Another one of Pumpman's secret cats.
And a big thank you to Barbara for sending me all the cat pictures I have used this week. I'm sure, with Pumpan's secret love for cats, he thanks you also.
Here is another rerun from my early days when I had about ten readers a day. The links no longer work.
"Listen my children and you will hear..." Ooops! That was from another time when freedom, liberty and self reliance, ya know, the principles that this country was built upon really mattered. All right, what has pissed off the Grouchy Old Cripple this time. Well, it's just another Sunday column by The Atlanta Urinal and Contipation's opinion page's editor, Cynthia Tucker. Before I attack Cynthia, who is extremely liberal, let me first say that Cynthia is a liberal I actually respect. She called for Clinton's resignation during Monicagate and she has taken the King family to task for cashing in on his name. In Atlanta, that takes a lot of guts. So let's take a look at Cynthia's column from this Sunday's paper.
Just in time for the re-election campaign, the U.S. House of Representatives has decided to crack down on welfare again, this time with a proposal that insists
mothers on welfare work a full 40 hours a week.
That sounds reasonable to me. The Grouchy Old Cripple has to work 40 hours a week.
If you don't look at the plan too closely, it seems reasonable enough. After all, few serious policy-makers want to return to the days of welfare dependence,
when poverty-stricken mothers could draw government checks for life.
Let me just interject here that our politicians get to draw really hefty pension checks for life. I'd like to see some reform there. Anyway, it does seem reasonable not to have poverty-sticken mothers draw welfare checks for life. More to come.
Indeed, many former welfare recipients now celebrate their newfound
self-reliance and their remade lives of valued labor, supportive
colleagues and, in a few cases, progress toward the economic
mainstream. They revel in the belief they are now
serving as responsible role models for their children.
This is what is known as the American Dream.
However, the GOP proposal is based on the faulty premise that if tough love is good, tougher love is even better. If adopted, it threatens to undo much of the progress that welfare reform has accomplished so far.
For example, poor working mothers need help with day care, but the GOP plan doesn't attempt to meet that need. Poor working women also need education to improve their lot, but the bill doesn't provide enough flexibility or job training for women who can barely read or write.
Oh man where do I start? How about the end. Why the heck can't they read and write? Especially in Atlanta where they pay (are you ready for this?) over ten thousand dollars per pupil. That is a fucking (excuse me...when I get really pissed off fuck seems to magically enter my screeds) disgrace! And what is the solution? We need more fucking money. No! You need some goddamn fucking accountability! Look, I'm getting really tired of all this cultural biased stuff about how some people can't get through school. I don't care if you are black or white but 1 + 1 equals 2 and ' Look look Dick, see Spot run. Funny, funny Spot' shouldn't be that hard to comprehend. And don't give me any of that self esteem bullshit. High self esteem doesn't get you a job when you cannot read or write. If someone cannot read at a first grade level he (or she) should stay in the fucking first grade until he (or she) can fucking read and write at the first grade level and if the fucking teacher cannot teach him (or her) to read and write at that level fire the fucking son of a bitch. Man, I'm really on a roll here.
Worse yet, the House proposal doesn't answer a tough question: Where are
those mothers supposed to get jobs in an economy just barely wheezing out of a recession? At a time when longtime steel and textile workers are being laid off and recent college grads send out scores of resumes just to get a single job interview, who is going to hire women with spotty work histories and minimal
skills?
No, the tough question that is not answered here is why are these women mothers? Oh is that not politically correct?
Indeed, around the country, state welfare officials are reporting a predictable
relapse: Some former welfare recipients who have found and kept jobs for years now are being laid off during the recession and have had to seek welfare support again.
The only thing missing here is that it was the 'Bush Recession'. But I think Cynthia is smart enough to realize it started during the Clinton administration. Like I said she is an honest liberal, an exception to the rule. Honest liberal ... what an oxymoron that is.
Even then, most welfare recipients found jobs that left them out of the economic mainstream, and most remained mired in poverty. After all, a job paying $7 an hour only grosses $14,560 a year with full-time employment. Try raising a kid on that.
OK. Here we go. Try raising a kid on that. Yeah. Here's the question. Why are you trying to raise a kid on $14,560 a year? When I was a mere lad, I asked my mother why she didn't have more children. I would have liked to have had a brother and I know my sister would have liked to have had a sister. Her answer: We couldn't afford it. 'Oh man', I say, slapping my head, 'why didn't I think of that?' And that is the crux of the problem: illiterate girls having children they cannot afford. Let me say the liberals have one good idea: sex education. Let's have it early and often. Here is a rubber. Here is a banana. Practice this. Put on one rubber. Put on two rubbers. Jesus, put on five. If you can't say no to the scumbag who says he loves you make sure you have a bunch of rubbers. And by the way, don't put it on a banana, put it on him. If you don't, you are gonna be one of those 'poor welfare mothers'.
Now here is another triumph of liberalism. It is no longer a sin to have a baby out of wedlock. My oh my, we shouldn't be judgemental. I hope all you liberals are proud. Removing the stigma of pregnancy out of marriage and the Great fucking Society succeeded in doing more damage to the black family than all the Jim Crow laws in existence. I mean since the advent of the Great fucking Society in 1967, the illegitimacy rate of blacks has risen from under 20% to over 70%. And just to prove that you do not discriminate the illegitimacy rate among poor white women has also risen. The Great fucking Society indeed.
If Congress were serious about bringing poor, unskilled women into the American mainstream --- if it were more interested in helping than in posturing --- it would pour billions of dollars into education. It's a formula that has been used with striking success in developing countries: If you want to improve the lives of children, educate their mothers. If we believe it is imperative to educate women in Afghanistan, why not give equal attention to educating women in America?
Oh yeah. That's the ticket. Poor more billions down the cesspool we call our education system. Here's what I would do. Eliminate the Department of Education. Thanks Jimmy Carter. Education sure has improved since Jimmy established the Department of Education. Now, move education back to the states and privatize it. I mean if you paid a private education company $10,000 per student they couldn't do much worse than the current system. And finally, at least in the black community, remove the stigma of learning as 'acting white'. Tell the NAACP to quit worrying about the fucking Confederate flag and start worrying about all the poor blacks in the ghetto who can't read and write. I guarantee moving the Confederate flag off the grounds of the state capitol in South Carolina is not going to move one child out of poverty. I'm sorry but you assholes are acting like booger eatin' moh-rons.
To answer that question is to reveal a dirty little secret: The House welfare reform proposal isn't really designed to rescue a lost generation from welfare dependence. It merely provides a podium from which members of the House of Representatives can lecture poor women about the need to pull themselves up by their bootstraps.
And if poor women never get to hear that lecture, that's OK, too. They aren't the real target audience anyway. The message is a marketing ploy, intended to win middle-class votes by punishing poor women for making dumb choices ---
dropping out of school, using drugs, getting pregnant outside the bonds of
marriage. Life already provides enough punishment for those mistakes. We don't need government piling on as well.
Punishing poor women for making dumb choices. Actions have consequences. If you're gonna bring a child in this world, you should be able to support that child. If you've done it once, you should know where it came from and how to prevent it from happening again. Look, I never had children, even tho' I always wanted to, but I never found a woman who could put up with my bullshit. Now, I'm expected to pay for someone else's child? Nowhere in the Constitution does it say that the government should take my money to support poor women for making dumb choices. If I had my way, any woman who went on welfare would immediately be sterilized. 'But it's my right to be havin' these babies.' Then it's my right to be keeping my money and you can support your babies on your own.
And finally, the paper published a fantastic essay by a sophomore at a private college prep school named Michael Weldon. I wonder if the tuition is $10,000 per year? Here is the link. Here is just one excerpt:
Nowhere in the Constitution does it give Congress the right to oversee public education, yet we have a Cabinet position for that very purpose. Nowhere does it say in the Constitution that the government has the right to tax one age and class of people to pay for another's medication. Not one sentence in the Constitution gives the government the right to heavily tax the successful
and give "free passes" to the "financially unfortunate."
Michael Weldon is a rising sophomore at Woodward Academy.
What is a shame is that when I was a lowly freshman at a Public school in 1960, I was taught the Constitution.
Obviously, it is not taught in public schools today.
Too bad.
Posted by denny at August 23, 2003 02:03 PM