AUSTIN ADVOCATE

Margie Has Risen
By Valerie Romness

Margie La Prairie - 1931-2004

Are you sitting down?

The truth is Margie has risen to the next life. She is resurrected. She was born 4-11- 1931. She died in Brackenridge Hospital, about 4 am 4-17-2004, at 73 yrs of age. She’s reached a new milestone. She’s been successful at her purpose. She has grace. She is here with us even though we can’t see her.

Yeah thou I walk through the valley of the shadow of death...

Margaret La Prairie, Boxcar Margie, Darling, the old one, Indian Margie, the old sea hag, Margie Millis was at peace with herself. She did what she needed to do. Thanx to all of you who looked out for Margie, just as she looked out for you. Her daily prayers were of Great nature. She didn’t always let everyone in right away. She knew what she wanted. She was one of the oldest on the streets of Austin, TX. She was the Big Chieftress.

I had the opportunity to have Margie in my home recently. She was moved by a phrase I have on my wall:

Today I will love & accept
Myself for who I am & where
I am in the cycle of life.
I am right where I need to
be to get to where I’m
going tomorrow.

She was born in Minnesota, lived in an orphanage as a young girl; raised by Catholic nuns, went to “white school” in Pipestone, MN. She worked as a fry cook, cleaned hotel rooms, worked in carnivals, (Mighty Thomas, Crabtree & Murphy Brothers). She had 2 children, Howard Anthony and Noel Mary. A grandson Victor and a great granddaughter Novia Isis.

Margie blazed many trails. She traveled by boxcar, lived on porches, stayed with her friends. Of most recent, because of her weakening health, she lived inside for a year, thanks to the grace of the Lord & her good friend. Many people will be saddened by the loss of Margie, but know she lives on in our hearts & souls. We will not forget you Margie.

She lived near Barton Springs Rd & South Lamar Blvd for decades, although she could be found around town. She ate breakfast every day at the McDonald’s and had to have Mc Donald’s napkins. She had 2 sausage patties and large coffee with two creams & 5 sugars. She was a gal of routine. Marlborough 100’s soft pack, 16 oz. Busch beer, (not light), & you better not try to give her any thing else. She listened to K-VET all day and especially Sunday mornings for the old country songs. She liked Perry Como’s “Ava Maria”. She listened to Paul Harvey every day.

You may remember Big Jim Landl who died May 1997. They looked out for each other for years.

There are so many stories. Too many to tell at one time and with short notice. I’m collecting stories and will write more in the June issue.

Eat a chocolate covered cherry for Margie, they were one of her favorites. Stop and look at the Mulberry blossoms. Take a breath and live. Tell the stories. Listen to them.

Her picture is hanging in the Texas Governor’s Mansion. Praise the Lord for good hearts & souls. We all Love you Margie!

We had one service last Sunday April 18. Thirty to forty of Margie’s friends were there. There will be a traditional Chippewa funeral in Red Lake, Minnesota.

top

MAP Eligibility Information
By Brenda Curran

MAP stands for Medical Assistance Program. The Medical Assistance Program is a service of the Austin/Travis County Health and Human Services Department. MAP provides access to health care through networks of established providers for those City of Austin and Travis County residents who meet eligibility criteria. Some services require a co-payment.

Who may qualify for a MAP card?

* City of Austin residents with family incomes at or below 100% of the Federal Poverty Index Guidelines, and who meet asset guidelines. This includes those Williamson County and Del Valle residents living in the City of Austin. (If they have Medicaid, they will not qualify for MAP.)

* Travis County residents with family incomes at or below 100% of the Federal Poverty Index Guidelines, and who meet asset guidelines. (If they have Medicaid, they may qualify for limited MAP benefits.)

* Disabled or elderly individuals, if their income is at or below 200% of the Federal Poverty Index Guidelines, and if they meet asset guidelines. (If they live in the City of Austin and have Medicaid, they will not qualify for MAP. If they live outside the City of Austin and in Travis County, they may qualify for limited MAP benefits).

* Residents who receive Medicare and meet the income and asset guidelines. (They may qualify for limited MAP benefits.)

*Even if you do not qualify for MAP, we may enroll you in other programs that can help you get health care at a reduced rate.

What do I have to bring to the MAP interview, for each member of my family?

1. Birth certificate or passport

2. Identification (for example, Texas Driver’s License/I.D., out of state I.D., foreign ID, if applicable. This requirement is for adults only.)

3. Social Security card (if available)

4. Income verification - proof of earned or unearned income for past 4 weeks (for example, employment, Social Security, child support, TANF, unemployment benefits, proof of alien sponsor’s income, etc.)

5. Insurance verification - Medicare, Medicaid or insurance card/letter (if it applies)

6. Address verification - lease agreement/rent receipt or current utility bill (except for people who are homeless)

7. Resource verification - current bank statement, property tax appraisal (if it applies)

* Call any Eligibility Office for other acceptable documents. Remember: Even if you do not qualify for MAP, we may enroll you in other programs that can help you get health care at a reduced rate.

Where do I go for a MAP card?

City of Austin residents should contact
a City Eligibility Office below:

1111 E. Cesar Chavez
Austin, 972-5300 (Call Center)
Hours: Call for an appointment
Located at E. Cesar Chavez and Waller
St.

Northeast Austin Health Center
7112 Ed Bluestein Blvd., Suite 155
972-5300 (Call Center)
Hours: Call for an appointment
Located at Ed Bluestein Blvd. (183 North)
and Springdale Rd

South Austin Neighborhood Center
2508 Durwood
972-5300 (Call Center)
Hours: Call for an appointment
Located at Durwood and W. Oltorf

Travis County residents must contact
a Travis County Eligibility Office below:

East Rural (Manor) Community Center
600 W. Carrie Manor
Manor
272-5561
Hours: Call for hours open
Located near W. Carrie Manor
and FM 973

North Rural (Pflugerville)
Community Center
15822 Foothill Farms Loop
Pflugerville
251-4168
Hours: Call for hours open
Located north of the corner of Foothill
Farms Loop and FM 1825

Northwest Rural (Jonestown)
Community Center
18649 FM 1431
Jonestown
267-3245
Hours: Call for hours open
Located at FM 1431 and Park Rd.

South Rural (Del Valle)
Community Center
3518 S. FM 973
Del Valle
247-4407
Hours: Call for hours open
Located south of the corner of Hwy. 71
and FM 973

West Rural (Oak Hill)
Community Center
5446 Hwy. 290 West, Suite 203
Austin, 892-0226
Hours: Call for hours open
Located at Hwy. 290 and Industrial Oaks

top

Universal Living Wage

This is a 3 part series on the Universal Living Wage as it relates to Globalization

By Richard R. Troxell
National Chairman
Universal Living Wage

Globalization and Labor - One Piece of the Solution. According to the 2002 Human Development Report of the United Nations Development Program, of the 6.2 billion people on earth, 1.2 billion live on less than $1 a day for their hard work. This would be OK if they were able to afford basic food, clothing, shelter, and access to health care for their toil. Unfortunately, this is not the case. All around this planet, people are desperate to work, but the wage they are paid won’t afford them the basic necessities in life. According to Global Inc.: An Atlas of the Multinational Corporations by Medard Gabel and Henry Bruner, there were 63,000 multinationals in 2003 all of which are taking advantage of this impoverished situation with their 821,000 subsidiaries. They are globetrotters in the pursuit of the bottom line.

These companies attach themselves to no single country. Instead, they operate without ties and allegiance to any nation or any group of nations. While they stridently and unabashedly pursue maximum capitalism, some of their business application practices come into question. Their pursuit of riches coupled with their lack of allegiance leads them to make their businesses mobile. They locate their operations in the direct vicinity of the lowest paid workers around the world. Once it becomes cost effective to abandon one cheap source of labor or once workers start to organize themselves in an effort to improve their working conditions or raise those wages the parent organization picks up and leaves. Jobs starting in the United States have shifted to Mexico in pursuit of the $5.00 a day wage. Recently, those jobs have shifted from Mexico to Haiti and China where we witness a $4.00 a day wage. In Austin, Texas one in ten jobs is expected to be outsourced to countries like India by the end of 2004. At the end of five years, it is expected that this will no longer be cost effective and these jobs will move to China (as reported by KXAN News 36, February 12, 2004). The fact that these transnational companies are bringing employment to unemployed workers is applauded. However, we are quick to point out that these, the poorest paid of all workers, routinely live in abject squalor. Unless specific steps are taken to ensure living wages, little will occur to change that dynamic.

Wherever there are workers and employers, there exists a symbiotic relationship that is bordered by a delicate framework. The employer needs the employee for their labor and the laborer needs to make at least a minimal living through the employment. While the need is mutual, the power balance is not, and therefore, for the most part, workers must hope that the employer will embrace the principals of the Universal Living Wage formula. This formula ensures that if an employee works a standard number of hours, that employee should, as a result of the work, be able to afford these basic life-sustaining necessities (food, clothing, shelter, access to health care). This is consistent with the United Nation’s document, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which identifies these life-sustaining necessities as definitive components of the right to a minimum standard of living and dignity for every (nation) state. Affording basic food, clothing, shelter, and access to health care is the core tenet of the Universal Living Wage.

In order to establish the basis for a Universal Living Wage, we have chosen the United States as the logical socioeconomic black board to begin the paradigm shift. Each nation throughout the world has its own greatest need among these life-sustaining necessities and an appropriate, measurable, central standard should be identified by each nation. In the United States, we choose housing. Historically, however, food has been at the core of the Federal Poverty Guideline. In the 1960s during the Johnson administration, a political decision was made to choose food as the base standard because the “war on poverty” was aimed at ending hunger in Appalachia. The food staples: meat, bread, and potatoes were literally placed in a basket. Their cost was multiplied by three and then multiplied by the number of people in the household. This makes up the Federal Poverty Guideline that is still used today. It is important to note that, according to the Consumer Price Index, in 1963, food made up 23% of the monthly family budget and housing made up 29%. However, today, food makes up a mere 16% and housing makes up 41% (or more by other standards), so in this experiment we will choose housing as the most costly basic need in the United States and the basis of our standard/ formula. Besides which, the antithesis of housing is apparently homelessness. One of the principal goals of this experiment is to address the root causes of homelessness- poverty wages.

Building Economy with Higher Wages

This year, 3.5 million people will experience homelessness in the United States. The problem can be broken down into three major categories of need: affordable housing, health care, and livable incomes. Part of the livable income picture includes 42% of America’s homeless population that the federal government says is working. The problem is that the federal minimum wage is $5.15 per hour. According to the last several U.S. Conference of Mayors’ reports, $5.15 per hour or $10,700 per year is an insufficient wage for anyone to get and keep housing throughout the United States. While some employers are paying $6.00, $7.00 or even $8.00 per hour, the wage is still not enough to get or keep most folks in housing relative to where those wages are being paid.

Presently, there is proposed U.S. legislation to raise the federal minimum wage by $1.50 over the next two years. The problem is that the day that bill gets passed, not one minimum wage worker can then work themselves off the streets in the very city where it is passed.

Others wonder about the approach of paying a flat national minimum wage of say $10.00 per hour. Again, that would not afford any minimum wage worker an efficiency apartment in cities such as Washington, D.C. or Santa Cruz, California. However, at the same time, that flat wage would swamp small businesses all across America in cities like Biloxi, Mississippi or Harlingen, Texas. In fact, this is Congress’s biggest problem; one wage size no longer fits all.

It is recognized that the single most expensive item in an individual’s budget is housing. Amazingly, families consisting of one wage earner, a spouse and two children, are often forced to live on the minimum wage. In response, we’ve devised a single national formula that relates to the local cost of housing across the U.S. The Universal Living Wage Formula (ULW) ensures that anyone working a 40-hour week will be able to afford basic rental housing (i.e., an efficiency apartment) wherever that work is done throughout the U.S. Using a single formula, each city and Fair Market Rent (FMR) designated area, has a wage relative to the local cost of living based on housing.

The formula is based on existing government guidelines:
* spend no more than 30% of income on housing,
* use HUD Fair Market Rents (FMR),
* work a total of 40 hours per week.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) under its Section 8 housing rental program, annually determines what one can reasonably expect to spend on rental housing across the U.S. for an efficiency, one, two, three, and four bedroom apartment. They are referred to as Fair Market Rents (FMR).

Over the past ten years, due to the Herculean efforts of local initiatives, the concept of a “living wage” has swept across America. However, even with more than 100 local campaigns, less than 150,000 workers are represented. Between monied opposition and unorganized rural America, this won’t bring wage equity for all 10.1 million minimum wage workers for about 3000 years (if then). In 1938, the federal government answered this question by creating the Fair Labor Standards Act establishing the Federal Minimum Wage. Our goal today is to fix it . . . to everyone’s benefit. We then wish to apply its basic tenets to our global situation.

The Universal Living Wage Formula is based on the moral premise that anyone working 40 hours should be able to afford basic rental housing. To this end, we have launched a national campaign that has garnered wide-spread support across the United States. One aspect of the campaign has captured the imagination of unions (i.e., the Communication Workers of America International boasting 650,000 members) and businesses like American Apparel and HSR Construction. It is the idea that enactment will create a true Economic Stimulus Package as the local construction industry all across America responds to the millions of minimum wage workers’ new ability to rent nonexistent efficiency apartments.

Based on federal government statistics, it is conservatively estimated that, with implementation; more than one million homeless people will be able to work themselves off the streets of America. The plan will prevent economic-based homelessness for all 10.1 million minimum wage workers; at the same time, it will offer businesses stable workers . . . thus avoiding costly turnover, repetitive retraining costs, high absenteeism, and internal theft.

In our next installment, we will examine what effect passage of the Universal Living wage will have on businesses while focusing on retraining costs.

top

The Value and Meaning of Conspicuous Squalor
By Stephen G. Frischmuth

In 1902, Thorstein Veblen published The Theory of the Leisure Class, and in this controversial essay he identified persons of high status, and those who seek high status by their unproductive and conspicuous consumption of goods. Since the close of the Gilded Age academics, foundations, think tanks, churches and governments have wrung their hands over the plight of the impoverished and homeless, yet despite all of this attention, soup kitchens and homeless shelters remain permanent fixtures in the civic landscape. Maybe there is a corollary to the Theory of the Leisure Class, one that I will call the Theory of Conspicuous Squalor.

The Theory of Conspicuous Squalor suggests that the great majority of people, for their selfesteem as well as their financial gain, depend deeply on the continuing squalor, degradation, insanity, disease, disenfranchisement and defamation of the select few. That these afflictions are visited on the few invests relative value and meaning to the possessions (and well being) of the many. The value added to the possessions of the many derives from an illusion of scarcity created by artificial want; meaning comes from the social validation that comes from “earning” a scarce item. But in the age of machines, the value of consumable goods is negligible.

The economist Adam Smith narrowly approved the abolition of slavery on the grounds that it was cheaper in the long run to emancipate the slaves and replace them with employees. Every day the homeless and the permanent underclass provide real and involuntary subsidies to the wealthiest national interests, and the value of these subsidies is enhanced when the workers who provide them live lives that are nasty, brutish and short. Not only are goods and services pro- The Value and Meaning of Conspicuous Squalor duced cheaply, but they are freed up for paying customers, and value enhanced by relative squalor and the illusion of scarcity. Industries great and small rely on the ready availability of cheap labor, and day labor hiring halls specialize in providing this labor. When a worker enters one of these houses of pain, he surrenders his rights, his dignity and all hope. He is paid only enough to keep him homeless, and keep him coming back. Slavery in Smith’s view at least implied subsistence, but the hiring hall is a cut-rate slavery that doesn’t even meet this mean standard.

Government will do nothing to refute the Value and Meaning of Conspicuous Squalor, as that would be antithetical to the principles of unregulated free enterprise. Even as it abets an almost militant selfishness in the land of plenty, government mitigates poverty by hiring middle class functionaries to shuffle papers and dole out band aides. Anti-poverty programs represent welfare for the middle class, but when a citizen can expect absolutely no entitlement from his country, as is the case with the poor, it seems only reasonable that he owes that country absolutely no allegiance.

Of course, the legal system will provide no relief, and it is demonstrably true that its sole purpose is the profitable and systematic abrogation of our 14th amendment right, our right to equal protection under the law. The poor are profiled - they make easy targets-and through regressive fines and rules and penalties, forfeitures and policies that ensure recidivism, they serve as a renewable resource for police, judges, clerks, administrators, contractors, suppliers, and the entire legal-industrial complex. The poor also serve as a convenient pretext to scare the public into paying ever-higher taxes. For the law, the poor have become a revenue stream more addictive than crack cocaine, and when the poor are finally bled dry, they are dumped into the homeless shelters. Seldom will you find the law prosecuting slum lords, or those who discriminate on the basis of age or disability.

Churches are also in on this gravy train: they are supported by foundations and corporations, as well as congregants who are deeply invested in the value and meaning of Conspicuous Squalor. You won’t hear many pulpit denunciations of irresponsible, exploitative or criminal corporate behavior. Deep down, the Christians resent having to do God’s work- they feel that they’re missing out on the fun. If they enjoy His (material) favor, they feel that they’ve earned it, along with a punitive sense of moral superiority. A wealthy Christian has no sense of having been bribed into complicity with a corrupt social order. By this logic, poverty programs must be under funded not only to support the illusion of scarcity, but also to underscore the unworthiness of the recipients. Charitable and social services must be demeaning and self-defeating if they are to serve their ultimate purpose. Faith based initiatives will be judged by faith, not measurable results, and like prisons, will enjoy the economy of recidivism.

When a person is left to suffer madness in the street, or abandoned in their wheelchair on a street corner overnight, or is jailed for being poor or feebleminded; when a person is punished and barred from society for being sick, elderly or otherwise unable to compete, it is a crime against humanity.

An obvious solution, if one were sought, would be to build housing for the homeless; there is no shortage of dry wall. Feed the hungry; there is no shortage of fresh, wholesome food. Heal the sick; despite contrived market distortions, there is no shortage of health care. Provide care for the insane, the feebleminded, and the elderly, and quit pretending that everyone in every condition is employable. Hire the able; there is no shortage of meaningful tasks to be done. Make sure that the poor have cash; if there is enough money to squander on the scandals of billionaires, then there is no shortage of money. Those who live in conspicuous squalor are not gate crashers, they are citizens, and as long as it is legitimate for some citizens to be degraded, then it will be legitimate for any citizen to be degraded, for any reason whatsoever.

top

top

Through the Years with Cain
By Why Change Cain

This story is true. The year was 1961. I was an 8-year-old redheaded freckle faced kid with a cowlick and a dog named Poochin. I looked like I stepped out of a Norman Rockwell painting or posed for one.

I lived on a dead end road out in the country about 20 miles South of Dallas. At the end of Marsalis Road was a line of trees and a cornfield that stretched for about two miles.

Not far from the dead end was Bubba’s house. Bubba and his sister Sherry were friends of mine and his mom had invited me over for supper with their family on a typical warm summer day.

Bubba and I had just put up his play Army men when his mother said for us to go out and play until supper was ready.

Bubba, his sister Sherry, and I all went up to the dead end to play for a while. Bubba climbed the tall oak tree that grew at the end of Marsalis. When he came down he dared me to see if I could climb higher than he did. I told him I had done that the day before. He said, “I don’t believe you, prove it”.

I was just about to start climbing when Sherry cried out, “Look, look at that! What is that?”

We all looked up to see what appeared to be a giant cigar shaped objet floating above the tree line about 30 feet above the tops of the trees. It was silver in color with what appeared to be giant antenna protruding at an angle from the bottom. It also had orange and green lights shining from underneath. There was no noise coming from it whatsoever which only seemed to make it spookier.

I said, “ Maybe it’s a helicopter.” But I could tell before I even finished speaking that it couldn’t be. There where no blades and no noise. Bubba said nothing. We watched as it hovered over the treetops until it stopped right in front of us. We were all three petrified. The object then slowly began to move sideways away from us and out over the cornfield. It gained velocity and altitude at a very high rate of speed until it was completely out of sight.

We were all three frozen with disbelief for what seemed minutes until Sherry’s scream broke the silence. Startled as we were by the sudden noise we all ran for bubba’s house and I could picture a death ray following behind us about to catch up.

We ran in the back door and there in the den was Bubba’s father resting in his royal recliner as most middle classed middleaged fathers of that day did in the evenings. We began to shout “UFO, UFO, We saw a UFO!” Bubba’s father said for us to calm down. He said, “That’s impossible, there’s no such thing as UFOs. You kids have just been watching too much TV, now sit down here, be quiet, and watch TV until supper’s ready.

We reluctantly followed his orders as we watched our favorite show begin, “The Outer Limits”.

top

Learn from what you’ve learned

Learn from your mother
Learn from your father
Learn from your teachers
as well as all others

practice the good and it will come back
others will see the goodness in you
and they will contribute to all that you do

pretend that you are soulful and true
and bad things happen to good people too
I’m not perfect I’m just forgiven
Lame excuse for Victimless sin

your spirit will strenthen as well as your health
by respecting all including yourself
push mistakes to the back of your brain
remember to not repeat them again

Tumen Soliz

top