19 February 2010
19 February 2010
19 February 2010
JOBS, JOBS, JOBS, JOBS, JOBS, JOBS, JOBS, JOBS…
1211 by Jeff HessLast evening I invested two hours in observing Cleveland Stonewall Democrats’ primary candidate endorsement process for a friend, Tim Russo, I’m supporting in his run for the Cuyahoga County Council District 7 seat in the fall.
The number one topic of the evening: jobs, jobs and jobs.
Now that would not be unusual, particularly in Northeastern Ohio where unemployment is painfully high, but Cleveland Stonewall Democrats is:
[O]ne of 80 national affiliates of the National Stonewall Democrats, a national organization of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender Democrats with over 30,000 members.
NSD is committed to improving the record of the Democratic Party and educating voters about the vast difference that exists between the two major parties on issues of importance to our communities.
Yes, there were discussions directly concerning LGBT issues, but the candidates and their representatives really focused on jobs.
As I sat in the second row listening I wondered: how many of you shop at Walmart? How many of you understand the way big-box corporations drain money from our local economy? How many of you have seen a cherished local business close its doors because it couldn’t compete with Walmart or another big-box retailers?
I think I may be channeling Robert a bit as I attempt to connect Walmart to the larger picture of our economy and how the choices we make every day result in the individual suffering that does come back to bite us in the ass.
Over the past week Jonathan has written about Walmart in Detroit and its plan to co-op the Detroit school system and enable it to beat out the minimum wage laws (at least for 90 days) while gathering laurels from clueless school officials.
This morning I was taken aback by Kathy Dowd’s lede on a story for Tonic. Dowd writes:
A job at Wal-Mart might not sound like a dream come true, but for a number of inner-city Detroit high school students it’s certainly a lot better than the unemployment line.
Yes Kathy, you might posit that receiving room-and-board in exchange for a 16-hour work day in a cotton field is better than starving in some cold, black, inner-city alley, but that’s not the point. We’ve got to stop settling for the scraps from the rich man’s table.
I continue to trumpet the words of Chicago Alderwoman Freddrenna Lyle:
We have been taught as a people in the past 20 or 30 years that we”re just consumers and all we should be looking for is the lowest price. But we”re not just consumers. We”re citizens, we”re parents, and hopefully, we”re taxpayers… While I want the lowest price, I don”t want to do it at a cost of impoverishing my neighbor.
What do we all do, every day, at the cost of impoverishing our neighbors?
19 February 2010
19 February 2010
19 February 2010
19 February 2010
WHAT THE PEE DEE DECLINED TO PRINT…
0815 by Jeff HessCoup d”etats in the former soviet republics are not subtle. They have, however, become more sophisticated.
The list of best practices includes giving the opposition just enough seats at the table for window dressing, every step of the way, packing legitimate committees of government with an overwhelming majority who will do what they please in the full light of day.
To add one extra veneer of legitimacy, authoritarian governments even invite the media and international observers into the room, a final flourish of “transparency”. I spent years of my career training local observation organizations in developing democracies abroad to record their observations carefully, to document what was brazenly being perpetrated on their democracy.
Since Issue 6 passed in November 2009, a transition process has been underway toward Cuyahoga County”s own new democratic government. Who has been at the table to observe and document its work for the past 3 months?
19 February 2010
SOME PEOPLE JUST DON’T WANT TO GET ALONG…
0752 by Jeff Hess[Update–19 February @ 0752: Joseph Mismas at Plunderbund reminded me of Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment from the United States Department of Homeland Security this morning following the suicide attack on an IRS facility by Joseph Stack that killed to government workers.]
I have a friend who is convinced that Islam is the problem. We’ve gone back and forth numerous times about the difference between a miniscule minority of violent political islamist thugs using religion as cover for their political agenda and the vast body of followers of Islam who not only are not advocates of violence, but who also reject the ravings of the lunatics who are.
Sadly, I’ve failed to convince him of a difference and I expect that I’d have the same trouble convincing blogger Jon Keeling at Third Base Politics. Tim Russo at Plunderbund first caught the post this morning where Jon posted this parody bumper sticker. (Anthony Fossaceca at Ohio Daily Blog has also taken note of Jon’s post.)
As a wrong-wing blogger, Jon’s post is disturbing, but understandable. Both Plunderbund and Ohio Daily Blog, however note this troubling bit: Jon Keeling is a Homeland Security consultant. I have enough problems with Homeland Security in general without contemplating that someone with Jon’s attitude toward Islam could be working on the taxpayer’s dime, even as a consultant.
I’ve dropped an email to Intrepics which has been suggested as Jon’s employer to discover if he is, in fact a consultant for the Department of Homeland Security.
Later today, Jon posted an update that seemed to back off the bumpersticker by first writing:
I think it’s fairly obvious to anyone with a brain in their head that all Muslims are not terrorists.
I agree, it is fairly obvious (I’d have said plainly obvious, but I won’t quibble). Then Jon trips himself up by writing in the very next sentence:
With that said, that same person should know the reality of the world we live in – where a large portion of the Islamic world started a Holy War against many parts of the free world.
I did a quick check, and the latest figure I could find for followers of Islam is about 1.3 billion. I doubt that anyone has a good figure for how many members of the various politically motivated islamist groups there are in the world, but allow me to go way out on a limb and suggest that there could be 1 million such people. That would mean that 0.0008 0.008 percent of the followers of Islam fall into the islamist category. (I used the term islamist in the same way I use christianist.)
I’m certain that my 1 million figure is grossly overstated, but it illustrates the point that by no stretch of anyone’s imagination is 0.0008 0.008 percent a large portion of anything.
The vast majority of souls on the plantet really do want to:
At least Jon didn’t go this route:
19 February 2010
WHAT THEY SAY…
0747 by Jeff HessI”ll throw it out there since no one else seems to want to do it: the guy who flew his plane into a building this morning killing at least 2 US Government employees was a right-wing nutjob who was obsessed with the IRS and government bailouts.
In short: he was a tea-bagger.
19 February 2010
19 February 2010
FROM MY DAD…
0630 by Jeff Hess
I could never bring myself to forward all the email jokes, cartoons and other Internet comedy that land in my inbox. But then I started posting the ones my dad sends me. Judging from my comments and emails, my dad has become one of my greatest blogging assets. So for your morning blog video excursion I present: From My Dad.
19 February 2010
FROM MY CHAPBOOK…
0030 by Jeff HessFound in my electronic chapbook.
Don”t go crazy striving to avoid the need for revision. Don”t be so intent on getting it right the first time that you never do get the first draft written. [There was a young writer who came to a workshop year after year asking people to read the same first three chapters of her fantasy novel that she had yet again rewritten in the previous 12 months. JH] Don”t back-and-fill so many times that the manuscript ceases to get longer and merely gets older. p. 113
From Telling Lies for Fun and Profit: A Manual for Fiction Writers by Lawrence Block.
18 February 2010
GOOD MORNING MYANMAR…
2130 by Jeff Hess
I’ve written recently about how Myanmar’s neighbors are encouraging the State Peace and Development Council (aka, the country’s military dictators) to ensure that hoped-for elections this fall are free, fair and transparent. The encouragement is laudable and needed but not without more than a bit of international self interest.
From Integrated Regional Information Networks:
A restive political situation in Myanmar has prompted thousands of Burmese refugees to flee to neighbouring countries, and the numbers are expected to grow as uncertainty continues, analysts and aid workers warn.
More than 30 ethnic armed groups have been involved in insurgencies against the central government since 1948, when Myanmar – previously known as Burma – gained independence from British colonial rule.
In the past 20 years, more than a dozen ethnic rebel groups have signed peace agreements with the ruling State Peace and Development Council.
But there are fears of renewed fighting as the government tries to force the ethnic armies to surrender their weapons and form a special Border Guard Force under Burmese military control before long-awaited elections this year.
“If the political situation in Burma deteriorates further and fighting erupts, we can expect more than 200,000 new refugees, mainly Shan and Wa,” the head of Thailand’s National Security Council, Bhornchart Bunnag, told IRIN.
And someone will have to police, feed and shelter those refugees. Better Myanmar’s neighbors take action before the pot boils.
18 February 2010
18 February 2010
ROLDO RIGHTS…
1223 by Jeff HessIt”s no surprise but it”s good to have the real data. The top 400 earners saw their tax rates drop as their income soared. No one gives us this information better than David Cay Johnston. He says that these top income households have “soared to a new record high.”
“In 2007 the top 400 taxpayers had an average income of $344.8 million, up 31 percent from their average $263.3 million income in 2006, according to figures in a report that the IRS posted to its web site without announcement that were discovered February 16,” he wrote.
He continues: “The figures came at the peak of the last economic cycle and show that widely published reports in major newspapers asserting that the richest Americans are losing relative ground and ‘becoming poorer” are not supported by the official income data.”
The report also shows that a number of the top 400 paid an effective tax rate of zero to 10 percent. In other words, you probably paid a higher rate on your city income tax.
Now wouldn”t we all like income taxes in April to be so nicely priced for us?
Only 33 of the top 400, he reports, paid an effective tax rate of 30 to 35 percent, which is the maximum (or should I say, Republican) federal tax rate.
This data was first made available during President Bill Clinton”s administration. It has been made available again by President Barack Obama. Guess what? It was made inaccessible by President George Bush. Surprised?
Cay Johnston is the former tax reporter for the New York Times. He teaches now at Syracuse University.
18 February 2010
18 February 2010
18 February 2010
MY COMMENTS…
0917 by Jeff Hess18 February 2010
FROM MY DAD…
0630 by Jeff HessI could never bring myself to forward all the email jokes, cartoons and other Internet comedy that land in my inbox. But then I started posting the ones my dad sends me. Judging from my comments and emails, my dad has become one of my greatest blogging assets. So for your morning blog video excursion I present: From My Dad.
18 February 2010
FROM MY CHAPBOOK…
0030 by Jeff HessFound in my electronic chapbook.
You should get in the habit of looking at the preceding paragraph or two whenever something comes up that breaks your concentration. This will help keep you in the flow and avoid repeating words and phrases unwittingly. p. 112
From Telling Lies for Fun and Profit: A Manual for Fiction Writers by Lawrence Block.
