Here at Peg in the Machine we’re starting a campaign that we’re going to be trying in our town — and hopefully have it catch on.  It’s a “walk to work day”.  In all honesty we’re going to try and have it be “walk to work almost every day” policy, but stay tuned.

We’re planning on making the policy something done at the city and county level (meaning we’re going to try and get something setup with the politicians in the town). Basically we’re going to try and do a campaign that will cause more people to walk, potentially even getting something special from the city/county for doing so — all the while saving gas, helping the environment, and getting people in better shape….

So keep on checking back…. hopefully something good will come from it.  We’ll be posting if it does.

Everyone seems to talk about it, and acts like the minimum wage is this all-mighty powerful number that if paid makes sure that people can live without any problems.  Yet, it’s just the government making half-complete job of helping people, that sadly causes prices to go up and undoes any good it was meant to do.  As with many things in life, humans are overly obsessed with putting band-aids on compound fractures — they want to treat the symptoms and not the underlying cause of the problem.

Let’s take minimum wage as an example.  Nowhere in the name does it say it’s enough to live on — only that it’s the minimum a company is allowed to pay employees.  That’s all, nothing more.  Here in Illinois the minimum wage is listed at $7.75/hr.

• Electric: $150/mo
• Water & Sewer: $50/mo
• Rent, $400/mo (can vary –some places charge up to $750 for a one bedroom or studio).
• Food: $200/mo
• Phone: $40/mo (if no calls made)
• Total: $840/month

And that assumes that you don’t, oh, drive to work, have insurance for your stuff, have medical insurance, or need to buy anything ever (like toilet paper).  But let’s use that as an example so that if someone complains about the numbers being high — the others will more than cover it.

And let’s say someone manages to get paid for lunch breaks… so….

• Minimum wage @ 40hrs week * 4 weeks = $1240

So everything’s great right?  There’s at least $400 of spare cash!  What about taxes?  So let’s take only 20% for taxes… that leaves: $992 or $152 in “spare cash” that has to be used for insurance, gas, maintenance, and oh, toilet paper so people aren’t wiping with their hands.  If you use 20 gallons of gas a month, you’ve just cut back that by half or more.  And in all honesty, if the values above are low — you’re potentially already in the negative before you even have your other expenses.

So that leaves what…. living check to check or living with someone right?  Well…. yes.  But unless you share the bedroom with them that increases the rent, etc.  While you’re also cutting your expenses by half, if you have medical insurance, student loan, or car payment, that “extra” is actually used up as well.

But in itself is the built-in problem with the monetary system currently in use.  If you pay people more money, the cost of the services and products of the businesses goes up, which means people need to make more, and so on and so on.  And while this isn’t to go into the system of fixing this problem, something needs to be done soon.  As electricity and gas prices go up, it’s becoming harder and harder for people to heat and cool their homes.  The price for electricity above is an actual price from an electric bill from a house that almost never uses the air, and keeps the inside at around 87 degrees in the summer — but so is $275 for a smaller house next door that keeps it at 76 degrees in the summer.

A livable (living) wage would be different as people would make enough to cover their bills in the area they’re in.  And that’s all that has to be said about that for expenses.  It wouldn’t matter if bills were $50 a month or $5000 — the jobs would pay enough to cover it.  Of course, as many would realize, this also causes the same problem as raising the minimum wage that when it goes up, so would costs. In the end, however, something can be done to help offset this problem even in our current messed up system.

It’s the topic that’s come up everywhere these days:  Who do people really want in office, and what do they really want to be done?

All around people keep on saying how they really want to vote for third-party-candidate X, but they know they won’t get in so instead they’ll vote for Satan’s right hand man (or sometimes saying left hand hand).  They don’t agree with the candidate, don’t want them in office, but they’re the lesser of the two evils.  Sadly it seems to be said with over half the people — if they all voted the way “it doesn’t matter” the Democrats and Republicans would become the “third” party and the “third” parties would be the primary ones.

But I digress, a bit.

What is strange about the way many people seem to view the candidates isn’t so much that they’re different in what they’ll be doing —- but that they’re going to do the exact same things, just have different methods to get there.  And we all know what the same thing is:  keep everything the same, increase wars, keep on chugging out oil, and screw the little man.  Isn’t it a shame when you go into an election and get to choose not what will happen, but what will be done to get there?

Think about that for a moment.  No matter who you elect, you’re going to have the same basic things done and you have no choice about that (want wars to end?  get over it!) — but you have a choice on how you get to that point.  Some choice isn’t it?  All the main decisions that affect the people’s lives are already decided, you just get to decide whether path A or B leads you to decision A.

With gas prices rising it seems everyone’s wanting to save as much money as  they can in gas.  There’s even families that complain about having to only go on two vacations a year due to gas prices!  Oh the horror!  Only two vacations!  But seriously, it does effect many people in the United States, and really the world as everyone to one extent or another uses fossil fuels to power their cars.

Unlike all those chain letters of “don’t buy gas on day X” that really don’t do anything as unless you stop driving as much — you’re still going to be buying the same amount of gas overall.  It’s quite simple and logical despite what many seem to believe.

But it’s even simpler:  Every week, go one or two days that you don’t drive at all.  Walk to work, or even ride a bicycle if you’re afraid of stinking up the office from sweat from walking.  If you really worried about it — try to take a change of clothes with you with a little toiletry bag and get cleaned up at the office.  Every mile you don’t drive not only saves gas, but lessens the pollution, and causes you to exercise.  There’s no real downsides (unless you’re not able to walk/ride a bicycle).

If you live in a city, use the trains!  Some people fear them, others love them.  Granted there are days that you spend more time going to work (if you have to leave an hour earlier for example) and get home later, so it might not be for all.  But if you can use them — do so.  The more people wanting to use trains the more the cities will put into them – which will just make them better.  You have to decide for yourself whether or not you actually save money by taking them or if it’s just for you.

There’s only a few things you have to consider when not using a standard fossil fuel-based vehicle (car/truck/SUV) when going places:  it might take you longer to get there and to get back home.

If you take public transportation, you have to take into account the pickup times, and even the last and earliest run times.  Sometimes you might have to leave an hour early as if you get the next pickup time you’d be late.  With walking, while you can to an extent determine when you’ll arrive by your walking speed — it’s also the slowest mode of travel.  If you assume you walk 3mph, and work’s 3 miles away, you’ll have to allocate 1 hour to and from work.

One advantage to riding a bicycle is that if you’re on streets with multiple stops (or have a bike trail that might be non-stop over distances) — you might get to work in the same amount of time as it’d take while driving more or less!  Granted you’ll have to carry your bike to your office and put it in your cubical if your office doesn’t provide a secure rack, but it’d save a lot of gas and take about as much time.

What?  Don’t think a bicycle could be about as fast as driving?  Well it all depends on the roads and stops.  Ever get stopped at every stop light and realize that people walking are catching up to you at every intersection?  Same basic thing.  And of course if you have a bike trail that might be non-stop (like through a park or not on the roads) you might actually arrive quicker than if you were driving!  But it’s all a per-user and per-situation and circumstance thing.  But there are a few advantages even over not using gas or polluting:  almost no cost to get to work every day.  You’ll have general maintenance, but given the price some people pay for car tires — anything shy of having to replace the entire bicycle and you’ll be saving a large amount of money.  And you’ll get some muscular legs in the process.

So do yourself and the world a favor.  Instead of driving to work, walk, ride a bicycle or take public transportation.  And if you really must drive — try and carpool.

According to the people over at The Nature Conservancy pollution is damaging every ecosystem on the planet.

While it’d seem quite obvious, since if you put it in the air, it’ll eventually fall back down and enter the land and water.  It’s even logical that things in the air don’t recognize county, state or country borders — afterall the borders are imaginary (other than some going by rivers and such to make it easier).  So you could live in the best pollutant-free county on the planet, but if your neighbors put up so much smoke you can’t see the sky it doesn’t really matter.

That’s the one thing people always seem to forget — they talk about how the “other” countries are doing bad things to the environment like what’s being done there stays there.  We all share the same atmosphere, and more or less the same bodies of water (despite the different names — do you really see a line in the water?).  What one country does affects all the others eventually.  One day, hopefully before everyone starts to die off, people might start to realize that every country needs to inact environmental controls and standards.  It’s something that has to be worldwide.

Every day there seems to be more and more trees cut back to almost nothing. Large, lush trees that provide shade over large areas — then they trim them back so it looks like a palm tree. When did trees become some evil thing that must be “fixed”?

What’s even worse is when you see a tree completely cut down for no apparent reason other than “it was in the way” or as sometimes people say “I didn’t like cleaning up the leaves”. Huh? You chop down a tree to save you the hassel of mowing over the leaves maybe three times a year?  You mow grass once a week  and you don’t go paving over it!

Let’s take a look at trees for a moment….

• They remove up to 13 pounds of CO2 from the air a year (per tree)
• Prevents or reduces soil erosion
• Decrease noise pollution
• Can reduce utility bills by 15-50% (compared to no tree being placed)
• Can cut heating costs up to 30% (as they provide wind breaks in winter)
• Trees can produce food for humans and animals
• Some trees can be used for medicine to prevent or treat disease (such as cancer)

So why on earth would you want to remove these things?  Heating and cooling bills are through the roof.  Flooding is commonplace.  Food found in the stores is becoming contaminated.  More and more people are driving cars (thereby increasing noise and pollution).  People aren’t able to make enough to sustain their lives, seasons appear to all blend in with no real distinction (places that used to have snow and blizzards, now frequently have snowless winters [or close to it], and people wearing shorts during it).  Power plants keep on chugging out the pollutants as do our fuel plants — all polluting the atmosphere even more.

We need trees now more than ever!  Yet why is it people keep on chopping down these life-sustaining devices?

There’s just something sad when “progress” and “improvements” involve destroying nature to put up a concrete platform.  Instead of removing trees, you should be planting them.  Build your own personal forest.  The earth will thank you.

This has to be without a doubt the biggest complaint in my family right now.  It took my mother almost 5 years to finally get it despite her being unable to do any job — and the disability office’s attorney person (the guy who shows up to court to try and prevent you from getting it) saying in court “there’s nothing she can do, she should get it”.  The judge commented it was unique for the attorney trying to “prevent” you from getting it doing an excellent job arguing the other point — even though after looking at the details he agreed without hesitation.

But it’s not her case that makes me think that politicians really need to overhaul this system…

Imagine a guy who’s a diabetic and takes insulin.  Now picture that because of this is isn’t allowed to get a CDL (for one reason or another — but it’s a potential risk).  Now imagine that he had been working (*cough* illegally *cough*) at a place that knew it (he had a CDL, but the state didn’t know at the time or laws changed or something).  Now imagine he gets really sick and can’t work.  Driver’s license comes up for renewal and… oops…. guess what?  Can’t get a CDL anymore because the state found out!  Which means, he can’t do that job anymore (despite not working at it for a few years due to the sickness).  Calls up disability, know what they said?  “Go back to driving a truck!”  After a complete “huh” moment he said “I can’t get a CDL anymore, which means I can’t drive a truck”  — they more or less just repeated the same thing, said it wasn’t their fault then told him to go back to working at a shoe factory (that closed 20 years prior), then another place (that closed more recently, but still closed).  By then they’d reached his high school years.   Two years, multiple useless politicians, multiple court dates and two attorney’s later he finally got it.  Of course all his back pay went in paying all the loans worth up to fifty grand that they had to take out to live — so they weren’t living on the streets.

Then you have another man.  Can’t work because he requires oxygen, and his workplace (due to OSHA requirements, and just an overall hazard) isn’t able to even enter the factory.  Files for disability (2 years before retirement too) and has two diseases that are a life sentence — if he’s lucky he might live another 5 years.  Denied — he’s supposed to “go back to working at the factory”.  But like above, he can’t work at the factory due to state and federal regulations.

There’s something really wrong in the world when a state agency tells you that you won’t get something because you can do something that other agencies say you can’t do because of the reason you applied to get the something.  [Really, that made sense -- I hope at least].  And all it does is hurt the people!  When the person finally gets it, they go back to when you first applied — so it’s not like they’re getting that much more money.  Meanwhile you have probably thousands of families all across the United States just on the brink of homelessness because they can’t work, and can’t get disability!

Want to hear something really funny?  Politicians won’t help — but they still call for donations to get re-elected.  Granted they probably don’t know who the people are directly and all, but it’s still funny.

For those Serj Tankian fans out there that have heard “Unthinking Majority” you’ll notice that the title is similar to the line from the song. Doesn’t make it any less true or less curious.

Finding actual statistics on drug usage is extremely hard to find — even on the CDC website — although a small report does have some info at: http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/04news/hus04.htm

Basically it says that half of Americans (assumed to be “United States of America” Americans as “America” includes Canada, Brazil, Mexico, etc) take at least one prescription medication.  10% of women and 4% of men take antidepressants.  Reports keep on popping up where someone who just isn’t happy is given an antidepressant.  Don’t like not having money?  Here’s an antidepressant!  Feel better now?  Yes?  Great!  What?  Have less money now than before?  But you don’t care now do you?

Something has to be majorly wrong when half the population requires medication to be “healthy” don’t you think?  And that list was only for prescription medication, it didn’t include over the counter (OTC) medication!  Just think about that for a bit.

Really…. Think about it…

Half the people in the united states need to be medicated.  Got ten women friends?  One’s on antidepressants.  Know twenty five men?  One’s on anti-depressants.  But don’t worry!  Apparently there’s more people that need them that aren’t taking them!  Yep, we’re all so depressed that we need medicated.

Talk about putting a bandage on to fix a compound fracture.

What about the simple thing that the world is a screwed up place with no hope?  Corporations steal money from their employees.  People’s voices, the ones that do voting, aren’t heard by the people they elect.  Politicians sell their votes for policies based on the highest corporate and PAC bidders.  Then everything stays the “same” — same as in things keep on getting worse and those trying to make changes get run over by the political machine.

Here’s a situation.  Let’s say you know a woman who’s in a relationship with a guy who beats her up.  Would you recommend anti-depressants so she enjoys it?  What about your kid’s being beaten up in school — antidepressant?  You lost your job and had to train your replacement, antidepressant for that too?  What about you’re working for minimum wage and can’t get back to school (can’t get a loan, since you don’t make enough; can’t save up as you’re not making enough) — antidepressant needed?

If you like the existing parties in office — you bet!  Antidepressants are the single most useful controlling agents in the world.  They’re legal, and keep the people in line.  No need to worry about dissent when you’re able to medicate your voters into not caring and place the blame on them.  Oh?  Didn’t think of that?

Antidepressants are nothing more than saying “something’s wrong with you“.  It’s saying “everything in the world is fine, you have no reason to be depressed!”  Don’t think so?  Would you take aspirin if you didn’t have pain (or told to by a doc for heart)?  Would you take cold medication if you didn’t have a cold?  Would you take cough syrup if you weren’t coughing?  Nose spray if not congested or dry?  What about eye drops for redness if you didn’t have it?  Putting ice on if no swelling?   — Then tell me… why would you take antidepressants if you were healthy and fine?

Don’t misunderstand, there are people that do need anti-depressants for one reason or another due to actual chemical problems in the brain.  But 10% of women and 4% of men?  Bandage on a compound fracture.

Most have probably figured out what I’m saying with that bandage on a compound fracture line — you might take care of a symptom (bleeding), but you’re not dealing with the root cause (bone sticking through skin).  It’s the same with antidepressants.  There has to be a root cause that’s causing so many people to be depressed.  Environmental, or just the world’s screwed up — pick one, or both.

When there’s no guarantee that you’ll have your job next week, no guarantee that you’ll have a home, car, no guarantee for anything in your life for things that are needed to survive — what’s not to be depressed about?  Any second of the day everything you have could all come crashing around you, and know what?  You’re pretty much on your own.  Friends and family might be able to help out some, but even they are in the same situation.  Then toss in the threat that there could be a nuclear war — and that we need to bomb them first to subdue them…  And to top it all?  No matter which of the two main parties you’ll elect in elections, nothing will ever change until all hell breaks loose and it personally affects the companies that back them, I mean affects them.

So it’s no wonder so many take antidepressants…. but the real question is, when are people going to stop and think that maybe, just maybe, it’s not them that needs medicated – maybe it’s the world that needs to be changed.  So do yourself a favor this election, don’t vote for the establishment — vote for a third party, vote green cast a vote for Cynthia McKinney*.

* She not available on your ballot in your state? Sad I know, as your politicians want control so much they do anything they can to prevent third parties from being on the ballot that’s still “legal” — but vote for anyone else but the two.

You’ve heard it before when someone says they don’t believe in violence, “what if someone’s going to kill your family?” Either that or a variant of it. But in many cases, if not most (saying “all” for anything is generally not wise), it’s “non violent — but defense doesn’t count”. Quite simple philosophy really, you don’t go out beating up others, killing, harming, or otherwise initiate violent actions — but if someone were to threaten you or the helpless, they’d step in to prevent the violence (which of course can lead to violence). The real goal of “non violence” is to prevent the initiation of violent acts.

So strike first before they strike at you policies wouldn’t exist.

If no country or person would initiate a violent act, there would be no violence – except in sports, but that’s another thing altogether and isn’t “violent” in a sense.  Few political parties out there even promote non-violence, the green party does, not sure about others, but neither the Democrats or Republicans have a non-violence policy — if they do something’s really wrong.

They start wars and develop laws to “protect” the people from terrorism.  When a candidate wants a war to end, they’re considered “weak” against terrorism so they go against their so-called beliefs.  But even now, there’s reports that neither McCain nor Obama is planning on ending the war; reports that around 90,000 new troops will be sent in, but nothing about really ending it or sending in a troop of diplomats.

Peace can’t be found at the muzzle of a gun, nor at the tip of a warhead.

There’s an old joke about a woman who takes her husband’s boat onto a lake to read in peace and quiet.  A game warden pulls up and asks for her fishing license — she says “I don’t have one.  I’m not fishing.  I’m just reading my book.”  Warden says “but you have all the equipment, so I have to fine you if you don’t have one.”  So she agrees and says “and I’m charging you with rape!”  He asks “Why?!? I haven’t even touched you!”  And she replies “But you have all the right equipment.”

Just because a country has the ability to create something doesn’t mean they will create something.  Striking first to make sure they won’t do it only increases the chances that they will, for self defense.  If you force someone into submission, they’ll defend themselves — then the media and the people will all chant “See! They did what we said!” and in the back you’ll hear a few voices trying to be heard saying “but we forced them to do it.”

There is never a winner in a war.  Everyone looses.  What’s sad is the people of a country might not want the war — but as long as the leaders want it, war it is.  Anytime you hear about a country wanting to put up blockades, force a country into submission, fire missiles into another country, or anything else…. unless you’ve seen proof that the other country started it, the aggressor isn’t the targeted country, it’s the targeting country.

To think that a country and all the people in it just want to kill others is absurd.  Now there might be some groups that want that.  There might even be countries that will back them.  But when violence is the first thing people think to react on, it makes you wonder if diplomacy was ever considered.  With some people, you can’t negotiate.  That’s just a simple fact of things.  But for most people out there, they’d be willing to make concessions.

It makes a person wonder:  when billions to trillions are spent to promote the military, how much is spent for diplomacy?

Here lately in my town, and county as well to an extent, there’s an interesting thing happening: dead grass circles and rectangles (although ovals is probably a bit more accurate than circles).

For no apparent reason, a yard with green grass all of a sudden develops a small dead patch, then it grows. Sometimes it grows outward in a circular pattern, other times it forms as a line and moves out diagonally until it forms a rectangle. But then once it hits a certain size (which varies), it stops. Everything within the spot dies — even weeds! Till in new topsoil and plant grass, it dies. Try fertilizer, it dies. Some people in the area have removed six inches of topsoil and thrown it out (I’ve seen it carried away) and filled it in with entirely new soil.

A good fix right? Nope, next year it too is dead! Think of that for a moment… soil that’s good one year is dead the next, in the exact same spot as the old dead soil. And the real strange thing is, there’s no pipes or anything under the dead spots. Nothing that would make sense. The spots are surrounded by what seems to be completely healthy grass. And it all makes me wonder, why is this happening? How is it that grass all over the place dies out in random formations – and the soil won’t sustain any life?

I know that this week I’m going to be taking a sample in to a college extension office so it can be examined — but it makes me wonder all the same. Is it the oil refinery in town that’s causing the rain to be toxic — and these spots just happen to be collecting spots for the rain water (although why in fairly standard shapes is still beyond me)? Or is it some weird geological activity that’s causing gases to rise, and it just happens to be causing the problem?

Well I sure hope it’s not the latter as that wouldn’t make me feel too comfortable about where I’m living. But what is the problem? There’s trees, about 1/10 that have lost entire branches from death, with about 1/50 trees all-but-dying…. related, or coincidence?

All I know is it’s been going on for about 4 years now…. but here lately it’s getting worse. People’s gardens aren’t growing as well as normal — some are even saying they might not get anything from the plants this year (and yes, they’ve been using fertilizer, and some even a crop-rotation of sorts [plant things in different spots]). It’s like the earth is slowly dying.

While this isn’t a political thing, nor a government thing, I put this here as once I do get an answer I’m going to act on it. And if it happens to be something related to government in any form or another — you better believe I’ll be bringing it up at all the town and city meetings around me. But I wonder…. are things like this happening other places as well?

If you’ve experienced things like this, have any suggestions, etc, please post.

UPDATE: Well…. apparently our local University Extension office doesn’t do soil testing (despite being an agriculture-based extension)… so to get it tested I have to pay….. Considering the number of spots and all, not sure when, if ever, it’ll be done now. But I’m still looking into it.