Tag: politics

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Taking candy from unemployed babies

I try not to delve into politics too often on here—I’ve seen enough on TV and the Internet to know that it usually only leads to closed minds and closed fists. However, there’s a video I saw online recently that I think a lot of people have been misinterpreting.

I consider Michelle Bachmann… I wouldn’t know where to start. I have no idea where she comes up with her personal or political ideology and she’s a complete whackjob as far as I can tell. How she’s been elected into the House of Representatives multiple times is beyond me. That being said, this is one of the most recent soundbites for which she’s being vilified:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DsMrd6YpUFE

The negative reaction I’ve read on the Internet (and the title of the video on YouTube, for that matter) is that Michelle Bachmann doesn’t want people to eat! She thinks poor people should starve to death! More food for the rich! EEEEEEEVILLLL!!!! Well, maybe that’s blowing it a bit out of proportion, but you get the idea.

My interpretation of the speech is that she’s being pretty straight-forward: Lazy people shouldn’t be given handouts. If you’re willing to put in a solid day’s work, you should receive a solid day’s pay. That’ll put food on the table and it’ll help the economy or whatever she was trying to promote during her speech. It’s an honorable sentiment, but it’s also incredibly naive.

There are plenty of people out there who can’t put food on the table. Some are indeed very lazy, but some have been laid off, some can’t find work, some are underemployed… honest to God, I’ve heard of a lawyer who needed government assistance (I don’t remember if it was food stamps, welfare or both) because she did so much pro bono work and rarely got paid by her clients. Just because people want to work doesn’t automatically mean they can work, so if Bachmann gets elected and slashes funding for some of those programs, want-to-be-hard-working people may go to sleep hungry at night.

Is there a good solution? Hell if I know. I haven’t looked at any charts or diagrams or statistics to show me anything about the current economic situation. Not that they’d actually show me anything—ever hear the quote about “lies, damn lies and statistics”? What I do know is that if we’re going to start solving some of these problems, people are going to have to take off their blinders and look at everything, not just what they want to look at based on their political affiliation. Open eyes, open minds, open hands? Just a thought.

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Harmful side-effects of too many campaign ads

I’ve been breathing a lot of sighs of relief recently—whenever the television is on, I only have to suffer through beer commercials, car ads and people asking me, “What’s in your wallet?” (Answer: Credit cards that aren’t Capital One.)

Sure, it’s bad, but it’s not as overbearing as the hours and hours of political commercials, smear ads and people asking me, “Do you really know who Obama is?” (Answer: Aside from being the first black President-elect in the history of the United States? Nope! But it’d be kind of funny if he carried a Capital One card…)

And now that the elections are over, they’re gone. No more campaigning for at least five months. Okay, maybe four. But then I was asleep last night and that all changed.

I had a dream where I was in the house and the TV was on in the background. Suddenly, I turned around and saw a campaign ad for Michelle Bachman, Republican member of the House representing Minnesota and a fruitcake. She believes homosexuality is evil, we should preach Creationism in schools and said this on CNN, which led to this petition.

She had bought some commercial time that was post-Nov. 4th and it was too late to get the TV time/money back, so they played the ad—I don’t remember if it was an “I’m good” or a “He sucks” ad—even though she already won (and a kitten died because of it).

Okay, sorry, no more political favorites. All I can say is that because it was a campaign ad airing after I was physically, emotionally and spiritually depending on them to stop, I wanted to cry myself to sleep, which is extremely hard to do when you’re already asleep.

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Vote Big Bird for City Council!

That’s right, you should all go out and exercise your right to fill in little bubbles on a sheet of paper, slip the paper into a machine and discover tonight that your choices made no difference when the final results are tallied. God, I love the smell of democracy in the air! It reminds me of visiting the barn at the State Fair where cows and horses stand around and poop all day.

My dad filed an absentee ballot since he’s been out of town for the weekend, so I got a peek at who’s on which ticket beforehand. For City Council, there are the two incumbents and one person who has no experience at any level of politics, which is why I figured Big Bird would be a pretty good candidate instead: you know he’s going to be working for the children’s best interests and he’ll want to clean up the streets. And teach everyone basic Spanish. But there’s a much larger list running for governor with their various party’s support. I just wonder what some of them would want to accomplish if they were elected. We have:

  • Independence
  • Republican
  • Democratic-Farmer-Labor
  • Green
  • American Party
  • Quit Raising Taxes

I shit you not. There is someone running for the “Quit Raising Taxes” party. Some politicians focus on the war on terror, education, Social Security… I wonder what they’d really do if they ended up in office. Farm subsidies for all? That might explain the smell of democracy in the air.

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“Can I get a grant for taking a shower?”

Tonight, Minnesota Citizens for the Arts (MCA) was having coffee with Pat Pariseau, our state Senator, discussing public funding for the arts—given that Minnesota has had a deficit since forever plus another year or two, they have to go through some budget cuts again. Thus, there were about a dozen locals sitting in a circle, introducing themselves to a person who could destroy their lives with a single finger, pushing a “NO” button during a Senate meeting. Ain’t power a beautiful thing?

Some of the people were members of an orchestra or choir, some worked for the city of Lakeville directly within the arts programs, some just did stuff like quilt-making on the weekends for a little added income. Then there was me. I introduced myself as “somewhat of an enigma” within that little group of people. After all, I haven’t had any direct contact with the arts since I was back at Kenyon, singing in the community choir and with Company, a musical theater group there.

Still, I told her about how I’ve been involved in a multitude of programs in the past—I’ve acted, I played piano and saxophone, I sang in the choir and performed musical theater, I’ve dabbled in writing on the side (yeah, dabbled… you can see how I’ve only been dabbling in here). I didn’t mention that my not currently being involved in the arts meant I eventually dumped all of the programs I was in, but I told her I went to law school, so I wasn’t going to graduate school for art or sewing quilts—nothing like that.

Why was I there? Because I know how important the arts are, both for people’s livelihoods and how they develop a person’s character. I’m probably a bad example when it comes to art benefiting someone’s character, but I imagine it works for other people…

But Pat had one question: even though I said I wasn’t involved in any of those programs, do I still sing in the shower? “Well, yeah, but it’s not publicly funded.” I suppose she could destroy that practice by pushing a “NO” button for budget cuts if they involve cutting off the utilities to my house, but if that happens, well, there were plenty of others at the meeting who support the arts and who probably have showers in their own bathrooms…

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Democracy In Action

For those of you who have checked out the link to The Opinion listed below, you probably noticed that starting last year, the newspaper had a steady stream of issues coming out almost every month as opposed to every season. This year, however, the school had a budget crisis that could have shut down the printed version of the paper altogether. Thankfully, the money we needed was provided due to democracy in action. Meaning I haven’t the slightest idea what happened. Continue reading “Democracy In Action”