Showing posts with label decay. Show all posts
Showing posts with label decay. Show all posts

Monday, September 29, 2014

It will take a lifetime to fix this mess we are in

I was having a thought process before coffee this morning. (I know, dangerous right?) It all started the other day when my daughter and I were discussing an injury she had at one of her million (exaggeration but it might as well be) athletic activities through the local high school. She was telling me how the trainer told her to do this exercise and that and then both hot and cold therapies. All I could do was sit there and listen to her recite the list of things she has to do to get "better." I was amazed at what she was telling me. Not because of what she had to do but because the injury was a twisted ankle. I don't want to negate that it could have been worse because the back-inside of her foot turned purple after about a week and it DID swell the first couple of days.  I am certain it was painful and a legitimate injury. I do believe that some of what the trainer told her helped it heal but lets be realistic here.


I remember being a kid, we fell down, "shook it off" and got back up. When I twisted my ankle as a track athlete in high school, the coach wrapped it up and told me to get back to running. My running may have been a bit slow during the first couple of days, but so long as I stayed off it as much as possible for the next week, I was fine. Mind you, this comes from someone who can fall off of something that is not there and nearly BREAK her ankle.  Anywhoo, the point is, they basically told her to baby the thing. Were it when I was an athlete, it would have turned purple within 24 hours and then began to heal and I would have been back to normal in a week. No hot and cold therapy, not exercises to ease back into using it. That stuff is for when you have surgery or a real break. Personally, I believe it delayed the healing process and it is nearly 2 weeks later and the purple is JUST starting to go away. Hrmm. Shaking it off made it heal faster folks. As Numba Ten would fondly blurt out "Jus Sayin!"


That led me to the next thing. The WHOLE reason the thought process occurred to me, in the kitchen, making coffee, at 5 a.m.  I began thinking about all of the people who have lawsuits against schools recently for the coaches and trainers not being sensitive to medical needs of their athletes. If you think about it, everyone has some sort of medical issue they are fighting these days. Is it all really necessary?  Yea, medical science is taking us into longer lives and such but at what cost?


It all starts with mother nature and this planet we live on. We have poisoned the very planet that is supposed to sustain us. Traditional methods of farming and growing food are not enough to sustain the insatiable (and wasteful) population that controls it. This means we have to grow more, faster, and bigger. Man has found that chemicals can do that. The food we grow is no longer "of the earth" the earth is just a petri dish where we grow the worlds largest squash to feed 100,000 people instead of a whole field of wholesome, flavorful, natural squash. No, we cant do the latter because it takes to long and we need to do this NOW. So, bring out the miracle grow and other chemicals and make it grow overnight. We fill our livestock with steroids and lock it up in tight little prisons so they cannot move and are destined a horrible death. Never mind that their life may be filled with pain and rage due to the chemicals we are forcing into it. This monster we are raising to eat is filled with chemicals that would kill a human being. We wear full body protective suits just to use the chemicals we are putting into our food. What happened to the habanero pepper being the only thing that would burn your skin when it came to food? Finally, let me get started on the water and sugars. We wastefully use so much water that we have to make it a chemical cocktail just so that we can drink it and hydrate our bodies. How much of that chemical remains when we ingest it is questionable at best. Sugar. Let me have the unrefined, nothing else added sugar. All this "high fructose corn syrup" is for the birds and it is FAKE PEOPLE!  If you want that, just eat the plastic container that your milk comes in. Its probably the same thing.


With all these chemicals and fake things we are putting into our bodies every day, (don't get me started on the highly processed stuff) it is no wonder there are so many people fighting illnesses and on medication for this or that every day. In another post, I talked about how the advent of electronics has created a whole generation of ADHD children (yea, small digression there, it was bound to happen.) This leads me to thinking about what it would take to eliminate society's need to rely so heavily on the pharmaceutical industry. A side note-pharmaceuticals are yet another round of chemicals we are putting into our bodies to fight the very chemicals that likely caused the issue in the first place. Ugh. Circular.


It would take a lifetime.


First, we have to get back to basics. Pay attention to the people who say grow your own food. Grow it with love and time. Use that garden to spend time with your family and get off the electronics. Sun is good for you. Work at home people will heartily agree. Use it to learn patience and caring and it will taste sooo good! No chemicals, just unadulterated (albeit a little smaller than the trend) wholesome FLAVORFUL goodness. You can garden year round. This will start something. You will spend less money at the store. The stores will rely less and less on the farmers and the farmers can go back to being what they should be. Farmers. They wont have to have a PHD in chemistry to poison the land with chemicals and sprays and will be able to grow a whole field of the good stuff and not the worlds largest squash. This will also prevent the farmer from feeding his livestock chemical ridden foods that ultimately end up on your table.


Next, livestock producers should raise their livestock the way it should be raised. Because their crops will be better and they wont have to spend so much on chemicals for their crops, they will not have to sell off their land and will be able to sustain their livestock on larger pieces of land and can sell the good stuff like they were supposed to do. Its all about give and take. This puts less chemicals in the meat that ends up on your table and the earth is beginning to heal. It is going to take a lifetime for the poisons we have put into this planet for food purposes to go away. It will reduce the freaks we see...two headed snakes, unusually HUGE bugs. Plants and trees will begin to grow again. Another thing that would help this planet heal is to use the land that already has development on it and relief it. Stop building on the farmers land and clear off that old building further into the city and build the same thing. Leave the farmer to what he should be doing well in the first place.


Another thing that you can do is build your own water filtration system. Honestly you only need 1x1 posts, plastic, buckets, rocks and soil. You filter your own water. So much better than the stuff coming out of your tap water. Getting used to non chemical water can take a couple of weeks of getting used to but with all these chemicals removed from your body, you will likely find that the medicines you are taking are no longer needed. You are eating, drinking and living healthier and due to the fact that you are spending less at the grocery store and less at the water payment center and less at the pharmacy, you find you have money for other things and can create memories instead of less gratifying images or words on a screen. You are LIVING.


So go forth. Live life. Do things the way mother nature has wanted us to do all along. Be tired of seeing "mother sick in bed." Help her heal. Be HUMAN. LIVE!


What do YOU think?


...And yes, my coffee is almost done.....**Micaa walks off to grab that first glorious cup.**

Sunday, May 12, 2013

Decay begins at the foundations.

When I first began this blog, it was about social decay and my experiences living in povertial america.  A recent roadtrip to pick up my mother reminded me of the very basis of those early writings and the dismay I have at our world today.

When we travel, we tend to drive off the beaten path.  This is to enjoy the beautiful country side and to allow us to become enthralled in the conversations we have with one another while on the road.  Too often, I will see delapidaited buildings in deserted farmland or the promise of a shiny new apartment complex or some industrial building for future benefit of society. I say rubbish to all of that.

This very farmland and the old buildings that occupy such are the very foundation upon which white america built this country.  So far wrapped up in greed we are that we fail to remember where we came from and simply contrive to chew up the resources around us to later spit out like long forgotten garbage.  What in the sam hill have we done?  So many times I hear about how the polar ice caps are melting and the Co2 levels are increasing and all those lovely pictures of children rummaging through mountains of garbage for a mere two cents to eat with. Bleach.

Have we failed to realize that, currently, this is the only planet we have and if we fail to respect that and all that it has afforded us we fail as a species?  Mother nature will find a way.  She sees what we as human beings have done to her lovely cradle she has provided and will one day seek vengance on the very ground all of us tred upon.  Have we failed to understand that we did not learn from the mistakes of the coal powered trains and the hole they sent up to the ozone layer?  Oh, sure, lets put up a few thousand coal powered electricity plants because they are "cleaner!"  CLEANER???????  What in the flip is cleaner about something that allows for the vital oxygen we need to breathe to escape our planet forever!  No wonder we are a society of asthmatics and disease ridden souls.  We are slowly killing ourselves and our children. 

Ugh.  Ok, I have become overy ticked and cannot finish this.  I will be back with more later.  Just had to vent a little.

Tuesday, April 9, 2013

Road Rage: Better off in my own mind (with a nine!)

I try not to let stupid drivers get to me. I have plenty of other stuff to rage about or scream about without having to yell at some stranger for cutting me off. However, there is a time and a place for dicussions such as this and here is my forum.
One of the things that make me madder than hill is the fact that someone can run up on you super fast, cut you off, and then...........yep you guessed it............slow to a crawl right in front of you. What does this accomplish? Did you decide the moment that you got back in my lane, in front of ME, that you were no longer in a hurry to get where you were going? Truth be told, I will probably get to my destination before you and I was going the posted speed limit the entire trip!
Let me guess, you were on the phone and failed to realize that the more engaged you were in your chatter, the heavier your foot got. I call that the heavy talk syndrome. I am guilty as charged there. This is yet one of the many reasons why I do not talk on the phone and drive. It is against the law in most places these days. WAIT! Maybe you decided that you wanted to be Mr. Nugget McAssshole this morning because you woke up on the bottom side of the bed. Yeah! That is it. Well, sir, I am not the source of your frustration and taking it out on me silently by impeding my progress is something that simply should not be done. However, you chose me this morning so I am now faced with a dilemma.
Do I beat the crap out of my steering wheel (not its fault) and roll down the window to scream obsenities at you while my family slowly slides down in their seats from embarassment? What, pray tell, would that accomplish?? Nothing but another pissed off driver. Better off keeping that reaction to myself. Ok, another option would be to do the same thing. No, that will never work. Then you will beat on your innocent steering wheel and that is not called for either. Final, and certainly most difficult option? The best one, with practice, I say. You simply keep the rage in your mind and pull out your mental movie projector and play Death Race Michele in your mind and imagine how it would be to go into the next lane, push my kill button and out come the nails and just RATATATATATATATATATATATATA all over that bitchards wheels and shiny car so that they simply STOP in their progress and are successfully late for where ever they were in such a big rush to get to in the first place.
Muahahahaha. That would be great in MY perfect world. On the up side to that, remaining safe, and ignoring stupidity and getting out of the way of it is great! It also makes a lot less stress on my health and lets me remain alert for the next idiot that is surely going to do something just as stupid. Further, it is such a YES! moment when you are pulling out of Tim Horton's Coffee shop and you see that same fool, pulled over by a cop getting a ticket. Talk about stress for him.....I feel for that poor steering wheel.

Tuesday, April 2, 2013

The Dollar as the Ball to My Chain.

I seen a picture on a friends Facebook wall a moment ago. It was an innocent picture of the back of a one dollar bill. However, there, someone took a sharpie and wrote upon it:

"I am only a piece of paper, yet I control your life."

Hmm. That is food for thought. (No, don't eat the dollar, it still buys a CAN of soda from the vending machine at Food Lion.) Yea, here I sit at a crossroads while I see that. Do I still look at the job boards daily, send out countless virtual resumes to HR departments that dismiss them as mediocre or overqualified or underqualified or for whatever reason? Do I keep looking for that golden opportunity when the truth of the matter is that money is the number one reason to accept a job anymore?

I remember as a kid, people spent 20-30 years at a career and never bounced from place to place because the "at will" laws were not as well known as they are today. It seems like such a tiresome dilemma. Companies want to pay as little as possible for qualified (or warm bodies) people to fill positions that people are looking for the highest pay they can get. What is the fallacy there? What happened to the best qualified gets the job and it is based upon ones experience and qualifications. There are no such things as careers anymore as people graduate from college under crushing debt with the hopes of getting the ONE job of their dreams that countless others are competing for. No one I know can be so lucky. Those people are only on TV or they know someone very influential that owes them a favor or two from back in the day.

That dollar is what motivates me to surf job boards not only for myself but for those I know who are in the same boat I was in when I got laid off. It hurts and it is about as dry and as fun as car shopping and I LOATHE car shopping. Nothing makes my stomach curl more than a car salesman (other than a shitty supervisor that makes me HATE a job I once loved....at......the......newspaper.) Ok, minor digression <----over p="" there.="">
The dollar controls us all in this awful economy. You can blame it on the government, you can blame it on the job market, stock market, foreigners, corporations, whatever. What it boils down to is outright greed. Remember the 30's when there was the "Great Depression" and countless so called rich people jumped out of windows to their deaths because they lost everything they owned. They didnt lose everything they owned? You cannot buy your own life nor can you buy your family and there is always this thing called starting over. Done that before. While it is not easy, it is a great learning experience that many people would rather not learn.

I witnessed that with a dear loved one that ended up being the Cracken of the human race. She married poor and became the queen of her own little world and when that magic carpet was snatched from under her, she blamed everyone around her. Including her children. Yes, I know that hurt and karma is a blitch and starting over sucks. However, if you play your cards right and not hurt those closest to you along the way, starting over can be an experience that will mold and shape who you are. However, that dollar bill has its grips around her. Quite possibly around her neck and will not let go. Yet, she is family and she has nothing else to hold on to. I just hope that she turns around one day and realizes that it is a learning experience and to pick up the pieces and make for the better. Nobody wants to be alone like that. We do not talk anymore because we are on opposite sides of the field but she is family and I do still care for her. (No, no sarcasm here folks. I am certain she will see this and rage and see blood run down the walls of her home. However, I cannot feed off that as I need to deal with my own and continue on. I will leave that to a greater power and let it be taken care of that way.)

Nobody should have to have an outlook on life that makes them hate every thing in life and depend wholly on the money in this world. When the world was created, it wasnt about money. What happened to it takes a village? What happened to the fact that status does not matter and that how we treat each other does? Sure, there is a cost to living in this world. But it is not the end to a means.

Rich people everywhere should take that into their inventory and reflect upon that when they have a minute free of their greed. Sure, it would be nice to win the lottery and take care of all the bills that I have and not have to worry where my next bit of grocery money is coming from. It would be nice to live in a Scarlet Ohara mansion and not live check to check. So, with that little dollar mentioned before, it is the ball to the chain that is on each and every one of us. Even our children. Some have 500 dollar bills (yes, they still exist) and some have dollars. Just depends on where you are in life.

Think about it. What denomiation is your dollar at the end of your chain?

Wednesday, March 20, 2013

Road Rage: Better off in my own mind....

I try not to let stupid drivers get to me. I have plenty of other stuff to rage about or scream about without having to yell at some stranger for cutting me off. However, there is a time and a place for dicussions such as this and here is my forum.
One of the things that make me madder than hill is the fact that someone can run up on you super fast, cut you off, and then...........yep you guessed it............slow to a crawl right in front of you. What does this accomplish? Did you decide the moment that you got back in my lane, in front of ME, that you were no longer in a hurry to get where you were going? Truth be told, I will probably get to my destination before you and I was going the posted speed limit the entire trip!
Let me guess, you were on the phone and failed to realize that the more engaged you were in your chatter, the heavier your foot got. I call that the heavy talk syndrome. I am guilty as charged there. This is yet one of the many reasons why I do not talk on the phone and drive. It is against the law in most places these days. WAIT! Maybe you decided that you wanted to be Mr. Nugget McAssshole this morning because you woke up on the bottom side of the bed. Yeah! That is it. Well, sir, I am not the source of your frustration and taking it out on me silently by impeding my progress is something that simply should not be done. However, you chose me this morning so I am now faced with a dilemma.
Do I beat the crap out of my steering wheel (not its fault) and roll down the window to scream obsenities at you while my family slowly slides down in their seats from embarassment? What, pray tell, would that accomplish?? Nothing but another pissed off driver. Better off keeping that reaction to myself. Ok, another option would be to do the same thing. No, that will never work. Then you will beat on your innocent steering wheel and that is not called for either. Final, and certainly most difficult option? The best one, with practice, I say. You simply keep the rage in your mind and pull out your mental movie projector and play Death Race Michele in your mind and imagine how it would be to go into the next lane, push my kill button and out come the nails and just RATATATATATATATATATATATATA all over that bitchards wheels and shiny car so that they simply STOP in their progress and are successfully late for where ever they were in such a big rush to get to in the first place.
Muahahahaha. That would be great in MY perfect world. On the up side to that, remaining safe, and ignoring stupidity and getting out of the way of it is great! It also makes a lot less stress on my health and lets me remain alert for the next idiot that is surely going to do something just as stupid. Further, it is such a YES! moment when you are pulling out of Tim Horton's Coffee shop and you see that same fool, pulled over by a cop getting a ticket. Talk about stress for him.....I feel for that poor steering wheel.

Friday, March 15, 2013

An Amazing child

I wonder sometimes. Folks, lets get real. We are raising a generation of AMAZING children. If you do not know the proper definition of that, then you can inbox me or Julie F. We will be more than happy to enlighten. At any rate, children these days get away with so much more than we did and even our parents for that matter.
We spare the rod and spoil the child. No, I do not mean abuse them but if they smart off to you, then they need some consequences. I never thought to yell at my mother (as a child) or hit her or threaten to call the cops on her because she took my phone from me. As far as the phone goes, I had a 50 foot cord that went from the wall to the phone and that thing could follow me out to the sidewalk. However, should I decide to get in trouble or inadvertantly utter a curse word, my lovelt tail had no phone attached to it or she took the whole thing. There were no cell phones and my pc (which I got in the 6th grade) was this mideval dos thing that had one color.....green.
Further, people these days believe they can suck off their parents until they die and get all uppity and ticked off if you believe they have to earn their keep. Peeps, my mother was more than happy to see me go to work and buy my own things. I was more than happy to go. It was the start of me "being grown." I am not entitled to anything in her home and I am a guest there at that point. Sure, I was one of the lucky ones and I did not have to pay anything to the house if I didnt want to but if I wanted something she normally did not buy or wanted to go to a football game or something THAT came out of my pocket and I walked nearly everywhere I had to go. I also stayed in school and graduated and, for the most part, stayed out of trouble.
That is another thing. I see so many people (and the age range is getting younger and younger) getting in trouble these days and doing SERIOUS things! Assault with a deadly weapon, robbery while armed with a weapon...Nothing like the petty "underaged drinking or driving without a licence or trespassing" that we got growing up. No sir, these kids are doing serious crimes. Further, the justice system is doing quirky things to slap them on the wrist. (Topic for another day.)
Honestly, if I was over age 21 and my mother bailed me out of jail and paid my attorney fees and bills for nearly 2 years, don't you think she has the right to ask me to pay some of that back if she gets in a bind. Yes, every mother and father would love to pay for their children like that and not expect to get paid back.......in a vaccuum. However, things are tough and it is not as easy as your parents make it. They keep the fact that bills run about 3000 going out and there is only 2500 coming in EACH MONTH BEFORE GAS AND GROCERIES. (Hypothetical, 4 person family middle income.) At any rate, they make it work and this is where the communication fails. No, I am not saying that you should tell your children ALL your business but you should teach them to be self sufficient and that it is ok to ask mom and dad for help but make sure you return the nicety at some point in the future. They are just as human as you are.
Also, we were taught all about litterbugs and taking care of the planet (and table manners) growing up; do they not teach that anymore in modern homes and preschools? We take care of the planet by recycling and other things of a noble stature, however, I still see children who leave a trail behind them like the only preschool lesson their ever learned was hansel and gretel. Folks, that was breadcrumbs and not trash! Take pride in your own home, your own neighborhood and your planet. It is the only one we have!

Saturday, January 3, 2009

My Inspiration

During the many treks my family makes through the Carolina's, my husband and I often chat about the passing countryside. Both of us grew up watching many miles of interstate out the window of our parents cars during the countless number of moves we both made to new states as children. As a result, we choose to take the state roads and the "quiet" routes to our destinations. Obviously many members of our families do not understand the thinking behind the routes we take. This allows our children to see many things that have faded to nothing more than words in a history book. We pass farms that were once vast plantations and on a couple of spots along the way up SC 501, we even see old slave quarters that are giving way to the elements. I hope to share some of these images with you as well as other things that I happen to see along my many misadventures in this mortal life.

I begin with the world closest to me and expand from there. I hope to share many insights into the life of the upper lower class life presently in the South. It is in these rough economic times that many of us reflect on the reality that is part of our everyday lives. I would like to think that we are entering into the Great Depression Revisited. Times are tough. The rocky road that our pockets are travelling is far from over and it is hot out there. People need to reflect on our history. Long gone are the memories of one time rich people jumping out of windows and committing other forms of suicide because the stock market crash hit their interests too hard. We are in the eve of that time and our society is crumbling at our feet. The rich are hurting and the poor are barely surviving. Those of us who are surviving with our heads barely above water see the cornerstones of our society giving way to the despair and hell the greed of man has driven us. Not only is it an economic depression, it is countless other factors as well. Everywhere, illegal immigration is a problem. While it is in everyones interest for our educated population to learn other languages, corporate and political America needs to be reminded that our primary language is and always has been English and nothing should change that. Progress is another thing. Progress pursued by those who have the means has left behind ruin in its wake and it is aesthetically bringing this country to shambles. The countryside is shrinking and will be endangered if we do not repair what we already have first. Everywhere I have been in my travels, I have seen too much progress. In my own community, for instance, the money makers and paper pushers have blotted out the light from the beloved Ocean Boulevard and have left the rest of the city to rot. All for the love of money. This rot is what I experienced recently when I decided to ride a bike to work. While I focus on the area between the beach and the Intracoastal waterway, it is Myrtle Beach that is rotting while the city council focuses on tearing down what made Myrtle Beach what it is and tries to make it something it is not.

I welcome all comments and critiques to my blog and take all suggestions into consideration. While these blogs may seem one-sided, they are merely opinions and insights by one person. If you disagree with what is in the following blogs, please be nice and do not bash. That is not the objective here. I just want to turn my thoughts into a form of art...electronically.