New scene, please

It is really hitting me right now, how bad this area is for someone like me to live in.

It is not just the gay aspect of things, there is alot more to it then that. There just seems to be this void in my life. Even though I am currently seeing someone.

I guess it really hit me Saturday. I was looking forward all week to going out to Saugatuck MI on saturday for a fun night of dancing and drinking at the largest gay and lesbian resort in the state, for those that don't know Sagutuck is sort of Michigan's San Fransico. I almost always enjoy myself when I go, I love the music they play I like the dance floor and I love the environment although it usually makes me feel fat to be in a night club with all those in shape gay guys. Seriously though, I really like going there, it is fun.

Suddenly though, my BF started being against the idea of going and seemed more interested in just staying at home and watching Glee on DVD all night. He wasn't actually saying he didn't want to go to Saugatuck but he through out all these different things we could do at the last minute, like he suddenly really wasn't interested in going. So I just let it go and there entered the funk I currently find myself in.

This was my only weekend until the end of the semester to not worry and just have fun and all my plans and desires were thwarted. So now I have nothing to look forward to for the next two months, again. I really am starting to wonder if this listless feeling of just plugging along happens everywhere or if this is more of a midwest mentality brought on by the fact that there is nothing here.

Don't you get tired of never having anything to look forward to?

It is March 7th and all I have to look forward to is a possible 2 week layoff in July, yeah I am actually looking forward to being laid off from work for 2 weeks, since that will be the only vacation I will see all year and I have to wait 6 months for it. 6 months of non stop work and school before I have time to enjoy anything again and just be me. 6 months!

Give up to get

"You have to spend money to make money."

Not sure who said that first but I know Nathan Lane said it in the movie Mouse Hunt, and it is very true, but doesn't really create an acurate imagery for what it really means.

Here is what really means.....

I just recently got all the paperwork in order to do my taxes and the most amazing number out of all these numbers is what I paid in qualifing expenses for higher education. I took 7 credit hours and paid over 2800 dollars for it all. Between that money and how much I have already spent this year I could of paid off over 13% of all my debts and even paid off my credit card balence so that the account could finally be closed. Instead I have paid this money in to education for nothing more then the hope that when I graduate I can find a better job and a better life.

It is amazing to think about everything that I have given up for my education and when you consider that everyone in college makes these decisions on some level and at sometime you really have to wonder if any of us are sane.

Think about it. College students spend big bucks to go to school for something that is not a guarentee, just a better possibility, while giving up the money they could of made working for those 4 years, sometimes longer. They study long hours and give up alot of their lives for education.

Before anyone would say different I would like to direct your attention to a new study that came out recently showing that college life is not the party fest it used to be and that college students now feel they are under more pressure then ever before. Not only are we giving up alot in terms of money but we are giving up alot in terms of personal happiness too, all because we have all been lead to believe education is the key to sucess.

I have been thinking about this a lot lately, and I think now the reason why I contiune to pay and give up time money and my personal life to the cause of education is to prove my self to people that had written me off as a wash out. I don't really believe, anymore, that education is the key to a better life, just that I don't want others to judge me in a negative light just because I didn't make it.

I know people keep saying that I am only 29 and I have my whole life yet to look forward to so I shouldn't give up now, but really at some point wouldn't rather be happy with things rather getting your happiness, or sorrow handed to you in form of a graded test?

What are you giving up, and what do you think you will get from it? Can you be sure you will get it, and what if you don't? Will you still be able to get anywhere in life, or will you wind up spending the next 30 years paying back all the costs of your wasted education?

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.

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.

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)

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.