Declining wages? Yep

~ susie ~ 2 Comments

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Is this a secret? This so-called “recovery” is fake, just like extend-and-pretend policies Obama approved for the banks. If the banks had been held accountable and cleaned up, we’d have a real recovery by now:

Think your money’s not going very far this year? It’s not your imagination. According to new research by the Economic Policy Institute, real hourly wages declined for almost everybody in the U.S. workforce in the first half of 2014. Thanks, so-called recovery.

Economist Elise Gould pored over data from the government’s Current Population Survey and determined that workers at the 20th, 30th, 40th, 50th, 60th, 70th, 80th, 90th, and 95th percentiles all saw declines in their real wages in the first half of 2014 compared with the same period last year. This was true whether you had no high school degree, a high school diploma, some college, a college degree, or an advanced degree. In fact, people with advanced degrees saw the biggest drop (2.7 percent).

EPI reveals this isn’t just a blip. Real wages dropped 4.9 percent for workers with a high school degree and 2.5 percent for workers with a college degree from the first half of 2007 to the first half of this year.

Gould explains in the report that “the last year has been a poor one for American workers’ wages.” She states that “on the whole, the broad wage trends by education level over the last decade and a half make clear that wage inequality cannot be readily explained by stories about educational credentials and technology; wage inequality has increased steadily, yet even those with a college diploma or advanced degree have experienced lackluster wage growth.”

Mohammed is 14

~ susie ~ 2 Comments

mohammedgaza

He has been in intensive care for three weeks and lost 12 members of his family in the Rafah bombing in Gaza. Now he dreams of the day he can have artificial legs. Look at this half-starved kid smile, it just breaks my heart.

Please give to one of these Gaza relief organizations, as much as you can spare:

UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Works Organization for Palestine Refugees in the Near East) is the UN organization that runs those schools that the Israeli’s keep shelling, most recently two days ago when ten people were killed and many wounded, prompting U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to call it “a moral outrage and a criminal act.” UNRWA staff have been among the victims of this and other violence. Global News reports that the staff of UNRWA, which runs 82 schools and provides food, shelter to over 200,000 displaced Palestinians, are at a “breaking point” trying to deal with this humanitarian crisis. Tax deductible donations in the US can be made through US Friends of UNRWA, a 501(c)(3) .

For those who prefer to donate through a somewhat smaller organization,
The Jerusalem Fund is a Washington based 501(c)(3) that does cultural, educational and humanitarian work on behalf of Palestinians in particular those living in the Occupied Territories and surrounding refugee camps. Its “Humanitarian Link” gives small grants to needy hospitals, schools, orphanages and human rights groups. Its Emergency Gaza Appeal promises that 100% of donations to this appeal will be earmarked for humanitarian relief and rebuilding in Gaza.

Another smaller but effective organization, Middle East Children’s Alliance (MECA) is a US-based non-profit humanitarian aid organization that has delivered millions of dollars in food, medicine and medical supplies to children in the West Bank and Gaza, Iraq and Lebanon. According to its web site, MECA provides financial assistance for community projects in the West Bank and Gaza such as sports teams, arts programs, English classes, computer technology, media training, playgrounds and psychosocial support. MECA is currently seeking emergency aid for children in Gaza– food, milk, medicine.

The Palestine Children’s Relief Fund has an urgent Gaza fund. “PCRF is responding to this ongoing crisis by identifying injured kids and providing them with critical medical care, as well as providing poor, displaced families with the urgent humanitarian aid that is needed.” Writes one donor on the site: “I hope this sand grain will be useful, somehow…”

Three other larger organizations that do critical work on behalf of the Palestinians are: Save the Children-Gaza Children in Crisis; Medecins sans Frontieres (call 1-888-392-0392 to earmark your gift to their Gaza relief efforts which appear to be mostly in the important area of trauma counseling); the Palestinian Red Crescent Society (International Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies); and CARE (West Bank/Gaza crisis).

A website called Gaza Siege lists these and other organizations that work in Gaza and seems very comprehensive both in terms of the relief organizations it lists as well as background and current information and reports.

Update: Since the August 5th posting of “Where You Can Donate to Help Gaza”, readers have identified a number of other organizations working to provide relief in Gaza, all of which really need support at this time of such unimaginable suffering at the hands of the Israelis: Medical Aid For Palestinians, a UK based organization;  Catholic Relief Services , a 501(c)(3) which allows for earmarking donations to Gaza as a “special request” on its web site; ANERA (American Near East Refugee Aid), a 501(c)(3) operating since 1968 with over 80 full time staff operating in Gaza, the West Bank and Lebanon; United Palestinian Appeal, a 501(c)(3); Islamic Relief USA, a 501(c)(3); and the Gaza Mental Health Foundation, a 501(c)(3) (contributions by check only/no credit cards).

Second Avenue

~ susie ~ 3 Comments

Tim Moore was a Tyler art school grad who played the drums in Woody’s Truck Stop (which included Todd Rundgren). I saw them at the Trauma a couple of times, but I never met him. We did seem to know a lot of the same people. And this song was always in the background, somehow. I was performing in a weekly cabaret on Penn campus, and I had a secret crush on my jazz pianist/accompanist, who ended up dropping out and moving to Boston. He called me and told me to come on up, we could get plenty of work, but when I told my then-boyfriend I wanted to go, he proposed to me instead and I didn’t know how to turn him down. Forty years later, I’m turning 60 and haven’t really accomplished any of my dreams. Christ, that’s depressing.

Happiness is a warm gun

~ susie ~ 1 Comment

leslienielsen

What would Emily Post do? Why, she’d pull out her Kel-Tec P-11 and peel off a warning shot, of course! Because a tender moment between man and hooker deserves privacy, and an armed society is a polite society, amirite?

AUGUST 27–A tuxedoed Seattle man was arrested early yesterday after he fired a gun at a couple who accidentally interrupted him while he was being pleasured by a woman in an alcove in the city’s nightlife district, cops report.

The couple told cops that they were walking on a downtown street after 2 AM when they happened upon Paul Hunter, 64, receiving oral sex from a woman. After being spotted by the duo, the woman “immediately left,” according to a Seattle Police Department report.

Hunter, police report, “got angry and started walking away northbound.” But after about half-a-block, he “turned around, pointed his gun at them” and fired a shot at the couple. “I’m going to kill you,” Hunter said, according to the victims.

[…] A witness who lives near the alcove where Hunter was interrupted, said that he heard Hunter yelling at his female companion prior to the shooting. Cops noted that the witness recalled Hunter saying that he “had given the woman money and was angry at not getting anything in return. He heard them continue to talk about stepping into the alcove to finish things.”

The witness told investigators that while Hunter and the unidentified woman “were standing there, the victims rounded the corner and interrupted Hunter and the woman in what they were doing.” As Hunter walked away, the witness added, he turned and fired a single shot (which did not strike the victims).

H/t Karin Riley Porter Attorney at Law.