Starbucks and the insatiable appetite for power

I recently read in the Los Angeles Times that Starbucks was going to be offering wine and beer at several locations.  What is it with this company?  Is this the coffee king of greed: of course.

It is said that America is home of the brave, land of liberty, and a proud nation of consumers; however are people going to applaud mixing a coffee shop with a bar?   Seems absurd.  But that’s one thing about consumerism, the people actually have a voice in what’s going on: consumer freedom reigns supreme, like an aftertaste of democracy.

Can you think about something the more twisted than mixing beer and coffee? Well that’s where the fun begins.

Now personally most of the people I see at a Starbucks are the type who would not normally hang out at a bar.  In my neighborhood there is a Starbucks next to a Blockbuster.  The folks at the Starbucks are usually in their 20s or 30s.  They meet the others to study to read to research.  Reminds me of a college campus.  Their minds are quick and engaging, and the idea is to meet others like themselves, to socialize and to meet new friends.  Such a good thing.  But when you add alcohol, that changes the chemical mix.

Starbucks is going strong, and the store is often crowded, but the Blockbusters is closing down in February.  The business of entertainment has changed rapidly over the years, and the streaming video that is possible makes having to check out dvds unnecessary, but at Starbucks people still can get what they can’t: companionship, at a cheap price.  People don’t go to blockbusters to socialize of course.  As long as people can get what they want they will keep coming.    Anyone can select what they want to watch on their networked device at home now, thought for some they won’t like not having the choice any longer.  With people not getting out to get their videos, the somebody’s going to have to build tougher and more rigid furniture to put up with the weight of people gain couch-potatoing in front of their 50-inch plasmas.  America needs new business ventures, so solid furnishings is a go.  Leather is car seats needs to be replaced too with something tougher like Yak Hides for those heaven-laden rumps.

Not like I’m not part of the movement or anything.  After 150 hours of sky rim, my virtual world is just as large as the common Joe‘s.

The social dynamics of a bar are not unlike the social dynamics of a Starbucks except in the fact that the type of clientele drawn in can be worlds removed.  A coffee addict may like to purchase a scone or muffin to complement their latte, but what will the alcoholic think about tasty breakfast treats.  No, really demanding beer nuts and pizza.  I just can’t see Starbucks merging with Pizza Hut.

I wonder if the management has had too much to drink: do they really want drunkards in their stores.  The knock to hire a bouncer, and someone to card, and then they’ll add live music, and paint the ceiling black and the walls to.  It just hurts my mind thinking about it

But the people will vote. They vote with their dollars.   Too bad politics doesn’t work that way.  The way it actually works is that only those with big bucks can really influence the vote.  You have to have a couple million to donate to a candidate you like.  Funny how capitalism works and democracy doesn’t because of capitalism not working.

I wonder how much Starbucks gives to candidates each year.  I wonder what their politics are like:   take a look.

http://www.economist.com/node/21531476

http://www.coffeeresearch.org/politics/Starbucks%20Fairtrade.htm

The CEO of Starbucks seems to think capitalism and politics in America is broken too.

So America understand this.  Your vote doesn’t count for much any longer.  Your politicians do hear one thing, and that is money.  You want to change the world then change your consumer habits, and buy things that represent your politics.  If you don’t like the fact that some company owns your representation, then don’t buy their products.  If you don’t like the fact that some company is using slave labor overseas, or that a company has dropped 2,500 jobs in the USA and moved their factory operations to China, then stop buying their goods.  If you don’t care, then maybe you should.

Mental Confusion

It’s been a while since I had my mind, not that anyone missed my blogging.  I really am just writing to myself.  Seems I have too small of a life.  Couped up at home with two teenaged boys, and a wife who is reversing the clock.

Yes, my opinions are my own, and I’m writing them here in this small space to get them out of my head.

Most recently, I’ve been suffering from a phase of “What the hell do I do next.”  This is a syndrojme for adults who are beginning to question the reasons they are where they are.  Like wtf, as my youngest would say.

Now I love my family, but routines begin to wear me down mentally.  The ruts, the are the ruts, are teh ruts … That disc gets old, and so does a career when you’ve climber no further than yesterday each day you go to work.  Nothing new really, nothing exciting.

You see it all started when I realized my career was over.

So I found out when I decided to interview for some jobs.  Yes, there are jobs out there to apply for.  But my middle-aged self realized when told “you are over-qualified,” that I was really too old.

Retirement is just to far out of reach, too.  What I would do if I could retire is to write.  I illustrate and write music too, but for now that paycheck  keeps a roof over my head.

Do you escape?  I have, and I’ve realized that escape doesn’t work.  I don’t do drugs or alcohol, and I don’t cheat on the wife — I don’t need the added emotional strain of trying to build another long-term relationship, and besides she is moving forward, ever it be so slowly.

So blogging and writing is what I must return too.  Not that my voice is significant in the sea of internet confusion.  But, blogging releases within me a better sense of who and what I am to me.  Brings clarity, don’t you think?

Change what you think to change your world!

_________________________________________

The art on this piece came from: http://mirrorimageart.blogspot.com

Bad attitudes at Christmas suck

The world is filled with people giving attitude to others.  Sometimes attitudes are funny, and other times, you know, those attitudes suck, and make everyone’s life hellish.  Remember to do unto others as you would have them do unto you, so drop the attitudes this season.

Especially frustrating are occurrences that bring about multiple people with bad attitudes.  Take sports.  A losing team’s fans , not that is bad attitude.  The players all want to win, but the mom, they want blood.  Thank God for the Police.  At times, people get hurt or even worse, killed. 

Another bad attitude issue comes up when you consider congested freeways, especially when you have an appointment that you aren’t going to make.  Just leave an hour earlier than normal.  Listen to some good music, and no drinking while driving, or you might be a widow maker. Eggnog is approved, without the rum.

Los Angeles where I work is a town of bad attitudes.  You have a high rent district (LA and Orange counties) milked by the absentee landlords (or slumlords).  The seething masses gnash their teeth at one another.  They riot and burn down their neighbors places and businesses, but the culprits, may not be anywhere near the rentals they are making money from — with rents raised nearly every year, dispite the fact that those poor folks don’t get a break and have poor paying jobs. 

Islamic Santa

The rich are richer, and the bitch gets bitchier.  The world is wicked and LA knows it.

But back to those attitudes.  People carry them around with them like small explosive charges ready to be unleashed on the unwitting and underserving world.  The frustrations at work and home, are carried like strapped on bombs on these people, who just wish to find a place where they can cause the most mayhem.  Reminds me of the Palestinian with some c-4 and some nails, waiting to get the right moment to blow up some strangers in a crowded marker.  That’s a little over the top, but serves to illustrate this point. 

santas suicide elves

Be aware that in these days coming up — near Christmas, that more people then normal are under strain, and may be harboring a lot of aggression toward their fellow man.  They are going to go off, so hit the deck with your boughs of holly. La, la, la, la, la ….

So instead of hitting back, kick back.   Happy Holidays!

Clockwork Orange Costumes to the Hand of God

Have you ever been asked a question that is just outside of your realm of knowledge, this situation where you’re being interviewed, and you just realize that they have no idea about whether or not you’re qualified for the position you’re interviewing for?

It happened to me recently, when I was interviewing for a job that relates to evaluating people for workplace accommodations.

However, when I don’t have information about a topic, it seems to stir something within me, something akin to curiosity, about how to topics so seemingly not related can affect each other.

Safer and since you took two movies.  In my blog, I have mentioned Clockwork Orange several times.  Now let’s say we were talking about an unrelated drama like M*A*S*H.  How do you draw lines between clockwork Orange and M*A*S*H.  Well someone out there probably is arty done something like that.  Do you see how that might grab your attention.

Take M*A*S*H: it’s about doctors serving in the Korean War and how they had to cope with their communal living in the trenches of death and destruction.  Death and destruction, wow.  Do you see what I mean?  Do you see there is a connection.  Clockwork Orange is a movie about sadistic violence and sadistic rehabilitation, not really death and destruction, unless you’re talking about the gang violence in the movie.  But still, it’s about inhumanity to people in either direction.  War certainly is the defining act of human behavior that dehumanizes people.  Killing people when they are attacking you, seems humane only if you are protecting people you know intimately.

However killing people who are complete strangers to you, because you want something they have, like oil, is certainly the most inhumane treatment between people.  You just can’t go around telling all your friends and your neighbors, your coworkers and your bosses, because you have joint interest in promoting them, and caring for their needs, each has there is reciprocity involved.

I just thought of another interesting connection between the two.  As many of you have clicked on this website to find my clockwork orange picture, you may be designing your own costume for Halloween.

What about those who are making a M*A*S*H outfit.  I doubt that anyone really is making their costume.  It would be difficult to find those old army green outfits where the Army now uses those camouflage uniforms.  However, it’s still possible.

I think this would make actually a fun form of intellectual entertainment.  You can create a game with cards that provide seemingly unrelated topics, and then you would have to find similarities or possibly differences about the two topics.  Let’s think of some: windmills, Astroturf.  Jack-o’-lanterns and french fries.  Surf boards and artesian wells.  You come up with tens of thousands of unrelated terms.

Did you ever play the game where someone starts off the story and has so many seconds, and then the person next to them has to add something to it, until you’ve gone around the whole room and created some crazy story?

Some people say that our brains connect topics like this through a neural network, and that we really don’t understand the complexity of relationship and verbal categorization that is going on in our minds.  I think it’s really fun to see how we are not cognizant of these connections, until we try juxtaposing verbal information side-by-side.

Another thought comes to mind about all this, and that is how we are related to each other.  My family goes back in this country to just after the Mayflower landed.  Now I am about the 14th generation who has lived in the United States.  So that means about 14 other families have married into my direct family line.  And my grandmother’s family among other side was known to be in the United States before the Revolutionary war.  So lets say another 10 generations or more.  You start multiplying out the possibility or probability of we are related to, and he is quite amazing.  A remember seeing that President Obama and George Bush were actually related being nine cousins removed. (I don’t know if that really is true, but the possibility is realistic)

As we map out the human genome, you can see that all over the world there are a few mutations to the genetic structure.  That throughout history there were several splits of groups such as in Africa, the Middle East, and in Asia, where a trait was changed and the human family evolved in some way.  So the differences between races such as lip thickness, nose width, color of skin, eye color, ability to digest milk, susceptibility to sickle cell anemia, and other such traits.  Now some people may not believe in evolution, and frankly there’s really no evidence that clearly demonstrates evolution between species, but within a species these principles obviously are of interest to study, because the data is there.  DNA really is just data, and mutations don’t appear to be just adaptations that happen randomly, but seem to come about when there is a need for that adaptation.  That’s where evolution is very weak, for information is supposedly improved upon randomly.

On the other hand, when you look at the idea of creationism, you find the concept of time is really at issue.  Not really if there is a God, or designer, or more commonly known as the creator, but the concept that everything was done in seven days.  But what’s seven days to a creator of the universe, surely not seven of our Earth days.  So I see why it sometimes people who are scientifically minded no one a look at the issue of improving design information and DNA, and creating better or improved or even more difficult to comprehend comprehensive or complex information.

You know I write this blog because I want to think out loud, and to express those thoughts be as they may.  The problem you have with people is that they’re so close minded a forgotten how to think.  They have some theory some religion some answer that they agree to, have faith in and support, and they’ve lost the ability to really think, to question to comprehend and to re-think topics.  The dogmatic are almost insane.  Creationism and Darwinism are not religions, but you would think they were.  But just like the original topic: Clockwork Orange and comparing that with M*A*S*H.  There is certainly just as much that is relevant and true between the biological principles that Darwin wrote about some years ago in creation.  I mean how better to evaluate the amazing work of God than biology.  The fact that DNA can create a blueprint for something as simple as a amoeba, which has an amazing engineering and complexity but is yet so small and so simple biological proves the idea of design.  Let alone the amazing world of animals and plants that are complex.

I find it fascinating that some of the religious people I know are the most mean-spirited, judgemental and angry people in the world.  I’m not at all amazed at their shortsighted, belligerent and inhumane treatment of others.  Then I look at similarly the stupidity which anti-faith people have growing up in a world that is so incredible and designed, and say it happened by chance, but they may donate thousands to relieve suffering.

Every day when I go to work, and I see tens of thousands of people a year.  And I see that they’re all different and amazing, and walking and talking, dancing and singing, and growing and learning.

I see the hand of God.  And the people who get together and put their minds and their spirits into projects to improve humanity, they too are reflections of this God.  They can spout all day long there isn’t any God, that everything is for man and my man, and even that God was created in man’s image, and I will still look at them, looking at the design of their eye or the myriad ways in which they can position their hands, wrists and arms, and their ability to memorize and retain information, and to create, and it’s almost like a joke.

America: Striving for a Just World

America land of liberty, equality and democracy is headed in the wrong direction these days.  Two tenets of virtue have fallen to pertinacious winds of change.  First you had the (intellectual and physical) competition of Americans driving for Americans to build a great society, one for the greater good.  Innovation and practical improvements in the last two centuries prove how amazing competition in working toward technological solutions have been.  Then you had the second quest for truth and a pure form of government, which drove American lawmakers along with scientists to continue the improvements by creating a society of law and order, and one which used science to eliminate disease and improve sanitation and the health of Americans, substantially increasing the lifespan of Americans.  Now  these lines of power are like exposed wires, and the frayed spots are beginning to spark like hell.  You’ve gotten justice turning to political decision-making and competition and innovation corrupted by cheating and greed.

Justice is done

These topics more than the terriblenews of the Irene hurricane stirred my mind this week, setting off some realizations of where the big ship of American life is headed – can you say iceberg, or are your dining on the American Titanic. First of all have you read about the Supreme Court (of Injustice?), and Clarence (Can’t Touch This) Thomas’s decision?  How a court can throw out evidence and make such a impactful and fateful choice to disregard the Brady standards, must be covered in political (or irrational) premises.  The Supreme Court overthrew multiple appellate decisions regarding the Connick vs. Thompson, which basically took a settlement of one million dollars for each year a man was unjustly imprisoned for a crime he didn’t do.  The injustice involved is staggering, and the Supreme Court’s ruling is one that brings many legitimate questions about the health of American justice, as does the OJ Simpson trial and the Casey Anthony case.  Do these cases spin your head? The evidence cited by the majority decision does not mention 10 possible Brady violations, but Ginsberg in writing the dissenting opinion clearly states her conclusions that the DA office had violated the civil rights of the prisoner, who was convicted of a murder he did not do, and for which he spent 14 years of his life in prison, awaiting execution.  What really got the bullet is American’s concept of justice and protection against prosecutors withholding evidence.  As a critic added (after this decision) “the court has created a perfect Catch-22, since the courts already give prosecutors absolute immunity for their actions as prosecutors (though they may still be liable for their conduct as administrators or investigators). By immunizing their bosses as well, the court has guaranteed that nobody can be held responsible for even the most shocking civil rights violations.”  About the Brady violations, a writer from the Moderate Voice states: Authorities also failed to produce a police report in which one of their witnesses gave statements to the police that contradicted their testimony at trial. They also coached witnesses, improper conduct by legal ethics standards, to work around evidence supporting Thompson’s innocence. In all, at least ten exculpatory exhibits were withheld from the defense.  [the whole opinion from the court]

And … the drama – did you know that this all came out because one of the culprit (prosecutor) who was dying of cancer confessed of this withholding of information during his last few breaths of life.  The guilt, and the drama!!!  Where is the value of convicting people for crimes they didn’t do?  What kind of pressure is happening to make people do this to others?  I’ve never worked in the halls of justice, but I have walked them seeking justice myself.  Some people say that ethnic and racial profiling is involved, and the white prosecutors don’t care what negro serves time for another’s crime; is that possible? Yet, could it be that another (second) strand of wiring, exposed and nearly shorting out the greatness of our nation.  Yes, competition.  Competition: to close cases, even if you have to lie and cheat.

In my humble opinion the government needs to protect the people, especially from the government and this decision surely throws things back a hundred years. The line of reason twists significantly when unfair completion enters this systems of law and order. Though competition is something that can bring about a great improvement for humanity, when it  helps people to strive to be their best.  Yet when there is any unfair advantage, the system that pits equals, then supports unequal circumstances.  Those with the advantage gain in whatever way they can, sometimes by cheating.  The simplest advantage can be wrought by bumping a fellow runner, running a familiar course, or more notoriously by taking steroids.  The American field of athletics is filled with NCAA violations in recruiting, the Olympians being paid professional athletes, and big television money (like the Texas piece).  The baseball scandals only proved what we Americans know: the unfair advantage is promoted by baseball, with the hopes no one will see.  Steroids buffed home run kings like Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire, and Sammy Sosa.  These are baseball players that made the professional home run look like an ordinary blast from their bats. Here you have two elements intertwined, interlaced and unfortunately they are big part of the theatre of sports.  Sports without enhancement drugs just doesn’t exist.  Even high school kids are doing them.  It probably runs through the whole of all professional athletes.  If you want the faster step, the crushing grip, the larger physical size, you get pumped.  The big time players make big time bucks, too, and isn’t it all about the money?

Amateur sports has also taken the hit, and has been sucked into the vacuum of cheating and foul play.  The truth of this comes out, and spoils the whole ideal of  non-professinoal competition.  First on my list was what transpired in my life time regarding the Olympics.  I use to watch these events, and it was rather fun to watch the eastern-block countries field out these machine like athletes.  It gave the challenge for Americans to fight the steroid abusing, communist athletes.  The gold cup win by the American hockey team in 1984, really made the whole thing exciting and remarkable.   Then the wall fell, and the cold war was won, by capitalism. But the story darkens as professional atheletes were allowed into the competitions, ruining the whole system of non-professional athletics.  I stopped watching these charades when Americans won the gold in basketball (you may remember the dream team); I gag thinking about how what was once unpredictable became ruined by high powered paid athletes. Another sport that has over the past 30 years succumbed to the rampages of the corruptive power of big money, is college football.  Nothing is more unfair than television revenues altering the natural competition of recruiting players to major colleges.  The Big 12 represents this quiet clearly, as you see how ESPN has recently purchased the rights to Longhorn football games.  Accordingly the 15 (extra) million dollars annually will feed their powerhouse team football coffers due to this (what should be illegal deal).  The whole thing stinks, and give Texas better media coverage, more money with which to hire coaches, build better recruitment classes, and who knows what illegalities they are hiding in the dark recesses of their program.

These flashes of wrong are like lightning from an approaching storm.  You hear about it after you see the bright flash across the horizon.  The politicizing of our Supreme Court, and the corruption of law and justice is the precursor to whole scale disintegration of the state.  This will lead to judges taking bribes.  The constitution will be left unprotected as special interests groups lay the money down to alter the rights and privileges we all have.  When your prosecutor’s office can throw away evidence that proves people are innocent, they will also be able to manufacture evidence that didn’t exist.  Once a political power grabs control and abuses the power of the state to eliminate their dissenters, and the voices opposing them, then you will have total tyranny.   The problem is deeper than how the Supreme Court is selected.  What has happened is that big money buys and sells federal political careers.  The people have long lost control of the laws (legislative branch), as candidates are almost all millionaires themselves.  Corporate America owns these elections.  Congressional committees will almost never impeach Supreme Court members, the President and their fellow members.  What’s good for business is to eliminate competition and so eliminating their enemies will be something they will be out to accomplish.  The Brady decision must go for them to have the power to set people up in the justice system.  (Some folks think there is a global conspiracy involved, with the richest elite controlling all the strings.)

This corruption, that has crept into the justice and legal system, will permeates the politics of the land; it’s like a caustic chemical that has seeped into the seams of a rock, softening its firmness..  When bribes tilt the hand of justice, then no one is safe, and no legal decision without question.  The constitution and its sway over the lives of Americans is a document that provide certain liberties and rights to people; in part this document was designed to protect people from the government. However, big business and Wall Street have slipped in prostituting the congress and the White house, paying them for favors and protection.  This corruption is clearly represented in the movies.  When the White house bailed out the economy using tax-payer funding (actually really just more debt), the corruption reached a new high.  Government had no place in bailing out failing companies.  There is no place in federal government for this type of activity.  No provision or law that supported their actions.  But Wall Street owns the politicians, and helps fund their political campaigns.  The congressmen and senators have sold out to their moneyed constituents, meaning corporate America, and stopped representing the people. See this is what happens when competition is no longer fair.  When the laws that are created by congress (legislative branch) are created to protect the highest paying bidder, and the enforcement of laws (executive branch) overlooks infractions such as immigration (cheap non-union labor), and the Supreme court passes judgment in favor of an obviously corrupt district attorney’s office (judicial branch); then how long before the edifice crumbles to dust. The once great profession of journalism, that was like a fourth pillar of democratic society, denigrated into playing politics rather than spotlighting truth, the last protection for the people is tumbling.  It is said that 6 major corporations now own as much as 50% of the news outlets.  They too are in on the competition, and give money to the politician’s campaigns.  They focus on the dramatic to make money, and do little to report the truth of how corrupt the political process in America is. The last straw in the American system of democracy is its long time value of education and Christianity.  The founding fathers had seen the great flaws of governments that favored religious institutions, persecuting those that did not hold the politically correct version of faith.  They specifically are noted with saying how the great republic’s need a moral and spiritual people to make it work.  But instead of protecting people from religious persecution, the government turned against religions, and threw out of the public education any mention of God and the spiritual foundations of the country.  The new faith of the possessors of the republics office of government is secular humanism.  This means that there is no spiritual basis for law nor human action which holds the fabric of the state in place.   The idea that the founding fathers had of separating state from religion was no to eliminate religion from the people in government, but to eliminate religion governing the state’s affairs.  But in order to compete unfairly, to have no ethics, and to establish corruption, men must eliminate spiritual and moral precepts to be able to live chasing their own selfish wants.  That eliminates any hypocrisy in their lives, and also eliminates and spiritual consequences for the selling out.  When men believe they hold their own destiny in their hands and that there is no higher power, to be beholden to, then they can rationalize anything, even vile and wicked things, justifying the ends by whatever means is expeditious. If prosecutors can knowingly send men to their executions, knowing of their innocence, if senators can make a deal to pass legislation that benefits corporate America over their constituents (we even hear political candidates calling corporations people), if the President can involve us in a war without approval of congress, if supreme court justices can undermine the civil rights of the people, then Americans must think about why their representation has allowed these changes to occur if the results are negative for the people. Maybe it is like the story of the frog place in the tepid water which is then warmed slowly until it boils the animal.  American society cheers its cheaters, and admires their getting away with it (in the case of OJ and Casey Anthony, murder).  Don’t you remember the cheering when Simpson was acquitted? Idolizing the corporate greed mongers, cheering the football team that has 100 times the resources for their football team, letting kids in high school to take steroids to beef up, aren’t these things to be stopped?  Yet Americans love the competition.  But once the corruption enters into the arena, I for one think we have gone too far. The great experiment in democracy has lost an educated interested and moral people to ensure the principles of the constitution are not dismantled plank by plank, as in the recent supreme court ruling.  The fact that Wall Street and Corporate America give huge amounts of money to both of the parties that run Washington, shows how their influence has effected an indifference to the people’s voices.  Corporate America also owns the media.  Why should they be afraid to use the government as a bailout system for their risky business.  They own the whole system.  No one get elected without their approval. If, God forbid, we have continued economic disintergration, the mammoth corporation will endure, only the common man will suffer.  Capitalism strives to win, and crushing your opponent, eliminating you competition only makes your business more successful – the bottom line rules, and even if we work for a major powerhouse corporation like Microsoft, your job is not secure, just ask the 5000 employees who lost their jobs back in 2009. Frankly the internet is a place where we can all find something other than the news media’s story.  We can discuss and debate within our freedoms, just as the founding fathers wanted.  We can bash the cheaters, the steroid users, and those suspected of graft and corruption.  But that can all end quickly, and a man of power can pick up where Hitler left off in creating a society of one government by one party.  That’s not the home of the free, the brave and the a place I want to live.

Of saving cats and dogs

Bail me out, please!

Do you want to help the poor cats and dogs in your community?  Well many of you out there love cats and dogs, and want to see them locked up in kennels, starved to death or worst butchered and bagged up for the trash man.  Yes, you care, and so do millions of other decent human beings.  So what can you do to help prevent cruelty to these precious animals.  How about giving to a charity?

Well just like the homeless that wander the streets looking for handouts, you can judge the character by what they are asking for.  If you offer food and substance to a homeless person, they usually walk away because they want cold hard cash for cash lets them buys drugs and alcohol.  That is my experience, and that experience tells me that not all charities are equal.

Name recognition and marketing are the skills of major charities, including those who say their business is to stop animals from being put to death.  Anyone who has visited the pound knows that they are hardly more than the stopping point for the animal’s demise.

The two largest animal related charities are the Humane Society and the ASPCA.  These organizations are National in size and raise virtually hundreds of millions of dollars from people with a caring heart.  But if you give money to them, what are you actually promoting? Do they actually rescue animals?  Do you know what their agenda is?  All they want from you is your money?  So what are they using it for?

No Shelter here at the Human Society

According to what I’ve been reading, the Humane society spends 5 million a year for the salaries of its staff and over 30 million a year on advertising and marketing.  Their director, Wayne Pacelle, makes only $250,000 a year which is very low pay  for such a large non-profit, but is more than most animal shelters have in a year for their total budget. But the Humane Society spends a mere $450,000 (or 1/2 of 1 percent) of their yearly budget helping support shelters that help save cats and dogs.  They actually run no animal shelters that keep these domestic pets alive. It’s your local shelter that is doing that.  When you give to a giant nonprofit, you are generally supporting a cause you know little about, and your hope of helping animals is a mirage.

One article (link below) here states as follows:

“There is an important distinction between HSUS’s claims and public perception. Although the Humane Society of the United States never explicitly claims to support local hands-on pet shelters, it does go out of its way to perpetuate the myth that its primary focus is helping homeless dogs and cats. The result? Robust national polling shows that 71 percent of Americans believe HSUS is an umbrella organization for the nation’s hands-on pet shelters.”

Pres. of ASPCA

The ASPCA president, Edwin Sayres, however, takes in around $500,000 in salary for his post.  His organization has a different focus that the Humane society, but what is it doing to support the local charities actually working with animals in the community?  They are spending around 28 million on what they call communications — meaning advertising.  They raked in $118 million for that.

In most states, pounds are operated locally by cities and counties (municipalities) animals that the pound pick up can be terminated within a week’s time.  That means something needs to be done now and money doesn’t get it done people do.  When animals have no tags and no microchips and our found by the city or county pound, they have been issued a death sentence.  God knows that with local government in a financial crisis since the housing bubble burst, that these cities and counties cannot afford to keep the animals long.

If you want to know the difference between charities that actually help animals and are not huge marketing campaigns that are lead by the affluent, then you need to see the facilities they work out of, and the kennels they keep.  Also of use is the Petfinder.com which lists information about individual shelters by state or by distance from your home.   Volunteering gives families an opportunity to make a difference even if they don’t have much money to donate.  Just consider who you give your money to, you never know if you handing the animal activist pan handler money for his Mercedes and his lobby in Washington, so ask some questions.  Why not donate something respectable.

 Here is a listing for a Rhode Island charity that saves cats.  These are the type of gifts that actually will make a difference.  You will see they want all the basic essential items needed to run their place.  The director at this site takes no pay and has basically only a small unpaid staff.  If you really want to judge the character of the charity, you will see that those asking for supplies are truly servicing the animals, the rest, well, you figure it out.

Use petfinder.com if you really want to find a shelter that saves animals and doesn’t earn millions marketing.  Just ask them for some information about their costs and the level of donations they receive.  You’ll soon see that not all charities actually are well funded, and they usually are the ones doing the dirty work.

If you know of a sound place to donate, please comment on this blog piece with the name and contact information of that organization.

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The truth about “animal-saving” charities:

http://activistcash.com/organization_overview.cfm/o/136-humane-society-of-the-united-states

http://humanewatch.org/index.php/site/post/la_times_editorial_says_hsus_doesnt_support_local_shelters1/

http://www.bbb.org/charity-reviews/national/animal-protection/american-society-for-the-prevention-of-cruelty-to-animals-in-new-york-ny-151

Education has sold out

Recently I read this piece online by Charlotte Allen: College for the Intellectually Disabled published September 23, 2010.  The article goes on to discussing a trend of colleges have allowed developmentally disabled students to enroll for the social experience, and not for the academic experience.  What’s new about that?  Nothing really.  The school where I work has a rate of 75% of the student enrolling needing remedial work on Math and/or English.  Heck 20 % of our students have significant problems even speaking English let alone writing in the language.  Many of our students are illegal aliens from Central America or Mexico, or are Asian refugees.  The dominant social philosophy in this part of the country is that education is the right of all the people.  But not all education is equal.

The fact is that college  degrees are up for sale everywhere, and students are sold a bill of goods about education providing them jobs in the future.  More absurd is that fact that I know of several students  (I’m an administrator working in an academic support post), who have revealed that they have paid for their papers to be written by ghost writers because they have the money to pay them and that they can’t write a real research paper on their own.  These are often students with mental or cognitive disabilities that impair their memory or ability to organize intellectual ideas on paper.  Others are just frankly under-prepared students or worse, foreigners.  Does that surprise you?

What we have here is a misunderstanding of what is actually happening in American education.  The truth is that universities want money like any other business, and people who will pay to attend are not effectively scrutinized by any sort of entrance exams or test scores, the only fact of matter is the money.  The student’s money first and foremost, and they care little about their entrance scores or their graduation rates, they just want numbers of student paying whatever why they can.

Charlotte says that administrators have decided that they (the disabled) deserve a chance to obtain a college degree.  But she also says that the administrators don’t actual care to give equal  access to education, they want equal access to their parent’s money or more truthfully .   “Well, not exactly a college education, since even the most egalitarian administrators concede that people with severe cognitive disabilities can’t handle even the most rudimentary of course offerings. Instead, what a host of new programs for the intellectually disabled offer is what the people who run them call ‘a college experience.’“

According to Charlotte “250 campuses around the country offer such courses.”  Well, the green curtain separating Oz from the American population has fallen too many times for us not to notice.

American universities are not here to educate primarily, they are here to make money.  It seems to whole reason the cost of tuition, student services fees, and room and board have increased so rapidly is related to the governments involvement with the funding of education.  Student loans are available and this is going to create a monster of unheard of proportions — much like the real estate scandal which America has just gone through (and is still suffering from).

Think about it, the economy is shot and students are graduating in huge numbers.  The amount of students with debt is also skyrocketing.  The Universities to stay in line with the cost of education are looking at every opportunity to make more money; thus, the reason they will take the homeless, the stupid, the mentally retarded and anyone else willing to sign over their future on a bank (promissory) note.

As one of my referenced sites state: “The consequence of defaulting on student loans can be brutal, according to www.FinAid.org, a website informing students about education loans. The loans may be turned over to a collection agency, which can garnish students’ wages and hurt their credit records.”

The fact is that people who are stupid or unwise are taught by society to go to college, and to get an education, and that those who do will be able to get a job and make an adequate living.  But most college offer worthless degrees in Journalism, Theatre, English, Religious Studies, Philosophy, Chicano Studies, etc.  These degrees are only useful for those working toward a PhD in the field for the most part, meaning that people do not employee folks with those degrees.  I’ve heard the 60% of college graduates with such degrees end up taking posts in companies where their degrees have nothing to do with the work.   Even when they take advanced degrees, they have little connection to the job skills employers are looking for.  This becomes increasingly obvious when the economy slumps and fewer college grads are higher out of college.  What is also occurring in large numbers is that state governments  in budget crises have no open positions, and students, who were foolish, trained for a government-funded positions.  I’ve seen  graduates from two years ago come back stating they have no jobs with their master’s degrees in counseling.

The race to make money off college students will continue to be heated as the state governments are themselves in a form of bankruptcy and cannot afford to subsidize the cost of college education — especially true in California.  People in California expect the government to give them a government-paid-for education as if it were an entitlement.

Talking with faculty, I learn that they have simplified their course grading to insure their students can graduate.  They overlook the plagiarism, the poor grammar, the lack of endings on verbs.  Not all of them, but some of them; especially those programs with dying enrollment who themselves are to be discarded short-with.  It does my heart good to hear of faculty being demonized by students for handing down grades that relate to the actual objective standards of the courses– but those mainly are in the sciences, mathematics, engineering and computer science.  However, the liberal arts classes do trip up those more objective majors by identifying the lack of logic and language skills our students need.  But, should a college degree only provide a future of employment in the field of education — isn’t that preposterous, but that is truly the case.

The whole thing hangs on a cliff; collapse is imminent; disaster looms.  Education has sold out.  Students will leave college with debts they cannot pay for an education that is worthless, and they will end up taking jobs they could have gotten out of high school.  But the college administrations are shameless.  So maybe all the students are here for the college experience after all.  No wonder why the party every chance they can.

From Poor College Student to Poorer College Student

Student loan default rises due to high unemployment among college grads

State of Crises (In Education)

20 top majors that are useless.

20 top majors of useful degrees.

DeVry University fraud complaint

http://www.complaintsboard.com/complaints/fraud-and-scam-c186799.html

Even Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/For-profit_school

 

 

 

Inflation is Taxation

The American government is supposed to be for the people, by the people and of the people, but that is the biggest fallacy, and is just elite (upper class) propaganda.  The fact is that government is for the rich people, by the rich people and of the rich people.  The founding fathers were composed of the elite of their time, were property owners, businessmen, and lawyers.  Now after all the tax payers pants were dropped when congress voted for a bailout, and saved the rich and their financial companies from going belly up, know that you will be paying for that for years to come.

The economic travesty has resulted in many Americans losing their jobs, their homes, their cars and the financial well-being.  While congress (whose members earn on average $175,000) gave themselves another pay raise (which brings their pay up by more than $4000 to $5000 per month), the senate also voted for a 2.9% pay for federal employees.  So the cost of government went up without your approval.  Are you okay with that?  The pay raise is automatically deigned to be put into place since a law was passed in 1989 – both the house and senate have to vote against their pay increases each year.

So add injury to insult, these elite bozos run the country and are deeply involved in the financial market place, taking donations from corporations and the rich to pay for their political campaigns.  Why else do you think that our government would bailout? General Motors and AGI that’s who?

Now how do you pay for loans?  You either cut back in other areas personally or earn more money so you can pay off a debt.  But we are talking about government.  And this nation is the largest debtor in the world.  How do they pay for anything?  Especially when it is a bailout?  Print more money!

What is insidious about that is that you and I, who are getting laid off, losing our homes, our cars, our credit ratings.  What about students who are struggling with the ever-increasing cost of tuition, fees and books?  Well, unfortunately, you will pay what is called inflation  (here is CA, the largest university system is talking about a 32% increase in tuition).  Same education higher price tag, because the dollar is not worth one hundred percent — it is equal to 68 percent.

The true value of a dollar is in what it can but with it.  When the gas prices jumped up in the past 5 years, so did the cost of goods and services.  The payment for simple things like food also jumped up proportionally.  That means what you paid $1.17 for in 2005 now costs like $1.60.  That is real inflation – something goes up in price because you money is worth less.  The Brisk Tea I have use to cost $1.39

Look at the cost of tuition at your campus – how much has it gone up?  Think about it.  The federal government spends 7.5 trillion and then everywhere you have the cost of goods and services, books and tuition jumping up.   The country raised its own debt by about 10 percent in one year.  For individuals, we end up bankrupt from doing such foolish things, but then again the federal government doesn’t have to be held accountable to the voters, right?

This is the “doublewammie” of economics.  You get a government that costs more and they pay for their raises with inflating the money supply, and lowering you real income by depressing your dollar’s worth.  But actually that makes sense if you have no accountability and a hot printing press in the back yard.  The rich pay for their presidents, vice presidents and their buddies in congress, and the government bails them out when the screw up economically.  Works pretty well this system of rich-controlled capitalism — no wonder the poor like Che.

Corporations Paid off include the following:

JP Morgan Chase at 29 billion; AIG at 122.8 billion; General Motors, Chrysler and GMAC $78.9 billion; Bank of America $45 billion.  Others receiving bailout money:  American Express, Capital One, Goldman Sachs, KeyCorp, Morgan Stanley, PNC, Bank of New York Mellon.  This represents the true cultural, financial and material elite of America.

If you took the first 700 billion bailout plan and gave that money to the people, each tax paying person would have about to pay up $2000.  The fact is that the government has to pay back the debt someway.  The debt ceiling is too high, and even the senators understand this.  But, the government has a way to not raise taxes; its called Inflation.

At www.inflationdata.com, the following was posted.

“Our Inflation data (see table at this link) is calculated to two decimal places while the government only calculates to one decimal place. Therefore,  while being based on the government’s index our data provides a “finer” view.  January and February 2005 is a perfect example, according to the government statistics both months had an inflation rate of 3%. In January however, our data shows it as 2.97% and February shows as 3.01%. Therefore instead of the inflation rate being “flat” it is actually rising slightly. In another example we see August 2003 and September with the Government saying the rates were 2.2% and 2.3% respectively. This would lead us to believe that inflation rose .1% during that period.  In actuality however,  it rose from 2.16% to 2.32% or a .16% increase, substantially more than .1%!”

That means the government is using inflation to tax the people, rather than raise taxes.  Haven’t you ever wondered how the Republicans can pass a tax rebate and release millions back to the tax payers?  They just print more money (devaluing the value of our money).  Then your dollar which was worth 100 is worth .97 next year, then it devalues another 3% the next and so forth.  Eventually the dollar is worth a penny.  That means a trillion eventual turns into the value of a billion in just the same way — that how you cut the debt as a government, but ensuring the money is worth less in real buying power.

Think about it.  If you could take a loan of $10,000 and then when you get to pay it back the $10,000 is worth $1,000, what a deal (steal).

Articles of Interest:

Fed Chairman Bernanke Admits Printing $1.3 Trillion Out Of Thin Air

Ron Paul:  Printing Money Only Prolongs the Pain

 

The Rat Race

Living in the Rat Race

I’ve found that my mind was caught up in the rat race, living in a stressful  world, surrounded by indifferent, impersonal people who don’t even talk to me, though I see them every day.  It’s like being invisible.   When I reach out to talk to others, I usually find they pull away as if I were from out of space.  Do you ever think like this?  Then you may be living in the rat race.

A doctor John Calhoun is famous for his studies of the rat race – using Norway Rats as examples of what would happen to the human population when they were crowded.  The year was 1958, and he built them a restricted living quarters, where they had plenty of food and water, but because of the cramped quarters, they would not breed past certain figures, much lower than what was physically possible.

Here are two quotes from articles related to his four years of experiments:

“In John B. Calhoun’s early crowding experiments, rats were supplied with everything they needed – except space. The result was a population boom, followed by such severe psychological disruption that the animals died off to extinction. The take-home message was that crowding resulted in pathological behaviour – in rats and by extension in humans.”

“Initially the population grew rapidly, doubling every 55 days. The population reached 620 by day 315, after which the population growth dropped markedly. The last surviving birth was on day 600. This period between day 315 and day 600 saw a breakdown in social structure and in normal social behavior. Among the aberrations in behavior were the following: expulsion of young before weaning was complete, wounding of young, inability of dominant males to maintain the defense of their territory and females, aggressive behavior of females, passivity of non-dominant males with increased attacks on each other which were not defended against. After day 600 the social breakdown continued and the population declined toward extinction. During this period females ceased to reproduce. Their male counterparts withdrew completely, never engaging in courtship or fighting. They ate, drank, slept, and groomed themselves – all solitary pursuits. Sleek, healthy coats and an absence of scars characterized these males. They were dubbed “the beautiful ones”.

The conclusions drawn from this experiment were that when all available space is taken and all social roles filled, competition and the stresses experienced by the individuals will result in a total breakdown in complex social behaviors, ultimately resulting in the demise of the population.”

These ideas have spawned a whole lot of ideas, which probably are not true.  First is that tight living quarter cause social problems like crime, homosexuality and passivity in men.  These ideas sound right and good to many, but are they true, hardly.  People always looks for easy answers to complex questions.  Men are also not trapped into cages – they can go outside their boundaries to find more space and more resources.  As another one of the articles I read stated, the cultural popularity of Dr. Calhoun’s ideas actual silenced his more significant findings related to adaptability.  The rats actually changed the way they lived.

We are superior to rats, I hope, and I’m sure we can adapt to anything that comes are way, except possible nuclear war’s devastation.

I do believe that when some enormous error in human thinking  occurs humans don’t adapt, they destroy each other.  Take for instance the way the communists destroyed each other in Russia before World War II.  The idea of throwing out of their country the white Russians, the intellectuals, the capitalists, and the wealthy.  They then killed off each other to solidify power, with Stalin rising to the top.

Look at the rise of Hitler, using the democratic process to become elected, and then his parties dismantling of German democracy until he ruled supreme.  But wasn’t that all predicated by the fact the reparation payments the German government had to pay after World War I left them cripple economically.

Look at the abuses that lead to the depression with the American stock market ever growing on debts for those stock options.  Then boom!

We sit at the same type of place these days.  The government fixed a whole in the side of the capitalistic system by stopping the bankruptcies of several large companies.  But the abuses that the rich have placed on Americans such as providing credit without collateral, we certainly have significant consequences to the American people.

Yes there will be adaptation, but when things don’t adapt well, and when the human race is driven along moral and social delusions, the world stands to take it in the face.  And every time humans live in a delusional idealistic state where they demand others to live according to their rules, that snuffs out the creativity and the ability to adjust.  That is why political and religious freedom is necessary.  One way of think, one party, one religion will never make life worth living.

More about the Rat Race:

Dr. Calhoun’s Book: Environment and Population: Problems of Adaptation: An Experimental Book Integrating Statements by 162 Contributors

Escaping the Laboratory:  http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/22514/

Calhoun: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_B._Calhoun

The London School of Economics and Political Science: http://www2.lse.ac.uk/researchAndExpertise/researchHighlights/Environment/rats.aspx

The Rat Race Trap: http://www.ratracetrap.com/

Blog: DEPRESSION, ANXIETY, AND ADDICTION“Rag” Magazines vs. Science: Are the Rat Population Studies True?

America and the lowest common denominator: Vulgarity

To be an American is to be a pervert???

The American moral fabric has torn, vulgarity rules.  Half of Americans view pornography on the internet weekly.  Even the clergy of Christian denominations are found pandering and joining prostitutes in seedy hotels or in their leer jets and mansions.  The world is returning to the days of the pagan Roman’s with graphic sexual imagery in advertising and main stream media.

I think the Muslim clerics have it right.  America is a cesspool, and Americans are going to hell.  Only jihad can cleanse America.  The Christians have cold hearts and chase skirts just as often as the unchurched.  41% of children are born out of wedlock.

My son plays Call of Duty, and I listened to the dialog in the portion of the game called “Campaign.”  The “F” word was heard 9 times within 4 minutes of one portion of the game – the characters are all cursing as they come into a combat situation.  This is a 14 year old who commonly uses the F word himself, but this is the norm in American schools.

It appears that the youth are headed to a new low plateau of language, as the suction of the moral substance of America is dying off.  The generations of moral, Christian Americans, those who suffered through the depression, the second world war – the backbone on the society.

The nation is so low as to spend millions of dollars on the worst vulgarity: Hollywood entertainment.  Either movies are filled with extremely graphic violence or filled with sexual innuendos or displays.  What once was kept in the closet is flaunted as the new norm.

One perfect example of this degradation as a culture is the film The Hangover.  But today we’ll just think about the sequel: The Hangover part Two is out and the sickness continues.  America is addicted to black humor of the worst drivel.  I knew it was really bad when x-ear biter, Tyson, showed up in the film.  The first was bad enough, but the soul-less and amoral youth of America demand more – even if the crap is telling jokes, it’s still crap.

One reviewer of the Hangover Two movie writes:

One of the biggest differences between the two films is the sequel’s focus on raunchiness and vulgarity compared to the original. The filmmakers try to top the original but instead of focusing on more clever and original comedy, they simply included more unfunny raunchiness in it along with a lot more male nudity. Once the “Wolfpack” wakes up, the crude humor takes center stage and never lets up.

The moral abyss is deepening, and the youth are driving on the Highway to Hell, but the road is long, and my generation were driving on it 30 years ago and listening to AC/DC, doing drugs, and getting some.

I know as I write this piece that many are laughing and will mock these words, with the who cares attitude, as ironically the internet itself is the largest venues for filth.   The America society of Christian virtue is long gone, and the results are soon to overtake society.  Sexual perversity and eroticism will be part of a society that takes to spending over $400 million on such a stupid movie.  What is the limit?

We should expect that our world turn more and more like that of the collapsing Roman empire.  The sports and violence we watch are like the gladiators and games of old.

In a piece on the web about porn, I found the following comment:

Roman Porn

The actual term “pornography” was first coined when the ancient city of Pompeii (buried in A.D. 79 by the massive eruption of Mt.Vesuvius) was excavated and many sexually graphic paintings and sculptures were found. The ancient Romans (1st century AD) did not perceive this sexy stuff as shameful, and displayed their sexually overt art in conspicuous places. It was not uncommon for a graphic sex scene to be shown right beside a landscape scene. 19th century archeologists were shocked and appalled by this ancient smut and quickly stashed the dirty pictures in order to shelter women, children and the lower classes from corruption. They used the term “pornography” to classify these hoarded artifacts and pictures. In fact, pornography has been suppressed since the notion was created (6).

Pompeii Porn

Why would the world feel that way.  Well it had something to do with the growth of Christianity.  The pagans worshipped idols and had sex with the temple priests and priestesses.  They had orgies of food, women and music.  Doesn’t that sound like what’s occurring today.  The culture today is headed right back to bacchanalian perversion and sin.

I say let them.  Let the rift between the faithful and the damned grow wider and wider, so doomsday will come.  The end of the world will be one fine party for all of them.  Face it, if they don’t value their own souls, then let them run amuck.    The Revelation predicts that one day they will be saying that they wish they were dead.  It also says that the ungodly will kill off the believers.  The darkness can’t stand the light.

Just remember the saved are just as sinful, but you would think they would no better.  But the suction of a world sliding into hell is pulling them down.

Additional information:

Wiki on internet porn

The Internet is an international network and there are currently no international laws regulating pornography; each country deals with Internet pornography differently. Generally, in the United States, if the act depicted in the pornographic content is legal in the jurisdiction that it is being distributed from then the distributor of such content would not be in violation of the law regardless of whether it is accessible in countries where it is illegal. This does not apply to those who access the pornography, however, as they could still be prosecuted under local laws in their country. Due to enforcement problems in anti-pornography laws over the Internet, countries that prohibit or heavily restrict access to pornography have taken other approaches to limit access by their citizens, such as employing content filters.

Many activists and politicians have expressed concern over the easy availability of Internet pornography, especially to minors. This has led to a variety of attempts to restrict children’s access to Internet pornography such as the 1996 Communications Decency Act in the United States. Some companies use an Adult Verification System (AVS) to deny access to pornography by minors. However, most Adult Verification Systems charge fees that are substantially higher than the actual costs of any verification they do (for example, in excess of $10/month) and are really part of a revenue collection scheme where sites encourage users to sign up for an AVS system, and get a percentage of the proceeds in return.

The bandwidth usage of a pornography site is relatively high, and the … Many commercial porn sites exist that allow one to view pornographic …. The NCMEC estimated in 2003 that 20% of all pornography traded over the Internet was child pornography…

Vulgarity

Synonyms: coarseness, commonness, crassness,crudeness, crudity, grossness, indelicacy, indelicateness,lowness, raffishness, rawness, roughness, rudeness,tastelessness