Patents and Poverty

Finished the Patents, Copyrights & Trademarks For Dummies index the other day. Found out that my business name is not ideal (too descriptive and not unique enough) and that it's already registered to a neat little cafe in DC and a bookstore, I think. Oh, well. After reading this humorous tome (you will not be bored), though, I don't think I'd ever try to patent an invention. The cost alone would send me home, but I guess if you had some deep-pocket venture capitalist at your side....
It was a good read, though, believe it or not. Those Dummies folks over at Wiley Publishing are pretty good at picking writers.

Finally got back to The Colors of Poverty, a social science book on why poverty tends to concentrate itself in certain ethnic groups. Mostly, the Russell Sage Foundation researchers find so many complex factors involved in anything they research (humans are so fascinating that way!) that their conclusions tend to be very tentative; they just don't get the statistical results that would floor anybody. This book is different, especially the last chapter on the relationship among race, class, welfare policy, and incarceration in this country. The poor are being thoroughly marginalized, particularly when African American, by a combination of welfare-to-work and massive incarceration and post-imprisonment monitoring by government. It's a bit scary, frankly. The authors call this new thing neoliberal paternalism (despite the name, a philosophy of political conservatism). Doesn't seem to make for opportunities for poor people to get out of poverty, though. And this policy is not in the federal laws that regulate welfare per se, it's embedded in the decentralized implementation of the law at state and local levels.

Lots of factors go into social inequality, and the white folks in power are not responsible for all of them, but this neoliberal paternalism is a blow to individual freedom in favor of social control.

Ok, ok, end of rant. I'm just the indexer, you know. Next up is Adobe Flex For Dummies. I'm pretty software savvy, but I don't even know what this is yet. I'll keep you posted.

Credit Repair and The Colors of Poverty

Well, so much for that Wednesday and Thursday off the last week in May. Actually, I did take that Wednesday off, so, my apologies for goofing off and not writing to you all back then.

As I usually do, when I think I'll have a break, I send out energy to the Universe that puts more work on the desk, and so it was this time. An established scholarly client (Russell Sage Foundation) sent me a book on the persistence of poverty being associated with certain racial/ethnic groups. Very complex factors go into all this, of course, some historical and cultural, still discrimination going on, but it's more subtle, things like that. And the scholars are still a bit befuddled, actually, particularly at how stubborn disadvantage is among African Americans. Lots of complex reasons that are hard to tease apart in order to identify policies that will work to help the situation. I've set this one down after getting about 100 pages indexed, though, because I received another job in the For Dummies series.

Credit Repair Kit For Dummies turned out to be a well-written explanation of how to avoid bad credit situations and how to get out of them once you're in. I certainly made mental note for my own purposes and will be going to monitor my credit reports (all three) when I get a chance. Done with that one today after about a week's worth of work, and thought I'd go back to the Color of Poverty, but, no.

Another For Dummies book came in with a shorter deadline. This one's about intellectual property rights (you know, patents, copyrights, trademarks and such). Just got started this evening, but now my eyes and butt are getting tired in this sitting position, so off to relax.

I did get the last couple of weekends off, though, both days. So that was very cool. Started on a bedroom painting project and got back to my piano.

Later!