AN OFFER YOU CAN'T REFUSE -- if you're a student, parent or stuck analyzing something for work or school--and more

Critical thinking.

Thinking.

Reasoning.

Skills.

Students at work.

Workers learning about issues or problems that need to be solved, worked out, worked on, written about. If those are issues for you, then let me help you out.

Brain growing.

Yep. All that and more.

And this is the offer. Contact me for tutoring on issues of critical thinking. The kind of thinking that is borne from reading and digesting, deep reading if you will, of those documents and writings that make the reader better able to analyze and understand what is being read. The classics to the daily news. All require thinking in order to understand the context, the message, and the possible applications of the knowledge that is going into the brain, and which knowledge is being put in so that in the future, it can be recalled and used to make smart decisions.

My background in relation to this offer is that I am a lifelong student of the classics and philosophy, science, literature, and reasoning skills. I have taught for over 30 years. And the price will be right. We, that is the purchaser of this service, and I, will work out a plan for instruction, whether a short help session with homework or a long term tutoring program for preparing for college.

I'm also trained in law, which means I am trained to analyze and present arguments, reasoned statements of facts and issues that need to be persuasive, on paper or in spoken form. I also know how to keep a confidence, so if the trouble you're having concerns an issue at your job, I'll keep the confidence, and I won't charge you lawyer rates to do so. After all, I'm not offering legal services here. Just help with solving your issues that need to be presented to others.

My methods work. Try the Muse's tutoring services and you'll be happily surprised with the great results.

Does your family have a student having trouble in writing? I can help.

Do you need help analyzing something? Are you seeking to understand something that is just a tad out of reach?

Are you, or your favorite student having a troublesome time with a writing assignment? Help with that is here. I've been writing for decades also, and can help with editing a paper, helping with organizing a paper, or even assisting analyzing the issue that you are writing about, so as to make writing easier.

It all always starts with critical thinking, and putting on paper (or a computer screen), the product of your analysis of the issue.

Does your student need to analyze poetry, literature, books, articles or other materials like textbooks?

Are you trying to write that memo at work, and stuck on how to get it going? Contact me and I'll share tools with you to help you out with the project you are working on, and with future projects.

Well, send in a comment. I'll get back to you after I know what sort of help you need. Rest assured, satisfaction is guaranteed.

In the next few days, I'll be posting more information about these services. Think about it, help with learning, whether you are an elementary student, a college student, in high school, or on the job. The Muse is here for you to meet. And learn, and improve your skills. Or, the Muse here can help you help your favorite student. Think about it, and let me know if I can help you.

About that "Change" Thing...

Call me skeptical.

Call me observant.

And then, call me for dinner and call me skeptical.

I remember all the haloed pictures of the anointing before the election. I remember all those promises of "change".

And then, even I asked, before the election, "Change from or to, what? Exactly?"

Sadly, in the first weeks of the Obama administration, I got my answer. Same old, same old. Republican/Democrat--change the initials, a few names, a couple of retitling of old projects, beefing up some really bad misadventures, secrecy up the Potomac, spying on all and sundry, spending through the roof for what we don't need, not much spending on what we do, and well...that was the change.

Exactly.

Precisely.

We have the same people in the Minerals Management Service granting the same permits without the needed safeguards, such as blowout preventers used everywhere except in the US of A, and we got change. Brother, have we got change. Just check out, on the YouTube, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and blowout preventers or the under-reported travesty that is this BP oil debacle, and you got it. Not a bit of change.

Want more? Bankers get fat and happy while loans to small businesses go away from the programs of banks. I guess the rich bankers like to keep the money in their vaults that would be yours or my, under the mattress safe.

Health care? Well we really got taken to the cleaners on that one. No public option, and Big Pharma gets to keep all but the 2 percent they gave up in those closed (transparency?) negotiations in the White House. Ask Greg Palast at Greg Palast's blog for that and more.

Now we have the destruction of the Gulf and Gulf States by means of Corexit. Check this out on Alexander Higgins, which is a great site for information on the BP disaster. And, it turns out that BP might not have actually hit an oil gusher but an asphalt volcano. Neither is good, but if the asphalt were allowed to remain together, as would also be true for oil, it would be easier to recover.

Which means that all the dispersant being sprayed around is doing no one any good, but at the levels it has reached in air and water may very well kill the same people who BP has hired to clean up the mess that destroyed all those careers and businesses. Of course, working for BP means no respirators, which means that the workers may well die as did cleanup workers from the Exxon Valdez.

All this makes me think that the BP disaster, coming as it did with a crushing of the First Amendment when the press were threatened with, and then arrested, just a tad bit too much like the general response after 911, and the secrecy that surrounded the destruction of that crime scene as the steel was carted off to foreign lands to be made into plowshares.

I hoped. On that last on, I really did hope. About the plowshares, that is.

Change?

Naw. We don't need no change. We just needed the label.

Is it all the President's fault?

Not by a long shot.

The problem is this. Neither the Democrats nor the Republicans will bring change. They can't. They are both the same. Labels different, same programs, same everything.

If we keep doing the same thing, as in voting for change, we will continue to get the same, destructive sameness. Repeating the same action expecting a changed result is the very definition of insanity.

Clinton promised change in 1992. We got change. Bankers and industrialists got rich as they offshored as many jobs as they could. Remember NAFTA?

Right.

That was change.

But it was merely another giveaway to the same rich one percent that got so much from Reagan and Bush I.

What we need is real change. Election of a real change maker, not the same old, same old.

So, your assignment today is to do the following.

Find someone with the brains, wisdom and courage to stand up to the special interests, and get them to run for office.

Find people that are independent, and not whack jobs, who possess the strength of character to live up to the promises they make.

If you are that person, then run for office.

Remember, Mr. Obama came from an obscure state senate seat he won because all of his opponents were removed from the ballot before the elections and the Senate race in Illinois collapsed as Mr. Obama entered the race. That is one of those lovely parts of Chicago politics, which is not, and never has been, beanbag. So to speak.

His only contested election, of meaningful contest levels that is, was in 2008. And that was as much a vote against the same old from the Republicans as it was a vote for Mr. Obama.

We need change. We've been promised it for decades, and none have delivered. It is now the moment when change is an imperative.

Be that change.

Just a thought.

Accidents happen, and I apologize

I had a poster who left a comment in Chinese, which is not my native language. As I attempted to run it through a translator to check the content, just to be sure the content was in line with the policy of this blog, I accidentally deleted it.

As I don't speak or read Chinese, or any Oriental language, I cannot tell from whom the post was made. If this post appears to be speaking to you, please re-post your comment, and I won't delete it before I get it through the translator system. The accident, bad as it was, was just that, an accident.

Please accept my apology, and come back often. I'll do my very best to make sure that posts are made to the blog, and that deletions are only made in accord with the Meet the Muse policy of keeping everything civil, polite, and productive. Thank you.

Announcement -- Policy of the Muse you are here to meet

This is friendly advice to those posting here. Your comments are welcome, but please keep them on topic. Keep away from posting comments that are designed to drive traffic to sites which are dating/mating/marriage/sex sites will be deleted forever. Be courteous. If you think your mother would be offended, chances are I would be offended also. I want everyone welcome here, so be on your best behavior.

Today I learned that not all posters to this blog have been operating with the sort of respect I hold for others. And, while my own morality cannot be imposed upon others, I can and will demand that anyone posting here refrain from any links or posts that are sexually explicit, contain sexually explicit photos or links, link to sites that exploit women, men, or children, or that otherwise attempt to direct traffic to sites that are not respectful.

I am not a prude, but I do find it offensive that visitors to my blog may be offended by links that show photos of young girls in sexually suggestive poses, photo spreads of females in sexually explicit poses, or that otherwise could be connected to material offensive to my guests. I would not allow such in my home, nor will I allow it on my blog.

So, take notice. Comments will be edited for content and any links to sexually explicit material, sites, or material that could offend my friends that come here will not be tolerated. Period. Full stop.

The Muse is not happy with those that post here and are fishing or otherwise trying to lure people to sites where the front pages alone appear to show women in exploitive poses. Nude photos, lingerie poses, or any other such links, whether of men or women, will not be linked here any longer. If you are connected with such sites and wish to post here, please do so, but do not include any material that links back to such a site.

Please feel free to post your comments, and keep them on topic. I have not written about dating or sex, so all such comments from the past posts are clearly off topic.

Posting lists of words connected to explicit sexual acts, processes, poses, or sexual behavior, if not set forth in the blog posts I enter, will be deleted. Forever.

This is a site where children are also welcome. So, fair notice. Your behavior that could offend others will not be tolerated. Nor will the Muse be tolerating any further posts that link to such material.

Any questions? Please feel free to comment. But, as I have said above, keep it respectful. The Muse thanks you. Having said this, I am reminded that most of this post should have been unnecessary. I am hoping I'll not have to repeat myself.

Reality Check

Open pen, insert foot into mouth. In other words, what I wrote earlier about a Works Progress, fix the infrastructure using only US made products, US made tools, US made equipment, US made materials, and so on, won't work.

The reason?

Our economy has, as so many know, been outsourced to the point of making the word industry, as connected to the US, an oxymoron. Industriousness however still works in the "I want to work hard to earn money and make the place around me better--USA", still works, even if the workers here are not working.

I'm big enough to admit I was wrong.

Not completely wrong, but wrong I was.

So, let's revive the economy this way. Using as much of our native products as possible, let's fix that drainage system, those roads, the falling down bridges, the ready to fall down bridges, the schools, the parks, the harbors, the buildings, the whatever needs fixing. That means US made concrete, US workers, and to the extent possible, let's start rebuilding US industry. And roads.

Rather than just helping out the paper fortune makers, like the bankers, let's TARP the industry of the nation, using the industriousness of the nation, to make that which needs shoring up, repair, and so on, better.

Our roads were put in 50 years ago in the interstate system, and those roads need serious rebuilding. Dams are bursting, like in Iowa, and need repair. Of course the burst dam will need replacement. But did that bursting have to happen?

No, it certainly did not. That dam should have been repaired long ago. And if we can TARP the bankers, we can rebuild the assets of our infrastructure just as well, which would put thousands and thousands of people to work. Free the infrastructure from demolition due to ignoring the need for repair as we have done for decades, and fix it now.

Sure, plumbing for rainfall control is not as sexy as that new shopping center, but who wants to buy anything from a shopping center that has been flooded with raw sewage because the drainage system collapsed due to age and lack of repair?

Let's do it. Write your congressman/woman. Do it now. Insist on a plan to be implemented ASAP to prevent the neglect from getting worse. Let's prevent damage due to small rainfalls collecting and overwhelming a dam that should never have collapsed. Our hearts are with you Iowans, but we also need you all to stand with our campaign to put America back to work repairing that which cannot be outsourced, which is our infrastructure.

America the beautiful will be more secure for it. Secure from flood and resulting disaster. Let's do it now. Tomorrow will be too late for some, as the collapsed dam in Iowa shows, as the falling I35 bridge showed a few years ago. Now. Put Americans first. And let's repair the foundations so that America can rebuild it's economy, its industry, its cities and rural areas. Where there has been neglect, let's put America to work.

It could just be the asset protection that will grow assets further and faster than any bank bailout ever could. It will also help relieve those frightening unemployment numbers with a solid return on investment.

What if? An answer for an American stimulus that will put America to work

What if, in this time of uncertainty, our leaders injected some certainty into the world that is the millieu that is that under-certainty for Americans?

What if our leaders, such as they are, were to look at the one problem that we know is a really big problem?

Terrorism?

Deficit spending?

Nah.

Not those.

The ecomony is in there, but this is a one single problem we know is a problem. Infrastructure.

Unglamorous. Nasty dirty. Messy.

Failing.

We had I35 fall in the river in the Twin Cities of Minnesota. Collapse. Boom. Bridge in the drink.

Why?

Well, duh.

The bridge had exceeded its life. And at that point, it died.

Boom.

Bridge in the drink.

We have floods every time it rains. Flooded streets, flooded basements, flooded ball fields.

Flood.

From rain.

Not downpours, necessarily. Just rains.

We have bridges ready to fail. All over the place. Eventually all of them will fail. All. Bridges. Will Fail.

So, what's the plan?

Certainty.

In order to prevent failure, we go in and repair.

And, we put some rules for that repair plan.

First of all, only American companies that are based in America need apply to do the work. This is an American stimulus plan after all.

Only American citizens and documented aliens, which means the legal folk only, need apply to do the work.

Forget Halliburton. They call Dubai home.

Forget BP. They aren't American. Not all American. We want all this to be an All-American recovery program. For American workers.

We will only use American architects. American steel. American cement. American trucks, barges, bales, baling wire. This will be in contrast to all that globalist stuff that has exported our jobs and factories to God knows where. We want American manufactured stuff to go into making American roads and plumbing that keeps those road working well, working. Well.

Moving along. Build some new schools. Using, get this. American tools, American workers, American workers making American tools. In American factories.

Sound protectionist?

You bet.

We have more than one tenth of our workforce out of work. Put them to work. Make them build factories for American workers, making American tools, American goods, American products. Ours were once the best products in the world. Now we buy dross, junk and crap that breaks in a year.

Take window fans. Every two years, we need to replace them because they break. Yet, in 1973 I purchased three window fans that each lasted 15, 16, and 23 years. Since then, two years each.

Take hair dryers. Again, that dryer from 1975 still works. The new one I was given in 1998? Died in 2002. Not quite longevity.

Our roadbuilding was and remains the envy of the world. Yet, those roads, along with the draining pipes under them, have deteriorated.

Time, after all, will win. We need to rebuild infrastructure.

We need American workers leaning into that shovel, mixing that concrete. We need America ot rebuild the 80 percent of the manufacturing that we lost in the decades since NAFTA, CAFTA, and every other -AFTA, that has made American workers products into an 'afta-thought in the world. It begins here. It begins now.

American workers, employed by all American, non-linked to foreign companies, no international entanglements involved, rebuilding the greatest nation on earth.

Now.

Think about it.

Then write your city council, congress-critter, senator-critter, and your President. It is time to rebuild America for, by and with Americans. Naturalized, legal, home-born Americans. Top to toe.

It will not be a program that the top internationalists will promote, because they will not be in the 'pool' of companies that can apply for this. It will come from us, the bottom, and will go to the top. That is how this nation has always worked. Rebuild America. By Americans. For Americans.

Let's do it and stop asking, "What if?" Just do it.

Note to Self...

Do.

Be.

Do.

Be.

Do Be Do Be Do.

And that, as they say, pretty much says it all.


...sigh...

Can Today Be The Day?

This is the first day of the rest of your life.

Yeah.

Heard that. Over and again over. Heard it lots. Heard it at the beginning of lots of days, and at the ends of many days.

Of course, such pap is the stuff that keeps bumper sticker printers in magnetic sticker sheets and printers ink. It keeps those artsy slogan writers alive too, as they also slap those letter under thinly screened scenes of sunrises (never sunsets, for that would defeat the purpose of the line), and teachers, coaches, social workers, drugs counselors and others in the 'helping professions' hang those posters on walls, paste them on bulletin boards, and make visual hay with the image over the words.

But, what does it mean? Can today be all that different from yesterday? From a hundred yesterdays? A thousand yesterdays?

Is there anything more daunting that trying to [insert sound effect of car making screeching turn here], actually change the way ones life is progressing?

Well, is there?

Well, lets look at what might have to change in order to begin anew what was previously not so hot in the "boy, would I like to tell my high school class at the 30th Reunion about this."

Probably the list would contain income, job change, a few friend transplants, status amendments, new wardrobe, plastic surgery (think that 30th Reunion), new home, better car, better education, new opportunity, and the beat goes on...

Personally, I'd throw in a trip to the greengrocer, but then again, I've not seen fresh veg in too long to recount. It's the economy, stupid. [Blast, another bumper sticker strikes.]

In this economy, pretty much that entire list is off the charts in terms of feasibility. With the possible exception of education, which one can get, without diploma, if only the library card is exercised--and the library is open at any hours at all-- the whole thing is off the charts difficult. Of course, the whole point is the certificate, but that's another story, as they say. We are changing life, not piling up paper.

But, put the economy aside. Perhaps it is time to apply The Secret. Think your way to riches and new stuff. Like new digs, new friends (and more time for the old ones), new riches, new ... new...new...

AAARRRRGGHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!! Sorry about that.

Of course, you also might have to silence those voices that say we already have too much 'stuff'. You might not want the new car. You might be perfectly happy with your house, apartment or refrigerator box in the park. [Yeah, I know -- it's the economy, stupid.]

Me? I just want to be paid for my work. I just want to make more than $0.50 an hour. That alone would go a long way to making my life better. Newer. A life that would make me want to think of the future.

But when no one pays for work, then there is no incentive to work. That happens because I know from experience that I am working to be able to afford the ability to practice my profession. I am working full-time to support what is a part time practice of my profession. And that isn't going so well, because I still can't afford that trip to the grocery store I've been promising myself for the past 7 months. Thank God for dried beans, lentils, rice and spaghetti, though spaghetti without sauce is getting sort of old.

Someone, please send in the pap-masters and bumper stickers. I'm too knackered by it all to even read a book, to say nothing of writing one.

We Are All Joseph

Just past Independence Day is a good time to take stock of dependency. We depend upon the very air we breathe, the Sun that grows our food, the light from the Moon, the water we drink. We also depend upon something more, for we also depend upon our Creator. We may not know this Creator, and we may not believe in our Creator, but there it is. We are created and so depend upon our Creator to have created us so that will, belief and even hope can be, or not, related to and intrinsic to our thoughts of our very status as a product of Creation.

In the Beginning...there was the Word, there was the Creator of the Word, and there was the Word made flesh. The very substance of belief in those words. That is, belief in a Creator. That Creator made us, all of us, sons and daughters of His own. Our Creator sent us a Son, the very Substance of that Creation, as are all of us, and made us in that moment of infusion of life, the very spark of Creation. Bright eyes, bright soul, bright future, bright light. We are. We are created.

Sometime back there was a Chosen People announced. A tribe of sub-tribes, clans and groups. Chosen. Headstrong, stubborn, stiff-necked. Trust me, I am not speaking of Presbyterians, the stiff necked of the Reformation.

And then, long before John Calvin, we had that veil rending, earthquake causing, hypocrite caller, very embodiment of the best of Creation here on Earth with us. In a flash, he lived, died and returned. He walked among us as if he were the baker, the carpenter, the preacher, the brother we all wanted to have with us forever. Whoosh, and we were left alone, yet not alone. For in leaving, he left us not.

At his birth, this babe was adopted. The father that begat him not, took this babe into his arms, loved him and declared him his own. The one man on the planet who had not conceived this child loved the child as his own flesh. As such, a child who was not in the genealogy was in the genealogy. So to speak. Adoption does that.

Growing up, that child had brothers and sisters and playmates. Just like us. Of course, by the time we hit our third decade, few among us have disciples, but I digress. Think of them as friends with a following, fishing nets, bread baskets, and loyalty.

That child also had legends. Travel to Britain, perhaps a trip to the New World, as stint in India? Who knows for sure. And again, I digress.

Those journeys mean nothing. Centuries later, that child, the adopted son, would be known to many groups, tribes and nations. Adopted into the histories of many places and people. Adopted.

There it is again. That adoption.

Today, so many of us think of that child as so mighty, royal and highly placed, we cannot think of such a person as an adopted child. But that is what he was and is. Those of us who ignore this put ourselves in peril. We lose the point.

What? Whaddya mean we are in peril? Good of you to ask.

We forget the whole point. We forget the reason for the veil splitting in two that spring day in Jerusalem so many centuries ago. We forget the reason for the birth of that adopted child. We forget that now, rather than only the Chosen few among us, all can be part of the family by having the faith enough to adopt that once adopted baby as our own brother. And by that adoption, as happened with Joseph, it happens to us.

We adopt a child and are in turn adopted. We are adopted by faith into the Chosen Family. The Chosen Tribe. The Chosen People.

The Chosen are now redefined. It is not we who are chosen, but we who choose. It is our act of choice. And it is a choice that we must make each day. Choose me. Please choose me.

Oh, how we remember that phrase from playgrounds and pick up softball games, team sports, volleyball or Monopoly. This time, it is not we who cry out "Choose ME!"

This time it is another who cries to our very soul, adopt me. Pick me. Choose. Decide.

Of course, once done is not completely done. A good start, but not the end of the game. So to speak.

First we become like Joseph. We adopt and by our choice are chosen. Seems somehow backwards. After we are born we adopt and are adopted. Our independent choice makes us a dependent. A part of the family. A member of the tribe. A part of the Choosing People. Our choice.

Of course, once you adopt, you have to take next steps or adoption becomes a tragedy of inhuman scope. But that, as they say, is a topic for another day. For today it is but one choice to make, or not. Is adoption, the following in the steps of Joseph, who married his betrothed and adopted that son, not his? It is a choice, adoption is. It is a choice. Choose to be like Joseph, or not. Just a choice. A first choice to be sure, but a choice.

Choose wisely. The choice is yours and yours alone.