Checking In

Not much posting lately mostly due to not having a lot to say. We're still running back and forth to Zephyrhills to prep the new place whenever we have the chance. We are slowing making progress and we should be able to have the place whipped into shape by the end of July when we have to be out of our current apartment.

Related to that, I'm counting the days I have left at the library. Basically, I have a five-day stretch starting Saturday, then I'm done forever. And none too soon; the place is really starting to drive me nuts. Maybe it's because I'm short-timing, or maybe people are getting more crazy, or the summer heat is getting to me. Anyway. Five days and I'm done. Then things will kick into high gear for the move. Shifting our stuff in phases promises to make this less of a pain than previous moves. If we can get rid of some of the big stuff, it will be easier still. There are a couple back-breakers we still have left over from more-permanent living arrangements that I would really love to not have to move again.

Our apartment is looking more and more like a storage unit, especially after I emptied our actual storage unit into our second bedroom yesterday so we could save a couple month's rent on that. We keep finding clothes. There was a suitcase we didn't even remember having hid in the back of the storage unit. When I lifted it, it was painfully obvious the thing was packed full of something. It felt like books. Or maybe rocks. Nope. Clothes. Must have really needed them given that we've been unaware of their existence for two years. How in the name of the Goddess does that happen? There were also a dozen of our large plastic bins that were full of stuff. Some of it is packing materials like bubble wrap and packing peanuts that we keep rather than have to buy new every time we move. But several of them were waaaay too heavy to be packing peanuts. I haven't yet dared open those to see exactly what madness lies inside.

And that's pretty much been our existence the last couple weeks.

It's been a while since I've posted anything about our current economic mess, primarily because not much has changed in the last couple years. The stock markets are still going in circles, flitting up or down on every rumor or latest bit of one-percenter, bankster insanity designed to fleece the rest of us of what little we have left. The financial industry continues to play the same games, legal and otherwise, that caused the mess in the first place while the Obama "Justice" Department remains comatose. Meanwhile, millions of people who thought they were part of the middle class watch helplessly while they fall into poverty and their children are conned into a life of debt slavery with increasingly hollow promises of fame and fortune at the end of their Four Year Slog in one of our "universities". I only bring up the subject now because of a small glimmer of hope in the far distance: United States of America v. Carollo, Goldberg and Grimm. I know that sounds like the perfect cure for insomnia, but that link will take you to a piece by Matt Taibbi that gives some hope to even the most jaded cynics like yours truly. On the surface, the case involves three nobodies involved in a price-fixing scam on municipal bond interest rates. Like I said; Sominex, right? The good stuff is in the tapes and testimony showing a long list of major banks and investment houses ripping off pretty much every county and municipal government in the country for the last 10 to 15 years. Unlike most financial cases, this didn't end with a wrist-slap fine in exchange for no admission of wrong-doing and immunity from lawsuits; every local government is now free to start filing lawsuits (some already have). We'll have to see where things go from here. Remember when the robo-signing scandal was going to bring down the banksters? All we got from that was a "task force" of a few dozen people with no office to work in or even a published telephone number that has yet to accomplish anything other than a couple press conferences. That can easily happen with this bank scam as well, which is why I only give it distant-glimmer status. But still....

The New York Times had a piece describing Obama as a poor tortured soul for having to sit in a meeting to decide which Americans will be murdered by our military this week. If a cop started summarily executing bad guys, he would rightly be charged with premeditated murder. Why we allow this power to be exercised by our president on the advise of an anonymous cadre of spooks is beyond me. Another reminder that the nation I grew up in no longer exists.

And just because I haven't beat up on public education in a while, we have two young girls being tortured by forced sunburn. If a parent were to force their children to stand in full sun while not allowing them to apply sunscreen or go inside or even to wear a hat, they would be charged with child abuse and the children would be dumped into the foster care system. A teacher does it and, well, "We jus' followin' da rules, massa!" How do people so stupid and callous end up in charge of large numbers of our children?

Well, I have to go do my daily chores and get another truck-load of stuff ready to haul across Florida. Later.