About Us

Welcome to Purple Sky

As I watched network news now days, it seems as if Lou Grant and Arthur Carlson are running the stations and newsrooms. We all wondered where Ted Baxter or Ron Burgandy have been hiding. Just look at the at the nightly news. Hell, you may even see Les Nessman wondering why the turkeys did not fly as they pushed them out of a helicopter door on Thanksgiving and splatered in the parking lot. That is what our media has become, a joke.

Today in our world much of the information peddled as news in print, radio and tv is nothing more than opinion given as fact. In other words, propaganda. So, the question becomes what to believe. American financier and presidential advisor to two presidents Bernard Baruch was quoted in an Associated Press article in 1946 said “Every man has a right to an opinion, but no man has a right to be wrong in facts. Nor, above all, to persist in errors as to facts.” Profound, isn’t it?  “To persist in errors as facts”, is it any wonder people do not believe the news media any longer?

As I go further along, there is another quote which drives me. This quote was by James Madison in the Federalist Papers. “It may be a reflection on nature, that such devices should be necessary to control the abuses of government.  What is government itself but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were angels no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary”.  The devices Madison was referring to was our three branches of government. However, I think that quote should be remembered in everyday life. Not everyone is an angel with your or the countries best interest at heart. While the human nature in us wants to trust, we must do as Ronald Regan said, “trust but verify.”

We as citizens need to hold our government accountable for its actions. The local, state and federal government (some elected and some appointed) has ruined lives and communities. They have presided over the destruction of neighborhoods and cities while enriching themselves.

We have known for a long time something is wrong. However, the fact is we are compliant in its actions. Election cycle after election cycle we continue to believe their lies and hope their failed policies work only to be disappointed. It is just not one of our political parties, it is both.

Exposing wrong doings is not the same as fixing them. When they are caught in their lies, displays of hypocrisy and theft they are not moved by shame. They know they are very rarely held accountable. We keep electing the same “angels” cycle after cycle.

We are not just going to ask why. We want to know the why to the why. We want to peal back the layers of “political talk” like peeling on onion. We are looking for the empirical truth. We will be doing this by laying it out like you were taught in 7^th. grade science. For those of you who do not remember, the steps are; Ask the question, hypothesize and predict, test the hypothesis, analyze the results, draw conclusions and communicate results.

It is not my goal to say my views and opinions are right and yours are wrong. As part of my logo, there is a quote, “The wise man loves to be corrected”. I believe that. The debatable part however may be me assuming I am a wise man. I do not possess a lot of letters behind my name piled up higher and deeper. Either way this journey is to find why we are as divided as it seems. I do think we all want some of the same things.

I know politics and opinions can be divisive. That is why I also wanted to talk about other things friends talk about which is why I included cocktails, cooking and cigars to go with the conversation. Yes even for the ladies I think a woman smoking a cigar can be sexy. If you are vegan or vegetarian, you can skip the cooking for the most part because I am a carnivore.

In my everyday job I am charges with maintaining one of the barriers to saving lives and preventing environment accidents. Just being able to say “well I thought” does not cut it. My experience writing is in daily technical reports. The only other writing that has been published was in Sister Linda’s 7^th. graded English class where I won 1^st place by describing what it is like to be a piece of lead in a pencil. WTF!

Let’s sit back, stir or shake that cocktail after we light up!

Cheers,

Thomas