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This is an excellent question that people really need to know more about.When we solve a problem, after a while, we tend to forget what solved the problem and go back to what we used to do that caused the thing to go over the cliff in the first place.That was the 2008 mortgage and financial crisis, as it forgot the lessons of the Great Depression.History up to the Great DepressionIn the 1920’s, when the economy was booming and it seemed like the party would never stop, banks lent out a ton of money on credit, with the presumption that all that money would be paid back and that there was sufficient collateral to cover it.Except, there wasn’t.One of the biggest assets that people might own that a bank could recover is real property. As Will Rogers once noted: “Buy land. They ain’t makin’ any more of the stuff.” Real property was something that pretty much always appreciated in value.Prior to the early 1900’s, most people didn’t own their own homes. Most people rented. Many lived in tenements and apartments in cities, or lived as tenants on farms in rural areas. Land speculators often bought what was left of the government land grants as the frontier closed.But, in the 1920’s, that began to change as banks felt more confident in lending credit for new construction. There were significant speculation bubbles. People bought property and built homes on future credit that wasn’t based on anything but hope.And as the stock market ticked ever higher and higher, banks bet on it. With the deposit money of their customers.And then the Stock Market Crash of 1929 hit.Banks that were significantly overleveraged and undercapitalized were hit hard. Many just failed, and those who had their deposits at banks that became insolvent just lost everything. There was no deposit insurance. If your bank went under, you were screwed out of your entire savings.And if you lost your job, that meant you also lost any means of continuing to pay back that home loan.Additionally, there were suddenly vast quantities of new construction for sale… that nobody could afford any longer. That drove down property values everywhere.Suddenly, your property that was worth $10,000 last year might now only be worth $5,000. But you might still owe $8,000 - what we call “underwater.” If you default or declare bankruptcy, the bank loses. And you’re out on the street.And then, what could the bank do with the house? How could they sell it? Nobody was buying. So, the bank suddenly has a ton of illiquid assets.More foreclosures in a neighborhood continues to lower the property values further, and the destructive cycle just ends up repeating itself.The Hoover administration tried economic protectionism. At the administration’s pushing, Congress passed the Smoot-Hawley Act of 1930, which imposed schedules of high tariffs on over twenty thousand types of imported goods, to protect American business, by golly.It backfired spectacularly and greatly exacerbated the worsening Depression.Weather conditions didn’t help. A severe drought ravaged the Midwest and Great Plains starting in 1930. Farmers had been using what in retrospect were poor farming practices, tearing down line fences and forest windbreaks and not planting cover crops for winters. The thin layer of good topsoil in the Great Plains turned to dust and became an ecological nightmare.Farms started going under as crops failed. The Smoot-Hawley tariffs only made things worse.Additionally, the money supply dried up. The banks that survived, like J.P. Morgan Chase, just turned off the credit spigot to stay afloat. They stopped lending. Why? Again: illiquid assets. The banks were holding on to all these properties and other assets that they couldn’t sell. And people didn’t trust the banks because so many had lost everything depositing their savings there. Because the banks couldn’t sell anything they had, and nobody would give them any cash, they didn’t have any money to give out.Part of the problem was the gold standard. Under the Federal Reserve Act, at least 40% of the money in circulation had to be backed by gold reserves held by the federal government. So, there was no modern tool of being able to print more money to help increase liquidity.On top of that, gold became more expensive. Mortgages often had clauses that allowed banks to demand repayment in gold because of the gold standard. By 1932, that resulted in a disparity in payment between the dollar and the value of gold that meant that if a debtor was forced to repay in gold, it could cost him as much as $1.69 for every dollar he owed. This led to more bankruptcies and foreclosures still.Because of the tariffs, the lack of money supply, the collapse of agriculture, and lack of consumer spending, rampant deflation initially set in. This made exported American goods increasingly more expensive for overseas importers, even where other nations had not instituted retaliatory tariffs of their own. Manufacturing began to collapse. The steel industry followed.And the Depression spiraled out of control.When Roosevelt took over from Hoover in 1932, the nation was becoming increasingly desperate.The New DealRoosevelt ran on a radical new idea that he called “The New Deal.” The premise was that the government would intervene in the economy and prop it up through deficit spending and government borrowing. The New Deal would create government programs to put people back to work and get people back to farming and building things, and that eventually, once people got back on their feet, the government could take those supports out.Various New Deal reforms were leveled at the financial sector to try to get the credit flowing again.One reform was put on the banks directly: the Glass-Steagall Act. One of the problems with the banking crisis was that banks could gamble with depositor’s money. The Glass-Steagall Act separated investment banks from commercial banks. Investment banks are gamblers. These deal with stock and bonds and venture capital and hedge funds and Wall Street. Commercial banks are the Savings and Loan where you put your nest egg. The Glass Steagall Act put a firewall between the two. The idea was that Wall Street could melt to the ground and Main Street wouldn’t go with it.Keep this in mind. It will be important later.Another was to protect depositors. Commercial banks would be required to pay into a new Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation: the FDIC, which would make sure that depositors would get paid back if the bank collapsed. That encouraged people to trust banks again. People would deposit their money, and banks could use that money to start giving out loans again.A third was to help reduce the risk of default on certain types of loans through surety agreements. Sureties had been around forever: they’re a promise to pay a debt if the original debtor defaults.The Federal government aimed these programs at home loans in particular, to try to reduce the homelessness problem. And so, in 1938 with the National Housing Act, the government formed the Federal National Mortgage Association, or FNMA. FNMA, or “Fannie Mae,” would buy the mortgages from the banks, who would continue to “service” the mortgages. From the perspective of the consumer, it looked just like their ordinary transaction: get a loan from the bank, pay the bank. The bank kept some money for “service fees,” and the Feds took over the loan, and importantly: the risk of default. This created a secondary market for mortgages for the first time in history.But Fannie would only buy that mortgage if it met certain criteria, such as debt to income ratios, term of the loan, and more. If banks wanted to make other loans, that was fine, but Fannie wouldn’t buy them.And the program basically worked. Banks started lending again. Credit slowly started to thaw out. Banks started getting more liquidity in their balance sheets. People started being able to buy homes again.After World War II, the housing market took off again, fueled in part by the GI Bill and a push for suburbanization and the creation of easily duplicated, cheap ranch houses on a standardized template.But in the background still driving things along was always Fannie Mae and the prime 30 year fixed-rate mortgage, which had become as much a part of the standardized American experience as baseball. Housing prices rose steadily home ownership became a stable part of the American economy. Virtually every person in the country could see a viable path to owning their own home.By the 1960’s, FNMA owned more than 90% of the residential mortgages in the United States and individual home ownership had risen to the highest levels ever recorded. This led to the greatest expansion of the middle class in history.So, of course, like all wildly successful government programs, we had to fix it.PrivatizationIn 1954, FNMA was semi-privatized into a public-private hybrid where the government owned the preferred stock (with better voting rights within the corporation,) and the public held the common stock (which gave dividends, but inferior voting rights).And in 1968, Fannie Mae was privatized entirely, with a small slice of it (known as Ginnie Mae) carved off to maintain Federal Housing Authority loans, Veterans Administration loans, and Farmer’s Home Administration mortgage insurance. Because Fannie Mae had a near monopoly on the secondary mortgage market, the government created the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation to compete with it: Freddie Mac.By 1981, Fannie and Freddie were doing well as private companies, and Fannie came up with a great idea that had been done in limited settings: pass-through mortgage derivatives. They would bundle up various mortgages and sell them as a type of bond to investors. Investors loved the idea. The housing market had been extremely stable for nearly fifty years and offered a modest, but highly reliable return. And so the commercial home loan mortgage backed security was born.Keep this in mind. It will be important later.The Savings and Loan CrisisBy the early 1980’s, the economy had been stable for 30 years (more or less,) and thanks to the Glass-Steagall Act, commercial banks were doing okay even with the “stagflation” of the 1970’s. Home prices continued to rise about on par with wage growth.But one type of commercial banks, the Savings and Loan banks, wanted to do better than okay. S&L’s were the kind of bank in It’s a Wonderful Life. S&L’s were specifically singled out in federal legislation, like credit unions, for a single purpose: to promote and facilitate home ownership, small businesses, car loans, that sort of stuff.A business-friendly Congress agreed. They passed two laws in 1980 (signed by Jimmy Carter) and 1982 (Signed by Ronald Reagan) that allowed banks to offer a variety of new savings and lending options, including the Adjustable Rate Mortgage, and dramatically reduced the oversight of these banks.Adjustable rate mortgages work by locking in a fixed rate for a short term, and then after that initial term, the mortgage rate would re-adjust every additional term after that. If the prime interest rates set by the Federal Reserve stayed high, lenders would get hammered.But S&L’s had a fix in mind for consumers: just keep refinancing your home every time the first term is up. Home prices would just always continue to rise, right? They could collect closing costs every couple of years, and consumers remained essentially chained to them in debt with a steady stream of revenue that would always be secured if something happened. It was perfect.Keep these types of mortgages in mind. It will be important later.By the mid-1980’s, the lack of oversight allowed S&L’s to start making riskier and riskier decisions, offering certificates of deposit with wild interest rates, as much as eight to ten percent. They were exempted from FDIC oversight, while still keeping deposits federally insured (what could go wrong there, right?)And then the Federal Reserve, in an effort to reduce inflation, raised short-term interest rates, which sent ripple effects through these S&L’s, who had been made very vulnerable to that particular issue through these bad decisions, lack of appropriate capitalization, and overpromising depositors.By 1992, almost a third of savings and loan banks nationwide had collapsed.This crisis led to the Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery and Enforcement Act of 1989 (FIRREA), which put back some of the same oversights that had been taken off because people wanted to make more money, particularly better capitalization rules (which were tied to risk,) increased deposit insurance premiums and brought back some FDIC oversight, and reduced these banks’ portfolio caps in non-residential mortgages.Keep this in mind. It will be important later.The Repeal of Glass-SteagallRemember how back in the 30’s, in the midst of the Great Depression, we instituted that firewall between investment banks and commercial banks?Again, it worked so well, we had to fix it.Starting in the 1960’s, the federal regulators began to start to allow commercial banks to get back into the securities game again. The list was limited, and was supposed to stay in relatively safe stuff.This accelerated under Reagan’s policy of deregulation, and continued under Clinton in the 1990’s. By 1999, Bill Clinton declared that Glass-Steagall no longer served any meaningful purpose, and most people had declared it dead well before that. The law was officially repealed in 1999 with the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act.Immediately, investment and commercial banks start merging again. Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers, Citibank, all of these investment banks start buying out the commercial banks or merging.And there’s a culture difference between those.Remember: investment banks are gamblers. These are the Wall Street guys. They’re risk takers. They’re hedge fund managers. These are your Gordon Gekko type guys. Commercial banks are Main Street guys. They’re generally conservative, George Bailey types.And the investment banker culture won out over the course of the 2000’s. George Bailey starts snorting coke and putting on Ray Bans with a blazer and jeans.Sub-Prime, NINJA, and ARM LoansIn the early 1990’s, affordable housing started to become a greater and greater issue. George H.W. Bush signed legislation in late 1992 amending Fannie and Freddie’s charters to push them to make loans to people with lesser means than the traditional prime criteria. The Clinton Administration continued pushing Fannie and Freddie to accept more low and moderate income earners.That meant taking on riskier loans.The Clinton administration put rules in place in 2000 to curb predatory lending practices, and rules that disallowed those risky loans from counting towards their low-income targets.The Bush administration took those predatory lending rules off in 2004, and allowed those risky, “sub-prime” mortgages to count towards the low-income targets set by Housing and Urban Development.Remember those ARM mortgages?Heh, heh. This is getting long, and you probably glossed over that, didn’t you? I told you it was going to be important.Banks started making riskier and riskier loans, often those ARM loans. They could meet their HUD targets and make tons of money. And again: the gravy train was endless, right? The housing market had not lost value for over fifty years, even in the recessions of the 70’s and 80’s.So, they put more people in houses. Bigger houses. More expensive houses. The economy was doing good. New construction was hot. Contractors couldn’t build the McMansions fast enough.Banks started a race to the bottom with these sub-prime loans, getting all the way to NINJA loans: No Income, No Job, No Assets required. You’re a homeless person selling Etsy products out of your car? You’re already prequalified on a quarter-million subdivision home with a quarter-acre. Congratulations.As long as you could afford the payments, you were in.De-regulationIn the early 2000’s, the Bush administration wanted to keep the economy going. There was a low-level recession from March 2001 to November 2001 following the dot-com crash. The administration lifted a number of securities and financial sector oversight rules. One of those rules was about capitalization.Remember that? I told you that was going to be important.Capitalization requirements are how much reserve cash a bank needs to keep on hand to prevent collapse if something happens, against their liability sheets. Remember: that’s how banks got in trouble before the Great Depression and again right before the Savings and Loan Crisis. They took on too many liabilities and didn’t have enough capital to actually pay it all out.The Bush administration relaxed the rules on required capitalization and what assets could count as capital. Some of those assets turned out not to be very useful.Collateralized Debt Obligations and the Mortgage Backed SecurityRemember, back in 1981, when Fannie starts issuing those mortgage backed securities, re-selling them as bonds with a low, but reliable interest rate?That gets more complicated after 2004–2005 with the increased use of a financial tool called the collateralized debt obligation. Basically, a CDO is just a promise to pay investors in a sequence based on the cash flow from something the CDO invests in. The rate of return was tied to how risky the CDO was.In the 70’s and 80’s, CDOs were pretty safe, mundane things. They were basically like index funds; they invested in a lot of stuff and did okay. But by the mid-2000’s, CDOs were becoming riskier and riskier, while providing more and more reward. CDOs bought up mortgages like crazy, because they had increasingly higher interest rates as the subprime mortgages started taking off.But people were nervous about investing solely in these high-risk CDOs. And so, investment banks that bought up those mortgage-backed securities started to bundle together some high-risk mortgages with some regular, low-risk mortgages and promising that they were safer.And then some investment banks started to lie about how many of those high-risk mortgages were in them. Why? Again: the housing market was super-stable and always going up. Those loans only looked high-risk on paper, right? I mean, those debtors could always just keep refinancing every couple of years.So banks bought up those assets and added them to their capitalization sheets.You see it, right? You see the problem here? Not yet?Keep this in mind. It will be important in just a minute.The CollapseI remember being in college in the early 2000’s, and asking the loan officer at our local bank how some of the people I knew were making maybe $10–12 an hour could afford these massive homes and boats and jet skis and campers. My parents were teachers; they weren’t doing bad, but we couldn’t afford all that and I knew they were doing better than some of those people. The loan officer shook his head and said, “They can’t. They can afford the payments.”Some of those people didn’t have furniture in their homes. If they had a party, they rented furniture for a couple days. I’m serious. That was a thing. Many of them were in deep, crippling credit card debt, paying off the balances of one with another, and justifying it with the idea that it would be okay when the next raise kicked in.It was a classic speculation bubble.Then in late 2006–2007, that bubble burst.The housing market became oversupplied. People stopped buying the new construction and the existing homes as much. And home values started to drop.And suddenly, because home values plateaued and then dropped, so too did the little bit of equity that many of these purchasers, in debt up to their eyeballs, had in their homes. Without more equity, they couldn’t refinance. And because they could’t refinance, those ARM loans or other loans kicked in, and the interest rates on them skyrocketed.And suddenly, they couldn’t make the payments anymore.And then they went into default on their mortgages.Followed by foreclosure.And often bankruptcy.It turned into a vicious cycle. Once one or two neighbors end up losing their homes in foreclosure, it affects the property values of everyone else around those properties like a contagion. Healthier borrowers started to become impacted as property values declined and now they couldn’t refinance.In 2007, lenders foreclosed on 79% more homes than in 2006: 1.3 million foreclosures. In 2008, this skyrocketed another 81% still: 2.3 million. By August of 2008, nearly one in ten mortgages nationally were in default and foreclosure proceedings. By one year later, this had risen to over 14% nationally.The RecessionRemember, the financial sector had heavily invested in all of those housing market securities. They thought they were safe. They thought that the housing market would never go anywhere but up. They built their whole foundation on it.And they had relied on those securities to meet their capitalization requirements.Securities that suddenly turned out to be nearly worthless.Huge banks ran out of liquid cash almost immediately. This is what happened to Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers, Goldman Sachs, Citibank, and more. They were suddenly holding on to billions upon billions of dollars of assets that were either worthless, or completely frozen. They couldn’t sell the bits of stuff that was even worth anything.And because their assets weren’t liquid, they didn’t have money to lend anymore.And that lack of credit is what grinds the economy to a halt.That impacted every sector of business in the United States. Which impacted every sector of business in the world. And that meant that businesses started having to lay people off because they couldn’t get the money to keep paying them.And then because those people lost their jobs, they started to default on their mortgages. Which rippled through the CDO market again.This was why it was so critical for the Federal Reserve to buy those toxic assets and provide the banks with liquid cash in their place. They had to get the credit flowing again to re-start the gears of the economy. Without it, we almost certainly would have seen a full repeat of the Great Depression.And that brings us to today.That’s the abbreviated, oversimplified explanation. It’s more complicated than this, and there’s other factors that contributed, but that’s kind of the main story in basic terms. That’s roughly how 10 million homes went into foreclosure.And we still haven’t fully recovered. Over twice as many people rent as opposed to own. Less than one-third of people who have lost a home in foreclosure in the last decade will be able to repurchase another again. Roughly 2/3ds of those people who lost their homes have so damaged their credit that they will never qualify again. Hundreds of thousands, if not millions more, were so emotionally traumatized by the experience that they simply refuse to go through it again.And that number of renters to owners is substantially higher for my generation, the Millenials, who have never seen any substantial portion of the post-2008 recovery. We still haven’t made up the wages that would allow us to save enough to purchase, even setting aside the massive increase in student debt we carry.75% of my generation wants to own a home. Less than 35% do.And, in case reading this wasn’t chilling enough for you, the present administration has been lifting some of the exact rules and regulations that were put into place after the 2008 collapse that were lifted in 2004 that were put in place after the 1980’s collapse after those were lifted. Because it worked so well the first two times.Mostly Standard Addendum and Disclaimer: read this before you comment.I welcome rational, reasoned debate on the merits with reliable, credible sources.But coming on here and calling me names, pissing and moaning about how biased I am, et cetera and BNBR violation and so forth, will result in a swift one-way frogmarch out the airlock. Doing the same to others will result in the same treatment.Essentially, act like an adult and don’t be a dick about it.Look, this is pretty oversimplified. Ph.D. theses have been written about this. I’m trying to make it at least remotely accessible to those with the patience to read it. Don’t be pedantic about it, please?Getting cute with me about my commenting rules and how my answer doesn’t follow my rules and blah, blah, whine, blah is getting old. Stay on topic or you’ll get to watch the debate from the outside.Same with whining about these rules and something something free speech and censorship.If you want to argue and you’re not sure how to not be a dick about it, just post a picture of a cute baby animal instead, all right? Your displeasure and disagreement will be duly noted. Pinkie swear.If you have to consider whether or not you’re over the line, the answer is most likely yes. I’ll just delete your comment and probably block you, and frankly, I won’t lose a minute of sleep over it.Debate responsibly.

1.The EU wrecked the 500 year old British fishing industry allowing fish quotas to be traded as a commodity. Now one Dutch trawler legally registered in Britain with a British crew and therefore “British” can take about 23% of Britain's national quota and land 100% of its catch in the Netherlands. They literally syphon in every living organism, sort it and throw 25% of the catch back into the sea – dead. However they have again changed the rules and now they can bring the 25% back for landfill. Meanwhile British fishermen in small boats using only nets have to sit and watch or face fines which ruin them financially. One of them was even jailed on a legal technically because they prosecuted him under the Proceeds of Crime Act originally intended to confiscate the profits of drug dealers. He was fined over £100k and had to mortgage his home to pay which was illegal it should have come from the profit on fish he had sold. When the Judge asked him where he got the money he was jailed for contempt of Court. Meanwhile a Dutch super trawler was fined £100k for being caught with tonnes of illegal fish in its hold but allowed to sell the catch for £500k, how’s that for even handed enforcement of EU law. Even Greenpeace not known for its right wing sympathies thinks the EU’s meddling in fishing is disastrous.2.The EU also wrecked most of the much smaller Irish fishing industry and fishermen on the Irish West Coast have to watch while Lithuanian trawlers scoop up fish that were previously theirs. The last I heard they were complaining to their elected representatives who happen to be Sinn Fein the political wing of the IRA. One trusts they will restrict any action to Democratic means for the moment. However as Ireland has profited mightily from EU investment in its infrastructure getting back about seven times what it pays in so nationally they are unlikely to complain. It’s ironic that the EU has paid for the Irish Navy have purpose-built fishery protection ships for the first time in its history. For 80 years it has had to manage with Royal Navy castoffs now it has a fleet of state of the art patrol boats. The irony is that they now patrol Irish fishing grounds for the benefit of Lithuanians etc.3.An acquaintance who spent 20 years living on a small holding in Greece spent the entire referendum campaign canvassing for brexit. He saw at first hand the amount of EU money that was being wasted and fluent in modern and ancient Greek he said the Greeks were laughing all the way to the bank. I know they are paying for it now but 10 years ago they just could not believe the amount of money they were walking away with.4.Then there is the fiasco of the EU subsidies to support hill farming. In the UK this amounted to £400 per hectare but the reality was thousands of sheep were turned loose on the hills and left to starve. The farmers also burned off thousands of hectares of heather so they could be classified as farms where even more sheep could be left to starve. Overgrazing caused serious ecological damage and they were obliged to dream up a different set of rules and subsidies to stop the farms they had been trying to help being turned into wasteland.5.One of the first things the newly independent Irish government did in the 1920’s was to set up a sugar beet industry to support Irish farmers and provide employment processing the beet. For reasons best known too itself in 2006 the EU decreed Ireland should not produce sugar beet and paid the farmers €60 million in bribes sorry compensation to allow the current crop rot in the ground. Ireland is now paying €150 million a year for imported sugar. Best of all the EU has decided that all quotas for sugar beet will be phased out by 2017! The Irish are looking at ways to resurrect (a good word) the industry as all the processing plants have been demolished. Ask yourself what would happen to elected politicians who used public money and the force of law to wipe out an industry that had been working satisfactorily for 80 years, then less than 10 years later said - Actually it’s okay for you to grow and process that after all.6.The EU does not, or did not, as it is difficult to know what they are up too, allow the import of raw cane sugar only the raw cane. This wiped out processing in the growing countries as the ban on beet growing did in Ireland and also wiped out cane sugar processing plants in the UK. In the cane growing countries the residue of the raw cane was recycled as fertiliser. In the EU countries this goes to landfill – along with the surplus fish. At one time EU members were paying TWICE the world price for sugar to subsidise beet growers in selected EU countries but mainly in France.7.I recently spoke to a economist who in 2001 worked on EU projects to construct the infra-structure of Eastern Europe in Romania(?) This involved building roads and services for business parks the recipient country could then develop themselves. He has checked on google earth several times and to date in 2017 nothing has been done, The “business parks” and “infrastructure projects” are as they were left when the EU funded work was finished.Has anyone been called to account for these foul ups? In a democracy the ---- would hit the fan and quite rightly but since when was the EU a democracy?The EU is based on the principle that economists, bureaucrats and statisticians can manage capitalism better than the capitalists. Let you into a secret - they can’t. Before WW I the German general staff calculated Russian economic development was such that by 1920 they would be ahead of Germany. Then came the Marxists and their planned economy and they are still recovering.Cuba has had a tightly planned economy for over 50 years and I'll grant you, the US has gone out of its way to make it hard for them. Nevertheless, I found that there as in Romania under communism, when corporate capitalism is banned everybody becomes a capitalist. By which I mean everybody but everybody you meet is on the fiddle.Within the EU a third of the Italian economy is reckoned to be unofficial and that is one hell of a fiddle.I always considered the EU be a great idea, even a noble idea but to quote Mikael Gorbachev in 1987.“The most puzzling development in politics during the last decade is the apparent determination of Western European leaders to re-create the Soviet Union in Western Europe.”ADDENDUM 18 June 2017A number of people have courteously requested me to give my sources some of which are listed below.1) BRITISH FISHING INDUSTRYhttps://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwj3jOqCzcTUAhWPa1AKHYyBCgsQFggoMAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.telegraph.co.uk%2Fcomment%2Fcolumnists%2Fchristopherbooker%2F5105730%2FNow-we-treat-our-fishermen-like-drug-dealers.html&usg=AFQjCNFX0rWEOPUR2A_bQFShvq8dUXPfOQ&sig2=TT4Qh3GTmy-VDpkz_tLsBAThe Dutch trawlerhttps://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=5&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwip5rXpssfUAhVLKVAKHQBxBIUQFghDMAQ&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.thetimes.co.uk%2Farticle%2Fdutch-trawler-cornelis-vrolijk-hoovers-up-23-of-uks-fishing-quota-282qzdx59bs&usg=AFQjCNGLQVeeZ8ilmffSMkgNBLeWmjzcRQ&sig2=l_TWNJmkqZL83zlt_sGv7A2) EU and IRISH FISHING INDUSTRYhttps://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=9&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwi2_feAuMfUAhVOUlAKHbiTA18QFghbMAg&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffishingforjustice.eu%2Fwp%2F&usg=AFQjCNGbkpMjluv_mlCcK19Pbe8iV86-yw&sig2=cL7OTwyL99CHqFS_lzqsUA3) GREEK FARMING My initial source was my daughters partners family who returned from 20 years in Greece with his parents and 5 siblings all of whom campaigned hard for brexit. To be fair with 6 children he must have had little time for farming. Nevertheless this article by visiting Professor at London University is relevant to Greek farming. It includes the following paragraph.“World agricultural prices, which are formed in the American Midwest and the Argentinean Pampas, are lower than the cost of Greek producers. The only factor keeping Greek farming in existence is EU support in the form of duties on foreign food and large subsidies provided to European producers. For decades, one in every two euros spent by the EU was not invested in education or research, or even consumed by welfare, but went to subsidize mountains of butter and rivers of wine.”https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=3&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwjphueejsjUAhWHJlAKHdCxDqMQFgg0MAI&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ekathimerini.com%2F206308%2Farticle%2Fekathimerini%2Fcomment%2Fgreek-agriculture-and-the-eu--inconvenient-truths&usg=AFQjCNFWShQmoWR4wSLfXcceEmCla3roHA&sig2=QlDctfXLsh-LHz9UUojHkg4) HILL FARMINGMonbiot The hills are deadhttps://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwjq-OvI4MXUAhULZlAKHdtFAdMQFggrMAE&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.monbiot.com%2F2017%2F01%2F04%2Fthe-hills-are-dead%2F&usg=AFQjCNHv1k23HPy6iZncFpyqiJ4m7Vyx0g&sig2=SowxpoDYK0nrAQ7gPCaQhAThe Guardian -Why Britain's barren uplands have farming subsidies to blamehttps://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=3&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwjq-OvI4MXUAhULZlAKHdtFAdMQFggxMAI&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fenvironment%2Fgeorgemonbiot%2F2013%2Fmay%2F22%2Fbritain-uplands-farming-subsidies&usg=AFQjCNHqjCEqdlRzm5oTabwMwo-6yqtrNg&sig2=D-VEXE3loXIWqp1QgJH_Kg5) IRISH SUGAR INDUSTRYTwo of several reports online.https://www.google.co.uk/url?cad=rja&cd=8&esrc=s&q=&rct=j&sa=t&sig2=TBo50zmoT20q_hfcl8JshQ&source=web&uact=8&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.independent.ie%2Fbusiness%2Ffarming%2Fpush-is-now-on-to-revive-mothballed-sugar-industry-29394131.html&usg=AFQjCNGES1RHZNirBFRHh0-hoEVDf35PoQ&ved=0ahUKEwiB0dDK3cTUAhVSI1AKHcfjAewQFghRMAchttps://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=9&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwiQgp2rs8fUAhXSblAKHcvPDJEQFghZMAg&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.irishtimes.com%2Fbusiness%2Fagribusiness-and-food%2Fgreencore-head-says-there-will-never-be-an-irish-sugar-industry-again-1.1409151&usg=AFQjCNEeJrCBHslwv9Qmi-sAxc3oKfa6ZA&sig2=Qm4czoeauyGZoxGg2Ugh8A6) EU AND CANE SUGARhttps://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=4&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwiu4dSbucfUAhWSKlAKHdBvBTwQFghBMAM&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.telegraph.co.uk%2Fnews%2Fworldnews%2Feurope%2Feu%2F9904266%2FThe-EUs-sugar-ruling-thats-left-a-bitter-taste-at-Tate-and-Lyle.html&usg=AFQjCNGhRFYATzy1wJWXQKTsmuM0tMcFyg&sig2=IDuBU55r4Q_U7grp9X3Q1Q7) EU FUNDED DEVELOPMENT AREASMy source here is a personal contact at a social club which is closed for the summer so I am unlikely to be able to confirm anything more before September. All I can say at this point is that he was very well-informed and given his age and qualifications, something more than a pen pusher. It might be hearsay, but its prime unsolicited first-class hearsay from someone who spent years in the job. However while on holiday in Greece in June 2016 our guide pointed out a new but derelict industrial estate which quote -” Closed when the EU withdrew funding”.

North vs. South“The South” is a difficult region to pin down, and I think that the tendency of most Northerners (like me) is to use the term to generally refer to anywhere south of the Mason-Dixon Line. To most New Yorkers, Alabama, Arkansas, Mississippi, and Georgia are exactly the same. It's the South but tell someone from Mississippi that they are exactly like someone from Georgia and it might be considered fighting’ words. Mississippi is the existential truth of the ‘real’ south while Georgia is so much ‘Yankee Land’ what with its Atlanta orientation and fancy black political structure. They don’t even fly the Confederate Flag from the state house anymore and they are trying to tear off the Confederacy greatest monument carving of General Robert E Lee on Stone Mountain. And yet Texas is not “the South” in the same way that Mississippi is the South. It isn't Deep South, which is another difficult term to pin down. Texas - half Confederate, half Western, and half New York – that damn state’s culture is everywhere in Texas. I lived in Virginia for ten years and was never considered a southerner. Virginia is northern south Yankee country. I think of Virginia as more “Southern” than Texas in most regards. Yet the Texan concept of what it meant to be “Southern” was different from the Virginian definition.Where does the south end and begin? It’s never a matter of pure geography, but rather culture, and there are a number of historical developments which blur those lines. Most people call the south the “slave states” but then you’re must include Delaware, Missouri, Kentucky, and even then-territories such as present-day Oklahoma and New Mexico/Arizona. If, though, you’re going by the states which actually seceded in 1861 and fought on the side of the “South,” well then your answer won’t include Delaware, or Maryland, or West Virginia (exactly) Missouri and Kentucky.I think that, culturally, the Civil War and their resultant belief systems - isolation, oligarchy, slavery, Jim Crow - that went with it helped to define the South as a region to a greater extent than the north who doesn't even think about it. Losing that war and dealing with the policies that followed gave those states something in common in a way that the rest of the Union didn't have. It was unity in defeat. Now, culture and identity are two different things. It would be great to see the leaders of the South let go of the anger, fear and hate and the symbols (flags and monuments) that continue to hold back their region.The south is vastly different than the north - It’s not really strictly a Northern vs. Southern thing. It’s much more related to being an urban vs. rural thing, although that’s not everything. There is also the southern extreme religiosity, slave and Jim Crow history and resultant Civil War where 650,000 people were killed leaving deep feelings in the south. There is a saying in the south "The War ain't over."The two regions developed differently - the north was an industrialized, immigrant driven, infrastructure built part of the USA while the south had none of that in order to keep the slaves constrained from escaping and to support its oligarchy style of government. This affected how the USA was built over time. Northern homes are usually built near major cities, where the costs of land, materials, and labor are considerably higher than in the southeast. In addition, weather-proofing housing in the North has to account for considerably greater temperature variation than in the South. For example, the Twin Cities in Minnesota can experience -35 degrees F in the winter and 95 degrees in the summer. South Florida rarely gets colder than 60 degrees in the winter and 95 degrees in the summer.The North has, since the foundation of the United States, been the most densely populated region of the country. Cities and towns are older there, and even rural areas have had more time to be settled and develop. If you drive through small towns in rural Pennsylvania, Maryland, or Massachusetts, you’ll notice they still feature lots of houses (often old, from the 1900s, 1800s, or even 1700s) smashed really closely together. Even the cost of land in the northern states is higher. With more time to develop farming and a higher population causing higher demand on the land (plus, in many cases, a topography that doesn’t make for lots of wide-open space), most, if not all, of the empty land has been claimed and domesticated.The South, in contrast, developed much later. While port cities such as Charleston and Savannah have dense historical districts, large swaths of the South, including most of what now make up the largest cities in the region, were empty and undomesticated until much later in our country’s history. With room to spread out and ample unsettled areas available for the taking, land was not at a premium as it was in the North. Even to this day, large cities in the South like Atlanta (the 9th largest metropolitan statistical area in the country), not to mention even larger metro areas in Texas like Houston (#5) and Dallas (#4) feature a much more spread-out, less-dense population, and with undeveloped land still being available, the demand of land is significantly less than it is in the denser Northern states. The availability and lower cost of new land to develop means that the cost of building new homes is less, which means the demand for existing houses is less, translating into a lower cost of ownership.Southern society is based on ultra conservative REPUBLICAN beliefs and evangelical religious practices that justifies all sorts of evil transgressions and refutes evolution, global warming, cosmology, modernity and the genome of DNA. And I will never understand the southern obsession with guns, it just doesn't square with biblical teaching. The south is an intolerant society that is loaded with fears of diversity and modernity. They try to keep things the same, and between political gerrymandering, voter suppression of minorities, constant messaging from conservative and religious ideologues, there are very few mechanisms for getting another opinion much less the truth. It's so bad that there’s not a day that goes by where I don’t see some conservative going on and on about how the Republican party is the party of “good Christian values” and everyone else (specifically liberals) is waging some kind of war on religion."The North" -I lived in the North most of my life; was born and raised in 1930s - 40s Milwaukee, then spending ten years in the south during my Navy and IBM Naval Base career. I think most people have fond memories of where they lived as young children. Milwaukee was a great place to grow up in but its bitterly cold in the winter. It's one thing to know about the cold, and another to have to get up every morning and put on six layers of clothing to stay warm. I didn't think an average summer temp of 80-85 degrees sounded so bad either, until I got to Georgia and got smacked in the face with humidity like I had never experienced before. Trust me when I say that I abhor hot summer weather in the South. I'm never out during the day because of it. I'm dead serious when I say that I have gone a week without leaving my house during the day, primarily because the weather sucks. I will gladly take the colder winters over the brutal summers. I don't know what it is, but I find the heat worse than the cold since it feels more oppressive for some reason.Northern culture is very different from the Southern Culture. Did I say Northern culture? No such thing! Northern society is way too varied to have a singular culture. "The North" is kind of a default concept created by Southerners. They define it as "any place but the South." The north is really at least two separate regions, the Northeast and the Midwest. The culture of Grand Rapids Michigan is completely alien to someone living in Boston, Ma. In fact a thick New England accent may be tough for someone in the Midwest to even understand.The values of the two regions are different, as are the ethnic makeup's of them. The northeast is far more urban, far more politically liberal, while the Midwest is slower and less densely populated, it's considered traditional America. It is funny that southerners do not see this fact, as they are constantly lumping all northerners together as if they share a common culture. I challenge any southerner to travel to upstate New York, Vermont, Maine, rural Michigan or Wisconsin and still claim that the north is one big fast paced concrete jungle where people talk fast. I think most of them would be shocked at what they saw there. No skyscrapers, no rude fast paced people, lots of guns, lots of gigantic lakes, deep water fishing, big slew woods big game hunting, farms everywhere and yes far better fishing and hunting than they could ever hope to see down south.I Fell in Love with NYC - Cruising Times SquareI got my start in NYC in the 1950s when I was in the Navy spending many weekend liberties in Manhattan. For a sailor from Milwaukee stationed in the segregated and dismal 1950s south, Times Square was an euphoria of delight, a paradigm of exoticness coupled with the world's diversity of peoples and life styles all wrapped in one package. During our annual 'Fleet Week' when my Battle Group visited New York City and my Destroyer anchored in the Hudson by the George Washington Bridge, I stood Military Police in Times Square before we were deployed to the Med for six to eight months. Compared to dismal Norfolk, Manhattan was like comparing Paris to Calcutta.There were actually thousands of delights, with tens of thousands of people walking about, and no question about it, the best girl watching in the world was available in Manhattan - particularly in midtown along its many avenues, lined with skyscrapers, building ledges and street cafes to sit around. A particularly good area was in the fifties on Sixth Avenues where many water fountains abounded and granite veranda patios filled with tables, chairs and sitting ledges. Whatever your fancy, blond, brunette, redhead, Asian, White, or Black, the woman of you dreams would pass by every five minutes - or oftener! The beautiful people of the world came to Manhattan for fame, fortune, and excitement. Careers in show business and the business world topped the list as reasons so many bright and attractive people moved to Manhattan. And for some like me, it was for freedom!For lunch, every kind of food is available, with hundreds of Delis, street cafes, ethnic restaurants, Halal street carts, and fast food eateries every two blocks. Eat a New York pizza and you are doomed to never be satisfied for a slice anywhere else. Manhattan is also the Happy Hour and dance capital of the world, and everyone loves to party heartily in one of those 12,000 some odd night clubs, juke dance joints and dive bars in the City, the Irish ones being the best. So after work, Happy Hour is a must to relax and become acquainted with someone new while you search for your heart's desires of a soul mate. There is so much to choose from, every type and color hue that making up your mind is a problem, but choices are stimulating, and Manhattan has tens of thousands of personal prerogatives, and a neverending supply of life styles are available. Nothing in the world beats the night life in New York, which includes various types of hang out places like Bars, Cocktail Lounges, Billiards, Comedy Clubs, Dance Clubs, Hotel Bars, Comedy Clubs, Music Clubs, Sports Bars, Piano Bars, Jazz & Blues Clubs.Yes, in New York you can always hear any type of music, from plenty of jazz, pogoing punk to thumping hip-hop on any night of the week the live music scene very well reflects New York's diversity. If you are looking out for some dance clubs with Caribbean, Brazilian, African tastes, or even cheesy numbers or hard hitting drum tunes, you can get that too. Crazy things happened all the time. I bought beef jerky sticks from a street cart, an Amish man, in Union Square park on a gorgeous sunny day in Gotham after a business meeting. There were hundreds of people milling about enjoying the day as I was. As I sat eating my jerky sticks, I saw an attractive big busted woman wearing absolutely nothing above her low cut jeans; her beautiful breasts on full display. It made my day. What a delightful vision of splendor! All the New Yorkers pretended not to notice but, I like to smile and luxuriate in spiritual feelings so, I was most happy she walked by, breaking up the routine of another day chasing a buck in New York. Now you see the bold and the beautiful, the famous and discover they are just like you, scared of the notoriety and needing a small space to hide in. That is the biggest lesson you learn in Manhattan that we are not so different, all the races, colors, ethnicities and religions types are so much the same. Yes, the best time of my life was working in Manhattan; the total freedoms, the people and place were perfect for me, all exciting and highly glamorous. It was all for me! But to be honest, I moved to Manhattan in the last innocent time, the time without AIDS. Like many of the adventures in the 1960's and 1970's it was "risk on" as no sexual act, no sexual conquest, no ethnic adventure was taboo - as it had been for generations before. In the 1960's the call to arms: "If it feels good do it" became the credo to live by for millions of us who grew up listening to the music and the message. The rebellion of Woodstock and social revolution in Greenwich Village permeated the American scene. All the old fears were thrown aside.Whereas NYC had everything, from tough water front bars, girls of every color and ethnic type everywhere anxious for attention from loved starved sailors, to ritzy nightclubs, the south had no social life, just military bases, guns and churches that preached Martin Luther King was a communist. And the 'War ain't over', the Civil War which was like a mountain range that guards all roads into the South: you can't go there without encountering it. Specifically, you can't go there without addressing a question that may seem as if it shouldn't even be a question - to wit: what caused the war? One hundred years after the event, the Confederate Flag still flies south of the Mason Dixon line and southerners don't think the Civil War had anything to do with slavery - regardless that Jefferson Davis and all the seceding states stated slavery was the reason for the war. It was the 1960s and African Americans were waging epic struggles for civil rights that altered white Southerners' worlds who reacted with hostility. They feared social and political change, and grappled uncomfortably with the fact that their way of life seemed gone for good.Then in 1968 I moved to Manhattan to escape the segregated South and all its social primitiveness. The Ku Klux Klan was running about lynching people and no one got arrested. No southern Sheriff would arrest a white murder, no white jury would convict, it was utter mayhem and chaos - the south was barbaric and lawless, they became a pariah in the world and didn't care. They were defending their confederate flag and all it stood for, hate and white supremacy. What I found in New York was much more than freedom, a wonderful city with lots of grand life styles, a chance to be all I could be and have international friends.As a new person to Manhattan, I performed the obligatory Staten Island Ferry ride and then caught the subway to Clark St Brooklyn, as advised by others, to walk toward the Manhattan skyline across the Brooklyn bridge after getting a slice from Grimaldi's Pizza. On any given day visitors from all over the world stream across the walkways to spy the towers of Manhattan and Lady Liberty from high above the East River. The melting pot begins here. Visitors should know that the rather narrow walkway is shared with a large number of bicycle commuters so keep your eyes open and respect the dividing line. I would highly recommend walking from the Brooklyn side because then you have the beautiful Manhattan skyline to look at on your walk. I just finished walking the Brooklyn Bridge going from east to west and saw the City Hall of New York, and my tourist map said Chinatown was nearby. I asked two Chinese ladies sitting on a park bench the direction and they said just follow "Central St." True enough, before me were several Chinese restaurants and bargain stores after a short walk. Shirts were being sold for just $2, and great caps for three for $5, but I came here for the food! I wanted to eat some beef Chop Suey like my dad got from the Chinese restaurant in Milwaukee every Friday night. It was notable that there were also lots other Asian restaurants, like Vietnamese. All the stores here target to Chinese people as customers, the newspaper and signs are in Chinese. I walked for a while in the small streets and barely met with anyone other than Chinese people. I drunk something at Hon Café where nobody could understand in English that I just wanted a milkshake so I drunk something else! Then I returned back to the small alleys and visited the central park of the area which is Columbus Park. The Chinese community gather there for socializing. I noticed many ladies under their colorful umbrellas chatting and playing cards and the men in different tables playing an unknown to me domino game. Some interesting points to see here are the two Buddhist temples I saw, probably there are more but those are the ones I saw on the map. On Mott Street I found many accupressurist charging $5 for 10 minutes.I enjoy the weird and unusual and while walking 8th Avenue poked my head into the Terminal Bar, its notoriety drew artists and punks and the curious. I found that straights like businessmen in pin striped suits and high class women in furs and high heels went there to experience the 'other world' once in while, to get dirty and hang out around 3 a.m. after working or nightclubbing all night and having double eggs and bacon breakfast around the corner at the 11th Avenue Diner where Mickey Spillane and Jimmy Breslin got their story book characters from. But, it wasn’t really welcoming to slumming business engineering hipsters like me or bush league adventures looking to make nice with Terminal bums. You needed tattoos, earring, being unshaven with long hair, having a worn out - been through a war and barely survived look - to enter without provocations coming back at you. It was still an enclosed society with it’s own brutal code, not easily cracked by the voyeuristic aesthete.I decided not to walk Manhattan in an orderly manner but, rather, to walk wherever I happened to be in the city on a particular day or what appealed to me according my mood. If I felt like open spaces, I would walk the upper part of Manhattan; if I wanted streams of people milling around, it would be midtown or lower Manhattan. I didn't skip any streets because I learned from my first few walks that you never knew what was around the corner. When walking around Manhattan, you learn the city's quirks and niches, the things that make New York what it is. This is great if you have never been to NYC, or if you have been to an area and never truly explored it. I learned this my first day out: Why do Brownstones have tall stairways? To avoid the smell of manure before the car was invented of course! A few days ago I walked down to the Wall Street area. Leaving the West Village, heading south along Greenwich Street, I could see a change in architecture . . . the pretty brownstone streets were soon replaced with rows and rows of old warehouses. Real old ones, the kind that are begging to be restored into vibrant, new loft spaces young people would inhabit. I’ve always wanted to restore an old warehouse. On I walked as the landscape transitioned again. Taller, newer buildings sprung up amidst the old ones. So many interesting rooftop habitats (am dying to go into some of these places). One can only imagine how creatively decorated they are on the inside. I stopped for lunch in Tribeca and had my first real street meal today from a Halal [i.e.: Muslim] vendor. For $5, which include a coke (I mean a soda), I had one of the most delicious meals I’ve had in a long time. REALLY! It included something that resembled a hush puppy, but it was seasoned totally differently. I was enjoying my meal until the pigeons arrived. And folks, let me tell you, these New York pigeons are REAL aggressive. That bird came within six inches of my lunch and would not back off at all.Something told me I was nearing the financial district because of all the starched white shirts walking down the street. Girls in high heels and dark suits, men with ties and their hair all in place. No tattoos and dreadlocks on this side of town. There were a lots of voices that sounded angry, so I followed the sounds. I sure didn’t want to miss a good story, it was a group of New York Telephone employees picketing in favor of some new work rules. I met a young lady at Trader Joe's, a sweet eyed, brown skinned vixen from Tunisia. She flirted with me and wanted to go dancing. New York City is full of immigrants, who left their nation(s) and culture to pursue a better life in the Big Apple.Lately I have been walking up the avenues to 42ndstreet to explore Manhattan. What I found were diversity in neighborhoods, architectures, and ethnicity. Yesterday I walked uptown on Fifth Avenue to Grand Central because it was so beautiful; a crisp air bright blue afternoon sky and I love to walk the streets of New York because there is no need to be crammed and sweating in a subway car. Each time I’ve wound up at Grand Central station. I’ve taken a different avenue or have zigzagged my way uptown. I like to get a feel for each avenue, see how they’re different, see what’s around me. Today I took Lexington Avenue and I’m glad I did. Besides how narrow it was, compared to other avenues, it was beautiful. Old buildings, more residential on the stretch I walked than other avenues. But the main reason I was so happy to be on Lexington was because, as I was stopped at a corner waiting for traffic to pass, I heard a little voice call out, “Mr. Luenzmann?” Had I heard the voice say, “Jerry” I probably wouldn’t have turned around because no one yet knows me by my first name in New York City outside of the New School. But because my ears are so trained to small voices calling me by my last name, I turned around immediately and there in front of me was one of my students. She was getting out of a cab with her mother right where I was, and after a few surprised seconds, they invited me up to their building’s roof! It was the first rooftop I’ve been on in my life in New York, and I couldn’t have chosen a more beautiful vista or two more lovely people to be up there with. The building has a view of the East River, where Macy’s 4th of July fireworks explode before their eyes, and, better yet, the Empire State Building basically leans over them. We were so close I could almost see the people in the building’s offices. I exaggerate of course, but the view was really beautiful. Being up so high in the late afternoon, watching the shadows grow long and deep purple across the city while Queens remained golden in the distance brought such calm to my day that had been agitated by some work stress. It was so nice to be up there with my student and her mom; the conversation flowed so easily, and I learned more about their family. I left the roof feeling patient and forgiving.Some times I took a subway to explore somewhere and then walk around. I remember seeing horse-drawn carts with the last of the rag-pickers and the gradual shift of the area south of us from Italian to Puerto Rican. I passed a an Italian butcher shop, carcasses hanging in the window, and the fish monger, the dead bodies of fish, heads and tails intact staring up at me from their bed of ice; a little daunting to a six year old. The Italian grocer on the corner, narrow and dark, redolent of those smells only an Italian grocery has: Parmesan cheese, olives, prosciuto and more; funky smelling to a young, untrained nose.I remember the bodega where the Puerto Rican owner spoke no English full of newspapers and candy, Smarties, miniature wax Coke bottles filled with dark syrup, red wax lips, candy cigarettes, Necco Wafers. It was hot and I was sweaty and wanted something sour, I stood with a dime in my hand to buy a big sour pickle. I picked on from the barrel on the street then, task complete, walked out into the sunshine, extra bright after the darkness of the store, hands full of candy and a smile on my face. Across the avenue, Lanza's, an Italian restaurant, occupied the same spot since the 1920s. It seemed so old: small white octagonal tiles on the floor, wainscoting and mirrors and pictures of Italy on the wall, bent-wood chairs at the tables. It was a little more expensive than the other Italian places I went to. It was the first place I ate Veal Marsala and I remember the sensation of the buttery meat melting in my mouth. The Italian ice place next-door was an important stop after dinner at Lanza’s on a hot day. The soothing lemon ices, smooth and tart, were served in a pleated paper cup. You’d squish it to get the ices to come up where they could be licked, I can still feel and taste them on my tongue.Walking Harlem on Sundays was very uplifting as you could hear singing in the air from all the churches. There are dozens of them in Harlem, some large, some as small as a one-door garage. One time when I had gotten off the train at 125th street, I stopped outside the station to stretch my legs before beginning a long walk downtown. A man in a wheelchair rolled over to me and asked if I was O.K.. When I told him I was just stretching my legs, he said, "O.K, as long as you're alright," and rolled away! On another occasion, a young African-American was sitting in front of a brownstone next to it and as I passed him he asked me if I was going to buy the house. I told him I wasn't but that if I were his age, I would seriously consider it. Manhattan has so many kinds of people experiences I wondered what kept me so long from enjoying them. There was always a show to see in Manhattan whether it was the sidewalk stores in Washington Heights, the quaintness of Greenwich Village, the "busyness" of Chinatown and the lower East Side, or the multitude of activities going on at Harold Square, Columbus Circle, Union Square, or Madison Square Park.People want to know what area I liked the best and I always have to dodge that question because I had no favorite. Manhattan is like twenty different countries - you appreciate each one for what you learn from it whether it's the Latino influence in the north or the Chinese in the south. I guess my favorites are Times Square for its grittiness and exhibitionism of neon lights and people and Greenwich Village for its intellectual contents and people. In looking back, I realize that the walking was mentally stimulating as it motivated me to get out of my comfort zone each week. Walking in Manhattan was like living in the moment, very spiritual on many levels as you were alone with the world without being alone. The contrasting neighborhoods gave life to the meaning of the Golden Rule, not like in the South that was racially segregated and had none of the ethnic diversity of Manhattan. Again I thought, “Why did it take me so long?”New York City occupies a special place in the American consciousness as the tumultuous seat of our financial markets and the buzzing capital of our culture. New York is celebrated for its wealth of nationalities, ethnicities and languages. But why would anyone want to live in NYC? It's insanely expensive, there are too many crazy people, it's bundles of energy and famously, "If you can make it in New York, you can make it anywhere." And lots of people love the challenge! Most important, it’s the city that exemplifies American pluralism, the “melting pot” that attracts new immigrants looking for work and college graduates drawn from their hometowns by the promise of excitement and opportunity. Its appeal hangs on its image as a city where everyone can try, get, and be anything. It has been my home for more than 40 years and I love it for its social and economic freedoms. My education and computer technology background fit right in and I found great career and social successes. Am I wrong or what?But NYC is not a panacea, it has its own problems just like any other city. First of all, it's terribly expensive, living costs are very high, you live in a small apartment that cost a fortune or commute from far away distances. Taxes are high to pay for all the social services, city employees and infrastructure support. The New York City government's budget is the largest municipal budget in the United States. In 2016 the NYC city government had a budget of $80 billion a year.The best jobs are in NYC and unless you are wealthy, you must commute and the hours required while being stuffed on packed trains and subways which are actually a frustrating second job. Second, the City is densely crowded. People are piled on top of one anther. Third, you will never get a good job unless you have a great education, NYC is comfortable for skilled and educated people only. Others scrape by! NYC is also being seriously gentrified, wealthy people move in to replace poorer people who are moving out. On the other side of the coin, NYC is certainly a playground for adults. There's never a dull moment in NYC. It's the city that never sleeps. It offers a thousand different interesting things to do every day. Besides high paying jobs for the talented in the business, banking, financial, advertising, business, performing art’s world, there is Broadway, Greenwich Village, China Town, Little Egypt, parades galore - St. Patties Day, Halloween, Macy's Thanksgiving, street theater and theatrical Flash Mobs, thousands of restaurants, bars, night clubs, museums and parks to pleasure your life away. Living or commuting to NYC is like being a member of Delta Force. It ain't for everyone but if you can do it life is great and you are a very special person.New immigrants do not simply replace old residents in the same jobs. They alter the economic mix. Look at the way Italians shaped the construction industry or, more recently, how Koreans have changed greengroceries. The succession of wealthy and skilled Blue Collar European groups who founded New York and dominated it for centuries have now become a racial minority. Whites are the racial minority residents in NYC itself. And they tend to be wealthy too to afford the expensive skyscraper multi million dollar condos and $3000/month apartments being built by the hundreds to accommodate the huge world migration to NYC. People have their priorities and if one of the top ones is living in Manhattan then they make it happen. Lots of people live in 2 bedroom apartments with 2 or 3 other people they don't know so they only pay $1,000 month each. I don't know how people move to NYC from anywhere else because the amount of living space you'll end up having is just a fraction of what you're probably used to . . . but for us NYers it's just what we are used to. It's also a very different lifestyle. There are a lot of singles and couples, it's exciting, active, socially diverse, people get along, tons of things to do any day with lots of entertainment choices, Very few families live here (in Manhattan).Lots of the people renting are struggling actors or such and they sacrifice space for location. I have friends who live in only a small room and share bathroom and kitchen. I know people who commute 2 or 3 hours to work . . . I am one of them, which is ridiculous but I have six kids and wife Upstate in the Catskill’s mountains, so its worth it. If you know the right spots to look and the right people you can get something affordable in this town . . . but for most people you're better off moving somewhere else. It sounds crazy but it's just life here.Most New Yorker's don't own, they either rent and/or live in the burbs & commute. When I first moved here, I lived in Hell's Kitchen in Midtown Manhattan and then moved to Jamaica, Queens. I worked in the Village and spent one hour on the F Train each way to and from work. The average rent for a Manhattan apartment was more than $2500 in 2005 and it's only gone up since. It would be more realistic for you to look for a studio, deep in another borough and even then you will have a hard time finding something acceptable that is that cheap.There is an affordable housing crisis in NYC and things are bad for everyone. Luxury skyscraper condos are sprouting up for sale everywhere but nothing affordable to rent. You could always try renting a bedroom in a share situation. It's possible that you won't find much less than $700/800 since you don't want to get shot or have an hour commute.NYC is a commuting culture. Millions of people commute to Manhattan every day, they ride trains, take ferries, subways or buses to Manhattan and there are tens of thousands of amenities to accommodate them. They come from Westchester, Long Island, Connecticut, Hudson Valley, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Upstate. This Metro area is more than 30 million people. Consequently, transportation is everything in NYC. But if you live in Manhattan, don't even consider a car unless you're wealthy, because you'll have to pay big time to keep it in a parking garage which cost around $800/month. You can get around by train, subway, taxi and bus. Subways go everywhere but are full of smelly homeless, hot, dirty, loud with rude people, constant beggars and candy sellers etc. But the entertainers at the stops are great. The A Train travels the entire length of the city, from the Bronx all the way through Brooklyn. It is quite the ride . . . a bucket list thing. Busses aren't bad but it tends to be slow. Living in Manhattan or Brooklyn and having a car is suicidal. A car is needed if you live on Staten Island. In Queens a car is helpful, and not a pain. For most of the Bronx, forget it, except for Riverdale. Manhattan and parts of other boroughs have alternate side parking, which means you have to move your car every day except Sunday and find a new parking spot. Loads of metered parking also.Speaking of commuting, New York City has one of the most extensive public transit systems in the world. The New York City Subway System is one of the largest subway systems in the world with more than 700 miles of tracks covering the four out of five boroughs of New York City. It is the only subway system in the world that operates 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Penn Station is the busiest railroad station in the world, with more than 800,000 commuters in it every day. In addition it hosts the Long Island Railroad, which bring million of the commuters from the eastern suburbs into the city daily. Grand Central Terminal is the largest railroad station in the world. The GCT is home to Metro-North Railroad, which operates train from this fame rail hub to the Hudson Valley, the northern suburbs and Connecticut. And now also the Long Island Railroad to Manhattan's east side.Other form of transportation operates to and from New York City, they included The PATH, NJ Transit, Amtrak, and both national and regional buses departing from and arriving to the Port Authority Bus Terminal. There also five airports, (Newark, LGA, JFK, Newburgh, and White Plans), as well as an extensive ferry system that include the Staten Island Ferry. So there is definitely no way you'll need a car to get around New York City. Manhattan squeezes people in skyscrapers and more are built every year for business, condos and apartments. Most people who work in those tall Manhattan skyscrapers of Manhattan live in Brooklyn, The Bronx, Queens, or even the NJ cities. Asking whether the City or New Jersey right across the Hudson is better is like asking if surfing is better in the Great Lakes or the Pacific. Stay away from Long Island, New Jersey, Hudson Valley, etc. if you're not looking to start a family, or simply do not prefer some of the most exciting activity in the world.NYC is heavily minority but overall, whites are much better off - they are better educated, have significantly less out of wed lock births, suffer less drugs, idleness and do much less crime than minorities. The evil doer whites steal unethically at the top in Wall Street and the blacks steal violently at the bottom on the street. Social progressives are always trying integrate the neighborhoods and schools, but it is the old story, how do you mix poor minorities with educated affluent whites? So the melting pot image belies the reality that much of the city remains divided along racial or ethnic lines. In dozens of neighborhoods, a single racial or ethnic group predominates, at rates of 70 percent to nearly 90 percent.New York schools are the most segregated in the country according to a new study. More than half of New York City’s public schools are more than 90 percent black and Latino, But these numbers don’t mean very much when placed in the context of the demographics of the school system as a whole - more than 67 percent of all students in the NYC system are black and Latino to begin with and live in their own neighborhoods. There just aren't not enough white kids to go around and integrate. And the white kids come from a different demographic too - more wealth, better educated and less dysfunctional homes. Sounds like Atlanta to me too! This is the worrisome inequities hidden beneath the New York’s glowing facade.Moving South From New YorkSo, this Yankee is back down South again, and this time the experience is more pleasant. I like the South now, it has changed for the better, it is easy living, but it is nothing like the more sophisticated northern style of multi cultural living, where people are better educated and more tolerant, and where there is more to do, but it’s cheaper, and that is what I need now on my Social Security budget.In Georgia, I am in the land of religious zealots and Tea Party conservatives and closed minded thinking and it's not a good fit for me. These days, it's hard for me to relate to people who insist that they are right, right, right and right, and even more right! They are full of - mostly mean and nasty - opinions without facts. They are supported by their media outlets like Fox News and conservative talk radio. They are only looking at their "side"... and their "side only!" All justified because their Bible tells them so! Especially when their view is so bigoted and hateful . . . that is so un Christian to me but normal religiosity to them.The south is antiquated, still hung up on its very one dimensional conservative religious and political culture and is very backward compared to the rest of the USA. But it is also the land of comfort, low speed ease, warm weather, tradition, good friends and hospitality. Today it's different, more normal, but always so hot and humid, and everyone is so polite, they say "Bless your heart" which makes it OK when followed by a verbal bomb, like "Your breath stinks. " But while it is all giving with warm fuzzys on the surface, I still felt underneath it was like a bomb waiting to go off. There is so much 'anti' feelings exhibited toward people not like them. I felt southern culture was kind of ridiculous. Sweet tea. Lots of churches. Religious judgmental attitudes out the wazoo. Ugh It just seemed so phony. But every corner I turned, there was an voluptuous white or black woman in a spring, floral-print dress with big hair and too much makeup, smiling and telling me, "Bless yer heart." I kinda liked that! Made me feel good and welcome.It's a completely different culture and belief system! In New York people ask what school you went to and here in the south they ask what church you go to. And their evangelical [Baptist, Methodist] church has a lousy record of following the Golden Rule; they help set up slavery, supported Jim Crow and fought against the 1960s Civil Rights to the death. Pastors still tell you from the pulpit that Obama was the anti Christ, to vote Republican, New York Values and homosexuals are evil, and the Confederate Flag represents southern tradition. And southern public education does not include a true picture of slavery, the Civil War and Jim Crow. The result is that southerners are on a completely different page of world understanding on religion, American history and how the USA was founded. You only get elected by being an evangelical Christian, ultra conservative, gun loving, immigrant and homosexual hating, Wall building Tea Party Republican.For example, down south, I like Charleston and Savannah in Georgia and St. Augustine in Florida. They are quite cosmopolitan for their size, so you won't give up too much in the way of culture. They are very touristy, full of history, and definitely more middle class and laid back, which is a plus in my book. There are more Protestants & fewer Catholics and very no Jews, but the objectionable judgmental fundamentalist evangelical religion thing is really easy to avoid in my experience. I also like Gwinnett County in the Atlanta metro area, the second most diverse county in the USA, the first being Queens, NY, is quite a nice place to live. It's sophisticated, with lots of new residential and commercial development, is filled up with immigrants and Yankees, has mostly good schools and hundreds of great neighborhoods - and is middle class affordable. It kinda reminds me of Westchester County in NY on the cheap. I think Atlanta is way over rated, in the USA it ranks in the bottom five of states for its horrible violent crime, worst traffic and lousy schools. There are too many hoods next to nice neighborhoods too.Yes, Blacks and whites get along fine today in the south, maybe better than the north. I guess after 400 some odd years of slavery and Jim Crow, practicing the same kind religion, living together and getting to know each other, they discovered there wasn't that much difference in the races. But that doesn't mean the South in general doesn't have a serious problem confronting its deeply embedded culture of racism.However, I always felt the South, that beneath the smiles and southern hospitality and politeness were a lot of guns and liquor and fear. Look at who they elect to office, all fear mongers and isolationists. I think it is safe to say that while the South is hardly Christ-centered, it is most certainly Christ-haunted. And if you want to see what life was like years 50 years ago, go south, everything happens in the south later than in the rest of the civilized world. It is backward and behind the curve on modernity . . .I go to church and volunteer here, and everywhere I go in the south there is a negative feeling about New Yorkers and the great city where I spent my life. With bad attitudes toward New Yorkers and being called a “Yankee” (like it’s a dirty name) once too often, and with my contemporary feelings on social issues like abortion, gay rights and racial integration generates conflicts among some church members, who saw nothing wrong with slavery and Jim Crow and still think 'Neegras' need to know their place,In metro Atlanta, the people are far more progressive and have experienced major northern immigration with commensurate cultural concessions like social integration. But those multicultural areas are repeatedly reviled by many of the rural people where we live, who are very socially conservative and uncomfortable living with multiple ethnic cultures and have a far different understanding of history.Southerners love their region and its culture; they don't think anything bad about it, no even slaver and Jim Crow. Once, when Bettie and I sat at a Sunday School luncheon table with a father and his daughters, who attend (private school) George Walton Academy, and he wondered why I immigrated to the north in the 1960s. I looked at him in astonishment. Southern legalized segregation and its evils didn’t even cross his mind as a barrier to my living in the South. Wasn’t it obvious that Bettie and I could have never lived in the South in the 1960s, but to him the south was the best place to be and he thought of the north as a culture of infidels. I told him that leaving the south and moving to Manhattan was a blessing to me and for the first time in many years I breathed the fresh air of freedom. Manhattan was good to me as I experienced a great career, economic and social freedoms, and international friendships, all of which were unavailable in the South. I was committing the unpardonable sin, bragging on New York and he wasn’t very happy with my conversation and quickly left the table.Yes, it's is a different world in New York where critical thinking "brain-storming sessions" was the way we got things done. Where there is very little race, religion or ethnicity issues, but where people are measured on character, where people work together to come up with creative and novel ideas to solve long-standing problems. New Yorkers are definitely better educated and a highly competitive international bunch, that live in a highly diverse environment and consequentially are very tolerant, and that all seems to rub many socially conservative southerners to no end who deplore New York values and call New York "Decadent" because we allow Gay Marriage.And the South is Trump country where he and his Republican alt right base have normalized bigotry, misogyny, racial hatreds and ignorant low brow thinking. They have not condemned the Nazis, white nationalists and KKK who support the extremist 'alt right.' They have become America's "Hate Group" and created the "US vs. "THEM" in American politics. And they are blaming America's problems on Mexicans, immigrants, liberals, homosexuals, abortion and anyone who disagrees with them being an educated and thinking worldly person. It's gotten into religion too, evangelicals standing against abortion and Gays and for "Religious Liberty" which allows them to discriminate against whom they disagree with, like Gays, Muslims, blacks, inter racial marriage. Conservatives used to stand up to religious crackpots like Alabama's Roy Moore, now many are defending him and he is sure to win election to the US senate in Alabama. Trump protects violent fascists by dispersing the blame in Charlottesville to "many sides." He has emboldened fascism around the world and white nationalists and Nazis in the USA. And the once truly great Republican Party has become the voice of hatred and thugs. It is perhaps the first time in American history that the racist far-right sees the elites in the White House as its allies.Why is the Country so divided?Since turning 80, I have not felt a shrinking but an enlargement of mental life and perspective. Having a long experience of life, I have seen triumphs and tragedies, booms and busts, revolutions and wars, great achievements and deep ambiguities, too. One has seen grand theories rise, only to be toppled by stubborn facts. One is more conscious of transience and, perhaps, of beauty and God. At 82, one can take a long view and have a vivid, "I have almost a century" and developed a sense of history not possible at an earlier age. I can actually imagine, feel in my bones, what a century is like, which I could not do when I was 40 or 60. I feel the north is more optimistic, exhibits critical thinking, thinks through facts rather than jump to some religious dogma like in the south.Since the beginning of recorded history, people have disagreed on everything and when societies were run by demigods (and many still are), getting agreements were simple, the ruler kills the ones who disagree, you know, the ones who are different, the ones who belong to other groups, have different agendas, believe in something radical to the norm. After all, life is so much simpler when all agree on everything! Then came democracy for the few people with enough nerve to stick their necks out and suffer debate, disagreement, and disorder.Today, in the 21st century, our knowledge on history has increased ten thousand times with the advent of computers and hundreds of thousands of new scientific and archaeological / cosmology / geophysical discoveries and with critical thinking we are capable to absorb all this new information and not get stuck in the past. But there are those who want to disregard modernity, science and our ever increasing understanding of history, they are afraid of change because it disturbs their comfort zone and/or are stuck with religious / political dogma. Change is natural and good, but people's reaction to change can be unpredictable and irrational. It can become a phobia for some and often being recognized as irrational. Resistance to change comes from a fear of the unknown or an expectation of loss. In reality, fear of change is one of the most common reasons for resistance to change because it stops you taking any action at all.The Religious Right extremists want to rewrite history, in much the same way as holocaust deniers are, they want us to believe our country (USA) was founded as a Christian country when in reality it was founded as a secular country. One of the principals of our founding was based on a desire for religious freedom and freedom from religion, and therefore the founders established a secular government focused on the personal freedom to be and equality - southern states excepted [sic] slavery.None of the Founding Fathers were atheists. Most of the Founders (Washington, Madison, Jefferson, etc.) were Deists, which is to say they thought the universe had a creator, but that he does not concern himself with the daily lives of humans, and does not directly communicate with humans, either by revelation or by sacred books. They spoke often of God, (Nature's God or the God of Nature), but this was not the God of the bible. They did not deny that there was a person called Jesus, and praised him for his benevolent teachings, but they flatly denied his divinity. The Founders were students of the European Enlightenment. The attitude of the age was one of enlightened reason, tolerance, and free thought. The Founding Fathers would turn in their graves if the Christian Extremists had their way with this country.I say all this to shout my dismay at the conservative right wing who have left their traditional bastion of reasonable advocacy for running a common sense - business like show. They have gone to religious and political extremes, advocating fear, mistrust and hate for anything or anyone not like them. They have been subjugated to extremist dogma and misconstrued history to their own ends (like the Nazis and Communists did), especially when it comes to what being a true American and Christian is all about, and facts about the philosophies attendant in the founding of our country and the Civil War. They see the world in a very puritanical - black and white - light.Trip to New YorkI went to the Colonial diner several times and looked at the crowd streaming in, diners being a famous New York habitat for the local yokels and also the rich and famous. New York diners are huge, seating around 500 plus people, and offering up a variety of menus but always serving 24 X 7 generous eggs and bacon breakfast with home fries, toast and orange juice for around $4.00. Waitresses always seem to be the wise cracking chesty blondes in short dresses with black fish net stockings who serve you flawlessly, but with endless jokes, local antidotes and are the best authorities on local politicians. Yes, New York always has that edge of Mickey Spillane grittiness and toughness about it, but New York is the land of the immigrants and the neighborhoods are always swapping from one group to another and people are very tolerant of different life styles. Man, I wish I was young again and could go out in the world and do SOMETHING! In NY there are jobs all around for a old retiree, driving local truck for parts dealers is a common one.But I nearing 83 and feeling my age. Once a 175lb lean and mean fighting machine, my biggest problem now is that I am fat, and at 210 pounds, a little bit of a porker, and all in the belly. I took several Internet tests on “How long will you live” and they all came back saying I would live to be 95. Well, that I doubt very much! I am constantly working on my “Navy” and “Working in Manhattan” memoirs, going over them again and again, adding, editing, embellishing [I do that really good] and come away with a feeling of thankfulness for the life I have led.I have discovered this retirement life is for the birds, it’s too boring and I yearn for exciting things to do, like living and working in Manhattan again, going to the museums, becoming Irish again and watching the St. Patrick or Ticker Tape parades, where millions watch and hundreds of thousands march, crawling around the bars and night clubs at night, getting real ugly, looking at the tens of thousands of pretty women that fill Manhattan streets, thinking maybe someone remembers me from the good ole days, but I can’t drink or dance anymore and my old friends are passing. My dear friend and drinking partner from the Peppermint Lounge, Joe Fraiser, just died at 66. I remember attending his championship fight of the century with Ali at the Garden in 1971, what a thriller.Talking about visiting much less working or living in Manhattan drives evangelical Southerners crazy as they hate the place, too many liberal Obama loving Yankees with those damnable "New York Values," and humanists, you know the kind, those classic liberals that believes in equality and fairness, besides, they all have unhappy times when they visit Manhattan, most people are having too much fun to pay much attention to them and they hate all those Obama look-a-likes, you know cultured, smart, educated and classy Black men. Decrepit as I am, I would get out of breath (old and thankfully extinguished smoking habit, but it has done the dirty on me), collapse on a street corner, and Emergency Services would take me to Bellevue, where I would be housed with the crazies for even thinking such thoughts about living in Manhattan, ugh, an old poor, albeit good looking me, in Manhattan.Upstate NYMiddletown New York is a 28,000 population city surround by a 29,000 population Town of Wallkill which I lived in and served ten years on the Planning Board, approving all strategic real; estate development, which included shopping and strip malls, hospitals, large residential housing developments, factories, distribution warehouses, big box stores (Wal*Mart, Lowe's, Home Depot), and any sewer, water enhancements within town boundaries. The whole area is full of bi-level ranch homes, is a regional mega-shopping center with hundreds of new apartment/condos complexes for New York immigrants who came upstate to the Catskill Mountains foothills for better housing and schools.Recently, Kiplinger Magazine billed Middletown as one of top ten small cities to raise you children in the Unites States. The magazine cited several reasons; Middletown’s good schools, median family income is big enough to live comfortably at $68,000, low crime rates, affordable median housing at $220,000, plenty of parks and pools, a culturally and racially diverse population, located in the beautiful Hudson Valley with a plethora of performing arts and sophisticated cultural activities, near the Catskills Mountains for skiing, canoeing and fishing, and closeness to New York City for the big paying jobs and all connected with multiple mass transit systems ending in midtown Manhattan subways, trains or bus station.It is not the gargantuan size of the New York Metro 20 million population region, or the crushing and suffocating commuting to Manhattan through a few tunnels and bridges that defines New York City, it is the diversity of people and everyday experiences that generate the excitement of living or working in the Big Apple. Just think, 45 per cent of New York City residents are foreign born and each ethnic group has its own colorful neighborhoods, restaurants, Bodegas, social styles with its own ethnic parades like St. Patties Day that millions watch and hundreds of thousands march in on 5thAvenue.There are similar parades for Halloween in Greenwich Village, the Caribbean, Asian, Middle Eastern peoples and that grand daddy of all, Wall Street Ticker Tape Parades. New York is not about whom to hate but who to love, because hating would be fruitless in this widest expanse of diversified humanity on earth and loving is so much fun . . . and Godly!It is because this gigantic collage of differentiating humanity is thrown into a bucket and stirred around and mixed up really well, the result being a salad bowl with political opinions and life styles that are so different and varied that the typical ideological wars between Republicans and Democrats or Whites and Blacks seem like child's play, like confrontation 101. Believe it or not, everyone gets along, because they want to keep the peace and because they have learned to enjoy each other.New York’s life style has always been to “Live and Let Live.” They work together, socialize at the dance or night clubs, date and marry, go to church with each other, and now you can understand New York City Region, it’s all about connecting to the world in a small peaceful space. The funky culture of New York City extends well into the 100-mile radius of the commuting region with its performing arts, academic intellectual curiosity and liberal social life styles.The next day Bettie and I went to our old church, the First Congregational in downtown Middletown. It was great seeing our old friends, a diversified collection of Upstaters of different nationalities and political persuasions. During the 28 years I lived in New York, I was a registered Republican, even got elected on that ticket several times, and at church after the sermon during coffee hour, enjoyed debating among my church member friends the days current events. This year my Republican friends are not voting the ticket in this election, they have been turned off by the extremism in the Republican party, the effort to tie religion to its principals and the virulent, without real thinking, anti Obama harangues. They see the world differently and look for problem resolution rather than the constant ideological confrontation coming from the current Republican candidates whose primary debates were an absolute turnoff for their meanness. It was great getting with my old friend Presley Cannady again.Back in the day we were on opposite sides of the political spectrum, but this day we seemed to have both moved to the center of reason, at least within screaming distance among the libertarians. Is it us or have the times changed? I liked the way my friends could discuss issues with some intimate knowledge, like they had studied the facts and were not intimidated by rapid opinions of such entertainment news outlets like FOX or Rush Limbaugh. Interesting!The next day Bettie and I drove to Connecticut to visit with her sisters and extended family living there. During our trip, I had been bragging about my great health situation, not having a single problem since my last heart by pass in 2000. Well, God must have heard me and decided to show me He is in control and He put a hurt on me I will never forget. Having the worst time in my life, I started having extreme vertigo and couldn’t stand, sit down or navigate in any way and wound up in the Yale emergency room in New Haven. I was there overnight and they ran every test known to man on me, concentrating on my heart and scans of the brain. I hope Medicare and my backup insurance policy pay for it as I am living on Social Security and can whistle only a little - pucker problems you know!While I was in the Emergency Room, I talked with the doctors and nurses. One PA nurse, was an ex US Marine who served ten years as a Scout Sniper and did several tours in Iraq. Another was a doctor who served there and we all talked about the desert, the Arabs and the primitive conditions of the Persian Gulf where I also served in the 1950s relieving the British fleet. The Marine said it all, the region lives in the 15thcentury and is so violent and that it breeds sociopaths who are willing to be suicide bombers, mass murdering their own people and be world terrorists murdering innocents to make their deranged religious points.A doctor came in to examine me, there were so many who did get a piece of me I wondered if I was something special; he asked me if Bettie was my wife. I said yes and he started discussing his personal his history, born and raised in New York City, went to North Carolina for medical school and got disgusted with Jim Crow and social conservatism, came back to Columbia Prysbertiaran in New York City for social freedoms and his residency and then on New England to set up his Neurology practice. He didn’t like the South.He said the culture in New England, basically upper class and a mixed ethnic/political region with a small minority population, was far different from the South, where most people held very right wing conservative political opinions and many still hang onto the old views of the Confederacy, saying the North started the War of Northern Aggression (Civil War) and what was wrong with slavery and Jim Crow anyway, after all, it’s all in the Bible. Worse, they dam Yankees for immigrating South with their liberal points of view and making them feel very uncomfortable. He further opinioned the racial situation in the South is slowly improving but still is way behind the dynamic diversity and extensive community touching that is found in the North, especially in New York, the diversity capital of the world. He said the rural South is still shamefully segregated, socially primitive and an anathema to any free thinking Northerner. Gee, where have I heard that before?One of the evening Doctors attending to me was a Nigerian woman and when she asked me where I was from and I said the Atlanta area she asked me how I like living there. I told her I preferred the north and later when she finished examining me she wanted to talk personally. She explained that she lived in the Atlanta area and didn’t like it, the old South and Confederacy an all, so she moved north and got an apartment in Manhattan, felt it was much freerer and offered more economic opportunity and she loves the big Apple city life. She wanted my opinion on Obama and asked lots of questions and offered opinions on politics. She sounded like a middle of the road voter, and I thought could be an Independent, but she was really turned off with the Republican party extremism.Living past 80 in GeorgiaI still have those “Wild Days” fantasies from my old Navy life when I rode my Harley all over the East Coast. I thought about buying another motorcycle at Cycle World in Athens, but the salesman was short of a foot and hobbling around with two aluminum crutches with several missing front teeth and a patch on his left eye, he just had a motorcycle accident with a truck and the truck won. Kinda of scared me, I didn’t want to spend my elderly days crippled.But just for a lark, being the epitome of manhood and devil dare, and for something crazy to do and brag about later, I tried enlisting in the Marine Corp again, I am pretty smart you know, can figure out really strategic things, and they were so nice last time I tried, they gave me a sticker to put onto my car, I thought maybe they were hard up now, but there is almost a two-year waiting list to get in - the economy sucks and young people are looking for good jobs. One smart ass Marine in dress blues with a chest full of medals said if I could do a hundred push ups they would consider me for a dishwasher assistant in the enlisted commissary at the base. Well, you know how that went! They paid for the ambulance, Medicare didn’t have to pay a dime, and I got another nice sticker for my car. They put me in a hospital with some pretty Jamaican nurses with big breasts and long legs and I got a date next Saturday night at Wendy’s - They liked me, I have coupons. But my real heart is with the Navy you know, but they couldn’t accommodate my need for afternoon naps and stinky severe methane episodes, those cramped sleeping quarters aboard ship you know, and it takes more than two years to get in there. Hell, by that time I might be in a nursing home farting and sleeping peacefully. So, I write stories about Growing up in Milwaukee, The Navy, Working in Manhattan, Living in upstate New York, little ditties and political commentary - I am mad at everyone, those politicians, they are all a bunch of crooks, and I feel good about ratting on them and contributing something worthwhile in life.While I write stories, Bettie is busy with her quilting and visiting her mother who is in Hospice in Birmingham. Judi is working on her Master’s, Neil just got his, Jeanne just had surgery, Jada is visiting Italy again to visit her husband’s parents in Turin. Lynn and Keith are fine, Morgan works at Longhorn, Skylar is going to private school now, Darilyn graduated NYU, Nick is in college in Dobbs Ferry, and Ariana (our great) is cuter than anything, and life goes on. All is well.Living in Georgia has been comfortable but cantankerous, what with the social conservatism and uniformity of right wing politics and Bible thumping absolutism so often indicating a basic intolerance of many of societies’ members. There is so much bigotry in the South on anyone who is different; it's not a black vs., white thing of the past. Christians in the South are not the nice people as the Bible would lead you to believe. People are so sure about things; there is no in depth understanding or shades of gray. The Home Owners Association in our development zeroes in on any decent from their elevated perception of a photo perfect neighborhood, they believing they can control your home with intrusive bylaws. It can get really foolish, before the bylaws were changed, you could not park in your driveway, all vehicles must be in the garage, even your pickup truck. I think southerners are really different that northerners, coming from high anxiety - highly educated - competitive and diverse New York, you notice it right away.I am getting reflective, just got thru looking at my old photo albums from 2000 to present and what a tour de force in history and good times, summarizing our life living in upstate New York to our life in Georgia thru 2012. It was all there, in extroverted vivid photographic detail; the world Trade Center attack by Muslim fanatics and the USA response in Afghanistan, my heart surgery and Bettie’s breast cancer, our extensive Caribbean, South America, Mexican, Northern Europe and Mediterranean cruising, our children and grandchildren graduating from High School and college, my thirteen years in (really enjoyable) semi retirement making $10 bucks an hour doing various sale’s jobs in upstate resort areas, Bettie’s PTA and my School Board / Planning Board activities.Fixing up the old Crane Road homestead and spending enjoyable summers at our Lake Wallenpaupack cottage, endless family gatherings at our house, Pennsylvania’s Knobble Amusement Park (no admission or parking and rides are just $1.00). Then there was our Motor Home camping in New York’s Niagara Falls, St. Lawrence Seaway, 1000 Islands in Alexander Bay, Lake George and Yogi Bear campgrounds. However, the greatest memories from all those years came from Bettie and our children and grandchildren. It makes one so thankful for life and our family! Yes, life was a neverending pleasure trip . . . what a ride!Which brings me to another point, I turned 82 this year and am feeling aged for the first time. What with getting tired easily and needing those afternoon naps, getting fatter and a little jowly, and often feeling like a truck has run over me for no reason at all, that ‘old age’ feeling has finally crept upon me. That and the feeling of my immortality slipping away has given me a pause for serious reflection, as most of my high school buddies, Milwaukee family and many of my Manhattan working friends have passed. I am thankful for my generally good condition, for I look much younger (most say late fifties - early sixties) and feel better than most of my acquaintances of the same age and I thank God for every new day! He certainly has been good to me!Then I think back to living in the Northeast for 40 years (3 in New York City, 7 years in New Jersey, and 30 years in New York). I would say those years were exhilarating albeit often stressful, and they had those great people living exciting life's to befriend, job opportunities and social freedoms, but those high - socialism inspired - taxes were outrageous! Yeah, there were so many life styles available without judgmental religious types around wagging their fingers, the north being a “Live and Let Live” environment, and then there were the characters and exciting experiences I encountered that were even better, but those taxes!? Ugh! And the cold weather and snow! Double UGH! Thank God I was young and could shovel five feet of snow because if I had to do it now, it would be heart attack time. I ranted about politics when I lived up north too, about the unions, the free lunch crowd, the jobs for life as long as you worked for the government. But then there were the great schools, best mass transit in the USA, the wonderful transformational life experiences working in Manhattan (Greenwich Village and Midtown) and living in Queens and Upstate, the excitement of Times Square, the multi culturalism, and more than anything, the thrill of Greenwich Village’s bohemianism, intellectualism and cultural artistic leadership. New Yorkers don’t complain. They enjoy life! And if you’re a little weird, it’s even better!I know that if given a choice, and I lived my life over again, I would definitely still live and work in New York and think twice about moving south when I retired. In the Hudson Valley where I lived, there was just more freedom, with more religious, political and life style choices available, where people are not the same and think differently, and we celebrate the differences, and there is tons of fun, a thousand things to do and the Delaware River valley is 15 miles away, the Catskills are just up the road, and the Pocono’s are an hour away and New York City is just a train ride away. It’s a low mountain area, with tons of lakes and rivers dotting the area with the Hudson River and West Point 30 miles a way, and the towns, those beautiful small artistic / university towns, are all over the map. I would still go into the Navy, the March on Washington and Woodstock, get involved in Civil Rights again, and have the same academic, business, Hollywood / artistic and Wall Street friends. It was a very good life!