![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
drewbearFirst of all, a warning: I'm in a ranting mood this morning, so take heed.
I've been thinking a lot about money recently. There's a song lyric that goes
/~ I hate those people who love to tell you
"Money is the root of all that kills."
They have never been poor;
they have never known the joy of a welfare Christmas. ~/
And this is very much true in America, possibly much of the post-industrialized world. The people who claim that "Oh, money isn't everything" or "Money is the root of all evil, you know" or "Well, if they only tried, of course they wouldn't be poor" are the people who already have money. They (generally) don't have to worry about where next month's rent is coming from, or how they can afford to get the car repaired so they can keep working, or worry about getting sick because there's no way they can afford to get treated.
And the old Horatio Alger myth, "Anyone can bootstrap themselves from poverty to riches!" is bullshit in today's world. To quote another, more apropos saying, it takes money to make money. If every dime I earn is going to pay off bills and debts and every second of my day is spent working, eating, sleeping, or studying, how the hell am I supposed to go out and start a new business or invent a new product or whatever?! The Alger myth is an appeasement tool in class warfare. Theoretically, it placates the lower (poor) class by presenting a way out of poverty and it reassures the middle (comfortable) and upper (rich) classes that they're justified in their contempt for "those lazy bastards".
I'm luckier than most of the poor. I've got 2 part-time jobs in this economy, and both pay quite well. But I only work 20 hours a week at one, and the other (my tutoring job) is highly seasonal and erratic and doesn't provide many hours per pay period. I believe that the current pay period will have the greatest number of hours per period that I've every worked, at 10 tutoring hours. While it's good money, I CANNOT safely include that in a long-term budget, since I never know exactly how much I'll be working! I'm legally poor. I always have been and I will be at least until I finish school, probably longer. I tutor the children of obscenely wealthy families. And while the parents are nice on a personal level, I have seen or overheard more contempt for "lesser" (read: "poorer") people than I can sometimes stomach. That's the other side of the Alger myth. If by some miracle some poor or middle-class individual does pull hi- or herself higher up the wealth ladder, they're much more likely to hate the class of people they just left.
The widening wealth gap in this country sickens me, and the tactics used to keep people blind to it sickens me even more.
I've had some odd dreams the past few nights. Now, I know that ALL dreams are at least a little odd, but I don't often remember having dreamed, much less what I dream, so these kinda stand out.
Friday night I had a nightmare about one of the students I saw yesterday. This wasn't a "scare the crap outta you" nightmare but rather was a "oh god; I can't believe this is happening AGAIN!" nightmare. I've had some extreme difficulty with scheduling this kid, as neither he nor his mother appear able to properly read a calendar. I've had to cancel and reschedule 4 times so far, because they thought I was a different tutor, or they got the time wrong, or he was out of town, or blahblahblahblahblah. So I dreamt that it was the day before this kid's SAT. We had 2 more lessons (4 hours worth) that still needed to be done. And when I was almost at their house, I got a call from his mother telling me something like "Oh, he decided to go play volleyball today instead. Can we reschedule?" I actually woke up with tears of frustration running down my face.
Last night I had some weird dream that I remember less clearly. It involved some kind of party, someone was dancing on the ceiling, and there's this one line that I kept fucking up, over and over: "One drink is really enough, two drinks at the most, three drinks I'm under the table, four drinks I'm under my host."
Apparently John Waters has a new film coming out called A Dirty Shame in which he tackles sex. I've never really liked John Waters's films. With the exception of Hairspray, he seems to always be trying to be provacative for provacative's sake. There may be a message in his mess, but it's almost always incidental to his voyueristic "Look at what they're doing now!" moviemaking style.
With that aside taken care of, what's bothering me about this movie is that, among the other fetishes he presents is a family of Bears: Papa Bear, Mama Bear, and Baby Bear. Apparently there's a bear orgy scene in the movie, and considering the movie's rated NC-17, the orgy is probably going to be rather explicit. Now, normally I might go see the movie just for this scene *grin*, but on the movie's website, John Waters has a mini-interview clip where he's talking about the various fetishes he covers in the film, and describes Bears as (and I paraphrase) "Bears are a new thing! Bears are hairy, overweight, middle-aged homosexuals" and the clip that follows manages to make them look like hairy, fat queens. This kind of thing pisses me off. The bear "movement" isn't all that new; from what I can tell, it's existed for at least 30 years, but because John Waters hadn't heard of it before, it must be new. And that's the way it always is. People are just so SHOCKED!!! when they find out that not all gay men are gymbunny hairless twink-queens "lahk them queers on that makeup show".
Well, I have more that I could rant about, but I have to get going for my first student of the day. Enjoy yourselves, friends!
I've been thinking a lot about money recently. There's a song lyric that goes
/~ I hate those people who love to tell you
"Money is the root of all that kills."
They have never been poor;
they have never known the joy of a welfare Christmas. ~/
And this is very much true in America, possibly much of the post-industrialized world. The people who claim that "Oh, money isn't everything" or "Money is the root of all evil, you know" or "Well, if they only tried, of course they wouldn't be poor" are the people who already have money. They (generally) don't have to worry about where next month's rent is coming from, or how they can afford to get the car repaired so they can keep working, or worry about getting sick because there's no way they can afford to get treated.
And the old Horatio Alger myth, "Anyone can bootstrap themselves from poverty to riches!" is bullshit in today's world. To quote another, more apropos saying, it takes money to make money. If every dime I earn is going to pay off bills and debts and every second of my day is spent working, eating, sleeping, or studying, how the hell am I supposed to go out and start a new business or invent a new product or whatever?! The Alger myth is an appeasement tool in class warfare. Theoretically, it placates the lower (poor) class by presenting a way out of poverty and it reassures the middle (comfortable) and upper (rich) classes that they're justified in their contempt for "those lazy bastards".
I'm luckier than most of the poor. I've got 2 part-time jobs in this economy, and both pay quite well. But I only work 20 hours a week at one, and the other (my tutoring job) is highly seasonal and erratic and doesn't provide many hours per pay period. I believe that the current pay period will have the greatest number of hours per period that I've every worked, at 10 tutoring hours. While it's good money, I CANNOT safely include that in a long-term budget, since I never know exactly how much I'll be working! I'm legally poor. I always have been and I will be at least until I finish school, probably longer. I tutor the children of obscenely wealthy families. And while the parents are nice on a personal level, I have seen or overheard more contempt for "lesser" (read: "poorer") people than I can sometimes stomach. That's the other side of the Alger myth. If by some miracle some poor or middle-class individual does pull hi- or herself higher up the wealth ladder, they're much more likely to hate the class of people they just left.
The widening wealth gap in this country sickens me, and the tactics used to keep people blind to it sickens me even more.
I've had some odd dreams the past few nights. Now, I know that ALL dreams are at least a little odd, but I don't often remember having dreamed, much less what I dream, so these kinda stand out.
Friday night I had a nightmare about one of the students I saw yesterday. This wasn't a "scare the crap outta you" nightmare but rather was a "oh god; I can't believe this is happening AGAIN!" nightmare. I've had some extreme difficulty with scheduling this kid, as neither he nor his mother appear able to properly read a calendar. I've had to cancel and reschedule 4 times so far, because they thought I was a different tutor, or they got the time wrong, or he was out of town, or blahblahblahblahblah. So I dreamt that it was the day before this kid's SAT. We had 2 more lessons (4 hours worth) that still needed to be done. And when I was almost at their house, I got a call from his mother telling me something like "Oh, he decided to go play volleyball today instead. Can we reschedule?" I actually woke up with tears of frustration running down my face.
Last night I had some weird dream that I remember less clearly. It involved some kind of party, someone was dancing on the ceiling, and there's this one line that I kept fucking up, over and over: "One drink is really enough, two drinks at the most, three drinks I'm under the table, four drinks I'm under my host."
Apparently John Waters has a new film coming out called A Dirty Shame in which he tackles sex. I've never really liked John Waters's films. With the exception of Hairspray, he seems to always be trying to be provacative for provacative's sake. There may be a message in his mess, but it's almost always incidental to his voyueristic "Look at what they're doing now!" moviemaking style.
With that aside taken care of, what's bothering me about this movie is that, among the other fetishes he presents is a family of Bears: Papa Bear, Mama Bear, and Baby Bear. Apparently there's a bear orgy scene in the movie, and considering the movie's rated NC-17, the orgy is probably going to be rather explicit. Now, normally I might go see the movie just for this scene *grin*, but on the movie's website, John Waters has a mini-interview clip where he's talking about the various fetishes he covers in the film, and describes Bears as (and I paraphrase) "Bears are a new thing! Bears are hairy, overweight, middle-aged homosexuals" and the clip that follows manages to make them look like hairy, fat queens. This kind of thing pisses me off. The bear "movement" isn't all that new; from what I can tell, it's existed for at least 30 years, but because John Waters hadn't heard of it before, it must be new. And that's the way it always is. People are just so SHOCKED!!! when they find out that not all gay men are gymbunny hairless twink-queens "lahk them queers on that makeup show".
Well, I have more that I could rant about, but I have to get going for my first student of the day. Enjoy yourselves, friends!
