Senator Bernie Sanders tells the truth about the distribution of wealth and the collapse of the middle class.
Mind-boggling.
War on the Middle Class
Category Archives: society
Last Year’s Voice
“For last year’s words belong to last year’s language and next year’s words await another voice.”
– T.S. Eliot, Little Gidding
It was the perfect end to a chilly day, and to a year that seems more like a long skidmark than merely the usual stretch of bumpy road.
I stopped at the supermarket on the way home this evening, picked up some oatmeal and almond milk for breakfast, corn meal for Dad’s New Year’s Day cornbread, some canned fruit (special occasions call for peaches), and my favorite celebratory beverage (when home alone), Diet 7-up.
There was a woman in line ahead of me at the check-stand, and I’d already noticed she was self-involved, because she’d left her basket of champagne and cheese on the end of the belt. There was plenty of room but she didn’t bother to make any space for my stuff.
Suddenly, she broke into performance, instructing the clerk to send the teenage kid who was bagging groceries to fetch her more bree. Her stock of pungent mold-ripened cheese wasn’t enough, and she made a speech to all within earshot, explaining her intentions to share it with friends. Next she ordered me to go ahead of her, which was cool. But her reason for that move was not very nice at all. Referring to the young man now gone off in search of more bree, she said this:
“It will be faster if I just go get it myself. He’s so stupid, he’s going to the wrong counter.” And she did not say it quietly.
Seems there are two cold cases in the store where cheese is displayed, one in back and one in front near the deli. The young man had gone to the front one, which was not correct.
I couldn’t believe it. The clerk and I had a chat, while little Marie Antoinette was gone, about how rude and ridiculous such behavior is. I was thinking that if it were me, I’d send the bag boy to return all of her crap to the shelves and tell her to get the hell out – we don’t need your business. But they probably do. I didn’t say anything like that. I have to live here.
Where do such people come from? I doubt she lives around here. Such behavior stands out in a small town. And if it trickles up to management, they will ban you from the stores, the banks, the restaurants. We’re used to summer tourists of all character stripes, but from under what rock do they slither in deep winter? Let’s hope the under-chilled wine mixes with the cheapass cheese and gives her a headache and bellyache.
El Kabong!
I say it was the perfect end because I’ve been thinking about the end of the year all day. I don’t think we should go through with it. Starting 2011 tonight, I mean. Bad idea. There’s still 5 hours left in my time zone, 2 hours on the east coast – it’s not too late – let’s just call it off. It doesn’t seem prudent to end a year in which we as a species got so very little accomplished. I don’t think 2010 is nearly finished yet, is my point.
Years should be like pro football games. If the four quarters end in a tie – a failure to win – we all go into Sudden Death Overtime. We just keep playing quarter after quarter until we can end one in meaningful and manifest success. And you get a big penalty for calling people names. Especially teenage kids who don’t know bree from beans.
Officer Bubbles
Cop weirds out over soap bubbles, arrests girl. Could he be a bigger douche?
"A Toronto police officer whose thuggish behaviour against a young girl blowing bubbles (reported here on Boing Boing) made him an inadvertent YouTube sensation and a symbol of police heavy-handedness at the G20 protests has launched a $1.2-million defamation lawsuit against YouTube."
Seriously, what an assclown. He needs to be removed from the streets.
And this is just the kind of thing I love to see linked and re-linked around the world, its viral-ness becomes inoculation against stupidity.
Drunk Driving
“According University of Oklahoma Police Department’s BAC Calculator, a 180-lb male registers a .08 after consuming six 12 oz. beers or five gin-and-tonics in a span of two hours.”
Drunk Driving: Is the U.S. Blood Alcohol Limit Too Liberal? – TIME
This Time article points out that deaths are lower in Sweden, where the legal limit for blood alcohol is .02. In the US, it’s 4 times higher.
In my opinion, the legal limit should be .00. It should be illegal to drink and then drive at all. Some things kill people and we can’t do much about it (natural disaster), or we can’t be too much bothered to invest in the solution (cancer). Some things kill people and we treat it like a necessary evil (war). But some causes of death are preventable, but for the fact that purblind stupidity is endemic to our species.
Duh. How drunk should we let people get, before they go slinging 2 tons of steel around at high speeds?
copyright vs creativity
In case you haven’t heard, the modern world has reached a crossroads in legal and social policy concerning the publication of creative work. And there’s a fight going on in the road, with creators of stuff – writers, musicians, etc – getting their asses kicked by The Man.
Anyone who says it’s happening to protect artists is lying and almost certainly working for said Man.
Obviously, I’m less than articulate on the subject. But fortunately, writer Cory Doctorow isn’t.
I recommend watching his recent talk at the Melbourne Writers Festival. He has posted it on his blog.
“Any time someone puts a lock on something that belongs to you, and doesn’t give you a key, that lock is not there for your benefit.”
Beware the Ides of March!
This year the Ides – March 15 – falls on the Monday after we lose an hour of sleep. (Didja set your clocks?) And studies indicate there may be more traffic accidents and heart attacks on that Monday. (See the video below.) So be careful driving and take some naps. Try not to plow into anybody or have a massive M.I.
The lost hour of sleep thing has never made complete sense to me: I just sleep later. When I set my bedroom alarm clock ahead an hour, I set the alarm an hour later too, and go ahead and get my roughly 7 hours. Duh.
Still, I have to admit that for the past several years, I tend to feel a little more fatigued for a few days after the time change.
I’ve been blaming Bush for this, so we’ll have to see what happens this year. I don’t have a problem continuing that tradition. Obama’s getting the blame for enough crap he didn’t cause. And we all knew it was going to take time to fix it.
failure to launch
Doc Searls takes an interesting look at the cold war, and how crazy we are.
can’t work at work
Are you tired at the end of the day? Feel like you got nothing done because of constant interruptions? You're probably right. Your office is making it impossible to get any work done.
Here's a great little video about it.
urgently urge
Several times each day, I receive an urgent e-mail from an environmental or political group, urgently urging me to click a click or a button to send an urgent message to some elected official, urging them to do something. I receive these because over the years, I’ve acceded to many such requests, and they tend to spread like mushrooms.
I care about animals, the environment, and justice for all, so I click.
A few days later, here comes an e-mail from Washington – my congresswoman or one of my senators – thanking me. And it never says, “Oh spare me, I wouldn’t support saving the burping barbaloots if my life depended on it.” In fact, it almost always turns out they supported my side of the issue all along.
Sometimes, it turns out I have dramatically urged them to support their very own bill.
Basta. No more of this. It makes me – and the people who sent me the urgent e-mail – look very stupid. So henceforth, such pleas must include some affirmation that the representative to receive our petition is presently wrongheaded and needs to be set straight. Urgently.
Or I can simply unsubscribe. That’s a good idea too.
funny, they don’t look elfish
“Santa’s workshop has nothing on Valle Verde residents in terms of productivity.
Members of the Santa Barbara retirement community have been working all year to create hundreds of handmade toys and clothing items for children, which they donated to Unity Shoppe last week.” [Noozhawk.com]
You just gotta love people like this. They keep other people’s children in their hearts, all year long.
all men created equal
An 86-year-old veteran in Maine explains what he fought for in WWII: for freedom of equality, that everyone should have the right to marry.
As a Christian man, I believe that marriage is a sacrament of the Church, beyond the reach of politics and public policy. The practice of that sacrament is a subject for the conscience of the church. The government has no right to influence that sacrament in any way. The function of the government is to ensure that all citizens have equal rights and access to due process of the law.
The Wurlitzer Prize
“I humbly and gratefully accept the Nobel Prize in Physics, the recognition, the honor, the plaque, the trophy, the discount coupons, the windbreaker, the keychain, the bumper sticker, the Alfred Nobel bobblehead and the generous cash award which, if I may, I would like to receive in twenties and fifties.”
Really good stuff, Maynard. Funny, is my point. And there’s a dog in it.
Metaphor 