A better way

It seems like there should be a better way to do things. Haven't we all been taught to analyze things critically, think outside the box, and create effecent and effective solutions to our problems. At least this is how I was taught to handle problems when they arise. So why do our current politicians keep coming up with the same old solutions that don't really fix the problems and cause us to have to make the same difficult descisions the next year?

Case and point.

The local university, Western Michigan University, just raised tution rates on students for next year by 6.6%. The Michigan State budget had cut higher education spending which led to a 16 million dollar cut in WMU's budget. So I understand why the university had to charge its students more right now, but this is the same story that has been playing out in all Michigan's universities since 2002, since the economy of Michigan tanked and manufacturing jobs started leaving the state in droves.

So this budget shortfall is nothing new, and the solutions for dealing with it are nothing new. In 10 years of the same problems and challenges there are still no new or better solutions for dealing with a state budget and university budget problem then to to shift the cost burden back on to the individuals.

Really? This is all we got to work with?

How about one of these ideas.

Green Energy incentives. I don't know how much of a universities budget is taken up in energy costs, WMU is the 3rd largest in Michigan and the top 100 in the country, but I would guess that it is alot of money. So why can they not start putting up solar panels, wind turbines, and making building more energy efficent. We could even make it a student based project where students develop the systems and impliment the programs. It would seem to me that there is a lot of educational value in that as well as saving the university money longer term from having in house renewable energy sources.

Land Ho. Being a land grant university means something. It means that you have land. WMU in fact currently is trying to sell some of its land, and already sold a section to the Kalamazoo public school system to build a new middle school. But they have done this before too and still the budget problems remain. I would think a much better idea would be to maintain ownership and develop the land to fit the needs of the company or firm interested in leasing it. Think about it, continuos income, maintained value. So often the solution is in maintaing value equity holdings while finding a way for those hondings to make you money, not in selling off what you got for short term fixes.

Student loans and government run banks. This is more complicated but the idea is that student loans would be held and serviced by a state owned bank and that revenue from student loan interest could be used to cover the costs of running the bank and be put back in to the educational system to help keep future costs of education down. To do this one would require the supreme court reversing a decision that was made back when Andrew Jackson was president, the Supreme Court at that time refused to renew the charter for the Bank of the United States claiming that the constitution did not give congress the authority to do anything that even might look like regulating the economy.

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