Seat Belt Beeps Needed for Other Areas of Life

So your day on the road is about to begin... free and easy, highway ahead, wind in your dog’s hair. You hop into your Toyota Corolla, Dodge Colt, Hyundai Elantra or Chevy Impala with the freeway dream of the long and winding road before you.

Then it happens. Beep, beep, beep, beep.

You think it will end after awhile, like any of those agitating flies that buzz around. You think if you just let it ride itself out, you’ll be left undisturbed. But it doesn’t stop. And for good reason - it’s trying to save your life silly. Because it’s an annoying sound, purposely so, and because it just won’t stop, you have no other choice but to do what it wants: secure your seat belt.

The last time I met up with this beep, beep sound, I did acknowledge the positive nature of it. How it’s trying to bug me and get my attention so that I do something that will protect me and be good for me. Thank you Mr. Beeper!

My next thought was: ”How come we don’t have such devices for OTHER times in our lives when we need such support?” I wondered why there were not other beeps that came along, incessantly, when we were doing something that could ultimately harm us, or were performing acts that were dangerous or putting us at risk.

For example, where is the beep when you are:

• Getting into a bad relationship
• Drinking too much
• Eating bad food

I was wishing some magical engineer could fashion such a device to make annoying sounds that got our attention just when we needed it. Such as:

• An incessant friend who won’t stop nudging us as we get all starry-eyed around Joe From-Hell or Josie From-Hell
• Violent vomiting once we overly imbibe that friendliest of poisons: alcohol
• An agitating cough once we take the inhale of that first cigarette
• That droopy and tired feeling in the body when we overeat or intake food that doesn’t truly agree with us

Hmmmm. My next thought after that?

Perhaps, we don’t always have an unavoidable noise when we start a pathway that will ultimately harm us. But if we listen - truly listen - to the signals from the mind, body and even spirit ... we won’t ever be steered wrong.

Beep beep!


James Anthony Ellis is a writer who drives his Hyundai Elantra all over Lemon Grove. His website is: LegacyProductions.org.

What Do I Do With This Slacker?

So I got this friend. And I'm not so sure I should keep him around. Maybe you can help.

First off he makes himself available and wants my attention 24 hours a day. Now whereas being available is a very positive trait for a friend, let's see if what he offers is really something that I need.

He is very showy and enjoys having the spotlight on him.

He dresses to impress, which can be a esteem thing or an extreme lack of esteem thing. I'm still trying to figure it out.

Next he is constantly gossiping about the goings-on in the lives of celebrities such as Cher, Madonna, Ellen, and Donald Trump.

He talks politics ad nausea.

He has an opinion about EVERYTHING!

Add to this, he constantly brings up the most negative things. If it's not war, it's disease or disasters or death. A constant barrage of negativity. He just runs off the mouth about the worse-case scenarios.

And the hardest part is I can't tell 100 percent - unless he shows me videotape of what he's talking about - if he is fabricating these stories in order to please his boss or those people he works for.

Is having this person around good for me or my psyche? Is he dragging me down unnecessarily?

Do I need this?

Does anyone need a friend like this?

If not, I guess we are always free to say goodbye ... and simply turn off ... the TV news.

James Anthony Ellis is a writer and producer living in San Diego. For the sports, news and weather, he watches pro football and hockey games on TV, talks with friends on social media, and goes outside to see the temperature. He can be reached at www.LegacyProductions.org.

Grab Bag of Random Thoughts From My Mind Today

Some random thoughts on this Sunday from the head of Jim:

• I wish they would stop making those commercials using the scenario of a military man coming home to surprise mothers and children. Pulling at heartstrings for the sake of some marketing agenda? Sick! But what's sicker is the fact they don't ever provide the balance of scenario where mothers and children are surprised with the return of military men ... in a box. Now that surprise would pull at the heartstrings, but may be bad for the business being promoted and the business that is called "war."
• For all my dark thoughts, I'm actually quite a silly person. I believe the silliness saves my seriousness, and my seriousness saves my silliness. 
• When you have two independent clauses with a joining conjunction such as "and," there should be a comma in-between. Just think: "could these two sentences stand alone?" If yes, add the comma before the "and." Trust me.
• When our hearts are flowing love outward, it's hard to have our feelings hurt. Not to say the lack of returned affection and love doesn't suck. 
• Beware of the smokescreens. The distracted public is too much like the baby with wild eyes observing the dancing mobile above a crib. Look to alternative media and the black-and-white facts for what's really going on. Old-time journalism, prior to the opinionated "hearsay journalism," was a beacon for such truth. 
• Imagine if you had a friend that had the same personality that comes from the TV news. Gossipy, showy, focusing mainly on depravity, death and negative drama. See ya dude!
• Do the baseball coaches who pull a starting pitcher ever do so in order to get themselves and their ego into the game as managers? If so, booooo. Greinke was throwing a 3-hitter you dumb-ass. 
• It's raining. Thank you cloud. 
• I had another random thought, but damn it - it got away. That's why they call them thoughts and "random."
• It's so much easier to jot short notes and thoughts rather than a full-blown article, even though it takes the same amount of keystrokes. 
• How many random thoughts constitute a full article post? What? Less than this? Ok.
• Happy Sunday. A great day to remember the freedom ... from what humans have created.

"The Rascal" - And Other Proud Moments for San Diego

It was reported recently in an online Patch article that our own San Diego was living large in the area below the belt. Woohoo. Ranking third behind only New Orleans and Washington DC, America's Finest City (now we know why) was ranked by Condomania.com as one of the top cities with the most well-endowed citizens.

Hurray for the San Diego for having the - ahem - balls to just let it all hang out.

With much embarrassment coming from the downfall of the Chargers, Padres and fallen mayor Bob Filner, it's good to know that our city has something to be proud of.

Penis pride!

Now, I realize this isn't your normal community ... um ... initiative people normally reveal in appreciation. And sure there will be those who find such achievement and such reporting as inappropriate if not exaggerated. And yeah, other cities may scoff at such prowess, with what could only be called "penis envy."

But I say let's stand proud. Stand tall. Standing fully ... well you know. Let's hold pride in being at the top of our game at something. This city has been through some tough times; it's time to celebrate this huge accomplishment. 

It doesn't matter that the source for this news story is also promoting the Liquid G Spot Erotic Vibrator (at $10 off), bad boy buddies, bath time fun, dirty dice, sexy edibles and "The Rascal," the latter aptly named I bet. What matters is that this fine city is packing some power where it matters most.

Let our city stand as an example. Honestly, I am actually proud, not of a simple body part or parts, but of a local Patch online newspaper - however lighthearted at heart - that could take on a topic normally reserved for giggles behind the palms, adult websites, and schoolyard shenanigans. Why not dilute the over-exaggerated puritan agitation that shadows something as natural as the human body?

Yes, satire and silly allusions aside, perhaps the defusing of the whole sexual mystique can help heal a community of any shame surrounding the sexual act or sexual organs. As funny and shameful as a National Geographic centerfold, penises and all well-intentioned, well-lubed benevolent body parts can be freed to have their place in the sacred natural world.

Something of which to truly be proud. 

James Anthony Ellis is a writer and filmmaker living in Lemon Grove. He can be reached at www.LegacyProductions.org

The Fourth of July: A Day Like Any Other Day ... In Hell

Ah, the Fourth of July, a wondrous day that rekindles the scent of sparklers and firework fountains and picnics and some burnt barbecue burgers. Oh and the delectable tastes of corn on the cob, apple pie and hot dogs and beans. It's a day that rings in the glorious recollection of our forefathers who stood strong in the face of tyranny and chose to draft and stand behind a Declaration of Independence and later a Constitution, which would protect the American people from censorship, oppression, suppression, and - in a word - government.

• It's not just a date - July 4.
• It's not just a holiday - Independence Day.
• It's not just a celebration - With banners and fireworks. 

It's a day to remind us of the incredible work done in the mid to late 1700s and how a lot of that work has - of late - gone straight to hell.

The author taking a stand with some cardboard cutouts, circa 1776.

Ironic that.

It was "hell" these pioneers escaped when recounting the atrocities of the King of Great Britain George III. It was also most likely "hell" taking a stand for another way of governing a nation. And now, on this 239th anniversary of some brave men grabbing sack and saying "fuck this" ... that hell is back. And it's a hell that is back in full force. Oh, it may be taking place with men (and women) wearing different sorts of facades and masks, and taking different types of stances, but in the end, it's all the same.

Once again we could "let facts be submitted to a candid world." The list could include:

• For searches and seizures without probable cause - as our police take liberty with our persons, cars and property, and our phone companies cave in to a government that must protect us all by suspecting us all.
• For spying on the American people.
• For forcing its own method of healthcare and vaccination without our self-determination.
• For limiting people's freedom of speech and the right to assemble peacefully.
• For allowing the Executive Branch to call for acts of war without declaration by a Congress.
• For threatening the people with laws to remove our ability to arm and protect ourselves from such tyranny. 
• And in the words of the original document: "for imposing taxes on us without our consent" and "for depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury."

Talk about deja vu.

Is the United States presently as bad off as other countries with purely tyrannical and controlling governments? No, but that doesn't mean we aren't in danger of sliding fully into the darkness we once escaped so long ago.

What is the result of a collective that has one man (or a group of globalists) at the top as “king” while the people are not the ones in the power? What is the result when a nation has law enforcers with entitlement and special privileges above the public’s best interests? Where does equality and freedom go when laws are made to reward specific special interests? What happens when a REPUBLIC designed so all would live under one all-encompassing law – free and equal – becomes a nation that is ruled and controlled by an elite? What happens to a nation in which truth-tellers or whistle-blowers are shushed in ways we don’t even know, where a country not based on the objective standard of its time, a Constitution, experiences the effects of random rule?
 
Such diseases to the very fabric of a country can only lead to conflict, unrest and the death of a nation. That is the hell. So then, what is the heaven? What is the solution?

At the root of the heaven would be something called "natural law," a philosophical and legal belief that all humans are governed by basic innate laws, or laws of nature, which are separate and distinct from laws which are legislated. In Plato's Republic, the ideal community is "a city which would be established in accordance with nature." Philosophers such as St. Thomas Aquinas, Thomas Hobbes, and John Locke expanded the Greeks theories of natural law, and these ideals found their way into Thomas Jefferson's writing of the Declaration of Independence.

Here then, with natural law - adhering to basic human rights, inalienable, given by a higher power and not by men and their egos - we find the principles of fairness, self-determination, autonomy, freedom and equality. From the first days on the playground, a young soul understands when natural law is broken, as some boundary is completely busted by the bully overtaking a swing set or a sandbox. Whenever a boundary is crushed and torn asunder, there is a crime against a natural way of being. These come in the forms of physical abuse, thievery, murder, rape, trespassing. We all feel it on a visceral level; there is no denying the crime has taken place, no matter how a mind may legitimize the invasion.

And, so how do we maintain a law that is so very basic to all our needs, and one that may have been broken so many times we may not even notice any longer? Well, whenever a government does what it tends to do - overstep its bounds by controlling and taxing a populace - it is up to the people to once again stand up strong and reclaim a power that never should have been relinquished. As it says in that original document I keep bringing up: "whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness."

Not the newest idea. It's as old as, say, the boundaries guarding our life, liberty and pursuit of happiness. It's as American as fireworks, a barbecue, the taste of corn on the cob and apple pie. It's as necessary as a natural law that keeps the elitist egos at bay and keeps the power of the people at the forefront. 

And ... it is something to truly celebrate, today, the fourth of July. 

James Anthony Ellis is a writer and producer who - though not a historian - really knows natural law residing right there in his gut. He can be cited for treason at LegacyProductions.org.