The kicker? The kids all have flat screen TVs at home and other luxuries that their hardworking teacher can’t afford. But they are “poor” because they have been told that, because they receive reduced school lunches, and because they fall into the poverty level according to the government’s poverty calculators (which measure income, not what that income is spent on). The message to these kids is that because they are poor they can’t do certain things, even buy a notebook which can cost less than $1. Is this really how we’re raising the next generation?

I just heard an interview the other day with the Secretary of Health and Human Services, who is looking into raising the level which is considered living in poverty by the federal government. Sure, there are poor people in the United States. I know a few of them, and they don’t have flat screen TVs, but they have houses, a car, clothes. They live a life that the actual poor in other countries could only dream of, and they probably consider themselves too poor to spare $1 in change to save a life in Africa. When you tell people they’re poor, they begin to really think so.

I can’t say how many times I’ve been caught in the line behind a woman in the grocery store with nicer clothes than me, perfect manicure and hair, who is using WIC (Women, Infant, Children) certificates to buy all her food. I’m sure there are people who need and use this program, but the ones who use it and don’t need it are not few and far between from what I’ve seen. I’ve even been greeted with surprise by a cashier who asks if I’ll be using WIC to pay for my purchases– I guess I’m the age where all young women pay with WIC. Don’t even get me started on the phenomenon of people who sell their food stamps.

It is sad when we as a society place more value on outside appearance of wealth (flat screen TV, manicured nails, nice clothes) than we do on food, benefiting society rather than it personally benefiting you, honesty, authenticity, and education. This problem is basically a microcosm of what is wrong with our entire American society.

Amy often flew to Chicago to surprise her sisters’ kids. She loved fashion design, and her boyfriend had a 12-year-old daughter and “loved music and songs” and “lived a peaceful life.” King “was the person who would have thought of everybody else.” King and Tarrou were particularly close to the other United attendants based in Boston.

Some descriptions of the passengers on Flight 175 can be found here. There were seven flight attendants on the plane that day, and they will continue to be remembered as victims of a larger conflict that they had no part in, people who didn’t matter to the hijackers that day but do matter to us.

John William Perry was a police officer who, while not at the World Trade Center himself when the planes hit the towers, ran to Ground Zero to do what he could to help and gave his life trying to rescue people from the towers. Perry had graduated from New York University Law School and had been an activist in the ACLU and Libertarian Party, with a particular focus in the war on drugs and how misguided it is.

Incredibly, I did not choose John William Perry as my person, I was assigned to memorialize him, yet I had already independently come across a memorial site to him… a site in which he is remembered by a friend, as a good friend and a good person– “John Perry was one of my best friends and one of my all-time favorite people… He has made me laugh so much. I still miss him. I always will.” When you think about it, there aren’t too many higher, or more heartfelt, compliments someone could hope to receive beyond those simple yet important accolades, but I’ll try.

I came across Perry through a Google search because he was a libertarian and because he was interested in things libertarians in general are often interested in, such as cryonics. He was a member of the Libertarian Party and planned to run for office as a Libertarian, and like many libertarians, he believed in the power of private, unforced giving and practiced it.

Perry was also remarkable in other ways that are immediately evident to anyone reading about him. He was a police officer who obviously chose to be a police officer, who had graduated from a top law school and could have easily had a different career. He spoke multiple languages fluently, including Swedish, French, Spanish, and Russian (and was learning Albanian when he died!) He was a member of the National Guard and an avid volunteer, for the Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Children and as a board member for the New York Civil Liberties Union, which won so many important battles against Rudy Giuliani during those years. His regard for other people did not stop at the New York City area or even America’s borders: he donated bulletproof vests to Russian police officers who lacked equipment.

As a police officer based in the Bronx, he stood against police brutality, racial profiling, vice laws, gun control, the War on Drugs, police corruption, and other abuses of power.

September 11th was going to be an eventful day in Perry’s life no matter what; it was to be his last day as a police officer, and he was signing his retirement papers and turning in his badge at 1 Police Plaza when he heard the news and rushed to the World Trade Center a few blocks away. He refused to leave the building while civilians were still in it who needed his assistance. Eyewitnesses said Perry was in the midst of helping a middle-aged woman who had fainted from a heart or asthma attack when the south tower collapsed above him.

Perry is memorialized at his alma mater, SUNY-Stonybrook, along with other classmates and alums who perished in the twin towers. The town of Hempstead, in Long Island, named a street John W. Perry Avenue in the officer’s honor. At the 2002 National Libertarian Party convention, he was given a lifetime achievement award.

If you would like to help remember John W. Perry and his bravery that day, as well as do your part to help a cause he believed in, you can make a donation to the John W. Perry Fund in his honor. The fund gives scholarships to students who have been prevented by a 1998 federal bill from receiving any financial aid or even taking work-study jobs to get through school, due to even minor (non-violent) drug possession charges.

Officer Perry was survived by his parents, Patricia and James, siblings Janice and Joel, and nephew Jimmy. While Perry had an interest and hope in the possibilities of cryonics that was also sadly cut off by the September 11th murderers, it is a certainty that the memory of John William Perry’s life and heroism will remain in the minds of many, and will live on in the future through the actions and dreams of those inspired by his giving spirit.

From Animals

The ad garnered more attention for asking why Obama supports different policies for his children than for others’ children, and the White House asking for the ads to be taken down, than it did for its actual content or purpose. I think the ad serves its purpose well. The fact is, Obama has no idea what food is served in the lunchrooms of American public schools because his daughters have never attended one, and neither did he. He went to the most exclusive private academy in Hawaii.

As for the mission of PCRM– I’m a vegetarian, so I agree with their mission of showing that vegetarian diets are in fact healthy (as confirmed by the American Diatetic Association in a recent statement) and expanding them. However, the concurrent goal of having the federal government step in to provide healthier school lunches is not one I can wholeheartedly endorse. I don’t think the federal government, and especially the USDA which works in tandem with agribusiness lobbyists to buy gruel for the nation’s schoolchildren, should be in the business of providing lunches at all.

However, we currently spend billions of the USDA’s budget on school lunches and other subsidized lunch programs that will not end anytime soon. IF we’re going to spend the money anyway, we might as well buy healthy food and not contribute to an obesity problem poor children are already more likely to have due to our other food policies. While vegetarian food, strictly speaking, is not necessarily healthier than meat-based meals 100% of the time (think cheese pizza vs. salmon), most of the time it is. Spending billions on meals for children and not including fruits and vegetables is pretty much a crime. This is true especially if we get some sort of public health care system in place (of course, we do already have that for those over 65), where we’ll be paying for treatment for heart attacks, statins, and strokes of grown-up schoolchildren with clogged arteries from years of mystery meat.

And there’s always the possibility, too, that Malia and Sasha might take notice: the last young girl to live in the White House, Chelsea Clinton, was a vegetarian. The Obama daughters attend the same school as Chelsea, Sidwell Friends, which has a Quaker affiliation; Quakers have historically been very friendly towards vegetarian diets due to their teachings of non-violence.

Congressman Paul mentioned that news outlets had been eager to talk to him about the story, because he is from Texas and because he’s probably known for supporting ideas that are considered out of the norm. While he doesn’t think that Texas should secede, he supports Texas’ right to secede. Time discusses why this is such a problem for most people: Abraham Lincoln made such a case against secession, and the cost of the Civil War was so great, that to even consider a state seceding at this point seems like an affront to not just Lincoln but to liberty and freedom and America itself.

Ron Paul presents good arguments why secession shouldn’t be entirely left off the table: it’s how America came into being, after all. New England once wanted to secede because it was upset with the South, and no one at that time made an argument that secession was unconstitutional. We’re delighted to arm and train secessionists in various hotspots around the world, including the many countries that left the Soviet Union.

As for Texas, it wouldn’t fare too badly as its own country. According to Time:

NCAA offcials would have to grant an exception for foreign participation in college bowl games, but I’m betting they’d agree. American Airlines might decide to move out of Dallas, but I’d be O.K. with leaving NASA behind and letting Texans decide if they could afford to return to the moon. Border-patrol costs would be steep, but I’m sure Texas’ application to join NAFTA would be favorably received. And it would get a vote at the U.N. and the right for its diplomats to park wherever they wanted on the streets of Manhattan. Texas would saunter into the global community bigger than Australia, Greece or Bolivia.

No one except my American companions and I paid them any mind, as if it was completely a normal, everyday thing.

This leads to two questions: Why does Europe, of all places, allow huge dogs in restaurants when they are so highly regulated in other areas?

and

Why doesn’t America, land of the free and home of the brave and a country of dog lovers, not allow even small dogs in restaurants?

It turns out that this is not due to restaurant owners’ choice, or any problems with hygiene, but because of an FDA recommendation the whole nation abides by because states adopt the FDA Food Code. The reasons given are that the dogs could pee on floors and that people might pet the dogs and then prepare food. Toddlers and old people can pee on floors as well, but we don’t ban them, do we? I have never heard of an outbreak of restaurant diseases in Europe do to people bringing their dogs inside, have you?

It’s common practice not just in Austria but in all of Europe to bring dogs into restaurants of any level of service.

So the next time you think that Europe is more highly regulated than the United States, just think of all those poor little friendy puppies recommended by our federal government and forced by our states and localities to be left at home in order for their owners to patronize restaurants, while European dogs lie quietly under the table.

I turned to those watching with me and said, “Could they get away with saying that about any of our other allies? Imagine Biden saying, ‘I’ve been England’s greatest supporter during my 30 years in the US Senate’ or ‘I wouldn’t have joined Barack Obama on this ticket if he didn’t share with me a passion for England.’”

Of course, no at-home swing voter mentioned this in the post-debate follow-ups, the mainstream media hasn’t touched it, and it seems to be perfectly acceptable in America today to love a foreign country, but only if it’s a certain foreign country. I’m glad to see that at least Glenn Greenwald, a very smart guy, was thinking the exact same thing I did during this exchange.

Could Sarah Palinget away with saying “I’m glad to see that we both love Spain” or “I’m so glad you love France, too” during an American debate like this? Just think about it for a minute, and you realize how absurd it is.

The bailout bill that the Senate will vote on tonight is different than the one the House voted down two days ago. It raises the FDIC cap from $100,000 to $250,000, among other token measures.

I didn’t really start noticing the propoganda about the FDIC until I realized how worthless it was, after my own bank, Netbank, failed a year ago. The FDIC facilitated ING’s purchase of what was Netbank, which is the only thing of worth that they do.

They just can’t insure every American’s personal accounts up to $250,000. The fact that actual senators (or more likely, their staffs) have inserted this into a Congressional bill is perpetrating a fraud.

In isolated incidents such as that of Netbank, another bank will buy the failed bank’s holdings and make good on them, just like ING did. In a rash of closings like those we have seen, the government may “have” to do it because it’s not financially sound, but they won’t be able to. The FDIC was created to prevent runs on banks, and because some people trust the FDIC, it may in fact help prevent that.

However, if there is any type of massive failed bank situation where millions of Americans want the FDIC to pony up, it won’t be able to. It doesn’t have the funds, despite collecting premiums from banks all along. It doesn’t have $100,000 for every $100,000 customer, let alone $250,000. It has $50 billion ($8 billion of which went for IndyMac) to insure $1 trillion in deposits.

Apparently the fever tick is a really bad thing that we don’t want in our country. We don’t want it so much that taxpayers still pay $4 million a year for the fever tick eradication program on the Texas border. The state of Texas writes: “Overall, the expenditure represents a good bargain; a l990 USDA commissioned cost-benefit study showed that, for every dollar spent on the program, producers save $121.”

However, is that a good deal for taxpayers? If a program like that is so cost-effective for producers, wouldn’t they pony up the bill to have their own fleet of “tick riders” if the government didn’t do it for them? It amazes me that people are against corporations, but they tolerate millions in corporate welfare going to huge industries like that for Texas cattle.

Of course, in the end it turns out that this federal program was just as pointless as almost every other one… Mexican cattle long ago became naturally immune to the fever tick, and it simply doesn’t affect them. The Mexican government spent $0, and now have a better result than we do.

As will happen when the government hands out money, the beef industry wants more manna from the taxpayers: “The Fever Tick Force and the Texas and Southwest Cattle Raisers Association asked Congress this summer to spend more than $30 million over four years, plus a $2.5 million grant to the USDA Agricultural Research Service to find and develop new chemical agents to combat the ticks.”

Tags: Tick riders, Tick riders Mexican border, tick riders Texas, fever ticks

On January 3, Major Olmsted was killed in Iraq. The circumstances are still unclear, but it seems to involve gunfire from insurgents. His blogger friend has kept her promise and published his final post on Olmsted’s website.

As those things inevitably go, people became a lot more interested in Olmsted’s writing after he was killed in the war and his friend uploaded his final posting– his blog at the Rocky Mountain News received 100,000 hits in one day. Looking at his website, he seems to be a very good writer who was hopeful about what he could accomplish in Iraq. He described himself as “libertarian” although “not a Libertarian,” with “strongly individualistic beliefs.” One of his last posts on his own website, published last February, references Matthew Yglesias, who had concluded from a bit of evidence that the surge wasn’t working.

Olmsted wrote in response:

Besides, young Matthew has provided a wonderful metric for those of a libertarian bent, like me. Consider:

Social security doesn’t work: some old people are still poor.

Welfare programs don’t work: some people are still poor.

Medicare doesn’t work: some old people don’t have access to health care.

Medicaid doesn’t work: some poor people don’t have acces to health care.

Hell, using Matt’s logic, we ought to have the federal government trimmed at least by half in no time. Why do I get the feeling Matty wouldn’t agree with that extension of his logic?

I like Maj. Olmsted’s way of thinking. We may disagree on one large issue, but he seems to have at least thought his way to that position logically and have been able to give articulate and cohesive arguments in defense of it, qualities which I have not noticed in most of the people who hold a position that the Iraq War is working out well. I was going to say something further, but I’ll respect Olmsted’s last wishes in his final post and just leave it at that.

Instead, I’ll let Major Olmsted have the final words.

… I’m dead. That sucks, at least for me and my family and friends. But all the tears in the world aren’t going to bring me back, so I would prefer that people remember the good things about me rather than mourning my loss. (If it turns out a specific number of tears will, in fact, bring me back to life, then by all means, break out the onions.) I had a pretty good life, as I noted above. Sure, all things being equal I would have preferred to have more time, but I have no business complaining with all the good fortune I’ve enjoyed in my life. So if you’re up for that, put on a little 80s music (preferably vintage 1980-1984), grab a Coke and have a drink with me. If you have it, throw ‘Freedom Isn’t Free’ from the Team America soundtrack in; if you can’t laugh at that song, I think you need to lighten up a little. I’m dead, but if you’re reading this, you’re not, so take a moment to enjoy that happy fact.

… I suppose I should speak to the circumstances of my death. It would be nice to believe that I died leading men in battle, preferably saving their lives at the cost of my own. More likely I was caught by a marksman or an IED. But if there is an afterlife, I’m telling anyone who asks that I went down surrounded by hundreds of insurgents defending a village composed solely of innocent women and children. It’ll be our little secret, ok?

… I wish I could say I’d at least started to get it right. Although, in my defense, I think I batted a solid .250 or so… But on a larger scale, for those who knew me well enough to be saddened by my death, especially for those who haven’t known anyone else lost to this war, perhaps my death can serve as a small reminder of the costs of war. Regardless of the merits of this war, or of any war, I think that many of us in America have forgotten that war means death and suffering in wholesale lots. A decision that for most of us in America was academic, whether or not to go to war in Iraq, had very real consequences for hundreds of thousands of people. Yet I was as guilty as anyone of minimizing those very real consequences in lieu of a cold discussion of theoretical merits of war and peace. Now I’m facing some very real consequences of that decision; who says life doesn’t have a sense of humor?

… If everyone who feels this pain keeps that in mind the next time we have to decide whether or not war is a good idea, perhaps it will help us to make a more informed decision. Because it is pretty clear that the average American would not have supported the Iraq War had they known the costs going in. I am far too cynical to believe that any future debate over war will be any less vitriolic or emotional, but perhaps a few more people will realize just what those costs can be the next time.

This may be a contradiction of my above call to keep politics out of my death, but I hope not. Sometimes going to war is the right idea. I think we’ve drawn that line too far in the direction of war rather than peace, but I’m a soldier and I know that sometimes you have to fight if you’re to hold onto what you hold dear. But in making that decision, I believe we understate the costs of war; when we make the decision to fight, we make the decision to kill, and that means lives and families destroyed. Mine now falls into that category; the next time the question of war or peace comes up, if you knew me at least you can understand a bit more just what it is you’re deciding to do, and whether or not those costs are worth it.

Update: Maj. Olmsted’s family has asked that if anyone would like to make donations, they send them to the education fund for the four children of Captain Thomas Casey, who died attempting to help Maj. Olmsted.

Tags: Andrew Olmsted, Andrew Olmsted Iraq, Andrew Olmsted final post, Iraq War