Riiiiiiing….riiiiiiiiiing

“hello, Senator Bob Casey’s office, Tayeesha speaking.”

“Hi Tayeesha, my name’s Brendan Skwire. I’m a constituent calling from Philadelphia, and I have a number of concerns for the Senator related to the TSA.

“I’ve spent the weekend reading a number of disturbing articles about the TSA” I quoted from Goldberg’s most salient piece:

During a trip last Sunday by a father and son through Orlando airport in Florida, the 8-year-old boy was selected for extra screening by TSA after going through the metal detector.

The father said the officer described the procedure before conducting it. Then he patted down the boy in the open security area, using the backside of his hands to check his genital area, he said.

“I didn’t think it was going to be as horrible as he was describing,” said the boy’s father, Bill, who works as a lobbyist in Washington and did not want his full name used.

“We spend my child’s whole life telling him that only mom, dad and a doctor can touch you in your private area, and now we have to add TSA agent and that’s just wrong,” he told Reuters. “At some point the terrorists have won.”

“Look,” I said, “I have a six-year old child who flies to and from Canada on a regular basis. I don’t want him going through those x-ray machines because they cause cancer, and I certainly don’t want him getting molested by some guy at TSA. I want to know what Bob casey’s office is going to do to stop this.”

“There’s nothing we can do,” Tayeesha said. “TSA is there to protect us.” That’s the typical democratic response to anything these days, “No we can’t”, so i pushed back, hard.

“Really? Senator Casey can’t ask someone to investigate? He can’t publish an op-ed? He can’t call up Janet Napolitano and register a complaint?”

“well, uh uh uh um, sir, I think that it’s more important to be secure when you’re flying than–”

“Oh really? Listen, TSA is searching kids in a way that that’s been banned by the US Army in Afghanistan, because it makes people join the Taliban! Americans and our kids are worse than the Taliban?”

What bothers me is that I am on the verge of re-deploying from Afghanistan after a 10-month combat tour that involved having to deal with, among other things, conducting searches of local nationals when involved with security tasks within my Infantry company. At no time were we permitted or even encouraged to search children or women. In fact, this would have been considered an extreme violation of acceptable cultural practice and given the way word travels here, been a propaganda victory for the Taliban.

“No! that’s not– wha– ”

“if my kid gets searched like that, I’m going to call your office.”

“That won’t do anything sir, we can’t come down or–”

“No, but I’ll bet having to listen to an angry parent and a crying child will get the message across, won’t it?”

“Who do I sue if my kid gets abused like that?”

“Sir,” she said. ‘if you’re that concerned about someone touching your son, maybe you should have him go through the scanner.”

“No Tayeesha,” I said. “I already told you, i don’t want him going through an x-ray machine because of the radiation..”

While the TSA says the machines are safe, backscatter technology raises concerns among some because it uses small doses of ionizing radiation. The use of millimeter-wave technology hasn’t received the same attention, and radiation experts say it poses no known health risks.

The risk of harmful radiation exposure from backscatter scans is very small, according to David Brenner, director of the Center for Radiological Research at Columbia University and a professor of radiation biophysics.

But he said he is concerned about how widely the scanners will be used.

“If you think of the entire population of, shall we say a billion people per year going through these scanners, it’s very likely that some number of those will develop cancer from the radiation from these scanners,” Brenner said.

Skin cancer would likely be the primary concern, he said. Each time the same person receives a backscatter scan, the small risk associated with the low dose of radiation is multiplied by the number of exposures.

“I mean for crying out loud,” I continued, “have you ever been to the dentist for an x-ray? They put a lead vest on you to prevent exposure, and leave the room! And you want me to put my kid through that unprotected? NO!”

“well maybe that’s the solution,”Tayeesha said. “maybe your son should wear a lead vest when going through the scanner.”

That was too much. “What?” I asked. “that would defeat the purpose of having a scanner to begin with, because the lead vest would prevent it from working.” I honestly couldn’t tell if she was being flip or just a jackass, and either way the response was inappropriate for an upset constituent.

“You’ll be hearing more from me about this,” I said. “We can’t do anything is not an acceptable stance. I’m going to be calling my representative, the TSA, and making a stink about this. NO ONE IS TOUCHING MY KID, AND NO ONE IS SUBJECTING HIM TO RADIATION.

“Good day to you,” I said, and hung up the phone.

And that’s my conversation with Bob Casey’s office.

Adding: although I am no fan of jeffrey Goldberg the warmongering pig, I will admit that his stance on TSA is admirable and confrontational. he promotes the idea of a national opt out day:

Who?
You, your family and friends traveling by air on Wednesday, November 24, 2010.

What?
National Opt-Out Day. You have the right to opt-out of the naked body scanner machines (AIT, or Advance Imaging Technology, as the government calls it). All you have to do is say “I opt out” when they tell you to go through one of the machines. You will then be given an “enhanced” pat down. Remember too, as the TSA says, “Everyday is opt-out day.” That is, you can opt out any time you fly.

Where?
At an airport near you!

When?
Wednesday, November 24, 2010. We want families to sit around the dinner table, eating turkey, talking about their experience – what constitutes an unreasonable search, how forceful of a pat down will we allow, especially of children, and how much privacy are we will to give up? We hope the experience then propels people to write their Member of Congress and the airlines to demand change

Why?
The government should not have the ability to virtually strip search anyone it wants. The problem is compounded in that if you do not want to go through the naked body scanner, the government has made the alternative perhaps worse! In an effort to try and make everyone comply with the scanners, the government has instituted “enhanced” pat downs. There are reports from travelers across the country about how the TSA now touches the genitals and private areas of men, women and children in a much more aggressive manner. We do not believe the government has a right to see you naked or aggressively feel you up just because you bought an airline ticket.

How?
By saying “I opt out” when told to go through the bodying imaging machines and submitting to a pat down. Also, be sure to have your pat down by TSA in full public – do not go to the back room when asked. Every citizen must see for themselves how the government treats law-abiding citizens.

…and then goes further. Way further:

come November 24th, here’s an idea you might try to make the day extra-special. It’s a one-word idea: Kilts. Think about it — if you’re a male, and you want to bollix-up the nonsensical airport security-industrial complex, one way to do so would be to wear a kilt. If nothing else, this will cause TSA employees to throw up their hands in disgust. If you want to go the extra extra mile, I suggest commando-style kilt-wearing. While it is probably illegal to fly without pants, I can’t imagine that it’s illegal to fly without underpants.

In intend to wear a kilt whenever I fly, from now on. Buy one here.

The wine vending machine serves as the perfect metaphor for the failures of Pennsylvania’s Capone-era alcohol policy: An absurd, patronizing and pointless rip-off that by rights should be blown up. If you look hard at our government-dominated system for controlling the sale of booze in Philly and across the state, there are only cons. Pennsylvania’s liquor laws and liquor-retail monopoly deliver none of the benefits—politicians promise cost (the state gets great bulk discounts) and public gain (profits are supposed to come back to the state, for the good of the people)—and do not prevent the abuses—safety (preventing sales to minors or intoxicated drivers)—they claim to protect us from…

Philadelphians have no legal way of avoiding the system. If you buy alcohol in Jersey or Delaware and bring it back to the Keystone state, by law you risk up to 90 days in jail—you can’t even arrange to pay the state tax. Supporters of the LCB claim that our vintage setup actually works pretty well and represents a great trade-off. Though customers sacrifice the convenience enjoyed by drinkers elsewhere, the system’s boosters insist, there are benefits that outweigh the disadvantages. The big three usually cited are safety, cost and public gain. If delivered right, it sounds like a powerful argument for sticking with the status quo.

Sadly, it’s all bunk.

You can read more at Abolish the PLCB.

This grant has been a little more straightforward, but in the typical federal government style i’ve grown used to, there’s always something totally fucked up. And in this case, the fucked up begins with the application itself.

One thing you have to understand about the feds is that they have the Sadim Touch: that’s the opposite of the Midas Touch, in which everything you do turns to shit. In the past this has included forcing grantees to apply using an application no one else uses called the Pure Edge viewer, the pdf equivalent of Betamax. This year, the application is adobe-based, and in a rare bit of foresight, the feds realized their usual inefficient and not-quite-up-to-par grant site, grants.gov, would be overwhelmed due to response to the president’s stimulus. They allow you to submit via email.

The application is a VERY dense pdf with upload capabilities, allowing grant applicants to upload all their supporting documents like budgets and job descriptions to one big document and then mailing the whole package in one file. In theory that is.

“In theory” because the upload capability doesn’t always work. In fact, it shuts itself off and on quite randomly. So I was able to upload the project abstract (a word document), but not the project narrative (also a word document). In an hour I may be able to upload the narrative, but who knows.

When this began happening yesterday, I scrolled through the RFP to find the contact name, and dialed Dave, the Grant Officer. a woman answered the phone cheerfully saying “I’m not dave, this is the wrong number!”

“Oh!” I said, surprised. “Guess you’ve been getting a lot of calls related to the–”

“–the citizenship grant, yup, every 5 minutes. The number is one digit off.” She gave me the propoer number, which I dialed. Dave’s voicemail kicked in and explained that he wasn’t available, and if I had a citizenship grant question, I should call a third number, where i would have to leave a voicemail so he could call me back. But when I called that number, no one picked up the phone after a good dozen rings. So I called Dave back and left a message, explaining the problem with the application. He called back, and just like your car stops making that horrible grinding noise when the mechanic looks at it, the application began uploading again. The minute Dave hung up, it stopped working agaibn. great.

This morning, I was able to upload one document before the application had decided it had enough. the deadline is in two hours, and the only reason I’m blogging right now is that I’m waiting on one or two documents that need to be completed. Time is running out…

You should have known you’d be alone
Do don’t beg for sympathy
Just cry now lonesome heart
But don’t cry to me
—Jimmy Martin, “Don’t Cry To Me”

The democrats are intent on playing the sucker again. As always, Harry Reid’s cowardice is manifest: there is no fight that the former boxer won’t back down from. Even Bill Clinton, who should know better, is getting in on the “Save Joe’s Bacon” game.

I’m not going to into all of the reasons Joe Lieberman has to go, but I will say this: if Lieberman embarrasses or hobbles the Obama administration because the Democrats allowed him to stay in a position of power, they will have no one but themselves to blame. I will call every single person who enabled him and point out that, once again, I was right and they were wrong.

I am getting really tired of being right all the time, but you watch what happens. Just like the bankruptcy bill, the war, the bailout and just about every other stupid thing the democrats went along with for the sake of comity, I will be right, the democrats will be wrong, and the country (and party) will suffer.

-sigh- I hate to rant, but after reading “Concerns Raised on Wider Spying Under the Law” about that godawful FISA expansion…

…well, I don’t know what else to say.

Broad new surveillance powers approved by Congress this month could allow the Bush administration to conduct spy operations that go well beyond wiretapping to include — without court approval — certain types of physical searches on American soil and the collection of Americans’ business records, Democratic Congressional officials and other experts said.
[snip]

The dispute illustrates how lawmakers, in a frenetic, end-of-session scramble, passed legislation they may not have fully understood and may have given the administration more surveillance powers than it sought.

That’s right: just like with the PATRIOT ACT, they didn’t really, y’know, READ THE BILL. That would be the bill that allows “physical searches on American soil and the collection of Americans’ business records” Ooopsie-Daisy. The bill that gives “Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales broad discretion in enacting the new procedures and approving the way surveillance is conducted.” Uh-oh, Spaghetti-os…

Oh, and it gets better:

Though many Democratic leaders opposed the final version of the legislation, they did not work forcefully to block its passage, largely out of fear that they would be criticized by President Bush and Republican leaders during the August recess as being soft on terrorism.

That’s right: the Democrats, who were elected on promises of ending the war and reining in an out-of-control administration, DID NOT READ the bill that gave that same administration MORE power to violate our 4th Amendment Rights, AND they did so because they were SCARED THAT MR. 20% AND HIS EQUALLY UNPOPULAR PARTY MIGHT SAY MEAN THINGS ABOUT THEM.

And let’s not forget that just two weeks ago, Congress rushed the bill through because they wanted to GO ON VACATION. Must be nice. I wish MY boss let me do half-ass work that actually does harm to stakeholders so I could get a jump on MY vacation.

Oh wait… just who is Congress’s boss anyway?

Your Senator can be reached here
Your Representative can be reached here.

I think the employees need a good talking to, don’t you? Maybe a reminder about who they work for?

Via firedoglake, Louise Slaughter has no idea what a difficult day is. Nor does any other Democrat or Republican.

Malalai Joya is the youngest member of the Afghan Parliament … elected by the people of Farah . Under the Taliban, she returned to her homeland from a refugee camp and ran a secret school for women. She did not back down.

During the Loya Jirga deliberations on a new Afghan government, Joya was a representative and she spoke – forcefully – for democracy and peace, for women’s rights, and for an end to the growing rule of the warlords. Her microphone was cut off and she was ridiculed … but she did not back down.
[snip]
Her “colleagues” threw water bottles at her, called her a “prostitute,” threatened to rape her – and turned off her mic again.

Joya did not back down. She continued to speak – to large gatherings in her district, to local media, to overseas women’s groups.

She names the warlords who sit in the same parliamentary chamber – by name and crime – and she insists that justice be done, that the Afghani people deserve a life of democracy and peace. She does not back down.

She has survived four assasination attempts, lives with a team of bodyguards and does not stay in one house for more than a few nights. She says, at age 29 that she does not expect to live to old age. But she will not back down.

Visit FDL for gazillions of links.

Poor Louise Slaughter. Poor Sam Brownback. And y’know, poor everyone in Congress, driving around in limousines, protected by armed guards, paid $165,00 and change. Poor, poor Louise Slaughter and her very bad, no-good day. Poor dears.

They’re not fit to wipe this woman’s ass.

Ordinarily, I love writing grants. Most of the time it’s a pretty easy procedure, and boils down to a 1-5 page explanation of “why you should give us money”, followed by a budget explaining how the money will be spent, and various attachments like annual reports, proof of our nonprofit status, organizational budgets, and a list of our directors. Best of all, a lot of foundations in take what’s known as a “common form”, a standard template on which to base your funding request. In Philadelphia, the Delaware Valley Grantmakers Common Grant Application is popular. Using this template, you can literally send out a dozen grants a day. The three grants laying idle I mentioned in the first paragraph? All DVG forms. They’ll go out in one big batch, and next week I’ll send out three more. The form has certainly helped me perform really well for someone who has no background in the grantwriting.

However, the few times I have had to deal with the federal govenrment for funding, it has been nothing short of a nightmare. Did I say nightmare? I meant weeks and weeks of the kind bureaucratic hell that Kafka captured so well. The last time we applied for a grant from the feds, from the President’s Compassion Capital Fund, the process took about two weeks, and was precise to the point of anal retention. Entries must be in 18 point Times new Roman Font, double-spaced, except for the cover page which must be 12-point Arial font, blue and single spaced. Budget must include all previous years dating back to 1945 if applicable. Grantwriter must wear purple hat with green feather when entering questions six (6), seven (7), and nine (9), and the red hat with the yellow feather but also the purple hat too but not the purple hat when answering questions eight (8), nine (9), and six (6) but also not including seven (7).

Not only did the feds not fund our proposal, they sent us a letter explaining in great detail why we were not selected. In sneering tones, the letter included every single error, no matter minor, including several that were actually the direct result of following the application instructions.

So when I learned about three weeks ago that we’d be applying for a federal grant, I blanched. I’m not going to go into the topic of the grant itself: I try to leave particulars of my job off this blog. But to give you broad strokes, the federal government is offering up to $300,000-some dollars, over three years to domestic violence prevention. It’s a lot of money. It would really have an impact. But I knew that applying for the money would involve a rigamarole of hoops and insane requirements, but even more fun because we’d be required to apply online. Surfin’ the Internets. Usin’ the Google. Did I just hear thunder?

Where to begin? Where the hell to begin?

The federal government has tried to simplify a number of its systems, to expected results. One of these efforts is Grants.gov, “a central storehouse for information on over 1,000 grant programs and access to approximately $400 billion in annual awards.” And by “central”, they handle everything from a to z, atomic bombs to zoos.

In order to apply for a grant a Grants.gov, you have to register with the site. This requires navigating a sea of acronyms for treasure buried at several urls, beginning with obtaining your DUNS number,/a>, registering with the CCR, and then registering with with the ORC (yes, Dungeons and Dragons fans, you register with the orc. I am so not kidding). After that the “The E-Business Point of Contact (POC) at your organization must respond to the registration email from Grants.gov and login at Grants.gov to authorize you as an AOR.”. What an AOR is is never explained. I assume it’s not the radio format. We never identified our POC.







As it turned out, we had been registered with CCR as part of the process from the Uncompassionate Capitalist Fund, but no one knew our password or username anymore, including my former supervisor who had done the deed. Unfortunately the CCR’s helpline is a recorded message and doesn’t offer access to a live operator. That led to two days of phone calls and forth between two different agencies to finally get whatever the hell is was that allowed us to register with the orc and become an AOR. In any event, we got our username and password, which I made sure to save on my hard drive.

Getting letters of support and memorandums of understanding from collaborating agencies and the city wasn’t one of my responsibilities, they came in within a day of their request anyway, no delay.

[By the way, and this has nothing to do with anything, but I am listening to Alejandro Escovedo for the first time right now thanks to a site called pandora. Both Alejandro and Pandora are amazing, please visit both. I cannot believe I missed out on this guy for so long. I'm listening to a song called "By the Hand of the Father". It is awesome. But I digress.]

While all the back and forth with the various websites went on, I was busy writing the narrative, which was easy enough. There was a lot of back and forth with the department directors, edits and changes, but we finally got something we were all comfortable with and which our Executive Director also liked. Now it was time to write the budget. Everything, literally everything had to be listed. This included a mandatory $15,000 for our staffers’ travel to participate in trainings by the federal government: that’s right, as a prerequisite to be considered for a grant, we had to agree to spend $15,000 of that money on trainings provided by the feds held in DC.

Worse, the requirements were scattered through the application which was 19 pages thick. The budget was edited at least four times. Then there was the budget narrative, which is basically regurgitating the spreadsheet in paragraph form for those people that are apparently so weak at math, they must not be able to recognize numerals.

Finally we had all of our materials together, and we were ready to submit. I started up the PureEdge Viewer, a piece of software I will probably never use again, which the feds require to submit online. It was riddled with errors: in many fields marked as “required” or “mandatory”, the program wouldn’t let you input text. Various embedded standard forms we were supposed to sign off on didn’t work as they were supposed to. BUt at least uploading our documents worked.

Unfortunately when it came time to send the completed application into the Internets, the PureEdge Viewer didn’t want to talk with the Firefox browser I use. This meant I had to set up the neanderthal Internet Explorer as my default browser, and start the uploading process from scratch and try for a second time to input information into the various embedded standard forms. SUCCESS! The PureEdge Viewer connected to the Internets. Now, it was time to send our application: perversely, Grants.gov doesn’t require you to login with that hard-won password from the AOR ORC at CCR until the very last step of a long and complicated process. I had been very careful to save the username and password to a Word file, and to make sure there were no typos, I copied and pasted both into their respective windows. Hit “enter”.

Denied. Fuck. Tried it again.
Denied. Typed them manually: denied. Both were case sensitive, I tried reversing cases. Denied. It didn’t matter what I did, we were denied.

Thankfully, the application process also required you to submit a hard copy, and what’s more it was the hard copy that would be reviewed. I placed a call to the feds’ contact person for the grant and left a message explaining what had happened. Our application included not only the hard copy of the grant, but printouts from the PureEdge viewer itself: I make a point of filing everything related to a given grant no matter how minor. In cases like this, it helps to have a paper trail.

The grant went out tonight, postmarked on time, with all of the necessary supporting documents. I doubt we’ll get the money: in fact, all I expect is another sneering letter from the feds, pointing out all our shortcomings.

Well fuck them, I say. Fuck them and the fucking horses those fucking fuck-fucks rode in on. Tomorrow morning, I am finally, finally, getting back to three grants to three private foundations. They may or may not give us money, but they don’t give a fuck if the font is 10 point or 12 point, they won’t make me download software and fill out redundant forms, and make me figuratively honk figurative horns with my nose like a trained seal. I have high hopes for one of them, and I see a 50/50 shot with the other two. I can get back to a super-important, practically completed application to another foundation where we have allies: it’s a relatively small amount of money, but would fund the translation all of our domestic violence materials, from administrative forms like intake and referrals, to educational forms, to pamphlets and outreach materials.

It’s striking really: normally when I send out a proposal, I feel really good, as if I’ve accomplished something. That’s especially true when it’s for a large sum of money: I’m not shy about asking for as much as possible. The way I see it, if your used car is worth $1000, ask for $2500: you’re more likely to settle for $1200, instead of $750. And I’ve got a good rate of return too.

But after getting done with the Feds I just feel tired and dirty. If we get the money, I’ll be on cloud nine, but that application was brutal.