digital divide, part 2

now to getting internet access. at least now going to the coffee place
with the free wifi won't be an exercise in torture. but we still don't
have it at home (hence the poor spelling, punctuation and formatting
of the mobile phone posts). being rural leaves us only 2 broadband
choices, and i owe comcast money for their craptastic service while
other people owe the phone company. it's still an uphill battle, but
it's less steep now.
thank you godless whores and evilmart clerk who risked her job because
'i know what it's like to be just this short of being able to get what
you need'. the damn internet is my lifeline to people and what tiny
bits of income i get. not having proper access to it for this last
year has really kicked my ass.

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

the digital divide, half solved,

whew. one whole year without my own compy or regular internet access.
having those things has become the equivalent of having a car. you
cannot function in society without them. can't get a job, can't go to
school, can't check your bank account or pay your bills. can't share
in a huge portion of modern social activities. it sucks and is
isolating, especially for those of with hermetic tendencies anyways.
so last night i was wondering in evil-mart. i had the 250 the godless
whores (bless them) and 100 for groceries. after having spent a year
searching, i was pretty sure all i was going to afford was some crappy
little 10' netbook with a cell phone processor. but last night i found
a 15' compaq with all the components to hackintosh it (provided i work
around the video card) for 348, still more than i had after tax, but
200 less than on newegg. the intensly kind clerk offered me her
employee discount and voila, i bought a compy. we'll be eating ramen
for awhile and i feel like i've got an adderall snorting high

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

everytime donna brazile

shows up in my email inbox, i wonder if i'm getting campaign spam or
another round of uninteligible rantings ala the 2008 prinaries.
at least the ranting was funny. this time she needs 375,000 bucks to
stop the tea partiers. uhmmmm, no. not gonna happen.

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

we're all the lower class

there's been a round of charts and graphs making their way through the
interwebs showing wealth disparity and our lack of knowledge as to how
great the disparity is. hell, the other night my auntie even recorded
a talking head discussing the gini index. it's not new, this
disparity, but it's getting some press now. the important thing to
remember is that all of us, anyone reading this and nearly everone
they know, fall into the bottom 80%, and the haves keep us bottom
feeders fighting for scraps with each other while they do swan dives
into pools of cash ala scrooge mcduck. that is the point to hammer
home. not left or right, conservative or liberal, but bottom 80 versus
the thieving assholes at the top who are carefully protected by both
political parties. eat the rich and feed our families. it's not a
political/ economic spectrum, it's a pyramid scheme and us bottom 80
are the last ones in.

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

Is your candidate a "regular" person?

Red Queen, I hope you like this one:

A writer at the Cape Cod Times named Sean Gonsalves has come up with this handy checklist to see if your local political candidate is a “regular person” or is just pretending to empathize with the experiences of us regular folks:

1. Have you gone grocery shopping for your family more than once in the past year? No? Red flag.

2. Have you recently received a shut-off notice from your utility company, looking for the overdue balance, and then had to do Rob-Peter-To-Pay-Paul budgeting to avoid having to live without lights or heat? No? Another red flag.

3. Do you live paycheck-to-paycheck, not because you're a poor money manager, but because your entire salary is less than the cost of living? No? Another red flag, please.

4. Can you afford to replace all four tires on your vehicle on the same day? Yes? And another red flag.

5. Have you ever been put into financial crisis because your only transportation to work was rejected during an inspection and you didn't have enough money in the bank to get it fixed before your next paycheck? No? The red flags are stacking up!

6. Have you ever shrugged off a tax-free holiday because even without the tax you couldn't afford to buy whatever "great deal" was being offered? No? Throw the flag.

7. Have you washed and ironed your own clothes, cut your own grass or washed your own dishes at least a dozen times in the past year? No? Now, we are officially in the red zone.

8. Do you worry that if you lose your job, you really won't be able to find another one, except maybe for a low-paying, won't-make-the-ends-meet gig in fast-food or retail? No? Red flag alert!

Not a bad place to start, I mean, from a member of the media and all ;-) Maybe there are a few meager signs of hope, after all.

value for your dollars

so it may not be a godless whores/ 'good christians' contest, but it
does strike me that we're in the middle of election season getting
spammed by the gatekeepers of the kleptocracy for cash. and i write a
damn fine bitchy email. so from now till november, or whenever i have
enough cash to get a compy and internet, everyone who donates gets a
ranty email sent to the failing political thing of their choice. the
email will most likely conclude with the line 'haha suckers - i got
your cash instead'.
so who do you all want me to bitch at?

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

godless whores are the best!

thanks to a couple of godless whoring blogreaders, i am now about
halfway to the 500 bucks or so that i need to buy a cheap ass netbook
and bribe comcast into turning the internet spicket back on. my
readership my be small, but you peeps are the best hairy legged,
abortion having, slutty heathens on the planet.

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

today i am extra mortified

by all the fucking typos i can't see or edit when posting from my
phone. i'd run a donation campaign (but i do that every day) to fix it
but...
too bad the forced pregnancy fuckers aren't sticking me on another
stalk and pray list. i could run another godless whores vs good
christians contest.
that's all for the whinging self pity. we now return to our regular bitchcast.

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

tis the season for the hard sell

lately, whenever i check my email, my blood pressure is raised and i
go apoplectic. you all have read a few of the responses i've sent to
prominent dems asking for cashand votes. there have been others. it's
tedious to repost them.
right now there are at lest 15 requests for $ in my inbox. all i can
think of is that i know exactly 2 people who have real, permanent,
actual jobs and have had them for a year or more. 2, of all the people
i know in the meat world. 2. and the dems want their money? for having
done what exactly? they come to US with their hands out so that we can
send them back to gatekeep the wealthy and kill social security.
they've got their hand out while we suffer humiliation and deprivation
and poverty. apoplectic. and all the pissy email responses in the
world won't change the fact that democrats don't give a flying fuck
about us bottom 80%, unless we're teabaggers.

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

for your amusement

tragic baby kitty, the one with the seizures and the (formerly)
paralyzed front leg is the reincarnation of houdini. the viscious
little beastie keeps escaping her harness. it's like a straight jacket
trick. she also plays fetch better than any dog and litters my bed
with crumpled bits of paper she wants me to throw for her.
i do believe i am now an official crazy cat lady. but what a cat to be crazy for

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

justified, but it's a tiny win

everytime there is another story about some tender-hearted child being
bullied into suicide, i feel better about homeschooling the kid. but
it really fucking shouldn't have to be that way. kids should be safe
at home and at school. handwrining over the usual culprits (tech,
video games, sex on the teevee) ain't gonna fix it. we have to give a
shit and we have to start raising our children to be better people,
better than the horrible exxamples of biggotry and hate that we've
given them. every child's death that has made the news lately has the
grubby little handprints of the patriarchy all over it. homophobia,
slut shaming fat bashing classism. sweet kids die so the patriarchy
can rule. fuck that.

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

destiny vs free will

i've been watching lost on dvd (no cable, no internet, a girl gets
bored). i didn't watch the show while it was and don't think i'd be
watching it if i could be watching mad men instead. but the whole
premise of the show seems to be that you can't fight destiny. pashaw i
say.
i think that what we call destiny, everyone having a purpose and
everything having a reason is crap. i don't think it's anyone's
destiny to be a hotel maid or a prsident. i think we use destiny as a
way to make the very non mystical social conditioning tolerable. if i
am poor and sick it is because it is my destiny, and not because of an
uneven distribution of resources. bull shit.
not all social conditioning is bad. taboos against violence for
example. but our current conditioning actually breaks with our natural
evolution. we are cooperative, learning creatures. social conditioning
makes us greedy and selfish and ignorant. it is when we break that
conditioning that we exercise free will. i choose not to be part of
the lie of destiny.

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