Dec
27
Add what I am about to say to the growing list of additional points that should have been included in the introduction to the site but weren’t…
I am writing the posts for this site from the (somewhat) unique perspective of someone who purposefully descended from a more stable and secure income bracket into one that’s slightly more…difficult to navigate. In simpler terms:
BEFORE: Good money, good benefits.
NOW: Okay money, zero benefits.
The move itself is of very little importance to the discussion I am about to begin. I made it because I needed to make it (because my brain is starting to turn into a computer!) but some of what I have experienced since making the move represents an important piece of the pizza nonetheless. What pizza am I talking about?
The American economic pizza, of course.
As a late holiday present to my current list of two readers, I’ll skip this opportunity to rant against capitalism in general and proceed straight to a more specific (as well as a more defensible) point.
It’s no secret that this country’s health care system is trouble. Most people would say (the media included) that it’s in trouble, but in actuality it’s the system itself that is the trouble. Popomatic Healthcare Trouble.
What does this have to do with my BEFORE and AFTER income brackets, and with economic pizza?
Observe the difference, in percentage of income, that my health benefits cost me now, as opposed to when I had a salaried job with benefits:
BEFORE: About 5.9% of my total monthly income (paid in addition to what was being paid by my employer)
NOW: About 13.8% of my total monthly income (paid entirely by me)
Okay. So that’s a big, but not huge, increase. In the words of my tenth grade history teacher, however: “Brotha, that ain’t even the whole story.”
The exact numbers are my bidness, but let if suffice to say that when someone says something like “I descended into a lower income bracket,” they don’t mean that their total income dipped down thirty-seven bucks. So that larger percentage is being taken out of a much smaller pizza. I’m also now paying about three times as much money in out-of-pocket health care expenses as I was before. My old health plan cost me a slight piece of my salary, but it didn’t cost me much more past that. My new plan costs me plenty. I try not to use it. It’s mostly there in case I get hit by a truck.
Look. Those are facts. Partially they’re there because I made a conscious choice to move from that safer place (the desk job) to the riskier place that I currently inhabit (the half a desk job plus personal projects). But they’re also there because things in America be bad. They be bad, at least, for everyone who is less than rich. They be bad economically, they be bad politically, and they be bad culturally.
The cultural badness will receive its share of attention on this site. All my fury and some of my romanticism stem from my frustrations regarding the extent to which the average American sells his or her self short in intellectual, social, and spiritual terms. In terms of politics and the economy, however, I know about as much as said average American (not enough). This in itself is a problem, but it’s a problem that I’ll explore here, in public, only after I feel better about my personal efforts to improve my knowledge and capabilities in this regard.
For now, I just want to point out that there are smart people out there who both understand these “more complicated matters” - and want to fix them in those places where they’re broken.
The point: Paul Krugman’s The Conscience of a Liberal is a good book. Probably, it’s an important book.
I say it’s probably important, instead of just straight-up important, because a few years have to go by before anyone will be able to tell if it has accomplished anything. What the book seeks to accomplish is fairly simple - Krugman would like to see all the power and money that is currently in the hands of “a Republican few,” returned to the many from which it was taken (or who unwittingly gave it away). In explicit terms, he wants to see a return to the some of politics (and subsequently, the economics) of The New Deal. I won’t say much more, because I don’t want to oversimplify Krugman’s points, but I should also mention that a good deal of pages are spent tracing how we got to where we currently are in political and economic terms (a pseudo-democratic oligarchy or plutocracy), as well as how we might be able to get back to a better place (something closer to an actual democracy).
The main goal of the book is to address, diagnose, and treat the issue of rising political and economic inequality in the country. Krugman also spends a fair amount of time outlining those of his suggestions that are centered around what can be done first and now. The biggest of these is the establishment of a universal health care system for all Americans. Booyah says me.
You can read the first few pages of the book on Amazon. Or go to the library.
Dec
22
To read Part I of The Computerization of Your Human Brain, click here. For Part III, click here.
* * *
My very first computer was an “IBM compatible” supertower with a 75 mghz processor and a 5.25 inch floppy drive. It was over ten years ago when I got it, and back then I knew quite a bit about how it worked. I knew how it worked because I was smart a nerd…but also because such an early version of the personal computer wasn’t that hard to know. Computers have always been pretty complex pieces of machinery, but the fact is that ten years ago they were a lot simpler than they are now. They were still just machinery. This last bit of information, of course, is news to no one but Amish Joe.
So why do I bring all this up?
Because sometimes I feel like I’m turning into a version of that god damn ten year old computer.
I’ve already said plenty about my general feelings regarding the life of the average American. There’s one recurring point that I’ve touched upon in earlier posts, though, that could be stated in clearer terms. That point is this: everything that I’ve written here so far, and everything that I’m going to write, usually always applies as much to myself as it does to whoever or whatever I’m discussing. That might even be an understatement.
I bring this up for two reasons. The first is accountability. At all times on this site, I’d like to keep things honest. Criticisms and questions and sarcasm and anger will likely creep into, and snap off of, everything that I say. But everything that I say will also apply to me.
One of the main reasons for my writing anything is always to work the essence of that thing all the way out of myself, so that I can grab it and see what it’s made of, and from there maybe guess as to how it might have come to be in the first place. The end result, hopefully, is as close to an honest presentation of whatever that thing is, to a reader. This is why, in a moment, I am going to make the ultimate sacrifice and take my brain all the way out of my head for you to see.
The second reason I bring this up is…
Dec
21
No Country for Old Men Disappoints
Filed Under Entertainment, Film, Writing | 4 Comments
NOTE: For a “dueling review” visit Yesterday’s Salad and read No Country or No Old Men? Pick ‘Em.
* * *
I had been trying to think of a good way to start off a review of No Country for Old Men, and today I found one, courtesy of Peter Travers from Rolling Stone. Says Mr. Travers:
“Misguided souls will tell you that No Country for Old Men is out for blood, focused on vengeance and unconcerned with the larger world outside a standard-issue suspense plot. Those people, of course, are deaf, dumb, and blind to anything that isn’t spelled out between commercials on dying TV networks. Joel and Ethan Coen’s adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s 2005 novel is an indisputably great movie, at this point the year’s very best. [It is] a literate meditation (scary words for the Transformers crowd) on America’s bloodlust for the easy fix. It’s also as entertaining as hell, which tends to rile up elitists.”
Despite having what Mr. Travers might call a “more or less well-guided soul,” I was fairly pissed off by his use of such fightin’ words as “deaf, dumb, and blind.” I was greatly pissed off by the last sentence of the previous excerpt: “It’s also entertaining as hell, which tends to rile up elitists.” While Mr. Travers is entitled to his opinion, there are a few problems with taking a swipe at both the “misguided souls” of the film watching community and the “elitists” of the film watching community…in the span of a few sentences.
- It sort of implies that only a small group of really special people (super-elitists with well-guided souls?), led by Mr. Travers himself, can truly appreciate this movie.
- It puts the writer in the difficult position of defending an indefensible point (an opinion) from two fronts: The Stoopids is gonna yell at you in between commercials on their dying TV networks, and the Snark-Attackers are going to band together at the local bar to get drunk and skewer you…in between being clever and complaining about society and the misfortunes of their lives…before then setting off to the local indie theater to watch unentertaining
moviesfilms! full of pauses and poetry.
It’s a good thing Peter Travers is completely wrong when he says that No Country for Old Men is an indisputably great movie. I dispute, home skillet. I dispute. No Country for Old Men is a good, but ultimately disappointing, movie.
Dec
19
The Computerization of Your Human Brain, Part I
Filed Under Computing, Life | 4 Comments
To read Part II of The Computerization of Your Human Brain, click here.
* * *
I was waiting in line at a department store, along with about twenty other helpless holiday consumers, when I overheard and undersaw this clip of conversation between a quarreling young couple ahead of me in the line:
WOMAN: You need to not depend on me so much for every decision…
The MAN said nothing. The woman looked at him for a moment, seemingly in wait of an answer, and then her face twisted into an expression that was a mixture of anger and sympathy. Then her face went quickly blank. Then she added:
WOMAN: It burns me.
I don’t think she was switching gears to update him on her urinary tract infection when she said it, although I suppose she could have been. In fact, I don’t even think at that point that she was talking about her boyfriend’s apparent dependency - at least not directly. She was talking, whether she knew it or not, about her quietly desperate situation. I really think she was; I saw it with my own eyes and I heard it with my own ears and sometimes I just know this stuff. That mixed feeling of anger and sympathy had left her feeling…legitimately burned.
What in God’s Google’s name does this have to do with The Computerization of Your Human Brain 1? I’ll tell you.
For the sake of argument (and all of her poor little children) let’s call our boyfriended burn victim Julia. She looked like a Julia (pretty, but prettier after a few beers). Now, what was burning Julia? Easy: her boyfriend’s apparent dependence on her when it comes to decision making. Obviously, we have no idea of knowing whether Boyfriend of Julia really does have problems making decisions or if this was an isolated situation. It could be that Julia just feels burned by holiday shopping, and maybe Boyfriend of Julia isn’t making the process any easier. Maybe, like so many other boyfriends, he’s a bad consumer outside of the realm of Best Buy, Circuit City, or The Beer Store (heaven?!).
But let’s just say that Boyfriend of Julia really does have this problem. Let’s also say that Julia’s anger is linked directly to her sympathy in this situation. Let’s also also say that that her anger is linked to her sympathy because she has the same problem. She finds herself constantly tasked with making decisions, because she is constantly inundated by choice. Further, those decisions are a frequent source of frustration for her, because she’s also drowning in information and opinion everywhere she goes. And to top it all off, she has a rash boyfriend who deals with his version of this same situation by constantly looking to her to make his decisions. No wonder poor Julia is burning!
But what in good God’s Google’s name does this have to do with The Computerization of Your Human Brain. Well…I’ll tell you!
Dec
14
Life is Cheap and Dirty: An Introduction to This Blog
Filed Under Entertainment, Journalism, Life, The Internet, Writing | 1 Comment
About six weeks ago, I decided once and for all to start my own blog. This was no small thing, because until recently I didn’t even like the word “blog.” I thought it sounded cheap, and more than a little dirty. And indeed it does. So be it. I myself am cheap and dirty.
Why am I cheap and dirty? Because I need to be cheap and dirty. Why do I need to be cheap and dirty? Ah, well…that’s an important question, and one that is going to take some time to answer.
The overall answer will come, in bits and pieces, from my posts to this blog. I hope that, upon reading this introduction, that you will either:
- Join me for the entirety of this (cheap and dirty!) endeavor,
- Check in on occasion to see how this (cheap and dirty!) endeavor is going, or
- Die, unhappy and alone, with your pants around your ankles (in the case that you do not choose option one or two).
For the sake of clarity, as well as in an effort to gain your continued attention, I will now briefly explain why I am making such a big deal out of the words “cheap” and “dirty,” before then finishing up with some information on what you can expect to find upon visiting this site as time marches on. And on. And over and through your body and face.
The short of it: only recently, after many years of finding every reason and excuse not to do so, have I begun to really live my life. And I’m not even doing that much. Except that I am.