authoress – education and deconstruction.com

Let’s Sink the Right Together – BONUS POST

[Please note: The word “Featured” on the left side above was NOT inserted by this blogger, but apparently was inserted by WordPress, and it cannot be removed. NO post in this blog is sponsored.]

As is well known, most of The Rolling Stones’ songs are about sexual conquest and emotional trouble (and to a lesser extent, drugs).
A current presidential candidate is largely similar. Here’s a little ditty on the situation: It’s the correct thing to do.

LET’S SINK THE RIGHT TOGETHER

sung to the tune of “Let’s Spend the Night Together” with apologies to The Rolling Stones and whomever else the rights may concern.

bop a la la bop bop a la la

bop a la la bop bop

my my my my

bop a la la bop bop a la la

You have to worry about what’s ON Trump’s mind. Oh my.

bop a la la bop bop a la la

He’s looking to commit more crimes. Oh my.

bop a la la bop bop a la la

He dominates red and his tongue’s getting tied.
Tongue’s getting tied.
He’s got a muzzy head, which his base denies.
All he does is lie, lie, lie, and spy. Cha cha cha.

Let’s sink the Right together.
Your vote is NEEded more than ever.
Let’s sink the Right together now.

bop a la la bop bop

bop a la la bop bop a la la

He ACTS so strong but his words are unwise. Oh my.
Let’s sink the Right together.
But he just CAN’T apologize. Oh no.
Let’s sink the Right together.

HE’D STRING PENCE UP. DON’T LET US DOWN. DON’T LET US DOWN.

We will have laughs turning the country around,
else we’re king-bound. King-bound. Oh my my.

Let’s sink the Right together.
Your vote is NEEded more than ever.
Let’s sink the Right together.

Let’s sink the Right together.
Your vote is NEEded more than ever.

doot doot doot doot doo

You know he’s unsavory, sli-MY.
He thinks he’s gliding, ea-SY.

If you’re deciding lately, wow.
Your vote is NEEded more than ever.
Let’s sink the Right together.
Let’s sink the Right together.

Now.

my my my my my my my

bop a la la bop bop a la la

Don’t let Trump happen EVER again. Oh my.

Let’s sink the Right together.

His excuses offered are always lies. Oh my.
Let’s sink the Right together.
He’ll actually satisfy HIS every need. His every need.

And now you know, he’ll screw the coun-TRY.

Oh my my my my my my my

Let’s sink the Right together.
Your vote is NEEded more than ever.
Let’s sink the Right together.

Together now

bop a la la bop bop

Oh my my my my my my my

Let’s sink the Right together.

He’ll actually satisfy HIS every need.

Needed more than ever.

Let’s sink the Right together…

tokyo junkie [sic]

The Book of the Week is “tokyo junkie [sic], 60 Years of Bright Lights and Back Alleys… and Baseball” by Robert Whiting, published in 2021.

Whiting was born at the dawn of the 1940’s in northern California. In January 1962, while in the U.S. Air Force, he was assigned to Fuchu Air Base in a Tokyo suburb. He fell in love with Tokyo and the culture of its people, despite its sexism, pervasive sex trade, hatred of foreigners, and government censoring of its media.

Tokyo was undergoing a makeover to prepare for its debut as the venue of the 1964 Olympics. During the Vietnam Era, American college campuses exploded in protest against the war. The Japanese government supported the war. By 1969, Japanese students were protesting, too.

Over the course of decades, the author witnessed how the city changed from a war-ravaged backwater to an economic powerhouse. After WWII, the U.S. maintained a military presence in Japan, and nursed it back to economic health. This process was reflected in Japan’s education system, which mandated rigorous, nerve-racking entrance exams, which had a decidedly capitalist bent.

Another aspect of Japanese culture that showed its emulation of the United States, was the popularity of its professional baseball. However, the Japanese put their own twist on it. They allowed a few Americans to play on their teams, but criticized them for doing too well or too poorly. Too much competition would make the opposing team feel bad, but a player yielding too much to an opposing team, would be told to do better for his own team. Cooperation and sacrificing for one’s own team were key aspects of play.

The author noted one positive behavior pattern the Japanese were taught from birth. That was– maintaining the highest respect for other people’s property, and for public property. Their “lost and found” returned personal items to their owners (even cash, without a penny missing!) as a matter of the right thing to do. Tokyo is one of the cleanest cities in the world because the people feel a collective sense of ownership of their streets, so they don’t “foul their own nest.” Ironically, their politicians are notoriously corrupt.

Read the book to learn much, much more on the author’s take on how Japanese culture changed following major historical events such as Olympics, financial ruin, earthquakes, tsunamis, and globalization.

John Lewis

The Book of the Week is “John Lewis, In Search of the Beloved Community” by Raymond Arsenault, published in 2024. Lewis was America’s Nelson Mandela.

Born in 1940 in Alabama, Lewis became an extremely influential civil-rights activist and politician beginning in the 1960’s. He was fortunate to have teachers at his high school who inspired him to earn a higher-education degree in liberal arts. Ironically, the colleges which historically catered to blacks, had curricula that taught trades related to agriculture and construction, that kept blacks economically disadvantaged.

By the late 1950’s, Lewis had already met Martin Luther King, Jr.’s family. When Lewis applied to the all-white Troy University in Alabama, King warned him that he and his family could: receive death threats, get doxed (the pre-internet version), and even be physically harmed.

Starting in the 1950’s, major federal laws had been passed in order to eliminate the separate designations of eateries, restrooms, schools and other public areas for whites and blacks, in the Southern States. Historically, through such segregation, the blacks had been provided with inferior facilities and services in connection therewith. White inciters of hatred continued to obstruct the integration process.

Lewis became a leader or member of civil-rights protest groups such as the Freedom Riders, CORE (Congress of Racial Equality), and SNCC (Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee). The groups adopted Gandhi’s nonviolent, “turn-the-other-cheek” philosophy. Lewis helped plan, organize and execute protests, marches and other events. He also participated in them. Martin Luther King, Jr. was a leader in the SCLC (Southern Christian Leadership Conference). King could be arrogant, and invoked God in excusing himself from protests he chose not to participate in.

In spring 1961, collaborating with CORE, the Freedom Riders planned to take interstate rides in Southern States on Trailways and Greyhound buses, and eat and use the restrooms at the bus stations along the way. Approximately half of the Riders were white, but the blacks (and the whites) still became victims of violence when they sat in the front of the buses or entered the (illegally) still-segregated facilities in the bus stations.

In one particularly ugly incident, the KKK had been tipped off as to where and when just over a dozen Riders on a bus going from Birmingham to Montgomery, Alabama, would get off at a rest stop just beyond the city limits. Haters (men, women and children(!)) were waiting for the passengers. The Riders were physically beaten to a pulp with common household items such as baseball bats, chains, tire irons, hoes, rakes– and the bus was firebombed. Law enforcement deliberately took its time in acting to stop the violence. It was the Riders who were arrested. During the first half of 1961, more than 300 of 436 Freedom Riders who took sixty protest-bus-rides ended up in a prison in Mississippi.

The elephant-in-the-room question is, with all of the scholarly readings Lewis and other civil rights leaders had done in preparing for protests and marches, why did they (and media workers, too) not protect themselves against the worst-case-scenario?

In other words– wear full riot gear just like law enforcement officers did in later incidents when those officers were bashing heads and beating limbs with billy clubs? The Riders and other protesters also should have known and used ways to minimize the physical harm done by tear gas, water hoses and attack-dogs. Why did they not protect themselves? That would have been defensive (still nonviolent), not offensive.

The Riders’ goal was, through civil, peaceful disobedience, to overcrowd the jails. That would generate more good publicity than harming other people or destroying property, as did splinter groups that later branched off from the original aforementioned civil-rights organizations. The Riders endured disgusting jail conditions. Yet they opted to stay in jail even when they could have been released on bail.

In the early 1960’s, government leaders at all levels– with their reputations and thus reelections on the line– were initially at wits’ end about all the bad publicity they were getting for treating the protesters so badly. But eventually, they came up with some dirty tricks to influence public opinion and cause the groups to devolve into dissension.

Read the book to learn much, much more about Lewis and his times.

On a related note, it’s deja vu all over again (in terms of othering, civil rights and all that). “You-know-who” has become the poster boy for continuing to make incivility socially-acceptable in American society. His political opponents are the perfect target for his smears and hating on immigrants.

Yet, according to the History Channel, Trump is the descendant of immigrants– his grandparents, who came from Germany and Scotland. The German ones lied, saying they came from Sweden. “Trump maintained the ruse at the request of his own realtor father, Fred Trump, who had obfuscated his German ancestry to avoid upsetting Jewish friends and clients.” Heritage-whitewashing was not uncommon; the Schicklgrubers did it, too, the opposite way.

Anyway, if the truth makes you angry, you’re living a lie. Here’s a little ditty Trump has been singing of late. Of course, ladies and gentleman, the views of this man are not necessary….

SUPERIOR PEOPLE
sung to the tune of “Everyday People” with profuse apologies to Sly and the Family Stone, Mijac Music, Sony/ATV Music Publishing, and to whomever else the rights may concern.

I’m always right.
I’m never wrong.
My own beliefs are in my song.

I’m a birther, a big star, all-American and then,
you know I’ll make us great again.

I-I-I am superior people, yeah, yeah.

THERE are lots of FOReigners who SHOULDn’t
get a green card.
We’re MAKing them the fat ones
while DE-priving our excellent ones.

We’re way too nice. I’ll transform ICE.
I-could GO on and GO on.
De-PORT you and you and you.

(you’re caca) We CAN’T live together.

My family’s better. Yours might be too,
if your genes are GREAT in my view.

If you-elect me, you know,
I’ll breed the best.
You know, you can put me to-the-test.

I-I-I am superior people, yeah, yeah.

I’LL make a border that KEEPS out these CRIMinals.
YOU’LL be a rich one.
WE’LL keep out the POOR ones.

We’re way too nice. I’ll transform ICE.
I-could GO on and GO on.
De-PORT you and you and you.

(you’re caca) We CAN’T live together.

I’LL look at the yellow one but think-TWICE about the BLACK one,
and possibly the RED one,
but the BEST one will likely be the WHITE one.

We’re way too nice. I’ll transform ICE.
I-could GO on and GO on.
De-PORT you and you and you.

I-I-I am superior people.

In the Shadow of the White House

The Book of the Week is “In the Shadow of the White House, A Memoir of the Washington and Watergate Years 1968-1978” by Jo Haldeman, published in 2017.

As is well known, at the time this book was written, America was entering the Trump Era, some of whose aspects smacked of the Nixon Era. In addition, the author also could not escape writing with 20/20 hindsight, as almost fifty years had passed since her husband was implicated in the major historical event known as “Watergate.”

In October 1970, while backing his Republican party’s candidates at rallies during the midterm races amid expletive-shouting hecklers, Nixon said,

“The four-letter word that is the most powerful of any in the world is ‘vote.’ “

Strangely enough, in 1972, Nixon was reelected in a landslide due to low voter turnout– possibly due to influential propaganda and dirty tricks that discouraged or kept Americans from voting.

Bob Haldeman was the president’s advisor and lapdog, at his beck and call 24/7. He got the most face-time with Nixon as chief of staff, giving orders to underlings from wherever he was; it was not uncommon in the course of two weeks for the two to travel from Camp David to a foreign country to Key Biscayne in Florida (where Nixon had a residence) to another foreign country to New York City to San Clemente in California (where Nixon had another residence). Haldeman’s wife Jo and their four children sometimes accompanied them.

Nixon vacillated between: deep insecurities that required frequent consulting with his gatekeepers Haldeman, John Ehrlichman, and Henry Kissinger; and megalomania that led him to install a taping system in the Oval Office and Cabinet Room in February 1971. This, in an effort to record his administration’s every word and move, for posterity. He wanted to give his name undying fame. The listening devices of the two previous presidencies had been removed years before.

The author commented in her notes that in May 1974 (three months before Nixon resigned), “Although [Nixon] proposes national health insurance in a radio address, it goes nowhere and his public support continues to erode.”

The author’s husband was one of five defendants (there were many more) who were all tried together in a court of law for their roles in the Watergate scandal. Their cases dragged on through 1974.

The tenor of the times was such that alpha males with hubris syndrome populated the White House, Haldeman included. On August 6, 1974, he beseeched Nixon to pardon him and all his alleged Watergate co-conspirators (twenty-one of whom went to jail), and also to salve the leaders’ consciences– grant amnesty to all men who violated the Selective Service Act during the Vietnam War.

Read the book to learn Haldeman’s fate, and much more about the experiences of the author’s family during a particularly turbulent time in American history.

Month’s Rant – BONUS POST

As is well known, America has a mis-prioritized news cycle.
The headlines on deaths resulting from extreme weather last about a week, while the media scandalizes trivia on politicians, celebrities and sports-figures, and revels in their troubles– and the headlines drag on for weeks and weeks.

As is also well known, there is one politician whose scandals are NOT trivial, and whose abominable behaviors on January 6, 2021 and in infinite other episodes, bear repeating until he can no longer terrorize anyone.
This ditty explains it.

MONTH’S RANT

sung to the tune of “Moondance” with profuse apologies to Van Morrison and whomever else the rights may concern.

Well, it’s a marvelous month for a Trump rant,
world domination set in his eyes.
A fantabulous month to make a comeback
with a barrage of October lies.

And the far-Right GOP candidates come calling
to the sound of the sleazy Trump show.
Fox’s hysterical rhetoric is galling.
They need high ratings to rake in big dough.

Election night’s scheming is subject to whisper and hush.
You know the soft money down the line, makes no one blush.

Trump JUST wants the next month to rant with Fox, you know.
Trump JUST wants more and more mean chants with Fox, you know.

Well, Trump loves to be the drama queen EVery night.
He can’t wait till election day comes.
He MUST keep pushing the far Right,
with dirty tricks, sneers and publicity stunts.

His claques, flacks and sycophants will be waiting.
They foolishly THINK that he’ll be true.

But in a month if his dreams are dashed, folks,
there and then he’ll vow revenge-against YOU.

And with all his history, the unprotected tremble inside.
His targets KNOW he’s dangerous; thus,

the October surprise.

Trump JUST wants the next month to rant with Fox, you know.
Trump JUST wants more and more mean chants with Fox, you know.

Well, it’s a marvelous month for a Trump rant,
world domination set in his eyes.
A fantabulous month to make a comeback
with a barrage of October lies.

And the far-Right GOP candidates come calling
to the sound of the sleazy Trump show.
Fox’s hysterical rhetoric is galling.
They need high ratings to rake in big dough.

Election night’s scheming is subject to whisper and hush.
You know the soft money down the line, makes no one blush.

Trump JUST wants the next month to rant with Fox, you know.
Trump JUST wants more and more mean chants with Fox, you know.

a month more of mean chants, against you
then election night, the dangerous Right
la la la la la
then election night, the dangerous Right
Trump JUST wants more mean chants against you, you know…

Confessions of A Wall Street Analyst

The Book of the Week is “Confessions of a Wall Street Analyst, A True Story of Inside Information and Corruption in the Stock Market” By Dan Reingold with Jennifer Reingold, published in 2006.

The author happened to become a telecommunications-industry stock analyst, hopping from one big-name investment bank to another. This, at the start of about two decades of an excessively deregulated, gravy train of greed on Wall Street: the early 1990’s. He described his job as requiring lots of reading and writing, and as having long, long hours. He got to travel around the world to meet his contacts, and gossip with industry competitors. The compensation he collected for doing so was obscene.

The U.S. government had just acted on a wave of anti-trust sentiment, so competitors were scrambling to game the situation. Telephones were going wireless, while their service providers were merging like crazy.

The author detailed the changes in the industry, including how it became corrupted by the usual suspects– greedy Wall Street workers. These included analysts and the departments that trade securities on behalf of their clients and their employers’ compliance departments who looked the other way on the LAWS against analysts’ getting inside information from the said departments.

For example, if the banking arm told an analyst that a certain company was a takeover target before information in connection therewith was publicly disclosed, the analyst could write a report recommending that his employer’s clients (which ranged from huge pension funds to little investors and everyone in between) buy its stock. That is one kind of insider trading.

In the mid to late 1990’s, the author witnessed various episodes in which one particular analyst at a competing big-name investment bank was manipulating the system. There was circumstantial evidence that he was receiving inside information on the stocks he was touting. Later on, one telecommunications company turned out to be not just “cooking the books” but scorching them. The resulting mess turned out to be the largest accounting-fraud scandal to that date.

These and other Wall Street shenanigans (that were bunched together in the course of a decade!) resulted in the usual harm to society and more excessive wealth for the wealthy; more specifically:

The perpetrators (the offending workers and their employers) got a “slap on the wrist” in the form of chump-change fines from regulators, while collecting excessively large fees for servicing the merger transactions and advising their clients on what to trade when– while admitting no wrongdoing;
The mergers resulted in massive layoffs of working-class people;
Taxpayers paid for the salaries of the regulators who bragged about how great they were in catching and punishing the few white-collar criminals they did nab; and
Unsurprisingly, the author retired before he got nabbed but he claimed his employment contract contained no pay-for-performance provision with regard to his employer’s investment-banking revenues.

Anyway, read the book to learn a boatload more about Wall Street’s goings-on in telecommunications from the 1990’s into the single-digit 2000’s, and the author’s career.

Angela Davis

The Book of the Week is “Angela Davis, An Autobiography” by Angela Y. Davis, originally published in 1974. Born in 1944, Davis, who is black, grew up in Birmingham, Alabama. Through the 1950’s, when black people began moving into the previously white neighborhood where she resided, hostile whites bombed the blacks’ houses; the place was dubbed, “Dynamite Hill.”

Davis became a political activist. Through the 1960’s, the U.S. government and law enforcement felt threatened by her because she was black, female, and a Communist. She moved to West Germany for two years beginning in 1964. However, she was unaware of the then-law that all foreign visitors were required to complete paperwork at the local police station informing the government that they were there. But as an American, she was able to travel to East Germany and return from it, too.

In summer 1967, Davis was at an anti-Vietnam-War protest in San Diego. When pressed, a control-freakish police captain explained why three people in the crowd had been arrested: “As long as you are standing on the sidewalk, you may be considered obstructing pedestrian traffic.” Times have changed somewhat regarding incidents occurring on public streets; video has likely been shot from security cameras, body cams and witnesses’ phones. Yet hatred between certain groups and law enforcement, and distortion by the media haven’t changed. So evidential video footage doesn’t seem to be a deterrent to future incidents.

Davis wrote that there were two unrelated groups in the United States that included the words, “Black Panther.” One was the Political Party, and the other, led by Huey Newton and Bobby Seale, was the “Party for Self Defense.” Davis became a member of the former. She soon became disenchanted with its sexist men who expected her to be a cheerleader and babysitter, rather than an organizer of the group’s events, such as rallies.

When crimes were committed with a gun licensed to Davis, she was charged with murder, kidnapping and conspiracy. In autumn 1970, she was extradited from New York state to California to be tried for her alleged crimes.

Read the book to learn of what became of Davis, and much more about her activism, whose goal (at the time of the book’s writing) was to defend her “party, Cuba, the Socialist countries, the World Communist Movement, and the cause of oppressed people across the globe.”

Spite of the Liars – BONUS POST

As the presidential election winds down in the next six weeks, many people are getting agitated and frustrated because it appears to be largely 2016 all over again.

Not to worry. It won’t be. The way people release anger in this country (aside from football and violence), is politics. Just keep calm and turn off the “news!”

Here’s a little ditty on the situation.

SPITE OF THE LIARS

sung to the tune of “Eye of the Tiger” with apologies to Survivor and whomever else the rights may concern.

A ratings race.
They’re making history.
Hogging airtime,
doing their dances.
With Trump and Harris now
afraid of defeat,
using AI and social contagion to thrive.

In these times, money rules all–
healthcare, sports and elections.
It’s up to you to make the CORrect call.
You must fight just to fact-check their cries.

It’s the, spite of the liars,
mad people thrilled by the fight.
Audiences GET manipulated by their idols.
And noisemakers revel, in the-charade every night.
And they’re involving us all in the spite, of the liars.

A ratings race.
Eyes and ears on the news.
Inflammatory rhet’ric gets, gory.
By stacking the odds, they having nothing to lose.
But meritocracy will keep democracy alive.

A ratings race.
Both sides flip-flop.
Plenty of time for more surprises.
Scandalizing trivia, they’re not gonna stop.
It’s winner-take-all, someone’s not going to survive.

spite of the liars
spite of the liars
spite of the liars
spite of the liars

The Crash of Flight 3804

The Book of the Week is “The Crash of Flight 3804, A Lost Spy, A Daughter’s Quest, and the Deadly Politics of the Great Game for Oil” by Charlotte Dennett, published in 2020. In this fact-filled, chronologically disorganized volume, the author (a journalist, not a historian) elaborated on the actions that specific nations took, despite their announced motives, in trying to gain access to fossil fuels around several, but not all, energy-rich regions of the world.

The author described in great detail, certain historical events (perhaps those from sources to which she had easy access), and omitted or provided scant coverage on a huge number of others that were equally important. The book’s subhead should have specified, “…Deadly Politics of the Great Game for Oil and Gas around the Middle East, Mediterranean Sea, and Central Asia.”

The author could not possibly comprehensively cover the global history of fossil-fuels exploration in this one book. For, she also recounted her investigation into her father’s death, beginning in 1975. He was supposedly employed by an oil company, but was killed in a plane crash in 1947. He was actually working for the predecessor to the CIA.

Dennett wrote that in the 1800’s, budding empires sought to control the railroad industry, then in its infancy, in order to travel to faraway, uncharted or unclaimed territories sooner than otherwise. Most Americans have always been clueless as to the secret-goings-on of alleged religious movements that are part of America’s foreign-policy initiatives. Such operations aren’t covered in the media, except for kidnappings or murders. Through the decades, beginning in the twentieth century, spies acting on half of governments or international corporations, have masqueraded as missionaries around the world.

In the United States especially, think tanks produce reports that turn into propaganda campaigns that get leaked to the media. The “news” stories include calls to action, whose ulterior motive is helping America meet its energy needs. By the way, the Qatari publication, al-Jazeera is funded (possibly indirectly) by the United States, subject to the whims of the diplomatic community.

In the 1990’s, building oil pipelines in Central Asia became all the rage. Actually. After secretly supporting the Taliban in Afghanistan, in August 1998, the United States changed its tune because Osama Bin Laden masterminded the bomb-attacks on the United States embassies in Nairobi and Tanzania. Bin Laden was incensed that Saudi Arabia was friendly with the United States. But how else was America supposed to meet its energy needs?

According to the author,”neoliberals” believe in providing economic aid to developing nations in order to bribe them to stop acting in ways that empower them, such as making WMD’s, or drilling for oil and gas in their own territories to meet their own energy needs. So when the United States’ neoliberals send aid, they are actually giving recipients fish instead of teaching them to fish. They rely on loans from the IMF and the World Bank, so unsurprisingly, they can’t break their cycle of dictatorship.

According to the author, “neocons” believe in providing military-related aid, and imposing their culture on the peoples in developing nations. As is well known, in the 1990’s and again in the single-digit 2000’s, the United States sent its troops into Iraq to maintain its access to and grab additional oil, and produce economic devastation while claiming to bring democracy to Iraq.

Thanks to globalization and the Internet, the world now knows who the major neoliberal and neocon offenders are. It’s not just the United States.

The author made inflammatory but factual statements about Israel. The reader would think she would fear getting smeared as “unpatriotic” and / or be the victim of retaliation from numerous people who have a vested interest in defending Israel.

As is extremely well-known, the least criticism of Israel (even if there is ample evidence the statements are true) elicits a knee-jerk, emotionally charged accusation of antisemitism from the Israel-defenders. Sure, there is plenty of hatred against Jews, but not all of the accusations of antisemitism are true.

One other propaganda-related issue: from 2022 into 2024, in America, media stories smeared gas-powered stove / oven units, arguing they were hazardous to one’s health. Could it be they were actually hazardous to the health of the strategic interests of the United States, in connection with the access-to-natural-gas-related mess in Syria of recent decades?

Anyway, read the book to learn (and become more cynical by the minute) about: a few different oil and gas pipelines whose actual construction was stalled; the secondary motive of the drafters of the Balfour Declaration (the first of course, was to establish a Jewish homeland; hint: in 1918, the U.S. figured out what the British were really doing in Palestine); why America arms and finances Saudi Arabia and Israel more than all of its other allies; why Gaza is such a valuable piece of real property; numerous rounds of “Curious things will happen when there’s dishonor among thieves” and other violence-inducing shenanigans plaguing certain energy-rich regions of the world.

Blue Sky Kingdom

The Book of the Week is “Blue Sky Kingdom” by Bruce Kirkby, published in 2020.

The Canadian author recounted how he, his wife and two sons– seven and four– went on a radical sabbatical for half a year. The parents had always enjoyed adventurous nature trips on various continents– whitewater rafting, hiking, kayaking, canoeing, and bicycling; not to mention camping. In the mid-2010’s, they began their journey to the Himalayas– Ladakh in northern India, near the Tibet border.

The family got sponsorship from Travel Channel, but had to shop around for a tour manager whose liability insurance allowed children under twelve on the trip. They had to hire local people (who knew the territory and languages) to help them: carry their equipment, cook their food, and know what to do in case of emergency (given the life-threatening terrain and weather), etc. The trip required months and months of planning. Well, the impossible took longer.

The family took various forms of transportation to get from their home in rural British Columbia, to Asia; car, canoe, train, ship. They then backpacked through various parts of Asia. In India, they stayed at a guest house where the air conditioning was broken. As the temperature was over a hundred degrees Fahrenheit, they crowded into the cold-water shower stall, which had mildewed tiles. “A group of monkeys watched curiously from outside a window perched in a strangler fig [tree].” To try to cool off, they also ate mango ice cream.

Both parents wanted their family to experience the precepts of Tibetan Buddhism, including but far from limited to: minimalism, tranquility, non-attachment, non-materialism, and transcendental wisdom. So they lived in a monastery, partook of prayer sessions and ceremonies, and taught English to the monks-in-training. The older son, especially, who was on the autism spectrum, took to his surroundings. The author described, through a series of anecdotes, their unique adventures. The takeaway is that the author realized that he became stressed when he was able to check his email in the remotest corner of the world.

Read the book to learn about every last aspect of a simple lifestyle that is quickly disappearing– due to the globalization of capitalism (Hint: “But here [at a luxury hotel] in modern Delhi, such attributes [shorn skull, maroon robe indicating a Buddhist monk– a powerful figure in Tibet] were meaningless [for getting a visa to travel to Canada]. I, on the other hand, possessed light skin and a credit card, which could open almost any door.” The United States– whose economic model is emulated by the rest of the world– is becoming more and more a nation full of athletes, gamblers and public-relations mouthpieces.

ENDNOTE: In Tibetan Buddhism, wisdom and compassion go together– the antithesis of the current Republican presidential candidate in America. Like a dictator, he sneakily sows doubt about the effectiveness or validity of:

all manner of international conferences and summits (except for Davos);
citizenship of his enemies;
the American election process;
the American justice system;
the American tax system;
immigrants’ positive impacts on the U.S. economy; and
America’s international trading relationships; etc., etc., etc.

for the purpose of amassing power.

An intellectual sows doubt for the purpose of furthering the knowledge-base that will improve humanity (and winning a Nobel Prize). Of course, NO presidential candidate has ever been ideal. But the best one would have the:

influence of JFK;
charisma of Reagan;
life-experience of Eisenhower;
intellect of Bill Clinton; and
temperament of Obama.

Here’s a little ditty describing Trump’s modus operandi.

CYNICAL

sung to the tune of “Physical” with apologies to the estate of Olivia Newton John and whomever else the rights may concern.

TRUMP’S sowing doubt with all-things ON your mind,
clouding the conversation.
He’s gotta smear eveRYone Left.
He goes low and MEAN.
He questions your citizenship incessantly.
Then he’s SUDdenly moody.
All his cronies rally round him
about going tax free!

He wants you to get cynical, cynical.
He wants you to get cynical.
Because if you’re cynical,
the IRS and courts will let him walk,
let him walk.
The IRS and courts will let him walk.

He’ll incite more violence.
We’ve been too nice,
tried to keep the dialogue civil.
It’s getting hard to tolerate this hack.
He goes low and MEAN.
His victims understand his point of view.
He owns his base mentally.
They should know, he’s destroying us, institutionally.

He wants you to get cynical, cynical.
He wants you to get cynical.
Because if you’re cynical,
the IRS and courts will let him walk,
let him walk.
The IRS and courts will let him walk.

Let’s be American, American, by voting AGainst him.
Let’s be American.
Or the IRS and courts will let him walk.
Or the IRS and courts will let him walk.