Front-End Loader or Backhoe?

Woke up at 3:30 this morning after a dream of remembering all the "hazing" antics with which the upperclass plagued the lowerclass during my freshman year at university.

As Just like in primary school, my height and relative maturity let me blend in with the upperclass during the hijinks.

No getting tied to the tether pole or forced to wear a beanie cap.

Some who write excel because of chameleonlike behaviour, putting on the lives of others effortlessly, without judgment, taking all views of their characters in equal measure.

We talk about the costs of "entitlement" but where/what are the beneficiaries of the wealth redistribution? Is a dollar spent another dollar spent, a dollar saved, or a dollar lost/pulled out of the system? Are pensions and profits forms of entitlement?

Ahh...labels. Like clouds that take anthropomorphic shapes in a storm, frightening children and entertaining young people in love.

I am more curious than wise. A friend recommended I read "At Home" by Bill Bryson to increase my knowledge and perhaps wisen me up.

My parents taught me to worry about what the neighbours think and never burn bridges - their advice has turned me into a person who wants the neighbours to think for themselves about the bridges they want to cross with or without me as a comparison.

A family member asked why I was not afraid of a single person taking over the world. Call it the profit motive or an agreement among thieves but there's too much competition out there for one person to rule alone.

She means a single set of dominant cultural attitudes/mores, perhaps - a common theme we record historically, that always favours the brazen/bold (the successful ones, anyway). She worries that her history, her culture, will not survive if her culture is not the dominant one (or one of the prominent ones).

And now you see why I put species first. No culture lasts forever.

We can only hope/plan that the general theme of family-friendly beliefs pervades society at large, knowing many subcultures will branch off, some living, some dying, and some gaining strength while attracting the majority to the next big growth on the meandering cultural vine of life.

If Hilly can hold her own in Aussie comedy circles, can we accept the bottoming out of the worldwide minimum wage trendline, seeing that the poorest of us and the richest of us (in money and/or culture) are intricately connected to the remaining seven billion?

Well, enough of this slapping happiness on the page like apple butter on fresh unleaven bread. Like they say in these parts, it's football time in Tennessee!

Which reminds me, have you ever heard the joke that starts, "A swami, a priest, a pastor, a rabbi and an imam walk into a football stadium..."?