99% of African Americans to vote? -- just donate one hour every two years

A thought just starting to germinate in my mind: you know how in Chicago our political parties used to pay citizens $10-20 to vote. First, I thought of getting out the African-American vote — and I’m thinking 99% — by pointing out that if they all voted they would benefit thousands of dollars a year in government paybacks.

I started out thinking African-American because they are so classically left out of so much government concern whether it’s second-class schools, unconscionable medical care (I went to Stroger emergency once before I got Medicare — practically in the heart of downtown here — so-called “fast track” was 10 hours, for chest pain, difficulty breathing and obstetrics; everyone else waited 24 hours, maybe should sign in and come back tomorrow), lead in the water, intrusive policing, etc., etc.

Then I thought of 99% African-American voting as donating one hour of time to a movement every two years — to get the politicians coming on their knees to find out what people want. Seems like an irresistible appeal, doesn’t it? Donate one hour of your time, change your whole world for yourself and your family.

50% voting is getting them nothing (well the Post Office delivers). !00% would raise such a “scary” political organization specter that it could have the effect of 150%.

Then of course other minorities or whomever would follow suit. One way to take the country back from the oligarchs. Just starting to germinate.

PS.  Mmm; still thinking.  Imagine if we paid say $100 to vote to the last hold-outs -- or if we Go Funded that.  Have to leave cash incentive for last so we don't look untoward (smacks of the bad old days) -- by the end it would just look like more of the fun.

Transgender bathrooms -- has anyone ever heard of AC/DC (bisexual)?

Transgender bathrooms -- has anyone ever heard of AC/DC (bisexual)?

Transgender is a tragic condition — actually having the wrong sex body to go with your brain. 19 times the suicide rate according to a New York Times story.  “Although transsexualism (defined as those who want to change or do change their body) is very rare — a recent meta-analysis estimated the prevalence at about 5 per 100,000 … ”
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/23/opinion/sunday/richard-a-friedman-how-changeable-is-gender.html?_r=0

San Francisco school adopting gender-neutral bathrooms
By Jill Tucker Updated 7:11 am, Thursday, September 3, 2015
“The boys’ bathrooms and girls’ bathrooms will become just bathrooms at the first San Francisco school to go gender-neutral.”

“In schools across the country, though, bathrooms have become a battleground for transgender rights. On Monday, more than 100 high school students walked out of class in a small Missouri town to protest the use of the girls’ restrooms and locker room by a transgender teen.”

“So far, bathrooms in kindergarten and first-grade classrooms at Miraloma, as well as a centralized bathroom, are gender-neutral. The school will phase in the other restrooms used by older children over the next few years, including outside bathrooms with multiple stalls.”

“The school district’s responsibility is to create a safe environment for all students so they can learn and thrive, said Kevin Gogan, the district’s director of safety and wellness. That, he said, means accepting and accommodating the 1 percent of all middle and high school students who identify as transgender — who add up to more than 300 students.” [my emphasis]

“First grade twins Ari Braverman (left), and Ella Braverman (right), both 6 years old, show first grade gender neutral bathrooms at Miraloma Elementary school in San Francisco, Calif., on Wednesday, September 2, 2015.” [caption for multi stall bathroom -- Photo: Liz Hafalia, The Chronicle (pic since changed)]

"The boys’ bathrooms and girls’ bathrooms will become just bathrooms at the first San Francisco school to go gender-neutral [for everybody -- that's what the story seems to say!?]."
http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Bathrooms-at-Miraloma-Elementary-in-S-F-go-6481544.php
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Anybody ever hear about AC/DC as in switch-hitter, as in bisexual? Bruce made a lot of kids before he became Caitlyn (nothing funny here — see above). Really want to allow males who may or may not be sexually attracted to females into the womens’ bathrooms.

“A transgender woman says she was raped in a unisex bathroom at the Stonewall Inn — and police are searching for the suspect who they say regularly frequents the landmark gay bar.”
http://nypost.com/2016/03/28/transgender-woman-says-she-was-raped-in-stonewall-inn-bathroom/

One in 20,000 may be transgender (actually wrong body to go with brain) — a lot more than that identify with the opposite body gender. A lot more than one in 20,000 are willing to fake transgender for whatever nefarious or silly motive — maybe just some college frat boys drunk and mischievous.

What sex is attractive to a physical male with a female brain anyway (not to mention the 1% with gender dysphoria)? I have no idea.

I read a story the other day (can’t remember where) of a young guy (male brain — female body) who is now taking male hormones to grow a beard and muscle and hangs out with other guys in bars, etc. Who does he want to have sex with?

Who does a physical male with a female brain want to have sex with — depending on whether heterosexual or homosexual. This is where I totally lose track.

I had a gay teenage boy living with me in the Bronx back in the late 70s. I quickly picked up that he approached every older woman with a salute — careful not to brush her toes (“lest she lash out at him for no reason” — as I like to put this). Me, he wasn’t too afraid of — not bad to, but sort of like you are less afraid of your mother than you father (if you are hetero).

One of his little buddies, 16 years old, would come at me disrespectfully — I would back him off — he would be visibly intimidated — next time he would be right back at me; never caught on what he was up against in a male — I was just Hillary, a noisy girl.

You can’t be sexually dangerous to the dangerous sex — you can’t be sexually endangered except by the dangerous sex. Depending on who you think is the dangerous sex.

But, how does this understanding of homosexuality — and heterosexuality — translate into which sex a (truly rare) truly transgender person is attracted to? ??? Anybody care to clear this up for me?

Those of the apparently not so rare gender dysphoric (see above) are guaranteed to be all over the place.

The only good thing I can say for the not so rare dysphoric use is that it would have come in handy when I was a taxi driver (NYC, Chi, SF): if the mens' room was dirty or out of order I could have just tried the lady's room figuring they were used to seeing men dressed as men in there -- if not used to it -- and when you have to go you have to go. 

Bottom line: Transgender Bathroom use is not mostly about crime -- it is immediately and urgently about privacy.  A transgender woman whose male parts are intact who is sexually attracted to women is no different in the next stall than any other male.  Think Bruce Jenner -- who is reportedly still interested in women.  There is a case in a local high school here in Illinois (Palatine) where the girls are up in arms about a boy in their locker room, even behind curtains -- no thought about crime.

LAST MINUTE EXTREME SOLUTION (desperate to keep men out of the ladies')?  RETAIN WOMEN'S BATHROOMS BUT CHANGE MEN'S TO GENDER-NEUTRAL.  I WONT LIKE IT IF LADIES US IT -- BUT IF IT'S THE ONLY WAY.  HOPEFULLY,  MOST TRANSGENDER WOMEN WILL NOT FEEL DEGRADED BY BEING FORCED TO USE THE BATHROOM OF THE OPPOSITE SEX.  (It's all in the packaging?)

PS.  If you go by the SF school, 1% of males who look and dress like males are going to claim gender dysphoria -- genuinely.  Young children are not going to fake this for phony reasons.  Possibly another 1% of similarly dressed males may use the ladies room for dumb to nefarious reasons: perversion, mugging, pranking or just cab drivers in a hurry.  Ergo, one out of 50 males may wish to use the ladies room.  (I often do the eighth-grade math side of things.)


ADDENDUM
https://www.yahoo.com/style/target-boycott-reached-boiling-point-140049014.html  
This article restored my faith that my world may not be about to be blown apart -- w/o warning, w/o democratic discussion.  Or rather by the 4,000 mostly, or should I say almost universally vehement, windy opposing comments -- just like the last two Yahoo News articles I read on the issue.

To wit: "As a grandfather this BS attacks my lady, my 3 grown up daughters, my 6yr old granddaughter, my 4yr old, & 8 month old grandsons & you piece of sht libs just don't care about daddy's little girls & you seem to think there is nothing us daddy's can do about it, because Obama says so & makes it law & sht all over their privacy & culture they grew up with. You will be getting a very serious education very soon, if this bull sht does not stop!"

Wish I had saved the New York comment I read last night when there were only 400 comments.  Pictured 18 teen age girls at a rec center who are afraid to use the girls shower and all crowd up in the family shower with one spigot.  Seems a big part of this ideology is that no questions may be asked, no documentation, no physical exam may be imposed on anybody using any locker room or shower.

Just in time for an election that may decide whether democracy may any longer endure -- just in time to scare everyone (every class) away from the Democratic party.

If only Obama had the same energy for the last seven years to make everyone aware:
the minimum wage is now $4 an hour below 1969 -- double the average income later;
Republican governors fighting Medicaid expansion are fighting against recovering their own states' tax federal money from DC -- while those people are going to show up somewhere (ER, clinic), probably sicker and more expensive to treat, and their bill is going to be sicked on private premiums or other gov sources -- paying twice;
the a de-labor-unionized economy is inherently pathological, the core cause of just about every other social and economic ill that faces us -- that Americans are being denied "freedom of contract"(along with any significant political arm) -- that making union busting a felony is even more critical to our national health than sending people to federal prison for a couple of years for taking a movie in the movies.

But for allowing virtually any man in the ladies he is a ball of fire.

 

Re: Seattle’ s Minimum Wage:

Cautionary Note on use of Data - by Shaefer and Wilson
http://static1.squarespace.com/static/551caca4e4b0a26ceeee87c5/t/5702ae13b6aa607cbb96f406/1459793428392/Shaefer-Wilson-Employment-Losses-Seattle.pdf

Seems the anti-min wage fellow was using two different data sources for the same chart -- typical anti-min slovenliness.

What is not noted out loud in the study is that the job loss was only 10,000 out of 410,000. Why do pro-mins (slovenly too? :-]) never take note that may be seen as a positive trade off - the trade off being that the other 400,000 got paid a lot more money.  

The 10,000 may mostly represent the difference between the number of those who quit voluntarily because they no longer needed two (or more) jobs minus the lesser number who (re?)entered the workforce in response to a higher wage incentive ...
... that is, assuming the figures were valid in the first place.

Somebody really ought to do a survey on what proportion actually get laid off as opposed to other inputs to the minimum wage raise employment number.

Wages not raised by uneducated immigrants in de-unionized US -- Social Security Trust Fund II (that's two)? -- Prisoner's Dilemma explains de-unionized labor's race-to-the-bottom

Economists Mette Foged and Giovanni Peri have issued a paper reporting that sprinkling some uneducated immigrants around (more or less randomly) in Denmark actually raised the wages of uneducated natives.  The positive outcome seems down to some immigrants having skills that complemented rather than completely replaced natives', to some natives moving up to better paying office jobs and to some uneducated natives (re?)entering the workforce (possibly for newly improved wages?).

Not very helpful over here.

The Danish labor market is unionized -- with centralized bargaining even -- while the American is on the very opposite end of spectrum. American born taxi drivers (me for 28 years) used to earn $800-900/wk up to a couple of decades ago -- now probably more like $400-500/wk for 60 grueling hours -- American born wont work for such. Ditto for fast food -- at $10/wk, Chicago's labor still all Mexican and Indian.

100,000 out of my guesstimate 200,000 Chicago gang-age minority males are in street gangs, I presume because they wont slave for $400/wk. Fed min was $440 half of today's per capita income ago (1968).
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/gang-wars-at-the-root-of-chicagos-high-murder-rate/
http://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl?cost1=1.60&year1=1968&year2=2016

Sociological point: both our "gangs" would work for half of today's taxi or low skill wages if only it were 100 years ago and if only we understood that was the best the economy could share with us -- and we'd be happy. Beautiful thing about collective bargaining is that it makes you know you have squeezed all there is to squeeze out of the consumer/economy.

With collective bargaining disappeared from the US and with immigrants sociologically willing to work-for-less, a "market clearance" gap opens into which our de-unionized natives fall -- out of sight of the data by definition because they not looking for work.
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The Social Security Trust Fund should -- as in is supposed to -- run down/run out -- why else did we save it up all that "cash" if not to pay it back out  to the generation who "saved" it?  Before it runs out -- quick! -- we ought start a new Trust Fund for the following generation -- and we need to do it in time for the new FICA money used to buy the  new Trust Fund II (that's "two") bonds can be used to cash out the old Trust Fund I bonds -- continuing to "guarantee" the next generation of Social Security retirees will get theirs (or whatever phony purpose Trust Fund I is supposed to fulfill).  :-)
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Reading Sandwichman today I realized that the "Prisoner's Dilemma" can be used to explain why the ability of un-organized labor to "just go down the road" to offer their services does not constitute effective bargaining power in the labor market.