A Critical Eye on the Causes of U.S. Kid Homelessness

            The National Center on Family Homelessness released some shocking statistics based on federal data this week—1 in 30 children in America is homeless, 2.5 million kids—1/5 of them in California.

            NCFH blamed 1) the high poverty rate, 2) lack of affordable housing, and 3) the lingering effects of the “Great Recession,” but left out some of the real reasons: i.e. indigent immigrants.

As the President is about to legitimatize a great raft of people who have come here to have kids (over the border or with legit-now-expired-visas for purpose of obtaining citizenship) it is not cool to mention this. I.e. A Korean kid who can’t go to college, we heard boo-hooing last evening,

A couple of other major contributing factors, one alluded to in No. 2 of NCFH official reasons is the “Great Bank Bailout.” The government saw fit to bail out the very people who caused the “Great Recession,” but left many middle class homeowners blowing in the wind, and as know, the 1% is thriving, the American Middle Class is dwindling.

Marketplace, a financial program got closest to another real reason: They pointed out that two parents would each have to earn $28 an hour to afford the average 2-bdrm apt. in California and minimum wage is a fraction of that. The commentator concluded “Childhood homelessness needs to be a priority.” Does that mean that what’s left of the Middle Class has to fix it?  Or that we are finally going to hold the people who created the problem responsible?

That I don’t know. What I do know is you need a Critical Eye to listen to the news!

History Halloween Hoot

     A year ago August, I thought it would be a hoot to dress up in a hoop skirt on Halloween, go up to the East Side School and tell the kids the story of John Yates Beall, Cascade's "spy." (Always spooked us!) In the early 1950s East Side of Cascade kids attended kindergarten in the old Chew mansion, where the school sits now. All of us knew about the "spy" blood upstairs.
     Beyond "spy" blood, (almost assuredly NOT ) we knew nothing--even Beall's name. So, I beat a path to the Museum. Father Loras Otting, who had done extensive research, then developed health problems had donated his work to Tri-County, and I spent several afternoons surveying it. (Thanks Fr. Otting, Bob Takes, and Paul Neiers!)
     The previous principal who initially appeared very excited by my Halloween plan to entertain with history in costume, rejected the story as too sad for grade schoolers. (She then scheduled Ronald McDonald to talk about fairness, responsibility, etc. Yeah! Ronnie knows about that stuff--McDo pays workers minimum wage they can't live on!)
     By then, however, I had become fascinated by Beall's story. Too, documents  had come online including Beall's "memoir," an assemblage of his jail diary and transcript of his military trial ("Guilty"), put together by his best childhood friend,  Daniel Lucas, then a successful Virginia lawyer. I spent the winter immersed in them and this summer finished an 16-page monologue of Margaret Chew telling Beall's story.
    This is not only our history, but Iowa history, and I believe producing the monologue with pix and music in the Ellen Kennedy Center next summer, which is the 150th Anniversary of both the end of the Civil War and the death of John Yates Beall will be the gift of history to the whole state.

Plus, this will allow us to view it with a critical eye sharped by time.

Elections, Cartoon women, 3rd World Countries, et al.

     The cruelest irony off all has to be that a woman-aping-a-guy-with-guns will be the first congressman from Iowa. I know I speak for a lot of women when I say:  Most of us would rather line up with the disgraceful likes of Mississippi, or Alabama, never having sent a woman to congress, than a bogus cartoon joke of one like Joni Ernst.
     The election also means that the slow, steady erosion of the American middle class that has gone on for 30 years will continue unabated. I am fully confident that before I leave this earth, the American nation will be 3rd World country with a fabulously wealthy 1% living in gated communities with their own pools, theaters, parks and armies.
     Wall Street has long since recovered (5 years ago), but ordinary people have not, will not and no effort will be expended to help them despite the amount of taxpayer $ to bail out the banks and the quantitative easing, which has been a direct gift to Wall Street.
     Conservatives in Sheep Fleece like the Clintons have exacerbated the demise of the American Middle Class, so expect those graphs that chart the eventual disappearance of the American Middle class to make another sharp dip downward.

And it doesn't take much of a critical eye to see why.

One Painful Moral Decision

 Last month, a book with boring cover but an inspiring story called Against Football—One Fan’s Reluctant Manifesto was published by Melville Press. The writer, a man named Steve Almond who, though he adores football, considers the facts and makes a painful decision: to quit following it.

Almond describes his love for the complexity and sophistication of the game, but acknowledges its overt racism—most players are black; most viewers white—violence, taxpayer rip-offs, and basic dishonesty: the NFL is a non-profit like the Red Cross, Cancer Society, ballet or symphony!

No matter what scandal football generates—players beating their wives in public, raping co-eds in private, pay-offs, dog fighting, concussions, high school footballers sexually abusing younger players, or college ones getting grades they don’t earn—Americans keep watching.

About all Almond doesn’t see is how American football looks from outside the U.S. Around the world football confirms our status as a brutally violent nation. It may be only a game, yet it defines us in foreign eyes. Even women are fans.

 The final assessment that forces Almond’s decision is that football is immoral. Wow! Then why don’t religions speak out against it? Well, religions have far more in common with corporations: building churches, schools, and most of all, donation bases.

I don’t care what the Supreme Court says; it takes a person to make a moral decision. There are moral people in religions, but the reaction to clergy abuse here and abroad is abundant proof a corporation will do what is in its best interest.

As of a gesture respect to a genuine Critical Eye, I am donating my copy of Almond’s remarkable book to the Cascade Public library, so anyone can witness a moral person making a painful, moral decision.

Looking the Gift Gods in the Mouth

What a place we Inhabit! A spectacular view from Sixth St. going up the hill looking northeast to lower Claddagh Court.

In a neighbor's back yard.

This time of year it is we must sympathize with folks in warmer climes who are not regaled by such grand visions of red and oranges wherever they glance. Indian Summer with its sunny days and moderate temps so vibrant and abundantly alive with color seems a direct gift from the gods.  It may portend winter, but one should not look the gift-gods in the mouth!

 Simply get a critical eye full!!!

American Boots on Ebola Ground

    Sounds like Mr. Obama plans to send 4,000 American soldiers to Africa to build Ebola infrastructure--insolation and contamination units and other structures needed to fight the epidemic. Before doing so, I think he should have a look at a History book and see which countries benefitted from that continent and, therefore, are more obliged to put back.
     Botswana, Kenya, Nigeria, Namibia, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe are all English speaking countries because Britain had colonies there and sucked plenty of wealth out of them.  Likewise, Benin, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Central African Republic, Chad, Cote d'Ivoire (Ivory Coast) Guinea, Gabon, Mali, Rwanda, Tunisia, Senegal, and the Seychelles speak French for roughly the same reason. Ever hear of the Belgian Congo? Ditto. Portugal and Holland were likewise involved. Currently, China is having a field day in Africa, extracting resources that no longer has in its own country.
      Nobody would be so naïve as to suggest that the U.S. never got anything out of the African continent: American oil companies have certainly sucked their share out of the Nigerian soil. American slaves were largely from West Africa, so we must count that. It is not the Euros have never put anything back either--Medicines sans Frontieres (Doctors without Borders) is famous world wide, and has even worked here.
      It is only to suggest that, as I pointed out yesterday, the European democracies have far healthier middle classes and can afford this better than we can. In addition, they have an historical obligation.

Critical Eye believes they should honor it.
     

Cheapest of Cheap Shots

Heard downtown yesterday that I have been branded a racist on Facebook. Copious thanks to my defenders anyway. Everybody, including the editor of the Cascade Pioneer, needs to consider my objections in light of the fate of the American Middle Class, which has steadily dwindled until now most of the developed world is better off.  

The reasons can’t all be listed here, so check out http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com for 44 indicators of Mid-class demise. Even the places we once shopped—Sears and Penny’s—are downsizing. I criticize dollar stores and their shabby Chinese-made merchandize going great guns and filling up our landfills. So I suppose that makes me a racist against the Chinese and American bizmen.

Whatever.

I spent almost 5 years in Germany and considered immigrating to that country. I know what would happen if you walked into a German government office and didn’t conduct your business in Deutsch: they would laugh right out. Call up any U.S. government office and you will get the “dos” option, Spanish. I spoke it on the street when I lived in Mexico City for three months. If being outraged that Mexicans are here for years without learning English, makes me a racist, then I guess I am a racist.

If having adopted a protective attitude toward my own culture and its institutions like the library and objecting to misuse of them, makes me a racist in spite of the fact that I am respectful and sympathetic to Mexicans, (been there, done the immigrant thing) then again I am guilty as charged—a racist.

Perhaps because we, White European Americans, displaced the Native American culture that was here, we don’t think it is there is anything wrong with another culture destroying what we have. Perhaps anything beyond our sacred cows—football and rock & roll--doesn’t count as culture. Critical Eye begs to differ that questioning these things in public makes me a racist. Perhaps it just makes people who won't, cowards.