Wait a second! That's not Thor!! When did Loki learn this trick?
Thursday, September 29, 2011
Thor's Day!
Vintage Thor. The paw cross:
Wait a second! That's not Thor!! When did Loki learn this trick?
Wait a second! That's not Thor!! When did Loki learn this trick?
Wednesday, September 28, 2011
It's the Writer's LIfe for Me
Inspired by my fellow low country writer, Angie Mizzell
Where do you write?
Here's my main spot:
Although it usually looks like this:
Where do you write?
Here's my main spot:
Although it usually looks like this:
Monday, September 26, 2011
Now, Let's All Hold Hands and Sing Kumbayah
This video of a speech by Elizabeth Warren has been making the rounds.
To Ms. Warren's remarks I would add:
Your factory was designed by architects educated by us all via public education. So it doesn't fall down. The factory was built by laborers and the machines they used were designed and built by those educated by society.
The people in your factory putting together your widgets, the managers pushing your papers around, the secretaries maintaining order, all these people have made your money for you.
Your factory did not stand empty and idle, mysteriously making your millions for you.
The Job Creators are just conveniently overlooking the fact that if it weren't for us, the lowly scum bag, profit sucking middle class, they would have no millions and billions.
Loki sez: So my catnip factory isn't going to magically make catnip appear, fully grown, harvested, dried, packaged and instantly appear on store shelves all by itself? I have to...coughs up hairball....create jobs?????????? But I'll only make a million dollars, not 1.5 million dollars!!!!! This is outrageous! I'm calling Tim Scott.
To Ms. Warren's remarks I would add:
Your factory was designed by architects educated by us all via public education. So it doesn't fall down. The factory was built by laborers and the machines they used were designed and built by those educated by society.
The people in your factory putting together your widgets, the managers pushing your papers around, the secretaries maintaining order, all these people have made your money for you.
Your factory did not stand empty and idle, mysteriously making your millions for you.
The Job Creators are just conveniently overlooking the fact that if it weren't for us, the lowly scum bag, profit sucking middle class, they would have no millions and billions.
Loki sez: So my catnip factory isn't going to magically make catnip appear, fully grown, harvested, dried, packaged and instantly appear on store shelves all by itself? I have to...coughs up hairball....create jobs?????????? But I'll only make a million dollars, not 1.5 million dollars!!!!! This is outrageous! I'm calling Tim Scott.
Thursday, September 22, 2011
This is Why I Like Boys Better
(And girls who think like guys)
Problem. Solution. Apply solution. Move on.
Problem? Government dysfunction caused by the undue influence of money in the election system.
Solution: Get big money out of election process by establishing public campaign funding as the SOLE source of funding. Eliminate PAC's.
Apply solution.
See, everything else is theater designed to distract you from the fact that your government representatives are not yours but belong to the people who gave them the millions or billions they needed to get into office.
Forget the soundbites, the values espoused, the tears, the lapel pins, the talking points, the repeated phrases.
Forget all the fighting between ourselves that they love to set us up for because it distracts us from the real issue.
It's all about the money.
Thor sez: Hey! This is Thor's Day! Forget politics and look at me.
Problem. Solution. Apply solution. Move on.
Problem? Government dysfunction caused by the undue influence of money in the election system.
Solution: Get big money out of election process by establishing public campaign funding as the SOLE source of funding. Eliminate PAC's.
Apply solution.
See, everything else is theater designed to distract you from the fact that your government representatives are not yours but belong to the people who gave them the millions or billions they needed to get into office.
Forget the soundbites, the values espoused, the tears, the lapel pins, the talking points, the repeated phrases.
Forget all the fighting between ourselves that they love to set us up for because it distracts us from the real issue.
It's all about the money.
Thor sez: Hey! This is Thor's Day! Forget politics and look at me.
Wednesday, September 21, 2011
The Gulf
Some reading for you, my dear friends.
This little comment, that he "only" has $400,000 "left over" from $600,000, tells us much.
Now, I know this has been seized on by left (clueless wealthy person daring to represent those he has no understanding of) and by right (he's creating jobs and contributing to his community with that money).
And I tried to look at it down the middle and glean some true sense of what he was trying to say, to find some common ground, because he does own some Subway stores, so he has created jobs for people.
But to me, his comments smack of a level of clueless that is mostly responsible for the economic conditions we have today.
He most likely did not work his way up from poverty. Most people of his income level came from a similar income level, or just slightly lower. So it is "normal" for him to consider "only" having $400,000 not to be a good thing, sort of like when we "only" have $40 left in the bank after buying food.
He certainly does not care about those below him, other than creating some minimum wage jobs to fund increasing his wealth. You can not say something like that without a great gap in your ability to empathize with others. He can only empathize with those like him - i.e. upper income.
And there we get to the crux of what I think is going on with the millionaires and billionaires of America today:
They don't create jobs because they don't want to. The end.
They are doing just fine.
May I repeat that: They do not want to, nor will they create jobs no matter what we give them because they DO NOT WANT TO!
They are still raking in the money.
Rulers by Divine Right. Lords. Planter Class. Leisure Class. Robber Barons. Industrialists. Job Creators.
New name for an old excuse.
Thor sez: Mmm, little people, taste like elf.
This little comment, that he "only" has $400,000 "left over" from $600,000, tells us much.
Now, I know this has been seized on by left (clueless wealthy person daring to represent those he has no understanding of) and by right (he's creating jobs and contributing to his community with that money).
And I tried to look at it down the middle and glean some true sense of what he was trying to say, to find some common ground, because he does own some Subway stores, so he has created jobs for people.
But to me, his comments smack of a level of clueless that is mostly responsible for the economic conditions we have today.
He most likely did not work his way up from poverty. Most people of his income level came from a similar income level, or just slightly lower. So it is "normal" for him to consider "only" having $400,000 not to be a good thing, sort of like when we "only" have $40 left in the bank after buying food.
He certainly does not care about those below him, other than creating some minimum wage jobs to fund increasing his wealth. You can not say something like that without a great gap in your ability to empathize with others. He can only empathize with those like him - i.e. upper income.
And there we get to the crux of what I think is going on with the millionaires and billionaires of America today:
They don't create jobs because they don't want to. The end.
They are doing just fine.
May I repeat that: They do not want to, nor will they create jobs no matter what we give them because they DO NOT WANT TO!
They are still raking in the money.
Rulers by Divine Right. Lords. Planter Class. Leisure Class. Robber Barons. Industrialists. Job Creators.
New name for an old excuse.
Thor sez: Mmm, little people, taste like elf.
Wednesday, September 14, 2011
Playing With Glass, Part 2
Looking out my backdoor. The bird bath is a popular spot in the evening.
The largest of the three oaks in the backyard:
The three oaks.
Loki sez: Hey! This is Kittens on the Keyboard, not the birds and the trees!
The largest of the three oaks in the backyard:
The three oaks.
Loki sez: Hey! This is Kittens on the Keyboard, not the birds and the trees!
Tuesday, September 13, 2011
Monday, September 12, 2011
Playing With Glass
Jason let me use a fancy photographer lens on my camera yesterday. Glass is what photographers call it, as in, "What glass are you shooting with?"
I felt all cool and stuff, wandering the beach in my shorts and sports bra, camera strap wrapped around my forearm, wading in the surf off the edge of America, snapping pictures.
Of course, the talent of the photographer is what makes the glass, not the glass that makes the photographer, so my results probably weren't as awesome as Jason's would have been, but it was fun to play with.
He said I can use that lens when we go back to Utah. I think he is just looking for a way to get around my two photograph rule (when he leaves me sitting on the side of the road/trail to go wander out for pictures, he is only allowed to take two before coming back, this was enacted after I spent an hour or so all alone on a stretch of Arizona road with only my full bladder and a raven for company.)
Thor sez: Boring! Less birds, more kittenz!
I felt all cool and stuff, wandering the beach in my shorts and sports bra, camera strap wrapped around my forearm, wading in the surf off the edge of America, snapping pictures.
Of course, the talent of the photographer is what makes the glass, not the glass that makes the photographer, so my results probably weren't as awesome as Jason's would have been, but it was fun to play with.
He said I can use that lens when we go back to Utah. I think he is just looking for a way to get around my two photograph rule (when he leaves me sitting on the side of the road/trail to go wander out for pictures, he is only allowed to take two before coming back, this was enacted after I spent an hour or so all alone on a stretch of Arizona road with only my full bladder and a raven for company.)
Thor sez: Boring! Less birds, more kittenz!
Sunday, September 11, 2011
Thursday, September 08, 2011
Wednesday, September 07, 2011
On The Road Again
I have been digging through files gathering travel photographs.
Near Grandfather Mountain, NC:
Painted Desert, AZ:
Black Mountain, NC
Near Grandfather Mountain, NC:
Painted Desert, AZ:
Black Mountain, NC
Tuesday, September 06, 2011
Scapegoating
A little while ago, there was an article in my local paper. It was about a woman and her three children who were homeless, looking for a safe place to stay.
The story didn't say, but I'm guessing she didn't have much education beyond high school, but that's not the point.
She and her "husband" (the state of South Carolina no longer recognizes common law relationships, so I am assuming she has little legal recourse) had three children.
This woman did what she was supposed to do - supported her children. She might not have had a fancy college degree but she had arms and legs that worked and a strong back. She went to work as a maid in private homes and worked up a very good client list and was doing well enough to provide for her children.
Then the economy went shaky. Then it went bad. And people had to make decisions. In the story, she says one family she worked for had to chose between the nanny or the maid, and the nanny stayed. (Probably doing the maid's work now also)
One by one, her client list shrunk. She then couldn't make her car payment, then she couldn't afford rent, then her husband deserted her.
Little by little, she slipped from working class to poverty.
And the readers of the Post and Courier excoriated her:
"That tattoo on her arm was probably $200." (Um? It had been done when she was doing well financially)
"If they are so poor, why are they all so fat?" (Do these people really not understand nutrition?"
"She should just hire a lawyer and make the father pay support." (She's living in a tent in someone's backyard, hire a lawyer?)
"It's her responsibility to get out and work." (Yeah, she very successfully did that already. It's not as if she just one day decided she wouldn't work anymore.)
Those comments aren't hatred (I hope), those comments are flat out terror, in their hearts those people know how easy it is to fall into the spiral of poverty.
These are the consequences that are being played out all across America, people. Those with little education and few options who HAVE been busting their butts, working hard at menial, manual labor type jobs are finding those jobs are the first "luxuries" cut by those a few rungs up on the ladder.
They fall into poverty.
The lower middle class, those secretaries and lower management types who make just enough to maybe rent in a nice apartment complex, as their jobs are eliminated, they are having to step down into part-time, lower paying jobs.
They fall into the working class.
And we all continue to slip, bit by bit, down the ladder.
Except those at the very top. They haven't been hurt one bit by any of this. They sit in their multimillion dollars condos overlooking the Charleston Harbor and laugh at how easily they have turned us against each other.
And I've watched this Tea Party hostage like takeover of our Congress, I've watched them shift positions faster than a carny barker playing a shell game and I've wondered, surely I am not the only person seeing this? Surely more people see this and are as disgusted by as I am?
First, it was all those lowest since the 1990's taxes that were frightening The Job Creators. It was as if The Job Creators were some sort of super sensitive divas that the entire country had to tip toe around lest we upset them some how.
Then when the American people said, "Um, you've had low taxes for 11 years and you sent a record number of jobs overseas, why should we believe you that if we lower your taxes even more, you'll Create Jobs, this time?", did you see what they did?
No, no, it's the Environmental Protection Agency, THEY are scaring The Job Creators! All this insistence on clean air and clean water, not dumping toxic waste on next to schools and homes, that's JOBS KILLING!!
(And a note, I know many people were extremely angry with President Obama for holding off the new EPA regulations until 2013, but I understand that he had to do it in order to save it. The Tea Party was going to hold America hostage with the legislation and kill it. The President had to say, clean air and water are NOT a bargaining chip.)
So now, the Tea Party button men in Washington are awaiting their next set of marching orders. Who will they take hostage next?
They've already threatened the elderly, those on Social Security, the military (via pay), the poor, women, children.
What's left?
Kittens?
The boyz say: Practicing to be homeless.
The story didn't say, but I'm guessing she didn't have much education beyond high school, but that's not the point.
She and her "husband" (the state of South Carolina no longer recognizes common law relationships, so I am assuming she has little legal recourse) had three children.
This woman did what she was supposed to do - supported her children. She might not have had a fancy college degree but she had arms and legs that worked and a strong back. She went to work as a maid in private homes and worked up a very good client list and was doing well enough to provide for her children.
Then the economy went shaky. Then it went bad. And people had to make decisions. In the story, she says one family she worked for had to chose between the nanny or the maid, and the nanny stayed. (Probably doing the maid's work now also)
One by one, her client list shrunk. She then couldn't make her car payment, then she couldn't afford rent, then her husband deserted her.
Little by little, she slipped from working class to poverty.
And the readers of the Post and Courier excoriated her:
"That tattoo on her arm was probably $200." (Um? It had been done when she was doing well financially)
"If they are so poor, why are they all so fat?" (Do these people really not understand nutrition?"
"She should just hire a lawyer and make the father pay support." (She's living in a tent in someone's backyard, hire a lawyer?)
"It's her responsibility to get out and work." (Yeah, she very successfully did that already. It's not as if she just one day decided she wouldn't work anymore.)
Those comments aren't hatred (I hope), those comments are flat out terror, in their hearts those people know how easy it is to fall into the spiral of poverty.
These are the consequences that are being played out all across America, people. Those with little education and few options who HAVE been busting their butts, working hard at menial, manual labor type jobs are finding those jobs are the first "luxuries" cut by those a few rungs up on the ladder.
They fall into poverty.
The lower middle class, those secretaries and lower management types who make just enough to maybe rent in a nice apartment complex, as their jobs are eliminated, they are having to step down into part-time, lower paying jobs.
They fall into the working class.
And we all continue to slip, bit by bit, down the ladder.
Except those at the very top. They haven't been hurt one bit by any of this. They sit in their multimillion dollars condos overlooking the Charleston Harbor and laugh at how easily they have turned us against each other.
And I've watched this Tea Party hostage like takeover of our Congress, I've watched them shift positions faster than a carny barker playing a shell game and I've wondered, surely I am not the only person seeing this? Surely more people see this and are as disgusted by as I am?
First, it was all those lowest since the 1990's taxes that were frightening The Job Creators. It was as if The Job Creators were some sort of super sensitive divas that the entire country had to tip toe around lest we upset them some how.
Then when the American people said, "Um, you've had low taxes for 11 years and you sent a record number of jobs overseas, why should we believe you that if we lower your taxes even more, you'll Create Jobs, this time?", did you see what they did?
No, no, it's the Environmental Protection Agency, THEY are scaring The Job Creators! All this insistence on clean air and clean water, not dumping toxic waste on next to schools and homes, that's JOBS KILLING!!
(And a note, I know many people were extremely angry with President Obama for holding off the new EPA regulations until 2013, but I understand that he had to do it in order to save it. The Tea Party was going to hold America hostage with the legislation and kill it. The President had to say, clean air and water are NOT a bargaining chip.)
So now, the Tea Party button men in Washington are awaiting their next set of marching orders. Who will they take hostage next?
They've already threatened the elderly, those on Social Security, the military (via pay), the poor, women, children.
What's left?
Kittens?
The boyz say: Practicing to be homeless.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
