

TOM FORD never puts a foot wrong.

TOM FORD has a never ending power of invention, an infallible sense of provocation, that distinguishes modern fashion and modern movie making at its best.

In fact I will go as far as to say, with Nocturnal Nights TOM FORD has launched a new type of genre of film: THE HIP FILM.

TOM FORD’S great passion for detail and clear vision of his aesthetic goals are on display in Nocturnal Animals.

 TOM FORD orchestrates the characters’ in Nocturnal Animals experience of their worlds in such a way that every scene in Nocturnal Animals comes down to one single thing: a wonderful, sensual sensory experience.

Every moment one spends watching Nocturnal Nights is charged with erotic frisson.  Every person in the audience is perpetually on the edge of their seat wanting to know and never knowing what is going to happen next.

In short: TOM FORD is the Flaubert of movie making just as he was a visionary in the world of fashion, the Flaubert of fashion.

Admiration

I admire TOM FORD’S persistence and exactitude.

TOM FORD made sure that everything in every scene in Nocturnal Animals is “just so.”

The perfectionism shown in the final product – which is the experience of watching Nocturnal Animals – resonated with my own very personal demand for perfectionism in all elements of my existence.

I admire and love creativity.

I am attracted to people who are sui generus/generis.

TOM FORD, like myself, is a creature of his own invention.

I am all and am totally in favor of glamour and perfection.

So is TOM FORD.

• TOM FORD has a nimble mind.
• TOM FORD takes his work seriously.
• TOM FORD obviously sips from life’s full cup.

Without a doubt TOM FORD would be great company.

That is one of the many reasons I enjoyed Nocturnal Animals so much.

Nocturnal Animals Is A Refreshing Antidote to Tackiness

Like TOM FORD himself, and the clothes TOM FORD has designed, there is nothing tacky about Nocturnal Animals.

Brash Vision

Looking good requires work.

Nocturnal Animals is the latest manifestation of TOM FORD’S brash vision, seer’s confidence, attention to detail, and hard work.

Nocturnal Nights Is The Latest Well Conceived Successful Product of A Provocateur Visionary

As one perfectionist workaholic provocateur visionary to another, I salute you TOM FORD for a job well done.

Flashy Brassy Attitude

I share TOM FORD’S flashy brassy attitude.

Check out the flashy brassy attitude exhibited in my latest creative business venture Dude’s Guide to Women’s Shoes at http://www.dudesguidetowomensshoes.com.

Dude’s Guide to Women’s Shoes is a high hip quotient flamboyant hippie fest which appeals to style-aware goddesses.

DEADLINE

I have put myself under the pressure of a self-imposed deadline to finish writing this movie review in my living room before I go to my office this morning.

VICTIMS OF THEIR OWN INSECURITY

Many people are victims of their own insecurities.

That is why many people love and many other people hate Nocturnal Animals.

• Nocturnal Animals does not have a plot.
• Furthermore, Nocturnal Animals does not have a beginning, or a middle, or an end.
• More importantly, Nocturnal Animals is an impeccably well constructed out of order sequence of a series of scenes in the life of a woman who was her own worse enemy – a woman who became the victim of her own insecurities.

 A MOVIE FOR THE BROKEN HEARTED

The ideal audience for Nocturnal Animals are people whose hearts have been broken by their spouse and/or by their lover(s).

People who have not had their heart broken may or may not be able to [fully] appreciate Nocturnal Animals.

• Mature men who have had their heart broken, men who couldn’t get over their broken heart for a long time or for ever, and men who understand this movie, will love it.
• Mature women who have had their heart broken, who couldn’t get over their broken heart, and women who understand this movie, will also love it.

RULES TO LIVE BY & LESSONS TAUGHT

Nocturnal Animals screams out the following rules to live by and teaches the following lessons:

1. Don’t pair up with someone who is extremely insecure.  Such a relationship will never work.
2. People become happy when they let go of the perception of what they are supposed to be.  Be who you want to be.
3. You can’t make a better past.  Abandon all hope of bettering your past.
4. When you enjoy the absurdity in the world it is less painful.  People act absurdly.
5. Your soul must be the center of your universe.  If everybody in a family is not pulling their own weight the family unit is going to fail.
6. You can’t cheat reality.  You are responsible for your own life.  Fake is fake.
7. You can’t walk away all the time.  When you love somebody and they love you, work out your problems, don’t throw away your love for each other.

HAVE THE STRENGTH TO BELIEVE IN THE PERSON YOU LOVE OR ELSE LIVE A BARREN UNROMANTIC LIFE

The fatal flame-out causing flaw of the main character (Susan played by Amy Adams) in Nocturnal Animals is that she (Susan) did not believe in her first husband.

Her first husband had the strength to see in himself and the strength to believe in himself.

But, she (the main character Susan played by Amy Adams) did not have the strength to believe in her first husband or to ability to see the strength of her first husband.

Her first husband was passionately and romantically totally committed to her.

Her first husband wanted to share her life with her and for her to share his life with him.

Her first husband loved her totally.

Susan was not the right person for her first husband to marry because Susan was so shallow she was incapable of having an enduring relationship with him, good man though he is.

• Susan had no empathy.
• Susan had no emotional connection to her first husband.
• Susan was incapable – way to shallow to be able to share intimacy.
• When push came to shove she was not romantically involved with him enough to wait for his career to blossom.
• Susan did not love her husband enough to go through the ups and downs of life with him.
• Susan discovered she wanted a different life style that her struggling your writer husband could provide or that she could provide for herself as an artist.
• When the hormonal rush of good sex was over, Susan thought she saw that he was not right for her.
• Of course she was wrong.  She was not trustworthy, she was not reliable, she valued having money and “luxury creature comforts” over having a committed relationship.

Her beauty, her love of beauty and her love of financial success was a trap.

A WEAK WRONG HEADED UNROMANTIC WOMAN

SUMMARY: Nocturnal Animals consists of a sequence of scenes in the life of an extremely unhappy woman (Susan) who didn’t believe in a man who was her true and first love.

She became the victim of her own insecurities; her wrongheadedness and emotional weakness made her panic – made her runaway with a dashing successful handsome doctor who turned out to be a philanderer, who frequently went on business trips during which he had sex with “glamorous”  women.

In the end, Susan was very much alone and miserable.

The Beginning

Susan and her first husband knew each other and unbeknownst to each other had crushes on each other when they were in high school.

They met up again when they were graduate students.

• He wanted to be a writer.
• She wanted to be an artist.

After they reconnected in graduate school they discovered they were “in love” with each other and got “married” over the protest and against the advice of her mother.

Her mother told her, “He is poor.  You are rich.  You will never have the things or the life style you are accustomed to if you marry him.”

FAKE DOESN’T HAVE THE SAME FEEL AS REAL – FAKE FEELS FAKE BECAUSE FAKE IS FAKE

Nocturnal Animals shows how a child is going to turn out will depend in great part in what their parents instill in them as a child.

Nocturnal Animals teaches the lesson that parents do a great disservice to their children if and when they tell their children, “It is an easy to fall in love with someone who is rich as it is to fall in love with someone who is poor.”

Mature sophisticated worldly people know is not easy to “fall in love” with anyone.

Parents should tell their children,

• “It is completely unsatisfying to be in love with a person who you can’t get close to, to be married to a person who you can’t connect with, and it is pure hell to live with a person who doesn’t care enough about you.
• “People in the United States live in a highly manipulative society.
• “That is one of the reasons there are so many unhappy marriages.
• “When you find someone in your life that you connect to don’t let them get away.
• “Be real about yourself, about who you are and what you have to offer.
• “Marry someone who is genuine, authentic, sincere, honest and values a relationship that is committed to enduring and getting better.”

THE STRONG ONE STICKS TO WHAT THEY BELIEVE IN

Nocturnal Animals consists of a series of scenes in the life of the very distraught Susan (perfectly played by Amy Adams) and has a wonderful ending.

Go see Nocturnal Animals.

VISUALLY

Visually Nocturnal Nights starts with a presentation of totally nude very over-weight women dancing.

The women are completely nude.

We (the audience) see their entire nude bodies as they dance, pubic hair and everything else.

Next the audience sees the main character, (Susan) a beautiful successful art-gallery owner married to her second husband, a dashing handsome young doctor (perfectly played by Armie Hammer), in her Beverly Hills art-gallery.

Our eyes (the audience’s eyes) are directed to a giant sculpture of a overweight nude woman on the floor in Susan’s are-gallery.

The movie begins with a picture of obese women dancing without any clothes on.

Q: Why is that?

A: The opening scene is a hip metaphor graphically delivering TOM FORD’S message, “The rest of the world is laughing at overweight, unhealthy Americans.”

Gary S. Smolker, publisher, movie reviewer, social commentator
Gary S. Smolker Idea Exchange Blog
www.garysmolker.wordpress.com

Gary Smolker, fashion blogger
Dude's Guide to Women's Shoes
www.dudesguidetowomensshoes.com

 

Above is a photograph of Gary S. Smolker taken on October 19, 2016 in his office in Encino, California, USA.

COPYRIGHT © 2016 by Gary S. Smolker, All Rights Reserved

 

Nature-Deficit-Disorder – by Gary S. Smolker

Live A Little

I’ve concluded that life is for living.

I have concluded that the best type of life for me is one in which I stop being afraid of wasting my time by going out or by going to new places or by meeting new people and instead that I should travel to new places, meet new people, have new experiences and learn new things while doing so.

Medicine Is A Way of Life.

In my opinion life is beautiful and how I live my life is either good medicine for me or poisonous.

The key to being “healthy” for me is knowing how to live.

I’ve found I can –

• Be Happy, Healthy and Full of Wonderment.
• Relieve stress, regenerate my spirit, laugh and be joyful.
• Go out in “nature” and see directly in front of my eyes that all living things (plants, animals, fish and fowl] that live naturally in harmony with their nature flourish.

The Great Smoky Mountains National Park

I recently went on a trip to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park in North Carolina and Tennessee with my three adult daughters.

One of the great things I discovered while being high up the Great Smoky Mountains National Park is that there is no cell phone reception there.

Consequently it was a place where I could relax and (re)connect with nature.

While I was in the Smoky Mountains I was able to decompress, relieve stress and regenerate my spirit as a result of  being in nature with no distractions – as a result of being in a place where there was no cell phone service.

I personally experienced the value of (a) breathing fresh air, (b) seeing clear clean running water in streams creeks and rivers, (c) seeing picturesque waterfalls, (d) hiking in pristine woods and (e) solitude.

As a result of “being “n nature” without the distractions imposed on me by cell phones, Internet connection, talking texting or emailing I was able to see clearly the way things work “in nature” and as a result of that after I returned from my “retreat” in nature with my daughters I have been able think clearly without distraction about several things of concern to me.

Additionally, my trip to the Smokies was an amazing bonding experience with my daughters, nature and myself.

During the entire time I was in the Smoky Mountains I was happy, healthy, full of wonderment and stress-free.

The kinds of experiences I had on my trip to the Smoky Mountains have provided memories which I will enjoy for years to come and a reference point and base line to use when thinking about things in my daily life that are important to me.

The experiences I had and the observations I made on that trip have increased ability to think many fold about how I spend my time and other resources and about medical, financial, family and emotional issues of great concern to me.

The Area In and Around the Great Smoky Mountains National Park

The whole area in and around the Smoky Mountains is quite stunning – light traffic on the freeways, lush green all around the hills and in the mountains.

“Nature” is preserved in a pristine state in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

People Who Know How to Live

The people I met in the areas in and around the Smoky Mountains during my vacation/retreat in the Smoky Mountains with my three daughters know how to live.

They live rustic sensible refined remarkable and somewhat “funky” lives.

Every one I met was good -natured, calm, friendly, hospitable and grounded, and seemed to be alert and happy.

The people I saw and met in cafes, restaurants, and grocery stores during my sojourn in and around the Smoky Mountains were striking different from the people I typically see in similar places in and around Los Angeles.

The people I met in the South (in and around the Smoky Mountains) were all very calm, relaxed and laid back.

I didn’t meet or see anyone during my sojourn in and around the Smoky Mountains who was up tight, anxious, or stressed out.

Below is a photograph I took of a man a man I met in the “Lil Black Bear Cafe” in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee.

I’ve never seen anyone wearing a T-shirt in Los Angeles like the T-shirt the man in the photograph above is wearing.

By the way, the chocolate Bear Claw served in the “Lil Black Bear Cafe” in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee is something to write home about.  I ate one.  See photos below of the Bear Claw I ate in the “Lil Black Bear Cafe.”

I survived eating the Bear Claw pictured above.

I purchased a T-shirt to celebrate my accomplishment.

See photograph of the T-shirt I bought.

The people I met, and the culture and way of life I observed, in and around the Smoky Mountains was tremendously different from the culture I experience every day in Los Angeles.

I think people in the South (at least the people I met and interacted with) are more “natural” and more in tune with their core human nature that people in and around Los Angels that I see when I go out to eat or to a grocery store or to any other public place in Los Angeles.

Below is a photograph of a man I met in a grocery store in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee and a close up photograph of the T-shirt that man was wearing when I saw and met him.

I’ve never seen anyone in Los Angeles wearing a T-shirt like that.

 

Popularity of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park

The Great Smoky Mountains National Park is the most popular park in the National Park System.

Ten million people per year visit the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

Everyone Needs A Perfect Place to Think

Everyone needs a perfect place to think without distraction, a retreat.

The Great Smoky Mountains National Park is such a place.

All four of us (Leah, Judi, Terra and me) found the Smoky Mountains to be a perfect place to think.

My Search for A Clear Mind

The search for a clear mind is one of my fundamental goals.

The search for a “clear mind” is the fundamental goal of “all” creative and highly productive people.

During my trip to the Smoky Mountains, the solitude I experienced and my interaction with (a) my daughters, (b) nature and (c) the people I met gave me a clear mind.

My Trip to the Smoky Mountains

I left my in Encino, California on May 14, 2016 and visited the Great Smoky Mountains in North Carolina and Tennessee for ten days, from May 14 to May 24, 2016, with my three daughters Leah, Judi and Terra.

As a result of taking my trip to the Smoky Mountains, I feel totally connected to life – physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually.

It is clear to me that the state of my energy, my health and of my over-all-well-being are dependent on being connected to nature.

The Best Way to Live

Life is about choice.

I advocate relieving stress, being healthy and living a creative down to earth purposeful gratifying meaningful healthy life.

I’ve found that the best way for me to live is by being connected simultaneously with my natural core and nature.

I’ve discovered it is okay for me to enjoy a glass of wine, to have a beer, to have a shot of whiskey; it is not crazy or a waste of my time to go for hikes in woods, to do yoga, to read a book, to think and reflect in solitude, or to go to car shows, or to take photographs with my iPhone of whatever strikes my fancy, and that it is beneficial for me yo travel to new places to meet new people and to see new things.

In my opinion going to new places, meeting new people, connecting to nature, and having new experiences should be part of everyone’s life goals.

As a result of my recent vacation in the Smoky Mountains I have concluded that –

1. I will achieve clearer thinking and better health by connecting myself to nature.
2. My live is energized by experiencing a sense of oneness in the energy flow I make when I am in the moment.
3. My life is about making choices.
4. The best “medicine” for me is living the way of right relationship – I found that living a healthy  LIFE is about doing that.

Failure and Making Mistakes Are A Natural Feature of Life and of Making Progress and of Making Something New

Creativity is a resource we continually draw upon to make something from nothing, to make the non-existent come into being.

Part of being healthy is to not be afraid of trying something new, or trying to do something new.

Inevitably active alive and creative people experience failure and make mistakes.

Healthy people realize mistakes are not a necessary evil.

Mistakes are an inevitable consequence of doing something new, and as such, they such be seen as being valuable; without them, we’d have no originality.

Mistakes and failures are learning experiences.

Think of failure like learning to ride a bike; it isn’t conceivable that anyone could learn to ride a bike without making mistakes – without toppling over a few times.

Personality Plus

The first place I landed on my way to the Smoky Mountains was in Asheville, North Carolina.

Asheville is known as “Beer City, USA” because it has so many microbreweries.

We went to Asheville first because my daughter Leah is a beer connoisseur.

I saw “good humor” and “personality plus”, and experienced “positive energy” and “social commentary” everywhere I went during my three day stay in Asheville, North Carolina.

The people I met in Asheville had good nature, and were happy, hospitable, calm, and grounded.

It was pleasant to interact with each person I interacted with in Asheville.

Each of them exhibited a good sense of humor.

Below is a picture of a sign I saw posted in the window of the “12 Bones Smokehouse” in Asheville, North Carolina.

That sign made me laugh when I saw it.

By the way, the “12 Bones Smokehouse” is President Obama’s favorite rib joint.

While in Asheville I saw another which made me laugh.

See picture of that sign below.

It is a sign on the wall of a place where you can self-wash your dog.

The Most Famous Place in Asheville, North Carolina: Biltmore House & Gardens

I love chocolate.

During my trip to the Smoky Mountains, I visited the most famous place in Asheville, North Carolina: the Biltmore House.

The Biltmore House was built in 1895 by George Vanderbilt.

It is a 250 room house.

It is situated on a 8,000 acre estate.

It has gardens and trails, a conservatory, a bass pond, a boathouse, lawns and woods.

In “the house” itself, there are restaurants, a courtyard market, a bake shop, a ice cream parlor, and specialized stores for shoppers and highly specialized shopping experiences.

For shopping there is a store called “Christmas Past”, a store called “Bookbinder’s”, a store called “Carriage House”, a store called “Confectionery”, a store called “Toymaker’s”, and a store called “A Gardener’s Place.”

My favorite part of the house is the candy store (the confectionery).

I am a fan of tasty chocolate and good advertising.

My First Most Favorite Experience at Biltmore House

My favorite experience, while I was touring the Biltmore House, was seeing what was printed on boxes of chocolate for sale in the “Confectionery.”

See photos below.

I also love cupcakes.

I was thrilled when I saw the package below in the confectionery, advertising cupcakes, yum.

My Second Most Favorite Experience at the Biltmore House

My second best experience at Biltmore House was looking at the exotic flowers growing in the Conservatory at the Biltmore House.

Below are photographs of exotic flowers I saw growing in the Conservatory at the Biltmore House.

My Third Most Favorite Experience at the Biltmore House

My third best experience at the Biltmore House was looking at a group of flowers growing in a pond above the gardens.  Those flowers are shown in the photograph below.

Character and Assertive Individuality Have Been Alive and Well in the Great Smoky Mountains in Eastern Tennessee for Many Years

For various reasons the Great Smoky Mountains have always been a very special place.

The people who lived in the Smoky Mountains in the recent past were famous for hiding their stills from tax collectors and for selling their homemade distilled spirits when it was against US Federal Law to do so.

Being surrounded by natural beauty and making homemade distilled spirits and having a great down to earth sense of humor has been a way of living in and around the Great Smoky Mountains for generations.

When it was illegal to manufacture or sell liquor, certain people [who lived in and around the Great Smoky Mountains in Tennessee were called Moonshiners and also called bootleggers] manufactured and sold homemade distilled spirits nicknamed “moonshine”; they manufactured and sold “homemade” wine and whisky (“moonshine”) in violation of federal law.

Doing that earned them a “romanticized” place in the history of the United States.

Today, it is not against federal law to manufacture or sell distilled spirits.

However, in an attempt to take advantage of romantic and nostalgic feelings about “moonshine” and “moonshiners” , major distillers pretend to sell “moonshine” — and promote the sales of their products (wine and whiskey) with sales messages associating their products to individualistic rebel character traits romantically associated with moonshine and bootleggers.

These messages are printed on ancillary merchandise – soft good items – such as T-shirts, pillows, and dish towels sold in “Moon Shine” stores and boutiques in Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge Tennessee.

For examples, at their stores in Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge the “Old Smoky Tennessee Moonshine” company provides free moonshine tastings, live music, distillery tours and sells “moonshine” (jars of whiskey) as well as T-shirts, Sweat Shirts, and sundry other items.

Master Enjoyment of A Glass of Wine Because You Have Worked Hard and Traveled Far

Wine is a symbol.

The wine industry in Tennessee has made a successful effort to have me associate drinking wine with Individuality, Character, Relaxing, Relieving Stress and Being A Fun and Wise Person.

In their boutique wine and whiskey tasting stores near the Smoky Mountains their customer (me) can’t help but associate Being Fun with Drinking Wine, Wine Drinking.

Below are pictures of miscellaneous soft good items imprinted with messages celebrating and encouraging the consumption of wine.

I recently took the pictures below in a so called wine tasting store in Gatlinburg, Tennessee.

Notice that each of the items shown in the photographs below cleverly delivers the message that a person who drinks wine is a fun person.

Each message has a “fun”, “be fun”, “have fun” emotional arc I relate to.

I had “fun” reading each message.

I smiled when I read each message.

I took each of the above photographs on May 23, 2016 at the “Bootleggers Home Made Wine” store in Gatlinburg, Tennessee.

Gatlinburg is a small town located at the foot of the Smoky Mountains in Eastern Tennessee.

The Majesty of Nature

Seeing nature in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park is a spiritual as well as a physical and mental experience.

I can’t imagine any person with sight not being able to visually spiritually and mentally experience the majesty of nature on display in the Smoky Mountains and our deep rooted connection with nature.

Below is a series of photographs I took of the Smoky Mountains behind a layer of clouds I observed from my Majestic View cabin in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, at 6:30 a.m.

Note: the clouds in front of the Smoky Mountains look like smoke coming up from and rising up from the Smoky Mountains.

 

 

Next are photographs I took of the same view from the cabin with the Majestic View four hours later at 10:40 a.m. – after the morning mist and clouds in front of the Smoky Mountains began dissipating, then dissipated and then disappeared.

Below are photos taken later in the day.

Below are photographs I took at sunset while standing on the deck outside the kitchen at my cabin.

More Than 40 Note Worthy Waterfalls

There are over 2,000 miles of sparkling rivers, prongs and branches and over 40 noteworthy falls in the Smoky Mountains.

During our time together in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, my three daughters Leah (age 28), Judi (age 31) and Terra (age 45) and I hiked together to several of those noteworthy waterfalls.

Below is a series of photographs I took at one of those waterfalls.

The first photograph is of one of those waterfalls.

 

The second photograph is of my one of my daughters standing next to that waterfall.

 

 

The third, fourth and fifth photographs below are photographs of my daughter standing behind that waterfall.

 

 

 

Below is a photographs I took of my two youngest daughters standing in front of another waterfall.

Below is a photograph of my youngest daughter with me in front of that waterfall.

Below is a photograph of me standing in front of that waterfall.

Below is a close up photograph of of the top of that waterfall.

Below is a photograph of another water fall in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park we hiked to.

Sparkling Rivers Prongs and Branches

Professionally taken photographs:

My photographs:

Hiking To Abrams Falls

Below is a picture of my youngest daughter Leah (age 28) Leah took of herself while Leah and I were hiking together through the woods in the Smoky Mountains to Abrams Falls.

It took us five hours of hiking through woods in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park to get to the Abrams Falls.

At Abrams Falls water water with the volume of a river plunges 25 feet into a large pool.

The force of the fall throws spray over 50 feet into rhododendron and hemlock on the bank opposite the trail we hiked on to get to the falls.

The deep pool under the falls has a very strong undercurrent.

A sign near the falls warns people not to swim in the pool under the falls – swimmers have drowned.  See sign below.

People are also warned to be aware of bears near the falls.  See sign below.

Below is a photograph I took of myself in front of Abrams Falls.

 

Below is a series of photographs of Abrams Falls.

Messages Printed on T-Shirts Present Moonshine as The Nectar of Pure Unadulterated Living

In Gatinburg, several breweries give free tastings in addition to selling “moonshine (whiskey)”; they also sell  T-shirts on which are printed provocative messages.

The photographs below were taken by me in the “Old Smoky Tennessee Moonshine’s” store on the Parkway, in Gatinburg, Tennessee on Monday night, May 23, 2016, after Leah and I finished our hike to Abrams Falls.

Knoxville Vibe

All of us (Leah, Judi, Terra and Me) got back to our homes by flying out of Knoxville Airport.

Leah and I spent the morning looking around the Art District and the Old City District of Knoxville.

Both are very cool places.

Below are photographs I took which express the “come on in” attitude I experienced in and around the Art District in Knoxville, Tennessee.

I Saw Art and Beauty Everywhere During My Trip to the Smoky Mountains

At the Curious Dog in Old City Knoxville, Tennessee

See photograph below I took of a  booth in the “Curious Dog” in the Old Town section of Knoxville, Tennessee on May 24, 2016.

Photos below are close ups of sections of the mural in the photograph above.

Photograph of a guy sitting in that booth.

Photograph I took the sign on the exterior street side of the entry door to the “Curious Dog.”

Paintings on the Two Walls in A Dead End Alley in the Old Town Section of Knoxville, Tennessee

While walking around the Old Town section of Knoxville on May 24, 20167, with my daughter Leah, we found ourselves walking down a blind alley, an alley the “dead-ended”, an alley which had no exit.

Below are photographs of paintings I saw painted on the two walls in that alley.

Chair In A Shop in the Chicago O’Hare Airport Terminal

Below is a photograph I took of a chair I saw in a shop in O’Hare Airport, Chicago, Terminal 1, Gate B-6, on May 24, 2016 as I was on my way to catch a connecting flight to Los Angeles International Airport, LAX.

I had started my journey home to Los Angeles from the Smoky Mountains on a flight departing from Knoxville Airport.

My trip home involved taking a plane from Knoxville Airport to O’Hare Airport in Chicago and then catching another plane at O’Hare Airport that flew me back to Los Angeles.

It took over 10 hours to get back home from the time I left the Knoxville Airport to the time my plane landed in Los Angeles at LAX, the airport in Los Angeles.

Art and Beauty Everywhere

On Saturday, June 4, 2016 I went to return a computer to the Apple Store at the Grove — a upscale shopping cent in Los Angeles.

While I was at the Grove I discovered there was an event, an auto show, at the Grove.

By the way, the Grove is located near the intersection of Third Street and Fairfax Avenue in Los Angeles, California.

Of note to me, as a father of three adult women and a lover of women, I saw more women then men looking at the cars on display on the street at the auto show.

So much for the cliche that boys like cars and girls like dolls.

Below are pictures I took of three of the multitude of  “classic cars” I saw on the street, on display, as part of the car show at the Grove.

Really interesting: on the top two cars pictured above, the rear view mirror is strapped to the spare tire.

 

 

Save Yourself from Nature-Deficit-Disorder, Get Out: Visit The Great Smoky Mountains; Travel to, Visit and Explore New Places

The Smoky Mountains are one of the most bio-diverse places on earth.

According to the National Park Service over 18,000 different types of animals and plants live in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

Synchronous fireflies (Photinus carolinus) are one of 19 species of fireflies at Great Smoky Mountains National Park.  They are the only species in the Americas whose individuals can synchronize their flashing light patterns.

No one is sure why the fireflies flash synchronously.

The fireflies do not always flash in unison.

They glow in the dark.

They may flash in waves across hillsides, and at other times will flash randomly.

Synchrony occurs in short bursts that end with abrupt periods of darkness.

The Smoky Mountains is also the home of the “American Black Bear.”

More than 1,500 black bears live protected “in the wild” in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

More statistics:

• More than 1,500 different specifies of wild flowers are found in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, more than in any other North American National Park.
• More than 100 different species of trees grow there.
• More than 240 different species of birds have been spotted there.

The Southern Appalachians are one of the temperate zone’s hot spots for plants.  North of the tropics, only China has more species.

The climate of the park encompasses a range of conditions from warm to cold temperature, and rainfall is abundant everywhere.

Elevations in the park range from 850 feet to 6,643 feet.  As one moves from lower to high elevations the climate becomes cooler and wetter and cloud cover is more frequent.

Rainfall ranges from about 55 inches at low elevations to 90 inches on high peaks.

Differences in elevation and the ruggedness of the mountains – topographical features affect soil moisture – result in a vast variety of environments that produce a wide variety of vegetation.

Slope aspect, slope position and slope shape all combine to determine the amount of sunlight reaching a site, its warmth, and its ability to retain soil moisture.

Even if you stay in a narrow elevation range, the habitat changes dramatically.  And because habitat changes, the species of wildflowers and plants you see growing also varies.

As a result of its biodiversity and its closeness to population centers, the Great Smoky Mountains National Park is the most popular park in the National Park System; 10 million people visit the park each year.

The National Park Services maintains 380 miles of scenic roadways, 800 plus miles of trails and bridges, 9 front country campgrounds, and more than 100 back country campgrounds in the Smoky Mountains National Park.

ASIDE:

• The National Cancer Institute and other groups have repeatedly visited the Smokies to take, under permit, small plant samples, looking for new medicines.
• Fully, 25 percent of our prescription drugs contain at least one ingredient taken directly from a higher plant.
• The Cherokee had documented uses for 60 percent of the flora in the Smokies.
• Over 600 species from these mountains were or are still used as medicines by the Cherokee.
• Generations of trial and error of uses of plants in these mountains represent a refined knowledge of plant biochemistry and the potential for use.
• A recent study showed that study of traditional cultural use of plants in an area is a faster route to discovering new medicines than blind screening of all plants in an area.

The prime directive of all national parks is to preserve not only native species, but also the natural processes that maintain them.

This year (2016) the American National Park Service turned 100 years old.

THE ART OF LIVING

I see art everywhere and beauty everywhere.

I can’t wait to tell you about “the Swag” in Waynesville North Carolina; “Lil Black Bear Cafe” in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee; and, “Curious Dog” and a blind alley in Old Town Knoxville, Tennessee, which I will do in a future blog post article on the “Gary S. Smolker Idea Exchange Blog.”

The Swag

Below is a photograph of what I found on my bed when I went to my room at the Swag.

There was also a backpack on my bed.  See photo below.

There was a note explaining the materials inside the backpack.  See photo below.

On one of the night stands besides the bed was a book of poetry.  See photo below.

I adopted “Mr. Rocky”, the Black Bear I found on my bed in my room at “the Swag.”

I can’t wait to tell you more about “the Swag.”

Conclusion

We determine the trajectory of our lives.

We should learn how to see.

We should live with our eyes wide open.

We should travel to places we have never been to before and meet people we have never met before.

Having/enjoying good health is a way of life.

 

 

Copyright © 2016 by Gary S. Smolker, All Rights Reserved

 

The Importance of Being Fun – by Gary S. Smolker

There Is Not One Approach That Is Always the Winner

CONTEXT

Below is an image of the front side of a T-shirt with the initials PUWRFC.

PUWRFC stands for Princeton University Women’s Rugby Football Club.

My good friend Richard Gibson wore that T-shirt at a meeting I had with Richard yesterday.

That T-shirt set the tone of our meeting.

The purpose of my meeting with Richard was to come up with a strategy to recommend to a friend of mine’s daughter Jessica who we thought was on the verge of being exploited by her employer.

Jessica , a highly qualified skilled and experienced woman, was experiencing an on-going frustrating situation at work.

We wanted to make sure Jessica understood our opinion that this is/was an appropriate time to be tough,

THE IMPORTANCE OF HAVING A (CORRECT) MENTAL MODEL OF HOW THE WORLD WORKS

During our conversation with Jessica, Richard and I gave Jessica a mental image, a mental model, to have of herself of who she had to be while negotiating a compensation package with her employer.

Richard and I made it absolutely clear to Jessica that there are times when it is okay to be tough; there are times when it necessary for a woman to be “tough.”

The  T-shirt Richard wore (front of T-shirt pictured below) was given to Richard by his adoring daughter Caroline.

Below is an image of the reverse side of the T-shirt, Caroline gave to Richard.

I took those photographs yesterday afternoon (May 7, 2016) at my friend Richard Gibson’s home.

The words on the reverse side of the T-shirt are

• FIGHT
• SCORE
• WIN
• EVISCERATE

The four words above (on the back side of the T-shirt) express (encapsulate) the attitude of the National Champion Princeton Women’s Rugby Team during the time Caroline was an undergraduate student at Princeton.

The team, through its T-shirt, signals to member of the team to the world at large that the team and its members (while on the Rugby Football field) have an aggressive take on prisoners attitude.

I sent the above image of that T-shirt to Jessica to reinforce the attitude and mental frame of mine Jessica, Richard and I had discussed at our meeting.

LIFE IS ABOUT HAVING GOOD JUDGMENT

During the four years Caroline was at Princeton University’s she was on Princeton University’s women’s rugby football team.

Each year of the four years Caroline played on the Princeton University’s women’s rugby team, Caroline was an All-American Women’s Rugby Football Player.

Princeton won the National Women’s Rugby Championship three of the four years Caroline was on the team.

When Caroline graduated from Princeton, Richard gave Caroline the choice of training on the United States Woman’s Rugby Team for the Olympic Games or going to medical school.

Caroline chose to go to medical school instead of to train for the U.S. Olympic Woman Rugby Football Team.

Life Is Not A Formula.

Caroline is currently practicing medicine as a neo-natal physician on the staff of the neo-natal intensive care department at world renown Seders Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles, California.

Caroline Gibson, M.D. deals with the life and threatened death of prematurely born and or defectively new born babies every day, saving their lives.

The fact that life is not a formula is what makes Caroline’s life, your life and my life interesting.

Life Is Full of Messages, Choices and Decisions

Life involves having a strategy and positioning.

Outcomes in life depend, in part, on having good judgment, and making good choices and decisions.

There are many alternatives in everyone’s life, many choices to be made.

Whether we are aware of it or not, we have a mental image of how the world works and of our impact on the world.

We are constantly sending impactful messages to everyone who sees us, hears us, and/or reads what we write.

Visual messages and choice of words identify who we are, what we believe, how we think the world works and what we are about.

See for example:

• Steven Pinker’s THE STUFF OF THOUGHT – “Language As A Window Into Human Nature”
• Steven Quartz and Anette Asp’s “COOL – How the Brain’s Hidden Quest for Cool Drives Our Economy and Shapes Our World” and
• Stephen Apkon’s “THE AGE OF IMAGE – Redefining Literacy In A World of Screens.”

Below is a photograph I took a couple of weeks ago of a man wearing a T-shirt.  I believe the T-shirt that man is wearing sends a very clear message (makes a very clear statement) of what that man believes, how he thinks the world works, and of his emotional orientation.

In my opinion that T-shirt shows the man wearing that T-shirt identifies with the toughness and wildness of professional boxer Mike Tyson.

That man is clearly saying (to me) that he is a FAN and fully supports everything about and roots for the success of Brooklyn New York born professional boxer Iron Mike Tyson and identifies with who Mike Tyson is and Mike Tyson’s struggles and approach to life.

The “key” words to me in that T-shirt are “Brooklyn, NY” and “Iron”/”Iron Mike Tyson.”

The man in the picture is celebrates iron/toughness/coming from a rough neighborhood by using the words Iron Mike Tyson.

The message printed on that T-shirt is a provocation — equivalent to dogs peeing to mark their territory.  The message in that T-shirt projects physical male prowess, especially in a “fight”, especially in the boxing ring.

The message being broadcast on that T-shirt is: I AM TOUGH. DON’T PICK A FIGHT WITH ME.  I AM V E R Y TOUGH.

I took that photograph while I was eating breakfast on the patio at Aroma Cafe and Bakery on Ventura Blvd., in Tarzana, California, two weeks ago.

The Aroma Cafe and Bakery has a palpable energy.

The customers who go there and wait staff there are always high energy.

The Aroma Cafe and Bakery’s menu is an example of unfettered creativity, as is each dish served there.

I’ve been a regular at the Aroma Cafe and Bakery for more than five years.

Below is a picture of a woman wearing a T-shirt which sends an entirely different statement that the T-shirt worn by the man above wearing the Iron Mikey Tyson T-shirt.

The words printed on her T-shirt are The Angels Have Landed.

I took the photograph of her, wearing a The Angeles Have Landed T-shirt (see image below), at the Starbucks Coffee Shop (Starbucks Store # 6630) on the corner of Burbank Blvd. and Van Nuys Blvd., in Van Nuys, California, located at 14431 Burbank Blvd., Van Nuys, last week.

That Starbucks is located in a lower-middle class neighborhood one block away from that portion of Van Nuys Blvd which is the location of Van Nuys’ and Sherman Oaks’ “automobile row.”

New car dealerships, with car lots full of new and used cars for sale, line both sides of Van Nuys Blvd., one block away from this Starbucks.

Many of the customers in that Starbucks are struggling writers, film writers, book writers, joke writers and comedians.

There are many angels in the earth.

Below is a photograph of man whose T-shirt directly deals with his idea, which is a universally held idea,  about the “California State of Mind.”

I took the photograph of that man (below, last week) outside of Lido’s Pizza in Van Nuys, California — located at 14232 Victory Blvd., Van Nuys, CA.

Lido’s Pizza has been in business for about 50 years.

Look at the photograph below of the same man with his girlfriend.

Look at the joy on their faces.

Don’t Be Afraid of Who You Are

You can’t be afraid of who your are.

Don’t run away from your own powers.

Embrace your strengths.

Our choices are affirmations of our values and goals.

Everyone has the power to say, “This I am today; that I will be tomorrow.”

When you dance, your purpose is not to get to a certain place on the floor.  Its to enjoy each step along the way.

Do what you want to do; be yourself.

Play big.  There is no passion to be found in playing small – in settling for a life that is less than you are capable of.

GETTING BACK TO MY FRIEND’S DAUGHTER JESSICA

Helping people see possibilities increases the choices they can make.

Jessica is in the process of negotiating her compensation package with her employer, a national real estate brokerage firm.

Jessica has extremely rare specialized training experience skills and ability.

Jessica is a specialist in a narrow segment of the commercial real estate industry.

Richard has more than 50 years of experience in the real estate industry, as a real estate broker, as a developer, as a property manager, as person who raises money for projects, as an investor and as a financier.

After my meeting with Jessica and Richard concluded, I sent a “heads-up, brief summary of our meeting and follow-up” email/letter to Jessica’s sister Sabrina.

Below is a redacted copy of a note I sent to Jessica’s sister Sabrina – via email.

I also sent a copy of that e-mail  to the mother of an extremely talented young lawyer friend whom I am very fond of and to that young man.

FOLLOW-UP “HEADS-UP” LETTER

Saturday evening, May 7, 2016

Sabrina

I had a telephonic strategy meeting with your sister Jessica and my friend Richard Gibson this afternoon.

At the beginning of our conversation, I “asked” Jessica to write down the following four words:

• Fight
• Score
• Win
• Eviscerate

Throughout my discussion with Jessica, I repeatedly advised Jessica to be tough in her dealing with you know who.

The attached images are the front and back of a Princeton University Women’s Rugby Football Club T-shirt that was worn by Richard Gibson at our meeting.

Richard’s daughter Caroline played on the Princeton University’s Women’s Ruby Football team for four years; she was an All-American Women’s Rugby Football player those four years and the intercollegiate team Caroline was on won the National Championship three of the four years Caroline was on the team.

Caroline is a neo-natal intensive care physician at Cedars Sinai.

Caroline deals with life and death every day.

Knowing  your sister Jessica and Caroline for many years, I know your sister Jessica can deal as coolly under pressure as Caroline,

I look forward to Jessica and you meeting Caroline.

THOUGHTS FOR THE DAY

We cannot sleepwalk through life.

We need a strategy; passion and anger are not enough.

By the way, I am sending a back copy of this note to a young talented lawyer I am very fond of who has been sleepwalking.  I am also sending a copy of this email to his mother.

Mother of young lawyer:

• Please wake your son up.
• Please give your son hell.

Warmest regards,

Gary

Jason Fane’s Comments Regarding that Email and My Reply

After reading the above note to Jessica, my super achieving brilliant friend Jason Fane wrote to me:

“You catch more with honey than with vinegar and make fewer enemies.

“Many battles are won by strategy, and positioning.  The opponents may not ever know that there was a battle or that they lost.”

I replied:

“Tell that to the Shepard who threw the rock at Goliath.”

Jason replied:

“OK, where would I find him?  Where does he live now?

TAKE AWAY:

• There is a time and place for everything.
• Once in a while, you need to throw the stone that kills the enemy.

Creativity Is About Connecting Things

At its core creativity can’t be reduced to a formula.

Creativity needs novelty and surprise to seem fresh and new.

However, creativity is just connecting things.

I wholeheartedly agree with what Apple co-founder Steve Jobs said about creativity in in 1966:

“When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn’t really do it, they just saw something.  It seemed obvious to them after a while.  That’s because they were able to connect experiences they’ve had and synthesize new things.  And the reason they were able to do that was that they’ve had more experiences or they have thought more about their experiences than other people.”

I know creative people draw upon their own lives (personal experiences) as creative fodder.

My favorite Steve Jobs quote is:

“You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple. But it’s worth it in the end because once you get there, you can move mountains.”

My favorite quote about the importance of observation in the creative process, is the following statement made by Louis Pasteur:

“In the filed of observation, chance favors the prepared mind.”

My 28 year old daughter Leah Graham Smolker’s latest blog post (on “Leah’s Travel Blog – Journeys Across the Universe) at https://easytospell03.wordpress.com/2016/05/art-travel-soul/ titled “Art, Travel & Soul” posted on May 8, 2016, (today) is a perfect example of all of the above.

In that post, Leah explains that great artists and writers were determined to travel at some point in their life.

Leah explains that, “Art does not exist without travel.  Art needs a location.  Art needs architecture.  Without, there is no soul and there is no spine-tingling gratifying effect to the viewer.  Travel is more than nomadic tendencies; travel is the creation of human capital and enterprise.”

Leah is talking about creative artistic masterpieces, not run of the mill ordinary art.

In that post,

• Leah explains how travel influenced the life and work of Edvard Munch, Caravaggio, Goethe, Van Gogh, Chagall, and Edward Hopper.
• Leah quite stridently describes how travel played a dominant role in creating the gratifying effect of viewing the great masterpieces of art she describes in that blog post.
• Leah explains the attitude of the famous creative artist whose paintings she discusses in her post titled “Art, Travel and Soul”: “A lot of great artist loathe cliches, banality and unoriginality.”

Leah gives many examples.

Below are two of my favorite pictures discussed in Leah’s recent blog post titled “Art, Travel & Soul” – which Leah posted earlier today.

I agree with Leah that the two paintings shown below have “soul” and are extremely original.

Those paintings have a spine-tingling gratifying effect when ever I view them.

By the way, Leah and I “rank” people by how much “soul” they have.

Leah and I talk about how much “soul” people have all the time.

I agree with what David Dye, Bill Walton, Michael Jordan and  Vincent Van Gogh have said about the human spirit:

• “Work that is disconnected from meaning and purpose is a prison bar.” – David Dye, author and leadership development coach
• “You don’t win championships by just being normal, by just being average.” – Bill Walton, basketball player
• “Championships are won while the stands are empty.” – Michael Jordan, basketball player
• “Great things are not done by impulse, but by a series of small things brought together.” – Vincent Va Gogh, artist

ABOUT LEAH

Leah attended school in Mainland China, Thailand and Israel as well as in the United States and has taught in South Korea.

Leah has loved art and reading books her entire life.

Leah has traveled to and “lived” for brief periods of time in thirty different countries.

The Importance of Being Creative, Talented and Fun

Unless your are an absolute genius famous for creating things – as well as famous and revered for living a life that pushes boundaries – such as choreographer Jerome Robbin, it is absolutely necessary that you be fun and fun to be with if you want to succeed in life or in business “long term.”

Robbins was a bully and a perfectionist.

Robbins was so despised by dancers that they sometimes refused to speak to him off the stage.  But few refused his invitations to perform.

Robbins was widely acknowledged – revered actually – as one of the most creative artists of his time.

In 1949, he contacted his friends Leonard Bernstein and Arthur Laurents with the idea that they should collaborate to create a new musical.

Their goal, Robbins said, should be to establish the avant-garde on Broadway.

These three creative men collaborated on the project proposed by Robbins because they wanted to create something that felt modern yet timeless.

Over the next few years, these three men traded scripts, scores and choreography ideas.

Working on this project required every ounce of their tenacity, artistry, technical wizardry, and endurance.

In 1957 – eight years after they had first embarked on that project – they were finally done.  All that was left was to find financial backers.

Nearly every producer they approached turned them down.  They were told their “play/musical/dance drama” [Westside Story] was too different from what audiences expected.

Robbins finally found financiers willing to support a staging of Westside Story in Washington, D.C.

Their creation, West Side Story, was first performed in 1957.

When the curtain went down on opening night there was silence.

As everyone prepared to take their positions for the curtain call there was absolute silence, they took their places holding hands.

When the curtain went up, they looked at the audience and the audience looked at them.

And then the audience jumped to their feet, stamping and yelling.

West Side Story went on to become one of the most popular and influential musicals in history.

West Side Story is a genre defying masterpiece.

Robbins, Bernstein and Laurents trusted themselves enough to let their creativity out.

 

Copyright © 2016 by Gary S. Smolker, All Rights Reserved

[Who Owns the Truth?] My First Regular Irregular “Keep the Pot Boiling” Column – ISIS, Rabid Fury, Status of Women, Strife, Mayhem, Political Correctness and the Future – by Gary S. Smolker

The Fight Against ISIS Is A Fight Against Political Correctness

ISIS is composed of people who follow the teachings of strict conservative Islam, an ultra-puritanical form of Islam.

They follow an interpretation of religious laws in the Koran that translates into institutionalized outrage and expression of anger, sexual slavery of women, an obsessive hatred of imagery, representation (and therefore of art and music) and also of the body, nakedness and freedom.

ISIS has published manuals explaining that it is in their religious laws to have sex with prepubescent girl slaves, to stone women for offense against Sharia law and to kill infidels and heretics.

Those rules are approved and followed by the vast majority of Muslims who live on the periphery of the society of intellectuals and officials in Muslim countries.

Depictions of how those beliefs are lived out in Muslim societies are presented in stories told in a multitude of films released in 2015, such as:

1. The American film “He Named Me Malala.
2. The Indian film “Parched.”
3. The French/Algerian film “Maintenant ils peuvent venir (Let Them Come).”
4. The French/Belgium film “Les Cowboys.”

Malala Yousafzai’s book “I Am Malala”, published by Little Brown & Company in 2013, describes what women face in countries where attacks on women are condoned.

To conservative Muslims, gay Paris is a whorehouse.

To conservative Muslims the United States is an ever more outrageous place because in the United States it is strikingly obvious that women are getting ahead, women are educated, women do not view themselves as domesticated slaves, women do not kowtow to men, women are independent thinkers, women expose their bodies in public, momen are demanding, and women have power.

In America:

• 37% of women graduate from college vs. 31% of men.
• 38% of women earn more than their husband, up from 24% in 1987.
• Since 1973, real female incomes are up 34%, and real male incomes are down 5%.
• 21% of non-working dads aged 35-44 cite child care as the primary reason, up from 2% 20 years ago.
• There are more women voters in the United States than male voters.
• Women freely express that they want power, money, a husband, and children.
• Women in the United States have multiple sex partners without being getting pregnant.
• In America it is accepted that women in America have sex with multiple sexual partners when they are not married, and sometimes while they are married.
• Women sit on the California Supreme Court.
• Women sit on the United States Supreme Court.
• A woman is the Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board.
• Women run giant corporations in the United States such as General Motors and IBM.
• Hillary Clinton is campaigning to become President of the United States.
• America promises to provide the opportunity to succeed on the basis of ability to “everyone.”
• Religious tolerance is a core American value.

In strict Muslim households women have no human rights, women are their husbands’ sexual slaves.

To people who have been educated to think that women are inferiors and should have no rights the status of women in America is an outrage, an insult to their religion.

Conservative Muslim religious leaders and political leaders get their people so excited with rage about the status of women and sex in everyday life in America the vast majority of Muslims all over the Muslim World call America the “Great Satan.”

The broadcast of facts about every day life in America to the general Muslim public by television, movies, videos, YouTube, the Internet, and social media seriously threatens and erodes the power of conservative Muslim religious leaders and dictators who run Muslim countries.

The fact that American women freely express that they want power, money, a husband and children is unbearably outrageous to conservative Muslims.

The facts that American women have the ability to have multiple sex partners, are independent thinkers, make demands, are independent and have power is outrageous to conservative Muslims.

Conservative Muslim leaders are afraid if Muslim women find out about the status of women in America and in other of the Western countries the vast majority of women in Muslim countries will want to become like American women.

Conservative Muslim religious leaders have good reason to be afraid of that because people “learn” about the life of women in the West.

How People Form Their Identities

People try to behave like people they want to emulate.

Stories provide the crucial means by which individuals, especially males, form their identities in imitation of heroic predecessors and in opposition to hereditary enemies.

Stories, by implication, indicate to individuals their role in society and how they are supposed to act.

Dictators, Kings, Military Leaders and Religious Leaders Have Good Reason to Not Want “Their” People to Watch Western Films

Film tells important stories, spark imagination, connects communities and enable filmmakers – writers, directors, actors, etc. – to express themselves.

For example, the recently released film”Suffragette” tells the story of the effort women had to go through in Great Britain in order to “get” the right to vote.

In the movie, the women who led the effort to get a law passed giving women the “right” to vote were literally and figuratively “terrorists.”

In this movie they smashed windows, blew up mail boxes, set fire to the Prime Minister’s home while it was under construction and one woman threw herself in front of a galloping horse the King of England was riding in a race at Derby.  The King was thrown from the race horse he was riding;, she was run over by the King’s horse and died.

The Inherent Dialect of Violence

In order to understand the violent acts carried out by ISIS in Paris on Friday, November 13, 2015, consider the political, economic and social context of who the “shooters” in Paris on Friday night (November 13, 2015) were and who the people they shot were.

The Muslim/ISIS terrorists in the recent Paris attacks were basically French citizens growing up in the Muslim ghettos in France where youth unemployment is forty to fifty percent.

Like conservative Muslims everywhere, members of ISIS are offended by (and very angry at) non-believers who do not live according to conservative Muslim rules.

The Muslim terrorists externalized their anger, which is what all conservative Muslims are taught to do.

Some of the people the terrorists shot were attending a rock concert others were eating and drinking in a bar or cafe.

Killing people who disagree with their way of life is the way conservative Muslims externalize their anger.

That is how the members of ISIS and members other conservative Muslim groups have been taught [emotionally educated and socially programmed] to react to the very real programmed injury they feel when someone disagrees with their religious belief and/or acts in a prohibited way.

Conservative Muslims do not want to be assimilated.

They do not want to be a peaceful integral part of a culturally diversified society.

ISIS has 100,000 battle-hardened soldiers.

ISIS and other conservative Islamist groups attack and kill us – people who do not behave the way they think all people should – because that is what they exist to do.

Nicolas Henin ( a French citizen whom ISIS held for 10 months) has written in an story about ISIS published on November 16, 2015:

“Everything convinces them they are on the right path and specifically, that there is a kind of apocalyptic process underway that will lead to a confrontation between an army of Muslims from all over the world and others, the crusaders, the Romans.  They see everything as moving us down that road.  Consequently, everything is a blessing from Allah.”

 

Cultural Attitude About Violence and Its Place in Human Affairs

Muslim society greatly values fighting.

Their warrior-prophet-leader Mohamed is their model for behavior.

The life of Mohamed is the model from which Muslim society’s cultural attitude about violence and its place in human affairs comes from.

Muslim History

Muslim history, from the time of Mohamed forward, is a history of violence and factional conflict.

Muslims have always lived in a tempestuous land of never-ending conflict and violence.

Muslims have a continuous history of experience with war and strife and a continuous history of living under the domination of leaders who have inhibited the evolution of communal and individual liberties and the kinds of community institutions which have given vitality to hundreds of towns, states, countries and communities elsewhere.

For further information on the history of the people who have lived in Muslim countries read “Jerusalem” by Simon Sebag Montefiore and”Lawrence in Arabia” by Scott Anderson.

For further information on modern-day conservative Muslim mindset read “I Am Malala” by Malala Yousafzai.

TAKEAWAY ADVICE:

• What happened in Paris on Friday, November 13, 2015, has to be seen through the lens of a way of life.
• ISIS and other strict Islamist groups are intent upon establishing a caliphate.
• William James was right: As you think, so shall you be.

Apocalyptic Violence

According to Machiavelli:

Men do injury through either fear or hate. – Machiavelli, “The Prince”, chapter 7

Such injury produces fear; fears seeks for defense; for defense partisans are obtained; from partisans rise parties in states; from parties their ruin. – Machiavelli, “Discourses on the First Decade of Titus, Livius”, book 1, chapter 7

According to psychologists, social workers, criminologists and top national security experts: Extremism and violence appeal most to “disaffected people” who feel alienated.  They don’t love themselves.  They don’t love anyone.  They are angry.

They seek revenge for being miserable.

Killing other people is their way to get revenge.

That is why they kill people.

They don’t care if they are killed for expressing their anger.

The Judaeo-Christian Rule “Love Thy Neighbor As Yourself” does not apply to them because they do not love themselves.

Things to Consider Regarding Absorbing The Current Flood of Muslim Immigrants

How will you decide where you are going to put them?

Where can you put them?

How will you vet them, school them and feed them?

How will you integrate then into “your” society?

How will you monitor them?

What will you do with them if they don’t fit in?

Deciding what to do and how to do it takes effort – takes planning, manpower, time and money.

There are easier ways for a terrorist to gain entry to the United States than to seek admission as a refugee.

The current Syrian refugee screening process in the United States takes three years.

A recent article from the Cato Institute concludes that Syrian refugees to be admitted in the United States pose no significant threat to the United States: “Few ISIS soldiers or other terrorists are going to spend at least three years in a refugee camp for a 0.042 percent chance of entering the United States when almost any other option to do so is easier, cheaper, and quicker.”

By the way, under current rules, regulations and laws, visitors to the United States from 39 different countries do not need a Visa to come to the United States legally.

The Scapegoating Process to Find Someone or Some Group to Blame for the Hard Blows of Fortune

Many Americans are unset, fretful and fearful about the way things have been going in the United States.

Their accumulated grievances find expression in presidential candidate Donald Trump’s outbursts.

Donald Trump is doing a masterful job of exploiting the climate of fear in the United States.

In his political campaign, Donald Trump is acting as lightning rod.

Donald Trump says what many people in the United States want to hear by expressing their points of view, by expressing their anger, by expressing their anxieties, fears, frustrations and by going along with their desire to blame someone else for the hard blows of fortune in their lives.

Compare what Donald Trump has said and how Donald Trump has behaved during the Republican Party’s primary election contest, with the following statement made by Thomas Jefferson, the third President of the United States: Nothing gives one person so great an advantage over another, as to remain always cool and unruffled under all circumstances.”

The Unraveling of the Social Fabric of the United States

The United States has its own form of political correctness – mostly on college campuses.

According to one survey, 40% of Millennials  are willing to limit free speech if it is racist.

On many college campuses it is understood that there is to be no speech that might offend anyone for any reason or make anyone who is a woman, or a member of a so-called underrepresented minority feel unwelcome.

Currently student protestors at Princeton University demand that  the administration acknowledge the “toxic legacy” of Woodrow Wilson, who served as university president and New Jersey governor before being elected President of the United States.  Woodrow Wilson was an unapologetic racist.  He believed black Americans were not worthy of full citizenship and admired the Ku Klux Klan for the role it had in terrorizing African Americans to restrict their political power.

The protestors’ top goal is to convince the university to rename the Woodrow Wilson School of Public Policy and International Affairs and the residential complex known as the Wilson College.

By the way, George Washington managed many slaves at Mount Vernon.

I do not know of anybody who has suggested that the capital of the United States (Washington, D.C.) be named.

However, I do know that as a result of  “political correctness” top comedians refuse to perform on college campuses in the United States.

People in the United States are living in an age of hyper vigilance about offending anyone.

At one extreme,

• Eskimos are complaining that one of the Kardashians wore a “sexy Eskimo” costume on Halloween.
• Anyone who offends anyone else is now called a “bigot.”

In my opinion political correctness is destroying the creativity of our children.

Political correctness destroys the essence of joyous creativity in them.  It suppresses them, it shuts them down.  It is devastating.

Political correct concerns has effected”retail.”

• Recently, Nordstrom’s stopped selling a Hanukkah sweater angering some customers who saw it as playing on cliches about Jewish women.
• Recently, Bloomingdales’s apologized for a catalog ad critics said made light of date rape.
• Recently, Walmart’s took heat over a Halloween costume of an Israeli soldier.

It is one thing to want to get along with other people.  It is another thing to tell other people how to behave.

It is an entirely different thing to try to control how people think, to control what religion people choose to practice, and/or to control the cultural composition of the population of a country.

Immigrants and Refugees

Consider the social, political and cultural implications of proposals (a) to put even more special limitations on the immigration of Syrian immigrants to the United States, (b) to register Muslims in the United States, and (c) the proposal to build a wall in the United States on the border between the United States and Mexico to keep people from Mexico, Central America and South America from entering the United States.

Consider the economic and cultural impact of low fertility rates in highly industrialized countries which need immigrant workers to keep their economic engines running.

Ask yourself: “Who does work and what kind of work do they do in the United States?”

Then look at the rest of the world: Consider Germany’s demand for labor, demand for “new labor sources” to keep its economic engine running.

Germany within a few years could be 20 percent Muslim, which would represent a demographic shift which would forever change the face of Germany.

We Have to Rethink What Security Means

Europe’s political and business leaders regard migration as critical to the Continent’s aging demographics.

But, as we have seen, this strategy threatens long-term social harmony and political stability in those traditionally homogeneous countries.

But consider the experience in the United States with refugees (starting with the Pilgrims).  The quality of assimilation in the United States has been very high.

• Today, the United States houses 20% of the world’s migrants but has only 5% of the world’s population.
• Up to now, the United States has been able to assimilate diverse minorities.
• Up to now, the United States has been able to not “radicalize” those minorities.

Facing a Demographic Implosion – Demographics Is Destiny

Whether people like immigrants or not, people in affluent highly industrialized societies have no choice but to accept immigrants and immigration or to forego their social security payments and witness their “welfare states” collapse because an influx of immigrant workers is necessary to keep the economic engines in their countries running.

The birthrate in almost all industrial countries is lower than replacement.

In the near future the percentage of older people who don’t work will exceed the population of working people.

Population trends will  shape policy.

Nowhere is this clearer than in China’s recent suspending its “one child” policy.

By 2050, according to United Nations projections, the number of countries with below-replacement level fertility rates is expected to nearly double, to 139 countries, accounting for 75% of the world’s population at that time.

There is a coming tsunami of senior citizens with a smaller work force, greater pension obligations and slower (or no) economic growth.

Most affluent countries and those on the way to prosperity, all face the same basic dilemma: an aging population and a shrinking workforce.

Under such circumstances countries are being “forced” to either restore fertility rates to sustainable levels or to welcome masses of people from those parts of the world that still produce a demographic surplus.

Immigrants and their children have allowed the U.S. and Australia to stay close to the replacement rate, and have kept Canada from imploding.

The Impact of ISIS Attacks on Travel — Is Now A Good Time to Go to Paris?

I have started an off-line e-mail conversation with friends and a series of face to face conversations with friends and strangers about the ISIS attack on Paris last week.

On Monday, November 16, 2015, one friend wrote to me:

“Gary,

About 8 million people live in Metropolitan Paris.  In the last year (also last week) about 500 were killed or injured in the 6 terrorist attacks.  This means about 7,999,500 people were not attacked.  The chance of being attacked was about 0.0065% over the year and less than 0.000022% on any given day.  For people who don’t attend rock concerts, the actuarial risk was even lower.

CORRECTION: I just checked and the metro Paris population is now over 12 million, o reduce the above chances of attack by about one-third.  I’d say, go, save money and avoid lines and crowding.

Name of Friend”

Music Empowers Humanity, Nurtures Creativity, Soothes the Soul and Is A Social, Sexual and Emotional Force in Western Countries

I am thoroughly convinced that music empowers humanity and nurtures creativity.

Saturday night (November 14, 2015) I went to a Caltechlive concert performance by the “Good Lovelies” at the Beckman Auditorium at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, California.

I went to that concert while I was tremendously upset about the massacre in Paris the night before.

The “Good Lovelies” performed songs they had written.

Their performance quickly soothed my soul, quickly brought me into touch with my own humanity.

Listening to them perform made me happy.

 

The “Good Lovelies” are three young Canadian women: Caroline Brooks, Kerri Ough and Sue Passmore.

I estimate they are in their early twenties.

 

At the Caltechlive concert Saturday night, the “Good Lovelies” sang love songs they had written to their husbands.

Each of the songs they sang were about their desire, yearning, and waiting to be together with the man in their life.

Their songs struck my heart deeply.

 

Below, are the beginning lyrics of one of the songs which they sang.

 

LAST NIGHT

Last night I dreamed of you

Holding me again

Cradled in your arms

Until the morning came

Where are you now

That sleep is gone?

Lonely hearts get colder

And Heaven’s overgrown

 

Are you thinking of me

When I am thinking of you?

I carved our names in a tree

I think of you

When I’m falling asleep

And nobody’s here next to me

 

They have been on the road”touring” for seven years.

Instead of writing and singing songs about a man longing for a woman, understandably they write and sing songs about a woman longing for a man.

Can you imagine three women singing a song like that in flawlessly perfect three-part-harmony?

It is a very beautiful experience.

 

Below are the lyrics to their song DON’T HOLD BACK, which is another song they sang.

 

DON’T HOLD BACK

The full flower moon is rising

And spring is overdue

My knees are growing weaker

Each time I lay eyes on you

 

Don’t hold back love

Don’t hold back love from me

Don’t hold back love

Don’t hold back love from me

 

Crawl into my arms

I’ve been waiting oh so long

For the ice to melt

For you to come along

 

Don’t hold back love

Don’t hold back love from me

Don’t hold back love

Don’t hold back love from me

 

My heart is a flutter, I’ll have no other

I am yours for the keeping

Swift and fleeting, love is a blur

I am yours just say the word

 

Don’t hold back

Don’t hold back love from me

Don’t hold back love

Don’t hold back love from me

 

The Good Lovelies’ music empowers humanity.

On stage, during the concert I attended on Saturday night (November 14, 2015),  they told funny stories of comedic adventures they have had during the past seven years while they have been on the road.

To some extent my going to their concert was a form of life style resistance against ISIS in that conservative Muslims who follow the theology/ideology of ISIS would be outraged

• by the “Good Lovelies” performing on stage,
• by me attending their performance,
• by the “Good Lovelies'”  lifestyle,
• by my lifestyle’,
• by my respect of independent women.

Conservative Muslims are outraged by the conduct of any woman who lives and behaves independently and by any man who supports their choice to do so.

What Are the Truths About the Paris Massacre Last Week?

According to one of my friends, conservative Muslims are called strict Islamists by people who are either too afraid to call them what they are or too ignorant to know what conservative Muslims believe.

According to him, Conservative Muslims believe men and women should be separated, women should not perform in public, nor should women wear the kind of clothes the “Good Lovelies” wore during their performances at the concert I attended on November 14, 2015.

They believe women are inferior to men.

They strongly believe that women should not be independent.

Conservative Muslims do not believe in “affirmative action”, women’s rights, women liberation, etc. etc.

Conservative Muslims believe they are superior to all people who are not conservative Muslims.

They believe they are superior to all people who wholeheartedly follow their interpretation of Sharia Law.

Conservative Muslims also believe that the harsh penalties and punishments set forth in the Koran are reasonable and should be followed

According to that friend, the reason the so-called Muslim/ISIS terrorists randomly shot people in the audience at the concert hall in Paris, tried to bomb the soccer stadium and randomly shot couples in Paris who were out for the night is that they consider it is their duty to rid the earth of people like the people who were in those places at those times.

They have NO tolerance for people who don’t behave in a POLITICALLY CORRECT WAY; they have no tolerance for people who don’t strictly follow their interpretation of rules set follow in the Koran; they have no tolerance for people who have a different interpretation of what the Koran commands people to do then they do.

Recent Movies Which Portray Politically Correct Muslim Behavior

“Rock the Kasbah”

The recently released Bill Murray movie “Rock the Kasbah” is about a young unmarried young Muslim woman living with her family in a small village in Afghanistan.

In “Rock the Kasbah” Bill Murray is an entertainment talent manager.

While in Afghanistan promoting one of his clients, who is a singer, Bill Murray accidentally discovers this young woman.

She has a beautiful voice.

Thereafter, Bill Murray talks this young Muslim woman into entering and into singing on a nationally broadcast singing contest.

When her father and other people who live in her village learn that she has sung in a singing contest they “disown” her.

I saw this movie recently (in November, 2015) at a local theater in Sherman Oaks, California.

“He Named Me Malala”

“He Named Me Malala” is a documentary.

It is the true story of a young woman who at age 15 (Malala Yousafzai) was shot in the head by a Taliban assassin while riding home in a school bus in Pakistan’s Swat Valley.

The Taliban attempted to assassinate Malala because Malala was an outspoken champion of the idea that girls should be given an education.

The Taliban targeted Malala for assassination because Malala wanted to learn how to read and publicly said she wanted other girls to learn how to read.

The movie makes it clear that the Taliban, following strict conservative Muslim/Islamic law, is vehemently against women being taught to read.

Malala was targeted by Taliban militants for her outspokenness in support of girls’ education.

Malala has an astounding eloquence and boldness.

Even when Malala was eleven years old she was attracting the attention of international reporters because of her outspoken advocacy.

During the course of the movie, the film shows various village schools in the Swat Valley where girls are taught to read had been bombed, had been completely destroyed by the Taliban.

Malala and her father Ziauddin Yousafzai spoke after the showing of “He Named Me Malala” which I attended.

Malala told the people in attendance: When you tell your story it is a healing, it is a rehabilitation.

Malala and her father then thanked Academy Award winning filmmaker Davis Guggenheim for making the documentary we had just watched. 

I saw the international premiere of this documentary in September at the 2015 Toronto International Film Festival.

“Parched”

This is an Indian film about the plight of women in rural villages in India.

Lena Yadav, the filmmaker, stated at the 2015 Toronto International Film Festival that the story told in this movie is based on true events.

According to Yadav: 80% of the women in India don’t know what an orgasm is; they are sexual slaves.

The village elders and all the local men in the village where the story told in this movie takes place repeatedly tell each other: Don’t get an educated wife, they have books riding their minds.

The story in this movie revolves around the life of a young girl who is forced to marry a young boy she doesn’t want to marry.

Her young husband brutalizes her, steals from his mother, drinks excessively and is a lazy oaf.

Watching her son brutalize his child bride disgusts her.

She then begins to thirst for more than what life has given women in her village.

The men laze around and talk to each other while the women do all the work in the village..

As the story in the movie progresses, she questions the status quo in her village, the rules of conduct in her village which favors men, sends child brides to abusive husbands and ostracizes women for being educated and opinionated – and begins to have a series of lengthy conversations with female friends – outside the hearing of men in the village – about “how women should value themselves” and what stops them from doing so.

According to the film maker the life of women portrayed in this movie is the typical life of all women in rural Muslim and Hindu villages in the countryside and in strict religious communities in big cities in India.

I saw the world premier of this movie in September at the 2015 Toronto International Film Festival.

 

“Maintenant ils peuvent venir” (“Let Them Come”)

This French/Algerian movie is about the dark decade in Algeria in which strict Islamists tried to take over Algeria, and 200,000 died in the ensuing conflict.

It is set in Algeria in the late 1980s.

In one scene a Muslim man is told by his strict Islamist father-in-law that the marriage between he and his wife (his marriage to the daughter of the father-in-law) is not valid because he is not a strict Islamist.  He is an infidel because he is hot a strict Islamist.

The father-in-law has taken his daughter away; he has married her to a strict Islamist; and now lives with the second man.

That man already had a wife.

That man now has two wives.

His daughter is now that man’s second wife.

This film is a family chronicle which begins shortly before the man characters get married to each other in an arranged marriage, and follows that marriage and the man and woman who got married from that time forward.

I saw the world premier of this film in September at the 2015 Toronto International Film Festival.

Progress, Creativity, Political Correctness and Different Ways of Thinking

If we are going to solve the problems that are rampant on our planet, we need to have creative people with creative ideas.

Yet we continue to close down creative people, with invalidations that ever more imperiously impose from without, an institutional mentality that squashes [young] people in a way that forces them to give up the expression of their souls and, instead to worry about winning the approval of  authority figures, the approval of grown-ups, college administrators, the federal government, all sorts of protesters who don’t feel welcome in society and all sorts of other bosses and audiences.

This violation of self is insulting and injures who we are deep in our hearts.

In hopelessness and despair some people become tormented, depressed or suicidal.

In such a society everyone is forced to worry about what everyone else thinks about them, which is the route to vapid mediocrity.

Seeing the Big Picture

Forty percent of Millennials in the United States are okay with limiting free speech if it is racist.

The Mormon Church (the Church of the Later Day Saints) recently adopted a same-sex marriage policy barring children of married same-sex couples from being baptized [not allowing them to become members of the Church] until they are adults, until they are 18 years old.

In order to become members of the Church they are required to leave their parents’ home and to disavow same-sex marriage and co-habitation.

At the street level, on my recent travels in different parts of the United States, I have read bumper stickers which state:

1. CHOICE.  What a beautiful right.
2. Democracy is not a spectator sport.
3. Freedom of religion means any religion.
4. Compassion is the radicalization of our time.
5. Don’t believe anything until it has been officially denied.
6. I will believe corporations are people when Texas executes one.
7. You don’t have to burn books to destroy culture.  Just get people to stop reading them.

Those bumper sticker statements are a sign of the way many people are thinking in the United States.

Responding to Our Ever-Evolving World

The history of the human race is violent.

Only by striving to understand the behavior of people throughout history and in remote places can we hope to understand from where we have come and how much of the pasts lives unrecognized with us.

What is happening in the world today is culturally contextual, historically contextual, in our faces every day and very dramatic.

In a recent article by Rosa Brooks, a Georgetown University law professor, in Foreign Policy she states:

“The Paris attacks were not surprising.  Occasional terrorist attacks in the West are virtually inevitable; … we’ll see more attacks in coming decades, now fewer.  We need to stop viewing terrorism as shocking and aberrational, and instead recognize it as an ongoing problem that needs to be managed, rather than defeated.”

In a recent article by Charles Gave, written for a French paper in September, 2015,  Mr. Gave explains that nobody can understand the disaster that is unfolding if he knows nothing of history, past events that shaped the world today.

Mr. Gave explains:

For the past 50 years, money has flowed in a torrent from Saudi Arabia to the rest of the Middle East, Africa, South Asia and Europe to build Wahhabi mosques: “schools” where the only things taught – and only to boys – are the Koran and religious extremism.

The goal of this project is to “purify” the Middle East and eventually the rest of the world to an “original” form of Islam.

According to Mr. Gave:

• First: The West must clearly identify the enemy which is not the Muslim religion,but the Wahhabi sect.  And it must immediately break off relationships with the states such as Saudi Arabia and Qatar, which are exporting this virulent form of extremism.
• Second: We will have to stop accepting political donations from these countries to finance our electoral campaigns.
• Third: We will have to stop selling those countries warplanes, helicopters, missiles, radars, tanks and other weaponry.  One does not prosper by selling weapons to one’s enemies.  As Lenin said: “The capitalists will sell us rope with which we will hang them.”

There Is No Such Thing As Zero Risk

How are you going to change what you are doing now?

How are you going to change what you will be doing in the future?

Consider the impact of the confluence of highly impactful forces in the news every day (geopolitical, sociopolitical, economic, cultural, historical, local political, local social, global financial forces, local financial forces).

Many political “experts” will tell you that U.S. foreign policy is responsible for the rise of ISIS, and of terrorist attacks:

• There were no terrorists threats against U.S. citizens from the Middle East when Saddam Hussain was running Iraq  and when Omar Qaddafi was running Libya.
• The consequence of the United States destabilizing countries in the Middle East has been the reign of terrorist terror we are now experiencing.

Other political “experts” will tell you that the current surge of terrorist attacks is the result of Saudi Arabia and Qatar funding fundamental extremist Muslim clergy and schools which teach boys the Koran and extremism.

Consider the impact of all of the above forces on you personally, including the impact of such forces (a) on your current investment strategies, (b) on your current investments, (c) on your current travel plans,(d) on your current career plans, (e) on your current retirement plans, and (e) on all your other current strategies and goals.

Good luck.

 

Copyright © Gary S. Smolker, All Rights Reserved

 

A Commentary on the Political Campaigns of Donald Trump and Ben Carson, An Analysis of Why Donald Trump’s Political Campaign Has Been So Successful and Ben Carson’s Campaign Is Becoming More Successful, Modest “Proposed Common Sense Gun Control Legislation”, A Movie Review of “Our Brand Is Crisis” and A Comment on Narrative Vividness and Free Speech – by Gary Smolker

In the United States, political campaigns for elective office are about fear.

Political candidates for elective office tell the electorate they will protect the electorate from what they fear most.

Successful politicians define what people are most afraid of, sympathize with them about what they are most afraid about, and tell everyone they understand their problems, they have a solution to prevent what people are most afraid of happening and they will implement that solution.

That is why the “strongest candidate” gets elected.

There are two other factors in politics: love of underdogs and love of rebels with a cause.

The “right” rebel and underdog with a cause and charisma can and will go far in politics in the United States.

An Analysis of Why Donald Trump’s Political Campaign Has Been So Successful

Donald Trump’s political campaign has been successful because:

1. Donald Trump has made himself known as the bold man who takes everything to the next level.
2. Donald Trump promotes the image that he understands power, he is a super-shark who will keep the other sharks away.
3. Donald Trump promotes that image by telling everyone that what he has learned from real world experience gives him a unique businessman’s brass-tacks-real-world understanding of people.
4. He speaks to other people as equals and as partners with self-confidence.
5. He has no off-switch.
6. Everyone can see that he loves being different and making a difference.
7. Everyone can see he has a gleefully pugnacious style.
8. Everyone can see that he has no stomach or patience to play by any rules but his own.
9. He is overbearingly maniacal about selling himself.

My answer to pundit critics and political analysts who say Trump’s comments, speeches and proposals are absurd is: Who cares? Most people prefer wrong and strong to weak and right.

Trump is not trying to win a spelling bee.

Trump is not trying to appeal to a tribe of overly toilet trained fusspots.

Trump refuses to be politically correct and tells everyone he is proud of refusing to be politically correct.

Trump is not trying to win the approval of fussy overly toilet trained political analysts, newscasters, reporters, thin-skinned people or intellectuals.

Trump claims he will not change who he is to win an election or change who he is if he wins the election.

Trump’s campaign is about Trump.

Trump’s campaign is about the fact that Trump is a different kind of candidate.

People like that and people believe him.

However, Donald Trump has two Achilles Heels – (1) Donald Trump was born very rich and is a lifetime member of the “rich man’s club”; (2) What Donald Trump says doesn’t make sense to “thinking people.”

Donald Trump is not seen as someone who rose above the obstacles in everyday life nor does he claim to have done so.

 

Common Sense Gun Control Legislation proposed by Gary S. Smolker

Safety is a big issue in the present political campaign of every candidate from “gun control” to “abortion.”

Below is a modest proposal by me for how to handle the issue of gun control:

Everyone over the age of 18 may purchase a gun and have a gun carry permit provided:

1. They pass a background check
2. They pass a written test
3. They pass a shooting range test
4. They carry a specified amount of liability insurance
5. They are legally liable for damages caused by use of their firearm and/or any firearm they use subject to the right of self-defense and a good-Samaritan exception.
6. Gun permits must be renewed and a gun permit license fee paid yearly.
7. Getting a gun permit should be like getting a license to drive a motor vehicle.

By the way, in the State of California: driving on public roadways is not a right – it is a privilege granted by the state.  A driver’s license shows that you have been given permission to drive by the state.

You must have your driver’s license with you whenever you drive.  You must show it to any police officer who asks to see it.  You must also show it to other drivers if you are in an accident.

You may be given a driver’s license after you:

1. Have properly answered questions about the law and safety rules.
2. Show that your physical and mental condition is satisfactory.
3. Have no outstanding actions on your driving record.
4. Provide your true full name.
5. Provide your social security number
6. Provide your thumbprint or fingerprint.
7. Provide proof that you are in the Untied States legally.
8. Pay the current fee, unless you paid it within 12 months for an Instruction Permit.
9. For your first license you must successfully drive a vehicle while an examiner grades you, and have your picture taken.

Regarding the so-called “right to bear arms”, see Daniel Cheren’s comments below regarding the Second Amendment of the Constitution of the United States.

Concerning the issue of safety, consider how safe we are in the United States compared to how safe people are in other parts of the world.

Safety

The United States vs. Sweden

This afternoon (Saturday, October 10, 2015), I spoke to two young women (ages 25 and 27) who are visiting the United States who are Swedish citizens and who live full time in Sweden, while I was sipping coffee at my local Starbucks in Van Nuys, California.

They told me they feel safer being here in the United States than they feel where they live in Sweden.

They told me girls are constantly getting raped in their town.  In one case, a girl they know got raped twice in the same day:  Once by one gang.  The second time by a second gang.

They told me they are all in favor of accepting refugees from Syria but Syrian refugees continue fighting their ongoing ethnic fights in Syria once they become settled in Sweden.

*American Servicemen in Iraq and Afghanistan vs College Students in the United States

After speaking to those two women, I asked a man sitting next to me whether it was safer to go to college in the United States or to be an American Serviceman in Iraq or Afghanistan.

He then asked Siri, on his smartphone, what were the number of American casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan so far this month (in October 2015) and what were the number of American casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan last month (in September 2015).

He reported back to me:

1. American causalities in Iraq in September 2015: two.
2. American causalities in Afghanistan in September 2015: zero.
3. American causalities in Iraq so far in October 2015: zero.
4. American causalities in Afghanistan so far in October 2015: zero.

Ben Carson’s Bravado Statement Regarding We Should Be Armed and What He Would Have Done [Attack the Shooter] If He Had Been in the Recent Oregon Community College Shoot-out

I then asked what he thought of Ben Carson’s comment that if he [Ben Carson] had been there in Oregon and armed he would have done something.

The man I was speaking with at Starbucks this afternoon replied: Several people in the college during the shootout said they were armed but were afraid that if they drew their weapon to shoot the shooter, the police would shoot them.  That is why they didn’t shoot the shooter.

Comparison of Donald Trump’s and Ben Carson’s Political Hate Speech to Adolf Hitler’s Hate Speech

A lady sitting nearby interrupted our conversation by making the following comments comparing Donald Trump and Ben Carson to Adolph Hitler.

1. Trump and Carson feed people’s fear.
2. Trump and Carson are telling people that someone else is responsible for the “horrible situation” they think they are suffering.
3. The best way to get people to follow you is to make them fear something.
4. That is what Hitler did.
5. Trump and Carson are doing the same thing.

This woman said she was ex-military (U.S. Air Force), was certified as a marksman by the military and had served on the ground setting up and defending communication systems during military operations in Iraq, Somalia and Afghanistan.

Her greatest fear about an armed American citizenry is that people who don’t know how to handle guns will accidentally shoot themselves or someone else.

Therefore she wants people to be required to pass a written test and field tests before they are allowed to own and/or carry guns.

Regarding hate speech: See Daniel Cheren’s comments and opinions below regarding the Muslim world, the mind set of Islam, President Mahmoud Abbas, Hamas, Fatah, the Temple Mount, the “core” underlying issue in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and who is propagating “hate speech.”

Reframing the Abortion Issue

Ben Carson has reframed the “abortion issue.”

Ben Carson has said whether “abortion” should be legal or not legal is not a question of being pro-life or being pro-choice.

Ben Carson has said

1. A mother’s love of her child is paramount.
2. The mother is the child’s protector.
3. The child is NOT the mother’s enemy.
4. Whether your mother was raped or not raped does not determine how you turn out.
5. People who are born as a consequence of their mother being raped have turned out to be very productive people.

The Ben Carson Is A Political Naif Issue

A few days ago (on October 25, 2015) a friend of mine, who lives in North Carolina, told me the following about Ben Carson:

Daniel Henninger in the Wall Street Journal this week, called Ben Carson a naif when it comes to politics.  I suspect Henninger is wrong about that. The administration of a large hospital like John Hopkins is one of the most intensely political and competitive environments one can imagine.  It is not called “MDeity complex” for nothing!  Carson mastered it.

Whether A Muslim Can Be President of the United States

That friend also told me the following.

Carson did not say that a Muslim cannot be President of the United because all Muslims believe Allah is Supreme.  That wasn’t what Carson said.  His point was that a Muslim, or anyone else, who is willing to submit to the US Constitution could be president.  Anyone who is not willing as president to submit to the US Constitution should not be president.

Rightly or wrongly, that is one of the complaints against President Obama, that he is not willing to submit to the US Constitution.

AN ADDITIONAL STATEMENT ON THE ISSUE OF WHETHER A MUSLIM CAN BE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES:

Under the reasoning of the blanket statement [generalization] that a Muslim cannot be president because all Muslims believe Allah is Supreme, Christian Fundamentalists couldn’t be President of the United States either.

 

The Most Quotable Film I Saw at 2015 Toronto International Film Festival

I saw the world premier of “Our Brand is Crisis”, in September 2015,  at the 2015 Toronto International Film Festival (2015 TIFF); this film was the film with the most quotable comments I saw at 2015 TIFF.

The subject of this movie is lack of character of politicians, their lack of scruples and the “fact” that political candidates do deceitful things while striving to get elected.

In this movie, political consultant (“Calamity” Jane Bodine played by Sandra Bullock) is hired to bolster the prospects of an unpopular Bolivian presidential candidate (Pedro Castillo played by Joaquim De Almeida).

When I first saw this movie it had no impact on me, albeit I predicted I would be using statements made in this movie in the future:

• Once idealism is gone there is no way of getting it back.
• If voting changed anything they would make it illegal.
• There is only one wrong: Losing.
• In a political campaign: You don’t change the man to fit the narrative.  You should change the narrative to fit the man.
• If you don’t like the road you are on, pave your own.

As time went on, this movie grew on me.

As I reflected on what political strategist Calamity Jane told obnoxious Bolivian presidential candidate Pedro Castillo to do in order to win the Presidency it became clear to me that Donald Trump has masterfully done what Calamity Jane (Sandra Bullock) told presidential candidate Pedro Castillo to do.

In my opinion, Republican political candidate Ben Carson is also following the advice Calamity Jane gave Bolivian Presidential candidate Pedro Castillo by emphasizing he is a strong energetic person and a deep moralistic thinking person with experience calmly handling delicate situations with intelligent precision under extreme pressure who is not afraid to speak out and stand up for what he believes in.

The script of the movie “Crisis Is Our Brand” is an accurate portrayal of the political culture in the United States today.

Screenwriter Peter Straughan [the man who wrote the screenplay for “Our Brand Is Crisis”] was on the pulse of what was going to happen in the race to be the Republican candidate for President of the United States in 2016 when Straughan wrote the script for “Our Brand Is Crisis.”

In the film, “Our Brand Is Crisis”, Calamity Jane had her work cut out for her: Her candidate for President of Bolivia, Presidential Candidate Pedro Castillo, before she came on board, came off as being an obnoxious pugnacious elitist in a country whose population is predominantly poor and indigenous.

Calamity Jane successfully dealt with her candidate Pedro Castillo socking a prankster in the face, in front of cameras.

Calamity Jane’s Recipe for Victory: “Don’t change the man to fit the narrative.  Change the narrative to fit the man.”

Calamity Jane turned Castillo socking a prankster in the face into a political asset.

After socking the prankster in the face the theme of Costillo’s campaign became” Bolivia is in crisis, and in crisis you need authority and an iron fist, not broad smiles and glad-handling. 

In “Our Brand Is Crisis”, “Calamity Jane” lives up to her role: She finds a way to sculpt Presidential Candidate Castillo into the right man [at Bolivia’s moment of crisis] for the people of Bolivia.

As time goes on and people learn more about Ben Carson, Ben Carson comes across as being an alert and open minded person and as being a strong humane energetic thinking person.

Great Moving Making: Great Script, Great Acting, Great Message and Great Directing Working Seamlessly Together

In my mind, Billy Bob Thornton steals the show in this movie.

Billy Bob Thornton plays the part of political consultant Pat Candy, who is masterminding the campaign for the contender set to win the election by a landslide.

Pat Candy is Calamity Jane’s arch enemy: Pat Candy’s candidates have won the last four political contests in which Pat and Jane went head to head strategizing the political campaigns of rival political candidates.

The tricks Jane and Candy play on each other are wonderful to watch.

It was Candy’s man, a man sent to be a prankster at the rally at which Castillo punched this man in the face in front of the news media’s cameras covering the rally.

The personal interactions of Pat and Jane with each other are wonderful to watch.

The energy that flows between Pat and Jane when they interact is electrifying.

It is obvious to me that everyone involved in making this film was (and still is) emotionally committed to promoting the message this film delivers.

This is an underdog movie with a twist, masterfully directed by David Gordon Green.

Responsibility

It is the responsibility of writers and film makers to to give a just and lively image of human nature.

The screenwriter, actresses and the actors did a superb job of doing that in “Our Brand Is Crisis.”

A Philosophical Comment About Critical Reason, Characters, Entertainment and Narrative Vividness

“The more critical reason dominates, the more impoverished life becomes….Overvalued reason has this in common with political absolutism: under its dominion, the individual is pauperized.” – Carl Gustav Jung

Donald Trump and Ben Carson are characters.

Characters are entertaining.

People want to be entertained and love being entertained.

Currently, the United States Republican Party Presidential Primary campaigns and debates are the best shows on television.

By the way, Lyndon Johnson had a way with words when it came to summing up people he distrusted, including a Kennedy aide (“He wouldn’t know how to pour piss out of a boot if the instructions were printed on the heel.”) and so did J. Edgar Hoover (“I’d rather have him inside the tent pissing out than outside pissing in.”)

Language has often been called a weapon.

People should be mindful of where to aim it and when to fire.

Free speech is the bedrock of democracy.

Copyright © 2015 by Gary S. Smolker, All Rights Reserved