rabble rouser of the month nominees ~ february

february nominees for rabble rouser of the month ~ please vote!!

1. unidentified prison inmate puts pig detail in decal on police cars (windsor, vt)

back in 2009, but not noticed until febrauary 1 by a policeman washing his car, some inmates at the female work center in windsor added a pig in the spots of a cow on the state crest that is put on the side of police cars in vermont! look closely at the cow in the crest to the right. the fact that there is a creative enough person doing such a thing is funny. funny, too that the police seem to be offended. funniest part yet is that there is an effort by people all over vermont to keep the pig on the crest. i think the police have no right to complain. you get what you pay for. if you farm your needs out to slave labor organizations, then you get the result of what they provide. furthermore, you are only a reflection of what you see in the mirror. if you don’t notice the pig and let it go onto your car anyway, then what should that tell you? it tells kid yoshida you got fooled. props to the ladies who pulled this off and those who want to hold the police to wallow in it.

2. barman liam lloyd warriner – mooning queen elizabeth (brisbane, queensland)

a man from sydney was fined $800 in brisbane for “mooning queen elizabeth ii and her husband, prince phillip. according to the a.p. “warriner admitted to holding an australian flag clenched between his bare buttocks and running toward the royal couple’s motorcade as it drove past well wishers…[warriner said] he’d do the same thing to ‘any self-important, self-propogating elitist.’” that says pretty much everything, but let me add (a) i hope people have sent him money to help pay the fine and his “entertainment value” (b) that is totally worth $800 and (c) any idiot can give the proverbial bird to authority type figures, but who can give such an eloquent defense?

3. alejandrina cabrera – aspiring city councilor (san luis, arizona)

based on what we can tell for certain from the a.p., san luis has used a 120 year old state law to bar cabrera from running for city council for not being able to speak "proficient" english for her predominantly spanish speaking constituents. makes me wonder why arizona doesn’t just use laws from the same era to say she can’t run because she’s a woman? that would be much simpler. furthermore, when such a law that says “unable to speak, read and write in the english language” is applied and then that person writes back to the press in english, it leads one to believe that some other inherent bias is being applied to this surface wipe down. i am guessing that there is some type of posse relationship between the mayor and other latino city councillors that really didn’t appreciate her trying to break it up by wanting to recall the mayor. that is more believable than the necessity of english. the current mayor is also latino and apparently speaks "proficient" english. the only thing i can believe from him is that race had nothing to do with the decision. (vendetta is the implication.)
the article’s jim crow reference provides a good parallel. think about it this way, our business leaders once requested millions of black people from the cheapest dealers from the carribean, africa and elsewhere for many, many years. then, when that race had no other home to return to, we passed laws to prohibit, or discourage, them from taking an active part in their “democratic” government. when laws made it more difficult to get slave labor from this population, we turned to women and children and prisoners, ultimately finding illegal immigrants the cheapest deal. now that they have been here for generations, and there are tons of single mothers whose husbands have been killed in workplace accidents with no insurance to help them, or even proper records of them ever even having a job among the multitude of problems people in such a dire predicament must face, we tell them that we are going to use laws from the days of the nasty industrial revolution to hold back selected applicants. sounds like a hallmark of a “democratic” government.

ethel “punki” mcnamee - renting to homeless people (estacada, or)

punki is a 69 year old woman who has “rented” her house and property to people in dire need for the past 30 years, such as pepsi rea, a 53 year old who suffers from parkinson’s, emphezema, and seizure disorder. pepsi gets by on only $200 per month ($6.67 per day) of food stamps. do you know how hard it is to eat on that amount? especially when you have no refrigerator or pantry for food storage? and how hard is it to get through month long waiting lists for shelters? especially when there aren’t any in your town? 15 such people are facing homelessness by april 15, barring a successful appeal, due to fines the city of estacada has levied against punki for code violations. the city claims it is not “substantial housing” but kid yoshida thinks less than ideal housing is better than no housing. home is where the heart is, even a substadard eyesore. the residents in the neighborhood want to “stop now and forever the illegal encampment” among other petty complaints mostly of neighborhood beautification type thinking. kid yoshida thinks that folks looking out for folks and helping their fellow human is more important than what the neighbors think. one person’s need to put a roof over their head is more important than another’s eyesore. if they want to protect the inherent beauty of their neighborhood, they can pay higher taxes to build shelters and trailer parks in unseen parts of town to banish the people that are lower ranking humans than they are. in very few cases could i support the city or the neighbors, but especially not in a situation that has gone on for 30 years. if it were that bad, it would have been shut down long long ago. When the city and county can’t do anything to help the unfortunates, then hail the people like punki who can!

this is the new design i came up with on rather short notice as a banner for the rabble rouser show. the previous photo of the girl being peppersprayed at occupy portland was owned by a heartless newspaper organization who denied my use of it.

screw it.

this is a picture of an apartment in kansas city that i have wanted to live in since i was a kid. if anyone has better designs for a banner for my show, i would be glad to see them. preferably, they should be fair use photos that are not owned by some bastard organization.

ode to the post office

when I first moved to japan in 2003, the u.s. post office charged 80 cents for international airmail first class (65 cents for an international postcard). comparably, the rate for the same service from japanpost was 80 yen (or 70 yen for a postcard). now by 2012, the rate for first class airmail postage in the u.s. has increased several times to its current rate of $1.05 (international postcards have been the same as first class for some time now, so also $1.05 to mail a postcard). meanwhile, japanpost still charges 80 yen (70 yen for a postcard). can this be explained? yes, it actually can.

for years, the post office has been complaining of lost revenues due to the internet, even though that sounds quite short-sighted to me. the internet should have been like a dinner bell ringing. instead, the post office cannot make ends meet. they cry uncle and beg for bailout from the government. it sounds like the usps has a sense of entitlement to claim that they should be able to make money on something just because it has always been that way. but that’s not the way business works. when companies don’t change with the times, they go out of business. while the u.s. post office has left an indelible impression of daily american life for over 100 years now, it is nonetheless replaceable. when the post office goes away, life might be difficult for a month or so, but people will adjust.

a quick glance at the two country's systems, shows a revealing contrast. japanpost has a grip on the pulse of japan. while they may lose some money in letter postage, they also have pushed many more packages through, as well as offering banking, wire transfers, insurance and other necessary services. in contrast, the u.s. post office only sells stamps and a few generic packaging supplies. and those stamps rates keep raising while more locations disappear and other consumer friendly services disappear, such as international surface mail. in other words, they are providing less service and charging more money. that is not a typical blueprint for success. especially considering that even if people loved the nostalgia enough to pay higher prices, it would be kind of hard if the local post office is not open or if it is 50 or more miles away. and why would someone send a package airmail via usps, when the same package can still be sent by ground mail using fedex or ups for cheaper and just as easily?

so, the way i see it, the u.s. post office problems are not due to changing times as much as they are due to the post office not having changed with the times. the post office needs to cure whatever mismanagement problems are obviously troubling it, and learn 21st century business. more locations + lower prices is the kind of formula that keeps walmart an industry leader, not lss locations + higher prices. doing things the old fashioned way is romantic and nostalgic, and it will also read nicely on the headstone and historical biographies.

it has been a yearly tradition for me to mail new years cards to japan and other places. however, with a postage rate of $1.05 for each postcard (as of january 23), it actually costs me less to buy the card stock and print the post cards than to mail them! i can’t afford that. i have been a diligent letter writer and have also maintainted a post office box through all these times that people continued to send emails, but it is getting too much. 15 years of having a p.o. box and i am looking for an alternative. when people like me are pulling away, the fate seems sealed. usps had better act quick, or else it is but a matter of certain death. i’ll try not to miss it.

tax time

Dear Oregon Tax Department,

Can I file a complaint with my tax return?

This is ridiculous. I have always claimed 0 exemptions, so that I have never had to write a check to pay taxes at the end of the year. For some reason, this is the first time I have had to do so. Perhaps, I figured something wrong somehow? Perhaps you could do me a favor and check? Last year, the state sent me an extra check for a couple hundred dollars for some error or another – and I didn’t even hardly work last year, much less have taxes to pay!

And why should I have to pay $2200 for state taxes anyway? Though it probably doesn't sound like a lot to most people, I only made $28,000. On that salary, I am grateful when lightbulbs burn out because it helps save on the electric bill. Let’s say I made double my salary, $56,000. Within such a dreamscape, the same rate of taxation would cost me $4400. That wouldn’t seem all that bad. Heck, it would leave me less room to complain that the federal government also digs in pretty deep. At least, the federal government can withhold enough to keep from pinching me harder in the end. But when I only make $28,000, $2200 is a lot of *&^%ing money! That’s at least half a year worth of rent. Could you at least send me a picture of the person I am helping to house by contributing such a large amount?

OK, that’s the end of my complaint. But it really makes me wonder if you are trying to get people to leave the state? Do you have a problem with overpopulation, or something? Because I am pretty sure with one more year like this, I will be more than happy to start looking elsewhere. Thank you and good luck with your filing duties.

Signed,
taxpayer yoshida