Posts

Showing posts from June, 2013
I was again thinking about the phrase I've heard so many times over the years about marriage, about how hard you have to work at it to make it a success, and again wondered what exactly that means, since I don't feel like I have to work all that hard at it. It came to mind one evening as I was scrubbing a sink full of crusty baking pots and pans and it made me wonder if one definition or example of that hard work required is whenever you do something like I was doing just then, or doing anything that you wouldn't normally want to do if you were single - the things you do just for your partner, because he or she wants it that way, when you couldn't care less. For me, that includes a lot of little stuff like making the bed in the morning, keeping the bathroom counter clear, putting away shoes so they aren't all out on the floor near the side door and more than anything, swallowing some of my thoughts when they might lead to an argument because I know the argument j

Unless he only used it to play Fourth of July, Asbury Park (Sandy)

If you were looking for a room to rent, and this ad intrigued you, I seriously think you need to reevaluate where your life has taken you: Hello, I am looking for a lodger in my house. I have had a long and interesting life and have now chosen Brighton as a location for my retirement. Among the many things I have done in my life is to spend three years alone on St. Lawrence Island. These were perhaps the most intense and fascinating years of my life, and I was kept in companionship with a walrus whom I named Gregory. Never have I had such a fulfilling friendship with anyone, human or otherwise, and upon leaving the island I was heartbroken for months. I now find myself in a large house over looking Queens Park and am keen to get a lodger. This is a position I am prepared to offer for free (eg: no rent payable) on the fulfillment of some conditions. I have, over the last few months, been constructing a realistic walrus costume, which should fit most people of average proportions, and
My last political post for the day. This one is about the faux "scandal" involving the IRS, which has the usual right-wing media in a froth. Here's what you won't hear about on any major network since they seem to take most of their talking points from Fox: An analysis of a list of groups approved for tax exempt status, released by the Internal Revenue Service in the wake of its admission to targeting conservative groups for heightened scrutiny, determined that of the groups approved, more than two-thirds were conservative. The analysis, by Martin A. Sullivan of Tax Analysts , examined a list of 176 advocacy organizations that were ultimately approved for tax exempt status by the IRS during the period when the service admits to having targeted certain conservative groups with inappropriate criteria. According to Sullivan's analysis, 122 of the groups were conservative, 48 were liberal or non-conservative and 6 remain of unidentified ideology. The IRS release

Not exciting stuff, but pretty frustrating

And more on Food Stamps, which I first referenced in the article below this one. This time from Paul Krugman: E stimates from the consulting firm Moody’s Analytics suggest that each dollar spent on food stamps in a depressed economy raises G.D.P. by about $1.70 — which means, by the way, that much of the money laid out to help families in need actually comes right back to the government in the form of higher revenue. Wait, we’re not done yet. Food stamps greatly reduce food insecurity among low-income children, which, in turn, greatly enhances their chances of doing well in school and growing up to be successful, productive adults. So food stamps are in a very real sense an investment in the nation’s future — an investment that in the long run almost surely reduces the budget deficit, because tomorrow’s adults will also be tomorrow’s taxpayers. So what do Republicans want to do with this paragon of programs? First, shrink it; then, effectively kill it. The

Have they No Shame, part 2 million

There is generally no bill that moves through Congress other than the annual Defense budget bill that get me as upset as the Farm Bill. Seems like an innocuous sort of thing - Save the Farmers and all that. But this article in the NYT summarizes a little of my frustration with it, which usually has to do with the corporate welfare given to mega-agribusiness monstrosities like Monsanto and Archer-Daniels-Midland. Now the Rs aren't content just to do that, now they want to take food out of the mouths of the working poor at the same time: The current versions of the Farm Bill in the Senate (as usual, not as horrible as the House) and the House (as usual, terrifying) could hardly be more frustrating. The House is proposing $20 billion in cuts to SNAP — equivalent, says Beckmann, to “almost half of all the charitable food assistance that food banks and food charities provide to people in need.” [2] Deficit reduction is the sacred excuse for such cruelty, but the first could be ach