...about a lot of things here and now, then and there, and coming up tonight.
Gene Ammons and Sonny Stitt are today's soundtrack. I just spent several days selling my photographs on the street. The first and third day went so well, I became optimistic, but the last two days produced not a single sale. Thus, I haven't left my yard today. I'm thinking about planting morning glory to climb the trellis on the east end of the porch. Flowers are good medicine for depression. I learned that one from Dr. Weil. If you are not familiar with him, Google.
I cannot go any further without mentioning this place,
because tonight this band will be on stage with that man up front,
and there's a good chance
this songbird will be up there part of the time, and that takes care of the future.
Meanwhile, back in the present, I didn't rush downtown this morning, as I have been doing, in order to think through this street marketing concept, and how to improve it. I see some mistakes I made. Having albums of photos to look at only distracted from my merchandise. The desperate sprinkling of 2nd hand items included yesterday were just another distraction, rather than profit producer. I dropped one of my favorite images and shattered the frame, while packing up the second day. So it goes.
Oh, holy hannah, I feel a rant coming on. Sweet Jesus, should I make a break for the outdoors (it's gorgeous today), and spare you. Nope. Can't. It started when these street canvassers approached me three times in two days to sign their petition to cap taxes in Montana. When questioned, none could say what taxes other than property and estate, two that will never impact me.
Within a few years of California's famous Prop 13 passing, the state's school system, always among the best, fell into the low 30s in state quality standards. Infrastructure went to hell, too. Assholes have been yelling about the estate tax for years, except they like calling it the death tax in screaming boldface. That bullshit started with Ronnie Raygunzap. When the rich guys bought the White House for him, they immediately insisted that taxes be cut for them and their rich friends, and the companies they owned, were invested in or ran. They kept shouting tax cuts, proposing tax cuts, and passing tax cuts, but taxes weren't really cut. They were shifted downwards.
Landed aristocracy is one of the bad old ideas passed over through Europe from ancient empires. Rich people would love to go back to the dark ages, when the poor died in their ghettos, and on their farms, while the aristocrats lived off the fat of the land. Nothing has really changed. The plutocrats who run this country will do anything in their power, and use any trick to make themselves richer and the rest of us poorer. They embrace a lot of high sounding ideals, but the bottom line is all that matters.
Raygunsap supporters (early tea-baggers called jock straps back then) voted tax cuts, deregulation and other legal steps, which did nothing but make the rich richer and the poor poorer. Why people vote against their own interests is a puzzle studied by many experts.
Tax cuts produce spending cuts. What gets cut? The cutting starts with anything which benefits the citizens, and stops where it impacts corporate profits. Health services gone; insurance companies deregulated. Utilities turned over to private ownership, who cause financial hardship raising their rates to improve profit lines for the stock holders. Education is my biggest beef. They cut education, because ignorant people are easier to control. What education they fund will be what to think not how. And damn, are they good at just saying no.
Education is first asked to sacrifice the arts, considered worthless to the rich, unless you're talking about what they have on their walls. Art teaches the brain to function properly, the synapses to fire cleanly, the ideas to fly and the art to appear. Foreign language is another thing which teaches the brain. To all the ignoramuses out there shouting, "Learn English, or go home," I say learn Algonquin or go home.
Those jackals who supported George II and his mad war jeered at the French. In France every student must learn not only the full history of their native language and it's middle form, but at least one other foreign language. Guess what? That makes them smarter than us.
I think I will end on that thought, not because it is true, but because language and art are important, and there's a funny hook for it all to hang on, language, art, education, foreigners, taxes...
blah, blah, yadda, yadda, gotta go make something happen
