Month: August 2007

[Note: this post is an example of the benefits of ADHD. As TRY might say, “Statistically, 32.3% of you got that… and the rest of you weren’t paying attention.” *heh*]

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Well, we had been planning to make a couple of “used car visits” today (and we still may), but the most interesting car has an owner who apprently doesn’t want very much to part with it (he’s not yet gotten me the VIN so I can run a CarFax report), so we’re scaling the day back a tad. A Good Thing. Going to check the car out would have been a 150 mile round trip, anyway–although there are a few others to check between here and there.

Yep. That’s right: America’s Third World Countyâ„¢ has slim pickin’s in the used car realm. Oh, why no new car shopping? Remember: tightwad here. I’ve ALWAYS let someone else discover a car’s unique failings and suffer the “drive the car off the lot” depreciation for me. Yeh, we don’t get the new car smell (though we could buy it canned if that were important) and we always have to budget for repairs and upkeep, but it’s less of a burden overall than a new car.

(Most recent used car purchase has set me back less than expected for upkeep: counting the normal “tune it as soon as it’s in my hands” expenses, new tires–the old ones passed safety inspection but weren’t the quality I wanted–replacement of lubes with ALL synthetics, and a couple of parts replaced: still only about $225 for the past 10 months… and getting above 40mpg on a regular basis. All for a car that cost well, well under $3K. I can live with that. Heck, a new car–just about ANY new car–would have cost me more in total expenditures over the past ten months.)

So, scaled down car shopping today–not for a replacement vehicle but for an added car, BTW. An automatic transmission vehicle for “other drivers” in the family. *heh*

But all that’s in aid of the theme of this 13: connectivity. Until recently, shopping for a new car was a hunt-the-want-ads/word of mouth experience that was often excessively laborious, often painful. Now,

1. Autotrader.com and other sites make finding a ton of possibles easy.

2. CarFax makes weeding out the obvious no-gos easier (still need an onsite inspection, of course).

3. And email, faxes and mobile phones make contacts with sellers (and callbacks/contacts FROM sellers) much quicker and easier–even when voicemail filters things.

4. Finding sellers/cars in places I don’t drive to/in much is also easier, because GoogleEarth lets me SEE what the places look like as well as just giving me a map of the roads.

5. Free WiFi hotspots (like Panera Breads’ almost ubiquitous FREE hotspots in cities… well outside America’s Third World County, where the only free hotspots are places like my (bad) neighbors’ unprotected wireless network–*heh*… are great for fine-tuning “the next step” after a rejected car.

But while thinking on these connectivity bonuses, I naturally veered off on a rabbit trail thinking of connectivity in general in our society.

6. The collapse of the bridge in Minneapolis led to my Wonder Woman using our VOIP phone (with a Minneapolis number) to call relatives there and see how the event is impacting their lives (“Y’all safe, not traveling the bridge when it went?” was a primary question to get out of the way first, of course). ConnectivityX4⁺.

That led, of course, to thinking of other disasters/events that we’ve been “connected” to over the years by means apart from simply seeing them reported on TV.

7. The Big Thompson Canyon Colorado flash flood on July 4th, 1976: I was dating my Wonder Woman then when one of her roommates died in that flood.

8. My parents, grandparents and many childhood friends and aquaintances were either directly or indirectly affected/involved in the cleanup of the 1979 tornado that destroyed much of southwest (and on through downtown) Lawton, OK…

9. …while my Wonder Woman and I were safely ensconced in our starter home bungalow in KCMO, where just a few months after Lovely Daughter’s birth (look rthe year up for yourself :-)), the Hyatt Regency walkway collapsed, killing 114 people and injuring more than 200 others during a tea dance. Sure, again we weren’t directly involved, but we felt connected just from having been there before, from living within a mile of the place, etc.

10. And speaking of Lovely Daughter (please forgive me, girl :-)), on her birthday anniversary in 1993, the FBI killed a bunch of children in Waco, TX. A crime of mass murder that no one in the “feddle gummint” has been held accountable for. Naturally. We felt her “birthday connection” with her, so of course…

11. A couple of years later, when we were living relatively near the OKC bombing that was also on her birthday anniversay, she felt that strongly as well. But then, so did the rest of us, both physically–the bomb and aftereffects could be physically felt for miles and miles–and emotionally, as friends and aquaintances were affected directly by the blast and nearly as much by the rescue and cleanup. Lovely Daughter did approach her birthday anniversary on pins and needles for some years to follow…

But when that “connectivity” thread began to get a little too harsh (yeh, along about Waco), I turned to another aspect of connectivity: percieved connections to people and events far removed from me, people I have never known and never would have known anything about “brought near” by media presentation of events, such as

12. Katrina (and otrher natural disasters such as the Indian Ocean Tsunami, innumeerable earthquakes, storms, etc.).

13. 9-11.

While, largely because of widespread visual imagry, we all feel some sense of connection to events like these, I sometimes wonder just how healthy a preoccupation with remote events that we cannot directly affect or that do not directly affect us can be. Sometimes I think that the “disaster-a-day” mentality of Mass Media Podpeople (and our society’s addiction to it) cannot be a good thing. Sometimes? No, I often think that, which is one reason that I’ve scaled back (to almost nothing) my viewing of televised news. Until recent years, my newsviewing was limited to spotty and network news viewing was almost nonexistant even before Ra^thergate and other abuses highlighted the “lies, damned lies and Mass Media Podpeople lies” nature of so-called “news” reporting. But now… now, I really only “watch” whatever news MAY be on when I walk through the room and my Wonder Woman has something on the TV (and her “news” watching is almost as limited as mine).

Such are my disjointed, semi-randomized, nearly stream of consciousness thoughts on a cloudy day before heading out for some onsite car research.

Noted at the Thursday Thirteen Hub. Visit others’ T-13s while I’m out having fun in the RW today, ‘K?

You might think from the post title that this would be about physical abuse. Perhaps sexual abuse or even the institutionalized child abuse in the classrooms of our nations “prisons for kids” (AKA, “public schools”). But no. I’m talking about the twisting of children into moral and ethical monsters, people who grow up into societal black holes because their parents have demonstrated to them that disregard–even outright contempt–for property, safety of others and even laws intended to protect persons and their property* is a positive good, as long as such disregard for others enhances the material wealth of the child.

Parents teach this by demonstrating a complete disregard for the rights, property and safety–including contempt for laws intended to protect folks from such abuse–of those around them day in and day out as they pursue their own selfish ends.

And a very good example of such disregard for others and for laws intended to protect the rights and safety of individuals are the illegal aliens who bring their children here (or come here to spawn) deliberately, willfully and maliciously determined to violate the laws intended to protect others from their predation. Yes, illegals steal jobs from the most vulnerable in our society, the working poor. They don’t care.

Yes, illegals are bringing back diseases once wiped out in our society, by circumventing the process of legal immigration meant, in part, to prevent the importation of such diseases. They don’t care who they may infect or even kill because of their acts. All they want is “a better life for themselves and their families”. They don’t care what the cost to others is.

Yes, illegals are clogging emergency rooms (forcing the shutdown of emergency services in many hospitals). They don’t care that by doing so they are using limited resources belonging to others.

Yes, illegals are eating limited educational resources, demanding (and recieving) exceptional treatment in schools–and by doing so depriving others of services. They don’t care.

Illegals are wreaking havoc with the finances of countless individuals by means of fraud, identity theft and the attendant damages they cause.

All this and much, much more: they don’t care, because by breaking innumerable laws designed to protect others from predation and complete disregard for the safety and property* of others, they can “better” themselves.

Sure, and that’s what any thief, robber, murderer might say: “As long as I benefit, what does it matter who I harm?”

And THAT is the destructive lesson they teach their children: how to be monsters who care not one damn about others as long as it gets them what they want. Bringing children up with a hole in their souls carved out by parents’ selfish disregard for others.

On the other side of the equation are those who are waiting in line for LEGAL entry into this country. Another set of folks harmed by illegal aliens jumping the line.

(And yes, I know there are other parents teaching a similar lesson with their behavior, but few can be so starkly contemptuous of the lives and rights of others as the outlaws who are the 2-20 million strong invading army of hateful** illegals.)

*Property is simply distilled time and effort and talent; it is chunks of our lives converted into material possessions. X-number of hours of ones life invested in order to purchase… stuff. Think about that the next time you buy a piece of appealing junk.

**Hateful? WHat could be more hateful than complete, utter, absolute disregard of others? Think about it. Being completely ignored as though you didn’t even exist. Treated as nothing but a completely unimportant nothing, a zero with the rim kicked off. THAT’S hateful. As an old Greek prof once told me about a word usually translated from the Greek as hate, “It really means, ‘Couldn’t give a damn'”. And that’s exactly what these parents are teaching their children by their actions: Don’t give a damn about anyone else. Look out for yourself and your family with no regard for the harm you are causing anyone else. If you have to make extraordinary efforts to harm others (obtain false documents to commit fraud harming others, for example), fine, as long as you benefit yourself monetarily.

*bah* Moral monsters breeding more moral monsters.

*heh* It’s one reason I approve of our pastor’s support of a Latino mission in America’s Third World Countyâ„¢. If some of them are exposed to a decent standard, then maybe some might repent, turn themselves in or practice a little self-deportation.

But I doubt it.

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