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My thoughts on economic issues

[This is a draft I saved on 12/12/10 that I was going to add evidence to, but I’m fine standing behind it as is. Others have done the work that supports my glib conclusions. This is the Internet, after all.]

Okay, so here are the things that are indisputable:

The gap between the rich and the poor is greater than ever. The difference in real pay between the McDonald’s clerk and the CEO is larger than it’s ever been.

My generation is the first in this country to be worse off than the one before.

So I laugh when people say taxing the rich isn’t necessary, or is punishing them, or is hurting the economy. How is taxing people with incomes of $250,000 hurting the economy? THEY ALREADY HAVE MONEY. They will continue to spend money and make money on the money they already have. They can absorb a much bigger tax hit, but apparently they’re rich enough to matter. Meanwhile, a huge number of working people living paycheck to paycheck (if lucky enough to get one) continue to suffer.

[Edit five years later: that particular cutoff strikes me as a bit simplistic, since the cost of living for even upper middle class people has gone up; I guess the solution would be, you know, move out of San Francisco or Manhattan.]

The rich are not being “punished” by having to pay higher rates of income taxes. They’re participating in the social contract our forefathers agreed to. They have been “punished” at much higher rates in the past but they’ve sold so many of us Americans on how tough it is to be rich.

The “government” is us — the people — or at least it’s supposed to be. Unfortunately the ones with money have bought and paid for it, so it’s US who don’t enjoy the same privileges our parents did. I know it’s not that simple. But it almost is.

I guess civilization ain’t quite as civilized as it used to be. I wish there were more guys like Bernie Sanders and Russ Feingold and Paul Wellstone (RIP).

Where have I been?

As a general partner of Brainwash Movies, which has been the case for a couple years, I am involved in pretty much everything that goes on surrounding the 16th Annual Brainwash Drive-in Bike-in Walk-in Movie Festival in Oakland. It’s fun and very unique; everyone who can go should go!

Just in the last several months, we have viewed over 80 submissions of mostly short, sometimes weird, always independent movies, totaling 30 hours. We judged those movies in June and chose 4 1/2 hours (22 shorts and one feature) to show on August 7, 13, and 14. It could be our best show yet (but I say that every year). I was one of three people to decide which movies to show and which order to show them in. I also laid out the initial version of our printed program and promotional flyer. Next I need to do major updates to the website and our Facebook page (so far, I’ve just scratched the surface).

Also, the San Francisco Improv Festival (headed up by the awesome folks what brought you Crisis Hopkins) hired me to set up WordPress on their brand-new site and to convert someone else’s design to a WordPress theme. I did so and it went well. I plan to continue to do improvements on their site, assuming they don’t think my rates are exorbitant (which they really aren’t).

This on top of a ridiculous amount of work at CLCV (including a big website redesign that will launch sometime this summer) and trying to take some time for myself (including a very nice but too brief 8-day vacation in Milwaukee & Chicago). One of these days I’ll post a bunch of shots on my flickr page (stay tuned).

That’s the update — check out Brainwash and SFIF in August! It’ll be more than worth your time and the very reasonable cost of admission.

The tiniest little jolt

Our office had the tiniest little jolt at 3:34 pm: magnitude 3.0, USGS stuff here, epicenter map here.

It wasn’t a big deal, really, despite the fact that I bothered posting this.

Oakland’s Parkway closing Sunday.

Wow. I just got this email:

speakeasy logo

THE PARKWAY SPEAKEASY THEATER CLOSES ITS DOORS
AND GOES DARK FOR GOOD THIS SUNDAY, MARCH 22, 2009:
THE END OF AN ERA

Dear Loyal Supporters:

This is a sad but true message from Kyle Fischer, CEO of Speakeasy Theaters, and Catherine Fischer, President of Speakeasy Theaters.

After more than twelve years of serving the great cultural crossroad of Oakland, the Parkway Speakeasy Theater will be closing at the end of business day this Sunday, March 22, 2009. From African Diaspora to Thrillville to lesbian fashion shows and educational porn, the Parkway has offered an eclectic array of movies and events. It was the first theater in California to offer food, beer and wine service in a lounge style movie theater. With a nudge or a push from the community, there was little programming the Parkway theater would not try in order to better be a community center and a safe haven for diverse ideas. The Parkway brought Baby Brigade for the shuttered and abandoned parents of newborns, the first international black gay, lesbian, bi-sexual, transgender film festival and Sunday Salon, a free event for cultural and community enhancement. We, at the Parkway Speakeasy Theater, are deeply proud of the Parkway and will profoundly miss serving its community. Thank you for your patronage.

Programming at Parkway will remain as scheduled this Friday and Saturday, March 20 and 21. Stay tuned for special announcements about this Sunday, the final day of operations.

The Speakeasy Experience lives on at the Cerrito. Most special events booked for Parkway, including regular attractions like “The Rocky Horror Picture Show,” will be moving there. Stay tuned to our web site and this newsletter for updates.

Please direct all inquiries to Kyle Fischer, kf at speakeasytheaters dot (you know how this works) com. Messages should be brief and pertinent, out of respect for this difficult reality, but will be appreciated. This is a tough time for all of us.

Cheers.

A sad thing for Oakland, and for the brilliant idea of “picture, pub, pizza.” Unfortunately, I haven’t gone there much after I got shot riding home from there a year and a half ago. I haven’t supported it nearly as much as I could have, though I went there at least a couple times a year.

The Cerrito still exists, but it’s just not the same.

“Life without Bush” (Morford)

I’ll take a sane president over an abundance of material for columnists any day. That said, I don’t want to read any more columnists complaining that they don’t have Dubya to kick around anymore. It strikes me that the basic message there is, “I’ve gotten used to being able to lazily phone it in, because Bush was such an easy target. Oh, no, now I have to actually do some research.”

Well, they won’t have to look too far if they’re looking for politicians’ failings. There are many.

Missive from downtown Oakland

Well, I’m okay, after all the protests that turned into scattered rioting within a 10-block radius of my apartment.

Here are some pictures of what happened tonight; people protested and rioted in response to a BART police officer killing a 22-year-old BART rider in the early morning hours of January 1st, a week ago.

My recap based on the aerial footage and reporting that was all over local TV tonight: The protest was relatively peaceful when it moved from Fruitvale BART to Lake Merritt BART (the next stop down the line). Police closed then re-opened those stations as the crowds grew and shrunk. The protest got rowdier as it moved to 12th Street/Oakland City Center (the next stop, and the closest to Oakland City Hall [and incidentally my workplace at 350 Frank Ogawa Plaza]).

Apple USB Power Adapter recalled…

Fellow iPhone 3G suckers consumers customers:

Apple Ultracompact USB Power Adapter Exchange Program.

Greenwald on the anthrax story

Here’s something important you may have missed: Yes, the U.S. Army scientist under suspicion for perpetrating the anthrax attacks of 2001 died recently, right before he was to have been indicted.

But it’s come to light that, immediately after the attacks, numerous sources told ABC News and others that the anthrax was linked to Iraq because it was laced with Saddam Hussein’s chemical calling card (my phrase).

That turned out to be a lie, yet ABC News is now obstructing the truth by refusing to out their sources.

In “Journalists, their lying sources, and the anthrax investigation,” Glenn Greenwald of Salon.com makes a case for why they must reveal their sources (emphasis mine):

…numerous experts in “journalistic ethics,” such as they are… agreed that while the obligation of source confidentiality is close to absolute, it does not extend to a source who deliberately exploits confidentiality to disseminate lies to the public. Under those circumstances… a reporter is not only permitted, but required, to disclose the identity of the source who purposely used the reporter to spread lies.

Troll provides secret to defeating trolls

In “Malwebolence – The World of Web Trolling”, to be published in the next New York Times Magazine and available now online, a troll reveals the secret of how not to be trolled:

…the Theory of the Green Hair.

“You have green hair,“ he told me. “Did you know that?”

“No,” I said.

“Why not?”

“I look in the mirror. I see my hair is black.”

“That’s uh, interesting. I guess you understand that you have green hair about as well as you understand that you’re a terrible reporter.”

“What do you mean? What did I do?”

“That’s a very interesting reaction,” Fortuny said. “Why didn’t you get so defensive when I said you had green hair?” If I were certain that I wasn’t a terrible reporter, he explained, I would have laughed the suggestion off just as easily. The willingness of trolling “victims” to be hurt by words, he argued, makes them complicit, and trolling will end as soon as we all get over it.

Aha!

This is old news

I was a little embarrassed that only a few days after scoffing at how dangerous Oakland is, I got shot. I intended to post about it, but I just never got around to it. Each time I thought about it, it moved farther away from “kind of scary” and closer and closer to “old news,” but it never quite became a blog entry.

Anyway, one Wednesday night last fall,

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