Some People Just Can't Decide

Here is an odd court ruling from Texas: gay couples married in other states can't get divorced locally because, according to Texas, they weren't really married. From a practical standpoint, if Texas doesn't want them to be married and they don't want to be married, divorce seems like a win-win.

Of course, if the court really wants to uphold the traditional definition of marriage, then nobody in Texas gets a divorce without the Pope's says so. How many of these people are willing to go the distance with their own logic? Do opponents of gay marriage want to give up their right to a no-fault divorce? Do they want their sisters and daughters to give up the right to chose when they have kids? Or to hold a job, or to own property? Where do we make our stand?

Finally, I Get It...

This is kind of a funny shirt that someone made for Glenn Beck's defamatory Honkey Ashram, according to TPM. In context it has racist undertones: like blacks and other minorities have it so good in America, where is the federally designated slice of the pie for poor white people? But taken at face value, it is a slogan I can get behind. I do believe America is a place where people who are economically, culturally and educationally marginalized should still have a place at the table. Even shit-kicker high school dropouts who might be prone to using the pronoun "y'all" during a job interview still deserve healthcare, clean air, decent working conditions, a home to call their own, peace... and the list could go on of things that America does pretty well, but has been doing a little less well lately.

The Tea Partiers are right to be worried: in a shrinking economy the elites of our society most definitely are squeezing the little guys. What I don't understand is why they think Glenn Beck or the GOP has anything to say to them.

Injuries-A Memoir

Dear Readers,

It is time for my monthly blog. Okay, it was, I'm a month late... I'm not sure exactly what I will write about at this point, so it is going to be a stream of consciousness with maybe no point. Like Seinfeld, but not quite as funny. Actually over the course of the month, I did decide. I'm writing about my injuries, if you don't like me, or humor, you may find this boring. Even if you do like me or humor you may find this boring.

This summer went by fast, and I don't think I capitalized on it. I haven't been biking much, didn't do an open-water swim. (actually the first time I haven't done two open-water swims since '05 (when I just did one). This summer I've just gone from injury-to-injury to injury.

I'm counting the sty in my eye as an injury. That was the first injury, although there must have been something before that. Went to the eye doctor and took some antibodics. Then I hurt my groin while swimming breaststroke. Next was my back, which was hurt (really reinjured) while rummaging through a drawer looking for a missing shirt. It's been a couple of weeks. Now I'm finally feeling better, but just really waiting for my next injury.

I really have no idea what it's going to be or when it's going to happen. Am I going to re-injure myself and get a familiar injury like a sprained ankle from stepping into a gopher hole while tossing a Frisbee or hyper-extending my knee while playing Frisbee golf or am I going to hurt myself in a way I've never done before, hmmm, that might be hard... perhaps breaking my arm falling off a stationary bike in a spinning class?

I have a tough time deciding which is worse a new injury or an old familiar one. A re-injury means I have a chronic issue, something that might never completely go away. Like my right shoulder injury. Or if I hurt something new, like my left knee last November (playing Ultimate Frisbee), I now have pain and worries about a body part, I previously simply enjoyed and trusted (like my left knee).

Since I twisted my left ankle the last day of being a counselor at a summer camp while playing basketball (the summer before my sophomore year in college), I don't think I've gone a whole year-most of the time six months- without hurting something. That fall I think I sprained the same ankle several more times, which might have been one of the reasons (besides being a bench warmer) which led me to switch from the club sport of Ultimate Frisbee to the club sport of water polo (first and only off the bench) at my alumna matter. I remember playing a water polo tournament with a sprained ankle, which was a tournament I should have probably skipped.

My injury pattern did change a little once I moved to DC. So from the age of 20 to moving to DC my injury of choice was a sprained ankle (both ankles, I think fairly equally). Sometimes the sprains hindered my mobility or enjoyment. Like when I sprained my ankle leading a backpacking trip in Vermont. Most of my sprains came from jogging before I got arch supports. One came from misstepping while stepping down from a log. Two came within a mile of my parent's house. The furthest one came either in Vermont or Western Connecticut, although the idea that I lived over two months on Cape Cod and didn't twist my ankle there perplexes me.

Sometimes they changed the course of my life. Like when I sprained my ankle teaching environmental education, some tag game, which is incidentally the same way I got stitches on my chin. After that debacle I felt like I needed a job, where either I was very unlikely to sprain my ankle (a desk job), or I didn't need my ankle to perform work (also a desk job). So that miserable sprained ankle season, a fall in New England when (and where) I didn't get to enjoy the autumn foliage which was something I was really hoping to enjoy- or rest my ankle or just enjoy being out in the woods of Western Connecticut- was my last job, in which a sprained ankle, may be likely to happen or have adverse effects on my job performance. So if you were going to trace my career path and wonder why I'm currently studying statistics- look no further.

Some people sell-out (or take a crappy job) for money, some for prestige, some to avoid ankle injuries.

Peace,
GCNOF

Bread for the Masses (and the middle class and...

...the fairly well off and most small to medium sized businesses and manufactoring, the professional class,etc)


Read the whole thing yourself, but below is an interesting bit from the middle of a Mother Jones post where Kevin Drum delineates the supposed self-absorption of his liberal principles:

Now, it's true that I'm generally in favor of reducing or eliminating government programs that don't work. Who isn't? But self-interest plays a big role here, even if we don't always like to admit it. Like Matt, I think we should eliminate ag subsidies. But that's a pretty easy stand to take since I'm not a farmer. Earlier today I suggested we do away with Fannie Mae because we subsidize housing too much. I can afford that too, since I already own a home and don't need any help buying one. High tax rates on the rich? That wouldn't affect me much, so I'm OK with it. National healthcare? That would be pretty handy in case I ever want to quit my job, so that's also in my self-interest.

However, I think he is missing the point. Everyone of these policies he uses as examples of his self-interested liberalism (not that he's knocking it, just making a point) is a pretty good example of something that is in nearly EVERY American's self-interest. Let me break it down:

End Agricultural subsidies because "I'm not a farmer". I have news for Kevin: no one is. The miniscule number of people still practicing what any onr thinks of when they say "farmer" are actually hurt by the market manipulations of agricultural subsidies. The handful of people who benefit are the owners (not the workers, only the owners) of giant agriculture and cattle corporations. So Kevin rolls pretty deep on this one.

End Fannie Mae. After their complicity in the real-estate and mortgage-backed securities bubble, many take this view. Or reform them to look like their original inception: a government backed program to proactively seek out lower-income, but loan-worthy housing customers that might have trouble getting a mortgage at a traditional savings and loan. The problem with that mission is that there aren't many "traditional" S&Ls left, only retail-banking subsidiaries of financial services conglomerates, and Fannie Mae was deregulated into a profit-seeking enterprise that was very motivated to work against the interests of their clients, just like private banks do. So it's not a stretch to say their present form is not terribly useful.

High tax rates on the rich? I guess it depends on your definition of "rich". Obama wants to slightly raise taxes on incomes above 200K, the top 2%. Recently there have been musings in the liberal media about much higher tax rates for people earning over a million or 10 million, or a quadrillion or whatever. The point is that Drum is talking about something that wouldn't affect him...or 98% or possibly even 99.9% of Americans. That's not narrow "self-interest", that's a rounding error away from 100%.

Nationalized health care, so he would feel like it was possible to change jobs. Isn't that what America is supposed to be about? The flip side of this is that most businesses would probably love to not have to pay for their employee's health insurance. The entire health insurance industry is essentially a leech on the side of American business and entrepreneurship. And that is not even the worst part. The issue is framed by critics as a matter of "choice", i.e. do I want the government making choices for me about my health care? The only thing I can imagine worse than that is a profit-driven health insurance corporation chosen for me by my employer in charge of my health care. For nearly every American that is the current "choice". I can see how you might not feel like paying for it up front in taxes, especially if you were in that new mega-millionaire 75% tax bracket, but ultimately, in dollar and cents almost every American, employees and employers alike, would be better off with socialized health care.

What I am saying here is that Drum is being too hard on himself and his comrades. I believe liberal policies are correct because they are good not just for me, but for all (or at least 99.9%) of America.

I also know that a sincere, intelligent conservative could make counter-arguments to most of what I have written above. But I don't see that happening in the American right. Not to say that the Democrats aren't essentially corporate lackies, but they are putting forward at least some policies that benefit most Americans. The same cannot honestly be said about the GOP.

Their obstructionism, pandering and lack of any actual budget proposal (?!!!) speaks to a nearly empty constituency. Their ideas almost categorically resonate with only the fearful, the hateful and the incredibly wealthy. Maybe that will change after the elections when the partisanship calms down, but for now the progressive, supposedly borderline-socialists writing for Mother Jones are left fighting tooth and nail for what to my thinking should be "center-left" policies that benefit almost everyone.

Through the Looking Glass

Below is a bit from an NYT article mentioned in a Political Animal post. The article and the post are about Paul Ryan's (R-WI) "Road Map", a plan that the GOP claims to support. The plan includes essentially an end to Social Security and Medicare, reduced income taxes for the wealthy and most likely an increase in national debt, proposals which seem more than a little odd in a campaign year...or in this century. The role of the press should be to disseminate the substance of Ryan's proposals in objective news articles and provide analysis of it's merits in columns like this. In the below excerpted sentences from the NYT column (with my commentary added in bold) the article by one Matt Bai shows enormous cynicism in treating politics as a meaningless, zero-sum sporting event. Reading not very deeply between the lines Bai seems to have almost no respect for Ryan or his policy initiatives, yet the columnist self-consciously approaches the debate as if his job description is to NOT make a substantive analysis:

Let’s leave aside for now the debate over the viability of the road map, which, as a practical matter, doesn’t stand a chance of being enacted as is, anyway. (So we are "leaving aside" the question of whether Paul Ryan, the only Republican to even come close to producing an actual budget proposal, has any relevant policy ideas?)

The more pertinent question is whether Mr. Ryan is the kind of guy who just wants to make a point — or whether his road map represents the starting point in what could be a serious negotiation about entitlements and spending. (So again, there is no reason to even consider whether his ideas actually have any merit. The only possibilities are legislation as rhetorical point or legislation as negotiating tactic. Isn't there room in modern political coverage to point out how vapid and cynical this makes Ryan and the national GOP?)

We tend to think of bipartisanship as cooperation among a few pragmatic principals in both parties who already agree on how to solve a particular problem. (Or in the last year as mainstream Democrats compromising with conservative Democrats to create workable legislation while the GOP sits on their hands and make demonstrably false claims)

A good example is the recent bill on climate change advanced by Democrat John Kerry and Independent Joseph I. Lieberman with their Republican colleague Lindsay Graham, which stalled in the Senate.(which is by their own accounts a nearly worthless piece of legislation that accomplishes almost none of it's supporter's goals, so no, I wouldn't say its a good example)

But what President Clinton and Speaker Gingrich demonstrated in the mid-1990s is that meaningful bipartisan agreements can also be forged by fierce and ideologically opposed competitors who wrestle each other toward a tolerable consensus, as long as that consensus stands to benefit both parties politically.(i.e. they are "fierce" and "ideological" as long as their every action coincides with partisan concerns and popularity? What definition does this columnist understand for "fierce" or "ideological"? And how is Bill Clinton, the Democratic president who more or less ended Welfare and pushed NAFTA ideological? Do words truly have no meaning? Am I taking crazy pills?!!!)