The ban of one-use plastic grocery bags put in place by the City of Sacramento is the one of the stupidest things I've ever read about.  The efficacy of the ban has not been studied and can they say it is a ban when you can still use the bags you just have to pay for them now.  PLUS, it's a "ban" on one-use plastic bags but they attached a price to paper bags even though they are only included IN the ban where a .10 charge is involved.

I would totally support environmental causes IF they worked. For example, "BANS" that really mean taxation were passed on cigarettes, yet at this moment there are at least 2 dozen cigarette butt outside my door.  Even if there weren't any outside I have wiped they from my foot inside my home, and inside the grocery store.  That one didn't work did it?

Maybe the city should ban charging $6 and $7 for the reusable bags and charge customers to pay .10 or .25 for these bags for the first 60 days of this "BAN" that really doesn't BAN anything. This country is run on taxes. Taxes spent in retail stores are a big part of that. I know that homeowners pay more than they would like in homeowner taxes. But my generation may not ever be able to own a home, yet we pay retail taxes....a lot of retail taxes.

Let's stop treating consumers as if they are interchangeable parts: One leaves without buying. It's no big deal because 5 more will come along in the other's place. I was told that belief by an employee at Long's Drug Stores before it became CVS.  I was recently told the same thing at that CVS.  consumers are important and vital to our economony...even poor consumers. I can't think of another place where the poor are important factors in state & federal economy.

I was at Bel Air last night in Carmichael and the ban is NOT in effect there, but we should all be carrying our re-usable bags in our trunks. I have about 8, yet they are in my coat closet. They don't work well from there.

Hey, it's just my opinion..........

Landlord Wars....1970s...Concord, CA

I was a single/single mother in the 1970s & 1980s.  I say single/single because single mother/single income....mine. If you are too young to have been alive during this time then you should know a few things. First, there were not a lot of fast food companies, therefore there were not a lot of unskilled jobs available; day care was almost non-existent, had no regulations, and there were no government subsidies for single/single mothers.

I rented a condominium on Mohr Lane in Concord, California.  Anyone who has lived in Concord may remember the condos on Mohr Lane, but nearly every town has condos with the same building pattern as Mohr Lane.  Four apartments in a small clustered cube; one completely downstairs/carports on the back, two  built on the sides like townhouses which offered two levels to each unit; and a unit entirely upstairs above the carports.

My unit had horizontal blinds, the AC didn't work, and there were no screens on the windows. I asked to have the AC charged & the owner/landlord replied with a big fat no.  I requested screens so that I could control the wildlife's access to my home; another big fat no.

The area was prone to heat waves a couple of times throughout summer.  The heat was not as bad as Sacramento, or Redding with waves as high as 105 degrees or more, but being born and raised in the SF east bay area the temps of 99 degrees with no breezes were uncomfortable & exhausting.

I was working as a bartender, waitress, door person at a local disco.  I would come home exhausted.  One summer my little boy went on vacation with my parents for a couple of weeks.  This was a gift from heaven because I wouldn't have to chase babysitters.  During my 2 week mommy furlough I came home to an extremely hot apartment.  It was still daylight outside, so I opened the non-screened windows out of survival and I decided to fling open the front door to get a cross breeze hoping the air would cool faster.  I laid on my bed under a window with a fan blowing cooler air on me.

I had no intention of falling asleep, but I did and when I awoke my home was completely dark. As I turned on the closest lights I could see several sets of animal eyes reflecting in my kitchen. This was very concerning to me.....nooooo.....it scared the bejeebers out of me until I realized as they ran out of my home that they were neighborhood cats.  I think they were more frightened of me than I was of them.  I am a total cat person but when other peoples cats come in, raid my kitchen, scare me to death and use my cats litter box I think I need to get real and take control over my environment.  By the way, I never saw any of those cats again. I saw my cat a few times after that, but he was probably grazing in someone else's kitchen.

Those of us who only glimpsed the middle class for a minute in the 1990s know that we HAVE been having a war on jobs & money since 9/11.  Historically, when this country went to war (I learned this in poli-sci class IN the 90s, when I was finally able to go to college because the economy was good when we had a balanced budget.....blah blah blah....Clinton.....blah blah....womanizer.....blah blah blah...so was Kennedy and we still love him....blah blah blah)  any way...historically during war the economy grows; it does not go to snail's pace in income and a rocket in inflation.  War historically creates jobs and drives the GNP well into the black. But under the Dick Cheney administration it went the other way, except for Cheney and his good ole' boys.  The canyon between the rich class and the poor class can now rival the great landmark (The Grand Canyon). 

That's my political statement for today...My opinions can change at any moment to shut people who like to argue up....but for today this is not my opinion...it is my life experience....so now tell me that what I've experienced and how I feel is wrong.....hahahahaha.....and I will tell you how.....oh never mind....

I love every President we've ever had (can you hear the sarcasm yet?).  I am neither Republican nor Democrat.  I am a humanist.  I vote but I'm thinking about quitting just the way I quit smoking decades ago, I quit drinking alcohol (which I never liked anyway) many MANY years ago....apparently I've given up sex, but I forgot to tell my libido.....and I've given up just about every form of having fun known to man....and woman.

I think I should save the rest of my rants and raves for my blog, right?  My crazy is showing. (I originally wrote this in response to a meme on Facebook & thought that I shouldn't subject the innocents who agree to "FRIEND" me on Facebook to this stuff.)  Here's the meme...I hope:



Nope...couldn't do it....it seems like I get a FAIL a lot these days. It's either because I'm cursed by an evil gypsy OR I just don't try to make things happen anymore.  I'm going with the first one.

PS - I am very happy for my friends who have successfully maintained their position in the middle class, but please remember that MOST people who are currently IN the middle class came from a family who was already IN the middle class.  Those of us who came from upper-lower class (each class is divided into three sections...again...for my blog...I think I have one) where our parents only had a high school degree and worked at skilled labor jobs after being children of the Great Depression (no we are NOT there again). The fact that I came from many generations of explorers, artists, and pioneers does not mean that the inter-generational poverty is a moral disease.  Which will lead me into my next blog: Poverty is violent.

Budget Problems

We all know that the economy is bad. We hear about it on the news and they even include it in the scripts of nearly every TV show! Can we get away from it? Of course not, we are living it. Finances are tight at home. We go to work hoping to make a buck and we hear about budget cuts and lay offs from our boss. We leave work, stop to buy gas or groceries and are stunned by the increase in prices just since yesterday.

I don't know about you, but I'm tired of hearing about the recession, cutbacks, unemployment rates and the budget problems in our government. I have my own problems trying to keep the lights on and the rent paid.

It's depressing. Maybe if the state of California didn't make the unemployed wait 2 to 3 MONTHS to start receiving benefits the unemployed would have money to put back into the economy. The cost of the paperwork printing, mailing, and personnel working overtime is going to break the bank. I have to give the Employment Development Department [EDD] credit for at least allowing the common unemployed Californian to apply online. It makes it easy for the little guy and it cuts costs for the state.

Texas has an interesting system. What I know about the Texas Workforce Commission [TWC] is that their system cuts costs. TWC does everything online and by automated telephone, except when you need to talk to a human being, in which case you are assigned a particular worker who works your case. Benefits are paid through a Chase VISA debit card. No muss, no fuss. Imagine how many trees the state of Texas is saving, not to mention the money, by making their system electronic and/or technological. No postage, no paper to buy, no ink to buy, no heavy-duty printers to buy, no extra help employees to hire, to pay and to provide benefits. Now imagine how many reams of paper EDD has to buy. Let's do the math. Calculate 6-10 sheets of paper just for one applicant before they ever collect a dime of Unemployment Insurance Benefits [UIB]. The unemployment rate is hovering around 10%, conservatively, so 1 out of 10 California residents is unemployed. Total population of California was approximately 36 million in 2008. We'll use that number just because it is easiest. 36m multiplied by .10 (for the math challenged that 10% in decimals) is 3 million 600 thousand [written out 3,600,000]. Now we must multiply the 3.6m by an average of 8 pages of documents mailed to the applicant even before benefits have been received. The number is overwhelming: A whopping 28, 800,000 sheets of paper are used ! Every two weeks UIB recipients receive a paper check in the mail with a Continuing Claim Form attached AND the all important return envelope. The state is going broke paying for 3.6 million envelopes two times per month! I hope they get a discount for high quantity.

At least the post office needs to maintain its workforce to process those 3.6 million checks and 3.6 million returned claim forms every two weeks. Using the US Postal Service to distribute UI benefits is actually generating jobs at the USPS. Too bad they are the most frustrating, demoralizing jobs in the country hence the phrase "going postal".

I admit that I have no idea how much this really costs, but the numbers here are staggering. Knowing the State of California and recalling the billion dollar plus DMV computer system debacle as few years back there is no way that California will actually automate the UIB system without further bankrupting the state. How did this all happen? Why can't the highly paid politicians get us out of this mess?

Okay. I will admit here and now that I know most of this information about the UIB system from personal experience. I am unemployed for the second time in two years and no, I am not a bad employee. I work in non-profit child welfare agencies; the lowest paying, lowest funded area of social work, but that is for another blog.

Before I was laid off I was able to afford my iPhone service, Comcast internet, phone and cable TV...car insurance, food, medication copays, rent, electricity, gas for my car, etc. You know...the luxuries. Thinking that I would be able to return to work in maybe a month or two or three I continued consuming these things. If it wasn't for the church I attend I would have been homeless after the first month with no income. Now it has been 6 months and I am getting more and more behind in paying my expenses. I am faced with a severe budget problem. I must cut costs in order to maintain my ability to meet my basic need for shelter and food. It is going to be like a piece of a glacier falling into the ocean; the waves are going to be tremendous, but it must be done now.

Like ripping off a Bandaid, it is less painful if done quickly; however, this process has inherent barriers to hastiness. For instance, I have sent out over 100 resumés with my home phone number and email on them. Terminating my cable services will make both phone and email more remote for me if not extinct. I know, I know. You're probably saying, "The library has free internet for the public." They do. And I'm happy for it. The library allows any one person to have 1 full hour of internet per day. Have you ever watched your clock tick by the hours while you were searching the internet? Dilemma...not a blockade. Inconvenience...not impossibility.

I guess my point is: If I can turn my entire lifestyle, home, and method of operating in the world, upside down why can't we magnify that into the state budget. If I can make sacrifices, disturb the safety of having sufficient medications, access to job information and access to communication with the outside world without throwing a small child under the bus, then why can't the governor do it.

Isn't it ironic that there are more child welfare social workers being laid off every month and the public is more aghast at the level of cruelty to children and women being reported in the news everyday.

My plea is for the governor and the legislators take a HUGE reduction in salary in order to maintain funding in areas that protect children. If I can turn my world upside because of budget problems so can you!! It's just my opinion...