This county has a median income over eleven thousand dollars less than the national average^1a (with the city itself^1b lagging behind by over $9,000... that's right, it's OVER 9000), worse than average employment growth² (even going as far as to backslide [-1.7%... Jesus fucking Satan doggy-style, that's what I call a backslide] when the YTD numbers indicate zero job growth nationally)... to top it off, we are getting fucked in the ass when it comes to unemployment³ (sweet creamed corn on a stick, 7.6% versus 6.1%?  You have to be fucked in the ass with numbers like those).
My dad's always on my ass about getting a job, but when I look at the numbers, that just doesn't add up.  For one thing, our Office of Employment and Training is massively out of date while private offices get incentives.  Does it really make sense to keep the ornaments nice and polished while the cabinet that holds them is falling apart?  While I applaud greatly the new addition to the city library, shouldn't we really pool resources and cut down on public waste?  After all, our economy is in the shitter as of writing and there's probably another big smokescreen (or a dust storm, such as the one caused about a year ago by recent construction efforts on a Hampton Inn.. apparently, the contractors were so stupid that they decided to rip up ALL the vegetation within a half a mile radius of the construction site) on the horizon that will capture our attention and our wallets.  
Let's integrate our public non-collegiate learning resources and allow people who wouldn't otherwise have an incentive to use the library facilities to peruse them while trying to work through the bullshit that is our employment office.  After all, when you're spending a whole lot of time doing a whole lot of nothing, there's nothing better than a good book.  As a matter of fact, let's emphasize literacy in employment.  If these mooks building absolutely jack shit can't read about water and soil conservation, then we must show them through education that you can't just leave an acre of ground unsealed or unplanted without major repercussions (such as me eating a mouthful of dirt and barely being able to see out of my car windshield).
Better yet, let's expose the fraud of this town and its old money for the bumbling idiots that they are.  Anyone who knows about great cities knows that great cities have a heritage interweaved with art and expression.  Outside of the Glema Mahr Center, there are no places reserved for the production of plays and performance of music.  As much as I love the darkened atmosphere coming together with a tragic play or the intimacy of a chamber quartet playing in the round, there has to be a place where people can carry out light-hearted comedies and informal shit-kicking garage rock antics.  I also notice that there are no studies for the techniques of ceramic-making (excluding, to a degree, applied ceramics) or painting (except for as a domestic pastime of middle-aged housewives).  What I am saying is that a city has to be allowed to live before it can work, as massive amounts of our culture capital are being displaced by larger cities such as Evansville.
If it seems as if I care too much about such a small town, it is because I am tired of the big city problems, such as massive poverty and civic corruption.  If this is supposed to be a city (and, according to our admission into The League of Cities, it is officially so), we should spend less time trying to build new resources and more time managing what we have.  After all, we only have 17.08 square miles to build on and most of that is glutted with decrepit housing and unused buildings.
That is why I call on all people who want a free home to negatively appropriate all abandoned buildings in this area.  Let me make this clear:  you have an open invitation to squat, dive, mooch, mook, perch, stead and steward all non-appropriated buildings.  You don't have to live in the homeless shelter, discounted from statistics and otherwise shunned for your supposed lack of initiative.  This way, the city will KNOW that we mean business and that poverty and negative job growth must be addressed as a grave problem, one way or another.

We will not stand while employers discriminate against non-violent offenders and blatantly send out false listings to cover up this crumbling economy.  We will fight with our heads held high and we will rally together in order to secure the right to be called citizens.  
In our fair state, it takes fifteen years maximum for a dwelling to be owned through negative appropriation.  While most of us will probably be long gone by then, I would like to instigate a program to allow those who would otherwise be self-sufficient to appropriate these abandoned buildings and either force the city government to recognize the plight of those who are impoverished or the blight of these buildings.  Furthermore, I would like a permanent council to be established in order to review and revise current urban planning and construction.  As far as I can see, there are several areas of this town that are in advanced states of decay or are designed in such a way as to make their nagivation quite dangerous to the average commuter.  For example, several dead ends are not capped in a cul-de-sac and the road construction on the south and southeast parts of town are not conducive quick and easy arrival to a destination.

I will go and clear a path for those who wish to join me in my struggle to hold this city accountable for its many injustices.  Anyone who wants to join me, contribute data or debate my tactics can e-mail me here. 

Sam Stutler Inspired - 16 years, 4 months, 23 days ago

Oh dear, I'm in one of my more excitable moods right now. Someone help me unwind.
Sam Stutler Inspired - 16 years, 5 months ago

Ten Albums to Own Before You Go Deaf

1. California (Mr. Bungle)
   
2. Vauxhall and I (Morrissey)
   
3. The Queen Is Dead (The Smiths)
   
4. Maxipad Detention (Otto von Schirach)
   
5. We're Only In It For the Money (The Mothers of Invention)
   
6. Dopethrone (Electric Wizard)
   
7. Rated R (Queens of the Stone Age)
   
8. Misery Is a Butterfly (Blonde Redhead)
   
9. Fun House (Iggy Pop and the Stooges)
   
10. Oh, Inverted World! (The Shins)
    

Sam Stutler Inspired - 16 years, 5 months, 8 days ago

The post-structuralist experimentation has ended for now. I am resigning myself to the fact that, for the most part, common practice is alive and well. It's the same counterpoints, harmonies, melodies and various other things that would otherwise make me die of boredom.
Not only is it NOT about the sound collages and musique concrete of days past, but taking the same old melody and riffs and playing outside of them. Either that or building up a strong rhythm section and littering the track with various sound effects... that seems to work in IDM.
Sam Stutler Inspired - 16 years, 5 months, 9 days ago

The jam session yesterday was a complete disaster. Next time, I'll brush up my chops and just forget about making high-concept stuff for now.
Sam Stutler Inspired - 16 years, 5 months, 10 days ago