the dawn of Beaglestonia

 The year was 2013, Obama's second term was less than a year old.  Trump's tv show still had four more years to run.  Actually we had been corresponding by mail for a year and a half before that, but that wisdom has passed into the ghost of  cyberdom. As has been our pattern Beagles wrote in the night and I wrote in the dawn,

It was mostly politics in those days.  There were a few conservative drinkers at the bar, and they were of the sort who could have a peaceful conversation and I enjoyed honing my arguments and understanding how they came to their beliefs.

See there were Beagles and I, a couple pretty smart guys, both growing up in the same time in the same place, we both had access to the same news sources (back when the news tried to be impartial) and yet we came to very different world views.  How did that happen?

I believed then pretty much as I said in the last paragraph, though I was already becoming skeptical.  Anymore I really don't believe that it is possible, but I continue to act as if it were because that is the only card in my deck.  

Around the time of this post, Trump was still a buffoon who lorded over a panel of sychophants making silly pronouncements to silly people doing silly stunts, and in his spare time pushing birtherism and I thought everybody was laughing at him, but apparently not.  

But here are our thoughts before the elephant strutted into the room,  We seem almost like choirboys don't we?

Well anyway comments are welcomed.  I am doing all that I can to get this tin can started and puffing down the road because I love the smell of keyboard keys in the morning.

November 3,2013 pm

About a year and a half ago, I ran across one of my old high school buddies on the internet. We hadn't been in contact since we graduated back in 1963, so we had a lot of catching up to do. Truth be known, we hadn't known each other all that well in the old days but, by now, we have become fast friends. Funny thing is that we have very little in common, in fact we are on the opposite sides of most issues, yet we seem to be able to discuss those issues in a fairly rational and dispassionate manner, which is kind of unique nowadays. We have been communicating exclusively by e-mail because both of us were tired of the abusive and insulting dialog that has become so common in both  cyberspace and in the real world of today. Nevertheless, we recently decided that our ponderings and permutations are just too good not to share, and that the world would become a better place if everybody else would follow our shinning example. Neither of us are spring chickens anymore and, all too soon, we will belong to the ages. Will we be remembered for our wit and wisdom, or will we be buried under the ash heap of history? Only time will tell, but we'll never know if we don't try.

Ken and I grew up in a decent neighborhood on the South West Side of Chicago. I was exposed to rural living at an early age and quickly decided that was what I wanted to do when I grew up. Ken, on the other hand, was a city boy at heart, and still is. He ended up living in a high rise apartment downtown, and I ended up living in a modest home in the swamps of Northern Michigan. Politically, I like to think of myself as a reactionary, but I get tired of trying to explain to people what that means, so I usually tell them that I'm a conservative. Ken is a self described liberal who marched in protest demonstrations during the Vietnam era, while I marched with the U.S Army in Berlin, Germany. Our discussions have helped us to understand what was going on in each other's heads in those days so that we have both become more tolerant of diverse and dissenting opinions. May they do the same for you., 

November 4, 2013 am

About a year and a half ago I started thinking about my high school friend, Talks with Beagles. We were both in what were called advanced classes at Gage Park High School on the southwest side of Chicago, and it was drummed into our heads constantly that we had to go to college. But when it came to time to apply for college, Talks with Beagles announced he had no plans to go to college. It was a bit of a scandal, how could he not go to college?  It was the American dream of getting ahead. I didn't agree with his decision, but I rather admired him for standing against the tide.

I went to college, dropped out, and dropped back in. Became a hippie, was a Conscientious Objector during the Vietnam war, spent about twenty years tending bar, had a state job for about ten, and was a substitute teacher for about seven. All this time I have been a liberal democrat, and I follow politics the way some follow the sports page.

When I got in touch with Talks With Beagles I learned that his politics were about 180 degrees of mine, and he liked to write, and so far we have been exchanging about an email a day.

I’m not a man of faith, but I have always believed that if men of reason could get together and discuss things coolly and logically, and not stray from the subject and call each other names then they would eventually come to an agreement. I have to admit I have never seen this happen in real life, and I don’t think I have changed Talks with Beagles’ mind about anything, but you never know.

So now we need a subject to gnaw on.  Beagles, the ball is in your court.