Columbus Day 2

Risen

Lester got his bus tokens and left.
"Paul's thinking about going to Home Depot," Erin told me.
"Really," I said. "What do you want from Home Depot, Paul?"
"I was thinking about getting that dirt."
"You're obsessed with dirt, aren't you Paul?"
"I am."
After further discussion of National Parks, and other matters for a while, the three of us bundled up and left the building.
"Half of our Garden Club isn't even here," Paul observed. He was referring to Hardy's absence.
"One quarter Paul. You and Erin are vital members as well."
We drove in Paul's new Honda to the Home Depot, off of Wilshire, near Alvarado. Erin insisted in sitting in the back, un-befitting her noble position as case manager. She looked too cute back there with her winter scarf and ski cap pulled down over her ears.
"I was going to go to sleep last night as soon as I got home from church," Erin informed us, "but me and my roommate got into a dance party instead..."
"Leah?" I asked.
"Yes, Leah. And now I'm sleepy and want to take a nap."
"Yeah," Paul said. "I'm kind of sleepy too."
"Dance party?" I said.
I'm not sure who was responsible for the idea, so won't give credit to anyone, but the idea of a Nap Club was bandied about, to go along with the Garden Club and Cooking Club.
"We could use our yoga mats," I said.
"Yeah," Paul added, "and use the Defiance Space for all of us to take naps."
"Everyday," Erin added.
That would be just fine for all of the SRHT staff to walk across the parking lot from their offices, including Erin and Paul's bosses, to find several resident's, with their case managers all curled up on the floor in deep slumber, possibly with thumbs extended into mouths, sucking loudly.
Oddly enough, we were soon at our intended destination. The large parking lot was almost full, and Paul had trouble finding a place to park.
But we did, and soon entered the gardening area of the huge store. Paul walked off to talk to some of the garden "associates." The last time we had been here Paul had discovered a great deal on sacks of garden dirt that had been ripped, or torn, that he could buy at a large discount. Erin and I walked among the rows of plants, flowers, and scrubs.
"We definitely need this palm tree for our garden," I told Erin.
"Definitely," she said.
Paul was offered a large pallet of sacks of garden dirt and steer manure mix, about fifteen bags, that the associate offered at about a buck a bag, which normally would have cost anywhere from $105.00 to 180.00.
"What a deal," Paul said. "How are we going to get all of this into my car?"
We also bought a new nozzle for our garden hose, and Paul and Erin picked out some small red perennial plants, and one big blue one.
Then we felt the earth move.
"What is that?" Erin asked. "Is it an earthquake?"
She was referring to the slight vibrations we could feel emanating from the ground. And the tables the plants were sitting on, and the plants them selves were shaking. It lasted for several moments, longer than earthquakes I've experienced in the past.
"I don't know," I told her. "It could be."
"Oh yeah," Paul said, "I do feel it."
"I'm going to check," Erin said, then checked her Iphone for news of a quake in or around Los Angeles.
It would turn out that there was no earthquake, and the source of the shaking would remain unknown, although possible causes included a nearby heavy truck lumbering around, the Red Line subway that ran close to where we were standing, or poltergeist activity.
It was quite a task getting all of that garden dirt and steer manure into Paul's Honda. We put most of the broken bags into other plastic bags that Paul had thoughtfully brought along just for this purpose. We filled the trunk with garden dirt and steer manure, then half of his backseat with garden dirt and steer manure. We stuffed little Erin back there with all of the garden dirt and steer manure, and then took off for home where we planted those perennial plants in our lovely garden.
"Erin is noticeable quiet," I observed on the way back. It may have been the fact that she was sitting next to a big pile of garden dirt and steer manure. She still looked too cute back there holding the blue plant in her lap.
"I heard you sing last night, Rick," she said.
"Where did you go?" Paul asked.
"Rick went to my church last night."
"Oh," Paul said.
This was true. Continuing my habit of investigating local community places of worship each Sunday evening, I found myself at the Risen Church in Santa Monica. It was located in the basement of an Baptist Church. A very informal get together every Sunday at six o'clock at night. I got there a little early and was warmly greeted by John and Kiley, and a young man named Maz came up and introduced himself to me. He would be the evening's speaker, and would speak later concerning a section of the New Testament, Mark, chapter one, verse 21 through 28, to be precise, which pertains to a possessed individual who had the audacity to confront Jesus Christ and was quickly banished from the victim, because of course, Jesus is the personification of God, and God can do things like that.
It was all very enjoyable. Actually, of all of the church services I've ever attended, that had been the most enjoyable of them all. That mainly had to do with the informality I've already mentioned, and the fact that most of the congregation were in their twenties, 95% of it I'd say. Live rock music was played, with gospel lyrics, and singing was involved.
A 5 to 7 minute period was set aside for mingling with others in the congregation, which I'm horrible at, but a nice elderly lady who had been sitting directly in front of me asked me if this was my first time there, and how I happened to learn of it.
I was about to explain that it was my habit to check out local services such as this on Sunday evenings, when low and behold, Erin came up to me from behind and saved me from the elderly ladies clutches. It turned out that this happened to be the church she attends on a regular basis... a stunning coincidence if there ever was one.
She introduced me to her boyfriend, Shane, and her lovely roommate, Leah. I sat with them for the rest of the service.
One interesting point, although by definition this had to be considered a Protestant service, Risen had borrowed the Catholic communion ceremony, and at the end of the service the members of the congregation were invited to come up and receive a piece of bread which they dipped into non-alcoholic wine, which they ate. I did not partake in this ceremony, but did join in the singing.
Erin seemed to be happy that I had stumbled upon her church, and even invited me back for other visits.
What was the third thing that made my Columbus Day? I enjoyed the whole mini-field trip to Home Depot, but I don't think I'll ever forget that vision of my lovely case manager holding her blue perennial sitting next to that big pile of garden dirt and steer manure.
I'm going to have to invest in a camera.

Columbus Day 1

I love this weather. It's so nice and mirky outside right now, and cool. It's even expected to rain this afternoon and for the next couple of days, so I ran all of my errands just now so I won't need to actually get wet and can watch and listen to the mighty droplets as they fall down upon my nice dry box.
My lovely case manager, Erin, gets better information on her Iphone than I do on my computer. I only know that rain is expected in the "PM." Erin tells me it will begin at 4:00. 3:59, nice and dry... 4:00, downpour. I wonder if her Iphone works with earthquakes and tornadoes... I must ask her.
Three things have already made my day and it's only 1:00 as I write this... 1:01 now.
I've just returned from the Grand Central Market where I stopped by the small stall of a vender that sells American food (ie, hamburgers, salads, breakfasts, pastrami sandwiches, etc.) that is owned and operated by Hispanics. I buy stuff there rather often, but had never seen the tiny, late twentyish, pretty Hispanic lady who was working there today. She was very vivacious.
"Can I get you something, sir," she said in a heavily accented voice.
"Why yes, you may. I'll have a breakfast muffin with sausage please," I told her, and gave her a twenty. She got very busy counting my change behind her cash register and decided she needed to run over to the check cashing vender just across the isle to get some fives. "I'll be right back, sir," she told me to let me know she wasn't running off with my money. With a simple turn of my head I could see her entire journey.
She did come right back, gave me my change, and proceeded to make my muffin. When she was finished she brought it to me wrapped in aluminum foil, and placed it in a small paper bag.
"Would you like some salt and pepper?" she asked sweetly, with a brilliant smile.
"Why sure."
She placed small packets of each in the bag.
"And some spicy sauce for you?" she asked again.
"Yes, thank you. You're wonderful," I told her.
That made her smile a little, and she made my day, with her "spicy sauce for you."
Life is so wonderful when you allow yourself to fully appreciate the little things in it.
I would have gladly taunted my lovely case manager with my new muffin when I returned home. I would have said:
"See what I have, Erin."
"What is it, Rick," she would have said.
"It's a beautiful and tasty breakfast muffin, Erin, with sausage inside. I'll let you look at my muffin if you like."
"You're demonic, Rick. You know how much I love breakfast sandwiches."
I do know how much she likes breakfast sandwiches.
"You can even smell my muffin... but only a little."
I was not allowed this simple pleasure though, as Tianna was in there in deep conversation with Paul, and the effect would not have been as good.
Another thing that made my day was my new bank card. I didn't have to use it.
In order to get that tasty muffin I needed that twenty dollar bill to pay for it. So I went to my bank first, to the ATM machine, and was able to use my old bank card still to withdrawal twenty dollars. I was nervous about doing so. I had activated my brand new bank card yesterday over the Internet, my old and new cards have the same numbers, expiration dates, and pin numbers. The only reason I requested, and received my new bank card was because the old one wasn't working properly at other vendors. There was something about my banks ATM that chews up the magnetic information strips on these cards very quickly, making me unable to use them at the supermarket, or elsewhere, which can be very inconvenient at best. I was nervous about using the old card because my bank was closed and I thought that maybe the ATM would eat (retain) the card. And if it ate the first one it might eat the second one just for spite, and then I would have been in a world of trouble (or at least until my bank opened up again tomorrow). My worries were for naught though, because the old card worked just fine, and now I can use it just for the ATM, and the new one everywhere else. This allows me financial freedoms heretofore unheard of, and that made my day.
Now to the third thing that made my day.
Earlier I went down to my esteemed case manager's office, just before 9:00 for the Garden Club and found Paul in deep conversation with my esteemed neighbor, Lester, and with my lovely case manager, Erin, typing away on her computer, and discovered it was Columbus Day.
"I didn't think you two would be here today," Lester said. To me, "It's a holiday today, you know." Lester was down there trying to get some free bus tokens, which the case managers dole out whenever they have them.
"What holiday is it?" I asked.
"Columbus Day. Lots of banks and schools take this day off..."
"Yeah," Erin said, "we should have the day off."
"Yeah," Paul agreed.
"Not so fast you case managers," I told them, "if me and Lester have to work... you do to."
"Yeah," Lester agreed.
"But you could take the day off too, Rick," Erin said, "then there would be nothing for Paul and I to do, so we could take the day off as well."
"If only that were true, young Erin. But we can't take the day off anytime we want to. Someone has to be responsible." I constantly have to act as a role model for these case managers.
Columbus Day of course celebrates the arrival of Christopher Columbus in the Americas which occurred on October 12th, 1492 on the Julian calendar, and October 21st, 1492 on the modern Gregorian calendar, and which is celebrated in the United States on the second Monday of October, which as fortune would have it, was today.
I do not celebrate Columbus Day, and believe it to be a rather dubious holiday. One: Asians and the Vikings arrived on this continent way before Columbus did, and Two: I do not believe the introduction of slavery, exploitation, and devastating diseases to the native population is a worthy cause for celebration. Others have a different view.
To be continued.

The Whippersnapper Incident

Clowns are infiltrating the city. I've seen them.
They're not even trying to hide it. I saw two of them standing on the northwest corner of Macarthur Park yesterday, at the intersection of Sixth and Park View, in all of their clownish, oversized shoe splendor. Then I saw another one sitting outside a dentist office.
Freaking clowns!
Congratulations are in order for our new President, Barack Obama, for winning and accepting the Nobel Peace Prize. The award given to him when in office for just eight months seems to be a direct rebuke to George W. Bush and the Republican Party and it's greedy corporate ways, as Obama is viewed as a new hope for the United States and the world, bringing back some of the respect, and call for national leadership that was so arrogantly dribbled away during the last eight years.
The Republicans, for the most part, and their media outlets, the Fox Propaganda Network and Rush Limbaugh are outraged that he has been awarded the prestigious prize, many stating that he has done nothing to earn it, and that he should not accept it. But of course he should, although many of Obama's accomplishments remain to be completed in the future, he has certainly taken the country in a new direction, which the Nobel committee certainly has recognized in it's choice. Now he only needs to end those two pesky military campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan, close Gitmo, create effective climate change policy, pass health care reform, and save the economy to prove that he has indeed earned it.
I think the Republicans are miffed because they've only had one of their presidents receive the Nobel Prize, to the Democrats three (Woodrow Wilson, Jimmy Carter, and Obama), and their Theodore Roosevelt was probably much more progressive than Obama.
This says a lot about the Republican Party.
Congratulations are also in order for NASA, who succeeded in crashing the LCROSS space crafts into a crater on the moon (see, Back To The Moon). At approximately four thirty one yesterday morning a Centaur upper stage rocket (about the size of a bus) slammed into a crater near the southern polar region of the moon, to be followed about four minutes later by the Shepherding Spacecraft (about the size of a subcompact car), which during those last four minutes was busy analyzing the debris plume created by the Centaur, and radioing that data back to Earth, in the hopes of finding traces of good old water. Water, being prohibitively expensive to haul up in to space, would be great to have on the moon already if we ever want to have manned bases there someday.
The media have had a field day in the last couple of days with stories about "bombing the moon," and were rather disappointed with the slim visual results supplied by the Shepherding Spacecraft's cameras before its own demise, and the lack of entertainment value provided. Perhaps the next time we should have the Pentagon have a try and slam a 100 megaton nuclear weapon up there and really bomb it. It would constitute the best use of such a device, and could most likely be seen back on Earth with the naked eye (why is the eye always naked?). Maybe on the 4th of July.
More locally, yesterday morning, beginning at nine, my esteemed case managers, Erin and Paul, along with our lovely residence manager, Tianna, arranged a going away party for Joe, my neighbor just two doors down for the last six and a half years. Joe was moving on.
Tianna was making scrambled eggs as I walked in, and we discussed the Nobel Prize that our President had just won. Ray came down, Hardy was there, and when free food is involved you can guarantee that Robert will show up. Erin (come to think of it, an hour late for work. How will she ever survive a real job?) soon arrived with two boxes of assorted donuts. Paul arrived (also an hour late), as did Joe (who had moved out already), and breakfast was served. Eggs, a polish sausage, coffee, and donuts. Erin called out for us to take only one donut apiece at first, so when Robert thought no one was looking, grabbed an extra one he surreptitiously placed in an empty camera carrying case he had with him. I sat with Paul, Joe and Erin at a table, the others sat nearby. Erin had brought with her a MacDonalds cup of coffee, and someone made off with Paul's bottle of Arizona tea.
"Where's my iced tea?" he asked.
A search was made with no results. I have to say that I never actually saw him with the tea, but am fairly certain he had not hallucinated bringing the bottle in, but had no idea why anyone would take it.
For some reason unfathomable to me, my lovely case manager thought I was giving her a hard time.
"Erin," I told her, "they didn't install the new TV. You assured me they would install it yesterday..."
"I assured you," she vehemently replied, "that they were scheduled to install it yesterday."
And:
"I sent you an Email of 'The Lottery," Erin."
"It wasn't in my Email."
"Really? Because I sent it."
"I didn't get it."
"I sent it though..."
On and on. Aren't we adorable.
And I mistakingly ate the last half of her donut.
Patricia, Erin's lovely mother called her daughter on her Iphone, and Erin hurriedly got up, looked at me and pointed to her donut, then walked off to talk to her mom. I thought she meant that she wanted me to eat it, knowing how she is attempting to eat less crap. So I thought I was doing her a favor, really, and should be praised for my unselfish sacrifice by consuming all of those dreaded calories. What thanks did I get?
"Where's me donut?" she asked some fifteen minutes later upon returning.
"Your donut? I thought you wanted me to eat it," I told her.
"No, seriously... where's my donut?"
"I ate it! I thought you wanted me to."
"You're teasing me. Where is it?"
"I ate it I told you."
"When did I tell you to eat my donut?"
"I thought that's what you meant when you pointed to it before taking off for a half hour to talk on the phone."
"I had to leave. That was my mother. She loves me."
I gave her a donut that Joe had been saving, and who told her she could have.
"No! That's Joe's donut!"
"He said you could have it."
"I don't care."
I tore it in half and gave it to her. She eventually ate it.
She really wanted that donut.
"And by the way... what's your mother doing calling you during working hours..."
"Oh, you're just a little whippersnapper this morning, aren't you?"
"Whippersnapper!? No you're the whippersnapper..."
"No you are."
"No, you are."
"You are. It's getting close to your birthday, that's why you're acting up."
"You're the whippersnapper..."
"No you are..."
On and on.
No one has ever called me a whippersnapper before. No one.
This would not be the end of the outrages hurled at me that day by Erin. She later called me "demonic" for giving her a Jack In The Box taco at movie day (the 1963 version of The Haunting, which was freaking interrupted by the freaking maintenance man finally mounting the freaking TV).
No good deed goes unpunished.

Spiders!

Spider!


Rick - Spider - Erin



Rodney, Erin, Paul, Rick

Erin's new friend

Field trip!
Monday was a bad day for my lovely case manager, Erin. She was treated very rudely by the Department of Motor Vehicles, and her Otolaryngologist!
Being a exceptionally responsible individual, Erin, once she discovered that her driver's license had been suspended (see, Erin's Ticket) could not go around driving in good conscience, so right after our Garden Club session Monday morning, she drove (illegally) over to the nearest DMV field office located on Hope St. near the USC campus, to get her license reinstated, and get her registration renewed while she was at it.
Now we've previously discovered that Erin had received a fix-it-ticket for a broken taillight she thought she had taken care of, but hadn't. Erin and I went to the local court house and found out that her license had been suspended and that the DMV would charge her $55 to reinstate it. The court people also charged her $10 to arrange a hearing date for the fix-it-ticket, where in February she will most probably be charged an additional $80. Erin received a second fix-it-ticket last Friday for driving with an expired registration tag, which will most likely have a court fee of $25 associated with it.
The DMV Monday reinstated her license for $55. Then, since her license had expired, they charged her a late fee of 100 percent, totaling something like $280, but before she could get the new tag she had to get a smog check, which cost her an additional $50. Add all of these tickets and fees gets us to about 500 smackaroos! That on top of the $400 to replace her slashed tires, and the $90 locksmith fee to get into her apartment, adds up to a pretty financially crappy month for my dear and esteemed case manager. How can she be expected to purchase her frozen yogarts and Starbuck's lattes with expenses such as that?
So I bought her a $2.69 dollar hot dog yesterday afternoon to compensate. I had one too! It was good. I wish I had another one right now.
"I'm thinking of starting an 'Erin Legal Defense Fund,' for you," I told her.
Later Monday afternoon, Erin visited her Ear, Nose, and Throat doctor for the first time because her voice has been a little hoarse lately, where he slid a tube down through her nose to look at her vocal cords.
"I was actually crying when he did that, it hurt so much" she told me. How rude.
But before Erin and I had our hot dogs we took her to the Los Angeles Natural History Museum yesterday to cheer her up (although she wasn't very sad actually, displaying a remarkable attitude about the way my state and local government, locksmiths, and tire slashers had ripped her off). By an amazing coincidence, yesterday was also the Natural History Museum's one free day of the month. Amazing.
Four of us went along, myself, Rodney, Ray and Jose, along with case manager Paul. We left at 10:30, and hopped onto the old 62 MTA Bus to Fifth and Flower, to catch the F Dash (Ray kept calling it the FU Dash, for some reason. I don't know why), which took us all the way to the museum.
Guess what? Right now on the south lawn of the museum there is a seasonal exhibit open called The Spider Pavilion. They call it that because inside the Pavilion is where all of the spiders live, and you can go on there and look at them try to catch butterflys to eat.
The spider people say there are about 100 spiders in there (a small tented area about the size of three garden sheds), making webs to catch butterflys and other small insects. Hey, you've got to eat, right!? There are no cages separating the spiders from the spectators, which may be one of the reasons that Erin didn't seem too enthusiastic about going inside.
All the spiders in the tent, however, were not poisonous to humans, and were rather preoccupied with their spidery ways, web building and maintenance to take any notice of us humans who came by to visit. It was a tad disconcerting actually. The biggest ones were only about an inch or two long, but they were great at making webs, which were all over the place. You really had to take care to locate these webs as they are hard to see, but in almost every one of them there was a spider waiting patiently. They had orb weaving spiders, giant wood spiders, golden silk spiders, and golden orb weaving spiders.
If you look closely at the picture of myself and Erin (she's the prettier one), in between us, near one of the white squares above the door in the background, is a big spider ready to pounce. Erin's expression about says it all.
Done with the spiders we entered the museum itself and immediately looked at stuffed animals from Africa. In one exhibit there were giraffes mingling with elephants. Erin told me that as a five year old moppet she had once accidentally toppled into the giraffe enclosure at the zoo, and her aunt had to pull her out.
"Got into trouble for that one," she told me.
"It's good that giraffes are not known for their carnivorous proclivities," I said.
On the same floor we visited a whole bunch of minerals, stones, and gems, including a 69 pound flawless crystal ball that doesn't tell the future.
Looking at so many minerals exhausted us, so we went back outside and enjoyed peanut butter and jelly sandwiches that I had made the previous evening in case there were to be a field trip the next day. You can see us out there in one of the pictures above.
Then we went back inside to visit North American stuffed animals, then downstairs to the Insect Zoo, where Erin was attacked by a polar bear. I have no idea why a polar bear was in the Insect Zoo.
We spent a great deal of time in the California History area, where we came upon a large replica of Los Angeles in the 1940s. Many of the building are still around, like City Hall, the Central Library, and Union Station (train station). Pershing Square was there as well, before they paved it over.
Erin, Ray, and I made a fast trip to the second floor and saw museum people cleaning up dinosaur fossils, some stuffed birds, and mollusks.
All tired out now we left the museum almost exactly the way we found it, took the F Dash back downtown where Erin got her hot dog, after which I escorted back to the safety of her office.
Erin had only one more task to complete before she left for the day.. to print the weekly sign up list for this Thursday's Cooking Club.
Tacos!

Vote!

Last fall, Google launched Project 10 to the 100th, a call for ideas to change the world. Out of over 154,000 submissions, Google has selected 16 finalists! Google will commit $10 million to the top five ideas with the most votes by this Thursday, October 8. Please read the ideas below and cast your vote here: http://www.project10tothe100.com/index.html
　
1. Collect and organize the world's urban data
Community
Support efforts to organize, analyze and make accessible online the world's urban and population data. A majority of the global human population lives in cities, and more people continue to migrate into urban centers. Information about the urban planet is ever more invaluable in helping understand humanity's impact on our surroundings, thus empowering citizens and helping leaders make better-informed decisions. Users interested in this area submitted ideas ranging from creating a website where residents can text or upload photos that highlight city issues to building a comprehensive database of city projects and using mobile phones to collect information about, and eventually be able to predict traffic and congestion patterns.
Suggestions that inspired this idea:
Build a website that enables city residents to submit information to highlight city issues, thereby helping governments understand their citizens' demands
Apply leading-edge web tools to communities and cities to help people participate, document and share solutions to the challenges that their communities face
Place cameras at suitable locations in cities around the world and take daily pictures to provide time-lapse views of urban development
Create a comprehensive, free-access, peer-reviewed online database of various city projects from major cities around the world
2. Build better banking tools for everyone
Opportunity
Partner with banks and technology companies to increase the reach of financial services across the world. Users submitted numerous ideas that seek to improve the quality of people's lives by offering new, more convenient and more sophisticated banking services. Specific suggestions include inexpensive village-based banking kiosks for developing countries; an SMS solution geared toward mobile networks; and ideas for implementing banking services into school curriculums.
Suggestions that inspired this idea:
Enable prepaid cell phone bank accounts for millions of people working in the informal economy
Create a community-level electronic banking system for rural areas
Build IT-enabled kiosks which provide access to financial services
Create a single world bank or supra-national currency, uniform rules and transparent public accounting
3. Encourage positive media depictions of engineers and scientists
Education
Support groups and programs that promote positive depictions of engineers and scientists in popular media. Generally speaking, career services are only offered in earnest during university years, when many opportunities have already passed by. These proposals are designed to encourage more young people to pursue careers in this field by supporting groups that work toward encouraging positive images of engineering and science in pop culture. Our users submitted a number of suggestions for making engineering and science "cool," including online libraries of "day-in-the-life of an engineer" videos, an online channel devoted entirely to IT news, live performances with massive robots, and telling inspirational real-life stories about how individual engineers and scientists have changed the world. This proposal will require finding the right public advocacy groups to partner with in pursuing these objectives.
Suggestions that inspired this idea:
Create a tech channel that broadcasts coverage of conferences and news about the web and Internet technology
Generate excitement and curiosity in science by developing fantastic live presentations in science theaters
Develop an online multimedia library that describes a wide variety of careers through compelling stories in short video interviews, documentaries and day-in-the-life vignettes
4. Work toward socially conscious tax policies
Environment
Fund the most promising efforts to make the tax system more transparent and better at supporting societal sustainability and development. This idea is inspired by many tax-related ideas from users around the world, including: replacing income taxes with smart consumption taxes; tax discounts for citizens who participate in socially beneficial works; and giving citizens more visibility and control into the allocation of their tax dollars. User ideas in this category highlight tax policy as a perhaps surprisingly fertile area in which intelligent, data-driven analysis could make a huge difference in the effectiveness of the public sector.
Suggestions that inspired this idea:
Replace all income taxes with an ecological VAT: namely, a smart sales tax on consumption
Create a mechanism that serves consumers'/citizens' interest by applying externality cost/benefit analysis to systematically adjust market forces in vital sectors like energy, housing and the environment
Work to encourage the Brazil vehicle tax to release a portion of its revenues for projects to neutralize carbon emissions
Encourage people to participate in charities and other socially beneficial works by providing tax discounts
5. Make educational content available online for free
Education
Make educational and course materials more accessible online to students worldwide. Lots of educational content is not indexed or accessible on the public web. Various users have proposed finding ways to help content owners put formerly exclusive content online, including offline materials (lectures, textbooks, videotaped workshops) and limited-access materials (scholarly papers, research dissertations); help teachers themselves become more available online (access to online profs, 24/7 homework help, cross-country study groups); and to make all this material and academic help accessible through both computer and mobile platforms.
Suggestions that inspired this idea:
Collaborate with top schools around the world to make their lectures freely accessible online
Create an online educational platform that provides free training and education as part of a worldwide, officially accepted degree
Provide free online lectures and textbooks for every subject and grade level
Facilitate information exchange among students around the world, including cross-country "study groups" on specific topics
6. Drive innovation in public transport
Energy
Develop new transportation technologies to help move more people with less energy, greater efficiency and fewer casualties. Millions of people still use methods of transportation invented a hundred or more years ago. Even small improvements in speed, safety, cost and environmental efficiency would have a large impact on people's lives, and on the planet as a whole. With such improvements in mind, transportation-minded users submitted ideas ranging from a hydrogen-powered bicycle to an airship optimized for commuter travel. By aligning with and supporting organizations that share these goals, this proposal aims to drive innovation in this sector and make the best of these ideas a reality.
Suggestions that inspired this idea:
Design a community light rail system for use by bicycles and minimum-powered vehicles
Build a rail car system that adapts fuel cars to also run on electric railway networks
Create a transportation system that enables electric cars to run on a rail-type system
Promote bicycle commuting via more efficient bike safety systems
Design electric bicycles powered by hydrogen or methanol fuel cells
Build airships for public transport
7. Create more efficient landmine removal programs
Shelter
Fund global organizations that are developing efficient strategies for landmine detection and removal. Landmines remain a significant global problem. There are an estimated 110 million landmines still active in 70 countries; they have been blamed for over 5,000 casualties annually, ~70% of which are civilians, and nearly half of those are children.* Effective new landmine-removal programs offer a wide range of societal benefits beyond the obvious development of mine-free areas, including the repatriation of refugees and better distribution of emergency aid. Numerous suggestions for this topic include robotic, human and animal-facilitated detection strategies. *www.icbl.org
Suggestions that inspired this idea:
Work with the HeroRat organization to detect and remove landmines
Fund a robotic mine detector/remover
Use shock waves or intense sound to explode landmines
Create a minefield-clearing machine that works by simply "rolling" across landmine-suspected areas and detonating mines
8. Build real-time, user-reported news service
Everything Else
Help people find and report timely, important local information. Users have submitted many ideas proposing better access to locally relevant info, including real-time news (fires, natural disasters and road accidents), disease tracking (mobile devices that track people's health status) and personal incidents (calling to report a threatening criminal situation, natural disaster or medical emergency). Implementation of this idea would involve creating a system that enables ordinary citizens to easily report news that's happening around them, from meaningful local events to important global stories.
Suggestions that inspired this idea:
Create a news agency that relies on users to report news
Offer a news feature that pinpoints the viewer's current location and shows what's going on, right now, in his or her neighborhood, city, county, etc.
Build an internet-based news channel where anybody can post individual/family/local/global news videos or text
9. Create real-world issue reporting system
Community
Build an issue-reporting website that lets people report problems to proper authorities. When software testers find errors, they generally submit them to a tool which automatically routes them to the right team to be fixed. Implementing proposals for this idea might involve creating an analogous system for the real world that lets anyone report a problem of any kind (e.g., a dangerous pothole), and routes problems it deems sufficiently important to the proper authorities (e.g., the relevant road agency). The aim would be to incorporate all the niche applications that users suggested, including reporting crimes to the police and environmental issues to local governments.
Suggestions that inspired this idea:
Enable people to submit bug reports about problems in the real world
Create a one-stop shop for anyone wanting to find any service anywhere
10. Enhance science and engineering education
Education
Support initiatives that enhance young people's engineering and science education. Users from many countries agreed that encouraging science education was an ideal way to insure the brightest future for technology development itself. Specific ideas ranged from building a virtual science lab and a live multiplayer math game to putting Lego robots and local high-tech professionals in schools.
Suggestions that inspired this idea:
Sponsor the FIRST robotics competition
Build a virtual science lab to enable students without sufficient access to proper facilities to run, trial and test virtual experiments
Ensure that youth have access to Legos, robots, computers etc. in school environments
Recruit local technology professionals to work with students at local schools
Create an academically oriented multiplayer game focused on math and science
11. Create genocide monitoring and alert system
Community
Build and refine tools capable of disseminating genocide-related mapping and related information in order to save lives. Much of the necessary technology and data-gathering methodology already exists both for general crisis mapping and for early warning systems capable of preventing mass atrocities. A key remaining step is to make this data more widely available to strengthen international aid agency coordination, improve resource allocation, develop timely policy and help evaluate current humanitarian practices.
Suggestions that inspired this idea:
Reduce conflict, specifically crimes against humanity, by aggregating data, including pertinent statistics, the history and geography of specific conflicts, local cultures, geostrategic interests, and recent developments that can help policymakers identify emerging crises more effectively
Support the creation of an independent global genocide watchdog that can trigger existing laws and guarantee immediate intervention
Apply mapping and communications technology to track, predict, and prevent genocides
Help guide civilians facing genocide to safe refugee camps through updated dynamic web maps and hand-held GPS devices
12. Promote health monitoring and data analysis
Health
Predict and minimize medical problems and emergencies through real-time tracking of individuals' health data and analysis of historical data. Several ideas submitted in multiple languages recommend this concept, offering various ideas about which types of monitors and devices to use; which vital signs to measure (with varying levels of invasiveness); which diseases and conditions to track; and so on. The idea could work both in the developed world (through wearable, mobile or in-home devices) and in the developing world (via publicly accessible locations and devices), and the data could be used both to track individuals' health status and to spot community trends and prevent disease outbreaks.
Suggestions that inspired this idea:
Create an integrated personal health data system that uses data collected from toilets to transmit and analyze health and nutritional data
Use a bracelet device to measure blood pressure, temperature, etc. to detect health changes and track trends at a regional and national level
Create an affordable, wearable, nearly invisible device that people could use to effortlessly monitor physical health data, then broadcast it to authorized individuals they have selected.
Design a portable doctor or handheld health monitoring system
Create an integrated personal health data system that uses data collected from toilets to transmit and analyze health and nutritional data
13. Provide quality education to African students
Education
Support efforts to increase young Africans' access to quality education. This idea's many user-submitted inspirations include an initiative to provide quality education and facilities to children who lack access; giving leadership training to outstanding young people who will comprise tomorrow's African leaders; and providing an online networking space for knowledge sharing and collaboration among teachers in Africa.
Suggestions that inspired this idea:
Establish youth leadership training programs in every major town and city throughout Africa
Create a cutting-edge research and development center that to identify, inspire and nurture a solution-providing generation of young Africans
Offer scholarships to students from developing countries who wish to study in engineering programs outside their country of origin
Increase educational opportunities in developing countries by creating "cyber schools"
Provide a online networking space for collaboration and knowledge sharing among teachers in Africa
14. Make government more transparent
Community
Create a website that enables people from any country or municipality to easily learn about the workings of their government, and rally their fellow citizens to take action to improve it. Numerous user ideas embraced variations on the theme of governmental transparency, with specific proposals ranging from publishing details of proposed laws and politicians' voting records to making public budgets searchable online and leveraging social networks to let communities make their voices heard by their representatives by voting on pressing issues.
Suggestions that inspired this idea:
Create a "govwatch" program that allows people to enter in geographic and other info and get back information about bills/laws that affect them
Empower individual voters with both online, real-time data on their political representatives' activity, and tools to analyze, engage and influence outcomes
Increase the transparency of laws, eliminate duplicate ones and communicate them better to affected citizens
Share information on how municipalities and states use public funds
15. Create real-time natural crisis tracking system
Community
Make rapid-response crisis-mapping data available to help policymakers better coordinate response efforts during hurricanes, earthquakes, tsunamis and other natural disasters. For example, this proposal could involve joining with global partners to develop technology to collect high-resolution imagery and video via satellite, Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) or ground-based communications, and display and aggregate this data for the use of policymakers and international organizations tasked with protecting vulnerable civilians.
Suggestions that inspired this idea:
Use online mapping products to put geographic data to work managing environmental emergencies
Create an interface that delivers real-time images of short-term natural disasters and long-term environmental crises.
Use Unmanned Aerial Vehicles for global weather monitoring and climatological data distribution
Build a cheap, modular rapid response platform bolted to an unmanned, autonomous light aircraft
Use Vertical Takeoff & Landing (VTOL) Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) in hazardous area detection, life search and rescue, and more
16. Help social entrepreneurs drive change
Opportunity
Create a fund to support social entrepreneurship. This idea was inspired by a number of user proposals focused on "social entrepreneurs" -- individuals and organizations who use entrepreneurial techniques to build ventures focused on attacking social problems and fomenting change. Specific relevant ideas include establishing schools that teach entrepreneurial skills in rural areas; supporting entrepreneurs in underdeveloped communities; and creating an entity to provide capital and training to help entrepreneurs build viable businesses and catalyze sustained community change.
Suggestions that inspired this idea:
Provide targeted capital and business training to help young entrepreneurs build viable businesses and catalyze sustained community change
Create a non-profit, venture capital-like revolving fund to invest in high-impact local entrepreneurs
Send young American entrepreneurs to underdeveloped communities to help create small businesses that would economically benefit those communities
Create schools in rural areas to teach local people how to become entrepreneurs
Create a private equity fund to help immigrants in developed countries finance business development in their countries of origin

Telling It Like It Is

Your house is on fire. Everything you own and cherish is quickly going up in smoke. The local privately owned fire control company, "Fire Fighters Inc." rushes to the rescue and begins to deploy their equipment, when a representative asks for your financial information before they can get to work. You have lousy credit, little in the bank, and your Visa card is maxed out. They tell you they're very sorry, but they will be unable to provide service at this time, and they let your house burn.
Your driving cross country to see granny and need to take $10,000 with you to pay for the tolls on all of the privately owned roads and highways on the way.
The country is paralyzed by an epidemic of swine flu that caught the nation unprepared as there are no agencies like the CDC to predict such emergencies.
You get sick from the water you drink and the food you eat on a regular basis because there is no Food and Drug Administration to look out for consumers, and no Environmental Protection Agency to stop major polluters from poisoning our environment.
We never went to the moon because there was no money to be made by doing so.
We are all tremendously stupid, like a nation of village idiots, because we could not afford to pay to go to school from kindergarten through high school.
Your getting up in years and soon will no longer be able to work, and fear destitution and poverty as there is no Social Security to help those who have worked throughout their lives and can no longer do so.
Legions of grizzly bears (Ursus arctos horribilis), take over our cities as there is no National Park Service, no police, or animal control services to keep them in line.
Sound far fetched? No, it actually sounds pretty scarey to me, but that is the world the Republicans would have us living in if they could, where private industry provides for all of our needs (for a price), the market rules, and money is God.
President Bush wanted to privatize Social Security by placing those funds collected in payroll taxes directly in the hands of Wall Street, in the form of individual retirement accounts, creating a fake social security crisis on order to scare the public into believing this change was necessary. Wall Street, you may recall, are the very ones responsible for the current, and past, economic downturns, depressions and recessions. Just what would have happened to our seniors now if he had been successful?
Business exists to make profit. That is their one and only goal. There are certain instances and services that are vital to national security and interests that do not lend themselves to the for profit model, such as those listed above: Fire prevention and control, the national highway system, disease prevention, forecasting and control, regulation of the food and drug supply, environmental concerns, the space program, the public school system, Social Security (by the way, Social Security wouldn't be facing any shortages if politicians did not raid its funds for other programs), and grizzly monitoring.
For profit health insurance falls into this category as well, because the only way for health insurers to make a profit is to deny coverage to those who need it. They do this in a variety of ways, canceling the policies when the insured get sick, deny coverage for pre-existing conditions, deny coverage for "experimental treatments," when they aren't experimental, but firmly established practices, etc. There are no real good reasons for the health insurance industry to exist, as they do not provide any health care themselves. They are the middle men, those who decide if you live or die according to their rules, which again, are profit orientated. Thus the current efforts of the Obama administration to reform the national health care system.
Yet the Republicans in Congress would see this effort fail. Why? They don't want anything President Obama does to succeed, due to purely political reasons. They are also the party of big business, actually the political arm of industry, and have never sided with the common good over the interests of corporations.
And they will say and do anything to scare the American public into disregarding their own best interests, such as:
– “Last week Democrats released a health care bill which essentially said to America’s seniors: Drop dead.” [Rep. Finny Brown-Waite (R-FL), 7/21/09]
– “They’re going to save money by rationing care, getting you in a long line. Places like Canada, United Kingdom, and Europe. People die when they’re in line.” [Rep. Steve King (R-IA), 7/15/09]
– “The Republican plan will] make sure we bring down the cost of health care for all Americans and that ensures affordable access for all Americans and is pro-life because it will not put seniors in a position of being put to death by their government.” [Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC), 7/28/09]
– “That’s exactly what’s going on in Canada and Great Britain today…and a lot of people are going to die.” [Rep. Paul Broun (R-GA), 7/10/09]
– “One in five people have to die because they went to socialized medicine! … I would hate to think that among five women, one of ‘em is gonna die because we go to socialized care.” [Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX), 7/
They are unconscionable in their efforts, would continue to deny help to the 45,000 who die each year due to lack of health insurance and care, and provide no solutions to the problems that even they admit exist. Yet they seem to get their feelings hurt rather easily when someone in a rare display of gumption and honesty calls them out.
Last Wednesday night, Representative Alan Grayson of Florida, a Democrat, said this from the floor of the House of Representatives: "It's my duty and pride tonight to be able to announce exactly what the Republicans plan to do for health care in America. Here it is. The Republican health care plan for America: 'don't get sick.' If you have insurance don't get sick, if you don't have insurance, don't get sick; if you're sick, don't get sick. ... If you do get sick America, the Republican health care plan is this: 'die quickly.'"
What he said is fundamentally the truth, yet the Republicans were outraged that someone had the guts to say it and demanded an apology. And they got one.
"I apologize to the dead and their families that we haven't voted sooner," he later said.
Representative Grayson has become something of a media darling on left wing radio and television news programs, such as The Rachel Maddow Show, and the Ed Schultz program, and has been vilified by the right for essentially telling it like it is, very unlike his mild mannered colleagues.
I have to admit he's become my new hero as well, and call on the rest of the Democrats in Congress to follow his brave example.

Erin's Ticket

Saw a squirrel pee in the backyard yesterday.
It wasn't shy about it either. It had been eating a coconut, which appear in our garden at times.
I had walked out there to water the garden, when I saw the little critter to my immediate left, sitting on top of a bicycle which was chained to one of the trees. The squirrel saw me too, and took a crouching position as if it was ready to spring up the tree if need be. I froze. The squirrel froze, and we starred at each other for a good ninety seconds. Then it climbed down to the ground and began gnawing on what I first thought was a large mushroom cap, but soon recognized that it was a chunk of a coconut shell, and the squirrel was feasting on the white meat. I watched it for awhile. It was taking no more notice of me and enjoying its meal, so I surreptitiously eased back into the hallway, went to my lovely case manager's office, and asked Erin if she wanted to see a squirrel eating a coconut.
Well who can resist an invitation like that. Certainly not Erin. And Paul too, it seems, as he followed us out there as well.
We stood inside the hall and looked out.
"Where is it?" Erin asked.
"Right there, behind the bush."
"Oh yeah. There he is."
"Where'd he get the coconut?" Paul asked.
"I don't know," I told him. "But coconuts have been found out here before."
The squirrel soon tired of his coconut and began wandering around the yard.
"I've never seen a squirrel walk around like that," Erin said. "It reminds me of a cat."
Then the squirrel relieved itself.
"It's peeing!" Erin exclaimed.
"Really?" Paul asked.
"Yeah, I can see it."
"Bet you've never seen a squirrel do that either," I told them.
The squirrel, done with its business, high-tailed up one of the trees and left us, and we each returned to our respective duties.
Later we watched "Close Encounters of the Third Kind," on our new flat screen TV, which worked very well, and was relatively easy to set up. We placed it on a table as the maintenance people have not mounted it on the wall yet. Erin supplied popcorn and 7 Up. I supplied double cheeseburgers from McDonalds to those who showed up, Jose, Fred, and Hardy. Erin had one to, a special "Without Onions," order, and I gave her the pickles off of mine (I don't like them. They taste too much like pickled cucumbers). Jose unapologetically ate three of the freaking things.
Erin and Paul had never seen this movie. It was released in 1977, when Erin was just minus 7 years old, but it still looks as vibrant and undated as it was when I first saw it in theaters just before I entered the navy.
It's fun to watch good movies with people who have never seen them, and Erin was suitably impressed.
"What?" she exclaimed, when the UFO's lights slowly drifted upwards behind Richard Dreyfuss's truck, in one of the early scenes.
"They used real UFOs for this movie," I explained.
"Oh."
I once spoke to Richard Dreyfuss on the telephone as he was filming, "Moon Over Parador," in Brazil. I was working for AT&T at the time as a long distance operator, and someone placed a person to person call to him at his hotel. They thought he might be in his room, but he wasn't there. No, he was out by the pool, but I found him.
"Hello," he answered, when I finally got to him.
"This is the AT&T operator, and I have a person to person call for Richard Dreyfuss," I told him.
"I'm Richard Dreyfuss," he told me.
"Yeah, you don't sound like Richard Dreyfuss. Prove it."
"What?"
I didn't really say that. When he identified himself I released the call.
Erin told me she enjoyed the movie after it ended at four fifteen. She had to leave then to go pay her rent.
"Oh, I didn't tell you, Rick. I got pulled over yesterday..."
"No!"
"Yes." We argue like this quite often.
This was very weird, as it was just yesterday that we discovered Erin had been driving around for months with a suspended license. We found that out because yesterday she forced me to go with her (for moral support as she was very stressed) to the Municipal Court, down on Hill Street, to take care of that fix-it ticket she had received a $700 bill for. After waiting in line for a half hour, we found out that the DMV had suspended her license and were given a piece of paper and told to wait in another line. After twenty minutes in that line, Erin got a hearing date for next February, and we were directed back to the first line, where Erin had to pay them ten bucks, and where she was told the DMV would most likely reinstate her license for an additional $55 bucks.
What a freaking racket! As you might recall, sweet Erin had fixed her broken tail light on time and mailed her ticket to the court. Then she got the $700 bill from a collection agency, stating the matter had not been taken care of. Apparently there was a small court fee she was supposed to pay, but was unaware of. So now she had to pay $10 bucks for a hearing date, the state gets $55 bucks to reinstate her license. The court will probably charge her her an additional $80 dollars to settle the matter in February, and on top of that she got another fix-it ticket while she was driving home for driving with an expired registration tag she hadn't gotten because of this court business. All in all that little tail light is going to cost her around $170 smackeroos. What a racket!
"I'll pretend you didn't just tell me that your driving with a suspended license," the cop told her upon issuing the ticket, and after Erin described to him in complete detail what the situation was.
At least he was nice about that, and I didn't have to go bail my poor little case manager out of the slammer.
Now she gets to look forward to a nice visit to the DMV on Monday. Perhaps she'll want me to come along as that's probably more stressful than the freaking court.
We shall see.