Wednesday, June 17, 2009

I've been thinking too much

I have been thinking a lot lately which is a dangerous thing for me to do!! I don’t have the best thinker in the world. I keep hearing that things will be better when the economy turns around. What I don’t understand is how can the economy turn around when there will be no good jobs out there. I am talking about good solid middle class American jobs. Industry has gone to Asia. Very little is manufactured here. Even the tech jobs have disappeared,
They are in India and Pakistan. Plumbers, electricians, and carpenter jobs have gone to low wage migrant workers. So if the average middle class person can not get a job with sufficient wages and benefits how can the economy turn around?. These people were the engine that drove our economy. The only things that they are driving anymore are old cars! What is it about this that I don’t understand?
Another thought; A person making twenty five dollars an hour pays roughly five dollars per hour in taxes. A person making eight dollars an hour pays only a dollar and sixty cents an hour. This severely reduces the money available for our government to run on. I wonder if any of the knuckleheads in Washington considered this as they let our jobs disappear overseas?
Now China owns a large portion of the USA. They have loaned us billions. We have even sold some of our toll roads to foreign countries so that we could have some quick cash. This all needs to stop! I believe that it is time to place tariffs on this stuff coming from overseas. We need to make it profitable for companies to bring their factories here. We need our government to act. For some reason, I don’t expect this to happen any time real soon.
The Old Curmudgeon

Tuesday, June 16, 2009

summer work camp

Pat and I have just returned from a vacation trip to Michigan where we watched our oldest granddaughter graduate from high school. We also spent a lot of time with the rest of the grandkids and their parental units. It is hard to believe how much a child can change in four or five months. We stopped in Lousia on the way home for a meeting re: our summer work camp which will begin on July 27th. We will be working with the Monocan Indians at their community on Bear Mountain which is near Lynchburg. A representative from the tribe met with us and explained what we would be doing while there. We will be spending some time working on various projects but will also spend a considerable amount of time learning who these people are and what they are about. The representative told us that they are the only Episcopalian indians in Virginia. She also told us of some of their beliefs. For example; I understood her to say that they believe that we go around and around, and that nobody learns it all on the first go around. I understood this to mean that they believe in some form of reincarnation. She said that when a person has completed the cycle they become the stars in the sky. The stars are their ancestors.
We will have many oppurtunities to learn about indian arts and crafts and will be able to experience an indian sweat lodge. All of this intriques me greatly. I can't wait to get there.
I recently read a book that traced the history of the American Buffalo. I thought it was a great read. I imagined myself as a plains indian boy getting ready to go on his first buffalo hunt in a time long before the white man and his diseases ruined a way of life that had existed for thousands of years. It must have been an exciting time to be alive