Open/Libre Office

I use it only because it's the only thing, really. When is someone gonna make something just a little more useable?

"It is what it is"

When I started my last job, my boss would say this all of the time.

"It is what it is."

Perhaps I don't need to spell out her loss of hope and virility. Her dismal outlook on life. Her downfall. Her apparent desire to squelch optimism and independence out of other people because she lost her spunk a long time ago.

I think the quote does it pretty good justice.

The real sad thing is that it works. I started saying this too. At first I cringed at hearing anyone say it; then I got used to it. Then I would cringe when I said it; and then I got used to that too. I examined my own broken psychology a lot at this job. I am no more amazing than anyone else, really, even if it pains me to admit it sometimes. This phrase, and the attitudes that accompanied it, started to become mine as well.

Dun dun dun.

It really is an awful little slogan. And so patently untrue. Nothing must remain as it is, especially if it is bad or wrong. We all have a duty to resist it and to change it to something right and good.

Eventually it will. It can and it will.

Or we'll all go extinct. Which ever is first.

Which would you like?

Remember to be Positive...

I just began reading the introduction to Jane Goodall's book, Harvest of Hope.
   ...ug.

It is a hard way to begin a book and I had to put it down. Especially considering the book has the word hope in the title. I started to lose hope. I thought:

Must remember to start with the positive. I could write 10 thousand pages on the atrocities in the world now, past, and future. Perhaps it's just how my mind works. It is easy to see what is wrong; more difficult to see what is right

So: start with the positive. Some measure of "hope". Give people perusing your words something that they can DO. Something tangible. Some what and how, and maybe some where, First. Just not Why. Why is sad and takes the energy out of a caring Who, eager to get to that what and how.

Start: You are an amazing animal. Capable of one hundred miracles before breakfast and a hundred more uncounted. All of them taken for granted, but astounding miracles none-the-less. You can see, for starters, that is a pretty amazing trick when you stop to think about it. You can identify sounds and smells. Balance on your feet--that's a cool one we don't appreciate until it's gone. Your sense of balance is really rather uncanny. You can convert oxygen and a plethora of foods into ATP, energy, movement, and life. You can sequence DNA, reproduce your basic building blocks with some improvements and digressions. All this stuff we can do without even a careful thought. You are capable of emotions and thoughts and directing your life. you are capable of great good and your actions Do matter, more than you can tell. Just as all these mindless miracles matter.

The most amazing accomplishments of your life are the same as Michael Jordan's most amazing accomplishments. And they are just as impressive as the accomplishments of Genghis Khan and George Washington and Alexander the Great. Your little choices can matter as much as theirs as well. Your little choices Can change the world. Do not doubt your power. Nothing is unchangeable. Really, if you look back, things change remarkably fast.

So, yes, have some hope. And "Be the Change you with to See in the World". If it is eating local, supporting your fellow person, supporting no the millionaires. These little decisions can and do change things. Even if, at some level, they just get converted into little numbers in a massive database. They push the predictions one way and then another.

Corny enough?

Dear RTD

I have been an advocate for public transportation my entire life. And I still will be. We cannot afford to pollute this poor planet any more! We have already lost winter in Denver. But sadly, you have lost in me a very valuable customer and, over the next month or so, at least $100.

I realize that the bus waits for no one. But after missing connections, often because busses are over-filled, and paying $10 per day to suffer through this, and in the end having to call for other rides to pick up our stranded asses (which saves nothing for the environment) I wonder:

Where the hell is the lightrail? Why are we still using antiquated busses for public transportation in a city that is so supportive of this failing public transportation? As long as you interact with the regular traffic, you will be unreliable. And unusable for so many people. And now, that even includes me. Between the advertisements, the $2-5 fare, and the tax-payer support, and the paid parking, I find it hard to think that there isn't enough money to make this a little better.

Why aren't we getting better? Perhaps it is time that we demand something better.

So we will be finding ride-shares instead. Good bye, I hope you can figure out something in the future.

Battling the Bad

I like common scars... I think that most people do. We are social animals, after all. We like anything that can connect us with our fellow plodders. My favorite common scar to talk about is the belly button because it makes the perfect example. We all have a belly button, none of us really remember any of the trauma associated with our belly-button's existence. But it is a bona fide Scar! The result of a gross flesh wound so grievous that the scar will be there for your entire life.

I find that I have another common scar with a lot of people....

   I like Apple products.

....God damn it..... Somtimes I even like Apple. Despite the whole grossly over-sized monopolistic multinational conglomerated bullshit. (Their painful "store", however, turned me all the way off.)

It's a rather painful admission to me because, for the most part, I don't have a very good reason to like apple products. I don't need an Apple TV (no one does); I don't need a smartphone (or want one); I don't need any of their crap.

But it's all pretty.

It's pretty. That's the bottom line. Apple is damn fantastic at design and that is what floats the whole bloated company.

I have always done pretty good at ignoring cultural crap that I don't need. I don't even buy candy bars. I don't need a new computer, so I don't go out and get a new one because it'll stream movies just a little bit better. I don't need a car because (they are vile/I can walk/they are expensive/evil/crime... sorry) I live close to work and friends. But recently... I found an iPod. A little iPod touch. It was current, when I found it, pretty slick, slightly broken, and pretty much the fanciest thing I own to this day.

And now, for an inexplicable reason, I want the new one. I want to replace my cracked screen with a whole new, gen 5, unnecessary Apple thing. It's not gonna be that much better. (...but... maybe it'll be faster), it's not gonna be anything else (...well... it has a better camera... And a Flash!), it's not going to make me feel better about my self (could give you status.), why would I need it? (it fits more apps on the screen!).

I think it's Satan talking in the parenthesies.

I have always been strictly ethical in my purchases. I believe rather firmly that our consumerism is the best control we have over the corporate power structure, like voting is supposed to control democracy. And I don't like buying anything new. Recycling is so much better for the world. It requires so much less mining. But now- I wanna buy the new one! Satan tells me, it can't be that bad. Everyone is doing it.

I retort that, it can be that bad.

"No. Not really. It's just one out of a million very small things."

"But I have never been part of that million."

"It'll get you out from under Verizon! I know you don't like th--"

"Oh, sly. But keeping the old one is good enough."

"You're parents need one to get out from Verizon. Give them yours and get the new one!"

".... well... that's not NO. I can get a used old iPod for them too!"

"You could... or you could get something NEW!"