While I realize that nationally, Memorial Day is all about war and heroes and sacrifice, in my own memory, it is about family--family and flowers.
Today, my son and I are going to do our own version of those long ago trips to the family cemeteries, withou the trunk full of fresh cut flowers from the gardens of Grandma and my aunts and uncles and parents. We tried to go yearly though after 18 it turned into once every 5 years or so. We never went to my fathers, too far away and if we stayed home, we just went to the lake.
My parents weren't from around here.
From those memorial day trips, I heard all kinds of family stories. About my uncle collecting a mouse from between graves and slipping it in his pocket. My grandmother laughed, but was obviously a bit horrified. Farm people--animals don't live in the house if you are civilized, there were barn cats to eat mice and farm dogs to watch the yard but mice--just nasty.
I heard about relatives long gone that my grandmother remembered like they just left. (I'm starting to get that, time does strange things in the mind, telescoping, shrinking, like seeing 2 times at once sometimes.) I heard about who was in which war, and who died young and who died very old. She even told us about the little marker in the family plot that said "baby",; a family traveling through that lost a child while staying nearby. There were details back then. Just a little sadness now for the family that lost a baby and then moved on to where they were going.
Back then, the roses and peonies were in bloom on this day. And while there are still a few straggling roses and the roses will repeat quite a few times this summer, the peonies have been gone a while and the lilies are starting. The spring started very early this year.
We used to go to multiple cemeteries on this weekend, because while they were my one family, they were not related 150 years ago when they started getting to that area. The cemeteries were small or large, well tended or a little seedy and showed no signs of corporate control. They had large trees or no trees, marble and granite or concrete and limestone, and in many of them, the graves had a rose or some other flowering plant that came back year after year.
So today, we are going to my parents grave. It is in a cemetery that was new when they bought there. A package deal they purchased after some death in the family without telling us kiddies what was going on. A deal that started with a cold call by a marketer of death. The cemetery is a long way from their home, but we moved to a city that was sprawling. It was a cemetery with a plan, a marketing plan, a maintenance plan, and its own flower shop. It is death done by big business. there are no weeping angels or little marble children holding hands.
I hate that cemetery. It is a cemetery that no one wants to go to, no one wants to wander in or pray in or sit and be alone for a while.
It is a cemetery that never quite meets the promises they sold my parents.
But I go because my son invited me and his kids could use the roots of such a trip.
I'm buying flowers at the supermarket.
Monday, May 30, 2016
Wednesday, May 18, 2016
American Wars
The United States has been active militarily since its creation. The number of wars we have declared are not nearly so clearly counted. Since the American Revolution, the USA has been in 5 declared wars. But since WWII, there is practically no peace time.
Overhearing something on NPR about the way the USA makes every war about themselves, I thought I'd dig around a bit, see if the speaker was right (I feared he was) and see if I could determine why, since we dropped any semblance of isolationism, we now considered ourselves to be the only ones that could keep the peace; why only our type of government was acceptable. God knows, many of us in this country quit buying that 50 years ago.
So, lets start with the War of 1812. (1812-1814) While I lost ancestors to this war, I never really understood it. In my class, it was all about America. What I didn't get was that it was actually about Europe, specifically Napoleon Bonaparte. England did not want the new USA to partner with France--again. It was also assisting Native American leaders in fighting against the westward expansion of the USA. I would hate that more if I didn't know what imperialist colonizers the British were at that time. At any rate, the main cause was an inability to agree on trade with other countries/embargos and fighting to take over the rest of the continent.
The next declared war was the Mexican-American War (1846-1848). Well, we fought this on foreign soil due to "manifest destiny". You know, The USA is going to be from Atlantic to Pacific Ocean. We were expanding our territories. (Don't we fight other countries when they try to take territory from their neighbors?) We were not exactly the good guys here. Just greed and bullying in the image of Great Britain. Not once in school did I ever learn anything about Mexico except the Aztecs cutting hearts out of people. I know nothing about Mexico in the late 1840s. I do know that when a war is fought where you live, the people shooting and looting and destroying your home are not seen as heroes but as invading monsters.
Then came the Spanish-American War fought in 1898. This started with the sinking of the Maine (later determined not to be caused by the Spanish military) and ended with the freeing of Cuba to develop its own government and the changing of Guam and Puerto Rico to US ownership and Spain sold the Phillipines to the US for $20,000,000. This took Spain out of the Americas and by serendipity, having no colonies to focus on, resulted in a Spanish renaissance at home.
The next official US war was World War I. The US participated from 1917 to 1918 fighting against Germany, Austria, and the Ottoman Empire. It started with an assassination by a Serbian nationalist in Sarajevo, Bosnia in 1914. An escalation of threats and mobilization orders followed the incident, leading by mid-August to the outbreak of World War I, which pitted Germany, Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire (the so-called Central Powers) against Great Britain, France, Russia, Italy and Japan (the Allied Powers). The Allies were joined after 1917 by the United States. The four years of the Great War–as it was then known–saw unprecedented levels of carnage and destruction, thanks to grueling trench warfare and the introduction of modern weaponry such as machine guns, tanks and chemical weapons. By the time World War I ended in the defeat of the Central Powers in November 1918, more than 9 million soldiers had been killed and 21 million more wounded. (from history.com)
So the USA was there the last year of 4 bloody years, but every show I ever saw on WWI was about the US military heroics. It was fought in Europe. Of the 9 million deaths, US deaths were estimated between 53,000 and 150,000. I do not think WWI is about the United States. We lost people and those people will be forever mourned, but this is not our story.
The next official war is WWII. While my grandfather was in the first world war, my father and practically every man his age (it seemed) was in the second world war.
The USA was in WWII from 1941-1945.
Overview of World War II (Digital History ID 2922)
World War II killed more people, involved more nations, and cost more money than any other war in history. Altogether, 70 million people served in the armed forces during the war, and 17 million combatants died. Civilian deaths were ever greater. At least 19 million Soviet civilians, 10 million Chinese, and 6 million European Jews lost their lives during the war.
World War II was truly a global war. Some 70 nations took part in the conflict, and fighting took place on the continents of Africa, Asia, and Europe, as well as on the high seas. Entire societies participated as soldiers or as war workers, while others were persecuted as victims of occupation and mass murder.
World War II cost the United States a million causalities and nearly 400,000 deaths.
World War II started in 1939. The USA joined the allies in 1941 after Japan bombed Pearl Harbor.
The US was horrified that our Naval yard was bombed. Globally, the deaths from this war had been going on for 2 years and we were shocked that someone attacked us. Amazingly, the shows I saw as a kid were always about the glories of US soldiers fighting evil, never about the Allies pre-1941, and god-forbid if they had been from the side of the enemy.
In addition to these declared wars, there have been eleven Congressionally approved actions and 7 UN authorized while funded by congress peace-keeping things. Interestingly, the Vietnam War, from 1964-1973 was one of the first type ( I had a roommate that lost her soldier father in Vietnam several years before 1964--my first clue that they weren't telling us everything), and the Korean War, 1950-1953 was one of the second kind.
In the 1800's, we fought about trade, pirating, slave trading, and the acquisition of territory.
In the 1900's, we fought about stopping regimes we saw as against our best interests, translate that as fear-mongering over "communism" and loss of access to cheap natural resources.
In this century, its confusing. We want the oil. We hate their religion. We hate kings. We don't like who they voted into power. We jump into other people's civil wars and revolutions, then ignore genocides and slavery. There is no rhyme or reason---until you look at the strangely woven corporate loyalties and political intrigues that determine which bad guy is good and which bad guy is our enemy.
But of all of those wars, only 2 have been fought in our land--the American Revolution and the American Civil War. Those were about us.
There rest of them really are someone else's stories. We need to not be so egocentric.
.
Overhearing something on NPR about the way the USA makes every war about themselves, I thought I'd dig around a bit, see if the speaker was right (I feared he was) and see if I could determine why, since we dropped any semblance of isolationism, we now considered ourselves to be the only ones that could keep the peace; why only our type of government was acceptable. God knows, many of us in this country quit buying that 50 years ago.
So, lets start with the War of 1812. (1812-1814) While I lost ancestors to this war, I never really understood it. In my class, it was all about America. What I didn't get was that it was actually about Europe, specifically Napoleon Bonaparte. England did not want the new USA to partner with France--again. It was also assisting Native American leaders in fighting against the westward expansion of the USA. I would hate that more if I didn't know what imperialist colonizers the British were at that time. At any rate, the main cause was an inability to agree on trade with other countries/embargos and fighting to take over the rest of the continent.
The next declared war was the Mexican-American War (1846-1848). Well, we fought this on foreign soil due to "manifest destiny". You know, The USA is going to be from Atlantic to Pacific Ocean. We were expanding our territories. (Don't we fight other countries when they try to take territory from their neighbors?) We were not exactly the good guys here. Just greed and bullying in the image of Great Britain. Not once in school did I ever learn anything about Mexico except the Aztecs cutting hearts out of people. I know nothing about Mexico in the late 1840s. I do know that when a war is fought where you live, the people shooting and looting and destroying your home are not seen as heroes but as invading monsters.
Then came the Spanish-American War fought in 1898. This started with the sinking of the Maine (later determined not to be caused by the Spanish military) and ended with the freeing of Cuba to develop its own government and the changing of Guam and Puerto Rico to US ownership and Spain sold the Phillipines to the US for $20,000,000. This took Spain out of the Americas and by serendipity, having no colonies to focus on, resulted in a Spanish renaissance at home.
The next official US war was World War I. The US participated from 1917 to 1918 fighting against Germany, Austria, and the Ottoman Empire. It started with an assassination by a Serbian nationalist in Sarajevo, Bosnia in 1914. An escalation of threats and mobilization orders followed the incident, leading by mid-August to the outbreak of World War I, which pitted Germany, Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire (the so-called Central Powers) against Great Britain, France, Russia, Italy and Japan (the Allied Powers). The Allies were joined after 1917 by the United States. The four years of the Great War–as it was then known–saw unprecedented levels of carnage and destruction, thanks to grueling trench warfare and the introduction of modern weaponry such as machine guns, tanks and chemical weapons. By the time World War I ended in the defeat of the Central Powers in November 1918, more than 9 million soldiers had been killed and 21 million more wounded. (from history.com)
So the USA was there the last year of 4 bloody years, but every show I ever saw on WWI was about the US military heroics. It was fought in Europe. Of the 9 million deaths, US deaths were estimated between 53,000 and 150,000. I do not think WWI is about the United States. We lost people and those people will be forever mourned, but this is not our story.
The next official war is WWII. While my grandfather was in the first world war, my father and practically every man his age (it seemed) was in the second world war.
The USA was in WWII from 1941-1945.
Overview of World War II (Digital History ID 2922)
World War II killed more people, involved more nations, and cost more money than any other war in history. Altogether, 70 million people served in the armed forces during the war, and 17 million combatants died. Civilian deaths were ever greater. At least 19 million Soviet civilians, 10 million Chinese, and 6 million European Jews lost their lives during the war.
World War II was truly a global war. Some 70 nations took part in the conflict, and fighting took place on the continents of Africa, Asia, and Europe, as well as on the high seas. Entire societies participated as soldiers or as war workers, while others were persecuted as victims of occupation and mass murder.
World War II cost the United States a million causalities and nearly 400,000 deaths.
World War II started in 1939. The USA joined the allies in 1941 after Japan bombed Pearl Harbor.
The US was horrified that our Naval yard was bombed. Globally, the deaths from this war had been going on for 2 years and we were shocked that someone attacked us. Amazingly, the shows I saw as a kid were always about the glories of US soldiers fighting evil, never about the Allies pre-1941, and god-forbid if they had been from the side of the enemy.
In addition to these declared wars, there have been eleven Congressionally approved actions and 7 UN authorized while funded by congress peace-keeping things. Interestingly, the Vietnam War, from 1964-1973 was one of the first type ( I had a roommate that lost her soldier father in Vietnam several years before 1964--my first clue that they weren't telling us everything), and the Korean War, 1950-1953 was one of the second kind.
In the 1800's, we fought about trade, pirating, slave trading, and the acquisition of territory.
In the 1900's, we fought about stopping regimes we saw as against our best interests, translate that as fear-mongering over "communism" and loss of access to cheap natural resources.
In this century, its confusing. We want the oil. We hate their religion. We hate kings. We don't like who they voted into power. We jump into other people's civil wars and revolutions, then ignore genocides and slavery. There is no rhyme or reason---until you look at the strangely woven corporate loyalties and political intrigues that determine which bad guy is good and which bad guy is our enemy.
But of all of those wars, only 2 have been fought in our land--the American Revolution and the American Civil War. Those were about us.
There rest of them really are someone else's stories. We need to not be so egocentric.
.
Sunday, May 15, 2016
The United Nations
What if:
When looking back, there has been one instance of UN participation in a police action--we called it the Korean War, and....we won? Two of the countries backing the civil war, and it was a civil war, north versus south, (there but by the grace of god goes the USA), were the People's Republic of China--new and not a member and the United Soviet Socialist Republic- a charter member of the United Nations. That whole thing was part of the bloody fight against socialism, the start? of the Cold War. A shame that Stalin and Mao Zedong grabbed the reins of people's fights against the usual oligarchies and turned them into their own, private dictatorships. Both are huge countries. Could the UN have kept those two nations from becoming human rights nightmares? I don't know. But most of the civil wars, revolutions and police actions between 1947 and now were more about controlling another country's natural resources and creating puppet regimes that were friendlier to the wants and desires of the backing nations. The United Nations could have said and done something about that.
If the United Nations hadn't had its teeth pulled and claws removed at its initial creation.
Those nations that like to call themselves the world leaders, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, the United States, you know, the rich countries that were known as colonial giants, that half the little revolts and wars were to get out from under, didn't want to be told they couldn't go in and create havoc. They just wanted the other countries to not be able to create havoc.
Above is a map of members of the members of the United Nations. The yellow spots are non-members, can you see them, I know it is tough--but I think there are 2 yellow spots in Africa.
Since the creation of United Nations, there has been an endless stream of wars, and while many are civil wars and revolutions and bloody coupes, most have had the monetary and political and war machine assistance of those same military giants, but not for peace, or humanity or justice.
For Profit.
We don't back people because they are poor and have an awful life and an expectation of an early death. We back wars because we want the oil, or the diamonds or the cheap labor or the wonderful farm produce that won't grow anywhere else.
For Profit, for our (read our as the leaders, the shakers and movers, the rich and powerful) personal profit.
And when we decide, as a nation, to send our troops, we don't send the sons and daughters of our leaders, our political leaders, our corporate leaders--we send the sons and daughters of those people that have their children join for the possibility of a job, a chance to get an education that they otherwise couldn't afford, a chance at a better life--or death.
For Profit.
How many wars could be avoided if the citizens of a place were free to participate in the governing of themselves.
How many wars could be avoided if a country that was not a member of the UN could not sell goods outside their own country. ( Oh My! we can't get their stuff? we can't take advantage of their lack of human rights? No, I need my diamonds and chocolate and tiger skins and elephant tusks, without all that, how can I show how filthy rich and powerful I am)
How many civil wars and revolutions could be avoided if the UN assisted them in building their infrastructure, building schools, obtaining medicine, starting businesses that allowed all participants in the business a livelihood.
Imagine a world in which the war machine, the weapons factories, the defense research were all redirected toward the good of mankind: instead of weapons, farm equipment and playground equipment, instead of defense research, medical research for those orphan illnesses and those diseases that attack the poor--we have spent enough on erectile dysfunction and baldness to last 5 lifetimes.
Until those nations that originally created the United Nations see it as more valuable than themselves, more important toward world peace, instead of like an club to hold over the heads of the less powerful nations while they continue to do as they want, we will continue in our endless cycle of war...
For Profit.
- The United Nations really was a global peace keeper?
- What if every nation treated their membership in the group as their "golden ticket" to participation in global commerce.
- What if members of the United Nations could not go to war and only the United Nations could decide to send troops to an area to maintain peace.
- What if all military personnel of a nation, participated in activities in their own nations, working with peaceful needs such as disaster relief.
- What if all military personnel of a nation were dually a part of the United Nations military and participated as needed to protect the peace of the world.
- What if, nations that were not members were not considered to be global participants, thus losing their rights to trade with nations that were members.
- What if the most important thing we did was offer to help nations that weren't members, assistance in meeting requirements for becoming members, and improving the human condition of their citizens.
When looking back, there has been one instance of UN participation in a police action--we called it the Korean War, and....we won? Two of the countries backing the civil war, and it was a civil war, north versus south, (there but by the grace of god goes the USA), were the People's Republic of China--new and not a member and the United Soviet Socialist Republic- a charter member of the United Nations. That whole thing was part of the bloody fight against socialism, the start? of the Cold War. A shame that Stalin and Mao Zedong grabbed the reins of people's fights against the usual oligarchies and turned them into their own, private dictatorships. Both are huge countries. Could the UN have kept those two nations from becoming human rights nightmares? I don't know. But most of the civil wars, revolutions and police actions between 1947 and now were more about controlling another country's natural resources and creating puppet regimes that were friendlier to the wants and desires of the backing nations. The United Nations could have said and done something about that.
If the United Nations hadn't had its teeth pulled and claws removed at its initial creation.
Those nations that like to call themselves the world leaders, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, the United States, you know, the rich countries that were known as colonial giants, that half the little revolts and wars were to get out from under, didn't want to be told they couldn't go in and create havoc. They just wanted the other countries to not be able to create havoc. Above is a map of members of the members of the United Nations. The yellow spots are non-members, can you see them, I know it is tough--but I think there are 2 yellow spots in Africa.
Since the creation of United Nations, there has been an endless stream of wars, and while many are civil wars and revolutions and bloody coupes, most have had the monetary and political and war machine assistance of those same military giants, but not for peace, or humanity or justice.
For Profit.
We don't back people because they are poor and have an awful life and an expectation of an early death. We back wars because we want the oil, or the diamonds or the cheap labor or the wonderful farm produce that won't grow anywhere else.
For Profit, for our (read our as the leaders, the shakers and movers, the rich and powerful) personal profit.
And when we decide, as a nation, to send our troops, we don't send the sons and daughters of our leaders, our political leaders, our corporate leaders--we send the sons and daughters of those people that have their children join for the possibility of a job, a chance to get an education that they otherwise couldn't afford, a chance at a better life--or death.
For Profit.
How many wars could be avoided if the citizens of a place were free to participate in the governing of themselves.
How many wars could be avoided if a country that was not a member of the UN could not sell goods outside their own country. ( Oh My! we can't get their stuff? we can't take advantage of their lack of human rights? No, I need my diamonds and chocolate and tiger skins and elephant tusks, without all that, how can I show how filthy rich and powerful I am)
How many civil wars and revolutions could be avoided if the UN assisted them in building their infrastructure, building schools, obtaining medicine, starting businesses that allowed all participants in the business a livelihood.
Imagine a world in which the war machine, the weapons factories, the defense research were all redirected toward the good of mankind: instead of weapons, farm equipment and playground equipment, instead of defense research, medical research for those orphan illnesses and those diseases that attack the poor--we have spent enough on erectile dysfunction and baldness to last 5 lifetimes.
Until those nations that originally created the United Nations see it as more valuable than themselves, more important toward world peace, instead of like an club to hold over the heads of the less powerful nations while they continue to do as they want, we will continue in our endless cycle of war...
For Profit.
Tuesday, May 10, 2016
If you have never been poor...
Imagine yourself in a desert; sand for miles, when it is hot it is oven hot and when it is cold it is freezing. There is no food unless you can eat insects or maybe cactus and there is no water to drink. There is no where to buy what you need. And no place to get a job. There are other people, many other people, in the same situation you are. If one of them pulls out a bottle of water or a candy bar, the fight for who gets to consume it is on.
Now change the scenery.
You are in an urban area surrounded by dilapidated buildings, failing vehicles, and there are thousands of other people, also in this area. There is no where to work. There are no places to live that have functional heat or air. The water is contaminated, plumbing doesn't work, and electricity is frequently off--nonpayment or failed infrastructure.
There is no where to buy anything but liquor or junk food within walking distance. No one has a car that works. The bus service is not easily accessed from here and taxi's and Uber won't go there. No one can pay for the ride, anyway. The refrigerator doesn't work even when the electricity is on. There ARE insects but no one wants to eat them or even live with them, but there isn't any cactus.
I have spent my life living paycheck to paycheck. I have been broke. I have even had a few of times that I couldn't eat a meal. I have never truly been poor.
I have worked with people that were poor. I have taught people that were poor. I have talked with people that have always been poor. But I have never been poor.
Paycheck to paycheck is tough, scary, anger-inducing, hopeless, tiring and depressing.
Poor is a whole other level of living.
When you are poor, a nurse or a plumber are part of the rich folks.
When you are poor, owning a house makes you middle class--and that is if it is a little house in a questionable neighborhood--mcmansion is rich.
When you are poor, you know you need to get lucky, catch a break, be a superstar if you are ever going to do better.
I have talked with 13 year olds that thought that having a baby so they could get WIC and SNAP was going to be a better life. I have seen 14 year old boys that broke the law so they could quit sleeping in the park--the park at night was scary. I have talked with homeless people about taking care of their chronic diseases and their response is not how, but why? Why?
Healthcare routinely treats homeless people as if going back to the street was both a choice and their home. I have never heard any child say "when I grow up, i want to be homeless".
Schools enroll students by utility bill as proof of residence. I would see kids out there in the streets during school days, never in school, and wonder if they were homeless and thus couldn't enroll.
We hear of people being arrested for sticking a roast down their pants and trying to walk out of a store. We have seen people shoplift from dollar stores. Junk food in convenience stores near schools is always a hot item. Why are people stealing cheap items and food? Don't confuse them with the super-rich teenager whose lawyer gets them out for emotional problems when they try to steal a 2,000$ scarf that they had the cash to buy in their purse. We are talking survival-type thefts. We are talking about people that are stealing items so cheap its hard to even call it petty theft, but for which the person stealing it has a need, whether physical or emotional, but no cash. Maybe it is hunger. Maybe they just can't keep listening to a loved one wish for such a little thing while knowing it is so far from possible.
We wonder about crime in places of deep poverty. It is why it is so easy to blame the poor for their own situation. But in truth, when enough people are excluded from the mainstream successes and abundance and hope, they will find a way to make their own. Such has been the cause of organized crime, cartels, and gangs since time began. When the population of those excluded from participating in the world of opportunity and abundance becomes large enough, they create their own opportunities and abundance, and those don't fit the rules of the larger society. The poor neighborhoods do not always hate them. They can be seen as more Robin Hood than plague, especially to those whose desperate needs are ignored by the "legitimate" government.
Its hard to understand that when we are broke, cash-strapped, employed but going no where while following the rules, how so many people can be complaining about poverty and yet embracing lives of crime and drugs and sexploitation. For most of us that talk about hard times, we have a roof over our heads all the time, the utilities may be on notice, but rarely get turned off. Our kids go to school, and while a public school education is not currently turning out world-class educated citizens, it will teach you to read and print and do simple math. If you are very lucky, your child will have a teacher that connects with them and still cares enough to try to make a horrible curriculum provide valuable information and insight. Being broke is nothing like being poor.
We broke folks like to think of ourselves as sort of middle class. We envision the poor as brown and ignorant, morally bankrupt and chemically dependent. But where did we get that expectation. Media has tried to keep that going. In fact, the recipients are as likely to be white as black or brown; as likely to speak English as another language. In many states, being male makes being assisted unlikely without a physician saying you have a problem; drugs, alcohol. mental, emotional or physical, no disability, no assist. Since most of this group only gets healthcare through emergency rooms, they are unlikely to have someone diagnose them with more than "drug-seeking". No disability papers, no further intervention. Women with children are the most likely to qualify. Women without children only slightly more likely than men. In about half the states, the amount of assistance can be more than the pay of a minimum wage job.
Why wouldn't the minimum wage be determined by the money number that equals the poverty level. Why do we have jobs that will not pay a living wage. How do we have business owners that don't work in their own business while claiming that they don't make enough to pay someone enough to live. If you aren't working there, but are making enough for all kinds of extras, why? Why do you get extras like playing golf and fancy vacations while your employee needs government assistance? If your business can't afford to pay someone for their time, you might be the one that needs to be working.
When someone gets rich off the uncompensated or undercompensated labor of another, that is wrong. We called it wrong when we made slavery illegal. We called it wrong when children were worked instead of educated, and it is still wrong.
So finally, why do we have approximately 20% of the population in the wealthiest nation in the world falling near or below the poverty level. Why are so many children living there. How did that happen. How can that be right. How can we let that continue. If the annual income of this country was spread out more evenly, no one would make less than $50,000 a year.
We could still be periodically broke--but no one would ever need to be poor again.
Now change the scenery.
You are in an urban area surrounded by dilapidated buildings, failing vehicles, and there are thousands of other people, also in this area. There is no where to work. There are no places to live that have functional heat or air. The water is contaminated, plumbing doesn't work, and electricity is frequently off--nonpayment or failed infrastructure.
There is no where to buy anything but liquor or junk food within walking distance. No one has a car that works. The bus service is not easily accessed from here and taxi's and Uber won't go there. No one can pay for the ride, anyway. The refrigerator doesn't work even when the electricity is on. There ARE insects but no one wants to eat them or even live with them, but there isn't any cactus.
I have spent my life living paycheck to paycheck. I have been broke. I have even had a few of times that I couldn't eat a meal. I have never truly been poor.
I have worked with people that were poor. I have taught people that were poor. I have talked with people that have always been poor. But I have never been poor.
Paycheck to paycheck is tough, scary, anger-inducing, hopeless, tiring and depressing.
Poor is a whole other level of living.
When you are poor, a nurse or a plumber are part of the rich folks.
When you are poor, owning a house makes you middle class--and that is if it is a little house in a questionable neighborhood--mcmansion is rich.
When you are poor, you know you need to get lucky, catch a break, be a superstar if you are ever going to do better.
I have talked with 13 year olds that thought that having a baby so they could get WIC and SNAP was going to be a better life. I have seen 14 year old boys that broke the law so they could quit sleeping in the park--the park at night was scary. I have talked with homeless people about taking care of their chronic diseases and their response is not how, but why? Why?
Healthcare routinely treats homeless people as if going back to the street was both a choice and their home. I have never heard any child say "when I grow up, i want to be homeless".
Schools enroll students by utility bill as proof of residence. I would see kids out there in the streets during school days, never in school, and wonder if they were homeless and thus couldn't enroll.
We hear of people being arrested for sticking a roast down their pants and trying to walk out of a store. We have seen people shoplift from dollar stores. Junk food in convenience stores near schools is always a hot item. Why are people stealing cheap items and food? Don't confuse them with the super-rich teenager whose lawyer gets them out for emotional problems when they try to steal a 2,000$ scarf that they had the cash to buy in their purse. We are talking survival-type thefts. We are talking about people that are stealing items so cheap its hard to even call it petty theft, but for which the person stealing it has a need, whether physical or emotional, but no cash. Maybe it is hunger. Maybe they just can't keep listening to a loved one wish for such a little thing while knowing it is so far from possible.
We wonder about crime in places of deep poverty. It is why it is so easy to blame the poor for their own situation. But in truth, when enough people are excluded from the mainstream successes and abundance and hope, they will find a way to make their own. Such has been the cause of organized crime, cartels, and gangs since time began. When the population of those excluded from participating in the world of opportunity and abundance becomes large enough, they create their own opportunities and abundance, and those don't fit the rules of the larger society. The poor neighborhoods do not always hate them. They can be seen as more Robin Hood than plague, especially to those whose desperate needs are ignored by the "legitimate" government.
Its hard to understand that when we are broke, cash-strapped, employed but going no where while following the rules, how so many people can be complaining about poverty and yet embracing lives of crime and drugs and sexploitation. For most of us that talk about hard times, we have a roof over our heads all the time, the utilities may be on notice, but rarely get turned off. Our kids go to school, and while a public school education is not currently turning out world-class educated citizens, it will teach you to read and print and do simple math. If you are very lucky, your child will have a teacher that connects with them and still cares enough to try to make a horrible curriculum provide valuable information and insight. Being broke is nothing like being poor.
We broke folks like to think of ourselves as sort of middle class. We envision the poor as brown and ignorant, morally bankrupt and chemically dependent. But where did we get that expectation. Media has tried to keep that going. In fact, the recipients are as likely to be white as black or brown; as likely to speak English as another language. In many states, being male makes being assisted unlikely without a physician saying you have a problem; drugs, alcohol. mental, emotional or physical, no disability, no assist. Since most of this group only gets healthcare through emergency rooms, they are unlikely to have someone diagnose them with more than "drug-seeking". No disability papers, no further intervention. Women with children are the most likely to qualify. Women without children only slightly more likely than men. In about half the states, the amount of assistance can be more than the pay of a minimum wage job.
Why wouldn't the minimum wage be determined by the money number that equals the poverty level. Why do we have jobs that will not pay a living wage. How do we have business owners that don't work in their own business while claiming that they don't make enough to pay someone enough to live. If you aren't working there, but are making enough for all kinds of extras, why? Why do you get extras like playing golf and fancy vacations while your employee needs government assistance? If your business can't afford to pay someone for their time, you might be the one that needs to be working.
When someone gets rich off the uncompensated or undercompensated labor of another, that is wrong. We called it wrong when we made slavery illegal. We called it wrong when children were worked instead of educated, and it is still wrong.
So finally, why do we have approximately 20% of the population in the wealthiest nation in the world falling near or below the poverty level. Why are so many children living there. How did that happen. How can that be right. How can we let that continue. If the annual income of this country was spread out more evenly, no one would make less than $50,000 a year.
We could still be periodically broke--but no one would ever need to be poor again.
Tuesday, May 3, 2016
Cultural dissonance
In Cognitive Dissonance their are feelings of discomfort that result from holding two
conflicting beliefs. When there is a discrepancy between beliefs and
behaviors, something must change in order to eliminate or reduce the
dissonance.
In human culture these days, there is what I will call Cultural Dissonance. That is the individual and social consciousness--what some people think of as waking up on a political/community level--that is causing many people to seek a societal answer to the differences between what we all know is right and what is currently being shoved down our throats as (chose your poison) just the way things are; normal corruption; money talks, bullshtick walks; business as usual; how the world works; one hand washes the other; you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours; it's not personal, it's business; how power works; survival of the fittest.
Every religion, spiritual belief system, philosophical belief system and even secular humanism--which denies being a belief system, share certain ideologies about how to act. Chief among those is the golden rule--treat others as you want to be treated. Not far behind is you reap what you sow, otherwise stated as what goes around comes around, and live by the sword, die by the sword. In other words, if you don't treat others like you want to be treated, it will come back to haunt you--whether in this life or the next.
Other truisms; be honest, be true to your word, don't take what isn't yours, whether it is a life or a material object or an opportunity that is obtained by removing the same from another person. Be a good steward, care for what you have, do what you say you will do, don't put material things above living creatures. There are a million variations of these but it all comes down to the same thing, treat others as you want to be treated.
So why, right now, or maybe now and at all times previously, but well hidden due to no open internet-type phenomenon, are we seeing so much corruption of roles. It's not just the petty bureaucrat that does more or faster for a small bribe, its a system that no longer works at all unless money is greasing the wheel. It is health care aimed at profit not helping people, it is education aimed at mining government loan money with no concern for providing an education that is either high quality or valuable to the person borrowing the money for the school. Its keeping jails full to fill for-profit jails and prisons and drug trials more interested in getting a drug out there than in whether it both safe and effective. It's farmers getting money for not planting, or for throwing out their crops to keep prices high while there are people hungry..
Why are we doing these things--and worse things: Wars to keep the weapons factories pulling in the money. Coups to give new leaders a position so they can favor the rich backer for trade protections, people working in virtual slavery conditions to mine diamonds, farm coffee, cotton, chocolate. Children whose only value is for the free labor they provide until they fall over dead is just not thought about while we brag about the great buy we made at our favorite discount store.
We complain about people getting assistance with rent, utilities, food, then complain again about worn out and degrading neighborhoods and then complain some more because the homeless people with their carts and dirty clothes are so unpleasant to look at.
How much of that is the flip side of seeing the top 2% of the wealth owners live lives that look luxurious, that get away with murder and cheating and lying and stealing and it just makes them richer. How much of crime is just the poor kid standing in front of the candy store window day after day watching well dressed children get whatever they want and then throwing what they don't want in a trashcan. How much is envy and jealousy. How much is absolute horror that their own offspring will have no more opportunity to do better than they had, or their parents or grandparents. How much is fear that all those excuses: just the way things are; normal corruption; money talks, bullshtick walks; business as usual; how the world works; one hand washes the other; you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours; it's not personal, it's business; how power works; survival of the fittest, will continue like a twisted mantra to keep the rest of us hopeless and downtrodden and barely energetic enough to keep going to a job that will never take us anywhere but to old age and an early death.
If I was one of those 2% at the top, would I also be blind to those that have too little? Would I also pat my self on the back for being a hard worker and a smart businessman and wise enough to be born in the right family? Would I share out money that I would never use anyway to my pet charity and tell myself what a good person I am?
I am not a hero. I am not a great activist. I did not join the Peace Corp or the military or Greenpeace. I did not take my service education to needy places and work for no money to help those worse off than I was.
I did struggle to pay my bills, take care of my children that, now grown, are very concerned with their children's clothing, and opportunities to participate in school and after school activities--because I was raised in handmedowns and home sewed clothes, and could only afford a single activity per child, and sometimes not that. I did feel guilty that I could not offer them annual summer trips to nice places. I felt bad that I could not pay for their college and amazed that my own parents had done better with their own family. I was terrified when the job I had paid no insurance or only the employee, but would cover family for roughly half of the already stretched paycheck. Suddenly every accident, every cold was a potential loss--life, debility, house, child--none were acceptable, all were too horrible to consider. The balance was too delicate. Everyday was a day that treading water might change to drowning.
I try empathize with those whose own situation is worse than mine, people whose childhood was so poverty-stricken that their parent or parents were struggling just to feed them, or had given up on them, so ravaged by lack and despair that they could not even think of them so they sought escape--drugs, money, a better spouse, any spouse, someone to help, someone to make them forget, something. Those children could not benefit from school. They could not concentrate on anything but their own fears and hunger and pain. But empathy implies thinking about it, and thinking about it is so painful and so hard to do anything about. And empathy does not actually fix problems unless the problem is hate.
We do have a lot of hate right now. We do want to blame those that are worse off than we are for being worse off than we are. It helps us not have to empathize or do anything. And if we are also struggling, we want someone to blame. It is always easy to blame those worse off. And blame leads to hate--especially when those in horrible situations become so downtrodden they commit crimes to stop being poor, or take drugs to stop feeling powerless and guilty. We don't like it that there are people getting help from our taxes, money we could have used ourselves. We don't like it that we are not rich and powerful and capable of giving our families anything they want and of giving our favorite charities great gifts. We hate those people that are taking our tax money and filling our jails and ignoring their responsibilities while using drugs.
We hate them, because hating them is so much easier than empathizing with their plight. It feels so much more righteous than the powerlessness of knowing your own children have to get a college scholarship by playing sports or and instrument or studying constantly. It feels so much less scary than "there but by the grace of god, go I"
In human culture these days, there is what I will call Cultural Dissonance. That is the individual and social consciousness--what some people think of as waking up on a political/community level--that is causing many people to seek a societal answer to the differences between what we all know is right and what is currently being shoved down our throats as (chose your poison) just the way things are; normal corruption; money talks, bullshtick walks; business as usual; how the world works; one hand washes the other; you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours; it's not personal, it's business; how power works; survival of the fittest.
Every religion, spiritual belief system, philosophical belief system and even secular humanism--which denies being a belief system, share certain ideologies about how to act. Chief among those is the golden rule--treat others as you want to be treated. Not far behind is you reap what you sow, otherwise stated as what goes around comes around, and live by the sword, die by the sword. In other words, if you don't treat others like you want to be treated, it will come back to haunt you--whether in this life or the next.
Other truisms; be honest, be true to your word, don't take what isn't yours, whether it is a life or a material object or an opportunity that is obtained by removing the same from another person. Be a good steward, care for what you have, do what you say you will do, don't put material things above living creatures. There are a million variations of these but it all comes down to the same thing, treat others as you want to be treated.
So why, right now, or maybe now and at all times previously, but well hidden due to no open internet-type phenomenon, are we seeing so much corruption of roles. It's not just the petty bureaucrat that does more or faster for a small bribe, its a system that no longer works at all unless money is greasing the wheel. It is health care aimed at profit not helping people, it is education aimed at mining government loan money with no concern for providing an education that is either high quality or valuable to the person borrowing the money for the school. Its keeping jails full to fill for-profit jails and prisons and drug trials more interested in getting a drug out there than in whether it both safe and effective. It's farmers getting money for not planting, or for throwing out their crops to keep prices high while there are people hungry..
Why are we doing these things--and worse things: Wars to keep the weapons factories pulling in the money. Coups to give new leaders a position so they can favor the rich backer for trade protections, people working in virtual slavery conditions to mine diamonds, farm coffee, cotton, chocolate. Children whose only value is for the free labor they provide until they fall over dead is just not thought about while we brag about the great buy we made at our favorite discount store.
We complain about people getting assistance with rent, utilities, food, then complain again about worn out and degrading neighborhoods and then complain some more because the homeless people with their carts and dirty clothes are so unpleasant to look at.
How much of that is the flip side of seeing the top 2% of the wealth owners live lives that look luxurious, that get away with murder and cheating and lying and stealing and it just makes them richer. How much of crime is just the poor kid standing in front of the candy store window day after day watching well dressed children get whatever they want and then throwing what they don't want in a trashcan. How much is envy and jealousy. How much is absolute horror that their own offspring will have no more opportunity to do better than they had, or their parents or grandparents. How much is fear that all those excuses: just the way things are; normal corruption; money talks, bullshtick walks; business as usual; how the world works; one hand washes the other; you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours; it's not personal, it's business; how power works; survival of the fittest, will continue like a twisted mantra to keep the rest of us hopeless and downtrodden and barely energetic enough to keep going to a job that will never take us anywhere but to old age and an early death.
If I was one of those 2% at the top, would I also be blind to those that have too little? Would I also pat my self on the back for being a hard worker and a smart businessman and wise enough to be born in the right family? Would I share out money that I would never use anyway to my pet charity and tell myself what a good person I am?
I am not a hero. I am not a great activist. I did not join the Peace Corp or the military or Greenpeace. I did not take my service education to needy places and work for no money to help those worse off than I was.
I did struggle to pay my bills, take care of my children that, now grown, are very concerned with their children's clothing, and opportunities to participate in school and after school activities--because I was raised in handmedowns and home sewed clothes, and could only afford a single activity per child, and sometimes not that. I did feel guilty that I could not offer them annual summer trips to nice places. I felt bad that I could not pay for their college and amazed that my own parents had done better with their own family. I was terrified when the job I had paid no insurance or only the employee, but would cover family for roughly half of the already stretched paycheck. Suddenly every accident, every cold was a potential loss--life, debility, house, child--none were acceptable, all were too horrible to consider. The balance was too delicate. Everyday was a day that treading water might change to drowning.
I try empathize with those whose own situation is worse than mine, people whose childhood was so poverty-stricken that their parent or parents were struggling just to feed them, or had given up on them, so ravaged by lack and despair that they could not even think of them so they sought escape--drugs, money, a better spouse, any spouse, someone to help, someone to make them forget, something. Those children could not benefit from school. They could not concentrate on anything but their own fears and hunger and pain. But empathy implies thinking about it, and thinking about it is so painful and so hard to do anything about. And empathy does not actually fix problems unless the problem is hate.
We do have a lot of hate right now. We do want to blame those that are worse off than we are for being worse off than we are. It helps us not have to empathize or do anything. And if we are also struggling, we want someone to blame. It is always easy to blame those worse off. And blame leads to hate--especially when those in horrible situations become so downtrodden they commit crimes to stop being poor, or take drugs to stop feeling powerless and guilty. We don't like it that there are people getting help from our taxes, money we could have used ourselves. We don't like it that we are not rich and powerful and capable of giving our families anything they want and of giving our favorite charities great gifts. We hate those people that are taking our tax money and filling our jails and ignoring their responsibilities while using drugs.
We hate them, because hating them is so much easier than empathizing with their plight. It feels so much more righteous than the powerlessness of knowing your own children have to get a college scholarship by playing sports or and instrument or studying constantly. It feels so much less scary than "there but by the grace of god, go I"
Thursday, April 28, 2016
LOVE WHO?
Forget your enemy, and neighbor, why do we love our oppressors.
We have all met that person---the female coworker that makes the statement--with great pride "I don't get along that well with other women, I think more like a man", the wife that gives religious reasons for husbands beating their wives that don't act right, even the kidnap-victim that joins the gang that kidnapped her (Shades of Stockholm Syndrome).
When I read Alice Walkers "Possessing the secret of Joy" regarding the elderly women that both performed the female circumcisions and encouraged the practice, I knew I had also met this person, the person that gains personal power at the expense of his or her own peer group. Trustees in prisons do this, people held in bondage do this, the "teacher's pet" and the middle-management kiss-up, all do this. The tough guys in old mafia movies do this, as does the crime boss's "kept woman".
What is the pay-off for such behavior. We know the price of fighting the wrongs in the system, and the possible pay-off if we all stand strong. But what is the payoff of assisting those that do wrong to their own "tribe".
Is it an increase in self esteem? I find it hard to believe that such hypocritical esteem boosting can exist, but think that may well play a part. If you hear that your group; women, minorities, unclean, unmoneyed, uneducated, undeserving, unbelonging. other--whatever other might mean--is inferior and to be despised, enough times, you learn to believe it. For people that are used to not thinking for themselves or that have always followed an authoritarian leader, believing that means they are doing the right thing, becoming closer to those that are better (whether that is male or white or holy or upper caste or the super-rich or powerful in whatever way affects their own world view).
Is it pride? Is it a sign of a competitive person that has found a way to WIN. Winning by association?
Is it for favors? For Tips? For Gifts? For the opportunity to live a little better than their peers in exchange for loyalty? Is it for a Gilded Cage? Or is it more like the original wild dogs that became domesticated as they edged closer and closer to the fires of men to eat the scraps and share a bit of warmth.
Tell me it is NOT just about the ruling class and the rest of us have just become domesticated.
Is it for an opportunity to be seen and heard by our Betters, for a little credit, for a little opportunity. We all know that people that are oppressed frequently never develop their full potential; if they think deep thoughts and see great creations in their heads and yearn to invent and study and compile, they rarely get the opportunity to make any of that happen outside their own brain. And being oppressed, unvalued, mistreated, told exactly what you can do and what you are worth and how you will end is pretty depressing. Depressed people can give up. Its very hard on cognitive skills.
I know that there have been those seen as exceptional (think about the root of that word, just think about it) that despite their poor, oppressed status they developed a place in society. These exceptions are shown off like race horses or fur coats by those that feel they "created" them. Did these individuals become exceptional just because they needed to use their minds. How many of their peers were ignored or misused or beaten down for that same kind of exceptionalism that was never recognized or worse, was punished by those in power.
Everyday, I read or hear someone comment about how "I know a lot of rich people" or "my father is rich" or "my family runs a corporation" and then they proceed to prove that there is no inequality of opportunity. Every time, Every. Time. I hear this and the speaker is talking about people that are doing a little better than they are. Their rich friends have a nice $200,000 dollar mortgage, both work, no kids, they went on a cruise, they bought a low-end Lexus. Their dad always has money to loan them, and they live in a nice middle-class neighborhood and don't need to make payday loans. (they even paid college without loans), Everytime, the corporation is a single local eatery and Mom and kids just stopped providing the labor 2 years ago or they have a Mcdonalds franchise and on of them is there for a shift as manager every day. My sister's son knew one rich family--from a sport group that cost her a crapload of money, but was no big deal to them. They were rich--top two percent of wealth--but not born there. They were born at the top end of middle-class and went into one those two careers that everyone knows can move you up. Lawyer, Doctor. And there are plenty of both that never make it above the upper middle. They neither one have to live blue-collar, though. That family never thought twice about seeing a show in Vegas, fly out, see it, eat, spend the night, fly home. (my friends...that is a lifetime trip, usually starting with a 18 hour drive with the car piled full.)
This just proves how important perspective is. When you are lying at the bottom of the hole, the people standing over you in the bottom of the hole look immensely well-off. The people at the top of the hole look like gods. But at the bottom of the hole, there are no mountains, mountains are not even imaginable. Who dreams of mountains when all you can see is a blip of sky behind the heads of those still standing over you.
I'm sure that lying their, helpless and hopeless must make you love the head that might be looking down at you. You might matter a little.
Maybe loving our oppressors are our enemies and loving them is not that rare. Maybe we all need to learn to love those that we see as our inferiors, beneath us. Maybe. Or maybe it is a strange but common belief--fantasy--daydream, that we are better than the rest of the people in our situation, and "almost a real person." Do many of us dream of being loved by a rich/powerful person and being transformed like the Velveteen Rabbit.
Wednesday, April 27, 2016
hard to unbelieve
Our beliefs don't just color our world, it makes it impossible to really consider things that don't fit our current beliefs. Changing beliefs is tough.
I have seen, frequently, the way those individuals that hold with the protestant christian beliefs of the bible belt, so clouded by their knowledge that when a person says "I'm not christian, they first ask "catholic?" then "how can you not believe in god?" Quite a leap from their religion to atheist , but that is where their belief led them. Their religion is about god, everyone else's is not.
Religious beliefs are very life shaping, very narrowing to our ability to think in ways that are not covered in our particular religion--especially if a child in raised in them, schooled in them, by parents that are either devout or unquestioning. It is no wonder that heresy was as much a reason to burn someone during the Rule of the church as witchcraft. More likely to get you in trouble than murder or rape.
The beliefs put out politically, are a little harder to understand, but the people that use political belief are rather good at it. Sometimes the belief is straight from the original thinker of the belief, and his or her passion can carry a lot of people. But later users are quite aware of the power of propaganda, patriotism, fear of being seen as a traitor and just plain buy-in by those that are lazy thinkers that want to be on the winning side. Political beliefs hold quite a lot of sway. Our own American view of history, created and approved by the government agencies that cover education and curriculm, bears little in common with the history learned in other countries.
I love history, so use every person born on foreign soil as an opportunity to see the other side. I am always baffled and amazed that my own (small town, tax-paid, bible belt) precollege education was completely lacking in information about: 1)the history of the middle east, all I learned about that was from bible school in the summer, a decidedly christian perspective, 2) Asia, China became Red China just like Russia became communist Russia, before that, both were wonderful places with royals and castles and that is literally it, it was in connection with the fact that Russia and China were REDS, so our enemy, 3) Africa, its where the slaves came from, it's a country and a continent, and its poor. 4) India is over-populated and starving, and cows walk around in the streets because they worship them (yes, a history teacher told me that, he was a coach, though....) 5) Japan was our enemy until we hit them with 2 atomic (hydrogen? who knows what the actual difference is?) and then they learned their lesson. 6). Australia, filled with English criminals, maybe we should have tried that, cheaper than prisons (wow, I'm pretty sure that I have relatives that chose to go to Australia rather than the U.S. and for no good reason, just--you are poor, you got caught stealing or being poor, what ship are you going to get on)
I'm sure you noticed that every bit of history is completely about that part of the world's reputation in the USA among the people teaching the class. Its not about information but beliefs. Beliefs are allowed to be biased, one-sided, right and wrong, and completely fictional.
We are currently quite horrified by suicide bombers--people whose beliefs have overtaken their own desire for self-preservation; but forget that there have always been people that will sacrifice themselves if they believe the cause is right. Japan had Kamikaze's, and Christianity had its martyrs, and let's not forget Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. People that die protecting what we value are martyrs and hero's. People that die fighting against us are evil, deluded, crazy and ridiculous. Perhaps we are all so stilted by our personal beliefs that they make us hypocrits.
We are currently being herded by our own buy-in to "Evil Socialism" despite the countries that have a higher standard of living due to it and the reality that we, in this country, were saved from "the great depression" by socialist programs like SOCIAL Security, the WPA (that was likely they last time many of our old infrastructures were repaired). Those programs were then added to by the addition of Medicare (because no insurance was available for people over 65--to high risk for the actuary tables, then Medicaid--so our children--even the poor ones didn't die of simple things like compound fractures and complicated home births.
Public schools are socialist--and if we weren't currently sitting on a kind of political identity disorder--"do we hate poor people? do we need poor people?", notice I didn't say LOVE poor people, no one loves poor people but Mother Teresa, and she is not here, but we have public schools for poor people, because rich people's kids always received the best schooling available, but until we changed from agricultural to industrial, no one cared if the person planting seeds and milking cows could read. Once you have big machines and more complicated jobs, reading and math is rather important.
And ideologically, the USA is supposed to be:
In my 20's, I spent years trying to reach ground zero on my spiritual beliefs so I could then go in search of beliefs that did not cause me cognitive dissonance. I think that a lot of people are currently doing that about their own beliefs about the country that they call home.
It is a hard trip. It is hard to not be angry at hypocrisy. It is hard to not be hurt when you hear that all that equality you believed in was really more about cheerleading than about how the powers-that-be felt about the average person living in this country. It it hard to look at your home with open eyes, seeing the inequality, the lack of opportunity, the injustice, the wasted lives and early deaths and extreme lack that has created so much of what is wrong in this wonderful, amazingly rich country.
Recently, a 30-something white male made the comment that the Catholic church could stop world poverty with the money they had stored over the years. He had no idea how much money they have, and while I doubt they are poor, their biggest assets are religious artifacts, extremely valuable--to those that collect religious artifacts--but not inherently worth anything. When asked what it would take to stop world poverty-the answer was rapid and flip--"how much does it cost for a bowl of rice?"
Beliefs. If you have a bowl of rice, you are not poor. I didn't ask if that was one bowl per person per day or 3 bowls per person per day. I do know that nothing but rice is not a balance diet, it will keep you alive today, but you will never make it to the median life expectancy if that is it. He also didn't address those people that have no access to clean water--and shelter from the elements, healthcare, and if you want to live, not just survive until tomorrow, you need something to do with your mind, your hands, your life. And you need enough stability in your life that you can have friendships and love, raise children or create beautiful or useful or meaningful things.
Beliefs.
I have heard it said that the Taoists seek no beliefs, and empty cup. No preconceptions interfering with their examination of each experience. I am intrigued, but have found I can't do that.
Apparently, my own beliefs, in fairness, in honesty, in transparency---mean I still have a ways to go before I am truly an unbeliever. Until then--may the force be with us all.
I have seen, frequently, the way those individuals that hold with the protestant christian beliefs of the bible belt, so clouded by their knowledge that when a person says "I'm not christian, they first ask "catholic?" then "how can you not believe in god?" Quite a leap from their religion to atheist , but that is where their belief led them. Their religion is about god, everyone else's is not.
Religious beliefs are very life shaping, very narrowing to our ability to think in ways that are not covered in our particular religion--especially if a child in raised in them, schooled in them, by parents that are either devout or unquestioning. It is no wonder that heresy was as much a reason to burn someone during the Rule of the church as witchcraft. More likely to get you in trouble than murder or rape.
The beliefs put out politically, are a little harder to understand, but the people that use political belief are rather good at it. Sometimes the belief is straight from the original thinker of the belief, and his or her passion can carry a lot of people. But later users are quite aware of the power of propaganda, patriotism, fear of being seen as a traitor and just plain buy-in by those that are lazy thinkers that want to be on the winning side. Political beliefs hold quite a lot of sway. Our own American view of history, created and approved by the government agencies that cover education and curriculm, bears little in common with the history learned in other countries.
I love history, so use every person born on foreign soil as an opportunity to see the other side. I am always baffled and amazed that my own (small town, tax-paid, bible belt) precollege education was completely lacking in information about: 1)the history of the middle east, all I learned about that was from bible school in the summer, a decidedly christian perspective, 2) Asia, China became Red China just like Russia became communist Russia, before that, both were wonderful places with royals and castles and that is literally it, it was in connection with the fact that Russia and China were REDS, so our enemy, 3) Africa, its where the slaves came from, it's a country and a continent, and its poor. 4) India is over-populated and starving, and cows walk around in the streets because they worship them (yes, a history teacher told me that, he was a coach, though....) 5) Japan was our enemy until we hit them with 2 atomic (hydrogen? who knows what the actual difference is?) and then they learned their lesson. 6). Australia, filled with English criminals, maybe we should have tried that, cheaper than prisons (wow, I'm pretty sure that I have relatives that chose to go to Australia rather than the U.S. and for no good reason, just--you are poor, you got caught stealing or being poor, what ship are you going to get on)
I'm sure you noticed that every bit of history is completely about that part of the world's reputation in the USA among the people teaching the class. Its not about information but beliefs. Beliefs are allowed to be biased, one-sided, right and wrong, and completely fictional.
We are currently quite horrified by suicide bombers--people whose beliefs have overtaken their own desire for self-preservation; but forget that there have always been people that will sacrifice themselves if they believe the cause is right. Japan had Kamikaze's, and Christianity had its martyrs, and let's not forget Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. People that die protecting what we value are martyrs and hero's. People that die fighting against us are evil, deluded, crazy and ridiculous. Perhaps we are all so stilted by our personal beliefs that they make us hypocrits.
We are currently being herded by our own buy-in to "Evil Socialism" despite the countries that have a higher standard of living due to it and the reality that we, in this country, were saved from "the great depression" by socialist programs like SOCIAL Security, the WPA (that was likely they last time many of our old infrastructures were repaired). Those programs were then added to by the addition of Medicare (because no insurance was available for people over 65--to high risk for the actuary tables, then Medicaid--so our children--even the poor ones didn't die of simple things like compound fractures and complicated home births.
Public schools are socialist--and if we weren't currently sitting on a kind of political identity disorder--"do we hate poor people? do we need poor people?", notice I didn't say LOVE poor people, no one loves poor people but Mother Teresa, and she is not here, but we have public schools for poor people, because rich people's kids always received the best schooling available, but until we changed from agricultural to industrial, no one cared if the person planting seeds and milking cows could read. Once you have big machines and more complicated jobs, reading and math is rather important.
And ideologically, the USA is supposed to be:
- the land of the free and home of the brave (
- the land of opportunity (you know, like Trump, took a measly million to get that opportunity opened)
- the place where all men are created equal in the eyes of the law (notice, no women, and plenty of men will tell you that the eyes of the law seem to respond well to money)
- one nation under god (pledge of allegiance, ca, 1954)
In my 20's, I spent years trying to reach ground zero on my spiritual beliefs so I could then go in search of beliefs that did not cause me cognitive dissonance. I think that a lot of people are currently doing that about their own beliefs about the country that they call home.
It is a hard trip. It is hard to not be angry at hypocrisy. It is hard to not be hurt when you hear that all that equality you believed in was really more about cheerleading than about how the powers-that-be felt about the average person living in this country. It it hard to look at your home with open eyes, seeing the inequality, the lack of opportunity, the injustice, the wasted lives and early deaths and extreme lack that has created so much of what is wrong in this wonderful, amazingly rich country.
Recently, a 30-something white male made the comment that the Catholic church could stop world poverty with the money they had stored over the years. He had no idea how much money they have, and while I doubt they are poor, their biggest assets are religious artifacts, extremely valuable--to those that collect religious artifacts--but not inherently worth anything. When asked what it would take to stop world poverty-the answer was rapid and flip--"how much does it cost for a bowl of rice?"
Beliefs. If you have a bowl of rice, you are not poor. I didn't ask if that was one bowl per person per day or 3 bowls per person per day. I do know that nothing but rice is not a balance diet, it will keep you alive today, but you will never make it to the median life expectancy if that is it. He also didn't address those people that have no access to clean water--and shelter from the elements, healthcare, and if you want to live, not just survive until tomorrow, you need something to do with your mind, your hands, your life. And you need enough stability in your life that you can have friendships and love, raise children or create beautiful or useful or meaningful things.
Beliefs.
I have heard it said that the Taoists seek no beliefs, and empty cup. No preconceptions interfering with their examination of each experience. I am intrigued, but have found I can't do that.
Apparently, my own beliefs, in fairness, in honesty, in transparency---mean I still have a ways to go before I am truly an unbeliever. Until then--may the force be with us all.
Sunday, April 17, 2016
Simple
When I was young, not 20 young, but under 7 young, the world was a beautiful and amazing and magical place. Outside was warm and sunny. The grass smelled sweet or freshly mown. The trees whispered with the wind. The sunlight twinkled through the branches. The ground felt inviting and the grass tickled and the tiny flowers hidden in the weedy lawn became wonderful bouquets for the house.
An afternoon of making mudpies or playing in a sandbox was pure joy. Hours and hours of intense creating. Or pulling stuff from a ragbag and turning it into the most amazing play clothes, making friends into cowboys or cops and robbers or kings and queens or whatever story had sparked an ongoing, freestyle rendition of pretend.
My father made weird toys and that was always a weird hit in the neighborhood. My favorite was the stick horse that had a rolly-wheel on the ground end that was set up to hit something plastic with metal things so it made a clacking sound--not unlike the playing cards on bike spokes. He also made stilts and wooden guns and wagons and such. It was as fun to watch them being made as it was to play with them. Such things were never projects, but were the reusing of scraps from more serious constructions.
We had a dog--we always had a dog, and the dog was always an inside/outside dog, because while dogs were animals and should be outside, if it was cold or wet or too hot or scary or (any excuse worked) it could come in. We occasionally had a dog that was mostly a stray. We left out food because its hard to be a stray--its not like being a wild dog at all--no food sources that are consistent and hard to find water with all the fences and gun-bearing stray-haters. Those dogs didn't come in, didn't want to, but they ended up with covered/protected areas--either in the garage (when did that dog door get in the garage, anyway) or in a house made from the same scraps that furnished toys.
When I was young, we went to the country a lot. We went almost weekly and spent the weekend. We drove up the back way; a 3 hour drive on curvy, narrow, pockmarked roads, the last part gravel, frequently in the dark on Friday after Dad got off work. When it was dark, my sister and I would share the back seat, blankets and pillows, suitcases between the seat so we didn't roll off in a sudden stop. I remember sleeping, the vibration of the car, the strangely scratchy cloth upholstery. the smell of cigar smoke and the sound of the wind hitting the little window open by the drivers seat. (When did the little window stop? Why did it ever exist?) I never remember getting there. I always just woke up at grandmas. But I do remember sometimes waking up to see a black sky full of stars while hearing my parents voices. I miss that scratchy upholstery. I miss those stars. I worry that seatbelts stole something from my children's memories--not their safety, but maybe their feeling of safety.
I loved falling asleep on a blanket in the sun in the spring. It was the best. Maybe not better than the Drive-in theater, but I would love that feeling again, while I will skip the drive-in.
Jello salad, and macaroni and cheese, deviled eggs, devils food cake, fried catfish eggs, wilted green salad--those are so simple, and yet food was so wonderful.
Simple. Why was life so simple so much of the time, why do we complicate it so much as adults. Not a single home back then was "up-dated". No one cared if the color scheme was current, or the furniture matched the decorations or even each other. People didn't redecorate, they bought a bed when they needed one more for another person, or for if one was broken and couldn't be fixed, or if it was--god forbid--stolen. No one donated perfectly good furniture so they could redecorate. If they donated, they no longer needed it. Someone had grown up and moved out, or they had "passed".
In a simpler life, we are not "consumers". We are just living our lives.
We are not being trendy to compete with the neighbors.
We are not hoarders, we are taking our time to find a new use for what we don't need right now. Sometimes we make something new with the parts. Sometimes we give it to someone that just found out that they needed something we no longer need. Sometimes we are just grieving a little longer for the loss of the reason to keep the thing.
We are not working constantly so we can buy more stuff.
We are not buying more to fill the hole in our lives--that feeling of purposelessness that grows from being rudderless, unconnected, lacking in something.
We are being ourselves.
We are alive.
We are being present in every moment of our life.
We are simply alive.
An afternoon of making mudpies or playing in a sandbox was pure joy. Hours and hours of intense creating. Or pulling stuff from a ragbag and turning it into the most amazing play clothes, making friends into cowboys or cops and robbers or kings and queens or whatever story had sparked an ongoing, freestyle rendition of pretend.
My father made weird toys and that was always a weird hit in the neighborhood. My favorite was the stick horse that had a rolly-wheel on the ground end that was set up to hit something plastic with metal things so it made a clacking sound--not unlike the playing cards on bike spokes. He also made stilts and wooden guns and wagons and such. It was as fun to watch them being made as it was to play with them. Such things were never projects, but were the reusing of scraps from more serious constructions.
We had a dog--we always had a dog, and the dog was always an inside/outside dog, because while dogs were animals and should be outside, if it was cold or wet or too hot or scary or (any excuse worked) it could come in. We occasionally had a dog that was mostly a stray. We left out food because its hard to be a stray--its not like being a wild dog at all--no food sources that are consistent and hard to find water with all the fences and gun-bearing stray-haters. Those dogs didn't come in, didn't want to, but they ended up with covered/protected areas--either in the garage (when did that dog door get in the garage, anyway) or in a house made from the same scraps that furnished toys.
When I was young, we went to the country a lot. We went almost weekly and spent the weekend. We drove up the back way; a 3 hour drive on curvy, narrow, pockmarked roads, the last part gravel, frequently in the dark on Friday after Dad got off work. When it was dark, my sister and I would share the back seat, blankets and pillows, suitcases between the seat so we didn't roll off in a sudden stop. I remember sleeping, the vibration of the car, the strangely scratchy cloth upholstery. the smell of cigar smoke and the sound of the wind hitting the little window open by the drivers seat. (When did the little window stop? Why did it ever exist?) I never remember getting there. I always just woke up at grandmas. But I do remember sometimes waking up to see a black sky full of stars while hearing my parents voices. I miss that scratchy upholstery. I miss those stars. I worry that seatbelts stole something from my children's memories--not their safety, but maybe their feeling of safety.
I loved falling asleep on a blanket in the sun in the spring. It was the best. Maybe not better than the Drive-in theater, but I would love that feeling again, while I will skip the drive-in.
Jello salad, and macaroni and cheese, deviled eggs, devils food cake, fried catfish eggs, wilted green salad--those are so simple, and yet food was so wonderful.
Simple. Why was life so simple so much of the time, why do we complicate it so much as adults. Not a single home back then was "up-dated". No one cared if the color scheme was current, or the furniture matched the decorations or even each other. People didn't redecorate, they bought a bed when they needed one more for another person, or for if one was broken and couldn't be fixed, or if it was--god forbid--stolen. No one donated perfectly good furniture so they could redecorate. If they donated, they no longer needed it. Someone had grown up and moved out, or they had "passed".
In a simpler life, we are not "consumers". We are just living our lives.
We are not being trendy to compete with the neighbors.
We are not hoarders, we are taking our time to find a new use for what we don't need right now. Sometimes we make something new with the parts. Sometimes we give it to someone that just found out that they needed something we no longer need. Sometimes we are just grieving a little longer for the loss of the reason to keep the thing.
We are not working constantly so we can buy more stuff.
We are not buying more to fill the hole in our lives--that feeling of purposelessness that grows from being rudderless, unconnected, lacking in something.
We are being ourselves.
We are alive.
We are being present in every moment of our life.
We are simply alive.
Sunday, April 10, 2016
FAMILY HISTORY
Why do people worry about geneology?
Lots of reasons:
Lots of reasons:
- Sometimes they want to find that rich or famous person that proves they ARE someone. Good luck with that one.
- Sometimes they are that branch of the tree that fell off. Parents or grandparents moved away never to return, married, had children, then died and the offspring are too alone. They yearn for their roots. They yearn to find their people and be part of a family again.
- Sometimes they have heard family stories and want to verify them or prove them wrong.
- Sometimes they are just plain obsessive/compulsive and start a project that ultimately has no end.
- Sometimes they just love history--all history.
But my little journey into personal family history taught me alot about my relatives and lots about the regular people that lived in this country before me. The history books tell you nothing about regular people, history books are full of BIG moments and BIG people and little moments in BIG people's lives--many of which, like Washington's cherry tree cutting, never even happened.
Family history should be real history. I have seen some older books that were vanity printed; some were good, honest, warts-and-all histories. Others were prim, proper, with whole branches eliminated due to less than braggable moments. Searching for and writing about family history should be about self-discovery. If you are not brave enough to go to the store without full battle makeup, you may not be ready for what your family history reveals.
There are no benefits to finding and writing an abridged family history. You might as well just take up something purely creative.
There are no benefits to finding and writing an abridged family history. You might as well just take up something purely creative.
I have heard people argue that geneology is NOT Real history unless there is some BIG moment. Everyone's family was here for the BIG moments. EVERYONE'S!
My mother loved telling me about the night that "The War of the Worlds" was on the radio-live. She knew it was a fictional story, but it was quite dramatic, and her own father got a little revved up before she convinced him it was like a movie. Apparently, quite a few people had a problem with mistaking that particular production as a genuine live reporting event. Must have been a little like walking into a showing of "The Blair Witch Project" and thinking it was a news program.
That was history. That was what her family was doing during that bit of history. For some people, they would have slept through it, others got out their guns or shivered in their beds. Everyone alive at that time was somewhere doing something. History is all about perspective.
Our family history helps to connect us to our roots. Roots provide sustenance. They ground us. They anchor us. They connect us to the space-time continuum.
I have heard people say--"I don't have a family history, I'm adopted". They are still connected. They KNOW, if they just think about it, that their family goes back to the beginning of humans, just like everyone else's family does.
If you don't know your history and can't find your history, it doesn't mean it doesn't exist. It just is a mystery. If you are really disturbed by the mystery, you can do things like one of the autosomal genetic tests or you can dig really hard--this might actually be a bad thing, as our search for our history should not take over our lives and the brick walls of adoptions can be pretty hard and frustrating. You can borrow your spouses history or your adoptive family will most likely be glad to share theirs. Or you can make one up--just remember to keep it real, none of that kings and heros and famous actors crap.
My mother loved telling me about the night that "The War of the Worlds" was on the radio-live. She knew it was a fictional story, but it was quite dramatic, and her own father got a little revved up before she convinced him it was like a movie. Apparently, quite a few people had a problem with mistaking that particular production as a genuine live reporting event. Must have been a little like walking into a showing of "The Blair Witch Project" and thinking it was a news program.
That was history. That was what her family was doing during that bit of history. For some people, they would have slept through it, others got out their guns or shivered in their beds. Everyone alive at that time was somewhere doing something. History is all about perspective.
Our family history helps to connect us to our roots. Roots provide sustenance. They ground us. They anchor us. They connect us to the space-time continuum.
I have heard people say--"I don't have a family history, I'm adopted". They are still connected. They KNOW, if they just think about it, that their family goes back to the beginning of humans, just like everyone else's family does.
If you don't know your history and can't find your history, it doesn't mean it doesn't exist. It just is a mystery. If you are really disturbed by the mystery, you can do things like one of the autosomal genetic tests or you can dig really hard--this might actually be a bad thing, as our search for our history should not take over our lives and the brick walls of adoptions can be pretty hard and frustrating. You can borrow your spouses history or your adoptive family will most likely be glad to share theirs. Or you can make one up--just remember to keep it real, none of that kings and heros and famous actors crap.
Knowing about the people we came from can help us recognize our strengths and appreciate the diversity of our quirks and strangities. It can also help us be less judgemental, less arrogant, and less certain of our own superiority.
Anything that makes us more aware of who we are, what we are, and where we fit into the larger picture is a good thing. And in those BIG history moments, those BIG historic people were larger than life--the rest of the time, they were just eating, sleeping, toileting, doing chores and pondering the very same things the rest of us were.
Tuesday, March 22, 2016
mY LITTLE theory (or "what am I afraid of")
I love science fiction.
I have read a lot of it.
I have watched a lot of it.
I have noticed that the very early science fiction eventually bears a striking resemblance to the NEW present.
My theory is: If we can imagine it, it can happen"
My fear is;
And yes, I know they aren't real.
Yet.
I have read a lot of it.
I have watched a lot of it.
I have noticed that the very early science fiction eventually bears a striking resemblance to the NEW present.
My theory is: If we can imagine it, it can happen"
My fear is;
And yes, I know they aren't real.
Yet.
Sunday, March 20, 2016
climate change--why do we believe it, why do we not believe it,
A lot has been said about climate change in the last 5 years. Most of us had heard the term, in close association with greenhouse effect, ozone depletion and the size of our carbon footprint, before it became a political issue.
Most of us had sort of believed it, made tiny concessions like not running the car in the driveway while getting ready for work, not eating on nothing but Styrofoam plates, not making 10 trips to the store for 10 items, recycling--when it was easy and convenient or they paid us; that kind of thing.
Most of us sort of believed it because it made sense.
Many of us didn't want to believe it because it meant we needed to do something different. We had help not believing. Some of our leaders, the same leaders that told us that sugar was good for us and cigerette smoke wouldn't hurt you and the only moral way to stop kids from getting pregnant or catching a disease was to not have sex until they were married, have found scientists to back them up.
Scientists like money as much as the next guy. While scientific purists wouldn't do it, those scientists that have no problems making bombs, no problem cheating on their research for drug safety and no problem swearing to a theory that others find ridiculous, can always be counted on to say what the guy with the money wants them to say. Being a scientist doesn't guarantee ethical behavior or honesty.
The problem with climate change is:
It's very profitable NOT to have to redo the factories, NOT to have to change the materials we use in the widgets we sell for massive profit, NOT to have to pay for research and development of new ways to do things that aren't so hard on the ecosystems of the earth.
And--they do NOT want to sell the idea of "LESS IS MORE", selling less does not make more profit. They like there consumers buying more, More, MORE!
We may have all quaked at the number of shoes Imelda Marco had in her closet in 1986, but these days, that just meant she was a hoarder, if she had bought 365 pairs a year and thrown them out or sent them to Goodwill after one wearing, no one would even raise an eyebrow these days.
We buy more. We make more trash than ever. We use disposable, and these days, everything is disposable.
We Consume!!! WE ARE LOCUST!
What would we do with ourselves if our lives were not the way they are now? (be bored? write blogs? volunteer at the shelter? take a class? talk to a friend? make something out of used stuff?)
Those of us that are comfortably consuming; buying and buying, driving and driving, eating and tossing, trashing and discarding---we are living the life of ease. Or at least the life the media tells us is a sign we have succeeded.
Those of us that are not able to buy whatever we want, that are shopping in goodwill, cooking instead of buying prepared, have a goal of becoming the media darling that has no worries about such things. Success is just around the corner.
Those of us that are trying to be less wasteful, trying to eat more earth-friendly foods, grow our own, cook our own and compost the remains; that limit their consumption of widgets, buy used, recycle, walk more, ride bikes, read labels and avoid buying products with excess packaging, chemical additives, poor production processes--we are ridiculed as eccentric, weirdo's or avoided as outright crazy.
We want to be the person on the American TV drama. Not the geek on the sitcom, not the pathetic creature on lifetime that needs saving--unless she is also rich and beautiful, but the rich, powerful man or woman that is living the American dream.
In the American Dream, there is no Climate change, just endless seasons of love, beauty, human drama and consuming of products.
If you can't be rich and greedy, you can always be shallow and consuming.
Remember, the earth made it through the other instances of climate change. It was still here, changed but here.
The Dinosaurs, Trilobites, Mammoths are not.
GO EARTH!
Most of us had sort of believed it, made tiny concessions like not running the car in the driveway while getting ready for work, not eating on nothing but Styrofoam plates, not making 10 trips to the store for 10 items, recycling--when it was easy and convenient or they paid us; that kind of thing.
Most of us sort of believed it because it made sense.
Many of us didn't want to believe it because it meant we needed to do something different. We had help not believing. Some of our leaders, the same leaders that told us that sugar was good for us and cigerette smoke wouldn't hurt you and the only moral way to stop kids from getting pregnant or catching a disease was to not have sex until they were married, have found scientists to back them up.
Scientists like money as much as the next guy. While scientific purists wouldn't do it, those scientists that have no problems making bombs, no problem cheating on their research for drug safety and no problem swearing to a theory that others find ridiculous, can always be counted on to say what the guy with the money wants them to say. Being a scientist doesn't guarantee ethical behavior or honesty.
The problem with climate change is:
- it is pretty slow
- it is mostly not very dramatic
- it looks a lot like the normal variation from one year to the next.
- in geologic time--we have already had climate change--we think 5 times so what is the big deal, and humans didn't cause them (the dinosaurs are still dead, the endless waters parted, the ice age helped create racial diversity, and who knows how many species never left a single fossil so its like they never existed
It's very profitable NOT to have to redo the factories, NOT to have to change the materials we use in the widgets we sell for massive profit, NOT to have to pay for research and development of new ways to do things that aren't so hard on the ecosystems of the earth.
And--they do NOT want to sell the idea of "LESS IS MORE", selling less does not make more profit. They like there consumers buying more, More, MORE!
We may have all quaked at the number of shoes Imelda Marco had in her closet in 1986, but these days, that just meant she was a hoarder, if she had bought 365 pairs a year and thrown them out or sent them to Goodwill after one wearing, no one would even raise an eyebrow these days.
We buy more. We make more trash than ever. We use disposable, and these days, everything is disposable.
We Consume!!! WE ARE LOCUST!
What would we do with ourselves if our lives were not the way they are now? (be bored? write blogs? volunteer at the shelter? take a class? talk to a friend? make something out of used stuff?)
Those of us that are comfortably consuming; buying and buying, driving and driving, eating and tossing, trashing and discarding---we are living the life of ease. Or at least the life the media tells us is a sign we have succeeded.
Those of us that are not able to buy whatever we want, that are shopping in goodwill, cooking instead of buying prepared, have a goal of becoming the media darling that has no worries about such things. Success is just around the corner.
Those of us that are trying to be less wasteful, trying to eat more earth-friendly foods, grow our own, cook our own and compost the remains; that limit their consumption of widgets, buy used, recycle, walk more, ride bikes, read labels and avoid buying products with excess packaging, chemical additives, poor production processes--we are ridiculed as eccentric, weirdo's or avoided as outright crazy.
We want to be the person on the American TV drama. Not the geek on the sitcom, not the pathetic creature on lifetime that needs saving--unless she is also rich and beautiful, but the rich, powerful man or woman that is living the American dream.
In the American Dream, there is no Climate change, just endless seasons of love, beauty, human drama and consuming of products.
If you can't be rich and greedy, you can always be shallow and consuming.
Remember, the earth made it through the other instances of climate change. It was still here, changed but here.
The Dinosaurs, Trilobites, Mammoths are not.
GO EARTH!
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I have always been told I have too much imagination. I am not realistic. According to these people, we live in a democracy. Democra...
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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 rel...
