A NEW WAY TO THINK

PERSPECTIVE

    My brother John was apparently an effective psychotherapist. Even psychiatrists, with the capacity to order medical intervention, hired him to work with extraordinarily troubled patients.

    I was fascinated by an experimental technique he employed where in he had schizophrenic patients draw maps of their brains, including neural circuits. He would,  step by step, navigate them through a thought or reaction beginning with the sensory cues. The therapy was to "reroute the traffic," to find a new way of thinking, responding and reacting.

    As the 2016 Presidential circus launches don't we all need  a similar "intervention" as regards the mix of information and its delivery and how we feel or reason? Coverage is obsessively about the horse race and is more silly, shallow and of dubious focus and proportionality than during Obama-Romney. Much of it is ideologically or politically skewed and overly generous with pundits and hot air. It is long on entertainment and presentation value and short on thoughtful, non pack, intellectually independent journalism and inquiry.

   Electoral politics also populates the prismatic effulgence of the Internet. Almost no view is left unstated. And we've all got one, at least, so there is a law of diminishing returns at work. 
     It is a renegade American Idol. We'll see the parade of GOP hopefuls in a traveling fight and we'll wait for Hillary to stumble or crumble. Independents and Democrats either like her or they don't. Those who are Republicans must come to accord with one of their multiple choice field. But can there be many undecided or non-committed between D's and R's. Is there enough to compose a "significant difference" in the interim? 
    Before the media and campaign gillies roll, minds are set, but the carnival will go on for a reason certain. Money. Politics, especially presidential politics, is an industry and commerce is good. Billions are churned and much of it gets spread around the media that has no interest in shortening the season, silly or otherwise. They're in it for ad dollars. 

    Plan on plenty of silly, inane, irrelevant, hyperbolic, partisan, mean and self important. Analytical numbers, polls, probabilities and indexes, will be creatively displayed. At the game's end, numbers win.  
     Sadly much of this will play without benefit of Jon Stewart or The Colbert Report. David Letterman is riding off into the sunset too. Yikes! We're being left without our media "neural circuit" traffic cops. What is our protection? 

     Cheers to the inventor of the off switch!

WESTERN DIVERSIONS

    See you down the trail.

THE PERFECT CANDIDATE? & I'LL TAKE AN OXYGEN STRAIGHT UP

A CANDIDATE FOR THE FUTURE

   For years my Walter Mitty imagination kicks into high gear while in the shower. Not sure of the connection, but it's a place for great creative thinking.

   So, today I became the perfect presidential candidate, or conjured the qualities of one. What are the characteristics?

    A person who says the election is really about judgement, facility of mind, integrity and clarity of vision.  

    It is OK, absolutely OK to say that a mind can be changed. It is a sign of higher human reasoning, to do just that, reason, think about and even change your mind on an issue.  That is not flip flopping. Flip flopping is prevaricating or obfuscating. Reasoning is a good thing, this perfect candidate would tell the press and voters.

    It is asinine to presume to look for a man or woman "who has all the answers."  Those answers can come only through study, deliberation, consultation and a sense of history.  So, as perfect candidate, I'd say so.  I'd outline general principles, a foundational construct of values and delineate the names of policy experts, scholars, historians, political scientists, economists, military strategists, philosophers, theologians, artists and entrepreneurs whose advice and counsel I'd seek and who would shove back at me, while testing and forging my ideas. 

    I'd also be upfront with the voters and say, despite what my grand goals or visions might be, the reality of my Presidency would be determined by what happens in the world and through a kind of dance and/or wrestling match with the US Congress.  I can propose, but the truth is, what really happens is a result of the process of working and living with the other branches of government while confronting what ever nature, fate, Providence and other humans as individuals or as nations foist upon us all.

     So, the heck with gotcha games, playing to opinion polls, letting speech writers and strategists put words in your mouth, or worse, in your mind.  The heck with fanny kissing the big dollar fat cats or super pacs. We'll tell Americans what they are really doing is choosing a human being, who evinces qualities of leadership and judgement, who is ready to sacrifice for the common good of all, even those who will hate and vilify you. They will have a chance to vote for someone who is steadfast, honest, candid and wants to see a better day for all.

     Yea, you go boy!  Then I turned off the shower.

   

MAKE MINE PURE

     Have you been to an Oxygen bar?  I caught this one on a 

recent odyssey through Las Vegas.  They are all over the place and in some communities are as popular as coffee shops.  

     You pay the "bar tender" and you get a few hits of Oxygen, in a flavor or color of your choice.  Just in case

the air you are breathing is not enough for you, you can

buy some.  Yep, we can now buy and sell the air we breath.

See you down the trail.