And then a flock of pigs flew by

Well, it's been fun, living in this world, but we have reached the end. That's the only explanation for such an impossible occurance as what happened yesterday in Sacramento. California State Senate Leader Don Perata, D-Oakland, shocked the political world by stating explicitly that we should raise taxes to help fund our children's education.

I know. It makes no sense. Any politician savvy enough to earn the title of California State Senate Leader would be smart enough never to utter those words with a straight face, at least in front of a microphone. The public doesn't like taxes. The only reason Republicans are popular with the working American is their anti-tax platform. People will vote for anyone who promises to lower taxes (see: Arnold Schwarzenegger).

But believe it or not, some California Democrats, in the battle for the fy05-06 state budget, are taking a calculated risk. Schwarzenegger suddenly does not seem invincible. And they carefully picked the right issue to pin the tax proposal to. Who could say no to children? Don't you think education is something worth paying a little money for? And no, California schools do not have enough money. We rank in the bottom half of education spending, per student, in the country. The San Francisco Board of Education just announced it is closing four schools, for budgetary reasons. I'll bet all the parents and teachers who pleaded with administrators to save their schools will get behind Perata now, eh?

This whole situation has prompted me to dig up a blog entry I started a couple months ago, but never finished at the time, but did after writing the last three paragraphs. It outlines my personal beliefs on taxes, so here's an awkward segway into that entry. Enjoy!

How tax cuts really work

I was too young to remember my specific reaction to George H. W. Bush's now-infamous "Read my lips: no new taxes!" pledge, which won him the 1988 presidential election but which he also failed to keep. But over the course of time I have become keenly aware of just how popular a politician can become if he promises not to raise taxes, or even better yet, to cut taxes. In the court of public opinion, there is almost no way one can successfully argue against tax cuts.

What I've never been able to fully comprehend is why people are so entranced by the concept of tax cuts. I'm guessing it's because, as I lamented in my post-election entry, the American public lacks any kind of understanding of what it means to cut taxes. This is odd because it's not a very complex concept. If the country gives government less money, the government has less money to provide the services that make our everyday lives easier.

The worst part of the equation is that it is often tiny local governments that take the brunt of the impact and are forced to making very unpopular decisions in cutting services. California's current situation is a prime example. During his gubernatorial campaign, President-in-Waiting Schwarzenegger promised Californians that he would give Californians back $4 billion in vehicle licensing fees, while also promising to balance the budget and not borrow. Never mind that California was already $8 billion in the hole. To paritally offset this loss, his 2004-05 budget redirected $1.3 billion in property tax income from local governments to Sacramento. And believe me, local governments were already hurting before losing that money. In the 2003-04 year, Gov. Gray Davis transferred organizational and financial control of a number of social services to counties, promising that this burden would be offset by a 1-cent sales tax increase. Problem was, that increase didn't happen, and the counties were left to shoulder the burden on their own. So as a result, counties had less money, and were required to do more with it.

Obviously, the math in that equation doesn't add up. This sort of budget bullying is why, on any given day, you can open up the local paper and read that the local library is in danger of closing, or that the City of Berkeley is suing UC Berkeley to get them to pay taxes that they've never been required to pay before. The money's gotta come from somewhere. I know! Let's make the schools shoulder the burden the state has given the cities! Great idea. Man, tax cuts sure are fun, aren't they?

For those of you who prefer to learn visually, here is a photograph taken by my coworker:



This is the "New Books" shelf at the Humboldt State University Library. In case you can't read it, the sign reads, "Very few new books due to budget decreases."

Americans do not seem to understand the concept behind taxes. People in a given society pay taxes in exchange for services provided by the government, for the greater good. The government does not give you something for nothing. And those services include critical elements such as education, social services, and fire and police services. As a logical corollary, if your taxes are lowered, these services have less money. And following the same logic, if they have less money they can not do as much. So next time the police charge you $250 for a false burglar alarm (or worse yet, don't respond at all when there really is a burglar), just dip into the savings account you put your tax refund into. (I'll pause for you to control your laughter.)

And even if you are fortunate enough not to need all the services that taxes pay for (welfare, in-home health care, drug rehab centers, youth shelters), remember that someone does. This is, I feel, the fatal dichotomy of today's GOP. The "Christian" Right has successfully hijacked the GOP and branded it as the moral values party, because it is against abortion, gay marriage, and sex education that strays from the abstinence-only message. But I believe they missed the mark on moral values, and have led millions of mindless Christians down an extremely dangerous path of intolerance that borders on (OK, pretty much has reached) hate. Anyone who really believes in the teachings of Jesus would adhere to the moral values inherent in Jesus' love commandment (you know, love thy neighbor and all that hippie stuff), and want to help those less fortunate than themselves. And in American society, how does one do this? The easiest was is by PAYING TAXES! Those taxes pay for the services that support the less fortunate in America. That's right folks. Jesus was a bleeding-heart liberal. So all you Christians out there (I don't know how many of you read my blog, but that's beside the point) stop voting for politicians who preach hate and would prefer to let the poor die so they can afford a third vacation villa in Europe!

Catholicism's reputation is safe...for now

Catholics and comedians everywhere breathed a sigh of relief when white smoke poured from the chimney at the Sistine Chapel on Tuesday. When the cardinals elected Germany's Joseph Ratzinger as the new pope, they ensured that Catholicism would remain in the dark ages for at least a few more years. (How many, we can't be sure. The guy is 78 years old.)

Yes, Ratzinger, now known as Benedict XVI, is a traditionalist, not interested in any kind of progress or compromise. At a time when further globalization is inevitable, one might think that dialogue and cooperation with the world's other religions would be critical. But that's unlikely to happen. Ratzinger once called Buddhism a "religion for the self-indulgent."

He's not much for dialogue with the gay community or women either. He once wrote that homosexuality was a "tendency ordered toward an intrinsic moral evil." And there won't be any female bishops anytime soon. He's rather against equal rights for them, apparently because it goes against "tradition." I heard several people, including Pat Buchanan, discussing female priesthood on Scarborough Country the other night. One panelist argued that the Bible has several instances of women leading the church, so he didn's see why the Catholic hierarchy is against the idea. But Buchanan rebutted by saying that Catholicism was not based just on the Bible, but on "thousands of years of tradition." But I believe in the saying, "What's tradition except old habit?" Every tradition has to start sometime. Why not start a new tradition of equal rights?

By the way, Ratzinger was also the cardinal who wrote during the 2004 presidential campaign that John Kerry should be barred from receiving communion, because he is not staunchly pro-life. But as I just wrote (scroll down to the DeLay entry), Kerry himself does not believe in abortion, but he knows that as a leader of this country, it's not his place to force his morals on everyone else in America.

Having said all that, I am not particularly surprised that Ratzinger was chosen as the new pope. I do not profess to be an expert on the subject, but to me Catholicism has always been more about rigid rules, dogma, rituals, and "tradition" than about love and spirituality.

DeLay Death Watch

Doonesbury is currently running a series of strips on the Tom DeLay Death Watch. You have to wonder how long the guy can hold on.

It seems inevitable now that he will be investigated (and maybe indicted) for what appear to be gross violations of House ethics rules. But that's not what I'm really concerned about. I've written in the past (here and here) about conservatives attacking "activist judges," and the threat these attacks pose to democracy. But DeLay has taken it to another, entirely unacceptable level.

After Terri Schiavo's parents' appeals were denied at every level (including the Supreme Court), DeLay said, "The time will come when the men responsible for this to answer for their behavior."A few days later, he "apologized," saying that his comments were made in an "inartful" way. Is there an "artful" way to say, "We plan to lynch all judges who do not adhere to the views of the extreme religious right, and if we don't burn them, God certainly will"? (The "apology" issue could spin into another blog entry entirely. The mainstream news enables the right by allowing them to say anything they want and then writing that they have "apologized" when in fact they did no such thing. Arnold Schwarzenegger tried to do the same damn thing yesterday.)

One might think that a good politician might lay low for a while after such inflammatory remarks, especially when said politician is also facing all those ethics questions. But that would hardly fit DeLay's Texas style. Instead, "The Hammer" continues to hammer away at the judiciary. On Tuesday, he ripped into Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy's "activism." He said that it was "outrageous" that Kennedy looks to international law when writing decisions, and that it was "incredibly outrageous" that Kennedy does his own research on the Internet. Um, pardon me, but exactly what is outrageous about doing research on the Internet? I guess it's not enough that Dubya might get to appoint up to three Supreme Court justices when others retire or die. They want to remove Kennedy, too!

DeLay has decided that Congress ought to move to rein in the radical judiciary, citing a clause in the Constitution that gives Congress the power to remove judges for bad behavior. He said they have to start by defining "good behavior." But good behavior does not mean upholding a certain set of religious beliefs. That is indisputably unconstitutional and anti-American. Good behavior means not masturbating behind the bench. That I could see as justification for removal. But simply upholding everyone's (not just Christians' ) right to religious freedom is not, by any definition, bad behavior. This is what John Kerry was talking about when he answered an abortion question during one of the debates. As a Catholic, he doesn't personally believe in abortion, but he recognizes that not all Americans are Catholics, so he could not legislate his beliefs and force everyone to live by them. That is a truly American sentiment. The United States was formed by people who did not want to be forced to conform to one particular dogma.

Here's what I think is the most telling recent quote from DeLay: "The judiciary has become so activist and so isolated from the American people that it's our job to (monitor them)."

NO!!! YOU ARE THE ONE WHO IS ISOLATED FROM THE AMERICAN PEOPLE YOU STUPID S.O.B.! Eighty-two percent of Americans thought it was inappropriate for Congress to get involved with the Terri Schiavo case. Most of those 82 percent were horrified that you even thought about interfering, even the ones who theologically agreed with your point of view. You and your Christian cronies are not just isolated from the people, you do not understand the fundamental beliefs that formed the United States of America. And you know what? The Founding Fathers knew that people like you would come along and try to destroy it all. That's why they created an INDEPENDENT judiciary, to prevent theocrats like yourself from trampling everyone else's freedoms.

Guess the caption

Newspapers and magazines sometimes have contests where they give readers a photo and ask them to write a caption. So here's a photo that I'd like you to write your own caption for, then look to see how close you were to the real caption:



Did you come up with something?

Now for the real caption: Two Kansas politicians congratulate each other on a job well done after the state voted to enshrine prejudice, intolerance, and inequality into the state constitution this week. Hooray for America!

OK, maybe that wasn't the caption that the AP photographer attached to the image as it came across the wire, but it might as well be. Kansas just became the most recent state to add a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, another battle won in the great Christian crusade to share God's love with the world. Onward Christian soldiers!

Of course, not all Christians are hate-filled zealots like the two politicians pictured above. Like SFGate's Mark Morford, I know "decent Christians" exist. It's just that we don't hear much from them. Probably because they weren't all screaming and shouting outside of Terri Schiavo's hospice or parading around outside of abortion clinics, threatening to post doctors' names and addresses on hate Web sites. No, the decent Christians are drowned out by demagogues who constantly spew out decidedly un-Christian rhetoric about "moral values." But as Morford notes, decent Christians are "those who understand the deep irony that, when it comes to religion, the ones who scream and stomp and whine the loudest are often the ones who understand their faith the least."

News of the Weird

Hope the guy who writes that column doesn't sue me, but...

Where I work we have a police scanner. An officer just responded to a call about a man who appeared to be masturbating in his car. When the officer arrived, he found that the man actually had lotto scratchers and was scratching off that silver stuff.

Unclear on the Concept

Terri Schiavo died yesterday. At this time (12:30 a.m.), I do not have the energy to say all I want about her, her parents, her husband, Tom Delay, Bill Frist, the protesters, or the media coverage. In fact, I think the story has been sufficiently beaten to death by the media, so maybe I won't say much at all.

However, I just have a couple of ditties to illustrate the deranged insanity of the fanatics who supported Terri's "right to life." A woman wrote a letter to either a paper or a news show (sorry, can't remember which), giving her view on the matter:

I put out the flag on 9/11, and I have it out every day. When Terri Schiavo dies, I'm bringing it back in.

That letter makes me want to scream. Simply put, if that's how you really feel, you haven't the slightest idea what that flag that you put out every day stands for. The United States Congress had no business getting involved. I take some consolation in a poll that said 82 percent of Americans thought it was inappropriate for Congress to do so. Delay, Frist, Bush, and Bush were all grandstanding, and most Americans saw right through it. But the fact that the whole thing became so overblown as it did so quickly demonstrates how those in power in our current government are more than willing to trample the Constitution to pander to the religious right.

And speaking of overblown, the protesters who kept vigil outside the hospice, praying for a miracle, were likely more insane than the politicians. At least with politicians, you kind of expect them to dramatize and publicize the most private of family decisions. But the antics of the protesters were quite ridiculous. How many people got arrested for trying to bring Terri water? You'd have to assume they were doing it all for show, planning to get arrested for dramatic effect. The only other explanation is that they were complete morons. Why? Because Terri COULDN'T SWALLOW!!! If you actually tried to give her water, you would either drown her or give her pneumonia. Imagine the irony of a 10-year-old boy being arrested for murder for drowning Terri Schiavo.