Tick Tock Sheptock

The Real ID Act which was passed by Congress in 2005 has reared its ugly head as deadlines for states to comply are fast approaching. While many are concerned that adjoining the databases of all 50 states in a system that is administered by the feds will subject the information of all American adults to the same internet security failures that have plagued the Office of Personnel Management and other federal agencies, states are concerned with the price tag. Since some states are using their right to refuse to comply with the feds, this forces residents of those states out of compliance. This could eventually lead to trouble when attempting to board an airplane. However, citizens whose ID or driver's license is not in compliance with federal standards will likely have the option of presenting a passport. I fly once or twice a year from DC to Florida to visit my aging mother and other family members. Having never left the country, I've never applied for a passport or visa. ...

On December 6 th , 2015 I spoke at St. Luke's Episcopal Church in DC about the possible closure of the CCNV Shelter c. 2018 and the need to connect able-bodied homeless people to living-wage jobs. I told them about a federal effort to connect homeless people to employment in 1988. That effort ended with about half of the homeless people who took advantage of the program obtaining employment and half of THAT group remaining employed for at least 13 weeks. All in all, a quarter of the homeless people who sought employment through this program remained employed for at least a quarter of a year. 25% is a failing grade anywhere in the world (except the baseball stadium). No robust effort to get homeless people working has been made by the feds in the last 27 years – when Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik were in diapers and I was just months into my eventual six-year tenure as a tractor driver (similar to an airport luggage train but used to haul hospital freight) at Shands Hospit...

Before homeless advocate Michael Stoops had his debilitating stroke, He would introduce me to the college and university groups that had come to learn about homelessness by swaying and moving his hands from side to side as if he were playing a six-foot tall keybord as he said the following: “I've been doing this work for forty years. And, if we don't start doing more than feeding and sheltering the homeless, then in forty more years when all of you are MY age, you'll still be talking about wanting to end homelessness.” That succinct spiel had come to replace an earlier and shorter one in which he would say, “We here at the National Coalition for the Homeless (NCH) are trying to work ourselves out of a job”. As it turns out, he did just that on June 7 th ,2015, though not in the way that he had hoped. With the CCNV organization having begun in 1970; Mitch Snyder having joined them in 1974; NCH having been established in 1982 and a host of other advocacy organizati...

In case you don't follow the news and didn't see my first blog in three months yesterday, Pope Francis will visit the Untied States later this month. Though my church of the past 10 years is Episcopal (also called "Catholic Light"), I am all over this pope -- as are many non-Catholics. He epitomizes the anti-Capitalist principles of Christ -- which is surprising when you consider the fact that he comes from a country whose economic system is similar to ours. Then again, it's not so surprising when you consider the fact that Latin America has given us such saintly people as Oscar Romero and Hugo Chavez -- the latter being more of a revolutionary, and thus, more my type. I can appreciate the pope's penchant for confronting Capitalism -- even if he isn't calling for full-on revolution. That said, global Capitalism is the root of much social injustice and many other evils in the world . I don't know what the pope will say to Co...

In recent years I've taken to telling people about an impending CLASS WAR and encouraging them to side with the Proletariat / BROletariat. I'm keenly aware of the increasing tensions between the haves and the have-nots and of the broken promise made by Washington, DC's mayor Vince Gray (2011-2015) to make our nation's capital into “One City” – a campaign slogan that plays off of the title of a Charles Dickens book called “ A Tale of Two Cities ”. In 2010 I ran across an article that referenced predictions by Gerald Celente, the renowned and fiercely accurate predictor of socio-economic trends and the director of Trends Research Institute. He predicted in 2008 that by the end of 2012 there would be, among other things, jobs marches, a reaction to the Wall Street bail-out, food riots and revolution in the UnitedStates – some of which happened. Fast forward to August 4, 2014 (President Obama's 53 rd birthday). That afternoon, after leaving a dual-purpose rally...