Math Is A Bitch....

The Resilience of Americans Is Not A Matter of Belief Or Philosophy, But Of Statistics

Today, I read a response to an article regarding how much Americans will be willing to tolerate before outright rebellion.

“An AK-47, three magazines and 90 rounds can be purchased for $200 on the black market”, said the respondent.  He went on to say that it was a question of mathematics; the idea of ‘how long’.

I’ll restate the title of this piece – math is a bitch.  It’s remorseless, it’s in-your-face – and it’s never, ever wrong.

The fate of Titanic is an excellent metaphor, as it turns out.

Titanic, as those of us who Stayed Awake in Class learned years ago (and as the rest of America and the world learned from watching DiCaprio’s Jack and Winslet’s Rose deal with the effects of engineering and math), had watertight doors below decks separating the entire ship into compartments – but they only went from the keel-plates to the middle of the ship – ‘E’-deck.

The ship was designed to stay afloat – to retain positive buoyancy – with any four of these compartments flooded.  Any more than that, and the ship would sink. 

The grazing-wound which opened up the starboard side of Titanic flooded five of those compartments.  As the water rose, each succeeding compartment would flood – making the demise of Titanic a ‘mathematical certainty’, as the actor playing ship’s engineer Andrews stated with some finality.

“The pumps buy you time, but minutes only,” he went on to say.  Faced with this, Titanic’s captain had two fundamental choices to make.  He could scare the hell out of every passenger until they took the situation seriously; break the rules, and do absolutely everything possible – including ordering the crew topside to build makeshift rafts; ensuring that the lifeboats were deliberately overloaded, and thus ensuring the survival of perhaps three-quarters of the passengers aboard.

Or, he could do what he eventually did – order the band to play in order to ‘keep their spirits up and prevent alarm’; botch the loading of the lifeboats, and ignore the problem generally until it was too late to do anything which was either really dramatic, constructive, or (preferably) both.

That’s rather where we are right now.

In spite of the current administration’s half-measures and ‘compromise’, we are now in a position where some basic math is staring us square in the face – and it doesn’t look good.

By example, today, the government pointed out that first-time unemployment claims fell to below 400,000/month for the first time in two years. 

While that might seem at first blush to be cause for some joy in Mudville, the truth is this:  the American economy has shed almost six million jobs since January.   That figure, by the way, would be cause for alarm even in a robust economy – and if the rest of the economic statistics are taken into consideration, things look even worse.

One person in seven is on food-stamps.  Over eight million people have, as their sole income, unemployment insurance compensation.   While this guarantees that we won’t see things like long lines at soup-kitchens and tent-cities, that palliative is like a Band-Aid on cancer; or like the band playing the main-deck on Titanic – the real problem is hidden, deep within the economic structure (or deep below-decks, if you prefer).

The worst of the foreclosure crisis is still to come – one in two American homes is ‘underwater’ (more is owed on mortgages than they’re worth – and a staggering one in four, or 25%, are in some form of foreclosure right now.

You can see that bragging about a decrease in first-time unemployment numbers is a lot like the captain of the Titanic, getting on the bullhorn and saying, “Things aren’t that bad!  The pumps are buying us some time!  We’re sinking at a decreasing rate!”

Of course, he didn’t say any such thing – because it would have been stupid, irresponsible, and (worse) would have marked him as a damn fool.  (The Edwardians tended to be concerned about their legacy and reputation, after all.)

On the other hand, our government doesn’t seem to be concerned about such things.  We continue to sink, and they want us to believe that sinking at a decreasing rate is the same as recovery.

The basic math rears its ugly head to tell us otherwise.

I saw the film “Titanic” in the theatre, along with a lady-friend.   After the jump-cut to Titanic’s bridge, and the scene of water pouring over the cutwater and into the hold with the bow completely submerged, I turned to my date with a bit of gallows-humor and said, “I don’t think this is going to end well.”

The real wildcard here is Congress, and with the Republicans in charge and the last real avenue for revenue-generation now out of reach for at least another two years, there aren’t many options available.  There’s an outside chance that Congress will take action – but thanks to the Citizens United ruling, Congress was bought-and-paid-for by the people who caused most of this mess in the first place.

What remains is to hide the numbers – play a shell-game with the math until it becomes so obvious what’s going on that it makes no sense (and less difference) to pretend any longer.

At that point – coming soon to a real-life theatre near you – are some hard-nosed questions:

First, what will be the trigger-point for revolution?   Twenty-five percent unemployment, or thirty?  Twenty percent foreclosures, or twenty-five?   A full ten million homeless, or fifteen?

We already know the entry-fee – it’s $200; available in any city in America.

What I fear more is the cost.

Math really is a bitch, folks.

Happy 2011….

And To All; A Good Night...

Well, it's all over but the shouting - both the holiday season and 2010 are all but done.  I can tell you that there were plenty who were pistol-whipped with the butt-end of 2010, courtesy of other people who don't give a damn about any of the Rest Of Us.  

The lesson of this year isn't new - seems a different crop of us get to learn it every hundred years or so; during the Gilded Age, the plutocrats responded to the nascent labor movement with tear gas and bullets; driving by every so often in their Packards and Rolls and Pierce-Arrows to survey the carnage.  

Sooner than later, not only the working class but the government connected the dots and realized that absent some strong corrective action, the workers were all too likely to put a revolution in play, with a very uncertain outcome for everyone.   To keep Jefferson's ideal alive, they regulated the rich.  For almost a hundred years, it worked.

There was only one real problem - the rich learned their lesson, and spent the intervening time doing things like buying media outlets and crafting their message.  We cooperated by abandoning any interest in real education - and the result is that, incredibly, people have lined up in droves to vote against their own self-interest.  The Kool-Aid has been consumed; the twin gospels of 'no-poor-person-ever-gave-me-a-job', and 'if-we-leave-taxes-alone-someday-we-too-will-be-rich' are now considered Holy Writ, economically-speaking - and those of us who act as modern-day Cassandras are shouted-down in an orgy of semiliterate, misguided ranting and Voodoo Economics.

The only trickle-down any of us are going to feel is what's running down our neck while the one-percenters tell us it's raining - but that's a tale more properly left for 2011.

The notions of reason and logic are thin on the ground of late; we're being told to barter chickens for medical care, that our history needs to be rewritten to satisfy a cabal of poorly-educated zealots, and that our enemies are under every bed in the land - but we can deal with them, too, or so we're told - if we simply build the walls high enough, build enough bombs, and let our rampant xenophobia and radical religiosity have their way.

I'm of the belief that there are enough of you within metaphorical-earshot of this message to perhaps make a difference - but, as I'm fond of saying, it's time to pick a side.

I'm hoping you'll side with reason.  

To those of you who practice some form of religion, I hope you see that by siding with reason, you're not abandoning your faith - if anything, you're giving it an opportunity to continue, rather than chasing down the rabbit-hole of all-or-nothing zealotry.  Following a faith and then downing on everyone who doesn't think like you doesn't make you a saint - it just makes you an asshole and a zealot, and there are more than enough of those in the world.  (That's the thing about zealots; once they're in charge, they have the habit of turning on anyone who disagrees with them, even slightly - and that could be anyone.  Even you.  Certainly me.)

To those who don't follow a faith, I'm hoping you don't let the years you spent in the closet while both experiencing and avoiding the rampant persecution of the religious community poison your thinking - most religious people in America are decent folks who share your desire to be left alone.  Complaining about a nativity scene on someone's front-lawn isn't going to garner you any points.  If your convictions are well-grounded, then you won't care - you'll view that expression as a First Amendment right, which it is.  Remember that regardless of whether you were hounded by Fundies or fondled by priests at an early age, downing on only one religion doesn't make you an atheist, and rejecting only one god doesn't make you an agnostic - it just makes you a bigot, and there are enough of those in America.

Reason, logic, and connecting-the-dots are the only things - along with the informed votes which come out of those actions - which are going to save America.  It's too late for anything else, and relying on Jesus, Mohammed, Buddha, magic, or the Flying Spaghetti Monster is not just illogical - it's lame.

One thing's for certain - we can no longer afford a community of non-religious people who see fit to stay in the closet and not get involved.  That here-and-now perspective you bring to things is vital.  Bring it.


We also can't afford an insular religious community, which washes the car on Saturday afternoon, then gets up on Sunday morning to shower, shave, dress in their best and drive past homeless shelters and freeway camps, prisons, hospitals, and nursing homes - to a glittering building where they congratulate themselves on being  the Best People On Earth.

In 2011, get active.  Make it count.

Be good to each other.  Take an interest in what's around you. 

Be reasonable.

Saving The World - One Household At A Time....

Hope And Change Are Not Slogans – They’re A Call To Action

There’s no theme music for the collapse of empire.  If anything, it probably sounds like that old Soviet-era punk band, Brigada-S, or maybe some of Gyorgi Ligeti’s more-stark works, done to the repetitive thump of a scrap-metal shredder.  Our reward for the illogical and insane act of ‘going to war with terror’ was the bankruptcy of our nation and the destruction of at least two generations of Americans.

To the average person, doing anything at all to save someone might seem at first glance like a colossal waste of time, with nearly 20% of the workforce unemployed and homelessness being the fastest-growing ‘lifestyle’ in America.

In truth, Americans have gotten quite good at Giving Up; we gave up on educating our children about fifty years ago; we gave up on the electoral process (it wasn’t ‘cool’ enough); we gave up on the ideas of critical thought and the notions of Jeffersonian egalitarianism-through-knowledge – so much so that now, we have no leaders, no direction – and little if any real hope.

I was once told that I’m no good at giving up – I tend to see things through to the very bitter end, and if the word, ‘failure’ is written and the book is closed, it won’t be happening on my watch.

So, when I learned that an online friend was about to be evicted from her home, I took some action.  Some of you have followed that process.

Here’s why I did it.

First, I’ve known of her situation for quite a long time – some of you actually know this woman; she’s been a developing writer since her early days on Yahoo/360; she now has a book finished and authors two websites. 

She’s been devoted to assisting abused women based on her own background as an abused child.  Her efforts have created a mutual support-group of women with similar backgrounds, and I’ve followed her progress in this area with some interest – because she refuses to be a victim.

Circumstances overtook her when she lost her job a little over a year ago.  Her unemployment insurance has, as with so many other people, run out completely – and while she responded by selling most of what she has to remain in her modest rental home, those resources by their very nature didn’t last long.

Like the dragonfly which, when faced with starvation, will eat its own tail, such measures are at once harsh and finite – one can engage in only so much self-cannibalism; the process has but one end result.  The pumps buy you time; but minutes only.  What’s needed is a lifeboat.

It was at that point I decided to act – because through this whole process, there was one common thread:  She didn’t complain about her situation at all; she simply acknowledged it and continued with her work on behalf of other people.

In the end, it was this woman’s reaction to her own circumstances which caused me to pick her for my own small and modest effort of fund-raising – there were plenty of people in dire circumstances; any of us who’ve bothered to pay attention see similar situations all around us. 

So, I set up a donation page, and notified everyone who reads my little corner of the blogosphere.  And, with amounts both large and small, readers and online-friends responded.  Adding like to the sum of like, nearly fifty people donated, not just with the idea of keeping a woman and her children in their home, but to the greater idea that we can truly be the change we want to see in the world.

The real miracle here wasn’t that I decided to do something – it was that the rest of you decided saving a woman’s home was a good thing, also.

________________________________

What is Poverty?

Being poor is knowing exactly how much everything costs.

Being poor is hoping the toothache goes away.

Being poor is relying on people who don’t give a damn about you.

Being poor is an overnight shift under florescent lights.

Being poor is your kid’s teacher assuming you don’t have any books in your home.

Being poor is six dollars short on the utility bill and no way to close the gap.

Being poor is crying when you drop the mac and cheese on the floor.

Being poor is knowing you work as hard as anyone, anywhere.

Being poor is people surprised to discover you’re not actually stupid.

Being poor is people surprised to discover you’re not actually lazy.

Being poor is a six-hour wait in an emergency room with a sick child asleep on your lap.

Being poor is knowing you’re being judged.

Being poor is deciding that it’s all right to base a relationship on shelter.

Being poor is a cough that doesn’t go away.

Being poor is knowing where the shelter is.

Being poor is seeing how few options you have.

Being poor is running in place.

________________________________

Who is she?

Well, you can find out a bit by going here and here – these are places where she writes.  Personally, I’ve never met her.  We share the written word and some common space online, as I do with many of you.  (A warning – some of what she’s written deals with the effects of longtime child-abuse.  She’s not had an easy life.  Frankly, some of the things she’s gone through will – and should – chill you.  I don’t know if I could have suffered what she did and survived.  Many of you will come away with the same conclusion.)

Who is she?   

In the end - she is us.  She's you.  She's me.  She's everyone in America.

I don’t have to tell you that this nation’s in serious trouble.  In spite of the pontification of the guttersnipes who now run Congress, things aren’t going to get better by returning to the nonsense-as-policy which got us here in the first place.

The real conclusion?  It’s up to us.

I don’t believe in guardian-angels – I believe in people, who do good things for each other.   I don’t believe in a sky-fairy who’s ‘looking out for us’ – I believe in looking out for the people who cross our paths.   I don’t believe in pie-in-the-sky – I believe in the here and now, and in making things count while we’re here. 

I believe that ‘hope’ is a dynamic; created daily by people who give a damn.  I believe that ‘change’ is something we create in the world.  Regardless of your beliefs and motivations, it’s obvious that many of you feel the same.

So, again – thank you. 

Thank you for caring for someone you’ve never met.  Thank you for taking the time to ensure that she and her children have a roof over their head this Christmas.

Thank you for being the change we need to see in the world.

Footnote:

If you go here, you'll read an absolutely heartbreaking and beautiful post by way of both thanks and reflection from Ligeia, the woman who was the recipient today of a little over $1,000, donated from several of you on multiple venues.

While I was the one who organized the effort, it was really all of you who are the heroes here this Christmas. Thanks to you, a woman and her two children are going to have Christmas at home, and not in a shelter.

From her post, "...I wouldn't have asked for it. I honestly am struggling with taking it. But it does matter, and it is making a difference, and I am grateful for this. I am grateful for you. You are the change in more than just this one life. And if I get out of this...you will know that everything you did, will be multiplied and paid forward in your name.

You are the change...you changed our lives."

To all of you who donated either good wishes, ideas, or money -- Merry Christmas. Happy Holidays.

Thank you for being the change we need to see in the world.

-- Will ("Astra") 

Saving a Friend From Homelessness....

(Update:  We've raised $1,010.00 for Ligeia and her family!!  We've exceeded our goal - I'll leave the donation link up through Christmas Eve for anyone who wants to add to this. Thank you on behalf of she and her children!!  The donation website link is below.)


Most of you know that I don't write about my friends, relatives, or other people I know - my commentary is usually about public-figures, and current events.

Today is different.

I have a friend - a fairly close friend, who is the very face of American homelessness.  She has two children, one still living at home.  She's a single-mom who hasn't had the best life - but has persevered through it all, and has worked to see to it that her children had a better life than she has so far.

As with nearly seven million people in America since the beginning of this depression, she's exhausted her unemployment benefits, and there are no jobs in sight - and that's not for lack of looking.

In a week - maybe ten at the outside - she and her daughter will be sleeping in a homeless shelter if they can find the space - otherwise, she'll be living on the street.

So, I'm going to make a suggestion.

I've set up a website here; - if each of you kick in $10.00 through the 'donation' button on the page, it'll buy her a month or so.   Also, if any of you are aware of programs in California which might keep her in her modest rental home, I'm certain she'd be grateful.

She's already sold nearly everything she owns.  There's no place else to turn. 

Thank you.

-- Will ("Astra")