January 18, 2014
Douglas C. Lyons
The Sun Sentinel
500 E. Broward Blvd.
Ft. Lauderdale, FL 33394

RE: OOPS! You did it again. Some comments on your unlinkable op-ed about “King’s Legacy on Economic Justice” in today’s Sun Sentinel.

Mr. Lyons,

As to why your column is “unlinkable” I direct you to some inconvenient truths.

“Prices are struck at the margin”. There is a price point beyond which an informed consumer – Shades of Sy Sims! – will not go. Go to any Wal-Mart, and please don’t tell me you boycott it, and watch people making multiple decisions. Price, quality, amount, use life, inter alia. The same process can be found in Whole Foods.

I have been buying the Sun Sentinel since 1996. A while back, after coming out of bankruptcy, you decided to charge for linking certain articles and columnists. I refuse to buy the same product twice, particularly on the same day. It would be like paying for bowl of gruel that has already been eaten.

The reason for mentioning this will be made clear presently.

Meanwhile, let us stipulate to the following:

#1 – The United States fought 3 wars in the 1960s.
A – Vietnam
B – Poverty
C – Drugs

#2 – The United States lost the first one [Vide the wall in DC] It is still fighting and losing the other 2.

Let’s focus on poverty.

Since I can’t link your actual column I feel duty-bound to quote you verbatim.

“Dr. King would be angry and ashamed. 50 years after then President
Lyndon B. Johnson used his State of the Union speech to urge an “all-out
war on human poverty and unemployment,” embarrassing poverty rates
still persist. Our nation’s leaders continue to argue over raising the federal
wage, which stands at a paltry $7.25 an hour. Congress, in its bid to help
the downtrodden, just put the kibosh on legislation that would have extended
unemployment benefits to people who can’t find work. Had he lived, the Rev.
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr, would be 85 and again standing in front
of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., this time
protesting his country’s campaign against the poor.”
The Sun Sentinel
Today
You

I like to say, as Orwell did first, that “stones are hard, water is wet” because…because…it is true

Follow the bouncing ball.

#1 – Rich people hire poor people to help them stay rich, and deo volente, get richer
#2 – Poor people work for rich people because they want to eat and because they want to, deo volente, get rich.
#2 – Making rich people poorer, in the horizon-like impossible dream of making poor people richer, is economic toxic waste folderol buncombe. Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus but that’s not in his job description.

If it were so, the country might be justified in seizing all or part of twenty billion dollars – that’s $20,000,000,000 – from Bill Gates. That’s the amount his net worth increased last year. Last year, 2013, his net worth was only 58 billion dollars – that’s $58,000,000,000. I know one of his children needs some serious orthodontia work and that he has some tuition bills coming due and that he needs to lay away a few dollars for his golden years and that he a big time Power Ball Lotto player but when is enough enough?

A Dodger pitcher, whose name is one with which I am not familiar, just signed a contract guaranteeing him 20 million dollars – that’s $20,000,000 – a year to work 6 or 7 times a month for no more than a half a year. I don’t know about you put that’s just not fair.

There are a lot of single moms in south Central Los Angeles, Usually they are women of color with children in need of a good Ritalin program who don’t have access to public transportation therefore depriving them of the benefits of Midnight Basketball and the positive life experiences to be gained from, to quote Congresswoman Waters, “alternative shopping”.

Think of how many of those “unlucky in life’s lottery” victims a slice of that unfairly gotten pie could help.

I read this morning of a company named Dropbox. I have never heard of them; I don’t know what they do. I don’t know where the HQ is. I don’t know whether they are leaders in Affirmative Action or Gay, Lesbian, and transgendering pre-schoolers and senior citizens causes. What I do know is that at the close of business yesterday they were worth ten billion dollars – that’s $10,000,000,000. Surely a billion here or a billion there wouldn’t hurt. After all, our President told them that they didn’t build it. Why should they keep it?

I yearn for the Summer of Recovery when the brigade of Shovel Ready shovelers
runs out of shovels, such being the demand for them. That will be the summer when “Rainbow Stew” and “Balloon Juice” cure teenage obesity and stop bullying.

Raise the minimum wage and extend unemployment benefits. After all, that has been a successful strategy for 50 years, hasn’t it?


Kevin Smith


PS – Have you ever heard of Charles Murray? He wrote a book called “Losing Ground”. It only traces the War on Poverty for its first 20 years. He limns the empirical evidence that the objectives of the War were not only not met but were actually made worse. Also, could you find me a synonym for boob, jackass, cementhead, dunce, ninny, or ohmadahn? I am going to need them in the upcoming days.