Take a look at this fascinating graph I found here:

The article I got it from is stupid but the graph itself is very interesting. There is a perception of downward social mobility by the richer people and a perception of upward mobility among poorer people. Note that the stagnant progression of the lines changed quite dramatically in 2010-11. Of course, this reflects people’s perceptions which, as we all know, do not equal reality. But it is definitely curious that people perceive their class standing in this way.

The linked article concentrates solely on the perception of downward mobility among the richer Americans and does it with a certain degree of hysteria. This, of course, tells us all we need to know about the class to which the article’s author belongs. The perception of a steep upward mobility of the poorer Americans  is of no interest to him. Since I identify with the lowest classes (for obvious reasons) and my personal experience fits in perfectly with the graph, I find this information fascinating.

What say you, readers? What makes people of lower classes believe their class mobility has experienced a sharp rise in 2010-11?

Reader el asked me to comment on the following:

“But I can’t, and don’t, buy that it’s a coincidence that every time similar content is approached in two different ways for Americans and for international audiences, the people designing it for US consumption choose to dumb everything down, rob sex of its sexuality, and turn violence into a cheap visual gag reel”

This made me remember the outstanding British show Cracker with the amazing Robbie Coltrane. Does anybody else  remember it? Its American remake was bizarrely bad and just boring.

The main problem with the remake was that, instead of the talented actors who looked like normal people, the American show had plastic cyborgs whose only skill was to look pretty. American TV shows usually compensate for bad acting and cyborg-like actors with phenomenal plotting. Cracker, however, revolved around the personality of the protagonists. Once you substitute them with pretty mannequins, nothing is left of the show.

Wherever I watch movies or TV from countries other than the US, I’m shocked by how normal and human the actors look. As for the quote at the beginning of this post, there are dumb sitcoms in the US but the really popular drama TV shows are in no way dumb. The dumb people are those who want TV to be all about sex and violence and don’t notice how beautifully the US shows are written, directed and shot.

If only somebody could bring together Spanish, British, Danish or Russian actors with American writers, that would be an absolutely amazing TV show.

Now the American TV is going through its golden age. I believe it started with the best TV show of all times and epochs, Twin Peaks. Do I have readers old enough to remember it? That show was a freakin’ work of art. I’m hearing True Detective is going in that direction. Has anybody seen it yet?

Somebody placed the following item between the news about the dead woman Texas tried to keep on life support and Huckabee’s ridiculous comments about women’s out-of-control libidos:

 Kansas judge rules sperm donor is liable for child support payments even though he and the two moms signed a document ahead of time renouncing his involvement in any child.

How these news items are connected is a mystery. Of course, people cannot sign away the essential rights of other people. The judge was absolutely right to make these rulings.

Here is what a less tendentious article about this case says:

A filing Wednesday by the DCF argues the sperm donor contract overlooks “the well-established law in this state that a person cannot contract away his or her obligations to support their child.”

The right for support belongs to the child, not the parents, the filing says.

Well, duh. Many people still think that the words “child support” refer to the money a man pays to a woman. They seem to be incapable of realizing that women are not legally considered to be children any longer. As for children, we all know that, in this country, they are only considered people with rights and needs of their own before they are born.

I avoided watching Mad Men for years because I routinely saw posts about the show on a variety of websites and gathered from them that the show was a glorification of boring and outdated sexism.

Then a reader whose opinion I trust more than those websites insistently recommended the show, so I watched it. And discovered that my readers are smart and those website are stupid.

I’m almost done with season 5 of the show and there are no more on Netflix, so if there are any other recommendations, I’m very interested.

My parents are in Cuba and I tried calling them on the phone but it didn’t connect. So I started wondering: can one call Cuba from the US? And are we going to get a black mark against us in some DofD file for trying to call, in case one of us applies for US citizenship in two years?

By the way, my parents wrote in an email that the Internet connection in Cuba is as slow and expensive as it was 10 years ago.

Some things don’t change.

I don’t know who Jennifer Kesler is but I agree with what she says completely, and that never happens:

I actually like small government and a truly “conservative” approach to the economy. But the GOP is only about “small government” when it comes to the poor. In addition to serving bigots, they will expand the government as much as you want if it helps out Wall Street, bails out big business, or improves the sleep of people who want better policing of those nasty women, gays and all those people of color we need to shoot. They can always find funding for a new series of departments to cover those needs. The GOP as we know it will die in a couple of decades, if not before. Nothing can stop that. They didn’t just put their money on the wrong horse: they bought the horse, rode it proudly at every event and loudly publicized how much it meant to them.

Maybe Jennifer Kesler and I should start a party of our own.

And on the subject of abortion, people just blab too much, seriously. Once again, take PUPPPS. I’m talking about it because this is what I have experienced but there can be a million other things like this.

There are people who get PUPPPS on week 16, week 20, week 26, etc. If the government forcing a person to undergo this for months doesn’t constitute cruel and unusual punishment, then I don’t know what does.

And the longer you have it during pregnancy, the longer it stays with you after. The receptors in the brain that process painful itching are located right next to the receptors that process drug addiction. So after a few months of PUPPPS, you have to battle the mental equivalent of a heroin addiction to make it stop.

Nobody studies this affliction and there are no remedies because this is just women’s suffering, so who cares? Certainly not the self-righteous busybodies who think their stupid religion justifies inflicting torture on people.

The terror that anti-choicers inflict on human beings prevents doctors from conducting C-sections before week 39 of gestation. In my case, for instance, it would have made every sense to conduct the procedure in week 36. Who knows, we might have even had a live baby as a result. But since this is currently illegal, we don’t. Under the guise of saving babies, anti-abortionists kill them.

Doesn’t it make every sense on the planet to leave these decisions to women and their doctors instead of to stupid preachers and their sadistic followers?

Making an off-hand generalizing statements is never a good idea, people. Especially, when you are talking about something that lies far outside anything you could possibly experience.

I have been shocked and wounded, for instance, by reiterated assertions that “maternity care is covered by insurance.” Some maternity care costs are sometimes covered by some insurances. This doesn’t mean, however, that all costs are always covered.

I have one of the best, most comprehensive kinds of health insurance anybody can get in this country. Still, just today I’m paying $450 out of pocket for my maternity care costs that are never covered by any insurance. Mind you, this is what I pay on a regular basis and will continue paying for quite some time to come.

Part if this sum is teeth and gum treatment because gestational periodontitis doesn’t just go away after gestation ends. The rest of this money goes to mental health care that is also not covered because it isn’t pill-based. Leaving aside “advanced fetal death”, the mental consequences of PUPPPS alone will have to be dealt with for a while. It’s an absolutely horrifying experience that can lead to psychotic breaks, suicide attempts, etc both during and after pregnancy.

None of this is covered by any insurance. And these are just two maternity-related afflictions I happen to be experiencing. There can be many more.

I don’t understand why Jamie Dimon’s 74% raise is getting discussed so much.

If his bank gets no money from the government, then it’s nobody’s business how this private entity chooses to compensate its employees.

And if the bank does get money from the government, that should stop regardless of what Dimon is making or whether Dimon even exists.

So it seems that  François Hollande has ditched the anti-capital spiel and has fully embraced austerity and governmental support for big corporations.

Interesting.