When the "other guy" isn't paying attention

Yesterday I was rear ended on the freeway. In Las Vegas, the speed limit is considered optional. People breeze by my granny speed limit of 65 easily driving 80 and 90 miles per hour. My maintaining the speed limit even in the right lane, is considered a nuisance by most drivers. I have seen the aftermath of a hit at ninety miles an hour by a mega truck, four wheels at the height of an airline passenger plane. I don't care to be on the receiving end of that. Las Vegas has some of the highest insurance rates in the nation. Rightly so. Rarely are the police out on the freeways enforcing the speed limit.
My "fender bender" occurred on the way to a class at 4pm in the afternoon. Traffic was moving at the breezy speed limit of 55 around a dangerous point on the freeway. It slowed to almost a stop. I had plenty of room and a friend of mine, going to the same class was in front of me. I could see the driver behind me coming up too fast but there was nothing   I could do about it. I remember thinking, " Let him slow down" before he smashed into the back of me. Where do you stop in bumper to bumper traffic?  Nowhere. You get off at the next exit.
I have driven a car for over 40 years. In all that time I have never had an accident that was my fault. I had a guy run a red light and hit me head on. I had a school bus run a red light and total my car. I had a woman back up at a drive in, driving one of those mega trucks and smash the crap out of my van.
Each time it is a nightmare. Waiting for cops, (who will not attend a fender bender)
reporting to the insurance company, waiting for repairs.
Having only one car, each morning I pray nothing happens to it.
I reported the accident. I wait now for the process to begin.
Life is full of irritants, reminding me of how little control we have over so much of it.
I suppose we can live life seeing that all the time and feeling frustrated, we can resign ourselves to that fact or we can play the fool and live life as if nothing else matters but the fact we have another day on this earth.
I still struggling with which one I want .

Self Employed?

I keep racking my brains. There is something out there I can do as a self employed individual. Each day I drive to work in the morning and I generate lists of ideas. I haven't discovered what it is yet but I know it is out there. After years of working for others there has got to be a way. Why put in 15 hour days with an anxiety level of 150% for employers who see employees as the enemy?
There has got to be a way.
I know I have one more job in me that will benefit from my give it all work ethic.
I just haven't discovered it yet.
Any ideas??

Black Thursday Madness-only in the US

Tonight, Wednesday night I had to make a run to the drugstore. I cut through the parking lot of Best Buy. A line formed outside the front door, people in tents (honest to god!) sleeping bags and lawn chairs.  These "Americans" planned to spend Thanksgiving Day camping outside the store?
For what??? For stuff??? For stuff, things, stuff that will mean nothing in a year?
Who are these people so desperate to get 100 dollars off a television? A 39 dollar blue ray dvd player?
Are we out of our freaking minds in this country?  Get a life people!
People, per se, are obsolete. Stuff rules in America!!
Only in America are we so freakin status conscious,  so materialistic, that we would ditch our families to sleep in tents in front of a store for two freakin days to buy more junk.
You get my drift.

Why learn to read and write??

Adults don't read they listen. Adults don't write they twitter using shortcut spelling.
Kids today get most of their information from media sources. The least used? Newspapers, books, magazines.
Some use the internet. Have you noticed most information is now on video?
Why teach forms of communication which are quickly becoming outdated?
My students at school are required to complete math and reading on computers.
They put headphones on and listen to the instructions and oftentimes the questions or the passages.
Teachers are outdated sources of information.
Children actually seem to learn quicker if on computers.
Perhaps we need to rethink education?
With all  the disgruntled parents complaining about the standard of education provided children it is ironic most of them don't use the skills teachers are required to teach their children.
Think about it.
If you are reading this without the aid of a video or picture you are a minority.

Kent State all over again only no one is screaming

Viewing the photos of students being pepper sprayed by the police brings back a lot of memories. I was a kid when the students were killed at Kent State but it remains a horrible vision in my head. At that time I think we realized police brutality had gone too far. The National Guard crossed the line.
With cell phone cameras providing us the photos and videos one would think we would immediately respond to the brutality upon 80 year old women, veterans and students. The photos are all over the internet.
The media doesn't seem to be showing much but Huffington Post does, as well as You Tube.
Not much of a peep comes from the citizens of this country.
Homeless camps are springing up all over the US. The "new middle class poor" are photographed each day. Those thrown out of their homes with nowhere to go is common place. Yet not a peep.
The masses like to believe it is the fault of those in the situations.
Of course, it will NEVER happen to them, will it?
So why bother speaking out?
It's not THEIR business, is it?
Pretty freakin scary

Megachurch Schuler's downfall

What is it about the Crystal Cathedral that brought thousands of people on a pilgrimage of sorts-the the Holy Land in Garden Grove, California, of all places?
The eighties was the time of megachurches with Capella groups, full bands with rock and roll scripture and the dollars were flowing.
Rev. Schuler was an all star!
I remember the era well. One of the ministers from our church received a "calling"
A silver haired, charismatic minister who like the idea of fame on TV as opposed to a church from a 500,000+ city.
Off he went to make his fortune. Glitter and all.
After all, God is not humble in megachurches. Greed is good. Associate minsters run off with wealthy married women, and the downfall makes the sin even more glorious to forgive.
The flash of the eighties gave way to the pathetic sinning of the mega ministers. After all, what would a mega church be without a spectacular fall?
Sadly, Rev Schuler's charisma did not have a biological component and the children could not carry the message in such a spectacular way.
The church is now in bankruptcy and the only dollars left to tell the story will be the profit on the sale of the cathedral.
Jesus was a humble man who taught us to care for our neighbors.
This is not a popular message in today's culture.
It was never a popular message for megachurches.
Like any for profit, the money was meant for bigger and better stuff.
Outreach buildings, big cars, private jets, special speaking gigs, prime Sunday TV.
Do you think the message Jesus carried to the masses will ever become "hip" again?
Or is the fall of the megachurch just a blip on the radar to total selfishness and disregard for our society as a whole?

The new morals of our young adults-Penn State

What have we taught them? Is this new generation a result of our own selfishness? Is the world population at such a tilting point we have forgone teaching ethics, morals and compassion? Have we become a earth populated with predators and victims?
The reaction of students at Penn State floored me. To protest the removal of a man who for years looked the other way while young boys were allowed to be brutalized by a staff member for the sake of a trophy? Students felt a "legendary coach" is being wrongly singled out? A University President who refused to deal with the problem for years? All up this chain of accountability, not just one, but many allowed young boys to be sodomized? Students are angry?
Are they stupid, selfish or just confused?
What does this say about our country's moral values?
Have we become so jaded, so inured to what is horrific, we don't care anymore?
Across the world we read stories which indicate the ripping of the fabric of societies built to care for those  most vulnerable citizens-the elderly man who dies in his home after the gas company shuts off his heat, children in China given up for adoption after being stolen from families, sexual slavery in third world countries, vast corporations exploiting women and children for labor.
Police shootings, beatings, caught on tape, a judge who beats his daughter with a belt, caught on tape, without punishment. Cain still in the running after four women step forward to talk about sexual harassment and he jokes about it??
Is it because so much is unearthed we try to minimize the horror in our minds and look the other way? Citizens phone messages cracked, and Murdoch is still in business?
I could go on and on but it appears to me the new world order is in favor of the predator and if you are perceived as a victim -you will soon become one.
People should be afraid, not outraged for the wrong reasons.
You might be next. You will have no support in this world order. The predator rules.

Cannibalism among the 1%

Greece and Italy have instituted austerity measures. This means pulling back government dollars, laying off workers and "belt tightening".
In the United States the media has been spouting "austerity" for the past three years.
This has resulted in high unemployment, high foreclosure rates and a decrease in spending from the average citizen.
It hasn't however, resulted in a decreasing income for Wall Street , bankers, and for profit corporations- megabucks CEO's, a 300% plus disparity in income from their workers.
Our politicians seem to be doing just fine with corporate donations , PAC support at all time highs.
The average citizen spends less, makes less, eats less meat, forgoes vacations and holidays, budgets without money, worries about rising costs of fuel and food.

I never agreed with George Bush but on this I do. People need to spend to get the economy going. Businesses can cut back employees, develop part time jobs without benefits and find hundreds of ways to get money to their stockholders, but eventually, not in the too far off future even those austerity measures, ( based on greed) will implode. You can only keep what you get.
If you don't get, you don't get to keep.
People will cut back on the extras first. Dining out. Gambling. Big screen TV's. Video games, washers and dryers, big expenses.
When we don't have it to spend, we can't spend it.
It seems pretty foolish for stockholders to de-invest in the communities which feed them for short term gains. Invest in jobs and the economy will begin to improve, people will have money to spend.
Continue to be greedy, take the short term money and run, and as we are already seeing, businesses go bankrupt, everyone loses, and the spiral continues.
Suck the livelihood out of people and no one is left to feed the 1% but the 1%.
Isn't that called cannibalism?

Is The Tide Turning? Jobless with no safety net

The world order is changing and it isn't for the benefit of the average planetary citizen.
What will become of us?

Las Vegas Decay-Family Style

A new book, Fade, Crumble and Sag introduced a number of authors writing about the decomposition of Las Vegas during Las Vegas Book Week.
I thought I would add my chapter, entitled, "Families, or what is left of them"

Two second grade girls are picked up by their mothers after school wearing six inch heels, breast exposing tops and shorts covering little. Not a blink on the playground of hundreds- parents picking up students after school. These girls are proud of their mommies, of course.
After Christmas vacation one year a little boy did not return to my class. His mother had murdered her boyfriend with a butcher knife in front of her five children. After a month he returned, quiet, withdrawn, spending time in Child Haven  which is not an experience anyone would wish on an eight year old child.

A lock down lasting until 6pm kept nine hundred students in my school one year. A man shooting a high powered rifle directly across the street had to be killed before we could release the kids.
 A student I tutored  at   home had six locks on her front door, along with all the
windows barred. A few months after working at her home her father was arrested as a gang leader and a drug lord. Her mother previously lost custody due to her drug habit.
Some staff are not much better. A principal and counselor were arrested for drug dealing, another accused of stealing from the school-was not fired but a senior staff member was for with holding information about the alleged thefts.

Families move here for the same reason singles do-it is a city in which one can disappear. The likelihood of protective services, the police or the government sticking noses into peoples business is minimal. Corruption is so rampant child abuse, neglect, gang activity or prostitution are all small potato issues for this hands off government.

Las Vegas sounds no siren call of seduction. Las Vegas makes no empty promises for those who come to the city to make a life. Las Vegas is not a deceitful mistress, mother or father figure.
It is exactly what is promises to be-sinful, evil, careless, cruel and heartless.
Be it the kindergartner who comes to school with rope burns around his wrists, the old man who dies alone in his trailer and is buried in a mass paupers grave, the homeless families who beg at Wal Mart, the mentally ill who's self talk is passed by without a blink, or the line of homeless vets, families and singles who line up on Owens  Avenue in cardboard boxes, settling in for the night.
Those who defend the city are the predators-"If you don't like it, leave!"
As if those who are game for these predators have a chance of leaving, unless by cheap death-another staple of the Vegas experience.

The Changing Face of America

A current CNN poll reports 68% of those responding believe corporal punishment is still a valid way to discipline America's children. Beating children, like using the death penalty, research shows, have never been effective deterrents . Not ne civilized nation in the world uses the death penalty anymore. Place the US with the uncivilized nations who amputate limbs for theft and stoning for adultery.

A current report states 1 in 15 children live below the poverty level in the United States. Oh! This is the belt tightening preaching we have been hearing since our economy collapsed, after our military spent over a trillion dollars on two wars with countries having no organized military.

In Las Vegas over the past three months an average of one murder a day occurs.
Read the paper. If you plan to visit do not leave the strip, do not become involved in an argument, and stay away from the crosswalks and curbs. Nevadans have a nasty habit of running over pedestrians. You see, alcohol and drugs are staples in the single Nevadan males lifestyle-but so is irresponsible behavior like drunk driving.

In the Republican primaries lunacy reigns supreme-from candidates who don't know geography, to those who proudly claim a lack of education fostered their ignorance, to sexual harassment charges. Perry? Cain? Bachman? Romney and his golden tablets from Missouri? How can anyone take these people seriously? Have we totally lost it?
Protesters is Oakland's Occupy Wall Street were tear gassed yesterday. We tear gas our own people for protesting? In a liberal bastion such as San Francisco/Oakland area?
The United States refuse to recognize Palestinians but the United Nations has. So the US will take its' wad of cash and go home. US reasons are the worst ever.

Huge campaign donations continue to pour into the coffers of the crazy Republican presidential nominees, not one peep on who would step up to embrace the principals of the Democratic party aside from our Centrist, mostly conservative President Obama.
Lindsay Lohan received a special dispensation from her 30 day jail sentence so she could pose for Playboy magazine.
Kim Kardashian continues to make headlines.
This is a snapshot of the US today.
Does the word "Superpower" ooze out of any of these stories?
We have become a nation of loonies.