Economics Professor Casey B. Mulligan of the U of Chicago has published a blog entry in the 10/27/2010 NY TIMES entitled, "Assessing the Power of One at the Polls." Now, I am only a simple dinosaur and not an economics professor, but I would suggest that one's analysis can be correct in terms of stats and probabilities, but still leave much to be said. The gist of the article is that while a sense of civic responsibility or even enjoyment may be valid reasons to get out and vote, candidates are talking foolishness when they insist that they can't win without your lonely little vote.
The professor is right, of course: your favorite candidates aren't likely to win or lose by a single vote. They're probably more likely to get hit by lightning on a sunny day or bitten by a shark in the community swimming pool. But here's the thing: when you join a political party or even register as an Independent, you're being asked to consider yourself not simply as an individual but instead as a member of a much larger unit. In this "group-think" context, motivation matters a great deal -- high motivation generates turnout, which is what determines the electoral fate of candidates. Voting is a collective endeavor in which masses of individuals, together, generate a large effect. The party that motivates its members to realize this Simple-Dino fact will probably win.
Perhaps everyone is unique in some ways, but we are not unique in the context I'm talking about here -- millions of our party's members may wake up on election morning tired, frazzled, dispirited, overworked and underpaid, influenced by the dire (or sunny) projections of various news outlets. In other words, we'll feel much the same way for the same reasons. And millions of us will face the same decision -- "am I going to vote, or let the day pass?" (I'm leaving aside the early vote option, but there's no real difference -- you'll either do that, or let the chance slip by in slow motion.) How we decide as a group will generate an impact thousands, even millions, of times larger than that of any individual's choice. So if you care about whether or not your party (or the party you lean towards) ends up constituting the majority, make your decision in favor of taking part in the process, and don't worry about whether your one vote matters.
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
SHOCKING INCOME INEQUALITY REPORT DROWNED BY MEDIA NOISE
As our mainstream media continues to abuse us with nonsensical blow-by-blow accounts by blowhard headline-grabbing louts, this story received scant attention:
As millions of Americans lost jobs, homes, and life savings in the Great Recession of 2009, the highest-paid earners saw their average incomes rise more than five-fold in a single year. According to new data, the 74 highest income earners – the uppermost income bracket as measured by the Social Security Administration -- saw their average incomes skyrocket from $91.8 million in 2008 to a staggering $518.8 million in 2009:
These 74 people earned an average of $10 million -- per week. Meanwhile, half of all American wage earners, or about 75 million people, earned less than $505 per week.
An abrupt change in tax and economic policies started under the Reagan administration, conflated by Bush era tax cuts, made this possible. Three decades of Reaganomics have crippled the base of the income ladder while adding a burdensome weight at the top. The result is an unstable and unsustainable structure awaiting collapse.
Meanwhile the Republican Party and their tea party rabble are clamoring for more tax cuts and an indiscriminate dismantling of the social safety net for middle class Americans. If our mainstream media had done a better job of informing the public, perhaps voters would be making more intelligent choices this November. Fat chance!
Monday, October 25, 2010
Gays R Us
No, really, gays are us. No matter which stereotype one insists fits a group as disparate as mankind in general, it's impossible to separate it from one's own prejudices. If there's any appearance of unanimity, it may be that people tend to vote their own interests and support candidates that promise to advance those interests, but Gays are conservative, liberal, libertarian and any other blurry concepts we use to muddy the political waters. So when AP rattles our cage and asks us to worry that the dissatisfaction of gay Americans with the lack of progress the current administration has made with respect to protecting their equality will cause them not to vote at all or commit political seppuku by voting for Republicans, I have to wonder if they aren't trying to create a self-fulfilling prophecy here or at least cashing in on the fear of jumping back out of the pan and into the fire.
Will that frustration provoke people for whom DADT is a thorn in the side or who advocate the right to marry one of the same sex to choose candidates in the same main stream that opposed voting rights for women and minorities, the right to marry outside one's race, to get a room at The Breakers or a seat in the front of the bus? Perhaps one of those right wingers who blame every storm, every shift in tectonic plates on allowing gay people the right not to be stoned in the public square?
Gay people also care, I would presume, about the economic charade that collapsed the economy, the lawless and predatory markets, the wars and the erosion of rights that they were meant to justify. They care about government intrusion into our privacy, government control by corporate interests and all the other things we all, rightly or wrongly care about. They care about pulling the economy out of the nosedive the previous pilot put it into as much as any American. If they have an "agenda" as the bigots assert, it sure looks like it involves life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness as much as anyone elses and the agenda of those selling the idea that they are different and dangerous certainly has to do with something completely different.
blares the headline. Some fear the Andromeda galaxy will smash into us any day now. That's a cheap ploy more worthy of Fox than AP, as is the use of quotes from a handful of individuals to stand in for the voice of a huge group that doesn't speak unanimously anyway -- but still, we all know there is frustration.
"Some fear that gay voters angry over pace of gains might sit out election"
Will that frustration provoke people for whom DADT is a thorn in the side or who advocate the right to marry one of the same sex to choose candidates in the same main stream that opposed voting rights for women and minorities, the right to marry outside one's race, to get a room at The Breakers or a seat in the front of the bus? Perhaps one of those right wingers who blame every storm, every shift in tectonic plates on allowing gay people the right not to be stoned in the public square?
Gay people also care, I would presume, about the economic charade that collapsed the economy, the lawless and predatory markets, the wars and the erosion of rights that they were meant to justify. They care about government intrusion into our privacy, government control by corporate interests and all the other things we all, rightly or wrongly care about. They care about pulling the economy out of the nosedive the previous pilot put it into as much as any American. If they have an "agenda" as the bigots assert, it sure looks like it involves life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness as much as anyone elses and the agenda of those selling the idea that they are different and dangerous certainly has to do with something completely different.
Sunday, October 24, 2010
Teabaggers everywhere
So, as we approach November, everybody's watching the biggest clowns - the Nazi fanboy in Ohio, the militia supporter in Alaska who has reporters beaten for asking questions, and (certainly my favorite) the Delaware Trainwreck herself, the performance-art-made-flesh, Christine O'Donnell (I mean, can you beat a 40-year-old unmarried woman who's vocally, violently opposed to masturbation? She's either a liar, or more twisted than a Catholic priest in a room full of altar boys).
As time goes on, the Teabaggers are gradually proving themselves to be both blatantly racist and the last true descendants of John Birch. (I mean, come on! This is the public face of the Tea Party - what is it that they aren't willing to say in public?) But what midgets are hiding behind the massive sacks of crap in the front?
Well, for that, we should probably turn to that unfettered fount of fecal matter, Sarah Palin. So what lesser-known candidates does she like?
Sean Bielat for Massachusetts’ 4th Congressional District
It's hard to tell much about Bielat. He stays pretty well under the radar. He has been smart enough to release a viral video about Barney Frank, but that's about it.
Of course, Barney Frank is every Republican's worst nightmare. He's an effective, sarcastic, openly-gay Democrat - he gives them nightmares. They'd pretty much back Satan Himself against Frank, if they thought He had a chance of winning. ("Of course He's a good church-going person! Just ask his minister, the Reverend LeVey!")
(Are you supposed to capitalize the pronouns referring to Satan? I'm not even clear where you'd go to look that up, but I suspect you don't...)
Butch Otter for Governor of Idaho
Wow. So the man's first elected position was two terms with the Idaho House of Representatives. Then he was on the Idaho Republican Party Central Committee and Chairman of the Canyon County Republican Party. He served four terms as Lieutenant Governor, three terms in Congress, and he's been governor of Idaho since 2007. I thought the Tea Party was opposed to career politicians?
You know, as a convicted drunk driver himself, he's awfully hard on aides who get caught for the same offense. But it's obvious why Sarah likes him: he gets off on killing wolves too.
Stephen Fincher for Tennessee’s 8th Congressional District
An interesting choice for Ms. Palin. He takes potentially illegal campaign loans, but considering Palin's history with campaign funds (and, you know, $150,000 wardrobes that are still unaccounted for), that one would be easy for her to overlook. Fincher has refused to comment. On any issue.
But then, Sarah supports that idea, too. Because it was when she actually spoke to people that she got in trouble. Better to avoid speaking entirely...
Randy Hultgren for Illinois’ 14th Congressional District
Randy is another cipher. He talks a great game, but...
See, here's the thing. He's running against Bill Foster. An acknowledged science wonk, known for being a true centrist, more interested in the people and the result than in sheer partisan bickering. To most people, you'd think this would be a good thing. But to Sarah Palin, he's the Black Hole of Evil.
A true centrist is the last thing she wants. Someone who pays attention to the realities of a situation, and not the political implications? She can't have that! We must have strict partisan divides!
This is pretty much what Sarah does. She supports ciphers who've said they support any kind of stupid right-wing crap, as long as it gets them elected. But Sarah doesn't always go with that "due diligence" thing. You know, like in an earlier list, where Sarah plugged a "great" West Virginian candidate, John Raese.
She supported Raese for a while now (you know, despite the fact that even his wife won't be voting for him), although... well, OK, she was giving her support to him for a race where he wasn't running. She thought he was from Pennsylvania, as it shows in this Twitter post that she has since scrubbed from her website.
But it's an understandable mistake. After all, for Raese's West Virginia political ad, he went to Philadelphia, and put out a casting call for "coal miner/trucker" types with "a ‘Hicky’ Blue Collar look."
(Apparently, those types of people are thin on the ground in West Virginia.)
As time goes on, the Teabaggers are gradually proving themselves to be both blatantly racist and the last true descendants of John Birch. (I mean, come on! This is the public face of the Tea Party - what is it that they aren't willing to say in public?) But what midgets are hiding behind the massive sacks of crap in the front?
Well, for that, we should probably turn to that unfettered fount of fecal matter, Sarah Palin. So what lesser-known candidates does she like?
Sean Bielat for Massachusetts’ 4th Congressional District
It's hard to tell much about Bielat. He stays pretty well under the radar. He has been smart enough to release a viral video about Barney Frank, but that's about it.
Of course, Barney Frank is every Republican's worst nightmare. He's an effective, sarcastic, openly-gay Democrat - he gives them nightmares. They'd pretty much back Satan Himself against Frank, if they thought He had a chance of winning. ("Of course He's a good church-going person! Just ask his minister, the Reverend LeVey!")
(Are you supposed to capitalize the pronouns referring to Satan? I'm not even clear where you'd go to look that up, but I suspect you don't...)
Butch Otter for Governor of Idaho
Wow. So the man's first elected position was two terms with the Idaho House of Representatives. Then he was on the Idaho Republican Party Central Committee and Chairman of the Canyon County Republican Party. He served four terms as Lieutenant Governor, three terms in Congress, and he's been governor of Idaho since 2007. I thought the Tea Party was opposed to career politicians?
You know, as a convicted drunk driver himself, he's awfully hard on aides who get caught for the same offense. But it's obvious why Sarah likes him: he gets off on killing wolves too.
Stephen Fincher for Tennessee’s 8th Congressional District
An interesting choice for Ms. Palin. He takes potentially illegal campaign loans, but considering Palin's history with campaign funds (and, you know, $150,000 wardrobes that are still unaccounted for), that one would be easy for her to overlook. Fincher has refused to comment. On any issue.
But then, Sarah supports that idea, too. Because it was when she actually spoke to people that she got in trouble. Better to avoid speaking entirely...
Randy Hultgren for Illinois’ 14th Congressional District
Randy is another cipher. He talks a great game, but...
See, here's the thing. He's running against Bill Foster. An acknowledged science wonk, known for being a true centrist, more interested in the people and the result than in sheer partisan bickering. To most people, you'd think this would be a good thing. But to Sarah Palin, he's the Black Hole of Evil.
A true centrist is the last thing she wants. Someone who pays attention to the realities of a situation, and not the political implications? She can't have that! We must have strict partisan divides!
This is pretty much what Sarah does. She supports ciphers who've said they support any kind of stupid right-wing crap, as long as it gets them elected. But Sarah doesn't always go with that "due diligence" thing. You know, like in an earlier list, where Sarah plugged a "great" West Virginian candidate, John Raese.
She supported Raese for a while now (you know, despite the fact that even his wife won't be voting for him), although... well, OK, she was giving her support to him for a race where he wasn't running. She thought he was from Pennsylvania, as it shows in this Twitter post that she has since scrubbed from her website.
But it's an understandable mistake. After all, for Raese's West Virginia political ad, he went to Philadelphia, and put out a casting call for "coal miner/trucker" types with "a ‘Hicky’ Blue Collar look."(Apparently, those types of people are thin on the ground in West Virginia.)
Saturday, October 23, 2010
The Unholy Trinity: Beck, O'Donnell, and Palin
A fellow blogger who goes by the handle of Capt. Fogg inspired what began as a comment on his post, Masters of Mendacity, but grew into a post of my own. The Captain's post adroitly dissects the fallacies at the heart of the ongoing proclamations by Palin, O'Donnell, and Beck that feed the clamor from the Tea Party of, "We want our country back." The basic reasoning appears to follow the lines of, "America is a Christian nation, founded by God or at the very least endorsed by God and it (America) must be saved from liberals." One of Palin's latest proclamations is that that the Constitution tells us that our "Unalienable rights" come from God. Christine O'Donnell has declared that the Constitution isn't merely a legal document but a covenant based on divine principles. Glenn Beck appears to have anointed the Constitution to be his Gospel, and himself as the Second Coming.
They aren't just liars, they are flat out wrong. There is no mention of God or unalienable rights in the Constitution; perhaps Palin, et.al. have confused the Constitution with the Declaration of Independence. That document states, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed."
What fascinates me about the language regarding unalienable rights is that Jefferson's concerns weren't about worshipping a particular God but about declaring that there were rights inherent to being human that could not be usurped and that the purpose of government was to protect those rights as opposed to curtailing them or taking them away. I think that his use of the term Creator reflected the broader concept that such rights were natural rights, innate rights that were not given but existed without being conferred or bestowed by any government.
Beck, Palin etc. have chosen to harp on this language as proof that this is a Christian nation. Based on the varied writings of Jefferson, Madison and others, I'm of the opinon that the furtherest thing from their intent was founding a Christian nation. I think that a modern debate on this matter fails to understand the worldview of the founders. These men were readers of Locke, Rousseau,Hobbes, and Aristotle. They struggled with the philosophical concepts of who are we and what is our purpose, not some fight over whose God was better. They actually thought about the purpose of government and concluded that it was to serve the people and that the power of the government came from the consent given by the governed.
It was a revolutionary idea, Certainly the English Monarchy didn't recognize its power as coming from the people but viewed its power as God given and superior to the will of the people. The Declaration took that philosophy on with its bold proclamation about unalienable rights endowed by the Creator. It was an assertion against the then ruling idea that the government decided which rights to grant the people and which ones to deny them. It wasn't a proclamation supporting Christianity but a declaration against tyranny.
As for attributing such language to the Constitution, it just raffirms my belief that most of the people shouting about the Constitution as being a covenant based on divine principles have never read the document with even a modicum of comprehension. The Constitution is a secular document that establishes the practices and laws governing the operation of the government. The Preamble states the purpose of the Constitution clearly and succinctly: We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America. (There are many sites on the Net with info on the Preamble and the rest of the Constitution. I cited to Wikipedia here because it was the best of about a dozen sites that I checked. Up to date, and fully documented.)
Citing the United States Constitution as a religious text makes about as much sense as declaring that my telephone book contains the secrets of the universe.
They aren't just liars, they are flat out wrong. There is no mention of God or unalienable rights in the Constitution; perhaps Palin, et.al. have confused the Constitution with the Declaration of Independence. That document states, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed."
What fascinates me about the language regarding unalienable rights is that Jefferson's concerns weren't about worshipping a particular God but about declaring that there were rights inherent to being human that could not be usurped and that the purpose of government was to protect those rights as opposed to curtailing them or taking them away. I think that his use of the term Creator reflected the broader concept that such rights were natural rights, innate rights that were not given but existed without being conferred or bestowed by any government.
Beck, Palin etc. have chosen to harp on this language as proof that this is a Christian nation. Based on the varied writings of Jefferson, Madison and others, I'm of the opinon that the furtherest thing from their intent was founding a Christian nation. I think that a modern debate on this matter fails to understand the worldview of the founders. These men were readers of Locke, Rousseau,Hobbes, and Aristotle. They struggled with the philosophical concepts of who are we and what is our purpose, not some fight over whose God was better. They actually thought about the purpose of government and concluded that it was to serve the people and that the power of the government came from the consent given by the governed.
It was a revolutionary idea, Certainly the English Monarchy didn't recognize its power as coming from the people but viewed its power as God given and superior to the will of the people. The Declaration took that philosophy on with its bold proclamation about unalienable rights endowed by the Creator. It was an assertion against the then ruling idea that the government decided which rights to grant the people and which ones to deny them. It wasn't a proclamation supporting Christianity but a declaration against tyranny.
As for attributing such language to the Constitution, it just raffirms my belief that most of the people shouting about the Constitution as being a covenant based on divine principles have never read the document with even a modicum of comprehension. The Constitution is a secular document that establishes the practices and laws governing the operation of the government. The Preamble states the purpose of the Constitution clearly and succinctly: We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America. (There are many sites on the Net with info on the Preamble and the rest of the Constitution. I cited to Wikipedia here because it was the best of about a dozen sites that I checked. Up to date, and fully documented.)
Citing the United States Constitution as a religious text makes about as much sense as declaring that my telephone book contains the secrets of the universe.
Masters of mendacity
Sarah Palin says that the Constitution tells us that our "Unalienable rights" come from God. They don't, nor does the Biblical God deviate from the endless list of things he'll incinerate you for long enough to get into life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Ask the Amorites. We're commanded to kill their children or be destroyed by old God-O-love. Ask Job. "Shut up or I'll kill you along with your wife and kids" is far more typical. Freedom to worship or not worship your own gods after your own custom? Freedom to choose your own government? Fughettaboutit. That the authority of Government comes from God and not from the governed is as antithetical to our constitution as an electron is to a positron and as Palin is to Jefferson.
But it's more than just stupidity on her part. It's more than ignorance. It's more than the will to power and the lack of conscience that might prevent a better person from playing upon the passions of the ignorant rabble who listen to her, it's a slap in the face to those who after mankind's long struggle with God appointed kings and heresy trials, the persecution of variant religions, divinely justified genocide and slavery, managed to found a government free of the notion that only God or his self appointed agents can found a legitimate government. Far from being behind the 1789 Constitution, religious conservatives who hadn't already fled to Canada and the Bahamas or back to England, opposed it for Biblical reasons. To oppose George III, rex Dei gratia, was to oppose the will of God and the Bible is the source of that idea, not the enlightenment philosophers of the era.
Sharon Angle says the constitution isn't even about government. "Government isn't what our founding fathers put into the constitution" she says. dumb questions are hardest to answer and dumb assertions of this magnitude are virtually unassailable and those who make them are ineducable, so why try?
But if it's a race for the Master of Mendacity degree, Glenn Beck is ahead of the pack. Commies like Franklin Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson separated us from our history -- were trying "to separate us from our Constitution and God" he tells us -- hoping, I suppose that putting the words next to each other will generate the illusion that a document banning state recognition of religious institutions is somehow the product of religious belief. Are we trying to separate anyone from the law, by interpreting it as supporting freedom of religion, freedom of speech, the freedom to protest and petition and discuss? Are we trying to invent a new history by reading the source documents? Are we trying to separate Beck from whatever bizarre religious beliefs he has or from the magic underwear he wears? Only in his paranoid fantasies.
We're trying to keep him and his cronies and his bronze age taboos out of our religious lives, which although that may be a slap in the face to his imagined God, it's what mine approves of. It's hard to know whether such conniving, power seeking serpents truly believe the apple they offer us is good to eat, but the audience of both these creatures is uneducated, opinionated and as chock full O' nuts as a New York coffee shop. What they don't know is dangerous. What they think they know is calamitous.
What the constitution is about, what it says, what it was meant to accomplish and what the motivations for it were is not a mystery. It's meant to be flexible; to be able to change to suit changing times, but none of the claims made by the dime store revolutionaries in tricorn hats are remotely true. Their concept of freedom resembles the tyranny Jefferson was so passionate to oppose. Their concept of history is a mythology written by enemies of freedom.
But it's more than just stupidity on her part. It's more than ignorance. It's more than the will to power and the lack of conscience that might prevent a better person from playing upon the passions of the ignorant rabble who listen to her, it's a slap in the face to those who after mankind's long struggle with God appointed kings and heresy trials, the persecution of variant religions, divinely justified genocide and slavery, managed to found a government free of the notion that only God or his self appointed agents can found a legitimate government. Far from being behind the 1789 Constitution, religious conservatives who hadn't already fled to Canada and the Bahamas or back to England, opposed it for Biblical reasons. To oppose George III, rex Dei gratia, was to oppose the will of God and the Bible is the source of that idea, not the enlightenment philosophers of the era.
Sharon Angle says the constitution isn't even about government. "Government isn't what our founding fathers put into the constitution" she says. dumb questions are hardest to answer and dumb assertions of this magnitude are virtually unassailable and those who make them are ineducable, so why try?
But if it's a race for the Master of Mendacity degree, Glenn Beck is ahead of the pack. Commies like Franklin Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson separated us from our history -- were trying "to separate us from our Constitution and God" he tells us -- hoping, I suppose that putting the words next to each other will generate the illusion that a document banning state recognition of religious institutions is somehow the product of religious belief. Are we trying to separate anyone from the law, by interpreting it as supporting freedom of religion, freedom of speech, the freedom to protest and petition and discuss? Are we trying to invent a new history by reading the source documents? Are we trying to separate Beck from whatever bizarre religious beliefs he has or from the magic underwear he wears? Only in his paranoid fantasies.
We're trying to keep him and his cronies and his bronze age taboos out of our religious lives, which although that may be a slap in the face to his imagined God, it's what mine approves of. It's hard to know whether such conniving, power seeking serpents truly believe the apple they offer us is good to eat, but the audience of both these creatures is uneducated, opinionated and as chock full O' nuts as a New York coffee shop. What they don't know is dangerous. What they think they know is calamitous.
What the constitution is about, what it says, what it was meant to accomplish and what the motivations for it were is not a mystery. It's meant to be flexible; to be able to change to suit changing times, but none of the claims made by the dime store revolutionaries in tricorn hats are remotely true. Their concept of freedom resembles the tyranny Jefferson was so passionate to oppose. Their concept of history is a mythology written by enemies of freedom.
Land of the free and the home of the...bully
Is the United States of America going to hell in a hand basket? Have we strayed from the ideals and values which made this country what we like to think it is today: a beacon shining brightly illuminating a world otherwise cold, dark and fearsome? I can't really say. I'll leave discerning the nuance of the zeitgeist to the professionals. I only know about tectonic shifts in our culture and body politic long after they've taken place. But I know for certain that we each of us chooses how we behave and we decide each and every day, multiple times, how we treat one another.
I live in Seattle. Downtown Seattle to be precise, literally across the street from my place of business. My wife is a practicing architect and painter who maintains a studio/office a few blocks from our, yes it's true, loft. We are likely picture postcard worthy examples of Seattle urban liberalism. No car. No kids. Bicycles. Public transit. Enthusiastic recyclers. Avid farmers market habitues. Active in local politics and not-for profit board work and wired into the local music, literary and fine arts communities. Worse yet. But unknown to most, both of us have some background in leftist politics including (but not limited to) collective book stores, cutting sugar in Cuba and various 'do-gooder' experiences working in orphanages in India and Mexico, homeless shelters and soup kitchens. You know the type. Live and let live. Go to work. Pay your taxes.
In other words, irredeemable Stalinist/collectivist/Maoist/tree hugging/weak willed/over-feminized/secular parasites poorly equipped to deal with that great cultural phenomenon growing larger and more powerful day by day.
Real Americans.
My wife visited the Virginia Mason Medical Center first thing yesterday morning for a bit of blood work. Of course before drawing blood medical types prefer the patient fast for twelve hours. And that works better for some than others. Seems a few of us need our morning coffee and toast more than most. Blood sugar levels have behavioral effects. At least I'd like to think so. Cock-eyed optimist I am I'd hate to think some of my fellow citizens are merely assholes.
Sitting quietly in the lab waiting area along with a few others waiting their names called for various procedures, "M" (my spouse), was taking that all too rare opportunity to catch up with People magazine when the scene, shall we say, shifted.
The concept of a man and his cellphone like a man and his car like a man and his gun like a man and his castle is sacrosanct. It's the American way.
So into this quiet waiting room enters seating themselves next to M enter a man and his wife. And his cellphone. The man is a building contractor and one of his jobs (apparently he's a successful building contractor as it almost immediately established there are multiple jobs) has problems. This is shared at rather high volume with the others sitting in the lab waiting area as the man immediately embarks on a series of calls checking up on his minions in the field.
"What do you mean we can't access the site until Tuesday? Assholes! I can drive my truck onto the motherfucker right now if I want"!
"Fuck no. We're done when I say we're done"!
Really. These are a couple of the highlights as reported by M.
Naturally this behavior attracted looks from the folks in the waiting room. They were of course intrigued by this display of one of the newer theories in physics, that is, the center of the universe is not a fixed point but rather a series of points in constant motion depending on where this contractor happens to be at any given moment in time. Multiply this by some as yet incalculable factor as the contractor is not the only agent acting in this manner and one quickly sees the enormity of the problem
M is tough. While she is likely the friendliest person I know who (she likes to make one new friend of a stranger at every social event she attends) nonetheless is not shy about speaking her mind. She, like me, is also a bit of a stickler when it comes to manners and behavior in public places. Call her old-fashioned (or worse as it turns out) but talking loudly on the cellphone in public really is...rude.
So M politely asked Mr. Contractor to please take his conversation outside.
"Mind your own fucking business, bitch!" Now I appreciate as well as the next business person that in today's work harder to earn less cutthroat economic environment one is under a lot of pressure. Still his response strikes me as a bit extreme.
Things got worse. M turned in her seat to pick up her belongings in order to leave when the guy smacked her upside the head with a rolled-up newspaper. His wife got up out of her chair and moved in as well. Standing by your man is a character trait of this breed.
In the nick of time a security guard arrived. Within seconds backup appeared and everyone from the lab had come out to the waiting room to see what the hubbub was. The security guys separated Mr. Contractor and his frau from M and began the task of sorting the mess out. Not leaving well enough alone Mr. Contractor started in on the security guy.
"I'm an American and this still is a free country. And I have a right to use my cellphone. Jesus I hate having to come into Seattle and put up with this shit."
The security guy informed the constitutional law expert that he could switch off the phone and tone things down right then and there or he could leave the hospital property under escort. He then asked M if she wished to press charges.
Of course the answer to that question was no (rats!). The situation defused, folks settled in with their books and newspapers and the volume decreased dramatically. M went in and had her blood drawn and all seemed once again right with the world.
After, M, having fasted for going on fourteen hours went downstairs to the clinic cafe for coffee and a muffin. Sadly, Mr. Contractor and his wife soon appeared in the near empty cafe. They choose a table immediately next to where M was having her breakfast and seated themselves, Mr. Contractor extracted his mobile from a pocket and punched in a number.
I'm just sayin'
I know a country that one would think was a Capitalist paradise. No income taxes. No property taxes. A weak central government. Restrictive, nativist, immigration policies that effectively keep minorities from working legally or getting citizenship. There's a "Christian Values" clause in the constitution. Banking regulation is extremely lax.
It's the Bahamas and it's a third world country. Most of the nation's wealth is owned by a small handful of people and the obligatory multinational corporations. Nothing trickles down but the rain and there's little of that in the dry season. There's not as much reason to invest when it can just sit there and accumulate tax free. The basics like food, water and shelter are quite expensive, unemployment is tremendous.
I'm just sayin'. . .
But of course they do have a certain level of government backed health insurance for those who aren't privately insured and a Social Security like program, so that must be why they're an underdeveloped and poverty stricken country, right? I knew I'd find a reason.
It's the Bahamas and it's a third world country. Most of the nation's wealth is owned by a small handful of people and the obligatory multinational corporations. Nothing trickles down but the rain and there's little of that in the dry season. There's not as much reason to invest when it can just sit there and accumulate tax free. The basics like food, water and shelter are quite expensive, unemployment is tremendous.
I'm just sayin'. . .
But of course they do have a certain level of government backed health insurance for those who aren't privately insured and a Social Security like program, so that must be why they're an underdeveloped and poverty stricken country, right? I knew I'd find a reason.
Friday, October 22, 2010
The biggest problam facing America today. .
. . . is pornography. Well at least it has been according to orators at several Republican national conventions in recent memory. It's possible that such things are motivated by a Christian analogue of another right wing obsession: Sharia law, and it's possible that it was a smokescreen to divert attention from other core policies like borrowing on the promise of self funding tax cuts. One thing is clear, Politicians tend to be a randy lot, but Conservative males love porn the way they love money and women: they want it all for themselves.
Remember Ken Starr who wanted to make it a crime to use the word "breast" on the Internet but spent millions and wrote endless words, even on the Internet, about Bill Clinton's penis, Monica Lewinsky's cigar and related subjects? Yes, I know, Democrats like porn too and cheat on their wives and are hypocrites and all that as I'm sure someone will assure me to obscure the fact that they haven't been on a moral crusade for those nebulous but normative "family values" for decades. I've had all the contrived and deceptive equivalences I need for now, thank you.
Which brings me to Clarance Thomas. It was the equivalent of a lynching, said he when accusations were leveled by another conservative that he'd offered her a Coke with pubic hair on it, even though she had little reason to lie and had complained to the FBI only in private. Anita Hill was branded a Liberal, although she wasn't and isn't, in a fashion far more evocative of a lynching than the sworn testimony against Justice Thomas. It seems now that Lillian McEwen, a former girlfriend of the distinguished Justice says he was "obsessed with porn," and often made inappropriate sexual comments about and unwanted advances toward women in his office and she's kept quiet until now. She confirms, for instance, that he asked women about their breast size when at work.
McEwan was, in fact, given as a character witness by Thomas, to show that he had a regular relationship and wasn't the rude, sex-obsessed, predatory little creep he was alleged to be by more than one accuser. Too bad she wasn't called to testify under oath because, as we read in the Washington Post: in her soon to be published memoir, she confirms our suspicions.
Perhaps it was knowledge that the book contained such damning information that prompted his wife's odd early morning call to Anita Hill, but I don't think she need fear that he'll lose his job or reputation when the accusation of LIBERAL still carries the power that the accusation of WITCH used to have in centuries past. We're stuck with an overgrown adolescent and liar on the highest court. We may all have his pubic hair in all the wrong places and we don't have a hell of a lot of choice but to drink from the can.
Remember Ken Starr who wanted to make it a crime to use the word "breast" on the Internet but spent millions and wrote endless words, even on the Internet, about Bill Clinton's penis, Monica Lewinsky's cigar and related subjects? Yes, I know, Democrats like porn too and cheat on their wives and are hypocrites and all that as I'm sure someone will assure me to obscure the fact that they haven't been on a moral crusade for those nebulous but normative "family values" for decades. I've had all the contrived and deceptive equivalences I need for now, thank you.
Which brings me to Clarance Thomas. It was the equivalent of a lynching, said he when accusations were leveled by another conservative that he'd offered her a Coke with pubic hair on it, even though she had little reason to lie and had complained to the FBI only in private. Anita Hill was branded a Liberal, although she wasn't and isn't, in a fashion far more evocative of a lynching than the sworn testimony against Justice Thomas. It seems now that Lillian McEwen, a former girlfriend of the distinguished Justice says he was "obsessed with porn," and often made inappropriate sexual comments about and unwanted advances toward women in his office and she's kept quiet until now. She confirms, for instance, that he asked women about their breast size when at work.
McEwan was, in fact, given as a character witness by Thomas, to show that he had a regular relationship and wasn't the rude, sex-obsessed, predatory little creep he was alleged to be by more than one accuser. Too bad she wasn't called to testify under oath because, as we read in the Washington Post: in her soon to be published memoir, she confirms our suspicions.
Perhaps it was knowledge that the book contained such damning information that prompted his wife's odd early morning call to Anita Hill, but I don't think she need fear that he'll lose his job or reputation when the accusation of LIBERAL still carries the power that the accusation of WITCH used to have in centuries past. We're stuck with an overgrown adolescent and liar on the highest court. We may all have his pubic hair in all the wrong places and we don't have a hell of a lot of choice but to drink from the can.
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