Let it play out

Just a short note, perhaps some pollster, somewhere, will latch onto it, and wonder how many others are of the same opinion.

The Democratic primary season should be allowed to continue.  I don't think Clinton should concede, especially as she does well in the bigger states, and there is at least one more of those.  If I remember correctly, the reason there were all the early primaries is because voters in the late ones felt disenfranchised, so they requested the primary earlier.  Here we actually have a situation where the candidates are close, and where voter opinion can say, and perhaps sway, the choice of candidate.  My impression is that is what the primaries were created for in the first place, so taking away the choice of the last few states to vote when the race is close, is violating the spirit of the primary.  The party will be unified in the fall, so let spring play out.  In truth, Obama isn't doing anyone favors by calling for Clinton's concession.  If anything, it sounds as if he doesn't want to take the chance that she will win more delegates.

The House did something right?

Of course, I may have misunderstood the article, but it looks like our House of Representatives is doing something sensible for once.  Rather than letting our beloved Bushie run roughshod over every single law of the nation, the House is not including a retroactive immunity clause in the revised surveillance bill, at least not just yet.  The one thing that strikes me as incredibly interesting is how the Republicans don't see the safe-guarding of the institutions that make up our republic as being very important.  It is the same shortsightedness that brought about National Socialism, where if it makes people feel good, they will ignore the real cost.  If the government had never asked the telecommunications companies to do something illegal, then they wouldn't need retroactive immunity.  I really hope the House holds the line on this, even if it means there is no compromise surveillance bill to be sent to our beloved Bushie.

Randomness is not accidental

Rather than be a great unknown in our lives, the randomness of thought is actually part of a greater order, as represented when you think to yourself, I think I need some cheese and salami, then, unexpectedly, have guests that you can serve said cheese and salami to, even though they weren't on the original list, nor the reason you thought you bought it.  That is just one example of seeming randomness actually feeding some more complex pattern.  The same sort of pattern you make by using the same vowel or consonant sounds over and over to create an overall feeling by the sound you are constantly recreating.  Just like colors and smells evoke feelings, so do sounds, and these sound patterns, especially those created by words, are the manipulated by poets to attain something beyond where the simple use of words would take them.  (Assonance & Dissonance might be the terms used, but those don't really interest me.)  In a blur of curious writing, the feeling is in the words that spit out, sometimes short staccato then long (and at 4 letters uses fewer than short but sounds as if it takes more time to say.... leave it to the "g").  

A comment that sparked a post

My loyal reader base posted a question as to whether or not I was becoming a budding socialist.  Something fun, something to take my mind off the intricacies of the postal service (should that be inanities?).  Such a question, life is bursting to full with such questions, questions which are much better answered with a paragraph or three rather than a word.  Questions which allow me to sing the word question over and over questionably while preparing to answer the initial question, which I am aware that I haven't answered.  Perhaps another question is posited, such as why haven't you answered the first question?  Answering that initial question really does require that one question what the reader base means when they ask the question, particularly what is meant by that tricky little socialist word.  From experience, I know the questioner did not confound socialist with communist, though his question almost prompted a resurrection of my photo with the red hammer and sickle coated unicorn of the yellow horn.  Remembering for myself the importance of this distinction, I refrained from posting that picture as a response to the question, because it would only befuddle the reader and the reader base's understanding of my answer to this question.  

Now then, after I finish dinner, I will post my response to this question, as only on a full stomach do I think I can gratify the reader base with a response appropriate to the inquiry.

Dinner being complete... Hot Pockets Calzone aren't as bad as they could be, I turn my attention to the question that prompted this foray into my dining habits, that question as to whether or not I am a budding socialist.  The answer is as confusing as the definition of socialism.  Because of government's ability to mess anything up, as a form of government regulating to all aspects of life: no, I am not a socialist.  Business best does the right thing when they are rewarded for doing the right thing by increased sales and stock prices.  If sales aren't driven on price alone and stock prices aren't based strictly on profit, but rather sales & stock prices both reflect to some degree the company's investment in society.  If I were to belong to a warehouse store, I would choose Costco over Sam's because Costco traditionally has paid fair wages and offered benefits while providing competitive prices.  My inherent problem with warehouse stores is that I am a family of one, and I don't need to buy 36 rolls of toilet paper or 8 pounds of salmon at one go.  Even considering the reduced packaging benefits of that much at one go, it doesn't make sense for me.  Costco would win my hypothetical business based on their business practices.  When the press latches onto something unpleasant in industry and broadcasts it, especially if it reflects poorly on one company in particular, recent history has that industry cleaning up, lest another skeleton be found.  The press isn't perfect, knocking Nike sells more papers than knocking a middleman meat packager, even though the latter is perhaps more pertinent to people's health, so the Nike story is likely to get longer play.

I seem to have lost track a bit of my answer to the question, but it hasn't really entirely been forgotten.  I do believe, that while government does mess stuff up, they can't mess up medicine as much as private industry has done, so on the healthcare aspect of life, I may very well be a socialist, though I was one long ago here, when I didn't have insurance and thought it was stupid that I could be driven into bankruptcy and homelessness to save my life--at which point I would likely want to commit suicide, making the initial healthcare expense rather pointless.

Socially responsible business and social medicine are two things I would like, but there is also a need for socially responsible consumers, especially for the former to work.  I try to be one, but there is no way to do it perfectly in this imperfect world, or at least I haven't figured a way to yet.

An observation... probably not new

After seeing a blurb on the vegan who shot the video at the slaughterhouse, it occurred to me, that as long as profit is the primary motive for business, then abuses will occur, because it is cheaper this quarter to do it that way.  As the world speeds up and focus close-up rather than wide angle, these things will multiply, and like child labor, once we wipe them from our shores, they will be in other places, still, where they always were, but where we didn't see them.

On a brighter note, at the post office today they had more employees than ever manning the counter.  They even had a cashier at the parcel pick-up window processing drop-offs and stamp purchases.  It must be cheaper than the machine they took out, or else they aren't losing as much money as they claim and don't need the price increase.

The Post Office Stamp Machine

It can't have been too far back, because the drywall patch hasn't been painted yet, but they removed the stamp machine from the post office in Ballard.  Why would you remove the machine that allows people to purchase stamps without waiting in line?  Ominously, the sign next to the patched drywall where formerly the stamp machine stood advised buying them online by mail or at an authorized agent--oddly, the counter, at that hour closed, was not mentioned.  I wanted to yell back and ask a disembodied voice what was going on, but decided that I will wait, perhaps tomorrow I will try and get there during counter hours and buy some stamps.  I sort of think the post office doesn't want my business.  Hundreds of post cards sent, and they don't like me.  Hours of reading material for the postal clerk, but still they don't like me, and want to make purchasing stamps difficult, even after my trip was there to both drop off mail and visit the stamp machine, getting my dollar coins as change, which I guess now I have to get at the bank, since the only reliable machines to get them from were the ones in the post office.  The other thing that just crossed my mind is that our post office has decided to take a clue from the Europeans, where I don't think I have seen a stamp machine before, and I certainly don't recall one in any of the places I have been there in the last ten years, though most post offices here had them--with the vanished machine in Ballard, I can no longer confidently say the post offices here have them.  Life is change, though I don't know if change is always good.

If memory serves...

So it has been a month.  Apologies to any regular readers.  Love & Loss is the name of the sculpture whose image is on the February post.  The time change has confounded me, and taken me by surprise.   The timing of the time change is what seems to be causing problems, being earlier than to what I am accustomed.  Republicans & time change--seems an odd combination, but I guess it was one of the big successes of Indiana's Republican governor, just like it is probably the only neutral (rather than awful) thing President Bush will be known for.  From what I read in The New York Times (or maybe The Seattle Times), it does actually cost Hoosiers more now than before. (No link because I am lazy.)

Current timeline is to move out of Seattle this summer--end of August is the tale, while end of June the earliest, unless something great happens to speed it up, or delay it.