The Most Important Holiday Blog Post in the World

This Thanksgiving, I’m thankful for the abundance that I have enjoyed this past year, but I am aware that many in this world go without. Thanksgiving also harkens in the Christmas shopping season, and many of you will spend a lot of money on stupid gifts no one really wants or needs. This Thanksgiving, I’m asking my readers to cut me a slice of that pie by supporting this important cause.

The Most Important Holiday Blog Post in the World

 

With the holidays rapidly approaching, a lot of us will be looking for gifts for people we don’t really like that much. If you’ve managed to avoid them all year, a gift is the perfect way to say, “Even though I hate your guts, I really can’t afford to have you talking shit about me.” This Holiday season, I offer you the perfect gift for people who you’d like to think well of you, but whom you don’t really know or like well enough to actually get them anything.

For these special people, a gift card from Helper International tells the recipient that you care more about some random, anonymous kids than you do about them. Helper makes sure that your money only helps cute, happy looking, photogenic kids, and we use the money you donate to give them cute, photogenic animals.

Your chosen recipient will receive a card with a beautiful color photograph so packed with cuteness and “Awwww”, that they will hate themselves, for being pissed that you didn’t really get them anything. Really, isn’t that what giving is all about, the feelings it inspires?

Sure, its awfully expensive for a greeting card, but you and your recipient will both know, that the kid in the picture really got to keep that cute little animal, gave it a name, took care of it, and bonded with it emotionally, before his parents slaughtered it and served it for dinner. That’s the kind of emotional enigma that makes the holidays so special.

Here at Helper International, our mission is simple, we use your donations to give highly prolific, and nutritious, live snails, to exceptionally cute children. Then we photograph the happy kids with their snails, print the photos on gift cards and send the cards to your specified recipient. That’s all there is to it.

Does it help? Sure it does. It helps us unload a bunch of snails, and puts money in our pockets. I can’t think of a more important cause than that, can you? You, and your chosen recipient get to share that “awwww” moment during the holidays, and some kid gets a snail. It’s a win win win deal for everybody.

So, please, give them the most important gift you can give. Give the gift of Escargot this holiday season. Help Helper International make the snail shepherding dreams of adorable children everywhere a reality. Only you can make make this miracle happen. No child should ever be denied the this exquisite delicacy and every child should have the opportunity to get to know the delightful little creatures that produce it in abundance.

Send your generous donations to Helper International, P.O. Box 2301, Redway, CA 95560 and make checks payable to John Hardin.  You’ll be glad you did, and so will I.  Thank you, for you support!

Dirtbags, Miscreants, Undesirables and Low-Lifes pt1

Dirtbags, Miscreants, Undesirables and Low-Lifes pt1

 

I’ve heard a lot of talk about the invasion of “dirtbags”, “miscreants”, and “undesirables” in our community. I agree with a lot of this talk. I agree that this invasion has gotten out of hand. Every town can handle a few “dirtbags”, but they have overrun our small town.

This invasion has gone on far too long, and its high time we took decisive action to take back our community. These “people”, I use the term loosely here, wreck our environment, suck up our resources and tear at the very fabric of our society.

I also agree that we should do everything we can to drive these undesirables from our midst. We should make them feel unwelcome. We should insist that the Sheriff enforce every law that applies to them, punish them to the fullest extent of the law, and, if that’s not enough, we should pass draconian new laws that persecute them more directly.

I am in complete agreement with the sentiment I see expressed in our local papers, and hear around town. We should take back our community. We should drive “them” out of town. My only disagreement with the prevailing sentiment, is who exactly “them” are.

This week, part one of a two part series about “them”, the real “undesirables” and “miscreants” who suck the life out of our community. For part one, I offer this letter to the editor of The Independent, inspired by one of the letters I read there on this issue. A highly abridged version of this letter will appear in The Independent, but I thought you deserved to see it in its entirety.

Dear Editor,

I cheered and said “good riddance” the day I saw that Country Real Estate had closed their Garberville office. I had hoped that would be the last we would see or hear from George Rolff, so reading his repulsive letter in The Independent disgusted me doubly.

I am not writing to weigh in on the issue of people hanging around in Garberville and Redway. I know that the abundance of poor people around town creates a real challenge for the retail merchants in town. It really is a lot for them to deal with, and the marijuana growers in the hills should step up to the plate on this issue.

After all, kids all over America smoke Humboldt weed, listen to reggae music, and pretty soon, they start to believe in it. They say “goodbye” to Babylon, grow dreadlocks, and come here. They know that all of their money has been coming here for years, and they think that folks here have been using it to “make Babylon fall”, instead of blowing it on status symbols like oversized diesel trucks. They don’t realize that the marijuana industry is a bottomless pit of greed and indifference that wants to suck them dry.

One of arguments I hear the most, from the people who make their living from marijuana, yet oppose legalization, is that, in a legal environment, big corporations like JR Reynolds would take over the industry. RJ Reynolds spends billions of dollars funding cancer research, and medical facilities, and millions more on public art. They’ve learned that they can buy some respect, if they take some responsibility for the social problems they create. Folks around here might take a lesson from the tobacco giant when considering what facilities to include in that new community park they are all so proud of. We don’t really need another expensive “middle-class” status symbol for drug dealers around here.

But that’s not what pissed me off about George Rolff’s letter. What pissed me off about Geoge Rolff’s letter is that someone in the real estate industry had the nerve to complain about all of the poor people around town. If the marijuana industry is a bottomless pit, the real estate industry is the Grand Canyon of greed and indifference, as perfectly exemplified by Mr. Rolff’s attitude in his offensive letter.

While bankers orchestrated the housing bubble and the collapse of our economy, the real estate industry acted as their highly paid mercenary army. During those bubble years, people like George Rolff, Blake Lehman, and the rest of the real estate industry collected obscene commissions on inflated land prices. They made those deals that went bad. They appraised land at those ridiculously inflated prices. They turned housing into a luxury that only the rich could afford. They made millions of people homeless, and they got filthy rich doing it.

I saw George’s Harley, and his wife Melinda’s Mustang. They wanted everyone to know that they were doing well. Thanks to them, a lot of people in town aren’t doing very well. Personally, I find conspicuous consumption much more offensive than conspicuous poverty, and I find complaints about poor people, from people in the real estate industry particularly odious.

It is not a crime to be poor, but what the real estate industry did to our nation, our community, and our economy was a crime against the American people. It’s shameful for George Rolff to blame his victims, and to attempt to sweep them under the rug.

On The Money, What’s the Deal?

On The Money

Financial Advice for the Working-Class

What’s the Deal?

Look, I’m not an idealist. I don’t oppose government and capital out of principle. I’m just looking for a deal I can live with. If you want my participation, especially if it involves work, I want to know… What is in it for me?  Frankly, the whole global economy/representative democracy thing looks like a pretty raw deal to me. I think I’ll opt out.

 

I can see where my parents generation might have thought they were getting a good deal, back when a guy with a high-school diploma could get a job that paid enough that he could afford a single family home, support a wife and a couple of kids, and buy an endless string of huge, tacky, unreliable cars. Sure, those jobs sucked. They involved long hours of repetitive work in dangerous, loud, hot, or otherwise unpleasant conditions, and they effectively drained people of their life force, but they provided comprehensive health coverage, pensions, and a couple weeks paid vacation every year. I could see where that might look like a deal you could live with. I don’t see anyone my age or younger getting a deal anything like that.

 

Worker productivity has risen exponentially in recent years, but workers saw no increase in wages. Instead, work became more concentrated, more demanding, and more draining, but wages did not improve. Mass layoffs and global outsourcing helped to suppress wages, while profits soared. Meanwhile, we lost health-coverage, because medicine has become such a ripoff. We lost pensions because of greedy Wall St. bloodsuckers, and we lost job security, because we’re all disposable in a global market.

Now that things like home ownership, job security, comprehensive health insurance and pensions have become relics of the past, the global economy really doesn’t offer as many “carrots” to working people anymore. These days, the motivation to work comes mostly in the form of “sticks”. Specifically, the cop’s nightstick, that he pokes into your ribcage while you are trying to get some sleep. Unless you have paid for a place to sleep, the cops will come and roust you. That is your motivation to work, these days.

Housing prices have skyrocketed in the last 30 years, while wages have stagnated. We don’t make any more money than we used to, but we come home more tired, and we pay a lot more for a place to come home to. Now that home-ownership has become a thing of the past for working people, we pay rent for a place to sleep, so we acquire no equity in our home, and as a result, we never get ahead. When it comes down to it, working for a living amounts to a kind of freelance slavery enforced by “cracker” cops on homeless patrol.

Increasingly, all over the world, people realize that the life of a worker in the global economy is not worth living. The deal is that bad. It’s so bad that at factories in China they have to lock the doors to the roof to prevent workers from leaping to their deaths. So, when you hear politicians promise more jobs, or hear talk about “the job creators”, remember what kind of jobs they create. Those jobs suck, and most of us would rather die than work at them.

It’s past time to walk away from the bargaining table. Your life is your own, and you belong on this planet. You have the right to take what you need of what you find around you, and to make your home on this green Earth. That is your birthright! That is the position you bargain from!

Don’t ever forget that its your life, and its your planet. You don’t owe them obedience to their laws, respect for their property or participation in their system. Don’t settle for the crumbs from the table. After all, its your your table, your plate, and your pie they are eating.

On the Money, Bleak Friday

On The Money

Financial Advice for the Middle-Class

Bleak Friday

 

Around here, the grocery stores have had real x-mas trees for sale for a couple of weeks already. I don’t know why. Anyone who put up a real tree on Veterans day, will have vacuumed most of that tree off of the carpet by X-mas eve. Either they will have to buy a second tree, or they’ll put their gifts under a spindly, dry, brown piece of kindling.

 

I’ve seen X-mas decorations in stores since before Halloween. I even saw some crossover: Count Santula and his bat drawn sleigh scared the hell out of me at one store this past October..

 

It seems like everyone jumped the gun on X-mas this year, but Friday marks the official start of the X-mas shopping season. Black Friday, as it is called, also coincides, not coincidentally, with “Buy Nothing Day”, sponsored by Adbusters Magazine. Now that AdBusters has unleashed Occupy Wall St., maybe “Buy Nothing Day” will really take off this year. Lord knows that people sure don’t need most of the crap that retailers have on offer, but those shoppers have money burning a whole in their pockets.

 

November 25^th also turns out to be the official start of the professional panhandling season. The Salvation Army deploys brigades of Santa Claus impersonators, who will ring the “opening bell” on the Holiday panhandling season, and suck up all of the easy spare change until Dec. 25^th.

 

This means that if you want to make a living panhandling this holiday season, you are going to need a story, and you are going to have to work it. Like this guy:

 

Go ahead and give it a try. I encourage everyone to panhandle professionally this holiday season. Find a shopping center with a lot of traffic, and get started. X-mas is all about the spirit of giving. You can give holiday shoppers the opportunity to be genuinely generous, just by pretending to be needy.

 

Try to get them to give you at least $20. Use a story like, “My mom’s in the hospital back east, and I just need to raise enough to fly home to see her before she dies.” A little story like that, told with abundant (fake) sincerity, can turn X-mas into your most profitable time of year as well. And, not only can you participate in “Buy Nothing Day”, but you can help people feel the X-mas spirit of giving, without letting the retailers act as middle-men.

 

Personally, I’m not leaving home until next Tuesday.

On The Money, Trick or Treat

On The Money

Financial Advice for the Working Class

Trick or Treat

I don’t know about your town, but Trick-or-Treat has gotten unbelievably lame around here, so lame that teenagers wouldn’t be caught dead Trick-or-Treating anymore. I don’t blame them a bit.

 

First, Trick-or-Treat now happens in broad daylight. No self-respecting Trick-orTreater ever goes out until after dark. These days, parents, in street clothes, lead their toddlers around the neighborhood dressed in licensed, store bought costumes, depicting trademarked TV superheroes and cartoon characters, in the middle of the afternoon.

 

Even the kids look perplexed. “Why do we do this?” They all seem to say. Why, indeed? All that’s left of Trick-or-Treat is the stuff you spend money on: corporate costumes, corporate candy, dollar store decorations, none of them scary. They’ve outlawed or done away with everything else. How did it come to this?

 

I blame the media. Any time someone got hurt or killed Trick-or-Treating, the Press made a big deal of it. Kid gets hit by a car on August 31, not news, but a kid in a costume gets hit by a car on October 31, big news. The media unnecessarily sensationalized Trick-or-Treat mishaps, like kids eating drugged candy, biting into apples with needles stuck in them, or getting hit by cars on dark roads. Widespread reports of these isolated incidents whipped the public into a frenzy that allowed churches, “do-gooders” and cops to chop the balls off of Halloween.

 

Trick-or-Treat is supposed to be dangerous…dangerous and scary, and it’s supposed to happen at night, in the dark. No flashlights, no reflective material, wearing mostly black, homemade costumes with identity concealing masks, we’d go door to door begging for candy, with the threat of real mischief. Trick-or-Treat meant “cough-up the sweet stuff or we’ll TP your house, leave a flaming bag of dog-do on your porch, or shmush a moldy rotten pumpkin on the windshield of your car.

 

Yes, Trick-or-Treat is all about aggressive panhandling after dark. That’s why it’s called “Beggars Night”. Superheroes don’t beg. Cartoon characters don’t beg. Grotesque, deformed, diseased, and demented people beg. Scary-looking, dangerous and needy people beg. Drug-addicts, bums and street urchins beg. Proper Trick-or-Treat costumes reflect this.

 

When these hideous, pitiful creatures knock on your door, recoil in horror, give them a treat, and thank your lucky stars that you don’t share their fate. Or, scare them off by jumping out of the bushes in your own hideous costume, when they approach the door. But, if you refuse to answer the door, and offer no treats, you probably deserve whatever they do to you because you were too much of a coward to face them directly.

 

I think its high time to reclaim “Beggars Night”. Begging, not prostitution, is the oldest profession. Like prostitution, begging will outlast us all. Begging is a part of life, its part of the fabric of our culture that won’t go away. On “Beggars Night” everyone can be a beggar, and everyone in your community will know how you treat the beggars who come to your door.

 

In this way “Beggars Night” teaches young people how to treat the unfortunate people who will ask them for help throughout their lives, and why its important not to turn your back on them. It seems that too many adults in this area never learned that lesson. While begging is shameful, its not nearly as shameful as it is to be uncharitable to strangers in need.

 

Besides that, “Beggars Night” used to be a hell of a lot of fun! There’s a view of Trick-or-Treat that’s On The Money.