yesterday was the 39th anniversary of A. Philip Randolph's death.

he was the founder of the brotherhood of pullman sleeping car porters, the first union representing african americans. he was instrumental in achieving justice and rights for african americans in the united states, from overturning the unspoken ban on blacks working in defense plants during wwII to desegregating the military, to providing the inspiration and support for the march on washington.

we need more men like him today. instead, we get gray davis.

A. Philip Randolph said:

justice is never granted; it is extracted.

and he was right.
spun by the propagandist at 4:23:00 PM

 
bad things happening today. very bad things.


spun by the propagandist at 3:19:00 PM

 
i'm not sure exactly what it is about overcast mornings that evens out my mood - but for some reason, when i'm sitting at my desk and look out the window at the grey backdrop of clouds, and feel the slight bite of cold, i feel like i'm at home.

maybe the grey countenance of the weather comforts me because it reflects the melancholy of morning.
spun by the propagandist at 9:40:00 AM

 
buying a house is by far the most nerve wracking experience i've been through - and believe me, i've been thru a few.

i can't wait for it to be over.
spun by the propagandist at 5:44:00 PM

 
i love shit like this.

Judo Club Puts Hold on Alleged Carjacker

A 20-year-old Los Angeles man was arrested Sunday on suspicion of carjacking and kidnapping after a series of alleged crimes that ended when he tried to take the minivan of a university judo club and was forced into submission.

After he was treated for minor injuries, Tyrone Hogan was being held on $1.2-million bail, said LAPD Sgt. Alan Hamilton of the Hollywood Division.

The alleged crimes--which included a carjacking, a mugging and a kidnapping--concluded at a gas station at Santa Monica Boulevard and Highland Avenue when Hogan tried to carjack a vehicle that carried a judo club from Florida International University, authorities said.

"He was detained, to say the least," Hamilton said. A bloodied Hogan was treated at the scene and taken to Los Angeles police headquarters downtown.

The events began around 1:30 p.m. when Hogan allegedly carjacked a man and woman outside their Hollywood-area home in the 1100 block of Gordon Street, Hamilton said.

After pulling the man out of the vehicle, Hamilton said, Hogan got into the driver's seat and drove off with the woman inside.

Hogan tried unsuccessfully to grab the woman's purse, Hamilton said. Hogan then forced the woman out of the vehicle while it was still moving, officials said.

Hamilton said police soon received a 911 call from a Mobil gas station. Hamilton said Hogan had apparently pulled into the station to grab another vehicle.

Hogan tried to take a beige minivan that contained the judo club, which was in town to teach a class in Long Beach, officials said. The club had just completed a tour of Hollywood and was about to head to Los Angeles International Airport, Hamilton said.

Hogan asked a member of the coed judo club for money and then became involved in a struggle with some of the others as he tried to get the minivan, Hamilton said.

It was then, police said, that several members of the judo club used their skills to restrain Hogan.

"We had this guy like a pretzel on the ground," said Nestor Bustillo, the club's judo instructor. Team members placed Hogan in what Bustillo called a body hold.

"Judo team, 1; carjacker, 0," Hamilton said.
spun by the propagandist at 11:01:00 AM

 
poet ogden nash would have been 100 years old today. his most famous verse is "candy is dandy, but liquor is quicker." a fine example of his wit - but his other poems have more twist...

More About People
Ogden Nash

When people aren't asking question
They're making suggestions
And when they're not doing one of those
They're either looking over your shoulder or stepping on your toes
And then as if that weren't enough to annoy you
They employ you.
Anybody at leisure
Incurs everybody's displeasure.
It seems to be very irking
To people at work to see other people not working,
So they tell you that work is wonderful medicine,
Just look at Firestone and Ford and Edison,
And they lecture you till they're out of breath or something
And then if you don't succumb they starve you to death or something.
All of which results in a nasty quirk:
That if you don't want to work you have to work to earn enough money so that you won't have to work.

R.I.P.
spun by the propagandist at 10:08:00 AM

 
the time between when i wake up and when i finish my cup of coffee is often one of the most challenging parts of my day. and not because i'm groggy and cranky (although that is often the case), but because i still have not pulled entirely out of the netherworld of sleep, where fears and memories bubble up from my subconscious and reach out to gently touch me on the cheek, quietly announcing their assault.

I can see them swirling, rising to the surface and slowly sinking again as they drift, the surface tension of the water gripping at their edges, swallowing them back into the mirrored depth of my thoughts and dreams. They leave milky, phosphorescent trails in the dark opaque water.

Things like memories of my grandfather pulling away the oxygen tube from his nose and looking at me with his clouded eyes, the skin around his nose dry and red, his right eye weeping with both sadness and pain.

Like watching my dad as he stared at his father’s corpse and slowly sank to the ground.

The hands of past loves reaching out but never quite touching me, clenching into fists before they draw back to the other side of the milky water.

I need a cup of coffee.

spun by the propagandist at 10:49:00 AM

 
yes, this is our president, talking about his reg'lar folks economic propaganda exercise:

"I promise you I will listen to what has been said here, even though I wasn't here."

"I can assure you that, even though I won't be sitting through every single moment of the seminars, nor will the vice president, we will look at the summaries."

thanks to slate.com for the "complete bushisms.

bitterness level dark ochre today.


spun by the propagandist at 3:04:00 PM

 
when people ask me why i'm such a confrontational asshole, i like to tell them there's a great story in my family about my grandfather and uncle on my grandma's side.

my family used to live in blythe in the imperial valley. my great grandfather on my grandma's side was a sheriff, and his sons were firefighters and other upstanding members of the community. my papa and grandma moved there when they first came to california, and my grandma worked various jobs, one of which was as a waitress.

well, my grandmother being a beautiful redhead attracted a little more than her share of attention, and one night a spurned customer referred to her in a less than flattering manner. when she went home and told my papa and great uncle about the insult, both of them agreed that the transgressor would pay. but what they couldn't agree on was WHO would make him pay. so as they drove over to find this guy their argument about who got to beat the shit out of him reached a fever pitch, and spilled out of the car into the parking lot of their destination - where they started a fistfight over who could beat up the transgressor. my papa knocked my great uncle cold and then went to find the real object of his anger - who then paid in a similar but far more brutal manner.

i like telling that story.
spun by the propagandist at 6:44:00 PM

 
i went and saw isaac hayes last night at the hollywood bowl with a friend and about 10 or 11 people from where she works. i love the bowl, especially on balmy summer nights that wrap around you like a blanket, the music floating up to the cheap seats (with that disconcerting lag between the movement and the sound when you look thru the binoculars) and, of course, the large quantities of wine.

i like being the unknown in a group of friends - especially when i know of most of the people i'm with, but they don't really know about me. one of my great pleasures is anonymity. i don't need to be the center of attention or even just be recognized - i realized a long time ago that i feel far more comfortable observing and listening - sitting in the corner . that's why i can work for the firm i'm in and on some pretty high profile campaigns and not have anyone in la able to point me out in a line up...

part of it is because the more attention i get the less my clients get - too many consultants steal the spotlight from their clients, because of either ego or from lack of self-confidence. i just enjoy what i'm doing and want to keep doing it without the complications that arise from being too high profile - and i guess i'm also pretty damn shy.

that's the way i like to travel too - watching, observing. i like to get into places and meet people, but i can also spend weeks happily drifting, watching, writing....

i wish that was in my future. unfortunately, a mortgage has taken the place of that fantasy...
spun by the propagandist at 10:25:00 AM

 
an interesting day in propaganda.

sometimes i wonder if maybe i'm not being terribly effective in my role as a propagandist, and then something so shallow and obviously manipulative comes along that just makes me feel better.

this time it was w's ordinary folk economic summit - an event so contrived and staged that it looked like bad dinner theater in phoenix.

bill saletan over at slate.com had a pretty good take on the whole affair and can better describe the ludicrous assertions of crisply suited CEOs gushing that their employees really weren't hurting in the recession, that "they were just so happy to have jobs!" actual quote. i'm not making that one up - and neither was the CEO spouting it - hundreds of slave owners used that same twisted logic to rationalize their exploitation of human chattel too.
spun by the propagandist at 5:11:00 PM

 
people often ask me why i do what i do. then they ask me if i work for anyone in politics - republicans or democrats, anyone with money.

while this is sort of insulting, most people don't understand my motivations - and they assume that those motivations are money, power, etc, just like the movies and media portray politicians.

and i often have trouble explaining why i sacrifice so much of my time and emotion (and, seemingly, relationships) for so little material return.

some would call it self righteousness, the feeling that i know better, or believe that my ideology is right, or just better. i don't know what to call it - but i feel like the potential of our country and political system is being denied those that most need it, and i want to try and stop that.

sometimes i read or see something that crystalizes these very vague feelings of injustice. this is one of them - its from timothy noah's column. the article he quotes follows.

Noah is describing what happened to spending priorities after the republicans took over congress, and how money was shifted not only from democratic to republican districts, but from programs for the poor to programs to the rich and middle class.

never believe anyone who tells you there is no difference between the parties.

to quote Noah:

Thus, the AP reports,

spending on child care food programs was slashed 80 percent; public and Indian housing grants were virtually eliminated; rental housing loans for rural areas and special benefits for disabled coal miners were cut by two-thirds; and the food stamp program was cut by a third.

At the same time,

Direct payments to farmers increased sevenfold during the six years of GOP rule; business and industrial loans quadrupled; home mortgage insurance went up 150 percent; and crop insurance assistance jumped by two-thirds.

What the AP is describing, then, appears to represent not only a spending shift from Democratic congressional districts to Republican ones, but also, and more significant, a spending shift from low-income people to middle- and upper-income people. The GOP, it seems, is every bit as bent as the Democrats on redistributing income; the only difference is that while Democrats want to redistribute income downward, to the poor, Republicans want to redistribute it upward, to the rich. This impulse is particularly offensive when you consider that even before the Republicans recaptured the House, entitlement spending tended (improbable as it sounds) to favor the wealthy. Here is how Neil Howe and Phillip Longman put it in a 1992 article for the Atlantic Monthly (their source was the Congressional Budget Office):

[T]he most affluent Americans actually collect slightly more from the welfare state than do the poorest Americans. … [In 1991,] U.S. households with incomes over $100,000 received, on average, $5,690 worth of federal cash and in-kind benefits, while the corresponding figure for U.S. households with incomes under $10,000 was $5,560. Quite simply, if the federal government wanted to flatten the nation's income distribution, it would do better to mail all its checks to random addresses. The problem is not that poverty programs don't target the poor. More than 85 percent of the benefits from AFDC, SSI, and food stamps do indeed go to households with incomes under $20,000. But their impact is neutralized by all the other programs, which tilt the other way and are, of course, much greater in size.

The AP investigation would appear to suggest that federal spending is even more concentrated than it used to be on the rich. It's been said more than once that President Bush is using the tax system to fatten the wallets of wealthy people. (For example, Citizens for Tax Justice recently observed that, if fully enacted, 52 percent of the Bush tax reductions will go to people who earn, on average, $1.5 million annually.) What now needs to be noted is that the Republican-controlled House is using government spending to help those least in need. Alas, you probably won't hear many Democrats saying this because Bill Clinton, who was president for most of that period, let it happen.


AUGUST 06, 02:06 ET
House Takeover Led to Spending Shift

By DAVID PACE
Associated Press Writer
AP/J. SCOTT APPLEWHITE [16K]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



WASHINGTON (AP) — Federal spending in Republican congressional districts increased 50 percent faster than in Democratic districts following the 1994 GOP takeover of the House, an Associated Press analysis shows.

After six years of GOP control, the average Republican district in 2000 was getting $612 million more in federal money than the average Democratic district, the computer analysis found. In 1995, the last year Democrats controlled the budget process in the House, the average Democratic district got $35 million more.

Rather than pork barrel projects for new GOP districts, however, the change was driven mostly by Republican policies that moved spending from poor rural and urban areas to the more affluent suburbs and GOP-leaning farm country, the computer analysis showed.
AP/Dave Martin [18K]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



In terms of services, that translates into more business loans and farm subsidies, and fewer public housing grants and food stamps.

``There is an old adage,'' said House Majority Leader Dick Armey, R-Texas, ``To the victor goes the spoils.''

House Democratic Conference Chairman Martin Frost said the analysis shows that ``who's in the majority does make a difference.''

The findings highlight the huge stakes for voters in the November midterm elections, when Republicans will try to hold onto their narrow six-seat majority in the House. The Senate, which the Republicans also won in 1994, switched to Democratic control last year when Sen. Jim Jeffords of Vermont left the Republican Party and became an independent.

Average spending in GOP House districts jumped nearly $2 billion from 1995 to 2001, from $3.86 billion to $5.84 billion, while the average federal outlay in Democratic districts increased $1.3 billion, from $3.89 billion in 1995 to $5.23 billion in 2001. The result was a shift of billions of federal dollars from Democratic to Republican districts.

Armey and other GOP leaders say the shift wasn't part of a premeditated strategy, although they acknowledge directing federal spending toward districts where Republican representatives are politically vulnerable.

``Clearly that happens, whether you're Republican or Democrat,'' said former Rep. Bob Livingston, R-La., who oversaw the House Appropriations Committee for three years after the GOP takeover.

The biggest spending hikes during the six years came in districts that stayed Republican through the 1990s. Those that switched from Democratic to Republican in the 1994 election also benefited more than Democratic districts.
AP/Joe Marquette [21K]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



GOP leaders say the spending shift mainly was a byproduct of their efforts to change the direction of government and to ensure GOP areas received fairer treatment after four decades of being in the minority.

Between 1995 and 2001, AP's analysis found that 20 of the 30 fastest growing federal programs had disproportionately benefited constituents in GOP districts in 1995. Similarly, 20 of the 30 programs that were cut the most had disproportionately benefited Democratic districts before the takeover.

For instance, spending on child care food programs was slashed 80 percent; public and Indian housing grants were virtually eliminated; rental housing loans for rural areas and special benefits for disabled coal miners were cut by two-thirds; and the food stamp program was cut by a third.

Rock Myrthil felt the impact when he brought his family to the United States two years ago looking for opportunity and an escape from crime in his native Haiti. Despite a full-time job as a mechanic, Myrthil said he's unable to support his wife and four children on his $400-a-week salary.

Myrthil, 38, of Brockton, Mass., is one of thousands of legal immigrants who don't qualify for food stamps because of changes Congress made in 1997. He can obtain food stamps only for his 3-month-old baby, who automatically became a U.S. citizen when she was born stateside.

``I have family, four brothers over here, a sister, when I need some food they can give me some food,'' he said.

Armey said the programs cut by the GOP Congress were ``institutional pork,'' designed to help Democrats build a loyal constituency. By cutting those programs, he said, Republicans reduced the amount of money going to Democratic districts.

But Congress under GOP rule also directed more money to programs that disproportionately benefited GOP districts. Direct payments to farmers increased sevenfold during the six years of GOP rule; business and industrial loans quadrupled; home mortgage insurance went up 150 percent; and crop insurance assistance jumped by two-thirds.

Mississippi farmer David Waide got about $40,000 in federal crop subsidies during 2001, covering more than a fifth of his costs. Without that money, he said, ``I couldn't operate the row crop part of it.''

Federal spending records analyzed by AP are maintained by the Census Bureau and reflect both direct spending and government loans and insurance. In almost all cases, they also provide the location where the money was spent, making it possible to compare spending on a district-by-district basis.

Programs like flood insurance are reported in terms of the government's total liability, should it have to pay insurance claims. While that inflates the overall totals, spending increased faster in Republican districts regardless of whether government insurance programs are counted or not.

From 1995 to 2001, average federal spending without insurance increased 41 percent in Republican districts, compared with 27 percent in Democratic districts. AP/ [18K]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



Robert M. Stein, a Rice University political scientist and co-author of a book on federal spending after the GOP takeover of Congress, said Republicans ``love contingent liabilities, guaranteed loans, subsidies, and insurance payments because they really don't break the budget.''

Armey agreed.

``That is possible because of the way (budget) scorekeeping is set up,'' he said. ``Our intuitive first reaction is what does it cost? And if the scorekeeper comes back and says it costs less, we have more of an inclination to leave it alone.''

The House, of course, is just one player in the complicated process that results in the parceling out of federal money. The Senate and the administration also have a say in how federal dollars are spent.

During the six years after the GOP takeover, for example, two districts in then-President Clinton's home state of Arkansas had the biggest increases in federal spending among the 377 districts with constant boundaries.

Ironically, House leaders proved less adept at directing money toward their own districts, further showing that policy changes — not pork politics — were the driving force behind the spending shift.

Armey's Texas district, for instance, ranked 211th when the GOP took control, and slipped to 213th by 2001. House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt's Missouri district fell from 36th in 1995 to 77th six years later.



spun by the propagandist at 10:03:00 AM

 
okay, i'm back. but i have a good excuse.

i'm buying a house. in the mt. angelus neighborhood of highland park - its up on a hill, has a beautiful view and, most importantly, will not devour two thirds of my income and four pints of blood for the mortgage payment.

this is a big step for me. and an even bigger step for the lender that is willing to underwrite my foray into the realm of property owners- ignorant fools! i mean, i can't even keep my lawn alive in front of my rental - now i am going to be the one cursing my neighbor with the car growing out of his lawn.

but the real big question is: which room do i convert to the dungeon?
spun by the propagandist at 5:03:00 PM