The Georgia Guidestones

Here’s something I heard about that falls into the “better check this out” category. I recently got into a conversation with someone who suggested I look up “Georgia Guidestones.” I did a search and found tons of information on something I never even knew existed. The only one I’ve read so far is an article on Wikipedia. A few excerpts follow:

The Georgia Guidestones is a large granite monument in Elbert County, Georgia, USA. A message comprising ten guides is inscribed on the structure in eight modern languages, and a shorter message is inscribed at the top of the structure in four ancient languages' scripts: Babylonian, Classical Greek, Sanskrit, and Egyptian hieroglyphs.

The structure is sometimes referred to as an "American Stonehenge." The monument is almost 20 feet (6.1m) tall … and made from six granite slabs weighing more than 240,000 pounds (110,000 kg) in all. One slab stands in the center, with four arranged around it. A capstone lies on top of the five slabs, which are astronomically aligned. An additional stone tablet, which is set in the ground a short distance to the west of the structure, provides some notes on the history and purpose of the Guidestones.

There's a lot more information about the Guidestones in the article, including a large section dealing with the ongoing controversy about who created and paid for the monument and more controversy about the meaning and intent of the Guidestones’ originator/creator. Here are the ten guides inscribed on the Guidestones:

1.        Maintain humanity under 500,000,000 in perpetual balance with nature.

2.        Guide reproduction wisely—improving

Random Thoughts & Annoyances

If you've been reading IMHO, you know I can get a little verbose. To cater to those with a short attention spans, I try to correct that here. I keep collecting ideas I want to comment on, but never seem to get around it. I might do better if I simply post a few thoughts as they occur to me and as time permits. Your comments and feedback are welcome. Or add your own pet peeves and annoyances.

What's bugging me now? So very much stuff it would take a three volume book to cover it all. Here's today's short list: TV commercials and serious abuse... of my native language!

• Advertising
  
  Prescription drugs Assuming you pay any attention to these commercials at all, you may have noticed that there are about fifteen seconds of happy people--pain-free, sleeping well, leaping out of bed ready to conquer the world! The other forty-five  seconds are warnings about possible side effects. Personally, I'd rather live with my stuffy nose than trade it in for nosebleeds, indigestion, constipation, and occasional thoughts of suicide or... the possibility of bleeding to death unexpectedly (not that any of us expect to suddenly and for no apparent reason, just fall down on the floor and bleed to death)!
  
  My sister had two close-call bleeding-to-death episodes from two different NSAID drugs. If her husband hadn't been home when they happened, she would have died years earlier than she did. Think I'm gonna try those drugs? No way.
  
  
  Know why those makeup ads always show beautiful women who look like they're fifteen?

The Dark Side of Political Correctness

What follows is basically a lead-in or preface to my next article, a rant about my efforts to understand what’s happening in the world and how we got where we are today. Some stuff I’ve learned has either led me to some (possibly) weird or hair-brained conspiracy theories. As a consequence, I’m trying to be rational and base my information on not-easily-verified but interesting information from outside sources.

The article below was first published on Helium.com on May 24, 2008 under my Helium pen name.

Political Correctness Gone Wrong

by Sondra Deuber, May 2008 [lightly edited in 2011]

Here's a purely rhetorical questions: how can something that was wrong from the start go wrong? Political correctness was never a good idea, but the ramifications are either worse than its creators ever dreamed or (heaven forbid!) it's exactly what they had in mind from the beginning.

According to Philip Atkinson, "Political Correctness (PC) is the communal tyranny that erupted in the 1980s. It was a spontaneous declaration that particular ideas, expressions and behavior, which were then legal, should be forbidden by law, and people who transgressed should be punished."

Mr. Atkinson points out that freedom of choice and freedom of speech are the community's safeguards against tyranny and states

Dear Donald Duc.... uh, Trump

PLEASE NOTE: This was written a day or two before the news broke about the death of Osama bin Laden. Mr. Trump has been quite silent since the President's announcement, but I decided to publish this anyhow. Who knows when Clown-in-Chief Trump might want to start mouthing off again!

~~~~~

Mr. Trump, sir: Every time you open your blow hole to crow about how brilliant you are; every time you interrupt an interviewer ten times during every statement he or she tries to make or question he or she tries to ask you… Well, sir, just the fact that you are totally unable to listen to anybody on any subject proves that you cannot possibly be the smartest person on the planet.

One important thing that most intelligent people have in common is that we know how to listen to others and learn from them. If you cannot listen, you cannot learn. You can’t learn that other people have valuable knowledge that might actually reinforce your opinion. Or, of course, you might have to face the fact that you at least appear to others to be a monumental ignoramus with a special talent for making himself look like the modern version of a court jester. In other words, you have become the laughing stock of the country and, possibly, the world.

Recent polls show that should you, by some serious voting machine malfunction, get the nomination for president (if you were actually serious about running), you might get a few votes against President Obama. The polls I’ve seen in the last few weeks indicate that an overwhelming majority of republican, independent, and democrat voters would not vote for you in a million years. A few might, but probably wouldn’t. I am happy to know that you don’t stand a snowball’s chance…

Now on to the larger issue, since you don’t seem to care that you are now the official clown for a large majority of the planet’s population. That larger issue has to do with the president’s intellectual abilities.

I can only tell you about my own experience as a student, but I suspect it’s similar in some respects to Obama’s experience. The main differences are that I am a white female and he “isn’t one of us”. Oh yeah… on my mother’s side of the family, I am a second generation Russian-American Jew. Never mind that my English/Irish father’s side of the family have been citizens of the U.S. since before the revolution. I’m sure you’d cross me off the list of possibly intelligent people just because I am a female who is legally Jewish, despite my own choice of religion. Nobody likes a smart broad, and anti-Semitism is about as hard to overcome as racism is.

So here’s my story. I was a lousy student for the first twelve years of my education. I was just bored out of my mind. I did very well in subjects that interested me and ignored the others. The principal of my grammar school felt it was critical that I be advanced a couple of grades, just for intellectual stimulation to get me interested and help me learn to study. Mom, misguided as she was, felt it was more important that I remain with my ‘little friends.’ She was raised to believe that a girl couldn’t be a good and obedient wife and mother if she thought she was smart.

By the time I was in high school, my family was convinced that I must be mentally retarded. They had the school administer an IQ test. No one would tell me my score. My mother wouldn’t tell me because, she said, she didn’t want me to think I was smart. It would make me too vain.

I almost flunked out of high school because I never learned to study. I did flunk out of my first try in college. I didn’t know how to study, or even that it was necessary. Besides, I was having too much fun to bother. I failed on my second attempt too. I was learning to study at the same time I was learning that I couldn’t work a full-time night job and carry a full load in college during the day. That was more a burn-out than an intellectual failure.

When I was in my 30s, I discovered employer tuition reimbursement programs. For the most part, I had to study what my employer was willing to pay for. If I got grades below a C, I wouldn’t get a penny of reimbursement. To get all my money back, I had to ace all my classes. No problem, once I got serious.

By the time my ex and I moved to Colorado and I went to work for a major oil company, I had been on the Dean’s List every quarter or semester of my employer-funded education. The lowest GPA I got may have been as low as 3.5. It was usually closer to 3.8.

My first geology instructor suggested I take the Mensa test. The very idea terrified me, but he finally convinced me. I took it and learned that my IQ is in the 99th percentile—one percentage point higher than required for Mensa membership.

Sometime later, I learned that IQ is not a measure of intelligence per se, but rather a measure of one’s potential. The intelligence part is determined by what you do with that potential. Some of the smartest and wisest people I have known have above-average IQs that are well below genius level. Some of the highest IQ people I have known are dumber than dirt, never bothered by a serious thought beyond partying and (in their words) getting laid. I know because I asked them what made them join Mensa or Intertel, an organization exclusively for people with IQs in the top one percent.

President Obama and I had some common childhood situations. My father died when I was just over a year old, so I was raised by a single mother, as was Obama. His mother went to school and got a doctorate. My mother didn’t finish high school, but passed the California civil service exam on her first try and went on to a highly successful career with the state. All things considered, her success was quite amazing. She was at the right place at the right time: World War II was underway and the men had gone off to fight for their country. Women (including my mother) entered the workplace in a serious way for the first time.

My mother’s job was a good one. She earned enough to keep a roof over our heads, to feed us well, and had enough left over for plenty of good times too. The rest of the family on her side were what qualified as solidly upper middle class, or higher. They spoiled me rotten. I may have had cultural advantages unavailable to Obama. First, I was white. Secondly, my family was part of the higher end of ‘society’ in our small city.

After a layoff in Colorado, I returned to school to complete a degree. No employer tuition reimbursement this time! Just a full scholarship, an old dorm room in what had become a faculty apartment building, a Pell Grant, and student loans to take care of books, groceries, etc.

Shortly before the end of my senior year, I received a letter at my sister and brother-in-law’s home, my official residence while I was in the private and exclusive college I attended. It was from the school, and it was sent to notify me that I was to be awarded a Phi Beta Kappa key. At the time, I had no idea what that was, but my family certainly knew! My sister, who was seventeen when I was born, and her husband rejoiced like very proud parents. I was actually ready to blow the whole thing off. They wouldn’t allow that and, once they told me what it signified, I didn’t have to be convinced to RSVP for the presentation ceremony and dinner and order my key.

The PBK award is presented to those with a demonstrated lifetime of academic excellence. I graduated cum laude, not magna cum laude--having been too busy with work-study jobs to take the honors classes available to me. My final cumulative GPA was 3.75. It’s probably higher now, since I took the required classes for a work-related certificate in Graphics and Multimedia and earned a cumulative GPA of 4.0 for that course of study.

As much as this “late bloomer” achieved, my achievements are not even close—even academically—to those achieved by the president. I don’t usually like to talk about this stuff. I really prefer to keep it private, unless I’m highly motivated. I prefer the real people who have comprised most of my friends for most of my life. When they are co-workers, they have always been aware that I’m very good at my job. But most of them are as good at their jobs as I am at mine and there is enough mutual respect to go around without mouthing off about it.

Besides, the anti-intellectualism that is so common these days tends to scare people off. There are a few who hate you if they even suspect you have a high IQ (without really understanding that it’s only an indicator of potential). Smart people are not threatened by other smart people. No point in bragging about it.

Mr. Trump, you recently made some horribly racist remarks regarding the president’s intellectual abilities. The fact that your uber-rich friends’ kids didn’t get into Ivy League colleges is probably because they were not high achievers. No amount of money can motivate ho-hum students who believe they’ll succeed simply because of the balance in their family’s bank accounts or the square footage of the mansions in which they live.

The college from which I graduated was filled with kids from very rich families, kids who attended the most prestigious prep schools and simply didn’t make the grade. Instead, they ended up in some very excellent private colleges that offered the opportunity for top-notch learning. Far too many of them had no interest in learning anything. They partied, traveled to exotic places during breaks, and spent what could have been study time in AA meetings (we had our own AA branch right on campus). Fortunately, the school has lost its party-school label and has regained its former reputation of being a top-notch academic institution, a label it has worn proudly since its founding in 1831.

If you were nearly as intelligent as you like to make yourself out to be, you might understand that sometimes having less lights a fire in some of us, a fire that makes us passionate about doing more. Maybe we would like to have an opportunity to earn a little more in a better job. Some of us are just passionate about learning.

Thanks to some of my more recent learning, I understand that the only difference between you and a brilliant African-American is (genetically) so minute that it doesn’t really count at all. The visible differences (skin color, etc.) are partially the result of physical adaptations that made survival possible in a variety of environments. When our common African ancestors left Africa and migrated to different parts of the world, their skin color, size and shape of noses, etc. changed to accommodate their new environments. Northern Europeans became lighter-skinned, for example, since they no longer had to compensate for the harsh African conditions.

Those who remained in Africa and the Middle East didn’t suddenly get stupid because they didn’t migrate to other parts of the world. Their brains and yours? I have studied and worked with brilliantly intelligent South African scholars and incredibly stupid and bigoted  pure white, spoiled rich kids. And vice versa.

And I might add that the most self-confident and intelligent people almost never are so egocentric to need to constantly tell everyone how special they are. People notice. Only the insecure, the biggest a-holes and clowns amongst us feel the need to constantly boast about what they know is not true about themselves, in an attempt to cover up their own inadequacies. The rest of us sit back quietly and just laugh at the clowns who have no idea what fools they are making of themselves.

How Much Sense Does This Make?

Picture this: a family is sitting around the dining room table, discussing their options for getting out of debt. Dad has a plan.

“Okay, guys, we currently have more debt than we’ve ever had as a family. I’ve come up with a great plan for paying off all the bills and getting out of this mess. After all, our bills and credit card debt are higher than they’ve ever been before and we have to get it back to what it was when there was just mom and me… before we decided to have ten kids.”

“But honey,” responds mom, “there were only two of us back then. We lived in a small, cheap apartment. Now we’re making payments on a $175,000 house and three cars. We didn’t have all these bills for health care for twelve of us instead of two. The only college loans we had to pay off were our own. Of course our expenses are higher. There are a lot more of us than there were back then.”

The kids all nod in agreement.

“Absolutely correct, sweetheart. So here’s what I want to do. I want to use the debt-reduction plan proposed by Paul Ryan. The guy’s a genius and he’s dealing with a much bigger problem than we have. After all, if we can’t trust our politicians, who can we trust?”

Nobody nods in agreement… not even the four-year-old twins.

“Here’s my plan. We’ve been trying to keep up with the Jones family down the block. Even though Mr. Jones makes $500 million a year, their expenses are much higher than ours. They need more money to maintain their lifestyle. So… the best way to get ourselves out of debt is to adopt the republican proposal ourselves. Listen to this: we can get out of debt—first of all—by cutting the money we have coming in each month and giving the extra to the Joneses. Then we drop our health and homeowners insurance, go on food stamps and/or start hitting the free food pantries. We’ll be out of debt in no time… and the Jones family won’t have to sacrifice an iota of their lifestyle.”

Mom and the kids look at each other, then at dad. In unison, they respond: “YOU IDIOT!” Then, again in unison, they stand up and head for the front door… never to be seen again. Dad, of course is sad that his family is gone but—on the other hand—he’s kinda happy: eleven fewer mouths to feed!

In today’s (April 11, 2011) New York Times:

Mr. Ryan said it would cut $6 trillion in the coming decade, though budget analysts questioned some of the claimed savings. The plan would turn Medicare into a voucher program for future generations and slash spending for the need-based Medicaid program and other domestic initiatives, while largely sparing the Pentagon and cutting $4 trillion more in corporate and high-income taxes.

This is the plan that the head of our imaginary family just proposed, for all intents and purposes. Another $4 TRILLION in tax cuts so the rich can continue to get richer. Turning Medicare into a “voucher program” will—as I understand it—give the poorest among us a few bucks to buy their own insurance at the going market rate. That’s definitely going to cut a huge number of people from the insurance company's lists of subscribers.

The really desperately poor will have their Medicaid slashed (remember those people on their way to the operating room when Arizona’s governor announced that Medicaid would no longer pay for their transplants, since the state needs the money for prisons?) Ryan’s plan will also slash unspecified “other domestic initiatives,” which may add money to the government’s income but will, or should, hugely increase government expenses: more handouts to the un- or under-employed; more food banks and homeless shelters. They’ll probably have to pay a lot more for medical services, since many millions of people will no longer have health care or the money to pay for emergency medical care.

Keep this in mind: more huge tax cuts for the richest among us REDUCES THE GOVERNMENT’S INCOME BY TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS while increasing the wealth of the top one percent. The more you cut taxes, the less money the government collects to pay its bills. Yes, it’s lovely for the rich to get richer. But… the less money the government has, the less they can spend on trivial stuff like health programs; food programs; police and fire protection; and a huge number of other services that the government currently provides for the country and for the 99% of us at the bottom of the food chain.

According to the 2010 census, there are now about 310 million people in the U.S. Of course the stupid debt is higher than it has ever been in the history of our country: there are at least ten million more of us than there were in 2000 (the last time the Federal budget was balanced). And there are probably about 308 or 309 million more than there were when this country became a country.

Of course the government’s debt is higher! If you keep slashing its income to benefit the multimillionaires and billionaires, it gets less money. When the income is slashed that much, social services and more have to be cut. For the ultra-conservatives, the best place to slash the budget is to take away services that help the poorest citizens. It’s beginning to seem like it’s deliberate: quit providing health care, food stamps, and other services and sooner or later, many will die… from starvation, freezing, or from stuff as easily treatable or preventable as a bad case of the flu. However… somebody would have to dispose of all the dead bodies. Hope they include that little social service in the new deficit reduction plan!

A program called “Greed” aired last week on one of the History channels. It was very interesting and pointed out how, when greed continues to increase, countries and even great empires fall. The U.S. has, by definition, been an empire from the time when we first took possession of places like the Philippines and Cuba, early in the 20th century. What you get when a country turns its focus from taking care of its own people and spends its money and human resources on people in countries it has conquered; when it has military outposts all over the world… well, that’s part of what you can track to see if your country is an empire. Just like the Roman Empire, this one we live in is in decline. There’s always another country to support, or invade, or to go to war with.

Meanwhile, our highways and bridges are crumbling around us. Our coastal waters and our fresh water supply are more and more polluted. We seem to be hell-bent on destroying our environment and our planet. That’s much easier, I guess, than asking the richest of businesses to behave responsibly and clean up the messes they create. Somehow, the top 1% seem to think that they’ll be immune to the consequences of neglecting their own country. If there’s no clean air to breathe or clean water left to drink anywhere, do they really believe that their money will be able to buy them some?

On the “Greed” show, they did a moderately comprehensive bit on what led to the Great Depression. I wondered how close our current situation is to what was happening back then. I got out my favorite American history book, A People’s History of the United States, by Howard Zinn, and started reading the relevant chapters. Chapter 10, “The Other Civil War,” discusses the demonstrations and riots of the bottom 99% against the top 1%. We seem to be doing a lot more of that these days although—at least on the protestors’ part—it hasn’t gotten as violent as the protests and riots did in the 19th and early 20th centuries.

In Chapter 11, “Robber Barons and Rebels” (which I’m still reading), I learned that before the stock market crash, the rich were getting enormously richer and the poor were getting more and more desperate. In my first political science class many years ago, one of the “required reading” textbooks said that the only reason FDR and his administration started Social Security in the first place was to forestall what the president believed could lead to an overthrown of the government--the author’s take on the situation.

“They” say that if we forget our history (or never learn it because a whole heck of a lot of it isn’t included in our K-12 history books)… if we forget our history, we are sure to repeat it. I sincerely believe that if Mr. Ryan and the far right get their way, we are in for much worse than anything we’ve seen in many decades.

You don’t have to be a history expert. You don’t have to really do much of anything beyond having a quick look at the math: if you slash the income of the government to give more money to the richest people… something has to give. Remember, those are our tax dollars being contributed to the “haves” and leaving little or nothing for the rest of us.

MSNBC’s newest motto is “Lean Forward”. Catchy, huh! I’m not sure exactly what they’re trying to tell us… maybe something like ‘move ahead’ or ‘it will all get better if we look to the future’ or…? You can interpret it for yourself. My significantly less optimistic take: if somebody doesn’t pay attention to all those Pulitzer Prize winning economists, world history, and just plain, old-fashioned good sense and basic math, we indeed could be in for very lean (and possibly violent) times as we move forward.

Maybe I should write a well-researched book on the Rise and Fall of the American Empire. Never mind. Good history books require some time to put things in perspective. I’ll leave that for a future generation of writers.

No Blue Monday for this writer...

During a typical evening in my humble little abode, and after I knock off work, I amuse myself by watching some fav cable shows, usually science, history, or news… geeky stuff mostly, I guess. Or I read… or watch TV and read during commercials… or snooze in the recliner. I occasionally interrupt this rigorous schedule to check my email. I had forgotten the recent message reminding me that the winners of the eLit Book Awards would be announced yesterday. I read the competition details before checking the list of winners.

Finally, I scrolled down the page to the Autobiography/Memoir awards and was blissfully happy to see my memoir, Living on the Sunny Side, next to Gold! I entered on a lark (never hurts to try, right?), figuring that even a bronze award would help with the never-ending promotion all writers must endure… or watch their books die a slow and painful death! I didn’t dare hope for Gold!

Living on the Sunny Side has received two 5-star reviews (one on Amazon for the original print version, one on Smashwords for the more recently updated ebook) and four 4-star reviews on Amazon. Maybe, I thought, it has a chance.

From the Web page:

The first-annual eLit Awards are global awards program committed to illuminating and honoring the very best of English language digital publishing entertainment. 

The 2010 eLit Awards were created as industry wide, unaffiliated awards program open to all members of the electronic publishing industry.

The contest is presented by Jenkins Group Inc., a Michigan-based book publishing and marketing services company that has operated the popular Independent Publisher Book Awards contest since 1996.

The eLit Awards celebrate the ever growing market of electronic publishing in the wide variety of reader formats. Hail the revolutionary world of e-books and join the awards program that’s highlighting the best in electronic reading entertainment!

When I became (evidently) permanently unemployed in late 2007, I devoted most of my time to learning to be a freelance writer, taking an online class in proofreading to help me become a better editor, writing my memoir, and last (and in this case, least instead of ‘but not least’) a POD publisher. The publishing business was mostly to publish my own books and perhaps an occasional book for a friend or two. Of necessity, I also learned how to design and format manuscripts as required for submissions/queries to publishers; for print versions; and eventually for ebooks.

There were small successes along the way, mostly from freelance writing, editing, and design. Promoting my memoir took a back seat to earning some cold, hard cash when I started to get some steady work. The other books I wanted to write remained at the very bottom of the to-do list.

Now, the recognition this award could bring has motivated me, big time, to get back to work on the real story of my father’s side of the family. I’ve thought about this book for a while, first deciding to create a novel based on the actual history. But it just didn’t feel right. I was uncomfortable describing Grandma Jenny’s life—it would need to be a bit more erotic than I’m comfortable writing, which wouldn’t bother me as much if it wasn’t about actual relatives—described in detail in more than sixteen single-spaced pages of notes and two completed first-draft chapters my parents wrote when they learned my father was dying. I felt somewhat guilty putting words in the mouths of people I never knew, words from my own mind/fantasies, and describing the corresponding actions. Did the research. Traced the family tree back as far as I could. Put it aside.

Just recently, I nixed the fact-based novel genre and have come up with a possibly viable approach, using my parents notes and adding the results of my research and my own insights. (I’m almost convinced I’m grandma’s reincarnated self, or am at least channeling her. The similarities are amazing. I just have been significantly better behaved.) We’ll see how that works out. But at least I’m motivated now to see what I can come up with so I can finally complete The Notorious Mrs. Dauber.

And if I get stuck… I’m much more motivated to work on the other bottom-of-the-list projects, especially now that I understand they may work best as ebooks.

It has taken me close to four years to see anything ahead in this long dark tunnel, anything but pitch black. Little by little, another speck of light appears in the distance. Then another. And another…

I’m convinced that the keys to success in anything include learning the trade/craft you want to practice; having some basic abilities and a strong drive to learn to improve them; and allowing yourself to ‘march to a different drummer’ when necessary. But most important, as a writer, is probably to develop a thick skin, a lot of patience, and the tenacity to keep trying for as long as it takes!

Oh, yeah! And it’s helpful if you can talk yourself out of the occasional depression when you believe the “muse” has abandoned you!

Secrets? Our Government? You Bet!

Whether you voted for the first time in 2008 or 2010, or have voted in every election in the last fifty years, you’ve probably noticed that there can be a huge disparity between what the candidates say when they’re campaigning and what they actually do if they’re unfortunate enough to get elected. I finally decided that they’re all just liars, and (as Aristotle or one of the Greek philosophers asserted) will say whatever it is they believe you want to hear to get you to vote for them.

Something else I’ve wondered about is exactly how much candidates really understand about the job… like what really goes on in the inner sanctums of government, who really runs things, how are decisions really made and who, ultimately, makes them. Is this democracy business really what we believe it to be, or is it just the ‘public face’ of our government? What are the secrets, if there are any, that newly elected presidents don’t find out about until after they are sworn in?

On March 15, a program on History International addressed some of those questions, but didn’t necessarily answer them. They are, after all, government secrets. The title of the show? The President’s Book of Secrets.

It never actually verified that there is a physical book of secrets, but did reveal that there are many things the candidates we love to love… or to hate… only find out about after they take the oath of office. There were, however, examples or hints throughout the program. For example, I learned that when George W. Bush, our 43rd president, left office and Barack Obama entered the Oval Office for the first time as the president, the only thing on the desk was a sealed envelope addressed only to “44”. The contents of the letter from “43” to “44” were not revealed, nor was whether it was “Eyes Only” for “44”. Unless you happen to be one of the very few who will ever be elected to the office of President of the United States, you’ll never find out. For the other 300 million+ of us, it will likely remain a secret forever.

The narrator pondered as to whether or not the letter included information regarding the location of The President’s Book of Secrets or if there actually is such a book.

Here’s one that is relevant right now, with the battle to slash the budget to almost nothing or finance anything that will help the nation’s recovery. There evidently is (or at least, might be) something called the Black Budget, which is the part of the President’s budget that congress never gets to see. It’s used for secret projects, research facilities, secret experiments. There are lots of code names. Some of them even the President doesn’t know about until the last moment or only when it becomes absolutely necessary. According to the program, it’s approximately $30-$40 billion annually!

I took as many notes as I could, but as you may have noticed in school, when you’re writing  notes, you’re quite likely to miss the bit that will definitely be on the next exam. So here’s a question I did write down, although I didn’t manage to get the answer, assuming there was one: Is there a hidden/secret group of people who function independent of the President and others in the government? That’s something else I’ve wondered about over the years: Who is really pulling the strings? Who’s really in charge, if push comes to shove? Alas, no answer was forthcoming.

Evidently, the president (and perhaps others) can never say that there is a secret book. It should always be “If there is a book of secrets…” The president, we were told, must never trust anyone. If he wants to trust someone, he should get a dog. That explains why so many of our presidents appeared to be animal lovers!

Another question raised was whether or not there are hidden requirements for the office of president… like college friendships, especially those at Yale. Memberships in organizations like the Masons, or Yale’s Skull & Bones… all of which can provide access to power, money, people all because of the associations. There is probably not a conspiracy, according to the program, but a lot of Skull & Bones members are picked by presidents for important government positions.

There was a lot of stuff about the Secret Service. Evidently the only time the president and his family are ever alone is when they go to the bathroom or when they’re in their private quarters. Even then, they are guarded from outside the White House. We heard a lot about the preparations for even a casual visit in a close friend’s home. Past presidents and “44” have said they felt like they were locked in a ‘golden cage’ in the White House.

I worked at the airport for quite a while and watched many presidential arrivals. Preparations started a couple of days before the president arrived. If anyone had missed the news about our chief executive’s visit, one only had to drive past the airport and see the huge, gray transport plane sitting on the tarmac. The Secret Service and FBI spent their time checking everything and everyone within the airport perimeters. On the day Air Force One arrived, traffic was completely stopped in every direction, on every road of the president’s main route and a few surrounding routes, just in case there was an emergency that required a quick change in plans.

If you happened to be heading for work and were unable to arrive on time because all the roads were blocked… well, be thankful for your cell phone! Fortunately, the managers knew where you were and why you weren’t at work. Once, I just barely made it on time. When I arrived, the gates to our facility were locked down and an armed guard was reluctant to let me in until I showed him my ID and he confirmed my identity and legitimacy.

Fortunately, a lot of the people I worked with were ex-military who had knowledge of these things. When the president’s plane landed… well, it was awesome! We could only look through the glass wall that faced the runway and the official “parking space” of this display of American power.

When I watched the whole thing the first time, I was standing next to an ex-Marine friend, who explained to me all the vehicles that were disgorged from the belly of the huge transport. There were several buses for the press corps, and a long line of what appeared to be ordinary black SUVs. Of course, the whole thing was guarded by probably every policeman or state trooper who wasn’t home sick (and no, I don’t remember all the details).

What I learned was that among those heavily-armored black SUVs were “war wagons” ready to take on just about any attack one could imagine, just like Air Force One. What I learned from the program was that there is what amounts to a mini-hospital too, equipped to deal with almost any presidential emergency. Another friend who had worked for the Secret Service told me about how they go about the business of protecting the president when he travels.

Presidential travel is a very big deal, made even bigger when something like the September 11 attack on the Twin Towers happens. We learned how many secure bunkers there are all over the country but, of course, nothing about where they are. They did use a graphic to show the location of the bunker in D.C. where the vice president hangs out when there’s a threat.

There was a mini-tour of the briefing room, which started out many years ago as a small but secured office and has now grown to a very large and high-tech facility, where it is staffed 24/7/365 by people monitoring… stuff.

The physical and mental health of the president is top secret, totally hidden from the public, and especially from enemies that might take advantage of the situation. The president has a private armored suite in Bethesda.

Another question raised but not answered: Are there records about UFOs sightings and/or landings? Aliens that are already amongst us? Sorry folks, that’s top secret too, I guess!

The “nuclear football” always goes everywhere the president goes. During the transition from one president to another, there are two of them—one for the departing president and one for the incoming one… just in case we have to nuke somebody during the inaugural parade or festivities.

Is there really a book of secrets? The program points out that only five living people know for sure—our current president and the four living past presidents.

I wish I’d had a DVR, but the DVD is available in the History Channel Store for $19.95 which I plan to order on payday. I did get my questions answered (and more) despite my scanty notes.

The narrator pointed out that during their campaigns, presidential candidates may actually be expressing what they really feel is the right thing to do for the country. Sometimes, they might be lying because they know that if they told you their actual agendas, no one would ever vote for them. Either way, it isn’t until after the inauguration that he learns the secrets about the government and how it works, everything he did not know until he stepped into the Oval Office shortly after becoming president.

Try as he might to make good on his promises, the secret hidden government evidently quickly lets him know that they could not, would not, simply will not allow it—for reasons they will never share with us.

My advice? Cut ‘em a little slack in the future. Understand that while the president might be “the most powerful leader in the world,” even his strings are very possibly being pulled by parties unknown, and are likely to remain that way.

No wonder the gray hair starts to show up so soon after they are sworn in. Presumably, they had an idea of what they were getting into when they made the decision to run for office. But they didn’t learn about the secrets until it was too late!