Category: Random Thoughts

On Poverty

Let me begin by apologizing for the recent lack of substance around here. Between classwork and increasing frustration with both political parties, it’s been hard to get inspired.

So, poverty is up again this year. It’s almost un-news this time. Reuters calls it “the latest sign that an economic recovery marked by a stock market boom has not trickled down to ordinary Americans.” Not just the sign or a sign: the latest sign. And gee, surprise surprise, keeping the interest rate that banks can charge one another low doesn’t seem to help Joe Average pay his bills! Imagine that! Here’s some facts for you:

Numbers released this week by the Census Department show exactly how pervasive poverty is in the U.S. To be defined as poor by the government, a single person can earn no more than $11,490 per year, while for a family of four the threshold is $23,550. About 46.5 million Americans, or 1 in 7, lived at or below that level last year. Extend the definition just slightly to 125 percent of the poverty level — $14,362 for one person and $29,437 for a family of four — and the ratio drops to 1 in 5, fully 20 percent of the population.

Almost 42 percent of U.S. households below the poverty line are headed by single women, that’s up from 28 percent in 2007. Many of the people who live close to or below the poverty line have jobs: More than 30 percent of working-age adults earning 125 percent of the poverty line or less worked year-round in 2012, according to the Census Bureau. Roughly a quarter of the officially impoverished worked part-time, while 5.5 percent worked full-time. Nearly 9 percent of those working part-time earned less than half of the poverty level.

So no, we aren’t talking about lazy slobs who don’t want to work. We’re talking about 1 out of every 7 people you’re likely to encounter on the street, more if you know people of color. Even if you live in some “nice” suburb somewhere. And for those people, advice like “Max your 401k contribution” or “have savings of at least three months of living expenses” are sick jokes. How do you save that kind of money when you aren’t even sure you’ll cover the rent on the first of the month?

The Japan Times recently published a commentary titled “Politicians hardly ever mention America’s poor.” Now think about that a moment. The Japanese know we have a poverty problem. This isn’t an article about poverty in Bolivia or India, but America and it’s poor. And our politicians are too busy to talk about them. That’s actually probably for the best, seeing as their challenges are often misunderstood, the solutions are sometimes tangential, and Washington appears to be doing their very best to push them [further] under the bus.

And that brings me to food stamps — or as it is officially known, the SNAP program. As we all remember, the House voted to cut $4,000,000,000 ($4 billion with a b, or $4000 million if you’d like to think about how big that is) from SNAP, while the Senate only wants to cut $400,000,000 ($400 M). Mighty nice of them Senators. The House also wants to let states impose work requirements despite the fact that many of the poor have jobs (and many more are disabled) and drug testing (proven to be a waste of money, but it does serve the primary purpose of humiliating the person in poverty further). It’s hard enough to feed yourself on SNAP, but the politicians who never mention the poor directly want to make it harder.

I guess none of them paid much attention to the plot of last year’s critically acclaimed movie, Les Misérables. Desperate people do desperate things.

I’m not a Catholic by any stretch of the imagination, but I do believe Pope Francis speaks words Jesus would have approved of when he said “We want a just [economic] system that helps everyone.”

In Closing: I like “will cost much less than expected”; perspective; I bet more of us use math regularly than play football regularly; “The Tithe” is worth reading, here’s part one; maybe the start of a someday HIV cure?; and may you never have to choose which bills go unpaid.

Or, you know, we could “Just Say No”

Yesterday, USA Today published a delightful piece of “journalism” on car buying called “Tips to avoid car dash systems that’ll drive you crazy.” The second paragraph makes the following observation:

The best of the systems reduce distraction. They make driving easier and more pleasant. The worst can infuriate customers and devastate an automaker’s reputation.

No kidding. Glad somebody got paid to write those 3 sentences.

What’s interesting is that just last week, I read this commentary on a Bloomberg item that can briefly be summarized:

A $1500 or more device added to a car that (1) has out-dated maps the day it’s released, (2) if it can be updated at all costs a fortune to do so on a regular basis, (3) is slow, buggy and frankly has a user interface designed by Frankenstein?

You’re surprised that people buy a $20 suction cup or airvent clip and use their phone instead?

Where the hell have you been?

I know a man who swore a year ago that he would never again own a car with any sort of touch screen device in it — not even the radio! He correctly pointed out that it was a distraction to reach over and do anything on such hardware. However, Detroit has decided to channel Rhett Butler and frankly, not give a damn. You’ll have that hardware in your car and you’ll like it! I’m not willing to go so far as to agree with Mr. Denninger and speculate that “I’m sure the NSA finds this not only interesting but an actual goal.  Remember, if you never do anything wrong (like visit a hooker, smoke a joint, have one too many beers, etc) then you don’t care if big government knows literally every single thing you do — right?”

Look. I don’t need a lot out of that thing in the middle of my dashboard. It should play music, either via radio, CD, or from MP3s on my phone. I have grown to like bluetooth integration on my phone, but it must be absolutely painless and stay synced properly. I don’t need it to give me directions: I have a smart phone, a map book, and a functional brain, thanks. I don’t need to give it voice commands: my aforementioned smart phone takes voice commands quite well, I can pull over to make a call when needed, and I often have a co-pilot who can dial. And the device absolutely must have physical buttons that always exist in the same location when I need them. I can’t imagine why it hasn’t occurred to anybody in Detroit that looking to the console to see where the appropriate button is could be, you know, dangerous. But then, these are the guys who can’t imagine why you would put the car in park and not want every single door to unlock.

Don’t give me a fast ration about how I will learn to love the additional features I don’t need. Please, I managed 5 years as a Realtor without any damnable navigation system telling me when to turn left.

So next time I buy a car — which will hopefully be years from now — I will do the Nancy Reagan and Just Say No to expensive features I just don’t want or need.

Hot Hot Hot

Not a long post today. The projected high around here is 115, and we are on track to set a new all-time record high of 118 on Sunday. And guess what? July is our hot month! Helicopters are grounded (just as well, I hate helicopters). Planes are taking the unusual pattern of landing from the West, and let me tell you the 757s and 777s look like they are coming in mighty low from where I sit.

So, I hope nobody was really thinking that mortgage rates were going to stay near “record lows” forever.

And now, let’s have a bunch of relevant items on the NSA, spying, and Mr. Snowden.

And for desert (yeah, I meant desert), a bunch of relevant items on abortion, pregnancy, and Texas.

Ok, Now Apple is Just Trying to Irritate Me

I didn’t say anything earlier this week when Apple decided that a great name for it’s new operating system was Mavericks. I guess they ran out of big cat names. Is it the official operating system of  John McCain, or did everyone just sleep through 2008? Loaded with Mavericky energy!

Likewise, I didn’t have much to say about the new Mac Pro that looks like a Japanese trash can. Nice piece of art, but not a practical shape for the typical user’s desk. Guess they didn’t learn anything from the Cube.

IOS 7? Is it still 73 and Sunny in iPhone land? Wake me when the weather changes.

But no, today my mac did not make me happy.

I arrived hope to find the App Store had a little “2” on it. So, I apparently have 2 apps that need updating. No big deal.

So, I clicked on the icon and launched the App Store. Did it let me know which apps need updates? No! Instead of going to updates, it took me to the featured items section of the App Store, where I was encouraged to buy new software. I had to click on the “updates” button to actually get the content I came for. Maybe Apple thinks this is ok, but to me it’s like going for an oil change and having the mechanic try to sell you a second car.

Looking more and more like this is my last Macintosh. Like, for sure this time.

Crazy Talk

So, it seems clear to me that the War on Drugs isn’t even the War On Some Drugs, but rather the War On Brown People Possessing Drugs.

At what point can we confess this and address the problem? At what point do we stop wasting millions of millions of dollars “fighting drugs” and putting people in prison — breaking up families and ruining future economic prospects outside crime — sometimes for simply being too close to a substance that many people find less dangerous than beer? Why are we not regulating and taxing marijuana instead of wasting time and money fighting it?

And don’t give me any crap about how it’s a gateway drug. The reason it seems to be a gateway drug is that the same petty criminal who sells it to you would rather upsell you to something harder.

In Closing: rape; obese patients prefer diet advice from people whose techniques clearly don’t work; control of information; and Dave Johnson is right again.

We don’t want any trouble

Nobody wants to live in a bad neighborhood, right? And certainly nobody wants to live in the kind of place where the police are continually coming around.

But consider this situation. Imagine you get beaten up. As bad luck would have it, it happens a couple more times. The third time, the cops call your landlord and order him to evict you. After all, you’re a troublemaker. Bad things happen around you, and this town doesn’t want your sort here. Sound far fetched? Unfortunately, laws all over the country designed to make it easier to move known drug dealers and pimps into crappier areas evict criminal neighbors are being used to evict crime victims instead:

Last year in Norristown, Pa., Lakisha Briggs’ boyfriend physically assaulted her, and the police arrested him. But in a cruel turn of events, a police officer then told Ms. Briggs, “You are on three strikes. We’re gonna have your landlord evict you.”

Yes, that’s right. The police threatened Ms. Briggs with eviction because she had received their assistance for domestic violence. Under Norristown’s “disorderly behavior ordinance,” the city penalizes landlords and tenants when the police respond to three instances of “disorderly behavior” within a four-month period. The ordinance specifically includes “domestic disturbances” as disorderly behavior that triggers enforcement of the law.

After her first “strike,” Ms. Briggs was terrified of calling the police. She did not want to do anything to risk losing her home. So even when her now ex-boyfriend attacked her with a brick, she did not call. And later, when he stabbed her in the neck, she was still too afraid to reach out. But both times, someone else did call the police. Based on these “strikes,” the city pressured her landlord to evict. After a housing court refused to order an eviction, the city said it planned to condemn the property and forcibly remove Ms. Briggs from her home.

Sure, it’s “domestic assault.” It’s still assault, just as if some random guy beat her up  — except worse! If the cops told her, “Listen, he has to go and we will make sure he does,” that might be understandable. But no, just get out and try not to bleed on anything.

Unfortunately, neighbors that are afraid to call the cops are no better to have around than neighbors that violate the law. If you agree with the ACLU that “Effective law enforcement depends on strong relationships between police and members of the community,” you might consider sending them a couple bucks.

In closing: overdose; problem solving; on real estate, education, and commuting; parking; 15 out of 16 of us lost net worth between 2009 and 2001 (that’s after the real estate bubble popped, for those of you paying attention); one soda a day keeps insulin astray (ok, I strained to make that work); and an internet necessity.

Reframe

Imagine that you work for a relatively small company. One fine Friday in Spring you go to pick up your paycheck, and the owner of the company asks you to sign this:

I agree to use none of my paycheck from XYZ LLC to purchase novels in the Twilight or 50 Shades series. If I am found to own such books, I agree to show that they were not purchased with salary funds (i.e., gift) or face immediate termination.

You might say “What’s this?”

The owner might reply “Those books are sinful, and I won’t allow my money to be spent on them.”

“But it isn’t your money anymore. It’s my money,” you say.

“And you wouldn’t have it if I didn’t give it to you. Now, are you going to sign this, or are you fired?”

I think most of us would be outraged if this happened — even if we never had any desire to read those books. If it were an option, some of us might find other jobs (ha, yeah right, what other jobs?). A few of us might call a local investigative reporter to stick a microphone in that owner’s face. Somebody might think to call the ACLU.

It’s not an accident that I chose two controversial series with a largely female fan base. That’s because the thing some employers are actually trying to censor is access to birth control pills.

The employers trying to do this are using the exact same argument: “It’s sinful and I won’t allow my money to be spent on it.” It sounds a lot siller when we talk about books rather than medication that can prevent poverty and can relieve women of PCOS and endometriosis symptoms — making them more productive workers.

Obamacare requires health insurance plans to cover birth control pills, regardless of what your boss thinks of them. If you think that’s a good thing, click here and sign the petition.

Take a deep breath

Yesterday, two terrible things happened.

In Connecticut, a nutcase broke into an elementary school and killed over 20 people — most of them little kids — with guns.

In China, a nutcase walked into an elementary school and injured over 20 people — most of them little kids — with a knife.

Disclaimer: I do not own any firearms. I do own multiple knives and assorted other items that can be used as weapons.

So first off, let’s stop pretending that guns themselves are the problem. The shooter could just as easily have used other weapons. Ok fine, the knife was a little less lethal.

The guns were stolen from his mother — whom he killed first — and it wasn’t legal for him to buy these weapons, so let’s stop pretending that more strict gun control laws would have prevented the tragedy. Not even better enforcement would have helped. The sad truth is that gun control laws work on the premise that someone who is planning to break one law will inexplicably follow another. “Oh, a 3 day waiting period to buy a gun? I guess I won’t hold up the convenience store after all. Maybe I’ll get a job instead.”

What we need to get serious about is mental illness. We don’t yet know what this young man’s problem really was, and since he is dead we may never know. What I think we can say without fear of contradiction is that sane people don’t shoot up kindergarten classrooms. But getting serious about mental illness is hard.

It’s hard because of Rosemary Kennedy. It’s hard because of One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest. It’s hard because asylums used to be terrible places where the mentally ill were warehoused. It’s hard because legislators closed those awful facilities and offloaded mental health to unprepared communities decades ago. It’s hard because rules and laws that would make it easier to put truly mentally ill people in hospitals would also make it easier to put many eccentric-but-normal people in hospitals, drugged against their wills. It’s hard because some school administrators think black trench coats are a sign of possible violent tendencies. It’s hard because mental hospitals were dumping grounds for “rebellious” and “troubled” teens (and adults) as recently as the 80s, and those same mental hospitals were more than happy to make up fraudulent details to keep insurance company money coming. And it’s hard because that in turn has made insurance companies wary of attempts to make them cover mental health — it took an act of Congress and even then it took 2 years to implement the rules.

My heart goes out to every family touched by these awful events.

Edit:
However, the availability of weapons among the U.S. population is does not in itself suffice to explain the often exasperating massacres that occur there. Nations like Canada, Sweden and Finland also record high levels of per capita weapons ownership without leading to the type of mass murders that systematically shock and terrorize the United States. This suggests a kind of collective propensity toward barbarism in that country which has never been explained, and which should start to be discussed as quickly as possible.

 

In closing: Arnold loves to pay taxes; mastodon bones; and historically accurate penny.

Missing the Point

It is absolutely a tragedy what happened at the Empire State Building. Who can possibly predict that a guy who was laid off almost a year ago would come back and start shooting? Nevertheless, I’d like to digress for a moment to point out that it’s a lot safer to never hire a nutcase than to have to fire one. Screen your employees before you hire them, people.

So then let’s get into the nitty gritty, starting with this opinion piece talking about how NYPD officers use great restraint:

As a rule, it takes a lot to get NYPD officers to fire their guns at anyone. Despite a handful of isolated, but highly publicized, exceptions to this rule when officers have shot unarmed individuals over the past decade and a half, New York’s 35,000-officer force remains a worldwide model of firearms restraint and veneration for human life.

[snip!]

In rapidly unfolding and completely unpredictable situations, assessing the need to use firearms is often a split-second decision. It can mean the difference between life and death. Officers have to sift through confusion, fear and fragmented information.

In the incident outside of the Empire State Building, it is made more difficult because the street is one of the busiest in America. The officers had to take into account the risk of the gunman hurting potentially many people in the vicinity were he not stopped.

Look, nobody sane is disputing that they had to make sure this guy didn’t hurt anybody else. The man pulled his gun out and was clearly intending to shoot at the cops. This wasn’t a place to experiment with a taser.  What were they supposed to do, offer to buy him a latte and talk for a while??

The problem is not that NYPD had to shoot this guy. The problem is that out of the 16 shots fired, 3 hit the perp. All 9 innocent bystanders were shot by the cops trying to “protect” them.

Take aim at the real problem: aim.

In Closing: It’s the jobs, stupid; the important question is the one about whether his mom was born in Kansas; if no blacks support Romney and a minority of women and Hispanics and people under 35 support him, how can the polls possibly be as close as they’ve been? Are there really that many angry old racist men?; school internet safety; yep (so why are these guys still married?); if Republicans get their way, be ready for $10,000 per ounce gold; abused by the system; fake world leaders; can’t make this up; trash can babies; ok, but Goldman didn’t make the drought happen; over 20 serial rapists in Detroit so far; scary; probably not what life is like in Russia; and the old man speaks the truth.

NASA can be cool

…. And not just because some of a geek with a mohawk.

It turns out that in addition to putting robots on Mars, they’re responsible for a lot of things that are making life better right here on Earth. Just keep clicking for more great tidbits.

Welcome to yet another internet rabbit-hole.

In closing: brains and beauty; you don’t need that crap anyway; I was wondering when somebody was going to notice this; pass it on; turns out that harassment is  sometimes a security issue; and Ezra’s still got it.