Author Archives: Browne Molyneux

About Browne Molyneux

My name is Browne Molyneux. I'm a lady. I'm a radical feminist. I'm black. I'm an Angeleno. I'm an artist. I'm carFREE. I'm a freelance writer. I'm a blogger. I'm a philosopher. I'm a humanist. I'm a journalist. I formerly wrote a column on transportation, Tracks for LA City Beat. The above are all of the things I have to work on being, got questions email me. browne@shametrainla.com My topics of interests include but are not limited to politics, transportation, dark green issues, economics, race relations, feminism, culture, working class urban life, media, art, Los Angeles and literature.

The Two Gold Lines. Yeah this totally looks fair…

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South Pasadena Gold Line Mission Station 03
In South Pasadena even the sidewalks are protected with barriers.
I won’t let this go until the side of town I live on is treated with the same concern that people in South Pasadena are treated with. I am willing to burn these videos onto CDs and give them to people who want them for free, if they would like to use these to explain to Metro what they want at the upcoming February 11 meeting on the safety issues for the Gold Line. Cheap reflectors, paint and tours aren’t enough!!! Cheap reflectors, paint and tours will not make us shut-up about this.
-Browne Molyneux

Poverty Porn or Of Course You’re Concerned

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This is funny to you?

This is funny to you?

As I have relented and signed on to Facebook I realized something, porn is very acceptable and never blocked on work servers. The kind I am referring to is of the poverty porn variety.

There are various genres:

Traditional: where a homeless person wanders around shouting, picking their nose or just sleeping. Yes homeless people are hilarious and great social commentary.

Rural: poor white people shopping at WalMart with funny clothes or hanging out with mullets.

Urban: poor black people are filmed with their funny hair, funny clothes, arguing, dancing or eating.

Interracial: poor people of different races participate in a fight to the finish in regards to space or dominance, with the money shot being the police coming or one of the participants being thrown out the store or the bus or the subway.

Children: poor people’s children eat cheetos, smoke cigarettes, say foul language or/and have funny hairstyles.

Snuff: poor people die through some beating act. Continue reading →

Sexism in Living Electric Color

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I don't know my place!!

I don't know my place!!

I’m not one for the personal anecdote story, but I can’t think of another woman blogger who uses their name and picture and makes critical comments. If I could I would definitely not use myself, but for the purpose of this post I’m going to have to.

The blogosphere are filled with many personalities.

I have a strong personality, but so does my partner Ran BusTard, but in general when it comes to getting reprimanded and banned I get it much quicker than him. No, I get it and no one says anything to him. He’s threatened to bodily harm people on blogs and no one has ever said anything to him. Not only that, they apologize for offending him. Politically we’re almost identical.

A guy on the blogosphere is allowed a blank check to be as obnoxious as he wants to be. It’s viewed as an asset, but women online have to be very, “lets get along,” especially in the nonpolitical blogosphere.

As a woman blogger you are limited to three areas of blogging:

1. Event Promotion
2. Product Promotion
3. Posting adorable pictures of yourself and talking about how you went to an event or used a product Continue reading →

Debora Iyall, Sept 3 at the Knitting Factory

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Debora Iyall

My Debora Iyall from Romeo Void post came back to life just in time for some some good news for LA based Debora fans.

She is playing a show at the Knitting Factory this Thursday (September 3.)  Her band includes Peter Dunne, Frank Zincavage and Dave Scheff.

Wire Train and Translator will also be playing.

I know this is LA and there is alot going on, but how about going to a traditional new wave show, though possibly putting traditional in front of new wave is a bit odd, but you know what I mean.

-Browne Molyneux

Separate but Equal Treatment via Rail Lines in L.A.

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The Rail around Indiana

If you look at this photo you wonder what is this? And how did anyone think this was safe?

Why is the safety method on the Eastside going to be of the “pull yourselves up by the bootstraps” variety via cameras to blame personal drivers and old men in yellow vests reminding people to “be safe,” while the City of Los Angeles west of LaCienega get the “silver spoon” variety of safety with expensive barriers and elevated stations?

Why will there will be no testing out Darwinism theory of survival of the fittest on the Westside?

Only the neighborhoods with higher concentrations of poor people and brown and black people are tested with sink and swim theories.

The rail dips just one mile into the magic dividing line of LaCienega and the people on that side of LA who don’t walk or even use public transit as extensively as people on the Eastside get all of our tax dollars spent protecting them from being hit by a train that most of them won’t even take or even be near outside of driving by its protected barrier.

(This is an excerpt of a very long post entitled “Cameras Aren’t Going to Make Fewer People Die.”)

by Browne Molyneux

The Sky is Falling, for real this time.

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theskyisfalling

Today is my favorite time of the month. Today is August 7 and  it’s the day that the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) puts out who got fired aka the employment situation, economic news release. This is where all of the media gets the numbers that they spin. Why don’t they just provide the numbers with no commentary? I guess that would be boring. Here is my entertaining spin on the pieces of clouds that are hitting me on the head.

Nonfarm payroll employment declined by 247,000 jobs (we needed 100,000 jobs a month to continue to employ the job market BEFORE La Crisis, so don’t let the corporate people lie to you and let you think everything is ok now since last month it was higher, it’s not ok, it’s nowhere near ok.)

“Another way of looking at the above task is to determine how long it will take the nation to return to full employment — basically an economy in which everyone who wants to work can find a full-time job to match their skill set and experience. It’s no minor task: the U.S. economy has to create about 200,000 jobs per month — a roughly net 100,000 job gain over the monthly gain needed to keep unemployment from rising — for the next 5.5 years to replace the roughly 6.8 million jobs lost during the recession.” Joseph Lazzaro, Daily Finance.

Also there are now 796,000 discouraged workers up by 335,000 over the past 12 months.

And there are now five million people who have been unemployed longterm (longterm is more than 27 weeks.)

On Chart A12 section U-6 Total unemployed, plus all marginally attached   workers, plus total employed part time for economic reasons, as a percent of the civilian labor force plus all marginally attached workers.. is now 16.3%.

The Employment Situation for August is scheduled to be released on Friday,
September 4, 2009, at 8:30 a.m. (EDT).

–Edited by Browne Molyneux

Facebook and Twitter are down this morning! The horror.

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This is an outage for everyone, so if you think it’s something personal, don’t be so vain. There is no way that the gov’t thinks you are important enough to shut off your computer ONLY  just because you looked at some questionable porn a few times.

We’ll now have to go outside and talk to people face to face. Darnit, I was getting used to not showering.

Though you can go to friendfeed, but I think you would have to be a pretty sad person to have facebook, twitter and friendfeed, I mean really, that’s just excessive unless you’re 16 and then I would completely understand.

Browne

August 11-18. RAM LA. Free root canals, glasses, pap smears, minor med procedures (including cataract surgery,) blood lab work and MORE!!

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ram_la1

*Dates:*

August 11-18, 2009

*Location:*

The Forum
3900 W. Manchester Blvd.
Inglewood, CA 90305

*FOR PATIENTS*

*How to Receive Treatment:*

All of our services are free and are provided by volunteers. The doctor is
free; the dentist is free; the eye doctor is free. Please arrive early,
bring a snack, and be prepared to wait. Your wait may be long; chairs will
be provided for your comfort.
Continue reading →

The Real Number of Unemployed Nationally: 16.5 %

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I'm glad we agree, this is not a job. Pic by Steve Schwartz

I'm glad we agree, this is not a job. Pic by Steve Schwartz

Often when my friends and I talk about issues of unemployment a question comes up. How do we know if this number that we read in the paper is including everyone?

What about your friend who hasn’t had a job in two years and has just stopped looking?
What about people who work temp jobs, so they sort of have a job, but not really?
What about people who got a job at the mall during the SUPER SUMMER SALE, but then got let go?

I found a table to answer those questions.

There is a table in the Bureau of Labor and Statistics. It’s table A12. It is the Alternative Measures of Labor Underutilization.  (H/T to Jonathan Tasini of Working Life, I was actually going to work this number out the old fashioned way with pencil and paper, but you saved me time.) 

16.5% is the number of unemployed nationally if you take into the account all of things that we all wonder about in regards to true unemployment: Continue reading →