After Veeps, I’m Left With a Coin Toss

September 1, 2008 in Reading Response
Tags: 2008, amateur, barack, best, biden, bipartisan, chicago, coin, decades, egotist, evenly, genuine, good, joe, john, matched, mccain, obama, plagiarist, presidential, Senate, sugarcoat, tickey, toss, uncommonly

American non-felons of legal voting age have two uncommonly good tickets to choose from come the Tuesday following this November’s first Monday.

I can distinguish our two nominees apart, for sure — I simply have trouble choosing between two equally if not eminently qualified individuals. Since May, I knew that it was going to come down to their vice presidential pick and, if it didn’t help, a coin toss.

Barack Obama talks real good, however vague he is about it; John McCain ain’t no slouch on thinking for himself, however laughably wooden is his public speaking. Both have proven qualities, and for both, their faults have been speculated about time and again.

Both claim bipartisan credentials and, for what it’s worth, each has a richly mixed background. The negative impact of Obama’s necessary dealings in Chicago politics is undermined by his “son of a black man from Kenya and a white woman from Kansas” line, and that McCain is a war hero and Republican-in-name-only to boot negates the effect of his multiple houses, houses he can only afford, by the way, because of his second wife.

So what if each is an egotist with a bit of temper, tempered as it is for the camera? So what if each side accuses the press of being favorable toward the other? Both genuinely want — seem to want? — to fix all of America’s problems. Both of them would try, if both were allowed to, and both have a shot at succeeding. I’d wonder whose plan has a better shot, but the only Americans who know that live in the year 2012.

Now, we know the picks. Obama has Joe Biden, a loudmouth amateur plagiarist with decades of experience in the Senate, a man who admirably forgets to sugarcoat hard truths — in the tradition of McCain, only less so. McCain has Sarah Palin, an up-and-coming political newbie with record low unfavorability ratings and an impressive, if short, record — in the tradition of Barack Obama, only more so.

Find me a dime. I’ll call it in the air.

Power-Sized Morale Boost from Jamba Juice

August 29, 2008 in The Way It Were
Tags: boost, card, employment, gift, good, inbox, jamba, job, juice, management, morale, razzmatazz, tips

It’s funny how much the stupid little things matter.

For four straight days, work sucked. I was worried, tired and at least a little stressed. Am I just new, or am I genuinely developing a reputation as a bit of a screwup? Maybe I should go back to substitute teaching — I know how to do that. I wasn’t sure I was cut out for this job, or that I enjoyed it.

That was before I found a $5 Jamba Juice gift card in my box. All wounds healed, by a stupid little gift card. How laughably easily I’m motivated will be something I’ll think about later, while I gulp down my power-sized Razzmatazz and its equally complimentary femme boost.

Immunity boost, I mean. Immunity boost.

Misguided Municipal Charity

July 7, 2008 in Reading Response
Tags: conjecture, employed, francisco, good, home, homeless, intentions, job, jobless, model, poverty, san, unemployed

San Francisco is full of good intentions, and San Franciscans in many ways must think of their city as a model for the rest of the country. Not the least of San Francisco’s triumph has been the response to its once-growing problem of homelessness.

Via Neatorama, I found a San Francisco Chronicle op-ed detailing how well these good intentions leave behind most of their working citizens.

But while the city spends hundreds of millions of dollars to house the extremely poor, there is a large segment of its population — hard-working, fully employed and stable – that makes too much money to get the help they need to find affordable housing. …

A family of four that makes more than $24,850 — which is 30 percent of San Francisco’s average median income — will be unable to find any subsidized housing, according to local experts. Instead, the family can either cram into a tiny studio or flee the city — along with the better-paid teachers, firefighters and police officers who have already done so.

Unfortunately, all of these people made a single, critical mistake: They got a job.

Homeless in San Francisco are taken care of because enough San Franciscans above the poverty line pay their taxes, and enough don’t mind paying. They figure: if San Francisco can fix poverty by tacking on to the municipal tax rate an extra few fractions of a percentage point, and if much of the cost will be covered by tourists, then it’s a worthy sacrifice.

Yet — hasn’t San Francisco created a new kind of poverty by eliminating homelessness? The lower middle class can’t afford to live in the city, and must either commute from outside communities or cram into tiny one-room apartments. It’s a fine line between adequate housing and inadequate housing.

The unemployed have reasonable homes in San Francisco; many employed don’t, and can’t. To wit: If this op-ed has its facts straight — big if — then homelessness has only barely been fixed.

Much worse, once living in subsidized housing, what incentive would the laziest of the unemployed have to break out of the cycle of poverty if their basic needs are already taken care of? Much less, what incentive would there be to get a job if having basic needs taken care of already requires no personal effort?

Even if my conjecture doesn’t pan out, I have a feeling that San Francisco isn’t half the model its well-meaning residents think it is.