Confessions of a Tree Kisser

We are back! What a wonderful experience it is to go to such a majestic forest, and spend time by the Ocean.
In terms of Forests, I would say the Redwoods are a masterpiece. These ancient forests take your breath away.

I really understood the expression “Can’t see the Forest, for the trees.” If you try to hug one of these trees, you’d be lucky to get 1/8 of the way around their massive trunks. These trees got both hugs & kisses from us!

Mmmmwha! ~ Fran spotted kissing a tree

Just being in these forests really does bring about a centered calm. We drove up a gnarly, one lane, two way backroad to get to this primo grove of mature forests. Perhaps people were slowed down & mellow because the forest has this effect ~ or because it was a steep, long drop over the mountain? Maybe it was a combination of the two? In any case, we were happy to savor the beauty of some of the finest forests, and tallest trees on the planet.


Caution! Getting away from it all may cause extreme happiness!

These are our visiting relatives ~ Grandpa Mac & Grandma Naida. I was impressed with how much respect & interest, the Veterans for Peace shirt Grandpa was wearing, commanded & sparked conversations. Grandma is an avid walker & at 85 can dust me on any trail!

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Assume the position

Well folks, the government & pundits “predicted” we would have $4 buck-a-gallon gas by summer & they are making good on the promise. I watched every grade of fuel soar near or above the $4 mark in mid May in Oregon.
I’ve been watching this local gas station sign prices go up & up all week… How ’bout that $3.99.9 pricing?

Check out the subtle tape line on the #3– they took a #8 & made it a 3. I’m sure they are just being more efficient as it may well be $8 bucks a gallon sometime soon. As a boon to the economy, the people who manufacture the numbers they put up manually on gas price signs, have a a run of orders for the number *4*. Last year it was the number *3*, and some industrious folks with foresight are already busy making *5’s*. As some kind of abstract art statement, above the sign in the distance is a green traffic light ~ that would be a go for record profits for big oil.

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Let the Circus begin

I received a call tonight- it was Chelsea Clinton- well a recording of Chelsea, with a very tired sounding voice, asking me to vote for her Mom. The verbiage was actually something like “vote for my Mom. My Mom will NOT GIVE UP!”. She sounded like she had to refrain from adding “dammit anyway” to that sentence.

I also saw the new kinder, gentler commercial ads- Hillary dressed in pink, with some gawdy pink necklace, going on about how she understands Oregonians- she has children & babies 6 in all- 5 are clean cut upper crust white kids & one token black child. She talks about how she will be a tough fighter, and closes with a shot of an infant holding her fingers. Or is she trying to pry money out of the baby’s hand?

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Prejudice & Politics

I have to admit, there have been some topics of conversation re politics that have absolutely blown me away. At work the other day, a coworker said she was undecided about the Presidential primary. As the conversation went on, she announced she would not vote republican. Whew! Otherwise, that would have been one short conversation!
But she said she really did not like Hillary, sick of Bill in particular, but “not sure she was ready for a black person to be president!” I damned near fell off the chair. A part of me wanted to deck her right there in the employee lounge area. But I took a deep breath. I first commended her for not being inspired to vote republican. Then I asked-, where does this race issue come from? I feel like I live in some bubble because race & gender issues influencing my vote are entirely “off the table” so to speak, politically & in general. I feel broadsided by such remarks- a sideways slam you did not see coming. A Complete non issue for me. So this conversation was highly volatile.
But yet, she was just being honest, while insensing me, to the core.

I went on to say that for me, I could care less about color, or gender. or sexual orientation. I look at voting record, actions & integrity. I am not interested in sound bites, or manufactured campaign strategies. I loathe the low blow Hillary Clinton commercials with Osama bin Laden & images of Barack Obama meshed together in a not-at-all subliminal suggestiveness a la Hillary-the-desperate style. Damn the media for spending excessive debate time talking about flag pins & reverends.

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Shadowy Overlords & the Illusion of Democracy

 

From the folks @ The Onion

 

Newsflash: Bullshit is THE most important Topic for Voters

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Showtime! General Petraeus Speaks

I don’t think any of us really believe the dog & pony show, otherwise known as the testimony from Petraeus & Crocker would yield any earth shattering revelations. They are kind of like wooden dummies on the lap of the bushco ventriliquists- they are told what to say & how to say it.

MSNBC reports
“Their unwavering stance amounted to this: Further pullouts might trigger defeat; the costs of defeat are too horrible to ponder; therefore, we shouldn’t ponder further pullouts.
Specifically, Petraeus called for a 45-day pause after the five surge brigades go home this July. After the pause will come an “evaluation” of the security situation. Then there will be an “assessment” of that evaluation. And on that basis, there will be a “determination” whether further reductions can be made, “as conditions permit.”

Yes, it would appear we are firmly stuck in a quagmire of circular “logic”.

Victory lingo scrapped

All along, we’ve been told of the need to “Stay the course”, that “Victory would be ours”– now the General has repeatedly testified otherwise:

The surge-along with the shift to a counterinsurgency strategy-is a means, not an end. Its point is not to win a military victory (there is no such thing here, Petraeus has emphasized) but rather to create enough security in Baghdad-a “breathing space”-to let the political factions reconcile their disputes

Wow! What a dazzling array of changes we have made. Forget the victory, not gonna happen. Even the notion of installing Democracy (at gunpoint, no less), seems to be off the table- Democracy may be too difficult to achieve– let’s go for “breathing space” as our stated goal.

My bullshit-o-meter is in the red zone

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Greetings

Jackson Browne~ Farther On 

Greetings from Illinois. I am wrapping up my 3 week stint here in my birthplace. The weather has been wild- everything from 9 inches of snow, to what is best described as a flash flood with a kick ass thunderstorm & such heavy rain I could not see the freeway. Also warm sunny t shirt weather. This trip was designed to be a marathon of sorts- dismantle our childhood home  Mom had for 45 years, as she is too elderly & has major health issues to stay alone & maintain the old house. Old it is too- built in 1926. We cleared out 45 years of stuff. We have that house totally empty & clean. Mom has experienced major changes since I saw her 5 months ago. I am so glad I went to visit her every chance I had, because now there is Noro Virus in her area, she has contracted it & it is highly contagious, so I can’t visit her the last few days I am here. So I am really glad I seized the moment when I could. Carpe Diem! Seize the day!

Yesterday, I did a 5 realtor interview sprint & had my first glimpse into what the whole damned sub prime mortgage debacle really looks like, right here in the Nation’s mid section. We kept seeing “Short Sale” on the comp properties listings.

A short sale is a situation where a house is on the brink of foreclosure, so the desperate lender allows the owner to sell the place for less than they owe to avoid the foreclosure. What that means is you wind up with houses that are being dumped on the market for $50,000 or more than what they are actually worth. Lots of them. So that totally screws up the market for the rest of the sellers. You can ask for more, you can even hold out for more– but those folks who do might have the place sell 400 to 500 days on the market.- that is more than a year, or closer to two years- if it sells at all.

 It was quite depressing to see the domino effect. Their self bail out is screwing with my Mom’s sweat equity into the place for all those years. NOW I really get the nuts & bolts of what the whole sub prime mess is like for the average person & it ain’t pretty.

 Anyway, I will have to spend my last days here getting paint quotes from paint people. Not a project I can stick around to see done, but get the ball rolling.

 The irony of all this is I work in the travel industry. Hellofa vacation Eh?

 No you are not seeing double– I took the liberty of posting twice today.

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Who do you want running the Country’s finances, or Will the next president keep you up worrying till 3 in the morning?

I’ve had little to no time to keep up with the news,but I came across this gem the other day…..
It looks like Hillary Clinton has a little money problem. Her campaign has a slight budget overrun of $9 million bucks. Thing is when you want the job of running the country, it would be nice if you could keep your own trip together.
Sorry— I don’t want Hillary answering the phone @ 3 am, and I don’t want her in charge of budgets either.

crossposted at Ramblings

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The Talk

We were shaking in our boots today. This was the day we were going to have the talk with Mom about selling the house. Mom has been very clear that she wanted to stay in her house *forever*, and she began making that proclamation about 25 years ago, when there were no issues on the table. Fast forward to March 2007, when she had a mild stroke, that seemed to trigger first severe memory loss, which subsided to intermittent bouts of not being in the here & now. With a long list of chronics, it was clear that it was no longer wise to live at home alone, and the Doctor would ONLY release her to a care facility. Mom snapped into a lucidity I’d never seen before when she spent that day trying to fight that order to a care facility. We even tried playing the “this is what we need to do for now” card– Mom said- oh no– people go into those places, and do not get out. She knew.

Fast forward to a year later. We had let the house sit empty for a year, just to wait and see how things went, and because, frankly, no one wanted to rock her boat. She’d had enough trauma.

The cash flow situation demanded we sell her place, and it’s not good for a house to sit empty.

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update

I write with a heavy heart today. Having visited my Mom and witness the changes that happened in 5 months time, since I was last here, have taken me by surprise. My Mom is 83, and she is in the beginning throes of dementia. Mom was a strong, vibrant, fiercely independent woman who had a kind heart, but was always at the steering wheel of her life. To see both the aging process, and this awful disease & how it steal’s your life away, bit by bit is very upsetting to say the least.

After a year in a care facility, we have to let go of her house, and that is what I am in the midst of @ this time. I had an incredible wave of sadness on day one of the house project. It just hit me like a ton of bricks. We are having to dismantle her space, and she is still with us, but not entirely. I hate the disease, and how unmerciful it is.

I know what we are doing is a labor of love, and that Mom needs 24 hour care. She is in exactly the correct place she needs to be in. She would rather live at home, but that would be neglectful. Seeing the major changes solidifies her need for care, more clearly than ever before.
We are in complete role reversal, where the kids are now the parents. I have always had a close relationship with my Mom, so it’s heartbreaking to watch her fade & go through these changes.

Crossposted at Ramblings

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War is a Racket

Who is Smedley Darlington Butler, and what can we learn from him?

A Major General in the U.S. Marine Corps and, at the time of his death, the most decorated Marine in U.S. history.
During his 34 years of Marine Corps service, Butler was awarded numerous medals for heroism including the Marine Corps Brevet Medal (the highest Marine medal at its time for officers), and subsequently the Medal of Honor twice. Notably, he is one of only 19 people to be twice awarded the Medal of Honor, and one of only three to be awarded a Marine Corps Brevet Medal and a Medal of Honor, and the only person to be awarded a Marine Corps Brevet Medal and a Medal of Honor for two different actions.
In addition to his military career, Smedley Butler was noted for his outspoken anti-interventionist views, and his book, “War is a Racket”. His book was one of the first works describing the workings of the military-industrial complex and after retiring from service, he became a popular speaker at meetings organized by veterans, pacifists and church groups in the 1930s.
In 1934, he informed the United States Congress that a group of wealthy industrialists had plotted a military coup to overthrow the government of President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Butler was educated at the West Chester Friends Graded High School and later at The Haverford School, a secondary school for sons of upper-class Quaker families near Philadelphia, but he dropped out to join the Marines, 38 days before his 17th birthday.

Butler served in Guantanamo Bay, twice wounded in the Boxer Rebellion, Honduras, Nicaragua, Vera Cruz Mexico, Haiti, and World War I. After he left the service, he looked back with honesty and wrote a few books- one titled “War is a Racket”

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Information is subject to change.

 

Fortunate Son~ Creedence Clearwater Revival”Information is subject to change”.

That is what is written in the teeny, tiny fine print on the latest piece of Army recruitment crap to, this time, arrive in our mailbox. A few weeks ago I posted a piece “Death via in box”, talking about the Patriot Act e mail access the recruiters are given for College students. The recruitment push is relentless. This piece could be called “Death via Mailbox”.

I want to draw attention to the actual military enlistment contract itself. Section 9 (the fine print on the back of the enlistment contract agreement).

9. FOR ALL ENLISTEES OR REENLISTEES: Many laws, regulations, and military customs will govern my conduct and require me to do things a civilian does not have to do. The following statements are not promises or guarantees of any kind. They explain some of the present laws affecting the Armed Forces which I cannot change but which Congress can change at any time

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Molly Ivins Revisited

This is a reprint of a piece Molly Ivins wrote.

I will not support Hillary Clinton for president
January 20, 2006

AUSTIN, Texas — I’d like to make it clear to the people who run the Democratic Party that I will not support Hillary Clinton for president.

Enough. Enough triangulation, calculation and equivocation. Enough clever straddling, enough not offending anyone This is not a Dick Morris election. Sen. Clinton is apparently incapable of taking a clear stand on the war in Iraq, and that alone is enough to disqualify her. Her failure to speak out on Terri Schiavo, not to mention that gross pandering on flag-burning, are just contemptible little dodges.

The recent death of Gene McCarthy reminded me of a lesson I spent a long, long time unlearning, so now I have to re-learn it. It’s about political courage and heroes, and when a country is desperate for leadership. There are times when regular politics will not do, and this is one of those times. There are times a country is so tired of bull that only the truth can provide relief.

If no one in conventional-wisdom politics has the courage to speak up and say what needs to be said, then you go out and find some obscure junior senator from Minnesota with the guts to do it. In 1968, Gene McCarthy was the little boy who said out loud, “Look, the emperor isn’t wearing any clothes.” Bobby Kennedy — rough, tough Bobby Kennedy — didn’t do it. Just this quiet man trained by Benedictines who liked to quote poetry.

What kind of courage does it take, for mercy’s sake? The majority of the American people (55 percent) think the war in Iraq is a mistake and that we should get out. The majority (65 percent) of the American people want single-payer health care and are willing to pay more taxes to get it. The majority (86 percent) of the American people favor raising the minimum wage. The majority of the American people (60 percent) favor repealing Bush’s tax cuts, or at least those that go only to the rich. The majority (66 percent) wants to reduce the deficit not by cutting domestic spending, but by reducing Pentagon spending or raising taxes.

The majority (77 percent) thinks we should do “whatever it takes” to protect the environment. The majority (87 percent) thinks big oil companies are gouging consumers and would support a windfall profits tax. That is the center, you fools. WHO ARE YOU AFRAID OF?

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John Sidney McCain III aka “McNasty”

I’ll admit, I’m not going to spend a whole lot of time researching the Reich Wing presidential candidate, but I wanted to know more about him, just out of curiosity.

John Sidney McCain III, born August 29, 1936 is a Panamanian-born (US Military base), senior United States Senator from Arizona, and the candidate for the Republican Party in the 2008 presidential election.

For the first ten years of his life, “Johnny” McCain (as he was often known) was frequently uprooted as his family (including older sister Sandy and younger brother Joe) followed his father to New London, Connecticut, Pearl Harbor, Hawaii and various other stations in the Pacific Ocean; McCain attended whatever naval base school was available, often to the detriment of his education.

As a child, John was known for a quick temper and an aggressive drive to compete and prevail.

After World War II was over, his father stayed in the Navy, sometimes working political liaison posts, the family settled in Northern Virginia, and McCain attended the educationally stronger St. Stephen’s School in Alexandria, Virginia from 1946 to 1949, where he began to develop an unruly, defiant streak. Another two years were then spent following his father to naval stations, altogether he attended about twenty different schools during his youth.

Gaining the nicknames “Punk” and “McNasty” due to his combative and fiery disposition, he enjoyed and cultivated that tough guy image; he also made a few friends, and graduated from high school in 1954.

McCain entered the United States Naval Academy. McCain was a rebellious midshipman, and his career at the Naval Academy was ambivalent and lackluster. He had his share of run-ins with the faculty and leadership; each year he was given over 100 demerits (for unshined shoes, formation faults, talking out of place, and the like), earning him membership in the “Century Club”. He did not take well to those of higher rank arbitrarily wielding power over him – “It was bullshit, and I resented the hell out of it”.

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Two sides of Globalization

 

General Motors is closing down a local call center that employed 237 people. Rough financial times for GMAC has resulted in them pulling the plug in the financing division, in the US and Canada– a total of over 930 jobs.
Fitch Ratings reported that auto loans are at least 60 days delinquent, were at a 10 year high in January.
A few months ago, operators in the Philippines began taking customer calls. Customers began to complain, that they could not understand (the Filipino Agents). A manager said GMAC is training customer service agents in India.

The official GMAC spokesman would not confirm the use of foreign call centers, playing the “we don’t disclose vendors, or where they are located” card.
Stream, a subsidiary of Symantec bailed out of the local & US market in 2004 & operates in India.

I worked at this call center for 4 years. (Not currently employed with them). GMAC had begun a systematic withdrawal- opening our center at a lower pay rate on the West coast, then one by one, shutting down union “FSO’s” Field Service Offices, one by one, essentially replacing them with lower paid, non-union workers. It was just a matter of time before that domino effect hit the place that was the replacement about 8 years after it was opened.
The domino effect has come full circle, and now they are getting the employment ax.
GMAC is “going global” to get a cheaper workforce, and find places to exploit. What bothered me most, was the shut downs and job losses went on silently and behind the scenes.

But GM and the other so-called Big 3 automakers, literally missed the boat on Hybrid cars, at the same time gas prices soared. The quality level of US made cars, has not compared with the likes of Toyota & Honda- or for whatever reason, the US carmakers tanked in recent years. They were left top heavy with gas guzzling SUV’s, and people just saying no to the $50 or more pricetag, to fill-er-up at the pump.

So while GM pulls the rug out from under US employees, and makes no comment in going “global”, they should not be surprised when car buyers do the same in turn- they are going global, and purchasing foreign cars. They have better consumer reports ratings, last longer, when taken care of properly, and have much better mpg efficiency.
What’s not to love? So GM bilking the US out of more jobs is just another reason to not buy their product.
Globalization goes 2 ways.

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