Money, get back, I'm all right Jack, keep your hands off my stack.

So, I click on the internets for my daily morning web romp, and what do I see on the front page of Yahoo other than poor Randy Couture, complaining publicly about not getting bonuses above and beyond his contract with the UFC, or Ultimate Fighting Championships. My god, what is wrong with people?

This man is slated to make 3 million this year in various fights, and 15 million over the course of his contract. Hey, Randy- there are people starving in the streets, people who rely on food stamps and government food pantries to survive rises in heating costs, and you're quibbling over a 500,000 bonus?

What the hell has happened to human humanity?

In other news, Pennsylvania is still dealing with the repercussions of the shady legislative pay raises for General Assembly members in 2005- 17 legislators were defeated in the elections following the scandal, and any legislator who didn't return the pay raise or who wasn't directly involved is on the chopping block. Currently, 66 legislators are being targeted for defeat in the upcoming elections, and NPR is predicting retirements.

Ironically, "Sell out" by the Mighty Mighty Bosstones is on the radio as I'm writing this.

More people are going to college, and more people are vying for relatively high paying white collar jobs, and more people are looking for jobs for a year or more, and working at stop-gap jobs just to get by.

I myself keep 3 or 4 jobs at any given time just to get a little ahead so my husband and I have some money to put down on a house when we buy one, and are able to pay off our mounting credit card debt. I wasn't able to afford to put any money in my 401K until last year... and my husband only started participating this year, with the influx of more money coming in from my extra jobs. We are lucky in the fact that our parents have had the forethought to put money aside for us to give us a starting point for buying a house- friends of ours have had no money to put down at all, and have financed the entire amount, or have had accident money/401Ks which paid for their houses. I don't know a single person who saved enough from working alone to put down the required 20% on a house. I don't know anyone who doesn't live paycheck to paycheck who didn't have some other source of income other than their main job.

Heating/Electricity costs are rising, food costs are rising, gas costs are rising, everything is rising, and it will never stop. The working poor greatly outnumber the richest 1% of the popluation, the CEO's and business execs of the world. The middle class is quietly dissapearing and making way for dual income familys struggling to work, raise children, keep the very best clothes on their backs to avoid bullying in school, healthy food on the table to avoid obesity and toxic pesticides, and maintain their outrageously priced 250,000 dollar 3 bedroom bungalows.

People wonder why life isn't what it used to be, why violence and the culture of terror exists when it was unheard of 50 or 60 years ago to even get a divorce, much less shoot a kid in broad daylight for their shoes, or destroy an entire classroom full of children and teachers just to get noticed in death. Overpopulation and pressure has broken our society down, public injustices, scandals, and leaks uncovering how government and corporate America REALLY works has demoralized the people to the point of zombie-hood.

What can be done in this money-obsessed society, but build our own environmentally friendly houses, plant our own organic gardens, volunteer, and get "off the grid" as it were, and ride our bikes to work to show the government that we are the humans we always were before conveniences- we were created to adapt.