How Economic Inequality Harms Societies

Here's a Ted Talk with Richard Wilkinson explaining how larger income gaps within societies increase social maladies--poorer health outcomes, greater crime, imprisonment, shorter life spans, etc.

The richer countries, those with a higher median income, don't do better.  The USA is the worst!

The Occupy people know all of this already.  This is what they're railing about.

We Know the Things That Really Matter... Right?

~Adbusters

Bad to the Bone, Again...

We love our little Scion.  It has loads of leg room for the kids.  It has a seat that feels like a seat and not a semi-lounge chair, and has loads of head room for me with my tall torso.  It works for our little family.

We now have a replacement car, as our car is being repaired after what we thought was a minor fender bender.  Turns out, though, that we'll have the loaner car for a few days.

We're driving around in this now.

The kids are digging it and asked us if we could buy it.  They asked in all sincerity and without any irony or humor.  I feel so ridiculous in this thing.  It's fun.

I might have to find a creek with the bridge out so I can take the kids sailing over it screaming, "Yee haw!!" at the top of our lungs.

Yes, I do remember the Dukes of Hazzard fondly.  Why do you ask?

Why Occupy Wall St.?

If you're wondering why the protesters are at Zuccotti Park protesting in New York, here is a statement they wrote on Sept. 29th.  It's fairly clear why they're pissed off:

Declaration of the Occupation of New York City
As we gather together in solidarity to express a feeling of mass injustice, we must not lose sight of what brought us together. We write so that all people who feel wronged by the corporate forces of the world can know that we are your allies. As one people, united, we acknowledge the reality: that the future of the human race requires the cooperation of its members; that our system must protect our rights, and upon corruption of that system, it is up to the individuals to protect their own rights, and those of their neighbors; that a democratic government derives its just power from the people, but corporations do not seek consent to extract wealth from the people and the Earth; and that no true democracy is attainable when the process is determined by economic power.
We come to you at a time when corporations, which place profit over people, self-interest over justice, and oppression over equality, run our governments. We have peaceably assembled here, as is our right, to let these facts be known.
They have taken our houses through an illegal foreclosure process, despite not having the original mortgage.
They have taken bailouts from taxpayers with impunity, and continue to give Executives exorbitant bonuses.
They have perpetuated inequality and discrimination in the workplace based on age, the color of one’s skin, sex, gender identity and sexual orientation.
They have poisoned the food supply through negligence, and undermined the farming system through monopolization.
They have profited off of the torture, confinement, and cruel treatment of countless nonhuman animals, and actively hide these practices.
They have continuously sought to strip employees of the right to negotiate for better pay and safer working conditions.
They have held students hostage with tens of thousands of dollars of debt on education, which is itself a human right.
They have consistently outsourced labor and used that outsourcing as leverage to cut workers’ healthcare and pay.
They have influenced the courts to achieve the same rights as people, with none of the culpability or responsibility.
They have spent millions of dollars on legal teams that look for ways to get them out of contracts in regards to health insurance.
They have sold our privacy as a commodity.
They have used the military and police force to prevent freedom of the press.
They have deliberately declined to recall faulty products endangering lives in pursuit of profit.
They determine economic policy, despite the catastrophic failures their policies have produced and continue to produce.
They have donated large sums of money to politicians supposed to be regulating them.
They continue to block alternate forms of energy to keep us dependent on oil.
They continue to block generic forms of medicine that could save people’s lives in order to protect investments that have already turned a substantive profit.
They have purposely covered up oil spills, accidents, faulty bookkeeping, and inactive ingredients in pursuit of profit.
They purposefully keep people misinformed and fearful through their control of the media.
They have accepted private contracts to murder prisoners even when presented with serious doubts about their guilt.
They have perpetuated colonialism at home and abroad.
They have participated in the torture and murder of innocent civilians overseas.
They continue to create weapons of mass destruction in order to receive government contracts.*
To the people of the world,
We, the New York City General Assembly occupying Wall Street in Liberty Square, urge you to assert your power.
Exercise your right to peaceably assemble; occupy public space; create a process to address the problems we face, and generate solutions accessible to everyone.
To all communities that take action and form groups in the spirit of direct democracy, we offer support, documentation, and all of the resources at our disposal.
Join us and make your voices heard!
*These grievances are not all-inclusive.

Still Mad...

Hello cyber-friends.  I haven't been here in almost a year, because I've been so disillusioned. 

On a positive domestic note, we successfully kept a Top Bar hive of bees in our backyard and harvested a scant two quarts of honey.  I was only stung 4 times as we were harvesting it.  And then I put raw honey on my stings to heal them!  Honey: the cause and cure of my woe.  Hopefully, the bees will overwinter fine and then we'll have an active hive in the spring.

I'm mad at Obama.  Governing-Obama is different than Campaigning-Obama.  He could have done so much more!  Well, not now.  But, he could have, when we had a majority.  I think his mistake was in appealing to the Republicans' sense of decency and shared humanity...


...which the Tea Partiers have driven out of the Republican party (I think Republicans have almost always seen Democrats and anything to the left as something "Other", but it's never been this extreme)  Obama can't do anything now with Republicans controlling things and answering to the most hate-filled ideology and policy decisions of the Tea Party.  Stupid fucks.

You know what's uplifting though?  Occupy Wall St.  They're mad as hell and they're not going to take it any more!  If I wasn't a stay-at-home homeschooling mom, I'd be down there tout de suite.

I'm mad as hell now too and have been. So, I will be posting much more here, as often as I can--if only to feel like I might be speaking to people who also care and are mad as hell now.  You are out there, right?

You 1% people?  You can read here too, if you want.  If you feel like slumming it.  It will be a lark!

NOTE:  I intend to swear a lot in some of my posts.  I think some things call for it and it is most appropriate to say "Fuck!".  I don't use that kind of language around my kids.  However, when they grow to adulthood, if we haven't overturned the 1%, and my kids have no job prospects and have a mountain of student debt, and Flying Spaghetti Monster forbid they are sick with no health insurance I fully expect them to say "Fuck!" to the appropriate people, because that will be the correct word to say.

Future adult children of mine, you will have my permission.  Plus, you know, you're adults at that point, so you don't really need my permission.  Carry on!