I’ll be posting more items as things progress and developing the final rewrite to “Zombies in Love”. It’s a three act play written during the last year. I hoped to produce it in time for the October 2011 pub crawl, but found out how large a work it is to put on a play. I’ve gotten very good input from folks who like this kind of thing and from some people who don’t, but are experienced scriptwriters themselves. One suggestion was for a change to Act III which I intend to effect in the next few weeks.

So congratulations to the Chancellor and the cabal she leads, keeping the world safe for those holding back the undead surge… I look forward to a productive year.

On Christine O’Donnell, Even Karl Rove’s first estimation was that she was ‘unelectable’. He shortly changed his mind… supposedly. And that’s as blatant as it gets. Rove knows, but he’s silenced by the Machine. Get in line, Karl; lock-step, Karl. And that’s not because the Machine cares about the American Public. It’s because the Republican Machine (not the rank & file party members) is concerned with one thing – keeping Power. Well, a while back, they finally got Clinton on a moral issue (they couldn’t make a governing charge stick) they were able to take the White House and Congress. They finally got the power. And let’s remember what they did with it once they had it.
The Bush Administration had a surplus which was turned into our largest deficit ever. He lied to Congress and the American people about the War in Iraq, awarded no bid contracts to his friends (Dick Cheney’s former employer, Haliburton), sat on their hands while Wall Street, lacking regulations, stripped the financial system, and finally gave Billions in tax breaks to the wealthy.
The middle class? Beyond the ability to give them votes, the Machine doesn’t keep the middle class on the radar. Once flush with the ability to re-write the laws and then enforce them by blocking legislation, they will continue to give money to their friends, let the average American languish and call it all Patriotism. I call it Bunk.
Did you vote in 2008? Get out and vote! Get your family out and vote! Make your friends aware of the necessity to take part in this very important election! The work of recovery from eight years of Lies and Subterfuge just starting. Give our leaders a chance to do the right thing. Support real governance over ideology & rhetoric. Give the Democrats and yes, President Obama, the chance to pull us out of this malaise brought to us by the Republican Machine. Get out and vote.

And I’ve been Working, folks. Really, I have. I had a job at a nationally known historical museum last fall – as an interpreter – and from there, headed to the local ski resort to load lift chairs for the inglorious winter that is 2009-2010. It’s all seasonal, part time and well below the $15/hour or so that I was making in 2008.

The Massachusetts health care system is operational. I get coverage through Blue Cross Blue Shield. (The well known insurance folks, who would rather lose cancer patients than cover them)

The museum will hire me back for the next seven months, just as the ski resort job winds down. This is very beneficial. The museum job suits me well. Not only does it use a wide variety of my strengths and interests, I enjoy it immensely, both for the work it entails and for the camaraderie of the museum staff. Plus, Reading is a job skill!! Actually, aside from the money, it’s the practically the perfect job for me.

I do keep looking in the papers and have applied for those jobs to which I’m well suited. The latest job application, work-wise, is at the far end of the spectrum. It’s a warehouse assistant job, 40 hours a week, has a good atmosphere and is a hands-on, shipping/receiving/parts distributing job for a manufacturing outfit. And it has potential for Good Pay. This does have its up side, indeed.

Returning to the full-time work force would be amazing. Regularity would be a welcomed change of pace. Having enough money to pay the bills… that just gives this kind work a high incentive quotient as well. Alas, I’m not living in a self-sustaining, backyard solar, hyro or wind powered utopia where my morning eggs are pulled warm from the chicken coop… just yet. So, until I live there, here’s a toast to giving the working life a go… for at least another eight years. For by then, I will have put my time into the American workforce, and with any luck and a sustainable Social Security check, I should be able to only work part-time for the rest of my days, write my best sellers, and make sure the back yard power systems don’t rust a nut.

It’s obvious from the talking points that the Republican side of the aisle put forth this weekend, that they are once again using the tactic of “Tell the lie enough and people will believe it.” The newest one is “The Democrats are not listening to the American people,” and “If the Democrats push this bill through they will lose their majority in the fall.”
Know this. These statements are plainly not true. The health care issue is a huge policy issue. The process of changing the health care system is complicated and frustrating in its need to cover millions of American (30 million in the Democratic plan, 3 million in the Republican) and reduce costs. It’s going to change how insurance and health care works. Insurance companies do not want their good thing to go away. They lobby incessantly to push their interests and the interests of their shareholders before the health of the American people.
Covering people, giving them access to preventive care and keeping them away from emergency rooms as their primary care, is going to save us all money in the long run. Clearly, health care and insurance reform is a good idea.
The Right wants two things: Incremental changes (i.e. cosmetic changes) and scraping everything to start over. To scrap everything is code for “Let’s do nothing by redoing everything we’ve already done.” It’s all smoke & mirrors and a huge waste of time.
Now that the American people have elected a Democratic majority, it would be ludicrous for them to back down because of minority wrangling. We’ve had eight years of lies and backroom deals fostered by the Republican Whitehouse & Congress during the last decade. The election proved one thing: Americans are tired of being lied to and stolen from. The majority should move swiftly to pass health care and insurance reform, putting health care back in the hands of doctors and their patients. When it does, when the new program begins working, all Americans will be better off for it.

Let’s get this right. At that point, with the election and re-election of Bush/Cheney, Americans were fleeced, passed over, taken for a ride  and turned out the front door by the Majority.

Before 9/11 George Bush spent lots of time in Texas, looking all Reaganesque. Afterward, with his Declaration of War in hand, and the Republican led Congress, opened up the Treasury of the United States to their friends, lied to the Congress and the American People. They deregulated our financial institutions and more friends took the money of hard working Americans, leaving us with a greater Divide between the wealthy and the poor, ultimately squeezing the middle class.

Let me ask you one question: Since January 20th, 2000 are you better off?

It’s February. It’s cold. The house is cold. The thing leaks like the threadbare sweater (we have no insulation). That’s why in the old castles, they hung tapestries on the walls, to block the wind and the chill. Books work good. Having a good floor-to-ceiling bookcase that’s filled is almost like insulation. Thinking of that makes me want to start rearranging everything in the house, but I neither have the time nor the inclination.

I’m filling my winter, working part time at the mountain doing chairlifts. Very part time. When the snow season ends I have another, very enjoyable part time job that starts up in March. It’s museum work that uses many of my skills (read: uncredited college skills) that wouldn’t get used at a warehouse or carpentry job. Research & Study. Woodworking. History. Storytelling. And I love the job, but I’ll have to supplement it somehow, possibly with freelance work.

Unemployment is still my mainstay. When I called to give my weekly job report a couple of weeks ago, the voice told me my benefits had run out and the nice, recorded lady gave me a number to call. I called, waited on hold for 25 minutes and finally got a fellow who took me through the process. I was irritated at the wait, but I always know it isn’t this guys fault. “Be polite,” I tell myself; a person could be living in his shoes.

“You guys must be slamming.”
“Yeah, well, we have seven phone lines here and they each have a hundred people on hold. At any time of the day there are seven hundred people waiting.”

Now I don’t feel so bad. He was great, told me that all I needed to do was call next week like normal and everything would be up and running. Only that didn’t happen [feign surprise]. When I called in my weekly report I heard the same message. I knew what was happening, but called Boston anyway. Too many people had gotten their extensions at the same time and that put the computer system under stress. Things were going to take a bit longer and I’d have my check two days later than normal. That I can live with. With times being tough, the Feds and Mass State are as accommodating as they can be. There’s even a $25 addition tacked on my weekly check from the Feds. It’s my own little part of the massive federal bail out.

And it’s tax time. Last week I received my 1099G from the Massachusetts State Division of Unemployment Development. You know, when you sign up you might think… “well, I don’t need to have the taxes taken out. I’ll be working by tax time and I really need the money.” But really, you should. I haven’t done my taxes yet (1040EZ should take care of it) but I know I’m going to have a bill. And not just a little bill. I made Far more money on unemployment than I did at my two part time jobs.

They say that things are beginning to work, the economy is coming up slowly, unemployment is down a smidge, but businesses aren’t hiring just yet, and… oops! This week, fears of overly high deficeits in Europe put a damper on all the markets and the Dow gave up over two hundred points, now hovering scarcely above that ‘magical’ 10,000 mark. Double dip, anyone? It’s good for an ice cream cone, but I’m thinking it’s bad for an economy.

Sustainable living

Now here’s something worth checking out. A bunch of people in Pembrokeshire, England have gotten permission to build a village on “sustainable living” terms. They will create a traditional land based, village living, farming community in a countryside landscape. And they are not connected to the electric grid or water and sewer lines. Everything they get, everything they use, comes from… and goes back to… the land. And beyond that, everyone has to make a living. There is a 75% rule, where that much of your income needs to come from the land – think eggs, plant essences, wood carving, vegetables… writing?

It’s a great experiment, this sustainable future. See it at the Lammas homepage, or check out the family that built this homestead at: Low  Impact Woodland Home