Nick Wilgus's Blog, page 6

Welcome to the world of the working poor

From Occupy Seattle.I use the self-checkout terminal at the grocery store where I work to pay for my own purchases because I don't want fellow employees to know that I use food stamps. At the self-checkout terminal, you can discreetly swipe your EBT card with no one the wiser.

I suspect I am not alone, though I have seen a fair number of my fellow workers go through my line and use an EBT card, even full-time employees who have worked for years at this company.

They, like me, are the working poor.

How poor do you have to be to be eligible for "SNAP benefits" in the state of Mississippi? You need to be at or below 130 percent of the federal poverty level.

For a single person, your monthly income cannot exceed $1,211 (the amount before taxes and deductions are taken out, usually about 15 percent, which means this figure is actually $1,028).

A single person receives $189 in food stamps monthly. That's amounts to $47.25 weekly. For a grown man to survive on that is not impossible, though weight loss is guaranteed (and indeed, I have been losing weight, an unintended benefit).

For a mom and dad with a child, your combined income cannot exceed $2,069 per month.  For a single mom with three kids, income cannot be more than $2,498 monthly. If you're a single mom living with your parents, you're not eligible until you're 24 years old.

I don't think I've ever met a single mom with three kids making $2,498 dollars a month, but that's another story.

To receive food stamps here, you must provide the following:

Proof of residency in the state of Mississippi.Proof of American citizenship (birth certificate, driver's license, social security card).US Citizenship and Immigration Service document if you are not a citizen. Notice from out-of-state-agency if you have received assistance in another state. At the food stamp office where I went, I was greeted by this sign:

A request for assistance in the state of Mississippi is a request for a job. 

Some facts and figures.
The federal poverty level is $11,490 yearly, roughly $950 per month. Take 15 percent off the top for taxes and you're talking real income of $807, about $200 weekly. 
A minimum wage yearly salary is $15,080, roughly $1,250 per month, at $7.25 an hour. Take 15 percent for taxes and you're talking $1,062, or $265 per week.
Out of these figures come all the usual expenses: Rent or mortgage payment, car payment, insurance, utilities including heat, water and the like, gasoline for the vehicle, haircuts, clothing, medical bills, what to speak of luxuries like cable television, Internet access, cell phone payments, dining out, going to the movies, etc. 
For a minimum wage worker bringing home $1,062 dollars per month, how are these expenses to be met? 
There's another report in the news today about how the CEOs of fast food companies make more in one day than their workers do all year. There have been many such reports. The CEO of Walmart is said to make more in one hour than his employees do all year. Some CEOs make more in one minute than their employees do all year. 
The Walton family, who own Walmart and Sam's Club, are valued at $93 billion dollars. Clearly someone is making a profit at Walmart, but it's not the one million workers that Walmart employs, whose wages are so pitiful that many rely on food stamps and Medicare. We need to consider this very carefully. A person working full time at Walmart is still so poor they have to rely on government assistance to get by. Who pays for that government assistance? Taxpayers, of course. While the CEOs and the stockholders and share-owners are doing very well, thank you, the government must subsidize Walmart because it pays its employees so poorly. 
When we talk about "the government," we're talking about American taxpayers. It's the taxpayers who subsidize Walmart, who make it possible for this company to pay its employees so poorly. 
An interesting dynamic, don't you think? 
You can join the workforce, work forty hours a week or more, and still be so poor that you need food stamps and government-supplied health care to survive. 
Walmart apparently provides health care insurance for its full time employees, but it's so expensive that many employees can't afford it. 
Republican vice-presidential candidate Paul Ryan reduced it all down for us with his "makers and takers" dichotomy. The Walmarts of the world are the makers, the job creators; Walmart employees who need food stamps are takers, even though they work full time. 
Another very interesting dynamic, to work every day of your life and not be able to pay your bills, to be a "taker" sucking off the government's tits because your corporate masters are so cheap they won't pay you a living wage even while their CEO and executives and stockholders have so much wealth they can't possibly spend it all. 
There are many calls these days to raise minimum wage. It should be a no-brainer, but our Republican friends are aghast and have vowed to torpedo any efforts to raise it. 
Let me make sure I get this straight. The party that routinely demonizes the poor, whose vice-presidential candidate dismissed the poor as "takers" (even those working full time), is firmly against raising the minimum wage because it would "hurt" the job creators like the Walton family sitting on their $93 billion dollars. 
This party would rather encourage government dependence, in the form of food stamps and Medicare, than ask job creators to pay people fairly and decently. To add insult to injury, they then heckle President Obama and call him the "food stamp president," as if he's to blame that so many working poor have to rely on the social safety net.
Mississippi is a solidly Red State, and our folks in Congress routinely vomit up the Fox News talking points for the day like the faithful lapdogs they are. If Republican economic policies are so wonderful, why is Mississippi the poorest state in the Union? Why is Mississippi drowning in the working poor? Why are we the largest beneficiary of federal largess, the hugest drain on federal tax dollars? Why is the rest of the country subsidizing us? 
I long for the day when Mississippians begin to make the connection between policy and reality, between the policies put forward by the Republican party and the disastrous reality all around us. Are we not the fattest, the poorest, the least educated? Do we not have the highest number of teen pregnancies? Are we not the height of mismanagement and stupidity when it comes to our public policies? Have we not earned our place at the bottom by constantly voting for the wrong people? 
When will Mississippians realize that other states do well because they're smarter and they elect officials who work hard to improve the quality of life for residents in their state? 
The answer, of course, is that when Senator Roger Wicker, or Congressman Alan Nunnelee, go off to Washington, they don't much care about people like me. They don't care that I furtively use the self check-out lane so that my fellow employees don't know I'm on food stamps. They don't care about the problems of the working poor because there's no future in it for them. 
The working poor cannot afford to hire high-priced lobbyists who dump mountains of cash in their campaign coffers in exchange for their support of policies that favor the Walmarts of the world over the working poor who live in their states and whose interests they are supposed to be representing. 
To make up for their disregard for our economic well being, they throw out red meat for the masses in Mississippi -- asides about abortion, gay rights, veiled racism directed at a black president. They offer up a governor hell bent on shutting the state's only abortion clinic. They shudder at the thought that gays in Mississippi might get married.  They fear-monger about socialism and federal intrusion into the "sovereignty" of the Magnolia state. They accidentally hoist the Confederate flag at a court house. As if any of that will help the working poor, or get folks off the food stamp roll, or help kids graduate from high school. As if any of that will solve the "fattest, dumbest, poorest" thing.
Eventually Mississippians will get mad enough to start demanding more of their elected officials. 

Food stamps: Oh, the horror!

When I first moved to Mississippi a year ago, I was surprised to hear an almost constant refrain about how illegals and "others" were sucking up copious amounts of food stamps. I heard these stories everywhere I went. I was assured that there were hordes of illegal immigrants and lazy moochers who piled their shopping carts high with steaks and hams and all kinds of expensive foods. I can't count the number of people who told me how angry this made them.

I also worked next door to a food pantry, and heard another constant stream of complaints about how the lazy moochers going to the food pantry each week didn't really need the food and were just taking advantage of the kindness of others.

Now that I've been on the other side of a cash register at a very busy grocery store for a month now, I can tell you quite definitively that there are no hordes of illegals (or otherwise) sucking up high-priced foods and paying for them with food stamps.

Most of those who use food stamps eat rather modestly. I can think of only one food stamp recipient who bought what I would consider a pricey item (a bag of shrimp). For all I know, that might have been for a special dinner to celebrate a birthday or an anniversary.  That is the only occasion that someone used food stamps in my line for a pricey item. Let me repeat that: After a month, only one food stamp recipient used food stamps to pay for a pricey item.

Hardly the hordes I had been told to expect. Hardly the hordes that I had been assured were cheating the hard working American tax payers out of their hard earned money.

Would you like to know what most food stamp recipients purchase? Surprisingly, very cheap foods. Very cheap indeed. Packages of hot dogs that sell for $1.00. Cheap loaves of bread. Macaroni and cheese. Cans of soup. If there's any meat in the order, it's usually chicken, which is the cheapest. No steaks.

Today I had a typical food stamp order by an older man who was obviously on his lunch break. He was poorly dressed, wouldn't meet my eyes when I greeted him. He had a pack of $1.00 hotdogs and a pack of $1.00 hot dog buns. That was it. He swiped his EBT card and seemed almost sheepish about it.

A little while later, a woman appeared in my line and told me not to let her go over $50. More hotdogs, buns, cheap loaves of bread, cans of soup, Mac & Cheese, eggs. She saved the "expensive" items for last: Bags of chips, a candy bar, a six-pack of soda.

As for the illegals, I'm stumped. Once in a while a Hispanic person will go through my line, mostly older men purchasing lunch items. On Valentine's I saw several purchasing cards and chocolates. They all paid cash. I have yet to see any sort of "illegal" (read: foreigner) using food stamps.

Most of the people using food stamps are dressed rather poorly. It's obvious they don't have a lot of resources. As well, many of them use coupons to make their food dollars stretch a little bit further.

Where are the hordes of food stamp abusers? Could it be they don't exist? Could it be that those horror stories about young bucks sucking up steaks are just ... stories?

Full disclosure: I use food stamps myself. I can assure you that I have never purchased a steak with my food stamps and will never do so. Rather than spending $10 on a steak, I can buy six cans of soup, which translates into six lunches, which is a much better deal. Were I to purchase steaks and such, my food stamps wouldn't go very far at all.

I suspect these stories about food stamp abuse are designed to gin up anger and resentment, which they do, and quite effectively. That they don't seem to be based on reality doesn't seem to matter.

END NOTE:
If you're a fellow cashier, by all means feel free to leave a comment and weigh in. Are my observations correct? What have your experiences been?

Why I hate "Christians"

Someone asked me recently why I hate Christians.

I replied that real "Christians" are rather rare and I don't know that many. I do, however, know a great many people who call themselves Christians, but who are anything but Christ-like. 
These folks are a dime a dozen. They wrap themselves in religion and use it as an excuse to hate, or judge, or condemn, or exclude. They glory in their chosen-ness, their blessedness, casting a sad eye on those of us who are unwashed and unsaved. They are morally superior and want their morality legislated onto those of us who are apparently incapable of genuine morality.
I don't want to paint with too broad a brush, though. The "Christians" I hate are the ones who are the most strident, the most vociferous, the ones leading the charge in the culture wars, the shiny-faced folks on TV with their hands out who fear-monger about abortion and homosexuality to gin up donations. The "Christians" I'm talking about are the last to turn the other cheek, the last to be meek, mild, humble, the last to leave judgement to God, where it belongs. 
On the one side are real, genuine Christians who are Christ-like, who understand what the Gospels were about, the ones who know that when they pray they should go to their room and shut the door and not stand on the street corner and proclaim their righteousness for the world to see. On the other hand, there are shiny charlatans with $3,000 suits who use Christianity as a weapon to suit their own agenda. Between these two poles are the mass of souls in between.
It is not those souls in between that I hate. It is not Christ-like people that I hate. It's the hypocrites, the users, the abusers, the vampires who suck on the body of Christ to sustain their own lives. Those are the "Christians" that I hate. 
And for good reason.
Jesus hated them too. 
If you read the Gospels attentively, you will notice that Jesus didn't get mad that often. But when he did, it was invariably with the Pharisees and the Sadducees, those self-righteous hair-splitters who were forever rabble-rousing and stirring up trouble, who thought of themselves as the apples of God's eyes, who rejoiced in their salvation even as they sneered down at sinners and the outcast who could never measure up. 
Jesus hated those bastards. Don't believe me? Read what he said about them. On one occasion he calls them children of their father, the Devil. 
I think it's important to understand who he was talking to. The Pharisees and Sadducees were prominent, scholarly Jews. They knew the law inside and out. They were the pillars of the community, the leading lights. They had the prime seats at table and in the temple. They were respected, prominent, important. They called the shots. They were the priests, pastors and popes of their day.
Imagine how it must have appeared to them for someone like Jesus to come along and publicly revile them, over and over, even going so far as to tell them that they were children of the Devil, their mouths like "white-washed sepulchers." It's no wonder these folks schemed to find a way to have Jesus silenced. And it's no wonder they eventually succeeded. 
Let us consider the matter further:Unlike so many American Christians, Jesus had absolutely no interest in political power. Indeed, he was a huge disappointment to the Jews who were waiting for a political leader, a worldly "king," not a spiritual Messiah or Savior, but someone who could lead the charge against Rome and free Jerusalem from Roman occupation. When they gave him a coin with Ceasar's image on it and confronted him on the matter, he said, "Render unto Ceasar what is Ceasar's, and unto God what is God's."  He wanted nothing to do with political power. He did not tell his followers to agitate for political power or change. He made utterly no effort to overthrow an unjust occupation.  How does this square with the many Christians and Evangelicals who constantly agitate for legislation that is favorable to their religious beliefs? What is the response of a Christian to injury or harm? Jesus was plain: Turn the other cheek. Do good to those that hate you, that revile you, that do all manner of evil to you. Love your enemies. Bless them. Wish them well. So, when was the last time you saw a Christian turn the other cheek? When was the last time you saw Sarah Palin, or Michelle Bachmann, or Ann Coulter, or Mike Huckabee, or Pat Robertson, "do good" to those that hate them? You won't find much cheek-turning these days. You will find, though, a lot of heated rhetoric about how Christians have to stand their ground, step up, be counted, make their voices heard so that we're not steamrolled by the homosexuals or the abortionists or the atheists or the Muslims. Lock and load, to use Palin's terminology."Judge not, lest you be judged." How much plainer or simpler could it be? But the Christians I'm referring to are the first to judge, to condemn, to exclude, to vilify, to actively promote policies that hurt and harm and drive away souls they don't like. But notice something very curious: While they pick on the gays constantly (and, it seems, rather gleefully), they do not pick on adulterers. Or drunkards. Or murderers. Or child abusers. Or men who slap their wives around. Or fornicators. Or business people who cheat their employees out of a just wage. No. Their self-righteous ire is very carefully channeled into a safe outlet: Pick on the gays. Curious, isn't it? To their way of thinking, gays are destroying the family. Not fornicators or straight couples who live together. Not men having affairs. Not men cruising the Internet for porn. But gay people. While there is a website called godhatesfags.com, there is no site called godhatesfornicators.com, or godhatesdrunkards.com. Curious how judgement is carried out against a safe target ("the gays"), and not in a way that might hit too close to home. Furthermore, what is Christianity today if not one giant exercise in judging? Christians are constantly judging everyone and everything: Society, law, other religions, other religious believers, lifestyle choices. It's all but impossible to imagine Christianity without all the relentless judging that goes with it. Jesus never once said you had to go to church on Sunday. He did say, "Judge not, lest you be judged." How do we account for this? Christians are like the Jews who caught the woman in adultery and wanted to stone her to death. What was the response of Jesus? "Let he who is without sin among you cast the first stone." Today's Christians would gladly stone the gays, and the women who have had abortions, and the Muslims, and all the other people they can't stand. They would do it without a second thought, and they would feel justified in doing so. "The first shall be last, and the last shall be first." In Christianity, the social order is inverted. Jesus invited the riffraff trash of society to his table, the tax collectors, the prostitutes, the lepers, the morally compromised. Time and again, he made it clear that the "first" shall be last in the Kingdom of Heaven. You would be hard pressed to find any evidence of this teaching among today's American Christians. Just the opposite, in fact. The Mike Huckabees of this world will always be seated at the head of the table. "See those Christians, how they love another!" To which I can only say: Ha ha ha! Where is the Christian who "loves" those around him? Who loves the stranger? The immigrant? The homosexual? The morally compromised? The other? The enemy? Where is the Christian who loves his Muslim neighbors? American Christianity has become almost synonymous with hate. If you ask Google the leading question of "Why are Christians so ..?" the answers that pop up (based on previous searches) are "Why are so Christians so mean?" and "Why are Christians so angy?" It does not ask "Why are Christians so loving?" When you think of Christians, you do not think of loving, gentle people.  I admire Jesus a great deal. He was an extraordinary man. It's been more than 2,000 years and we're still talking about him, about what he did, about what it meant. No other person in the history of this world has had a greater impact. 
I admire Jesus. I love Jesus. I love what he stood for, what he taught, what he meant. 
But I would not be the first to say that his followers have messed it up, over and over, time and again, to such an extent that it's hard to believe they think of themselves as "Christ-like."

Christ was not a bully. Christ did not have a "my way or the highway" mentality. Christ did not come to condemn the world, but save it.
Part of my anger at "Christians" has to do with my love for Jesus, and my sadness at the way he has been treated by his followers, at the great many souls they have scandalized and driven away by their unChrist-like behaviors and beliefs. Surely it would be better for these people to have a millstone tied around their neck and for them to be thrown into the river than to have so scandalized so many people. Truly, he has cast his pearls before swine. 
Harsh words? I suspect that when these "Christians" stand before God for their judgement, they will hear much worse. They might be reminded that St. Paul told them that without love, they are just tinkling brass.

All of this is in contrast to a genuine Christian, a soul who has taken Christ as his savior, mentor, friend, spiritual guide.

What does Jesus tell this soul?

Turn the other cheek. Be patient, kind, loving, humble. Don't put yourself first. When you pray, go into your bedroom and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret. Seek first the Kingdom of Heaven. Don't be anxious for tomorrow. Become like a little child. Love your enemies. Do good to those that hate you and persecute you and do all manner of evil against you. If someone asks for your coat, give them your cloak too. If someone asks you to walk a mile with them, walk two. It is better to give than to receive.These people are not much interested in the politics of the day. They don't wear their religion on their sleeve. They pray in private. They love. They forgive. They ask for forgiveness. They demonstrate, by their actions, that Christ means something to them. They give the glory to God, not to the man on the TV in the shiny suit. They do unto others as they would have done unto themselves. They do not lord it over others. They do not seek a special status. 
Where are these people? They may indeed be sitting in the pew next to you. A few of them may even be in the pulpit. But most of these people understand that it is God who judges, God who sees, not man. They are concerned with what God think of them, not man. They cast their cares and trust upon God and do not worry about the 'morrow. 
When you meet a person like that, you've met a Christian. They don't have to tell you. You just know. The rest are nothing but sound and fury, signifying nothing. 

Are there no prisons?

The Associated PressI received my paycheck the other day and it turns out that working a part-time minimum wage job is not particularly profitable. I knew it was going to be a painful moment of truth. I was not disappointed. Twenty-two hours at $7.35 ... well, you do the math.

I take comfort in the fact that I'm not alone. Indeed, according to a widely-circulated figure, about half of Americans are either at and very close to the poverty level. Report after report and figure after figure show that while the wealthy have indeed gotten much wealthier over the past three decades, the poor have gotten much poorer. The chart to the right is just one of many showing this trend.

While wages have stagnated, everything else has gone up - rent, utilities, phone bills, the price of milk, a can of pop, a hair cut, health care, gasoline. Up, up and up. Which means that low income folks  have far less money for the basic necessities than they used to have.

There's a reason why the rich and huge corporations keep getting richer. It takes money to hire an army of lawyers and lobbyists to send to Washington to relentlessly campaign for their interests. It takes money to constantly fight attempts to raise the minimum wage and give workers a living wage. It takes money to get all those tax loopholes and sweetheart deals.

It also takes a lot of money to convince poor people that voting for a certain party is in their own best interests, when it clearly is not. This past election saw a flurry of reports on the subject. Why do the poor keep voting for the Republican Party when its policies are so clearly aligned with the wealthy at the expense of the poor?

One reason, perhaps the major reason, is the culture wars over abortion and gay rights. Since the time of Reagan, Republicans have seized on these divisive issues, promising "change" if elected. This has helped fuel a steady supply of Christian and conservative votes. That Roe vs Wade still stands and gay rights are much farther along than ever does not seem to matter. As long as the wealthy can continue to keep the masses up in arms over these issues, and angry enough to turn out reliably at the polls, that's all that seems to matter.

Along with those culture war issues are a slate of more anger-inducing claims and paranoid whatnot: That the Democrats are Socialists. That Obamacare is socialism. That the president is not even a US citizen. That the "government" is going to take away all our guns. On and on with a tide of nonsense that is never factually based which low-information voters suck it up as Gospel truth - and, most importantly, vote accordingly.

We face an onslaught of spurious reports about how Social Security is going bankrupt, how it's an "entitlement" that needs to be curbed or perhaps even ended.  Unions are the problem. Union workers are thugs who need to be taken down a notch.

An entire war against the poor was rolled out last year by Republicans. Newt Gingrich went around calling Obama the "foodstamp president." The poor were demonized. We were told that people on foodstamps are what's wrong with this country. Point out that 26 cents of every federal tax dollar is spent on defense while a mere .52 cents is spent on "welfare" - well, these folks never let facts get in the way of a self-righteous diatribe.

Republican vice-presidential candidate Paul Ryan reduced it all down to "makers and takers." Ryan, poster boy for both Ayn Rand (an atheist) and supposedly a devout Catholic, introduced a budget that professors at a Catholic University felt compelled to denounce as "immoral" for its attacks on the poor. Mitt Romney called the Ryan Budget "marvelous."

In the eyes of folks like Paul Ryan, I'm a taker. Since my pay last week was $137, I'm more than eligible for food stamps, which I use to help make ends meet. To Paul Ryan, I am the problem. Not minimum wage. Not the fact that so many jobs being created by the "job creators" are minimum wage, part-time jobs that do not allow a person to pay their bills. Not the fact that the defense budget eats up the vast share of each federal tax dollar. No. The problem is folks like me.

from Time magazineFolks like me. No house. No savings. No health insurance. No future. I'm the problem. I'm the taker who's draining the poor taxpayer and impeding economic recovery.

I wonder what Paul Ryan suggests I do? Commit suicide? Live on the street? Does he imagine that good-paying jobs are just throwing themselves at folks like me down in the Magnolia State and that we're just too lazy to go out and grab one?

Like Scrooge in A Christmas Carol, I can hear Ryan's response:

Are there no workhouses? 

Are the prisons full?  

And here's the rub, the final kick of sand in the eyes: Paul Ryan's father died while Ryan was a teenager and his mother collected government checks to help them survive. The government also generously helped Paul Ryan get an education. But now that he's a maker and not a taker, well, all bets are suddenly off.

Again, don't let facts get in the way of a self-righteous diatribe against the poor. Paul Ryan wasn't the problem. The single mother and her hungry kids down the street sucking up foodstamps was the problem.

Me, I'll take my $7.35 and do the best I can. If I'm unable to save for retirement, I hope Ryan understands.

Rage against the machine

My new life as a lowly cashier proceeds apace and today I learned about The Numbers. Specially, the numbers that I am being judged by, which are the IPM (items per minute) that I'm scanning through the machine, the CPH (customers per hour) and the TTPC (tender time per customer).

To be successful in my new career as a minimum-wage worker bee at a grocery store, I must meet certain acceptable standards for these numbers.

I am currently scanning 20.86 items per minute. That number needs to be 26 or higher, I've been informed. And my "tender time per customer" - the amount of time I spend scanning your purchases and taking your payment - must be decreased to 60 seconds or less. I'm currently at 61 seconds.

What this means in the real world is that if you show up at my check-out stand with 100 items in your cart, I need to scan all of those items and have your payment in my hot little hand in less than a minute. Failure to do so will result in a lower TTPC score!

Bugger!

As I tried to digest this information, it occurred to me that each time a customer waits until all the items are scanned before starting to dig into their wallet or purse for payment, I'm being punished for their lack of foresight. If they spend 30 seconds digging around for change in the bottom of a purse, my numbers are going south. If they present a handful of coupons, woe is me.

What the machine doesn't measure is whether you smile, and whether you're polite, whether you make eye contact, whether you seem genuinely interested in your customers - or not. It doesn't measure personality, or whether you're in a good mood and treat customers right. All it measures are the raw facts of the transaction, as if the cashier was also a machine and not a human being.

The machine doesn't measure accuracy when giving change and handling payments, though it records each and every split second you have the till drawer open. The longer it's open, the worse your numbers are. Does the company not want me to be careful when I give change?

(An interesting aside: I was taught a cashier trick today to get around this: You let the drawer pop open, then immediately slam it shut, fooling the machine into thinking that your transaction is complete. Then you can go back and make change without fear of being punished.)

My supervisor informed me today quite gravely that if I don't improve The Numbers, the company will have to let me go. Apparently they're not getting their $7.35 cents an hour's worth.


My life has been reduced to a set of three numbers.

Four numbers, actually. The other number is that $7.35.

How much can a company rightfully expect out an employee for so little money? I'm currently serving about 31 customers per hour. How much higher could that number possibly be? Many of those customers have a hundred items or more in their cart. I'm not sure it's physically possible to move much faster than I already am. There are some areas where I could improve my time (learning produce numbers by heart would help). Even so, those items will only go through the scanner just so fast.

It's not the mechanics that bother me. It's the fact that I'm being judged by an impersonal machine. Yet, we're all being judged by these impersonal machines in one way or another as companies seek to extract increasing amounts of labor out of smaller parcels of time, all in the name of efficiency and higher profits. If the employees could share in those profits, perhaps that would motivate them to care more about The Numbers. But they don't share in the profits.

If it should turn out that I'm incapable of moving faster, there's plenty of others standing in line, waiting to get their foot in the door, waiting to do my job better and more efficiently and give the company what it wants.

It's a brave new world - and not for the faint at heart.

Sisters are doing it for themselves

SISTER SUICIDE is available at Amazon.com.
CRIME WAVE PRESS has just re-released the second book in my murder-mystery series featuring a Buddhist monk.

In SISTER SUICIDE, Father Ananda travels to a monastery/temple complex in the Thai countryside to investigate the strange case of a nun who allegedly commits suicide by throwing herself into a crocodile enclosure.

Gruesome? Well, yes. The story is based on a report in the Thai press about a woman who committed suicide in this fashion at the Samut Prakarm Crocodile Farm just outside of Bangkok, which I once visited.

After I read the story in the newspaper, my mind began to swirl with possibilities. What if the woman had been pushed? Why would someone do such a thing? Was it a spur of the moment crime of passion, or had it been premeditated?

I suppose the American equivalent would be pushing someone into the path of an oncoming subway train, which happens from time to time in places like New York City.

What sort of person would commit a crime in that fashion?

As I considered these possibilities, the outline of SISTER SUICIDE emerged.

Another feature of this book is the issue of female ordination, or the lack thereof in Thailand, a rather controversial topic.

While any boy or man in Thailand can become ordained as a Buddhist novice or monk and hope for the enlightenment that the Buddha achieved, girls and women do not have this opportunity because it is assumed, by the male Buddhist hierarchy there, that women are incapable of enlightenment. Consequently, there is no point in allowing them to become ordained and take to the Buddhist robes as they are simply wasting their time. They are, however, allowed a sort of second class status as mae chi, or nuns.

Catholics have some experience with this. Why are women not allowed to become Catholic priests? Why is the priesthood an exclusively male preserve? The traditional answer is that Jesus chose only males to be his "official" disciples (the Twelve). Consequently, Jesus would not approve of females as priests in his service.

Catholics don't go so far as to claim that women cannot be saved, or "enlightened" as the Buddhists say. But still ... women, in the Catholic church, are not good enough to become priests. Their gender disqualifies them out of hand. Never mind the fact that female priests might well be much better at their jobs than male priests. Never mind the spiritual attainments of Catholic women over the centuries. In the patriarchal world of Catholicism, there is no room for women at the top.

Thai Buddhists go a step further. Not only is there no room for woman in the top echelons of the ecclesiastical society, women, just by being women, cannot even hope for enlightenment. They are doomed, because of their gender, to take rebirth and future lives of suffering until they are fortunate to take a male body. Only then can they hope to be "saved."

Obviously, not everyone in Thailand agrees with this assessment of female spiritual potential. Not even Buddhists, in general, agree with this restrictive thinking. Some Buddhist countries in Asia, like Sri Lanka, allow female ordination. Thai women wishing to become ordained frequently travel to such countries seeking and receiving ordination.

When SISTER SUICIDE was originally written, the focus was squarely on the issue of female ordination, and the unfairness of women being denied a rightful place at the spiritual table. My original publisher, based in Thailand, asked me to soften the emphasis and tone, which I did, yet the issue of female ordination is there, between the lines, on many of the pages.

Needless to say, I believe women are just as capable as men when it comes to spiritual endeavors. The idea that gender controls your spiritual ability is offensive and nonsensical.

SISTER SUICIDE is currently available in ebook format, with the print version to follow in February.

The silence in Mississippi

One of the first things I noticed when I moved to the Magnolia state a year ago was the silence -- the deep, profound silence -- about things that matter. Silence in the media. Silence among the people I met. Silence among my new Facebook friends. Politics and religion were strictly off-limits, what to speak of Mississippi's past. There was no talk of issues. No debate. No discussion. No exchange of views. All very polite, safe, non-offensive, let's-talk-about-the-weather because we don't want anyone to be offended.

At first, I attributed this to the fact that I was a Yankee outsider. I wasn't from the South. I couldn't possibly understand what was going on. I had no right to offer any criticism. So, for the most part, I kept my mouth shut.

This silence is not unknown to members of a dysfunctional family. Anyone who talks to outsiders about the truth on the ground in such a family is automatically a traitor. I've had a fair bit of experience with that, too. And, as I began to live in Mississippi and meet folks, I was often reminded of that feeling because, let's face it, Mississippi is a dysfunctional state. It's the poorest, fattest, least educated, with the highest number of teen pregnancies, a lot of shameful historical baggage -- everyone knows the deal. Reminding Mississippians of these facts of life is quick way to become highly unpopular.

So, the silence.

In the media. In the newspapers. On the local television news.

During the height of a presidential election, with fierce debates among Democrats and Republicans on all kinds of issues, during the Trayvon Martin shooting, during any number of crises and controversies, there was barely a peep from any Mississippian of my acquaintance about anything at all.

Silence.

And fear.

In Mississippi, it's assumed that everyone is firmly on board with the God, Guns and Gays thing. One doesn't dare talk about gay rights, or abortion rights, or restricting access to machine guns. One doesn't walk around thinking that Obamacare might be good for Mississippi. Our political leaders have set the tone; our job is merely to follow and not question.

When you browse the local media, you will find mostly conservative, religious voices. You'll find editorial pages padded with press releases from Republican congressmen. You'll even find sermons from preachers in some of the back pages. What you won't find are many dissenting voices or alternative points of view, at least not in the northern part of the state where I live.

There seems to be only one set of "answers" in Mississippi, one set of "truths," and there is little coloring outside the lines, and very few voices willing to speak up and go against the grain. In many ways, it's a Fascist state whose citizens have been frightened into silence, who fear the reprisals that might come of being different or expressing opinions that stray from the party line.

Mississippi is paying the price for its silence. It routinely sends officials down to Jackson and over to Washington who don't seem to have the best interests of the people of the state in mind. After all, there's a reason why Mississippi is the poorest and least educated and whatnot -- and that reason has a lot to do with the elected officials who make decisions that lead to poverty and backwardness.

Case in point: Governor Phil Bryant has made it a priority to shut down the state's one remaining abortion clinic. How that will help the poor women of Mississippi escapes most intelligent people.

Bryant also presides over a state that only last year began to require sex education among students. Chew on that for a while, if you will. The state with the highest number of teen pregnancies has just now gotten around to thinking about sex-ed classes for its kids. And because of the conservative, religious voices in the state, the sex-ed that is now provided is either Abstinence Only or Abstinence Plus. These two programs have shown themselves to be all but useless when it comes to driving down the number of teen pregnancies, but there you are.

Meanwhile, the Mississippi legislature is currently drafting a "sovereignty law" to ensure that the federal government does not infringe on the rights of Mississippians.

Also, the state is determined to block expansion of Medicare, which is part of the Affordable Care Act, and which would bring in billions of federal dollars to help insure all Mississippians. We are told again and again by the governor on down that Mississippi can't afford it. One suspects the real reason behind this foolishness is the desire by politicians in this state to thumb their noses at Obamacare, the consequences to the people of Mississippi be damned. The governor even told a reporter that "no American" lacks health care insurance.

But there's not much talk in the media here about such things.

It's not that all Mississippians are Republican or even religious. Far from it. About 40 percent of the state voted for President Obama in this past election. And 58 percent of voters here rejected the personhood amendment to the state constitution, a stunning defeat for what was considered a done deal.

Here and there I have been finding pockets of resistance. The Jackson Free Press does good work. MPB (Mississippi Public Broadcasting) offers much thoughtful commentary. One can find "left leaning" pages on Facebook where like-minded souls can hang out. I have met many progressive Mississippians on such pages. Having only been in the state for a year, there is undoubtedly much I don't know, and much left to discover.

What's needed, it seems to me, is for the average Mississippian to find his or her voice - and start speaking up. Democracy depends on a healthy exchange of ideas. Issues ought to be debated. Decisions that affect all our lives shouldn't be left to politicians who have their own agendas and who are far too busy thumping their chests and their bibles to much care about what happens on the ground.

Mississippi needs to shrug off the plantation mentality and get with the spirit of the times. We don't need to sit around waiting for word from the Big House about what we can believe and what we can do and how we ought to vote.

In the past, Mississippi politicians valued "strong backs and weak minds," which kept voters right where the politicians wanted them. If Mississippi wants to move ahead, that dynamic has to change.

If you work hard, will you get ahead?

I've just finished my third day as a cashier at a very busy grocery store in downtown Tupelo, Mississippi, birthplace of Elvis. My legs are killing me, the pay is lousy, but I have a curious feeling of gratitude to finally have a job.

Any job.

It's an interesting bit of psychology. After applying for numerous jobs and being overqualified, or lacking the right experience, after searching a job market that relies heavily on the good old boy network to find workers, after being too liberal and uncomfortable with in-your-face religion in a firmly Red State where people have signs in their yards declaring that Jesus is King, after indicating my willingness to work any shift, any day, anytime, for any wage at all, desperation had me grasping at straws.

When an offer came along for a part-time job offering $7.35 an hour, it was like winning the lottery.

But isn't that exactly the way Big Business wants us to feel? Never mind my thirty years of work experience. Never mind my college degree. Never mind my management and supervisory stints. Never mind the maturity that comes with age, that doesn't have to be told to show up on time, to dress cleanly and properly, to treat customers with respect. Never mind all that. Just be glad someone offered you a chance to make $7.35 an hour.

So, even as I'm quite happy to rejoin the workforce, even as I tell myself that I work for a large corporation and there will be opportunities for advancement after my pay my dues, I'm still left with the reality that I won't make enough money to pay the bills. I still have to contend with the fact that Big Business has me over a barrel -- has so many of us over that same barrel. And while they take home tremendous profits, the workers don't share in those profits. The workers are anonymous, faceless worker bees who are used up and all too easily replaced with a never-ending stream of desperate job-seekers to choose from.

Like many of my co-workers, I will now have to look for a second minimum-wage job in the hopes that two of them will be enough to pay for a small apartment. Until then, I'm still at 130 percent of poverty level, so I can continue to use food stamps to supplement my income.

I'm not ashamed of my new job. I believe very much in the dignity of both work and workers, and like so many of society's cast-offs and those who have been left behind in America's brutal form of Capitalism, I would much prefer to work -- any sort of work -- than to remain idle.

That I've fallen on hard times does not anger me. Look at the numbers. About half of Americans are either living in poverty or very close to it. I'm just one more, just another casualty of economic policies that are "business friendly" and not worker-friendly, policies that ensure vast profits for the elite at the expense of the poor.

My books are full of the riff-raff of society -- the poor, the marginalized, hookers, murderers, drug addicts, folks who have been washed out by life because they can't keep up, or don't fit in, or can't find a place at the table.

The writer part of me looks very carefully at my current situation, trying to piece it together, puzzle it out, connect the dots. How did I arrive at this juncture in my life? Should I remain at a job that I don't like just for the security of it? Was a wrong to "follow my dreams" and try for something better? And if this current situation in my life simply preparing me for something much better? Will it open doors to opportunities I have never considered?

How do any of us arrive at this situation? Why do we support, with our votes, economic policies that make this a reality? Why is it that so few people know that minimum wage in France is $11 an hour, and $15 an hour in Australia? Why is it so difficult to persuade American workers that we deserve better? Why have we allowed Big Business to convince us that minimum wage cannot and must not be raised? Why do we so willingly participate in a system that is so obviously not in our best interests?

I am getting glimpses of the answers in the faces of some of my co-workers and customers. Tired. So many people look so tired. Like the woman who came late in the evening to shop for groceries, kids trailing behind her, looking frazzled and harried, shyly swiping her EBT card, exhausted on her feet no doubt from working all day and now coping with kids and food and dinner and the whole business of life. She asked me to total her order item by item because she only had $63 left on her card. She was tired. Too tired to care about what goes on in Jackson or Washington.

I also see a lot of grandparents taking care of their grand kids. Where's mom and dad? Who knows? Perhaps living at home because they can't afford anything else. Perhaps they've run off and left the kids behind. Perhaps they're working two or three jobs and don't have time for their kids.

Some of my younger co-workers stand at the register all day then leave for evening classes at the community college.

Tired.

Restless, busy, on your feet all day, running from one thing to the next, pinching pennies, using coupons, relying on mom and dad, or food stamps, forcing a smile for customers -- it's a strange world that I've landed in.

I've said it often: I've never seen people work as hard as they do in Mississippi. Say what you want about Mississippi being a redneck Red State, the fattest, the least educated, the poorest - say what you want, but the people work hard. The politicians they send down to Jackson or over to Washington have failed them miserably, over and over, decade after decade. Mississippians are fiercely independent and proud. They don't want food stamps. They want jobs. They want a governor who will bring jobs, not spend all his time trying to close down the one remaining abortion clinic.

As a writer, I want to know all about this world. I want to explain it to myself, and to my readers. And although I worry a great deal about my future - what sort of future can I have working at a minimum wage job? - I remain an optimist.

There is a basic promise in America: If you work hard, you will get ahead.

Are those just words?

Stay tuned.

It was just a dream ... the American Dream

from Occupycorporatism.comWell the world crashed down and the music died
and the man who had a dream got crucified
the children men sat around and cried
while Mother Jones sang a lullaby
and for everyone whose heart got broke
a hundred more sipped Jack and Coke
laughing at their private jokes
and choking on their cigarette smoke

And the man in the mirror has no choice
he can't speak when he's got no voice
and the man of the future
is the man of the past
and oh
ain't it funny how it works out like that?
cause it was just a dream
the American Dream ...

And I look around, it's no mystery
the lives of pain and poverty
of those who have and those who have not
and those whose dreams were left to rot
and the rich man smiles as he throws a bone
and says son, leave well enough alone

Cause the man in the mirror has no choice
he can't speak when he's got no voice
and the man of the future
is the man of the past
and oh
ain't it funny how it works out like that?
it was just a dream
the American Dream ...

Words & Music by Nick Wilgus
(c) 2011

Cause cheap is how I feel

Recently I came to a crossroads in my life. Pushing 50, I was out of a job, out of money, out of options. A college graduate, I found myself competing with other college graduates for minimum wage jobs in the great state of Mississippi - a "right to work" state.

With a fast-dwindling bank account, I applied for, and received, food stamps.

Never in my life did I think I would come to such a crossroads. Never have I relied on the government for anything. Never have I accepted hand-outs or charity.

But ...

As a single man with a household of one (me), I'm eligible for $189 in food stamps each month. Roughly $50 a week. How I'm supposed to be flopping down T-bone steaks in the check-out line, I'm not sure, but apparently, like other "young bucks" before me, that's what I'm doing. Sucking on the government's tits. Living the high life.

Serves me right for voting for the "food stamp president," I suppose.

I have no health care, no savings, nothing to fall back on except a cardboard box under a bridge. That's my reward for working my whole life and suddenly falling on hard times.

I know, as Americans, we can do better. But there are elements in our society that won't stand for it. A lot of those elements are planted firmly in front of Fox News and are convinced that people like me sucking up food stamps are what's wrong with this country, not the fact that the vast majority of tax dollars go straight into the military. They'd probably tell me to sign up if I weren't so old. And they have little to say about how huge corporations receive twice as much "welfare" as Americans citizens do. No, don't go there, the world of high finance and lobbyist shenanigans is too complicated. Blame the idiotic schmucks with their food stamps.And for Christ's sake, don't ever suggest that raising minimum wage is the answer. Are there no poor houses? Are all the prisons full?

I used my EBT card today for the first time. I bought pasta, spaghetti sauce, cans of soup, coffee, butter, crackers. Afterward, in my beat-up car that's 15 years old and has more than 200,000 miles on it, I cried.  I was ashamed.

Speaking of my car, if it breaks down, I don't know what I'll do since I live in the country and there's no other way to get around. That car is all that stands between me and oblivion - a busted radiator, a spent battery, some little problem that's just beyond what my budget can accommodate, and I'm finished.

I've published several books, even wrote a movie and was nominated for best screenplay. I spent twenty years as a media professional. I've worked every day of my life. But none of that matters in this brave new world the Republicans and rich folks and their lobbyists have created, which is increasingly impoverishing the majority of Americans. We don't talk about the American Dream anymore, because it no longer exists - if it ever did. We obsess about how the rich will fare if their taxes go up, but never a thought for the increasing numbers of Americans who are at the poverty level, or almost there.

What can the future possibly hold for me? What kind of life is this that I'm living? Is this the best Americans can do?

We're desperate to put guns in classrooms, but try to offer health care to everyone and suddenly we're talking about a civil war. We throw away billions in corporate welfare - they're the real welfare queens, if you want to know - but try to help people like me and suddenly we'll be slip sliding into the horrors of socialism. 

Mississippi is a proud right-to-work state, solidly red, more Republican than Mitt Romney. So, Mississippi, where are the jobs you were supposed to attract by throwing your workers under the bus? Why is it that right to work states are also the poorest?

It's painfully obvious to me where the Republican party wants to take America. It wants to take America to Mississippi. It wants every American to live like we do in Mississippi - scraping by, barely surviving, college graduates fighting over minimum wage jobs while the boss hog rich fucks laugh all the way to the bank. It's a world of economic brutality, a social Darwinistic struggle for the survival of the fittest, like something out of a Charles Dickens novel.

But that's not enough. When folks get poor, like me, well, we must be blamed for it, and not society, and not the politicians who made it happen, who took all that money from those rich corporations and spent all their time in Washington licking those rich folks' boots. Don't blame them. Blame the poor. Poverty is a crime. Even Christians hate the poor now because their rich masters told them to.

Christ knows I'm trying. I've applied for every job I can think of, and then some. I've mailed out all kinds of resumes. Funny: Employers ain't much interested in older workers these days.

I've also spent a lot of time trying to finish some of my book projects and get them in the mail in the hopes that I might make a sale. I've all but begged friends and acquaintances to head over to Amazon.com and purchase one of my books, telling them flat out that they would be helping a "starving artist." No doubt they thought I was kidding. I was not.

Since I'm a writer, I have decided to write about this brave new world of brutality that I'm entering, this world of poverty and scraping by, this world where folks look down their noses on the down and out, this world where some of us pray we get hit by a bus and die instantly because we can't afford anything else. You can take away my dignity as I stand in line at the welfare office. You can shame me at the check-out counter with your greedy eyes looking at my EBT card and my purchases and judging me. But you can't stop me from telling the truth about it. That's all I got left now.

The society that I live in today is the result of choices and decisions Americans have made. Or, perhaps more accurately, decisions its political leaders have made. Most every one of those decisions are made in favor of Big Money and huge corporations, always at the expense of workers. They get away with it because there are media organizations like Fox News who gleefully and willingly flood the airwaves with myth and misinformation about what's going on, who never miss a chance to demonize the poor and provide endless column inches on why it's in our best interests to destroy unions, to pamper the rich (those hallowed job creators!), to bow down in reverent awe at the feet of huge corporations, who are now the only "people" in this country who seem to have any rights.

Case in point: My neighbor down the road lives in a trailer and has a Romney sign still sitting in his front yard. He's convinced that Romney would have ushered in a golden era of jobs, jobs, jobs. In many ways, he's what's wrong with this country. He doesn't connect the dots between what politicians are actually doing (as opposed to their rhetoric) and the fact that he lives in a trailer and drives a beat-up truck. And no doubt he watches Fox News.

Mississippi is the poorest, fattest, least educated state in the Union. It didn't get that way because of enlightened political leadership.
 

Let me finish with a quote from Dr. Martin Luther King, whose birthday we celebrate today:

"True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring."
Would that there were moral leaders like Dr. King in today's world, not the prosperity Gospel shills and culture warriors like Mike Huckabee and James Dobsen. Would that the pope cared more about the poor than stem cells, zygotes and gay marriage. Would that we had political leaders willing to fight for decent wages for workers just as hard as they fight for tax cuts for the rich.

To all intents and purposes, those days are long gone.