disconnected observations

a rough list.....

In El Paso, Texas, it never rains--so, the streets become flooded when it does...
and, incidentally, it rains much more now than it used to forty years ago.,.

In El Paso, Texas, the winters are very mild (and people are always in their trucks anyway)
so, there's not much by way of winter clothing to be purchased....

And with free markets or neo-liberalism or pie-in-the-sky, you can always get a better job if you don't like the one you have, so SHUT UP!

And then since the "free market" is so efficient you can always get what people really want.
I actually can't find shoes that fit in El Paso. Therefore, the free market has decided for me that
there's no need for shoes that fit. That, again, would seem due to the disproportionate amount of time El Pasoans spend in their trucks. They don't need shoes that are good for walking
because they ride most of their lives.

And if you don't like it HERE, it's a free country, so you can just move;; so SHUT UP!

In fact any problems you may happen to have are just due to your inability to accept reality, the way things are and the way things have to be and the way things are everywhere, so shut up and stop whining!

(The latter recommendation is a favorite among people who haven't really lived anywhere else than here....)

But, apart from an unpleasant encounter two nights ago, I've found that in casual conversation with strangers I meet, most people accept some version of the claim that the economy doesn't work to serve their well-being as well as the claim that the health care system in the USA is in bad shape.....

And when I've complained about the miserable bus system, other people have mentioned better experiences in other cities of the USA.....(but then that's a selected minority of people who actually use the El Paso buses).....And I even heard one person say that there is a small group of wealthy people who really run El Paso, and that they would not like the minimum wage to get higher.....in which case El Paso rather resembles Honduras...... and in fact (they have told me) the small group of people who run El Paso want nothing to change.... Well, that was a very interesting comment....It made me think that, in this respect, El Paso is governed by the same laws as the rest of the world..... a small elite is content with the status quo, does not want change, and will do everything in their power to keep things the way they are now.