It’s Not Left vs Right, It’s Right vs Wrong

Tags

economy, editorial, GOP, poor, race, rant, teaparty

A movement is arising.

It began with Occupy Wall  Street.

It arose with Moral Mondays in North Carolina.

It’s spreading.

Throughout the South.

It’s moving to Wisconsin, and there are murmurings in Missouri.

People are getting tired of being tired.

And it’s not Democrats although no doubt most are. It includes Republicans and Independents and people who have little to do with politics. It includes some business folk, but probably not so many as people who are working stiffs. And poor. Lots of the poor.

And they come to state legislatures and stand in silent witness that these bodies of Republican control are unjust and immoral.

Yes immoral.

Republican extremism known by the name of Tea Party, is an immoral wound in America and people are not going to take it any more.

Let us be clear. Like it or not, believe it or not, (and the extremists are very good at refusing to accept reality), big business (aka Koch brothers) organized and funded the Tea Party movement. Their intentions were not made known of course but their intentions are clear: reduce taxes on the rich, reduce corporate taxes, reduce regulation on business, and continue to subsidize business so we can continue to laud “free market economies” (which of course given all this are not even close to being free, but are protected by government itself) as the best thing on earth.

To the Tea Party they formed, the message went: your taxes are going to takers not makers. You have worked hard and deserve that money yourselves. All you need do is fund the military so we can continue to enforce our will of “right” on the world. We can create the jobs if you just do your part and give us a free hand. That’s what democracy is all about, that is capitalism. It’s the government and its incessant socialistic welfare mentality that is destroying this country.

Now some of the Tea Party are well-educated business types. They are tiny business operations for the most part, but they like to think of themselves as “entrepreneurs” which makes them sound like the Kochs, and Trumps and those kind. But most of the Tea Party consists of not very well-educated white aging men and their overly made up and coiffed wives who like that idea that more money should be in their hands and not going to “those” people. You know “those” people, the ones are required to called “black” now, when in the day it was fine to call them “N*****”? And all those Mexicans, which are still just Mexicans, even though plenty of “them” actually come from Guatemala and Nicaragua and other places called Latin America. And then there are those “Orientals” from the “Orient” since Asian is still not de rigueur in this culture, and it’s all one big country isn’t it? After all, Sarah thought Africa might be a country, right?

Then in the ultimate hypocrisy of all hypocrisies, there in a dose of “Christianity” to hide that racism/downright hatred underneath. “See, it’s not me, it’s God who has a problem with fags!” And if that makes them feel vulnerable, well, throw in a dose of the 2nd Amendment was made for you and me, and voila, we have a mess of a human being filled with self-righteous hate, little actual knowledge of the world, but a gun-defended arrogance to do everything but call it publicly what they call it privately.

But ordinary folks are getting tired. Ordinary decent people who don’t have to wave a bible around to know what is right and what is wrong. And they are tired of watching years of work being undone by barely literate Republican senate and house members who pass insane laws one after another, making it safe and right for white America to live in their fantasy of the “good ole days”.

So people are marching. And more of them march every week.

IN NORTH CAROLINA THE GOP HAS SINCE 2010:

1. Raised taxes on the lowest 80% of it’s citizens
2. Removed a tax credit on 900,000 working families
3. Enforced restrictive voter laws
4. Blocked increased Medicaid coverage for the poor
5. Cut Pre-Kindergarten funding
6. Cut unemployment benefits
7. Voted itself a right to intervene in abortion lawsuits
8. Repealed a law that allowed death row inmates to challenge their convictions on racial grounds
9. Increased the standards at abortion clinics to that of surgical centers and made it illegal to offer abortion coverage if you are a public health insurance company.
10. Offered no increase in base salary to school teachers even though they are paid at the lowest rate in the country.
11. Tenure is to be phased out and no salary increases are to be given for master’s degrees. Teachers aides are severely cut.

IN GEORGIA, THE GOP HAS:

1. Refused to grant increase in Medicaid coverage affecting some 600,000 Georgians and made it a crime to assist someone who is seeking ACA coverage.
2. Cut more than 7.6 BILLION dollars to public education over the last 10 years.
3. Restricted workers rights and benefits
4. Promoted more stand your ground and like gun legislation.
5. Cut unemployment benefits
6. Promoting enforcement of voter suppression laws.

When you go nation wide, the results are the same. GOP-led legislatures are doing the Koch’s bidding everywhere, often with bills written by the KOCH legislative arm, ALEC. Everywhere the tune is the same–lower taxes on the rich, cut out programs for the poor, all with the promise to Mr. and Mrs. White OLD people–this will all benefit you, we promise. Just wait for it.

Let me repeat. There is nothing Christian in any of this. People who are TEA PARTY adherents and claim they are Christian are lying. They are at best Christianists, people who use the bible and their own personal interpretation of it to hide behind while they endorse and argue for a denial of health care for the poor (they can use the emergency ward if they need to — duh who pays for that stupid?), a denial public education to the poor (let’s have vouchers, and the poor will end up with the poorest of poor systems but they had their “choice”), a denial of food, unemployment insurance (that breeds dependence and doesn’t teach work ethic–yeah hungry babies are eager to work), a denial of voting rights (everybody can get a voter ID–yeah except for the cost and the travel to a distance center, and oh yeah, lots of people can’t get a birth certificate any more because records are lost, but a gun permit is okay, but  student ID is not), a denial of basic rights to undocumented workers (since they steal our jobs–yeah we were wondering where you were in the bean fields yesterday and even the little one’s can pick can’t they?), a denial of fair wage (business can pay whatever it wants to, that’s the American way–along with child labor, and unsafe working conditions right?), and on and on…

They say all this and have the temerity, the audacity, the chutzpah, to suggest that Jesus would approve! Jesus hated government they say, and Jesus hated the minimum wage. Jesus loved guns and self-defense. Jesus is nothing more than a malleable dummy used while these vile gutless wonders shrink in horror at their own diseased and flesh eaten faces staring out from the dead sockets from which they look upon a world they hate as it slips from their nail-torn fingers.

Lord save me from the Christianists and though I don’t believe in Hell, but God, sometimes I wish there was one, for these puke excuses of humanity.

Other than that, I’m having a great Sunday.

The Only Thing That Changes is the Window Dressing

Tags

education, GOP, middle class, poor, Recipes, religious rightwing, rich robber barons, Stupid America, tex-mex meets China, working class

The religious right-wing nuttery learned that if they put their agenda out front, it was soundly rejected. So they went stealth. They infiltrated got elected to public office in statewide and local jurisdictions, never letting out a peep of what their agenda was.

Once on school boards and in state legislatures, they began pushing their fundamentalist-based principles into our school curriculums and city ordinances.

Karl Rove (Turd Blossom) was pretty darn up front about his desire to turn America into one gigantic GOP juggernaut. That failed to.

It is now quite clear that the GOP, too, has played the magician. While keeping us distracted with the usual dog and pony show of Palin/Bachmann/Limbaugh/Beck/Hannity/Gingrich/DeMint/Huckabee/King circus act, why they went out and got themselves installed in state legislatures and governorships all around the land.

While bowing to the “teabagger” agenda of cutting all them “freeloader” programs such as Head Start and food stamps, and introducing all that right-wing “freedom” to worship and live as you wish as long as it’s “Christian” and between a man and a woman, the really ugly work is being done quietly but efficiently by true blue GOPers.

And what does that entail you ask? Nothing less than the utter reduction to slavery of the poor and working poor, the elimination of the middle class and their endless liberal leanings, and the support and coddling of the rich and wealthy.

In state after state, Repulsigans are systematically lowering taxes for the rich, cutting programs for the poor, and increasing taxes on the working and middle classes.

These immoral hard to call them humans, really believe the bastardization of Darwin’s survival of the fittest, as translated in the 19th century to mean, the worthy rise and become wealthy and powerful, and those doomed to be the rightful underclass, well, they are naturally where they are supposed to be. Married to an interpretation of the bible that then instructs the slave to be obedient, we have voila´, the natural order of things. Now that is some science and bible interpretation going hand in hand if you ever saw it!

Crooks and Liars, building upon Rachel Maddow’s show, which is embedded, shows how the GOP has lackeyed for the uber rich again, following their successes in the 2010 election. Armed with majorities and control in most legislatures, they are busy as bees. Featured are twelve states and the actions being taken to accomplish this fiendish agenda. If your state is listed, well you know what you need to do.

♦

Stoopid is as Stoopid does. That’s a saying I guess that makes some sense, but sounds more so than it actually is. And stoopid, as we’ve pointed out innumerable times, is what the American public is, by and large. Another of those polls, this time by Newsweek, proves again that the average American is amazing for its ability to walk and talk and maybe even chew gum, all the while knowing almost nothing about the world she or he lives in.

One of the things in this country that is apparently sacrosanct is the educational system. We have always, as far as I know, educated our kids based on localized school boards, supplemented marginally in many cases by a few scattered state laws. Shockingly, we learned that in some states, homeschooling is completely unregulated for instance, meaning a parent who has an IQ of dirt can “teach” their own child, and get them a bona fide “graduation” certificate.

Meanwhile, GOPers/religious fanatics around the country are forcing “balanced” teaching of creationism and intelligent design into science curriculums, revisionist history downplaying racism, American imperialism, and other “embarrassments”.

Is it time to have a serious discussion about how we teach our children? I certainly think so. I think we have to conclude that what may have once worked, no longer does. Our educational system is a failure today for most students, leaving them ill-equipped in the world they are entering, a world that requires some reasoned sophistication about the global issues that now intertwine with America. Our colleges and universities are having to spend nearly the first full year in some cases, just shoring up their freshman on the basics. My god, this was true when I went to college in the 70’s!

Weigh in and tell us what you think.

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What’s on the stove? Wanton pulled pork. What’z dat? Take your basic pork butt, slap some barbecue seasoning on it, lock it in a secure house, bake it at 325° until you can fork break it up into shreds. (3 hours or more) Leave it in its juices, add some of your favor-ITE barbecue sauce. Make a batch of coleslaw, a bit on the sweet side. Take some wonton wrappers, deep fry them, pressing with a spoon to make a depression, fry until crispy, drain…fill up with the pork and top with the coleslaw.. eat until you can’t walk.

Related Articles

• Republican Control Of State Legislatures Brings Record Number of Creationism Bills (outsidethebeltway.com)

Those That Have Ears–HEAR!

Tags

Bartimaeus, bible, faith, gospels, healing, Jesus, Mark, poor, social concerns

 

Image shamelessly stolen from MadPriest at "...I could be wrong"

I love going to church every Sunday. I seem to always find peace and a certain enlightenment there week to week. I deeply appreciate the congregation I am a part of. So many dedicated and hard working people.

I admit I am blessed to be in it. And yesterday’s liturgy had powerful teaching for us all.

The other day, I focused on Job, one of my favorite books of the bible. Today, I wish to revisit Mark’s treatment of the story of Bartimaeus, in chapter ten.

Mark is an interesting gospel. Written perhaps around 70 CE, and perhaps from the environs around a just fallen Jerusalem, his audience must have lived in some fear. The Romans were overrunning everywhere, and a small band of Jesus followers threatened no doubt that Empire even more than the traditional Jews with their strange practices.

Mark prepares his audience for further sacrifice, in fact making it clear that their lot in life may well be harsh and dangerous. They may only get their reward in death. Here we find the suffering servant at it’s best. Some suggest that Mark is the most reliable gospel we have, arriving first and before other gospel writers started to tailor their writings to reflect the emergent church and taking into account the realities of the day.

I tend to think that might be true, and that makes the story of Bartimaeus somehow more urgent, more real to us. Poor Bartimaeus, a man apparently not born blind, but certainly now so, begging for his food and shelter, unwanted, unclean, marginalized in a society built on class. Bartimaeus was the bottom of the barrel, just the kind of person Jesus tended to seek out.

He is helped or manages to find his way to the roadside where he has heard presumably that the faith healer Jesus will soon pass along. He hears the crowd approaching, and when he is sure that it is indeed him, he shouts out–“Jesus, Son of David, have pity on me.”

The  crowd jostles him, and urges him to be quiet. We must assume that at least some of these are followers. Some indeed are disciples. We are close to Jerusalem,  close to the end, and these disciples have been with Jesus nearly three years at this point. No voice is heard in opposition to the stern words to Bartimaeus. Until Jesus, hearing, calls him forth. Then the crowd turns on a dime and also calls encouragement to the blind man.

This is the focus of the periscope. There have been a number of stories about blindness in Mark, both literal and figurative. Jesus has been telling his disciples of his coming passion and death. He has tried to explain to them that the they must serve–that is their greatness. They don’t get it. They never get it, not until the end. They remain on this road to Jericho, blind too.

They are insiders, privileged to be with the Master all this time, learning and watching, listening and one would hope, meditating on the wonders they behold, from this man/God. Yet, they raise no voice against the crowd “quieters.” They are serious, about the business of travel. They wish no slow down by some beggar along the way.

Until Jesus, once again radicalizes the scene. He stops, he calls, he heals, and then he moves on again toward his destiny.

Bartimaeus, asks to be made whole. Don’t we wish we were? Why are we ready to deny wholeness to another because it is inconvenient, time consuming, bothersome. We are asked to get our hands dirty. The poor don’t dress well, don’t smell very good, they are often unattractive.

Did Bartimaeus become blind because of sin? Certainly most in his society believed that he must have. Perhaps the disciples still did as well. But Jesus knew better. He asked Bartimaeus no questions of “qualification.” He didn’t call Bartimaeus to meet some standard of worthiness. One can argue, no doubt, that Jesus knew the answers, but that but begs the question. If Jesus has nothing to tell us about our humanity, then his teachings are worthless, mere platitudes to mere humans.

So we must conclude that such things did not matter to Jesus. What mattered to Jesus was one thing: do we have faith? If we do, then we deserve our healing. And perhaps, even when we don’t. There were other healings, many in fact, wherein no question was posed about faith. No all the healed were conscience at the time. But even when they were, Jesus never stated faith as a prerequisite. It merely made his job easier. Perhaps in reality, Jesus sought sincerity.

As Church, as people, we must ask the question of ourselves. Are we as insiders putting up stumbling blocks to the outsider who comes in need? Do we establish standards of entitlement? Are we turning away Bartimaeus on a regular basis because we have concluded he is unworthy of our charity? Do we have the right to ask at all? Is this not up to our God to fathom–the one who has known us in the womb, and knows our every thought? Who are we to judge?

Jesus radically turned upside down nearly everything he touched. He gave us a new way of looking at the world and relating to it and to each other. That is and should always be our focus. I am told that yesterday ONE BILLION people went to sleep without adequate nutrition. We grow enough for everyone, but ONE SIXTH of our population is hungry.

How many Bartimaeus’s out there are we turning away and denying? How many are you?

The Schizophrenia of Christendom

Tags

bible, Christendom, denominations, environmentalism, fundamentalism, God, Jesus, poor, social issues, sola scriptura

If you are a Christian, you already know this. We are a bunch of rather schizophrenic folk. Yes admit it, we are. The chart at the right only barely glosses over the real tragedy locked within the pretty bands of green and blue.

We can’t agree on what we believe. Never have really, though at times, one faction or another was powerful enough to subdue the others and put them out of business. Not so much today. We add something like three hundred brand spankin’ new “We got the truth” sects per year and no end seems to be in sight.

I’m not sure whether such a state exists in other faith traditions, but I doubt any can meet our level of splintering. I’m not just talking bout the self-styled, “spiritual but not religious” types. I’m not talking about the “I am a spirit driven determiner of what God wants” type, though I have met one of those deluded nuts. Forms churches in her home and sends them out to do as she defines is right. She has no need of church herself, being a true prophet, just sent to explain the bible to the rest of us.

No, I’m talking about our penchant in Christendom to set up strong hierarchies of correctness and then jealously clinging to our dogmas as if only we could possibly get it right. It turns out that Anglicans are trying to pave the way for depressed Roman Catholics to find a home with them. And it turns out that Roman Catholics are now making it easier than ever for depressed Anglican/Episcopalians to find a home with them. Read group inclusion here.

The radicalized bible thumpers point at the Romans and yell, “whore of Babylon,” and five minutes later, inquire whether those same Romans will be at the “anti-abortion” rally tonight. The once properly outraged Catholic, retorts with “crazy Catholic-hater” and then makes a date for the next anti-Obama town meeting with their evangelical counterpart.

Christendom makes, as they say, strange bedfellows. Worse, Christendom and politics make dangerous bedfellows. Finding it odd that ultra conservative evangelicals (biblicists) join ranks with ultra conservative Protestants and Catholics to oppose health care reform, death penalty reform, wars, and climate change? So do we, but then, listen up.

The truth of the matter is that most of these “conservative” social “Christians” are just flat out conservatives who don’t want taxes, and don’t want to personally pay for the eradication of social ills. They prefer to live their “good life” and dabble in personal “charity.” That’s not so bad of course, if you will call it what it is. Jesus, doncha know said the poor would always be with us, and that some don’t deserve our help. They tell me he said that, though I can’t find it anywhere.

Unfortunately, they don’t stop there. They pick and choose the scriptures they sola scriptura their way through to defend their racist, selfish agenda, claiming they in some fit of righteousness, are actually doing God’s work. And worse, they have the temerity to point their finger at the social liberals of the world, many of whom are deeply religious, and call us captured of Satan.

No honesty is being promoted on either side, or among anyone. We are spiraling into the same morass as the country is with increasingly belligerent “sides”. No fairness is being upheld. No reference to the abiding love and compassion of our God and our savior Jesus is being promoted or even acknowledged.

We are poaching each other’s congregations, and at the same time, sniping away at anyone who thinks differently. We have the temerity to “speak for God.” Worse, we have the awful tendency, some of us at least, of demanding that God personally be responsible for that which God deliberately placed in our hands–the stewardship of both planet and each other.

Instead, we are holding shut out pocketbooks, claiming God will take care of it. Perhaps he will, but perhaps not in the way you expect. Perhaps, just perhaps he expects something more on our part than merely pointing a finger, and chastising each other for unfaithfulness to scripture and to God herself.

This is not a game of who has the most signed up on whose side. This is not a game of theological right or wrong, more right, more wrong. This is life, and we are here for a finite time and we have work to do.

Yesterday, as I exchanged pleasantries with dozens of people less fortunate than myself, I was forced to see that if the least among us can find reason to smile and share a laugh, to find common bond in simply being human, that perhaps the rest of us should take note.

Who are we that we pick and choose the verses that support the result we desire? We all do it dont’ we? Who are we to limit a God to a series of pages in a book, a book brilliant in it’s entirety, but convoluted and confusing, doubled back on itself in places, contradictory often and for good reason–it was written by human beings, with faulty information and sometimes faulty memories.

As Dr. McGrath says in his post day, what does it matter if Jesus thought that the “kingdom” would descend in its completeness within the lifetimes of many of his hearers? What is so wrong with Jesus showing us his human limitations? Whose agenda are we pushing here? Jesus or our own?

Have we become so invested in our rightness that we no longer even hear? How can we pollute the land and think that this doesn’t violate our responsibilities as stewards? How can we let any person lack for health care or food because they have violated one of our precepts of entitlement? How dare we? Indeed.

Just sayin’.

So Whattaya Learnin’?

Tags

empathy, God, homeless, introspection, poor

There is no point to experience unless we learn something from it that can potentially be applied to a future situation. If each event merely washes over me without apparent effect, then I might as well not have been alive in it.

Wisdom stems from integrating the experience with the past and drawing patterns and relationships that help us to better handle the future. The “handling” may often require changes in how we think and act and believe.

We hope that this processing is beneficial and indeed it would seem to be so. We are a species who at least on the surface seem to learn from our mistakes, though that may be truer in the microcosm than the macro.

If one is a believer, one tends to see God as helping us in the process. And thus I do. It seems that I was led to read a couple of blog posts specifically this week as I processed the events that I talked about yesterday regarding homeless men. Tim at Caught a Glimpse of Jesus down by the railroad tracks. . . . and Tim at Straight-Friendly, both wrote posts on rather different subjects, but both helped me dig within to discover the lessons of my journey with the street poor.  I am as always, deeply indebted to them, to their talents and gifts, in saying  just what  I needed to hear at the right moment.

That God’s fine hand was involved, I have no doubt, but if that is not to your way of thinking, it matters not, nor does it matter that you agree or disagree with the next observation.

Introspection is a valuable tool. It has and can be accused of being over used certainly. People who engage in it can be called “self-absorbed” and selfish and any number of  adjectives which suggest that some people are too busy with themselves and not enough with others. Fair complaint.

Yet, introspection is essential I believe to growth and to becoming wise, since it is only through this device that one can confront oneself head on and see what needs to be fixed or accommodated. It is, I would argue, required if one is to truly know oneself, and thus one’s motives and needs, desires and strengths and weaknesses. It is the only way I know to permanently solve those negative drives that so mess us up.

These moments of looking inward are suffused with God I believe. We begin to search the reasons for our speech, actions and beliefs, and soon we run up against the shadows. God holds us close in those moments, and we feel safe enough to proceed, for we know without asking that God has found us acceptable even in this dark place of the soul.

So as I ruminated about my experiences with giving, I reached some not so nice conclusions. First I realized that too much of the process was about me. I gloried in my “special” offerings, hidden and between God and me. Somehow that was getting translated to me as my being “better,” and farther along the road to saintliness? Pride in a word was at the root of this.

Not the good pride, pride in doing a job well, but pride in BEING better somehow by my selfless actions. I had taken the volunteer endorphin rush and amped it up, causing me to strut a little taller albeit I kept it too myself. I’ve always had an issue with humility. More work for me.

The second issue that really struck me was that I also prided (again that word) myself on my empathy. And I realized that my empathy was of the easy kind. I was empathetic as hell toward folks who were what I wanted them to be, honorable, decent, thrown down through no fault of their own, born into the wrong place or time.

I missed that every human construct of “groups” of people are as broad as the entire panorama of humanity. There are saints and there are sinners. There are those who are where they are through no fault of their own, and those who have had every advantage and made stupid self-indulgent choices that lead them to where they are today. There are selfish and mean people in the mix.

Empathy is most needed toward those who by our standards don’t deserve it. For they too don’t choose to be marching in the wrong direction. Some set of experiences had led them to cope in this way and fairly it may be the only way they know. Empathy is hard and it is hard precisely because it is needed when we deal with those people most unlike ourselves.

Not unlike us in circumstance, and that was my mistake, but sometimes unlike us in how we think and react to the world, how we view it, and our place within it. Like it or not, empathy is not so much feeling at home in the world of the paraplegic who lives down the street, as it is feeling sympathy and understanding toward Osama bin Laden, who once toddled around in diapers and delighted his family with his baby talk.

Don’t get me wrong, empathy is not condoning or making excuses for. It is honoring that everybody does the best they can given their life experiences. Each does what SEEMS right and beneficial to them at every moment. And the seeming can be very different for me and you to understand.

I learned I had a long way to go in the empathy department still. I’m not Mother Theresa quite yet. But I’m working on it. And for that, I am thankful to the homeless men on Blairs Ferry. They taught me a valuable lesson, and I am grateful indeed.

It’s Called Filthy for a Reason!

Tags

class, Jim Calhoun, poor, poverty, sociology, wealthy, wretched excess

It’s just plain weird how blog posts come about. You hear or read something one day, and a line sticks with you, and then another totally different thing occurs a day or so later. They are not connected, neither is that interesting in and of itself, yet somehow, together they raise an issue you feel worth talking about, and away you go, starting to write in your head all morning while mopping the floor and wiping down counter tops.

At least that’s the way it works with me.

Here’s what happened:

I was, as usual happily sipping my coffee this morning, when I heard about this out of Connecticut. It seems that Coach Jim Calhoun’s unseemly response to a reporters question has sparked a bit of controversy. He was asked, that given the one billion deficit in Connecticut and that other state workers are being asked to take pay cuts, might he think his 1.6 million dollar salary a bit much. He said he wouldn’t return a single penny period, and that the best think the reporter could do was to shut up.

That was coupled by a remark a woman made on forum about excessive greed on the part of business CEO’s. “Why are some people so class envious?”

Well, let me clear my throat and begin.

First of all I thank the woman for stating the truth in one respect. We are a class society in America. Many of course deny this, but it’s true and we all know it. While most in the middle class probably don’t look down in disdain at the average working class person, the mega wealthy generally do. And we all recall easily the snickering we do about the “hill people,”  “the rednecks,” and the “trailer trash.”

The common denominator isn’t just wealth of course. We tend to include education in all that as well. And to be sure, there is some actual truth to it. Education is important. You can sound and be dumb when you don’t know the facts. But I dare say there are some very poorly formally educated out there who could argue rings around me. They are self-taught and widely read.

I learned long ago however that formal education was no necessary barometer of intelligence. I learned that in law school and later in practicing law. I knew some God-awful stupid lawyers. It took about three seconds for me to figure out that that meant there were some damn stupid doctors practicing medicine, some bad accountants and stockbrokers, dentists, and on and on.

I figure most folks know this.

Please do not get me wrong. I don’t have a problem with being rich. I figure there are three kinds of rich. The rich who just want with all their heart to be wealthy, and work night and day to get it. They deserve it. I’m not going to work that hard, and never wanted to. The second is a group that sincerely love what they do, spend the hours at it because they love it, and incidentally become wealthy. They are entitled to it as well. The third, they inherit it. They’ve never known any different. I don’t deny them the right to live the good life either.

All can be susceptible to excess however. The unbridled use of wealth to buy anything and everything for no reason than because one can. The $6,000 umbrella stand, the 7th house, the imported marble and plated gold faucets. This is the excess I mean. Crap for the pure desire to own. To show it off. Parties that cost $3 million dollars. The list is long and shocking.

There enters into this a sense of entitlement. These folks don’t stand in lines or wait ever. They get all kinds of things for free just because they have chosen to patronize a business. The people who need it the least, get it for free. Go figure.

I don’t mind as I said one living well. I don’t mind having a home or even a second that has within it all the rooms and accommodations that make your preciously small leisure time enjoyable and usable. I don’t mind the indoor pool, or the game room, or the home theater. I mind having seven homes so equipped, some of which you may visit less than two weeks a year if that. I do mind as I said, the need to spend tens of thousands on simple implements that I can get for $14.95 at Walmart. I can see the rich spending maybe $50, but $6,000? When there is a kid on the planet who is dying of hunger?

How do you live with yourself?

Don’t tell me you give a lot to charity. So does Bill Gates and Warren Buffet. Nobody is much accusing them of living high on the hog like this. They live well, no doubt, but they don’t live extravagantly.

It’s not whining and its not envy. I’ve lived well in my life. I’ve taken home two grand  a month, and that was back in the eighties and my monthly expenses were around $800. I lived well, and pretty much bought what I wanted. And I can surely tell you I live with much less today, and I’m happier than I was then. Is money the decisive fact in my happiness? No. It didn’t bring me happiness I can say that. Would I like a bit more today? Sure, but I don’t need it, am not the least interested in working for it, and thus don’t envy those who have more.

I just recognize that being filthy rich is, well, filthy. It apparently makes you oblivious to real pain in the world, other than going to very lavish “charity” events and having a lot of fun, eating great food, and drinking expensive booze. That is worth dropping a few hundred grand a few times a year. That appears to salve the soul of the filthy rich. It shouldn’t of course.

But if you couple that with an attitude that I deserve what I have AND they deserve what they don’t have, we got a problem. Because  if you, Mr and Mrs garishly wealthy think that, you are just kidding yourself. Telling yourself that the poor are that way because they unfortunately aren’t smart and aren’t willing to work hard. That allows you to feel it’s okay to throw a little charity all the while looking past the guy who parks your car, dropping the keys, trusting that his hand will be there to catch them.

It allows you to do that all day long. Looking past all the people who serve you for pennies. Never seeing their faces, never looking into their eyes. Trusting that the chair will be there when you bend you skinny ass to sit, the door opened by the faceless doorman, and even someone to catch your coat as you fling it off your shoulders.

This is the unbridled ostentation that we object to. It’s not the money, it’s the attitude. That is why Jim Calhoun was and remains wrong. It ain’t his paycheck, it’s the freaking arrogance that makes people like him oblivious to real people.

Calhoun is a symptom, and not a particularly good one. If you look at the actualities of his situation, he probably deserves his money. He brings eight times that into the UofC in revenue. The better examples are the nut cases on Wall Street who pay themselves and others lavishly for failure and corporate CEO’s who come a beggin’ at the public trough via their private jets.

So, Calhoun, get some class, and filthy rich remember, you aren’t cheating death, and nobody is calling your shit room freshener.