Sunday, December 19, 2010

is it such a bad thing to live in the past

Why is living in the past such a bad thing. If your past is a good time from which you can remind your self of your own greatness, would you not find strength in it. I would thing the only people that that think living in the past is bad having nothing in their past to be proud of.

I have done many great things in my past that I am very proud of, in fact many of these things remind me that I am capable of better than I am today and inspire me to continue forward. I can remember how sucessful I was at something and remember the amazement I felt at my own ability to make a difference.

It occurs to me that who you were should be the greatest inspiration for who you should be.

I was once I starried eyed optomist that fought the cause of right and rightousness because I belived. I believed that equality would come as people were shown that all poeple were equal. I believed that everyone would be an environmentalist when they saw how important the environment was to the health and longevity of the human race. I believed that education would be held as the primary objective of all, buddism says that enlightenment is the path.

These are the things of my past. Are these such a bad thing to live for.

I was once a 36, to 34 inch waist. Is it such a bad thing to want to be that again?

Instead of worring about comparing the way you are to your past why do we not simply ask if we are living to a more nobel, prosperours, and healthy future.

To live in the past one would still have the accuired wisdom through the present, the enlightenment of which shines on the path of the future.

The achievements and failures of my past have provided the light that makes my future all the more visible.

Sunday, November 21, 2010

We need your money, please!!!!!!

I have been asked every day for over two weeks to donate money to some cause. (A co workers house burnt down, another co worker lost a daughter to a tragic accident, the United Way, Toys for Tots, U.A.W. local childrens Christmas party, random friends that need help, ect.)

The most amazing of these attemps to get money out of me was the United Way. What they did took balls. They came in to our work, most of us work for 10 bucks an hour and have a hard time making it. They brought us all to the conference room and were told all kinds of sob stories about people that had benifited from different organization that the United Way supports.

We were also told about a guy that used to donate over 1500 a year and how he died in a car accident and why is was so important for them to come out and talking to us like this.

Then they handed us our pledge cards and started talking about how much they can do with money. The amazing and ballzy part of this was asking us to set up a pledge deduction from our paycheck that would continue until we submitted to them in writting that we were cancelling our pledge amount. These guys were out for some serious cash.

The even better part was 2 years ago our union local was on strike over a new labor contract and when they went to the United Way asking for help so struggling families would still be able to eat the United Way said no claiming that it would be the same as taking sides in a labor dispute. (Back talk for, that Corporation donates alot of money to us and we will not do anything that would hint that we support the striking workers.)

So they are asking us for big bucks after having said they would not help our union during our time of great need.

I would also like to point out, who has money to give out like that right now. Starting wage where I work is 10 bucks an hour. Most of the poeple that I work with live almost paycheck to paycheck. I don't but I am paying out of pocket to go to school so I don't have it either.

Just saying. Something is wrong when people that are barely making ends meet are the ones being begged and guilt tripped in to donatting money they don't have.

Sunday, August 8, 2010

The system is broken

Welfare, Food stamps, Cash Assistance, Medicaid, SSI....these public assistance programs are broken.

Why does this system seem to penalize the people that work to get off the system? Why does the system reward failure.

I knew a lady that was the primary care giver for her grandchildren and recieved money and assistance from the state for it. Her grandson had a medical condition that required sleep with a feeding tube, he was also prone to having seizures. The grandmother actually had to turn down hours at work to maintain a certain level of income or lose the Medicaid benefits that paid for her grandsons medical costs. The system actually required her to remain amongst the working poor because any increased income would not be able to make up for the new expenses caused by losing her Medicaid coverage.

Food stamp determination only consider your gross income. How many people out there actually see that money, and why don't food stamp determinations go by actual take home pay. Take home pay is after all what you have left for rent, food, phone, ect. How many people out there have pay check garnishments that take out large sums of money that seriously impact a persons ability to survive. How many people have serious work related expenses that are not factored into your pay rate? Why does a ten cent an hour raise have to cost you your food stamp benefits?

The saying used to go....Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day. Teach a man to fish and he will eat for a lifetime.

Now that saying goes. Give a man a fish and he is a lazy bum on welfare that needs to be kicked off. Teach a man to fish and you can charge him for a rod, reel, line, hook, those little weights, that float-y thing, and bait for the rest of his life.

Isn't there a better way that rewards achievement and encourages people to better them selves?

Here is a suggested equation for food stamp benefits.

1/3 of monthly living wage = 1/3 of average monthly wages + (ax^2+bx+c)
where ax^2+bx+c = 0 when 1/3 of average monthly wages = 1/3 of monthly living wage
and where x=.1n
n=10(living wage-actual wage)

Saturday, August 7, 2010

Virg for Michigan

On Tuesday Virg Bernero won the Democratic Primary for Governor of Michigan.

I like this guy!!!

1. He was noted in a past issue of The Nation as supporting the creation of a State run bank. The idea being that state pension funds, economic investment programs, and even student loans would no longer have to be run through private banks, saving state tax payer money from the greasy palms of Wall Street Bankers.

2. He is a strong supporter of equality, and has consistently supported the Michigan GLBT community.

3. You may have seen him on tv back during the bailout days fighting the conservative pundits what would of watched the heart of American Manufacturing, i.e. GM and Chrysler, disintegrate along with millions of jobs that America's hardest working people count on for a living.

I have liked this guy since the first time I read anything about him in The Nation.
He has the support of Michigan's labor unions, and Gay and Lesbian organizations.
This guy gives me the vibe of being an Obama style Democrat and I like it.
I like Virg Bernero

Actual American History, vs. American History according to Republicans

I recently finished reading the book, Rise to Rebellion by Jeff Shaara. This book was a fictional but historically accurate account of the American Revolution from 1770 to the signing of the Declaration of Independence on July 4th 1776. It was only fictional in that the author imagined dialog between all the characters involved, but otherwise stuck to the historical facts and written records of the time.

I can not say for certain who accurate the all the dialog of the story, or even each persons intentions actually are, but the book gives an excellent portrayal of what the mostly likely intentions of the fathers of the revolution was.

With that said this book really is eye opening about the total disregard for actual American history for the sake of current political gain. Mostly I am talking about the Tea Party.

When I was a boy in school we were taught about the Boston Tea Party in the same paragraph of our text books as the phrase, "No taxation without representation." The reality is that far more then one sentence separated those two events. The colonies had actually stopped calls of no taxation long before the Boston Tea Party. In fact after the Stamp Act had been defeated the calls of no taxation ended until the Townshend Act was enacted and then repealed. The time between, "No taxation." and the Boston Tea Party? Around 10 years!

It is also worth noting that England did away with both the Stamp Act and The Townshend, not because of colonial pressure but mostly because the costs of collecting the taxes would be greater than what the taxes would bring in. Also true is that Parliment and King George were only attemping to recover the cost of the French and Indian War which granted the colonies peace and safety along the Indian frontier.

But back to the tea party.

The Boston Tea Party had nothing to do with taxes. It had everything to do with government enforced corporate control over consumer goods, out sourcing, and trade deficits. The tea tax was a left over of the Townshend Act that was left in tact while all the rest of the act was repealed. No one cared about it until Boston because smugglers did quite well bringing in tea through the black market and avoiding the tea tax.

Then the king hears wind that the East India Company is on hard times and decides that he will have British tea sent directly to the colonies through the East India Company with no middle men. The result they expected would be cheaper tea prices in the colonies, compliance with the tea tax (which would still of allowed the tea to be sold below black market prices), and rebuilding the British Treasury.

The colonies refusal to comply was all because they did not agree with a policy that was in effect a government mandated monopoly on a commodity. The tax was not the issue. The tea was subsequently dumped in to Boston Harbor to prevent the British Army from forcibly unloading the tea which the Royal Governor of Massachusetts had given orders to do the following day.

I hope others can see how these facts fly in the face of the history others would have you believe, because I have been noticing how our history is being rewritten to fit a certain political view point, and that is a frightening Orwellian idea.

Tuesday, July 20, 2010

The right to work for less.

Jobs are a key point of this election season in Michigan and already the stage is being set for Jobs vs. Living Wages. The new push to make Michigan a Right To Work state is misguided at best. Right to work would dramatically cut the power and influence of the states Labor Unions and leave Michigan’s work force completely at the mercy of corporations that have been abandoning us when ever possible. Union wages and benefits used to be the gold standard that everybody wished to achieve. The increasing weakness of Unions is directly related to the shrinking of the middle class and stagnate wages that don’t even keep up with inflation in many cases. Michigan needs to create jobs, but your right to work shouldn’t cost your right to a livable wage.

Saturday, May 1, 2010

While You Were Out

It is really interesting to think about how quickly things can change in the world these days, but also how unimportant things can seem at times in comparison. Global events that would normally be the topic on my lips have been a side line item that I have not even known about until days after they happen recently.

My dad has been very sick lately, almost a month ago now we thought he wasn't going to make it in fact. His heart gave out on him and he now has a permanent heart pump in his chest. Before they did that surgery they did a scan on him and found a spot on one of his kidneys. Right now they think it is cancer but they do not know for sure since he has not been strong enough to do a biopsy on it. Currently he is much stronger then he has been. He is awake and gaining back strength everyday.

It is because of this that I have not really been as hip to what is happening in the world and it is amazing how this one even has so changed my life over the past month.

Even more so amazing is to think about everything that my dad has missed over the month, he has been largely unconscious for most all of it.

Just in the last month there has been a mining disaster in West Virgina, another devastating earth quake in China, a volcano causing havoc all over Europe, an oil platform exploded in the Gulf of Mexico, a massive oil slick now threatens many states along the gulf, just today an improvised explosive device was found in New York"s Times Square, and I am sure there are other current events that I am missing and maybe I didn't even hear of. But just look at that list for a minute.

That was just one month. Can you imagine waking up in a hospital bed turning on the news, hear all of that, and then finding out that on top of the heart condition you knew you had you also may have cancer but more tests are needed. How could anyone digest all of that, even just the news about the new health condition would be hard.

Before terrorism, before we exploited nature for cheap energy and profits, before we were Americans, before we were Chinese, before we had all the rigid labels that divide us we were humans, we were earthlings....And the struggle for good health and prosperity was enough to bring mankind together, for the benefit of all.

My dad might of missed all the events of the last month while he has been in the hospital, but we have all missed the realities of what is important in this world while full filling our own greed.

Here is to, good health, loving families, and caring communities for us all.

Friday, April 9, 2010

American Collegiate Students Union, ACSU

Why doesn't this exist. A national organization to advocate for college students and lobby politicians on their behalf.

I know that most college students don't need anything like this on a day to day basis. But with higher education costs rocketing up all over the country and universities cutting classes and programs, something needs to be there to protect the American College and University system.

My own problems with the current systems of higher education are amazing. I had a problem with losing my finacial aid for a year. Then I went to work and made too much money to be eligable the next year, but not enough to pay for school myself. Then I got back to school and some one that I was getting in a relationship with used me and took all my money so I dropped out while I tried to get my life back together. Then I re filed to go back only to find out that they messed up my re-admission and didn't process it until the semester in question had already started. Now that I have that taken care of they still can't fix my account so that I can register for classes because of issues with computer updates.

I can not be the only person that is having these problems or these complex of problems and it occurs to me that a students union would be needed.

The union would work like a standard labor union in that they would be there to fight for fair treatment and manuver people through the beurocracy and red tape of the American University system.

It should be free. There should not be any kind of mandatory membership fee. The union would generate revenue from advertising on its website. It could also offer a paid membership option that would offer special features to paid members. I.E. Newsletters, Study Aids, ect...

The union should allow students to connect with other students and teachers to exchange study guides across campuses as well as other information. (Some teachers just have better ways of organizing things and all students should have access to material that may help them better understand something.)

The union should have lobbyist in poltics that work to raise education standards and oportunites for America's College students while working to keep tuition rates and fees from going up.

The American Collegiate Students Union would work to make higher education more affordable for all and increase the quallity of that education.

Think about it. ACSU

Thursday, April 1, 2010

Funny the way it is.

My dad is in the hospital right now and has not been doing good. He collapsed after work Tuesday and my family and I have been in and out of three different hospitals since. We are currently at the University of Michigan Hospital, where everyone in Michigan goes when you are really bad off. Right now he is on a temporary heart pump, which is a balloon in his heart to help it pump.

We have family in the area that has been letting us stay with them at night, although tonight we are staying at the hospital. This morning on the way here he went in to cardiac arrest almost right when we were getting in the elevator to come up to his floor to see him.

But this is really not about that. This is about more.

There was a guy standing by a stop sign by a freeway exit with a sign asking for help. On the other side of the road you could see a golf course where four people wearing typical preppy clothes were on the golf course. One man was begging for food while another was playing golf.

I was planning to be bowling and drinking with friends on Friday, and now I am in Ann Arbor worried about if my dad is going to make it and how well he is going to come out of it.

My family never says, "I love you.", but we have been crying in each others arms.

Not sure where I was going with this post but ......

Sunday, March 14, 2010

I know how to fix this country, Let Us Party!!!!

This thing has been on my mind for a while so I hope I get this off clearly in a way that makes sense.

Lets all party. Everything would be so much better if we were having a massive global festival on par with Carnival or Mardi Gras but on a global or at least national scale. It is amazing how we never manage to celebrate ourselves, although I thought was the original purpose of Labor Day and in a way Independence Day.

Lets face it though, this is an economic depression, many people are dealing with depression, and there is a great level of despair out there. A massive festival would be a great way to lift people up. Just think about all that Mardi Gras does for the economy and for the spirt of the people. Think about what it means to the people of New Orleans to still keep going even after the devastation that town has felt.

In the March 1st issue of The Nation there is an article that says as much. The article makes the argument that festivals such as Mardi Gras and Carnival do more to strengthen a community, create joy and hope, and even help each other and solve problems in a community. The article was called We Won't Bow Down.

I think I got what the take away message was from that article. If we are ever going to make anything of ourselves we have got to come together and festival is the best way to do that.

"I went to look at the worst things that happen to people and found some more hope in the resilience, the inventiveness, the bravery and occasionally the long-term subversion with which people respond."

As the article mentions there are many groups that represent nearly every aspect of our culture that participate in Mardi Gras, but I think the most interesting idea was that idea of subversion. This idea that a community can come together and skip over buisness as usual to help each other. The article specifically mentions subverting capitalism for the sake of what is right in the eyes of humanity.

This is why I say lets party. Let us all come together to celebrate with each other something that we all share. Maybe just maybe we would all learn to respect each other along the way and learn the importance of thinking of more then just ourselves.

Lets Party

Friday, March 5, 2010

Pay as you Go, Don't make me laugh

How does "Pay as you go" legislation work when you have no money. Seriously!

More importantly, we can look back in history and know that one of the worst things are government can do right now is suddenly decided that a massive recession, even though most people would call it a depression, is the best time to balance the budget. Apparently the FISCAL CONSERVATIVES that were running things during the Bush years ran deficits to the point that the national debt is so large there are real concerns as to how we will ever be able to make payments.

Soooooo.. the one hundred billion a year we need to pay for healthcare reform , never mind that the funds are already there, is too much spending and going to add to the deficit at a time when the national balance sheets are still reeling from the couple trillion a year the Bush administration was spending on a war of aggression in Iraq. (Have you heard that Carl Rove states in his book that that he knew it was unlikely we would go to war with Iraq without the weapons of mass destruction threat, did he not in the past admit they knew the intelligence on Iraq's WMD's was out of date. So in a way isn't he admitting that they used any intelligence they could find to make their case for war, validity be damned. And isn't there a little thing called the Downing Street Memo that also supports that idea. If memory serves me correctly that memo said something about fixing the facts around a policy objective of going to war. Hmmmm)

Anyway..... It is okay for a Republican to spend trillions, each year, on a war of aggression but a Democrat can't spend one trillion over a ten year period to make sure 31 million more people have access to health care. Maybe if Obama called it "The War on Health Care" he would get the green light. Gotta fully fund the war effort you know.

This pay as you go shit is being pushed on the jobs issue too. Some souther hick that used to play baseball and then managed to dupe a bunch of other southern hicks to voting him in to the Senate, I know there is a joke about throwing his constituents a curve ball in there somewhere, actually used Pay Go, which he did not support, as his reason why they should not extend unemployment benefits one more day, "Cause they are not paid for."

For a minute just think about that, cause for one day this situation existed. Current unemployment is just below 10%. The "Real" unemployment number is more like 16% they estimate. So currently 6% of the country has no job and no income to speak of. For one day while this jack off from Tennessee was screwing things up the other 10% was losing their unemployment too. Can you imagine how bad it would get if 16% of the country had no income and no way to take care of them selves.

It is amazing to me how the Republicans are simply in the way and stopping everything at every opportunity. Pay Go was actually something they came up with. Obama tried to pander to them by adopting it and the minute he went for the Republicans wouldn't touch it with a fifty foot pole. The R's wanted a deficit commission, Obama took the fangs out of that proposal but still gave them the commission. The R's wanted that commission to be able to strip and gut the government at every turn to save more on the bottom line.

Wouldn't it be nice if the R's stopped shutting down government for everything and actually let something happen. I think they are too scared that Obama's plans might work and might make him look good, so the only sure way to make him look bad is to block everything.

Pay Go was never about paying for things as you go. There is no Go, and the R's are going to make damn sure there is no Paying either, at least not while they are not in power.

Pay and Go
Or
Sit and Sulk

Monday, March 1, 2010

For George Carlin, I hope I did his style some kind of justice

Dear Planters

I just purchased one of your snack sized nut sacks from a local gas station today and I have some questions and concerns about it.

First of all how is it that 6 ounces comes to 5 servings, according to the nutritional information on the back? If this is being marketed as a snack size why is each serving size calculated as two tablespoons. How many people really carry measuring spoons around with them to ensure proper portion control while driving? Further more if you have to cut 6 ounces down to 5 1.2 ounce servings to keep the fat and cholesterol numbers low maybe you shouldn’t even be marketing it as a healthy snack food in the first place.

On the back of the package I noticed where it said, “Manufactured on equipment that processes nuts.” Manufactured? Maybe it is just because I work at a factory that manufactures auto parts, but saying my little bag of trail mix was manufactured somehow makes it less appetizing to me. What about it was manufactured in the first place? Do you have a bunch of people with tubs of nuts and raisins doing piecework assembling each, visually appealing, mix in to the bag? Most likely you have giant vats of nuts seeds and raisins that feed into a tumble mixer that then feeds down to a pipe and gate valve to dispense the mix. Maybe you should think about calling it “Packaged” instead. Mc Donalds doesn’t call their food preparation techniques manufacturing, although that is probably a better description of their process then cooking, so you shouldn’t call it manufacturing either.

Lastly, why is it even necessary to put that phrase on the package? If you didn’t process nuts on the equipment I would start to have serious concerns about what I was eating. Don’t tell me you have to in case someone with a nut allergy accidentally went to eat them. Let me tell you if they didn’t see the big lettering on the front that said, “Nuts, Seeds, and Raisin.” Or the smaller lettering immediately under that which listed all the different nuts and seeds you used, or the clear cellophane that allows you to see the vary nuts that are in the package, or the picture of the Planter’s Peanut logo, or the ingredient list on the back which is in the same size text as the manufacturing warning, then they are not going to see or read the manufacturing warning either.

I hope you take my concerns seriously and use them to better package and market your nut sacks.

Thank You

Friday, February 19, 2010

Union Leadership

There's an oxymoron if I ever heard one.

So 2010 is not only an election year for governor and a few senate and congressional seats, but the U.A.W. local that I belong to as well. And we'd better put on the boots cause it is deep over here.

We still have a few months before union elections, but already there are people out there introducing themselves and talking about how they feel about things. You will find that all of them have a fire in their belly and a general dislike for how the current leadership has been doing. They also are quick to remind us all that whom ever we have in the leadership positions will be the people that speak for us all at the bargaining table in 2012 when our labor agreement needs to be renegotiated. These people are very passionate about it too, they all have the same unhappy feelings towards the current contract we have with the company and the lack of ability or desire, seemingly at least, on the part of the union to fight for anything.

These are all good people though. I don't want to give the impression they are not, but the current leadership is even less effective at fighting for what is right then a Democratic Senate Super-Majority.

Everyone is most concerned with the fact that there really is not any clear candidates to hold election position within our U.A.W. local, and they are right there really isn't a good choice out there right now to run our local and fight for our rights under the current labor contract, let alone negotiate a new contract.

The problem, and reason for this is as follows.....

These people have all the passion and fire in the world, but we all feel that way.
None of them have any experience in organizing.
None of them have strong leadership skills.
None of them seem to have any experience with grassroots activism, which is at the core of what labor unions are all about.

If I actually cared enough about my jobs longevity I would throw my hat in the ring. I would lose because I have not worked there long and I am sure at least some people wouldn't want me running the union just because I am gay, but what ever. The main reason for doing so is that my experience in community organizing could dance circles around these other people and get others to think about what experience in organizing all these people have. Here is a short list of only the most impressive parts.....

Public Relations Director for Keweenaw Pride, (MTU gay, straight alliance group)
Campaigner and street canvasser for John Kerry 2004
Canvasser, precinct organizer for Democratic Party
Kalamazoo Community Aids Resource and Education Services Outreach
Kalamazoo Alliance for Equality
Project(!) co-founder (Aids prevention and community building organization)
Public and Press Relations, President, and Webmaster for The World Can't Wait

I know I am forgetting some things but this is just a list of the groups I held offices and committee spots for.

If the union would put some time effort and most importantly money in to building stronger leadership skills and get people that are active in community activism then not only would our local have good candidates to hold elected positions but all of our future prospects would be a little brighter.

Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Well Endowed Package

There are a lot of endowments for the arts. It is actually amazing how much funding the arts get in this way. But why does it always seem like traditional art is the only form, i.e. painting, sculpting..., that receives these things.

There should be a push to create cultural endowments too. I am thinking more about government grants then actual endowments but both would be welcome.

I am also thinking specifically about the culture, art, and history of the native tribes of North America. The culture is so spiritual and the art is so natural and beautiful. The history is so devastating and shows a whole other view of how the European settlers acted then they came here.

But imagine a government grant program to teach the language, art, history, and culture of the Native American tribes. As it is the languages of these tribes are fading with time.

A well funded program to bring these things in to the classrooms and teach the languages, arts, and cultures of the original Americans would do more to help us understand our own heritage and the true history of our country. And who knows maybe we would all learn to respect the native tribes a little bit more and give them a little of their dignity back too.

Thursday, February 11, 2010

Proud and Union

"I would really be honored if I could walk in the Michigan Pride parade...underneath the UAW banner."

This past Tuesday, the 9th, was my one year anniversary at my job. I have now worked for the American Auto Industry for a year and been a member of the UAW for the same amount of time.

For about a week I have been thinking about it all. About how much pride I have in being a part of unionized labor, even though labor unions are weak anymore. About how much pride I have in myself for overcoming some fairly major obstacles in my life. About how happy I should feel for still having a job in Michigan during this economy.

On top of this new found pride I have hit a new stride it would seem with my personal life as a gay man. I am sooo passed the random hooks ups phase. I am past the phase of assuming every guy I meet is the one. I have found the stage where I am able to go on a date, get to know that person, and address everything in a slower and more reasoned way. I still want to find Mr. Right but I am willing to go slowly and do things the right way to set myself up for a successful long term relationship.

In all these ways my life is changing and I really feel like there should be a moment to really usher in these changes. In that way I would really be honored if I could walk in the Michigan Pride parade, which is the Gay and Lesbian pride parade that takes place in Lansing Michigan, underneath the UAW banner. I can't be the only gay member of the UAW after all, and would honestly mean a lot to see the GLBT members of the UAW walking behind a UAW banner that would say "GLBT, UAW, and Proud" then rework the UAW logo so that five of the people in the circle of people holding hands are colored to resemble the pride rainbow.

Lets make this happen. I would love to be a part of this.

Lets create some jobs. Again

Here is a quick little jobs creation idea.

Combat Urban Sprawl.

If you could clean up America's urban centers and make them a place where people wanted to live you would be creating a lot of jobs.

Police to clean up the streets.
Garbage men to clean up the streets.
Increased employment for city departments of water and power.
Taxis drivers
Public Transportation oporators
Not to mention all the jobs that would have to be created to repair the countries failing urban centers.

The benefits would include
Stronger tax base for each city
Shorter commutes = fewer carbon emissions
It is just plain more effiecent than a larger sprawled out population.

Think about it.

Sunday, January 31, 2010

Lets create some jobs.

How do we create jobs? An olde fashion tax break for small buisness should do it.

I heard this in Obama's state of the union speech. I heard this in every campaign where the economy was front and center. We have heard this for a long time. Cutting taxes for small buisnesses helps the economy and creates jobs, and for all I know that is true but I don't know.

What I am thinking is what about making the playing field between the small and big companies level. Here is what I mean.

"...fast food chains have accepted hundreds of millions of dollars in government subsides for "training" their workers...chains have for years claimed tax credits of up to $2,400 for each new low-income worker they hired...new jobs were part time, provided little training, and no benifits...Fast food restaurants had to employ a worker for only four hundred hours to recieve federal money - and then could get more money as soon as that worker quit" or was fired "and replaced." It is worth noting that if you assumed a 40 hour work week that person only had to work 10 weeks, a little more then 2 months. That is a lot of money we the tax payers shell out every time a fast food employee is hired, and with the very high turnover rate in the fast food industry that becomes a lot of money very fast. If that kind of money was put in to subsidy programs for small businesses you might see fewer national fast food chains littering every exit on the interstate and a few more locally owned diners and rest areas.

Here is another one.



Did anyone ever see the movie Wal Mart The High Cost of Low Prices. There is a scene in there where this owner of a local ACE hardware talks about Wal Mart was given tons of subsidies to build and expand the plot of land they wanted to put their store on. To keep up the owners expanded their store to offer more to the community and not only did they not get any help with construction costs but also got hit with fees and other infrastructure upgrade costs that Wal Mart never had to deal with.

What I am saying here is that if small business is so important to the growth of our economy then why does our government hand out tons of subsides and tax breaks and tax loop holes to the biggest companies. Small businesses already have a hard time competing against the giants of industry, toss on some unfair subsides and you have a struggle that small businesses will be hard pressed to make it through.

Eric Schlossen, Fast Food Nation, Houghton Mifflin Company, New York NY, 2001 Pg. 72

Saturday, January 30, 2010

Get rich quick!!!

A guy that I work with has been talking about this latest opportunity he heard of to start up at home business. I had been listening to him talk about it and I was interested since I am also interested in finding another income to help with the battle. So I was talking with him about it and he gave me a CD to listen to that doesn't explain a thing but makes it all seem so easy.

However, in course of talking with him I asked several times if it was like AMWAY. He would get kind of defensive and swear that it is nothing like that. So I though, cool, cause AMWAY doesn't work I don't know anyone that ever made better then they put in to it. Not to mention AMWAY is only not a pyramid scheme because there is actually something to sell.

This new thing my coworker was talking about is called Team National.

This is a pyramid scheme, at least the way they are presenting it.

Basically it is a group much like Sam's club where being a member gets you discounts on all sorts of crap that you buy every day. Unlike Sam's Club, however, Team National sells them selves to people as a way to make a second income or totally replace your current income. How do you do this? By selling memberships!!! The more people you get underneath you the more you make until you are getting checks every week and the money keeps building up and getting better.

Sounds great doesn't it!

What happens if you can't find anyone to join through you? What happens when the "savings" from being in the membership. What happens if things aren't the same for all and only a few ever reach the top?

It is kind of interesting to notice that the CD I listened to never once talked about how much membership costs. How much you can make on every membership sale. All the things you would need to know to know what you were getting in to.

About the time the CD reminded me that I am not selling memberships, but sharing an opportunity with my friends I knew it was crap. Even more that the majority of what I was hearing was just testimonials from the few people that had made it to the top level.

Why do people keep going for these things. The only people making out from these things are the guys at the top. If you don't know the guy at the top and didn't know him back when things started you are not going to make it, or at least are not likely to make it. Not to mention every person that falls in to these things gets stuck. These things prey on our hopes for a better life and most fall victim to huge personal losses trying to make their hopes happen.

I wish my friend from work the best and hope he is successful but I do not believe things will work out. I also can not be part to anything that uses others hopes and dreams for a better life against them to feel my hopes and dreams.

Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Rethinking the thoughts I thought before, Community Gardens

This one time on tv I saw this really interesting special being presented by the Sierra Club that was about the struggle to have garden spaces in urban cities. Most of the show focused on a few community gardens in New York City, and the fight the local community was wagging to keep their garden.

In a way I think this program, the community gardens, is a big step towards a better country.

The recent news stories about American Politics makes me think the country is becoming even more self centered and greedy. Health care reform is all but dead, and at best was weak to begin with. Edward Kennedy's seat in the Senate went to a Republican. The Tea Party movement national convention. This rise of new neo-cons, the neo-neo-cons.

Where I am going with this.....simple.

We are losing our sense of community as we all fight and scratch our way to getting ours. The statement, "It is a dog eat dog world." is very appropriate for our society right now. The community garden is an amazing simple, effective, and other wise beneficial solution to this greater crisis that is beseeching our society.

In the tv show I mentioned, the communities where the city wanted to tear down a community garden to make way for developers, the members of the community stood arms locked together in front of their gardens to protect them. This symbol of togetherness brought a community together, gave them fresh produce, increased the property values in the neighborhood, and got everyone to thinking about everyone else a little bit. We need a little more of this.

In interviews with members of the community they talked about how the gardens were so plentiful that not all the produce could be consumed by the community members and they actually had to give away large amounts of produce to local shelters or watch the food rot on the ground.

I have thought so many times about how starting community garden programs could do so much good. It still amazes me that this idea does not catch on in more places. Plant some broccoli. Plant some spinach. Plant some zucchini. Plant some tomatoes. Plant some squash. Plant some green beans. Talk to your neighbors about it. Save a little space for them the grow something they are interested in. Then watch as you all get closer, grow as a community with your plants, and celebrate the harvest of good friends and fresh foods.

Just something to think about.

Sunday, January 17, 2010

It's the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine

I would like to start off by giving a shout out to The History Channel.

Thanks. You turned my parents to in nut cases totally obsessed with the coming rapture. Somewhere between "Life After People", "Nostradamus", "Mega Disasters", and "Signs of the Apocalypse" you got my parents hook line and sinker that the end is near.

I get that the ratings are probably pretty good for those shows and that they are easy and cheap to make. (All you need is an "expert" that will talk on camera about the science behind a theoretical event and BAM!! you got a show.) However, why do you have to put so much of that on. It's not even history, it hasn't happened yet and may not happen either. What about a useful show like the history of labor unions, or the history of the American banking system. Any thing that doesn't end with the narrator saying, "It's not a question of if but when it will happen."

Anyway

This Sunday in my small town the fever of doom has gotten so bad that an international group based in Brittan did a presentation at the township hall all about what will, I repeat WILL, happen when, I repeat WHEN, the worlds oil runs out, climate change destroys everything, or just a plain olde great depression. (I live in a town of about 600 people, nearest actual city is about a half hour drive, and yet they came to our rural community with their songs of doom and preparation.)

I say doom because they are resigned to this fate. Nothing in the literature they handed out says anything about prevention or saving our society. Everything they have to say is about how to live in a world without gasoline, a monetary system, ect...

I also heard that shockingly similar is peoples reaction to the movie, Avatar. I have not seen this movie yet although I am planning for next weekend, but I have heard that people are leaving the movie feeling depressed and suicidal because the movie shows this Utopian world and people leave realizing how shitty their lives are and how they will never see anything like that they think about killing them selves. If you life is that meaningless that 3 hours in a movie theater does that to you maybe it is time to make a change, but not kill yourself.

Why is it everyone is so willing to resign to a doom and gloom fate when there is so much we can do to make things better. Several leading scientists have said time after time that we have the ability to prevent these things from happening. We know how to prevent climate change, we have the technology to shift from an oil economy to a diversified energy economy, we can even fix our global economic systems to prevent global economic collapse.

The only real question is will we.

Can we find the will to change the way we do things. Can we stop urban sprawl and the daily 60 mile commute. Can we seriously shift eating habits to less processed foods and less meat.
Can we cut fossil fuel consumption and replace it with a combination of wind, solar, geothermal, hydro, and biofuel. Can we stop destroying virgin habitat for the sake of industry. Can we make recycling a national obsession.

Al Gore said, "We know and have everything we need to prevent this from happening but political will. But, in America political will is a renewable resource."

Sunday, January 10, 2010

Biodiversity the new Global Warming

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8449506.stm

There is a really good story on the BBC about the lost biodiversity over the past decade.

Did you know that there was a conference on it in 2002 where goals were set to protect undeveloped land and thusly the habitat needed to support greater biodiversity. In the article from the BBC it is clear that the goals, which were set for the year 2010, will not be met.

The issue of biodiversity effects us all and in many ways effects us all to a greater extent then global warming. Here is a short compare and contrast on the issues of global warming vs. lost biodiversity.

Global warming is still consider as a controversial science in the main stream, at least in America.

The losses of biodiversity is well established and measurable.

There are many people that do not believe humans are a direct contributor to global warming.

It is an accepted fact that the massive increase in the rate of species extinction has as a cause the massive losses of natural habitat due to land development projects. (The loss of coral reefs due to bleaching and increased water temperatures caused by global warming is also a factor.)

The threats of global warming have a direct and dire set of consequences to humanity. I.E. rising ocean levels, sever droughts, sever floods, sever storms, and lost supplies of drinking water.

The threats of lost biodiversity are harder to understand and less scary to contemplate. I.E. If some species you never heard of goes extinct will you notice?

In some ways you could argue that the solutions to both global warming and protecting our planet's biodiversity are interlinked. After all, both the global warming camp and the biodiversity camp argue for protecting the world's rainforest's, swamps, and other natural habitats.

The one part of the biodiversity picture recently in the news, although not in the US national news that I have seen. Is the current back and forth legal preceding over shutting down some section of locks in Chicago. The fear is that the locks are the only block between some invasive species of fish and the natural fish species of Lake Michigan. Every state in the United States that touches on one of the great lakes, except Illinois, is in support of closing the waterway that links the infected rivers to the great lakes. In many similar cases the trouble of invasive species is as much a problem as the human action of deforestation. Invasive species being very difficult to clear out, makes it a very dangerous problem.

Invasive species are foreign species not common to an area that typically crowd out the indigenous species of that area. The invasive species thrives on an area where it's common predators are absent making its population explode. (Like that episode of the Simpson's where Bart goes to Australia to be kicked in the ass and sets his pet frog lose, then at the end of that episode all the frogs are eating all the crops in that country.)

Given the serious nature of both global warming and biodiversity I would think linking these too global problems together and tackling both of them at once would be a much better way to solve the problem. Both groups want to prevent the destruction of natural habitat and find a more sustainable way of life, it would be a marriage made in heaven for both groups.

One thing I personally think the United States should do on this issue is to get serious about fighting the urban sprawl epidemic. So many of our great metropolitan areas are letting their cores rot while the wealthy and businesses keep building up all the outlying land. A strong reinvestment in the decaying infrastructure of America's great cities would bring business and people back to a city center making each city stronger. It would also make public transportation more effective getting more cars off the roads and saving more on emissions. It would save on energy, large amounts to electricity never make it because efficiency problems cause large amounts of energy to be lost just getting somewhere, a more compact city would have a smaller electrical gird that would be more efficient if designed correctly. It would make our country stronger.

So lets bind the issues of global warming and protecting Earth's biodiversity, and lets get serious about sustainable living.

Sunday, January 3, 2010

It's the new year, lets be ignorantly optimistic

It is the new year and already, the solutions to our problems are well in hand. (Buuuuulllllllll Sssssshit, excuse me my allergies must me acting up.)

I live about20 miles west of Kalamazoo MI. The big news that is going to solve all our problems. The jobs are coming.

I will believe this when I see it.

Supposedly there are a bunch of jobs on tap to be created in 2010 in the Kalamazoo area, which would be great if it was true. However we have heard this before. If anyone from the Kalamazoo area reads this do you remember back in the fall of 2008 when the governor came around and it sounded like the area was going to become a hub for life sciences research and production. Here is a list of some of the notables if you forgot.....

MPI, 3000 jobs in Mattawan for animal lab testing
MPI, 300 to 500 jobs in Kalamazoo doing, it had something to do with a contract with Pfizer
Parker (I think) they hired like 120 people in Kalamazoo, actually happened
Fabri-Kal, 200 jobs the same ones they are talking about right now
Perrigo, I think it was like 300 jobs in Allegan to handle their expansion of sales of over the counter generics, they make the Wal-Mart brand for several things, along with Kroger, Meijer and others.

There were others job announcements at the same time in the fall of 2008. It was just a big deal that they put up billboards touting the fact that four thousand some odd jobs had been created. The reality is that the plans for them had been announced.

Then.......

The economy collapsed and none of it happened, although I remember seeing lines for people that were applying for those 120 jobs that I think were Parker but I can't remember what the name of that company was for sure. I do remember it was in the middle of downtown.

Not only did most of it not happen, but MPI wound up laying lots of people off and getting others to take early retirement packages. Perrigo laid off all the workers on temp contracts through other firms. As for all the other jobs, well no one really said anything about it after the announcements but you would think that if someone was still hiring 200 people it would of had some kind of measurable effect on the unemployment numbers.

So now we are recounting some of those jobs as new jobs for 2010 even though they were supposed to be here already and the bulk of them, the 3000 MPI jobs, still aren't being filled. We are counting the chickens before they hatch on this one because any sense of optimism, even when it is ignorant to the facts of the situation, is enough right now.

The real stupid thing about this, which I happen to know a lot about because I know someone that works for the city of Mattawan, not spelling the name of that city right, is that those 3000 jobs are dependent on expanding an over pass and off ramp on I-94. The over pass is one lane each way and it is busy. There is a big truck stop and weight station there. There is a trailer park there. There is a big Go Kart and putt putt golf area there. Not to mention it is the only off ramp for that entire town, including the hundreds, if not thousands that already work for MPI at that location.

Instead of getting money from the economic stimulus to rebuild that over pass, they spent stimulus money to resurface the curb further up the freeway. Why not invest in a public works project that is needed to help a company and a town create thousands of new jobs, instead of resurfacing the freeway. Even better is that the area where the resurfacing took place was the same location where, just the year before, they had expanded the freeway to three lanes.

This ignorant optimism is going to ruin us, because we are not looking at things in a rational manner. I could go on forever about it but know this, The Status Quo Does Not Work when it comes too health care, education, the environment, and especially science. (I know there is no real answer to this but ask yourself how much money and talent left the United States to do stem cell research in other countries. Fuel cell research? Cancer research?)

No one ever won a fashion show with last years shoes and no country ever maintained economic strength on outdated technology!

Lets be rationally optimistic and rebuild and modernize America's infrastructure. Flood our research universities with the money, tools, and innovation friendly laws that will put us back in the top spot of scientific and technical innovation. Create a universal health care system that takes the burden of health insurance premiums off the backs of American Companies and the American people, almost all industrialized countries besides the US have universal health care. Regulate the damn banks, its our money they are playing with and they should be held accountable for it at all times.