Recently, their has been a lot of hacks into corporate business servers stealing credit cards and financial information. It has happened to me three times in the last 10 years, and the same can be said for probably most people. The bank cancelled the card and I had to wait 7 days for a re-issue, but the reality is that the information is still in the hands of some criminal or criminal enterprise that might decide to take out a loan with my name and do all sorts of other nasty things -- that really happen.

Target's CEO came out an issued a statement

Target’s first priority is preserving the trust of our guests and we have moved swiftly to address this issue, so guests can shop with confidence. We regret any inconvenience this may cause.

This thing called monopoly consolidation and agency theory of corporations gets in the way of the corporations ability to do anything else BUT a ritualized public relations campaign. Problems are supposed to go away and fix themselves once Target spends 10 million or so on a massive advert campaign with happy caring employees and soothing music and nice people that have nice voices saying how much Target does to protect your private information.

For those of you who don't know, "Agency theory" means that managers who do not own the company are making decisions about the welfare and operations instead of the owners. Allowing the "agents" (CEO's) to have some of the profits is supposed to keep them interested in the welfare of the corporation. This theory might have some merit in a competitive business environment. However, once the competitiveness of a given sector of the economy becomes limited and oligarchical, a different system evolves, and the need for competent management becomes less important than loyalty

So despite the stream of advertisements, nothing will change. The CEO is no longer human. He is a sociopathic robot. How else can you expect them to say such obvious hypocrisy with a straight face. They are paid huge dollars to soothe their conflicted souls, and they are surrounded by self-inflated egos and sycophants to the point where they are beyond clueless. The few that are different, who survive the pressures and remain sane are rare specimens to be cherished.

Target is not afraid of losing customers, and they depend upon the average zombie who buys their cheap crap to have a memory shorter than a house fly. Just like all the commercials paid for by BP depicting a return to normal on the shores of the Gulf of Mexico by an astute looking attentive corporate manager from BP. All the spills every month all over the country from burst and leaking pipelines, or run-off from coal extraction and "fracking" that destroy's drinking water and poisons the topsoil for decades. All the cancer's created by exposure to toxic chemicals. All the deaths due to negligence and lack of concern for safety oversight. All of it is washed away by the magic of cinematography and a good video editor at a top-notch Hollywood studio.

Everything is fine people. Go back to sleep and pretend the invisible hand runs the magical free market independent of and without any human influence whatsoever.

If you look at those graphs, you notice a rise in black and spanish from 1973 to 1990, followed by flatline, whereas the blue line is fairly flat.

It's because you can't teach critical thinking. All you can do is create an environment that enables every student to reach their potential. To a large extent the mind is only so good as the development. If a human never learns syntax or language by the age of 7 or 8, that human will never be able to learn a language because their mind has developed too far beyond the necessary time that language could be accommodated. It's neurological reality. A student who has not had the same opportunities of development at the age of 14 is at an inherent disadvantage, which is why such development must begin and be addressed as early as possible.

Overtime the level of knowledge and average human ability increases, but the process isn't constant or consistent. In 1950, 25% of US High school students took Algebra in high school and maybe 40% graduated. In 1900, Calculus was a subject only a few college students ever took. Today, every single high school teaches a Calculus class, and most have more than one section per year. Today, almost every student take Algebra in high school, and the national high school graduation rate is above 80%.

Beware of wolves who speak of crisis and offer reforms for a problem that doesn't exist.

Our schools are fine for the most part, the schools that are in trouble are in trouble for reasons outside of the schools themselves. They've been saying there's been an education crisis since the 1950's and yet there has been no shortage of ingenuity and innovation in the economy. There are plenty of high quality engineers and professionals who are top notch graduating every year, and year after year despite so called crisis of education that doesn't teach "critical thinking" or whatever is the buggaboo currently available.

The corporate elite keep saying they can't hire people who have skills. But then you find out about how they offer $10 per hour jobs for high level skills that used to be top dollar, so that people who have such skills are more likely to get their employment elsewhere rather than take a large cut in pay. Then you find out that the same companies keep turning away quality high skilled applicants ... because they are "too old" or don't "fit the profile" because they have "too much experience". In other words the real problems isn't a skills gap at all. The real problem is these corporations don't want to pay living wages and would rather inexperienced wage-slaves trained dirt-cheap on the public dime then they care about education.

Funny that the danger of falling behind the rest of the world didn't stop the entrepeneurs who build the computer industry and the internet and the many new businesses that evolved since 1980. Because we really do have one of the best educational systems in the world. The problems have to do with economic disparity not a poor educational model.

I would also add that it's not that we teach black and spanish kids poorly and white kids better so much as it is that black and spanish kids are more likely to come from a poor educational or family background. If the average spanish/black kid was equivalent to the average white kid, the gap would be much much less than it is now.

And remember that the graphs are based on averages. Just because the lines for black and spanish kids is lower, does NOT mean ALL black and spanish kids are lower.

The problem with the disparity also has more to do with the larger problems of economic inequality than it does with the system of education. Schools cannot address the larger social problems alone, and this factor shows up in the achievement gap. A Stanford professor found that 2/3rds of the variation in the PISA test scores (from 2006) can be explained by how many books they have in the home.

This would be 0.81 correlation coefficient ... or 81% -- which is btw the same correlation as between IQ and scholastic achievement.

There is also the reality that these NAEP tests (and the PISA tests) are very challenging. Most educated adults would have a hard time if they took them. The tests are more like tests you give to see if a student is gifted and talented. They are not proficiency assessments. They are not testing to see how much you know, but how you think and the depth of your thinking. So you can't see these poor results as reflecting a lack of education or knowledge.

So what am I thinking about today, oh many things really. There's no way I could succinctly summarize all of the random thoughts into a few morsels.

But in the past 15 minutes, I've been thinking about the women I've known in my life, thinking about the relationship from their point of view, which is something I like to do in general. What is the perspective from someone else's point of view. That stranger on the bus or in the grocery store, what is their life about, what are their thoughts, their issues. The imagination wanders.

I've had 5 girlfriends in my life that I really liked. Two other hook ups were nice girls but we never got a chance to develop a relation beyond the moment. Only one of those seven girls do I really still love, even though I accept the reality that I will never see her again.

She's happily married living somewhere in the world. Sometimes I wonder if she ever reads this blog, but I suspect that she is completely ignorant of it's existence. She probably never thinks about me except maybe once or twice a year (maybe) if she thinks about her college years. She was a cool girl. She was also completely different than me, and that's probably why it worked for a few years, but sooner or later those differences began to matter, and well, it just wasn't meant to be.

And it's for the best too. But I still always wonder if I'll ever get an email or contact out of the blue like has happened with some other people I used to know. I suspect not, but still sometimes I wonder.

I write stuff. Below is something I've been working on. I'm not sure what to do with it, but at any rate, here it is. I call it, "The Day the Machines Stopped."

The real transformation began when humans made electronic devices that could be held in the palm of their hands. The machines of locomotion and production that came before, the automobiles, the bicycles, the conveyor belts, elevators and Bessemer furnaces, these were the neanderthals of the technological epoch that was to come. First calculators came to do the adding and multiplying that humans used to do with their own minds, or paper and pencil. Then computers were built and data got analyzed with electronic ones and zeroes. Visual displays and incredibly rich interaction with the user enabled access to an almost endless collection of information and video-graphy because of what was called the internet. But these were just the infants in the stream of wow that evolved from the process that Michael Faraday discovered in his laboratories hooking up copper wires and magnets while using chemical solutions for the source of electric currents. Radios, Transistors and light-emitting diodes, the television and video projection, were then combined to produce the video game console. Soon the i-pod and their next of kin, the cell phone, added yet more interconnections with the technological infrastructure. Once the internet, email, text messaging, and broadband streaming bounced on the scene of everyday living, the human race had entered a new phase of it's evolutionary existence.

But the biology and bone structures of humans couldn't change so it was the mental aspects of human culture which evolved instead. People forgot various aspects of their humanity as they replaced their daily lives with technological devices not much larger than the palms of their hands. Interaction with life shrunk down to a 6 inch by 10 inch rectangular surface of images and sounds transmitted to the dark sunglass lens that people began to put on their eyes No one acknowledged the presence of anyone else unless they sent an electronic signal to their cellular device, or the person's removed the sunglasses and decided to unplug from such devices. Automobiles became driven by computers and high-tech radar/sonar sensory equipment. Humans often slept on their way to work, or play video games while the cars drove them home or to the supermarket big box chain stores that sold everything now. People visited one another and had their conversations mostly by video conferencing or by sending text messages in chat rooms. There was the rare occasion when two strangers would interact beyond a few polite words of "excuse me" or "are you waiting in line", but even in social or community situations most people remained plugged in to the tech devices that sent them constant images to the sunglasses and sounds to the small ear plugs. More usually, when people were talking out loud, they were talking to no one in the immediate vicinity, but rather to someone on the other end of the connection to the ether of telecommunications.

The devices began to do all of the thinking after a few generations. Instantly need a fact or need to research some historical matter, it would never take longer than a minute to get the information you wanted, along with highly detailed visual maps and lots of short video clips. The devices could tell you how much money you had in your wallet or your bank account. They would also show you in the margins of the sunglasses the price of the items you are buying, along with how much you have left after the purchase. They were also designed to completely absorb the personality of their owners, and were coded specifically to be able to listen to verbalized problems, and respond with consoling language. They could surprisingly give decent advice about very intricate matters and complex situations, and although the advice was often not followed, the devices were never judgmental or sanctimonious. The devices would suggest what you should eat for dinner, what new restaurant to go to, which route was quicker to the park, who might be an interesting date for Friday evening, or whether it might be time to go shopping for some new slacks or different looking blouses. They would organize the entire day's events and then remind you throughout the day so you wouldn't forget. The devices would even tell you the name of the people you encounter with a secret whisper in the ear bud, saving you the age-old embarrassment of forgetting someone's name that had plagued centuries of old-fashion human folk before the new inventions came on the scene in the latter 21st century.

After two generations, people became incredibly forgetful. Some of them never took off their sun-glass tech devices, and a new surgery had appeared that was implanting surface screens over the eye sockets of adults for as little as what was the equivalent of a month's salary for the average legal secretary. Women had long ago already started putting silicon in their breasts or puffing up their lips and "lifting" their cheek skin. Men began to have silicon putty additions to their penal organs not long afterwards. So the eye socket surfaces was only a logical conclusion. The normative bonding with technology begins to create new associative experiences that could never have been conceived possible, because the illusion is that there can be a controlled and separated experience. Once the relationship between man and machine is formed, the process of merging continues unabated, inexorably moving towards the final conclusion, when our devotion to the machines destroys the basis of the humanity that created them.

The machines will stop. Eventually we will not be able to produce enough energy to power the grids that give us the electricity. The metals we use to power the devices will become exhausted. The fuels that are now used will no longer exist, and solar energy will be how everything is powered, but the limitations in metal and resource extraction will render impotent the dispersion of solar technology. There will be too many people, and too few resources. Humans will be lucky if they can still feed themselves.

However belief systems die hard, and a lot of people looked at the universe or considered the historical timeline like it was an elaborate fairy tale or something written down and located in the archaic pages of ancient books. Truth and reality have always been contested arguments, but the "Here and Now, You Only Live Once" HAN YOLO crowd was not going to become a rallying cry for change and evolution while being tantalized with the "Future is Now" slogan. Which is a stupid saying really. Of course the future is now. The future has always been synonymous with the now, because it's the only thing humans can ever truly know. Except that now, the now is becoming replaced by machines, which means that we now no longer know what we used to know, and the now has become just another amorphous entity displaced into the background by some eulogized electronic consciousness.

And alas, humans forget everything by the 5th generation of the mental implants that became standard issue, in the 2nd century of the second millennium. Adverts for special assistance for the disabled gradually evolved over 50 years into benefits for students taking difficult courses. One such commercial involved a student who didn't understand what the college professor was saying, such that the operating system of the mental implant interpreted and decode the words emanating from the mouth of the instructor and then spoke this content into the mind of the student. The student then went on to get an A in the course and all was good. Only two hundred thousand dollars, but the deal also involved free lifetime upgrades, so apparently the large upfront cost was worth it, considering that the presumed jobs that resulted would be involve salaries in the millions of dollars.

Meanwhile the planet became more degraded and toxic by the decade. The smog appeared everywhere and required humans to have to wear masks over their mouths and nose, or their lungs would sear and they would die within 10 years. Body suits and eye goggles came 50 years later, because apparently the atmosphere had become so noxious and irritating to the skin that cancers would occur rapidly and the surfaces of the eye would constantly sting. Humans no longer even experienced the idea of another human being. They walked around the earth encased in protective suits, spoken to by computers that interpreted reality.

The "Unplug movement" was inevitable. It should have been expected. Nevertheless, the media organizations continued the tradition of completely misunderstanding and misrepresenting reality, and such persons who existed outside of the official voices were considered "radicals" , "nihilists", "whiners" or "idealists". The progress of civilization depended completely upon the utter destruction of the ecosystem that feeds the humans who live on the planet, but the denial that refused to understand this reality was thicker and deeper that the width of the entire cosmos, because human psychology also depends upon a mythology of the universe that abstracts the larger reality into practical circumstantial units of simplicity. We do not think of Cows with every double cheese hamburger we devour. We don't consider the polluted areas of the world when we drive 400 miles in a car in 8 hours of time. After the moment has passed, we move on towards new illusions. Maybe we remember the past, maybe we update different versions of the past, but regardless of what we do, the past is gone. All we know is right now, right here and now, and if the past looks different through these modern day eyes, so what? We can always change the story and make excuses as we go down the road. No big deal. Right?

Except one day. One day after the gradual degradation of all that we thought was normal. The inability to drink or even touch surface water because of the poisons that would leech up through the soil after centuries of fertilizer and toxic residue from all the contents that lifted into the air out of exhaust engines. The gradual acceptance of masks that filtered out the particulates which became more prevalent in the atmosphere, and were known to be highly carcinogenic. The need to filter the blood with machines once a year because of all the toxics that were in the food. The need for couples to have the male sperm cells "cleaned" because of the increased frequency of defunct spermatozoa.

One day. When the rivers have dried up because the climate is hurricane and flood oriented and the low temperatures are in the the 90 degree Fahrenheit range for 70% of the year.

One day. When not only will the horses be gone, but so too the machines. No more automobiles or planes or huge super ships crossing the ocean, or large factories. Gone. Mankind will be reduced to the naked animal. Moss will grow over the rubble of the buildings that had existed.

One day. One day the Earth will begin to heal from the thoughtlessly reckless and stupid manner in which mankind has evolved to live in coexistence with the ecosystem of the planet Earth. We fantasize about replicas of ourselves who colonize other planets and encounter other beings whom we ourselves have never encountered. But all of the illusion is just well scripted and entertaining fiction, because, whoopsie, humanity actually turns out to be a freak accident of interstellar random energy displacement in the universe, and nothing guarantees we will be able to live on this garden of eden forever. This is the root of all religion, the root of God and Gods, this chance that humans have to live, breed, and continue the species into perpetuity. The apple that Adam ate was metaphor.

Click here and here for information about how the charter schools are sucking up so many students in 53 school districts of Michigan that the school districts just had their bonds rated downward by Moody's and are in danger of having to expire within 5 years.

This is the plan. It is being conducted within every state. They want to destroy the public school system and have it replaced by private for-profit charter schools. The first phase of this plan was the Leave No Child Behind Act of 2001 where the testing of schools was incorporated into a federal rating system that automatically triggered a response by the schools who didn't meet certain criteria. Schools and school districts who were considered "failed" or got "program improvement status" enabled a trigger provision in the law that allowed charter schools to become permitted -- regardless of local and state laws.

It was a poison pill, or magic bullet, depending on your perspective. It never was about educational reform.

This is happening now. In every single state. Google it.

[T]he great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie—deliberate, contrived, and dishonest—but the myth—persistent, persuasive, and unrealistic. Too often we hold fast to the cliches of our forebears. We subject all facts to a prefabricated set of interpretations. We enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought.

Mythology distracts us everywhere—in government as in business, in politics as in economics, in foreign affairs as in domestic affairs. But today I want to particularly consider the myth and reality in our national economy. In recent months many have come to feel, as I do, that the dialog between the parties—between business and government, between the government and the public—is clogged by illusion and platitude and fails to reflect the true realities of contemporary American society.

-- John F. Kennedy [1962]

hat tip to Digby.

The above is just a small piece of a larger and longer speech, read the entire speech here.

Here's the first take down of the economic mythology pushed by the oligarchs of Kennedy's day. Please note the sophistication of the slap down.

Let us take first the question of the size and shape of government. The myth here is that government is big, and bad—and steadily getting bigger and worse. Obviously this myth has some excuse for existence. It is true that in recent history each new administration has spent much more money than its predecessor. Thus President Roosevelt outspent President Hoover, and with allowances for the special case of the Second World War, President Truman outspent President Roosevelt. Just to prove that this was not a partisan matter, President Eisenhower then outspent President Truman by the handsome figure of $182 billion. It is even possible, some think, that this trend may continue.

But does it follow from this that big government is growing relatively bigger? It does not—for the fact is for the last 15 years, the Federal Government—and also the Federal debt—and also the Federal bureaucracy—have grown less rapidly than the economy as a whole. If we leave defense and space expenditures aside, the Federal Government since the Second World War has expanded less than any other major sector of our national life—less than industry, less than commerce, less than agriculture, less than higher education, and very much less than the noise about big government.

The truth about big government is the truth about any other great activity—it is complex. Certainly it is true that size brings dangers—but it is also true that size can bring benefits. Here at Yale which has contributed so much to our national progress in science and medicine, it may be proper for me to mention one great and little noticed expansion of government which has brought strength to our whole society—the new role of our Federal Government as the major patron of research in science and in medicine. Few people realize that in 1961, in support of all university research in science and medicine, three dollars out of every four came from the Federal Government. I need hardly point out that this has taken place without undue enlargement of Government control—that American scientists remain second to none in their independence and in their individualism.

I am not suggesting that Federal expenditures cannot bring some measure of control. The whole thrust of Federal expenditures in agriculture have been related by purpose and design to control, as a means of dealing with the problems created by our farmers and our growing productivity. Each sector, my point is, of activity must be approached on its own merits and in terms of specific national needs. Generalities in regard to federal expenditures, therefore, can be misleading—each case, science, urban renewal, education, agriculture, natural resources, each case must be determined on its merits if we are to profit from our unrivaled ability to combine the strength of public and private purpose.

And the smack about debt and deficits was present back in 1962 just as it is still to this very day

Still in the area of fiscal policy, let me say a word about deficits. The myth persists that Federal deficits create inflation and budget surpluses prevent it. Yet sizeable budget surpluses after the war did not prevent inflation, and persistent deficits for the last several years have not upset our basic price stability. Obviously deficits are sometimes dangerous—and so are surpluses. But honest assessment plainly requires a more sophisticated view than the old and automatic cliche that deficits automatically bring inflation.

There are myths also about our public debt. It is widely supposed that this debt is growing at a dangerously rapid rate. In fact, both the debt per person and the debt as a proportion of our gross national product have declined sharply since the Second World War. In absolute terms the national debt since the end of World War II has increased only 8 percent, while private debt was increasing 305 percent, and the debts of State and local governments—on whom people frequently suggest we should place additional burdens—the debts of State and local governments have increased 378 percent. Moreover, debts, public and private, are neither good nor bad, in and of themselves. Borrowing can lead to over-extension and collapse—but it can also lead to expansion and strength. There is no single, simple slogan in this field that we can trust.

And next, we have Kennedy addressing the Confidence fairy, which has been in the playbook of the oligarchs since the Civil War.

Finally, I come to the problem of confidence. Confidence is a matter of myth and also a matter of truth—and this time let me take the truth of the matter first.

It is true—and of high importance—that the prosperity of this country depends on the assurance that all major elements within it will live up to their responsibilities. If business were to neglect its obligations to the public, if labor were blind to all public responsibility, above all, if government were to abandon its obvious—and statutory—duty of watchful concern for our economic health-if any of these things should happen, then confidence might well be weakened and the danger of stagnation would increase. This is the true issue of confidence.

But there is also the false issue—and its simplest form is the assertion that any and all unfavorable turns of the speculative wheel—however temporary and however plainly speculative in character—are the result of, and I quote, "a lack of confidence in the national administration." This I must tell you, while comforting, is not wholly true. Worse, it obscures the reality—which is also simple. The solid ground of mutual confidence is the necessary partnership of government with all of the sectors of our society in the steady quest for economic progress.

Corporate plans are not based on a political confidence in party leaders but on an economic confidence in the Nation's ability to invest and produce and consume. Business had full confidence in the administrations in power in 1929, 1954, 1958, and 1960—but this was not enough to prevent recession when business lacked full confidence in the economy. What matters is the capacity of the Nation as a whole to deal with its economic problems and its opportunities.

The stereotypes I have been discussing distract our attention and divide our effort. These stereotypes do our Nation a disservice, not just because they are exhausted and irrelevant, but above all because they are misleading—because they stand in the way of the solution of hard and complicated facts. It is not new that past debates should obscure present realities. But the damage of such a false dialogue is greater today than ever before simply because today the safety of all the world—the very future of freedom—depends as never before upon the sensible and clearheaded management of the domestic affairs of the United States.

Such officials are then called reasonable, non-partisan, practical or fair-minded, and then suddenly find themselves with a lot of mainstream press interested in their opinions and day to day affairs.

The above graphic is the jobs added (blue) or jobs lost (red) per month. Notice that the turn around in Red happened right after April or May of 2009 -- the first 4 months of the Obama administration.

Competence has it's value. As disappointing to the promise as the Obama administration has been over the last 6 years, the basic competence of the government has vastly improved. Cronies and bureaucrats will still exist, but the level of competency will not become compromised because all Democrats believe in the value and possibility of government, so they have a level of respect for the integrity of government that is impossible with the Rethuglican's.

Republicans do not like government, and some of them hate government. They utter cute phrases like "The government is the problem" and when they are in government they appoint corrupt idiots who serve the purpose of discrediting the government that is supposed to be the problem. They make loud noises about cutting microscopic budgets that help poor people and/or the middle class, but say nothing, or wax patriotic about vastly expensive military or privatization schemes that very often have no merit or purpose other than to pad the profits of some insider/connected firm. Then they are repaid by the same consortium of business interests with huge yearly consulting fees after retiring from 16 years service in the government. It's not about free markets, so much as it is about a free ride to wealth. Save maybe a tiny few who are naive fools, all of the Republicans are craven political opportunists.

The Democrats on the other hand are more sophisticated in their sophistry. Some call themselves "practical" which really means they are hesitant to vote against what the big money interests want. I think they probably constitute 30 or 40% of the party. The other 70 or 60 percent are real people or genuinely concerned thoughtful citizens. Some of these will get sucked up into the corruption, because money and power will and does change people, but not all will fall into the clutches of the vicious oligarchy. A few will even be able to ignore the pressures of media and the framing of events that is part of the systematic war perpetrated on the American mind by the oligarchy every single day.

A few. But hey, I'll take 10, 20, or 30 percent over ZERO any day of the week.

The chance a child raised in the bottom fifth (the lowest 20%) of income that rose into the top fifth (upper 20%) of income.



The graph is a New York Times graphic [ Click here ] from a Harvard study released last summer.

The study can be found HERE . It's called the Equality of Opportunity Project.

Here's a list of more than 10% from the cities with the largest commuting zones --along with Los Angeles, Detroit, Atlanta, New Orleans, and Memphis.

1. Bakersfield    California   12.4
   
2. Santa Barbara    California   11.8
   
3. Salt Lake City    Utah   11.5
   
4. San Francisco    California   11.2
   
5. San Jose    California   11.2
   
6. Des Moines    Iowa   11.1
   
7. Scranton    Pennsylvania   11.1
   
8. Toms River    New Jersey   10.6
   
9. Seattle    Washington   10.4
   
10. San Diego    California   10.4
    
11. Santa Rosa    California   10.3
    
12. Pittsburgh    Pennsylvania   10.3
    
13. Modesto    California   10.2
    
14. Madison    Wisconsin   10.2
    
15. Reading    Pennsylvania   10.2
    
16. Honolulu    Hawaii   10.1
    
17. Sacramento    California   10
    

    ...
    Los Angeles California 9.6

    New Orleans   Louisiana   6.3%

    Detroit Michigan 5.1%

    Atlanta Georgia 4.0%

    Memphis Tennessee 2.6%

Look at San Francisco and San Jose, ranked 4th & 5th, at 11.2 percent. 8 cities in the above list are from California. Calfornia also represents half of the complete list above 10% (regardless of size) that isn't part of the Dakota Shale Oil economy. All the regions with 4% or below are in the deep south, where God is king and poverty means you are lazy, so why should God-fearing working citizens pay taxes to the welfare state when people should have the choice to give to charity?

Hmmm, yea that's why you morons hover around 4% and have the worst system of institutionalized poverty in the entire nation. This is why the rest of the nation has rates above 6 percent. This is why all those poor folk who live in your regions move somewhere else. What happened? You got rid of welfare programs and pre-school or after school program subsidies because you thought it made people dependent on big government and more prone to stay impoverished. Instead the opposite happens.

This is why people live in California. Economic Opportunity and social mobility are at the highest levels of the entire nation. The economy is also very diversified, and isn't dominated by any one industry or based on temporary resource extraction profits but on an economic infrastructure in which the state government actually invests with taxes. Californians as a whole support building the necessary economic infrastructure and Californians also vote at high levels to support spending on infrastructure, whether its' roads, education, irrigation canals, ports, bridges, transportation networks, airports, recreation centers or environmental conservation.

If you want a list of all Metropolitan Areas (regardless of size) , Click here

If you want a list for the top 100 largest cities with the largest commuting zones, Click here

Here's a poem I wrote last Thursday.

War is Fun

War is fun
fun fun fun
go get a joystick
and shoot a gun
pretend like you're superior
and when you die
it's just another turn

push the button
and start again
because war is fun
no moral hazard for the babies you kill
no sentimental attachment to the comrades who die
it's just a fucking button man
just push the fucking button man
get that interactive thrill
cuz war is fun

war hidden behind a flat screen Liquid crystal display
war summed up into points
and little trinkets that stack up on the side of the screen
to remind you of just how awesome
you are
war is cool
and you are a stud
a veritable video game monster

this real world stuff is for the birds
you can go beyond the trivial burdens of life and die
because you are the Coptic warrior
the Raven
the Truth Seeker
or whatever you call yourself

the computer code will nevertheless flatter you all the time
scripted by the humans who wrote it
and now it rotates and repeats the same message
and the entity that is your self
is just a nondescript sequence of forgotten events no one will ever see or share
like figments of your imagination

except
it isn't your imagination
because you aren't imagining a fucking thing
all of the images you see are outside of your brain
all the sounds
all of the words
are programmed and saved on the hard drive

and you
you are just a follower who gives it's eyeballs to the master in exchange
for a mirage.

Yea I know, it's been more than 30 days since my last blog post. Oh dear, I missed out on commenting about the obvious insanity of some fools who call themselves Republicans.

I've been doing my job as a teacher of 156 high school students and practicing guitar, and so lately that's enough for what I can handle. Not that it takes much effort to type a blog post, it's just that the mental energy created when I engage in these expository essays has been too much for me to handle as of the last 6 weeks or so. I still read the press and the various blogs I like to check out, but that hasn't translated into a blog post.

If you've paid attention over the last decade to this blog, there are periods of time every year when I go dark. Then suddenly I react with a spate of blogs and become more consistent. That's about ready to happen, and this is probably the first in some more regular postings.