Bookstores

Elliot Bay Books in Seattle

Will there be a day we consider print bookstore museums? And what will the people then think of all of us now who love bookstores, the really large ones, the small, musty used ones, the speciality ones, and any of them?

Will there be a day the only books will be in libraries and small specialty bookstores? As the size of the largest bookstores in the US shrinks, eg. Powell's in Portland, Oregon, the University of Washington in Seattle, etc., where will we get print books if want one?

Will print books only be available with the print-on-demand services some bookstores have now? You search the catalog, select one, pay and wait for it to print? As much as people dislike print books they have some advantages.

They don't need batteries or charging. They make good paperweights. They allow you to scribble and take notes in them. They allow you to browse and reference between pages without scrolling. They take postit note page markers. And they allow you to feel good about reading.

I was never much of a reader being mostly what I call a research reader, meaning reading parts of a lot of books. I've read lots of journal articles for my graduate school and career. I've even read the complete works of Sherlock Holmes, John Muir, Henry David Thoreau, Edward Abbey, and others.

I have the complete works of John Burroughs, the Wake Robin editon, and have read a few of the volumes. There's something about sitting down with a book printed a century ago to read the words someone thought and wrote years and even decades before that.

It teaches me we're human and while our lives have improved and our knowledge expanded, some of the basic ideas of being a humand and person haven't changed. It makes me wonder what they thought of the times and the future, the one we're living.

And I'm slowly learning to read digital formats, but I still love print books. I collect historic documents, reports and books on Mt. Rainier NP and enjoy reading them cover to cover. There's a lot more to them than just the content. You see context.

I also love and collect old geography books which have the old line drawings. It's always interesting to see how the author described the world then, much of it diferently than now, but still worth learning considering the times they lived. We assume a lot and sometimes it's interesting to see what we have assumed before it was known.

Anyway, just a thought on a rainy, windy northwest fall morning.

If You're Pro-Life

If you are pro-life then you are for the life of the mother, the life of the fetus, the life of the baby and the life of the child, from conception to adulthood. Anything else isn't pro-life, but just pro-fetus.

If you are pro-life then your highest priority is not just for the life of the mother but the rights of the mother to decide for herself what she does with her reproductive health and pregnancy, even if it results in her decision to have an abortion.

If you are pro-life then you are for all life born, not just the life inside the womb. You can not decide that's the only life that matter as God loved all life and all people, not just a fetus.

If you are pro-life then you value the right of anyone to decide their life, not subject to the religious or conservative views of others.

If you are pro-life then you value the rights of women to decide and control their life and their body. You can't be a man who decides for women.

If you are pro-life you can't discriminate what life and whose life, but all life as born and living. You can't discriminate against a the mother over the fetus.

If you are pro-life then you support programs which help prenatal mothers, help mothers and babies, help children, and also helps girls and young women to be fully knowledgeable about their body and their reproductive system and health.

If you are pro-life then you keep your views and values about the decisions of women to yourself. Otherwise, you're not pro-life but anti-life, anti-freedom, anti-women.

If you are pro-life and believe the rights of the fetus begins as conception, they you belive those rights belong to the mother and no one else. It's her fetus, her life and her rights.

You know that if you are pro-life, and you know what you believe and say is not what God would say. It's not what Jesus would teach. And it's not what the Bible says.

But then you would know that too, so don't pro-life me if you don't believe in all life and especially the life and rights of women and mothers. Because to be true to being pro-life is being pro choice.

Mac iTunes Tip

I wrote a tip about Adobe applications, to which you can add iTunes. If you open iTunes, like I do, shortly after rebooting or logging in, it will sit there pretty much using just the space it needs. However, if you use iTunes, especially connected to your iPod, iPhone or iPad, to synchronize them with updates to applications or for the backup copy, you will find the space increase significantly.

If you use iTunes to access the iTunes store, you will find the space will increase signficantly. If you play songs and especially video files in iTunes, you will find the space really increase. In the end iTunes will easily increase by a factor of at least 2, often 3-5 times its original size.

The answer is the easy thing, close it, use terminal mode with the purge command, wait for the command to finish as it freezes your computer for a moment, and then reopen iTunes and roll on. You can open the Activity Monitor app to see what the applications are doing. I keep this application open (hidden) all the time.

Note about the purge command. Use it when you're not running Time Machine backups. It doesn't interfer with the backup, only slows the purge command to determine which space the backup has and won't use again to remove it. I just wait until no application is doing anything to run the command.

Another tip with iTunes, is don't connect any remote device either direction or through wifi until iTunes is fully open, and maybe like me, scroll the list of albums to get all the covers loaded. I don't understand why iTunes doesn't load all the albums covers when you start it.

Well, I do, to save space and load time, but on any Mac anymore, that's useless as they all are fast and powerful enough to handle loading all the album covers. I always scroll the list 1100 albums so I see all the covers all the time to find the one I want. I'm a visual person so I remember the album cover than the name.

The other option than the purge command is just wait for the daily maintenance which runs in the early hours based on the time stamp on your Mac, not where you're at if your travelling. This automatically recovers unused inactive space left by closed applications.

This is where the Activity Monitor application is useful, to see what inactive and if you're approaching the limit of your cpu memory, see if the Mac is swapping space between applications and files. Both the  page out and swap statistics should be low if not zero.

Anyway, that's just an obvious Mac tip.

What's With Apps

Update 10/26/12.-- Not so fast Grasshopper. Checking the log this evening the application went nuts again, with these error messages every 5 seconds,

Librariand: error in handle_client_request: LibrarianErrorDoman/10/Unable to configure the collection.
Librariand: no ubiquity account configure, not creating collection.

I'm curious what it means, but the company has my complaint.

Update 10/25/12.--I rebooted the Mac and when I started the application, OS-X reconfigured the log messages from it to throttle it to just the first redundant message. Ok, OS-X is smarter than the application. So now I'll use it.

Original Post.-- What's with software developers who write an application which creates endless error messages in the console log on my computer (Mac Pro running OS-X 10.7.5)? I  bought about a year ago what apppeared to be a cool little application called Day One, but using the previous version the minute I opened the application it wrote a multi-line error message every second.

So I stopped using it. I use console log to monitor events on the Mac, such as watching the Time Machine backup which sometimes goes beserk and takes a long time if it stops at all. Apple has solved this where it only takes 4-5 minutes normally and 5-10 minutes with a lot of updates or large files.

I also watch it for watching other events and applications, but the console window has a 4,000 line capacity so when an application starts writing a lot of error messages, all the other messages get lost off the window. So I updated Day One to the latest version, 1.7.2, and sure enough, it now writes a two line error message every 5 seconds.

What's with folks they can't solve these problems or trap this error message? I'm running the standard off the rack OS-X, so it's an easily seeable error message, if of course they actually check the error log for their applications, which to me, appears they don't or at least not often enough.

So, I stopped using this application again. It's a cool little application but not if it can't solve or restrain the error messages. I can bitch about this because part of my former job was testing and debugging software, so error message are important, but it's more important to find the source of the message and fix the problem, preferably before it's released to users.

Oh well, just a rant about applications and error messages.

Read it and Think

This is Mitt Romney's editorial on the automobile industry bailout President Obama provided to the three big car companies. Read it and think about what he said. He approached the automobile industry like he was the CEO of Bain Capital, for them to go through bankruptcy to shed financial obligations to  employees, like health insurance, retirees' annuity, etc.

Think if he wanted to do this to American companies, what would he do with the government? Are you willing to bet our future, our government to his man and his ideas? He's promised more defense spending while he promised less government, less social programs, eliminating entitlements, and reducing taxes on the wealthy making the middle class pay the bills.

Think about this man as president, do you really trust what's he said when his record is the opposite?

It's your right to vote for the candidate you believe in. I can only ask you think about the whole of the country, all Americans, and all of our government. What are his real plans and goals?

I Voted

To all the political campaign staffers, pundits, etal, I mailed my completed ballot today. My vote is said and done so I can stop listening to the political and campaign rhetoric.

And pretty much as you might guess if you read this blog, I voted almost straight democratic. The only others were nonpartisan positions like State Supreme Court justices.

That said, there were a number of voter initiative, referendums and other issues on the ballot, so I'll summarize just to put it on the record.

Initiative 1185, which would continue a 2/3rds vote of the state legislature for new taxes and tax increases, I voted NO.

Initiative 1240, which would approve state funds to 40 charter schools under school districts, I voted NO.

I'm opposed to anything other than public schools funded with public monies, tax credits or vouchers, which means no home schooling, no public or private charter schools, nothing with public funds or taxes, either paid or a deduction.

If you want to school your children outside of public schools, use you own money, not mine.

I'm not against special schools for a range of students within school districts, but only when it's staffed by union teachers, overseen by the school district and board, and accountable to the state government for student and teacher performance.

The initiative on the ballot would defer existing school funds to those new schools, and when the state's school system is underfunded and understaffed, adding special schools isn't the answer. Fix public schools first. Invest in all our children than just a few.

Referendum 74, concerning approving the state law on marriage equality, I voted YES.

Referendum 502, to legalize marijuana, I voted NO. It's the wrong bill for a good cause. Find a better law.

All the rest are just humdrum legislative issues. As for race for governor of Washington, I voted for Jay Inslee. I like Rob McKenna who did a good job as the Attorney General for Washington but I disagree with his decision and action to fight the Affordable Care Act over the objections of the Governor.

He wasted a lot of taxpayer time and money fightig a bill everyone likes now. All for political points.

Outside of that both candidates are almost identical on the key economic and government issues, only differing on social issues where Inslee is a social moderate who supports people and McKenna is a social conservative who supports conservatives on social issues, and the reason I voted for Inslee.

Anyway, that's it. I voted. How about you?

KT Tape

I posted a entry on another blog on my recent use of KT Tape (Kinesiology Tape) for the  shin splints I've suffered all my years of running, now walking, and hiking. It's really cool stuff, especially for shin splints. I recommend it despite the cost, it solves the pain very well, and I'm walking 5-6 miles 3-4 times a week now, which has resulted in losing over 10 lbs and an inch in my waist.

Creating Jobs

Sorry Mr. Romney, the federal government does create jobs in many ways, through direct contracts to companies to do the work of the government, through grants for research and development, exploratory industries, etc, through government programs such as roads and bridges, infrastructure, education, national guard and reserves, with aid to states, and with government employees who live in the states.

The federal government directly or indirectly creates more jobs than anyone else in this country. What don't you understand? Wait, you do but just don't want to admit it. You're not stupid but you are a liar.

Says it all

This kinda' says it all about the Romney-Ryan plan and women, but really all of us since we all have mothers, and many of us have women in our lives with whom we should stand up and fight for them.  The Romney-Ryan view is about, and really against, all of the 99%'ers and this is just one of the ways they won't be there for us.

So if you're a Romney fan or plan to vote for him, think about women, especially the women in your life, but really all women. What do you think is best for them?

Twelve Million Jobs

Well, Mr. Romney, you said this over and over again, you'll create 12 million jobs if you are elected President, but throughout your campaign you have never given one detail how you plan to do that except your 5-point plan which every independent economic study has said doesn't work and doesn't add up.

So, if you don't plan to give the details until you're elected, why would we trust you when we can't trust anything you've said before because you've flip-flopped more times than a slinky going down a set of stairs, and that on each issue.

So, Mr. Romney, where are those 12 million jobs you will, not want but will, create?

Romney and Foreign Policy

I listened to the third  presidential election debate and it's clear to me Romney tried to hog the stage again, but more so he sounded like someone who crammed all night for an exam and needs to recite it all before he forgets it.

He tried to bully the President and the moderator until both challenged him, but more so Romney sounded like just electing him President will create fear in our enemies forgetting the reality of the world we live in.

The other was that he changed his position again, just like he did in the previous debates,  which differs from all the campaign speeches and writing he has made. And he kept blaming the President like he would have done different, which we know isn't true.

In short, he sounded good, election campaign good, but his record and all his previous speeches says that's not his view except for this debate, and he doesn't have a track record in foreign policy to run on where the President has done the best for the situation and circumstances.

It's easy for Romney to blame the President and say he would be different, but not from what he said in the debate but from what he has said up to the debate. He's doing what he has done, tell his audience what they want to hear about him.

Romney is still Romney, not a President.

What Would be Cool

You know what would be cool? You know people who take photos of themselves in the mirror? Yeah, we've all seen them. Just thought, open an image editor, any one will do, and use the reverse image tool to flip it correct left to right, or right to left, it's the same thing. Save it and then post it.

It take all of a minute at most and makes the image photographically and physically correct. And gives the viewer something better to see, what they would see if they were standing there.

What?

The Republicans are mad because of Vice President Joe Biden's performance at the debate, engaging Paul Ryan over his lies, but they're not apologetic over Mitt Romney's many lies, talking more than his alloted time, interrtupting the moderator and his disrepect of and for President Obama?

They're angry about the vice presidential candidate who is a member of the House of Representatives, not the Vice President. Mitt Romney was disrepectful of the President of the United States. Big difference, one of 435 representatives and the President.

Paul Ryan has frequently spoken and campaigned against the president's economic stimulus plan but forgot to tell people he actually got 2 grants worth millions for companies in his district cited the plan for growth and jobs. He cut spending for embassy security and then spoke against the lack of security in the Libya attack.

Vice President Biden went after him with the truth and he got caught. Paul Ryan is a hypocrite and Biden called him out. He deserved it and Biden made sure the spotlight was on Ryan about it. And in the end, the Republicans got what they gave.

That's it. So stop whining and live with it.

Not the Flu

Update (10/11/12).-- Well it wasn't the flu after all. I have a bladder/urinary tract infection. The urine analysis found significant levels of both blood and leukocytes in the urine indicative of a bacterial infection. I'm on Ciprofloxacin for a week. Anyway, the same thing applies, it still sucks.

I came down with the flu over the weekend and it's waning but lingering. At first I thought it was a reaction to one of my food experiments, trying old or new foods to see how the digestive system work. It didn't work, but then yesterday it was clear it is the flu. To put it very succintly:

It sucks.

That's all folks for the next few days. And we all know the melody of the song at the end of each cartoon. If not, where have you been? Check Google for Looney Tunes cartoons. And for Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck and Elmer, "That's all folks!"

Favorites

We all have personal favorite Websites and several days a week I surf a whole range of them on a variety of subjects and will often follow links on some of those Website to other Websites. That said I visit a number of photography Websites for work and business and Websites for Mt. Rainier National Park.

Some of my personal favorites are people or cat based ones. Two are my favorites because they're about cats and the owners do a great job with their cats. One is in Japan is Maru. Maru is a Scottish Fold which has a great owner to show their cat loves boxes and bags.

The other is Lil Bub. Lil Bub is a special cat born with multiple birth defects, being a perma-kitten, dwarfism, polydactyl (extra toe on each foot), and with no lower jaw and teeth. This is a very cool cat who deserves a chance in life and is getting it with an owner with a good heart.


After that I look at a lot of Websites on fashion - Tumblr has a boatload, music - especially Asian pop and traditional music, Website design - yes my Website is a simple design because it's easy to add and update, health and life - Taoism, etc., and news magazines and newspapers - NY Times, Washington Post, etc.

All that said, in the end, it means I don't watch a much TV, only a few sports teams (Seattle Mariners, SF 49'ers) and some auto racing series (F1, NASCAR, etc.), a few cable news shows (MSNBC) and occasional movie and documentaries. I can't remember the last time I watched a major network channel and shows.

And when I'm not working on my Website, I just wander around the Internet. There's more interesting stuff out there in the whole world than on TV. It changes your perspective about life where you are and everything else.

Anyway, just some personal stuff in a very cluttered blog. But hey, it's my blog and my clutter.

A Bullet

The bullet doesn't consider let alone care about who fired the gun which projected the bullet to its target. The bullet doesn't ask the person why they fired the gun, what was their state of mind, their thoughts and feelings. The bullet just goes where it's fired.

The bullet doesn't consider let alone care about its target, who they were, what they did, what they said, or why they are the target. The bullet doesn't bother with formalities to warn its target. The bullet just enters and destroys, and kills.

The bullet is simply the means to an end, the person firing the bullet and the person being hit with the bullet. And while we focus on the people involved in the shooting, we fail to see the bullet did the damage. The bullet sent the message, one of hate, anger, rage and violence. By one person to another.

While we can argue about who's to blame for gun violence, what to do to resolve it, and where we should spend the money, we're still selling massive amounts of bullets to gun owners, some of whom will use them against someone.

Against a loved one, family member, friends, co-workers, people during criminal acts, or just random people. The news is full of stories. The news knows about half of people killed by guns are commited by people who knew them, even loved ones or family members.

While people excuse gun violence as acts of illegal gun owners, unstable people or criminals, and that lawful, legal gun owners are responsible, those arguments don't hold when the bullet doesn't care about who the shooter is and why the person is a target.

It only knows its fate. A bullet is neutral, the shooter isn't. They knew what they are doing, and most victims were not shot in self-defense, but shot because the shooter wanted them dead. And that the bullet does an extraordinary job, killing people.

It's both guns and people who kill people. Without guns, and more so without bullets, people don't get shot and killed. When can we have that discussion?

Oops

"Hey, thought I'd call to see what's up."

"So why don't we go out for a beer or something?"

"Naw, don't feel like it."

"Oh, come on. It will cheer you up. You need to snap out it. Be a man, get over it."

And so the conversation continued until the person said they'll fine at home and goodbye.

Some time later, someone called 911. EMT's came and took the person to the ER and the person was later admitted to the hospital for observation of attempted suicide.

The next day a psychiatrist arrives.

"So, why did you think of suicide?"

"Well, my friend tried to help me get over feeling bad."

"And your friend, how did they know to help?"

"He said he read how on the Internet."

"I see, so reading something on the Internet makes you an expert? Like your friend?"

"Yeah, it was posted on a blog. Some advice about depressed people and what they might do, such as preventing them from attempting suicide."

"And how did that go?"

"Well, it was stupid advice, and I felt worse than before."

"Enough to try suicide?"

"What else was there. He made me feel worse and stupid. I hated myself more."

"So, how do you feel about your friend now?"

"Well, he certainly didn't know anything about me or my depression."

"And what does your friend say now?"

"They said he thought it was good advice and decided to try it."

"No apology?"

"None."

"Not even like, oops?"

"Yeah nothing?"

"So what will you do now about your friend."

"I don't know, maybe I shouldn't listen to them anymore."

"Will they still be your friend?'

"I don't know. Why would a friend hurt me like that?"

"I don't know. Something you'll learn."

"What?"

"When not to listen to friends."

Nothing Like Timing

Update (10/7/12).--Why does the ISP continue to reboot Domain Name Servers (DNS) during primetime user hours, like today (Sunday) at 7:15 pm? Right now not all the Websites are recognizable or came back online and my e-mail server won't connect. Why can't they do this work in the wee hours of the morning when there are fewer people on-line?

Original Post (9/28/12).-- There's nothing like bad timing. At least for my Internet Service Provider (ISP) Century Link. For the second time this week and the third time in the last two weeks the Domain Name Server (DNS) stopped worked for many Websites.

Not all Websites, just some. The problem is that all the computers in the world must have the same list of domain names and Internet Protocol (IP) addresses to ensure all the traffic is routed to the correct computers through the servers. This way all the packets of Internet traffic find the right path through the maze of networks, routers and servers.

So to do this they have to make sure all the ISP's and Website host computers have the same list. And to do that the ISP's rebuild the list from the deletions, additions, or changes to the IP addresses and domain names routinely circulated the domain name hosts.

This works almost seemlessly, until it doesn't, and you find you can't go anywhere and your browser says it can't connect to the Website because that domain name can't be found, meaning it's not on the ISP's list. Some ISP's have ways to update the list without rebooting the computer and some don't.

Either way, if anything goes wrong, then you go nowhere fast. Last week it was for nearly 4 hours and earlier this week for over an hour. This time about 15-20 minutes, time to test Websites and then write this post. All of them were in the busy time, between 4 pm and 10 pm.

So, not really new or news, just a frustration with a system that relies on communications, and sometimes that breaks down or isn't understood, and everyone then looks and feels real stupid.

Mac Adobe Tip

I'm running a Mac Pro on Lion, OS-X 10.7.5. I haven't upgraded to Mountain Lion yet because I'm waiting for some reasons. There isn't anything with it I need or want and there's a lot I don't like or want. But I'll eventually go to it later this fall because I'm usually 3-4 months behind for updates.

Anyway, I've written about the purge command to clear inactive memory. You don't need any third party app for this, just a terminal window. The purge command doesn't touch active or currently used memory and it temporarily stalls your Mac while it's clearing the memory.

This is a great tool if you keep the Activity Monitor window open (usually hidden until necessary) to check memory usage. I use it with the Console app to watch the Mac. I have 16 GBybtes of cpu memory, so that's not the issue, but applications which eat memory are an issue with me.

And one of those are Adobe's applications. I run one of the Creative Suite packages with additional applications and often have 4-6 open at once to do various things (why the cpu memory). When you open an Adobe application, it starts both the application and an Adobe Crash daemon.

And that's the issue, the crash daemon. One is created for each applications and they eat memory over time where in 1-2+ days where the crash daemon is using active memory than the applications itself. With several Adobe applications, this can easily add up to .5-1.0 GBytes of memory.

It's not a problem for my Mac until I get to 12+ GBytes of active memory and then applications have to start swapping and writing memory in/out. With Mac it's doubtful you'll see any performance changes beyond some appearing to be slightly slow.

This does become an bigger issue if you run some music or video applications where you load audion or video files. Photography image files aren't an so much an issue unless you have several large one open, meaning in the hundreds of MBytes. Then the performance will be somewhat noticeable.

So the tip here is not hide an Adobe application if you don't need it for awhile, but close them and recover the memory with the purge command. The Mac are designed so it's unnecessary as it will recover the memory if it needs it, but closing the application and using the purge command is better.

That's it. Just a tip.

Proof or Not

You want proof Romney cheats? Maybe.



Is this a man you trust to be president when he didn't follow the rules of a debate or be honest to admit he cheated? The rules were very clear for this debate, "No props, notes, charts, diagrams, or other writings or other tangible things may be brought into the debate by any candidate."

This has been he way of life, do whatever it takes to get whatever you want, at any cost, at any price, and cheat or lie if you have to win. He believes in winning more than he believes in being a good man, a good citizen, and a good candidate.

The Romney campaign reported it was a hankerchief he used later in the debate to wipe his mouth. Ok, that's ok except why hide it and sneak it on the podium? Why was it in your front pocket except to bring out without being noticed?

Why did you unfold it and look down at it at the beginning? Yes, you used it later in the debate to wipe your mouth, but why, to confuse people? Why hide it up your left sleeve at the end of the debate so no one notices? And did anyone else look at it to ensure it was just a hankerchief?

All in all, it might be true, but do you still believe what he says?

Imperfection

If you think someone looks perfect, look again. Everyone is asymmetrical, the left half of our body is different from the right half, and never is it more obvious than the face. Look hard and you see it, no face is symmetrical. If it was, it would look odd. Really.

So, remember it when you say someone is beautiful, it's because they are, beautifully imperfect.

Think Again

If you still think Mitt Romney would be a good President, even after the debate, I can't help you there because you've been brainwashed quite well by the media and Romney. I can only ask you to look at all that he has said during the campaign about his record at Bain Capital, as Governor, and his taxes.

Then look at what he says he believes, if you can find where that is amidst the range of views he's expressed for about a year now, and then look at his responses when confronted with past statements, he denies or ignores them.

Then consider what his presidency would be like. Do you really think he would be bipartisan and talk with Democrats, or would he just talk to them and then ignore them, or worse lecture them? Do you think he is more compassionate than George Bush? And how did that turn out for us?

The key thing I want to stress is that even if you don't like President Obama, and I'm not enamored with him after all the failed promises and doubling down on some of Bush's practices, like intelligence gathering on Americans, drone attacks in soverign nations killing innocent people, and not doing enough for people, jobs and the ecomony.

But that said, consider one reason he should be re-elected, not because he is in the end fair minded, but because the next president will likely nominate one, maybe two new Supreme Court justices. The next president will change the direction of the court for decades to come.

And then consider who Romney would nominate. That alone is not just one reason to vote for President Obama, but the only real reason to vote for him.

Upton Sinclair

With credit Upton Sinclair who paraphrased many political candidates very well with the quote but thoroughly explain Mitt Romney.

“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”

This thoroughly explain Romney, when he created and managed Bain Capital and he's been pursuing the presidency, and especially he attack on the President during the Wednesday (10/3/12) debate. He showed no respect to the President or remorse for his attack.

And he showed no respect or remorse for the moderator or the audience. Unfortunately the President didn't fight back to counter all of the lies Romney said and Romney past record during his tenure at Bain, his control after he left and his governorship in Massachusetts.

Maybe the next debate will be better, because now we see Romney for who he is and what he wants. He doesn't care about respect for others, doesn't care about decency for people, and especially doesn't care about 99% of Americans.

Do you think Romney has ever heard of Upton Sinclair? Or do you think his narrow mindedness excludes anything about being a human being let alone President? We saw who he was at the debate, ruthless, inconsiderate and still a liar.

Dear Young People

I occasionally run across an editoral by a younger person, ok, young person, meaning somewhere under 40 and often under 30, and their rant is against old people and the world we're leaving them when we die.

Ok, I agree about the world, and I'm sorry it's fucked up for you. I did my part, badly sometimes but hey, I tried with my career to make it a good place. That said, I don't agree about this person's thoughts about old people. Why?

Because, while I'm physically old, like mid-60's and it sucks, I'm not mentally old. I'm of the younger Vietnam-era generation who came of age under the draft and faced one of every young man's worst nightmare, dying in Vietnam, and hardest decision, to enlist, be draft or split the country.

I chose to enlist, serve and then use the GI Bill to get a BA and a MS degrees, and then spend 28 years with the USGS. I retired in late 2005 to start a new career and business, which the former is doing ok but the latter isn't. But that's no one fault but mine.

My point is that I agree with many of the ideas, thoughts and directions the young people want our President, our government and especially our Congress to do. I agree with the Occupy movement and their ideas and goals.

So don't stereotype me or put me in a box to label as "typical old person's political views" and then decide I'm the problem simply because I'm old. I know I'm old, but I also know I also hate my own generation for our failures.

We failed to make the changes we wanted when we wanted to change the world 40 years ago. We screwed up, got lost, and whatever other excuses or reasons you want to use. We had to get jobs, build careers, have families, yadda, yadda, yadda....

I do want to see a single univeral healthcare system, to cover people from pregnancy to death, just like most of the countries in Europe. I already have a good healthcare plan and I'd like to see a similar one for everyone else.

I do want to see a financial security system to ensure corporations honor their retirement plans, and keep them for all employees than dump them on the workers and federal government. I want Social Security not just to be solvent, if Congress would stop using the revenue for it and borrowing from the trust fund, but better, to be a program for people to build a decent retirement.

I do want to get all our enviromental problems solved to have this country with the cleanest air and water, and the best land. I want industry and corporations to take responsibility of their production and products, to reduce pollution and waste to near zero.

I do want the enegy companies to do more with less, and not destroy our country and enviroment. The Gulf is our Gulf, not theirs alone, but all of us, and they should only drill when they have the capability to cap a blowout immediately and prevent almost now spillage into the water.

I do want this country to have the best K-12 and post-high school places in the world. We were there, we can get back to there. We owe it to guarrantee a good education for all children funded by all of us for the widest range of students and education possibilities.

I do want equality for everyone, no matter their race, ethnicity, religion (or not), sex, gender, and whatever other criteria used to discriminate against people, be it for marriage, worship, work, housing, education, etc.

I do want cuts in the military. Lots of cuts. We shouldn't be the police force of the world. We should have a fair sized military for our self-defense and assistance to other nations when asked through the international organizations, eg. NATO, UN.

Let's cut the DOD and DIA budget by 5% every year for the next 10 years and then only increase it for the cost of living, and not add any new weapons programs until the old ones have totally proven to be antiquated, and then only approve a few to replace current ones.

Let's put the DOD budget to the American people. Ask all of us how much military and intellingence we want from our government. Not Congress which is owned by them and the corporations. Just us. They propose choices, we vote, and the majority wins. And DOD and DIA lives with it.

I do want all new wars to be thoroughly vetted by the public. Not the media which bought into the two latest wars where Congress failed to do their job to thoroughly vet the President's proposal. Then I want a very narrowly crafted authorization for that military intervention and nothing else.

I do want the national debt paid down and zero'd out if possible, whether it takes 25 or more years, it's time to do it for the future generations. Let's make the weathly pay more, a lot more to pay for government and the debt.

I do want a balanced budget, but only by reducing the DOD and DIA and other bloated agencies and budgets. I want the government do to what it should for the people, of the people and by the people. It's our government, work for us.

I could go on but you get my point and you get the idea - Don't put me in a box to hate simply because I'm old and you think I'm one of the enemy. I maybe old, but I'm not your enemy.

Gotta Love Nope

I really like Apple's way with Lion, OS-X 10.7.5, haven't upgraded to Mountain Lion yet so I don't know if it's the same there too, of showing the password you typed is wrong. Instead of displaying some irritating message about how stupid or forgetful you are, the box shakes back and forth, like saying, "Nope. Please try again."

I think it's cool. To bad they can't or won't do the opposite when you type it in correctly, like a little ballon with "Thank You." floats from the top of the popup box. You know, a little positive reinforcement goes a long way.

But then I'm sure some folks would hate it, so maybe make it user settable. I can see their perspective, the 2+ years I used a PC at work, I really hated Windows, MS Office, and especially Mr. Clippy. You wanted to show the little thing, but you'd be hard pressed to explain a new monitor to the IT chief.

But still I like the try again message, kinda' like you do when someone is saying something wrong or stupid. You just shake your head back and forth and the words implied depend on your expression. At least the box doesn't smirk, "I know something you don't. Like your password."

Imagine

Imagine a health insurance system. Ok, bear with me awhile please, it just might be worth the thought and idea. Really, maybe.

Imagine if you needed new health insurance, and you didn't know where to begin to see all the available healthcare plans with complete information for the coverage and complete information on the monthly premiums for yourself and/or family.

Imagine this place had about 200 plans plans provided by nearly 100 companies from local plans to national plans, depending on where you lived. In any state you would have the choice of about 100 plans offered by about 50 companies.

Imagine you could buy basic coverage which is the same across all the health insurance companies' plan which would provide you with basic routine healthcare, emergency care and coverage for conditions, diseases or illnesses which require extensive tests and proceedures.

Imagine you learned that the health insurance companies could not change the coverage during any year, only at the end of the year for the next year, and those changes had to comply with standards set by and be approved by an oversight board which ensured fairness to the customer.

Imagine that the premiums were set for a year and only increased at the end of the year after review and  approval by an oversight board to ensure the customer isn't getting gouged and the health insurance companies don't make a large, unnecessary profit.

Imagine that the health insurance plan could not reject you as a customer and could not reject or deny any claim for coverage stated in the health insurance plan. Imagine that an oversight board ensured compliance for you and not the company.

Imagine that the health insurance plan you selected would be guarranteed for life and could only be cancelled by you and not the health insurance company.

Imagine you have an opportunity every year to change your health insurance company or change which plan for your health insurance company and the companies have to accept you as a patient.

Imagine all this with good health insurance at affordable prices set by the oversight board.

Imagine a system which could cover every American and still keep the health insurance companies profitable.

Can you imagine it?

If you haven't already guessed it, there are two just like this, they're called Medice and the Federal Employees Health Benefit Plan. Both alive and well for the customers, the government and the health insurance companies.

They work, and a plan just like those could work for every American. But only if Congress wanted to be on your side and not the side of the health insurance industry and companies.

Now imagine a Congress which really did represent you and acted for you on your behalf as you elected them to do.

The health insurance programs are real, the idea of Congress for the people is an illusion. So, who's wrong here, you or Congress?

Observation

I love looking at articles, portfolios, images of homes, especially the interior. While I've never bought or owned a home, I've always had one I wanted to have built on a few acres of lands. I looked at a lot of parcels of lands in the 1990's and the finances to have a home built, but it just didn't come to fruition for me.

Anyway, I still love thinking about the possibilities in the images of the homes, the interior and the view from the home. The last because I like expansive views from windows. Where I live, the windows look southeast over the Narrows Strait and across to the Tacoma side where Mt. Rainier looms in the distance on clear mornings.

That said, after looking at the interior of homes, I've always struck with one thought. Somebody has to keep it clean. The images show the cleanest interiors you can have, nothing out of places, nothing extra sitting somewhere, the windows all sparkly clean and clear, and nary of speck of dust to be seen.

As a photographer, that is what's done for the photos and images, but then somebody still had to do the work. But more so, somebody, or somebodies, have to keep that home clean. Yeah, want to bet it's not so clean but liveable a few days later?