March 27, 2018

Time for a WW conversation about planet Earth.

#drawfool doodle for March 27, 2018.

Talking with a marine biology college student recently reaffirmed the need for everyone worldwide to join in the conversation. We all need to discuss what we can do as individuals versus what needs to happen with corporate responsibility for the pollution, emissions and plastic garbage they produce.

Consumers have limited options, we buy what is available to buy. Corporations have shifted the burden of guilt for buying the same products, now packaged in more and more plastic to the consumer. The financial responsibility to recycle or properly dispose of product packaging needs to be directed back to the producers of that garbage. If we want them to stop bottling and shrink wrapping everything in plastic, we could ask nicely, and if they don't respond, we should start demanding laws for them to properly dispose of the waste they produce. The US needs to discuss laws like they have now in Europe and a few other less ass-backward countries where corporations are not people too.

Many have been discussing the gyres of plastic floating in every ocean on Earth. But, what is less talked about and more insidious is the plastic particles floating unseen in several layers of depth depending on the molecular weight of the type of plastic. As these layers of particles drift in the sea this plastic crap nibbled on and mistaken for nutritious food, then clogges up the insides of every living creature in the oceans because as we all know, the big fish eat the little ones.

#drawfool doodle for March 28, 2018.

Daydream 41 out of a list of 50 ways-to-save-the-world. Stop planned obsolescence. 


The weakest link in any machine is a cheaply designed part, or component difficult or impossible to replace. Many electronics like cell phones could last for years to be upgraded or upcycled with a cracked screen replaced or a loose microphone input reconstructed.

Appliances of all types, big and small, from washing machines to mixers, toasters etc.... used to be built to last a lifetime. Seals would over time, with the old plastics get cracked and replaced. But, my grandfather's old washing machine with a hand crank wringer to squeeze out the water before hanging the wash up on the line to dry, that very old machine was still in working condition long after my grandpa was gone.

I know machines now are way more complex, but all the more reason to make them so they can be repaired or upgraded.

Recently I got rid of my Apple laptop because the adapters are so cheap. So, let me clarify, the heavy converter box seems to not be cheap but it is attached to a wire that has a plastic casing that breaks when bent too many times, like the action required to wind the wire up to fit in the pocket of your laptop case, and this plastic also melts with grime like oil from human skin. (note to self, I have taken a few photos of this, it's ugly, find those pictures).

My house has used only Mac or Linux computers since before the millennium. So, transitioning to a Windows machine felt like sacrilege, but I had purchased more than 9 adapters, and I could not in good conscience buy another Mac if it means that I was going to buy many adapters for it too. Irony is, as many Microsoft Surface Pro users know, even tho it's a black cord, not white like those many Apply adapters, this cord is also attached to a heavy box, and it too frayed and it was 25% more expensive to replace. 99 dollars instead of 75 or so. I am now on my third Surface Pro adapter.

These are good machines, but they do not work without power. Whoever designed these adapter cords is failing these corporate giants and all of us for the world's energy wasted. We have several very old laptop adapters, from a Mac Clamshell Laptop, an ancient IBM from work, and an even older Fujitsu touchscreen. EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THESE DECADE OLD LAPTOP ADAPTERS WORK PERFECTLY!

Yeah, I went there, to all caps, with a bang. Planned obsolescence, either "unintentional" by bad design or on purpose like a cheap light bulb, makes me very angry. Life is more important than a profit margin. This is a small planet. Have some respect.

#drawfool doodle for March 29, 2018.

42/50. Understand the limitations of the human lifespan and live for the people who will be here after you are gone. 


Think about it. You, if you are very, very lucky, will only live to be 100. Most, people will not live a century. While it is difficult, if not impossible to explain to someone under 25. Closer to 50, a person begins to look at the elderly closer. Thinking how time flows so much faster than the summers of childhood and that 70 to 90 year old could be me. If I survive for a couple more decades. 

How does understanding the limitations of the human lifespan save the world? The key is truly understanding. Not, knowing how old you are by the number, but actually understanding the difference between your own personal mortality, in a way that anyone who has come close to death can understand versus the limit to a human life even if everything happens perfectly. Comprehending a lifespan versus awareness of mortality are not the same.

"Things" and hoarding, excessive greed becomes useless. Planning a life so that someone else young can use the space you left behind, becomes priceless. Ideas learned and shared, memories written down or protected for future generations to use or enjoy, like a beach or a park in nature, a garden plot, a tree planted. 

Yes, if everyone understood and respected the limit to their own human lifespan, the world would be a very different place.

#drawfool doodle for March 30, 2018.

Daydream 43/50. Economics based on production/profit needs to become a thing of the past. 


The world needs us to paradigm-shift away from profit margins and producing stuff,... towards people and culture - gross national happiness or something more attune with the-meaning-of-life.

I think 'attune' is a good word for today.

attune: /
əˈt(y)o͞on/
     make receptive or aware.


"a society more attuned to consumerism than ideology"

#drawfool doodle for March 31, 2018.


Daydream 44/50. I give up on everybody and the whole stupid world! 


I’m going to just stop writing stuff and go pout and play video games for a couple years. 

I am going to the pound, find a couple well behaved cute little dogs and focus all my love on them. Forget all of you alls. FU planet Earth! and all living things in general. Bring on the killer weed and cheese puffs. Virtual brain shut off here I come.

#drawfool doodle for April 1, 2018.

P.s. Dear Jesus, I know, you know I'm kidding.

March 19, 2018

hmm...?

#drawfool doodle for March 20, 2018.


I try not to get mired in pessimism, but sometimes I fail, for a week or more I mechanically 'copy & pasted' from my list while mentally looking for the light to give me a hint about how to escape back to the surface from the pit of sad grumpy blues.

While down, instead of daydreaming about 'how-we-could-save-the-world' or why each idea would make a difference and how all things and actions great and small are connected, I slog through the mire of reality and often complain angrily "why the *beep* are you so sad!"  This doesn't help much, so I start to scribble out my life history.

Me: Is it this? Or is this it?
Grumpy me: No. And hell no!
Me: Is it brain chemicals? 

This goes on for a while, like I said, often over a week or more. Believe in the chemicals of the mind ruling over the body, or not, the human will eventually finds that faint glimmer of hope or logic in the distance and starts digging her way towards it.

Who am I? Singular and unanswerable as it seems... the old tunnels, dug years ago are still there, just cluttered and piled with debris from the entropy of neglect. When I was a teenager, of course, I was asking myself then, 'Who am I?' before we are responsible for anyone else or ourselves. That is the time to ask the question. Or it's variant 'why am I?'

When I was this daydreaming kid, my plans were empires. My novels would be movies, a series of them, and the sets, props and story would solve all the worlds problems. But, reality. Over the years movies and TV shows continued to save the world without me. My fall-back job is and always has been artist. Therefore (perhaps as unlogically as it seems to "most-people") setting up my first very own art studio, depressed the hell out of me. When I finished the first draft of my first novel-length book in 1999 and my beta readers were perplexed,(yes, it was/is that bad). I went back to college to finish my degree. Five or so years later when I got rejection slips from the TV show series I drafted up and submitted, I returned to the clay studio. When I got rejections from a couple publishers for my speculative fiction novel in 2012, I returned again to "what I am good at" ceramic art. I am not naturally good at writing. Just look at the grammatical errors in this blog. The novel, I drafted up in 2011, has now been storyboarded and outlined into four novels. But, so far progress to revise and edit has been made only through 3/4 of book 1. After being cut-off from the clay studio, while living in the transition-back-to-home-apartment I nicknamed "the shoe-box with a view" I picked up another TV series I had started in 2008. In 2015 I transformed this story into a three-act play for the stage. It bounced back from New York... anyways, I am going somewhere. Here actually. I am going to this list of 50 daydreams. The list is research for finishing that TV series. It's my last attempt at my teenage dream. In that dream, it's sort of like how Star Trek "invented" the flip phone, decades before cell phones. 

Science fiction, is science fictionalized, but instead of inventing a teleporter or a food replicator, my science fiction had a self-sustaining garbage free culture and society. The world's problems solved the conflicts in the stories were then free to be human focused and spiritual. The set and props were prototypes for tube-train shuttle systems. There was no garbage, everything plastic was meticulously upcycled. Everything paper was processed into compost of fuel pellets. All gas emissions collected. All waste processed (pets and livestock too). Everything metal or glass was reused or recycled etc... Green, plant-filled science fiction "garden of Eden" utopia. 

I know. Reality. Can't get your hopes up. Just keep working on what you can get done. Adjusting reality to all our hopes and dreams is the way it always goes.

Note added March 21. : I am very much looking forward to making art again. Simultaneous contrary? Yes, I am writing out this list to quiet my mind and the work of art making makes me happy and quiets the words. I know I should do one or the other, write/make art, but I can't. I can't change who I am or why I am, I have tried to be practical and find a career direction that is not art. Is 'what do you do?' equal to your identity? I don't know yet. I only know - keep trying.


March 19, 2018.


36/50. Solar plus light sensor, outdoor lighting.



Upgrade all street lamps and outdoor lighting with newer energy efficient solar lamps, with light sensors and solar panels integrated into the design like the lights that have been built on buoys or boat docks for years already.

#drawfool doodle for March 21, 2018.

37/50. Copycat crime and blood guilt of the news media industry.


Should have listed this one under 29. Truth in journalism -- sources are cited always.

Back in the 90s, after Collenbine, I did some research for assignments for a college newspaper. There wasn’t any fiction writing classes available, so I found myself in a journalism focused writing class.

Interesting fact, there are long established news media rules to protect juveniles under 18 who are most susceptible to copycat crime/imitative behavior. More recent than child labor laws, psychologists have proven that those kids are after our attention/fame, their name to be remembered. In the case of mass murder events the adults too. These shooters/bombers want the media attention. Why did I mention child labor laws? It relates, think about it, the anti copycat crime media rules are old, almost 'Billy the Kid' old-laws, protecting details of crimes from media coverage. For a scary and related example, the formative age around Jr. High school is part of the reason why youths are not allowed to work in meat butchering until 18 while teenagers 16-17 are permitted to work other jobs like babysitting, retail or food service busing/dishwashing etc...

Humans are scary animals, we need to respect each other, be mindful of consequences and reactions to our actions and protect our youths. Especially those who are victims as relates to the many school shootings that were copycat crimes committed for attention. The news media oscillates with the social media now, it is going to take focused widespread action via gun regulation to stop it now. The news coverage, especially for the increase in shootings, is statistically parallel. Do the math yourself. The first school shooting was in the 70s. I never heard about school shootings at all when I was in school in the 80s. What's black and white and red all over? Ignored TV news media guidelines.

#drawfool doodle for March 22, 2018.

Daydream 38/50. Clean-up how we clean ourselves, our homes and our workplaces.


This is an oversimplification of all cleaning products, but, natural oils and scents are plenty tough chemically. Crude oil should not be made into soap. A good example, unrelated to crude oil is talc is not safe to breathe or put on our skin because it turns grey without asbestos. Another example is chlorine bleach. Personally why bother with bright whites at all, natural hues of canvas or linen are beautiful as is in my opinion. And if you just must have bleached white, there are safer bleach alternatives then chlorine.

Water is the world's best solvent - we do not need harsh cleaning products in our homes at all. We need to simplify and go back to basics; water, baking soda, vinegar and natural plant oils, for cleaning, our homes, our clothes and our bodies.

I've heard it said that Americans traveling in the EU can be spotted because they look like they just stepped out of a cellophane wrapper.  Meaning we use too much product, “over-wash” everything - ourselves and our clothing.  Please don't misunderstand, I'm not advocating not bathing after exercise or neglecting to wash our underwear and socks. But for most, cool weather clothing not worn outside working on a farm or in a factory, spot cleaning and hanging up of outerwear, jeans, sweaters, and unsoiled garments, in combination with using less hair treatments, simpler more environmentally sane makeup, less ironing & bleaching could greatly decrease the USA's embarrassing per capita waste.

Even Levi's brand had a campaign to promote their denim lasting longer and wearing better by not washing jeans unless they are really dirty. Besides washing only when needed can save time as well as money.

#drawfool doodle for March 23, 2018.

39/50. An answer for the middle class....(about global economic leveling :)


I skimmed an article a couple weeks ago about how the rise in alt-right/Nazi/racism/anti-immigrant/ us-versus-them mentality historically results from the middle class losing their survival. Livelihoods, jobs, homes and therefore needing someone to blame. Not the poor who have "nothing" to lose (a lie by the way)... I can't seem to find this article in search now. Google, I don't know if the algorithm is confused by the range of stuff I search for, but I swear it's getting tougher for me to find what I'm looking for lately. Anyways. Blerg. Then, I skimmed this article and didn't bookmark it.

Today, listening to someone who is in pain, going on and on about a war halfway around the globe that, as far as I know, has nothing at all to do with them. It occurred to me, that maybe that article was on to something. My talking friend concluded by saying, the people on both sides of this military conflict, if you talked to them, they were just people who loved their families trying to get by day to day the best they could.

Hmm...? Not to be a narcissist, butt. I started thinking about how this list of 50 ways to change the world, was my scapegoat. I choose to lay the blame for my personal unhappiness on all the garbage choking the life out of the world. I direct my rage at pollution. I dwell on the suffering and death caused by climate change. I choose the wide range of topics covered in the blanket of environmentalism as the direction for my anger.

It's important to my sanity and my soul that I do not specifically blame people. Even the people who invented the first pesticides and chemical fertilizers that would cause the farming cancer cluster that resulted in the early deaths and suffering to my family, and neighbors.

I choose to forgive them, and am able to do so because I know, after the dust-bowl and the great depression, they were trying to prevent famine.

Even the people who now continue to package food in plastics years after it has become common knowledge that PBA and other toxins leach into food. Grocery stores have a very thin margin to work with. Farmers are still often subsidized to keep operating. Many have gone organic when they can, and work very hard to keep their food prices as low as they can.

In college when I studied the economics of TV and moviemaking, I studied the grocery industry as a comparison. I still want an environmental change for the better and I know the transition will not be cheap. But, you can ride your damn profit margins all the way to hell. Money is the problem I am angry at, not people.

What is my answer for the middle class? It's past time for a paradigm shift and there is plenty of work to be done, even with armies of robots. Don't blame others, most people are just like you and me, we love our friends and family and are just trying our best day to day. Let's focus our anger together against all that is wrong in the world. Turn our weapons into plows and other tools, our hatred for oil age pollution, garbage and suffering caused by climate change into the renewable energy of the human will for a better future for all living things on this tiny shared planet.

#drawfool doodle for March 24th, 2018.



March for our lives is today. 


Enough is enough, able to vote, -- vote them out.


#drawfool doodle for March 25, 2018.

I'm on the last 10 out of 50 ways-to-save-the-world and I will admit to being somewhat tired of my own list. Not all of the daydreams, but some of the ones I added because it just didn't feel complete focussed on plastic garbage, passive energy building design, a paradigm shift for money and the digital divide. The next three are all things some people do when they can and many of us feel guilty when it just doesn't work out.

#drawfool doodle for March 26, 2018.

40. Ridding America of unnecessary paper trash, eliminate paper napkins/paper towels, etc... 


This one relates to the tons of junk-mail in daydream number 4. But, isn't quite it. Except for the unnecessary part. Examples: Phone-books that many cities or counties are still required to print because of some out-dated law, sitting in piles at post offices. Why do they still print catalogs when you can see what is in-stock and on-sale at the same stores online? On and on for tons of paper pulp that should be used in food packaging that is compostable, i.e. not plastic. Those two-ton paper pulp gorillas are part of idea 4. Daydream 40 is about the kind of paper products that don't have print on them.

I grew up in a house that used cloth napkins. My folks also had a box with rags in it for cleaning. Because they don't buy paper towels. Kitchen dish-rags and wash-cloths are made to be soaked and then washed and used over and over until they wear out. Other rags like the cut up old t-shirts or "ratty" old towels were for cleaning up stuff that resulted in the rags getting thrown out. The garbage of the garment industry another topic. Cloth/fabric used to be plant fibers (cotton, linen, wool, burlap, etc...)  and as more materials are made out of plastic, and go to landfills to never degrade. Well, blerg. Then the paper trash doesn't look like such a bad idea.

I still use cloth napkins and dishtowels, the new bamboo towels they make are very nice. I think toilet paper could be mostly replaced by a little wash hose, and toilet paper made for fiber from a quicker growing plant than trees. Toilet paper made from bamboo is much nicer than scratchy toilet paper made from recycled paper. I am not sure about the environmental benefit of bamboo toilet paper compared to recycled paper toilet paper, only because I don't know how to compare the carbon footprint of the original paper product, plus hauling the paper to the recycler and then bleaching it of ink, and then shipping it to market a second time. Both the bamboo and the so-called "green" eco-toilet paper is sold in a plastic package. Again, the plastic garbage is as far as I understand more of a long-term problem for the world than the paper.

I saw a meme lately joking about cloth toilet paper. While I think the meme might have actually been a photo of cloth feminine products, rolled into the shape of a roll of toilet paper (pads for menstrual blood). Designed to be washed an reused. I don't think cloth toilet paper is a good idea at all. By mass, poop is over 60% bacteria/40% undigested food fiber.

Paper bags, versus bringing your own shopping bags is another paper product that still is very handy especially if it's greasy to go food, like a burger and fries or fish & chips. Daydream 5. plastic shopping bags. .... As I said, I'm a bit tired of my own list. I do love cartoonists. One of my teenage years' favorites was 'Bloom County' by Berke Breathed. He had this joke about milkshake hold the cup. I think we could get rid of a lot of paper trash, the key here is an emphasis on unnecessary paper trash. Here's one of the cartoons. The link above is to see more cartoons Berke Breathed posted to instagram as a charity to support the RedCross. No unnecessary paper required.






March 11, 2018

daydreams 29 - 35 out of 50.

I liked my ink blot paper better than my doodle today. March 11, 2018.
Finally, instead of coffee-pacing with some idea bigger than me, today I woke up thinking about the craft of writing. If this list is a book, then what is its theme? Me being an expert on how-to-save-the-world is neither true nor the point. The goal is about people, starting of course with myself, communicating so that I am not alone in the crowd.

Alone, with the mess of my thoughts like the compulsive scribbles of hyperlexia, filling note-book after journal, after TB (thought book) means nothing if I don't organize the expulsion in a meaningful way.

There is meaning to my madness and I do have both something to communicate and a fiction story all these daydreams fit into, but this time I'm writing the story backwards. I'm listing out all the stuff I want to fit into the story, then giving my expulsion to characters in a narrative after I've said what I needed to say.

The writing bit, about how can you mean what you say if you can't say what you mean? Amuses me because it makes me think of Hobbits and Ents arguing for some reason tho it was probably more Alice and the Mad Hatter.



Negative me: Method to your madness... my ass. And it is my ass of course. So, I should know. You have a compulsion, you started this list years ago and the reason you can't stop is because this is your OCD. Other people clean compulsively, or count things etc... you have a need to know what everything is made of and then daydream about how the things that make you sad could be better.

Me: I like the word 'so' too much.

Negative me: Ah change the subject why don't you. Go on, go ahead and tell the people who may happen to read your words here. Tell them what your daydream was this morning.

Me: It's true, I can't stop. I was thinking, just post the next one, it's popular, everything that needs saying on the subject has been said many times.

#Drawfool doodle for March 12, 2018.

Daydream 29/50. Drugs and illegal substance laws need to be reevaluated weighing the most current research on the physical harm to the individual health of the users and each specific substance socioeconomic damage and possible benefits to quality of life for populations.


Examples: (microdose LSD, mushrooms or other psychedelics used in PTS Post Traumatic Stress therapy and THC extracted from marijuana for nausea treatment and related pain management where pills are not a safe option.

Not to repeat the world, but there are so many voices on this one, it’s a global chaotic symphony that has been going on since the first opioid was used for pain management, who knows how many thousands of years ago.

I mean thousands of years actually and literally. So we know for a fact, just say no is not the answer that is gonna fix this one. The Reagan era ‘War on Drugs’ started way before him and I am not so unrealistic to assume our generation will solve it. But, we sure as hell could do a lot better by taking into consideration the information we have now about what treatments work and what is a miserable loss of life.

P.s. No, I'm not doing drugs. Unless you count beer or worse as relates to my mood swings sugar. I say this not to offend the prude, but to ask pardon to the intelligent addicts battling this war who would view this oversimplification as insult of a complex life-threatening issue.

#drawfool doodle for March 13, 2018.

30. Prison reform - the US has the highest documented* (China is not documented) incarceration rate in the world = big complicated problem.


The oppression of the wrongly incarcerated is a TV show topic. Isn’t freedom the primary founding principal of the United States? How is our broken legal system not tyranny?

One factor in a complicating this problem, mentally ill prisoners mixed with non-violent offenders because of overcrowding. A personal observation shared with me by a sheriff medical examiner who worked in the real-life team in Nevada that the original CSI TV show is based on. The mentally ill were screaming and screaming, possibly hurting themselves no one had time to care for them properly, the system certainly wasn’t able to provide doctors or medications they needed. The suffering of the mentally ill added to the population of the crowded prison was driving all the other prisoners and the guards crazy.

Direction shift, sane people who shouldn’t have been locked up in overcrowded prisons 29. Our drug laws are so far out of balance with helping our society and culture and breaking up families and destroying lives by locking up young kids who made choices because they needed a better career option is … I have no words, we should ask them.

#drawfool doodle from March 14, 2018.

Daydream 31/50. Electronic medical records that belong to the patient for safer more accurate and efficient healthcare. 


I think this every time I go to the doctor and they have me fill out a medical history form. Can't remember the dates of my surgeries, I repress them. Then add family history. It doesn't fit on the form.  Just put it all in a digital file that is searchable with 'find', please.

“HIPAA,” an acronym for the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996. Sure sounds like we should have a medical file that is portable by 2018. But, there I am with my own .pdf if I remember to print it out. Staring at this generic check-box form on a clipboard in the waiting room, checking no, no, no, no, yes see attached. What the heck do they write/type in my medical record? Guessing by the questions, they ask and the amount I have to repeat myself it sounds like, they don't have any relevant medical information on the screen.

Okay, that's an exaggeration and what I often think, and then remind myself is that one of the reasons they ask so many questions is to make sure nothing has changed or is wrong that they need to worry about. But, that's also why I think the medical record needs to belong to the patient. The fact that I can't see it bothers me. Also, I have in the past, waiting for the doctor for too long, gotten my hands on a printout that the nurse stuck in the tray by the door, to read things typed that were opinion and not true. So, I imagine for the protection of the healthcare industry, that's why medical records seem to evaporate and we start over with a new doctor.

How much easier it would be if everything that got thrown away was a read-only digital file the patient owned.

I know digital medical records were on President Obama's list, as reminisced the sadness he felt, that some of the last hours he spent with his Mother before she died. She had expended life energy and time struggling with medical bills.

I recognize the progress made over the last few years, but turning medical records from that box of paper files and film to digital is a work-in-progress, but we sure could do a lot better. Life takes time, and lives are short and fragile. So, it's on the list as number 31/50 ways-to-save-the-world.

#drawfool doodle for March 15, 2018.

Daydream number 32/50. Recognise Physical Characteristic Discrimination of ourselves (like racism, misogyny, homophobia, and ageism all rolled into one). 


The entire human race is judging and imprinting on people not living in our day to day lives, since photographs and tv cameras, movies, models in print catalogs and magazines gave us the means to study people in mass media all over the world.

#drawfool doodle for March 16, 2018.

33/50. The Right to Privacy and the Right to Publicity in the digital age.


#drawfool doodle for March 17, 2018.

34/50. Family medical history as preventive medicine: as recommended by US Human & Health Services - The Surgeon General's Family Health History Initiative.


http://www.hhs.gov/familyhistory/
Around the big family Thanksgiving get-together is a good time to have a conversation about this, if you have surviving blood relatives. If not, I'm very sorry about that. Everyone who can collect health information about their family needs to do this. If you are among the 2/3rds of Americans who don't know your own family health history, do your homework and if you don't know where to start the hhs.gov site is a good place to start. It is an Obama era site or older. I just checked to make sure the program is still on the web today 3/17/2018. Also, this info should be part of our personal digital medical file, see daydream 31 a few paragraphs up the page.


#drawfool doodle for March 18, 2018.



35/50. Crime preventions plus access to health care make the human race's most dreaded 'A' word a solvable problem. 


I know many women dread the 'A' word as much as I assume people of color wish the 'N' word never happened. But, human history has much to wish we could forget and in our current state politics right now women's rights to pursue liberty and happiness i.e. a career and family in their own body, is a debate that should not be happening at all for several reasons. 1. Medical information like pregnancy is a privacy issue. 2. Victims of crimes also should be protected from further harm and persecution. 3. If there is a medical complication, we should mourn the loss with the family not treat the woman as if she is a criminal because this terrible life event happened to them. Not just to her, a loss of a mother or a baby is a loss for the entire family.

Dear fellow humans before you get all hot or bothered, please understand, the 'A' word isn't a chicken or the egg problem,
- - Abortion is a roster problem. - - -

If there was no more rape, incest or human trafficking, and everyone of age to be a parent both male and female was educated about how babies are made and had access to birth control then there would only be the rare life-threatening birth defects that would ever result in an abortion. Again, in these sad cases, that's private and the family should be able to peaceful mourn their loss. Already, statistics have shown that when young people are educated about sex then teen pregnancy rates drop. If we stop rapes on campus or date rapes of women, then another sector of the problem is solved preemptively. 


The human race’s most dreaded ‘A’ word. Is a crime prevention plus medical health prevention (birth control) solvable problem. If our society was healthy with everyone having access to healthcare and free of crime, and those rare accidents were kept a private loss between the doctor and the family, then there should be no reason in our contemporary society for abortion to be a political issue at all.

Writing out this list, there are quite a few topics I don't want to think about, much less discuss in polite conversation. I depress myself when I ignore a rumination and let it rattle, so I keep writing in the hopes that I will work past this negative stuff, to better thoughts.

Last addition to this weekly blog post. I have been thinking the order or these daydreams should be arranged by subject into chapters.

Also, I had written a lot in the past about daydreams 32. and 33. Physical Characteristic Discrimination and The Rights to Privacy and Publicity in the digital age. But, I have been learning that when I am in art-mode, I just don't think in words. I have known the gist of this for years, since before I could talk, I think? Words are never "easy" for me. Art? I don't know. I just do it. I don't mean the doodles. I mean the mark and form language that art is made of. Some of it, the thoughts are pictographic, most of the marks are symbols and colors. I am drawing/painting/printing/sculpting a feeling. Emotions are difficult to pin down exactly with words, like memories and flavors, they move and fade. Words, clicks and squeaks and pauses. I will get back there, and finish this list, add synopses, detailed arguments, possibly other illustrations or charts in an order by chapter, later. As it is, this is a draft, draft 3 I think.

March 4, 2018

Why am I posting this?



#drawfool #doodle for March 5, 2018.

Some days less words are more. Bunnies don't talk much anyways.

#drawfool #doodle for March 4, 2018.

The title explains my original intentions, I have reoccurring thoughts rattling around wearing groves in my brain, I hoped expulsion would expunge the stuff I am mostly powerless to do anything about, so I could be wise enough to focus on what I can get done.

Why not just write it down in my private 'tb' thought book journal? I believe that many people have the same thoughts as relates to how to make the world better.

Some of the more popular daydreams billions of people all wish for the same thing. Like for example clean air and water. The collective social digital consciousness on some topics is global.

My personal list is just one more voice, one more drop of text in the www ocean. 

The action of writing this list is bringing to the surface both what I believe and my doubts. I believe, working together we, humanity can save the world. I doubt we can reduce suffering for all living things sharing our beautiful Earth if the human race doesn't collaborate and plan together. I believe this fear and sadness, observing life dying around us is the source of depression for most of the human race and also the reason why whales beach themselves. Therefore if I want to be happy I have to reduce suffering for all life surviving around me. I know I could just make art and write fiction. Entertain folks. But, while this would make some happiness the reduction of suffering is insufficient. Life is suffering, but escape is not the answer -- the answer is balance. Balance is constant work. So I work. I am posting expulsion of the fool, seeking mental balance. Expulsion of the food is a meditation and a work-in-progress. So, I continue.

Doodle for March 6, 2018.

Daydream 25/50. Solve money. How do we reach that Star Trek utopia where money isn’t?


Economists have been shouting numbers at anybody who will listen for over a century now, it hasn’t helped, we are bored by the numbers. The gist is -- money is broken. Increasing income inequality, economic indebtedness of most Nations with individuals holding more money than many countries entire fiscal budgets and GDPs combined, means that working people are broke and the extreme wealth of the oligarchy is so much money “they” can’t spend it.

The reason why I am interested in money at all is because -- money is the primary obstacle in the way of everyone working together to reduce suffering and save the world. TMI warning: I can’t do many of the ideas I dream about because I subsisted near zero in my 20s and then after college and the second home we put 20% down on in 2007 my family, like most of those struggling to stay afloat in the sinking middle-class, has been treading in debt as negative-thousandaires. Well over a hundred million families, over half of the US population (80% by some statistics) all in the same sinking boat. Debt slavery is not working. We can’t tread forever, how do we solve money?

In my daydreams where money is "no-problem", I imagine the global economic leveling we have been experiencing for a while now, spreading with digital communication and the internet since the 80s resulting in a multifaceted solution. Money-the-problem is a very ugly fractal when one attempts to chart it out. So I pull focus in on one knot, to break down that giant tangle of a tree chart, sector by sector.

1. Housing and buildings for small businesses (individual mortgages).
2. The arts, culture, and literature.
3. Postage, packages, and snail-mail.
4. Communication media.
5. Food.
6. Education.
7. Healthcare and medicine.
8. Transportation and shipping.
9. Industry and production for larger businesses.
10. And last Government (I break that one into three parts). A. Politics, B. the work of leadership and C. the military.

Note I didn’t add energy or fuel to the list because large electric power-plants and waste of energy pushing it long distances on ugly power-lines cutting up the air or spilling fuel to and from monster refineries spewing who knows what from blinking towers of smokestacks are all completely eliminated in this utopian daydream.

Daydream number 25 ‘Solve Money’ is divisible into more parts than I have ideas for. I will start at the top of my personal list.


Housing.

Mortgages and earned equity as the middle-classes base for savings and retirement should never be liquidated by the gamblers in banking, Wall Street, and insurance. The wealthy should never kick people out of the life-protecting shelter of their home threatening their safety and happiness. Usurpation means taking someone's power or property by force. Primary residences claimed as home would not be allowed to be owned by anyone else. The building or land may be owned by the state or the county, but the home is private property. Home is the most vital ingredient of the American Dream serving as the foundation for upward social mobility. Regardless of the home being nomadic or inherited for generations, people will always need a space to survive. Reinventing home-as-a-right would have a stabilizing impact on all sectors of the economy.

To achieve this goal of a home as a right for everyone we have to invent a new kind of mortgage system isolated completely from all other types of banking. The despotism of the housing market's "burst-bubbles" would be leveled as a guard so that no one would be able to flip and gamble on investment housing or be a slumlord over rental properties. The wealthy would still be free to do whatever they want with vacation rentals, luxury condos or second homes etc…

Primary residences would be similar to a rent-to-own contract or a 100-year lease to protect small businesses. Every payment you are able to make counts towards saved equity. If you are unable to make a payment or damage your home it’s sort of like reverse equity, except because home is a right, not a privilege, the amount deducted can never go below zero. Meaning you own your home, you and your family never have to worry about being kicked out onto the street, you simply have zero equity.

On the plus side, every payment made is saved equity. This savings can be used to start a business, for a downpayment on a nicer home, for retirement etc… If you improve the value of your home it’s the same as buying a fixer-upper now. Your payments can be small while you invest in construction, you improve the quality of your family’s life by staying in your improved home or because your house gets a better selling price so you can afford a cross-country move for work or other life events like a birth in the family.

After the bailouts of over 700 billion to banks too-big-to-fail, who then turned around and made "profits" paying themselves ten of billions in bonuses for several years in a row, never refunding the losses to middle-class American's pensions, retirement savings and FDIC insured mortgages. To mitigate future loss to main-street caused by bailouts of the big banks, American's should not bank with these MultiNational Conglomerate Corporate Banks, instead, all primary residence holdings should be kept in small local and State-owned Credit Unions. Interest rates are only for construction loans and green home improvements and those loans have to be managed like mortgages now so that people don't borrow more than they can make payments for, but these loans should never balloon, with interest kept fixed as low as possible. Also making payments should result in interest jubilees on any loan longer than seven years. Historically the king would forgive all the debt, but in modern life, people move and change jobs so it would be more realistic to keep a record of all the interest paid, and then reduce the amount owed on the loan by the interest paid over time or if the loan is paid off then add this amount to the equity savings of the homeowner.

Home as a right, not an investment would be an economic paradigm shift that would reduce suffering by eliminating homelessness and positively change the quality of life for everyone we share the sidewalk with.

#drawfool doodle for March 7, 2018.
If you read the post above from yesterday, you may notice some old words stuck in the mix. This is because I had been searching for any possible basis for home-as-a-right, in the Bill of Rights/Amendments to the US Constitution. Home is protected from seizure and searches without just-cause and due process of the court of law, but home as a protected right for everyone is mentioned less than the pursuit of happiness or public safety. Trying to resolve the conflict of how deregulated banking adversely effects the housing market is disappointing and has resulted in more tangles and knots than segments I can extract from daydream 25, solve money.

Onwards to the next economic segment in my list to solve money. -- The arts, culture, and literature. 

After the robots are installed to do menial laboI believe there is plenty of work only humans should do, in the arts. Many creative people would be happy to be excused from the workforce if their 'day-job' was doing what they love. For many artists, writers, dancers, musicians, actors etc.. regardless of the creative endeavor, the obstacle is the same - money.

I have an economic stimulus idea for social capital plus a bit-coin type fee-free currency. 

Imagine every voting US citizen has a dollar a day of social currency to spend on the arts, culture, and literature. People "click" on any art or literature they "like" and vote with a digital-coin (like a tip-jar) in a comment box.

$365 dollars a day doesn't seem like much. It wouldn't fund the arts completely, but it would be a way to stimulate the economy. The arts make up about 2% of the US Gross National Product. Unemployment or under-employment in dead-end jobs is debated between 5 to 7% depending on the demographics of the region in question. Why not increase the arts to over 4% of the GNP? (Yes I know technically it's GDP, Gross Domestic Product, I so much prefer GNH Gross National Happiness, 😀 GNP is a compromise).

The voting age population of the US in 2016 was just over 250 million people. 250 million dollars per day times 365 = $91,250,000,000 ninety-one-billion-two-hundred-fifty-million dollars per year (plus an additional 250 million on leap years).

Okay, that's nothing to sneeze at, but divided into $100,000 yearly salaries that's only 912,500 people.
According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, 6,680,000 million people are unemployed and 1.7 million people are marginally attached to the labor force.

All this digital money would be in a corporation owned by everyone in a completely transparent social capital pool. This is not money to spend but money to tip in comment boxes for artists, performers, crafts people and writers of all types (fiction, cookbooks, poetry, prose, journalist, comedy etc…).

The shares are digital-coins processed with a fee-free system to the artist's accounts where they accumulate. It's important that there is a limit to how much anyone can tip per month and also people can change their minds. If they vote or tip by accident or decide they don’t like something a couple days later they can move their vote or tip to another account for 30 days after the original tip comment was placed.

If individuals choose not use technology or do not have access to the internet they may vote by paper ballots delivered by the USPS. They can write in up to 365 artists of their choice or support their local library, artists they know or local bands, or whatever they would like that is related to arts, crafts, performance, literature, etc....

Next is the payment to artists and creative individuals. This money is not about getting rich. It’s also not about replacing people buying tickets to shows, or paying for art, or buying books. It’s about stimulating the economy directly via arts and culture. 

Small checks under $365 are cashed by the artist via USPS money order, larger amounts are direct-deposited into accounts created for the artists and writers in local credit unions and small local banks. This is to protect creative people from scam artists and big banks that charge fees to get their own cash out of ATMs.

Large masses of tips over the $9k per month limit are production budgets. Artists and writers are expected to create 10 jobs for every million in tips over their 9k per month survival limit. This means they don't ever cash large lump sums of money. It goes from the bank to the local contractor's via a construction budget to build an art studio, and hire carpenters, plumbers, electricians, etc… The artists' design what their community needs. They build an art gallery and hire an art manager to run the gallery. They build apprentice quarters and a paid position to run the art studio, etc… on an on. If they are filmmakers 33 million is nothing. The production budget for one movie. But, they can easily hire 100 or more people. It takes an army of people to make movies, tv shows, documentaries, run a theater or a dance company, operate a game cafe’ for board games or create even small indie video games etc… 

When a solo type artist starts making over 2 million. When they have already built their studio/home in previous years. They hire an accountant and a personal assistant to shop and schedule plan so they can focus on their art, now what? That’s only 2/10 of the jobs expected. The answer is, it’s not their money. If they don’t need more funding to make their art or to hire 8 more artists to work with them, then they designate a charity direction. They support the art critic and reviewers pool, -- yes I said critics’ and reviewers’ pool. They forward the money to another artist or other creative persons who inspired them. They fund the retirement pool. Yep, I said, retirement pool, like SAG(Screen Actor's Guild) only for artists(to keep future Monet's children from starving and future Mozart's out of the mass grave).

The catch is ‘it’s not their money’ all transactions are public because this is a publicly owned corporation. 100k to their music tutor is totally fine. 50k to their college. 100k to the local soup kitchen near their art studio also totally fine, because IMO cooking any type of food by hand is an art form. 150k to a children’s hospital or hurricane relief fund to pay back a chief who used their own money to feed people also totally great. Since this money is public if the chief gets too much money, they can forward the money to set up a filtered water system or build housing for the people they are feeding. The money is public and moved forward where it’s needed. No one hoards it, ever. 

What is important is the people vote and everyone had an equal share in the conversation for the arts, literature and culture they want and by doing so, everyone becomes part of a digitally facilitated cultural renaissance.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot. Social currency for the arts, culture and literature is daydream 26/50.


#drawfool doodle for March 8, 2018.
I woke up today the manic downswing that caused me to delete my first attempt to share this daydream, yelling at me. "There are so many ways this idea can go horribly wrong!"

Negative me: People could tip artists they know and follow them to the post office to collect their money order, then follow them to the grocery store or local credit union. Or worse, they could plan a long-con.

Me: Yeah, a few bad people will do that kind of stuff, mostly in the non-paraniod world of 75-80% good people, the majority of people do not.

Negative me: People will start pyramid schemes and trick other people.

Me: The entire point is people voting for whatever they like. Actually having a vote in the arts and culture, not just wealthy people who can afford to buy fine art. Every vote and every payment is public and transparent, pyramid schemes are easy to recognize. They would not be allowed to cash any of that money and it would return to the pool.

Negative me: What if they didn't do an easy to recognize pyramid pattern. Why if they start a meme where they take a photo of their pet's butt and then call that art and have their friend pay them? This spreads as memes do and thousands of people cash $30 checks for photos of dog and cat butts?

Me: Well, it's still public, if that what people want to do with their vote for the arts, culture and literature, then that's what will happen. Also, these people are on public record as an artist whose art is photos of butts. Not very many people would be proud of that. I think it's more realistic that people will cash in a Halloween costume for the month of October or a tip a Grandma for a lovely Thanksgiving dinner in November. Or best of all, thank a friend for a hand-knit scarf. If people want to support any type of craft art, costume making or cooking I think that's great.

Negative me: So you are fine if it turns out, the art people mostly like in America is cat videos? 91 billion on cat videos!

Me: It's most important that people define culture for themselves. Their dollar a day vote is just that. I am very aware that people in cafes rarely talk about alive fine artists. Of the top-grossing fine artists, only two of them are alive and all 15 are men. No one dead can cash a check. This daydream is about social capital and people who are creating now. I'd love it if fashion and dance and mediums very difficult to break into or make a living at benefited so they became more a part of our culture and everyday lives.

Negative me: Fine. More handcrafted pot holders everywhere. I have nothing against flower arranging and baskets or anything type of arts and crafts. But, people are busy. What if people don't have time for voting on art? Or what if people don't like arts and crafts at all?

Me: I'm starting to repeat myself. They can vote to support their local library. They can read the newspaper and vote on articles they like. I think buying subscriptions to online news is a great way to vote with your social capital. If they don't like to read or listen to music or podcasts, eat, watch TV. If they don't like anything at all and don't want to waste their time they can opt out. 

Negative me: Last doubt. How is this massive social capital funded?

Me: Just like stock brokers use computer algorithms to pull millions out of the air in a few seconds, or programmers "mine" digital coins or the Federal Bank prints money all based on a Fiat = by decree of arbitrary authority. The people will decree their vote is real, and the digital coin it stands for is real.

Negative me: So the tough part is getting the United States Postal Service permission to print the money orders? What? Why would the USPS ever do that?

Me: It a big chunk of change. It's enough to completely revitalize the entire USPS, they have been operating in the red, in debt for a while now.

Negative me: The Federal Bank and the US Government would never support this.

Me: The tax revenue both State and Federal would also be substantial. This is income. The middle class pays most of the taxes. People in middle-class tax brackets, pushed-up even just a little bit, is a lot of revenue. It would be great economic stimulus, it would create a lot of jobs. The market would be helped because people would buy stuff. It's a really good idea.


#drawfool doodle for March 9, 2018.


Daydream number 27/50. Remove money from politics.


Attempts in recent years to remove money from politics starting at the top with lobbyist and campaign finance reform has failed and is pathetic as relates to corporate payoffs of our elected government.

Politicians who take payouts for issues that contradict the majority of voters should be replaced with new blood, who will actually do the work they were elected to do. Should, but it isn't happening, yet. Instead, in recent elections we are actually moving backward, not making progress in upholding voters rights, nor making every person's vote count equally.

With our current broken system, we need to start at the foundation of democracy, with the people -- make every vote count. There are so many examples besides the popular vote for president where broken politics damages our country. Even on a local level, the people vote for one thing and the government does the opposite. Take Seattle, we voted down a sports stadium and we voted for several mass transit proposals. Seattle built a couple sports stadiums and has the worst mass transit system of any large city in America. The obstacle on every level small town to the White House is the same -- money counts more in politics than votes.

There is no question that an overhaul of our voting system is needed for national elections. Tho, it is interesting and even hopeful to note some states are having more success at processing votes than others.

The Supreme Court and Congress should protect all American's rights to vote and a resolution to end Gerrymandering forever should be passed into law.

All antiquated voting machines should be recycled for parts. The voting method proven to be both the most accessible by everyone and least able to be tampered with is mail-in paper ballots. At this point in the information age, why are people having to leave work and wait in lines to vote ever? Web and paper ballot systems should have been implemented years ago for the best of both security and efficiency of voting results. Mail-in ballots combined with a digital system able to be tallied instantly and checked by the voters themselves while still maintaining each individual's votes as private, we have the technology, we have a very good postal service. Why are we losing vital elections because of punch card chads in Florida? Lost or stolen voting machines in several states? Spending tons of money on inefficient recounts in too many states to list? etc....

All political advertising should be illegal. News outlets or social media announce events and schedules, but no paid political ads ever. Instead of mailers and attack ads on TV and radio, there should be a politics channel and official state, county and national websites that only broadcast politics. All town halls and rally events are televised there and all candidates get equal airtime, the airtime divided up by National and Local elections and issues -- by importance to the people. Conversely, no advertising for other non-political products, services or commercial stuff allowed on the political channels/websites etc...

It may seem I'm reinventing the potato chip if you watch C-SPAN (Cable-Satellite Public Affairs Network) or live in a state that has a well-organized website. But, you are missing my point. Money shouldn't be the determining or limiting factor for any issue or political campaign.

From brainwashing to voter suppression the US fails everyone when money is valued more than the people.

Currently, voters’ pamphlets are publicly posted on the web and printed available at the post office in most states in the US, but not all. I never knew who or what issues were on the ballot during the years I voted in Atlanta, Georgia. There were sites were groups actually charged a fee for their opinion of what was being voted on. I would search the internet for hours, make a list and my list never had the correct issues and I didn't even know the names of more than a couple people, much less what the other faceless names stood for. Of course, these states then vote in the incumbent, again and again, for years. Living most of my adult life in Washington State and Oregon, and reading the hilarious blurbs written by some of the people who got themselves on the ballot, made it so much harder for me to then vote on these faceless names with zero info. I have never owned a TV, was that the problem? Was there an accurate list of issues and candidates listed on the TV shows I never watched? Information as vital as what or whom is on the ballot should always be free.

Waiting in line with next to zero information about who and what is on the ballot, is another angle of voter suppression. 

I know it could be worse, and is worse in other countries, but knowing this doesn't make me less ashamed of politics happening right now, in the United States of America. If we truly believe in democracy, and that all people are created equal, prove it, please. Remove money from politics.

#drawfool doodle for March 10, 2018.

Daydream 28/50. Truth in journalism and news via peer and public review balanced with the rights to publicity and privacy. 


Sources are cited --- always! If you are going to make up a big steaming pile of “fake news” you are going to get credit where credit is due. If you break privacy and publicity laws, by hunting celebrities, minors or invading people’s homes or commit unlawful search of persons, wiretapping etc..., -- there will be a penalty. If you are guilty of defamation of character or treason. There will be a trial. If it’s treason it will be a military tribunal.

That’s it. No exceptions. No more buying local TV stations, newspapers and magazine blogs to force them to broadcast lies as news.

If you want to write a gossip rag, there is no such thing as victimizing others anonymously. On the flip side, whistleblowers and accusers have protections as victims,( as victims should have protections under the law now) but privacy payouts for cash or NDA for crimes are also not allowed. Also as relates to victims rights spam or public broadcast containing victims private information is protected. I.e. no news vans filming outside of schools after a shooting, or following students home etc…

I am aware that there are both laws and guidelines in place that upstanding news organizations have been following for a long time. This is about how bad it has gotten since Fox "jumped-the-shark" by calling the election for Bush before the results were in plus all the other crap over the years that we as a Nation let slide, wrong or even illegal defamation of character type lies that should never have been allowed that we are paying dearly for now.

P.s. Thanks for listening. I don’t know why I don’t get any comments here, but I recognize a lot of the stuff I write is borderline Asperger’s Syndrome/manic. I figure no comments is the equivalent to the blank stares and shrugs I get out and about in the world. Still, if you want to say hello, I do check-in on twitter and G+ almost every day. Tho, I don’t DM. I am only interested in public social conversations.
Anyways, have a nice day. 

☮+💚 Uva Be