Sin Tax Era: America the not so Beautiful March 30, 2010

Perhaps the single one and only salutary effect that the passage of Obamacare has had on my life, is jolting my father out of the land of the Obama living dead by raising his concerns about the intrusion of the government in our lives.

I have not known my father for that long.

I speak to him about once every three months.

Everyday I text him an inspirational message.  “HEY YOUR LIFE CAN BE AS GREAT AS YOU WANT IT TO BE”

He texts back: “Thanks baby girl…let’s get 2 gethur soon.”

Okay, so I don’t know my father very well at all.

I cannot tell you his favorite color or anything that would require me to have lived around the man for sometime. Total time spent in the same room  with my father would probably equal about 1.5 months of my life.  However, I do know that we bear more than a passing resemblance. He contributed to my DNA. For some unexplainable reason we both like metaphysical/new age books. We both prefer to eat duck on Thanksgiving rather than turkey. And finally, we both hate to be forced into doing anything–especially if someone else like the government claims that it is for our own good.
Over the last year, I have noticed that I am taxed for doing everything wrong and nothing right.

I don’t own a home so I am a dirt bag in the eyes of the IRS.

I don’t have children so I am an even bigger dirt bag.

It is actually “greener” not to have a child but will the feds give me a tax break for that?

Nope, instead they tax me for drinking bottled water and 10.25% sales tax for living in a major liberal city.

The sin tax fever has also spread like a disease into our day to day and necessary life event  transactions.  After all, isn’t this is the heyday of liberalism and shouldn’t life imitate government?

This “make em’ pay” for their sins mentality translates into fees for the petty residual activities that we have to do just to make our lives work.   You see dear readers, if you have to perform step A in order to move to step B, then you must be charged for it.

I am moving this week, which is why I have been behind in blogging.  Let me demonstrate how moving is a sin.

Afrocity must move from apartment A to apartment B.

In order to move, I must reserve an elevator.  My reservation requires an administrative fee of  $500 to move out of apartment A.  What can I do, right? I must move out so I have to pay the fee.

Meanwhile Apartment B- the place I MUST move in to, requires an administrative fee of $600 to move in.

What can I do, right? I must move in so I have to pay the fee.  Additionally when I went to pick up my keys and parking permit, I was told that there was another administrative fee for getting the actual permit.  Meaning $100 for my actually picking up the permit. I pay an extra $175 a month in my rent for the parking spot but it was a one time administrative fee of $100 to actually pick up the permit.

As I discussed this with my father, he was puzzled.

“I remember a time when all you had to do was get a U-haul and just move in,”  he said.

“Not anymore,” I said as I recalled mother and I just paying the first month’s rent and a security deposit during the 70′s, 80′s, 90′s …heck even during the first five years of the new millennium.   “Now,” I continued. “If you have to do it, you have to pay for it…I would not be surprised if someday we were charged  “administrative fees” or taxed  for buying tampons. Why not? Women MUST have a monthly period.  A girl’s gotta move out of her apartment and bleed,  so why not tax us for it. “

My dad laughed but I was serious.  Every apartment I looked at had a move in/move out fee.  Even the small brownstone apartments.  Sure everybody, you already charge us tax for the shit we like to do such as smoking, drinking bottled water, eating junk food.  Now lets get together and figure out how to charge people for the shit they MUST do.

If you MUST do it let’s charge you for it.

On an airplane if you are on a long trip, you must check your bags.  Let’s charge you for it.

Actually this is a great strategy to screw people put of all sorts of money and their freedom.

Obama and his liberal minions have pushed healthcare into that all important MUST HAVE category.  If you don’t want it, you will pay.  You see health care is not something that everybody wants to have.

For some like my aunt, who loathes doctors and actually believes that they implant microchips into your immunization syringe in order to track your every movement,  healthcare is a dangerous thing.

For my father who hates to have to do anything because someone told him to, Obamacare is an imposition.

“I don’t like this business of us just having to get this government stuff.  If I wanted to pay I would have bought good healthcare to begin with…not that government crap…and you know it won’t be as good as Blue Cross or Aetna…waiting in line while people are dying in the chair next to you…But he [Obama] says he will help us pay for it…”

Dad didn’t sound too confident.

For my sane aunt, who works at a hospital  of all places, Obamacare is taking away her freedom to choose and keep the healthcare plan she has loved for years.  She voted for Obama. She does not want him to win a second term.

“I never should of voted for him,” she said. “I will never again vote for a person because they are black.  I don’t want their [the Democrats] plan shoved down my throat. I wanted to retire next year, now Social Security says I can’t because they do not have the money. The hell with healthcare, just give me my money and let me retire. “

My reply to her, “But you know auntie, not having healthcare is a sin.”

” Then heaven help us,” she laughed but it was not a happy laugh.

She had worked at that hospital scheduling appointments for years. She remembered when a candy bar was a nickle.  She remembered the Korean War and a countless number of other historical moments.  Some of those moments just happened like the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. , others were legislated like the passage of the Civil Rights Bill.  Now for some reason, this historical moment seemed fake and manufactured like those old wax busts of Abe Lincoln you bought from a vending machine.

America has changed.  It is not kinder or gentler.  It has just changed into something sinful and the Democrats must save us from ourselves.

We should be thankful for this  bank account purging  of our transgressions and interpret the new sinful America as a consequence of liberal humanity and understanding.

Autographed Letter Signed,

AFROCITY

Time to Embrace My Inner Pro-Lifer March 24, 2010

Forgive me if I’ve told you this story before…The one about how I thought I was pregnant once just from heavy petting when I was sixteen? It was a ludicrous idea because my pants never left my leg but somehow I was convinced that grinding with clothes on while listening to the Simple Minds got me knocked up.

My period was about a week late.  I had no experience with it being late before.  My mind went to that story mother told me about the woman who was impregnated by a bullet that had brushed a man’s scrotum and passed by her ovaries (Never found out if that story was true or not).

My boyfriend said I was crazy, to not worry about it. How could I tell my mother who thought I was the great black hope – college bound and destined to make her happy that she had decided not to abort me?   I decided that I would have to abort and not tell anyone- not even my mother.

My reason for not telling her?

Simply because she would kill me.

Where would I go? How would I pay for this?  There were so many times that I sat next to her on the sofa, wanting to say something but I couldn’t.  She was my best friend and I could not bring myself to ask for her help.  Why didn’t I? After all she got pregnant with my brother at 15. Shouldn’t she understand?  Didn’t she tell me to never keep secrets from her? Even if I was pregnant.

So why did I lie by omission?

Because I was afraid. That’s all and did not want her to know. I needed her help but fear kept me from speaking to her and I am almost certain that fear kept this 15 year old in Seattle from speaking to her mother.

From this article in KOMO News dated March 23, 2010

Mother furious after in-school clinic sets up teen’s abortion

SEATTLE – The mother of a Ballard High School student is fuming after the health center on campus helped facilitate her daughter’s abortion during school hours.

The mother, whom KOMO News has chosen to identify only as “Jill,” says the clinic kept the information “confidential.”

When she signed a consent form, Jill figured it meant her 15 year old could go to the Ballard Teen Health Center located inside the high school for an earache, a sports physical, even birth control, but not for help terminating a pregnancy.

“She took a pregnancy test at school at the teen health center,” she said. “Nowhere in this paperwork does it mention abortion or facilitating abortion.”

Jill says her daughter, a pro-life advocate, was given a pass, put in a taxi and sent off to have an abortion during school hours all without her family knowing.

“We had no idea this was being facilitated on campus,” said Jill. “They just told her that if she concealed it from her family, that it would be free of charge and no financial responsibility.”

The Seattle School District says it doesn’t run the health clinics at high schools. Swedish Medical Center runs the clinic at Ballard High and protects the students’ privacy.

T.J. Cosgrove of the King County Health Department, which administers the school-based programs for the health department, says it’s always best if parents are involved in their children’s health care, but don’t always have a say.

“At any age in the state of Washington, an individual can consent to a termination of pregnancy,” he said.

But Jill says she not only didn’t have a say in her daughter’s abortion, but also didn’t know about it.

“Makes me feel like my rights were completely stripped away.”

At 15 years of age, I still depended upon my mother for shelter, clothing and food.  She signed my report card, my field trip consent forms, she showed up to the welfare office to prove that she was taking care of me.  There were times when she did not feel like braving the Chicago winter to ride 3 buses to my high school for parent/teacher night- but she did. She could have said “get the hell out of my house Afrocity”  when ever she got angry with me- but she didn’t.

So why didn’t I give her the gift of trust?

Long story short. I was not pregnant.  Never before had a red spot made me so happy.  I told my mother afterward and she basically said had I told her earlier, she would have told me that I was NOT pregnant and saved me seven days of acid stomach and chewed pencils.   ” I am your mother and I have a right to know, ” she said.  “You could die from an abortion if you don’t find the right person- that’s surgery you know…you need help getting home.”

I am pro-choice. I always will be but- and this is a big but.  I believe that a child underage should notify their parents.

According to Washington state law, this mother did not have to give consent but I can feel and understand her outrage over learning that her daughter was taken to have an abortion during school hours.  What if her daughter came home that day and hemorrhaged in the upstairs bedroom while mom was gleefully downstairs watching Jay Leno?

A mother should know.  And to the young women out there, if you are in trouble, give your parents a chance to help you get out of trouble.  They would be happy to know that you trusted them rather than a stranger. If your parent is the enemy, as the case in the movie Precious, then you go to a trusted ADULT, family member etc.

Autographed Letter Signed,

AFROCITY.

Donkey Land Gets “Roved” Over On The Talk Show Circuit March 21, 2010

This has indeed been a great week for media interviews. I am glad that the normally polite conservatives have finally dared to use verbal punches during some recent media appearances. You can’t just be calm and civil with these liberals anymore when confronted with their mis-truths and name calling.

First we had Bret Baier versus Barack Obama. There was nothing better than watching President Obama get unruffled in front of calm and collected “Leave it to Beaver” sweetness and all American Bret Baier. After the interview, Baier was heavily criticized by the left for interrupting Obama’s long sermons of bull and surprisingly even his colleagues on FOX NEWS.

Of course no liberal critique is complete without someone being called a racist:

“Brett was practicing what Fox News calls “baiting the black man”. They use a different word but you get the idea. Brett was beyond rude and unprofessional. He was trying to get points with his boss and other aryans he needs to impress.”

On the liberal mantel of pride lies accolades for those who demonstrate superior skills at racebaiting.  If you are against Obamacare, you must be a racist.  If you question Obama’s policies, you must be a racist.  Here liberal professor and commentator Caroline Heldman calls Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson a racist because he refers to the White House as “Big Mama’s House.”

Regardless of how I feel about Rev. Peterson,  uttering the words “Big Mama’s House” is NOT racist.  Truthfully, I felt that Dr. Heldman was upset with Peterson because he was black and not on the plantation that she felt he should have been on.  Being a black Republican has a connotation of shedding tradition and natural order among Democrats.  Gay Republicans are even less fanciful in the holy book of LIB.

I am against government healthcare reform. I must be a racist despite my being African American and someone who was actually a “green medical card” recipient as a child.  Government run healthcare stinks.  I have experienced it.  Contrary to what the Democrats believe, logic and reason among voters is not a vanishing art.  We are not naive and can smell bullshit miles and miles away.  This is not about Republican vs. Democrats in my opinion.  This is about legislation being passed according to the will of the American people.

You’ll know a liberal snow job when you see one.  You will have a pretty good idea you have stepped into a pile of donkey poo the moment you are greeted by Obama’s smile and the pointing fingers at the George W. Bush.  But you will know it for certain when the liberal refuses to debate the facts and turns red in the face as demonstrated by former Obama campaign manager David Plouffe during this fantastic face off with Karl Rove today.

Watch and enjoy.  Karl Rove fed Plouffe his balls on a platter with a knife and fork  stuck in it:

This interview made my entire month.

Let them pass the healthcare reform bill.  In November 2010, the people will hold the Democrats accountable for it and vote accordingly.

AUTOGRAPHED LETTER SIGNED,

AFROCITY

Barack Obama and his Disease NOT to Please March 18, 2010

When Bret Baier of FOX NEWS stepped into President Barack Obama’s parlor for a lengthy interview yesterday , all arrogance and subterfuge broke out from the mouths of the two-faced chosen one.

When it comes to getting to the heart of the matter with the head of our nation, there are no logical underpinnings. Only a smarmy and disturbingly dismissive air  that is and will always be the true nature of Obama.   There is no sense of openness with this guy. The house is full of glass –breakable objects with “DO NOT TOUCH” signs –such as his ego.  Look at it, admire it, but don’t you dare touch it or you may get shocked.   Because his clenched lipped, wide toothy smile is an extension of his fake demeanor, I am not quite certain how much forced effort he expends per appearance to actually endear himself to the public.

I will bet anyone a tall frothy mug of root beer that Obama ran to some back room and punched some poor unsuspecting well wallpapered White House wall  after his FOX interview.

Bravo to Bret Baier, for not falling for the ol’ Obama long drawn out response trick. Bravo to FOX NEWS for not rolling over and playing dead like nearly every other media outlet known to man.

I love the way Obama is dismissive of Bret’s email examples.  Emails from ACTUAL PEOPLE.  Not his Kool AID punch drunk adoring fans who are planted like acorns at town hall meetings.

So reminiscent of Obama’s “I HAVE A BRACELET TOO” moment during a 2008 presidential debate.

Has anyone ever told you that you are too nice?  That you are “a pleaser” ?  You care too much about what others think?   For every disease there is its evil twin.  The twin of “the disease to please” is named Barack Obama.

Obama’s lack of concern for Americans is not hidden in some deep dank, dark place beneath the surface… It is on the surface.

There is no “at first sight he seems compassionate” .    At least for smart voters like myself there wasn’t

Any intelligent, discerning voter can see that it is in Obama’s DNA not to please.  There is something more important in his life than you and that’s HIM.  Make no mistake that his inner house is full of glass. His brain has skylights and trap doors, no expression of true warmth and held together with steel and concrete beams, 40 tons of granite.

Ultimately this man is a with-holder.  While voters were douching their minds with  hope n’ change, Obama was cocooning his ego in the love bath.

Whatever originally attracted anyone to vote for Obama is beyond me.  His ego is his driving force, not the will of the people.   There is no well being center oasis in the desert.  Any attempt to reason with him will cause the “Uh, UH” responses and the dreaded “LOOK”.   Obama wants to keep things as fluidly slick and deceptive as possible.  When you touch the glass, it breaks and will cut you.

Hopefully in 2012 what felt so right to voters in 2008, will feel so wrong.  Whether any of his behavior and broken promises inspire his supporters to CHANGE and hope for something better, is entirely up to them.

People like me are just the messengers of the obvious message.

Autographed Letter Signed,

AFROCITY

From I Own the World

Sunday Soliloquy: Ain’t Nothing Going On But The Rent March 14, 2010

Painting By Alice Neel - Westreich Family

For sometime now I have been sporadically posting. I should share with my readers that that I suffer from panic/anxiety disorder.  The condition cropped up when I was living in New York, triggered by September 11th stress and the death of my beloved Dalmatian- Paloma.  Afrocity thought she knew how to cope. She handled homelessness, starvation, September 11th…Why should the death of a dog be any different?

It was.

"Last Sickness" by Alice Neel

After staying awake all night with my dog who was obviously having trouble breathing, I fell asleep for one hour.  When I woke up, she was dead. What do you do with the body of a dead Dalmatian in New York City?  I decided to call the veterinarian who instructed me to physically wrap and bring the body four blocks to 75th and Broadway.   My hair was all over my head, dark circles were under my eyes.  I smelled musty.  Must run a bath first.  Must wash up.  The dog is sleeping upstairs.

Then it hit.  A sharp pain in my left arm. Throbbing chest pain, my heart began racing. I was sweaty and faint.  I was gonna die. This is what a heart attack feels like. Oh my God, I am dying.  Call 911!!!

The next thing I knew, paramedics were carrying me down five flights of stairs, past a few onlookers. What a beautiful Saturday morning and I was dying.

That day, my heart rate would dangerously elevate four times before the doctors finally decided to dope me up with Xanax.  Before discharging me that evening, the physician gave me a card.  It was for a psychiatric facility.  I had panic disorder and would deal with it the rest of my life.

Why now? Why after all of these years of coping with molestation, hunger, cold winters in Chicago without heat– why would the death of a Dalmatian send me to a shrink’s Eames daybed?

Questions still persist five years later. I  still deal with anxiety, especially when something from the past harasses my present and future.

My lease is ending and I need to find an apartment. The scars of evictions past haunt me to this day, despite my well heeled zip code, my more than adequate income. Despite my good fortune, I am still anxious and at the mercy of young Afrocity and mother, walking the streets with the Chicago Reader classified ads.  We wanted to live on the North Side of the city. With the white people so I could attend better public schools where my classmates did not get pregnant.

Alice Neel, "Nancy and Olivia"

Our being on welfare was a huge obstacle.

Section 8 housing was beneath us. Mother never applied for it. She hated welfare enough as it was.

“Section 8 only puts you in projects with other niggers,” she told me.  “If we want to live in Lincoln Park, we can. We just need a co-signer or someone to give us a break.”

Day after day, mother and I would look for apartments. Levolor blinds were always a draw for me.  It just sounded classy, unlike the newspaper that covered my windows at the time.  Levolor blinds, electric stove, elevator building with a doorman.

That break never came for mother and I.  There would be no co-signer. No welfare moms in Lincoln Park.  We could not afford $500 a month for rent when our check was only $225.

“Maybe if you found a job-”

“Be quiet Afrocity,” she retorted as we sat on the stairs of a brownstone apartment. We were just rejected again. “I am thinking…Shut up and let me think.”

Heat was shining on us. We were getting blacker by the second.  A half eaten bag of Doritos would do nothing for my thirst.   Across the street was a school, white kids were playing on the swing sets with their nannies.  See Sawing up and down without a care in the world. Though I am ashamed of my thoughts then, for a moment I wondered how our lives might be different if we were white.   There would be Levolor blinds,  a father who worked on Michigan Avenue.  I would attend fancy schools and learn to play Suzuki string violin.

“Here is a place on Pulaski and -”

The very mention of the street name “Pulaski” snapped me out of the daydream.

“Pulaski!!! But that is on the West Side you promised we would live where the white people lived this time,” I protested. “You promised me we would live on the North Side with good school and the Levolor-”

“Not this time,” she shook her head. “School is about to start and we need an address. We can take one of the places where we can get a place… You said you liked Oak Park better than Chicago anyway.”

Glass came over my eyes. I put my head down.  She did not like to see me cry.  She never allowed it. Lumps came in my throat.  Envy swelled for the kids in the school yard.  Mother stood up which meant it was time to go.  I left the paper and bag of Doritos on the brownstone steps,  the #72 bus was waiting to take us home.   While I looked out the window, the bus passed through neighborhoods turning from vanilla to coffee, to chocolate.  Within an hour, we were back in the ghetto, defeated again.

As I leaf through home decor magazines today, I see much of the same furniture not through some North side stranger’s window but in my own apartment.  The Levolor blinds of yesterday are now the stainless steel appliances and granite counter tops of today.  I have a real estate agent that helped me find an apartment.  My foot and more is in the door.  Open houses are now offered by private condo owners facing foreclosures.  Beautiful empty apartments once inhabited by slap happy metrosexuals. Others by families who have to move in with their parents because someone lost a job.

“It is cheaper to rent my condo out and live with my parents,”  a woman would tell me.  “…Recently…there have been some unexpected circumstances in my life…It can even be furnished if you like.”

Somewhere in the Bible, there is a verse that says:

The stone which the builders refused is become the head stone of the corner.

-Psalm 118:22

Funny how life works out.  Who ever would have thought that the nappy headed little girl would now get calls from people in Lincoln Park actually needing her.  Needing her to rent their apartments. That once  enviable feeling has now turned into pity. Pity over the foreclosure sales, pity that healthcare is being shoved down everyone’s throat while people are losing their jobs and homes.

Painting by Alice Neel

I still have my own bitter pills to swallow.

Xanax guards me from my nightstand.

The thought of moving yields night sweats and panic.

So what is it like to rent an apartment now?

It is not different than before.

It never will be I suppose.

The fear always moves with me no matter how much I box, bubble wrap and pack it away.

I can find the perfect place with the perfect arrangement of bay windows,  a lakeside view.  Like the place I live now. The place my mother died before she got to see it.  A high-rise in the sky.

Mother never made it to the promised land.

She never got to see me with the blinds.

AUTOGRAPHED LETTER SIGNED,

AFROCITY

Should Conservatives Lose Massa Appeal? March 10, 2010

After an uncommonly hectic period in my life , I am popping in to write about this hilarious situation between the Democrats and former U.S. Congressman Eric Massa (D-NY).

In short: Ha ha ha ha hee hee ho hee haha hah

I knew it was just a matter of time before the dam would break.  The Obama administration is making too many enemies inside the donkey camp. When you have pissed off people, someone is going to sing like a canary.  I predict that you can expect some tell all books in the distant future from former Social Secretary Desiree Rogers, Gov.  David Patterson (D-NY),  and Evan Bayh (D-IN).

The disappointment in the Democratic Party is fueled by a lack of ethics. The Chicago Way is pay to play and busted knee caps if you do walk the line.  Over the last year we have heard strands of stories concerning President Obama and Rahm Emanuel’s scare tactics.  Eric Mass seemingly is living proof of everything we as Republicans and conservatives expected of the Obama swamp.

Or is he?

From this article at  the American Thinker:

‘Massa’ hysteria

By Dan Austin

March 10,  2010

Eric Massa’s rants have received considerable airtime on conservative talk radio. Massa’s words lambasted Democrats in general and Rahm Emanuel in particular and were like music to conservative ears. Massa sounded too good to be true. And he is. People soon learned that Massa is someone conservatives would prefer not to touch without wearing gloves.

Today, conservatives are faced with the defining challenge of our lifetimes.  The mission is the retention of our constitutional republic in the face of daunting challenges from inside and outside of the country. The defense of liberty will not be willingly handed to us like a gift at Christmas. Beware of politicians bearing gifts.

Conservatives must avoid the temptation to quickly accept pretty words at face value from strangers. A person’s past history says significantly more than his words say today.  While some politicians have had better success than others in covering their own tracks, thanks to Google, history is now very difficult to hide.

As conservative defenders of liberty, our judgments must be based in facts and supported by history. We must all do our own homework. Let’s not be fooled again

History tells us that every administration has several themes that echo throughout a presidency over and over again.  Massa may very well be an unscrupulous individual, he may even be lying about Rahm Emanuel and the soap on a rope shower attack. But I doubt it.  Even an embellishment or two may be sandwiched with the truth. That still does not make the circumstances totally untrue.  The “Louisiana Purchase” and “Corn Husker Kickback”  contextualize Massa’s claims.

When I watch Massa, I choose to focus on the essence of the story rather than the person.

Lying or not, Eric Massa is speaking to a number of concerns that voters have about honesty and transparency within the Obama administration.

Autographed Letter Signed,

AFROCITY

Afrocity Too Busy and Stupid for Words March 2, 2010

Folks, I am in a bit of a rush with moving and work.  I am too busy and stupid for words.

I have a lot on my mind about the ramming of this national healthcare reform initiative.  According to the Democrats, the public is not equipped to understand this “complex issue”.

"Too Stupid For Words" cartoon by Stilton Jarlsberg of Hope n' Change Cartoons.com

I understand that there is a need for improved heathcare among the uninsured as well as those of us like myself, who do have insurance.  There is nothing more I hate than going to the doctor only to receive a pat on the head and a co-pay bill for $25.   I also understand that given the current state of out economy, I would like the Obama administration to focus job creation and not healthcare.  There really are more important things going on out there.  Families are struggling and if you ask Harry Reid (D-NV) , unemployed men are killing people.

On the plus side, at least Senator Reid did not label the angry unemployed men as conservative wingnuts just aching to kill a black man because they are out of work and angry at minorities stealing their jobs.  Speaking of losing jobs, Harry may be in the political graveyard looking for work himself.  It is a little known fact that Harry is a former boxer.

From I own the world

Watch out Mrs. Reid.

So let’s get these guys some jobs before we have a national crisis on our hands. People need to afford to shop at Whole Foods, donate to the Obama 2012 campaign and buy iPhones.  We gotta get this country hoping and changing again!

Autographed Letter Signed,

AFROCITY