Why poor people stay poor

June 1, 2015May 31, 2015 ~ susie ~ 2 Comments

I’m sure more than a few of us can relate, yes?

I once lost a whole truck over a few hundred bucks. It had been towed, and when I called the company they told me they’d need a few hundred dollars for the fee. I didn’t have a few hundred dollars. So I told them when I got paid next and that I’d call back then.

It was a huge pain in the ass for those days. It was the rainy season, and I wound up walking to work, adding another six miles or so a day to my imaginary pedometer. It was my own fault that I’d been towed, really, and I spent more than a couple hours ruing myself. I finally made it to payday, and when I went to get the truck, they told me that I now owed over a thousand dollars, nearly triple my paycheck. They charged a couple hundred dollars a day in storage fees. I explained that I didn’t have that kind of money, couldn’t even get it. They told me that I had some few months to get it together, including the storage for however long it took me to get it back, or that they’d simply sell it. They would, of course, give me any money above and beyond their fees if they recovered that much.

I was working two jobs at the time. Both were part time. Neither paid a hundred bucks a day, much less two.

Anything can make you lose your apartment, because any unexpected problem can set off that Rube Goldberg device.
I wound up losing my jobs. So did my husband. We couldn’t get from point A to point B quickly enough, and we showed up to work, late, either soaked to the skin or sweating like pigs one too many times. And with no work, we wound up losing our apartment.

It’s amazing what things that are absolute crises for me are simple annoyances for people with money. Anything can make you lose your apartment, because any unexpected problem that pops up, like they do, can set off that Rube Goldberg device.

It’s a traumatic story and I don’t want to relive it in any detail, but a couple of weeks ago, my car got towed. Illegally. I finally got it back several hours later, but if not for the help of a friendly cop, I would have had to cough up $250 to get my car back. Which was not as bad as my car being stolen – the very thought had me gasping for breath. I’ve taken such good care of this car — how on earth could I afford another one that’s in as good a condition as this one? Thankfully, I didn’t have to.

But I’m always in the shadow. You know?

Record heat hits Alaska

June 1, 2015May 31, 2015 ~ susie ~ 1 Comment

Alaska, usually frozen until June, has recently been experiencing something of a heatwave. Long-held temperature records have been broken and the winter roads that are made entirely of ice, are melting earlier than usual. On Saturday, Alaska, the 49th state of the US, was warmer than Arizona. To get this into some perspective, the Arctic Circle… Continue reading “Record heat hits Alaska” →

Blowback

June 1, 2015May 31, 2015 ~ susie ~ 2 Comments

A lot of things are strongly suggestive of the Boston Marathon bombers being under the wing of someone working for the feds. They’ll never admit it, because of what happened, but this is exactly the kind of shit they stir up with this stuff.

Should psychedelic drugs be legally reclassified?

June 1, 2015May 31, 2015 ~ susie ~ 1 Comment

When you think of psychedelic drugs, you might imagine a colorful 1960s scene, when LSD and mushrooms were wildly popular among musicians and artists. But scientists have found ways to extract certain compounds from shrooms, acid, and other psychedelics to the benefit of people suffering from depression, anxiety, and even PTSD. A stigma around psychedelic drugs… Continue reading “Should psychedelic drugs be legally reclassified?” →

Turning out for Bernie

June 1, 2015May 31, 2015 ~ susie ~ 1 Comment

He’s getting some really big crowds!

An overflow crowd converged in south Minneapolis to hear from Bernie Sanders, the U.S. senator from Vermont who is running for the Democratic nomination for president.

The line snaked for some time outside the American Indian Center on E. Franklin Avenue for the town hall meeting, which began about 10 a.m. Attendees were standing inside and others were left to wait outside.

“If I’m elected president, you’re going to start paying your fair share of taxes,” Sanders said in a message to the richest of Americans.

He won applause repeatedly for his various proposals to make college education in the United States more affordable, including lowering the interest rate on student loans.

Sanders, in his roughly 45-minute speech to supporters, also called for universal pre-K in the United States, a proposal that Minnesota Gov. Mark Dayton has been pushing amid stiff resistance in the most recent legislative session.

After ticking off changes he’d like to see in the nation’s social and political order concerning issues such as income inequality, campaign finance and hunger in America, Sanders said, “When we stand together, there are a heck of a lot more of us than them.”

Christopher Krauss of Rochester waved an American Flag during a rally for Sen. Bernie Sanders at the American Indian Center Sunday May 31, 2015 in Minneapolis, MN.

Christopher Krauss of Rochester waved an American Flag during a rally for Sen. Bernie Sanders at the American Indian Center Sunday May 31, 2015 in Minneapolis, MN.
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Jacob Rudy, of Minneapolis, showed up and said he “was quite surprised” by what he considered a large turnout for Sanders, the former the socialist mayor of Burlington, Vt., who is seeking to topple Hillary Rodham Clinton from the top of the nomination speculation scorecard.

More than 3,300 people had signed up to attend as of Sunday morning.