love and some verses

The ground's generosity takes in our compost
and grows beauty. Try to be more
like the ground.

-Rumi

fyi...

The White House has just launched a really interesting bit of transparency with their new Federal Taxpayer Receipt... thingy. (i almost want to call it an app. its so sleek and shiny. program isn't quite right either. infographic, perhaps?)

It's no surprise that defense spending gets the biggest chunk of my (and your) tax dollars. And yet, I was still rather annoyed to see that I apparently just spent close to $80 on weapons alone. Not cool. Especially when the entire education category is getting about half that. Federal aid for college students gets a measly $7, or 0.8%.

Also of note, about $6 (0.07%) went to development and humanitarian assistance. So much for soft power. Compare that to the $100 or so that went to "defense" categories like weapons development and ongoing operations, and you get a fairly clear picture of what we are exporting most these days.

On the upside, I realize how lucky I am to be part of the other, smaller contingent. The more problems we can solve by talking to one another, the less money we will have to spend on guns.

Try it for yourself.