The Hayseeds blog, No. 53 for the week starting March 6, 2004.
February 21, 2004
Hayseeds No. 52
March 6, 2004
Hayseeds No. 53
March 13, 2004
Hayseeds No. 53
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that the majority of gun violence occurs in the general populace with the fewest number of guns per capita, and with the strictest gun control regulations.
It seems that an anti-gun paranoia seems to breed more violence—or at least percieved violence—remember, perception is everything.
For example, take the example of inner-city gun violence—a place where laws tend to be strictest about gun control, yet where you hear about all those murders and stuff that come from the 'violence' culture.
When is the last time you've heard about rural neighboors killing each other? Certainly not as often a cities, where people are hostile to guns.
And that says nothing about school violence—we do everything in our powers to keep our schools disarmed, yet guns find their way into schools, and violence exists—and is much more common then some hunter going bersk on their buddys.
So what does this tell us—besides suburbs are essentially feedlots (god bless the fact that cows don't have guns), and inner-cities are cesspools?
Maybe that percieved fear, and fear actually is making our problems worst.
I really don't know.
picked up on the fact that Albanians are pretty educated bunch, most of them have short commutes (excluding myself—but it's a distance thing for me), have cheap houses, and are highly educated.
Of course, the bad thing is the median household income is pretty low around these parts—although better then most places in Upstate New York.
The Census website is loaded with lots of interesting things...
and many other states—which is sad, as I voted for him.
I was voter #11 in the Democratic Primary for Precinct 3 of Westerlo—and yes, I voted for Edwards—he was a good guy.
Now I'm throwing all my support to Kerry—although I have reservations on many of his opinions and political positions, it's time for a new President, with a new style, and some fresh ideas.
And I'm a Democrat! Therefore I'm not a member of any organized party! God bless!
story about this cementary, well, actually natural memorial, where people are burried without all that crap we've come to expect in our technocratic society—namely embalming, expensive liners, expensive coffins, and ceremonies.
We are burrying dead people after all—don't we want their bodies to eventually become part of the earth, they once came from? Not to mention, it's far cheaper, and more respectful to people.
I know, the same line of rationality that gave us landfills that do the same thing—keep trash from never rotting (for the most part), so that containmentents never get out into the air.
Yes, I'm ignoring the moral issues, and demeaning the supposed value of human life (and death) over material 'junk', and probably are on the dangerous slippery slope of rationality that created beasts like Stalin—but that's the risk anytime one takes a rational persuit to find truth.
Ignoring that moral quam, I don't see why one wouldn't want to be returned to the earth. I'm surpised only about 26% of Americans get cremated nowdays (yes, cremation is a euphanism for incinerated in a special incinerator like modern cementaries are the equalivent to the modern landfill)—I would have guessed that number to be much higher, as it seems far more sensible then wasting land to bury a person.
Then again, remember I'm not exactly opposed to well-controlled incinerators or even just farmers burning trash—I'd rather deal with minimal air pollution issues then more of land taken up ugliness—but I'm getting on a tangent.
It's just so nice, the idea of being burried in the woods, and being returned to mother earth—it's too bad that it's nearly impossible to do that on a family farm anymore like it was just 30 or 40 years ago in rural America. Rationalism at work, propetuating frameworks of control over us, under the guise of protecting the greater society. Sigh.
Still, even without that, cremation is a pretty good deal—and getting your ashes scatter over some beautiful area—or as the high school health teacher Tyrell's story about the person who got his ashes scattered by putting them in a ceramic urn, and shooting it with a shotgun—I guess a really cool thing for a sportsmen.
This question brings up interesting questions on the future of the human as a dignified species—and what technology and government is doing to society.
a ringing endorsement of the sloppy handling of the Ford Explorer and Chevy Trailblazer off-road.
In other words, big (well, fairly big) SUVs don't handle th great off-road—what a surpise—at least if you watch those stupid commericals.
If your serious about off-roading, you need real equipment—and not silly commericals.
Teach your children, as they say.
was the 6 or 7 alarm fire just down the street in the McMansion, a long ways from the road.
While I can't see the damage from the road, there was a lot of fire trucks there—interestingly enough the wind wasn't blowing in our direction (it was coming from the south), so all I could smell out there was maybe a light smell from the horses from the south—although occassionally there was a wiff of shingles burning from the north.
If you think about all the houses/trailers that have burned in recent memory in just South-Western Albany County it's pretty amazing—fire seems to be a constant risk. Even more amazing is along Route 1, where the one barn/garage burned when a car skided off the Rt 1/Rt 85 intersection, then about a year later, the next door house burned.
Then there was my mom's house which had a fire in the 1950s, when lightening struck it—I guess we have to get the construction personalities at work—and that life is pretty dangerous.
The issue of the rationalization of fire (more on this in my upcoming fodder on this subject), is one that must consider—we've controlled fire, made it our friend, and make it do many useful functions, and then we get careless and it gets the best of us.
I mean, look at the fire in a woodstove or a burn barrel—certainly serving a function, and seemingly contained—but countless times leads to house fires and brush fires. It's unbelievable how careless people can be—not regularly cleaning out chimneys, sticking a burn barrel next to a wood fence or a house, and so forth—this is fire we are talking about, after all—it serves a function, but it's dangerous.
If only our children could learn this important message—but then again, there is always a group of pyromanics, careless people, and just plain disolutioned from the true nature of fire.
One other funny thing to note (well, excluding my next point), is it appears that one of the firemen's pickup truck (a nice new grey Toyota Tundra... yum) ran out of gas approaching the fire, and the man had to abandon the truck in front of my house—it was something watching him run almost a 1/2 mile up the hill, in a full fire suit—that sucks, but at least there were plenty of people there to help already.
is about the marajuna field growing out in back of the house on fire, and the resistance of the individual owning the house to notify the fire department.
For all the theatrics, it sounds like it was a pretty minor fire—but the individual's resistance and pot growing in the back makes it interesting.
While the case law is pretty well settled on the fact that firefighters have the right to put out any out of control fire, for good of society, even if it damages an individuals property or involves tresspassing—it still begs an interesting question—what is the real value of private property if it is not absolute?
My theory (formalized by many libertarians of sorts) is that private property is a place where people are allowed privacy, where the public eye, police, and courts are not watching—so that the irrational and quite possibily the illegal can flourish. Our rational society condemns the illegal (obviously—rationalism can't have competition if it want's to exist—frameworks of control must be able to claim a legimate monopoly), but at the same time almost condones it through it's notion of privacy. Isn't capitalism a fascinating beast?
Why else have private property, if it didn't imply privacy (as the root of the word suggests)?
Yet there is a supposed public interest in here: the protection of property and lives from fire, and from the rather toxic smoke cloud caused by the fire. Not to say anything about the supposed malicies of marajuna. I use supposedly to show my cynicisim to these and almost all notions—as an existenialist, I know that there isn't much in the way of truth, besides what you believe is right. After all, am I not any more a thinker then Nietchize, with the same exggarated prejudices?
Marajuna farming is an interesting issue—it's very much illegal, yet many farmers (and others) engage in this underground business, and it probably it actually helping prop up good things (although it's permissiveness is probably undermining other things).
I used to know one farmer, who ended up spending a short period in jail for his growing of marajuna on his farm—and I've heard of other cases of this too. Many dairy farmers produce more then beef, veal, and milk—pot is often on the menu. Marajuna is one way to prop of a failing farm—although these people typically have other jobs, to bring in the real bacon—this person happened to be a carpet installer on the side.
Of course, all this pot smoking made him kind of werid and werider, distorted his view on the world, and probably ended up screwing up his farm and his life.
Pot is an interesting beast, as it chages our perspective, and as such makes us think and view in a different life&mdansh;but at the same time it is so devistating—this says nothing about the really bad drugs though.
So getting back to the fire—inevitably the owner of the house will end up going to jail, for the better or worst of society. I'd like to say I have the answers, but guess what kids, I don't.
So it would seem that turning off the computer would make the whole neighboorhood go in the dark—would would have thunk that.
But my trusty deer jacker flashlight, and my PowerBook Duo is keeping me going—yep, it's late at night, and I have to get to sleep, so I'm ready for tommorow morning, but sigh...
Posted some new stuff to the outblog for your knowledge—and made several fixes to the outblog and regular blog posting system tonight—among all kinds of other fun.
Well good night—sleep tight!
sent out to New Scotlanders, which shows that strong support of towns people to preserve the rural character of the town.
Out of the 4,300 households sent the survey, 510 responded (not a great response rate or neccessarily representative—but it's a start).
Of these people, 320 of them were willing to pay higher taxes (roughly 63%) to preserve open space. And that's with higher taxes—usually very politically unpopular.
With such strong notions and support for open space, it's not surpising that most New Scotlanders weren't exactly big supporters of low income housing, especially in the form of trailer parks. As they say, you can alway dump your refuse in another person's backyard (like Albany).
Personally, I'd prefer to see the area rural, and trailer parks and other low-income housing seems contradictory to the goal.
There also was some support (39%) for building senior housing around the Rt. 85/85A intersection—although I have to say most of the senior housing I've seen around is pretty disappointing stuff—and degeratory to seniors as they grow old.
At any rate, it's great to see such support for protecting open space in New Scotland—and their protection will obviously have benifits not only to them, but to Berne and Westerlo.
