Poverty and Crime

It's always nice to see the rich and powerful "discover" rural poverty once again. This time it's John Edwards. Sure, John Edwards grew up poor. By poor, I mean middle class. Of course, he knew he didn't like that middle cla.......er, poverty riddled upbringing, so he decided to help the little man by taking 30 percent of his/her settlement. But hey, he cares. After losing the 2004 election, Edwards decided to go to work at a hedge fun in order to understand poverty better. Of course, since a hedge fund is basically a mutual fund for the very rich, working at a hedge fund to understand poverty is like shopping at Louis Vuitton to understand the buying habits of the poor. At least it pays well for part time work. Normally, it's tough for me to take someone seriously when they become poverty crusaders after moving into a 28,000 square foot home, but I think that mansion does show he can do things for people who are less well off. For example, his new home drove the property taxes up enough that some people have to move out.

I'm sure Edwards really cares about poor people, but I still think the politicians swooping in for a photo op in Appalachia is simply that - a photo op. Robert Kennedy breezed through 39 years ago, and what happened? Nothing. Eastern Kentucky is still considered the backwards ass part of the state, and that isn't likely to change. It's an area that will always have poor job prospects because of population and terrain. Building highways into the mountains is tough, and it doesn't make sense to do it in an area with low population. So, these areas are already at a disadvantage because of that, and add to it an uneducated population. Statistics don't lie in this case. Eastern Kentucky has the highest high school dropout rates in the state. And sometimes by quite a bit. The Herald-Leader called the dropout rate an indicator of poverty, but in reality it's a cause. I have never seen a poverty study that does not include include high school graduation rates. If you own a business, does it make sense to go to an remote area with a bunch of dropouts as your employment pool? Appalachia is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Dropout of high school because there are no jobs, but there are no jobs because of an uneducated population.

Doesn't that mean the federal government needs to be more involved? Not really. To begin with, I have a philosophical argument. If there aren't jobs there, why not move? Plenty of people move for job reasons. If I couldn't find work in Lexington, but knew I had a better chance in Cincinnati, I would make the move. The counter argument is "this is home, I don't want to move, Momma's here, so is my steady tail also known as sis". That's fine, but why should the taxpayers who are willing to uproot themselves for a better life have to subsidize someone who wants to stay home? Plus, there is the realistic argument - government spending isn't going to get rid of poverty. The Appalachian Regional Commission was set up to combat poverty in this area, but 42 years and $16.4 billion in inflation adjusted dollars later, we're pretty much where we started. Building an industrial park isn't going to bring in industry if other factors (proximity and dumb workers) aren't taken care of.

Let's look at West Virginia. Robert Byrd has been the Senate Majority or Minority Leader or ranking Democrat of the Appropriations Committee going back to 1977. As pointed out before, he has sent a buttload of money (ours, not his) to West Virginia. In college, I read a book called The Cardinals of Capitol Hill by Richard Munson (okay, if it was my junior year, I skimmed it while drinking hard liquor). The most interesting thing was that due to Byrd's power, there was Senate Appropriations committee staffer whose sole role was to make sure every appropriation bill had earmarks for West Virginia. Yet, for all that money pouring into West Virginia, does anyone consider it a thriving economic center?

There are certain stories that about make me blow a blood vessel in my brain (and plenty of drinks that do the same thing). This week's is a case in Maryland where a child rapist's case was dismissed because they didn't have an interpretor for his obscure African bush language. The guy spoke good enough English that he could attend community college, but it wasn't good enough to explain to him that he was being tried for having sex with a seven year old is illegal? How stupid is that? Well, if he doesn't want to take the time to learn in English that raping children isn't kosher in this country, I say deport him. About halfway across the Atlantic would be good. Send the judge with him.

Hopefully, no one will think it would be better to just "study" him like death row inmate Mark Dean Schwab. I did like the prosecutor's comment that studying him would be just fine as long as it was postmortem.

The last time I mentioned the DC Madam, I said she was full of crap for believing that it would take a long time to go through her posted phone records. Well, cnn.com already has an article detailing their investigation into them. Writer of the article wasn’t too bright when she seemed to wonder why there were a lot of doctors, lawyers and people in the tech industry using the “service”. Well, duh, this was a high priced call girl ring. Was she expecting to find garbagemen?

The girls who were working for her shouldn't be considered professional, because they don't have degrees in prostitution like people in New Zealand could eventually get. Yep, higher education definitely needs more funding.

Now, here's a real scumbag. This Fort Bragg soldier was knowingly giving AIDS to a teenage boy. His wife and kids must be so proud. I'm trying to figure out how he ended up in the Army instead of the Navy. I like how the teen's mother says the army should have more control over personnel with AIDS. Like what? Quarantine? Try and get that past a certain lobby. Here's a better thought. Tell your son just because someone wants to bugger him doesn't mean he's your friend.

When I read the headline of this article, "Mayor Wants Grandmas To Help Fight Gangs", I thought it was a bad Saturday Night Live skit about crime fighting grannies. But, alas, they just want crime prevention ideas from grandmothers. Here's one. Tell your kids not to drive their kids to a murder. Just one little theory on how to slow down gang violence.

Reason # 1,049,073 why I don't wish to emulate Europe. In England, you need a license to watch TV. Not a tax on cable TV. You need a license to own and watch over the air stations. Not only that, but they have vans that cruise around neighborhoods trying to electronically catch people watching TV without a license. Seems rather Orwellian.