I just came back from getting a therapeutic massage (because I couldn’t really move) and when I was done, the receptionist told me someone had paid for me.
I asked the two friends who knew I was going there today, and they both say they had nothing to do with it. Hmmm. Random karma? Early birthday gift?
It’s been a long time since it happened, but I can tell you this much: None of the local reporters I knew ever believed Mumia was innocent of the shooting of Daniel Faulkner. Not one. (Now, there are the kind of reporters who believe everything a cop tells them, but they were never the kind of people I was friendly with.)
Reporters gossip. But I never heard one inkling, one rumor, anywhere, that Mumia was framed.
What I did hear was that the local chapter of Amnesty International was pretty pissed off when the international organization declared Mumia a political prisoner, and filed a protest. Because they didn’t believe he was framed, either.
Now, keep in mind there’s a culture of police brutality in Philadelphia. And there were plenty of irregularities with the evidence in Mumia’s trial, but here’s the thing: Those irregularities are common in Philadelphia trials. Activists want to make them more meaningful then they might have been, I think.
Did cops lie, or fabricate evidence? From what I know of cops, it’s almost a given. I mean, we’re talking about a dead cop here. But does that mean Mumia is innocent? One thing doesn’t equate to the other.
I always found it significant that I’ve never seen any public interest in this case from indigenous black Philadelphians (or white ones, for that matter). The black community is not known to be shy about this stuff, so why the silence? Maybe they know something we don’t.
In any event, I wasn’t there that night and I have no way of knowing for sure that Mumia Abu-Jamal shot Officer Daniel Faulkner. But neither do any of the people who are defending Mumia.
I have an appointment to see a chiropractor tomorrow, which gives you some idea how badly I hurt. I haven’t seen one in over ten years, after this one guy created some nerve root damage that caused severe pain for a long, long time. What a pain in the ass that was.
But I can feel that my upper spine is twisted out of shape, so there you have it.
I’ll probably have to see the acupuncturist, too. Oh, joy.
Looks like the mortgage bastards are getting tripped up by their own law-breaking…
Gives new meaning to the term “living paycheck to paycheck,” doesn’t it?
Now that the “recovery” is well underway, a post at the Wall Street Journal‘s Real-Time Economics blog, “Watching Wal-Mart at Midnight,” suggests that a growing number of Americans are having to cope with an even more depressing reality:
Bill Simon, CEO of Wal-Mart’s U.S. business, at a Goldman Sachs conference last week, on behavior at a Walmart store around midnight at the end of a month:
“The paycheck cycle we’ve talked about before remains extreme. It is our responsibility to figure out how to sell in that environment, adjusting pack sizes, large pack at sizes the beginning of the month, small pack sizes at the end of the month. And to figure out how to deal with what is an ever-increasing amount of transactions being paid for with government assistance.
“And you need not go further than one of our stores on midnight at the end of the month. And it’s real interesting to watch, about 11 p.m., customers start to come in and shop, fill their grocery basket with basic items, baby formula, milk, bread, eggs,and continue to shop and mill about the store until midnight, when electronic — government electronic benefits cards get activated and then the checkout starts and occurs. And our sales for those first few hours on the first of the month are substantially and significantly higher.
“And if you really think about it, the only reason somebody gets out in the middle of the night and buys baby formula is that they need it, and they’ve been waiting for it. Otherwise, we are open 24 hours — come at 5 a.m., come at 7 a.m., come at 10 a.m. But if you are there at midnight, you are there for a reason.”
Looks like a documentary everyone should see.
Oh look, turns out this global warming thing really is unprecedented! But have you heard that Obama is a Kenyan?
I didn’t think that would be so, but this article makes a good case for it.
Late last night, I slipped on something (I think it was a copy of Rolling Stone), skidded a few feet and fell into a cast-iron radiator — and I have to say, I feel like I was hit by a truck. I think it’s gonna take a while to feel normal again.
You know, I don’t put a lot of effort into certain stories because 1. I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know and 2. facts don’t really have anything to do with it. These people want to believe that if you’re unemployed, you’re just lazy. They don’t care that there’s more people seeking jobs than jobs available — it would require them to rethink some of the things they believe, and they’re not about to do that.
In July, as Congress debated extending emergency jobless benefits, an economist from the conservative Heritage Foundation said on PBS’ “NewsHour” that increasing unemployment insurance payments to 99 weeks — the maximum now available — had “created a bit of a problem.” Giving help for extended periods, said William Beach, “changes the behavior of the people who are unemployed. They don’t look for work as much as they otherwise would.”
In an opinion piece on the Fox News website, economist John Lott wrote that the unprecedented length of today’s unemployment benefits “is almost like a drug addiction.”
Advocates for workers, and the unemployed themselves, are pushing back. Last week, a Facebook group called Extend Unemployment Benefits, with nearly 4,000 members, received a flurry of attention. It is devoted to lobbying for a bill introduced by Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) that would create a new tier of jobless benefits for those who have exhausted their unemployment insurance.
Pointedly called the Americans Who Want to Work Act, the bill would provide an additional 20 weeks of financial assistance. Unemployment compensation is funded by taxes paid by employers, not by workers. The average weekly check is about $300.
Dave Yocom, a 60-year-old college graduate, has been unemployed since 2008. After recovering from a stroke at 54 that wiped out his savings, he left the high- stress restaurant business and went to work for a construction company that repaired residential fire and water damage. He said he is insulted by the idea that receiving about $400 a week in unemployment diminished his desire to find work, or that it was comparable to drug addiction.
Critics of unemployment, he said, “are either incredibly naive or they … have quite the opinion of themselves if they think it can’t happen to them.”
Since losing his job, Yocom estimated, he has sent out 50 resumes a week. He said he has received no job offers. He believes that his age is his biggest impediment. That and his ruined credit score, which prospective employers often check.
His 99 weeks of unemployment insurance ran out in April. He receives food stamps and lives in his sister’s home in suburban Chicago. His sister, unemployed as well, will receive jobless benefits through November. After that, Yocom said, he’s not sure how they will make ends meet.
James Sherk, senior policy analyst in labor economics at the Heritage Foundation, agreed that workers like Yocom are in terrible straits, but said that such suffering does not change the fact that unemployment benefits lead recipients to have unrealistic expectations — particularly in hard-hit industries such as construction or automobile manufacturing.
“Encouraging someone to look for a job that is not going to return is not ultimately helpful to them,” Sherk said. “If you have two years of benefits, it’s natural to spend the first six months looking for the same job you had. Some will find jobs, but the vast majority won’t, and they have become less productive employees because their job skills are deteriorating.”
But Christine Owens, executive director of the National Employment Law Project, an advocate for workers and the unemployed, said the point of unemployment insurance is to provide a cushion that might protect against downward mobility.
“There’s nothing wrong with the idea that unemployment benefits would actually enable someone to spend a little more time looking for an appropriate job — or, for that matter, spending time in job training,” Owens said. “You want people to improve their skills and find a better job.”
In the current job market, there are nearly five unemployed people for every job, according to the Economic Policy Institute, a pro-labor think tank. That alone, Owens said, means that most unemployed workers are out of luck, no matter how much they yearn for a paycheck.
