Whatcha Watchin’ – Page 2 – Charles (Chuck) Kensinger

Lying in politics

October 18, 2024

You know the old saying, “How can you tell when a politician is lying. His mouth is moving.” Yes, that was a lawyer. I know this is probably a century or more old. Certain people seem predisposed to lying. They do not belong to any one group as we may view them. There are politicians, businesspeople, used car salespeople, and every conceivable profession that will be honest or not.

I can point out a few men and women who are running in the election who have or are openly lying about themselves. We all believe that our opinions about the issues are correct. I will not argue those opinions. I am talking about statements and claims made by these candidates.

One claimed he was not a politician during the first election he ran in. The definition of a politician is one involved in politics. Specifically running for an elected office makes you a politician. He also promised us that he was not and would never be a professional politician. He ran for a second position before his first term was completed. These are two lies.

Check the promises that are being made. Some want you to accept that they will do things that we all want them to. Stating that you want these things accomplished is wonderful. Claiming you can do them the first day you are in the office is a lie. Either they know this is a lie or they are not smart enough to represent us.

Another has been convicted of crimes. This must be part of his strategy to be elected so that he can pardon himself if his appeals fail. Whether or not I think that this candidate is guilty is not the point

I am not telling you their names because the ones I know about are not the only candidates spreading falsehoods. I am sorry if you support these liars. I hope you will look at each candidate you intend to vote for. Remember that the general election is on the fifth of November. Our time is running out to decide how to vote before then.

In Missouri, we will also have many issues on our ballot. My best advice on this is for you to find the bill or amendment as it is written. Do not listen to those who support or oppose any amendment or item. They also seem to not be able to tell the truth. They want you to view their “facts” as true.

I’ll give you a couple of examples. In Missouri where I live, Amendment 3 to our constitution will make all abortions legal. Proponents claim that currently, doctors cannot help women who are having problem pregnancies. Some OBs say this is correct. Others have stated that they continue to care for their patients as they always have. Ladies, ask your doctor what they believe. They are the ones to whom you should listen.

Two other amendments are about gambling. One small city wants its own casino boat, which is legal in this state. They want to change our constitution to allow this. My reading of the original wording of the amendment makes me believe that it will open the door for many more casinos than are currently allowed by our existing statutes. This is Amendment 5 on our ballot.

The other gambling bill is Amendment 2. This will allow sports betting not just at our few casinos, but online. The supporters of this issue claim we will see ten million dollars for our schools in the first five years. The casino owners oppose this and claim our schools will receive nothing. Both gambling proponents are lying. If you want to bet on athletic events or go to a casino, vote for these bills.

Do not believe that our teachers, schools, or students will benefit from taxes on this. Three other times voters have approved gambling that was supposed to benefit not-for-profit organizations or schools and the exorbitant claims were found to be incorrect. I believe those who accept these statements will determine how they were duped within the five years for which the prediction has been made.

Check all the facts. Read the legislation and the claims of the candidates. Those who have been in office should find it easy to verify their claims. The difficult ones are those like our current senior senator who ran for auditor eight years ago on a platform of not being a politician. He failed to complete that term because he won the nomination to oppose a sitting senator who was running for her third term.

Remember that I am a non-partisan voter. I will not vote for a bad candidate when his or her party wants to force me to accept someone who shows themselves to be a liar. I will not accept who you choose. If your party does not nominate a decent candidate, I will find a qualified person elsewhere. This may be the election that more folks who are not Republicrats or Demicans will fill the positions. See you at the polls.

Feel Good Ads

August 20, 2024

I’ve written about commercials that I find stupid or offensive. I would like to tell you about some of my favorites that promote happiness and health. Have you seen the Jardiance spots that promote this diabetes medication? They are an old-style musical song and dance production. If you don’t like musicals, you will not enjoy them.

Another good one is the Make-A-Wish advertisement with the little girl roping and pulling a star. She takes it to a window in a hospital room. She wants the star to grant the wish for another kid who needs hope and encouragement.

One thing that makes me feel good is music. I like a good advertising jingle or an old familiar song used in a new way. I am not talking about the mattress commercial that uses three words “all night long” from a song. I mean the songs that I grew up with. If an ad uses music from the sixties or seventies, it gets my attention.

That is what they are trying to do. Get our attention. Sell their products. We have a free economy. You can sell someone a rock and call it a pet. You can make a doll, give it a name and a birth certificate, and sell it for ten times what it costs to make. Don’t sell people stock certificates to a company that doesn’t exist. You might go to jail for that.

Advertising and propaganda are the same thing. Advertising is good. Propaganda is bad. They attempt to do the same things. Convince you that you need something they have. Propaganda sells ideologies. Advertising sells products.

Political commercials are propaganda. They want you to believe the half-truths and misinformation that they spread. That guy is a communist. He voted for higher taxes. No one wants higher taxes. We all hate commies, or is it anarchists this week? Put an old song in the background and we might listen to your commercial.

I need another song. I need to stop writing about what some commercials want me to believe and just relax and listen to the Beach Boys, Elvis, or the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band. I think I need a new mattress. All night long.

Someone Please Love Me

March 27, 2024

When it debuted in 1974 my family watched “Little House on the Prairie” because Laura’s stories were some of my mother’s favorites. Between Zane Grey and Laura Ingles Wilder, I don’t think she could decide which she liked best. Grey wrote more prolifically than Mrs. Wilder. Mom had all the Little House books in her collection. She was always finding a new Grey Western that she did not remember having read.

I remember her telling me about a couple of books she had found that were new. She told me that as she started reading, they were the same stories she read before with different names.

Michael Landon produced the TV series and even wrote some of the episodes. Many were not original tales by Laura. I just watched this episode. IMDB shows it from season one, episode twenty-two. The synopsis says: “While out of town to buy horses, Charles Ingalls boards with Brett Harper, a man who is emotionally withdrawn from his unhappy family and trying to lose himself in work and whiskey, blaming himself for the accidental death of his oldest son in a riding accident four years earlier.”

This episode first aired on March 5^th, 1979. I have never seen it before. Why did God make me wait over forty-five years before he chose to show me some of His truths that are reflected in this story? Michael Landon is the screenwriter and as I said previously this was not one of Laura’s memories that she had recorded.

The theme is love. The love of a man for his wife and children and a woman for her husband and children. The death of a child often drives a couple apart and that is the plot here. This story would at first seem to be one where Charles is put in a dangerous situation.

Brett Harper is a horse breeder. Charles is sent to him to purchase ten horses by a very tight-fisted man. These characters are completely new to the series. We see none of the other regulars in the series in this episode. Michael used four main characters to draw from Charles Ingalls what we all know and love about him. He is a good and understanding man, a good father, and a friend even to strangers.

Mr. Harper invites Mr. Ingalls into his home while his crew gathers over a thousand horses for the army. Laura’s dad gets the best of that group. Of course, that means he stays with them for a few days. As you watch he becomes a surrogate father to this man’s kids. He comments on the wife’s pretty hands.

After his compliment, she sees him as a possible replacement for her grieving husband. Landon maneuvers his tale to sweetly point her back to the man that she knows she still loves if he will only give her the chance to help him. After four years of running from the anger at himself for the death of his oldest son, he decides that he will try again to let her help him gain control over alcohol and depression.

The wife is going to leave with Charles to move her children to town away from her husband. Ingalls decides that their leaving is not best for her husband. He escorts her back into the house and takes the kids from the wagon. As Laura’s father drives away, we hear in Melissa Gilbert’s voice the telling of a letter that was received two years later. A fourth child was born to the couple. A son they named Charles.

As a writer, I learned much from this script. You can start your plot the way others have before you. How your characters act must be consistent with who they are. The way the story concludes is yours. That is what I want you to hear today. You may have made bad choices in your life. It is still yours and you can change it.

Friends and family

February 28, 2024

I want to talk to you about some things today. The first is family and friends. I am fortunate that I have had a lot of family all my life. I have two older brothers and a younger sister thanks to my mom and dad. In addition, there was an abundance of aunts, uncles, and cousins. Many are now gone, but each generation is larger than the last.

The truth is that we are not as close as we once were. We have family reunions and attend funerals and sometimes even weddings. Not like we used to. The youngest generation doesn’t seem to marry as often as we did. Some of my cousins got married two or three times each. We all just tend to die once and recently we are living longer. I know it isn’t due to healthy living.

What brought on this wave of nostalgia? A commercial about one of these delivery services. A lady is lying in her bed and there is some unidentifiable noise and movement around her. The camera pans back and her bed is caught between two automatic doors. The voice-over says, “If you can’t take your bed to the store” then they will bring whatever you need to you.

Guess what, isn’t that what friends and family are for? In the bad old days before smartphone apps, you just picked up the phone plugged into the wall and called family or a friend to bring you what you needed.

We are suffering from violence, attacks, and other crimes on more people than ever. There seems to be no way to avoid this. My wife and I seldom leave our home at night. We have a security system at our place, and we know our neighbors. We feel secure in our home.

Do we need to have random strangers coming to our homes bringing groceries, medications, and prepared foods? There are cases where these random strangers return later, and you are no longer safe. If I do not know you, I won’t invite you into my home.

We go out to pick up carry-out. We do not choose Door Ditch, Pan Handle Pete, or Consta Cart to bring things to us. We occasionally ask our pharmacy to deliver prescriptions. We used to call the pizza place for delivery until the drivers looked like the perps on Blue Bloods or the undercover cops from Chicago PD. We have taken medicines to our kids for their kids or themselves. Especially when they were quarantined during the COVID-19 crisis.

Have you seen the original Crocodile Dundee movie? You know, the one named “Crocodile Dundee.” There is a scene in it where Dundee is told that the reporter, he is visiting in New York needs to go to a therapist. Mick doesn’t understand. He asks, “Don’t you have any mates?”

Friends and family or mates used to help each other out. They still do in some communities. Our neighbors, church community, and close family still do. I’ve been called by cousins and friends to officiate at weddings and funerals as well as get someone to a doctor or take food to them when they are ill. It costs us money not to have people we trust and on whom we can depend.

The next time you need something and can’t go get it for yourself, stop and think of whom you can call to bring it to you. Can’t think of anyone? How about one of those that you did the same thing for last week? It’s been a while since you helped someone else? Maybe that is the problem?

Sunday night

February 12, 2023

My wife and I are planning to have a nice evening at home tonight. We will prepare cashew chicken, watch television, not football, and not watch a half-time show. As far as I am concerned, there is no football game being aired.

I am not a football fan, as you can tell. Actually, I do not like any sports. I have two older brothers that watched baseball and thought talking about sports was a manly thing to do. I never cared about that, and I dislike all the babble about the stupid bowl that has been going on for two weeks.

They were forced to take me along with them when they went out to play. I was always picked last for any team. That was never an enjoyable time.

My brothers were Cardinal fans. In 1969 I predicted that the New York Mets would win the world series. They told me that I was crazy. I was right. I must admit that I had made that prediction for several years because the Mets were in the basement. I did it just to make them angry.

If you are a football or sports fan, that is all right for you. Don’t expect me to get all warm and fuzzy about grown men playing games and making money doing it. Let’s find common ground between us.

If I had to choose a team to win THE BIG GAME, it would be the Eagles. It is not that I like that team better than the other one. I like eagles. I like all kinds of eagles. I collect them. I have photographs, stuffed toys, figurines, and even paintings of eagles. I just like eagles. Not the Philadelphia Eagles.

What do I do for fun? I am doing it now. I enjoy writing and expressing my creativity in this manner. You may find that to be strange. I am fine with that. Do what you want to do and let me do the same and we will get along fine.

Enjoy the game and the commercials tonight. I hope the team that you support wins even if it is the Chiefs. Don’t forget to enjoy the game day snacks. That is something where my wife and I will join you.

A Smile

December 28, 2022

Ideas may be hard for some of us to come up with. I know that is not proper grammar. Give me a break, please. I am watching a movie on the Hallmark Channel. It gave me an idea for this column.

The name of the show is “A Smile as big as the Moon.” It is taken from a book of the same name by Mike Kersjes. This is not fiction. The book is a memoir because the teacher of a special education class wrote it. It is his story of what happened to them.

The football coach teacher is spurred on by one student who wants to go to Space Camp. He is a Down syndrome student. Many of his classmates have other handicaps or problems with discipline or learning disabilities.

At the time, Space Camp did not have a program for special needs students. The story is about how to convince the administration at the camp to take a chance on children that are not considered even normal. They are usually thought of as difficult to deal with.

Handling problems for these young people is not easy. Frustration, disappointment, and conflict force them to treat each other as friends and equals. One student does not believe his being in this class is fair. He was a normally well-achieving scholar who endured some setbacks in his grades.

Life is not always fair. To make a story work you must have conflicts. Real life makes for some thrilling times even in a movie script or book. This story has protagonists and antagonists. The teacher and the principal have difficulties as do the administration at Space Camp and that same special education teacher.

I have heard of space camp and am glad that they now have programs for all students and adults. I grew up during the race for space and witnessed Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walking on the moon for the first time in 1969. I have always attempted to follow NASA and the others pushing beyond our atmosphere.

My takeaway from this movie is that we should all share a smile with everyone that we meet every day. Kindness has no better technique for being spread than a spontaneous smile.

Quantum Leap is returning

September 24, 2022

I remember the TV show “Quantum Leap.” This science fiction series from 1989 is being reimagined. I saw this week’s episode and enjoyed it. The connection between the original and the current series was established in the first hour. We even had an update on Al, the hologram that followed Sam around.

Sam is still out there somewhere as far as anyone knows. My speculation is that they will be continuing to discuss him. I would not be amazed to watch an episode where they find him and try to rescue him.

For those of you who are not familiar with either “Quantum Leap” series, the premise is that you can time travel within your own lifetime. This is an interpretation of the string theory of time that Sheldon in “Big Bang Theory” talks about. I am not a physicist and I do not play one on television, but I have a slight knowledge gained through other sci-fi stories.

Many writers have asserted that it is impossible to change history. The storylines of these scripts revolve around the changes that must be made in the lives of people around the person that is leaped into. While these are small changes as history is concerned, they are major in the futures of the characters.

Rod Serling, the creator and host of “Twilight Zone,” wrote and produced episodes that dealt with time travel. The “Time Tunnel” was a direct contradiction of string theory in that the main characters were unable to change history and went to times outside of their lifetimes. Many other time travel stories have been very different from these TV shows.

A story that I wrote years ago involves a person who does not change history. He is involved in a circular process where he is also trapped in events that take place in a set period. Someday I will publish this story on my website. I haven’t posted much fiction here to this point. Let me know what you think.

I would like to give you my understanding of time to finish this column. Time is a part of creation. It is not just that God created the universe. He also created time when He made the stars, planets, and moons. Our time is measured by the movement of the sun. Our seasons and months are determined by the movements of the moon and the sun.

When we enter into the presence of the Father, we will no longer have a method of measuring time because it will no longer exist. As long as we are here it is fun to speculate on the possibility of time travel. One more point. We are all time travelers. We are only traveling in one direction. Into the future. We can only travel back through our memories.

Who’s gonna fill my shoes?

August 7, 2022

Have you ever asked yourself this question? I asked myself after I heard the George Jones song “Who’s gonna fill their shoes?” It is about the country singers that my dad liked, and I grew up listening to. Some I only know by the records my father had in his collection. Most of those albums are long gone.

I am not a country music fan. If you know me personally you also know I am not any kind of singer. I like to create through my words in the form of prose and not poetry. My life has been spent in many ways and others have taken my spot in many of these.

Business managers are easily replaced as are purchasing agents and managers. A job can be filled by many when the previous holder moves on. As a teacher in the church, those positions have also been filled. While they may not use the same style of instruction, they have their own and get the job done.

The shoes that I want to talk about are those of husband, father, and grandfather. I have not been perfect. I have done my best and I will never be replaced when I am no longer here to fulfill those responsibilities. Others can try to accomplish the tasks that I have spent time on. It still will not be the same as I would do it.

Those tasks are to educate and inform the ones I care about on how to become a person of integrity, someone who loves them, and their biggest fan. Time is always too short. I would enjoy as much time as possible to continue with these wonderful people. How can I show love and concern to them when I am not with them?

Love is not an emotion as we normally think of it. Love is the actions that we take every day to show that we genuinely appreciate and accept each other. What can we do to continue these acts that are seen as love? Let’s look at how we communicate love.

Letters that encourage are one way. Write them now for the special occasions that will come after you are gone. A letter for each anniversary, birthday, wedding, graduation, and any other special occasion that you can think of. Start as soon as you can. Don’t mention a number except in certain cases.

Purchase and wrap gifts for these events and others like Christmas or a day that you currently celebrate with a gift. The hard part is how to get these into the hands of those you prepare them for. One of the simplest ways is to have your attorney or executor of your will present these for you. Discussing this extra and ongoing part of the job should be accomplished as soon as you can. Choose someone young enough to be around when you need them.

Selecting several individuals to take this task for you is another way to make the job easier. Be sure these are dependable folks. Do not forget to have letters and presents sent to them as well. Time is not the enemy here. It provides the opportunities to continue to be the person that others cherish.

Have you seen my glasses?

July 21, 2022

Have you seen the Dish ad with the couple where he is looking for something and she is using her voice remote to find a movie she wants to watch? He raises up and asks her “Have you seen my glasses? We see his glasses are on the top of his head. She replies, “They’re around somewhere.”

I am going to scream about this degradation of older men. Do you know why the two actors’ roles were not reversed? I believe it is because the advertising agency would have lost much of their business if they were viewed as making fun of a woman.

Another question I have is why isn’t this couple mixed race? That seems to be the way most commercials are cast. Wouldn’t it be just as cute, if it was a white woman that said, “They’re around somewhere.” I’m sure the agency did not want to deal with the fallout from possible racism.

It is acceptable to make fun of men. Color or Race means nothing if the man is considered elderly. The idea of a forgetful old man is always a good laugh. Don’t make fun of a young black man. You’ll be called a bigot.

Another problem with this commercial is that it is making fun of those of us that do not have very good memories. Yes, I am in my sixties, and I have heard the story that when you get older there are three things that happen. The first is you lose your memory and the person telling the joke can’t remember the other two.

To prove my poor memory is not caused by aging, I will tell you the other two. You go to the bathroom a lot more and your breakfast consists of about two dozen pills. My memory started to go when I was in my twenties. When in grade school, high school, and even college I was praised for my ability to memorize scripture, statistics, poetry, speeches, and vocabulary words for four languages.

One of the things you learn when your brain does not recall things as easily as it once did, is to compensate. I began carrying a notebook in my pocket when I was in journalism. I still carry it. Everything I need to remember is in there. Phone numbers, ideas for articles and books, and even things I need to pick up at stores.

I have worn glasses since I was in the third grade. They are always on my face. I now wear a strap on them since I had cataracts removed and the new lens gave me the vision to read clearly. I still need glasses for everything else. They are always on my eyes, my chest, or the nightstand.

While many of you think this commercial is humorous, I hope you understand why it distresses me. One thing I assume is that the woman is his wife. If I am wrong about this and she is his sister, then I understand. So as Rose Ann Rosanna Danna would say, “never mind.”

A fourteen-year-old visits the moon.

July 20, 2022

Fifty-three years ago, my brothers and I were watching television with friends from church on Sunday evening. Our youth minister had planned this activity for us weeks before. My oldest brother was leaving that week for the Navy. This was his going away party.

Saturday, we had been watching as Apollo 11 landed on the moon. The words, “The Eagle has landed” were heard with a slight delay. I listened intently that evening to hear what would happen and when. At church the next morning my question was if there would be a television, we could watch at the home of the family that was hosting the event.

The answer was, of course. We ate, played games, and stayed alert to what was happening on the moon and at mission control in Houston, Texas. A few minutes before the door of the Lunar Excursion Module was opened, we all gathered around the TV.

We waited with Uncle Walter as Armstrong and Aldrin prepared to vacate the LEM. Mike Collins was orbiting the moon in Columbia. Viewers all around the world were watching. This had never happened before.

Apollo 8 with its three-man crew had orbited the moon the previous December. That was a first. There was no LEM on this flight. It wasn’t ready, yet. “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the Earth” was heard from the craft on Christmas Eve. Frank Borman, Jim Lovell, and William Anders were on board. Borman did the reading. This showed the difference between the Soviets and Americans. We saw God where we were. They never saw Him.

James McDivitt, David Scott, and Rusty Schweickart Flew the Apollo 9 with the first LEM in March of 1969. The docking and undocking of the command and lunar modules were tested. It working as expected. The only problem was that they never left Earth’s orbit. They did test the moon suits during a spacewalk.

In May Apollo 10 went back to the moon. It had a LEM and the lander undocked and went within 8 miles of the surface of the moon. They fired the ascent engine before reaching the point of no return. Tom Stafford and Gene Cernan were onboard the LEM while john Young flew the command module. The two crafts redocked and left lunar orbit to return to the Earth.

As this young man watched on July 20, 1969, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin did what had never been done before. They walked on the surface of the moon. A TV camera on the lander showed us as Neil stepped off the ladder and said, “That’s one small step for a man and a giant leap for mankind.”

As we all know all three of the Apollo 11 astronauts returned home from the moon. 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, and 17 Apollo missions also returned to the moon before the end of the moon missions. We all know about the problems on Apollo 13 that prevented them from landing. Some of the astronauts drove golf balls or moon rovers while on the surface.

If you hear that the Apollo 11 landing was a hoax by the government, do not believe it. Not only did U.S. astronauts land on the moon once. They went there nine times and landed six times. A total of twelve Americans walked on the surface.

Take my word for it. I was that fourteen-year-old boy that walked on the moon with all of them through the miracle of live television. I never needed video games in the sixties and seventies because we had the space race. Watching real people explore the unknown in real-time beats any computer simulation.

Charles (Chuck) Kensinger

Walk With a Servant

Category: Whatcha Watchin’