The Republic of South California

Hehe, hawhaw, waaaaahhahahahaha!

I know I shouldn't laugh because anything is possible, but as usual; some fiscally and socially conservative nutjob in Cali has come up with s new way to completely waste money they desperately need.

Secede.

So, let me see if I understand Jeff Stone's plan. Take 13 of California's most conservative contiguous counties, pardon the alliteration, and make them into their own state.

Sounds like a cheap way to fix a leaky faucet doesn't it? Let's look at the CNN story cause I can't believe my fucking eyes.

Riverside, California (CNN) -- A conservative county supervisor in Southern California wants to form the 51st state by seceding the region from California, saying the state's problems require "radical" solutions.
"Listen, I knew I'd be criticized. I learned in my tenure of being a politician for 19 years, sometimes you have to do radical things to get people's attention," Riverside County Supervisor Jeff Stone said on CNN Thursday.
"We have hit a nerve with citizens who are just fed up with business as usual in the state," Stone said. "I'm talking about a secession plan from the state of California."
This week, the Riverside County Board of Supervisors gave the OK to Stone to hold a summit of California's local leaders to discuss remedies for the state's long list of woes -- including secession.
But the county board stopped short of endorsing Stone's secessionist plan by insisting no taxpayer money be used for the conference.
Stone has come up with a name for the new state: South California. It would be composed of 13 largely Republican counties, most of which are inland along the Nevada and Arizona state lines. The plan would exclude Los Angeles County, but would include Orange and San Diego Counties, both on the coast.
Stone has a long list of grievances against the state and its legislators: high taxes and fees, inability to reform welfare programs, high unemployment and excessive regulations.
"What the state has done is they've been balancing their budgets on the backs of our local coffers. They've been stealing our sales tax, property tax," Stone said. "The bottom line for me and my constituents is jobs. We are sending jobs out of the state of California by the train load."
Riverside County is among the hardest hit communities by the recession and mortgage meltdown, leaving many communities pockmarked with vacant homes, Stone said.
"We are the foreclosure capital of the world," Stone asserted. "We have some areas of the county that have 25% unemployment. The average in Riverside County is about 15%."
Stone's plan seems a long shot, one analyst said. There have been at least 27 efforts for secession within parts of California since the 1800s, and none has been successful.
Robert Melsh, a political science instructor at Mount San Jacinto College in San Jacinto, California, which is in Riverside County, said Stone's plan stunned him, largely because of the high cost of putting a secessionist plan before voters. He called it a "scare tactic."
"Insanity," Melsh said. "I mean this is major surgery where we need a Band-Aid.
"It takes millions of dollars to get the signatures necessary to put up an initiative," Melsh added.
Melsh also raised the question of getting a 51st state's government up and running.
"Where is he going to put the capitol? Disneyland?" Melsh said.
Stone, a pharmacist and owner of an innovative compounding pharmacy, said he drew the lines for a new state by picking 13 counties that were contiguous and fiscally conservative or moderate.

A date for the summit of local leaders has yet to be scheduled, he said.

And in case you think I'm just picking on some poor dummy from southern California take a look at the latest effort at propagnada from Fox News.

Which makes me want to run away all the more.

And so it goes:

learning to live with disappoitnment

One would think that after these many centuries I have lived that I wouldn't be a stranger to disappointment, and technically I'm not.

Most of the people I've known in my life have managed to accomplish the feat of disappointing me.  Today wasn't a particularly momentous day in the disappointment  category, but it provided food for thought.

Perhaps it's the full moon, perhaps it's just that I'm tired and when I'm tired I see trouble where none exists.  But I do have cause to reflect on a conversation I had with a friend over a decade ago.  During that conversation he said, " Sean, it's time for me to stand still, but I think it's time for you to start moving."

And move I did.  I went back to school, I continued on to grad school, and then I met E.  Thinking I was on the road to settling down, I moved to a place I really didn't want to live to be with him and shortly thereafter found out it was a mistake.  Since then I've been scattered, I've been  quite literally at sixes and sevens  almost all the time.

Everything I've tried has either been temporary or has passed once it's time had gone.  Now I think it might be time for moving on again.

I'm about to be in a position to do so. There are things I want to see, places I want to go, and things I want to do.  Do I do that?  Do I just forsake material goods and take off?  Do I take the risk of looking at the world and seeing if there's a different place in it for me?  Maybe.

There's no reason I can think of to stay here.  There's no career move to make, no particular person to be here for.  No responsibilities that a little cash can't stave off.

The universe is conspiring against me in the house buying department., the employment situation doesn't seem to get better it gets worse.  And interpersonal relationships...well, let's just call them the leading source of disappointment.

This time next month I could be anywhere else, literally anywhere.  The full moon isn't helping the situation any.  Neither is the news that a co-worker  who never smoked a day in her life is about to die from lung cancer.

It's just too short, and sitting here waiting for something to happen...well it's not enough.

And so it goes: