Monochrome Weekly Theme

Aileni is the host of Monochrome Weekly Theme.

Gauardians of the beach

Ruby Tuesday

Okay what have I got for you this Ruby Tuesday?

Well, first of all I thought I would post shoutouts to a few Ruby Tuesday participants from last week(June 23). Here are thumbnails of a few of the photos posted last week:

First Row (left to right): 1. Dianne 2. Robin
Second Row (left to right): 1. Nukke 2. Driller 3. Cunning Runt
Third Row: 1. Carletta

Each week I'll post a few random photos of participants, so look for yours...

Do you like this idea? I hope so.

Now here's my post for Ruby Tuesday. This is a marina in Port Washington, N.Y. Some pretty RED flowers and some snazzy RED boats.

~Question~

What would you name your boat if you had one? Or if you have one, what's its name?

The new badge below was made by DrillerAA09

I don't think he'd mind anyone using it for further posting.

Don't forget to sign Mr. Linky and leave a comment. And of course try to visit your fellow participants!

Manic Monday

Mo gave us the word ROCK for today!

Britney, Beyonce and Pink play gladiators and ROCK the crowd at the arena. It's a Pepsi commercial worth listening to!

Enjoy!

See other Manic Monday players here

~PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR MELLOW YELLOW MONDAY~

Mellow Yellow Monday #25

Drowsy Monkey is the delightful hostess of the Mellow Yellow meme.

I think these flowers which are blooming all over my neighborhood look like yellow hibiscus but they're not.

Let's just call them big yellow flowers and be done with it! :)

Go on over to Mellow Yellow Monday to find other partipants.

This is what I wanted to do today when we started out from sunny Queens to arrive at the Jones Beach shore where it was dark, cloudy and overcast!

Shadow Shot Sunday

Hey Harriet sponsors the Shadow Shot Sunday meme.

Entrance to The Cloisters, Ft. Tryon Park, Manhattan, NY

Michael Jackson Dies

~Any other accused pedophile would be run out of town dead or alive!~

KEEP THE YOUNG PEOPLE OUT!

~For a faster read just read the bolded text and the text in ALL CAPS at the end:~

Via Los Angeles Times:

An unattractive wrinkle in housing
Fast-growing retirement communities legally practice age discrimination.
By Andrew D. Blechman

July 8, 2008

There's a different kind of discrimination spreading in the United States. Despite all the popular rhetoric about family values, an increasing number of Americans are choosing to live in age-segregated "leisurevilles," where at least one household member must be 55 or older and enjoy living without children. No one under 18 may live there -- ever.

According to conservative industry estimates, more than 12 million Americans in the next decade or so will live in communities that forbid young families. This represents a drastic overhaul in our societal living arrangements.

Age-segregated communities were created half a century ago in the Arizona desert by developers looking for a marketing niche. The first was Youngtown, a modest affair built by Ben Schleifer, an idealistic Russian Jewish immigrant who wanted to construct a kibbutz-like community where older citizens could age affordably and gracefully.

Del Webb, who drew from his experience with planned communities -- the Japanese detention camps he built during World War II -- liked the idea and built the much larger and fancier Sun City right next door.

Experts on aging assumed that seniors would resist moving away from their families and that those who did so would wither from loneliness and depression.

The experts were wrong, and the two developments were very successful. Now, Youngtown is desegregated and Sun City is getting ratty around the edges. But age segregation has never been more popular. And by 2015, those age 50 and older will represent 45% of the U.S. population.

In a dimming housing market, "active adult" communities (most residents are in their 50s and 60s) remain the industry's sweet spot. Hundreds of communities are breaking ground each year, often in the North. But many are large Sunbelt leisure plantations, such as the Villages in Florida, the world's largest retirement community. It is nearly twice the size of Manhattan and will have a peak population of 110,000.

The Villages has two manufactured downtowns owned by one person (a third is on the way) with faux historical markers, more than three dozen golf courses and golden oldies pumped out of lampposts. Residents tool around on 100 miles of golf trails, often in carts pimped out to look like Hummers and Corvettes. There are continuing education courses, but many of the seniors prefer golfing and nights of line dancing to baby boomer classics like Fleetwood Mac's "Don't Stop Thinking about Tomorrow."

Ten years after the introduction of Viagra, retirees are taking full advantage of what a child-free environment provides: lower taxes, untrampled lawns and better sex.

Like many of us, older Americans are thirsting for community, and these developments seemingly provide it. Suburban sprawl is not only alienating, its car dependency makes aging-in-place there near impossible, and with Americans moving, on average, 12 times during their lifetimes, few can return "home" -- everyone's gone. Add to this our fiercely youth-centric culture, the deteriorating civility of our society's younger members and the wide disparity among local tax rates, and you have a recipe for secession.

But though secession may be a pleasant experience for some, it comes at a steep price for society.

Age segregation only reinforces negative stereotypes, leads to a willful forgetting of commonalities and encourages our less charitable instincts.

In Youngtown, for example, a couple was fined $100 a day for sheltering their grandson from a physically abusive stepfather. And in Sun City, residents defeated 17 school bond measures in 12 years (before de-annexing from the school district) because they had little interest in educating another generation of children. Meanwhile, students in the neighboring communities were forced to go to school in staggered shifts. Even Schleifer was embarrassed by the consequences of his idealistic contribution. "Our first obligation when I was a boy was to give young people an education, no matter what sacrifices it took," he said of the bond failures.

Now desegregated, Youngtown has regained its vibrancy, but Sun City is at risk of becoming a necropolis as its generational strife turns inward, with older residents resisting efforts by younger retirees to reinvest in the community. Although Youngtown was forced to desegregate because of faulty bylaws, age discrimination is not only legal, it's protected by the federal Fair Housing Act.

Isn't it time we ask ourselves as a nation if we really want to be encouraging communities where birth certificates are scrutinized at points of entry, and where young visitors are reduced to human contraband?

Congress should either raise the entry age for these communities to something actually approaching old or put an end to age segregation altogether.

Meanwhile, reengaging with the younger generations -- rather than gating them out of our lives -- could result in a far happier outcome for all of us.

Andrew D. Blechman is the author of "Leisureville -- Adventures in America's Retirement Utopias."

Read my article on gated communities

SO I SAY

• STAY IN YOUR OWN HOUSE,

• HAVE YOUR GRANDCHILDREN STAY WITH YOU OFTEN,

• LANDSCAPE WITH ANY KIND OF FLOWERS YOU WANT,

• HANG OUT WELCOMING FLAGS,

• MAKE AS MUCH NOISE AS YOU WANT,

• BARBEQUE OUTSIDE ON YOUR PATIO WHENEVER YOU WANT,

• HANG RUGS OR WET SWIMWEAR OVER BALCONY RAILINGS,

• REV YOUR CAR MOTORS OR HONK YOUR HORN ANY TIME YOU WANT

• BATHE NUDE IN YOUR JACUZZI OR POOL IF YOU LIKE,

• KEEP AS MANY CATS OR DOGS AS YOU LIKE,

• MOON YOUR CRABBY NEIGHBOR FROM YOUR FRONT WINDOW WHEN YOU WANT.

Looking at the Sky on Friday

This is a photo taken by my husband, Vinny, years ago on a trip to Maine. He used his SLR film camera. I scanned it at 1200 dpi. I'm really pleased to post it here with that beautiful sky in the background.

Go over to Tisha's blog Crazy Working Mom to see other participants.

Our Ruby Tuesday Family!

As of 3:31 PM EST today there were 106 participants (Mr. Linky signees) in Ruby Tuesday!


More than ever before! And 65 people left comments!
I can't say enough to thank you guys for participanting so loyally over this past year!

It's been a lot of fun for me. I hope for you too!

Think Green Thursday

Rambling Woods hosts this thoughtful, environmentally-sensitive meme.

Canada geese are protected by the United States Fish and
Wildlife Service under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918 and
the Migratory Bird Conservation Act of 1929.  The former, the
implementation of a 1916 convention signed by the United States and
Canada, prohibits the hunting, possessing, purchasing and exporting
of migratory birds "or any part, or egg of any such bird."

However, the Secretary of the Interior is also authorized to
legalize temporary hunting of migratory birds "based on due regard
to distribution, abundance, and breeding habits."  States may
implement additional laws that are tougher in enforcement.
Violations of this act constitute federal felonies and are subject
to fines and imprisonment.  The Migratory Bird Conservation Act
authorizes the funding and maintenance of wild migratory bird
refuges.

The controversy over Canada geese concerns whether or not they
are, in fact, migratory and hence privy to federal protection. 
Canada geese--as their name implies--until recent years regularly
migrated to northern Canada for the summer.  But over the last 20-
25 years, many geese have chosen to remain south of the border, and
the populations of these non-migratory geese have grown into the
millions, with geese situated in eastern states from Maine down to
Virginia.  Aerial observations of some flocks have led to the
conclusion the number of geese has doubled since 1975 and will
continue to grow if present trends continue.

 Why have the geese lost their biological impulse to migrate?
Besides protection from game-hunters, the geese have been
encouraged by the spread of suburban developments, corporate parks
and recreational areas.  Canada geese prefer the short-cut,
manicured grass found on golf courses and on the properties of
suburban corporate headquarters over the wild tundra of Canada.
The shorter grasses, besides providing a plentiful source of food,
afford the geese security--they can better monitor predators with
the clearer views.  Furthermore, the pools and ponds that normally
accompany these developments are perfect sources of still drinking
water.  In a short time, then, the  geese have learned that the
environment created by humans was much closer to goose paradise
than they would experience in Canada, and chose to stay.

While the complacency of these beautiful birds may be a
godsend to naturalists, they have been a nightmare for farmers,
recreation service providers, and tourists.  Geese often invade
local farms to eat corn and other grain crops, leaving farmers with
substantially less for harvest.  The construction of dams in the
1950's and 1960's has created more area for standing water, and
irrigation ditches lead the geese straight to the fields.  The
geese also compete with sheep and other livestock for grazing land.
In the end, farmers have to spend considerably more on fertilizer,
feedstuffs and geese prevention measures.

A sector of the economy that has been particularly effected by
non-migratory Canada geese is golf.  Golf courses are perfect
habitats for Canada geese, with plenty of rich, short grass and
ponds.  Course managers have to spend thousands of dollars annually
to repair greens and fairways and to clean up goose dropping for
the convenience of their members.  Parks and recreational lakes and
ponds face similar damage costs, as did the Aqueduct Racetrack in
New York state, where hundreds of geese had taken up residence on
the infield, refusing to leave until they had substantially ravaged
the turf.

A more serious threat posed by the thriving Canada goose
population is interference with ground and air travel.Goose and
gosling crossings on major roads can create back-ups and fender-
benders, as many drivers swerve or stop suddenly to hitting them.
Canada geese have been particularly problematic for airliners,
because a goose sucked into an engine can cause considerable damage
and put crew and passenger lives at risk.  Finally, the Canada
geese's droppings pose various health and physical hazards to
humans.  Goose manure is very slick and can contribute to broken
ankles and other serious injuries if stepped on.  But it also
breeds the bacterium E. Coli, which promotes flulike symptoms in
humans.

The Canada geese have so adapted to their new sedentary
existences, they have learned to ignore the various means employed
to shoo them away.  Apparently, these geese will barely ruffle a
feather when shots are fired or when scarecrows and flags are
displayed in their view.  The frustration of the several business
interests noted above has gotten to the point where the U.S. Fish
and Wildlife Service and its state counterparts have given in and
sanctioned limited hunting seasons on Canada geese.  These hunts
are justified as population-thinning measures on a species that has
temporarily transcended its "endangered" status.  Thousands of
geese have been killed in these hunts, with bag limits ranging from
3 to 5 geese per day per hunter over a 10-day season.

The Department of the Interior has also sanctioned the limited
sterilization of Canada goose eggs (done by shaking or puncturing
the eggshell).  But appeals to remove the Canada goose from the
list of protected species have been denied.  Persons who kill
Canada geese without permission are still charged as felons; such
is what happened to employees of a Williamsburg, Virginia golf
course, who killed 39 geese with poisoned birdseed and were fined
several thousands of dollars.

The hunts have predictably drawn criticism from bird-lovers,
who believe that the costs to agriculture, recreation and other
trades do not warrant such extreme measures.  Thus new methods have
been experimented with to simply chase the geese away from private
and commercial areas.  For instance, some people have invested in
grape Kool-Aid powder to sprinkle on lawns; the geese have a
digestive aversion to methyl anthranilate, a natural compound found in
grapes that causing a burning sensation in their
stomachs.  Border collies have also been employed to shepherd
Canada geese on public spaces onto trailers for transport to
wildlife refuges.

All this leads me to believe that a lot more thought must
be given too figuring out humane ways to control the Canadian
geese population here in the U.S.

~Most men are within a finger's breadth of being mad.~

- Diogenes the Cynic