Not buying it

The half-wit republicans that make up the Kansas legislature, in partnership with their dunce of a governor, Sam Brownback, passed a law last week that forbids recipients of welfare and food stamps from using their government assistance to buy, among many other things, concert tickets, tattoos, movie tickets, lottery tickets, and visiting swimming pools.  In republican bizarro world, punishing the poor will lift them off government assistance, rather than, oh, say, good jobs with good wages.

Though a good case could be made for allowing those in need to buy lottery tickets which have an exponentially better chance of improving their lives economically than republican policies (see also, Bush, George W.), what this proves is that republicans continue to have absolutely no fucking idea what it's like to be poor.  Do they really believe with the piddling amount of money these folks get every month they're really going to risk their families' rent payments or their electric bills on a trip to Disneyland?  They're poor, not stupid.

I work for a grocery chain in an impoverished section of Detroit.  Some days, we do 70% of our business in food stamps, and contrary to what some republicans think, they are not buying lobster and foie de gras.  Their SNAP cards get filled once a month and they are buying five packages of the chicken breasts we have at $1.49 a pound.  They're buying two bags of the Malt o'Meal equivalent of Froot Loops for $1.99 because it will last a lot longer than one box of the actual Froot Loops.  They're buying three packs of hot dogs for .99 each.  They're being frugal because the food they're buying today has to last the entire month.

Just because poor folks don't spend as lavishly doesn't mean they don't love and want to take care of their families any less than those people who are a lot better off financially.

Peace,
emaycee

#Pathetic

“Tamir Rice should have been shot and I am glad he is dead,” wrote Jamie Marquardt, a supervisor for Cleveland’s Emergency Medical Service, according to Cleveland’s Fox 8 TV station. “I am upset I did not get the chance to kill the little criminal.”

Leaving aside the fact that you have to be incredibly stupid in this day and age to post such a horrid thought on Facebook (Mr. Marquardt was deservedly fired for his actions), how pathetic must your life be to wish that you had killed a twelve-year-old child for the crime of carrying a toy gun.

Were Dante alive today, his Inferno would have to have a special circle in Hell added for the likes of Mr. Marquardt.

Peace,
emaycee

You cannot make this shit up

After the city of Birmingham, Alabama passed a law giving its citizens a $2.85 an hour increase in the minimum wage, republican Alabama Governor Robert Bentley signed a bill prohibiting cities in Alabama from setting their own minimum wage.  Unbeknownst to the people of Alabama, while Bentley was taking food out of the mouths of those living in poverty and those living around the corner from it, he was also giving four of his staffers a $70,000+--you read that right, $70,000+--per year raise, or almost an 80% increase.

For fuck's sake, how do these people even manage to get a single vote?

Or sleep at night?

Because you have to be one cold-hearted, cretinous son of a bitch to pull a bullshit stunt like that.

Peace,
emaycee

Pop quiz...

...is the above an ostrich burying its head in the ground, or the official republican response to President Obama's nomination of Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court?

Peace,
emaycee

Friday Night Jukebox, Vol. LXIV--Us3: Cantaloop

"Dip trip flip fantasia..."

Not exactly sure what the above is supposed to mean, but every time I hear "Cantaloop" by Us3 it's damned near impossible not to put on my dancing shoes, even if they, uh, don't really work all that well.

Jazz-rap (and how often do you hear those two genres used in cojunction) group Us3 was formed in 1992 in London by producer Geoff Wilkinson, who has remained the lone original member for better than twenty years now.  Backed by various musicians, vocalists, and rappers, the band has released nine albums throughout its existence, though most of their fan base and what little commercial success they've had has been overseas.  Their album Hand on the Torch  is the only one that charted in the U.S., and "Cantaloop is their only top 40 hit here as well, peaking at #9 (with a bullet!) on the Billboard Hot 100.  As always, if you're going to only have one hit, might as well make it a good one.

"Cantaloop"  samples Jazz great Herbie Hancock's 1964 song "Cantaloupe Island" (I'm hardly a Jazz connoisseur, but it's a real nice cut) which features the funkiest piano playing I've ever heard accompanied by a thumping bass and drums which gives it its underlying funkmaster groove.  Add in some well punctuated trumpeting (it's actually a cornet, but who the hell knows what a cornet is?) and you have a soundtrack for even the most rhythmically challenged, such as myself.  What Us3 adds to it are some of the funnest lyrics you'll hear, rapped in an understated fashion in three different verses each of which is separated by more cornet playing and spliced with the line "Diddly-diddly bop, diddly-diddly bop, Funky, Funky!"  Not going to make anyone forget the word styling of T. S. Eliot., but guaranteed to put a smile on your face--and "Cantaloop" isn't the kind of song to inspire you to cure cancer, but it will get you to shake your booty and there ain't nothin' wrong with that.

Rap sheet:  "Brace yourself as the beat hits ya/Dip trip flip fantasia...."

Enjoy:

Peace,
emaycee

Over it

Can I just say that I'm officially over the candidacy of  Donald Trump?  I can't turn on a program on MSNBC that doesn't waste at least half of its hour on him, or read a political blog that doesn't devote half its posts to him.

For fuck's sake, this is really simple:  he's going to be the republican nominee, he's going to be lambasted by either Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders, and then he's going to be relegated to the dustbins of American Presidential election history.

There are literally thousands of news stories and critical issues that are much more worthy of our time.

Peace,
emaycee

Only in America

So I'm driving home from work yesterday on (Eminem's famed) 8 Mile Road, stuck at a red light behind a semi, wall to wall cars, and feeling pretty pissed about all the other assholes who are in my way, when I look to my right and I see a sign in big, bold, red letters:  Oumy's African Braiding and...Tax Services.

How cool is that?  I can stop in and while I'm getting my weave I can have my taxes done, too.

You know, our conservative friends talk about making America great again but if you ask me, Oumy's is proof that we still are.

Peace,
emaycee