About
As should be evident from the name of the BLOG, the content here will be mostly political, with some forays into other areas when needed. Politics as we know it is a very broad concept and addresses many legal, social, cultural, and economic policies that touch on each of our lives. Healthcare, for example, has been made into a political issue, even though actual health care touches each of us as an individual, and really should not be politicized, as such. But with politics – and human beings – being what they are, there is always enough greed and misinformation and partisanship to go around, and so occasionally I will touch on the issue of health care. The same applies to many of the other issues about which our country’s representatives are currently in a stranglehold. Economic policy, science – or lack thereof – education, the environment, civil rights – all these issues and more are currently under fire and we need to discuss them and come to some logical and realistic conclusions.
I will try to provide thorough content and commentary, as well as providing links to materials that may further illustrate a point, or serve to inform readers about the subject matter. One of my most irritating qualities is that of a pedant; I like information to be complete and correct, and I truly believe that only an informed opinion is of value. So I will try to keep you informed.
Another of my many irritating qualities is a quest for proper usage of the English language. I cannot recount to you the number of times a day that I read an article or hear a news anchor or someone else whose use of the English language is not only deplorable, but who seem not to understand that proper usage is vital for precise explanations, for ameliorating ambiguity. Written law is based on semantics; without that, we would be in courts for much longer than we are currently sorting out minor issues due to discrepancies in usage. So I make a pledge to you readers that I will do my utmost to make sure that your reading experience is grammatically pure.
Because this BLOG is so new and I have not had an opportunity to dress it up any, it will begin with these articles, but I hope, eventually, to provide additional information in the form of calendars, photographs and links to other sites that may prove to be of interest. I fully admit to not being an expert in every field of endeavor; I also admit to being curious, intelligent, logical, and I have good reasoning skills, so I can sort through much of what I read, make sense of it, make some educated guesses, and find the back-up you need to substantiate what I’ve said. And, of course, I will only be using tried and true, thoroughly vetted sites and media. I am not in the misinformation business. I want to pass on information that will clarify the issues of the day so that we can all go to the voting booth better informed about the issues and the representatives who will be voting on those issues on our behalf. I expect the BLOG to evolve and become more user-friendly as time goes on, which will make it more attractive to all.”
Finally, a BLOG is nothing without readers, so I hope you will all share the URL with everyone you know. You may feel free to print articles. You may feel free to quote articles – with proper attribution, of course. You may feel free to argue with your friends about what I’ve written. BUT read it first. Inform yourselves, as I have informed you, and then, and only then, can you argue and opine from a position of knowledge. Knowledge and education, at this point in our history, are the keys required to function in this society. We, in the US, are currently in the process of killing our democracy. We, on Earth, are currently in the process of killing the planet, and, ultimately, ourselves, and the only way we can prevent any of this is through knowledge and education. And it is my intention to educate you, my readers, to the best of my ability.
I admit that I am not perfect and that occasionally I will make mistakes. I will endeavor not to do so because it would derail my stated intention of providing a quality education using grammatically correct English. However, as this BLOG is still “under construction,” there is no place for your commentary, or for your opportunity to berate me or call me out on factual or grammatical issues. For this, I apologize. Further, of course, is the notion that eventually I will have so many readers that the mere thought of having to review all the comments would send me screaming to the sixth floor of Bellevue. So, for the time being, at least, those of you who know me personally can send me e-mail; for those of you who only know me by this BLOG, you will have either to stifle your opinions or start your own BLOG.
© 2019 MyPoliticalSelf / S. Schimek
- The Honor SystemThe honor system is something many of us have heard about all our lives. It’s a system by which we survive by following unspoken but well-known rules, like not cheating on tests, not pilfering from the cash drawer at work, not stepping out on our significant other while we are on business trips. These are…
- EnigmaThe Dump* Enigma Now that Dump has his four indictments on 91 counts, and four upcoming criminal trials in four courts with four judges, we still have a problem. From all the living former presidents – Carter, Clinton, George W. Bush, and Obama – we hear barely a peep, but Dump is in the news…
- Truth or ConsequencesFor those of you who don’t remember, there was a game show that ran in the US from 1940-1988, first on radio and then on television, in which contestants who failed to answer certain questions truthfully were forced to face the consequences of their wrong answers. Back in the day, people took this seriously as…
- The Wild Wild WestFans of Seinfeld will remember one of the earlier episodes in which George decides to “slip [his boss] a mickey.” On the show, George is frustrated by the way his entitled boss acts, and thinks it would be amusing to do this as it sounds like “something people do in the movies,” and he even…
- INSURRECTIONAs I write this the morning after the first insurrection in my recorded history, I think back to the July, 2016 afternoon when D(onald J. Tr)ump (hereinafter “Dump”) spoke from a Florida golf course on live television and invited Russia, in so many words, to hack into US e-mail servers to look for Hillary Clinton’s…
- Why Don’t Americans Want National Health Care?As you might have noticed from my previous posts, I tend toward the logical and pragmatic, and I will use that approach here, as well. So, let us begin with the premise that health care is neither a right nor a privilege, but a necessity. We have all been sick at one time or another….
- Death By TweetA few years back, when social media was taking its first tentative steps into the digital world, I asked around about it. Naturally, no one is born into this world automatically knowing about social media. What I got as an explanation – basically, that it duplicated everything I was getting via e-mail, only this would…
- Where, O’ Where, Has Democracy Gone…?Before we begin, I want to make it clear that I am the product of a fairly comprehensive education at the hands of the New York State public schools, and despite the fact that Latin was removed from our high school curriculum the year before I entered, and, incredibly, despite the fact that I am…
- FentanylAs I’m sure you have all heard, Fentanyl is a growing problem in this country. Many of the recent opioid deaths are a direct result of Fentanyl – either from its direct use, or from other drugs being cut with it. And, as it turns out, 99.9% of Fentanyl comes to us directly from China…
- We The PeopleWe, The People is the opening line of the Constitution of the United States, drafted in 1787, and still holding us together 232 years later. Pretty amazing for an upstart country to form itself into a union under the circumstances that we did – fighting off the British and the French and oppressing the natives…