Tuesday, February 12, 2013

Disgrace

Could someone help Joey Ratz find his forever home?

On March 10 (2010), the chief exorcist of the Vatican, the Rev. Gabriele Amorth (who has held this demanding post for 25 years), was quoted as saying that "the Devil is at work inside the Vatican," and that "when one speaks of 'the smoke of Satan' in the holy rooms, it is all true—including these latest stories of violence and pedophilia." This can perhaps be taken as confirmation that something horrible has indeed been going on in the holy precincts, though most inquiries show it to have a perfectly good material explanation.

Concerning the most recent revelations about the steady complicity of the Vatican in the ongoing—indeed endless—scandal of child rape, a few days later a spokesman for the Holy See made a concession in the guise of a denial. It was clear, said the Rev. Federico Lombardi, that an attempt was being made "to find elements to involve the Holy Father personally in issues of abuse." He stupidly went on to say that "those efforts have failed."
He was wrong twice. In the first place, nobody has had to strive to find such evidence: It has surfaced, as it was bound to do. In the second place, this extension of the awful scandal to the topmost level of the Roman Catholic Church is a process that has only just begun. Yet it became in a sense inevitable when the College of Cardinals elected, as the vicar of Christ on Earth, the man chiefly responsible for the original cover-up. (One of the sanctified voters in that "election" was Cardinal Bernard Law of Boston, a man who had already found the jurisdiction of Massachusetts a bit too warm for his liking.)

I truly do not wish to relive the stench of the Church in this matter of pedophilia. It might be enough that this pope takes to his grave, and to the hottest Hell he believes in, the eternal shame of a life filled with evil and cloaked in piety. From his childhood in the Hitler Youth all the way to the present day, Pope Benedict XVI has absolutely no claim to the grace of God.

If there is a God, that is.

Not even the Onion's account makes this matter amusing.

The RCC is in greater need of a reformer than any other institution on the face of the Earth. It would give great hope to its legions of believers if the next pontiff were African, or Latino, but that might be too much to ask of the Cardinals. We'll just have to wait for the holy smoke to see.


In the meantime, those of us non-Catholics can hope for something that at least looks like progress. This pope was never intended to represent that.

Good riddance to bad, bad rubbish.

Both jobsanger and Socratic Gadfly have more.

Monday, February 11, 2013

The Weekly Wrangle

The Texas Progressive Alliance sends its best wishes for an early spring to everyone digging out from last week's blizzard as it brings you this week's roundup.

The school finance ruling has been handed down, and it could be a game-changer for schools and the Legislature. Off the Kuff explains.

The Democrats in the Texas House are trying to show that the GOP doesn't care about public education. They should, since it's been the best winning strategy for Texas Democrats in the recent past. WCNews at Eye on Williamson posts on this week's news from the Lege: Texas House Democrats have a plan.

"Tip your server, save the world" is a suitable mantra for living in the second decade of the 21st century. PDiddie at Brains and Eggs shares the message of transforming everything you can, within the reach of your own arm, from Will Pitt.  

CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme is watching Ted Cruz hissy fit no votes on anything and everything, including no on the Violence Against Women Act.

Neil at Texas Liberal wrote that President Obama's policies on the uses of drones will lead to abuses both internationally and at home.

Over at TexasKaos, lightseeker explains how corporate school reform is The Stupid on Steroids. Give it a look.

Sunday, February 10, 2013

Tip your server, save the world

Will Pitt of Truthout wrote it, and would you please read it.

It's your fourth shift in a row at the restaurant, all doubles because you only make $2.65 an hour and need to pay for rent and heat and electricity, and your section is a set of booths and tables - six four-tops, four two-tops, one eight-top - that seat forty-four customers total, and it's been packed from start to finish across your whole rip with couples and clusters of workers from the accounting firm next door and families with children and foreigners who can't read the menu and have never heard of tipping, and twenty different people in your last two shifts have sent their meal back because the cook is new and in the weeds and can't handle the volume and keeps screwing up the orders, and that's not your fault, but the customers take it out on you because you're there.

And your feet are throbbing and your back is a bag of iron rods and your arm is knotted with aching muscles from carrying huge trays of food and drinks as you weave around and through the small sliver of space available after table three joined with table four and their chairs are sprayed out into the lane, and you move through them like smoke balancing six dinners and seven drinks on one hand without spilling a drop or disturbing a soul.

And would you please go read all of it. The waiters and waitresses and bartenders apparently get paid $2.65 an hour in some state, but in Texas it's $2.13, the federal minimum. That hasn't seen an increase since 1991. Twenty-two years, and no raise.

If tips don't bring the actual wage up to the federally required minimum wage for everybody else, which just rose to $7.25 per hour (in July 2009), then the restaurant owner must make up the difference. In practice, experts say this rarely comes into play.

You perhaps took note of the female pastor who objected to an 18% gratuity added to her large party at Applebee's with the note on her tab? That got posted to Reddit and then Facebook and other social media? And when the disgraced clergywoman complained to the manager at Applebee's about being outed as a skinflint, the manager fired the waitress who posted the photo?

Here's more scolding. But it's for me and you.

So.

Worry about drones, about lawyers for the president arguing they can kill Americans anywhere and for basically any reason, worry about all of that and everything else besides...but real change comes in small doses, and actual kindness happens within reach of your arm.

Want to help the workers? The economy? The whole country?

Tip your server, don't be a jackass about it, and worry about the rest of the world after you do what is right within reach of your arm. Maybe, if you're really interested in helping your community, work towards establishing higher wages for the people who bring you food when you go out to eat; there are thousands of them right where you live. First things first; if you shaft the person making slave wages who feeds you and then go home to whine on Facebook about the poor, poor people from somewhere else, you're as much a part of the problem as the people in Washington dropping bombs and deploying drones.

All politics is local.

And if you need some additional encouragement for penance, here's how those first-world problems sound when they are read in third-world voices.



Must. Do. Better.

Sunday Funnies

Back to posting text in short order.


Your Sunday Talking Heads lineup is here.

After a few months of intensive market research and focus grouping, Republicans concluded that their message, not their policies, was responsible for the party's losses in the November elections, and decided to undertake a major rebranding campaign.

Leading these efforts are hip-hop savior Marco Rubio, top Jew Eric Cantor, and Karl Rove—whose new scam, the Conservative Victory Project, aims to function like the female body by shutting that whole "rape" thing down.

Although it's too soon to tell whether they will ultimately be successful, the early signs are not exactly encouraging.

Luckily for them, über-pundit Dick Morris is sitting on the sidelines, ready to lend a helping hand (or foot).

Thursday, February 07, 2013

Droning on, and on...

(Light posting ahead as a family celebration rises on the calendar.)



Neil has written the most concise, cogent response on the topic.

It is wrong for the President to have the power to use drones to kill American citizens without accountability to Congress and without judicial review. President Obama is asserting that he has this right.

It will be just a matter of time until the range of Americans we target with drones will expand. We will widen the definition of who poses a threat to American interests.

At the same time here at home, surveillance drones will watch and follow domestic political dissenters and evermore militarized police will be called upon to intimidate and repress lawful protests. Large defense contractors will gain from these actions abroad, and corporate interests will play a big part in defining our domestic “security” objectives.

These things will happen with the support of elected Republicans & Democrats.

These things will happen–as they are already starting to happen– unless we realize and understand the fact that the work of freedom is up to each of us.
One more thought as the confirmation hearings for the new CIA chief open today. What we, the public, are learning this week about drones, drone bases, drone assassinations, and the legal rationalizations behind the targeted killings is news that many of our corporate media outlets have known for a couple of years.

Wednesday, February 06, 2013

Annise Parker and payday lending

I have been rough on Madam Mayor for many things, but she gets this one right.

Houston officials laid out proposed restrictions on payday and auto title lenders Tuesday, drawing tepid support from the industry and disappointment from advocates who say the rules would not stop the spiral of debt for many low-income borrowers.

The Texas Legislature discussed regulating payday lending in 2011, but met stiff industry resistance and made little progress. Since then, Dallas, Austin, San Antonio and El Paso have adopted regulations. Dallas and Austin have been sued over their restrictions.

Houston leaders say they will wait to see whether the Legislature acts during its current session before voting on their proposal. Mayor Annise Parker has said the industry "cries out for regulation" and called the state's failure to do so "disgraceful."

Kuff has written extensively about the payday lending topic, including this most recent, so I'll just chime in to say that the Lege is unlikely to take Parker's scolding seriously enough to actually do something about it.That's primarily because these swindle merchants have bought the Austin politicos off. Included among the ranks of legislative loansharks is Houston's very own Gary Elkins, owner of 12 payday lending stores himself.

The usual suspects lead the list of contributions from this unsavory crew and their PACs: Rick Perry ($35,500), Greg Abbott ($58,500), and Speaker Joe Straus ($131,800). And if you wanted to know more about how disgusting these shylocks are, just read about Irving's Trevor Ahlberg; payday lender, Republican contributor, and elephant hunter.

It's also noteworthy that consumer activists aren't completely fond of Houston's effort in this regard.

Consumer groups said the proposal is focused on what the industry could stomach, not what is best for the community.

They prefer the ordinance adopted by Dallas and other cities, which sets lower caps than the Houston proposal on the amount consumers can borrow, allows the plans to be refinanced fewer times, caps the number of installments that can be offered in multiple-payment deals, and requires the principal loan amount to be reduced by 25 percent with each refinancing or, on a multiple-payment deal, with each installment.

But while the mayor got it mostly right, I'm not so sure about her consigliere, David Feldman.

"On the other hand, it needs to be recognized that payday loans are often the only source of credit that these very same consumers have access to. Overly restrictive regulations can reduce the availability of the source of credit for those who need it the most."

Just looking out for the little guy. How thoughtful of the city attorney. Feldman obviously missed the memo regarding the reason payday swindlers have become the lending source of last resort for so many: banks are swimming in cash and don't really want to lend it out to anybody, creditworthy or not. This has been the case since the bank bailout in the fall of 2008, and one of the main reasons the national economy remains sluggish. By the way, you heard that the banks got even more money in undisclosed, unregulated loans from the Fed -- a total of $7.77 trillion -- than they did via TARP ($700 billion) , right? The same goes for community banks as well as the Big Six, of course; they are making more money playing the stock market than they are making loans.

There probably isn't going to be any progress in this regard either, as the banks own all the Congress critters. Obama's appointee-designate for SEC chair, Mary Jo White, was praised by none other than Jamie Dimon as being "a perfect choice" for the job.

Shouldn't that automatically disqualify her?

Update: "So God made a banker".

And on the eighth day God looked down on his planned paradise and said, “I need someone who can flip this for a quick buck.” 

So God made a banker. 

God said, “I need someone who doesn’t grow anything or make anything but who will borrow money from the public at 0% interest and then lend it back to the public at 2% or 5% or 10% and pay himself a bonus for doing so.” 

So God made a banker. 

God said, “I need someone who will take money from the people who work and save, and use that money to create a dotcom bubble and a housing bubble and a stock bubble and an oil bubble and a commodities bubble and a bond bubble and another stock bubble, and then sell it to people in Poughkeepsie and Spokane and Bakersfield, and pay himself another bonus.” 

So God made a banker.

Tuesday, February 05, 2013

Piers Morgan, Greg Abbott, Dan Patrick, and Ted Nugent

-- All at a gun store in Katy. No, I don't want to excerpt any of it. I'm sorry I even read it myself.

-- The pathetic PTSD-stricken vet who shot the alleged "hero" sniper/author at the gun range is as fucked up as you can imagine. But by all means, let's start a few more wars.

Remember: it's not a gun issue, it's a mental health issue.


As if Republicans since Reagan have had some greater concern for mental health issues...

-- Then again, the 21st century field of battle is precisely what drones the size and weight of a finch are for. (Lockheed Martin must be shitting bricks as they are forced to make plans for a pilotless aircraft future.)

After all, it makes so much more sense to just assassinate suspected terrorists on the battlefield -- or in the middle of the desert, or while they are at a wedding -- rather than capture them and torture them. The CIA may be a little put out over the loss of influence, but they will find another reason to be soon enough.

Please be reminded here that we have a Democratic president -- despite what he himself has said -- who taught constitutional law, and who has violated American citizens' rights to due process (among others) via his kill lists. Update: No less than Joe Scarborough makes the salient point.

Things fortunately get a little messier every day with the drones, though...

On Thursday, John Brennan has his confirmation hearing where the Senate will decide whether or not he's fit to run the Central Intelligence Agency. Since he's more or less the architect of America's drone war, we're sure the Senators will have a question or two about this memo and, we hope, some other documents that we haven't seen yet — such as the full 50-page version of the memo, of which this latest leak merely contains a white-paper sketch. Because at least 11 Senators from both parties are already asking for more.

If you needed additional reminding that even the Democrats in California need competition from their left, then read this. Sure does make all of the pining about turning Texas blue seem quaintly ironic, doesn't it?

-- Okay, that was a bit of a digression. Back on the topic of guns, gun nuts, and gun control...

Wayne LaPierre: They're coming for our guns no matter what they say

LaPierre again: Ban assault weapons and you 'limit the ability to survive' 

Chris Wallace to LaPierre: "That's ridiculous and you know it, sir!"

I agree with Krugman; Wayne's gone bad. Some gun nut really ought to take it upon himself and, for the sake of all reasonable and logical gun owners in the Unites States, put him down. Humanely, of course. But if the NRA membership were to force his resignation from any influence with or on behalf of the organization, that would be fine also.

-- Any suggestions -- short of more guns, please -- about what to do about Texas?