po' fokes

Beware of Greeks Bearing Gifts

2005-07-05T08:11:00.000-07:00

Erich Fromm, writing in The Art of Loving, says that: Some make a virtue out of giving in the sense of a sacrifice. They feel that just because it is painful to give, one ‘should’ give; the virtue of giving to them lies in the very act of acceptance of the sacrifice. For them, the norm that it is better to give than to receive means that it is better to suffer deprivation than to experience joy.

I am quoting Fromm because it appears as though the seven members of the G-8 (not including Russia who wasn’t invited), have agreed to cancel the debt of the 18 poorest African nations, a real sacrifice considering the selfish, carnivorous nature of those involved with the canceling of the debts – you get the impression they are really suffering in agreeing to do so.

But, wait…maybe there is more going on here than meets the eye. The citizens of Ilium, of course, welcomed the horse the ‘strong greaved Acheans’ had left them, and pushed it into city center, behind the protective wall that had theretofore held the marauding Greeks (sea peoples, or pirates, actually) at bay. Once the horse entered their city, it was all over; the Greeks snuck out, threw open the gates to their waiting co-conspirators, and sacked Ilium, carrying off its treasure to spread around the entire Mediterranean basin. Never mind what the Greeks did to the Trojan women – you wouldn’t want to know.

Now, several millennia later, another bunch of Greeks (pirates) appear to be offering yet another Trojan horse to the hapless souls trapped in deepest, darkest Africa. This time it is a horse of debt relief that appears as the gift, but perhaps this time a gift the Africans should first look in the mouth. This particular gift apparently comes with fairly long teeth. Teeth intended to sink deep into the African flesh, and rend it asunder.

George Monbiot, writing for The Guardian, says of this horse’s teeth that: Who, apart from the leading writers of the Daily Telegraph, could deny that debt relief is a good thing? Never mind that much of this debt - money lent by the World Bank and IMF to corrupt dictators - should never have been pursued in the first place. Never mind that, in terms of looted resources, stolen labour and now the damage caused by climate change, the rich owe the poor far more than the poor owe the rich. Some of the poorest countries have been paying more for debt than for health or education. Whatever the origins of the problem, that is obscene… You are waiting for me to say but, and I will not disappoint you. The but comes in paragraph 2 of the finance ministers' statement. To qualify for debt relief, developing countries must "tackle corruption, boost private-sector development" and eliminate "impediments to private investment, both domestic and foreign". Monbiot says of all of this that it is little better than "extortion."

Ah ha! Now you know why they say to beware of Greeks bearing gifts. This is no gift, it’s a battering ram to get inside and corrupt even further, albeit through ‘civilized’ methodologies, these poorer nations’ skin, and to infect their economies with the same sort of cupidity that is currently ruining America. Whether power corrupts or the corrupted are attracted to power, it is wealth, or the availability of same, that corrupts absolutely. Witness any modern capitalist democracy, and particularly that currently masquerading as such on the North American continent – it has been corrupted beyond all hope of redemption. Our people have become corrupted, our Congress and Administration have become corrupted, our institutions have become corrupted, our crony-corporate economic system has become corrupted, even our military and our Supreme Court have become corrupted. Like Sodom, it is impossible to find more than one (and even that is in question) good human being. And now the G-8-1 are finagling to corrupt these debtor nations as well – not all institutional imports stand to benefit the host nation as expected. Open the doors to capitalistic exploitation and you may gain riches, but you will surely lose your souls.

Sanjay Suri, of the Inter Press Service News Agency (IPS), explains the tricks this gift horse has to offer thusly: Unanimity emerged only over debt cancellation for what are known as Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC). But the small print here too indicates that this was not unanimity on unconditional support…The HIPC countries have been told that any additional donor contributions will rest on "performance-based allocation systems", and that such action will ensure that "assistance is based on country performance."…The World Bank has been made the monitor for these countries' moves towards "good governance, accountability and transparency." These declared aims are inevitably open to endless interpretation…The 100 percent debt cancellation further holds only for HIPCs "that are on track with their programmes of repayment obligations and adjusting their gross assistance flows by the amount forgiven." That is, the debt will be "forgiven" only to countries that can show they were in the process of repaying…While the debt cancellation will no doubt provide immediate relief, there is enough in the stated package to raise some questions what these countries may have to do next.

So, okay, Africa, get ready to sell your soul to the devil, throw open the gates to the Trojan horse, and pray to the gods that greed and hubris do not replace your indigenous cultures entirely. There is no such thing as a virgin capitalist Nation, open to uninhibited investments. Sooner or later, they all fall prey to the corporate juggernaut, and gain the freedom to purchase whatever they’d like from the Wal-Marts looming just over the horizon, like some great Komodo predator.

G8 Protests: Marching for Full Enjoyment

2005-07-04T06:23:00.000-07:00

Madonna at Live 8

The following is what one of the G-8 protesters had to say in Edinburgh, Scotland

From the BBC

‘Politicians have got us nowhere’
The protest in Edinburgh dubbed "The Carnival For Full Enjoyment" was called by anarchist groups in protest at the G8 summit at Gleneagles.

The groups do not put forward a spokesperson because they do not believe in a hierarchical structure but BBC Scotland spoke to one protester who called himself Robin. This is an extract of what he said:

The Carnival For Full Enjoyment has come out of the need to do something about the really serious problems the majority of people face.

Problems like low pay, like job insecurity, like increasing casualisation and decreases in pensions, for claimants, poverty-line benefits and cuts to benefits.

This G8 summit gives those of us at the bottom of society an opportunity to link working-class struggles on a local scale with the same kind of struggles that are going on all over the world.

The Carnival For Full Enjoyment is in solidarity with the powerful social movements of the global south.

We believe in direct action because relying on politicians and leaders has got us nowhere.

Our vision is of a society that is run from the bottom up with grassroots control in all areas

This direct action is against institutions that are keeping us down and ripping us off.

We completely refute the lie that we will be targeting ordinary workers as many of the participants are workers in major companies.

We believe that if our planet is to survive the huge problems we face, the disempowerment of the majority of people, the dire poverty in the global south, climate change - if we are to survive this we need a fundamental change.

What we'll need to do is to fundamentally reorganise things.

Our vision is of a society that is run from the bottom up with grassroots control in all areas.

A society where the profit-motive is abolished and where the most important thing is the satisfaction of all human needs in the widest sense.

Oh, yeah, by the way, happy 4th of July!

People's War Against Poverty

2005-07-02T09:35:00.000-07:00

Poverty March

War Against Poverty

President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964 asked of the U.S. Congress that it authorize a war against poverty in America. What follows is the text from that request. I’ll leave it to you to determine how successful LBJ was.

The War on Poverty, March 1964
Lyndon B. Johnson's Special Message to Congress, March 16, 1964

Because it is right, because it is wise, and because, for the first time in our history, it is possible to conquer poverty, I submit, for the consideration of the Congress and the country, the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964.

The Act does not merely expand old programs or improve what is already being done.

It charts a new course.

It strikes at the causes, not just the consequences of poverty.

It can be a milestone in our one-hundred eighty year search for a better life for our people.
This Act provides five basic opportunities.

It will give almost half a million underprivileged young Americans the opportunity to develop skills, continue education, and find useful work.

It will give every American community the opportunity to develop a comprehensive plan to fight its own poverty-and help them to carry out their plans.

It will give dedicated Americans the opportunity to enlist as volunteers in the war against poverty.

It will give many workers and farmers the opportunity to break through particular barriers which bar their escape from poverty.

It will give the entire nation the opportunity for a concerted attack on poverty through the establishment, tinder my direction, of the Office of Economic Opportunity, a national headquarters for the war against poverty.

This is how we propose to create these opportunities.

First we will give high priority to helping young Americans who lack skills, who have not completed their education or who cannot complete it because they are too poor. . . .

I therefore recommend the creation of a job Corps, a Work-Training Program, and a Work Study Program.

A new national job Corps will build toward an enlistment of 100,000 young men. They will be drawn from those whose background, health and education make them least fit for useful work. . . .

Half of these young men will work, in the first year, on special conservation projects to give them education, useful work experience and to enrich the natural resources of the country.

Half of these young men will receive, in the first year, a blend of training, basic education and work experience in job Training Centers. . . .

A new national Work-Training Program operated by the Department of Labor will provide work and training for 200,000 American men and women between the ages of 16 and 21. This will be developed through state and local governments and non-profit agencies. . . .

A new national Work-Study Program operated by the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare will provide federal funds for part-time jobs for 140,000 young Americans who do not go to college because they cannot afford it.

There is no more senseless waste than the waste of the brainpower and skill of those who are kept from college by economic circumstance. Under this program they will, in a great American tradition, be able to work their way through school. . . .

Second, through a new Community Action program we intend to strike at poverty at its source - in the streets of our cities and on the farms of our countryside among the very young and the impoverished old.

This program asks men and women throughout the country to prepare long-range plans for the attack on poverty in their own local communities. . .

Third, I ask for the authority to recruit and train skilled volunteers for the war against poverty.

Thousands of Americans have volunteered to serve the needs of other lands.

Thousands more want the chance to serve the needs of their own land. They should have that chance.

Among older people who have retired, as well as among the young, among women as well as men, there are many Americans who are ready to enlist in our war against poverty.

They have skills and dedication. They are badly needed. . . .

Fourth, we intend to create new opportunities for certain hard-hit groups to break out of the pattern of poverty.

Through a new program of loans and guarantees we can provide incentives to those who will employ the unemployed.

Through programs of work and retraining for unemployed fathers and mothers we can help them support their families in dignity while preparing themselves for new work.

Through funds to purchase needed land, organize cooperatives, and create new and adequate family farms we can help those whose life on the land has been a struggle without hope.

Fifth, I do not intend that the war against poverty become a series of uncoordinated and unrelated efforts - that it perish for lack of leadership and direction.

Therefore this bill creates, in the Executive Office of the President, a new Office of Economic Opportunity. Its Director will be my personal Chief of Staff for the War against poverty. I intend to appoint Sargent Shriver to this post. . . .

What you are being asked to consider is not a simple or an easy program. But poverty is not a simple or an easy enemy.

It cannot be driven from the land by a single attack on a single front. Were this so we would have conquered poverty long ago.

Nor can it be conquered by government alone. . .

Today, for the first time in our history, we have the power to strike away the barriers to full participation in our society. Having the power, we have the duty .. .

We are fully aware that this program will not eliminate all the poverty in America in a few months or a few years. Poverty is deeply rooted and its causes are many.

But this program will show the way to new opportunities for millions of our fellow citizens.

It will provide a lever with which we can begin to open the door to our prosperity for those who have been kept outside.

It will also give us the chance to test our weapons, to try our energy and ideas and imagination for the many battles yet to come. As conditions change, and as experience illuminates our difficulties, we will be prepared to modify our strategy.

And this program is much more than a beginning.

Rather it is a commitment. It is a total commitment by this President, and this Congress, and this nation, to pursue victory over the most ancient of mankind's enemies.

Unfortunately, the social turmoil of the 1960s, coupled with the war in Vietnam intervened in our quest to fight poverty in America. Today, whatever miniscule whiff of such a philosophy or such a commitment by our government to help out and aide in our own war against poverty is being systematically rooted out and purged by those who believe in wealth only for the oligarchs. George Dubya Bush currently leads that war to privilege only the wealthiest, and treat the great percentage of Americans as slime – and stupid slime at that.

The world, however, disagrees with such a philosophy, and today, as may be witnessed below, great masses of everyday people are organizing to do something about poverty, only this time in Africa. While it will not, per se, help those in America, it will help out some of the poor somewhere, and for that reason alone should and must be saluted.

From the BBC: go here for original

Thousands flock to poverty march

Protesters march
Thousands of protesters have taken part in a Make Poverty History march in Edinburgh, as musicians perform in Live 8 concerts around the globe.

Organisers said about 225,000 people had been involved while police and council officials put the figure at approximately 200,000.

The marchers heard speeches from political and religious leaders as well as celebrities who back the cause.

They called for the G8 leaders meeting at Gleneagles next week to take action.

EDINBURGH MARCH

Saturday's march is one of a number of events planned in the run-up to Wednesday's G8 summit, when campaigners hope world leaders will make a commitment to tackle poverty in Africa.

It coincides with the series of Live 8 concerts being held on Saturday in cities around the world, including London.

We have had enough political spin, promises and downright lies
Pete Postlethwaite, Actor

Police corral protesters

Some 200,000 people were expected in Hyde Park to see performers including U2, Pink Floyd, Madonna, REM and Coldplay.

The concerts will span nearly 24 hours, with the first having started in Tokyo at 0600 BST.

Organised by Live Aid founder Bob Geldof, they will call for more aid for Africa, debt cancellation and fairer trade.

Organisers' reaction

Referring to the turnout, a spokesman said: "Make Poverty History are absolutely delighted with this, to see so many people come to show that they really care.

"We believe more than 200,000 people have been at our rally and march."

People on the Edinburgh march were urged to wear white. Five cranes were constructed along the south end of The Meadows to display a giant banner bearing the message "Make Poverty History".

Marchers began leaving a rally in The Meadows at intervals from 1200 BST, with the aim of forming a human chain around central Edinburgh. The head of the procession re-entered The Meadows shortly after 1320 BST.

Making Poverty History banner in crowd
Some of the crowds taking part in the massive march

A small group of about 50 protestors walked ahead of the main procession, many in business suits and ties, apparently mocking multinational companies.

There was applause as they passed a Starbucks and they bowed down towards McDonald's as one of their number chanted: "Two, four, six, eight, we really must accumulate."

A strong police presence was in place as the procession turned left off Princes Street and up along Lothian Road towards the city's financial district.

Ranks of officers, some on horseback and seven police vans greeted the demonstrators as they were directed away around 100 yards from the Standard Life and Clydesdale Bank headquarters.

There were some minor scuffles near The Mound, where the Bank of Scotland has its corporate headquarters. It was spotted from a helicopter and police acted quickly to curb the protesters involved.

Pope's message

Earlier, a message from Pope Benedict XVI was read out in which he said people from the world's richest countries should be prepared to accept the burden of debt reduction for poor countries.

Scotland's First Minister Jack McConnell watched the march as it passed onto Princes Street. He said: "This is fantastic, it is a great carnival atmosphere and it is a message of hope.

"We are in a beautiful city with a beautiful message and I hope it is being listened to."

WHAT IS THE G8?

Name
Group of eight major industrialised states, inc Russia
Members
Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, UK, US
Aims
Originally set up to discuss trade and economic issues
Now leaders discuss global issues of the day
2005 Summit agenda
Africa
Climate change

Lord of the Rings star Billy Boyd addressed the rally and said: "With so many people here today, the leaders have to do something - thank you for coming."

Actor Pete Postlethwaite said: "We have had enough political spin, promises and downright lies."

Beryl Chatfield, from Worthing, Sussex, flew from Gatwick to take part and said: "I came to put pressure on the G8 to change things, for fair trade, aid and to drop the debt."

Sam Hawkins, 24, from London, said: "I think we're united around a common goal and that is eradicating poverty and working for a fairer world."

A number of protesters complained of being photographed by police as they made their way to Scotland.

Among them were three coach loads of people from Belfast who said they were held at Stranraer by police, photographed and had their bags searched.

Elsewhere, campaigners who took trains from Euston said they were not allowed to make the journey until officers had taken their pictures.

Police officer in riot gear
One of the police officers involved in the stand-off

A group of about 60 demonstrators, some of them armed with sticks, were enclosed in following a stand-off with police.

Some 200 officers erected barriers and formed lines in an area near Edinburgh University. Half were in full riot gear including helmets and shields.

A police spokesperson said some of the black-clad protestors were wearing padded clothing and had been spotted as potential trouble makers. The situation has been controlled without any arrests being made so far.

The incident occurred well away from where the Make Poverty History march is taking place.

'Carnival' concern

On Sunday, an Anti-War Coalition demonstration will take place in the city, followed by the Carnival for Full Enjoyment on Monday.

The latter is giving police concern because of reports that hard-core anarchists will use the event to cause trouble.

Assistant Chief Constable Ian Dickinson, of Lothian and Borders Police, said: "We have a long and successful tradition of overseeing marches, demonstrations and other high-profile events in a sensitive manner and enabling protest groups to make their point without having to resort to conflict.

"We welcome people who wish to take part but will not tolerate anti-social behaviour or criminal disorder."

Protest group, G8 Alternatives, is promising peaceful demonstrations.

Spokesman Dave Shields said: "When peaceful protesters get together to protest against poverty and war, then things will be extremely peaceful and there is going to be no cause for violence whatsoever."

From the Associated Press: go here for full story
LONDON -
Paul McCartney and U2 rocked London's Hyde Park with a rousing performance of "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" on Saturday to kick off the main event in the Live 8 extravaganza rolling around the globe from Tokyo to Johannesburg.

A thunderous roar erupted from the crowd of 150,000 as McCartney and U2's Bono belted out the first line: "It was 20 years ago today ..." — a nod to the mammoth Live Aid concerts that raised millions for African famine relief two decades ago.

Musicians and fans were gathering in 10 cities worldwide for a global music marathon to raise awareness of African poverty and to pressure world leaders to do something about it at the Group of Eight summit in Scotland next week.

Organizer
Bob Geldof promised to deliver "the greatest concert ever."

Bono, dressed in black and wearing his trademark wraparound shades, wrapped the crowd around his finger, getting tens of thousands to sing along to the anthemic "One" and "Beautiful Day." The crowd cheered as white doves were released overhead.

"So this is our moment. This is our time. This is our chance to stand up for what's right," Bono said. "We're not looking for charity, we're looking for justice. We cannot fix every problem, but the ones we can, we must."

After a brief delay — testament to the complexities of the eight-hour extravaganza — Coldplay soothed the crowd with their hit "In My Place."

The musical marathon started in Japan, where Bjork and Good Charlotte joined local bands for a concert that failed to generate much interest in Asia's only G-8 nation.

It rolled on to Johannesburg, South Africa, where thousands of people — some in brightly colored beaded skirts, others wearing jeans and talking on cell phones — jumped, danced and waved signs demanding "trade justice" and "give us food."

German crowd-pleasers Die Toten Hosen kicked off Berlin's Live 8 concert, electrifying the crowd with a string of power anthems while reminding revelers that helping Africa stood above the music.

"This is no rock concert, it's a reminder about next Wednesday," singer Campino told the crowds, referring to next week's meeting of the leaders of the wealthy G-8 nations to debate ways to lift African nations out of poverty.

Besides London, Berlin and Tokyo, concerts also were being held in cities in the other G-8 countries — Philadelphia, Paris, Rome, Toronto and Moscow.

The concert in Johannesburg and a concert featuring African artists in southwestern England were organized after criticism that African artists had been left out of the Live 8 concerts, despite the event's aim to raise awareness of the continent's plight.

"Africans are involved in helping Africa, which doesn't happen too often," Cameroonian singer Coco Mbassi said before the concert at the Eden Project, the world's largest greenhouse in southwestern England.

"We're presenting a different image of Africa — showing that Africa has good things to give," Mbassi said.

In an open letter to the G-8 leaders, which appeared in several British newspapers Saturday, Geldof said the summit will disappoint the world if it fails to deliver an extra $25 billion in aid to Africa.

"We will not applaud half-measures, or politics as usual. This must be a historic breakthrough," the letter says. "Today there will be noise and music and joy, the joy of exuberant possibility. On Friday (the end of the summit) there will be great silence as the world awaits your verdict. Do not disappoint us. Do not create a generation of cynics."

In Tokyo, Icelandic singer Bjork made her first live performance in two years. But the crowd of 10,000 people was only half of what the hall in the Tokyo suburb of Makuhari was capable of holding.

"People are willing to go out of their way, because we believe passionately in what this is about," said Bjork. "Just the acknowledgment of the problem is an important step."

In Hyde Park, organizers and police geared up for one of the biggest outdoor events ever held in Britain. More than 150,000 people had tickets for the free show, with another 55,000 expected to watch on giant screens in the park.

Thousands of fans streamed into Hyde Park two hours before the start of the show — some hedging against the unpredictable British weather by wearing both sun hats and raincoats.

London concertgoer Tula Contostavlos, 19, said she was there to see Mariah Carey — and to send a political message.

"Obviously some people are here for just music, but they're forgetting what's important and what they're here for, why we're doing this," she said.

Organizers say 2 million people may attend the concerts and claim 85 percent of the world's population will have access to a television, radio or Internet broadcast of the day's events.

A complex broadcasting operation was feeding footage of the concerts to networks including the British Broadcasting Corp. — which was devoting more than 12 hours on its main TV channels to the event — and MTV.

The lineups were eclectic: Destiny's Child, The Dave Matthews Band, Bon Jovi, Stevie Wonder, P. Diddy and Jay-Z in Philadelphia; Brian Wilson, Chris de Burgh and Green Day in Berlin; Neil Young, Bryan Adams and Motley Crue in Barrie, north of Toronto; McFly in Tokyo; the Pet Shop Boys in Moscow; Goth-rockers The Cure and Senegalese superstar Youssou N'Dour in Paris.

The artists, playing for free, were heeding Geldof's call to urge world leaders to double aid, cancel debt and rework unfair trade laws to lift African nations out of poverty.

Few doubt it will be a memorable day, not least the ever-voluble Geldof.

"It's Bob Dylan, 'The Times They Are A-Changin' — they've changed," Geldof told an audience of young people at an MTV taping Thursday. "The answer isn't blowing in the wind, it's called the Commission for Africa. There's nothing that you do that can't be done."

Shit End of the Stick

2005-06-28T14:30:00.000-07:00

Homeless Service Center - San Francisco

One of the things about America, and its culture of work your ass silly to receive minimum pay and benefits so that the rich can live like Little Lord Flauntleroys, is that the poor are perceived not so much as having problems and struggling to make it through life, as they are as just plain lazy, shiftless and no good. Yet their presence in some numbers is absolutely essential to the oligarchical class which wishes to point to them both to cast blame for anything they can think of, and second to serve as a negative example for the capitalists to point to as if to say, “See how lucky you are to have a job; those scum have nothing. So thank your lucky stars.”

Yeah, well, kiss my rosy red ass, you rat bastards! While the rich can easily afford their new BMWs, and Caribbean cruises, and A-Frames at Tahoe so as to enjoy their summer weekends or go skiing in the winter, the poor are meanwhile working (if at all) for minimum wages, and are being treated like crap at every turn. Theirs are always the first benefits to be cut, the first jobs to be laid off, the first ones to lose their pension benefits, and the ones who always, in blame and in reality, lose whatever little they have so that the wealthy can continue to squander the riches of America. Billions in corporate welfare is freely handed out, whilst the few mothers with young kids are told to get off their asses, leave their kids behind, and go slave away somewhere so some rich asshole can get even richer.

Dubya, a rather rich bastard and spokesperson himself, has squandered over $200 billion (and counting) in Iraq to make himself look like some sort of freaking savior, while his government hands out benefits to some totally concocted bullshit Medicare prescription drug program that has nothing whatsoever of value for the little guy, and maximum windfall profits for the pharmaceutical companies. Not only that, but the very fact they have given out payola to the pill makers, the government is now using as an excuse to cut little guys’ programs again. According, for instance, to the Associated Press:

Funding for job training, rural health care, low-income schools and help for people lacking health insurance would face big cuts under a bill passed Friday by the House…The measure, which passed 250-151, contains $142.5 billion in spending under Congress' control for labor, health and education programs. That's essentially a freeze at current levels…But new demands, including $870 million to administer the new Medicare prescription drug program, have forced cuts in scores of programs…The cuts include the outright elimination of 48 programs whose current budgets total $1 billion. Among the programs to be eliminated is the Healthy Communities Access Program, currently funded at $83 million, which helps communities offer health care to the uninsured…Also eliminated is the $205 million budget for an Education Department grant program targeted at low-income and underachieving schools…that translates to an 84 percent cut — from $300 million down to $47 million — in training programs for doctors and nurses, and $806 million in cuts to Bush's No Child Left Behind education initiative, a more than 3 percent drop. Grants for local community-action agencies that help the poor would be cut in half, to $320 million…On Friday, the House also voted 219-185 to go on record against a Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation agreement with United Airlines letting United dump its employee-pension plans and their $9.8 billion shortfall on the PBGC, which could mean pension cuts of 25 percent to 50 percent for more than 120,000 United workers and retirees…United says the move is required to emerge from bankruptcy and supporters of the airline said that without the pension relief, 62,000 United employees could lose their jobs.

Just freaking great! Not only are we the only supposedly civilized nation on earth to not help our people with national health insurance, we are also among the very bottom when it comes to providing any kind of dignity to our poor, and to our troubled. Some “compassionate” democracy we are, huh? Our House of Representatives, which houses among the sleaziest members of any government anywhere, and the most heartless, and in particular the Republican contingent thereof, are nothing but power-crazed crooks and scoundrels, almost every last one of them psychologically certifiable. The United States must have the distinction of having the lowest caliber members of the lower parliament anywhere.

Our corporations, by the way, are little better. They regularly blackmail Congress and hence the American people by threatening either to lay people off, or raise prices if the government does such things as establish a livable wage, or requires them to live up to their pension guarantees. The above is simply another gross example of them having done so. Meanwhile the government has now cut veterans health care funding by another $1 billion.

So, hey, Homey, have a nice week!

The Man in Black

2005-06-25T17:36:00.000-07:00

One of the best Country artists ever: Johnny Cash

Man In Black

Hurt: by Johnny Cash

I hurt myself today
To see if I still feel
I focus on the pain
The only thing that's real
The needle tears a hole
The old familiar sting
Try to kill it all away
But I remember everything

What have I become?
My sweetest friend
Everyone I know
Goes away in the end
You could have it all
My empire of dirt
I will let you down
I will make you hurt

I wear this crown of thorns
Upon my liar's chair
Full of broken thoughts
I cannot repair
Beneath the stain of time
The feeling disappears
You are someone else
I am still right here

What have I become?
My sweetest friend
Everyone I know
Goes away in the end
You could have it all
My empire of dirt
I will let you down
I will make you hurt

If I could start again
A million miles away
I would keep myself
I would find a way

Wasted Possibilities

2005-06-23T12:07:00.000-07:00

Freedom

There are potentially as many ways to view life, and it’s various values and possibilities, as there are human beings to consider the question. What holds most societies together, however, is that only one possibility (and its various within-the-box variations) predominates, and that most members of that society more or less conform to its strictures. For those who do not buy into, in some dimension or another, the standard societal paradigm, ostracism, poverty, neurosis, even madness may occur to that individual, or individuals. It’s not fun to not believe in what all around you believe in – nor is it hardly ever a successful strategy for survival. Either you follow the herd, or you risk becoming terminally lost, and apart. The post-modern world leaves little latitude for self-reliant, reclusive existence. To the contrary, most things are either downright owned, or at least substantially controlled, by the corporations.

The American paradigm has long (at least since the conclusion of the Civil War, and in many ways even prior to) been one of exercising a strong work ethic in conjunction with capitalistic enterprise. Either you bartered what skills you have, and/or what you may have produced, for monetary remuneration, or else you invested your capital (should you be lucky enough to have some) in capitalistic endeavors hoping to realize a profit. No other legitimate (as judged by the society around you) way of life existed, or yet exists, in which you may - without significant social discombobulation - survive in America. This society expects that you will either work for others to receive your bread, or that you invest what capital you have in a method sufficient to maintain your minimally acceptable lifestyle. As human greed stands as the basis of such a system of economic survival, either you practice and allow for personal greed within your individual philosophy, or else your road will be hard, and your days very long.

Contrariwise, were you either a member of, say, the Soviet Union (so long as it existed), or a native American Indian, for instance, your options, while still just as restricted, would have been entirely different. Ayn Rand, that pseudo-philosopher currently popular among the Conservatives in particular, was by nature and inclination outraged at having to live under the Soviet System wherein, for the normal Soviet citizen, greed and hubris were less revered than was the ability to conform to a socio-economic system based ostensibly upon societal cooperation. What were considered to be good qualities there were not necessarily good qualities here, and visa-versa. Never mind the 1001 various objections and exceptions that occur in praxis as opposed to how reality plays out, the two systems were diametrically opposed as to their basic philosophies, and systems of societal rewards and punishments. They require very different mind-sets.

It is of course possible to endlessly argue the worth of one system vis-à-vis the other, and to compare various societies utilizing any number of various criteria, but the Soviet System failed basically because it, from the outset (unconsciously and surreptitiously perhaps) bought into Western Ideals of success. In other words, the Soviet system attempted to compete utilizing the Western paradigm of success, which its system was not at all prepared to (nor was it designed to) handle. Communism is neither an express avenue to material success, nor was it capable of producing the vast resources necessary to military domination. That it had chosen either criteria by which to compete is wherein its ultimate failure was nested. The most obvious other measure of success the Soviet system might have propounded, would have been the spiritual and communal possibilities for a satisfying existence. While for many, for example, within Cuba today, the communal possibilities of communism obviously suffice to satisfy the urges of humankind – witness, if you will, the situation surrounding Elian Gonzales – the spiritual possibilities for Soviet success were completely shut down and amputated by its atheistic approach (Godlessness, as the Republicans are so quick to label it).

Meanwhile, within the United States, we have long harbored a spiritual belief that in many ways belies our economic existence, creating in the process much tension twixt one set of beliefs versus those of the other. Greed is necessary to capitalistic survival, but is simultaneously more traditionally thought of as being sinful by the Christian (and almost any other lasting religious) belief. Ergo, within America, the tension between sense and sensibility, between nature and form, is stretched to the maximum, exacerbated by our love of God, coincident with our love of the material. How the two may contribute one to the other was sufficiently explored by Max Weber, about a century ago, in his seminal treatise: The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. For that reason have the God Inc. enterprises within America begun to preach capitalistic success right along with a twisted and disproportionate emphasis upon sexual, as opposed to societal, ethic.

Recently within America those tensions have caught up with each other, and now we find ourselves in a hell of a mix. As soulless automatons we attempt to live out and succeed with our lives by capitalistic standards, while at the same moment attempting to assuage our huge burden of neurotic impulses brought about by the capitalistic lifestyle. In order to advance as self-realized or actualized human beings, we must somehow find a way to synthesize the necessities of life with the more natural and spontaneous joys which physical existence has to offer within the spiritual realms. That tension shall not be lightly reduced.

In addition to the damage caused to our psychological health by the standard American societal paradigm, we find any number of contradictions apparent to our psychological selves as well. While the tensions between God and mammon are somewhat ameliorated by the Protestant ethic, it only works so long as we are willing to forgo our psychological freedoms to advance as human beings, and are willing to subject ourselves to the strictest of both secular and spiritual authority. To live as truly free human beings, we must somehow transcend this rather ridiculous, but frightening, predicament.

Many of those who today wander the streets of America are those who have discovered no reasonable accommodation within the standard paradigm, or whose talents and genius are not somehow recognized by the capitalistic economy. Drugs and booze frequently contribute to the dilemma in major proportions, and those who, for whatever reason, find themselves incompatible with the dog-eat-dog-hallelujah environment, or basic insanity of America, engendered by a societal paradigm which turns flesh into objects and which ruins the earth, stand to remain miserable and lost.

It’s About This Time of the Year

2005-06-21T07:48:00.000-07:00

Summer Solstice

In Northern hemisphere locations, it’s about his time of the year when, sans family responsibilities, homelessness can actually be kinda fun. In most places it is warming up, and people are once again walking the streets and beaches of this planet looking for interesting things to do, and places to go. Just sitting on a park bench in the warmth of the sun can be among the greatest healing techniques available, and it’s all for free!

One of the many things to do is either to daydream, or to become a people watcher. In tourist areas, that can be wildly amusing. It’s also far easier to strike up a conversation when people have both the time and leisure to devote a few moments to considered thought and opinion, and when they are not busy bundling themselves against the weather. Although there exist some locations, such as extreme Southern California for instance (San Diego?), where the weather is gentle and permitting the entire calendar through, most locations really liven up during the period of summer, and for a few weeks into the fall, until the wind gets nippy and wicked once again.

If you are lucky enough to have a trusted friend or buddy during this season, the two of you together can look forward to days’ spent simply enjoying the out of doors, and not worrying about the otherwise constant hustle required to obtain suitable shelter, and to protect yourself from freezing to death, or what may be worse, uncontrollable shivering. The latter is what terrorizes me, and keeps me always on the lookout for some productive activity to pursue, like obtaining some stupid low-wage employment sufficient to purchase (or rent) minimal shelter, and warmth. During the summer, however, things are far more pleasant and even, relatively speaking of course, comforting in a way.

Sleeping out under the stars can also at this time of year be sort of a trip, so long as you can avoid the lawman coming to roust you out. Like most human beings, the law tends to not venture far from their vehicles in times of weather distress, but scout around quite freely when things warm up a bit. So summer, like most things in life, tends to be a double-edged sword.

To me, one of the stupidest things municipalities are wont to do, is to fine you (sometimes hundreds of dollars) for illegal camping. Damn! If you had any money you wouldn’t be camping out! Following a few nights in the city jail, you are then normally released and have to fulfill some amount of community service in lieu of the fine you could not afford. It wouldn’t be so bad if your community service entailed building low cost shelter for the homeless, like Homes for Humanity or something, but instead you usually end up doing something far more pro-forma (like sweeping and cleaning up around public institutions), then actually accomplishing or building anything significant. We all know there is one bitch of a workforce out there, in the homeless population, if only they’d figure and fund a method whereby it could be used productively. I suppose, though, that that makes too much sense.

Anyway, today is the summer solstice, so enjoy my friend.

JETHRO TULL - Hunting Girl Lyrics

One day I walked the road and crossed a field
to go by where the hounds ran hard.
And on the master raced: behind the hunters chased
to where the path was barred.
One fine young lady's horse refused the fence to clear.
I unlocked the gate but she did wait until the pack had
disappeared.

Crop handle carved in bone;
sat high upon a throne of finest English leather.
The queen of all the pack,
this joker raised his hat and talked about the weather.
All should be warned about this high born Hunting Girl.
She took this simple man's downfall in hand;
I raised the flag that she unfurled.

Boot leather flashing and spurnecks the size of my thumb.
This highborn hunter had tastes as strange as they come.
Unbridled passion: I took the bit in my teeth.
Her standing over --- me on my knees underneath.

My lady, be discrete.
I must get to my feet and go back to the farm.
Whilst I appreciate you are no deviate,
I might come to some harm.
I'm not inclined to acts refined, if that's how it goes.
Oh, high born Hunting Girl,
I'm just a normal low born so and so.

The Great Things

2005-06-16T10:17:00.000-07:00

William H. (Let the Public be Damned) Vanderbilt - Robber Baron

Among the great things about the 20th century in America, was that from Teddy Roosevelt (TR), and the start of the Progressive era, through his cousin Franklin Roosevelt (FDR), and the New Deal, and in fact continuing even through Eisenhower and Nixon (up until Ronald Reagan), the needs of the average Joe, or Sally, in America were given a lot of political attention. Great strides were taken in bringing justice and fairness into the social fabric of our Nation, and institutions such as labor unions, and social welfare programs, and great society programs, and, in particular during the years of the Great Depression, jobs programs were funded, encouraged and facilitated by those both within government, and without.

Prior to the Progressive Era had existed the great Robber Barons of our history, capitalists and industrialists who had pretty much had their own way with the politicians, through bribery, corruption and other forms of back room chicanery, such that democracy did not have much of an effect, and the capitalists were allowed to exploit the human resources of America right and left. It was a lousy time – between the end of the Civil War and the beginnings of the 20th century – to be a laborer, or to be poor in general. Millions were quite literally worked to death in the factories and in the meat packing industry and in the animal slaughtering houses, as well as while building the Transcontinental Railroad, and wildcatting oil wells out West, and while forging steel along the Great Lakes, and so forth and so on. It was a real capitalist’s holiday. Hardly any law protected the worker, and what few laws there were, were seldom if ever enforced, and the barons of industry treated most human beings as if they were nothing but cattle.

With TR, and then with FDR all that began to change fairly extensively, and regulations and laws went into effect protecting the little guy, and attempting to see to it that the little guy got his fair shake out of the deal. In fact, TR’s programs of improvements were called the “Square Deal” programs, and FDR’s would later be known as the “New Deal” programs, all intended to spread the wealth and wonderfulness of America in fairly democratic ways. Fair labor standards were instituted along with the right to organize and unionize, and to go out on strike; numerous financial safeguards were put into place to protect people’s savings and bank accounts; farmers got a deal in that farm prices were in a sense standardized, and protected against wild market fluctuations; the forty hour workweek was eventually made standard, and work over that was to be compensated for by the paying of overtime wages; social security was begun, and retirees now had at least something to look forward to besides living in the poor house, or being kicked out onto the streets; workmen’s compensation laws were implemented; and laid off workers could draw unemployment.

During the 1950s, at the end of World War II, and the Korean conflict, the greatest expansion of the middle-class in world history took place within the United States, and most people could look forward to a life of dignity, with owning a modest house perhaps, and a couple of used automobiles, and enough in the bank to cover emergencies and to send the kids to college. The tax rates were in some cases radically progressive, certainly as compared with today’s, but yet businesses continued to expand, and the economy chugged right along with suitable employment available for just about anyone who wanted and sought it. Almost anyone within the United States could work hard and receive just compensation sufficient to the modest needs of the time.

Sadly, none of that is any longer true. The Komodo capitalists, who seem to have been all that time lurking, have now reemerged with a vengeance, and by all indications fully intend to economically enslave our Nation once more, to return things, if not all the way back to the beginnings of the industrial revolution in England (and they would even go that far, or further, if they could), at least to the time when labor received squat for their efforts, and were barely able to get by. Such greed on the part of the assholes is unconscionable, yet they have found their champions in Ronald Reagan, and to some extent with GHW Bush, and now in particular with that current corporation masquerading as a human being by the name of George Dubya. They have begun, and in many instances almost finished, returning America to the age of the Robber Barons.

They have systematically begun to dismantle worker’ protections, and erode the overtime laws, and refuse categorically to even discuss the minimum wage, as well as limiting the power of unions, and threatening to screw with even social security. For years now, (Truman was the first who actually tried), they have refused to allow national health insurance, and are more than willing to pay whatever it takes to stop it in its tracks, and have done so over and over again. Once more the capitalists reign supreme in Washington D.C., and have politically and socially dumbed down America to the point where hardly anyone even notices, or worse cares, what these carnivores are doing. At the moment we are on the road to ruin, as far as anyone not making at least $300,000 a year is concerned, and by all indications mean to continue until the citizenry is once again reduced to slavery, and perpetual misery. Only the capitalists stand to benefit.

This is a terrible time in America, wrapped up in the meanest and most selfish of public spirits, and, should you ever hope to enjoy life once again, had better be stopped where it is. And even then, it may be too late.

The Work a Day World

2005-06-15T13:30:00.000-07:00

Men Working

For some reason which has continued to elude me for much of my life, people think capitalism is just great and that it is somehow holy. That is about the biggest bunch of crap you ever want to hear. Most people say and believe that because that’s what they’ve been brainwashed and taught to believe since their Dad helped them to build their first lemonade stand. You always hear about the work ethic and how wonderful, wonderful it all is – people are continually being praised by others just as duped as they are about how having a good work ethic is why America grew up to be great. One thing to think about is why the Nazis, during the Second World War, put up signs at their concentration camps that said things like: “Work makes you free,” or “Work makes life sweet.” Just how many sweet and free lives do you suppose the Jews got to live while working in those camps?

No one, it seems, ever bothers to ask what the puck is so great about America? There are a lot of rich people, I’ll grant you, and yes, we are amazingly well fed and housed by most third-world standards, but by the standards of most industrialized Nations, American workers get the shit end of the stick. We have no single-payer health care system; our unions are not only shrinking but are being continually bombasted by those in public office; you are made to feel like a criminal asking for a wage hike or bad mouthing the management, that in turn spends as much time trying to figure out how to screw the worker, as they do planning how to run a successful business; rules that apply to you, like having to invest in the corporation, do not apply to the management; if you’re fired you’ll be lucky to get two-weeks’ notice and maybe a token amount of severance pay; if the CEO gets fired, or leaves, he or she will be set for life, at your personal expense by the way; they can sell or trade or bargain the business right out from under you, but you have no say whatsoever in what the business is likely to do; businesses are increasingly attempting to dictate to employees how there are supposed to run their lives; they subject you, willy-nilly to drug tests and polygraph tests and Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventories; they rate you in some cases by a system of time and motion studies known as Taylorism; they insists you dress, act and look as they want you to; you are forced, when looking for a job or a promotion, to actually market and sell yourself as if you were a product – anyway, and as you probably well know, the list goes on almost for ever. In short, being an American worker is the pits, and comes with no guarantees whatsoever (witness, for instance, United Airlines reneging on its promises of retirement pensions). According to some recent reports by the Associated Press there are unscrupulous labor contractors out there who actually hold otherwise hapless and homeless people in monetary slavery through the use of debt and “company stores.” There is virtually no level to which a capitalist won’t sink in order to bring home the profit.

And it is not only the almost absolute control over your life that the corporations insist upon, and increasingly so, but also how working for a corporation steals from you your humanity and real, not ersatz, freedoms to be who and what you want. There is no joy in toiling at specialized labor, or in manufacturing only a small part of a completed product, or in working at McDonalds or any other assembly line like occupation. The spiritual and psychological satisfaction a worker once received for visualizing and bringing into being a completed product of their own design and invention has long since become a thing of the past, and nowadays you are expected to toil at bringing to market someone else’s conception. Whatever humanity a worker was once allowed to exhibit, has pretty much gone the way of the hula-hoop, and now sheer drudgery prevails. Drudgery that wears out the human components of the system, primarily to some one else’s benefit.

More recently, with the oligarchy firmly established in Washington, the only ones benefiting are the capitalist class. Profits for the corporations continue to escalate while the working poor, and even the solid middle class, are taking it in the rear – and have been ever since Ronald Reagan. With George Dubya, it has gotten much worse.

Worse, even than all of that, is that the capitalists expect you to kiss their rosy red asses for providing the shit jobs that they do. Somehow, you are supposed to be thankful to them for their benevolent acts of exploitation! At one Wal-Mart store in Canada, they recently voted to go union, and so Wal-Mart shut the store down right there, right then. It’s a message that Wal-Mart refuses, and shall continue to refuse, to treat employees like human beings. Otherwise, if forced, they will simply shut it down – even though union organizing is perfectly legal, and was once even encouraged, so as to give the little guy a decent and fair shot at social justice. Not anymore, the bastards are moving their operations overseas (where they can pay 10 cents on the dollar for labor, and treat employees even worse than they do here). They don’t give a damn about America, or about anything it stands for. In fact, they hate democracy most of all.

So why anyone becomes all defensive about protecting capitalism as practiced in this country is certainly way beyond my poor powers to add and subtract. As far as I can see, it exists simply to exploit people and give them the shaft.

One Thing Which Doesn’t Help the Little Guy

2005-06-14T08:41:00.000-07:00

Diesel Mechanics

One thing which sure has heck doesn’t help out the little guy, or the po’foke, are idiots like NT Times columnist, John Tierney, who must have been born with the proverbial silver spoon in his mouth. As disconnected from reality as is George Dubya, this fools thinks that the old are somehow “rested,’ and that adding a few years to their retirement age (before they become eligible for social security) would actually be doing them a favor. I warned you, this kook is nuts!

Maybe John needs his 40 minutes of pilates each day to keep in shape, and make certain all the brie he consumes doesn’t add to his girth, and aristocratic baby-fat face, but many of us out here in reality know one hell of a whole lot better. Tell you what you fool, you mount tires in a tire store for a living someday, or drive a local delivery truck, or work at McDonalds, or in the stock room at Wal-Mart, or become a diesel mechanic, or put new shakes on roofs, or even take the janitor’s (sanitation engineer’s) place in those ivory towers you’ve grown accustomed to, and do it eight hours a day (or night, or on a split-shift), 52 or more weeks out of the year, for minimum, or minimal, wages, and then you let me know just how damn rested you feel, you utter moron! Jeez! Even your imaginative ability is lousy!

Or, seeing as how you cited teachers as among those who are rested at the end of the day: you try teaching at risk high schoolers, with criminal records and assault and murder charges on their rap sheets, and then you tell me about being rested at the end of your 20-30 years. Like so many other privileged in America, you really don’t have a clue what the hell kind of crap is coming out of your mouth, do you? You couldn’t get real if your frigging life depended upon it. You have probably never had to deal with reality in your entire marshmallow existence! You’re just a condescending, patronizing old fool like all the rest of your class. You do no one proud, nor do you benefit human kind in the least by the sort of unmitigated crap you are spewing out onto the pages of what once was a real newspaper.

With columnists like Tierney around, particularly in a publication as vaunted as is the NY Times, little wonder we’ve got the powdered and rouged oligarchs running the damn country into the ground, to ensure their little privileged place at the head of the class of aristocratic inbreds. Reminds me of the Spanish aristocrats Goya used to paint, with the look of sheer imbecility on their faces.

You should maybe go and spend some hard time with your fellow columnist, Bob Herbert. Now there is a man who does have a clue, and who either recognizes first hand, or at least has the imagination to conceive of, what it is like to be poor and downtrodden and taken advantage of and looked down and spat upon by those such as you, your Royal Hind Ass! Don’t you guys ever talk amongst yourselves, or are you one of those who is happier in your ignorance, and who never listens to squat?

And yet you, who could probably care less about social security because you are never going to have to rely upon it to live, in any percentage whatsoever, presume to tell us that a few more years working for some heartless, ruthless, corrupted beyond all belief frigging capitalist should be no sweat at all. You want sweat, come on out here in the real world where jobs are shit jobs, and the agony of working one extra minute is enough to ruin your entire damn day. Then, perhaps, you can tell us how damn rested we all are! In the meanwhile just shut up about what you haven’t a damn clue about. You really are part of the problem, and not the solution – you know that?

In Memoriam

2005-06-13T07:40:00.000-07:00

Fifteen years ago my then wife, now Ex (with whom I am at the moment staying), decided that it would be nice to have a small pool in the backyard, to go along with her other landscaping of the desert-like, fenced-in terrain. She grew up on a small lake in Indiana, in a very small settlement, in the middle of the woods south of Indianapolis, and has ever since tried to re-create that lake and its environs in the backyard.

Not being satisfied with simply a small, natural looking pool, I decided it might be nice to have a few goldfish in it, and so together she and I went to the fish store and bought a few dozen of what they call “feeder” fish. The proprietor warned us that probably 2/3 of the fish, costing 10 cents a piece, would die within a few days. They were intended as feed for those who raise flesh eating varieties of tropical (mostly South American) fish, and were not particularly healthy or even fed, for that matter. Try as we might not to lose as many fish as the man in the store had warned us to prepare ourselves for, we lost them anyway. Every morning for the next couple of weeks, I would go out and scoop up the floaters and bury them in the garden. It got harder to do each day, because by the end we had most of the fish named, and they had started developing their own little personalities: they, in a sense, had become part of the family.

Finally, after a handful or so of further weeks, the carnage was over and the new pond settled down, and I had learned (by reading 3-4 books on the subject) how to take care of fish in the backyard. So, we went out and made a major purchase, $6 bucks each for two baby Koi from a local pet store. One was gold in color and the other was white with a sort of pink head. My Ex decided she liked the white one, and named (what we assumed, for no good reason, was a female) her Gladys, and I named the Gold one Li-Po, and that was the start of our backyard Koi pond. Things went along smoothly for the next 15 years, with only a couple of causalities here and there, (two more of the original gold fish, ‘comets’ died, due to tumors or something), but other than that we had each year to give away fish born in the pond so as to keep their burgeoning numbers down. In the meanwhile, we had gotten two more Koi: Qausimodo (from a pet store), and finally Nicodemus (from Wall Mart), a tiny little black Koi who I took pity on, and who was almost dead in their store’s tank. I brought him home and hand fed and hand moved him around in the pond, until he finally started showing some life of his own. All that was probably 13-14 years ago.

Two summers ago, my ex more than doubled the size of the pond, from about 800 gallons to well over 1800 hundred gallons, and tripled to quadrupled the pumping and filtering system. It now has some of the most heavily filtered water in the universe. Then disaster struck.

One of our friends in the school district, a science teacher become school principle, died suddenly of a heart attack and they gave a slide show presentation of his life at the school for those who had known him. Hundreds of people were there, and it was a fairly big deal. My Ex, who among other things teaches photo-shop on the computer (she’s an artist by education), was approached by the dead man’s family and was asked to put the slide show together, which she spent one very long week doing (staying up into all hours of the night), and when the slide show was over, the widow gave my Ex a gift certificate for the local fish and pond store.

About a month ago now, my Ex visited the store and came home with two baby Koi (2-3 inches long) to add to the pond. She kept them in a quarantine tank for about a week (and was intending on quarantining them much longer), when the weather turned really hot and the temperature in the tank soared, and so we introduced them into the pond, perhaps early as it turns out.

Koi are notorious for harboring diseases, and there has lately been a slew of various epidemics among fish breeders, particularly over in Japan - and in the spring time, with vast and frequent temperature fluctuations the fish are anyway under a lot of environmental stress – and while the new fish seem fine and healthy, some of the older ones, like Li-Po and Gladys, started showing signs of sickness.

Koi health is not easy to diagnose, and cures are even flakier than that, and while we have been going gang busters doing partial water changes, and medicating the water, and so forth and so on, Gladys kept getting worse and worse. We didn’t know what was wrong, and were powerless to do anything about it. We segregated her into a separate tank, and my Ex tried everything we, or the experts in the area, knew or could tell us about, but in the end it was all in vain (her tank got to looking like a intensive care ward, with cords and tubes and whatnot strung all over the place). Gladys died last night, and I buried her. My Ex suspects it was some disease, to which the new baby Koi are immune, but which ravaged the old timers in the pond. No one knows for certain how long Koi can live, but 30 or more years is not unheard of, so by those standards Gladys was at best middle age.

She was a beautiful fish, loved to be hand petted and fed, and sort of watched over the little fish in the pond. We are going to miss her greatly, both for her own addition to the backyard pond, and to all that she symbolized, having been among the first two Koi we had gotten. She’d grown from this little bitty fish, into a fairly large sized Koi in that pond, and her demise will sadden us for a long time to come. She will, I assure you, not be forgotten, and her memory will live on along with the other pets we have had over the years, and who have also died.

Having pets is a wonderful thing, but it is also damned sad when one of them leaves. There will be no joy in this household today.

Louisiana Man

2005-06-12T05:41:00.000-07:00

Louisiana Man

Seekers - Louisiana Man Lyrics

Oh, yeh! Cajun man, do all he can,
Gotta make a livin'; he's a Louisiana man.
At birth, Mama 'n' Papa called their little boy Ned;
Raised him on the banks of the river bed.
A houseboat tied to a big, tall tree,
A home for my mama and my papa and me.
The clock strikes three, Papa jumps to his feet;
Already Mama's cookin' Papa somethin' to eat.
At half-past, Papa, he's a-ready to go;
He jumps in his bureau headed down the bayou.
Chorus:
He's got a fishin' line strung across a Louisiana river,
Gotta catch a big fish for us to eat.
He sets his traps in the swamps, catches anything he can;
Gotta make a livin'; he's a Louisiana man.
Gotta make a livin'; he's a Louisiana man.
Oh, yeh! Cajun man, do all he can,
Gotta make a livin'; he's a Louisiana man.
They call Mama Rita and my daddy Jack;
The little baby brother on the floor is Mack.
Bryn and Lynn are the family twins,
Big brother Ed's on the bayou fishin'.
On the river float Papa's great big boat;
That's how my papa goes into town
Takes ev'ry bit of the night and day
To even reach a place where the people stay.
(Chorus)
I can hardly wait 'til tomorrow comes 'round;
That's the day my Papa takes his furs to town.
Papa said, "Son, we got lines to run.
We come back again, 'cause there's work to be done."
(Chorus)
Oh, yeh! Cajun man, do all he can,
Gotta make a livin'; he's a Louisiana man.
Gotta make a livin'; he's a Louisiana man.

Running on Empty

2005-06-11T07:27:00.000-07:00

The Potato Eaters

NY Times columnist Paul Krugman writes that, while in the 50s, 60, and 70s, the lower and middle classes in this country were finding it possible to get by fairly nicely, that since the 1980s, and the onset of the Reagan administration, that trend has reversed itself and now both classes are beginning to suffer, quite noticeably actually when just the lower class is considered. Since the end of World War II it has always been the middle classes which have kept this Nation prosperous, and with their imminent demise it is difficult to predict what is going to happen next – only that it won’t be fun for anyone on the lower end of the scale. No surprise to you I bet, and no surprise to me either. I’ve lived on minimum or near minimum wage for much of my life, and while never necessarily an easy thing to do, it has recently gotten all that much tougher.

Krugman says that: The middle-class society I grew up in no longer exists…Working families have seen little if any progress over the past 30 years. Adjusted for inflation, the income of the median family doubled between 1947 and 1973. But it rose only 22 percent from 1973 to 2003, and much of that gain was the result of wives' entering the paid labor force or working longer hours, not rising wages…Meanwhile, economic security is a thing of the past: year-to-year fluctuations in the incomes of working families are far larger than they were a generation ago. All it takes is a bit of bad luck in employment or health to plunge a family that seems solidly middle-class into poverty…But the wealthy have done very well indeed. Since 1973 the average income of the top 1 percent of Americans has doubled, and the income of the top 0.1 percent has tripled.

For some reason, the myth of Horatio Alger among them (young, hard working poor guy makes good), people in this country become uncomfortable when you start talking about class, and class differences, particularly as it relates to incomes and relative worth. For a long time, everyone who was poor thought that someday they would get rich, and so they tended to identify with the rich folks rather than with the poor. If it ever was true that a poor guy had a good shot at getting rich (and it may have worked out that way for some small, although noticeable percentage of the population), it is no longer so, and if you are poor today your chances of ever getting stinking rich, or even improving your lot a little bit, seem to have disappeared with those politicians who felt they should legislate in behalf of all the people, and not just those at the top. Since Reagan, and for the last 5 years in particular, every piece of legislation offered and signed into law has benefited the rich out of all proportion to how it has benefited the poor, irrespective of what George Dubya may be telling you. The simple fact of the matter is, he is lying to you, and to everyone not in the top .01% of the population. Those guys have had Christmas every day for the last 5 years.

What Americans, and particular poor Americans, need to wake up to is that without strong labor unions and lobbyists working in the poor guys behalf, working class Americans are going to continue to get screwed. If that sounds like class warfare to you, then so be it, because maybe that’s what it is going to take to get the situation turned back around again, if ever. As po’foke we need to stop smiling at all those making obscene salaries and perks, and start screaming for our fair share – because we sure as hell haven’t been getting it.

While they don’t bat an eye about spending upwards now of $200 billion in Iraq - fighting an unnecessary and immoral war for the benefit of big oil and those such as Halliburton and the rest of Dick Cheney’s, and George Dubya’s, richest friends – they are busily cutting those programs the poor rely upon for basic social services and health. And there ain’t no poor man gonna benefit one iota from that stupid war; about the only thing the poor man has to do with it, is to go over and fight and get killed, or maybe have a limb or two blown off. You won’t find the rich man’s kids fighting over there, no matter how hard you look.

What they done in America is to have replaced a progressive tax system with one that is now in many instances a regressive tax structure, and while offering all sorts of corporate welfare for the super-rich, have eliminated or curtailed many of those systems of general welfare that so often helped to see families through. That some reform was necessary in welfare, there can be little doubt (the old system had some rather bizarre rewards built into it, by mistake), but to attempt to fix those problems by simply eliminating the system altogether was a cruel and unusual thing to do.

We need to replace this current bunch of rich loving legislators with those who care about all classes, and wish to see social justice implemented once again. So remember that, register to vote and then do so, and tell your friends to do so also. Don’t let them hassle you out of registering either, it’s all part of their plan to crap all over the little guy. Do whatever it is you have to do to vote, and then let’s dump the bastards!

Fish Emergency

2005-06-10T14:18:00.000-07:00

Having a slight problem with some Koi. Back tomorrow, hopefully.

Homeless in Rhode Island

2005-06-09T04:56:00.000-07:00

Harrington Hall in Cranston was originally an
emergency 'overflow' shelter open only during
bad weather, but demand now may keep it
going year round. On cold nights, as many as
175 men have eaten, showered, and slept here.

From the Christian Science Monitor
photos and text by John Nordell | Staff photographer

One state's homeless crisis, in plain view

PROVIDENCE, R.I. – Shelters are full. Overflow facilities are at capacity. Churches open their doors and floors to the homeless. It's not an unusual scenario, perhaps, during the howling nights of dark winter, but in mid-spring?

Such has been the case, though, this season in Rhode Island, a tiny state with a burgeoning homeless population. Indeed, the state capital, Providence, registered the sharpest increase among US cities in requests for emergency shelter in 2004, a US Conference of Mayors survey shows.

Driving the rise in homelessness is a confluence of trends: People fleeing outrageous housing costs in Massachusetts can live here and commute to Boston by train - but are pushing up local prices. Then, too, enrollment at universities is growing - and students compete with working residents for apartments. Finally, the state is simply small, with less acreage to build on.

Officials are grappling with what to do, and the state has set up an office to devise a homeless/ affordable housing strategy. "What's really alarming ... is that it is no longer just the chronically homeless, but families, mothers with children," says Providence Mayor David Cicilline.

Honoring Vietnam Veterans

2005-06-08T05:25:00.000-07:00

Purple Heart

Whatdaya know? After 30 plus years the country still wants to honor Vietnam vets. If you were wounded over there, and still have your paperwork somewhere, or know how to get it, this might be something you'd want to check into. For more information in general about Vietnam veterans, and to see about what the VFW is up to, go here

Are you a Vietnam veteran who received a Purple Heart for combat injuries?

If so, you could be one of 12 veterans chosen for a VFW-sponsored trip to Las Vegas for "Operation Welcome Home," a 4-day celebration honoring Vietnam veterans.

The VFW-sponsored trip, which will be Nov. 10-14, 2005, includes airfare, four nights hotel accommodation and $250 for expenses. Winners also will be able to participate in the Veterans' Day Parade and air show at Nellis Air Force Base.

Entries must be received before September 5. Winners will be notified by mail or e-mail in September. If selected, the winner must send a copy of the Purple Heart documentation by October 5 to VFW National Headquarters.

Previous VFW-sponsored trip-winners to the Army-Navy Game, the 20th anniversary of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial and the Return to Vietnam Trip funded through the Kahle Fund are not eligible.

Click on entry form at right and follow instructions. For more information, click here.

whatever said...

2005-06-07T04:46:00.000-07:00

The Down to Earthers

There is a very nice woman who frequently contributes comments to my blogs, and because she expresses perhaps not only the feelings of numerous of us, but also the perspective of a female, I thought I'd post her remarks here for all to read - Ed.

And make sure to hang out in places with other fun people! Frankly, those fortunate ones, with money and without mental/emotinal/physical issues, I can't help but think sometimes... they're okay because they don't get it. They're simply too shallow to be hurt, or too feel for others. People that have never encounted serious issues sometimes strike me as not having grown up; boring, selfcentered and unaware of the world around them, the pain and problems of so many others. It ought to mean something, even if you don't try to help others, they can at least recognize and try to understand.

In the end, they don't get me, and I don't get them. One major difference is, I accept them, whereas their "life is perfect and must be" attitude does not accept me. And in that, I have to feel superior. I am the better person, even if I do have an eye twitch and fears of open spaces and all other manner of "issues". I'm still the better person. I wouldn't let someone lie on the ground bleeding. Many of them would, those totally okay types. They just haven't grown up, and lack empathy.

Too many people want perfect, and they forget that we ALL have problems. Some you can see, some you can't, but we ALL have problems, and it's useless to pretend otherwise, to act as if the homeless or the drug addicted or the sick or the obese are the one's with the big "problems". No. They are the ones with problems you can SEE, and that is ALL.

So many will end up having misfortune, losing the money, or the good health, or their healthy mental outlook. They fail to realize just how easily they too can wind up being one of the homeless, unemployed that no one cares about. They don't realzie that, chances are, they too will run into major issues one day. Chances are better than not. Until then, they'd rather not think about it. And that's the whole problem; they'd rather not think about it.

- by whatever

po’fokes’ mentalities

2005-06-06T05:54:00.000-07:00

The Human Brain

One-quarter of all Americans met the criteria for having a mental illness within the past year, and fully a quarter of those had a "serious" disorder that significantly disrupted their ability to function day to day, according to the largest and most detailed survey of the nation's mental health, published yesterday... Although parallel studies in 27 other countries are not yet complete, the new numbers suggest that the United States is poised to rank No. 1 globally for mental illness, researchers said..."we're also [the world] leaders in this one particular domain that we'd rather not be," said Ronald Kessler, the Harvard professor of health care policy who led the effort, called the National Comorbidity Survey Replication...The exhaustive government-sponsored effort, based on in-depth interviews with more than 9,000 randomly selected Americans, finds that the prevalence of U.S. mental illness has remained roughly flat in the past decade - a possible glimmer of hope given that previous decades had suggested the rates were gradually rising...But the rest of the news from the survey - which did not include some of the most serious disorders, such as schizophrenia, for which patients are often institutionalized - is mostly discouraging...Less than half of those in need get treated. Those who seek treatment typically do so after a decade or more of delays, during which time they are likely to develop additional problems. And the treatment they receive is usually inadequate. - Rick Weiss, Washington Post

There is no big secret to the fact that many of us in the “lower income” brackets struggle along with this or that sort of neurosis, or whatever. Were we rich enough, we could simply pay some psychologist to treat us through counseling and other forms of therapy, but, seeing as how we ain’t that rich, we have to attempt to treat ourselves, which is sometimes worse than doing nothing. Many of the drug treatment programs and AA and so forth can at least outline a basic strategy of just taking it one day, or sometimes one minute (maybe even one second), at a time.

In my own situation, and in many of the situations concerning veterans, we may have un-diagnosed (or under diagnosed) PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder), which tends to stay with you for life, and what becomes necessary is that you recognize the anger and the goofiness as it begins welling up inside of you, and then getting out of there, or taking a few deep breaths and figuring out how best to avoid whatever it is you fear is going to happen. Mostly bad things happen when you get like that, and you sometimes feel this overwhelming (and it is overwhelming) need to do whatever it is that is going to torpedo you, and you know it, but still you go ahead and do it. At that moment, nothing else much seems to matter.

There are also a whole gamut of other mental problems that exist to plague and ruin our lives: bi-polar syndrome (which used to be manic-depression); schizophrenia; psychotic this or that; PTSD; neurosis; personality problems; severe clinical depression; ADD; being an adult child of an alcoholic; etc, and the list goes on. Chances are, without money to purchase first rate psychotherapy (and that stuff’s expensive), these problems are going to hang around for a while, and continue to plague our existences. It is also sometimes very difficult to take whatever therapy you do manage to find seriously. You always feel as if you’re one step ahead of whatever the idiot you are telling all this stuff to is going to say (or do or recommend) next. For the most part, they (counselors) seem so removed from any emotional attachment to you, that you cannot trust them, or don’t want to anyway. It is just extremely difficult.

In the long run, it is probably best to take seriously, anything anyone with an appropriate credential might say to you, and work on your problems for your own sake, and not for their sake. You’re right in believing they don’t care; how could they? They have umpteen people to deal with everyday, and they’d be one huge freaking mess if they became emotionally involved with everyone of their clients. They simply can’t afford to get close to people outside of their own circle of family, friends, co-workers, acquaintances, and so forth.

The best many of us can manage is to seek to recognize our own most debilitating problems, and through sheer force of will try to overcome the behaviors, if not the impulses, to act out whatever crap we have this overwhelming need to act out. Do it for yourself, because they are certainly problems, many of which are simply not going to go away (I’m sixty and still feel these needs), and they will continue to mess with your life every bit as much as some asshole you meet on the street, or who is handling your forms at whatever agency. Just shine the jerks on, and go about your business trying as well as you might to cope with whatever you are presented with.

Homeless Vets

2005-06-05T05:21:00.000-07:00

Nat'l Coalition for Homeless Vets

I’m a Vet, and although I never even came close to doing anything heroic, I do have beaucoup friends and acquaintances who did. All of the guys I know from my street experiences were screwed up – or at least their problems, which many of them had anyway, were exacerbated – by that damned conflict in Vietnam. I also know that many guys came home from that war and nevertheless managed to live what you might say are normal lives. But those who did and do live normally, don’t erase those who didn’t, nor make it any easier on those who were screwed up by that service. One man I know of, who is the most heavily decorated Vietnam era soldier in the state of Nevada (2 silver and 3 bronze stars, I think), for instance, and who lived a normal, productive life afterwards, will tell you how he was spit on upon returning to the United States.

It hasn’t set in yet, but it will. The military is now going to start accepting volunteers who’ve had drug problems, for instance, and because they publicize that, and because the general population is generally ignorant, and happy in their ignorance, the fact that ex-druggies (as they’ll be thought of) are in the military, along with all the torturers and prisoner abusers resulting from this current war, will all get lumped together and the reputation of vets will go straight down hill. They need the military now, and most in society will at least be polite about it, but as soon as the need is over, so will be the respect, and those who’ve fought in this current war will be roaming the streets of America, despised by their countrymen, looked down upon, and shuffled right out of people’s consciousness. Employers will once again want nothing to do with vets because they will know that percentage wise, these guys have more problems than do non-vets, and that’s the way America and capitalism works (it’s straight bottom-line thinking).

In fact, the real human costs from this war have already begun to be felt. In a June 5th article in the Stars and Stripes, not exactly a left-wing blog, they have raised the specter of another generation of veterans wandering the streets, bumping off of walls, and trying to get their act together enough to live some sort of decent existence.

WASHINGTON — Advocates for the homeless already are seeing veterans from the war on terror living on the street, and say the government must do more to ease their transition from military to civilian life.

“Linda Boone, executive director of the National Coalition for Homeless Veterans, said about 70 homeless veterans who fought in Iraq and Afghanistan contacted her group’s facilities in 2004, and another 125 homeless veterans from those conflicts last year petitioned the Department of Veterans Affairs for assistance.

Like those returning from Vietnam, many of these vets are in already in trouble, emotionally, psychologically, and although while the adrenaline was pumping they somehow managed to survive in Iraq and Afghanistan, later on, once the hype is gone, these lives too will be wasted.

Boone said the reasons behind the veterans’ housing problems are varied: Some have emotional and mental issues from their combat experience, some have trouble finding work after leaving the military, some have health care bills which result in financial distress…Boone added that most veterans don’t seek help for mental and emotional problems for years after their return from combat, meaning the problem of homelessness among war on terror veterans will likely grow.

About all I’ve got to say about that is, welcome home to the returning vets, and damn the bastards who’ve made it possible for you to fight in yet another unnecessary, dirty, and in all ways despicable war for the sake of profits for the few.

Homeless in America

2005-06-04T06:59:00.000-07:00

Below you can find but a small portion of the December 2004 Conference of Mayor’s Report (representing 1139 cities in America with populations greater than 30,000), taken by surveys in 27 large cities. Go here to get the full report.

Many, if not most, families in America are but one paycheck, or perhaps 2 or 3, away from becoming homeless or destitute. The problems of hunger and homelessness have done nothing but increase over the past 5 years, and many cities, and shelter programs, are finding it more and more difficult to cope with the increased demand.

In America we seem to have an economic system that, while providing outrageous benefits to some, also requires that many others struggle along as second class, and second rate citizens, trying to raise families, or take care of themselves, on wages not sufficient to support the domestic dignity one might feel that being fully employed, for instance, might allow. Thus has it ever been, and thus will it always be unless and until those on the bottom start making enough noise to be heard. Which is damn tough to do when you are simply worn out and exhausted by trying to cope. You might even wonder if that were not part of the plan.

Anyway, for it’s worth, please find a few excerpts from the report below.

Summary
To assess the status of hunger and homelessness in America’s cities during 2004, The
U.S. Conference of Mayors surveyed 27 major cities whose mayors were members of its Task Force on Hunger and Homelessness. The survey sought information and estimates from each city on 1) the demand for emergency food assistance and emergency shelter and the capacity of local agencies to meet that demand; 2) the causes of hunger and homelessness and the demographics of the populations experiencing these problems; 3) exemplary programs or efforts in the cities to respond to hunger and homelessness; 4) the availability of affordable housing for low income people; and 5) the outlook for the future and the impact of the economy on hunger and homelessness. Among the findings of the 27-city survey:

Hunger
Officials in the survey cities estimate that during the past year requests for emergency
food assistance increased by an average of 14 percent, with 96 percent of the cities
registering an increase. Requests for food assistance by families with children increased
by an average of 13 percent. Requests for emergency food assistance by elderly persons
increased by an average of 12 percent during the last year, with 72 percent of the cities
reporting an increase.

On average, 20 percent of the requests for emergency food assistance are estimated to
have gone unmet during the last year. For families alone, 17 percent of the requests for
assistance are estimated to have gone unmet. In 48 percent of the cities, emergency food
assistance facilities may have to turn away people in need due to lack of resources.

Fifty-six percent of the people requesting emergency food assistance were members of
families – children and their parents. Thirty-four percent of the adults requesting food
assistance were employed.

The overall level of resources available to emergency food assistance facilities increased
by 18 percent during the last year in the cities registering an increase. Forty-four percent
of the survey cities reported that emergency food assistance facilities are able to provide
an adequate quantity of food. Sixty-seven percent of the cities’ emergency food
assistance facilities have had to decrease the number of bags of food provided and/or the
number of times people can receive food. Of these cities, 63 percent have had to increase
the limit of food provided. Eighty-one percent of the survey cities reported that the food
provided is nutritionally balanced.

In 100 percent of the cities, families and individuals relied on emergency food assistance
facilities both in emergencies and as a steady source of food over long periods of time.

Unemployment and other employment-related problems lead the list of causes of hunger
identified by the city officials. Other causes cited, in order of frequency, include low-
paying jobs, high housing costs, poverty or lack of income, medical or health costs,
substance abuse, high utility costs, mental health problems, homelessness, reduced public
benefits and high childcare costs.

Homelessness
During the past year, requests for emergency shelter increased in the survey cities by an
average of 6 percent, with 70 percent of the cities registering an increase. Requests for
shelter by homeless families alone increased by 7 percent, with 78 percent of the cities
reporting an increase.

An average of 23 percent of the requests for emergency shelter by homeless people
overall and 32 percent of the requests by homeless families alone are estimated to have
gone unmet during the last year. In 81 percent of the cities, emergency shelters may have
to turn away homeless families due to lack of resources; in 81 percent they may also have
to turn away other homeless people.

People remain homeless an average of eight months in the survey cities. Forty-six
percent of the cities said that the length of time people were homeless increased during
the last year.

Lack of affordable housing leads the list of causes of homelessness identified by the city
officials. Other causes cited, in order of frequency, include mental illness and the lack of
needed services, substance abuse and the lack of needed services, low-paying jobs,
unemployment, domestic violence, poverty, and prisoner re-entry.

Officials estimate that, on average, single men comprise of 41 percent of the homeless
population, families with children-40 percent, single women-14 percent and
unaccompanied youth- five percent. The homeless population is estimated to be 49
percent African-American, 35 percent white, 13 percent Hispanic, two percent Native
American and one percent Asian. An average of 23 percent of homeless people in the
cities are considered mentally ill; 30 percent are substance abusers; 17 percent are
employed; and 10 percent are veterans.

In 56 percent of the cities, families may have to break up in order to be sheltered. In 52
percent of the cities families may have to spend their daytime hours outside of the shelter
they use at night.

Housing
Requests for assisted housing by low- income families and individuals increased in 68
percent of the cities during the last year. Thirty-two percent of eligible low-income
households are currently served by assisted housing programs. City officials estimate
that low- income households spend an average of 45 percent of their income on housing.

Applicants must wait an average of 20 months for public housing in the survey cities.
The wait for Section 8 certificates is 30 months, and for Section 8 Vouchers it’s 35
months. Fifty- nine percent of the cities have stopped accepting applications for at least
one assisted housing program due to the excessive length of the waiting list.

The Outlook
Officials in 88 percent of the responding cities expect requests for emergency food
assistance to increase during 2005. Eighty- four percent expect that requests for
emergency food assistance by families with children will increase during 2005. Officials
in 88 percent of the cities expect that requests for emergency shelter will increase next
year. Seventy-eight percent expect that requests by homeless families will increase.

Even with an improving economy, city officials believe that economic conditions will
continue to have a negative impact on the problem of hunger and homelessness.

Hey, Anybody got any Rolling Papers?

2005-06-03T19:21:00.000-07:00

Time for a Rollie

Welcome to po’fokes, of which I am one. Also a Vietnam Vet, so that about says it all, huh? Just thought I’d take this opportunity to welcome you to this blogspot, such as it is, and to let you know that while I’ve always pretty much been poor, I haven’t always been homeless, although I’ve had a few good stints at it. About once every ten years or so I seem to blow my life up, and then end up running away from home, whatever or wherever that is at the moment, and find myself on the street again, scarred silly I’m gonna have to freeze this time. I have learned that you probably aren’t going to starve, although you will loose weight, unless you’re injured, or just plain stubborn, enough that you can’t make it to some place where they offer free-food. It ain’t always the greatest, but it’s better than nothing. Also, donuts and free coffee are pretty much de rigueur when you’re on the lam.

Twice I’ve found myself working in homeless shelters, in Sacramento and in Santa Cruz, and once the family went to live on the Yuba River, down by the Bridgeport Bridge outside of Grass Valley and Nevada City, if you know where they are. We built this little twelve foot square cabin out of mill ends, and the “ex” fixed it up inside quite nicely so that it sort of looked like a motor home, with all kinds of little built in nooks and crannies and double-duty tables and such. We stayed there for six months. The other two times (homeless, officially) I was on my own, and although I’ve spent a few nights out in some field, and just wandering around trying to keep warm (I hate being cold), and lived in the back seat of my 88 Ford Festiva for more than a month, when some idiot burned the house we were all flopping in down, I’ve been fairly lucky in managing to find some sort of work for minimal pay, and have managed at least to rent a room somewhere, and for the most part stayed warm. Why in the world anyone who is homeless and on the street or in a tent wants to live up North I have no freaking idea. Although I’ve known a lot of guys (in particular) who don’t seem to be much bothered by it all. Wish I could say that.

I’m also sixty years old now, and homelessness just doesn’t get any easier with age. Particularly, if, like me, you haven’t always taken that good care of yourself. I smoke, and don’t particularly watch my diet, although high-cholesterol has never been a problem of mine. I do have what is known as atrial fibrillation which means the top half of my heart doesn’t beat in sinc with the bottom half, and, particularly when I’m stressed, it makes you short of breath, and feeling not at all healthy. I’ve also got a prostate about the size of a basketball, so that doesn’t help much either. Never can sleep for more than about 3 hours at most without having to get up. Okay, well this I promise you will be the last time I talk about my medical maladies, and so from here on out it’s all about other stuff.

You, however, are certainly welcome to share whatever maladies are getting you down, or complicating your life somehow. I don’t mind talking about other people’s problems. Also if you’d just like to have at it and get stuff off your chest go for it. Just don’t be obnoxious – that always pisses me off and I’ll have to delete your comments. Otherwise, let’er rip. Say whatever’s on your mind – that’s what this blog is for.

Breakfast of Champions

2005-06-03T08:07:00.000-07:00

Yum-yum!

Sopping Biscuits & Gravy

Could I interest anyone in a few sopping bisuits and gravy? How's about a little chicken fried steak, and eggs? Damn, I'm making myself hungry. At least I ain't starving. Lots of folks are, you know?

Here we go, a modern Hobo's breakfast!