bobblehead.

"You are much more likely to get fired for being rude or disagreeable than for not doing the work you were paid to do."  More than one person has said that to me recently.
Today, that is true, especially if you work directly with people with power.  They don't need a lot of power, just enough to gripe to your boss that you are "not a team player" or "difficult" or a "poor communicator".
Ye,t how many of us have set in a meeting in which everyone discussed a problem, agreed to do research and bring back their ideas to fix the problem, only to return and have the first meeting, again, like the first had never occurred at all.  This can happen repeatedly, with a year passing and no progress occurring and no one wanting to mention that for fear of being negative or worse.
A meeting with ten experienced people making top wages and lasting an hour wastes at the very least 300 and doesn't include supplies and prep-time, do that for a year and you have wasted over 10,000$ to not fix a problem which is still costing whatever it cost in the first place times a year of that cost.
The next time you go to a meeting, watch the bobbleheads,

• someone identifies the problem and the nodding starts
• someone describes the already described solutions, and the nodding continues
• someone describes the possible ways to institute the solutions and the nodding continues
• someone points out that the group has done this at the last 4 meetings and the room stops, friends don't look at the speaker, enemies glare, all nodding ends.

After the meeting, the boss suggests the speaker is frustrated and may need a vacation or a change of careers.  Good friends agree and point out that they need their job and can't afford the ire of the people running the business.  Others avoid the terrible employee's area for weeks.

Next meeting, its back to normal without the negative/nonteam player/square peg. The meeting runs smoothly, every one is a polite little bobblehead, and the meetings cost more than the original problem, which is still a part of the company's business-as-usual.

Be Still!

This is information for all those religious fanatics that are hating on everyone that doesn't share their beliefs.

GOD IS NOT DEAD

God did not quit communicating with us the minute your particular holy book was completed.

God did not have a favorite people.

God does not hate people that don't behave the way you think they should.

If you want to hear what God is saying to you--be still!

And don't expect words to pop into your mind.  Words limit us.  We have known for a long time that the language a person speaks and thinks in, will alter their thoughts/perceptions/beliefs about the world.  People in places without snow have no words to describe it, people with lots of snow have a multitude of words describing it in great detail and specificity.  People without words for time or numbers, or writing will not describe or value those things.  God does not need words.  People do because they have forgotten to listen, forgotten to be still.

If you think you have never heard God, then ask yourself if you have ever been outside, standing in the sun or the rain or the wind with no one else around, and rather than thinking in words about your day or your plans or your worries or what you should do next, you just experienced that moment.  For a moment or two you were still.  Maybe you just felt very peaceful, but maybe you had a moment of exhaltation or  a strange awareness that you knew something that you didn't know before, but you have no words to tell anyone about it.
No Words!
And yet you knew something you didn't know before.  No thoughts that you could wrap your mind around and share, but the feeling of spiritual growth, of new awareness was there.

Read your holy books, there is wisdom in them... all of them... and misconceptions, and hate, and ugliness, a lot like a good Stephen King novel or a superman comic (and I encourage people to continue to read those and other books as well).

 But if you seek God, if you want to become a better person, a wiser person, then be still as often as possible...
And listen to God!

Insomnia!

How do you turn off your brain?  you lay down most nights and the next thing you know its time to get up.  But sometimes.....you remember weird things, like putting that box from your parents house in the garage, but you aren't sure where, or those 2 kids that drove you nuts back when you were teaching, or you get stuck trying to remember the last name of that poor child in your second grade that looked like she had BeriBeri.

  So you get up and take a valerian, and spend an hour focused on whether you can hear the old cat breathing, because it will suck if you wake up, move and you touch a dead cat in the morning.  Might be a panicky moment.  Then you get up, wash your face, make a cup of coffee and go read the news--which is a combination of horrible, ridiculous, and political, and takes about 15 minutes if you read the ads, also.

  Then you go take a shower, change the sheets (princess and the pea comes to mind), lay down and try it again despite the fact you need to get up in an hour or two.

  

For Memorial Day--thoughts

It's Memorial Day.
When I was a child, we would have gotten together and taken flowers to all the cemeteries we could drive to with relatives of ours.  I thought the day was to remember the past, where we came from.  I thought we were remembering those that were no longer present.  Those trips taught me a love genealogy and family stories, and an appreciation of home grown flowers and country graveyards with huge trees and varied tombstones.
I realize now that it is a day to memorialize the sacrifice of soldiers and their families. My own father was proud of his part in WWII. My Brother had the 21 gun salute of a Veteran at his funeral.  Neither died in combat.
I have seen a hundred reminders today about the sacrifices of the brave for our freedom.  I know that know one serves without seeing what they are doing as an act of patriotism, sacrifice, and bravery; a selfless attempt to keep the family back home safe and free to live the life they have.
 For their acts I am in awe.  Few of us get the opportunity to do more than the regular grind of go to work, pay the bills, take care of small responsibilities.
Do not misunderstand me.
I am unbelievably grateful that the draft has not existed since the end of the Vietnam War.  I am even more grateful that my children did not join the armed forces.  While the acts of the young men and women that sign up, giving over at least a part of their lives and possibly all of it, risking permanent physical, mental, emotional damage, risking exposure to things that can forever stop or change their progeny, is both selfless and brave. 
The men and women in charge of making the decision to send them to war, to police actions, and to training is neither high-minded or selfless.  I can't remember the last time we had a war that wasn't for the economic profit of the rich.  The last tragic war effort was started with great patriotism by an act of terrorism, but the number of soldiers that died actually fighting the people that sent those planes into the Twin Towers is not high.  Instead we aimed at anyone of that religion that might have control of the oil monies.
We are not the morality keepers of the world.  We are not fighting for the freedom of the people in the countries we go into.  We are not supportive of their political choices unless those choices continue to feed our economic needs.
I were raised to believe we were the good guys. But looking at history, we have seldom been the good guys.  In WWI and WWII, I think we might have come closest.  Although, I'm not sure that WWI was our business, at least we were invited in by allies that were being threatened in their freedoms.  WWII was most likely made possible by our actions in WWI--a poor plan to control a country that lead to the empowerment of a worse threat.  We allowed a monster to rise and that happened not because we were unaware, but because he was spouting many of the same things our own people in power were spouting.
We did not join that war because of what was being done to the Jews, Blacks, Gays, Gypsies,--we refused the entrance of those refugees,  but rather because of what was happening to our allies--again. While we were a lot of people's salvation, that goal was not why we joined.
I wish it had been our goal.  If the only thing that would make us send in troops to risk their lives was the bullying, torturing, enslaving, disenfranchising of people in another place,  I would be very proud of our country.
As it is, I think we need to remove our blinders before telling our children to sign up to go to war. Our children are more important than cheap fuel and we will never know if one of those young men or women might have found a better answer than petroleum, or created a new medicine or sang a beautiful song that only they could have written because they paid the ultimate price for our...what?
For those who have lost someone to war, my condolences.  If they lost their life saving someone else, my eternal thanks.
If we stop praising war for our freedom, when we have fought very few wars for our freedom, perhaps those in charge of these debacles will realize that sending our young to die or be scarred is not the first answer.
Knowing what is going on in the world is important.  Knowing what group of nuts is working toward some craziness is important.  Politics is not important.  The economic advantage of the rich that own their own politician is not important.
If we would enjoy our freedom, we must allow that freedom to extend to everyone, not just our citizens, not just our powerful leaders, not just our rich.  
My mother used to tell me regularly that my rights stopped at the end of the other person's nose.  It was the wisest thing she ever told me.
But I can't force that knowledge on anyone else without interfering with their right to chose right from wrong.
I do think a return to a goal of equality would be good though.  Right now, in our fine country, freedom is for sell to the highest bidder, and the rest of us get the opportunity to sacrifice everything for popular platitudes.

What are we good at?

     We have been very good at teaching patriotism in this country; "this is the greatest country on the planet," "the home of the free, the land of the brave," " the land of opportunity where everyone is equal and no matter where you came from or what circumstances surrounded your birth, you could accomplish anything--become anything"... "the sky is the limit as long as you work hard, say your prayers, save your money and be true to yourself."

     If you question that, if you ask someone what the greatest country is, if you point out that our equality statements don't seem to represent anything--you will be met with ridicule or even violence.
Yet the statistics are out there that indicate those statements are not true.
     We have a lot of problems.
Apparently, only a very few people are working hard, saying their prayers, saving their money and being true to themselves:
       99% of the U.S. money is the personal property of 1% of the population.
       While our unemployment is lessened, more people are working all the time so they can live at under the poverty level---maybe they aren't praying enough, maybe they are wasting their money on food and rent.
        We have free public schools, granted we have known since the 1940's that the current system is not effective, but we are sending more people on to college---where they can, with a 2 year degree get any minimum wage job, or with a 4 year degree get a job that pays a dollar an hour over that, although probably not in the field of their degree.
         If you are born in poverty, your chances of occupying a prison for a portion of your life go way up.  Maybe because you keep trying to find that opportunity that will allow you to be anything you want.  Maybe because the public defender's job is to talk you into taking a plea-bargain whether you are guilty or not because a trial takes too long and requires more resources than either of you can afford.
         When you get out of prison, you will be a felon, may not ever be able to vote again, may not ever be able to get a job that includes benefits or even a W-2.  You are now an "under-the-table" kind of guy. 
Thank God we are not the kind of heathens that tattoo a giant F on your forehead making it impossible for you to partake of the advantages of living in the land of opportunity.
         In this great country, it is everyone's right to fail, everyone's right to be poor, everyone's right to develop a preventable illness without the interference of good health education, knowledge of the effects of poor choices, or a single dollar spent on screening after you leave the hospital you were born in.  We are truly free.

What are we good at besides being proud of being citizens of the greatest nation in the world?

Being reactionary.

Someone shoots someone, we want to ban all guns, then we have a backlash wanting to ban all gun bans.
(we do not address the individual cause of that shooting--that would be too simple, make too much sense---once mental health care stopped being funded, crazy was also a right.)

Someone has an abortion, ban all abortions, there is never a reason to have an abortion, then there is blood in the street due to two groups of people that are quite sure they are fighting for right and they should be the winner.  (we do no ask the woman why she had an abortion, we do not listen to her reasons for making that choice, and if she has made that choice many time and with no qualms, do we really think we should make her be a mother? do we really think a child born in those circumstances will be healthly--will that child grow up and thank us?)

I have heard of child born of rape/born with known genetic issues and most are glad they were born....but they were born so therefore that question and answer is not the same as the one you would get from the one that was not born.  Perhaps they would also glad.  Inevitably, the reason not to abort is religious, and I find it interesting that so many think a loving God would punish the unborn.  If living on this planet is important, I'm quite sure they will get their chance--hopefully a better chance.

Most civilized/stable nations have some sort of healthcare for their citizens, but in this great country we guarantee everyone's right to die without good healthcare.  Surely the only one's freer than we are live in those countries without stable governments or stable laws.

I'm so proud.

open your eyes

Some people would consider me to be wasting my time talking to myself, but i think it is just more private on here than a diary or journal.  Its a really good place to rant about the injustices in the world, the horrors, the accepted things that make me want to cry.
Am  I powerless?  Pretty much. 
My children are inheriting the world I allowed to come into existence--I had my eyes closed, I was so focused on my little world I didn't see the crap the power-mongers were doing.
The 2-bit pimps are now sex-traffickers, and no one is touching them.
Where pitiful women with no self-esteem were degraded for money and a supply of drugs, children/teens/women from countries and places with no rights, no worth are sold to the highest bidder.
While our prisons fill up with drug addicts and desperate poor people, the powerful are given a free pass to do what they will--drugs that aren't safe passed to allow pharmaceutical companies to make more money, banks allowed to launder crime money--with evidence they know that is what it is from, kickbacks, perks, owning politicians to ensure their own not-quite-legal, way not ethical behavior. Fear-ridden fundamentalists that want to run everyone else in the name of their god, while ignoring their own persecution of people different than themselves.
What is the answer?
If everyone looks in the mirror and examines their own morals/ethics/behavior how many of those people would adjust themselves, and how many would shrug and tell themselves they were better than everyone else, more deserving, more justified in taking what is not theirs to take, more capable of deciding for other people what is best for them.  We need to look in the mirror and out at others with the same eyes, with the same expectations.
If you own a business, unless you can do everything in that business alone, you should not make all the money.  If it is your idea, and you don't produce anything except that idea, (how is that different than a one-hit-wonder?) how do the people doing the working not share equally with you.  Not 50% for you and 50% for all of them, but 100 people, 100 equal shares.  Why are people so greedy they want to use other people, profit off of their sweat and tears, steal their time on this earth and wear down their health with the stress of no time for their own dreams, no time for their loved ones, no power over their own lives, not enough money to buy healthy food, live in a safe environment, send their children to schools and activities that will make them better people.
The original goal of public schools was to provide workers for the factories that were literate enough to run the machines and fill out whatever  paperwork was needed.  Isn't it time we educated  with a goal of their own self-satisfaction and not to feed the machinery of the wealthy?
Why, in a country that supposedly has no class system are there ghettos?
Why are the prisons full of the poor and uneducated?
Why are there homeless people in a country where an individual can possess more wealth than a small country?
I would ask those people with small, medium, and large businesses to share fairly with the people that are allowing them to be successful.
I would ask that those corporations share their wealth more evenly with those people that they currently treat like unimportant and interchangeable droids.  One hour in the life of worker is worth as much to them as one hour in the life of a rich man is to him.  We sell our time for money so we can buy what we need.
Those of you that have mistaken money for a scoring system are truly lost.  Life is not a game, and a person that can not see the worth of all life is either asleep--or blind.

What is going on?

We in the US of A survived a surreal election year.  Now we are panicking on command for a series of legal changes our own leadership put in place to force themselves to fix the problem.
They didn't fix the problem, so the ridiculousness continues.
Thirty years ago, I read a science fiction book in which there were no countries anymore.  People lived in corporatocracies ruled by a board.  The ruling class were the major share holders, the people in the c-suites of each little "city-state" were the political leaders and dictators.  People trained to work in that company, they were schooled according to the needs of that industry.  People that lost their job had to leave, and if they had a spouse and family, they lost them.  The spaces between the places were filled with the desperate that were born outside of the protection of one of the business monsters (and thus not schooled to the needs of one), and those that had been ejected from their own birth-company.
The story centered on the changes in mindset a good little company worker had when his spouse did something that got her fired.  He ended up going with her, and his very low opinion of those people not employed and living outside was changed in a slow but eye-opening way.  He had seen them as barely human, unintelligent, incapable of producing anything of worth, and criminalistic (of course all activities outside the companies were criminalized by the companies).
It was not a great book, and the fact that I remember it a lot anymore is a sign that there are things going on that we need to pay attention to.
It is hard to pay attention.  Most of us are dependent on the media, which is frequently (if not always) owned by corporate America.  Fifty years ago, every snow storm was not a state of emergency.  When a nightmarish murder occurred, people were shocked, but didn't start talking about tearing down the whole neighborhood where it occurred because it was "those poor people"  When prices went up to ridiculous levels, we didn't blame those darn minimum wage workers for wanting to make enough to not be homeless and hungry.
Most of us are asleep at the wheel.  We have a job, get a raise every so often, granted it is usually less than the amount that the cost of living went up, but it is better than before that.  We make a budget, take every credit card they let us have because our budget doesn't cover anything unexpected, and just keep living from paycheck to paycheck.
We work most days.  We are tired. We are stressed.  The news about the economy is scary and since it blames those darn minimum wage workers, those stinking illegal immigrants taking all those jobs that pay less than minimum wage, and those entitled individuals that think that just because they are blind or 90 or lost their arms and legs fighting for their country that someone should give them about what a minimum wage worker would make.  And, those people take drugs, drink cheap alcohol, smoke cigarettes, what the heck is wrong with them.
Granted, they can't afford a psychoanalyst to help them make sense of the fact that their life sucks, but how dare they use our money for that.
Which leads to corporate welfare.  We hate giving the poor and maimed barely enough to live out of our hard earned tax dollars, but we are scared to stop keeping the owners of big businesses set up in style.
It is OK to be a failed individual living on the street until you overdose/freeze/or are murdered, but a corporate big-wig with only one house?-unthinkable. 
All those scared people with jobs, watching the news don't get that those big businesses need employees to work just as much as the employees need a job.  Sure, most of them now have enough money to sit on their butts for 400 years without working, but those guys like to eat and eat well.  That requires someone to grow the food, pick the food/butcher the meat, drive it to market, process it, cook it, and serve it to them.  I have not met a lot of rich women that knew how to plant/pick/comb/weave/sew cotton to make clothes, forget the whole silk and wool thing.  And if no one is in the sweat shops sewing up those designer frocks, what can they outdo each other with.  Rich people like electricity, heat/air/plumbing.   They like their cars big and functional.  They like to go on vacation and have someone carry their bags, put a mint on their pillow and bring them breakfast.
The question is not what do we do if they take our jobs, the question is what do they do when no one is working for them?  Being filthy rich is not more fun than being homeless and poor when you can't make people do what you want, sell you what you want, treat you like your special.
The point is, they are not better and more deserving than the rest of the people.
But there are people that will do anything for money, and not just the rich, but the people they hire to kill for them, to destroy for them, to do those things that make regular old Joes that work for a living, afraid.

So what can be done?  We send our young people to wars because someone said to go fight and die for wars that only benefit the rich.
 What is wrong with us?
Are we just lemmings on an overpopulated planet?  (Hint-hint, the Lemming-thing was made up by someone for TV in the 50's.  We humans just might be the only "Lemmings" on this planet.)

Are we just living bad theater?

I watched the movie, hunger games, yesterday.  I had a hard time reading the book, and never finished it.  I suppose my age makes teenage angst seem silly.  The movie eliminated some of that by being visual rather than melodramatic.  They did a decent job, with actors that seemed like ordinary people and costuming among the capital-dwellers that was good at pointing out the decadence of the ruling class versus the hopelessness of those that had dared to consider not serving them.
It reminded me of an extreme version of the 1% elite that own the world versus the 99% that feel they have no options but to follow the rules and hope for mercy.
I live in a state in which the "havenots" constantly support the rights of the "haves".  They never notice that they have almost no chance of becoming one of them, but rather are so fearful of the "haves" not providing jobs, and whatever else it is that they provide (this is usually where I get lost? what else do they provide, anyway?  they pay lower taxes than I do, get perks from all over the place, and why, because the "almost haves" want their crumbs.  So why are so many people in our state living below the poverty level and worried that they will tax that 1% at the same rate as everyone else?  Because?  Someone please explain how so many people can believe so much garbage just because they are told it is right, it is American, it is the only thing standing between them and communism.  Amazingly, receiving state moneys doesn't help them realize that  is ridiculous.  I heard a man with fully paid health insurance go off on a rant because with Obamacare he was going to have a tax increase and not be able to get in and see a doctor.  I have heard people panicking because all the doctors are going to leave the profession.  Where does this come from?  Will the doctors leave--most of them will then qualify for the same minimum wage jobs that everyone else is seeking, Europe and Canada has not seen Doctors leave medicine.  Will the man I work with be taxed for no insurance?----he has insurance,  will he not be able to see a doctor--he hasn't been to the doctor in three years, having insurance doesn't make you sick, but if you are sick, it would be nice to be able to go somewhere besides the ER.
Why all the panic?  Because it is what most of us do--we react--usually to what some manipulative jerk puts out there for us to react to.
If you have not seen the hunger games, consider it, but in light of our own political situations.  Watch the capital-dwellers egg on the tributes to acts of demoralized cruelty, watch them manipulate those that are trying to be better by throwing in problems that are not acts of nature--why, because of there personal gambling profits and the joy of winning.  And note the costuming of the ruling class--a people that have nothing better to do than dye their hair to match their dress and shave their beards into ornate decorations.  A people that feel good sharing feast levels of food to the people that will be dying for their enjoyment and seeing that as a kindness. Its extreme.  But having seen our own rich folks names in the society pages for donating 200$ worth of turkeys to thanksgiving at the mission, then spending that per plate on their family meal, I'm not sure it is that far off..

changing the future

Yesterday I started this blog, then posted it to Facebook as I had no idea how to let it be seen.  If you have seen the commercial on TV with the girl complaining about her parents lack of friends on Facebook, they make me look like a hermit.  No comments were made, so I assumed nothing happened. I did my part, taped the list to the bathroom mirror so I could not miss it. It reminded me of how self-centered most of my desires are--vacation, lottery, pool in the backyard, I could literally go on forever...but looking at my drought ravaged yard, the birds crowding the pan I set under the dripping water hose, articles about how to keep old trees from dying in it, warnings about starting a spark and burning down the state, I realized that the planet is having a bad year, and I'm far from the only creature on it.
When I checked the blog-thing that tells who looked, one from Europe--I'll have the check the map to see what country as geography is not my strong suit, one Alaskan, and one U.S.A.  The internet creates a strange community.  A small but anonymous world which has already hidden many predators, criminals, and scam artists.  I like to think it can also do good, connecting people that can't meet, allowing us to see beyond our own small viewpoints and find a common good.  The future has seemed out of the control of most of us--in the hands of powerful, wealthy men, or extremists that wish to control everyone else.  Today I will try to do something to help and will focus on what I can do to improve the world.
7/25/12--I sat around yesterday, painted on some pictures, watched some TV, thought about all the things i could do if both arms were working this week, piddled.  Mid-afternoon, i watched a straggly looking raccoon walk to the pan under the hose and drink, then slowly wander off. It was midday, and while I have seen some creatures at night, that day visit was odd, so I sat in the window and watched a rabbit and a multitude of birds wander to that old skillet.  I put another pan from the garage out the side door and filled it with water, then threw the apple and orange that were past their prime off the porch.
Today it is supposed to rain, but the headlines are for dangerous thunderstorms.  It seems ironic that the thing we need most is coming with danger hooked to it.  Seems almost political, as if a good thing can't be had without something bad attached---sort of like a birthday.  The sky is gray and the grass is mostly yellow and the skillet is almost empty so I must do my part to save the world.

How many people have to want to fix the world for it to get better?

How many people have to want to fix the world for it to get better?

I propose an experiment—to see if the thoughts, prayers, desires of regular people, people without powerful positions or great amounts of wealth or names known in every household, can have a positive affect on the world around them.  Right now, most of us are wanting things to get better—but we do not all want it the same way.  We are thinking of personally helpful things like “I need some money”, or “I wish so-and-so was well” or worse, we are hoping some group of people seen as the enemy is destroyed so everything will be  better.

The first types of prayers and thoughts and desires are weak as generally only one or a few are thinking it and it is usually very self-serving.  The latter type is worse as it is destructive, and inevitably, whatever group we feel we belong to is in the cross-hairs of the group we want to see destroyed. 

What if, a growing group of individuals could focus on three things in a daily prayer, thought, meditation, mantra, (call it what you want—it doesn’t change it)  and that group grew and grew, sort of like the internet, so that people of many countries, beliefs, religions, political parties, races, genders, (you get the idea) were focusing on the same three things everyday at their time of stillness and contemplation.  Would it change the world like magic?  In a day?  In a year? In ten years?  How long would you do that to make the world a better place?

And if it wasn’t like magic, like a miracle, could the act of thinking of those three things daily change the individuals thinking them? 

I have seen that moment—critical mass, the tipping point, in which an idea went from pushing against unbelievable resistance to becoming the new normal on a small scale.  Think fashion—when was the last time you saw a room full of women in dresses?  One-hundred fifty years ago finding a room with a woman in pants would have been shocking.  Or living conveniences—in 1900 a house with a bathroom was a luxury, now a house without a bathroom is condemned as unfit to live in.  What was the tipping point, when did pants quit being rebellious and unseemly and start being OK for the most modest and conservative lady.  When did indoor plumbing become a requirement of all but the homeless?

Every change comes from somewhere, whether from plans or serendipity, but wouldn’t it be interesting to see if perhaps, instead of a small group at the top making the plans for the change they wanted, then beating everyone under them into submission, the small group could start in the middle and let the change flow to both those seen as most powerful/wealthy/influential, and those seen as most destructive/violent/dehumanized.  (I do realize those two ends may contain some of the same individuals)

The three thoughts I propose are:

•      Let the earth be healed so that it can continue to provide our sustenance.

• ·   Let people find their greatest joy in helping each other.

• ·     Let our leaders be filled with a need to serve that surpasses their desire for power, money or glory.

I will put those three things on a card and read it every night before go to sleep, and every morning before I start my day.  My goal is simple---if I do that, perhaps it will help—change the world, change me—I don’t know if it matters which.  If someone else starts doing the same, that will be two of us.   How many of us want a better world?  I would love to win the lottery, this is cheaper, and takes less time than my morning and evening ablutions.  This is not a chain letter; nothing bad will happen if you do nothing.  All I risk by writing this is the ridicule of friends and family and we have all had a bit of that at times.