In the last few days I've had a feeling that I haven't had in as long as I can remember. I have been grateful to an elected official that I voted for, because that official was vigilantly performing the duties of her office. And the weird thing is, the office is not one of the high-visibility spots: it's the Oakland City Auditor.
At the last election, the race for City Auditor was actually one of the liveliest contests on the local ballot, with the former auditor (who had been in office for years and was accused of being impossible to work for and gutting the department) up against 2 likely-looking and well qualified newcomers, of whom Courtney Ruby, a CPA and former CFO, took the election and took office. Courtney Ruby has just released a hard-hitting audit of city payroll practices, and I feel like standing up and cheering. She's identified more than $3 million in "loosely monitored payroll transactions" over a 3 year period, and she says she's not done.
The reaction from the city administrator, Deborah Edgerly, was disgracefully unprofessional - she called the report "inaccurate and misleading," and somewhat grudgingly agreed to work with the auditor and the city council to identify "payroll policies and practices that need changing." I translate this response as "You don't understand how we do things here." But I think Ms. Ruby does understand how we do things here, and she's just documented it publicly.
Chip Johnson of the San Francisco Chronicle says it's the "first independent fiscal analysis coming out of Oakland City Hall in the 10 years I've covered the place." He further points out that Ms. Ruby, formerly with the East Bay Conservation Corps, is not part of "the city's political cabal" - well, exactly. The problem with Oakland is exactly that long-standing political cabal, of which, I may add, Mayor Dellums is a member in good standing; the purpose of the political cabal is to appoint some friends to well-paying commissions and award lucrative contracts to other friends - I can't think of another reason why the same names keep turning up over and over. Managing the city of Oakland in a fiscally responsible manner isn't on the table, as far as this citizen can see: we pay the taxes and pay the taxes, and still there's no money for police, for fire coverage, for street repair - the money must be going somewhere. Well, we now know that $700,000 a year is paying for automobile allowances for 238 city employees. How many cops would that hire? And why aren't these people taking public transit, or using vehicles from a pool?
Hey, Ms. Ruby - wanna run for mayor next time?
And as for Ms. Edgerly - can we please have Robert Bobb back??
Friday, November 30, 2007
Thursday, November 29, 2007
Family Trees
This is a week or so old now, but hey - who said I had to be current?
I'm bemused by the flap over the 2007 Lowe's catalog and its "family trees". For those of you who missed this, when Lowe's Home Improvement Stores published their 2007 catalog, they had a page or three advertising symmetrical cone-shaped (more or less) objects resembling pine trees, which the catalog labeled "family trees."
Everybody who saw the catalog said, "Hey, those are Christmas trees;" the American Family Association responded to this with a mass email campaign protesting the wording ("put the Christ back in Christmas" etc. etc.); and Lowe's publicly apologized ("It certainly was not intended to offend anyone.") and republished the catalog, now including "Christmas" trees.
I hardly know where to start here. Lowe's evidently feared, in some spasm of excess political correctness, that it would offend its non-Christian customers if it referred to "Christmas" trees. I've been doing a little research on how many members of various religions live in the United States, and nobody's really sure of any of the numbers, but in various surveys of religious preference over the last few years, between 70% and 85% of respondents said they were Christian. If you assume this mirrors Lowe's customer base, then in attempting to please roughly 15-30% of their shoppers, they managed to offend the other 70-85%. This strikes me as poor judgment. Not to mention the fact that they looked silly as hell, since the Christmas tree is an instantly recognizable cultural icon and has been for roughly 200 years.
And to finish off their folly, they did this in the Dallas-Fort Worth area (or at least that's where the linked news story was published). This will probably offend any residents of Dallas-Fort Worth who may read this, but it's not an area I associate with, shall we say, non-mainstream religions. I'm sure there are Jews and Muslims and maybe even a few Wiccans in Dallas-Fort Worth, but the vast majority of the population is evangelical. In fact, I'm not sure Catholic isn't considered non-mainstream there.
These numbers also make the American Family Association look a little, um, over-sensitive. Believe me, Christianity is in no danger in the United States. In fact, those of us who believe in the separation of church and state sometimes get a little nervous.
But the real thing that boggled my mind was: in this day and age, who in tarnation would buy a Christmas tree from a catalog?? Delancey Street already has tree lots up all over San Francisco. By next weekend you'll be tripping over pine branches in every parking lot in America. And Lowe's thinks people will order them by mail??
I'm bemused by the flap over the 2007 Lowe's catalog and its "family trees". For those of you who missed this, when Lowe's Home Improvement Stores published their 2007 catalog, they had a page or three advertising symmetrical cone-shaped (more or less) objects resembling pine trees, which the catalog labeled "family trees."
Everybody who saw the catalog said, "Hey, those are Christmas trees;" the American Family Association responded to this with a mass email campaign protesting the wording ("put the Christ back in Christmas" etc. etc.); and Lowe's publicly apologized ("It certainly was not intended to offend anyone.") and republished the catalog, now including "Christmas" trees.
I hardly know where to start here. Lowe's evidently feared, in some spasm of excess political correctness, that it would offend its non-Christian customers if it referred to "Christmas" trees. I've been doing a little research on how many members of various religions live in the United States, and nobody's really sure of any of the numbers, but in various surveys of religious preference over the last few years, between 70% and 85% of respondents said they were Christian. If you assume this mirrors Lowe's customer base, then in attempting to please roughly 15-30% of their shoppers, they managed to offend the other 70-85%. This strikes me as poor judgment. Not to mention the fact that they looked silly as hell, since the Christmas tree is an instantly recognizable cultural icon and has been for roughly 200 years.
And to finish off their folly, they did this in the Dallas-Fort Worth area (or at least that's where the linked news story was published). This will probably offend any residents of Dallas-Fort Worth who may read this, but it's not an area I associate with, shall we say, non-mainstream religions. I'm sure there are Jews and Muslims and maybe even a few Wiccans in Dallas-Fort Worth, but the vast majority of the population is evangelical. In fact, I'm not sure Catholic isn't considered non-mainstream there.
These numbers also make the American Family Association look a little, um, over-sensitive. Believe me, Christianity is in no danger in the United States. In fact, those of us who believe in the separation of church and state sometimes get a little nervous.
But the real thing that boggled my mind was: in this day and age, who in tarnation would buy a Christmas tree from a catalog?? Delancey Street already has tree lots up all over San Francisco. By next weekend you'll be tripping over pine branches in every parking lot in America. And Lowe's thinks people will order them by mail??
Sunday, November 25, 2007
Vacation Photos
Last summer I blogged at some length about the vacation we took to England and Wales, but posted no pictures. Well, I'm slow, but I do deliver (after all, there were sixteen rolls of film to go through!), and I've now got photo galleries posted on www.karenivy.net for the first 3 legs of our trip: London and Greenwich, Kent and East Sussex, and Devonshire (mainly Dartmoor). Feel free to go and browse. I hope you enjoy looking at them as much as I enjoyed taking them. Keep checking back - I still have Wales and the Chester-York trip to do!
Saturday, November 17, 2007
No Turkeys
Despite the time of year, this post is not about Thanksgiving.
A small flock of wild turkeys has moved into our neighborhood. I've seen them twice now - both times, en route to somewhere else and with no camera to hand. The first time, they were ambling down the middle of my city street at 5 o'clock in the evening, about 5 of them, and I saw them as I came out of the house to go to water aerobics. I tried to get a shot (from across the street) with the soi-disant camera in my cell phone, but it was not up to the challenge.
The second time (yesterday), my husband and I were driving toward the freeway around 8:30 in the morning, and there they all were, by the community playing field fence, up the canyon. Still no camera except the cell phone, and besides we had an appointment to get to. But I clearly saw the comb on the tom turkey, and the color shading on his feathers.
Now, I really want a photo of these critters. This is why I bought that 300mm lens. They are elegant birds, long and lean, standing somewhere between knee and hip high to an adult human; and it amazes me that they're willing to come this far into civilization. The community playing field is right next to the elementary school, and the whole area was full of kids, and parents, and commuters on their way to work via the back route to the freeway. They obviously don't mind people; so I'm stalking them, camera in hand, in the morning and evening. No luck today, only pigeons and sparrows; although I did discover that someone has plastered the base of about two sections of the fence with corn kernels and some other kind of large brown seed.
Shades of my late mother-in-law, who used to be a regular customer of the feed store in her Wisconsin village; she bought 50 lb. sacks of corn to feed the deer and squirrels. I'm sure that some of the critters who grew up on her handouts must have starved to death after we moved her to California.
The turkeys may also have been deterred by this afternoon's soccer game, played by six-year-olds, in raucous progress on the playing field. The start of school is lively enough, but this was even more energetic. It's very odd watching six-year-olds play soccer - they're all about the same height (short; they looked like they were knee high to the adults) and moving very fast. With them all in similar uniforms, it was like watching a flock of wading birds flow back and forth across the beach, except that wading birds aren't screaming and chasing a soccer ball.
Still, it's a nice walk up the canyon to where I saw them last, and you never know, maybe I'll get lucky one day and there they'll be. I'm keeping the camera just inside the front door.
A small flock of wild turkeys has moved into our neighborhood. I've seen them twice now - both times, en route to somewhere else and with no camera to hand. The first time, they were ambling down the middle of my city street at 5 o'clock in the evening, about 5 of them, and I saw them as I came out of the house to go to water aerobics. I tried to get a shot (from across the street) with the soi-disant camera in my cell phone, but it was not up to the challenge.
The second time (yesterday), my husband and I were driving toward the freeway around 8:30 in the morning, and there they all were, by the community playing field fence, up the canyon. Still no camera except the cell phone, and besides we had an appointment to get to. But I clearly saw the comb on the tom turkey, and the color shading on his feathers.
Now, I really want a photo of these critters. This is why I bought that 300mm lens. They are elegant birds, long and lean, standing somewhere between knee and hip high to an adult human; and it amazes me that they're willing to come this far into civilization. The community playing field is right next to the elementary school, and the whole area was full of kids, and parents, and commuters on their way to work via the back route to the freeway. They obviously don't mind people; so I'm stalking them, camera in hand, in the morning and evening. No luck today, only pigeons and sparrows; although I did discover that someone has plastered the base of about two sections of the fence with corn kernels and some other kind of large brown seed.
Shades of my late mother-in-law, who used to be a regular customer of the feed store in her Wisconsin village; she bought 50 lb. sacks of corn to feed the deer and squirrels. I'm sure that some of the critters who grew up on her handouts must have starved to death after we moved her to California.
The turkeys may also have been deterred by this afternoon's soccer game, played by six-year-olds, in raucous progress on the playing field. The start of school is lively enough, but this was even more energetic. It's very odd watching six-year-olds play soccer - they're all about the same height (short; they looked like they were knee high to the adults) and moving very fast. With them all in similar uniforms, it was like watching a flock of wading birds flow back and forth across the beach, except that wading birds aren't screaming and chasing a soccer ball.
Still, it's a nice walk up the canyon to where I saw them last, and you never know, maybe I'll get lucky one day and there they'll be. I'm keeping the camera just inside the front door.
Sunday, November 11, 2007
Sunny Days
It's nice to see the sun again. You can't rely on it, if you live in a coastal city; fog comes with the territory, or that medium-level cover of dry gray clouds they call "the marine layer." Yesterday it even rained; but for the whole last week we've had clouds, pretty much all day every day. I think there was one sunny day.
Now that I'm retired, I spend a lot of time in the house. Our house is an active pleasure to be in on a sunny fall or winter morning. The whole south side is covered with windows, and the southerly sun streams in and warms the place up, physically and spiritually. On a cloudy day, though, everything is gray, the sky, the neighborhood - even the yard seems subdued, despite my husband's efforts to have something in bloom at all times.
The most annoying days are when the clouds just sit on the East Bay hills, like the cloud that followed Joe Btfsplk around in L'il Abner, and the rest of the Bay Area is sunny. Talk about unfair! When I worked, I had a sporting chance of seeing some sun in Concord. But then, of course, I had to work... and the policy at the office was to keep the blinds closed at all times to keep the building temperature even and save energy. (Gee, thanks, guys.)
Today we had some early clouds, and then they blew over and the sun came out, so the house was happy again all morning. It really makes me think of "The sun pours down like honey" (but not on Our Lady of the Harbor) from Suzanne. I'll have to think of something to do this winter to ward off Seasonal Affective Disorder.
Now that I'm retired, I spend a lot of time in the house. Our house is an active pleasure to be in on a sunny fall or winter morning. The whole south side is covered with windows, and the southerly sun streams in and warms the place up, physically and spiritually. On a cloudy day, though, everything is gray, the sky, the neighborhood - even the yard seems subdued, despite my husband's efforts to have something in bloom at all times.
The most annoying days are when the clouds just sit on the East Bay hills, like the cloud that followed Joe Btfsplk around in L'il Abner, and the rest of the Bay Area is sunny. Talk about unfair! When I worked, I had a sporting chance of seeing some sun in Concord. But then, of course, I had to work... and the policy at the office was to keep the blinds closed at all times to keep the building temperature even and save energy. (Gee, thanks, guys.)
Today we had some early clouds, and then they blew over and the sun came out, so the house was happy again all morning. It really makes me think of "The sun pours down like honey" (but not on Our Lady of the Harbor) from Suzanne. I'll have to think of something to do this winter to ward off Seasonal Affective Disorder.
Kaddish
Mourn for the seabirds, and the fish, and the crabs. Mourn for the beaches, and the creatures that live on them. Mourn for the people who eat the fish they catch at the piers. Mourn for the migrating birds on the Pacific Flyway. We have destroyed San Francisco Bay. Our addiction to oil has murdered the creatures, and covered San Francisco Bay with oily sludge.
The blame game has begun. Was it the bar pilot? Was it the ship's Chinese crew? Were the instruments bad? Was the fog part of the problem? Can we sue the owners of the ship? Who owns the ship, anyway? In a real sense, none of this matters; the damage is done, and the cleanup will take months if we're lucky, years if we're not. They're still finding stuff from the Exxon Valdez spill. But in a real sense, we are all, ourselves, responsible - because we can't stop using the oil.
Mourn.
The blame game has begun. Was it the bar pilot? Was it the ship's Chinese crew? Were the instruments bad? Was the fog part of the problem? Can we sue the owners of the ship? Who owns the ship, anyway? In a real sense, none of this matters; the damage is done, and the cleanup will take months if we're lucky, years if we're not. They're still finding stuff from the Exxon Valdez spill. But in a real sense, we are all, ourselves, responsible - because we can't stop using the oil.
Mourn.
Thursday, November 08, 2007
More Roosting Chickens
I'll admit I didn't see this one coming. On Tuesday Consumer Reports announced that they won't automatically recommend Toyota vehicles without reliability data on the specific design, after 2 Toyota models (the Camry V6 and the Tundra 4 wheel drive V8 pickup) were rated "below average" in predicted reliability. (The Camry??)
In the same report, 3 Ford models (the Ford Fusion, the Mercury Milan and the F-150 V6 pickup) made the "most reliable" list.
Ford is more reliable than Toyota? The world is coming to an end.
Well, Toyota's world may be, and in an article in the San Francisco Chronicle yesterday, we may have an explanation. A former quality control inspector at the NUMMI plant in Fremont, CA, a joint venture between Toyota and General Motors, is suing both firms on the grounds that they retaliated against her when she reported multiple defects on "thousands of vehicles" coming off the line. According to the suit, eight years ago managers began altering her defect reports to lower the Daily Defect Per Vehicle numbers.
The interesting point here is that the NUMMI plant doesn't make the vehicles Consumer Reports just downgraded. It makes Toyota Tacomas and Corollas, and Pontiac Vibes. Might be interesting to check the Consumer Reports reliability ratings on the last 5 years or so of those models.
Toyota's market position has been based for years on draconian quality control. Looks like Draco has been laterally arabesqued....
In the same report, 3 Ford models (the Ford Fusion, the Mercury Milan and the F-150 V6 pickup) made the "most reliable" list.
Ford is more reliable than Toyota? The world is coming to an end.
Well, Toyota's world may be, and in an article in the San Francisco Chronicle yesterday, we may have an explanation. A former quality control inspector at the NUMMI plant in Fremont, CA, a joint venture between Toyota and General Motors, is suing both firms on the grounds that they retaliated against her when she reported multiple defects on "thousands of vehicles" coming off the line. According to the suit, eight years ago managers began altering her defect reports to lower the Daily Defect Per Vehicle numbers.
The interesting point here is that the NUMMI plant doesn't make the vehicles Consumer Reports just downgraded. It makes Toyota Tacomas and Corollas, and Pontiac Vibes. Might be interesting to check the Consumer Reports reliability ratings on the last 5 years or so of those models.
Toyota's market position has been based for years on draconian quality control. Looks like Draco has been laterally arabesqued....
The Chickens are Coming Home To Roost
The news over the last couple of days has been interesting, and is summarized by a comment in this week's Economist (not an exact quote): According to bankers, the four most expensive words in the English language are, "This time it's different."
Let's start with the bankers. Over the last couple of weeks everybody's 3rd quarter report has come out, and the red ink looks like the floor of a slaughterhouse. The chairmen of Merrill Lynch and Citigroup have been bounced. (Don't weep for them; they won't starve.) Citigroup in fact is in such bad shape that people are beginning to wonder whether the guvmint will have to bail it out (which probably means it's too late to sell my stock, fortunately not a large stake). As I commented in September, the investment banking industry thought it had invented a way to manage mortgage lending without actually personally taking any risk that the borrower would default; and they were wrong.
The fallout isn't restricted to bankers, and the bankers haven't heard the worst yet, because most of them are also in the credit card business. The fallout from subprime delinquencies is about to hit the credit card business, according to an analysis Tuesday from AP. The same people who took out mortgages they couldn't pay were carrying credit card debt they couldn't pay. In fact, some of those adjustable mortgages were refinances to pull out cash to pay off other debt... The whole industry is now watching nervously to see what The Consumer does during the upcoming Christmas season.
How does this come under "This time it's different"? Back to the subprime crisis: this time it was different because the housing market would continue to rise indefinitely and everybody would be rich because of their house. Except it didn't. This time it's different because for 40 years consumers in this country have been running their lives on credit and the bills have never come due - there was always another credit card, or you could refinance the house and "cash out" because the housing market was always going to keep rising. (Except in 1989 but nobody remembers that.)
If I sound a little sanctimonious here, I'll admit that, at one time in my life, almost 30 years ago, I ran on credit. My paycheck was never quite enough, and I had I think 7 or 8 credit cards with balances on all of them. But - I got a small windfall, and I used the windfall to pay off all my credit cards, and I've never put anything on a credit card since that I couldn't pay off at the end of the month. The only debt we have is a mortgage and we'll pay that off shortly. I'm back to where my parents were except that they didn't have a mortgage; they paid their house off in 1952. So I'm watching this from the outside; but I live here, and if we have a major recession it'll hit me too.
I've been wondering for years when this was all going to fall over, and I have a bad feeling that it's about to. And you know something? If it falls over, we'll have done it to ourselves. We made the choices. We decided we could pay for it later. Well, folks - it's later.
Let's start with the bankers. Over the last couple of weeks everybody's 3rd quarter report has come out, and the red ink looks like the floor of a slaughterhouse. The chairmen of Merrill Lynch and Citigroup have been bounced. (Don't weep for them; they won't starve.) Citigroup in fact is in such bad shape that people are beginning to wonder whether the guvmint will have to bail it out (which probably means it's too late to sell my stock, fortunately not a large stake). As I commented in September, the investment banking industry thought it had invented a way to manage mortgage lending without actually personally taking any risk that the borrower would default; and they were wrong.
The fallout isn't restricted to bankers, and the bankers haven't heard the worst yet, because most of them are also in the credit card business. The fallout from subprime delinquencies is about to hit the credit card business, according to an analysis Tuesday from AP. The same people who took out mortgages they couldn't pay were carrying credit card debt they couldn't pay. In fact, some of those adjustable mortgages were refinances to pull out cash to pay off other debt... The whole industry is now watching nervously to see what The Consumer does during the upcoming Christmas season.
How does this come under "This time it's different"? Back to the subprime crisis: this time it was different because the housing market would continue to rise indefinitely and everybody would be rich because of their house. Except it didn't. This time it's different because for 40 years consumers in this country have been running their lives on credit and the bills have never come due - there was always another credit card, or you could refinance the house and "cash out" because the housing market was always going to keep rising. (Except in 1989 but nobody remembers that.)
If I sound a little sanctimonious here, I'll admit that, at one time in my life, almost 30 years ago, I ran on credit. My paycheck was never quite enough, and I had I think 7 or 8 credit cards with balances on all of them. But - I got a small windfall, and I used the windfall to pay off all my credit cards, and I've never put anything on a credit card since that I couldn't pay off at the end of the month. The only debt we have is a mortgage and we'll pay that off shortly. I'm back to where my parents were except that they didn't have a mortgage; they paid their house off in 1952. So I'm watching this from the outside; but I live here, and if we have a major recession it'll hit me too.
I've been wondering for years when this was all going to fall over, and I have a bad feeling that it's about to. And you know something? If it falls over, we'll have done it to ourselves. We made the choices. We decided we could pay for it later. Well, folks - it's later.
Sunday, November 04, 2007
One Touch of Venus
This weekend's entertainment was live, not Netflix - we went to San Francisco to see a friend of my husband perform in "One Touch of Venus", done by 42nd Street Moon. This show isn't very often performed - what 42nd Street Moon does is musicals that aren't often performed - but we thought it was fabulous: music by Kurt Weill, lyrics by Ogden Nash and S. J. Perelman. It was lively, very funny, the cast of 10 played, sang and danced at least 15 parts with great verve. The experience was improved by the very small Eureka Theater - the audience was practically in the performers' laps and vice versa.
This isn't your "standard" musical production. First, they didn't have a full cast. Second, the sets consisted of one chaise longue, one standard chair, about 5 black and white cubes, and the piano, on which various people leaned or sat. Third, the piano, played by the music director (Dave Dobrusky) throughout the performance, constituted the entire musical accompaniment. Fourth, some of the performers carried "scripts" in some scenes - but I didn't even realize they did until the discussion after the show. Everybody was carrying binders or folders around, but most of them had reasons to carry binders and/or folders around.
I won't review the plot here - the Marin IJ did that last week if you're interested. I just wanted to recommend everybody, go see a live musical sometime, preferably a comedy. It is fantastic fun and has no relation to renting the DVD from NetFlix. In fact, it's playing through Nov. 11 - see the 42nd Street Moon web site. If you're in the S.F. Bay Area you may still be able to get tickets.
I have to quote, though, what the IJ said was the best line of the evening. One of the characters, having spent the night drinking "Shostakoviches", malted mare's milk and vodka (??!), is asked how he feels the morning after, and says: "All my teeth feel like they have little sweaters on them." Thank you, Ogden Nash, we've all been there and felt like that...
I also want to let my readers know that I don't spend all my time worrying about coups in Pakistan.
This isn't your "standard" musical production. First, they didn't have a full cast. Second, the sets consisted of one chaise longue, one standard chair, about 5 black and white cubes, and the piano, on which various people leaned or sat. Third, the piano, played by the music director (Dave Dobrusky) throughout the performance, constituted the entire musical accompaniment. Fourth, some of the performers carried "scripts" in some scenes - but I didn't even realize they did until the discussion after the show. Everybody was carrying binders or folders around, but most of them had reasons to carry binders and/or folders around.
I won't review the plot here - the Marin IJ did that last week if you're interested. I just wanted to recommend everybody, go see a live musical sometime, preferably a comedy. It is fantastic fun and has no relation to renting the DVD from NetFlix. In fact, it's playing through Nov. 11 - see the 42nd Street Moon web site. If you're in the S.F. Bay Area you may still be able to get tickets.
I have to quote, though, what the IJ said was the best line of the evening. One of the characters, having spent the night drinking "Shostakoviches", malted mare's milk and vodka (??!), is asked how he feels the morning after, and says: "All my teeth feel like they have little sweaters on them." Thank you, Ogden Nash, we've all been there and felt like that...
I also want to let my readers know that I don't spend all my time worrying about coups in Pakistan.
Saturday, November 03, 2007
The Dictator
Well, he's done it. The BBC reported today that General Musharraf has declared a national state of emergency in Pakistan, suspended the constitution (including free speech), and replaced the chief justice. That would be the chief justice he tried to suspend earlier this year, which caused the entire legal profession to take to the streets. This move, of course, is because he was reasonably sure the Supreme Court was going to rule that his recent election to the presidency was unconstitutional because he failed to resign as army chief first, despite having promised to do so at least 4 times that I recall offhand. From the AP article:
It's unfortunate that the known civilian alternatives to Musharraf, Nawaz Sharif and Benazir Bhutto, have been tried before and found grossly corrupt. In fact, both of them left the country some years ago to avoid arrest on corruption charges; and Bhutto has negotiated her return on the condition that the charges be lifted. The third alternative, of course, is the native Islamic militant political wing. So there aren't any good alternatives for Pakistan: an only moderately competent dictator, versus two known corrupt civilian politicians, versus the Pakistani equivalent of the Taliban.
But shouldn't we allow the Pakistani people to decide on their own what government they want? Isn't that the whole principle of democracy? We've developed much too much of a tendency in recent years to accept the results of democratic elections only if they bring people we like to power. Classic examples here are Hugo Chavez in Venezula and Hamas in Palestine. Whatever you think of them - and I don't like either of them - they were fairly elected (in Chavez' case, at least the first time; and he does have tremendous support among the poor); whereupon we took it on ourselves to declare that those people aren't suited to form a government. Unfortunately for Hamas, there's no oil in the West Bank or Gaza, so they couldn't ignore us the way Chavez does.
But back to Pakistan - every rational observer saw this development coming. It's too bad that the U.S. government (which seems to have thought that having Condi Rice call Musharraf at 3 AM Pakistan time, to urge him not to declare a state of emergency, would do the trick) can no longer be considered a rational observer.
A copy of the emergency order obtained by The Associated Press justified the declaration on the grounds that "some members of the judiciary are working at cross purposes with the executive" and "weakening the government's resolve" to fight terrorism.Why are we supporting this man? Are we back to the bad old days of "he's an SOB, but he's our SOB?" This is pure and simple dictatorship. The Bush administration considers Musharraf a vital ally in the war against terror, despite the fact that he has been entirely unable to control the Taliban in the border area next to Afghanistan. Condi Rice, next door in Turkey (trying to keep the Turks from invading Iraqi Kurdistan, I assume), is blethering that the U.S. "does not support extraconstitutional measures" and "urging a quick return to civilian rule." This is balderdash. Musharraf is still in power exactly because he declares a state of emergency every time he is faced with a genuine election (which he would lose; he's massively unpopular in Pakistan). Supporting him merely convinces the rest of the world that Americans really are arrogant, militaristic bastards who are using the "war on terror" to advance a set of principles that have everything to do with power and oil, and nothing whatever to do with freedom and democracy.
It's unfortunate that the known civilian alternatives to Musharraf, Nawaz Sharif and Benazir Bhutto, have been tried before and found grossly corrupt. In fact, both of them left the country some years ago to avoid arrest on corruption charges; and Bhutto has negotiated her return on the condition that the charges be lifted. The third alternative, of course, is the native Islamic militant political wing. So there aren't any good alternatives for Pakistan: an only moderately competent dictator, versus two known corrupt civilian politicians, versus the Pakistani equivalent of the Taliban.
But shouldn't we allow the Pakistani people to decide on their own what government they want? Isn't that the whole principle of democracy? We've developed much too much of a tendency in recent years to accept the results of democratic elections only if they bring people we like to power. Classic examples here are Hugo Chavez in Venezula and Hamas in Palestine. Whatever you think of them - and I don't like either of them - they were fairly elected (in Chavez' case, at least the first time; and he does have tremendous support among the poor); whereupon we took it on ourselves to declare that those people aren't suited to form a government. Unfortunately for Hamas, there's no oil in the West Bank or Gaza, so they couldn't ignore us the way Chavez does.
But back to Pakistan - every rational observer saw this development coming. It's too bad that the U.S. government (which seems to have thought that having Condi Rice call Musharraf at 3 AM Pakistan time, to urge him not to declare a state of emergency, would do the trick) can no longer be considered a rational observer.
Friday, November 02, 2007
Eighty Days
It's dark on weekend nights again, so we've restarted the Netflix subscription. Last weekend we watched an all time classic - David Niven and Cantinflas in Around the World in 80 Days.
This thing is fabulous. Watching Cantinflas alone is worth the whole price of admission; and then there are all the cameos. Go look up the cast on IMDB - everyone who was anyone had a cameo in that film, although I thought the real high point was the San Francisco saloon, where Niven was accosted by Marlene Dietrich as a saloon madam, thrown out by George Raft as her boyfriend - and the whole event was accompanied by a saloon pianist who suddenly turned around to reveal Old Blue Eyes - Sinatra himself, aged I guess about 40 and at the top of his form. This was a real cameo as he didn't even have a line!
This movie has everything. It has bullfights. It has mysterious Tangerian yachtsmen. It has elephants. It has a daring rescue - several daring rescues. It has collapsing railway bridges, and attacking Sioux. It has drugged drinks, and missed connections, and a desperate dash for the finish line. If you've never seen it, rent it. If you have seen it, rent it again. But start early - 80 days takes 3 hours!
This thing is fabulous. Watching Cantinflas alone is worth the whole price of admission; and then there are all the cameos. Go look up the cast on IMDB - everyone who was anyone had a cameo in that film, although I thought the real high point was the San Francisco saloon, where Niven was accosted by Marlene Dietrich as a saloon madam, thrown out by George Raft as her boyfriend - and the whole event was accompanied by a saloon pianist who suddenly turned around to reveal Old Blue Eyes - Sinatra himself, aged I guess about 40 and at the top of his form. This was a real cameo as he didn't even have a line!
This movie has everything. It has bullfights. It has mysterious Tangerian yachtsmen. It has elephants. It has a daring rescue - several daring rescues. It has collapsing railway bridges, and attacking Sioux. It has drugged drinks, and missed connections, and a desperate dash for the finish line. If you've never seen it, rent it. If you have seen it, rent it again. But start early - 80 days takes 3 hours!
Thursday, November 01, 2007
U.C. Is At It Again
I absolutely can't believe the article I read in today's San Francisco Chronicle. A committee of U.C. faculty have decided that the university's method of determining student eligibility for admission is "too rigid", and is therefore "unfair to some students." Their solution to this problem? Restrict guaranteed university access even further. The 1960 Master Plan for Education guarantees University admission to the top 12.5% of graduating high school seniors; the Board of Admissions and Relations with Schools wants to reduce that guarantee to the top 4%.
The theory is, you see, that students in rural and inner-city schools are disadvantaged because their schools don't offer all the necessary college prep courses, and they don't have enough counselors to make sure they take the courses and do the required tests. This is all true, of course, and is further complicated by the fact that the inner-city kids also have a list of other well-known problems (low income, family breakup, constant danger from random shooters, etc.). But some of them do make it - and they are materially aided by the policy that the top 12.5% of graduates from their high school have guaranteed admission.
The faculty members are concerned that there are students (God defend us!) who now "slide in" to Cal by "doing the minimum work to be eligible." So they want to "improve standards" by raising the bar so these kids - who are now DOING the necessary work! - don't have guaranteed admission to Cal. Only the top 4% will get guaranteed admission, everybody else has to "compete" - including any of the rural and inner-city kids who might have been guaranteed a slot under the 1960 rules! Furthermore, nobody will be guaranteed a slot at a UC campus with available seats, as they are now; if your primary choice rejects you, you have to be re-evaluated again by your second choice campus, and so on.
I couldn't make this up if I tried. They are trying to expand the pool that gets into Cal by raising the bar for everybody below the top 4%? The whirring sound you hear is George Orwell, spinning in his grave at a level of doublespeak worthy of his masterpiece. And this does it for me - if this is how the faculty thinks, my donation to U.C. this year will go to Alumni Association scholarship funds, not to the general fund.
Also, someday I'd like someone to explain to me what's wrong with doing the minimum work necessary to make the grade. Does everyone have to be an overachiever? If you make the grade, you make it. The effort necessary to be in the top 12.5% of your school is not trivial; and the tests you have to pass - twice - are also not trivial.
To do them justice, the article quoted a number of faculty, and at least one regent (who has been actively involved in admissions and had never heard of this) who are as disturbed by this proposal as I am. So it may never come to pass, and a good thing if it doesn't. But it should never have seen the light of day as a serious suggestion.
The theory is, you see, that students in rural and inner-city schools are disadvantaged because their schools don't offer all the necessary college prep courses, and they don't have enough counselors to make sure they take the courses and do the required tests. This is all true, of course, and is further complicated by the fact that the inner-city kids also have a list of other well-known problems (low income, family breakup, constant danger from random shooters, etc.). But some of them do make it - and they are materially aided by the policy that the top 12.5% of graduates from their high school have guaranteed admission.
The faculty members are concerned that there are students (God defend us!) who now "slide in" to Cal by "doing the minimum work to be eligible." So they want to "improve standards" by raising the bar so these kids - who are now DOING the necessary work! - don't have guaranteed admission to Cal. Only the top 4% will get guaranteed admission, everybody else has to "compete" - including any of the rural and inner-city kids who might have been guaranteed a slot under the 1960 rules! Furthermore, nobody will be guaranteed a slot at a UC campus with available seats, as they are now; if your primary choice rejects you, you have to be re-evaluated again by your second choice campus, and so on.
I couldn't make this up if I tried. They are trying to expand the pool that gets into Cal by raising the bar for everybody below the top 4%? The whirring sound you hear is George Orwell, spinning in his grave at a level of doublespeak worthy of his masterpiece. And this does it for me - if this is how the faculty thinks, my donation to U.C. this year will go to Alumni Association scholarship funds, not to the general fund.
Also, someday I'd like someone to explain to me what's wrong with doing the minimum work necessary to make the grade. Does everyone have to be an overachiever? If you make the grade, you make it. The effort necessary to be in the top 12.5% of your school is not trivial; and the tests you have to pass - twice - are also not trivial.
To do them justice, the article quoted a number of faculty, and at least one regent (who has been actively involved in admissions and had never heard of this) who are as disturbed by this proposal as I am. So it may never come to pass, and a good thing if it doesn't. But it should never have seen the light of day as a serious suggestion.
Thursday, October 25, 2007
"There will be help ..."
"... for the people of California," said President Bush, as quoted on CNN today.
That's what you said about New Orleans, Mr. Bush. Call FEMA for help, you said.
Yeah, right.
That's what you said about New Orleans, Mr. Bush. Call FEMA for help, you said.
Yeah, right.
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
Wildfires
Did you know you can see the smoke from the southern California wildfires on the 2KM and 4KM Pacific satellite photos? Check out the Satellite link on the National Weather Service web site (this link should display the forecast for Oakland, from which you can see the Pacific satellite shots).
In fact, SFGATE.com has a NASA satellite image in which you can see the flames. From orbit.
Sorry, folks, but this is the price we pay to live in a state where fire is a normal part of the ecosystem. It's also the price we pay for suppressing fire for a century - the fuel built up to the point that, once it starts, we can't stop it. The native Americans, I recall reading, used to schedule controlled burns on damp calm fall days; but they didn't build housing developments.
I don't see it online, but the article on the fires in today's paper Chronicle says that people in San Diego watched the flames hopscotch over I-15 - a 10 lane freeway. These fires are being driven by Santa Ana winds up to 100 mph - I don't see how they can stop them until the wind dies. I'm just grateful that Northern California is only getting mild winds and (at the moment) nothing serious is burning. The Oakland Hills Fire was 16 years ago, but I still get nervous on a hot windy fall day.
There's no moral to this post. I'm just scared. And the fires are 500 miles away.
In fact, SFGATE.com has a NASA satellite image in which you can see the flames. From orbit.
Sorry, folks, but this is the price we pay to live in a state where fire is a normal part of the ecosystem. It's also the price we pay for suppressing fire for a century - the fuel built up to the point that, once it starts, we can't stop it. The native Americans, I recall reading, used to schedule controlled burns on damp calm fall days; but they didn't build housing developments.
I don't see it online, but the article on the fires in today's paper Chronicle says that people in San Diego watched the flames hopscotch over I-15 - a 10 lane freeway. These fires are being driven by Santa Ana winds up to 100 mph - I don't see how they can stop them until the wind dies. I'm just grateful that Northern California is only getting mild winds and (at the moment) nothing serious is burning. The Oakland Hills Fire was 16 years ago, but I still get nervous on a hot windy fall day.
There's no moral to this post. I'm just scared. And the fires are 500 miles away.
Not Getting It
The San Francisco Chronicle notes today that student fees at the University of California, and at Cal State University system, increased this year by 10% (9.7% at UC is close enough to round off).
Nationwide, student fees increased 6.6% on average - two-thirds of the increase in California. And inflation, which you might think would drive this? Under 2% nationwide.
Why are student fees increasing at five times the rate of consumer inflation?
Long ago when I attended the University of California, my student fees were in 3 figures. Per year. (Of course, I could live on $10 a week then, too.) The theory behind the U.C. and C.S.U. systems was that higher education was a public good, which should be subsidized. This means that everybody pays some taxes toward it; and everybody's kids can attend. I understand that U.C. "provides more financial aid than other state systems." (With price increases like that, I hope to God they do!) Here are the explanations U.C. gives for the increase:
I don't want California to become a state where only the rich can afford to attend the state university system. I don't consider that a good use of my tax money.
I'm so pissed at U.C. that I'm considering halting my donations to the University proper. I'll still donate to the Library; but the money I was giving to the Chancellor's Fund, I may now give to the Alumni Association, for scholarships - they'll need it.
Nationwide, student fees increased 6.6% on average - two-thirds of the increase in California. And inflation, which you might think would drive this? Under 2% nationwide.
Why are student fees increasing at five times the rate of consumer inflation?
Long ago when I attended the University of California, my student fees were in 3 figures. Per year. (Of course, I could live on $10 a week then, too.) The theory behind the U.C. and C.S.U. systems was that higher education was a public good, which should be subsidized. This means that everybody pays some taxes toward it; and everybody's kids can attend. I understand that U.C. "provides more financial aid than other state systems." (With price increases like that, I hope to God they do!) Here are the explanations U.C. gives for the increase:
to maintain and improve the quality of instruction, expand student mental health services, increase financial aid and help raise faculty and staff salaries closer to market rate.I'm tempted to suggest that if they didn't raise the student fees so high, they could budget less for financial aid, and that student mental health might be improved by not having to worry about money; but let that pass. What really fries me are the salary increases, which I doubt seriously are going to the faculty. The salary increases are going to pay senior executives in the U.C. system corporate-grade salaries (yeah, I've heard all the arguments, and I don't believe them), and they're taking it out of the students' hides. This is just plain WRONG, and it will produce an uneducated underclass in California which can't do the "knowledge industry" jobs that everyone says the economy needs, because they can't read or think.
I don't want California to become a state where only the rich can afford to attend the state university system. I don't consider that a good use of my tax money.
I'm so pissed at U.C. that I'm considering halting my donations to the University proper. I'll still donate to the Library; but the money I was giving to the Chancellor's Fund, I may now give to the Alumni Association, for scholarships - they'll need it.
Sunday, October 21, 2007
Freedom's Just Another Word
Retirement is very strange. For the first time in my life, I have absolute freedom to choose what I want to do. If I want to sit in the backyard and read trash novels all afternoon, I can. I can do other things I used to have to fight to have time for: exercise at the gym; rehearse music; blog; do genealogical research; shop. And what is the result of all this? You've got it: I can't decide what I want to do...
Oh, I'm not really that unfocused. I have my List of volunteer opportunities, that I thought I might like to do; I'm actually doing one of them (I'm now a special director, and the webmistress, of the Oakland Symphony Chorus). Another of them was to volunteer with a group that teaches financial literacy: I tried them, and they were such disorganized flakes that I decided my choices were not to deal with them at all, or take them over and run them. I opted to walk away. Also, I've accumulated a couple of unpaid "I could work on that" projects.
But none of this feels real yet. I'm trying to learn Joomla, the open source content management system, with the object of becoming a pro bono web designer for non-profits. I've gotten far enough to realize this means I also have to learn JavaScript, PHP, and XML...
Also, to be honest, one of the things I liked about working was all the people that were around. Yeah, I can do serious technical study by myself in the house; but I don't have anybody to TALK to. I need people to talk to, I'm beginning to realize. So maybe I need to go back to the list and check out something that would put me in a group of people.
I read one "what to do in retirement" article that suggested making no major decisions for at least a year after retiring. Maybe that makes sense. But it's odd how intimidating is the prospect of absolute freedom.
But none of this feels real yet. I'm trying to learn Joomla, the open source content management system, with the object of becoming a pro bono web designer for non-profits. I've gotten far enough to realize this means I also have to learn JavaScript, PHP, and XML...
Also, to be honest, one of the things I liked about working was all the people that were around. Yeah, I can do serious technical study by myself in the house; but I don't have anybody to TALK to. I need people to talk to, I'm beginning to realize. So maybe I need to go back to the list and check out something that would put me in a group of people.
I read one "what to do in retirement" article that suggested making no major decisions for at least a year after retiring. Maybe that makes sense. But it's odd how intimidating is the prospect of absolute freedom.
Friday, October 12, 2007
Down in Flames
This subject came up today in two wildly different contexts, so it clearly deserves a blog post.
Barney Frank has fired both barrels at the members of the LGBT community who are attacking Congress, and him, for dropping transgendered people from a job discrimination bill. His point is that they can pass the bill with job protection "only" for gays, lesbians, and bisexuals, but if they include transgender people, it will be one step too far for some of the votes they need, and they won't get any job protection at all.
Mark Morford's column today dealt with the fringe responses he's gotten from people to his recent column which was mainly (but not entirely) enthusiastic about Whole Foods, which he feels on balance has added more to the grocery business in the U.S. than it has subtracted, even though not everything it sells is organic, and the takeover of Wild Oats may be uncompetitive, and yes, it is anti-union.
Both of these articles are worth reading. I particularly enjoyed Morford's comparison of the complaints he got from the extreme left about Whole Foods (Whole Foods is terrible, they drive mom-and-pop stores out of business, their takeover of Wild Oats used questionable tactics, etc. etc.) to the responses of the extreme fundamentalist right, for whom no intermediate prohibition of things they object to (ban all abortions!) is ever enough. Barney Frank (who didn't write the article) is a rare case of a working politician giving the extremists in his own constituency (yeah, he officially represents Massachusetts, but on gay rights he's pretty much The Gay Congressman) some realistic feedback about the impossibility of their demands.
Both of these situations remind me of a mother telling her five year old, "You may have a single ice cream cone but no, you may not have a double, and stop yelling or you won't get anything."
There's a mind-set out there, and you find it in all sorts of groups, for whom the perfect is the enemy of the good. If we can't get every single negotiating point on the list, we have lost the battle; BUT, we stuck to our guns, and so we are Morally Superior. Even if we haven't accomplished one single thing we set out to do.
They can't prioritize, and they can't compromise. They can't see that (in Barney Frank's example) it's a good thing to get protection against job discrimination for gays, and lesbians, and bisexuals; and maybe even when that's been in place for a while and the world hasn't ended, we can go back and try to add transgender people to it. In the Morford example, they can't accept that an organization is Good (or at least, Not Evil) unless they agree with every single action it takes.
When I married my husband, 20-odd years ago, he was politically active in the Sierra Club. I remember him complaining at the time that there was a small group of people in the Club who would rather go down in flames ("the boy stood on the burning deck") than yield one single minor point on their agenda. I don't know how many of those people are still there; all he does with the Sierra Club now is go on hikes.
Politics is the art of compromise, folks; this is what Barney Frank is trying to say. You can't always get everything you want, the first time you try, or even the fourth or fifth. And you can't get anything without giving something. I own a detective story, in which a large business is negotiating a contract with a foreign government. This business includes, in every proposal, at least one item which is there for the purpose of being given up, so as to be able to stand firm on the stuff they really want. Now, that's negotiation.
I don't like negotiation; I don't do it especially well. But by God, I understand it. The problem with the Christian fundamentalists is that they believe God is on their side. I don't know who the lefties think is on their side - Gaia? The Goddess? The Flying Spaghetti Monster? But all of these absolutists take these stances because They Are Morally Right, and therefore they can't give up a single item because it Would Be Wrong.
We will never get anywhere that way, folks.
Barney Frank has fired both barrels at the members of the LGBT community who are attacking Congress, and him, for dropping transgendered people from a job discrimination bill. His point is that they can pass the bill with job protection "only" for gays, lesbians, and bisexuals, but if they include transgender people, it will be one step too far for some of the votes they need, and they won't get any job protection at all.
Mark Morford's column today dealt with the fringe responses he's gotten from people to his recent column which was mainly (but not entirely) enthusiastic about Whole Foods, which he feels on balance has added more to the grocery business in the U.S. than it has subtracted, even though not everything it sells is organic, and the takeover of Wild Oats may be uncompetitive, and yes, it is anti-union.
Both of these articles are worth reading. I particularly enjoyed Morford's comparison of the complaints he got from the extreme left about Whole Foods (Whole Foods is terrible, they drive mom-and-pop stores out of business, their takeover of Wild Oats used questionable tactics, etc. etc.) to the responses of the extreme fundamentalist right, for whom no intermediate prohibition of things they object to (ban all abortions!) is ever enough. Barney Frank (who didn't write the article) is a rare case of a working politician giving the extremists in his own constituency (yeah, he officially represents Massachusetts, but on gay rights he's pretty much The Gay Congressman) some realistic feedback about the impossibility of their demands.
Both of these situations remind me of a mother telling her five year old, "You may have a single ice cream cone but no, you may not have a double, and stop yelling or you won't get anything."
There's a mind-set out there, and you find it in all sorts of groups, for whom the perfect is the enemy of the good. If we can't get every single negotiating point on the list, we have lost the battle; BUT, we stuck to our guns, and so we are Morally Superior. Even if we haven't accomplished one single thing we set out to do.
They can't prioritize, and they can't compromise. They can't see that (in Barney Frank's example) it's a good thing to get protection against job discrimination for gays, and lesbians, and bisexuals; and maybe even when that's been in place for a while and the world hasn't ended, we can go back and try to add transgender people to it. In the Morford example, they can't accept that an organization is Good (or at least, Not Evil) unless they agree with every single action it takes.
When I married my husband, 20-odd years ago, he was politically active in the Sierra Club. I remember him complaining at the time that there was a small group of people in the Club who would rather go down in flames ("the boy stood on the burning deck") than yield one single minor point on their agenda. I don't know how many of those people are still there; all he does with the Sierra Club now is go on hikes.
Politics is the art of compromise, folks; this is what Barney Frank is trying to say. You can't always get everything you want, the first time you try, or even the fourth or fifth. And you can't get anything without giving something. I own a detective story, in which a large business is negotiating a contract with a foreign government. This business includes, in every proposal, at least one item which is there for the purpose of being given up, so as to be able to stand firm on the stuff they really want. Now, that's negotiation.
I don't like negotiation; I don't do it especially well. But by God, I understand it. The problem with the Christian fundamentalists is that they believe God is on their side. I don't know who the lefties think is on their side - Gaia? The Goddess? The Flying Spaghetti Monster? But all of these absolutists take these stances because They Are Morally Right, and therefore they can't give up a single item because it Would Be Wrong.
We will never get anywhere that way, folks.
Thursday, October 11, 2007
Lies, Damned Lies, and Alcoholism
This post was inspired, as sometimes happens, by Jon Carroll's column in today's San Francisco Chronicle. Mr. Carroll wrote an extended fantasy on what might have been the process by which Marion Jones chose to take performance-enhancing drugs, and the mental processes by which she supported and justified not only the drug-taking but the fact that she had to hide it (because it was illegal). I recommend the column, the analysis is brilliant. But it startled me, because on the same day it was published, I read and commented on my husband's extended (29 page) analysis of his life, and his experiences with compulsive/addictive behaviors (first bulimia and then alcoholism), how he got into them, and how he has gotten out of them.
The scary thing about the fantasized thinking of the person lying about sports drug abuse and the real thinking of the bulimic or alcoholic, documented in my husband's account, is how close they are.
It isn't really that bad. People make too much of this. Besides, I'm in control; I don't really have a problem.
I seem to recall from Mr. Carroll's much earlier columns that he himself had an issue with alcoholism, which he has overcome; I wonder if he consciously remembered any of that when he wrote this piece.
The question, of course, is: to what was Ms. Jones addicted? She seems to be displaying addictive behavior, but the substances she took aren't addictive in the normal sense. I've never heard that you get withdrawal symptoms from quitting taking steroids, or whatever. I have to conclude that she was addicted to: fame. She liked being Numbah One. She convinced herself that she would have been Numbah One anyway, and the drugs didn't really make that much difference. Except that they did.
The scary thing about the fantasized thinking of the person lying about sports drug abuse and the real thinking of the bulimic or alcoholic, documented in my husband's account, is how close they are.
It isn't really that bad. People make too much of this. Besides, I'm in control; I don't really have a problem.
I seem to recall from Mr. Carroll's much earlier columns that he himself had an issue with alcoholism, which he has overcome; I wonder if he consciously remembered any of that when he wrote this piece.
The question, of course, is: to what was Ms. Jones addicted? She seems to be displaying addictive behavior, but the substances she took aren't addictive in the normal sense. I've never heard that you get withdrawal symptoms from quitting taking steroids, or whatever. I have to conclude that she was addicted to: fame. She liked being Numbah One. She convinced herself that she would have been Numbah One anyway, and the drugs didn't really make that much difference. Except that they did.
Sunday, October 07, 2007
NASCAR
No, I haven't got a new hobby. But my usual stationary bike at the gym is down for repairs, so I had to use the ones on the 3rd floor that face a wall-sized plasma TV; and it's impossible to ignore it completely because it's so big. (Also one of the reasons I hate TV is that I find it impossible to ignore.) So I found myself this morning cranking away on the bike and looking at what looked like Highway 880 on a good afternoon with the traffic flowing smoothly along - except that the cars were all plastered with advertising, and the road was oval, and no 2 cars had more than one car length between them. Also they were going 190 MPH, or so the closed captioning said. But there they were, bumper to bumper and hubcap to hubcap, 3 lanes wide - nobody changing position, nobody trying to pull forward, nobody doing anything.
This is entertainment? I can see this on the traffic cams, except for the advertising - and, even the Nimitz doesn't get to 190 MPH. Around and around they go, and they never stop or move or change position or whatever.
Interval follows in which I read a couple of Economist leaders, and I look up again and it's worse - they're all in a single line. Still bumper to bumper, still going like bats out of hell - all in one line. I figure, if this goes on, the guy in the front car has it wrapped. (I think the guy in the front car was Dale Earnhardt, Jr., but if so he didn't have it wrapped - see results for Talladega.) It's all very symmetrical and not very interesting.
Back to the Economist, and a couple of articles later I look up to see a car break formation, roll three or four times while flames shoot out of the engine compartment, and fetch up on its roof in the infield. Following this, 2 or 3 other cars (which are now back in multi-lane formation) bash into each other and the wall, kicking up more smoke and dirt. OK, I guess they do change position occasionally. I was impressed when the first driver disentangled himself and walked away from the wreck - now, that's safety equipment!
But I still don't understand what gets so many people so excited about watching a bunch of cars follow each other decorously around an oval track, even if it is at 190 MPH.
This is entertainment? I can see this on the traffic cams, except for the advertising - and, even the Nimitz doesn't get to 190 MPH. Around and around they go, and they never stop or move or change position or whatever.
Interval follows in which I read a couple of Economist leaders, and I look up again and it's worse - they're all in a single line. Still bumper to bumper, still going like bats out of hell - all in one line. I figure, if this goes on, the guy in the front car has it wrapped. (I think the guy in the front car was Dale Earnhardt, Jr., but if so he didn't have it wrapped - see results for Talladega.) It's all very symmetrical and not very interesting.
Back to the Economist, and a couple of articles later I look up to see a car break formation, roll three or four times while flames shoot out of the engine compartment, and fetch up on its roof in the infield. Following this, 2 or 3 other cars (which are now back in multi-lane formation) bash into each other and the wall, kicking up more smoke and dirt. OK, I guess they do change position occasionally. I was impressed when the first driver disentangled himself and walked away from the wreck - now, that's safety equipment!
But I still don't understand what gets so many people so excited about watching a bunch of cars follow each other decorously around an oval track, even if it is at 190 MPH.
Wednesday, October 03, 2007
The War Tax
Once again, the news carries things I wouldn't dare to make up.
Some leading members of the House Appropriations Committee today suggested refusing to fund the President's $200 billion continuing appropriation for the Iraq war, and recommended a war tax to fund the combat operations. This is so appropriate, and so reasonable, that I'm appalled to find Nancy Pelosi shutting it down. I'm even more appalled to hear the Republicans yelling "tax-and-spend-Democrats, nya nya nyaaa!" The Republican party is in the process of bankrupting this country on this stupid war, but God forbid we should raise taxes to pay for it.
Do these people have any idea how long we're going to be paying for this asinine war?? Worse, do they realize who's holding the Treasury bills that are allowing us to continue it? (Hint: it's China....)
And in the same week, the most spendthrift president in history, outdoing even Ronald Reagan, chooses to show his fiscal conservatism by vetoing - health care for poor children! After all, they will never vote Republican, especially if they have no health care (since they will likely die before they can vote). 72% of the country was in favor of expanding the SCHIP program, not to the "middle class" (as Boss Bush suggests), but (in some places) to people who make 300% of the official poverty level (a whacking 50% increase, it was 200%).
Do you know what the poverty level is? Dubya doesn't. It's $20,650 per year for a family of four. (And, I may add, it's the same in California as it is in South Dakota. Only Alaska and Hawaii get higher rates.) So right now people who make up to $41,300 to support a family of four can get this coverage; and the vetoed bill would have expanded it in some places to people who make $61,950. You try to support four people in the San Francisco Bay Area on $62,000 a year. That's $5,162 per month in a place where 4 bedroom houses can rent for as much as $4,600! OK, that's a "lovely 2 story executive" something in Saratoga, a known high-rent district; but a quick glance at Bay4Rent.com shows that a 3 bedroom anything (minimum for a family of 4) rents for $2000 and up. (I'm not a member - I Googled "4 bedroom apartment san francisco.") There are cheaper ones, but I hesitate to think what the neighborhood looks like.
That's almost 40% of the monthly income at a generous 300% of the poverty level, and we haven't started talking about utilities and food yet. Does the SCHIP extension begin to look a little less unreasonable?? Oh, sorry, I forgot - you're probably in favor of it.
It looks like Congress may be cranking up for an override vote, and you know, if they can override this veto, I may forgive them blowing off the war tax. Would be better if they could do both, of course.
Some leading members of the House Appropriations Committee today suggested refusing to fund the President's $200 billion continuing appropriation for the Iraq war, and recommended a war tax to fund the combat operations. This is so appropriate, and so reasonable, that I'm appalled to find Nancy Pelosi shutting it down. I'm even more appalled to hear the Republicans yelling "tax-and-spend-Democrats, nya nya nyaaa!" The Republican party is in the process of bankrupting this country on this stupid war, but God forbid we should raise taxes to pay for it.
Do these people have any idea how long we're going to be paying for this asinine war?? Worse, do they realize who's holding the Treasury bills that are allowing us to continue it? (Hint: it's China....)
And in the same week, the most spendthrift president in history, outdoing even Ronald Reagan, chooses to show his fiscal conservatism by vetoing - health care for poor children! After all, they will never vote Republican, especially if they have no health care (since they will likely die before they can vote). 72% of the country was in favor of expanding the SCHIP program, not to the "middle class" (as Boss Bush suggests), but (in some places) to people who make 300% of the official poverty level (a whacking 50% increase, it was 200%).
Do you know what the poverty level is? Dubya doesn't. It's $20,650 per year for a family of four. (And, I may add, it's the same in California as it is in South Dakota. Only Alaska and Hawaii get higher rates.) So right now people who make up to $41,300 to support a family of four can get this coverage; and the vetoed bill would have expanded it in some places to people who make $61,950. You try to support four people in the San Francisco Bay Area on $62,000 a year. That's $5,162 per month in a place where 4 bedroom houses can rent for as much as $4,600! OK, that's a "lovely 2 story executive" something in Saratoga, a known high-rent district; but a quick glance at Bay4Rent.com shows that a 3 bedroom anything (minimum for a family of 4) rents for $2000 and up. (I'm not a member - I Googled "4 bedroom apartment san francisco.") There are cheaper ones, but I hesitate to think what the neighborhood looks like.
That's almost 40% of the monthly income at a generous 300% of the poverty level, and we haven't started talking about utilities and food yet. Does the SCHIP extension begin to look a little less unreasonable?? Oh, sorry, I forgot - you're probably in favor of it.
It looks like Congress may be cranking up for an override vote, and you know, if they can override this veto, I may forgive them blowing off the war tax. Would be better if they could do both, of course.
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