I read the piece about the Bush Tax Cuts in the New York Times (link: and you're saying to yourself, 'hmm, he usually quotes the New York Post or Fox News' - there's not everything in the New York Times I disagree with, and this one's pretty good) and how Obama's deal with the Republicans on keeping the current tax brackets and plus an added bonus of cutting the payroll tax by 200 basis points, or 2%. President Obama could well have left everything as it is, or even hiked taxes to the levels he feels people should pay (not what people are willing to or afford to pay). I'm not sure what the result would have been, but if there were no extra revenue (or a sharp decline in revenue), then the government would have hiked them even further, engaging in a vicious cycle of tax hikes and revenue drops.
I'm not going to pretend that I don't like what happened. I'm middle class and I'm not going to complain. The Republicans tried every way to Sunday to get something moving, and it took the near shutdown of the government (well, that and Election 2010) to get Obama to at least concede that raising taxes is not the way to return to prosperity.
The comments, on the other hand? Save for one or two good comments, either Obama is the second coming of Bush, Obama should have had more cojones, the Republicans are the Party of No, the rich get away scot free with this, and so on. Oh, and a smattering of how he's a one term president. Childish, insecure, ignorant, arrogant, get-the-venom out stuff.
My thought is that there are still a ton of people who hate George W Bush and what he stood for. I'm also not going to pretend I didn't like him. Unlike Obama, who I feel surrounds himself with czars, bureaucrats, nanny-staters and the-bus-doesn't-stop-there radicals, Dubya was a steadfast and principled man. Often he was wrong as he was right. He too let himself be led by the nose by his advisors, but when he was correct, damn, you had to respect his tenacity, even though you were marching through the streets demanding he be dragged to the Hague in front of the World Court.
It leads me to a good question: some people can't stand others being happy, prosperous, and self-sufficient AND self-reliant. There's a streak of Puritanism that permeates through certain social circles that happiness and wealth is a sin, one that must be atoned for with brutal acts of contrition. But within that streak is a rank hypocrisy: it's OK for you to be happy, but not for someone else, and even if you die trying, you're going to prevent someone from their dreams.
It's a toxic stew of jealousy, resentment, and selfishness that rots the soul. It's the basis of moral panics that end up hurting people more than they help because the person trying to control the panic ends up overcompensating and snowballing unintended consequences.
Take for example the "obesity crisis." If a person is slightly overweight, the most simple way of doing so is to eat less and exercise more, not to tax items sky-high because someone (Michelle Obama? Mayor Mike Bloomberg? Deval Patrick?) is afraid that it might lead to being obesity. If you're exercising and eating right, the occasional donut won't kill you, nor will the daily cruller resign you to the pits of a fat camp. And, those extra tax revenues because you're slapping a dollar on a soda may be a smokescreen for trying to fatten (pun intended) the state coffers. True, morbid and gross obesity exists, but trying to eradicate it by controlling food, and in turn trying to control people, is the ultimate fools' errand.
The same thing goes for taxes. If you're a successful employee and make your company the best it is, why in heaven should you be penalized for it through high taxes? That's the whole gist about keeping the Bush Tax Cuts - if there are people so resentful and jealous of others success that short of running them over with your car or hiring a hit man to liquidate them your feeling is that the money must be taken away from them "for the greater good" (a healthy, steaming pile of total, absolute, pious, self-serving bullshit), those people should be given something to do that will keep them away from the editorial pages.
How about helping the people who should get a lift up from the depths of trash TV and shady lawyers? No one's going to be Oprah right away, and there will be weeks of your bank account being very lean, but it's better than handouts and bailouts. And happiness and success does come, so long as you work hard and you're patient - and anyone who tries to get in your way should be avoided at all costs.
There are people who still take their anger, guilt, bitterness, and disappointment on others because they cannot control things. It is a religion all its own, and it makes Puritanism look downright hedonistic. The ones who try to kill happiness have never been successful anyway - because happiness and success always seem to win, don't they?
UPDATE: Despite the House not deigning to vote on it and Bernie Sanders (S-VT) deciding it would be a great idea to read from the telephone book as a way to filibuster (maybe he did, maybe he didn't), this tax deal will go through with a lot of noses held, because if it doesn't, the Party of No will have a D next to it.
UPDATE #2: China is in a hefty snit because the Nobel Prize committee awarded Liu Xiabao the Peace Prize in absentia. The three signs I take out of this are (a) even farthest of the far left are demanding his release from Chinese prison, (b) it takes away the spotlight and attention from a like-minded Canberra Julian of W_______s, and (c) China must be really shit-scared of losing its power to ramp up the manipulation to sub-light speed, all because a dissident had a manifesto that wasn't one endorsed by a German aristocrat with money guilt.
12/08/2010
10/21/2010
Juan Williams pulls back the PC curtain and freaks out the narrow minds of NPR
Juan Williams deserves a TON of credit for telling the truth about National Public Radio.
Williams committed the simple sin of saying out loud what the rest of the elitist, fully white, upper middle and upper class editorial boards of NPR wouldn't dare say in public, but probably do well behind closed doors. (Even more telling is that Williams was the only black correspondent.)
Who will this brouhaha hurt the most? At the very least, moderate Muslims who have been yearning to break free from the stereotype of fundamentalist militancy have been pushed back into a corner - the ones who want to prove that the abaya, hijab or burqa, or the four fingers of beard the men must wear, is no way linked to the more malignant strains of Islamic worship - and assure them that while their religion is Islam, their nationality is American. Thanks to NPR's firing of Williams, that conversation gets drowned out by clueless upper-class twits.
But the real hurt that will come will be on NPR itself. When free speech is determined by an unelected upper echelon of white elitists, and that money comes from public taxpayers, a new Congress will be loathe to fund an entity whose primary focus is to make sure the right words come out of the right mouths, and any word not in the Approved Vocabulary of NPR will be grounds for immediate termination. Congress defunding NPR would force it to pledge even more from its listeners, and if you don't have the money, your license to broadcast gets ripped up and tossed out in the trash.
Williams should keep on talking about his now-ex-colleagues, how they love to insult those who aren't like them, and then tell the public to avoid donating a thin rusting penny to their organization because they are malignant narcissisists who only care about their own ideology and not giving a complete story. Oh, and donations from well-heeled, like-minded people.
Williams did everyone - including Muslims - a favor by pulling back the curtain on the narrow minds of NPR, who proved to the nation that the antidote to curtailing free speech is even more free speech - and that political correctness is worse than any nuclear weapon on the planet.
Williams committed the simple sin of saying out loud what the rest of the elitist, fully white, upper middle and upper class editorial boards of NPR wouldn't dare say in public, but probably do well behind closed doors. (Even more telling is that Williams was the only black correspondent.)
Who will this brouhaha hurt the most? At the very least, moderate Muslims who have been yearning to break free from the stereotype of fundamentalist militancy have been pushed back into a corner - the ones who want to prove that the abaya, hijab or burqa, or the four fingers of beard the men must wear, is no way linked to the more malignant strains of Islamic worship - and assure them that while their religion is Islam, their nationality is American. Thanks to NPR's firing of Williams, that conversation gets drowned out by clueless upper-class twits.
But the real hurt that will come will be on NPR itself. When free speech is determined by an unelected upper echelon of white elitists, and that money comes from public taxpayers, a new Congress will be loathe to fund an entity whose primary focus is to make sure the right words come out of the right mouths, and any word not in the Approved Vocabulary of NPR will be grounds for immediate termination. Congress defunding NPR would force it to pledge even more from its listeners, and if you don't have the money, your license to broadcast gets ripped up and tossed out in the trash.
Williams should keep on talking about his now-ex-colleagues, how they love to insult those who aren't like them, and then tell the public to avoid donating a thin rusting penny to their organization because they are malignant narcissisists who only care about their own ideology and not giving a complete story. Oh, and donations from well-heeled, like-minded people.
Williams did everyone - including Muslims - a favor by pulling back the curtain on the narrow minds of NPR, who proved to the nation that the antidote to curtailing free speech is even more free speech - and that political correctness is worse than any nuclear weapon on the planet.
10/02/2010
Yes, character destruction HAS become a spectator sport
Thanks to the Internet and a 24-hour gossip culture, destroying character and lives has become a huge spectator sport.
Tyler Clementi didn't have to take his own life because his sexuality was not like others. He could have taken the hard-core militant activist route, enlisting the hardest and most in-your-face groups like Queer Nation and ACT-UP to protest Rutgers 24-7, giving the nightly news cycle fresh meat for months upon end, and only after Rutgers acquiesed to their demands, the matter would have died down. But Clementi didn't pursue that avenue, because he didn't want to bring attention to his sexuality and plight that his roommate was recording his trysts: He ended up bringing attention to himself anyway by ending his life because he just couldn't take the ridicule anymore.
His roommate recorded the most private of his activities, and that alone merits the strongest punishment one can mete out, namely imprisonment and a very stiff fine. But tangentially, others will feed off this unnecessary suicide for their own ends and desires.
And it isn't just gay teenagers that feel the ridicule and scorn of the mediocre. If you're the wrong race, possess smarts that go beyond which dress to wear, which libation to drink, which social group to socialize with, you might as well be from Siberia.
I endured the same character-destroying ridicule all throughout Boston Latin Academy. The eighties were a ripe time, fueled by teenage movies that emphasized being popular über alles and shifting those who didn't fit the grand scheme of cliquey things into a social Siberia. It diminished, certainly as we all grew and headed towards our senior year, but it's the viciousness and disdain that still leaves fresh scars. It's the reason I never went to either of my semi-formals, proms and none of my reunions. It's the reason why I dumped 10-12 people off of my Facebook friends list when Phoebe Prince took her own life in February.
Solving the problem of bullying in all its forms is not simple. Neither passive so-called "tolerance and understanding" nor reactionary zero tolerance is the answer. The answer comes somewhere in the middle, beginning with the bullied standing up to their tormentors, parents making sure they monitor their children and getting involved when bullying starts, teachers intervening without retribution from their superiors, and administrators not hiding behind law and political correctness.
Tyler Clementi didn't have to take his own life because his sexuality was not like others. He could have taken the hard-core militant activist route, enlisting the hardest and most in-your-face groups like Queer Nation and ACT-UP to protest Rutgers 24-7, giving the nightly news cycle fresh meat for months upon end, and only after Rutgers acquiesed to their demands, the matter would have died down. But Clementi didn't pursue that avenue, because he didn't want to bring attention to his sexuality and plight that his roommate was recording his trysts: He ended up bringing attention to himself anyway by ending his life because he just couldn't take the ridicule anymore.
His roommate recorded the most private of his activities, and that alone merits the strongest punishment one can mete out, namely imprisonment and a very stiff fine. But tangentially, others will feed off this unnecessary suicide for their own ends and desires.
In the coming days the pundits will pontificate, the politicians will politic and the advocates will advocate -- all trying to twist and turn the private hurts of Tyler into whatever fits their agenda.
And it isn't just gay teenagers that feel the ridicule and scorn of the mediocre. If you're the wrong race, possess smarts that go beyond which dress to wear, which libation to drink, which social group to socialize with, you might as well be from Siberia.
I endured the same character-destroying ridicule all throughout Boston Latin Academy. The eighties were a ripe time, fueled by teenage movies that emphasized being popular über alles and shifting those who didn't fit the grand scheme of cliquey things into a social Siberia. It diminished, certainly as we all grew and headed towards our senior year, but it's the viciousness and disdain that still leaves fresh scars. It's the reason I never went to either of my semi-formals, proms and none of my reunions. It's the reason why I dumped 10-12 people off of my Facebook friends list when Phoebe Prince took her own life in February.
Solving the problem of bullying in all its forms is not simple. Neither passive so-called "tolerance and understanding" nor reactionary zero tolerance is the answer. The answer comes somewhere in the middle, beginning with the bullied standing up to their tormentors, parents making sure they monitor their children and getting involved when bullying starts, teachers intervening without retribution from their superiors, and administrators not hiding behind law and political correctness.
9/26/2010
"Waiting for Superman" Kryptonite to teacher's unions
And the entire irony is that the person who produced the environmental bete noir An Inconvenient Truth produced "Waiting for Superman", and the unions are furious about the movie exposing the results of putting themselves ahead of the kids, and are even more furious when more successful charter schools - which have none of the union interference that the failing public schools have - are actually educating the kids, rather than making them pawns when battling with the school board.
The name of the movie should be renamed An Inconvenient Education. It's the kids who are inconvenienced in the end because the teacher's unions are too greedy.
The name of the movie should be renamed An Inconvenient Education. It's the kids who are inconvenienced in the end because the teacher's unions are too greedy.
9/18/2010
A good argument for keeping the Bush tax levels
NPR (yes, that NPR) has a clear and consistent argument regarding extending the 2001-2003 tax structure. Dan Kennedy of Media Nation loves it too, and it is a well-written and well-informed article.
Here is where the debate lies...many people can try to define "rich" but it's impossible to define it in dollar terms. Back in the 1970s, earning $35,000 was a small fortune because the minimum wage was $1.60. Today, earning $35,000 isn't much, especially where the minimum wage is $7.50 an hour. In order to earn what you earned in the 1970s, you'd have to make at least $100,000 a year. So for Congress to define "rich" is an exercise in futility.
Also, the famous canard of "high income earners pay most of the taxes" or "low income earners pay no taxes at all" are both false. The government finds ways to take money no matter what your earnings and taxation level.
High income earners, despite paying a high amount of taxes, have the ability to reduce them through retirement account disbursements, investing, donations, writeoffs, and spending, so that when their tax bill does come around, they will either pay far less than they expected (and they have the ability to do so) or get a refund.
The low income earners, despite receiving credits and appearing not to pay income taxes, pay a huge amount of consumption taxes - that is, the government will dilute the credits that they gave to the low-income earners anyway through sales, sin (alcohol, tobacco), property, utility (fuel, electricity) and excise taxes, plus fees that function as taxes, like license renewal and registration.
In my opinion, the best thing to do is to execute class warfare card through the media. The media is equally guilty of misinformation to the public; they do no service by trying to gin up anger between one sector of the public and the other. In fact, the public relations the media is trying to do for the government is obnoxious and wrongheaded - they should shut up and do the research first (like NPR did) before they go on camera. It will save them a lot of embarassment later on.
Here is where the debate lies...many people can try to define "rich" but it's impossible to define it in dollar terms. Back in the 1970s, earning $35,000 was a small fortune because the minimum wage was $1.60. Today, earning $35,000 isn't much, especially where the minimum wage is $7.50 an hour. In order to earn what you earned in the 1970s, you'd have to make at least $100,000 a year. So for Congress to define "rich" is an exercise in futility.
Also, the famous canard of "high income earners pay most of the taxes" or "low income earners pay no taxes at all" are both false. The government finds ways to take money no matter what your earnings and taxation level.
High income earners, despite paying a high amount of taxes, have the ability to reduce them through retirement account disbursements, investing, donations, writeoffs, and spending, so that when their tax bill does come around, they will either pay far less than they expected (and they have the ability to do so) or get a refund.
The low income earners, despite receiving credits and appearing not to pay income taxes, pay a huge amount of consumption taxes - that is, the government will dilute the credits that they gave to the low-income earners anyway through sales, sin (alcohol, tobacco), property, utility (fuel, electricity) and excise taxes, plus fees that function as taxes, like license renewal and registration.
In my opinion, the best thing to do is to execute class warfare card through the media. The media is equally guilty of misinformation to the public; they do no service by trying to gin up anger between one sector of the public and the other. In fact, the public relations the media is trying to do for the government is obnoxious and wrongheaded - they should shut up and do the research first (like NPR did) before they go on camera. It will save them a lot of embarassment later on.
9/14/2010
Better start learning the meaning of "closed door" in Grove Hall
The residents of Mattapan love the new 60 foot articulated buses on the Route 28 bus. I rode them on the Route 39 when they first came out and they're really, really nice.
The residents of Grove Hall? They do too, but not their so-called "community leaders" to bitch about not being "consulted." One of the comments from the boston.com site is quite telling...
What the T should do is introduce a neat little concept called "closed door" service. Routes 14, 19, 23, 28 and 45 go through that area. Since the "community leaders" are pissed they weren't able to extort all sorts of things from the T, the T should turn around and state that those route will not stop to discharge passengers nor to pick up passengers. All routes will just go right through Grove Hall without stopping. If it means a quarter mile to half mile walk to Grove Hall, in the blazing sun or during a hefty blizzard, that's the way it has to be.
They will, however, get more than an angry earful from passengers who rely on the T, who worked so hard for improvements, and now have to go out of their way just because the pigheaded, egotistical, hamfisted, loudmouthed control freaks killed service in their area, and the T will not lift a finger to return it to normal. Then these so-called "community leaders" will be seen for who they truly are: obstructionists who are too selfish to let their residents have what they truly deserve, because improvements would dilute their power and ego to infinitesimally small irrelevance.
The residents of Grove Hall? They do too, but not their so-called "community leaders" to bitch about not being "consulted." One of the comments from the boston.com site is quite telling...
Yet despite all of this, these community groups act as though they're being victimized. Like the State is coming in to destroy their neighborhoods. They killed the #28X [Route 28X would have been a Silver Line-style BRT route running down the median of Blue Hill Avenue. -ed]. Now they're completely apoplectic over the fact the T didn't kiss their feet and beg them to allow larger buses to offer better service to what is arguably a community long-underserved by mass transit. This is literally the least the T can do to help them, and still the community groups are trying to fight them to do less. They'd rather see the rest of their community get nothing, than have their "authority" undermined.
It appears to be about ego, control and the need to assert both.
What the T should do is introduce a neat little concept called "closed door" service. Routes 14, 19, 23, 28 and 45 go through that area. Since the "community leaders" are pissed they weren't able to extort all sorts of things from the T, the T should turn around and state that those route will not stop to discharge passengers nor to pick up passengers. All routes will just go right through Grove Hall without stopping. If it means a quarter mile to half mile walk to Grove Hall, in the blazing sun or during a hefty blizzard, that's the way it has to be.
They will, however, get more than an angry earful from passengers who rely on the T, who worked so hard for improvements, and now have to go out of their way just because the pigheaded, egotistical, hamfisted, loudmouthed control freaks killed service in their area, and the T will not lift a finger to return it to normal. Then these so-called "community leaders" will be seen for who they truly are: obstructionists who are too selfish to let their residents have what they truly deserve, because improvements would dilute their power and ego to infinitesimally small irrelevance.
8/01/2010
Puritanism - still alive and well in Massachusetts
I was reading an article this morning in the Boston Globe magazine from Tom Keane regarding Massachusetts' efforts to control alcohol. Among the interesting snippets:
This is because of the former Blue Laws that the Puritans put down in the 1620's because most of the Puritans were supposed to have their eyes and ears with God at all times, and not engage in frivolity such as liquor consumption. Many of the Blue Laws have been struck down, but only since the mid 1980s. Liquor stores have only been allowed to open on Sundays since 2005 or so.
This brings me to the debate of the soon-to-be-dead gambling bill. I've been wavering between being for it and being against it, but now I'm solidly against it. Governor Deval Patrick should not only veto the bill, he should be commended for it at the risk of losing his support from unions and others.
This is because Puritanism is still alive and well in Massachusetts.
We have way too many finger waggers, nags, wrist wringers and such who feel that any kind of fun should be eliminated or strictly controlled in the wake of some kind of fake moral enlightenment. Liquor and alcohol is a great example: keeping such a "vice" away through high price and scarcity makes the ones who are disturbed by its effects (even when people drink responsibly) soothes whatever guilt and bias they might have towards this vice. The same is true with cigarettes, food, and gasoline - self-styled moralists figure that the unwashed masses are not "enlightened" enough and must have these items made difficult to procure for "the greater good."
(In my honest opinion, the greater good would love to give these self-styled moralists a nice hard slap in the face, followed by a nice hard boot to where God split ya.)
If the Legislature were a more honest, less self-interested group, they would have expanded the bill to include as many resort casinos and slot parlors as they would allow without the worry of some group screaming that Massachusetts' moral fiber would decay at a ridiculous rate. There would be no scare tactics of prostitution or people wasting their entire paychecks on slots or children being abandoned in their cars. The Legislators would have no problem with the money coming in and distribute it evenly, rather than try to corner the money for their own town, city or ward.
Even if the casino bill passed, I can imagine the kind of "gambling" we'd get if it went through - it would be regulated just as tightly and stiffly as alcohol is today, along with a mix of gimmicks such as environmental standards, limits on play, money and alcohol consumption, no ATM machines or ATM machines with very high access fees, and bans on any kind of comps, credit and the like.
When Puritanism dances with Curley-style parochialism, what you get are political hacks, self-styled moral activists, and others killing something that may or may not have had promise, but no one dared to try because they were afraid they'd offend the wrong people. The writer of the article sums everything up nicely, and you can easily substitute "gambling" for "alcohol":
It would certainly prove that we cut all the laws of Puritanism but six, who were forced into service as pallbearers.
Alcoholic beverages sold for off-premise consumption can only be sold in licensed package stores. No one is allowed to own more than three stores that sell alcohol. State law puts sharp quotas on the number of liquor stores, bars, and restaurants permitted in every town, a formula carefully based on population. Holiday and Sunday sales are limited. In fact, we’re not even permitted to have happy hours. Free drinks and discounted prices are flatly illegal.
This is because of the former Blue Laws that the Puritans put down in the 1620's because most of the Puritans were supposed to have their eyes and ears with God at all times, and not engage in frivolity such as liquor consumption. Many of the Blue Laws have been struck down, but only since the mid 1980s. Liquor stores have only been allowed to open on Sundays since 2005 or so.
This brings me to the debate of the soon-to-be-dead gambling bill. I've been wavering between being for it and being against it, but now I'm solidly against it. Governor Deval Patrick should not only veto the bill, he should be commended for it at the risk of losing his support from unions and others.
This is because Puritanism is still alive and well in Massachusetts.
We have way too many finger waggers, nags, wrist wringers and such who feel that any kind of fun should be eliminated or strictly controlled in the wake of some kind of fake moral enlightenment. Liquor and alcohol is a great example: keeping such a "vice" away through high price and scarcity makes the ones who are disturbed by its effects (even when people drink responsibly) soothes whatever guilt and bias they might have towards this vice. The same is true with cigarettes, food, and gasoline - self-styled moralists figure that the unwashed masses are not "enlightened" enough and must have these items made difficult to procure for "the greater good."
(In my honest opinion, the greater good would love to give these self-styled moralists a nice hard slap in the face, followed by a nice hard boot to where God split ya.)
If the Legislature were a more honest, less self-interested group, they would have expanded the bill to include as many resort casinos and slot parlors as they would allow without the worry of some group screaming that Massachusetts' moral fiber would decay at a ridiculous rate. There would be no scare tactics of prostitution or people wasting their entire paychecks on slots or children being abandoned in their cars. The Legislators would have no problem with the money coming in and distribute it evenly, rather than try to corner the money for their own town, city or ward.
Even if the casino bill passed, I can imagine the kind of "gambling" we'd get if it went through - it would be regulated just as tightly and stiffly as alcohol is today, along with a mix of gimmicks such as environmental standards, limits on play, money and alcohol consumption, no ATM machines or ATM machines with very high access fees, and bans on any kind of comps, credit and the like.
When Puritanism dances with Curley-style parochialism, what you get are political hacks, self-styled moral activists, and others killing something that may or may not have had promise, but no one dared to try because they were afraid they'd offend the wrong people. The writer of the article sums everything up nicely, and you can easily substitute "gambling" for "alcohol":
What we really need is a culture that celebrates the wise use of alcohol rather than a body of laws whose aim is to make us feel guilty.
It would certainly prove that we cut all the laws of Puritanism but six, who were forced into service as pallbearers.
6/16/2010
...and my father was allergic to shellfish, believe it or not...
Suldog reminisces about his father, who died 16 years ago.
My father, Bernie, retired from a job he had worked at for over 30 years in 2002. He was 60, but even with the white hair, he looked about ten years younger. When he started working for RCA and Sperry-Rand in 1972, his year's salary could buy three automobiles (indexed for inflation, it would be around $35,000) and computers back then were not the 1TB monsters they are now; in fact, back in '72, 8K was tops.
In 2004, we began to notice changes - not frightening changes, but ones that started to give us concern. My dad began complaining about his leg hurting around August 2004, and by September 2004 he could barely walk on it. One night, the doctor wanted to bring him in for an MRI, because by then we knew it wasn't a rheumatoid problem. While waiting for the call for the doctor, my father reached for the TV remote.
The next thing I knew, my youngest brother, Sean, came upstairs with his cell phone - and usually when the sentence that comes out is "We have a 62 year old man in pain, we suspect he broke his leg..." that ain't good. We weren't panicking, but this was very, very strange and upsetting, as my brother was about to introduce his first child into the world - in Beverly. My father, mother and others were ready to cheer my sister-in-law when this happened.
The next morning, after they brought him to the Brigham and Women's Hospital, we visited him. Of course, he was high on morphine, but he was in good spirits. A lab tech came into the room with a little metal case and told us it was nuclear medicine. My mother, brother and myself decided to retire to the cafeteria for lunch, but eight hours later, our worlds would be turned upside down.
It was lung cancer. Stage IV. That was why my father's tibia had broken - it had already spread to his bones. Tearful phonecalls ensued. I broke down sometime later because getting whacked with the news your father has cancer is pretty hefty.
Fast forward one year later. After six regimens of cancer treatment and several radiation treatments for the glioma that was discovered in his brain in May 2005, we knew that his time on earth would not be long. This time, he was at the Brigham and Women's for a hematoma that grew in his shoulders and burst, and he remarked with absolute clarity to my mother that "this had gone full circle."
The hematoma would mark the last time he would ever see a hospital, but the weird thing about this, though, was that he seemed to be getting back to normal. He was eating heartily and was still lucid. But radiation and chemotherapy, while we think eliminated the lung cancer, had stolen his laughter, his functions, and he transgressed from cane, to walker, to wheelchair, and then to bed.
My father's functions began their decline on the weekend after my 34th birthday. My father, who had celebrated his 63rd birthday at a rehab center in August 2005 after receiving more radiation in his bones, looked at least 20 years older. We had already had a 35th wedding anniversary celebration at home (and again, Dad wasn't a slouch in eating - he even cracked a few jokes and lent out a huge smile), but a few days later he began to descend into hallucinations. By Friday, he was in the full throes of decline. He would extend his hands out and knit with invisible yarn. He would ask for dead people, like his father, who had died in 2000; his mother, who had died in 2004; and other people. By Saturday morning, my father lapsed into a coma; our mother then told us to go buy suits because we would be needing them soon for the wake and the funeral.
Monday night, we had an Irish wake for my dad. It was the most fun I had, even though I had finally told my supervisor that my father was ill and he might not last long. The next morning, November 22, 2005, my brother woke me up. We came downstairs and I looked at my father for the last time. No sound. He peacefully passed away in his sleep, exactly 14 months to the day he was diagnosed. My mother was weeping and hysterical, Everyone was called to alert people of the news. Then, my brothers, mother and I we gathered around to bade him farewell before the funeral directors took him to be prepared for the wake and the funeral.
Of course, while dumping out the drugs that made my father comfortable in his last days, my mother scolded me (well, introducing him as the "guest of honor" to the hospice nurse at 6:30 in the morning will cause a newly-anointed widow to do that) for not expressing my emotions correctly and told me I shouldn't be stoic. She didn't realize that from the moment he was diagnosed until the moment he died, fourteen months of pure torture culminated in a peace I never felt before. I finally felt relieved that the long battle my father endured was over - he didn't win the battle, but he was free from the torture that cancer had allayed him with.
The saving grace is that a representative of the Big Deity Upstairs was already present. My aunt, Sister Genevieve Kozlowski, nicknamed Aunt Kay (she was actually my grandmother's adopted sister) was going to go back to her convent outside Buffalo and was visiting us for Thanksgiving. When she learned my dad was about to die, she stayed until that Sunday. She read at the wake a passage from John 14:2, which reads: "In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you." She also helped assemble the memory board with various pictures of my father in his youth, middle age, and towards the end.
I contributed his timeline and added the following poem on there - "Say Yes!" which was written by a confederate soldier and is the title of Rick Wakeman's autobiography (organ and keyboards from the prog-rock group Yes). I will leave you with that thought for now.
Say Yes!
I asked for strength that I might achieve;
I was made weak that I might learn humbly to obey.
...I asked for health that I might do greater things;
I was given infirmity that I might do better things.
I asked for riches that I might be happy;
I was given poverty that I might be wise.
I asked for power that I might have the praise of men;
I was given weakness that I might feel the need of God.
I asked for all things that I might enjoy life;
I was given life that I might enjoy all things.
I got nothing that I had asked for;
But everything I had hoped for.
Almost despite myself my unspoken prayers were answered;
I am, among all men, most richly blessed.
- Unknown Confederate soldier.
My father, Bernie, retired from a job he had worked at for over 30 years in 2002. He was 60, but even with the white hair, he looked about ten years younger. When he started working for RCA and Sperry-Rand in 1972, his year's salary could buy three automobiles (indexed for inflation, it would be around $35,000) and computers back then were not the 1TB monsters they are now; in fact, back in '72, 8K was tops.
In 2004, we began to notice changes - not frightening changes, but ones that started to give us concern. My dad began complaining about his leg hurting around August 2004, and by September 2004 he could barely walk on it. One night, the doctor wanted to bring him in for an MRI, because by then we knew it wasn't a rheumatoid problem. While waiting for the call for the doctor, my father reached for the TV remote.
The next thing I knew, my youngest brother, Sean, came upstairs with his cell phone - and usually when the sentence that comes out is "We have a 62 year old man in pain, we suspect he broke his leg..." that ain't good. We weren't panicking, but this was very, very strange and upsetting, as my brother was about to introduce his first child into the world - in Beverly. My father, mother and others were ready to cheer my sister-in-law when this happened.
The next morning, after they brought him to the Brigham and Women's Hospital, we visited him. Of course, he was high on morphine, but he was in good spirits. A lab tech came into the room with a little metal case and told us it was nuclear medicine. My mother, brother and myself decided to retire to the cafeteria for lunch, but eight hours later, our worlds would be turned upside down.
It was lung cancer. Stage IV. That was why my father's tibia had broken - it had already spread to his bones. Tearful phonecalls ensued. I broke down sometime later because getting whacked with the news your father has cancer is pretty hefty.
Fast forward one year later. After six regimens of cancer treatment and several radiation treatments for the glioma that was discovered in his brain in May 2005, we knew that his time on earth would not be long. This time, he was at the Brigham and Women's for a hematoma that grew in his shoulders and burst, and he remarked with absolute clarity to my mother that "this had gone full circle."
The hematoma would mark the last time he would ever see a hospital, but the weird thing about this, though, was that he seemed to be getting back to normal. He was eating heartily and was still lucid. But radiation and chemotherapy, while we think eliminated the lung cancer, had stolen his laughter, his functions, and he transgressed from cane, to walker, to wheelchair, and then to bed.
My father's functions began their decline on the weekend after my 34th birthday. My father, who had celebrated his 63rd birthday at a rehab center in August 2005 after receiving more radiation in his bones, looked at least 20 years older. We had already had a 35th wedding anniversary celebration at home (and again, Dad wasn't a slouch in eating - he even cracked a few jokes and lent out a huge smile), but a few days later he began to descend into hallucinations. By Friday, he was in the full throes of decline. He would extend his hands out and knit with invisible yarn. He would ask for dead people, like his father, who had died in 2000; his mother, who had died in 2004; and other people. By Saturday morning, my father lapsed into a coma; our mother then told us to go buy suits because we would be needing them soon for the wake and the funeral.
Monday night, we had an Irish wake for my dad. It was the most fun I had, even though I had finally told my supervisor that my father was ill and he might not last long. The next morning, November 22, 2005, my brother woke me up. We came downstairs and I looked at my father for the last time. No sound. He peacefully passed away in his sleep, exactly 14 months to the day he was diagnosed. My mother was weeping and hysterical, Everyone was called to alert people of the news. Then, my brothers, mother and I we gathered around to bade him farewell before the funeral directors took him to be prepared for the wake and the funeral.
Of course, while dumping out the drugs that made my father comfortable in his last days, my mother scolded me (well, introducing him as the "guest of honor" to the hospice nurse at 6:30 in the morning will cause a newly-anointed widow to do that) for not expressing my emotions correctly and told me I shouldn't be stoic. She didn't realize that from the moment he was diagnosed until the moment he died, fourteen months of pure torture culminated in a peace I never felt before. I finally felt relieved that the long battle my father endured was over - he didn't win the battle, but he was free from the torture that cancer had allayed him with.
The saving grace is that a representative of the Big Deity Upstairs was already present. My aunt, Sister Genevieve Kozlowski, nicknamed Aunt Kay (she was actually my grandmother's adopted sister) was going to go back to her convent outside Buffalo and was visiting us for Thanksgiving. When she learned my dad was about to die, she stayed until that Sunday. She read at the wake a passage from John 14:2, which reads: "In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you." She also helped assemble the memory board with various pictures of my father in his youth, middle age, and towards the end.
I contributed his timeline and added the following poem on there - "Say Yes!" which was written by a confederate soldier and is the title of Rick Wakeman's autobiography (organ and keyboards from the prog-rock group Yes). I will leave you with that thought for now.
Say Yes!
I asked for strength that I might achieve;
I was made weak that I might learn humbly to obey.
...I asked for health that I might do greater things;
I was given infirmity that I might do better things.
I asked for riches that I might be happy;
I was given poverty that I might be wise.
I asked for power that I might have the praise of men;
I was given weakness that I might feel the need of God.
I asked for all things that I might enjoy life;
I was given life that I might enjoy all things.
I got nothing that I had asked for;
But everything I had hoped for.
Almost despite myself my unspoken prayers were answered;
I am, among all men, most richly blessed.
- Unknown Confederate soldier.
5/31/2010
"No Sesame Street, please...we're British"
Of all the exports Britain has brought to America, there is one American import that hasn't caught on - Sesame Street.
The BBC flatly rejected Sesame Street in 1971 because they thought the programming was "authoritarian." (How can Big Bird be authoritarian?) So it went to another network in England (HTV) before Sesame Street was cancelled.
And like today, the BBC still won't tell British children how to get to Sesame Street - unless you live in Northern Ireland. The reason: there are already other children's programmes out there, including the "talk down to children's" Blue Peter and other shows.
Which leads me to believe one thing and one thing only: the BBC doesn't want Elmo or any of his friends running the Beeb, because you know Stadtler and Waldorf will have their own rollicking politics show, and that the Count will be a financial advisor, and that Bert and Ernie will surpass the popularity of the two women from Absolutely Fabulous.
The BBC flatly rejected Sesame Street in 1971 because they thought the programming was "authoritarian." (How can Big Bird be authoritarian?) So it went to another network in England (HTV) before Sesame Street was cancelled.
And like today, the BBC still won't tell British children how to get to Sesame Street - unless you live in Northern Ireland. The reason: there are already other children's programmes out there, including the "talk down to children's" Blue Peter and other shows.
Which leads me to believe one thing and one thing only: the BBC doesn't want Elmo or any of his friends running the Beeb, because you know Stadtler and Waldorf will have their own rollicking politics show, and that the Count will be a financial advisor, and that Bert and Ernie will surpass the popularity of the two women from Absolutely Fabulous.
5/25/2010
No President is above reproach
Criticizing the President of the United States, no matter how unwarranted or wildly bizarre it may seem, is not sedition, even if the President is your close friend.
No President is above reproach. In fact, we're fortunate enough to criticize, mock, cajole, protest and needle the President of the United States without getting thrown into jail, tortured, murdered, disappeared, or fined into poverty because their leader is seen as a God who must not be challenged. (Viz: North Korea, the former East Germany, Cuba, etc.)
If the Governor feels that the opposing party is being too harsh on the President, perhaps it's because there's a legitimate reason for the agita that resides beyond the Beltway, i.e. the President is not the Emperor, the United States isn't the Roman empire, and people don't like to be ruled.
No President is above reproach. In fact, we're fortunate enough to criticize, mock, cajole, protest and needle the President of the United States without getting thrown into jail, tortured, murdered, disappeared, or fined into poverty because their leader is seen as a God who must not be challenged. (Viz: North Korea, the former East Germany, Cuba, etc.)
If the Governor feels that the opposing party is being too harsh on the President, perhaps it's because there's a legitimate reason for the agita that resides beyond the Beltway, i.e. the President is not the Emperor, the United States isn't the Roman empire, and people don't like to be ruled.
5/21/2010
896 million reasons why cigarette smoking will never be banned in Massachusetts
With cigarette excise taxes $2.51 per pack and $562 million taken in as tax revenue, plus $315 million from the tobacco settlement, you would figure that half of that money goes to smoking cessation programs, right?
Wrongo. According to WBZ's David Wade, out of nearly $900 million, only one half of one percent - $4.5 million - is earmarked for programs that help people quit smoking.
The other $895.5 million heads right to the General Fund. You buy a $7.50 pack of cigs in a poor section of Boston, you buy a firehouse for a well-to-do tony village in the Berkshires. Your dirt-cheap $5.75 pack of below-generic cigs purchased in Springfield may show up as a perdiem for a representative in North Andover, a dedication for a library of a state senator in Taunton, or even a re-election campaign push for the governor. Redistribution and super-easy cash at its best.
Put another way - if the state ever banned cigarettes, the tax revenues from cigarettes at both the state and federal level (which was raised to $1.01 in 2009) would mean billions of dollars lost per year. Now we know why the state will never ban cigarettes, at least until the federal government determines that all cigarettes are a health hazard and must be pulled off the shelves immediately. Once the Federal government is willing to give up their money habit, the state will be forced to follow suit.
Russet Morrow Breslau, head of Tobacco Free Mass, makes this astute judgement: ""You can't balance the budget on the backs of smokers[.]"
Who are those smokers, who are shelling out an effective tax rate of 45-60% to the general fund? The poor and middle class.
Wrongo. According to WBZ's David Wade, out of nearly $900 million, only one half of one percent - $4.5 million - is earmarked for programs that help people quit smoking.
The other $895.5 million heads right to the General Fund. You buy a $7.50 pack of cigs in a poor section of Boston, you buy a firehouse for a well-to-do tony village in the Berkshires. Your dirt-cheap $5.75 pack of below-generic cigs purchased in Springfield may show up as a perdiem for a representative in North Andover, a dedication for a library of a state senator in Taunton, or even a re-election campaign push for the governor. Redistribution and super-easy cash at its best.
Put another way - if the state ever banned cigarettes, the tax revenues from cigarettes at both the state and federal level (which was raised to $1.01 in 2009) would mean billions of dollars lost per year. Now we know why the state will never ban cigarettes, at least until the federal government determines that all cigarettes are a health hazard and must be pulled off the shelves immediately. Once the Federal government is willing to give up their money habit, the state will be forced to follow suit.
Russet Morrow Breslau, head of Tobacco Free Mass, makes this astute judgement: ""You can't balance the budget on the backs of smokers[.]"
Who are those smokers, who are shelling out an effective tax rate of 45-60% to the general fund? The poor and middle class.
4/14/2010
Kind of makes me wonder about biases too
Hub Blog highlights today's Tea Party Rally at the Boston Common and how it's a double standard for the media to ignore the anti-Iraq War protests while covering the Tea Party rally like the minutiae of the Bay City Rollers ca. 1978.
I'll give Hub Blog my answer to his question. It's a long one, so bear with me.
Dubya was President in 2003. Most on the left thought that the reason for the Iraq War was because he wanted to avenge his father's Gulf War Invasion of 1991 - the one Bush Sr. didn't finish and let Saddam Hussein and his sons continue their bloodthirsty rule. There were also rumors that Saddam tried to kill Bush Sr. - which motivated Dubya even more. The press dared not name-check the anti-war movement's principals (some of whom were pretty hard-left outfits who supported Saddam - a Stalinist cult of personality that the hard left adored with a passion) because it would mean limited access to interviews and giving free publicity to leftist hardliners in America would cause serious repercussions from more conservative corners - including curtailing circulation and cramping ratings. So the media barely touched on the rigid dogma of the people sponsoring these anti-war rallies for fear that broadcasting who they really were would garner threats and shut off access.
Now the inverse is occuring. Obama is now president, and although he's nowhere near a Stalinist, the left adores him to the point of fanatical zeal, i.e. the king shall not be smeared, he is infalliable, and his word is gospel; anyone who challenges it is a heretic and must be silenced. Enter Sarah Palin, who not only mentions the Emperor wears no clothes, but takes pure glee in mentioning that Obama wants to turn America into Europe - long the American left's dream - and it must be stopped. The left has always been jealous of American exceptionalism - that instead of the world twirling around European and Asian axes, Americans manage to do quite well without a huge nanny state or VAT taxes and the corrupt politicians that fawn over them.
Not only that, Sarah Palin is very much plain spoken. She is astringent and much like the light that vampires don't want to see when the sun rises. Sarah Palin is not one you want to mess with and it would be better to put your bare hands on a 12.5kV Amtrak catenary wire than try to . The critics know this and fear that she will put them in her sights and destroy their dreams. Fear begets irrational reaction, and the air fills with shouts of "teabagger" and references to Hitler. Hence, this is also why the press is looking over the Tea Party movement with a fine tooth comb and why she's the target of their ridicule and scorn. Anyone who is fully and rigidly invested in the plan to transform America into Europe West fears Sarah Palin, her charisma and her ability to persuade - and for her to win means a long-standing defeat.
Albert Einstein had this wonderful quote that's pertinent to this day: "Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds." It would be wise for both parties to take heed of it and understand what it means - maybe even the Tea Party movement.
I'll give Hub Blog my answer to his question. It's a long one, so bear with me.
Dubya was President in 2003. Most on the left thought that the reason for the Iraq War was because he wanted to avenge his father's Gulf War Invasion of 1991 - the one Bush Sr. didn't finish and let Saddam Hussein and his sons continue their bloodthirsty rule. There were also rumors that Saddam tried to kill Bush Sr. - which motivated Dubya even more. The press dared not name-check the anti-war movement's principals (some of whom were pretty hard-left outfits who supported Saddam - a Stalinist cult of personality that the hard left adored with a passion) because it would mean limited access to interviews and giving free publicity to leftist hardliners in America would cause serious repercussions from more conservative corners - including curtailing circulation and cramping ratings. So the media barely touched on the rigid dogma of the people sponsoring these anti-war rallies for fear that broadcasting who they really were would garner threats and shut off access.
Now the inverse is occuring. Obama is now president, and although he's nowhere near a Stalinist, the left adores him to the point of fanatical zeal, i.e. the king shall not be smeared, he is infalliable, and his word is gospel; anyone who challenges it is a heretic and must be silenced. Enter Sarah Palin, who not only mentions the Emperor wears no clothes, but takes pure glee in mentioning that Obama wants to turn America into Europe - long the American left's dream - and it must be stopped. The left has always been jealous of American exceptionalism - that instead of the world twirling around European and Asian axes, Americans manage to do quite well without a huge nanny state or VAT taxes and the corrupt politicians that fawn over them.
Not only that, Sarah Palin is very much plain spoken. She is astringent and much like the light that vampires don't want to see when the sun rises. Sarah Palin is not one you want to mess with and it would be better to put your bare hands on a 12.5kV Amtrak catenary wire than try to . The critics know this and fear that she will put them in her sights and destroy their dreams. Fear begets irrational reaction, and the air fills with shouts of "teabagger" and references to Hitler. Hence, this is also why the press is looking over the Tea Party movement with a fine tooth comb and why she's the target of their ridicule and scorn. Anyone who is fully and rigidly invested in the plan to transform America into Europe West fears Sarah Palin, her charisma and her ability to persuade - and for her to win means a long-standing defeat.
Albert Einstein had this wonderful quote that's pertinent to this day: "Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds." It would be wise for both parties to take heed of it and understand what it means - maybe even the Tea Party movement.
2/28/2010
A bonus is a bonus is a bonus...
Eeka of One Smoot Short puts her thoughts in the Big Bank Bonus Bingo. Even a token amount of money in a gift card goes a long way to say thanks.
We don't get bonuses at work per se. (Definitely not the $400,000 Bank of America execs get.) Whenever we've had a good year, the company shares the profits by depositing the monies into our 401(k) plans, usually at a rate of 3-6% of our salary, depending on our performance as a whole.
Pro: not a single dollar gets taxed, so we don't get whacked with income taxes if they cut a check instead.
Con: if the market ever goes down, like last year, it will take a long time to get that money back; and even if we've save all those nice bonuses they've given us, the money gets taxed as soon as we retire.
We don't get bonuses at work per se. (Definitely not the $400,000 Bank of America execs get.) Whenever we've had a good year, the company shares the profits by depositing the monies into our 401(k) plans, usually at a rate of 3-6% of our salary, depending on our performance as a whole.
Pro: not a single dollar gets taxed, so we don't get whacked with income taxes if they cut a check instead.
Con: if the market ever goes down, like last year, it will take a long time to get that money back; and even if we've save all those nice bonuses they've given us, the money gets taxed as soon as we retire.
2/21/2010
Phasing in sounds like a good idea...
Hub Blog posts an article regarding an easier way to reduce our dependence on foreign oil.
The idea is to add a carbon tax of $300 a ton, or about $2.60 per gallon of gasoline.
I like it, but not for reasons of the psuedo-religion of environmentalism.
No - slapping a high premium on oil and gasoline would certainly discourage the excessive speculation going on in Wall Street. Put a $2.60 tax on a gallon of gasoline, and you will find a LOT of investors who should have no business in Wall Street leaving the energy futures market quicker than you can say "perp walk" and "margin call."
The reason? People who find themselves grumbling of paying $5 a gallon for gas will reduce demand even further. The demand on crude oil has been quite low since the stock market crash of 2009, even though we pay an average of $2.60 in Massachusetts. People like cheap gas (I do, even though I don't drive) but when gas is sky-high, people reduce a lot of their car driving. When gas went from $4.11 a gallon in June 2008 to $1.59 in December 2008, certainly it put money back in their pockets.
The reason why gasoline prices are high now is because Wall Street thinks that once the economy improves, people will return to their bad old driving habits and hence increase demand, and hence line their portfolios with monster profits. A $2.60 per gallon tax will not only cool off demand, it will all but freeze it. The crude oil traders in the NYMEX pits would drive the wholesale price to under a dollar because no one wants to drive when gas is over $5 a gallon. The floor, then, for a gallon of gas would be around $3.25-$3.50.
The other benefit will be that hostile foreign countries who feel the US will always be dependent on them for cheap oil won't be so accomodating when they go into their little diatribes against America. The Great Satan/imperialists/warmongers would finally tell these countries that, yeah, your imports are nice, but we've got cars that are more fuel efficient anyway. So, take your tankers back from whence they came and your fevered conspiracy theories and mumbo-jumbo too.
A better way to implement this gas tax would be to add this tax in 2011 at the end of every quarter. Adding 65 cents a quarter to the price of gasoline is less painful and won't cause as much panic as doing it all at once. Or, increasing the tax 10 cents every other week would cause far less panic as long as the public is notified beforehand.
The only problem I would forsee is a few activists screaming (as they're wont to do) "This tax is regressive towards the poor." Really? Everyone who drives will pay this tax, but in return for this high tax, innovation would explode exponentially - cars with better fuel mileage, substantial improvements to public transportation, and other developments. For example, Bermuda has a minimum gas price of $2.00 per liter - or $7.56 per gallon - yet their cars are much smaller and fuel efficient. So a 20 liter tank of gas that has a fuel efficiency of 5L/100km gives a Bermudian a 400km range - and the island itself is only 52 square kilometers. Conversely, Bermudians use scooters and public transportation to get around the islands. The same would happen if the US implements a this tax and the 30 gallon tanks of gas giving only 15 miles per gallon shrink to 10 gallon tanks giving 45 miles to the gallon. Same distance, but better fuel efficiency.
And I do like the aspect that control freaks who use the environment as an excuse to implement wild schemes like this will not like this kind of tax either because with it, they can't impose their ideals on us. Environmentalism, along with socialism and communism, is a false religion to begin with - they are religions worshipped by the elite who missed the memo that the United States isn't ruled by a monarchy or a dictator with military fatigues and bushy facial hair. If you want to worship trees and plants and pray that one day, animals can hold a reasonable conversation with you, go right ahead - but trying to control behavior because your morality must be followed without question harbors resentment and revolt. Americans don't like to be ruled.
Finally, if the benefits of this high tax outweigh the skepticism, indeed it will be a small cost to pay. The true scientific proof for global warming has not been established yet, and may take many years to establish, but if we can stave off at least the bad parts, it will be a boon for many people, not a curse.
The idea is to add a carbon tax of $300 a ton, or about $2.60 per gallon of gasoline.
I like it, but not for reasons of the psuedo-religion of environmentalism.
No - slapping a high premium on oil and gasoline would certainly discourage the excessive speculation going on in Wall Street. Put a $2.60 tax on a gallon of gasoline, and you will find a LOT of investors who should have no business in Wall Street leaving the energy futures market quicker than you can say "perp walk" and "margin call."
The reason? People who find themselves grumbling of paying $5 a gallon for gas will reduce demand even further. The demand on crude oil has been quite low since the stock market crash of 2009, even though we pay an average of $2.60 in Massachusetts. People like cheap gas (I do, even though I don't drive) but when gas is sky-high, people reduce a lot of their car driving. When gas went from $4.11 a gallon in June 2008 to $1.59 in December 2008, certainly it put money back in their pockets.
The reason why gasoline prices are high now is because Wall Street thinks that once the economy improves, people will return to their bad old driving habits and hence increase demand, and hence line their portfolios with monster profits. A $2.60 per gallon tax will not only cool off demand, it will all but freeze it. The crude oil traders in the NYMEX pits would drive the wholesale price to under a dollar because no one wants to drive when gas is over $5 a gallon. The floor, then, for a gallon of gas would be around $3.25-$3.50.
The other benefit will be that hostile foreign countries who feel the US will always be dependent on them for cheap oil won't be so accomodating when they go into their little diatribes against America. The Great Satan/imperialists/warmongers would finally tell these countries that, yeah, your imports are nice, but we've got cars that are more fuel efficient anyway. So, take your tankers back from whence they came and your fevered conspiracy theories and mumbo-jumbo too.
A better way to implement this gas tax would be to add this tax in 2011 at the end of every quarter. Adding 65 cents a quarter to the price of gasoline is less painful and won't cause as much panic as doing it all at once. Or, increasing the tax 10 cents every other week would cause far less panic as long as the public is notified beforehand.
The only problem I would forsee is a few activists screaming (as they're wont to do) "This tax is regressive towards the poor." Really? Everyone who drives will pay this tax, but in return for this high tax, innovation would explode exponentially - cars with better fuel mileage, substantial improvements to public transportation, and other developments. For example, Bermuda has a minimum gas price of $2.00 per liter - or $7.56 per gallon - yet their cars are much smaller and fuel efficient. So a 20 liter tank of gas that has a fuel efficiency of 5L/100km gives a Bermudian a 400km range - and the island itself is only 52 square kilometers. Conversely, Bermudians use scooters and public transportation to get around the islands. The same would happen if the US implements a this tax and the 30 gallon tanks of gas giving only 15 miles per gallon shrink to 10 gallon tanks giving 45 miles to the gallon. Same distance, but better fuel efficiency.
And I do like the aspect that control freaks who use the environment as an excuse to implement wild schemes like this will not like this kind of tax either because with it, they can't impose their ideals on us. Environmentalism, along with socialism and communism, is a false religion to begin with - they are religions worshipped by the elite who missed the memo that the United States isn't ruled by a monarchy or a dictator with military fatigues and bushy facial hair. If you want to worship trees and plants and pray that one day, animals can hold a reasonable conversation with you, go right ahead - but trying to control behavior because your morality must be followed without question harbors resentment and revolt. Americans don't like to be ruled.
Finally, if the benefits of this high tax outweigh the skepticism, indeed it will be a small cost to pay. The true scientific proof for global warming has not been established yet, and may take many years to establish, but if we can stave off at least the bad parts, it will be a boon for many people, not a curse.
2/05/2010
YouAREtheweakestFacebookfriend, g'bye
This week, I did a move or several on Facebook that would probably qualify as one that may make people a little mad.
I have people from my old school who have known each other for years. I've known them for years; they are not bad people. Put alcohol and them together, and you pine for the voice of Caillou, the most annoying child in the universe. (Except for Kate Jackson, late from The Pointy Universe.)
Of course, the day after, I looked at their profiles and pictures. I'll admit the pictures were innocent and it was your garden variety get-wasted-and-pose-as-a-group-and-make-goofy-faces variety. Pretty innocent stuff, if you really want to grind it fine.
The updates, however, made me angrier every time I read them. Tons of inside jokes. One person begging for pictures of her in heels falling flat on her ass. People begging to be taken out of the country. They sounded like they were congratulating themselves on getting wasted like the old days.
It brought me back to the day where I was in high school and while they played, drank, dated, and horsed around, I didn't get to do any of those things. Thanks (and this is a sincere thanks, not a sarcastic thanks you get when someone eats a fudgsicle and hands you the stick) to my parents, who saw these kids as pretty unruly. They made sure I had a good head on my shoulders. They made me study and go to school and work for what I wanted. Above all, they made sure I stayed out of trouble, because they promised not to rescue me if stuff happened.
I agonized over the decision for a couple of days. What would they think of me? Would I be demonized?
Then, I heard a voice that was female, and distinctly English, with four tones heralding her arrival. "Mr. ClearySquared...have these people always been by your side? Will they ever show up at your time of need? Or are they daft, immature, insecure people who are only out to have fun? It's time to vote off...the Weakest Links!"
Yep, my inner Anne Robinson - the game show host with a gimlet eye for bullshit - cast that eye towards me.
It was time to employ the FB Ban Hammer. The Friend Sledge-o-matic.
All I had to do was click the "X" near the word "Do you wish to break your connection?" It was the equivalent "YouAREtheweakestlink...g'bye," but mercifully without the virtual Walk of Shame and the post-voting interview. Painless and very clean, but I did it.
For a couple of days, I felt really bad. So far I haven't received requests to bring them back. I thought they were going to send me a message saying, "WTF? Why did you defriend me?" But then Anne came back and said, "There are plenty of people out there who will be your friends even outside of Facebook. The real friends will be the ones who will show up when you need them, just as you will show up when they need you. And if the ones who want to come back want an explanation, ask them: will you be there when I need you? If they can't answer that question, well, to borrow from another game show that made it to the States and was hosted by Regis Philbin, you have your final answer."
Then she winked and said, "G'bye."
I have people from my old school who have known each other for years. I've known them for years; they are not bad people. Put alcohol and them together, and you pine for the voice of Caillou, the most annoying child in the universe. (Except for Kate Jackson, late from The Pointy Universe.)
Of course, the day after, I looked at their profiles and pictures. I'll admit the pictures were innocent and it was your garden variety get-wasted-and-pose-as-a-group-and-make-goofy-faces variety. Pretty innocent stuff, if you really want to grind it fine.
The updates, however, made me angrier every time I read them. Tons of inside jokes. One person begging for pictures of her in heels falling flat on her ass. People begging to be taken out of the country. They sounded like they were congratulating themselves on getting wasted like the old days.
It brought me back to the day where I was in high school and while they played, drank, dated, and horsed around, I didn't get to do any of those things. Thanks (and this is a sincere thanks, not a sarcastic thanks you get when someone eats a fudgsicle and hands you the stick) to my parents, who saw these kids as pretty unruly. They made sure I had a good head on my shoulders. They made me study and go to school and work for what I wanted. Above all, they made sure I stayed out of trouble, because they promised not to rescue me if stuff happened.
I agonized over the decision for a couple of days. What would they think of me? Would I be demonized?
Then, I heard a voice that was female, and distinctly English, with four tones heralding her arrival. "Mr. ClearySquared...have these people always been by your side? Will they ever show up at your time of need? Or are they daft, immature, insecure people who are only out to have fun? It's time to vote off...the Weakest Links!"
Yep, my inner Anne Robinson - the game show host with a gimlet eye for bullshit - cast that eye towards me.
It was time to employ the FB Ban Hammer. The Friend Sledge-o-matic.
All I had to do was click the "X" near the word "Do you wish to break your connection?" It was the equivalent "YouAREtheweakestlink...g'bye," but mercifully without the virtual Walk of Shame and the post-voting interview. Painless and very clean, but I did it.
For a couple of days, I felt really bad. So far I haven't received requests to bring them back. I thought they were going to send me a message saying, "WTF? Why did you defriend me?" But then Anne came back and said, "There are plenty of people out there who will be your friends even outside of Facebook. The real friends will be the ones who will show up when you need them, just as you will show up when they need you. And if the ones who want to come back want an explanation, ask them: will you be there when I need you? If they can't answer that question, well, to borrow from another game show that made it to the States and was hosted by Regis Philbin, you have your final answer."
Then she winked and said, "G'bye."
1/09/2010
Chef Chang's House to close and become Sichuan Gourmet
According to Universal Hub via the Boston Restaurant Talk blog, Chef Chang's House, the unassuming Chinese restaurant about 25 feet from the Brookline/Boston line (and right next to the mid-60s/early 70s white Beacon Street sign) will close and become Sichuan Gourmet. Two branches of Sichuan House are already in Billerica and Framingham.
I discovered the restaurant in 1992, while coming home for weekends at UMass Dartmouth. Somehow I was hungry and I wanted something quick, and right at the portal of the "C" line trolley was this restaurant. It's very low-key, comfortable, and out-of-the-way. Sweet and sour chicken for lunch back then was $4.25...not a bad deal for a poor college student!
The lunch specials came with soup (never got the soup) and an appetizer (either wontons or an egg roll). The duck sauce served with the egg rolls had a very slight hint of strawberries, although I can't confirm this. And each diner got a free pot of hot tea plus refills of ice water.
The sweet and sour chicken at Chef Chang's House is the yardstick to compare restaurant sweet and sour chicken made at Chinese restaurants. Usually, the other versions are a day-glo mess of chicken fingers, a heavily-sugary (and often piping hot because of the sugar) sauce, and maybe a cherry or a pineapple here or there (Liane's in Hyde Park used to have cherries and pineapple, but don't anymore). Chef Chang's sauce is exactly the right balance of sweet and sour, and they toss in pickles, carrots, green peppers and onions. And, at the very end of the meal, I save the cherry for last, as that represents the end of a good meal.
In 2010, the lunch special has increased to $6.95, still very reasonable for the college student, and for an extra dollar I get the healthier and stickier brown rice. However, It's sad that a good Chinese restaurant like this must close. King's House in Hyde Park did the same and they were open for over 32 years until he closed in 2007. Kenny King did a great business competing against Liane's...his food was much more expensive but well worth it. He closed because people liked Liane's better and they usually deal in high volume (the luncheon/dinner specials are enough to feed two or have over two meals!) Talk and Wok (where the Mug and Muffin used to be eons ago) isn't as good and imparts that thin, cheesy Chinese restaurant patina. Maybe Sichuan Gourmet will prove to be as good, but I will certainly miss Chef Chang's House.
(Aside: the best homemade sweet and sour chicken I had was at an old high school friend's house. Maybe the new owners of Sichuan Gourmet could get lessons from her?)
I discovered the restaurant in 1992, while coming home for weekends at UMass Dartmouth. Somehow I was hungry and I wanted something quick, and right at the portal of the "C" line trolley was this restaurant. It's very low-key, comfortable, and out-of-the-way. Sweet and sour chicken for lunch back then was $4.25...not a bad deal for a poor college student!
The lunch specials came with soup (never got the soup) and an appetizer (either wontons or an egg roll). The duck sauce served with the egg rolls had a very slight hint of strawberries, although I can't confirm this. And each diner got a free pot of hot tea plus refills of ice water.
The sweet and sour chicken at Chef Chang's House is the yardstick to compare restaurant sweet and sour chicken made at Chinese restaurants. Usually, the other versions are a day-glo mess of chicken fingers, a heavily-sugary (and often piping hot because of the sugar) sauce, and maybe a cherry or a pineapple here or there (Liane's in Hyde Park used to have cherries and pineapple, but don't anymore). Chef Chang's sauce is exactly the right balance of sweet and sour, and they toss in pickles, carrots, green peppers and onions. And, at the very end of the meal, I save the cherry for last, as that represents the end of a good meal.
In 2010, the lunch special has increased to $6.95, still very reasonable for the college student, and for an extra dollar I get the healthier and stickier brown rice. However, It's sad that a good Chinese restaurant like this must close. King's House in Hyde Park did the same and they were open for over 32 years until he closed in 2007. Kenny King did a great business competing against Liane's...his food was much more expensive but well worth it. He closed because people liked Liane's better and they usually deal in high volume (the luncheon/dinner specials are enough to feed two or have over two meals!) Talk and Wok (where the Mug and Muffin used to be eons ago) isn't as good and imparts that thin, cheesy Chinese restaurant patina. Maybe Sichuan Gourmet will prove to be as good, but I will certainly miss Chef Chang's House.
(Aside: the best homemade sweet and sour chicken I had was at an old high school friend's house. Maybe the new owners of Sichuan Gourmet could get lessons from her?)
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