Christmas Song of the Week: "Father Christmas"

It took me a long time to appreciate this song. On one hand, it's one of the most cynical Christmas song ever recorded; on the other, it has a genuinely idealistic message that lacks the self-congratulation that mars similar efforts like "We Are the World" and "Do They Know It's Christmas?" Of course, YMMV but I would like to think the song is still worth listening to if only for the last few lines.

Poema de Mi Id: Parte IX

"White Trash Girl"

I want myself a white trash girl.
A chick who knows where all the pawn shops are.
A woman who looks how to use a food stamp card.
A girl whose hair smells like mayonnaise and
whose skin is the same color as cottage cheese.

I want myself a white trash girl.
A dame who hides her nakedness in Dollar Store underwear.
Who bears scars and bruises from her last boyfriend
And who continually bumps into doors when I'm not around.
A girl who still has a scar on her belly from her last child.
One who knows every last cuss word in the book -- and then some.

I want myself a white trash girl.
Of course, I could just date a girl
from the local barrio instead.
But that would be tacky.

Quote of the Week

It’s about who they believe
they is. You hardly even there.
--Anders Carlson-Wee, "How-To", The Nation, July 5, 2018

Quote of the Week

The common argument that crime is caused by poverty is a kind of slander on the poor.
--H. L. Mencken

Movie Quote of the Week

So the real question is, why do we have an economy where the poor have to pay so the rich won't lose money?
--Warren Beatty, Reds (1981)

Random Thoughts

Wow! The majority political party in a country much beset by high unemployment got voted out of power in an election year! Who in his or her right mind would have seen that coming?

I am so glad that none of my friends in the nursing community worked at the local hospital that messed up so badly with the Thomas Eric Duncan case.

If you dislike welfare recipients so much, why don't you hire one? If you're not in a position to make decisions about hiring because you're not the boss of your workplace, why not encourage your boss to hire a welfare recipient? It should go without saying that not everyone on welfare wants to be there. So why not help reduce the welfare state by helping someone seek employment?

The same bank employee who is eager to help you set up your account will generally not be so eager to help you if you ask for a job application.

How come you hear so much about people writing short stories but never about anyone writing a long story?

It is usually a lot easier to talk about how enlightened you are than to actually show it through your actions.

Actions not only speak louder than words but they also tend to drown them out.

A lot of the people who support the welfare system with their taxes are not much richer than the richest person on welfare. However, a lot of people tend to forget that.

One of the worst criminals in the world is the one who wear a badge.

It takes little courage to diss poor people and even less if you do so while working at a job that does not require the support of poor people.

Last time I checked, it was not illegal immigrants or welfare recipients that caused the recent economic crisis but that did not stop people from criticizing them.

Funny how the people who continually brag about how much they care about poor people never seem to show up when one of my poorer neighbors needs help.

The same person who will badmouth someone to your face today will be badmouthing you behind your back tomorrow.

Some people in my condominium complex find it much more convenient to buy a pack of cigarettes from their neighbor than to walk across the street and buy one from the local convenience store. For that matter, some of my neighbors find it more convenient to pay someone to drive them somewhere than to take the bus -- even though my complex is located on a DART route. I guess all of this is good news for those who would like to think that American capitalism is not doomed but it is not likely to make supporters of public transportation feel happy.

I hate myself for loving Who.

Envy

Envy is one of the most fashionable vices that exists nowadays and I suspect it has always been fashionable. As the movie Life of Brian once illustrated, even people in the midst of misery can't resist the temptation to envy other people.

Moreover, in an age when so many are suffering the effects of a bad economy and worse economists, it can be very hard to resist the siren call of such a vice. It is even harder to preach against such a vice since it may be argued that the right to envy those who have more is one of the few consolations that the poor can count on in this day and age.

But who are the poor?

Those who have little?

Or those who just envy those who have more?

And who are the rich?

The rich folk on the hill?

Or the not-so-rich folk who live down the block or across the street?

And what does it mean to "have more"? And how can you be that sure that the folk who have more are necessarily that rich just because they seem to have more than you?

After all, a neighbor of mine who lives on a fixed income is considered "rich" by many of her friends and neighbors because she owns her own property and has a steady supply of money due to a monthly disability allowance that she doesn't have to work for.

But just because she is richer than some of her neighbors does not mean she is richer than all of them. Nor do it mean that she is totally exempt from money troubles. After all, a fixed income is still a fixed income, no matter how large it may seem to those who don't have one. And unless you are around her 24/7, you have no idea what expenses she has or how much trouble she has paying them. Indeed, by the standards of many rich people I know, she might actually seem poor.

So what about the neighbor who owns his own car? Surely he is rich, right?

Well, he probably is not that rich or else he would not be living in a neighborhood with so many poor people in it. And even if you assume differently, you have no way of knowing for sure how hard he had to work to get that car unless he tells you. He might have had to work two jobs. Or maybe three. Or get into outrageous debt that he has to work night and day to repay. Or pay it off with a legacy he received from a deceased relative. (The type of legacy you don't exactly get every day.) You just don't know for sure unless he tells you and even then there is no guarantee that he might tell you the truth.

Anyway, the more you know about said neighbor, the less inclined you might be to envy him. So it might be better for your own peace of mind if you resist the urge to make assumptions about people until you have gotten to know more about them. And bear in mind that even the most open of people tend to be like icebergs in that they don't always show everything in their past to the people they encounter in their present.

Come to think of it, there are probably a great many secrets that you may have from the world at large. And for all you know, there may quite a few people out there who envy you -- though I doubt that such people would ever admit it. And it goes without saying that you would probably care as little about the assumptions such enviers make about you that the people you envy care about the assumptions you make about them. So perhaps it is best to resist the lure of envy altogether.

Pensamientos Acerca de Televisión

Shameless (U.S.): “Pilot”

The first time I saw this show, I was tempted to dismiss it as a cartoonish attempt to copy the success of its British namesake. Granted, you don't see a lot of shows about poor urban whites on American TV and even less on American cable but there was a certain air about this series that made me wonder how many of its writers spent any time around real-life poor people.

It did not help that William H. Macy's efforts to emulate the dysfunctional patriarch of the original series seemed a bit off. The attempt to copy the original's introduction did not work at all and it was no surprise when the second episode went with a more visual intro. Granted, the intro still seemed a bit off but at least it was off in an original way.

In any event, I recently changed my mind about the series when I found out that a friend of mine was a big fan of the show. Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that she herself has been poor and was once forced to live in her car for an extended period of time but for some reason, I found her take on this series more credible than the usual rave review from white middle class TV critics.

To be fair, there was something fascinating about the writers' approach to the material even before I found out about my friend's love for the show. The events depicted on this series are never quite as realistic as the equivalent events on the original series but they push the envelope in a way that is quite breathtaking even by American cable standards and they often cover issues that other shows just won't deal with. Plus it is hard for me to condemn one of the few American shows that does not glamorize alcoholism and other forms of addiction at a time when it is becoming more and more fashionable to romanticize such habits. Most such addictions do involve pain relief but unfortunately, such relief tends to all too often come at the expense of others, a fact often overlooked whenever a rich and famous celebrity dies of a overdose or a bad liver.

Anyway, I'm sure I'll have more to say about this series before it is through. And not just because I wish to please my friend.

Random Thoughts

I have seen more people carrying umbrellas on sunny days during the last three years than I have ever seen carry umbrellas on sunny days during the ten years prior to that. In fact, it seems like I see more people carry umbrellas on sunny days nowadays than on rainy days.

The problem with speaking truth to power is that you actually have to speak the truth.

You can tell a computer is old when it shuts off every time you expect it to stay on automatically and stays on every time you expect it to shut off automatically.

I can't help but wonder how many of the people questioning Obama's citizenship would welcome a Schwarzenegger presidency.

Should I find it ironic that the most honest stuff I write is usually written under a pen name?

History's chief purpose is not to let us know what good people we have been.

It is not a kindness to encourage the poor to spend money they don't have on stuff they don't really need just because someone other than them thinks it to be fashionable.

The past ain't what it used to be and neither is the future.

I, tú, am America.

I never realized how American I was until I went to Mexico. I never realized how Mexican I was until I came back.

How realistic is it to expect an intelligent response to global warming when local politicians are still being constantly surprised by the fact that it often snows during the winter and gets hot during the summer?

People rarely pay back money with the same urgency that they borrow it. Even when the people from which they borrow it are themselves poor.

Whenever a riot occurs, people rarely go after the most deserving targets. Instead they go after the most vulnerable.

Bringing Glass Into It Again

Hey, remember that broken window I had to deal with last winter?

It turns out that I was not the only person in my complex who had a window broken that day. A lot of other people also had windows broken in their condominium units -- and no one ever fessed up to doing it. The current theory was that it was just kids but even kids need to take responsibility for their actions -- especially when their actions affect others. And while one can argue that anyone who owns a condominium can well afford to replace a broken window every once in a while, that's not the point.

It's not like most people who live in my condominium complex get free window panes every time they ask for them. While the complex's maintenance people will do a lot of things for free, they generally balk at fixing broken window panes on the grounds that fixing such items is the responsibility of the condo owner. And while one can argue that most condo owners should be able to afford that, it should be noted that many people in my complex live on fixed incomes. Moreover, some people who own condos there sublet their units through Section 8 (i.e. the government pays their maintenance fee aka rent).

Even if this were not true, most condo owners don't put up with broken windows forever. Eventually if the police fails to locate the culprits who do such things and their windows keep getting broken, many of those who can afford to do so will move to a location where their windows are not as likely to be broken. Which mean the condominium complex will eventually be left to those residents who either won't or can't afford to move elsewhere.

Yes, it is tempting to dismiss this issue as the type of minor thing that only uptight senior citizens worry about but then again, this is how neighborhoods start going bad. Not because a lot of poor people move in but because a lot of people who don't really care about their neighbors start breaking stuff and making life hell for everyone else who lives around them, eventually forcing the more respectable residents to move and ensuring that equally respectable people won't move in and replace them.

It's not like breaking windows is a typical activity of the poor. I grew up around people who grew up poor and some of my best friends have firsthand experience of such a life. Though I grew up hearing many stories about poverty and discrimination, I was never taught that it was right to go around breaking other people's property -- for fun or otherwise -- and the notion that other people weren't taught likewise is depressing.

Even more depressing is the fact that my neighborhood's downward slide just didn't stop with broken windows. Just a few weeks ago when my mother and my middle brother came to visit me, my mother spotted a broken bottle on the sidewalk just a few feet away from my condo unit. Since the bottle was a malt liquor bottle, it seemed obvious that the bottle in question had been dropped by either an adult or a person who fancied himself or herself an adult. And yet even though the person who had dropped it lived in a condominium complex where many of the residents have children -- children who could have been easily injured by the bottle's broken glass while they were walking or playing on that sidewalk -- he or she did not consider it his or her responsibility to pick up that bottle's broken glass. In other words, they considered themselves mature enough to drink alcohol but not to clean up after themselves. And if I had not swept up that glass soon after my mother had told me about it, that glass would probably still be there today.

You Can Tell a Rich Person Wrote This Quote

He was coming to see that being rich and working simply to get richer could be in many ways a soul-destroying business. Particularly if the work you were doing had long since become routine. But being poor and working to survive, working to keep your wife and children from sinking into an abyss of poverty, that was a thrill.
--Ben Elton, Meltdown

My Comment:

Okay, that quote probably makes sense in terms of the fictional character who thought it -- a formerly rich man who is now struggling to get by -- but it does not make much sense to anyone who has actually known any poor people. After all, the poor often engage in soul-destroying and routine work, and they rarely describe the struggle for survival as being all that thrilling.

I would like to think Mr. Elton's heart is in the right spot. I'm just not so sure about his head.

Movie Song of the Week: "If I Were a Rich Man"

It took me years to appreciate the fact that this song was not just another show tune cliché. Nor was it about Tevye the Milkman bragging about all the neat stuff he would do when he became rich. Indeed, the song only makes sense if one realizes that Tevye is not really certain he will ever be more than poor -- which makes his fantasizing about it all the more sadder. Of course, some would argue that Tevye is quite rich by his era's standards because he has a house to live in, he owns a horse and he has his own business. But Tevye doesn't see himself as rich, and even if he did, he is forever at the mercy of people who are richer and far more powerful than him. Much like a lot of the "rich" people I knew when I was growing up.

Book of the Week

Meltdown isn't the best Ben Elton novel I ever read but it is far from the worst though I will admit that once I caught on the fact that the title referred to a financial meltdown and not the ecological disasters which are usually Elton's favorite topic, I was afraid it was going to be a lot more predictable than it was. In the end, I actually found it intriguing and hard to put down. However, it does go in for a lot of restating the obvious: materialism is bad, making more money than you can adequately deal with is wrong, not saving money is bad, making a profit out of financial disaster is evil.

I must confess that I started rolling my eyes during the last few chapters when Elton stopped mocking the excesses of the very, very rich and started moralizing on the virtuousness of poor people, in effect preaching a sermon which unfortunately says more about Elton's lack of experience with real-life poor people than anything else. It is not that I do not appreciate such a sentiment but in my experience, poor people tend to be just as complicated in their morality as rich people. Not every rich person I have met was a heartless bastard -- though I have met quite a few who were hardly a credit to their class -- and not every poor person I have met qualified for a halo.

I would like to think there is as much wisdom in my late father's description of poverty as hell as there is in Elton's notion that losing one's money makes one more virtuous. Sometimes it does but not always and anyway, it is hardly a theory any decent person wants to test.

Anyway, regardless of my philosophical differences with the author, Meltdown is still a good book.

Movie Quote of the Week

Poor don't cheat one another. We're all poor together.
--Charles Lung, The Leopard Man (1943)

Déjà Lu

I recently found this excellent article via the Dan Simmons site. Of course, the whole article is worth reading but there's a sentence at the end that seems especially apt.

I wonder why the sentiment expressed by that sentence seems so familiar.

What Do You Say?

So what exactly do you say to the waitress who talks about how she spent hundreds of dollars pursuing a college degree -- and then had to drop out because she couldn't physically keep up with her studies?

What do you say to a friend who has just been laid off? And what do you say what that same friend is required to remain on duty an additional month or so in order to train his or her replacement in a foreign land?

What do you say when your friend's spouse starts succumbing to the same illness that afflicted one of your late relatives? And what do you say when that same friend starts giving in to the various pressures of being his or her spouse's sole caregiver?

What do you say to the single mother who has been beat up by both of her two ex-husbands?

And what do you say to the single mother who talks about giving up her current job for a more respectable position, only to end up sticking with the status quo because the more respectable job doesn't pay enough money?

What do you say to the friend whose younger sibling goes in and out of mental hospitals?

What do you say to the friend whose daughter keeps talking about wanting to leave her abusive live-in boyfriend yet never does so?

What do you say in a situation in which just saying nothing hardly seems like an adequate response -- yet anything else seems worse?

Quote of the Week

The one thing rich Americans think they know about the poor is what the poor most urgently need (which never turns out to be money).
--Richard Rodriguez, Brown: The Last Discovery of America

Pop Song of the Week: “If We Make It Through December”

My late father used to quote this Merle Haggard song every now and then but I never realized how much truth it contained until this year. Granted, my immediate family has been in better shape than most, but then again many of my relatives up North still work for the Big Three so it's way too soon to pretend that all members of mi familia have dodged the traditional holiday pink slip.

Anyway, there are times when you just need a country song to say what needs to be said. This is one of them.

I hope you all understand.

Lamenting the Lucky

Listen to the life stories of some well-off people and you’ll inevitably hear the story of a tragedy. The tale of some catastrophe that they had to struggle to get over -- not because they wanted to but because they felt like life had given them no choice.

For example, one such person I once knew lost his father when he was just fourteen. For many years, he was the sole support of his mother and his younger sister and he was constantly pressured to quit college as a result. But he didn’t and eventually he reaped the rewards of his sacrifice. Yet he was then discouraged from visiting his old neighborhood. Why? Because he was now successful enough to wear a suit to work -- and many of the people in his old neighborhood did not trust anyone who wore a suit to work.

Of course, not every well-off person will have such a story. No doubt, many will undoubtedly be the type of people who were born on first base and thought they hit a triple.

But not every well-off person is like that. And you can never tell without knowing them which of them inherited their wealth and which had to work for it.

Yes, it is hard to feel sympathy for the well-off. But then again it’s hard to see how rewarding the formerly poor with criticism or ostracism acts as much of an incentive for the presently poor. At best, it encourages the type of envy which is often more of an obstacle than an inspiration. At worst, it discourages the formerly poor from having little to no contact with the presently poor. And who exactly benefits from that?

Perhaps the type of people who would rather see no person escape from poverty than see the wrong type of person do so.

Rules of the World (Reglas del Mundo)

1. Any problem that affects the rich is a problem that has to be solved right away.
2. Any problem that affects the poor is a problem whose solution can be put off indefinitely.
3. The one group the rich hate more than the poor who are content with their lot are the poor who are discontent with their lot. And the one part of that group that the rich hate the most are the poor who dare to become rich.