I don't think marriage will fix an $8000 a year income. At best, you'll have two broke people who can't find gainful employment and their kids. I think that really, focusing on moral stuff like whether so and so believes in 'hard work' is pretty silly. They can work hard all they want, but if there's no jobs or they get sick doing all that labor(and not to mention: if they have no way to monitor their children, the kids may end up in trouble), they're in the same position as they were.

Education is probably a good idea, and we need to improve our educational system to work for the children's needs instead of 'reformer's' pocketbooks. Of course, that's no guaentee- black college grads have an unemployment rate double of white college grades.

BTW: You can get food stamps and work. It's just that your job doesn't pay any money.

Using math, people figure out that the rent is so high in many places that even with two minimum wage jobs, you're barely making it. It's so high that even if you wore sacks as pants, never watched cable on that cheap tv you got from extremely suspicious merchants, and only ate stone cut lentils, you'd be in the same position, but really miserable.

Problem Chlyde has a beautiful post on the view that poor people shouldn't have nice things. I connect it to the idea that you should have a horrible life unless you were perfectly moral and never did anything wrong in your life. "Wrong" is pretty loose here- it can be anything from owning a television to only working eight hours a day instead of 18. It's the sort of attitude that ends with people lecturing small children on the virtues of hard work because they asked for some chips.

I think really we should stop hewing to the whole idea that basic rights like food, shelter, health care, etc, should be doled out based on how moral we think people are. That's why they are called rights. People inherently deserve food, water, shelter, health care. We don't starve the very worst, the dregs of society- the psychopaths who have killed and raped and maimed. We don't force them to freeze in the cold.

We understand that to have a civilized society, we need to guarantee certain things even to the worst people. So why the hysteria if we see a poor person with a cell phone slightly nicer than we think they should have? Why the OMG, HOW DARE SHE HAVE SHELTER GIVEN TO HER IF SHE REPRODUCED IN A WAY I DON'T AGREE WITH? We have more moral outrage over seeing a woman put 2 for $5 bacon wrapped steak fillets in her cart than we do over the war in Afghanistan and the flooding in Pakistan.

When we have a society, people have rights. That means that poor people can have entertainment and beauty in their lives, people can work hours that allow them to have lives not just a living, and yes, families can be started, and children cherished even if the conditions aren't perfect. We just need to stop being assholes.

I get the feeling that if we eliminated food stamps, the majority of the behavior change would be more like 'people get off their job at the Circle K and start stealing from trashcans' and less like 'people become productive members of society, however that is defined that somehow still includes their sub standard wage job... I think the independence from the bureaucracy would probably look more like stabbing rich people in the throat and rioting than a Randian paradise, but this is why I am an outcast from society, etc.

That reminds me of the fact that even if the poor didn't buy suspicious Nikes for $40 off the street, they'd still be poor. And no, not paying a dollar for hot chips will not pull the poor out of poverty. Really. I can make a graph about it!

WIC finally allows healthy food, and there is much rejoicing.

The BBC reports on a tent city in California

Hey, I got linked on a blog! It's almost as good of a present as my new DS.

Also, demeaning volunteer work for public housing residents.

I can see why these folks are freaking out. With so many people still in trailers and still underserved, people's trust in the government working for them and not for rich people is battered.

Possible West Memphis council boycott. This is connected to the story of a cop killing a kid and then whining about how there's a racial boundary. People upset about the death of a child aren't drawing a racial boundary- the boundary was already there, and when you don't understand that we see our children as as precious as yours, you build the wall higher and higher. Really white folks, try to understand how we feel. When you kill a child, we don't like that. We don't think that it's acceptable- the threshold for 'OK to kill a kid" is much higher- for example "they had a toy gun" or "they were outside at night" are not in fact considered acceptable reasons to kill a child. The reason we're not as mad at thugs is because they are outside the law- they aren't supposed to protect us. When thugs do something wrong, at least they'll be locked up, as they deserve. This guy is running free, gets a higher paying job,etc. Thugs can't vote, they have to go to jail, their own mamas are mad at them...


Also, whiny white guy needs to build a bridge and get over it.

A nice post reminding us all that girl babies do not come in a nice little box loving pink, makeup, and doing housework and all boy babies do not come in a nice little box loving sports. These roles need to be policed constantly. For example, I was working and this little boy, around 9, starts playing with dolls and all that, he only stopped after investigating his programming he decided it 'didn't look right'. It's not that shiny shoes and changable clothes are automatically unloved by boys, and that baby girls wouldn't love the truck for the 'built different' boys, but there's a constant bombardment of "if you're a girl, be this", " if you're a boy, be that". For some people it'll never take, though. I'll never understand why I'm supposed to be obsessed with shoes.

They say contraceptives would save the lives of many people, as pediatric AIDs is spread from mother to child. Antiretroviral drugs also can save the lives of many.

Strip club workers offer sex to officers. Our strip clubs seem to be a bit out of control, maybe.

Men arrested for sex trafficking. I don't get the comments on the story- why are some Mexican immigrants hanging around Autozone more worthy of comment than the horror of rape and the immorality of buying young girls for sex? I say racism.

I don't get what's the big deal about welfare. Even with welfare, our food banks aren't exactly keeping up with the demand, so without welfare, we'd be in a hole. Take away free lunch, and our kids would be screwed. Are you a hungry senior citizen? There may be help for you. I got off track, but what I was trying to say is that there aren't mustache twirling hordes of people hoping to get rich off of government aid. I wonder why people think that folks are always getting rich off of these unlikely schemes, such as having a baybee for the child support or popping out ten kids for the welfare. Do folks really think that people would rather not be able to get a whole bowel movement out because some kid is banging on the door yelling mooommy! mommy! than get a job in which they can go home and actually sleep?

Also, $1000 on a two year old, and folks are begrudging kids of similar age food.

Hhahah, some funny talk, but then, there comes the worst porn ever.[it's linked, so to avoid it, don't click. I didn't]. Porn- making sex unerotic since god knows when. Making sex unerotic is wrong, wrong wrong. Sex should be super erotic! Note: while people have the freedom to fuck each other's peeholes, you always have to freedom to say no to god knows what gross thing. Even if you've done whatever it was before, and you just don't feel like it that day.

Now that I have your attention by writing about porn, grocery prices are surging. High numbers of the working poor are coming to food pantries with shrinking food supplies. So if you have too much food in your pantry, share it with the hungry. Do you really need that 50th can of peas when that can can be yummy food for the hungry?

How come I never come across gigantic dicks on etsy? I practically have to type in dildo[if you click this link, there will be pictures of dildos] to see something spicy!

The south's public schools are full of poor children. Also some nice notes about race at the end.

I don't get the big deal if some poor people are watching a nice TV or something. Folks act like they'd be millionaires living the high life if only poor people forwent cable TV. That's just not how it works. Likewise, folks think that everything would be fine in the black community if only young folks had better fashion sense. Folks are always looking for a scapegoat, whether it's poor people buying a nice suit off the clearance rack for their job interview or young men having a lack of fashion sense...

on etsy, the small businessperson is screwed over by bad governmental policy. Some of the later comments are a good example of how we are influenced by cultural narratives. Folks 'just know' that women with six kids without a father figure are popping out kids for the welfare. They must have a million dollars, because they get their hair did! [note: perhaps there may be a barter system or friends doing friends hair or they know the girl who can do good hair for $25. I'm not an expert on the urban poor, but that's what I would think. Help me if you have thoughts]. Without much evidence besides the amount of kids a woman has, folks have created a whole life story for that person.

Memphis children poor. I think the single mother births can be traced to the poverty.

Local people energized by shooting.

The sort of people that avoid the news because it's 'depressing' annoy me. The real world's going to get you whether you like it or not.

From etsy: People are protesting against a border wall.

The Memphis Exchange Club takes paypal.

I would not reccomend you make a child wear their soiled clothing all day.


More crazy crunchy mama fads. What's with using 3rd world countries as justification for any old crazy thing you get in your head?

From stupidfree this post is full of lulz A white person gets PUNCHED by OHNOES BLACK PEOPLE. Some other people tell him that there's not much they can do about it, and that since every second or third person they see meets this description[black person..young] worrying about the OHNOESBLACKS isn't very useful.

Etsy drama start. Etsy drama middle. Etsy drama possible end stage

Hey, a black person has a good post on racism!I grew out of being a good negro a long time ago. Oddly, I was reminded of when I was listening to the memphis city schools radio station, and they were like bring a recent proof of address to registration! Not a note from big mama saying yea, he stay here. Yay, race wank.

Soliders return home- can't pay the rent.

Strange things in NY.

Etsians struggle with shoving babies out of their vaginas.

Etsy sellers called out in the LA Times. Etsy sellers handmake everything, but good sense is not required to sell on etsy. Swarovski crystals are leaded.

In this story you can really hear the pain of the FEMA trailer residents. The part that really hurt my heart was the guy who just thought the people suffering were just bad people. It seemed to me that the sort of life people were living was fragile. A storm comes through, rent goes up, and you're trapped without hope.

How not to get people to continue working with you.

Major grocery stores FAIL.

Sharp snark.

Biting Beaver is like reclaiming her space or something.

I hate skin lightening creams. Stupid like colonialism and some shit.

The poor pay more for housing.

Nearly a quarter of Memphians live under the poverty line.



Trolls annoy the broke.

Lit has thoughts on trans.

Beauty culture is racist Don't lose your hair! Love your texture!


I don't consider dancing in the street activism. I consider that college.