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TechnoratiSacramento Tent City Is Just One of Dozens in an Ailing America
Across America, from Washington State to Nevada, Georgia and even Florida, homeless advocacy groups and city agencies are reporting the biggest rise in homeless encampments in a generation, as the US economy takes a spectacular plunge.
![[For years, police and park rangers have engaged in a kind of a chess game with the hundreds of Sacramento homeless people who live outdoors. The authorities send them packing, only to see them return eventually. (RANDALL BENTON)]](http://www.commondreams.org/files/article_images/sacramento_tentcity.JPG "sacramento_tentcity.JPG")
Last week Michelle Obama served mushroom risotto to homeless diners at a shelter in Washington. "We are facing tough times in this country," the First Lady said. "There is a moment in time when each and every one of us needs a helping hand."
The economic figures behind her call for community action have been relentless. The recession, which began as a crisis of homeowners unable to pay their mortgages but has spread to every part of the economy, took away 650,000 Americans' jobs for a record third straight month in February as unemployment climbed to a 25-year peak of 8.1 per cent. Around 12.5 million people are looking for work - more than the population of the state of Pennsylvania. No one is immune: the jobless rate for college graduates has hit its highest point.
The result is a proliferation of tent cities, such as the one in Sacramento. While it is the best-known shantytown in America - thanks mostly to an Oprah Winfrey special on the "new faces of the homeless" last month - it is only one of dozens. California, with its milder weather, has always attracted its fair share of people living on the streets. But the Golden State is being hit hard by the recession. In February it had the highest number of repossession filings - 80,775 - of anywhere in the US, up 51 per cent in a year according to the website RealtyTrac. Auction sale notices almost tripled to 18,831.
The relatively smart city of Santa Barbara has given over a car park to people who sleep in cars and vans, and authorities in Fresno are trying to manage several proliferating tent cities, including an encampment where people have made shelters out of scrap wood.
For the city authorities, strapped for cash and making deep cuts to staff and budgets themselves, the homelessness problem is not a priority. But as more people pitch their tents the pressure to do something other than just turn a blind eye is mounting.
President Obama's recovery and reinvestment plan is now beginning to be set in motion. His plan to stop repossessions by aggressive restructuring of existing mortgages would allow up to nine million people to avoid losing their homes. Most of the stimulus effect, however, will not be felt for months.
58 Comments so far
Show AllThe only ones that, so far, seem to be getting a helping hand are those thieves in the financial business. "Don't worry, be happy" is a cruel joke.
When you see, which you will, tent cities with families, perhaps some people, and maybe Obama and our members of Congress, will realize that the poverty and homelessness creation policies of past decades need to be identified and reversed.
How audacious for me to HOPE...
Millions of homeless people. Millions of empty buildings. This makes total sense to me. AmeriKa.
It should be clear to everyone by now that the Government will not help us. It's been two years and Congress cannot even stop foreclosures. The Government is suppressing the American People and it's anyone's guess as to why. Things are not what they seem to be. Ignore their false words and watch as government abuses it's people.
What about the organized vacant house take-overs for the homeless happening in some cities?
http://www.insightnews.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=4107:neighbors-helping-neighbo...
Can Marijuana Help Rescue California's Economy?
By ALISON STATEMAN / LOS ANGELES Alison Stateman / Los Angeles – 7 mins ago AP – A state police officer stands amid marijuana plants found in a greenhouse at a ranch in Tecate, Mexico, … Could marijuana be the answer to the economic misery facing California? Democratic State Assembly member Tom Ammiano thinks so. Ammiano introduced legislation last month that would legalize pot and allow the state to regulate and tax its sale - a move that could mean billions for the cash-strapped state. Pot is, after all, California's biggest cash crop, responsible for $14 billion in annual sales, dwarfing the state's second largest agricultural commodity - milk and cream - which brings in $7.3 billion annually, according to the most recent USDA statistics. The state's tax collectors estimate the bill would bring in about $1.3 billion in much-needed revenue a year, offsetting some of the billions in service cuts and spending reductions outlined in the recently approved state budget.
"The state of California is in a very, very precipitous economic plight. It's in the toilet," says Ammiano. "It looks very, very bleak, with layoffs and foreclosures and schools closing or trying to operate four days a week. We have one of the highest rates of unemployment we've ever had. With any revenue ideas people say you have to think outside of the box, you have to be creative, and I feel that the issue of the decriminalization, regulation and taxation of marijuana fits that bill. It's not new, the idea has been around, and the political will may in fact be there to make something happen." (See pictures of stoner cinema.)
Ammiano may be right. A few days after he introduced the bill, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder announced that states should be able to make their own rules on medical marijuana and that federal raids on pot dispensaries in California would cease. The move signaled a softening of the hard-line approach previous administrations have had to medicinal pot use. The nomination of Gil Kerlikowske as the head of the Office of National Drug Control Policy may also signal a softer federal line on marijuana. If he is confirmed as the so-called Drug Czar, Kerlikowske will bring with him experience as police chief of Seattle, where he made it clear that going after people for posessing marijuana was not a priority of his force. (See a story about the grass-roots marijuana war in California.)
California was one of the first states in the nation to legalize medical marijuana in 1996. Currently, $200 million in medical marijuana sales are subject to sales tax. If passed, the Marijuana Control, Regulation and Education Act (AB 390) would give California control of pot in a manner similar to alcohol, while prohibiting its purchase to citizens under age 21. (The bill has been referred to the California State Assembly's Public Safety and Health Committees; Ammiano says it could take up to a year before it comes to a vote for passage.) State revenues would be derived from a $50 per ounce levy on retail sales of marijuana and sales taxes. By adopting the law, California could become a model for other states. As Ammiano put it: "How California goes, the country goes."
Despite the projected and much-needed revenue, opponents say legalizing pot will only add to social woes. "The last thing we need is yet another mind-altering substance to be legalized," says John Lovell, lobbyist for the California Peace Officers' Association. "We have enough problems with alcohol and abuse of pharmaceutical products: do we really need to add yet another mind-altering substance to the array?" Lovell says the easy availability of the drug will lead to a surge in its use, much like what happened when alcohol was allowed to be sold in venues other than liquor stores in some states.
Joel W. Hay, professor of Pharmaceutical Economics at USC, also foresees harm if the bill passes. "Marijuana is a drug that clouds people's judgment. It affects their ability to concentrate and react and it certainly has impacts on third parties," says Hay, who has written on the societal costs of drug abuse. "It's one more drug that will add to the toll on society. All we have to do is look at the two legalized drugs, tobacco and alcohol, and look at the carnage that they've caused. [Marijuana] is a dangerous drug and it causes bad outcomes for both the people who use it and for the people who are in their way at work or other activities." He adds: "There are probably some responsible people who can handle marijuana but there are lots of people who can't, and it has an enormous negative impact on them, their family and loved ones." (See pictures of Mexico's drug wars.)
In response, retired Orange County Superior Court Judge James Gray, a longtime proponent of legalization, estimates that legalizing pot and thus ceasing to arrest, prosecute and imprison non-violent offenders could save the state an additional $1 billion a year. "We couldn't make this drug any more available if we tried," he says. "Not only do we have those problems, along with glamorizing it by making it illegal, but we also have the crime and corruption that go along with it." He adds, "Unfortunately, every society in the history of mankind has had some form of mind-altering, sometimes addictive substances to use, to misuse, abuse or get addicted to. Get used to it. They're here to stay. So, let's try to reduce those harms and right now we couldn't do it worse if we tried.
Revcom, Hello.
I grow medical marijuana. I have six beautiful girls whose buds are getting frosty and I will harvest about a pound of triple AAA bud in about 3-4 weeks.
Thus I don't waste what little money I have buying it.
I spend the money at local businesses.
California
Marijuana
Freedom
This bong hit is for you Revcom, Joe, NorCal.
Note: Southern California is Not part of Norcal.
L.A. is a vulgar and rude city Without a soul and should be vaporized.
SanFrancisco and the Sierras and Tahoe and Yosemite and Big Sur and Humboldt are Cali, Joe.
A Hooverville on the outskirts of Hooterville is an appealing development really. We become more like the rest of the world which is a good thing. Whether it is the Gypsy shanties outside Madrid or the favelas clinging to the steep hillsides above Rio de Janeiro the people have a right to live as they must to survive.
The problem w/ living in a tent houseless is there is nowhere LEGAL to do it. Thus the flashlights in the eyes at 4:a.m., tasers, arrests, tickets, searches leading to more arrests, now probation and fines that can't be paid leading to arrest warrants and more probation.
Every city county and state should have a place where people can pitch a tent legally. For free. With water. A Portable latrine, tie a fifty gallon drum in a tree spout down-shower.
These simple dignities if paid for by any city would pay for themselves by decriminalizing these human beings with the resultant decrease in arrests and incarceratons.
I'm Houseless Not Homeless,
Because Home is Where the Heart Is
And My Heart Beats In My Chest.
(Coined by someone living on the street and hurt, beaten down and reviled by most when they were hungry and in need.)
Meanwhile "Gropenfuhrer Ahnold" forced a budget that rendered CA per student spending 50th in the nation. Education is only 40% of CA's budget but got 60% of the cuts. I remember the Republikaaner promises two decades ago when they said, "we will end public education in California." This was the death blow. Of course the Gropenfuhrer's kid goes to a posh westside private school so what the frack does he care about torching everyone else's kids.
Audra Strickland tells Thousand Oaks families this morning at a "town hall meeting" that "we just got to cut the waste." When asked by a woman in the audience to identify "the waste" specifically she's cut, she got flustered and began rocking back and forth, "the waste, the waste".... look these conservative jackboots aren't fit to live in this country. They're ideological crazies with too much god damned money, most of it stolen from working people whom they now are more than happy to put on the street.
I wonder how long before those tent cities rise up... a two inch pipe can crush a rich man's skull without much force. How long before people wake up and seize the day?
How long in deed.
States are Constitutionally forbidden from deficit spending...that's why states make such horrible cuts in bad economic times. There are solutions of course, an article on here a few days ago mentioned a state bank in South Dakota I believe. But don't count on established politicians, especially in state legislatures, to try anything so simply effective.
Heres some points for perspective:
The Mongol/Hun peoples have lived in tents (mistakenly called yurts - the real name is ger) for thousands of years, without many of the so-called 'necessities' of 'modern' life.
During the 70's and 80's there was an all to brief movement to go back to the land, where thousands of people uprooted themselves from their urban concrete ghettos and went to live in tipis based on those of the plains dwelling Native Americans. And they lived in them in all kinds of weather, doing without many of the days consumerist trappings. Some still do.
King Henry VIII of England erected a massive multiple room two floor tent for the tounament at the Field of the Cloth of Gold, and lived in it for the entire summer.
The Berber and Tuareg peoples of North Africa and Saudi Arabia STILL live in the desert in their black tents, doing without many of the modern 'conveinences', just as their ancestors have done hundreds of years.
The citizens of these new 'Hoovervilles' and 'Bush Camps' are the ones who will be most readilly adaptable to a further downshift in the economy and any effects of coming climate change.
They will have pared back their worldly belongings to the bare minimum needed to survive, and will have skills that many of their dead-end job and mortgage paying fellow citizens lack.
They will have rediscovered the value of community and sharing.
Is this really such a bad thing?
The myth of 'sustainable growth' and the American Dream (tm) are coming to their inevitable (and to some, welcome) end, and not a moment too soon.
We have pushed the resources of this small blue planet to the point of collapse.
Now it is time to relearn how to live WITH the earth, instead of ON it.
Walk in peace.
The Bush Crowd and Halliburton still have all those detention centers waiting for all those Tent City People just in case they should start to protest conditions.
On the other hand, the Stimulus was created to divert attention from the depression that we are in because Bubba Clinton and the Bush Family routed our
industrial base to China and we must not protest, take it and like it.
Pat Lamarche,on the other hand, when she is not busy promoting Casinos yes, will save us.
Why do you think they built those 'detention facilities' in the first place?
Poverty is designed into the free market capitalist system.... "do as your told, climb the imaginary ladder, let us hold your money for the long term, work harder than hard... or else go sleep outside."
we have become [THE HAMBURGER HELPER REPUBLIC] of the world.
Repower America - I know it isn't a panacea but Green jobs in going 100% renewable speaks to all aspects of the situation long term
Repower America is trying to keep the pressure on - if you feel moved to sign a pertition:
http://www.repoweramerica.org/
l used to vacation in third world countries, now l stay home as we become one.
In South Texas they are called "colonias".
No free give-aways!
Everybody at that tent city is able to do something! Some are probably very skilled.
If they are willing to make and effort to take care of themselves, they should be welcome. Government should respond by doing some social work, and match skills to work needed for the City/County/State/Fed public need.
There is nothing worse that isolating someone looking for work! No REAL address?
SORRY, "I can't accept an application without an address!" !!!!
Everyone here should google "Dignity Village"....
A houseless community in Portland, OR that hundreds of folks call home...
A City Repair Project working with the city to provide secure shelter, job skills (they grow much of their own food in raised beds built by local school kids), have town hall meetings, and build amazing structures for communal use, in a drug/alcohol free zone...
Yes, but I've read that Portland still has THOUSANDS of people sleeping on the streets, including children and youth.
We need to slash the military budget NOW and house everyone.
No temporary solutions, anymore.
There is just NO EXCUSE for the U.S. to continue this way!
Meanwhile we pour billions over seas. No sense at all.
What a silly reply...
Here I am pointing out how NGO's, City Council, and individuals come together to deal with an issue in a positive way, and all you can say is that you read somewhere that there is still a problem, and then launch into an issue off topic that everyone already knows about...
Those thousands of homeless in Portland are those who choose to not live in community, or continue to use drugs and/or alcohol, or have untreated mental illness, or are veterans with PTSD, or kicked to the curb when Reagan shut down the mental institutions...
Of course homelessness is an issue everywhere in this country... And in this one town there are folks helping out their fellow brothers by teaching them job skills, life skills, and providing a secure inclusive community... This is an EXAMPLE for other cities and communities to emplify... Not an indictment that it doesn't work...
Please, do some more investigation before you offer Dignity Village as a solution to U.S. homelessness. It's helped a small number of people, yes. Some are able to live in 8 x 8 foot handbuilt sheds. The Village is shoved out to the edges of the city- out of sight, right next to a prison, next to the airport, where planes fly overhead all day.
AND, the thousands of additional un-housed in Portland are decidedly NOT just those who "choose" to live on the streets! That number includes families and youth.
Ask any social service agency in that town how many they turn away for services each month. Learn how many cannot find shelter space even on figid or rainy nights and learn WHO, exactly, is being turned away.
Dignity Village, while nice for a few, is NOT the solution for homelessness in Portland or in any other city. It is disingenuous to state that.
The Portland City Council recently voted to build a soccer stadium, one that they do NOT know how they will pay for. They say they will "find" the money.
Why is it that City gov't cannnot "find" extra money for affordable housing?
For food? Schools?
Again, you are attacking my message for not being a solution for the thousands of homeless in Portland when I never made such a claim...
It is ONE example of people making the most of their temporary situation, not a blanket solution for all problems for all people for all of time...
It is disingenuous to assume other wise...
Of course the military budget is bloated...
Of course social services are maxed out...
Of course there is another city building another stadium they can't afford...
Of course there are millions of families homeless in America...
Of course there are homeless women and childrenas well...
Of Course Dignity Village was located in a marginalized area on the edge of town...
Okay genius... Since you have such an uncanny grasp of the obvious, what are your ideas for helping out the millions of homeless families and individuals right now and long term? What have you been doing about it in your own life? Why not put that righteous indignation to a better use than shooting down ideas that do work for the many people at Dignity Village...?
No insult intended, but it would take more space than CD has available to tell you everything I've done in my life to end homelessnes and in support of social justice.
I'm just trying to say that Dignity Village is temporary and not a permanent solution to Portland's or any other city's homeless crisis, so please don't go touting it as an answer!!
PS and yes, I've been to Dignity Village more than once.
I thank you for your dialogue... And I find that we have common views about many issues...
We both agree that Dignity Village is not a long term solution...
We both recognize the larger economic, political, and social forces that create the societal conditions that makes homelessness possible...
There is plenty of room on CD for anyone to share their own experiences working or volunteering on enviro & social justice issues...
I would encourage it, not to prove a point as an expert, rather to inspire others in what they can do for their community...
On another note... Not all those who are homeless are without choice... (And this does not deny the suffering of those that are homeless due to forces outside of their control, like the women and children I have spoken with)... There are untold thousands of folks who choose to live like a vagabond, or gypsy, or "activist", or troubador, or adventurer... I have personally met and spoken with hundreds of folks who call the road home... Who travel from festival to festival, or Rainbow Gathering to gathering... Or direct action base camp to protest... Or national forest camp ground... Or house-sitting gig... Or harvest to harvest... And any combo therein... I know kids who ran away from an abusive home as a young teenager, found the Rainbow Family, and have never been abused, hungry, or lonely ever since... I know families that got laid off, sold their possessions, and bought a school bus, and live in that on a farm... Or other folks who live a nomadic lifestyle, which can cost much less than a sedentary lifestyle, and find ways to eat & sleep and get around at no cost...
My point is that there are many ways of dealing with homelessness and poverty, other than refinancing a crooked mortgage, working a low wage job while paying for overpriced food and rent in a city... Many of these folks are the true heroes of NOLA after Katrina who ran the rainbow kitchens feeding two free hot meals a day to thousands of residents for months while FEMA did nothing... And did the same during the flooding in Wisconsin and Texas... And yes this is a temporary solution, but it is better than allowing other folks to starve...
Sorry to disagree with you, but-
The thousands who are left un-housed in Portland are decidely NOT only those who "choose" to live on the streets or who are using drugs. That number includes families and youth.
Do your homework.
And the relevance of the bloated military budget at this time of budget crisis should be obvious.
If Portland is so much of a nurvana for the homeless why did their City Council vote to approve a soccer stadium that they do not know HOW they will fully pay for rather than fund human services?
Interesting that they can "find" money for soccer, but not for affordable housing.
Dignity Village, while nice, is NOT the solution to homelessnes in Portland.
It's disingenuous to pretend otherwise.
I apologize for double posting. Didn't think the 1st one took.
"Those thousands of homeless in Portland are those who choose to not live in community, or continue to use drugs and/or alcohol, or have untreated mental illness, or are veterans with PTSD, or kicked to the curb when Reagan shut down the mental institutions..."
Every single one of them? And you know this exactly how? And so of course they deserve to remain homeless, right? Because not every single one of them measures up to your particular standard of who is deserving and who is not? When you find yourself on the street pardon me while I judge you and ignore you.
Who said anything about "deserving" being homeless...?
I am talking about Dignity Village, which has an exclusive no drugs/alcohol policy for obvious reasons...
This is their standard, not mine...
As far as not being too quick to judge, why not ask me what my experience has been with homelessness instead of assuming I am some liberal hypocrite... This sounds like a case of projection of your own unresolved issues...
As a matter of fact, I have volunteered dozens of times to cook and serve at soup kitchens and Food Not Bombs in several cities... I have had lengthy conversations with homeless vets, drug addicts, alcoholics, and those with mental illness, and yes, many would rather be a homeless panhandler than be a wage slave to pay the rent/mortgage... Some hit hard times after losing their job, and live in their car, others eke by recycling soda cans... and even hobos who live in the woods and ride the rails, which has it's own kind of freedom...
I myself was homeless on a few occasions over the years... I chose to travel, hitch-hiking and hopping freight trains around the country, doing work-trade for food and other necessities on farms... I also lived in my van for a year and a half while I was working on successful campaigns to protect old-growth forests and watersheds of rural communities... I lived in my truck while I was building straw bale homes in northern California for six months...
So Ekaton, what has been your experience with homelessness...?
Well, the operative word in your statement above is that you "chose" to travel and do these other things, isnt' it?
Living in your van while you choose to be an activist is NOT the same as being homeless. You have learned a lot, more than most, from what you say you've done.
Still, I challenge you to talk with women, children and youth who are homeless and hear what hardships- even horrors- they have endured.
How many trillions of dollars have been spent by the U.S. on militaristic interventionism since 1945? And what could our country and the world have been like today had we spent those trillions more wisely? It doesn't have to be this way. There are 6.5 billion of us on our planet. There are maybe 6 THOUSAND who actually WANT war, and these do NOT include any military rank and file.
The solution for the 6.5 billion of us who abhor war and destruction is obvious, very, very obvious.
d.k.shaw
"Last week Michelle Obama served mushroom risotto to homeless diners at a shelter in Washington."
Can you picture Nancy Reagan, Barbara Bush, Laura Bush or even Hillary Clinton doing that?
Mushroom risotto? Who made that choice? Beef stew, chicken soup, spaghetti and meatballs, even hamburgers would have been a better choice.
Yes, I can picture two of those first ladies serving the homeless, Bush and Clinton both devoted time to helping those in need. Check it out.
Thanks for the correction.
Most soup kitchens have to make meals out of whatever they've had donated.
Though it's nice to see a vegetarian meal served at a soup kitchen for a change.
Rice=cheap to feed a crowd
mushrooms=cheaper than meat
mushroom risotto=probably just a fancy name for "rice with mushrooms"
Do you think they served it with Parmegiano Reggiano? I doubt it.
there but for the grace of God go any of us....
My ideas on how to spend some of the stimulus money:
1. $1 million to every food bank in the country. How many could there be? 500? this would only be $.5 billion. Damn - that's not even a measurable praction of the over $8 trillion that has been given away in the past year or so.
2. water tankers, portable showers, and port-o-potties for all of the tent cities popping up around the country. Again - a very small percentage of what has been given away.
Implementing these two items would not only stimulate the local economies, but it would allow all of these truly desperate people to maintain some kind of dignity in the midst of these traumatic times.
I'm pretty sure there's tens of thousands of food banks in this country, at the very least. Many places of worship have one. How many churches are in a single major city? Probably 500 or so.
Capitalism had it coming for decades, this is no surprise. Greed is good, right?
And if you think this is just a recession that will go away in a year or two, think again. This is just the beginning of the US total collapse.
The "right" are busily feeding the stupid the propaganda that this is all Obama's fault, since it wasn't until he took office that things got really bad. I'm hearing the stupid repeating this crap more every day.
I have news for you, Obama's part of the right. He has always been, he voted to fund Bush's wars, he voted for Bush's bailout and even kept some of Bush's people.
Now he's giving more trillions to banks and Wall Street and he's escalating Bush's wars.
Will you Lesser Evilists ever learn? No, I don't think so.
The dichotomy is so surreal. In a land of plenty a baseball player for the LA Dodgers signed a contract to hit baseballs out of a park for 45 million dollars over two years. A Presidential candidate has so many homes he can not remember the number yet speaks to understanding the hardships the people are feeling. A CEO of a firm that had an exclusive contract with the US Governmnet to provide body Armor for US troops throws a 10 million dollar bat Mitzvah party for his daughter.
People by the thousands are losing their homes and living in tent cities or the back of their cars.
Yet we are told, this the greatest economic system invented by man. All is well. Peoples WORTH will be measured by the market , that "invisible hand" that they so blindly worship.
Hooverville, version 2.0
Bushville. The tent towns appearing across Amerika are the true Bush legacy.
What Obama is doing with the banks is very similar to what Hoover did. Hoover's Reconstruction Finance Commission threw money at the banks without conditions like Obama is-with the result that 7,000 banks failed in 1932 alone. If Obama keeps up with his everything for the bankers and bread and treacle for the rest of us, those shantytowns will be eventually called "Obamavilles."
And what is Obama doing about it? Giving trillions to Wall Street conglomerates? Escalating wars that we can't afford?
Obama's following in Bush's footsteps. It's his doing as well.
Send Barbara Bush on a Tent City Tour!! That will cheer the people up.
She would say, "Well, these people were underprivileged anyway, so this has actually worked out for them".
Exactly, we must never forget. I read recently she had heart surgery. I was amazed they could even find one to work on.
I saw that Poppa Bush was crying - she survived!
The 'recession' get real!! This is a major DEPRESSION and it did not start because some people lost their jobs as the interest on their homes went up--it started by the deregulation of the banks by Bill Clinton and the tax cuts by Reagon continued on by both Republicans and Democrats.
The solution for the problem is not a helping hand by the generous and kind to the down and out -- but by REREGULATING THE FINANCIAL 'SERVICES', REPEALING THE FEDERAL RESERVE AND TAXING THE VERY WEALTHY.
Obama's new budget spends all of our tax income on the war and the banksters. Any funding for our domestic programs must come by borrowing money at interest from the banksters. Face it folks. Our nation is bankrupt and our 'leaders' continue the never ending wars and continue moving all the money in our nation from the working people to the vastly wealthy. One percent of our citizens have nearly all of our wealth. That is the one percent who needs to pay taxes with no off shore hiding of their assets. TAX THEM and END THE WARS.
Thank you.Tony
it should have been laura bush serving up the grub................
Not in her job description of running interference for and providing king george a skirt to hide behind.