HOME SWEET HOME WOULD BE SWEET FOR MOST HOMELESS.

Being a long time city dweller, I have had enough direct encounters with the homeless population. To compound this knowledge, I have also had a few extended stints of not-quite-voluntary “urban camping” myself over the course of my life.

I suppose that it can be considered to be some sort of educational advantage, in striving to understand the issues surrounding homelessness, that I have looked at the situation from both sides of the fence. I'm at a loss to determine if I feel any deep sense of empathy with other homeless people from my experience, and yet I can't feel absolutely sure that I would not end up right back on the street again someday.

From what I've witnessed over time, both from a homeless and sheltered perspective, personality types and traits run the gamut regardless of one's place in society. For instance, I can focus upon the types of folks that I encounter on a regular basis moving through the alley behind my kitchen window, who poke through the garbage and recycling bins at the apartment complex just across the way.

Most folks seem to be reasonably considerate and don't make a mess or much noise with their scavenging, and are considerate enough to close the bin lids and leave things like they had practically never been there. Others go out of their way to fuck shit up, slamming anything they can, scattering debris everywhere, and occasionally shitting and pissing whenever and wherever the moment works for them, and sometimes defecating right in front of the gate where I go in and out of my home each day. The range of civilized behavior (of lack thereof) doesn't seem any different to me in relative scale in comparison to people in a sheltered lifestyle. It's just that the daily routines and challenges required for daily survival happen to be radically different on many fronts.

As far as I can tell, folks that I have encountered who hold the most contempt for the homeless tend to have had the least need to struggle to survive. They tend to complain about freeloaders but also tend to be beneficiaries of trust funds, parent-funded educations, inherited homes, family owned businesses (or jobs acquired through nepotism and patronage favors), and /or “opportunities” that could easily be defined as a free ride.

The only solution to homelessness is actual permanent housing. Instead of the fairly inhumane strategy of warehousing people into human corrals, there must be a genuine effort to expand the level of actual residence to permanently shelter those who are homeless and not by personal choice. Once the wheels are rolling to house people who are circumstantially in need, the ability to concentrate on those who are unable to cope with sufficiently taking care of themselves, just lingering around out there and messed up, can be sharpened and improved.

Nowadays more than ever, the situation of homeless individuals can not be pigeonholed, much less dismissed as a mere nuisance or hindrance.

DO THE RIGHT THING, PEOPLE. DOWNSIZE THE HUMAN RACE.

No, I don't have children, never wanted them, and never will. Of course, aging past the half century mark has lowered the odds of that ever happening, although many other guys much older than myself have shot their sperm into a younger more fertile reproductive tract just to replicate.

Perhaps being forced by life to “grow up” too fast and too soon had something to do with this, but the fact is that I just can't stand children. When a bunch of screaming, running brats are anywhere near me, I can't help but think that even a pack of barking playing puppies are far less annoying and not even nearly as potentially dangerous. Get some little snots in a relatively unsupervised environment and someone's property or even person is guaranteed to get damaged one way or the other.

Among other things that annoy the living hell out of me about human nature is how those people who have chosen to spawn offspring are under some sort of belief that they are entitled to a higher position of privilege in society than those of us who have chosen not to do so. These idiot breeders are somehow self-absorbed in the belief that their offspring is divinely destined to the inherit sole control of the universe.

There has been a completely unproven premise presented by some folks that if the population rate turned negative, there would be a shortage of the caretakers and innovators of the future. I would present the opposite opinion. Education as well as subsequent career fulfillment would actually be far less competitive, and therefore we would have educated professionals who are truly choosing their fields and not just settling for them.

Downsizing the human race would be the smartest and most logical way to save the planet. The only truly dangerous and destructive threat to Earth's well being seems to be humanity itself. Its extinction would most probably be of utmost benefit to the ecosystem, save for all of the shit it has already created and would leave behind.

IGNORE ALL ADVERTISING.

Advertising has got to be one of the most egregiously evil ideas in the history of humankind, and somewhere down there on an ethical level with fascism and pedophilia.

Advertising spreads itself like a fungal infection across urban landscapes, freeways, TV shows, radio broadcasts and mailboxes. People in the advertising industry are insatiably money hungry leeches upon the skin of society. If they could get paid to completely cover every wall, pavement, vehicle, tree trunk, leaf, article of clothing, rock and animal carcass with some sort of cheesy ad or another, which would be trying to sell useless, stupid shit to the public, then they would jump at the opportunity in a heartbeat.

The most revolutionary way to rebel against advertising is to simply ignore it. Sure, I look at an ad insert once in a blue moon, but for the most part, my shopping habits are controlled simply by walking into a store and checking out what's available. Occasionally I will use store discount "club" cards, but at least I can select among items that I always buy all the time. I'm a creature of habit and pretty much know what I like at this point in life by now. I loathe even the contemplation of using coupons, especially since they tend to be insignificant discounts on a bunch of useless shit that I would never normally buy. To top it off, newspaper and mass mailing manufacturers' coupons usually are for heavily media-advertised items anyway.

The challenge for most people who are unable to ignore advertising, from what I can gather, is rooted in the same self-imposed repression of critical thinking which is caused by an amplified struggle to work and earn a living, combined with the nonstop attempts to brainwash folks into buying things that they don't really need (or even want that much, in many cases) with credit, a.k.a. money that they don't really have available to spend. There may be a bigger picture to contemplate here. Perhaps the true challenge lies in the individual to grow accustomed to trust in his or her own opinion, innate intelligence, and personal sense of judgment. 

If advertising has succeeded in anything re: an ability to impact and influence the modern world, it has worked wonders in its ability to instill self-doubt, low self esteem and bourgeois materialism in its targeted denizens.

LOCAL NEWS. AN ENDANGERED SPECIES.

The Establishment Media at the local level is becoming more and more pathetic by the day.

Newspapers are turning into a sad pile of advertorial and wire-service-padded dreck. With unceasing cutbacks in staffing and penny pinching efforts at production costs come reduced newsholes and the appearance of each daily edition as no more than an advertising circular with a wee bit of content thrown in, fortified increasingly with ego drunk, barely readable self centered opinion pieces with no use to the public trust whatsoever. There should be little if any puzzlement as to why print news media is losing readership in a never ending free fall over the past several years. What the fuck is left to read anymore? Why plow through a newspaper with a page featuring a five column by eighteen inch ad (on a six column by twenty one inch page) just to jump to a continuation of an article when you can probably read the same stuff online with less attempts to interfere with your concentration?

Local television increasingly isn't. Oh, sure, TV news is still mostly led with the usual murders and fires, but anything of relevance to anyone at the neighborhood level (especially after the first five to ten minutes of the newscast) is dwindling. Desperate for viewer ratings, newscasts substitute the latest whiz bang mobile live truck technology for any sort of reporting of substance. Local stations are padding their daily and nightly broadcasts with increasing amounts of corporate sponsored ad spots disguised as public interest items mixed with infotainment. Most of the “breaking news” shit is usually fires, accidents and cop chases in cities clear across the state or even the country, with no local relevance at all.

Is this perhaps a sign of the times? Many people seem simply disinterested at increasing levels in what is going on in their world, whether locally, globally or otherwise. It may well be true that the local Establishment Media is giving its audience what they want in the sense that, not only does the audience seem to even know what the fuck they want anymore, but deteriorating resources at news outlets are incapable of determining local information needs anyway. What local communities get as a result is a hodge podge of flashy but limited ability all gussied up and disguised as actual journalism.

Is it time to start ignoring, boycotting and subsequently shutting down all this shit? Would it really do any good? These unholy alliances between the media outlets and advertisers are simply too strong to see any sort of marked termination of the current practices, much less their operations. A core element of any local populace is going to slink right along like rats to the Establishment Media's Pied Piper tunes. Maybe it's time for some of us who are not quite as afraid or lazy in employing our critical thinking abilities to start an open and vocal critique of the what these corporate swill pushers are trying to shove on us as relevant news and information for the useless garbage that it truly is.

THOU SHALT NOT KILL, BUT DON'T EXPECT ANYONE TO MENTION THAT.

 Whatever happened to proactive concern for safety and well being in this country? Or, to be realistic, has proactive concern for safety and well being of the nation as a whole ever really existed?

American Establishment society, especially through its various organs of communication, almost seems to enjoy the opportunity to gnash teeth and wax philosophical whenever a mass murder occurs. Well, at least when it happens domestically. There's this inherent paradox which consists of the expression of shock and sorrow whenever these shootings occur, as if these incidents shouldn't happen in America, despite how many times they occur in relatively short periods.

I don't have any sympathy, and certainly no level of empathy, for anyone who would go and kill others as these mass shooters have done. Still, with the emphasis on concern to keep people safe and unharmed, it can't hurt to send out a message to anyone considering such a pointless and destructive action. Suicide prevention is presented in public service announcements as a general call to anyone considering harming themselves, or knowing of someone who might, to avoid allowing harm to happen and seeking help. If that approach is used to deter people from hurting themselves, why can't a similar tactic be deployed to keep people from hurting others?

No one in the public arena stands up and says to the faceless ones who may kill in the future: “You must reconsider your plans. You must not allow these selfish destructive plans to consume you and destroy the lives of others. You must stand down.” Instead, they just stick to the usual pointless diatribes about gun control and indoctrination to media influence. Folks with a cynical streak in their thinking may feel like a proactive message of that nature may be a waste of time. Can anyone show me a suggested “solution” that has worked at all so far?

The focus on looking at improvements in mental health treatment is interesting but doesn't seem to come even close to doing anything to making any real impact on future violence from happening again. Most people diagnosed with mental illness aren't violent anyway, and are actually more likely to be victims of violence than their fellow citizens in the the allegedly sane population. You know, those folks who pass the Personal Firearms Eligibility Check and then stock up on umpteen guns and thousands of rounds of ammo.

Instead of treating this problem as an afterthought, waiting until the next batch of funerals to engage in broadcasting the hand wringing and useless diatribes from all of the usual talking heads, why not at least make a serious effort to affect the sensibility and attitude of an entire population? Perhaps Mr. Lennon was on the right track with that “War Is Over” stuff after all.

RING OUT THE OLD, RING IN THE NEW.

Ultimately, it's just another cycle.

End of the world. Yeah, whatever.

The Maya simply devised a calendar. Nothing more, nothing less. When a calendar ends, a new calendar begins. I would consider it to be not only optimistic but simply commonsense to assume that the Maya had no interest in predicting the end of anyone's world, much less the one that the Maya had been living in at the time. Perhaps the Maya just figured that they'd be around today to devise the new calendar in time to start anew, but, you know, Spanish conquest and forced subjugation attempts and shit.

The intelligent and practical will see this time as an era of renewal. It's s great time to take stock in your future. After all, preparation for the future is, in reality, the only thing that has meaning to life. There are people out there who like to keep yammering on about living in “the now”, but usually the ones who walk their talk the most are no longer in any good shape, if even alive at all, in “the now”. Their best moments, as well as their fixated thoughts, end up merely existing in the past. This is never healthy or worthwhile thinking.

Time in its ultimate existence is infinite. Sure, when our mortal coil is up against time, it can feel frustrating in that one can sense that goals of personal accomplishment look unpromising in terms of actual achievement. But it can be beneficial to see this situation as simply one more challenge of life, or better yet, just another discipline like that required of physical exercise or intellectual growth. In any case, getting obsessed with when the world is going to end is simply a waste of time and thought. A will indicative of survival, and not death, is what the essence of life is made of.

SHOW UP AND VOTE. OR DON'T.

"When the political columnists say 'Every thinking man' they mean themselves, and when candidates appeal to 'Every intelligent voter' they mean everybody who is going to vote for them." - Franklin P. Adams, American journalist-humorist

People are faulted for only supporting one of the two major American political parties, but the reasons for such isolated support may be similar as to why someone shops at a big box corporate retailer instead of a locally owned small business. Perhaps they don’t see any alternative. Thus, the fault lies more in the Establishment Media political machine than the people it allegedly serves.

People should have the conscience to vote for whomever they want, regardless of the chances of victory for any particular candidate. In an extreme circumstance, as a show of protest or disgust at the lack of suitable candidates, choosing to simply leave the office choice blank should be considered a perfectly acceptable choice.

Showing up to vote, and turning in a blank ballot, would be the true protest as opposed to simply staying away from the polling place and not voting. Imagine if every qualified American voter who did not feel like voting in a particular election turned up and dropped a bunch of votes for nobody in the box.  

In the end, it does not matter who you choose in the ballot box. Elected officials are in office to represent all of the people, not just those who voted for them. Despite the traditional rhetoric of the pundits, there is really no such thing as a “mandate” of the electorate.

WARNING. ETERNAL LIFE CAN KILL YOU.

Let us be intolerant of the violent fringe element of organized religion. For centuries, various paths of belief, for certain individuals, have been just a good excuse to kill each other. Of course, the vast majority of the clerics, practitioners and followers of the world’s creeds are not violent and abhor the extremist element of their own faiths. Unfortunately, no one religion is innocent; all have had some level of historic infamy at one time or another.

There should be an island out on an atoll somewhere where religious fanatics of all faiths can get isolated and feel free to kill each other without any bystanders getting affected. We can name it Dogma Island. Let me help. How about someplace at the edge of Antarctica as a home for these fools? It doesn’t matter if it’s a little cold down there. They’re going to off each other soon enough anyway. Just take ‘em to the final location CIA Black Site style, and airdrop down enough food, short-range weaponry and ammo, etc. to last a while and help them do the job right. 

In reality, of course, I jest. Those of us who value tolerance and living in shared respect of each others’ personal beliefs need to stay patient in our mutual acceptance of our right to exist in peace. Just for once, though, it would be nice to see those who attempt (and unfortunately sometimes succeed) at fanning the flames of mob destruction and murder to be taken out of their sheltered environment and thrust into the middle of the chaos that they instigate. Let’s see how brave and resolved they are, with their hateful rhetoric, at that point and place.

DON'T WORK SO HARD.

American Worker:

Are you currently employed? Good for you. Is your job in a large corporation? My sympathies. Anyway, if you answered yes to both of those questions, here’s an important bit of advice for you.

Do your job. Just don’t work so hard.

Sure, you have certain levels of job requirements that you must maintain in order to keep your gig. You just don’t need to exceed those requirements. You may be one of those folks who think that you need to push full speed ahead in order to advance in the company. I will tell you now, in no uncertain terms that you will simply be wasting your time and effort.

Your added effort will only serve to fatten stock prices and CEO bonuses. In the end, when the company decides that you are no longer an asset, too expensive for their payroll, or interfering with the profit margin, they will simply dispose of you, with no fear of repercussion and no remorse on their part. You are cannon fodder for the next fiscal quarter’s flash report stats. Nothing more, nothing less.

Do yourself a big favor. Just do your job. Perform the job abilities that are asked of you, and fergoshsakes, do not volunteer for anything extra. Overtime pay is very tempting and can be useful for extra cash when available. If you do get stuck with extra duties, and need to work some overtime to do so, don’t feel guilty about taking it. They want to get the work done, and since they are not volunteering to keep the business operating, neither should you.

If you are not feeling the company line, don’t go along with it. If your higher-ups are trying to get you to go along with the corporation’s pet charity du jour or feel-good community PR stunt, and you don’t feel like getting involved, simply refuse to do it. Sure, there are plenty of charitable organizations that are worth donating and volunteering for, but that should be reserved to your personal choices and your own free time as an individual. By all means I encourage that level of participation, but on your own time and judgment. You will feel even better with your efforts in the end if you keep them personally in your own realm instead of “like the hypocrites”.

If you have paid vacation available, take it. Make sure that you are unavailable to be contacted on your days off, even if you are not leaving town. If you have a health insurance plan, scrutinize the coverage and take full advantage of it. Don’t feel guilty about any company-related awards or prizes given to you, and don't end up feeling like you owe them anything. That’s all simply intermittent reinforcement that gets handed out at random to practically the entire workforce eventually. That’s why you shouldn’t feel concerned about that type of recognition not coming to you, because it will get to you eventually if you stick around long enough.

You may actually desire advancement to a management or supervisory position. Consider, then, to pursue an advanced position at another company, most especially a small business, nonprofit or even in the government, where in the latter, you can at least feel like you are working in some level of public service. You may not be hired for an upper level job right away, but your experience will ensure consideration much more strongly in most cases. Plus, you may have made some friends in your current job that you don’t want to ruin by suddenly supervising or managing them, or make you subject to accusations of favoritism from those you are not close to.

Don’t fall into the fear trap about high unemployment, lack of available jobs, or any of that typa crap. As long as you are doing your job satisfactorily, they won’t consider you any more or less for layoffs or termination than any of your co-workers. It takes a great deal of time, resources and expense for a corporation to hire and train new people from the outside, and besides, if you do get laid off or have had enough and hand in your two weeks notice, your chances of getting hired for a new position are actually higher than someone who has been unemployed over an extended period of time. 

Most importantly, do whatever you can to save every extra penny you earn and, at least, try your best to avoid living paycheck to paycheck. The one truly effective survival tool for the worker in the capitalist world is capital. Keep your expenses down to a bare minimum and try not to fall into the trap of usury. When you own a home instead of renting, you are actually allowing the lender to “own” the home for the  up to 30 years or so that you are paying off the mortgage. In many cases, renting and saving the money that you would otherwise blow on house payments can pay off for the better in the long run. Ideally, you want to maintain an emergency fund that will ensure security in case the company cuts you loose and you need to depend on only a severance package or unemployment checks for a while. That way, during the hard times you will stress less over not only the future, but the present as well.

This all requires a considerable amount of self-discipline, but it can be done. Your sanity and self esteem is more important than their shareholder obligations or quarterly conference calls. Begin to live for you, not for them. You are earning a paycheck, not selling your soul.

FOR FUCK’S SAKE, DON’T CHANGE SO HARD.

In some circumstances of life, change is necessary.

Unfortunately, folks are into changing simply for the sake of change, which is alternately inefficient, pointless and/or just plain stupid.

Businesses, or to be more accurate, the people who run them, are notorious for invoking change merely for the sake of change. I like to call this particular practice “The Two Pronged Management Approach”. Its basic implementation involves merely two steps:

1. Change it.
2. Change it back.

To clarify, they make a change to something and, after allowing for a certain stretch of time, change things back to what they once were.

There are executives and also managers all over America, and probably the world, who have built and maintained their careers out of this practice for years on end, straight through eventual retirement, earning fat performance bonuses and spectacular annual reviews from the bosses along the way. Nothing really changes, but that’s not what’s important. What’s important is that a change was technically made, and therefore these so-called leaders are doing their jobs. Confused? Well, I don’t blame you. Think it through for a while. It will make sense eventually. It may also seem totally fucked up, but still, it will make sense.

Actual innovation or development seems too difficult to undertake, it seems, for so many nowadays. Instead, we witness in the world endless cycles of useless replacement again and again, and never ending ineffectual change at that. In a society of increasing throwaway trends and planned obsolescence, such misguided strategy is not that surprising to me.

Very few people in this world have a single good reason to put themselves through any significant level of constant alteration in their lives. I’m generally in agreement with the notions that if a person does not intellectually and/or experientially grow consistently in life, then they could very likely shrivel up and die.

But it also seems that many folks confuse personal growth with change. 

Sure, there’s plenty of stuff in my life that I wish I could change. I know for a fact, however, that simply changing certain things isn’t going to make my life any better. On the other hand, change simply for the sake of change would, more often than not, just make things worse.

WANT TO MOVE MOUNTAINS? JUST TELL THE TRUTH.

Too many people nowadays live in their own little silo worlds where they assume that they can say or do anything and get away with it, no matter how completely full of shit they are. This kind of behavior is driving the national psyche, but inspires me to seek and speak the truth, at all times, under all circumstances, no matter how difficult it may seem sometimes to do so.

In a worst case scenario, staying silent is an alternative to a situation where an honest opinion is neither constructive nor quite necessary. A lot of the polluting effect of misrepresentation comes from promises that simply can’t be kept. It is important to remember that avoidance of avowing commitments that can’t be met is equal to speaking the truth.

I have discovered that dedication to an honest outlook on life has given me the advantage over practically everyone else who chooses to buy in to the fake option. It is ridiculous to think that simply telling the truth is a revolutionary and even rebellious act, but nonetheless, it’s the sad state of affairs that we face in today’s society.

DISSENT. THE OTHER LEADERSHIP.

Leadership. It’s a word that challenges and befuddles the (mostly self-proclaimed) movers and shakers of the business world. Unfortunately, those who strain the greatest in attempting to describe and teach leadership to others are the same folks who fail miserably in being any sorts of leaders themselves. They’re usually middle management or, at best, corporate executive submissive types who just sit, heel and fetch on command for the company status quo, attempting to pass such behavior off as “leadership”.

Dissent is the least appreciated yet possibly the purest demonstration of leadership. Consider the fact that there have been so many dissident leaders in recorded history. I won’t bother to list examples, and there are a wide variety of dissidents whose actions have resulted in both good and evil results. Still, I can't help but surmise that innovation and progress are necessities which could have not truly happened in modern civilization had it not been for those brave enough to question the status quo from time to time.

From what I have witnessed and experienced in this world, I feel strongly that any true change results from leadership through dissent as opposed to unquestioning devotion to questionable dogma. Dissent, more often than not, is leadership through the dialectic of the search for truth. We need more honest evaluation in our leaders from all levels of society, and therefore perhaps we need more questions asked from ourselves as well as among us all.