More Math

The tax returns are out.  Mitt and Ann Romney received $21,600,000 in 2010.  Received is the most neutral verb I've found for the previous sentence.  Earned has a moral sense.  Collected implies some effort.  Acquired doesn't add useful nuance.  Income is a noun.  I'll stay with received.

And received they did.  $59,000 spewed through the Romney spigot on an average day.  Every day, for a full year.  In 2010, one day of being Romney -- just one day -- brought in more money than the median US household earned in an entire year.  Or, think about the four days of Thanksgiving.  Mitt and Ann received almost a quarter of a million dollars: $237,000 from the time the turkey was slid into the oven until the last leftovers were eaten.  In just those four days, the Romney's got more money than 98% of Americans get in one year.

Ooops.  I had to put this post on hold while running an errand.  The little trip took 20 minutes and, in that time, Mitt sucked up another $820.

America has reached banana-republic-magnitude income disparity.  Our skewed distribution of wealth is the sign of a sick society.

Wrong wrong wrong, again

America and Europe are running their economies as well as Francesco Schettino steered the Costa Concordia. The financial results are and will be just as predictable.  But, Very Serious People demand even more austerity to supplement failed austerity.  Why?  Because people can believe just about anything:

Evolution is only a theory, global warming is a hoax, the Earth is 6000 years old, homeopathy works, vaccines cause autism, Saddam Hussein had nuclear weapons, a mythical magical invisible omnipotent all-powerful being guides holy quarterbacks to victory, women should be subservient to men, the President is a Muslim, Earth Day   celebrates Lenin's birthday, Yuri Geller, foreign aide takes a large part of the national budget, Obama is a communist, Iraq helped the 9/11 hijackers, cell phones cause brain cancer, the Laffer Curve, Sylvia Browne, Jonathan Edward, Juan de Dios, The Secret, and Jim Jones,

not matter how strong the opposing evidence.

Cheating Our Children

Laurie Abraham's long article, Teaching Good Sex, in the Nov 20th New York Times Sunday magazine is a powerful reminder of what we have lost to the right wing's pro-ignorance agenda.  Read the article and try to imagine if it described a typical American school.  Imagine the tangible results of fewer abortions, less sexually transmitted disease, and fewer teen pregnancies.  And, then think of the intangible results of a happier, confident, plain spoken, and less neurotic young men and women.

Instead, we have let conservative crazies have their way for years.

Reality -- for nearly everyone -- is sickeningly far from Friends Central School's normalcy.  Start with the obvious.  An openly gay teacher is a red flag to right wing America; and one who teaches human sexuality to teenagers would bring out the torches and pitchforks.  Principals would be forced to resign and school superintendents would recite profound apologies.  Then, there's the reality of Friends Central having small discussion classes led by a highly respected teacher when the rest of the country's schools endure increasing class sizes, narrowing curricula, and teacher union bashing.

Enough.  True education places critical thinking and intellectual rigor above all else.  To hell with worse-than-mediocre bland substitute that is given our children.  To hell with the sieves formed by standardized tests.  To hell with morons who rank religion above biology.  Creationism ain't science no matter how much lipstick you smear on a bible.  To hell with all censors and book burners.  If Twain's Huck Finn says, "Nigger," then nigger it be.

Cherchez Les Rapports Annuels

Thanks, once again, to Matt Taibbi  and to the Professional Left podcast for correcting Republican nonsense about the financial meltdown.

Taibbi took on New York's Mayor Michael Bloomberg for repeating the lie that, "It was not the banks that created the mortgage crisis. It was, plain and simple, congress who forced everybody to go and give mortgages to people who were on the cusp."  Not only is this a favorite Republican misdirection, but Taibbi points out that everyone on Wall Street knows it to be a big lie.

Driftglass and Bluegal slap down Congressman Joe Walsh for emitting the same blame-Congress nonsense.  Walsh deserves the reprimand even though he may not be smart enough, nor mentally balanced enough, to separate truth from Republican battle orders.  

Here's one more point.  Nearly all of the companies consumed by the mortgage-related conflagration were publicly traded.  The list includes Countrywide, Washington Mutual, AIG, Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, Bank of America and on and on.  Business risks due to Congressional mandates should have been described in their annual reports to shareholders.  Yet, none of the reports from all of those publicly traded companies during the decade preceding the implosion mention those risks.  Not one damn word.  

The next time anyone does a Flip Wilson Congress-made-me-issue-those-bad-mortgages shtick, ask to see the risk assessments in the annual reports.  

Kate Smurthwaite

Kate Smurthwaite spoke truth to insanity on the beeb, and I just love the collective gasp.  She actually implied that people who believe in heaven are idiots.  Can you imagine?  And, she did the math on the Muslim's Jan and Dean heaven that promises two girls for every boy.  Where do all those extra women come from? 

The clip is great; see for yourself:



 As always, the arguments in favor of god are just piss weak.  There's the guy claiming that money doesn't really exist.  Where's a 16-ton sack of coins when you really need one?  His thinking is so polluted by religion that he can't distinguish different meanings of the word "faith."  Face it, bro.  Would you rather own Treasury bonds backed by the full faith and credit of the United States, or just by the full faith in god? 

I also love the pompous boring old fart who pronounced Ms. Smurthwaite's comment rude.  OK?  Is that supposed to prove the existence of heaven?  If so, how?  Please explain in 250 polite words, or less. 

Envy

Time to again laugh at the right wing's worthless comments about OWS.  CNN set National Review's chump of the month against Matt Taibbi.  Shallow, unsubstantiated opinion against facts and research.

NR-Boy accuses the marchers of deadly sinfulness: they are motivated by envy.  The 99% want the 1%'s riches.  Outrage over illegal Wall Street deals does not resonate with the Boy; nor does money's de facto and de jure corruption of American politics.  Envy -- nasty green envy -- is the protesters' driving force.  He knows what OWS really wants because...  OK, he just knows. 

Imagine a group of people protesting because they want to rid their neighborhood of drug dealers.  The citizens are outraged.  Drug deals take place in the open.  Cops are paid off.  Politicians blame the protesters for not just moving away.  The dealers also shake down local businesses by demanding protection money.  Mom and Pop groceries go bust as long-time customers are frightened off.   And, on TV, the National Review's chump of the month sneers:  protesters, he says, envy the drug dealers' money.  Crime is secondary.  The rabble wants the fancy cars and fine clothes.  The Boy just knows it. 

Remembrances of things past

In space-time it is 2 miles and 40 years from Occupy Wall Street and I am a junior in high school and Nixon has invaded Cambodia and college kids are dead in Ohio and Mississippi and there is a big protest in Union Square and the crowd near me is shaped by cyclone fencing and vertical 4 x 8 sheets of plywood because the streets are torn up for a big subway renovation and a man who looks my father's age but is in blue jeans and a work shirt steps onto the podium as he is introduced.  Joseph Heller.  I need to tell my friends that Heller is the author of "Catch-22," even though most of them claim to have read the novel.  Heller mostly says expected things about Vietnam and Nixon.  None of it survives in my memory until he refers to South Vietnam's leaders as, "Those bastards, Thieu and Ky."  The word was a surprise.  "Bastards" was, in 1970, hard unexpected language to utter in prepared public speech by a middle-aged man of letters no matter his attire nor the content of his great novel.

Then, the follow-up that anchors the strong memory bridge across these 40 years where the crowd images and tone of voice and Heller's head turning toward his right are forever alive, "I call them bastards," he added, "Not because I hate them, but because they are illegitimate." 


I am not donating money for pizza today.  Instead, this is my gift to the brave ones in lower Manhattan.  Think Martin Luther King, jr.  Think Gandhi.  Non-violence is the only effective path to change.  But, you can still call the opposition, "Bastards."  Not out of hate, but because they are illegitimate.