Joe Nation
Joe Nation's JournalNeed advice about where to retire. Pacific Northwest specifically.
Here's our situation. Both my spouse and myself are academics retiring at the end of May. We currently live in the Midwest but spent 9 years on the west coast in California in the late eighties and early nineties. A number of our friends and two of our kids live in the Pacific Northwest. We are considering anywhere from Northern California to British Columbia as possible places to retire. We will start in the Seattle/Tacoma area for the first year or so and look around the area for a good location to eventually settle.
We'd like start in a nice urban area with activities such as art galleries, coffee shops, parks, community gardens, interesting city life, and volunteer opportunities. Money is not an issue for us but we kind of dislike the wealthy snobs so we are looking at a more gritty urban area with a mix of interesting people.
Volunteering is going to be a huge part of our retirement plan and we are retiring fairly young so we have many years to give back to a community. Are there any neighborhoods in the Seattle/Tacoma area or even some of the places around the western side of the Sound that you are familiar with that we might check out this summer while we are visiting?
Thank you for your advice in advance.
Every Republican I hear from seems to have an issue with accountability.
It's as if they don't want to bother taking any responsibility for anything they say or do. My spouse has a Republican boss. This boss has zero interest in anything that even smells like accountability. This pattern is certainly all over the Republicans in congress. They seem to think anything they want to do is just fine and if there are any consequences for their behaviors, it must be some liberal plot to destroy them.
Is it some kind of rule that to be a Republican, you have to rid yourself of any type of personal responsibility? They do love the word freedom. They simply ignore that part of freedom that deals with personal responsibility and accountability. You can't have true freedom without a good measure of responsibility and accountability in any social setting. Children are taught this at a young age. You learn this in just about any school setting. Do these people come with an anti-accountability filter?
I feel as if the Republicans in America are the Neanderthals and the rest of us are Cro-Magnon. They are simply a evolutionary dead end and are doomed to extinction through the process of natural selection. They are even too dumb to believe in evolutionary theory. I won't miss them.
A word of warning about jumping into bed with Corporate America
As tempting as it is to rejoice that at least some of Corporate America is willing to support democracy when it comes to GOP voter suppression laws, we need to pause before we accept their outstretched hand. It may not be a handshake we can live with when all is said and done.
The theory is that these handful of corporations are reading the tea leaves and concluding that it is in their best financial interests to side with their customer base. In other words, the specter of the scary boycott is all we need to bring these corporations over to our side. You have to ask, when have boycotts ever really succeeded and just how often do they pretty much fail at the end of the day given the short memories all politicians know the American Public is famous for? The answer is that it depends on the boycott and whether the government and other corporations decide to get involved. Boycotts can work against financially vulnerable organizations but it is a lot more difficult to have a negative financial impact on a large multinational with a diverse product base. They are simply too big for the average person to keep track of all of their products and the further you get from the initial boycotted product, the more you lose support for the boycott. People get boycott fatigue rather quickly and corporations know it.
There is also the aspect of social media pressure. Negative perceptions of any organization can certainly impact an organization's bottom line, if sustained over a long period of time. Again, when was the last time you saw a sustained negative media campaign to shame a corporation into acting socially responsibly? They come and they go just as quickly once the next cause du jour comes along.
While corporations certainly wield a lot of power and influence, do we really want to rely on them to spearhead our grievances or would it not be smarter to accept their support but only as another arrow in our quiver rather than the main archer taking aim at our foes? Once corporations are weaponized, do they not inevitably use their influence to increase their own power? You only have to look as far as the role they have played in our politics as puppet masters of the GOP. They give some politician 50K and they get tax legislation that saves them billions. A great investment as it turns out. There is no reason to believe that they wouldn't do exactly the same thing if they sided with the Democrats.
We certainly can use the help of corporations but if we merely take them at their word rather than looking at their past performance, we run the risk of becoming the next corporate shills.
Is it rude to ask people if they have been vaccinated?
I ask because I have recently run into a few people that have not been vaccinated when the opportunity arose but only because they have decided that they were against vaccinations, and specifically, this one. These are people that regularly get their annual flu shots, have had all of their school vaccinations at some point and have had their kids vaccinated as well.
I am beginning to worry that the hemming and hawing they are doing is out of embarrassment and it feels like I'm being rude even innocently asking them. I feel excited that I got mine and would be excited for them as well. It is almost standard that this question comes up in day-to-day conversations and I am realizing that I know a lot more conservatives than I thought I did.
I'm in no position to lecture any of these people on their personal choices but I wonder if it is I who is being rude by even asking them? This is new territory and I am unsure how to approach this subject with people and with all of the implications that go along with either getting or not getting the vaccine. Help!
All these mass shooting at too sanitized for the public
We need to start seeing the aftermath on the nightly news. Let the victims speak for themselves. This will never end until America looks square in the face of what the gun culture is doing to ordinary people. It worked to end the Vietnam War and it would work to end all these mass shootings. If my family member were a victim, I would want to see some good come out of the tragedy. I know that there are those that wouldn't want to see the carnage but they do not have to watch the news.
It's time to see the stark reality of what we allow in this country in order to end it. What news outlet will have the courage I wonder?
The refugee crisis is an issue that has one obvious solution
It's not sending people back to their own country to be killed and brutalized. It's not halting these people on the Mexican side of the border. It's certainly not traumatizing these young children that have already been through so much trauma at such an early age. We always look south to the very countries that are producing these refugee when we should be looking north.
The U.S. and Canada are certainly capable of a combined response that is mutually beneficial for everyone. Let me explain.
If the U.S. and Canada would agree to take joint ownership of the problem, this crisis could be over by summer's end. The U.S. could agree to process the refugees and provide transportation to a facility or facilities in Canada. The U.S. also would pay for the resettlement costs if Canada agreed to take in these refugees. Over time, the U.S. would allow current U.S. citizens to apply to have their relatives immigrate from Canada prioritizing the youngest refugees first. Canada would keep any refugees that wished to be Canadian citizens.
For some refugees, this would give people a path to citizenship or a new life in Canada if they opted to become citizens. North America is vast and wealthy. This would cost far, far less than even a few miles of Trump's precious wall. This would be a humanitarian solution.
Before you start thinking there are some actual reasonable Repubs like Cheney, Kinzinger & Murkowski
Remember how many Republicans voted for the COVID Relief bill. 0.
Oklahoma House Passes Bill To Give Immunity To Drivers Who Hit Protesters
Yep! This is a political party that has become a terrorist organization and we have to start thinking about outlawing the Republican Party for their openly terrorist behaviors.
Oklahoma House Passes Bill To Give Immunity To Drivers Who Hit Protesters
The legislation approved by the Republican-led House comes after Black Lives Matter protests last summer against racist police violence.
The Republican-majority Oklahoma state House passed a bill on Wednesday that would grant immunity to drivers who “unintentionally” run over protesters.
In an early morning vote along party lines, with 79 votes in favor and 18 against, state lawmakers approved legislation that would remove criminal or civil liability for any driver who “unintentionally” injures or kills someone while “fleeing from a riot,” as long as they have a “reasonable belief” that fleeing would protect themselves from harm.
The bill would also allow protesters to be charged with a misdemeanor if they “unlawfully obstruct” traffic, punishable by up to a year in jail and $5,000 in fines.
The legislation follows widespread protests in Oklahoma and across the country last summer against racist police violence. Black Lives Matter protesters have repeatedly been targeted by vehicle assaults.
At one such protest in Tulsa, a truck drove through Black Lives Matter protesters on a highway. Several people were seriously injured, according to The Oklahoman, and the county district attorney did not charge the driver.
Democratic state Rep. Monroe Nichols, who is Black, told his fellow lawmakers that he doesn’t want to have to tell his 12-year-old son that the Oklahoma House “made it so that folks who may advocate for people who look like him can be run over with immunity.”
The bill now heads over to the Republican-majority state Senate.
Rigid Idealism and Trumpian Conspiracies.
There is always a lesson to be learned from history. Rarely is anything new under the sun that hasn't been seen at some point in the past. The dynamic between Brutus and Caesar seems appropriate for this time of year as we roll around to March 15th. See if what was is what is again. The case of rigid idealism.
Brutus’ rigid idealism is both his greatest virtue and his most deadly flaw. Explain.
Brutus being a close friend of Caesar, gets influenced by the conspirators. Brutus is an idealist and a true patriot. He loves Rome and democracy. This makes him doubt Caesar’s intentions. He too fears that Caesar may turn-out to be a dictator. He points out to the citizens later, “Not that I loved Caesar less, but that I loved Rome more.” Overcome by his ideals, he perhaps pays a heed to the conspirators’ decision. This proves to be his biggest flaw, for the citizens’ trust in Caesar leads to his ruin.
Considering what we are living through:
Who is Brutus?
Who is Caesar?
Who are the citizens?
Why?
Remember when Trump tweeted this about FEMA money for California wild fires?
Billions of dollars are sent to the State of California for Forest fires that,
with proper Forest Management, would never happen. Unless they get
their act together, which is unlikely, I have ordered FEMA to send no
more money. It is a disgraceful situation in lives & money!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 9, 2019
Joe Biden doesn't see blue states and red states, he sees Americans be they in California or Texas. Trump is disgraceful.
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Gender: Do not displayMember since: Mon May 27, 2013, 01:46 PM
Number of posts: 962
