Little boxes on the hillside,
Little boxes made of ticky tacky,
Little boxes on the hillside,
Little boxes all the same.
There’s a green one and a pink one
And a blue one and a yellow one,
And they’re all made out of ticky tacky
And they all look just the same.
And the people in the houses
All went to the university,
Where they were put in boxes
And they came out all the same,
And there’s doctors and lawyers,
And business executives,
And they’re all made out of ticky tacky
And they all look just the same.
And they all play on the golf course
And drink their martinis dry,
And they all have pretty children
And the children go to school,
And the children go to summer camp
And then to the university,
Where they all are put in boxes
And they come out all the same.
And the boys go into business
And marry and raise a family
In boxes made of ticky tacky
And they all look just the same.
There’s a green one and a pink one
And a blue one and a yellow one,
And they’re all made out of ticky tacky
And they all look just the same.
If you want to tell people the truth, make them laugh, otherwise they’ll kill you. ~ Oscar Wilde
More than half of U.S. population still doesn’t get it, George. Thanks for trying, dear “court” jester. We miss you – rest in peace.
Weather forecast for tonight: dark. Continued dark overnight, with widely scattered light by morning. ~ George Carlin
But there’s a reason. There’s a reason. There’s a reason for this. There’s a reason education s*cks, and it’s the same reason it will never ever EVER be fixed. It’s never going to get any better. Don’t look for it. Be happy with what you’ve got. Because the owners of this country don’t want that.
I’m talking about the real owners now, the real owners, the big wealthy business interests that control things and make all the important decisions.
Forget the politicians. The politicians are put there to give you the idea that you have freedom of choice. You don’t. You have no choice. You have owners.
They own YOU. They own everything. They own all the important land. They own and control the corporations. They’ve long since bought and paid for the Senate, the Congress, the state houses, the city halls. They got the judges in their back pockets, and they own all the big media companies, so they control just about all of the news and information you get to hear. They got you by the b*lls. They spend billions of dollars every year lobbying – lobbying – to get what they want.
Well, we know what they want. They want more for themselves and less for everybody else, but I’ll tell you what they don’t want:
They don’t want a population of citizens capable of critical thinking. They don’t want well-informed, well-educated people capable of critical thinking.
They’re not interested in that – that doesn’t help them. That’s against their interests. That’s right.
They don’t want people who are smart enough to sit around a kitchen table and figure out how badly they’re getting f*cked by a system that threw them overboard thirty f*cking years ago. They don’t want that! You know what they want? They want obedient workers.
Obedient workers, people who are just smart enough to run the machines and do the paperwork, and just dumb enough to passively accept all these increasingly sh*ttier jobs with the lower pay, the longer hours, the reduced benefits, the end of overtime. and vanishing pension that disappears the minute you go to collect it.
And now they’re coming for your social security money. They want your f*cking retirement money. They want it back so they can give it to their criminal friends on Wall Street, and you know something? They’ll get it. They’ll get it ALL from you sooner or later, ’cause they own this f*cking place.
It’s a big club, and you ain’t in it! You and I, are not IN the big club.
By the way, it’s the same big club they use to beat you over the head with all day long when they tell you what to believe. All day long, beating you over the head in their media telling you what to believe, what to think and what to buy.
The table is tilted, folks. The game is rigged.
And nobody seems to notice. Nobody seems to care.
Good honest hard-working people – white collar, blue collar, it doesn’t matter what color shirt you have on – good honest hard-working people continue… these are people of modest means… continue to elect these rich c*cks*ckers who don’t give a F*CK about them.
They don’t give a F*CK about you.
They don’t give a F**K about you.
They don’t care about you at all – at all – at ALL!
And nobody seems to notice. Nobody seems to care.
That’s what the owners count on, the fact that Americans will probably remain willfully ignorant of the big red, white and blue d**k that’s being jammed up their assh*les every day – because the owners of this country know the truth.
It’s called the American Dream ’cause you have to be asleep to believe it.
I’m not a big fan of the politics of the telecommunications companies (particularly with regard to the issue of net neutrality) but I’ve got to have connectivity. Since the days of slow dial-up, I’ve tried them all. I was hopeful about Comcast, but it was nothing but trouble from the start. The experience at the Comcast store yesterday (see the bottom of the post) only cemented my judgment.
In my area, Comcast pretty much had a monopoly for broadband services. That made me uncomfortable right away.
The service was rather expensive – even bundled – for the value of the features received.
The shared neighborhood connection was insufficient.
There were often so many errors on the line that service was significantly degraded.
My house was wired a long time ago, and there were problems with the setup that Comcast refused to address. I paid several times for their service people to come out and address these problems, but they wouldn’t deal with the root issues.
They sent some subcontractor in an unmarked vehicle out in the middle of the night to “upgrade” the street-level connection. Whatever it was, it made things worse. Yet another service call.
Suggestions made for improvement were ignored (as far as I can tell).
U-Verse just recently became available in my neighborhood. I must have grilled the salesperson for two hours or more on all the packages, features, possibilities. We are at the very end of the coverage area, so I had concerns about connection speed and reliability. The salesperson was a former real estate developer who had lost the business in the housing crash and was more intelligent and relaxed than is the norm for folks that end up going door to door. I enjoyed the conversation. He did say that I probably wouldn’t be able to get the highest speed, but I was happy with the next level down (12 MB), especially since it wouldn’t be a shared connection as with Comcast.
The technician that came to my house was very professional, and also flexible with regard to what needed to be done. Within a few minutes, he had established that there were several wiring problems, including the fact that there was a splitter on top of another splitter. We came to an agreement about what he would do to address that. He rewired part of the house (and he had the drill as well as all the other equipment on hand). He also set up the upstairs office with two boxes that would talk through the electrical wiring, allowing an ethernet cord to be used. This is great because it would have been difficult to pull another wire up there, and the wireless seems to have trouble reaching up reliably and at top speed. He could tell that I was savvy enough not to need the full technican setup on everything, so we took that charge off to help pay for the other things he was doing. He also made sure that we were actually *receiving* HD.
At the end of his time here, I had three tvs hooked up with their own individual boxes, two desktop computers hooked up, and a notebook computer set up on wireless. The phone was working fine, and I had set up my online options for everything.
Some things I particularly like:
The connection is faster, and I don’t have to reload pages in my browser anymore.
Each television has its own options settings, including dvr with lots of space to record, and personal channel favorites.
When the phone rings, it shows caller ids on the screen. No more getting up to answer robocalls or alumni donation requests.
I can set the phone up to ring on my cellphone at the same time (not just call forwarding).
I’ve got some 400 channels. I don’t have to pay extra for MSNBC or the Tennis Channel. And sooo many great movie channels! I never had Biography or History or National Geographic before. Yay!
I like the feature where it grabs your favorite channels and scrolls little screens on the right. It’s a lot easier than trying to find something through all those channels.
Lots of foreign stations to explore.
My voicemails can be emailed to me – a service that would only work once in a while with Comcast.
I’m very very happy with the services so far. We’ll see how it goes. There is no contract, and AT&T has good customer service, so it’s not a difficult decision.
The nail on the coffin? I drove to the nearest Comcast location after work yesterday to drop off my modem and box. I arrived at the door, carrying this equipment, at three minutes until six. A man came to the door and told me they were closed. I pointed out that it wasn’t yet six o’clock, and he repeated that they were closed. How rude! Of course, it might not have helped that it was Halloween Friday, and I was dressed as an old, tired poet (complete with deep blue velvet hat), but I drove all the way over there, lugged this equipment to the door before their closing time, and was met with a response that made me verrrrrry angry!!! Whatever you want to say about AT&T, they do have a better sense of customer service than that.
So, bye bye Comcast! I’ll be watching your migrating client base with a big smile on my face. You don’t care – and it shows!
The very existence of the possibility of a “honey do” list astounded me. You mean, you can make a list of things that need to be done around the house and really expect the hubby to start doing them? Wow!!! Well, it didn’t really work out that way. Both hubby and myself are… well, we’re basically intellectuals, which means that our skill set is often less than practical. And – of course – we’re both working full-time and not getting any younger. We’re tired!
Still, the tasks need to be done. Lately, I’ve been tackling some of the list myself. It’s not as difficult as I thought, but getting materials is sometimes expensive, so I need to parcel it out.
Here’s what I’ve accomplished so far:
Weed-whack the back yard
Get more fish for the pond
Replace the light bulbs on the back yard landscape lights and move them near the pond
Cut back the overgrown shrubs, especially the azaleas at the front steps
Get the leaves out from the sunken entrance to the basement
Cut back the fig tree where it’s taking over the deck
Start levelling off the back yard where sinkholes are making it wavy (with shovel!) – about halfway done
Blow the yard leaves into reasonable areas
Put up a new hammock where the other one had rotted out
Start cleaning out the junk in the garage – about halfway done
Replace the old lampshades in the living room
Treat the old wood fireplace mantel with lemon oil
Treat the perimeter of the house with insect killer
Clean out the mysterious objects buried under the back deck
Here’s what remains to be done:
Research, bid and pay for better house insulation
Storage for comforters – hope chest or cabinet
Get a bedroom suite – or at least a headboard
Get 25′ of hose, dig a trench, and hook up the pond pump to the waterfall
Buy butcherblock or granite island for kitchen
Repair or replace hot tub
Replace rugs throughout
Get a conversation couch with recliners for tv room
Replace/install garbage disposal
Replace the kitchen floor
Replace the broken parts of kitchen cabinets
Attempt to stain the good kitchen cabinets
Tile area around bathroom sinks
Replace back deck lights
Get electrical work done, and replace ceiling lights in living room
Finish basement stairs
Replace outside basement door area wood slats with metal
Ventilation fan in basement
Update/replace important windows
Weatherstrip the leaking windows
Pressure-wash the back deck and the front stair area
Sand and stain the front stairs
Stain the deck
Decide color, and paint the wall around the fireplace
As promised, here is my favorite superhero – UNDERDOG!!! Thank you Danny!
Want an Underdog of your own? Or have some other nostalgic craving? It just so happens that the store is in the family! Check out Retrospect Dry Goods (it’s fantastic!!) and tell Lisa that Heidi sent you! She’ll be even more tickled than when I relieved her during the volleyball game. If you happen to be near Monument Colorado, stop in and do a little dance – but if not, you can still order lots of cool stuff from the website: http://www.retrospectdrygoods.com/
Now, back to our regularly-scheduled program. A photo of Underdog isn’t enough, I know, so… enjoy!
There’s no need to fear! Underdog is here!
When criminals in this world appear
and break the laws that they should fear
and frighten all who see or hear
the cry goes up both far and near
for Underdog! Underdog!
Underdog! Underdog!
Speed of lightning, roar of thunder
fighting all who rob or plunder
Underdog (aaaaaa-aaaa-aaaaaaaaaaaah) Underdog!
Underdog!
When in this world the headlines read
of those whose hearts are filled with greed
who rob and steal from those who need
to right this wrong with blinding speed
goes Underdog! Underdog!
Underdog! Underdog!
Speed of lightning, roar of thunder
fighting all who rob or plunder
Underdog (aaaaaa-aaaa-aaaaaaaaaaaah) Underdog!
UNDERDOG!
I’ve spiked a fever at 105 degrees, and hovered around 100-101 most of the rest of the time. Vertigo and light-headedness. Fatigue and balance problems. Coughing. Sneezing. Aching, but I can’t rest (and I won’t take that medicine). Crossing my fingers that it doesn’t go into bacterial pneumonia like in many other cases.
It’s been a week now, and I’ve racked up five sick days at work. That’s going to mean a lot of late nights toward the end of the year to meet deadlines, and give me even less time and energy to do everything else.
And there’s so much to do that I need to be doing and I can’t! Christmas shopping and preparations, housework, helping out with some family stuff – and I guess I’m probably not going to get the cards out this year. This is the first day I could really concentrate on anything and I’m getting weepy even trying to edit what should be a very straightforward document.
And of course this whole healthcare reform fiasco is very frustrating and disappointing. The way the bill is now, it just seems like a gift to the insurance companies.
You have just agreed to purchase a product. If you do not, you will be breaking the law and subject to a fine. You have no control over how much you will pay for the product. The government will have virtually no control over how much the company will charge for the product. The product is designed like the Monty Python sketch about the insurance company’s “Never-Pay” policy … “which, you know, if you never claim — is very worthwhile. But you had to claim, and, well, there it is.”
And who do we have to blame for this? There are enough villains to go around, men and women who, in a just world, would be the next to get sick and have to sell their homes or their memories or their futures — just to keep themselves alive, just to keep their children alive, against the implacable enemy of American society, the insurance cartel. Mr. Grassley of Iowa has lied, and fomented panic and fear. Mr. DeMint of South Carolina has forgotten he represents people, and not just a political party. Mr. Baucus of Montana has operated as a virtual agent for the industry he is charged with regulating. Mr. Nelson of Nebraska has not only derailed reform, he has tried to exploit it to overturn a Supreme Court decision that, in this context, is frankly none of his goddamned business….
Which brings us to Mr. Lieberman of Connecticut, the one man at the center of this farcical perversion of what a government is supposed to be. Out of pique, out of revenge, out of betrayal of his earlier wiser saner self, he has sold untold hundreds of thousands of us into pain and fear and privation and slavery — for money. He has been bought and sold by the insurance lobby. He has become a Senatorial prostitute.
And sadly, the President has not provided the leadership his office demands.
I see the centrist Dems are trying to paint Howard Dean as a quack again – using energy they reserved from their lack of criticsm of Republicans – but check out Dean’s article in today’s Washington Post. I can’t say I disagree.
Real reform would insert competition into insurance markets, force insurers to cut unnecessary administrative expenses and spend health-care dollars caring for people. Real reform would significantly lower costs, improve the delivery of health care and give all Americans a meaningful choice of coverage. The current Senate bill accomplishes none of these. Real health-care reform is supposed to eliminate discrimination based on preexisting conditions. But the legislation allows insurance companies to charge older Americans up to three times as much as younger Americans, pricing them out of coverage. The bill was supposed to give Americans choices about what kind of system they wanted to enroll in. Instead, it fines Americans if they do not sign up with an insurance company, which may take up to 30 percent of your premium dollars and spend it on CEO salaries — in the range of $20 million a year — and on return on equity for the company’s shareholders. Few Americans will see any benefit until 2014, by which time premiums are likely to have doubled. In short, the winners in this bill are insurance companies; the American taxpayer is about to be fleeced with a bailout in a situation that dwarfs even what happened at AIG. …
To be clear, I’m not giving up on health-care reform. The legislation does have some good points, such as expanding Medicaid and permanently increasing the federal government’s contribution to it. It invests critical dollars in public health, wellness and prevention programs; extends the life of the Medicare trust fund; and allows young Americans to stay on their parents’ health-care plans until they turn 27. Small businesses struggling with rising health-care costs will receive a tax credit, and primary-care physicians will see increases in their Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement rates.
Improvements can still be made in the Senate, and I hope that Senate Democrats will work on this bill as it moves to conference. …
I have worked for health-care reform all my political life. In my home state of Vermont, we have accomplished universal health care for children younger than 18 and real insurance reform — which not only bans discrimination against preexisting conditions but also prevents insurers from charging outrageous sums for policies as a way of keeping out high-risk people. I know health reform when I see it, and there isn’t much left in the Senate bill. I reluctantly conclude that, as it stands, this bill would do more harm than good to the future of America.
If the Dems push through a bill that will make things worse, then they’ll have to live with everything that happens as a result of not holding to a line of integrity. Don’t count on those votes next election.
