Here I shall link to an unrelated post. Why? Because the title "Neighborhoods' is what got me to finally write this post. Basically, I think that a real cause of urban sprawl is that we think we can buy the sort of community we want. We think if we move here or there, there won't be any crime. That we can just buy good schools instead of creating them. We move farther and farther out, but we never find that place. And of course, with more and more people moving to the new 'perfect' place, we get sprawl. Maybe, we could start using the space and buildings we have now. We could build the communities we want where we are. Maybe if we didn't work a million hours a week for the perfect neighborhood, we could connect with our neighbors.

I get the feeling that if we eliminated food stamps, the majority of the behavior change would be more like 'people get off their job at the Circle K and start stealing from trashcans' and less like 'people become productive members of society, however that is defined that somehow still includes their sub standard wage job... I think the independence from the bureaucracy would probably look more like stabbing rich people in the throat and rioting than a Randian paradise, but this is why I am an outcast from society, etc.

I agree. I do feel much worse for the migrant workers than for chickens.

Another great comment. You don't want to know what folks in TN are doing with worm poo :D

I'm glad that someone else notes that william f buckley was a dick.Yesterday I worried if it was really OK to replay him saying awful things on the radio. But I think he would have liked to be remembered for the awful things he said. He may have been proud of them.

What game is girlier- Wedding Dash or Cake Mania?

Liberal commie lightbulbs?

American Appreal is fug. super fug.

Do you know if you make open face tomato and mozzarella sandwiches using La Brea organic whole wheat bread, farmer's market tomatoes and mozzarella of unknown brand(and pepper) your life will be super great?

Also on etsy, somebody's gonna get banned soon. Summary: half of the thread is about this troll who is annoying gemma(a famous and popular seller) and her stupidity. Most of the other half is about virtual martinis, and there are a few people talking about BDSM, and how dickwads who use BDSM as an excuse to abuse women and be dicks ruin it for everybody.

LJ secret is bad and wrong.

Note: I have a tip jar so that I can buy books that aren't in our library system and netflix films.

Yesterday I was a participant observer in a 5th grade graduation ceremony. The ceremony started off with the children, the girls dressed in white dresses with white corsages on their arms, and the boys wearing a suit and tie costume(some students wore around their shoulders black items of clothing meant to show their membership in the 'beta club'- for students with high grades) , singing the school song, which a member of the culture studied(my grandmother) informed me that my four year old cousin's child knew this song(which rhymed community with unity in an expression of the communal ethic of the culture) by heart. The ceremony had a lot of emphasis on memorized speeches by various children, and there was much performance by the children as well- there was an interpretive dance performance, a version of lean on me(with the traditional leaning, although with telephone hand signals and hand shakes added), several other songs with church choir like movements(the school song was down with side to side swaying, and another song was done with up and down bobbing), a violin performance(my cousin played in it, and the only white person present was the woman in charge of teaching violin), a xylophone performance(for reasons unknown, my cousin also played the xylophone), and parents were presented with artificial flowers by their children.

The graduation was also traditional in other aspects. Yelling of the name of a child singled out for particular praise occurred. A traditional Christian 'preacher' did the keynote in a call and response style, mostly in standard English, with some Spanish and a bit of the dialect of the area. Boys were singled out for particular praise(oddly enough, most of the highest scoring students were boys), so were children with high reading scores. Children who had attended the school from preK to 5th were singled out for praise as well. Only a few children stood up, as an informant(my mother) said that this community was highly transient.