been a while...

Just looking at the date of the last couple of posts and I realize that I have not been content, yet I have also been very quiet. I'm not sure why I have been quiet, maybe it has been a general feeling of uselessness, or perhaps the need to vent has been largely taken up by Facebook. These Interwebs have a way of sucking me in from one page to another and before I know it my whole night has been wasted. Now the day has too! But I progress... yup that's right, I said the word I wanted!

So since my last post, for anyone who cares or mayhaps didn't know, I have been unemployed, re-employed, and re-unemployed. Now I am collecting some weekly benefits from the state as I get myself together to get me some new edumications. I've long wished to get into building maintenance, and I am going to get my state certification to make me much better hire-able in said field. Why Building maintenance, you may be asking yourself, and it's actually a kinda easy answer. First, I like the fact that it's a multidisciplinary field, I can be a plumber, an electrician, an HVAC tech, a carpenter, a safety tech, a painter, and a landscaper. I can do indoor and outdoor work in the same day. I'm not stuck to a machine and I can walk around. B) While I like being a machine technician, it is often a high stress job because there are constantly people harping on you about getting the machine running so they can meet some deadline or another. And Lastly), it's a job that should afford me some time to pursue my true interest which is Photography.

As for the photography, this spring I went and got my DBA, so I am considered a legit business. The next step of course is to get a tax number and start worrying about actually collecting and paying taxes, but please, baby steps. Besides, I need to be much better at math, and I'm not really. Have been taking pics though, and having a great time doing it. As with any business that depends on other people's input, sometimes waiting for customers to get back to me is the hard part. Elbow joggling and email stalking may become a part of my stock in trade. It's always interesting how people want the initial work ASAP, but then when it comes time to select the final product, they hem and haw forever. Oh well, I guess that's part of dealing with the general public. I need me a business manager, or at least someone who likes doing the business side of things. I'm SO much happier doing the creative part of the process. Practice helps, and the more practice that I get, the more confident I feel setting up shots with clients. I enjoy working with people, and trying to find that little bit of their soul that peeks out from their smiles. Sometimes it's not the easiest thing to do, because people can be really guarded, but when those moments show up, man, it's like magic.

Speaking of magic, I have that obsessive feeling again. There is someone in my life that I want to know better, and it is like pulling teeth to get close enough, or to get some time with her. She is definitely a busy lady, and I understand that, but at the same time if the universe would cooperate just a little bit, it would be nice. I know how my mind works, and maybe I'm seeing something that I want to see as opposed to what is really there, but I sense at least a little interest. While this isn't always in my favor, it is definitely in hers. Have I told you about my curse? Well, here it is, I have this odd thing in my life, where it seems that whenever I find a girl, (lady, woman, you choose!) who is actually interested in me, within a matter of weeks she will meet the guy whom she will end up marrying. To my knowledge only one of those couples is not still together, and I suspect that she wasn't as interested in me as she acted. That being said, I have been a little touchy about pursuing anyone that I am interested in, because it so often ends with me heart broken. Now I have found that one who fits my oh so persnickety tastes, and I just want the chance to try and woo her, and it seems like the roadblocks are starting to pop up left and right. It's funny how I came to be interested in this amazing lady, but at the same time it's truly an organic thing too, so I'm sort of trusting my senses here. Without being to specific since I don't want to embarrass anyone here, (besides myself, and what have I got to lose?) when I first met her I was not much attracted or interested, there were (are) a couple things about her are completely against everything that I believe in in my life. BUT, the funny thing is that as I got to know her through talking to her occasionally and listening to her family talk about her, I realized that she was way more than that first glimpse that I didn't care for, and when I had the chance to talk to her along the way, I found myself unexpectedly drawn to her. Now I would love to really try and win her over, and it seems like it's gonna be a chore. Well, you know what "they" say, if it's worth having, it's worth working for. I'm thinking that she is definitely worth working for. Time will tell. remember when you were a kid and you would do stuff that was gross to impress the opposite sex? Yup, I did it. I am not a huge fan of steamed clams but because she offered, I ate one. Felt like a little kid asked to eat worms, but you know what? For her, it was worth it! Now what? Guess I have to dig out my romance hat and see if it still fits. Been so long I'm not even sure if I remember where I stashed it!

odds and ends...

So as you can tell it has been a few weeks since I have done much on this page, and believe me it's not for lack of ideas, but more for a lack of time. I have to sleep, so somethings suffer, and since this place is not something that is actually making me any money, I have to back burner it now and then. A couple of other things have also kept me form being a busy blogger, namely Facebook and my new camera! You can see from the last few posts that I have been a busy little photographer.

I have now had the camera for about 5 weeks and I noticed the frame count today was nearing 3000. Yes, I am a prolific snapper. Not all of my snaps are collectible photos, but each of them teaches me something, and therefore they are valuable. In fact, today I have decided that I wished to try and get a better understanding of exactly how flash compensation worked, and so I sat down in the shade and shot a few geraniums at various settings to see how the various flash settings affected the shots. And I recorded the data for each shot in my little data book so that I may later refer to the data to help me perfect my technique. The truth is that I much prefer to use natural light and the shadows that it casts, just as it casts them, however there are times when I do and will need to understand how to use a flash to eliminate certain harsh shadows or to even the light across a subject. Thus I have to learn how to do it, when the situation is controlled and I can learn without the pressure of the shots "counting". Getting a grip to be sure.

Facebook seems to be slightly addictive, and I am trying to find ways of interacting a little more with people and getting some feedback. There are certain people who constantly give feedback, and I do appreciate it to an extent, but there is a limit to good wishes from people. Sometimes rather than simply telling me how much they like my stuff, I would like it if they told their other friends how much they like it, and get me some more eyes and maybe some eyes looking to buy! I have been putting up various pictures that I have been taking, especially with my new camera, and The hope is that eventually I will be able to start selling prints. I am not looking to get rich, honestly, I would love to be able to make a living at photography, but I know that it is a long way to get to that point. I know that I am not the best business mind, I am much more creative. That said, in order to make a living at photography, I have to figure out what my niche is. Am I a nature photography, or an action shooter? Am I a concert portrait maker, or do I capture the raw emotion of an event? I have been taking pictures at fire scenes, and I have shot some youth sports. I love taking pictures of plants and flowers and trying to capture the peacefulness or grandeur of landscapes. A couple of weeks ago I had the opportunity to take some portrait style pics of my niece for her senior pictures. What did I like best?

Truthfully, I liked doing all of it. I like nothing better than looking at the world and seeing what I want to capture and then the satisfaction of getting some shots that turn out to be exactly what I had in my head when I initially looked at the scene.

I have this dream of doing a book about barns, as any longtime (longtime being since last fall when I started it!) reader of this blog can tell you, I love barns, and especially the old gambrel roofed style barns. Sadly, they are a disappearing structure in the American landscape, and the history that they hold is disappearing with them. How many times have you driven down the road and seen a lone silo standing sentinel over an empty field? You can bet that lying below that silo is the remains of a barn, whether collapsed into the ground or burned in some tragedy or demolition, it is the barn that raised the silo. The lone silo is the orphaned child of the barn. I don't know if I will ever have the drive to actually finish the book, but perhaps someday I will get much closer to getting it done.

I have been taking pictures yes, but I have also been writing about them. In more than one place. I have the pictures on Facebook and each one has a little something with it as an explanation, and in some cases I use the pictures to illustrate some narrative about what they are or why I took them. Recently someone was looking at some of my pics and asked me why I took a particular picture, and my immediate response was to ask, why not? In the age of digital cameras, there is no good reason NOT to take a picture. True that in many cases you only get a snapshot and not what the professionals call a "picture", but what is a picture but a well staged,placed and/or planned snapshot. By definition the BEST pictures of the last 100 years have been lucky snapshots when someone was in the right place at the right time shooting the scene. "The Execution" in Saigon, "Napalm girl", The flag raising at Mt. Suribachi on Iwo Jima. Granted the most famous one is a staged event, but the original was a snapshot. Part of the photographers job is being in the right place at the right time, and knowing where to look when the action is taking place. The guys on the sidelines of the big league games, they have earned a place there, so that they have the chance to get that special shot that becomes iconic for a particular athlete, like the crestfallen look of Scott Norwood after he missed the field-goal that lost the Super Bowl, or the moment of triumph when Lance Armstrong crossed the finish line for his 5th consecutive Tour De France win. The guy who was positioned to capture the flight of Richard Petty along the fence at Daytona when he went airborne. These guys have only one chance to get that particular iconic shot, and if they miss it or screw it up, they will never get the chance again, and we, the public, will never be able to review it and see if it is like we remember. In these days of video, and cellphone cameras, it is likely that someone got the picture, but what would you rather see, a picture that you have to squint at to see the details, or a giant glossy poster of that perfect shot? Yeah, that's why I took that picture, because eventually no one will have to ask why I took it, because they will be able to see in the frame why I took it, whether it's the tears of defeat, the joy of victory, the gossamer wings of a dragonfly skimming across a lily pond, or the spectacular colors of an August sunset. They say that a picture is worth a thousand words, but I truly believe that the story behind the picture is what makes the picture with it.

Pictures are art. Every snapshot, every school picture, every painting, every sand drawing. If it is a graffiti tag spray-painted on a building or the doodling of a child on a notebook, it is art. Art is in the eye of the beholder, it is interpretive and has the distinctive duality of being both valuable and worthless at the same time. Each creation is unique, if for no other reason than it is separate from all others, even the copy has it's own individual flaws that make it unique from all other copies. What we create as artists, ( and we are all artists) we always hope to have accepted by someone. Even if it is a small group that sees the innate value of your work, you always appreciate the acceptance. As an artist I know that my art has value to me, in that it is something that I have put myself into, but I hope that it captures something that gives it value to somebody else as well. When I die and the things that I have made are kept as mementos of my life, then they have a new and greater value, because I will never create or capture another piece with my unique vision. From this standpoint, one can argue that even the electrician who puts the wires in the walls of your house, that you may never see or worry about, is an artist, because his work is unique.

We are all artists, and we all deserve appreciation, it doesn't really matter the medium, or even the message, if we leave behind a piece of ourselves, that is appreciated by someone else, then we have achieved a "masterpiece".

On baking and learning...

I have long been a decent cook, and generally somewhat adventurous. I try a recipe and see what I like about and what I don't and then I start making changes, sometimes I make small changes and sometimes I change the recipe so much that it barely resembles the original, but it gives me a place to start and a result to work with. I'm confident enough in my abilities to know that when I venture off the path I can get what I am looking for eventually.

This week and weekend I have been playing baker, making my first ever tries at zucchini bread. Is it good, is it bad? It's hard to judge, but I think I have been doing quite well, working with the recipes that I was given to start with. One a cranberry-walnut concoction, another lemon-pecan, and one blueberry. Each one good in it's own way and quite enjoyable, but none of them quite what I had in mind. In my mind I remember a spice flavored bread, dark colored and a semi-smooth texture. When you bite into it you can taste the spices like cloves and allspice and ginger. Cinnamon is a given, but finding just the right recipe has been pretty futile. So I designed one from what I have found. I'm still tinkering, but I know I'm on the right track. Now it's a matter of refinement.

So I'm learning! I love learning, I like to know new things and to have new experiences. Many people put high stock in learning, but only in specific kinds of learning, what some refer to as, "book learning". Book learning is something specific, that you are taught by a proscribed method for a limited amount of time and here in America you have to pay for anything beyond public school. You can take a test and see what you have learned, and gauge your understanding by telling your teacher about the process. I love book learning, but I have found that book learning will only get a person so far, because books are limited to the experience of the author(s). Far too many of these authors lack the actual experiences that they write about, but rather use the anecdotal experiences of people that they interview, relying on imperfect memories and glazed over truths. Some of the experiences are documented in written accounts such as diaries and journals, and ever increasingly in pictures or video. But we all know that with the advancement of the recording industry there is corresponding advancement in editing and thus, how do you trust these documents? There is also the limitations of the teachers experience. Perhaps they have failed at the field that they are teaching, thus leading to the old adage, " Those who can't do, teach." Cynicism prevails and we find that truly the best teacher in life is none but experience.

Experience comes in many ways, sometimes by design, and sometimes by accident. We often don't even realize that we are learning something new as we go through our day. It isn't always something big, not a revelation such as understanding the theory of relativity, but perhaps you learn that if you stir your coffee with a ball point pen you get ink in your coffee. Or you learn that you need to use the brakes on your car harder to keep the brakes properly polished, or less hard to keep them from glazing. Hopefully we survive the bigger lessons, like don't drive to fast in the rain lest you hydroplane and lose control. But the point is that one of the best teachers is simple experience. Experience is something that we can apply to our daily lives. We know how hard to squeeze the toothpaste, not because we learned a formula in a book, but because we squirted toothpaste all over our hands when we were young. We know not to grab the handle of the frying pan without a pot holder because we got burned when we were young, or perhaps because we tried it as we were learning to cook. Employers come in 2 varieties, those who look for experience, and those who don't.

Those who hope for new employees with no experience want it this way because they are hoping to teach them their own set of bad habits for whatever job it is they are being hired to do. Often times this is for what could be considered a semi-skilled position, meaning you need to have certain basic skills to start with, but not so much skill that you could teach the job to your boss. Basically this is how manufacturers especially, keep employee costs down, because they don't have to pay a wage commensurate to the job they wish done. They can teach a literate dope off the street how to push a button and make a few measurements, and call them a machine operator, when it reality they should have a Machinist doing the job who can work mostly on his own and make the necessary adjustments based on his level of experience.

Then there are the higher-end employers who value experience and are willing to pay for it. The thing that immediately comes to mind is security firms, this is why they often hire retired police and military, because they have the experience required to keep the assets they are assigned to safe. But aside from this there are literally thousands of fields of endeavor that benefit from experienced employees, from finance and politics, to machine shops and auto mechanics. Experience show us the little things that we can't learn from a book. It teaches us by letting us make mistakes, and if we are smart, we don't make the same mistake twice.

Cooking is something that benefits from experience. If you make a mistake, you adjust and try again. Sometimes you can eat your mistakes, sometimes you can't. You've wasted time, food and money, and you just might go hungry. If you know what your mistake was you can avoid making it again, you use your experience to affect your future, and as you add to your experience you become better, as the old saying goes, practice makes perfect.

Small town thoughts

what makes a small town and small town? When is it no longer a small town? It seems that in recent years the term "small town values" has begun to show up in our lexicon more and more often, but what are true small town values? Is it a Hollywood thing? Is it something that is mythical, or is it something real?

I happily consider myself a small town guy. I grew up in a small town. The school where i received the brunt of my formal education had a total student population of 2600, give or take. I went to an even smaller school for one year where the total was closer to 1200 students, and now my nephews attend classes in a school that educates about 900 students. The student to Teacher ratio in these schools is such that students get help when they need it, and trouble can be caught and corrected early.

So first, to me, "small town values" are about education. Teachers still care, and the students are engaged and actually learning. I can't say that every student is a good student, but I have seen a correlation between class size and the success rate of the students. In the smaller schools it is much more likely that a higher percentage of pupils will stay in school, and reach graduation. Not only will they graduate, but a higher percentage will continue on to college. Now I know that you're thinking, "Well, Duh! Less students means that there is a better chance that there aren't as many laggards or unmotivated kids." What I mean is that the percentages are per capita. In urban schools the ratio is between 20-50 students out of 100 who go on to higher education after graduation. This is after the attrition rates of dropouts between Kindergarten and Graduation, which is somewhere in the 25 percent range, depending on the source you look at. The dropouts in small town schools are closed to 2-5 percent for the same period. More students stay in school, more reach graduation. But "more" is just a perception, because when 48 students graduate from a small town school and go on to college, the same year 1300 student could graduate from a city high school and 25% of them go on to college, that means that more kids from the city school go on to college. 52 vs 48. So this evens out a little bit. But the truth here is that a small town student is MUCH more likely to stay in school and go on to a higher education. ( What they do with it is immaterial at this point in the discussion!)

Second, a small town allows one to know their neighbors. This signals both safety and accountability, both excellent values. When you go to school in a class of 200 kids it is very likely that by the time you graduate you will know every one of your classmates. Whether you like them or not is a whole different discussion, but you know them all by name and face. Not only that, it is highly likely that you know many of their brothers and sisters, as well as who is related to whom. You know the family lines and most likely the family histories as well. If your family has many generations in a town, then you most likely have family in the class as well. ( I didn't, but many of my friends did) When you grow up in this environment, you know who does what and who is most likely to get into what kind of trouble. You know who the fighters are and who the vandals are, you know the bullies and the bullied. You know who is a hunter and who is a vegan. You know who has a grudge against whom. This means that when something happens in town, you generally have an idea of who is the culprit, or the target. It is unlikely that the guilty party will go unpunished for long. Try as you might there are very few real secrets in a small town. Somebody saw something and sooner or later it will get mentioned to someone who knows what was going on. Once 2 and 2 are put together, justice is swift and final. It's one reason why small towns are seen as "safe" because of the familiarity of the people with each other. This familiarity also breeds accountability. Do you think it is easy to hide your guilt from the nice lady down the street who used to babysit you when you were little, after you have driven through her flower-beds coming home drunk the other night?

I know that many people equate the small town with the religious right as well, but I don't really think this is always true. Yes, there is the element, but I think that it truly depends on the region. Some towns are like this, some are not. The town that I grew up in, is not one of these, even though some have tried to make it so in the past. In fact I know that my town is pretty evenly divided in this respect. It is not the religion that defines the overall morality of a town, it is the integrity of it's neighbors. Nobody needs a church doctrine to teach them to treat their neighbors with respect. Being humane is not necessarily a human trait, but education and civility get it ingrained better than the fear of some mythical omnipotent being. Look at how many people are taught the 10 commandments and yet they treat them like the 10 suggestions.

So when does a small town lose it's small town-ness? I postulate, that it comes when you no longer know your neighbors. When your kids go to a school with so many kids that they don't know them all by name, you can assume that you don't live in a small town. If you elect a mayor because he is fully qualified rather than because you went to school with him or his kids, you are likely to live in a big town, or Fates help you, a City! Yikes!

I like my small town just fine. My values are worth emulating. No reason to think being small town is a bad thing!

Verbal ticks and other piss-me-offs!!

I have noticed lately that people are more and more writing their verbal ticks into their correspondence and blogs. While I understand a "character" writer using this technique to show the personality of the character, when you are writing as yourself and everyone already knows your character and you're trying to at least seem intelligent, why? Words like "gah" and "meh" and even "like" and "ya know" are becoming more prominent in the written language, and they are a pain in the eyes. They drive me nuts as much as other grammatical bad habits. I can understand certain regional things, but a verbal tick is just insane to accentuate in your writing.

Verbal ticks were recently brought into the mainstream consciousness by no less than the Daughter of Camelot, Caroline Kennedy. In her failed bid to be appointed to Hillary Clinton's vacant senate seat, she was interviewed for a broadcast news show and her verbal ticks became the fodder of the critics for weeks. So much so that it actually made her rethink her wishes to get into politics. She is smart and well written, but when she speaks she has her crutches. Nobody who has read the things that she writes would have expected that in a one-on-one unscripted interview she would come across sounding like an ill prepared teenager, " like... ya know?"

Another Piss-me-off lately that I have been noticing more and more is people saying, "All the sudden..." Where did they learn English? The phrase is, "All of a sudden..." , or "suddenly" I have no idea where or when people began saying, "the sudden", but I remember taking note of it sometime in the last year, because I thought it sounded odd. Then I heard it a few more times and I began to pay attention to it, and I find it more and more in common usage. It sounds like someone who never understood song lyrics, trying to repeat what they have heard. It's a "bad moon on the rise.", not a "bathroom on the right." and Jimmy says, "Excuse me while I kiss the sky!", not "Scuse me while I kiss this guy!"

A few weeks ago I brought up the use of the article "an" in front of the word "historic", and I have figured out the reason for this. Grammar gurus like to remind people that the correct usage is to use "a" in front of a consonant, and "an" in front of a vowel, but when the consonant is silent such as is the usual usage for words like "herbs" and "homage" the usage should be the same as the vowel lead. Historic is a HARD "h" sound!! written or spoken in should be "A historic..." , however the "a" sound should be the long sound as in "pain", rather than the short "a" sound as in "sofa".

Freaking Geniuses!! Good thing there is a freedom of speech.

thin skinned

So today's news had a little story about a high school basketball team that won a game by a score of 100 - 0. The story (This link is for a follow-up, not the original) first mentioned that the scoreless team was "learning challenged", but later specified this to be dyslexic and ADD. Now the school of the winning team has made a public apology for winning by such a margin, and the coach of this team has gone on record saying that the team played with, "honor and integrity," and refused to apologize. The coach was fired for his honesty. ( and apparently for letting his team continue to play after they had a 59-0 lead at the half!) The witnesses say that the opposing team played with all of their hearts, but just couldn't get the score. Why the need to apologize? If the team with the big score gives up so that the other can get a few points what are the points worth? What is the use of getting points when the other team is giving them to you?

What has become of schools when they feel the need to apologize for winning? Lately I have realized that I must be becoming an old fogey, because I keep these words so close to the top of my mind, "when I was a kid..." And to finish the sentence this time..." we learned that sportsmanship meant being a good loser as well as a gracious winner. If we took a beating our coach chewed our asses and we worked that much harder the next time. and when we won we thanked the other team for a good game." Never once did our coaches ever tell us to, "take it easy on the other team, we don't want to beat them by too much!" Our coaches made us get every point that we could, if it was baseball we hit the ball hard and ran the bases fast. If it was football we drove the ball down the field any way we could and if it was basketball it was the three point throw every chance we could. Never did it occur to us that we should have "mercy" on the opposition. There was no quarter asked for nor given. Sadly, mine is the last generation to have this experience.

I'm a gen-Xer and that means that half of my generation was raised as a bunch of pussies who barely stand on their own 2 feet and say shit when they have a mouthful. Our parents were the boomers, and so many of them are the touchie-feelie, hippy types who were more worried about being friends with their kids rather than disciplinarians. The other half of my generation was raised by the old fashioned method, a boot to the ass when you were in the wrong and your parents were the bosses of the house and you were the child. Life was about hiding from mom and dad the things that you knew would get your ass in the shit and not getting caught. Our parents weren't our friends. They taught us to have a thick skin and that life wasn't easy and that the world wasn't going to be at our beckon call. We had a thick skin and we were and are prepared for failure and we know how to pick our asses up off the couch and get back to work. We are the ones who are doing the jobs that keep the world moving, because we don't sit around and whine that nothing is going our way. When we get layed off we go out and find a new job. If we have to work at a minimum wage job to get our foot in the door we do it. If we have to work 2 of them to make ends meet, we do it. We were once called the slacker generation, but it was truthfully only half of us. The other half, we went to work and got shit done. The new president is of the last years of the Boomers, but his wife? Oh yeah, she is an Xer and that means that she knows the score.

So the pussy Xers and their sissy kids the generation Y, are the ones who have come up with these things like "Mercy Rules" where teams are not allowed to win by a very wide margin, or they will be penalized. For winning!! It makes me so freaking mad that I wanna go kick some idiot poofter in the balls! (What the hell is the new generation called? Are they Z? or have they come up with something original like the Millenium Generation? I like that!! The Millenuim Generation! That's what I am going to call them !! ) I really feel sorry for the military as these poor saps get older and join the service. Drill instructors really will be a bunch of mommies. Their recruits will not be even the slightest bit ready to be called on their weaknesses. They will have self esteem issues when they are called maggots and cry-babies. Their poor minds are so conditioned that the world revolves around them and their feelings that all that the Millenium Generation has going for it is their self esteem. They have no concept of the real world as a nasty bitch who cares nothing for their feeling and will trip them at every opportunity. How is a mercy rule in sports supposed to help them learn about disappointment? It's okay to be diappointed if the loss isn't so big? right. I don't buy it. Go shovel shit for someone else.

If a winning team feels the need to apologize for playing well, and a losing team has to feel good about their loss, then there is truly something out of wack here. A winning team should be able to enjoy the victory for what it is, a win, whether hard won or an easy trounce. The losing team needs to work harder and maybe they will win one next time. Maybe they spend the whole season as losers, but they will have learned from their loses. They will see what other teams do to win, and maybe they will have a chance to implement what they have learned next season. Mercy rules should be called what they really are "Pussy Rules" because the pussified adults who are in charge don't want to hurt the feelings of the losers. Well guess what? Life's a BITCH! She will kick you in the balls and poke you in the eyes and steal your candy. She will take your boyfriend or your girlfriend, and screw him or her in the closet at the party and then tell all your friends about it!

Cowboy up and get to livin' or get it over with and get to dyin', but get the hell out of the way with your whinin' and cryin'. I'm tired of hearing about bruised egos and mercy rules. If you can't deal with what life has to offer, then maybe you need to run to the store and get a new life!!

rudely anonymous

What ever happened to manners? I mean it's bad enough that people are growing more and more rude as we get ourselves lost in our iPods and cell phones and we forget that we are in public. I say "we" not because I am particularly rude myself, but to encompass the entire population, because happy or not you have certainly been rude in your life, whether on purpose or by accident. Sometimes it is because we are returning the rudeness tossed at us, and sometimes it is situational build up and we just bubble over. But then there are the people who walk into a place and don't see anyone that they recognize and so they immediately make themselves the royalty in the room. Everything they do is for their own benefit or amusement. They lack manners in any form, whether it is the use of the most basic please or thank you, or even the current standard that passes for manners the quick look and slight smile, to indicate that someone else actually exists. These are the same people who treat waiters and clerks with disdain and expect exemplary service no matter what, and when they don't get it they make the employee's life miserable.

These are the people who will cut into line and grab parking spaces that you are obviously waiting for. It really shouldn't be illegal to vandalize their cars or kick them in the shins for butting in line. I have never understood this type of rude behavior, and it is too bad that society tolerates it as well, by making it illegal to teach them a lesson. A few trips to the dentist to get their teeth replaced or their jaw wired shut until it heals and they would start to understand that they are not the center of the universe. Lynching should be reserved only for those with the highest rescindivism rates. After the 4th trip to the ER for rudeness related injuries they should immediately be hanged as it shows that they have no ability to learn the rules of polite society.

There is still another class of idiot out there that has really gotten under my skin lately, this is the chatroom attention seeker. The idiot that hides in his/her anonymity and simply annoys people for the fun of annoying people. They have nothing intelligent to add to a conversation, so rather than simply reading and maybe learning something or maybe looking in other rooms where there may be a subject of interest to them, they sit and type repetitive lines waiting for somebody to respond to their idiocy. Then they attack and begin calling names and arguing with any point that is made. They make it nearly impossible to ignore them, and sadly each time you mention them they take it as attention and are encouraged to continue the lousy behavior. So what happens is that when new people come into the room they don't realize that this person is being ignored and they engage the idiot and there we go again with the rude dude attitude.

What really drives me nuts about these freaks is that half the time they are no more than kids, or in the really worst cases, young adults with time to kill and nobody to to grab them by the the throat and smack their head into the monitor! So what is the motivation for this behavior? Is it a lack of attention at home or the feeling of empowerment that they get from pissing off a bunch of anonymous strangers? What would happen if we could get the information on these idiots and have Vinny and Vito show up at their door and break a few fingers. Does it seem like I have some hostility pent up about this lack of manners? You're right I do! I was raised to be polite, not only to my friends and family, but even more so to strangers, because this is how you are perceived by the world and being rude makes you a less effective communicator. Rudeness begets rudeness and soon communication is gone and all that is left is hostile accusation.

I am reminded of something written by Heinlein in the character of Lazarus Long, "I am of the opinion that most human male children should be raised in barrels and fed through the bung. When they are 18 a decision must be made, whether to let them out or drive in the bung plug." I love that idea, because there are many a 21 year old whom I would love to stuff into a barrel and drive in the bung plug. He also said, "Manners are the grease in the gears of society. They make things run smoothly and are just as important in public as they are at home." I know that quote isn't perfect, but I can't find my book at the moment and get it perfect, but that 's the gist of it!

Do I have a solution? Nope. Do I think things will change? Probably, but sadly they will probably get worse before they get better. I think that it might be like alcoholism, where we collectively need to hit rock bottom and maybe even bounce a few times before we begin to climb out of the hole. My guess is that the current generation may find out that living with idiots like themselves is pretty crappy, and then they may begin to teach manners to their children. Yeah right!! ROFLMAO!! What's gonna happen is that eventually somebody is going to walk a mall with a sawed off shotgun and start blowing away line budgers and iPod zombies.

When the SWAT team surrounds the mall and orders him to surrender he tells them to say "Please". At the trial the jury finds him not guilty and instead awards him a multi-million dollar settlement for wrongful arrest and sends him to congress with a mandate to make rudeness illegal. The minimum fines for public rudeness are what may currently be considered cruel and unusual punishment. The escalation of the the fine for subsequent offenses move in three short steps to execution. The "3 strikes" law will make the world a much better place. There will also be no legal consequences for anyone severely beating a rude person in public as long as there are at least 3 witnesses to the rude behavior. The trials will be quick and public, the nearest 12 people will be rounded up and be the jury. The first 2 police officers will be the lawyers and one more civilian will serve as the judge. As long as the beating is found justified that is no repercussions, and the beaten rude dude, will be remanded to the authorities and given his proper sentence. ( the trial of the beater will serve as beatee's verdict as well ) I'm sure that this is just a pipe dream, but oh, wouldn't it be nice!

So thank you for reading and have a great day.

Spending our Inheritace

America is a very screwed up country. Most people already know this, but we still have pride and thump our chests when people put us down. We are aloud to criticize ourselves, but gods help anyone else who does so! What makes me bitch today? News items from all over the country, that because of budget problems in various states, education takes a hit while politicians continue to initiate new spending! Meanwhile governments from counties up to the feds are adding to the list of required subject matter and testing standards. Just exactly how are these schools supposed to do more with less? Not only less money, but less hours, and in some cases even less days! Is it any wonder that American education has become such a joke around the world? I have always believed that teachers are generally underpaid. Not withstanding certain locations where there are exorbitant union contracts. They deal daily with who knows what, from homicidal teens to abused pre-schoolers. They have to make due with decades old text books and resources that are stretched so thin that they have probably snapped in many cases. Even in fairly upper crust suburbs the public schools are strapped for cash, to such a point that they send home lists of supplies that the parents are responsible for buying for their children. Not only general supplies but the supplies that they need for art class, and various projects throughout the school year. Schools can barely provide heat in the class rooms half of the time and now the tax money that public schools depend on is being rerouted to some other idiot project. Why is it that cities and sports teams are getting tax money to build stadiums for professional teams?

Professional sports teams charge exorbitant ticket prices for million dollar players who feel so entitled that they act barely human. They have nearly no manners or morals and treat the people who actually make them stars like idiots. They lie, cheat and kill then expect special treatment because they get outrageous salaries to play a stupid game for a few hours each week. Whether they win or lose the game that they play has no bearing on the course of history, or the develolpment of the human race. But they get tax money that could actually go towards education. Education that might uncover and encourage the next great mind of our age, the one who might develope the first viable human colony on Mar, or the one who will discover the secret of hyper space. Not every sportsman is an undereducated oaf, but there are far more of them than there are of the thoughtful, educated type. You get my point though. I know that in many cases increasing funds to schools seems like simply throwing good money after bad, but even in those cases do you simply give up on them?

I have to believe that there is a reason to try. When there is a resource to educate, somebody will use it. Maybe not every kid will use everything offered to them. We don't know why, some will feel lost no matter what is done to help them, and some will think they know it all and that the teachers are out to get them. There will never be a perfect system for educating the masses, the individality of the human race is both a blessing and a curse. But there will always be those who not only benefit, but stand out and excell. They will find what they need if it is there for them to find, and they will run with it and become great. They will become doctors and lawyers, teachers and business people, they will becomes astronomers and physisists, and any other field of endevour that you can name. They are out there now, struggling to learn in a hostile environment, where they are searched as they enter their schools and passed through metal detectors. If they are lucky enough to get to school they then have to try and survive each day, but they do it, and a small number of them learn that they can escape the cycle and maybe get a better life for not only themselves but for their children too. Granted when the time comes and their children get old enough they will be resented and rebelled against and they children will try to go back to the life that their parents tried so hard to escape, but at least they start out with the chance to go on. Right now that chance is being written off.

Our future lies in educating the youth, and not is paying the politicians who waste money year after year. They pay lip service to education, with slogans like "No child left behind." and "It takes a village." but when it comes down to it, they will take money from schools before they will take money from a sports team or take a paycut themselves. I know what the solution is, but sadly I will never be able to convince enough people to care to make the difference. But If I can convince a few people maybe they can convince a few more, and there is hope that eventually enough will care that the difference can be made. The solution is for the people themselve to call, write and visit their politicians, and not just the ones you know, but all of them from the President of the United States all the way down to your local councilman. Remind them that education should trump all else. Before they get raises, before they build stadiums, before they build monuments and parks, they need to educate the youth who will carry on the country and make it worth living in. Perhaps it is their plan, because when you think about it, an uneducated populace is much easier to convince of lies, because they simply don't know any better. You can take their rights away because they are unaware of what they are.

To save democracy and freedom, we need to be educated. It's as simple as that.