“We've affirmed that the ability to live a healthy life in this great country is a right, not a privilege.”
With those words, Sen. Harry Reid celebrated the passage of a landmark health care reform bill by the US Senate just before Christmas. Depending on how you feel about big government and its ability to actually “fix” something as big and complex as the health care industry, that statement either gives you a good warm feeling down deep inside or it sends chills down your spine.
I’m in the chilled-spine camp, myself. Based on its track record with the soon-to-be-bankrupt Social Security program, the sooner-to-be-bankrupt Medicare program, and the “reforms” it mandated for the mortgage industry that contributed to the great financial meltdown of the last few years, I think there is reason to doubt that increased government involvement in the health care industry is going to be a good thing for us in the long run.
And if something isn’t done soon, it may be too late to stop this runaway train. But what can we do? After hearing about how some on-the-fence senators (I’m looking at you, Ben Nelson) were basically bribed into voting for this bill, I’m about ready to consider all-out revolution.
But I’m afraid that idea is a non-starter. I seriously doubt that there are many Americans who care enough about what their government is doing to take to the streets and toss rocks at well-armed federal troops like the protesters in Iran are doing.
Perhaps we need to concentrate on a more subtle way to throw a roadblock in front of the left wing juggernaut that currently holds the fate of our nation in its grip. Sometimes it is wise to consult the history books in such a situation and see what the past can teach us.
Let’s go back to 1992, when liberals were cheering the election of a young Democratic governor from Arkansas and his frighteningly serious wife to the highest office in the land. High on the list of priorities for the new president was – you guessed it – health care reform. President Clinton put the first lady to work on a radical plan to remake the health care system into something that the government could control and manipulate until everyone had the same (bad) level of care, regardless of how much they were able to pay.
Maybe the plan would have succeeded, eventually, but President Clinton had a real knack for doing stupid things that put him in a bad light and weakened his credibility. As a result, he was able to accomplish very little in his eight years in office. Thank goodness!
And I don’t think it is a coincidence that the nation enjoyed a good deal of peace and prosperity during that time of near-inactivity by the federal government. I don’t think it is unreasonable to suggest that we all owe a debt of gratitude to Monica Lewinsky for the good times we enjoyed in the 1990s.
So far, President Obama has steered clear of the kind of personal failings that hobbled Bill Clinton’s liberal aspirations. And I think that is what needs to change. The government is working to well for our own good. What we really need is a Monica Lewinsky for the new millennium.
Somewhere deep in a super-secret location (probably Dick Cheney’s basement) where high -ranking conservatives hatch “if all else fails” type of plans for saving the country from liberals, they need to consider recruiting some young, attractive, conservative females to apply for jobs at the White House and get close to the president. And I mean really, really close.
It is a lot to ask of any young woman, but once the scandal breaks the country will be safe from the specter of an active government until 2012, at least. And then we can all relax as President Palin breezes her way to an easy victory and…okay, maybe I need to think about this a little bit more.
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
Is it okay to throw stones at Tiger?
I’m sure that by now you’re probably sick of listening to people talk about Tiger Woods and his harem of Barbie-doll mistresses. Well, that’s too bad, because I’ve got something to say on the subject and this is my column, so you’ll just have to suffer a little bit longer.
It seems that whenever a celebrity gets caught with his pants down, everyone wants to be the first to pronounce judgment and cast a few stones in his direction. I guess it makes us feel good to see the rich and powerful fall on their faces, especially when they do things that we, personally, would never ever do.
Considering the demographic that my writing appeals to, I am confident that most of the men reading this column have never cheated on their wives or girlfriends. I’ll leave it to you to decide if that’s because my male readers tend to have high moral character or because they tend to be relatively undesirable to the opposite sex.
Either way, the men who are reading this probably feel okay about looking down on a philanderer like Tiger, safe from the perch of the moral high ground. But is that a fair, or wise, attitude, to have?
A study I recall reading about earlier this year might suggest that it is not. The study was designed to measure how our confidence (or overconfidence) about how well we are able to resist temptation relates to our ability to actually resist temptation when we are faced with it.
The results were interesting. People who had just finished eating a big meal, for instance, were likely to significantly overestimate their ability to turn down a chance to eat one of their favorite foods at a later time when they weren’t so full. On the other hand, people who were hungry at the time they predicted their capacity to turn down a tasty snack at a later time had a more realistic attitude about their own willpower.
How does the experiment apply to Tiger Woods and our judgmental attitudes towards his indiscretions? Well, it’s been said that you shouldn’t judge a person until you’ve walked a mile in his shoes. So let’s try and put ourselves in Tiger’s golf spikes for a minute.
Tiger is one of the richest, most famous, and most powerful men in the world. I don’t consider myself to be an expert on women, but I have noticed that a lot of them don’t find money, fame, and power to be unattractive traits in a man. So Tiger probably has a lot more women lining up for a chance to spend some private time with him than most of us could imagine having to deal with.
Plus, Tiger travels. A lot. All over the world. I can’t remember the last time I even left Houston County by myself, and I certainly don’t spend time traveling solo to exotic locations all over the world the way Tiger does.
So here you have a rich, powerful man whose work calls for him to spend a lot of time away from home who undoubtedly has beautiful women aggressively seeking to start up a relationship with him under any circumstances that he finds convenient. How many men do you think would fall prey to the same type of shenanigans he apparently engaged in under similar circumstances?
I’m sure we’d all like to think we’d stay on the straight and narrow and come home to our supermodel wife and perfect children untainted by the touch of other women if we were Tiger. But can you know that, for sure, not having faced the same temptations that he has?
Science and common sense suggest that you shouldn’t assume that you’re a better man than Tiger unless you’ve walked his path. Most of us never will, of course. But maybe we should be a little less eager to cast stones at people whose sins are just a little more sensational and newsworthy than our own.
It seems that whenever a celebrity gets caught with his pants down, everyone wants to be the first to pronounce judgment and cast a few stones in his direction. I guess it makes us feel good to see the rich and powerful fall on their faces, especially when they do things that we, personally, would never ever do.
Considering the demographic that my writing appeals to, I am confident that most of the men reading this column have never cheated on their wives or girlfriends. I’ll leave it to you to decide if that’s because my male readers tend to have high moral character or because they tend to be relatively undesirable to the opposite sex.
Either way, the men who are reading this probably feel okay about looking down on a philanderer like Tiger, safe from the perch of the moral high ground. But is that a fair, or wise, attitude, to have?
A study I recall reading about earlier this year might suggest that it is not. The study was designed to measure how our confidence (or overconfidence) about how well we are able to resist temptation relates to our ability to actually resist temptation when we are faced with it.
The results were interesting. People who had just finished eating a big meal, for instance, were likely to significantly overestimate their ability to turn down a chance to eat one of their favorite foods at a later time when they weren’t so full. On the other hand, people who were hungry at the time they predicted their capacity to turn down a tasty snack at a later time had a more realistic attitude about their own willpower.
How does the experiment apply to Tiger Woods and our judgmental attitudes towards his indiscretions? Well, it’s been said that you shouldn’t judge a person until you’ve walked a mile in his shoes. So let’s try and put ourselves in Tiger’s golf spikes for a minute.
Tiger is one of the richest, most famous, and most powerful men in the world. I don’t consider myself to be an expert on women, but I have noticed that a lot of them don’t find money, fame, and power to be unattractive traits in a man. So Tiger probably has a lot more women lining up for a chance to spend some private time with him than most of us could imagine having to deal with.
Plus, Tiger travels. A lot. All over the world. I can’t remember the last time I even left Houston County by myself, and I certainly don’t spend time traveling solo to exotic locations all over the world the way Tiger does.
So here you have a rich, powerful man whose work calls for him to spend a lot of time away from home who undoubtedly has beautiful women aggressively seeking to start up a relationship with him under any circumstances that he finds convenient. How many men do you think would fall prey to the same type of shenanigans he apparently engaged in under similar circumstances?
I’m sure we’d all like to think we’d stay on the straight and narrow and come home to our supermodel wife and perfect children untainted by the touch of other women if we were Tiger. But can you know that, for sure, not having faced the same temptations that he has?
Science and common sense suggest that you shouldn’t assume that you’re a better man than Tiger unless you’ve walked his path. Most of us never will, of course. But maybe we should be a little less eager to cast stones at people whose sins are just a little more sensational and newsworthy than our own.
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
Let the president decide
As I listened to the back and forth over President Obama’s plan to send more than 30,000 fresh troops to Afghanistan, I kept having the same thought over and over: thank goodness it wasn’t my job to decide what to do with this mess. I’m not defending or attacking the strategy the president has decided to follow, I’m just saying that I have no idea what to do in Afghanistan and I’m not that sure anyone really does.
Just try to picture yourself sitting in the president’s seat and having to make a call on how to proceed with this operation. You either ramp up the conflict as the military strategists suggest, thereby guaranteeing that many more Americans will lose their lives, or you pull up stakes and leave the country to the devices of the same nuts that blew up the World Trade Center back in 2001. Talk about a no-win situation.
Of course this is the kind of decision you sign up for when you run for president, right? Perhaps. But, on second thought, I seem to remember from way back in my American Government class that it is really supposed to be congress’ responsibility to declare war, not the president. So why does it seem to be completely up to the president to decide where we fight, and for how long?
That is, of course, a tricky question. It’s true that only congress can declare war, but it is also true that the executive branch has, over the years, acquired the authority to send a lot of soldiers off to fight on foreign shores for long periods of time without officially declaring a war. And congress has largely gone along with the idea.
Back in 1973, as we were still reeling from the effects of that little undeclared war in Vietnam, Congress tried to clarify and restrict the president’s power to commit our armed forces to a conflict by passing the War Powers Resolution. It limited the president’s authority to send troops into harm’s way for more than 60 days without a declaration of war or a (more nebulous) congressional authorization of the use of military force. It obviously left the president with a lot of leeway.
As you might be aware, congress never issued a declaration of war for the conflicts in Iraq or Afghanistan. They may seem like wars with all the shooting and blowing things up and people getting killed, but according to our government we are not formally at war. Congress did issue very broad “authorizations of the use of force” prior to the launching of those campaigns, but they left it up to the executive branch to work out all the unpleasant details.
For a person with my limited mental capacity, that seems an awful lot like they are following neither the letter nor the spirit of the Constitution’s specific delegation of the power to declare war to the legislative branch. Congress is supposed to decide when the military option is warranted and the president, as commander-in-chief, is supposed to decide how to best achieve our military goals once the fight is joined.
It doesn’t seem to me as if things are working that way right now. It is clearly the president’s show, and congress will rubber stamp whatever plan comes out of the White House. It’s just one of many examples of how the legislative branch seems to have ceded a power that the Constitution specifically enumerated to it over to an increasingly powerful executive branch.
Seeing as how they still control the purse strings, congress could easily take control of the matter at any time. But they won’t. Like me, they don’t want to have that decision weighing on their shoulders, nor do they wish to face the consequences should the decision not pan out. And as long as they can keep ignoring the Constitution, there’s no reason why should burden th
Just try to picture yourself sitting in the president’s seat and having to make a call on how to proceed with this operation. You either ramp up the conflict as the military strategists suggest, thereby guaranteeing that many more Americans will lose their lives, or you pull up stakes and leave the country to the devices of the same nuts that blew up the World Trade Center back in 2001. Talk about a no-win situation.
Of course this is the kind of decision you sign up for when you run for president, right? Perhaps. But, on second thought, I seem to remember from way back in my American Government class that it is really supposed to be congress’ responsibility to declare war, not the president. So why does it seem to be completely up to the president to decide where we fight, and for how long?
That is, of course, a tricky question. It’s true that only congress can declare war, but it is also true that the executive branch has, over the years, acquired the authority to send a lot of soldiers off to fight on foreign shores for long periods of time without officially declaring a war. And congress has largely gone along with the idea.
Back in 1973, as we were still reeling from the effects of that little undeclared war in Vietnam, Congress tried to clarify and restrict the president’s power to commit our armed forces to a conflict by passing the War Powers Resolution. It limited the president’s authority to send troops into harm’s way for more than 60 days without a declaration of war or a (more nebulous) congressional authorization of the use of military force. It obviously left the president with a lot of leeway.
As you might be aware, congress never issued a declaration of war for the conflicts in Iraq or Afghanistan. They may seem like wars with all the shooting and blowing things up and people getting killed, but according to our government we are not formally at war. Congress did issue very broad “authorizations of the use of force” prior to the launching of those campaigns, but they left it up to the executive branch to work out all the unpleasant details.
For a person with my limited mental capacity, that seems an awful lot like they are following neither the letter nor the spirit of the Constitution’s specific delegation of the power to declare war to the legislative branch. Congress is supposed to decide when the military option is warranted and the president, as commander-in-chief, is supposed to decide how to best achieve our military goals once the fight is joined.
It doesn’t seem to me as if things are working that way right now. It is clearly the president’s show, and congress will rubber stamp whatever plan comes out of the White House. It’s just one of many examples of how the legislative branch seems to have ceded a power that the Constitution specifically enumerated to it over to an increasingly powerful executive branch.
Seeing as how they still control the purse strings, congress could easily take control of the matter at any time. But they won’t. Like me, they don’t want to have that decision weighing on their shoulders, nor do they wish to face the consequences should the decision not pan out. And as long as they can keep ignoring the Constitution, there’s no reason why should burden th
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Armchair quarterbacks need to get a life
This past Sunday night I was doing what I am almost always doing on Sunday nights this time of year –watching NFL football. This week’s Sunday night game was the Colts versus the Patriots. It’s usually a good game when those two teams get together, and this year’s contest was certainly no exception. It wasn’t decided until Peyton Manning threw a touchdown pass leading the Colts to a 35-34 victory with only 13 seconds left in the game.
But many viewers would say the game was really decided when Patriots coach Bill Belichick made the decision to go for a first down when his team had a fourth and 2 on their own 28 yard line with about 2 minutes left in the game. For those of you who don’t know much about football, most of the time you would punt the ball away in that situation, because if you try to pick up the first down and don’t make it you give the other team the ball in very good field position. And that’s exactly what happened – the Patriots failed to get the two yards they needed and the Colts quickly scored the winning touchdown.
I remember being a bit surprised when Belichick decided to go for the first down in that situation and thinking that he’d get a fair amount of criticism if the gamble didn’t pan out. It’s fair to say that I somewhat underestimated how much flack he would get over this unusually aggressive call.
All week long sports editorialists, bloggers, and football fans have ripped Belichick for his “dumb” and “monumentally egotistical” play call. Despite the fact that this man has enjoyed unprecedented success as a head coach, including winning multiple Super Bowls and leading his team to an undefeated regular season one year, it seems as if he has now become a poster boy for coaching ineptness.
Give me a break, people. First of all, as some more mathematically-inclined commentators have pointed out, the call was not really a bad statistical gamble. The odds of his offense converting on fourth and 2 and running out the clock to end the game versus the odds of a Peyton Manning-led offense going 70 yards in 2 minutes are not that out of whack. It was an unconventional decision, but by no means was it an obviously stupid one. People who are painting it as such are only displaying their own lack of football acumen.
But there’s a larger point to consider here. Why on earth is this such a big deal to anyone? We are talking about a game, for crying out loud. It’s a bunch of guys running up and down a field throwing a ball around. So a coach decides to go for it on fourth down when most coaches wouldn’t. So what? I say making that call made the game more fun, more unpredictable, and more exciting for the fans.
As is often the case, I find myself at a loss to understand why some people get so wound up about something so trivial. Death, chronic disease, being too broke to pay the rent – these are the kinds of things any sane person is going to be troubled about. But most of the other stuff we lose sleep over is just nonsense. And I would say that anyone who is spending any portion of their valuable time exorcising an NFL coach for going for it on fourth down needs to seriously reexamine his priorities.
Maybe we should all go for it on fourth down (figuratively speaking) a little more in life, and stop obsessing about what other people think. Maybe having that attitude is, in fact, one of the reasons Coach Belichick is one of the most successful coaches in the NFL and not a know-it-all armchair quarterback typing snarky comments in his blog.
But many viewers would say the game was really decided when Patriots coach Bill Belichick made the decision to go for a first down when his team had a fourth and 2 on their own 28 yard line with about 2 minutes left in the game. For those of you who don’t know much about football, most of the time you would punt the ball away in that situation, because if you try to pick up the first down and don’t make it you give the other team the ball in very good field position. And that’s exactly what happened – the Patriots failed to get the two yards they needed and the Colts quickly scored the winning touchdown.
I remember being a bit surprised when Belichick decided to go for the first down in that situation and thinking that he’d get a fair amount of criticism if the gamble didn’t pan out. It’s fair to say that I somewhat underestimated how much flack he would get over this unusually aggressive call.
All week long sports editorialists, bloggers, and football fans have ripped Belichick for his “dumb” and “monumentally egotistical” play call. Despite the fact that this man has enjoyed unprecedented success as a head coach, including winning multiple Super Bowls and leading his team to an undefeated regular season one year, it seems as if he has now become a poster boy for coaching ineptness.
Give me a break, people. First of all, as some more mathematically-inclined commentators have pointed out, the call was not really a bad statistical gamble. The odds of his offense converting on fourth and 2 and running out the clock to end the game versus the odds of a Peyton Manning-led offense going 70 yards in 2 minutes are not that out of whack. It was an unconventional decision, but by no means was it an obviously stupid one. People who are painting it as such are only displaying their own lack of football acumen.
But there’s a larger point to consider here. Why on earth is this such a big deal to anyone? We are talking about a game, for crying out loud. It’s a bunch of guys running up and down a field throwing a ball around. So a coach decides to go for it on fourth down when most coaches wouldn’t. So what? I say making that call made the game more fun, more unpredictable, and more exciting for the fans.
As is often the case, I find myself at a loss to understand why some people get so wound up about something so trivial. Death, chronic disease, being too broke to pay the rent – these are the kinds of things any sane person is going to be troubled about. But most of the other stuff we lose sleep over is just nonsense. And I would say that anyone who is spending any portion of their valuable time exorcising an NFL coach for going for it on fourth down needs to seriously reexamine his priorities.
Maybe we should all go for it on fourth down (figuratively speaking) a little more in life, and stop obsessing about what other people think. Maybe having that attitude is, in fact, one of the reasons Coach Belichick is one of the most successful coaches in the NFL and not a know-it-all armchair quarterback typing snarky comments in his blog.
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
How brave are you?
Have you ever wondered just how brave you are? Whether we want to admit it or not, we all have something that we’re afraid of. But just where do you fall on the scaredy-cat scale?
To answer that question, I’ve come up with a completely unscientific system for determining your braveness rating. Below is a list of the ten most common fears that people all over the world share that I borrowed from livescience.com. Give yourself one point for every item listed that sends a shiver down your spine. I’ll share my own response to each item so you can see how you stack up against me.
10. Visiting the dentist. This one completely baffles me. I have been to the dentist many times, even had my first root canal last year, and the most I have ever experienced while in the dentist’s chair is minor discomfort. I don’t know what all the fuss is about.
9. Dogs. For me it depends on the dog and his demeanor. If he is one of those breeds that have been known to kill people and he has a bad attitude, of course I’m going to give him a wide berth. But that toy poodle down the road does not keep me up at night.
8. Flying. I’ll admit that I do get a little nervous at takeoff, during landings, and when the ride gets rough. It’s not so much the flying I fear as the possibility of falling. I’m giving myself a pass on this one too.
7. Thunder and lightning. I’m not sure what there is to be afraid of in a thunderstorm except actually being struck by lightning. If I’m out in an open field and it looks like a storm is blowing in I’ll head for cover, but other than that thunderstorms don’t impress me.
6. The dark. I’m only afraid of the dark if I have reason to believe there is something nearby that might present a threat that I can’t see. When a strange noise wakes me up in the middle of the night of course my heart starts racing until I find out it wasn’t caused by a wandering serial killer with a hook for a hand. I don’t think that counts.
5. Heights. Okay, they nailed me here. I do not like being more than a few feet off the ground. I could fall. It would hurt.
4. Other people. Also known as social anxiety. Ouch, they got me again. People are scary, especially people I don’t know, or people I do know who have “issues.” That covers most of the human race.
3. Agoraphobia, or a fear of being in a threatening place or situation that is difficult to escape from. This is like fear of the dark for me – I’m okay unless there is some extenuating circumstance that suggests I may need to escape from the situation.
2. Spiders. Spiders??? Are you kidding me? What could a spider possibly do to me? I have never met a spider who did anything but run away as fast as his 8 little legs could carry him if I got too close. Apparently this fear is almost completely exclusive to women – maybe that’s why I just can’t see it.
1. Snakes. I am afraid of snakes, but I have no idea why. They really aren’t that much more of a threat than spiders, but for some reason I don’t like to get within 100 feet of them. Maybe there’s some sort of residual effect from that whole Garden of Eden incident. That gives me a score of 3.
Scoring key:
(0 – 3) = You are a pillar of courage and intestinal fortitude, like me.
(4 – 6) = You’re probably about average in the fear department.
(7 – 10) = I don’t want to add to your anxiety by telling you what this score indicates. You’re fine, really!
To answer that question, I’ve come up with a completely unscientific system for determining your braveness rating. Below is a list of the ten most common fears that people all over the world share that I borrowed from livescience.com. Give yourself one point for every item listed that sends a shiver down your spine. I’ll share my own response to each item so you can see how you stack up against me.
10. Visiting the dentist. This one completely baffles me. I have been to the dentist many times, even had my first root canal last year, and the most I have ever experienced while in the dentist’s chair is minor discomfort. I don’t know what all the fuss is about.
9. Dogs. For me it depends on the dog and his demeanor. If he is one of those breeds that have been known to kill people and he has a bad attitude, of course I’m going to give him a wide berth. But that toy poodle down the road does not keep me up at night.
8. Flying. I’ll admit that I do get a little nervous at takeoff, during landings, and when the ride gets rough. It’s not so much the flying I fear as the possibility of falling. I’m giving myself a pass on this one too.
7. Thunder and lightning. I’m not sure what there is to be afraid of in a thunderstorm except actually being struck by lightning. If I’m out in an open field and it looks like a storm is blowing in I’ll head for cover, but other than that thunderstorms don’t impress me.
6. The dark. I’m only afraid of the dark if I have reason to believe there is something nearby that might present a threat that I can’t see. When a strange noise wakes me up in the middle of the night of course my heart starts racing until I find out it wasn’t caused by a wandering serial killer with a hook for a hand. I don’t think that counts.
5. Heights. Okay, they nailed me here. I do not like being more than a few feet off the ground. I could fall. It would hurt.
4. Other people. Also known as social anxiety. Ouch, they got me again. People are scary, especially people I don’t know, or people I do know who have “issues.” That covers most of the human race.
3. Agoraphobia, or a fear of being in a threatening place or situation that is difficult to escape from. This is like fear of the dark for me – I’m okay unless there is some extenuating circumstance that suggests I may need to escape from the situation.
2. Spiders. Spiders??? Are you kidding me? What could a spider possibly do to me? I have never met a spider who did anything but run away as fast as his 8 little legs could carry him if I got too close. Apparently this fear is almost completely exclusive to women – maybe that’s why I just can’t see it.
1. Snakes. I am afraid of snakes, but I have no idea why. They really aren’t that much more of a threat than spiders, but for some reason I don’t like to get within 100 feet of them. Maybe there’s some sort of residual effect from that whole Garden of Eden incident. That gives me a score of 3.
Scoring key:
(0 – 3) = You are a pillar of courage and intestinal fortitude, like me.
(4 – 6) = You’re probably about average in the fear department.
(7 – 10) = I don’t want to add to your anxiety by telling you what this score indicates. You’re fine, really!
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
When we soak the rich, we all get wet
With the Democrats in charge of our government, one familiar refrain we have heard a lot and will continue to hear is how it is time for wealthy people to “pay their fair share.” Rich folks got way too much in the way of tax cuts when the Republicans were in charge, the reasoning goes, and they will not be so fortunate with the party of the common man running the show.
I’ll be the first to admit that rich people can be pretty annoying. There is something that seems fundamentally unfair about the fact that there are people walking around wearing shoes that cost more than my entire wardrobe. So why shouldn’t rich old Uncle Moneybags pony up a little more at tax time when there are so many of us struggling just to get by?
Well maybe he should, but I think there is an important point that tends to get lost when we get on these “soak the rich” kicks. There seems to be an assumption on many people’s part that there are no real consequences for taxing the wealthy. That is a very misguided and dangerous assumption.
To illustrate the point, let’s try a little thought experiment.
Imagine that, tomorrow, you win the lottery. The lottery is going to pay you, say, $10 million a year for the rest of your life. Congratulations - you’re rich, and the rest of us hate you. Now let’s say that the first year, the tax rate for someone like you is 25%, or $2.5 million. Then let’s say the next year the Democrats take over, and your tax rate goes up to 50%, or $5 million.
You still have $5 million a year to live on, the rest of us still hate you, and now the government has $5 million a year to do great things for the American people. So what’s the problem here?
Well, let’s say the tax rate had stayed the same (25%) instead of going up. What would you have done with that extra $2.5 million? Chances are that you wouldn’t have taken it home and stuffed it in a mattress.
Maybe you’re the conservative type, and you’d have put it in the bank. The bank would have used that money to make loans to people, perhaps to build houses or start businesses. Or maybe you’re a little more adventurous and you’d have invested it, or even started a business of your own. Either way, our ailing economy could have used that $2.5 million, but now it’s gone into Uncle Sam’s pocket.
Or maybe you’re a hedonist, and you’d have just blown that $2.5 on buying stuff, or taking trips. Still, when people buy things or spend money on travel that money gets plowed into the economy. Somebody has to build those expensive yachts and sports cars, and hotels and airlines employ lots of people too.
But once again, thanks to that 50% tax rate, you won’t be taking that trip around the world or buying that extra sports car this year. I don’t feel too sorry for you, but I might feel sorry for the guy who worked at the yacht factory or the clerk at the four star hotel who just lost his job thanks to our “soak the rich” tax policy.
I’m not arguing against a progressive tax policy here, I’m just saying that it is a mistake to assume that we can raise taxes on anyone, even those snooty rich folks, without there being negative consequences that reach out and touch all of us. Before we raise taxes on anyone we would be wise to ask ourselves what that money might have done for us if it hadn’t been taken out of the hands of private citizens and put into the hands of a federal government that has not always proven to be a wise steward of its finances.
I’ll be the first to admit that rich people can be pretty annoying. There is something that seems fundamentally unfair about the fact that there are people walking around wearing shoes that cost more than my entire wardrobe. So why shouldn’t rich old Uncle Moneybags pony up a little more at tax time when there are so many of us struggling just to get by?
Well maybe he should, but I think there is an important point that tends to get lost when we get on these “soak the rich” kicks. There seems to be an assumption on many people’s part that there are no real consequences for taxing the wealthy. That is a very misguided and dangerous assumption.
To illustrate the point, let’s try a little thought experiment.
Imagine that, tomorrow, you win the lottery. The lottery is going to pay you, say, $10 million a year for the rest of your life. Congratulations - you’re rich, and the rest of us hate you. Now let’s say that the first year, the tax rate for someone like you is 25%, or $2.5 million. Then let’s say the next year the Democrats take over, and your tax rate goes up to 50%, or $5 million.
You still have $5 million a year to live on, the rest of us still hate you, and now the government has $5 million a year to do great things for the American people. So what’s the problem here?
Well, let’s say the tax rate had stayed the same (25%) instead of going up. What would you have done with that extra $2.5 million? Chances are that you wouldn’t have taken it home and stuffed it in a mattress.
Maybe you’re the conservative type, and you’d have put it in the bank. The bank would have used that money to make loans to people, perhaps to build houses or start businesses. Or maybe you’re a little more adventurous and you’d have invested it, or even started a business of your own. Either way, our ailing economy could have used that $2.5 million, but now it’s gone into Uncle Sam’s pocket.
Or maybe you’re a hedonist, and you’d have just blown that $2.5 on buying stuff, or taking trips. Still, when people buy things or spend money on travel that money gets plowed into the economy. Somebody has to build those expensive yachts and sports cars, and hotels and airlines employ lots of people too.
But once again, thanks to that 50% tax rate, you won’t be taking that trip around the world or buying that extra sports car this year. I don’t feel too sorry for you, but I might feel sorry for the guy who worked at the yacht factory or the clerk at the four star hotel who just lost his job thanks to our “soak the rich” tax policy.
I’m not arguing against a progressive tax policy here, I’m just saying that it is a mistake to assume that we can raise taxes on anyone, even those snooty rich folks, without there being negative consequences that reach out and touch all of us. Before we raise taxes on anyone we would be wise to ask ourselves what that money might have done for us if it hadn’t been taken out of the hands of private citizens and put into the hands of a federal government that has not always proven to be a wise steward of its finances.
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
My final Donald Walker column
It has been quite some time since I mentioned Warner Robins mayor Donald Walker’s name in this column. It’s been years, I suppose. But it wasn’t always that way. When I first started writing this column in 1998 for the now-departed Daily Sun, Walker was a constant presence in my work. And as far as I can remember, every single column I ever wrote about him was critical.
I disagreed strongly with Mayor Walker’s vision for the city and the surrounding area. He represented everything that bothered me about local politics in these parts. Walker and his contemporaries seemed to have an insatiable desire to build, build, and then build some more, and the faster the better. I always felt that there was a very small, select group of politicians and real estate tycoons who were getting rich from all the rapid-fire development that was taking place while the rest of us “enjoyed” higher taxes, choked roadways, overcrowded schools, and flooded back yards.
And yet like everyone else who lives in Houston County I was horrified by Mayor Walker’s sudden passing. It’s difficult to imagine Warner Robins without Mayor Walker and every time I drive by city hall the same thoughts hits me again – “I can’t believe he’s really gone.” But he is gone, and since the mayor was such a big part of my early writing career, I thought I would devote one final column to his memory.
I spent some time reflecting on the reason I stopped writing about Mayor Walker. I can remember how angry I used to get when I looked around the city and saw another strip mall going up. I remember arguing against every penny sales tax increase that was proposed to prop up our over-taxed infrastructure when it came up on the ballot. It was all too much, too fast, and I couldn’t understand why people kept sending the man most responsible for these “injustices” back into office.
But send him back they did. As it turned out, a lot of people in Warner Robins thought he was doing a great job. They enjoyed all the new restaurants and stores that were coming into their city. They liked the fact that city taxes seemed to keep going down instead of up. And, frankly, a lot of people just liked Donald Walker. I never had a chance to meet him in person, but people who knew him well all seemed to think he was a fine person who genuinely cared about the people he represented.
Eventually it became obvious to me why I stopped criticizing the mayor. It was just pointless. It was a battle I could never win because I was completely overmatched. This was a man who knew how to get what he wanted and was willing to do whatever he had to do to achieve his goals. It is very difficult to win against an opponent like that, and I never really had a chance.
It is always a tragedy when a man takes his own life, and we are right to mourn the untimely end of Donald Walker. But we should remember one thing when we think about his life – he accomplished what he set out to do. He had a big vision and he made it reality against some very long odds. How many people can say that, even if they live to be 100? Not many of us, I’m afraid. I’m 43 now and I am still just trying to figure out what I want to do with my life.
I think everyone leaves a hole in the world when they depart, and the size of that hole varies depending on how many lives you have touched. Donald Walker left a hole the size of a city when he left us, and we’ll all be feeling that loss for a very long time.
I disagreed strongly with Mayor Walker’s vision for the city and the surrounding area. He represented everything that bothered me about local politics in these parts. Walker and his contemporaries seemed to have an insatiable desire to build, build, and then build some more, and the faster the better. I always felt that there was a very small, select group of politicians and real estate tycoons who were getting rich from all the rapid-fire development that was taking place while the rest of us “enjoyed” higher taxes, choked roadways, overcrowded schools, and flooded back yards.
And yet like everyone else who lives in Houston County I was horrified by Mayor Walker’s sudden passing. It’s difficult to imagine Warner Robins without Mayor Walker and every time I drive by city hall the same thoughts hits me again – “I can’t believe he’s really gone.” But he is gone, and since the mayor was such a big part of my early writing career, I thought I would devote one final column to his memory.
I spent some time reflecting on the reason I stopped writing about Mayor Walker. I can remember how angry I used to get when I looked around the city and saw another strip mall going up. I remember arguing against every penny sales tax increase that was proposed to prop up our over-taxed infrastructure when it came up on the ballot. It was all too much, too fast, and I couldn’t understand why people kept sending the man most responsible for these “injustices” back into office.
But send him back they did. As it turned out, a lot of people in Warner Robins thought he was doing a great job. They enjoyed all the new restaurants and stores that were coming into their city. They liked the fact that city taxes seemed to keep going down instead of up. And, frankly, a lot of people just liked Donald Walker. I never had a chance to meet him in person, but people who knew him well all seemed to think he was a fine person who genuinely cared about the people he represented.
Eventually it became obvious to me why I stopped criticizing the mayor. It was just pointless. It was a battle I could never win because I was completely overmatched. This was a man who knew how to get what he wanted and was willing to do whatever he had to do to achieve his goals. It is very difficult to win against an opponent like that, and I never really had a chance.
It is always a tragedy when a man takes his own life, and we are right to mourn the untimely end of Donald Walker. But we should remember one thing when we think about his life – he accomplished what he set out to do. He had a big vision and he made it reality against some very long odds. How many people can say that, even if they live to be 100? Not many of us, I’m afraid. I’m 43 now and I am still just trying to figure out what I want to do with my life.
I think everyone leaves a hole in the world when they depart, and the size of that hole varies depending on how many lives you have touched. Donald Walker left a hole the size of a city when he left us, and we’ll all be feeling that loss for a very long time.
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Time for us to get taxed by the pound
If you are reading this column, you are probably too fat. No, I’m not psychic. I just happen to know that a solid majority of Americans are overweight, so the odds are that most of the people who are reading these words could stand to lose a few pounds. Now the question you are probably asking yourself is this - what is the federal government doing about my weight problem?
The answer to that question, according to a group of nutrition and economics experts who published an opinion piece in a recent issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, is that it isn’t doing nearly as much as it should. What we need, say these experts, is a tax on soda pop.
They contend that a steep tax on sugary beverages is a brilliant concept for the same reason that cigarette taxes were a good idea. Such a tax would discourage people from using a product that is not good for them and it would also raise new revenue that the government could spend on much needed programs to further improve public health. That is what we call a win-win scenario.
You might think that congress would be all over a great idea like this one, but to date none of the proposed health care reform bills has included language mandating a soda tax. There was discussion of such a tax when the bills were being crafted, but fears of a backlash from the powerful soft drink industry and angry soft drink addicts prompted lawmakers to back away from the idea. For now.
Let’s face it - it is only a matter of time before we are paying a hefty add-on fee for our Cokes and Pepsis and Dr. Peppers. And it is unlikely that they will stop there. Candy bars, potato chips, movie theater popcorn, and other bad-for-you treats will undoubtedly be sin-taxed as well at some point.
But why not go even further? If we are going to tax our way to better health, there are other consumer products that contribute to our collective obesity that we should be penalized for indulging in.
For example:
- Big screen TVs. There aren’t many things that we buy that encourage us to sit around the house as much those giant flat screens that tend to eat up an entire wall of our living rooms (or our “home theater rooms” for the more avid TV watchers out there.) TVs should be taxed at an increasingly higher rate as their screen size and picture quality increases. With the revenue generated from this tax, we could eliminate sales tax on things like treadmills and stationary bikes. This is what is known as “lifestyle engineering”, and America obviously needs a lot more of it.
- Couches. I can’t think of any piece of furniture in the house that encourages slothfulness as much as a comfy couch does. These things should be taxed so high that people can’t even afford them and are forced to sit in front of the TV on those hard wooden pews that used to be so popular in churches. You wouldn’t even make it half way through “Dancing with the Stars” before you had to get up and walk around.
- “Fat” clothes. Having reasonably-priced clothing readily available in very large sizes has made us all too comfortable with our expanding waist lines. If we had to pay an increasingly steep fee for our clothes every time we went up a size, we might put a little more thought into whether or not we could really afford to have a second helping of Grandma’s apple pie after Sunday dinner. “Sorry Granny, I can’t. I don’t make enough money to shop in the Big and Tall section.”
The answer to that question, according to a group of nutrition and economics experts who published an opinion piece in a recent issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, is that it isn’t doing nearly as much as it should. What we need, say these experts, is a tax on soda pop.
They contend that a steep tax on sugary beverages is a brilliant concept for the same reason that cigarette taxes were a good idea. Such a tax would discourage people from using a product that is not good for them and it would also raise new revenue that the government could spend on much needed programs to further improve public health. That is what we call a win-win scenario.
You might think that congress would be all over a great idea like this one, but to date none of the proposed health care reform bills has included language mandating a soda tax. There was discussion of such a tax when the bills were being crafted, but fears of a backlash from the powerful soft drink industry and angry soft drink addicts prompted lawmakers to back away from the idea. For now.
Let’s face it - it is only a matter of time before we are paying a hefty add-on fee for our Cokes and Pepsis and Dr. Peppers. And it is unlikely that they will stop there. Candy bars, potato chips, movie theater popcorn, and other bad-for-you treats will undoubtedly be sin-taxed as well at some point.
But why not go even further? If we are going to tax our way to better health, there are other consumer products that contribute to our collective obesity that we should be penalized for indulging in.
For example:
- Big screen TVs. There aren’t many things that we buy that encourage us to sit around the house as much those giant flat screens that tend to eat up an entire wall of our living rooms (or our “home theater rooms” for the more avid TV watchers out there.) TVs should be taxed at an increasingly higher rate as their screen size and picture quality increases. With the revenue generated from this tax, we could eliminate sales tax on things like treadmills and stationary bikes. This is what is known as “lifestyle engineering”, and America obviously needs a lot more of it.
- Couches. I can’t think of any piece of furniture in the house that encourages slothfulness as much as a comfy couch does. These things should be taxed so high that people can’t even afford them and are forced to sit in front of the TV on those hard wooden pews that used to be so popular in churches. You wouldn’t even make it half way through “Dancing with the Stars” before you had to get up and walk around.
- “Fat” clothes. Having reasonably-priced clothing readily available in very large sizes has made us all too comfortable with our expanding waist lines. If we had to pay an increasingly steep fee for our clothes every time we went up a size, we might put a little more thought into whether or not we could really afford to have a second helping of Grandma’s apple pie after Sunday dinner. “Sorry Granny, I can’t. I don’t make enough money to shop in the Big and Tall section.”
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
Latest Obama outrage: brainwashing our children
Apparently, even the little children are not safe from the nefarious plans of President Barak Hussein Obama. That at least seemed to be the message that was being widely broadcast by the ever-vigilant “Obama is a tool of the devil” constituency over the Labor Day weekend.
The president was scheduled to deliver a video address to all public schoolchildren on September 7 and some conservatives flew into a tizzy, sure that he would be indoctrinating our innocent children into the evils of socialism, government-run healthcare, radical environmentalism, and Lord-knows-what-else.
So some schools opted not to show the speech to their students, some parent kept their children home from school rather than have them be subjected to it, and some kids whose schools wouldn’t show the speech stayed home so they could watch it.
That was an awful lot of hand-wringing over an 18 minute pep talk whose message (yes I did read it) can be boiled down into the following statement: Work hard in school if you want to get a good job and make a contribution the future of your country.
I’m nearly certain that if Rush Limbaugh or Newt Gingrich had read basically the same speech to our children there would not have been a peep in protest from the right wing. But I’m sure that in that case the liberals would have protested the same speech just as vehemently as the conservatives did in the run up to the president’s address.
What I can’t understand is why everything has to be so very personal. It seems like every day I get a new hate-o-gram directed at President Obama in my email Inbox. He’s not really an American. He’s a closet Muslim and has secret plans to convert America into an Islamic state. He’s raising a secret, private army (to do what I’m not sure, but it has to be bad.)
The people who send me these emails usually include a short personal message that conveys a sense of barely concealed glee at their newest discovery of the unimpeachable truth of Obama’s evil nature. “See, I told you he was out to ruin this country!” they exult. I always wonder what exactly I’m supposed to do with this information. I think I am supposed to buy a gun, or build a bomb shelter. Or both.
Let me state plainly that I did not vote for President Obama, I don’t approve of most of the things he is doing as president, and I hope that he is out of office after one term. But my lack of support for him stems from the fact that he and I have a basic difference of opinion regarding the proper role of the federal government in terms of its size and scope. I have nothing against him because of his race, his (real or imagined religion) religious preferences, or his personality. If he were to wake up tomorrow determined to embrace the ideals of low taxes and limited government, I wouldn’t have a problem supporting him without reservation.
But I certainly don’t believe he is Evil Incarnate, and I don’t believe it is wise or effective for those of us who oppose his policies to always assume that every move he makes was orchestrated by Lucifer himself. There was nothing wrong with the speech Obama gave to (some of our) nation’s schoolchildren this week, and if he influenced any of them to buckle down and take their studies more seriously this year I say good for him.
Maybe someone needs to give the adults in this country a speech about not assuming the worst about people before they get all their facts straight and how it is possible to disagree with someone without being disagreeable.
It shouldn’t be me, though. Too many people already think that I’m an idiot.
The president was scheduled to deliver a video address to all public schoolchildren on September 7 and some conservatives flew into a tizzy, sure that he would be indoctrinating our innocent children into the evils of socialism, government-run healthcare, radical environmentalism, and Lord-knows-what-else.
So some schools opted not to show the speech to their students, some parent kept their children home from school rather than have them be subjected to it, and some kids whose schools wouldn’t show the speech stayed home so they could watch it.
That was an awful lot of hand-wringing over an 18 minute pep talk whose message (yes I did read it) can be boiled down into the following statement: Work hard in school if you want to get a good job and make a contribution the future of your country.
I’m nearly certain that if Rush Limbaugh or Newt Gingrich had read basically the same speech to our children there would not have been a peep in protest from the right wing. But I’m sure that in that case the liberals would have protested the same speech just as vehemently as the conservatives did in the run up to the president’s address.
What I can’t understand is why everything has to be so very personal. It seems like every day I get a new hate-o-gram directed at President Obama in my email Inbox. He’s not really an American. He’s a closet Muslim and has secret plans to convert America into an Islamic state. He’s raising a secret, private army (to do what I’m not sure, but it has to be bad.)
The people who send me these emails usually include a short personal message that conveys a sense of barely concealed glee at their newest discovery of the unimpeachable truth of Obama’s evil nature. “See, I told you he was out to ruin this country!” they exult. I always wonder what exactly I’m supposed to do with this information. I think I am supposed to buy a gun, or build a bomb shelter. Or both.
Let me state plainly that I did not vote for President Obama, I don’t approve of most of the things he is doing as president, and I hope that he is out of office after one term. But my lack of support for him stems from the fact that he and I have a basic difference of opinion regarding the proper role of the federal government in terms of its size and scope. I have nothing against him because of his race, his (real or imagined religion) religious preferences, or his personality. If he were to wake up tomorrow determined to embrace the ideals of low taxes and limited government, I wouldn’t have a problem supporting him without reservation.
But I certainly don’t believe he is Evil Incarnate, and I don’t believe it is wise or effective for those of us who oppose his policies to always assume that every move he makes was orchestrated by Lucifer himself. There was nothing wrong with the speech Obama gave to (some of our) nation’s schoolchildren this week, and if he influenced any of them to buckle down and take their studies more seriously this year I say good for him.
Maybe someone needs to give the adults in this country a speech about not assuming the worst about people before they get all their facts straight and how it is possible to disagree with someone without being disagreeable.
It shouldn’t be me, though. Too many people already think that I’m an idiot.
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
More things the government could pay us to replace
This week Americans bid a sad farewell to one of the most popular government programs ever. More than 600,000 worn out old wrecks were traded in for sleek new fuel-efficient cars under the “Cash for Clunkers” program in less than a month. At the end of the day, close to $3 billion dollars of our tax money will have been spent to help people buy new cars and pump new life into the beleaguered automotive industry.
Cash for Clunkers may have ended, but the government is not finished helping us upgrade our lives just yet. Now Uncle Sam wants to pay you to replace your major appliances with newer, more energy-efficient models. You may be able to get a voucher for anywhere from $50 to $200 towards the purchase of a new refrigerator or washing machine if you qualify. Is this not the greatest government in the history of governments?
I feel like a kid at Christmas, wondering what Uncle Sam is going to leave under the tree for me next. We can only hope that the largesse doesn’t stop with automobiles and washing machines. We have an opportunity here to help Americans remake their lives in every conceivable fashion, and it is obvious that money is no object here.
Here are just a few of my suggestions for future “Cash for…”exchange programs.
- Cash for Old Houses. I’d be shocked if this one isn’t already at least in the planning stages because it just makes too much sense. Take a depressed housing industry, stir in millions of Americans living in run-down old homes, and season with an unlimited supply of deficit spending. That gives you the perfect recipe for a massive new spending program to help people purchase new homes. Sure the costs would be astronomical. So what’s your point?
- Cash for Old Spouses. Few things would upgrade the quality of life for many Americans than to trade in their tired old husband or wife for a newer, more efficient model. To qualify you would have to have been married for at least 20 years and your spouse would have to be at least 55 years old. Your replacement would have to be under 35, have a good job, and leave a relatively small carbon footprint. Uncle Sam won’t find a replacement for you, but he will give you a voucher for up to $10K a year to keep your May-December romance in bloom. I’m not going to speculate as to what the government might do with your spousal trade-in, but Sarah Palin probably has an idea or two.
- Cash for Conservatives. If there is one thing holding us back from becoming a liberal utopia it is those busy-body conservatives with their annoying preference for smaller government and low taxes. It’s time to buy them out. For a one-time payment of $100K conservatives would have to agree to do the following for the next four years: vote a straight Democratic ticket every election, abstain from attending any town hall meetings or rallies on any courthouse steps, and have Fox News and conservative Internet blogs blocked from their homes.
If you’re thinking that it would be ridiculous to suggest that there would be any conservatives would sell out so easily, let me ask you a question. Do you think that all of the people who took advantage of Cash for Clunkers were big-government, tree-hugging liberals? Or do you think that more than a few right-wingers who rail against the “spread the wealth around” concept gladly took the $4500 credit for their old junkers because, well, it was just too good an opportunity to pass up?
As Alfred Adler said, it’s much easier to fight for your principles than it is to live up to them.
Cash for Clunkers may have ended, but the government is not finished helping us upgrade our lives just yet. Now Uncle Sam wants to pay you to replace your major appliances with newer, more energy-efficient models. You may be able to get a voucher for anywhere from $50 to $200 towards the purchase of a new refrigerator or washing machine if you qualify. Is this not the greatest government in the history of governments?
I feel like a kid at Christmas, wondering what Uncle Sam is going to leave under the tree for me next. We can only hope that the largesse doesn’t stop with automobiles and washing machines. We have an opportunity here to help Americans remake their lives in every conceivable fashion, and it is obvious that money is no object here.
Here are just a few of my suggestions for future “Cash for…”exchange programs.
- Cash for Old Houses. I’d be shocked if this one isn’t already at least in the planning stages because it just makes too much sense. Take a depressed housing industry, stir in millions of Americans living in run-down old homes, and season with an unlimited supply of deficit spending. That gives you the perfect recipe for a massive new spending program to help people purchase new homes. Sure the costs would be astronomical. So what’s your point?
- Cash for Old Spouses. Few things would upgrade the quality of life for many Americans than to trade in their tired old husband or wife for a newer, more efficient model. To qualify you would have to have been married for at least 20 years and your spouse would have to be at least 55 years old. Your replacement would have to be under 35, have a good job, and leave a relatively small carbon footprint. Uncle Sam won’t find a replacement for you, but he will give you a voucher for up to $10K a year to keep your May-December romance in bloom. I’m not going to speculate as to what the government might do with your spousal trade-in, but Sarah Palin probably has an idea or two.
- Cash for Conservatives. If there is one thing holding us back from becoming a liberal utopia it is those busy-body conservatives with their annoying preference for smaller government and low taxes. It’s time to buy them out. For a one-time payment of $100K conservatives would have to agree to do the following for the next four years: vote a straight Democratic ticket every election, abstain from attending any town hall meetings or rallies on any courthouse steps, and have Fox News and conservative Internet blogs blocked from their homes.
If you’re thinking that it would be ridiculous to suggest that there would be any conservatives would sell out so easily, let me ask you a question. Do you think that all of the people who took advantage of Cash for Clunkers were big-government, tree-hugging liberals? Or do you think that more than a few right-wingers who rail against the “spread the wealth around” concept gladly took the $4500 credit for their old junkers because, well, it was just too good an opportunity to pass up?
As Alfred Adler said, it’s much easier to fight for your principles than it is to live up to them.
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
Are health care forum protests “un-American”?
So how is your summer going? Has it been too hot, too dry, too short, or otherwise failed to meet your expectations? If so, you can take heart in this one fact: at least you aren’t a sitting congressman who has to go back to his home district and hold a public forum on health care reform. I haven’t been to one myself, but from here it sure doesn’t look like they are having much fun.
You’ve probably heard that there have been some rather spirited protests at these forums. Democrats have accused right-wing special interest groups of organizing these raucous demonstrations and say they are preventing Americans from having a much-needed debate on the topic at hand. Republicans swear that these protests are a grass roots phenomenon and contend that they just show how upset ordinary Americans are with Obama’s attempt at a government takeover of the health care industry.
So are these protesters interfering with the Democratic process? Should the demonstrators politely wait their turn to speak at these forums and allow everyone to have their say rather than disrupting the proceedings with their screaming and shouting? And is it bad form to hang your local congressperson in effigy?
In the past, my answer to all three of these questions would have been yes. But there has been so much nonsense going on for so long in Washington DC that I’m afraid my answers now might be “yes”, “no”, and “you’re lucky you’re only being hung in effigy, pal.”
Ordinarily I’m a non-partisan, even keel sort of a person who sees a certain amount of merit in both sides of a good argument and I like for everyone to have their say. But it seems like things have been going so wrong for so long in our country that now I’m not so sure that polite debate is getting us anywhere good.
Unsurprisingly, Nancy Pelosi and I disagree on this. In a recent op-ed piece she authored with fellow Democrat Steny Hoyer, she said that “drowning out opposing views is simply un-American.” I’m not sure what universe she’s been living, but in my experience drowning out opposing views is pretty much the way politicians have been advancing their agendas for as long as I can remember.
More humorous (or more perhaps more disturbing) was this statement from the Pelosi/Hoyer piece. Once their health care reform passes, they contend that “never again will medical bills drive Americans into bankruptcy; never again will Americans be in danger of losing coverage if they lose their jobs or if they become sick; never again will insurance companies be allowed to deny patients coverage because of pre-existing conditions.”
Do you hear that? “Never again” will any of the bad things that now happen to sick people in our imperfect health care system happen again, ever! Barak Obama and Nancy Pelosi are going to solve these problems for everyone, for all time!
I don’t think so, Nancy. What you are almost certain to do is raise my taxes and make the system much less effective for the majority of us who already have employer-provided health insurance that works pretty well, most of the time. Just because something isn’t perfect doesn’t mean that changing it will make it better. And looking at Medicare, Medicaid, and the VA hospital situation, I don’t see any reason for us to have confidence that the federal government is going to “fix” the health care system. Not in a good way, anyhow.
Maybe these health care forum protests are interfering with the democratic process, but maybe that isn’t such a bad thing. That process, as it exists right now, doesn’t see
You’ve probably heard that there have been some rather spirited protests at these forums. Democrats have accused right-wing special interest groups of organizing these raucous demonstrations and say they are preventing Americans from having a much-needed debate on the topic at hand. Republicans swear that these protests are a grass roots phenomenon and contend that they just show how upset ordinary Americans are with Obama’s attempt at a government takeover of the health care industry.
So are these protesters interfering with the Democratic process? Should the demonstrators politely wait their turn to speak at these forums and allow everyone to have their say rather than disrupting the proceedings with their screaming and shouting? And is it bad form to hang your local congressperson in effigy?
In the past, my answer to all three of these questions would have been yes. But there has been so much nonsense going on for so long in Washington DC that I’m afraid my answers now might be “yes”, “no”, and “you’re lucky you’re only being hung in effigy, pal.”
Ordinarily I’m a non-partisan, even keel sort of a person who sees a certain amount of merit in both sides of a good argument and I like for everyone to have their say. But it seems like things have been going so wrong for so long in our country that now I’m not so sure that polite debate is getting us anywhere good.
Unsurprisingly, Nancy Pelosi and I disagree on this. In a recent op-ed piece she authored with fellow Democrat Steny Hoyer, she said that “drowning out opposing views is simply un-American.” I’m not sure what universe she’s been living, but in my experience drowning out opposing views is pretty much the way politicians have been advancing their agendas for as long as I can remember.
More humorous (or more perhaps more disturbing) was this statement from the Pelosi/Hoyer piece. Once their health care reform passes, they contend that “never again will medical bills drive Americans into bankruptcy; never again will Americans be in danger of losing coverage if they lose their jobs or if they become sick; never again will insurance companies be allowed to deny patients coverage because of pre-existing conditions.”
Do you hear that? “Never again” will any of the bad things that now happen to sick people in our imperfect health care system happen again, ever! Barak Obama and Nancy Pelosi are going to solve these problems for everyone, for all time!
I don’t think so, Nancy. What you are almost certain to do is raise my taxes and make the system much less effective for the majority of us who already have employer-provided health insurance that works pretty well, most of the time. Just because something isn’t perfect doesn’t mean that changing it will make it better. And looking at Medicare, Medicaid, and the VA hospital situation, I don’t see any reason for us to have confidence that the federal government is going to “fix” the health care system. Not in a good way, anyhow.
Maybe these health care forum protests are interfering with the democratic process, but maybe that isn’t such a bad thing. That process, as it exists right now, doesn’t see
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
A man’s guide to the “Twilight” phenomenon
If you are a man and you have a woman in your life, there’s a decent chance that she’s a fan of a book called “Twilight”. You might be a little curious as to why this book is so popular with the ladies, but chances are that you aren’t curious enough to actually pick it up and read it.
I, however, was that curious, and I recently completed the nearly 500-page journey into the world of teenage vampire romance. I’m not going to recommend that any men out there follow my example, but just so you won’t be completely in the dark about this estrogen-charged phenomenon I’ll give you a brief summary of what happens in the book.
The story opens with our teenage protagonist, Bella, moving to a new city to live with her single father. Bella is a moody, sarcastic teenage girl with a poor self-image, but the single most defining thing about her is that she is extremely clumsy. She can barely walk without falling down and injuring herself, and I had to wonder if she had some sort of undiagnosed neuromuscular disorder. Unfortunately no one in the book thinks of this, so we’ll never know.
At her new school Bella immediately makes a bunch of new friends and inexplicably seems to despise them all, especially the boys. Being a typical girl, she is instead fascinated by the one guy in school who seems to want to have nothing to do with her.
That guy turns out to be Edward, our other protagonist. Edward is apparently the most attractive man ever to walk the earth, a point that is driven home mercilessly throughout the book. We eventually learn that that Edward is also a vampire, and he lives with a sort of adopted family of six other vampires who are all achingly beautiful in their own right. Not to worry though, they are all “good” vampires and only drink animal blood. They jokingly refer to themselves as vegetarians. Cute!
Some of the vampires in this book have psychic powers, and Edward can read people’s minds. He can read everyone’s mind except Bella’s, and of course that causes him to be fascinated by her. Being as fine as he is, it doesn’t take long before Bella develops a little fascination of her own, and for the next 250 pages or so the two of them slowly get to know each other and fall hopelessly in love.
One day Bella joins the Cullen family as they go out to play baseball during a thunderstorm (don’t ask) when out of nowhere three more vampires show up. Unfortunately the new vampires are not vegetarians, and one of them (James) decides he wants to make a meal out of Bella. Edward scares him off, but this new guy is a relentless hunter and he now has Bella squarely in his sights. Edward’s family quickly spirit her out of town for her own protection.
The dastardly James manages to trick Bella into meeting up with him alone using a scam that involves Bella’s mom, an abandoned ballet studio, and a VCR. Once James has her where he wants her, he makes the classic bad-guy blunder of going into a long, boring speech about how great it is going to be to kill her instead of just sucking her blood and calling it a day. That gives Edward and his family time to catch up and save Bella at the last minute.
“Twilight” is not destined to be on my short list of favorite books as it drags way too much in the middle section and could have benefited greatly from the services of a good editor. It’s not awful though, and I may continue on with the next book in the series, which I hear involves werewolves. No doubt these werewolves will be strikingly handsome when in human form. Just because you’re a monster doesn’t mean you can’t be smokin’ hot
I, however, was that curious, and I recently completed the nearly 500-page journey into the world of teenage vampire romance. I’m not going to recommend that any men out there follow my example, but just so you won’t be completely in the dark about this estrogen-charged phenomenon I’ll give you a brief summary of what happens in the book.
The story opens with our teenage protagonist, Bella, moving to a new city to live with her single father. Bella is a moody, sarcastic teenage girl with a poor self-image, but the single most defining thing about her is that she is extremely clumsy. She can barely walk without falling down and injuring herself, and I had to wonder if she had some sort of undiagnosed neuromuscular disorder. Unfortunately no one in the book thinks of this, so we’ll never know.
At her new school Bella immediately makes a bunch of new friends and inexplicably seems to despise them all, especially the boys. Being a typical girl, she is instead fascinated by the one guy in school who seems to want to have nothing to do with her.
That guy turns out to be Edward, our other protagonist. Edward is apparently the most attractive man ever to walk the earth, a point that is driven home mercilessly throughout the book. We eventually learn that that Edward is also a vampire, and he lives with a sort of adopted family of six other vampires who are all achingly beautiful in their own right. Not to worry though, they are all “good” vampires and only drink animal blood. They jokingly refer to themselves as vegetarians. Cute!
Some of the vampires in this book have psychic powers, and Edward can read people’s minds. He can read everyone’s mind except Bella’s, and of course that causes him to be fascinated by her. Being as fine as he is, it doesn’t take long before Bella develops a little fascination of her own, and for the next 250 pages or so the two of them slowly get to know each other and fall hopelessly in love.
One day Bella joins the Cullen family as they go out to play baseball during a thunderstorm (don’t ask) when out of nowhere three more vampires show up. Unfortunately the new vampires are not vegetarians, and one of them (James) decides he wants to make a meal out of Bella. Edward scares him off, but this new guy is a relentless hunter and he now has Bella squarely in his sights. Edward’s family quickly spirit her out of town for her own protection.
The dastardly James manages to trick Bella into meeting up with him alone using a scam that involves Bella’s mom, an abandoned ballet studio, and a VCR. Once James has her where he wants her, he makes the classic bad-guy blunder of going into a long, boring speech about how great it is going to be to kill her instead of just sucking her blood and calling it a day. That gives Edward and his family time to catch up and save Bella at the last minute.
“Twilight” is not destined to be on my short list of favorite books as it drags way too much in the middle section and could have benefited greatly from the services of a good editor. It’s not awful though, and I may continue on with the next book in the series, which I hear involves werewolves. No doubt these werewolves will be strikingly handsome when in human form. Just because you’re a monster doesn’t mean you can’t be smokin’ hot
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Discrimination – it’s all around us
Americans are not known for their humility. We’ve been the richest, most powerful nation in the world for a long time now, so I guess it’s only natural that we tend to think of ourselves as being a cut above the rest.
After all, we are among the world leaders in so many categories. Some of them are obvious (income, personal freedom, fast food consumption, etc.), but there are others that you would have to dig beneath the surface to recognize. Like guilt, for instance. Is there any other country that wallows in its past and present shortcomings with the enthusiasm that we do? I don’t think so. As a white male, and a Southerner to boot, I try to set aside some time every day to mentally flog myself over the many bad things my forbears might have done.
And I have to do that, otherwise I might slip up and say or do something that will cause offense to some group of people to whom I should be more sensitive. That point was driven home for me a few weeks ago when I had the temerity to question whether or not the process that led to the nomination of a certain Supreme Court nominee was really an exhaustive one that fairly considered all possible candidates, even those who happen to be male and/or Caucasian.
Shortly thereafter I was subjected to an editorial trip to the woodshed on these pages, and I consider myself to be properly chastened. I must keep in mind that not only can white men not jump, they also cannot talk about reverse discrimination without feeling like they are being lumped together with those bed sheet-wearing yahoos who inexplicably consider themselves to be part of some “master race.” And let me tell you, those are definitely not the kind of people I want to form a lump with.
So I am trying to turn over a new leaf and be more sensitive to the subject of discrimination in our society. And in that spirit I want to discuss a story I came across this week that highlighted a previously unsung class of people who are, through no fault of their own, experiencing verifiable discrimination in the work place.
Did you know that recent studies have shown that tall people make significantly more money than their vertically-challenged coworkers? After accounting for all other factors, it appears that every additional inch of height accounts for almost an extra $1000 a year in annual salary on average. That’s right, mister 5-foot-nothing, that former basketball player who sits in the next cubicle is probably making ten grand a year more than you just because he’s tall enough to dunk.
That’s just plan unfair, and in this golden age where we continuously seek new ways to redress discrimination and eliminate unfair practices, something needs to be done. Obviously the vertically-challenged should be added to the protected list of people who can sue for workplace discrimination. But thinking about this injustice has got me wondering, how many other people are being mistreated by our society yet have not been awarded the deserved title of “victim”?
I would be willing to bet that people who are introverted, overweight, homely, obnoxious, or smelly could very well be suffering from unfair treatment in the workplace and in our culture in general, just like short people are. And something needs to be done about it.
President Obama should institute a new, cabinet-level department that would be in charge of rooting out and redressing any and all instances of discrimination being perpetrated on any American for any reason. Laws should be written, tax breaks should be handed out, and apologies should be made. There is no excuse for any American to be discriminated against in this day and age, and it is the federal government’s job to actively combat all forms of prejudice wherever they occur.
The exception, of course, would be when the discrimination is targeted at Caucasian males, which
After all, we are among the world leaders in so many categories. Some of them are obvious (income, personal freedom, fast food consumption, etc.), but there are others that you would have to dig beneath the surface to recognize. Like guilt, for instance. Is there any other country that wallows in its past and present shortcomings with the enthusiasm that we do? I don’t think so. As a white male, and a Southerner to boot, I try to set aside some time every day to mentally flog myself over the many bad things my forbears might have done.
And I have to do that, otherwise I might slip up and say or do something that will cause offense to some group of people to whom I should be more sensitive. That point was driven home for me a few weeks ago when I had the temerity to question whether or not the process that led to the nomination of a certain Supreme Court nominee was really an exhaustive one that fairly considered all possible candidates, even those who happen to be male and/or Caucasian.
Shortly thereafter I was subjected to an editorial trip to the woodshed on these pages, and I consider myself to be properly chastened. I must keep in mind that not only can white men not jump, they also cannot talk about reverse discrimination without feeling like they are being lumped together with those bed sheet-wearing yahoos who inexplicably consider themselves to be part of some “master race.” And let me tell you, those are definitely not the kind of people I want to form a lump with.
So I am trying to turn over a new leaf and be more sensitive to the subject of discrimination in our society. And in that spirit I want to discuss a story I came across this week that highlighted a previously unsung class of people who are, through no fault of their own, experiencing verifiable discrimination in the work place.
Did you know that recent studies have shown that tall people make significantly more money than their vertically-challenged coworkers? After accounting for all other factors, it appears that every additional inch of height accounts for almost an extra $1000 a year in annual salary on average. That’s right, mister 5-foot-nothing, that former basketball player who sits in the next cubicle is probably making ten grand a year more than you just because he’s tall enough to dunk.
That’s just plan unfair, and in this golden age where we continuously seek new ways to redress discrimination and eliminate unfair practices, something needs to be done. Obviously the vertically-challenged should be added to the protected list of people who can sue for workplace discrimination. But thinking about this injustice has got me wondering, how many other people are being mistreated by our society yet have not been awarded the deserved title of “victim”?
I would be willing to bet that people who are introverted, overweight, homely, obnoxious, or smelly could very well be suffering from unfair treatment in the workplace and in our culture in general, just like short people are. And something needs to be done about it.
President Obama should institute a new, cabinet-level department that would be in charge of rooting out and redressing any and all instances of discrimination being perpetrated on any American for any reason. Laws should be written, tax breaks should be handed out, and apologies should be made. There is no excuse for any American to be discriminated against in this day and age, and it is the federal government’s job to actively combat all forms of prejudice wherever they occur.
The exception, of course, would be when the discrimination is targeted at Caucasian males, which
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
From tea parties to the ballot box
This past Sunday I read an article in this newspaper that was as disturbing to me as anything I’ve read in long time. It had nothing to do with dead celebrities, election fraud in Iran, or global warming. Instead, it was a seemingly innocuous little piece about a congressman who represents a certain district here in Middle Georgia who is facing reelection in just over a year and as yet has no apparent opposition in that contest.
Now that may not seem like a big deal to you, but to a person like me who feels strongly that our system of government only works when the people who are governed by it give a rat’s behind about who represents them, it was very hard pill to swallow.
Before I go any further, let me say this. I think Jim Marshall is a good guy and, in general, he has represented Middle Georgia about as well as any career politician could be expected to. I understand the practical reasons why none of the leading lights in the state Republican Party have jumped at the chance to oppose him, but that knowledge does nothing to cool my outrage that we could have a race for a national office in my own home district where no one may bother to oppose the incumbent.
Some of the views expressed in this piece made me want to tear my hair out. Numerous potential Republican opponents are refusing to throw their hats in the ring because of the long odds against winning and because their personal prospects are more promising if they run for state or local positions. And local conservative firebrand Erick Erickson said that some state GOP officials are hoping that Marshall does indeed go unopposed because a strong turnout for him might unduly influence the governor’s race in favor of the Democrats.
Take a minute to digest that. The GOP brain trust in this state are not simply disinterested in this race, they are actively opposed to anyone of substance from their party running against Marshall because of the effect it might have on the governor’s race. Here we see the genius of the two-party system at work. Do you feel well-represented?
Still, an optimistic soul might see the situation as an opportunity rather than a problem. So the Republican machine has no interest in this race. Fine. That could provide an opportunity for some candidate who is outside of the political mainstream to enter the race and become a viable force.
I want to speak directly now to the citizens who participated in the “tea party” rallies on tax day this year. You are fed up. You are sick and tired of government-as-usual. You have had it up to here with deficit spending, intrusive government, and the lack of respect for our constitution displayed by nearly all of our representatives in Washington. That was the message you were trying to send with these rallies, if I’m not mistaken.
Well, here is an opportunity to do more than wave signs and sing songs. Surely there is someone in your ranks who can speak in complete sentences and has an ounce of personal charisma. I think it’s time for that person to step up and run for office. This is a perfect opportunity for an outsider, a candidate that represents a fresh alternative to business-as-usual in Washington to emerge and give 8th district voters a real choice next fall.
I once wrote that I believed the tea party rallies were political theater, a chance for anti-Obama Republicans to release their frustrations over losing power in Washington. I hope I was wrong, and that some true believer will emerge from that movement and give those of us who are fed up with our bloated federal government a reason to go to the polls next year. The clock is ticking however, and the time to act is right now.
Now that may not seem like a big deal to you, but to a person like me who feels strongly that our system of government only works when the people who are governed by it give a rat’s behind about who represents them, it was very hard pill to swallow.
Before I go any further, let me say this. I think Jim Marshall is a good guy and, in general, he has represented Middle Georgia about as well as any career politician could be expected to. I understand the practical reasons why none of the leading lights in the state Republican Party have jumped at the chance to oppose him, but that knowledge does nothing to cool my outrage that we could have a race for a national office in my own home district where no one may bother to oppose the incumbent.
Some of the views expressed in this piece made me want to tear my hair out. Numerous potential Republican opponents are refusing to throw their hats in the ring because of the long odds against winning and because their personal prospects are more promising if they run for state or local positions. And local conservative firebrand Erick Erickson said that some state GOP officials are hoping that Marshall does indeed go unopposed because a strong turnout for him might unduly influence the governor’s race in favor of the Democrats.
Take a minute to digest that. The GOP brain trust in this state are not simply disinterested in this race, they are actively opposed to anyone of substance from their party running against Marshall because of the effect it might have on the governor’s race. Here we see the genius of the two-party system at work. Do you feel well-represented?
Still, an optimistic soul might see the situation as an opportunity rather than a problem. So the Republican machine has no interest in this race. Fine. That could provide an opportunity for some candidate who is outside of the political mainstream to enter the race and become a viable force.
I want to speak directly now to the citizens who participated in the “tea party” rallies on tax day this year. You are fed up. You are sick and tired of government-as-usual. You have had it up to here with deficit spending, intrusive government, and the lack of respect for our constitution displayed by nearly all of our representatives in Washington. That was the message you were trying to send with these rallies, if I’m not mistaken.
Well, here is an opportunity to do more than wave signs and sing songs. Surely there is someone in your ranks who can speak in complete sentences and has an ounce of personal charisma. I think it’s time for that person to step up and run for office. This is a perfect opportunity for an outsider, a candidate that represents a fresh alternative to business-as-usual in Washington to emerge and give 8th district voters a real choice next fall.
I once wrote that I believed the tea party rallies were political theater, a chance for anti-Obama Republicans to release their frustrations over losing power in Washington. I hope I was wrong, and that some true believer will emerge from that movement and give those of us who are fed up with our bloated federal government a reason to go to the polls next year. The clock is ticking however, and the time to act is right now.
Some creative suggestions for a cash-strapped government
The recession has been hard on a lot of people, and it hasn’t been easy for our state and local governments either. They can’t just print their own money like the federal government can, so when the economy tanks and tax revenues plummet they have trouble paying the bills just like we do. And often times they are forced to tighten their belts in ways that cause real discomfort for their constituents.
Some government workers have had their pay frozen and some are facing mandatory unpaid “vacations.” Important capital improvement projects have been put on hold. Parks and recreation areas are not open as many days of the week or for as many hours a day as they used to be. And now local libraries have also had their operating hours cut back at the worst possible time – just as the kids are getting out of school and needing a nice safe place to hang out.
I realize that our government is faced with a difficult situation and I understand that they have to do something to cope with the loss of revenue caused by this troubled economy. But it seems like the cuts that they are making are depriving us of some of the best things the government does for us, and I’m not sure that they’ve considered all the options here.
Are there other areas of spending that could be cut or avenues of generating additional revenue that might be tapped so that Georgians would not be deprived of much-needed government services? Frankly I believe that we can do better than furloughing school teachers and shutting down public libraries. Here are just a few ideas off the top of my head:
- Furlough the state legislature. It costs a great deal of money to operate the legislature, and if they were to meet for a shorter period of time for the next several years it would save us a significant amount of money. I’m not so sure that we wouldn’t be better off overall if they had less time to “improve” the laws we already have in place anyway. Oftentimes it seems like they do more harm than good, doesn’t it? And while we’re talking about the legislature, maybe we should…
- Tax lobbyists. I’m not sure what kind of fees the representatives of big businesses and special interest groups pay in order to have the privilege of cozying up to our lawmakers, but whatever it is I bet it’s not enough. Lord knows they’ll probably get it back with grants and “targeted tax cuts” anyway, but maybe we’d at least have a chance to break even if we charged them a significant registration fee.
- Sin taxes. Now hold on a minute – it’s not what you think. I’m not advocating raising taxes on cigarettes and liquor. Those taxes are high enough as it is, and frankly I’m not convinced that smoking a Marlboro or drinking a Budweiser is a “sin” anyway. I’m talking about adding huge fines to the jail sentences of the real bad apples in our society. Murderers, rapists, child abusers, repeat-offender drunk drivers – those are sins that really need to be taxed. Instead, their room and board is coming out of your family budget. Why should they be protected from the recession if they have money in the bank or houses and cars that could be auctioned off?
- Rent out the governor’s mansion. I don’t know how many rooms there are in that big house we provide for the governor and his spouse, but I have to believe that they aren’t using all of them. Imagine how much a high-roller (if there are any of them left out there) would pay for the privilege of sleeping down the hall from our chief executive and the first lady. Turn it into a bed and breakfast I say, and turn the profits over to the people.
Some government workers have had their pay frozen and some are facing mandatory unpaid “vacations.” Important capital improvement projects have been put on hold. Parks and recreation areas are not open as many days of the week or for as many hours a day as they used to be. And now local libraries have also had their operating hours cut back at the worst possible time – just as the kids are getting out of school and needing a nice safe place to hang out.
I realize that our government is faced with a difficult situation and I understand that they have to do something to cope with the loss of revenue caused by this troubled economy. But it seems like the cuts that they are making are depriving us of some of the best things the government does for us, and I’m not sure that they’ve considered all the options here.
Are there other areas of spending that could be cut or avenues of generating additional revenue that might be tapped so that Georgians would not be deprived of much-needed government services? Frankly I believe that we can do better than furloughing school teachers and shutting down public libraries. Here are just a few ideas off the top of my head:
- Furlough the state legislature. It costs a great deal of money to operate the legislature, and if they were to meet for a shorter period of time for the next several years it would save us a significant amount of money. I’m not so sure that we wouldn’t be better off overall if they had less time to “improve” the laws we already have in place anyway. Oftentimes it seems like they do more harm than good, doesn’t it? And while we’re talking about the legislature, maybe we should…
- Tax lobbyists. I’m not sure what kind of fees the representatives of big businesses and special interest groups pay in order to have the privilege of cozying up to our lawmakers, but whatever it is I bet it’s not enough. Lord knows they’ll probably get it back with grants and “targeted tax cuts” anyway, but maybe we’d at least have a chance to break even if we charged them a significant registration fee.
- Sin taxes. Now hold on a minute – it’s not what you think. I’m not advocating raising taxes on cigarettes and liquor. Those taxes are high enough as it is, and frankly I’m not convinced that smoking a Marlboro or drinking a Budweiser is a “sin” anyway. I’m talking about adding huge fines to the jail sentences of the real bad apples in our society. Murderers, rapists, child abusers, repeat-offender drunk drivers – those are sins that really need to be taxed. Instead, their room and board is coming out of your family budget. Why should they be protected from the recession if they have money in the bank or houses and cars that could be auctioned off?
- Rent out the governor’s mansion. I don’t know how many rooms there are in that big house we provide for the governor and his spouse, but I have to believe that they aren’t using all of them. Imagine how much a high-roller (if there are any of them left out there) would pay for the privilege of sleeping down the hall from our chief executive and the first lady. Turn it into a bed and breakfast I say, and turn the profits over to the people.
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
Affirmative action, Supreme Court style
As soon as I heard that Supreme Court justice David Souter was retiring, I knew it was coming. Whoever President Obama named to replace Souter was sure to be too liberal and too much of a judicial activist to please most Republicans. A protest was sure to follow, though it would likely be an unsuccessful one.
The process has unfolded pretty much as expected, but the line of attack on Sonia Sotomayor from the conservative talking heads has taken on a slightly unexpected wrinkle. Who would have guessed that we’d live to see the day when Rush Limbaugh would call the first Hispanic female to be nominated to the Supreme Court by our first black president a racist?
I can’t say that I saw that coming. But maybe I should have.
After all, given the reality of politics it was a near certainty that the president was going to nominate someone who was 1) not a male and 2) not a Caucasian. And given his stated desire to find a justice who possessed a high degree of “empathy”, perhaps it was just as certain that we’d get a nominee who considered their experience as a non-Caucasian female to be an important factor in their judicial decision-making process.
And that seems to be what we got. Judge Sotomayor has plainly stated that she believes that the fact that she is a Hispanic female allows her to “more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life.” Add to that the fact that she was part of a panel of judges that ruled against a group of white firefighters who had about as solid a case of reverse discrimination as any that has ever been brought before a court in this country and you have all the fuel Republicans could possibly need to stoke the fires of “reverse racism.”
Only most of them aren’t going to go down that road. This is a fight they would almost certainly lose, and they would probably look bad while doing it. They don’t have the numbers or the credibility right now to seriously challenge a president with a high approval rating and charisma to burn. And frankly, Judge Sotomayor is seen as something of a moderate (for a liberal), and there is a feeling among some conservatives that they could have done a lot worse.
It really is too bad that we can’t have a real discussion on Judge Sotomayor’s qualifications in the midst of all of this talk about race and gender. Is she one of the finest legal minds in the country? Does she have a reputation for writing groundbreaking, well thought-out opinions? Is she respected in the legal community as one of the best at her profession?
From what I can tell, the answer to all of those questions is a resounding “no.” Judge Sotomayor seems like a fine person, and she is a real American success story. But if you threw her resume in a pile with the most respected 100 judges in the country and blacked out the information about their race and gender, do you think the president would have picked her name based solely on her qualifications? It seems very unlikely.
And that is exactly why affirmative action is a dirty word for some people. At its worst it screens out potentially qualified job applicants because they aren’t a member of the protected class, and it seems very likely that many qualified jurists had no chance to compete for a spot on the court this time around because they didn’t have the right skin color or reproductive organs.
I suppose that when the next spot on the court opens up, another underrepresented demographic may get their chance at bat. I’m thinking that a transgendered Asian judge may have a great shot at filling the next vacancy.
The process has unfolded pretty much as expected, but the line of attack on Sonia Sotomayor from the conservative talking heads has taken on a slightly unexpected wrinkle. Who would have guessed that we’d live to see the day when Rush Limbaugh would call the first Hispanic female to be nominated to the Supreme Court by our first black president a racist?
I can’t say that I saw that coming. But maybe I should have.
After all, given the reality of politics it was a near certainty that the president was going to nominate someone who was 1) not a male and 2) not a Caucasian. And given his stated desire to find a justice who possessed a high degree of “empathy”, perhaps it was just as certain that we’d get a nominee who considered their experience as a non-Caucasian female to be an important factor in their judicial decision-making process.
And that seems to be what we got. Judge Sotomayor has plainly stated that she believes that the fact that she is a Hispanic female allows her to “more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life.” Add to that the fact that she was part of a panel of judges that ruled against a group of white firefighters who had about as solid a case of reverse discrimination as any that has ever been brought before a court in this country and you have all the fuel Republicans could possibly need to stoke the fires of “reverse racism.”
Only most of them aren’t going to go down that road. This is a fight they would almost certainly lose, and they would probably look bad while doing it. They don’t have the numbers or the credibility right now to seriously challenge a president with a high approval rating and charisma to burn. And frankly, Judge Sotomayor is seen as something of a moderate (for a liberal), and there is a feeling among some conservatives that they could have done a lot worse.
It really is too bad that we can’t have a real discussion on Judge Sotomayor’s qualifications in the midst of all of this talk about race and gender. Is she one of the finest legal minds in the country? Does she have a reputation for writing groundbreaking, well thought-out opinions? Is she respected in the legal community as one of the best at her profession?
From what I can tell, the answer to all of those questions is a resounding “no.” Judge Sotomayor seems like a fine person, and she is a real American success story. But if you threw her resume in a pile with the most respected 100 judges in the country and blacked out the information about their race and gender, do you think the president would have picked her name based solely on her qualifications? It seems very unlikely.
And that is exactly why affirmative action is a dirty word for some people. At its worst it screens out potentially qualified job applicants because they aren’t a member of the protected class, and it seems very likely that many qualified jurists had no chance to compete for a spot on the court this time around because they didn’t have the right skin color or reproductive organs.
I suppose that when the next spot on the court opens up, another underrepresented demographic may get their chance at bat. I’m thinking that a transgendered Asian judge may have a great shot at filling the next vacancy.
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
Is secession a dirty word?
Did you hear the one about Georgia threatening to secede from the union – again? If that sounds like the beginning of a joke, brace yourself. The Georgia Senate really did pass a resolution (on a 43-1 vote, no less) that some people interpret as a thinly veiled threat to secede from the union if the federal government continues to ignore the limits on its power specified in the Tenth Amendment to our Constitution.
You may not have heard much about this bill because most observers consider it to have been little more than a publicity stunt, a calculated move by Georgia’s ruling party to capitalize on the frustration that many of us are feeling towards the federal government and its seemingly insatiable lust for power. I’m sure that’s exactly what it was too, but it still might provide us with some interesting food for thought.
I admit that the idea of secession seems ridiculous on its face, and I am sensitive to the fact that the last time southern states attempted to secede from the union things did not turn out well. It’s very difficult to even talk about the political and legal justifications of secession in the Civil War era without the discussion being overwhelmed by the championing of slavery by the Confederate states, and understandably so.
But that was then, and this is now.
Today the talk about secession in Georgia and a few other states (most notably the always independent-minded Texas) is not motivated by any desire to enslave or discriminate against anyone. It is motivated instead by a growing concern that the federal government has for some time been ignoring one of the bedrock principles on which our union was founded.
The Tenth Amendment to our Constitution reads as follows:
“The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”
What that means in a nutshell is that the federal government is only empowered by its founding document to govern the states and individual citizens in ways specifically spelled out in the Constitution. Many people, including me, believe that the federal government has for some time been engaging in behavior that the Constitution does not give it the authority to do.
Here are just a few things the federal government does that would be hard to reconcile with the Tenth Amendment:
- Creating mandatory government-run retirement and health care plans (Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid.)
- Passing laws that regulate the practice of abortion, euthanasia, and drug use (both the “legal” and “illegal” kind).
- Setting and enforcing rules and regulations that dictate education policy to the states.
- Using taxpayer money to “bail out” and then take control of troubled private enterprises.
Obviously the phenomenon of unbounded government authority didn’t start with the Obama administration and neither party has let the Tenth Amendment temper their ambitions for a very long time. But the snowball seems to be getting a lot bigger a lot faster lately, and the fact that issue has risen to greater prominence in a lot of people’s minds seems like a very good thing to me.
I certainly don’t believe that Georgia should secede from the United States, at least not any time soon. The best way for us to deal with an out-of-control federal government is to send people to Washington who are committed to turning the ship around and hope that other states do the same.
But what if a majority of the other states do not share our commitment to the Tenth Amendment and the federal government continues to behave in a manner contrary to both the letter and spirit of the Constitution? I think perhaps people in Washington should be made aware that here in Georgia we don’t consider any option to be completely off the table. If the resolution passed by our state senate sent that message, then it was not a complete waste of time.
You may not have heard much about this bill because most observers consider it to have been little more than a publicity stunt, a calculated move by Georgia’s ruling party to capitalize on the frustration that many of us are feeling towards the federal government and its seemingly insatiable lust for power. I’m sure that’s exactly what it was too, but it still might provide us with some interesting food for thought.
I admit that the idea of secession seems ridiculous on its face, and I am sensitive to the fact that the last time southern states attempted to secede from the union things did not turn out well. It’s very difficult to even talk about the political and legal justifications of secession in the Civil War era without the discussion being overwhelmed by the championing of slavery by the Confederate states, and understandably so.
But that was then, and this is now.
Today the talk about secession in Georgia and a few other states (most notably the always independent-minded Texas) is not motivated by any desire to enslave or discriminate against anyone. It is motivated instead by a growing concern that the federal government has for some time been ignoring one of the bedrock principles on which our union was founded.
The Tenth Amendment to our Constitution reads as follows:
“The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”
What that means in a nutshell is that the federal government is only empowered by its founding document to govern the states and individual citizens in ways specifically spelled out in the Constitution. Many people, including me, believe that the federal government has for some time been engaging in behavior that the Constitution does not give it the authority to do.
Here are just a few things the federal government does that would be hard to reconcile with the Tenth Amendment:
- Creating mandatory government-run retirement and health care plans (Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid.)
- Passing laws that regulate the practice of abortion, euthanasia, and drug use (both the “legal” and “illegal” kind).
- Setting and enforcing rules and regulations that dictate education policy to the states.
- Using taxpayer money to “bail out” and then take control of troubled private enterprises.
Obviously the phenomenon of unbounded government authority didn’t start with the Obama administration and neither party has let the Tenth Amendment temper their ambitions for a very long time. But the snowball seems to be getting a lot bigger a lot faster lately, and the fact that issue has risen to greater prominence in a lot of people’s minds seems like a very good thing to me.
I certainly don’t believe that Georgia should secede from the United States, at least not any time soon. The best way for us to deal with an out-of-control federal government is to send people to Washington who are committed to turning the ship around and hope that other states do the same.
But what if a majority of the other states do not share our commitment to the Tenth Amendment and the federal government continues to behave in a manner contrary to both the letter and spirit of the Constitution? I think perhaps people in Washington should be made aware that here in Georgia we don’t consider any option to be completely off the table. If the resolution passed by our state senate sent that message, then it was not a complete waste of time.
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
How not to panic over the swine flu
Last week I was on the road for a business trip and fell a little behind on what was going on in the world. The “luxury” hotel I was staying at didn’t provide a complimentary newspaper or free Internet service and I can’t stand to listen to any of the talking heads on television, so I had to do some catching up on the weekend by leafing through the newspapers that accumulated while I was gone.
So I was a little late to the panic party over the Next Great Disaster That is Sure to Kill Us All, otherwise known as the swine flu pandemic. As I progressed through the week’s news and read the increasingly alarming reports, however, panic never really set in. Nor did I expect it to.
This sort of news never gets much of a reaction to me. A new and deadly virus that can apparently be transmitted like a common cold is cause for concern, of course, and we should all take the recommended measures to protect ourselves and our families from catching it. But panic just isn’t on my agenda, not over something like this.
It’s not that I’m especially brave, or that I don’t value my own life. If I knew for a fact that Mr. Death was walking up my front steps, I wouldn’t be in any hurry to answer the door. But we are talking about a very speculative event here, something that very likely will never affect me. This swine flu thing would have to get much, much worse than it is likely to get before there was a good chance that it would end my life.
It’s really more about perspective than courage. If you would like to inoculate yourself (ha!) from worrying too much about things like the swine flu, try considering a few facts that are true for all people, everywhere, no matter what their situation is.
1) You are going to die one day. We don’t like to think about this, but every one of us is going to expire at some point. If you can accept the fact of your own mortality (easier said than done, I know) then the specific things that may be the eventual cause of your demise seem a little more mundane.
2) You could die at any second. And there are many, many things that could cause it. You are much more likely to die from something like a car accident or heart disease than from something exotic like the swine flu. Potential fatality is all around you, all the time, and that will be true for as long as you are alive.
3) It may seem a lot more dramatic to die from something newsworthy like a previously unknown disease or a plane crash, but the end result is exactly the same. And in fact people who do die from swine flu die relatively quickly when the disease is fatal. There are much worse ways to go.
I realize that thinking about one’s own death in such a straightforward may seem a little pessimistic, but there is an upside. Actually coming to terms with the fact that life is truly finite tends to make you appreciate the time that you do have, especially the good times. It can also make the things that we tend to worry about, things that we know will be of basically no importance once we are six feet under, seem a lot less important.
So wash your hands often and keep your distance from people who appear to have flu-like symptoms. Other than that, just go about your business and try and enjoy yourself a little. You won’t hear the Surgeon General say that, but maybe he should.
So I was a little late to the panic party over the Next Great Disaster That is Sure to Kill Us All, otherwise known as the swine flu pandemic. As I progressed through the week’s news and read the increasingly alarming reports, however, panic never really set in. Nor did I expect it to.
This sort of news never gets much of a reaction to me. A new and deadly virus that can apparently be transmitted like a common cold is cause for concern, of course, and we should all take the recommended measures to protect ourselves and our families from catching it. But panic just isn’t on my agenda, not over something like this.
It’s not that I’m especially brave, or that I don’t value my own life. If I knew for a fact that Mr. Death was walking up my front steps, I wouldn’t be in any hurry to answer the door. But we are talking about a very speculative event here, something that very likely will never affect me. This swine flu thing would have to get much, much worse than it is likely to get before there was a good chance that it would end my life.
It’s really more about perspective than courage. If you would like to inoculate yourself (ha!) from worrying too much about things like the swine flu, try considering a few facts that are true for all people, everywhere, no matter what their situation is.
1) You are going to die one day. We don’t like to think about this, but every one of us is going to expire at some point. If you can accept the fact of your own mortality (easier said than done, I know) then the specific things that may be the eventual cause of your demise seem a little more mundane.
2) You could die at any second. And there are many, many things that could cause it. You are much more likely to die from something like a car accident or heart disease than from something exotic like the swine flu. Potential fatality is all around you, all the time, and that will be true for as long as you are alive.
3) It may seem a lot more dramatic to die from something newsworthy like a previously unknown disease or a plane crash, but the end result is exactly the same. And in fact people who do die from swine flu die relatively quickly when the disease is fatal. There are much worse ways to go.
I realize that thinking about one’s own death in such a straightforward may seem a little pessimistic, but there is an upside. Actually coming to terms with the fact that life is truly finite tends to make you appreciate the time that you do have, especially the good times. It can also make the things that we tend to worry about, things that we know will be of basically no importance once we are six feet under, seem a lot less important.
So wash your hands often and keep your distance from people who appear to have flu-like symptoms. Other than that, just go about your business and try and enjoy yourself a little. You won’t hear the Surgeon General say that, but maybe he should.
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Losing weight is like going to war
Have you ever noticed that when you are trying to lose weight, the whole world seems to be against you? Fattening food seems to be everywhere, often offered to you for free. Physical activity seems to be a luxury you can hardly afford to fit into your daily schedule. Sometimes it just seems so unfair, doesn’t it?
To be honest, I’ve never been very overweight. But as the years have sneaked by I’ve accumulated a few extra pounds here and there, and I realized that if I didn’t arrest the trend a few extra pounds added on each year could eventually add up to and unhealthy me.
So when I started a new job about a year ago that offered me a free gym membership and paid time off to exercise, I had no excuse not to try and get a little healthier. So far I’ve lost about 10 pounds in a little less than a year by following a pretty simple plan – eat less and move more. The idea is a simple one, but you’d probably agree that the execution is anything but.
We live in a world that is awash in food, and most of it seems to be high in calories and low in nutrition. Walk through a grocery store and it seems like the chips, cookies, ice cream, and red meat just jumps into your cart. Every restaurant menu seems to be loaded with delicious, fattening food that comes in oversized portions. And any time you go to a social gathering there seems to be a spread of stuff you really shouldn’t eat, but it would be rude not to have a little something.
As for moving around, well, who has the time? There aren’t many places you can safely walk to, so we drive everywhere. Most of us work in jobs that require us to sit most of the day. And once we get home we have to watch our favorite TV show, surf the Internet, or fire up the Playstation. Sometimes I wonder if we even need our legs anymore.
The deck is definitely stacked against you if you are trying to eat right and be more active, but the situation is not hopeless. There is a difference between something being difficult and being impossible. Losing weight is merely difficult. Okay, maybe I should say it is very difficult. But it’s not impossible.
What you really have to do is commit yourself to going to war with the world around you. We live in a culture that promotes sloth and gluttony, and if you are going to overcome those bad influences you need to recognize them and actively resist them.
Look for opportunities to get up and move around. Walk whenever possible. Park in the back of the lot instead of looking for that spot near the door. There is always some project around the house that needs doing – tackle it. The more strenuous it is the better.
Start thinking about what you eat. We tend to consume food mindlessly, while we’re doing other things. Pay attention to your appetite and only eat when you are really hungry. When I was a kid and I wanted a snack, my Mom would tell me to eat some fruit. If I said I “wasn’t hungry for that” and asked for junk food, she said I wasn’t really hungry. She was right.
We are habit-forming creatures. That works against us a lot of the time, because bad habits are so easy to fall into. But it can work in your favor, too. Good habits, once they take hold, can drive you to do the right things.
Once you get used to exercise it becomes addictive and (believe it or not) you’ll find yourself eager to move around and do things. And fattening food becomes less desirable, over time, when you stay away from it.
The key is making up your mind, and taking action. No one ever loses weight accidentally. The world may be against you, but you are stronger than you think.
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
If only the real world was like an Obama speech
Whatever your opinion of our current president may be, you have to give him this – the man is no slacker. He has been a very busy guy from day one, and he is not afraid to make big decisions and grand gestures. Whether he’s getting the country out of a ditch or driving it off a cliff is a matter of opinion of course, but no one can deny that he’s got his foot down hard on the accelerator.
This week the president was overseas, sharing his charisma and can-do spirit with various foreign audiences and heads of state. One of the main items on his agenda seems to have been to start repairing our battered image in the eyes of the international community. He had this to say in a speech before an adoring crowd in Turkey:
“"Let me say this as clearly as I can. The United States is not and will never be at war with Islam. In fact, our partnership with the Muslim world is critical ... in rolling back the violent ideologies that people of all faiths reject."
His words are stirring and packed with an emotional punch, as we’ve come to expect from him. But, as we’ve also come to expect, some of the ideas expressed in those words don’t seem to have much connection with logic or reality.
To be sure, it is true that we are not nor could we ever feasibly be “at war” with Islam or any other religion. Islam is a large, diverse belief system practiced in many different parts of the world and in many different forms. We could not conceivably go to war against such a thing even if we wanted to.
So I have no argument with the first part of the quote cited above. But that last part about us having a “partnership with the Muslim world” and “rolling back the violent ideologies that people of all faiths reject” suffers from a bad case of what-is-he-talking-about.
If we have secured some sort of partnership with the entire Muslim world, that news somehow escaped my notice. The “Muslim world” is as diverse and hard to pin down a concept as the religion of Islam, and I can’t begin to imagine how we could secure a partnership with such a thing.
And it is beyond ludicrous to suggest that “people of all faiths” reject “violent ideologies.” The men who flew those planes into the World Trade Center were people of faith, as were those who planned and finance their operation and those who cheered the success of their mission after the fact.
What the president was describing was the world as he would like it to be, a world where the great majority of people of all faiths shared the same ideas about peace, community, and freedom. It’s a shame that we have to live in this world and not the one that exists in his speech, but such is life.
In fact there are tenets of Islam that are practiced by a significant portion of its adherents that conflict directly with some of our core beliefs, such as freedom of worship and expression. You can quickly earn a death sentence even in some of the more moderate Islamic countries if you say something considered to be disrespectful to their Prophet or dare to convert to a different religion.
Some of these countries are our allies of course, because in a complex and imperfect world we have mutual interests with them that outweigh our disagreements, for the time being at least. But make no mistake, here in the real world there are differences in our belief systems that run deep and are dearly held on both sides. Barring a sudden shift in the value system of one side or the other, any partnership we have with the “Muslim world” figures to remain a tenuous one at best.
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
I won’t be going to this tea party
It would seem that an increasing number of Americans have finally, at long last, become alarmed with the way our federal government is deficit-spending us into financial oblivion. There have been protests breaking out all over the country, often referred to as “tea parties” in reference to that historical tax revolt in Boston during our colonial days, designed to send a message to Washington that they need to do a better job managing our money, or else.
Given my deeply-held and oft-expressed concern about our country’s debt situation, you might think that I’d be first in line to join the party, hold up a picket sign, and lob tea bags (or something heavier) at whatever big-government liberal happened to wander by. But you would be mistaken.
For one thing, I’m highly suspicious of the motives behind these protests. I have to wonder what these protesters (who are being egged on by certain right-wing media “personalities”) were doing while President Bush and a Republican congress were burning through money like there was no tomorrow. Sure, Obama and his cohorts are expanding the hole with a much bigger shovel, but it seems like too much of a coincidence that this display of outrage is so perfectly coordinated with the changing of the party in power.
But the worst part of this whole thing is how the protesters are trying to relate what we’re going through now to a uniquely brave and dangerous act of defiance by some truly disenfranchised individuals. Remember, the colonists in Boston were protesting taxation WITHOUT representation. They did not have an opportunity to vote for or against the people who were bleeding them dry from across a wide ocean.
We are in a very different situation. President Obama and every single member of congress were elected by the very people on whom they are perpetrating, and have long been perpetrating, the financial chicanery that has an increasing portion of the population in an uproar. Do you really want to know who is really to blame for the mess we are in? Go take a look in the mirror.
Instead of carrying signs and waving around dehydrated plant matter, Americans who believe the country is moving in the wrong direction need to think about making some real changes in leadership. Everyone seems to think that managers of failed corporations like AIG should be replaced, but how about the members of congress who were asleep at the wheel (or even actively participating in the problem) while these businesses skirted or ignored laws and business standards designed to discourage the nonsense they were engaged in? Do they deserve to keep their jobs?
I would say no, and a year from now some of them will be coming before you with their hats in their hands imploring you to let them continue to “finish the important work they have started.” Maybe you would say that we should throw the bums out, but do you really mean it?
Would you vote for someone who said they would oppose ALL pork barrel spending, even if it meant your district got short shrift when bacon was being served? Would you vote for someone who pledged to yank Social Security and Medicare back into the real world, even if it meant tax increases and benefit reductions? Would you vote for someone who told you that the government really can’t manufacture jobs, wealth, security, or any of the other good things in life that we all want, but that everyone has to work hard to procure those things for themselves and their families?
I certainly would vote for such a candidate. In fact I have in the past, but usually I’m joined by less than 2% of the voting public. Until that changes you can hold all the rallies you want if it makes you feel better, but don’t expect anything to change.
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Please don’t arm the animals
If you ever get to the point where you don’t feel like you have enough to worry about, just scan the news headlines for a few minutes and you’ll find plenty of things to lose sleep over. The economy is still in a tailspin. Fresh military threats loom in the Middle East and on the Korean peninsula. You can’t even eat peanut butter without worrying about getting sick.
And now it seems that we are faced with a brand new, heretofore unrecognized threat – the possibility of an interspecies war. We were all shocked to hear about the 200-pound pet chimpanzee that mauled a woman a few weeks back, but we probably all assumed it was an isolated incident. New evidence suggests that it may have been the beginning of a disturbing trend.
Consider the story of Santino, as 31 year-old chimp who lives at the Furuvik Zoo in Sweden. It seems that during his time at the zoo, Santino grew tired of the insolent humans laughing and pointing at him from behind the safety of their protective fencing. Thumping his chest and howling in protest only seemed to encourage the hairless yahoos who tormented him, so he came up with another way to show them his displeasure.
Early in the mornings, Santino would carefully collect a pile of rocks and set them aside while the humans lined up to “watch the funny monkeys.” Then, without warning, he would suddenly fill the sky with a hail of stones and watch contentedly as the hapless members of the “dominant” species scrambled for cover. When he ran out of rocks he was even bright enough to look for weak spots in the concrete portions of his habitat and knock them out to restock his arsenal.
Experts in animal behavior were amazed at the amount of planning, imagination, and forward-thinking Santino exhibited with his rock-throwing shenanigans. They aren’t sure if all chimpanzees are capable of this sort of creative thinking or if Santino is some kind of simian Einstein, but either way the cause for concern on our part should be clear.
We need to ask ourselves what will happen if Santino and his ilk ever get their hands on more lethal weaponry. You may find that line of thinking to be ridiculous, but how much more difficult is it to point a gun at someone and pull the trigger than it is to carefully select a well-shaped rock and hurl it at someone? It is not at all hard to imagine an ape of Santino’s caliber being able to figure out just what a gun is for and how useful it can be in influencing human behavior if he ever got his hands on one.
But, you may say, what human would be dumb enough to arm a chimpanzee and teach it to shoot? I say the surprising thing is that this has not happened already. We live in a world where people teach chimps to do lots of things that people do – wearing clothes, eating with utensils, smoking, even “talking” to us using rudimentary sign language. How far-fetched is it to think that someone, somewhere who has access to both a chimpanzee and a 9 mm will make that fatal leap in logic?
In fact, it is not difficult to imagine some of the more radical environmental and animal rights groups deciding to arm the ape world so that they may defend themselves from the oppressive human race on a somewhat more even footing. Anyone who has ever seen the “Planet of the Apes” movies may feel a chill run up their spine. Could we be on the brink of witnessing life imitate art?
I can’t say I’m enamored with the idea of taking a full-time job peeling bananas for our simian overlords, but it’s probably not the worst thing that could happen. Lord help us all if cats ever take over.
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Let the sun set on Daylight Saving Time
When I reflect on the person that I was 20 years ago, I hardly recognize myself. My values, my priorities, and my ambitions have all undergone radical changes with the passage of time. Some of the things that seemed to be of great import in my younger days have all but disappeared from my mental radar screen, while others that I may have taken for granted back then have my full attention now.
One of the things that I scarcely gave a passing thought to as a young man was my health. I could pretty much do as I pleased with my body and there were few consequences. Excessive physical activity, poor nutrition, sleeping only when it was convenient – all of these vices I used to be able to indulge in without a second thought and I was still able to roll out of bed every morning and face the day more or less at full speed.
Now it is a very different story. I have to take care of myself or I know I will pay the price. So even though I wouldn’t call myself a health nut, I try to make good decisions when it comes to how I treat my body. That means working outside all day in the mid-summer heat is not an option, a bag of potato chips no longer passes for a meal, and I try to be in bed every night long before David Letterman does his opening monologue.
But sometimes, no matter how hard I try to take care of my health, things happen outside of my control that force me to engage in unhealthy behavior. That can be very frustrating. And one of those frustrating, out-of-my-control health hazards will be making its regularly scheduled (and unwelcome) visit in just a few weeks. I am talking about the menace known as Daylight Saving Time.
Soon I will be forced to “spring forward”, losing a valuable hour of sleep one night and (even worse) hopelessly mucking up my circadian rhythm for untold weeks to come. It isn’t fair, it isn’t right, and as far as I am concerned it doesn’t make a lot of sense.
Daylight Saving Time is supposed to allow us to enjoy an “extra” hour of daylight in the spring and summer months, but frankly I believe I would enjoy those days much more if I wasn’t half-asleep most of the time. There is also a school of thought that says it saves on energy costs and is good for certain types of businesses, but those contentions have never been quantified or proven.
The benefits of changing our clocks twice a year are relatively nebulous and anecdotal, but the costs to our collective health are concrete and well-known. Lack of proper sleep has been shown to be a major health hazard afflicting many Americans, and setting and resetting the time twice a year significantly aggravates the problem.
Therefore I believe that it is time to stop springing forward and/or falling back. Let’s pick a time and stick with it, and we’ll all be a little healthier and a little less grumpy all year ‘round.
If you feel the same way, you might be asking yourself if there is an organization that is fighting to get DST repealed and if said group has a web site. There is, and they do. If you’re interested, surf on over to www.standardtime.com and see how you can get involved in ending the madness known as Daylight Saving Time. Sign the petition and click on the links that tell you how to write your congressional representatives to share your feelings on the matter with them.
Hey, I know this isn’t curing cancer or anything, but I really believe we would all be a little happier and healthier if we introduced some stability into our time keeping system. That’s a (lack of) change I can believe in.
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Added stress from the boss does not increase productivity
“I need this done yesterday. “
“I’m really counting on you to meet this deadline.”
“The schedule is very aggressive, but we have to come through for the customer.”
If you’ve been in the working world for any period of time, chances are you’ve heard these phrases or something very similar from a boss who was exhorting you to get something done quickly. No doubt he or she believed that giving you that kind of “encouragement” was necessary and part of their job. They would likely justify their actions by saying that tight deadlines are part of reality in the business world, and sometimes a boss has to force employees to face unpleasant realities so that they’ll be motivated to give the extra effort needed to get the job done.
That kind of thinking seems to be conventional wisdom in the business world, but I’ve never been a fan of that particular management style. I’ve certainly had some experience with it.
I spent 15 years working for defense contractors, and in that time I learned that a contractor often wins a job by being “aggressive” in estimating how long it will take for them to accomplish it. Once the contract is won, workers are charged with making the fantasies dreamed up in the marketing department become reality. Sometimes that just isn’t feasible, and that’s when mangers start quoting military leaders who implored soldiers to overcome long odds for God and country. As a worker you realize that what they are really saying is that your weekends are no longer your own.
I often felt that all of the stress managers tend to put on employees when there is not enough time in the day to get everything done is actually counterproductive. Most people simply do not do their best work under stressful conditions, and that seems to be especially true when the task at hand is largely intellectual rather than physical. It seemed to me that all of the hand-waving and mandatory 7-day work weeks might actually be making those projects take longer than they would if everyone wasn’t acting as if the world was coming to an end.
It is always gratifying when scientific studies seem to add weight to one’s pet theories, and today I have a message for managers everywhere who believe they can browbeat their employees into meeting unrealistic deadlines – you might just be making things worse.
As evidence I cite a study performed by Michael DeDonno at Case Western University that was reported in the December issue of “Judgment and Decision Making”. In the study, test subjects were asked to perform an intellectually-intensive task and were given a set amount of time to complete the task. Some of the participants were told that they had plenty of time to complete the task, while others were told that time was short and they needed to hurry.
Unsurprisingly, those who were not “pressed for time” performed markedly better on the task. But perhaps a little surprising was the fact that even those who were, in fact, given less time to finish but were told that they had plenty of time performed better than those who were given more time but told that time was of the essence.
The lesson here is obvious, but one they apparently do no teach in management classes: putting pressure on people to solve intellectual problems faster is counterproductive. And my experience in the business world backs that proposition up. Without exception, all of the projects I was involved with in which people were constantly badgered to meet an unrealistic schedule were a disaster for everyone involved, including the customer.
But is it true that a placid, “let’s just do the best we can” management style would be more effective for a time-crunched project? Good question. If I ever experience that approach, I’ll let you know.
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Evaluating Obama’s first week
I’ve held off on writing anything about Barack Obama for as long as I possibly could. Lord knows we have been saturated with media coverage of the new president to an extent that we have never experienced before, and I didn’t want to be just another of the million voices dissecting his every move.
But when it came time to pick a topic for this week’s column, the only stories that seemed to be choking out every other topic in the news were Obama and the floundering economy. And frankly when I think about the economy I become too depressed to move, much less write anything. So, without further ado, here are my thoughts on President Obama’s first week on the job.
- I don’t believe I have ever seen the mainstream media fawn over anyone the way they have for Obama. Any minute you expect the anchor or reporter covering his latest act to proclaim his/her undying love for the man. That makes me a little nervous. The press is supposed to act as a watchdog when it comes to our government. How likely is it that some reporter who thinks they have uncovered a scandal or evidence of wrongdoing in this administration would get the go-ahead to report on it from CBS News or the New York Times? I don’t like the odds on that one.
- We have our first black president. I understand that this is news, and I understand why this is exciting for a lot of people. But I wonder how many people feel the way I do and could care less if the president is black or white, male or female, gay or straight, or whether he’s a Christian, Jew, Muslim, Hindu, or atheist. I really only care about what he DOES while he’s in office. What decisions will he make and how will those decisions affect me and my family? That’s really all that matters to me. But I feel as is I’ve wandered away from the herd with this attitude. Again.
- Obama is every bit the godsend to right-wing talking heads that they could have hoped for. In less than 10 days he has rolled back abortion restrictions, pledged to shut down Guantanamo Bay, moved to toughen environmental standards, and more or less apologized to the Muslim world for Bush’s hard-nosed anti-terror tactics. This environment has to be much more favorable for them than when Bush and a Republican congress were in charge and less popular with the public than Rosie O’Donnell’s failed variety show. Rush Limbaugh hasn’t been this giddy since he got off the happy pills. I’m just waiting for him to say “this guy is more overrated than Donovan McNabb.”
- Somewhat under the radar was Obama’s pledge to hold a “fiscal responsibility summit” in February with the goal of coming up with a plan to address our unsustainable fiscal position in relation to entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare. It is mind-boggling to imagine this summit taking place even as the government is in the midst of an unprecedented deficit-spending binge as they try to rescue our moribund economy but, well, that’s the plan. Anyone who reads this column regularly knows that the federal deficit and the entitlement program mess is the windmill I most often tilt at, so in spite of my deep skepticism that this will amount to anything I was pleased to hear that this issue is at least on the Obama table. In the highly unlikely event that anything resembling a serious plan to deal with the problem emerges from the summit, it is possible that I will be forced to join the ranks of the Obamaniacs. I may even get one of his t-shirts and tape over the “Change” slogan with a “Fiscal Responsibility” proclamation.
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