Importance of Breakfast

   I have been going out to breakfast with a friend of mine from when you could get a good breakfast for about $2.25.  I remember when you could get bacon and eggs, toast and hash browns for a dollar.
That same breakfast today is about nine dollars so there is a pretty simple mathematical correlation:
Breakfast is related to the minimum wage, within a quarter to be exact.  The minimum wage in Oregon is $9.05, Washington to the North is a little higher.  Some States are a lot lower and some cities have their own set minimum wage.  San Fransisco is over $10.
   We used to work together every day.  I was officially "his boss" as I owned the company but there were a lot of jobs I did that would not have gotten done without him.  We would go out to breakfast once a week, discuss the past week and anticipate the work ahead.  When I quit the construction business, he did too.  When I bought my welder, he did too and we would do small jobs and arty stuff independently and collaborate, working together on the bigger jobs.  We always had breakfast together when we did these bigger jobs, sharing the tasks, the tools, the labor and the breakfast.  Sometimes he would buy and sometimes I would buy. We were working.  The price of a breakfast tied to minimum wage, it was like giving the other an hour.
   It is different now that we are both retired and living on Social Security.  We still go out to breakfast but normally only once a month, the second Wednesday of the month, to be precise: payday!  One time he will buy and the next month it is my turn.  The exception to this is when either of us finds some kind of work where we need the help of the other and can work together.  That being a cause for celebration, we always look forward to breakfast.
   Least you think that I hang out with liberals my friend is pretty conservative, mostly but not always, votes the opposite that I do, recently joined the NRA and has a concealed gun permit (and actually carries the damn thing!) and drives a big diesel pick up truck.  And yes, of course we talk politics!
What else is going on?  Oh, we do the me, me, me and you, you, you thing.  What I am up to and what he is working on but that is pretty much done by the time the waiter takes our order.  By the time the food arrives we are deep into politics and the world situation.  The secret to our on-going relationship and growing friendship is that we actually listen to each other.  If he finds a good book he will give it to
me when he has finished it.  Sometimes we have exchanged as many as 5 books in a week!  We share our labor, the breakfast and our ideas, make fun of each other when ideas cannot be backed up and always research further for even more discussion at the next breakfast.  Sometimes we catch ourselves
in agreement and sometimes we can sense the other weakening.  I would like to say that it is never personal but it always is.  I really want to know why he feels the way he does and he does that of me also.
   He expected that I would cringe when he told me recently that he had joined the NRA. Not at all, I told him!  My dad was a card caring member of the NRA!  When my dad died I inherited about 6 or 7 guns and rifles.  The funny thing was is that he didn't have a single bullet in the house, no ammunition
at all.  My dad like the mechanics and weight of guns.  He did not like to shoot things, not even targets.
He did believe in the 2nd amendment but not in a militarized society.  If you want militias and free access to guns and less government you end up like Somalia!  Oh, there was a discussion so we went that way for the rest of breakfast!
   I look forward to our breakfasts together.  I think friendships need feeding.

It Is Raining...

It Is Pouring, actually with thunder and coming down in torrents.  It is not good for my garden.  I watered just yesterday, a day full of sun and promise, then, fickle like a school girl, the weather changes and now all is wet.  I think the rain went all the way to New Mexico and put the fires out.  That is what I hear, soggy ashes, flash floods and no longer a fire.  Nature at its best, putting fires out and at its worst, drowning my tomatoes.
Some people pray for rain and other's for no more rain and at some point all prayers are answered.  Too late for a single tree and plenty of time to save a forest.  Sometimes.  I wonder how it all works?
   Do you listen to speeches?  I do and wonder about them too.  It is coming down to two philosophies, each side admits that there is a problem.  Reagan economics was a top down trickle theory and for awhile it worked pretty well.  It is the credo of the capitalists saying wealth generates wealth and as the rich spend it, it trickles down and other's reap the benefits of those spending money.  That sort of worked until they quit spending money in our town!  When they began outsourcing, sending the jobs overseas and then putting their money in off shore accounts, the trickle down went elsewhere and the well here at home dried up completely.
   I am not sure that trickle down ever really worked.  The "other philosophy" is expanding the economy from the middle out.  As a percentage of the population the United States used to have the largest middle class in the world.  Our middle class has lost 40% of its wealth in the last 20 years.  What are we doing to get it back?  It seems to me that we are zeroing in on those "just above us" on the pay scale.  Instead of increasing our position we want to strip those just  above us of theirs.  We go after the Union Workers, we go after those with pensions and health benefits, we go after Government workers.  We are like pirhanna in a fish tank and are eating each other!
   Is no one analyzing how we became "Middle Class" in the first place?  How a raise in Union wages could increase everyone's wages?  The role of Government in building our roads, bridges and infrastructure?
We will not get back on track by stealing money from someone else.  That never works.  Eventually they will run out of money to steal.  But there are things we could do.  It is embarrassing and stupid that China has a better railway system than we do, that we have allowed our bridges to fall down and the roads to deteriorate , that we rely on a sewer system that in some cases is over 100 years old.  Our infrastructure is falling apart and there has never been as good a time as now to repair it.  Money has never been cheaper to borrow.  We have the workers.  We need the jobs.  That is something that would trickle down!  God forbid if our Congress did anything to make our President look good!  We are willing to destroy America, anything it seems, to make his job as difficult as possible.  Why can't we all just get along?

The Last Piece of Cake

   Our political beliefs are tied to our view of the world, how we see things and what we focus on.  A lot of our beliefs are purely an accident of birth.  If we were Eskimos we would consider seal eyeballs a delicacy and whale hunting as a right of passage and normal thing to do. Sometimes we believe things without question, often  without thought and seldom with investigation. Often things are not dependent upon belief.  They either are, or they are not and no amount of belief will change the outcome.
   Did you see the story about Japan?  Japan has the largest percentage of old people and the youth are no longer falling in love!  Its population is expected to drop by 20% in the next 40 years which might be good if it were proportionate but it will mean even more older people and far fewer children.  No young worker bees to support the colony!  Young people do not want the bother of a relationship, the commitment or sacrifice. They are trading the future for now.
   I wonder if we are doing that too?  Oh, I think we are still making babies, that is the fun part but are we dealing with tomorrow?  I think who a person votes for depends on how you envision the future.  If it is the last piece of cake on the plate and we have to fight for it or if there will be more.

I am going to begin my book tomorrow!  I still only have that first chapter written but I need the commitment to keep me motivated, Obligation, Look for it HERE.

When We Only Hear Half

There is a problem with arguing and I seldom do it.  When we are talking, especially when we raise our voices, our ability to listen is curtailed and we seldom hear what was said.  This is probably more true about politics than  domestic quarrels.  If government were turned over to private enterprise most of them would be fired.
   It sounds so reasonable when the House Speaker wants to create a budget for an entire year.  Do you want to face this financial issue every two months?  Grinding the government to a halt and preventing real discourse?  Of course we do not want a government financed two months at a time!  That is so obvious that we know it must not be the issue!  Something else is going on.  They talk one thing and do another.  Obfuscate, I think, is the word.  God, we have to deal with this shit for a year and a half!  Why can't we all just get along?
   It is probably about several things, always more than we are told, always more than we care to listen to.
Obama's strength is certainly not in bending others to his will and this close to an election the Republicans will do nothing to make him look good.
   It is the Pipeline that bothers me.  It has been tagged onto the recent budget issue by the Republicans and it is the main reason why they can't or won't reach any kind of compromise.
   One one side the Pipeline sounds good.  Twenty thousand jobs and oil to Texas.  Oil is on a World Market Price so it will not be cheaper but at least bought from friends and closer.  I might even be in favor of this but I think it is a serious issue and should deserve a separate hearing, an argument for another day, not attached to another.
   I do not know "the real price" for this pipeline.  Will it weaken our Environmental Laws and give us the pollution of Mexico?  I do not know.  Oil from the shale of Canada is about the dirtiest oil there is, difficult and expensive to process, complicated and polluting to acquire and refine.  It is necessary to "fracked the Earth" (sounds dirty, doesn't it?) to get it.  Fracking is a process of injecting chemicals deep into the Earth to release the oil.  It destroys water tables.  Pollutes wells and destroys aquifers.
   There are good things and bad things about the pipeline.  It is a very serious issue, far too serious to be tagged along side of a payroll tax bill.  There must be a reason they do not build a refinery in Canada near to where this oil is?  and then just sell us nice clean gas?  Lots of questions!
   Most arguments are never about issues anyway.  They almost always come from a loss of trust.  They are about power and control and, of course, money.  I wonder who profits?
   We should have a deep, reverent respect for this Earth.  We are all passengers and it is our only ship.

On a different note I am considering starting a computer Blog for idiots!  Would that be fun?

My website is HERE

We Will Decide

   It is looking more and more as if the Super Committee in charge of decisions concerning the National Debt have just wasted their salaries.  I hate hiring people who can't get a job done!  I think to myself, if they worked for me I would fire the lot of them.  Then it occurs to me that these people are working for me and I cringe!
   The scary part of all of this is Congress can't accomplish anything because it is representative of the American people!  We voted them in.  We are a severely divided Nation and I can imagine Lincoln turning over in his grave.  We won't admit it but the problem is not with Congress.  We are the problem.
We have voted our emotions too many times.  We have voted without knowing the issues, without realizing the consequences, and sometimes we have voted without even realizing what we have voted for.
   In "the old days" we had barbershop conversations, talked on our front  porches, even might have gone to town hall meetings.  In the old days people read newspapers and we had more reliable news on the television.
   For some reason in the past twenty years we have become afraid of political discussions!  Is this because we feel like rats in a maze and there is no cheese?  that we have lost a sense of power?  I don't think so.  I think it is there for the taking.  It would be easier now than ever before to pack a City Hall meeting.  I think we have become lazy.  We don't read.  We don't investigate.  We have lost the art of pondering.  No one made us sheep.  There is no conspiracy.  It is just easier to graze on the grass and go about our day without giving it a thought.  We take the easy way out.
   They are calling this a "do nothing Congress" when they are just doing what we are doing:  nothing.
There will be another election in one year.  We have time to read, to discover, to educate ourselves on the issues.  Time to decide what kind of world we want this to be.
   There are other issues but the Economy will clearly be the biggest one we talk about in the coming year.
The National Debt wouldn't be an issue at all in a good economy.  Do we still believe in the "Trickle Down"
theory?  We get our jobs from rich people so we have to be nice to them?  Yasum Boss Sir kind of mentality?  What is the roll of Government?  Should we really wait until the bridges fall down before we repair them?  Where can we cut money with the least amount of pain?
   I am a bit disappointed with the art community.  I thought we might have a deeper understanding, more insight, more empathy, a clearer vision, a different view.  We are as isolated and lazy as the rest and our "do nothing Congress" is representing of us.  You get what you pay for and you get what you vote for.  How could anyone vote for someone who couldn't find Lybia on a map?
   The future is going to be more of the same because we seem to like it like that.

Bo La De La Ba

Life goes on, C'est La Vie, what will be will be.  That is just about the most powerless victim kind of attitude I have ever encountered and it is a bunch of crap.  I remember the cartoons of my youth:  "are we Men or Mice?"  We're MICE!
   In real life in the real world the only constant has been change.  Nothing remains the same.  There are reasons things are the way they are and there will be reasons for the future, always reasons for why things happen.
   I think we have lost our curiosity and don't even give a rip.  We are in encampments, circling the wagons.
We throw ideas away because we don't like the messenger.  We don't even know why we don't like the messenger, just a label without investigation.
   This is all pretty interesting to me because I think we are all after the very same thing.  We want to have a sense of power in what appears to be a powerless world.
   The "Teabaggers" and the Wall Street Protesters at first glance seems to be on the opposite side of the spectrum but they are not.  In a world where they feel powerless they want a voice.
   There is a danger to a society where more people vote for "American Idol" or "Dancing with the Stars" than do for a National Election.  There is a danger to society where more people read the "Twilight Series" than have ever even heard of John Stuwart Mill's "On Liberty".  Our libraries are closing and we have forgotten that a Democracy requires work.  Newspapers are going out of business every month.  It seems that we no longer read at all.
   The problem with not being curious is that we are easily lead.  It is so much easier to follow than to cut a path and easier still to sit and be do nothing people.  Our justification to our grandchildren will be "I didn't do that!"  But it is a pretty poor answer to claim you did nothing.  Didn't even read a newspaper.
   Yes, these are "interesting times".

My Art, my Garden and my Studio can be found HERE

My Idea

   I like the clash of ideas, you already know that about me.  I like Truth and Consequences, presenting what seems like a great idea only to discover the consequences are not so great.  With a discussion the idea is to iron out these problems.  It is not an issue of who is right and who is wrong, but what happens if we did this and what happens if we did that?
   Here is a great example:  Bio-fuel.  Making fuel for our cars from corn oil.  Gosh, it sounds great!  Helps get us away from foreign oil, reduces the need for fossil fuels and we have tons of land upon which to grow corn!  Nice, green corn!  Well, it sounded like a good idea and we did this.  Made it a law even and 10% of our gasoline is now corn based.
   Here is what wasn't considered.  The corn-gas mixture is deadly to lawn mowers and all small gas engines.
Most of our corn for this is grown along the Mississippi River Basin eventually dumping into the Gulf of Mexico.  It takes a huge amount of fossil fuel fertilizer to grow corn and the excess is drained into the river.
This is killing the water in the Gulf, creating a "Dead Zone" where fish cannot live.
It is now more profitable to grow corn for its fuel than for food and this has caused food prices to soar,  adding to world-wide hunger. 
   Gee, why couldn't anyone think this out?  Somewhere in the scheme of this discussion was a lobbyist for the corn industry.  I will bet on that.
   A discussion that is going on now is about the EPA.  Environmental Protection Agency.  I notice ads on television trying to persuade me, telling me that these "Government Regulations" are the source of our economic plight.  I wonder whether anybody takes this seriously?  "They" want to give us the pollution of Mexico, the air of China, the waste dumps of Russia in return for jobs?  You have got to be kidding!
Maybe I should be investing in face masks?  Or pharmaceuticals, an investment in "Happy Pills" to make us stomach the b.s. they are throwing at us?
   I am a skeptic and as in any good murder mystery I want to know motive, who profits?  I follow the money.  Why does someone want my vote?
   My "idea for government" would be anonymous.  All Bills before Congress would be without a name.
All speeches would be without a speaker.  Ideas would be presented without tags or labels.  We wouldn't know.  We wouldn't know whether it be a Republican Idea nor one from a Democrat, not even a "Teabagger" nor an Independent.  We wouldn't know who gave the speech, could be Obama, could be Sarah Palin?  Could be anybody?
   That would cause more work for us.  We would have to listen.  We might have to read!  But the article would not have an author!  Anonymous.  We might have to actually think!

I am a Convervative

   Yes, it is true.  I am so conservative some think I am boring.  In my personal life I am rock steady in my beliefs.  I don't make changes quickly.  I have had the same telephone number for over 40 years, the same house since 1971 and the same wife since 1968!
   I have been self employed since 1973.  I have gone through several recessions, economic hardships, good times and bad times.  I have paid more in taxes than anyone I know.  I paid both sides of my own Social Security Tax, as the individual and being self-employed.  No one else paid a dime into it.  I have paid Federal and State Taxes, County Taxes, City Taxes, Licence Taxes, Local Transit Taxes, Unemployment Taxes, Worker's Compensation Taxes and probably a lot of other taxes I am forgetting.  There were many, many times when all these taxing agencies got paid and there was no money left over, none to take home.
And there were other times when there was lots to take home.  That is the nature of the business world and if you want to stay in business you always pay yourself last.
   I liked what I did.  I liked the freedom it gave me, the entrepreneurial spirit of it, the "can do" attitude of it all.
I did it all by choice and it is our American Society that allowed me this choice.  There are many countries in the world where doing what I did is just not possible.  It is our society that offers these possibilities.  In our society a hot dog vendor can become a millionaire.  A pizza worker can run for President.  The lowliest worker at McDonald's can end up owning the place!  I love this about our society!
   I have mentioned "Vertu" and "Fortuna" before.  Two Greek words meaning the measure of a man and the luck he encounters.  In our society the harder you work the luckier you can get and I like that too.
   Without exception ALL of the successful people I have ever met worked long hours to get to where they are.
   We have an opportunity to shape the society in which we live.  We can be helpful or hurtful.  Positive or negative.  Mostly I realize that I am not alone.  I didn't do whatever I have done by myself.  I have had help all along the way, employees, neighbors, fellow citizens, the society in which I live.
   There are two things that often run through my head:  how do I want to be? and how do I want others to be?
   If I lived in Zimbabwe I would be a flaming liberal or a radical of some kind, that is for sure.  We are pretty lucky here.  I do believe that we are caretakers of this planet, that we should clean up our messes and cause no harm.  I don't want garbage dumps, spilled oil, polluted air and undrinkable water.  I am pretty conservative about that.
   I am very conservative when it comes to money.  It is hard to get and I am getting old.  Don't want my debts passed on to my children.  As a business person I understand the value of borrowing money, understand it can be a good thing to borrow a hundred when you could make a thousand out of the deal.
I am tired of war.  Tired of paying for it with borrowed money.  Tired of all the costs yet to come from this.
I am pretty conservative there too.
   I was embarrassed for my country when there were cheers to the idea of allowing a thirty year old to die
unattended rather than contribute to his care.  That is not the kind of world I want.  It is not practical.  It would be smelly.  And what so many people don't realize, it would be more expensive!
   It is not some kind of altruism, some kind of belief in doing good that causes me to want some kind of National Health.  I think of it as wholesale buying.  It is like Costco.  If we bought it together it would be less expensive.  Americans spend more money by far than any other country in the world on health and we get far less for it.  Our system is broken and too many people don't realize what this means.  50,000,000 Americans have no health insurance at all.  More join these ranks every day!  Hospitals are just like any other business,
they need money to operate (litterally!).  They are closing their doors all the time.  With no insurance income
hopitals cannot stay in business.  This will hurt us all.  I don't really understand why emotions enter into this discussion.  It is all pretty simple math.
   I like simple math and it is the way I look at a lot of life, what adds up and what doesn't, who is lying and who is telling the truth.  Corporations are behind most of the television advertizements now.  They hire lawyers and psycologists, slick guys from Wall Street, clever people who can tweek our emotions.  Funny how they can make every side to an argument sound so right! 
   I have become suspicious of the lot of them!  I take more and more with a grain of salt and retreat more a little each day on to my little island.

THIS site is free and I am always there.

Not Tonight Deer!

I don't really spend all my time in the basement on this computer attempting to turn over rocks that are way too heavy for me to lift.  As rational human beings it is sometimes difficult for me to understand how emotion trumps reason.  We seem to encompass fear and while maybe not understanding an argument at all we entrench and get into our camps, unmovable and hunkered down.  On occasion and you might think too often, I talk politics on this blog.  We live in a political world and all issues have a direct effect on us.
     I try my best to encourage conversation because I think in talking we will know more about these issues.
I try to not use emotional catch phrases like "liberal" and "conservative" or "socialism". These are all designed to get emotional responses and cloud the issues.  The truth of the matter is that I don't know exactly where I stand on a lot of issues.  I am exploring.  I know what seems to be never is and there are consequences to everything.  And, to be honest, there are just some things I do not understand.
    I have had every life experience to make me a Republican.  I have never "used the system", never been to the ER without paying for it myself, never been on food stamps, never collected unemployment, never had subsidised housing or assistance with a utility bill, did not relie on government assistance for my education, have never filed for bankruptcy.  Most of my life has been as an employer not an employee.  I have great private health insurance and have paid into it for over 35 years.  I have never received a dime of public money for anything.  All of this should make me a Republican, shouldn't it?  It is kind of a self-righteous position: I got mine, go get yours!
    These are the issues that nag at me and cause reflection.
European countries, especially Ireland and England have been confronting their national debt with austerity programs, basically curtailing programs for the poor, cutting back on assistance of any kind, raising taxes on the middle class and those lower and it is simply not working!  It is not working simply because that is not how money works.  Money only works when it is in circulation.  Someone has to spend it in order for another person to get it.  Think about food stamps (or whatever they call it these days) for a minute.  What would happen if you got rid of them?  Part of me is in favor of this.  I think the free hand outs discourage
people from working!  But what would happen to Safeways?  to the packaging industry? to the farmers?
to the jobs that are created or maintained from this benefit?  We NEED that circulation of money!
    We have become piranha in a fish bowl and think our survival is bent upon pulling down those above us!
Now we are attacking pensions and collective bargaining.  This won't be a good thing for my business at all.
I sell my art to people who have more money than I do.
    How can anyone be against National Health?  That just makes no sense to me at all.  Sure, I imagine there could be a better way to do it, but to be against it?  That's nuts!  We have it already!!!!!  We have the best, most inclusive health care in the world...IF you are over 65 years old!  We are amongst the worse if you are younger.  That is not an opinion.  It is verifiable.  We have a pretty decent, although not perfect, National Health Care for Veterans.  Why would you want to get rid of this?  Some jobs, although fewer every day, actually come with health benefits as part of the pay package.
    Money has to circulate or nothing works.  That again is real, it is not an opinion.  We are not burning it, it is still out there somewhere.  So the question becomes where is it?  Maybe off shore accounts?  Maybe in FIVE BILLION DOLLAR BONUSES!?  One economic difference from the 1960's to now is the rich are getting richer.  That is not an opinion.  This might have worked (trickle down theory) when it was spent but it is difficult to spend $5,000,000,000 dollars.  It is not just one guy.  40% of American wealth is controlled by just 2% of the people.  Is this really what we want?
    Another thing I think about is the idea of a society, as a concept.  How do you judge a society?  Do you judge a society on the amount of billionaires it produces?  Personally (and this IS an opinion!) I think a society should be judged on how it treats its elders, its children, it infirm and less able.  Most of my life one misstep and I could have been there.  Some of my accomplishments I attribute to just plain luck.

 "Not tonight deer" a deer fence!

    Enough of that crap for today, right?  What do I really do?

This past week I have been working on this project, and yesterday I installed it.  A deer fence to protect the back yard plantings!  The total height is about 8' and the whole trick to it is to make it so it isn't a dominating barricade to the backyard.

 Funny how we like nature and move to where the deer live and then attempt to fence them out!

Most of the structure is designed to develop a rust patina except for the leaves which are stainless steel, I hope a shinny reminder to the deer not to jump!

More of what I do HERE