Monthly Archives: March 2008

 
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I’m mad as hell


The Fed announced its plan Sunday night. It’ll finance JPMorgan Chase’s fire sale purchase of Bear Stearns (at $2 a share, about $270 million and about one-tenth of what BS was trading for three days ago). It’s trying to save the monster from collapsing and, presumably, taking other mortgage-backed security firms with it. Stocks still fell Monday. The dollar is down. Oil is high.

And here the Fed bails out the bastards responsible for backing those asinine mortgages. The corporation that profited highly off it.

Could this really be happening? What the hell? I thought the market was supposed to pay for its errors? That’s the capitalist rhetoric, isn’t it?

Pundits say Bear Stearns is just too big. If the Fed let it go, it would be disaster across many financial markets, and eventually it would all fall right onto the burdened backs of homeowners already near default.

I’m sure that will happen. But I think that is inevitable — and  has been inevitable. If it’s going to come crumbling down, it’s going to come no matter what you do. I worry for all of my friends who are artists and writers. We’re always the first to get the cut. Take care. I sucked at sticking to a budget for a long time. But then I got really desperate…I’m making it work now.

He was crazy…but Howard Beale was onto something. We shouldn’t just yell it out a window. Our financial decisions should resound across the alleys of American commerce: "We’re not going to take it anymore!"

What changes should we make? I propose two: stop using credit cards, and use your tax refund check to pay off debt rather than to buy more shit. Let’s stop forking our money over to The Man in the form of high-interest loans that pollute our mind as well as our credit record.

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Political Prose

The Missing Class named one of the Best Business Books of 2007

Library Journal has named The Missing Class: Portraits of the Near Poor in America one of the Best Business Books of 2007.


Library Journal has named The Missing Class: Portraits of the Near Poor in America one of the Best Business Books of 2007.

Victor Tan Chen is In The Fray's editor in chief and the author of Cut Loose: Jobless and Hopeless in an Unfair Economy. Site: victortanchen.com | Facebook | Twitter: @victortanchen

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The yellow dust


Every spring a weather phenomenon hits southeast Asia. Sand from the expanding Gobi desert mixes with industrial pollution, brewing a fuzzy-minded concoction the locals call yellow dust. It blows out of China and into neighboring countries.

It’s early in the season. But I think as a new foreigner living abroad in Korea, just a sprinkle has affected me. Sinus pressure. Sore throat. Runny nose. It’s like I’ve been inhaling dirty cotton balls.

One of my Korean co-teachers went to the hospital the other day because her sinus cavities had swollen, making her cheeks all puffy and red. I’ve been amazed at how often Koreans go to the hospital. In America, this is unheard of. We only go to the hospital to have a baby or if we’re dying. Our receptionist, Sarah, said this: "It’s pretty cheap for easy things, 2,000 to 3,000 won." That’s about $3.50.

I could go to a hospital, I guess — my job does provide health insurance. But there’s that whole language barrier. I’d rather get high off Tylenol cold medicine than have to go through the frustration of trying to make myself understood.

I’ve enjoyed living overseas, out of America and out of America’s stupid, self-inflicted recession. But my body’s reaction to the pollution makes me yearn for home. By most accounts, my air back home was never this messed up. Sure, Vegas looked bad from afar, but it didn’t make me feel this bad.

Scary thought. Someday we’ll never be able to escape it. Abuses against the Earth will eventually catch up with us. It just won’t be South Korea.

For those of you who have never lived in a city clogged by industrial pollution, let me offer this: it’s enough to want to give up your car and all those products (what are they — does anybody know?) made in those factories that have no environmental controls.

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Telling it like it is


Overheard today by me:

Woman to friend: "I just can’t vote for someone with the name ‘Hussein.’ I know it’s simple-minded of me, but I can’t help it."

Not only is it simple-minded (your words, honey, not mine), it’s ignorant and racist. It’s just no way to pick a president.
Nevermind his education, his experience, what he has devoted his life to, what he stands for, what he could do to make the lives of Americans better. Nevermind all that — it’s the middle name that decides it!

But then again, I suspect it’s an excuse, a polite way to say, "I just can’t vote for a black man."

And from the Wall Street Journal/NBC poll: 13 percent believe that Obama is Muslim. (He is not. Warning — link is a pdf. This particular stat is on page 26.) Oy.

Dr. Laura believes that Silda Spitzer drove her husband Elliot, the governor of New York, to spend $80,000 on prostitutes because she wasn’t a good enough wife. It’s the woman’s fault. What else is new? please.jpg

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Headline: "Device helps fat kids cut TV time." Article: "A monitoring device that cut TV and computer time in half helped young, overweight children eat less and lose weight, U.S. researchers said on Monday.

And it worked without creating a lot of conflict between parents and their kids, they said.

"It reduces all of those battles. The parents have to make one decision. After they make the decision, the device does the rest," said Leonard Epstein of the University at Buffalo, the State University of New York, whose study appears in the Archives of Pediatric & Adolescent Medicine."

Did you hear that? Another way for parents to do even less — the device does all the work! I mean, we don’t want conflict between parents and children. Because we know parents now don’t have the ability to put their foot down anymore. And even if they did, why bother — the device will do it for you!

Fear-instilling piece from The Daily Mail in the U.K.: "Single and cohabiting women are increasingly much more likely to commit suicide than married women, a Whitehall report showed yesterday.

Here’s the catch, ladies — before you go out and rope yourself a husband to save your life, read more of the article, which clarifies: "Single males are around three times more likely to kill themselves than husbands." So it makes perfect sense to create a headline and opening lede stating that single persons are more likely to kill themselves. But why do that when we can wag the old finger at the girlies.

This piece by Steve Salerno from Skeptic saved me from going bald this week. In fact, I think I want to have this man’s babies.

"We have a fanciful metric that’s just a compilation of opinion, which is layered with further opinion from passersby, and then subjected to in-studio analysis (still more opinion). All of which is presented to viewers as … news. The problem for society is that giving headline prominence to meaningless or marginal events exalts those events to the status of conventional wisdom. "Reporting confers legitimacy and relevance," writes Russell Frank, Professor of Journalism Ethics at Penn State University. "When a newspaper puts a certain story on page one or a newscast puts it at or near the top of a 22 minute program, it is saying to its audience, in no uncertain terms, that ‘this story is important.’" The self-fulfilling nature of all this should be clear: News organizations decide what’s important, spin it to their liking, cover it ad nauseam, then describe it — without irony — as "the 800-pound gorilla" or "the issue that just won’t go away." This is not unlike network commercials promoting sit-coms and dramas that "everyone is talking about" in the hopes of getting people to watch shows that apparently no one is talking about."

 

 

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Sex, life, and death


A new report this week tells us that "1 in 4 teenage girls have STDs." Let’s all take a moment to reflect on the continuing, life-altering, life-endangering consequences that abstinence-only programs continue to have on teenagers (you know, those future adults).

I like being thorough — having articles and links ready to make my point, laying it all out. But on this topic, at this point in time, is it really necessary for me to provide links to the countless articles and reports that have been done throughout the years that prove that abstinence-only education is a waste of time? Do I really need to tell you about the jump in teen pregnancy since Bush took office? Do you really need to be told that, even if teenagers delay having sex, eventually they need facts about their bodies, birth control, diseases, prevention, and consequences?

Last year a report came out that the rate of teen pregnancy had gone up for the first time since 1991. Does it take a genius to think that, gee, when Clinton was in office and high schools were giving out condoms for free, the teen birth rate went down, and with Bush in office tossing off the same old "just-say-no-condoms-don’t-work" crap, the teen birth rate has gone up? Are you seriously going to argue that?

Then came Harry Waxman’s comprehensive government report showing that abstinence-only teachings have cost 1.5 billion dollars and not had a single positive impact on teen sex lives.

Now we’re learning just how prevalent sexually transmitted diseases are among the teenagers who are going through life without medical facts, being told to not do it, yet battling their raging hormones, extremely sexualized media bombardment, and what they feel they want or need to do in their relationships. Some of them may in fact be technically virgins, but they’re performing other sex acts that expose them to diseases. And imagine — this report does not cover other, more serious diseases like gonorrhea or syphillis. This study also did not include teenage boys. And above all, this study did not cover the scarlet letters, the disease to end all diseases — AIDS. I truly do not want to know what such a study will show. And the next stop is AIDS. The diseases that they found in this study are either treatable or curable. AIDS is not. Even with all the medical advances that can prolong or improve life with HIV, there is no cure. It will kill you. It will affect your relationships in the future. It will endanger the life of the baby you may want to have. There’s no going back. Do we want to wait until we get to that point? Parents — can you hear me?

Do I sound angry? I am. I’m not a teenage girl. I’ve never had an STD. But damn it, this is an epic disaster in all our lives. A) Teenagers are being lied to or having facts withheld from them, facts that they need to lead stable, healthy, happy, responsible lives. B) This does not just affect teenage girls; it affects everyone — teenage boys, parents, their future children (if the STD does not rob them of their fertility first). C) This affects healthcare in our nation — negatively. D) This shows the irresponsibility and carelessness of our government, which continues to naively or cruely deny a thorough, comprehensive education. Reading, writing, ‘rithmetic, sex education — we use them all. Every day.

Do something about this. If you have a teenager, however uncomfortable, miserable, embarrassing, unpleasant it may be, it is your responsibility above all to educate your kids about sex. Hell, at the very least, if you cannot bring yourself to talk to them, give them books or printouts from legitimate sources, take them to doctors, something.

For those who do not have parents who care enough, know enough, or even exist, it then falls to our government and our teachers to give kids the facts they need — all of them. Yes, teach them to hold off — nobody wants young teenagers having sex. But if they cannot or will not abstain (and they won’t forever — they will reach adulthood, they will have relationships, they will get married), they need to know the facts to make the best decisions.

Everyone, with or without kids, can do something, too: contact your representatives. Tell them you think our children deserve better. Specifically, for those is Rhode Island, take action on Wednesday, March 19 at the state house. From the Planned Parenthood email:

Please contact the House Members of the Health, Education and Welfare committee to tell them that we need education programs in Rhode Island Schools that will keep teens healthy and safe by including information about abstinence as well as contraception, healthy communication, responsible decision making and prevention of sexually transmitted infections.

Join us at the Statehouse! Show your support for Comprehensive Sex Education and join us at the hearing.  Please contact Kristina Diamond or Jennifer Brister if you have an interest in preparing testimony for the hearing.

Health, Education and Welfare Committee Members:

Rep. Joseph M. McNamara, Chair
401-941-8319
mcnamara@rilin.state.ri.us

Rep. Peter T. Ginaitt, Vice Chair
401-732-2695
rep-ginaitt@rilin.state.ri.us

Rep. Arthur Handy, Secretary
401-785-8996
rep-handy@rilin.state.ri.us

Rep. Lisa Baldelli-Hunt
401-766-1679
rep-baldellihunt@rilin.state.ri.us

Rep. Grace Diaz
401-467-8413
rep-diaz@rilin.state.ri.us

Rep. Deborah A. Fellela
401-231-2014
rep-fellela@rilin.state.ri.us

Rep. Robert E. Flaherty
401-737-9385
rep-flaherty@rilin.state.ri.us

Rep. John J. Loughlin, II
401-625-9889
rep-loughlin@rilin.state.ri.us

Rep. Patricia A. Serpa
401-828-5687
rep-serpa@rilin.state.ri.us

Rep. Agostinho F. Silva
401-728-5473
rep-silva@rilin.state.ri.uss

Rep. Susan A. Story
401-245-5083
rep-story@rilin.state.ri.us

Rep. Raymond J. Sullivan
401-828-9207
rep-sullivan@rilin.state.ri.us

Rep. Peter N. Wasylyk
401-272-1854
rep-wasylyk@rilin.state.ri.us

Rep. Thomas Winfield
401-949-3356
rep-winfield@rilin.state.ri.us

The abstinence-only debacle has gone on long enough. It’s up to us to let our government, both local and national, know that it has to stop.  

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A book by its cover


 

I’m rereading In a Sunburned Country, a book by one of my favorite authors, Bill Bryson. This book is autographed by him. I’d had the good fortune to attend a recent book signing/reading — the only one he’d done in New York City on this tour.

Permit me to digress here on an unrelated note to say that this event was standing room only — at least 150 people crammed into a little section of the bookstore. When Bryson appeared and made his way to the podium, the audience gave him a standing ovation before he even said a word. Compare this, if you will, to many Subway Chronicles readings where I’ve actually asked store cashiers to sit in the seats so at least the authors could read to a live person.

If you’ve any familiarity with Bryson’s work, you’ll agree he’s an incredibly astute and humorous writer, honing in on the “everyman” quality of any situation he’s in. It’s not uncommon to be chuckling or suppressing an outright laugh should you find yourself reading his books in public, an experience I had just this morning, which I’ll get to in a moment. Really it couldn’t be avoided as close to 90 percent of my reading is in fact done in public.

My subway commute gives me an hour per day of reading time. Occasionally I read magazines and the free AMNY or Metro newspapers that get shoved into my hand at the station entrances, but most often, I’m reading a book. As a novelist-to-be (Do I say “to be” if I’ve spent six years of my life on the damn thing and am just waiting to hear back from the agent? C’mon Agent, call me!), I’ve got many books in my queue, more than I’ll ever get to in a lifetime, classified as: books I should read (A Tale of Two Cities), books I need to read to stay current (Prep), books I’ve tried to read many times but just can’t seem to connect with (Mrs. Dalloway — sorry Virginia Woolf), and books I want to read to complete some sort of compendium (all books by James Thurber, for example).

Another digression: A recent article in Slate queried well-known writers to find out which books they’ve never read but felt they should have. They called it their “gravest literary omissions.” For Amy Bloom, it’s Moby Dick; for Myla Goldberg, it’s To the Lighthouse (another Woolf avoider); for Lucinda Rosenfeld, it’s Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury (BTW — read her fabulous essay in The Subway Chronicles: Scenes From Life in New York; amazingly for John Crowley, it’s To Kill a Mockingbird. This last one, of course, is really unforgivable. No excuses. Here is an occasion I’d let him slide by just seeing the movie — Gregory Peck makes an indomitable Atticus Finch.

I get a lot of reading material suggestions from riding the subway. A few years ago nearly every literate citizen of New York was reading Jonathan Lethem’s Motherless Brooklyn. I ran out to buy a copy with the picture of the blurred elevated tracks to see what all the fuss was about. Then you couldn’t throw a Metrocard without hitting the chalkboard-like cover of Me Talk Pretty One Day, a collection of essays by David Sedaris. Or Eat, Pray, Love — the title outlined in pasta, prayer beads, and silk fabric is so creative, it compels me to believe the writing is also (which it is), however ridiculous this seems. Lately I feel I can’t escape the little crown-wearing green frog of Curtis Sittenfeld’s Man of My Dreams. I like the frog. It makes me want to read the book.

As I was reading In a Sunburned Country on the 2 train, a passage made an uncontrollable snort issue from the back of my throat. My eyes darted around like the worst espionage spy ever while I sneaked a look to see who might have witnessed my embarrassing outburst. A man sitting in front of me laughed and pointed. I was horrified that I was the object of his ridicule.

“That’s a great read,” he said. “Bryson’s the best.”

I smiled and nodded, satisfied that he was pointing at the kangaroo on the cover and just recalling his own Bryson moment — proof that you can judge a book by its cover.

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Political Prose

Bob Herbert on America’s declining fortunes

In his column in today's New York Times Bob Herbert mentions my book The Missing Class and highlights some of its key facts about the precarious status of today's poor and near poor Americans.


In his column in today’s New York Times Bob Herbert mentions my book The Missing Class and highlights some of its key facts about the precarious status of today’s poor and near poor Americans. Herbert also quotes from the book’s foreword by former Senator John Edwards.

We have always gotten a distorted picture of how well Americans were doing from politicians and the media. The U.S. has a population of 300 million. Thirty-seven million, many of them children, live in poverty. Close to 60 million are just one notch above the official poverty line. These near-poor Americans live in households with annual incomes that range from $20,000 to $40,000 for a family of four.

It is disgraceful that in a nation as wealthy as the United States, nearly a third of the people are poor or near-poor.

Former Senator John Edwards touched on the quality of the lives of those perched precariously above the abyss of poverty in his foreword to the book, “The Missing Class: Portraits of the Near-Poor in America,” by Katherine S. Newman and Victor Tan Chen. Mr. Edwards wrote:

“When we set about fixing welfare in the 1990s, we said we were going to encourage work. Near-poor Americans do work, usually in jobs that the rest of us do not want — jobs with stagnant wages, no retirement funds, and inadequate health insurance, if they have it at all. While their wages stay the same, the cost of everything else — energy, housing, transportation, tuition — goes up.”

Herbert goes on to point out the effects that our current economic malaise will have on the future prospects of all Americans, as the desperation that the poor and near poor know well leaches into the ranks of a downsized and debt-ridden middle class. The growing amount of debt that families are taking on and the longer hours they work to make ends meet — topics discussed at length in The Missing Class — are ultimately unsustainable, Herbert notes, especially now that prices are rising and jobs are disappearing. The result is that for many hard-working families the American dream of upward mobility is fast becoming an illusion. (For some hard statistics on this last point, see this report by the Economic Mobility Project, which points out that the average male worker in his thirties today makes less than his father did at the same age.)

Herbert was kind enough to mention The Missing Class in a previous column as well.

Victor Tan Chen is In The Fray's editor in chief and the author of Cut Loose: Jobless and Hopeless in an Unfair Economy. Site: victortanchen.com | Facebook | Twitter: @victortanchen

Dear Reader, In The Fray is a nonprofit staffed by volunteers. If you liked this piece, could you please donate $10? If you want to help, you can also: