There's an article about my campaign for mayor of the city of Minneapolis, Minnesota in the neighbourhood paper Southwest Journal.
Link: http://www.swjournal.com/index.php?&story=13987&page=152&category=69
Posts
1 day ago
14 July 2009
08 July 2009
My Candidacy is Now Official!
I filed my candidacy for mayor of Minneapolis yesterday at approximately 3 PM. The link to the city elections website is here: http://www.ci.minneapolis.mn.us/elections/candidate-filings.asp
In Honour of the late Ed McMahon
While I wasn't a Tonight Show affectionado, I still feel it appropriate to remember Ed McMahon somehow; to that end, I've found a video (sadly not an official one) for the song Here's Johnny by Weird Al Yankovic. Enjoy! The link to the video is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gJYrmByc59g
Al Franken
To the tune of the late Michael Jackson's Billie Jean, and with all due respect to him:
Al Franken is not my lover;
He's just a boy
The Court has said is the one.
He's Minnesota's favourite son.
Congratulations, Al Franken, for finally being inducted into your rightful place in the U.S. Senate!
Al Franken is not my lover;
He's just a boy
The Court has said is the one.
He's Minnesota's favourite son.
Congratulations, Al Franken, for finally being inducted into your rightful place in the U.S. Senate!
27 June 2009
In Memory of Michael Jackson and Farrah Fawcett
As the world knows, two days ago the world lost two people who were quite famous when I was young: Michael Jackson and Farrah Fawcett. Even though I'm only 42, the deaths of these icons of my youth make me feel quite old. :-(
Like much of the press coverage, I actually have a lot more to say about Michael than about Farrah. You see, the peak of Farrah Fawcett's fame was when Charlie's Angels debuted andthat famous poster of her came out in 1976. Being 9 or 10 years old at the time, I wasn't quite able to appreciate her beauty. I really didn't start thinking of women in "that way" until about 1978 or 1979, and Susanne Somers was more my type, but I digress.
However, Michael Jackson had a major impact on my life. You see, I didn't listen to popular music as a kid. My father didn't listen to music at all and my mother was into country. I didn't have friends to influence me so I basically followed my mother's tastes. I wasn't that I wasn't allowed to listen to whatever I wanted, I just wasn't exposed so I never developed the taste for popular music. Then in 1983, at the age of 17, I was locked up. None of the other kids listened to country; everyone was into Madonna, Prince, and Michael Jackson. The Thriller album had just come out. MTV was fairly new, and absolutely new to me, in the institutions, as my parents never had cable (even to their deaths in 1997 and 2005 they only had broadcast TV in their home). As anyone who reads my autobiography will know, even though I have complaints of religious discrimination, being locked up was generally a positive experience, certainly better than being with my parents. So for me, Michael Jackson represents the time in my life where I first had a life. My first time having full sex with a girl was about five years later, but what was the background music but Beat It by Michael Jackson. How deliciously appropriate!
Unfortunately, in the 1990s, Michael's reputation became that of "Wacko Jacko" as he befriended a chimpanzee and allegedly slept in a hyperbaric chamber to stay young, started bleaching his skin, and liked little boys a little too much.
Now I'm not going to pass judgment on whether or not he did any of these things. However, even if he was "guilty" of the little boy thing, there was no force or violence used, not even allegedly, and I don't believe what they say he did should even be illegal. Of course the media and society don't feel the same way and since those allegations started, people have given him crap and said mean things about him... until two days ago. The King of Pop died. The media and much of society turned out in mournful respect of a man that just the day before they would have called a "fucking child molester" and at least figuratively spit on. That, to me, is just so weird, but so is this whole world.
Back to Farrah, it's kind of sad that she wasn't remembered with the same amount of fanfare as Michael; the coincidental same-day deaths created a sadder version of what I call the "Christmas effect", when a child is born on or near Christmas Day, his or her birthday tends to get lost in the shuffle of celebrating the birthday of someone else who's allegedly 2,009 years old (of course no one really knows).
Think on these things. Peace.
Like much of the press coverage, I actually have a lot more to say about Michael than about Farrah. You see, the peak of Farrah Fawcett's fame was when Charlie's Angels debuted andthat famous poster of her came out in 1976. Being 9 or 10 years old at the time, I wasn't quite able to appreciate her beauty. I really didn't start thinking of women in "that way" until about 1978 or 1979, and Susanne Somers was more my type, but I digress.
However, Michael Jackson had a major impact on my life. You see, I didn't listen to popular music as a kid. My father didn't listen to music at all and my mother was into country. I didn't have friends to influence me so I basically followed my mother's tastes. I wasn't that I wasn't allowed to listen to whatever I wanted, I just wasn't exposed so I never developed the taste for popular music. Then in 1983, at the age of 17, I was locked up. None of the other kids listened to country; everyone was into Madonna, Prince, and Michael Jackson. The Thriller album had just come out. MTV was fairly new, and absolutely new to me, in the institutions, as my parents never had cable (even to their deaths in 1997 and 2005 they only had broadcast TV in their home). As anyone who reads my autobiography will know, even though I have complaints of religious discrimination, being locked up was generally a positive experience, certainly better than being with my parents. So for me, Michael Jackson represents the time in my life where I first had a life. My first time having full sex with a girl was about five years later, but what was the background music but Beat It by Michael Jackson. How deliciously appropriate!
Unfortunately, in the 1990s, Michael's reputation became that of "Wacko Jacko" as he befriended a chimpanzee and allegedly slept in a hyperbaric chamber to stay young, started bleaching his skin, and liked little boys a little too much.
Now I'm not going to pass judgment on whether or not he did any of these things. However, even if he was "guilty" of the little boy thing, there was no force or violence used, not even allegedly, and I don't believe what they say he did should even be illegal. Of course the media and society don't feel the same way and since those allegations started, people have given him crap and said mean things about him... until two days ago. The King of Pop died. The media and much of society turned out in mournful respect of a man that just the day before they would have called a "fucking child molester" and at least figuratively spit on. That, to me, is just so weird, but so is this whole world.
Back to Farrah, it's kind of sad that she wasn't remembered with the same amount of fanfare as Michael; the coincidental same-day deaths created a sadder version of what I call the "Christmas effect", when a child is born on or near Christmas Day, his or her birthday tends to get lost in the shuffle of celebrating the birthday of someone else who's allegedly 2,009 years old (of course no one really knows).
Think on these things. Peace.
20 May 2009
1934 Minneapolis Teamsters' Strike History
Reprinted by permission of the Gus Hall Action Club, from their blog at http://gushallactionclub.blogspot.com
***** ***** *****
Thursday, May 14, 2009
Red Heroes of the 1934 Minneapolis Teamsters Strike: Gus Hall & the CPUSA
"The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggle."--Karl Marx and Frederick Engels William Z. Foster wrote in his History of the Communist Party of the United States that "important local general strikes and near-general strikes were a pronounced feature of the years 1934-36." Trotskyites in Teamsters union local 574 are generally credited with being the Red heroes of the 1934 Minneapolis, MN Teamsters Strike (also called the Minneapolis Truckers Strike). Trotskyites and their sympathizers, "with their pathological antagonism towards the Communist Party and the Soviet Union," (Foster) declare the 1934 strike as a victory against both bosses and "Stalinists." We note the contributions made by Trotskyist ex-members of the Communist Party USA to making Minneapolis a union town. But the real "untold story" is the role of Marxist-Leninists in the Minneapolis Teamsters Strike of 1934. For, as Gus Hall said: "it would have been a lost strike if it were not for the activities and actions taken by the Communist Party."
(Gus Hall said that the 1934 Minneapolis Teamsters Strike 'would have been a lost strike if it were not for the activities and actions taken by the Communist Party') The great Communist Gus Hall (known as Arvo Gus Halberg in Minnesota of those days) was recognized for his militancy in the 1934 Teamsters Strike in Minneapolis by an article in the New York Times in 2000. He speaks history in Working Class USA: "in the 1930s a Trotskyite clique got into the leadership of the Teamsters local in Minneapolis. It was a period of great strikes, including the general strike in support of West Coast longshoremen in San Francisco led by Harry Bridges. The Teamsters in Minneapolis also struck. It turned into a bitter battle. The Trotskyites, instead of doing what the West Coast longshoremen did--appealing for support from all the workers and people--played footsie with the governor of the state of Minnesota who was out to break the strike with the use of the National Guard. So the strike began to peter out."
"It would have been a lost strike if it were not for the activities and actions taken by the Communist Party," Gus Hall continues. "I was one of the comrades assigned to give leadership to the strike. The Mayor of Minneapolis had just deputized 15,000 thugs to break the picketline. Developments came to a showdown battle. The Trotskyites repudiated confrontation tactics, but it was the only way to win the strike and it was the only thing that did win it."
And Gus Hall, fighting as a Communist in the trenches with Minneapolis workers in 1934, recalls as a participant the confrontation between thousands of strikers and the 15,000 deputies and the whole police force. He concludes: "To this day the Trotskyites have never admitted that with their opportunistic maneuvering with the Governor they had all but lost the strike. It was our tactic of confrontation at a critical moment and the initiative of workers that won the strike. Tactics of confrontation were correct in the Minneapolis situation." (Gus Hall, "Workers' Initiatives II: The Minneapolis Teamsters Strike," Working Class USA, 1987, International Publishers)
***** ***** *****
Thursday, May 14, 2009
Red Heroes of the 1934 Minneapolis Teamsters Strike: Gus Hall & the CPUSA
"It would have been a lost strike if it were not for the activities and actions taken by the Communist Party," Gus Hall continues. "I was one of the comrades assigned to give leadership to the strike. The Mayor of Minneapolis had just deputized 15,000 thugs to break the picketline. Developments came to a showdown battle. The Trotskyites repudiated confrontation tactics, but it was the only way to win the strike and it was the only thing that did win it."
And Gus Hall, fighting as a Communist in the trenches with Minneapolis workers in 1934, recalls as a participant the confrontation between thousands of strikers and the 15,000 deputies and the whole police force. He concludes: "To this day the Trotskyites have never admitted that with their opportunistic maneuvering with the Governor they had all but lost the strike. It was our tactic of confrontation at a critical moment and the initiative of workers that won the strike. Tactics of confrontation were correct in the Minneapolis situation." (Gus Hall, "Workers' Initiatives II: The Minneapolis Teamsters Strike," Working Class USA, 1987, International Publishers)
17 May 2009
Harmful Credit Cards
I am inspired today to write about some of the really harmful credit cards out there as a warning to people who have bad credit and desperately go after those "second chance" cards designed specifically to trap us.
Yes, I say "trap" and mean it. In the early 1990s, banks started offering secured credit cards to people who didn't qualify for ordinary cards due to low income or a bad credit history. These cards required you to open a savings account at the same bank, but sign away your right to withdraw from the account. In exchange, you were given a credit card that worked like any other, except that if you failed to pay your bill, the bank took your savings account. If you kept a clean record for a certain period of time, you would either get a partial or full refund of your savings, or your credit line would be increased, thus making your card only partially secured.
These secured credit cards were actually a good deal. They gave people with shaky credit histories and/or low income a chance. The banks protected themselves with the collateral of your savings account. And if you ran into trouble paying, they just took the account. Very seldom were you left with much of a debt, maybe the difference between the card and savings account interest rates, that was it. If you "behaved yourself" and got off secured status by proving the system wrong, you often got your savings account back and a better credit rating to boot, enabling you to get "regular" credit cards.
Secured credit cards are largely a thing of the past, and I think the main reason is that most ATM cards have largely the same function as a credit card. They have the Visa or MasterCard logo and can be used at stores and online in the exact same way as a credit card. From the point of view of immediate transactional use, they are better than a credit card as there is no interest and usually no fees as long as you don't overdraw your account. But they do nothing to build your credit rating and don't provide you a loan function. They're purely "pay-as-you-go".
In the late 1990s, banks came out with what consumer advocates call "un-secured" credit cards. These are also designed for people with bad credit and/or low income. However, you don't have to open a savings account as collateral. Instead, the bank protects itself with grossly high interest rates and fees. For example, I have a First Premier Gold card. Started with a $200 credit limit two years ago. $150 of it was already taken up in fees the day I got it. That's the way these new cards work: you owe money even before you charge anything. Then the over 20% interest rate, the annual fee of $49 and the monthly fee of $6.95, and you've got Trouble with a capital T. I admit I am behind in my payments and they closed my account. I plan to pay it in full when I get my rent rebate in August so I'll never have to hear from them again. However, the reality is they probably have already made a profit on me even though I'm $300 or so behind in payments.
That's how these cards work: they charge so many fees that they don't lose anything even if you default. Of course, you may say, that's no different from a secured card where you put up a savings account as collateral, it's just they let you "charge" the collateral to your credit card. The reality is: no, it's not the same, and here's why. Secured credit cards largely had the same interest rates and fees that regular cards for "good" customers got. The only real difference is you put up your own money as collateral. If you failed to pay, the bank got your collateral and it was used in the settlement of the debt. Modern "un-secured" credit cards charge you so many fees they essentially get your "collateral" up front. But here's the kicker: because it's charged to your credit card, you already owe it BEFORE going into default. What that means is: they've covered their end. You default, they still don't lose. What's more, you're more likely to default because you're being charged so much more. Essentially, there making it harder for you because you have problems. If this isn't a violation of common sense, I don't know what is. Additionally, what you already paid before the default doesn't do you any good towards settling your debt. They can continue going after you for outrageous profits until you settle up in full. And they can harass you on the phone all day from 8 AM to 9 PM seven days a week until you go crazy.
If you're smart, you'll avoid these credit cards like the plague. If your income or credit history don't meet the standards to qualify for a "good" credit card, like one recommended by Consumer Reports, you're probably better off without any credit card than to take something like the First Premier Gold (which, ironically, was mentioned in Consumer Reports as one emphatically not recommended). I've learned my lesson on this one. No more "un-secured" credit cards for me!
A word to the banking industry: if you really want to help bring people into the credit card fold as customers and not as victims but don't want to risk losing money, I have two suggestions for you:
1) Go back to offering secured credit cards with the same interest rates and fees offered to your "good" customers. Due to the existence of ATM/debit cards you probably won't have as many customers as you used to, but it is a safe, low-risk way of giving someone a chance to prove themselves worthy of credit.
2) Consider offering credit cards with very low credit limits, but "normal" interest rates and fees, to customers with low incomes and/or shaky credit histories. With some customers that may literally mean starting them out with, say, a $100 limit and allowing them to work their way up. Again, the risk would be fairly low and it wouldn't be setting the customer up for failure.
Yes, I say "trap" and mean it. In the early 1990s, banks started offering secured credit cards to people who didn't qualify for ordinary cards due to low income or a bad credit history. These cards required you to open a savings account at the same bank, but sign away your right to withdraw from the account. In exchange, you were given a credit card that worked like any other, except that if you failed to pay your bill, the bank took your savings account. If you kept a clean record for a certain period of time, you would either get a partial or full refund of your savings, or your credit line would be increased, thus making your card only partially secured.
These secured credit cards were actually a good deal. They gave people with shaky credit histories and/or low income a chance. The banks protected themselves with the collateral of your savings account. And if you ran into trouble paying, they just took the account. Very seldom were you left with much of a debt, maybe the difference between the card and savings account interest rates, that was it. If you "behaved yourself" and got off secured status by proving the system wrong, you often got your savings account back and a better credit rating to boot, enabling you to get "regular" credit cards.
Secured credit cards are largely a thing of the past, and I think the main reason is that most ATM cards have largely the same function as a credit card. They have the Visa or MasterCard logo and can be used at stores and online in the exact same way as a credit card. From the point of view of immediate transactional use, they are better than a credit card as there is no interest and usually no fees as long as you don't overdraw your account. But they do nothing to build your credit rating and don't provide you a loan function. They're purely "pay-as-you-go".
In the late 1990s, banks came out with what consumer advocates call "un-secured" credit cards. These are also designed for people with bad credit and/or low income. However, you don't have to open a savings account as collateral. Instead, the bank protects itself with grossly high interest rates and fees. For example, I have a First Premier Gold card. Started with a $200 credit limit two years ago. $150 of it was already taken up in fees the day I got it. That's the way these new cards work: you owe money even before you charge anything. Then the over 20% interest rate, the annual fee of $49 and the monthly fee of $6.95, and you've got Trouble with a capital T. I admit I am behind in my payments and they closed my account. I plan to pay it in full when I get my rent rebate in August so I'll never have to hear from them again. However, the reality is they probably have already made a profit on me even though I'm $300 or so behind in payments.
That's how these cards work: they charge so many fees that they don't lose anything even if you default. Of course, you may say, that's no different from a secured card where you put up a savings account as collateral, it's just they let you "charge" the collateral to your credit card. The reality is: no, it's not the same, and here's why. Secured credit cards largely had the same interest rates and fees that regular cards for "good" customers got. The only real difference is you put up your own money as collateral. If you failed to pay, the bank got your collateral and it was used in the settlement of the debt. Modern "un-secured" credit cards charge you so many fees they essentially get your "collateral" up front. But here's the kicker: because it's charged to your credit card, you already owe it BEFORE going into default. What that means is: they've covered their end. You default, they still don't lose. What's more, you're more likely to default because you're being charged so much more. Essentially, there making it harder for you because you have problems. If this isn't a violation of common sense, I don't know what is. Additionally, what you already paid before the default doesn't do you any good towards settling your debt. They can continue going after you for outrageous profits until you settle up in full. And they can harass you on the phone all day from 8 AM to 9 PM seven days a week until you go crazy.
If you're smart, you'll avoid these credit cards like the plague. If your income or credit history don't meet the standards to qualify for a "good" credit card, like one recommended by Consumer Reports, you're probably better off without any credit card than to take something like the First Premier Gold (which, ironically, was mentioned in Consumer Reports as one emphatically not recommended). I've learned my lesson on this one. No more "un-secured" credit cards for me!
A word to the banking industry: if you really want to help bring people into the credit card fold as customers and not as victims but don't want to risk losing money, I have two suggestions for you:
1) Go back to offering secured credit cards with the same interest rates and fees offered to your "good" customers. Due to the existence of ATM/debit cards you probably won't have as many customers as you used to, but it is a safe, low-risk way of giving someone a chance to prove themselves worthy of credit.
2) Consider offering credit cards with very low credit limits, but "normal" interest rates and fees, to customers with low incomes and/or shaky credit histories. With some customers that may literally mean starting them out with, say, a $100 limit and allowing them to work their way up. Again, the risk would be fairly low and it wouldn't be setting the customer up for failure.
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