Donations? What Have You Done With Them Already?

You know, if Andrew Breitbart were alive, I have a sneaking feeling he'd be a bit more nuanced about this headline on his site: 

Americans in 'Poverty' Have TVs, VCRs, Cell Phones, Air Conditioning

This is just a conservative bashing of the poor at it's worst.

I mean, Breitbart was smart - he could understand owning an empty fridge, right? Am I supposed to sell it? Then what? Who would buy my TV? I looked - people give them away now. Put them on the front lawn with a sign saying "FREE" attached to them. A VCR? Come on. I borrow CDs and DVDs from the library. And I use the cheapest cell phone I can get (above an ObamaPhone) but - according to these genius' - I'm rich in America.

Talk about rubbing it in. It's bad enough I've tried to do all the right things, but then to have this laid on me, just as all my latest efforts crumbled? Well, that stings a little. So, let's pull back the curtain a bit, and see how this whole pull-yourself-up-by-your-boot-straps thing works in reality:

I started off divorced, paying off debts. For the last few years, after NewAge management chased me out of corporate work, I've been employed as a laborer. Landscaping, working on houses, putting up steel buildings, erecting fences, digging ditches - you name it. And, occasionally, I'd get some help from the blog. Not much, anywhere from $5 to $25 usually, but sometimes a few thousand dollars. So what's it done for me lately? A lot:

I moved from this tiny room in a house - where I was living out of a suitcase, for years, with the few things I brought with me - into this bigger one below with all my recording equipment and things:

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Well, how did I get all my recording equipment and things? I had to rent a U-Haul and go to several places, across the country, and get them (long story). Keep in mind, except for the time it took for the road trip, I never stopped doing labor. But, then, tragedy struck.

My landlord, an older white gentleman, had an accident and lost his mind - literally. We lived together so, all of a sudden, I became responsible for a lot of new things, because his family lives far away and his other renter (a creep who I despised) moved out immediately. (Did I have to move, too?) I am still (partially) responsible for my landlord's care, taking him out to escape the long-term care facility he's in, making sure his needs are cared for and he's comfortable. He's my friend. I'm fine with it, and enjoy doing it, but it's still been a burden. Financial and otherwise.

So, of course, I eventually got an ulcer, followed by my lower back getting hurt. Then, one night while I was sleeping, my neck "popped". As I recently mentioned, without health insurance, my first prescription was for $800.00 and it was one of three. More followed, including lots that made me comatose, so I'd lie still and not re-injure my spine, which has happened a few times in the last 8 weeks.

And yes, I do still have a *brilliant* album I'm working on, and - along with getting my recording equipment - three things have been purchased to make that happen. Two turntables (one normal, for my records, and one digital) and a small sampler. Thank you.

And now - the latest development - I've had a manic/depressive friend/helper here, to yelp at the moon, drive me crazy by never shutting up, and (I'm grateful) making sure I can care for myself.

But according to the guys at Breitbart.com, I'm rich, because the swamp cooler works.

The mind boggles,...

 

Getting All Those Missing Pieces Of The Puzzle In Place

For all those folks who can't see "Lee Daniels' 'The Butler'" is a fiction, but sided with the Mormons when they insisted HBO's "Big Love" wasn't telling the truth:

This was not your typical tax court case, to put it mildly. 

The case was finally heard in early 2012 after frequent delays and a failed attempt by Blackmore and his legal team to win a sweeping ban on evidence, publication and some witness testimony. In the end he gave his own testimony under subpoena as a “compelled witness” with the expectation that his statements in this civil case can’t incriminate him in any future criminal trials. 

Blackmore arrived each day at the Vancouver courtroom during the four weeks of hearing wearing a natty black suit and clutching a black-bound Book of Mormon. Campbell and federal Justice Department lawyers were bound by an equally unbending tome: the Canadian Income Tax Act. 

“These appeals introduced unique and novel legal and factual issues that are not normally before this court,” Campbell wrote with judicial understatement. She wrote how she had to acquaint herself with the intricacies of Mormonism, Episcopal polity and apostolic success. “Many terms, such as ‘The Priesthood Work,’ ‘United Effort Plan,’ or ‘United Effort Plan Trust,’ ‘Law of Consecration’ and ‘Tithing’ were either completely new to me or I had no working knowledge of them.” 

Her patience was tried by Blackmore’s often evasive or vague answers, and his convoluted spiritual explanations, frequently delivered sotto voice. He grudgingly admitted to having 21 “plural wives,” though he had trouble remembering the name of at least one. He fathered 47 children during the five years under review, which may help explain his inattention to the intricacies of the tax act. By some estimates he has more than 120 children. 

Bountiful doesn’t appear on any B.C. map. It is the name that the fundamentalists call the community based at Lister, just a kilometre north of the U.S. border and seven kilometres from Creston, where some of the sect’s business dealings are based. Many operate under the Blackmore-controlled company J.R. Blackmore and Sons, which include several fencepost-manufacturing plants in B.C. and Alberta, as well as various logging and farm-related operations.

Takes a while to set up "several fencepost-manufacturing plants" and "various logging and farm-related operations", don't it? While producing 120 children? I've only got two thoughts:

1) Child sexual abuse or no child sexual abuse, nobody really wanted to catch these guys too badly. I've never heard a word about them on Michelle Malkin's Hot Air, Breitbart, or ("21st Century Relationships") Instapundit.

AND/OR 

 2) When it comes to acceptable ways of building wealth, they might be right that black people have been going about this thing ALL WRONG,...