Circa 1990 I came into a small amount of cash (less than one year's earnings). One of the things I did was invest in making a song from my lyrics that would promote themes bringing long term peaceful global prospects and space exploration fueled with electro-magnetic accelerators. I understood, having read Russian and continental history, that Germany and post-cold war Europe might be a problem one day in regard to eastward expansion. I also knew that chemical rockets are quite slow in comparison to neo-relativistic speed electro-magnetic field accelerators that could be built in space and on moons and planets with good practical design.
Neither purpose worked with the song that was soundly trashed by the band that performed it. Maybe a half million casualties followed in the Euro-Biden-Russian Ukraine war, and space exploration still relies on chemical rickets; the economy hasn't changed and the political economy of the globe is largely the same as it was in 1990 with the exception of a lot of cheap labor and the rise of China and BRIC nations.
I had believed as a Christian and with a degree with depth in history and philosophy that I shouldn't bury my talents, and should instead try to affect society positively. I had written a fairly popular prose poem appx 17 years before-anonymously, and felt that writing poetry and lyrics that are constructive was a talent of mine. Society tends to eschew positive, intelligent change of macro-structure over-all.
Musicians and advertisers were about the only people that took note of that song named 'Beneath the Stars'. basically a few thought to exact slights at me for making it. They are something like Orwell's ministry of truth promoting a daily hate in so many words reinforced to the masses with mild thought conditioning repeated ad nauseum in airplay. For me at least that was domestic terrorism. It is sad that I heard such a CW ditty even today- so I wrote this commemorative post describing some of the dark side of the U.S.A. that mal-effects personal and social economic change.
I had never intended to become something of a rodeo clown distraction to draw public attention to myself and away from the actual rich and heirs inheriting millions. What drew my ire today was a song loaded with the usual demotic that actually used the Hork dis.
When I published the song in 1992 I had recently completed a Bachelors from the University of the State of New York- formerly Regents College and now Excelsior. Not only do they imply that I inherited wealth- I absolutely did not; they attacked an earned college degree. Something more about that.
The bloody country western musical neo-terrorists are no more country than I. Though my degree was from New York I lived my entire life in the far west U.S.A. and actually Alaska for much of it. I did spend three or four years painting homes in South Carolina and Florida as well. And I worked offshore of Texas and Louisiana a while.
I took 91 college semester credits at the University of Alaska and a few at North Seattle Community College. I needed 120 to graduate and just took College Level Examination scores for 30 semester credits in a about ten hours of testing. So I had 121 credits. Instead of borrowing money with student loans and getting additional Pell Grants I enrolled at Regents College Degrees and transferred the entire lot to them. I graduated with 121 credits instead of 150 or 180 for a degree that required 120.
Being poor and already with student debt I thought nothing of utilizing a rational, fully accredited University consolidation program and getting my degree immediately with my earned credits instead of trying to get a B.A. from the University of Alaska and go 10-15,000 thousand farther in debt for another year or two of undergraduate programs. To me, a college degree is nothing more than a certificate of academic work to a certain level. I suppose some mafia style goons view them as a super high-school like local turf empowerment so lesser intellectual capacity might want to make them cliques of academically challenged athletes that prosper and heavily influence a local economy.
I got an A.A. from the University of Alaska and a B.L.S. from the University of the State of New York and about the same time and went out about the country looking for a job to afford a graduate school without luck. I wanted to become an educator in some foreign, poor country with an internationally recognized M.A. degree in philosophy and history, as my B.L.S. was.
So for that degree from New York- it should be fair to purchase a fully accredited degree- the cost was just $1500 or so and at least a 90% savings over what a comparable degree would have cost in Alaska, the musical and advertising people have over the decades occasionally thrown or sung some trim my way. They probably kiss ass of Harvard grads in their industries while hating on the academic work of the poor and or entrepreneurial.
