MarkFord.net
The open-for-inspection half-way home for my writing…
Aww, Isn’t That Cute!
I know what you are thinking… Ford is reading a bedtime story to his grandkids.
Not exactly. It was lunchtime. We are at a hotel in LA. The kids were acting up and the adults had not yet finished their food. So, I entertained them with one thing I was sure they would be interested in. I am commentating on an animated, made-for-children short movie on the many varieties and purposes of poop.
What It Takes to Be Middle Class in America
I’ve shared studies like this before. But I found this one from SmartAsset to be particularly useful.
Take a look at these facts, for example:
* It’s much harder to be middle class in the north than the south. Particularly along the coasts. You can be middle class in Florida with an income between $50,000 and $60,000. But in New York, Connecticut, and New Jersey, it will take between $80,000 and $100,000.
* New York is the worst. The middle class there don’t earn enough to keep up with the rising cost of living. While other notoriously pricey cities have a middle-class income that trends closely with the state’s general cost of living, NYC wages lag behind. Of all cities examined, the cost of living in Queens, Brooklyn, and Manhattan are 43%, 70%, and 138% higher than the national average, respectively.
* Incomes that put one in the middle of the middle class are highest in the West Coast tech cities. Three out of the top five cities with the highest income thresholds for the middle class are in the San Francisco Bay Area. To earn in the middle of the middle class there, you need to be making more than a hundred grand.
* The hardest place to earn more than a middle-class income? That award would go to Fremont, California, where $300,000 isn’t enough. (The middle-class income range there tops at $311,936 per year.)
Click here to read more of the study results.
$190,000 for Doing Nothing?
When Musk fired so many twitter employees and nothing obviously bad happened to the business afterwards, I wondered, “What were all those fired people doing?”
It turns out that unproductive employees are a feature of many big tech companies. Example: Madelyn Machado, 33 years old, was hired in 2021 by Meta for $190,000 a year to work as a recruiter. But she was told not to expect to hire anyone in her first year, given that she would still be learning the recruiting ropes.
Click here.
Reporting on this in The Free Press, Nellie Bowles wrote, “I’m convinced that every big tech company is five really sweaty guys in a basement and then gleaming, open-plan offices of people like me: delightful humanities grads who have meetings about the best protein powder for our green smoothie (pea!) and the gender implications of unread messages being bold (masculine aggression). Every once in a while, one of the five tries to leave the basement and we quickly convene a series of meetings to get him fired.”
Hunter Biden for President in 2024
It’s unfair to accuse Hunter Biden of wrongdoing, my liberal friends and family members say. It’s all fake news. It doesn’t matter that there is now proof that he received tens of millions for “consulting services” from Russia, China, and Ukraine when his father was VP.
That doesn’t prove anything, they say. And his documented history as an alcoholic and drug addict? He’s bravely gotten beyond that, they say. He’s channeled the pain into his artwork, you see. And he’s a great artist. Which is demonstrated by the high prices various undisclosed patrons pay for his work.
But here are two facts that they can’t reconcile. Joe Biden has a net worth of $9 million, which makes him about the poorest president since Jimmy Carter. But Joe’s son, this kid that barely got through college, got kicked out of the Navy, and spent a large part of his life partying with hookers? He is worth $160 million!
I wonder – do the people that rationalize this, do they have any idea how much you must make to acquire a net worth of $160 million?
One guy is so impressed with what Hunter’s achieved that he is saying that Hunter, not Joe, should be the Democrat’s nominee for president in 2024. Click here.
Mexico Has a New Industry: Renting Wombs
There is a new – well, not quite new, but an industry in Mexico that is growing really fast. It’s in the “health care” field. They call it surrogacy. It boils down to this: affluent but childless American couples paying poor Mexican women to grow babies for them from fertilized eggs.
The eggs are not the mothers’ eggs. They are from the “adoptive” mothers. Or, in the case of gay couples or adoptive mothers that can’t produce healthy eggs, from third-party donors. What it amounts to is a sort of womb rental program.
If that sounds weird, know this: According to the source below, it’s making a lot of couples happy, and conveying millions of dollars to poverty-stricken Mexican women.
Here’s how it works.
The COVID Response: What We got Wrong.
Have You Heard of Project Next Gen?
Project Next Gen is a $5 billion government program advertised as “accelerating the development of new coronavirus vaccines and treatments, seeking to better protect against a still-mutating virus, as well as other coronaviruses that might threaten us in the future.”
The idea, they say, was inspired by Trump’s “Operation Warp Speed” that rushed vaccines to the market in 2020. In this case, the Biden administration is “partnering” with private-sector pharmacological companies to “keep ahead of” coming mutations.
“It’s been very clear to us that the market on this is moving very slowly,” Ashish Jha, the White House coronavirus coordinator, said. “There’s a lot that government can do, the administration can do, to speed up those tools… for the American people.”
(Translation: “We sold hundreds of millions of shots when they were mandatory. Now that they are not, all these damn skeptics are crashing sales. This project should allow us to make gobs of money the next time the mandates roll around.”)
An Evening with Beverly Luff Linn
Directed by Jim Hosking
Starring Aubrey Plaza, Emile Hirsch, Jermaine Clement, Matt Berry, and Craig Robinson
Released (US) Oct. 19, 2018
Available on various streaming services, including Netflix and Amazon Prime
I liked it.
I watched it because, like ten million other folks in America, I’m a fan of Aubrey Plaza. But I’m also a big fan of Jermaine Clement (from Flight of the Conchords). So that, and the poster featuring Craig Robinson with a golf cap on his head, was enough to get me interested.
Before deciding to watch a movie, though, I usually want to know who’s directing it. In this case, I didn’t recognize the name. Jim Hosking. I looked him up. He’s a British film director, writer (he co-wrote this script), and composer of half a dozen short films and only three features. His prior features had titles like The ABCs of Death 2 (2014) and The Greasy Strangler (2016).
That intrigued me.
So, I watched it, thinking I might shut it off after five minutes. But it brought me in and held my attention. It’s funny. And it’s clever. Ultimately, it’s charming. Maybe this will help: Imagine if Napoleon Dynamite was directed by David Lynch.
If that that sounds like fun to you, I can recommend it. If it makes you feel uncomfortable… well, don’t bother.
From TS re the Open Carry Question:
“I’ve been on the fence about this subject for a long time. I shared the popular idea that the visible presence of guns would dissuade criminals. However, I live on the nicer side of a college town. And just this summer, two drivers got into a road rage incident, drove to the supermarket by my house, and shot each other in the parking lot like it was a 19th-century duel.
“I understand road rage. But obviously, if neither man had a gun, they would likely still be alive. I even wonder what would have happened if only one had a gun. The part of me that has some faith in humanity thinks that even an enraged driver wouldn’t shoot an unarmed man. But if you see someone else draw a gun and you have a gun as well – well, of course you are going to fire.
“I also believe that criminalizing the ownership of guns at this point would only mean that law-abiding citizens give up their guns and criminals have a field day. But again, it only seems like open carry laws have succeeded in turning otherwise law-abiding citizens into trigger happy gunslingers the moment an opportunity arises. Do we really trust ‘law-abiding citizens’ to become judge, jury, and executioner in the heat of the moment?”
From RC re Paradise Palms:
“I’m delighted to hear of and read about your magnificent efforts to beautify and engage South Florida in a way for everyone to experience. This note is just to let you know that you are appreciated and respected.”
These guys do a good job or explaining the health benefits of quitting sugar. Click here.