You can always tell when there is a recession; the TV is covered up with 'new and exciting inventions' as people struggle to make a buck on their fondest ideas. Everyone from Dyson to the Bassmaster is hawking the latest thing to make your life easier, more productive, happier, etc.
Lots of folks think that I am a miserable old soul, always grumbling and griping. The truth is that I am unbearably happy in my own life, for the most part. I choose to be. I know that 'things' don't make me happy - but making things, creating things, growing things, and having people buy those things - or enjoying those things myself - makes me happy. Right now there are 150 tiny baby poinsettias in my greenhouse, stretching toward the sunlight, growing new leaves, loving the moist and humid heat I have to artificially provide for them (it is normally about 90 deg with 35% humidity here in the summer). As it cools off here the end of September, I''ll be moving them to my nice warm (50 deg) basement, restricting their sunlight to gro-lites for only 12 hours a day, to make them bloom by the end of November. I already have two places where I will put them for sale. I already have the pretty gold, green, and red foil to wrap the pots in. The challenge won't be in selling them to make the money - but in making them perform exactly how I want, and sharing that performance with others.
I eat things simply; whole-wheat or oat homemade bread, locally grown beef, chicken, and fish. I don't require a lot, and I only like spending money on things that will grow my farm. I don't party a lot, because I 1) don't have time, 2) have too much on my mind and too much on my plate to have a day-after sleep-in. One of the stores I shop online had a massive clearance sale; I bought dress pants for $5 and work dresses, skirts, and blouses for $10. Not that cheap material or poorly sewn crap you get at WalMart or the outlet stores, either... good stuff, sturdy stuff, well made stuff that no one else bought at a premium price.
Yet I watch people going on trips that they can't afford, and then desperately playing catch-up to pay their bills. I watch people spending money as soon as they make it, insisting that they 'deserve a break', 'have a right to enjoy themselves'. OK, maybe they do. But why they need to grasp their 'happiness' with both hands, cling to it desperately, rub their faces all over it like a child with new velvet, then throw it away and regret it less than a month later is beyond me. Why they need the changes, the constant newness, to revitalize themselves and make themselves feel worthwhile all over again is beyond my comprehension. They stink of anxiety, fear, and desperation the way old nursing homes stink of pee, no matter how vigorously you try to clean them, paint them, and make them new.
Either you and your life are worthwhile, or -they're not. Either what you do, who you are, and where you're going are important - or they are not. When you vibrate so rapidly and so desperately that you are in reality standing still, you aren't really moving at all. When your needs cannot be met and your longings cannot be fulfilled no matter how much you run to and fro, buying first this, than that, to make yourself feel better, you are not succeeding at anything... except deepening your own desperation.
Saturday, July 31, 2010
Friday, July 23, 2010
Everything is FINE.
It's coming. That indefatigable, irreversible moment of destruction - like lying in the water bleeding, and watching the sharks circling.
Now Bernanke is saying "the economic future is uncertain".
What a dyed-in-the-wool, Kenyesian-rhetoric, mouth-drooling liar he is.
The economic future is damned certain - and it is the politicians and the media who are insisting that no one should panic, no one should worry, just a little problem, no worries. They are as full of shit as a Christmas turkey. The reason they are not telling you the truth is simple - they are as terrified as anyone else, but if they SAY it, then it happens more quickly.
For 20 years I wrote about, protested about, and yelled about Austrian economics being the only way to save this economy. For 20 years people said, Why save it? It's fine. Don't be silly. This is working. Austrian economics is a pipe dream, a fantasy. It won't get too bad. We're fine. We are all fine. So what if governmental regulations shipped all of our manufacturing jobs overseas? We didn't want to work in manufacturing anyway. Look, you can buy everything so much cheaper at WalMart now! Why fix things when you can buy another for less? My job is just fine. Everything is just fine. Look how our areas and communities are growing and prospering! Look how many people are buying houses here! Don't worry, we'll have plenty of money for roads and schools from the taxes! You don't know what you are talking about, siddown and hush and stop aggravating us. Everything is FINE.
Ghost towns of subdivisions. People losing their homes. Losing their jobs. Living hand to mouth and pretending for the sake of pride that they are home-cooking to be more centered on the family, not because they can't afford to go out and eat. Like the administration and the media, no one wants to admit the truth - because to admit it is to make it real. But Everything is Fine.
Service jobs that went away when no one that could afford the services. Infrastructure getting more and more expensive, while empty houses sit, collecting no tax revenues, liabilities to the community, the remaining taxpayers. Food prices going up - have you noticed the meat at the meat counters lately? That is an indicator of the economy. Are there weirdly brown sections in your burger? Are they starting to sell meat that doesn't look "right"? What's that odd green spot on that steak, and why is it more than $3.00 a pound? Sugar, flour, rice - all the staples inching up in price, week by week. And the "global economy" that everyone touted is bringing in more and more questionable food and medicines from countries no one cared about 10 years ago... countries that don't have rules, countries that historically have never cared about their populace or what they ingested. But Everything is Fine.
To save us all, the government is borrowing money desperately, not just from children who haven't even been born yet in this country, but from other countries. China held our debt but has since sold it to Japan. We are swapping our money on a new world order now; the same tired dollars that have no value, trading them for nothing, basing them on nothing, pretending that a dollar is still worth a dollar even though it can't buy as much as it did last week, last month, last year. But everything is Fine.
The unemployed sit on their backsides because if they accept one of those paltry service jobs, they'll make less and spend more than they would sitting at home collecting a government check. It's everyone else's fault, and everyone else's problem. No need to take personal responsibility for one's votes and choices. Because unemployment isn't the employers' problem any more, it isn't even the States' problem - it like most everything else has been taken over by the Federal Government. That's OK, though - the Feds print their money, they have plenty to spare. Most don't know and don't care where their checks come from - as long as they show up in their mailboxes every week. Everything is Fine.
When folks grouse to me about how expensive everything is, how their jobs are in danger or gone or going, I just shake my head. Stagflation, deflation, inflation; they are all just weird egghead words to them, that mean nothing. The Great Depression was a bad historical period in the nation's history, but the teachers and the books all say that could never, will never, happen again, like Noah's Great Flood. We've been promised. We'll be fine. We'll tough this out like we always have. Sure, things are kinda rough right now, but we'll be Fine. Got a lil garden growing in the back yard. Got a couple of things I can sell to tide me over. Got a 401K that is tanking, but it'll rebound soon. I'm fine. Everything will be Fine.
Why do you think I was so adamant that developers pay up front to provide infrastructure for people who hadn't even moved there yet?
You can't expose the Emperor or his nakedness to the people who refuse to see. When - if - they finally, irrefutably, have no choice but to see, they will panic. They will point fingers and blame. They will feel justified in demanding their entitlements - everything from the spoiled and rotten food still in the grocery stores, to their checks, to their lifestyles and their lives.
When Darwin finally is proven right once again, those who have never had to, learned to, or tried to survive will be swept like the lemmings that they are to the sea. It will be a sea of violence, of self-serving humanity, swamping themselves and each other in violence, selfishness, depredation, and rage fueled by desperation. There won't be polite hoboes wandering from town to town, knocking on doors, asking for work. That is what the politicians and Bernanke won't tell you, as they wait for November and the January swear-ins, hoping to be able to stave off the ultimate, to place the blame on someone, anyone, else. To say it is to make it real. And it isn't time to make it real - yet. Those who want to blame Obama or the Tea Parties or Fox News or the New Black Panthers or whatever or whomever will end up just as hungry, just as poor, just as third-world-country broke. Have you got at least two years of food stored away? - because you can bet that your nouveau-hero Glenn Beck does.
You see, this has been coming for 74 years, through every administration, through every Presidency, through every Sturm und Drang of every political and social fight. And everyone sat through it all, watched it without knowing what they were watching, denying the trends, arguing about how many angels could dance on the head of a pin instead of what really mattered. Most watched agape at the magicians' right hand tossing sparkly lights, ignoring that his left hand was delving into their pockets, laughing in glorious surprise when the magician produced the victim's empty wallet in front of him! What a neat trick! Do it again!
Yup, everything is FINE.
Now Bernanke is saying "the economic future is uncertain".
What a dyed-in-the-wool, Kenyesian-rhetoric, mouth-drooling liar he is.
The economic future is damned certain - and it is the politicians and the media who are insisting that no one should panic, no one should worry, just a little problem, no worries. They are as full of shit as a Christmas turkey. The reason they are not telling you the truth is simple - they are as terrified as anyone else, but if they SAY it, then it happens more quickly.
For 20 years I wrote about, protested about, and yelled about Austrian economics being the only way to save this economy. For 20 years people said, Why save it? It's fine. Don't be silly. This is working. Austrian economics is a pipe dream, a fantasy. It won't get too bad. We're fine. We are all fine. So what if governmental regulations shipped all of our manufacturing jobs overseas? We didn't want to work in manufacturing anyway. Look, you can buy everything so much cheaper at WalMart now! Why fix things when you can buy another for less? My job is just fine. Everything is just fine. Look how our areas and communities are growing and prospering! Look how many people are buying houses here! Don't worry, we'll have plenty of money for roads and schools from the taxes! You don't know what you are talking about, siddown and hush and stop aggravating us. Everything is FINE.
Ghost towns of subdivisions. People losing their homes. Losing their jobs. Living hand to mouth and pretending for the sake of pride that they are home-cooking to be more centered on the family, not because they can't afford to go out and eat. Like the administration and the media, no one wants to admit the truth - because to admit it is to make it real. But Everything is Fine.
Service jobs that went away when no one that could afford the services. Infrastructure getting more and more expensive, while empty houses sit, collecting no tax revenues, liabilities to the community, the remaining taxpayers. Food prices going up - have you noticed the meat at the meat counters lately? That is an indicator of the economy. Are there weirdly brown sections in your burger? Are they starting to sell meat that doesn't look "right"? What's that odd green spot on that steak, and why is it more than $3.00 a pound? Sugar, flour, rice - all the staples inching up in price, week by week. And the "global economy" that everyone touted is bringing in more and more questionable food and medicines from countries no one cared about 10 years ago... countries that don't have rules, countries that historically have never cared about their populace or what they ingested. But Everything is Fine.
To save us all, the government is borrowing money desperately, not just from children who haven't even been born yet in this country, but from other countries. China held our debt but has since sold it to Japan. We are swapping our money on a new world order now; the same tired dollars that have no value, trading them for nothing, basing them on nothing, pretending that a dollar is still worth a dollar even though it can't buy as much as it did last week, last month, last year. But everything is Fine.
The unemployed sit on their backsides because if they accept one of those paltry service jobs, they'll make less and spend more than they would sitting at home collecting a government check. It's everyone else's fault, and everyone else's problem. No need to take personal responsibility for one's votes and choices. Because unemployment isn't the employers' problem any more, it isn't even the States' problem - it like most everything else has been taken over by the Federal Government. That's OK, though - the Feds print their money, they have plenty to spare. Most don't know and don't care where their checks come from - as long as they show up in their mailboxes every week. Everything is Fine.
When folks grouse to me about how expensive everything is, how their jobs are in danger or gone or going, I just shake my head. Stagflation, deflation, inflation; they are all just weird egghead words to them, that mean nothing. The Great Depression was a bad historical period in the nation's history, but the teachers and the books all say that could never, will never, happen again, like Noah's Great Flood. We've been promised. We'll be fine. We'll tough this out like we always have. Sure, things are kinda rough right now, but we'll be Fine. Got a lil garden growing in the back yard. Got a couple of things I can sell to tide me over. Got a 401K that is tanking, but it'll rebound soon. I'm fine. Everything will be Fine.
Why do you think I was so adamant that developers pay up front to provide infrastructure for people who hadn't even moved there yet?
You can't expose the Emperor or his nakedness to the people who refuse to see. When - if - they finally, irrefutably, have no choice but to see, they will panic. They will point fingers and blame. They will feel justified in demanding their entitlements - everything from the spoiled and rotten food still in the grocery stores, to their checks, to their lifestyles and their lives.
When Darwin finally is proven right once again, those who have never had to, learned to, or tried to survive will be swept like the lemmings that they are to the sea. It will be a sea of violence, of self-serving humanity, swamping themselves and each other in violence, selfishness, depredation, and rage fueled by desperation. There won't be polite hoboes wandering from town to town, knocking on doors, asking for work. That is what the politicians and Bernanke won't tell you, as they wait for November and the January swear-ins, hoping to be able to stave off the ultimate, to place the blame on someone, anyone, else. To say it is to make it real. And it isn't time to make it real - yet. Those who want to blame Obama or the Tea Parties or Fox News or the New Black Panthers or whatever or whomever will end up just as hungry, just as poor, just as third-world-country broke. Have you got at least two years of food stored away? - because you can bet that your nouveau-hero Glenn Beck does.
You see, this has been coming for 74 years, through every administration, through every Presidency, through every Sturm und Drang of every political and social fight. And everyone sat through it all, watched it without knowing what they were watching, denying the trends, arguing about how many angels could dance on the head of a pin instead of what really mattered. Most watched agape at the magicians' right hand tossing sparkly lights, ignoring that his left hand was delving into their pockets, laughing in glorious surprise when the magician produced the victim's empty wallet in front of him! What a neat trick! Do it again!
Yup, everything is FINE.
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
My vacation
My job only lasts 10 months out of the year, so I get 2 months of "vacation". Two months of freedom, yippee!!
OK, so I still wake up at 5:30 every morning. There's so much to be done! The greenhouse is up already, and there are plants in it for my fall sale/opening. The garden is (mostly) weeded and I have lettuce and spinach and peas to harvest. The onions are HUGE - good grief! - and still not near ready to pull. The cows and chickens need their feeding twice a day and the trough needs filling every other day. Gracie the horse nickers at me over the fence whenever she isn't out in the fields enjoying the sun and green grass. Some days I get time to go up on the hill with her, and we just sit and talk for hours, not saying a word.
Spring brought me babies - two bull calves, kittens, and a new Australian shepherd/heeler cross puppy I am training to herd. So they keep me busy. The Momcow who had the last baby, Pauline, has completely changed her attitude. She has gone from a shy and quiet little heifer to a first-time MOTHER with attitude.
I have been working in the ceramics shop downstairs, too. I've got some more dwarfs to paint and a nice pitcher and bowl for my bedroom to decorate. Not to mention the fact that I've got some really nice canisters that were given to me by someone who moved - they are like blank canvases, and I am painting local scenes on them. I took pictures of some really nice windmills and old buildings around here to get my perspectives right. But what I really love are the snow scenes!
I've started an orchard, too; last year I put apples, big pie cherries, gooseberries, and plums in, this year it's more apples, the little sand cherries for jam, and some pears. They are just sticks with leaves right now, of course, but they'll grow. Like the sand cherries and peaches where I used to live, they'll provide me with some great fruit, as long as I am patient.
My neighbor Sarah is having her second child in three months; I am quietly working on a little baby quilt for her. Did you ever notice that the first baby gets all the cool stuff, but the second one - not so much? Because of where we live, I found a cute tiny cowboy and cowgirl print, and a nice bold ropin bronc-bustin print. (Here it applies to both boys and girls! One of my 'pets' at school has a voice like an angel -and barrel races, ropes and ties cattle in rodeo performances all summer. )Put those two prints together with some other 'inanimate' blocks and it will be so cute!
Oh, we'll go to the dam and the falls and get some fishing in this year. The water is so clear you can see 8 feet straight down to the bottom, and the bass and trout and crappie are huge. Fed from underground springs and runoff from the mountains, over miles and miles of sand under and on top of the ground, the water is cold, too... plunge into that on a 90 degree day and it takes your breath away! The new pup loves to plunge into water and then dry off on the grass. At a garage sale, we found a set of binoculars for $25 that has a digital camera built in, so I can't wait to try that out in the evenings when we go watch our wildlife wander.
I guess it doesn't sound like much of a vacation to most folks; it may in fact sound a lot like work! But not being at anyone's beck and call, not having to answer the phone, not having to sit in a building for 9 hours a day, is pure pleasure.
OK, so I still wake up at 5:30 every morning. There's so much to be done! The greenhouse is up already, and there are plants in it for my fall sale/opening. The garden is (mostly) weeded and I have lettuce and spinach and peas to harvest. The onions are HUGE - good grief! - and still not near ready to pull. The cows and chickens need their feeding twice a day and the trough needs filling every other day. Gracie the horse nickers at me over the fence whenever she isn't out in the fields enjoying the sun and green grass. Some days I get time to go up on the hill with her, and we just sit and talk for hours, not saying a word.
Spring brought me babies - two bull calves, kittens, and a new Australian shepherd/heeler cross puppy I am training to herd. So they keep me busy. The Momcow who had the last baby, Pauline, has completely changed her attitude. She has gone from a shy and quiet little heifer to a first-time MOTHER with attitude.
I have been working in the ceramics shop downstairs, too. I've got some more dwarfs to paint and a nice pitcher and bowl for my bedroom to decorate. Not to mention the fact that I've got some really nice canisters that were given to me by someone who moved - they are like blank canvases, and I am painting local scenes on them. I took pictures of some really nice windmills and old buildings around here to get my perspectives right. But what I really love are the snow scenes!
I've started an orchard, too; last year I put apples, big pie cherries, gooseberries, and plums in, this year it's more apples, the little sand cherries for jam, and some pears. They are just sticks with leaves right now, of course, but they'll grow. Like the sand cherries and peaches where I used to live, they'll provide me with some great fruit, as long as I am patient.
My neighbor Sarah is having her second child in three months; I am quietly working on a little baby quilt for her. Did you ever notice that the first baby gets all the cool stuff, but the second one - not so much? Because of where we live, I found a cute tiny cowboy and cowgirl print, and a nice bold ropin bronc-bustin print. (Here it applies to both boys and girls! One of my 'pets' at school has a voice like an angel -and barrel races, ropes and ties cattle in rodeo performances all summer. )Put those two prints together with some other 'inanimate' blocks and it will be so cute!
Oh, we'll go to the dam and the falls and get some fishing in this year. The water is so clear you can see 8 feet straight down to the bottom, and the bass and trout and crappie are huge. Fed from underground springs and runoff from the mountains, over miles and miles of sand under and on top of the ground, the water is cold, too... plunge into that on a 90 degree day and it takes your breath away! The new pup loves to plunge into water and then dry off on the grass. At a garage sale, we found a set of binoculars for $25 that has a digital camera built in, so I can't wait to try that out in the evenings when we go watch our wildlife wander.
I guess it doesn't sound like much of a vacation to most folks; it may in fact sound a lot like work! But not being at anyone's beck and call, not having to answer the phone, not having to sit in a building for 9 hours a day, is pure pleasure.
Thursday, April 8, 2010
Change? I got yer Change...
I love change.
I am easily bored. Boring people gripe my ears. Stupid people, who eagerly grab at anything or nothing to worship and follow or scream and rant and rave about, bore me. I like intelligent conversation, witty repartee, not the sandbox "Yeah? Well you're stupid too, so nyah!" style of argument. I like debate. I like incisive wit, and have a passion for puns, double entendres, anything that proves that my companions are thinking, not merely emoting.
I love the violent thunderstorms and the silent snows; the blasting blizzards and the sunlit spring tumble of fresh unfrozen water freed at last from its bounds. I like the struggling two leaves that become four, than six, then a hundred, the flowers that burst into bloom and then into fruit.
I like change that is progressive, natural; not forced or false or that steps or tumbles backward. I like change that is challenge and thought and effort and work and deed, not mouthing platitudes for the latitudes. I like change that means something positive, not something detrimental. That could include the changes of a shoreline that a hurricane creates, or the change in landscape that an earthquake dictates, or the change in foliage that a firestorm demands. These things can have positive influences, when looked at from a perspective of growth and progression.
I don't like change that suits a personal or political agenda, or demands that everyone ELSE change for someone else's goals. I don't believe that all change is good, even if it is inevitable. I believe that one has to step back, and unemotionally determine the good and bad of change, the future of the change or without it, compare the two, and consciously decide between change or no-change. Thoughtless and/or emotionally-inspired change rarely has a good outcome, no matter how many people wish it could be so.
The two things that never change are: 1) People want to, desperately need to, be empowered. Whether that empowerment comes from forcing others to their way of thinking/believing/praying/living, or from being a part of a group that fights that force, people seek empowerment. Very few can empower themselves, enrich their own lives through their own actions - most insist that by stomping on other people they empower themselves. They are wrong, and can never figure out why, like serial killers or rapists, their latest victims still do not satisfy that aching, sucking, black hole in their gut.
The other thing that never changes is that 2) most people don't recognize a good change, a healthy change, a change for the better. They believe they do, they think they do, they cast about endlessly for someone to tell them a 'good' change from a 'bad' change. Terrified of being wrong, they will follow anyone who sagely or vociferously says that this or that change is good for them. They haven't the self confidence to know what is right for them, much less for others, and so trust others to tell them what is right or wrong. Again, there is that black sucking hole of self doubt in their middles, that they will never own, admit to, or claim.
I'd like to say that I have never felt that self-doubt, but that would be a pompous lie. I have doubts. I have fears, and fears that my doubts are true. These doubts keep me from falling for the "change is good!" scenario, when common sense, rationality, and careful study proves that not all change is good or inevitable. These doubts cause me to think, to investigate, to compare, to ponder, to hyper-project many months, even years, into the future, to determine if proposed change is good - or if it is just something that someone else wants to change, to empower themselves over others. Over me.
I am easily bored. Boring people gripe my ears. Stupid people, who eagerly grab at anything or nothing to worship and follow or scream and rant and rave about, bore me. I like intelligent conversation, witty repartee, not the sandbox "Yeah? Well you're stupid too, so nyah!" style of argument. I like debate. I like incisive wit, and have a passion for puns, double entendres, anything that proves that my companions are thinking, not merely emoting.
I love the violent thunderstorms and the silent snows; the blasting blizzards and the sunlit spring tumble of fresh unfrozen water freed at last from its bounds. I like the struggling two leaves that become four, than six, then a hundred, the flowers that burst into bloom and then into fruit.
I like change that is progressive, natural; not forced or false or that steps or tumbles backward. I like change that is challenge and thought and effort and work and deed, not mouthing platitudes for the latitudes. I like change that means something positive, not something detrimental. That could include the changes of a shoreline that a hurricane creates, or the change in landscape that an earthquake dictates, or the change in foliage that a firestorm demands. These things can have positive influences, when looked at from a perspective of growth and progression.
I don't like change that suits a personal or political agenda, or demands that everyone ELSE change for someone else's goals. I don't believe that all change is good, even if it is inevitable. I believe that one has to step back, and unemotionally determine the good and bad of change, the future of the change or without it, compare the two, and consciously decide between change or no-change. Thoughtless and/or emotionally-inspired change rarely has a good outcome, no matter how many people wish it could be so.
The two things that never change are: 1) People want to, desperately need to, be empowered. Whether that empowerment comes from forcing others to their way of thinking/believing/praying/living, or from being a part of a group that fights that force, people seek empowerment. Very few can empower themselves, enrich their own lives through their own actions - most insist that by stomping on other people they empower themselves. They are wrong, and can never figure out why, like serial killers or rapists, their latest victims still do not satisfy that aching, sucking, black hole in their gut.
The other thing that never changes is that 2) most people don't recognize a good change, a healthy change, a change for the better. They believe they do, they think they do, they cast about endlessly for someone to tell them a 'good' change from a 'bad' change. Terrified of being wrong, they will follow anyone who sagely or vociferously says that this or that change is good for them. They haven't the self confidence to know what is right for them, much less for others, and so trust others to tell them what is right or wrong. Again, there is that black sucking hole of self doubt in their middles, that they will never own, admit to, or claim.
I'd like to say that I have never felt that self-doubt, but that would be a pompous lie. I have doubts. I have fears, and fears that my doubts are true. These doubts keep me from falling for the "change is good!" scenario, when common sense, rationality, and careful study proves that not all change is good or inevitable. These doubts cause me to think, to investigate, to compare, to ponder, to hyper-project many months, even years, into the future, to determine if proposed change is good - or if it is just something that someone else wants to change, to empower themselves over others. Over me.
Saturday, March 20, 2010
Fearless
OK, it barely made it to the news; a mere 2.7 earthquake on the Richter scale, 60 miles east of me. Yawn. I didn't feel it... it was after all early in the AM on a school day, and I was busy getting the bulletins out to the kids and teachers, filling out the paperwork and making the class advisements, getting everything ready for next Monday which will be a half-day and a pain in my rear. Too many people get overexcited about the damnedest things where, if they would just take a breath, they would realize that accomplishment isn't dependent on the panic principle.
I have made a friend with a retiree from the USGS; a funny and friendly older gent who hides his engineering knowledge and voluminous skills under a 'hail fellow well met' kind of attitude. He is going to be loaning me a book about the area and its faults and earthquakes; a voluminous research with pictures. I like that kinda thing. I like learning things I didn't know before. I may have to cruise down and check out the fault line - or is it a fold line? - west of us.
No, I don't operate on the Panic Principle. Never have. Don't like drama queens and kings. Believe everything can be handled with reason, understanding, preparation, and a calm approach. I love it when the NOAA warning system goes off, telling me that a tornado may be approaching. I figure that everything I can tie down has already been tied down, I can only do so much - and then clean up afterwards if necessary. So I go outside with my camera and get kewl pics of the skies and clouds and rainbows, and wait to see if there will be any damage. There rarely is.Like most fears, when they pass, you get to realize how little good panic and hysteria really do. Even though some people need that constant upheaval in their lives, I don't.
I have always liked the quote, the Litany Against Fear, from Dune. "I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing.
Only I will remain."
Fear is overrated. Experience, now. Experience is key. So even when one has a fear, the only way to overcome it is to attack what one fears, educate oneself about every tiny fact of it, let the fear become understanding and accomplishment instead. Then one has a wealth of knowledge or experience on which to draw.
It isn't that I am fearless. I am a reasonable human, though, who can gauge levels of potential and determine all possible and likely outcomes, then act (or not act) accordingly. So no I don't fear earthquakes or tornadoes, any more than I feared hurricanes or floods or mouth-breathers. I simply gauge appropriate defenses against them before they occur, and responses to them afterwards. Only I remain.
I have made a friend with a retiree from the USGS; a funny and friendly older gent who hides his engineering knowledge and voluminous skills under a 'hail fellow well met' kind of attitude. He is going to be loaning me a book about the area and its faults and earthquakes; a voluminous research with pictures. I like that kinda thing. I like learning things I didn't know before. I may have to cruise down and check out the fault line - or is it a fold line? - west of us.
No, I don't operate on the Panic Principle. Never have. Don't like drama queens and kings. Believe everything can be handled with reason, understanding, preparation, and a calm approach. I love it when the NOAA warning system goes off, telling me that a tornado may be approaching. I figure that everything I can tie down has already been tied down, I can only do so much - and then clean up afterwards if necessary. So I go outside with my camera and get kewl pics of the skies and clouds and rainbows, and wait to see if there will be any damage. There rarely is.Like most fears, when they pass, you get to realize how little good panic and hysteria really do. Even though some people need that constant upheaval in their lives, I don't.
I have always liked the quote, the Litany Against Fear, from Dune. "I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing.
Only I will remain."
Fear is overrated. Experience, now. Experience is key. So even when one has a fear, the only way to overcome it is to attack what one fears, educate oneself about every tiny fact of it, let the fear become understanding and accomplishment instead. Then one has a wealth of knowledge or experience on which to draw.
It isn't that I am fearless. I am a reasonable human, though, who can gauge levels of potential and determine all possible and likely outcomes, then act (or not act) accordingly. So no I don't fear earthquakes or tornadoes, any more than I feared hurricanes or floods or mouth-breathers. I simply gauge appropriate defenses against them before they occur, and responses to them afterwards. Only I remain.
Sunday, March 14, 2010
The Kleptocracy
There are people whom many call 'products of the entitlement mindset' - people who honestly do believe that the world owes them a living. They are catered to by the bleeding hearts who say, "But look their children are starving!" or "Everyone deserves a home!" or other fatuous and ultimately self-serving platitudes. We have now evolved into a whole generation of people who see absolutely nothing wrong with taking other peoples' earnings, profits, and property, even their lives, to suit their own demands and requirements.
The cashier at Wal Mart who rings up her friends' groceries, only charging for one out of every 5 items. The door-greeter and security guards who look the other way as people carry unpaid-for items out of the store. The clerk who takes things home from the job. The person who doesn't use their real name or address to seek medical care. The purchasing agent for any bureaucracy that adds items onto a purchase order that never get used at the bureaucracy, but instead get taken directly to his or her home - sometimes even shipped there. The judge who goes into a high-end car dealership to 'test-drive' a vehicle - and doesn't bring it back for over a week. The politician who superciliously informs people that they "owe" him and his wife vacations, or the use of public property for his own private interests. All of these are real people, all of these things happen all of the time, all of these things cost everyone by raising prices or using tax dollars to pay for their stealing. Because, call it what you like, it is stealing.
What happens in a disaster, like in Haiti or Chile? The kleptocracy steps in, just like they did in the aftermath of Katrina, taking whatever they need - or sometimes, all too often, things they don't need, just to have, or to trade or sell. And everyone makes a joke or turns the other way - or excuses them - "They don't know any better." "They needed it." Or my personal favorite - "Let them have it! They can't help themselves!" - yes, they can help themselves. And they do, to everything that isn't nailed down or red-hot, or protected by highly armed, highly criticized owners of that property. "Why don't they just give it to them?"
I always note that the ones who exclaim the latter are NOT the ones who are being invaded or assaulted; those who, in fact, think that it can never, will never happen to them. The shopkeeper snatching an hour of sleep here or there, his shotguns by his side, probably thought that, too. Yes, the exact same thing that those beat-up or heavily-armed people thought, six months or a year ago.
As the economy bottoms out, as schools close and more and more people are laid off, as things slowly fall into an economic mire, I wonder just how long all of those self-righteous people, living in their safe and gated communities, think they can hold out against the kleptocracy that they encouraged and pitied last year and this year. Do they really think that unarmed security guards will fight and die to protect them and their property? Do they really think that, in the event of a hurricane, massive flood, power outage, earthquake, pandemic, or any 'natural' or unnatural disaster, that they are safe? Or will they be crying out, "Where am I going and why am I in this handbasket?"
The cashier at Wal Mart who rings up her friends' groceries, only charging for one out of every 5 items. The door-greeter and security guards who look the other way as people carry unpaid-for items out of the store. The clerk who takes things home from the job. The person who doesn't use their real name or address to seek medical care. The purchasing agent for any bureaucracy that adds items onto a purchase order that never get used at the bureaucracy, but instead get taken directly to his or her home - sometimes even shipped there. The judge who goes into a high-end car dealership to 'test-drive' a vehicle - and doesn't bring it back for over a week. The politician who superciliously informs people that they "owe" him and his wife vacations, or the use of public property for his own private interests. All of these are real people, all of these things happen all of the time, all of these things cost everyone by raising prices or using tax dollars to pay for their stealing. Because, call it what you like, it is stealing.
What happens in a disaster, like in Haiti or Chile? The kleptocracy steps in, just like they did in the aftermath of Katrina, taking whatever they need - or sometimes, all too often, things they don't need, just to have, or to trade or sell. And everyone makes a joke or turns the other way - or excuses them - "They don't know any better." "They needed it." Or my personal favorite - "Let them have it! They can't help themselves!" - yes, they can help themselves. And they do, to everything that isn't nailed down or red-hot, or protected by highly armed, highly criticized owners of that property. "Why don't they just give it to them?"
I always note that the ones who exclaim the latter are NOT the ones who are being invaded or assaulted; those who, in fact, think that it can never, will never happen to them. The shopkeeper snatching an hour of sleep here or there, his shotguns by his side, probably thought that, too. Yes, the exact same thing that those beat-up or heavily-armed people thought, six months or a year ago.
As the economy bottoms out, as schools close and more and more people are laid off, as things slowly fall into an economic mire, I wonder just how long all of those self-righteous people, living in their safe and gated communities, think they can hold out against the kleptocracy that they encouraged and pitied last year and this year. Do they really think that unarmed security guards will fight and die to protect them and their property? Do they really think that, in the event of a hurricane, massive flood, power outage, earthquake, pandemic, or any 'natural' or unnatural disaster, that they are safe? Or will they be crying out, "Where am I going and why am I in this handbasket?"
Thursday, March 4, 2010
Here is my Whole Cloth
Almost two years here.
Things are getting pretty intense; and no I don't mean politically or socially. They are intense for me, because doing what I've always wanted to do was a scary jump into a void. Not of knowledge, I had that. Not of experience, because I've had that, too. But of occurrences. When single threads start coming together to make a whole cloth, the cloth sometimes has colors that one does not expect. The challenges of weaving together a life from different threads are, in a word, multitudinous.
Who, after all, believed that this was what I really wanted? So many folks came up to me and said, "If I'd'a known you were like THAT..." and "You can't be SERIOUS!" and even "You'll be back!" - the folks who obviously didn't know me at all, of course.
I have things on my webpage and blog now that would interest no one in Beaufort or Jasper County, certainly no one whom I used to hang out with. How many of you would want to view the graphic pictures of my boss cow, Billy Jean, delivering her first calf? To me it is a miracle, and not just of birth, but of life and future and hope and change that matters personally, not in some unreal fantasy or phony political promise. How many of those folks who used to buy my eggs back in Hardeeville could relate to the fact that here there are no ordinances to ban my chickens, that my cows can be seen from the road in front of my house, that my eggs are the biggest and brownest and most sought after in town? How many of you would marvel at the progress of my reversible quilt, with the summer fruits on one side, the Christmas colors on the other, and the ruffles all around? Would you want to hear of the fourth snowiest season ever recorded that occurred this year, of what fun it is to whisk through snow-covered streets and skid into turns on ice, or to watch the snow drift down like tiny cellophane flakes?
Would you want to see pictures of the day-old calf gamboling happily around his mom, or the way the other cow and even the bull babysit him, or the way they all lay together in the afternoon sun, a happy and content family? Do you want to hear how we bake our own bread, fill our woodbox for the next snowstorm, take out the ashes and put them with the manure and kitchen scraps to compost? Do you care how we clean out the coop and corral, sludging through manure that we see as glorious and full of natural fertilizer and mulch, good for our growing things, an endless circle of life? Do you care if we steer the newborn bull for processing later, or keep him whole to sell his semen to promote good breed traits? Do you want to know if we will band or use the paste to dehorn him, do you care if he appears to be a successful production of homozygous traits?
Do you want to know that my lupus lesion has quit splitting open and has stopped oozing and bleeding, and that my body is actually starting to clean itself out and correct all the damage done by fast foods and a faster lifestyle? Do you care that my DH, whom so many were so interested in insulting and trashing just for being married to me, has found a quiet joy again in building things and working on engines, and working with animals who do not judge him, who do not scream at him and curse him as most of his patients did, who appreciate what he does for them - and who are fond of him and show it? Do you care that he no longer has to work a 60-hour work week, but can take his time as his pain levels dictate, and work at his own speed, and still be respected and included in a comfortable and friendly lifestyle?
I am happy to have left the WalMart and Starbucks world behind. I am content in what I have chosen. Folks say that I should write a book about what "really went on" the past 20 years, but you know what? None of it was important, as much as they like to think it was. Mean and angry and perpetually cruel people banding together to tear each other apart have no interest for me - or, now that I'm gone from their sights, in me, either. Any book I write will be about the joys, the hardships, the overcoming, the successes, even the failures; the building of my life the way I choose, not fighting those who choose different paths and want to drag me vociferously with them, or down if I do not agree with them.
Here I am, weaving the threads of all of my knowledge, all of my experiences, and all of my desires into a whole cloth, something to last, something to remember, something that is real and able to be felt, held, and used in a good clean manner. Something that all of the naysayers and eternally self-involved can never take away. Here is life. Here is joy. Here is hard work and success and achievement, sweat and dirt and tiny green plants poking their way into the sun, tiny newborns growing to full and heavy production. Here is blood and bone, feather and fur, knife and axe and fingers separating meat from skin, nitty and gritty and hay and manure, life and death in its most definite beginnings and ends. Here are long silent nights and endless silent days, with nothing but the cackling of an egg-laying hen or the indulgent moo of a mothering cow, or even the gobbling of the wild turkeys or the far-off howls of the yotes being hunted once again. Here is my whole cloth.
Things are getting pretty intense; and no I don't mean politically or socially. They are intense for me, because doing what I've always wanted to do was a scary jump into a void. Not of knowledge, I had that. Not of experience, because I've had that, too. But of occurrences. When single threads start coming together to make a whole cloth, the cloth sometimes has colors that one does not expect. The challenges of weaving together a life from different threads are, in a word, multitudinous.
Who, after all, believed that this was what I really wanted? So many folks came up to me and said, "If I'd'a known you were like THAT..." and "You can't be SERIOUS!" and even "You'll be back!" - the folks who obviously didn't know me at all, of course.
I have things on my webpage and blog now that would interest no one in Beaufort or Jasper County, certainly no one whom I used to hang out with. How many of you would want to view the graphic pictures of my boss cow, Billy Jean, delivering her first calf? To me it is a miracle, and not just of birth, but of life and future and hope and change that matters personally, not in some unreal fantasy or phony political promise. How many of those folks who used to buy my eggs back in Hardeeville could relate to the fact that here there are no ordinances to ban my chickens, that my cows can be seen from the road in front of my house, that my eggs are the biggest and brownest and most sought after in town? How many of you would marvel at the progress of my reversible quilt, with the summer fruits on one side, the Christmas colors on the other, and the ruffles all around? Would you want to hear of the fourth snowiest season ever recorded that occurred this year, of what fun it is to whisk through snow-covered streets and skid into turns on ice, or to watch the snow drift down like tiny cellophane flakes?
Would you want to see pictures of the day-old calf gamboling happily around his mom, or the way the other cow and even the bull babysit him, or the way they all lay together in the afternoon sun, a happy and content family? Do you want to hear how we bake our own bread, fill our woodbox for the next snowstorm, take out the ashes and put them with the manure and kitchen scraps to compost? Do you care how we clean out the coop and corral, sludging through manure that we see as glorious and full of natural fertilizer and mulch, good for our growing things, an endless circle of life? Do you care if we steer the newborn bull for processing later, or keep him whole to sell his semen to promote good breed traits? Do you want to know if we will band or use the paste to dehorn him, do you care if he appears to be a successful production of homozygous traits?
Do you want to know that my lupus lesion has quit splitting open and has stopped oozing and bleeding, and that my body is actually starting to clean itself out and correct all the damage done by fast foods and a faster lifestyle? Do you care that my DH, whom so many were so interested in insulting and trashing just for being married to me, has found a quiet joy again in building things and working on engines, and working with animals who do not judge him, who do not scream at him and curse him as most of his patients did, who appreciate what he does for them - and who are fond of him and show it? Do you care that he no longer has to work a 60-hour work week, but can take his time as his pain levels dictate, and work at his own speed, and still be respected and included in a comfortable and friendly lifestyle?
I am happy to have left the WalMart and Starbucks world behind. I am content in what I have chosen. Folks say that I should write a book about what "really went on" the past 20 years, but you know what? None of it was important, as much as they like to think it was. Mean and angry and perpetually cruel people banding together to tear each other apart have no interest for me - or, now that I'm gone from their sights, in me, either. Any book I write will be about the joys, the hardships, the overcoming, the successes, even the failures; the building of my life the way I choose, not fighting those who choose different paths and want to drag me vociferously with them, or down if I do not agree with them.
Here I am, weaving the threads of all of my knowledge, all of my experiences, and all of my desires into a whole cloth, something to last, something to remember, something that is real and able to be felt, held, and used in a good clean manner. Something that all of the naysayers and eternally self-involved can never take away. Here is life. Here is joy. Here is hard work and success and achievement, sweat and dirt and tiny green plants poking their way into the sun, tiny newborns growing to full and heavy production. Here is blood and bone, feather and fur, knife and axe and fingers separating meat from skin, nitty and gritty and hay and manure, life and death in its most definite beginnings and ends. Here are long silent nights and endless silent days, with nothing but the cackling of an egg-laying hen or the indulgent moo of a mothering cow, or even the gobbling of the wild turkeys or the far-off howls of the yotes being hunted once again. Here is my whole cloth.
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