I showed the house for the first time yesterday. A Persian man who lives not far from here.
He was looking for a cheap house as an investment. I really don’t care who buys it.
I spent the morning rearranging.
I rearranged the furniture so the dining area is set above the sitting room on the terrazzo plinth. It looks great. I used the black leather chairs that I bought for ElCerrito Place. I tried using the Morrison chairs but they looked too complicated. Compromised the aesthetic.
I am going to sell my Jasper Morrison dining room chairs. They are now stacked outside looking really forlorn, they need to go else where..where they can be loved.
Had tea with JA in West H’wood yesterday. Everybody is in such a funk. Things have ground to a halt. Is this just on the West Coast? Nobody knows how to crawl out of this hole? Maybe we don’t crawl out of anywhere but learn to live with new parameters.
Popped in on Trevor at the bottom of the canyon to see the young doe that the coyote had savaged in his garden. It was all gnawed at. Its tongue sticking out. Trevor’s wife was a bit pissed that I had made the effort to see the dead deer but not their new baby. Sorry Jen.
Meg Whitman the ex Ebay CEO is running in the Gubernatorial race here in California against Jerry Brown. She has spent over $119, 000, 000 of her own money on her campaign. She becomes the largest self-funded political candidate in history.
Yet all of this might come to naught if her ex-maid and nanny of nine years Nicky Diaz Santillan swings the vote. Nicky’s story is a familiar one in California. An illegal immigrant (undocumented) who worked hard for Meg and her husband is cruelly let go when she asks for help to become legal.
“Thown away like trash.” she sobbed on TV.
The latino population in SoCal will take notice. They know what that feels like. To be part of a family, whether Witman’s or family USA only to be thrown away when things get tough.
The economy in this part of America has relied heavily on the cheap labour that these illegal immigrants offer. Making the rich richer, they are hard-working, uncomplaining people. I have employed Spanish-speaking men at the local labor exchange and they work tirelessly in scorching heat, lugging great hessian bags of garden waste up and down the mountains like donkeys. I don’t ask any questions. Nor do my neighbors.
These latino workers have no expectations, except to be treated poorly by white folk like me. They don’t have much choice.
When they do not get treated poorly they are grateful and go the extra mile.
The truth is, frustrated white people in the USA very begrudgingly gave up their slaves so having illegal Mexican immigrants who do as they are told for very little somehow placates their desire to be slave owners.
White people may say they are pissed off by illegal immigrants yet I don’t know any one of them who would be prepared to do what these people do. Washing up, gardening, busing, etc. Menial tasks. White people wouldn’t know how. They don’t know how.
We tried to import a bunch of colourful faces into the UK to do the same during the 1950’s but they opened corner shops and restaurants and got richer than the people who imported them. Anyway, we had colonial apologists who refused to see these people used like American white people use Latinos.
Thank GOD for bouts of socialism.
I could bang on about the racism that exists here but I can’t be bothered.
White people are hurting. They have lost their jobs and their homes. There is no industry. They can’t seem to relearn working skills and get humble and wash dishes for other white folk. The dream is dead. Arianna Huffington is on TV telling people that America is a Third World Country, that the middle class is over and that the American Dream has been compromised.
Similar circumstances existed in Germany before the second world war. Crippling debt (war reparations) unemployment, hunger, desperation, hopelessness. Do not underestimate the gruelling effect of hopelessness..regardless of how comfortable you are if you feel hopeless your view on the world changes. It gets easy to blame the immigrant, the jew, the gay…the innefectual black President.
I pray that I am wrong but given the current state of the USA, these extreme economic circumstances I am guessing that the people of America will, come the next election, elect a far right, socially conservative Palin type President who will irrevocably damage the entire world. We are desperate for strong, innovative, modern leadership yet it seems that only the far right have the balls to serve what the people hanker.
We are witnessing the cynical destruction of the USA as we, and millions before us, dreamed it. It is a crying shame.
By the way. Rich Sanchez the latino CNN host fired this week for saying that Jon Stewart was pompous and that the media was controlled by the Jews. Well, that’s how it was reported. Not quite the way he said it. Actually he said he felt bullied by Stewart, looked down upon. That people like Stewart look down on latinos..and he’d be right. I am sure what he felt about Jon Stewart may very well be right.
I rather like Rick Sanchez. Isn’t it amazing that Sanchez can get fired for saying two rather obvious things (one an opinion and one true) and that Glenn Beck gets to say terrible shit everyday but nobody lifts a finger?
Willie just took a huge dump on the carpet…nice. Thankfully I know how to clean a rug without resorting to calling a maid service.
9 replies on “For Sale”
I totally agree with you North Americans are willing to lower their expected standard of living to do those “menial” jobs and to be mobile or travel for work like field workers, etc. who actually go to where the work is. Most of us aren’t willing to work 2 or 3 jobs and “struggle” to work to what we want. We’d rather just go on welfare or the dole.
So your plan to “go off the grid”, the goats and all is off now? You are selling up to move back to England?
she says she’s not pissed.
It’s always that way. It was the Irish in the 1800s, then the Chinese. Then blame
African Americans, now the Mexicans. I agree there’s a problem about letting undocumented immigrants in, but people seem to forget they’re people. What really makes me mad is that people want to punish people who were under 18 when they came to the US by not letting them go to college.
heres a first, I totally disagree with you, on rick sanchez, and the whole america is lost fiasco. Don’t underestimate us blue collar workers, who just happen to be liberals. I can’t and never will have a problem with immigrants, seeing as my own grandmother escaped nazis, and came over here as not more than a indentured servant. America is just under going a change, and it will take people, mexicans and , white, black and yes a few of us jews to see it through.it is a bump, a huge one yep, but I won’t ever beliieve america is done for, ffs.give some of us some credit D, we aren’t lambs bein led, we have minds. And now back to real world where I get up and go to work cus I want my family to have a decent life. Xxx
Hmmm.
So, to be clear:
a.
White Americans are racists operating out of an unfullfilled yearning to still have slaves? Why can’t the (privileged) people you are referring to just be run-of-the-mill spoiled, greedy, over-indulged rich people – looking to gouge whoever they can because they pinch pennies obsessively as their God-given right.
b.
Jon Stewart looks down on Latinos?
Dear Susan,
my experience of some white Americans compared with comparable white Europeans is very different. White Americans tend, in my experience, to be less understanding of people of colour. Just as they are less understanding of the poor, the unemployed=equals lazy, or gays..or anyone different from them.
This is racism lite. Not KKK.
Judging by the way I have seen undocumented workers treated in Los Angeles I think it’s a fair assessment. I was specifically trying to understand the illegal immigrant conundrum here in SoCal. We want them to do everything (mostly manual labour) that we don’t want to do..but we don’t want them to share in the benefits as we perceive them. We want them to clean our yards but send them home if they get sick. You don’t need to be rich to treat an immigrant badly. Everybody gets to treat the underclass equally badly.
I am just trying to understand where this comes from.
That perhaps it is in the the American DNA?
Let’s put it this way..if the economy had not been crushed we would not be having this conversation. Meg’s housekeeper would still have a job.
As for Jon Stewart..I was just reporting that Sanchez says he felt Jon Stewart’s bullying and mocking was racist..and why he called Stewart pompous.
By the way. I think that it is perfectly fair to be critical of Zionism, Israel and Jews without being accused of anti-semitism just as it is perfectly reasonable to be critical of gay culture without being a homophobe. I am very critical of gay culture. I don’t think I am a homophobe. I think that I am probably a mediocre-phobe.
I had of late been disagreeing w/ you on various things, but you are almost completely right on your comment in my opinion. The only thing I could take exception to is that it is in our DNA. It’s more a cultural thing, but anywhere in the world you will find people who dislike other people for differences. Many of us are descendants of the British Isles, so whatever flaw in genetics is probably floating around in the UK, though I doubt you were being literal there.
There is a big difference between Canada and the US in terms of how “people of colour” are treated. My son, who is mixed race, has experienced much more racism in the states than here in Canada. Another relative, also black, who grew up in New York and moved to Canada, felt huge relief when he found that he didn’t feel like he was being watched with suspicion every time he walked down the street or entered a store. However, much of the First Nations population lives in or close to so-called third world conditions and has huge obstacles to overcome in order to get out of poverty. Seems to be human nature to have a group to feel superior to–I can’t really think of any culture that hasn’t done this, except perhaps the Tibetan Buddhists.
Just rambling thoughts, have a head cold and about to indulge in a hot toddy.
I agree with you D, and your response to Susan.