Bump, Set, Spike

Spending some time near the beach while waiting for a work call (what did we do before cel phones?), an obvious volleyball analogy comes to mind…..

No, not these bumps…

1. The Bump….. Stop the ball and bump it up to….. 2. The Set….. who will place the ball up to a good spot near the net for….  3. The Spike…..

The Bump, in the financial sense, is the depression that we here in the United States are deep into. Our “bump” hit hard, with little warning to those who don’t have their finances secured. Of course our politicos called it just a minor re-set of the financial world, nothing here to look at, move along……

The Set, is a chance to take note of the recession; as in life sustainable jobs have become very hard to come by, financing (home, car) loans are about as prevalent as an honest politician, and yet we are urged to put our money back into the banks for “safe keeping”. Put the cash into stocks again, “the fire is over”. Oh yeah, we’ve been “set”.

Some fine corporate action on display here!

The Spike, is represented by a full on depression. Try to find someone that doesn’t know of a friend or acquaintance that’s now out of work (unemployed or underemployed, as in asking “you want fries with that?”), or worse, one that has no alternate choice to sleeping in their car. There are several crew people I used to work with on national t.v. shows who are now existing in this sort of a situation. Or worse.

However, out there in the real world, a.k.a. “On the street”..

Years ago when I first saw the film “Soylent Green”, I just couldn’t believe that there would ever come a time when people in America, other than those wandering random mental burn outs or drug addicts, would find “regular folks” sleeping in hallways. But now that doesn’t seem nearly that bad considering how many blanket covered forms one sees daily nesting under the freeway overpasses or out on the street. Much of the media will say “move along, there’s nothing here to look at”, and they will stay with that slogan until the day that they themselves are out looking for work and a place to live. If you can call that living, not just existing. N.B., The ownership of any and all photos, opinions, and / or quotes above (including those of my own) belong to the material’s creator(s). Credit is given when it’s known, but as we’ve found, success will have a million parents and failure will be an orphan. Feel free to ignore any ads that are shown below this advisory, I don’t get to choose them and even more sadly, I don’t make a penny off any of them, so in the holy name of capitalism I rebuke and don’t endorse or support any of them, unless of course they’re made of funny stuff….. P.S., check back for occasional updates and rewrites…. FAIR USE NOTICE: THIS SITE CONTAINS COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL THE USE OF WHICH HAS NOT ALWAYS BEEN SPECIFICALLY AUTHORIZED BY THE COPYRIGHT OWNER. I AM MAKING SUCH MATERIAL AVAILABLE IN MY EFFORT TO ADVANCE UNDERSTANDING OF ENVIRONMENTAL, POLITICAL, HUMAN RIGHTS, ECONOMIC, DEMOCRACY, SCIENTIFIC, AND SOCIAL JUSTICE ISSUES, ETC. I BELIEVE THIS CONSTITUTES A ‘FAIR USE’ OF ANY SUCH COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL AS PROVIDED FOR IN SECTION 107 OF THE US COPYRIGHT LAW. IN ACCORDANCE WITH TITLE 17 U.S.C. SECTION 107, THE MATERIAL ON THIS SITE IS DISTRIBUTED WITHOUT PROFIT TO THOSE WHO HAVE EXPRESSED A PRIOR INTEREST IN RECEIVING THE INCLUDED INFORMATION FOR RESEARCH AND EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES. FOR MORE INFORMATION GO TO: HTTP://WWW.LAW.CORNELL.EDU/USCODE/17/107.SHTML.  IF YOU WISH TO USE COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL FROM THIS SITE FOR PURPOSES OF YOUR OWN THAT GO BEYOND ‘FAIR USE’, YOU MUST OBTAIN PERMISSION FROM THE COPYRIGHT OWNER.

Mort’s Mort

My uncle Morty died last week, the last of my parents siblings to go. As the youngest of all of my uncles, he was almost like my older brother, and my hero. Even though for some reason he thought Nixon was an o.k. guy, I guess I’ll have to forgive him (my uncle, not “Tricky Dick”) for that.

The usual screed starts soon.

Carly, finish that sentence…

One of the great things about living in California, is the pre-election advertising.

As a new treat, one of these ads features a photo of our ex movie star governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, one that morphs into the queen of eBay bad feedback, Meg Whitman, but it’s not an improvement. And, we also have an old hippie chick running for a senate seat, paying for a big part of her campaign with money she received as a golden parachute.

Her ad goes “I’m Carly Fiorina and I ran Hewlett Packard”, however she neglects to include the three words that would make it a bit more correct.

Those three words (that preceded her being fired) are “Into the ground”.

She also talks about creating jobs, but omits the part that lists what the country was that she created jobs in, when she took her company “Off Shore”.

Here’s a hint for you, it isn’t the U.S.A.