SelwynDuke.com

Elitist Left Shocked to Learn Poor People Like Junk Food

By Selwyn Duke

It seems that you can take the junk food out of the neighborhood, but you can’t take the neighborhood out of the junk-food mentality — or something like that, anyway.

You might have heard about the debacle of Michelle Obama-inspired school lunches, with children throwing away massive amounts of unpalatable fare and high-schoolers left hungry. Now another one of the First Lady’s dietary puppeteering schemes may be biting the dust. Writes NPR:

In inner cities and poor rural areas across the country, public health advocates have been working hard to turn around food deserts — neighborhoods where fresh produce is scarce, and greasy fast food abounds. In many cases, they're converting dingy, cramped corner markets into lighter, brighter venues that offer fresh fruits and vegetables. In some cases, they're building brand new stores.

Read the rest here.

Trader Joe’s Need Not Apply: Would Attract Too Many Whites

By Selwyn Duke

A certain business won’t be opening its doors in Portland, Oregon — it seems it would attract the “wrong kind” of people. No, it’s not a strip club or porn shop, or even a pawn shop. It’s Trader Joe’s, the unique grocery chain famous for offering health foods and exotic fare at reasonable prices. So what’s the problem?

It would attract too many white people.

Oh, it wasn’t put that way, of course. The most visible critics — activist group the Portland African American Leadership Forum (PAALF) — said in a letter to the local government that the store would “increase the desirability of the neighborhood” for “non-oppressed populations.”

Read the rest here.

Immigration and National Survival

By Selwyn Duke

When pondering our obsession with immigration, I’m reminded of how people in the ridiculous dystopian film Idiocracy were watering their crops with an energy drink called Brawndo. And even though the crops weren’t growing, the suggestion to try water instead was met with the following conditioned response in the drink’s defense: “It’s got what plants crave! It’s got electrolytes!” No one knew what electrolytes were. No one could explain why they were in Brawndo. It was all sloganeering.

And so it is with immigration. Why do we have immigration? “Because it’s got what America craves! It’s got people!” But why does the US, the world’s third most populous country, need more people? “Because they’re in immigration! It’s got what America craves!”

Is Bill de Blasio Trading Horses for Money?

By Selwyn Duke

They used to hang horse thieves — now they elect them mayor. As many know, New York City’s new commandant, Bill de Blasio, has sworn that one of his first acts upon taking office will be to ban Central Park’s iconic horse-drawn carriages. He claims that forcing horses to work in Manhattan is inhumane, but is he really just kowtowing to a big real-estate developer who heavily supported his campaign?

Interestingly, there was a time when de Blasio was more blasé about these animal-rights concerns. In fact, when he had the chance as a City Council member to support legislation banishing NYC’s hansom cabs in 2007, he balked. Now, though, he leaves no doubt as to his position. As NBC New York wrote:

Read the rest here.

America’s Death by Debt and Taxes

By Selwyn Duke

While the United States put a man on the moon in 1969, it took a bit longer to get there with our spending. But we finally made it with our profligate ways, as 3.9 trillion (our estimated 2013 budget) one-dollar bills stacked up would reach all the way to the moon — and beyond. The question is, can we reach the moon with taxes, too? Since many Americans seem to think so — and continue voting for politicians who spend like drunken sailors — let’s place the issue of taxes and spending in perspective.

Many people believe Americans are under-taxed, even though 2013 federal tax revenue will be $2.9 trillion. So mull over the following examples pertaining to this figure (taken from Rob Bluey at The Foundry and updated):

• It is 2,900 billion.
• At $45.8 million per year, LeBron James would need to work 63,318.8 years to earn it.
• Average life in the U.S. lasts 2.4 billion seconds.
• 2.9 billion seconds ago take us back to the year Benito Mussolini seized power in Italy: 1922.
• 2.9 trillion seconds ago woolly mammoths and saber-toothed cats walked the Earth. It was 89,944 B.C.

Read the rest here.

Was Colonialism a Positive Force?

By Selwyn Duke

It’s hard to forget meeting a man who hated Mahatma Gandhi. I once did, though. No, he wasn’t some erstwhile viceroy lamenting lost glory days, but an Indian born and raised in the land of sati and saris. The reason for his ire? He said that when Gandhi drove the British out, India lost everything: technicians, engineers, expertise, bureaucratic integrity, etc. In the same vein, I have a Zambian friend who has argued that colonialism had a positive impact, in that it brought civilization to the lands — such as his — it touched.

And, in fact, even that Kenyan Obama agrees. The president’s half-brother George Obama, that is. He once told social commentator Dinesh D’Souza that it would have been better “if the whites had stayed longer” in Kenya, as their premature expulsion caused his nation to descend into poverty.

But what of the conventional narrative that colonialism is responsible for Third World poverty? Economist Dr. Walter Williams addressed this in 2011, writing:

Read the rest here.

How to Enrich or Impoverish a Nation

By Selwyn Duke

What has lifted more people out of poverty, charity or economic freedom? It’s not even close.

Charity is wonderful, and I’ll be the first to say we have an obligation to share our gifts, be they material, intellectual or talent oriented. Yet whether our redistributionist endeavor is charity — and charity is voluntary redistribution — or the less noble, coercive, outsourcing of charity known as government programs, there first must be wealth to redistribute. But where does wealth come from?

If we go back to biblical times and beyond, a man might be considered wealthy if he had 70 goats. In point of fact, the standard for wealth was so different that the US’s average middle-class person today — with his car, TVs, computer, refrigerator and many other luxuries — would have been considered wealthy for most of history. And our average “poor” man, who also usually has an old car and various creature comforts, likewise has a material lifestyle that would have been the envy of our forebears. The reason for this is simple: there is far, far more wealth in the world now than in ages past.

Americans’ Pre-existing Condition of Childishness

By Selwyn Duke

“Because!” This was a common childhood justification. A kid wouldn’t be able to provide a good reason for his little agenda, but, well, children want what they want. So he just might say, “Because!”    

One sign of having truly reached emotional adulthood is the ability to accept life’s harsh realities, yet many positions people take today amount to little more than a stamping-of-the-foot “Because!”

A good example concerns medical coverage and “pre-existing conditions.” I’ve actually heard people say things such as, “Insurance companies have their pre-existing-condition policies only because they don’t want to pay for things.” Well, yes. And?

Now, what if I said the following to such a person: If paying for someone’s pre-existing medical problem is such a moral imperative, why don’t you foot the bill? The individual just might reply that he’s not in that business.

Neither are insurance companies.

Read the rest here.

Communism Now Big in Japan; Still Little in Virtue

By Selwyn Duke

Will the grinding poverty and initiative killing of collectivism soon wear the label “Made in Japan”? Such a prospect is likely a ways off, but it could become a reality if Yoshiko Kira has her way. Kira is one of a slew of Japanese Communist Party (JCP) candidates who won office in her nation’s July elections, which saw the JCP increase its presence in the House of Councilors from 6 to 11 seats — enough representation to propose legislation.

In point of fact, the JCP won more votes in the major metropolises of Tokyo and Osaka than all but Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party, and the JCP has been on the rise for some time. As the Telegraph’s Danielle Demetriou wrote in 2008, “New [JCP] recruits are signing up at the rate of 1,000 a month, swelling its ranks to more than 415,000. Meanwhile a classic proletarian novel is at the top of the best-seller lists, and communist-themed ‘manga’ comics are enjoying soaring success.”

It isn’t just the Land of the Rising Sickle, either.

Read the rest here.

Diploma Disaster?

By Selwyn Duke

When Joshua Baron works delivering food for a local delicatessen, the customers wouldn’t guess that the man handing them their delectable fare is a law-school graduate. But neither the New York City resident’s undergraduate degree in International Affairs nor his law degree has translated into a career. And while he hasn’t yet passed the bar exam — and hasn’t tried in recent years — he still is qualified to work as a paralegal or in compliance. But not only are employers reluctant to hire attorneys for paralegal positions (they worry that they’ll become licensed and resign), says Baron, “There’s a glut of lawyers.”

While Baron is now pursuing entrepreneurial endeavors and thus no longer pounds the pavement for work as some might, his story is not unique. As the Center for College Affordability and Productivity (CCAP) tells us in “From Wall Street to Wal-Mart: Why College Graduates Are Not Getting Good Jobs,”

Colleges and universities are turning out graduates faster than America’s labor markets are creating jobs that traditionally have been reserved for those with degrees. More than one-third of current working graduates are in jobs that do not require a degree, and the proportion appears to be rising rapidly. Many of them are better described as “underemployed” rather than “gainfully employed.” Indeed, 60 percent of the increased college graduate population between 1992 and 2008 ended up in these lower skill jobs, raising real questions about the desirability of pushing to increase the proportion of Americans attending and graduating from four year colleges and universities. This, along with other evidence on the negative relationship between government higher education spending and economic growth, suggests we may have significantly “over invested” public funds in colleges and universities.

Ticket to the Good Life?

Read the rest here.