Post Alpaca Lips Posts

When you are down and out, wealthy Americans are there to kick, and knock you about. Photo by   Solal Ohayon   on  Unsplash . Originally published on Medium . . In mid 1974, seven months after my father lost his job, we were all a few weeks away from living in the street, Dick and Dot, myself and my four sisters. Thankfully, dad did get six months of severance pay, at 60% of his salary. Yes, that was better than nothing, but getting your pay cut 40% overnight will dramatically change your current, and near future perspective. Few Americans are able to continually save enough of their take home pay to cover such a deficit for very long. Luckily, dad was able to get a loan from his aunt. Shortly afterward he also found a job, or just into the eighth month of joblessness. Sadly, he was never able to regain the same financial footing; he died in debt 33 years later. . My birth family’s full story was not a terrible one. It came very close to an all too frequent tragedy, and n...

Howard Zinn,   The 5 Immortals , & the   6th   Player , Offer Insight into Our Ideals. Photo by   Matthias Cooper   on   Unsplash . Essay Originally Published on Medium . I have been looking into the background of historian and political scientist,   Howard Zinn , learning that many say he was not always historically   honest , or thorough in his citations and sources. That his interpretations were   slanted towards socialism , and consistently shaming the United States for its faults and failures. In one instance he supposedly explains how   during WWII many Black Americans were against going to war , using only a few secondary sources like personal letters, and such, as evidence. From my non-exhaustive Google searches, I can find no references to that claim of an anti-war sentiment by a large portion of Black Americans. However, at the same time there is a historical tangent in a   somewhat   similar direction, about our ...