Video: $200 micro shelter/hut/vacation camp-simple to build/small budget

Video: "The GottaGiddaWay" Micro-Hut/Cabin - Tiny Yellow House

Working Poor America

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低薪的快乐

低薪的快乐（2011-04-12）

王嬿青

　　如果有两份工作供你挑选，一份是做牛做马的很辛苦地每月拿万元高薪，很少有自己的闲暇；一份是工作清闲但月底只有可怜的一两千，却有很多空闲时间供自己支配，你会如何选择呢？

　　有句话说，“50岁前拿命挣钱，50岁后就要拿钱养命”。意思是说，如果年轻时不懂得休息，保重身体，只管拼命埋头挣钱的话，年老时就有可能天天药罐不离手了！

　 　现在，都市里出现了“低薪休闲族”，他们重视生活质量，宁愿放弃高薪却紧张的工作来换取更多的休息时间，从而达到一种“可持续发展”，而不是像以往那样 拼命工作挣钱！他们的特征就是经常休假或辞职，然后独自穿行名山大川，体验风餐露宿的快乐；放弃假日丰厚的加班费，结伴驱车驰骋于荒山大漠；因为周末经常 出差，和经理闹翻脸；在转工跳槽时，宁可要低职低薪，甚至主动放弃高职高薪，为的是拥有一份悠闲和快乐的心情……

　　“低薪休闲族”让人多 少有点跌眼镜。不过也说明有更多的人开始把身体健康和享受生活作为生活的目标来追求了。很多人在物质生活尽管实现了“小康”，但精神生活、身体状况却没有 实现“小康”。很多人永远仍然像只不停旋转的陀螺，不由自主地把闲暇的时间全部投进去，以期得到更多的钱和权力。

　　A在一家公司做项目经理当高层，听说他每月的工资近2万元，管着几个大项目工地，每天得早上五点多钟就上班，晚上要到十点才能回家，节假日也不例外。不久在一次体检中，做项目经理的A被查出胃癌晚期，他的妻子哭得戕天动地，可一切都晚了。

　 　我还有一个朋友年轻能干，在一家大型跨国公司做业务经理很多年，年薪十多万元。但最近却要跳槽，不是往高处走，而是找了个没什么加班（当然薪水也少）的 单位上班。他的理由是因为工作太忙，长年累月加班加点，身心疲惫到极点，最近到医院体检，发现患了冠心病，他为此非常郁闷。“健康是最重要的，没有健康钱 再多有什么用？”在高薪与身体不可兼得时，他放弃高薪工作。现在的他过得很逍遥自在，时间多了，有空就钓钓鱼，旅旅游，逛逛街，“钱少的生活好像更有生活 的质感，以前人好象是漂的！”他说。

　　法国后现代大师罗兰巴特曾说，他所设想的理想生活应该是：有点钱，不要太多；有点权力，也不要太多，但要有大量的闲暇。很认同这种说法，又觉得要达到这个目标是多么不容易啊。　　

　　钱是永远都挣不完的，而生命对我们却只有一次，所以健康和快乐才是最重要的，失去了这两样，再多的钱也只能是废纸。“低薪休闲族” 为了寻求生活中的平衡点，他们不太愿意像前辈那样牺牲个人生活。他们重视的价值观是真正的友情、快乐和幸福。

虽然不一定富有，但有自己的时间，能支配自己的时间，轻轻松松快快乐乐做自己喜欢做的事情。

　　从西班牙旅行回来的时候，发现那里的生活太悠闲。2点开始吃午餐，4点进公司上班，9点多的街道开始逐渐热闹，人们喝酒聊天，自由自在……时装，艺术，红酒，爱情，家庭，烂漫而美好的地方……

　　不过记者女友冷冷地说：“悠闲啊，所以他们金融危机了呀……”说着风风火火得赶去下一场采访，啃着半只面包。

News: Kitten found stuffed in library book drop

July 27, 2010

By Bonnie L. Coo, Inquirer Staff Writer

A striped kitten is fighting for its life at the Montgomery County SPCA after someone left him in the book drop of a library in Cheltenham Township, officials said Monday.

The male gray tabby was placed in the book drop at the La Mott Community Center, which doubles as a library, sometime overnight Thursday after the center closed at 9 p.m.

The kitten was discovered by a maintenance man at 7:30 a.m. Friday when he reported for work - and heard mewing from the drop box.

"He investigated, and lo and behold, it was a kitty," said Kelly Rebitz, a center staffer.

The worker summoned police and community center officials who unlocked the drop box, she said. The kitten was freed at 9:30 a.m. and taken to the SPCA for emergency treatment.

Read the rest of the report here.

News: Hospitals seeing more prescription drug addicted babies

by ROBERTA ROMERO / KING5 News

Posted on July 20, 2010 at 6:57 AM

SEATTLE - Prescription drug abuse is nothing new, but it's a problem that is growing and now babies are paying the price.

Hospitals are delivering more newborns addicted to the powerful opiates than ever before.

At any given moment, hospitals like Harborview Medical Center in Seattle are delivering babies that are addicted and more and more of them are withdrawing from prescription pills.

Barbara Drennen is co founder of the non-profit Kent Pediatric Interim Care Center. She takes care of addicted newborns.

Drennen says the medical community is well aware of the growing problem of prescription pill addiction and pregnant women.

They're using opiates like Oxycontin, Vicodin and Percocet, which can be highly addictive and very powerful.

One the biggest problems is that many times these types addictions can start out with legitimate prescription use but then quickly spin out of control..

It takes anywhere from 30 to 60 days for newborns to wean off of the drugs.

"So we need to move rather quickly because the minute that baby is born he's going to go cold turkey now that he's not receiving these drugs any longer," says Drennen.

As for the babies' long term recovery, the Pediatric Interim Care Center says other than being hypersensitive to overstimulation like noise and light, the babies should be fine.

Of course this is relatively new and the long term effects won't be known for some time.

The National Institute on Drug Abuse says some of the best ways to try and stop this growing problem are better training for doctors to spot the addictions, better training for pharmacists who interact with patients and can give them clear directions and for the patients themselves to follow the prescribed directions.

The Story: Decades of Oil Spill

'For the past couple of months we've heard a lot about the oil in the Gulf of Mexico, the way that it threatens both the environment and the people who depend on fishing. The Niger Delta is a similar kind of landscape. People there rely on the shrimp and the fish that have sustained them for generations, and their area is also rich in oil. World oil companies have been drilling there since the 50s - and the region has been polluted for decades by spills that get little international attention. Nnimmo Bassey runs a Nigerian NGO that works to hold oil companies accountable for the oil they spill. He talks with Dick Gordon about how he was drawn into working on behalf of people in the Niger Delta and what keeps him going, despite the danger and hopelessness he’s faced over the years.' - The Story

Listen here.

Gulf Oil Spill - Stopped Finally!

All praise be to Allah SWT, the gulf oil spill that started in April has finally been stopped. It is sad enough that 11 people were killed and many were injured in the explosion that caused the oil spill. More than 15,000 people will be out of jobs because of the pollution along the Louisiana coastline.

TheStory.org has uploaded stories of how people's livelihood have been destroyed by this disaster.

Go to this web site for photos of the Louisiana oil spill.

When it is time to go...

Death is a sensitive topic that people seldom talk about. Every person in the right frame of mind has the right to make well-informed decisions about his or her health. If I were to be diagnosed with an incurable illness, I wouldn't want any treatment to prolong my life. I would just want to live out the rest of my life with my family around me. Just give me some pain medication so that I am still able to function as a productive human being until my last breathe. And ask Allah SWT to make it easy for me and my family.


Americans are treated, and overtreated, to death
By MARILYNN MARCHIONE, Ap Medical Writer – Mon Jun 28, 2010

The doctors finally let Rosaria Vandenberg go home.

For the first time in months, she was able to touch her 2-year-old daughter who had been afraid of the tubes and machines in the hospital. The little girl climbed up onto her mother's bed, surrounded by family photos, toys and the comfort of home. They shared one last tender moment together before Vandenberg slipped back into unconsciousness.

Vandenberg, 32, died the next day.

That precious time at home could have come sooner if the family had known how to talk about alternatives to aggressive treatment, said Vandenberg's sister-in-law, Alexandra Drane.

Instead, Vandenberg, a pharmacist in Franklin, Mass., had endured two surgeries, chemotherapy and radiation for an incurable brain tumor before she died in July 2004.

"We would have had a very different discussion about that second surgery and chemotherapy. We might have just taken her home and stuck her in a beautiful chair outside under the sun and let her gorgeous little daughter play around her — not just torture her" in the hospital, Drane said.

Read the rest of the article here.

NYT: As Facebook Users Die, Ghosts Reach Out

July 17, 2010

Courtney Purvin got a shock when she visited Facebook last month. The site was suggesting that she get back in touch with an old family friend who played piano at her wedding four years ago.

The friend had died in April.

“It kind of freaked me out a bit,” she said. “It was like he was coming back from the dead.”

Facebook, the world’s biggest social network, knows a lot about its roughly 500 million members. Its software is quick to offer helpful nudges about things like imminent birthdays and friends you have not contacted in a while. But the company has had trouble automating the task of figuring out when one of its users has died.

Read the rest here.