Me and Peggy Lee

This is a photo project I did. I wasn't sure which peggy lee quote to use. It baffled me to the point of not using anything for the showing...

What do you think-

I can scoop up a great big dipper full of lard from the drippins can
Throw it in the skillet, go out & do my shopping, be back before it melts in the pan
I can rub & scrub this old house til it's shinin like a dime
Feed the baby, grease the car, & powder my face at the same time
If you come to me sickly you know I'm gonna make you well
If you come to me all hexed up you know I'm gonna break the spell
If you come to me hungry you know I'm gonna fill you full of grits
I can stretch! a green black dollar bill from here to kindom come!
'Cause I'm a woman! W-O-M-A-N, I'll say it again.....

Or-

Is that all there is, is that all there is
If thats all there is my friends, then lets keep dancing
Lets break out the booze and have a ball
If thats all there is

My pretty bike

After years of dragging brakes, shifters that don't shift, and a mucky chain that felt like I was pulling a bus behind me, my bike is fixed- and it looks snazzy! Thank you Charlie :)

So I jumped on it this morning and as soon as I got to where I was going, it starts to rain, stranding me at circus practice.

It is going to rain all week long... High 5 irony.

College

My college essay is due now and for some reason I cannot get it done. It is weighing over me like a cement truck, affecting everything I do. Maybe deep down inside I don't want to be a gopher...

This is how I started it:

As a young child my father began to instill in me the importance of college; that an education would allow me the freedom to make my dreams come true. As I got older he continued his crusade but I became aware of choices that did not include a formal education. I had dreams of traveling the world and having my education be that of a more “worldly” format. I was going to go to Europe to visit old cities, travel to Alaska and climb mountains, as well as bask in the glow of a sunset from beaches around the world. My dream made perfect sense, since my skills in the classroom were meager at best, I would be a student of the world. And as soon as I got my college money, much to my father’s dismay, I was out the door. I drove across Canada. I flew to London, Amsterdam, Paris, Berlin, Lisbon, and Athens. Every place I went I would then mentally check it off my list, another significant city done. I went to Cabo San Lucas, La Paz, Todos Santos, I traveled all over the United States: Austin, Chicago, Fairbanks and Salt Lake City. But during my travels I forgot an important aspect of my schooling, the educational side, and it became an issue of quantity over quality. My worldly education became no more then a list of cities and a handful of change from different countries.

And I ask myself is it wrong to write about running away with college money in an essay to a college I would like to attend?

Lonely

So because I have no life and am inept to keep up with friends- I am going to write what is going on in my life, what I am thinking about and what is making me frustrated at the moment.

“The reliance on fossil fuels has left our atmosphere contaminated by various pollutants, and the earth threatened by global warming. Irresponsible agriculture practices have poisoned groundwater with pesticides and other chemicals while depleting the topsoil. Industrial processes produce thousands of tons of toxic wastes, while nuclear power plants leave behind radioactive waste that will pose potential health hazards for thousands of years.” Our culture, our technology, our environment, our superiority and our curse.
In the documentary, “An Inconvenient Truth”, we are walked through the state of our world and how it is our moral obligation to change some key ways in which we use our technology to save our world. A little daunting, as we will have to modify the way we live, but completely attainable. The thing is, this is not a new revelation. We have been facing environmental issues for a long time.
One example is about 2900 years ago the Polynesians inhabitant of Easter Island. The settlers found the island to have fertile land, a dense and diverse forest and lush grasses. Life was good; they had many children with a population peaking around 6000. Needless to say, “the island could not support this amount of people and it could not regenerate resources fast enough”. The ecosystem was altered so radically, many species died, including most of the settlers, and the land became unsustainable. Another example is the deforestation in the sixteenth century by England. “Vast quantities of wood had been consumed by the demands of an expanding population and the growth of shipbuilding, construction and iron manufacture”. The forests were depleted. So instead of acting responsibly and with conservation in mind, England replaced their renewable resource with a non-renewable resource- coal.
I found “An Inconvenient Truth” to be very powerful; reaching the masses unlike most documentaries that just preach to the choir. And I can see the effect it is having on bringing the environment to the forefront of issues- Al Gore’s senate hearings on global warming, Tim Pawlenty’s extensive bill on renewable energy and the EU acting internally to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 2012. But why is this taking so long?
Another aspect of the movie I found interesting was the focused attention on Al Gore and his history with global warming and politics. This portion of the movie made me feel as if there were an ulterior motive – a presidential platform maybe? Thus bringing Gore’s agenda to the forefront, ahead of the environment. I would like to see us humans make a moral decision on global warming without any of the usual suspects (money, politics, agendas) tainting the issue at hand.

GM

“The pace of change at GM has never been faster, and it won’t slow down any time soon. As we launch this annual update of our guidelines for employee conduct, Winning With Integrity, now is a good time for all of us to reflect on things that do not change at GM: our core values”. “Integrity is not optional at GM. We live it every day. It guides our decisions, our work, and our commitment to correct mistakes when we spot them. It guides us whether the company is riding high or battling through tough stretches. Integrity transcends borders and language; it’s all about promoting a culture that demands and supports proper business conduct. Doing the right thing day-in and day-out is essential to our reputation and our success”. 1 -Rick Wagoner, CEO GM

I think Michael Moore would disagree with Rick on this! With the trend to layoff, shutdown and outsource, GM is blatantly disregarding the last two, maybe three generations, who built the foundation of the company. But is it a company’s responsibility to be loyal to its employees, shareholders or profit margins? Or can you integrate all three with integrity? The Body Shop did with a philosophy of profits with principles. Whole Foods believes all levels of employees are an equal part of the company. This holistic approach makes for a stronger community within the company, from the producers or manufacturers, to the environmental impact. Which in turn will lead to sustainable development- that we meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.

When workers who have no control over capital investment, product development, design, marketing and advertising decisions shouldn’t suffer because of the failures of these factors. The assembly line took away the well-rounded worker and replaced them with a disposable number. “The destruction of worker skills through mechanization and rigid centralized controls is self defeating, for an ignorant and hostile workforce means production losses as well as high cost for maintenance and direct supervision.”2 But there are some advantages for the disposable number; higher turnover rates are able to introduce new talent, cost savings through resetting salaries and a different demographic mix or a better distribution of age groups.

Corporate Social Responsibility activities seem to be most effective in achieving social or environmental goals when there is a direct link to profits. But that is why companies are started- to make money. Though, It is nice to see some companies, like The Body Shop, who are very successful and have achieved it with integrity and responsibility. Michael Moore captured GM’s intentions for the future of the company and it’s employees beautifully in “Roger & Me” when he is interviewing the rabbit woman. She is holding a cute little bunny, caressing it softly and talking to it sweetly and Moore asks what is to become of this rabbit, She replies, “Oh, this one is my dinner.”

For The Love Of Technology

Which would influence our lives more; a painting full of rich lush colors, blended together with thought and skill, brush strokes and layers of deep paint perfectly harmonized together to simulate a whole image, an image we may hope to gaze at longingly for hours, if we get the chance to visit it? Or the same image with all its beauty and richness captured in two dimensions, printed tens of thousands of times by an optical photo-conducting drum, which is used to transfer this fine black toner to the page. The drum then has to be charged to cause static electricity to repel the toner. Now with the drum charged, a laser shoots in and strafes the drum at about 300 pulses a minute. And poof, we all can buy a print of the painting, hang it in our home and look at it whenever we want. Craftsmanship versus technology and knowledge versus accessibility; which will sustain us as a whole as well as bring passion to the individual?
In Brave New World and 1984 the main characters, John and Winston, both longed for the beauty and individuality of life. In their worlds they saw a system that was flawed and an order without consciousness- for order does not allow for autonomy. If the system is to run properly all the fundamentals of that system must work in correlation with each other. In Brave New World the people were made of that system and into an element of the system, and the way to keep the machine working was soma. Through conditioned happiness and dulled senses the organization of the system was maintained. 1984’s organization worked because the energy and skills of the population were united by the use of fear. But the system in 1984 was still in infancy, the elements were unevenly developed, the goals were vague and the technology crude leaving the viewer uncomfortable and disgusted. Brave New World presents their technology as human progress in a pretty little test tube package (that probably smells nice), leaving the viewer believing a benevolent oppression is better then a violent oppression.
Our natural state, that is who we are intrinsically and how we interact with our environment, is unbalanced with technology. If a system can have an uneven process- one technology not keeping up with another- cannot humans be one of those variables? Humans are creating without understanding the consequences. We need technology because we want technology, but who takes responsibility for what it is doing to our natural state?
Without the Winston’s and John’s of the world the goal would be taken at face value and there would be no checks and balances to curb the effects of technology. We would all have very lovely, high quality printed artwork in our homes without having the tediousness of braving the elements to experience the “real thing”.