| Rayne Today Searching for dharma, in spite of the weather...
Here’s a fun little exercise. Take a look at these homes: http://www.forbes.com/2003/10/09/cx_bs_1010homeslide.html?thisSpeed=20000 Yeah, go ahead, roll around in the logistics for a while, what it must take to own a home like these. There’s grounds keepers, housekeepers, tax accountants, real estate/property managers, just for starters. Perhaps some of the staff live on site, maybe they’re contract firms who come and go depending on how many staff are needed at any time. There’s security, too – some of the largest homes surely have dedicated security on staff. Some of these homes may even deploy nannies, dog walkers, feng shui experts, an interior decorator for every season. The owners may have personal assistants who help them with running the home, making sure the bills are paid, the sprinkling systems are working properly, the smoke detectors and fire extinguishers are working. Here’s what you really need to digest about these homes. Each of these owners typically owns SEVERAL of them. The richest people I know personally have a home in Yeah. More than one. Probably more than two. Now let’s toy around with the idea that each of these owners benefited this year from tax cuts to the tune of as little as $30,000 to as much as $500,000 this year. Where do you think they SPENT it to help the economy and improve the prospects for employment this coming year? Home Depot, maybe?  comment []
Joe Conason’s post today shares the Libertarian Party’s comments on Limbaugh’s easy ride on the illegal drug usage. The Libertarians are asking why it is Limbaugh hasn’t been charged yet. Why the slack so far on a drug fiend? Yeah, I’ve been thinking the same thing. How is it that Martha Stewart’s alleged insider trading is so much worse than Limbaugh’s illegal drug use along with expecting his help to traffic in the same? Over the last year the Justice Department and the press have come down on Martha Stewart like a ton of bricks, on the flimsiest of evidence and charges. Yet Limbaugh is checking into rehabilitation and probably looking forward to royalties from a poor-drug-user-me story that’s sure to be coming to your book store soon. He’s probably drafting it right now in peace and quiet of the rehab resort. But Martha was a liberal female, yes? She’s the worst kind, too, one with success in business. Tar and feather her, drag her over the coals tout-de-suite says our government; she's scum of which we should make a fine celebrity example. Apparently, this society is only capable of witch-hunts. Warlocks – the white male conservative celebrity kind – need not fear.
UPDATE – 1130PM EDT – For the benefit of readers and commenter(s): “Statistics show whites often get less severe penalties than blacks and Latinos for the same drug crimes, according to an analysis of six years of court records by The Chicago Reporter.” (January 2002) “The disproportionate rates at which black drug offenders are sent to prison originate in racially disproportionate rates of arrest.72 Contrary to public belief, the higher arrest rates of black drug offenders do not reflect higher rates of drug law violations. Whites, in fact, commit more drug crimes than blacks. But the war on drugs has been waged in ways that have had the foreseeable consequence of disproportionately targeting black drug offenders. …Even greater disparities in drug offender arrest rates have been documented in individual states. For example, Human Rights Watch's analysis of drug arrests by race in the state of “More than 1 million people will be sent to prison this year on drug charges. Sentences in drug cases have accounted for about 40 percent of the increase in the prison population in the past two decades. Despite the fact that there is no difference in the rate of illegal drug use according to race (some recent surveys find whites with higher rates of use than blacks), blacks are 40 percent of those arrested on drug charges, and about 70-80 percent of those sent to prison on such charges. The black incarceration rate is about eight times greater than for whites, mostly because of the drug war.” (Local View: the neverending drug war, Las Vegas Mercury, March 2003) “The Justice Department's 1998 National Household Survey on Drug Abuse found that white students were four to five times more likely to sell and use drugs than blacks. And other studies have confirmed that whites use drugs as much if not more than blacks.” (AlterNet: Victory in Tulia, But Not in Drug War, June 2003) I could go on…there’s a sea of data to make my point that whites let alone wealthy male conservative celebrity mouthpieces, haven’t experienced the same “justice” when caught using or possessing illegal drugs and contraband. The only thing that appears to be making a difference in the kind of justice that non-white, not wealthy drug abusers is a current lack of government funding. It’s not kindness towards drug abusers that may lighten any punishments meted out: “The current fiscal crises in the states, coupled with overcrowding state prisons and municipal jails, have renewed state legislatures' interest in the treatment of substance abuse in lieu of incarceration.” (National Conference of State Legislatures - Health Policy Tracking Service, Fact Sheets, Drug Courts and Diversion Programs, October 2003) How fortunate for Limbaugh that state tax revenues have been so hard hit over the last several years that state governments are more likely to encourage drug treatment over incarceration. How fortunate for Limbaugh that he’s a resident of Governor Jeb Bush’s state of And it sure doesn’t hurt to be a white, male, wealthy conservative celebrity mouthpiece in the right color state. It remains to be seen whether Wow, wonder whether non-white drug abusers in Something tells me that’s a privilege only Limbaugh will have -- that something being the history of the drug wars in the U.S. and its disproportionate assault on non-whites to date.
Kinder, gentler treatment of drug abusers my ass. comment []
From John Snow, the former CEO of CSX and now Treasury Secretary, in the New York Times: In an interview with The Times of London on Monday, Mr. Snow predicted that the economy would grow at an annual rate of nearly 4 percent over the next year and add about 200,000 jobs a month. "I would stake my reputation on employment growth happening before Christmas," Mr. Snow said in the interview, which a spokesman confirmed as accurate. Clearly Snow has no faith in what he’s said – he has no reputation to bet. Or perhaps he’s hoping someone will really take up the bet and walk off with the skanky reputation he does have. comment []
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