"That tells you that you’ve got someone here who can relate to the voters in Wisconsin, just like those of us in western Pennsylvania who grew up in the bowling lanes."
Rick Santorum knows how to get to the hearts of Wisconsin voters, as cheese-clogged as they might be: suck up to the sportsman in them. Over the weekend, Santorum did everything he could to get people to forget that as president he would institute Inquisition 2012 and instead focus on how folksy he is -- visiting Lambeau Field and drinking a beer while playing shuffleboard at a Green Bay bar.
Leaving aside that Rick Santorum is a horrible human being who recently tried to blame his handicapped daughter for his lack of charitable giving even though Santorum's net worth may be as high as $2,600,000, and leaving aside that this former frat boy millionaire graduated from high school in Illinois and had his first job at a giant law firm where salaries begin at $80,000 a year and so Rick Santorum has about as much in common with the blue collar workers he's sucking up to as an bowl of slime has in common with a homo sapiens...
(Rick Santorum is the bowl of slime in that simile)
...leaving all that aside, did you notice that nowhere in the press coverage did Santorum say what score he got?
Claiming that an unusual result midway through a contest somehow equates to a good outcome, when the real outcome is unknown or hasn't happened yet, seems to be symbolic of Santorum's candidacy.
As the Republican agenda becomes more and more obviously social-issue related (and patently anti-woman), and as the Tea Party is revealed to be simply a collection of racists spouting economic drivel to cover up the fact that their sole organizing principal was "They elected a black man and we ain't gonna stand for that," (latest evidence of that being this: with all that going on one may wonder whether we are still going to be buried in "We can't afford this" type of nonsense, and the answer is yes.
Recently, in a lengthy post about the NCAA basketball tournament, I noted that New York had cited fiscal difficulties in cutting $192,000,000 from social services while at the exact same time voting to spend $184,000,000 to give Donald Trump a golf course (no, I'm not even kind of making that up or exaggerating in any way) and even in the face of such nonsense as that, voters continue to buy into "we've got to cut spending" so much so that even Obama is touting spending reforms as part of his platform.
Let's be clear: Spending cuts cannot solve any deficit problem. Not in the long term. That is because 1/6 of our money is spent on defense, and 1/7 is spent on Medicare. Among other things. General government makes up less than 1/10 of total government spending, which means if you eliminated every single federal government employee up to and including Obama, you'd reduce our spending by about 10%.
So the government takes a smaller percentage of people's money than it ever has, while people earn more than they ever have. There's really no other way to put that. Nowadays, our consumer spending averages about $5,000 per year on nonessentials. Look at all but the poorest people in the U.S. : they have cell phones and color TVs and cars, for the most part. This isn't a rant about how the poor aren't really the poor; this is a rant about how the rich are really really rich, and the middle class (while doing worse all the time) is pretty well off, too.
The latest example of how stupid we are about money -- cutting basic services and paying teachers next to nothing while rolling in discretionary funds -- is this:
What recession? Despite record unemployment, rising health care costs and sinking home values - Americans shelled out more than $10 billion on cosmetic surgery and other procedures last year.
The American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery says there were almost 10 million surgical and non-surgical procedures done in the U.S. in 2009, that's down only two percent from the year before.
That was a 2010 article that I heard about recently. In 2009, in the worst economy anyone alive can remember, Americans spent $10,000,000,000 on cosmetic (elective, unnecessary, ineffective) surgery.
That was the a year after, remember, that Beverly Hills Chihuahua took in $29,400,465 on its opening weekend alone.
Colorado Springs, meanwhile, voted down a tax increase and opted to privately fund streetlights, so that in poorer neighborhoods, people lived in the dark. USA! USA!
People are dumb. And by people I mean you. If you listen to a politician say "we need to cut spending" and nod in agreement, you're selfish and dumb. The next time a politician says "We need to cut spending," instead of silently listening or nodding, why not yell out "What if we just put a tax on unnecessary cosmetic procedures and then paid for cops to protect us using that money?" You'll make me proud, and the country better.
For this week's Thursday Scramble, I'm reposting question 18 in the Star Wars Blogathon -- a 100-day, 100-question extravaganza of nonsense in which you earn points by answering Star Wars trivia, or simply commenting, or by a variety of other means.
Even if you haven't taken part so far, you can STILL WIN! Every week, I draw a name at random from those who have commented and that person wins valuable prizes, like free books. And the points available for the remaining 83 or so questions will easily let you catch up. So read the post below, and if you feel like entering, click the link to go to The Best Of Everything's official post and comment. And check back every day for a new question!
The Best Of Everything 100-day 100-question Star Wars Blogathon, Question 18
On to today's question and topic of discussion, which is: Fake Holidays in Science Fiction.
Over on his blog today, Michael Offutt mentioned that IQ84 has a complete short story in it -- a story that plays into the novel's plot itself, and he mentioned that Grumpy did a similar thing in his book "Where You Belong." A while back, on this blog, I did a post on what I called, for lack of knowing anything better to call it, "The Best Fictional Plot Point," in which I talked about movies and TV shows and books that had created something out of whole cloth to revolve the plot of the story around -- things like the equation in The Infinities or Jerry's move in Seinfeld. And even earlier before that, I'd done a whole post on The Best Fake Musical In A Real Movie, and now today I'm thinking about all those things authors make up to further the made-up story they're telling -- everything from fake songs like in Norman Spinrad's old book Little Heroes to full on fake short stories like John Irving did in The World According to Garp (and Dilloway, and Murakami did in their stories.)
So far as I know, nobody has yet written an entire fake novel within a novel -- but I'm sure that's not very far off.
And also, that's off the track. What I'm specifically thinking about today are the holidays that populate sci-fi (and fantasy) books and movies and TV shows, and I've been wracking my brain trying to think of what holidays those might be, because I am 100% certain that in the course of reading my many sci-fi and fantasy books over the years, I've read about holidays that only exist on strange worlds or in service of strange gods, but I cannot think of a single one except Festivus, and that doesn't count.
So, I resorted to Googling, and here's a few I came up with:
Assumption of St. Antwelm. Because King Antwelm assumed everybody wanted to be happy, enjoy themselves, and have the best possible time together, on his death he willed his entire personal fortune to financing an annual festival for this purpose. Events of this holiday include a feast, dancing, and fatuous games such as Hunt the Wocket. (Celebrated on Saquo-Pilia Hensha, the ultimate headquarters of the publisher of the Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy)
The Five Extra Days in the Númenórean Calendar: days added to the Middle Earth calendar to set it straight, celebrated as holidays.
Colonial Day, an annual holiday that celebrates the official signing of the Articles of Colonization that occured 52 years prior to the final Cylon Attack in the Battlestar universe that I loved so much before it ripped off Hitchhiker in a finale that made no sense.
Anyway, that's what I came up with. I'm sure there's more, so here's the challenge: If, in your comment, you can name real... or "real" bona fide holidays in a sci-fi or fantasy book, TV series or movie -- holidays that DO NOT exist in our world, you'll get 10 extra points... per holiday.
And, here's today's question, worth 46 points:
What holiday was celebrated via the pod race in which Anakin Skywalker won his freedom?
Also, commenter number 5 gets the 10 bonus points today, but remember: while you can comment multiple times, you can't get the bonus points if you're commenter 4 and 5.
This is kind of an older one, but it's still timely and worth discussing. Shadrack McGill is a congressman from Alabama who recently used the Bible to defend paying legislators a lot but teachers nothing:
"[Legislators need] to make enough that he can say no, in regards to temptation. ... Teachers need to make the money that they need to make. There needs to be a balance there. If you double what you're paying education, you know what's going to happen? I've heard the comment many times, 'Well, the quality of education's going to go up.' That's never going to happen, guys....It's a Biblical principle. If you double a teacher's pay scale, you'll attract people who aren't called to teach."
Which is to say: if higher pay is necessary to attract quality people in banking, say, why is it not necessary in teaching?
That's not my main point here. Nor is my main point the implausibility of the Bible having anything to say about teacher pay. I think you'd get more insight into educational funding from Van Halen:
Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness. For we all stumble in many ways. And if anyone does not stumble in what he says, he is a perfect man, able also to bridle his whole body.
Luke 6:40
A disciple is not above his teacher, but everyone when he is fully trained will be like his teacher.
Proverbs 22:6
Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it.
Titus 2:7-8
Show yourself in all respects to be a model of good works, and in your teaching show integrity, dignity, and sound speech that cannot be condemned, so that an opponent may be put to shame, having nothing evil to say about us.
Matthew 5:19
Therefore whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.
Ecclesiastes 12:12-13
My son, beware of anything beyond these. Of making many books there is no end, and much study is a weariness of the flesh. The end of the matter; all has been heard. Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man.
That overall seems not too disparaging of teachers, as well as an ecclesiastical argument against too much homework. Still, nothing about teacher pay.
Republicans seem on the whole to be down on education more than ever -- from Wisconsin Governor Scott ("Patsy") Walker going after the teachers (among other state workers) to Rick Santorum hating college and wanting people not to aspire to be educated, and in preferring legislators to teachers, Shadrack (whose name is thought to be a derivation of a pagan god's moniker but who might actually be named after the chief of the eunuchs) is actually following modern-day conservatism: protect the government's right to intervene in people's lives, and keep people dumb enough to not figure out what you're doing.
That, too, is not my major point. My major point is that the Republican party, on the whole, seems not just to misunderstand what conservatism is and/or to fear education, but the Republican party seems to misunderstand economics.
Forget Ron Paul and his theories that you catch AIDS from paper money; even non-insane Republicans appear to have no basic grasp of economics. Consider the statement "Teachers need the money they need to make."
That's just a tautology, a nonsensical statement. Shadrack went on to further demonstrate his lack of basic economic understanding by saying:
And these teachers that are called to teach, regardless of the pay scale, they would teach. It's just in them to do. It's the ability that God give 'em. And there are also some teachers, it wouldn't matter how much you would pay them, they would still perform to the same capacity.
Unpack that a moment: what Shadrack is saying is that people who are called to do something will do it no matter what you pay them. Which is to say: Shadrack thinks people who love their jobs would do it for free.
Isn't that what he's saying? His basic argument is we don't even need to pay teachers, they'll just go ahead and do it for us.
And anyone else who feels a calling to do their job: Shadrack says pay is irrelevant to you because you love that thing you do so much.
In other words, Shadrack is saying that the free market doesn't work: that if you love something, the cost of that thing is irrelevant. People who love teaching will teach even if the cost to them is homelessness, poverty, starvation: they will die on their knees, wretched bedraggled emaciated corpses clutching a textbook of math problems they tried to demonstrate to their pupils just before passing into the next life. So why bother paying them at all?
That's a startling view of an important job: If you love it, we shouldn't have to pay you to do it. I'm going to use that on my employees. In their reviews, I'm going to ask if they love this job and feel called to do it. If they say yes, I will immediately cut their pay to zero and tell them "see you tomorrow morning, bright and early."
And we should do that with doctors and nurses, too! They must feel a calling. And career politicians! They feel a calling to serve the people, so we should not pay them. Shadrack McGill, refund all money you've ever been paid.
Shadrack McGill's feeling that people shouldn't get paid if they like their jobs isn't, still, my main point about his quote. My main point is this:
Shadrack, Chief of the Eunuchs, goes on in that quote to argue that if you raise the pay for a group of people, you attract people who are no good at the job you're hiring for -- which is not just a repudiation of the free market but also of free will.
Sure, if you pay teachers, say, $1,000,000 per year, there will be people who want to be teachers for no reason other than the high pay, and who will not be good at it. But why is it that Shadrack, and others like him, think we couldn't simply refuse to hire, or fire, those teachers?
Shadrack's basic argument is: once you pay teachers a lot of money, every loser in the world will become a teacher and we will be powerless to stop them.
I don't believe that's how it works in the free market -- public or private education. Teachers get fired all the time. Professors get fired all the time, and they make a good living. Lots of people get fired all the time.
Unearthed, Shadrack's argument goes back to a basic, unspoken, Republican principal, and that principal is: you people cannot be expected to control yourselves.
Republicans don't want to pay teachers a lot because you won't be able to fire teachers. Republicans don't want you to have birth control because you won't be able to stop having sex. Republicans don't want you to go to college because you won't be able to resist the Marxist lecturings of that wild-haired professor. Republicans don't want to let gay people marry because then we'll all want to marry our lamps and goats.
Republicans don't trust you. They think you have the brains of a can of tuna. That philosophy is at the heart of every single Republican policy or program currently on their agenda. (Well, that, and "Help the rich discover a way to actually be able to legally kill the middle class.)
You watch as Republicans talk. Shadrack McGill himself said it was necessary for government to raise legislator's pay because it helped avoid bribery -- too low of pay for legislators and they're prone to taking bribes. Which is: you won't be able to stop yourself from becoming a criminal.
Remember the unemployment debates? Republicans argued that if unemployment is available, people won't go get jobs... because they won't be able to help themselves get up off the couch. Only a push from the Good Ol' Republican Party will actually cause people to get up and apply for an assistant managership at a Denny's.
Every. Single. Republican. Policy. is premised on "you can't stop yourself." And all of their policies are geared at pushing you to do something they want.
The GOP likes to paint Democrats as the party of Big Government. But it's the Republicans who want the government to put up a zillion barbed wire fences between you and your desires, a series of Freedom Fences that will prevent you from having sex, taking bribes, marrying your gay friend, or going to college. Because the Republicans don't believe you can help yourself.
