#6

To the battle bright and early
Maybe not so bright (him) but yeah early 

He hit the thoroughfare at ten over

His personal speed limit 

While listening intently

To the last four minutes 

Of Tools "Descending" 

Perhaps one of the finest instrumental passages 

In the history of rock 

His battle this day 

Will be a Texas Hold'em poker tournament 

In girding for conflict he stops 

To order a number six 

With a small orange juice... at McD's 

Then stops the Q5 road side

To consume breakfast and square his attitude 

His thoughts turn to common mistakes

He's made during battle 

And his tendency to forget them 

In the heat of the moment

Avoid big pots in the beginning

Ignore most pocket pairs of 2's, 3's, and 4's

Bluff big in position

Top pair post flop is often a loser

If you can't pick out the donkey at the table

The donkey is you

Slow play of big hands

Is often frowned upon by the pros

But you love it

So do it

There's more, there's always more

Nevertheless he will head into the fray

With confidence borne from

The recent support of Lady Luck

Who has blessed him with good runs

While he patiently waited (folded) 

For her to show up

This day, among 70 entrants

He will cash in second place

Catching 10 times his entry fee

The battle won

In two months, around 9 of 11 cashes

Yet, he knows the Lady, her fickle self

Will grace another soon

He's learned to enjoy the moment

"Know what I mean Vern?!" - Jim Varney aka Ernest P. Worell
 

Finding the American Middle - Dump the OWGs!

If you bisect the same line three times, the first then the two remainders you can create four equal parts. 

If you label those parts to symbolize political beliefs you can describe extremes, a few who gravitate toward the middle (moderates?) and very few who reside in the very middle. You can attempt to pull them all toward the middle but to succeed you need to first make a convincing argument. Most important, you need to be heard by the extremes. And that will never happen.

Among the fundamental problems here is that people tend to believe what they want believe, they neglect to verify what they read and hear and selectively read only what they perceive defends their side of an argument.

The result is meaningless unless someone can buy into the notion of a word that these days seems to arouse negative feelings.  The word is "bipartisan."  People seem so afraid of the "slippery slope" of action that they are unwilling to even slightly move from their position in issues that concern us all. The "slippery slope" of fear suggests a modest action by the group will trigger a slide to the extreme.  For example, Second Amendment advocates fear that allowing background checks prior to gun ownership will eventually result in more and more strict laws that eventually lead to government action taking away all guns from all citizens.  On the other hand, these same advocates conveniently ignore the "well regulated" words that accompany the armed "militia" in the very same sentence of the Amendment.

This fear is having a significant impact on critical issues in America today.  We are seeing this in just about all social topics including left and right political extremes, socialism, and economic factors.

Left and Right Extremes (Ayn Rand) seem to be the most divisive of the factors:

• Immigration - open borders vs. managed immigration vs. isolationism.
• Gun control - ignoring the "well regulated militia" part of the Constitution while focusing solely on the "right to bear arms."
• Climate change - treating oil and gas companies as gods at the expense of future generations and potentially the planet.
• Natural resources
• Government regulation vs. free market (Rand would have us believe a totally free market would function perfectly, a notion that totally ignores man's tendency toward greed.)
• Socialism vs. capitalism - many do not, can not, will not see that a blend of the two is the best guess for a balanced democracy.  The larger and more complex our society gets, the more structure we need to maintain balance. At the same time, we need certain environments with minimal structure to encourage innovation.

Socialism:

• Medicare
• Medicaid
• Social Security
• Interstate highway system

Capitalism:

• Private ownership
• Free markets
• Competition
• Pursuit of Profit

F___ing up economic factors:

• Student loans - choking discretionary income of college grads 
• Taxes favoring wealthy and corporations
• Politicians catering to and later evolving to lobbyists
• Citizens United - corporations being considered people yet demanding welfare in the form of low tax rates
• Oil - especially fracking (See skyrocketing Oklahoma earthquake rates.)

Racism - If parents would just stop teaching it, it would go away.

Religion - It's okay on its own, we just need to keep it separate from politics or it could easily be the end of us. After all, man worships some 3,000 different forms of "God."

OWGs - The catalysts behind most all social injustice.  They practice it, they bully others with it, and they teach their children well.