I wrote once about how Simon Schama called OBama a victorian in the
modern world. as i look around at the cuts to social programs and the
focus on national debt before citizen welfare i think that it’s not
just our pres who is victorian, but the entire political class that is
stuck in 1800’s ideas of bootstraps and sacrifice for the underclass
while the upperclass thrives. we are watching them create a modern
potato famine through the calls for austerity. like ireland, we have
more than enough resources, but the wealthy must make their giant
profits to pay their debts before us peasants are considered. i wonder
how long it will be before we start dying lie the irish did, gaunt
with mouths stained green from trying to eat the grass when all the
food was sent to england.

—
The trouble with being poor is that it takes up all of your time.
Willem de Kooning

wall street had its highest level of compensation last year, 125
billion dollars. and the market is all gangbuster bullish again. BP is
scewing over everyone who needs and deserves compensation from their
disaster. and the fed thinks that raising food prices ain’t no big
thing for us little people.
meanwhile, states are avoiding bankruptcy by scewing over poor people,
disabled people, people trying to educate themselves or their kids.
there’s riots in puerto rico over tuition hikes that no one’s talking
about. no one’s even talking about foreclosures anymore, though they
are expected to keep rising.
and the politicians can’t seem to get their noses brown enough in the
backsides of the crooks who really run the country.

—
The trouble with being poor is that it takes up all of your time.
Willem de Kooning

washington state is now going to CUT TANF cash benefits by 15% for
everyone in order to balance the budget.
funny, during all those years of surplus no one ever suggested raising
the benefit amounts to keep up with inflation. The benefit has been
the same for at least the last 15 year. it didn’t get raised during
the gogo 90s or during the real estate bubble. but it’s the first
thing to cut during bad times. and all this from a democratic governor
in a ‘progressive’ blue state. it’s okay washingtonians, the poor will
baile your asses out, we always do.

—
The trouble with being poor is that it takes up all of your time.
Willem de Kooning

Just about every account I’ve read of the reasons behind the protests
from Tunisia to Jordan involve people being righteously pissed about
the rising costs of food and fuel. (I also read that Berneke’s
quantative easing was a huge reason for the rise in commodities prices
and at least Egypt’s food price spike). I’m not surprised. hungry
people, or even people who are scared of being hungry, suddenly have a
lot less tolerance for the excesses of the upper class. it’s why ‘Let
them eat cake’ is one of the few things we thin we know about the
french revolution persists.
what does that mean for us ‘MEricans? we’ve still got aways to go
before the hunger pangs reach past the bottom 20%, but it’s coming. it
might even come faster if claire mckaskill’s craptastic budget bill
passes and kills any possibility of the government being able to do
anything other than pay the salaries of the douchebags in the tacky
blue suits.

—
The trouble with being poor is that it takes up all of your time.
Willem de Kooning

Another post about eye candy

Mads Mikkelsen- the hottest man in Denmark

Ming Tsai- chef I’d like to…….have dinner with.

Alex Lanipekun and Richard Armitage in MI-5, a show whose name really ought to be changed to “hot dudes that do Englishy spy stuff and make RQ wobbly kneed”

So peeps- who are you drooling over at the moment?