who see the bleakness are making a stand now. It can be wearing, daily, to have most or the loudest members of society now making calming noises. It's very bad. And some refuse to see that or join together.

Are you now dxp? I am glad you are in better living conditions. Be well, friend.

I decided right now to not let the frigging thoughts get in the way to frigging get me down, So here we go.

I ran into that. Is that piece comedy or agony? How to get over the dark side of things a la George Catlin.
[video:https://youtu.be/FHu31WUUih0]

About those who've learned neoliberalism and who deprive their children of the benefits they received. We suffer from the blindness of those who refuse to see how much they take and only see others as "takers." Those who received college educations that were virtually free, but think current young people who want the same are spoiled brats who want "free stuff."

When I was a teenager I read Ayn Rand's "The Virtue of Selfishness." I didn't agree with it, but my mother didn't even want a book with that title in the house! Now we have a large segment of society that treats selfishness like a sacrament.

Southern California orders 82,000 people to evacuate over wildfire

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Authorities in southern California ordered the evacuation of 82,000 people on Tuesday, after a wildfire broke out in a mountain pass to rapidly engulf 15,000 acres (6,070 hectares) of terrain. ...
...
The Bluecut Fire, whose cause officials said they were still investigating, came as crews more than 600 miles (970 km) to the northwest began to make headway against a Northern California wildfire that has destroyed more than 175 homes and businesses....
...
The fire remained unchecked, having exploded within hours to cover an area of 15,000 acres (6,070 hectares), Cal Fire said, up from an estimate of 9,000 acres (3,640 hectares) on Tuesday evening....
...
Damin Pashilk, a 40-year-old arrested on suspicion of setting that blaze, and several others in the area over the past year, is set to appear in court on Wednesday. ????

There are so many fires, I get confused which one may have been the job of an arsonist. Pashilk might have caused this last one too?

Hope there are no copy-cats of that lunacy. Unbelievable. People could destroy almost all of CA that way.

that Herb Caen called "the me generation" and which some have called "generation Reagan" who bought neoliberalism, greed, selfishness, and consumption, consumption, consumption - that they were consumers always in need of the latest and best and that having such was a measure of their value, worth, merit and talent. Loosely, they came of age in the eighties and for a while thereafter. That much is history.

The question is, where the hell did they come from? Who dropped the ball and how? They weren't properly vaccinated against that pernicious ideology and world-view, and were somehow susceptible to confusing achievement with reward. I tend to suspect that advertising had a lot to do with it, and some sort of substitution of social and public approbation for an accomplishment and understanding based sense self-worth, but how did tat happen and how can we completely reverse it in a hurry? I was baffled by the phenomena as it was happening and ever since.

I know this is off topic.

I finally did hear from Paypal, and learned 2 things. You cannot edit a recurring payment you have set up.
Also learned how to cancel a recurring payment. Since I wanted to increase monthly pledge amount, the only way for me to do it was to cancel old amount. Since they said I couldn't start a cancelled profile again, once cancelled, I'll send checks or use POP.

This may help someone else struggling with Paypal, though I'm not at all sure this is best place to put the information.

A good open Thread. I've lived the same city neighborhood for 20 some years. When we moved here it was diverse and affordable it was a real people's neighborhood. Now it's an affluent yuppie professional neighborhood where renting a room in a household would cost 680$ a month. Of course there are no longer rentals on this street. Can't have the riffraff living in the hottest real estate in the city.

The strangest part of this takeover or transition is that the new affluent inhabitants seem oblivious about the economy and culture most people live in. They live in their own little arrogant world. They are successful professionals whose life style must not be interfered with. What do they think about the homeless people down on the corner or in front of the 'progressive' grocery store. They are concerned as they don't want to be accosted by poverty or shabbiness. Their world is in ship shape. They are also all Democrat's. Not liberals but neoliberals. 'Free Market' practitioner's who are winning the race to the top.

They moved out of the suburban McMansion land and are pushing the poor people right out of here, globally. They like the crooked Democratic politicians that run this city. The main compliant I hear is that the city government isn't clearing the homeless and poor out quick enough and the bike corridor has encampments of people who are disgusting and wrecking their 'green' bike commutes. These people are dirty and scary, a real eyesore.

The only enemy seems to be Republicans. Since no Republicans can get elected here how does that work? How people can reconcile their reality is simple they do not look nor do they care to know about the American reality. To them America is the greatest country on earth, they are living the dream.

During the primary a woman down the street said to me 'It's so easy for Bernie and his supporters to be dismissive of Hillary'. What did she mean? I'm not a progressive. I never liked that term as it's insulting to the progressive movement that fought and died for the worker's progress. It's a word like 'moderate' that avoids the L word, old school liberal. It's okay to talk about what's going on in the real world. We cannot worry about offending or bursting the bubble they have created and prefer to live in, with the reality of poverty. The darkness needs a light shined on it.