Well, here in potato-land (Idaho), we good decent God-fearing, church-going, Christians (Mormons, too) go out after the mechanized potato harvesters have done their best, and GLEAN the fields. The potatoes we GLEAN go to the food bank to feed the poor. We took our kids with us so they would be exposed to stoop labor. Later, one of my daughters had a summer job as a "field research assistant" putting little bags over the flowers of canola plants, for genetic control. It was kind of the same hot outdoor field work that the Mexicans did for half as much money, and without the fancy job title. It is a very good thing for kids to have dirty, hot, exhausting jobs, as opposed to going to soccer camp. But everyone in the US wants to be in the Republican elite, where only the lower classes do anything remotely useful, and the smart people devote themselves to gaming the system. However, I pray for the day when the Chinese call their loans and honest work again becomes useful.

I see that a Japanese company is starting a chain of upscale convenience stores in the US. Management applicants are asked if they will clean the toilets. Those that refuse are dropped from consideration. I've been in management of several small hi-tech startups. We always required the executives to clean toilets and sweep the floor. The staff and technicians had better things to do with their hands, but executives can still think executive thoughts while swabbing the toilet.

I'm an old guy and it pisses me off that young women no longer see me as a threat, besides not being able to lift the heavy stuff anymore. At 72 I can still do most of the stuff I used to be able to do, but only one of them each day, except for sex which I would be hard pressed to accomplish in a week what I used to be able to do in day. My wife seems to be OK with my slowly failing faculties, but the idea of living to 90 or 100, which once appealed to me, no longer does. If life is not doing things, then what is it? But a few old grannies, who are much younger than I am, seem to like to flirt with me, so all is not lost yet. When some whippersnapper doc tells me I need some overpriced nostrum to survive I might rethink it, but so far I have been able to avoid them, except for getting my pilots medical updated.

All you ignorant liberals (who probably hate Rudyard Kipling) should read "Mandalay". You know, "where the flying fishes play". It's about a British soldier who longs to leave the filth and ignorance of London and return to a "cleaner, greener, land". It's on the web, just type in Mandalay and Kipling. While you're at it read his "Gods of the Copybook Headings".

The wealthy who support Bush are in desperate fear of the day that the income from SS taxes is less than the outgo, not when the Trust Fund runs out. Who will have to pay back the Trust Fund "bonds" as they are converted to cash. Why, the wealthy of course, who pay most of the income taxes. Remember, SS was once a pay-as-you-go scheme until Johnson, a Dem as I recall, concocted the "Trust Fund" to pay for the Vietnam war. This was a way for the average Joe to supply both the blood and the money for the war, letting the wealthy off the hook. SS should be a pay-as-you-go. Political battles over either/or raising taxes and reducing benefits are a proper thing for a Democracy. Neither party can be trusted.

Many people in this country (and the rest of the world) face risks that are not insurable. Tsunamis off the West and East Coasts, the New Madrid fault, faults in California, the Yellowstone Supervolcano, etc. I live 70 miles as the crow flies from Yellowstone, downstream from several earthfill dams, and 50 miles downwind of over 50 shutdown nuclear reactors. Who should insure me and the rest of humanity? If I cannot afford or obtain insurance I probably should not live where I do. If I choose to live here I need to assume the risk. I am in no mind to assume other peoples risk, except through the vehicle of commercially obtained insurance. Those poor folks in New Orleans must be told that they have to assume the risk of living there and buy insurance to cover that risk. If an ordinary house requires a premium of ten or twenty thousand a year for commercial insurance in NO, then poor folks (and middle class)can't live there. TFL.