The president explains high gas and food prices, the lingering recession, the high unemployment, Solyndra, the cost of health care, the number of people on food stamps, and more.
Friday, March 23, 2012
Saturday, March 17, 2012
A Purpose Too Noble
So now that we are serving on the school board, the purpose of
adequately running the schools under our charge takes on an eerie sense
of higher duty. Seeing things from the inside, our purpose is elevated
to something we believe to be above common man understanding. It is
never stated as such, but comments amongst ourselves send signals.
We try to do the right things, the necessary things, but the public seems to just get in the way.
A very dangerous arrogance grows around the fact that we understand the divine purpose of education and the public is to give us money to fund that activity at a level we determine adequate. We are educated in the art and science of managing an education institution either by the classes we take at the conventions, being privy to inside information, or by the mere fact that we were elected.
This belief or attitude invades our approach to money. Since our purpose is noble and our specialized knowledge unique, we understand the need for an unspecified amount of money that grows with every new regulation, every new teaching method, every new text book revision, new art class, specialized grass seed, food trend, bus safety feature, city ordinance, every new sport, band uniform, AV equipment, student trip, architectural technology, football jersey, and board retreat.
Sometimes the government greed for that money comes very near to crossing the line of what is allowed by law and we know it. Abusing the tort immunity fund and adding kids to the free and reduced food program are just a couple of ways of getting more money from the public without their consent. Placing the kids up as pawns and hostages to get referendums passed is another. The threat of eliminating sports is always effective. The threat of eliminating academic classes never works.
We are not consciously involved in any deception or fraud, it is all justifiable. We were elected so we are deemed by the community to be something much greater than what we actually are. We now consider ourselves the elite political class at the lowest level of aspiration.
We become the mastermind. We are driven by our boundless conceit and these delusional aspirations. We alone are uniquely qualified to carry out the divine nobility of education. If only the public would understand. Our own visions of what is best is bestowed upon us to disseminate to the public.
————————————————————
Certainly a human nature trap. Not everybody that serves on a local government board falls into this trap, but I would imagine that the ones who do, seek and achieve higher office.
We try to do the right things, the necessary things, but the public seems to just get in the way.
A very dangerous arrogance grows around the fact that we understand the divine purpose of education and the public is to give us money to fund that activity at a level we determine adequate. We are educated in the art and science of managing an education institution either by the classes we take at the conventions, being privy to inside information, or by the mere fact that we were elected.
This belief or attitude invades our approach to money. Since our purpose is noble and our specialized knowledge unique, we understand the need for an unspecified amount of money that grows with every new regulation, every new teaching method, every new text book revision, new art class, specialized grass seed, food trend, bus safety feature, city ordinance, every new sport, band uniform, AV equipment, student trip, architectural technology, football jersey, and board retreat.
Sometimes the government greed for that money comes very near to crossing the line of what is allowed by law and we know it. Abusing the tort immunity fund and adding kids to the free and reduced food program are just a couple of ways of getting more money from the public without their consent. Placing the kids up as pawns and hostages to get referendums passed is another. The threat of eliminating sports is always effective. The threat of eliminating academic classes never works.
We are not consciously involved in any deception or fraud, it is all justifiable. We were elected so we are deemed by the community to be something much greater than what we actually are. We now consider ourselves the elite political class at the lowest level of aspiration.
We become the mastermind. We are driven by our boundless conceit and these delusional aspirations. We alone are uniquely qualified to carry out the divine nobility of education. If only the public would understand. Our own visions of what is best is bestowed upon us to disseminate to the public.
————————————————————
Certainly a human nature trap. Not everybody that serves on a local government board falls into this trap, but I would imagine that the ones who do, seek and achieve higher office.
Saturday, March 10, 2012
Apologizing for Pejoratives Applied to Women
Revised on 3/12/2012 to add Chelsea Carter, Jenna Bush, Barbara Bush, and Meg Whitman.
Far from a complete list, these women are waiting. Would somebody please give a call and apologize to:
Gennifer Flowers
Kathleen Willey
Monica Lewinsky
Hillary Clinton
Paula Jones
Sarah Palin
Willow Palin
Bristol Palin
Laura Ingraham (done)
Michele Bachmann
Ann Coulter
Chelsea Clinton
Meg Whitman
Jenna and Barbara Bush
Michele Malkin
Carrie Prejean (done and then revoked)
S.E. Cupp
Christine O'Donnell
Far from a complete list, these women are waiting. Would somebody please give a call and apologize to:
Gennifer Flowers
Kathleen Willey
Monica Lewinsky
Hillary Clinton
Paula Jones
Sarah Palin
Willow Palin
Bristol Palin
Laura Ingraham (done)
Michele Bachmann
Ann Coulter
Chelsea Clinton
Meg Whitman
Jenna and Barbara Bush
Michele Malkin
Carrie Prejean (done and then revoked)
S.E. Cupp
Christine O'Donnell
Tuesday, March 6, 2012
Save the Planet 2/29/2012
“No, the overall goal is [not to get the price of gasoline down, but] to
decrease our dependency on oil, to build and strengthen our economy.”
“Somehow we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe.”
“What I’m doing since I became Secretary of Energy has been quite clear. What I have been doing is developing methods to take the pain out of high gas prices.”
———————————————————————————-
Americans don’t like oil spills. Americans don’t like the potential of an oil spill no matter how remote. American don’t like strip mines. Americans don’t like refineries. The US has the strictest regulations and safety standards for energy exploration and production in the world Oil drilling and mining is banned all across the country and offshore. Where it is not yet banned, those who oppose this kind of thing are attempting to use whatever means they have to delay or stop the projects. So other countries do it for us.
But we have no control over the other part of the planet. So no other country has to comply with our EPA regulations, environmental impacts injunctions and they don’t.
In Nigeria, for example, every year since 1969, oil operations in the Niger Delta have spilled as much oil as the 1989 Exxon Valdez. Chad has no environmental laws whatever.
So what do the misguided do to save the planet? They take the responsibility of protecting the environment out of the hands of those who are the best at it and export it to those who have no interest in keeping things clean. The revelation that the planet exists beyond the borders of the U.S. has yet to hit some.
On the other hand, exporting pollution is OK if the agenda is to eliminate fossil fuel altogether. By keeping the cost of oil up, the people who are the most suspicious of markets are attempting to use those very markets and the hard earned American money to advance the alternative fuels to a market that is not quite ready for it.
“Somehow we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe.”
“What I’m doing since I became Secretary of Energy has been quite clear. What I have been doing is developing methods to take the pain out of high gas prices.”
———————————————————————————-
Americans don’t like oil spills. Americans don’t like the potential of an oil spill no matter how remote. American don’t like strip mines. Americans don’t like refineries. The US has the strictest regulations and safety standards for energy exploration and production in the world Oil drilling and mining is banned all across the country and offshore. Where it is not yet banned, those who oppose this kind of thing are attempting to use whatever means they have to delay or stop the projects. So other countries do it for us.
But we have no control over the other part of the planet. So no other country has to comply with our EPA regulations, environmental impacts injunctions and they don’t.
In Nigeria, for example, every year since 1969, oil operations in the Niger Delta have spilled as much oil as the 1989 Exxon Valdez. Chad has no environmental laws whatever.
So what do the misguided do to save the planet? They take the responsibility of protecting the environment out of the hands of those who are the best at it and export it to those who have no interest in keeping things clean. The revelation that the planet exists beyond the borders of the U.S. has yet to hit some.
On the other hand, exporting pollution is OK if the agenda is to eliminate fossil fuel altogether. By keeping the cost of oil up, the people who are the most suspicious of markets are attempting to use those very markets and the hard earned American money to advance the alternative fuels to a market that is not quite ready for it.
Equity Investment Firm 2/17/2012
Take over a large failing corporation with the intent to turn it around.
File bankruptcy making the stock in IRA’s, 401k’s, and pension plans worthless.
Lay off 50,000 workers and close 1000 distribution centers.
Quietly and slowly continue to layoff more employees for three years.
Discontinue three brands and cut their support.
Close 17 manufacturing plants affecting 1000’s jobs and small businesses.
Pump $50,000,000,000 into the business and print new stock for an IPO to raise more.
Shut the debt holders up with some of the new stock.
Get the government to abate corporate income taxes for 10 years.
File bankruptcy making the stock in IRA’s, 401k’s, and pension plans worthless.
Lay off 50,000 workers and close 1000 distribution centers.
Quietly and slowly continue to layoff more employees for three years.
Discontinue three brands and cut their support.
Close 17 manufacturing plants affecting 1000’s jobs and small businesses.
Pump $50,000,000,000 into the business and print new stock for an IPO to raise more.
Shut the debt holders up with some of the new stock.
Get the government to abate corporate income taxes for 10 years.
Were do they all come from? 2/11/2012
The progressives in the 1930’s were concerned about global population
growth and the world’s ability to feed all the new people. In 1931
Aldous Huxley wrote Brave New World and later in 1958 he revisited
it. When I first read it, it was a warning; but to some it is a
blueprint. To carry the point forward, in 1968 Paul R. Ehrlich wrote The Population Bomb, predicting that the world would end up like Calcutta in the mid 20th century with people dying of starvation in the streets.
The premise, as expanded and refined over the years, is that people are bad. We pollute the water and the atmosphere, we fight wars, we develop doomsday weapons, we reproduce greater than the planet can sustain us, we are selfish, we compete unfairly with each other, we cheat and harm each other, and the planet would be better off without us.
The Noble Savage became a celebrated ideal in the liberal cocktail circuits in the 1960’s. If people were supposed to exist, they should do so in harmony with nature, having only two surviving kids to replace each other, and giving back to the land that which was taken. This way of life, with the exception of a few debutantes doing the Hippie thing for a few weeks, was to be planned and dictated to the masses by the elite who get to keep the trappings of their wealth while they decide on the fate of the masses.
Political and economic solutions were dismissed as the thought of the day was that resources and wealth were limited and they would become depleted. They felt that The Great Depression dictated the industrial nations had reached the limits of the growth of wealth and very little additional wealth could be created. I belief, in spite of the last 70 years of proof to the contrary, continues to held today.
In light of government mandated health care, I went back to Aldous Huxley’s update in 1958 and found the philosophy of government population control fearfully topical.
“Even the poorest government is rich enough to provide its subjects with a substantial measure of death control. Birth control is a very different matter. Death control is something which can be provided for a whole people by a few technicians working in the pay of a benevolent government…
“The annual increase of numbers [of population] should be reduced. But how? We are given two choices — famine, pestilence and war on the one hand, birth control on the other. Most of us choose birth control — and immediately find ourselves confronted by a problem that is simultaneously a puzzle in physiology, pharmacology, sociology, psychology and even theology. ‘The Pill’ has not yet been invented. When and if it is invented, how can it be distributed to the many hundreds of millions of potential mothers (or, if it is a pill that works upon the male, potential fathers) who will have to take it if the birth rate of the species is to be reduced?
“And, given existing social customs and the forces of cultural and psychological inertia, how can those who ought to take the pill, but don’t want to, be persuaded to change their minds? And what about the objections on the part of the Roman Catholic Church, to any form of birth control except the so-called Rhythm Method — a method, incidentally, which has proved, hitherto, to be almost completely ineffective in reducing the birth rate of those industrially backward societies where such a reduction is most urgently necessary? And these questions about the future, hypothetical Pill must be asked, with as little prospect of eliciting satisfactory answers, about the chemical and mechanical methods of birth control already available.
“…recent public opinion polls have revealed that an actual majority of young people in their teens, the voters of tomorrow, have no faith in democratic institutions, see no objection to the censorship of unpopular ideas, do not believe that government of the people by the people is possible and would be perfectly content, if they can continue to live in the style to which the boom has accustomed them, to be ruled, from above, by an oligarchy of assorted experts.”
———————————-
The new health care system controlled by the federal government, with decisions passed down to the states concerning the affordability and distribution of expensive life saving measures, and the promotion of free universal birth control, abortion pills, sterilization, and abortions, fits the pattern of the first steps in cleansing the planet of what the progressives consider the Earth’s worse enemy.
I’m just sayin.’
The premise, as expanded and refined over the years, is that people are bad. We pollute the water and the atmosphere, we fight wars, we develop doomsday weapons, we reproduce greater than the planet can sustain us, we are selfish, we compete unfairly with each other, we cheat and harm each other, and the planet would be better off without us.
The Noble Savage became a celebrated ideal in the liberal cocktail circuits in the 1960’s. If people were supposed to exist, they should do so in harmony with nature, having only two surviving kids to replace each other, and giving back to the land that which was taken. This way of life, with the exception of a few debutantes doing the Hippie thing for a few weeks, was to be planned and dictated to the masses by the elite who get to keep the trappings of their wealth while they decide on the fate of the masses.
Political and economic solutions were dismissed as the thought of the day was that resources and wealth were limited and they would become depleted. They felt that The Great Depression dictated the industrial nations had reached the limits of the growth of wealth and very little additional wealth could be created. I belief, in spite of the last 70 years of proof to the contrary, continues to held today.
In light of government mandated health care, I went back to Aldous Huxley’s update in 1958 and found the philosophy of government population control fearfully topical.
“Even the poorest government is rich enough to provide its subjects with a substantial measure of death control. Birth control is a very different matter. Death control is something which can be provided for a whole people by a few technicians working in the pay of a benevolent government…
“The annual increase of numbers [of population] should be reduced. But how? We are given two choices — famine, pestilence and war on the one hand, birth control on the other. Most of us choose birth control — and immediately find ourselves confronted by a problem that is simultaneously a puzzle in physiology, pharmacology, sociology, psychology and even theology. ‘The Pill’ has not yet been invented. When and if it is invented, how can it be distributed to the many hundreds of millions of potential mothers (or, if it is a pill that works upon the male, potential fathers) who will have to take it if the birth rate of the species is to be reduced?
“And, given existing social customs and the forces of cultural and psychological inertia, how can those who ought to take the pill, but don’t want to, be persuaded to change their minds? And what about the objections on the part of the Roman Catholic Church, to any form of birth control except the so-called Rhythm Method — a method, incidentally, which has proved, hitherto, to be almost completely ineffective in reducing the birth rate of those industrially backward societies where such a reduction is most urgently necessary? And these questions about the future, hypothetical Pill must be asked, with as little prospect of eliciting satisfactory answers, about the chemical and mechanical methods of birth control already available.
“…recent public opinion polls have revealed that an actual majority of young people in their teens, the voters of tomorrow, have no faith in democratic institutions, see no objection to the censorship of unpopular ideas, do not believe that government of the people by the people is possible and would be perfectly content, if they can continue to live in the style to which the boom has accustomed them, to be ruled, from above, by an oligarchy of assorted experts.”
———————————-
The new health care system controlled by the federal government, with decisions passed down to the states concerning the affordability and distribution of expensive life saving measures, and the promotion of free universal birth control, abortion pills, sterilization, and abortions, fits the pattern of the first steps in cleansing the planet of what the progressives consider the Earth’s worse enemy.
I’m just sayin.’
Lessons from Star Trek 1/27/2012
One of the Star Trek series had a space station next to a worm hole. It was kind of like a Holiday Inn for worm hole travelers.
Somebody traveling through the worm hole got stuck inside of the darn thing by one of those entities that the Star Trek guys were always finding. I’m pretty sure an entity was anything that was alive, but not exactly like us - like Bosnians.
This entity was confused by the concept of time. Since he was the worm hole caretaker, I could see how time would be a foreign concept to him. “You mean you do not know what is going to happen next? How can you deal with this timeline thing? I have no concept of it,” he asked the trapped travelers in bewilderment.
The travelers were in a hurry (reason for traveling by worm hole), but the caretaker did not understand the concept of urgency, either. It was like a The Green Flash trying to get directions from a hippie.
It was from Star Trek that I started to understand why prayers take so long to be answered.
Somebody traveling through the worm hole got stuck inside of the darn thing by one of those entities that the Star Trek guys were always finding. I’m pretty sure an entity was anything that was alive, but not exactly like us - like Bosnians.
This entity was confused by the concept of time. Since he was the worm hole caretaker, I could see how time would be a foreign concept to him. “You mean you do not know what is going to happen next? How can you deal with this timeline thing? I have no concept of it,” he asked the trapped travelers in bewilderment.
The travelers were in a hurry (reason for traveling by worm hole), but the caretaker did not understand the concept of urgency, either. It was like a The Green Flash trying to get directions from a hippie.
It was from Star Trek that I started to understand why prayers take so long to be answered.
Job Description 1/19/2012
Director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
Review the scope and authority of Dodd-Frank legislation.
Meet with the major bank executives that wrote Dodd-Frank and determine the detailed regulations to be written according to the scope and authority of that legislation. Initiate fast track procedures to streamline the bank merger process.
Assign categories to various bank executives to write the detailed regulations based upon that scope and authority. Schedule manage the submittals.
Review the regulation drafts with the executives of the large banks and forward the draft to the fund raiser bundlers for comment and approval.
Incorporate the fund raiser bundler’s comments and review the their requirements with the large bank executives.
Determine the scope of the regulations to assess the costs of the implementation of regulations by the big banks.
Determine the minimum assets an institution would have to have to successfully survive the regulations. Supply data to fund raiser bundlers.
Determine fine amounts for non-compliance. Set up fine collection procedures and time limits for fee collections.
Set up audit procedures and schedules for all banking institutions below the survival level of implementation of the new regulations.
Remove any remaining obstacles to the bank merge processes.
Continuously review and address changes to the regulations to maximize the return through the fund raising bundlers.
And additional duties as required by The President of the United States.
Review the scope and authority of Dodd-Frank legislation.
Meet with the major bank executives that wrote Dodd-Frank and determine the detailed regulations to be written according to the scope and authority of that legislation. Initiate fast track procedures to streamline the bank merger process.
Assign categories to various bank executives to write the detailed regulations based upon that scope and authority. Schedule manage the submittals.
Review the regulation drafts with the executives of the large banks and forward the draft to the fund raiser bundlers for comment and approval.
Incorporate the fund raiser bundler’s comments and review the their requirements with the large bank executives.
Determine the scope of the regulations to assess the costs of the implementation of regulations by the big banks.
Determine the minimum assets an institution would have to have to successfully survive the regulations. Supply data to fund raiser bundlers.
Determine fine amounts for non-compliance. Set up fine collection procedures and time limits for fee collections.
Set up audit procedures and schedules for all banking institutions below the survival level of implementation of the new regulations.
Remove any remaining obstacles to the bank merge processes.
Continuously review and address changes to the regulations to maximize the return through the fund raising bundlers.
And additional duties as required by The President of the United States.
Turning Points 1/6/2012
It was hot. So hot that when you took a breath, you choked. I was
walking the mile and half from my upstairs apartment to my mid-morning
class. No clouds and the sun was climbing. Humidity was near 90%. The
headache and thirst didn’t help things. I was trying to make up for the
classes I dropped last year by doing the summer quarter.
I allowed enough time to stop at the Dairy Queen to sit for a while at the shaded picnic table to cool off and have a smoke. I would pick a flower off of a petunia stem and marvel again at the seductive beauty of destruction while I watched the colors of the petals make drastic changes by burning them with the the glow of my cigarette.
Being born of the stuff from the violently destructive forces of the universe, our nature appreciates the beauty of annihilation, whether it be stars, galaxies, structures,ideas, or petunia petals. The entropy of human nature, held back precariously only by Man’s need to build, is the fifth force. The young become tempted by this mesmerizing beauty of destruction. Without the benefit of maturity, some people age but never grow out of it - they grow up to be anarchists or pyrotechnic engineers.
My college education was somewhat spread out. I was beyond the four year deal I made with Dad. Dad would send enough money for tuition, books, rent and food for four years. I would come home summers and earn enough to make up for any other expenses. The four years were up a year ago and I had been on my own since then.
That meant working. This first summer on my own I worked for the State of Illinois cleaning the empty dorms for a few bucks an hour. The following fall, I got a job at a car wash, and found other work to get me through to a required graduation. I had no choice.
I had to graduate. I knew myself well enough to know that if I didn’t finish this, I would never finish anything, so the pressure then was applied to my future.
It was 1970 and the left was going crazy around town protesting the evasion of Cambodia. Tires were being burned in the streets and the National Guard showed up one weekend as Marshall Law was declared.
I had worked the afternoon at the car wash and was tired. The events of a boring dusk to dawn lock-down caused the killing of our last bottle of cheap bourbon. The next morning, hot, tired and moody I headed to class.
When I approached the campus I noticed an unusual amount of police and national guard activity and the noise of those barbaric chants the mobs use for God knows what. I could detect a rhythm, but couldn’t get the words.
I hated the chants - still do. They remind me of the National Geographic Lost Tribe shows they had on PBS before NatGeo got their own commercial network.
When I got to the classroom building there were pickets. People were walking back and forth in front of all the entrances to the building in an oval pattern with signs. I saw one of my teachers in the pickets and walked up to him to ask, “Geez, Man. How do I get in the building? I have a class. What the hell are you doing in this parade?”
Now this was a class that I paid for with the money I earned cleaning other peoples’ crap out of their cars. I also paid for the book and the tuition, and some stupid activity fee that helped pay for Walt Frazier’s books, tuition, food, girlfriends, and whatever else he needed.
My teacher said, sounding like Dad patiently telling me not to touch the electric fence, “Don’t try to cross the pickets. It’s mostly teachers and professors with a spattering of students. If you ever get one of the teachers for a class, they will remember and you will get screwed. That is if you don’t get beat up out here.”
Getting beat up by a bunch of pacifist teachers was not likely. And I was to graduate at the end of the summer.
I didn’t realize it at the time, but the first seed of conservatism was planted in my psyche at that very second. I started to add to the heat of the day by yelling - yelling a lot. Then I started swearing - a lot. Then I started shaking my fist at these easy life simpletons. Then I started walking in the opposite direction of the pickets, yelling and swearing at them about my right to get the service I paid for from you swear, swear, swear. (I actually called them “an effete corps of impudent snobs who characterize yourselves as intellectuals.”) That drew the cops’ attention, but they just seemed amused.
I crossed the line, went in the door and walked up two flights of stairs to an un-air conditioned classroom where I expected to be kept awake by an American Lit teacher. Two other students were in the classroom talking to each other with no teacher to be found. I gave the professor the customary 15 minutes and left.
I slowly walked down the cupped steps of that old classroom building feeling as ripped off and cheated as somebody who made a politician their hero.
I left the building, crossed back through the cow path and turned around. With my footing at parade rest I offered up a high double deuce to Daisy and her friends.
Five years of indoctrination from within the classroom reinforced by living in a confined sphere of influence made me question the values, the rules, the philosophy, the politics, the motives, the religion, the morals, the laws, the history, the lifestyle. and everything else that traditional America held dear.
I can point to one hot, humid, head-pounding day, in the summer of 1970 that turned me around and I’ll never forget that first step I took on my way back home.
I allowed enough time to stop at the Dairy Queen to sit for a while at the shaded picnic table to cool off and have a smoke. I would pick a flower off of a petunia stem and marvel again at the seductive beauty of destruction while I watched the colors of the petals make drastic changes by burning them with the the glow of my cigarette.
Being born of the stuff from the violently destructive forces of the universe, our nature appreciates the beauty of annihilation, whether it be stars, galaxies, structures,ideas, or petunia petals. The entropy of human nature, held back precariously only by Man’s need to build, is the fifth force. The young become tempted by this mesmerizing beauty of destruction. Without the benefit of maturity, some people age but never grow out of it - they grow up to be anarchists or pyrotechnic engineers.
My college education was somewhat spread out. I was beyond the four year deal I made with Dad. Dad would send enough money for tuition, books, rent and food for four years. I would come home summers and earn enough to make up for any other expenses. The four years were up a year ago and I had been on my own since then.
That meant working. This first summer on my own I worked for the State of Illinois cleaning the empty dorms for a few bucks an hour. The following fall, I got a job at a car wash, and found other work to get me through to a required graduation. I had no choice.
I had to graduate. I knew myself well enough to know that if I didn’t finish this, I would never finish anything, so the pressure then was applied to my future.
It was 1970 and the left was going crazy around town protesting the evasion of Cambodia. Tires were being burned in the streets and the National Guard showed up one weekend as Marshall Law was declared.
I had worked the afternoon at the car wash and was tired. The events of a boring dusk to dawn lock-down caused the killing of our last bottle of cheap bourbon. The next morning, hot, tired and moody I headed to class.
When I approached the campus I noticed an unusual amount of police and national guard activity and the noise of those barbaric chants the mobs use for God knows what. I could detect a rhythm, but couldn’t get the words.
I hated the chants - still do. They remind me of the National Geographic Lost Tribe shows they had on PBS before NatGeo got their own commercial network.
When I got to the classroom building there were pickets. People were walking back and forth in front of all the entrances to the building in an oval pattern with signs. I saw one of my teachers in the pickets and walked up to him to ask, “Geez, Man. How do I get in the building? I have a class. What the hell are you doing in this parade?”
Now this was a class that I paid for with the money I earned cleaning other peoples’ crap out of their cars. I also paid for the book and the tuition, and some stupid activity fee that helped pay for Walt Frazier’s books, tuition, food, girlfriends, and whatever else he needed.
My teacher said, sounding like Dad patiently telling me not to touch the electric fence, “Don’t try to cross the pickets. It’s mostly teachers and professors with a spattering of students. If you ever get one of the teachers for a class, they will remember and you will get screwed. That is if you don’t get beat up out here.”
Getting beat up by a bunch of pacifist teachers was not likely. And I was to graduate at the end of the summer.
I didn’t realize it at the time, but the first seed of conservatism was planted in my psyche at that very second. I started to add to the heat of the day by yelling - yelling a lot. Then I started swearing - a lot. Then I started shaking my fist at these easy life simpletons. Then I started walking in the opposite direction of the pickets, yelling and swearing at them about my right to get the service I paid for from you swear, swear, swear. (I actually called them “an effete corps of impudent snobs who characterize yourselves as intellectuals.”) That drew the cops’ attention, but they just seemed amused.
I crossed the line, went in the door and walked up two flights of stairs to an un-air conditioned classroom where I expected to be kept awake by an American Lit teacher. Two other students were in the classroom talking to each other with no teacher to be found. I gave the professor the customary 15 minutes and left.
I slowly walked down the cupped steps of that old classroom building feeling as ripped off and cheated as somebody who made a politician their hero.
I left the building, crossed back through the cow path and turned around. With my footing at parade rest I offered up a high double deuce to Daisy and her friends.
Five years of indoctrination from within the classroom reinforced by living in a confined sphere of influence made me question the values, the rules, the philosophy, the politics, the motives, the religion, the morals, the laws, the history, the lifestyle. and everything else that traditional America held dear.
I can point to one hot, humid, head-pounding day, in the summer of 1970 that turned me around and I’ll never forget that first step I took on my way back home.
Obscene Wage Gap 12/28/2011
Proof once again that the 1%ers are taking advantage of the rest of
us. Wages for overpaid rich people must be reduced. Nobody should be
paid over 3700 times the people who deliver and support their product.
This is totally unfair and life should be fair. They have no right to
that much money.
The per hour wages are based upon working a full 40 hour week for 52 weeks. The true hourly rate of these rich fat cat parasite
hedge fund managers
people is significantly more.
Motion picture projectionists: $9.39/hr.
Leonardo DiCaprio: $35,000/hr.
Cashiers: $8.00/hr.
Johnny Depp: $25,000/hr.
Ushers, ticket takers: $7.87/hr.
Will Smith: $17,300/hr.
Counter attendants, cafeteria: $7.76/hr.
Tom Hanks: $16,800/hr.
Occupy Showplace Megaplex 74
The per hour wages are based upon working a full 40 hour week for 52 weeks. The true hourly rate of these rich fat cat parasite
hedge fund managers
people is significantly more.
Motion picture projectionists: $9.39/hr.
Leonardo DiCaprio: $35,000/hr.
Cashiers: $8.00/hr.
Johnny Depp: $25,000/hr.
Ushers, ticket takers: $7.87/hr.
Will Smith: $17,300/hr.
Counter attendants, cafeteria: $7.76/hr.
Tom Hanks: $16,800/hr.
Occupy Showplace Megaplex 74
Christmas 12/25/2011
Lay-a-ways
are being paid for by strangers, Krugerrands show up in Salvation Army
buckets, anonymous charity donations skyrocket, and shoppers’ last
minute panic evaporates to listen to strangers in shopping malls
singing gratitude to the birth of Jesus.
Once again I am awed by the serenity of Christmas evening. Along with the usual commercial, government, and private enterprises being dark and quiet, the gas stations, the convenience stores, WalMart, the restaurants, bars, 24-hour pharmacies, shopping malls, and all the other places that never seem to close are also dark and quiet.
Street lights are changing colors for no one.
No other time of year compares with Christmas. No other event is as universally celebrated as the birth of Jesus Christ.
Even if you don’t believe that He is God, you ought to stop for a minute and thank the guy for being responsible for a season and a day when people stop what they are doing and are changed into something better.
Once again I am awed by the serenity of Christmas evening. Along with the usual commercial, government, and private enterprises being dark and quiet, the gas stations, the convenience stores, WalMart, the restaurants, bars, 24-hour pharmacies, shopping malls, and all the other places that never seem to close are also dark and quiet.
Street lights are changing colors for no one.
No other time of year compares with Christmas. No other event is as universally celebrated as the birth of Jesus Christ.
Even if you don’t believe that He is God, you ought to stop for a minute and thank the guy for being responsible for a season and a day when people stop what they are doing and are changed into something better.
The Dream we are A'Savin' 11/17/2011
To the tune of The Times They are A-Changin’ by Bob Dylan, 1963
Come 99%ers
Wherever you roam.
We’ll make the streets
Of NY our home.
Set up your tents
We’ll never go home
And there’s no need for ever bathin.’
We’ll chant and pound drums, update aps on our phone
For the Dream we are a savin’
We have no agenda
Except to complain.
My Cannondale Carbon’s
Gettin’ wet in the rain.
Paying back ed loans
Is no way to gain.
Chase Bank tellers we are a bargin’
Takin’ care of myself is simply a pain
For the Dream we are a savin’
The American Dream
Was destroyed by rich creeps
We’ll take our fair share
From the corporate veeps
To show we are right
We’ll shit in your streets.
Politicians! We are a ragin’
There’s no ATM within 50 feet!?
For the Dream we are a savin”
Come Wall Street bankers
Your interest is due.
No more funding bad loans
No more bailouts for you.
The politicians you buy
Say they’re ours now, too.
Human microphones we have a wailin.’
Occupy T-shirts are only $10.52
And the Dream we are a savin’
The rich day’s are numbered
Count your money once more.
1%ers aren’t welcome
Except Michael Moore,
Rosanne Barr, Richard Trumka,
Cornel West and Al Gore.
With the socialist unions engagin’
Get rich by pandering hope to the poor.
And the Dream we are a savin’
Come capitalist pigs
And give up your rule
We should run the whole world
‘Cause we went to school.
We know what’s best
For the rest are just fools.
My cell phone’s in need of a chargin’
Starbucks and Apple are exempt ‘cause they’re cool.
For the Dream we are a savin’
The middle class is hurt
Looks like we’ve lost all hope
The Benz needs tires
Gonna sell the new boat.
Vacations to Bonaire
Are now to New Hope
The investments are really tankin’
But Lenny’s tent next door has outrageous dope.
For the Dream we are a savin’
It’s too cold to be naked
They want us out fast
The slow ones now
Will get kicked in the ass,
Pushed back, batoned,
And blasted with gas.
It’s home to Mom, to find some safe haven.
Water canons providing us showers at last.
For the Dream we are a savin’
Come 99%ers
Wherever you roam.
We’ll make the streets
Of NY our home.
Set up your tents
We’ll never go home
And there’s no need for ever bathin.’
We’ll chant and pound drums, update aps on our phone
For the Dream we are a savin’
We have no agenda
Except to complain.
My Cannondale Carbon’s
Gettin’ wet in the rain.
Paying back ed loans
Is no way to gain.
Chase Bank tellers we are a bargin’
Takin’ care of myself is simply a pain
For the Dream we are a savin’
The American Dream
Was destroyed by rich creeps
We’ll take our fair share
From the corporate veeps
To show we are right
We’ll shit in your streets.
Politicians! We are a ragin’
There’s no ATM within 50 feet!?
For the Dream we are a savin”
Come Wall Street bankers
Your interest is due.
No more funding bad loans
No more bailouts for you.
The politicians you buy
Say they’re ours now, too.
Human microphones we have a wailin.’
Occupy T-shirts are only $10.52
And the Dream we are a savin’
The rich day’s are numbered
Count your money once more.
1%ers aren’t welcome
Except Michael Moore,
Rosanne Barr, Richard Trumka,
Cornel West and Al Gore.
With the socialist unions engagin’
Get rich by pandering hope to the poor.
And the Dream we are a savin’
Come capitalist pigs
And give up your rule
We should run the whole world
‘Cause we went to school.
We know what’s best
For the rest are just fools.
My cell phone’s in need of a chargin’
Starbucks and Apple are exempt ‘cause they’re cool.
For the Dream we are a savin’
The middle class is hurt
Looks like we’ve lost all hope
The Benz needs tires
Gonna sell the new boat.
Vacations to Bonaire
Are now to New Hope
The investments are really tankin’
But Lenny’s tent next door has outrageous dope.
For the Dream we are a savin’
It’s too cold to be naked
They want us out fast
The slow ones now
Will get kicked in the ass,
Pushed back, batoned,
And blasted with gas.
It’s home to Mom, to find some safe haven.
Water canons providing us showers at last.
For the Dream we are a savin’
The Board Meeting 11/10/2011
When the meeting goes on without resolve
Men with no backbone, rotate, revolve
Backtracking, cover-up, feeling betrayed
Duty, honor, if ever present, delayed.
What happens when a man’s word is broken?
Watch honor crumble, words fall unspoken.
If a man’s not an island, so are all his lies,
Something inside us all rots, dries up, dies.
I see dishonor every day
Comin’ at me; walkin’ away
Blogs, news, and media posts.
Character’s not driven, it coasts.
Men with no backbone, rotate, revolve
Backtracking, cover-up, feeling betrayed
Duty, honor, if ever present, delayed.
What happens when a man’s word is broken?
Watch honor crumble, words fall unspoken.
If a man’s not an island, so are all his lies,
Something inside us all rots, dries up, dies.
I see dishonor every day
Comin’ at me; walkin’ away
Blogs, news, and media posts.
Character’s not driven, it coasts.
The Obscene Gap between the Rich and the Poor 11/10/2011
In January 2010, a 7.0 Earthquake hit Haiti
that resulted in 316,000 deaths. In October 1989, a 7.1 Earthquake hit
San Francisco and 83 people died. The difference is wealth.
Coughing out a scoff at the mention of trickle down wealth,
The increase in the gap between the rich and the poor is not because the poor are getting poorer, it’s because the rich are getting richer at a greater rate than the poor are getting richer.
Coughing out a scoff at the mention of trickle down wealth,
- 80 percent of poor households have air conditioning. In 1970, only 36 percent of the entire U.S. population enjoyed air conditioning.
- 92 percent of poor households have a microwave.
- Nearly three-fourths have a car or truck, and 31 percent have two or more cars or trucks.
- Nearly two-thirds have cable or satellite TV.
- Two-thirds have at least one DVD player, and 70 percent have a VCR.
- Half have a personal computer, and one in seven have two or more computers.
- More than half of poor families with children have a video game system, such as an Xbox or PlayStation.
- 43 percent have Internet access.
- One-third have a wide-screen plasma or LCD TV.
- One-fourth have a digital video recorder system, such as a TiVo.
The increase in the gap between the rich and the poor is not because the poor are getting poorer, it’s because the rich are getting richer at a greater rate than the poor are getting richer.
The 1% 11/07/2011
According to the IRS, the break for being in the upper 1% of income
earners is just a bit under $344,000 per year (2009 adjusted gross
income).
So, who are these people that are controlling our lives with all that money?
I found a few - let’s go after them, take their money and use it to pay off student loans, make life fair, and punish the SOBs for making their money off the backs of the working man:
Every NBA player
Every NFL player
Every MLB player
Michael Moore
John Kerry
Chris Mathews
Warren Buffett
Ted Turner
Brad Pitt
Jon Stewart
David Letterman
Will Smith
Matt Damon
Johnny Depp
Alec Baldwin
Barbara Streisand
Bill Maher
Harry Belafonte
Jane Fonda
Jay Rockefeller
Nancy Pelosi
Claire McCaskill
Joy Behar
Janeane Garofalo
Joan Baez
Jimmy Carter
Howard Dean
Maureen Dowd
Paul Krugman
Dick Durbin
John Edwards
Dianne Feinstein
Lady Gaga
Tim Geithner
Danny Glover
Al Gore
Bryant Gumbel
Jesse Jackson
Ted Koppel
Rachel Maddow
Rosie O’Donnell
Keith Obermann
Sean Penn
Charlie Rangle
William Raspberry
Dan Rather
Harry Reid
Chris Dodd
Barney Frank
Bob Schieffer
Debbie Wasserman Schultz
Chuck Schumer
Al Sharpton
George Soros
Barbara Walters
Al Franken
George Clooney
Richard Trumka
Morgan Freeman
Barbara Boxer
Maxine Waters
John Mellencamp
Neil Young
Whoopie Goldberg
Ron Howard
Oprah Winfrey
Tim Robbins
Bruce Springsteen
Richard Branson
David Gregory
Katie Couric
David Brock
Brian Williams
Rob Reiner
Ted Danson
Ellen DeGeneres
Kevin Drum
Phil Donahue
Mike Farrell
Robert Redford
Susan Sarandon
Andrew Sullivan
Diane Sawyer
Bob King
Gloria Allred
Charles Gibson
Tom Brokaw
Glenn Greenwald
Anderson Cooper
Benjamin Jealous
Paul Begala
John Conyers
David Shipley
John Lewis
Andy Stern
Jan Schakowsky
Fred Hiatt
Cornel West
Rosanne Barr
Kanye West
Sheryl Crow
Arianna Huffington
Bill Moyers
Caroline Kennedy
Garrison Keillor
Markos Moulitsas
George Stephanopoulos
Howard Dean
Leonardo DiCaprio
Jerry Brown
Mario Cuomo
Martin Sheen
Tina Fey
King Samir Shabazz
Tom Hanks
Wesley Clark
Ben Affleck
Drew Barrymore
Kim Basinger
Billy Crystal
Robert Deniro
Danny Devito
Richard Dreyfuss
Robert Duvall
Kurt Anderson
Will Farrell
Cuba Gooding Jr.
Matt Groening
Samuel Jackson
Billy Joel
Tommy Lee Jones
Jennifer Lopez
Dave Matthews
Bill Murray
Conan O’Brian
Ozzy Ozborne
Al Pacino
Chris Rock
Meg Ryan
Martin Scorsese
Jerry Seinfeld
LL Cool J
David Spade
So, who are these people that are controlling our lives with all that money?
I found a few - let’s go after them, take their money and use it to pay off student loans, make life fair, and punish the SOBs for making their money off the backs of the working man:
Every NBA player
Every NFL player
Every MLB player
Michael Moore
John Kerry
Chris Mathews
Warren Buffett
Ted Turner
Brad Pitt
Jon Stewart
David Letterman
Will Smith
Matt Damon
Johnny Depp
Alec Baldwin
Barbara Streisand
Bill Maher
Harry Belafonte
Jane Fonda
Jay Rockefeller
Nancy Pelosi
Claire McCaskill
Joy Behar
Janeane Garofalo
Joan Baez
Jimmy Carter
Howard Dean
Maureen Dowd
Paul Krugman
Dick Durbin
John Edwards
Dianne Feinstein
Lady Gaga
Tim Geithner
Danny Glover
Al Gore
Bryant Gumbel
Jesse Jackson
Ted Koppel
Rachel Maddow
Rosie O’Donnell
Keith Obermann
Sean Penn
Charlie Rangle
William Raspberry
Dan Rather
Harry Reid
Chris Dodd
Barney Frank
Bob Schieffer
Debbie Wasserman Schultz
Chuck Schumer
Al Sharpton
George Soros
Barbara Walters
Al Franken
George Clooney
Richard Trumka
Morgan Freeman
Barbara Boxer
Maxine Waters
John Mellencamp
Neil Young
Whoopie Goldberg
Ron Howard
Oprah Winfrey
Tim Robbins
Bruce Springsteen
Richard Branson
David Gregory
Katie Couric
David Brock
Brian Williams
Rob Reiner
Ted Danson
Ellen DeGeneres
Kevin Drum
Phil Donahue
Mike Farrell
Robert Redford
Susan Sarandon
Andrew Sullivan
Diane Sawyer
Bob King
Gloria Allred
Charles Gibson
Tom Brokaw
Glenn Greenwald
Anderson Cooper
Benjamin Jealous
Paul Begala
John Conyers
David Shipley
John Lewis
Andy Stern
Jan Schakowsky
Fred Hiatt
Cornel West
Rosanne Barr
Kanye West
Sheryl Crow
Arianna Huffington
Bill Moyers
Caroline Kennedy
Garrison Keillor
Markos Moulitsas
George Stephanopoulos
Howard Dean
Leonardo DiCaprio
Jerry Brown
Mario Cuomo
Martin Sheen
Tina Fey
King Samir Shabazz
Tom Hanks
Wesley Clark
Ben Affleck
Drew Barrymore
Kim Basinger
Billy Crystal
Robert Deniro
Danny Devito
Richard Dreyfuss
Robert Duvall
Kurt Anderson
Will Farrell
Cuba Gooding Jr.
Matt Groening
Samuel Jackson
Billy Joel
Tommy Lee Jones
Jennifer Lopez
Dave Matthews
Bill Murray
Conan O’Brian
Ozzy Ozborne
Al Pacino
Chris Rock
Meg Ryan
Martin Scorsese
Jerry Seinfeld
LL Cool J
David Spade
Greed Ends 11/03/2011
OCCUPY WINS; GREED HAS BEEN ERADICATED!
When does ambition, the pursuit of wealth, drive, the relentless quest for self-improvement, become greed? Is it the banker putting together bad investments knowing that nobody will read the prospectus, the politician getting his big money backers a tax break or a federal loan guarantee, the venture capitalist supporting political agendas that will make his investments succeed, the back-stabbing middle manager striving to please his boss, the retail clerk not ringing up that sale, the union worker striking for higher pensions and free health care, the investment angel that funds a tech start-up, the tax cheat? It has to be in the mind of the beholder.
————————————————————————————————-
Suddenly, without warning, across America, protesters rejoiced as greed disappeared from the landscape. As the protesters started to walk home, shoeless, cold, and naked, panic set in as the disappearance of their cell phones, iPads, and computers put them out of touch with each other.
As they walked in the dirt and mud where the streets used to be, the sight of empty shops in crumbling buildings quieted the group. Bikes, cars, taxis, police, street lights, buses, coffee, everything disappeared as small groups of naked people started to huddle for warmth as groups of thugs started picking up big sticks.
When does ambition, the pursuit of wealth, drive, the relentless quest for self-improvement, become greed? Is it the banker putting together bad investments knowing that nobody will read the prospectus, the politician getting his big money backers a tax break or a federal loan guarantee, the venture capitalist supporting political agendas that will make his investments succeed, the back-stabbing middle manager striving to please his boss, the retail clerk not ringing up that sale, the union worker striking for higher pensions and free health care, the investment angel that funds a tech start-up, the tax cheat? It has to be in the mind of the beholder.
————————————————————————————————-
Suddenly, without warning, across America, protesters rejoiced as greed disappeared from the landscape. As the protesters started to walk home, shoeless, cold, and naked, panic set in as the disappearance of their cell phones, iPads, and computers put them out of touch with each other.
As they walked in the dirt and mud where the streets used to be, the sight of empty shops in crumbling buildings quieted the group. Bikes, cars, taxis, police, street lights, buses, coffee, everything disappeared as small groups of naked people started to huddle for warmth as groups of thugs started picking up big sticks.
My Online Chat with Magic Jack 10/24/2011
Please wait for a site operator to respond.
You are now chatting with ‘Dustin’
Your Issue ID for this chat is LTK554011966599X
Dustin: Hello, how may I help you?
Jim Kitzmiller: How do I cancel service?
Dustin: Hi there JIm.
Jim Kitzmiller: How do I cancel service?
Dustin: Thank you for waiting. I’ll be with you in just a moment.
Dustin: May I know the exact nature of your problem with full details please?
Jim Kitzmiller: No problems. I just need to cancel service.
Dustin: I’m sorry for the delay. I’ll be right with you.
Dustin: Thank you for waiting.
Dustin: May i have your magicJack phone number?
Jim Kitzmiller: 779-552-4794
Dustin: Thank you for the details.
Jim Kitzmiller: You are helping create a blog post, Dustin. Thanks.
Dustin: I will be right with you.
Dustin: I will be right with you.
Dustin: If you choose to stop using magicJack, there are no cancellation, early termination, penalty or other fees.
Jim Kitzmiller: Excellent. How do I cancel service?
Dustin: Thank you for waiting. I’ll be with you in just a moment.
Dustin: You may not cancel additional years of service unless you purchased said plan with a 30 Day FREE Trial, at which time you may return said plan within these 30 days. All other refunds will be rejected.
Jim Kitzmiller: Excellent. I am way beyond the 30 day period. How do I then cancel service?
Dustin: I’m sorry for the delay. I’ll be right with you.
Dustin: Thank you for waiting. I’ll be with you in just a moment.
Dustin: I’m sorry for the delay. I’ll be right with you.
Dustin: I will be right with you.
Dustin: You may not cancel additional years of service unless you purchased said plan with a 30 Day FREE Trial, at which time you may return said plan within these 30 days. All other refunds will be rejected.
Jim Kitzmiller: OK, I don’t want a refund, I just want to cancel service so that I will no longer be charged on my credit card.
Dustin: Just log in to your magicjack account portal and disable the autorenewal.
Jim Kitzmiller: Thanks. I can’t find the login portal. Please send the link.
Dustin: http://www.my.magicjack.com
Dustin: Please click the link above.
Jim Kitzmiller: Did it. Thank you.
Dustin: Great,
Dustin: Is there anything else I may help you with today?
Jim Kitzmiller: No, thank you. You have been very helpful.
You are now chatting with ‘Dustin’
Your Issue ID for this chat is LTK554011966599X
Dustin: Hello, how may I help you?
Jim Kitzmiller: How do I cancel service?
Dustin: Hi there JIm.
Jim Kitzmiller: How do I cancel service?
Dustin: Thank you for waiting. I’ll be with you in just a moment.
Dustin: May I know the exact nature of your problem with full details please?
Jim Kitzmiller: No problems. I just need to cancel service.
Dustin: I’m sorry for the delay. I’ll be right with you.
Dustin: Thank you for waiting.
Dustin: May i have your magicJack phone number?
Jim Kitzmiller: 779-552-4794
Dustin: Thank you for the details.
Jim Kitzmiller: You are helping create a blog post, Dustin. Thanks.
Dustin: I will be right with you.
Dustin: I will be right with you.
Dustin: If you choose to stop using magicJack, there are no cancellation, early termination, penalty or other fees.
Jim Kitzmiller: Excellent. How do I cancel service?
Dustin: Thank you for waiting. I’ll be with you in just a moment.
Dustin: You may not cancel additional years of service unless you purchased said plan with a 30 Day FREE Trial, at which time you may return said plan within these 30 days. All other refunds will be rejected.
Jim Kitzmiller: Excellent. I am way beyond the 30 day period. How do I then cancel service?
Dustin: I’m sorry for the delay. I’ll be right with you.
Dustin: Thank you for waiting. I’ll be with you in just a moment.
Dustin: I’m sorry for the delay. I’ll be right with you.
Dustin: I will be right with you.
Dustin: You may not cancel additional years of service unless you purchased said plan with a 30 Day FREE Trial, at which time you may return said plan within these 30 days. All other refunds will be rejected.
Jim Kitzmiller: OK, I don’t want a refund, I just want to cancel service so that I will no longer be charged on my credit card.
Dustin: Just log in to your magicjack account portal and disable the autorenewal.
Jim Kitzmiller: Thanks. I can’t find the login portal. Please send the link.
Dustin: http://www.my.magicjack.com
Dustin: Please click the link above.
Jim Kitzmiller: Did it. Thank you.
Dustin: Great,
Dustin: Is there anything else I may help you with today?
Jim Kitzmiller: No, thank you. You have been very helpful.
Occupy Goes Public 10/18/2011
George Borrows, the wealthy financier, has filed with the SEC his
intention to hold an Initial Public Offering of Occupy Wall Street,
Inc., a Delaware corporation. The purpose of the stock sale is to fund
the licensing and promoting of all things OWS.
Advertising agency Young & Rubicam has been retained to develop the corporate image and logo design that will be licensed for use similar to NFL products. Printing and promotion firms will pay a yearly fee to print the official logo and other identities on shirts, mugs, pens, and other advertising specialties.
OWS, Inc will also, with the help of sponsors, fund and promote OWS events, protests, sit-ins, marches, tire burnings, and Congressional lobbying. According to Borrows, human microphone events will not be funded due to “…the general creepiness of mime anti-matter.”
Borrows has lined up an impressive list of sponsors who have committed to provide certain products during official sanctioned events. Chase Bank is providing the knit hats, Goldman Sachs will provide the Port-o-Potties, and Merck has agreed to supply bongs and roach clips. All items will be co-branded with the official OWS logo and will be imported through alibaba.com.
Occupy will go public at an estimated $22 to $26 per share with 30 million shares being offered to the public. The offering is being underwritten by J.P. Morgan.
Advertising agency Young & Rubicam has been retained to develop the corporate image and logo design that will be licensed for use similar to NFL products. Printing and promotion firms will pay a yearly fee to print the official logo and other identities on shirts, mugs, pens, and other advertising specialties.
OWS, Inc will also, with the help of sponsors, fund and promote OWS events, protests, sit-ins, marches, tire burnings, and Congressional lobbying. According to Borrows, human microphone events will not be funded due to “…the general creepiness of mime anti-matter.”
Borrows has lined up an impressive list of sponsors who have committed to provide certain products during official sanctioned events. Chase Bank is providing the knit hats, Goldman Sachs will provide the Port-o-Potties, and Merck has agreed to supply bongs and roach clips. All items will be co-branded with the official OWS logo and will be imported through alibaba.com.
Occupy will go public at an estimated $22 to $26 per share with 30 million shares being offered to the public. The offering is being underwritten by J.P. Morgan.
Monday, March 5, 2012
How Science Works 10/08/2011
Imagine this: The foundation of all physics has become deeply and
fundamentally flawed. The center-post and anchor of all astro and
subatomic physics disappears and all calculations made from this anchor
has become suspect. What not 98% of the scientists believe to be true,
but what 100% of the scientists have been making assumptions and
calculations upon no longer is valid.
It’s the equivalent of realizing the pi is not really 22/7 and it affects how we perceive such basic concepts as what is the past and the future,
After six months of scrutiny by by 160 scientists from 11 countries, the scientists at CERN are asking the world of physics why a neutrino has appeared to travel faster than the speed of light and to please find a way to disprove this observation.
Einstein told us that as a particle approaches the speed of light, it’s mass approaches infinity and time stops, thus precluding a speed above 186,000 miles per second. Observations of the physical universe have seemed to prove this to be true.
Now maybe there may be exceptions, but we’ve dealt with this before. That’s how science progresses. Theories are formulated and believed to be true, then shown to be flawed and we build on the new theory, which then is proved to be flawed and so it goes. The purpose of the scientific method may just be to prove itself wrong.
As we get closer to the very small and the very big, we see that math and science as we have constructed them, don’t work.
In the wonder of the universe, no proven scientific standard can be held up as an undeniable truth. Although this apparent observation about the neutrino getting to a location before it left home may eventually prove to be a measuring error, it’s there (or somewhere) to remind us that the results of science has been wrong in the past, they will be wrong in the future, and cannot be counted on to be the unwavering truth some have set it up to be.
It’s the equivalent of realizing the pi is not really 22/7 and it affects how we perceive such basic concepts as what is the past and the future,
After six months of scrutiny by by 160 scientists from 11 countries, the scientists at CERN are asking the world of physics why a neutrino has appeared to travel faster than the speed of light and to please find a way to disprove this observation.
Einstein told us that as a particle approaches the speed of light, it’s mass approaches infinity and time stops, thus precluding a speed above 186,000 miles per second. Observations of the physical universe have seemed to prove this to be true.
Now maybe there may be exceptions, but we’ve dealt with this before. That’s how science progresses. Theories are formulated and believed to be true, then shown to be flawed and we build on the new theory, which then is proved to be flawed and so it goes. The purpose of the scientific method may just be to prove itself wrong.
As we get closer to the very small and the very big, we see that math and science as we have constructed them, don’t work.
In the wonder of the universe, no proven scientific standard can be held up as an undeniable truth. Although this apparent observation about the neutrino getting to a location before it left home may eventually prove to be a measuring error, it’s there (or somewhere) to remind us that the results of science has been wrong in the past, they will be wrong in the future, and cannot be counted on to be the unwavering truth some have set it up to be.
Steve Jobs 10/06/2011
Steve Jobs grew his business in an environment that allowed his
creativity, ambition, energy, and marketing genius to flourish. He was a
capitalist, entrepreneur, job and wealth creator that grabbed products
and ideas from the future and placed them in our hands. His passion and
pursuit of wealth and success produced products that enriched and
improved our lives and created jobs around the world.
We could use more visionary, egocentric, ambitious, profit-minded business people like Steve Jobs and, although rare, I am sure they will come along. I just don’t think they will be coming from America for a while.
We could use more visionary, egocentric, ambitious, profit-minded business people like Steve Jobs and, although rare, I am sure they will come along. I just don’t think they will be coming from America for a while.
Granfaloons - The Seeds of Bigotry 09/29/2011
From Danny’s Blog:
“If you look long and hard into the mirror when you are completely and verifiably alone, you will see a bigot. We are all bigots in some fashion or another and we should be able to admit it. You can be a bigot and not hate and that is an important distinction. Rather than think that the others are inferior, we all tend to have a natural instinct that we are superior and the corollary follows.”
Bigot: A bigot is someone who holds predefined negative views about a class of people, or the corollary – someone who holds predefined positive views about a class of people.
“Kurt Vonnegut called it a granfaloon - a large yet meaningless association of human beings. But it has a greater impact than that of a satirist in that it is not necessarily meaningless. When you become part of a group through no real choice of your own, pride in the group is created automatically.
“If you go to the Friday night football game in Pana, you will see hundreds of adults cheering on the kids to win. If you ask any one of them or any one of the kids what’s the best high school team in the state, they would say the Pana High Panthers.
“The school, the teachers, the staff, the coaches, the parents, and the kids work hard to protect and improve the unit. The colors, the mascot, the logos are all developed to define the group so that all associated can be proud and support the best school in the state.
“Ninety percent of those associated with Pana High did not choose Pana High. They are there in the greatest town in Illinois (granfaloon), through no choice of their own, but yet they know it’s the best.
“The corollary of this granfaloon defines all other schools as inferior which is not necessarily true. The bigotry of pride in what you are does not necessarily lead to hatred, yet it diminishes all other groups. Two schools can’t be the best.
“So, what do you think about your school, your town, your state, your family, your church, your rowing club, your country, your race, your religion, your political party, bigot? If you should come to this realization, and you were convinced that you do not have a prejudice bone in your body, do not despair. It’s a good thing as long as it does not get too deep into hatred.
“Dislike, mistrust, and suspicion of other groups surround a granfaloon, so care should be taken that fear does not lead to the resultant hatred and violence. After all, there have been a few Friday night fights after a Pana Panthers football game.
“Group pride creates champions, winners, close ties with other humans, protection, achievement, support, and other good human nature attributes. Count your granfaloons with a sense of accomplishment, because you are accepted and are part of something greater than yourself that can achieve great things.
“But, you are a bigot.”
Danny Beck, Antech Aerospace and Manufacturing, Pana, Illinois, the best company in America.
“If you look long and hard into the mirror when you are completely and verifiably alone, you will see a bigot. We are all bigots in some fashion or another and we should be able to admit it. You can be a bigot and not hate and that is an important distinction. Rather than think that the others are inferior, we all tend to have a natural instinct that we are superior and the corollary follows.”
Bigot: A bigot is someone who holds predefined negative views about a class of people, or the corollary – someone who holds predefined positive views about a class of people.
“Kurt Vonnegut called it a granfaloon - a large yet meaningless association of human beings. But it has a greater impact than that of a satirist in that it is not necessarily meaningless. When you become part of a group through no real choice of your own, pride in the group is created automatically.
“If you go to the Friday night football game in Pana, you will see hundreds of adults cheering on the kids to win. If you ask any one of them or any one of the kids what’s the best high school team in the state, they would say the Pana High Panthers.
“The school, the teachers, the staff, the coaches, the parents, and the kids work hard to protect and improve the unit. The colors, the mascot, the logos are all developed to define the group so that all associated can be proud and support the best school in the state.
“Ninety percent of those associated with Pana High did not choose Pana High. They are there in the greatest town in Illinois (granfaloon), through no choice of their own, but yet they know it’s the best.
“The corollary of this granfaloon defines all other schools as inferior which is not necessarily true. The bigotry of pride in what you are does not necessarily lead to hatred, yet it diminishes all other groups. Two schools can’t be the best.
“So, what do you think about your school, your town, your state, your family, your church, your rowing club, your country, your race, your religion, your political party, bigot? If you should come to this realization, and you were convinced that you do not have a prejudice bone in your body, do not despair. It’s a good thing as long as it does not get too deep into hatred.
“Dislike, mistrust, and suspicion of other groups surround a granfaloon, so care should be taken that fear does not lead to the resultant hatred and violence. After all, there have been a few Friday night fights after a Pana Panthers football game.
“Group pride creates champions, winners, close ties with other humans, protection, achievement, support, and other good human nature attributes. Count your granfaloons with a sense of accomplishment, because you are accepted and are part of something greater than yourself that can achieve great things.
“But, you are a bigot.”
Danny Beck, Antech Aerospace and Manufacturing, Pana, Illinois, the best company in America.
Before you Listen to Warren Buffett 09/21/2011
Claiming that his secretary pays a higher rate of income tax than he does brings up a few points.
- Before Buffett gets any money at all, it has should have already been taxed at the corporate rate of 35%.
- Most of Warren’s income comes from capital gains that is taxed at 15%, while his employees are paying income tax on wages - not a fair comparison.
- Other Buffet income would be from stock dividends, corporate officer draws, and other investment income which is taxed as income, but is not subject to payroll taxes - another tax saving advantage.
- Buffett has the option to reinvest all of the above income and write himself a paycheck instead. That way he could no longer complain about not paying his fair share.
What Happened? 09/15/2011
I have been taking the same highway and the same exit ramp to work
every day for the last 15 years. Depending on the timing, cars get
backed up waiting for the stop light to change in order to enter the
street from the ramp.
As I was in the back of the pack on the exit ramp waiting to move and my mind started shutting down as I got closer to Sundstrand (employee handbook requirement), I would get mesmerized by the sequence of turn signal lights indicating a left turn on all but two cars or so, whose drivers I assumed missed the turn indicating day at drivers’ ed class.
The left lane has no choice but to turn left, but the right lane has the option of turning right (or going straight if they wanted to back on the highway). I remember the turn signals flashing as it went through my mind that none of them were timed to flash together (mind shutting down).
Now as I take the same highway, the same exit ramp, and sit in the same long string of cars waiting at the same light to, thankfully, a different job, I notice that only my truck and maybe one other car are using their turn signals.
What happened?
As I was in the back of the pack on the exit ramp waiting to move and my mind started shutting down as I got closer to Sundstrand (employee handbook requirement), I would get mesmerized by the sequence of turn signal lights indicating a left turn on all but two cars or so, whose drivers I assumed missed the turn indicating day at drivers’ ed class.
The left lane has no choice but to turn left, but the right lane has the option of turning right (or going straight if they wanted to back on the highway). I remember the turn signals flashing as it went through my mind that none of them were timed to flash together (mind shutting down).
Now as I take the same highway, the same exit ramp, and sit in the same long string of cars waiting at the same light to, thankfully, a different job, I notice that only my truck and maybe one other car are using their turn signals.
What happened?
What are Loopholes? 09/14/2011
The connotation of this term from older
definitions indicates an ambiguity or omission in a tax law through
which an obligation may be evaded. The term as misused by politicians
in public discourse would seem to indicate that the tax code writers
left a provision out through which sneaky tax lawyers use to evade the
paying of legitimate taxes.
Not so - tax loopholes as politician speak of today are deductions, credits, and special carve outs. They include things like the mortgage interest deduction, energy tax credits, green energy incentives, and corporate and middle class welfare.
These are purposely written into the tax code for specific reasons, most notably to advance an agenda. They are used to pay off political contributors, advance certain industry segments, and promote an ideology.
Don’t let these guys try to convince you that there are just a bunch of mistakes in or creative interpretations of the tax code that simple need to be fixed. They put them there in the first place.
Not so - tax loopholes as politician speak of today are deductions, credits, and special carve outs. They include things like the mortgage interest deduction, energy tax credits, green energy incentives, and corporate and middle class welfare.
These are purposely written into the tax code for specific reasons, most notably to advance an agenda. They are used to pay off political contributors, advance certain industry segments, and promote an ideology.
Don’t let these guys try to convince you that there are just a bunch of mistakes in or creative interpretations of the tax code that simple need to be fixed. They put them there in the first place.
Public Education in Illinois 09/02/2011
Went down to the Illinois Regional Office of Education with a teaching certificate that had not been renewed since 1973.
“I’ve got this certificate that has not been renewed since 1973. What do I have to do to get this up to date so I can teach in the public schools in Illinois?”
With some difficulty the lady found my record in the State of Illinois teacher database. “It looks like it will take $148 to get this up to date.”
“Well that’s not too bad. What do I have to do to teach?”
“Nothing. Just write the check. And, oh… You have to take six hours of college classes within the next year. You can start right now, but you need to take those classes before next year.”
“Do you have a list of qualified classes that I need?”
“Everything is qualified. It doesn’t matter what you take. Do you have a hobby or something? You could take classes on that.”
“I’m sorry ma’am, but I have forgotten everything about my subject matter and teaching methods over the last 40 years. Don’t I need to brush up on that stuff?"
“Nope. Take whatever you want. Here’s your receipt. You’re all set.”
“I’ve got this certificate that has not been renewed since 1973. What do I have to do to get this up to date so I can teach in the public schools in Illinois?”
With some difficulty the lady found my record in the State of Illinois teacher database. “It looks like it will take $148 to get this up to date.”
“Well that’s not too bad. What do I have to do to teach?”
“Nothing. Just write the check. And, oh… You have to take six hours of college classes within the next year. You can start right now, but you need to take those classes before next year.”
“Do you have a list of qualified classes that I need?”
“Everything is qualified. It doesn’t matter what you take. Do you have a hobby or something? You could take classes on that.”
“I’m sorry ma’am, but I have forgotten everything about my subject matter and teaching methods over the last 40 years. Don’t I need to brush up on that stuff?"
“Nope. Take whatever you want. Here’s your receipt. You’re all set.”
The Poor Must Have a Few Bucks Left 08/19/2011
The printing of money through Quantitative Easing, the invasion of
Libya, drilling moratoriums, crop subsidies and price supports, and
other ingenious government decisions has raised the price of food and
fuel - a cruel blow to the poor, the working poor, and the lower middle
classes.
The state and federal tax increases on liquor and tobacco products hit the lower incomes hard.
The inability to get the economy up to a point where jobs are created affect the less skilled who are the first to get laid off and the last to be rehired.
Multi-state lotteries give the illusion of hope to those who can least afford to buy tickets.
Record numbers of unemployed, record numbers on food stamps, homelessness increasing at a staggering rate…
So the greedy Illinois legislature must have decided that the poor still have a few bucks to lose and are expanding casinos across the state.
The state and federal tax increases on liquor and tobacco products hit the lower incomes hard.
The inability to get the economy up to a point where jobs are created affect the less skilled who are the first to get laid off and the last to be rehired.
Multi-state lotteries give the illusion of hope to those who can least afford to buy tickets.
Record numbers of unemployed, record numbers on food stamps, homelessness increasing at a staggering rate…
So the greedy Illinois legislature must have decided that the poor still have a few bucks to lose and are expanding casinos across the state.
No to Recreational Drugs
I saw people die. I saw people who would die soon.
Anne would come to my un-air conditioned upstairs apartment to sleep in safety. She would show up about every five weeks or so when she could no longer stand the meth induced paranoia.
I don’t even know how it started or where we met. For all I know she just showed up one day, followed me home like a stray cat. She would climb the stairs give me a nod as she stared at the floor, “Hi,” and then flop down on the twin bed cot in a side room by the large double-hung window held open by a small two-by-two that took the place of a long-time broken counter weight cord. I would slide the curtain across the doorway and leave her alone.
I would come and go in what was a normal life back then as she slept - usually off and on for about three days. If I was there when she got up, I would make sure she had some real food before she left. Sometimes I would come home and she would be gone - no note, but the bedding was folded.
That was the extent of our relationship. Thin with death-pale skin and cheek bones showing, Anne cropped her dark black hair short. She didn’t tell me where she was from, but a South Dakota accent is hard to affect.
Anne belonged to a loosely knit group of speed freaks. A very, very odd fringe of the already strange drug culture. Little food, many cigarettes, no sleep for days created fear and conspiracy plots galore that fed on themselves and grew as the talk escalated. Parked cars meant surveillance; a click on the phone was a tap; crowds meant being tailed, strangers were not tolerated.
I came to a quiet thought on a stifling hot day while watching the wasps fly around the un-screened gap at the top of the window in the side room, that Anne hadn’t shown up for a long time. I couldn’t get too worried about the unpredictable, but I couldn’t shake her out of my mind either.
I remember my friend Jake tell me that he thought Anne and her mischief lived in a two-story house close to the center of town near the Italian Village Restaurant, but cautioned me never to go there: “Those people are jumpy and afraid of their shadows. You might as well poke a bumblebee nest. They have weapons and the cops have no need of them, and they expect the same.”
I was over that way to buy a used text book and curiosity got the best of me. I went up to the porch that looked like what Jake described and got not just a little bit scared. The faded blue wainscot with blistered and cracked paint was bulging down from the porch ceiling as though it was holding water, but that did not seem out of place for the times and the neighborhood. I knocked and a thin young man with face-gaunt of experience way beyond his years answered the door with a Camel unfiltered hanging from his lips. A smoke stained hand was holding the screen door from losing its bottom hinge. The lines of his face were accentuated by a heavy dark black three-day beard like empty winter trees define the mountain ridgelines.
He looked both ways down the street, checked for parked cars, then looked at me. "I suspicion ya'll don't live in this neighborhood?" he questioned with a slight sign of cautious trust in his eye tempered with that southern instinct to suspicion human nature.
“Hi, I’m a friend of Anne’s and I wondered if she was OK.” I managed to say trying to look over his shoulder as he moved to block my view.
“Ya'll ain't from this neighborhood, I can see. You Jim?” he answered back.
“I’m Jim.”
“Come on in. Smoke? All I's got is Camels. They's the only ones that keeps people from bummin' from me. And they smoke good.”
His low country dialect and language struck a few matches. Some of the country locals in Southern Illinois picked up the bias of the Chicago and other northern city students and took clear advantage of that to make fools of them. Rather than use the standard Mid-Northern English they had learned to pass with when they had to, they would affect their own English to corroborate the city-thinking of them as unsophisticated and stupid.
With that stage set, negotiations would always fall to the locals' advantage. Their "aw shucks" bumpkinisms allowed the unsuspecting to let their guards down, apply the safety, and holster their best weapons.
With my guard up and weapons ready (never learned where the safeties are), I continued with caution.
“Sure, thanks,” I said as we went into the old kitchen and sat. You could tell that the house came furnished, like most of the student rentals on this end of downtown. The stuff was expendable crap at the time - today mid-century modern priceless. The inside was dark - the windows were curtained with multiple layers of those thin, patterned Indian sheets that were sold at the import shop where the hippies bought their brass knickknacks.
Surprising clean - no dirty dishes, uncluttered counters, the yellowing of the vinyl due to age, not dirt. Contrary to some current Southern writers, meth addicts can get compulsively active.
“Anne spoke some about you. You were kind to her - she trusted you. You should feel special about that. Those that hang around here see narcs and haints around every corner. Yeah, she about trusted nobody, but she never said where you lived. We all appreciated the care she said you gave her and never asked about you.
"Anne had Type 1 Diabetes and she spent times not taking her medicine shots. She comaed for a month and died two weeks ago. Her parents came down and took her back home. It’s weird, Man, we don’t sleep much around here and there she was, in a coma.”
It was no use asking for his name. Either it was one of those dumb monikers that hippies herds used, or some other fake name. He smoked his Camel down to about 3/4 of an inch and stuffed it into a freshly cleaned ashtray.
“The cops don’t even check these things out anymore. They suspicioned we cleaned the house out before we called them. They tested for dope in her system, but they know it’s hopeless trying to bust anybody. Sometimes I think they wished we would all end up like 'at - all dead, and stuff. Take the worry and effort out of it.
“Monk and French left after that. I’m the only one left and the others don’t come around here anymore - speed freaks are nervous enough without they see dead people.”
“What was her last name?" I asked starting to put my guard down.
“Beats me, I ain't even sure her first name was Anne. The cops found her parents somehow - you might want to check with them. She started out in schooling for a degree down here. Could be she has records.
“Be needin' some crank…? For the studyin'…” nodding to the used blue Norton Anthology of English Lit I just picked up.
I stood up to leave, put my smoke out. “No thanks. Thanks for the smoke… and the info.”
"Here. It's just some green and yellows, not electrified crystal. Makes learnin' interesting. It's the least I can do for your helpin' Anne and all."
"Alright. Thanks." The unlabeled prescription bottle ended up in my pocket.
The twenty minute walk back seemed short as I was thinking. About the others that died or disappeared, the soon to die and the miracle survivors. And I thought about God Who surrounded me like a cloak. Without authority I spoke, "Not now. Maybe later. I'm not ready." My thoughts had no range, no echo, stopped short a few feed away. Talking in a padded room.
I never went to the cops or the school and tried to forget about Anne and her friends. I wouldn't have known what to say to her parents, if I found them. And I looked like somebody they could easily blame for her death. I know now what to say, but it's too late.
I think about her, now whenever I read about the marijuana stores popping up in the West. I know I couldn’t have done anything to save anybody from the lives and deaths they led, or prevented them from getting to that point of no return, and Anne was just one of many horrors I experienced in that dimension beyond sight and sound.
Suicides, faces scratched bloody from the quinine itch, skeleton bodies, weak bones, vacant eye sockets, insanity, family estrangement, and lots of hepatitis. A Hieronymus Bosch world of pain, poverty, sadness. It's the room in No Exit, except there are no other people - just yourself.
It can't be explained very well how the adventure of marijuana use becomes tolerated by the psyche to a level that the pursuit of greater drug adventures becomes risk-less. This rarely happens with alcohol - where you just get drunker and try a fruit flavored vodka.
Alcohol removes the fear of the danger to act; while marijuana, inhibiting the action, removes the fear of the adventure of the drug itself. Mentally surviving a session of extremely powerful pot, makes the idea of something even stronger less fearful. Once you enter the sad world of recreation drug use, you are then put into contact with people who tempt you with those adventures.
The horrors that will escalate as a result of universal access to marijuana are far more terrifying than the horrors that we are experiencing as a result of the illegal drug trade. And generally, the horrors of the illegal drug trade are given to those who we could not care less about, while the horrors of drug progression are placed as temptations to our kids, friends, and family.
Anne would come to my un-air conditioned upstairs apartment to sleep in safety. She would show up about every five weeks or so when she could no longer stand the meth induced paranoia.
I don’t even know how it started or where we met. For all I know she just showed up one day, followed me home like a stray cat. She would climb the stairs give me a nod as she stared at the floor, “Hi,” and then flop down on the twin bed cot in a side room by the large double-hung window held open by a small two-by-two that took the place of a long-time broken counter weight cord. I would slide the curtain across the doorway and leave her alone.
I would come and go in what was a normal life back then as she slept - usually off and on for about three days. If I was there when she got up, I would make sure she had some real food before she left. Sometimes I would come home and she would be gone - no note, but the bedding was folded.
That was the extent of our relationship. Thin with death-pale skin and cheek bones showing, Anne cropped her dark black hair short. She didn’t tell me where she was from, but a South Dakota accent is hard to affect.
Anne belonged to a loosely knit group of speed freaks. A very, very odd fringe of the already strange drug culture. Little food, many cigarettes, no sleep for days created fear and conspiracy plots galore that fed on themselves and grew as the talk escalated. Parked cars meant surveillance; a click on the phone was a tap; crowds meant being tailed, strangers were not tolerated.
I came to a quiet thought on a stifling hot day while watching the wasps fly around the un-screened gap at the top of the window in the side room, that Anne hadn’t shown up for a long time. I couldn’t get too worried about the unpredictable, but I couldn’t shake her out of my mind either.
I remember my friend Jake tell me that he thought Anne and her mischief lived in a two-story house close to the center of town near the Italian Village Restaurant, but cautioned me never to go there: “Those people are jumpy and afraid of their shadows. You might as well poke a bumblebee nest. They have weapons and the cops have no need of them, and they expect the same.”
I was over that way to buy a used text book and curiosity got the best of me. I went up to the porch that looked like what Jake described and got not just a little bit scared. The faded blue wainscot with blistered and cracked paint was bulging down from the porch ceiling as though it was holding water, but that did not seem out of place for the times and the neighborhood. I knocked and a thin young man with face-gaunt of experience way beyond his years answered the door with a Camel unfiltered hanging from his lips. A smoke stained hand was holding the screen door from losing its bottom hinge. The lines of his face were accentuated by a heavy dark black three-day beard like empty winter trees define the mountain ridgelines.
He looked both ways down the street, checked for parked cars, then looked at me. "I suspicion ya'll don't live in this neighborhood?" he questioned with a slight sign of cautious trust in his eye tempered with that southern instinct to suspicion human nature.
“Hi, I’m a friend of Anne’s and I wondered if she was OK.” I managed to say trying to look over his shoulder as he moved to block my view.
“Ya'll ain't from this neighborhood, I can see. You Jim?” he answered back.
“I’m Jim.”
“Come on in. Smoke? All I's got is Camels. They's the only ones that keeps people from bummin' from me. And they smoke good.”
His low country dialect and language struck a few matches. Some of the country locals in Southern Illinois picked up the bias of the Chicago and other northern city students and took clear advantage of that to make fools of them. Rather than use the standard Mid-Northern English they had learned to pass with when they had to, they would affect their own English to corroborate the city-thinking of them as unsophisticated and stupid.
With that stage set, negotiations would always fall to the locals' advantage. Their "aw shucks" bumpkinisms allowed the unsuspecting to let their guards down, apply the safety, and holster their best weapons.
With my guard up and weapons ready (never learned where the safeties are), I continued with caution.
“Sure, thanks,” I said as we went into the old kitchen and sat. You could tell that the house came furnished, like most of the student rentals on this end of downtown. The stuff was expendable crap at the time - today mid-century modern priceless. The inside was dark - the windows were curtained with multiple layers of those thin, patterned Indian sheets that were sold at the import shop where the hippies bought their brass knickknacks.
Surprising clean - no dirty dishes, uncluttered counters, the yellowing of the vinyl due to age, not dirt. Contrary to some current Southern writers, meth addicts can get compulsively active.
“Anne spoke some about you. You were kind to her - she trusted you. You should feel special about that. Those that hang around here see narcs and haints around every corner. Yeah, she about trusted nobody, but she never said where you lived. We all appreciated the care she said you gave her and never asked about you.
"Anne had Type 1 Diabetes and she spent times not taking her medicine shots. She comaed for a month and died two weeks ago. Her parents came down and took her back home. It’s weird, Man, we don’t sleep much around here and there she was, in a coma.”
It was no use asking for his name. Either it was one of those dumb monikers that hippies herds used, or some other fake name. He smoked his Camel down to about 3/4 of an inch and stuffed it into a freshly cleaned ashtray.
“The cops don’t even check these things out anymore. They suspicioned we cleaned the house out before we called them. They tested for dope in her system, but they know it’s hopeless trying to bust anybody. Sometimes I think they wished we would all end up like 'at - all dead, and stuff. Take the worry and effort out of it.
“Monk and French left after that. I’m the only one left and the others don’t come around here anymore - speed freaks are nervous enough without they see dead people.”
“What was her last name?" I asked starting to put my guard down.
“Beats me, I ain't even sure her first name was Anne. The cops found her parents somehow - you might want to check with them. She started out in schooling for a degree down here. Could be she has records.
“Be needin' some crank…? For the studyin'…” nodding to the used blue Norton Anthology of English Lit I just picked up.
I stood up to leave, put my smoke out. “No thanks. Thanks for the smoke… and the info.”
"Here. It's just some green and yellows, not electrified crystal. Makes learnin' interesting. It's the least I can do for your helpin' Anne and all."
"Alright. Thanks." The unlabeled prescription bottle ended up in my pocket.
The twenty minute walk back seemed short as I was thinking. About the others that died or disappeared, the soon to die and the miracle survivors. And I thought about God Who surrounded me like a cloak. Without authority I spoke, "Not now. Maybe later. I'm not ready." My thoughts had no range, no echo, stopped short a few feed away. Talking in a padded room.
I never went to the cops or the school and tried to forget about Anne and her friends. I wouldn't have known what to say to her parents, if I found them. And I looked like somebody they could easily blame for her death. I know now what to say, but it's too late.
I think about her, now whenever I read about the marijuana stores popping up in the West. I know I couldn’t have done anything to save anybody from the lives and deaths they led, or prevented them from getting to that point of no return, and Anne was just one of many horrors I experienced in that dimension beyond sight and sound.
Suicides, faces scratched bloody from the quinine itch, skeleton bodies, weak bones, vacant eye sockets, insanity, family estrangement, and lots of hepatitis. A Hieronymus Bosch world of pain, poverty, sadness. It's the room in No Exit, except there are no other people - just yourself.
It can't be explained very well how the adventure of marijuana use becomes tolerated by the psyche to a level that the pursuit of greater drug adventures becomes risk-less. This rarely happens with alcohol - where you just get drunker and try a fruit flavored vodka.
Alcohol removes the fear of the danger to act; while marijuana, inhibiting the action, removes the fear of the adventure of the drug itself. Mentally surviving a session of extremely powerful pot, makes the idea of something even stronger less fearful. Once you enter the sad world of recreation drug use, you are then put into contact with people who tempt you with those adventures.
The horrors that will escalate as a result of universal access to marijuana are far more terrifying than the horrors that we are experiencing as a result of the illegal drug trade. And generally, the horrors of the illegal drug trade are given to those who we could not care less about, while the horrors of drug progression are placed as temptations to our kids, friends, and family.
The City Sign Shop 08/12/2011
Somewhere after two years in the Army, during the
stagflation recession of the early 1970s, I ended up working for the
City Sign Shop. A definite deviation from my career path, but a paycheck
nonetheless.
[Back then when you lost your job, you went out and found another one. You probably would take a cut in pay, but working seemed to be the natural state people gravitated toward.]
Larry made all the green and white street signs for the city. The letters were reflective white which were placed by hand on a green aluminum plate in a fixture. Heat and suction fused the letters to the metal. I talked Larry into making a Desolation Row sign for me, but it disappeared when we moved out of the city.
For the most part my job was to ride around our quarter district with Gino in a pickup truck wearing a hard hat looking for signs that were damaged. Gino showed me the ropes: Drive, stop for coffee; drive, stop for coffee; drive, fix broken sign, then get some coffee, then drive.
Signs get damaged by vandals, car accidents, and storms, among other things. The odds of seeing a damaged sign were pretty good, especially in the bad parts of town. Most afternoons we ended up at Seventh Street Recreation playing pinball and drinking bad coffee for a couple of hours, then head back to the shop to unload the truck before quitting time.
Randy was the guy who drove the machine that painted the yellow and white stripes down the middle of the street. I would sit in a little chair on the back, place and pick up the orange cones during the paint job. Randy nearly killed me going down the dip on School Street near Schmeling Building Supply. When he hit the dip the back end of the truck went flying up and so did I. Luckily I landed back in the little chair.
We also used a template to paint the turn arrows. I tried to talk Randy into painting a right turn arrow in a left turn lane, but unlike me, Randy had a family and needed his job.
Randy also made cash by fixing and maintaining cars. His customers would bring them to the J.I. Case building where the City Sign Shop was located and Randy would work on them during the ever constant slow time. The sign shop was over-staffed and under-managed like all the other city departments in all the other cities in all the other states all across the country.
Management didn’t care who worked and how much, and the workers didn’t care how much time was wasted, how much money was spent, or how much personal business was conducted during working hours. Without the make work jobs, we each had about 15 - 20 hours of work to do each week. The rest of time was spent playing pinball or working side jobs.
The boss only cared when he was giving an alderman a tour. Tours were announced to the staff well in advance to either get us out on the road or find us something to do.
What activity there was in the City Sign Shop slowed down in the winter. I’m not sure why, but it may have something to do with the city workers signing up for extra duty to get overtime pay ploughing snow. Consequently, I was laid off in the fall. The next week I was re-roofing barns in German Valley.
[Back then when you lost your job, you went out and found another one. You probably would take a cut in pay, but working seemed to be the natural state people gravitated toward.]
Larry made all the green and white street signs for the city. The letters were reflective white which were placed by hand on a green aluminum plate in a fixture. Heat and suction fused the letters to the metal. I talked Larry into making a Desolation Row sign for me, but it disappeared when we moved out of the city.
For the most part my job was to ride around our quarter district with Gino in a pickup truck wearing a hard hat looking for signs that were damaged. Gino showed me the ropes: Drive, stop for coffee; drive, stop for coffee; drive, fix broken sign, then get some coffee, then drive.
Signs get damaged by vandals, car accidents, and storms, among other things. The odds of seeing a damaged sign were pretty good, especially in the bad parts of town. Most afternoons we ended up at Seventh Street Recreation playing pinball and drinking bad coffee for a couple of hours, then head back to the shop to unload the truck before quitting time.
Randy was the guy who drove the machine that painted the yellow and white stripes down the middle of the street. I would sit in a little chair on the back, place and pick up the orange cones during the paint job. Randy nearly killed me going down the dip on School Street near Schmeling Building Supply. When he hit the dip the back end of the truck went flying up and so did I. Luckily I landed back in the little chair.
We also used a template to paint the turn arrows. I tried to talk Randy into painting a right turn arrow in a left turn lane, but unlike me, Randy had a family and needed his job.
Randy also made cash by fixing and maintaining cars. His customers would bring them to the J.I. Case building where the City Sign Shop was located and Randy would work on them during the ever constant slow time. The sign shop was over-staffed and under-managed like all the other city departments in all the other cities in all the other states all across the country.
Management didn’t care who worked and how much, and the workers didn’t care how much time was wasted, how much money was spent, or how much personal business was conducted during working hours. Without the make work jobs, we each had about 15 - 20 hours of work to do each week. The rest of time was spent playing pinball or working side jobs.
The boss only cared when he was giving an alderman a tour. Tours were announced to the staff well in advance to either get us out on the road or find us something to do.
What activity there was in the City Sign Shop slowed down in the winter. I’m not sure why, but it may have something to do with the city workers signing up for extra duty to get overtime pay ploughing snow. Consequently, I was laid off in the fall. The next week I was re-roofing barns in German Valley.
Recall the Recall 08/10/2011
Even as an Illinoisan, who lives in a state that uses the penal system
as a governor retirement program, I don’t believe in the recall of an
elected officials. If the electorate is too stupid and lazy to research
the people they vote for, they should have to live with them until the
next election.
Save the Ham for the General 08/07/2011
I was not a real fighting soldier, I was a clerk. I have nothing but
admiration and respect for the people who become soldiers. But, I was
drafted and paid particular attention to convincing the Army that I
could be of better use to them than as a fighting soldier. I was
successful at that.
I ended up working for the US Army at Fort Dix, New Jersey as a finance clerk. The finance department was about 50% civilians working along side a bunch of E3s and E4s doing the same kind of work. We processed people out of the Army and gave them their last paycheck in cash. After the cashier counted out their cash the next counter was staffed by American Express selling travelers’ checks which they spelled cheques.
The finance office civilians always looked forward to paper day. Once a month the paper truck would stock the office storeroom with toilet paper and paper towels based upon the quantity used the previous month. After the stockroom was full, some of the civilians would take their monthly supply of toilet paper and paper towels out to their cars to take home.
I would watch them do this every month during the day, during working hours. It was pathetic - I felt the embarrassment that they never seemed to feel. They just considered it a perk and perfectly normal - something that had always been done; something that was expected of them.
To be fair most of the civilians did not participate in the paper day ritual. From their expressions, I assume they did not approve.
The person in charge of our office was a young lady Lieutenant (“You don’t have to call me Ma’am in here; Lieutenant Linda is what they call me.”) who seemed quite smart. I approached her on the topic of the stolen paper products. Lieutenant Linda kindly explained it as part of the budgeting process. The office budget was based on the previous year’s spending, plus 6%, plus any justifiable cost increases. If we spend less, we will have our budget cut next year. Besides, she explained, there’s not that many perks here.
I was impressed with our Lieutenant Linda for taking the time to not only explain the budgeting process to a lowly Spec-4, but also explaining how corruption is rewarded and becomes an integral part of the process and procedures at all levels of procurement.
———————————
The food in the Army was quite good. I got three squares a day. All I had to do was show up during the mess hall hours, sign my name and eat. The reason for signing names was to get an average count to determine the number a meals to prepare. But the odd thing was that the Buck Sergeant that made us sign in would make us sign four of five times for each meal.
I figured that some kind of fraud was being perpetrated, but I did not understand until I served KP. A refrigerated semi pulled up to the dock at the mess hall and we had to unload it. About 30% of the food made it to storage. The rest was parceled out according to rank. “Save that ham for the General.
The eggs and cheese go in the Colonel’s pile.” the cook would bark as the we unloaded the truck.
What was left over went into the freezer and cupboards for the troops. Part of the budgeting process, I guess.
I ended up working for the US Army at Fort Dix, New Jersey as a finance clerk. The finance department was about 50% civilians working along side a bunch of E3s and E4s doing the same kind of work. We processed people out of the Army and gave them their last paycheck in cash. After the cashier counted out their cash the next counter was staffed by American Express selling travelers’ checks which they spelled cheques.
The finance office civilians always looked forward to paper day. Once a month the paper truck would stock the office storeroom with toilet paper and paper towels based upon the quantity used the previous month. After the stockroom was full, some of the civilians would take their monthly supply of toilet paper and paper towels out to their cars to take home.
I would watch them do this every month during the day, during working hours. It was pathetic - I felt the embarrassment that they never seemed to feel. They just considered it a perk and perfectly normal - something that had always been done; something that was expected of them.
To be fair most of the civilians did not participate in the paper day ritual. From their expressions, I assume they did not approve.
The person in charge of our office was a young lady Lieutenant (“You don’t have to call me Ma’am in here; Lieutenant Linda is what they call me.”) who seemed quite smart. I approached her on the topic of the stolen paper products. Lieutenant Linda kindly explained it as part of the budgeting process. The office budget was based on the previous year’s spending, plus 6%, plus any justifiable cost increases. If we spend less, we will have our budget cut next year. Besides, she explained, there’s not that many perks here.
I was impressed with our Lieutenant Linda for taking the time to not only explain the budgeting process to a lowly Spec-4, but also explaining how corruption is rewarded and becomes an integral part of the process and procedures at all levels of procurement.
———————————
The food in the Army was quite good. I got three squares a day. All I had to do was show up during the mess hall hours, sign my name and eat. The reason for signing names was to get an average count to determine the number a meals to prepare. But the odd thing was that the Buck Sergeant that made us sign in would make us sign four of five times for each meal.
I figured that some kind of fraud was being perpetrated, but I did not understand until I served KP. A refrigerated semi pulled up to the dock at the mess hall and we had to unload it. About 30% of the food made it to storage. The rest was parceled out according to rank. “Save that ham for the General.
The eggs and cheese go in the Colonel’s pile.” the cook would bark as the we unloaded the truck.
What was left over went into the freezer and cupboards for the troops. Part of the budgeting process, I guess.
Chain of Fools 07/20/2011
Beware of the chained CPI - How Social Security will be cut, your taxes will go up, and you won’t even know it.
The government and economists admit it is difficult to measure cost of living increases, yet they are intrinsic to so many government formulas - one being the COLA adjustments to Social Security, another being the income tax brackets. (The CPI also effects federal pensions and veteran benefits among other things.)
Simply put the CPI-U is a measure of the price of a typical basket of goods purchased by an urban consumer.
But the government thinks that if steak gets too expensive, a typical consumer will switch to hamburger; and if hamburger goes up the switch will be to beans. So, their thinking goes, the CPI should be adjusted to the increase in the price of beans, not steak.
This works out well for them, because not only does it lower the CPI adjustment to Social Security, it puts us in higher tax brackets. This is a windfall savings for the government.
The income tax brackets are adjusted based upon the CPI. If you make $50,000 this year,and you are at the top of your tax bracket, and the CPI is 3%, your bracket will be adjusted to $51,500. That means you can get a 3% raise without going into the next bracket.
By chaining the CPI, the adjustment would be lowered, say to 2.5%. If you get a 3% raise, 0.5% of your new income would end up in a higher bracket. This is a windfall tax increase for the government and effects mostly the lower brackets.
This is how government works - they will be able to cut the deficit by cutting money to seniors and raising taxes on the lower income brackets without you even knowing about it.
That’s how government works.
The government and economists admit it is difficult to measure cost of living increases, yet they are intrinsic to so many government formulas - one being the COLA adjustments to Social Security, another being the income tax brackets. (The CPI also effects federal pensions and veteran benefits among other things.)
Simply put the CPI-U is a measure of the price of a typical basket of goods purchased by an urban consumer.
But the government thinks that if steak gets too expensive, a typical consumer will switch to hamburger; and if hamburger goes up the switch will be to beans. So, their thinking goes, the CPI should be adjusted to the increase in the price of beans, not steak.
This works out well for them, because not only does it lower the CPI adjustment to Social Security, it puts us in higher tax brackets. This is a windfall savings for the government.
The income tax brackets are adjusted based upon the CPI. If you make $50,000 this year,and you are at the top of your tax bracket, and the CPI is 3%, your bracket will be adjusted to $51,500. That means you can get a 3% raise without going into the next bracket.
By chaining the CPI, the adjustment would be lowered, say to 2.5%. If you get a 3% raise, 0.5% of your new income would end up in a higher bracket. This is a windfall tax increase for the government and effects mostly the lower brackets.
This is how government works - they will be able to cut the deficit by cutting money to seniors and raising taxes on the lower income brackets without you even knowing about it.
That’s how government works.
Fooling Some of the People All of the Time 07/18/2011
Hurry, if we don’t pass TARP the country will go broke; hurry, if we
don’t pass socialized medicine the country will go broke, hurry, if we
don’t pass the stimulus the country will go broke, hurry, if we don’t
raise the debt limit, the country will go broke.
The genius here is getting people to believe that spending stops us from going broke.
The genius here is getting people to believe that spending stops us from going broke.
Where is the Honor? 07/14/2011
In Wisconsin the governor passed a law limiting public union collective
bargaining power. In Illinois the governor kept the public union
bargaining power, but failed to honor the agreements.
Self Employment & Social Security 07/12/2011
If you are self employed, here is a tip.
The kids are working hard to help us poor elderly folk and we should show our appreciation by making the most of it.
First of all, incorporate.
When you reach the age of 62, reduce your wages to the Social Security maximum (currently $1180/month) and make up the difference with corporate officer draws (not subject to payroll taxes and not subject to Social Security maximum wage calculations for early benefits).
Start taking your early retirement Social Security benefits at the reduced (75%) rate.
Use the Social Security money to ladder purchase bonds (yields are running from 2.85% for short-term corporate to 6.0% for high yield corporate mutual funds) - or any other investment you find attractive - growing your business, for example.
When you reach full retirement age, cash in your investments, keep the earnings and pay back your original Social Security payments to the government - in a four-year example this would be around $80,000.
Then reapply for benefits at 100%. You can do that if you pay back the early retirement benefits.
In four years you can make between $5000 and $10,000 with the kids’ money on the least risky of investments.
Plus at full retirement age, if you want to continue working, you can make as much as you want and still get 100% of the benefits. The monthly Social Security benefits will easily be enough to pay for a condo in Naples plus a new boat.
The kids are working hard to help us poor elderly folk and we should show our appreciation by making the most of it.
First of all, incorporate.
When you reach the age of 62, reduce your wages to the Social Security maximum (currently $1180/month) and make up the difference with corporate officer draws (not subject to payroll taxes and not subject to Social Security maximum wage calculations for early benefits).
Start taking your early retirement Social Security benefits at the reduced (75%) rate.
Use the Social Security money to ladder purchase bonds (yields are running from 2.85% for short-term corporate to 6.0% for high yield corporate mutual funds) - or any other investment you find attractive - growing your business, for example.
When you reach full retirement age, cash in your investments, keep the earnings and pay back your original Social Security payments to the government - in a four-year example this would be around $80,000.
Then reapply for benefits at 100%. You can do that if you pay back the early retirement benefits.
In four years you can make between $5000 and $10,000 with the kids’ money on the least risky of investments.
Plus at full retirement age, if you want to continue working, you can make as much as you want and still get 100% of the benefits. The monthly Social Security benefits will easily be enough to pay for a condo in Naples plus a new boat.
Tax the Poor; Pay the Rich 07/10/2011
The perfect scheme for all those poor people hating, rich people loving Republicans:
Tax everybody at the same rate beginning with the first dollar they make up to an income of $107,000, then reduce the tax to zero on income over that. The richer they get, the smaller percent of their income is taxed.
Wait until the anticipated recipients accumulate a lifetime of wealth and assets, pay off their debts, and reduce their living expenses to a lifetime low.
Then redistribute that money on a graduated scale based upon income, with the richest people with the highest income over thirty-five years getting the most money and the poorest people with the lowest income over thirty five-years getting nothing.
Oh wait - we better add a yearly cost of living increase.
Allow the distribution to continue regardless of current income until death.
Tax everybody at the same rate beginning with the first dollar they make up to an income of $107,000, then reduce the tax to zero on income over that. The richer they get, the smaller percent of their income is taxed.
Wait until the anticipated recipients accumulate a lifetime of wealth and assets, pay off their debts, and reduce their living expenses to a lifetime low.
Then redistribute that money on a graduated scale based upon income, with the richest people with the highest income over thirty-five years getting the most money and the poorest people with the lowest income over thirty five-years getting nothing.
Oh wait - we better add a yearly cost of living increase.
Allow the distribution to continue regardless of current income until death.
War. What's it Good for? 07/09/2011
A war that the United States is involved in should not last more than
two weeks. It would be cheaper, it would save lives, and could end war
altogether.
When we decide to enter into a conflict, we go all in — completely wiping out any doubt as to who won and instilling in the enemy the idea that it was a bad idea to upset us in the first place. Unfortunately civilians would be killed. They always are.
We fire all the assets we can at the country in question, invade, set up an interim puppet government, establish a capitalistic republic, and turn it back over to the inhabitants when they learn to behave.
We have established that it’s OK to kill an enemy (UBL and the drone attacks), but not OK to interrogate an enemy (KSM and the drone attacks to avoid the interrogation question). A two-week war would indeed kill, while a 10-year war is torture.
The rest of the world would be mad at us, but they will always be mad at us and the anger for any particular conflict will fade. Rather than have that anger drawn out for years as we try to be humanitarian in the rules of engagement, bomb the country back into the stone age (which may not be all that far) and start over.
Planning and logistics - one month. War - two weeks.
After a few wars all we would have to do is the planning and logistics.
When we decide to enter into a conflict, we go all in — completely wiping out any doubt as to who won and instilling in the enemy the idea that it was a bad idea to upset us in the first place. Unfortunately civilians would be killed. They always are.
We fire all the assets we can at the country in question, invade, set up an interim puppet government, establish a capitalistic republic, and turn it back over to the inhabitants when they learn to behave.
We have established that it’s OK to kill an enemy (UBL and the drone attacks), but not OK to interrogate an enemy (KSM and the drone attacks to avoid the interrogation question). A two-week war would indeed kill, while a 10-year war is torture.
The rest of the world would be mad at us, but they will always be mad at us and the anger for any particular conflict will fade. Rather than have that anger drawn out for years as we try to be humanitarian in the rules of engagement, bomb the country back into the stone age (which may not be all that far) and start over.
Planning and logistics - one month. War - two weeks.
After a few wars all we would have to do is the planning and logistics.
Listening to that Duquesne Whistle
The City of Carbondale, Illinois, named for a long lost coal industry, is
bisected by train tracks, and appropriately so. The city was founded
based upon the proposed location of the Illinois Central tracks and of
course, the information was accurate.
In the 1960’s The City of New Orleans, The Panama Limited, The Seminole, along with numerous freight trains, all stopped at Carbondale. And I do mean stopped. True southern patience was needed to cross the town east to west. Home to Southern Illinois University, the legend was that a forsaken student committed suicide by laying on the railroad tracks. Cause of death was determined to be starvation.
Trains brought the Blues from Mississippi and Louisiana to Chicago. Trains and train themes kept rollin’ throughout Bob Dylan’s songs in 1966. They still do. Trains and their tracks replaced the power symbol of life’s journey from the Mississippi River in the slower more natural times of Huck Finn. Mark Twain’s river and St. Louis, Missouri are 100 miles, by train, from Carbondale, Illinois.
The concert in 1966 was at Kiel Auditorium at 15th and Market in St. Louis. Kiel was, as a 1934 mayoral proclamation stated, “… designed to enrich the peoples’ lives and…add to the attractiveness and popularity of our City as it will bring to us great conventions and cultural activities.” Well, I guess so.
Linda Ihne gave me my first Bob record in 1964 – The Times They Are A’changin.’. The first time the needle hit the shiny unscratched Columbia 360 Sound surface, hearing Bob for the first time was similar to my first shot of whiskey. A sudden rejected shock to the system followed by a very warm mellow feeling, and then followed by an irrational desire for more, lots more.
Like that whiskey, Bob’s voice is an acquired taste. Once acquired, tattooed to your soul. This acquired appreciation was much to the displeasure of the residents of the third floor of the Thompson Point dorm at Southern Illinois University in 1965. For those first-in-the-families, middle class college freshman, the beauty of that voice singing folk poetry was yet to be acquired.
It was the folk music. I loved folk music and I still do. This music, along with the indoctrination of a secondary education, shaped my naïve politics at the time. Except for the genius of folk blues, folk music lyrics seemed to always portray envy for the wealthy and powerful and champion the poor and weak - those that the left consider the folks. Bob, in order to succeed at the time, assumed these themes – and it worked well; so well in fact, he is yet to shake that dust off his feet.
Bob’s music then and today is like no other form of expression. From “One Too Many Mornings” to “Dark Eyes,” “Lay Down your Weary Tune,” “Every Grain of Sand,” “Tomorrow is a Long Time,” “Girl of the North Country,” “Farewell Angelina,” The beauty of the imagery, the power of the metaphors, and the gentle beauty of a ghostly voice connects to an undefined emotion of a vague understanding and comfort.
The common man, the working man, the passionate lover, the soldier, the nomad, the fortune hunter, the outlaw, and other personae of lower classes, travel through so many of his rock tunes as well. Folk music really has nothing to do with an unamplified guitar. The themes and stories are what define it and Bob’s genius is able to submerse in it, understand it, and capture it. Being able to convincingly become the poor nomad, the black blues-man, the oldest son of a crazy man, the soldier, or the grandson of a duck trapper, while being a very rich person isolated from the very things he writes and sings about, is skilled artistry, indeed.
It was the gentle beauty of the folk songs that drew me to the concert in 1966. I took a train to St. Louis – of course. And while riding on that train going west, I was alert in anticipation of seeing the object a misplaced admiration.
He divided his concerts. The first half was just him, his guitar and harmonica. He was speed freak thin with a bush of a hairdo. He looked like a deciduous tree with a guitar. I remember “Vision of Johanna,” “Maggie’s Farm,” and “It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Bleeding)”, but I was waiting for “One Too Many Mornings”. The anti-war and civil rights stuff was already starting to lose his interest, and his days of pandering to those groups were over. As they have been throughout history, useful then cast aside, they were no longer needed. The next step in fame and money did not include them.
[The electric barrier at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival was broken by Dylan singing “Maggie's Farm,” - a folk song.]
Every day my memory grows dimmer and the rest of this set is a sober blur. He left the stage after acoustical versions from Bringing It All Back Home.
It wasn’t that he was playing the second set with an electric band that got me upset, rocking with drums, electricity, and such; it was because it was so bad. They were terrible. There were local bar bands doing better – much better than Bob and The Band. Timing was off, notes were missed, and it all came through as unpolished noise. They were just bad. Then it got worse.
Bob turned around from pointing his Fender at Sandy (Levon?) and with his businesslike anger looked the audience square in the eye vengefully for two long seconds, hit a few notes and proceeded to butcher “One Too Many Mornings”. It was like everybody had significantly pissed him off. He was making a point about just who this music belonged too. On the now released Live 1966, “One Too Many Mornings” appears to have gotten better, but not enough to make it pleasant.
After hearing the 1966 version from Live 1966, my wife said she liked it. I asked her if she would have liked it if it was not Bob doing it. She said, “No, it’s not done very well.” By the time of the English tour, the band was getting marginally better. Idol worship deadens discernment.
As Peter Townsend would get lost in rock madness two years earlier and bash his guitar into junk, inventing the musical version of auto-destructive art, Bob proceeded to bash his music into irreparable trash leaving it there on the stage floor for the roadies to clean up.
So more appropriately the boos and Judas heckling were because Bob outwardly turned his back on the leftist folkies, but, for some of us they were simply editorials for a mediocre performance that should have gotten the hook.
Over time he did make it up, though. Twenty-nine years later in Boston, December 9th, in a time of reconciliation, Dylan was actually performing concerts that seemed to apologize for everything – the drunken concerts, the bad live music, the butchering of the quite reflective poetry of the folk songs, the rude interviews. Get a copy of that concert, just for the most moving Bob performance of “One Too Many Mornings,” where instead of insults shouts of “Thank you, Bob,” and “Beautiful, Bob!!” were passionately expressed.
Bob Dylan aged himself into customer service.
On the empty train ride going back to Carbondale, I went to that rounded-back last car, opened the door, leaned on the fences facing the past, and watched the tracks disappear into Missouri.
Looking back, at these phantoms, as a simple, naïve, too sensitive farm boy, the betrayal on a cool night of bliss still haunts me. I felt the shame of it for many years, not wanting to be associated with the weakness of Pete Seeger - Mighty Wind purists, who still think they live on higher ground, until the focus of my anger became clear. It was not that Bob gave up music about the folks – he never did.
A few years ago, what’s left of The Band came to town. It was their live version of Blind Willie McTell that made me realize something. It was bad enough that Danko looked like he had eaten a few of the original members of the band, but the music was bad and I had grown to recognize just how bad good artists can be. Bad efforts pissed me off.
All the lefty folk purists are looking back, now. After 30 years, they are realizing, finally, that Bob did the right thing by amplifying his growth. They gave him a Grammy in real categories, they honored him at the Kennedy Center, and they made new documentaries and (Lord help us) a Broadway play. Some still cannot define the snubs of the electric conversion. Others feel the shame of the jeers from the Beach Boys fans at quite boys in college dorms in 1965 that played that awful crap of a voice so loud. Bob is now always at or near the top of the 100 Best something or another these days.
The writers and critics dissect the times leading up to the electric conversion but they are all again missing the point. The documentaries, the looking back stories, all seem to end with the electric conversion of Bob Dylan. The recent Grammy Awards were an afterthought to honor an aging legend.
Time Out of Mind – a rather saddening and rarely played recording received three Grammy Awards — Album of the Year, Best Contemporary Folk Album and Best Male Rock Vocal. While it seems Bob is being honored for one thing or another, his best stuff it still being ignored by these backward looking, overly conservative progressives. Bob has done great work between 1966 and 2012 and it looks like it will be another 30 years before they discover and reward the best of his folk music.
Although train travel in the 1960’s was far from poetic, Amtrak just doesn’t have the rhythm and meter that Illinois Central had. People don’t ride real trains anymore. They allow too much time for reflection.
In the 1960’s The City of New Orleans, The Panama Limited, The Seminole, along with numerous freight trains, all stopped at Carbondale. And I do mean stopped. True southern patience was needed to cross the town east to west. Home to Southern Illinois University, the legend was that a forsaken student committed suicide by laying on the railroad tracks. Cause of death was determined to be starvation.
Trains brought the Blues from Mississippi and Louisiana to Chicago. Trains and train themes kept rollin’ throughout Bob Dylan’s songs in 1966. They still do. Trains and their tracks replaced the power symbol of life’s journey from the Mississippi River in the slower more natural times of Huck Finn. Mark Twain’s river and St. Louis, Missouri are 100 miles, by train, from Carbondale, Illinois.
The concert in 1966 was at Kiel Auditorium at 15th and Market in St. Louis. Kiel was, as a 1934 mayoral proclamation stated, “… designed to enrich the peoples’ lives and…add to the attractiveness and popularity of our City as it will bring to us great conventions and cultural activities.” Well, I guess so.
Linda Ihne gave me my first Bob record in 1964 – The Times They Are A’changin.’. The first time the needle hit the shiny unscratched Columbia 360 Sound surface, hearing Bob for the first time was similar to my first shot of whiskey. A sudden rejected shock to the system followed by a very warm mellow feeling, and then followed by an irrational desire for more, lots more.
Like that whiskey, Bob’s voice is an acquired taste. Once acquired, tattooed to your soul. This acquired appreciation was much to the displeasure of the residents of the third floor of the Thompson Point dorm at Southern Illinois University in 1965. For those first-in-the-families, middle class college freshman, the beauty of that voice singing folk poetry was yet to be acquired.
It was the folk music. I loved folk music and I still do. This music, along with the indoctrination of a secondary education, shaped my naïve politics at the time. Except for the genius of folk blues, folk music lyrics seemed to always portray envy for the wealthy and powerful and champion the poor and weak - those that the left consider the folks. Bob, in order to succeed at the time, assumed these themes – and it worked well; so well in fact, he is yet to shake that dust off his feet.
Bob’s music then and today is like no other form of expression. From “One Too Many Mornings” to “Dark Eyes,” “Lay Down your Weary Tune,” “Every Grain of Sand,” “Tomorrow is a Long Time,” “Girl of the North Country,” “Farewell Angelina,” The beauty of the imagery, the power of the metaphors, and the gentle beauty of a ghostly voice connects to an undefined emotion of a vague understanding and comfort.
The common man, the working man, the passionate lover, the soldier, the nomad, the fortune hunter, the outlaw, and other personae of lower classes, travel through so many of his rock tunes as well. Folk music really has nothing to do with an unamplified guitar. The themes and stories are what define it and Bob’s genius is able to submerse in it, understand it, and capture it. Being able to convincingly become the poor nomad, the black blues-man, the oldest son of a crazy man, the soldier, or the grandson of a duck trapper, while being a very rich person isolated from the very things he writes and sings about, is skilled artistry, indeed.
It was the gentle beauty of the folk songs that drew me to the concert in 1966. I took a train to St. Louis – of course. And while riding on that train going west, I was alert in anticipation of seeing the object a misplaced admiration.
He divided his concerts. The first half was just him, his guitar and harmonica. He was speed freak thin with a bush of a hairdo. He looked like a deciduous tree with a guitar. I remember “Vision of Johanna,” “Maggie’s Farm,” and “It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Bleeding)”, but I was waiting for “One Too Many Mornings”. The anti-war and civil rights stuff was already starting to lose his interest, and his days of pandering to those groups were over. As they have been throughout history, useful then cast aside, they were no longer needed. The next step in fame and money did not include them.
[The electric barrier at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival was broken by Dylan singing “Maggie's Farm,” - a folk song.]
Every day my memory grows dimmer and the rest of this set is a sober blur. He left the stage after acoustical versions from Bringing It All Back Home.
It wasn’t that he was playing the second set with an electric band that got me upset, rocking with drums, electricity, and such; it was because it was so bad. They were terrible. There were local bar bands doing better – much better than Bob and The Band. Timing was off, notes were missed, and it all came through as unpolished noise. They were just bad. Then it got worse.
Bob turned around from pointing his Fender at Sandy (Levon?) and with his businesslike anger looked the audience square in the eye vengefully for two long seconds, hit a few notes and proceeded to butcher “One Too Many Mornings”. It was like everybody had significantly pissed him off. He was making a point about just who this music belonged too. On the now released Live 1966, “One Too Many Mornings” appears to have gotten better, but not enough to make it pleasant.
After hearing the 1966 version from Live 1966, my wife said she liked it. I asked her if she would have liked it if it was not Bob doing it. She said, “No, it’s not done very well.” By the time of the English tour, the band was getting marginally better. Idol worship deadens discernment.
As Peter Townsend would get lost in rock madness two years earlier and bash his guitar into junk, inventing the musical version of auto-destructive art, Bob proceeded to bash his music into irreparable trash leaving it there on the stage floor for the roadies to clean up.
So more appropriately the boos and Judas heckling were because Bob outwardly turned his back on the leftist folkies, but, for some of us they were simply editorials for a mediocre performance that should have gotten the hook.
Over time he did make it up, though. Twenty-nine years later in Boston, December 9th, in a time of reconciliation, Dylan was actually performing concerts that seemed to apologize for everything – the drunken concerts, the bad live music, the butchering of the quite reflective poetry of the folk songs, the rude interviews. Get a copy of that concert, just for the most moving Bob performance of “One Too Many Mornings,” where instead of insults shouts of “Thank you, Bob,” and “Beautiful, Bob!!” were passionately expressed.
Bob Dylan aged himself into customer service.
On the empty train ride going back to Carbondale, I went to that rounded-back last car, opened the door, leaned on the fences facing the past, and watched the tracks disappear into Missouri.
Looking back, at these phantoms, as a simple, naïve, too sensitive farm boy, the betrayal on a cool night of bliss still haunts me. I felt the shame of it for many years, not wanting to be associated with the weakness of Pete Seeger - Mighty Wind purists, who still think they live on higher ground, until the focus of my anger became clear. It was not that Bob gave up music about the folks – he never did.
A few years ago, what’s left of The Band came to town. It was their live version of Blind Willie McTell that made me realize something. It was bad enough that Danko looked like he had eaten a few of the original members of the band, but the music was bad and I had grown to recognize just how bad good artists can be. Bad efforts pissed me off.
All the lefty folk purists are looking back, now. After 30 years, they are realizing, finally, that Bob did the right thing by amplifying his growth. They gave him a Grammy in real categories, they honored him at the Kennedy Center, and they made new documentaries and (Lord help us) a Broadway play. Some still cannot define the snubs of the electric conversion. Others feel the shame of the jeers from the Beach Boys fans at quite boys in college dorms in 1965 that played that awful crap of a voice so loud. Bob is now always at or near the top of the 100 Best something or another these days.
The writers and critics dissect the times leading up to the electric conversion but they are all again missing the point. The documentaries, the looking back stories, all seem to end with the electric conversion of Bob Dylan. The recent Grammy Awards were an afterthought to honor an aging legend.
Time Out of Mind – a rather saddening and rarely played recording received three Grammy Awards — Album of the Year, Best Contemporary Folk Album and Best Male Rock Vocal. While it seems Bob is being honored for one thing or another, his best stuff it still being ignored by these backward looking, overly conservative progressives. Bob has done great work between 1966 and 2012 and it looks like it will be another 30 years before they discover and reward the best of his folk music.
Although train travel in the 1960’s was far from poetic, Amtrak just doesn’t have the rhythm and meter that Illinois Central had. People don’t ride real trains anymore. They allow too much time for reflection.
“I used to think that myself and my songs were the same thing. But I don’t believe that any more. There’s myself and there’s my song, which I hope is everybody’s song.”
Bob Dylan
It Doesn't Matter who is in Charge 07/07/2011
“We just lost, Larry. What do we do? Four years of this idiot will ruin the country.”
“It’s going to be tough, Bob. Our interests will certainly suffer, but at least the bonehead will be vilified by the end of his second year. It will be fun to watch, and participate while everybody sees the failed policies, the corruption, the wasted money, the hypocrisy, the botched foreign adventures, and boondoggle programs.”
“That sounds great, but what makes you think all that will happen. And, even if it does, will it get reported.”
“Oh, it will get reported. The news and blog outlets that are on our side will surely broadcast it. Plus, the press on the other side will get disillusioned as failure after failure follows broken promise after broken promise.”
“But, Larry, how can you be sure?”
“It’s easy. Government doesn’t work and will continue to be a parody of itself, it doesn’t matter who is in charge - they will fail. The government always fails, I can guarantee that. That’s the trick the media uses.
“Waste, fraud, corruption, failed policies, ill-conceived ideas, unintended consequences, botched wars, miss-appropriated resources, incompetent management, kickbacks, lies, abuse of power, scandals, and outright crimes are the nature of any administration. It never changes.
“Oh, occasionally, when the government throws enough money at a problem, some progress is made, but then we just expose the cost/benefit ratio and it becomes another failure.”
“I get it now, Bob. Kinda makes me worry more about winning than losing.”
“It’s going to be tough, Bob. Our interests will certainly suffer, but at least the bonehead will be vilified by the end of his second year. It will be fun to watch, and participate while everybody sees the failed policies, the corruption, the wasted money, the hypocrisy, the botched foreign adventures, and boondoggle programs.”
“That sounds great, but what makes you think all that will happen. And, even if it does, will it get reported.”
“Oh, it will get reported. The news and blog outlets that are on our side will surely broadcast it. Plus, the press on the other side will get disillusioned as failure after failure follows broken promise after broken promise.”
“But, Larry, how can you be sure?”
“It’s easy. Government doesn’t work and will continue to be a parody of itself, it doesn’t matter who is in charge - they will fail. The government always fails, I can guarantee that. That’s the trick the media uses.
“Waste, fraud, corruption, failed policies, ill-conceived ideas, unintended consequences, botched wars, miss-appropriated resources, incompetent management, kickbacks, lies, abuse of power, scandals, and outright crimes are the nature of any administration. It never changes.
“Oh, occasionally, when the government throws enough money at a problem, some progress is made, but then we just expose the cost/benefit ratio and it becomes another failure.”
“I get it now, Bob. Kinda makes me worry more about winning than losing.”
A Country Scholar 07/02/2011
William Jennings was a hermit. He lived off of the main road to
Cowden with his dogs, in a an old gray wood weathered house they say was
held together by the new roof he had done 15 years ago. He would ride
his bicycle into town in the fall to get supplies to tide him through
the winter.
My friend, Bobby Beck was friends with William Jennings, but I never met him. Bobby talked about William Jennings with respect. Bobby honored William Jennings, and at the time, I didn’t know why.
When I was graduated from college with a teaching degree, I had no money and a ‘55 Chevy that I figured had about 200 miles left in it. So I drew a 100 mile radius around Carbondale, Illinois and applied for teaching jobs within the circle.
When I pulled into Herrick, Illinois for the interview, there were more horses pulling wagons than cars parked in the street. Uncontrollably laughing to myself, I knew I had to live here.
I applied for the job, was hired on the spot, and when I got back to Carbondale and put the Chevy into park, the gearshift rotated loose around the steering column. I traded it in for $50 and started making $55.54/month payments on on a 1966 VW square-back sedan with a soon to be announced bad muffler.
In my first night in Herrick I met Bobby Beck. He lived with his two bloodhounds in a log cabin he moved, log by log, fireplace stone by stone from from Kentucky and rebuilt it in Illinois. In his cabin he ran the Herrick Sportsman Club, an excuse for selling and drinking liquor in a dry town.
Bobby and I became friends as he taught me how to canoe the Kaskaskia, shoot .38 and .45 pistols at cans and other debris in the creek, and the beer value of a string of catfish to a riverside restaurant after a long day of fishing.
Bobby had a eighth-grade education and a scholarly love for Henry David Thoreau. He would tell me, a college educated English teacher, far more about Thoreau’s life and philosophy than I ever thought was possible to know. He told me about the beans Therew, as he pronounced it, would hybrid near Waldon pond, the well-worn path he made into town, and how his hypocrisy regarding simplicity seemed to discredit his writings.
I would discuss Thoreau with Bobby as his friend Ralph Sauer would try to change the subject to Hemingway, something Ralph knew about.
It’s hard to express how the elite intellectualism I acquired in college fell away like William Jennings’s siding as this country bootlegger analyzed the works of Thoreau in a manner only a person who lived the life Thoreau had espoused could.
Recently on the way down to Memphis, we stopped in Herrick to find Bobby. A neighbor told us he was in bad shape and in a nursing home in Sullivan so on the way back we detoured to visit him. He didn’t recognize me, but I did get to see, once again, this symbol of self-taught America, who changed my direction and kept me from becoming the Godless, arrogant, self-absorbed, over-educated snob who thought he knew what was in everybody else’s best interest.
Bobby, you helped make me the man I have become and I would like to think you would approve. I’m sorry we couldn’t visit.
My friend, Bobby Beck was friends with William Jennings, but I never met him. Bobby talked about William Jennings with respect. Bobby honored William Jennings, and at the time, I didn’t know why.
When I was graduated from college with a teaching degree, I had no money and a ‘55 Chevy that I figured had about 200 miles left in it. So I drew a 100 mile radius around Carbondale, Illinois and applied for teaching jobs within the circle.
When I pulled into Herrick, Illinois for the interview, there were more horses pulling wagons than cars parked in the street. Uncontrollably laughing to myself, I knew I had to live here.
I applied for the job, was hired on the spot, and when I got back to Carbondale and put the Chevy into park, the gearshift rotated loose around the steering column. I traded it in for $50 and started making $55.54/month payments on on a 1966 VW square-back sedan with a soon to be announced bad muffler.
In my first night in Herrick I met Bobby Beck. He lived with his two bloodhounds in a log cabin he moved, log by log, fireplace stone by stone from from Kentucky and rebuilt it in Illinois. In his cabin he ran the Herrick Sportsman Club, an excuse for selling and drinking liquor in a dry town.
Bobby and I became friends as he taught me how to canoe the Kaskaskia, shoot .38 and .45 pistols at cans and other debris in the creek, and the beer value of a string of catfish to a riverside restaurant after a long day of fishing.
Bobby had a eighth-grade education and a scholarly love for Henry David Thoreau. He would tell me, a college educated English teacher, far more about Thoreau’s life and philosophy than I ever thought was possible to know. He told me about the beans Therew, as he pronounced it, would hybrid near Waldon pond, the well-worn path he made into town, and how his hypocrisy regarding simplicity seemed to discredit his writings.
I would discuss Thoreau with Bobby as his friend Ralph Sauer would try to change the subject to Hemingway, something Ralph knew about.
It’s hard to express how the elite intellectualism I acquired in college fell away like William Jennings’s siding as this country bootlegger analyzed the works of Thoreau in a manner only a person who lived the life Thoreau had espoused could.
Recently on the way down to Memphis, we stopped in Herrick to find Bobby. A neighbor told us he was in bad shape and in a nursing home in Sullivan so on the way back we detoured to visit him. He didn’t recognize me, but I did get to see, once again, this symbol of self-taught America, who changed my direction and kept me from becoming the Godless, arrogant, self-absorbed, over-educated snob who thought he knew what was in everybody else’s best interest.
Bobby, you helped make me the man I have become and I would like to think you would approve. I’m sorry we couldn’t visit.
For the People who Can Be Fooled All the Time 07/01/2011
My point here is not advocate whether a certain tax incentive should
or should not be repealed, but to show just how stupid politicians think
you are.
——————————————————————————————————————
The president cited “corporate jets” or “corporate jet owners” three times during an eight-minute opening statement on the deficit and debt limit, and three more times during a six-minute response to the first question.
The implication here is, first of all, we should hate people who fly in corporate jets because we can’t and they make their money off the backs of the working man.
The second implication is that removing the corporate jet “loophole” would significantly help the deficit and debt problem created by the stimulus which put the incentive (now a loophole) into law in the first place. It was part of the 2009 stimulus bill the president signed on the (supply side) theory that it would spur new purchases of corporate jets and help an ailing U.S. industry: Cessna and Gulfstream alone have plants in 15 U.S. cities.
The provision, if adopted, would add $3 billion in taxes (not taking into consideration repealing a provision that was put into place to increase wealth and, therefore, taxes) in 10 years. That would allow us to reduce the deficit by 0.018% per year (provided it wasn’t increased by other spending).
So let’s all envy the corporate rich folks, slow the sales of corporate jets (built by the working man, by the way), and not address the real issue of irresponsible spending of our money by self-serving politicians.
——————————————————————————————————————
The president cited “corporate jets” or “corporate jet owners” three times during an eight-minute opening statement on the deficit and debt limit, and three more times during a six-minute response to the first question.
The implication here is, first of all, we should hate people who fly in corporate jets because we can’t and they make their money off the backs of the working man.
The second implication is that removing the corporate jet “loophole” would significantly help the deficit and debt problem created by the stimulus which put the incentive (now a loophole) into law in the first place. It was part of the 2009 stimulus bill the president signed on the (supply side) theory that it would spur new purchases of corporate jets and help an ailing U.S. industry: Cessna and Gulfstream alone have plants in 15 U.S. cities.
The provision, if adopted, would add $3 billion in taxes (not taking into consideration repealing a provision that was put into place to increase wealth and, therefore, taxes) in 10 years. That would allow us to reduce the deficit by 0.018% per year (provided it wasn’t increased by other spending).
So let’s all envy the corporate rich folks, slow the sales of corporate jets (built by the working man, by the way), and not address the real issue of irresponsible spending of our money by self-serving politicians.
Applying for a Job 06/28/2011
Dear Boss,
I have enjoyed working here these past several years. You have paid me very well, given me benefits beyond belief. I have 3-4 months off per year and a pension plan that will pay my salary till the day I die and a health plan that most people can only dream about.
I plan to take the next 12-18 months to find a new position. During this time I will show up for work when it is convenient. In addition, I fully expect to draw my full salary and all the other perks associated with my current job.
And if my search for this new job proves fruitless, I will be back with no loss in pay or status. Before you say anything, remember that you have no choice in the matter. I can and will do this.
Sincerely,
Every Senator or Congressman running for President.
I have enjoyed working here these past several years. You have paid me very well, given me benefits beyond belief. I have 3-4 months off per year and a pension plan that will pay my salary till the day I die and a health plan that most people can only dream about.
I plan to take the next 12-18 months to find a new position. During this time I will show up for work when it is convenient. In addition, I fully expect to draw my full salary and all the other perks associated with my current job.
And if my search for this new job proves fruitless, I will be back with no loss in pay or status. Before you say anything, remember that you have no choice in the matter. I can and will do this.
Sincerely,
Every Senator or Congressman running for President.
The Consummate Politician 06/21/2012
Rising up inside the pay-to-play system of Chicago politics, creates a sense of normalcy and acceptance in the practice of quid pro quo. Blago recognized the opportunity of getting something for the vacated position of Obama’s Senate seat as natural as the real estate broker recognizes the value of serving on the County Planning Commission.
Most of us might think of these situations as examples of corruption and fraud, but a politician sees them as natural as we would think of a stock tip, buying the boss’s lunch, making a business referral, getting a client good seats at the game, telling your mate how good she looks, saying please and thank you.
But, just like Mexican families wait their turn for Dad to get that Federale job with a paid vacation and la mordida, Chicago politicians watch as their mentors do favors, trade access, and provide for those who help them in the tradition of Mayor Big Bill Thompson with his friend Al Capone. Both see it as a fact of life, a tradition, and a business model - surely not anything to be ashamed about - nothing unethical or illegal, or out of the ordinary. It’s how government works.
Another example is from the next biggest city in America with the actions of Anthony Weiner. What he did on Twitter was just weird and he probably knew it was wrong and got his thrill from it being so. What he had no compunction about was lying to just about everybody in American and not recognizing the evil in doing that. As a child of New York politics, he, like Blago, saw no wrong in doing the simple, natural act of lying to the public, something on which he was weaned and raised.
The act of lying to a politician feels as innocent and routine as a waitress clearing a table, a mechanic sorting his tools, an engineer doing a stress analysis, a clerk balancing his drawer, a realtor putting out open house signs - just part of the job.
Whenever has a politician gotten anywhere by telling the truth - how many have been elected by saying that they were going to make backdoor deals, waste money, lavish themselves, take and give bribes, accept money for favorable legislation, use government property to take vacations and support their private businesses, establish networks to provide for them after they are discovered?
Weiner was a liar long before the scandal. He, along with the others in his ecosystem, have been and still are being rewarded for their lies with money and satisfied ambition. Why would he think that it would ever change? Does a fish know he’s wet?
Weiner and Blago are the just the tip of the boil - the ugly, visible, painful part of a smelly, pus-filled core that just keeps getting bigger and never gets lanced.
They grow up in this system and innocently believe they are doing nothing wrong. You can’t really fault them any more than you can fault your pet mountain lion for scratching your face off, and the system will never change.
Just keep this in mind when you fall into following one of these people believing that they can and are in it to save the country, end poverty, improve the economy, provide promised services, create jobs, or insure fairness and justice. Also keep it mind when they offer to develop a helpful new government program.
They are lying to you, they know it, they know it’s easy to get away with it, they have no respect for your blind belief in them, and they see no evil in their actions. They are there to use the power you loaned them and the money they take from you to enrich themselves.
How Government Works 06/16/2011
The nation’s capital is home to a bustling taxicab business — some 7,300
licensed cabs. That works out to 12 cabs for every 1,000 people — a
mighty favorable ratio compared to Chicago’s 2.4 or New York’s 1.6. As a
result, D.C. has some of the lowest fares of any major U.S. city,
according to a recent survey by the trade publication Chicago
Dispatcher.
But not much longer. The D.C. city council appears on the verge of throttling this vibrant competition and twisting it into a government-enforced cartel, by introducing an abomination known as taxi medallions.
Want to drive a cab in the capital? You gotta get a medallion — a very special kind of license — affixed to the hood. They’ve been the law for decades in New York, Chicago and elsewhere.
These days in New York, a medallion costs $700,000. In Boston, $400,000.
Since D.C. plans to issue only 4,000 medallions under this proposal, 3,300 cabs would presumably be mothballed. What’s more, the system’s been rigged so that established companies will pay only $250 for their first medallions. Newer operators will have to fork over up to $10,000.
The Small Business Association of D.C. Taxicab Drivers figures about four out of 10 D.C. cabbies will be thrown out of work.
If you’re planning a trip to the nation’s capital, make it soon. Getting around once you get there is about to cost a whole lot more.
— Addison Wiggin
But not much longer. The D.C. city council appears on the verge of throttling this vibrant competition and twisting it into a government-enforced cartel, by introducing an abomination known as taxi medallions.
Want to drive a cab in the capital? You gotta get a medallion — a very special kind of license — affixed to the hood. They’ve been the law for decades in New York, Chicago and elsewhere.
These days in New York, a medallion costs $700,000. In Boston, $400,000.
Since D.C. plans to issue only 4,000 medallions under this proposal, 3,300 cabs would presumably be mothballed. What’s more, the system’s been rigged so that established companies will pay only $250 for their first medallions. Newer operators will have to fork over up to $10,000.
The Small Business Association of D.C. Taxicab Drivers figures about four out of 10 D.C. cabbies will be thrown out of work.
If you’re planning a trip to the nation’s capital, make it soon. Getting around once you get there is about to cost a whole lot more.
— Addison Wiggin
Jobs is Jobs 06/15/2011
Is there no distinction between public and private sector jobs as an
economic stimulant? Is whether the government sends money to the states
to keep teachers, firemen, police, and other government employees
working, or sends the private sector incentives that would lead to
private jobs, equal in being effective stimulants?
The distinction is very real and has significant consequences, without regard for the value of the job itself - a public school history teacher may have a greater value to society than a massage therapy teacher at a for-profit college.
The two examples presented here are for the effect on the economy only and make no value judgment on the worth of their respective efforts.
We take the money out of the private sector as taxes (a definition). Money is sent to the state for the explicit purpose of hiring a clerk at the DMV. Sears is given a tax incentive to hire a clerk in the auto services department. The reason for the hire is the same for both openings: both places are busy and the lines to get processed are determined to be too long. There is a genuine need for each organization to hire. Each clerk gets paid a salary of $45,000 and have the same cost of employment in the form of benefits and payroll taxes.
When they charge a fee, the government never charges enough for what it sells - except in the case of the Postal Service. The government never covers the cost of an employee through sales. An employee never contributes enough in revenue to pay for his salary. For example, for every ticket sold for an Amtrak ride, another $32 must be kicked in by the taxpayer.
[In the case of the Postal Service, the postage and services were designed to reach a break even point for the USPS. They were never allowed to make a profit. This balancing act worked for a while, but we are now seeing it fail.]
The DMV clerk sells license plates and renewal tags, driver’s licenses, and other services at less than break-even for the DMV. Plus, for his DMV job, some of his salary and the overhead must be subsidized by additional tax money.
The wages earned by the clerk are brought back into the economy when the clerk spends, invests, and saves. These activities stimulate the economy and help the private sector grow.
He also pays sales taxes, income taxes, food and liquor taxes, telephone taxes, gas taxes, pet taxes, user fees, tire taxes, recreation taxes, property taxes (for the school, the airport, the community college, the park district, the library, the township, the fire department, the county, and the forest preserves), utility taxes, capital gains taxes, and he buys license plates for his cars, his motorcycle, trailer, RV, boat, and boat trailer, thereby supporting his governments.
The DMV itself does not pay any taxes.
Sears received a tax incentive to hire a clerk, but would never have hired somebody just for the incentive. Sears expects to increase business because of the hire. That means it expects to increase revenue because of the clerk. That is done by either reducing expenses or increasing sales. For this example the hire is expect to increase sales.
The increase in sales made by this clerk’s efforts directly or indirectly needs to be enough to pay for her salary, her benefits, workman’s compensation insurance, the company’s side of Social Security and Medicare, her state and federal unemployment insurance, the 401k company match, the company’s side of her health insurance, her vacation and family leave time, and a share of the company overhead.
She supports her government by paying the same taxes that the DMV clerk pays and spends her money in a similar fashion.
Let’s assume that the DMV and Sears have the same overhead costs regarding administration, buildings, maintenance, insurance, vehicles, tools, etc. and capital equipment like machines, computers, phones, desks…
Now, Sears has some additional expenses that need to be covered by the clerk’s contribution to the income. Sears pays property taxes, vehicle taxes, gas taxes, city taxes, state and federal corporate taxes, sales taxes, phone taxes, utility taxes, and they have to buy license plates for all those service vans.
Add to all that, profit. The profit that a typical company the size of Sears would have to get to survive and grow is 2 to 5% of its sales. Not much, but a key ingredient to economic growth over and above what the new hire at the DMV contributes.
Profit is the oxygen added to the fuel of sales to ignite the economy and keep it burning. Profit gets divided up between a reward for investors for taking a risk in the company, an increase in compensation for the employees, and investment in growth.
Growth creates wealth and it creates jobs. If a company does not have the profit it needs to grow, it will eventually fail destroying wealth and jobs. There is part of America that needs to realize that job and economic growth only comes from profit. And profit is only created by the private sector. The private sector is a perpetual motion machine that accelerates itself through profits.
If you were wondering why the Great Depression lasted 10 years while the government created millions of jobs in public works, only to end suddenly when the government started buying guns and tanks from the private sector to go to war, you can stop wondering. The private sector profited from the employees making all that stuff. The private sector used those profits to innovate, create, market, expand, and hire clerks. They created jobs that self perpetuated and reproduced.
I listened to a recent argument to extend unemployment compensation during this artificially protracted slump. The defender said that paying unemployment to people who are not working stimulates the economy because the money is spent. Please, Sir you really can’t take money from one guy and give it to another guy and expect the country to grow.
The distinction is very real and has significant consequences, without regard for the value of the job itself - a public school history teacher may have a greater value to society than a massage therapy teacher at a for-profit college.
The two examples presented here are for the effect on the economy only and make no value judgment on the worth of their respective efforts.
We take the money out of the private sector as taxes (a definition). Money is sent to the state for the explicit purpose of hiring a clerk at the DMV. Sears is given a tax incentive to hire a clerk in the auto services department. The reason for the hire is the same for both openings: both places are busy and the lines to get processed are determined to be too long. There is a genuine need for each organization to hire. Each clerk gets paid a salary of $45,000 and have the same cost of employment in the form of benefits and payroll taxes.
When they charge a fee, the government never charges enough for what it sells - except in the case of the Postal Service. The government never covers the cost of an employee through sales. An employee never contributes enough in revenue to pay for his salary. For example, for every ticket sold for an Amtrak ride, another $32 must be kicked in by the taxpayer.
[In the case of the Postal Service, the postage and services were designed to reach a break even point for the USPS. They were never allowed to make a profit. This balancing act worked for a while, but we are now seeing it fail.]
The DMV clerk sells license plates and renewal tags, driver’s licenses, and other services at less than break-even for the DMV. Plus, for his DMV job, some of his salary and the overhead must be subsidized by additional tax money.
The wages earned by the clerk are brought back into the economy when the clerk spends, invests, and saves. These activities stimulate the economy and help the private sector grow.
He also pays sales taxes, income taxes, food and liquor taxes, telephone taxes, gas taxes, pet taxes, user fees, tire taxes, recreation taxes, property taxes (for the school, the airport, the community college, the park district, the library, the township, the fire department, the county, and the forest preserves), utility taxes, capital gains taxes, and he buys license plates for his cars, his motorcycle, trailer, RV, boat, and boat trailer, thereby supporting his governments.
The DMV itself does not pay any taxes.
Sears received a tax incentive to hire a clerk, but would never have hired somebody just for the incentive. Sears expects to increase business because of the hire. That means it expects to increase revenue because of the clerk. That is done by either reducing expenses or increasing sales. For this example the hire is expect to increase sales.
The increase in sales made by this clerk’s efforts directly or indirectly needs to be enough to pay for her salary, her benefits, workman’s compensation insurance, the company’s side of Social Security and Medicare, her state and federal unemployment insurance, the 401k company match, the company’s side of her health insurance, her vacation and family leave time, and a share of the company overhead.
She supports her government by paying the same taxes that the DMV clerk pays and spends her money in a similar fashion.
Let’s assume that the DMV and Sears have the same overhead costs regarding administration, buildings, maintenance, insurance, vehicles, tools, etc. and capital equipment like machines, computers, phones, desks…
Now, Sears has some additional expenses that need to be covered by the clerk’s contribution to the income. Sears pays property taxes, vehicle taxes, gas taxes, city taxes, state and federal corporate taxes, sales taxes, phone taxes, utility taxes, and they have to buy license plates for all those service vans.
Add to all that, profit. The profit that a typical company the size of Sears would have to get to survive and grow is 2 to 5% of its sales. Not much, but a key ingredient to economic growth over and above what the new hire at the DMV contributes.
Profit is the oxygen added to the fuel of sales to ignite the economy and keep it burning. Profit gets divided up between a reward for investors for taking a risk in the company, an increase in compensation for the employees, and investment in growth.
Growth creates wealth and it creates jobs. If a company does not have the profit it needs to grow, it will eventually fail destroying wealth and jobs. There is part of America that needs to realize that job and economic growth only comes from profit. And profit is only created by the private sector. The private sector is a perpetual motion machine that accelerates itself through profits.
If you were wondering why the Great Depression lasted 10 years while the government created millions of jobs in public works, only to end suddenly when the government started buying guns and tanks from the private sector to go to war, you can stop wondering. The private sector profited from the employees making all that stuff. The private sector used those profits to innovate, create, market, expand, and hire clerks. They created jobs that self perpetuated and reproduced.
I listened to a recent argument to extend unemployment compensation during this artificially protracted slump. The defender said that paying unemployment to people who are not working stimulates the economy because the money is spent. Please, Sir you really can’t take money from one guy and give it to another guy and expect the country to grow.