Tower Heist or Why DO we really trust private enterprise ?

Okay, it is Saturday Night  and I have had the best night ever eating popcorn and drinking white wine for dinner. If you were not aware of the correct pairings, white wine is always paired with popcorn and a viogner is a good choice. To top it off, I checked out a movie from the library, Tower Heist.

Tower Heist is a action comedy with Mathew Broderick and Eddie Murphy (also Ben Stiller, etc.) Really Ferris Bueller meets Eddie Murphy, how can that miss!?! Oddly, it meshed completely with a bunch of thoughts that have filled my mind recently. Let me explain.

This is a story about the big business of banking and investment fraud practiced against Americans at every level- big time stock investment, retirement plans and mid-level dreamers. Of course, in the movie the "real Americans" have their revenge through equal parts trickery and hilarity. (Full disclosure- I also watch
  2 Broke Girls!)

We all know the stories of investment fraud, fraudulent military contracts, etc. etc. etc. Knowing this and being lately apprised of the statistics that the 85 richest families in the world own something like 45% of the global assets, it confuses me that the liberal American politico would rather have his/her individual personal information held by private industry than by the United States government.

Don't get me wrong. I am not in favor of gross national surveillance without reason or recourse but like the problems of right to life, technology is ahead of our morality. Who ever you are,  unless you live in an Airstream, on federal forest land, in northern Idaho and survive on deer meat marinated in huckleberries, someone holds all of your personal information. Many someones! If you are going to earn a living, communicate with friends and family, own real estate and occasionally buy material goods, then get use to the idea that you have no privacy.

You have already given your most valuable identity to industries that have proven to be thieves of the highest, most morally bankrupt order. Not only will they steal from you because they judge value by their ability to take from you, they will use your money to corrupt the very political system you feel should not have the right to your person statistics.

I don't know where the answers lay but I can not believe that private industry is the best short term or long term answer. The government can be held to transparency and accountability standards, eventually. Private industry, never! Is there something better about your private information- calls, buying patterns, facebook messaging-  being sold for a profit than having it held by the government? I don't want the government knowing my business but I really don't want Amazon mailing me items I haven't yet ordered, either. I can't really say one is worse than the other.

The future is always unfolding. Problems get resolved and solved in ways we don't anticipate. I, therefore, am not laying awake worrying about this issue. I just want personal-rights activists to consider the question: Is private industry more morally accountable that the United States government? and why?

With that, you have the meanduring mind of
Mama Llama with love

Silence is Golden

Whew! It has been a year of changes and challenges. Much of that time I have felt the need to keep my own council though if someone acting as their own lawyer has a fool for a client, someone listening to their own advise is in even more trouble.

With the advent of 2014, I am resolved to share the pearls I learn through out the days of the year. Already I have learned too much to share tonight but I will start with a day soon after New Year's Day, volunteering at SAM.

Schools were still on break so I was surprised we had a school tour but it turned out to be two groups of teens from the downtown YWCA program. The girls viewed the exhibit from Ancient Peru then explored drawing a chosen Seattle hallmark site as it might appear one century from today. It was fun to hear and share their ideas. Several of the girls were from Evergreen Campus High School in the Burien/White Center area. I was intrigued by what they told me about their school It actually has 3 schools: Arts/ Literature, Science/Technology and Health Sciences. I have tried to investigate more about the school and have succeeded in finding out about several interesting programs in the Highline School District but very little about the Evergreen program which I suspect now has a new name in their hierarchy.

While clicking around ( I love that you can look into all kinds of ideas with this crazy new-fangle internet) I discovered a further step in White Center's challenge to offer their community a future: The White Center Promise at http://whitecenterpromise.org/ .The girls at the museum talked about their school as being connected to elementary and middle school programs in the neighborhood and I notice they are trying very hard to develop a whole-community learning approach. White Center is a multicultural area with the challenges of new immigrants from diverse backgrounds. They are impressively taking on the challenge and showing a great road to the future that we might all want to consider. They also have a darn good Thai Restaurant, as Colin, Susan, David and I discovered on the way to the airport after the holidays.

David and Duffy
Road Crew on Tulin Rd.

If you are not from Seattle, look around your old town to challenge your old prejudices and find some new ideas growing. If you are from Seattle, look around this wet and gray town for the interesting new ideas that are trying to move us into the future and share them with others.

Learning something all the time,
Mama Llama