Errands and immigration and poverty, Oh My.

View 802 Wednesday, December 18, 2013

 

What we have now is all we will ever have.

Conservationist motto

More errands, mostly to what used to be called Mail Boxes where I have a non-USPS postal box, to send one box priority mail – it fit just fine in one of their flat rate boxes – and another that included a Disney Airplane character and an Ice Princess for two grandchildren, both absolutely impossible to fit into any normal sized box. I let UPS package and send them. Then to the vet to pick up another bottle of the prescription painkiller liquid that we give Sable. It costs more than all my medications, but it seems to keep her happy. The girls at the vet asked about her. Everyone knows Sable and she’s a wonder. “Is she eating all right?” That’s not hard to answer. Since she decided that we think she’s sick she works every possible angle to get more doggies treats. The trick is to cut back on her regular food enough that she isn’t gaining much weight. Too much weight would really strain that sore leg. But she’s doing just fine, likes to go for walks – not as long as we used to take, but then she’s 11 years old now – and likes to sit with us in the evenings, and works the system for more puppy biscuits.

And every day is a gift.

I have lived in Studio City – a sort of subdivision of Hollywood – since 1968, and I am fairly immune to being star struck, but it can happen. Today at the Mail Boxes shipping place as I approached the counter I noticed a strikingly pretty blue-eyed honey-blonde, not extravagantly dressed, hair in pony tail, no makeup, standing next to me at the counter and talking on a cell phone. Talking quietly, so as not to disturb anyone. I looked again and she sort of smiled, as some of the more self assured Hollywood people do, and went back to her conversation. The clerk took my packages to the back for boxing, and we stood there, she on her cell phone and me with nothing to do but look at her, which wasn’t hard to do.  Eventually she was done with the telephone and we were both just standing there, so I said “Are you who I think you are?”  She gave me a pleasant smile and said “Who do you think I am?”  “I think you’re Molly Quinn.”  “Yes, you’re right.” Another pleasant smile.

So I told her “I like your work,” which I have found an acceptable thing to say to every actor and writer I have ever met including me, and she thanked me, and I said something about being a writer so I knew a bit about the racket and I thought they did that very well, and she smiled and thanked me again. Altogether a pleasant experience, I hope for both of us.  It wasn’t an enormous surprise since Castle is shot here at CBS Studios, and we’ve met Nathan Fallon a couple of times walking in our neighborhood.  A few years ago I asked him about Molly Quinn, and he said she was just like the girl you see on the screen and very pleasant to work with.  Now I have the same impression.

This sort of thing happens to us around here every now and then. It’s one of the small pleasures of living in Studio City. When I moved here this was a much less posh neighborhood, mostly working middle class, with probably the largest population of working writers – mostly screen – per acre in the world.  Over time there have been more actors and producer staff and fewer writers as the neighborhood gentrified and up went the MacMansions until it begins to resemble a very crowded Beverly Hills in places, but thanks to Proposition 13 the property taxes have not risen accordingly. Houses are taxed at the most recent sales price, and since we came here in 1968 we are taxed on what I paid for a good working middle class house.  Studio City is as much like a village as you can find in most of California, and has all the benefits of a nearby big city. 

 

 

Joanne Dow sends this:

You’ve probably, or at least hopefully, seen this before

Whether or not you’ve seen this before it’s worth reviewing it.

Immigration, World Poverty and Gumballs – Updated 2010 http://youtu.be/LPjzfGChGlE

{^_^}

Actually I had not seen it before. It does help put things in perspective. The awful truth about world poverty is that if there are no rich nations, no one is going to be able to do anything about the poor. As I said a very long time ago in A Step Farther Out. In Kindle or there are still paperback editions available used. Of course I don’t get anything from sales of used books, but I do all right on Kindle books on Amazon. Either way, though, if you haven’t read that book, it’s compiled from editing some of my old Galaxy columns when I was Willy Ley’s successor as Science Editor of Galaxy, and talks about such matters as population growth and the Limits To Growth. In those days there were all sorts of people who thought that growth and development were terrible and should be halted.

The truth is that there is only one limit to population, and it isn’t war or poverty. Until the Industrial Revolution, population grew until it reached what amounted to Malthusian limits: when there were too many people to be fed regularly. About 90% of mankind lived in what we would now call wretched poverty, one suit of clothing, one meal a day, little to no medical care. The exceptions were the organized elements of society, and that organization was generally military. The Romans could afford bread and circuses because they had tax farmers in the provinces.

“And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus, that all the world should be taxed.” C. Northcote Parkinson observed that the decree seems to have been enforced ever since. Those taxes supported the Roman forces and civil service that allowed the Romans to live a little better than those in the provinces, and when that order broke down, mankind entered the Dark Ages in which even more people lived day to day and meal to meal, and population was limited by caloric intake; and that was governed in good part by one’s ability to enforce rule over the masses, either by amassing wealth or by hiring out to those who had wealth – which they kept by hiring warriors.

The Industrial Revolution changed all that, and there came a new method of limiting population: wealth. Wealthy societies have lower birth rates and grow more slowly than poor societies. Poor societies continue to breed more people as caloric intake increases.

I said most of this in A Step Farther Out, and if I were ever privileged to have a few moments with the Holy Father I would say it to him: you don’t stop famine by feeding people. It is not even true that if you teach a man to fish he will eat well for the rest of his life, for if everyone else learns that, then those who fish best eat best until all run out of fish.

You will not help the poor by eliminating wealth. Which is not to say that there should not be limits on wealth and disparity between rich and poor. But without knowing a lot about the details, I would bet that Bill and Melinda Gates have done more for the poor of this world than US foreign aid generally does. Without wealth there would be neither Bill and Melinda Gates nor US Foreign Aid or the Agency for International Development – and incidentally, although they are unlikely to acknowledge it in Saigon, the US probably did more for Viet Nam, North and South, with our AID personnel teaching agriculture than the USSR and China together.

You don’t stop famine by feeding people, and you don’t appreciably reduce world poverty by opening the rich nations to immigration; and to the extent that the failure of the melting pot destroys the economic integrity of the wealthy countries, encouraging unlimited immigration is the worst thing you can do to the wretched of the Earth. Which does not relieve you of the obligation to help your neighbors.

Merry Christmas.

I found this by accident, started looking, and was surprised to find I had looked at it all and found it worth doing. http://distractify.com/culture/arts/the-most-spectacular-abandoned-places-in-the-world/

And there is this:

 

Have you got 2 minutes? This is an amazing work. I didn’t see Christ’s birth but we know about that facet of history.

Click  on the link below and 500 images will flash before you in two minutes.

That’s a little over 4 images per second.

You will not have an opportunity to see or understand each image.

Just look and allow the images to wash over you….

It is quite an experience.

Two minute history lesson. Don’t blink!!

Click Here <http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=MrqqD_Tsy4Q>

It is worth a two minute investment.

 

Freedom is not free. Free men are not equal. Equal men are not free.