The Weekly Tendown April 22-28 2012(It's still Saturday to me)

Dear Internet:



I didn't have AJ Jenkins in my Top 100.  If he has a better NFL career than Coby Fleener I invite Trent Baalke to criticize me in the most embarrassing of fashion.  But to my eye, this pick was error.

I was cool with the Oregon back in the second.  I was cool with trading out of the third.

That's where the draft ended for me; I had a pretty intense out of town job interview that resulted in my going full draft blackout until Saturday, when I watched the first three rounds.  Right after I finish this, I watch 4-7.  I didn't even get to put up my NBA Playoffs prediction post before the games started, but my boldest pick was a devastating knee injury to Derrick Rose.  Someone will let me know how that turns out.

124 is here. This is Tendown 125

1. Take Tuesday Off
Tuesday is May 1; the Occupy movement is having a general strike.  You can go here to see links to various activities planned across the country.  We don't have strikes anymore. This is from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

One of the reasons the corporate class keeps draining money from education and social services and fights so desperately to keep health care from being treated as a public good is that it maintains our dependency on our jobs - and one of the consequences of a host of decisions enlarging corporate control over our lives (like permitting random drug and lie detector tests, for example) is we believe in the all powerful nature of our bosses.  We do what we're told.  We are employed at-will, without pensions, for increased hours at flatlined wages, and are fed a constant diet that any action that might minimize the impact of that all pervasive, all powerful corporate control over our lives is fundamentally anti-American.  You cannot live in the United States in the 21st century without being slapped in the face by the truth - every single message by the right wing serves the end of the plutocracy.  Conservatism is an ideology whose function is to make your life worse.  That seems excessive, it is not.  The older I get, the more of the world I'm exposed to, the uglier - the more duplicitous, the more authoritarian, the more vicious, the more nakedly designed to pick your pocket I recognize conservatives to be.  I do not view the right with good humor.  They lie to you from cradle to grave.

2. Religious Offender Registry
I don't have any interest in how many sex offenders live in my neighborhood.

But - the next place to which I move, I'd really like some listing of how many of my neighbors are likely to come to my door to attempt to engage with me in some discussion about Jesus.  I also have a neighbor with a flagpole, up which he hoists both a New York Giants and a Philadelphia Eagles flag, usually depending upon which of them won that week.  This is offensive to me and I don't want to live near people like that.

3. 20 Years Ago Next Month...Er, Two Months Ago.
For the past couple of months, periodically its popped into my head that I was coming up on having graduated from college 20 years ago.  I haven't had a lot of time to bathe in how old that makes me, but whenever I've considered it I've very quickly shuddered at how May, 2012 was just around the corner.

Except, here's the thing.  I graduated a term early, in February of 1992.  Meaning more than 20 years ago.  It came and went and I missed it.  I will not, however, miss turning 500 months old, which is now only a few weeks away.

4. 10 Television Shows Canceled After One Episode
I watched Quarterlife.

5. The Economic Recovery
Did you know the economy had recovered?
It's true.  And 93% of the gains have been captured by the top 1%

6. Voter Suppression
The right has spent the past couple of years passing laws to limit voting.



-8 states passed voter ID laws in 2011.  One in 4 African-Americans do not have government issued photo ID.

-5 states passed laws to reduce early or absentee voting, African-Americans disproportionately take advantage of early and absentee voting.

-6 states passed laws to restrict voter registration drives; African-Americans are twice as likely to register to vote through registration drives as white voters.

-Of the five states with the highest rate of voter turnout in 2008 - all of them introduced legislation to make it harder to vote.

That's the right wing.

7. Wage Theft.
60% of low wage employees are ripped off every week - by their employers.

8. The Piece You Have to Read This Week.
From the Atlantic - about the military industrial complex.

9. What Do You Suppose is the "One Mission in Life" for Liberals?
Apparently, to abort children.  I'd better get to work.

10. Don Draper=Howard Johnson's





You know, not a destination, but a tacky stop you make on the way to a destination.

We walked into 1966 wondering how long Don would keep Megan around, after this week, it's clear it's the other way around.

And watch Girls - its second episode was outrageously good.

That's all for this time.  I'll be back next time.  If there is a next time....

Your pal,

Jim