The Magical Employee Handbook

It’s no surprise that Tennessee joined other Republican-controlled states in attacking teachers’ unions, sparking thousands of teachers to rally at the state capitol in early March. It’s no surprise that those protests fell on deaf ears.

What is a surprise is that the legislature responded with an even more radical plan, which would end the right of teachers to form unions at all:

House Speaker Beth Harwell and key lawmakers have agreed to completely repeal the 1978 law that gave teachers the ability to unionize, casting aside an earlier compromise that would have let them continue to negotiate with school boards over a few issues.

But fear not: replacing the teachers unions will be, I shit you not, “employee handbooks.” Oh goody!

The agreement would replace negotiated teachers’ contracts with an employee handbook updated every three years that spells out the district’s policies on salary, benefits, leave, student discipline and working conditions — matters that currently are set through union negotiations.

Additional language would give districts broader authority to set policies for merit pay and classroom assignments.

School boards would be barred from negotiating contracts with the teachers union. Instead, teachers would be allowed to submit written comments and speak at an open hearing on the handbook.

Oh, right, an open hearing, gosh we’ve all seen how effective those are! I mean gosh, if thousands of people descending on the state capitol in angry protest won’t sway the Tennessee State Legislature, what makes anyone think submitting written comments and speaking at an open hearing will sway a school board?

I’m trying to think how speaking at an open hearing on an employee handbook is truly “the best of both worlds,” in the words of Rep. Debra Maggart, House Republican Caucus chair. Exactly how is an employee handbook written by your employer a substitute for bargaining rights? I guess you have to live in that Republican alternate universe where free market ponies shit fairy dust for any of this to make sense.

Well, why don’t we replace all contracts with a “handbook,” then? I mean really, if it’s such a brilliant idea for our kids, why not? Let’s have a handbook instead of state contracts, and then when someone doesn’t finish repaving that highway on time, we can say, “oooh you’re in violation of our handbook and we’re gonna ... um ... hmm ... never mind!” I mean really, that’s just the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard. Is an employee handbook even legally binding?

Here’s the thing. Teachers’ working conditions are our kids’ learning conditions. Shouldn’t the people who are in that classroom every day be the best judge of what those learning conditions need to be?

And here’s another thing: why in the world would anyone want to be a teacher in Tennessee under conditions like this? Wouldn’t you want to teach somewhere else, where you’re not treated like school board chattle?

Perhaps the best solution to all of our problems is to get more progressives to run for local office, including school board. It’s something the Teanutties are already doing; progressives need to get on board or we’ll have more rights taken away and replaced by boneheaded ideas like “employee handbooks.”

Growing Pains

There’s a world of hurt and confusion in this story, as well as the de rigeur Tennessee connection:

Federal authorities last week arrested and charged a Tennessee pastor with aiding in the “international parental kidnapping” of a girl who has been missing since late 2009 and is at the center of a lengthy custody battle between her two mothers — a onetime lesbian couple who were in a civil union.

The two had a bitter falling-out after one became an evangelical Christian and denounced the other’s continued “homosexual lifestyle.”

[...]

Lisa Miller, the girl’s biological mother and a newly fervent Baptist, was championed by conservatives for her efforts to shield her daughter from homosexuality. A Vermont court had granted her primary custody of the daughter, Isabella Ruth Miller-Jenkins, after Ms. Miller split with her partner, Janet Jenkins, in 2003. But the court also declared Ms. Jenkins to be a legal parent with liberal visiting rights, and Ms. Miller, who had moved with the girl to Virginia, defied repeated orders to permit the visits.

The case took a turn in late 2009, as the Vermont family court, citing Ms. Miller’s noncompliance, shifted primary custody to Ms. Jenkins. Ms. Miller and Isabella, who is now 9, disappeared. A warrant was issued for Ms. Miller’s arrest, and they have not been heard from since.

I’ve always said that the reason we need to have legal gay marriage is so we can have legal gay divorce. Even under the best of circumstances, divorce is an ugly business but if you’re gay, breaking up really is hard to do. Gay divorce is truly a legal nightmare for lots of reasons related to the federal Defense of Marriage Act, differing state laws, and all sorts of complications.

The Miller-Jenkins case is a perfect example of this. As I read the story in Sunday’s paper, I thought about how this whole situation reflected the cultural shifts of the past few decades -- changes we’re still coming to terms with in society at large. The issues at play are those same cultural issues which surface every election and are a major factor in our politics.

Once upon a time in America a situation like this would never exist: there would be no doubt as to whether a court would award custody or visitation rights to an avowed lesbian, there would be no question as to who was right or wrong in this scenario. For that matter, it would be pretty much a given that a same-sex couple would be infertile. But the past 30-40 years have seen major cultural changes, not to mention medical advances. Not all of these changes have been embraced by the totality of our religious and legal institutions. We're still sifting through it all, and I'd say it will take about a generation for all of this stuff to finally settle out.

And I have no doubt which way it will go. The culture wars are over and the right has lost; they just don't know it yet. Throughout its history America has always expanded its table to invite ever more groups of people to democracy's banquet; we've never taken seats away. That doesn't mean it's been an easy or effortless thing, far from it. And I think a lot of the knee-jerk legislation we see in places like Arizona and Tennessee attacking GLBT citizens and immigrants and the poor are all just a response to this societal shift we're going through right now.

We live in a post-Christian, post-racial, post-Roe-v-Wade, post-internet, post-biomedical engineering, post climate change, post-you-name-it age, and that's a lot of change for one society to handle. It's inevitable that we've splintered as we have, it's a predictable response by a large group of people to a lot of change. But I have great expectations for the next 20 years.

We're just going through some growing pains, that's all.

If Only The Poor Would Just Go Away

The good, white Christian folk of Williamson County are miffed that the wages of our unequal society’s sin are out there for all to see. If only the homeless and poor would just go away, am I right? It’s just so icky that the poor have the nerve to try to earn a living and improve their economic circumstances, where everyone has to see them! Can’t they do that somewhere else, somewhere ... not so visible?

Because when you live in one of the wealthiest counties in the United States (and also one of the most conservative) it’s just too unpleasant to be reminded that the free market fantasy in which you indulge yourself doesn’t work for everyone.

I know I love to pick on Williamson County but in all fairness they aren’t the only ones who have a problem with The Contributor. We’re always hearing about businesses complaining about The Contributor vendors, and it’s true they are everywhere. There are several in my neighborhood hitting up students on their way to Lipscomb and Belmont, and commuters on their way to work. Personally I don’t see what the problem is. Aren’t we always telling these folks to get a job? No, not that job! Get a job where we don’t have to see you! Am I right?

Cut the crap, America. This hypocrisy is getting old.

The Contributor is a damn fine newspaper. It’s actually won some national awards. You can read about the paper here.

Walgreen’s Is The Answer To All Of Your Healthcare Needs

Seriously, this shit pisses me off.

Two people who have never, ever used Planned Parenthood’s services telling people who need Planned Parenthood’s services that they don’t really need Planned Parenthood’s services.

A couple weeks ago I wrote a post titled “Top Signs Your Healthcare System Is Broken.” Looks like I missed a couple. This Fox News BS is one.

The other was in today’s newspaper, tragically in the obituary section. A 48-year-old chess champion, who suffered from paranoid schizophrenia for 20 years, and now another sad case study of a failed healthcare system that won't change because some people are just making too damned much money keeping it broken. His family writes of his suicide:

Our family's sadness is compounded by the lack of effective, vital mental health treatment. The state's TennCare cuts caused Scotty's ineligibility for the Helen Ross McNabb PACT (Program of Assertive Community Treatment) program which successfully kept Scotty, and others, out of the mental hospital for years. Without accessible and affordable Case Management treatment and prevention services, families like ours will continue to suffer tragic outcomes.

These are the death panels that already exist in our broken healthcare system. Everyone keeps telling us American healthcare is the best in all the world, except if you can't access it, it might as well not even exist. I mean how can these idiots not get that? It doesn't matter if our healthcare is the best or second best or even 37th, if your system excludes millions of people it's a failure. End of discussion. And if your politics refuses to recognize that then it, too, is a failure.

I know we just went through hell and back to pass the Affordable Care Act, but could we please stop cutting things like Medicare and Medicaid (and now Planned Parenthood) at every single budget impasse? Please? Because there are real consequences to these cuts. Just ask the family of Scotty Zingheim.

And while we’re cutting funding to women’s health clinics and tossing people off of the public Medicaid system, WellPoint CEO Angela Braly took home $13.4 million last year. Why? What did she do to deserve her bloated salary -- and her Bush tax cut -- while we're balancing our state and federal budgets on the backs of the sick and poor? This is the most immoral, shameful thing I've ever seen. I just can't imagine that it's come to this. Our country would rather give Angela Braly a tax cut than give poor women access to pap smears or get a case manager for a suicidal paranoid schizophrenic.

This is a disgrace.

UPDATE: More on Scotty Zingheim here.

Who’s The Asshole Who Destroyed Nashville’s Community Garden?

The Greenhouse Of Death

The Tennessee Dept. of Transportation, aka the “Department of Concrete,” is living up to its nickname by punching local hippies kicking the African American community bulldozing Nashville’s best known community garden:

B.J. Doughty, TDOT spokeswoman, said the group, called EarthMatters Tennessee and led by Sizwe Herring, had basically allowed the site to deteriorate, moving from its originally stated “green” goal of sustainable crop production and composting to a hodge-podge of uses.

“I don’t know of a single vegetable growing there,” Doughty said. “There were a couple of abandoned vehicles on the site.”

What the hell? Have you looked at the calendar, lady? Global warming notwithstanding, Nashville’s last frost date is April 5 -- three days ago. There ain’t gonna be any vegetables growing there for a while. Are you a total moron, or just pretending to be one?

And I’m calling major bullshit on that “allowed the site to deteriorate” stuff. This is my neighborhood. I drive past here every day; I jog past here, I walk my dogs by here. It has not deteriorated. It’s a working garden. I’m sorry it doesn’t look enough like Cheekwood for you. This isn’t for the perfumed set to ooh and aaah over as they drink their sweet tea. This is for people to grow food. It’s an all-volunteer operation and yes, there are people working out here most Saturdays! In season, this is a vibrant community garden with, yes, vegetables and a rose garden honoring Deford Bailey.

Smelling a tremendous waft of bullshit over this story, I headed down to the site this afternoon and witnessed the carnage for myself. There I met and spoke with Sizwe Herring, heard an EarthMatters board member wonder how she could possibly raise the $10,000 TDOT threatened to charge for its “cleanup,” and listened as an elderly African American lady with her hair in curlers laid into the TDOT crew about how humanity was destroying God’s creation and nobody seemed to care. It just about broke my heart to see this rag-tag group of people who had been called to the site on a workday while TDOT supervisors in their starched white shirts put the riff raff in their place.

Near as I could gather, the EarthMatters folks had been given a month to clean up the site, but then for some reason TDOT bulldozers arrived early. I honestly don’t know what happened on that end. What I did hear is that two -- two -- residents across the street from the garden complained about noise and called the garden an eyesore.


Two.

One of the TDOT supervisors told me the garden was not the problem, the greenhouse was. It was filthy. Oh my. A dirty greenhouse, can you imagine? /sarcasm. You can see the picture of it above.

If you’ve been to the site, you know that the greenhouse sits far back from the street, behind a chain-link fence covered with honeysuckle. I can’t imagine how that could possibly be an eyesore to any residents. You have to be inside the garden to even see it!

Someone else said the problem was the composting operation, which according to BJ Doughty in the article above was part of the original deal the state made with EarthMatters. So if the state decided it no longer wanted composting, they surely didn't have to bring bulldozers out to stop it.

The other complaint from these two neighbors was noise, which is the most hilarious complaint of all. Apparently the gardeners had drumming and flutes and other live music on work days -- something I never saw, but of course I’m not out there every weekend. Regardless, the irony of someone complaining about noise when they live in the shade of the Interstate is pretty rich. Plus, Sevier Park backs up to those houses and the city actually hosts live music concerts there every summer. So, I'm calling bullshit on that complaint too.

The TDOT folks were doing a lot of talking and we heard one thing from one person and another thing from someone else. One guy told me the gardens would not be destroyed, but for some reason the hand-painted pavillions were demolished when I got there. I just don't know why a pavillion is a problem. I'm totally not getting it.

I don’t know these folks who complained. Maybe they are extraordinarily sensitive -- in which case, why move next to I-440? I just smell something else going on here, something along the lines of people not liking the poor blacks and dirty fucking hippies working together to plant a garden. That just really chaps some folks in the wrong place. I'm sorry but this just smacks of racism to me. If I'm wrong, well, bygones.

Anyway, I called Sen. Henry's office and his assistant offered to send me photos of the garden before TDOT "cleaned it up" -- which I said was unnecessary since I live near there and see it every day. She then said that there's nothing the Senator could do, the state Senate does not tell the departments how to run their business.

She actually said that. Which makes me think the state legislature is basically useless. I mean, it's good to know if TDOT accidentally bulldozes your house while pushing through a highway that your state Senator can't do a damn thing about it. But I digress.

And she then passed the buck to TDOT's Winston Gaffron at (615) 350-4300. So whatever. You know what to do.

ADDING.... The more I think about it, the more this stinks. TDOT folks have been acting so defensive about this whole thing ... from BJ Doughty saying she never saw a vegetable growing there to the starched-shirt crew on site this afternoon telling me the greenhouse was an eyesore.

Someone better dig into this.

Without further ado:

Raised Beds. With Stuff Growing In Them

Pavillion Destroyed By TDOT

I Know Let's Put A Racetrack Here

Here’s a garden tour from two years ago:

Jay Steele & Nashville Chamber: Keep Your Hands Off Our Kids

Metro Nashville Schools have been swept up in yet another contentious battle, this one over the firing of a beloved teacher (technically she is being fired from a program she started and ran for nearly 30 years, not fired from Metro. She’s to be moved to another school). For my non-Nashville readers, go to the link and brush up on the controversy.

The removal of Mary Catherine Bradshaw is a political not performance-based move. She appears to have stood in the way of our corporate overlords a shiny-sparkly new education philosophy:

Her firing from the program comes at a time when new Metro schools associate superintendent Jay Steele is restructuring the district's high schools into a collection of "career academies," a hand-in-glove enterprise with the Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce to funnel students into high-demand career tracks like information technology.

If the name Jay Steele sounds familiar it’s because I wrote about another of his “pet projects” last April:

Naming rights to academic programs in Metro Nashville's high schools are for sale, and one school has a buyer.

The Tennessee Credit Union now owns the signage to Antioch High School's academy of business and finance for a price of $150,000. The school board approved the two-year contract Tuesday night.

Administrators hope this is the first of many naming deals. It's the brainchild of Metro's new high school czar, Jay Steele, who had success with the idea as an administrator in Florida.

"It's not marketing to kids," Steele told The Tennessean in December. "It's tight guidelines that would align a targeted industry with a theme."

Tight guidelines that align a targeted industry with a theme! Just what Nashville’s schools need!

WTF does that even mean? It sounds like business school clap-trap to me. It seems Jay Steele is hell bent on turning our city’s youth into fodder for the jaws of commerce, and I guess we’re supposed to cheer along and marvel at what a great start in life our youth are getting, what great business skills they’re learning and how they will be wonderful worker bees for the corporatocracy. Is that it? Forgive me if I’m wrong here, but was there a problem of some kind I’m unaware of? Were businesses not choosing to locate in Nashville because our kids are dumb?

Look, I get that we need to educate our kids so they can go to college and get jobs; I get that we need to start them off in life on the right foot. I even applaud the idea of offering classes that educate kids for high-demand fields. But for crying out loud this Chamber of Commerce crap has got to stop. Y’all can just wait in line before you get your greedy paws on ‘em, okay? Let them be kids for a little while.

This is dehumanization, plain and simple. It’s telling our kids their value is only in their earning power. They aren’t human beings, they’re human doings. The message is: You’re not valuable to our community because you’re alive, because you’re a child of God and a member of the human family, because when we see you and your friends we’re reminded that there’s another generation coming behind us. You’re valuable because you have potential earning power, someday you too can fight and claw your way up to being an independent contractor with no benefits and a crappy credit score. And someday you can look forward to an exciting retirement, maybe when you’re 75, whereafter you can spend your days on your feet as a WalMart greeter.

This is a really hard concept to articulate and so many others have done it so much better. I just think commerce is a corrupting influence that does not belong in our schools. Anywhere. So to the Nashville Chamber of Commerce: wait your fucking turn. You can have our kids when we’re ready to give them to you. Right now, they belong to us.

And to Jay Steele, look: I know this is a radical idea for some of you young whippersnappers raised in a post-Reagan age, but I don’t happen to think that capitalism is the cure for every problem.

There’s an intellectual debate going on right now, and I’m going to refer folks back to my October 2009 post on the business of dehumanization. It's the one where I linked to Mark Slouka’s article in the September issue of Harper’s (“Dehumanized: When Math & Science Rule The School," and a subscription is required).

Slouka wrote:

Like a single species taking over an ecosystem, like an elephant on a see-saw, the problem today is disequilibrium. Why is every Crisis in American Education cast as an economic threat and never a civic one? In part, because we don’t have the language for it. Our focus is on the usual economic indicators. There are no corresponding “civic indicators,” no generally agreed-upon warning signs of political vulnerability, even though the inability of more than two thirds of our college graduates to read a text and draw rational inferences could be seen as the political equivalent of runaway inflation or soaring unemployment.

Of course, as I wrote at the time we do have those civic indicators: low voter turnout being a major one.

Slouka’s point was that an emphasis on math and science education at the expense of the humanities is a great way to create worker bees to feed the machinery of capitalism, and also a great way to starve the nation of critical thinking skills and knowledge which breeds dissent. It also devalues art, music, literature and the entire cultural spectrum of things which make life worth living.

It’s hard not to see capitalism’s creep into our schools, and watch as teachers are being devalued at every step, and then read about efforts to roll back child labor laws around the country and not wonder if there’s a connection.

A Cheap Labor Update

We have an update on Vanderbilt Landscaping (not affiliated with Vanderbilt University), which I wrote about last August, after it treated its Mexican guest workers like modern-day slaves. One had to actually escape with the help of an Atlanta human rights group.

The Dept. of Labor has fined the company for violating H-2B visa rules, and ordered back pay to 42 guest workers.

Horwitz called the nearly $40,000 in backpay and fines a big victory, but he also said the fight isn't over. In fact, just last week, Jimenez and 14 other former employees of Vanderbilt Landscaping filed a federal lawsuit in Nashville, alleging human trafficking, forced labor, and civil rights violations.

"Some of the elements of that lawsuit included workers' passports being held, workers being told they weren't allowed to leave the premises, and if they did leave, they were told their passports would be burned," said Horwitz.

According to the Department of Labor, the company has agreed to pay the $18,496 in backpage, but has filed an appeal in regards to the $18,000 penalty being imposed by the government.

Something not mentioned in this update is that the company had $2.4 million in state Transportation Department contracts, plus a $900,000 a stimulus loan guarantee from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

I would expect a company in violation of the law would lose its government contracts and be ineligible for benefits like Dept. of Agriculture loan guarantees. But the follow up story didn’t address that. For that matter, I don’t know why companies getting state and federal contracts are hiring cheap foreign labor, but I’ve already harangued about that enough.

America is truly a fucked up country right now.

The Incredible, InEVitable Leaf

Today Mr. Beale and I went down to Nissan headquarters in Cool Springs to test out the new Leaf as part of their “drive electric tour.” It was quite an amazing experience. If you get a chance to check one of these out, I recommend it.

There were about 25 or so people in our group, from all walks of life: engineers, car enthusiasts, DFH-types, you name it. I was impressed with the intelligent questions people asked; these were clearly enthusiasts. Well, except for the lone asshole in our group who arrived having decided he didn’t like EVs for some reason. Dude, why’d you sign up for the tour, then? He snorted at the battery's 100,000 mile warranty (“What happens if there’s a problem at 400,000 miles? Huh? HUH?!”) Let me add, I heard that same comment when I bought my hybrid. The batteries were only gonna last a year and cost thousands of dollars to replace! Well, wrong.

Most hilariously though was his issue with the “e" logo on the home charging station, which really seemed to tick this guy off. “Will all chargers have that? Even the public ones?” Answer: No. “Well that’s gonna be confusing!” Dude, how do you ever negotiate the plethora of gas station logos? BP, Shell, MapCo, Exxon -- you must be completely flummoxed, you poor dear.

Give me a break.

Anyway, fortunately he was pretty much the only asshole -- though one person snorted derisively on hearing there were just 250 Nissan Leafs on the road right now, as if that somehow implies nobody wants one. Of course, I’ve already addressed that here. But everyone else just seemed interested in learning what the Leaf is all about. And I learned a lot. For instance, I didn’t know Nissan has been making electric cars since the 1940s. The current disaster in Japan has temporarily shut down all of Nissan’s manufacturing but we were told the plant is expected to reopen in a week (though who knows). But the Leaf will be made in Tennessee’s Smyrna plant in 2012 and I think that’s going to be super exciting for Tennessee.

But you know, the car is pretty ordinary. It drives like any other car. It’s quieter, but if you already have a hyrbid you’re used to that. It’s a lot larger than I expected, the same as any other car. Mr. Beale drives an Altima and I’d say they’re about comparable. It drives pretty much the same as any other car, save some interesting electronic shifting and a push-button start.

The strangest thing about the Leaf is that it’s so quiet, they’ve actually had to add a speaker that emits engine noise at speeds lower than 18 mph to alert pedestrians a car is coming. I find that odd, and hope some day in the future pedestrians will have been conditioned to watch out for automobiles, not just listen for them.

But at the same time, the car is rather extraordinary. No tail pipe. No oil changes. No gas stations. This is quite revolutionary and I can see why Koch-types are scared. But it’s also the wave of the future. In 20 years every car will be an EV, it’s inevitable. Mark my words.

The Belly Of The Beast

Best Reason Yet To Buy A Leaf

The Famous Lithium Ion Battery

The Home Charging Station (With Totally "Confusing" Logo)

Note: I'm not on Nissan's payroll, do not own stock in Nissan, and in no way do I have any financial or other connection to Nissan. I'm just a big believer in the EV revolution. Thought I should make that clear.

Freedom Is Not Our Healthcare Problem, Access Is

Yesterday Tennessee’s Republican-dominated legislature passed a bill allowing Tennesseans to opt out of the federal Affordable Care Act. Amendments Democrats put forth such as allowing children to receive health insurance despite pre-existing conditions were voted down by the Republicans. How very pro-life of them.

Bill sponsor Terri Lynn Weaver explained:

"This bill is simply about liberty and freedom of choice," she said. "Tennesseans do not want the government telling them their business about health care."

In this NewsChannel 5 video Weaver says of the federal government’s Affordable Care Act:

"It sets a precedent," she said. "Getting involved in health care and making decisions for me and my family is just a no-no.  And we sent that message to Washington.  Tennesseans do not want that mandate or that iron hand, so to speak."

Of course, the Affordable Care Act doesn’t do any of those things. It doesn’t make any decisions for you or your family, it doesn’t mandate any decision at all -- not even the decision to have health insurance. If you don't want health insurance you pay a fee (or call it a tax if you prefer.) No one can predict their future healthcare needs and the uninsured are some of the most expensive to care for because they usually enter the healthcare system when it's an emergency. And they inevitably pass their healthcare costs on to everyone else, so if that is your choice, then the fee/tax covers that cost. That strikes me as a very conservative, Republican approach. Personal responsibility and all that. Oh well. We all know most uninsured are not that way by choice.

The Affordable Care Act doesn’t say you must have insurance or that you can or cannot have this or that procedure (though where abortion is concerned that is debatable). That, as we all know, is what insurance companies do under our current system by denying people coverage because of pre-existing conditions or cutting people out of the system because premiums are not affordable. So Tennessee’s Republicans, as usual, are not making any sense.

The reason the so-called "mandate" is in there, the reason Republicans like Bob Dole and Mitt Romney first embraced the idea of an insurance mandate, is because the insurance companies said they needed that if they were going to stop denying coverage because of pre-existing conditions. Otherwise nobody would buy health insurance until they got sick. So the deal was, everyone had to buy it, or pay a fee. So that’s what Republicans and Democrats did. And now the Republicans are suddenly shocked -- shocked -- that anyone would do such a thing.

Okay so I just have one question for Terri Lynn Weaver and the rest of the Tennessee Republicans in our legislature and Republicans everywhere around the country: what is your solution? I get that you no longer like the idea of a health insurance mandate, but the fact is, the mandate is not the problem. The problem is that there are millions of people denied insurance around the country. There are 800,000 uninsured people in Tennessee. Millions of people depend upon a government-funded insurance program like Medicaid, TennCare, CoverKids, BadgerCare in Wisconsin, etc. The very same programs you're now defunding because you say the state/nation is broke and we can't afford it.

So what is your suggestion for all of those people who cannot access the health insurance system you use?

As Republicans in state legislatures and on the federal level start cutting away at these programs under fiscal austerity schemes, I’d like to point out one very simple fact: the mere existence of this problem is proof that our private, for-profit, capitalistic healthcare system has failed. The mere existence of millions of people denied coverage because of pre-existing conditions or because their high-risk status makes premiums unaffordable indicates our system does not work. The fact that 60% of all U.S. bankruptcies are due to medical debt proves that capitalism has failed healthcare.

Every time you see that jar by the chekout stand bearing a cute kid’s picture asking for donations to cover an operation, or every time you hear of a fundraiser to help pay for someone’s medical bills, the real message is that our private, for-profit health insurance has failed these people. These are healthcare consumers, people who have been forced to go begging because their need has overwhelmed the capacity of the system to provide it. If capitalism worked in this scenario, wouldn't some company have started up to provide these people with affordable insurance? Wouldn't some charity be in existence to fill the need?

So why hasn't it? Doesn't this tell you that government needs to be in the healthcare business? Certainly no one else is doing it. I mean, the only other solution is for people to do without. Is that what Terri Lynn Weaver and the rest of the Republicans are suggesting? That people just do without healthcare? Is that it?

There are millions of potential healthcare consumers in this country who cannot access the system because they cannot afford it, or the nature of their illness makes them too risky for the private system to cover them and still make a profit. Clearly capitalism cannot function in a scenario where there is no profit. That leaves charity. Why are rich assholes like the Koch brothers funding cancer research at MIT, not some non-profit that provides healthcare for the poor? Why is it that those charitable organizations which do exist are completely overwhelmed by the demand?

Why is that?

In short: if capitalism worked in healthcare, then why isn't it working? Why so many in need?

It seems to me that where healthcare is concerned the mere existence of millions of people left uninsured is proof that the system doesn’t work and needs to be changed. And frankly, Republicans, I’m not hearing any ideas from you. Or wait, scratch that: we did hear an idea from you, we implemented it, and now you’re saying you don’t like it.

So ... your move. Unless of course your big idea is to have people suffer. Is that it? Just ... no healthcare for you? That’s the plan?

Beware of Strangers Bearing Theme Parks

[UPDATE] 2:

”'Festival Tennessee' Developer's Claims Flunk Truth Test”

----------------------------

[UPDATE]:

"Theme park developers leave trail of broken promises," via NewsChannel5.

----------------------------

While Middle Tennessee certainly needs jobs I am wary of what could quite possibly be the mother of all scams:

The developer of a proposed 1,500-acre theme park in Spring Hill has eight of his previous Nevada business licenses — including one for Big International Group of Entertainment — listed under "revoked" status, according to the Nevada Secretary of State's office.

I figured that out this afternoon when I started trying to find out who was behind the proposed Festival Tennessee theme park breathlessly reported on by our local media. What I found out about Las Vegas-based Big International Group of Entertainment, the project’s supposed developer, was interesting to say the least. Apparently the company “is a subsidiary of Information Architects Corp.,” a company which was last in the news for purchasing a gold mine. Big International also made headlines back in 2006 for an animated Michael Jackson feature which never happened.

I hate to tell you this, Spring Hill, but this project has the stench of merde wafting all over it. Maybe I’m just too cynical. Maybe in my former life I attended far too many press conferences where out of town hot-shot flim-flam artists threw around big numbers (“$750 million in private capital!”), bigger promises (“10,000-15,000 jobs!”) and half-assed cockamamie ideas before a crowd of incredulous media and smarmy local politicos. Why do they do it? What’s the point? Well, who knows.

Yeah, I’m thinking Festival Tennessee ain’t gonna happen. If I’m wrong, Spring Hill, you have my apologies.

Get A Job! If You Can!

Today David Sirota was on the Bill Press Show discussing the heinous practice of employers checking job applicants’ credit history as a condition for hiring. It was an interesting discussion and one which has been long overdue; I have never, ever understood why this practice is done, or why it’s even allowed. Indeed, this is just another reason why my blood boils when Republican politicians talk about the unemployed as “lazy” or luxuriating in the welfare state hammock and unmotivated to work because they’re supposedly living large on unemployment benefits -- laughable claims in and of themselves, as anyone who collects unemployment knows. But even more ludicrous when one realizes how the deck is stacked against those trying to find a job to begin with.

I first heard about this practice a few years ago. An acquaintance had her credit ruined after she suffered cardiac arrest and actually momentarily died during a very minor surgical procedure. Unable to work during recovery, she lost her job -- and with a medical malpractice lawsuit pending, the medical bills piled up. She was forced to declare bankruptcy, which haunted her during her subsequent job search. I was astonished that something like this was even going on.

Dear employers: why in God’s name do you think it’s okay to, a) search someone’s credit history before you will hire them and, b) not hire someone because of bad credit or a bankruptcy? Doesn’t it seem obvious that people work because they need to? How are people supposed to climb out of the debt hole if you won’t give them a freaking job because they’re in debt? Hello?

This is reprehensible and just another example of the way business dicks working people around. We hear about the war on working people, well this is Exhibit A. How adversarial is it to assume someone with a bad credit history is going to steal from you, for example? If that's the case, do you check the credit histories of those whom you currently employ? No? Well why not, then? It's not like only unemployed people get into debt.

It’s like there’s a conspiracy of business interests trying to get as many people in desperate straights as possible so they’ll take the crappiest deals thrown their way. Get people desperate enough and they'll work for peanuts and no benefits. And while we're at it, let's make sure they can't unionize and try to level the playing field. No, what this country needs is a permanent underclass, amiright? We need some really desperately poor folks to do our dirty work for nothing -- especially since that whole illegal immigrant well is starting to run dry. Hey, too bad we abolished slavery, maybe we can have de facto slave labor, how about that? “Right to work,” my ass.

Seriously, that's how it looks from where I sit. It's almost like they planned it or something.

I was happy to see that our own Tennesseee Rep. Steve Cohen filed a bill back in January to outlaw this practice. I’m sure the Republican-controlled House will get right on that [/sarcasm]. I also understand several states are looking to ban the practice as well. Tennessee should be one of them.

Come on, Tennessee Democrats: show the working people of this state you understand the issues they face. While Tennessee’s Republicans are more interested in peeping inside women’s vaginas and battling the non-existent threat of Sharia Law, here’s an issue where you can really stand apart from the do-nothing opposition and show you stand for helping people get back to work.

Just a thought.

This Tennessee Thing Just Isn’t Working Out

Well, thanks to some of Tennessee’s more ludicrous legislators, the state is once again a national laughingstock. State Senator Bill Ketron and House Rep. Judd Matheny have a bill that would send anyone practicing Sharia Law to jail for up to 15 years:

It exempts peaceful practice of Islam but labels any adherence to Shariah law — which includes religious practices such as feet washing and prayers — as treasonous. It claims Shariah adherents want to replace the Constitution with their religious law.

Yes, the scourge that is the halal meat market is surely a threat to our way of life. House of Kabob, you are put on notice.

Dagnabbit but I am sick of you people making me ashamed of where I live. This nonsense is just the cherry on top a sundae of legislative foolishness: a bill forcing teachers to frame subjects like evolution and global warming as “controversial”, a bill that would ban discussion of homosexuality in schools, a bill that would exempt CCW holders from background checks. I mean Jesus Christ, people. Have you not noticed that our unemployment rate is still 9.4%? As of December 2010, Coffee and Warren Counties, Metheny’s district, have unemployment well over 10%. Ketron’s district fares even worse: Maury County unemployment was 13.5%, Marshall County was 15.6%.

Do you idiots really think banning Sharia law is going to help out the people in your districts? People need jobs, not fearmongering about religion! Are you really that out of touch? Are you really that stupid?

And to the people in your districts who keep voting these assclowns into office: don’t you think you deserve better? Is there no one in Marshall, Maury, Lincoln, or Rutherford counties who can do a better job at the legislature? Is there no one able to focus on real problems in these counties? Stuff that people really care about? Is this the best your districts have to offer?

I mean really, I’m almost at a place where I feel like it serves you right. You vote these jokers into office year after year after year -- Ketron and Metheny have been in office since, what, 2004? -- and what you get is 15% unemployment and stupid bills banning Sharia law instead of positive initiatives to bring economic development to rural counties. Maybe they're not the best folks the job, ya think?

You know what really pisses me off about this idiocy? We’re a national punchline -- again. This story got picked up at Gawker, for crying out loud. Once again Tennessee is the poster child for backasswards ignorance. Thanks a lot.

What major employer would want to move to Tennessee when everywhere you look we’re evidently a bunch of uneducated, unsophisticated rubes led by intolerant knuckle-dragging Neanderthals? What educated workforce would want to live here? Every year they ratchet up the idiocy and it’s very, very bad for the state of Tennessee.

Listen: Sen. Ketron and Rep. Metheny. We need jobs and economic development in this state. And ... well, you’re not helping! Just ... shhhh.

That Job-Creating Wine In Grocery Stores Bill

What the heck, proponents of Tennessee’s wine-in-grocery-stores effort might as well take a cue from House Republicans in Washington and call whatever bill they get the “Creating Jobs For Tennesseans By Selling Wine In Grocery Stores Act.” Because that is what the folks behind this effort at Red White And Food say it will do:

Opening the wine market would create 1,597 to 3,513 new jobs, according to a new economic impact study released today. The same study found that 104 to 597 liquor store jobs would be at risk.

You can read the economic impact study here. Let me add in the interest of full disclosure: the study was conducted by Stonebridge Research of St. Helena, California, which of course is in Napa Valley: the heart of wine country. I find it funny that Stonebridge Research is located on Zinfandel Lane, and of course no one should be shocked to learn they service the wine industry.

It actually might be interesting to see what a more impartial research group has to say on the matter. But regardless, I tend to think economic impact studies are like surveys: they say whatever the person paying for them wants them to say.

That said, it’s logical selling wine in grocery stores would create a few jobs -- Kroger and the like would need to hire more stock people, wholesalers might need to hire more folks to handle the grocery market, etc. And I’m also dubious over claims that selling wine in grocery stores will hurt jobs in liquor stores.

In states like California and Florida which sell wine in grocery stores, they still have liquor stores on every street corner, too. What ends up happening is that most grocery stores sell primarily low price point wines. Wine stores specialize in imported varieties, hard to find wines, higher-priced vintages and the like. And, of course, liquor. There’s enough to go around for everyone.

What really interested me in this economic impact study were their findings about wine sales and gender:

Qualitative and survey research as well as survey research has repeatedly found that:

• Women and older Americans are more likely to consume wine, by a significant margin, while men and younger consumers favor beer and spirits;

• Women tend to associate wine with food;

• More than 50% of the wine sold in the U.S. is purchased by women as part of regular grocery shopping and meal planning;

• Women generally find it uncomfortable to shop in conventional liquor stores, particularly traditional stores focused on beer and spirits.

Yeah that seems about right. As a woman whose day is filled with running errands around town, meal planning, etc., let me say: it sure would be nice if the men in the state legislature could make my life a little easier! For real, y’all! Why do I have to make two stops to cook my dang dinner? Picking up a bottle of wine at the grocery store would be one less stop I have to make (Hey, I wonder if wine in grocery stores would alleviate traffic problems?)

Then again, we’re picky wine drinkers at the Beale house. I’d probably still have to shop at the wine store because no way will Kroger carry our favorite Valpolicella. But that’s just us.

Anyway, near as I can tell it will be a wash on the jobs front. I don’t see liquor stores going out of business and I don’t see a massive influx of wine industries into Tennessee, either. What I do see is the end to a cumbersome, clumsy, antiquated, anti-consumer law that only a small number of people who benefit from the status quo want to keep.

I thought we were all about the free hand of the market, unfettered and gloriously free FREE flying around and sprinkling everything with capitalistic fairy dust? How are our existing wine laws anything close to that?

How does preventing liquor stores from selling corkscrews and artisan cheeses and chocolates accomplish that? How does making busy moms with 20 minutes to do the grocery shopping before picking up the kids from soccer practice accomplish that? Why put up roadblocks to consumers?

Shouldn’t we make it easier for people to buy stuff they want to buy -- especially something taxed as much as wine is?

Gov. Haslam: Who Do You Work For?

Pilot Oil or the people of Tennessee?

It’s a fair question in light of his decision to keep his Pilot Oil holdings out of the blind trust and now, THIS:

NASHVILLE -- Gov. Bill Haslam says he didn't know his freeze on new state regulations delayed a proposed environmental rule affecting his family's convenience stores and truck stops.

The would-be rule directs businesses and local governments to replace single-walled underground fuel storage tanks installed before July 2007 with double-walled tanks if they are used to dispense fuel blends with more than 10 percent ethanol.

Haslam announced the 45-day freeze on new regulations four days after taking office Jan. 15, part of his promised "top to bottom review" of state government. The freeze affects dozens of proposed rules.

I find it really hard to believe that Haslam didn’t know about a new state environmental rule requiring new fuel storage tanks at his Flying J Truck Stops. That just defies belief -- just as I’m sure he knows about a gazillion other new rules or proposed rules that could affect the bottom line at the family business.

More:

Haslam said in the interview he didn't think the rule affected Pilot a great deal because the company already has been double-walling its tanks. But the governor stressed he wasn't entirely certain that was the case.

On Friday, TDEC provided figures showing that at Pilot Flying J, 80 tanks are double-walled while 62 are single-walled.

At Pilot's convenience stores, 63 tanks are double-walled while 87 are single-walled, according to TDEC.

Nothing to see here, move along ....

This is why I’ve never understood the argument that having someone from the business community in elected office is better than, say, having a lawyer or scientist or community organizer. I happen to think clean groundwater is pretty freaking awesome, maybe even more awesome than the Haslam family fortune. Call me crazy, that’s just how I roll. That's why government makes regulations, after all -- even regulations that are unpopular with people who own truck stops and convenience stores. Because Tennessee's water resources belong to us all, and polluted ground water affects us all.

Anyway. I’m sure this is just the first of many future decisions our newly-minted governor will be making that benefit the family business at the expense of Tennesseeans.

Nobody could have anticipated ...

Sociopaths

If you have a few minutes today, you absolutely must read Ken Whitehouse’s story on fraudster/Ponzi schemer/aspiring Tennessee Republican politician Jeff Cassman. Cassman's fraud is considered "small potatoes" compared to, say, Bernie Madoff: he defrauded far fewer people and took much less money. But his victims were not nameless, faceless people. They were his friends and family, members of his church congregation and the like. In short: the people who trusted him the most. There surely has to be a special place in hell for people who will abuse someone's trust this way.

The article is called Banana Republican because as the law began closing in on Cassman and his web of lies (including the fib that he holds a Master’s in Theology from a Connecticut seminary), he and his family of 10 children skedaddled to Antigua, Guatemala. There Cassman lived under various assumed names and set up shop seeking out investors for his various schemes.

Guatemalan authorities arrested Cassman in October and he was brought home to face the music. He's since pled guilty and now awaits sentencing. It’s an absolutely unbelievable story, in part because I don’t remember a ton of coverage in the local media about the case and also because it's an absolute freaking miracle the guy was apprehended to begin with.

Writes Whitehouse:

How could a family that large disappear? The answer is simple: It’s easy to hide when no one is looking for you.

In 2008, when the Cassman family went missing, there was only one federal agent on the case. It wasn’t an agent from the FBI, SEC or treasury department. It was a member of the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, and he was about to be transferred out of the region. Over the past few years, postal agents have been integral parts of the teams that apprehended Ponzi schemers like Park, Grigg and Stokes, to name a few.

Well, good on the U.S. Postal Service! I can't believe this snake almost slithered away.

The guy is obviously a sociopath. And while he ran for Tennessee’s State House, twice, as a “family values” conservative, his actions show him to be anything but. Above and beyond the illegal activity, look how he treated his family while they were in Guatemala:

While Cassman was cataloguing his adventures online, his wife and kids were living in a squalid home where the children slept on tile floors. In 2009, his wife gave birth to their 10th child (she is currently expecting their 11th). In a letter to his in-laws, which they shared with The City Paper, Cassman’s children wrote that his then-14-year-old son delivered the baby and that Cassman couldn’t be reached because he was in church.

Cassman was actually at a bar smoking cigars, drinking and playing chess, his main activities most days. Writing about his children on GUateliving.com: “Our kids go outside only under our supervision, during the morning hours when local kids are most likely to be in school, with a guard dog we don’t feed until after play time, and we always have one person scanning the surrounding area for threats.”


While Cassman tried to put on the front that he was a devoted father, others have a different opinion. NashvillePost.com first reported in February 2010 that a friend of the family had witnessed Cassman punishing his son by pouring hot sauce down his throat after a disagreement. The person who saw that incident confirmed it to The City Paper, calling Cassman a “psychopath.”

This is a story that deserves to get some attention on 60 Minutes or Dateline NBC. Aboslutely amazing.

TSA Security Perverts

A pilot refused a full body scan at the Memphis airport and now may lose his job:

A pilot for ExpressJet Airlines refused to submit to a full-body scan in Memphis on Saturday, saying the technology amounts to "virtual strip searching." Detained by airport security, he now may lose his job. Here's his heroic first-hand account.

I have to say: good for him. I’ve written plenty about this ridiculous security theater, that it’s designed to give the appearance of making us safer while doing absolutely nothing at all.

No fucking way I am submitting to one of these things. Ever. Not that I need to worry about it, being white, female, nearing 50, and well past my hotness expiration.

When Mr. Beale and I traveled to Canada this summer I got to see one of these thingamajigs in action. A young couple in front of us at SEA-TAC were pulled out of the TSA line and put into these cylinder-thingies that I realized were full body scanners. She: young, blonde, cute, in a spaghetti-strap top and mini skirt. He: young, blonde, cute in those super-tight jeans you kids wear these days and a T-shirt. They looked like rock stars or models.

And I thought: of course. Of course the people pulled out of the security line for a full-body scan are the people you just wish would pose nude for Playboy. But they don’t have to -- you can have your own private viewing, whenever you want, if you're in the TSA!

I don’t know Michael Roberts, ExpressJet pilot. Hey, he may be a fat schlub like me. But I’m guessing there's more to this story. I’m guessing he was targeted for some reason.

Maybe being the spokesperson for a group railing against “TSA tyranny” has something to do with it.

Ya think?

I have one message to the -- how many of you guys are left now, is it, three? Four? -- commercial airliners. The more unpleasant you allow air travel to become, the less likely we are to use your service. I will take my last airplane trip when I get pulled out of the TSA line to put on a peep show for some sick, bored airport employees. Consider this fair warning.

My Last (I Hope) Gene Cranick Post

I’ve been really impressed with the discussion on my Gene Cranick threads here and here. You guys have raised some really good issues, and it’s stuff like this which makes me glad I have a blog.

I really haven’t focused much on the moral issues at play here but I do have something to say about that. To me, focusing on why Cranick didn't pay that $75 fee is almost -- almost -- as mean and heartless as focusing on how the fire started. Fires get put out whether they were caused by a lightning strike or a kid playing with matches or someone burning their trash in the backyard despite a statewide fire advisory (and let me say, this is the first I’ve heard there is a statewide fire advisory. The governor’s office might need to do a better job of getting the word out.)

Sure, if the family were indigent and couldn't afford the $75 fee then that would reveal yet another flaw in the county services. But really to say "he's a freeloader and loser trying to get something for nothing" the way Glenn Beck and a few anonymous folks over here did is just another way of piling on someone who obviously made a mistake.

What, you people never made a mistake? Ever? You’re the only ones, then. It's safe to say Mr. Cranick has learned his lesson the hard way, and has paid a terrible price for it. So shut your yaps.

On second thought, don’t shut your yaps. The Glenn Becks of the world who sanctimoniously (though accurately) claim that Mr. Cranick should have known better and whatnot prove the point we Dirty Hippies have always made: yes. There will always be people who don’t do what they’re supposed to do. That’s correct. Thank you for admitting that. Now the question is, what do we do about it?

Is it best for the community as a whole to let the man’s house burn down, possibly spreading the fire to the homes of neighbors who did do what they were supposed to do? And add a homeless family to the community’s burdens? I mean yeah you can feel all self-righteous that you were right and they were wrong and perhaps that makes you feel better but then what? Does you feeling better benefit the community more than making sure everyone has a home?

And we can take this example across a wide array of social problems. Food stamps, education, you name it. Yes it annoys the hell out of me when people come over here and blithely say “those people should just get a job!” when in case you haven’t noticed, there are no jobs. But that’s really irrelevant. There will always be people who don’t work, even as there are people who can’t. It doesn’t matter, because it’s still an issue we need to deal with.

One of my more clueless commenters claimed that, “there was a time when if you were hungry, you went out and worked to get food. Fish, plant, forage. If you didn't, you starved.” Actually, as any student of anthropology knows, that’s utter bullshit. Every culture around the globe, modern to prehistoric, has developed a way of dealing with those in the community who aren’t doing their fair share. Even those people who inhabit harsh environments -- the Inuit and the !Kung bushmen, for example -- do not let their people starve. They deal with their freeloaders in other ways: public shaming, for example. And perhaps our right-wing commenters like Glenn Beck are serving a valuable community role in this respect as being the public voice of scorn. They sure seem to have that shaming thing down. So, there's that.

Tough noogies might make some people feel better and it might have a role to play in keeping a big chunk of the population in line but it’s not the basis for an effective social policy nor does it build community. There needs to be something else in place, too.

The silver lining in all of this is that we are at least having a national debate about an issue that gets at the heart of what ails America today. Taxes, infrastructure, the role of government, privatized services, etc. I had hoped we could talk about this a little more but our media appears happy to just hit the highlights. Oh well, it seems the conversation has continued on blogs and in other media. This is a good thing.

I'm actually feeling pretty positive about all of this. And I'd like to thank Gene Cranick for -- no pun intended -- sparking a serious conversation about an important issue.

For those of you who don’t lack a cooperative gene a fund has been set up for the Cranicks. Keith Olbermann spread the word about it here.

For those of you who lack that cooperative gene, you can feel all warm and toasty that you did the right thing by paying your bills (you have, right?) and the Cranicks did not and nyah nyah nyah.

We Are All Gene Cranick

It’s been interesting to watch the story of the Tennessee house fire ricochet around the media -- and morph and change in the process.

I wrote about the Cranick fire way back on Saturday. My post generated some interesting comments; since then the story has gone national and the narrative has changed as people search to identify the bad guy.

Is the bad guy the South Fulton FD, whose firefighters stood by as the Cranick house burned with their three dogs and cat inside (and would they have sat and watched as Cranick children burned alive inside the home, not just their pets? I wonder...)? Sweetening that perspective is the growing narrative that the Cranicks simply “forgot” to pay their $75 fire protection fee. This is a new embellishment: Last weekend, let me remind you, Gene Cranick told the media:

"I thought they'd come out and put it out, even if you hadn't paid your $75, but I was wrong," said Gene Cranick.

So now it’s that he “forgot”? Well, maybe he did. Who am I to say he didn’t?

Glenn Beck portrays the Cranick family as the bad guys , mocking them with a fake Southern accent for failing to pay the $75 fee and “sponging off your neighbor's resources.” Cranick wanted something for nothing and that makes him a community parasite, says Beck. Now, we don’t know what Gene Cranick wanted -- and anyway, even if it were true, there’s really no reason to be such an asshole to someone who just lost everything. Beck needs to tone it down a notch. (Yeah, I know, dream on.)

A commenter at ThinkProgress (I can’t find the link at the moment) blames right-wing conservative voters in Obion County for setting up such a flawed system to begin with. The commenter mentioned that a mere 13-cent property tax increase would have supplied fire services county-wide. I’m not sure where that property tax information came from or if it’s even true. As Mr. Beale pointed out when we discussed it this morning, if it’s true that’s probably 13-cents per $100 of home value. If the house is worth $100,000 that’s $130 added to your taxes just for fire protection. $75 is a much better deal and is probably more affordable to a lot more people in this poor, rural area.

And then we have the conservative National Review, which sees this incident as bad for Libertarianism because it shows what we Lefties have all been saying: Libertarianism lacks morality. Writes Daniel Foster:

I’m a conservative with fairly libertarian leanings, but this is a kind of government for which I would not sign up.

Well, duh. Libertarians worship a political philosophy which views selfishness as a virtue, remember? Yeah it’s all fun and games until someone’s house burns down as the firefighters sit there, hoses at the ready, to put out the neighbors' house, should the fire spread. How do you like them apples? Apparently, we don't like them at all.

I watch and read as all of this is being chewed over and find myself fascinated at the dynamic. This is just the latest story about failure of a government institution, yet much as the Righties would like to blame Big Bad Government they can't, because this was a fee-pay fire service. And much as the Lefties would like to blame free market Libertarianism we really can't because this wasn't a privatized fire department, it was a public fire department providing service outside its basic service area for a fee.

So it's all very interesting but a lot of it misses the point. The real lesson is the one I made on Saturday, which is that we are a nation of Gene Cranicks. Nationwide communities are shuttering services very intentionally, doing with shorter school weeks, less public transit, and fewer public safety services. So we should all look at this incident as a "teachable moment" about the public good, taxes, and public services. Whether you see Gene Cranick as a victim or a parasite, now would be a good time for us to discuss the role of government in our communitieis and how much we are willing to pay for it.

I have done lots of posts on communities like Colorado City which are slashing city services as budgets get ever tighter. I suspect that those voting to cut these services are people who don't use them anyway.

I've mocked those in Nashville who claim it’s their "God-given right as a Metro taxpayer” to have as many trash carts as they want and suck up as much landfill space as they want, yet recoil in horror at a property tax increase or $35 fee for an extra cart. Sure we want the service, but we don't want to pay for it! But give some single mom food stamps or put her kids in a Head Start program and that’s socialism! Heh, it’s always socialism when the goodies go to someone else, amiright?

These folks are Glenn Beck's Gene Cranick: doing without because hey, the house isn't on fire right now anyway, and maybe it never will be, right? Let's just kick the can down the road and hopefully it will all work out. But inevitably they are the first to complain when the services they feel entitled to are no longer there.

Then we have the Left's Gene Cranick, the guy who is the victim. The guy who “forgot” to pay his fee, who “forgot” to pay attention to this stuff. Hey he offered to pay the $75 while his house was burning. Why can’t we be all like bygones and stuff, right? They forget that paying the fee ahead of time helps maintain the system so it's there when they -- or their neighbors -- need it. Maybe these folks need to speak up a little more and get a little more involved to make sure the infrastructure they want wasn't classified as "government waste" by some Libertarian type while they were off doing something else.

Maybe these folks should make an effort to vote in midterm elections. Just sayin'.

You know, folks, I think we’ve reached a critical point here. We are starting understand the true consequences of our action and our inaction. We’re starting to get that we’re all in this together. Fires spread. Entire cities have been leveled by fires which started in just one home, then grew to consume one neighborhood after the other.

It's the perfect metaphor for where we are. There are all sorts of fires: the uneducated kids from one neighborhood who become a burden on the entire community. Or the folks on Privilege Parkway who can afford to pay extra for trash collection and mowing grass: they see no problem with cutting the public works budget, do they? But guess who will be the first to complain when Unfortunate Avenue's rat infestation spreads inside their gated community? You got it.

After 30 years of "trimming government waste" we've reached a point where we've redefined "waste." Now waste is a five-day school week in some places. It's food for a single mom, or a Head Start program for her kids. It's any service we don't directly use--or aren't using right at the moment. Few stop to consider the indirect benefit we receive when others have access to them, even fewer are prudent enough to realize that the day may come when we will need those services too. These chickens will come home to roost, people. Yet so many folks have just checked out of the process completely. Fire protection? Meh. Schools? Our kids are grown!

People need to pay attention. Whether you see Gene Cranick as a victim or parasite, it doesn’t matter. Because we are all victims and we are all parasites. The fault, Horatio, is not in our politics but in ourselves. We're selfish, every last one of us. It's human nature. We want the services and don't want to pay for them, not if we don't have to. Or we don't mind paying for them but we don't want to show up at the public meeting or write our council person or Congress Critter to let them know.

We're all Gene Cranick. We "forgot" to pay for our democracy, be it with our participation or with our money.

Let's just hope the house doesn't catch on fire.

Dude You HAVE No Fire Protection

[UPDATE]:

I think there has been some misinformation out there about this story. To my knowledge, the South Fulton, TN fire department is not privatized. However, this is a very rural area, and if they are going to provide fire protection service beyond the South Fulton community out into Obion County then they charge an additional service fee. To the best of my understanding, that is how the arrangement works. Someone correct me if I'm wrong.

People from metropolitan areas need to understand that rural areas do not -- can not -- maintain services out into the hinterlands. There simply is not the tax base for it. When I lived in rural Kentucky we did not have trash service, for example. You either contracted with a private company or dealt with your household waste yourself. Some people were responsible and hauled stuff to the county dump once a month. Some burned it in backyard fire pits. Some people are assholes and dump their trash by the side of the road.

Similarly, people who live in Obion County are given the option of contracting with the (public) South Fulton fire department for their fire protection or dealing with fire protection themselves.

When you live out in the sticks that's just how it is.
--------------------------------------------

Okay, I don’t mean to be flippant, but some people need to get a freaking clue:

A local neighborhood is furious after firefighters watched as an Obion County, Tennessee, home burned to the ground.

The homeowner, Gene Cranick, said he offered to pay whatever it would take for firefighters to put out the flames, but was told it was too late.  They wouldn't do anything to stop his house from burning.

Each year, Obion County residents must pay $75 if they want fire protection from the city of South Fulton.  But the Cranicks did not pay.

The mayor said if homeowners don't pay, they're out of luck.

This fire went on for hours because garden hoses just wouldn't put it out. It wasn't until that fire spread to a neighbor's property, that anyone would respond.

Turns out, the neighbor had paid the fee.

"I thought they'd come out and put it out, even if you hadn't paid your $75, but I was wrong," said Gene Cranick.

Yes, that was the point of the fee.

Because guess what: things like fire departments don’t grow on trees. You don’t just add water and *poof* fire trucks and trained firefighters and gear just magically appear. These things need to be paid for and maintained in advance. So they are there when you need them. If everyone waited for their homes to catch fire and then paid the fee, that would seriously muck up the system, wouldn’t it?

Now, I don’t for a minute think the fire department did the right thing here. Once Mr. Cranick said he’d “pay anything” they should have charged him double and some kind of extra service fee, got the cash upfront and then put out his house fire. Hopefully this would deter him and others like him from not having coverage.

Alternately, they could make having fire protection mandatory, like they’re doing with our health insurance coverage. Because if you make it optional and then people don’t have it when they need it and want it, they tend to whine a lot. People don’t like being forced to buy things, but Mr. Cranick might still have a house had he done so.

And then there’s this:

To give you an idea of just how intense the feelings got in this situation, soon after the fire department returned to the station, the Obion County Sheriff's Department said someone went there and assaulted one of the firefighters.

Well that’s lovely.

Look, people. Services don’t rain down out of the sky. There isn’t some great “fire protection” farm out there, just like there isn’t a “police protection tree” off in the hills. If you need the fire department or the police department, you have to pay for it. Here in Davidson County our property taxes pay for fire protection; rural areas operate a little differently but it’s the same principle.

As it happens, I know South Fulton fairly well. I used to live not too terribly far from there by rural Kentucky standards. It’s smack dab on the Tennessee-Kentucky state line, real boondocks country. We’re talking east of East Jesus. Other than some tiny little farm towns, there’s literally nothing but corn and soybean fields around there. There isn’t even a dang interstate for miles. You’re stuck in a vast expanse of farmland, and no fast way out.

This can have its charms, if you like this sort of thing; I’m not knocking it, I’m just saying, city services as we know them here in Nashville do not exist. I’m trying to be fair to Mr. Cranick; I can see how someone who lives out in the boonies like this might think fire protection is optional and perhaps not even very effective: by the time a fire truck arrives, your house might be completely gone anyway. But $75 doesn’t seem like too terribly much to pay just in case. And remember: your $75 pays to maintain a system that someone else will use.

I had to call the fire department once. It was around this time of year: fall, a breezy day, everything dry as straw. My neighbor’s lawn guy had something go wrong with the lawn mower and he was trying to fix it. Something happened and the mower coughed to life, tearing his thumb off and throwing sparks into the hedge separating our two houses. The hedge immediately caught fire. I happened to be outside at the time and heard the guy shout; I knew my hose wouldn’t reach and called 911. The fire department and ambulance came, put out the fire, found the guy’s thumb in the bushes, and packed him and his thumb off the hospital (by the way, can anyone tell me why whenever you call for an ambulance a fire truck automatically comes too?).

So as they were packing up I was chatting with one of the firefighters in my neighbor's driveway. This was right before the 2000 election and he pointed to my Gore/Lieberman campaign sign and joked, “now, if that sign was in front of this house I might not have stopped the truck!”

Ha ha that’s so fucking funny I almost forgot to laugh. Well, we see where that Bush era brand of tax cutting and Libertarian “government is the enemy” politics got us: cities like Colorado City, laying off firefighters, police officers, shutting libraries, etc.

Last week NPR talked about the national shuttering of fire stations because of budget cuts. This is irresponsible anywhere; in California -- wildfire country -- it’s insane. It's true that Gene Cranick chose not to have his fire protection, but aren't the people of these other communities really making the same choice, by not funding their fire departments? Of course they are.

This will break your heart:

That's just what led to a tragedy in San Diego earlier this summer, when relatives brought a choking 2-year-old to the fire station down their block. The station was closed that day for budget reasons. It took 9 1/2 minutes for a paramedic to arrive. The boy did not survive.

Since when did public safety become a luxury? I just don’t get it. Since when did people in San Jose or San Diego become like Tennessee’s Gene Cranick, deciding these services aren’t worth paying for until they need them?

I’m trying to get a handle on this idea that we don’t want to pay for crucial services that we aren’t personally using, like the fire department and police department or schools. Is it part of a growing national selfishness? Is it part of a national spirit or recklessness? Some delusional belief that bad stuff will never happen to us, and if it happens to someone else, so what?

I suspect it's something else. I think we've always had the "why should my money pay for so-and-so's X, Y or Z" crowd out there, but that argument used to be countered by sane people who could explain exactly why. Somehow there's a lack of rational voices stepping up at city council meetings and in the op-ed pages of their local newspaper to say hell no you can't cut the fire department budget, this stuff's important! Public safety matters! I mean how crazy is it that we've had nearly 10 years of constant fear porn about how the terrorists are wanting to kill us all yet from coast to coast we're slashing our first responders? Does this make sense to anyone?

It doesn't make sense to me.

First They Privatized The Prisons...

Holy crap, when the fuck did we start privatizing public libraries?

I had NO idea there was even a company in existence like Library Systems & Services Inc., let alone that they operated five public libraries in Tennessee. You can see the list here.

This is such a supremely bad idea on so many levels I don’t know where to start. Let’s start with my entire aversion to the concept of privatization, the idea that a for-profit company can somehow manage a public institution like a library better and cheaper when their entire raison d’etre is to make a fucking profit. I never understood the logic. They’ll just cut corners by paying employees less or doing a crappier job. I mean, that’s the point: to make a profit. Someone always gets screwed along the way, and usually it’s too late when we figure out it’s us.

Call me old-fashioned, call me a DFH with an inherent mistrust of Corporate America, call me a radical who thinks there are some things that some rich asshole shouldn’t skim a profit from, but I find myself having an allergic, visceral reaction to the entire idea of privatizing the public good. It makes me sick to my stomach to think we’ve so cheapened the idea of the commons that we’ll privatize the public library without batting an eyelash. Just like we’ve privatized prisons without batting an eyelash, and that's not just a disaster waiting to happen, it's a disaster for communities already, right now, today.

This is just ripe for abuse. Imagine if the Sage of Wasilla had a corporate CEO, not a city librarian, to approach about censoring library books? Wonder how that would have ended?

This is Banned Book Week and I have to say, beyond just worrying about some local puritan challenging the availability of “Heather Has Two Mommies” or the “Harry Potter” series at the local library, we need to worry about the more nefarious systemic changes that can slowly encroach on our intellectual freedom. And privatizing libraries is one of those changes.