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Archive: September, 2010
Eugene Robinson can read my mind.
In the punditry business, it's considered bad form to question the essential wisdom of the American people. But at this point, it's impossible to ignore the obvious: The American people are acting like a bunch of spoiled brats.
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The nation demands the impossible: quick, painless solutions to long-term, structural problems. While they're running for office, politicians of both parties encourage this kind of magical thinking. When they get into office, they're forced to try to explain that things aren't quite so simple -- that restructuring our economy, renewing the nation's increasingly rickety infrastructure, reforming an unsustainable system of entitlements, redefining America's position in the world and all the other massive challenges that face the country are going to require years of effort. But the American people don't want to hear any of this. They want somebody to make it all better. Now.
President Obama can point to any number of occasions on which he has told Americans that getting our nation back on track is a long-range project. But his campaign stump speech ended with the exhortation, "Let's go change the world" -- not, "Let's go change the world slowly and incrementally, waiting years before we see the fruits of our labor."
And one thing he really hasn't done is frame the hard work that lies ahead as a national crusade that will require a degree of sacrifice from every one of us. It's obvious, for example, that the solution to our economic woes is not just to reinflate the housing bubble. New foundations have to be laid for a 21st-century economy, starting with weaning the nation off of its dependence on fossil fuels, which means there will have to be an increase in the price of oil. I don't want to pay more to fill my gas tank, but I know that it would be good for the nation if I did.
The richest Americans need to pay higher taxes -- not because they're bad people who deserve to be punished but because they earn a much bigger share of the nation's income, and hold a bigger share of its overall wealth. If they don't pay more, there won't be enough revenue to maintain, much less improve, the kind of infrastructure that fosters economic growth. Think of what the interstate highway system has meant to this country. Now imagine trying to build it today.
i disagree Jeff. american people want solutions, and it's not so much that they want the solutions to be painless (though obviously, the absence of pain is preferable to pain), it's that they don't want the solution to entail ordinary people being fucked up the ass until they're bleeding to death (figuratively speakig of course). so far, what the american people have seen is banks getting bailed out under two presidents, with rates near 0%, while ordinary people have to pay exorbitant rates. we saw a bill called "the patient protection and affordability act" pass (and I might add, without the public option a majority supported, because the pres had made a secret deal with the pharma and insurance industries that there wouldn't be) that mandates that we all have to purchase insurance or face a substantial IRS penalty. today we woke up to learn our rates are going up about 14%. have you checked out the insurance exchange calculators? I don't know about you, but even with a subsidy, i can't afford to participate. And you know, it probably would have been easier to just expand medicaid to everyone, like Alan Grayson's been pushing, but that wouldn't have provided blue cross and well point with captive consumers. it's been like this with everything: health care reform became health insurance reform. The president has not led on DADT, when he could issue a stop-loss order. The administration's role in marriage equality is disgraceful and well-known. he has not led on immigration (although he gets credit for the suit against arizona and against Arpaio the racist dick). "yes we can" has very quickly morphed into "well, except for that. and except for that. and except for that." and then of course there is that pesky 10% unemployment number, which the adminsitration said in january 2009 would be below 7% at this time, without stimulus. OOOPS. And we both know that if the official rate is 10%, it's probably closer to 15%, maybe more than that. And let's not forget the deficit commission stacked with people who want to cut social security based on duplicitous reasoning. americans, I submit, are not spoiled brats (tea party nutbags excluded). what they are is sick: sick of being told that the bowl of shit they have been presented is actually the beef stew they ordered.
[...] MUST READ. Spoiled brats and elections.Philadelphia Citypaper (blog)… or face a substantial IRS penalty. today we woke up to learn our rates are going up about 14%. have you checked out the insurance exchange calculators? …and more » [...]
That "bowl of shit they have been presented" includes the federal government forcing law abiding citizens to incentivize and subsidize illegal behavior. A Pew Research Center report recently came up with startling results..."The report, based on Pew's analysis of the Census Bureau's March 2009 Current Population Survey, also found that the lion's share, or 79%, of the 5.1 million children of illegal immigrants residing in the U.S. in 2009 were born in the country and are therefore citizens." Taken one step further, 79% of 5.1 million is 4 million babies born here in the US to illegals in 2009. 4 million times $10,000 (average hospital cost per birth) is $40 BILLION, just for births, per year, paid for mostly by Medicaid (YOU AND ME). Factor in all the other annual "free" emergency room health care visits per year and it can easily be $100-$150 BILLION PER YEAR, over ten years equals $1-1.5 TRILLION, or the ENTIRE current federal budget deficit. The "bowl of shit they have been presented" is a socialistic redistributionist class envy attack the producers bowl of shit that says tax increases and government debt are harmless because people haven't been paying their fair share anyway; it includes an assumption that people that have worked hard and played by the rules to acquire wealth are actually evil tax dodgers and they are the ones that must pay for other people's bad decision making. The bowl of shit says bankruptcy is hurtful, the American people must pay for other people's mistakes. The bowl of shit says you can produce all the children you possibly can because it is the government that should pay to support them. The "bowl of shit they have been presented" includes a mentality that says you are an intolerant racist bigot if you want people to enter our country legally, and if you believe that if one is an illegal immigrant to America their simple act of having a child on U.S. soil should not grant automatic citizenship to that child, nor should the birth be paid for by the U.S. taxpayer. I submit, this Tea Party Nutbag is not a spoiled brat. I am not dependent on government, nor do I make every decision based on how much government money I think I am entitled to. I believe in a government safety net, I believe in government as referee. I am sick - sick of slimy redistributionist spin city government...sick of this bowl of shit we have been presented.
If you have ever had food poisoning, you know that your body essentially wrings itself out until it gets back to normal. The American people were fed what they told was a fresh wonderful bowl of "yes we can" "TARP" "Stimulus" "subprime loan" and "we have to pass it to find out what's in it" salad. The salad looked pretty good, and tasted good too. But as it started being digested, the severe indigestion & food poisoning started ---- and hasn't even come close to finishing yet. A Republican/Tea Party revolution will be a nice dose of Pepto-Bismol, but that will only be the first part of lengthy prescription to nurse this country back to health.
Here is a great cartoon --- says it all! http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/PhotoPopup.aspx?id=546001
Republican/Tea Party Pepto Bismol? Sounds like part of the problem - it's not the party that's the problem, it's how quickly they walk away from the table and run to the press about how rigid the other party member is. Partisan politics and intolerance is the main "virus". A lengthy prescription has nothing to do with political parties, and everything to do with actually hammering out compromise. The bitching and finger pointing only adds to the problem and wastes time. If we spent half as much time finding solutions as we do bickering, something might actually get done. Everyone has to give a bit, and both parties are guilty for continuing to walk away when it's not 100% to their liking.
(Editor's note: We get lots of e-mail. Some of it is about stuff we've written, which is cool. Some of it is general bitching about the city, which is fine, too. But then there's the rest: chain e-mails, press releases, solicitations, ruminations on Obama's secret socialist plans, letters imploring us to find Jesus, etc. Good stuff all, but sometimes it's hard to find a place for it in the paper, what with the diminishing page counts and all. And that's a goddamn shame. So, without further ado, allow us to present the first-ever Clog addition Non Sequitur, letters to the editor about whatever. This letter, presented exactly as it hit our inbox, comes from Randy R., a hero and a gentleman from Washington Square. Enjoy!)
Green light at the corner of 7th and Market. Morning rush hour. A delivery truck is in front of my car. But it can't make the right turn onto Market Street because a horde of pedestrians is passing through the crosswalk. As usual, they're taking their sweet time, as if this is a lazy morning stroll in the park. They keep coming, like a disinterested herd of bison, with no regard for the line of traffic waiting on them. The light is now yellow. The truck can't move, which means I can't move—nor can the ever-increasing trail of cars behind me. I'm watching the faces of every one of these pedestrians. Not one offers even a cursory glance at the mounting vehicular logjam to which they're contributing. The light goes red. The truck bolts around the corner. I'm still on 7th Street. One green light—one vehicle through. In my frustration, I honk my horn—not at the truck driver, but at the oblivious mass that—along with Philadelphia's perpetual constructi on and its medieval prohibition on right-on-red—helps create the city's daily congestion.
A police officer sipping his coffee at the corner as he watches the entire sequence walks around to the driver's side of my car. Signaling me to lower the window, he then chews me out in a tone just shy of a yell. I tell him that I was honking at the pedestrians exhibiting not the slightest ounce of urgency in crossing the street and holding up an entire line of traffic. âPedestrians have the right of way!â he snaps. Sure they do. But we motorists also have to get to work—and it would be the decent thing to do, as well as beneficial to the city's ubiquitous traffic problem, if pedestrians would hustle as half a dozen or more automobiles sit paralyzed in their path. The police officer continues angrily that I'm guilty of âunauthorized use of a car horn.â Apart from the rather sizeable gray area concerning how, from whom, and, most critically, how long it takes a driver to obtain authorization to honk the car horn in relation to its timely use, I muse to myself that this entire problem could be eradicated if, instead of reprimanding motorists at the mercy of pedestrian sloth, the officer could suggest to the street-crossers that they make an effort not to render intersection turns nigh unto impossible.
I walked many a mile as a full-time pedestrian in Philadelphia, so I've seen life in the slow lane from both sides. And when I was hoofing it to work, or any destination on the far side of an intersection, I generally operated under the imperative that insouciance and asphalt don't mix—but that apparently made me an anomaly: a 2005 study from Portland State University reported that the average walking speed for pedestrians under sixty years of age—the vast majority of people on whom I was waiting at the green light—was 4.85 ft/sec, which means that they should traverse the 64-foot-wide Market Street in approximately 13.2 seconds. I twice timed myself crossing the same street and found that, using my considerate they're-waiting-on-me stride, I made it from curb to curb in 11 seconds. Now, an improvement of 2.2 seconds doesn't seem like a lot, but when extrapolated across every pedestrian who leaves the each side of the street at a different point in time at each intersection, and then repeated at each succeeding intersection encountered, the data clearly indicate that the average pedestrian doesn't give a rat's ass about clogging traffic.
Which is why I suggest that pedestrians should have 11 seconds to cross Market Street before they're fair game. (Narrower streets would require accordingly less time.) Many of we city dwellers have twenty- or thirty-mile drives to the office, and these lethargic slugs make an all-consuming ordeal out of merely getting to the expressways. Let's see if they can put a little courteous oomph in their step when a three-thousand-pound vehicle that's already waited the majority of a green-red cycle is bearing down on them like a Brunswick on a baby split in the tenth frame. That seems just and equitable to me.
We could examine the psychology behind why most pedestrians show apathy in the face of idling traffic: Is it pure indolence? A sense of entitlement to the green light? The culture of insensitivity that has obliterated the Golden Rule? But I never really cared why the chicken crossed the road—as long as he did it quickly and got the hell out of my way.
I wasted too much time reading this in its entirety. Captain Rush-rush here could have been more courteous and saved my time by being more concise. I can boil your point down to one sentence: People walking make me mad and I want to run them over because there a lot of them and they are slower than my car. You're welcome.
"A sense of entitlement to the green light?" Philadelphia has its share citizens feeling entitlements but none are greater than those driving the motor vehicles through a highly residential city.
Wow. Just Wow. My main question is: why is he living in the city if he has a 30 mile commute? I feel for you, the editors, who have to read this garbage day after day (and you probably can't really comment back to these crazy people).
Market Street is 4 lanes wide and the crosswalk is heavily used at that intersection because pedestrians are coming and going from the Federal complex. The cop was right as pedestrians do have the right of way, most especially while in a crosswalk on a green light. Pick a different northbound street and stop your bitching.
As a pedestrian myself, I agree. If you're not an entitled twit, no, you don't jam up an intersection sauntering through a green light. It's obnoxious. Try stopping on the curb to let cars go by and get roared at by some psycho whose folks did a crap job on that whole every-toy-in-kindergarten-ain't-yours principle. If you can't make it across Market in 12 seconds and you're not on a Rascal, using a walker or crutches, or toting a baby in a basket on your head, then count yourself among the ever-growing numbers of the inconsiderate. It's hard to misinterpret your message.
This is a very interesting post. Great work!!
I completely agree. Pedestrians can suck it!
Good letter. Funny how some people don't have a sense of humor.
I'm still wasting time on this letter. First, you assume all pedestrians start crossing the street neatly the moment the light turns green and the reason for the congestion is lollygagging. Wrong. As someone who has run to catch a light, I can tell you that many pedestrians make it across the street in under 5 seconds, but they may not start until the 7th second of the green. They're not lollygagging, but they are part of the stream of pedestrians in your way. Second, you live in the city and you haven't learned to avoid Market Street, yet? Turning onto Market is an exercise in futility and frustration. You're better off finding another route out of the city.
What could possibly go wrong, volume 347?
The difference here is that there is no ecological disaster that we know of...yet. Accidents happen all the time in public transportation & mass transit, which the Obama administration is so eager to force on the American public. Again, there is no known ecological disaster with this drilling platform. Maybe in 60 days after hundreds of millions of gallons of crude have been spilled into the gulf and oil is coating coastal wetlands, Obama will let us know of the disaster that has occurred, just like with the Deepwater Horizon. Then he will tell coastal states they can't protect their shores with emergency berms, and do nothing except say the driller is responsible. Because hey, he is such a great leader!
"Sept. 3 (Bloomberg) -- Petroleo Brasileiro SA, Latin America's largest company by market value, plans to raise as much as 129 billion reais ($75 billion) in the world's largest share sale as it seeks cash to develop offshore oil fields. The shares rose 4.4 percent for the biggest gain since May." http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-09-03/petrobras-plans-to-raise-75-billion-in-biggest-sale.html The point is America can stop drilling tomorrow but everyone else in the world is full speed ahead. In this case, Petrobras wants $75 BILLION to develop offshore oil fields. Therefore, why should America stop drilling offshore?
Remember that row we caused a few weeks ago with our story on the city hitting up small-time bloggers for a $300 (or $50 a year) business privilege tax? Sure you do. Damn thing went viral, and in the process was blown all out of proportion by right-wing antigovernment types. The city was none too pleased with the aftermath (and, to be fair, we conceded a few points, and edited the online version of the story to clarify some of the things that got embellished in the hoopla).
Anyhoo. The city would now like to make nice with you, bloggers.
Are you a blogger in Philadelphia?The city wants to have a drink with you.
Officials from the Office of Arts, Culture, and the Creative Economy (sounds nice so far) and the (here it comes) Department of Revenue are cohosting a "Bloggergate Happy Hour" next Wednesday in Old City for, as they put it, "bloggers, entrepreneurs, freelancers, artists, and creatives."
The city hopes to answer any questions about the business-privilege license and tax that have riled Philadelphia bloggers, especially the vast majority making very little or no money from their endeavors.
An unhappy Linda Vertlieb, 28, plans to be there. She started FrugalPhillyMom.com in March and has made a whopping $80 so far from ads on her site. She was disheartened to find out she needed to pay for the license - $300 onetime or $50 a year - and pay the tax.
The city says that any for-profit entity must get a business-privilege license, and the city enforces this requirement on all sorts of ventures. The city is not singling out bloggers, officials said.
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City officials hope to make the issue of paying taxes a little easier to swallow with the happy hour, which is scheduled from 5 to 7 p.m. on Sept. 8 at National Mechanics, 22 S. Third St. For more information, call 215-686-4478 or e-mail oacceinfo@phila.gov.
For those curious, the city will not be picking up the bar tab.
Well, hot damn. That's a block away from our office. Guess we'll have to go.
http://captionsearch.com/pix/thumb/wsz0tgm4st-t.jpg
+1
And if their answers suck, can we beat them to death in the bathroom, and shit down their throats like mummies' under-tongue-tucked Coins for Charon?
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Asian students and activists held a press conference in Chinatown today to discuss their reaction to the reported findings by the U.S. Department of Justice that their claims of systemic racial injustice at South Philadelphia High School had merit.
They also used the opportunity to talk about aspirations and concerns for the coming year at SPHS, after last year's episodes of racial violence directed mainly at Asian immigrant students, who make up about 17% of the school.
"What we don't want to see is a lot of broad proclamations," said Helen Gym, a board member of Asian Americans United and (among other things) a member of South Philadelphai High School Asian Student Advocates (SASA).
In particular, Gym mentioned Schools Superintendent Arlene Ackerman's recent announcement of a "zero tolerance" policy toward violence at SPHS.
Such a policy, Gym argues â "Simply to expel [students] if they break the rules," doesn't make up for what the group really wants: ongoing dialogue between District and school officials and community members (Ackerman initially refused to meet with students or their advocates following last December's attacks, and former principal LeGretta Brown failed to appear at meetings before the incident to discuss racial violence).
And one wonders: is a "zero tolerance" policy really the best tool for a District that handled the last outbreak of violence by punishing a student who was himself the victim of an attack?
Meanwhile, SASA is helping make sure incoming freshmen students feel supported: students Wei Chen, Bach Tong, and Duong-Nghe Ly (right to left above) said today that the group is holding self-styled orientations for incoming Asian immigrant students.
[...] a new year WHYY U.S.: S. Philly High didn’t protect Asian students from harassment Daily News Asian students, advocates getting ready for another year at S. Philly High The Clog District to work on fixing inaction Philadelphia Tribune The School District Needs the [...]
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