McPoor, Inc.

Calhoun's Can(n)ons for August 5, 2013

How much extra would you be willing to pay for a Big Mac if that extra amount got the person handing you your burger above the Federal poverty level income?

That's the question The Daily Beast asked on their website and they installed a McPoverty Calculator that lets you try out the number of pennies needed to accomplish that feat.  (http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/08/01/the-mcpoverty-calculator.html )

It's a timely question since many of McDonald's and other fast food workers from KFC and Burger King are staging protest strikes in several cities around the country and Congress is being urged to raise the minimum wage, which the Census Bureau sets at $23,000 for a family of four.

Naturally, McDonald's, which made $5 billion in profits this year, cried poor and declared that if their workers got a pay raise, they'd go broke and have to shutter their restaurants and throw people out of work. They even went to far as to partner with Visa on a website with what they must have thought was a helpful line-item budget for their  poverty-wage workers.  Their helpful advice was to get a second job, spend $0 for heating and pay $600 for rent.  All of which gave comedians a field day and caused a good many people to blow their McCoffee through their noses at McDonald's arrogant, clueless Marie Antoinette presumptions. ($600 for rent?  In New York City?  Really?)

Meanwhile, the usual suspects showed up:  Conservative Talking Point Pols declared that these minimum wages are just fine for these kinds of jobs since they're being held by teenagers earning extra money for school. This was followed by Bleeding Heart Liberals pointing out that the average fast-food worker is 29 years-old and many of those have families to feed. Then the discussion degenerated into the usual contemptuous rant about "moochers" who shouldn't have kids they can't support. All followed by  conservatives' favorite false narrative about "job creators, " a narrative that fails to understand that the wealthy CEO of McDonald's isn't the job creator, the minimum-wage worker with a few extra coins in his jeans is the real job creator, since he doesn't park his money in offshore accounts, he spends it on more goods and services, all of which drives our demand and supply economy.              

Also lost in the squabbling is the unmistakable fact that America has tragically shipped its well-paying jobs overseas, leaving it a low-wage service economy and turned itself into Detroit -- A hollowed out shell with the income disparity between the few haves and the many have-nots reaching historic and unsustainable limits. Even rapper Jay Z,  a man who knows something about vast wealth and income disparity, observed on Bill Maher's "Real Time" show, that he didn't want to scare the white folks, well, scare 'em just a little, but the racial and economic disparity in this country will ultimately lead to problems since you can crush people just so far and then you've got real trouble. A sentiment expressed by Voltaire 150 years ago when he aptly observed, "History is filled with the sound of silken slippers going downstairs and wooden shoes coming up." 

While fast food workers are wearing sneakers, not wooden shoes, the destabilizing stairway remains.  As does the Basic Question: What kind of society do We The People want to live in?  Detroit?  Or MiddleVille, USA, where a person working full time takes home a living wage that can support himself and his family. A place where society's wealth returns to the stabilizing middle, where honest workers, not Wall Street Gamblers, have real value and get the breaks. 

So what does it take to begin to create that decent society? That's the question The Daily Beast  asked: How much extra for a Big Mac are you willing to pay to ensure that the person handing you your food has a chance at a better life?  According to their McCalculator, it's twenty cents.

Twenty cents.

All in the Family

Calhoun's Cannons for March 18, 2013

I think Bill Maher and Rachel Maddow may have just solved our gridlocked Congress. On a recent "Real Time," Bill asked the panel why it was that conservative Republicans seem incapable of recognizing the existence of anyone unless they are part of their own family.  The case in point was Republican Senator Rob Portman.  Portman was a sponsor of the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act and for years was a staunchly anti-gay marriage.

Then his 21 year-old son came to him and said, "Uh, Dad, I have something to tell you," and suddenly Portman is declaring that his strongly held "family values" now requires him to support gay marriage so that gay people (like his son) can "have the joy and stability of marriage that [he] had for over 26 years, that I want all of my children to have, including our son." 

At that, Rachel Maddow wryly noted that it was too bad Portman (and other conservatives) didn't have a poor son or one who just lost his job and had no medical insurance. The audience laughed, but there it was; the solution to our gridlocked Congress.

Oh, yes, I know you're probably thinking that Portman's conversion was nothing more than typical hypocrisy or political expediency now that he senses that's he's on the wrong side of history on this issue.  But I suspect it's much more troubling than that.  I suspect Maher's question is closer to the mark: something is lacking in Portman's world view and/or psyche.

For some reason, certain types of people truly are incapable of extrapolating past their own noses or the noses of their immediate family and extending an issue out to include other people. For example, Portman, in discussing this issue, noted that he had gay friends, even while sponsoring DOMA and supporting the anti-gay-marriage Republican platform that called for a constitutional amendment outlawing gay marriage in all states.

So clearly he had to have known that his bill would exclude them from ever experiencing the "joy and stability of marriage," but that gave him no pause.  He was incapable of understanding how granting the "joy and stability" of legal marriage to himself while denying it to his gay friends was a flawed and intellectually dishonest proposition. And so he never asked one of the basic questions: As an American citizen, granted equal protection and rights under law, in what way am I sufficiently different and more deserving than my gay friends so that I can honestly justify my denying them what I reserve for myself? 

The answer, of course, is, he couldn't. And having a gay son only made his political/moral stance even more untenable. But Maher's question remains: Why was Portman unable to ask that broader question while he was writing DOMA?

That basic inability to move beyond the Kingdom of Me and Mine, would certainly account for Congressman Paul Ryan's appallingly draconian New, Unimproved Budget, for example.  Now that's a dream budget if you're a rich white guy living in the realm of ME, but a disaster if you're poor, brown and female, for example.

And so Rachel Maddow rhetorically said, Wouldn't it be wonderful if Republicans also suddenly had a poor son or a jobless son.  Maybe then those problems would be addressed as well. 

Indeed.  Think of what would happen to lawmakers incapable of operating outside the borders of "immediate family" if every conservative legislator suddenly had a daughter who's just lost her job and her health insurance and has just been diagnosed with breast cancer; a son whose disability checks have been cut short, a son-in-law illegally brought to this country as a child who's about to be deported, leaving his pregnant wife and their two kids alone and jobless; a mother whose pension was decimated by the Wall Street banksters who's living on Social Security and Medicare and now her benefits are being Paul Ryanized and she's about to be turned out into the street.

Now imagine a Congress filled with Congressfolk smugly secure in their insular, ideologically pure Kingdoms of Me and Mine, that is breached by family members coming to them to say, "Uh, Dads, Moms, we need to talk."  And suddenly, problems that were originally "out there" are now all in the family.  And being all in the family, they would now be worthy of attention and a "change of heart."

Just what America needs now -- A Portman-ized Congress filled with changes of hearts, gridlock over, problems solved, and the country moving forward once again as a family -- a bigger family, a more varied family, yes, but still . . . a family.     

ColBEAR! ColBEAR!

Calhoun’s Can(n)on for January 20, 2012

The true axis of evil in America is the brilliance of our marketing combined with the stupidity of our people

                                                                        Bill Maher

            Do you suppose Stephen Colbert will save America from itself? As a comedian/satirist playing a blowhard right wing pundit on TV, his latest stunt just might do the trick.

            Months ago, Colbert sat with his attorney on air, discussed the unbridled, unfettered, astounding benefits and hilarious lack of rules or restraints of a political Super PAC and then, right there on air, started his  own.  And the money from his gleeful, in-on-the-joke fans poured in.

            That was part one.  Part two came a few days ago when his “Daily Show” compadre-in-comedy arrived, and with Colbert’s lawyer standing by with the papers all drawn up, he transferred control of his Super PAC to Jon Stewart.  Then he announced that he was thinking about running for President of the United States of South Carolina.

            After which he and Jon solemnly pledged that, of course, they would have NO COORDINATION between themselves as “candidate” and “Super PAC” administrator.  Nossir.  Absolutely no coordination since that would be . . . illegal.   But, if Colbert discussed in great detail all of his campaign strategies on his TV show and Stewart just happened to tune in and took detailed notes and followed through with everything Colbert discussed, well, that wouldn’t constitute “coordination” under the law and would be perfectly legal, wink-nudge, wink-nudge. And in short order, spoofing “political” ads showed up on the South Carolina airwaves in time for the Republican primary election.

            It was a perfectly delicious comic skit, with only one problem.  Everything they were setting up was absolutely real and legal and already at work in the current presidential race.  The Supreme Court has decreed that money is speech so there can be no limits on political money since it’s “speech,” and if it does not specifically mention a particular candidate (wink-nudge) there can be no limit on it.  So, Super PACs, formed by often unknown people and groups funneling unlimited amounts of money to organizations with fake names, no accountability, and with no requirement to report either the amount or source of those donations, are now the real drivers of our political campaigns.  Indeed, the amount of PAC money available to support a candidate is often two or three times the amount that’s in the candidate’s official campaign coffers. 

            It’s an oligarch’s wet dream.  Rich individuals, corporations, unions, various affinity organizations, even foreign governments, are now effectively free to “buy” any candidate they want and win any political race they want.  It’s all in the numbers.

            For example, a well-funded PAC can buy/bid up all the print space and airtime in a specific district to tout their candidate, thereby forcing any opponents to make do with the few ad spaces left in some small local advertorial publications read by nobody. Strategically target Congressional districts and you can effectively pack Congress with your minions.  Get a sufficient number of hand-picked Congresspersons beholden to you for their new, cushy jobs, and you’ll soon get legislation beneficial to your interests. All it takes is money. Which is speech.  Which is free.

            And it’s all perfectly legal.    

            The media savvy and political junkies are hip to what too many ordinary Americans apparently don’t understand:  Control the narrative and you almost always control the outcome.  If that means you falsify the narrative, then that’s what you do, since politics is no longer about educating and informing the voter, or competing with the best vision or policies; it’s about winning by any means necessary. And the voter too often goes along with the deception, even when the outcome will harm him or her in very real ways.

            And that’s where PACs have their real power: Unlimited funds to hire the expertise needed to create those false narratives with no way to hold them to account.  If voters thought the “death panels” lie was bad, they haven’t seen anything yet. Well-financed Big Lies can be half-way on their way to becoming Received Wisdom before Poor Truth can put on his shoes.  It’ll be one multimillion-dollar Swift Boating campaign after another.  It’s a good bet that pollster Frank Luntz, Republican political strategist/False Narrative meister extraordinaire, already has his clients all lined up.  America, The Uninformed, The Badly Informed, The Falsely Informed is now up for sale to the highest bidder.

            Unless a pair of comedians performing a piece of theatrical satire wake up enough voters who will ask: Is this any way to run a country?  And do it before American democracy is put up on the auction block.

Ah, the Irony, the Irony

Dan DeVaul. County Jail. Dan DeVaul. County Jail. Hmmmm, can there be an interesting connection, some six degrees of separation? Well, yes, according to Ron Crawford over at http://www.sewerwatch.blogspot.com./

Media Actually Does Matter

If you haven’t already put them on your “favorite places, do so: http://www.mediamatters.org/. Critical group since media actually does matter so it’s important to have somebody taking a close look.

Parks Actually Matter, Too

While Sacramento legislators stay stupid and locked in their various ideological battles, I’m going to at least vote for Prop 21, which will cost me a small $18 yearly dink when I register my car next year, but that will get desperately needed money to our State Parks for desperately needed repairs. The ballot measure isn’t perfect, but our dysfunctional legislature won’t do anything about this, so I figure $18 a year is a total bargain if it keeps these treasures – our State Parks – up and running and there for all of us and for those who come after us.

Bill Maher’s New Rule

Yet another dreary story in the L.A. Times about a bible thumping preacher who “declared that his church had created a ministry that ‘delivered’ people from homosexuality.” Yeah, you guessed it. He’s accused of molesting young teen male church members.

Hence comedian Bill Maher’s “New Rule.” If a preacher carries on about homosexuals . . . he’s gay.

Actually, that rule should apply to most everyone who gets all worked up over human sexuality in general. Exceptions: protecting children from predators, keeping Republicans away from farm animals since an alarming number of conservative, "family-values" Republican pols seem to reference that activity a lot, especially when talking about slippery slopes, going from Gays in the Military to Sex With A Cow in an eyeblink. And, of course, violence and coercion never get a pass. But other than that, when it comes to what people do in the privacy of their bedrooms, Jeeze, get a grip.

And remember Bill’s New Rule.

Ya Better Not Laugh, Ya Better Not Cry . .

Yes, I know, it’s 114’ and the pavement’s melting and dogs’ tongues are hanging out and we’re all praying for rain. Or a breeze. Just one breeze that doesn’t feel like it’s coming from a convection oven.

However, the holidays are coming and if you have any dog lovers on your list, drop by Paso Pups’ great website at http://www.parks4pups.org/ and scroll down to the bottom and take a look at their new calendar. The photos were taken during “Splash Days” wherein the Parks 4 Pups group reserves the local pool and dog park members, and all others, can reserve a time for their dogs to dive in. The photo on the cover of the 2011 calendar is reason enough to order one. Guaranteed to make you smile every time you look at the calendar. They’re $13.50 and you can get ordering information at the website.

So, dive in!

Come on Out For Some Eats!

SLO-4-PUPs, the group that started the County’s very first off-leash dog park, will be celebrating it’s 9th anniversary, Sunday, Oct 3, at El Chorro Dog Park (off highway 1 across from Cuesta College) with a hot dog BBQ and a dedication for our new entryway. (Full disclosure: I serve on the Board.) The beautiful entry, constructed by R.J. Barrett, was made possible by a donation from Chris Boyle to honor her late Aunt, Lee Boyle. The event will run from 10 – 2, with the dedication ceremony between 11-11:30, BBQ and cake to follow.

Bring your dog and if you don’t have a dog, come anyway.