*#&^%*#$*# Paul Ryan

I've lamely tried to ignore my anger at Paul Ryan's recent made up example of a child who would rather have a home-made lunch than eat the reduced-cost or free meal at school. Perhaps that sentiment is true. I didn't grow up missing any meals so I don't know what it's like to have the stigma of eating a reduced cost or free meal. I also don't know what it's like to go hungry: to be so focused on the ache in my stomach that I can't think about a math problem or interpreting an author's meaning of a paragraph. I suspect neither does Mr. Ryan.

No matter how much Mr. Ryan wants this problem to be about a liberal's desire to create dependency-classes in society, it's not. Fuck you. It's about the heart-ache someone with resources feels knowing that there are indeed children in our very own communities who have these hunger pangs, and who's willing to do something about it. It's about ensuring access to SNAP or pushing for access to nutritional food during the only guaranteed intersection between a hungry child and society (school), this is what humans do. It's about not asking a child to go hungry because it's more noble to skip a meal provided by a nutritional program than to satisfy those hunger pangs.

Mr. Ryan's comment that nutritional assistance programs offer "a full belly and an empty soul" is as heartless a comment I can imagine coming from a proclaimed Catholic. I'm not a Christian, but I have heard of the story about Jesus feeding the masses. Was this offering an empty soul?

I've read a few defenses of Mr. Ryan. I should give him the benefit of the doubt because he's wading into dangerous political territory for a conservative - discussing poverty in America. Really? It's dangerous for conservatives to attack poverty programs? He perhaps chose words that carry meaning beyond his intent. Again, really? I believe there exists a politician's handbook that has on page 1: when you say something you intended that sounds awful, say your words are taken out of context. That you didn't mean that. Wink wink nudge nudge. It's like white-out for the spoken word.

Mr. Ryan is being neither courageous nor pioneering, he's doing exactly what conservatives have done for the last 50 years: stigmatize anyone who dares fall on hard times (or never got to the easy times) and blame social safety nets for causing the fall. As if the phenomenon of hungry children only started with the introduction of nutritional assistance programs.

I'll grant that there are perhaps ten trillion different ways society could address feeding a hungry child. But let's have this conversation after that hungry child has had breakfast.

Getting wiser

I've gotten much better identifying people I shouldn't spend time on, something I was godawful bad at through my formative years. I wish I could get better identifying the people I should spend more time on though, the people I encounter who deserve more of my time and attention. I realize a good chunk of these people may have no interest in spending more time on me. I'm OK with that.

I look back to identify some of these folks, not to be nostalgic or rueful (I think), but to inform myself and learn so as not to repeat. Or at minimum, to try to be better. Or as Bart Simpson said best, "I can't promise that I'll try. But I can promise that I'll try to try."

From my Spanky's days during and after college: Dave/David McDonald, Kenny Smith, and Phil Demby. David used to read the paper at the bar before his shift. Every day he would mutter, "Today's the day." I finally asked him what that meant. "Today's the day Garfield makes me laugh." That still makes me laugh. Wherever you are, Dave McDonald, here's to hoping Garfield will one day be funny.

Kenny Smith, not that Kenny Smith, the Kenny Smith who worked at Spanky's. Kenny was this terrific, free spirit I just couldn't appreciate at the time. Kenny and I went mountain biking one day and every time we'd shoot down a hill or hit a fun spot, Kenny would whoop in delight. At the time it just struck me as goofball weirdo stuff. In hindsight, Kenny was teaching me to embrace the moment. Wherever you are, Kenny Smith, here's to hoping you still hoot and holler down a dirt bike path.

Phil Demby. Phil was this strikingly handsome fellow who also happened to be one of the most genuinely nice guys I've ever known. This entry may be a bit rueful because the very last time I saw Phil I behaved as a drunken, offensive buffoon. Perhaps because at the time I was a drunken, offensive buffoon. What I learned from Phil was that it's just as easy to appreciate the people around you as it is to denigrate or dismiss them. Wherever you are Phil, you're the man. And I apologize for my drunken buffoonery the last time I saw you.

Having Christian beliefs doesn't make you a bigot. Saying bigoted things makes you a bigot.

Being disgusted by Phil Robertson's comments is not an attack on people with strong biblical, Christian views. Perhaps some people offended are so because of his religious underpinnings, but I doubt it. I suspect that his strongest supporters want to make this into a story about attacking religious freedom because that sounds like a winning argument, whereas simply defending his actual comments from the article is quite a bit more challenging.

My opinion is that his comments are so offensive to so many people because he trivializes verifiable suffering for so many Americans. He can base his thinking that the Jim Crow era, and by extension slavery, wasn't so bad because he doesn't know any black people who told him they suffered. That doesn't make him an advocate for Christianity, it makes him a poster boy for ignorance.

I have no comment on his statements regarding homosexuality. There are far too many better writers than me who have done an excellent job tearing these statements to shreds.

New Year Resolution 1: quit starting my posts with "I get that..."

Let the free market work...Wait, this is what free markets do?

I get the uproar over insurance companies cancelling policies after Obama's promise that you could keep your policy if you like it. It makes great sound bites and terrific rhetoric. The problem is that the folks doing the loudest groaning are also the folks screaming to let the free market work. Well, that's exactly what's happening. All of those cancelling insurance companies were given the option to be grandfathered into the new exchanges. In other words, folks could have kept their policies. The feds did not mandate that any insurance company cancel its policies. The insurance companies chose to do this of their own accord. In other words, the free market doing its thing.

New age bogeyman

I get that Whole Foods founder and co-CEO is stating his opinion when he says:

But that ethical underpinning has eroded as American society has grown increasingly secular, Mackey said. And with that decline, the trust in both public and private institutions has evaporated.

in this article in the Austin Statesman found here: http://bit.ly/SEDMn4

I respect his opinion but opinion does not equal fact. Secularism is a convenient, and often impossible to prove, bogeyman. One could just as easily argue that naked capitalism without a soul is the result of unabashed greed in an era of relaxed regulatory protections for consumers, investors, and average Joes. Capitalists lost their way because they were finally allowed to behave rationally (rational meaning rational for them, not necessarily society), not because society turned away from Judeo-Christian institutions. I'm not protecting a secularist view, I'm opposed to throwing thoughts and belief systems under the bus out of convenience. If he's right, show it. Saying so doesn't make a belief true or accurate.

Permanent or temporary change?

I was wondering yesterday how soon the collective angst with the Newtown massacre would ebb? Each time one of these awful events happens, the media and its personalities tell us what to think, when to think it (if ever), and when we can get back to normal because it stops being relevant.

I decided that the only real hope for permanent change is for those of us who support reasonable (my definition of reasonable) policy changes, such as banning assault rifles and high capacity clips along with 100% background checks for all purchases, to stop discussing change with a side who will never support anything less than full, unfettered access to any and all weaponry. Including the NRA in the discussion is a guarantee that nothing will change. The NRA has mastered the art of riding out the storm, saying all the right things until we lose our focus and give up.

Like-minded individuals need a counter-balance to the NRA. An organization that will collect and spend, dollar for dollar, against the will of the "let's make every American a militia so we can stop the next Stalin" coalition. This organization has to enable the political viability of elected officials to speak for reasonable change, just as the NRA has quite successfully done the past several decades.

Today I donated to Gabby Gifford's new PAC http://americansforresponsiblesolutions.org/. I hope her efforts are just one of many attempts to counter-balance the NRA's influence. The NRA and the pro-gun-at-all-cost factions win if we stop caring. It's up to us to let that happen or not, they don't get to decide that and we don't get to blame them if we let our outrage simply go away.

Just in case my one reader sees this post and wonders: I am all for gun rights. I think individuals should be allowed to purchase and use hunting rifles, shot guns, handguns, etc. I even think that folks should be able to own assault rifles, but I would limit the accessibility of these to secure shooting ranges. You can own an AR-15 but it stays at the range. I would also require every weapon owner to be appropriately trained. I often hear the "drunk drivers kill innocents so let's ban cars too" argument as a reason to let this continue. Most states require annual safety inspections, all states require every driver to have a license (including those who bought a car at a car show), and every state requires some amount of insurance. I'd go on but I've already given this idiotic straw man argument too much credibility.

Enable change. It's up to you.