independent and interdependent

We talk a great deal about whether we are independent or interdependent.  We wonder if the actions of one blind person can change attitudes toward the blind.  We often become discouraged by the immensity of the challenge of changing attitudes, and we throw up our hands and say, "I just can't do anything about it". 

Lily Yeh is not blind.  She is an artist.  One individual.  But Lily Yeh listened to her inner self and then took the next step.  She acted.  And out of her individual action an organization blossomed. Independent:  Interdependent?  Individual?  Organizational?  It's all part of the same thing.  We are all joined together.  Read about Lily Yeh's approach to making change and see if it doesn't make sense. 

Curious Carl

 

Barefoot Artists, Inc. is a nonprofit arts organization based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania that uses the power of art to transform impoverished communities. Founded in 2003 by Lily Yeh, Barefoot Artists aims to train and empower local residents, organize communities, and take action for a more compassionate, just and sustainable (better) future. Using the concept and model proven in her 20 years of work in inner city North Philadelphia at the Village of Arts and Humanities in North Philadelphia and in other poor communities in the States, Yeh works on projects in Rwanda, Kenya, Ghana, Ecuador, China, and Rwanda, among others. As the name implies, Barefoot Artists is a volunteer organization with few encumbrances of staff and overhead. Yeh raises funds for specific projects that pair volunteer expertise with local people to improve environment, advance health, education, and economic development. When funds are raised for a project, a call for volunteers is held and a group of volunteers and some paid staff are organized.

During the project process, participants learn Barefoot Artists methodology on community building and economic development through art. We aim to inspire the participants such that they will take initiative to start their own projects, bring other volunteers, funding sources and new opportunities to the communities in need. We intend that the various programs initiated by volunteers become multi-faceted and inter-connected so as to better serve the communities. To read more about the Village and see photos of the projects, please click here.

This may be a better lead in: the amazing blind mowing machine

Subject: This may be a better lead in: the amazing blind mowing machine

 

(Note: recently the National Federation of the Blind has been promoting a Blind Driver Challenge.  This widely publicised event was held Saturday,
January 29 at the Daytona International Speedway.  Featured was the public debut of a car equipped with a nonvisual
interface that will empower a blind person to drive without sighted assistance.

Every new development has its beginnings somewhere back in time.  Could the following account be connected to the Blind Car? 

 

**********

 

 the amazing blind mowing machine 

 

by

 

Carl Jarvis 

 

Long before many of you were able to do more than wet your diapers and hunt for your lost Binky, my neighbor Earl and I invented the Amazing Blind Mowing
Machine. 

 

The year was 1967 and I had been totally blind for just over 2 years.  I had devised a tedious method of mowing my lawn, involving a couple of long stakes
with heavy twine tied between them, driving them into the ground at each side of the lawn, then walking out three strides and backing up to the twine again,
moving over a short distance and doing it again.  Over and over, each time I reached the opposite edge I'd move the stakes up three paces and repeat the trip. 
It got the job done, but it took two and a half hours to mow what I used to mow in just an hour. 

 

My neighbor Earl was a backyard inventor, having several patents on some clever and useful gadgets.  Watching me got his creative juices running in high
gear. 

 

"There must be an easier way for you to mow that grass", he mused one day as I was wiping the sweat from my brow.  "Do you mind if I try designing something?" 
Well I said I didn't mind just so long as I was involved in the design.  And so we thought and thought and figured and figured and scratched our heads
and scratched other places, too.  Finally it was designed, drawn up, materials purchased, and the finished product was hauled into my yard and set in place. 

 

There it stood, the Amazing Blind Mowing Machine.  A long rail ran the length of my lawn, topped with a metal runner.  On the runner was attached a pulley. 
From the pulley ran a length of heavy fishing line.  The line was attached to a device that I strapped to me.  It was about 18 inches wide and had a peg
at either side.  The fishing line was wound between the pegs.  After I mowed one length of my yard I would wind the fishing line up one turn, reposition
myself and trundle back down the lawn just barely overlapping my first cut. 

 

And to keep me on target, each peg was attached to a buzzer.  If I veered just a bit to the right, "Buzz, buzz, buzz!"  And If I went too far to the left,
"Rasp, Rasp, Rasp".  So down the yard I went, rasping and buzzing away.  It worked, but it drove me crazy. 

 

I would have junked the whole thing then and there except old Earl stood tall and proud, smiling his big happy grin. 

 

So I thanked him and put cotton in my ears. 

 

But that was only the beginning.  One fine morning a few days after our trial run, a knock came at my door.  There stood a young woman and a young man. 
"We're from the Seattle Post Intelligencer", she proudly announced.  "We're hear to see your Amazing Blind Mowing Machine in action". 

 

Earl must have been watching out his side window, because he came bustling over eager to explain just how he came up with this wonderful invention and how
it had made life so much easier for me.  The next morning, there I was.  Fortunately not on Page One, but on the first page of B Section.  As if that weren't
bad enough, my phone began ringing off the hook.  The story had made the AP Wire Service.  Calls came in from Tennessee, Florida, Oklahoma, New Jersey,
Kansas and several from local towns.  "When are you going into production?" they all clamored.  "Boy, how's it work?  Can we have it shipped by next April?" 

 

But good things happen to good people.  We sold our house and moved several miles away from Earl.   I packed up the Amazing Blind Mowing Machine, promising
Earl that I'd be setting it up first thing.  Then I stacked it in the garage and forgot it ever existed.  New address, new phone number and the calls quit
coming in. 

 

But I can't help wondering.  Did someone in the National Federation of the Blind hang onto that old AP press release and decide that if it worked for a
lawn mower it just might be adapted to a car?   

 

should driving be a priority among the blind?

Regarding the recent flap over the National Federation of the Blind's research into developing a car that blind people can drive. 

 

How the NFB chooses to spend their resources and energy is their business not ours.  But like Democrats and Republicans, we are often quick to criticize one another, just because. 

Now, having said all that in the way of a disclaimer, I personally think that it is one of the silliest uses of anyone's money that we've ever come up with. 

This one person one car, or pickup truck, is no longer sustainable.  We think that our present way of life will just go on forever.  We seem to believe that urban sprawl, super freeways, gas guzzling smelly piles of tin and grease are the natural way of things. 

The fact of the matter is that in our human history, this way of life is an anomaly. 

This so called modern development has not been brought about by good planning or concern over our human future, not to mention the future of our planet and all life, it has been driven by Greed.  Progress has been measured by how many cars are cranked off the production lines, how many new housing developments have been stuck on fertile farmland, how many airplanes and airports connect the cities of the world. 

And we blind people buy right on into this attitude of, Me for Me First.  We want what everybody else has, so we can be just like them, Normal!  Normal?  Let's put a car in every garage and a gun on every hip.  Think of a billion Chinese and another billion Indians covering their farmlands with freeways and housing projects and garages full of cars. 

In my short lifetime our nation has grown from 125,000,000 to something around 300,000,000 people.  When I started life in 1935, most of us lived on farms and in small towns.  But Greed, hiding behind the name of Progress soon changed all of that.  And here we are, wanting to be part of it rather than working to put some common sense back into our nation's heads. 

We really could become the Blind leading the blind.  We could begin talking about a more liveable world for all people.  Or we can all line up to take our turn "driving" our very own car down that road paved with good intentions. 

 

Curious Carl

 

to drive or not to drive

To All Dreamers and Sci-Fi Fans,

 

Having cut my teeth on Galaxy Science Fiction Magazine from the time I could pronounce, Isaac Asimov, I dream of a Utopian Future.  One person, one car is not in that dream.  Nor are billions of new people shoving each other aside in order to swallow the last decent gulp of water.  We have big problems to solve, starting with today's attack on our social services and our basic safety net.  The ACB can determine it's own priorities without worrying about where the NFB chooses to put their energy.  Nor do we need to waste time speculating as to why they made their decision. 

This is why we have choices as to which organization we join. 

Frankly, I like being in an organization that can quibble and even bicker a bit and still come up with solid positions on issues that effect all blind people. 

 

Curious Carl

 

tightwad tuesday and frugal friday

 

Want to get the attention of President Obama, or all of congress for that matter. 

We need to put action behind our petitions. 

What if we declared every Tuesday to be Tightwad Tuesday? 

On that one day of the week we keep our wallets, check books, credit cards closed.  We do not spend a single red cent.  And we send an message to our president and our elected officials that until they stop and listen to us we will continue.  Of course they will think we're really silly, if they think at all.  And at first it will appear to be like spitting into a Gale.  But if just a few of us do it, and each week we can talk a few more folks into joining in, over a period of time, maybe even by next presidential election, we will have an army of men and women refusing to spend money on Tuesday.  And when we contact our elected officials and our president we let them know that if they do not begin representing us, we will add Frugal Friday.  Of course we would be spending about the same money each month, just not on Tightwad Tuesday or Frugal Friday.  But think of what it would do to Corporate America if on one or two days a week, Wal-mart was as empty as a Baptist Church on Saturday?  No gas was pumped?  No line up at McDonalds? 

We have the power of the purse.  Remember, these First Class Corporate Americans are driven by Greed.  They want our money.  And by withholding it we can drive them crazy. 

You say it just can't work?  That's what they told Gandhi. 

 

Curious Carl

Oregon School for the Blind to be torn down

Is this tearing down of the Oregon school for the blind symbolic of the destruction of America's Public Education?  Clean it out, tear it down, erase all traces of it's once proud existence.  Hand our children over to the predators who will use them for profit and leave their bodies strewn in the Hobo camps and the poor farms. 

 

Curious Carl

 

Federal Crime? Beck's Call to Violence: "Shoot Them in the Head"

Subject: Re: Federal Crime? Beck's Call to Violence: "Shoot Them in the Head"

If Beck lived in Iran, we would call him a Terrorist and sic the CIA on him. 

 

Curious Carl

 

what this country needs is a good 2 party system

Subject: what this country needs is a good 2 party system

Miriam and others have bemoaned the fact that they cannot any longer cast their votes for Democrats.  I join with them.  My reason is simple.  The Democratic Party exists in name only.  It may have begun to merge into the one party government we have today, long before Bill Clinton drove the final nails into the Parties coffin, but by the time he turned the national reigns  over to the capable hands of George W. Bush, the funeral was over. 

Finally, after 8 years of total destruction of our American Dream by the greedy Bush supporters, Wall Street Bankers and Brokers, we believed that we had a new hope in Barak Obama.  And we gave him a commanding majority in both the house and the senate.  But we now see that it was too late.  There really was no longer a Democratic Party.  We had merely put new faces in congress to continue business as usual. 

I disagree with those who say Obama sold us out.  We fooled ourselves in believing his platitudes.  We never had him at all.  Obama had been groomed in the same manner as most of our trusted leaders, the American Corporate Protective Association, better known as American Education.  Public or private, the American Educational System is set in place by the Ruling Class to train the very leaders they will need to protect their way of life. 

We have allowed ourselves to be taken for a ride down a road that has no return. 

What this country needs is a good two party system. 

But it will never have it because a good second party will never be heard. 

 

Curious Carl

 

Browse my blog
www.curiouscarlscorner.blogspot.com

Scalia, Thomas Dined at Fancy Koch Dinners Before CitizensUnited Ruling, Advocacy Group Wants DOJ Investigation

Subject: Re: Scalia, Thomas Dined at Fancy Koch Dinners Before CitizensUnited Ruling, Advocacy Group Wants DOJ Investigation

When I worked for the state as a Business Enterprises Program  Counselor, I could not accept a ten cent cup of coffee without putting a dime on the counter.  When suppliers doing business with our program wanted to give us a Christmas box of chocolates, we had to refuse it .  And that broke this old chocoholic's heart. 

 

Curious Carl

 

The Future Is Becoming More Clear -- Abandon Sprawl

Subject: Re: The Future Is Becoming More Clear -- Abandon Sprawl,Intensify Use of High Speed Rail and Return to Urban Life,Like the US Was in the '20s

 

For years I've advocated high speed rail service between Seattle, Spokane, Portland and ultimately on to San Francisco and Sacramento, and beyond.  Travelling at 200 miles per hour would take a person about one and a half hours to go from down town Seattle to down town Spokane.  Currently it is about a 45 minute air trip.  But you have to go out to SeaTac, which takes at least an hour from most areas of greater Seattle, arrive at least an hour early and once at Spokane's Fairchild Airport, it will take the better part of another hour to reach the city center. 

The total time will be at least 4 hours plus all the hassle.  And in foggy conditions your flight will be cancelled, delayed or routed to Portland. 

But what could we do with all that sprawl that has grown up around SeaTac Airport?  Hmm...well, we could turn it back into farm land.  Just a thought. 

 

Curious Carl

 

Blind children; are we conditioning them for mediocracy?

Subject: Re: [acb-l] Blind children; are we conditioning them for mediocracy?

Hello Karen,

Like your parents, mine also expected each of their children would share equally all chores.  I am the middle child, a sister on either side.  I took my turn standing on a chair washing and drying dishes, swinging a broom that towered over my head, and washing woodwork and windows. 

A major difference between you and me.  I was a low vision kid back in the day when either you were blind or you were sighted.  Blind meant no sight.  I could see, hence I was sighted.  Despite my heavy bifocals I was expected to do everything every other sighted child could do.  So I believed that all I had to do was to try a little harder and concentrate a little more and I could learn to hit the baseball, sink the basket ball, catch the foot ball.  I'll tell you, I caught many a ball on my nose or my chest or on the tips of my fingers, jamming my knuckles.  And I watched many a ball go sailing past me because I saw it too late.  It was my lot to be the last boy picked when we chose up sides.  In fact, if it were mixed boys and girls, the girls were picked ahead of me. 

My parents did not know about my problems on the school playing field, but they didn't help matters at home.  If I reached for something and knocked it off, they would snap, "Don't be so clumsy".  If they pointed to something and I wasn't able to see what it was, they would say, "It's right over there, stupid". 

And so it came to pass that Clumsy Stupid was synonymous with  Visually Impaired. 

It's funny.  Because I am also left handed, I decided that this was at the root of my clumsiness.  So I did as much with my right hand in an attempt to overcome my awkwardness. 

While on the one hand I was driven to succeed, on the other hand I developed a serious self esteem problem. 

It took years and lots of hard work to overcome this inferiority complex.  But because I was secretly driven, I poured my heart and soul into the challenge.  And now today I am just a normal, well adjusted, kind, intelligent, good looking, average sort of a wonderful fellow. 

 

Curious Carl

Is Critical Journalism Incomprehensible to NPR?

Subject: Re: Is Critical Journalism Incomprehensible to NPR?

As we sit helplessly by and watch the old National Public Radio, now simply, NPR, which may stand for, National Propaganda Radio, being dismantled and gobbled up by corporate interests, we must vow to fight to hold onto our free internet.  This may become the last source of contact with reality. 

Sure, there are crazies wandering about hyperspace, but most folks with half a brain, that's about three times the amount possessed by the average Glenn Beck lover, will be able to quickly sort the wheat from the chaff. 

 

Curious Carl

 

NPR Finds Right-Wing Crank to Spit on Zinn's Grave

Subject: Re: NPR Finds Right-Wing Crank to Spit on Howard Zinn's Grave

The bad news was that NPR, which must stand here for, "No Particular Reason", gave David Horowitz a public forum to spew his vile anger.  The good news is that David Horowitz exposed himself to probably the last semi conscious people who still listen to radio for anything resembling "news".  Most of us, upon hearing David Horowitz's stupid mouthing just shook our heads and moved on.  Had he made his declaration on Fox, he would have received a bonus and a dozen red, long stemmed roses. 

 

Curious Carl

 

we're family

 

Hello Andy,

The ACB is Family.  We need to keep that thought in mind.  Like yourself, I joined the NFB, mostly on the basis of the Jacobus tenBroek speeches, but in addition I became fast friends with Ken Hopkins and Manuel Urena.  At first it seemed that we were truly the blind leading the blind, a grass roots movement.  But as time went forward I began to be bothered by the elitist attitude among the leadership.  The NFB began taking on the trappings of a corporation rather than a people's movement.  Control of state and local chapters became managed from Headquarters. 

This is not to criticize the NFB.  It is certainly a force to be reckoned with in blind affairs, but it is not any longer a family, or having anything approaching a democratic base. 

When President Jernigan began telling our state chapter what we could and could not do within our own state, we defied him.  Oops!  The short end of a long story is that we were kicked out and our state was, "Reorganized", by a few faithful believers. 

We sued to stay in, believing that we had a right to be the loyal opposition.  Wrong again.  The court said the NFB had the right to put us out. 

Today I maintain that the ACB is the only national organization of the blind.  The NFB has morphed into a National Agency of/for the Blind.  The state chapters exist at the pleasure of the Central Office and are mostly fund raisers for the Jernigan Center. 

I know that some of my friends in the NFB will protest that I'm being far too harsh, but I do not intend this as a statement either for or against the NFB.  To me it is simply pointing out the major differences between two organizations. 

Curious Carl

 

News Alert: Deadly Blast Strikes in Moscow's Main Airport

Subject: Re: News Alert: Deadly Blast Strikes in Moscow's Main Airport

 

Claude wrote:

the persons who indoctrinate and send these suicide bombers have the blood of the bombers and the blood of the victims on their hands and they will pay in the next life.

 

Regards,

Claude,

As an old Agnostic, I want solutions in this life.  I am afraid that the much Heralded Hereafter is just another Fairy Tale dreamed up by the Ruling Class to keep us in line. 

 

Curious Carl

 

House GOP Group Would Decimate Key Services

Subject: Re: House GOP Group Would Decimate Key Services

Just wondering.  Since the state of Oregon declared the School for the Blind to be too costly to continue existing, and they sold off the school buildings and grounds, can't we declare the Pentagon to also be far too costly and ineffective to continue funding?  Just how much do you think we could get for the property? 

I'd include the White House, too, but they'd probably declare it an historical monument and we couldn't tear it down. 

 

Curious Carl

 

is our goal to be "like" or to be "Equal"?

For many long years Black people worked hard to appear just like the White First Class folks.  They tried to lighten their skin, straighten their hair, even have nose jobs.  But in the end they remained physically different in ways that were obvious.  And so it came to pass that Blacks realized their goal was not to become like their White brothers and sisters, but to be Equal to them.  "Black is Beautiful", became the new cry, uniting Blacks of all shades and from all corners of the nation.  They set about teaching themselves and their children to be proud of who they were, not to try to hide it or to change it.  They understood that equality was both an internal matter as well as a political one. 

And that's all I'm saying about us Blind Folk.  We cannot blend into the Sighted World.  We must become proud and confident as Blind People, equal to all other First Class Citizens, with our distinct differences. 

Suggesting that we "become like" sighted people is to deny that which we are, Proud, Confident Blind People. 

 

Curious Carl

 

Fw: Secrecy News, more leak cases, January 7, 2011

Remember the little boy who turned to his father and said, "The Emperor has no clothes!"  The innocent child exposes the Truth.  Everyone knew the Truth but were either too afraid to speak it or were profiting from its concealment. 

The little boy was the hero in this story.  But today that same little boy would be arrested, held for months in solitary confinement, tortured until he changed his story, repented and asked God's forgiveness and sent to some Black Hole Prison to rot. 

Run, run, WikkiLeak Man.

You gotta stay away from the Empire's Man.  He'll grill you and chill you and brand you with T. 

And throw you in the Hole for Eternity. 

 

Curious Carl

 

Fw: [acb-l] Education IN AMerica

Membership in a gang provides a sense of belonging and members are able to gain respect of their fellow gang brothers and sisters.  Compare this to a community that has ignored them, told them by word and deed that they are worthless and nothing but trouble, and it's easy to understand why we are losing the fight against Terror.  Heck, we're breeding it right here at home. 

But as long as we are worshipping the Golden Calf and hold our Money Changers in higher regard than we do our children, we will continue to watch our future turn ugly. 

 

Curious Carl

 

What sort of education do we want for blind children?

 

In talking about the education, or lack thereof, of our blind children, it seems to me that we skip over a basic question.  What is it that we are wanting to teach blind children? 

Do we mean that we want them to be able to compete in the world with sighted people?  This seems to be what we are saying when we debate the benefits of residential schools versus public schools, wondering if one system is superior over the other in preparing our children to compete equally in the sighted community. 

We teach the blind child that they must become competitive to sighted people in order to be successful in life. 

Often we teach much more by what we do not say than by what we think we are teaching. 

What message is the blind child really getting when he/she is constantly being compared to the sighted?  Of course blindness is going to be seen as inferior and undesirable and a curse. 

I have a cousin who is an Albino.  Even legally blind he is a clever artist and also a talented musician.  But whenever family gathered my aunt would parade my cousin out and exclaim, "Don't you think Ron's hair is getting darker?  Look at his eyes, they're actually turning blue!"  My aunt wanted so much for my cousin to be just like the other children. 

So what do you think this did to my cousin's self image?  As young adults we both worked in a drapery factory.  We were eating lunch one day and discussing our futures. I had been going on at some length when my cousin said, "That's all and good for you.  You're not a freak!" 

Without ever knowing it my aunt had programmed her son to believe that being Albino was akin to being a Freak. 

Is this what we are doing to our blind children? 

Try harder my little dears, you can become just like the sighted children. 

This unspoken education goes on even in the best programs because we are so focused on helping our children to succeed that we are totally forgetting the child. 

We need to step back and decide just how we do guide each child.  How do we both teach them that it is respectful to be blind, and still teach them the skills they will need to survive and live full, productive, rewarding lives as blind people.  As people who are okay about being blind.  As people who do not resent sighted people because they have always been made to appear superior. 

It is not the physical setting, residential versus public school, it is the philosophy, the approach in teaching, that is the critical issue.  Education occurs inside the individual's brain, not in a place outside the head. 

 

Curious Carl

 

 

more on Education IN AMerica for the blind

 

We have the answers as to how to change the system in order to meet the needs of blind children.  What we don't have is the commitment.  Our society has chosen to worship at the feet of the Idol of Wealth and Greed rather than to go out into the towns and countryside and meet the people's needs.  Until we change our priorities we will continue to see blind children underserved.  We will be told that it simply costs too much to provide the level of services needed to give them the same opportunities as "normal" children. 

 

Curious Carl

 

education in America

Dear Clifford,

 

We are in more agreement than disagreement Clifford.  But I see education as a Right, not a privilege.  And as a Right, it carries with it all of the conditions that go with protecting our Rights.  Education should be a Right that is provided to all who accept the responsibilities of applying their time, energy and attention.  Education must take on the responsibility of setting conditions for students to succeed.  But it must also set conditions to allow those who are not succeeding in the mainstream to move to alternative tracks, as Clifford suggests.  We cannot allow our educational system to cast students aside as failures or misfits.  Turning our backs and washing our hands of them will only come back to haunt us.  But we cannot continue to pretend that we can have one big school that meets every Childs needs.  And that is the place where I differ with those who say "throwing money" will not solve the problem. 

Money is critical to quality education.  But not without a major change in our approach to Education, as suggested above.  But money allows us to bring together enough trained teachers to work with smaller groups of children, ending the "warehousing" conditions that exist in many of today's schools.  It allows us to put up facilities that suggest to children that they really matter, rather than signaling to them through the crumbling, drafty, poorly equipped, over crowded buildings, that this is all they have to look forward to. 

Where the money comes from is another battle, but money must come from somewhere.  We have always had enough money to support dictators and despots in far off places, and to fight endless wars that are supposed to protect these very children now being neglected.  But only we, the people can determine how best to spend, or allow our money to be spent.  What I know from my years on this planet is that money does buy quality education.  Go to any private school in a wealthy neighborhood.  Go to an Ivy League school.  Look about you and then wander into the ghetto and tour the Consolidated School, and travel on over to the public college.  After viewing the physical condition of the facilities, look at the faces and body language of the students. 

The confidence and hope and excitement that we saw in the Ivy League and private schools are not in existence in the poor public schools. 

And this is where so many of our blind children find themselves.  Plodding along, almost without hope.  Treated as castoffs.  Looked upon as a waste of time and money.  Too costly to educate.  A poor investment.  Wards of the State. 

We blind people, along with All Americans, deserve the Right to the same education as do the wealthiest of our people.  We are Damn well worth it.  And it will take money and more right thinking teachers. 

 

Curious Carl

 

thank God we got our priorities straight!

Thank God we are spending billions in an illegal war, and propping up despots and dictators in order to protect our Freedom.  Think of how bad it would be if we had spent that money foolishly here at home building and staffing decent schools, building and staffing community health centers, building trade schools, funding startup programs for small businesses, cleaning up our ghettos and building low cost housing, clearing out the debris from our parks and national forests and actually hiring enough workers to keep them clean and safe, filling pot holes in city streets and rebuilding highways and bridges that are crumbling from neglect.  Yes, we are sure smart not to waste our money in such frivolous stuff. 

 

Curious Carl

 

Reince Priebus. God is on his side!

My  other point besides the fact that organized religion has conditioned our minds more than we care to admit is, that in having God Almighty to place our hopes in, we actually take no responsibility for so much of our actions.  We thank God or we blame Him.  We point to Satan and to our constant battle with Good and Evil.  But we don't believe that we ultimately have control.  All things are in God's hands. 

We just follow His lead.  Like the new NRC chair Reince Priebus, who was elected on the seventh ballot, said, I give thanks to God and praise Jesus Christ, or words to that effect. 

Don't expect any compromise from this fellow or others like him.  They have God on their side.  How can they be wrong? 

 

Curious Carl

 

Helpless in the Face of Madness

As long as we pretend that we are a peace loving nation and close our minds to the fact that we are actually one Damned violent, angry gaggle of crazed Geese, we will not change our ways. 

 

Curious Carl

 

The Fed Has Spoken: No Bailout for Main Street

Subject: Re: The Fed Has Spoken: No Bailout for Main Street

And why should they feel obliged to let go of what they believe to be rightfully theirs? 

The Ruling Class believes that America is their private Estate.  They may wander among their orchards and crops and pluck that which they want.  They are the reapers.  We are their laborers. 

Can we understand that once a segment of the population declare themselves more equal than the rest of the people, they are under no obligation to share that which is rightfully theirs.  In times past these people would have believed that God had chosen them as superior Beings.  Oops!  I guess some things never change. 

 

Curious Carl

 

its past time to shake up public education

My dear friend, you and I go down the same road regarding education.  Maybe some places we could pause and debate some minor differences, but mostly it's time we take our public education by the scruff of the neck and give it a good shaking. 

What you outline is not unlike that which is working in other nations.  And they are beginning to leave Americans in the chalk dust. 

Why we ever allowed a fine Trade School System as once existed in the Seattle area to be turned into community colleges, I'll never know.  But one by one these schools closed or morphed into what I call extended high school. 

Of course Trade Schools do need something called Trades in order to justify their existence.  How can we turn out thousands of blue collar skilled tradespersons into a jobless nation?  Perhaps instead of a certificate of graduation we could present them with a one way ticket to India?  Or wherever trades jobs are happening. 

So now we also have to fix our sagging manufacturing and industrial businesses. 

And at the same time, and perhaps just as important in this new American Education, is our approach to education itself. 

Ann touched on this in talking about how she would structure this new system.  But I believe that we must train our teachers to be honest evaluators and insightful advisors and guidance counselors.  These new teachers must break from the traditional patterns of teaching children that education is a pyramid with the few very bright children climbing up through college to the top of the heap.  A PHD or at the very least a Masters is the sign of having won a brass ring.  The rest of the young, the vast majority, are seen as ho hum losers and ne'er do wells. 

Rather than do the hard work of finding a place for their skills and talents and directing them toward success, our lack of skills as teachers pushes them into believing that they are failures and rejects.  And then we go about wondering why our inner cities are crumbling into war zones? 

It's time to stop blaming the victims and come up to the line and take responsibility and roll up our sleeves and care enough about our fellow Americans to do the hard work. 

 

Curious Carl

 

Fw: Beck's Incendiary Rhetoric Has Motivated Threats,Assassination Attempts

If Glenn Beck or Sarah Palin walked to center stage in a crowded theater, took the microphone and falsely screamed, "Fire!  Run for your lives!", they would be held responsible for the deaths and injuries that were the result of their words. 

But of course they do not merely shout, "Fire!" because they are skilled Word Smiths, well Beck is, and they cover their shout with many babblings.  But the bottom line is that the Beck's and Palin's of America are stampeding people just as surely as if they'd screamed, "Fire, Run for your Lives!" 

 

Curious Carl

 

 

 

Meet Newly Elected RNC Chair Reince Priebus

And Reince Priebus publicly announced that he owes it all to God and Jesus Christ. 

I think I just heard God wince. 

Carl Jarvis

 

 

Meet Newly Elected RNC Chair Reince Priebus



by Paul Breer



Truthout, Friday January 14, 2011



http://www.truth-out.org/print/66873



Reince Priebus just became the 65th Chairman of the RNC by garnering 97
votes in the seventh round of voting.  After the fourth vote, Michael Steele
dropped out of the running and said, "It's very clear that the party wants
to do something different."  Saul Anuzis obtained 43 votes and Maria Cino 28
votes.  Here is what you need to know about the new RNC chairman:



block quote--Priebus's law firm sought funds from Obama's stimulus package:
Connecticut GOP chairman Chris Healy noted that Priebus's Wisconsin law firm
helped its clients obtain federal stimulus funds, citing the fact that
Priebus's name was attached to the "Stimulus and Economic Recovery Group."
Priebus immediately responded to the story, claiming he had never worked
with his firm's "Stimulus and Economic Recovery" group.



-His law firm says the recently passed health care bill is constitutional:
Priebus's law firm not only says the law is constitutional, but has touted
its benefits to clients.



-Implicated in voter caging:  While Priebus was chair of the Wisconsin GOP,
the state party fomented voter fraud conspiracies and hatched a voter caging
plot with well-funded right-wing allies to suppress minority votes.  One
Wisconsin Now Executive Director Scot Ross said, "When voter suppression
allegations have surfaced in Wisconsin for the past decade, the name Reince
Priebus isn't far behind."



-He has the backing of many of the Barbour clan:  Henry Barbour, a
committeeman from Mississippi and the nephew of Gov. Hale Barbour (R-MS),
enticed Priebus into running for the RNC chair.  Also, Nick Ayers, a close
Barbour associate and executive director of the Republican Governors
Association, reportedly gave behind-the-scenes support to Priebus, leading
many to believe Priebus would favor Barbour for president in 2012.  Priebus
responded by saying, "I'm not Haley's choice, I don't think that Haley has
any horse in the race, and he's made that pretty clear on the record."



-Priebus had close ties to former chairman Michael Steele, then stabbed him
in the back:  Priebus was Steele's general counsel and frequently served as
Steele's top liaison to committee members.  In a memo sent to RNC members,
Connecticut Party chairman Chris Healy said that Priebus is partly
responsible for the RNC's poor performance.  Commenting on Priebus' run,
Steele recently said, "It's disappointing, you would hope that the bonds of
loyalty were thicker than they apparently were."



-Priebus mistakenly called for Obama's execution:  In a media conference
call about Osama Bin Laden, Priebus slipped and accidentally called for the
"execution" of Obama three separate times.  "My guess is he would believe
that Obama should be executed and he oughta be treated as a war criminal,"
Priebus explained.



block quote end



Priebus has said that he is dissatisfied with the 20 million dollar debt run
up by Steele, but as has been shown, Priebus worked closely with Steele
during his tenure.  So there's a new face, but it's still the same old
party.

The Class War Launched by America's Wealthiest Is Getting More Savage

 

Letter to an acquaintance

Good Saturday morning Gigi,

Your experiences are my experiences.  I, like you, am exposed to the decline and ruination of our once beautiful middle class, and all that it brought to strengthen our great nation.  What you experienced is happening all over the country.  During my 17 years working in the same building, in the same neighborhood, walking the same streets each morning and evening, I watched a working class neighborhood fall into rubble.  Homes, once family owned, became the property of slum lords.  The streets I once walked at night, unafraid, became filled with wandering bands of thugs and vandals and drug dealers and prostitutes.  Long time citizens put triple locks on their doors and bars on their windows and never went out at night, held prisoner in their homes while the thugs had free reign.  This once proud Italian community we called Garlic Gulch, Rainier Valley in South Seattle, is now a blighted abandoned ghetto .  A mixture of poor Black, poor Asian, poor Latinos and poor White. 

Is this the natural course of events?  Did we need to allow this crumbling to take place?  Is it enough to just weep and say that it is the way of things and it is their own fault?  What caused us to lose control over our middle class?  Over our unions?  Over our beautiful American Dream of a job, a home and a family?  Why is it only good enough for a small percentage of our people and not for everyone? 

My simple minded answer is that it is because the people in charge do not care about *All of our people.  Indeed, they will cut their own throats if it brings profit to them.  They are what I call the Ruling Class, the Empire Builders.  And their bottom line, their only line is profit.  Greed is their Master.  Sure, they walk upright and enter their houses of worship and call on God to be on their side, but they serve a different Master.  Greed has other names.  He looks like our friend and says he cares for us right up until we look about and see the ruin that his people have made of our towns, our factories, our dignity, our schools, the list is endless. 

 

Gigi, my hope for a brighter future is not with those powerful, wealthy people now in control.  What you and I see about us is their legacy.  My hope is in those very people who roam the streets, lost, abandoned, attacking one another, grabbing your purse if you dare to go out unprotected.  If we cannot figure out how to empower these people, to teach them to have dignity and self respect and to build the power to change their communities rather than to continue the destruction, if we can't figure out how to turn that tide, then we had better sign up for that one way trip to Mars. 

 

Curious Carl

 

From: Gigi

Sent: Saturday, January 15, 2011 4:52 AM

Subject: Re: The Class War Launched by America's Wealthiest Is Getting More Savage

I can't dispute the stats illustrating income changes through the years, however, there's more in play than economics as regards why, here, in Pittsburgh, our, once thriving neighborhoods, have and continue their descent to ghettos.  Of course those children have little chance, but, several of them, despite their parents' choices, will work to succeed!!

 

Carl, I mean no disrespect, but, unless you've been exposed to living this nightmare...watching your beautiful neighborhood become one huge crime scene, in which your family and friends are the victims, you really, really can't speak to it!  Every one in my family, including myself, and most of our neighbors, fell victim to some crime, once the 'element' began moving in, and the police abandoned us, because, they, too, became targets!

 

And, unions 'were' formed to help the working man, but grew into a colossal greed and power machine!!  My Dad worked in Pittsburgh steel mills and on the railroad.  My husband was in unions. My sister is in AFSCME, as a county employee,  I'd worked for the Commonwealth of PA, also, under AFSCME, so, I know about that which I can state to a certainty.  I could send you my own novella on the lies behind the paragraph I'd c/p from what you'd sent: 

 

"Working people can organize and form unions. Unions do more than raise
wages. They improve working conditions and safety. They provide protection
against abuse, intimidation and wrongful dismissal. Non-union employers have
to compete, partly to keep out unions, so the existence of unions helps
everyone. Unions also have political power, they spend money and mobilize
their members to vote."

 

I do appreciate your sending this.  I know it's grim.  But, economics in but a mere piece of the puzzle in what creates a criminal!

 

Best, always,

Gigi 


----- Original Message -----
From: "Carl Jarvis" <carjar82@gmail.com>
To: "Gigi" <cjm0806@comcast.net>
Sent: Saturday, January 15, 2011 1:05:34 AM
Subject: The Class War Launched by America's Wealthiest Is Getting More Savage

Hi Gigi,

Whether you agree or disagree with this article, it underscores a serious problem with our American culture.  We are no longer putting the protection of *All Americans first.  We are putting *Profit first...and second...and...

Actually, this struggle has gone on between a government of the people, by the people and for the people versus a government of, by and for greed and plunder.  Right now Greed is on the inside rail ahead at least two lengths. 

Carl Jarvis
The Class War Launched by America's Wealthiest Is Getting More Savage
By Larry Beinhart, AlterNet
Posted on January 13, 2011, Printed on January 14, 2011
http://www.alternet.org/story/149531/

We're in a class war.

It's the corporations and the very wealthiest against all the rest of us.
We're losing.

In 1962 the wealthiest 1 percent of American households had 125 times the
wealth of the median household. Now it's 190 times as much. Is that a case
of a rising tide lifting all boats, just a few of them a little bit higher?
No.

From 1950 to 1965, median family income rose from $24,000 a year to $38,000
a year. That's close to 4 percent a year, close to 60 percent over 15 years.
That's a rising tide.

In 1964 there was a big tax cut. That's when things started to slow down for
average people. By the mid-'70s the rise of the middle class stalled. From
1975 to 2010 median family income rose $42,936 to $49,777. That's not quite
16 percent over 25 years, less than six-tenths of 1 percent per year.

Briefly, when taxes went up under Clinton, median income rose, peaked at
$52,587 in 1999, and then, after Bush cut taxes, declined. Keep in mind that
this is median family income. In the '50s and '60s, family income was
usually earned by a single person. Today, family income normally comes from
at least two people.

At the same time, income for the richest soared. In 1979 the richest 1
percent of Americans earned 9 percent of all U.S. income. Now they earn 24
percent of all U.S. income. One percent of Americans earn nearly one-fourth
of all the income in the country.

Then came the crashes of 2001 and 2008 and the recessions that followed.

The crash hasn't changed anything. Things have become worse.

From 1990 to 2005, adjusted for inflation -- the minimum wage is down 9
percent, production workers' pay is up only over 15 years 4.3 percent.

At the same time, the rich get richer:

Corporate profits are up 106.7 percent. The S&P 500 is still up 141.4
percent since 1990. CEO compensation is up 282 percent. Call it transfer of
wealth. Or call it class warfare.

What's wrong with the rich getting richer?

Slate's Timothy Noah, in "The United States of Inequality," wrote, "Income
distribution in the United States [has become] more unequal than in Guyana,
Nicaragua, and Venezuela, and roughly on par with Uruguay, Argentina, and
Ecuador."

Take a look at that list.

Countries with wide income inequality don't lead the world in research,
technology, industry, and innovation. They're unstable. They have large
underclasses. They have high rates of crime. They have little opportunity.

In such countries the rich have disproportionate power. They take control of
all aspects of society, especially government, the police, and the
judiciary. They become self perpetuating.

If current trends continue, "The United States by 2043 will have the same
income inequality as Mexico." (Tula Connell, Mar 12, 2010, AFL-CIO Now.)

Countries with high levels of income inequality are third-world countries.

Here's how regular people can deal with cultures of high inequality. The
primary, and best, weapon is a progressive tax structure. As people move up
the income ladder they pay a higher rate at each rung. Unearned income -from
dividends and capital gains - is taxed at least as high as earned income
(money that people actually work for.) Tax cuts for the wealthy mark, with
great precision, the decline in fortunes of ordinary Americans. Tax cuts for
the wealthy mark, with equal precision, the increase in inequality. We had a
chance to slow the process by letting the last round, the Bush tax cuts,
expire. We've lost that round.

People can become educated and move on up.

Back in the '60s, when I was growing up, New York City had free
universities. The burgeoning SUNY system charged $400 tuition a semester.
The minimum Regents scholarship was $400 a semester. If a student didn't get
one, he or she could easily earn enough to pay tuition with a summer job.
The same held true for most state university systems across the country.

Today, students have to borrow. The median student debt for an undergraduate
degree - forget about a doctorate, law school, and med school - is $20,000.
The first, and truest, lesson you learn when you go to college is how to be
in service to the banks.

We've lost that battle.

What does it mean?

"Children from low-income families have only a 1 percent chance of reaching
the top 5 percent of the income distribution, versus children of the rich
who have about a 22 percent chance.

"Children born to the middle quintile of parental family income ($42,000 to
$54,300) had about the same chance of ending up in a lower quintile than
their parents (39.5 percent) as they did of moving to a higher quintile
(36.5 percent). Their chances of attaining the top five percentiles of the
income distribution were just 1.8 percent."

(Understanding Mobility in America, April 26, 2006, Tom Hertz, American
University.)

Working people can organize and form unions. Unions do more than raise
wages. They improve working conditions and safety. They provide protection
against abuse, intimidation and wrongful dismissal. Non-union employers have
to compete, partly to keep out unions, so the existence of unions helps
everyone. Unions also have political power, they spend money and mobilize
their members to vote.

Businesses have become very good at beating unions. And they're getting
better at it. According to Business Week, ("How Wal-Mart Keeps Unions at
Bay," 10/28/2002),"over the past two decades, Corporate America has
perfected its ability to fend off labor groups."

In the 1940s a third of private sector employees were unionized. Now it's
down to just 7.2 percent. Unions only remain strong in the public sector,
where membership is 37 percent.

If you read the papers or watch the news, you will see an anti-public
service union story almost everyday. These are the people who teach your
kids, pick up the trash, clean the sewers, drive the buses and trains,
they're the police and fireman. The stories will tell you their pension fund
liabilities will bankrupt the states; that it's unionized teachers who have
ruined our schools. Charter schools - without unions - are the new favorite
charity for billionaires.    

When a country is, or becomes, a third-world country, the other thing people
can do is run. To some place richer and freer. Like America.

But when America becomes Mexico, where you gonna run to?


Larry Beinhart is the author of "Wag the Dog," "The Librarian," and "Fog
Facts: Searching for Truth in the Land of Spin." His latest book is
Salvation Boulevard. Responses can be sent to beinhart@earthlink.net.

C 2011 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/149531/

[w2]

MLK's speech April 1967

Perhaps Doctor Martin Luther King's most profound speech, and a turning point in his own public image.  No longer "just a Black Rights" leader, he was now a major figure in the World Peace Movement. 

Here's a link that will give you the audio.

  It is an amazing speech when you consider what America was like in 1967.

 

Curious Carl

 

American Rhetoric: Martin Luther King, Jr: A Time to Break Silence ...  

Oct 3, 2010 ... Complete text and audio of Martin Luther King's Declaration Against the Vietnam ... Delivered 4 April 1967, Riverside Church, New York City ... This speech is not addressed to Hanoi or to the National Liberation Front. ...
www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkatimetobreaksilence.htm - Cached - Similar

Poor, Poor Sarah? Could she be the next George W. Bush?

So there was this girl in my school.  Well, not just "this girl", but this really, really attractive girl.  I think we were all 13 or 14 at the time and we were just beginning to feel the hormonal rage. 

But every one of us boys loved this one girl.  In particular the two most popular boys, the really good looking fellows that hang out in every school, and we geeks all want to be just like them , only we would deny it and say that they were "pretty boys" or self centered. 

But these two flawless, rosy cheeked, glistening toothed, slick haired fellows had the inside track to our class candidate for Future Miss America.  And she played them like a fine Stradivarius, flirting openly with one of them right in front of the other.  And then turn right around and cozy up to the other kid while #1 lover seethed and stewed. 

Of course there was not a school event that did not turn into a personal match between these two combatants.  Right down to who could clean the most black boards or slap the chalk off the most erasers.  They loved to posture for her, strutting their beautiful young bodies, flexing their fledgling muscles, and even softly singing love songs to her as they passed in the halls.  You remember, tunes like, "Put another nickel in, in the nickelodium.  All I want is loving you and music, music, music".  Stuff like that. 

Of course this beauty queen was just sucking up all the attention and just to make certain she didn't discourage one or the other of them, she whispered to each one that he was really her only true love and she was just stringing the other fellow along because she just couldn't, I mean really didn't have the heart to crush him. 

And so they began shoving one another a bit, and then calling out names and insults, like, "Your mother wears combat boots", or, "Your father wears pink underwear". 

And they both began to press her to "Choose" the one she really and truly loved.  So she said, "If you want me, prove it!" 

And that brings me to that afternoon on the school play field.  We all had heard the whispers, and we all gathered out back behind the Wood shop Portable out of sight of the school office.  And there they were, circling and huffing and puffing like a couple of angry young Bulls in heat.  And then they were at it.  Arms and elbows , knees and legs all tangled together.  Fists slamming into whatever they could reach.  Even teeth marks appearing on exposed flesh.  Noses bleeding and blood splattering those of us closest to the battle.  Then #1 was on top of #2 and pounding his head onto the Black Top.  And then he had his knee on #2's throat and was choking him.  We yelled at him to stop.  We turned to the Queen, standing tall and proud and excited, and we pleaded for her to step in and stop this horror.  "I can't stop them from doing what they have to do," she breathed excitedly. 

"But you gotta stop them.  You pushed them into this", we cried. 

"How do you get that?  I didn't make them fight", she panted, looking bright eyed and a bit flushed. 

Thank Heaven someone had the good sense to run for help and old Miss Blanchard came roaring into the center of the circle, throwing bodies left and right. 

They had to rush boy #2 to the hospital, and it was months before he could talk above a hoarse whisper. 

And Miss Gorgeous went about denying that she was involved in any way whatsoever.  Indeed, I am told that among her circle of friends she was seen as the real victim. 

I wish I could report that she went on to become the mother of the governor of Alaska, but after school I lost track of her and can only suppose that she used her charm to do good in the world...for herself. 

 

Curious Carl

 

Subject: Re: Poor, Poor Sarah

I don't know if anyone else caught it, but during the first hour of his show yesterday, left-wing talk show host (and my favorite, to boot) Thom Hartmann indicated that he believed that Sarah Palin's video, along with some other statements by some of the right-wing's finest (not!) talkshow hosts, was a form of stochastic (hope I remembered the spelling correctly correctly) terrorism aimed at lone wolves. The goal of these people, according to Mr. Hartmann, is to encourage "lone wolves" that it is now time to get out and begin doing individual acts of violence against Americans, particularly those on the left, without having to claim responsibility for what they say. Thom says that what Mrs. Palin and her ilk are doing is the same thing that Osama bin-laden is doing when he releases new videos.

Food for thought.

Ted

 

WikiLeaks' Most Terrifying Revelation: Just How Much Our GovernmentLies to Us

Subject: WikiLeaks' Most Terrifying Revelation: Just How Much Our GovernmentLies to Us

A dictatorship is exclusive.  A democracy is inclusive.  Hmm, wonder which we are? 

Carl Jarvis

 

dear president obama

Dear President Obama,

 

Thank you for your moving speech at the memorial in Tucson. 

Thank you for pointing out that together we must bend our efforts to rebuild, rather than tear apart, our Great Nation. 

Thank you for challenging us to live up to the dreams and expectations of our children. 

Mister President, your words are moving indeed.  But as you stand before the audience your words are only as good as your willingness to now do as you challenge us to do.  Put them to action.  And as you challenge us to act upon our words you stand in front of a Landscape strewn with bodies, so many of them innocent men, women and children, victims of a senseless illegal war. 

As your words ring out across the world you stand before a broken nation that is draining away the very support systems that would give strength to what you say. 

So Mister President, are you willing to put action to your own words?  Are you now willing to step up and lead this broken nation?  Are you willing to end the suffering in our illegal wars?  Can you call home the destroyers of life and turn them into builders of hope and peace?  Can you turn swords into plow shares? 

Please Mister Obama, please lead us into a new world of peace. 

 

Citizen Carl Jarvis, an American Patriot

 

the Devil made me do it!

Back when I belonged to the local Cooks and Assistants Union it was a weak, company controlled organization.  I recall hiking across Seattle to lodge a complaint against my employer.  The Kress Dime Store had a large lunch counter.  They paid their employees no overtime, but your work had to be completed before you could clock out.  So the other workers would clock out and then return to finish up their work.  This did not seem fair to me at all.  So I would finish my work and then clock out. 

Of course I received no overtime pay.  Off I trotted to my boss, a kindly fellow who looked like he used to work as a prison guard or a drill sergeant.  I showed him my time card and asked how come I had not been paid in full.  "Everyone else gets their work done during their shift," he told me.  Naturally none of the other workers would back me.  Yet we had been ordered to join the union in order to work there.  So, off I went.  The union hall, a shabby hole in the wall, had two older fellows, one leaning against the wall and the other seated at a table reading the paper.  I leveled my complaint and they went into action.  Like Hell they did!  They just looked at me and shoved a form for me to write down what I'd told them.  "We'll check it out," they told me. 

When I returned to work my boss called me into his office.  "you're back on pots and pans", he growled.  "Pots and pans?" I gasped, "That's the entry level job".  Pots and pans were huge containers that often had several inches of goo burned to their bottoms. 

"Like it or leave it", he snapped. 

Somehow he'd gotten the word from the union hall.  I clocked out and came back the next payday to collect my money. 

A couple of weeks later I was sitting on my front steps at my parents house and the phone rang.  It was old Gestapo himself.  "I need someone to fill in.  Would you be willing to come back?"  he asked in a very friendly voice. 

I almost slammed the phone down in his ear when the Devil popped up on my shoulder.  "Uh...when would you need me?" I asked.  "As soon as possible", he replied. 

"I'll be there in 45 minutes."  I hung up the phone, looked at the time and after an hour had passed I began to giggle. 

 

Curious Carl

 

to tip or not to tip

First, I tip.  Second, I am dead opposed to the custom of tipping. 

But when in Rome...and so Cathy and I, spending many days on the road and eating in many different restaurants, accept tipping as another cost in conducting our daily business. 

In its origins, tipping seemed a good idea.  When someone provided services above and beyond, a show of appreciation rewarded their extra effort. 

But tipping has morphed into an expectation.  It is a subsidy not a show of appreciation.  Indeed, many establishments are now adding the tip at an ever increasing amount on the check along with the meal and the tax. 

What a sweet deal for businesses whose employees operate on a low salary plus tips in order to make a living. 

That ten dollar lunch will cost you about thirteen dollars after tip and tax.  That thirty dollar cab ride will run you around thirty five dollars or more. 

So as to not ramble too long, here in brief is the Jarvis Plan for state governments needing to balance budgets. 

Reduce all government employees salaries, including elected officials, by fifty percent.  Establish a 25% tip for any services rendered. 

So if you are an administrative assistant to an executive you will receive tips from him/her for your daily work.  He/she, in turn will receive tips from whomever he/she is serving.  And so it goes until, you guessed it, the public picks up the final tab.  But heck, we're already doing that. 

 

Curious Carl

 

Moochers are not all blind and All blind are not moochers

What a wonderful invention is the computer, along with screen readers for the blind.  Imagine how many quills and bottles of ink and reams of paper we would go through putting down just a small portion of our thoughts.  And think of the time spent in waiting by the mail box for responses to our postings. 

Seriously, the internet has blasted open the human brain.  Why, I think I've changed my positions on almost everything except sex during the past 24 hours.  I love interacting with others.  There is no such thing as a bad idea or a wrong thought.  Just as an aside, that's what former National Federation of the Blind(NFB) president Kenneth Jernigan said to me once upon a time, "Carl,", he often referred to me as Carl, "Carl, although I always called him Mister Jernigan, that is wrong thinking."  Sound a bit like old Uncle Joe?  But there is no such thing as "wrong thinking".  Wrong actions, yes.  But when we open up and debate and explore one another's beliefs, we are actually apt to come to a good place inside our own heads. 

 

Curious Carl

 

On Independence

 

I am a citizen of the state of Washington and of the United States of America. 

My "membership" in these organizations gives me a structure, rules, laws, expectations, and guidance from which I draw to conduct my daily life. 

I might say that I am independent, but I am independent only through the support of all of those afore mentioned controls. 

As a blind man, I chose to join the American Council of the Blind(ACB).  The ACB does for my life as a blind man exactly what my "membership" in America does for my larger life. 

Again, no one is truly independent.  It can't be done.  It's a myth, a Fairy Tale sold to us to help keep us away from exercising collective power. 

Nothing is independent.  The very air we breathe depends on gravity to hold it close to Earth.  The tree depends upon soil, rain and sun to exist.  The blind woman walking with her dog guide depends upon a community that has provided roads and sidewalks, police protection, fire protection, traffic signals, buses, farmers who bring in the days food, and on and on and on.  Then this person looks up and says, "I am independent!" 

Well, we had better pinch ourselves my friends, because it just ain't true. 

 

Curious Carl

 

can blind people "see"?

Responding to a friend, born totally blind, who believes that she understands sight. 

 

 

I understand that you honestly believe that you have a sense of what sight is like.  Nothing could be further from the truth. 

Can a totally deaf person really know what hearing is like?  What do they compare it to? 

The person with no sense of smell or taste.  How do they know the sweet flavor of a freshly baked chocolate chip cookie? 

And speaking of smell.  Can we even begin to understand the complexities of what our furry friends are inhaling?  Imagine being able to smell cancer.  Or smell when a person is about to have a seizure.  We simply don't have a clue. 

45 years as a total blind man and I can still visualize colors and imagine houses, buildings, cars, parks, mountains, the moon, a sunset or a pretty girl.  But many changes have occured and I have no idea of what many new products look like.  The way people dress today is so much different than how I dress them in 1965 attire.  And what about all of the subtle facial expressions that tell another sighted person so much?  Tell me what a "twinkle in her eye" looks like.  Can you look fetchingly at a fellow across the room? 

How do you recognize an angry glare from a puzzled stare? 

No, there is no way that we totals can pretend to understand the complexities of sight.  Nor the importance of sight.  This does not mean that we are less competent than our sighted counterparts, but we do need to understand that we are not going to compete on visual terms. 

 

Curious Carl

Dream Sight

Dream Land is an amazing place.  There I am still able to see.  But even as I wander along looking at stuff, I realize that I've lost my cane and suddenly I'm totally blind again. 

I often get lost running for a bus that I see pulling away from the curb and I jump aboard only to find that it is not going where I want to go.  And besides, I have forgotten the address and the street.  And again I look for my cane and remember leaving it in the men's room in some building I've never been in before.  And I can't recall my home phone, so I can't call Cathy to come and get me, if I could figure out where I am.  And when I wake up in the morning I am totally bushed. 

 

Curious Carl

 

 

Preacher Carl

Do not despair.  Good news awaits us. 

There is a light at the end of the tunnel.  It is the Light of Justice.  The Ruling Class will always over play their hand.  For they are addicted to Greed.  Greed is the most addictive drug of all the Devils weapons.  Of course it's a long, long tunnel and there's gonna be a whole lot of hurt and suffering before we,The People come to our senses and reach that Promised light. 

Gads!  I should  have been a Bible thumping preacher. 

Will someone pass the plate?

Curious

Carl

 

Fw: Obama appoints another liberal? Hah! A Fairy Tale gone bad

Subject: Re: Obama appoints another liberal? Hah! A Fairy Tale gone bad

To All Believers in Fairy Tales,

 

Once I believed in the Tooth Fairy.  Then I found out it was Mom. 

Once I believed in Santa Claus.  Then I discovered it was Dad. 

Once I believed in the Easter Bunny.  Same two conspirators. 

Now, as an adult, I smile at the fun memories of that Make Believe Land that kept me in wonder as a child.  Sweet memories that carried me into adulthood.  I'd not change them for the World. 

And so it was in 2008.  For a brief few months we had our adult Fairy Story.  "Yes we can!".  What a fuzzy, warm and wonderful Fairy Tale it was.  We went about smiling and believing that this strong, out spoken man was riding into town on the back of a horse named Change. 

And then we came to the end of the story.  And we looked up and saw that the world was just the same as when we began our adventure.  But as adults we do not have the same fond memories of our Fairy Stories as we have of our childish dreams of sugar plums and tasty chocolate Easter eggs. 

Rather than smiling and saying, "We did have a wonderful time", we feel cheated and used. 

And yet, because we so desperately want...need to be lifted into that magical make believe place, in 2012 we will once again look up and see the White Rabbit hurrying along the Woodland and we'll leap to our feet and follow him down the hole to another trip in Wonder Land. 

 

Curious Carl

 

What America needs is a second Party

What this country needs is a good second national party.  One that supports the majority of Americans.  The Working Class and the remnants of the Middle Class.  We could name it...uh...the Democrats!!! 

Yes!  People's power.  This new Party would actually support collective bargaining and free public education and free basic medical care and care for our elders and full day care for working families and free public transportation and safe neighborhoods and jobs and factories and production right here in America like it use to be...and much, much more. 

And where would this new Democrat Party get it's power?  Why from The People, right from where it should come.  It would believe that Americans should Rule, not be Ruled. 

It would demand that any American Citizen be made from flesh and blood and have a birth certificate and an expiration date...unknown but inevitable. 

And where could such a new Democrat Party get its funding?  Silly question.  For years the Ruling Class has viewed our national treasury as their personal bank, making withdrawals with no need to repay.  Now the new Democrat Party will have the ability to reverse that trend and withdraw from the Ruling Classes vast ill-gotten holdings. 

Yup, what we need is a second party. 

 

Curious Carl

 

a lesson in organizing

In my early 20's I participated in an attempt to organize the drapery factory where I worked.  I actually believed that the National Labor Relations(NLR) was an agency that protected the rights of Labor.  I know, I know, but I was young and niaive back then. 

Even worse than that, we went to the local Teamster's Union and solicited their help.  When I arrived at the union hall I noticed a group of women marching with picket signs.  It turned out to be the Teamster's secretaries demanding better pay and the right to organize.  Sheesh! 

The story gets even worse.  Thinking we had about 120 employees eligible to form a union, the Teamsters were right there urging us on and advising us.  But after the NLR ruled that a large portion of our members were not eligible to belong to our union, we had exactly five of us still able to organize.  Suddenly the Teamsters lost interest. 

I remember the Teamster agent, a Mister Lamb, calling me and saying, "You go in there and vote for the union.  If you lose, we'll take care of you." 

"Like you've taken care of us so far?" I asked.  After polling our five eligible employees the vote looked to be 3 to 2 in favor of the company. 

I went to the other fellow willing to stand his ground and said, "You and I can vote the right way and then we'll be out of work and we will be the only losers.  Or we can vote for the company and still have our jobs and the luxury of time to find better work". 

The paper ran a small article the next day declaring that the employees of Bartmann and Bixer of the Northwest, Inc. had voted unaminously in favor of not organizing. 

Was it a sellout?  Or had the Teamsters sold us out and forced us to vote the way we did?  Who will ever know.  But the boss called me in after the dust had settled and gave me a 75 cent an hour pay raise.  That was a princely amount considering I was earning $1.85 cents and the new pay raised me to $2.60 per hour. 

 

Curious Carl

 

Things haven't changed all that much, have they?

Personally, regarding the news media, I do feel things are worse today than they were back in the 40's and 50's during the McCarthy Witch hunt.  I say this because there are far more Pied Pipers among us blowing smoke up our noses.

Back then the network newscasters at least made an effort not to call for the firing squad. 

Today they openly call for murder.  I've heard snickering over the potential killing of our president, and now we want to hunt Julian Assange down and hire some sleezy hit man to do him in. 

And what is this about trying to charge him with Treason?  I didn't know that he'd become a citizen.  Are our leaders mad?  Or are they telling us that we now consider the entire planet the property of the American Empire. 

Curious Carl

smaller government or smarter government?

 

Barbara A. Stevenson-Jones, and her daughter, Pamela Stevenson, were convicted for their participation in a scheme to steal from a D.C. government program that assists in the employment of the blind.  They were ordered to pay over $214,000 as part of their sentence. 

 

To me, the point of this, and similar stories is that even though we know beyond all doubt that there are people so corrupt and greedy that they will steal from anyone, we are now about to welcome a new congress committed to down sizing government.  And this at a time when agencies charged with overseeing and protecting the American People are already so understaffed that they cannot cover their most basic functions. 

Under a well regulated program this theft of $214,000 would never have occured. 

So before you go cheering on this new promise to down size government, look about you and try to imagine what public services will look like once there are fewer regulations and weaker enforcement.  When government is reduced the blind always suffer.  What we need is not smaller government.  What we need is smarter and more honest government.  We won't get that by trimming the numbers.  All that will do is to concentrate the crooks.  We need honest reform. 

 

Carl Jarvis