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8/12/10

POTS: Tip and Ring, Grounded

The Summer of my Disconnect...

In analog copper telephony ("Plain Old Telephone Service") two wires run together, one is the positive ground side (ring) and the other side is the negative battery side (tip), with a switching machine acting as the brain. Basically two wires connect and people talk.

Throughout this economic crisis, signaled to me in 2007, I've been able to stay grounded, keeping battery going and charged and maintaining a positive connection in my brain. There have been difficult times, periods when I wondered how I was going to continue to personally financially keep my head above water, treading water if necessary. My main focus was at a minimum break even, increase income if possible, reduce and not fall behind in expenses and continue to avoid all debt. So far, so good.

I'm not sure exactly when a different way of thinking started evolving within me but it was sometime around the Fourth of July. Then suddenly I felt the heaviness of the trouble our country was in economically. It was no longer a matter of my knowledge of economics, southward Leading Economic Indicators, Stock Market bubble and other factors that in my brain were things that did not add up to a sustainable recovery. Up until then a lot of intellectual discourse in my head was on how to best move forward personally with that knowledge and stay relatively financially intact with a positive outlook.

No...this was deep in heart and soul. I suddenly felt what my grandparents had felt, during the Great Depression, at approximately the same age as I am now. It explained them perfectly to me. With clarity I now understood why my parents, aunts and uncles, who grew up as kids and adolescents in that era, held the values they did about debt, savings, managing money and resources.

It was a very hefty oppressive feeling that I'm still reconciling. Somehow, simultaneously I had disconnected, tip and ring and had no battery, but my brain wasn't switching anything off. Neuron synapses weren't signalling and if they were, weakly and the distance between axon and dendrite was so great it grounded them out, without connection. There was hum on the line but at the same time, the network was still operating on another level that was different.

This has caused me to reevaluate how to proceed in what looks like a 5, 10 and 15 year economic recovery cycle. Experienced, educated professional economists, as well as people directly involved in some way in the economy that I know, all privately tell me the same thing. We're in for a long haul of piecing things back together, no matter the tack taken to repair the damage, this will still take time. Fortunately the financial piece for me personally is somewhat settled in my mind, primarily I'm as prepared as I can be, considering the situation.

Now the work for me on all levels, is realizing the effects on people and society, accepting that there will be many difficulties, while doing what I can and preserving my own state of mind. When I was young I lived for an extended period in third world places with a small middle class and large disparity between wealthy and poor people. I'm not suggesting America is going to become third world but the conditions will be present in some areas. Due to my experience, I know there is an entire psychology that comes with that, one that I think the majority of Americans are ill-prepared for.

Keeping myself physically healthy and my mind sharp is paramount to maintain to me for future shock. I am of no use to others if I am not in shape, physically and mentally. It is for that reason I disconnected from the social web for the most part, limit my quota of media and news, avoid most comment sections on the internet (they've become largely peanut galleries). Now I tend reduce my time on the web to use it as a resource and for carefully chosen entertainment. I determined that the axiom "the internet has ruined my attention span" is certainly true for me and am making a point to read books. Paper ones, not e-books, long ones. 

It's been engaging. Reading for extended periods is tougher than it used to be for me. I'm also re-discovering and meeting people who also understand current events and enjoy conversation. I'm relearning when to listen, really hear and speak in full sentences articulately. I'm more active and having more fun. At the same time I'm learning I need to disengage from some activities and people that aren't moving forward because that isn't much fun, it's counter-productive.

Above all else, for me it is about raising the bar to keep yourself level-headed and staying positive in an extremely challenging, yet at the same time exciting, era.

8/11/10

Music Break: Bruce Springsteen

Glory Days (Live in Hyde Park)...

Quote of the Day

The sky is crying, tears roll down the street...

Rain water harvesting captures them for good use.

And in Arizona, cities like Tucson are pioneering the practices of big-city rain capture. "All you need for a water harvesting system is rain, and a place to put it" Tucson Water says on it's Web site.

from "It's Now Legal to Catch a Raindrop in Colorado"
New York Times 06/28/2009

Boyce Thompson Arboretum

Desert plants and ecosystems, rain water harvesting...


An Introduction to the Boyce Thompson Arboretum near Superior, Arizona
Narrated by Paul Wolterbeek, Staff Member at Boyce Thompson Arboretum


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGNdNXKi1u0



Rain Water Harvesting
narrated by Kim Stone, horticulturist at Boyce Thompson Arboretum 


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8l2PIxlRqr4

8/10/10

Music Break: The Hollies

He ain't heavy, he's my brother...


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C1KtScrqtbc

Quote of the Day

Quality and care...

A person who sees Quality and feels it as he works is a person who cares. A person who cares about what he sees and does is a person who's bound to have some characteristics of Quality.

from Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert M. Pirsig
Part III, Chapter 24
copyright 1974, 1999

Urban Landscape Photography IX

Long Hot Summer Daze...

photo by Gregory A Z Nelson


8/9/10

Music Break: 3Js

Star of the county down (Akoesteren)...


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SgSLQ00F25A

Quote of the Day

How to Lose an Election Without Really Trying...


Frank Rich

Could George W. Bush be a kind of Gipper-in-reverse and win yet one more for the Democrats? Clearly this White House sees him as the gift that keeps on giving. The 2010 campaign against the Bush Administration is in full cry, with President Obama leading the charge. The Republicans are "betting on amnesia" he confidently told the claque at a recent fund-raiser, "they don't have a single idea that's different from George Bush's ideas." It's now the incessant party line.


Sounds plausible, but it's Obama who's on the wrong side of that bet, to his own political peril. Betting on amnesia is almost always a winning, not a losing, wager in America.


Eventually you must have your own ideas, your own agenda and own your own administration and campaign on your own record.

Prepare To Go Japanese

Big Government intervention: Deflation, Inflation Stagflation...

Big Government is probably here to stay for awhile, due to the economic crisis and entitlement psychology of a large segment of the American people, at the very least until the 2016 election. It is due to the major political parties having a stranglehold on the "two-party system" and despite protestations to the contrary, Republicans are as much Big Government (think defense, corporate influence, Social Security and Medicare) as the Democrats. Expect lots of government intervention to unnaturally fix a natural correction.

Prepare to go Japanese and be in economic, political and social stagnation for the rest of the decade. Deflation, Inflation, Stagflation.

Unless government intervention breaks and forces have built up to recognize that the Supremacy Clause, Federal Reserve, the 16th and 17th Amendments, among other things, aren't reformed or repealed, we will by the end of the decade really be like Japan, which is now into 20 years of stagnating decline. The US will be in the long slow decline of a once great country, following other great civilizations that throughout history, have fallen in stature. The United Kingdom is starkly well into it now.

Know the Geography of Your Mind

The key on a personal level to survive what is coming is by remaining psychologically intact, avoiding depression, alcohol and drugs and dangerous escapist behaviors like the population of another great power, Russia. This will be very hard work and require some good old American True Grit and courage. Individually we must also be responsible for ourselves and those close to us and vigilantly rebuild or maintain our personal economic situations to scale. Most importantly we need to make important choices about maintaining our values and ethics, guarding our minds, spiritual selves, personal associations, while navigating a toxic culture.

Although I think this era is much worse, I learned a lot from the economic, social and political era of 1968 through 1983. Technically during that time there were four recessions, but for most people I knew, it was just one long haul. I was neither rich nor poor but I became very wealthy in resourcefulness and for that reason, life was not so bad. It wasn't always easy, I had moments when I pondered if the future would ever bring an improvement and what it would look like if it happened.

Imitation of Life

Regretfully most of my generation, those of us statistically born at the height of the baby boom, when the early eighties recession ended and an economic revival began, suddenly lost their senses. They became consumers with rapidity, imitating the "Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous." One week they were driving a nice, decent car and the next week a Mercedes, jeans were out and fancy pants were in and their hair was expensively styled. I don't feel sorry for them now, they've spent decades complacent in their overpaid careers, under performing while gorging on consumer goods and ill-prepared for what is happening to them now.

Self-reliance and being resourceful is key

Meanwhile I know people of all ages who didn't buy into consumerism or who for the past few years, self-aware, have been in consumerist recovery and getting back on the best track possible in these times. They all genuinely understand fully what is going on and although in the minority, there are millions of us and we'll make it somehow. I suspect that resourcefulness I never forgot from the early part of my life will come in handy for quite some time.


How To Make A Fountain Under $100
http://www.youtube.com/user/mhguy77

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1fb9w_Wl8WM