For millions and millions of us in the US of A, it is time to be awoken by screaming, giggling children that can't wait to rush in under the tree and see what Santa brought them. I loved that as a child and had many short of sleep christmas mornings with my own children. It is child-dependent thing to do and I expect that my own children are currently rubbing the sleep out of their own eyes so they can watch children rip open gifts and throw new clothes to the side so they can play with whatever toy has caught their eye.
For some of us without kids in the house, Christmas morning can be more of a free-time. Other people go to great lengths to be somewhere besides alone on that morning. Some decide to sleep late or sign up to work or bake some more cookies to take to the family meal.
I had always considered Christmas to be universal, but with roughly 1/3 of the worlds population (about 2.1 billion people) being Christian, that means that 2/3 of the world are probably not celebrating Christmas. And very few cultures celebrate it the way it is commonly celebrated in this country. If you add in the people celebrating the Winter Solstice (about 3.6 billion that includes those following Hinduism, tribal, Buddhist, Neopagan and Zoroastrians, then we are almost 70%, add Hanukkah, Chalica, and we are still about 70% (that would be two religions that total less than a million between them). Add Kwanzaa and the many people that do not consider themselves to have a religion but that enjoy a good celebration as well as the next person and we have about 80% of the world celebrating something this week. Jehovah's witnesses don't do holidays and the 21% of the population that is Islamic are all that are not officially in holiday mode.
Its no wonder that so much of this countries retail income is from this month. Many of these celebrations involve gifting. Almost all holidays involve feasting. Having a good time is good for the economy.
But is there a universal theme for this season? In the northern hemisphere it is cold, the harvest is done, the calendar year is nearing the end, so what is it about?
Perhaps they do all share a theme.
Hope.
Peace on Earth.
Love for our fellow man.
Respect and Happiness for our family.
A celebration of life, of still being alive and able to enjoy our loved ones.
What do we humans celebrate? What do we ALL celebrate? I think it might be hope for a better future, happiness for our descendants, a continuation of the goodness that can be such a human trait when we are not scrabbling and clamoring in our day to day lives.
Happy Holidays!
Wednesday, December 25, 2013
Saturday, December 7, 2013
Marriage advice (from the chronically divorced)
I used to be married, but the last quarter of a century has been post-divorce. I have definitely been divorced much longer than I was married. I have about a half a cup more reason to give marriage advice than a celibate clergy member.
On the other hand, I have definite experience with what won't make a marriage work.
Women quite openly and men more occultly seek the white picket fence ideal. It may be dressed up to look like a mansion or down to look like it is not so traditional as the parents' sad life, but it is pretty universal in this culture. Gay people are fighting for it, people that came from cultures in which marriage is arranged and about something totally different than our culture's marriage ideal, fight for it against traditional parents and with threat to personal well-being.
Unfortunately, while I've seen it in movies, and sitcoms love it, I can't say I have ever seen the real thing.
What happens when two people with that ideal for themselves decide to marry? They make the plans, they tie the knot, they start the family, and never get to know each other; the plan--the ideal, is more real than the other person.
Suddenly they are trying to force each other into the mold, she is supposed to suddenly love doing nothing more than watching children and cooking for the man and keeping the house clean. These days that does not involve being a stay-at-home mom except for the very well-paid husband. More usually it is in addition to at least one and sometimes two jobs.
Its as if that wedding ring was supposed to eliminate all of her but the part that the man needed for his ideal.
The woman is no less guilty of not recognizing the individuality of her new husband. She is now expecting him to support her every want and need, to help around the house, romance her and tell her daily how amazing she is. All that stuff he did for fun with his buddies is over, he is a husband now.
A few marriages can live like this for a bit, but few can maintain after the birth of a child. Babies are exhausting. Pregnancy is body-image changing, and while some men find their pregnant wife beautiful and sexy the whole time, others are terrified of all those changes. The woman is also pretty terrified and insecure and those hormones are definitely not making anyone feel more stable. By the birth, (a beautiful and absolutely horror-show event) the whole ideal is starting to look a little ragged.
Then starts the reality. Can he maintain helpfulness so they both get to sleep, or is it all on her? Can she communicate what she needs in a loving manner or is it time to call names and make threats? Does he start sounding like he was raised by an angry stand-up comedian? Does she realize she sounds just like her mother? Have they both yelled "I hate you" at each other repeatedly? Has it come to blows or are they both calling the hair-pulling and pushing and throwing stuff "normal"?
Why is this pretty predictable? Because we don't ever tell our children that roles are not people. People do not cease to exist when they take on a role. And trying to force the other person to be the role you expect is not possible. People can play-act for a while. We know that from the peacock suits that people wear to find a mate. More than a few frogs and frogettes have maintained good hygiene, nice clothes and kindly dispositions long enough to find a mate, but they don't maintain that. If you doubt that, shop at Walmart between ten at night and 3:00am on Saturday night.
Perhaps its time to pull down the white picket fence. Marriage might offer great tax breaks, but all that role expectation only leads to high divorce rates, disappointment in ourselves when we can't force ourselves into those roles successfully and happily, and a lot of wasted money on white satin and floral arrangements.
Wedding pictures, while beautiful are as often found in the garage in a Rubbermaid as they are on the coffee table. We shake our heads and tsktsk when a baby is involved in a divorce, but is being raised by two separate but sane people really worse than being raised in a house of name-calling, hatred, violence and escape using drugs and alcohol?
Our statistics say "yes, its worse", but I don't know how that was determined, and frankly, as long as divorced people or single people with children are seen as inferior as parents, the stigma will influence that.
I have always wondered how a child born outside of marriage has any less worth than a child born within a marriage. The dominant culture in this country loves to put down cultures that stone women that have sex out of marriage and write poignant TV shows about the trials of children born to rape victims, but those things are culture, not truth.
Every child born is amazing and should not have to feel any shame for how they were conceived.
Marriage, should be a personal choice that does not involve the subordination of either person's basic personality.
Roles suck---if a woman and man find that she likes to cook and he likes to clean---cool beans. If she hates all that but makes a butt-load of money, eat out or if he likes cooking, great.
It isn't about what the other person has to do to meet my needs, its about enjoying life together.
What is my advice, the one bit of advice found in every religion and philosophy--treat others like you want to be treated. (sadists and masochists excluded)
On the other hand, I have definite experience with what won't make a marriage work.
Women quite openly and men more occultly seek the white picket fence ideal. It may be dressed up to look like a mansion or down to look like it is not so traditional as the parents' sad life, but it is pretty universal in this culture. Gay people are fighting for it, people that came from cultures in which marriage is arranged and about something totally different than our culture's marriage ideal, fight for it against traditional parents and with threat to personal well-being.
Unfortunately, while I've seen it in movies, and sitcoms love it, I can't say I have ever seen the real thing.
What happens when two people with that ideal for themselves decide to marry? They make the plans, they tie the knot, they start the family, and never get to know each other; the plan--the ideal, is more real than the other person.
Suddenly they are trying to force each other into the mold, she is supposed to suddenly love doing nothing more than watching children and cooking for the man and keeping the house clean. These days that does not involve being a stay-at-home mom except for the very well-paid husband. More usually it is in addition to at least one and sometimes two jobs.
Its as if that wedding ring was supposed to eliminate all of her but the part that the man needed for his ideal.
The woman is no less guilty of not recognizing the individuality of her new husband. She is now expecting him to support her every want and need, to help around the house, romance her and tell her daily how amazing she is. All that stuff he did for fun with his buddies is over, he is a husband now.
A few marriages can live like this for a bit, but few can maintain after the birth of a child. Babies are exhausting. Pregnancy is body-image changing, and while some men find their pregnant wife beautiful and sexy the whole time, others are terrified of all those changes. The woman is also pretty terrified and insecure and those hormones are definitely not making anyone feel more stable. By the birth, (a beautiful and absolutely horror-show event) the whole ideal is starting to look a little ragged.
Then starts the reality. Can he maintain helpfulness so they both get to sleep, or is it all on her? Can she communicate what she needs in a loving manner or is it time to call names and make threats? Does he start sounding like he was raised by an angry stand-up comedian? Does she realize she sounds just like her mother? Have they both yelled "I hate you" at each other repeatedly? Has it come to blows or are they both calling the hair-pulling and pushing and throwing stuff "normal"?
Why is this pretty predictable? Because we don't ever tell our children that roles are not people. People do not cease to exist when they take on a role. And trying to force the other person to be the role you expect is not possible. People can play-act for a while. We know that from the peacock suits that people wear to find a mate. More than a few frogs and frogettes have maintained good hygiene, nice clothes and kindly dispositions long enough to find a mate, but they don't maintain that. If you doubt that, shop at Walmart between ten at night and 3:00am on Saturday night.
Perhaps its time to pull down the white picket fence. Marriage might offer great tax breaks, but all that role expectation only leads to high divorce rates, disappointment in ourselves when we can't force ourselves into those roles successfully and happily, and a lot of wasted money on white satin and floral arrangements.
Wedding pictures, while beautiful are as often found in the garage in a Rubbermaid as they are on the coffee table. We shake our heads and tsktsk when a baby is involved in a divorce, but is being raised by two separate but sane people really worse than being raised in a house of name-calling, hatred, violence and escape using drugs and alcohol?
Our statistics say "yes, its worse", but I don't know how that was determined, and frankly, as long as divorced people or single people with children are seen as inferior as parents, the stigma will influence that.
I have always wondered how a child born outside of marriage has any less worth than a child born within a marriage. The dominant culture in this country loves to put down cultures that stone women that have sex out of marriage and write poignant TV shows about the trials of children born to rape victims, but those things are culture, not truth.
Every child born is amazing and should not have to feel any shame for how they were conceived.
Marriage, should be a personal choice that does not involve the subordination of either person's basic personality.
Roles suck---if a woman and man find that she likes to cook and he likes to clean---cool beans. If she hates all that but makes a butt-load of money, eat out or if he likes cooking, great.
It isn't about what the other person has to do to meet my needs, its about enjoying life together.
What is my advice, the one bit of advice found in every religion and philosophy--treat others like you want to be treated. (sadists and masochists excluded)
Saturday, November 9, 2013
The Sears Christmas Catalog
I tried to cancelled Christmas this year. I told my relatives I usually buy for that my Christmas to them was the money they would have spent on my gift. Amazingly, we all rapidly decided that gifts for 4 small children was to be the extent of our gift sharing. We would get together, eat food, talk, watch our 4 little children open their gifts and wish each other goodwill and happiness, etc.
For the next few days I felt as if I had won the lottery or paid off my mortgage, then I realized it was just relief at not having to find a dozen gifts that would be not well liked and not worth much less than the ones given to me by their recipients. I wasn't going to have to increase my credit card debt, because the conversation among the parents of those 4 young children consisted of "I looked in his/her room and am going to have to clear out a bunch of toys to make room for this years Christmas gifts" They were talking among themselves about taking the money they usually spent and putting it toward a family vacation, (I'll stay home and watch the house/dogs/cats/plants, that is a movie I have lived, I t-shirt I already own) The oldest grandchild was insisting in no uncertain terms that she only wanted specific clothes items, no toys because she felt sad for the toys that didn't get enough attention.
Christmas is such a tradition, a tie to childhood, I wasn't sure whether to be elated or devastated so I decided to examine the memories. And yes, the "buy more every year" was started by my own parents, and continued throughout their lives and was taken up by my sister and I. By last year, it bore little resemblance to those mornings of my childhood when the tree seemed to be exploding with gifts. Old pictures confirm that what seemed alot, was 2 stockings and a bunch(probably 5) of cheap unwrapped toys from Santa and 1 big gift each. There was usually only 2 gifts for each of my parents, one to each other, one from the kids--jointly given. If more, it was homemade and not from an expensive kit. The extended family was even smaller, each child receiving 3 gifts--one from each nuclear family, and that was ended when one branch had a population explosion and changed from name drawing to just a meal, to an annual Christmas Card to those you still had an address for.
Last year, at the extended family event that my sister and I have continued since our children grew up and started their own, there was a ring extending out 6 feet from the edge of the tree and all the gifts were bagged up in in multiples to keep it simpler. I received 20 gifts. I spent way beyond my means, felt great concern that I didn't give enough, and that no one liked their gifts and that I would never pay off the credit debt before next year rolled around..
I did a little research and discovered that the huge Christmas gifts on Christmas morning was not very common. Rich Victorian children got some things, farm kids might get a box of crayons or a new homemade dress or doll. Poor kids hoped for a piece of candy and some fruit and nuts. By the depression, whatever had been passing as a tradition was decreased to a tree and homemade whatever.
So why did we think that way? When did we decide that we needed to have more of everything for Christmas for it to be a happy holiday?
At the arrival of the annual Sears Christmas catalog. The last one I saw was called the Wish Book---how magical is that.
When it arrived in the fall we would each spend time with it. We would make lists of toys and clothes and shoes and foods that would make our lives perfect and fill our hearts with joy. We would present our lists and be told to mark the top 2 or three, then spend more time with the catalog trying to decide what was the most important.
Amazingly, we never knew we needed most of the stuff on our lists until the catalog arrived.
By the 1980's, the number of utterly amazing Christmas catalogs was uncountable. So much stuff, so little time. As an adult I knew there was no one that could afford to give me most of it, but the memories of the avarice and acquisitiveness was fond. It was like the treasure-finding dream...and the 80's were by their nature avaricious and acquisitive; the profession of choice was entrepreneur, the shows were about stinkingly rich families that would do anything to get more. We, as a nation were doomed to gross consumerism and one-upping the Jones'.
In 2008, all of our over-indulging, overly wasteful, credit-card addicted ways became a problem. It was a depression not unlike the one our parents had survived complete with insane politics and an awful war that was expected to fix the problems. Our parents were gone, our gardens grew only grass that we paid someone to mow and someone else to fertilize and we watered incessantly because just like the previous depression where our area was called the dust bowl, we were in a drought. Some people lost jobs, but if we didn't lose them, our wages didn't go down, they just didn't go up. Our benefits became weaker, our portion to pay for them went up. Gas went up so everything that was trekked in went up. If we were buying a house, that stayed the same, or we refinanced and it went down, as interest was way down. But renters paid more and more for less and less, and getting a mortgage was now tougher than ever because no lenders wanted to risk default for less than 4% interest coming in.
But while we bought more economical cars, and got used to heating the house to 68 degrees F. and cooling it to 78 degrees F. and even started trying to eat better so we didn't have to buy a wardrobe a size bigger every year (eating better is only cheaper if you cook, cheap eating out is always fattening) ,we tried to keep that insane Christmas tradition.
I, for one, look forward to not feeling stressed out by the Holidays. I do like Christmas Cards, though, with a nice letter or maybe a photo. The perfect Christmas gift.
For the next few days I felt as if I had won the lottery or paid off my mortgage, then I realized it was just relief at not having to find a dozen gifts that would be not well liked and not worth much less than the ones given to me by their recipients. I wasn't going to have to increase my credit card debt, because the conversation among the parents of those 4 young children consisted of "I looked in his/her room and am going to have to clear out a bunch of toys to make room for this years Christmas gifts" They were talking among themselves about taking the money they usually spent and putting it toward a family vacation, (I'll stay home and watch the house/dogs/cats/plants, that is a movie I have lived, I t-shirt I already own) The oldest grandchild was insisting in no uncertain terms that she only wanted specific clothes items, no toys because she felt sad for the toys that didn't get enough attention.
Christmas is such a tradition, a tie to childhood, I wasn't sure whether to be elated or devastated so I decided to examine the memories. And yes, the "buy more every year" was started by my own parents, and continued throughout their lives and was taken up by my sister and I. By last year, it bore little resemblance to those mornings of my childhood when the tree seemed to be exploding with gifts. Old pictures confirm that what seemed alot, was 2 stockings and a bunch(probably 5) of cheap unwrapped toys from Santa and 1 big gift each. There was usually only 2 gifts for each of my parents, one to each other, one from the kids--jointly given. If more, it was homemade and not from an expensive kit. The extended family was even smaller, each child receiving 3 gifts--one from each nuclear family, and that was ended when one branch had a population explosion and changed from name drawing to just a meal, to an annual Christmas Card to those you still had an address for.
Last year, at the extended family event that my sister and I have continued since our children grew up and started their own, there was a ring extending out 6 feet from the edge of the tree and all the gifts were bagged up in in multiples to keep it simpler. I received 20 gifts. I spent way beyond my means, felt great concern that I didn't give enough, and that no one liked their gifts and that I would never pay off the credit debt before next year rolled around..
I did a little research and discovered that the huge Christmas gifts on Christmas morning was not very common. Rich Victorian children got some things, farm kids might get a box of crayons or a new homemade dress or doll. Poor kids hoped for a piece of candy and some fruit and nuts. By the depression, whatever had been passing as a tradition was decreased to a tree and homemade whatever.
So why did we think that way? When did we decide that we needed to have more of everything for Christmas for it to be a happy holiday?
At the arrival of the annual Sears Christmas catalog. The last one I saw was called the Wish Book---how magical is that.
When it arrived in the fall we would each spend time with it. We would make lists of toys and clothes and shoes and foods that would make our lives perfect and fill our hearts with joy. We would present our lists and be told to mark the top 2 or three, then spend more time with the catalog trying to decide what was the most important.
Amazingly, we never knew we needed most of the stuff on our lists until the catalog arrived.
By the 1980's, the number of utterly amazing Christmas catalogs was uncountable. So much stuff, so little time. As an adult I knew there was no one that could afford to give me most of it, but the memories of the avarice and acquisitiveness was fond. It was like the treasure-finding dream...and the 80's were by their nature avaricious and acquisitive; the profession of choice was entrepreneur, the shows were about stinkingly rich families that would do anything to get more. We, as a nation were doomed to gross consumerism and one-upping the Jones'.
In 2008, all of our over-indulging, overly wasteful, credit-card addicted ways became a problem. It was a depression not unlike the one our parents had survived complete with insane politics and an awful war that was expected to fix the problems. Our parents were gone, our gardens grew only grass that we paid someone to mow and someone else to fertilize and we watered incessantly because just like the previous depression where our area was called the dust bowl, we were in a drought. Some people lost jobs, but if we didn't lose them, our wages didn't go down, they just didn't go up. Our benefits became weaker, our portion to pay for them went up. Gas went up so everything that was trekked in went up. If we were buying a house, that stayed the same, or we refinanced and it went down, as interest was way down. But renters paid more and more for less and less, and getting a mortgage was now tougher than ever because no lenders wanted to risk default for less than 4% interest coming in.
But while we bought more economical cars, and got used to heating the house to 68 degrees F. and cooling it to 78 degrees F. and even started trying to eat better so we didn't have to buy a wardrobe a size bigger every year (eating better is only cheaper if you cook, cheap eating out is always fattening) ,we tried to keep that insane Christmas tradition.
I, for one, look forward to not feeling stressed out by the Holidays. I do like Christmas Cards, though, with a nice letter or maybe a photo. The perfect Christmas gift.
Friday, October 11, 2013
The State of Teeth.
Today is the beginning of 4 days off and it is all mine. I do not need to go anywhere or see anyone or even talk to anyone all day long. It's a gift.
The government has been (partially) shutdown for 10 days. I doubt any of the individuals that are currently furloughed are seeing this as a gift. I wish they could---they could enjoy every minute as much as I am planning to--but the one time I was out of work for ten days, I was not enjoying myself. I was afraid I would not be able to pay my bills, or feed my kids, or put gas in my car. I spent the time trying to find a new job, and I did, and I did have to get rid of some services that I enjoyed like cable TV and my cell phone at the time, and there were no meals eaten out or movies or new clothes.
The long term effects were more subtle. I have changed jobs much quicker since then, watching for signs of political unrest that can fall back on me and my lifestyle.
My coworkers find me distrustful, hyper-vigilant, paranoid. I notice when the ley lines change in the power structure, sometimes a thing as subtle as which empty chair is chosen by the one in charge. Sometimes more obvious--when a department head is back in the starter position and the second-in-commands incompetent but attractive friend is in the emptied position the next day. The later would not have happened 3 months before. Three months ago there was still much excuse-making about the previous 4 failed upper level positions that particular cutie had occupied. Something had changed.
In our government, the very popular (in our state) group that is currently holding the country hostage is not as popular. That is also a subtle change. The huge fans of the Tea Party, and there were many in this Red state in the buckle of the Bible Belt, have grown quiet. The previously quiet and frequently fearful members of the other party have become more vocal. Ignoring the ridiculousness of a state whose aim seems to be to maintain itself in the position of worst of 50 states in every possible measure of comparison, our State government continues to be vocally and adamantly crazy.
One of our State senators, (State, not Federal--its confusing even when looking at the ballot), the same one that placed a stone with the 10 commandments on the capital lawn, complete with typos, was quoted today blaming the national healthcare system in England for the renowned bad teeth of the British.
The picture displayed above the article he was so willingly interviewed for showed a man with what must surely be a toupe and some extremely denture-like teeth. If they are his teeth, they have had some serious work, veneers perhaps, and I can't imagine any insurance paid for that.
Oddly, I had always viewed the whole British teeth issue not as a healthcare issue, but as cultural issue, not so vain, not so worried about buying perfection and putting down anyone that didn't fix their imperfectly shaped and crooked teeth. I had never heard that the British were suffering from lack of dental hygiene or unrepaired decay.
In my state, on the other hand, one has only to walk through Walmart to see the many fine teeth of our residents. Methamphetamine has truly upped the number of scarey mouths in the last twenty years, now people as young as twenty smile and make those that witness that smile skip meals. Parents point to those mouths and use them to warn their children off taking drugs. Before meth, we had a lack of dental care, school children that recieved their first toothbrush in school when the school nurse handed them a brush and miniature tube of toothpaste as part of her dental hygiene class. When asked, those same students, newly gifted with a basic tool of cleanliness, would tell anyone listening that people over 20 lost their teeth, it was normal.
I think perhaps it might be a good response by the United Kingdom to send a research team to the middle of the US of A and take pictures and do interviews about the amazing dental care and fine teeth seen here. Because, yes, among those with a little money and a strong sense that only people with straight, white teeth will ever succeed, they will pay out the nose to put their precious babies in braces and then get them professionally whitened, but for the rest of the teeth of this fine state, we just make the British look confidant and sensible.
The government has been (partially) shutdown for 10 days. I doubt any of the individuals that are currently furloughed are seeing this as a gift. I wish they could---they could enjoy every minute as much as I am planning to--but the one time I was out of work for ten days, I was not enjoying myself. I was afraid I would not be able to pay my bills, or feed my kids, or put gas in my car. I spent the time trying to find a new job, and I did, and I did have to get rid of some services that I enjoyed like cable TV and my cell phone at the time, and there were no meals eaten out or movies or new clothes.
The long term effects were more subtle. I have changed jobs much quicker since then, watching for signs of political unrest that can fall back on me and my lifestyle.
My coworkers find me distrustful, hyper-vigilant, paranoid. I notice when the ley lines change in the power structure, sometimes a thing as subtle as which empty chair is chosen by the one in charge. Sometimes more obvious--when a department head is back in the starter position and the second-in-commands incompetent but attractive friend is in the emptied position the next day. The later would not have happened 3 months before. Three months ago there was still much excuse-making about the previous 4 failed upper level positions that particular cutie had occupied. Something had changed.
In our government, the very popular (in our state) group that is currently holding the country hostage is not as popular. That is also a subtle change. The huge fans of the Tea Party, and there were many in this Red state in the buckle of the Bible Belt, have grown quiet. The previously quiet and frequently fearful members of the other party have become more vocal. Ignoring the ridiculousness of a state whose aim seems to be to maintain itself in the position of worst of 50 states in every possible measure of comparison, our State government continues to be vocally and adamantly crazy.
One of our State senators, (State, not Federal--its confusing even when looking at the ballot), the same one that placed a stone with the 10 commandments on the capital lawn, complete with typos, was quoted today blaming the national healthcare system in England for the renowned bad teeth of the British.
The picture displayed above the article he was so willingly interviewed for showed a man with what must surely be a toupe and some extremely denture-like teeth. If they are his teeth, they have had some serious work, veneers perhaps, and I can't imagine any insurance paid for that.
Oddly, I had always viewed the whole British teeth issue not as a healthcare issue, but as cultural issue, not so vain, not so worried about buying perfection and putting down anyone that didn't fix their imperfectly shaped and crooked teeth. I had never heard that the British were suffering from lack of dental hygiene or unrepaired decay.
In my state, on the other hand, one has only to walk through Walmart to see the many fine teeth of our residents. Methamphetamine has truly upped the number of scarey mouths in the last twenty years, now people as young as twenty smile and make those that witness that smile skip meals. Parents point to those mouths and use them to warn their children off taking drugs. Before meth, we had a lack of dental care, school children that recieved their first toothbrush in school when the school nurse handed them a brush and miniature tube of toothpaste as part of her dental hygiene class. When asked, those same students, newly gifted with a basic tool of cleanliness, would tell anyone listening that people over 20 lost their teeth, it was normal.
I think perhaps it might be a good response by the United Kingdom to send a research team to the middle of the US of A and take pictures and do interviews about the amazing dental care and fine teeth seen here. Because, yes, among those with a little money and a strong sense that only people with straight, white teeth will ever succeed, they will pay out the nose to put their precious babies in braces and then get them professionally whitened, but for the rest of the teeth of this fine state, we just make the British look confidant and sensible.
Friday, October 4, 2013
A Day
I'm off today. The whole day stretches before me and I have yet to decide what to do with it. Will I watch all the new stories in stasis on my DVR awaiting my needs for entertainment? Shall I make soap? The last batch is a bit brittle so will need to be rebatched when it is less caustic. Shall I work on the redo of the oil painting I have at the weird place where it is all potential awaiting it chances at perfection vs. overdone? Shall I start a new painting? Shall I clean house, or the yard, or the garage?
But first I waste some time surfing the net. The news is glum. The government is shut-down and while I personally can't tell anything happened, I know that a family member is on a long-awaited vacation to see the Grand Canyon, The Petrified Forest, etc, etc, and they are closed.
Closing a thing as large as the Grand Canyon makes it seem like it must not be so big--perhaps less than Grand. I hope he gets to see it from the road at least. I haven't heard of roads being closed from this.
I could go on about the shut-down. The planned and executed shut-down intended to make the other side bend to our will (said with great, gothic trembling of voice and shadowy lighting--by both sides of the government, the coin, one coin...)
Instead I will focus on more important things like that delicious feeling of having a whole day stretched out ahead and no one putting anything into the planning but me. I can see out the window as I type and the light is coming through the trees, long bright stripes of green and yellow with narrow and muted gray-green shadows, the clouds move and the colors are all muted, mottled, they move again and the bright areas seem to glow with warmth. A leaf falls, pecans plink on the paving stones by the back door, a bright red surprise lily stands upright amid a bed of multicolored elephant ears. I can feel the silence. Perhaps I'll grab a book and spend the day on the balcony in a rocking chair. I can imagine the warm/cool wind in gentle gusts on my skin.
Or perhaps I'll go make soap and have better results, there is a sense of magick in soap-making; watching the cloudy lye mix with the sparkling topaz oils changing first to an almost orange milk then continuing on with one change after another until it is a creamy, liquid ivory. I do need to provide that batch to my sister for her friend.
If I hurry, perhaps I can do all those things. If not, its still a day ruled only by myself. Perhaps the people who have been shutdown are also having a day ruled only by themselves. Perhaps those people near Grand Canyon can still see it. Perhaps the parties hurting so many people to prove their points can see they have no point, no real point, no meaningful point. Ultimately all any of us want is a day ruled by ourselves to do the things that makes us happy, bring us a sense of accomplishment and capability....
and magick.
But first I waste some time surfing the net. The news is glum. The government is shut-down and while I personally can't tell anything happened, I know that a family member is on a long-awaited vacation to see the Grand Canyon, The Petrified Forest, etc, etc, and they are closed.
Closing a thing as large as the Grand Canyon makes it seem like it must not be so big--perhaps less than Grand. I hope he gets to see it from the road at least. I haven't heard of roads being closed from this.
I could go on about the shut-down. The planned and executed shut-down intended to make the other side bend to our will (said with great, gothic trembling of voice and shadowy lighting--by both sides of the government, the coin, one coin...)
Instead I will focus on more important things like that delicious feeling of having a whole day stretched out ahead and no one putting anything into the planning but me. I can see out the window as I type and the light is coming through the trees, long bright stripes of green and yellow with narrow and muted gray-green shadows, the clouds move and the colors are all muted, mottled, they move again and the bright areas seem to glow with warmth. A leaf falls, pecans plink on the paving stones by the back door, a bright red surprise lily stands upright amid a bed of multicolored elephant ears. I can feel the silence. Perhaps I'll grab a book and spend the day on the balcony in a rocking chair. I can imagine the warm/cool wind in gentle gusts on my skin.
Or perhaps I'll go make soap and have better results, there is a sense of magick in soap-making; watching the cloudy lye mix with the sparkling topaz oils changing first to an almost orange milk then continuing on with one change after another until it is a creamy, liquid ivory. I do need to provide that batch to my sister for her friend.
If I hurry, perhaps I can do all those things. If not, its still a day ruled only by myself. Perhaps the people who have been shutdown are also having a day ruled only by themselves. Perhaps those people near Grand Canyon can still see it. Perhaps the parties hurting so many people to prove their points can see they have no point, no real point, no meaningful point. Ultimately all any of us want is a day ruled by ourselves to do the things that makes us happy, bring us a sense of accomplishment and capability....
and magick.
Saturday, August 10, 2013
bobblehead.
"You are much more likely to get fired for being rude or disagreeable than for not doing the work you were paid to do." More than one person has said that to me recently.
Today, that is true, especially if you work directly with people with power. They don't need a lot of power, just enough to gripe to your boss that you are "not a team player" or "difficult" or a "poor communicator".
Ye,t how many of us have set in a meeting in which everyone discussed a problem, agreed to do research and bring back their ideas to fix the problem, only to return and have the first meeting, again, like the first had never occurred at all. This can happen repeatedly, with a year passing and no progress occurring and no one wanting to mention that for fear of being negative or worse.
A meeting with ten experienced people making top wages and lasting an hour wastes at the very least 300 and doesn't include supplies and prep-time, do that for a year and you have wasted over 10,000$ to not fix a problem which is still costing whatever it cost in the first place times a year of that cost.
The next time you go to a meeting, watch the bobbleheads,
Next meeting, its back to normal without the negative/nonteam player/square peg. The meeting runs smoothly, every one is a polite little bobblehead, and the meetings cost more than the original problem, which is still a part of the company's business-as-usual.
Today, that is true, especially if you work directly with people with power. They don't need a lot of power, just enough to gripe to your boss that you are "not a team player" or "difficult" or a "poor communicator".
Ye,t how many of us have set in a meeting in which everyone discussed a problem, agreed to do research and bring back their ideas to fix the problem, only to return and have the first meeting, again, like the first had never occurred at all. This can happen repeatedly, with a year passing and no progress occurring and no one wanting to mention that for fear of being negative or worse.
A meeting with ten experienced people making top wages and lasting an hour wastes at the very least 300 and doesn't include supplies and prep-time, do that for a year and you have wasted over 10,000$ to not fix a problem which is still costing whatever it cost in the first place times a year of that cost.
The next time you go to a meeting, watch the bobbleheads,
- someone identifies the problem and the nodding starts
- someone describes the already described solutions, and the nodding continues
- someone describes the possible ways to institute the solutions and the nodding continues
- someone points out that the group has done this at the last 4 meetings and the room stops, friends don't look at the speaker, enemies glare, all nodding ends.
Next meeting, its back to normal without the negative/nonteam player/square peg. The meeting runs smoothly, every one is a polite little bobblehead, and the meetings cost more than the original problem, which is still a part of the company's business-as-usual.
Saturday, June 15, 2013
Be Still!
This is information for all those religious fanatics that are hating on everyone that doesn't share their beliefs.
GOD IS NOT DEAD
God did not quit communicating with us the minute your particular holy book was completed.
God did not have a favorite people.
God does not hate people that don't behave the way you think they should.
If you want to hear what God is saying to you--be still!
And don't expect words to pop into your mind. Words limit us. We have known for a long time that the language a person speaks and thinks in, will alter their thoughts/perceptions/beliefs about the world. People in places without snow have no words to describe it, people with lots of snow have a multitude of words describing it in great detail and specificity. People without words for time or numbers, or writing will not describe or value those things. God does not need words. People do because they have forgotten to listen, forgotten to be still.
If you think you have never heard God, then ask yourself if you have ever been outside, standing in the sun or the rain or the wind with no one else around, and rather than thinking in words about your day or your plans or your worries or what you should do next, you just experienced that moment. For a moment or two you were still. Maybe you just felt very peaceful, but maybe you had a moment of exhaltation or a strange awareness that you knew something that you didn't know before, but you have no words to tell anyone about it.
No Words!
And yet you knew something you didn't know before. No thoughts that you could wrap your mind around and share, but the feeling of spiritual growth, of new awareness was there.
Read your holy books, there is wisdom in them... all of them... and misconceptions, and hate, and ugliness, a lot like a good Stephen King novel or a superman comic (and I encourage people to continue to read those and other books as well).
But if you seek God, if you want to become a better person, a wiser person, then be still as often as possible...
And listen to God!
GOD IS NOT DEAD
God did not quit communicating with us the minute your particular holy book was completed.
God did not have a favorite people.
God does not hate people that don't behave the way you think they should.
If you want to hear what God is saying to you--be still!
And don't expect words to pop into your mind. Words limit us. We have known for a long time that the language a person speaks and thinks in, will alter their thoughts/perceptions/beliefs about the world. People in places without snow have no words to describe it, people with lots of snow have a multitude of words describing it in great detail and specificity. People without words for time or numbers, or writing will not describe or value those things. God does not need words. People do because they have forgotten to listen, forgotten to be still.
If you think you have never heard God, then ask yourself if you have ever been outside, standing in the sun or the rain or the wind with no one else around, and rather than thinking in words about your day or your plans or your worries or what you should do next, you just experienced that moment. For a moment or two you were still. Maybe you just felt very peaceful, but maybe you had a moment of exhaltation or a strange awareness that you knew something that you didn't know before, but you have no words to tell anyone about it.
No Words!
And yet you knew something you didn't know before. No thoughts that you could wrap your mind around and share, but the feeling of spiritual growth, of new awareness was there.
Read your holy books, there is wisdom in them... all of them... and misconceptions, and hate, and ugliness, a lot like a good Stephen King novel or a superman comic (and I encourage people to continue to read those and other books as well).
But if you seek God, if you want to become a better person, a wiser person, then be still as often as possible...
And listen to God!
Monday, May 27, 2013
Insomnia!
How do you turn off your brain? you lay down most nights and the next thing you know its time to get up. But sometimes.....you remember weird things, like putting that box from your parents house in the garage, but you aren't sure where, or those 2 kids that drove you nuts back when you were teaching, or you get stuck trying to remember the last name of that poor child in your second grade that looked like she had BeriBeri.
So you get up and take a valerian, and spend an hour focused on whether you can hear the old cat breathing, because it will suck if you wake up, move and you touch a dead cat in the morning. Might be a panicky moment. Then you get up, wash your face, make a cup of coffee and go read the news--which is a combination of horrible, ridiculous, and political, and takes about 15 minutes if you read the ads, also.
Then you go take a shower, change the sheets (princess and the pea comes to mind), lay down and try it again despite the fact you need to get up in an hour or two.
For Memorial Day--thoughts
It's Memorial Day.
When I was a child, we would have gotten together and taken flowers to all the cemeteries we could drive to with relatives of ours. I thought the day was to remember the past, where we came from. I thought we were remembering those that were no longer present. Those trips taught me a love genealogy and family stories, and an appreciation of home grown flowers and country graveyards with huge trees and varied tombstones.
I realize now that it is a day to memorialize the sacrifice of soldiers and their families. My own father was proud of his part in WWII. My Brother had the 21 gun salute of a Veteran at his funeral. Neither died in combat.
I have seen a hundred reminders today about the sacrifices of the brave for our freedom. I know that know one serves without seeing what they are doing as an act of patriotism, sacrifice, and bravery; a selfless attempt to keep the family back home safe and free to live the life they have.
For their acts I am in awe. Few of us get the opportunity to do more than the regular grind of go to work, pay the bills, take care of small responsibilities.
Do not misunderstand me.
I am unbelievably grateful that the draft has not existed since the end of the Vietnam War. I am even more grateful that my children did not join the armed forces. While the acts of the young men and women that sign up, giving over at least a part of their lives and possibly all of it, risking permanent physical, mental, emotional damage, risking exposure to things that can forever stop or change their progeny, is both selfless and brave.
The men and women in charge of making the decision to send them to war, to police actions, and to training is neither high-minded or selfless. I can't remember the last time we had a war that wasn't for the economic profit of the rich. The last tragic war effort was started with great patriotism by an act of terrorism, but the number of soldiers that died actually fighting the people that sent those planes into the Twin Towers is not high. Instead we aimed at anyone of that religion that might have control of the oil monies.
We are not the morality keepers of the world. We are not fighting for the freedom of the people in the countries we go into. We are not supportive of their political choices unless those choices continue to feed our economic needs.
I were raised to believe we were the good guys. But looking at history, we have seldom been the good guys. In WWI and WWII, I think we might have come closest. Although, I'm not sure that WWI was our business, at least we were invited in by allies that were being threatened in their freedoms. WWII was most likely made possible by our actions in WWI--a poor plan to control a country that lead to the empowerment of a worse threat. We allowed a monster to rise and that happened not because we were unaware, but because he was spouting many of the same things our own people in power were spouting.
We did not join that war because of what was being done to the Jews, Blacks, Gays, Gypsies,--we refused the entrance of those refugees, but rather because of what was happening to our allies--again. While we were a lot of people's salvation, that goal was not why we joined.
I wish it had been our goal. If the only thing that would make us send in troops to risk their lives was the bullying, torturing, enslaving, disenfranchising of people in another place, I would be very proud of our country.
As it is, I think we need to remove our blinders before telling our children to sign up to go to war. Our children are more important than cheap fuel and we will never know if one of those young men or women might have found a better answer than petroleum, or created a new medicine or sang a beautiful song that only they could have written because they paid the ultimate price for our...what?
For those who have lost someone to war, my condolences. If they lost their life saving someone else, my eternal thanks.
If we stop praising war for our freedom, when we have fought very few wars for our freedom, perhaps those in charge of these debacles will realize that sending our young to die or be scarred is not the first answer.
Knowing what is going on in the world is important. Knowing what group of nuts is working toward some craziness is important. Politics is not important. The economic advantage of the rich that own their own politician is not important.
If we would enjoy our freedom, we must allow that freedom to extend to everyone, not just our citizens, not just our powerful leaders, not just our rich.
My mother used to tell me regularly that my rights stopped at the end of the other person's nose. It was the wisest thing she ever told me.
But I can't force that knowledge on anyone else without interfering with their right to chose right from wrong.
I do think a return to a goal of equality would be good though. Right now, in our fine country, freedom is for sell to the highest bidder, and the rest of us get the opportunity to sacrifice everything for popular platitudes.
When I was a child, we would have gotten together and taken flowers to all the cemeteries we could drive to with relatives of ours. I thought the day was to remember the past, where we came from. I thought we were remembering those that were no longer present. Those trips taught me a love genealogy and family stories, and an appreciation of home grown flowers and country graveyards with huge trees and varied tombstones.
I realize now that it is a day to memorialize the sacrifice of soldiers and their families. My own father was proud of his part in WWII. My Brother had the 21 gun salute of a Veteran at his funeral. Neither died in combat.
I have seen a hundred reminders today about the sacrifices of the brave for our freedom. I know that know one serves without seeing what they are doing as an act of patriotism, sacrifice, and bravery; a selfless attempt to keep the family back home safe and free to live the life they have.
For their acts I am in awe. Few of us get the opportunity to do more than the regular grind of go to work, pay the bills, take care of small responsibilities.
Do not misunderstand me.
I am unbelievably grateful that the draft has not existed since the end of the Vietnam War. I am even more grateful that my children did not join the armed forces. While the acts of the young men and women that sign up, giving over at least a part of their lives and possibly all of it, risking permanent physical, mental, emotional damage, risking exposure to things that can forever stop or change their progeny, is both selfless and brave.
The men and women in charge of making the decision to send them to war, to police actions, and to training is neither high-minded or selfless. I can't remember the last time we had a war that wasn't for the economic profit of the rich. The last tragic war effort was started with great patriotism by an act of terrorism, but the number of soldiers that died actually fighting the people that sent those planes into the Twin Towers is not high. Instead we aimed at anyone of that religion that might have control of the oil monies.
We are not the morality keepers of the world. We are not fighting for the freedom of the people in the countries we go into. We are not supportive of their political choices unless those choices continue to feed our economic needs.
I were raised to believe we were the good guys. But looking at history, we have seldom been the good guys. In WWI and WWII, I think we might have come closest. Although, I'm not sure that WWI was our business, at least we were invited in by allies that were being threatened in their freedoms. WWII was most likely made possible by our actions in WWI--a poor plan to control a country that lead to the empowerment of a worse threat. We allowed a monster to rise and that happened not because we were unaware, but because he was spouting many of the same things our own people in power were spouting.
We did not join that war because of what was being done to the Jews, Blacks, Gays, Gypsies,--we refused the entrance of those refugees, but rather because of what was happening to our allies--again. While we were a lot of people's salvation, that goal was not why we joined.
I wish it had been our goal. If the only thing that would make us send in troops to risk their lives was the bullying, torturing, enslaving, disenfranchising of people in another place, I would be very proud of our country.
As it is, I think we need to remove our blinders before telling our children to sign up to go to war. Our children are more important than cheap fuel and we will never know if one of those young men or women might have found a better answer than petroleum, or created a new medicine or sang a beautiful song that only they could have written because they paid the ultimate price for our...what?
For those who have lost someone to war, my condolences. If they lost their life saving someone else, my eternal thanks.
If we stop praising war for our freedom, when we have fought very few wars for our freedom, perhaps those in charge of these debacles will realize that sending our young to die or be scarred is not the first answer.
Knowing what is going on in the world is important. Knowing what group of nuts is working toward some craziness is important. Politics is not important. The economic advantage of the rich that own their own politician is not important.
If we would enjoy our freedom, we must allow that freedom to extend to everyone, not just our citizens, not just our powerful leaders, not just our rich.
My mother used to tell me regularly that my rights stopped at the end of the other person's nose. It was the wisest thing she ever told me.
But I can't force that knowledge on anyone else without interfering with their right to chose right from wrong.
I do think a return to a goal of equality would be good though. Right now, in our fine country, freedom is for sell to the highest bidder, and the rest of us get the opportunity to sacrifice everything for popular platitudes.
Saturday, March 23, 2013
What are we good at?
We have been very good at teaching patriotism in this country; "this is the greatest country on the planet," "the home of the free, the land of the brave," " the land of opportunity where everyone is equal and no matter where you came from or what circumstances surrounded your birth, you could accomplish anything--become anything"... "the sky is the limit as long as you work hard, say your prayers, save your money and be true to yourself."
If you question that, if you ask someone what the greatest country is, if you point out that our equality statements don't seem to represent anything--you will be met with ridicule or even violence.
Yet the statistics are out there that indicate those statements are not true.
We have a lot of problems.
Apparently, only a very few people are working hard, saying their prayers, saving their money and being true to themselves:
99% of the U.S. money is the personal property of 1% of the population.
While our unemployment is lessened, more people are working all the time so they can live at under the poverty level---maybe they aren't praying enough, maybe they are wasting their money on food and rent.
We have free public schools, granted we have known since the 1940's that the current system is not effective, but we are sending more people on to college---where they can, with a 2 year degree get any minimum wage job, or with a 4 year degree get a job that pays a dollar an hour over that, although probably not in the field of their degree.
If you are born in poverty, your chances of occupying a prison for a portion of your life go way up. Maybe because you keep trying to find that opportunity that will allow you to be anything you want. Maybe because the public defender's job is to talk you into taking a plea-bargain whether you are guilty or not because a trial takes too long and requires more resources than either of you can afford.
When you get out of prison, you will be a felon, may not ever be able to vote again, may not ever be able to get a job that includes benefits or even a W-2. You are now an "under-the-table" kind of guy.
Thank God we are not the kind of heathens that tattoo a giant F on your forehead making it impossible for you to partake of the advantages of living in the land of opportunity.
In this great country, it is everyone's right to fail, everyone's right to be poor, everyone's right to develop a preventable illness without the interference of good health education, knowledge of the effects of poor choices, or a single dollar spent on screening after you leave the hospital you were born in. We are truly free.
What are we good at besides being proud of being citizens of the greatest nation in the world?
Being reactionary.
Someone shoots someone, we want to ban all guns, then we have a backlash wanting to ban all gun bans.
(we do not address the individual cause of that shooting--that would be too simple, make too much sense---once mental health care stopped being funded, crazy was also a right.)
Someone has an abortion, ban all abortions, there is never a reason to have an abortion, then there is blood in the street due to two groups of people that are quite sure they are fighting for right and they should be the winner. (we do no ask the woman why she had an abortion, we do not listen to her reasons for making that choice, and if she has made that choice many time and with no qualms, do we really think we should make her be a mother? do we really think a child born in those circumstances will be healthly--will that child grow up and thank us?)
I have heard of child born of rape/born with known genetic issues and most are glad they were born....but they were born so therefore that question and answer is not the same as the one you would get from the one that was not born. Perhaps they would also glad. Inevitably, the reason not to abort is religious, and I find it interesting that so many think a loving God would punish the unborn. If living on this planet is important, I'm quite sure they will get their chance--hopefully a better chance.
Most civilized/stable nations have some sort of healthcare for their citizens, but in this great country we guarantee everyone's right to die without good healthcare. Surely the only one's freer than we are live in those countries without stable governments or stable laws.
I'm so proud.
If you question that, if you ask someone what the greatest country is, if you point out that our equality statements don't seem to represent anything--you will be met with ridicule or even violence.
Yet the statistics are out there that indicate those statements are not true.
We have a lot of problems.
Apparently, only a very few people are working hard, saying their prayers, saving their money and being true to themselves:
99% of the U.S. money is the personal property of 1% of the population.
While our unemployment is lessened, more people are working all the time so they can live at under the poverty level---maybe they aren't praying enough, maybe they are wasting their money on food and rent.
We have free public schools, granted we have known since the 1940's that the current system is not effective, but we are sending more people on to college---where they can, with a 2 year degree get any minimum wage job, or with a 4 year degree get a job that pays a dollar an hour over that, although probably not in the field of their degree.
If you are born in poverty, your chances of occupying a prison for a portion of your life go way up. Maybe because you keep trying to find that opportunity that will allow you to be anything you want. Maybe because the public defender's job is to talk you into taking a plea-bargain whether you are guilty or not because a trial takes too long and requires more resources than either of you can afford.
When you get out of prison, you will be a felon, may not ever be able to vote again, may not ever be able to get a job that includes benefits or even a W-2. You are now an "under-the-table" kind of guy.
Thank God we are not the kind of heathens that tattoo a giant F on your forehead making it impossible for you to partake of the advantages of living in the land of opportunity.
In this great country, it is everyone's right to fail, everyone's right to be poor, everyone's right to develop a preventable illness without the interference of good health education, knowledge of the effects of poor choices, or a single dollar spent on screening after you leave the hospital you were born in. We are truly free.
What are we good at besides being proud of being citizens of the greatest nation in the world?
Being reactionary.
Someone shoots someone, we want to ban all guns, then we have a backlash wanting to ban all gun bans.
(we do not address the individual cause of that shooting--that would be too simple, make too much sense---once mental health care stopped being funded, crazy was also a right.)
Someone has an abortion, ban all abortions, there is never a reason to have an abortion, then there is blood in the street due to two groups of people that are quite sure they are fighting for right and they should be the winner. (we do no ask the woman why she had an abortion, we do not listen to her reasons for making that choice, and if she has made that choice many time and with no qualms, do we really think we should make her be a mother? do we really think a child born in those circumstances will be healthly--will that child grow up and thank us?)
I have heard of child born of rape/born with known genetic issues and most are glad they were born....but they were born so therefore that question and answer is not the same as the one you would get from the one that was not born. Perhaps they would also glad. Inevitably, the reason not to abort is religious, and I find it interesting that so many think a loving God would punish the unborn. If living on this planet is important, I'm quite sure they will get their chance--hopefully a better chance.
Most civilized/stable nations have some sort of healthcare for their citizens, but in this great country we guarantee everyone's right to die without good healthcare. Surely the only one's freer than we are live in those countries without stable governments or stable laws.
I'm so proud.
Saturday, March 9, 2013
open your eyes
Some people would consider me to be wasting my time talking to myself, but i think it is just more private on here than a diary or journal. Its a really good place to rant about the injustices in the world, the horrors, the accepted things that make me want to cry.
Am I powerless? Pretty much.
My children are inheriting the world I allowed to come into existence--I had my eyes closed, I was so focused on my little world I didn't see the crap the power-mongers were doing.
The 2-bit pimps are now sex-traffickers, and no one is touching them.
Where pitiful women with no self-esteem were degraded for money and a supply of drugs, children/teens/women from countries and places with no rights, no worth are sold to the highest bidder.
While our prisons fill up with drug addicts and desperate poor people, the powerful are given a free pass to do what they will--drugs that aren't safe passed to allow pharmaceutical companies to make more money, banks allowed to launder crime money--with evidence they know that is what it is from, kickbacks, perks, owning politicians to ensure their own not-quite-legal, way not ethical behavior. Fear-ridden fundamentalists that want to run everyone else in the name of their god, while ignoring their own persecution of people different than themselves.
What is the answer?
If everyone looks in the mirror and examines their own morals/ethics/behavior how many of those people would adjust themselves, and how many would shrug and tell themselves they were better than everyone else, more deserving, more justified in taking what is not theirs to take, more capable of deciding for other people what is best for them. We need to look in the mirror and out at others with the same eyes, with the same expectations.
If you own a business, unless you can do everything in that business alone, you should not make all the money. If it is your idea, and you don't produce anything except that idea, (how is that different than a one-hit-wonder?) how do the people doing the working not share equally with you. Not 50% for you and 50% for all of them, but 100 people, 100 equal shares. Why are people so greedy they want to use other people, profit off of their sweat and tears, steal their time on this earth and wear down their health with the stress of no time for their own dreams, no time for their loved ones, no power over their own lives, not enough money to buy healthy food, live in a safe environment, send their children to schools and activities that will make them better people.
The original goal of public schools was to provide workers for the factories that were literate enough to run the machines and fill out whatever paperwork was needed. Isn't it time we educated with a goal of their own self-satisfaction and not to feed the machinery of the wealthy?
Why, in a country that supposedly has no class system are there ghettos?
Why are the prisons full of the poor and uneducated?
Why are there homeless people in a country where an individual can possess more wealth than a small country?
I would ask those people with small, medium, and large businesses to share fairly with the people that are allowing them to be successful.
I would ask that those corporations share their wealth more evenly with those people that they currently treat like unimportant and interchangeable droids. One hour in the life of worker is worth as much to them as one hour in the life of a rich man is to him. We sell our time for money so we can buy what we need.
Those of you that have mistaken money for a scoring system are truly lost. Life is not a game, and a person that can not see the worth of all life is either asleep--or blind.
Am I powerless? Pretty much.
My children are inheriting the world I allowed to come into existence--I had my eyes closed, I was so focused on my little world I didn't see the crap the power-mongers were doing.
The 2-bit pimps are now sex-traffickers, and no one is touching them.
Where pitiful women with no self-esteem were degraded for money and a supply of drugs, children/teens/women from countries and places with no rights, no worth are sold to the highest bidder.
While our prisons fill up with drug addicts and desperate poor people, the powerful are given a free pass to do what they will--drugs that aren't safe passed to allow pharmaceutical companies to make more money, banks allowed to launder crime money--with evidence they know that is what it is from, kickbacks, perks, owning politicians to ensure their own not-quite-legal, way not ethical behavior. Fear-ridden fundamentalists that want to run everyone else in the name of their god, while ignoring their own persecution of people different than themselves.
What is the answer?
If everyone looks in the mirror and examines their own morals/ethics/behavior how many of those people would adjust themselves, and how many would shrug and tell themselves they were better than everyone else, more deserving, more justified in taking what is not theirs to take, more capable of deciding for other people what is best for them. We need to look in the mirror and out at others with the same eyes, with the same expectations.
If you own a business, unless you can do everything in that business alone, you should not make all the money. If it is your idea, and you don't produce anything except that idea, (how is that different than a one-hit-wonder?) how do the people doing the working not share equally with you. Not 50% for you and 50% for all of them, but 100 people, 100 equal shares. Why are people so greedy they want to use other people, profit off of their sweat and tears, steal their time on this earth and wear down their health with the stress of no time for their own dreams, no time for their loved ones, no power over their own lives, not enough money to buy healthy food, live in a safe environment, send their children to schools and activities that will make them better people.
The original goal of public schools was to provide workers for the factories that were literate enough to run the machines and fill out whatever paperwork was needed. Isn't it time we educated with a goal of their own self-satisfaction and not to feed the machinery of the wealthy?
Why, in a country that supposedly has no class system are there ghettos?
Why are the prisons full of the poor and uneducated?
Why are there homeless people in a country where an individual can possess more wealth than a small country?
I would ask those people with small, medium, and large businesses to share fairly with the people that are allowing them to be successful.
I would ask that those corporations share their wealth more evenly with those people that they currently treat like unimportant and interchangeable droids. One hour in the life of worker is worth as much to them as one hour in the life of a rich man is to him. We sell our time for money so we can buy what we need.
Those of you that have mistaken money for a scoring system are truly lost. Life is not a game, and a person that can not see the worth of all life is either asleep--or blind.
Thursday, February 28, 2013
What is going on?
We in the US of A survived a surreal election year. Now we are panicking on command for a series of legal changes our own leadership put in place to force themselves to fix the problem.
They didn't fix the problem, so the ridiculousness continues.
Thirty years ago, I read a science fiction book in which there were no countries anymore. People lived in corporatocracies ruled by a board. The ruling class were the major share holders, the people in the c-suites of each little "city-state" were the political leaders and dictators. People trained to work in that company, they were schooled according to the needs of that industry. People that lost their job had to leave, and if they had a spouse and family, they lost them. The spaces between the places were filled with the desperate that were born outside of the protection of one of the business monsters (and thus not schooled to the needs of one), and those that had been ejected from their own birth-company.
The story centered on the changes in mindset a good little company worker had when his spouse did something that got her fired. He ended up going with her, and his very low opinion of those people not employed and living outside was changed in a slow but eye-opening way. He had seen them as barely human, unintelligent, incapable of producing anything of worth, and criminalistic (of course all activities outside the companies were criminalized by the companies).
It was not a great book, and the fact that I remember it a lot anymore is a sign that there are things going on that we need to pay attention to.
It is hard to pay attention. Most of us are dependent on the media, which is frequently (if not always) owned by corporate America. Fifty years ago, every snow storm was not a state of emergency. When a nightmarish murder occurred, people were shocked, but didn't start talking about tearing down the whole neighborhood where it occurred because it was "those poor people" When prices went up to ridiculous levels, we didn't blame those darn minimum wage workers for wanting to make enough to not be homeless and hungry.
Most of us are asleep at the wheel. We have a job, get a raise every so often, granted it is usually less than the amount that the cost of living went up, but it is better than before that. We make a budget, take every credit card they let us have because our budget doesn't cover anything unexpected, and just keep living from paycheck to paycheck.
We work most days. We are tired. We are stressed. The news about the economy is scary and since it blames those darn minimum wage workers, those stinking illegal immigrants taking all those jobs that pay less than minimum wage, and those entitled individuals that think that just because they are blind or 90 or lost their arms and legs fighting for their country that someone should give them about what a minimum wage worker would make. And, those people take drugs, drink cheap alcohol, smoke cigarettes, what the heck is wrong with them.
Granted, they can't afford a psychoanalyst to help them make sense of the fact that their life sucks, but how dare they use our money for that.
Which leads to corporate welfare. We hate giving the poor and maimed barely enough to live out of our hard earned tax dollars, but we are scared to stop keeping the owners of big businesses set up in style.
It is OK to be a failed individual living on the street until you overdose/freeze/or are murdered, but a corporate big-wig with only one house?-unthinkable.
All those scared people with jobs, watching the news don't get that those big businesses need employees to work just as much as the employees need a job. Sure, most of them now have enough money to sit on their butts for 400 years without working, but those guys like to eat and eat well. That requires someone to grow the food, pick the food/butcher the meat, drive it to market, process it, cook it, and serve it to them. I have not met a lot of rich women that knew how to plant/pick/comb/weave/sew cotton to make clothes, forget the whole silk and wool thing. And if no one is in the sweat shops sewing up those designer frocks, what can they outdo each other with. Rich people like electricity, heat/air/plumbing. They like their cars big and functional. They like to go on vacation and have someone carry their bags, put a mint on their pillow and bring them breakfast.
The question is not what do we do if they take our jobs, the question is what do they do when no one is working for them? Being filthy rich is not more fun than being homeless and poor when you can't make people do what you want, sell you what you want, treat you like your special.
The point is, they are not better and more deserving than the rest of the people.
But there are people that will do anything for money, and not just the rich, but the people they hire to kill for them, to destroy for them, to do those things that make regular old Joes that work for a living, afraid.
So what can be done? We send our young people to wars because someone said to go fight and die for wars that only benefit the rich.
What is wrong with us?
Are we just lemmings on an overpopulated planet? (Hint-hint, the Lemming-thing was made up by someone for TV in the 50's. We humans just might be the only "Lemmings" on this planet.)
They didn't fix the problem, so the ridiculousness continues.
Thirty years ago, I read a science fiction book in which there were no countries anymore. People lived in corporatocracies ruled by a board. The ruling class were the major share holders, the people in the c-suites of each little "city-state" were the political leaders and dictators. People trained to work in that company, they were schooled according to the needs of that industry. People that lost their job had to leave, and if they had a spouse and family, they lost them. The spaces between the places were filled with the desperate that were born outside of the protection of one of the business monsters (and thus not schooled to the needs of one), and those that had been ejected from their own birth-company.
The story centered on the changes in mindset a good little company worker had when his spouse did something that got her fired. He ended up going with her, and his very low opinion of those people not employed and living outside was changed in a slow but eye-opening way. He had seen them as barely human, unintelligent, incapable of producing anything of worth, and criminalistic (of course all activities outside the companies were criminalized by the companies).
It was not a great book, and the fact that I remember it a lot anymore is a sign that there are things going on that we need to pay attention to.
It is hard to pay attention. Most of us are dependent on the media, which is frequently (if not always) owned by corporate America. Fifty years ago, every snow storm was not a state of emergency. When a nightmarish murder occurred, people were shocked, but didn't start talking about tearing down the whole neighborhood where it occurred because it was "those poor people" When prices went up to ridiculous levels, we didn't blame those darn minimum wage workers for wanting to make enough to not be homeless and hungry.
Most of us are asleep at the wheel. We have a job, get a raise every so often, granted it is usually less than the amount that the cost of living went up, but it is better than before that. We make a budget, take every credit card they let us have because our budget doesn't cover anything unexpected, and just keep living from paycheck to paycheck.
We work most days. We are tired. We are stressed. The news about the economy is scary and since it blames those darn minimum wage workers, those stinking illegal immigrants taking all those jobs that pay less than minimum wage, and those entitled individuals that think that just because they are blind or 90 or lost their arms and legs fighting for their country that someone should give them about what a minimum wage worker would make. And, those people take drugs, drink cheap alcohol, smoke cigarettes, what the heck is wrong with them.
Granted, they can't afford a psychoanalyst to help them make sense of the fact that their life sucks, but how dare they use our money for that.
Which leads to corporate welfare. We hate giving the poor and maimed barely enough to live out of our hard earned tax dollars, but we are scared to stop keeping the owners of big businesses set up in style.
It is OK to be a failed individual living on the street until you overdose/freeze/or are murdered, but a corporate big-wig with only one house?-unthinkable.
All those scared people with jobs, watching the news don't get that those big businesses need employees to work just as much as the employees need a job. Sure, most of them now have enough money to sit on their butts for 400 years without working, but those guys like to eat and eat well. That requires someone to grow the food, pick the food/butcher the meat, drive it to market, process it, cook it, and serve it to them. I have not met a lot of rich women that knew how to plant/pick/comb/weave/sew cotton to make clothes, forget the whole silk and wool thing. And if no one is in the sweat shops sewing up those designer frocks, what can they outdo each other with. Rich people like electricity, heat/air/plumbing. They like their cars big and functional. They like to go on vacation and have someone carry their bags, put a mint on their pillow and bring them breakfast.
The question is not what do we do if they take our jobs, the question is what do they do when no one is working for them? Being filthy rich is not more fun than being homeless and poor when you can't make people do what you want, sell you what you want, treat you like your special.
The point is, they are not better and more deserving than the rest of the people.
But there are people that will do anything for money, and not just the rich, but the people they hire to kill for them, to destroy for them, to do those things that make regular old Joes that work for a living, afraid.
So what can be done? We send our young people to wars because someone said to go fight and die for wars that only benefit the rich.
What is wrong with us?
Are we just lemmings on an overpopulated planet? (Hint-hint, the Lemming-thing was made up by someone for TV in the 50's. We humans just might be the only "Lemmings" on this planet.)
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