October 20, 2008

Jacob, Sometimes I find the world scary too.

Work

In an effort to not run out of money before I run out of things to do I took on some freelance work. So far my project has over run a bit but in general I am happy with it. I have developed a chess game for an online gaming web site. The development of the game has been taking quite a bit of my time lately. This week it seems like that is about all I have done. The happy news is that it is almost done. I don't own the artwork on the game but I did arrange the licensing such that I own the code. I think that after my customer is happy with the delivery I will develop some new art work and put a chess game on the mindjump web site. I haven't developed a single player version of the game only a two player version. I have learned a lot in the project. Getting the multi player game communication to work correctly is quite challenging but at the right level, such that the challenge is quite fun. I haven't decided yet if I am going to go for a single player mode or not. The current project I have isn't funded for a single player mode but it would be a nice thing to have. I think in the end the practicality of getting back to my main project the spell castle or onto other directly funded work is what will rule the day.

It has been healthy to take a small project front to back. Projects are so so much easier to start than they are to finish. I know I have some huge psychological mountains to climb to get through the release of the spell castle. Going through some smaller hills on the chess game has been a nice warm up. I have hired an artist to do the cover work for the spell castle game and I am very excited with what he has done so far. I would love to have him do a lot more in the game but for now I think I am going to leave my expenditure on his contribution to the game to the cover and maybe a couple of internal characters. After I sell a few copies of the game it might be nice to go back and upgrade things.

World Hunger

A few months ago in the blog I remember expressing dismay about the fact that we live in a country where one of our leading causes of preventable death is obesity while we all but boarder countries where people die for want of food. Since that observation I am a bit ashamed to admit that I haven't done much more than reflect on that thought every now and then. A couple of days ago I was reading an article in the National Geographic (the September issue I believe) about Haiti and the problems with their soil. People are so poor there that one in five suffers from malnourishment. In place of food they eat a mixture of mud, vegetable oil and salt to stave off starvation with rising grain prices.

This is far from a new problem. Somehow the awareness of the problem has hit me in a new light. Growing up in a country with such abundant food and so many resources to reach out people without food I somehow let my mind drift into the ignorance of thinking that death by starvation was a problem of a more primitive world. The fact my mind got to that state really is inexplicable in that I know I have read news reports exactly to the contrary about North Korea. In fact during the time I was serving to do missionary work in South Korea people were starving to death in mass numbers just over the border while I was totally unaware of it.

Food aid really is tricky. I can't get my mind straight about the issue. I hope to make some progress as I write this entry but I am not overly optimistic. The problem of a person dying for want of food is an inexcusable problem in my mind. Until that problem is solved it seems that all other problems bear much less significance. The frustrating thing is that as an individual the problem is unsolvable. Also it seems that it is so difficult to get clean information describing the problem. I know as a child when I saw commercials asking for aid money for starving people in Africa I was told that many of the organization were frauds and that even among the ones that were legitimate only a small portion of the money actually translated into aid money and the rest was used to fund the ads I was watching. Later I heard that aid money actually funded the war in that resources that were freed from food aid received in the country were simply diverted into weapons which were used to perpetrate the civil wars causing the food shortages in the first place. The idea of getting my money ripped off by a greasy guy in Miami or the idea of my money being used to buy bullets to kill people does not appeal to me.

Another internal conflict I have that confuses me is that my social education centered around self sufficiency. Handouts work against self sufficiency. I think it is pathetic to watch a stray dog or cat beg for food. After the animal receives the food it is as if they have lost their will. The attention and focus of the animal becomes centered in an effort to reproduce the behavior that brought the hand out. In a human being I believe the human's most valuable possession above their daily breath is their will. I would certainly not support any activity that would work to rob a person of this divine endowment.

So I begin my journey toward contributing my part to the solution of the problem of world hunger. As I do so I navigate my fears and preconceptions of fraud, war and decimation of human will. In the end I believe that my fears really are a blanket that I have used to wrap my mind into that inexcusable state of ignorance that has overlooked the problem, that state that says "I can't do everything, so I will do nothing", or "I might do something wrong, so I will do nothing", or "someone else is taking care of the problem".

I think I will take the last three poor ideas on one by one. "I can't do everything so I will do nothing" is a fraud that I have suffered from many times. It is so easy for my idealist, perfectionistic self to not want something that isn't exactly the way I think it should be. The next idea of "I might do something wrong, so I will do nothing", I know slows me down but at a more subconscious level. Usually when I consciously recognize that I am holding myself back because of fear of failure I get a charge of motivation that pushes me to action. With that said in this case as I am writing I am realizing that I am in the state now that I have held a subconscious fear I am just now recognizing. While the thought of my dollar going to the wrong place is a scary one, as mentioned before doing nothing really is inexcusable. Lastly it is easy to see through the last poor idea with the slightest bit of thought. If someone else were taking care of the problem, there wouldn't be a problem. My last statement in no way discounts the efforts of people who are working on the problem of world hunger. Those people are truly heroic. The statement is intended to point out that the resources are not stretching far enough. There is more that needs to be done.

In the little bit of research I have done the organization represented on http://www.foodforthepoor.org/ seems pretty good. They claim that for every $1 donated they can acquire $4.69 cents of food. They also claim that a $36 dollar donation can support three families for a month. That seems like a really good use of money. I want to do some more research. I need to look to see what programs my church has in place. I think that the local aid support program of the church is very good. I don't know anything about their international aid.

So with the decision to do something the next decision to make is how much to do. I would never look at a person and say "Well that is really unfortunate for you that you are starving to death. I do have enough money to prevent your demise, however I am in the mood to see Disney World so I am going to put my resource in that direction instead, good luck to you, hope someone comes along." Without looking at a person it is abominably easy to do the former. The thought puts me into an overwhelming state of guilt wondering if it is moral to spend money on anything above the barest necessities until all others in the world have their barest necessities met. Honestly I don't think I have the internal discipline or fortitude to do that. So for now I will acknowledge my selfish, greedy and fearful tendencies and appease my mind with the thought that even though I can't be perfect right now, I can at least look in the direction of perfection and take a step that way. If people have recommendations of charities or organizations I would love to hear about them.

Kids

A couple of cute things about the kids ... I hope Natalyn is still young enough that this doesn't embarrass her later... A few mornings ago Lexie got her out of bed and exclaimed "Natalyn, your blanket is wet!" Natalyn very matter of factly immediately replied "Mom, I did not wet the bed, I just sweated too much."

Tyrell invented a land that he calls Camelia. I am not sure if that is how he spells it, that is how he pronounces it. The land is somewhere near Antarctica. He has a panel of stuffed animals that serve as judges in his land of Camelia. Last week I was sustained by him and his stuffed animals as a guest judge. Dallin was also promoted from assistant judge to judge. I hope to get Ty and Dallin to write a bit more about Camelia when they get back to home school. Chamelion is the language they speak. They have their own way to write as well. The boys have had this imaginary land for at least three years now. They have expanded on their ideas of it a lot just recently.

Yesterday the kids efforts were spent building a plane so they could fly to Camelia. The result didn't look very flight worthy to me. The kids apparently thought that most aeronautical principles could be ignored if you had a good enough engine. In this case their engine was made from three number ten cans full of leaves which they intended to light to get their take off thrust. (They knew better than to really lite the thing so they just sat in it and talked about it).I thought it was wonderful later in the day to overhear Dallin talking to Tyrell. In the tone an engineer would use at a design review, while looking at a crude schematic he had drawn, he was saying "Ty, I have been thinking we should move the engine room right here (on the wagon) to get better speed at take off." Another one of their ideas was to make a crude steam engine with a glass bottle filled with water. They had Grandpa Gordon light a fire in a number 10 sized can to boil the water and then they used a wire to connect the water to the wagon. I was grateful that the boys new they were not allowed to experiment with fire by themselves. Grandpa sure was a great sport to help them with their ideas. Another stage was tying a rope to the wagon, having Lexie pull on the rope really tight and then letting go super fast when given the signal from Dallin. The last experiment of the day was to prop the wagon up to an old tree stump and "scoot" off of the stump in hopes that it would give him (Dallin) enough lift to be airborne. Unfortunately for his efforts the wagon just tipped one way or the other and spilled him out each time. Tonight his protest about going to bed was "Mom, I need to figure out how to fly before tomorrow, so I don't have to ride the bus or run to school."

Boarded and waiting to taxi onto the runway.

Notice the triple thruster engine.

October 12, 2008

Natalyn says hi!

In Rexburg and a few of the surrounding communities the schools get out in the fall for a couple of weeks for the potato harvest. I am not sure how large a percentage of the school's students actually participate in the harvest but it is a great little break all the same. We decided to take the time from school as an opportunity to get up to Yellowstone. Even though we had been in Idaho since early July we had not yet made it the hour and a half north to Yellowstone, some business about a baby if I remember correctly.

Jacob is smiling a lot more lately it is a lot of fun.

Must have been a real knee slapper Jacob.

David playing on the picnic table at camp.

Ty and Dallin are in a phase now where they seem to always need to be sword fighting.

I was very excited to get up and hear the Elk bugling. Three years ago we had made a fall trip to Yellowstone to listen to the Elk and we had a fantastic experience. Something that caught me by surprise when I got there was how empty I felt. The trip three years ago had been with my Aunt Barbra. Being in the same place brought back happy memories as well as the feeling of loss.

We learned from the camp ground attendant that last winter was very hard on the elk so the numbers were comparatively low. That withstanding we were able to get a great view of a nice little heard of elk with a huge bull.

We were able to get some great views of the elk.

Yellowstone is a truly special place.

I am nothing of a hunter and not much of a naturalist, but I believe those are elk scrapings, that's what I told the kids they were anyway.

We are having an electrical problem with the trailer. We took it into Bish's to get it repaired but they failed to do anything about the problem. Without having anything running our batteries will die in about an hour. If anything is running it is sooner. Most of the Yellowstone campgrounds allow running generators until 8PM an after 8AM so during that period it isn't a problem. The problem is that without electricity to run the fan our trailer's heater won't come on. That made for very chilly mornings. After 8AM it was very nice to get the generator and hence the heat running.

On Thursday night we went to Gardiner and stayed at a Good Sam campground in town. We were very pleased to see deer right in the camp site and then an elk in the morning. It was also nice to have internet access. We took the opportunity to download a movie. I had never been to Gardiner. Even though there isn't much that I found outstanding about Gardiner being somewhere I hadn't ever been before was quite energizing. I was excited to read about several camping locations in the area.

We were delighted to see deer right in camp in Gardiner.

During the trip I had been working while Lexie went out with the kids to do activities. One of the purposes of the trip, not that Yellowstone requires anymore purpose than the fact it is Yellowstone, was to get a dry run of returning to road life before we gave up our Thornton camp site. I know I had extra panic every time the kids were slow getting ready or I was having trouble getting focused on my work because I would worry about the implications on our future success. By Thursday it seemed like we were getting adjusted to things. I was delighted to get a full work day in while having a camp site transition in the same day. I was also delighted with how well it worked to run the generator intermittently to keep the laptop charged. Some of my favorite camping happens off grid, so the ability to work off grid was very welcome.

Tyrell, Dallin, Natalyn and David viewing the paint pots.

Natalyn out on the trail.

Tyrell, Dallin, Natalyn and David viewing the paint pots.

David is a natural tree hugger. This is a candid shot.

The cold weather and frost added a nice element to the scenery.

The trail was a bit long for David.

Last week I made a defense for the american's right to stupidity. Those of you who deduced that it might have been an argument toward self preservation would have been accurate. Not seven days have passed and I have already fully embraced and enjoyed my unalienable right. Well to be truthful I didn't enjoy my indulgence in my right to stupidity, but I am happy to have made it through without any more hardship or collateral damage than I did. So with three more sentences of build up than this probably deserves, I will get around to what I was talking about.

Friday, Lexie came back from the museum and said, "They are closing roads all over the place and predicting snow all weekend." Those of you who guessed that my response to her statement was part of my indulgence in stupidity are well tuned to me. My response was "I don't think it will be that bad, let's hang out here a while longer".

I had been expecting the snow to melt off the road by 10AM, noon at the latest. I was wrong. (I think men get points in heaven for saying things like the former) I was distressed to look at the weather report and realize that the day's predicted high was 33 degrees, not exactly a bright prospect for melting snow. I honestly am not sure what was going through my mind after that. In retrospect, I would say there probably wasn't a lot going through my mind and definitely not a lot in the way of productive thought. As we decided to "try out" the road we soon realized that in the route between Mammoth and West Yellowstone, particularly between Mammoth and Norris does not offer one much chance to turn around. Also a good general rule of mountain driving is that conditions do not get better as one goes up. We also learned that our traction left quite a bit to be desired. Knowing how easy it is to get our trailer stuck on ice added quite a bit to our anxiety. There are several miles of 6 and 7 percent grades on the route we were covering. I did some white knuckle driving as I maintained enough speed as to prevent simply spinning out on the hill and forcing an all but impossible back down and going slow enough to not slip over one of the edges. We were distressed to find all of the pullouts full of snow. We didn't dare take them because especially as we were headed up the hill it was likely we would not be able to get out of them again. Finally as we were near the top of the first pass we found a pullout that looked promising to offer an exit. We immediately took the opportunity to find out if our new suburban's tires were the same size as our old suburban's tires by putting on the snow chains we had. Somehow, even though a blizzard isn't the best place to learn how to put on a pair of snow chains, I would guess it is the most common class room. After getting the fingers properly frozen and holding in all of the appropriate bad words and requesting far above my quota of favors from God, we got the chains on. I still wasn't sure they would stay on but as long as they were on I felt secure about our chances of staying out of the river far below at the floor of the canyon.

Not long after getting the chains on we came upon a group of stopped cars, being Yellowstone of course our first thought was that there must be an animal at the side of the road, however upon seeing an emergency vehicle we took cue and pulled over behind the cars. I went out to talk with people and discovered that there was indeed an accident and traffic was stopped. There may have been a moment of curiosity to move closer toward the accident scene but the curiosity if at all existent was soon overtaken by a bunch of nasty flash backs and I went immediately back to the car. Lexie did eventually ask one of the rangers if there had been any injuries. We were relived to learn that there hadn't been any life-threatening injuries. In as much as we were not all of the way off the road and things were chaotic we did not let the kids out of their seat belts as we waited for the accident scene to clear. The kids did great. We enjoyed several chapters of "Old Man Coyote" by Thornton W. Burgess. It was about 2 hours when we finally got moving again. After we were moving, and knowing that no one died, I got enough of a surge in curiosity to look at the crashed car as we drove by it. Would I surprise anyone if I told them it had Utah plates? Probably not anyone who had driven in Utah. The car was all the way on its top half a roll from being in the river. Given the prejudice which I just expressed I would guess the driver was probably going way too fast around the curve. With that said, ice being what it is, I would also easily believe that an inopportune tap of the brake from a reasonable speed could have also brought about the same result. Which, of course, was what was causing the white knuckles coming up the pass. On the way out it was pretty easy to guess who had, and who had not seen the accident in as much as there was about a 20 mile per hour difference in their speed. Cars leaving the accident scene were traveling at about 10 miles an hour while those headed toward it were doing closer to 30.

At the visitor's center in West Yellowstone we learned that the snow and ice road conditions extended all the way to Ashton. With the chains on that made Ashton about a 2 and half hour drive best case. After some discussion we agreed that with the chains on and going slow we didn't really have unacceptable risk and that it really wasn't a sure thing when the roads would clear anyway, it made the most sense to continue and get out before things got any worse. The rest of the drive went really well. The West Yellowstone-Ashton leg had larger shoulders and with the chains on we felt very secure. It was actually quite nice to travel slowly in as much as it prevented the annoying speed up, slow down driving requisite through Island Park as one goes through their many little communities. We passed another accident on the road that didn't look like anyone was hurt but served as reminder of the severity of the conditions. One of the thrills I find in mountain climbing and in this case that I was able to enjoy through mountain driving is observing the climate changes with the elevation changes. It was surreal to watch the snow thin and the road clear as we made the decent off the Island Park Caldera into Ashton. I often use memories of such things to get me through bad moods and discouraging times. In Ashton just as we were looking for a place to park and take the chains off the driver side chain popped off, indicating to me that my guardian angel must be off duty and attending to some other person in a more sticky situation than my current one.

This was a very difficult stretch to come up in the snow.

I love the view of snow on pine trees. I also deeply enjoy seeing a river with snow lined banks. The park in winter is gorgeous. The cold weather made it very easy to find hot spots. The steam freezing on surrounding vegetation made gorgeous crystal like structures. I felt very fortunate to be able have some time in the park this fall.

I think snow lined rivers are beautiful.

A truly marvelous trip to Yellowstone.

During our drive home both Lexie and I considered making our exit to the South happen immediately. We really do not want to go through another experience of winter driving with the trailer. By the time we were in Thornton we decided that we could indeed hang out a while longer to fill some immediate commitments and have a little more time to prepare. Now our current plan instead of leaving at the end of November is to leave at the end of October or early November.

Given the excitement of the week it isn't really surprising we didn't get the best behavior from the kids during Sacrament meeting. There really is something cute about a little kid being lead down a hall while they are covering their bum protesting "I was calming down, I was calming down!" After Natalyn got her spanking I took her outside because she was being very loud. I told her she could come back in when she was quite. After a while she told me, "Dad, I want to be warm, but that was a really hard spanking." She finally did quiet down and we went back in. I sometimes wonder if spankings help, but I do believe that if I promise one for a behavior I need to deliver.

So while on the subject of people needing spankings seems like a good transition into politics. Does anyone know anything about Ralph Nader? I read a bit about him last week after my rant. I liked a lot of his answers concerning the "recovery plan." I know I don't like his nuclear position and I am not quite sure about his union support. I am not convinced unions solve more problems than they create.

 

October 5, 2008

If any of you have ever watched or read any of the "Magic School Bus" series you will appreciate Arnold's refrain of "Please let this be a normal field trip!". I shared that refrain Tuesday as I went with Tyrell's class to Harriman State Park on his class's first field trip. I was pleased to find it was a quite normal field trip. The kids had great behavior, the weather was great and there were plenty of interesting things with which to fill the mind. On the list of proverbial back yard treasures I had previously overlooked how great it was to be so close to some of the only remaining US habitat for the trumpeter swan. We didn't see any of the swans on the field trip but it was still nice to know we were in their home.

Tyrell seems to have a lot of friends in his class as we got on the bus several kids were begging him to sit by them. I was glad he chose to sit by me. We had a great time on the ride discussing ideas for the spell castle. When we were close to arriving I told Tyrell how much I enjoyed talking with him and that I would be putting some of his ideas in the game. "Oh great! he exclaimed so we'll have a double head purple dragon with a wand in its mouth that shoots exploding fireballs that destroy the walls and then turn into more baby dragons?"! Well ... maybe not all of your ideas. I don't lack for creativity around Tyrell. I do expect the game will have bombs and an invincibility power up before release.

I regret again being short a picture. In the excitement of getting ready for the field trip I forgot the camera. Traveling with my house has left me accustomed to always having everything I need with me. The lakes and forests were magnificent. Twenty five eight year olds on a dusty trail, not quite so hot. It is a cross country ski trail in the winter. In the summer people are expected to pick up their feet. I am not sure what it is about kids that gives them the need to shuffle their feet in dust but the need does apparently extend outside of my family.

Tyrell's teacher was very complimentary of him. She could not say enough about his love of reading. I am very pleased that he has become such a great reader.

Tyrell reading to Natalyn

Changing subjects toward sweet justice... One of David's very bad habits is that when unattended in the bathroom he will get into the soap and shampoo and dump it in large quantities. Late one night this week, I don't remember exactly which night, we heard a yell from the bathroom. We ran in to find that David had greased him self from head to toe with soap and then slipped into the toilet as he was trying to walk over it. I don't think he got a bruise from his misadventure but we did get a great laugh.

Originally we had intended to be out for Conference weekend however Friday seemed to arrive about 3 days earlier than expected and we couldn't come up with an idea that sounded better than simply staying put through the weekend. I have loved listening to conference in the trailer. It is small enough that it is easy to stay focused on the talks rather than needing to chase kids and has everything available for human comfort. The kids enjoy quietly playing with pattern blocks and every now and then absorb part of one of the talks.

Grandpa with David, Natalyn and Dallin

On Saturday between the first and second session I decided that I had been disciplined enough in my running program that I was allowed to cheat a bit and give myself a really punishing run. I know it isn't the most physiologically effective thing to do but it is so psychologically emancipating to put the body at the edge of its limits. I hope at some time in the future the pace and distance of my "hard" run are what I will do for cool downs but for now the fact that I was at the edge of what I can do is enough for me. Coming to the end of my run up hill to the bench I literally cried out loud a couple of times it hurt so bad. I have an image of a great runner (and great person for that manner) trapped and bound inside of myself. Trapped by laziness, ignorance and fear. Every time I take action that works against that person's bonding agents I untether the captive a little more and bring him closer to expressing himself in my outside self. Charging up a hill at the end of a run feels like the opposite of laziness and fear, I enjoy the image of bands being broken and my greater self coming closer to finding its freedom.

After the second Saturday session Dallin and I had some nice father and son time between sessions. We got a bat and ball and took turns pitching to each other. Taking pitches from a 6 year old bears more semblance to golf, croquet or tennis than it does to basebal,l but it was still satisfying to put wood on a ball. The game got a little better when we noticed the unedible apples lying on the ground. I can't think of a time it is not enjoyable to see a person in pure pleasure. When Dallin "apple sauced" his first pitch was one of those times. I would imagine there are people in the majors who have hit grand slams and been less elated than Dallin was with his bat to apple connection.

The Sunday sessions were also nice but I have eaten way too many cookies.

Before I really digress in this entry I would like to share a small insight I had this week. The insight was derived from a conversation with a ward member in his fifties as he talked about how busy he was. I resisted the urge to slap a person without any kids at home to take care of complaining about being busy. I rather decided that he legitimately was busy. In fact I think it would be accurate to state as a trend that the older we get the busier we get. That at least seems to be the pattern of my life and seems to be validated as I talk with older people. So the question to ask is "why does it happen?". The conclusion I came to this week is that it happens for the same reason that we spend too much money and we eat too much food. Religion and society have taboos on the former two but we do them anyway. Being too busy is something that is more generally accepted but I believe the drive for it is fueled by the same appetites that drive over consumption of food and over spending. Good old raw human greed. I believe a well tempered life will control their busyness the same way it will control its consumption of food and its use of money. In the mean time I am wondering what Lexie did with the left over cookies.

It is almost time for the US General Election and it is therefore time for a rant! The following is a mix of ignorance, emotion and idealism. A mixture much like sugar fat and salt, it is difficult to come up with anything healthy with them, but likewise hard to miss on something enjoyable. I imagine at some point I may look back on this with embarrassment but in as much as this is a reflection of my current self, I think it is worth getting the snapshot of my thinking. Unless I experience a drastic shift in view point over the next month (i.e. lambotomy) I am not going to vote either of the major ticket monkeys. I hope to do some research in the next month to find a more rational minor party candidate but I am not overly optimistic. Cynics are hard to satisfy. "Dan why are you so cynical you may ask". Well since you might ask I'll answer just in case you do. If you don't ask please skip the next section and keep your mind a little clearer as you do. I will warn you that it was Lexie's opinion, which I do well to take as gospel, that the following may offend certain people. My intention is more toward expressing ideas than spreading offense.

Four years ago I decided I would do the best I could to align my values with my selection of candidate. I approached the election with the understanding that it was not possible to have a "perfect" candidate but I could use my judgment to pick the better of the two candidates or at least the lesser evil and thus make my patriotic contribution in steering the country in the proper direction. I did my best to keep my mind clear of the on slaught of propaganda generated by both parties and decided the best way to make a decision would be to listen to the debates and judge the candidates by their own words. Watching the debates it was pretty simple to determine that George Bush was closer to my values and thus the person to vote for. Opps! I am embarrassed that I missed the fact that I was supporting a want to be king that would use his power as president to drive fear into the United States population and make efforts to expand presidential power. I still do not feel I have enough information to make an honest assessment of how necessary it was to invade Iraq, however I do know that a leader that preaches fear is a leader to fear. Fear is used to control people and rob them of their independent thinking. That is not exactly what I had in mind four Novembers ago.

As far as the economy goes my assessment of politicians is they are much like the fly riding on the buck board exclaiming about how much dust they are making. The place I put the focus on the politicians has to do with if their efforts in policy are toward enabling people or constraining people. I think I am now ready to bring up the issue over which I refuse to vote for either of the front running candidates. It is the 700 Billion dollar bailout. I was appalled at how quick they both were to "throw aside partisan politics and do what the country needed". I see their action as more of turning away from what the US population wants and shamelessly boot licking their funders. The ideals of capitalism are founded around market efficiency through survival of the fittest. What has been created is a fascist monopoly. I did do enough research before writing this to learn that you can use the word fascist to describe just about any political system with which you aren't pleased. There were so many varied forms of fascism that there isn't really as solid definition of it, but it is still a useful term for putting a "smell" on something. The core of my complaint is the violent power shift we are experiencing which I believe will soon rival and possibly exceed Medieval power structures in their atrocity and disparity.

It would be hard to find anyone with an eighth grade education in the United States that could not have pointed out 3 years ago that housing was overpriced and people were over extended. The fact is despite the clarity and abundance of this information banks persisted in making bad loans and miraculously found that they lost money. That on its self is not a problem in my mind. I believe the right to stupidity is one of the fundamental tenants of human freedom which must be tenaciously defended. The problem comes in the idea that the correction of the problem should come out of the middle of our society. A 700 billion dollar bailout (I'll admit to being short research here but I think the US population is about 350 million) proportionally represents $14,000 coming out of my house hold in as much as there are seven people in it. The country's concern is not in doing anything right or fair. The country or rather the country's leaders concerns are based in maintaining the power structures that gave them their position. Wait a minute aren't we a democracy aren't we the structure under which the leaders gained their power? Apparently not. The mighty dollar feeding the propaganda machines to fill empty minds with distracting notions is the structure. If people don't like an idea it is simply that there has not been enough invested in changing their perception of it. (The last is taken almost directly from John Mcain in reference to reframing the bailout as a recovery).

Capitalism is a winner take all system and not necessarily the best way for a society to enable its citizens to realized their human potential. The major problem I see with communism is that it consolidates power in an inefficient and unbalanced way. When we take the worst parts of capitalism and then mix it with the worst parts of communism we have a real mess. When we have two candidates and a president who can't move in that direction quickly enough we have a disaster. The latest moves which sustain oversized power structures by draining the resources of the lower class citizens by increasing their tax burden is nothing but an amazing move toward the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer.

I believe the fact that I have never had a class in macro economics qualifies me to make great idealistic generalizations about what should happen to the national economy. I do not buy into the idea of being a credit economy in the form we have it. I think it is obvious to see that the current structure failed. If I am correct about the cause of the failure the failure was caused by over extension. I do not buy into the doom and gloom prophesied by the recovery plan pundits. The idea that if the government does not steal 700 Billion of our tax dollars to feed their insatiable funders we will experience another Great Depression is nothing more than more of the same "turn the constituents brains off", fear politics we have been suffering through for the last several years. I do believe that it is possible that there could be short term negative repercussions toward lack of government intervention. I also believe that the repercussions of class drift caused by people sacrificing their resources and thus their freedoms in reaction to fear is much more reprehensible. Having a bank fall on its face does not reduce the amount of fertile farm land we have in the country, it does not make trees for lumber disappear from the forest, it does not make metal disappear from the mines. Our country will have beds to sleep in and food to eat without cowing to power structures that mishandled their power and resource in the first place. We do not need to hand them more power and resource with a plea to protect us from a non-existent threat.

So please find me someone who is not interested in robbing the american of their freedom and I will consider giving them my vote. In the current situation I do not see how my conscience will reconcile a vote for either major candidate. To those supporters of Obama and McCain I offer my shallowest and most insincere apologies as I state your candidate does not represent the best interests of the American people.

By the way Lexie and I agree that if 33 brings this much cynicism unchecked I am going to be a real gem at 70.