Hurricane Radio

We Bought a Mall

2012-01-26T18:57:00.003-06:00

Well, Pat's been busy so your old pal Dante is back. I really haven't had much to write or comment on lately. I know campaign season is supposed to be a big deal but it just looks like a lot of the usual posturing to me. I've turned my attention to something that interests me far more:

Sure zoos are cool and everything, but how about your very own piece of retail history? That's what you can get at the George Allen Courts Building on Feb 7 at 10 am. They're have a good old-fashioned cash money auction on the courthouse steps to auction of the not-quite-dead Valley View Mall in Dallas, TX. The same thing was supposed to happen to Six Flags Mall in Arlington, TX last month but a the last second, the seller pulled out. I find this to be a fascinating phenomenon. In two decades, the enclosed shopping mall went from being one of the hottest pieces of commercial real estate to something that you can't get rid of.

This happens elsewhere, too. In the early 1980's people were just dumping their homes in the Lakewood and M-Streets areas of Dallas to move to new neighborhoods in Mesquite. Nowadays, you can't give away a house in Mesquite while home values in Lakewood and the M-Streets are going for 5x - 10x what they were in the 1980's. On the other hand, someone who bought out in the middle of nowhere in the 1980's and moved to Southlake or Westlake can sell their house for a kings ransom today just to watch the new owner knock it down and build a McMansion there. It'll be interesting to see who the winners and losers are 30 years from now.

I think one important factor in Valley View's decline is that it had competition just blocks away. The Galleria is practically next door. This happened in three places I'm aware of in the Metroplex: here, Six Flags Mall/Forum 303, and North East Mall/North Hills Mall. They each worked symbiotically off of each other for a long time. One was the upscale mall. One was the mall for less affluent shoppers. I guess over time, there just wasn't enough business to go around. Forum and North Hills have both been demolished. Valley View likely will be soon.

Just to throw out some Valley View memories, I bought my first GI Joe toy at the Sears there. (It was Cobra Commander for those of you playing along at home.) I also got lost at that mall once. There used to be an indoor play area there. My mom was watching me and lost track of me. I couldn't find her but headed to the bookstore knowing my dad would likely be there. He was.

So if you have some extra cash and are in the Dallas area on Feb 7, you ought to stop by the courthouse. Do it for the fun. Do it for the excitement. Do it for what is probably the last fully in-tact Sanger-Harris tile mosaic (seen in the main pic of the linked article).

Happy New Year!

2012-01-01T18:25:00.003-06:00

Despite his continued crusade against bicycle transportation, Jeffrey has one of the best 2011 round ups I've seen on the internet.

It includes this:

2011: The year NOPD decided it was okay to pepper spray a Mardi Gras parade but later on became pretty much the only police force to not pepper spray any Occupy protesters.

In The Streets

2011-12-29T11:13:00.003-06:00

In a stunning move of progress-prone action, the City of New Orleans recently decided that it would attempt to design streets before it builds them, at least from now on. What is even more shocking is the idea that such designs might take the needs of pedestrians, bicyclists, and disabled persons into account.

If you've ever tried to get from point A to point B in New Orleans, you know why this is so important. The impact also goes far beyond the transportation alternatives for the folks who break out their bikes to ride to Mardi Gras parades or Jazz Fest. New designs can have an immediate impact with regard to demographics and economics. From The Lens:

Despite a media focus on young, white and preternaturally hip pedalers, the data show that the majority of the city’s cyclists are men of color who don’t have cars and rely on bikes to get around. And the injury rate tracks that: Of the injuries reported between 1996 and 2001, 44 were sustained by black males under 18, but only two in the same age group were white males

While it is troubling that policy makers remain far more responsive to the needs of the "young, white" constituents, the end result is policy that helps many people for many reasons. And let us not forget that this kind of policy is something the city should have been doing already. Urban infrastructure is something that property owners and renters already pay taxes for.

Of course, not everyone is pleased with this development. This is New Orleans, after all, and apparently le bon ton roule is culturally incompatible with competent infrastructure (at least to hear some people tell it).

Some individuals seem to equate this type of ~~stuff city governments are actually supposed to provide for their citizens~~ unprecedented civic planning initiatives as the result of external agitators coming into New Orleans and telling people what to do. Pedestrian, bicycle, and disabled transportation access is apparently considered "restrictive" in some circles.

Even if the concern is founded in the idea that the existence of bicycle infrastructure will lead to the enforcement of bicycle traffic rules, I find that concern unfounded. In the first case, bicycles already have traffic rules to follow, they just aren't enforced. As I've noted many times, selective enforcement of laws and ordinances is a problem everywhere it happens, and this will be no different. The proper remedy is not to deny fellow citizens access to infrastructure, but to engage the political system to ease the ordinances as written. Related to that, I know many bicyclists who break these traffic regulations with regularity simply because there exists no safe, legal alternative. Providing safe, legal alternatives - things city governments should be doing anyway - and you may actually see enforcement issues reduced.

Additional concerns have been raised raised regarding the idea that planning will slow the process of fixing New Orleans streets. Maybe this is true - effective planning and implementation of infrastructure upgrades may take additional time and cost additional money. But I posit that the reason New Orleans' roads are in their current state of entropic decay is that past "upgrades" and "repairs" were poorly planned if planned at all.

Driving around New Orleans, you can see many places where the city simply threw three inches of asphalt down over previously existing streetcar and railroad tracks, cobblestones, the South Louisiana mud, or any combination thereof. Most of the time, this layer of asphalt never took drainage into account. Add that to the unique (and unenforced) city concept that the property owner has to maintain the sidewalk in front of their property. Oh, and give the responsible city agencies a tiny budget to keep up with all this. Put that all together, and what do you think happens? A city whose infrastructure and design plan doesn't go further than buying asphalt, laying it down, and calling it a "street."

Maybe if the city continues that type of behavior, again and again, we'll get a different result. But I'm thinking it won't. So you can consider me pleased that the city government is actually taking some sort of design models into account for future planning purposes.

.

People Camping in Parks

2011-11-30T07:29:00.002-06:00

According to the reality-denial right wing, the Occupy folks are the ones who shut down the Supercommittee.

Yes, the same Occupy folks who are getting the crap kicked out of them by local law enforcement are somehow able to leverage a secret deficit committee in the US Capitol.

I guess you can just add this to the massive credibility deficit being run up by the American right. At least we can give them credit for consistency - it takes some real dedication to go this far down the rabbit hole.

But this represents the run of the mill right-wing defense of their bankrupt ideology: find an "enemy," prove that it has halted some progress, and blame it on the left. That's the right's only political idea anymore. I mean, watch how it works:

Huge majorities of Americans are coming to the realization that the entire US economic system is anything but a "free-market" and more resembles feudalism where the already wealthy get to take advantage of tax breaks, subsidies, and loopholes to pay far less than their share of taxes while the middle class gets stuck with the bill. Not only that, but these same "job creators" take that meme to all levels of government are are able to score even more subsidies or government contracts, further enriching themselves. Now that large numbers of Americans are figuring this out, they want to end that system, and work towards a system that includes more tax justice.

Folks like Norquist and his cronies on the right don't want that to happen, and have proven that with the economically crippling Bush tax rates, the behavior of sponsored GOP allies in the states, and their engagement in class warfare over any conversation involving increasing taxes. Now that they realize most Americans would sacrifice the top marginal tax rates before government services like schools and roads, they've got to come up with some boogeymen to confuse the issue.

(And let's not get crazy, we're simply talking about a return to Clinton era tax rates. Last time I checked, the wealthy did pretty well for themselves back in the 90's.)

That's how we get to the part about Occupy Wall Street having some sort of influence on the right-wing led failure of the Supercommittee. It simply doesn't matter how ridiculous that idea is on its face.

.

Downtown Wal-Mart

2011-11-17T20:05:00.003-06:00

Athens, Georgia has literally spent hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of dollars over the decades making material improvements to and marketing its Downtown. This has been maybe the one consensus item in Athens decision making. Hell, they spent hundreds of thousands building a Greenway along the banks of the Oconee River through Downtown.

Now, the new mayor has thrown away any idea to positively develop those investments, and repeated denials earlier in the year, there are now plans to build a giant WalMart in Downtown Athens. It would back up to the river and greenway, and heaven knows what it will do to traffic on Hwy 78 (which was a constant state of gridlock when I was in undergrad 10 stinking years ago).

I know the space they're talking about. I used to play music right across the street. I know that land is currently underutilized, and could use some redevelopment.

But the kind of development needed there needs to match the scale of the university and the Downtown, as close as it is. This is an area where high-density and dynamic economy is needed, not another outlet to sell cheap plastic crap from China.

If you feel the same way I do, be sure to go and sign the petition. Even if, like me, you don't live there any more.

After all...

.

What Democracy Looks Like

2011-11-17T12:10:00.000-06:00

OccupyStuff gets a taste of what "democracy" looks like beyond the protesting, shouting, and chanting. Guess what they found out?

Democracy is hard. It requires endless meetings and taking minutes and sitting through speeches from people who don't just disagree with you, but disagree with the fundamental concept about which you are having a conversation. It requires building consensus among competing and diverse interests. Much of the time, nothing of substance gets done, and you just have to make a call about how best to maintain or replicate the seemingly useless process itself so you can do it all over again.

That's the whole "problem" with "democracy." Or even the representative republic in which we live. This type of thing is a feature, not a bug, and there really isn't an easier way to go about it.

What I do find interesting is that, in their rejection of participation in the already established structures of governing - school boards, city councils, city council subcommittees, state representative elections, etc. - the OccupyStuff crew has effectively established its own subcommittees in which you get all the frustration of participation in democracy with none of the direct affect on policy that participation in "the system" would provide.

Well, at least they got on TV.

.

Not-For-Profit Power Companies

2011-11-16T13:52:00.002-06:00

Wouldn't that be amazing? We could also go one step further and make them member-owned corporations. That would really revolutionize the game, wouldn't it?

Think this is some pie-in-the-sky idea? Well, Georgia, that reddest of red states, already has 42 of them, and has had many of them since the Great Depression. Hell, the lowest power bills I've ever paid in my life were to Walton EMC when I was living in Oconee County. Some newer ones have even made a committment to clean energy.

You don't even have to go all the way to Georgia to find a model for replication. There are some right here in Louisiana, too.

This is just more evidence that, if you despise the greedy, evil corporations and banks and industries, there are always options available to you in a functioning free enterprise economy.

.

Ideas vs Tents

2011-11-16T07:34:00.002-06:00

Hell, even the demonstrators themselves were having problems with maintaining a tent city.

"It's not about the park, it never was," he added. "It's Occupy Wall Street, it was never 'Sleep at Wall Street.' The message got confused in the camping, the expansion."

That makes a lot of sense. The OccupyStuff had a powerful, consensus building narrative it was working from with massive demonstrations against Wall Street and the financial industry. The 99% campaign, while oversimplified, put a face on the problems with the unsustainable American economy; a face that too many in the media and the political castes have labeled "the moocher class." Those factors combined to change the entire national conversation for the first time since I've been alive.

And then it became about people camping in parks, as if that was ever going to affect positive political change for any reason. All that did was open the conversation to stories about human pathology that comes from close quarters.

I guess we'll see if they can turn the corner.

.

Your Aristocracy At Work

2011-11-15T11:27:00.003-06:00

A new report from Republican Senator Coburn indicates that American taxpayers subsidized American millionaires to the tune of $30 billion.

Subsidizing the wealthy. Picking winners and losers. Oligarchy instead of free markets. Class warfare from the top down.

Now where have we heard that before?

.

Admissions Policies

2011-11-15T08:31:00.005-06:00

It is about time some folks started turning the "affirmative action" debate on its head and pointing out that the real advantages in college admissions are reserved for folks born to alumni.

The alumni - in a country where many non-whites were not allowed to attend colleges until the 50's or 60's, where the public education system has never been truly integrated on terms of educational quality and justice for minorities, and where financial mechanisms of aid were siphoned away from minority candidates - who are overwhelmingly white.

But we've been told for years that we have to remove race consideration from the admissions process because it might give some unfair advantage to someone based merely on their circumstances of birth.

.

Collapse

2011-11-14T17:41:00.000-06:00

It sure didn't take long for the OccupyStuff movement to start crumbling at the foundations, did it?

I guess that's what happens when your primary goal for affecting global change is "camp in a park." It doesn't help when your secondary goals all include ideas that you simply do not have the political clout or influence to affect.

Time for a changeup, folks. Time to build a more sustainable model of affecting political change. These short bursts of "revolution" every five or six years only serve to distract.

.

The Torture & War Party

2011-11-14T11:41:00.003-06:00

It looks like most of the Republican candidates for President, including frontrunning talk radio personality Herman Cain, would support both more torture and more war as the building blocks for their foreign policy.

There are, of course, two notable exceptions.

Of course, neither of those exceptions has enough support right now to sniff one primary win.

.

Tea Party Tactics

2011-11-10T17:03:00.000-06:00

It looks like OccupyMichelleBachmann'sCampaignEvents has taken a few pages from the Tea Party's 2009 playbook.

The stunned look on Bachmann's face tells me all I need to know about how that shoe fits on the other foot.

.

War on Christmas Comes Early

2011-11-09T16:55:00.000-06:00

Like most obnoxious marketing and advertising campaigns, the right wing patented WAR ON CHRISTMAS(tm) rollout doesn't wait until after Thanksgiving, either.

.

So Much for the Occupation

2011-11-08T17:20:00.000-06:00

And just like so many before it, the OccupyStuff campaign starts to fizzle out, fray around the edges, and fall prey to the same pathologies that have taken down every similar populist movement in my lifetime.

There will still be witty signs and poigniant Facebook status updates, but those who prefer tantrums and spectacle to lasting change will now begin to steal the show, and wreck this next failed iteration of "the revolution" as they have wrecked all the others.

Which means Occupy is about to have another similarity to the Tea Party: very low approval ratings from the population at large while they start squabbling amongst each other and throwing their tantrums in front of the cameras.

At least they were able to change the conversation for a minute. People will remember that, even after this week's round of scandals have been moved off the rotation in the media. Maybe someone will be inspired to start figuring out what they can do, beyond sitting in a park, to change things. Until then, this is the same old story - all Wall Street ever has to do is wait, because this kind of thing just isn't sustainable.

.

Derailed?

2011-11-07T12:44:00.003-06:00

Costs for the high-speed rail corridor in Califorina are swelling well beyond what people want to invest. Of course, anti-progress Republicans and right wingers were ready to pounce, expressing a willingness to stop investing in American infrastructure before we really begin.

I'm not going to lie, the cost of the California project are high enough to derail the idea of rail infrastructure nationwide. The folks in charge of that project need a swift kick in the ass to get things under control. Because this kind of thing is important and needs to be done right.

Some other thoughts:

1. I wonder how many private contractors with political connections are involved in this projects runaway costs. Again, the private-public partnership is corrupted at taxpayer's expense.

2. It is a double expense as well, because such partnerships are what allow this country to do big things. If there is no credibility for such big projects, we will never have any big projects again.

3. THIS IS HOW STATE-LEVEL DECISION MAKING AFFECTS NATIONAL POLICY AND POLITICAL NARRATIVE. Occupy Sacramento. The Feds have done just about all they can do to make this happen, and it is dying once it gets to the state level.

4. If placed under the same microscopes of scrutiny, the United States would never have build the Panama Canal, the Tennessee Valley Authority, the Transcontinental Railroad, or made the Louisiana Purchase. End of story.

That's the kind of big project that is at risk here, and we would do well to keep that in mind.

.

If a Policy Succeeds and Nobody Hears About It...

2011-11-04T12:33:00.000-05:00

Andrew Sullivan points out that health care reform is doing what it was supposed to do.

Thing is, this year I got hit with some increases in health care costs. I know quite a few folks who also did. Some of them are blaming health care reform, but as I look at the results of more young people participating in health care, and the health insurance profits skyrocketing, I don't think any of the new laws are to blame for the increases.

Hell, I remember similar increases back in 2004 and 2005.

.

Downhill from Here

2011-11-04T07:37:00.003-05:00

Now that the pathologies that affect any human endeavor are starting to crop up, support is going to start trending downhill for the #Occupy folks. Will "changing the national conversation" take a back seat to "defending the movement?" Or will demonstrators redouble their efforts to mitigate these pathologies and crimes and keep their message positive? Can they respond effectively when policing themselves?

If they can't, the widespread support they now enjoy may evaporate quickly.

Just a few years ago, the Tea Party responded to a similar moment by doubling-down on the crazy: taking the extreme path of xenophobia, cultural and economic panic, religious bigotry, and racism. Though they had enough momentum and structural support to win a lot of elections in 2010, enough of their pathologies ended up on display long enough so people turned away from them. They chose thin skins and a defensive, combative, paranoid posture that highlighted the worst features. What started out as populist empowerment became a support structure for the demagoguery of the Fire-Eaters. That ended up changing the whole narrative the Tea Party was promoting, and effectively ended any larger public appeal it had a chance of making.

The timeframe is different because the tactics are different, and Occupy started off with more disadvantages than the made-for-Fox News Tea Party. But what will the #Occupy folks do, now that pathologies are becoming the story?

.

Here's Something

2011-11-03T18:04:00.001-05:00

You want to #OccupyNOLA? The budget for Orleans Parish Prison is one issue a lot of folks can get behind, and their local involvement can make a needed, positive, and progress-prone change in the short term.

.

There Were No Good Ole Days

2011-11-03T12:38:00.000-05:00

In response to the Occupy folks sticking around for another month, actually changing the national conversation, and looking for more, Beverly Gage at Slate points to the history of American labor to show where such movements have faced violent opposition while bringing progress to the nation.

Not to disparage any of that, but I still say it would be easier for folks to organize and start going after local and state political governance. You can change an awful lot from a school board or a city council meeting, and you may not face the same violent reprisals you'd get on the streets.

.

Of Bonfires and Remedies

2011-11-03T07:19:00.004-05:00

If you only looked at the pictures, you'd think they were rioting in Oakland instead of just waving flags while standing near bonfires. Do I think bonfires are any kind of a good idea? Not at all. Any success the #Occupy folks are going to get come from their dedication to peaceful demonstration. The moment that turns violent, all the national support will evaporate. That's why these groups have to be so careful about provocateurs and agents looking to incite violence in their midst.

Hell, who knows, just the idea of a riot, coupled with already documented police overreaction, may become the self-fulfilling prophecy the news and the right wing have so desperately wanted to see. And if you think the news organizations and the right wing aren't giddily anticipating this #Occupy thing turning violent, you must not live in the same country I do. See, I remember the last two years:

If folks are flipping out this hard over bonfires, can you imagine what the reaction would be if these folks took a page from the Tea Party playbook, and started talking about "second amendment remedies?" Or if they brought signs with targets over the names of people they didn't like? Or if there were organizers encouraging folks to show up at the #Occupy events carrying guns?

So far, none of that has happened. But that defined the Tea Party movement in general. That's something to keep in mind.

.

Priorities

2011-11-02T17:10:00.001-05:00

I sure hope the national security infrastructure is busier looking for homegrown terrorists than they appear, because most of the things I'm seeing show security personnel going after camera holders, peaceful protesters, "unlawful assemblies," and homeless people.

.

Rearranging Deck Chairs

2011-11-02T12:37:00.000-05:00

Glad to know that while the nation's people are facing a tremendous personal debt and unemployment crisis, The US House of Representatives is busy with weighty matters of state.

I guess the culture war, defining President Obama as "the other," and attempting to portray Democratic members of Congress as "anti-God" are simply the most important things to Republicans than the actual crises our nation faces.

What's the over/under that we'll see another round of "War on Christmas" bull start getting shopped around by talk show hosts and right wing book shills after Thanksgiving?

.

No Treats on Bourbon Street

2011-11-01T12:58:00.000-05:00

That's all I saw on the streets last night. There were some older kids and a few adults trying to hustle some candy, too. Next year, I might get a cooler of cold beer treats for the moms and dads.

Unfortunately, the same kind of wholesome fun was not a city-wide event, as 15 people were shot overnight in New Orleans, mostly in the French Quarter. Two were killed. One exchange of gunfire killed one, wounded seven and shut Bourbon Street down for hours.

That's Devil's Night type numbers right there.

Still a lot of work yet to be done.

.

The Con Continues

2011-11-01T07:31:00.003-05:00

This is what Sarah Palin has done to our politics. The Herman Cain "scandal" continues, with Cain gaining support, and the media following the right wing in decrying the "liberals" that just aren't involved. Evidence is starting to suggest to me that this "scandal" is completely manufactured. I'd wager this was either launched on him by the Perry campaign (that has since backfired), or is wholly a construction of the Cain campaign to lock down his support in the final month before the primaries begin.

Why do I think this? Oftentimes a right wing argument is not just free from reality, but it is absolutely diametrically opposed to reality. Take for example the narrative in the Herman Cain "Scandal" that liberals are scared of Herman Cain's ideas, so they attack him personally. Nothing could be further from the truth. Not only would a general election put Cain on the same debate stage as Obama, they would put some of the right wing's most sacred ideas in front of an electorate primed to see them for the garbage that they are.

So who is really frightened of Herman Cain's "ideas?" The right. The Republican Party. Other Republican candidates who have less ideas than he has. Any of those people, but (and here's where the Sarah Palin playbook comes in) maybe the Cain campaign itself is tired of talking about "ideas." Maybe they feel they just have to make something up, cast Cain as the victim of some bull___ "liberal witch hunt" in order to increase his electoral chances. That's probably closer to the truth than a lot of people realize.

Of course, this could have been the plan all along.

And for the record, it is the utter nonsense like this that has finally turned me into the raging partisan you're reading. I'm tired of hearing about a liberal media that does not exist, I'm tired of hearing everything blamed on "liberal" straw men, I'm tired of folks letting the right wing get away with lie after lie after lie repeating it as if it were the truth, I'm exhausted with the bold faced fabrication of false equivalence - that "both sides do this," I'm tired of people ascribing evil intentions towards a President that is actually attempting to do his job, and I'm really, really tired of the lack of seriousness evident in this modern day Republican Party. This is not a political philosophy, it is a marketing strategy with a substandard product.

.

The Con

2011-10-31T07:53:00.003-05:00

So Herman Cain has a little bit of scandal going on after this weekend.

Now, whatever charges are there will be proven or dis-proven on their respective merits, and I generally wouldn't say anything about rumors.

But look at what his campaign spokesman said while refuting the allegations: people who can't beat Cain on ideas are going after his character, and a direct (unsubstantiated) rumor that those people are "liberals."

Maybe that guy is paying attention to a different campaign than I am, but it ain't the "liberals" having trouble with Cain's ideas. By all means, bring the 999 plan to the general election, and the fair tax joke into the national consciousness. Please. It also bears out that if the "liberals" were going after Cain, and had some scandal evidence against him, they'd want him to win the primaries, and would hold off their allegations until after the nomination was made.

No, the folks having the most electoral problem with Cain and his "ideas" are the other Republican candidates for President. First of all, he's rolling out the logical conclusion of the flat tax without the appropriate marketing strategy, and most Americans aren't liking what they see (a massive tax hike on the middle class and a kneecapping of economic demand and purchasing power). Second, he is contending for the Southern states against a powerful three term Texas governor. We all remember what happened when the last Texas governor to become President needed to win Southern primaries against a political opponent whose name ended in "Cain," don't we?

Leave "the liberals" out of this one, fellas. All we're doing is kicking back with the 3D lenses and a tub of popcorn.

.

Politics Are Local

2011-10-28T11:04:00.003-05:00

While there is no question that the #Occupy movement has touched a nerve, and completely flipped the script on the national conversation (HT Levees Not War), it must transform into direct electoral and decision-making participation before it can deliver on the policies it advocates or affect the positive change it claims to desire. Though there are some positive signs that this is in fact happening, plenty of caution must still be applied until it produces demonstrable results.

My examples today come from Georgia, made a de facto one-party state by the abandonment of the national Democratic Party at the same time the GOP focused their efforts on controlling or coopting all local and statewide political machinery. It is there they have created a strong base for right wing ideas, and near total political dominance of culture.

Because of that, the President's approval rate in the Peach State is down around 38%. While this is a better number than it should be for a state as dominated as it is by the GOP, this is down from the 47% of Georgia voters he took to the polls in 2008. The lack of consistent and organized community political involvement on the Democratic side of the ledger has absolutely removed Georgia from a toss-up state to that of a "solid-GOP" state. That is just one way local involvement affects national policy in big ways.

Jay Bookman also points out how the GOP knows the 2012 election will turn on the involvement of their local groups, the Tea Party and right-wing organizations will be vital to elect any Republican to the Presidency. But notice the attention also paid to down-ticket elections. As in: if the GOP nominates someone who doesn't inspire folks on the local levels, it will directly affect control of the United States Senate.

I think about that whenever someone tells me that "the people" can't do anything at a local level to affect national policy.

.

"You Are Paying Their Taxes"

2011-10-27T07:50:00.001-05:00

New Orleans City Councilwoman Stacy Head puts the power of property tax assessments into perspective:

“Fair assessments are key to a democratic and fair society,” she implored. “If you are paying your fair share, if you are assessed properly, and your neighbor’s not, you are paying their taxes.”

I'm wondering how many single home owners' taxes are subsidizing other citizens' large estates or rental home empire? I wonder how many good landlords are paying to keep their properties in commerce while speculators are allowing properties to become blight to avoid a higher assessment? And then there is the consideration that these property taxes directly affect our standard of living.

Potholes? Property taxes. That street that's about to collapse? More property taxes. The city's Sewerage and Water Board infrastructure? Yeah, that too.

#OccupyYourAssessorsOffice. Because you don't need to go to Wall Street to make a change on Main Street.

.

The #OccupyStuff Trailer

2011-10-26T12:01:00.000-05:00

Pretty good from an explanatory standpoint, and actually exciting to watch. Pretty smooth marketing for an organization that "doesn't have a message."

And like I said on facebook, the most important part of this comes at the very end, when #OccupyYourVotingBooth flashes on the screen for a second. But all the history from Elizabeth Warren is pretty good.

I guess they could have given Ron Paul a shout out with the "audit the Fed" stuff, but why muddy the waters of the most effective Democratic Party messaging of the last generation? (Because this is obviously slanted that way.)

Via G-Bitch and Lord David.

.

.

Los Catalanos

2011-10-26T07:32:00.001-05:00

My whole life, I've identified with Generation X. Even when you try to put too fine a point on it, and come up with hard beginning and end dates for that particular group of kids, it never mattered. I guess it has a lot to do with the slightly percieved cultural shifts that defined those born pre and post Reagan.

A "generation" lasts roughly 20 years, right? Something like that. If you restart the clock with the Baby Boom in 1945, at some point you have to account for the 5 extra years to get through to 2000. Generation X could be 1965 - 1980, and that sounds about right to me. Culture really started chainging in big ways after 1980. And pop culture was always a year or two behind in the South, where I grew up. So I'm covered. And even after all those calculations and social investigations, it appears I'm being too broad.

Because someone wants to come up with the folks between X and Y - people like me who were born during the Carter administration - and figure out who we are.

Catalano? Lord help me.

And, hey, when did Generation Y become The Millenials? Damn these kids, always trying to confuse people.

.

The Power of Marketing

2011-10-25T12:17:00.000-05:00

This post by Kevin Drum at Mother Jones reads like a Cracked.com spot or a Mythbusters episode.

Here are some political narratives that you've heard so often you accept them as true, but they aren't, never have been, and never will be. They have to do with the big buzz words:

1. The Stimulus
2. The Deficit
3. Lower Taxes
4. Regulation
5. The Dollar
6. Job Creators

The marketing is so powerful, I don't even need to tell you the rest of the sentence for you to be able to finish it on your own. No wonder that stuff is accepted as conventional wisdom, it has the most "name" recognition.

Its OK, I used to think the same things. But reality came calling.

.

#OccupyCynicism

2011-10-25T07:58:00.000-05:00

Andrew Sullivan warms up to the #OccupyStuff folks, in spite of himself. They have picked the exact right target at the exact right time.

From the late 1940s to the early 1970s, the median American household saw its income double. Since then: a screeching halt, or barely a 5 percent rise in incomes for the less-affluent 90 percent of Americans. But between 1979 and 2007, the top 1 percent saw their incomes soar by 281 percent. Add to that the collapse in home values, and soaring costs for health insurance and college, and it becomes remarkable that we haven’t seen much more unrest.

I have to say, I'm still very cynical about the #OccupyStuff folks. I can't help it, it is just the knee jerk reaction after trying so hard to get people involved for so long. They always had other things to do. There was never any time for the "government stuff." I was actually told one time that "politics were complicated." They walk around shouting "we're not going to take it anymore" and then don't show up to vote.

Hell, I told the same things to Tea Party types, or anyone who complained about politics, really. The conversation often comes to an abrupt halt when I ask, "well, you voiced your opinion about that at the school board, didn't you?" Because the truth is, it is far easier to complain over a beer than it is to affect positive political change in your community. Once you start getting involved, you see that all the crowd-pleasing sound bytes come down to somebody's political connection getting a contract from someone you thought you'd support because they say all the right things in front of the camera.

Now, I'm not the expert on being involved - far from it. I participate where I can when I can, and that really isn't a whole lot. But I show up enough to tell you that there are plenty of folks who would rather protest in the streets than show up at meetings where decisions get made.

And yet, despite the ridiculous drum circles and Che Guevara t-shirts (how cli-CHE), I can't help but wonder if whatever this thing is might actually bring about some positive change. Maybe people will be inspired to take back control of their own government and institutions. Maybe people will figure out that if they like a certain standard of living, then no, they don't have anything better to do.

That would be a big change.

.

Mumme Poll Ballot Week 8

2011-10-24T08:02:00.000-05:00

This year, I'm voting in the Mumme Poll, run by the college football blogs Get the Picture and Third Saturday in Blogtober. It is a cool thing to do if you're a college football fan, because it envisions college football rankings in a very different way.

Instead of a top 25, participants fill out a top 10, with a single vote for the best team. Then you simply tally up how many voters ranked who, and that gives you your rankings (which could be more or less than 25 depending on how many teams get support). This week's poll took me about 5 minutes to fill out, and about half an hour to explain my vote and write this blog post.

I didn't participate in past years because I didn't know if I would remember to do this for the college football season, but now that I'm doing it, I find the whole thing fascinating. Participants have until Tuesday to submit their ballots, and the poll comes out on Wednesday.

Here's my submission for this week:

LSU*
Alabama
Boise State
Stanford
Clemson
Oklahoma State
Michigan State
Oklahoma
Wisconsin
Oregon

These are the teams that I think will finish the year in the top 10 by virtue of undefeated or 1 (maybe 2) loss seasons. I expect these will be the teams that A) win or participate in conference championship games, B) make it to the BCS as at-large selections.

I'm not going to drop OU or Wisconsin out of my top 10 based on the losses yesterday. If anything, the Wisconsin game demonstrated that Michigan State should join the Badgers in the top 10, not replace them. Oklahoma is always good for one head scratching loss a season, and I wouldn't expect them to sleepwalk through the rest of their games after last night.

I know that I am not including several unbeaten or 1 loss teams. But the fact is, I just don't think Kansas State's magic will hold up, or that Houston plays the same level of competition as these top teams. Arkansas and Virginia Tech could still play their way into my top ten, but that remains to be seen.

#OccupyYourLocalSchoolBoard

2011-10-23T12:31:00.000-05:00

You think it is more important to camp in parks with witty signs and try to shame bad faith actors into behaving more appropriately? You think your participation on a local level doesn't matter?

Well, those bad faith actors sure seem to think local elections matter. And they're hard at work while you're away in the park.

I can't imagine how helpful additional positive participation would be to a grassroots campaign for school board. There is change to be made right there at home in everyone's community.

.

All About the Subsidies, Baby

2011-10-22T12:13:00.000-05:00

I love how Republicans, especially those pandering to the right-wing, Tea Party types, get to call President Obama out for being a socialist, communist, Kenyan-anti-colonial free spending agent when it comes to taxpayer money. I really love the overall narrative that spending taxpayer money is bad, and that government spending can't create one private industry job. Not one. I love how partisans will line up behind these two seemingly consistent views, label such policies as anti-job, all the while trying to convince voters that the Democratic elected officials just want to spend other people's money and choose the winners and losers in the free market.

That makes it all the more adorable when those very same Republicans go out and find taxpayer money to support private industry jobs, blaming the Democratic officials for not spending enough taxpayer money to protect private industry jobs.

It would be helpful if people saw all this for what it was.

.

Summing Up the Immigration Issue

2011-10-22T08:36:00.000-05:00

There really isn't a big issue. There is a mountain made out of a molehill because our politics favors bombast and soundbytes over positive action that actually does what it is supposed to. Here's a vision of immigration from the left:

I think the federal government should do its best to stop illegal immigration. It should do it humanely, it should do it efficiently, it should do it without trampling on civil liberties, and it should do it without mistakenly scooping up lots of citizens and legal immigrants in its net and putting them through hell.

Of course, that's the problem with a "debate" that's two main "solutions" as proposed by the nation's leaders are A) spread as much hate and misinformation as possible, because scared people will vote for you and give you money, and B) use the bullshit present in "A" to avoid having to come up with any real policy.

.

Investigation Dance

2011-10-21T16:36:00.000-05:00

Some folks on the UN Human Rights committee want to investigate the manner in which Quaddafi met his demise. I can get that report together off the top of my head.

1. Is it really Quaddafi?
2. The man ran a for-life absolute dictatorship, with no real government institutions, no checks on his personal power, and the nation's laws changed on his personal whims.
3. The popular, armed revolt against him has taken place without real leadership, institutions, and is based mainly on which group of armed people gets where first.
4. If you run your government like 2, then you risk your due process be handled by 3.
5. The armed people who got there first decided to shoot the guy.

End of investigation.

.

How Urban Retail Infill Works

2011-10-21T12:03:00.000-05:00

Costco is moving to New Orleans, and will occupy a currently vacant and blighted parking lot right next to the interstate. Neighborhood groups are receptive.

Though the facility will still focus on automotive traffic, the way the zoning will cascade from major commercial corridor to high-density apartments to neighborhood scale is something worth watching. This is especially true as governments become less able to subsidize suburban and exurban living, and the external costs of commuting long distances between work and home continue to increase.

As more people move back into the cities and urban areas, abandoned retail sites (the dead mall phenomenon - per Dante) will again have value for commerce.

Not only that, but the type of retail is also important. Right now, the only comparable places to shop are outside Orleans Parish, and sales tax dollars go somewhere else. And when you consider the low number of grocery stores in New Orleans, and the high food costs associated, any addition of this nature is welcome. Oh, and new jobs for New Orleans.

(And with a development anchor, maybe we can convince folks to extend the streetcar line down Carrollton, and really work on the pedestrian/bicycle infrastructure around that interchange. Maybe wishful thinking, but we might at least leverage this into a bus route.)

.

Change I Still Believe In

2011-10-21T07:53:00.000-05:00

Andrew Sullivan and a Dish reader look at Obama's record:

If you'd told me in January 2009 that the banks would pay us back the entire bailout and then some, that the auto companies would actually turn around with government help and be a major engine of recovery, that there would be continuous job growth since 2009, however insufficient, after the worst demand collapse since the 1930s, that bin Laden would be dead, Egypt transitioning to democracy, al Qaeda all but decimated as a global threat, and civil rights for gays expanding more rapidly than at any time in history ... well I would be expecting a triumphant re-election campaign.

And that's without mentioning the DADT repeal.

All that considered, the misconceptions with which this President is viewed is one of the greatest ironies of our time. It proves to me that people in this country would rather choose the land of make-believe over reality every day of the week and twice on Sundays.

.

Back of the Bus

2011-10-20T17:17:00.000-05:00

Religious practices are your rights and all, but I thought we dealt with this issue about segregated public busses back in the 60's.

Now, if the bus culturally or socially segregates, that's one thing. Because that's voluntary. Like all religious practice in this country has to be.

But if a rider isn't a part of your religious community, and they're riding a public bus, you can't make rules forcing them to segregate. They ain't a part of your club. The same taxpayers who pay for the bus and protect your right to worship as you see fit in your own way have also made it clear we don't tolerate you telling people what to do when using the stuff in which we all share ownership.

Don't like it? Well, God gave you two feet. Hit the bricks. Or, like Bloomberg said, buy your own bus and pay for it with your own money. And that's on top of the taxes you're still going to pay, by the way, because we've still got to run transit through your neighborhood. Not everyone who travels through your community is a part of your club after all.

And I'm not sorry to tell you that.

.

The Prison-Industrial Complex

2011-10-20T12:41:00.000-05:00

I saw a quote on Facebook today that was so damning, I thought it had to be a fake. It doesn't appear to be.

The demand for our facilities and services could be adversely affected by the relaxation of enforcement efforts, leniency in conviction or parole standards and sentencing practices or through the decriminalization of certain activities that are currently proscribed by our criminal laws. For instance, any changes with respect to drugs and controlled substances or illegal immigration could affect the number of persons arrested, convicted, and sentenced, thereby potentially reducing demand for correctional facilities to house them.

While we've we've known for a while that for-profit correctional facilities were becoming a problem, that problem magnifies when a publicly traded company that can donate unlimited campaign funds to any elected official who legislates or approves government contracts clearly states that their bottom line is affected by legislation and government contracts.

We have a prison problem in America because people who make money off running prisons are writing the damn laws. And they're making millions off of us.

.

Pass The Jobs Bill

2011-10-20T07:41:00.000-05:00

It really is shameful to see how many people are standing in the way of a good idea.

The bill would be a first step towards addressing one of the great ironies of public economic policy in the United States—that at this time when the need for jobs and enterprise tops the national agenda, we not only ignore one of the major sources of new jobs and businesses in the economy, but we actually penalize their creation.

And who is teaming up with the obstructionist GOP to kill this bill? The supposedly "centrist" Democrats.

.

Permanent Rivalry Solutions

2011-10-19T11:59:00.004-05:00

So it looks like the SEC could be adding Missouri any day now. I'll believe it when I see it, but if it does occur, that means one of two things can happen: Mizzou can buck geography and join the SEC East and balance things numerically, or Mizzou can join the SEC West while Auburn moves to the SEC East.

With any 14 team conference, it is fairly obvious that the conference schedule will inlcude 9 games - 6 divisional, 3 interdivisional. The only monkeywrench in the plan are the SEC's permanent rivalries. These are interdivisional rivalry games played every year, and they are (or have become) very important. Each team used to have two of these every year, but that made rotating through the rest of the other division a long term process. I like the one-permanent, two rotating interdivisional game model.

Right now, the biggest of the permanent rivalries are Auburn-Georgia, Alabama-Tennessee, and Florida-LSU. Lost to this format was Auburn-Tennessee and Auburn-Florida. While moving Auburn to the East would reestablish some very big rivalries, what happens to Auburn-Alabama? If the schools rearrange their permanent rivalry game to play the Iron Bowl every year (one of the biggest rivalries in capital-s Sports), Alabama and Tennesse lose the 3rd Saturday in October.

And this is the SEC, so it ain't like we can take that lightly.

There's a way around that, without forcing Mizzou into a geography-bending Eastern division. Auburn should move to the east, and Alabama gets 2 permanent interdivisional rivals. The balance would be that some team from the West has to give up all permanent rivals to make this happen. Who would it be? Probably Mizzou.

Alabama - Auburn, Tennessee
Arkansas - South Carolina
LSU - Florida
Ole Miss/Miss State - Vandy/Kentucky (don't really know which is which)
Missouri - ??
Texas A&M - Georgia

I'm assuming two things: Georgia will likely try to pick up TAMU because playing in Texas every other year may help with recruiting, and I think TAMU would pick UGA for the same reasons. Georgia also has an open permanent rivalry spot if Auburn joins the SEC East, and they end up playing every year anyway. But also, as the most geographically far flung member of the conference, Mizzou will need a crash course in SEC football, and what better way to introduce them to it than to play as many different SEC East teams as possible? It also gives them something unique with membership.

Thoughts?

.

Hunger

2011-10-19T07:17:00.000-05:00

This is a full comment on Owen Courreges' Louisiana Purchase op-ed over at Uptown Messenger. I left an abbreviated comment over there, but I had a lot more to say:

Combating poverty is very difficult, from a policy standpoint.

Thing about it is, SNAP benefits aren't designed to "combat poverty," at least in an immediate sense. They are designed so less Americans go hungry, and if that's the bar that is set, it is a very, very effective program. I remember the mile-long line of people waiting outside the Convention Center to sign up for temporary benefits in 2008, because all the hourly-wage workers couldn't work for a week because of the Gustav evacuation.

Plenty of those folks still had $10 in their pocket, or cigarettes in their purses, or beer in a cooler back at the house. But they needed those benefits because - while you can get cigarettes and beer for $10 - you can't feed a family for a week.

That being said, it is infuriating to see individuals who appear to be gaming the system or taking any advantage of any government program designed so that children, senior citizens, the disabled, and able bodied adults down on their luck can continue to eat. When you see anyone cutting corners, it can be maddening from an emotional standpoint, even if you know the program mostly helps people that desperately need it.

Hell, it doesn't matter if you're in a room watching a program actually helping 99% hungry kids and the elderly right in front of you, your eyes will track the 1% of able-bodied adults cutting in line to go back for seconds or loading up their plates and throwing a lot away. And you'll see red about it, and question what good the program is really doing. You'll question the effectiveness of the program, even if it is obviously working, because a few folks can get away with something.

And, yeah, you want to shame them for it. That's natural. "Hey, buddy, why don't you let Miss Elderly Lady have first crack at those potatoes?" "Why did you just throw half a plate of rice and beans in the trash?" In the same vein, you wonder how many more kids $10 could feed, instead of buying beer and cigarettes.

Thing is, anything we do is going to have corner-cutters and folks taking advantage somewhere along the line. Any organization or program is going to run into pathologies present in human nature. Not that we shouldn't try to stop fraud, but we have to have perspective on where fraud really exists, and how much extra cost we put on the tab to ensure more strict compliance.

In this case, I don't consider someone buying beer or cigarettes with pocket money - while using their SNAP benefits to buy food - to be a major drain on the program, even as I understand how the visuals are terrible if it takes place right in front of you. I understand the gut reaction that rejects such behavior. I've been in a similar place more than once.

Luckily, I have the luxury of being removed from that situation right now, so I can look at things with a greater perspective. Despite that immediate and natural reaction of "how dare they," people have to look past that and think about how many people are actually eating tonight specifically because of a program. How many people wouldn't eat if we ended the program to end the fraud, or put so many obstacles on the program to prevent fraud that it didn't work? Those are the important things to ask.

Perspective is always important. There far are bigger drains on the public dollar than a $10 purchase of cigarettes and beer, and I don't believe in the Welfare Cadillac Queen fairy tale.

.

This Looks Familiar

2011-10-18T17:34:00.000-05:00

Andrew Sullivan explores the "state enabled terrorism" currently taking place in the Middle East. Apparently, government and police agents are colluding with radical fundamentalist elements to commit violence against minority or politically powerless populations and peace activists. They're also appear to be burning places of worship.

Where have I heard about stuff like that before?

.

I'm Not Alone

2011-10-18T12:08:00.001-05:00

For the record, here is about where I am when it comes to the #OccupyStuff folks. Glad to know others out there have a similar view:

In New York, marchers chanted, "This is what democracy looks like," but, actually, this isn't what democracy looks like. This is what freedom of speech looks like. Democracy looks a lot more boring. Democracy requires institutions, elections, political parties, rules, laws, a judiciary, and many unglamorous, time-consuming activities, none of which are nearly as much fun as camping out in front of St. Paul's cathedral or chanting slogans on the Rue St. Martin in Paris.

Another:

Protesters in London shout that "we need to have a process!" Well, they already have a process: It's called the British political system. And if they don't figure out how to use it, they'll simply weaken it further.

"Some People Pay More...

2011-10-17T11:45:00.000-05:00

...and some people will pay less."

Herman Cain defends his ridiculous tax plan.

Of course, when a Democratic candidate says the exact same words, they are a "communist, socialist, class warring, Kenyan-anti-colonialist."

Strange how that works.

Mr. Cain, under your plan, the people who pay less are the people who should pay more, and the people who pay more are those who can least afford to do so. That's about as simple as it gets.

.

"Do Not Cooperate"

2011-10-17T07:16:00.002-05:00

Check it out: when you apply direct pressure to specific problems, things start to change. I'm hoping this is the turning point that will move the #OccupyStuff movement from emotional reaction and street spectacle into specific community engagement. You don't have to go to Wall Street to protest the excesses and lack of accountability that the major financial institutions of this country demonstrate in wrecking this country's economy.

A woman has the money to pay the bank, they force her into a no-way-out loan modification "process," refuse her money, and foreclose on her home? Go public with that. Go public with all of that, and plaster it all over every news organization and social media platform that will carry it.

This is the biggest thing I've heard the #OccupyStuff folks doing thus far, and I think it might be the most important. It sure isn't going to fit the right-wing caricature of these folks as hippies and communists if they're out there actually participating in Americans saving their homes. The other important thing is that an individual family was able to have their voice heard, and the attention that came along with it proved to assist in the redress of grievances against what appeared to be impossible odds. This is what government is supposed to do, through the processes and the courts, for individual citizens. Instead, this family had to go outside the government to get something done. I think that probably sums up the frustration that has led people to the streets.

On a related note, anyone else hear the story about the folks who weren't allowed to close their bank accounts? Apparently, you can't be a protester AND retain the right to access your money. Yeah, the bank is going to hide behind the spectacle the ladies were creating, and cite that as a "reason," but they were customers before they were protesters, and that's an important distinction to make.

What will the big national banks do when people flee with their money to local banks and credit unions? Does it count as a "run" on the banks when people take the money out and put it in other banks, that they have judged safer and less onerous within the rules of the free market?

We'll see.

.

More Truth, Please

2011-10-15T14:40:00.004-05:00

This pretty much sums it all up.

I still think one of the reasons folks feel cut out of the governing process is due to non-participation. I only hope the folks in the streets will use this as more inspiration to get involved in those parts of the process where participation is the most vital. From there they can affect the change they are asking. But the fact that so many people relate to what is going on in the streets should tell you exactly where we are as a country.

It is hard to argue with the points made on that link. I agree with every word.

.

The Biggest Tax Increase in US History

2011-10-14T14:33:00.000-05:00

That's what Herman Cain, the frontrunner for the Republican nomination for President, is proposing.

And it is just that simple. Any lower federal taxes that I end up paying by lowering my annual rate to 9% will be far more than offset with the 9% increase in sales tax on every damn thing I buy, ever. Quite easily put, my taxes will go up. A lot. And I'm not somebody who buys a lot of stuff on a monthly basis.

Business would flee from New Orleans, as the local and state sales tax rates are already 9%. That puts us into the 18% sales tax bracket as a municipality. Who will come here to spend money with that kind of overhead?

In the macro sense, people that buy the most stuff will be forced to stop buying so much stuff. If businesses don't have a market, who are they going to sell things to? While that's probably a good thing when it comes to ending our unsustainable economy (people buy less crap), and while that's a good thing for the environment (people buy less crap), this will be murder on every single business in this country that sells goods of any kind.

And that's before you look at what happens if the business cycle gets into a downturn: if sales are already weak, what happens when demand plummets further? Luckily, we already have those numbers.

You remember which governments depended on sales taxes to make up significant parts of their revenue stream? The states. The cities. And since the 2007 economic collapse, how, exactly, have those governments been doing?

Exactly.

.

$7,000,000,000,000

2011-10-14T07:20:00.003-05:00

That's what rising sea level and subsidence is expected to cost the United States by 2070. That's the total we arrive at when looking at human costs and "exposed assets."

If you look at exposed assets rather than total population, then Miami, New York-Newark, New Orleans and Virginia Beach all climb higher on the list, with $7 trillion in assets vulnerable to severe coastal flooding by 2070.

That effort to restore the already disappearing Louisiana coast doesn't look so expensive when seven trillion dollars of loss is factored in, now, is it?

As a matter of fact, the $40 million effort, called "wasteful government spending" by some, looks like it isn't going to be up to the task. We're going to need a bigger boat.

.

53% Bull

2011-10-13T17:20:00.000-05:00

It sure doesn't take the right wing long to manufacture a new meme, does it? Like they were just waiting to roll that out. Their target audience are people like me - folks who work jobs and pay taxes and who might be lured into a state of cultural and economic panic if I thought there were a bunch of poor folks out there getting away with stuff.

It doesn't matter that plenty of the other 47%, those lucky enough to have poverty-wage jobs, still pay income taxes, and end up eligible for a tax return. It doesn't matter that everyone has "skin in the game" because everyone pays taxes on almost any service they recieve, or depend on those services and infrastructure to support the dynamic economy necessary for them to rise out of poverty. What matters is how easily it is to demonize the most at-risk populations in this country, who have the least political agency. What matters is selling a lie that there is some 53% of hard-working Americans "supporting" the other 47% of lazy Americans.

It is an easy lie to sell to folks, given enough economic insecurity. But it doesn't take a lot to get past it. When I pay taxes, I don't get angry that people who don't make as much money as I do pay less income taxes. That wouldn't make sense. I do get angry that people who make more than me - sometimes much, much, much, much more - pay less income taxes. Or when those folks get special government rules and tax-breaks for projects that would make them even more money. Guess where that money comes from?

But right-wingers don't want me to think about things like that. They want me to resent the less fortunate as if folks living in poverty are getting away with something. But you know what? That they would so shamelessly lie to me about the way of the world really pisses me off. They can't just advance a different political vision of the country (like Ron Paul does), they have to try and scare me into a panic with easily repeatable lies. And I know they are lies, living as I do in a city where you can find both crushing poverty and immense wealth. Some of us might call that "the real world."

That doesn't matter to the right-winger, despite all their talk-talk about accountability and Real America (TM). That's because existing in the land of make believe has its advantages when it comes to building political narratives to try and win elections. You can get away with so much more than if you have to consider reality, reason, and accountabilty.

Luckily, Jon Stewart already destroyed this meme some weeks back. Or, at least, the previous incarnation of it. I'm sure once this 53% nonsense fades away, they'll roll out a different way to tell the same lie.

.

Halls of Power

2011-10-13T12:22:00.000-05:00

In the US Congress, the Senate scrapped Obama's jobs bill. Luckily, the President seems to realize that one way to get all this stuff done is break each bill into its constituent parts. That way, the people can see exactly how their Republican representatives are voting against infrastructure and public schools, in case the issue isn't yet clear enough.

If the President had done that with the original stimulus, we'd probably live in a very different country, politically.

On the local and state levels, Topeka, Kansas has opted to do away with their domestic violence ordinance because they spend too much money bringing those cases to court. Apparently after subsidizing real estate developers and handling contracts with the sanitation companies for trash pickup, the city can't afford to do things like investigate or prosecute crime. Instead, they'll stick that bill on the state and county governments, and hope that those organizations can find a line item in the budget to enforce the laws. In the meantime thirty individuals currently facing domestic violence charges were released, while the various governments work it out.

There is no word of change, however, on the local marijuana laws. Priorities, I guess.

For all of those #OccupyStuff folks who think they're in the park with their ironic posters because they aren't allowed to participate in government, not one of the Topeka city council candidates received more than 2,000 votes. Most won their seats with far less.

Still think you're doing anyone a favor by camping out in a park?

.

NOLA on the Occupation

2011-10-13T07:24:00.001-05:00

Oyster thinks the #OccupyStuff folks need to learn from the Tea Party.

Passionate Tea Party demonstrations have succeeded in pushing Republican candidates to the right, and supporters helped the GOP retake the House of Representatives in 2010.

This was the greatest success of the Tea Party, which should give hope to the #OccupyStuff kids. Think about it: both "movements" are more emotional responses to cultural and economic panic than an organized faction with goals and a coherent message. Both also lamented a perceived lack of agency when it came to participating in the process of governing. I guess that's why all the school board and city council meetings where decisions are made are sparsely attended affairs.

Over on the Yellow Blog, Jeffrey levels a more brutal assessment of "the 99%":

Mostly what we're seeing is a lot of Yuppies suddenly disappointed that their decision to buy into a corrupt system hasn't affirmed their claim to superior personhood through material reward. Particularly telling is that so many of the messages include citations of advanced degrees. We're hearing from people who think they're entitled to something they've "earned."

That's more scathing than any tired trope the right-wing has been trotting out in recent days to engage in their favorite past time of hippie-punching. (Yes, I'm looking at this nonsense.)

But Jeffrey doesn't stop there, he looks at the deeper educational narratives as well, and how they have contributed to the cultural and economic panic of both the Tea Party and the #OccupyStuff crowd:

[T]hat complaint only makes sense if you believed the con in the first place. 99 Percenters who believe, like Rick Scott wants them to believe, that "education is the key" to the comfortable life and have dutifully committed their time and resources to pursuing whatever bland ambition Scott prescribes for them are understandably feeling a little ripped off right now. Because they've internalized the con, however, they're just as likely to remain disdainful of those who haven't, in their estimation, "earned" the right to demand a fair living standard.

Damn. And people thought I was being harsh.

.

The Result

2011-10-12T19:18:00.000-05:00

Of course, if you fail to have a serious conversation because you ignored all the lessons of the past you might learn because the pursuit of a classical education isn't considered valuable, you fall prey to big lies that folks want you to believe about your world.

The oil is still here. The poison is still here. People are still getting sick. The land and sea is corrupted, and there isn't a whole hell of a lot we can do about it, because most people have wished away the problem like in a fairy tale.

.

Education, Inc.

2011-10-12T12:14:00.000-05:00

Jeffrey explores the educational value, especially as it pertains to the old middle-class aspiration of "success" and the right-wing narrative of "not valuable unless it prepares you for a trade."

Because why would anyone need to know about history, literature, social science, and the humanities? I mean, isn't life more fun when we just make stuff up as we go along?

.

A Serious Conversation

2011-10-12T07:49:00.000-05:00

The Great Recession? The Stimulus? American politics?

This is as good a place to start as any.

.

The Failed Revolution

2011-10-11T12:24:00.001-05:00

Oh, the old Eastern Bloc, where they're not even trying to hide the return to the bad old days. I mean, it takes a lot to make price-gouging Russia and financial-basketcase Europe appear sympathetic in the story.

When I think about the #OccupyStuff folks, who forego their invitations to participate in their own governing process because they'd rather hang out in parks with ironic posters, I think about what it must be like to be a citizen of the Ukraine.

Years ago, you go into the streets for the Orange Revolution to throw out the corrupt oligarchs. All you get is a fractured government that can't get things together. That government is forced into unpopular shady deals because the oligarchs are obstructionists who weren't helping the country, and the revolutionaries have to figure out a way to keep the lights on. When the deals fall apart, the finger pointing begins, and the new government that came into power with the will of the "revolution" collapses. This collapse hands the country back to the oligarchs.

Some revolution. And those are folks who were real revolutionaries. They didn't have any political voice. They had to go into the streets and throw out the old guard. They had to shut down the country to ensure free and fair elections. They were part of the team that brought down the Soviet Union.

So if the Ukranian revolution didn't get very far, I can't imagine the #OccupyStuff folks will last through Christmas. Hell, the #OccupyAtlanta folks couldn't gather enough consensus to let John Lewis speak at their event. John Lewis, an actual hero of a former American revolution, was down there to tell folks he supported them. But he never got the chance to.

I guess the #OccupyStuff folks don't need to listen to guys who actually put the work into changing the country, and have the scars to prove it. That tells me just about all I need to know about this.

If they don't step up from spectacle to actual involvement (as the Tea Party ended up doing successfully), even at the most local levels where the work is the most tedious, they aren't going to change one damn thing.

Not one.

.

A Mystery, That

2011-10-11T08:08:00.004-05:00

Worst Louisiana shrimping season in memory? Yup. There's just no explanation why. I mean, not even the reporters from the New York Times could figure out what might be the problem.

Could have been too hot. Louisiana doesn't get hot in August, after all. Could have been the Mississippi River floods this spring. Mississippi River never floods in the spring. Maybe Tropical Storm Lee done scared all the shrimp away. We hardly ever get tropical weather in Louisiana. It has to be something like that - I mean, the industry experts all said the massive oil and chemical spill we're not talking about anymore wasn't really a big danger at all. Hell, magic bacteria in the Gulf of Mexico eat oil and poisonous chemicals because oil and chemical spills are natural as the ocean water itself.

It could be any number of factors really.

< / sarcasm >

.

Step Two

2011-10-10T17:09:00.000-05:00

Sarah Palin has just completed one of the most successful scams in the history of the United States of America.

.

On Taxation

2011-10-08T12:14:00.000-05:00

I'll let the history of the Republican Party do the talking.

Tell me again how these fools today took over that brand?

.

Why Fox News is a Joke

2011-10-08T08:26:00.000-05:00

The headline on this article says it all. Especially considering the video evidence, which shows something more like a crowd dynamic (large crowds tend to press) and what their report calls "storming the barricades."

This is not a spoof, it is a real article passed off as real news by what is still considered by many as a real news organization. Fox News is none of those things. It is truly a propaganda machine, where editorial decisions are made to support a specific political agenda while sowing the seeds of mass cultural panic and bunker mentality amongst its viewership. Only in such a context does the videotaped activity have any resemblance to "storming the barricades" with "Democrat support."

Disgusting.

Of course, this Washington Post op-ed gets far closer to the truth of the matter, not the singular incident, but the overall activity. Or the way Slate adds it to coverage.

But don't pay attention to them, some would say, they represent the "liberal media."

.

Tulane to the Big XII?

2011-10-07T12:07:00.000-05:00

Buried in the bottom of the article. Is this an idea with legs, or more media speculation?

If the SEC takes Mizzou and the Big XII wants to go back to 12, the Wave have a shot.

Not a good shot, mind you. But if Texas and Oklahoma are looking for some in-conference schedule fodder, especially with the liklihood of picking up small enrollment, private Conference USA schools, Tulane is in the mix.

From a purely financial standpoint, the city of New Orleans has to want this to happen. I cannot imagine the revenue this city could generate hosting Oklahoma or Texas every other year.

.

The Liberalism of Open Markets

2011-10-07T07:39:00.000-05:00

Here's a reminder that by moving this country more towards a system of open markets and free enterprise, the effect would be liberalizing and progressive.

Two points to illustrate this:

One, hidden fees mean consumers cannot make informed choices.

If you want to know why so many people hate liberals, this is it. We're annoying! And now, thanks to us, you have to pay a monthly fee to use your debit card.

Unfortunately, it's hard to explain why this is, nonetheless, a good thing. But here's the nickel version: the old fees were largely hidden. The new ones aren't.

(HT to Andrew Sullivan)

It is an inherently liberalizing and progressive system that forces businesses to properly disclose their actual costs. That's part of the role of government in regulating business. It is liberalizing and progressive to make businesses "pass the cost on to the consumer" because that's how a market system works. It is only at that point when consumers can make the appropriate fiscal decisions for themselves - when all the costs are laid out in front of them.

Two, tax incentives inspire regressive, closed markets. When the government chooses the "winners" and the "losers" in any system, it violates the idea of competition for consumer business, and undercuts the ability of workers to develop and invest in their own businesses. It stifles innovation - why take an already considerable risk when the government artificially increases your risk by subsidizing your competitors?

Sometimes, the cost for not incentivizing is higher than the cost of incentivizing (such as agriculture subsidies that normalize food prices), but even those incentives are often taken advantage of. And once you've incentivized an otherwise unsustainable system, removing the subsidies would collapse it, leading to a spreading instability that threatens even healthy markets.

For example, we've subsidized sprawling real estate development, gasoline production, and air travel to such a degree that our entire system is now dependent on those three sectors maintaining artificially low costs. Those are just some of the painful and unpopular choices our nation and our government really have to make to get our fiscal house in order.

Because if we don't address those issues while we can still let ourselves down easily, the hard fall is going to go very, very badly for us.

.

The Suburban Ponzi Scheme

2011-10-06T17:18:00.000-05:00

Yet another study that points to development patterns as a key factor that created our unsustainable economy.

In particular, we must emphasize obtaining a higher rate of financial return from existing infrastructure investments, focusing on traditional neighborhoods where large public investments in infrastructure are currently being underutilized.

That's a very long-term and financially-healty way of looking at things, even though it will doubtless be described as outside the "business friendly" model so many municipalities use to subsidize politically connected developers to encourage short term "growth." But let us not be confused - the current subsidization (Ponzi scheme or not) that makes sprawl possible is the social engineering model forcing people into an automobile-centric culture. While ending that subsidization won't bring a halt to all sprawling and suburban development everywhere (ht: Dante), what it will do is bring more realistic market forces into account when driving development.

If people who lived in the sprawling suburbs had to shoulder more of the actual costs of living where they live, they might make different choices. Right now, the cost of living outside town is artificially equalized to the costs of living inside town. While you will always have folks who want to live in a place with a big yard and commute for an hour every day, I think more people would choose to live in cities and towns if it weren't artificially cheaper to live in the suburbs. Self-interest being what it is, people will make decisions based on their personal economics, and it is only natural they would congregate where it appears they are getting the most.

Unfortunately, and here's where the Ponzi scheme analogy becomes appropriate, many of them are now unable to maintain their decisions now that the artificial economic supports are being rolled back due to budget constraints, or have moved on to other areas of artificially subsidized "growth." That is putting the big hurt on our economy right now.

This is also related to the Highway Ponzi scheme, and it is becoming obvious that both development and transportation models currently associated with "sprawl" are increasing the burden on the US taxpayer at all levels, and are not delivering the return on investment needed to maintain a dynamic econmomy over the long term.

(HT: Alli on both links.)

Truth be told, these realizations come from the reality-based fiscal conservatism I can believe in:

Marohn feels strongly about these things, but he is about as far from a radical as you can get. He is fundamentally a soft-spoken, common-sense Midwesterner’s Midwesterner, and a fiscal conservative. But it is precisely that conservatism that has driven his organization's philosophy in the direction of smart growth policies and supporting traditional towns and neighborhoods.

To the People in the Streets Today

2011-10-06T07:28:00.000-05:00

I hope you're well. I hope you protest peacefully. I hope everything goes as planned, and you have a great day in fellowship with your friends and family and those who stand in solidarity with you.

I can see how the frustration with the system is driving people into the streets. I get it. I do.

But I want you to take the next step.

You can count me as one of the folks who wants you out of the streets. The streets are fun. The streets are easy. I want you to take the next step, and start taking advantage of the political agency you already have just by being a part of this great American system of government.

Instead of the streets, how about getting involved in the boring stuff like:

#OccupyYourLocalSchoolBoard
#OccupyYourLocalCityCouncil
#OccupyYourStateRepresentativeRace
#OccupyYourLocalJudicialElections
#OccupyYourLocalCriminalJusticeSystemDecisionMakingProcess

Not just for one meeting, but for all the meetings. Go, or have your friends and family go if you cannot make it. Then make it a point to get to the next meeting.

You know how difficult it is to get people to show up for these things? Hold a protest and thousands can bail out of what they're doing and take the time. Ask folks when their next school board meeting is, and you get a blank stare.

If you really want to change some of the crap sandwich we have in this country, you've got to roll up your sleeves and participate in some activities that are thankless and have no real place for witty posters. And you have to stick with it. You have to participate in your own governance because no one is going to do it for you, no one is going to be shamed into doing it for you.

Oh, and if you've got a problem with "the Democratic Party" or "the Democratic leadership" how about:

#OccupyYourLocalDemocraticPartyMeetings

They'll let you in. They'll let you speak. They'll generally be thrilled because so few people show the hell up with any consistency. So few people are willing to volunteer their time for something as boring as participating in government, that if you show up enough, for a long enough time, they'll probably invite you to join in the decision making process. They'll invite you to join in the planning process. They'll beg you to step up and run for office.

Because we can all get together and yell and chant and make posters about how "the system" is screwed up, but until you take advantage of all the agency you already have in "the system" but aren't using, no amount of spectacle is going to change one thing.

Not one.

(This post is a revised comment left on a First-Draft post.)

.

The Myth-Making Machine

2011-10-05T17:09:00.000-05:00

I hate the narrative on both the left and the right that claims President Obama's policies towards international terrorism are anything like the demonstrably failed horror-show the world had to live through during the Bush/Cheney administration.

[I]n claiming that Obama has adopted Bush administration policies he’d once criticized, Cheney seems to believe there’s no difference between, on the one hand, torturing captured detainees and, on the other hand, “taking robust action” (as, he allows, Obama has done) against an avowed enemy of the United States who has done our people harm and is in a position to do more.

The President is handling the wars as closely to the strategy he campaigned on, he has done so with a relentless consistency difficult to match in American history, and has found considerable success in doing so. The repeated idea that the President's successes are attributable to the former administration are as jaw droppingly false as the hysterical claim that his shortcomings equate him with the former administration's worst failures.

.

Bad Analogies

2011-10-05T12:34:00.000-05:00

I am tempted to say that news organizations in bankruptcy giving bonuses to their managment to "maintain proper incentives" for their failing efforts is a little like the White Star Line giving bonuses to their fleet managment team at the end of the 1912 fiscal year for getting most of their passengers safely to harbor.

But that would be a terrible analogy, because it compares bad business practices that cost money to bad business practices that cost lives.

Besides, thanks to Bocephus, the country has already hit our hyperbolic and inappropriate analogy quota for this week.

.

Being Honest

2011-10-04T07:33:00.003-05:00

The #OccupyWallStreet crowd has been successful, from a visual and attention-seeking standpoint. And yes, their "movement" is growing.

But I'm still very confused as to what this "movement" hopes to accomplish. Besides serving as a solidarity snapshot of the American center-to-left, and providing a cathartic blowing off of steam at how things suck now, what is going to be accomplished? These men and women can get on all the news programs, say whatever they want about Wall Street, and live in a park for three weeks, but they still didn't even affect local school boards or city councils from a "power" standpoint.

The problem in this country has never really been getting people into big crowds for a big purpose (sports and music festivals do that), the problem has been how people feel they have no agency to govern themselves, but have difficulty realizing what agency they do have. For the most part, however, it is there for the taking, and has always been. I've never been denied access to a local political meeting, a school board meeting, a city council meeting, or any meeting regarding the community interest. Governing decisions are made in such places.

Camping out in the park may reignite some of the passion for being a liberal in the same way that attending a Tea Party protest gave catharsis to the cultural panic of older white Americans. But at least the Tea Party had an end goal: take over all elected offices everywhere.

For those keeping score at home, that's just what they did in 2010.

I wonder if the #OccupyParks folks will ever turn the corner from participation in spectacle to participation in governing.

.

Campaign Obama

2011-10-03T19:22:00.001-05:00

Campaigning I believe in. It is time to really start highlighting the differences between the President and those who want to replace him.

That's as good a place to start as any.

.

One Thing Leads to Another

2011-10-03T11:34:00.004-05:00

I hate to say I told you so, but I told you so.

At some point, all this right-wing panic-inspiring bulls___ about Democratic, Liberal, and Progressive folks (and all their affiliated organizations) and their make-believe ties to groups trying to violently overthrow the United States government* is going to get some people hurt.

These are not unhinged commentators on a fringe website, these are folks at an esteemed publication that helps drive and define modern American "conservatism."

It makes me wonder what really is going to happen if individuals in that camp win complete political control of the United States again, and their demonstrably false "tax cuts = jobs" fantasy continues to fail as spectacularly as it has in the the last decade. What groups of people do you think their pundits will continue to blame? This train is never late.

Add the "violent union thugs" or "Ground Zero Victory Mosque" fantasies to those airwaves, and what do you think will happen if any sort of national protest against such policies gets even a little bit out of line?

It isn't a tough line to cross, going from shooing demonstrators out of a capitol building to gunning people down in the streets. We've got a bit of a history with that, in this country, especially in times of emergency or confusion when the popular culture of the moment has dehumanized your targets or labeled them inherent physical threats.

And please don't act like I'm "demonizing" anyone for pointing to actual American history as opposed to the revised version the Tea Party prefers. This stuff actually happens, and the more you consistently equate peaceful political enemies with violent national, economic, and cultural enemies, the closer we come to real history repeating itself.

* At the same time they control that government and use it to oppress you. Depending on how tangled and incoherent you'd like your right-wing serving of bull.

.

Trading Schools for Oil Profits

2011-10-02T10:48:00.006-05:00

Maitri reminds us that subsidies and tax credits for oil refineries take away access to education for America's children.

Because oil companies don't make enough money to maintain their own oil refineries. Poor oil companies. Maybe they should organize a bake sale.

Another reminder? There are plenty of massive-profit industries the government pays for at the expense of government services like public schools. Funny thing is how they then go around telling folks that the "public school model" is a failure.

Maybe someone should get that memo to these folks:

Because I think we could significantly cut down on government spending if we let a little bit more of the market into the US corporate "business friendly" model. And if these industries decide to keep their massive profits, bonuses, and golden handshakes while passing the "cost" onto the consumer, well, then the consumer can make the decision based on their own personal cost-benefit analysis. That's what a free-enterprise system is all about.

Wish we had one.

.

The Greatest Blog Post I Have Ever Read

2011-09-30T23:34:00.003-05:00

Outside the "rant" and "comic/meme" categories, this epic opinion by Jeffery wins the internet.

I know it will sound like a political critique, at first, but you have to keep reading to understand what it is really all about.

Sheer brilliance.

< /applause>

.

The Taxicab Guild

2011-09-30T08:22:00.001-05:00

The problem with New Orleans' economy isn't "too much government regulation," it is that all the regulations are designed to benefit a few, well connected individuals at the expense of everyone else.

I wonder how many marketing consultants they've hired to assist them with this. Meanwhile Berni is telling us the reason we can expect little more than ineffectual action from the city is that the people they're "meeting with" and whose interests they're going to protect are the "entrenched" brokers.

From the original article at The Lens, this quote is telling:

In other cities, permits are non-transferable and officials retain control over the process to earn more money for the public from the sale of cab permits. New Orleans city officials say they want to reform the taxi department, but it’s unclear whether a change from the market-driven system is likely.

A recent analysis in Washington, D.C., cautioned city leaders there against implementing a closed-market system such as the one in New Orleans.

"Closed-market" sounds like a savvy marketer found a good way to brand "modern-day feudalism." Now there's a term we're going to have to start using. That's how the powers-that-be and well-connected are able to keep talking about how "market-driven" and "business friendly" they are, when they really mean the economy is driven by political connections and closed off to any of the real competition you see in a true market based economy.

.

Bless Their Hearts

2011-09-30T07:18:00.002-05:00

Some folks just like to pick fights over dumb stuff.

Of course, this nonsense will get blown all out of proportion once it hits right-wing-radio, Faux News, and Sara Palin,Inc. To them, it will all be evidence of the coming liberal government homosexual sharia war on Good Christian America (TM).

.

Redirect

2011-09-29T16:59:00.000-05:00

So, if tax cuts spur job creation, how do you explain this?

Again, where are the jobs?

.

The Look

2011-09-29T12:23:00.000-05:00

See what a little community input and city support can do? Even corporate decisions can be brought to reason.

.

Papers, Please

2011-09-29T07:04:00.003-05:00

More immigration nonsense from the South. More going after people who behave "illegally" rather than going after the businesses and "job creators" who profit the most from an immigration system in chaos. Dry up the jobs, and folks here illegally will go home on their own. I mean, hell, isn't it funny that all this is happening after the real estate bubble collapsed, and wealthy developers no longer need the migrant workers and their crews to put together cookie cutter homes in the suburbs for half the price of American workers?

Well, I guess nothing is really "funny" that the states with the biggest historical problems with the civil rights of certain demographics are now using states' rights to target specific demographics. Glad all the old money boys got "clean" before this became a political issue du jour.

And the schoolchildren? Schools have enough trouble keeping track of their students right now. Tomorrow they're supposed to check their citizenship status? I can't wait to see the kind of red tape that's going to create, and I'd be willing to wager that burden is likely to fall on the most at-risk schools serving the most at-risk populations that already have the weakest administrations, lowest funding, and most inadequate resources to handle the new rules.

.

Special Rights

2011-09-28T22:35:00.003-05:00

Let's hear again about all the "special rights" being handed out to gay Americans. Like the right to get kicked off a plane for not subjecting themselves to bigotry.

.

Grey Paint Could Fix It

2011-09-28T18:59:00.002-05:00

Considering the history of free expression in feudal New Orleans, I'm just sayin'.

.

Paper Over Plastic

2011-09-28T07:20:00.002-05:00

Maitri muses about the future of books in a technology-worshiping world. Will the rise of e-books end the need for libraries and paperbacks, or will the corporate rules and high prices attributed to technology sharing keep the market where it is?

Is my purchased eBook really mine? In other words, can I do whatever I want with it, including giving it to a friend after I’ve finished reading it without giving away my reader with it?

I'll readily admit that my Luddite self is still a paper & trade kind of guy. I'll shell out the cash for the paper and hard backs. Some books I read and re-read again and again. Those I don't get circulated to friends or donated to book drives. For me, there's just something about having a physical book.

Not to mention, what happens if the power goes out?

.

The Strangeness

2011-09-27T12:10:00.000-05:00

UGA's student newspaper, The Red & Black, goes on record to expose a very strange internet lie. I don't know how important a story this is, but if their readership is what they say it was, that could be problematic. Andrew Sullivan calls it "Ruining Someone's Fake Career."

Crazy kids.

.

The War of Texas Aggression

2011-09-26T22:22:00.002-05:00

The Aggies have won the War of Texas Aggression. They're out of the Big 12 and in the SEC. When it was Arkansas leaving the SWC I think it was more cathartic. Here's the only team not in Texas from the SWC moving on to greener pastures. What I'm wondering is if the SEC won the war, too. What do they gain by a 13th team? They get Texas' Jan Brady, but to be fair I've seen some pretty hot photos of post-Brady Eve Plumb. Scheduling looks like it will be a bitch and the SEC is balking at a 9th conference game so far. I guess we'll see what the future holds but personally I can live with it if it means I'll get a drivable Georgia game in the near future (especially if it's against Herschel's coming-out-party opponent).

Regrets

2011-09-26T21:51:00.003-05:00

It is easy to write off the members of the Eris Parade. They didn't have a permit to parade, and some of them were vandalizing property. I find it abhorrent that the police acted the way they did when they came for the paraders, and that the "justice" system in feudal New Orleans is so corrupted that it will disregard video evidence. But I'm not going to say anything, because I'd rather be associated with violent behavior by police than unruly behavior by some smelly, tattooed revelers. Those people aren't like me. And the police have a thankless job to do, so I'm going to cut them some slack like always.

It is equally easy to write off the tattooed protesters on Wall Street. These folks are definitely in the streets without a permit, doing silly things like disrupting traffic and chanting stupid things and generally making a spectacle of themselves. Not only do I find such behavior useless and unsavory, I think their shenanigans undercut my liberal credibility with the independents and the good middle class folks out there in Real America. I mean, everybody knows that the only protesters who are getting on the news these days are the corporately sponsored Tea Party, so these folks are basically bringing this on themselves. So what if the police are getting a little rough when they came for those women? Those women aren't like me. And the police have a thankless job to do, so I'm going to cut them some slack like always.

So I'm not going to say anything. And by "say something" I mean get involved. Get on the record. Write some letters to locally elected officials. Start getting out and raising hell about the criminal justice system run by the locals who live where I live. Not over people like this.

No. I'm not going to say anything like that. I'm going to let it slide, and tune into Maddow or Olbermann or the Daily Show and fuss to my like-minded friends about how Obama is really a Republican and how awful it would be if someone like Rick Perry became President and how it sucks that all the politicians in Washington are owned by lobbyists and stuff. Maybe I'll post about some hypocritical Tea Partier who desperately desires government funding for pork projects in their district far away from where I live. Maybe I'll talk about Guantanamo Bay because torture sucks. Maybe I'll write a post on my blog about how somebody somewhere should do something to keep this stuff in check, and bemoan the fact that no one seems to be stepping up to do it. Where the hell are they, anyway? Monday Night Football is on, and I shouldn't have to be thinking about complicated stuff like this.

No. I'm not going to say anything. I'll not take a position, and wait for the next outrageous national issue over which I have no control to show up in the news, so I can say something about that. It will probably be something snarky and irreverent. But it won't matter, it won't take a lot of thought, and maybe some friends will like it on Facebook. It won't be a difficult thing to do like say something about the way my local police treat revelers in the streets, how my local judges need to be more professional, and how, if we can't control our own local systems, why do we think anyone can control them on a national level?

...

And one when day they come for me, or find me in the streets, or catch me up in the system from which I can't get out, there will be no one left to speak for me. I won't be like them. The police have a thankless job to do, so they'll be cut some slack as always. And no one will say anything. Not for someone like me.

It is the common fate of the indolent to see their rights become a prey to the active. The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance; which condition if he break, servitude is at once the consequence of his crime and the punishment of his guilt

- John Philpot Curran

Incoherence Preserved

2011-09-25T21:42:00.003-05:00

Jeffrey puts together a rather progress-resistant issue that confounds New Orleans' development.

The whole argument is yet another example of preservationist incoherence. Nine times out of ten these arguments are really about different groups of well to do property owners arguing over who gets what set of rights and privileges with the appeal to "preservation" being merely a tool of convenience for whichever side isn't proposing the specific development in question. Rarely, though, is any of this ever about mere aesthetics.

For those of you following the telenovela that is replacing derelict structures in NOLA, this particular episode includes:

1. Incoherent, reality-defying zoning laws. Because if there is any place to put new, multi-story, high density mixed use development, it is on Canal Street downtown.
2. An empty building that no one wants to purchase and restore as-is.
3. A city council ready to change zoning ordinances whenever.
4. Rendering zoning laws meaningless so long as you have the right political connections.
5. "Preservation" groups demanding that undesirable properties remain undesirable.
6. Until "someone" can come up with a better plan.
7. When zoning laws would be rendered meaningless because of other people's political connections.

Isn't feudalism fun?

.

2023 at the Earliest

2011-09-23T15:43:00.000-05:00

With emphasis on the earliest.

Not content to simply hold the House of Representatives for a generation by virtue of drawing lines on maps, the GOP in all of the states will soon be copying and pasting the Pennsylvania plan to tie electoral college votes to gerrymandered congressional districts.

Under Pileggi’s plan, Obama could carry the state in 2012 — by winning huge majorities in heavily Democratic Philadelphia — and still lose the majority of its electoral votes.

If we must have an electoral college, I'm cool with moving away from the winner take all nonsense that most states currently use. (Though saying so after Bush II was elected somehow made me a "Sore/Loserman.") I want every vote to be as important as possible, so candidates won't focus less on certain populations in certain states to game the system. However, this can be done with simple math by using percentages. If 55% of your voters go for a candidate, they get 55% (rounded up) of your state's electoral votes. Simple.

But not good for the GOP, who is afraid to split things by population alone. Now keep in mind that the decisions of electoral college allocation are a responsibility of the states and add to that the fact that the GOP - due to Democratic, Liberal, and Progressive focus on national issues only - controls most of the state legislatures that will be making this decision. Especially in the "blue" states like Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Minnesota where a plan like this would do the most political damage.

Problem is, the Democratic Party and their "base" has all but abandoned the states, especially in the South. Those Democratic officials who still hold office don't want to push this issue because any change may threaten their jobs sooner than the coming GOP takeover.

But we are quickly racing towards a one-party nation with almost zero real election-based choices. The GOP is making it happen, while the Democratic Party is refusing to accept that truth and allowing that to happen.

.

The Highway Ponzi Scheme

2011-09-23T08:07:00.000-05:00

I don't think there's any doubt. (HT: Alli)

Infrastructure is one of the most necessary functions of government, but at this point, the monolithic and homogeneous infrastructure model of "Interstates and Highways Everywhere" only contribute to our maintenance of a fundamentally unsustainable economy.

The highway along with cheap gas prices (which first socialist President Michelle Bachmann promises to set arbitrarily at $2/gallon) allowed for destinations to spread apart, often severing irrevocably the bonds of community. And that was when the cost of road construction was paid back in return thru cannibalistic development. Since building the freeways that made in-town living undesirable and out-of-town living (and commuting) viable, tax base fled to the point where we can't maintain the roads and infrastructure we built.

Emphasis added.

.

Feudalism Update

2011-09-22T17:26:00.001-05:00

I somehow missed Oyster's post on the vibrant, guild-and-favor centered economy we have here in New Orleans. What benign liege lords and ladies we have here in our fair market city, to allow 7.5% of enterprising tradesmen and women to participate in a venture!

How inefficient the "free enterprise" system would be that the so-called "republics" use, where they set rules and regulations for all tradesfolk, allow just anyone to participate in a venture by following the rules, and allow "the people" to decide what tradesfolk to patronize with their coin. How much better it is that our wise leaders will make these choices for us!

.

Elizabeth Warren

2011-09-22T12:35:00.000-05:00

She is brave enough to say things like this in an America where telling such truths are likened with socialism and communism. There are no self-made people. The American rich have wealth because they participate in the most dynamic market in the world. It didn't just grow on their privately owned money tree, or arrive at their house on the back of a unicorn. Well, unless they are well connected enough to have friends in government, that is.

Membership has its privileges. It also has its responsibilities.

Is there any wonder why I'm a fan?

(HT: Alli for the link.)

.

Primary Challenge

2011-09-21T20:40:00.000-05:00

Because some members of the Professional Left feel the need to speak for that homogenous and monolithic demographic known as "poor and working people."

Because Lord help us if folks like Nader and West got involved to help "poor and working people" take back the states, where individuals and associations have the most power and the politics are closer to the people. Maybe they should go after progress-resistant Democratic officials in local and state elections. Lord knows, there are enough of those - and they'll likely be there no matter who is President.

Unfortunately, that won't bring the self-important like-minded attention from like-minded people or the activist fundraising dollars these Professional Leftists are looking for. No, let's keep surrendering the states to the right-wing (especially in the South) so we can get on TV and the internet to chide the President for trying to navigate policy solutions in the midst of an obstructionist legislature on both sides of the aisle.

Especially after the wholesale cratering of political capital that came about when the jaw-dropping political disaster of the first Stimulus Bill made its way out of Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid's legislature.

Maybe we're in some desperate need of a wake-up call, and I don't know how many more elections and national and state policies the Professional Left wants to surrender to the right-wing before they wake up and realize they are part of the problem.

And, yes, I'm going to keep calling them "the Professional Left" until they prove they can do something other than get on television or the internet and play a made-for-TV role. I got lulled into the Nader delusions once upon a time, and I remember what that got me.

.

PAC-12 to Texas and Oklahoma: Oh hell no!

2011-09-21T07:39:00.002-05:00

I keep scratching my head over this whole super conference meme. The larger BCS conferences have no external reason to roll the dice on an unproven setup. Oklahoma is out there trying to bring 4 schools to the PAC-12: Oklahoma, Texas, Texas Tech, and Oklahoma State. The PAC-12 officially told them, "Oh hell no!" and Texas is a big reason for that.

The PAC-12 just set up a sweet revenue-sharing TV deal with Fox. Texas on the other hand recently set up its own network with ESPN that it doesn't share with anyone. The PAC-12 isn't so hard up for new schools that it's willing to take in a member unwilling to share a piece of their pie. And quite frankly Texas is better off right where they are. With Nebraska already gone and A&M with a foot out the door, the winner of the Texas vs. Oklahoma game is basically guaranteed a BCS Bowl.

The problem is that Oklahoma may not be better off right now. They want changes in order to remain in the Big 12. But I'm not sure if their treat has teeth. The political reality is that Oklahoma State and Oklahoma are tied at the conference hip. Who will take both? The PAC-12 is apparently out. I don't think the SEC would take them. That would put them at 15 assuming A&M comes along as expected. The ACC might but Oklahoma would likely be better off staying put than joining the ACC.

It's an interesting situation, but I think the current best solution is for Oklahoma to drop their new-conference fever, work for change in the Big 12, and if things don't improve get out before they take over the role of Texas' Jan Brady from the soon-to-be-departing Aggies.

Cause and Effect

2011-09-20T20:12:00.000-05:00

Are you an American citizen who is distraught with the torture regime instituted under the Bush administration? Are you angry that the torture regime was neither investigated nor prosecuted under the Obama administration? Well, suck it, whigs - in the land of reality-based reality, you reap what you sow.

How is there any genuine expectation that the same system that brought you such travesties as Cameron Todd Willingham, Troy Davis, John Thompson, and has trouble with police departments acting like this would somehow demonstrate more prudence and responsibility on a national level when faced with a panic-inducing crisis it has a pathological, counterfactual, and confused difficulty understanding?

You think governments just automatically and magically do the right thing because you think they should behave a certain way? You think they won't try to get around every single legal or constitutional obstacle in their path to get what they want when they want it? You think if you let local and state governments get away with things, the national government is somehow going to pay attention?

Let me tell you something: the only reason you think that is because you have grossly misunderstood the history of your own nation. You're like a Tea Partier pining for an America that never existed. We have governments to do things that cannot effectively be done by individuals and associations alone. That does not mean individuals and associations are excused from keeping governments in check through eternal vigilance and elections. Yes, it is hard work. Yes, there isn't much reward.

But your voice and influence is most powerful at the local and state levels, so if you're letting your local and state governments get away with torture and police state tactics for decades, you ought display far less outrage over that behavior writ large on a national and international scale. Because they're only going to stop when you throw them out of office and make them stop.

.

Proceedural Question

2011-09-20T12:31:00.001-05:00

The Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles will not be staying the execution of Troy Davis. I'm not up to date on the case, so I'm not real comfortable making a judgement. What I do know is that the record of American states putting the right folks on death row isn't exactly spotless right now. Especially in the South. Credibility is the most important thing when it comes to a state decision to execute. Especially in the South.

Yeah, I said it twice. And I'm being generous.

But a part of that article got me wondering:

The board released its decision just after 8 a.m., after spending an entire day hearing from Davis' supporters and then prosecutors and MacPhail's relatives.

Davis' supporters? What were they, activists? Experts? Defense attorneys? Friends? Family? Supporters are a group of folks I generally associate with individuals outside the proceedings, writing letters and holding vigils. The choice of words here is suspect, since prosecutors also got to talk. Which group has a more credible case, based on what they are called in the media?

And then, the victim's family gets to speak? I can only assume this is normal proceedure, and that the disconnect belongs to me. The defense has already failed to establish doubt in court and on appeal, and this proceeding is simply determining the severity of the punishment. Something gets to me, however, when emotional testimony can be entered into the record during the final proceeding to determine whether the state should end a human being's life. This isn't the convicted party begging for mercy, this is questioning the finality of the case against him.

And you have to wonder how much closure the victim's family will actually get with irreversible justice meted out by a system with straining credibility.

Again, I'm not as familiar with the court case as I ought be to make such pronouncements, but you'd think if there was more physical evidence required to get an execution punishment (as opposed to changing witness testimony and plea deals), the system might find itself with far fewer cases presenting so much doubt in the minds of the public. As a death penalty supporter, I am constantly shocked at the number of execution sentences meted out that are later open to so much question and reversal. While it doesn't shake my faith in irreversible justice being on the table, it makes me think it is employed too often as a punishment in inappropriate cases.

Because this is the death penalty we're talking about. There should be no reasonably raised questions regarding guilt, and the case should not hinge only on someone's malleable or self-interested testimony.

.

Affirmative Action?

2011-09-19T07:18:00.003-05:00

So much for that race baiting narrative. The right-wing make believe machine has told me for years about how resentful I should be of minorities who receive some sort of "favorable treatment" that somehow limits my white-middle-class economic opportunity.

There are a few things that limit my white-middle-class economic opportunity. The biggest are my own motivation and ambition. The next are all the taxes I have to pay, or sacrifices I have to make in order for our local, state, and national governments to subsidize rich people while we wait for them to "create jobs." But race? My complexion means that race is not a limiting factor in my life, and anyone who suggests otherwise is living in the land of make believe.

I remember back in the day at Georgia, when there was a big push - mostly the result of such manufactured resentment - to remove race from consideration in the admissions process. Proof was in the puddin' however, as they kept considerations for legacy applications and those who applied from rural (and suburban) counties.

The way you close the actual race-based economic opportunity gap is to take public schools seriously, and to accept that the education of minority youth is an integral part of that seriousness. As long as local, state, and national governments continue to sacrifice educational resources at the altar of subsidizing rich people, no amount of "reform" is going to magic us to the magic land of the "level playing field."

Reality is, the deck is still stacked against minorities when it comes to education, and therefore economic, opportunity. That the deck is stacked differently, and maybe a little lower, than it was in the 40's and 50's doesn't make the intentional historical dispossession of minority education in this country any less insidious.

.

Development

2011-09-17T11:05:00.004-05:00

Long ago, some activists said "New Orleans needs a population explosion." I agreed with that, if not their methods. More population means more innovation, tax base, and dynamism.

Related to that idea are these recent articles (HT: The Dish) exploring factors that limit the necessary growth (and, by extension, national growth) and figuring out one way zoning and building changes could move those goalposts.

Josh Rothman at the Boston Globe writes:

Lots of smart people want to move to the big city, because that's where the best jobs in the best industries are located. Faced with outrageous housing prices, though, they conclude that it's "better to take the lower-paying job in the less innovative industry in the place where big homes are easily affordable."

Meanwhile, in Vancouver, they're experimenting with a different sort of density-building home construction and zoning.

Laneway homes are basically miniature versions of single-family homes – in the range of 500 to 1,000 square feet – that are built in what has traditionally been the garage location of a single-family lot: in the backyard facing the lane. They can’t be sub-divided or sold separately from the main house on the lot. They can only be used for additional family space or rental income.

Does that sound familiar? New Orleans developed with density in mind, in the high ground between the Mississippi River and the backswamp. In many neighborhoods, you see plenty of carriage houses turned into rental spaces or mother-in-law cottages. There's also the shotgun double concept, where someone can own a home and rent out the other side of it, putting two addresses on one lot. There are also basement (first-floor) apartments across much of the city, and some of the larger houses are split into multiple apartments for living.

Unfortunately, and I can't find the link to this, I think the new city zoning has done away with such density-building allowances over much of the city. Thought New Orleans might be more interested in getting more people in the city's unoccupied housing right now than building more density on already-occupied land.

.

Spot the Differences

2011-09-16T17:27:00.000-05:00

Picture A
Picture B

Answer: one is President Obama, the Kenyan anti-colonialist himself, forcing a US Marine recipient of the Congressional Medal of Honor to drink a beer with him at the White House, so his press secretary to could take a picture of this on his phone, tweet it to the universe, and gain some political advantage from it. Because this President "uses our most precious assets 4 personal gain."

The other picture is President Bush, spontaneously giving a speech on a spontaneously decorated aircraft carrier he spontaneously arrived on in a flight suit, just to show how much Real Americans (TM) support our brave men and women in uniform.

< /sarcasm >

After the long 8 years of hollow photo ops that made up the Bush presidency, you'd think people would be able to make better distinctions.

And let us not be confused, if Obama's press folks had not released pics of the President having a beer with Meyer, the same people would be complaining that the lack of it demonstrated Obama's contempt for America and her Armed Forces.

Because this is America, and there's a whiny subset of our society who has to turn anything involving this President into a political fight. And they do so even with stories of unrivaled heroism.

Because with them, the narratives are more important than reality.

.

Bulldawg Psychology

2011-09-16T12:18:00.000-05:00

Few college football fanbases can begin the week with 8-Ball, the Clemson Tiger, and end the week with Chaucer without skipping a beat.

Well done, ladies and gentlemen of Dawgsports.

.

2023

2011-09-14T18:00:00.001-05:00

The Democratic Party will not regain political control of the US House Representatives until 2023 at the earliest. No recent political developments have changed this prediction.

As a matter of fact, I'd think they strengthen it.

Oh, and let's not forget that the GOP are still talking about the Ground Zero Mosque as part of their election strategy.

.

Consolidation & Integration

2011-09-14T12:37:00.000-05:00

Y'all remember all the talk recently of Louisiana consolidating public universities?

Well, Louisiana isn't the only state thinking about it. Though look at how the USG is setting this up: the Regents will design criteria required for consolidation. Also, the space utilization study will put a cap on redundant capital projects.

.

The Most Plausible Explanation

2011-09-13T07:49:00.000-05:00

Andrew Sullivan sums up all of my fears about the current Republican Party, my continued support of Obama, and the worst case scenario about what happens if the country continues down this road.

That's how I explain the current GOP. It can only think in doctrines, because the alternative is living in a complicated, global, modern world they both do not understand and also despise. Taxes are therefore always bad. Government is never good. Foreign enemies must be pre-emptively attacked. Islam is not a religion. Climate change is an elite conspiracy to impoverish America. Terror suspects are terrorists. When Americans torture, it is not torture. When Christians murder, they are not Christians. And if you change your mind on any of these issues, you are a liberal, an apostate, and will be attacked.

These Republicans who play conservative on television and radio while selling violent populism as an option for citizen engagement are the Fire-Eaters born again.

.