TALKING TAKES TRUST

Societies who do NOT have a history of free speech, have trouble when they finally want to find out why their people are so angry. If your country has a history of killing and imprisoning protesters and their families, you are going to have trouble "opening a dialog" with protesters.

The main reason that governments should want free speech is that they NEED to know what people are thinking. If people do not feel free to talk, it is difficult to find out what people are thinking.

But if your country has made progress, if you have a new government that is trying to be democratic, you have to talk about your problems in order to get your problems solved. SOMEONE has to have the courage to tell the government WHY people are so angry that they are rioting in the streets. Because, honestly, rioting in the streets is a LOT less effective than talking and VOTING.

If you are angry about your constitution, start a PEACEFUL movement to amend the constitution. If you are angry about religious fanatics running your country, join the club, because we all have some religious fanatics trying to run our countries.

If you want to "open a dialog" with your people, you MUST assure them that they and their families will NOT face ANY reprisals because of what they say.

DEMOCRACY IS HARD, UNENDING WORK, but freedom is worth all the effort.

GUNS AND FEAR

People who want to own guns are AFRAID. Until we address their fears, we will not be able to have gun control laws.

I am personally afraid of another Holocaust. I do not know what made good people decide to efficiently murder 6 million people. It is pretty clear that the people who were killed in the Holocaust were despised because of their religions, national origins, disabilities, and sexual orientations. I would rather not "go quietly" to my undeserved death, if people decide that the world would be better off without loudmouth, fat women.

You can help by NOT judging people based on religion, sex, race, national origin, sexual origination, height, weight, etc.

I do not think it is a coincidence that the NRA started championing assault rifles about 10 years after the Black Panther photograph of Huey holding a gun. A Black man pointed out that NO movie staring a Black person has ever showed that Black person holding a gun in the "ready to shoot" position. People seem to be afraid that Black people will want revenge. Black people do not want revenge, they want a level playing field. Whoopi Goldberg did a movie about having to disguise herself as a White man in order to impress investment bankers. Smart, educated people want to be judged on their ability and skill, not on their appearance.

You can help by NOT judging people by their appearance.

TV and movies make the fear worse by coming up with plots which make people afraid. The unrelenting gun violence in movies is a result of movie people wanting to have less dialog in order to sell the film in other languages. But it is clear that some people react with a "monkey see, monkey do" mentality. We laugh when people want to recreate Star Trek. It is not so funny when people want to recreate a movie steeped in gun violence.

You can help by NOT going to movies with unrelenting gun violence.

I do not understand why we cannot at least limit assault rifles and ammunition clips.

Believe me when I say that UNTRAINED people with assault rifles are REALLY DANGEROUS!

WASHINGTON APACHES?

The term "Redskin" is extremely offensive to our First People. It is an insult akin to using the n-word. It is horrible that a football team claiming to represent the capitol city of the US uses the name "Redskins".

I hear the owner of the Washington Insult Team wants to keep the name because people like buying insulting team shirts and toys.

The players and the fans should start saying, "I love my team, but I find the team name to be offensive."

I suggest that the team be renamed the Washington Apaches. The Apaches are a tough people, the last to surrender to the invaders.

Or we could just call the team, "The Washington Insult Team".

ENTITLEMENT AND VIOLENCE

A English duke is an entitled person. All of us would be excited to meet an English duke. Some of us might dislike and fight the excitement reaction, but the reaction is still there. The duke gets used to people being excited to meet him and may be insulted to be treated as a regular person.

So men get used to respectful women, and may feel insulted if a woman treats them like an equal. This belief in male entitlement can lead to violence, including rape and murder. The excuse is that the woman was not behaving correctly.

Most people do not connect entitlement with violence. By treating people with contempt, you allow the violent among us to target the objects of your contempt.

After Black slaves were freed, many Whites felt insulted when treated as an equal by a Black. This led to violence, including lynchings.

I believe that some Shiites feel insulted when a Sunni tries to treat them as an equal. Right now this is causing violence, including mass murder and rape.

Under the rule of law, ALL PEOPLE ARE CREATED EQUAL.

ADVICE TO ASSAD - RETIRE TO RUSSIA

'Soon to be former' President Assad is using PR (public relations) to try to get the West to believe he is a better alternative than the rebels. It is time for the rebels to provide more witnesses to Assad's forces raping, torturing, and mass murdering.

Assad PR says that this is not the Syrian people, it is outside agitators. Believe me, if outside agitators could start a revolution, there would be revolutions everywhere. This is the same excuse the South used during the Civil Rights Era in the US. "It is outsiders, not our making Blacks sit in the back of the bus."

Assad PR is trying to convince us that he is better than Muslim extremists. There is no evidence that the rebels are Muslim extremists. Frankly, if my President was condoning mass murder of my neighbors, I would be rebelling against such a government. However, the longer the civil war lasts, the more anger the winners will have towards Assad supporters.

Assad PR is saying that the rebels will quit, they always have quit. The Syrian rebels know that, "We will hang together or we will hang separately." The Syrian rebellion is a revolution against tyranny. But it is not a rebellion against tyranny of tea taxes, it is a rebellion against a tyranny of torture, mass murder, and rape.

Al Jazeera reports that the rebels are taking more territory. An Israeli newspaper says the Russians are now in control of Assad's chemical weapons, which is good news for the Syrian people.

I believe that Assad is going to lose this war. He now has a choice.

He and his family can retire to Russia and live a luxurious life OR HE CAN HAVE SYRIA PRIED FROM HIS COLD DEAD FINGERS.

PRIME 13

I think that '13 is unlucky' was a cover story to prevent people from discovering that 13 was the number that could break early banking codes.

13 is the first prime number that is relatively difficult to multiply and divide. With no calculators and dependent upon a few encoding and decoding people, 13 would be a reasonable choice for a prime number based code.

The 'unlucky 13' probably started as an 'in' joke, because people who talk about a secret banking code can get very unlucky. %<)  It worked so well as a superstition that it actually made people afraid to use the number 13. The bankers must still be giggling from beyond the grave.

I am certain that 'the seven years bad luck to break a mirror' was made up by a merchant trying to get curious people to be VERY careful with the fragile early mirrors. Remember that NO ONE had seen a clear image of themselves. EVERYONE wanted to see themselves for the first time.

Of course, the 'bad luck to walk under a ladder' was started by builders who could not get boys to understand how dangerous ladders can be.

Maybe we can start a superstition that would keep people from answering Nigerian email scams.

Meanwhile, as usual, the non supertitious can make a lot of money playing on your supertitioms.