In my efforts to understand culpability in the world, in my personal space and others around me, I must look again at the American government. I am pleased to find other's whose concerns are shared. In the interest of learning and education, one person comes to the rescue. His name is Jess Bachman and his site WallStats.com is about visualization of numbers and information. His site is title the Art of Information. One of his visual maps was in WomansDay.com, title Evolution of Household Budgets. One of his largest endeavors is the poster titled Death and Taxes. He describes it as:
"Death and Taxes" is a large representational graph and poster of the federal budget. It contains over 500 programs and departments and almost every program that receives over 200 million dollars annually. The data is straight from the president's 2011 budget request and will be debated, amended, and approved by Congress to begin the fiscal year. All of the item circles are proportional in size to their funding levels for visual comparison and the percentage change from both 2010 and 2001 is included so you can spot trends.
While my mind has reverted back in time, I have been looking at some number issues like a third grader and yet it has real significance in our world to go back to our childhoods to understand what went wrong. As I sit thinking about poverty and the culture of poverty, I must wonder what and how our nation became the siphon of numerical boorishness. It has become a breach of law in the context and form of incomputable data.
Median personal income for the population age 25 or older.
Wikipedia Personal Income in the United States
Today, the federal poverty line is for a single person, $10,830 and while the federal minimum wage is $7.25 an hour. If a person were to work 40 hours in a 4 week month, their income would be $1160 and $13920 annually. The lowest common denominator worker would make $3090 more than the federal poverty level, which is 28% more on $7.25. While we hear about world poverty and good ole U.S.’s fight for the greater good and equalizing the world, there are many who do live on less than $2.50 a day, also Globalissues.org claims that at least 80% of humanity live on less than $10 a day. So, breaking down the poverty line in the U.S. for one person, the amount the person lives on per day after spending money on housing at the cost of $500 a month ($6000 a year), afterwards the person has $13.76 to buy food and clothing and whatever excess they can afford. On minimum wage that daily spending allowance with the same amount in rent becomes $22 a day. Keep in mind that the only paid expense in this calculation is for a roof over one’s head and not the energy that is needed to run the unit or buy other necessities for it. In America, that would certainly require some extreme due diligence and self control to live in such a confined economic compass. Some of these minimum wage workers are often living with others, in shared housing and joint household financial responsibilities but for true self sufficiency and sustainability, the minimum wage worker has just very little above the National poverty line. Forget a car or internet or television or whatever luxury they desire. Yet, American culture inbreeds our desires and need for consumerism and excessive displays of vanity. The lines of ethics and moral coding are blurred into oblivion. Are we not then living in moral poverty, although the world suffers in smaller numbers. Is the quest of the American dream to live in freedom or free to earn a living wage with allowances. In my opinion the American institution is to preserve truth and justice. It makes me ponder how much truth and justice have we lost as the world's economy has stabilized but our is ripping at the seems. This data only applies to one person and forget trying to raise a child or more on that income. It is tiring to hear about other nations ailments when the United States is collapsing from dire need of healthy attributes?
According to Monster.com, EMT’s, pharmacy techs, auto mechanics, preschool teachers, CNA’s, line cooks and other various jobs earn slightly above the newly federal minimum wage. Retail is notorious for hiring at minimum wage. As it is there are supposedly over 9 million people who make minimum wage in this country, however I suspect the numbers as much larger. One thing pundits are spinning concerning how raising the federal minimum wage willmake American companies leave the United States and outsource jobs to foreign workers, is a cheap shot at controlling the market. According to CIO.com, in 2005, they predicted 8 million outsourced jobs. Jobs that has become global has had its reward’s as the global market has widened and the economy can be more balanced but is it truly American greed sitting like a bull in the way to progress? While outsourced jobs are training other able body humans to work at a lesser amount, the American ingenuity and ethical deployment of sustainability has also left the Nation. Those who are educated can't seem to find work in their fields, as positions have halted in the industrial complex. There is no security in any job market other than banking and because their exorbitant incomes, they can take the pressure and hits to their wallets. Average citizens are losing homes, loans, credit and practicality.
Immigration has filled the void in some respect but the decline in the types of employment from the 1950’s to now have diminished as well. The majority of the U.S. workforce was blue collar industrial and agricultural jobs with average family median income of $23,000. A house at during those times cost $8,500 and by the close of the decade was $12,500, according to ThePeopleHistory.com. A house today averages close to $200,000 and in California that cost increases by 3 folds. Is that not a 425% increase since 1950? Inflation over the last 50 years of $8,500 on the Westegg.com inflation calculator would be $60,741, which is $139,259 difference and a 436% increase in pure profit. What does that matter to a person making minimum wage? It would take that person 70 years to earn $200,000 without any expenses. This is just a perspective of a citizen who had relatively little or no knowledge of numbers and or resources from others, i.e. family, extended family, working on building a family and trying to apply a sense of security in today’s world. Money doesn’t buy happiness but it does buy and build security. Is this another flaw in our human precept of survival?
Not even a week after discussing the closure of Limewire, another article arises about government control of the internet. Here's a great article from NaturalNews.com about how the DHS (Department of Homeland Security) is seizing websites, some unwarranted for copyright infringements. Does it seem odd that Homeland Security is concerned about copyright laws? Is this the response to eventually controlling Wikileaks? Sure they are closing down the pornography sites little by little and such but come on doesn't big government have larger concerns at this point.
Is this truly where are resources and funds are being centralized for? The picture left is from TruthAlliance.net concerning Congress's lame-duck session, where Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) introduced the bill for Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act (COICA). Critics state the bill is too broad in giving government control to block access to any Web domain that hosts copyrighted material without permission. Opponents of this bill express concerns of global internet freedom and first amendment right to free speech. The Electronic Frontier Foundation has compiled a list of possible sites targeted for closure.
The United States Constitution was created for the people, by the people and of the people to safeguard totalitarian waste of resources, and as world leader's, the U.S. has been setting some poor examples.
We are on the outer edge of the future with the aid of technology. The visual world has shifted beyond any scope prior to any generation. The Cannes Lions, trade show for the advertising industry exhibited the LA agency's Schematic, which a multi-touch, mult-user interface screen that recognized identification users using RFID badges.
According to Serge Jesper's site, Webkitchen:
"The massive display gives attendees instant access to the complete festival program, 3D maps of the event and surrounding area, and information on local restaurants and bars. The Touchwall also helps delegates schedule meetings with each other and trade contact information via email. The presentation layer is built with the Flex 4 framework and runs on Flash Player 10."
The concept, hopefully will bring people closer via proximity and in conjunctive collaboration by just standing next to each other and interacting in front of the giant screen. While Hollywood has used the concept in movies like Minority Report and television shows, like CSI Miami and NCIS Los Angeles has duplicated the crafted technology for real time usage in information retrieval. The future is here rather than at the cusp of civilization.
The orgasmic climatic end is here. I admit, I did it and without regret. The world wide web assisted my compulsion to possess music without payment. On occasion, downloads were interrupted with viral ads but I had an ad hoc agenda. The internet changed the way we live in more ways than one, in fact more than 2 million reasons as Google searches has per day. While my current life balances between lawful and unlawful behavior as I monitor our own government's purpose in enforcement with proclivity for due diligence to honor and respect principles for the welfare of society, I find downloads through Limewire relatively indulgent but a form of resistance from corporate entities intruding on our rights to freedom. The technology exists and now existed for masses to find the soul within with the aid of music.
The exodus occurred within a decade as support networks, like Limewire allowed substance for our mass consumption for it's value was a rarity in the free gratuity of the internet. The release of sound confined by corporate and industry magnets, who priced a song, artist, venue and image for each nickel and dime had cease shortly to exist. Although, the world wide web, alias for the Wild Wild West had allowed our freedom to reign as music reached avenues beyond mass media but into the very frame of a computer monitor at home. The shift in thought occurred with the multitude of expressive generosities found in music.
The relative new commodity of music is truly only 50 to 60 years ripe, with the sounds of television jingles mingling in our minds reminding us of products to buy. There were no commercial jingles of what to buy or what to follow with Limewire, all we had to do was "squeeze the limes." We had freedom to explore every memory, every notion and every curiosity with the help of programs like it. What is that saying that when life hand you lemons, make lemonade? Well, when life hands you limes and then takes them away, there's only a sour taste left. The fear is that the internet will replicate the greed with restrictions in all aspects. "He who controls the past controls the future, and he who controls the future controls the past." - George Orwell's 1984
Music is a conduit for us all to go into the past and future and now it has been placed with a price tag. So with the end of Limewire, I bid adeiu and it's bittersweet as a believer in music's ability to heal, I see many of us are going to need more band-aids in the times to come.
The removal of Limewire is the equivalent of George Orwell's 1984, Chapter 3
and if we must live in silent times, we must read once more
"We shall abolish the orgasm. Our neurologists are at work upon it now. There will be no loyalty, except loyalty towards the Party. There will be no love, except the love of Big Brother. There will be no laughter, except the laugh of triumph over a defeated enemy. There will be no art, no literature, no science. When we are omnipotent there will be no need of science. There will be no distinction between beauty and ugliness. There will be no curiosity, no enjoyment of the process of life. All competing pleasures will be destroyed. But always—do not forget this Winston—always there will be the intoxication of power, constantly increasing and constantly growing subtler. Always, at every moment, there will be the thrill of victory, the sensation of trampling on an enemy who is helpless. If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face—forever." - 1984
Sound Off
A rolling stone fell on a babylon system as the riders of the storm discovered that the sound remains the same as we were 2,000 light years away, an american idiot gives an american eulogy for a green day when we all said, give peace a chance because there ain't no mountain high enough, but we returned to be a smooth criminal, as you are not alone to scream mercy, mercy me. The material girl was hungry like the wolf cause I got a feeling I can't be tamed because I walk the line back to my roots. Today it's just a bad romance because we can't be friends, you ridin solo and I love the way you lie but I'm not afraid and I'm right above it, living a teenage dream. So go ahead, be cooler than me and know I love you just the way you are.
The most amazing things can occur in today's day and age with the onset of technology. From public access, the creative engines fuels the need to create, ruminate or investigate wonders of the world, the ideas keep building small communities that never existed prior to the internet or world wide web. It goes beyond the imagination although many minds are finding time, energy and happiness in the pursuit. One very prime example is drawball.com and two.drawball.com.
Drawball.com is an unique site not acknowledge on Wikipedia, although masses group together to be joint collaborators for visual art in the form of web graffiti. It is often a competition or global challenge and victors show evidence of their abilities to unite as well as create. The beauty and subversiveness of the site is that is relatively anonymous, much like real tagging or graffiti. The everchanging Macroflash project is phenomenal.
One blogger, Crissxcross who's used the program for her artistic venture has a more concise outlook on the purpose, methods and history of the site.
Essentially its for the artistic internet geek that looks to flex some muscles and often does so in elegance. It seems as the second drawball is able to protect some notable pieces of work more than the first one. The concept is fantastic and the obscurity of the program and everything about it is one the last frontiers in creative expression. As for capitalists gain, Drawball is removed from such monetary domination as it's unknown qualities attracts the clever and gifted to a virtual pen and round space.
"We shall abolish the orgasm. Our neurologists are at work upon it now. There will be no loyalty, except loyalty towards the Party. There will be no love, except the love of Big Brother. There will be no laughter, except the laugh of triumph over a defeated enemy. There will be no art, no literature, no science. When we are omnipotent there will be no need of science. There will be no distinction between beauty and ugliness. There will be no curiosity, no enjoyment of the process of life. All competing pleasures will be destroyed. But always—do not forget this Winston—always there will be the intoxication of power, constantly increasing and constantly growing subtler. Always, at every moment, there will be the thrill of victory, the sensation of trampling on an enemy who is helpless. If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face—forever." - 1984
One blogger, Crissxcross who's used the program for her artistic venture has a more concise outlook on the purpose, methods and history of the site. 
