How Elitist Are You?

Are you a liberal elite? Does this quiz really reflect how conservatives stereotype view liberal “elites” or is it just in one angry wealthy white man’s head?  What happens if you are neither a liberal “elite” nor a conservative “real American”?

By Charles Murray and Claire Berlinski.

1. Can you talk about “Mad Men?” No.
2. Can you talk about the “The Sopranos?” No.
3. Do you know who replaced Bob Barker on “The Price Is Right?” No.
4. Have you watched an Oprah show from beginning to end? No.
5. Can you hold forth animatedly about yoga? Probably.
6. How about pilates? No.
7. How about skiing? No.
8. Mountain biking? No.
9. Do you know who Jimmie Johnson is? No.
10. Does the acronym MMA mean anything to you? No.
11. Can you talk about books endlessly? On a good day.
12. Have you ever read a “Left Behind” novel? No.
13. How about a Harlequin romance? No.
14. Do you take interesting vacations? I like to think so.
15. Do you know a great backpacking spot in the Sierra Nevada? No.
16. What about an exquisite B&B overlooking Boothbay Harbor? No.
17. Would you be caught dead in an RV? I lived in one.
18. Would you be caught dead on a cruise ship? Hell no.
19. Have you ever heard of Branson, Mo? DUH where do you think Midwesterners go on vacation??
20. Have you ever attended a meeting of a Kiwanis Club? I was in the youth version in high school.
21. How about the Rotary Club? No.
22. Have you lived for at least a year in a small town? A few months here, a few months there, working on farms.
23. Have you lived for a year in an urban neighborhood in which most of your neighbors did not have college degrees? Currently do.
24. Have you spent at least a year with a family income less than twice the poverty line? Just one year? I wish.
25. Do you have a close friend who is an evangelical Christian? No.
26. Have you ever visited a factory floor? Yes.
27. Have you worked on one? No.

Amusing and related discussion.

Goblin

I’m ramping up for Halloween, and this video is simply the awesomest thing I have seen in a long, long time. This is Goblin performing the theme to Profondo Rosso live on Italian TV at some point in the 70s. It doesn’t get cooler than this.

Finally, Some Good, Common-Sense Legislation

Florida Republican state legislator William Snyder has proposed a great new immigration law for his state, modeled on that one in Arizona. But this one — which GOP gubernatorial candidate Rick Scott supports, of course — has a special twist: White people are exempt!

Those Republican problem-solvers, they can always be counted on to do what’s best for (white) America!

Read all about it.

The Oppression of the Rich

Please stop struggling to survive for a minute and feel pity for the rich, who struggle to attend fancy graduate schools, send their children to private schools, employ hired help, drive two cars, and own a large home in an expensive city. Sometimes, they may even have to limit how many times they eat out each month!

Oppressed Wealthy White Man

Todd Henderson, a University of Chicago Law Professor, during a lengthy pity party which can be found here (scroll to bottom), wrote last month:

 

Like most working Americans, insurance, doctors’ bills, utilities, two cars, daycare, groceries, gasoline, cell phones, and cable TV (no movie channels) round out our monthly expenses. We also have someone who cuts our grass, cleans our house, and watches our new baby so we can both work outside the home. At the end of all this, we have less than a few hundred dollars per month of discretionary income. We occasionally eat out but with a baby sitter, these nights take a toll on our budget. Life in America is wonderful, but expensive.

Mr. Henderson certainly has an interesting idea of what life is like for “most working Americans”. This working American lives in a cheap, shoddy apartment with four roommates, no tv, works full-time, makes under $15k/year, has only rudimentary health insurance, is on food stamps, can’t afford any more school, and has no car.

The Wall Street Journal published some helpful advice for him so that he can learn to cut his exorbitant costs and save (the Horror!). One chilling suggestion they offer is that he mow his own lawn!

Bradford Delong, a Professor of Economics at UC Berkley, responded at length, including this tidbit:

Now it is time for a reality check on this “most working Americans.” The median household income in the United States today is $50,000. Half of all households make more than this. Half of all households make less. The big expenses in the Xxxxxxxxx family budget–their $60,000 a year in contributions to tax-favored retirement savings vehicles, their $25,000 a year savings building home equity, their $55,000 for housing, their $60,000 in private school costs, even their $10,000 a year for new cars–are simply out of reach for the overwhelming majority of Americans. Half of all households make less than $50,000 a year–the Xxxxxxxxxs make nine times that. 90% of households make less than $100,000 a year–the Xxxxxxxxx’s make 4.5 times that. The Xxxxxxxxx’s are solidly in the top 1% of American households, in the select 1% group that receives more than $350,000 a year.

Michael O’Hare, Professor of Public Policy at UC Berkley, wrote:

So how does our third-of-a-million-a-year law prof/doctor couple and their three kids, barely scraping by already and falling before our eyes to the very bottom of the top 1% of US families by income, make out under Obama’s rapacious soak-the-rich commie attack on all that is holy and American and fine?

…His taxes will go down $3700; he can buy one of those ties every two weeks! And this guy is threatening to fire the gardener and the house cleaner, take the kid out of art class, turn off his cell phones, and try to raise competent adults with only basic cable.

…[Mr. Henderson] also blithely says ” The biggest expense for us is financing government.” No it isn’t: their biggest expense, and it’s three times larger, is financing their private consumption.

Paul Krugman seems to have found Mr. Henderson’s complaints particularly annoying:

[I]t has become common to hear vehement denials that people making $400,000 or $500,000 a year are rich. I mean, look at the expenses of people in that income class — the property taxes they have to pay on their expensive houses, the cost of sending their kids to elite private schools, and so on. Why, they can barely make ends meet.

[A] belligerent sense of entitlement has taken hold: it’s their money, and they have the right to keep it.

…The spectacle of high-income Americans, the world’s luckiest people, wallowing in self-pity and self-righteousness would be funny, except for one thing: they may well get their way. Never mind the $700 billion price tag for extending the high-end tax breaks: virtually all Republicans and some Democrats are rushing to the aid of the oppressed affluent.

You see, the rich are different from you and me: they have more influence. It’s partly a matter of campaign contributions, but it’s also a matter of social pressure, since politicians spend a lot of time hanging out with the wealthy. So when the rich face the prospect of paying an extra 3 or 4 percent of their income in taxes, politicians feel their pain — feel it much more acutely, it’s clear, than they feel the pain of families who are losing their jobs, their houses, and their hopes.

As a high-income person in one of the world’s most high income countries (the US is ranked in the top 10 for both GDP and PPP), it is a little difficult for we little people to listen to his whining without lashing out. Clearly, I could not resist it either.

Update 12/13/10: I can’t believe I have to do this, but remember- if your comment is a personal rant against me, it will not get published. Please refer to the Comment Policy page.

People Growing Food & Saying Hello

“When the white man landed on the moon, my father cried. He said the day had to come, he knew; but still, he cried. I told him there weren’t any Indians on the moon, so stop crying. He said nothing for a long time. Then he said our spirits were there, too—and he was sure Indians were crying up there, and trying to hide, and hoping that soon they’d go back to their Earth, the white men, where they make so many people unhappy, and where they don’t know what to do next.

But my aunt told me, ‘the moon is yours to look at and talk to, so don’t worry.’ And I don’t. One day, you know, everything will settle down; there won’t be the Federal Government and their troops, or the army and navy and air force—only some people growing their food and saying hello and smiling when they speak and not worrying about landing on the moon.”

-Anonymous Oklahoma Indian boy, not long after the first moon landing.
From Native American Testimony, edited by Peter Nabokov, page 402

What Else Would You Ban from Me?

If there are two things we know incontrovertibly about poor people, it is that they are stupid and obese. What with their drinking of soda and purchasing of cheap, unhealthy foods. Don’t they know that’s why they’re all fat? No they don’t, because they are uneducated and also obviously bad decision makers. I mean, if they chose to be low-income, can they really be trusted to make other, smaller choices correctly? Good thing millionaire NYC Mayor Bloomberg is right on top of that with a ban just for food stamp recipients on “sugary drinks”.

Of course, these “sugary drinks” largely don’t contain real sugar. They contain High Fructose Corn Syrup, which indeed has been linked to obesity, moreso than plain sugar. So why are these drinks called “sugary” and not “fructose-y”? DUH.

So if HFCS is SOOOO bad that it must be banned, why not ban it from everyone? Why just poor people? Why can’t poor people make their own choices?

Ooooh right, because A) poor people have no power, and B) SO WE CAN EXPERIMENT ON THEM!

The mayor requested a ban for two years to study whether it would have a positive impact on health

That sounds ethical. Non-consensual human experimentation while infringing on the autonomy of a specific demographic of citizens? Yeah.

Charing Ball at the Atlantic Post writes:

Despite the many years of research, our politicians have yet to figure out why obesity and socioeconomic class are often interconnected.

…Moreover, not everyone…can afford to spend his or her “whole paychecks” on “organic” and “healthy.” Can someone explain to me why a 1,000 calories bag of potato chips is cheaper than a 44-calorie apple? Oh yeah, that right: because our government subsidizes many of the food items found within that bag of potato chips as oppose to fresh fruits and veggies, which we are suppose to eat.

I probably wouldn’t be so outraged at this ban if it also came with a plan – and funding – to address the issue of food insecurity in many of these lower income communities, many of which are more likely to have several fast food restaurants and no adequate supermarket. Giving grocery stores tax incentives for doing business in low-income neighborhoods is just as effective as food bans at giving these lower income families access to healthier options.

How about this: Don’t make rules that only apply to one group. Especially if that one group is historically oppressed by the group making the rules. Condescending government paternalism doesn’t change the real reason why many impoverished people experience obesity. It isn’t poor people’s “fault” for our cultural and social conditions that have ramped up obesity and other illness… it is the fault of corporations who have something to gain. Why punish the victim and let the perpetrator go unscrutinized?

What else does it “make sense” to you to ban from me and my poor brethren? Cookies? Jello? Potato chips? Is there anything else that you higher income people would like to ban from the poor? Let’s get it all out now so I can start planning how to do without.

Why ban it from me but not from yourself? Oh right, I’m spending your tax dollars on a soda. Since food stamps are about 1.6% of the federal budget, which is half of the interest we pay on the national debt, and 1/10th of the Defense Budget, clearly my soda purchases, which come directly from your paycheck, are what’s wrong with government today. Let us recall that we aren’t talking about shrinking the food stamp budget, so ban or no ban the amount of the budget the program goes up or down only based on how many people are poor.

Poor people can't handle the high level of maturity that soda-drinking requires.

Here are articles by two of my fave bloggers explaining this point
better than I could:
Shakesville
Womanist Musings

Also read Why the Food Stamp Soft Drink Ban Is BS at A Black Girl’s Guide to Weight Loss.

No Trains Running

Photo by Scott Beale/Laughing Squid

What with New York public transportation being cut, and prices raised, and being cut again, and prices raised again, we all see these signs with great frequency.

This vandal is just saying what we all are thinking.

Yoga: Satan’s Exercise Preference

From the Seattle P-I: Yoga and Christianity Don’t Mix

From the New York Daily News: Yoga a Dangerous ‘Risk’ for Christians

From the NYDN article:

Stating that yoga “threatens” to push Christians into a “post-Christian, spiritually polyglot” reality, [Southern Baptist Seminary President Albert] Mohler asks, “Should any Christian willingly risk that?”

…”Yoga begins and ends with an understanding of the body that is, to say the very least, at odds with the Christian understanding,” he wrote. “Christians are not called to empty the mind or to see the human body as a means of connecting to and coming to know the divine.”