It is Memorial Day weekend - time to Remember, then Love and Live - God's Fallen Warriors

I do not know about you but I really need a break from reality, at least for a weekend.  What better way to change your outlook than by focusing on the sacrifices by so many members of our armed forces, dating back to George Washington and his ragtag Continental Army.

We all know people who have served, or we are beneficiaries of the service by others who gave us freedom, hope, equality and justice.  I suppose if one were realistic, they would say we honor those who sacrificed for others, yet wonder about those who ignore the sacrifices and do things that are not in the public interest.

When I was young I lived to have the opportunity to defend freedom.  My career in both sports and education were preparation for joining the military.  Even as I was playing basketball at the University of Arizona I was immersed in an intensive Reserve Officer Training Program to prepare me for the inevitable service during the Vietnam war.

However, Divine Providence has other ideas for us on occasion so at the moment I volunteered for the draft armed only with high marks in officer's training, they discovered my body had been permanently damaged from fifteen years of intensive sports achievement.  

Rather than military service, I spent much of the next three decades working in government and politics.  Sometimes we just have to find the good in adversity.

So this weekend, as I do every year, I will honor our fallen heroes.  I will honor those who have not fallen but gave up their lives for us through injury and stress and will never be able to lead a normal life.  I will honor the families of those heroes whose lives were changed forever by wars halfway around the world.

Here is a song I wrote to honor those heroes, to help keep the memory of their supreme sacrifice alive so it could not be forgotten.  It is performed by my band, Nashville Bound. I hope you take the time to listen to it.  The name of the song is "No One's Left Keeping Score."  Click on the link below to hear it. 

http://soundclick.com/share.cfm?id=9481087

Memorial Day - Honoring our Heroes - God Bless our Patriots and Protectors

CPT Twit - Forget the news, forget the politics - It's a New day America - Live - Love - Learn - keep on Dancing and Singing

Dance

Sing

Some of my favorite movie scenes...

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Observations from the Swamp #1 – Politics, Parties, Puppets and Peers

(An outsider’s view from inside)

In about twenty months America will again determine a course for the future and not a moment too soon.  Maybe we should all agree that this time we will support the president we elect and give him or her a chance to do some good for “we the people.”

What a novel idea indeed.  However, it sure looks like a painful path lies ahead to get there.

Think about the monumental task ahead for our president, whoever it may be.  First, they have to traverse the minefield called the primary election, and win.  Only two will be left standing of the nearly thirty candidates of the Democrats and Republicans.  Then they must get elected president a couple of months later.

On the one side we have the Republican incumbent Donald Trump, who thinks he should have been immortalized as the newest American Action Hero and given a Marvel comic Book Series.

The other side are two dozen or more Democrats of all stripes, sizes, genders and bias, who are promoting everything to everyone regardless of the cost, the consequence, or even the possibility for approval.  In truth,  they are all chasing Joe Biden.

Of course, reporting on the election circus is done by the highly suspect news media and I use that description with much trepidation.  Once upon a time there was a definable, properly sourced, and credible news media.  It was objective, gave both sides to every story, and very seldom were they rewarded with a byline – which means getting credit for a story for those too young to remember.

Today objective and unbiased stories are nearly impossible to find.  Today reporters want to be the story, the stars of the Virtual Internet News era, which means they tell you what to think.

Fortunately, the vast majority of people place little credibility in the news media.  That is a fact that can easily be sourced.  Look at the latest Nielsen TV ratings and note viewership has fallen off the cliff.  Gallop polls show the News Media credibility is fighting Congress for the least trusted of American institutions.

In the fifty-four years I have been eligible to vote there have been eleven presidents, Kennedy – Johnson – Nixon – Ford – Carter – Reagan – Bush Sr – Clinton – Bush Jr – Obama – Trump.  Six Republicans and five Democrats.

Only four served a full two terms.  Three smoked pot as if that is a big deal.  Six graduated from the Ivy League which has now controlled the American Presidency for thirty straight years, and that might be a big deal.

As for me, I am the embodiment of diversity.  For eight years I was a Democrat, a Republican for eighteen years, and a Registered Independent going on thirty years.  From my perspective, it was hard to tell the difference between the two parties, other than their meaningless political platforms.

Now I want to apologize to my native home state of Iowa, safely located in the Midwest, the American heartland.  You are under invasion from the ever-growing herd of Democratic candidates and will be for the next nineteen months.

The avalanche of presidential candidates comes on the heels of the last presidential election where nearly twenty candidates competed.  Oh, and they bring with them those dastardly fake news crews, political pundits and professional politicians.

You see poor Iowa is host to the first major vote in the presidential primary election, the legendary Iowa caucuses.  For the past two years since the last presidential election Iowa has been inundated with five hundred-year floods, quite an anomaly for a natural disaster.  It was also inundated by people running for president in 2016 and now they are off and running for the 2020 campaign.

Just the two major parties have now offered nearly fifty candidates, with over thirty for the 2020 slugfest, to win the hearts, minds and pocketbooks of those good people and unsuspecting Iowa Hayseeds.  That means there have been nearly as many candidates in just two elections as the total number of presidents in our nation’s history.

It really was a swamp!

People I met from around the world always marveled at all the choices available to American consumers, but fifty presidential candidates defy logic.  Bear in mind that does not include the third-party radical fringe candidates also on the ballot.

American voters have to find their way through a lot of smoke and fog to pick the right person.  Iowans will be the first to make their mark in our election Olympics and fear not, they will be up to the task.

When caucus day comes Monday, February 3^rd, 2020 it will be the first indication of who actual voters are backing, not who the overly ambitious and biased reporters and anchors are telling them to back.

I am betting on those Hayseeds to set the record straight for our national debate.  Will it be the anti-establishment Action Hero Trump or the consummate establishment Bobblehead Biden?  Stay tuned…

First the Kentucky Derby - now the Preakness - another X Files like day at the track in Triple Crown Racing

A new thoroughbred hero is born

After the most bizarre Kentucky Derby in history where the winner lost and the loser won in the first disqualification in the 145 years of the Run for the Roses, we thought those mischievous Derby devils would leave the Preakness alone.  It was just not to be.

Bodexpress at birth

You see, the last horse to qualify for the Derby was one Bodexpress, and after two horses scratched (dropped out), leaving Bodexpress in the Number 20 position.  He finished Number 13 in the race, a rather ominous omen heading into the Preakness.

Bodexpress, a substitute for Derby

Then the Derby had the near disastrous finish as horses were bumping off each other like bowling pins from a strike as they thundered toward the finish.  In the end Maximum Security, the winner, was disqualified, the first time in history, and Country House, an unknown 45-1 long shot who finished second was named winner.

There was an official inquiry and after more than 20 minutes, the winner was disqualified.  Because the finish is being contested in court, Maximum Security owners decided not to run in the Preakness, a grueling two weeks after the Derby.  Then the eventual Derby winner was disqualified from the Preakness because of a cough.  The top two Derby finishers were not even going to run in the Preakness.

In the Preakness, a new Thoroughbred Hero of the Twitter age suddenly emerged when the 13th place Derby horse, Bodexpress, tossed his rider out of the starting gate as the other horses broke out.  Not considering losing a rider a big deal, the feisty Bodexpress took off anyway and before long was catching up with the main pack heading into the last turn.

The Bodexpress Preakness riderless ride

He might have even caught the leaders but a track rider tried to pull him from the pack and the Bod Master resumed his riderless race across the finish line.  You really must watch the race video, hearing the stunned announcer trying to explain why a riderless horse was in the race.  The photos i this story tell the rest.

With or without a rider that thoroughbred came to race and race he did, not only finishing in the middle of the pack, but went on to make another circle of the entire racetrack before finally being caught by the officials.

In the end, the very horse that was bumped and knocked out of contention in the Derby by Maximum Security, War of Will, would finally get a well deserved Triple Crown trophy.