“Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” George Santayana, the Spanish born American Philosopher, Poet and Humanist who made important contributions to aesthetics, speculative philosophy and literary criticism.History is a subject which does not seem to interest as many people as is should, especially young people. This concerns me because there is a lot that can be learned by looking back at past events and seeing what went right and what went wrong. To me, ignoring history is like ignoring experience. Perhaps you’ve heard the expression “experience is the best teacher.” With all this in mind, I'd like to take a look back in time:In the 1970’s America was suffering through some tough economic times, jobs were being lost, President Nixon resigned, we had a gas crisis, inflation was rising, and we had the Iran hostage crisis (a short history of the 1970's). President Carter proposed some belt-tightening to America, and his suggestions might have worked. However, his opponent in 1980 was the very charismatic Ronald Reagan. America wanted good news, not bad. We didn’t want to take the hard road, we wanted everything nice and easy. So we elected President Reagan and got trickle-down economics – a great program for the rich, who got richer, but not so good for everyone else, who got poorer.Here’s a political cartoon about our last four presidents:
So here we are in 2008 and we’ve got tough economic times, jobs are being lost, we've got a gas crisis, and prices for everything are rising. Wonder where that easy road is going to take us now?
The Associated Press reported today that the Democratic and Republican candidates spent $94,000,000 dollars in August. That’s $94 MILLION dollars in one month. What did they spend over half of this money on? Advertising. Here’s a quote from that AP report:
“Their campaign finance reports, filed before Saturday's midnight deadline, shows that more than half of their $3-million-a-day spending rate was devoted to advertising that became increasingly negative during the month.”
Once again the American political process devolves to a mud-slinging process. The winner is the one with the best spin and the most convincing lies. I sometimes wonder how the rest of the world views us. I’d wager they are having a good laugh at us.
Considering the shape our economy is in I suppose that I should be glad that there is all this money flowing around. They are keeping advertising agencies, television stations, radio stations, and print media employees from loosing their jobs. They even have their own well-paid staffers. Obama has a monthly payroll of $2.8 million and McCain has a $1.2 million payroll. Glad to know that there are still some people with jobs. Maybe I should have gone to work for one of them.
What really worries me thought is that when it comes time to vote the average American won’t have a clue who they are really voting for. Instead they will vote for the one with the best advertising and the candidate with the best spin doctors that money can buy. This country is facing some very serious and potentially catastrophic problems. We should be asking the candidates hard questions about what they will do to fix these problems. Instead it’s all sound-bytes and spin.
For those who might be curious about the truth and lies in what our candidates are saying I recommend the following sites:
Beware though, many sites that profess to provide nothing but the facts are in truth just putting their own spin out on the Internet. Which is, unfortunately, why I am not able to recommend more sites.
Lastly, if you would like to try your own hand – and maybe land a good job with a political candidate – at spin, check out this how-to site at eHow.
As I write this it is Saturday morning (I'll be driving all day Sunday) and Hurricane Ike is pounding Houston, Texas. My good hopes and best wishes go to those in the path of this storm. It has already wrought great damage to Cuba and Haiti on its way to the United States. Fay and Gustav had already brought considerable damage to those nations. Now Ike has left them in a desperate situation. What Galveston is going to look like remains to be seen.
Since I live in Florida I already know a fair amount about hurricanes. We were personally visited by three storms in 2004. I was not home when Charlie struck my house; however, I did get a unique look at the storm while flying at 30,000 feet over the Gulf of Mexico. It was around 9:30 PM and the storm was in the process of demolishing both my home and the city I live in when the pilot of the plane I was in came on over the intercom and told the passengers to look out the left side of the plane. What we saw he called “the veil of the hurricane” -- it was like looking at a giant fog; I could see a massive cloud formation, but it was all soft and fuzzy looking, unlike what was being experienced on the ground.
So far this year there have been ten named storms. Dolly, Edouard, Fay, Gustav, and Ike have all impacted folks living in and around the Gulf of Mexico. If you would like information on the storms this year, check out this hurricane information site. The National Hurricane Center has excellent satellite imagery and storm track information, but they don’t have any historical information for 2008 yet. If you live anywhere visited by hurricanes, you might want to add this site to your daily ‘to-do’ list.
About the title to this blog:
The title for this blog comes from a collection of Native American legends collected by Bessie M. Reid and published by Florence Stratton in 1936. Many of the stories in the book are from the Tejas, or Hasinai tribe as they called themselves, located in the area that would become Texas. Tejas in the Hasinai language means friend and it is from that word that we got the name Texas. The book may be read on-line here. If this year is anything to go by, I suspect that they had considerable experience with storm gods.
A friend of mine, and fellow blogger, asked me to contribute a favorite childhood story to her for use in a post she is working on. While I didn’t mind sharing a story, I had to stop and think for a bit because I realized that I hadn’t thought about my childhood much in quite a while.
All of that musing got me to thinking about how memory works and what a remarkable thing it is. My friend shared a story with me about catching fireflies, or lightening bugs, as some people call them (what they are called seems to depend on what part of the country you are from). Reading her story brought back memories from when I was young and chasing them around the yard. I found that I could feel the coolness of the grass, smell the scent of the pine trees, and see my parents sitting on the porch waiting for me to return with a captured lightening bug.
Memory can be a magical thing. We can see people long dead again, relive childhood events, re-experience that first kiss, and countless other things. Many things can trigger a memory: a sight, a sound, a smell. They can come on you unexpectedly. Unfortunately, we sometimes remember things we wish we could forget.
Our memories can store a remarkable collection of eclectic stuff. Have you ever heard music playing only to realize that the music was playing in your own mind? Sometimes a song can get stuck in your mind and just keeps playing over and over. Have you ever walked through a store and had a smell trigger a memory from your past?
If you haven’t looked back into your memories for a while, it might be good to dust off some of those memory bits and take a look around. Don’t dwell on hurtful things but look for those long forgotten gems and enjoy them again.
I think we can all agree that it has been a tough year. Incomes are either flat or down while costs of stuff is up. Personally, I don't see things getting any better for quite a while. This is an election year, but the people we elect in November won't be able to begin doing anything until next year. Who knows how much time it will take for what they do to actually take affect. Optimistic is not a term I use to describe myself anymore.
Regardless of what else happenes or may happen, I have learned some valuable lessons this year. Perhaps many other Americans have learned this one as well: how to get by with less. I've had to drastically cut my spending just so I could pay my bills. If it's not an absolute essential, I'm not buying it any more. Sure, there are things I miss, but I've discovered that I can get by without them - that I really didn't need them. This is a lesson we all need to learn: how to separate what we need from what we want.
America has been a society of consumers for a long time. A billboard for one of the local "factory outlet" malls near where I live has the slogan: "Shop till you drop". Advertisers show us all the things we need to look good in, smell good wearing, all the stuff we've 'got to have' so that we'll be enticed to go out and buy it. While the money lasted, it was good. But did we really need all that junk?
Did you know that America is the largest consumer of a majority of the natural resources of this planet while not having the largest population? The American Association for the Advancement of Science has this to say: "For many resources, the United States of America is the world's largest consumer in absolute terms. For a list of 20 major traded commodities, it takes the greatest share of 11 of them: corn, coffee, copper, lead, zinc, tin, aluminum, rubber, oil seeds, oil and natural gas. For many more it is the largest per-capita consumer." When it comes to energy consumption we again are the biggest consumers. And when it comes to oil consumption, no one else is even close.
So it might not be such a bad idea for us all to try and get by with less. Sure, some jobs will go away because of this. However, if we were to start doing/building some of the things that we as a nation really need then new jobs will be created. Some ideas: research and develop alternative forms of energy, rebuild our highway infrastructure (remember that bridge that fell in Minneapolis?), and clean up the environment.
I'll end with a link to a post by Frances Ellen on 6 ways to beat the cost of groceries. She's got some excellent suggestions.
My post last week was about alternative ways to produce energy for yourself. While there were many good suggestions there, what do you do if you don’t have the money to purchase one of those systems? Well, whether you rent or own, you can make some simple changes to where to live that can save you hundreds of dollars in energy costs over the year. Let’s take a look at a few of these cost saving measures.Lighting:- Here’s a no-cost solution: turn the light off when you leave the room. Unless you need the light for security reasons, turn off lights when they are not needed.
- Replace incandescent bulbs with efficient, compact fluorescents. The new compact fluorescents produce the same amount of illumination for a fraction of the energy requirements. My power company posts the following information comparing the energy costs of the two types of bulbs for 10,000 hours of use: incandescent bulbs cost $51 to use while compact fluorescent bulbs cost just $12.75.
- Don’t need all the illumination all the time? Consider installing dimmer switches (solid-state are best) to save money.
In the kitchen:- Match the size of the cooking element to the size of the pan. If the pan is too small for the element you are just heating the air and wasting energy.
- Use a toaster oven or microwave when cooking/heating just one item instead of your big oven. Save the big oven for when you have a number of items to cook.
- Let carry-over heat do part of the work. You can turn off a burner, toaster oven, or oven several minutes before the food is done cooking. The existing heat will finish the job for you and you will have saved some energy.
Home laundry:- Use cold or warm water to wash clothes. Modern laundry soaps don’t need hot water to get your clothes clean. Unless I’m washing rag cloths, I only use cold water when doing the laundry.
- Get a clothes drying rack. Not only do you save money by not running the dryer very long, but your clothes last longer and you don’t have to iron as much (save money and time that way!). I put shirts and pants in the dryer for about 10 minutes and then transfer them to the rack. This is a big money saver.
- Keep the dryer exhaust vent and line clean. Not only will you save money but you reduce the likelihood of a dangerous dryer fire.
Heating & cooling:- In the summer just turning the thermostat up a couple of degrees can save a lot of money. If your home has ceiling fans, use them to keep you comfortable. In the winter drop the temperature a few degrees and put on a sweater to save money.
- Replace the filter on a regular basis. When it gets clogged your heating/cooling system will have to work harder and use more energy.
- Use the sun to your advantage. In the summer keep curtains closed when the sun is shining to reduce heat. Because I live in the deep south, I’ve installed a solar shade on my west-facing windows; I can still see out, but the heat of the sun is greatly reduced. In the winter let the sun in for some additional heat.
Looking for some more ideas? Check out these Web articles:
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