public airwaves

so how many of you all don't have cable? if you don't, then you are
aware of the stunningly craptacular digital signals. so now instead of
a bent coat hanger to get fuzzy network broadcasts you have to buy a
fancy antenna to get much clearer (except for when the wind blows or a
fly flaps it's wings) to watch mindless tv. oh sweet, 10 channels of
blinking in and out, stuttering entertainment. well that's a stretch,
actually. at least 6 of those channels are 24/7 bible channels. theres
the messianic jews, the all cartoon biblical shaming for kids, the
evangelical spanish channel and the all apocalypse all the time
channel. of course these don't include the local networks that sell
air time to various other godbags in the wee hours and before sunday
sports. if you are to poor to pay for cable in this country, obviously
you don't have enough of the imaginary sky fairy in your life. if we
somehow managed to bring back the fairness doctrine, would we at least
get a little variety in the godbagging?

--
The trouble with being poor is that it takes up all of your time.
Willem de Kooning

Dear Gwyneth:

I noticed you recently posted about a day in your life. It's been getting a lot of snarky attention around the interwebs, because of your complete lack of self-awareness perhaps.

I'm not going to tell you how abysmally privileged and condescending your aspirational little newsletter is. That's been done. Instead, I'm going to tell you what I would do if I lived your life for just one week.

First thing's first. I'd give everyone the week off. No housekeepers, no nannies, no personal trainers, no drivers, no stylists, no hair dressers, no makeup artists. No grocery deliveries, and actually the family is going on a strict budget for that week. They'll eat what regular people eat for a week and I'm pretty sure they won't die. No shopping for anything non-food unless it's toilet paper or toothpaste. (Though I am fairly sure that someone as exquisite as you never ever shits or has plaque).

And with the money I'd save, I'd feed and house and clothe the kid and I for an entire fucking year.

That is why people can't stand you, btw.

proof of the depth of the great recession

i am told that costco, the liberal middle class warehouse shopping
experience for those who disdain the people of walmart and can afford
the membership fee, now accepts food stamps. (i haven't confirmed this
yet, btw)
what does it say when the symbols of middle class consumption need to
refocus on poverty economics?
(i actually like costco. they start employees at a living wage, or
used to, and promote from within. and i've been wishing they took food
stamps for years)

--
The trouble with being poor is that it takes up all of your time.
Willem de Kooning

There's an old addage that

the hyper-jealous spouse is the one that's actually cheating.

I was reading this post on declining union membership at Sociological Images. I was struck by how rich people talk about working class people.

Let's see, shall we, by taking some standard tropes about the poor.


1.They have numerous babies with multiple partners


A picture of Donald Trump making an angry face while standing next to his current wife. Mr. Trump has 5 children by 3 different women.

2. They use fraud to milk the system for money that doesn't belong to them.

A picture of Bernie Ebbers, whose fraud cost MCI about 11 billion dollars and the jobs of about 20,000 people.

3. They're hypersexed and lazy

Hugh Hefner in the ubiquitous robe. For the lazy part, you have to go google the stories about the baby oil anal sex for yourself. I feel gross just typing it.

I could go on, but the more I google the more skeeved I get.

The point is, what we believe are truths about the awful stereotypes of poor people are really deflections made by skeezy rich white dudes to draw attention away from themselves.

Transportation is a class issue

So I've heard a lot of middle/upper middle white people in Seattle talk about what an awesome public transportation system we have (cough, sputter, cough). I could pull out my pretentious traveler card and point out that most of Europe has cheaper, faster, cleaner transport. But fuck that.

Tomorrow I have to take a minimum of 3 buses and 1 hour 45 minutes to go to a housing interview (with Seattle Public Housing, who I've fought with in the past, and my stomach is turning at the thought, but that's another story). Metro's online trip planner is giving me a range of between $7 and $9 EACH way for bus fare. For just me. The Kid is another $3.75 each way. It would be slightly cheaper if I had a prepaid or bank funded Orca card, but the cards themselves cost $5.

It used to be that I could pay for our bus fare by scraping the loose change from my purse. Now you get super shitty treatment from the bus driver and passengers behind you if you use actual money. The price for riding the bus has so far outpaced inflation as to be comparable in increases to health care and higher education.

For the last 9 years, I have been a reasonably happy public transit rider. I gave up my car when we lived in the city because the cost was too high compared to the bus. But I lived walking distance to work, and for most of my employment I got discounted bus passes and everything I wanted to go to was within city limits, so I got the low one zone fares. The $20 I am spending tomorrow is way more than I would have spent in gas, insurance, etc, to drive a whole 15 miles and back. Not to mention the extra 2 hours of transit time that I would save.

Of course, if you work for somewhere like Microsoft (a big company that subsides bus passes and offers privately paid connector shuttles to eliminate the patchwork of city & county buses) then yes, the Metro system is a peach. If you are a poor person trying to get to poor places that are poorly served by public transit because poor people live there, then you're fucked.

If I had to make this trip everyday, for work, it would kill me both financially and timewise. A 9 hour day (8 hours plus lunch) plus nearly 4 hours of commuting, plus 14 fucking dollars a day. At minimum wage, the first 2 hours of work I put in every day would go straight to bus fare. What a waste of fucking time.

oh patriarchy, don't you have any new tricks?

there's a story at the nytimes about Arizon's new law prohibiting
classes in ethnic studies. to here the patriarchy apologists whinge
about how the chicano students became angry instead of staying docile
little mexicans after taking the class is funny. it also makes me
think of charlotte perkins gillman being locked in a yellow room with
no books because she might become agitated. if you don't get pissed
off reading about milleniums of oppression, you're probably an
oppressor.
but can we please get an oppression system to fight that has some new
tricks please? i mean, keeping the brown folk and the ladies
illiterate and ignorant is sooooo 19th century.

--
The trouble with being poor is that it takes up all of your time.
Willem de Kooning

You cannot negotiate with terrorists

By now I am sure you all have heard the horrible news out of Arizona.

A 9 year old girl was murdered to make a political point. A judge was murdered to make a political point. A congress person was shot through the head to make a point. At least 5, possibly 6 people are dead because a terrorist couldn't get his own way. (I'm working on sketchy internet access here, so apologies if I get some facts wrong- the sentiment is still the same).

We already know how this story is going to play out in the news. Rethuglikans and tea baggers will claim this was the act of a lone, disturbed man and has nothing to do with their rhetoric. Democrats will try to use this to guilt rethuglikans into bipartisanship (it won't work). And Democratic politicians across the country will be even less likely to do anything but give into the right because of real fear of being killed for doing otherwise.

But Giffords is a moderate. She was already doing what she could to find common ground with people who will be gleeful that the bullet through her head gives them a chance to steal her seat. There is no middle ground to be found with them. There is no way to negotiate a fair deal with people who will happily load the gun that will be held to your head later. You don't negotiate with terrorists because their end goal is your destruction, and there's no middle ground between dead and alive.

There will be Democratic pundits and voters who will claim that this is what happens when you don't vote blue. Actually, this is what happens when you do vote blue. As unhappy as we on the left were under Bush, nobody tried to shoot Tom Delay and the violent factions of our country were resolutely quiet for 8 years.

So this is the word we live in now. The political left pays ransoms to the political right in hopes of saving their own skin and the political right stokes the fires violence. 9 year old girls die in the crossfire.

I have always thought that the measure of a person is not what they would kill for, but what they would die for*. If there is no amount of moderation that can save you from the bullet of a teabagger, then perhaps it's time to give up the idea of bipartisanship. They will kill you anyways. Go down fighting, or let someone take your place who will.

(Isn't it also funny that the people most likely to murder in these situations are white Christian dudes. I may be a godless atheist, but I'm pretty sure that the bible doesn't say "Jesus killed for our sins". What would Jesus do certainly never involved mass murder.)