bear with me

A small child descends the staircase dragging his stuffed bear by the leg. Let's give the bear a consciousness and peer into his thoughts. What would the bear think, if it could, being dragged against its inclination down onto the nest step, landing on its head each time. But don't worry, bear! You will be able to have the extreme pleasure of watching the rest of us dine in elegance once we reach the bottom of the stairs and go into the dining room. Sure, I know you can't eat, but you will have the pleasure of watching your betters enjoy themselves. Your pain and suffering will be well worth it...to us.

Winnie the Pooh as metaphor for human existance:


Here is Edward Bear, coming downstairs now, bump, bump, bump, on the back of his head, behind Christopher Robin. It is, as far as he knows, the only way of coming downstairs, but sometimes he feels that there really is another way, if only he could stop bumping for a moment and think of it.

(Via ARCHY at johnmckay)

Everywhere I turn I see folks doing exactly the same thing. Wanting change but being caught up in bumping their head over and over in the same old way.

"Well if my head would just quit hitting the things I'm bumping it into, I could change the things I'm bumping my head into", people will say.

Sorry to be cynical about humans but I'm watching the School board in action right now. The members that get it are bogged down by the members who don't even know they don't get it.

For instance, which problem do you think the school board is falling all over themselves to fix:

Problem number one. Raw sewage is overflowing into a hallway in the highschool.

Problem number two. The roof in an administrative building has a slight leak in the flashing above one office in a mostly empty building.

If you said the School Board will most likely spend way too much money on the roof, since that involves administrators and not people's children, you would be right on the order of nearly $100,000.00. They sill have the chance to "Get it". We'll see.


Phrase of the day:

"Faith based Reality"


So, the bankruptcy bill comes down to Chuck Schumer's (D-NY) amendment that would prevent persons convicted of crimes from discharging civil judgments, levied as a result of the crimes, in bankruptcy court. Read that again if you want but I'll rephrase it:

Republican Senators voted to let convicted criminals get away with their crimes by declaring bankruptcy.

Republican Senators voted to let creditors keep hounding American soldiers driven into bankrupcy because they were called into service in Iraq and lost their jobs.

Bubba has a good take on it. Be sure to read the comments. Funny!

bubba



******
A group called The Velvet Revolution has the silly notion that we ought to be able to actually count the votes cast in an American Democratic Election. They want a law to that effect, demanding a paper trail of electronic votes. Seem simple enough, right?

This man "resembles that remark":


Howard Van Pelt, CEO of Advanced Voting Systems, was more frank about his opposition.

“What in the hell are these people talking about?” Van Pelt asked. “They think we're all crooks, and I resent that!”



Well, maybe...What the Velvet Revolution wants is for all electronic voting machines to have a verifiable paper trail that can be counted and recounted visually. The machine manufacturers, Republican contributers every single one, are screaming that it is too expensive and hard to do...

But...These are the very same people who give you a paper receipt every time you use an ATM.

Mr. Van Pelt, Something is very very fishy here!

VelvetRevolution

Even the freakin' Russians are feeling holier than us!

the world’s most important democracy which is quickly becoming a laughing stock. Even Putin or one of his deputies told Bush, ‘Why are you lecturing us about democracy? Look at your own elections,’ which is troubling, I think.”

Problems with electronic voting machines have been documented by more than 50,000 complaints received in the 2004 election concerning observed malfunctions.


W's Hometown rag

Courage,

Steve