#badasskids

Kid Told Westboro Protesters ‘God Hates No One’ Because, ‘That Is True’

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All the way to the top #nickhanauer #wearejobcreators

I felt  the pain from the bottom of my feet, all the way to the top of my head.  The alcohol scorched the back of my throat as it sloshed out from my ear canal.  The ER later told me that it happens all the time.  A lifeguard dives too deep or swimmer splashes too much and then, pop!  They get out of the pool thinking they just have some water in the ear, so they use sterile alcohol to get it out like they have a million times before.  And as it pours through the perforated skin across the hammer, anvil, and stirrup it then drains down the Eustachian tube to their throat.  Suddenly an injury no bigger than a molehill turns into a pain the size of a mountain.

I have tinnitus from a ruptured ear drum.  It’s a ringing that won’t stop day or night.  It’s subtle, creeping to attention at your most relaxed.  It’s nerve damage and it can cut short a conversation, a good night’s sleep, or your patience.  All thanks to a middle school camper jokingly throwing a water soaked swim toy towards my head.   Luckily, the church camp I worked for in college had insurance.  The hole in my ear got patched up, a couple pitches on the music scale were lost, and for the most part I was none worse for the wear.  Save for that ringing.  And over the years, it’s gotten louder.  Even if there were cures for it, which there aren’t, in this economy the insurance to treat it wouldn’t be cheap.  So I learn how to work with it, and learn from it.  What’s interesting about my tinnitus is that it tells me things.  It created a feedback loop.  Commons colds, loud music, and late nights can make it worse. So in response I take better care of myself, turn down the volume, and get the rest I need.  Mostly. 

To empathize a bit I’d like for you to take a deep breath, relax, and prepare your imagination.  You are at a concert.  As people mingle in the pit and audio engineers check mics, subtly, just behind your conversation a hum begins to grow.  Waves of sound from a mountain of stage speakers feed back into the microphones, loop through the tangled cords, and amplify out the speakers.  You pause the joke you were telling your friend to look towards the stage as the hum steals the audience’s attention.  The music you hoped for suddenly screeches out louder and higher than bearable.  A groan rumbles from the wincing crowd who are cupping their ears in pain.  The growing, or positive feedback loop became unstable.  The crowds groan, negative feedback, tells the engineer that something is wrong.  The balance between the mic and the speaker, the consumer and the producer, has become painfully unequal.  So the sound system went out of control and the equalizer was tuned to a negative feedback loop that stays balanced and sounds better.  Luckily for you and the thousands of fans in attendance, the engineer was well trained and kept the system from locking too loudly or blowing out all together. 

But now the ringing I hear is being drowned out by a dull hum from the general public.  Something is broken but our economies current engineers aren’t well trained, they are simply well paid.  The 1% have been in a positive feedback loop with our money.  The negative feedback signals like unemployment, foreclosures, and stagnant wages have done little to inspire the 99%, the job creators, to try and equalize our work.

Alongside my heavy handed metaphor I’ve stolen my vocabulary from Nick Hanauer.  He’s a billionaire who’s decided to do something quite remarkable and support bringing the tax rate on the 1% up to the same rates as everyone else.  Nick wants to raise his taxes. 

Those who argue against removing tax breaks for the 1% because they are either too small a portion of the population or think that it’s unfair are being disingenuous.  They are twisting the math in their favor to mislead the public.  They own 48% of the wealth.  That means 1% of Americans own 48% of the money alone in America.  Think back to the concert audience: the pit at the stage and the 3 sections of seats fanning back towards the nosebleed balcony section.  If the concert sold out their 10,000 tickets, 1 person would be laying jackets and programs across 4,800 seats.  This would leave the other 9,999 fans to unwittingly have to share laps for the remaining 6200 seats.  The 1% are saying that because they have so many more seats, they shouldn’t be subjected to the same ticket surcharges as the other 99%.  Simply because they had more than enough money to buy out what other concert goers wanted, they get to save more money too.  The worst part is that the reason they can overbook the show is because they own the concert venue, the ticket seller, and the band.  Don’t let this metaphor run too wild in your imagination. Please remember that the difference between concert tickets you choose to buy, and jobs that we all need to survive, are vast and complicated.  What isn’t complicated is the reality that when a vast minority owns and regulates a disproportionate amount of anything, everyone but them loses.

Some say that the bottom needs to work harder and lift themselves up, while others say that the top needs to rein it in and step back slightly. Like any stable system the economy requires both.  Nick Hanauer wants everyone to reevaluate how we look at management and workers.  He’s hoping that by changing the definition of “job creator” he will start a low hum that keeps looping through the hearts and minds of the middle class. 

Job creators are the consumers. We are in a circle of life, negative in the scientific good way, feedback loop with producers.  We must learn from our past, and remember that work came out of survival, then, out of surplus came jobs.  We must demand an equal portion along with equal payments.  There was no surplus at the start of humanity that needed managing.   Society did not starve where they stood because they had no time clock, and management wasn’t needed when everyone shared their wealth.  Wealth creates the need for wealth, it does not create new wealthy.  Today’s economy rewards money that exists as a number inside a computer over physical labor and social care.  Mistakes and timing are death sentences for many families.  A cry for help or the loss of a job, those experiences shared by all classes, can mean a life cut short for the bottom.  Possibly worse, they can mean a society full of desperate and volatile members who burden and even cut short the lives of many…

 all the way to the top.

From Boston To Beirut: A Girl And Her Room

If you want to know something about a teenage girl, start by studying her interior decorating choices.

(via stephanieeelalasmooch)

Epigenetics

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