Ambiguity abounds

Though it would be wonderful to say that I knew where things were headed.  That I had a clue.

Alas, I don't.  every single thing in my life is up in the air right now.  Employment, (will my classes make?) living situation, (if not will I be able to afford both the apt and the car?) health, (when will I stop making myself sick over these things I can't control?) and L'Amour! (Am I being foolish to encourage someone I don't want to be with in the final analysis?)

See, up in the air.  Juggling literally every single thing that I think is important to me.

Guidance wold be nice, someone to take me by the hand and say, "Ok, here's the first thing not to worry about, and now here's the second, and finally take a look at this.  You cannot control any of this stuff and you simply have to wait and see what's gonna happen and then formulate your response. Stop worrying about it, and step back and let it go."

Hehe, that sounds so like me,  (step back and let go ROFL)

Well, onto other matters.


Arnold and Jerry Brown want Vaughn Walker to lift his stay and let same-sex marriage resume in California.  This is a good thing.  But possibly too much of a good thing.

This ruing needs to wend its way through the courts.  It needs to be the decision that the Supreme's are forced to rule on, and to be the litmus test for this civil rights issue.  Anyone reading this document in it's entirety would see the how simply the courts could rule on its validity.  It's an impeccable document. If they manage to stop it's progress through the court system, they'll win marriage rights in California, but it won't have the effect it should have, to rule once and for all on the constitutionality of marriage rights for all. 

Ted Olsen, (on fox news of all places) makes an excellent analogy while talking with Chris Mathews yesterday:

"Well, would you like your right to free speech? Would you like Fox’s right to free press put up to a vote and say well, if five states approved it, let’s wait till the other 45 states do? These are fundamental constitutional rights. The Bill of Rights guarantees Fox News and you, Chris Wallace, the right to speak. It’s in the constitution. And the Supreme Court has repeatedly held that the denial of our citizens of the equal rights to equal access to justice under the law, is a violation of our fundamental rights. Yes, it’s encouraging that many states are moving towards equality on the basis of sexual orientation, and I’m very, very pleased about that. … We can’t wait for the voters to decide that that immeasurable harm, that is unconstitutional, must be eliminated."

Well, actually we shouldn't have to wait for the voters to decide. We should not only decide the issue because of the unconstitutionality of the Proposition, but because of the flim-flam that was pulled to get people to vote for it in the first place.  People should sue the supporters of the Proposition based on it's linguistic tactics to confuse the voters and get it passed when people who voted yes were actually voting no and didn't even know what they were doing.

Trust me , people are stupid and in California that goes double.  They got taken in many cases, and those who exploited the language should be taken to task for it.  In this country that means "It should cost them money." because that's the only thing we understand.

And another thing, Barack Obama, he of the easily berated economic policy, is not anti-business.

And here are a few things to support that statement:
This White House has “vilified industries,” complains the Chamber of Commerce. America is burdened with “an anti-business president,” moans The Weekly Standard.
Would that all presidents were this anti-business: according to the St. Louis Federal Reserve, corporate profits hit $1.37 trillion in the first quarter—an all-time high. Businesses are sitting on about $2 trillion in cash reserves. Business spending jumped 20 percent last quarter, and is up by 13 percent against 2009. The Obama administration has dropped taxes for small businesses and big ones alike. Maybe the president could be anti-me for a while. I could use the money.
The reality is that America’s supposedly anti-business president has led an extremely pro-business recovery. The corporate community has recovered first, and best. The populist tone that conservative magazines and business groups decry is partly in reaction to this: as corporate America’s position is getting better and better, the recovery is looking shakier and shakier. Unemployment is high. Housing looks perilously close to a double dip. Job growth is weak. And corporate America, for all its profits, isn’t hiring. The 71,000 jobs the private sector added in July aren’t sufficient to keep up with population growth, much less cut into the ranks of the unemployed.
Pundits have expended a lot of energy on this puzzle, but there’s actually no puzzle at all. A look at the history of financial crises shows that our slow, halting recovery is right on schedule, and the business community’s caution is predictable.
In their book, This Time Is Different, Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff look at every financial crisis over the last 800 years. It’s an exhaustive study, and its conclusions are depressing for a country that believes itself exceptional even in its suffering: we’re not special.
If you look at unemployment, housing prices, government debt, and the stock market, Rogoff says, “the U.S. is just driving down the tracks of a typical post–WWII deep financial crisis.” In some areas, we’re even a bit ahead of the game: economic output usually drops by 9 percent. We held the drop to 4 percent.
Even the unevenness of our recovery is predictable. “Housing and employment come back much slower than equity and [gross domestic product],” Reinhart says. GDP usually falls for two years and then recovers. Equity can move even faster, which helps explain corporate America’s rapid recovery. But employment tends to fall for five years, and sometimes it never quite recovers. And housing? That’s usually a six-year slide.

So business may be back, but its customers aren’t. That’s the Catch-22 of our recovery. Businesses will start hiring when the economy recovers. And the economy will start to recover when businesses start hiring. But that shouldn’t obscure what is, in fact, sort of good news (the frustrating stuff recoveries are made of): businesses can expand, they’re just waiting around to do so. “If you’re running a business, you can’t start hiring on speculation [that the economy is getting better],” says Joseph Kasputys, chairman of IHS Global Insight. “You have to wait until you see market signals that things are getting better. The smart businesses are looking for the early signs so they get the first advantage. They’re ready to move.” That’s a lot better than a world in which they don’t have the ability to move.
So what can we do to speed things along? More government stimulus—either through direct spending or further tax cuts—could offer some quick help, but Senate Republicans won’t allow anything large enough to make much of an impact. The Federal Reserve could step into the breach, but so far it’s been reluctant to do so. The Republicans want to see the Bush tax cuts extended and Obama’s health-care and financial-regulation bills repealed, but none of that will make a big short-term difference.

"Businesses are sitting on about $2 trillion in cash reserves."

hmmm, Cbs news says in an article dated March 16, 2010:

(Credit: AP) The latest posting from the Treasury Department shows the National Debt has increased over $2 trillion since President Obama took office.

I have to wonder where that money went?

They go on to say:
The debt now stands at $12.6 trillion. On the day Mr. Obama took office it was $10.6 trillion.
President George W. Bush still holds the record for the most debt run up on his watch: $4.9 trillion.

And in George's defense for some reason it matters how long it takes to spend that much money they say:
But it took him over four years to rack up the first two trillion dollars in debt. It has taken Mr. Obama 421 days.

I once spent $4500 in a week,  would it have been a different story if I'd spent it in a day?  I could have, I'm just too cheap to part with money that quickly.  

The point is the money's gone and in one instance, Barack Obama, of whom I'm not a particular fan, he's not really gotten as much done as he said he would, but the difference, in my opinion is that while Obama stands in front of the world and says, "Here's how were' going to spend this money and here's how much this will cost."  George Bush would stand in front of the country waving his right hand in protestation, railing at those who didn't think he was doing the right thing, while his left hand was reaching in the cookie jar and giving out all our money to his friends and their friends and their friends.  (yes I blame him for everything from Iraq to diaper rash, he's the anti-christ)

So, yes it's popular to blame the guy in office for our woes, and yes in some cases it's warranted, but the fact remains that Obama didn't buy a new car or a new helicopter,  or spend our money on buying baubles for his friends and those he wished to ingratiate himself with.  He spent it on us. George Bush conversely spent his 5 trillion on what he calls his base.  Those, who msnbc this morning said actually run the economy who possess most of the wealth in this country...AND AREN'T SPENDING ANY OF IT!"   At least not on hiring people.

These "let them eat cake." attitudes are what bring down cultures, and contribute to their ruin.

If you can afford health insurance no matter the cost I applaud you, because I can't.  The car and the apartment account for 95% of my income, and if you've ever seen them you know I'm not exactly living like a king. BTW I work two jobs and would happily take on a third if it would mean that I could stop worrying about money for at least a little while.

So let's be grateful that even though not enough to really make a huge difference in our lives is being accomplished that we're not being taken to the cleaners every day for someone else to benefit from our tax dollars. Let's be grateful that the money is being spent on us and not Haliburton, or is that Xe...lol

It's difficult in this world to be gay. It shouldn't be difficult in this country to be gay though.  We supposedly stand for so many great hings, but we don't we allow a few people to get those things and then give those very people the power to keep everyone else from getting them too.  It's outrageous that  Mexico, Norway, the UK, and other countries have acknowledged that people shouldn't be denied full civil rights simply because of who they love, and yet, America, that bastion of self-righteousness, still routinely practices hate and division as a rite.

And we don't even have the good sense to be ashamed.

And so it goes:

 

   

HGF

Ignorance, it's not just for breakfast anymore

I rarely read Joemygod these days, not so much because I don't like the blog, I do, but more because his demographic is not me, therefore I spend my time on other blogs.

But yesterday while looking for news of the Prop 8 decision I ran across a link and thought Joe would have the skinny.  I was right and he had more as well.

He had a link to some conservative website where all the commenters have to do is sit around all day and hate.

Practice makes perfect.

Some of the venomous comments directed toward gay men and women were outrageous!  I'd have been appalled if they didn't seem so ignorant of the very subject they were talking about.

Of course I had to wonder what the comments would have been like if they'd won.  Neener Neener Neener would likely have been the refrain.

There were the usual rants about activist judges and in this case gay judges, but one thread that kept getting picked up was the one that said it was unconscionable that the courts were able to nullify the votes of 7 million Californians (no mention that they were duped) and that we live in a police state.

The religious argument got dragged in as well.  No matter to these people that there's a separation of church and state, nor that the judge specifically states in the decision that the argument here is about civil marriage since the government gives religious organizations the nod to sanction civil marriage not institute it.

The reactions of politico's and celebrities have been predictable.  Nice, but hands off until this is all over.  I will say that Schwarzenegger  was uncharacteristically encouraging toward the gays when he had an assistant twitter his response.  He's out of favor with the  GOP anyway (and most of the rest of us) so what the hell.

Writing all this I have to ask myself if I engage this behavior. If I hate these people back, or if , though I likely can't forgive them their ignorance, I simply pity their small mindedness and the lack of opportunity they've had to actually learn.  Somewhere in their growth they've chosen the easy way out, the less enlightened way of thinking, the way, possibly, of their parents.

I can certainly identify with that notion, I too, was a devotee of the ignorant ideas of my father on race and society as a youth, but I had no other point of view to counter his.  When the time came for me to start thinking for myself I realized how wrong the Prince of Darkness actually was, and that , likely due to the fact that I was gay and discriminated against all the time in the lilly white suburbia I was forced to endure as a child I might try to find it in myself to be a bit more understanding of the plight of others.

Straight White Christian people have hated and feared and lied and hid in the closet for centuries.  To paraphrase Tom Robinson, "Naw, Suh.  I feel right sorry for 'em."

Some of my best friends have been straight.


A few examples of the pitiful ignorance of "heteros", and my unfortunate personal experience with them: 

I've lost the friendship of a  hetero couple I knew since I was a teenager because of our divergent religious views.  Since they no longer read this blog I have no compunction about outing him.  He's gay, was always gay, and in fact broke up with his boyfriend to get married and live in the closet.  The most outrageous travesty he's committed (among countless others) was to become a, um, well let's just say he's religious on a full time basis nowadays.  Talk about living the lie.

I lost another hetero friend who I cared about because he was patronizing, and he didn't realize it.

I hadn't seen him in years and quite by accident, a few years ago when my lunchtime bike ride took me by his office I wondered if I'd ever run into him and I did.  We went to dinner a few weeks later and caught up.  When talk got around to relationships and gayness as it always did.  He informed me that he and his wife attend a Christian church at which the pastor was committed to outreach to the gay community. 

I was reminded why I quit seeing him.  It sounded as though he felt we were these poor souls who were outcast and had to be saved by those, like him, who were more fortunate.  His brother groped me once at a party at his house (twice actually) and he himself silently challenged me to flash him in our dressing room during a show we were in.

There were countless others, the young husband who wants to satisfy his curiosity.  The  guy who posed as  a mentor in my youth, but whose actual intent was to "help me become straight."

and on and on ad nauseum.

The problem here is not that these people act on their own natural desires and/or curiosity, but that they assume that I/we as homosexuals in what is really their heterosexual world are in need of comfort, solace, and that we're destined to either wind up either crazy or dead as we do in movies unless they help us.  AND they're horrified that we don't live in fear.

Who here is actually the one to be pitied?

And so it goes:

Prop 8 Unconstitutional!

Duh!

Almost right ...or is that left

This morning as I was making coffee I thought,  "What the hell am I gonna talk about on the blog today?"

Lo and behold THIS was the first thing on my facebook page.  Several people, one of whom I know, commented on it,  and though I agree with their points I agree with George too.

What we aren't realizing yet is that this country no longer exists.  The country we're sold every day, the one with the American Dream in it and the one with the limitless possibilities and  the one where we CAN actually have it all... gone.

The mistake I think George is making in his thesis is that he seems to think it's organized.  That there is some giant conspiracy keeping America from existing.  I don't believe there is.  And I think that lack of organization is the problem and the savior as well.

He says, "...They don't give a fuck about you..at all, at all, AT ALL!"  True that, but they also don't give a fuck about each other.  They're not willing nor able really, to band together to get organized because if they did then the George Carlin's really couldn't exist and then the jig would really be up, we'd easily figure out that the game is rigged and that we're not gonna get ANYTHING.

Surely it's not escaped notice that a lot of parents are buying kids houses while they go to college or financing the down payment on the kid's first home, or housing the kid when they can't find a job.  Why is that you ask?  Is it possible that the previous generation had it better than we do? That they benefited from all those things the current "owners," to borrow a phrase,  don't want us to have, and are the last of those who can help. They're a dying breed! Why?  They're largely people who made their own money, not those who droned for corporations.

Look at my adoptive father.  Married in November 1941. Two weeks later, Pearl Harbor.  Talk about bad timing, in the Army before he was married 6 months. Got his GED after he returned. What did he get as a wedding present? Go ahead I dare you to guess?

A house.

Well, not actually a house, but a house with a mother-in-law bungalow in the back!  So, two houses actually. What did his benefactor do for a living?  He owned his own business, actually two of them.

Daddy  Dearest sold the wedding present ten years later to relocate here where my adoptive mothers family lived.  Gave up the offer of a partnership in what turned out to be an extremely successful marine business, and came here only to stumble into a well paying job with a good future at a company that got so successful they got eaten up by another company and as a result he was out of a job.

Then he really stepped in it, he got a job in the auto industry.  And for the next 28 years he went there almost every day. And this GED recipient was making in 1972, what was considered really good money in 1985. See what I mean?

Oh and not only was his health care free, so was his wife's and his kids and there was no such thing as a deductible and prescriptions no matter what they were for were $3.00.  In 1989 he had bypass surgery and massive life-threatening complications (his dr still introduces him as the sickest man he ever treated that lived) and was in hosptal for two months.

Never received ONE bill.

A couple of bits of bad luck though.  First his wife forced him to adopt me, NOT what he wanted to do, which he's made clear these many years.  And then just when he was less than three short years from being free of me forever, she dropped dead on him.

So here he is, 48, free and clear, the house is long since paid for, and the last kid has one foot out the door and he's left single.

So within 16 months he marries again, and what's the first thing they do?

They buy a house.  Not just any house, they buy a brand new one in THE neighborhood.  They paid cash.

So 12 years later he retires.  What does he get?  Well, she buys him a car (which was their thing, they bought each other cars) and then to this day he gets a check from that company, the one that DIDN'T participate in the bailout and therefore has thrived as a result.  And he gets social security.

I should mention that his father was a drunken reprobate who insisted that everything in California, the grandparents house in the Palisades, the weekend house in Palm Springs, and all the money, (there was a bunch) is his when they die.  And he spends it all.  His fifth wife got all the property. 

No worries, Daddy Dearest and his second wife amassed a pile of cash of their own through investments, and good fortune. (btw it was muni's the big bad government made them rich lol) And then she dies on him 30 years later.

Where is he now? This high school grad?

He's reaping the benefits of the ONLY generation to have been able to get over on the corporations in yet another IT neighborhood.

He sold the house he bought with wife #2 for four times he paid for it, and bought his own condo...cash.

Let it be said he is NOT a saver.  He never saved a dime of his own money and his wives ran the household finances.

He reaps, daily, the benefits of a generation, the success of which we'll never see again...every single day. BTW I was in charge of the household finances when wife #2 died for a while until he could take it over after recovering from his grief, and it took me two months to figure out why the checking account was 11k off from the statement.  He doesn't record the deposit of his social security checks so that way he saves $1400 a month cause he pretends it's not there. (arrgh!)


None of his children will ever have that no matter what they do.  We can't afford what it would now cost us to accomplish any of that., because we drone for corporations, perhaps if we droned for ourselves we'd see the promised land?

I, of the four degrees, taught full time last semester for a month.  How much did I make, you ask?

400 dollars less than I would have made as a cashier at the grocery.  Which, as I lament daily is not enough to pay the bills.  It actually cost me money to have that job for a month.

Am I owed a good job or a decent living, or a house because I'm educated, no.  Is there possibility in this country for an educated person, no.

Why?

Because as George says, "they" don't want an educated populace. That's why and how corporate America and the GOP have captured the hearts and minds of honest hard working Americans because they spread the word that we're not one of them.  We're "smarter" and we're better educated, so we're the liberal elite enemy.  "God knows what they'll think up next time."

I particularly love the liberal elite press argument.  The corporations OWN the press!  And they can get people to listen to whatever they want to tell them if they only make them believe that what they're hearing from the other guy is a bunch of lies. And that appeals to us all, trust me. It's Madison Avenue at it's zenith I tell you. They convince everyone that they're regular BA degree earning folks like "you and me" and they don't want the educated snobs running their show.  THAT'S why I can't find anyone who has a clue as to how to utilize my education. They don't want to. 

"Stay stupid and we'll take care of you."

George is NOT making the argument that there is no possibility of making things better, and he's not saying that one cannot succeed, he's saying that the game is rigged. That if one expects to get a job and work every day and reap benefits from that work as they age, they're wrong because it costs those that provide it money, and not spending money on YOU is what it's all about.  I think George is a living/ok, well, dead example that we CAN make it on our own, but it's those who expect help from "the man" that are asleep. 

So is it organized?  Hell no. Is the message the same so we can believe it because of it's consistency?  Yes!  Is that intentional, well yes and no.  I don't believe it's a conspiracy because I believe it's actually what a lot of people do believe to be true.  And as we all know, if you tell a lie often enough it becomes the truth.  

Is entrepreneurship the answer?  Is "If you can't beat 'em then join 'em." the answer?

Maybe.

And so it goes.

Sometimes you just know

In my time I have learned that some knowledge just arrives unbidden in your head, or perhaps your heart. 

For several days now I have had a recurring feeling of anxiety.  No reality has given me any cause to do so, it's simply come on me at unexpected moments.  A feeling that something is wrong.

Something is indeed wrong and it may be endtimes for a certain relationship I had counted out long ago in any case.  But the knowledge that the finality of eternity will end forever any possibility of reconciliation gives me pause.

I suppose that's because I'm human....dammit.

We're all of us just here temporarily, and we do what we do, and though in my heart of hearts I know that in the sense of the universe it means very little, I can't help but wish things had been different.

Recently I had occasion to reflect on my adoptive maternal grandparents, and their lives, or what little I know of their lives.

They both were born around the turn of the century, to country folk in Missouri, he the southern part, she the north.  Somehow they met and married and had their first child in Pierce City, Mo in 1922.

Legend had it that Grandpa's family, not only large in number was also large in commanding respect.  One was lost in the "Great War," but most were still with us when I came to know them.  Scattered, but alive and some with dubious professional connections.

Curly was a union head with a local construction union, Grandpa was retired but had been a night watchman most of his working life, William was in and out of prison his entire adult life (it was as though he couldn't help himself) Joe was retired and lived in Wichita, Bussy (yes Bussy) drove a route sales truck for a beer distributor, and Murph, well, Murph was reputed to be a member of the Chicago mafia.  He arrived at my grandparents home once, for a funeral I'm sure, in two full size Oldsmobile 98's filled with extra large men all wearing suits with a bulge in the front and saying very little.  They remained outside for his entire visit. I thought it very exciting. The danger junkie, even then.


But the point of this little exercise I think, is that although these people passed through my life, and I knew them, or of them I should say, they're all dead now.  Their wives are dead, and most of their children are dead.  And very little of what they did, and who they were is remembered.

Whatever it is that we think we're leaving behind doesn't really matter.  Because when no one is here to remember us, and celebrate our legacy, whatever that may be,  we're just a name.

I thought recently that I might purchase a plaque for a park bench and put my stepmothers name on it as a remembrance.  But then I thought, "Hell, the outdoors is the last place you'd ever find her." So if I were to do such a thing I'd put it in a hospital, where she would have wanted it to be.  She gave her entire working life to the career of nursing and she'd like that I think.

Another friend should have a plaque in a theater.  He gave his life to it, but though his talents were considerable, he squandered them and with the reputation he left I'd have a hard time finding a theater that would allow his name on anything.  If I choose to do it, I'll find a way though. 

"Something lives as long as the last person who remembers it." says an old navajo proverb.

Maybe that's best.

And so it goes:

Up to no good

The ability to utilize our educational resources has increased exponentially this past decade with the growth of the internet.  Unfortunately, it's being slowly taken over by the corporations and we're losing its original intent.  Not that anyone will really notice.  We're all corporate bots who believe everything the drones tell us to. 

"Feel lucky you have a job." 

Ok.

"Don't think for yourself."

Not a problem.


"It's not necessary for you to do original work just copy it off the internet and hand it in to your teachers."

Well, sure!

All this insistence on lowering our standards repeatedly will result in generations having to learn all over again that they must learn to exercise their creativity.  Possibly to learn that they even have creativity at all. It's much to our shame.

This morning on Msnbc.com there's an article regarding this very subject, and some of the comments are not only disturbing, they're disheartening as a teacher.  From students arriving at the writing center at college to ask not how to properly attribute a quote, but to ask how to change the color of the text from blue to black after they copied and pasted.  To the outright and sadly honest "...who cares?"

We all should, that's who.

We boast how we're the best, how we're America and we're the leaders of the free world.  Leaders to what exactly?  We have lowered all standards so that our students arrive at the job with an expectation they'll start at 45k, and that they deserve it.  That they deserve an A for meeting the requirements of a class.

Yes, that's barely a livable wage these days, but many people never get to that level.  I'd guess a majority of Americans live in the 35-40k range most of their working lives. That's marginally better than the 80's when 25k was good money.

Of course, Cars cost twice what they did in 1980, housing also doubled,  the price of food, well no wonder we're the fattest nation on earth, we can only afford the processed junk the corporations shove down our throats. 

Ideally, to start making it again, and to be able to pay my bills again I have to either give up my apartment, and find something that costs about half, or I have to give up my car, file bankruptcy and go back to driving the kind of car I haven't driven in 25 years.  Junk. There are no other options for me at this point.

This mind you, is the situation for a person who bought into the existing system.  Who went out and got not one, not two, but four degrees.  To quote Edward Lewis, "I went all the way." 

And I find at this late point in life that what is important is not education, because the common denominators who run the show are not only clueless about how to utilize an educated person, they're not the least bit interested in finding out how to utilize me, or anyone else with an advanced degree. No what's important is what I can do, not what I can't.

So, rather than continue to play the game I'm losing I have to learn to appreciate the Third World country I live in. I have to remember that I love growing my own vegetables, and that I love being outdoors, and that driving a new car isn't ALL THAT. That sitting here and writing and going into the studio and making pots all day and getting on a horse and just heading out for the morning or riding my bike with no destination or health goal in mind are the things I really need to do.  Material things never mattered to me before when did they become the be all end all?

I also have to rememberwhat's really important in life.  Others.

Ok, I probably should have made sure you were sitting down before I said that, so as to prevent you from getting the vapors, which are all to easily acquired in this heat.  But it's true and I've lost sight of it. 

My almost decade-long struggle to obtain a job in education, a system which I can't imagine I ever wanted to be a part of, needs to come to an end.  It'll never happen, and I need to face that.

Perhaps..and it's a big perhaps,  I'll be able to teach PART TIME if I move to another city and perhaps not. 
And I shouldn't be that concerned about it.  I need to remember that I got all this fancy book learnin' for me, not for the system.

All the things that I CAN do should be what I celebrate instead of what I can't because I'm not the right bean for whatever educational salad they're tossing these days.  It doesn't mean I'm less than because I don't get to play.  I was always the last one chosen for the teams anyway.  Why would I think the rest of life would be any different.

We're not celebrating creativity, and that's not a good thing.  We're celebrating business, capitalism and the ability to make money. 

Truthfully, I was happier when I was a starving artist and I think I need to return to my roots to get happy again.   I'm losing touch with the very people who fostered my creativity and supported me in any endeavor. Surely I can find a way to make a living and celebrate the things and people important to me. 

Utilizing my creativity starts at home I guess.

As Isabelle Steers said:  "I'm so sick and tired of myself."

Oh I can just see misbehavior in the future. 

Woohoo!

And so it goes:

HGF

Them that's got shall get, them that's not got lose.

That's what it's about in this country. Race and money.

If you're rich and white you're almost assured at getting your way. If you're poor and brown black yellow etc, not so much.

Arizona lost it's current bid to demonstrate how racist white people in this country actually are yesterday, at least for now.The battle will rage on, and on, and on, until the Supreme Court hears the case, And we all know that's where this is headed.

The comment boards are filled with frenzied white people posting their righteous positions. I particularly like the one from Texas that says people are routinely checked for their papers at border checkpoints, missing the point of this discussion altogether.(which Texas usually does)

But my favorite not only demonstrates the racism of the writer but drives home yet again my point about the pitiful education system in this country.

Let me bang that drum for just a minute with a fascinating quote:

"They are bleeding us dry and the President’ is letting them get away with it, with a lazy faire immigration policy of do nothing."


And with a lazy faire policy of "I've gotta go to work." we'll leave it at that for today.

And so it goes:

oh the dilemma!!!

This is not a dilemma I care to have.  It's not one about work or jobs or careers or any of that stuff I hvae no notion how to navigate. It's about Love

L'Amour, L'Amour.  Toujour L'Amour.

The ex is falling back in love.  If he ever was out of love.

I don't find this objectionable. He's a good guy.  He has ideas that are sometimes out there and though I have control issues of my own (who doesn't) I still find that we're a good match in a lot of ways.

I also find it comforting.

My concerns are many.  Not the least of which is what happens when I finally get ready to get the hell out of here and maybe he's not ready or willing to go.  I don't really want to hurt his feelings by saying "Seeya."  And that's what would happen if I got a job and had to go.

There are practical and material concerns as well, but that would be a bridge we could cross when the time came.  

I also question the wisdom of anyone who wold live in the same house as me of their own volition.  I am not easy to get along with. And in my own space I'm a bit of a bulldog.

It's also easy for me to isolate myself from people even if they're in the same building, cause I'm so well practiced at it, and that would have to be guarded against.

But It's nice to know someone still wants me, and that despite my numerous faults someone would consider letting me be part of thier life.

Somebody fetch me a bromide...and put some gin in it!

And so it goes:

it could be worse?!?!?!

Well, yeah I could have some untreatable disease too.  Thanks Mr. President!

He's missed the mark again.

The smart thing to say would have been.  "Ok,here's the deal.  We're not gettin' this shit done.  And we need more of a majority to do it.

"We need you to get out and vote and show support for the Democrats agenda so we can continue to accomplish the things we set out to do.  Change is possible but it takes all of us, not just a little more than half of us."

Is he saying that?
Nah.

He's telling us we could have it worse than we do, and if we see the GOP return to power this fall we will have it worse.  Well, THAT'S not very motivating. 

Still trying to find a job.  And right now I've set my sights on one that I'm really well qualified for.  All I have to do is sell the hiring mgr on it, and then ace the interview.  Simple right?

It's in the southwest and it's incredibly well suited to me talents and experience, and I fear I'll go unnoticed.  But I'm applying anyway.

Hope springs eternal.

yesterday on the way to the grocery, a job I come to abhor more as time progresses.  I suddenly had a deep and unsettling sense of foreboding.

Something is wrong somewhere.  I thought I'd hear about it already but i haven't.  But something has happened or is about to happen to someone close to me, or possibly me,  can't tell from this feeling but it's not good whatever it is.
I hate when this happens.

And so it goes:

Good vs Evil

History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance of which their civil as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purposes. -Thomas Jefferson to Alexander von Humboldt, Dec. 6, 1813.


Can evil influence one's life in a negative way and actually act to oppress a person?

First, I don't believe that evil exists, well, unless one is talking about George Bush.  THAT'S evil.

God, the Devil, they're inventions.

They were invented by "religious" people in an effort to control the congregation.  What else would they be for?  The good vs. evil discussion has been raging forever, and with God and the devil they have a face.

God is this big bearded white guy in the sky looking benevolently down at us all, and the (red)Devil is among us, (indicating what?  That we're inherently evil?...Nice.) and causing all kinds of havoc which mitigates our responsibility in modern parlance, and yet makes us more responsible for fighting against the evil he would have us do.  Catholics have neatly, as is their way, invented this little ceremony in which a baby, can be cleansed of their original sin.  I mean have you looked at a baby?  Ever really looked at one?

How could anyone see evil in that?

Seriously, who in their right mind would  subscribe to such claptrap?

The main selling point of religion is not to celebrate life, it is to tell us how bad we are, and that we need them to help us not only mourn our existence, but to work our asses off at not being the inherently evil sons of bitches we were born to be. Because we were BORN THAT WAY!!!!!

So we get to waste our lives attempting to be something we're not.  We get to tell ourselves that we're not good, but we can be if we try hard enough.  As if we don't have enough bullshit raining down on our heads to begin with. And if that doesn't work we always have the devil to lay the responsibility on.

It wasn't others, it wasn't the people who treated me as though I had the pox my whole childhood. It was the devil.  Easy way out that.

The "religious" knew what they were doing when they invented God and the Devil.  Most people are sheep looking for someone to follow and in the absence of leadership that will show us our value and give us reason to celebrate our existence we'll follow some naysayer off a cliff.

We're taught from an early age to think that if we just weren't gay (not a choice) or didn't have sexual desires for others (human nature) or had skin that wasn't yellow or brown or black (I'm still mystified at Black Mormons) we could be better people, and so we mourn.

We mourn our existence, and we mourn our place in the world, and we regret that we weren't born heterosexual and chaste, and/or white, and we try to change into THAT. And by that I mean whatever THAT we think is best at the moment. 

Why?

Why can we not celebrate the difference?  Why can we not see that, yes, it does indeed take all kinds to make this world, and why must we have this incessant duel between rational thought and zealots who believe that that big guy with the beard in the sky sat around for few days and made everything we see, and negate the work of people who look at frogs and tadpoles and say..."hey, wait a minute..." 

I went through the phase of thinking I could be straight in my youth.  I went so far as to have a girlfriend and to get my dumb ass engaged.

I was lucky.  Something happened.  I honestly can't remember what this far down the road, but I had an epiphany.  I suddenly realized that my "beloved" wanted to get married.  It just didn't have a thing to do with me.

A week after I broke it off, she was engaged to someone else and 60 days later they married.  I dodged a bullet there.


But my family would have been thrilled for a while.  Until they came to the realization that I was apparently unable to control my desire for evil and chose to go back to being a degenerate 'mo.

See, control.

That's what it's all about.

So we'll continue this march off the cliff, lemmings that we are,  and this civilization too will end, as must all things.  But the real question is; Will we be remembered as a people who tried to make a difference, who tried our best to see that all people regardless of their race, gender, sexual orientation, political preference, ability to understand simple instructions, or country of origin have worth and value?  That they, no matter what they think or do or feel had intrinsic value that we embraced them and took them to our bosom as one of us?

And so it goes:

Daniel Schorr

Daniel Schorr, a longtime senior news analyst for NPR and a veteran Washington journalist who broke major stories at home and abroad during the Cold War and Watergate, has died. He was 93.
Schorr, who once described himself as a "living history book," passed away Friday morning at a Washington hospital. He was able to bring to contemporary news commentary a deep sense of how governmental institutions and players operate, as well as the perspective gained from decades of watching history upfront.
"He could compare presidents from Eisenhower on through, and that gave him historical context for things," said Donald A. Ritchie, Senate historian and author of a book about the Washington press corps. "He had lived it, he had worked it and he had absorbed it. That added a layer to his broadcasting that was hard for somebody his junior to match."
Schorr's 20-year career as a foreign correspondent began in 1946. After serving in U.S. Army intelligence during World War II, he began writing from Western Europe for the Christian Science Monitor and later The New York Times, witnessing postwar reconstruction, the Marshall Plan and the creation of the NATO alliance.
Schorr joined CBS News in 1953 as one of "Murrow's boys," the celebrated news team put together by Edward R. Murrow. He reopened the network's Moscow bureau, which had been shuttered by Joseph Stalin in 1947. Ten years later, Schorr scored an exclusive broadcast interview with Nikita Khrushchev, the U.S.S.R. Communist Party chief — the first-ever with a Soviet leader. Schorr was barred from the U.S.S.R. later that year after repeatedly defying Soviet censors.
He covered the building of the Berlin Wall as CBS bureau chief for Germany and Western Europe. In 1962, he aired a celebrated portrait of citizens living under Communist rule in East Germany.

He was reassigned to Washington in 1966. Other reporters in the bureau were already covering major institutions such as Congress or the State Department, so Schorr assigned himself to cover the implementation of President Johnson's Great Society programs.
"No one had such a beat," recalled his bureau colleague Roger Mudd. "He was everywhere. He had almost carte blanche to cover Washington."
David Broder, a longtime political reporter and columnist for The Washington Post, added: "I think he's unique in the sense that he's been at the center of so many different stories, both here in Washington and overseas, for so long. He kept his perspective so well and does not ever exaggerate what's taking place, but really let you know why it's important."
Becoming Part Of The Story
Schorr was surprised to find himself on the so-called Enemies List that had been drawn up by Richard Nixon's White House when he read it on the air. The list — naming hundreds of political opponents, entertainers and publications considered hostile to the administration — became the basis for one of the charges of impeachment against Nixon.
Schorr, along with some other members of the list, counted his inclusion on it as his greatest achievement.
Schorr won Emmys in each of the Watergate years of 1972, 1973 and 1974. Over the course of his long career, he was honored with numerous other decorations and awards, including a Peabody for "a lifetime of uncompromising reporting of the highest integrity." Schorr was inducted into the Hall of Fame of the Society of Professional Journalists.
"He was sophisticated about the government and how it works," Mudd said. "He was a damned vacuum cleaner, is what he was."
'Killer Schorr'
In 1975, Schorr reported on assassinations that had been carried out by the CIA. "The anger of the administration can be gauged from Richard Helms' denunciation of Schorr," historian Garry Wills recounts in his 2010 book, Bomb Power.
Helms, then the CIA director, confronted Schorr in the presence of other reporters at the White House, calling him names such as "son of a bitch" and "killer."
"Killer Schorr: That's what they ought to call you," Helms said.

Schorr At NPR

In 1976, Schorr reported on the findings of the Pike Committee, which had investigated illegal CIA and FBI activities. The committee had voted to keep its final report secret, but Schorr leaked a copy to the Village Voice, which published it.
Schorr was threatened with a $100,000 fine and jail time for contempt of Congress. But during congressional testimony, Schorr refused to identify his source, citing First Amendment protections. The House ethics committee voted 6 to 5 against a contempt citation.
But CBS had already taken Schorr off the air. He ultimately resigned from the network that year.
"CBS found that, like other big corporations, it did not like to offend the Congress," Mudd said. "He broke his ties to CBS and before they could fire him, he resigned."
An Enduring Career
In 1979, Schorr was hired to provide commentary for the fledgling CNN. The network inaugurated its programming the following year with his interview with President Jimmy Carter. But in 1985, his contract was not renewed, which Schorr counted as his second "firing."
"Schorr was always a person to challenge what the government was saying and being skeptical and contrary," said Ritchie, the Senate historian.
"It really is true that I would sometimes stand up for principle at the risk of my job," he told his son Jonathan for an interview on NPR's Weekend Edition last year. "It is also true that when I lose my job I get terribly nervous."
Upon leaving CNN, Schorr joined NPR, where he had been doing occasional commentaries for several years. He had been a senior news analyst for NPR ever since. He also wrote a column for the Christian Science Monitor for decades.
"What passes for commentary today is almost all opinion," Ritchie said, "but Schorr was part of that breed of commentators who dug up information before they pontificated about it."
Schorr was born in the Bronx in 1916, the son of Belorussian immigrants. He got his first scoop at age 12, when he saw the body of a woman who had jumped or fallen from the roof of his apartment building. He called the police — and the Bronx Home News, which paid him $5 for the information.
"It was the first time I'd ever seen a dead person in my life," he told NPR's Robert Siegel in a 2006 interview on All Things Considered marking Schorr's 90th birthday.
"Why didn't I react more emotionally to that? It was the essential journalist who manages to absent himself from the situation and simply report it without feeling it," Schorr said.

We're outnumbered Boss!

And we are.  Those of us who believe that when Ronald Reagan changed the direction of the country that he changed it for the worse are fewer than common sense would imagine. 

Two of my "nephews" hold Ronald Reagan as an idol, one named his son Reagan.  (disclaimer-they're not actually my ehews, one is the son of a stepsister and the other is a nephew by right of my own adoption, so I can disavow any biological claim they might make-phew!)
 I admit that when Ronald Reagan busted PATCO he did so with a righteous indignation he usually reserved for communism, but they all but begged him to do it.

For any union a strike is a gamble.  They're taking the very calculated risk that if they prevent a company from producing it's goods, services whatev, they're using what little leverage they have to force advantageous changes to their employment situation, therefore, improving quality of life for their members.

This is not what always happens, and certainly not with PATCO. They went on strike and crippled the nations ability to fly.  This understandably got the attention of the President of the United states, who being not only a conservative, but also a devotee of the notion that labor and everything else should be deregulated, Ronald Reagan went about doing just that.  He fired thousands of them and threw more than a few in the pokey to boot.  

It was 15 years before the union even tried to recover.  And still it's membership, though growing, isn't national yet. 

Unions, it seems to me suffer the same pitfalls that overcame my job and the jobs of several others at the library.  No foundation was laid to ensure the continued existence of these jobs.  I'm not privy to the machinations of these positions and therefore not able to provide any intelligent discourse on how or why this wasn't done.

But!  The fact remains that the Director and Assistant director of the library that I worked for set out on a long range plan to expand the library system I worked for and yet they laid no foundation. They acquired a building, remodeled it, ran fiberoptic cable to provide the entire system better and faster and more readily expandable internet access.  They bought new furniture, they created new positions, they  hired movers to take us all across the street and install us in our new offices.  I, in fact was the first person to occupy a new office. 

That was in 2006.  in December of this year it will all be dismantled.  The Library administration will return across the street to it's original location.  The fiberoptic cable will have to be re -routed, jobs have been lost, the building will be abandoned, and a new yes-woman has been installed in the position of Director. 

See, no foundation. 

Now, this was not a union position by any means, but the principle is the same.  The people involved in the creation of this little legacy were smartly and rightfully attempting, during a time of what we thought was prosperity, which turned out to be smoke and mirrors, to create something that would not only last after they had gone, but something that would enhance the lives of the citizens of their particular little province.

That's where they, PATCO, and the liberals went wrong.  They jumped in to make changes and made no foundation.

Therefore, in November  when the conservatives take back the congress, since mid-term elections rarely support the party in power, we'll see a return to voodoo economics. I promise.

See the idea goes like this. 

"Let's  create a crisis.  Say by not only extending tax cuts for the rich, but making them permanent. Then we don't have enough money to run this government and we can say 'hey, you got to cut back like we told you all along!'  And then we can get rid of things like Health Care, and extended unemployment, which is only welfare with a different name, and maybe even get rid of Social Security.  We'll be heroes to the people who benefit from our machinations."

Of course, real people will starve, and lose their homes and   never be able to have credit again, never be able to attend college, etc.  But who cares about all that?

Bill Clinton got a blow job from a woman who wasn't his wife in the White House!  And though there are those who STILL aren't over it yet, it's not the real problem.  Alan Greenspan, devotee of the ideas of Ayn Rand, of all people, Chair of the Fed for 18 years and six Presidents was in charge of the money. 

Oddly Greenspan thinks Clinton was the best money manager of all the Presidents he served.  But Clinton taxed the rich.  The Conservative factions howled, predicted doom.  And we wound up with a surplus. 

Which George Bush spent...and then some.

Laying a foundation that the future can rest on should be considered the responsibility of any administration no matter the present concerns.  "What's best for future generations?", should be the question always. "What can I do that will not only help right now, but benefit those to come and hopefully guarantee the continued existence of this Republic I serve?"

How many recent Presidents, I wonder, consider that...at all.

And so it goes:

Witch hunts must be fun

I assume that's why people so readily and without any question join in Witch hunts, because they not only sound like a good idea, but they sound like fun.

I've seen too many witch hunts in action.  The mob mentality that pervades the almost always bizarre and unfounded actions of those who blindly jump on the hate bandwagon is usually hysteria. Later, after they've done something irreparable and just plain wrong they're contrite and then they begin to think and maybe discover some of the facts they've not bothered to learn before running right out to be a dick.

And here we have Shirley Sherrod.

A woman who has apparently dedicated her entire working life to helping farmers and learned from her experiences that people really are just people no matter their color, no matter their profession, no matter their intelligence, no matter who they love (hopefully.)

And what did she get for all her learnin' and trying to help?

She got her ass fired that's what she got?

Now, I do not know Shirley and I'm certain it's possible that she has personal  views I might abhor.  But here's a woman who has worked for the U.S. government helping farmers for over 20 years, she must be somewhat capable at her job. And when someone else attempts to use her as a scapegoat and misrepresents who she is and what she's done and most importantly what she's saying, she got shown the door.

I understand that we're all dispensable and that there are hundreds if not thousands of people out there willing and able to take our jobs at any given moment and I realize that the "I'm lucky to have a job" mindset is pervasive at this time, but what does this incident say about the face of modern America?

We're still living the effects of a Presidency that taught an entire generation to live in fear, that being fearful is tantamount to vigilance.  That makes us easy to manipulate.  It makes us easy targets for the next scare. It makes us ever vigilant for the threat that  is our neighbor.

Were we ever NOT the characters in "The Monsters are due on Maple Street?"

We have to stop looking for he enemy!  To begin to attempt to understand that we can care for each other and still make this country great again.  That fear and hatred are always at hand yet they're not building blocks on which to reconstruct a nation. And that the monsters are not without but within and often of our own creation.

If there was a simpler time I don't remember it. There's always some strife, some conflict, some threat to our freedom and our liberty.  But I remember that defiance was the key in olden days.  Walk with your head held high because you know you did the right thing and you know that you have the right to exist, and that you know your leaders are moral and thoughtful in their actions, not CEO's who need to show a profit to the shareholders. 

We make the Tea Parties, and the KKK's and the NAACP's and the HRC's and all the other organizations that supposedly represent us as individuals yet manage somehow to keep us all apart and isolated. To keep things as they are we have to be kept separate.  What if we compared notes?  What if we learned that what we were being told by our very own special interest group was in direct conflict to the reality of a given situation?  What if, Gods forbid, we were being manipulated by those who had a direct interest in keeping us on the path that benefited them most?

A brief return to yesterdays conspiracy theory post.   The above is not to say that there is some organized plan by these organizations to propagandize our minds and keep us afraid so they can accomplish some specific goal.  It's the job we tell them we want them to do! They're not in league with another organization!  They're running the organizations we create with the funds that we give them in the manner in which we instruct! We want to be ignorant!  We want to not be bothered by the messiness that is United States citizenship!  We want to eat our egg white omelette's with our Starbucks and drive our crossovers to our meaningless little jobs from which we get no satisfaction while we talk to ourselves in our bluetooth-ed cars and delude ourselves into thinking that a pound of salad covered in hard boiled eggs and four ladles of ranch dressing is healthy for us and then racing home to drink beer and watch the 623 inch flat screen so we can get up tomorrow and do it all over again.

The eggs are likely from a "farm" that keeps chickens in a nest who never move and never go outside and never exercise and are fed all kinds of antibiotics which we then consume, and the coffee is imported from a foreign country where the workers make .25 a day, and all that money we spend on a cup of coffee is absorbed by the middle men. The salad fiasco speaks for itself except that we're supporting the illegal workers we so rail against when we buy all that hand-harvested produce grown in America, and that 623 inch flat screen was made in China by people who get paid .25 a day.

I wish I could remember the film that I'm about to paraphrase from, but a government official is talking to someone who is telling them how bad they are and how wrong the things they're doing are and he says something to the effect of , "And what about when the food runs out?  And when you need oil?  You're gonna just want us to get it for you, and you're not gonna care how we do it."

"The tools of conquest do not necessarily come with bombs and explosions and fallout. There are weapons that are simply thoughts, attitudes, prejudices, to be found only in the minds of men. For the record, prejudices can kill and suspicion can destroy, and a thoughtless, frightened search for a scapegoat has a fallout all its own for the children and the children yet unborn."- Rod Serling
Were the monsters on Main Street actually to be revealed we'd be shocked, because well...it is us.

And so it goes:

"I dream things that never were and say, why not?"

a slapdash half assed hot mess

Sometimes I think  I sound like a conspiracy theorist. Sometimes I wish I were.  Then there would be an actual them.

Unfortunately I don't really think it's that organized. I think the education system sucks because we WEREN'T paying attention to it's development.  I think the economy is in such a mess because we just thought "they'd take care of that"  

I also think our lives are changing because we didn't lay the groundwork for our last life, i.e. there were no jobs created for any of the master's of PhD candidates so we wind up selling stuff at a counter, and since there wasn't any real application for all our education we simply became a lot of people with a lot of specialized knowledge in our heads that's not very useful.

Is anyone else looking for a job?

I mean it's not a very rewarding activity, it's pretty much a waste of time and it seldom results in an interview.  Jobs either require you be one of two things, an idiot without any education or experience, for all of which I am ridiculously over-qualified,or, that you be an expert in the field with 5-500 years of experience and 23 specialized degrees and 15 certificates.

The companies that are telling us they want to hire really don't, and it's not that hard to figure that out.

"Just make the jobs only available to two or three people in the whole city and it looks like we're hiring but we're really not.  Then we can complain that we can't find skilled workers." 

Here's a job I found in a relatively simple field, Customer Service.  It doesn't require a lot except the ability to use what tools you are given to solve problems and the ability and willingness to tell a customer you're not going to be able to help them...without getting in trouble in the process.

QUALIFICATIONS Six months to one year Customer Service experience

Bilingual (Spanish/English) preferred

Call center and wireless experience a plus

Customer Service Skills

High School Diploma or GED

Basic PC Skills, able to navigate through Windows based programs

Stellar verbal and written communication skills

Strong problem solving skills Ability to thrive in a lively working environment and multi-task Flexibility and Winning Attitude a Plus

Now, here's a job that a lot of people could do, provided they could afford to work for $10 an hour.  But the bilingual requirement...exempts 50% of the applicants immediately.

Next up is a job that was advertised through my faculty email:

Here's an excerpt-

This program is designed for individuals interested in starting their own business.

We are looking for individuals that are certified as an instructor/coach for the Kauffman First Step Fund or Kauffman FastTrac.

If you are certified and would like to serve as a Business Coach for this First Step FastTrac session, please let me know ASA, and no later than Friday, July 23^rd.  

I don't have the qualifications but I did the math anyway.  The job pays $100 a week.  And it's temporary!

Here's a doozy!

· Top-notch customer service;
· Multi-unit management experience(at least 10 stores) – A MUST;
· At least three years high-level supervisory, management, sales experience;
· Collections experience is a plus;
· High school diploma or GED;
· Associates/Bachelors degree or related work experience;
· Experience using Microsoft Word, Excel and Outlook;
· Ability to travel (with personal, reliable transportation) within district.

Guess what you'd be doing?

Managing check cashing stores!  Now that's what I went to grad school for...to cash bad checks for people who can't afford to pay their bills cause they don't make enough money.  How gratifying is that?   

So it's easy to see how the mindset works.  Just make the job impossible to obtain and the untrained  worker is to blame.  Then we don't fix the education system, nor make it available and we create this underclass who has to live in trailer parks and drive 25 year old cars if they're lucky and we keep them stupid, unhealthy and easy to push around.  

And I hardly needed my PhD to figure that out. 

I've been reading Tom Franks book "What's the matter with Kansas" this week, and it's really got me going. 

It's funny I never  met him. We seem not to be that far apart in age, we grew up in neighboring areas, traveled in the same circles, yet I never heard of him until now.  Thank Gods I did.  He's so right on the money about this place.

Looking for a way out.  I'm not delusional...well I'm delusional, but...well if you read regularly you know what I mean.  

I don't think it'll be significantly different anywhere else, in another state of likely another country, but I want a different place.  different people different experiences, just different. 

I think what we've done here in America is create the world the corporations really want.  They want us all to be free-lancers, who pay our own insurance, taxes, health care, vacation and sick time, and generally be completely expendable if we cause any trouble at all.  

We get the benefit of doing what we prefer, but without any security.  We won't have company towns, we'll have tenements where those of is lucky enough to get contracts are able (barely) to afford to get by.  

The days of 3500 sq ft houses are done for most of us, IF we ever wanted that.  2000 sq ft will be HUGE to most of us within the decade.  

My first neighborhood out of my parents house was in an area in which most of the houses had been divided into apartments.  We all lived like students, which we were, and parked on the street and had little rabbit warrens in which we lived.  

As adults we're headed right back to it.  These huge homes will get subdivided into apartments so they can be sold, rented, sub-letted, etc, and we'll all be parking on the street again scraping our windows in February cause there aren't any garages that haven't been converted into apartments for the new lower class of worker.  

Thankfully I prefer living in a small space, that way I'm not only more organized, but more mobile as well.  

Hmmm, mobility..a theme I keep coming back to today.

And so it goes: