I scanned across the BET awards last night, wondering what sorts of impromptu and hurried tributes to Michael Jackson were going to surface. There were plenty.
For someone who was [likely] bankrupt, addicted, [likely] guilty at least one acquitted charge, who hadn't done anything with any remark in, say, the last two decades...Michael Jackson was revered last night as a God by nearly every living black entertainer.
Isn't this tragic narrative wholly similar to everything else in our America? A bankrupt nation, addicted to cheap foreign labor, cheap foreign oil, and even cheaper foreign made products, guilty of falsely promoting democracy through the waging of wars for freedom, and a nation that really, really, hasn't done anything worth a shit in the past two decades unless you call building out more freeways, strip malls and suburban wastelands worth a shit. And this nation, as it's dying, is still revered by the inhabitants of all other nations.
I would suspect that for a lot people living in America, their lives mirror that of Mr. Jackson's -- financially and morally bankrupt, unemployed, living in a Neverland dreamworld, desperately pinning their hopes on a supposed economic recovery just around the corner.
Monday, June 29, 2009
Sunday, June 28, 2009
Fresh Start
I am trying to understand how Spain has managed with double digit unemployment for decades while here in the U.S. we approach 10% and the sky falls.
While I am personally immune, bombproofed, and on high ground vis-a-vis our recession, many around me are not. But one thing that every unemployed person I know has to keep up in a bad or good economy is a motor vehicle...something that not every Spaniard has to deal with.
This point isn't widely appreciated. Paul Blanco's Chevrolet's FreshStart credit program advertised on the radio yesterday and said, "You need a car." No matter how much debt you currently carry, "You need a car." Bad credit? No credit? "You need a car."
And you, the radio listener, deserve a car. Even if you've fucked over every other lender in the past, you deserve a fresh start
because without you buying sixteen million cars a year our economy falls apart.
No shit. My unemployed cousin still has his car...not to drive to interviews, he gave up looking for a job long ago. No, his car is used daily to get to the store, to buy his malt liquor, and to get his second DUI...come on, what American is going to walk? Certainly not the unemployed. And certainly not anyone who bought a "home" in some suburban landscraper two miles from the nearest supermarket (because neighborhood markets are illegal) and five miles from every other service.
So to live in America, the greatest nation in the world that somehow can't seem to culturally manage even a small economic downturn, car ownership is mandatory. Mandatory maintaining, gassing, and registering all come with citizenship. This isn't something most 24 year old Cordobans have to deal with, because they aren't forced to own a car just to live. Unemployment, while never pleasant, is at least easier managed without the specter of a car payment every thirty days.
Here in Elk Grove, every unemployed soul would be forced, absolutely forced, to own at least one vehicle to even get to the unemployment office, let alone to manage the daily tasks of living. So I say fuck 'em -- a large portion of their economic plight is self-created -- they chose to live in such arrangements.
While I am personally immune, bombproofed, and on high ground vis-a-vis our recession, many around me are not. But one thing that every unemployed person I know has to keep up in a bad or good economy is a motor vehicle...something that not every Spaniard has to deal with.
This point isn't widely appreciated. Paul Blanco's Chevrolet's FreshStart credit program advertised on the radio yesterday and said, "You need a car." No matter how much debt you currently carry, "You need a car." Bad credit? No credit? "You need a car."
And you, the radio listener, deserve a car. Even if you've fucked over every other lender in the past, you deserve a fresh start
because without you buying sixteen million cars a year our economy falls apart.
No shit. My unemployed cousin still has his car...not to drive to interviews, he gave up looking for a job long ago. No, his car is used daily to get to the store, to buy his malt liquor, and to get his second DUI...come on, what American is going to walk? Certainly not the unemployed. And certainly not anyone who bought a "home" in some suburban landscraper two miles from the nearest supermarket (because neighborhood markets are illegal) and five miles from every other service.
So to live in America, the greatest nation in the world that somehow can't seem to culturally manage even a small economic downturn, car ownership is mandatory. Mandatory maintaining, gassing, and registering all come with citizenship. This isn't something most 24 year old Cordobans have to deal with, because they aren't forced to own a car just to live. Unemployment, while never pleasant, is at least easier managed without the specter of a car payment every thirty days.
Here in Elk Grove, every unemployed soul would be forced, absolutely forced, to own at least one vehicle to even get to the unemployment office, let alone to manage the daily tasks of living. So I say fuck 'em -- a large portion of their economic plight is self-created -- they chose to live in such arrangements.
Pop Tarts
I must have spent three hours yesterday in the California delta waterway getting tore up by all the brambles on the myriad banks of the sloughs around Thornton...but it was worth it:
I collected over three pounds of blackberries, two of which shall be eaten today, and should provide me with 1/3rd of my daily calories and over 40 grams of fiber.
I mentioned my food axiom before and I'll repeat it -- any food you eat should require a modicum of your own preparation. In this case, my preparation was getting pulverized by thorn stabwounds, raised welts and a full night of wheezing and congestion from the wild grasses I had to plow through to get to the berry bushes.
But it was worth the cost.
I will eat as much fiber from these berries alone than an American will get in four days with his standard American diet. The antioxidants, I hope, will kill all my developing lung cancers from bicycle commuting alongside motor vehicles and deposit them directly into my colon, where the berry fiber will grind them up and the high water content will flush them back to the delta.
In case you were wondering, reheating a blackberry Pop-Tart in a microwave does not qualify as your own preparation.
I collected over three pounds of blackberries, two of which shall be eaten today, and should provide me with 1/3rd of my daily calories and over 40 grams of fiber.
I mentioned my food axiom before and I'll repeat it -- any food you eat should require a modicum of your own preparation. In this case, my preparation was getting pulverized by thorn stabwounds, raised welts and a full night of wheezing and congestion from the wild grasses I had to plow through to get to the berry bushes.
But it was worth the cost.
I will eat as much fiber from these berries alone than an American will get in four days with his standard American diet. The antioxidants, I hope, will kill all my developing lung cancers from bicycle commuting alongside motor vehicles and deposit them directly into my colon, where the berry fiber will grind them up and the high water content will flush them back to the delta.
In case you were wondering, reheating a blackberry Pop-Tart in a microwave does not qualify as your own preparation.
The Millstone
I'm not a budget/billing guy, but I gotta think that California State is SMUDs largest single customer, by far. All those downtown Sacramento buildings...consuming electricity whether there are two or three furlough days per month per state employee.
I am a doomer, sure, and the writing I see on the wall is this -- California will fail to make payments for electricity sometime before autumn and SMUD will have to eat it. An IOU isn't a payment, dear.
SMUD just approved a three-tiered rate increase, the first of which is set to take hold in September. They also just approved the installation of new metering units, a very expensive [up-front] proposition. Now, we're going to see the effects of a state that can't govern itself and can't balance itself manifest as unpaid liabilities to a whole host of lenders...SMUD being one of them. I don't know how my job or my projects will be affected by this, but in any event I ain't too worried.
What I see is a state and local economy that has been hanging on, carrying on like nothing ever happened, like the prognosis that the patient's chemotherapy has actually cured him, when indeed all it did was buy some time before the really bad shit starts. Every day without pain or sickness provides a glimmer of hope, a chance. But I don't see how we've changed the fundamentals...the patient is still smoking, eating fried pork and 'resting.'
I see more bottom ahead. More foreclosures, more jobs lost, debt will become even a bigger millstone around our necks, and sustained market malaise. My local government and my state are leading the way with loads of debt and we haven't seen anything yet regarding either curtailment of services, the cutting of jobs, or increasing taxes.
I am a doomer, sure, and the writing I see on the wall is this -- California will fail to make payments for electricity sometime before autumn and SMUD will have to eat it. An IOU isn't a payment, dear.
SMUD just approved a three-tiered rate increase, the first of which is set to take hold in September. They also just approved the installation of new metering units, a very expensive [up-front] proposition. Now, we're going to see the effects of a state that can't govern itself and can't balance itself manifest as unpaid liabilities to a whole host of lenders...SMUD being one of them. I don't know how my job or my projects will be affected by this, but in any event I ain't too worried.
What I see is a state and local economy that has been hanging on, carrying on like nothing ever happened, like the prognosis that the patient's chemotherapy has actually cured him, when indeed all it did was buy some time before the really bad shit starts. Every day without pain or sickness provides a glimmer of hope, a chance. But I don't see how we've changed the fundamentals...the patient is still smoking, eating fried pork and 'resting.'
I see more bottom ahead. More foreclosures, more jobs lost, debt will become even a bigger millstone around our necks, and sustained market malaise. My local government and my state are leading the way with loads of debt and we haven't seen anything yet regarding either curtailment of services, the cutting of jobs, or increasing taxes.
Friday, June 26, 2009
Baked Fakery
I am admittedly enamored by certain European lifestyles. I am particularly enamored by their urban design, how they've developed their cities and countrys (sic), how they've succeeded in keeping them distinct and different from one another.
Where I live in Elk Grove we've bulldozed virtually every square inch of countryside, bermed up our creeks, bridged them over and installed hundreds of divisions of homes. In fact, our city's web portal links you to a map comprised of just our subdivisions, because that's all this city is...a subdivision wasteland with alluring names like Shadowbrook, Quail Ridge, Hampton Village, and Parkside Meadows. There ain't no meadow. Ain't any quail anymore. Ain't no village in Hampton Village and no brook in Shadowbrook.
This is a minor point in all that we are, but fake names reflect the fakeness of the people we've become, the fake people we are.
The very first thing I saw when I arrived at the Minneapolis airport earlier this month, returning from Europe, was this airport food service establishment:
I was immediately struck by its total fakery. Welcome home to America, I thought.
Really. This is a bakery? What the fuck do they bake, huh? There's nothing wrong with making $7 an hour, nothing at all, and least of all if you are employed in meaningful, dignified work. There were literally hundreds of small storefronts all over every city I visited in Europe where people baked bread daily that local residents lined up in droves to buy...and likely these bakers earned about the same as any airport food service technician in Minneapolis. But daily they prepared raw materials skillfully, meaningfully, into food they cared about providing.
Here at home, this "bakery" hires a few unskilled workers, trains them to remove their frozen pre-baked products at 3:45 AM, to thaw just enough so that when they push the muffin button on the re-heating oven the product will be ready for the morning commuter crush. The unskilled remain perpetually unskilled. The dignity of work has been removed. They don't give a shit about where they work or what they provide. "It's a job, man." And it's nothing nothing! like their company emblem
suggesting locally, daily made bread on a country morning with bluebirds aloft above and wildflowers underfoot.
Our raw material had all the nutrition stripped away at the centralized processing mill in Eastern Washington state, milled into flour by the trainload and shipped to another processing facility in Arkansas, where machines, flash freeze technology and automated palletized packaging converts the raw food materials into pre-baked "units," ready for shipment. They are loaded into tractor trailers and across our free interstate highway network they are delivered to hundreds of airport terminals. These units are assembled in the back of the Meadow with other food units derived elsewhere and presented to you as a $9 croissant sandwich.
I can be facetious about a great many things, but my presentation always rings true to an extent. The automation of our food production, the fake presentation suggesting we're grounded in a thousand year old tradition of preparation...these lead to very bad things. Oil dependence for delivering all those non-local food units; people who never learn the dignity of work and the social ills this manifests; fat Merikans, fat medical problems and fat insurance premiums; living in total isolation to our natural world. This is who we are.
Where I live in Elk Grove we've bulldozed virtually every square inch of countryside, bermed up our creeks, bridged them over and installed hundreds of divisions of homes. In fact, our city's web portal links you to a map comprised of just our subdivisions, because that's all this city is...a subdivision wasteland with alluring names like Shadowbrook, Quail Ridge, Hampton Village, and Parkside Meadows. There ain't no meadow. Ain't any quail anymore. Ain't no village in Hampton Village and no brook in Shadowbrook.
This is a minor point in all that we are, but fake names reflect the fakeness of the people we've become, the fake people we are.
The very first thing I saw when I arrived at the Minneapolis airport earlier this month, returning from Europe, was this airport food service establishment:
I was immediately struck by its total fakery. Welcome home to America, I thought.
Really. This is a bakery? What the fuck do they bake, huh? There's nothing wrong with making $7 an hour, nothing at all, and least of all if you are employed in meaningful, dignified work. There were literally hundreds of small storefronts all over every city I visited in Europe where people baked bread daily that local residents lined up in droves to buy...and likely these bakers earned about the same as any airport food service technician in Minneapolis. But daily they prepared raw materials skillfully, meaningfully, into food they cared about providing.
Here at home, this "bakery" hires a few unskilled workers, trains them to remove their frozen pre-baked products at 3:45 AM, to thaw just enough so that when they push the muffin button on the re-heating oven the product will be ready for the morning commuter crush. The unskilled remain perpetually unskilled. The dignity of work has been removed. They don't give a shit about where they work or what they provide. "It's a job, man." And it's nothing nothing! like their company emblem
suggesting locally, daily made bread on a country morning with bluebirds aloft above and wildflowers underfoot.
Our raw material had all the nutrition stripped away at the centralized processing mill in Eastern Washington state, milled into flour by the trainload and shipped to another processing facility in Arkansas, where machines, flash freeze technology and automated palletized packaging converts the raw food materials into pre-baked "units," ready for shipment. They are loaded into tractor trailers and across our free interstate highway network they are delivered to hundreds of airport terminals. These units are assembled in the back of the Meadow with other food units derived elsewhere and presented to you as a $9 croissant sandwich.
I can be facetious about a great many things, but my presentation always rings true to an extent. The automation of our food production, the fake presentation suggesting we're grounded in a thousand year old tradition of preparation...these lead to very bad things. Oil dependence for delivering all those non-local food units; people who never learn the dignity of work and the social ills this manifests; fat Merikans, fat medical problems and fat insurance premiums; living in total isolation to our natural world. This is who we are.
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Comfortable Consumption
My little burg, Elk Grove, as car dependent a city as you'll find in America, prostrated itself to the motor vehicle even more with the announcement today that e-Tran funding is staring at a $1,700,000 deficit next year -- and services will be cut.
Wonderful. On the same week this fucking city received a Tranny award for the most beautiful new interchange in the state
we get word that transit will be cut back, curtailed, eliminated, or otherwise reduced.
Gotta love that new $83,000,000 interchange, eh? At night it will become a sight to behold -- what with its classic light fixtures reminiscent of a planked carriageway of a bygone era, anti-suicide fencing barriers reminiscent of a chain of wagons, those wagon wheels marching...marching along...triangular orange cones atop triangular concrete abutments, and the gorgeous concrete keystone at mid-span! We'll be mesmerized by the beautiful trail of weaving red taillights from the freeway to the turnstop on Christmas eve 2017, when another wave of our cyclical bubble economy bathes Elk Grovians with newfound, unearned housal unit wealth to buy new vehicles as consumer chariots to haul their purchases home from the Elk Grove Promenade.
The purpose of this interchange was twofold -- primarily, to shuttle personal motor vehicles to thevacant weed-filled quarter-finished soon-to-be-completed new mall but also to lay the groundwork for a potential freeway connector project from here to Highway 50 near Sunrise/Hazel, creating either a mini-freeway or a macro-expressway.
First of all, there ain't gonna be any SouthEast Corridor freeway. Just like trying to shoehorn in a choo-choo train track atop existing suburban sprawl, the open spaces needed for a new freeway and concomitant on/off ramps were sold off long ago to campaign-fund-providing land "developers," while the proposed route is planned to run through residential-agriculture zoned land whose owners are wealthy and well connected. They stand a better chance of fighting this project off than, say, the poorer, disorganized Del Paso Heights or Oak Park residents. These communities were sliced in half by freeway projects of the 1970s as they threw parades celebrating their new interchanges, too. No. I say Sheldon will successfully fight like Pasadena and the 710, or San Francisco and the 101, the byproduct of which will be tens of thousands of commuters shovelled off to collector roads and stoplights. Just because they'll successfully kill a freeway doesn't mean they'll kill southern Elk Grovian expansion and the hordes of fresh commuters to jobs elsewhere.
So really that $83,000,000 was spent to allow Elk Grovians to more comfortably consume at the future open-aire mall to raise tax revenues for the city. While the cost of car registration will go up another $15 per vehicle to fund state parks due to the state's insolvency, the cost of insurance is rising to account for my and millions of other stolen vehicles, and gas is $3 and will likely permanently arc upward, we build an environment where driving is the only way these residents will get to their new Jewel o' the Valley. Never a long term thought to build a light rail track down the middle of that new interchange. Never a thought for a safe bicycle lane, either. Wasn't even considered by our myopic one dimensional urban planners. Nope. I suppose if we ever do consider building a track across that in fifty years time, we'll have to raze this new one down and build anew, costing twelve times what it otherwise would if we had planned for it today.
And then, just like today, they'll claim that transit doesn't pay for itself! Well, no shit! When it costs $1,000 per inch to lay light rail tracks, what do you expect?
Wonderful. On the same week this fucking city received a Tranny award for the most beautiful new interchange in the state
we get word that transit will be cut back, curtailed, eliminated, or otherwise reduced.
Gotta love that new $83,000,000 interchange, eh? At night it will become a sight to behold -- what with its classic light fixtures reminiscent of a planked carriageway of a bygone era, anti-suicide fencing barriers reminiscent of a chain of wagons, those wagon wheels marching...marching along...triangular orange cones atop triangular concrete abutments, and the gorgeous concrete keystone at mid-span! We'll be mesmerized by the beautiful trail of weaving red taillights from the freeway to the turnstop on Christmas eve 2017, when another wave of our cyclical bubble economy bathes Elk Grovians with newfound, unearned housal unit wealth to buy new vehicles as consumer chariots to haul their purchases home from the Elk Grove Promenade.
The purpose of this interchange was twofold -- primarily, to shuttle personal motor vehicles to the
First of all, there ain't gonna be any SouthEast Corridor freeway. Just like trying to shoehorn in a choo-choo train track atop existing suburban sprawl, the open spaces needed for a new freeway and concomitant on/off ramps were sold off long ago to campaign-fund-providing land "developers," while the proposed route is planned to run through residential-agriculture zoned land whose owners are wealthy and well connected. They stand a better chance of fighting this project off than, say, the poorer, disorganized Del Paso Heights or Oak Park residents. These communities were sliced in half by freeway projects of the 1970s as they threw parades celebrating their new interchanges, too. No. I say Sheldon will successfully fight like Pasadena and the 710, or San Francisco and the 101, the byproduct of which will be tens of thousands of commuters shovelled off to collector roads and stoplights. Just because they'll successfully kill a freeway doesn't mean they'll kill southern Elk Grovian expansion and the hordes of fresh commuters to jobs elsewhere.
So really that $83,000,000 was spent to allow Elk Grovians to more comfortably consume at the future open-aire mall to raise tax revenues for the city. While the cost of car registration will go up another $15 per vehicle to fund state parks due to the state's insolvency, the cost of insurance is rising to account for my and millions of other stolen vehicles, and gas is $3 and will likely permanently arc upward, we build an environment where driving is the only way these residents will get to their new Jewel o' the Valley. Never a long term thought to build a light rail track down the middle of that new interchange. Never a thought for a safe bicycle lane, either. Wasn't even considered by our myopic one dimensional urban planners. Nope. I suppose if we ever do consider building a track across that in fifty years time, we'll have to raze this new one down and build anew, costing twelve times what it otherwise would if we had planned for it today.
And then, just like today, they'll claim that transit doesn't pay for itself! Well, no shit! When it costs $1,000 per inch to lay light rail tracks, what do you expect?
Monday, June 22, 2009
Peace Sells
Mr. Gates wants to provide some missile defense protection for Hawai'i, in case North Korea launches a missile over the Pacific Ocean.
Please.
What do you suppose the odds are, the odds, that Pyongyang has developed a sufficiently accurate ballistic device that could deliver munitions within even a few leagues of a target 4,700 miles away?
Please.
I suppose I should lie awake in terror each night, frightened that my little Elk Grove is not just some blip on a map anymore, that it's such a large sprawled out suburban landscraper worthy of a North Korean assault on my Freedoms and My Way Of Life...presupposing they have a missile capable of reaching the west coast. While I'm not advocating that Mr. Il raze this city with an atomic device so that we could start over with building a city that's worth a shit,...
Please.
We're going to hear it again, thatAmerica the world will be safer once we remove this threat to peace. I'd bet my investments in Raytheon are going to do very, very well because peace sells, and defense contractors are about the only bright spot in our wretched economy aside from WalMart and McDonalds
Please.
What do you suppose the odds are, the odds, that Pyongyang has developed a sufficiently accurate ballistic device that could deliver munitions within even a few leagues of a target 4,700 miles away?
Please.
I suppose I should lie awake in terror each night, frightened that my little Elk Grove is not just some blip on a map anymore, that it's such a large sprawled out suburban landscraper worthy of a North Korean assault on my Freedoms and My Way Of Life...presupposing they have a missile capable of reaching the west coast. While I'm not advocating that Mr. Il raze this city with an atomic device so that we could start over with building a city that's worth a shit,...
Please.
We're going to hear it again, that
- What those two corporations wouldn't give to open new markets in North Korea someday...
Sunday, June 21, 2009
Defer Gratification
My friend Hai, who I talk with on the bus from Elk Grove to Sacramento, said that he paid off his mortgage last week. He said it so matter of factly that I am wondering, will mine also be ho-hum? Just pay the last bill and that's that? I've got grandiose plans to throw a mortgage burning party, spending the equivalent of one payment to treat anyone who wants to come over for Kobe beef, lobster, 12-year old scotch, Patron...you know, a really good party.
But then I was talking to him about how immediately following my last payment next year, I have to plow a few years worth of mortgage equivalent payments to fix up my house: air conditioner, carpet, hardwood flooring, kitchen cabinets and countertops, baseboards, exterior and interior paint, triple pane windows, attic insulation, water heater, a new lawn...and the first thing he mentioned is how I should refinance all this into a new mortgage so I can write off the interest.
Damn. He might be right. Of course, that means I'd have to defer my mortgage burning for another few years.
But I don't think I'm going to do that. I think what I'll do is pay my mortgage off, throw my party in a nasty, ratty house, then save until I have enough to do each of my tasks so I don't have to pay any interest. That just means my really shitty carpet will just have to do for another two or three years, when it should have been replaced two or three years ago. Hope like hell my AC doesn't blow up between now and then. Defer gratification. Is this too hard?
But then I was talking to him about how immediately following my last payment next year, I have to plow a few years worth of mortgage equivalent payments to fix up my house: air conditioner, carpet, hardwood flooring, kitchen cabinets and countertops, baseboards, exterior and interior paint, triple pane windows, attic insulation, water heater, a new lawn...and the first thing he mentioned is how I should refinance all this into a new mortgage so I can write off the interest.
Damn. He might be right. Of course, that means I'd have to defer my mortgage burning for another few years.
But I don't think I'm going to do that. I think what I'll do is pay my mortgage off, throw my party in a nasty, ratty house, then save until I have enough to do each of my tasks so I don't have to pay any interest. That just means my really shitty carpet will just have to do for another two or three years, when it should have been replaced two or three years ago. Hope like hell my AC doesn't blow up between now and then. Defer gratification. Is this too hard?
The Engine Of Our Economy
I have only one credit card. I've been with USAA for around twenty years and over that time they slowly continued to raise my credit limit...$1500...$3700...until it reached $22,000 in 2007. They were extending credit faster than Obama ended the war in Iraq you can say Jack Robinson.
So I called them up in late 2007 (before the credit "crisis") and had them drop it to $4,000; I had no need for such exposure to potential fraud as I rarely carry a balance. Nonetheless, this came back to bite me last month when I wanted to use my credit card to transfer monies while buying my used truck. I called to increase my limit, only to be refused.
It's highly likely my card company would have involuntarily lowered my limit anyway. While Obama and Giethner are busy bulldozing trillions of dollars of newly minted borrowed money into the banking system as a way to get them to lend, my lender is failing to lend. USAA is worried that I'd default, and why wouldn't they -- given the shitload of unemployment and bankruptcies in this great nation, I understand. So much for our great economic stimulus package.
For someone who has almost zero debt, who has 93% equity even after this mortgage "meltdown", who has worked in the same field uninterrupted for fourteen years -- and who wanted to buy a car for Christ-sakes! the engine of our economy!-- I couldn't get additional credit.
So I called them up in late 2007 (before the credit "crisis") and had them drop it to $4,000; I had no need for such exposure to potential fraud as I rarely carry a balance. Nonetheless, this came back to bite me last month when I wanted to use my credit card to transfer monies while buying my used truck. I called to increase my limit, only to be refused.
It's highly likely my card company would have involuntarily lowered my limit anyway. While Obama and Giethner are busy bulldozing trillions of dollars of newly minted borrowed money into the banking system as a way to get them to lend, my lender is failing to lend. USAA is worried that I'd default, and why wouldn't they -- given the shitload of unemployment and bankruptcies in this great nation, I understand. So much for our great economic stimulus package.
For someone who has almost zero debt, who has 93% equity even after this mortgage "meltdown", who has worked in the same field uninterrupted for fourteen years -- and who wanted to buy a car for Christ-sakes! the engine of our economy!-- I couldn't get additional credit.
The Father And The Sun
Father's Day today coincides with the solstice, so I did my sun salutations outside this morning, actually facing the sun. All I wanted for Father's Day was the opportunity to practice my yoga uninterrupted for an hour. It was nice.
There's an interesting dynamic here, the Father and the Sun. Theologians, while not admitting it directly, equate the two. Of the seven days of the week, each named after a planet, moon, or star, they chose Sun-day for His day off and for our sabbath. Not Moon-day, or Saturn-day, but Sunday. Jesus ascended to heaven on a Sunday...the birth of the Son. And because of our remarkable inability to keep any record of which Sunday this occurred, bishops agreed in 325 AD in Northwest Turkey that Easter should fall on the first Sunday after the first full moon that falls on or after the vernal equinox. Now tell me there's no connection between the Christian god and the sun, that they don't share the same rootstock.
My yoga sun salutations this morning were a truer form of divine worship than anything else your bishops, priests, clerics, rabbis, fathers, popes, imams, or pastors could come up with. At least I admit the connection.
There's an interesting dynamic here, the Father and the Sun. Theologians, while not admitting it directly, equate the two. Of the seven days of the week, each named after a planet, moon, or star, they chose Sun-day for His day off and for our sabbath. Not Moon-day, or Saturn-day, but Sunday. Jesus ascended to heaven on a Sunday...the birth of the Son. And because of our remarkable inability to keep any record of which Sunday this occurred, bishops agreed in 325 AD in Northwest Turkey that Easter should fall on the first Sunday after the first full moon that falls on or after the vernal equinox. Now tell me there's no connection between the Christian god and the sun, that they don't share the same rootstock.
My yoga sun salutations this morning were a truer form of divine worship than anything else your bishops, priests, clerics, rabbis, fathers, popes, imams, or pastors could come up with. At least I admit the connection.
Saturday, June 20, 2009
Decrease The Increase
Four years ago, prior to a two week trip to Colorado, I bought insulin from Canadian via the internet. I committed a crime as this was illegal.
Nonetheless, I would wholeheartedly recommend breaking the law to any U.S. diabetic without health insurance, because vials cost one third the price in Canada compared to the U.S.
Why would vials cost ~1/3rd as much? Huh? Why? In my opinion, the underlying reasons for this price discrepancy are the same that are going to doom any chance for health care reform in the U.S. My prediction: There will be more uninsured Americans in 2012 than in 2008. I guarantee it, provided the same corporate sponsorship and their cash spreading lobbies fund Congressional membership, which it appears will continue. If we leave the existing profit centers of the existing system (doctors, Big Pharma and the health insurance industry) in a position to charge $118.96 for a vial of insulin that I can buy in Canada for $43, or twice as much for blood test strips than I bought in France four years ago, then Obama is doomed to fail.
I am a blogger, and not in a position to understand the workings of all this, but come on, there is no way we are going to provide access to health care to 46 million more Americans unless we also reign in costs. Without this, we'll get nothing.
There was some good news last week, in that the rise in health care costs for CalPERS will only be 3.43% for 2010, instead of the ~6-7% yearly increase over the last decade. Wa-hey! It's nice to see such a dramatic decrease in the increase at the same time a large portion of their members are either laid off, furloughed, or their COLAs have been revoked. While wages stagnate or fall, medical costs continue to rise.
America is the most expensive place in the world to get sick or injured. Of course, that means for those who work in the industry it is the best place in the world to work. It only costs 20% of our GDP to implement, twice the rate of every other developed nation. Then, of course, there are 46,247,133 Merikans who can't afford that care. Under our private health insurance paradigm to keep high risk people out of the insurance pool, how could a publicly funded pool possibly work in parallel with private insurance? Either the public pool will become like the private pools by having to trim benefits and rejecting applicants, or it becomes the dumping ground for high-cost, high-risk people like me that private pools would so gladly enjoy rejecting -- at which point the public pool becomes so fucking expensive to fund through taxes that we the taxpayers will demand we cut back on benefits...which is exactly where we are today.
Doctors et al have taken the route of moving medicine from a profession to a business and a lucrative one at that. In his speech Obama claims that doctors became doctors not for monetary gain but to become healers...he's full of shit. Anyone who's ever sat in an organic chemistry class knows that 85% of them care about one thing only...why their lucrative profit-sharing incentives with MRI/CAT scan test centers and Big Pharma drive their care decisions.
And you are full of shit, my fellow American, if you think for a second that Obama will voluntarily cut himself off from the campaign funding bonanza that is the health care industry, why he cannot seriously address health care costs...the proof of this is already evident with his complete avoidance of any single-payer option.
I'm sorry if you don't have insurance today, sorry! because you won't have it tomorrow, either. If you do have it, I'm sorry if a quarter of your future paycheck will go towards your and your uninsured neighbor's health care costs that will continue to see 5% yearly increases...sorry!
Nonetheless, I would wholeheartedly recommend breaking the law to any U.S. diabetic without health insurance, because vials cost one third the price in Canada compared to the U.S.
Why would vials cost ~1/3rd as much? Huh? Why? In my opinion, the underlying reasons for this price discrepancy are the same that are going to doom any chance for health care reform in the U.S. My prediction: There will be more uninsured Americans in 2012 than in 2008. I guarantee it, provided the same corporate sponsorship and their cash spreading lobbies fund Congressional membership, which it appears will continue. If we leave the existing profit centers of the existing system (doctors, Big Pharma and the health insurance industry) in a position to charge $118.96 for a vial of insulin that I can buy in Canada for $43, or twice as much for blood test strips than I bought in France four years ago, then Obama is doomed to fail.
I am a blogger, and not in a position to understand the workings of all this, but come on, there is no way we are going to provide access to health care to 46 million more Americans unless we also reign in costs. Without this, we'll get nothing.
There was some good news last week, in that the rise in health care costs for CalPERS will only be 3.43% for 2010, instead of the ~6-7% yearly increase over the last decade. Wa-hey! It's nice to see such a dramatic decrease in the increase at the same time a large portion of their members are either laid off, furloughed, or their COLAs have been revoked. While wages stagnate or fall, medical costs continue to rise.
America is the most expensive place in the world to get sick or injured. Of course, that means for those who work in the industry it is the best place in the world to work. It only costs 20% of our GDP to implement, twice the rate of every other developed nation. Then, of course, there are 46,247,133 Merikans who can't afford that care. Under our private health insurance paradigm to keep high risk people out of the insurance pool, how could a publicly funded pool possibly work in parallel with private insurance? Either the public pool will become like the private pools by having to trim benefits and rejecting applicants, or it becomes the dumping ground for high-cost, high-risk people like me that private pools would so gladly enjoy rejecting -- at which point the public pool becomes so fucking expensive to fund through taxes that we the taxpayers will demand we cut back on benefits...which is exactly where we are today.
Doctors et al have taken the route of moving medicine from a profession to a business and a lucrative one at that. In his speech Obama claims that doctors became doctors not for monetary gain but to become healers...he's full of shit. Anyone who's ever sat in an organic chemistry class knows that 85% of them care about one thing only...why their lucrative profit-sharing incentives with MRI/CAT scan test centers and Big Pharma drive their care decisions.
And you are full of shit, my fellow American, if you think for a second that Obama will voluntarily cut himself off from the campaign funding bonanza that is the health care industry, why he cannot seriously address health care costs...the proof of this is already evident with his complete avoidance of any single-payer option.
I'm sorry if you don't have insurance today, sorry! because you won't have it tomorrow, either. If you do have it, I'm sorry if a quarter of your future paycheck will go towards your and your uninsured neighbor's health care costs that will continue to see 5% yearly increases...sorry!
Mind The Gap
Last week, New Jersey celebrated the ground breaking on a nine billion dollar tunnel to shuttle its half million+ residents to Manhattan daily, while the same day my own Sacramento RT held a board meeting for another rate increase while slashing the number of transit routes due to a $9 million shortfall.
$9 billion will allow the New Jersey commuter to shave fifteen minutes off her commute time. The lack of $9 million will easily add fifteen more minutes to the typical Sacramento transit rider who already suffers from a lack of quality service. RT cannot reconcile the monetary gap.
I don't know if light rail services will be curtailed, but if they are then my 2009 prediction will come true; worsening service whilst ridership is an all time high. I don't ride the RT bus system, I ride e-Tran, but I most certainly use light rail. Every half hour would completely change the dynamics of local area transit. Today it takes about an extra 25-30 minutes to commute by bus rather than car and horrors! it also adds an extra quarter mile of walking. If service is slashed, this could become 45-50 minutes extra which becomes increasingly less likely for someone with means to want to take -- global warming or the environment be damned.
The federales are pitching in three billion into this under-the-Hudson tunnel while many regional transit systems are being cut off from their funding. I earlier lamented how my long-delayed 4 mile south expansion of light rail into Elk Grove was going to cost $1,000 per inch to build. But that stands in awe, in awe! of the $15,600 per inch this new tunnel under the Hudson will cost. And tell me of a New York/New Jersey transportation project that came under budget. OK, because you can't, we know the actual number will be in the double digit billions.
$9 billion will allow the New Jersey commuter to shave fifteen minutes off her commute time. The lack of $9 million will easily add fifteen more minutes to the typical Sacramento transit rider who already suffers from a lack of quality service. RT cannot reconcile the monetary gap.
I don't know if light rail services will be curtailed, but if they are then my 2009 prediction will come true; worsening service whilst ridership is an all time high. I don't ride the RT bus system, I ride e-Tran, but I most certainly use light rail. Every half hour would completely change the dynamics of local area transit. Today it takes about an extra 25-30 minutes to commute by bus rather than car and horrors! it also adds an extra quarter mile of walking. If service is slashed, this could become 45-50 minutes extra which becomes increasingly less likely for someone with means to want to take -- global warming or the environment be damned.
The federales are pitching in three billion into this under-the-Hudson tunnel while many regional transit systems are being cut off from their funding. I earlier lamented how my long-delayed 4 mile south expansion of light rail into Elk Grove was going to cost $1,000 per inch to build. But that stands in awe, in awe! of the $15,600 per inch this new tunnel under the Hudson will cost. And tell me of a New York/New Jersey transportation project that came under budget. OK, because you can't, we know the actual number will be in the double digit billions.
Friday, June 19, 2009
Human Toll House
Don't have too much to say about the Nestle cookie dough recall, except to say that their short press release uses the word consumer eight times. Never once referring to us as people...or anything remotely close to the term. Not even customer. Consumer.
I suppose consumer is a better choice, though, in this situation, because the corporation needs to minimize the concept that only humans get diseases...to try to make it sound like only consumers get infected and not babies, mothers, children, or fathers. Remove the human factor and the company survives the recall. The human toll is zero while the consumer gets dosed with E. coli 0157:H7. It's only a consumer; nothing to worry about, folks.
Pretty amazing, isn't it, that infected cow shit ends up in your cookie dough? Or your spinach? Or your pistacios? E. coli outbreaks are caused by a connection to commercial feedlot animal products, whether it's the animal's waste or the animal "products" themselves. The reason I can't buy Odwalla unpasteurized juice anymore is because some cow shit got thrown into the apple pile a decade ago -- so now, until the end of time, I can only get "flash pasteurized." Meaning, the food is dead on arrival. Note that by flash pasteurizing, there's no reason for the company to now worry about infected cow shit entering the apple stream. No need to reform their agricultural practices. Just cook the shit out of the food.
However, I have the extraordinary fortune to be able to buy unpasteurized juice at my local specialty grocer, Corti Brothers. I can get Perricone juices that are totally fresh, never heated or altered. Perricone ensures that cow shit doesn't find its way into the orange mill. If this independent grocer didn't exist, then I could never buy fresh. Every chain supermarket, every one, only sells pasteurized juices because they need the shelf life. They don't give a fuck about the consumer, only that they can buy in volume and store the juice for six months in a warehouse if need be. The manufacturer is the one who has to worry about the consumer, so to assuage the death of a single child a decade ago due to a bad practice that could have been changed, Odwalla decided to pasteurize every product instead, so now every "consumer" gets dead food for the rest of humanity.
Besides, Odwalla is now owned by Coca Cola. You think for a minute any of these juices are fresh? Don't fool yourself. This is one more reason why our United States citizens are the fattest and sickest people in the world.
I suppose consumer is a better choice, though, in this situation, because the corporation needs to minimize the concept that only humans get diseases...to try to make it sound like only consumers get infected and not babies, mothers, children, or fathers. Remove the human factor and the company survives the recall. The human toll is zero while the consumer gets dosed with E. coli 0157:H7. It's only a consumer; nothing to worry about, folks.
Pretty amazing, isn't it, that infected cow shit ends up in your cookie dough? Or your spinach? Or your pistacios? E. coli outbreaks are caused by a connection to commercial feedlot animal products, whether it's the animal's waste or the animal "products" themselves. The reason I can't buy Odwalla unpasteurized juice anymore is because some cow shit got thrown into the apple pile a decade ago -- so now, until the end of time, I can only get "flash pasteurized." Meaning, the food is dead on arrival. Note that by flash pasteurizing, there's no reason for the company to now worry about infected cow shit entering the apple stream. No need to reform their agricultural practices. Just cook the shit out of the food.
However, I have the extraordinary fortune to be able to buy unpasteurized juice at my local specialty grocer, Corti Brothers. I can get Perricone juices that are totally fresh, never heated or altered. Perricone ensures that cow shit doesn't find its way into the orange mill. If this independent grocer didn't exist, then I could never buy fresh. Every chain supermarket, every one, only sells pasteurized juices because they need the shelf life. They don't give a fuck about the consumer, only that they can buy in volume and store the juice for six months in a warehouse if need be. The manufacturer is the one who has to worry about the consumer, so to assuage the death of a single child a decade ago due to a bad practice that could have been changed, Odwalla decided to pasteurize every product instead, so now every "consumer" gets dead food for the rest of humanity.
Besides, Odwalla is now owned by Coca Cola. You think for a minute any of these juices are fresh? Don't fool yourself. This is one more reason why our United States citizens are the fattest and sickest people in the world.
Thursday, June 18, 2009
The End Caps
Watching the ABC evening news tonight, the broadcast wasn't at all concerned with any distinction between "American" and "Consumer." These two words are synonyms.
ABC showed some lady fromEverytown Anytown, USA, with her cart full of merchandise in a Sam's Club Warehouse outlet as she's beaming to the camera her newfound prowess for bargain shopping. She is no longer referred to an American. She is a Consumer. And indeed, the news only ever referred to this lady as a consumer. She is nothing but an insignificant cunt until she consumes -- at which point wa-hey! she becomes a worthy American, one worthy of marketing attention to her and her demographic, especially in this age where consumers are "snapping their wallets shut."
The news panned across the end caps -- the retail displays at the end of the warehouse isles that are among the most important attractants in warehouse shopping. You are less than American unless you buy this item, the end cap screams, an item that has been especially chosen to accommodate you, the "new" consumer -- the frugal American. Now that the typical American can't re-fi his or her house to buy shit he or she couldn't afford in the first place, these items are even harder to sell, so the "display" is most crucial. Being on the end cap is now the sole criterion if an item will move in any significant volume.
This is what you've been reduced to...a consumer whose response to end caps means more than anything else. You aren't a human anymore. You are Homo Consumerensis, nothing more...
ABC showed some lady from
The news panned across the end caps -- the retail displays at the end of the warehouse isles that are among the most important attractants in warehouse shopping. You are less than American unless you buy this item, the end cap screams, an item that has been especially chosen to accommodate you, the "new" consumer -- the frugal American. Now that the typical American can't re-fi his or her house to buy shit he or she couldn't afford in the first place, these items are even harder to sell, so the "display" is most crucial. Being on the end cap is now the sole criterion if an item will move in any significant volume.
This is what you've been reduced to...a consumer whose response to end caps means more than anything else. You aren't a human anymore. You are Homo Consumerensis, nothing more...
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
High Speed Dirt
California voters accepted the opportunity to spend money they don't have to build a high speed rail train. Proposition 1A. $9,900,000,000. To shuttle Southern Californians to Northern California and vice versa, in lieu of a $69 Southwest Airline flight.
I admit I voted for this if for nothing else but to force this state to move towards the most effective means of moving humans aside from bicycles-- rail. Even though I can't even take a fucking train a measly fifteen miles from Sacramento to Elk Grove because there aren't any, I voted to fund a rail network to connect people 350 miles away.
This might seem a bit odd. Why the hell should we expect that intercity rail would be more viable than intracity, where there is guaranteed ridership? Why should we fund a high speed intercity rail network when we don't even have local train service that even Uruguay provides its citizens?
Take a look at this hofbahnhof in Gelsenkirchen, Germany, a city like Elk Grove in many respects without all the autocentricty:
What would I give to be able to take an Elk Grove E-tran bus to such a station, wait no more than 15 minutes to catch a train to Sacramento.
While we'll fund a super train, our local environments are totally, completely, and utterly devoid of any train service whatsoever. Not one train stops in Elk Grove, a city of 140,000. Not one Elk Grovian has any option whatsoever other than driving her fucking car everywhere. And she does, and she constantly bitches about the price of gasoline. THREE DOLLARS? They should be hung. They should stop the conspiracy and...They should...always the ambiguous 'they.' She will never point to her own habits that contribute to high prices. She is above everyone else. She is an Elk Grove resident...she should consume as much gasoline as she feels she needs, to get anywhere she needs. She has the right...
I can't imagine living in a city with such a train station, with trains that are as accurate as a watch and as timely as what we used to have in this nation in 1929. I don't live in that world and I never will. I live in a nation full of autocentric assholes who couldn't give a rats ass about the public realm, or public transit. Perhaps my son might, with the results of a high speed train trickling down to local communities.
I admit I voted for this if for nothing else but to force this state to move towards the most effective means of moving humans aside from bicycles-- rail. Even though I can't even take a fucking train a measly fifteen miles from Sacramento to Elk Grove because there aren't any, I voted to fund a rail network to connect people 350 miles away.
This might seem a bit odd. Why the hell should we expect that intercity rail would be more viable than intracity, where there is guaranteed ridership? Why should we fund a high speed intercity rail network when we don't even have local train service that even Uruguay provides its citizens?
Take a look at this hofbahnhof in Gelsenkirchen, Germany, a city like Elk Grove in many respects without all the autocentricty:
What would I give to be able to take an Elk Grove E-tran bus to such a station, wait no more than 15 minutes to catch a train to Sacramento.
While we'll fund a super train, our local environments are totally, completely, and utterly devoid of any train service whatsoever. Not one train stops in Elk Grove, a city of 140,000. Not one Elk Grovian has any option whatsoever other than driving her fucking car everywhere. And she does, and she constantly bitches about the price of gasoline. THREE DOLLARS? They should be hung. They should stop the conspiracy and...They should...always the ambiguous 'they.' She will never point to her own habits that contribute to high prices. She is above everyone else. She is an Elk Grove resident...she should consume as much gasoline as she feels she needs, to get anywhere she needs. She has the right...
I can't imagine living in a city with such a train station, with trains that are as accurate as a watch and as timely as what we used to have in this nation in 1929. I don't live in that world and I never will. I live in a nation full of autocentric assholes who couldn't give a rats ass about the public realm, or public transit. Perhaps my son might, with the results of a high speed train trickling down to local communities.
Monday, June 15, 2009
Cyborg
The Sacramento News & Review's question of the week "What electronic device can't you live without?" was answered quite predictably by people on the street. Don't even have to list their answers, you can figure that shit out on your own.
The thing about their answers is that every one of them makes some sort of beeping noise...something that was totally absent thirty years ago. Today, we got pager alarms, computer POST beeps, microwave oven beeps, phone out of range alarms, cell phone message alerts, you're not wearing your seat belt harassment, no smoking in the cabin dings, watches that beep at the top of the hour, car alarm is activated alarm, smoke alarm on backup power warning, the light rail train is coming horn, the light rail train door is opening caution, the light rail train door is closing warning, the light rail train is leaving the station siren, the truck is backing up beeping, you're parked but your headlights are still on you moron alarm, hospital respirators, O2 sensor is disconnected warning, input not accepted alarm, the door is ajar...
And every last one of these drive me nuts. Beep overload. There are unintended consequences to technology. Being driven mad shouldn't be one of them.
You know, the best way to always remember to turn off your headlights, the best way, is to have forgotten it once. Never happens again, does it? No, instead of learning we get constantly harassed by incessant, annoying beeping.
To answer the question of the week, I couldn't live without my insulin pump. I am a true cybernetic organism -- someone kept alive by artificial means. Bet you can't claim that on your resume! But wouldn't you know it that that goddamn thing beeps at me more than any other device I own. Strapped to me for for everything I do save for getting wet and/or fornicating, this thing won't ever stop beeping at me: low battery alarm, weak sensor alarm, blood sugar out of range alarm, blood sugar calibration needed alarm, low reservoir alarm, no delivery alarm, pump suspended alarm, bolus max exceeded alarm...I'm tired of this shit!
Look -- our lives areimmeasurably improved by these things, sure...my life is clearly improved due to insulin pumping...but all this noise pollution is taking its toll on me. I stopped using my continuous glucose monitoring system these last few days because of all the continuous alarms. If the pump manufacture would just let me shut that fucking thing up instead of having to shut it down, man, what sweet release that would bring. Let me decide if I want alarms goddamnit! This sorta thing is going to drive me back to silent syringes and vials.
I don't need a microwave oven to let me know my coffee is waiting, waiting, waiting,...what's the worst that could happen if I left it in there, huh? No. I go to the can in the morning and every minute I'm in there the microwave is beeping at me, mocking me, making nature rush when she shouldn't be rushed.
I know my last moments on earth aren't going to be pleasant. The lung disease, from all that bicycle commuting along side Franklin Blvd. vehicles, will have reached a point where I'm hospitalized for my final days. I won't hear the wind through my trees, my wife's comforting words, my children's hopes. No. I'll get to listen to the respirator beep until my dying breath and my insulin pump's incessant beeping...
The thing about their answers is that every one of them makes some sort of beeping noise...something that was totally absent thirty years ago. Today, we got pager alarms, computer POST beeps, microwave oven beeps, phone out of range alarms, cell phone message alerts, you're not wearing your seat belt harassment, no smoking in the cabin dings, watches that beep at the top of the hour, car alarm is activated alarm, smoke alarm on backup power warning, the light rail train is coming horn, the light rail train door is opening caution, the light rail train door is closing warning, the light rail train is leaving the station siren, the truck is backing up beeping, you're parked but your headlights are still on you moron alarm, hospital respirators, O2 sensor is disconnected warning, input not accepted alarm, the door is ajar...
And every last one of these drive me nuts. Beep overload. There are unintended consequences to technology. Being driven mad shouldn't be one of them.
You know, the best way to always remember to turn off your headlights, the best way, is to have forgotten it once. Never happens again, does it? No, instead of learning we get constantly harassed by incessant, annoying beeping.
To answer the question of the week, I couldn't live without my insulin pump. I am a true cybernetic organism -- someone kept alive by artificial means. Bet you can't claim that on your resume! But wouldn't you know it that that goddamn thing beeps at me more than any other device I own. Strapped to me for for everything I do save for getting wet and/or fornicating, this thing won't ever stop beeping at me: low battery alarm, weak sensor alarm, blood sugar out of range alarm, blood sugar calibration needed alarm, low reservoir alarm, no delivery alarm, pump suspended alarm, bolus max exceeded alarm...I'm tired of this shit!
Look -- our lives are
I don't need a microwave oven to let me know my coffee is waiting, waiting, waiting,...what's the worst that could happen if I left it in there, huh? No. I go to the can in the morning and every minute I'm in there the microwave is beeping at me, mocking me, making nature rush when she shouldn't be rushed.
I know my last moments on earth aren't going to be pleasant. The lung disease, from all that bicycle commuting along side Franklin Blvd. vehicles, will have reached a point where I'm hospitalized for my final days. I won't hear the wind through my trees, my wife's comforting words, my children's hopes. No. I'll get to listen to the respirator beep until my dying breath and my insulin pump's incessant beeping...
Sunday, June 14, 2009
Top $ For A Third World Diet
There's a new frugality sweeping over America and food buying...how to survive these tough economic times. Clipping coupons. That's an old stalwart, eh? Don't just take the Sunday paper ads in, no...organize them alphabetically in an expandable envelope as you stroll the isles. But there's always an isle in every supermarket where your coupons are worthless, not even worth that 1/10th of 1 cent exchange: the produce isle.
Then you'd convince yourself, well, vegetables are expensive, and Cup O' Noodles is dirt cheap, and besides, I don't have a coupon for a head of cabbage...so into your cart goes the instant soup.
Potatoes, cabbages, onions, lentils, beans...these are among the cheapest foods in existence, but no! they don't form the base of the "frugal American" diet. We'd prefer our potatoes come dehydrated and processed in a bag inside a box that is $0.89 cheaper now that we have a coupon. If you're outta work, what, you don't have time to cook? Really? Don't have time to slice, boil and mash your own fucking potatoes?
Coupons are one extension of why we are so physically disabled in this greatest nation in the world. We process the shit out of everything and wonder why food prices and blood pressures keep going up. If we do try to eat sensibly we only do so if others prepare it or if it comes semi-prepared in a box...so we essentially pay top dollar for a third world diet. I have no sympathy for a nation of overweight out-of-work people who can't seem to figure out where all their food dollars are going.
I've developed one food adage; every food eaten should need a modicum of your own preparation. If it doesn't need it, you shouldn't eat it. Not that I follow it like I should, but I am making headway. My moccasin beans are soaking as I write.
Then you'd convince yourself, well, vegetables are expensive, and Cup O' Noodles is dirt cheap, and besides, I don't have a coupon for a head of cabbage...so into your cart goes the instant soup.
Potatoes, cabbages, onions, lentils, beans...these are among the cheapest foods in existence, but no! they don't form the base of the "frugal American" diet. We'd prefer our potatoes come dehydrated and processed in a bag inside a box that is $0.89 cheaper now that we have a coupon. If you're outta work, what, you don't have time to cook? Really? Don't have time to slice, boil and mash your own fucking potatoes?
Coupons are one extension of why we are so physically disabled in this greatest nation in the world. We process the shit out of everything and wonder why food prices and blood pressures keep going up. If we do try to eat sensibly we only do so if others prepare it or if it comes semi-prepared in a box...so we essentially pay top dollar for a third world diet. I have no sympathy for a nation of overweight out-of-work people who can't seem to figure out where all their food dollars are going.
I've developed one food adage; every food eaten should need a modicum of your own preparation. If it doesn't need it, you shouldn't eat it. Not that I follow it like I should, but I am making headway. My moccasin beans are soaking as I write.
Saturday, June 13, 2009
The Great Paradox
We bought another truck a few weeks ago, to offset the loss of our stolen truck a few weeks before that.
I am at a crossroads, now to decide to sell the Honda Civic or not. I can afford both, I can only drive one at a time, and I hardly drive at all as it is, but you can see my great paradox; the more stuff, the better off I am, while I think I'd be better off with less stuff. The more stuff I have, the better I can show up my neighbors. The more stuff I have, the more ALIVE I feel.
I bought a truck from a now bankrupt outfit, General Motors. I paid about 70% more for my truck today than I did for my old truck in 1995, but remember, this increase in cost is more than offset by the increase in pleasure I derive from pushing its new electronic controls instead of manually turning the old Chevy's dials. I feel MORE ALIVE as a result.
Of course, this action did little to maintain American jobs. The truck was manufactured in Canada anyways, and is used. the Iranian immigrant selling this truck bought it as part of a bank repossession lot...it's a repo truck. I stop to consider the sequence of events that led to me acquiring this vehicle:
The truck manufacturing date is stamped November, 2001, the same month I visited the still smoldering remnants of the world trade center. Another unknown American, instead of enlisting in the Army to kill the infidels, decided instead to follow then president Bush's mandate of "Go Forth and Spend" and bought himself a new Chevy truck. This was the extent of his sacrifice, no doubt; to buy a new truck for himself that was manufactured in Canada under the guise of American-made and financed at zero-interest. He might even had attached an American flag on the antenna, further evidence to convince others that he's a real American, willing to sacrifice his own economic security for the support of 3,000 dead 3,000 miles away.
His flag waving days were over in a matter of a few months, however, as regular eighty mph speeds on the freeway led to the tattered ruins of the little flag. Shoulda bought that window sticker instead, he lamented in May '02, but of course, that would have ruined potential resale value with degredation of the tinting. But by then, his zeal for sacrifice was muted by the fantastic rise in real estate that was just beginning. He bought his first house that summer and although it was twenty two miles from work, no problem, gas is cheap and the recession is over thanks to his and thousands of other car purchases. It sure was nice commuting in that truck instead of that 1976 Pacer.
By early '03 with the Iraq war beginning, his job as a loan underwriter was really starting to sing. He bought his first spec house and flipped it at the beginning of '04, and with those proceeds he 1031'ed it into another flipper. The problem at that time, of course, was that all those new HDTVs were just coming into the high-end range of the middle class...he'd have to cash-out refi his own house to get one now, he thinks. No problem, interest rates are in the dirt and with prices exploding he's got more than enough equity.
All the gouges in the bed of the truck weren't from moving building materials to improve his home, they were from all his consumer purchases made between 2002 to 2007; big screen televisions, riding lawnmowers, swingsets, stainless barbeque grills, dining room tables and chairs, rollaway toolboxes...
At the peak in early '06, life was fantastic. Up to his eyeballs in debt, that mattered little as income was tidalwaving in from all those loosely underwritten mortgages. Increasing debt means nothing so long as income is rising faster, he reckons.
And right he was! Even as the re-financing boom was drawing down, his quarterly bonuses were still rolling in, so the good times were there to stay even without increasing work. Slowly at first, his workload decreased...he took longer breaks, three appletinis at lunch instead of four, until it all started crashing down around him. He was laid off in late '07, upside down on his own mortgage and his two flippers-turned-rentals. With the new tougher bankruptcy laws, he thought he'd just ride unemployment through. Instead of 26 weeks he got nearly 50, taking him to the brink of the new year '09, when he just couldn't keep the house of cards from finally collapsing.
Bankruptcy was such a relief, he wonders why he didn't declare it sooner. Having much more debt that he could possibly have paid off even in two lifetimes made the judge all that more willing to erase nearly every debt...except, in the small print, he had to surrender his truck to the bank. With nary a tear, he watched his daily companion of eight years get loaded onto the flatbed hauler. That's OK, he thought, the American economy is so car sales dependent that he knew he' be able to finance another one in less than six months from bankruptcy. He bartered with his nephew to let him borrow back his Pacer from time to time.
I am at a crossroads, now to decide to sell the Honda Civic or not. I can afford both, I can only drive one at a time, and I hardly drive at all as it is, but you can see my great paradox; the more stuff, the better off I am, while I think I'd be better off with less stuff. The more stuff I have, the better I can show up my neighbors. The more stuff I have, the more ALIVE I feel.
I bought a truck from a now bankrupt outfit, General Motors. I paid about 70% more for my truck today than I did for my old truck in 1995, but remember, this increase in cost is more than offset by the increase in pleasure I derive from pushing its new electronic controls instead of manually turning the old Chevy's dials. I feel MORE ALIVE as a result.
Of course, this action did little to maintain American jobs. The truck was manufactured in Canada anyways, and is used. the Iranian immigrant selling this truck bought it as part of a bank repossession lot...it's a repo truck. I stop to consider the sequence of events that led to me acquiring this vehicle:
The truck manufacturing date is stamped November, 2001, the same month I visited the still smoldering remnants of the world trade center. Another unknown American, instead of enlisting in the Army to kill the infidels, decided instead to follow then president Bush's mandate of "Go Forth and Spend" and bought himself a new Chevy truck. This was the extent of his sacrifice, no doubt; to buy a new truck for himself that was manufactured in Canada under the guise of American-made and financed at zero-interest. He might even had attached an American flag on the antenna, further evidence to convince others that he's a real American, willing to sacrifice his own economic security for the support of 3,000 dead 3,000 miles away.
His flag waving days were over in a matter of a few months, however, as regular eighty mph speeds on the freeway led to the tattered ruins of the little flag. Shoulda bought that window sticker instead, he lamented in May '02, but of course, that would have ruined potential resale value with degredation of the tinting. But by then, his zeal for sacrifice was muted by the fantastic rise in real estate that was just beginning. He bought his first house that summer and although it was twenty two miles from work, no problem, gas is cheap and the recession is over thanks to his and thousands of other car purchases. It sure was nice commuting in that truck instead of that 1976 Pacer.
By early '03 with the Iraq war beginning, his job as a loan underwriter was really starting to sing. He bought his first spec house and flipped it at the beginning of '04, and with those proceeds he 1031'ed it into another flipper. The problem at that time, of course, was that all those new HDTVs were just coming into the high-end range of the middle class...he'd have to cash-out refi his own house to get one now, he thinks. No problem, interest rates are in the dirt and with prices exploding he's got more than enough equity.
All the gouges in the bed of the truck weren't from moving building materials to improve his home, they were from all his consumer purchases made between 2002 to 2007; big screen televisions, riding lawnmowers, swingsets, stainless barbeque grills, dining room tables and chairs, rollaway toolboxes...
At the peak in early '06, life was fantastic. Up to his eyeballs in debt, that mattered little as income was tidalwaving in from all those loosely underwritten mortgages. Increasing debt means nothing so long as income is rising faster, he reckons.
And right he was! Even as the re-financing boom was drawing down, his quarterly bonuses were still rolling in, so the good times were there to stay even without increasing work. Slowly at first, his workload decreased...he took longer breaks, three appletinis at lunch instead of four, until it all started crashing down around him. He was laid off in late '07, upside down on his own mortgage and his two flippers-turned-rentals. With the new tougher bankruptcy laws, he thought he'd just ride unemployment through. Instead of 26 weeks he got nearly 50, taking him to the brink of the new year '09, when he just couldn't keep the house of cards from finally collapsing.
Bankruptcy was such a relief, he wonders why he didn't declare it sooner. Having much more debt that he could possibly have paid off even in two lifetimes made the judge all that more willing to erase nearly every debt...except, in the small print, he had to surrender his truck to the bank. With nary a tear, he watched his daily companion of eight years get loaded onto the flatbed hauler. That's OK, he thought, the American economy is so car sales dependent that he knew he' be able to finance another one in less than six months from bankruptcy. He bartered with his nephew to let him borrow back his Pacer from time to time.
Thursday, June 11, 2009
Building Better Barriers
Lost over the past several months, completely lost, is any discussion regarding Obama's promise to prioritize green job creation.
No, all we're getting are jobs to build or improve more fucking roads.
I ride my bike over highway 50 at the 59th street over crossing three times a week, and there's a median construction project to convert the old median (a metal barrier) to a full concrete barrier. No new lanes. It just adds height to the median so that accidents on the west-bound side don't slow down traffic on the east-bound side due to rubbernecking, and vice versa. $30,000,000. Thirty million to build a better barrier. The old one was absolutely adequate in my opinion...it was effective in stopping all those ultra-commuters who fall asleep commuting a hundred and twelve miles a day from ramming on-coming traffic. Apparently, it did nothing to stop the six thousand commuters from slowing down to observe the carnage and wreckage when they do crash...so I get to help pay for it.
The other highway 50 project is the building of HOV lanes in El Dorado county...trying to shoehorn in as many El Dorado commuters into the Sacramento valley as possible...because El Dorado has no economy of its own. Thus, this arrangement forcibly requires most of its residents to commute to Sacramento county to earn money to pump back into El Dorado...the consequence being that the vast majority of their residents commute 60+ miles a day to get to work and back. This is where my sales tax dollars are going...to fund this project.
Every time I eat lunch at Tres Hermanas in Sacramento, (close enough to walk or by transit), I get to pay tax on my meal so that El Dorado county shitheads can commute from their 4,000 sq ft starter mansions in the foothills to jobs in the valley. Perhaps I, one of means, should just give up and do the same. Buy a McMansion in the foothills, solo commute every day and through the power of money and influence convince local officials that this is the perfect arrangement -- allow rich, organized residents to create better commuting options through poor, disorganized regions. Commute right through Folsom (a slum compared to Cameron Park and Shingle Springs), right through Rancho Cordova (Lagos of the Valley), through La Riveria (the asshole of the Valley) into downtown Sacramento where the jobs are.
This is how my region has developed, and is the exact same in every other region in the United States -- suburban slums filled with multiple car owning Merikans commuting through earlier tiers of suburban slums to non-local jobs.
It would not be hard to understand why I would welcome nine dollar gasoline.
No, all we're getting are jobs to build or improve more fucking roads.
I ride my bike over highway 50 at the 59th street over crossing three times a week, and there's a median construction project to convert the old median (a metal barrier) to a full concrete barrier. No new lanes. It just adds height to the median so that accidents on the west-bound side don't slow down traffic on the east-bound side due to rubbernecking, and vice versa. $30,000,000. Thirty million to build a better barrier. The old one was absolutely adequate in my opinion...it was effective in stopping all those ultra-commuters who fall asleep commuting a hundred and twelve miles a day from ramming on-coming traffic. Apparently, it did nothing to stop the six thousand commuters from slowing down to observe the carnage and wreckage when they do crash...so I get to help pay for it.
The other highway 50 project is the building of HOV lanes in El Dorado county...trying to shoehorn in as many El Dorado commuters into the Sacramento valley as possible...because El Dorado has no economy of its own. Thus, this arrangement forcibly requires most of its residents to commute to Sacramento county to earn money to pump back into El Dorado...the consequence being that the vast majority of their residents commute 60+ miles a day to get to work and back. This is where my sales tax dollars are going...to fund this project.
Every time I eat lunch at Tres Hermanas in Sacramento, (close enough to walk or by transit), I get to pay tax on my meal so that El Dorado county shitheads can commute from their 4,000 sq ft starter mansions in the foothills to jobs in the valley. Perhaps I, one of means, should just give up and do the same. Buy a McMansion in the foothills, solo commute every day and through the power of money and influence convince local officials that this is the perfect arrangement -- allow rich, organized residents to create better commuting options through poor, disorganized regions. Commute right through Folsom (a slum compared to Cameron Park and Shingle Springs), right through Rancho Cordova (Lagos of the Valley), through La Riveria (the asshole of the Valley) into downtown Sacramento where the jobs are.
This is how my region has developed, and is the exact same in every other region in the United States -- suburban slums filled with multiple car owning Merikans commuting through earlier tiers of suburban slums to non-local jobs.
It would not be hard to understand why I would welcome nine dollar gasoline.
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
On The Cheap
Along Franklin Blvd. we used to have new homes for sale under $200,000. The banner broadcasting this was plastered alongside a blank wall on a subdivision bunker:
Today, another banner flies on the same blank wall on that same subdivision bunker...except there's a small change:
Now $60,000 cheaper! Actually, cheap isn't a politically correct term...I should have said "more cost effective," or "less expensive." Cheap sounds better, however. But I'm wondering, what do all the earlier entrants who paid a whole lot more think about all these cheaper units?
What you can't see behind this fence are about sixty additional SMUD underground hookups that SMUD paid designers to design, installers to install, but there ain't no houses connected to them yet. You don't have to wonder why SMUD is raising rates -- we gotta pay for all that shit but we don't have any customers installed to pay for them.
The wooden fence is an interesting addition. I suppose the residents would say that it's to keep malfeasance out. As an outsider, I suppose it's to keep the residents in. To prevent them from leaving their compound to mingle with other neighbors. Why else would the crossbeam be on the outside on every panel, a perfect ledge for someone from the outside to get over? This isn't a good neighbor fence -- the developer is saying "fuck the neighbors. If they want a good neighbor fence then they'll put one up on their side." This, of course, prevents all residents from walking to the corner store, instead forcing them to drive.
The wooden barrier at the sidewalks' end is also an interesting addition. I wonder if the city requires developers to post such barriers to prevent the wheelchair bound from inadvertently assuming they could wheel themselves to the corner store along the sidewalk. Imagine the litigation that would ensue if this barrier wasn't erected, how our tort-happy society would deal with a crippled woman falling off the edge at 1:30 AM who thought she could make it to the liquor store at the opposite corner before closing time.
The rounded concrete curb encasing the obligatory seven foot wide ornamental lawn and cheap trees is also an interesting addition. That the developer took the effort to round the concrete curb is a clear indication that they never expect nor do they give a shit about any other development that would extend this all the way to the street corner. Extend it only as far as they are legally required to, they say. Fuck the community; we're our own neighborhood encased in a gated compound so to hell with you and anything and anyone else. We've got our own little park so our residents should have no reason to leave except by motorized vehicles out our gates to their places of employment or procurement.
The chain link fence is yet another interesting addition. Keep transients out of the brownfield. This fence serves another important role as a vertical trash rake, keeping all the Burger King wrappers and Mike & Ike candy boxes in the public realm, not on private property.
The unstaked tree is another interesting feature of this development. In another five years this tree will be permanently leaning east, hanging over Franklin Blvd., right alongside the few hundred thousand other suburban trees who's developers failed to stake them correctly or who's owners failed to keep them staked correctly until they could withstand our delta breezes. Permanent lean. That'll sure look good, won't it?
One other interesting feature you can't really see is that this development forced the bicycle lane to make a severe left-hand jog right into traffic, because the development, in an effort to shoehorn in as many fucking housal units as they could, forced the curb on Franklin Blvd. out an additional six feet. This is a wonderful feature for anyone willing to ride a bicycle to or past that compound; have to deal with the five out of six cars who drive right into the bike lane instead of jogging left to stay in their lane.
We are living on the cheap. Buying one of these cheap housal units comes with the loss of living with dignity in a correct environment. Any new resident will probably not care a whit about anything I bring up, only that they got a cheap home. That's all that matters to them.
Today, another banner flies on the same blank wall on that same subdivision bunker...except there's a small change:
Now $60,000 cheaper! Actually, cheap isn't a politically correct term...I should have said "more cost effective," or "less expensive." Cheap sounds better, however. But I'm wondering, what do all the earlier entrants who paid a whole lot more think about all these cheaper units?
What you can't see behind this fence are about sixty additional SMUD underground hookups that SMUD paid designers to design, installers to install, but there ain't no houses connected to them yet. You don't have to wonder why SMUD is raising rates -- we gotta pay for all that shit but we don't have any customers installed to pay for them.
The wooden fence is an interesting addition. I suppose the residents would say that it's to keep malfeasance out. As an outsider, I suppose it's to keep the residents in. To prevent them from leaving their compound to mingle with other neighbors. Why else would the crossbeam be on the outside on every panel, a perfect ledge for someone from the outside to get over? This isn't a good neighbor fence -- the developer is saying "fuck the neighbors. If they want a good neighbor fence then they'll put one up on their side." This, of course, prevents all residents from walking to the corner store, instead forcing them to drive.
The wooden barrier at the sidewalks' end is also an interesting addition. I wonder if the city requires developers to post such barriers to prevent the wheelchair bound from inadvertently assuming they could wheel themselves to the corner store along the sidewalk. Imagine the litigation that would ensue if this barrier wasn't erected, how our tort-happy society would deal with a crippled woman falling off the edge at 1:30 AM who thought she could make it to the liquor store at the opposite corner before closing time.
The rounded concrete curb encasing the obligatory seven foot wide ornamental lawn and cheap trees is also an interesting addition. That the developer took the effort to round the concrete curb is a clear indication that they never expect nor do they give a shit about any other development that would extend this all the way to the street corner. Extend it only as far as they are legally required to, they say. Fuck the community; we're our own neighborhood encased in a gated compound so to hell with you and anything and anyone else. We've got our own little park so our residents should have no reason to leave except by motorized vehicles out our gates to their places of employment or procurement.
The chain link fence is yet another interesting addition. Keep transients out of the brownfield. This fence serves another important role as a vertical trash rake, keeping all the Burger King wrappers and Mike & Ike candy boxes in the public realm, not on private property.
The unstaked tree is another interesting feature of this development. In another five years this tree will be permanently leaning east, hanging over Franklin Blvd., right alongside the few hundred thousand other suburban trees who's developers failed to stake them correctly or who's owners failed to keep them staked correctly until they could withstand our delta breezes. Permanent lean. That'll sure look good, won't it?
One other interesting feature you can't really see is that this development forced the bicycle lane to make a severe left-hand jog right into traffic, because the development, in an effort to shoehorn in as many fucking housal units as they could, forced the curb on Franklin Blvd. out an additional six feet. This is a wonderful feature for anyone willing to ride a bicycle to or past that compound; have to deal with the five out of six cars who drive right into the bike lane instead of jogging left to stay in their lane.
We are living on the cheap. Buying one of these cheap housal units comes with the loss of living with dignity in a correct environment. Any new resident will probably not care a whit about anything I bring up, only that they got a cheap home. That's all that matters to them.
Sunday, June 7, 2009
Love It Or Leaven It
I have failed.
I've failed to keep my yearly intake of meat under 60 lbs. I don't really know about the actual number, but after a week and a half in Germany with food like this:
I blew through my artificial ceiling rather quickly, I'm sure. I couldn't even wait to snap the picture before I started eating it...
I discovered last year that on a per capita basis the world consumes 90# of meat per person. And of course, living in the U.S. instead of Mauritania, U.S. consumption must be approaching 180+ yearly pounds. I don't really know the U.S. number, but it is high. High, and so are U.S. cancer rates. Obesity rates. Gall stones, diverticulitis, heart disease, type II diabetes-- all of which are increased as a result of high meat intake.
Now, I am not sure of German rates of disease, but damn, that nation is not overweight. Whatever factors are present that keep that affluent meat-dominate society thin are also likely to keep that affluent meat-dominate society healthy. So tell me, why is America exploding with obesity? Why are our "love-it-or-leave-it" nation's inhabitants so out of shape and addled with disease?
You know my answer; it lies in a continuum with my answer to every other topic I've raised on my monologue -- we are a totally fucked up society here in the U.S. It would be very easy to say that because we choose to live hyper-consumptive lives buying cheaply made foreign shit by the truckload and building a fully paved over nation of freeway slums to deliver all that poorly made shit, we also do the same with our food.
But wa-hey! Wouldn't you know that the answer is pretty much just that! We've destroyed our historical relationships between land and food by surburbanizing prime farmlands, destroyed farming as a culture in the process, and moved our food production to giant monocultures of genetically altered soy and corn. Massive fossil fuel inputs are needed to harvest, process, and deliver all this in the form of high fructose corn syrup and hydrogenated soy oils that form the base of our food pyramid and the base of damn near every processed food we eat. This has to be it. This has to be the answer IMO. I can't think of any other plausible explanation why we are such physical wrecks.
I've recently tried baking my own whole wheat bread. It isn't something you can pick up immediately; my initial results were disappointing to say the least. There's an exacting set of skills needed to prepare food, and these skills are falling off a cliff here in America in favor of watching NASCAR and eating store-bought bread. If you look at the ingredients in any commercial loaf, you will always find two things that had historically never been used, high fructose corn syrup and soybean oil, and will never find one that historically was always there -- fiber. But my loaves -- while not picture perfect, at least contain real food ingredients and mirror the ingredients humans have used for four thousand years. With my bread you either love it or leaven it.
I was, for the better part of four decades, ignorant of my food and ignorant of what I ate. I struggle immensely with that legacy...I am as much an American foodie as the next guy. I try to be a responsible eater and then the Krakauer mit broten comes along and I'll eat ten of them!
So I continue to struggle to keep my personal bet to try to eat less than the world average. I settled on the arbitrary and capricious value of 60#. I would like to decrease my risk of dietary ailments to that of the rest of the world.
Saturday, June 6, 2009
NASACAR
I enjoy knowing that NASA gets a few pennies per year from me. For all the reasons we pay taxes, this is about the best use of my tax money that I can think of.
Sure, you might make the claim that "in these tough economic times," it's better to spend that money to fight disease and poverty...to ease the travails of our human conditions rather than spend it on frivolous exploration...
I would suggest that this is a false choice. Why the fuck did we decide that our economic stimulus plan ought to build new freeways instead of spending that borrowed cash on sending men to the moon again? To build a second or third generation Hubble telescope? To measure the curvature of space?
I have always wanted to witness a shuttle launch, but with the 2010 retirement of the shuttle fleet I won't have that opportunity. I will have to wait until 2015 at the earliest to witness the launch of the next generation spacecraft, unless Congress cuts off NASA funding in favor of building more fucking roads to dig us out of our economic quagmire. I might have to wait until 2025.
And I likely will have to wait. This nation is far more interested in NASCAR and the expansion of the ethos of perpetual motoring than it is interested in scientific inquiry. America is far more interested in sending her youth to die in Central Asia than educating her living youth in the sciences. This country is far more interested in Chris Pine's portrayal of Kirk than the beckoning frontiers right in front of us -- our own solar system, our own universe.
We would rather tax ourselves and build ourselves a gigantic paved over freeway slum, tax ourselves to send our Christian warriors to die against the Islamic infidels, tax ourselves to save our bankers and hedge fund managers. Instead of taxing ourselves to hire Americans to manufacture spacecraft, to progress humankind, we elect to push ourselves deeper in debt, deeper into social poverty.
I wish this nation would have the same zeal for NASACAR as it did NASCAR. I personally think we'd be a better people for it.
Shalom
Following my previous post describing what I see as a good looking and correctly scaled neighborhood in Europe (good looking where ever it might be), I now come to an American mid-term abortion:
In the context of the traditional row houses on this San Franciscan street, this recently commissioned Jewish synagogue is a fucking eyesore.
Beautiful blank walls at the street level, eh? This is the sort of building, like my own building where I work at SMUD, that could hang tapestries of Marx, Lenin, Kim-Jung Il, Pol-Pot, Pinochet, or Chairman Mao on its blank exterior and it would liven up the community:
Back to the synagogue. Notice also that there are seven newly planted trees in front of the neighborhood half-pipe. Vegetative architectural embellishments that don't continue down the street. The formal tree lined street extends only as far as the first row house. I would think that the people living across the street, in their own row houses, can't wait until those trees are tall enough to masquerade this "best new building in San Francisco."
The thing is, this building's architects received accolade after accolade from other architects, all hoping that someday they, too, will be able to build their own monolithic incorrectly-scaled testaments. That they, too, would be able to garner praise from their peers for being "forward looking," and "adventurous."
Regardless of what you might think of this building...you might find it appealing, yes. You might find it bold and adventurous, yes. That really isn't my point. You ought to agree with me that this building does not celebrate the sidewalk, the public realm. It doesn't celebrate the two hundred year architectural history of the immediate surroundings. All it celebrates is itself.
Shalom.
In the context of the traditional row houses on this San Franciscan street, this recently commissioned Jewish synagogue is a fucking eyesore.
Beautiful blank walls at the street level, eh? This is the sort of building, like my own building where I work at SMUD, that could hang tapestries of Marx, Lenin, Kim-Jung Il, Pol-Pot, Pinochet, or Chairman Mao on its blank exterior and it would liven up the community:
Back to the synagogue. Notice also that there are seven newly planted trees in front of the neighborhood half-pipe. Vegetative architectural embellishments that don't continue down the street. The formal tree lined street extends only as far as the first row house. I would think that the people living across the street, in their own row houses, can't wait until those trees are tall enough to masquerade this "best new building in San Francisco."
The thing is, this building's architects received accolade after accolade from other architects, all hoping that someday they, too, will be able to build their own monolithic incorrectly-scaled testaments. That they, too, would be able to garner praise from their peers for being "forward looking," and "adventurous."
Regardless of what you might think of this building...you might find it appealing, yes. You might find it bold and adventurous, yes. That really isn't my point. You ought to agree with me that this building does not celebrate the sidewalk, the public realm. It doesn't celebrate the two hundred year architectural history of the immediate surroundings. All it celebrates is itself.
Shalom.
PHQHYBDS
There was one stunning omission from the urban Germanic landscape as compared to the U.S:
Not a single hybrid vehicle can be found in the entire nation. Why would that be? Gasoline was running about 1.40 EUR per liter last week in Dusseldorf. As global oil is denominated on the dollar and the dollar is weak viz the Euro, that works out to $7.85 a gallon. At almost $8, not one hybrid?
At $3.25 here in my Merika we pitch a fit and snap up all these Japanese hybrids at a premium as a precautionary response to "outrageous" prices. We build a handful of solar powered hydrogen fueling stations and declare the hydrogen economy is right around the corner. We drive the price of Mexican tortillas up to burn Iowa corn in our tanks. We stop to consider Mr. Pickens and begin to think about running our WalMart and autocentric economy on wind-backed natural gas. But at almost eight bucks a gallon in Europe, they do the only rational thing: they simply don't fucking drive.
I don't think for a second there are CAFE fleet standards in Germany (or Europe for that matter). They don't need them because they already employ the best solution: correct gasoline taxation. I say correct because they don't subsidize the social damages caused by the perpetual motoring of its inhabitants as we do here in the U.S.
How are CAFE standards possibly going to work here in the U.S. when gasoline remains relatively cheap? We continue to provide incentives to squander energy. We continue to provide incentives to maintain our interstate suburban highway system. We would never build new communities like the picture above: medium density, a beautiful public realm, walkable and bikable communities, communities that share their space with cars but don't allow them to dominate. Places that are fairly quiet, where an open window to bring in fresh air won't also bring in the sounds of a six-lane collector road, places with a sufficient level of human eyes to provide a correct sense of security without resorting to razor wire barracades and roll-down chain-mail barriers.
Not a single hybrid vehicle can be found in the entire nation. Why would that be? Gasoline was running about 1.40 EUR per liter last week in Dusseldorf. As global oil is denominated on the dollar and the dollar is weak viz the Euro, that works out to $7.85 a gallon. At almost $8, not one hybrid?
At $3.25 here in my Merika we pitch a fit and snap up all these Japanese hybrids at a premium as a precautionary response to "outrageous" prices. We build a handful of solar powered hydrogen fueling stations and declare the hydrogen economy is right around the corner. We drive the price of Mexican tortillas up to burn Iowa corn in our tanks. We stop to consider Mr. Pickens and begin to think about running our WalMart and autocentric economy on wind-backed natural gas. But at almost eight bucks a gallon in Europe, they do the only rational thing: they simply don't fucking drive.
I don't think for a second there are CAFE fleet standards in Germany (or Europe for that matter). They don't need them because they already employ the best solution: correct gasoline taxation. I say correct because they don't subsidize the social damages caused by the perpetual motoring of its inhabitants as we do here in the U.S.
How are CAFE standards possibly going to work here in the U.S. when gasoline remains relatively cheap? We continue to provide incentives to squander energy. We continue to provide incentives to maintain our interstate suburban highway system. We would never build new communities like the picture above: medium density, a beautiful public realm, walkable and bikable communities, communities that share their space with cars but don't allow them to dominate. Places that are fairly quiet, where an open window to bring in fresh air won't also bring in the sounds of a six-lane collector road, places with a sufficient level of human eyes to provide a correct sense of security without resorting to razor wire barracades and roll-down chain-mail barriers.
Friday, June 5, 2009
The Pirates Of Labrador
WalMart has moved from 10.5% to 11.3% market share in Merika's $3 trillion retail market over the last year. And their best days, according to the company, are still ahead of it.
Over one tenth of all toasters are bought there. One out of every ten pillows, bedspreads, belts, handbags, CDs, baseball gloves, razor blades, car seats, pendants, Game Boys, action figures, eyeglasses and luggage cases are bought there.
A 0.8% market share growth in one year. So in less than a hundred years my prediction of a single national retailer will be realized. Remember my vision of the future -- a lady will drive her vehicle twenty seven miles to the 6 million sq ft sole consumer repository in her town. While her car is loaded onto the conveyor belt she can get on her own personal conveyor belt and conduct her consumptive activities without all that bothersome walking. Send her kids into the central WalMart theatre so she's not bothered by disobedience. Her kids are provided their own WalMart gift cards so that following the movie they are paraded through a maze of 37" retail shelves (child friendly) loaded with merchandise based on the movie theme -- stuffed dinosaurs for the new Jurassic Park XLVIII movie, plastic swords for the new Pirates of Labrador movie, now that the Sea of Labrador is a balmy 83 degrees due to global warming.
Just because there's only one retailer doesn't mean direct advertising isn't still a necessity in American merchandising. The lady will still have to choose from the two oily-hair shampoos that marketing majors in Bentonville decided shall be offered. There are several Chinese hair care product suppliers, yes, but only two of them have been found to contain less that the governmental standards for banned substances. WalMart has always been concerned with her safety, and especially with her child's safety. Only one baby shampoo meets their stricter, quality assurance standards, so that's all the lady will get. She recalls her childhood -- vague memories of her grandparents telling her how they had choice. What a strange world that must have been, she thinks, as the same baby shampoo she grew up with is self-loaded into her hands-free motorized cart.
WalMart, while holding 99.78% market share in 2109, employs somewhat less than 99.78% of all America, however. They've successfully implemented employment practices, completely legal, mind you, that allow for nine in ten employees to be considered full-time dependent contractors. How do you think their slogan, Save Money...Live Better, has been the same for the past century? Save money by saving on personnel costs. Live better through living with massive volumes of cheap foreign shit.
Never mind the fact that a chronic third of America is un- or under-employed, they are all still saving money, they are all still living better thanks to the sole retailer. Sam would be so proud.
Over one tenth of all toasters are bought there. One out of every ten pillows, bedspreads, belts, handbags, CDs, baseball gloves, razor blades, car seats, pendants, Game Boys, action figures, eyeglasses and luggage cases are bought there.
A 0.8% market share growth in one year. So in less than a hundred years my prediction of a single national retailer will be realized. Remember my vision of the future -- a lady will drive her vehicle twenty seven miles to the 6 million sq ft sole consumer repository in her town. While her car is loaded onto the conveyor belt she can get on her own personal conveyor belt and conduct her consumptive activities without all that bothersome walking. Send her kids into the central WalMart theatre so she's not bothered by disobedience. Her kids are provided their own WalMart gift cards so that following the movie they are paraded through a maze of 37" retail shelves (child friendly) loaded with merchandise based on the movie theme -- stuffed dinosaurs for the new Jurassic Park XLVIII movie, plastic swords for the new Pirates of Labrador movie, now that the Sea of Labrador is a balmy 83 degrees due to global warming.
Just because there's only one retailer doesn't mean direct advertising isn't still a necessity in American merchandising. The lady will still have to choose from the two oily-hair shampoos that marketing majors in Bentonville decided shall be offered. There are several Chinese hair care product suppliers, yes, but only two of them have been found to contain less that the governmental standards for banned substances. WalMart has always been concerned with her safety, and especially with her child's safety. Only one baby shampoo meets their stricter, quality assurance standards, so that's all the lady will get. She recalls her childhood -- vague memories of her grandparents telling her how they had choice. What a strange world that must have been, she thinks, as the same baby shampoo she grew up with is self-loaded into her hands-free motorized cart.
WalMart, while holding 99.78% market share in 2109, employs somewhat less than 99.78% of all America, however. They've successfully implemented employment practices, completely legal, mind you, that allow for nine in ten employees to be considered full-time dependent contractors. How do you think their slogan, Save Money...Live Better, has been the same for the past century? Save money by saving on personnel costs. Live better through living with massive volumes of cheap foreign shit.
Never mind the fact that a chronic third of America is un- or under-employed, they are all still saving money, they are all still living better thanks to the sole retailer. Sam would be so proud.
Patchwork Quilts
It only took four months for Obama to decide that there will be one nationwide standard for auto mileage, and one that mirrors California's tougher AB32 standard. It took over twenty months of hemming and hawing for Bush's EPA just to render a decision on California's waiver request. Damn, what a difference of administration.
His call also eliminates a load of litigation because now our auto industries can't continue to fight against two standards. Now there's going to be only one (what they used to call a patchwork quilt of standards...yeah, "two" means "patchwork quilt.") And our auto industries can't continue to fight against CAFE because they are all fucking broke. I thank god for our little recession -- without it, all this new found cooperation between EPA, the White House, and the domestic autos would never have been possible had this mild economic slowdown not taken place. If it calls for the loss of a hundred thousand domestic jobs for us to finally move forward with more stringent CAFE standards, well so be it. There are both winners and losers here. It's individual choice to determine which one you'll fall into.
Combined with CARB's more stringent diesel emissions from trucks, this is going to make my local environment all that much better. Hopefully, a lot better, and a lot better to be riding alongside cars on my bicycle. I may have a chance to defer my lung cancer out a few years longer.
While I applaud this outcome, I see vehicle efficiency as only one leg of a three legged stool. I am still at terrible odds with the notion that my "green" California also leads the way in car dependent suburban sprawl. The third leg would be reducing the carbon content of fuels -- but as I've said I'm not as interested in this as James Hanson is. I will leave that discourse to others. We absolutely need to focus on changes to growth patterns that reduce overall driving, and start to build sustainable communities -- those that are transit oriented and mixed-use. SB375 is one tool to allow for this, but I've got reservations about how effective this is going to be. It will only be as effective as the regional planning agencies make it.
His call also eliminates a load of litigation because now our auto industries can't continue to fight against two standards. Now there's going to be only one (what they used to call a patchwork quilt of standards...yeah, "two" means "patchwork quilt.") And our auto industries can't continue to fight against CAFE because they are all fucking broke. I thank god for our little recession -- without it, all this new found cooperation between EPA, the White House, and the domestic autos would never have been possible had this mild economic slowdown not taken place. If it calls for the loss of a hundred thousand domestic jobs for us to finally move forward with more stringent CAFE standards, well so be it. There are both winners and losers here. It's individual choice to determine which one you'll fall into.
Combined with CARB's more stringent diesel emissions from trucks, this is going to make my local environment all that much better. Hopefully, a lot better, and a lot better to be riding alongside cars on my bicycle. I may have a chance to defer my lung cancer out a few years longer.
While I applaud this outcome, I see vehicle efficiency as only one leg of a three legged stool. I am still at terrible odds with the notion that my "green" California also leads the way in car dependent suburban sprawl. The third leg would be reducing the carbon content of fuels -- but as I've said I'm not as interested in this as James Hanson is. I will leave that discourse to others. We absolutely need to focus on changes to growth patterns that reduce overall driving, and start to build sustainable communities -- those that are transit oriented and mixed-use. SB375 is one tool to allow for this, but I've got reservations about how effective this is going to be. It will only be as effective as the regional planning agencies make it.
Thursday, June 4, 2009
Thank Hitler
Western Germany is today well connected, in part, due to the efforts Hitler made to transport Ruhr valley war materials to the battlefront. Praise is due this man, yes.
It might seem callous, but hey, I'm just calling it like I see it. I know of no other region of the world that is better and more efficient in the movement of humans today, thanks to earlier efforts to more efficiently kill humans yesterday.
This is a typical view out of any main station. This one is just a small one in the city of Gelsenkirchen -- three tracks supply trains that run into and out of this city every ten minutes or so. Some are express trains, others stop at all stations, and all provide a stunning level of service. Indeed, for the entire week and a half, of all the trains I traveled on, not a single train was off by more than sixty seconds from schedule.
Then, when you're traveling within the city, you have access to an unprecedented level of surface trains and busses:
Now, realize that this city is about the size of my Elk Grove. Three intercity trains...seventy eight bus routes -- compared to Elk Grove which after nineteen years of unmitigated suburbal sprawl is still looking at another nine years to get a single fucking light rail train station. Elk Grove has thirty one bus routes, with half of them express commuter busses that only run weekday mornings and evenings. Less than half as many for a city as big with a quarter the level of service.
The truth is, Elk Grove public transportation can never, never! work. Never. Its low density is insufficient to make any service profitable for competing providers, nor self-supporting for governmental providers. Elk Grove has utterly failed to develop regionally or self sufficiently, so that surface streets, collector roads and freeways are all choke-a-block with traffic...the consequence of which would lead to intense resistance to either convert or sever any roadway to make room for rail. Or it leads to intense costs to shoehorn in rails and stations on top of an existing suburban automotive dominated fabric.
And all on top of a nation that subsidizes gasoline so heavily that car ownership becomes compulsive and mandatory. Why does California not build and maintain roads without federal matching funds? Because without federal tax dollars funding roadworks instead of gasoline taxes, and without state general funding instead of gasoline taxes, California wouldn't have enough money on its own. We end up with a perverted payment system where people end up paying for it indirectly. But so little is ever allocated to rail, bus, or alternatives such as multi-use trails.
Wishing for a transportation system like that in Germany for my little Elk Grovian burg is a fucking pipe dream, and I know this. It's a futile effort to even blog about it, mostly. But I do, because I like to comment on the sad state of our affairs, our environment, our culture...I like to comment on how wretched things are...not as they ever will be.
It might seem callous, but hey, I'm just calling it like I see it. I know of no other region of the world that is better and more efficient in the movement of humans today, thanks to earlier efforts to more efficiently kill humans yesterday.
This is a typical view out of any main station. This one is just a small one in the city of Gelsenkirchen -- three tracks supply trains that run into and out of this city every ten minutes or so. Some are express trains, others stop at all stations, and all provide a stunning level of service. Indeed, for the entire week and a half, of all the trains I traveled on, not a single train was off by more than sixty seconds from schedule.
Then, when you're traveling within the city, you have access to an unprecedented level of surface trains and busses:
Now, realize that this city is about the size of my Elk Grove. Three intercity trains...seventy eight bus routes -- compared to Elk Grove which after nineteen years of unmitigated suburbal sprawl is still looking at another nine years to get a single fucking light rail train station. Elk Grove has thirty one bus routes, with half of them express commuter busses that only run weekday mornings and evenings. Less than half as many for a city as big with a quarter the level of service.
The truth is, Elk Grove public transportation can never, never! work. Never. Its low density is insufficient to make any service profitable for competing providers, nor self-supporting for governmental providers. Elk Grove has utterly failed to develop regionally or self sufficiently, so that surface streets, collector roads and freeways are all choke-a-block with traffic...the consequence of which would lead to intense resistance to either convert or sever any roadway to make room for rail. Or it leads to intense costs to shoehorn in rails and stations on top of an existing suburban automotive dominated fabric.
And all on top of a nation that subsidizes gasoline so heavily that car ownership becomes compulsive and mandatory. Why does California not build and maintain roads without federal matching funds? Because without federal tax dollars funding roadworks instead of gasoline taxes, and without state general funding instead of gasoline taxes, California wouldn't have enough money on its own. We end up with a perverted payment system where people end up paying for it indirectly. But so little is ever allocated to rail, bus, or alternatives such as multi-use trails.
Wishing for a transportation system like that in Germany for my little Elk Grovian burg is a fucking pipe dream, and I know this. It's a futile effort to even blog about it, mostly. But I do, because I like to comment on the sad state of our affairs, our environment, our culture...I like to comment on how wretched things are...not as they ever will be.
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
Vehicular Armageddon
I first heard of the GM bankruptcy while sitting at an empty gate in the Minneapolis airport on Monday. A television was on, but no one was watching it. It was more like a radio as I watched takeoffs and landings in the distance.
It was impressive to hear the level of production that must have gone into the news segments on the bankruptcy. You'd have thought Bob Hope had just died again -- flashbacks to earlier eras, apple pies and Chevy trucks, lifelong Chevy men whose feelings of betrayal teared their eyes...it really was impressive, wasn't it?
I was moved, too. I sat there in the empty terminal with my own boyhood dreams of owning a '57 hardtop now forever crushed. It was the end. It was over. Vehicular Armageddon had arrived...
Interestingly, very little was broadcasted on the financial impacts of this filing, the details of restructuring, etc. No one really seems to give a shit about that sorta thing, do they...another ho-hum day in our cratering economy, just another failure in a succession of failed banks, investment firms, corporations, what have you. In any event, Britain's talent had stolen the limelight...
However, this one impacts the very essence of what it means to be an American. Car ownership. And multiple ownership at that. Somehow you'd think that all those Chevy cars and trucks are suddenly going to be taken off the road, that we all just lost a quarter of what we spend our working lives to own and maintain. That's the exact feeling the networks wanted to exude with their reporting. We've lost our way, our identity. Things will never be the same...
Ummmm...yes they will.
Now you'll just be owning two Chinese Cherys in your garage instead. The American worker --who wanted a pension, some scraps of a health insurance plan, and the dignity of work --all of that has been outsourced now, just like everything else. Two Chinese Cherys will be less expensive than one Detroit sled, so that means you can buy twice as much, and in a nation obsessed with material wealth, twice as much is four times gooder.
It was impressive to hear the level of production that must have gone into the news segments on the bankruptcy. You'd have thought Bob Hope had just died again -- flashbacks to earlier eras, apple pies and Chevy trucks, lifelong Chevy men whose feelings of betrayal teared their eyes...it really was impressive, wasn't it?
I was moved, too. I sat there in the empty terminal with my own boyhood dreams of owning a '57 hardtop now forever crushed. It was the end. It was over. Vehicular Armageddon had arrived...
Interestingly, very little was broadcasted on the financial impacts of this filing, the details of restructuring, etc. No one really seems to give a shit about that sorta thing, do they...another ho-hum day in our cratering economy, just another failure in a succession of failed banks, investment firms, corporations, what have you. In any event, Britain's talent had stolen the limelight...
However, this one impacts the very essence of what it means to be an American. Car ownership. And multiple ownership at that. Somehow you'd think that all those Chevy cars and trucks are suddenly going to be taken off the road, that we all just lost a quarter of what we spend our working lives to own and maintain. That's the exact feeling the networks wanted to exude with their reporting. We've lost our way, our identity. Things will never be the same...
Ummmm...yes they will.
Now you'll just be owning two Chinese Cherys in your garage instead. The American worker --who wanted a pension, some scraps of a health insurance plan, and the dignity of work --all of that has been outsourced now, just like everything else. Two Chinese Cherys will be less expensive than one Detroit sled, so that means you can buy twice as much, and in a nation obsessed with material wealth, twice as much is four times gooder.
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
Any Given Monday
When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the future of the human race:
I shot this photo yesterday morning during the German holiday of Pfingsten, or Pentecost. On a Monday morning, 9 AM, I stood in the middle of a Gelsenkirchen street and said I'd take a photo of the first couple on bikes...and it took all of about 4 minutes of waiting.
Almost nothing else going on that morning...weekends usually find the town closed, most stores shuttered, and on a Monday holiday, well, the whole city was shut down. Nonetheless, there were still dozens of people going about, like these two by bike, or on foot, and with urban arrangements that allow for people to do such things without four lanes of forty-six mile an hour traffic right on top of them, people will do this.
Take note of the street -- a most fantastic stone mosaic that stretches for a mile in each direction from this intersection. Granted, this is the center of the city, and possibly most deserving of such attention, but all of this was built only within the past sixty years since the battle of the Ruhr. People fifty years hence had a vision to build public amenities that would last so long...man, what I'd wish for my Elk Grove to have build just one, even one thing, that would last fifty years in our last fifty years.
The subtleties of urban design make all the difference, like the mosaic stone. It makes this street worthy of human interaction. The workers who laid this stone, they celebrated the idea that the street (and their city) is a place with value, a place where an elderly couple would want to be:
The man walking might have once been a mason. He might have built that street he's now walking on in old age. His work wasn't just some steel and glass office park to be fled after the day is done. It wasn't some five lanes of one-dimensional asphalt moving motor vehicles. It wasn't some depot-sized consumer wherehouse. People want to be there.
I would implore you, my fellow American, to sit on any street corner in any small city in America and find an elderly couple riding bikes. Tell me you could find them on any given Monday. Tell me you'd find them within 4 minutes instead of once every 4 days. Tell me that German couple riding their bicycles suffers from arthritis, has at least one artificial hip between them, high blood pressure even with all that wurst and beer, and are on a combined twenty four different prescription medications...
I shot this photo yesterday morning during the German holiday of Pfingsten, or Pentecost. On a Monday morning, 9 AM, I stood in the middle of a Gelsenkirchen street and said I'd take a photo of the first couple on bikes...and it took all of about 4 minutes of waiting.
Almost nothing else going on that morning...weekends usually find the town closed, most stores shuttered, and on a Monday holiday, well, the whole city was shut down. Nonetheless, there were still dozens of people going about, like these two by bike, or on foot, and with urban arrangements that allow for people to do such things without four lanes of forty-six mile an hour traffic right on top of them, people will do this.
Take note of the street -- a most fantastic stone mosaic that stretches for a mile in each direction from this intersection. Granted, this is the center of the city, and possibly most deserving of such attention, but all of this was built only within the past sixty years since the battle of the Ruhr. People fifty years hence had a vision to build public amenities that would last so long...man, what I'd wish for my Elk Grove to have build just one, even one thing, that would last fifty years in our last fifty years.
The subtleties of urban design make all the difference, like the mosaic stone. It makes this street worthy of human interaction. The workers who laid this stone, they celebrated the idea that the street (and their city) is a place with value, a place where an elderly couple would want to be:
The man walking might have once been a mason. He might have built that street he's now walking on in old age. His work wasn't just some steel and glass office park to be fled after the day is done. It wasn't some five lanes of one-dimensional asphalt moving motor vehicles. It wasn't some depot-sized consumer wherehouse. People want to be there.
I would implore you, my fellow American, to sit on any street corner in any small city in America and find an elderly couple riding bikes. Tell me you could find them on any given Monday. Tell me you'd find them within 4 minutes instead of once every 4 days. Tell me that German couple riding their bicycles suffers from arthritis, has at least one artificial hip between them, high blood pressure even with all that wurst and beer, and are on a combined twenty four different prescription medications...
Airport Insecurity
I can't tell you how pissed off I am at TSA. At every luggage check between Sacramento and Dusseldorf Germany, every one, I was harassed (and rightly so) about carrying my little Topeak Alien bicycle tool kit...but the second to last leg from Amsterdam to Minneapolis refused my boarding it.
What?
I was allowed to carry it on four flights, but on the fifth of six, they said "you can't bring tools on board." Where and when did this fucking rule come from?
Well, after being rather baffled why I was allowed to do so on four earlier trips, and having no time to back out and "check in" a nine-oz set of allen wrenches, a chain tool, and an 8, 9, and 10 mm box end wrench, I had to lose my $30 tool set. Not only did they not just take it away, I was honored with the act of having to throw it out myself. Perhaps so that TSA personnel aren't burdened with having to explain how bike tool kits somehow show up in their own bike bags at home.
What makes me most mad about all of this is the TSA website expressly allows for tools (not sharp) to be carried on board that are less than seven inches in length. I wish I'd have discovered this and printed this out before the flight. But what good would it have done to persuade a TSA "official" about what can and can't be brought on board? You think fighting it, right then and there, would have been in my best interests? Like I know more about his fucking job than he?
What I'm getting at, and what I'm going to comment on over the next several posts, is just how utterly screwed up my nation is, on so many levels. After spending over a week in a country whose language I don't understand and managing quite effectively to get around all of western Germany without having once gotten into a car/cab/van, and had I rode a bike to have an ability to fix it with a tool kit -- and then to board a U.S. bound airplane and being refused to "re-"take on board a 2.5 inch allen wrench set?
The United States TSA represents a colossal waste of human capital. Its sole purpose is to make white Americans feel safe. This is most stunningly, stunningly! evident when you compare the European Union conduct of airline safety vs. that of the U.S. It is immediately clear that behavioral patterns are included along with just checking nuns for billyclubs. The U.S. fails to arrive at the inescapable conclusion that terrorism can only be carried out by people...with or without blasting caps, blackjacks, brass knuckles, billyclubs, BB guns, box cutters, baseball bats or bull whips. We fail to respect the human faces of terrorism, but I suggest that this is all we are capable of anymore...America refuses to acknowledge the human face of most everything. It is this concept more than any other that really defines what I post about on my monologues.
It is why Americans can't make a living wage building good quality products that they are so very capable of, why we demand of our governments and other nations a crushing debt load to finance a standard of living we can't sustain, why our cities and rivers and neighborhoods were allowed to be bisected by eight lane freeways to shuffle faceless motorists, on and on...they are all connected, and they are all caused by the same set of conditions...
What?
I was allowed to carry it on four flights, but on the fifth of six, they said "you can't bring tools on board." Where and when did this fucking rule come from?
Well, after being rather baffled why I was allowed to do so on four earlier trips, and having no time to back out and "check in" a nine-oz set of allen wrenches, a chain tool, and an 8, 9, and 10 mm box end wrench, I had to lose my $30 tool set. Not only did they not just take it away, I was honored with the act of having to throw it out myself. Perhaps so that TSA personnel aren't burdened with having to explain how bike tool kits somehow show up in their own bike bags at home.
What makes me most mad about all of this is the TSA website expressly allows for tools (not sharp) to be carried on board that are less than seven inches in length. I wish I'd have discovered this and printed this out before the flight. But what good would it have done to persuade a TSA "official" about what can and can't be brought on board? You think fighting it, right then and there, would have been in my best interests? Like I know more about his fucking job than he?
What I'm getting at, and what I'm going to comment on over the next several posts, is just how utterly screwed up my nation is, on so many levels. After spending over a week in a country whose language I don't understand and managing quite effectively to get around all of western Germany without having once gotten into a car/cab/van, and had I rode a bike to have an ability to fix it with a tool kit -- and then to board a U.S. bound airplane and being refused to "re-"take on board a 2.5 inch allen wrench set?
The United States TSA represents a colossal waste of human capital. Its sole purpose is to make white Americans feel safe. This is most stunningly, stunningly! evident when you compare the European Union conduct of airline safety vs. that of the U.S. It is immediately clear that behavioral patterns are included along with just checking nuns for billyclubs. The U.S. fails to arrive at the inescapable conclusion that terrorism can only be carried out by people...with or without blasting caps, blackjacks, brass knuckles, billyclubs, BB guns, box cutters, baseball bats or bull whips. We fail to respect the human faces of terrorism, but I suggest that this is all we are capable of anymore...America refuses to acknowledge the human face of most everything. It is this concept more than any other that really defines what I post about on my monologues.
It is why Americans can't make a living wage building good quality products that they are so very capable of, why we demand of our governments and other nations a crushing debt load to finance a standard of living we can't sustain, why our cities and rivers and neighborhoods were allowed to be bisected by eight lane freeways to shuffle faceless motorists, on and on...they are all connected, and they are all caused by the same set of conditions...
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