Trying to make a square peg to the work of a round one

My first job was that of a cashier, and I worked at the local grocery chain from high school to summers halfway through college. It was a great first job. I remember during my last days on that job one of the older cashiers encouraged me to finish college and do well so I wouldn't be like her (I'm guessing she was in her late 40s) having to work that job. The job paid a few cents over minimum wage when I started and I kept getting small raises, I had no idea what my older co-worker was getting, but she'd been there longer that I, and worked more hours. I thought of that hearing a story on the radio about a planned march to make fast food and restaurant wages $12-15. The sympathetic subject presented was a single mother with 2 kids, living in an urban (read higher cost) area. The money from working part-time did not pay for all that she needed. The problem I saw was that she was trying to make a square peg to the work of a round peg, or a block do the work of a wheel, which won't get you far. I oppose raising the minimum wage. Not because I don't care about the poor, but because I do and I think the road to Hell is paved with good intentions. Raising the minimum wage gentrifies low skilled jobs. It will make our unemployment look like France's, lots of unemployed brown people getting pissed off. If employers have to pay more then they'll demand more, I've seen in in office jobs that don't need college degrees but for some stupid reason requests them. I see a future where people whe can get entry level jobs first have to have experience in unpaid volunteer work. Job gentrification. But back to square and round things. A minimum wage part time job was probably never ever meant to support more than one person who lives like a monk, much less a family. It is expecting a studio apartment to fit a family of four, it can be done, but it isn't the best. A minimum wage job should be just to people who need extra money are are just starting out or who cannot get any other employment. Why did society ever think that it was meant to do more than that? All jobs aren't equal and don't provide the same level of headache, compensation, joy, challenges, growth, enlightenment, opportunities, to all people. My current job does not give me a free, already cooked, baked 1/2 chicken, like my old part-time restaurant job. And that job was to do no more than suppliment my income until my bosses realized my position was unnecessary. The sqaure or block is the minimum wage job, part-time and fulltime, the wheel or round peg is the career level job that can support a family AND a 21st century lifestyle on a single income. I just thought of another analogy, horse vs car. Both can get you from point A to point B, but to attempt to get the horse to get you from DC to NY in 10 hours (by car it is 5-6 hours) will result in a very dead horse somewhere in PA or MD. Raising the minimum wage will result in the death of the easy to get entry level job and the gentrification of work.

Well that's stupid

I have a sense of how I got on a certain email list. I support a certain libertarian and I'm gun rights friendly* Republican. However, with that they should not assume Christianity. Yes, I am a Christian, but I can think of a non-Christian libertarian leaning gun-friendly person right now.
I got this email from a conservative mailing list, that normally I would have deleted without looking at it. Well I looked. And it's stupid. The main gist of the email is, "Stop Muslim Sharia and Foreign Law from enforcement in American courts by activist judges."
Apparently somewhere in Ohio some judge banned pork from a prison so everyone would eat, "muslim food." There is kosher, there is halal but no food can be Jewish or Muslim, any more than food can be Christian. Unless a peanut butter sandwich can give itself up to Jesus Christ.
I just unsubscribed. I still also get emails from the libertarian Republicans, so I'll still be aware of whatever the secular right wing of the party is getting its panties in a bunch about. I'll stick with any mailings (which right now are very few) from my Church to keep up with issues of religious freedom.

*I do believe in some limits and that people shouldn't be stupid with guns. Like with cars. And like with cars, but more so, you should have the right to own and practice with a firearm and other defensive items.

Still Catholic and Republican

I'll be happy when the primary rolls around so I can vote for a guy who has a snowball's chance in Hell of winning the nomination. I am going to buy into the notion that my vote on national matters don't mean a hill of beans, all politics is local, which has it's level of crazy. But it is local so there is a chance of confronting my local Councilman, in person.
Today, after a nice nap we went to church and engaged in the low impact aerobics that is Mass. The priest is still male and  I'm pretty okay with that. If female priestly leadership was ever a main concern of mine, then I would have remained in the Episcopal church. But I found I really like a male presence in the church and my criticisms of the Help's conservative PCA church is the music can be too feminine. The male leadership is one of the few things keeping it from breaking out in to all out girlishness. Those praise songs are sung in a key that is too high. First it starts out with the girlie music and then before you know it you'll have church dancing and an overwhelming female congregation and female leadership. Okay, I'm making that up, I just despise the praise songs.
On the radio and other media the Left is claiming women will leave the church and the Republican party. Nope. No plans on leaving. I left the party once, mainly because it was on a RHINO witch hunt and you know, I didn't need that crap. This, some radio loudmouth and Republican candidates supporting "traditional family" (soon you're gonna tell me the Pope is Catholic) does not shake my preference for the GOP. Not leaving the Holy Roman Catholic Church anytime soon either. Of course if Fr. Watkins starts giving long and mind-numbing homilies I might start shopping around for another Roman Catholic Church.
I like CS Lewis' the Great Divorce and listen to the audiobook often. In Lewis' Heaven, there are no 'rights'. We do not have a right to anything the Lord grants us. Heaven is not a democracy and the Triune G-d is not elected by the citizens. There is no difference between Greek or Jew, slave or free, male or female, but I don't think this means "equality" as we have been defining it. It doesn't mean we're interchangeable. It means, to me, that it does not make a difference in his love for us. His love is for all.

Yea South Carolina.

I was very eager last night to hear what the results of the South Carolina race because of two Republican candidates Nikki Haley and Tim Scott, but mainly Nikki Haley. Why? Because they are both people of color, tea party supported (okay TP split over Scott)and Southern. I’m excited about them because their existence denounces the outdated narrative about the South and the Republican party. I’ll be the first to tell you that the Republican party is completely tone deaf when it comes to racial sensitivities. Totally tone deaf and clueless and at points racially insensitive. Being all kumbaya about race was never and still isn’t the GOP’s shtick. And despite this there is a place for people of color and women in leadership and the ranks of the party.
Now myself being a registered Republican in the District of Columbia my vote most of the time counts for jack. This city is over 80% Democrat. The Democratic primary usually chooses the mayor and most of the city council. Because the city is so overwhelmingly Democratic I don’t believe we’ll ever get voting rights. In a GOP lead administration there is no chance of voting rights because the city is overwhelmingly of the opposing party and would only produce (D-DC) congressmembers. In Democratic administration at some point it dawns on them that they really don’t need to try that hard because succeed or fail DC is their bitch, their political booty call.
But back to SC. Yea! Especially for Nikki Haley, the female Methodist Bobby Jindal provided she makes it to win the race in November. Imagine another Southern state electing an Indian-American. I’m glad she survived the stupid whisper campaigns regarding her martial fidelity and her faith. I mean come on! If she has family who are Sikhs at some point she’s gonna wind up in a Sikh temple. I mean I’m no longer Baptist but there is a fair chance I’ll be sitting in a pew at a Baptist Church in the next year or two because of my aunts, my parents, my nieces, or any other random relative for a funeral or wedding or other church sponsored event. So the idea that she might not be a ‘real’ Christian because she has been to a Sikh temple since her conversion is stupid.

Pina Coladas and Presidental Speeches don't mix.

I made a drinking game of the State of the Union address. The drinking was to occur if he said the words, "let me be clear" or "fight" and when the Democrats gave a standing ovation. It was all the friggin standing oviations that did me in, and the fact he went past 10pm. I quit at about 10:10 as I had by then consumed a pina colada and a freshly squeezed greyhound. I have a two drink maximum.

Left & Right together

I keep a Wendell Berry poem at my desk with one particular line highlighted, "Be joyful, though you have considered all the facts." As far as I know Mr. Berry is on the Left politically, and a Christian.
I have also been obsessed with a neighbor's father, Raymond Bakke, from whose biography and lectures I have consumed started off Lutheran and became a Baptist minister. He also comes across as slightly politically liberal, in the demands of government money for the poor. But a lot of what he says about the urban church I agree with, for my own conservative reasons, such as programs and missions by the church should primarily be supported by the home church and not some outside entity.
There are hints that I do appriecate the political diversity of the Roman Catholic Church, though it is not all sunshine and roses. I find that the office of the Pope and the heiracrchy helpful in that the Church is not too apt to sway with the secular or other short term trends. So our sisters and brothers on the left do share communion with us and let their grievances be known, with out endangering the body of the Church. Unlike say, Protestant branches that break off and split, some easily, some with great and long pain and suffering, along secular party lines. There is a liberal strain of Catholic thought, pro-union and anti-loan (with calls to forgive national debit of 3rd world nations), that I don't agree with, but I see how a very liberal interpretation of the gospels can lead you that way.
Listening to some left leaning Christians, I do look for the centrality of Christ, and when finding him there, I'm set at ease and willing to hear the rest. Unfortnately, I've heard too many for whom the secular politics are a greater saviour. It is Christ who binds us, and as long as he is central left and right may come together.

Big Tent of Conservatism

Had a lovely chat with Norma Bombay about various topics, one being the Republican Party. She suggested the party splitting, I disagreed. Yes, you have your Pentacostal bible thumpers on one side and your green shade fiscal conservatives on the other, but the two aren't divorcing anytime soon. Fighting, yes, spliting, no.
For one, whoever leaves gets turned into a meaningless 3rd party. Oh wait, there is a meaningless 3rd party. No need to create one. Sadly, that party's candidates won ziltch in DC, but did gain/keep some posts in Central and South Florida. Maybe I should be more fiscally supportive of the DC Libertarians....
Also it's not like the bible thumpers don't care about fiscally responsible government, lower taxes and the like. They do. As well as others between the thumpers and the green shades.

Don't Loan Money to My Sister

I'm still opposed to the bailout/rescue whatever because it still wants to keep credit available to people like my sister. I love my sister, but she's broke, and to loan her money will only make her broker.
Giving my sister more credit, so she can have credit debit does not make her rich. My sister has bad credit. Credit so bad I had one of her collectors call my house. I was so pissed at this I called mom.
But I know, even with sis' bad, bad credit, someone wants to loan her money. And when she fails to pay them, they get what they deserve, nothing and a bunch of unanswered phone calls. And we're in this mess because banks and others kept lending money to people like my sister.

On a side note my roommate said that it was a small but local minority against the package and he didn't know anyone against it. I'm against it. But I didn't call my Rep. because I have no vote in Congress. But you know, I think we all hang out in our own little echo chambers, sticking with like minded people, drowning out or silencing opposing views. This is worrisome for information gathering. Who's going to win the election Who knows? People who dislike Obama for non-socially accepted reasons, won't say. They'll say what they think you want to hear and do their own thing.

Diversity among Women

Sort of like diversity among blacks and diversity of [insert name of ethnic/gender/affinity group here]. Not one size fits all, not all marching to the same beat. Maybe some more marching to a particular beat than others, but not all are the same.
The whole Palin thing has made me more at peace with whatever happens in the Presidential race, but the Palin thing has also revealed something that needs revealing, diversity among women.
For simplicity's sake I'm making up two camps. Women who dislike/hate/ revile Palin vs women who like/ love/are over-joyed with Palin. From one side, which tends to fall on that of the Left. And from what I have read, the find Ms. Palin to be an insulting choice or unqualified, or a hypocrite (bc of her daughter), a zealot, a liar (valid point on the bridge thing), or any mix of the above. Women on the Right love the fact that she's a working mother, pro-life, Christian (well pro-religion), working class, and a woman. I like her, thus the comfort, though I'm still voting for Obama (I have no good reason 'cept for race), is because she is a woman whose conservatism helps me feel better than my own.
Anyway, the diversity of women pundits and commenters and whomever with a keyboard has revealed a wide range of thought regarding Palin. My favorite on the left is the comment that Palin is not a woman or as the Div. Prof said, "Her greatest hypocrisy is in her pretense that she is a woman." And there are several other comments on the left that she is bad for women. But who are women?
Yeah, I know, critters with boobs and a zillion dress sizes that don't match (what is a size 12 these days). But the problem is we women don't all feel the same about the various political issues. There are pro-choice women and pro-life women. There are women who hate guns, and pro-gun women. There are women for Canadian/UK style healthcare and women, like myself, who are a bit suspicious of government run healthcare. So I am taken aback or offended at times when the diversity of women's views and positions are not acknowledged.
One last thing, I [heart] Camille Pagila. Why? Because she wrote:

In terms of redefining the persona for female authority and leadership, Palin has made the biggest step forward in feminism since Madonna channeled the dominatrix persona of high-glam Marlene Dietrich and rammed pro-sex, pro-beauty feminism down the throats of the prissy, victim-mongering, philistine feminist establishment.

She made a Palin, Madonna, Dietrich cocktail, and my it is yummy. But then again Madonna and Dietrich tend to be the vodka and rum of many of her concoctions.

No matter who gets to be president I win

When McCain announced his running mate of a little unknown woman governor from a state I may never visit, my first though he had lost his cotton pickin mind. But then, letting it sink in I started grooving on the idea. Mainly because if I don't get my black President, I get the consolation prize of a woman 1 heart attack, or Alzheimer's spell (or other health ailment common for a man over 70) away from the presidency. I will join packs of citizens to yell BOO! and surprise McCain to startle him or strongly suggest that he really eat that chili cheese dog fried in lard. Not that I dislike him. No I really like him, but, you know....
I'm still voting for Obama. Because of the Black thing, which is stronger right now than the conservative thing. And that does sadden me, as it reveals that I'm a crappy conservative. But I have a rationalization in that a Black president would hopefully shut up those who share my ethnicity who are stuck in the victimhood mindset. Second, Obama is courting those who proclaim their faith and that's something I'd like to encourage and see more of from the Left. As opposed to the anti-Christian rhetoric that deems anyone who believes as a fool.
So no matter who wins the White House, I'm happy. Thanks Mr. McCain.