A morning at the library...

Is this not the greatest invention ever known to mankind?!

All the knowledge, real or imagined or invented, truth or fiction. All the ideas, nutty or cynical or inspired. All gathered together right down the road. And made available to you, for FREE.

Astounding.

I always see something I didn't expect. Today it was a magazine called 'Colors', with a cover in braille, and a CD inside, for the blind. It was printed in both English and Spanish, and had some of the most amazing and beautiful black and white photos. Lots of little essays about people who are blind and otherwise differently abled. I was captivated. My favorite was the one about the guy who navigates his town by birdsong. He 'knows he's close to home when he hears the birds', and he says, 'I didn't care about birds. Then I went blind.' Wow. I walked the whole way home more aware of my ears than ever. And, the story about the autistic and blind kid who learned to relate to the world through riding a horse. Everyone should be so lucky.

And then, in other incongruous news, I downloaded the entire Socorro newspaper, to read the police blotter, and decided the New York landlord is a crazy lady. In one two-day stretch, the cops got called out one time. A drunk guy was asleep in the back of someone else's pickup truck. Um.... dangerous Socorro? I really think she's a nut.

While I was looking at the classifieds, I noted the following:

Something fun: A 100-foot Pullman Railroad car for $39,000. It has two bedrooms and a bath. Don't you just WANT it? How much fun would that be to stick on a big ol' piece of land someplace?

And something sad: a 3BR, 2BA home for sale for $17,000. It's a foreclosure. That's just terrible. It makes me want to buy it and give it back to whoever got foreclosed on. How is it possible that this makes money for the bank? I went and played on a mortgage calculator, at 6.25%. A thirty-year mortgage on this property is $104/month! 15 years is $145/month. You have to go to a five-year mortgage to even approach rent on a 3BR apartment, at $330/month. How is it possible that we (as in we Americans, as in here's something good that could be done with MY taxes) can't keep this person in this house? Where is the Bailey Building and Loan? Where is FDR?

Oh please oh please, let it be the Dems this time...