January

I've heard of people using modified lawn tractors to keep their driveways clear. This is what we use.

Eat your heart out, DaveO, we've got snow.

Tinfoil hat time

Maybe it's just me, but somehow the  the sight of people who are themselves barely third generation American doing anti-immigrant rants always seems to plumb new depths of The Stupid. I recently decided to get back into quilting for charity at a local church and got treated to a nice dose of xenophobia  laced with a dash of anti-Semiticism. It definitely wasn't what I was expecting when I volunteered.

The anti-Semitic comments followed a long spiel about foreigners needing to go back where they came from -- no place in this country for the huddled masses yearning to breathe free, that's not what the U.S. is about. If Stupid came in liquid form, I'd have been in danger of drowning because it was running pretty deep in the basement of United Lutheran. It's beyond bizarre when someone whose grandparents emigrated from Europe barely 100 years ago starts going on and on about how you can tell who the foreigners are by their last names. WTF? The woman is surrounded by people with Finnish surnames, and she's telling us other people's surnames are "foreign"?  I could halfway understand some of the weirdness about immigrants when we lived in Georgia -- a lot of the rednecks there can actually trace their history in the local area back to the early 19th century and don't think of their ancestors as immigrants but as pioneers -- but here in the U.P., unless a person is Ojibwe, the roots generally don't go very deep.

Turned out, of course, that "foreigner" was defined as Hispanic or Jewish. It was the usual "wetbacks are stealing all the jobs while sucking off the welfare teat" combined with the international Jewish banking cabal that's funding Zionism and the state of Israel. Where do people get these bizarre ideas? Faux News? Talk radio? The little old ladies I knew when we lived here before reveled in celebrity gossip and stuff they'd read in People -- when did they start listening to Rush?

The other ladies appeared pretty startled when I called the bigot out. I have a hunch they've gotten so used to her nattering on about global conspiracies and the evils of foreigners that they don't really hear it. Unfortunately, I did, and I know that silence equals complicity. As long as you don't speak up when someone says something offensive or crazy, the offender will view your silence as agreement. Speaking up might not change anyone's mind, but at least they'll know not everyone shares their distorted view of the world. 

Are you an environmentalist, or do you work for a living?

Empire Mine, Palmer, Michigan. 

Over at The Lake is the Boss, DaveO's done several interesting posts about a proposed mining operation in northern Wisconsin. I don't have a real strong opinion about this specific project one way or the other, but I know Dave started to lose me as a potential mine opponent when his rhetoric switched from talking about contamination of a watershed and possible toxic byproducts to damage to the viewshed and degradation of aesthetic values. Loss of scenic vistas doesn't strike me as much of an argument against anything: to be blunt about it, you can't eat scenery.

I found myself thinking about a 1995 article by historian Richard White -- "Are you an environmentalist, or do you work for a living?" -- that generated a lot of discussion when it first appeared. White's point was that for many people, the environment is something "out there" somewhere, a place to visit and to recreate in but not a place where they actually make a living. They like looking at it; it's a playground. Naturally, whole herds of environmentalists were (and still are) extremely unhappy about being portrayed as elitist asshats. 

I, quite frankly, wasn't much surprised by White's paper. Back when I was still pretending to be a sociologist with an interest in voluntary associations, I studied a group known as the Friends of the Land of Keweenaw (FOLK). FOLK was organized as part of an effort to prevent construction of a pulpmill in northern Baraga County, Michigan. For various reasons, the mill never materialized -- how much the local opposition contributed to it not being built is debatable (my memory is that the overall economic climate in the pulp and paper industry had more to do with the project being abandoned than anything else) -- but its construction (or not) wasn't the point of my study. I was interested in FOLK -- how it was organized, what the demographics looked like for the membership, etc. The research also included a content analysis of letters to the editor in local papers. What did I find? 

Nothing earthshaking. I simply confirmed what numerous other sociologists have found: the environmentalists (anti-mill) tended to be people who worked, loosely speaking, at white collar occupations; the pro-mill were more hands on, i.e., blue collar. Anti-mill types were either working with nonmaterial items (e.g., an insurance salesman) or retired; the pro-mill had occupations that were more directly connected with industry (e.g., machinist). The anti-mill letter writers worried about aesthetics ("a mill is ugly," "pulpmills stink," logging trucks are noisy"); the pro-mill writers focused on the economic benefits ("increased tax base for local schools" "good paying jobs"). It was kind of a head*desk experience. I really did not want to read self-centered crap like "When I retired, I moved here to get away from industry" or "An ugly pulpmill right on US-41 will upset tourists." Holy fuck. It was like a confirmation of every negative stereotype I'd ever heard about clueless tree huggers.  There were a handful of anti-mill types who had brains enough to point out that maybe, just maybe pollution of Lake Superior should be a concern or that perhaps the timber resources of the area weren't sufficient to support an operation on the scale being discussed, but overall it was "don't mess with my playground." In short, NIMBY-ism.

Well, if not in your backyard, who should get stuck with it? None of us like thinking about the obvious  philosophical and ethical questions -- if we like living with all the benefits of a highly technological society (smart phones, central heating, automobiles, whatever), how much of a price are we personally willing to pay to enjoy those goodies? We want the electricity -- shouldn't we be willing to live next to the power plant? And if we generate the garbage, shouldn't we be willing to live next to the dump? 

Happy birthday, Nerf

You're not a libertarian

if you want to control people's sex lives or a woman's uterus. I keep hearing various pundits wax eloquent about Ron Paul and how he's the only Republican candidate who's truly for small government and personal freedom. Pshaw. He's not for personal freedom; he's for white male privilege. As long as he's fine with government restricting access to abortion, he's not a libertarian -- he's a misogynist trying to use a particular political philosophy as cover for his attempts to keep women barefoot and pregnant.

I have never understood Dr. Paul's opposition to abortion. Prior to entering politics, he practiced obstetrics and gynecology. Surely he must have seen first hand plenty of examples of pregnancies that never should have happened, but apparently his years as a physician just convinced him that every pregnancy should go full term, regardless of the circumstances.

The term "pro life" has always struck me as a misnomer. The vast majority of the "pro life" types I've known are actually only "pro fetus." They don't want to terminate any pregnancies, but they're fine with the death penalty, torture, and fighting endless wars in which thousands of civilians die. I will give Ron Paul some points for being against the last of those -- although only because they cost money. I've no doubt that if the U.S. military decided to start hiring itself out to other nations for cold, hard cash, Dr. Paul with be fine with that.

The circus continues

They're voting in New Hampshire today. NPR has had nonstop sound bites from the campaign trail. I keep trying to think of a reason to care and failing. I suppose it is vaguely good news that the sanest of the clown car occupants, John Huntsman, is finally getting some traction and has some hope of a second place finish. Huntsman, after all, has had enough of an independent streak to contradict some of the GOP's most cherished talking points.

Unfortunately, New Hampshire is one of the few states having early primaries that is also blessed with a voting populace that's willing to think. The other contest coming up soon is South Carolina -- and that's a state where the loonier the position, the more the voters love it. Huntsman may do well in New Hampshire, but he's going to sink without a trace once the campaign moves south. It's also pretty clear that the monied interests have pinned their hopes on Romney, the man who's such a nonperson that, as Paul Krugman put it, to call him an empty suit is an insult to empty suits everywhere.

I don't get why anyone would be attracted to Romney, whether it's voters or monied interests, because he's so stiff and phony. It's a major mystery to me as to how he ever managed to win an election anytime anywhere -- of course, when he ran in Massachusetts in 2002 he portrayed himself as a progressive moderate, not the reactionary conservative he's channeling now. If nothing else, Mitt is good at telling voters what they want to hear.

Yawn

They're caucusing in Iowa today, and I'm trying to figure out why any of the rest of us should care. It's never made much sense to me -- you have a state that is utterly unrepresentative of most of the country and a process that's guaranteed to bring out the fringe elements in both parties, and it's supposed to shape presidential politics? Iowa is the classic case of the media driving the message: the Iowa caucuses just happen to come first in the parade, so the media hovers all over the state trying to find meaning in what some person on the street from Harlan or Ottumwa says, treating each vacuous pronouncement as though it's newsworthy.

Usually, of course, what you hear when those persons on the street speak their minds is an astounding combination of blind ignorance and personal projection. The folks from Iowa always strike me as being astoundingly gullible: the candidates say they're conservative god-fearing upstanding citizens and, regardless of the candidates' track records, the fine folk in Iowa suck it all right up. I was listening to NPR yesterday, and it became real clear real fast that the people being interviewed had an image of Newt Gingrich based solely on the lies he's been telling about himself -- don't these people ever bother to look beyond the latest press releases from candidates? Apparently not. . .  The Iowa caucuses give a whole new meaning to "born again." Pro-choice politicians morph into pro-life, serial adulterers become family values candidates, and characters whose political careers appeared to be dead on arrival are suddenly contenders. Who could have predicted even a few weeks ago that a loser like Rick Santorum would now be considered likely to be in the final 3?

Cui bono?

The S.O. did a post yesterday on drug testing politicians. His point was that from the perspective of harm reduction it would do society more good to make sure the lawmakers aren't stoned than it would to go after some poor sap applying for food stamps. That was, after all, the original argument for drug testing: harm reduction. Protect the public by keeping stoned long-haul truckers off the highways, chemically impaired pilots out of cockpits, and so on. I don't think most people have much of an objection to trying to ensure that someone flying a 747 or driving a school bus isn't high.

Of course, the rationale now for piss testing isn't to protect the public -- it's ostensibly to save taxpayer dollars by making sure lowlifes aren't swapping their food stamps (or the equivalent thereof) for doobies or meth. The folks peddling this particular brand of snake oil (criminalizing poverty and punishing the poor for being poor) always make it sound like huge savings are going to accrue to the taxpayers, which is bull. I couldn't find any recent data, but in 2006 the average welfare benefit per household in the United States was under $400 a month. Somehow I doubt that the potential savings from booting a tiny percentage of applicants out of the system is going to offset the cost of administering the tests. So the question what's the real motivation behind the push for drug testing? Cui bono? Who benefits?

Well, it's not the American public. The underlying motivation isn't austerity or saving the public money. It's to create more customers for the companies that manufacture and/or administer the drug tests. If you look at the history of drug testing -- from a few persons in sensitive jobs to company-wide or agency-wide pre-employment testing of everyone and anyone on the payroll, regardless of type of work done -- you see the sad history of products and processes in search of a market. People poor enough to qualify for welfare or unlucky enough to need to apply for unemployment compensation don't hire high dollar Washington lobbyists; the drug testing industry does.

Even more interestingly, quite a few politicians have financial interests in the testing companies. Why am I not surprised? With almost any social problem, when some politician proposes a solution, ask yourself "Who benefits?" and then follow the money. You won't have to flip over many rocks to find corruption oozing out. Classic example: Rick Scott, governor of Florida, pushed hard for drug testing people applying for welfare. Rick Scott, millionaire, had a major financial interest in the urgent care clinics that would perform that testing.

Of course, demonizing the poor and suggesting that anyone who is unlucky enough to need welfare is probably some drug-sucking lowlife also plays nicely into the right-wing's goal of keeping lower-income voters divided and marginalized, but I'm never quite sure which comes first: the political strategy or seeing a fresh opportunity for graft.

Another of life's little mysteries: mismatched talents

I've been working on fixing up a space to use as a home office. We have a front porch that started off as an open air space, but was later enclosed to create an airlock entry into the house. The interior was never finished, though. The walls were raw wood: T1-11 siding on the side that used to be an exterior wall of the house, and plywood on the others, and, with the exception of what used to be an exterior window, there was no trim around the windows or doors. I decided that if I was going to use it was a home office space, I was going to make sure the finishing work was done before any furniture got moved in. So I started painting.

Priming the T1-11

I love to paint. I really enjoy messing with color and changing the looks of things just by slapping a coat or two of paint on it. And that's the operative word: messing. I love to paint, but I'm terrible at it. I dribble, I splatter, I end up with paint on anything and everything that comes within ten feet of me. I start off with good intentions, trying to implement everything I've ever been told about the proper techniques to prevent strange runs and drips on the wall or woodwork or whatever it is I'm painting, and end up slathering paint on with a brush that has somehow devolved into a trowel. Naturally, this lack of skill is hard on the equipment. When I told the Younger Daughter I was using her Purdy brushes, I could hear her flinch over the phone. I had to quickly reassure her that I was joking, and I had acquired a stash of throw-aways.

Fortunately, in the case of my soon-to-be home office, the fact I'm a painting slob doesn't matter. I can't ruin the floor, because it's just scrap vinyl that's going to be discarded soon, and the wall surfaces (especially the T1-11) are rough enough that paint boogers aren't particularly noticeable. I didn't even have to worry about messing up the ceiling because it's going to be wallpapered with old quad maps -- and it's just OSB anyway. I have, however, told the S.O. he has to paint the door frame. Our front door is a salvaged antique door that the Younger Daughter put a lot of effort into refinishing. I kept it shrouded in plastic when I had to work near it, but I don't think even multiple plastic drop cloths would protect it from me if I had to be painting right next to it. So the S.O. gets to do it.

Final color in progress. I primed the ceiling because it's going to be papered, and wanted to make it easier for that wallpaper to be removed if we get tired of it. 

The S.O. is actually quite good at painting. He's meticulous, a perfectionist. When he paints something, it ends up looking good. No holidays, no paint boogers, no weirdness at all. Only one problem: he hates to paint.

Merry Christmas

I say that without much enthusiasm. Christmas has never been on my list of favorite holidays. I associate the day too much with unrealistic expectations, crushing disappointments, family drama, and bad news in general. The ghosts of Christmas past include gems like the year the S.O.'s "bonus" from his employer was a pink slip.

Maybe it's the season, maybe it's the two funerals we've attended this month, or maybe it's just a generalized malaise triggered by the sad state of the nation, but I haven't felt much like posting lately. Here's hoping that now that the solstice is behind us and the days are getting longer again, the urge to write will return. Until then, happy holidays.