Would you like to meet one of my pet peeves?

If you know me, you know that I do make pets of some peeves. 

I am ready to start throwing stale banana peels at politicians for using these phrases:

"... threw (fill in the blank) under the bus."  It was interesting the first time.  Now it's not.  This phrase needs to be forcibly put on leave for a minimum of two years.

"24/7."  Stop.  Just stop.  Do not use that again.

"My friends across the aisle..."  I expect that one was old about two days after "the aisle" was built. 

What have I missed?  I know there are thousands of phrases that need to go away.  Any suggestions? 

-Spottedcat

Does anybody know how hard it is to make an electric car?

Just wondering how hard it is.  It seems to me what's keeping it down is... the price.  (Duh, Spottedcat.)

Yeah, I know.  But why  is it so expensive to produce the batteries for an electric car, and yet we can afford to bring oil in, not only from the reaches of Alaska, but from all over the world, including the Middle East (where wars pop up far too regularly for my comfort) and Venezuela?  How many lives has that cost?

How much is a life worth?  Ask someone who has just had someone they love die in a conflict over oil.

So here's my thought.  We live in the United States.  If capitalism is our king, why does this country not support the electric car industry?  This is the United States.  Can this government give rewards to colleges and universities that develop better batteries?  Can the government give a huge reward to the company/person/organization that makes a battery that is affordable to people of modest income?

Oil is big industry.  I know this.  I guess I'm frustrated because we are at the mercy of big oil companies, who, despite their ads, are not doing much of anything to move this country on to other sources of energy to power our vehicles.  They have their stockholders to keep happy, and that is not only their first priority--it is their only priority.  The environment, the men and women of our military who are risking their lives, and the tiny bank accounts of those of us struggling to make ends meet do not matter.

I'd love to drive an electric car of some kind.  I'd love to be able to afford to convert my car to electric.  I can't do it.  I can't afford it.  I am permanently tied to the oil industry to provide me with transportation.  And I don't like that.

-Spottedcat

I should research this...

Whatever happened to commodities?  No, not the kind that are traded on the stock market--the kind that the government used to give out to people under a certain income.  Staples like butter, oatmeal, rice, that horrid meat in a can that nobody wanted to eat, dried milk that tasted like any other kind of dried milk from the store, butter, dried beans and split peas... what ever happened to this?

Seems to me that for those who are struggling might appreciate this.  Yes, I know many would turn up their noses because they want things they can microwave and eat, and dried beans have to be soaked and rinsed and cooked.  But I'd be willing to do that.  Dried milk goes great in stuff like biscuits; you can't even tell it's dried and re-hydrated.

Hmm.  Guess I'd better go research.  Seems to me we could use that.  Well, some of us sure could, anyway.

-Spottedcat

It only looks like fun when you're a kid.

So what "it" am I talking about that only looks good when you're a kid?

Adult life.  Yes, this is a departure from my politically-aimed posts. 

Income tax.  Property tax.  The responsibility of caring for sick family.  Power bills.  Rising gas prices.  Flat tires.  Hours cut at work.  Food prices going up.  Carpenter ants inside the walls somewhere.  Gutters full of fir needles.  Clogged toilets that have to be un-clogged. 

How long of a list should I make?  You get the general idea.  Add the fact that the cocoon of fuzzy sureness that everything will turn out okay goes away, and adult life is grim. 

Some people get a break from adult life until something actually hits them, like their husband gets cancer, or their wife suffers traumatic brain injury in a car accident.  For them, life is still cool, fun, full of pool-side parties and laughter.

Other people turn into little adults when they are still children, or maybe teenagers.  Adulthood hit me at the age of fifteen when my dad died.  All illusions of "everything will turn out fine" were permanently shattered for me, and I watched in detached amazement as people my own age went on acting as if they were immortal.

As I get older, I gather more and more sad happenings in my past.  I also have a fund of memories, some from a somewhat carefree childhood, many more from the period after my dad died.  Many of these memories are harsh.  But many of them are uplifting.  I have had many people in my life who have listened to me when I needed to be heard.  I had parents who loved me, no matter what.  Family friends have touched my life and given me examples I try to emulate.

What does it come down to?  A long list of depressing memories?

Every person is going to have things go wrong.  Sooner or later, illness, anguish, death, injury will strike everybody.  It's what you do with your loss that makes the difference.  Are you mad at God because he took someone you love from you?  Have you decided God doesn't exist because you are now sick?

Or you can accept that life stinks, things go wrong, we get sick, and eventually we all die, and that God doesn't inflict it on you, but tries to hold out help to you, sometimes straight from him, sometimes from other people he uses.

Adult life is not all it's cracked up to be.  It's a good thing we don't know that as kids, or we couldn't have been kids.  But as we get older and gather sorrow and pain like we used to gather gravel in our shoes and burrs in our socks, we can choose to turn it into wisdom instead of bitterness.

Philosophically yours,
Spottedcat

If you want to make yourself really useful...

Oh, onward into the really crazy ideas I come up with.

Health care costs.  Whoa.  Why is all that stuff so expensive?

The answer is that it's what the market will bear.  Nobody's coming out with a Magnetic Resonance Imaging machine at a quarter of the cost of those being sold today.

Nobody's allowed to produce life-saving generics at  much cheaper prices until a certain amount of time goes by and the patent expires.

So, using those two examples, companies (hospitals, etc.) that have MRI machines charge a lot for each use, because they want to be reimbursed for their expense.  And pharmaceutical companies getcha for every last dime they can, folks, while that patent is still working in their favor.

Now really, tell me why pharmaceutical companies are coming up with drugs like Viagra.  Really?  The need for Viagra is greater than the need for researching cancer?  No, of course not.  The profit to be made from drugs like Viagra is great.  And the pharmaceutical companies are willing to remind you that your body is aging and if you want to have a healthy sex life, you must do what this ad says:  Ask your doctor about Viagra.

Eh.  I have a better idea.  Find out if your problem is caused by atherosclerosis first.  Maybe consider changing your diet and exercising more, and see if you don't find yourself doing better.

But I digress.

Why do we let companies making profits lead us around by the nose?  Are there no more grants to be had?  Can nobody open up a not-for-profit pharmaceutical organization?  Are universities only interested in staring at their own navels?

Yeah, I know.  It's a crazy idea.  Why would anybody want to make an organization for the sole purpose of kicking the legs out from under the profit-earning giants?

Well, anybody besides me, and I don't have the ability to do these things.  All I can do is blog about my frustration.  But if you'd like to argue, inform, or enlighten, please do.  I would love to hear more ideas.

Meow.

-Spottedcat

We need a third political party.

At first glance, it would seem that a third political party would be a bad idea.  After all, we have two right now, at least two major political parties.  Countries with three, or eighteen, or fifty-two, don't seem to be doing much better in the politics department than we are.  Or maybe they're even worse.  Hmm.  Have to think about that one.

But again, it's something that needs to be approached with thought and careful planning. 

We need moderates.

I know I can't be the only one who is tired of watching both parties gravitate towards the extreme, leaving those moderate enough to talk to each other in a severe minority, ridiculed by their own parties.  Nothing worthwhile is going on in Washington DC.  Every bill creates a reaction against it, and one side continually vilifies the other. We can't get a national health care plan passed because the two parties won't consider being flexible to the concerns of the other side.

What if there were a fair amount of moderates in our government?  Ah.  Then the two big parties would need to be willing to talk with these moderates, because if there were enough of them, neither big party could be sure of getting enough votes for their side.

They would have to talk to the moderates.  And they would be forced, by moderates, to talk to each other, and even *gasp* work with each other.

Maybe the federal government isn't the best thing to run a health coverage program.  All right, let's talk about what the federal government can and can't do well, and what individual states can and can't do well.  Can we split the costs and the arrangements out between them?  Can we at least talk about this?

One of these days, I'm going to talk about lobbyists.  But not today.  Today, just consider moderates in all their common-sense glory.

-Spottedcat

Your tax dollars at work?

The days of the Civilian Conservation Corps are passing out of living memory. 

During the Great Depression, the Franklin D. Roosevelt administration crafted a plan to get the United States working again.  It meant spending government money on, among other things, hiring young men (who were, for the most part, unemployed) to do hard physical labor across the country.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilian_Conservation_Corps

These days, it would be really hard to get young men to send the bulk of their income back to their parent(s).  But even if it just kept them so busy that they had no time to get involved in gangs, I wouldn't care if they kept their money for themselves. 

Could our national and state parks use help?  Of course they could.  All you have to do is take a day hike on any trail and you'll see that winter and the spring melt take a heavy toll on some of those trails.  Hiker shelters could be re-built.  In some parks, whole roads could be restored. 

You'd have young people (women as well as men) making an income, keeping out of the worst troubles they might normally encounter, and being able to flex their well-earned muscles for their friends.  They'd have an actual job on their resume. 

Could these same young people be paid to work, not only in parks, but perhaps in helping to repair houses for senior citizens on welfare?  Yeah.  They could.  A roof that doesn't leak, insulated ceilings and walls, and plumbing that works well would make the difference for many elderly between staying in their home and being warehoused somewhere.

Hey, we could try it for--say, five years.  Then we could compare the demographics in our jails and prisons and see if young people aren't so over-represented, as they are now.

Oooo.  Sounds like socialism. 

Is it better to warehouse our elderly and let our younger generations wander into gangs?

I dunno.  Seems to me that a bit of socialism in the right place could be a good thing.

Wow.  I'd better write something from my conservative side soon.

-Spottedcat