Soap Boxes and Frustrations and Globalism

Just popping in on daughter's computer - I'm still without internet - the guy I paid to fix it has not come back despite his promise to do so if I should have more trouble. Such is the 21st century - money seems to have no meaning - society seems to demand that we spend, spend, spend, prices are frightfully high on everything, service is at an all time low.

But at least he did not disable my entire computer like some other repair people have done in the past, so should I think I'm lucky?

Some doctors slop over your treatment, so what if you die, there are plenty more people out there who will flow in and fill up your space.

Items are built to fall apart so a person has to buy another soon, if they aren't built shoddily from the beginning. We just got a recall on our dishwasher - its eight years old and we are told that the wiring is defective and some have burst into flames. But are they giving us enough to replace the defective dishwasher? Of course not, we are getting the 1999 price minus the use.

The dishwasher works, we just have to endure the stress of wondering if the house will be nothing but charcoal when we come home someday or find a few hundred bucks to get a new one. At least Florida insurance will pay for fires, but not flooding or wind damage. Some will pay for wind damage, but with huge, intolerable deductibles. The problem with the dishwasher is, I don't have enough money to make up the difference, however I don't want my house to burn down either.

Food coming from China has hazardous ingredients to human health. Toys coming from China have lead content that will damage our children's brains and bodies. Still we import most of our goods.

I went shopping for my grandson and put three shirts in my basket - until I noticed they were made in China. Then I put them back. Clothing is substandard as well as possibly dangerous. (While visiting with a clothing store owner the other day, I was informed that many knits are made with petroleum - just what I want absorbed into my body, right?)

The quality of U.S. made clothing was much better. But labor in China, India, Cambodia, etc. can be obtained for $.13 cents an hour, and with no labor laws can be produced in larger quantities with exploited people working long, long hours. On the other hand, some exploited people find they are happy to have even $.13 cents an hour. But some are angry when they find out what their hard work sells for in the U.S.

I don't want shrimp from Taiwan. Good gosh. How fresh can they be? However, when our newspaper informs us of the PCB content of the fish in our bays, do I want U.S. shrimp either? And what the H___ is this about PCB's found in the fish in our bays? I thought the use of PCB's were banned years ago. Huh?

Well, as long as I'm writing one of these kinds of posts - immigration - or rather the lack of it: Illegal immigration is kind of like child abusers thinking they are having an "affair" with a six year old. It is not immigration. It is breaking the law. Children are molested, not having affairs. Grrrr. Criminals freely dance across our borders from the south, loaded with Meth to peddle in the U.S.

Granted, some people are hard workers looking for a better life - in that case, I say make legal provision through immigration, and not make it so hard to immigrate. Then let them assimilate but please don't force me to learn another language, we already speak one here. I'm not against learning foreign languages, I wish I knew a dozen because I would not have the nerve to go live in a foreign country and not try to learn the language, what is that all about? And, while we are on THAT subject, why, during Word War II did the U.S. turn boats of desperate Jews back to Europe to death? Gee, was it because they weren't going to fatten employers pockets by working for substandard wages and being content to live in substandard conditions? Oh, I bet they would've for the privilege of staying alive.

The history of the U.S. is full of shame with its treatment of certain people groups. I still run across (mostly older) people in the South who think slavery and segregation were perfect ways of life. I met people in Wyoming who were actually angry at the poor people who were devastated by Katrina, either because they chose to live in New Orleans or because they didn't "walk" out. Hard to walk miles and miles of road when your health is shot, or you are in a wheel chair, or 80 years old, or carrying babies.

Anyway, part of my problem with the illegals from Mexico (or anywhere) is a sense of entitlement that Country (Mexico) has toward the U.S. as well as the employers who break the law to employ the illegals. I used to work for a newspaper in a small town with a lot of illegals. I started a feature story (I am soooo politically dumb) and found that the employers not only were paying really low, many paychecks were being devoured by fees for translation, bill paying assistance, etc., etc. It wasn't long before I received an anonymous phone call threatening my life and my family's lives if I continued to snoop. I stopped. Oh, Rawlins, Wyoming is really quite a town!

Ok, I could write pages. In that kind of mood today.

I thought painting yesterday would help fire up some endorphins - I painted the awfullest ugliest painting you ever saw. Supposed to be a cajun hibiscus - oooohhh, ugh!

Well, going to try to go call the computer guy again today. Then vacumm and paint over the ugly painting.