The Last Will and Shorties of Rosalind Leigh

On Education: Children living in poverty are everywhere, and standardized tests are not ready for them. For pity sake, we’re wasting time teaching kids who are still figuring out how to hold a pencil how to fill in little bubbles on scantrons. All hail the holy power of earning a completion certificate degree.

On Spying on American Citizens: Hilary says we need an adult conversation. Good luck in a world where we are all apparently afraid there’s a terrorist under the bed. But if they can track all Americans (illegally), how are they going to sort through enough information to find anything useful? Unless the goal is to be able to blackmail every single one of us? No wonder Snowden doesn’t think the internal reporting system works. There’s hope for reform, but it still looks like whitewashing to me.

Fat People with Thin Skins: Apparently don’t understand how the Unfollow button works.

Coolest Pope since Ever: Sold Harley, gave proceeds to charity.

On the working poor: It’s more than possible to work full time and still live in poverty. Some argue that the low wages paid to fast food workers turns into high profits for companies and high taxes for the rest of us who must subsidize their food stamps, Medicaid, and housing assistance. Then the poor have to put up with food stamp systems that go down, and risk losing their job for helping a fellow human being.

Whatever Happened to Vanilla Ice?: He cleaned himself up, realized he owned a bunch of property, fixed it up, and started hanging out with the Amish.

On Republicans: When Pat Robertson says your too extreme, it might be time to revisit your views. I’m still a little worried that the current “dialog” on a budget is going to turn into “dialog” on how we “have to” cut Social Security, Medicare, and anything else that doesn’t directly help rich people and/or influential Congresscritters.

Common Misconceptions: Enjoy.

Bankrupt, yet record profits?: How does that work, American Airlines??

Yeah, we could use some good news: Iran appears to want to talk like sensible people about nukes.

Human Rights: the comic.

And now for something adorable: 4 new cubs at a Vegas lion habitat.

Caturday: Three Items for your Furry Friends

Happy Caturday everyone! Instead of posting the traditional cat pictures as many bloggers do, I offer some items for your cat. Disclaimer: I am not receiving any compensation whatsoever for this post; these are merely products used and appreciated in my own home.

Yesterday’s News Cat Litter:

This stuff was recommended to me by a veterinarian. After years of using the clumping stuff, we’ve made the switch. There’s stuff I like and stuff I don’t about it. First the good stuff:

  • Made from recycled paper, so it’s environmentally friendly. 
  • Biodegrades quickly. Once it gets wet, it puffs up and starts to fall apart. This will also give you a rough idea of your cat’s urine output.
  • Safe for post-surgical felines.
  • And finally, the thing that sold me on this stuff, it doesn’t track around the house nearly as bad as the clumping stuff. Sure, some makes it out of the box, but they are of a size that’s easy to sweep up.

And now for the things I don’t like. Ok the thing I don’t like: It simply doesn’t control odor as well as the clumping stuff. Treat that as a gentle hint of when the litter needs to be changed.

The Furminator!

Is your furry friend furry? Fluffy? Long haired? Easily matted? Not a sphinx? If you have a cat with fur, you need one of these. Heck, if you have a dog with fur, you need one. A quick Google Image search for “Furminator before after” will tell you everything you need to know about this product. You might just find yourself wondering how hard it is to turn pet fur into yarn so you can make a sweater for your cat out of cat fur.

Blue Wilderness Cat Food:

Ok, seriously now. We saw the dog-version of this stuff advertised on the idiot box (probably during an episode of Bad Ink, which is at least partly fun because it’s a local show), and began to wonder if it might help certain aromatic issues. We are on board with many tenets of the Primal/Paleo community, so why would we feed cats food with more corn grits than tuna in it? And who decided cats needed corn or soy in their diets? They’re carnivores that don’t digest plant matter well! The ingredient list on Blue Wilderness is impressive. My cats now eat better than some humans I know. And — unlike some healthy pet foods I can think of — the cats love it. Their coats are shinier and softer (and require a little less furmination). One word of warning, some cats might take a day or two to get used to it; imagine transitioning to healthy balanced meals from a diet of junk food and you’ll get the picture.

Hope you enjoy these. Let’s close up with a nice assortment of links on the Republican Party, government shutdown, debt ceiling battle, and the Chinese telling us to cut it out.

Shutdown, Debt Ceiling, and Hostage Taking

So here we are over a week into the Government Shutdown. From where I sit, it sure looks like the Republicans are being more like RepubliCANTs, completely unwilling to negotiate in a world where negotiation doesn’t mean “give us everything we want.” Not that the DemocRATS are angels here, please understand. Right now nobody likes Congress very much. Individual states like Nevada are chewing their collective fingernails (and probably, secretly, making contingency plans).

It’s gotten to the point where the markets are accounting for the fact that next week, the Government may well stop paying interest on the National Debt. That’s what the debt ceiling means in real life. If our nation stops paying the bills, it’s reasonable for holders of our debt to decide it’s not worth as much, and might even be worthless. Everybody always thought “oh that would never happen, it would be too catastrophic!” Now our [Republican] elected officials are falling over themselves to say it wouldn’t be that bad. “Oh jinkies, it might be a good thing!” Oh yeah? Tell that to China. Turns out they are our biggest foreign creditor.

Looking for a silver lining? At least big corporate mergers that enrich hedge fund managers and executives at the expense of employees and consumers may have to slow down a tweak.

Let’s hope enough moderate Republicans decide they don’t want to preside over our nation going into default.

In Closing: Securing the internet from the NSA; Student loans a drag on housing; Lief Erickson; USMC reading list; Jimmy Carter on the Middle Class; keeping a schedule on a crappy job; if part time employment spiked prior to Obamacare, how did Obamacare cause it?; pay no attention to the next trade pact that’s not going to be good for American workers.

Music Monday: How To Lose A War

 

I was reading the news over the weekend when I happened upon this Reuters story:

Four soldiers belonging to the NATO-led force in Afghanistan were killed by insurgents during an operation on Sunday, while a fifth was shot dead by a security guard over the weekend in the country’s south.

Of course I am saddened that at this late date, we are still generating dead soldiers in Afghanistan. But I have one question: Why do a bunch of armed soldiers need security guards? 

The answer of course is that these days, we hire contractors to do all kinds of things on a military base: build things, maintain things, serve food, and apparently provide “security” to men with guns. Back in the old days, these are all things that were done by men and women (ok, mostly men) in uniform. For example, the Seabees. Their motto is still “We Build * We Fight.”

Instead, we now have a large complement of civilians who must be defended in a war zone. At least if the camp cook was a soldier, he could use his knife against an attacker on base just as easily as against a potato. Can you imagine General George S. Patton marching the Third Army 60 miles in 2 weeks with a bunch of Sodexo employees in tow? Neither can I.

Outsourcing is officially interfering with the ability of our Military to function in an actual war.

In Closing: Ok, here’s your assorted links on the government shutdown, the impending debt ceiling battle (Yoohoo Yoho! Making our bonds worthless would not help world markets!); ain’t that the truth; some obligatory NSA items; most of the time that would be a crime; the War on Drugs has been lost; school anti-bullying programs often have the opposite of the intended effect (how about the adults insist on everyone treating people with respect instead of some fancy-assed program?); don’t forget that the Supreme Court goes back to work today, shutdown or no; and I couldn’t make it up if I tried, Thanksgivukkah.

Music Monday: Pinching Pennies

Before me in line at a suburban Super Wal-Mart was a woman, somewhere around 30 by my best guess, and her son, who I supposed might have been ten. In a nation where 2 out of 3 people are overweight, they were skinny. Their clothes were clean and in keeping with the unspoken dress code of suburbia, but showed signs of wear. Her sandals didn’t fit quite right. Her son’s hair was done neatly in an urban style, perhaps at home. I’d been dodging young people darting about the store with a sense of entitlement all through my shopping voyage — including the kids behind me loudly begging their parents for candy — so I was struck by his remarkably good behavior. He patiently put checked groceries into their cart while mom watched the display of scanned items like a hawk.

They had a small order. Food included four loaves of the cheapest house-brand bread available, a case of ramen, a family-sized package of house brand hot dogs, American cheese, and a small can of baby formula — the only name brand item on the conveyor belt. No fruits or vegetables of any sort. They also had a comb, store-brand maxi-pads, pencils, and a couple cheap children’s backpacks. There was no baby with them, so I had to assume there was somebody at home watching the baby and whoever was waiting for the second backpack. I found it curious that they were buying school supplies at the very end of September. Perhaps they were waiting for a clearance sale? She paid with a combination of cash and some sort of scan card before leaving.

In Closing: A few links on Obamacare, the impending government shutdown, and birth control pills (and reproductive rights in general); the media and graphs.

Strange Epidemic

In the last week, I’ve read two completely unrelated stories about two women who came down with one very rare but very serious medical condition while participating in the same activity. That’s the kind of coincidence I don’t like hearing about.

The condition: Rhabdomyolysis. I’ll let WebMD tell you more about it, emphasis mine:

Rhabdomyolysis is a serious syndrome due to a direct or indirect muscle injury. It results from a breakdown of muscle fibers and release of their contents into the bloodstream. This can lead to complications such as kidney (renal) failure. This occurs when the kidneys cannot remove waste and concentrated urine. In rare cases, rhabdomyolysis can even cause death. However, prompt treatment often brings a good outcome.

They go on to say that among the more common causes are “Extreme muscle strain, especially in someone who is an untrained athlete.” Think on that for a moment.

The activity is CrossFit. Here’s the story that started me thinking, and for balance here’s a rebuttal. While I was still digesting this bit, another article on CrossFit induced Rhabdo came across my RSS reader! What a horrible coincidence. For pity sake, they’ve nicknamed this potentially fatal syndrome Uncle Rhabdo! An excerpt from the original item:

A quick search of the Interwebs [sic] reveals copious amounts of information about rhabdo purveyed by none other than CrossFit trainers. Scouring the scientific literature in mainstream medical journals, however, reveals a only a few peer-reviewed papers. The science confirms that exertional rhabdomyolysis, as this form is sometimes referred to, is uncommon and normally reserved for the elite military trainee, ultra-endurance monsters, and for victims of the occasional psychotic football coach. Rhabdomyolysis isn’t a common condition, yet it’s so commonly encountered in CrossFit that they have a cartoon about it, nonchalantly casting humor on something that should never happen.

As you may have guessed from the rebuttal to article one, CrossFit people are passionate about it. I would love to link you to, say, a nice balanced Wikipedia page about CrossFit, but it “has been identified as posing a potential copyright issue….” Here’s some of their WODs, or Workout Of the Day. These are the ones Men’s Health considers the “most brutal.”

Yes, they do this stuff pretty much every day. Yes, they encourage beginners to join them, and the quality of training those beginners receive varies wildly according to the skills of the trainer. I’ve thought about doing it myself, but then I keep running into Youtube videos that convince me I want nothing to do with it, and not just this blooper reel — notice that some of these people are doing it in the gym where somebody should have corrected form. Do you really think these people received adequate training before trying to lift that? Maybe we should work on basic presses and lunges before trying a clean and jerk?? Look at these women being encouraged to“kipp” — cheat! — at pull ups. I’d rather do 5 pull ups Tony’s way, Mark’s way, or Scooby’s way than 50 CrossFit’s way; healthier for my shoulders and back, and more honest too. I don’t have room in my life for “Uncle Rhabdo.”

So yeah, “untrained athlete” plus extreme workouts every day equals a high chance of injury.

Alert the media.

More NSA

I’m going to start with the revelation that an NSA employee stalked 9 women before being detected by logging and sometimes listening to their phone calls. They called it “spied on,” but let’s get down to brass tacks. That’s just one of a dozen “substantiated” cases of the NSA abusing their abilities. The Guardian says they are “technically breaches of the law.”

No! Going 56 MPH in a 55 MPH zone is “technically” a breach of the law! Listening to not one but nine different women’s phone calls without a warrant is “absolutely” a breach of the law, absolutely a violation of her 4th and 5th Amendment rights, and arguably a damper on her 1st Amendment rights to free speech and free assembly! Let’s stop splitting hairs and call that waddling, quacking thing a duck!

Let’s not forget that other details dropped in the last week include the fact that they’ve tapped effectively the entire internet, and have used phone metadata not for catching terrorists, but for catching people who try to tell the truth to the media.

So, with all this information out there, it should be no surprise that some in the Senate think it’s high time to reform the program. I’d rather it was deleted, but there will still be people out there who know where the back doors are, so I’ll concede that somebody needs to be monitoring that until such time as secure devices can be deployed.

The NSA of course doesn’t want that to happen. Shame Mr. Alexander shot himself in the foot by admitting he’d like to have legal cover for having all our phone records. Um, yeah. Maybe he shouldn’t have said that in public. Alarmingly honest for a change.

Follow Up: Meat Loaf!; on normal people in today’s economy.

In Closing: climate change; debt ceiling; what not to wear at work, duh; looting public pensions; the real sodomites; and way to show you “care.”

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.