Summer Malaise-Political cheaters and liars

Is it just me or is anyone else out there feeling depressed and tired of the smut atmosphere in politics?

Where are the Paul Wellstones of our nation? I crave an idealist right now. Just one. One who might shore up the molding, ammonia smelling group of political narcissists oozing and splaying their bacteria across the print and talking heads in the media.

I won't even dignify names. Lying CIA? Is that an oxymoron or what?

Taking your crayons and going home because you don't like the coloring books?

Acting like a lovesick 13 year old girl with a crush on a teen idol?

Relentlessly pursuing your best friend's wife?

Juxtapose all this moldy smelling drama with thousands of people out of work , without health care and tell me-are you feeling as sick and discouraged as I am?

An apt cliche?

What is wrong with this picture?

The Mexican America- Entrepreneurs?

The pristine, new school building I taught in last year is surrounded with gang graffiti. Long streams of consciousness decorate the semi-walled in communities. Abandoned shopping carts trail along a path leading to a local grocery store- famous for a mass shooting ten years ago.

It is a pedestrian school. A polite phrase for poor people who don't own cars .

Plastic shopping bags litter the main street, windblown , trapped against the fences surrounding the school.

The majority of the students are Mexican. Parents speak little or no English. Drawn by the casino resorts, building boom and the ancillary services complimenting these major industries, the American-Mexican dominates the east side of Las Vegas, Nevada.

Most billboards are written in Spanish. Major grocery stores sell products marked with bilingual advertising. Mercado's are interspersed among the franchise grocery stores. It is where I go to buy chili candies -my students favorite.

Mexican-Americans work for the school district. Organized, hard workers, willing to take on the jobs at the bottom rung, many advance to positions of responsibility and respect.

Students are related. Cousins are common. Multiple families living in one dwelling is common as well. Pooling the money earned means a newer car, babysitter overlap, better food and a common sense of security.

Isolation is not a characteristic of the Mexican-American culture.

Then the bottom dropped out. Las Vegas layoffs started with the building industry.

Gardeners, painters, carpet layers-laid off.

Casinos cutting back -housekeeping staff, buffet and dining staff. Cleaning crews.

American families live in isolation. A layoff often has a domino effect. Lose a job, lose the house-the car-downsize, downsize, until what? We don't live with other families unless desperate. We see living together as a sign of failure.

We prefer to fail alone and take our families along.

As the job market tightened my students talked about parents losing work.

They collected cans. They looked for odd jobs. They also worked with their parents.

One parent came around to the schools on certain days and cleaned teachers' cars for 20$.

Another parents sold corn outside the school(corn with mayo and chilies is awesome)

A mother made tamales and sold them, bringing them in heated containers.

The school started a flea market once a month. Parents could bring items and sell them.

One mother sewed princess dresses, very much like the Disney princesses and sold them for the Halloween season.

Valentines Day, Easter, Christmas- any holiday, actually, on the east side of Las Vegas, corner stands pop up with a variety of gifts, fruits are sold on street corners, there is no end to the market on the east side.

Many garages selling used tires, tire repair and service , guaranteed only by the owner's reputation abound.

I admire entrepreneurship.

I believe it is the only way to break the conglomeration of corporate price fixing, pushing each product to the line of sale, lamenting about the price of labor-the continual gouging of the American worker.

I think the east side Mexican-Americans of Las Vegas have the right idea.

Is it fair to our system? Legal? Perhaps-no.

It would be if the same companies asking us to buy American actually supported the United States worker, the US consumer. Is our system fair to the workers? Is buying American to our advantage? How many of you are without jobs right now due to "downsizing?" Is it corporate profits or truly a business in trouble?

How do we know? Wall Street seems to recovering. Why aren't we?

One pooldlady examines her motives

Last night I was thinking about the negativitiy in many of these posts. . I don't consider myself a negative person in general. Most people do not care to read negative critiques. All around, negative items just make for a bad day and who needs it, right?

My frustration over feeling powerless, our gullibility, and our indifference at the whittling away of our choices -all are the negative themes that crop up in my rants.

Years ago, if one didn't like the social or community norms dropping off the social grid was an option. Move to the "country"-use propane, burn firewood..

As population increases, not many off grid sites are available to Grizzly Adams wannabes.

Why do I do it?

It isn't because I "relish" the negative.

The passion for justice and the heaviness in my heart for those who can't-gnaws away at me.

Silly me, believes it just isn't right.

Hypocritcal Americans mourn Michael Jackson

Let's face it, Americans-today you live and breathe "reality TV" which has nothing to do with reality. It sickens me. Mindless school of lemmings-running en masse to the cliff side, only to be pushed over by those behind them-you truly truly disgust me.

Michael Jackson, dead as he is, troubled, bizarre, (albeit talented in his heyday) is no person to worship, to revere, to cry over, using those big, disgusting, crocodile tears.

Get a life.

I swear, the reality of star slobbering media , prostituting themselves for the last dime- it is no wonder they are dying on the vine. The maudlin crap over the past week, usurping any newsworthy events(well, I suppose we could question THAT definition) and the response of Americans is enough to drive me to the toilet bowl-my stomach can't take much more.

Michael Jackson , who once tried to purchase the bones of the Elephant man for one million dollars, settled out of court on a number of child molestation cases, spent money totally unrelated to the reality of his income, has sadly self-destructed and died.

Yes, it is sad -a man with such talent-for so many years, was not able to maintain the same level of talent for living life on this earth.

I respect death. Michael Jackson's death is a tragedy.

It is also a mixed conundrum of legal morass, stiffed vendors, abused children, bizarre behaviors and whacked out reality.

Why can't we acknowledge those facts? Why do Americans do this garbage? Elevate to Sainthood those who have caused damage to others -is talent a free ticket for anything goes in life?

What's next? Cheering for serial killers? Americans have already decided politicians cheating on wives and numerous other sex scandals involving public figures are-*yawn* not our business..

Get a clue. Have some dignity. Celebrate Michael Jackson's music-put away the Kleenex and grow up. A day is fine. Weeks on end?

You all really disgust me.

US Citizens Losing Democracy-by default

In the 1950's the American Dream thrived-suburbs flourished, men returned from World War II with the GI Bill. The GI Bill opened doors to education previously not available to the working class. Unions ensured the labor force US companies needed were treated fairly and a living wage provided for many families of the working class.

Conceptually individuals with trades, skilled labor and professionals all had a shot at the American dream. Baby boomers, raised by this generation had opportunities not afforded to children of working class families-and took advantage of the opportunities.

It was a time of enlightenment with a Supreme Court, in the 1960's which favored individual citizens and kept a lid on the abuse of overreaching law enforcement, institutions, government agencies, city, state and federal abuses and the development of large corporations which might otherwise profit and the expense of the human labor force.

What a long and painful journey it has been from those freedoms to where we are today.

It is not my agenda to outline the many labyrinths which have led us to our current situation.

My agenda is to mourn the loss of our nation of involved citizens. Citizens who believed our government could and should be transformed to benefit the citizens of this country-and acted upon their beliefs.

I don't know about you but on a personal level the feeling of helplessness is overwhelming .

For example, I received my electric bill in the mail yesterday. By some convoluted formula

the city I live in charged me 145.00 for electricity.

Fair enough.

In addition, I have what is called a "usage fee" for 125.00. I pay this because according to the city I live in I am two blocks from the city limits but not far enough out of the limits to qualify for Florida power.

So I am charged double because I do not fit in anywhere. I have no choice.

My "usage fee" is almost as much as my bill. I have used the air conditioning very little because I am on a budget.

That is one example. Here is another one-

I applied for my new registration is the state of Florida. They requested a copy of the title from the lien holder. The lien holder sent it in the Florida envelope required by the state.

The state claims it did not receive the title.

The lien holder documented when the title was sent.

I did this the first week of may.

It is July and the cost of registration just went up 100.00 for new citizens. I have beendriving on a temporary registration awaiting receipt of the title and notification from Florida DMV.

These may seem small to you but they are examples of the powerlessness one feels today when dealing with credit card companies, banks, school loans, mortgage companies, utility companies, city, state and federal governments-

It is this feeling of helplessness and the sense of overwhelming smallness when dealing with large bureaucratic agencies and corporations that discourages citizens from believing they have the power to take action-to have an impact .

We need to collectively use our ability to make change-as a nation of citizens. Protests do nothing today-but boycotts can.

Boycotting certain companies, agencies, corporations-this will make a difference.

It can make a difference because money is what it is all about.

You and I are not important-unless we speak with our wallets-and we will continue to be unimportant because entities know as long as they can stonewall our government, lobby our elected officials and maintain such laws as the new bankruptcy law, the credit card, the oil industry, the overseas labor force regulations and the tax laws to favor them, we have no chance.

We are still one of the biggest nations in the world.

Sadly, we are one of the biggest, but no longer the greatest because we, as citizens have a government so corrupt it has weakened our ability to uphold, protect and maintain our once democratic ideals.

While those with money yell, "Socialism" and warn of us we will lose our right to choose, they are very aware that at this point in time we have already lost our right to choose, we have lost much and continue to lose more-and nothing, nothing but the goodness of a very few people, corporations and government entities exist to support the democratic ideals we claim we love.

On this 4Th, when we celebrate freedom-perhaps more of us will examine where we are as a country today. Perhaps some will recognize how those who fought to keep the talons of a king and his whims from allowing us to suffer a monarchy- (which saw us as slave labor for a larger, superior country)-are very much parallel to the corporations, the shareholders, the Wall street elite and bankers, the oil companies, and all of our American businesses outsourcing to third world countries.

I do not think this is what our 4Th of July celebration and those who fought and died to uphold the ideals of democracy had in mind-do you?

Missouri Rep Cynthia Davis-hungry kids work harder-no free lunch!

July 2nd, 2009 by onepooldlady

Missouri State Representative Cynthia Davis is one tough cookie. Last week she opposed subsidizing school lunches for low income children during summer months saying, “Hunger can be a positive motivator.” This is excellent news considering 1 in 5 Missouri kids is living in hunger, so that state is due for a productivity boon.

It is 1962 and free school lunch is non existent. A little seven year old girl wakes and prepares for school. Her five sister and brothers and mother continue sleeping. The flu continues its round robin of family members.

She is so tired of sickness and hungry. Rummaging through the kitchen she discovers a piece of hardened cheese, bread , a wrinkled apple. She places it in a bag, unwrapped, searches through the mound of clothing on the floor of the bedroom she shares with her five siblings. Grabbing a pair of pants, a tee shirt and her shoes, she dresses quickly and walks to the bus stop.

She doesn’t notice her clothing is wrinkled and dirty. She isn’t aware of the smirks and stares. Her radar shut out the jeers and mocks in kindergarten. School is the one place she finds safety from the violence, abuse, and unpredictability of her home. Treasures are the discoveries in reading, passion is the expression in writing , adventure is the mysteries of science-all these are gold nuggets -free!

Her stomach growls after an hour of sitting in the classroom. She tries to ignore it. No breakfast but she has SOMETHING to eat for lunch. She drinks water from the fountain on the way to gym class, hoping the shakiness in her legs disappears.

Mrs. Kelly, her second grade teacher stands and talks with the gym teacher. The little girl hovers near the teacher. She leans towards her to stop the shakiness in her legs.

Shadows get in the way of her vision. She begins to see little dark patches between her teacher and the floor. Her hands begin to shake and she reaches out to the teacher.

She folds her arms around Mrs. Kelley’s legs and slides to the floor.

Her last thought?

What a safe place to die.

Nevada attorney takes oath at bar and grill

According to the Las Vegas Sun, July 1, 2009


Speaking of dramatic flourishes, most new judges get sworn in at the courthouse. Las Vegas attorney Joseph Sciscento took his oath Tuesday at a different courthouse — the Courthouse Bar & Grill, that is. Drinks were flowing as his friend, District Judge Doug Smith, administered the oath in front of a small gathering of lawyers and judges at the popular tavern across the street from the Regional Justice Center.

Only in Nevada, folks, do they take the swearing in of a judge so seriously...