Bookworm Room

I love thrift shops.  I’m in a Goodwill three to four times a month looking for “dispose-a-books” — cheap novels that I can read like mental candy, and then turn around and donate right back to Goodwill again.  When my kids need Halloween costumes, I’m also at Goodwill, buying interesting used clothes that can be shaped into cheap, imaginative and fun costumes.  The cool thing about this is that, even as I’m getting what I want at prices that can’t be beat, I’m also contributing to the Goodwill mission of aiding those less fortunate than I am.  It’s a beautiful symbiotic relationship.

I come by my love of thrift shops honestly.  When I was a child, my Dad used to take my sister and me regularly to the St. Vincent De Paul store in San Francisco.  He and I would happily root through the piles of stuff there.  In those days, before everyone got savvy about antiques, I could still find antique photos and prints (my childhood hobby), and it was my father who looked for books (although his tastes were much more erudite than mine).  We spent many happy hours in St. Vincent De Paul, coming home tired, dusty, only slightly poorer than when we left, and lugging armloads of goodies.

St. Vincent De Paul’s is on my mind today because it is running a magnificent raffle.  As John Hawkins says, you know it’s an amazing raffle when the third prize is Superbowl Tickets.  Here are the prizes being offered:

GRAND PRIZE

The Winner Wins for Two!

The winner of Meet Me in Manhattan will bring the companion of his/her choice to share the entire prize package.

Air Travel:

The Meet Me in Manhattan winner will receive roundtrip airfare for two to New York.  Airline to be determined after city or town of residence of winner is identified.

Meet Bill O’Reilly

The Meet Me in Manhattan winner will visit Fox News Channel’s studios in Manhattan and meet Bill O’Reilly.  Mr. O’Reilly is the undisputed king of cable television news.  For the past ten years, “The O’Reilly Factor” has reigned as the world’s top-ranked cable TV news program, breaking records for “most viewers” in almost every measurable category.  A wildly successful author, Mr. O’Reilly’s 9^th book will be released in the fall of 2010.  Four of his books zoomed to #1 on the New York Times bestseller list.  Mr. O’Reilly has made countless appearances as a guest on such national programs as Late Night with David Letterman, The Tonight Show, Good Morning America, The Today Show, The View and Oprah. He has traveled to all 50 states and 72 foreign countries, and has earned Master’s degrees from both Boston University and Harvard.  The Meet Me in Manhattan winner will enjoy the experience of watching Bill O’Reilly host an edition of “The O’Reilly Factor.”

Four days/three nights of accommodations at the world renowned Essex House

The Meet Me in Manhattan winner will enjoy never-to-be forgotten, three-night accommodations in a luxury two-bedroom apartment, a spectacular property from the famous Lauren Berger Collection, overlooking Central Park at the world renowned Essex House.

Dinner at BoBo Restaurant hosted by celebrity chef Patrick Connolly

Winner will enjoy dinner at the acclaimed upscale restaurant, BoBo, where one of America’s top chefs, Patrick Connolly, rules the kitchen. Patrick’s brother, Dan, is a 318-pound lineman for the NFL’s New England Patriots.  Dan knows how to eat, and Patrick knows how to cook! A native of St. Louis, Patrick achieved smashing success at Radius in Boston.  After winning the James Beard award as the top chef in the northeastern United States, Patrick moved to BoBo in New York where his inventive cuisine has wowed patrons and critics alike.  In recent months, Patrick has exhibited his culinary creations on ABC-TVs Nightline, NBC-TV’s Today Show, and CBS-TV’s Early Show. An unforgettable dining experience will be enjoyed by the Meet Me in Manhattan winner at BoBo.

Two Tickets to a Major League Baseball Game at Yankee Stadium

In 2009, the House That Ruth Built, Yankee Stadium, was replaced by the new Yankee Stadium.  Debuting in the most expensive and elaborate baseball stadium ever built, the legendary Yankees won the World Series in their first season in their new home.  America’s Great Raffle winner will see the Yankees take on the Tampa Rays, who stunned the baseball world with their first ever trip to the World Series in 2008.  With the Rays getting off to the best start in the Major Leagues in 2010, their rivalry with the Yanks is heating up in the American League Eastern Division.  There’s nothing like September baseball at Yankee Stadium in New York during the heat of a pennant race!

Two Tickets to a Broadway Show

Imagine walking on Broadway in the autumn air to one of many legendary theaters to see some of the world’s greatest stars perform.  In the last year, more than 12 million people paid more than $1 billion to see the stars on Broadway. Pending ticket availability, the Meet Me in Manhattan winner will have excellent seats at the Broadway show of their choice!

A $3,000 Shopping Spree

In the world of shopping, there’s nothing like strolling down 5^th Avenue to shop at some of the finest stores in the world.  Try on the Manolo Blahnik shoes at Niemen Marcus, or shop Saks 5^th Avenue (the original!), Bloomingdale’s, Tiffany’s, Louis Vuitton, Salvatore Ferragamo, Cartier, FAO Schwarz and countless others.  Stuffed with $3,000 of  Meet Me in Manhattan prize money, the winner will engage in a shopping spree to remember forever!

SECOND PRIZE

Round-trip airfare for two anywhere in the continental U.S.

THIRD PRIZE

Two tickets to the 2011 Super Bowl .

FOURTH PRIZE

Two tickets to the 2011 MLB All-Star game.

FIFTH PRIZE

$1000 furniture shopping spree at Weekends Only.

My mind is boggling. That’s an incredible grand prize — so good, in fact, that I think my uber-liberal husband would even tolerate meeting Bill O’Reilly for the pleasure of everything else that comes with it.

The cool thing is that, just as with my book-buying junkets, there is a very cool symbiotic relationship going on here.  A raffle ticket costs only $100.  For that price, even if you don’t win (and the possibility of winning is a pretty darn good inducement for buying the ticket), look what your money does:

* Utility assistance, medications, medical transportation, car repairs, cars to the working poor, home repairs, free legal assistance, free budget assistance, hospital visits, prison visits

* Housing for homeless veterans and people with mental disabilities

* Aid for those who have been downsized, lost their jobs, suffered through a divorce, a foreclosure

* Food for the needy through 83 food pantries

* Furniture, clothing, household goods for those in need through our Thrift Stores

* Home visits to comfort and aid those who are suffering

St. Vincent De Paul is now, and always has been, a true service organization. Now’s your chance to help it advance its goals, even as you get in line for the possibility of a fantasy vacation.  So, if you’re interested, go here, and take a chance for charity.

(Post script:  If you’re a blogger and help publicize this raffle, be sure to link to this Right Wing News post as part of that publicity, email to John Hawkins that you’ve done so, and you’ll find yourself in a little contest of your own.  John has promised to give away two tickets to a blogger who helps publicize the raffle.  That’s really cool.)

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You can always trust the Germans to have a word for complex, and negative, emotional feelings.  Today’s word is schadenfreude: “satisfaction or pleasure felt at someone else’s misfortune.”  I can’t say that I’m immune to it, of course.  If the person suffering misfortune is an evil person, I certainly won’t weep for him.  However, I can flatter myself that I am not one of those who wishes friends and acquaintances ill, simply so that I can feel some sense of superiority about myself and my life when compared to them.

I make this little philosophical and self-serving rumination because I’ve become aware this past year that many of the people I grew up and went to school with have gone on to have very distinguished careers.  As someone who is remarkably undistinguished (suburban Mom is a good life, but doesn’t have much resume value), I think it’s awesome that people I know have done more interesting things.  At a selfish level, I love the name dropping.  “My friend the Colonel.”  “My friend the U.S. Attorney.”  “My friend the Admiral.”  You know, if you can’t be important, you may as well have important friends, right?

But at a somewhat more mature level, I’m enormously pleased that people I always liked have found fulfilling and rewarding careers.  I think it’s awesome that the young boys I knew, with skinny legs and squeaky voices, or the bewildered young law students I met, proved to be, not just nice people, but dedicated, committed, and self-disciplined people.  It’s like seeing a little sapling grow into a magnificent tree.  Although I have absolutely nothing to do with the tree’s development, I feel a sort of vicarious pride that I was in on its growth.

Our childhood friends’ distinctions are also one of the benefits of aging.  If you hang around enough people for enough years, the good ones are going to rise to the top.  Just for having stuck it out through life, you end up with friends who give you boasting rights.

These friends, incidentally, are part of why I haven’t been blogging, because I’ve been spending time with some of them.  And since it is a rare pleasure to visit with people I’ve known for decades but see infrequently, that trumps blogging.  And after all, I just didn’t feel today like writing about Obama and The View.  I’m not even that surprised.  Our last Democratic president, as you may recall, advertised to the world the kind of underwear he wore.  We don’t expect dignity from that crowd.

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It was all family, all day, leavened by a delightful visit from a friend.  I am dead on my feed, and will write tomorrow.

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For reasons best known to Comcast, my internet connection today has been either nonexistent or merely spotty.  I’m in a spot right now, so I’m just trying to write up a quick addendum to my earlier short post about the the fact that Shirley Sherrod is no saint.  The Gay Patriot agrees, adding all the details that Comcast denies me.

Tags: Shirley Sherrod

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My blog friend Lorie Byrd is working for Renee Ellmers, who is opposing Bob “Who are you?” Etheridge.  Ellmers has put out a plea for campaign money, which you can give voluntarily.  This is an important point, because her video is a reminder of the way in which Washington abuses the money it forces out of you through brute government power:

Etheridge may be sleazy, but he’s raking in the money (which kind of confuses me because I’m sure Obama and Pelosi, et al keep telling us Republicans are the party of the rich), so any help you can give would be great.

Tags: Renee Ellmers

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You can take the girl out of the 70s, but you will never take the 70s out of the girl — at least not when it comes to music:

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Zombie explains.  This is what happens when the behemoth that is government allies itself with the moral emptiness that is political correctness.  It all adds up to a huge tax bill — for you.

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If you are a student of architecture, or if you have ever visited Marin County, or if you simply like Frank Lloyd Wright’s work, you may know that the Marin County Civic Center was Wright’s last commission — so last, in fact, that the ground breaking happened in 1960, after Wright had already died.

Wright, true to his architectural creed, aspired to design a building that harmonized with, rather than dominated, the landscaping.  He certainly achieved this with the Civic Center, which nestles into the rolling California hills, rather than towering ominously above those same hills.  The building is set so low to the ground that, if you’re driving by on the freeway and you’re not at precisely the right elevation, you may not even notice it.

Wright achieved this “oneness” with the hills by elongating the building so that it stretches out over three city blocks.  Depending on a given hill’s elevation, some of the building’s wings are four stories, some two, and some still remain a mystery to me.

The building’s interior is like a giant atrium, since a vast domed sun roof runs the length of every wing.  The building’s details — the door ways, windows, grate covers, elevators, etc. — are exquisite examples of architecture from the late 1950s and early 1960s.  This is the design reality to which TV’s Mad Men aspires.

The Civic Center is an absolutely beautiful building — and it is also a completely awful building.  Navigating this snake-like structure as it wends its way through the hills is exhausting and confusing.  Finding stairways and elevators is an effort, and you’re never really sure where you’re going to be once you exit those same stairways and elevators.  If you head off in the wrong direction, or enter in the wrong wing, you may find yourself hustling this way and that down endless hallways as you desperately try to reach your goal.  If you’re not a regular at the Superior Court (which is housed in the Civic Center), you better give yourself a lot of lead time should you have a hearing or trial, because you are going to get lost.

Not only will you get lost, you will get hot.  This isn’t just because you’re running madly down endless hallways.  It’s also because those beautiful domed glass ceilings, the ones that let in that lovely sunlight, turn the place into a giant hothouse.  It’s tropical in the Civic Center.

Those same domes also add to the mileage you’ll put on.  You see, in order for the light to penetrate the lower levels, there are long openings in the middle of the upper floors.  It’s rather like a suburban shopping mall, which is also built atrium style.  This architecture means shoppers cannot cross laterally from one side of the mall to another.  Instead, even if their destination is seconds as the crow lies, they have to walk down the length of the atrium on one side, and up its length on the other side, to get to their destination.  It’s a pain for the shoppers, but merchants love it because it forces the shoppers to pass by their windows — and one never knows what might capture the eye of someone on a forced march.

What’s good for a mall, though, is lousy for a civic building.  I don’t want to have to hike miles to cross a hallway.  I’m in good shape, but the combination of tropical heat and, inevitably, time pressure, means that these indirect approaches to an easily seen objective are nothing more than frustrating.

I’m actually venting about the civic center for a reason, and it’s not just because I spent a ridiculous amount time there today running civic oriented errands.  The building put me forcibly in mind of progressive policies.

Progressive policies look so lovely on paper and sound so lovely in theory.  They promise to end poverty, end hunger, care for all the children, give everyone health care and, oh-by-the-way, ensure world peace.

As this exquisitely imagined ideological structure is being built, everyone oohs and aahs over its wonders.  The details are so great.  The good will so immense.  The goals so admirable.  And once it’s built, it may have a certain superficial charm.

But these dreamy structures, the ones built to suit ideological goals, don’t function so well.  They put enormous, and sometimes impossible, strains on the people dealing with them.  They are inefficient, ineffectual and, periodically downright cruel.  They are also invariably expensive, not only to design and to build, but to maintain.  (Incidentally, it’s no secret that at least some of Wright’s buildings are famous for being maintenance disasters, that impose vast expenses and sometimes overwhelming burdens on their owners.)

How much better to have a structure that looks at what is and what needs to be, and then goes about trying to implement what needs to be in the most practical and humane way possible.  There’s no reason for it to be ugly; instead, it can be quite beautiful but it is, always, practical and functional.  This is a building that, while it does not aspire to starry ideological heights, actually works, leaving the people within it happy and satisfied that their needs are met.

(And no, I don’t know what it says about my mind that I draw political lessons from buildings.)

Tags: Frank Lloyd Wright, Marin County Civic Center

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The big news in the world of conservative publishing today is Stanley Kurtz’s Radical-in-Chief. It’s not actually out yet — that will happen on October 19 — but you can pre-order at the link I provided.  According to the press release, the book proves completely that Obama, despite his denials, is in fact a socialist, and not just a run of the mill “liberal Democrat” or a “progressive”:

Part biography, part history, part detective story, RADICAL-IN-CHIEF reveals the carefully hidden tale of Barack Obama’s political past. Stanley Kurtz, whose research helped inject the Bill Ayers and ACORN issues into the 2008 presidential campaign, presents the results of more than two years of digging into President Obama’s radical political world. The book is filled with previously unknown information about the president’s past, tied together by a bold argument about what Obama’s deepest political convictions really are.

RADICAL-IN-CHIEF marshals a wide array of never-before-seen evidence to establish that the president of the United States is indeed a socialist. Tracing an unbroken thread of socialist activities and political partnerships, from Obama’s youth through his community organizing days and beyond, the book confirms that the president’s harshest critics have been right about his socialism all along.

RADICAL-IN-CHIEF also exposes the truth about community organizers–the socialist beliefs they hold and hide, and how they trained and groomed a president. Obama’s community organizer colleagues had a strategy for slowly and stealthily turning the United States into a socialist nation. The Obama administration is carrying out that strategy today.

This book will forever change our national debate about who Barack Obama is.

For those of us who followed Stanley Kurtz’s writing in the run-up to the 2008 election, much of this is familiar stuff. Kurtz promises, however, that he has new research and revelations to bolster his already strong arguments about Obama’s political identity.  I have no doubt that the book will make for fascinating and informative reading.

The book’s October 19 release date is obviously timed to help educate voters in the lead-up to the November election.  I have a concern, however, one I’ve voiced before:  I’m pretty sure that the American public, indoctrinated for 40 years in the American public education system and the Ivy League universities, really doesn’t care about the word “socialist.”

While earlier generations of Americans understood the word to describe a political system that coincides with the diminution of personal and economic freedom, too many Americans hear the word and simply think of it as an alternative economic system.  They think Europe, with its pretty buildings and, until recently, high standard of living.

These same Americans do not think of the USSR and the Gulags, or the Nazis and the concentration camps, or the Norks and their concentration camps, or the Cubans and their political prisons, or the Chinese and their political slave labor.  All of those, Americans would say, were communist, which is different, never mind that it’s not.

I can already hear some of you saying right now that Americans are proving, with their hostility to the Obama/Democrat agenda, that they hate socialism.  But I’m talking semantics.  They’ll say they hate “Big Government,” or taxes, or government inefficiency, or too much government spending, but they will be utterly blase about “socialism.”  The word has lost its power.  The underlying concepts may bother Americans, but to say Obama is a socialist probably has as much meaning as to say he eats potatoes.

So while I think it’s fascinating that Kurtz can and will prove the ties that bind Obama to the hard Left, the fact is that, unless we can get Americans understand what that actually means, the book will be a nine day wonder that will not affect the ladies who rot their minds watching The View.

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Honest to Gawd, I think summer vacation is making my brains evaporate.  It’s not just the endless small interruptions and tasks.  Those are fixtures in my life.  Nor is it the fact that the kids and their friends are around non-stop.  Indeed, having the friends around is a good thing, because they engage with each other, rather than nudniking me.

The problem for me is the irregular schedule.  One of the things I love about the school year is the rhythm of life.  There’s their time and my time.  The blurring of those times during the summer befuddles me.

This befuddlement means that, at almost 11:00, I’m still trying to read the news.  The phone’s been ringing, the repair man has come and gone, the kids have been nagged (or, should I say, politely reminded) to do this and that, the errands are lined up, and my brain is functioning like an old 33 rpm record played at 16 — very, very slowly.

Incidentally, I’ve given up trying to explain to my kids the whole 16, 33 and 78 rpm thing.  They just don’t get the principle, so the analogies inevitably fail.

Anyhoo, as always, I’m reading, trying to think, and longing to write.  All will happen, but in their own good time, not mine.

Until then, of course, here’s your open thread.  I have long felt that, for those of you who regularly comment here, this is as much your blog as it is mine.

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You might have noticed here a paucity of posts about the Gulf Oil spill.  Except for its providing further evidence of Obama’s tin ear, I found it uninteresting.  Why?  Because the environmentalists were hysterical.  Experience has shown me that, unlike even a stopped clock, they are almost invariably wrong.  That meant that the only real risk seemed to be (as I opined earlier) that Obama would use the spill to justify destroying the oil industry — or, at the very least, to destroy the Gulf states that didn’t vote for him.

It turns out that my sanguine attitude, arrived at through nothing more than pig-headed bias against the screaming enviro-nuts, may have been right on the money.  I don’t doubt that the pristine Gulf shores will be oil stained for years, or even decades, which is something that rests squarely on the shoulders of Obama and his fellow federales, but the scope of the disaster is a drop in the ocean’s big bucket.

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The Council has voted again, and I’m very flattered that my fellow Council members thought my post on burqas was good enough to take first place.  As it is, I didn’t think I’d rank anywhere near the top, since the other submissions were so good.

Here are all the winners for last week:

Council Winners

• First place with 2 2/3 votes! – Bookworm Room – When is a burqa not a burqa? When it’s a weapon.
• Second place with 2 1/3 votes - The Razor – Someday Everyone Will be a Nazi for 15 Minutes
• Third place with 1 2/3 votes – Joshuapundit – Obama And The Apocalypse Blues (Remix Version)
• Fourth place with 1 vote – Snapped Shot – The Washington Post Finds Waste
• Fifth place *t* with 2/3 vote – VA Right – Why the TEA Party Should Ignore the NAACP
• Fifth place *t* with 2/3 vote – Wolf Howling – Redemption?

Non-Council Winners

• First place with 2 1/3 votes! – The Other McCain – Jews and Israel: Death by Relativism submitted by JoshuaPundit
• Second place with 1 1/3 votes - Walter Russell Mead’s Blog -Nuking Westphalia: Obama’s Deep Convictions Point to War With Iran submitted by The Glittering Eye
• Third place *t* with 1 vote – American Heritage.com – Philadelphia Story: Professor Ellis on Constitutional Compromise submitted by The Colossus of Rhodey
• Third place *t* with 1 vote -Dennis Prager @ NRO - NAACP Confirms, Election Of A Black President Made No Difference submitted by Wolf Howling
• Fourth place *t* with 2/3 vote – Big Government — Michael Zak – The Ku Klux Klan, Terrorist Wing of the Democratic Party submitted by Rhymes with Right
• Fourth place *t* with 2/3 vote – Samson Blinded - We cannot coexist submitted by Right Truth
• Fourth place *t* with 2/3 vote – Katie, The Pirate King - Can You Believe Anything That This Administration Says? submitted by The Razor
• Fourth place *t* with 2/3 vote – Pat Condell - No mosque at Ground Zero submitted by Bookworm Room
• Fifth place *t* with 1/3 vote – Bearing Drift - NASA Reaching Out to Muslims? AWESOME. submitted by VA Right
• Fifth place *t* with 1/3 vote – Dick Morris – DEMS DESERT OBAMA submitted by The Provocateur

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While the MSM would clearly like the whole Journolist discussion to vanish (as evidence by the fact that I haven’t found mention or, at least, prominent mention of it in any traditional print media), the fact  remains that it’s out there and it’s ugly.  The bits and pieces we’ve seen show major journalists and their academic counterparts to be petty, irrational, paranoid and illiterate, which really isn’t what you want in the journalist class of a healthy democracy.

While I’m sure that not all of the 400 participants necessary showed all, or any, of these behaviors at all, or any, times, it is sufficient that a critical mass showed these behaviors and personal failings at significant times — such as the times in 2008 that they were actively engaging in massaging the news to ensure that their chosen candidate had a clear path to the White House.

What’s also disturbing for me about the Journolist is the fact that so many of its members have Jewish names.  You’ll notice my careful phrasing there.  I don’t know if they’re actually Jewish or not.  I don’t know if those who are Jewish actually practice the religion.  And of those who practice the religion, I don’t know whether they practice the religion in a way that has traditional religious resonance, or is just the Jewish liberal bow to Rosh Hashana, Yom Kippur, and the Sabbath candles.  As to the latter group, assuming it existed on the Journolist, it’s easy to claim religion when you just go through the rituals.  It’s a little harder when you try to align your Torah with the Democratic handbook and the Alinsky rules for living.

I mention the Jewish thing here, not because I want to feed the minute, but venomous, Patrick Buchanan wing of the conservative party, but because it’s such a perfect foil to the latest lunacy from Oliver Stone.  During an interview with London’s Sunday Times, Oliver Stone — who is planning a helpful miniseries to put Hitler and Stalin “in context” — let loose with some old-fashioned antisemitic venom (emphasis mine):

The 10-part documentary [which Stone is planning] will address Stalin and Hitler “in context”, he says. “Hitler was a Frankenstein but there was also a Dr Frankenstein. German industrialists, the Americans and the British. He had a lot of support.”

He also seeks to put his atrocities in proportion: “Hitler did far more damage to the Russians than the Jewish people, 25 or 30m.”

Why such a focus on the Holocaust then? “The Jewish domination of the media,” he says. “There’s a major lobby in the United States. They are hard workers. They stay on top of every comment, the most powerful lobby in Washington. Israel has f***** up United States foreign policy for years.”

Goebbels couldn’t have put it better.

What’s so funny, in a sick, sad way, is that, looking at the Journolist, it really does seem as if there is Jewish domination of the media — except that the Jews doing the so-called domination are completely in sync politically with Oliver Stone.  They’re all left, left and more left.  They’re just all too dumb to realize that, when you get as far Left as Stone, the antisemitism stops being coy little references to capitalism, Israeli imperialism and Palestinian victimhood.  Instead, it becomes the active antisemitism that travels from Chavez’s attacks on Jewish businesses, to Stalin’s periodic kangaroo court purges and suppression of religion, to Hitler’s final solution.  (And I mention those three Leftist antisemites here because Stone specifically speaks of them as either admirable or misunderstood, or both.)

If you want to get away from “Jewish domination” and get into a more balanced media, with representatives of all sectors in American society you have to go to the conservative media.  There, you’ll find as mixed a bunch of people as you can ever hope for:  Catholic, Protestant, Mormon, Hindu, Jewish, Atheist, black, white, Hispanic, Asian, Muslim (a few), male, female, gay, straight, and some I know I’ve forgotten or haven’t even imagined.

These truly diverse voices part ways on some issues, especially social ones, but they remain remarkably unified on the core principles that have always defined America (whether not America has always been successful in practicing these principles):  small government, small taxes, maximum personal freedom, equal justice under the law for all American citizens, and strong national security.

Anyway, if you’d like more information about the journalists on the Journolist, I highly recommend this article on Noisy Room, which gives a clear indication of their media preeminence (and, therefore, their power to influence public opinion).

Tags: Antisemitism, Journolist, Oliver Stone

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Normally, I open one of these posts by apologizing for not blogging because, honestly, I really meant to blog.  Not this time, though.  I’ve been letting my brain go fallow this weekend.  Aside from it being the dog days of summer, meaning that the politic scene is running stupid, but shallow, I simply need to give my brain a rest.

My misunderstanding of Don Quixote’s very clear statement about the ramifications of SSI is a sign that I just need to slow down, at least mentally, for a few days.  If I’m not listening well to DQ, who is one of the smartest and most interesting people I know, that tells me loud and clear that I’m going to make a hash out of understanding and analyzing dry political articles and news.

I’ll probably be back and in fine fettle tomorrow, but for right now, I’m going to continue to let my brain cells air out on this lovely summer day.

For those who would like an Open Thread, this is it.  I’ve been absolutely delighted by the discussions you all have been having at my other posts, and by the links you’ve been including — especially the old Harper’s magazine article about “Who Goes Nazi.“  Thanks for that one, g6loq.

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Those on the Left and the RINO “right” (Frum, Parker, etc.)  are defending JournoList vigorously by saying that there’s nothing wrong with them having opinions and talking amongst friends.  That’s absolutely true.  But that wasn’t what the JournoList people were doing.  IBD sums it up beautifully (emphasis mine):

In essence, all these left-leaning journalists, an estimated 400 in all, used the JournoList site to refine their messages for maximum effect. It was an exercise in mass propaganda, getting everyone to sing from the same ideological hymnal — which explains the tedious sameness of the mainstream media’s 2008 election coverage.

In short, they were fraudulently selling you political opinion and propaganda disguised as fair-minded “news.”

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Andrew McCarthy writes compellingly about the problems — the big problems — we in America should have with the proposed Ground Zero mosque.  What I like is his pithy summary of the reason Islam is different from all other religions, and this is primarily because, while it calls itself a religion, it isn’t really.  Instead, it’s a complex governmental system and world domination system that simply points to God as its ultimate authority:

Dawa, whether done from the rubble of the World Trade Center or elsewhere, is the missionary work by which Islam is spread. As explained in my recent book, The Grand Jihad, dawa is proselytism, but not involving only spiritual elements — for Islam is not merely a religion, and spiritual elements are just a small part of its doctrine. In truth, Islam is a comprehensive political, social, and economic system with its own authoritarian legal framework, sharia, which aspires to govern all aspects of life.

This framework rejects core tenets of American constitutional republicanism: for example, individual liberty, freedom of conscience, freedom to govern ourselves irrespective of any theocratic code, equality of men and women, equality of Muslims and non-Muslims, and economic liberty, including the uses of private property (in Islam, owners hold property only as a custodians for the umma, the universal Muslim nation, and are beholden to the Islamic state regarding its use). Sharia prohibits the preaching of creeds other than Islam, the renunciation of Islam, any actions that divide the umma, and homosexuality. Its penalties are draconian, including savagely executed death sentences for apostates, homosexuals, and adulterers.

Read the rest here, please.

Americans who push back against Muslim demands on public life are not religious bigots.  Instead, they show their understanding that, in a pluralist society, an ordinary religion imposes its strictures on its own followers, not on everyone else in town.  Islam is no ordinary religion and we are wrong to treat it as such.  Its practitioners should, of course, be allowed to engage in their own religious practices peacefully and without government imposed conditions.  We, however, must guard vigilantly against any attempts Muslims makes to change the lifestyle of non-Muslims within that same community.

You don’t like pork?  Fine, but then don’t get a job at the meat counter of a super market — and then demand that the super market stop carrying meat or that the market assign you to a different job for which you never applied.  You don’t like alcohol?  Fine, but then don’t get a job as a taxi driver and then refuse to carry people who have alcohol?  These demands, and the hundreds (thousands?) like it that we routinely read about from Europe and, increasingly, America, are not about religious freedom.  They are about a religious minority trying to shape the dominant culture into a brutal, limiting sharia mold.

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By now, we’re all familiar with the Sherrod story.  Andrew Breitbart was sent an edited video that made it look as if Sherrod was boasting to an NAACP gathering about denying government aid to white farmers.  The audience laughed complicitly when Sherrod made that confession.

Breitbart held onto that video clip until the NAACP announced that, in the absence of any evidence showing Tea Party racism, it was going to denounce Tea Party racism.  In the face of the NAACP’s knee jerk attack to policies with which it disagrees, Breitbart published the video.

It turned out, though, that Breitbart might have been knee jerking it too, since the video turned out to be part of a longer presentation during which Sherrod had confessed that she had abandoned her old racist ways.  To the extent that he was trying to highlight NAACP conduct, not Sherrod’s, Breitbart still had a point with that knowing laughter the audience gave during Sherrod’s confession.  Be that as it may, it looked as if Breitbart owed Sherrod an apology.

Interestingly, the NAACP was so panicked by the video — despite the fact that it had the entire speech in its possession — that it immediately denounced Sherrod.  This was yet another example of knee jerk idiocy, giving the NAACP two knee jerk points, the first for attacking the Tea Party, and the second for trying to disassociate itself from Sherrod before taking 15 minutes to get the facts.

The Obama administration also went into knee jerk mode, explicitly claiming fear of Fox and Glenn Beck.  Without bothering to investigate, it humiliated and then fired Sherrod.  When the whole video transcript came out, the administration had to engage in a massive belly crawl to Sherrod.  No surprise here.  Almost two years of Obamaness has shown us that the administration is focused on its goals, but a little hazy on the details.

Obama himself went into knee jerk mode when he castigated Secretary Tom Vilsack for acting “stupidly.” While this was almost certainly true, it was a bad choice of words for Obama who, as you may recall, went into knee jerk mode when, after admitting he knew nothing, he nevertheless castigated Cambridge police officers for acting “stupidly” with regard to the Henry Louis Gates arrest.  I’m pretty sure that Obama, if pressed, would describe most people around him as stupid, but that’s another story for another day.

Up until this morning, I would have said that the only person who came out of this little race incident in America was Sherrod.  While she has confessed that she was once a racist, she had announced publicly, in a slightly confused but heart-wrenching speech, that she was no longer.  For her honesty and remorse, she had wrongly been embarrassed and punished for confessing her sins. 

Except that this narrative is not true.  It turns out that, remorseful confession notwithstanding, Sherrod is still a race sinner, whose default, knee jerk setting is to cry racism.  Check it out.  She’s no rose and she’s not repentant.  When push comes to shove, Sherrod is every bit as bad as the rest of them.

Race in America is poisonous, not because most Americans are racists, but because the Left believes that most Americans are racists.  I am reminded of Maria Van Trapp’s autobiography, which I read decades ago.  Before she fell into the hands of the “good” nuns, the ones who achieved Hollywood fame, Maria was sent to a school run by fairly sadistic nuns.  These nuns beat the children daily on the principle that children were inherently evil and, whether or not one caught them making mischief, one could assume that they had made mischief, so they should be punished accordingly.

My father had a similar experience with nuns back in Berlin in 1924, when he was 5.  His mother, who was not bright, meant to leave him for a week with a Jewish charity while she had to go away.  Lord alone knows how, but she managed to leave him with a group of nuns in the same building.  They too beat him, and all the other little ones, daily.

Both Maria and my father had the exact same response to the experience of all punishment, no crime:  They concluded that, if they were going to be beaten for being bad, whether or not they had, in fact, been bad, they might as well be bad.  At least then the beating would have meaning and maybe they’d have some fun along the way.

If you constantly castigate honorable Americans as racists, they will eventually confirm to your standards.  That’s all.

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The parts I’ve highlighted make this sound like a very expensive proposition and, as I explain below, I’m worried that the bureaucratic rigidity that controls these types of things is part of what will make it so ridiculously expensive:

Corte Madera must put a $3 million to $4 million revenue measure before voters by the end of 2015 to fund curb, sidewalk and other disability access improvements after a federal judge signed off on a settlement agreement Thursday.

The deal between Corte Madera and disability rights advocate Richard Skaff also requires the town to make numerous street, seating and disabled parking improvements by June 30, 2011, including repairing the sidewalk on Redwood Avenue, installing wheelchair seating in the gazebo at Old Corte Madera Square and putting in a curb ramp at Tamalpais Drive and Willow Avenue.

That work will be part of a street reconstruction project worth approximately $700,000 already included in the 2010-2011 budget, said George Warman, Corte Madera’s director of finance.

“The decree into which we’ve entered provides further assurance that the town will continue to work with due diligence to comply with state and federal disability laws,” Mayor Carla Condon said. “It is our utmost goal to remove any impediments to anyone with any disability.”

The settlement “is going to impact the town financially, but the long-term results will be in everyone’s interests,” she added.

Filed in 2008 in U.S. District Court, Skaff’s lawsuit contended that Corte Madera streets, sidewalks, trails and parking lots violated state and federal law guaranteeing access to people with disabilities. In a July 6 closed session, the council unanimously approved the settlement, which includes no admission of liability.

After the first phase of projects are completed next year, Corte Madera must establish a fund for subsequent work, the agreement said. The town will then put aside annual sums of either $50,000 or 50 percent of specific gas tax revenues, whichever is greater, and 10 percent of its unrestricted capital improvement expenditures from the fiscal year two years earlier until the revenue measure goes before voters some time between 2011 and the end of 2015.

Corte Madera’s unrestricted capital improvement expenditures came to zero last year because of the town’s financial problems, which include a projected $3.6 million deficit by the end of the 2010-2011 fiscal year, Warman said.

Skaff is a 66-year-old Mill Valley resident and former Corte Madera mayor who has sued numerous public agencies and businesses to get disability access. He said he hopes town officials frame the revenue measure in a positive light, highlighting its benefits for all residents.

“The sidewalks are just a horrendous mess. There has not been any work done on those for a long time,” Skaff said. “This (revenue measure) will give the town management the opportunity and the funding to do that.”

Under the settlement, Corte Madera will pay $200,000 in attorney and expert fees to Skaff as well as $25,000 in damages.

Skaff said he plans to put the $25,000 into his nonprofit Designing Accessible Communities, from which he draws no salary.

“We aren’t getting any enforcement by the California Department of Justice, so it ends up that individuals have to do the enforcement,” Skaff said. “It’s really frustrating because I’m one person, and trying to change the world as one person doesn’t work very well.”

Should the voters reject the revenue measure, the plaintiff will decide whether to continue bankrolling the work through the gas tax and capital improvement expenditures for 15 more years or to seek alternate funding sources, according to the settlement.

Read the rest here.

I’ve written before at this blog about the occasional insanity of bureaucratically imposed handicapped access.  When we got a north-south stop sign installed at our street, it cost the town a fortune because the town had to install wheel chair ramps at each of the four corners of the intersection — although there were broad driveways within 5-10 feet of each corner.  Because of the cost of the ramps, there was no money for the four way stop signs residents had actually requested to stop speeding cars that routinely drove through the east-west access.  So, for something like $40,000 taxpayer dollars, we got four redundant wheelchair ramps and two useless stop signs, which do nothing to slow the speeders.

My point is that, while I think handicapped access is a good thing, especially since those wheelchair ramps serve double duty for mothers with strollers, once the bureaucracy gets a hold of it, lunacy results — at taxpayer’s expense.  I have my doubts about the benefits of this whole thing.

UPDATE:  The town of Corte Madera was forced into this by a lawsuit, although I’m complaining, not about wheelchair accessibility, but about the fact that I’m sure the price is estimated to be so high because of inevitable bureaucratic foolishness in execution.  What’s Ann Arbor’s excuse for destroying its treasury and making its decisions?

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I was complaining to Don Quixote today about the huge amount Mr. Bookworm and I pay in taxes, an amount that will only increase come January, when the Bush tax cuts expire.  I have, of course, a principled opposition to these high taxes.

I firmly believe that government does better when it skims a small amount off of a wealthy economy, than when it gouges an increasingly poor economy.  Nor can I be convinced that Keynsian economics are such that high taxes simply mean that it’s the government, rather than the marketplace, that redistributes wealth for everyone’s benefit.

Robbing Peter to pay Paul, and then having Paul hand some of that same money back to Peter (at great cost, mind you, because of the complicated procedures involved in both these transactions) is a closed system.  Add to that government’s inherent inefficiencies, the corruption that always arises from concentrating too much wealth in one place, and the lack of competition, and you have an economic sink hole, temporarily floated by my money.

Anyway, I was complaining to DQ, and I mentioned that I ended up paying something like 50% of my net income in taxes every year.  DQ thought that was very high, until we figured out that, unlike him, I was including the 15% self-employment withholding I’m forced to hand over to Social Security in my 50% calculation.  Said DQ, “That’s not a tax.”  I disagreed with him.

While I know that he’s technically correct that Social Security withholding is not a tax but is, instead, our beneficent government’s ostensibly holding my money for me to protect me in my old age, I don’t believe I’ll ever see the money again.  Social Security is not a lock box.  Instead, it’s just another government-managed Ponzi scheme and, worse, the government has raided it.

This money won’t come back to me.  As with all my taxes, it just vanishes into the government’s greedy, inefficient maw.

Oh, and by the way, I’m not the only one who sees SS withholding as yet another tax, as opposed to just another savings account over which, coincidentally, I have absolutely no control.

UPDATE: Much as I’m doing a complicated little dance in my brain, desperately trying to find an excuse for such a great misunderstanding, I can’t.  I just somehow took what DQ said and put my own gloss on it.  This is what DQ said:

Wow!  Much as I dearly love Bookworm, and as many wonderful conversations as we’ve had over the years, we can still miscommunicate in stunning fashion!  I would never, ever say that Social Security is not a tax.  Of course it is!  What I asked was whether Bookworm was including in her 50% the other expenses taken from her paycheck, such as PRIVATE retirement funds (IRAs & the like) and health insurance.  She assured me she was not.  I’m very sorry I did not make myself clearer.

Sometimes (too often for my liking) I can be a dope.  On the other hand, I love the discussion my misunderstanding sparked.  And while there’s no doubt that DQ is too smart to make the mistake I attributed to him, others certainly do.

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San Francisco has long been known for its exquisite tap water.  Yup, I know that sounds silly, but it’s true.  Back in 1923, San Francisco got the right to build a dam in what was once known as Hetch Hetchy Valley, near Yosemite.  That clear Sierra water has been flowing into San Francisco ever since.  It’s so pure that it doesn’t even need to be filtered.  All that’s required to make it potable is to treat it with lime and chlorine.

An environmental group, however, is still mourning the long-lost Hetch Hetchy Valley, and is agitating for the dam to be removed, with a new water supply built somewhere else:

Restore Hetch Hetchy, as its name suggests, aims to return that valley to its natural state by demolishing the dam and releasing the billions of gallons of water that lie behind it. Since San Francisco receives about 85 percent of its water from the Hetch Hetchy reservoir system, the group argues for storing water in another spot downstream, such as Don Pedro Reservoir.

Aside from disrupting a perfectly sound water supply, this is a very, very expensive idea.  First, there’s the cost of the new dam:

Storing the river water at another location would mean building a large-scale filtration system, a project estimated to cost $310 million to $515 million, according to a 2006 Hetch Hetchy restoration study by the state.

Second, there’s the cost of restoring the Hetch Hetchy Valley, buried under water for almost 90 years:

Whereas Restore Hetch Hetchy figures the restoration would cost about $1 billion, the state report by the Department of Water Resources said it would cost between $3 billion and $10 billion.

I don’t know about you, but during a deep budget crisis, it seems insanely stupid to me to interfere with a perfectly good water system, at the cost of hundreds of millions of dollars, so that billions of dollars can be spent to re-create a long forgotten Valley.

The Restore Hetch Hetchy (“RHH”) people apparently recognize this same stupidity, because they’ve decided to re-cast the whole argument as a public health issue.  They claim that Hetch Hetchy’s water isn’t pure at all, but is the source of a San Francisco-sized epidemic of giardia and cryptosporidium.  If you’re not familiar with those words, giardia and cryptosporidium are two nasty little parasites that leave people with diarrhea and other abdominal symptoms. The RHH squad, to advance this argument, points out (correctly) that San Francisco has unusually high (although scarcely epidemic) rates of giardia and cryptosporidium.

I actually know a little, a very little about giardia, because a dear friend of mine had it. But he wasn’t any dear friend. This was back in the early 1990s, and he was a dear friend who was also a gay man dying of AIDS. In addition to the Karposi’s sarcoma that plagued him, and the horrible pedunculated lesions that painfully decorated the soles of his feet, he also almost died from giardia. What would have been an unpleasant case of diarrhea for other people (assuming it had even taken hold in their immunity-rich guts) was a near fatal problem for him. He told me he probably got the giardia up in Tahoe, where the once clean Sierra waters, as a result of over-population and less than hygienic hikers, were rife with the bacteria.  I accepted that story as true back then.  Being a little more sophisticated now, I suspect that some of his sexual practices might also have been a source of his illness.

My friend’s tragic story actually ties in with the whole expensive environmental boondoggle the RHH is now proposing.  You see, the City argues, convincingly to me, that the problem in San Francisco lies not with the clear Sierra water, but with an unusually vulnerable population that also happens to engage in practices even more unsafe than drinking tap water:

Three factors are behind the elevated rates, city health experts say: San Francisco’s strong disease-surveillance program, broad access to health care, and a relatively high population of people with suppressed immune systems – specifically, gay men with HIV/AIDS.

“This is not a drinking water problem,” said June Weintraub, senior epidemiologist with the San Francisco Department of Public Health. “San Francisco is off the charts” with other sexually transmitted diseases and those common among people with compromised immune systems.

Rod Adam, a giardia expert at the infectious disease department at the University of Arizona, concurs. Adam said the prevalence of the disease in men between the ages of 25 and 54, according to the city’s 2008 annual report on communicable diseases, hints that giardiasis is being passed from partner to partner in the gay community.

“It really does suggest a lot of this could be sexual transmission,” he said.

Mark Cloutier, former executive director of the San Francisco AIDS Foundation, isn’t convinced the problem lies in San Francisco’s water supply, either. But he believes the issue needs more scrutiny.

“If the rates are higher in San Francisco, we have to look at what makes San Francisco different,” he said. “There needs to be more analysis.”

This Hetch Hetchy story is a perfect example of the dishonesty that so often permeates modern advocacy.  I hate that.  As a long-time lawyer, I’ve spent my career advocating my client’s positions.  But I’ve always done so honestly.  I’ve never perverted either the facts or the law.  Aside from my being an inherently honest person (my parents raised me right), our adversary legal system also ensures that I don’t cheat.  If I do decide to lie or conceal, my opponent, if he’s any good at all, will be all over me for having done so.   My job, as an advocate, is to take the facts and the law and work them into the best argument possible.

In the case of this Hetch Hetchy story, the San Francisco Chronicle did a decent job of pointing out the opposing arguments.  Assuming as I do that the story is reported correctly (and I’m helped by knowing about Hetch Hetchy, and by knowing about gay man, AIDS, and giardia), the Chron allowed one side to tell its story, and then allowed the other side, the opposition, to take it to task for its dishonesty.  This was a good “fact” story, one that fell pretty neatly into the traditional journalism category.

What happens, though, when the journalists cease reporting and start advocating — and, worse, when they use dishonest arguments to advance their position?  It’s a recipe for disinformation on Pravda-esque levels.  That’s why this JournoList story is so deeply upsetting.  A group of people who advertised themselves as fact purveyors were, in fact, engaging, not only in advocacy, but in dishonest advocacy.  They were lying about who they were, they were engaging in myriad falsehoods through omission, and they were actively contemplating affirmative lies to advance an agenda they publicly denied having.

Further, because these covert advocates controlled the primary instruments of communication during an election, no opposing point of view made its way through to their audience.  Sure, we in the blogosphere knew what was going on.  The problem is that we’re still a minority.  People who are not internet news junkies, but who actually thought the the New York Times reported, not just “all the news that’s fit to print,” but also all the honest, non-advocacy news that’s fit to print, accepted these ostensibly factual “news” stories as the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

What’s just as disturbing is that, two years out from a year in which the media ran one of the most dishonest election campaigns ever, nothing has changed.  A media that advertises itself to America as reporting “just the facts,” ignored the New Black Panther story, lied about alleged racism in the Tea Parties and, amusingly, to date has still not managed to report about the JournoList story.

All of which proves, I guess, that there are lies, “dam” lies, and JournoLists.

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As the kids frolic in the pool under the watchful eye of a trusted teenage babysitter (they’re all solid swimmers but, with 10 kids in the pool, someone needs to watch), I get a different pleasure, but one fully equal to theirs:  I get to read and vote on the latest batch of Watcher’s Council submissions.  Although you (I’m sorry) don’t get to vote, you still get the joy of reading this consistently entertaining and intriguing material.

Also, if you’re reading the submissions this week, you get the pleasure of meeting Tom White, our newest Council member, who blogs at VA Right.  Welcome, Tom!

Council Submissions

• VA Right – Why the TEA Party Should Ignore the NAACP
• Rhymes With Right – Some Observations On The Utah Illegal Immigrant List
• The Colossus of Rhodey – Watch out — Oliver Stone’s “Secret History of the United States” is coming
• Joshuapundit – Obama And The Apocalypse Blues (Remix Version)
• Snapped Shot – The Washington Post Finds Waste
• Right Truth – Obama by any other name — would still smell as rotten
• The Razor – Someday Everyone Will be a Nazi for 15 Minutes
• The Provocateur – The Ghettoization of Obama
• Bookworm Room – When is a burqa not a burqa?  When it’s a weapon.
• The Glittering Eye – The Beginning of the End
• Wolf Howling – Redemption?

Non-Council Submissions

• Bearing Drift – NASA Reaching Out to Muslims? AWESOME. submitted by VA Right
• Big Government — Michael Zak – The Ku Klux Klan, Terrorist Wing of the Democratic Party submitted by Rhymes with Right
• American Heritage.com – Philadelphia Story: Professor Ellis on Constitutional Compromise submitted by The Colossus of Rhodey
• The Other McCain – Jews and Israel: Death by Relativism submitted by JoshuaPundit
• IsraellyCool - A Taste of “Concentration Camp” Gaza: The Grand Palace Hotel submitted by Snapped Shot
• Samson Blinded – We cannot coexist submitted by Right Truth
• Katie, The Pirate King – Can You Believe Anything That This Administration Says? submitted by The Razor
• Dick Morris - DEMS DESERT OBAMA submitted by The Provocateur
• Pat Condell – No mosque at Ground Zero submitted by Bookworm Room
• Walter Russell Mead’s Blog -Nuking Westphalia: Obama’s Deep Convictions Point to War With Iran submitted by The Glittering Eye
• Dennis Prager @ NRO – NAACP Confirms, Election Of A Black President Made No Difference submitted by Wolf Howling
• Rabbi Kaufman @ Yourish - J Street’s New Ad – The Community of Hypocrisy submitted by The Watcher

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I know more than one liberal who voted for Obama, despite conceding his total unpreparedness for the job, solely because he was black.  These liberals were utterly unconcerned that they were elevating to the Presidency of the most powerful nation on earth, during a time of economic chaos and heightened national security concerns (not to mention two wars), a man whose resume showed no accomplishments whatsoever beyond writing a book, teaching some law classes, and getting elected as a Senator (state and federal).   He was black.  That was all they needed to know.

Given their state of mind, I think these liberals would happily have voted Alvin Greene into the White House if there hadn’t been an Obama.  They were sublimely confident that Obama’s mere presence would heal America’s racial problems once and for all.  And if by “healing America’s racial problems” these self-righteous race zealots meant that this would throw race relationships in America into a state of turmoil unknown since the worst years of the Civil Rights movement, they got what they wanted.

Zombie — with photos, of course — looks at the racial meter in America now that we have our first post-racial president.  ‘Cause this is Zombie, it’s fairly amusing, of course, but it sure isn’t pretty.

Having said all that, there is the possibility that Obama’s election will have one expected benefit:  the term “racist,” which is currently suffering from farcical overuse, will be reduced in emotional intensity, until it has the same value as calling someone a “varmint” or a “marroon.”  In other words, to be called a “racist,” rather than galvanizing people into ferociously self-abasing apologies and acts, won’t rise beyond the silly script of an old Bugs Bunny cartoon.

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I’ve got lots of news stories in front of me that are fascinating in one way or another.  I just haven’t figured out yet what I want to do with them — and I’m on my way to join a friend for lunch.  Since this particular friend is Don Quixote, I know that my mind will be energized and enlightened, so I’ll return a better blogger.

Until then….

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I blush to admit this, but the recession has been something of a blessing for me.  Subject to two short intervals, once when I was a 19/20 year old exchange student and was not allowed to work abroad, and once for a few months after my second child was born, I’ve worked steadily since I was 17.

I worked my way through college and law school.  Since I am self-employed, I went back to work within a week of my first child’s birth.  I slowed down briefly after my second child only because I’d reached the end of my rope, and was worried about damaging my reputation as a quality attorney.

Admittedly, since I’ve had children, I stopped being the primary breadwinner, but I kept working, with my workload varying between 20-40 hours a week.  In between times, I was also a full-time parent to my children, as well as I full time housekeeper.  I did volunteer work at the schools and youth organizations, ran carpools, shopped, cooked, cleaned, did laundry, helped with homework, etc.

I’m neither boasting right now, nor complaining.  I’m not boasting because I know dozens of other mothers who carry the same load, most with more grace and competence than I.  And I’m not complaining because, thanks to the recession, my work dried up.  It’s been a tremendous relief for me to hold down only one job:  parent/homemaker, and not to have to worry about legal work on top of it all.  Indeed, I’m going to regret it when the recession (eventually) ends, and my phone starts ringing again.  I’ve liked not working and have been fortunate enough to be able to afford not to work.

A friend of mine hasn’t been working lately either.  Her story is quite different from mine, and it’s why I’m not always quite as sympathetic as I should be to all of the jobless claims.  You see, my friend has been unemployed for 4 years.  Her husband has been unemployed for 13 years.  Up until 4 years ago, they lived off of her salary.  Then, they lived off of their savings.  Now, after having abandoned their home to the bank (a home worth substantially less than the original loan the bank issued them) they’re living off the last dregs of their savings, plus food stamps.  Welfare is not far away.

If you ask them, they will tell you that they’ve given up on looking for jobs (and my friend, to give her credit, looked very hard for work in her rather narrow, specialized field).  What they say is that there are no jobs to be had where they live, so why bother?  What they won’t tell you is that, despite their travails, they’re very picky.  The jobs that are available are “beneath them.”  The hourly pay is too low to be worth their while.  (This is especially true for jobs that do not require special training, such as fast food store clerks, etc., where the pay for a tiring, demoralizing job is comparable to that of a welfare check.)  The company that might hire them has an inconvenient habit of requiring drug tests.  Unlike my parents’ generation, which would do anything or move anywhere (following the jobs) to bring in money, my friends represent a generation that believes that, unless the job is not only just right, but is also in their back yard, they really shouldn’t have to work.

My friend’s friends are similarly situated.  They live a welfare lifestyle that doesn’t include such bourgeois notions as being a reliable employee, refraining from drugs and alcohol, having children within wedlock, etc.  Although they swell the unemployment roles, their unemployment isn’t a problem of the recession, it’s a moral problem.

I know with absolute certainty (or at least I think I know this) that my friends are not representative of the vast majority of those left unemployed by this economy.   I know that whole industries, especially those that are traditionally male dominated (c0nstruction, especially) have been wiped out.  I know that, because the government has sucked money out of the private sector and paralyzed potential employers with fright, there are simply fewer private sector jobs to be had.

But I also know that there are people out there who, like me, are enjoying being unemployed.  The difference between them and me is that, while I can afford it (at least for now), they cannot.  Or, rather, they can also afford it, but only as long as you pay the bill.  I also suspect that, once the American taxpayers stop willingly footing this bill (Nancy Pelosi’s economic theories notwithstanding), this specific subgroup of unemployed people will find that there is less virtue in their work-free lifestyle.

I’ve never been a fan of George Bernard Shaw (a bombastic old socialist who believed in eugenics, and therefore supported the “cleansing” aspects of Nazi social policy), but he certainly articulated beautifully the distinction between the deserving and the undeserving poor, as articulated by that delightful reprobate, Alfred Doolittle:

What am I, Governors both? I ask you, what am I? I’m one of the undeserving poor: that’s what I am. Think of what that means to a man. It means that he’s up agen middle class morality all the time. If there’s anything going, and I put in for a bit of it, it’s always the same story: “You’re undeserving; so you can’t have it.” But my needs is as great as the most deserving widow’s that ever got money out of six different charities in one week for the death of the same husband. I don’t need less than a deserving man: I need more. I don’t eat less hearty than him; and I drink a lot more. I want a bit of amusement, cause I’m a thinking man. I want cheerfulness and a song and a band when I feel low. Well, they charge me just the same for everything as they charge the deserving. What is middle class morality? Just an excuse for never giving me anything. Therefore, I ask you, as two gentlemen, not to play that game on me. I’m playing straight with you. I ain’t pretending to be deserving. I’m undeserving; and I mean to go on being undeserving. I like it; and that’s the truth. Will you take advantage of a man’s nature to do him out of the price of his own daughter what hes brought up and fed and clothed by the sweat of his brow until shes growed big enough to be interesting to you two gentlemen? Is five pounds unreasonable? I put it to you; and I leave it to you.

Both the federal the state governments  paint only in broad, distant, brush strokes.  They are incapable of distinguishing between the deserving poor and the undeserving poor.  If charity was a bit closer to home, there might be a better process for winnowing out those who truly want work and those who, like me, are enjoying a recession breather.

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Heritage for America explains that there is a legislative procedure for repealing ObamaCare — but we need 218 House votes to make it happen.  That means that Americans have to rally at the polls this November.  It’s not going to happen in Marin County, but maybe you can make it happen in your Congressional District.

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