An Idea

<DIV>    The world is an ever changing place, and to meet the challenges as quickly as possible to avert major economic and social hardships new solutions to the problem of affordable housing need to be started now. Everyone deserves a safe, clean, secure place to live. Yet the industrialized nations also need to limit their carbon footprint.
     In Europe and North America there are far too many homeless people, and far too many isolated people struggling to make ends meet in over priced apartments, living with slobs for room mates, or needing to commute from reasonably priced housing to the city for their work. New housing  uses more resources than needed per individual for an environmentally friendly lifestyle. Simply put individual houses and self contained apartments use more resources.     Also there are those who need to travel to jobs as itinerant workers or temporary workers, but still need reasonable and secure homes for shorter periods of time or a home to come back to.
    The new age solution is an olden days staple- The Boarding House. A modern take on the old boarding house is a workable solution to many social and environmental problems in today's society.
    First, what was a Boarding House?
    A Boarding House was a two to four story house that had rooms on each floor, each floor having a bath room and toilet room to be shared by those on the floor. The rooms were furnished; some were spacious with a separate sitting area, some were smaller with just a bed, dresser, closet, an easy chair, table and lamp. All the room rents included two meals a day- Breakfast and Supper. Some had Tea time and sack lunches available.
    The residents and the owner/operator ate in the dinning room, with fixed times for meals. There could be a common room for receiving visitors, conversation, music or other activities-like card games, jigsaw puzzles and the like.
    Single men, women, couples with-out children, widows, widowers, retired elders, and traveling business people frequented these places. Long term residency was common with some Houses having extra rooms to let on a weekly basis. Today a mix of people will also be residents.
    Retired, widowed, young adults starting out, and those in between need a safe, secure, and friendly place to live. With wages falling, the idea of ownership of a house or setting up house in an apartment has become the impossible dream or the nightmare of living above one&#8217;s means for many people; as well as isolating and using more resources than needed for a comfortable life.
    The Boarding House of today and the future would cater to individuals of similar needs such as Vegans and Vegetarians. A mix of ages and genders is optimal for a family like setting to keep individuals from becoming isolated and the related ills with isolation. Structure of a home-like atmosphere as well as the freedom of independent living combine to become the ultimate safety net to avoid homelessness and reckless behaviors. It also allows for individuals to put money aside, live a more green lifestyle since less resources are needed to accommodate the 8-20 people in one house rather than individual apartments & houses, lessen commutes, thus traffic congestion. A Boarding House gives security to the residents - how many people have some one that can be called in case of emergency? Who will know if you are over due getting home from your day, or not up for breakfast? Who will know if you were living alone? An example of why this matters is a colleague of mine- an unmarried woman who had a small home did not show up for work after a 3 day weekend. After calling her phone number it was decided to go to her house and the police were called and she was found dead of an apparent fall in the bathroom- had she lived with someone or was a resident of a Boarding House she would have had someone hear her calls for help, been attended to, and not died.
    Boarding Houses should be owner operated and not corporate chains. This as a cottage industry would employ people, add to income and create a more friendly, caring society.
    With all the modern technology -wifi, cable, cell phones, head phones, people can live with each other and still have a nice amount of privacy. If the idea of shared bathroom facilities are incompatible, then the new smaller all in one bathrooms can be added to the remodeling and retro fitting of buildings that could be converted into Boarding Houses. An ideal is to have these boarding houses in the cities, on the public transit systems, in mixed use neighborhoods. Areas of cities that once were mixed commercial can be revitalized with residents and vacant areas adjacent to the houses can be gardens where flowers and vegetable can be grown by the residents and owner.
    There are many levels of service that a Boarding House can provide- laundry, meals of course, internet, cable. The idea is to have less space and resources used by just one person- such as a 4 room apartment ( bedroom, living room, bathroom, kitchen) and all the paraphernalia that goes with housekeeping contribute to a more green society.
    Making meals in itself is a time consuming process that needs special equipment, planning, shopping, and clean up. Many single people either don't eat properly leading to illness, obesity, over thinness, or eat out adding to the cost of living and added cost of the useless complete kitchen space in the rented apartment. Sharing meals has been proven to bring people together, creating compassion, camaraderie, better nutrition and mental health.
    The convenience of a Boarding House is no room mates from hell and no isolation. The people who will work in service to the house- an honorable, useful job- can get room and board with a small salary for their time and work. Running a boarding house is like running a family- there is cleaning, cooking, shopping, paying the bills as well as the joy of a friendly home and companionship. With these chores out of the way the residents can be relieved of the added stress of a household albeit a one person household- in the times of job insecurity and dwindling paychecks.
      Boarding Houses can accommodate pets, and other essentials of living well. The cost to live in a Boarding House should be less than an apartment with as much opportunity for privacy. The responsibility of the residents is to be clean, tidy, have cordial behavior to all or out they go- unlike the room mate on the lease!
    Unlike a co-op living arrangements where everyone is suppose to pull their share of work, and we all know they do not, the Boarding House takes care of the cleaning, cooking, and laundry. The resident keeps his or her room neat and tidy, leaves the shared bath room ready for the next user, and the common rooms also neat and tidy. Responsibility and a safe, affordable home- a win-win solution for many of societies people as well as the developed world using less of the finite resources.
     The Modern Boarding House is one solution for Europe's and North America's housing and societal ills in the face of dwindling paychecks, isolation of single individuals, land use, and the decline of the current standard of living of the Western world. It will be much easier to relocate for work, sit tight when unemployed, and still not face living on the streets.  Change should now start to be for the better. It is time to come full circle. </DIV>

Humane

    A New World Order with a kinder, gentler people. Civilization should be evolving into a kinder, gentler new world order. We have had thousands of years of religion and philosophy to create a moral foundation for human beings;  much of the tenets from the worlds religions are sound practices and have become the foundation of all the world’s laws.
     However nice the sound of a new world order is, there will always be a percentage of the population who will choose to live outside the law and commit horrendous crimes that must not be ignored and can not be condone or ameliorated with a finite prison sentence and rehabilitation. For these crimes against society harsher means must be used. However, many civilized countries have abolished the death penalty as being barbaric, and it is, to commit a cold blooded murder as revenge is also a barbaric act. But how to deal with those who outrage society?
    Life in prison is one way to remove those who do not wish to live in a civilized world. The old banishment from the tribe is the best way to remove those who commit outrage. We imprison those we banish to make sure they will not inflict themselves on others somewhere else.
    What does life in prison mean now when people live longer? It means elderly prisoners with all the infirmities that comes with aging. These men and women can not be let out of their banishment just because they lived long- where would the justice be to those victims and their families who had no life- prison or not?
    In addition, the growing scarcity of resources to be used to create a better environment for a criminal rather for the law abiding citizen would add additional insult to the social and personal injury.
    One solution for the geriatric prisoner population is in the prison population itself. For those who wish to reform their ways while serving their time, training them to be medical care givers for the elderly prisoner is a way to not use valuable civilian caregivers (nurses, nurse practitioners, orderlies, and the like), and to give valuable training to short term prisoners for when their sentence is served and they re-enter society as a useful, rehabilitated citizen. The trained and experienced ex-offender care giver will be required to work as a care giver for a number of years in areas that need them as their payback for the training they received..
     Warehousing convicted men and woman for a period of time has not helped them nor society. It cost more to keep them in a prison cell than to attend an ivy league university. And we still have criminals let loose after their time is served. Society needs to allow time served to be accepted and not let the stigma brand these people but allow the newly released human being to work, join, and be productive to society

    In addition to this, the young offenders given life sentences can redeem themselves by giving back to the society they have wronged, by caring for the elderly prisoners after they have been properly trained. The new lifers will have meaningful work during their banishment and serve the greater good by reducing the need for the civilian population to go without care givers that would need to be shifted to the elderly prison population.
        Life in prison is a better choice than adding to the brutality of the human spirit with the executions of those people convicted of horrendous acts; however, if we are to become a kinder, gentler world we need not torture and mistreat those in banishment. To be without family and friend, to not be able to choose from life’s bountiful offerings again is a severe punishment. 
    Life in prison with no parole is reasonable punishment from society.  The needs of the many out weigh the needs of the few -especially when those few commit unspeakable crimes against society.
    There is no perfect utopian dream that will come true in a world fast approaching eight billion people. Finite resources and a fickle climate will turn our normal living standards of today into dreamy past stories told to our grandchildren. We do need to create a new world order; however it must meet the needs of the real human beings that will populate it- criminal or not.
     Preparing for the criminal element now will release us from that burden later. Creating a training program for those who can be reformed allows the debt to society to be paid, and allows society to benefit from its choice to reform and rehabilitate not just punish.

I have gotten brave and updated several of my sites. I am no longer afraid of the USA and fear their storm trooper mentality. I have spent years trying to blend in to the scenery- but no more. Put me in jail at least there I can get some medical care.
 I have had this site since 2004, no one but me reads it and that is ok most internet browsers are like me  wants some fun. And most people who reply to common sense get offended  and use foul language since they are not in front of any real person. A lot of knee jerks out there to be sure. A lot of ignorance - I can tell when people are ignorant and proud of it-shows all over.
I do not support the troops for these reasons:
1. there is no draft everyone in the service wants to kill the enemy or at least get a little torture in. After all they are not real people the Narns are they? Is is not like Muslims have any human feelings.
2. This is too much way too late where were all of you when Viet Nam was going strong and men/boys were drafted- except the slimy ones who got out of the draft- with no choices but jail or die in the jungle.
We should never have invaded Afghanistan or Iraq or compromise Pakistan to near destruction. Troops murdered Osama- why? Why not a big showy trail demonstrating how Our Democracy works? To show those evil bastards that we are not those evil bastards they think we are?
It is time for truth all over the world- we are going bankrupt but we became morally bankrupt a long time ago. There is only one law- do to others what you wish done to yourself.

http://home.earthlink.net/~gholibaz/

Ten Years After

    The 10th anniversary of the horrific events of September 11, 2001 will soon be here. Today on the front page of my local newspaper the head line reads “America's new view of war: There’s no end in sight.”  The first sentence reads-  ”This is the  American era of endless war.”
    Why is this so? Why must we keep this endless war? Whom are we fighting and for what and why? Do we hate Islamic everything? Do we hate Muslims? It looks that way from across the borders-  we do not see how we look to others. Nor do we care apparently.
    Osama Bin Laden is dead, murdered instead of captured. A convenience for the USA- why kill an unarmed man? He did not sanction the events on 9/11. We forced Sudan to expel him and he went to Afghanistan. The tailban did not raise a weapon against us until we invaded their country. So why are we there in Afghanistan - the tailban gave sanctuary to a fellow Muslim and we knew he did not have his hand on the trigger that caused the horrible events of 9/11. Is this enough to kill tens of thousands of people and create millions of refugees swarming into Pakistan? Was this reason enough?
    Our government lied to us over and over and over again until their lies started to sound like truth. Like children confronted by an overbearing stranger we allowed the constitution to be violated by the president and our representatives. Why such a cruel revenge- for revenge is what it is now. We are mired in a Viet Nam war like war- with out the draft- we now hire mercenaries to fight for the pay of citizenship.
    Why not ask this sacrifice of our own people-  draft my sons and daughters to fight this just war? Where is this cry from the citizens of the United States of America, from the Tea Party people, the Republicans, the Democrats? If this is a just war then draft and kill more people. Fewer than 4000 people died on 9/11. How many people have died so far in our war of revenge in Iraq or Afghanistan or Pakistan? Oh I forget these are Muslims and therefore not 100% people like us good Christians in the United States of America.
    Where are we as a nation tens years after? Are we safer? We were never safe. Timothy McVeigh was here, Ruby Ridge was here, Mt Carmel was here. Were they Muslims?
    So this is the 10th anniversary of the events of 9/11. We now have an endless war draining our resources, our morality, our intelligence, and ability to think. All we do now is cower in the corner and lash out in fear and ignorance. Our economy is in a depression unlike the one in the 1930s since we can’t use a war to bail us out of this one.
    10 years later and where are we-  business as usual?