being gay in 1950 and liking washing machines...

[washertalk]

I agree

But perhaps, we are TOO comfortable.
"if you keep the doggee fed, it will behave"

I think it is great, really great that the Real Estate Market is tanking(and I used to be in Real Estate). Today it has been announced that the real estate sales pace for last month was the slowest in 35 years. wow
Cool.
Jobs have been deported.
Even the Middle(of what there is left) and Middle-upper class is angry at deminished prospects for the future. he-he.
Global warming, repubs failing to acknowledge immigrants as the new residents they are and in turn trying to demonize them, the largest percentage of people in prison, massive cuts in social programs, declining college enrollments, repubs cheating small businesses out of funding(or diverting funds to large corps.), our MASSIVE trillion dollar trade deficit, and our countries declining status in the world, .... I can go on and on and on at the failures of our society.

Don't get me wrong, I don't enjoy seeing our society in decline.
But I thoroughly enjoy seeing it all happen on republicans watch (house, senate, oval office,) and seeing them try to off load blame on anyone else using biased fox news type propaganda. he-he
I honestly believe Democratic leaders have let repubs take full control so we as a society could see them fail. awesome.

It has been said that sometimes to get REAL change in a society we need to have things go terribly wrong. Even if the coming election is fixed, repubs are going to pay because there is so much suspicion and hate. haha.
I'm voting, that is for sure.

In a way, the 1950s were kind of neat.
Wow, Sex without hiv threat. but this was before Studio 54? hmm.. still I have to admit, that is an "exciting" thought.
probly less air pollution, depended on where you lived, though some of those cars put out like 8 times the amount of carbon dioxide a grand marquis does today. no seat belts, airbags, catalic converters. and there was no EPA so smoke stack pollution must have been aweful. The Love canal in NY was just being built. OMG
generally fewer people. soso. again depending on where you lived.
The SanFernando Valley was near it's peak of desirability. Well I'd give it until the mid 60s.
Detroit peaked. so. blah, blah, It was more interesting in the fall. he-he.
Food was probably better, well at least had fewer hormones etc. but god, not very balanced. Did people even know what a mango was, or a salad?
Of course our legal system was a big NO. back then, discrimination, voting rights, employer rights, so on and so on.
Technology, sorry, where would we be without the Internet.
Mental health and health care ? Not so much.

So I can see that, yeh, there was some neat stuff.

I think it was probly desirable for some because It was the start of a large run up of a lifestyle that is now past it's prime in America. And the beginning always seems to be the best. The 50s started a lifestyle that was mainly refined over the next 40-50 years.
I kind of feel the same way about the late 70s, early 80s.
It was a fun time and introduced a lifestyle that is just starting to take off. Remember how solar and alternative energies were in their infancy then. now they are the next big thing, by necessity.
I've said before- the music, the movies, decor, clothing styles, appliance and car styles, etc. so progressive.
I remember my first computer in 1982, a Timex (like the watch) lol. I actually had 2 of them until they stopped making them. lol. that was great. ..
and, and....

omg , how much I typed. Well thanks for the infor. helpful

 

[tomturbomatic]

Don't take a gun to a beaver. They are incredible animals. Before the hunters and trappers from Europe started killing them wholesale, they were active during the day. They became nocturnal to avoid the men. If you have ever seen a young beaver reach its tiny forepaws up to you when it wants to be picked up and cuddled or helped and you hear the little noise they make when they are begging to be picked up, you won't want to shoot one. For their size they are incredibly heavy, like a leather sack of buckshot. They won't "go" except in water, so the novice fixes a nice tub of water, introduces the beaver and the first thing it does necessitates draining the tub and you cannot drain the tub with the kit in it because they don't want the water to run out. The Native Americans would present a beaver kit to a woman who had lost a baby so that she would have someone to love and nurture. They pick up on human ways so fast it is almost scary. A woman whose name escapes me has written several books about living with beavers. She had two living in her house with her. They noticed that she sat at the table to eat, so each of them pushed a chair up to the table and climbed into the chair and remained upright while they ate the food she brought to them. The female beaver fell onto the floor the first time she tried to climb into the chair so every time after that, after she pushed the chair to the table, she collected pillows and cushions from furniture in the living room and placed them on the floor around her chair so that if she fell, she would land on something soft. That little beaver I got to hold was found by a couple of men by the side of the road in a bad storm. It was alone and needed help because beavers are not solitary animals. Anyway, it raised its little arms to be lifted up and rode back home with the guys who called the wildlife rescue people. They brought the beaver to the home of a couple who were customers of John and Jeff. I had been telling John about these books I had been reading so when he had to make a service call, he asked if I would like to come along. Both the husband and wife had major health and mobility problems, but they did everything they could for the little ones entrusted to their care. I walked into that house, a perfect stranger, and over to the little plastic crib on a cart like they bring babies out of the hospital nursery when it is visiting time. I looked at the little beaver who stood up, lifted his paws and asked to be picked up. Well, you learn to be a bit cautious around wild animals, but the man there said it was OK, that he wanted to be picked up. While I was getting used to holding so small and heavy an animal, he brought a bottle and I fed the little guy. He was probably in the process of being weaned because about half the milk was swallowed and the other half dripped onto the towel. That was one of the best experiences I have ever had. Not too long after that, I asked John about the couple and learned that both the husband and wife had died, but I am sure that the animal spirits knew about them and their work and surrounded them at the gates to vouch for how kind and loving they were to little, helpless, often sick or injured and always traumatized and frightened creatures who were brought to them and nursed to the stage where they could be returned to the outdoors.

 

[dalangdon]

One thing that should be said about the 50's-70's was that it was the peak of union membership in the United States, which led to a higher standard of living than had been previously known in this country. Companies paid a decent wage because of collective bargaining, or because they were afraid of collective bargaining - either way, it was good for the people who work for a living. College tuition was still affordable - in California it was practially free - and the society was upwardly mobile. Credit was much rarer, and housing more affordable.

We still made things in this country, which meant more good paying jobs of for people of every skillset, and US corporations were still beholden to US tax laws. A more even distribution of wealth made for a more equitable nation.

So it wasn't all that bad after all, at least in that respect ;-)

 

[mixfinder]

I Give

Dear Steve,
I think we get each other. Thank you for being my age and my approach.
Please send me the shotgun. I'll just shoot myself and make room for someone elighted and worthy of this thread.
Kelly

Dear Dan,
Thank you for so perfectly illustrating the source of my social weariness.
Kelly

 

[gyrafoam]

Now Kelly-------

One should never think about shooting one's self when you can always shoot something else!

You like to speak your mind just like I do.
That is the beauty of America.
Thanks to the current administration, we no longer have the freedoms the "founding fathers" originally intended, but we sure do have a great forum here!

Hope you are doing well and are comfortable in your new home.

Best wishes!

 

[mixfinder]

Good Old Boys

Mercy, Steve! I think we have a club of two!
Kelly

 

[oldwasherguy]

Bush bashers

You may put George Bush down but at least hes got the balls to do something about those evil terrorists that hit us on 9-11. What did Clinton do? Oh thats right he was with Monica!He He. Don

 

[partscounterman]

No need to take sides...

because Republican or Democrat, they are ALL crooks!

Don't sit and wax poetic about how great it was with Clinton in office-he caved in like wet cardboard on the gays in the military thing.

Why bother voting when those Diebold crooks are gonna change your vote with a click of the mouse?

Disenfranchised? Yeah, that's me! It's all enough to make you move to a small island in the middle of the pacific. (Oh, that right. I already did that.) Local politics in this banana republic; oops I mean Maui County is all the drama I can handle!

 

[oxydolfan1]

What did Bush do about 9/11?

He invaded an unarmed sovereign nation that had nothing to do with 9/11, and killed almost 3,000 of our troops and 655,000 Iraqis. Yeah, that was effective.

He CREATED more terrorists. He took a nation that was led by an admittedly brutal, but secular, anti-fundamentalist leader, and replaced it with a puppet regime....that just happen to be the same sort of fundamentalist mullahs that espouse the "terrorists'" cause.

Now Israel has hundreds of thousands of angry, disaffected Iraqis in countries directly adjacent to its borders. I'm sure the citizenry must be very grateful for this!

I don't see any "Islamofascists" running around my streets-and I live in the biggest city in the world. Funny, but I think we trashed Clinton's BUDGET SURPLUS to give Bush's cronies a big bump up in society, prestige, and power...and for what?

Imaginary terrorists?

Who WAS behind 9/11 anyway?

Sixteen losers with boxcutters who couldn't piss into a toilet straight hit two buildings with big planes at the first shot?

And where was that wreckage at Shanksville? I'm not saying I know....I'd just like to see some wreckage.

The patience of real Americans is wearing thin.

I can't speak for Bush's lackeys and loyalists.

 

[washertalk]

Those who pump their ego over Monica and President Clinton?

Is that the best that repubs can do? Clinton could have had sex with anyone he wanted for all I care. I would have had sex with him if he wanted as long as he did as good a job as he did. He did an excellent job. I have yet to hear any material reasons why people would dislike him.
Anyone?

President Clinton has really been making the rounds recently, people do love him.

Compare this to the NUMEROUS impeachable offenses that jr and company has committed.

The validity of 9/11 is highly questionable, to say the least. It was certainly preventable. The military intelligences was there but as the record shows, the administration chose NOT to act on the info. ? And did you know that Building Seven Collapse contained alot of the files of information about the Enron scandal and Silverado and other cases involving jr. Larry Silverstein who had recently purchased the lease on the World Trade Center received a substantial insurance payout for their collapse. hmm?

The only followers repubs have, beside the obvious upper 1% who have received Billions of dollars in one way or another as a result of policies in the last 6 years,
are the true fools- white men who feel disenfranchised and some how relate with jr.s apparent 'underachiever' loser status. Those whos ego has not evolved to reality and perhaps is still back,... what in the 1940s. Concepts like, Women are equal, White people are not supreme, Gay people are equal and non-threatening are difficult for people like this to accept. In that light, it is good to have jr. screwing up the way it has. Hopefully a lesson is being learned by the outdated.

I look at gb jr. as a TOTAL embarassment for our country. As a 39yo. white AMerican, who has lived my whole life in the U.S. I would NEVER identify with trash like that.

As I have said before I have the backbone to be Progressive and Proud of it. I expect better. Much Better.

 

[oxydolfan1]

A lot of it is borne out of self-hate, internalized homophobia, and an absolute hate of anything that sounds like it might be intellectual, well-informed, or snobbish.

As a result, the authoritarian, fascist pigs that run our government are married to the mob.

They are not "conservatives". Conservatism as a political philosophy is dead, just as dead as communism.

This is corporatism. This is what happens when the interests of the corporations are merged with the interests of the government, against the people.

ONE liberal radio network starts up two years ago, and these fascists had to infiltrate it, bankrupt it, and stifle it.

If you want to be vastly entertained, check out the latest figures on what corporate CEO's earn, versus we good old-fashioned grunts did recently. Then compare them from 2001. Then go back to 1996. Then 1991. Then 1986. And 1981.

Do not believe fools who speak of the "strong economy". It is strong-for a very select few, at the top of the economic ladder. Do not pay attention to the stock market closing-all this is simply an indicator of the efficiency of the American worker! What has this to do with anything you didn't know? Did you sit at your desk all day, staring at the ceiling doing nothing?

No-you sat at your desk, WORKING, while you worried about your rent going up, your property values coming down, the paper money in your pocket soon to become worthless, direct highways from Mexico to Canada that you can't even USE being built with your tax money, your nieces and nephews in classrooms crammed in with 45 other kids.

Oh, but the neocons love the fetus, all right.

But they sure do hate the kids that come afterwards.

You watched your expensive fresh spinach and Foxy lettuce thrown straight into the trashcan because you can't even trust what's left of the agriculture authorities and USDA to do their jobs.

You wondered, what good is this FABULOUS puny income-tax cut, when they RAISE my property taxes two- and three-fold?

You may have even asked yourself, if they have the technology to eliminate my elderly mother's Alzheimer's disease and suffering, and refuse to use it, what makes me think they would have bothered to find a cure for HIV/AIDS that might have saved my partner's life when they said they DIDN'T have the technology or ability?

If you work hard, play by the "rules", do right by you and your own, and you look around, and somebody's telling YOU you and not the geniuses that are "running" things need to take responsibility, did it ever once occur to you that YOU'RE the one who's playing the fool, not even them?

Get a grip, folks. Wake up and smell the coffee.

We can do a LOT better than this.

 

[oldwasherguy]

oxydolfan1, AN UNARMED NATION, HAVE YOU LOST YOUR DAM MIND. SADDAM GASED THOUSANDS OF HIS OWN PEOPLE. when the towers was bombed the first time on Clintons watch, what did he do about it? No balls!

 

[oxydolfan1]

Then why did your president say, to the world,

"We have no evidence that Saddam Hussein had anything to do with the 9/11 attacks?"

Why did your president pull out of Afghanistan, where Osama bin Laden REALLY was, before the job was done, and send the troops to Iraq?

And why did your president, when questioned about bin Laden's whereabouts, say,

"I, uh, I don't, uh, you know, I don't really spend much time thinking about Osama bin Laden....."

Why did the Republican war machine then build UP Saddam, when they were well aware of what he was doing, so they play him against Iran?

< crickets >

 

[oxydolfan1]

Were there weapons of mass destruction?

Please google "Scott Ritter"...

 

[oxydolfan1]

Incidentally, were not the terrorists from the first WTC attack apprehended and successfully tried, as a result of the Clinton approach toward dealing with terrorism....as a law enforcement and not a military matter?

Perhaps the evilian who preferred to read "My Pet Goat" to children rather than tend to business didn't believe in micromanaging things?

Perhaps our Strategic Air Command loves dealing with stand-down orders while planes are making U-turns in the sky?

 

[oldwasherguy]

Maybe FDR should have let the police handle the japs after dec.7 1941. Man you are dumb as a stump and twice as wormy. Don.

 

[washertalk]

Oh Don.

If there is a God, I'm sure he holds a special place for you as well.
I will pray for you. I'm sure you mean well.

 

[toggleswitch]

Children, Play Nice!

*Free SPANKINGS*

 

[mrsalvo]

Getting back to the 1950's & 1960's, well I was born in 1959 and my childhood in the 60's and early 70's was great....for the most part. I'm glad that I can remember all the different kinds of laundry detergents that many of us here would give their eye teeth to smell and use again. To remember actual real Norges, Westy's, etc. etc. in everyday household and laundrymat use. To remember NOT having to look the screen door on a summer's evening, to go shopping in a real dept. store. To travel by train. I'm glad that I did grow up when I did.
I wonder what kids today will cherish when they get older.

It seems that some of the true joys of life today are few and far between. I see many signs in todays world and life that really has me concerned about all of our futures, gay/straight rich/poor...doesn't matter. I keep focused, live my life, and recall at times some of the wonder of yesteryear.

 

[foraloysius]

Free spankings

Toggle, is that a promise or a threat? LOL

Ducking and running!!