The Chess Game

I’ve been neglecting this blog, but with good reason. Got a new gig, with half again as much money; worked 11 days straight, racking up the OT, before a head cold caught and stomped me. Two weeks with people too sick to stand but still at work because they need the money.


Been there.

So far the new gig is great. Been feeling everyone out and playing the chess game that is new employment, everyone jockeying for position. We’ve got all highly educated people, for better or worse, some who need to be in front more than others. My goal is to be the ‘butler’ – the one who knows all the dirt on everyone but doesn’t appear a threat to anyone; the unassuming problem solver who you turn to when you killed someone. Metaphorically speaking, of course. I work in a conceptual art gallery now, so there shouldn’t be any actual death. But we’ll see. Once someone starts selling the stupid expensive stuff ($71k)… Check out this site - that's what I work with.

I realized a glaring hypocrisy while driving home on the freeway the other night: people complain about how violence on TV/video games/etc is damaging to our children, yet the parents are the ones slowing down on the freeway when they see flashing lights, craning their necks, hoping to see a mangled body in the wreckage. Think your 2-yr old doesn’t see you doing that nonsense? Just saying.

Christmas is this week. Yeah, I’m not ready either. I work that day till 7pm anyway. It doesn’t feel right to revel this year. So many people are scraping by, barely, or worse. I still have a roof, a car, and the one I love. That’s enough for me.

Genetically Modified Food

What’s the first thing that comes to mind when I say “genetically modified food”?

Can I get a resoundingly unanimous WTF?


I just finished watching a documentary – one of the scariest I’ve ever seen – about everything that’s happening to our agriculture these days. Quite frankly, I feel like a lab rat. All sorts of atrocities are taking place in this country, spreading to other countries against their wishes, and being skillfully not mentioned by the companies perpetuating and profiting from this madness.

I’ve never felt such sadness and been so fucking livid at the same time. I don’t want to eat anything – possibly ever again, because my government has allowed a bunch of crazy scientists to manufacture bacterial viruses, and other funky stuff into my food, and feed it to me without mentioning their meddling. I have never been so disgusted in my life – and for those that haven’t hear the story of my family – that’s pretty fucking disgusted. They are doing gene warfare and forcing the splicing of things that would never have normally blended together in Nature to create crops that need herbicides to grow. Oh yeah, and it’s patented.

For God’ sake, you should not be able to patent a living thing! That’s in God’s hands and last time I checked, every sinner on this planet was coming up a long way short of being on the same playing field with the big guy. But they are; they’ve patented seeds. And everyone with a thimble-worth of sense who could and should stop this insanity isn’t doing a damn thing. They’re taking a fat paycheck from the corporations running the whole mess. Its corn, soybeans, wheat, and cotton. It’s being exported to contaminate and eventually crowd out diverse species of these crops all over the world. It’s not labeled and you’re eating it without even knowing. Unless of course, you’re one of the ones whose had a severe allergic reaction and was rushed to the hospital.

I can’t believe we’re standing for this. There should be protests in the street. Every parent in the US should be camped on the White House lawn demanding this madness be stopped for the sake of our children. But they’re not…and won’t be anytime soon, because these giant corporations contribute hugely to government. They work for the government, the EPA, the FDA. They bought the rights to attempt perfecting Nature via compaign contributions and lobbying.

These big corporations are trying to sell us that “bioengineered food” will save the 800 million starving people around the world.

It won’t.

We already over-produce food, enough to feed all those starving people. Wanna know why we don’t feed them? They don’t have money to buy that food, and of course, we all know that nothing happens anywhere without a dollar being exchanged.

Not only will we be our own demise – we richly deserve all the suffering we get. We are a pathetic excuse for the “superior race”. We won’t even feed our own starving people because we’d rather ask “what’s in it for me?”

Check out this vid on Hulu for yourself. Don’t know about you, but I’ll be shopping organic and heavily taking up gardening as soon as humanly possible. And possibly moving to a country where the protesting people are being heard and that 'GM' crap isn't being allowed.

To anyone who reads this blog, please spread this far and wide. The optimist in me still has hope that our voices or a catastrophe will interrupt this madness.

The Cost of Education

I just read a Yahoo! News story about student loan debt. I'm a bit torn about the whole thing. The girl in the story is 23 and spent $200k to earn a sociology degree. Hers aren't all federal loans either - they're private and subject to a balloon payment, which as of Nov 2010 jumped from less than $900/mo to $1600/mo. That's like having a second mortgage. Part of the agrument featured in the article is that everyone believes a higher education is the gateway to a successful economic future...when these days it's more of a gateway to a lifetime of debt.

I come from a family where higher education is valued, coveted, and expected. I have a bachelor's degree. I make less now than I did 3 years ago and am lucky to have a job. My husband, who is a high school drop out and a freelance photographer (in case you haven't visited the link and know this already) makes anywhere between 6-10x what I make an hour. Someone please explain to me where I went astray.

At the bottom of the article many people left comments: some are in the same or an equally sinking boat, others are...haters, for lack of a better term. They think she should have taken a different path, or chosen a different school, that she was a sucker for a supposedly 'big reputation' university, etc. I think they're projecting their own feelings of being a sucker on someone else. Everyone still thinks they're somehow 'less' if they don't have a college degree. It's still the big dream, and reality usually doesn't come into play - and perhaps shouldn't - when planning the rest of your life. Personally I'd like to know why the cost of education is going up, yet the quality and weight of that education is going down. My bachelor's means just as much as my mom's from 1970 (or thereabouts). I guarantee she didn't pay as much as I am.

So I'm torn. I would never borrow that much for education - in fact, wasn't supposed to borrow any - but that's beef between me and Mom. But my Mom is in the same boat - you can't do much with an archeolody degree unless you get a doctorate - she's not using a hard earned education. Expensive school doesn't equal more valuable education. I'm trying to tell a good friend of mine that - he's going to be attending the school I went to, paying private school rates, and racking up hugh loans...basically for the same education I got, one I'm not technically working in because it's flat. So follow the dream? Yes. Get student loans? Not unless you have no other option, not just it's the easy option. And what to do now, for us poor souls who owe hugh sums of money we cannot pay? Support each other. Don't hate. I know it sucks - I'm there. Pay as much as you can while you're working/in school. Owe as little as possible when you get out.

Other than that? If I had that answer, I'd write an e-book and be living the good life. :)