I’ve gotten a couple emails asking if I’m gonna do a big post on who sounded sensible and who sounded stupid in the budget debate. The answer is no. I'm super busy this week. No real time to indulge my inner (outer?) nerd and listen to hours of budget debate. I thought I'd be fighting the urge to tune in, but that didn’t happen. Maybe I'm talking to the wrong people, but no one seems to be paying a great deal of attention to the budget. Maybe political battle fatigue has set in. Politics has become such a zero-sum blood sport over the last 5+ years (especially the last 2), that we may be entering a new phase of indifference/apathy. We’ll see.
Anyway, back to my tale:
My iPod battery is dying. Vybz Kartel is racing to share with me his last nugget of wisdom on skin bleaching, misogyny and/or random violence before the limits of lithium-ion technology does what my better instincts can never seem to do -- silence 'The Teacher.' "Come touch me nuh? Touch a button nuh?" Kartel taunts one last time, before my gadget morphs from essential entertainment device to useless amalgam of metal and wires. A paperweight, maybe. I touch a button, as Katrel exhorts, but alas, the iPod has breathed its last profanity for the day.
What to do now? I can't work without a steady background of mindless, mind numbing noise. I lose myself in a Socratic/psychotic mental debate on the productivity pros and cons of Kartel and Mavado. See? My mind is already drifting! Must. Not. Lose. Focus.
Ah ha! The cartoon light bulb illuminates above my head, bathing my brain the 100-watt glow of epiphany: You want Mindless? Mind-numbing? Noise?
THE BUDGET IS ON!
I scrounge in my desk drawer for the battered transistor radio that only broadcasts NBC radio. Good old Duracel Alkaline "C" batteries -- months in the drawer, untouched and ignored, but the radio cackles to life. The soothing sound of nation building fills my workspace.
Who is this talking? It's either 'Nature' or Patel Matthews. I don't know the voices of all the new MPs yet. The new guy is talking about youth. 'That's a refreshing change,' I think. The NDP has ceded the youth issue to the ULP for the last decade. My ears perk up.
The New Guy is trying to walk a fine line between (a) blaming the government for not creating enough opportunities for youth and (b) avoiding sounding like an apologist for criminal activity. New Guy is failing miserably. The more he talks, the more he sounds like he's endorsing ganja planting and drug running. 'I hope this isn't Patel again,' I think. 'After defending Que Passa and SuperDan, this guy would officially be the MP of the criminal class.'
At least he's trying to keep it real. Or sing for his supper. In any case, his faltering, teetering political high wire act is fascinating. The first defense/rationalisation of drug dealers I've heard in Parliament. Maybe I am still listening to Kartel on my iPod? I check... The iPod is resolutely unresponsive, like that woman I was chatting up at Flow last night. No, this is definitely Parliament.
New Guy moves on. I am disappointed. Now he's attacking the YES programme. 'Why attack a successful youth internship programme?' I wonder. 'And why, with all they can easily and legitimately criticize, does the NDP insist on focusing on the ULP's most popular programs?'
New Guy has rebranded YES the "Youth Exploitation Service." Earlier, he was talking about "years of LABOUR pains." Clearly, he fancies himself a wordsmith. I am amused.
These young people are exploited, he says. In some cases, they are doing the same amount of work as regular employees, for far less money. Umm, that's what interns do, New Guy. In many places, they don't get any pay at all.
New Guy moves in for the kill. I can hear it coming. His voice rises while his cadence slows to a crawl. He wants us to make sure we catch every word of his coup de grace. He is choosing his words carefully, but with a well-practiced nonchalance. He is an assassin, carefully, but confidently, loading his weapon and adjusting his sniper scope. Only he, New Guy, knows the target.
"Exploitation!" he repeats. Then, the dramatic pause.
Here it comes...
The YES program has a budget of $2.8 million, he informs me. But of that $2.8 million, only $19,000 is paid to these exploited young people!
'That can't be right,' I think. Impossible! The muffled cross-talk begins. The speaker is trying to restore order.
New Guy repeats himself, smug now in the knowledge that the government has no answer for his kill shot. $19,000 to kids, for their hard work, out of a total of $2.8 million. It’s right there in YOUR estimates! Exploitation!
That CAN'T be right, I think. There are, what? 1,000 YES workers? So he's telling me that they each get a total of $19 for 5-12 months work? That can't be right. Maybe my math is wrong. Or maybe they ARE being exploited! New Guy is right! If the Govt is only giving them $19, they might as well not pay them! That's an insult! An exploitative insult!
New Guy is reloading his sniper's rifle. This time, he has the education revolution in his deadly scope. Here we go attacking popular programs again. He's telling me that it was a mistake to start the revolution by creating universal secondary education. I see how this fits in with his worldview -- if they're gonna end up on a ganja farm in the hills anyway, why educate older kids?
But... Wait... Julian Francis is rising on a point of order. "To elucidate," he says. He's going back to the YES program. He sounds smug too. I am confused. An experienced politician like Francis is gonna defend giving children $19 a year? And squandering $2.8 million? He should’ve let New Guy move on.
Francis is citing pages in the Estimates. He sounds coolly arrogant. He's got his own assassin swag.
He's reading the page. YES programme has 1,000 kids. The total budget is $2.8 million. But that $19,000 cited by New Guy is for wages associated with the programme. The kids don't get wages. They get a stipend for their internship.
He reads on. He's looking at the allocation for the stipend. Its on the same page, it seems. Of the $2.8 million, a full $2.1million is spent on the stipend! 75% of the total budget goes to kids' stipends!
WTF, New Guy! You can't read the Estimates? Didn't you run this past someone before you said it in Parliament? Didn't you mention your big point to Arnhim, who definitely knows how to read a budget? Did you ask any YES workers what they get paid before you fired that wildly errant shot?
Anyway, back to my tale:
My iPod battery is dying. Vybz Kartel is racing to share with me his last nugget of wisdom on skin bleaching, misogyny and/or random violence before the limits of lithium-ion technology does what my better instincts can never seem to do -- silence 'The Teacher.' "Come touch me nuh? Touch a button nuh?" Kartel taunts one last time, before my gadget morphs from essential entertainment device to useless amalgam of metal and wires. A paperweight, maybe. I touch a button, as Katrel exhorts, but alas, the iPod has breathed its last profanity for the day.
What to do now? I can't work without a steady background of mindless, mind numbing noise. I lose myself in a Socratic/psychotic mental debate on the productivity pros and cons of Kartel and Mavado. See? My mind is already drifting! Must. Not. Lose. Focus.
Ah ha! The cartoon light bulb illuminates above my head, bathing my brain the 100-watt glow of epiphany: You want Mindless? Mind-numbing? Noise?
THE BUDGET IS ON!
I scrounge in my desk drawer for the battered transistor radio that only broadcasts NBC radio. Good old Duracel Alkaline "C" batteries -- months in the drawer, untouched and ignored, but the radio cackles to life. The soothing sound of nation building fills my workspace.
Who is this talking? It's either 'Nature' or Patel Matthews. I don't know the voices of all the new MPs yet. The new guy is talking about youth. 'That's a refreshing change,' I think. The NDP has ceded the youth issue to the ULP for the last decade. My ears perk up.
The New Guy is trying to walk a fine line between (a) blaming the government for not creating enough opportunities for youth and (b) avoiding sounding like an apologist for criminal activity. New Guy is failing miserably. The more he talks, the more he sounds like he's endorsing ganja planting and drug running. 'I hope this isn't Patel again,' I think. 'After defending Que Passa and SuperDan, this guy would officially be the MP of the criminal class.'
At least he's trying to keep it real. Or sing for his supper. In any case, his faltering, teetering political high wire act is fascinating. The first defense/rationalisation of drug dealers I've heard in Parliament. Maybe I am still listening to Kartel on my iPod? I check... The iPod is resolutely unresponsive, like that woman I was chatting up at Flow last night. No, this is definitely Parliament.
New Guy moves on. I am disappointed. Now he's attacking the YES programme. 'Why attack a successful youth internship programme?' I wonder. 'And why, with all they can easily and legitimately criticize, does the NDP insist on focusing on the ULP's most popular programs?'
New Guy has rebranded YES the "Youth Exploitation Service." Earlier, he was talking about "years of LABOUR pains." Clearly, he fancies himself a wordsmith. I am amused.
These young people are exploited, he says. In some cases, they are doing the same amount of work as regular employees, for far less money. Umm, that's what interns do, New Guy. In many places, they don't get any pay at all.
New Guy moves in for the kill. I can hear it coming. His voice rises while his cadence slows to a crawl. He wants us to make sure we catch every word of his coup de grace. He is choosing his words carefully, but with a well-practiced nonchalance. He is an assassin, carefully, but confidently, loading his weapon and adjusting his sniper scope. Only he, New Guy, knows the target.
"Exploitation!" he repeats. Then, the dramatic pause.
Here it comes...
The YES program has a budget of $2.8 million, he informs me. But of that $2.8 million, only $19,000 is paid to these exploited young people!
'That can't be right,' I think. Impossible! The muffled cross-talk begins. The speaker is trying to restore order.
New Guy repeats himself, smug now in the knowledge that the government has no answer for his kill shot. $19,000 to kids, for their hard work, out of a total of $2.8 million. It’s right there in YOUR estimates! Exploitation!
That CAN'T be right, I think. There are, what? 1,000 YES workers? So he's telling me that they each get a total of $19 for 5-12 months work? That can't be right. Maybe my math is wrong. Or maybe they ARE being exploited! New Guy is right! If the Govt is only giving them $19, they might as well not pay them! That's an insult! An exploitative insult!
New Guy is reloading his sniper's rifle. This time, he has the education revolution in his deadly scope. Here we go attacking popular programs again. He's telling me that it was a mistake to start the revolution by creating universal secondary education. I see how this fits in with his worldview -- if they're gonna end up on a ganja farm in the hills anyway, why educate older kids?
But... Wait... Julian Francis is rising on a point of order. "To elucidate," he says. He's going back to the YES program. He sounds smug too. I am confused. An experienced politician like Francis is gonna defend giving children $19 a year? And squandering $2.8 million? He should’ve let New Guy move on.
Francis is citing pages in the Estimates. He sounds coolly arrogant. He's got his own assassin swag.
He's reading the page. YES programme has 1,000 kids. The total budget is $2.8 million. But that $19,000 cited by New Guy is for wages associated with the programme. The kids don't get wages. They get a stipend for their internship.
He reads on. He's looking at the allocation for the stipend. Its on the same page, it seems. Of the $2.8 million, a full $2.1million is spent on the stipend! 75% of the total budget goes to kids' stipends!
WTF, New Guy! You can't read the Estimates? Didn't you run this past someone before you said it in Parliament? Didn't you mention your big point to Arnhim, who definitely knows how to read a budget? Did you ask any YES workers what they get paid before you fired that wildly errant shot?
Now you’ve got a problem, New Guy. How are you going to respond to Francis?
(a) Apologize, and concede the point?
(a) Apologize, and concede the point?
(b) Thank him for the elucidation, and re-frame your argument?
(c) Stick to your guns, and insist that you are right about the $19,000?
New Guy decides on option (d) none of the above. He simply says "anyway, my point is that the young people are exploited." and he moves on.
Huh?
Didn't you say...? Don't you know how to...? Shouldn't you have...? Wasn't your whole premise...?
You know what? Never mind. I like my mindless, mind numbing noise to at least be internally consistent. Kartel makes way more sense than this.
I touch a button, and place my trusty transistor back in my cluttered drawer. I'll tune in again next year.
In the mean time, silence is golden.
New Guy decides on option (d) none of the above. He simply says "anyway, my point is that the young people are exploited." and he moves on.
Huh?
Didn't you say...? Don't you know how to...? Shouldn't you have...? Wasn't your whole premise...?
You know what? Never mind. I like my mindless, mind numbing noise to at least be internally consistent. Kartel makes way more sense than this.
I touch a button, and place my trusty transistor back in my cluttered drawer. I'll tune in again next year.
In the mean time, silence is golden.
LMAO - seriously, I will always read your entire blog, no matter the length because of the sheer wit and humour. Great post.
ReplyDeleteThanx epiphany! Means a lot coming from you. Maybe one day I'll acquire your talent for great posts that don't drag on self indulgently for a couple thousand words :s
ReplyDeleteThis is great stuff lol!
ReplyDelete