What happened this week?
1. Nothing. The world did not come to an end on August 22, or I didn't notice. Email me if it's the latter so I won't have to go to work.
2. We learned that God chooses our rulers from Katherine Harris running for Senator in Florida. My friend Steve from Ohio responded: "Funny that she would use the word rulers...We are not supposed to have "rulers" in this country!!! We fought a war, our Revolutionary War, because we didn't want to be ruled!!!"
3. The Economic Policy Institute is releasing its State of Working in America on Labor Day, but is previewing parts on its website here. You probably don't need the book to guess that wealth inequality is on the rise. "The richest 1% of wealth holders had 125 times the wealth of the typical household in 1962; by 2004 they had 190 times as much or $14.8 million in wealth for the upper 1% compared to just $82,000 for the household in the middle fifth of wealth." Affordable access to healthcare is also more limited as employers are shifting more of the costs onto employees. The employee share of health insurance premiums increased from 14% in 1992 to 22.1% in 2005. The racial income gap is growing once again. The typical African American family lost over $1,000 income in 2004. Then, there's my personal favorite the ration of CEO pay to the minimum wage. Today's average CEO earns more before lunch in one day than the average minimum wage worker earns all year, with a compensation ratio of 821:1. With both GM and Ford suffering from bad management, you can bet they have decided to blame labor with deep cuts in their workforces. My friend Dan reminded me the other day at lunch that back sometime in the 1970s they changed the name of Personnel to Human Resources and that says it all.
4. The mainstream media can avoid discussing a federal court's ruling against Bush's spying on Americans program by creating a virtual travelogue based on the travels of an admitted child predator under arrest for murder. Thailand to LA. LA to Colorado. Driving in Colorado.
5. As our interest in and support for real science declines, some Americans are actually mad about Pluto's reassignment to a dwarf planet, but few are talking about the many marines who have been called back to active duty in Iraq. Fewer are talking about how bad things still are in New Orleans. If Pluto was found unfit for planetary duty for not being the biggest and brightest thing out there, what should be done with a president and a congress that not only got us into Iraq and couldn't get anyone out of Katrina, but now want to get us into Iran? Can we demote our leaders to a dwarf government?
Friday, August 25, 2006
Weekend Roundup
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6 comments:
At least Bush could be a dwarf President.
Dear Ellen,
Can you do a piece on "all politics are local?" Here's what I mean. Yesterday, I got a call from the DCCC looking for money. I said that I was working hard for Dan Seals and that was my contribution. The phone caller said that the Seals race is a "state" race. I tried to enlighten, but it was a waste of time. All this showed me was/is how out of touch the DCCC is -- and how ineffective.
If that same caller had called and said, "Looks like you have got one helluva race there in Illinois' 10th, how bout a contribution to the DCCC?" I would have opened my wallet. But, alas, the "rulers" just don't get grassroots politics and what it means to us to be engaged. It is no abstraction -- we have a real candidate -- Dan Seals -- who will make real policy changes vs. the incumbant Republican.
Go Seals! Go Illinois 10th!
I'm working for the Seals campaign and I got a call from them yesterday at a different number which I was really surprised. They have been covering my area and I am noticing the yard signs really going up everywhere.
With Congress in recess all month, I've been wondering: just where has Mark Kirk been & what has he been doing? His website doesn't list any "events" he is attending. (It doesn't even have an "events" link. What a surprise.) Isn't this the time he's supposed to spend meeting/listening to his constituents? You'd think he'd be visible everywhere these days -- especially in an election year.
About all that I can see that he has done this whole month is release about 3 meaningless articles (they call "news") a day announcing some silly thing he claims to have done for us. Oh yeah, and he sent out a Tenth District Update...that is, of course, only to certain selected constiuents. (I'm still waiting for mine to arrive.) Guess that's the "hard" work he's been up to.
And our tax dollars are paying him to do this? I want my money back. I want someone in Congress who is truly willing to do the real hard work. And that's Dan Seals.
Three items of note:
1. A conservative article I read today reminded me that corporations always have their customers pay their taxes. When Congress increases corporate taxes, customers pay that much more. You'd think by now Congress would've written it into the legislation that is it illegal for companies to have customers pay their taxes.
Makes sense. Will never happen.
2. I hear the DCCC's calling people in IL-19. I remind everyone to contribute DIRECTLY to the campaign of their choice. Whatever the DCCC rep. on the phone says, it's wrong. They're under the influence of some really bad kool-aid:
-- The DCCC does not give any form of support to the candidates they choose to ignore.
-- Representatives call potential donors and tell them that they are working with the DCCC to identify said races.
-- Representative callers then tell potential donors that some of that money will be coming back to the district to help the candidate.
-- Finally, the representative callers use the candidate's name to get contributions from potential donors with no intention of helping the district candidate at all.
3. Rahm's not a fan of bloggers. To him, bloggers = Al Sharpton. It would be better if he spent his time reminding people that GOP = DIC. That's OK. To me, Rahm = demon spawn from hell.
"The Risk Pool," by Malcolm Gladwell, in the August 28 New Yorker:
http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/060828fa_fact
The article speaks to economic issues raised above and makes a business argument for universal healthcare. In a nutshell, takes a contemporary look at the fallout of GM not going along with UAW leader Walter Reuther's c 1950 proposal that employee healthcare and pensions should be pooled among companies or larger groups, not within single companies.
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