From the NYTimes:
When thousands of poor families were given federal housing subsidies in the early 1990s to move out of impoverished neighborhoods, social scientists expected the experience of living in more prosperous communities would pay off in better jobs, higher incomes and more education.
That did not happen. But more than 10 years later, the families’ lives had improved in another way: They reported being much happier than a comparison group of poor families who were not offered subsidies to move, a finding that was published on Thursday in the journal Science….
But there was little evidence that the new neighborhoods made much of a difference in either income or education, a disappointment for social scientists, who had hoped that the experiment would lead to new ways of combating poverty.
What researchers did find were substantial improvements in the physical and mental health of the people who moved. Researchers reported last year in The New England Journal of Medicine that the participants who moved to new neighborhoods had lower rates of obesity and diabetes than those not offered the chance to move. Beyond the increase in happiness, the new study found lower levels of depression among those who moved….
The stress and hard work involved with being poor always comes as a shock to those who’ve never had to live it.
What’s on the agenda for the evening?
Corner Stone
The evening? My plan is to pass out watching O and WU speed around the field.
After, of course, I schkiaf down some delish pho.
Corner Stone
Being poor is a real son of a bitch. I don’t recommend it.
Soonergrunt
@Anne Laurie, Top:
Expect to see the kinds of effects they were looking for to accrue to the children or their children. When you don’t have to spend every bit of energy just to make it, you can plan for the future and actually stand a reasonable shot of getting there. It’s just like all the old stories of immigrant families where the parents worked themselves to the bone at low paying low skilled jobs and their kids are all PhDs and Astronauts and Entrepreneurs and so forth.
And yes, I feel like hammered shit, still. As a matter of fact, I feel almost like Andrew Breitbart, who is still dead.
redshirt
I just cooked for 5 people. Doesn’t sound like a lot of people, but my gods, the dishes! I’m not going to deal with them tonight. Tomorrow!
Violet
Posted this downstairs, but since this is an open thread, it’s a better fit here.
I just got back from talking down older relatives who have been told via “very reliable emails from some people they trust” (wingnut chain letters) that “once Obamacare goes into effect in 2014, there will be no cancer treatments for people 75 and older.”
I looked it up on my phone and debunked it right there, but I don’t know if it took. Me and Snopes.com versus forwarded emails ostensibly from some judge somewhere spouting scary stuff about Obamacare. I think I lost that battle.
As one of them said, “the government thinks older people are expendable.”
Linnaeus
Let’s see…another vodka cran and some chicken Kiev while watching football online.
Go Dawgs.
Keith G
This evening? Watching the Buckeyes play like a team that wants to win and knows how. And enjoying a multicultural food fest: Leftover souvlaki from the Greek Fest, My own nachos with fresh chilis, and and bottle of Two Buck Chuck Cabernet
And on cue…the Buckeyes fumble….Oy’
Corner Stone
@redshirt: What did you cook?
Old Dan and Little Ann
@Violet: Keep up the good fight. I continue to argue with people who have zero percent of changing their minds. I look forward to telling them in the future that I was on the right side of history. Fuck them.
Punchy
So they felt happier while mooching and looting?
LanceThruster
Whether the projects or some other public housing, I’ve always felt that if the true riff-raff could be sanctioned, isolated or moved out themselves, decent people though poor could take back their own surroundings too, with similar results as in the study.
The Doctor Who I’ve loaded up for a visiting friend had nice high density UK housing depicted (Night Terrors) that in this country would be seen as (or eventually deteriorate into) one of the project hell-holes
Corner Stone
@efgoldman: Damn, the year in and year out team speed of O is just stunning to see with your own eyes.
Even their 200+ pounders run the middle of the field nasty style.
? Martin
Still installing crown molding. Nearly shot a nail through my thumb. Decided to take a half hour break after that to let some of the stupid seep out of me. Nailguns are soooo easy to stop thinking around.
Wife and son are at a competition. Daughter is at a sleepover. Need to make sure I don’t do something to cause me to bleed out or the corgi will eat me before anyone returns to drag my dumb ass to a hospital.
Violet
@Old Dan and Little Ann: It’s very frustrating. They’re just scared they’re going to be left with nothing and won’t have medical coverage. I understand that fear. But they just trust those stupid forwarded emails from their friends far more than they do actual facts. I guess because it confirms biases or their fear blinds them or something. I don’t know.
It’s hard when it’s people you love and you can see some of what’s happening and why they’re scared or whatever, but you can’t seem to get through to them.
Corner Stone
@LanceThruster:
Who would they be?
1badbaba3
@Punchy: Doesn’t everyone?
fuckwit
It’s much, much easier to lie than to tell the truth.
The reason is: it’s easy to make up a lie, but very, very, very hard to prove the truth.
This is the general phenomenon of the scientific method: uncertainty is the default. we just don’t know. To really KNOW something– to prove it conclusively– is very, very hard.
Our political world, and everything in it, has to deal with much more scientific things these days– there is so much complexity, and thus so much uncertainty. Economics in today’s world is complex. meteorology and climate science is complex– in the literal sense, complexity in a mathematical sense. technology is complex. all these things, our political systems need to deal with.
Amidst this uncertainty, it’s so easy to just make up a bullshit story. Hey, it could be true, anything is possible! Sure, proving it is hard, but amidst all the uncertainty, people don’t demand proof. That’s the fatal error.
But how can you respond to that? Proving the bullshit false is very, very hard. How do you prove a negative? You can’t really. so the liar gets away with lying, or not even lying, just totally making shit up.
People who are used to a pre-scientific world– a simple world where truths could be actually determined– are adrift in the scientific, modern world. And our politics are very much pre-scientific. That’s what’s wrong.
That’s what we’re seeing now with RMoney’s lies, with the creationists, with the climate deniers, with the economic supply-side voodoo-ists.
It’s all part of the same problem.
I’m not sure what to do about it.
Corner Stone
Gott dang but every person on the O football team is faster than you can possibly imagine.
Judas Escargot, Acerbic Prophet of the Mighty Potato God
@fuckwit:
I’m more puzzled as to why so many in the middle are so eager to be lied to.
? Martin
@Violet: Talked to my mom today. She might be coming around a little. Thought I was losing her to the teatard lately. They just got calories on menu boards in her neck of the woods and she liked it. She asked if that was a California law that simply seeped nationally (as so many of ours tend to do) and I said no – Obamacare. It’s a phased rollout so none of the national chains would get hit with the cost all at once and it just started here out west because all of the Democratic legislators wanted it.
Her response? “Huh. That was a good idea. They should have started it in the fat states though.”
Progress.
TexasMango
@Violet:
You can’t get through to then because Obama is blah.
Seriously, how many elderly black people do you think believe that President Obama wants to kill them when they turn 75?
redshirt
@Corner Stone: All Mexican. This awesome guacamole and nachos and a veggie chile that I served in small corn tortillas baked with cheese and sauce. Followed by cake that was not Mexican.
Came out great. Just too many dishes to clean.
LanceThruster
@Corner Stone:
Anybody in assisted housing bringing down the quality of life for the rest of the neighbors. It’s about their actions, not a socio-economic or racial categorization. I moved out of a great neighborhood because of white kids with boom bass car audio.
gwangung
@Judas Escargot, Acerbic Prophet of the Mighty Potato God: They fear the worst and when they’re confirmed (even when it’s by a lie), they’ll eagerly snatch it up.
Violet
@TexasMango: I’m not sure that’s it. There were plenty of similar type emails about Hillarycare when Clinton was president.
Old Dan and Little Ann
@Violet: I have a Vietnam Vet uncle who was a Green Beret. He forwards me the same kinds of emails. I always write lengthy explanations and he always repsonds with something completely ridiculous. It sucks because I love him to death but For Fuck’s Sake! I dont’ get it either.
LanceThruster
@LanceThruster:
Oh, and btw, their families were FD and PD related/connected so they all acted like little Mittlers themselves.
Like I said, it’s about actions.
1badbaba3
@Corner Stone: They’re trying (and failing) to run away from the ugly in their uniforms. Yuk.
Violet
@Old Dan and Little Ann: Yep, that’s pretty much it. I have a fancy new smartphone and was able to look up the lie right there on the spot. This is new development (the phone/ability to do this), and because I could show them the snopes.com website debunking the claim, they were kind of, “Huh? So that’s not going to happen?” I guess they trust snopes.
I have no idea if it’s going to be a lasting effect, but it’s a big improvement from where we were in the past was me saying, “But that’s not true!” and then saying, “Yes it is. I have an email!”
Schlemizel
He’s listed over there on the right ->
John Scalzi was poor growing up & has talked about the breaks that he got, the hand ups and the hand outs. But if you have not read his piece on what it means to be poor you are missing a first hand account of the stress and depression in easy to understand bits
whatever.scalzi.com/2005/09/03/being-poor/
hitchhiker
Here is my plan for Mitt.
He has to pick a number from a jar that contains only 3 numbers.
1. means he gives up his entire fortune and starts over at the very bottom. He speaks with a Spanish accent. He doesn’t get to keep anything on his resume, either. He doesn’t get to use his rolodex.
2. means he gives up his entire fortune but gets to keep the resume and the rolodex. However, he’s paralyzed from the chest down. Still has the Spanish accent.
3. means he has to choose between 1 and 2.
All choices permanent.
So . . . would Mitt rather be a well-educated, well-connected, flat broke Hispanic quadriplegic 65 year-old, or a healthy 65-year-old Hispanic with no education and no work history?
It would make me happy to see him consider these choices and have to offer his reasons for taking one over the other.
Jim, Foolish LIteralist
The NPR weekend money show was focused on poverty today, including the obligatory douchebag in the gated San Diego neighborhood (which I’ve heard before… Rancho something?) who crowed about how “I built that” (his business) and all this blather about poverty is just moochers who think they’re entitled to 50 inch flat screens. “How can you say you’re poor if you have a cell phone?” The next interview was a homeless woman who owned a car, that she lived in, and a cell phone. I’d trembled for the man if I believed God were just, or that God existed.
arguingwithsignposts
@Violet:
I’ve heard people claim Snopes is a liberal front group. Fucking idiots.
Violet
@efgoldman: Okay, maybe it wasn’t Hillarycare at the time, but there were a whole bunch of emails about the various Clinton-gates and when the Monica Lewinsky stuff happened, then there were a bunch of emails about that. That was slightly later
I do remember Hillarycare emails, but they were more in retrospect–“Thank goodness we dodged that bullet” or it would be included on a list of terrible things Clinton did/was going to do/all Dems were going to do so vote Republican.
I got so many emails about Clinton from various wingnut relatives that I had to put a stop to it. So that’s why I remember it so well.
PurpleGirl
Those results of the housing study remind me of a study done to see the effects of Head Start at 40 years old. While they hoped that the children who had been in that first Head Start class would show great gains in grades and skills, they didn’t. But what they did find was that the children had a better view of themselves and of their families and life/work in general. The children of those in that first Head Start class also showed gains in how they saw themselves and some gains in grades. The changes were subtle but consistent across the generations. More children finished high school and could get jobs. It can take small steps to get changes but the smaller steps seem to stick longer. All in all, Head Start had positive impacts on the children and their families.
mbss
i dunno.
this is all vague, don’t quote me.
i remember reading some article, maybe NYT, that was going on about some country using a ranking which they considered more relevant and indicative than GDP, and what they used was a happiness gauge, or somesort quality of life scale.
i want to say somewhere in asia. anyway. i find this result very positive. i’ve got to say, it’s much easier to be a productive, positive member of society when you have some of maslow’s basic needs met. i’ve lived comfortably and under financial duress.
being poor is a motherfucker.
Jim, Foolish LIteralist
@Violet:
The line I don’t get is “government bureaucrats coming between you and your doctor!” I fear a private insurance company that I’ve been paying extortionate premiums to for almost ten years coming between me and my doctor. Actually I’m afraid of doctors, but only cause they tell me I need to eat less of the things I like and exercise more. Know it all bastards.
SatanicPanic
Vodka!
1badbaba3
@? Martin: It’s just a flesh wound.
PurpleGirl
@Schlemizel: Agreed Scalzi’s essay on growing up poor is an impressive piece.
Or something like that.Suffern Ace
@Schlemizel: cracked.com/blog/the-5-stupidest-habits-you-develop-growing-up-poor/
John Cheese had a good piece on that topic as well.
Violet
@Jim, Foolish LIteralist: I don’t get it either. Every fucking day with the current health care system we live with insurance “death panels.” They decide if you can have treatment or not, what kind and so forth. There’s no difference between that and a government bureaucrat deciding it. If the government decided it, at least they wouldn’t be trying to make a profit off people getting sick.
Corner Stone
Wolfpack F’ng FSU!
Thank the FSM!
SarahT
Watching Radiohead on Austin City Limits ( thanks, PBS !) It’s been said before but bears repeating : Thom Yorke’s ponytail must die.
Kristine
@SarahT:
I think his voice already did.
Villago Delenda Est
So, these people live happier, healthier lives, even if they’re not elevated to middle class status.
This is an improvement for them. I’d say we’ve got a success here, if not one that the bean counters can revel in.
After all, unless you can measure things on a spread sheet, they’re of no importance at all. Sunshine, for example, cannot be calculated on a spread sheet. Therefore it is not important.
Villago Delenda Est
@Violet:
As long as the death panels are run by the private sector, not the evil government, we’re all cool with that. After all, the only “bureaucrats” we need fear are ones on the Federal Pay Schedule. Private beancounters are good! They promote efficiency!
Schlemizel
@Or something like that.Suffern Ace:
I had forgotten that on – it was very good too, thanks!
The other thing that amazes me is the hate they got for those pieces.
Hill Dweller
@Kristine: Yorke has become vocally lazy. When he wants to, he can still sound good, but most of the time he mails it in.
He did an acoustic version of Airbag at Coachella last year or the year before, and it was amazing.
Villago Delenda Est
@Corner Stone:
Um, you’re going to have to be specific about “O Football Team”. Are you, by chance, referring to the team that is kicking Dawgazz at the moment?
Anne Laurie
@efgoldman: I originally put this thread up right on top of SarahP&T’s, pulled it as soon as I realized, and changed it to ‘schedule’ a couple hours later. That function doesn’t work very reliably here, but if it hadn’t popped up automatically, I figured I could post when I got back (which I just did).
Now there’s a DougJ post scheduled for later tonight — could you have mistaken his style for MisterMix’s? I may have set off a rolling way of politeness, which will no doubt be interrupted by at least one drunken late-night Cole Rant special…
? Martin
Two other good pieces about poverty, from Cracked no less:
cracked.com/blog/5-things-nobody-tells-you-about-being-poor/
cracked.com/blog/the-5-stupidest-habits-you-develop-growing-up-poor/
Both are dead on. Add in Morgan Spurlock’s quite good 30 days living on minimum wage:
bargaineering.com/articles/morgan-spurlocks-30-days-living-on-minimum-wage.html
NotMax
Somewhere in a file folder I have an article cut out of The New York Times in ’66 or ’67.
It announced a newly published scientific study which concluded that (not paraphrasing, this is the actual text) “people are happier if they are young, healthy and rich than if they are old, poor and sick.”
? Martin
@Hill Dweller: Their 2000 performance on SNL was really fantastic.
burnspbesq
@efgoldman:
The PAC-12 schedule maker did U-Dub no favors this year. They play Stanford, Oregon, and USC in consecutive weeks.
Meanwhile, don’t look now, but Duke (yes, Duke) is 5-1.
redshirt
@Anne Laurie: Fascinating insight into the Balloon Juice machine. Seems Manichean.
clayton
I was very disappointed today to hear that Tess Vigland woman on the public radio keep harping on a poor family having two flat screen tvs, even after they told her that they had gotten them cheap.
And then they had on Murray for good measure.
For these types, you aren’t poor — even if you are living out of your car. At least you have a car, right?
Grapes of Wrath poor are all they recognize.
Violet
@Anne Laurie:
We can only hope! Even his Twitter feed has been quiet.
Yutsano
@clayton:
Adjusted.
clayton
@? Martin:
I only use power tools when I know someone is coming over for the very same reason — except I have a bird dog and chow.
Hill Dweller
The media, including Nate Silver, is pushing the Mitt-mentum hard. Silver is even quoting the wingnut Gravis Polls in his article, which have Obama losing the African-American vote in Colorado and Willard winning 34% of AA vote in Nevada.
burnspbesq
@efgoldman:
Before there was AOL, there was Delphi. And state-of-the-art 1200-baud modems. Got my first Internet connection and my first cell phone at about the same time, late ’93.
clayton
@Yutsano: Ah, yes. There are nor have ever been the tortuously poor in this country. You’d think that would be something to at least be grateful for.
WereBear
I don’t get it either. I bring up the disability insurance thing we deal with constantly, and then they shut up, because they know it’s true.
UNUM Provident. I’m naming names. All summer they have been on a campaign of harassment for my husband having the nerve to get sick and use the insurance he paid for all those years.
We finally engaged a lawyer who specializes and assured us they harass everyone this way. Quadraplegic? Why, you can work phone sales, you slacker!
I don’t know what will come of it, but when they send backdated notices and tell you your claim will be forfeit if their rules (constantly changing) are violated in any way, I’d rather do something than hope one of us doesn’t screw up in some way.
TexasMango
@Hill Dweller:
Good God.
Or something like that.Suffern Ace
@Yutsano: Why don’t those poor people put in decent sewers so they’ll have fresh water and indoor plumbing.
karen marie
@redshirt: Are the five people crippled? I would assume so since they’re not able to lift a finger to help out cleaning up.
? Martin
Yay! My son’s school won top award at their marching band competition. His first HS competition. He’s excited.
Yutsano
@Or something like that.Suffern Ace: Such lazy ingrates. They’re not exactly STARVING are they? Just look at how many children they bear?
lamh35
Wow Big Bird was just on SNL. He really is a big bird. you kinda forget how big the puppet really was.
twitter.yfrog.com/keavwsjj
Higgs Boson's Mate
Divided my time today between chatting with my lovely wife and committing art. Ordered a pair of NVIDIA video cards so that I can run them together with SLI(Unreconstructed gamer here). Now it’s half past nine so I’m just watching “Doc Martin” on Netflix before hitting the sack and reading myself to sleep with the Mahabharata.
Life is good.
? Martin
@Hill Dweller: Now now. Nate runs all polls. He’s explained this. Before he jumped to NYT he wouldn’t but at NYT he needs to. Those polls will get averaged out once the full slate drops. Relax.
redshirt
@karen marie: I wouldn’t ask guests to wash dishes. Helping clear the table, sure. But not scrubbing.
Jim, Foolish LIteralist
that rather strains one’s credulity. also clears up whether gravis should be taken seriously
Hill Dweller
@? Martin: Silver cited them in his actual article as evidence of the shift to Willard. He has/had to know the Gravis Polls are complete bullshit.
Or something like that.Suffern Ace
@WereBear: Went through that with a friend and a different ltd insurer. Because she received the insurance when she was working, of course there was no real policy manual. Nor much of anything she could do to figure out what was going on. Letters lost in the mail. Forms sent every two or three weeks demanding that she see a doctor. Cut off notices. I don’t know how people who have to move because of a disability get through the process.
When I used to do SSI/SSDI paperwork as a social worker, the problem most of my clients had was lack of a documented medical history. Middle class people have documented medical histories and still get dicked around when they get sick.
? Martin
@mbss:
It’s Bhutan. They call it their Gross Domestic Happiness. Interesting country. Archery is the national sport and they paint dongs on all of their buildings. Very Greek and Roman, that. It’s supposed to scare off evil spirits. Maybe we should paint a bunch around Liberty University and help them out.
Violet
@lamh35: Wow, he is really big!
PurpleGirl
@karen marie: I’ve cooked for bunches of people and I much prefer to wash all the dishes myself. Guests can help me gather the dishes and stack them in the sink and such, but I will wash. One time a guest went to help and I found her pouring the oil from frying something down the drain. Another time a guest tried to wash a glass and broke it and then threw the pieces out. I found them later and was really pissed that she hadn’t told me. It was a glass I’d bought as a souvenir and really liked. So… people can help gather dirty stuff, but I’ll wash.TYVM
? Martin
@Hill Dweller: He does, but the NYT isn’t in the business of calling out bullshit wingnut polls, unfortunately.
Jim, Foolish LIteralist
This, from Silver, is confusing to me
So likely voters, who as I understand are the more regular, habitual voters, are more likely to be ‘swing voters’? This country confuses me. But it does explain why mid-term elections tend to suck
TexasMango
@Hill Dweller: He works for the MSM now so he has to report even on the bullshit polls, but he could break them down and explain while they are bullshit.
The MSM will have it’s R-Money comeback meme no matter what.
Or something like that.Suffern Ace
@? Martin: One of those happiness scales was just released this week. I’m not certain about its ranking. tribune.com.pk/story/446303/pakistan-among-top-20-happiest-countries-beating-india-us-report/
It’s the whole materialism thing I assume, but I’m not moving to Pakistan or Bangladesh to improve my mood.
Soonergrunt
@redshirt: Only when DougJ is operating it.
Jim, Foolish LIteralist
I googled Gravis and besides being, from what a quick search suggests, entirely a robo-calling outfit, they’re the ones who showed Romney and Obama tied in Michigan, when the campaign itself has written MI off, as I understand.
TexasMango
@Jim, Foolish LIteralist: I think it’s because not every poll uses the same definition of likely voter. Registered voters a re easy to determine. It’s a yes or no question, but likely voters are determined by a series of answers to questions and sometimes they are given a score from 1 to 10. You could include 9 and 10 as likely over or anything above a 7 or 8.
Soonergrunt
@burnspbesq: I had a 300 baud telephone coupler modem in 1984 on my TRS-80 Color Computer. It was great for BBSs.
Hill Dweller
@? Martin: I’m not suggesting Silver should call them out. It’s one thing to run all the polls in his models, but he sure as hell shouldn’t use them in his article as credible evidence of a shift toward Willard.
? Martin
@Jim, Foolish LIteralist: No, because who is in the likely voter pool is constantly changing. Positive outcomes for a candidate are less likely to swing a voter from one camp to another than they are to get a unlikely voter to turn into a likely voter. Bad outcomes for a candidate are more likely to discourage a voter than they are to get them to change their vote to the other guy.
The effort isn’t to convince undecideds nearly so much as drive turnout any longer. There just aren’t enough undecided voters to convince. You’re instead trying to get disaffected voters to arrive.
Cacti
@Hill Dweller:
And that’s not unusual for Gravis.
I remember a poll of theirs for North Carolina that had Mitt taking 26% of the AA vote.
What the hell kind of questions do they ask?
Nate’s article today was a real head scratcher, it’s basically “despite the model not showing any substantial movement in Mitt’s direction, I’d bet on Mitt.”
Nate’s commentary was better when he wasn’t an employee of NYT.
TexasMango
@? Martin:
Willard helped himself with disaffected Republican voters. But independents didn’t move.
Michael
@Jim, Foolish LIteralist: Its actually a bit intuitive when you think about it…you have to be politically informed in order to react to the news cycle. Voters who are checked out won’t be responding to the news either way.
In other news, this is interesting (and perhaps should help ease everyone’s nerves):
Linky linky
Methinks Big Bird + Economy + “Questions” about Mitt’s honesty in the debates all quickly settled in…
Higgs Boson's Mate
@TexasMango:
True that. That same MSM need for a horse race is the main reason that this year’s slate of Republican hopefuls weren’t treated like the pack of lunatics that they were. The possibility that any one of them might be the nominee gave every one of them immunity from substantial criticism, let alone the mockery that some of them so richly deserved.
WereBear
@Or something like that.Suffern Ace: This is why I laugh with raucous disrespect when a wingnut tries to tell me government sucks.
SSD evaluated doctor’s reports, put him on disability after a long, doubtless idiot-inspired wait, but then have believed his doctors and do not harass him.
Private enterprise is all soylent green on our behinds.
Hill Dweller
@Cacti:
That’s what I’m saying. Gravis Polls are an absolute joke. They’re essentially a wingnut push poll scam.
Again, I can appreciate Silver’s need to include all the polls in his models, but to cite Gravis in his actual article as a credible source is shamefully hackish. He knows the poll is a joke.
suzanne
I spent part of the day at a town hall meeting with Richard Carmona, the former Surgeon General who’s running for Senate here in AZ. I seriously couldn’t be more thrilled about the guy. Whip smart, very direct, no bullshit. It was great to shake his hand.
I should be studying, but fuck.
Higgs Boson's Mate
@Soonergrunt:
I kinda’ miss some aspects of BBS days. Back then, most folks connected to the nearest BBS to avoid long distance charges and that made face-to-face meetups easy to arrange.
Nancy Irving
You know the old saw, “Happiness can’t buy you money…”
JCT
@suzanne: I had the chance to meet him with some U of A colleagues, he’s the real deal.
Higgs Boson's Mate
@Nancy Irving:
I thought it was, “Pot can get you through times of no money better than money can get you through times of no pot.”
TexasMango
@Higgs Boson’s Mate: I think it’s something else. The GOP’s base is seen by the media as the voters who matter the most. They believe this is a center right nation and that when Democrats get a majority or win an election it’s an fluke. Most white Americans see themselves as conservatives so there is natural conservative majority and all of those independents really want to vote for Republicans if Republicans don’t make it impossible by being to crazy.
Unfortunately, they might be right and Democrats believe it too, thus the Great Debate Freakout. There is no other way to explain why people believe that Willard would still have a chance of getting back into the game after the 47% video and three straight months of making an ass of himself and Obama could be knocked out of the game after one off night.
Old Dan and Little Ann
@? Martin: Both those articles take me back to when I first moved in with my girlfriend/now wife of 11 1/2 years. Ages 24 to 33 or so. Fucking goddamn fucking overdraft bank fees. i must have gone in to bitch and moan about over draft fees at least a half a dozen times. One special bank lady who had her very own little office away from the dirty tellers asked me once if I had ever thought of balancing our checkbook. I calmly told her our bills far outweighed our paychecks and your 200 dollar overdraft fees were not helping our fucking situation one bit. She actually knocked off about $150 in fees but I still asked her if she believed in the criminal practices of her employer. I don’t miss selling cd’s to buy groceries or taking the coffee container full of change to get $35. Grrrrrrrr…… Thanks for the memories. : )
Pinkamena Panic
Tonight? Toonami (now six hours!) and rice pudding.
Or something like that.Suffern Ace
@Hill Dweller: Well I think he cites either the CBS or CNN post debate polls, but those were of uncommitted voters. Whatever those are.
Higgs Boson's Mate
@TexasMango:
Good point. The subtext of the media’s coverage of the Clinton presidency, and that of Obama, has been that both presidencies are illegitimate. There was no such subtext when a SCOTUS decision put G.W. Bush in office.
Cacti
@suzanne:
Richard Carmona is a real life all-American success story, and is impressive as hell. In anywhere halfway sane, he’d be up double digits on Frosted Flake, who’s just another generic East Valley mormon republican.
suzanne
@JCT: He’s great. Absolutely unambiguous in his support of reproductive choice, the DREAM Act and paths to citizenship, and healthcare. I’m a Wildcat, too, so it’s like I gotta support the guy. His sign is up in my front yard.
Hill Dweller
@TexasMango: Dems are held to a much higher standard. The press is scared to death of being called liberal. Consequently, they have an incentive to hammer Dems and enable wingnuts.
Also too, wingnut billionaires and corporations own way too much of the media.
suzanne
@Cacti: Flake is awful. I went to school with his kids. Ugh.
? Martin
@Or something like that.Suffern Ace: You could move to Alaska. Nobody owns shit up there but a gun and a snow machine.
suzanne
We need to have a BJ Arizona meetup one day.
Cacti
@suzanne:
I was being nice.
What I really meant was, Flake is just another East Valley mormon fuck.
FlipYrWhig
About old people falling for conservative email forwards… My personal pet theory is that people of a certain age feel like The Computer is a truth machine. They believe crazy emails because The Computer told them so.
suzanne
@Cacti: I know what you meant.
Big Dog is going to be here in Tempe for a Carmona rally on Wednesday. You should go. Fun.
Jim, Foolish LIteralist
@Hill Dweller:
scared of being called liberal, but also a general acceptance of the Republican economic framing around the economy and budget issues, seems to me especially among the younger generation– Gregoy wants to crawl in to Chris Christie’s lap, Luke Russert smirks dismissively every time he mentions Democrats. Add that to the Broderist tenet that all Republicans are really Eisenhower moderates, and we’re fucked more often than not.
Heirn
Just got back from seeing Tom Papa at the DC Improv. Now time to get caught up a little before hitting the sack.
Bruuuuce
You know that bit about stopped clocks? Even MoDo gets it right sometimes. Here’s a crossover fanfic she wrote, post-debate, between Presidents Obama and Bartlet: nytimes.com/2012/10/07/opinion/sunday/dowd-two-presidents-smoking-and-scheming.html
Killer quote, Bartlet to Obama: ‘Mr. President, your prep for the next debate need not consist of anything more than learning to pronounce three words: “Governor, you’re lying.” ‘
Three words. Please, Mister President, say them.
WereBear
@FlipYrWhig: I think it is because the emails are forwarded by people they trust. Who believe because the emails are forwarded by people they trust; and so forth.
They all rely on each other to evaluate. No one is actually evaluating!
JustAnotherBob
News has the oldest audience among fully distributed cable networks. The network’s average viewer last season was 65 years old, according to Nielsen.
CNN wasn’t far behind, though — its average audience was 63. MSNBC was a perky 59. CNBC is the young turk at 52.
hollywoodreporter.com/blogs/live-feed/fox-news-oldest-cable-audience-54230
These news programs are fighting for old eyeballs and old eyeballs tend to be inserted into old conservative heads. I doubt that news programs can move right of center and keep an audience.
Death Panel Truck
@? Martin:
–Maj. Frank Burns, after he shot Capt. Hunnicutt in the leg.
Ruckus
@Or something like that.Suffern Ace:
I’m just getting out the the last 5 years living like John Cheese. Not quite as bad, as I can spot a discount at a hundred yards. I know where to shop for the best deals on the food I like and will buy the 12 pack of tp because I know I am going to use it. Maybe because I haven’t always been without funds and had learned this a bit before living without them.
But he and John Scalzi are dead on, the stress of living with no regular income and what is there is not enough is immense. At some point I don’t know how one doesn’t just give the fuck up and run out into the middle of traffic.
It can be a good character building exercise, as if I wasn’t enough of a character before. And you can really, really find out who your friends are.
Higgs Boson's Mate
@Ruckus:
No one who hasn’t been there knows the desolation of running out of money well before you’ve run out of month.
Death Panel Truck
@clayton: The Grapes of Wrath was considered left-wing propaganda when published, and I have no doubt a not-inconsiderable number of people today still think so.
JoyfulA
Just moving to a neighborhood where a supermarket is accessible can improve obesity and diabetes rates.
Omnes Omnibus
I found the growing up poor links interesting. My parents had very little money when I was a child. but I would have never known it. We usually took lunches when we went into the city (Chicago) to go to museums, but I always thought it was because museum cafeteria food sucked and the bread, cheese, sausage, and fruit that we brought was good. It was only a few years ago that I found out that my parents couldn’t afford the cafeteria prices. My dad was in school and my mom was a teacher and money was tight. Weird thing is that my view of the food issue was correct. Our lunches were better than anything offered in a museum caff.
We had books and music. My parents found the money to buy me a top quality violin and pay for lessons. We traveled. I learned to rock climb and ski. I ate and developed a taste for exotic food. I would not exchange my childhood for anything. So, no, my family wasn’t poor.
Narcissus
@Cacti: The Village will infect you eventually.
Ruckus
@Higgs Boson’s Mate:
No one who hasn’t been there knows the desolation of running out of money well before you’ve run out of month.
Days turn into months, months into years, poor turns into poorer.
I found that small local banks don’t fuck you on the fee bullshit, maybe because they are happy that you came at all. A great day was telling Bunch of Assholes the reason I was closing my account and going elsewhere. Made me feel like I had some power over my life, however little, even if it wasn’t true. A point Cheese made was a bad decision made because it’s the only one you can, or is the least bad, has repercussions that can echo for a long time, making the transition out of poverty even harder.
Yutsano
@Narcissus: The Village has one true religion: Teh Narrative. All statements must fit Teh Narrative or they are labeled as Unserious. To be labeled Unserious is to be an apostate to The Village. Therefore none shall ever go against Teh Narrative lest they become outcasts. Nate is just following this true path.
Ruckus
@Omnes Omnibus:
I’m not lecturing here but having very little money or no extra is not the same as being poor and never having enough for just the basics. I grew up in the same family, we had enough, but nothing extra.
My ex’s parents put their 4 kids through college, never spoke english, and working low end service jobs(sweat shop type stuff). That is dramatically harder to do now that banks fuck you, schools are much more expensive, renting and job apps require credit checks, wage curves have been stagnant or even downward for so long, a handshake is only a way to transmit disease and every business seems to go out of it’s way to profit over substance. You get into that merry go round that is not enough money now and there are almost no ways out.
Omnes Omnibus
@Ruckus: I know the difference. I had an upper middle class, intellectual childhood. Money wasn’t abundant but there was enough for so that I was not aware of concerns about it. That was really what I was trying to say. Kids who are truly poor know that they are poor. My parents had very little money; they were hippy intellectuals. They went to parties with artists and such…. Sometimes, I got to go too because they couldn’t afford a babysitter.
Ruckus
I have no idea what the hell happened to my edit of #135. It changed my name and wiped out my edit.
FYWP
I typed that I see most things in life have a cost. A cost of action, of inaction, of cost of incorrect action and even a cost of doing the right whatever. Where there are costs there are values to someone. So what I don’t get is what the hell is the value to conservatives making life even tougher for the poor? Is the value only that of being an even bigger asshole?
Ruckus
@Omnes Omnibus:
I figured you knew, I was just asking the question and using you as the intro to it. And as I said I grew up in the same family.
Mom used to tell the story of when I was 3 or 4 and was at a party with them I went around drinking out of every ones glass when they set it down. They didn’t catch me until I was roaring drunk. Ever since I’ve always liked hard liquor. Teach them young and all that.
SectionH
@Anne Laurie: yeppers. It reminds me of the cartoon going around for a while, “oh, so if climate change isn’t’ happening, we’d just end up with this nicer world” It strikes me that – for instance – a housing voucher can be kept by a family, and some kids can go off and be successful… What I saw over a few decades working in affordable housing programs was that some smallish number of ppl really do use the help as a way up. And then a third or so of our long term ppl were elderly. And fer shure, there are morans and scheming scum. But honestly, the entire community was the true beneficiary of these programs. First because of property improvements. (See,picture, of house that was 1/2 a rusted out schoolbus… [Disclaimer: I was in a smallish city and smaller nearby town, so ]
That radical lefty Richard Nixon was the guy who got these affordable housing programs going, and I thought he was the worst piece of shit imaginable politicslly. Yeah, well.
Debbie(Aussie)
Wonder if Imani (ABL) has seen/read this ranther.com/showthread.php?4785-Lizz-Winstead-co-creator-of-Daily-Show-launches-Lady-Parts-Justice…
Maybe they should team up :) A great rant.
Another Halocene Human
@LanceThruster: The original version of the projects were not open to riff-raff. Social workers chose families that would make a good fit. They were actually kind of nice.
Then they switched to means-testing only. They’ve tried to filter by making certain people ineligible, but those people just get in anyway using elderly relatives and so on. Plus most of it is outsourced through Section 8. Some landlords are very discriminating and their project is very quiet, but many are slumlords (gah, I’ve had some horrible brushes with these horrible people) who have learned how to play the system for maximal profit to themselves and Do. Not. Care.
Another Halocene Human
@clayton: They had cars too!
Lojasmo
Somebody may have posted here, but I am going to link to Rev. Fred Rogers’ congressional testimony before congress regarding Reagan’s proposed cuts to PBS. It brought me to tears. Everybody watch!
youtube.com/watch?v=yXEuEUQIP3Q&sns=em
mbss
@? Martin:
dongs posted all over would increase my gross domestic happiness.
throw one on scott brown’s forehead.
KS in MA
@Schlemizel: That’s an awesome link, thanks. I just spent 2 hours reading the comments, too. Hadn’t planned on that, but it was worth it.
John M. Burt
@mbss: I think you’re referring to Nepal’s Gross National Happiness index.
Myself, I really liked Katherine MacLean’s “Gross National Value”, as mentioned in her novel The Missing Man. Under GNV, a five year old coat which is still good enough to be worn on a formal occasion contributes more than a brand-new coat that wears out in six months.
grossnationalhappiness.com/
sciencefictionruminations.wordpress.com/2011/10/08/book-review-missing-man-katherine-maclean-1976/