Saturday’s Forum
Steven L. Taylor
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Saturday, August 31, 2024
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16 comments
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About Steven L. Taylor
Steven L. Taylor is a retired Professor of Political Science and former College of Arts and Sciences Dean. His main areas of expertise include parties, elections, and the institutional design of democracies. His most recent book is the co-authored
A Different Democracy: American Government in a 31-Country Perspective. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Texas and his BA from the University of California, Irvine. He has been blogging since 2003 (originally at the now defunct Poliblog).
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A lawyer’s take on “Elon’s Dumbest Suit Yet (Suing Advertisers).”
Bonoism of the day:
It’s like the room just cleared of smoke
I didn’t even want the heart you broke
It’s yours to keep, you just might need one
@Kathy: Speaking of Elon, seems like he pisses a lot of people off:
Brazil watchdog moves to block access to Elon Musk’s X after court order
@Scott:
I posted on that yesterday.
I know late afternoon comments get lost amid quitting time and dinner.
@Kathy: I should’ve reviewed yesterday. I tend to just pay attention in the mornings.
I volunteer at a homeless shelter two or three days a week. Which means a four AM alarm. Day off today, but I woke up at 3:45 anyway.
I’m the dude that hands out towels and soap and toothpaste etc during wake up time until 8 am.
The shelter has rigidly enforced rules about what is allowed where and when. If you are sleeping in the main open area, you will be awakened by lights and just general activity at 5 AM. People who have a bed in the dormitories can sleep until 6 before lights on. Breakfast is at 6:30. No dormitory access from 7 until 4.
One thing that I’m not totally on board with is that folks are identified by their bed number. Strikes me as demeaning. I understand it’s a handy shortcut, though. I can see why. When you go through the meal line, you get marked down / identified by your bed number if you have one. I’ve done that process.
Most nights it’s a dozen or so folks sleeping in the common room and 150 more in the dorms. One night in late July it was over 50 folks in the common room. They ran out of blankets. Concrete floor, but it’s a roof and a bathroom. Many more just sleep raw.
In that shelter it’s always overflow. If you show up new it’s likely a three days to five days wait before you get an actual bed in the dorms. Until then you sleep on the floor of the main common room. You are provided a blanket at 9 pm. If you don’t check in daily by 3 pm you lose your bed. You get 90 days for your first stay. Strictly enforced. I understand the rules and why they exist.
The need exceeds the infrastructure. There are more homeless folks than the bureaucracies accounted for. The shelters try to cope best they can.
People who work at my shelter are nice folks, good folks. I’m not staff; I’m a volunteer. Major distinction in roles there, responsibilities. Those folks who are staff deserve a major raise. They are heroes. They put up with so much crap and foolishness daily.
Homeless folks are like any subset of the population – some are good folks and some are not. The some who are not can be very scary and aggressive. I’m not a naive fool. Have seen it firsthand. A lot. The policy is to swarm them.
I can tell a lot of a person just by eyeballing them. Stance. Mien. Demeanor. I sorta know who is a good citizen or not in two seconds. Maybe not immediately pegging who is going to be a sweetheart to work with, but bad folks give off bad vibes. You sort of know / catch on immediately. You instinctively know who is going to cause an issue that needs being dealt with.
That population has a higher likelihood to contain some not so good folks.
As a volunteer I will provide a towel, shampoo, soap, toothpaste, razor, etc. to anyone that asks. I know what is my business and what isn’t.
Tl: dr, Homeless shelters house everybody who presents and accepts the bag search and pat-down process. Not enough beds. Staff needs a raise. Social workers need a raise. Volunteers and donations are needed and greatly appreciated.
@Scott: Erik Loomis at LGM commented on the Brazil/X story.
However, Musk has a ton of money and Brazil uses Starlink heavily, so we’ll have to see if the judge’s decision survives.
@de stijl: Bless you for doing this work. In San Antonio, we have Haven for Hope, a 1600 person complex. Founded in 2006, it is run by a private foundation started by Bill Greehey, then the head of Valero Corp.
My daughter, during law school, volunteered there mostly working to get the homeless identification paperwork. This is a bigger deal than most realize. Without it, these people are invisible. We tend to forget that to exist and function in a modern society there is an administrative burden that we all have to carry.
This is good:
http://www.thebulwark.com/p/thumbs-up-the-story-of-no-context
@CSK: the other interesting thing about Trump using that standard pose no matter the context is that the pose itself is odd. He holds his arm to low to be giving a genuine thumbs up-it isn’t an expression of genuine feeling, it is literally just the pose he uses whenever he is being photographed. Compare his arm position. To that of the other people in the photos who are mimicking his thumbs up gesture, but think they are also mimicking the attitude that a thumbs up gesture normally conveys
Hey @Steven Taylor-you might be interested in this podcast that talks about how the encomienda in Columbia impacted development and also how the political party system in Bolivia remains stable through multiple coups, then suddenly changed in 2003.
@Scott:
I really enjoy it. It is very fulfilling.
Not so much the actual prep work or the doing of it, but the after effects.
I get bored so I go walk, daily. Almost every time I encounter someone I know or recognize from the shelter. It happened twice yesterday and once this morning.
Almost everyday, just out walking, I get fist bumps or full on hugs from folks I know and met from the shelter.
For a lot of people just having someone greet you in a friendly manner out on the street can be a huge deal. “Hey! I know you. How have you been?” Just bullshitting with somebody for a half-minute, just having someone who knows your name can be a big deal in turning your day into a good one.
If anyone wants to donate cheaply, Q-tips and disposable razors are always needed.
@Erik:
Yes. It’s as if, along with being oblivious to context, he doesn’t know how to perform the gesture properly.
LGM posted a story about the latest discovery of a JD Vance anti-woman screed, and it got me thinking about how he compares to Trump. Commenters pointed out that Vance hates himself and hates women because he hates his mom and never forgave her.
I thought about Trump, who is equally misogynistic, but in a different way. To Trump, women are considered inferior to him and their value is only to the extent that they’re sex objects, but I don’t think he necessarily hates women and he doesn’t care if they work outside the home or get abortions. I never thought I’d find someone even more loathsome than Trump, but here we are.
@de stijl:
We are very different people. This reads to me as a threat. People hugging me? I’ll shake hands, that’s it. No la bise, no hugs.* We have a horror of ever being known, or of belonging or fitting in. Anonymity is freedom. Maintain ironic distance at all times.
*Also no dancing, no parties, no costumes, no effusions of joy, or any other emotion, really, and all seats are to be on the aisle where we can escape early. We are a fun, fun couple.
@Monala: Until JD Vance is found liable for raping someone, I’ll still keep thinking that Trump is more loathsome.
That said, I don’t think Trump hates women in particular. I think that if he were attracted to men he would treat them as terribly as he treats women.
If he were into dudes, he would be disparaging pretty boys without an ounce of thought in their head or something. Words like “twink” and “bottom” would appear regularly in his campaign ramblings in a deeply negative way.