Art Posters Change Your World

by

Randy R Cox

Art Posters  change your world in ways you may never have imagined.  Art poster prints are a great way to defineyour own space. I’ve preached for years that the world doesn’t ask us what we want to look at as we travel through the streets, but at home we get to choose. I’ve created, collected, and shared fine art with others for years. I’ve sold a few posters, but I just never thought of posters as a way to change your world.






Marilyn Monroe, c.1954

Art Print

Zimmerman,...


Buy at AllPosters.com



We just added allposters.com as an affiliate. Now, our main website, earthimpressions offers a choice of over 500,000 posters. I was so amazed at the selection that I spent a couple of hours plugging various subjects into the search box to see what they had. When it comes to posters, they have it all.


Fine art prints and originals are still a great way to personalize space, but they are very expensive and tend to hang around longer than your taste for them might endure. With a poster, you can choose something whimsical and timely. When you tire of it, you can give it to a friend or to a stranger and make a new friend. For yourself, you buy a new one to suit your current mood and taste...



There are so many art posters to choose from. There are old posters, vintage posters and abstract posters. There are advertising posters which are really cool for old products, and there are fine art posters. Sometimes advertising and fine art combine as in the case of Andy Warhol.



If your home and office is decorated with powerful majestic images, a few posters mixed in can lighten up the space and give the soul some room to breathe. Original art is often heavy and takes itself very seriously. Posters take us back down to earth, and that is an important concern for us at earthimpressions.



I can’t believe I haven’t paid more attention to art posters over of the years. They are fun! I feel like I’ve wasted a good part of my life missing the opportunity to enjoy this accessible art form.



In just a few minutes of browsing the search window, I’ve seen movie posters, antique posters, band posters, baseball posters, basketball posters, and hockey posters. Of course, for summer fun there are beach posters.






Twilight - New Moon

Poster

Buy at AllPosters.com




If you are getting frown lines on your face, consider humor posters. Do a search for humor posters or funny posters and pick something that makes you laugh. Frame it and hang where it is the first thing you see when you step into your home. Enjoy it until it no longer soothes the frown lines, then give it away and invest in a new one.



If you work out and plan to live a full 120 years like I do, pick out an anatomy poster and display it t where you exercise so you can learn the names of all those muscles you work so hard to reveal as you melt off that fat.






Deep Muscular System of the Back of the Body

Giclee Print

Buy at AllPosters.com



I know you are in a hurry to get whatever you need to do done, but let me take one more opportunity to remind you that the world doesn’t care what you look at as you travel from one place to another. The world gives you trash, ugly buildings, ugly cars, and ugly people doing ugly things to each other.



At home, and to some degree, at your workplace, you get to choose. If you live in ugly surroundings, it’s your own fault. The fine art I’ve sold for years is very expensive, but very rarely does anyone come back after spending a lot of money on something I talked them into (I was always upgrading customers to the next level) and tell me they regretted spending it. Once acquired, fine art is just too rewarding to regret.



Now, with posters even the most modest budget can afford beauty. The greatest paintings from the most exclusive museums are available in poster form for very low cost. Do yourself a favor. Find something and begin to build a home environment that makes you feel good. You deserve it!

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Miracle Survivor in Haiti

by

Randy R Cox

As rescue workers leave,  a miracle survivor in Haiti was pulled from the rubble yesterday, 11 days after the quake.  22 year old Wismond Exantus Jean-Pierre  was deep beneath concrete and wooden wreckage of a hotel grocery store.

He survived the intital quake by diving under a desk.  In the days that followed, he visualized a revelation that he would survive.  He managed to find cola, beer and cookies for sustenance.

Shortly after his rescue, the miracle survivor in Haiti was shot in the back by Haitian police.  Taking food from a grocery store is considered looting.  Looters are shot!

Of course, the 11th day miracle survivor wasn't really shot.  I just wrote that to make a point!

He did salvage food from a grocery store, but he was greeted as a hero with a strong will to live.  The day before a couple of men on the street were shot by police for looting.  They were carrying large bags of rice when the police saw them and acted swiftly.

Whether one is a hero or a criminal depends upon timing.  Had the two men who were shot been allowed to carry that rice back to their neighbors, they might have been interviewed on CNN as heros for feeding their starving neighbors.  Instead they may be dead--looters, criminals of the worst lot.

Since 9-11, we no longer have time for due process.  Terrorists and looters don't have rights.  The two looters shot in Haiti were not in America, and the miracle survivor wasn't shot at all.  I hear and read the terms looter every evening on the news.  People are starving and sometimes they find food. 

We sit upon our couches and decide the heros from the criminals.  It only takes us 20 seconds.

Trickle Down Economics and Natural Order

by

Randy R. Cox

Trickle Down Economics and Natural Order is the first means of wealth distribution to operate in Nature.

Wolves, monkeys, and even chickens recognize status. The top dog runs the pack! When food and other provisions are abundant, the top dog feeds off the best meat and then the lesser dogs eat. The left over parts of the carcass trickles down to the lowest dog in the pack.

The more abundant the available food supply, the better the scraps that trickle down to the lowly expendable dogs at the bottom tier. When things get tight, the lower status animals are expected to stand aside in favor of the higher ranks.

Among humans, during recession the layoffs happen to the lowest classes first and trickle up to higher and higher classes as the economy worsens. Seldom does the top ruling class experience any lifestyle change at all. Later as the economy adjusts and gets better the increase trickles down to the survivors at the bottom.

That’s the way it is in the natural world, and that is the way it is starts among humans.

That is Trickle Down Economics. For animals it is the natural order of things, but for human being it is primal order. Before the development of civilization, people organized into social communities. The top status humans get the largest share of wealth, the lower status humans get the trickle down.

The natural order of man is to gravitate from the primordial trickle down distribution of wealth to a less primitive distribution of production. When cave men first started raiding their neighbor, the weaker humans grouped with the stronger humans in hopes of a less violent end for themselves. In exchange for protection, the weak would serve the strong and accept whatever the strongest decided to allow them. The strongest would protect the weak, but the price was heavy. The weak learned to take what he was given without complaint.

Man, having the potential of higher development than the monkey, tends to demand a more gentle culture. In the higher social orders, the leaders pride themselves on generosity. The higher the social order, the less extreme the differences in lifestyle between the highest status and the lowest become.

Will Rogers is credited with coining the term, Trickle Down Economics. He said, “The money was all appropriated for the top in the hopes that it would trickle down to the needy. Mr. Hoover didn’t know that money trickled up. Give it to the people at the bottom and the people at the top will have it before night, anyhow. But it will at least have passed through the poor fellow’s hands.”

Ronald Reagan lowered taxes on the rich with the promise that the extra money would trickle down to the middle classes.

Before there was “trickle down economics”, there was “horse and sparrow theory.” In the nineteenth century, it was believed that if you feed the horse enough oats, enough will pass through the horse to feed the sparrows in the streets” John Kenneth Galbraith claimed that the horse and sparrow theory helped cause the Panic of 1896.

Trickle down describes the primordial state whereby weak animals join with stronger animals to hunt or forage in a pack. The alpha male rips the best portions from the kill, gorges himself, then leaves the rest of the carcass to the next in line. From top to bottom, the lower ranked members of the pack of dogs share the kill, each counting himself fortunate to have the scraps from the higher ranked member above him.

When provisions are scarce, the weaker members are expected to stand aside so the higher status members can remain strong.

This works when all the members of the pack are animal like in behavior. When the intelligence of the whole group improves (as opposed to just those at the top), those at the bottom team together to balance the strength of the alpha members by the sheer numbers. It is a more advanced economy, tending to the democratic. There the weaker individual members strengthen themselves, again through numbers, and obtain a better portion of the spoils. In higher forms of civilization the leaders are expected to exhibit great generosity to all members of the group, especially the less fortunate.

In the sophisticated culture group, the lower status members are smart enough to reject the leadership of self-serving alpha types. In the higher life form groups, the weaker members, in aggregate, will turn upon the self-serving member and depose them.

In primitive cultures the lower life forms will sacrifice to the higher status members, subjugate themselves and serve them without question. As the culture advances, those at the bottom will resist servitude. The most advanced cultures will not allow the dictatorial power bases to exist, but advanced cultures rise and fall.

The development of civilization does not happen in a straight line. The alpha personalites are in the gene pool and constantly test their power. The less alpha types have differing amounts of tolerance. Sometimes the lower members will champion the domination of the alpha types; sometimes they will band together to resist it.

Search and Rescue Trumps Security

by

Randy R Cox

The need to search and rescue trumps security.  We watch people die in Haiti as the help they need moves slowly.  There are many fears of violence from gangs and angry people, and maybe there are a few actual incidents of violence, but something seems wrong.  There is too much holding back.  There is too much fear!  There is too much caution.  Search and rescue trumps security!

Last night apparently a team of doctors from Belgum were ordered by their Chief Coordinator, Geert Gijs, also a doctor, to retreat from a UN hospital site they had set up with patients under their care housed in tents.  Someone passed on rumors of gangs in the night, and the doctors took their supplies, left the patients, and disappeared in the night.

The UN team left CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta with almost no equipment to do the best he could with almost nothing to work with but victims.

The UN teams seem overly cautious, but at least they were there for a moment.  Where were our American teams?  The Haitians could see our ships offshore.  We know what the Haitians were waiting for as they bleed and die, but what are the Americans waiting for, security?

When Lt. General Russel Honore was asked about the UN teams leaving their patients, he said it was the most ridiculous thing he had ever heard of.  He said search and rescue and evacuation trumps security.  I agree with Gen. Honore,  search and rescue trumps security.


I'm not a doctor.  I'm not a rescue worker.  I'm only an American citizen, but I have one vote.  I am not happy with the decisions  authorities are making in these matters. 

I've spent some time thinking about this issue and here is what I have decided.  It is just common sense!

America should be willing to risk at least as much to save our friends as we are willing to risk to kill our enemies.  Our brave military often put themselves in harm's way to seek out and destroy our enemies.
We expect our troops to protect themselves, but we don't expect them to run from a fight.  We don't expect our helicopters to ground themselves with rumors of occasional groundfire.

Americans are never happy when we have to aggressively kill the enemy, but we all know there is a price to pay for freedom .  Sometimes a few of our best will die protecting the greatest country on earth.  When one falls a dozen more will rise to take his place until the job is done.

I believe America is equally willing to risk their lives to save others.  The Bible says there is no greater gift than to give one's life for another.

I think it is imperative for the greatest country on earth to be willing to risk at least as much to save our friends as we are willing to kill our enemies.

There is not a lot written about security theory of rescue teams but there is some.  Mostly the authorities in control of first responders put security of those teams first.  Now, I know  the rescue workers are far more willing to put their lives on the line than those in authority who often rule from safe zones and make decisions based on rumor, emotion, and an almost absolute safety-first attitude.  Every day we hear of heroic acts as these men and women hurl themselves into danger to save complete strangers.  Sometimes these heroes don't survive.

I think we need to reevaluate our rules of rescue.  People are dying stupidly and needlessly because of placing security concerns over safety concerns.  We need to change the way our leaders think...or we need to change the leaders.  Search and rescue trumps security.  We should be willing to risk at least as much to save lives as we are willing to risk to take lives.

Heroes in Haiti the Curse of the Earthquake

by

Randy R Cox

From the rubble of the earthquake in Haiti, heroes arise. In a land hit over and over by tragedy now suffering a curse of Biblical proportion, something wonderful is happening. At every pile of rubble, heroes risk their lives to pull survivors from the edge of death.




Last week, many of these people were down and out, bent to base subsistence by the horrible economic conditions in their country. Today, these same people have shown an incredible strengh of character as they meet the challenge of this horrible event.



Concrete crumbles in Haiti because the building codes there were almost nonexistent. Very little reinforcement steel was used to hold stucture together, but the metal missing in construction is showing itself in the metal of those brave souls who tunnel and crawl through the wreckage to find life in the dark shadows of death.



I've always believed it was better to be a part of something that is bad and getting better than it is to be a part of something that is great but getting worse and worse. Before the quake, Haiti was a miserable place to live.

The earthquake took whatever good was left and crushed it to dust!



There is nothing left in Haiti but the hope of the people. Almost everything has been destroyed but the will of the people. I have watched these people work together to make the best of an impossible situation, and I have been impressed. When Katrina struck America, I was ashamed. People in power on both sides of the fence saw the tragedy in New Orleans, Missippi, Alabama, Texas, and Florida as a political football rather than an opportunity to do what the people of Haiti are doing with nothing but their bare hands.



In the days, weeks, and even years to come, we will see lots of pain coming from Haiti, but I look for hope in the eyes of those many heroes that are working so tirelessly as I write this. I see a light in those eyes I've not seen before. I know they had 4 hurricanes hit them in 2008, and I'm not sure our media gave it the coverage due. We had our own problems with Ike, but we basically ignored Haiti.



Those in Haiti did not ignore that destruction, but learned from it. We didn't hear it much when it happened but we are hearing now how those hapless people pulled themselves from that rubble and began to rebuild, again with little more than their bare hands. It looks like their will grew hard as steel and their muscles grew strong after those storms.



When the earthquake hit Haiti, while the earth continued to quiver and shake, the hereos went to work. The infrastructure of authority has disappeared, yet the order in Haiti makes New Orleans look like anarchy.



A chill runs down my spine as I remember the gunshots in New Orleans after Ike. I think some of that was signal fire, like John Wayne used to fire shots to signal the posse or calvary. Some of it was from people trapped in the upper floors of their homes blowing holes in the ceiling to permit escape. It didn't take the National Guard long to announce they were being fired upon. What a mess? Rescue slowed to a crawl as the rescue workers and their commanders retreated out of fear.



We see order and people helping people in Haiti. In New Orleans we saw thousands waiting and waiting and waiting at the Astrodome. We heard from political leaders on both sides blaming the other side for the failures. It took forever for help to come. I remember how a group of survivors walked the freeways to save themselves, only to be turnback with shotguns by the police of a nearby parrish.



I am proud of the heroes in Haiti. For those who survive this horrible event, I believe good things will happen because they are ready to make it happen for themselves. Rev. Pat Robertson says Haiti is cursed because of a pact they made with the devil to get rid of the French. He points out how much worse it has always been for Haiti than for the other end of the same island the Dominican Republic.



I don't know about the curse of Haiti, but the light in the eyes of the heroes is a blessing. If there was a curse, I think a Higher Power may be ready to renegotiate a better contract.

Why won't the homeless go to the shelters?

by Randy Cox

The nights have been dangerously cold and the authorities have shown a rare concern for the homeless over the last few weeks.  They arranged shelter and transportation, but many of the homeless shun their help.  The talking heads just can't understand it.  Why won't the homeless go the shelters?

I was going to write a blog about it, but while researching and reading a good response from a literate street person, I realized that regular people don't really care anyway.

Sometimes decent, intelligent people fall through the cracks and find themselves on the street.  It doesn't take them long to find out the shelters are designed for alcoholics, drug addicts, and the mentally ill.  The shelters  require their guests to come in early, eat, then stay put until morning. 

In the morning the guests are driven out at daybreak after breakfast and not allowed back in until check-in time.  The guest is allowed a minimum of personal possessions, so for those who have more than a bag or two of junk, there is no place for them here.

Even if the down and out has only a few nice items, the shelter is a perfect place to lose what they have left.  These places crawl with thieves and bullies that will take whatever attracts their fancy.  It is easy to get in a fight at the shelters.  Fighting is a good way to find oneself in prison.  If you can't afford a good lawyer, a bad one will be appointed for you.

Street people know they can freeze to death on the streets, but that can take time..  Death can come suddenly in the shelters.