floundersgreatadventure

Remember last post when I talked about all I had witnessed in seventy years? Well here are a few more tid bits. Snow days meant going outside playing with the family, shoveling snow for money, not doing marathon video gaming, or social networking, people actually helped each other. Helping each other now there’s a concept you don’t hear much about any more. I think it disappeared in the fifties. It was caused by the Kitty Genovese case where a young woman was stabbed in front of her home. At least twenty people heard her scream but decided to do nothing. In interviews with the killer he said he wasn’t worried about being seen because he knew nobody would do anything. The people who ignored her weren’t charged with anything and left to get on with their lives. Funny, how it’s sometime easier to remember the bad thing s then the good ones. I remember a lot of things seeing my niece Janet coming home as a new born. Seeing the look on her moms face was priceless. I remember when sports were played by people who cared about their fans; you know what I mean you could get just about anybody’s autograph just by asking for it. I remember when a kid could go walk around the city by himself and not have to worry because there was a cop on the corner. I remember when our presidents were great men not clowns. I remember as a kid going to Broadway play with my folks. I remember when I could afford to go to sporting event or a concert. Well those were the good old days and people say well that then and this is now and the worlds a better place. I’ll let you guys decide if it’s a better place let me know what you think. This is Flounder saying CIAO from Medellin, Colombia.

Tomorrow I turn Seventy and that got me thinking about all that I’ve seen in my life time. There was the Korean War, Viet Nam War, Granada, Desert Storm and all the others that followed. I’ve seen the Atomic Bomb, the Hydrogen Bomb and terrorism. I saw a man walk on the moon, a cure for Polio, Color TV, computers for the home, cell phones, IMAX. I saw a President assassinated and another one shot, I saw Martin Luther king get shot and John Lennon. I saw live pictures from Mars, driverless cars, the birth of Rock and Roll, Hippies, Disco, Hip Hop, and Rap. I’ve seen 49 Super Bowls, 17 Olympics, 68 World Series. I’ve seen our heroes turned in to goats. But I’ve also witnessed what we lost, the great actors and actresses of Hollywood’s glory days Bogart, Edward G, Tracey, and Hepburn. The demise of the movie musical and along with it Fred Astaire and Mickey Rooney and Ginger Rogers all forgotten now. Personally I’ve lost my father, mother, older brother, sister in-lawn and my niece Kim. There have been uncles and cousins some of whom I barely knew others that I was not close too but Kim hurt the most because she was younger and I didn’t think her time should have been up. I know I haven’t covered everything that I’ve seen in my seventy years but it’s a start. What would I like the future to hold? Well a safe world for my grandson, Niece, and great Nephews to live. An end to racism, of course this would require people understanding that we need each other to survive. Ah well this old guy is tired and so is my friend Flounder who says CIAO from Medellin, Colombia.

By now you have all read or heard Sean Penn’s interview with the notorious Mexican Cartel leader “El Chapo” Guzman. You probably have seen where the Mexican government says the interview helped catch him again, and how law enforcement wants to have a conversation with Mr. Penn. Well I think what people should be asking how is it that the US government, and several other governments in the world, were looking for Mr. Guzman with their multimillion dollar spy equipment and couldn’t find him. You realize they have satellites that see ant hills from out space, they have high flying spy planes, drones, all kinds of sophisticated spy stuff yet and actor found him first. The governments of the world could shut down drug production if they really wanted to. With their technology they could find these people and then maybe a group of apache gunships or perhaps a cruise missile could eliminate the problem but we can’t find these guys and a actor/ journalist can. This reminds me of the cure for Cancer. You know what I mean it probably exists but there’s no money in the cure the real money is in ongoing treatment. Well all those law enforcement agencies would lose millions in grants and subsidies if there were no drugs. Not only since most drug abusers are usually poor, if you took the drugs away they might just get really pissed about things and decide to change them. Most of my regulars know I’ve written a couple of blogs about a book written by George Orwell titled 1984. Now if any of you have checked out you see that drugs were one way of suppressing the populace. I think the governments of Mexico and the United States are embarrassed by Penn’s interview because it exposes how easy it was to actually find this guy. Think about this and let me know in my comment section. This is Flounder saying CIAO from Medellin, Colombia.

The New Year is five days old now and what’s been going on? On the first of the New Year Venezuela cut the flow of natural gas to Colombia for climate reasons, it said. A female Mexican mayor was shot to death in her home. Mexico needs to either just let organized crime take over the government or ask for outside military strikes against the drug cartels. Donald trump could very well be your next president. Could you imagine that close to three hundred Americans seeking refuge in Syria? Supreme justice Scalia challenges the constitution on separation of church and state. So my question is which church is he saying is the right one. And finally everybody said the hell with it and went to see the new Star Wars movie. I saw the original and have never bothered to see any of the sequels. Well that’s it for the first post of the year hope you had great holidays. I’m looking forward to some interesting posts this year. This is Flounder saying CIAO from Medellin, Colombia.

Well it’s Christmas Eve and with that comes looking back at the past year. I prefer doing it now to avoid the rush at New Years. As years go 2015 hasn’t been a great year it’s had it good and bad moments as I’m sure you’ll all agree. The good I published two more books and read 303 books. I learned how to carve wood and got pretty good at it. I remained reasonably healthy. My wife got to go to Disney World with our grandson and she too is healthy. The bad I lost my youngest niece Kim to a as yet unknown but natural death. This especially bad at this time of year because she loved Christmas like I do and she would always post pictures of her and the family decorating the tree. Her family is visiting her sister this year and that’s a good thing. As far as the rest of the world goes well not so good you get terrorists attacking everywhere and fear is the mood of the day. Politically speaking the US is a mess the republicans can’t seem to find a sane candidate and the Democrats have Hillary. Makes you want to throw up. Oh for those of you who don’t believe in Global warming it 74 degrees in New York today? Well Flounder and Jeff wish all of you a very Merry Christmas and a Happy Healthy and Safe New year. This is Flounder saying CIAO from Medellin, Colombia.

I bet your all waiting to hear what I’m going to say about the Miss Universe contest held last night. Well first let me say I think there all a lot of Bull Shit and are corrupt and exploit the women who enter them. That being said I’m upset for the winner the young lady from the Philippines whose title will always be slightly cored by controversy. I don’t know if she was the prettiest or the brightest and I really don’t care since if my wife hadn’t watched and started screaming I probably wouldn’t have known who won. I don’t watch these things and don’t really care what country wins. But when you see an example of complete stupidity and incompetency at the end of a worldwide telecast and then blame the MC. You realize what I’ve said all along these shows are rigged and are just plain stupid. If you look at Miss America the girls move from one state to another if they think they have a better chance of winning a contest and getting into the Miss America one. I don’t think there’s a way for these contests to be fair or not exploit women I think they should all just be done away with. This is Flounder saying CIAO from Medellin, Colombia.

It’s the time of the year where I have to talk about STUFF. You all know what STUFF is it’s what makes it hard to close the closet or get the car in the garage. STUFF is what people give each other during the Holiday season. It’s that ugly sweater from grandma or that new DVD you just bought yourself because you didn’t think anybody would get it for you. Now that you got all this new STUFF what the hell are you going to do with all the old STUFF? Well we’ll just stick it the storage closet till we want to use it again. That was 20 years ago and now you got so much STUFF you couldn’t find that stuff you looking for. So now that you can’t find that STUFF you go out and buy more and use it for a week and then it goes in the closet. You ever drive around in the spring and see garage sales people are trying to get rid of STUFF so that they can go get more STUFF they don’t need. I watched on person go from there garage sale to one on the next block to buy more STUFF. It’s a status symbol the more STUFF you have the more successful you are, that’s really not true. Look at the homeless person wheeling the shopping cart full of STUFF well may in his world he is successful. Hell he’s probably happier than a lot of other folks running around and buying STUFF. I drove by one of those garage sales last spring and the guy had enough STUFF out there to decorate two apartments the size of the one I’m living in. What do you think would happen if everybody just stopped collecting Stuff and threw what they did have out? Boy that would be some mess. Well this is Flounder saying CIAO from Medellin Colombia.

Here’s what really piss’s me off about the holidays. It’s not everybody trying to see how drunk they can get or how rude they can be in the stores. What really gets me going is when I see XMAS instead of Christmas. Now I’m far from religious I just think that XMAS is sort of derogatory. First I never think of Christmas as a religious holiday I think of it as a great time for kids and family. I don’t know who got the great idea to put the word Xmas out there they probably didn’t mean anything bad but maybe it was as atheist or someone that just didn’t think Christ belonged in the word. Well if that’s the case why didn’t they just call it KIDMAS instead after all that’s how I feel about the holiday? So please don’t use Xmas on any of your holiday stuff this year if you don’t want to say Merry Christmas you can Merry Kidmas instead. This is Flounder saying CIAO from Medellin Colombia.

Donald Trump is at it again proposing solutions to problems that will only exasperate them and increase distrust of American in the Muslim community. When you talk about the Muslim religion you’re not talking about some small cult like religion. You’re talking about the second largest or about to become the second largest religion in the world. You’ve got to hand it to Donald he doesn’t pick small groups to piss off he’d rather piss off as many people as possible in the shortest time. I don’t know if these are original thoughts or he has surrounded himself with every nut job in the country and is now taking their advice. It could be a case of a bunch of dumb shits just hanging around and collecting big checks for kissing his ass. Whatever is going on over there it’s becoming more dangerous every day. I like most people don’t think he can win but that’s what a lot of people thought when Dewey ran against Truman. Remember the incorrect headline Dewey wins. If Trump were to become president I actually think you’d see a lot of people packing up and leaving the US. His policies make since too dangerous people, the same type of people that made Hitler and Mussolini possible. Those of you that are saying don’t worry people will see he an ass hole soon and the real Republican candidate will come forth. Hey people take a look at some of these people there just as bad as he is. If Donald loses in his bid to become the Republican candidate for President he has positioned himself to become one of the most irrelevant ex- candidates in history (not counting Sarah Palin).Well this is Flounder saying CIAO from Medellin Colombia.

There was another mass shooting this week. This on happened in the US and the usual cries for gun control were heard. I must say before I begin that I’m neither pro gun nor anti gun. If you’re a true hobbyist and have taken firearms safety courses and have no mental problems or are a member of the Klan or international terror groups you can have a gun. A gun that isn’t capable of 750 rounds per minute or has ammo capacity of more than 16 rounds (I think that too many but the cops use that). Now back to reality just getting tougher controls on the purchase will not stop illegal guns being on the street. This won’t happen until the weapons manufacturers and retailers can be held responsible. Now give that bull shit that guns don’t kill people, people kill people. If there is no gun to use, people can’t use them, now you’re going to say well they just use a knife or a club. Those weapons are very personal you have to close and a unarmed person can still defend themselves. Weapons manufacturers put their products out there with little concern as to who is going to use them. The NRA has no problem with an individual buying a semi automatic AR15 and adding a 50 round magazine to it and saying it’s for hunting. Hunting what the zombie hoard? It takes only a little mechanical ability to make that weapon fully automatic and the only thing you hunt then is your neighbor. So long as weapons manufactures can sell to non military sources without fear of any consequences there will far too many guns on the streets. I heard Trump said things would have been different in Paris if everybody was armed. Yeah there would have been more dead most of them innocent. You know how scared you get in a gun fight you don’t aim and if you do you’re a stone cold killer and need to be locked up. Hey this is Flounder saying CIAO, and can’t we all just get a long, from Medellin, Colombia.