It is easy to get a thousand prescriptions but hard to get one single remedy. ~Chinese Proverb
I do not partake in this particular lifestyle by the way, so this is written strictly from an intellectual honesty academic exercise view point.
I noticed something today…well, not noticed per se, but I connected some dots that have been there in the blatantly obvious positions for years I’m certain, I just never noticed it till today. It dawned on me while having a conversation with someone that all of the illicit, illegal, and warred upon drugs all share one thing in common.
With the exception of methamphetamine they all occur in nature. Opium (heroin), cocaine/crack (the latter being a derivative of the former), peyote, magic mushrooms, and marijuana all grow naturally in our environment, and with the exception of the first one don’t cause houses with little children to blow up. What’s worse is anyone wanting the first on the list drug just needs to doctor shop their high fructose laden child around for a bunch of Ritalin prescriptions; it’s the same damn substance. So for the sake of argument we’ll concentrate on the latter, all natural products.
Now this makes no sense to me in an intellectual capacity. I cannot legally partake in the bounty of nature, but let me go to 5 different doctors for an oxycodone prescription and I could probably get it. Just ask Rush.
Could this just be a case of “follow the money” since there is no money in growing products such as these (they are more intensive to grow than corn in a single row mono agriculture that we are so flipping fond of in the U.S.) and if they were legalized I suppose the CIA, NSA and any number of alphabet soup agencies would pretty much be out of a job, after all how sexy is it to chase some doctor shopper in Florida when you can get the guy with the Uzi.
We actually have no idea what the potential medicinal qualities of any of these plants are since our wonderful we know what’s best for you government won’t allow the research to take place, could it be that our Native American (both north and south variety) knew something we didn’t? After all they managed to survive, some in pretty harsh conditions, for centuries prior to Leif Ericson landing on our shores and trading pelts with them with this stuff literally growing wild around them.
Allopathic medicine it seems has made us a bunch of junkies, I personally wont drink the tap water just due to the fact there’s no telling what the hell is in there as far as pharmaceuticals go. I take my vitamins that the body cannot make on its own or does not store in quantity, C and D (I don’t spend enough time out of doors), the rest I get from what used to be a pretty good diet, I’ve slipped recently however (I know shame on me) due to other obligations. And yes I filter my filtered water, and then distill it.
It seems to me if we wanted, truly wanted to solve the drug problem, we would legalize something nature provides, and make the crap being shoved down our throats by the likes of Pfizer on the illegal list.
02 December 2010
29 November 2010
Too bad its not sustainable...
"Simplicity is the last thing a person considers as he is madly searching for the secret to life" ~Marlena De Blasi
I’m a simple guy, I don’t ask for much, expect much less and very rarely end up disappointed. It’s not that I live a life of Riley, nor do I live like Ebenezer Scrooge, my existence is comfortable enough.
I spent the recent American holiday with family, many of whom are very comfortable in life, some of whom had no food to speak of in their houses. It is this latter group that I wish to discuss. I’ll leave it at the fact that they are relatives of the spouse of one of my relatives and leave it at that, lest they learn to read and come after me for liable.
This particular family lives off of the work you and I do every day, that’s right they subsist solely on TANF (welfare for those of us old enough to remember the stigma that went with that), food stamps, and a monthly check they receive for their two children, both of whom suffer from genetic defects directly related to their fathers drug use. They also cannot stay in any one place more than a couple of months it seems, for failure to pay their rent generally, nor can they seem to keep the utilities on for the same reason.
After the grand holiday feast the conversation turned to “black Friday” and the deals that could be had on plastic pumpkins in the local china marts. This particular person of whom we are speaking was going on and on about the fact that they were going to go get a 37 inch flat panel 1080p LCD television for the living room because by god they needed it.
Did I mention that they had no food in the house, and no “money” to go buy more because the couple hundred bucks he had in his pocket was earmarked for the T.V.? Yes you read that right; the money he had could not be used to purchase food because it was for the T.V. He then proceeded to beg borrow and plead the remainder of the money necessary (another two hundred) off of family members who could ill afford to loan it to him (those on that side of the family who could have paid it out of their lunch money were ill inclined to do so).
No wonder I feel that we are all about to circle the drain as a society. It never dawned on him that the brand spanking new shiny idiot box (and in fair disclosure I own two, paid over a grand a piece for them, but then again I paid cash, my own cash and only purchased them when I had the cash to spend, my children never have nor will they ever want for food to eat or warm blankets on the beds) would not continue to function after he failed to pay the power bill this month because he owes everyone in the family money (which they will probably never see again) and his rent is due, and after a short discussion about how much money was coming in versus what was being spent he could not see that his sustainability for the month of December was about, zero.
What about food I inquired, “well you see we get food stamps on the first”, ok, it’s the freaking 25th of November, far as I can tell you have 6 days or so before the first of December and you have nothing, I guess I know where all the leftovers went to, at least the kids will have something to eat, until today or so, and well going hungry for a day or so is good for the soul, or so thinks this individual. Never mind the fact he’ll probably spend thirty percent of the money he gets at the local bar before the money ever sees the inside of his house, or with the local herb dealer if you catch my drift.
I personally have nothing against either, if you have the money to burn either place more power to you. But for the love of Pete make sure its money you can burn, not money you should be spending on food for your children, and I can hear it now, who made me arbiter of how they spend their money, no one. I just felt the need to put it out there, I’m sure I’m not the only one who has had this experience that just makes you shake your head.
I’m a simple guy, I don’t ask for much, expect much less and very rarely end up disappointed. It’s not that I live a life of Riley, nor do I live like Ebenezer Scrooge, my existence is comfortable enough.
I spent the recent American holiday with family, many of whom are very comfortable in life, some of whom had no food to speak of in their houses. It is this latter group that I wish to discuss. I’ll leave it at the fact that they are relatives of the spouse of one of my relatives and leave it at that, lest they learn to read and come after me for liable.
This particular family lives off of the work you and I do every day, that’s right they subsist solely on TANF (welfare for those of us old enough to remember the stigma that went with that), food stamps, and a monthly check they receive for their two children, both of whom suffer from genetic defects directly related to their fathers drug use. They also cannot stay in any one place more than a couple of months it seems, for failure to pay their rent generally, nor can they seem to keep the utilities on for the same reason.
After the grand holiday feast the conversation turned to “black Friday” and the deals that could be had on plastic pumpkins in the local china marts. This particular person of whom we are speaking was going on and on about the fact that they were going to go get a 37 inch flat panel 1080p LCD television for the living room because by god they needed it.
Did I mention that they had no food in the house, and no “money” to go buy more because the couple hundred bucks he had in his pocket was earmarked for the T.V.? Yes you read that right; the money he had could not be used to purchase food because it was for the T.V. He then proceeded to beg borrow and plead the remainder of the money necessary (another two hundred) off of family members who could ill afford to loan it to him (those on that side of the family who could have paid it out of their lunch money were ill inclined to do so).
No wonder I feel that we are all about to circle the drain as a society. It never dawned on him that the brand spanking new shiny idiot box (and in fair disclosure I own two, paid over a grand a piece for them, but then again I paid cash, my own cash and only purchased them when I had the cash to spend, my children never have nor will they ever want for food to eat or warm blankets on the beds) would not continue to function after he failed to pay the power bill this month because he owes everyone in the family money (which they will probably never see again) and his rent is due, and after a short discussion about how much money was coming in versus what was being spent he could not see that his sustainability for the month of December was about, zero.
What about food I inquired, “well you see we get food stamps on the first”, ok, it’s the freaking 25th of November, far as I can tell you have 6 days or so before the first of December and you have nothing, I guess I know where all the leftovers went to, at least the kids will have something to eat, until today or so, and well going hungry for a day or so is good for the soul, or so thinks this individual. Never mind the fact he’ll probably spend thirty percent of the money he gets at the local bar before the money ever sees the inside of his house, or with the local herb dealer if you catch my drift.
I personally have nothing against either, if you have the money to burn either place more power to you. But for the love of Pete make sure its money you can burn, not money you should be spending on food for your children, and I can hear it now, who made me arbiter of how they spend their money, no one. I just felt the need to put it out there, I’m sure I’m not the only one who has had this experience that just makes you shake your head.
15 November 2010
Death Comes For Us All
People do not die for us immediately, but remain bathed in a sort of aura of life which bears no relation to true immortality but through which they continue to occupy our thoughts in the same way as when they were alive. It is as though they were traveling abroad. ~Marcel Proust
I have been studying the 5 stages of grief, now there are some adherents to grief theory that state there are 7 possibly more, but I have yet to run across less. As a child I recall reading the book “on death and dying”, pretty macabre stuff for an eight year old I’ll admit, but mom was a nurse, and she had purchased the book while in pursuit of her master’s degree as one of the required reading materials, of course me being me I read everything, including that.
For better or worse, it let me in on something all must deal with at some point, whether for themselves or someone they knew and loved. The ideation that perhaps the non denominational church I was required to attend as a kid was all wet. Now I’m not going to go on yet another rant regarding the church and its faults and foibles, I’ve done enough of that below, however the book and the examination of church and its doctrines led me to the belief that God (whoever that truly is) does indeed recycle.
So if death is the event horizon of the physicality that is the human experience, does the quantum entanglement of two souls, much like the quantum entanglement of two particles, continue even if one of the subjects in question crosses the event horizon? I would have to believe they do, once entangled they remain entangled forever, after all if Einstein were right, there is no time, there is no space. All points in space-time exist alongside every other point in space-time at once. What we humans call time is simply an excuse for one to be late to work on a day to day basis.
Yes, the 1800’s exist right next to the 2010’s which exist right next to every other moment in time, all played out at once over and over and over, if something causes the timeline of events to go another direction, a new thread is created with that new event, thus every event that possibly could have happened has happened, and will continue to happen and spawn new threads.
This leads me back to our physicality, our existence here where we are reading this, has already occurred. We simply have not caught up to it in our current configuration; however our souls are entangled with the event just like two particles that were in close proximity to one another are forever entangled. Since matter can never be created nor can it be destroyed, only transformed, even the transformed matter maintains its entanglement with the thing it was entangled with.
I personally believe this explains the paranormal phenomena of ghosts, now poltergeists and evil spirits do exist, and sometimes find it in their interest to bother us poor sods here on planet terra, but I think most ghosts and haunting are due to a quantum entanglement with something physical here on earth that for whatever reason the ghost or spirit being has had a difficult time parting with. Perhaps however this is their reincarnation, or they are waiting for their next incarnation.
I have studied bushido, and after having talked with many wise men, medicine men, and the occasional kick from the universe itself am not afraid of death, I don’t necessarily want to experience it right now, but accept that it comes for all of us, it’s the one thing every single one of us shares in common, regardless of our status or stature in life. In 130 years every single person alive right now, including those who are incarnate but not yet born will be gone. Sobering fact that, so it’s best to deal with our own mortality while we are alive and able to. Cause one day we aren’t going to be.
I have been studying the 5 stages of grief, now there are some adherents to grief theory that state there are 7 possibly more, but I have yet to run across less. As a child I recall reading the book “on death and dying”, pretty macabre stuff for an eight year old I’ll admit, but mom was a nurse, and she had purchased the book while in pursuit of her master’s degree as one of the required reading materials, of course me being me I read everything, including that.
For better or worse, it let me in on something all must deal with at some point, whether for themselves or someone they knew and loved. The ideation that perhaps the non denominational church I was required to attend as a kid was all wet. Now I’m not going to go on yet another rant regarding the church and its faults and foibles, I’ve done enough of that below, however the book and the examination of church and its doctrines led me to the belief that God (whoever that truly is) does indeed recycle.
So if death is the event horizon of the physicality that is the human experience, does the quantum entanglement of two souls, much like the quantum entanglement of two particles, continue even if one of the subjects in question crosses the event horizon? I would have to believe they do, once entangled they remain entangled forever, after all if Einstein were right, there is no time, there is no space. All points in space-time exist alongside every other point in space-time at once. What we humans call time is simply an excuse for one to be late to work on a day to day basis.
Yes, the 1800’s exist right next to the 2010’s which exist right next to every other moment in time, all played out at once over and over and over, if something causes the timeline of events to go another direction, a new thread is created with that new event, thus every event that possibly could have happened has happened, and will continue to happen and spawn new threads.
This leads me back to our physicality, our existence here where we are reading this, has already occurred. We simply have not caught up to it in our current configuration; however our souls are entangled with the event just like two particles that were in close proximity to one another are forever entangled. Since matter can never be created nor can it be destroyed, only transformed, even the transformed matter maintains its entanglement with the thing it was entangled with.
I personally believe this explains the paranormal phenomena of ghosts, now poltergeists and evil spirits do exist, and sometimes find it in their interest to bother us poor sods here on planet terra, but I think most ghosts and haunting are due to a quantum entanglement with something physical here on earth that for whatever reason the ghost or spirit being has had a difficult time parting with. Perhaps however this is their reincarnation, or they are waiting for their next incarnation.
I have studied bushido, and after having talked with many wise men, medicine men, and the occasional kick from the universe itself am not afraid of death, I don’t necessarily want to experience it right now, but accept that it comes for all of us, it’s the one thing every single one of us shares in common, regardless of our status or stature in life. In 130 years every single person alive right now, including those who are incarnate but not yet born will be gone. Sobering fact that, so it’s best to deal with our own mortality while we are alive and able to. Cause one day we aren’t going to be.
05 October 2010
Ponderings
It is better to know some of the questions than all of the answers. ~James Thurber
This is me waxing philosophical with no destination in mind. I’m going to let my mind and fingers wander (yes I know, they are too young to be out alone at night, sheesh even the jokes are old around here).
I have spent the last few weeks pondering many things, life, the universe, our reason for existence, so yesterday, I decided to go find some good quotes to put in a text file, hoping it would give me the inspiration to write, normally I write about things that are deathly important at the time I write them, matters of grave concern and potential grievous bodily harm that may (or may not) befall some poor sod whose has but by happenstance found himself (or herself) in a quandary, predicament, or otherwise sullied state of affairs.
Normally that person is me, more often than not, every great once in a while it’s someone I happen to know, albeit not very well mostly, and sometimes its someone close to me who comes and seeks my counsel (although I am remiss to figure out why, but I do assure you it is on my list).
One of the things that have kept my poor sorely overtaxed grey matter busy is the concept that everything is a business model. This is a postulate of a gentleman by the name of George Ure, who runs the urban survival site http://www. Urbansurvival.com/week.htm (you can copy and paste if the whole parsing of links doesn’t work.) and while I may not always agree with George regarding some of his flights of fancy his postulate of EBM is one I can find no fault with, which is in and of itself strange, because I’m usually the guy that finds the logical fault in damn near everything that is not a law of nature (sorry, I’m not sure we can enforce those laws, and I’d really hate to be a judge on that case).
As much as I hate to admit it, George is right, everything IS a business model, we all trade something of value for something of equivalent value, whether it’s time for money, free range eggs for beef or wheat, computer skills for sex, well maybe not that, but you get the picture, people tried to argue the point of marriage, relations, etc. to which George responded with tacit pointed arguments, that if taken to their intellectual conclusion, made sense. Not all transactions are of money, could be time for time, I help you with the fence, you help me with the porch repair that sort of thing.
I’ve also pondered being poor, now I’m not rich by any stretch, in fact I’m probably just above poverty in many cities across the country, and I have discovered that it’s going to be much easier to enter into the coming singularity if your used to making do or doing without, or making it yourself. Those who have never had to pull up their own bootstraps aren’t going to fair too well in my estimation. It’s hard though to imagine myself without some of the material trappings that I have grown so used to over the years, like heat, light, electricity, cable, and trash pickup. However those things may return on the other side, what shape they will take is yet to be seen.
I have also pondered the upcoming singularity, which depending on which doomsday prophet you wish to listen to is anywhere from 15 minutes ago to 50 years in the future. I think we have the possibility of the singularity arriving sometime relatively soon, the American elections are coming up in a few weeks time, and there is a distinct possibility that roughly half the house and a third the senate will be replaced, by whom I have no clue, but replaced none the less. The American electorate is duly pissed off about the profligate spending our banal government has found itself enamored in. Whether this will make a difference has yet to be seen, but shortly thereafter I am relatively certain we will see something none of us expected, nor should we have accepted, after all a lame duck is the most dangerous kind, especially when they are of the political stripe.
Yes I have been pondering, the world, the big peace, and just how much peace is coming our way. I distinctly remember that silence is deafening, that you don’t realize how much noise is around you day to day until someone takes that noise away from your surroundings. On September 12 2001 it was deathly silent around campus where I was attending school for the umpteenth time in my life, although it was with no particular degree or whatever in mind, it was more a way to keep myself occupied during a extended stint on unemployment, and as long as I went I got my check, but could not help but notice the deafening silence that accompanied the lack of aircraft on that day, the day when the sun still came up, we still went to class, people still went to work, and 3000 of my fellow Americans were dead because some nut job used a 737 as a weapon.
We are all painfully aware of the damage done to Nagasaki and Hiroshima Japan by the measly little 13 kiloton bombs we dropped to end the war against us in the 40’s, given that we have weapons now that are measures of magnitude greater in their destructive power mutually assured destruction has kept that genie in the bottle. What most people don’t realize, and something I have always had in the back of my brain, is that a single warhead of the current configuration and size detonated just inside the edge of the atmosphere directly above the geographic center of the north American continent would cause a power outage that would pretty much last forever, it could and would drive us straight back to the 18th century, your wonderful iPhone would be nothing more than a 600 dollar plastic brick, your televisions, 1000 dollar plastic doorstops, and your refrigerator a really nice casket for a loved one given you were willing to dig a hole that size with a shovel and not try to rely on a backhoe. Credit card machines would not work, and your local grocer would accept only cash and then have to train all of the teenage checkout peeps how to use an abacus, or (gasp dare I say) do math. Just a pondering mind you, but what better way to get the government they want than to send one up and light it off after the elections.
I saw a tee shirt once that read something along the lines of, I’ll keep my food, my silver, my weapons, and you can keep your change. Too bad those at the top don’t know what those at the bottom have already realized to a great degree, we are going to get change, and it’s not the kind of change we want.
This is me waxing philosophical with no destination in mind. I’m going to let my mind and fingers wander (yes I know, they are too young to be out alone at night, sheesh even the jokes are old around here).
I have spent the last few weeks pondering many things, life, the universe, our reason for existence, so yesterday, I decided to go find some good quotes to put in a text file, hoping it would give me the inspiration to write, normally I write about things that are deathly important at the time I write them, matters of grave concern and potential grievous bodily harm that may (or may not) befall some poor sod whose has but by happenstance found himself (or herself) in a quandary, predicament, or otherwise sullied state of affairs.
Normally that person is me, more often than not, every great once in a while it’s someone I happen to know, albeit not very well mostly, and sometimes its someone close to me who comes and seeks my counsel (although I am remiss to figure out why, but I do assure you it is on my list).
One of the things that have kept my poor sorely overtaxed grey matter busy is the concept that everything is a business model. This is a postulate of a gentleman by the name of George Ure, who runs the urban survival site http://www. Urbansurvival.com/week.htm (you can copy and paste if the whole parsing of links doesn’t work.) and while I may not always agree with George regarding some of his flights of fancy his postulate of EBM is one I can find no fault with, which is in and of itself strange, because I’m usually the guy that finds the logical fault in damn near everything that is not a law of nature (sorry, I’m not sure we can enforce those laws, and I’d really hate to be a judge on that case).
As much as I hate to admit it, George is right, everything IS a business model, we all trade something of value for something of equivalent value, whether it’s time for money, free range eggs for beef or wheat, computer skills for sex, well maybe not that, but you get the picture, people tried to argue the point of marriage, relations, etc. to which George responded with tacit pointed arguments, that if taken to their intellectual conclusion, made sense. Not all transactions are of money, could be time for time, I help you with the fence, you help me with the porch repair that sort of thing.
I’ve also pondered being poor, now I’m not rich by any stretch, in fact I’m probably just above poverty in many cities across the country, and I have discovered that it’s going to be much easier to enter into the coming singularity if your used to making do or doing without, or making it yourself. Those who have never had to pull up their own bootstraps aren’t going to fair too well in my estimation. It’s hard though to imagine myself without some of the material trappings that I have grown so used to over the years, like heat, light, electricity, cable, and trash pickup. However those things may return on the other side, what shape they will take is yet to be seen.
I have also pondered the upcoming singularity, which depending on which doomsday prophet you wish to listen to is anywhere from 15 minutes ago to 50 years in the future. I think we have the possibility of the singularity arriving sometime relatively soon, the American elections are coming up in a few weeks time, and there is a distinct possibility that roughly half the house and a third the senate will be replaced, by whom I have no clue, but replaced none the less. The American electorate is duly pissed off about the profligate spending our banal government has found itself enamored in. Whether this will make a difference has yet to be seen, but shortly thereafter I am relatively certain we will see something none of us expected, nor should we have accepted, after all a lame duck is the most dangerous kind, especially when they are of the political stripe.
Yes I have been pondering, the world, the big peace, and just how much peace is coming our way. I distinctly remember that silence is deafening, that you don’t realize how much noise is around you day to day until someone takes that noise away from your surroundings. On September 12 2001 it was deathly silent around campus where I was attending school for the umpteenth time in my life, although it was with no particular degree or whatever in mind, it was more a way to keep myself occupied during a extended stint on unemployment, and as long as I went I got my check, but could not help but notice the deafening silence that accompanied the lack of aircraft on that day, the day when the sun still came up, we still went to class, people still went to work, and 3000 of my fellow Americans were dead because some nut job used a 737 as a weapon.
We are all painfully aware of the damage done to Nagasaki and Hiroshima Japan by the measly little 13 kiloton bombs we dropped to end the war against us in the 40’s, given that we have weapons now that are measures of magnitude greater in their destructive power mutually assured destruction has kept that genie in the bottle. What most people don’t realize, and something I have always had in the back of my brain, is that a single warhead of the current configuration and size detonated just inside the edge of the atmosphere directly above the geographic center of the north American continent would cause a power outage that would pretty much last forever, it could and would drive us straight back to the 18th century, your wonderful iPhone would be nothing more than a 600 dollar plastic brick, your televisions, 1000 dollar plastic doorstops, and your refrigerator a really nice casket for a loved one given you were willing to dig a hole that size with a shovel and not try to rely on a backhoe. Credit card machines would not work, and your local grocer would accept only cash and then have to train all of the teenage checkout peeps how to use an abacus, or (gasp dare I say) do math. Just a pondering mind you, but what better way to get the government they want than to send one up and light it off after the elections.
I saw a tee shirt once that read something along the lines of, I’ll keep my food, my silver, my weapons, and you can keep your change. Too bad those at the top don’t know what those at the bottom have already realized to a great degree, we are going to get change, and it’s not the kind of change we want.
26 September 2010
Livin on the edge
There's somethin' wrong with the world today; I don't know what it is; Something's wrong with our eyes
We're seeing things in a different way; And God knows it ain't His; It sure ain't no surprise
We're livin' on the edge ~Aerosmith “Living on the edge”
“Your preparing for something aren’t you?”
“Yes I am”
“What do you think it is?”
“Honestly, I don’t know”
That’s the gist of a conversation I had with a friend recently (well earlier this afternoon anyway) after I sent them an e-mail regarding the fact I was once again compulsively making a list of things I needed to get from the dollar store, the local hardware and that store everyone loves to hate, Wally world (you know the place where you USED to be able to get whatever you needed all in one trip?). Some of the items are mundane, I need more candles, and a few more lighters from the dollar store, and a couple of other items, from Wally world include propane for my candle stove downstairs, maybe some nice hurricane lamps from the candle section (I like them, they make for good usable decoration). From the local hardware store I need some three quarter tubing, some flat stock, a couple of new saw blades (mine are getting dull). Nothing big there; nothing out of the ordinary if you were to think about it.
However what is out of the ordinary is the urgency with which I felt I must make the list. Confessions are tough, especially when you don’t know how people will react to them; I’m a bit of an empath, I have friends that are freaky good at it to, but the one thing that ties us all together is we cannot see ourselves or our situations. I wish I could because then I could know and understand why I felt the sudden urgency to write all that stuff down on a piece of paper, and why I sat there for over an hour hyperventilating over the whole thing. I don’t hyperventilate; I’m the guy whose patience quotient puts JOB to shame. I don’t get excited over stuff, never have, I can dead pan a car wreck with no problem. I pride myself on being unflappable in most circumstance, yet today for some unknown reason, I just had to grab a pad of paper, my trusty pen, and start writing a list of odd things I need.
The seriously odd thing is they are all “holes” in my stuff, consumable items that I need to stock up on (foods covered as long as the ammo holds out, and even then it’s not a problem to obtain, there’s always the cross bow, those rounds are reusable), as well as enough fish hooks, bobbers, line etc. to keep Roland Martin busy for a few years. Plus I have non-GMO seeds available, and stored so veggies would take a season to get going, but could happen relatively quickly. It’s down to the holes now, and those are the holes I now know need filling.
But it still beggars the question, why now, why the sudden rush, what’s coming down the pike that I’m not aware off (at least not consciously) that makes me feel like I need this stuff right now? Is the world not going to be here on Monday? Dunno the answer to that one, is the dollar going to all the sudden become toilet paper? It might, but if it does I’ll be glad I don’t live in Canada where they have dollar coins and not bills LOL. (You know who you are).
I’ve known something was going down for a while now, and every time I think, this is it, I turn out to be wrong, and certainly above all else hope that I am wrong now, however I have also learned to listen to that voice in my head that tells me to do certain things (no not that voice, the other voice that’s actually reasonable)
We're seeing things in a different way; And God knows it ain't His; It sure ain't no surprise
We're livin' on the edge ~Aerosmith “Living on the edge”
“Your preparing for something aren’t you?”
“Yes I am”
“What do you think it is?”
“Honestly, I don’t know”
That’s the gist of a conversation I had with a friend recently (well earlier this afternoon anyway) after I sent them an e-mail regarding the fact I was once again compulsively making a list of things I needed to get from the dollar store, the local hardware and that store everyone loves to hate, Wally world (you know the place where you USED to be able to get whatever you needed all in one trip?). Some of the items are mundane, I need more candles, and a few more lighters from the dollar store, and a couple of other items, from Wally world include propane for my candle stove downstairs, maybe some nice hurricane lamps from the candle section (I like them, they make for good usable decoration). From the local hardware store I need some three quarter tubing, some flat stock, a couple of new saw blades (mine are getting dull). Nothing big there; nothing out of the ordinary if you were to think about it.
However what is out of the ordinary is the urgency with which I felt I must make the list. Confessions are tough, especially when you don’t know how people will react to them; I’m a bit of an empath, I have friends that are freaky good at it to, but the one thing that ties us all together is we cannot see ourselves or our situations. I wish I could because then I could know and understand why I felt the sudden urgency to write all that stuff down on a piece of paper, and why I sat there for over an hour hyperventilating over the whole thing. I don’t hyperventilate; I’m the guy whose patience quotient puts JOB to shame. I don’t get excited over stuff, never have, I can dead pan a car wreck with no problem. I pride myself on being unflappable in most circumstance, yet today for some unknown reason, I just had to grab a pad of paper, my trusty pen, and start writing a list of odd things I need.
The seriously odd thing is they are all “holes” in my stuff, consumable items that I need to stock up on (foods covered as long as the ammo holds out, and even then it’s not a problem to obtain, there’s always the cross bow, those rounds are reusable), as well as enough fish hooks, bobbers, line etc. to keep Roland Martin busy for a few years. Plus I have non-GMO seeds available, and stored so veggies would take a season to get going, but could happen relatively quickly. It’s down to the holes now, and those are the holes I now know need filling.
But it still beggars the question, why now, why the sudden rush, what’s coming down the pike that I’m not aware off (at least not consciously) that makes me feel like I need this stuff right now? Is the world not going to be here on Monday? Dunno the answer to that one, is the dollar going to all the sudden become toilet paper? It might, but if it does I’ll be glad I don’t live in Canada where they have dollar coins and not bills LOL. (You know who you are).
I’ve known something was going down for a while now, and every time I think, this is it, I turn out to be wrong, and certainly above all else hope that I am wrong now, however I have also learned to listen to that voice in my head that tells me to do certain things (no not that voice, the other voice that’s actually reasonable)
08 September 2010
EBT And The Downfall Of Man
Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime. ~Chinese Proverb
I like to eat, don’t get me wrong, but what really, really cheeses me off is that some people eat better than I do. Are these people better off than me? No, not by any stretch of one’s imagination. Have they done something righteous with their lives that allow them the luxury of buying the $20 roast and the $25 dollar bucket ‘o crab legs? Again, nope. What they have done however is suckle at the government teat.
Allow me to explain. This year my federal income tax return AGI will probably be in the 5 digit range (since the government don’t do the whole cents thing anyway) and will most likely start with an 8 or a 9, not sure just yet. I don’t live beyond my means either, I drive a 10 year old minivan that is in desperate need of a new engine, live in a house that was about 25% of what the bank said I could spend (PITI is $660 ish just to give you an idea). I have cable TV of course, the minimum you need to get high speed internet and my cell phone, I have the cheapest plan I could find that was unlimited text and talk since I have family across the country. Of course I pay for electric, sewer/water, trash service, and fuel and insurance for the van (again my insurance bill is like 20 bucks a month). I eat relatively cheap, mostly vegetarian with my meat supply coming at the business end of a box of 270 Winchester ammo I buy for $20 at the local Wally world, coupled with an eighteen dollar license from the state.
So why am I cheesed at those people, cause they not only get the food stamps (of which there are now something like 43 million people using them) which roughly equates to 1.5 percent of the entire population of the country, this does not include the chronically hungry who probably don’t qualify cause they “make too much”. Now I’ve been on food stamps, and let me tell you they make it next to impossible to get off of food stamps, but that story is for another day, even if I laugh myself to tears every time I tell it. What bothers me is that after they are done spending more on groceries for the month than I will probably be able to afford in six, they break out the WIC checks to pay for a couple boxes of cereal, some OJ, some milk, and cheese (mind you they could have gotten all of that on their EBT card). I don’t begrudge those that need these things the help, as I stated I’ve been there done that, burned the t-shirt. But it never fails that they are dressed nicer than I could ever afford, have cell phones that make mine look paltry, and drive new cars (after all what are they gonna spend their welfare checks on, odds are they live in publicly subsidized housing that costs little to nothing). More often than not they are also wearing high dollar jewelry that I would not ever deign to look at the price tag of no matter how I felt it might look on me.
Have we fallen that far as a nation that those of us who are responsible adults, pay their taxes (however begrudgingly), pay for their own way have to stand in line behind the EBT crowd watching them spend my hard won tax dollars? I worked hard for that money, I got up every morning and sacrificed my time and energy to earn it, only to render unto caesers that which is caesers, and watch helplessly while it gets squandered on cheez doodles and ice cream for the multiple screaming brats in the cart that exists to the fore. And mind you mommy looks like she’s barely 20 and the kids are both between 3 and 5 years old, you do the math.
One day all of that is going to come crashing down on them, the government checks and help are going to stop coming in on the first, and people are going to wake up. May the universe help us all when that happens. But i also must question, at what point do we hand out poles instead of fish.
I like to eat, don’t get me wrong, but what really, really cheeses me off is that some people eat better than I do. Are these people better off than me? No, not by any stretch of one’s imagination. Have they done something righteous with their lives that allow them the luxury of buying the $20 roast and the $25 dollar bucket ‘o crab legs? Again, nope. What they have done however is suckle at the government teat.
Allow me to explain. This year my federal income tax return AGI will probably be in the 5 digit range (since the government don’t do the whole cents thing anyway) and will most likely start with an 8 or a 9, not sure just yet. I don’t live beyond my means either, I drive a 10 year old minivan that is in desperate need of a new engine, live in a house that was about 25% of what the bank said I could spend (PITI is $660 ish just to give you an idea). I have cable TV of course, the minimum you need to get high speed internet and my cell phone, I have the cheapest plan I could find that was unlimited text and talk since I have family across the country. Of course I pay for electric, sewer/water, trash service, and fuel and insurance for the van (again my insurance bill is like 20 bucks a month). I eat relatively cheap, mostly vegetarian with my meat supply coming at the business end of a box of 270 Winchester ammo I buy for $20 at the local Wally world, coupled with an eighteen dollar license from the state.
So why am I cheesed at those people, cause they not only get the food stamps (of which there are now something like 43 million people using them) which roughly equates to 1.5 percent of the entire population of the country, this does not include the chronically hungry who probably don’t qualify cause they “make too much”. Now I’ve been on food stamps, and let me tell you they make it next to impossible to get off of food stamps, but that story is for another day, even if I laugh myself to tears every time I tell it. What bothers me is that after they are done spending more on groceries for the month than I will probably be able to afford in six, they break out the WIC checks to pay for a couple boxes of cereal, some OJ, some milk, and cheese (mind you they could have gotten all of that on their EBT card). I don’t begrudge those that need these things the help, as I stated I’ve been there done that, burned the t-shirt. But it never fails that they are dressed nicer than I could ever afford, have cell phones that make mine look paltry, and drive new cars (after all what are they gonna spend their welfare checks on, odds are they live in publicly subsidized housing that costs little to nothing). More often than not they are also wearing high dollar jewelry that I would not ever deign to look at the price tag of no matter how I felt it might look on me.
Have we fallen that far as a nation that those of us who are responsible adults, pay their taxes (however begrudgingly), pay for their own way have to stand in line behind the EBT crowd watching them spend my hard won tax dollars? I worked hard for that money, I got up every morning and sacrificed my time and energy to earn it, only to render unto caesers that which is caesers, and watch helplessly while it gets squandered on cheez doodles and ice cream for the multiple screaming brats in the cart that exists to the fore. And mind you mommy looks like she’s barely 20 and the kids are both between 3 and 5 years old, you do the math.
One day all of that is going to come crashing down on them, the government checks and help are going to stop coming in on the first, and people are going to wake up. May the universe help us all when that happens. But i also must question, at what point do we hand out poles instead of fish.
15 August 2010
Why dont we fix things anymore
Our houses are protected by the good Lord and a gun, and you might meet 'em both if you show up here not welcome son. Our necks are burnt, our roads are dirt and our trucks aint clean, the dogs run loose, we smoke, we chew and fry everything. Out here, way out here. ~Josh Thompson, “Way Out Here”
And I’ll bet they fix things rather than running down to the local all you can buy boofarama of Asian made plastic pumpkins and other assorted crap. I am not one of those rabid recyclers; those unhinged humans who think that we are killing the planet and that the planet would be better off without us. I do however understand that 50-75 years ago (a time period that many will remember) things were built to last, and to be repaired. My granddaddy used to fix televisions; he started out fixing radios in the 30’s, and when television came along in the 50’s he started fixing them too. Point being that he would not recognize today’s televisions. I have 2 flat screen TV’s in my home and don’t get me wrong I enjoy both of them. However I am painfully aware that they have a great potential to become roughly 1100 dollar paper weights. And while the cost to replace the smaller of the two has dropped to below 300 dollars, it does not make sense to me to bear that cost when it should have been built to either last longer than planned obsolescence, or made in such a way that it would be repairable by a competent individual with a minimum of tools and knowledge.
Part of the problem lies in the constant need for humans to consume, hence the reason we are no longer called citizens (at least not in the United States) but consumers. It’s a possibly well known, possibly not well known, possibly flat out wrong axiom that all products necessary for a year’s consumption could be made in a matter of a few months, but what then to do with the remainder of the months that are left. In the days before (before what I’m not exactly certain) the farmer would grow his crop, take his crop to market where he would trade with others for what they grew, in this way he could supplement his own food stores with stuff that someone else had that was surplus for them. He then took those things home and preserved them for the winter, in the winter time the farmer would repair whatever implements may have been damaged during the growing season, or to build things that he would need for the following growing season, it’s important to remember that farmers grew and put away during times of plenty, and left their protein sources (also known as meat) to run around in its otherwise unaltered state until it was needed. Chickens do not lay many eggs in the wintertime, as a defense mechanism against the inevitable cold, so those chickens that were maybe a little older, or possibly not laying like they should have toward the end of the season, became soup, fricassee, broiled or otherwise consumed by the farmer and his family.
In order to accomplish this though in the most efficient manner possible the farmer (or other person of that era) would make things that made his life a bit easier. Whether it was a “killing cone”, feather -plucker, or perhaps something else that the individual would need.
The main point to all of these inventive ideas, was they were readily repairable by the person who built it, in the event it (whatever it was) broke with some simple tools the creator of said implement could easily repair it, there was no running down to the local department store to purchase a replacement when whatever it was that one was using finally bit the dust or needed repaired. Even if the original implement was created by someone else, the person using the implement usually had the tools, knowledge, and wherewithal to repair whatever it was. In the event they could not repair it themselves and a trip to town was required, one could be certain that it was repaired as good or in some instances better than it was when it was new.
Now a days, we just trip on down to the local whatever mart to get a new one, I remember my mother having the same toaster for probably 25 years, it broke down once, and she let me look at it, it turns out to have been a simple matter of oiling the slide that you push down to make the toast, it was otherwise sound. I took that toaster with me when I moved out of the house at age 18, mom had the toaster for several years before I was born, and it looked it, but when your first out on your own you take what you can get. It was replaced in a fit of consumerism by my ex wife, because it looked too outdated for our décor, but mind you it worked perfectly well, that was 1985 and here in 2010 I can’t help but think that it would have still been making toast had I not succumbed to the consumerist lifestyle.
I keep things, not to the level of hoarding them mind you, if something has in fact outlived its usefulness and cannot be repurposed into something else readily, or if I don’t have an idea for it right away, depending on the raw materials it contains I’ll scrap it myself, keep the items I know I can utilize at some point in the future, and discard the rest. The end result is the same for the item, the junk heap somewhere to be buried with every other bastion of our consumerist society, however my junk foot print, to steal from the “climate change” crowd is much smaller than most people that are in my rough income bracket, and the stuff I keep will end up being something else later on down the road, in essence doing my own little bit to starve the beast and return the balance.
I’ll leave you with a quote from Robert Heinlein, to wit:
A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, Conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.
-Robert A. Heinlein
We have become too specialized, so specialized in fact that we lack the skills to repair the simplest of things, seeking instead to replace rather than renew.
And I’ll bet they fix things rather than running down to the local all you can buy boofarama of Asian made plastic pumpkins and other assorted crap. I am not one of those rabid recyclers; those unhinged humans who think that we are killing the planet and that the planet would be better off without us. I do however understand that 50-75 years ago (a time period that many will remember) things were built to last, and to be repaired. My granddaddy used to fix televisions; he started out fixing radios in the 30’s, and when television came along in the 50’s he started fixing them too. Point being that he would not recognize today’s televisions. I have 2 flat screen TV’s in my home and don’t get me wrong I enjoy both of them. However I am painfully aware that they have a great potential to become roughly 1100 dollar paper weights. And while the cost to replace the smaller of the two has dropped to below 300 dollars, it does not make sense to me to bear that cost when it should have been built to either last longer than planned obsolescence, or made in such a way that it would be repairable by a competent individual with a minimum of tools and knowledge.
Part of the problem lies in the constant need for humans to consume, hence the reason we are no longer called citizens (at least not in the United States) but consumers. It’s a possibly well known, possibly not well known, possibly flat out wrong axiom that all products necessary for a year’s consumption could be made in a matter of a few months, but what then to do with the remainder of the months that are left. In the days before (before what I’m not exactly certain) the farmer would grow his crop, take his crop to market where he would trade with others for what they grew, in this way he could supplement his own food stores with stuff that someone else had that was surplus for them. He then took those things home and preserved them for the winter, in the winter time the farmer would repair whatever implements may have been damaged during the growing season, or to build things that he would need for the following growing season, it’s important to remember that farmers grew and put away during times of plenty, and left their protein sources (also known as meat) to run around in its otherwise unaltered state until it was needed. Chickens do not lay many eggs in the wintertime, as a defense mechanism against the inevitable cold, so those chickens that were maybe a little older, or possibly not laying like they should have toward the end of the season, became soup, fricassee, broiled or otherwise consumed by the farmer and his family.
In order to accomplish this though in the most efficient manner possible the farmer (or other person of that era) would make things that made his life a bit easier. Whether it was a “killing cone”, feather -plucker, or perhaps something else that the individual would need.
The main point to all of these inventive ideas, was they were readily repairable by the person who built it, in the event it (whatever it was) broke with some simple tools the creator of said implement could easily repair it, there was no running down to the local department store to purchase a replacement when whatever it was that one was using finally bit the dust or needed repaired. Even if the original implement was created by someone else, the person using the implement usually had the tools, knowledge, and wherewithal to repair whatever it was. In the event they could not repair it themselves and a trip to town was required, one could be certain that it was repaired as good or in some instances better than it was when it was new.
Now a days, we just trip on down to the local whatever mart to get a new one, I remember my mother having the same toaster for probably 25 years, it broke down once, and she let me look at it, it turns out to have been a simple matter of oiling the slide that you push down to make the toast, it was otherwise sound. I took that toaster with me when I moved out of the house at age 18, mom had the toaster for several years before I was born, and it looked it, but when your first out on your own you take what you can get. It was replaced in a fit of consumerism by my ex wife, because it looked too outdated for our décor, but mind you it worked perfectly well, that was 1985 and here in 2010 I can’t help but think that it would have still been making toast had I not succumbed to the consumerist lifestyle.
I keep things, not to the level of hoarding them mind you, if something has in fact outlived its usefulness and cannot be repurposed into something else readily, or if I don’t have an idea for it right away, depending on the raw materials it contains I’ll scrap it myself, keep the items I know I can utilize at some point in the future, and discard the rest. The end result is the same for the item, the junk heap somewhere to be buried with every other bastion of our consumerist society, however my junk foot print, to steal from the “climate change” crowd is much smaller than most people that are in my rough income bracket, and the stuff I keep will end up being something else later on down the road, in essence doing my own little bit to starve the beast and return the balance.
I’ll leave you with a quote from Robert Heinlein, to wit:
A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, Conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.
-Robert A. Heinlein
We have become too specialized, so specialized in fact that we lack the skills to repair the simplest of things, seeking instead to replace rather than renew.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)