Re: [A-List] Belief System

[Leighm <the.buffalo.in.the.midst@xxxxxxxxx>]

OK, Tully, here's my story:

54 year old male, married, divorced, two step-daughters in their 20s and 
one blood daughter in her mid-30s, been a counter-culturally affiliated 
activist for most of my life since the age of 14 when I left home to 
'become a hippie' in 1968, and instead found myself a Y... Y!...  Yippie!.

I sleep in the woods or shared alternative housing. Haven't owned a car 
for ten years, using a bicycle or bus for all my transportation needs. I 
ride that bike about 15 miles a day. Rain or Shine.

After a careers as an OTR truck driver and precision machinist, chef, 
laborer, Swiss Army Knife, I find myself working at a locally owned 
coffee shop in Santa Cruz California, one of the most expensive,  
bourgeois 'progressive' places in the US and live without any government 
aid at all on $320 dollars a month.

When I do my "Global Footprint" (FWIW) I find myself 1.2:1, not quite 
the global median for lifestyle, but as close as one is liable to get 
while living in a US city.

I am my own personal "CopWatch' whenever I walk down the street. I 
supply legal advice, am a walking 'Fuck The System' 
<http://www.totse.com/en/politics/anarchism/fuckthesystem172243.html> to 
the homeless and provide some socially apt guidance to a few of the more 
socially conscious police officers (one has his Sociology masters) stuck 
in the middle of a major mess made by the city of Santa Cruz's inept (on 
purpose) social engineering policies.

I am currently engaged in a private/public property legal war with 
elements of the Santa Cruz business community and government. You cannot 
sit in the city hall plaza outside of business hours, nor in front of 
the public library. City Hall, maybe... The public library?

Next time one of the city hired security guards calls the police for 
sitting on a public property bench, the end result will be a lawsuit 
forcing the city to paint in LARGE RED LETTERS: "NO SITTING BETWEEN 
SUCH-AND-SUCH HOUR & SUCH-AND-SUCH HOUR BY ORDER OF THE CITY OF SANTA CRUZ".

The police KNOW that, and considering the city apparently has no law on 
the books in regard to it (city hall is probably a security exception 
because a number of folks over the last 20 years or so have flooded it, 
threatened to burn it, tried to burn it, graffiti-ed it), are avoiding 
the confrontation.

I engage in psychotherapy with the shattered souls of the local homeless 
and addict population whenever possible, although addicts need help from 
people who have HAD that problem.

Unlike the so-called halcyon days of the 60s, most of the street people 
here had no intention of being such.

I work with Food Not Bombs when the college students are out of town and 
they need logistical assistance. I also have a deal with my asshole 
Republican/Libertarian boss to bring the leftover pastries/bagels/etc 
downtown to feed people. 6 days a week, 365 days a year.

I'm currently acting as 'dad#2' (Her adult adolescent parents are too 
busy making the mortgage and buying toys for themselves) to a local high 
school girl who was a 15 year old speed addict, quit a couple of years 
ago, and then got pregnant at age 17 by a 20 year old alcoholic (Three 
months along and she plans to keep the child).

Is that enough?

Leigh

NÃstor Gorojovsky wrote:
> 2008/4/29, tully <tully2@xxxxxxxxx>:
>   
> > On Tuesday 29 April 2008, Bill Totten wrote:
> >     
>
>   
> >  I'd be interested in hearing what members of this group are
> >  thinking and doing to prepare themselves and their families for
> >  what is ahead.
> >
> >
> >  --tully
> >     
>
> Tully, you should read the classics.
>
> Learn from the story of Tiresias, or Cassandra.
>
>
>