MARY BONO: NOBODY KNOWS THE TROUBLE I'M IN

Aside from blogging away half the day I also do a few other post-record company things. One that I really enjoy is teaching. McGill in Montreal made me a professor and I get to go up there and lecture sometimes. Occasionally other universities invite me to speak too, like Dartmouth, UCLA, Stanford and USC-- and some even ask me back. Even more fun is when I lecture at high schools, usually always at inner city high schools. But today I'm thinking about the next time I get asked to speak at USC. After McGill and Stanford it's where I speak most. It's practically around the corner so it's so convenient, which makes up for... well... I've met some really awesome students there and some very bright ones too, but... well... I think it's a lot easier to get into USC than into Stanford or Dartmouth or McGill. At least, easier academically.

Financially, on the other hand... well, something seems to be encouraging a perpetuation of rich, white frat-types as the dominant population on the campus. How do people afford sending their kids there? One of my friends who's daughter goes there is a billionaire so it doesn't matter to him. And I'm sure lots of other parents love their sons and daughters as much as he loves his and want to provide them with all the opportunities possible. But not everyone is a billionaire-- and going to school at USC costs almost $50,000-- a year!

Take Mary Bono for example; poor thing. This Republican widow does get quite a bit more than that from the song royalties she inherited from her late husband, Sonny (formerly of Sonny and Cher; Cher gets her own royalties; don't worry about her). But Mary is so strapped for cash-- between the pimped out new cars for her and Chez (that's the son) and the possibility of the tuition bill from USC if Chez somehow manages to complete a summer school course-- that she had to go out and get a job! Poor thing! Poor, poor thing! But she went to a congressional Energy and Commerce subcommittee hearing on consumer protection yesterday to whine about how her salary wouldn't even pay for Chez' college.


Of course this is typical Republican hyperbole lying. She makes $165,200, considerably more than the $46,966 USC claims its students typically need per year. And she even gets to vote of raises for herself (which she did, of course). And, although she makes less than my friend the billionaire, she makes quite a bit more than most Americans (who might also want to send their kids to college). Let's see... since Bush and rubber-stamp Republicans like Mary Bono-- you guessed it, she's a Republican congresswoman, from Palm Springs-- took over guiding the U.S. economy average family income has dropped rather steeply. In fact, Mary Bono's salary is just slightly more than $100,000 over the median family income (2005). So if poor Mary can barely make ends meet at $165,200, what happens to the constituents she's supposedly representing who make just a few bucks over $65,000. And that's the median. What about the thousands and thousands of her constituents who are doing less than the median?


Hopefully Mary-- who has had some significant financial help from sleazy Republican cronies of hers like Tom DeLay, Randy "Duke" Cunningham, John Boehner, Bob Ney, etc-- won't have to worry about that much longer. Democrats in CA-45 have coalesced around a strong candidate who can benefit from the public's disillusionment and even revulsion at the corruption and incompetence of Bush's rubber-stamp Congress. A moderate Democrat named David Roth, was endorsed by the California Democratic Party this past weekend.


AFTER DINNER UPDATE: ROTH AHEAD OF BONO

Brian over at Calitics has some polling that shows David Roth beating the widow Mary by 7 points!! Maybe people really do think he's David Lee Roth!