But I was curious about two things today. 1) homespun economy and middle class economy. 2) something I just forgot, but am hoping will come back to me as I begin with the first part. I swear I had it a second ago...
I mean really, sometimes when I read all about economic crisis, wars, money in Washington, Supreme Court decisions, and hear the testimonials of so many unemployed people, I get a voice that YELLS in my head; MAYBE THINGS AREN'T AS BAD AS THEY SEEM BECAUSE
i) UNEMPLOYMENT MAY JUST BE MORE MOMS AND DADS ARE CHOOSING TO STAY HOME, working part time, or from home, or doing daycare or any other damn thing they want to, off the books, catering by Aunt Mildred, or just realizing that they have a much higher quality and economy of life when they have time to take care of little kids (who would cost half a paycheck to care for in the day anyway), to not waste time commuting, to garden half their grocery bill away, to speculate on e-bay and make great food at home, at cost, and keep their house warm with a home-body.
ii) WHILE PUNDITS LIKE TO CLAIM THE GOVERNMENT AND THE PRESIDENT AREN'T DOING ANYTHING, we know it is stupid to say any President or office doesn't do ANYTHING. People love to hate a bueracracy, but just because they love to scream Barack-racy and make it sound bad (haven't actually heard anyone saying that but you probably will soon) doesn't change the fact that every decision that went through the Bush White House was tainted with Neo-Con sell-out, and that the Barack White House in chief is lead by a man who was a community organizer, public servant, and notable Professor of Constitutional Law, which totally comforts the shit out of me. This epic change and sudden global relaxation even got the Vikings to unclench a Nobel Prize, which we ALL were glad and weird-ed out by. So we have Interior departments who've been briefed on Organic Touchy-Feely Farming, and Defense departments that are no longer on the Offense, and a first lady who wants to stamp child obesity and hopefully will also take on Child Hunger as an issue (idk, probly already has), and we have an Oval Office that is speaking for the people, asking for action on health care, instead of a puppeteered dynasty hydra with vietnam era "Defensive" Backs, and demagogue nightmare wide receivers. *sigh, of relief, now that's over.
iii) We knew the babyboomers were big, they largely refuse to depart the earth, and they may well own everything right now (me an my friends, any time we borrow money, it's from a baby boomer). All this means of course our bottom line is going to be bleak - we're like the family whose dad sold the farm to sell gadgets door to door. But, hey, turn those frowns upside down because that dad also went on to inspire his children to become educated, make wise choices, and not make the same mistakes he did. So we're the children of the baby boomers, just a little more leveled off, and maybe too timid about getting engaged and making this world into the one we made for ourselves (and our kids, and maybe we just had more video games and movies to watch than our parents did, but we've leveled that off by now too, and everyone is excited to see what we can do). So WHATEVER THE BABY BOOM TAKES, WE'LL GET OVER IT.
iv) ULTIMATELY, BECAUSE OF FREE WILL, IT ONLY TAKES A GENERATION TO COMPLETELY AND UTTERLY CHANGE THE MINDS OF THE POPULATION. OK, MAYBE THREE GENERATIONS TO GET all THE ELIGIBLE VOTERS.
Meanwhile, the urban and rural folklives are chumming along on steam power, just waiting for people to discover how easy it is to register voters, feed people, grow things, and make stuff that truly improve the outlook of our lives. We even have a world of information about this stuff on the internet for maybe a hundred bucks a month. Not bad.
So I guess the second thing I was going to get to, which finally came back to me as I was typing, is that I just want to be like nature. Often an excuse lies in front of me, like a mask, that says if only I knew how to help or when to help, the poor or the desperate, if only the indigent were nearby so I could wave and smile and put a penny in their cup; the real way to help is to help those immediately around you, which you probably already do. If you have some money, give some money. If you know someone who needs a happy friend, be their happy friend. If you feel guilty about not giving to a bum, check the web for where you would go if you were that bum, and give a dollar to them. If you happen to be surrounded by math students, then make sure they know that there is no such thing as an unsolvable problem.
If I were a tree, and I could see some trouble in the forest from the bird's eye, it would only fall on me to be strong if anyone near me slips, to keep reaching up when it's my turn to do so, and to speak softly right around me to keep from trying to yell through the forest at the trouble spot to lend my voice to a cacophony.
The secret to nature is in the Mandelbrot set pictured on the top of the page; nature has a persistent get-in-where-you-fit-in quality where things are ready to grow together, apart, stay the same, or change quickly, and coopertition (competing and nurturing in every move) becomes a very natural extension of life's geometries.
America was a bold experiment to the Western Europeans, not so much for others, but TODAY, the United States, though most United Statesians have forgotten it, still stands as one of those places where human economies, macro and micro (false dichotomy btw) and every economics in between, is in fact well-poised to take advantage of the sure bet of nature's way (maybe similar to the "Middle Way" that Dalai Lama talks about, but more broad than a political solution with China).
So take an idea and run with it. For my part, I'm really hoping to get certified to register voters and get some work done before the next big election, and truth be told I'm Ever-Guilty of not paying enough attention to local politics or saving any money for those needier than I. I'll fit into those places some day though, and in the meantime I can speak and write and maybe help solve some problems, albeit just math.
btw, I'm thinking about changing the picture on the top of the blog. I have a long way to go before really understanding the inter-connectedness of the Mandelbrot Set, and I've been thinking about replacing it with Ancient Egyptian, specifically the Goddess Ma'at, patron saint of mathematicians and believers in social justice. In contrast to Ma'at, Conservative Christians don't see that giving more (hope, services, etc.) to others, even through official channels like government (why not? they already do everything civilization from building roads to coordinating and regulating commerce?), doesn't mean we have to give up what we have. Their leaders want to privatize everything, even though it would cost more and do less, for crap's sake! All things are relative, and we on the Left-coast (false congruence/hyphenation?) would see government shrink but not the good part of government shrink while all the crappy parts stay the same or get bigger; we would see the Constitution not just be surrounded from behind because we understand that the Constitution isn't violated by your lack of heavy artillery, or by government attempting to solve a national problem like health care by doing more social security/medicare kinds of things, or in short, whatever the T'eed off party decides the Constitution is supposed to protect them from (in shorter, protect them from change); we would live simply so that others may simply live, and not let the stock screamers on wall-street gasp us away from doing right by the future and the past.
So Imagine:
a warmer world full of challenge and mystery, and maybe the butterflies will evolve to glow in the daytime to use up the extra UV.
a quiet surge of people voting and proving the scary TV voice wrong.
that everything from years past which was a sucky horrible nightmare not suddenly and quickly becoming all okay again, but beginning to tap out the sap of wrong-headedness while trying to avoid and predict the next great wave of "whoops, we should have done things differently" (which will always exist by the way, no matter which course we choose, because we choose to believe we will always have the power to change things for the better, which sort of necessarily means we'll be an imperfect world forever). So things will change slowly for the most part, and that's good. The day after the Oval Office changed was a good day, a year later was better, two years later will be, eight years, and nine will see another surge of United Statesian do-gooders getting out to the paper voting booths (where possible).
when old ideas fail, eventually new ideas will take hold, and holding hands in common cause with those around you is a system that will never fail in humanity.
Imagine all the people, sharing all the world.
You may say I'm a dreamer.
But, I'm not the only one.
I hope someday they will join us,
and the world will live as one.
(Not the global banking cartel).
