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Originally a reply to an entry by .

I think there are many better, yes, more sophisticated, ways to handle this [than his proposal, provide everyone willing to document their poverty with a check to push them past the poverty line]. One, universal medical insurance. Enough $$ to cover, oh, say insulin, needles, glycometers, etc for a poverty stricken diabetic or hiv meds for an hiv+ individual could be far more than a generally healthy poverty stricken person would need. Particularly given that those needs are in addition to the common basic needs.

Sophisticated work training programs. Training everyone to be a generic office worker is probably less than helpful. Checking out local needs and student strengths is more helpful. Uniting potential employers with potential employees is very helpful. Also support groups to provide counseling (be it debt, drug, or psychological) and the like as necessary very helpful.

Assistance in a nonfiscal form. I don’t support helping the poor to become happier on my dime. I support helping the poor because it works towards the greater good, according to my idea of what that good is. If their ideas don’t agree with my ideas, they needn’t accept the assistance. I’m breaking with the utilitarian line here.

Their happiness is not the goal. They can spend their money to accomplish that when they get a job. Government money should be used to serve public needs. In this case, reducing the externalities of homelessness. Further, getting people into jobs, off the streets, whatever, reduces the degree to which their current state reduces others’ quality of life. Their tax revenue is simply bonus on top of that.

Provide the minimum housing that will get most people off the streets. Encourage and facilitate the finding of productive employment. Provide the essentials of life and the services needed to make a meaningful life: Food, shelter, healthcare, education, counseling.

Ideally, someone would create work structured to accomplish useful tasks that can be done with relatively little education, no set schedules, and other constraints appropriate to the “unemployable”.

A final point, which is essential to this process. The support needs to be graduated in such a way that individuals receive rewards for incremental steps towards independence and productivity.

Your solution would leave no one making less than the poverty level with any incentive to continue working beyond their own job satisfaction.

“Limbo” is a word I’ve used to describe my state between chicago and minneapolis. But it also reflects my attitude towards my time in minneapolis. I’m only going to be here for another 9 months. (“only” Heh, but on the scale of friendship formation, that’s not very long). My challenge, should I choose to accept it, is to engage this ‘limbo’ head on, and make connections to it, while it lasts.

Working at the gao this summer calmed my partisan bias quite a bit. I took a step to the right. To put this in perspective, I’m a couple olympic-length swimming pools to the left. But I did notice the change. I don’t think it was a change so much of political beliefs, but an insertion of another layer of analytical detachment, and a realization that so much of what government does is the subject of no partisan debate. That part just doesn’t get covered in the press. “Government working smoothly” makes for boring headlines.

What better way to retain consciousness than to rant?

Professors use their own special brand of english. The phrase is not “give a flavor” you cromagnon autists. It is “give a taste”. I used to think this was unique to CS. Apparently, it’s spread more broadly than that. Fortunately my environmental classics prof seems to have dodged the bullet. Hopefully, she will stay uninfected for the upcoming year.

Sadly, I feel no more conscious.

I’m soooo glad the prof feels the need to review econ 101. If only I’d known this beforehand, I could have used the time to do reading for other classes.

Well, I’m thinking I might go to the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force creating change conference in oakland in mid november. But I’m also thinking I might spend a major part of my winter break in the not-so-bitterly-cold bay area. Plus, I want to go to at least one ecoscientist/ecopolicist type conference. Repeat after me, “travel budget”.

Maybe NYC in october. Europe in the spring (See Ro at Oxford has been added to that agenda). Zanesville over thanksgiving. Pittsburgh at carnival time. Hmm… When will I get around to Vancouver?

The past couple of weeks have been intense. The bay area rocked. I was inundated with the cool people. I spent a week there mostly hanging out with people, traveling to hang out with people, or sleeping. Austin was cool too. I played a character who sucked the possessing spirit of cremated demon-worshipping knights templar out of a holy man, only to be splattered by Battle Vishnu. I met , , and for the first time.

Now I’m back in MN. I’m a little depressed, feeling socially disconnected and isolated already, and lacking the crutch of a job I like which I had in chicago. Still, ’twas good to see , Joe, , some of the humphrey-ites, etc. Must remember “if hopes were dupes, then fears may be liars”.

Somehow, it strikes me as entirely appropriate that the Wikipedia Article on deconstruction starts with a heading that says “This article needs a complete rewrite…” (emphasis in original).

It is indeed a natural disaster. As per usual in any large scale break down of routine, violence, looting, and I strongly suspect vandalism and gang violence are occurring at higher rates than usual. The poor are being passed over in treatment and protection. Provision of necessities and order keeping forces have not reached all parties, though I don’t know enough and it may be a bit early to say it’s severely deficient in provision.

None of this should be a surprise.

Our government finances, and states in particular, have been reduced for a few years now. Our traditional disaster relief personell have been heavily tapped for a foreign war. How you feel about these causes aside, it makes the possibly deficient response a little less surprising.

It’s also something that does not directly affect me currently. Nor was new orleans in my travel plans. I’m not pinning the blame on any government office, agency, branch, or elected officials.

has recently made several posts on the topic of this lady who took a pic of a guy who started whacking himself off at her on public transit and posted it in hopes that he’s brought to ‘justice’. My feelings are mixed. I’m not in favor of exposing oneself in public without the consent of any immediately impacted parties. Such consent can be implied. For instance, I don’t need to say I’m okay with seeing public spankings of bare butts if I go to the Folsom Street Fair. My attendance implies that I’m cool with it.

Also, I think that our society is way too uptight about sex. Graphic decapitations are perfectly fine to show to your kids, but graphic orgasms are not. I think our society already overreacts to innappropriate sexual behavior. E.g., you don’t have a right to know if a convicted and released murderer lives on your block, but in many places you do have the right to know if a flasher lives on your block.

And it highlights the same sort of mentality that “porn/prostitution degrades women” and well, what about men? I remember a female grabbing my ass by surprise in high school (once and only once). That was ‘funny’. Had I, or perhaps, a hetero male, done the same thing to a woman, I suspect there would have been hell to pay.

In my ideal world, the woman in question would have loudly and exhasperatedly said something biting and derisive of the man’s apparent inability to get laid and inadequate genitalia and he would have been mortified. Needless to say, we do not live in my ideal world.

Student aid has been dispersed. Let the budgeting begin.