Alarming News: I like Morgan Freeberg. A lot.
American Digest: And I like this from "The Blog That Nobody Reads", because it is -- mostly -- about me. What can I say? I'm on an ego trip today. It won't last.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: We were following a trackback and thinking "hmmm... this is a bloody excellent post!", and then we realized that it was just part III of, well, three...Damn. I wish I'd written those.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: ...I just remembered that I found a new blog a short while ago, House of Eratosthenes, that I really like. I like his common sense approach and his curiosity when it comes to why people believe what they believe rather than just what they believe.
Brutally Honest: Morgan Freeberg is brilliant.
Dr. Melissa Clouthier: Morgan Freeberg at House of Eratosthenes (pftthats a mouthful) honors big boned women in skimpy clothing. The picture there is priceless--keep scrolling down.
Exile in Portales: Via Gerard: Morgan Freeberg, a guy with a lot to say. And he speaks The Truth...and it's fascinating stuff. Worth a read, or three. Or six.
Just Muttering: Two nice pieces at House of Eratosthenes, one about a perhaps unintended effect of the Enron mess, and one on the Gore-y environ-movie.
Mein Blogovault: Make "the Blog that No One Reads" one of your daily reads.
The Virginian: I know this post will offend some people, but the author makes some good points.
Poetic Justice: Cletus! Ah gots a laiv one fer yew...
Still They Suffer
I was reading through the newspaper from my old stomping grounds, which is the Seattle Post Intelligencer. I tripped across this editorial from some self-proclaimed liberal guy named Hubert G. Locke, chronicling what he saw as some of the rough treatment being dished out by “conservatives” toward the poor people in New Orleans who had been suffering through the wrath of Hurricane Katrina.
The focal point of his ire was George F. Will, who is the syndicated columnist I’m fond of quoting when people accuse me of using all them big fancy words and junk. This has worked great for me. Someone accuses me of using a four-syllable word in a forty-word sentence, and I direct them to six- and seven-syllable words in the middle of an eighty-word sentence in a George Will column. Works every time. But I digress.
As perplexed as we have collectively been over the last month, to discover grinding poverty is still nestled within our great nation after all we’ve tried to do to banish it — we can solve poverty right now. This year. Hubert G. Locke has shown us how, although he doesn’t realize it.
His angst appears to be coming from a column authored by Will on September 13. I’ll let Locke’s spleen vent itself here.
…the problem of New Orleans, says Will, is to be found in the American liberal’s “regularly recurring rediscoveries of poor people” and, with the supercilious arrogance that only a conservative could muster, he rushes on to note “how many of the victims were women with children but not husbands.”
You know, that’s pretty bad on George Will’s part, isn’t it? You spend half a century trying to get rid of poverty, with nothing to show for it…add on to that, an additional century or two of having poverty all around us, back when we just learned to live with it. And in 2005, you find out through Hurricane Katrina that poverty is still just as bad as it has been before.
And along comes that evil nasty conservative George F. Will — noticing some things about the poverty!
What an outrage!
After all, what persistent problems have I ever solved by noticing things? Nothing! Just bad credit ratings, bad living situations, bad marriages, bad jobs, unreliable cars that routinely emptied my wallet, credit cards issued by predatory lending companies — well, come to think of it, every significant problem I’ve ever had in life. Other than that, noticing things about my problems hasn’t solved a damn thing! Why does George Will think it will work here?
To these displaced and despairing souls, Will offers his aid in the form of three “recondite rules for avoiding poverty: graduate from high school, don’t have a baby until you are married, and don’t marry while you are a teenager.”
Now pay careful attention. Locke, obviously, doesn’t like what George Will has been noticing. He’s going to object to it rather strenuously. Don’t blink at the wrong time — you might miss something important.
Too many conservatives have a penchant for making despicable moral pronouncements when people are suffering or dying. Marie Antoinette’s reputed advice to the poor of Paris — “let them eat cake” — may be apocryphal but it captures the pitiless disdain many conservatives manage to manifest when those outside their circle of good fortune are under discussion. If it is reported that 6,000 people in Africa die every day from AIDS…[blah, blah, blah]
Hey, waitaminnit! It looks like we’re done with George Will’s “recondite rules” — Locke is changing the subject now. I thought he was going to contest what George Will was saying! He isn’t doing this? You mean, as far as Hubert Locke is concerned maybe these are the three rules to avoiding poverty?
He’s not even going to touch it in terms of its accuracy?
Well then Hubert G. Locke, what in the blue fuck is your problem???
Folks, this is why we, the richest nation on earth, have allowed so much water to go over the dam without doing anything to really solve the problem of poverty. It’s people like Hubert G. Locke. A little bit of common sense comes trickling in: Reach real adulthood before marrying, don’t have a baby until then, and get an education. Liberals like Locke see the common sense itself, as an occasion for bashing conservatives.
Would poverty disappear if the advice were followed?
Well, life is seldom that simple. But then again nobody is directly disputing that, are they? Nor are they trying it on for size. And it is true that, while very seldom are the “recondite rules” tried on by anyone deliberately…we’ve got a lot of people who just so happened to follow those simple rules, without any glaring personal agenda involving them. Those people very rarely end up poor. It is exceedlingly rare. So who the hell knows?
Maybe George Will’s rules are just the ticket. We don’t know for sure.
In my lifetime, very seldom have I seen common-sense dictums like this followed by any kind of sincere and reasoned deliberation of “Hmmm…let’s try that.” Instead, what follows is a flamewar. So George Will started a flamewar — er, no he didn’t. Hubert G. Locke, and other pinheads like him, started the flamewar in response to what George Will said. He saw an opening and he took it.
Meanwhile, the poor people stay poor. They screw other poor people, and make still more poor people. Still they suffer.
Here, let’s try this. Just to shake things up a bit. Just follow the advice; see what happens.
Hubert, you want to bash George Will’s “recondite rules” for avoiding poverty? How about just take them seriously. If they’re wrong, that’s the most devastating thing you can do to them: Take them seriously. But if they’re right…
…well, maybe that’s the reason you’d rather get all agitated and pissy than seriously deliberate about what the solution to the problem might be. You don’t want to see conservatives propose a solution, and actually have it pan out. Because in your world, it isn’t really a “problem” having these poor people around doing all this suffering; it’s simply something that has to happen so you can write columns and get more Democrats elected. That’s what it comes down to, isn’t it?
Because I have to believe if you were after anything different, you’d spend a word or two pondering whether George Will has hit on something valuable here, or if the solution to the problem lies somewhere else.
You didn’t do that.
As far as I’m concerned, everybody else can reach their own conclusions. I’ve reached mine.
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