Addressing my livelihood issues 10-26-09

So, what are my options for addressing my livelihood issues ?
Is it even an option to reduce my expenses by ending my internet service at home, using only my Blackberry-based internet service and internet service at FP media center (saving 55 per month) while also canceling the basic health insurance policy I have (55 per month). That’s all I can think of in terms of reducing my spending.

I can’t sell my care because the money I would get from it is much less than the amount I owe the bank, and if I did a voluntary repossession, it would still count against my credit rating. That would affect my ability to rent an apartment and perhaps to do other things.
If I did not have a car, I would not spend as much on insurance, but I would still be paying money on a car I no longer have for about 2 more years, all the while damaging my credit rating.

Also, though I try to minimize my driving, having a car may have value in terms of making at least some money by working as a reporter.

Further still, I want to have at least some amount of money on credit if not saved up in my bank account so as to, for example, take care of a tooth that goes back and so as to otherwise take care of my health.

Selling my computer and selling my video camera would only result in a temporary delay of my financial problems.

So as I click these keys, it seems that one of the things that I must do is work as a sub teacher. If I don’t produce the results I want from doing that, my guess is that I likely will invest my time, energy, and intellect into making more money per time spend working as a server, and otherwise spend time addressing my livelihood issues.

But is there a way to address my livelihood issues by working as a reporter ? How about working for Suburban News or other publications, making $30-50 per article ? Sure, I should check into that, but in the mean time, I intend to also work as a sub teacher, because subbing involves scheduling flexibility,

Pedal Instead at the 2009 Columbus Community Festival (COMFEST)

Environmentalism as a religion

Michael Crichton and other critics of environmentalism have said its a
substitute for religion for liberal typically non-religious people. He
may have right in the sense that, speaking for myself, as I think
about the possibility of the extinction of humankind, and about the
wonders of all that exists or may exist, I get a sense of awe that
seems to involve something similar to spirituality if not religion in
the sense of supplication to a deity and a belief in an afterlife or
other sorts of duality– also environmentalism involves rigorously
thinking not only about how my daily behavior may affect other
sentient beings, but it also involves me thinking about people yet to
exist.

Cycling as a meditation

The wheels are two wells. I draw joy from them when they spin.I am not
only glad to be alive, but also glad to have lived. Cycling is a
meditation that is like prayer in that though I may not be able to
change some parts of my circumstances, I can change my attitude toward
that which I seem unable to change.

Hello,

This seems to be heading in the direction of a legal matter. Sure, this involves a very small amount of money. But it’s a matter of principle. As an investigative journalist, I am starting to wonder about how many people there may be out there who are experiencing this sort of hassle, which very likely is illegal.

So…if I bought the Standard version of Pamela, why has the system rejected the license code repeatedly when I have tried to use it for the Standard version ?

After repeatedly getting the code rejected regarding the Standard version, I used the license key to try to install the other versions of Pamela. The code did not work with any of the versions–Standard, Professional, or Business.

But, surprise surprise! What the system did end up doing was accept the license key as a coupon, giving me a discount for the Professional version of Pamela.

This will not do; when I had Pamela on my old computer, the version I was using involved no limitation on the duration of the calls to be recorded. That’s what I paid for. But now, low and behold, the Pamela system recognizes the key I bought not as a code to re-install my service but as a coupon, (Gee thanks!) that I may use to spend additional money on the Pamela service, (which, by the way, is described on the Pamela website as requiring a one-time charge.)

Perhaps changes have been made to Pamela such that the Standard version no longer has unlimited duration for call recording. But that shouldn’t matter; the terms of service which applied when I purchased the license key should, by law, apply to my current service, regardless of whether changes have been made to the Pamela service after I made my purchase.

Also, it’s a mystery as to why the automated system accepted my license code as a coupon, but not as an activation code for the standard version or any version of Pamela for that matter.

So, what do I want ? I would like to have what I paid for when I bought my license key : unlimited call recording. I don’t want my license key used as a coupon for a discount. I want the resumption of the service I have already paid for, according to the terms that existed when I made the purchase.

Sincerely,
Tom Over

I may buy and wear a mask to filter out auto exhaust

Likely, many of us have noticed the bluish mist that automobile headlights illuminate. How about the soot that heavily speckles piles of snow along roads during the winter or cakes on our derailleur gears ?

Keeping my bicycle cleaner would prevent me from continuing to ‘customize’ my pants and the bright yellow cycling jacket I bought recently.

But what can we do about the particles in automobile exhaust that settle in various parts of our respiratory tracts? Has anyone who frequently is a non-motorized user of our roads thought of or actually tried using a gas mask ?

The best website I have found so far on gas masks for bicyclist is at http://totobobo.com/blog/cyclist/.

Maybe I am just reading into things—you tell me– but after bicycling vigorously in moderate to heavy traffic, I tend to get a tight and heavy sensation in my chest and upper back which I associate with some sort of cardiovascular distress (in addition to sometimes getting a raw, tickled feeling in my throat).

I read somewhere that the benzene in automobile exhaust not only is linked to an increased risk for some types of cancer, but it is also a chemical that may somehow disrupt a person’s cardiovascular system.

Some say that traveling in an automobile involves breathing as much, if not more fumes, the key difference being that a person is breathing more deeply while bicycling.

Whatever the case may be, my attempts to use my bicycle as a viable means of transportation (and not just as a work-out tool on the multi-use trails when the weather is nice), has led me to think seriously about wearing a gas mask for at least some parts of my two-wheeled trips.

Being stuck in my car in traffic can be frustrating, but I don’t get the urge to gag.

bicycling as a psychological tonic

In terms of the idea that cycling is a meditation,it seems that
somehow if I drive my car when I could be cycling, I tend toward less
fulfilling actions in terms of my decision making process.

Perspective on G-20 protests in Pittsburgh

To Mike Ferner, author of Inside the Red Zone,

By the way, I viewed the Mark Crispen Miller video. http://markcrispinmiller.com/2009/09/robocops-in-pittsburgh/ With all due respect, it seemed odd that the person with the bull-horn would actually expect the working-class/middle class cops to risk their livelihoods by not following orders from the chief of police.

Also, comparing the cops’ unwillingness to deviate from those orders with people’s unwillingness to deviate from the muderous orders of the Hitler regime was a bit of an exaggeration.

If I may say, the cops, per se, are not the problem. Our problems have to do with the many ways in which too much power is in the hands of too few people, whether in terms of our media consolidation, our industrial food system, our concentrated banking system, the concept of ‘corporate personhood’, and so on and so on.

Our problems are systemic and changes to our political and economic systems are required. Focusing on the cat-and-mouse game in Pittsburgh between cops and people in the streets (at least some of whom weren’t even out there to protest any particular issue such as some of the U of Penn students), is a distraction, as far as I am concerned.

I better stop here, because I don’t think you’ve expressed any interest in interviewing me.

Thanks,
Tom Over 614 202 0178

Multi-media reporting

I guess the good news for WCRS is that there really are a lot of things that other outlets are not reporting on and a lot of people out there care about those things.

Yesterday, a coworker said she liked one of my videos on my blog. It reminded me that maybe we should do a multi-media approach of (1) shooting video, (2) posting the videos to WCRS site and my blog, and (3) pulling audio from them for WCRS Conscious Voices content, and (4) generating print materials from this process.

What’s holding me up from doing that right now is the malfunctioning of my laptop. I expect to have a laptop I am buying from my nephew in a couple of weeks. It’s low-powered like my current laptop, but it might work for the time being. Also, I may be able to use my warranty for my current laptop to either get this one fixed or get a new one.

So, all of this shouldn’t really be that difficult. I think a multi-media approach is good in the sense of using whatever medium we have available to create communication between two or more people who would likely not communicate with each other on a particular issue had it not been for our reporting.

But regarding my own personal experience, I need to involve more actual writing so as to think more sharply as I go about reporting. Speaking for myself, there can be a sort of intellectual passivity and lack of intellectual vigor if all I do is hold a camera or hold an audio recorder and listen and talk. Reporting has to involve synthesis, and that requires writing, as far as I am concerned.

Thanks ,
Tom

Why I am not (yet) ready to sell my car

Today is Oct 1, 2009, a Thursday. The last time I drove my car was Monday Sept 21, more than a week ago. As I go about minimizing my driving, I often think about selling my car, a 2005 Kia Rio with about 51,000 miles on it.

Sometimes, I want to sell it in order to spend less money on auto insurance, and so as to perhaps have (as the ‘theory’ goes at least) more motivation for not driving. But I owe more money to the bank servicing the loan than the car is worth. There is about a $2,000 difference.

So, if I sold the car back I would still have to make payments on it, even though I no longer had it. Also, that sort of transction would look like, on paper, a repossession, and would likely adversely affect my credit rating.

I have additional reasons for keeping my car, at least for the time being. Having the car may be useful for supplementing my waiter income with money earned from sub teaching assignments. The beauty of subbing is that there is no set schedule. It’s sort of a freelance approach.

Also, in the event someone or some group of persons robs or steals my bike or if something happens that otherwise prevents me from bike commuting, I have my car to fall back on.