Something I found the other day, one of my favorite (modern-day) books, on audio. The plot itself isn’t the big deal, I just like the way she tells it.
http://www.sharelor.com/v/6188627/audiobook_secret_history_1.rar.html
That, and it was written in the 80’s, “talking ’bout my generation “(X, I think they call it?). Though the protagonist is a male, I can identify with and recall his disaffection with his environs, his yearning for something meaningful and eternal, yet “back in the day” , all people cared about was trying to get a job with IBM, BMW’s, the whole “dress for success” thing the awful bumper stickers ” He who dies with the most toys wins”, “I’d rather be shopping”. I graduated HS at 17 and had my share of retail jobs before I moved up to another level of part time “pink collar “employ while in college. All told, I probably worked in bookstores 4-5 years.
In the 80’s people could not get enough of Trump, the One Minute Manager, and books on how to hyper-decorate in an almost drag-queeny way, like umm “Laura Ashley” (gag), which was like girlie frou-frou on steroids, which stood in stark contrast to the Madonna-ish “Beverley Hills homeless hooker” look of the time. You would see one of those come in, in all her hair sprayed, shoulder-padded glory and plunk down (on the credit card, natch) maybe a couple hundred bucks on books, with titles like “Nancy Reagan’s tells All about Ronnie” or “Never Wear Blue Eyeshadow:Avoiding Make-up Faux Pas” and then maybe a stack of romance pulp with titles like “The Reluctant Pagan” or “Love’s Chained Misery” with obligatory buxom wenches grasped by Fabio, the male-model de jour.
In any case, I cannot completely skewer the 80’s, there were many things I did like about them, including a weakness for what my teenager calls “ferociously-upbeat-songs-about-nothing”. It’s true. Those were better times , when we were young and believed the world would be an OK place when we were “this age”. People worship Reagan as a conservative, but someone was telling me just this week he was the second one after JFK who f&^ked things up as far as immigration, perhaps worse. And yet, one of the questions at the Republican debates was “Who would Ronnie Endorse?” (or, would Ronnie endorse/vote for you?). I don’t think things were all that awful then for blacks either.
They certainly weren’t tearing down their public housing to build these “mixed income” condos, the new thinking being, just scatter them around, government still pays, but the problem isn’t as noticeable, and we can make the people who have to pay market rents miserable by having to live next to them to boot. Kewl. That travesty was Clinton’s idea. According to my research it is on its last legs, however , it has been replaced by something perhaps even more evil: Housing vouchers. The Section 8 crowd can take these “free rent checks” and live anywhere a landlord will accept them. Often times they are written for the highest of market rents, thus providing an incentive (where otherwise there would be none ) to rent to undesireables.
http://www.urban.org/publications/411002.html Hope VI
http://www.centeronbudget.org/5-15-03hous.htm housing vouchers
People weren’t so doggedly into “politically correct” either, then. Now it is to the point where it doesn’t help the people they are so worried about offending. Poof ! You’re equal! the Equality Fairy says, magically bestowing the gift of reading comprehension and higher math upon those whom moments before, were debating the merits of spending the afternoon inseminating their next “baby’s mama” , car-jacking, or robbing a bank, or perhaps if ambitious enough, all three! Now these types can live in a place you have worked hard to get..AWAY FROM THEM! Thanks (false ) Hope 6 for letting us know, playing by the rules really doesn’t pay after all!
I much prefer Howard Husok’s take -(old article, but more relevant than ever considering how very much the state is and has been paying all these years- AKA : YOU for this , while millions of working people , often both parents working, and never seeing each other , one works days, the other nigts so they need not pay childcare and therefore can pay the rent, and are foreclosed upon or must move because they simply can’t afford the rent)
http://www.city-journal.org/html/10_4_lets_end_housing.html
Better neighborhoods are not better because of something in the water but because people have built and sustained them by their efforts, their values, and their commitments. Voucher appropriations are based not only on the mistaken belief that it is necessary to award, at public expense, a better home to all who can demonstrate “need,” but also that it is uplifting to do so, when in fact it is the effort to achieve the good home, rather than the good home in itself, that is the real engine of uplift.
In South Philadelphia’s Irish and Italian neighborhoods, which have seen an influx of voucher holders, elected officials report being inundated with constituent complaints—and watching white constituents move out of the neighborhood. The area’s state representative, William Keller, describes how owners of row houses suddenly find that “the house next door is being rented to people whose kids are up all night, who are out in the street yelling ‘M-F’ this and ‘M-F’ that. It’s like they’re trying to find the worst people.” The issue, he says, “isn’t race; it’s class…
(YEAH RIGHT! FACT: The two are inseparable for the most part. What a dunderheaded thing to say!)
John Weicher, a Republican former HUD deputy assistant secretary now with the Hudson Institute, maintained that, through Section 8, “we can achieve the modest degree of improvement needed to bring many of our dwellings up to current quality standards and can provide significant financial relief for many hard-pressed poor families.” The program, he thought, would allow the poor to move to “better neighborhoods,” as if—another faulty assumption—a move to a middle-class environment would make them middle class.
That last was code for “they’re just not White” , and they aren’t going to act it. Hey , not everyone can be an O.J. Oh, wait..
OK so you DO hear the code? Just like those doofy books that supposedly tell men how to de-code what women say but really mean- same principle here. What he essentially is saying (in PC code, of course) is “You can take the (fill in ) out of the (fill in) but you can’t take the (fill in) out of the (fill in). Some people just aren’t civilized. Maybe because they just aren’t evolved. Like this guy (obligatory exception psycho White male news item) http://blogs.sfweekly.com/thesnitch/2008/02/she_had_it_coming.php I bet he’s the type to use these vouchers and be a nightmare to live next to. Having to hear his (well, not anymore) ‘old lady’ bytching about what thing she wants him to buy her next. I mean, really- “chiuda il portello, femmina!” (means..ahh “close the door, nice lady”in Italiano)..
Yep, psycho White people bringing down the neighborhood property values. Hate ’em.
I mean, come ON, we hear stories like this ALL the time- how many of us know someone who has been a victim of a White psycho? I bet all of us know or know of someone personally , a friend-of-a-friend- who has encountered a tongue-cutter-outer or serial killer. If you have a White person living next door to you, chances are, there’s bodies in the wall, under the foundation, and in the fridge. Why people always move to White neighborhoods I don’t know- they must have a death-wish. It’s tragic really, but we have brought it upon ourselves- society is to blame, no doubt he had a broken home and not enough social programs. Screw Mumia Abu-Whatever , “Free Frank !” , working-class hero !
Video:
http://www.ocregister.com/video/index.php?bcpid=1127694947&bclid=1184506340&bctid=1419758524
See it isn’t places like Oakland that are dangerous, it’s people like this guy! Srsly, with these vouchers and section 8 crap, they could put one of these types right next to you- and before you know it, you or someone you love has become a victim of the drive-by Mad Tongue Cutter of Orange County. Damnable longshoremen, and I hate to stereotype people, but it really is always them , moving in with their low IQ hyperactive children that eat out of the dumpsters, stealing your kids bikes, while Tongue-Cutter and his ho smoke crack. We have got to break the cycle, because little Jayden , Brianna, Kayleigh, Montana, Arizona, Cherokee , Destiny Rain, EarlBob and Crystal Brandy are our future!
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Check out the amounts these folks have to spend on their free apartments/houses
A rental search for ‘section 8’ yields
(they say this whether it actualy is section 8 or vouchers)
http://sfbay.craigslist.org/search/hsw?query=section+8&minAsk=min&maxAsk=max&bedrooms=
for “voucher”
http://sfbay.craigslist.org/search/hsw?query=voucher&minAsk=min&maxAsk=max&bedrooms=
(I have to take a break from this , my radiator is about to boil over! not going to bother to edit/rewrite!)
The Spoils of War 