Wow, this turned out to be a really long one. I guess I had a few points to make.
Once there was a concept called 'The Cloud.' It was such an ephemeral thing that you had to use quotation marks whenever you talked about it. 'The Cloud.' Companies pushed it, and pushed it hard. 'The Cloud.' It was super-premium ice cream and Jesus put together in a cone made of hundred-dollar-bills. You'd be a moron if you didn't get behind 'The Cloud.' And you believed them. Until you thought about it for a moment.
I'm getting pretty damned tired of 'The Cloud.' Imagine me making my own finger quotes whenever I say it. 'The Cloud' (finger quote). It's been marketed like a puppy that makes you grilled cheese sandwiches, who could ever not like 'The Cloud?'
Me. And I'll tell you why.
I'll start with a few personal reasons, then get to a global reason. First, 'The Cloud' is not a thing. It's not a product, it's not a service, it's not anything at all. It's a concept, a computational construct. 'The Cloud' is not something you can point at like you can a real cloud. 'The Cloud' is online storage, just like a web page. 'The Cloud' is hard drive space on servers spread around the world, connected by the Internet.
Does that scare you? It should. 'The Cloud' is just a term for putting your stuff on a set of servers out there... somewhere... Where? Who knows? Is 'The Cloud' in the United States? Could be, but it could also be in Europe. Or Japan. Or Guatemala. Or the Ukraine. Or China. You could be putting your documents - literally - anywhere. 'The Cloud' is in more places that are NOT the US than are, and those places don't have to abide by US laws; some of those places pride themselves on the fact that they don't.
So when you put your documents on 'The Cloud' you are trusting in the discretion and honor of people you don't know, and who are, frankly, not worthy. Any system administrator of each server your documents are stored on has unrestricted access to those documents. They can read them, download them somewhere else, share them, giggle at the pictures, whatever they want to do. That's what being a SysAdmin means, you have complete access to all parts of the system. How many sysadmins are there on 'The Cloud?' No telling, but it's way more people than you'd be comfortable with, I know that.
'But Don, my documents are encrypted,' you say. To which I reply 'Are they? Really? Are you sure?' Like I said, you're trusting in people who don't deserve it. When a Ukrainian identity thief tells you he's encrypted your files chances are pretty good he's just lying. 'What? Anonymous, criminal Internet trolls would lie?' you say. And I reply 'Duh.'
But let's assume the files really are encrypted. So what? Like I said, every sysadmin has unrestricted access to your documents. They can do whatever they want with them, which includes running any number of encryption breakers on them. When the documents are out of your control there's no way to get that control back. Ever.
Think of it this way. You keep your important papers in a safe, in a safety deposit box, a coffee can buried in the back yard, whatever. In those cases, only a very few people a) know where those papers are, and b) know how to get to them. Your SSA card, your passport, your birth certificate, all are under pretty secure lock and key (let's hope). Imagine if you just posted those things on a web site. That's what you're doing when you put things on 'The Cloud.' People will tell you there's a difference, but that difference is only cosmetic, the structure underneath is exactly the same.
Well, those are my personal reasons. Now for the global reason.
When documents are stored out of your control on 'The Cloud' they can be changed.
So what? Well, the push behind 'The Cloud' design is ultimately to store one (1) copy of any document or file. So if you bought an mp4 of 'Love On The Rocks' by Neil 'Awesome' Diamond, there would - ideally - be only one copy that everyone who loved overproduced 70's music would share. You and I would listen not just to the same song but to the same file when we hit play.
BFD, right? Again, so what? Well, that one file would be under the control of someone - an anonymous* someone - who might just not appreciate the genius of The Diamond. They could delete the file, making it gone forever, or, more insidiously, change the file. 'Just pour me a drink and I'll tell you some lies' could easily become 'Just pour me a drink and I'll bake you some pies.'
So I'll ask yet again... so what? What's the big deal?
Imagine if the Constitution weren't on multiple fragile, priceless paper copies. Imagine if it were a single copy online. Or even multiple copies. Some nutjob sysadmin on 'The Cloud' decides (s)he doesn't like the Third Amendment, changes the document so there are now only 9 Amendments in the Bill of Rights, and BOOM! all of a sudden you're forced to quarter troops in your home, and you have nothing to point to that says the law of the land used to say otherwise.
Think that kind of document tampering can't happen? Think it won't happen? Think it hasn't already happened many, many, many times over? You'd better think again.
The fight for liberty in the future is going to be the fight for control of information. The fight for freedom of information. 'The Cloud' is not actually a way to distribute that information. It's designed to be a way to control information and suppress it. I don't trust it, and neither should you.
Don't say I didn't warn you.
*anonymous uncapitalized, meaning unknown, not Anonymous the hacker group. I think Anonymous is probably with me on this topic, at least as much as a loose confederation of unknown individuals can be.
** hey, guess what? Just to prove my point, since I first posted this publicly, I've changed it four times. Do any of you have a record of the original? Of the four changes? Not unless you printed out the first one two hours ago. And if you did print it, please, go outside and get some fresh air.
Saturday, December 31, 2011
Thursday, December 29, 2011
Who Manages The Content Managers?
I heard an interesting point on the radio today. The discussion concerned how little girls are marketed to, the increasing sexualization of younger and younger girls, and how the whole 'princess' meme has taken over. One of the ladies in the discussion made the point that - with 26,000 princess-themed products on the shelves in a year - Disney has changed 'princess' from a choice to a mandate. If there's nothing else in the toy aisle to buy for girls, then you have de facto decided for them that they want to be princesses, even if, deep down, they really would rather not.
It's 100% true. If you've been in a toy store or in a big-box retailer lately, you know about 'the pink aisles.' Everything, and I mean EVERYTHING, is that vibrating vulva-pink that hurts your eyes. Toy companies and retailers have stopped responding to what the customer wants and now are telling the customer what they're going to get. And that's completely wrong.
But this got me to thinking, where is this not already the case? Where, in our modern consumer society, do the marketers not already control what we see and hear? Sure with little girls and princesses it's egregious and over-the-top, but isn't it just the same with fifty-year-old men and Cadillacs? Do you think every fifty-year-old man wants a Cadillac, or is that they believe Cadillac represents a certain arrival, a threshold that says to them they've 'made it?' There's almost no real difference between brands of modern cars, other than one of perception. And marketing.
Or what about new mothers and baby stuff? This is probably more evil than 'the pink aisles' in stores because it exploits a mother's need to do the best for their child, combined with their insecurity and fear that they're not doing enough. New mothers today are bombarded by messages that they are not fit for the title unless they have... fill in the product line here. The properly-branded stroller, or the hypo-allergenic blanket or the BPA-free sippy cup. It's all fantasy, especially when you realize the world got by without any this stuff for the entirety of recorded human history, minus the last five years or so. And yet new mothers forget their own upbringing and respond like robots to the marketers and dutifully buy whatever grotesquely-expensive new thing they're told will make their baby safe and make them the perfect parent.
We're very focused on financial institutions right now, on making sure they never again rape the world like they were allowed to for the past 30 years. But what about these marketing douchebags? I think there's a more sinister, creeping depravity about them, one that undercuts our confidence in ourselves, one that leaves us open to crass manipulation and soulless exploitation. And it's all in the name of making a buck.
These are the bastards we need to watch.
It's 100% true. If you've been in a toy store or in a big-box retailer lately, you know about 'the pink aisles.' Everything, and I mean EVERYTHING, is that vibrating vulva-pink that hurts your eyes. Toy companies and retailers have stopped responding to what the customer wants and now are telling the customer what they're going to get. And that's completely wrong.
But this got me to thinking, where is this not already the case? Where, in our modern consumer society, do the marketers not already control what we see and hear? Sure with little girls and princesses it's egregious and over-the-top, but isn't it just the same with fifty-year-old men and Cadillacs? Do you think every fifty-year-old man wants a Cadillac, or is that they believe Cadillac represents a certain arrival, a threshold that says to them they've 'made it?' There's almost no real difference between brands of modern cars, other than one of perception. And marketing.
Or what about new mothers and baby stuff? This is probably more evil than 'the pink aisles' in stores because it exploits a mother's need to do the best for their child, combined with their insecurity and fear that they're not doing enough. New mothers today are bombarded by messages that they are not fit for the title unless they have... fill in the product line here. The properly-branded stroller, or the hypo-allergenic blanket or the BPA-free sippy cup. It's all fantasy, especially when you realize the world got by without any this stuff for the entirety of recorded human history, minus the last five years or so. And yet new mothers forget their own upbringing and respond like robots to the marketers and dutifully buy whatever grotesquely-expensive new thing they're told will make their baby safe and make them the perfect parent.
We're very focused on financial institutions right now, on making sure they never again rape the world like they were allowed to for the past 30 years. But what about these marketing douchebags? I think there's a more sinister, creeping depravity about them, one that undercuts our confidence in ourselves, one that leaves us open to crass manipulation and soulless exploitation. And it's all in the name of making a buck.
These are the bastards we need to watch.
Thursday, December 22, 2011
The Lie Of The Celtic Tiger
If you were conscious and paying attention from about 2000 to 2007-ish, you heard of the 'Celtic Tiger,' the economic miracle that took Ireland from one of the poorest European countries to one of its richest. At least on paper. The same thing happened to Iceland, though there wasn't a catchy phrase for their boom, probably because Icelandic names are much harder to pronounce than Murphy or Fitzgerald. At least that's my guess.
As we now know, the Celtic Tiger was just another aspect of the huge financial bubble that took over the globe during that time. Ireland didn't make money by selling more goods or services that the world suddenly needed, Ireland made money by selling money. Its citizens fueled the boom by buying more and more stuff they didn't need and by paying for it with money they didn't really have, provided by jobs that should never have existed in the first place and were only there to perpetuate the bubble.
Sound familiar?
The same thing happened here, a housing boom that expanded beyond all reason and a populace eager for more junk to fill their garages before the next subdivision yard sale. The same boom, the same bust. And, currently, the same malaise, with a bunch of people who had been employed finding it impossible to get the same kind of pointless jobs they'd spent years being bad at before. Ireland's economy hasn't 'recovered' because the prosperity was a lie in the first place. So was the United States's. For thirty years we've shipped jobs and cash overseas to have foreigners do things we should have been doing ourselves all along.
How do we get out of it? How do we put people back to work, how do we get back what we never should have given away? I'm not an economist - which I think is a plus in my favor - but it seems to me that the United States has done very well when its citizens do something. Make something. Create something. No more making money by selling money, because ultimately that's a fraud and a sham and doesn't provide anything of value. And, yes, Goldman Sachs, I'm looking your direction when I say that.
We need to manufacture things again.
Before you get all eco-friendly on me, there's absolutely no reason in the Twenty-First Century that manufacturing has to be the kind of thing the Lorax would rail against; we can do things better, smarter, faster, and cleaner than our grandparents did. Easily.
But how do we compete with China? They can do things far cheaper than American companies, right? I submit to you that is also a fraud and a sham. Of course China can produce mardi gras beads cheaper than we can, if they use what is essentially prison labor and compromise quality*.
But save that whole can of worms for another time. The United States needs to become a net exporter again, of physical goods that the rest of the world lines up to buy. We need citizens throwing caution to the wind and starting their own businesses, and we need banks willing to back those visions. And we need a government that isn't in the pocket of a few large multinational corporations but instead supports the people it's supposed to be working on behalf of.
* arguably quality is not all that important for mardi gras beads but you get the idea
As we now know, the Celtic Tiger was just another aspect of the huge financial bubble that took over the globe during that time. Ireland didn't make money by selling more goods or services that the world suddenly needed, Ireland made money by selling money. Its citizens fueled the boom by buying more and more stuff they didn't need and by paying for it with money they didn't really have, provided by jobs that should never have existed in the first place and were only there to perpetuate the bubble.
Sound familiar?
The same thing happened here, a housing boom that expanded beyond all reason and a populace eager for more junk to fill their garages before the next subdivision yard sale. The same boom, the same bust. And, currently, the same malaise, with a bunch of people who had been employed finding it impossible to get the same kind of pointless jobs they'd spent years being bad at before. Ireland's economy hasn't 'recovered' because the prosperity was a lie in the first place. So was the United States's. For thirty years we've shipped jobs and cash overseas to have foreigners do things we should have been doing ourselves all along.
How do we get out of it? How do we put people back to work, how do we get back what we never should have given away? I'm not an economist - which I think is a plus in my favor - but it seems to me that the United States has done very well when its citizens do something. Make something. Create something. No more making money by selling money, because ultimately that's a fraud and a sham and doesn't provide anything of value. And, yes, Goldman Sachs, I'm looking your direction when I say that.
We need to manufacture things again.
Before you get all eco-friendly on me, there's absolutely no reason in the Twenty-First Century that manufacturing has to be the kind of thing the Lorax would rail against; we can do things better, smarter, faster, and cleaner than our grandparents did. Easily.
But how do we compete with China? They can do things far cheaper than American companies, right? I submit to you that is also a fraud and a sham. Of course China can produce mardi gras beads cheaper than we can, if they use what is essentially prison labor and compromise quality*.
But save that whole can of worms for another time. The United States needs to become a net exporter again, of physical goods that the rest of the world lines up to buy. We need citizens throwing caution to the wind and starting their own businesses, and we need banks willing to back those visions. And we need a government that isn't in the pocket of a few large multinational corporations but instead supports the people it's supposed to be working on behalf of.
* arguably quality is not all that important for mardi gras beads but you get the idea
Saturday, December 3, 2011
Stick A Fork In Me, I'm Done
I have bemoaned my impending old-man-hood from time to time, citing the little ways I know that I'm becoming a codger well before I should. I just got my next big sign.
I show up at the bank five minutes before it opens.
This morning I had to deposit my paycheck - I don't use direct deposit in order to control my company's cash flow - but needed to work out first. And I woke up so early I had to wait for the gym to open, but I did that at home. I got my sweat on, slowly since I've been sick lately, and then I got in the truck and rolled bank-ward.
Only after I was nearly there did I realize that the bank might not be open quite yet. It was ten till nine. When I got there, sure enough, the bank doesn't open until 9 AM. So I sat in the parking lot filling out my deposit slip until the nice lady opened the door.
Two guys beat me to the door, both of them well past retirement age. I was standing in line behind white-haired geezers who had been out of the work force longer than I have been in. Yup, just me, the tellers, and two chatty old men who had probably been up three or four hours by that time.
So had I.
I swear, my time is shifting earlier and earlier in the day. I never have slept as long as most people - which used to concern me until I realized that's my normal - but I'm waking up earlier than I ever have before.
Pretty soon I'll be eating dinner at 4:30 PM and trimming my ear hair before I go listen to retirees like the Rolling Stones perform their 'Before We Break A Hip' tour.
It's not a matter of if my transformation will take place, but of how long I have before I start wearing black socks with sneakers and talking to people who aren't there. Maybe next week?
I show up at the bank five minutes before it opens.
This morning I had to deposit my paycheck - I don't use direct deposit in order to control my company's cash flow - but needed to work out first. And I woke up so early I had to wait for the gym to open, but I did that at home. I got my sweat on, slowly since I've been sick lately, and then I got in the truck and rolled bank-ward.
Only after I was nearly there did I realize that the bank might not be open quite yet. It was ten till nine. When I got there, sure enough, the bank doesn't open until 9 AM. So I sat in the parking lot filling out my deposit slip until the nice lady opened the door.
Two guys beat me to the door, both of them well past retirement age. I was standing in line behind white-haired geezers who had been out of the work force longer than I have been in. Yup, just me, the tellers, and two chatty old men who had probably been up three or four hours by that time.
So had I.
I swear, my time is shifting earlier and earlier in the day. I never have slept as long as most people - which used to concern me until I realized that's my normal - but I'm waking up earlier than I ever have before.
Pretty soon I'll be eating dinner at 4:30 PM and trimming my ear hair before I go listen to retirees like the Rolling Stones perform their 'Before We Break A Hip' tour.
It's not a matter of if my transformation will take place, but of how long I have before I start wearing black socks with sneakers and talking to people who aren't there. Maybe next week?
Friday, November 25, 2011
Scam?
I was just witness to a foiled scam. Or to an adult man woefully unfamiliar with the ways of modern commerce. I haven't figured out which yet.
I went to the grocery store, stocked up on fruit and yogurt and picked out a package of the Holiday Oreos.* My minimal needs met I moseyed up to the checkout stand.
The guy in front of me was buying regular groceries - nothing crazy like a barbeque or ninety pounds of meat - nothing odd, nothing out of place. His total came to $39 and change.
Here's where it gets weird. The guy leans in to the cashier and whispers something. She doesn't understand him so he has to repeat himself. Twice.
He wants an $80 grocery gift card. Nothing unusual there, the cards are in easy reach of the cashier. But... he wants to pay for the groceries with the card. And then use the balance to buy gasoline, which this grocery store also offers.
He has not yet purchased the card.
The cashier rings up his purchase, which now comes out to $118, including the $80 gift card. The man starts to become upset. He wants to pay for his $39 of groceries out of the $80 gift card. He does not want to see $118 on the register. And he does not want to pay for the $39 in groceries with the $50 cash in his hand, for some reason. He wants to buy an $80 gift card and pay for the groceries with that.
The cashier is confused, but not so confused she just does what he asks. She calls over a supervisor, who cuts to the heart of the matter. The man cannot pay for groceries with a gift card he has not yet purchased.
At this point the man is upset, though not outraged or even very vocal. The supervisor offers to let him pay for the card first, then he can pay for the groceries once the transaction for the card has gone through. Seems reasonable enough to me, and it seems to be what the man actually wants to do, but by this point he's had enough. He says he doesn't want any of it and storms out, groceries un-bought.
Hmmm...
This man was easily my age, which means he's been buying things at cash registers for well over half his life. I find it hard to believe that he wouldn't get the concept that you have to pay for the gift card first, then pay for your groceries with it. So I'm leaning towards scam.
Yet the optimist in me wants to believe that he just wasn't getting his point across, and when he couldn't explain himself he got frustrated and left. Without the groceries he had shopped for and put through the checkout. And without paying with the cash in his hand.
I think it was a scam, averted by a cashier who refused to be taken in. And yet, you kind of have to admire the guy, trying to get away with something like that in middle of the afternoon. I wonder if this was his first time, or if he's done this kind of thing many times before.
* the creme middle is red, for Christmas. And for one of the days of Kwanzaa, I'm pretty sure.
I went to the grocery store, stocked up on fruit and yogurt and picked out a package of the Holiday Oreos.* My minimal needs met I moseyed up to the checkout stand.
The guy in front of me was buying regular groceries - nothing crazy like a barbeque or ninety pounds of meat - nothing odd, nothing out of place. His total came to $39 and change.
Here's where it gets weird. The guy leans in to the cashier and whispers something. She doesn't understand him so he has to repeat himself. Twice.
He wants an $80 grocery gift card. Nothing unusual there, the cards are in easy reach of the cashier. But... he wants to pay for the groceries with the card. And then use the balance to buy gasoline, which this grocery store also offers.
He has not yet purchased the card.
The cashier rings up his purchase, which now comes out to $118, including the $80 gift card. The man starts to become upset. He wants to pay for his $39 of groceries out of the $80 gift card. He does not want to see $118 on the register. And he does not want to pay for the $39 in groceries with the $50 cash in his hand, for some reason. He wants to buy an $80 gift card and pay for the groceries with that.
The cashier is confused, but not so confused she just does what he asks. She calls over a supervisor, who cuts to the heart of the matter. The man cannot pay for groceries with a gift card he has not yet purchased.
At this point the man is upset, though not outraged or even very vocal. The supervisor offers to let him pay for the card first, then he can pay for the groceries once the transaction for the card has gone through. Seems reasonable enough to me, and it seems to be what the man actually wants to do, but by this point he's had enough. He says he doesn't want any of it and storms out, groceries un-bought.
Hmmm...
This man was easily my age, which means he's been buying things at cash registers for well over half his life. I find it hard to believe that he wouldn't get the concept that you have to pay for the gift card first, then pay for your groceries with it. So I'm leaning towards scam.
Yet the optimist in me wants to believe that he just wasn't getting his point across, and when he couldn't explain himself he got frustrated and left. Without the groceries he had shopped for and put through the checkout. And without paying with the cash in his hand.
I think it was a scam, averted by a cashier who refused to be taken in. And yet, you kind of have to admire the guy, trying to get away with something like that in middle of the afternoon. I wonder if this was his first time, or if he's done this kind of thing many times before.
* the creme middle is red, for Christmas. And for one of the days of Kwanzaa, I'm pretty sure.
Thursday, November 17, 2011
Nobody Likes A Smarty-Pants
To say there is a strong streak of anti-intellectualism in America is to understate the situation drastically. Just a brief listen to any TV news show, any political debate, or - God help us all - any reality show will reveal just how stupid it seems people have become. We get our information in 5-second sound bites, nothing better than topic sentences to 7th-grade term papers and then it's off to something new. It seems that Americans don't like anything too cerebral, they want to lead with their chin and wear their heart on their sleeve and leave the cipherin' to the few pasty pigeon-chested Melvins who aren't burly enough to make it in a man's world. After all, nobody likes a smarty-pants.
And yet... everybody running for President wants to come across as the smartest person in the room. Without putting on airs or using big words. Or being distracted by facts.
It distresses me. And I don't like to be distressed. How can so many people who want to hold the highest office in the land put so little work into actually THINKING about things? Don't you suppose that our President should put some real effort into understanding the way, say, the world economy turns and how that's tied into multi-national conglomerates and rampant political corruption?
If I hired you to run a bakery, I wouldn't necessarily expect you to be a baker, but I would expect you to discover pretty quickly the details of how a bakery works. You'd need to learn fast, you'd need to be able to move from specifics to generalizations fairly easily, you'd need to deal with ambiguity and yet at the same time be able to employ what you already know to make the kind of decisions a bakery manager needs to make to get the dinner rolls out the door. And to do that you'd need to be a fairly smart person.
Why should our President be any different? It's a much bigger job than bakery manager, with much higher stakes. And it's a job that really has no precedent, there's no apprenticeship for the Presidency. It is sui generis (look it up).
We need one of JFK's 'best and brightest' in the Oval Office, not the 'least offensive of a miserable selection.' We need someone who doesn't pretend to have answers to problems they clearly don't understand. We need someone who is willing to listen and learn and use their brains to solve problems. No more talking heads who get their opinions and policies from focus groups.
I'm old enough to remember when ignorant people were ashamed of their ignorance, now dolts and simpletons wear their foolishness like a badge of honor. It's time to chase the trolls back under the bridge. Our nation's founding fathers were the smartest of the smarty-pants of their generation, and we do them and our country and injustice when we accept anything less for ourselves.
And yet... everybody running for President wants to come across as the smartest person in the room. Without putting on airs or using big words. Or being distracted by facts.
It distresses me. And I don't like to be distressed. How can so many people who want to hold the highest office in the land put so little work into actually THINKING about things? Don't you suppose that our President should put some real effort into understanding the way, say, the world economy turns and how that's tied into multi-national conglomerates and rampant political corruption?
If I hired you to run a bakery, I wouldn't necessarily expect you to be a baker, but I would expect you to discover pretty quickly the details of how a bakery works. You'd need to learn fast, you'd need to be able to move from specifics to generalizations fairly easily, you'd need to deal with ambiguity and yet at the same time be able to employ what you already know to make the kind of decisions a bakery manager needs to make to get the dinner rolls out the door. And to do that you'd need to be a fairly smart person.
Why should our President be any different? It's a much bigger job than bakery manager, with much higher stakes. And it's a job that really has no precedent, there's no apprenticeship for the Presidency. It is sui generis (look it up).
We need one of JFK's 'best and brightest' in the Oval Office, not the 'least offensive of a miserable selection.' We need someone who doesn't pretend to have answers to problems they clearly don't understand. We need someone who is willing to listen and learn and use their brains to solve problems. No more talking heads who get their opinions and policies from focus groups.
I'm old enough to remember when ignorant people were ashamed of their ignorance, now dolts and simpletons wear their foolishness like a badge of honor. It's time to chase the trolls back under the bridge. Our nation's founding fathers were the smartest of the smarty-pants of their generation, and we do them and our country and injustice when we accept anything less for ourselves.
Saturday, November 12, 2011
My Buddy TJ
A short one today, I can't seem to get away from the political stuff.
I hear all sorts of arguments back and forth about the role of government, how big it should be, how small, what a government's role should be. Unless you're advocating anarchy or totalitarianism any of these arguments are just different shades of gray.
But I think people making these arguments are forgetting the first principles of government. When you decide what a government actually is then making the arguments about size and scope and influence becomes much clearer.
So, here's how I see it. The first principle is that the power to govern derives from the consent of the governed. This is the basic idea that the entirety of the United States is founded on. It's the principle that led us to declare independence and it's the principle that our Constitution holds at its core.
Taking that as a given, then, the role of government is to protect the individual liberties of its citizens. That's the beginning and the end of it. Government exists to protect the rights of the people who agree that there should be a government in the first place.
Everything else flows from that. The power of the government to tax is necessary to provide the services that only government should, like roads and sewers and standing armies. The power to regulate business is necessary to protect the government's citizens - you and me - from people and companies who would rather turn a quick buck and hurt people than do things the right way and make a few cents less.
Bureaucracies by their nature do things slowly and inefficiently, we'll never be able to change that. But when those bureaucracies remember their guiding principles - that they're working to serve the people who allow them to exist in the first place - everything can run much smoother.
It is most important to remember that 'government' is not something separate from its citizens. Government IS its citizens. Government is all of us together.
"Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves are its only safe depositories."
-- Thomas Jefferson
I hear all sorts of arguments back and forth about the role of government, how big it should be, how small, what a government's role should be. Unless you're advocating anarchy or totalitarianism any of these arguments are just different shades of gray.
But I think people making these arguments are forgetting the first principles of government. When you decide what a government actually is then making the arguments about size and scope and influence becomes much clearer.
So, here's how I see it. The first principle is that the power to govern derives from the consent of the governed. This is the basic idea that the entirety of the United States is founded on. It's the principle that led us to declare independence and it's the principle that our Constitution holds at its core.
Taking that as a given, then, the role of government is to protect the individual liberties of its citizens. That's the beginning and the end of it. Government exists to protect the rights of the people who agree that there should be a government in the first place.
Everything else flows from that. The power of the government to tax is necessary to provide the services that only government should, like roads and sewers and standing armies. The power to regulate business is necessary to protect the government's citizens - you and me - from people and companies who would rather turn a quick buck and hurt people than do things the right way and make a few cents less.
Bureaucracies by their nature do things slowly and inefficiently, we'll never be able to change that. But when those bureaucracies remember their guiding principles - that they're working to serve the people who allow them to exist in the first place - everything can run much smoother.
It is most important to remember that 'government' is not something separate from its citizens. Government IS its citizens. Government is all of us together.
"Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves are its only safe depositories."
-- Thomas Jefferson
Friday, November 4, 2011
Setting The Record Straight
I've been hearing 'statistics' repeated over the past few months, intentionally misleading sound bites designed to inflame rather than inform. It's easy to get 'me too' angry, especially when you can't be bothered to check things out for yourself. In our information age, however, it's ridiculously easy to find things out directly from the source.*
Claim #1
Half of wage earners don't pay any taxes.
Truth:
Let me tell you right up front that I am a small business owner. I run a payroll every Wednesday, rain or shine. And I can tell you in no uncertain terms that EVERYONE who draws a paycheck has to pay taxes. It's against the law not to, and if you hire a professional firm to collect those taxes for you (I do), they make all the deductions automatically.
If you get a paycheck, you cannot skip paying taxes. It's out of your hands.
I believe what people mean when they say this is that half of American taxpayers get a net refund, they get back most or all of what they paid in during the preceding year. But the fact of the matter is that the US Government used those funds for months before returning them. Kind of like a bank where you earn no interest. Which is most banks these days.
Fact: Half of all American taxpayers make less than $30,000 per annum*. You're a total son of a bitch if you would begrudge these people their tax refunds.
Fact: these numbers ignore the FICA deductions, which everyone who gets a paycheck also pays - and which no one gets back at the end of the year. Also, FICA tax has a limit which most Americans never reach. In 2011 it's $106,800, at which point you stop paying FICA tax. Which means with every dollar after that amount the rich get 7.65% richer.
Fact: saying 'half of all Americans get a net refund' - the truth - doesn't sound nearly as outrageous as 'half don't pay taxes.' This is why rat bastard asswipes never say net refund.
Claim #2
A flat tax is a better tax option for most people.
Truth:
It most definitely is not. The plain hard fact is that 48% of American taxpayers already pay 9% or less on their income tax* and this is after the standard deductions that all of us get. So 9% flat tax is a substantial increase for most people, especially when a flat tax usually means eliminating the standard deduction.
But let's assume you're more attracted to the 20% option. Who benefits there? Almost 98% of all wage-earning Americans pay 16.3% or less of their taxable income. So this means the 20% option is attractive only to the top 2% of wage earners, who pay about 24%. Maybe a few people reading this are in that bracket, but I can guarantee most of you aren't.
Fact: we have a graduated tax structure because we have a flat price structure. A loaf of bread costs the same for me or Bill Gates. But it's a much smaller percentage of his income than mine.
Fact: flat tax proposals are the professional wrestling of politics, it's fun to watch for a while, but no one who knows anything about the real subject takes it seriously.
Claim #3
The top 10% of wage earners pay 50% of the collected income taxes.
Truth:
This one actually is true. And it's more like the top 10% pay over 75% of the collected taxes*.
Fact:the top 10% also take home 75% of the country's adjusted gross income.
Let's say that again. The top 10% of wage earners in the United States earn 75% of the taxable income. They also take the lion's share of the deductions, so they're actually making at least 30% more just in gross wages.
Fact: if you and I are hungry for pizza but you eat 75% of the slices, I would expect you to pay for 75% of that pizza. Same thing with income taxes. If the top 10% of earners make 75% of the wages they should pay 75% of the taxes. Seems perfectly fair to me.
All right, I'm done for now. Numbers are boring to most people, which is why it's so easy for a few right-sounding but completely wrong 'statistics' to be repeated so often people take them as fact. You need to use the brain God gave you and figure this stuff out on your own.
* for much of this post I used the 2009 IRS tax stats file. Yes, they do provide this information - free of charge - on their web site. It's up to you to go get it.
Claim #1
Half of wage earners don't pay any taxes.
Truth:
Let me tell you right up front that I am a small business owner. I run a payroll every Wednesday, rain or shine. And I can tell you in no uncertain terms that EVERYONE who draws a paycheck has to pay taxes. It's against the law not to, and if you hire a professional firm to collect those taxes for you (I do), they make all the deductions automatically.
If you get a paycheck, you cannot skip paying taxes. It's out of your hands.
I believe what people mean when they say this is that half of American taxpayers get a net refund, they get back most or all of what they paid in during the preceding year. But the fact of the matter is that the US Government used those funds for months before returning them. Kind of like a bank where you earn no interest. Which is most banks these days.
Fact: Half of all American taxpayers make less than $30,000 per annum*. You're a total son of a bitch if you would begrudge these people their tax refunds.
Fact: these numbers ignore the FICA deductions, which everyone who gets a paycheck also pays - and which no one gets back at the end of the year. Also, FICA tax has a limit which most Americans never reach. In 2011 it's $106,800, at which point you stop paying FICA tax. Which means with every dollar after that amount the rich get 7.65% richer.
Fact: saying 'half of all Americans get a net refund' - the truth - doesn't sound nearly as outrageous as 'half don't pay taxes.' This is why rat bastard asswipes never say net refund.
Claim #2
A flat tax is a better tax option for most people.
Truth:
It most definitely is not. The plain hard fact is that 48% of American taxpayers already pay 9% or less on their income tax* and this is after the standard deductions that all of us get. So 9% flat tax is a substantial increase for most people, especially when a flat tax usually means eliminating the standard deduction.
But let's assume you're more attracted to the 20% option. Who benefits there? Almost 98% of all wage-earning Americans pay 16.3% or less of their taxable income. So this means the 20% option is attractive only to the top 2% of wage earners, who pay about 24%. Maybe a few people reading this are in that bracket, but I can guarantee most of you aren't.
Fact: we have a graduated tax structure because we have a flat price structure. A loaf of bread costs the same for me or Bill Gates. But it's a much smaller percentage of his income than mine.
Fact: flat tax proposals are the professional wrestling of politics, it's fun to watch for a while, but no one who knows anything about the real subject takes it seriously.
Claim #3
The top 10% of wage earners pay 50% of the collected income taxes.
Truth:
This one actually is true. And it's more like the top 10% pay over 75% of the collected taxes*.
Fact:the top 10% also take home 75% of the country's adjusted gross income.
Let's say that again. The top 10% of wage earners in the United States earn 75% of the taxable income. They also take the lion's share of the deductions, so they're actually making at least 30% more just in gross wages.
Fact: if you and I are hungry for pizza but you eat 75% of the slices, I would expect you to pay for 75% of that pizza. Same thing with income taxes. If the top 10% of earners make 75% of the wages they should pay 75% of the taxes. Seems perfectly fair to me.
All right, I'm done for now. Numbers are boring to most people, which is why it's so easy for a few right-sounding but completely wrong 'statistics' to be repeated so often people take them as fact. You need to use the brain God gave you and figure this stuff out on your own.
* for much of this post I used the 2009 IRS tax stats file. Yes, they do provide this information - free of charge - on their web site. It's up to you to go get it.
Monday, October 31, 2011
Unclear On The Concept
I was at my sister's house this Halloween, watching TV as my brother-in-law handed out candy. It's been a very, very long time since I participated in a kids' Halloween, for the last decade or so it's been grown-up parties where people drink just a bit too much, behave awkwardly and rack up a list of regrets they'll need to apologize for the next day. So past time to get back to the innocence of kid-centric night.
But I noticed a disturbing trend. None of the kids seemed to get the concept behind 'trick or treat.' It was like they hadn't been completely briefed on what they were expected to do, so they were kind of winging it, making it up as they went along.
Seriously. There were kids who'd say it before they knocked. Or some kids would knock or ring the bell and mutter 'trick or treat' under their breaths. Or some wouldn't knock at all or say 'trick or treat' and the only way we knew they were there was because they'd yell back to their parents 'no one's home.'
What happened to the good old days? We knew how to trick or treat. If the light's on you run up to the front door, you ring the bell, and when the person opens the door you scream 'TRICK OR TREAT!!' at the top of your lungs. That's how you do it, none of this half-assed mumbling, or, worse still, ring the bell and just stand there with your pillowcase hanging open like someone owes you a handful of the good candy, the kind you only give to little kids.
There was one group - just one - who knew how to ring the bell and yell 'TRICK OR TREAT!' And, guess what, that group was the one my sister was chaperoning. They rang the bell before coming back inside. Everyone else failed by smaller or larger degrees.
Shouldn't there be a class or something? A remedial lecture for the Trick-or-Treat clueless? Hell, put it on the Web, make sure these kids know how the evening's supposed to go. How come they're not learning life skills?
But I noticed a disturbing trend. None of the kids seemed to get the concept behind 'trick or treat.' It was like they hadn't been completely briefed on what they were expected to do, so they were kind of winging it, making it up as they went along.
Seriously. There were kids who'd say it before they knocked. Or some kids would knock or ring the bell and mutter 'trick or treat' under their breaths. Or some wouldn't knock at all or say 'trick or treat' and the only way we knew they were there was because they'd yell back to their parents 'no one's home.'
What happened to the good old days? We knew how to trick or treat. If the light's on you run up to the front door, you ring the bell, and when the person opens the door you scream 'TRICK OR TREAT!!' at the top of your lungs. That's how you do it, none of this half-assed mumbling, or, worse still, ring the bell and just stand there with your pillowcase hanging open like someone owes you a handful of the good candy, the kind you only give to little kids.
There was one group - just one - who knew how to ring the bell and yell 'TRICK OR TREAT!' And, guess what, that group was the one my sister was chaperoning. They rang the bell before coming back inside. Everyone else failed by smaller or larger degrees.
Shouldn't there be a class or something? A remedial lecture for the Trick-or-Treat clueless? Hell, put it on the Web, make sure these kids know how the evening's supposed to go. How come they're not learning life skills?
Friday, October 28, 2011
Got Some Bad News, Gipper
Yesterday the Congressional Budget Office released a report showing that the top 1% of American wealthy has increased that wealth by 275% since 1979. This is compared to the mere 18% increase us non-plutocrats managed to eke out. The timing of this news couldn't have been better, what with the 'Occupy' protests gaining enough ground that police now feel the need to crack heads. More fuel for the civil disobedience fire.
Your first impression of this might be righteous indignation, as well it should be. We're cultivating an hereditary aristocracy, and there's nothing more un-American than that. But there's more to this simple statistic, and I don't think it's any mistake that the CBO measured from 1979. Think about it. What significant change happened after 1979? Yup, that's right, the advent of the Great Communicator, that former actor and great-hair President, Ronald Regan. And what did the Gipper and his advisors bring to the table? Supply-side economics. It's the concept that got him elected and set the stage for almost thirty years of deregulation and corporate malfeasance. Well, guess what, neo-cons?
Trickle-down economics utterly and completely failed.
The evidence is right in front of you, direct from the people charged with tracking this kind of thing, the CBO. They're telling you that terrible economic experiment has been found to be bankrupt. There's no there there.
The idea behind supply-side economics was a deceptively - one might say conspiratorially - simple one. Give more to the richest of our society, and they will in turn push that largesse down to the common man. It sounded like a load of crap back in 1979, and it's been found to be a load of crap thirty years on. When you give more money to people - not just to rich people - they're going to keep it. It's not going to charity, it's not going to job creation, it's not going to help anyone but the people holding the cash. Supply-side economics ignores the basic human tendency to grab what little we have and hold on tight; it's counter-intuitive and just plain wrong-headed.
Yet the idea that this kind of thing works has been touted as successful ever since the Gipper took office. People have made early-retirement careers out of defending trickle-down theory. Even now, these 'voodoo economics' principles are what underlay current proposals like a flat tax or lowering the tax obligation of the wealthiest people. It's just a money grab, and letting the situation perpetuate itself for so long has caused the economic system to sputter and fail.
I think it's vital that people understand this failure, because supply-side economics has been the guiding principle behind American economic policy for decades. To continue to govern according to those principles is to be the Soviet Union in the 1960s: everyone in the world could see their system was going to fail, it was just a matter of time before it happened, even if they were going down swinging. The American economic system as it now stands is failing everyone but the very wealthiest people, and unfortunately for the rest of us, those people are often our representatives in government.
As a nation we're smarter than trickle-down economics; we were smarter back in 1979, we just got greedy and lazy and listened to charlatans who didn't have our best interests at heart. We know better than to allow the inmates to run the economic asylum. It's time to take back what's ours.
Your first impression of this might be righteous indignation, as well it should be. We're cultivating an hereditary aristocracy, and there's nothing more un-American than that. But there's more to this simple statistic, and I don't think it's any mistake that the CBO measured from 1979. Think about it. What significant change happened after 1979? Yup, that's right, the advent of the Great Communicator, that former actor and great-hair President, Ronald Regan. And what did the Gipper and his advisors bring to the table? Supply-side economics. It's the concept that got him elected and set the stage for almost thirty years of deregulation and corporate malfeasance. Well, guess what, neo-cons?
Trickle-down economics utterly and completely failed.
The evidence is right in front of you, direct from the people charged with tracking this kind of thing, the CBO. They're telling you that terrible economic experiment has been found to be bankrupt. There's no there there.
The idea behind supply-side economics was a deceptively - one might say conspiratorially - simple one. Give more to the richest of our society, and they will in turn push that largesse down to the common man. It sounded like a load of crap back in 1979, and it's been found to be a load of crap thirty years on. When you give more money to people - not just to rich people - they're going to keep it. It's not going to charity, it's not going to job creation, it's not going to help anyone but the people holding the cash. Supply-side economics ignores the basic human tendency to grab what little we have and hold on tight; it's counter-intuitive and just plain wrong-headed.
Yet the idea that this kind of thing works has been touted as successful ever since the Gipper took office. People have made early-retirement careers out of defending trickle-down theory. Even now, these 'voodoo economics' principles are what underlay current proposals like a flat tax or lowering the tax obligation of the wealthiest people. It's just a money grab, and letting the situation perpetuate itself for so long has caused the economic system to sputter and fail.
I think it's vital that people understand this failure, because supply-side economics has been the guiding principle behind American economic policy for decades. To continue to govern according to those principles is to be the Soviet Union in the 1960s: everyone in the world could see their system was going to fail, it was just a matter of time before it happened, even if they were going down swinging. The American economic system as it now stands is failing everyone but the very wealthiest people, and unfortunately for the rest of us, those people are often our representatives in government.
As a nation we're smarter than trickle-down economics; we were smarter back in 1979, we just got greedy and lazy and listened to charlatans who didn't have our best interests at heart. We know better than to allow the inmates to run the economic asylum. It's time to take back what's ours.
Sunday, October 23, 2011
What They Want*
By now I'm sure you've heard of the 'Occupy' protests, first on Wall Street in the city so nice they named it twice, New York, New York, then gradually all across the country and the globe. People from many different walks of life, with many different agendas, are camping out close to the places where people with power exercise that power, and they're not going to leave until they're heard.
The media doesn't know what to make of this. Still, after several weeks and burgeoning numbers the news anchors and talking heads just can't wrap their minds around such a radical, populist uprising. It's kind of frightening to those who think they're in charge, when there's no central argument to try to refute, there's no effective way to marginalize and minimize these people. In my mind I had a bit of a role to play in this, given my appeal to the wealthy just a few days before the 'Occupy Wall Street' protest started. If I actually did, I can say I'm proud to have helped.
But people still ask 'what do they want?' as if delivering one thing on a Santa-bound wish list could satisfy the protestors. 'What do they want?' really means 'how do we make them go away?' Well, I think I have some insight into this. Allow me to explain what I believe the 'Occupy' protestors really want:
Everyone's encountered a bully in their lifetime. The big doofus-y kid in middle school who trips you going down the hall, and even though the teachers see it they don't do anything. That kid. The jerk, the kid who thinks he's beyond discipline, who thinks he doesn't have to follow the same rules everyone else does.
So you confront him. You tell him to leave you alone. He asks what, specifically, has he done that you want to keep from happening. You tell him not to trip you any more. So he knocks your books out of your hands. And when you ask him not to do that, he hits your pencil while you're trying to take notes. And when you ask him to let you take notes in peace he aims for your nuts when you're playing dodge ball. You're dancing to his tune, until you realize that addressing things one at a time isn't going to get you anywhere. You realize that there is one over-arching consideration, one broad-spectrum request you can make that will cover every transgression this bully can throw at you.
Stop being a dick.
That's what the 'Occupy' protestors want. They want those people in charge of the economy - bankers especially but governments too - to just stop being dicks. That's a general enough mandate that people understand to mean any behavior that goes beyond the bounds of common decency. There's no need to list individual grievances because that diminishes the message.
It's really straightforward, mainstream media. There's not much more to it, you wealthy few who hold the purse strings of the global economy. It is just as simple as that. You know what it means, don't pretend you don't. Just listen to the message, mull it over, consider it carefully, and then act on it.
Stop being a dick.
* It's been two months since I last posted. I was kind of running dry there for a while and I needed to lay off. While I was not blogging I realized I came across inspiration at least once a day, proving that there is still water in the well.
The media doesn't know what to make of this. Still, after several weeks and burgeoning numbers the news anchors and talking heads just can't wrap their minds around such a radical, populist uprising. It's kind of frightening to those who think they're in charge, when there's no central argument to try to refute, there's no effective way to marginalize and minimize these people. In my mind I had a bit of a role to play in this, given my appeal to the wealthy just a few days before the 'Occupy Wall Street' protest started. If I actually did, I can say I'm proud to have helped.
But people still ask 'what do they want?' as if delivering one thing on a Santa-bound wish list could satisfy the protestors. 'What do they want?' really means 'how do we make them go away?' Well, I think I have some insight into this. Allow me to explain what I believe the 'Occupy' protestors really want:
Everyone's encountered a bully in their lifetime. The big doofus-y kid in middle school who trips you going down the hall, and even though the teachers see it they don't do anything. That kid. The jerk, the kid who thinks he's beyond discipline, who thinks he doesn't have to follow the same rules everyone else does.
So you confront him. You tell him to leave you alone. He asks what, specifically, has he done that you want to keep from happening. You tell him not to trip you any more. So he knocks your books out of your hands. And when you ask him not to do that, he hits your pencil while you're trying to take notes. And when you ask him to let you take notes in peace he aims for your nuts when you're playing dodge ball. You're dancing to his tune, until you realize that addressing things one at a time isn't going to get you anywhere. You realize that there is one over-arching consideration, one broad-spectrum request you can make that will cover every transgression this bully can throw at you.
Stop being a dick.
That's what the 'Occupy' protestors want. They want those people in charge of the economy - bankers especially but governments too - to just stop being dicks. That's a general enough mandate that people understand to mean any behavior that goes beyond the bounds of common decency. There's no need to list individual grievances because that diminishes the message.
It's really straightforward, mainstream media. There's not much more to it, you wealthy few who hold the purse strings of the global economy. It is just as simple as that. You know what it means, don't pretend you don't. Just listen to the message, mull it over, consider it carefully, and then act on it.
Stop being a dick.
* It's been two months since I last posted. I was kind of running dry there for a while and I needed to lay off. While I was not blogging I realized I came across inspiration at least once a day, proving that there is still water in the well.
Tuesday, August 23, 2011
Oh Yeah? Sez You!
I think I got it figured out. I know who to blame. Or what. Or whom.
Anyway... the level of discourse in politics and society in the US has been steadily declining for years now, and it's reached its nadir in the refusal of elected members of Congress to do their jobs. Somehow, some way it's come down to people screaming at each other and making a worldwide calamity out of something that should be a pro forma exercise. And which was a pro-forma exercise for decades.
It's getting me down. Wearing me down. I want to fight the good fight but there are just so many demagogues on both sides that trying to find the truth in the middle is a mind-numbing slog. I do blame Baby Boomers - much as I blame them for almost everything bad they're leaving for my generation to clean up - but they're not the only ones at fault. No, there's a more insidious force at work here, one behind the scenes, something that eats at your soul and your psyche*, gnawing like a worm at a corpse.
Reality TV.
Bear with me, I'll explain myself. What's the most prevalent thing on reality TV? A contest. A zero-sum contest, there's a winner and a loser. Or a bunch of losers. But only one winner. No compromise. No getting along, no shared destiny or mingled fates. If I win you, by necessity, must lose.
That's one thing. People seem to think that everything involves a winner and a loser and if you're not one you have to be the other. Real life isn't like that, real life is shades of gray and degrees of compromise. Only spoiled brats who throw temper tantrums think they deserve everything they want immediately.
Another thing - reality TV also involves a healthy doses of trash talk and backbiting. Our entertainment comes in bitter little sound bites now, people playing it up for the camera and saying things to millions of people they would never say to someone face-to-face.
This is our political commentary. A bunch of talking heads making meaningless points about irrelevant subjects. It's safe, no one has to think about anything difficult or make a real decision, they just have to carp from the sidelines. The better the insult the more imaginary points we score in a game that ultimately everyone loses. We're a nation of Monday morning quarterbacks, geniuses with 20/20 hindsight and Perez Hilton viciousness.
And what does all this meanness and infighting get us? Resentment, and a strengthening of the desire not to be seen as weak or as the loser. It's a death spiral, two eagles locked onto each other and unable to fly but unwilling to let go because the other guy might get the advantage. So they both crash to the ground.
We need to get past this garbage, and the first thing that has to go is reality TV. It's all crap anyway, and it's all the same. And it's slowly rotting our souls from the inside out.
* interesting classical fact, psyche is a Greek word that means soul or mind or that indefinable essence that makes a human being.
Anyway... the level of discourse in politics and society in the US has been steadily declining for years now, and it's reached its nadir in the refusal of elected members of Congress to do their jobs. Somehow, some way it's come down to people screaming at each other and making a worldwide calamity out of something that should be a pro forma exercise. And which was a pro-forma exercise for decades.
It's getting me down. Wearing me down. I want to fight the good fight but there are just so many demagogues on both sides that trying to find the truth in the middle is a mind-numbing slog. I do blame Baby Boomers - much as I blame them for almost everything bad they're leaving for my generation to clean up - but they're not the only ones at fault. No, there's a more insidious force at work here, one behind the scenes, something that eats at your soul and your psyche*, gnawing like a worm at a corpse.
Reality TV.
Bear with me, I'll explain myself. What's the most prevalent thing on reality TV? A contest. A zero-sum contest, there's a winner and a loser. Or a bunch of losers. But only one winner. No compromise. No getting along, no shared destiny or mingled fates. If I win you, by necessity, must lose.
That's one thing. People seem to think that everything involves a winner and a loser and if you're not one you have to be the other. Real life isn't like that, real life is shades of gray and degrees of compromise. Only spoiled brats who throw temper tantrums think they deserve everything they want immediately.
Another thing - reality TV also involves a healthy doses of trash talk and backbiting. Our entertainment comes in bitter little sound bites now, people playing it up for the camera and saying things to millions of people they would never say to someone face-to-face.
This is our political commentary. A bunch of talking heads making meaningless points about irrelevant subjects. It's safe, no one has to think about anything difficult or make a real decision, they just have to carp from the sidelines. The better the insult the more imaginary points we score in a game that ultimately everyone loses. We're a nation of Monday morning quarterbacks, geniuses with 20/20 hindsight and Perez Hilton viciousness.
And what does all this meanness and infighting get us? Resentment, and a strengthening of the desire not to be seen as weak or as the loser. It's a death spiral, two eagles locked onto each other and unable to fly but unwilling to let go because the other guy might get the advantage. So they both crash to the ground.
We need to get past this garbage, and the first thing that has to go is reality TV. It's all crap anyway, and it's all the same. And it's slowly rotting our souls from the inside out.
* interesting classical fact, psyche is a Greek word that means soul or mind or that indefinable essence that makes a human being.
Thursday, August 18, 2011
Call Me Ricky
I've done it again.
A while back I posted about a predicament entirely of my own making. Seems one of my neighbors started calling me 'Dan' and I never corrected him, figuring that there was no way we'd live near each other long enough for that to be an issue. Fast forward six years and Bob was still calling me 'Dan' and I had let it go on so long that I couldn't correct him without it becoming obvious that I was negligent, dismissive prick.
It's happening again.
At work there's a lady - whose name I do not know, and I'm fairly certain we've never been formally introduced - who called me Richard. She did this in passing a few weeks ago and I wasn't certain she was talking to me. So I let it slide.
Then she did it again a week or so later. Again, not looking at me, but I was the only male in the room so unless 'Richard' is a mouse in someone's pocket she was talking to me.
She did it again Monday. Richard. Not looking at me but clearly couldn't be talking to anyone else. I don't even know where that comes from, the initial on my ID badge, which I wear diligently, is a big bold 'D.' There must be another devilishly handsome, generously endowed man named Richard who resembles me wandering the office from time to time. It's really the only explanation.
I am half-tempted to let this one go too. Not because I can't be bothered to correct her... well, not entirely for that reason... but because I want to explore why she calls me by someone else's name. She hasn't looked at me once when she's using the wrong name, so I suspect she doesn't really know my name, and is using the wrong one to prompt me to correct her. And if that's the case I absolutely cannot. It's the principle of the thing.
I'm thinking of it as a science experiment. Sure... let's go with that.
A while back I posted about a predicament entirely of my own making. Seems one of my neighbors started calling me 'Dan' and I never corrected him, figuring that there was no way we'd live near each other long enough for that to be an issue. Fast forward six years and Bob was still calling me 'Dan' and I had let it go on so long that I couldn't correct him without it becoming obvious that I was negligent, dismissive prick.
It's happening again.
At work there's a lady - whose name I do not know, and I'm fairly certain we've never been formally introduced - who called me Richard. She did this in passing a few weeks ago and I wasn't certain she was talking to me. So I let it slide.
Then she did it again a week or so later. Again, not looking at me, but I was the only male in the room so unless 'Richard' is a mouse in someone's pocket she was talking to me.
She did it again Monday. Richard. Not looking at me but clearly couldn't be talking to anyone else. I don't even know where that comes from, the initial on my ID badge, which I wear diligently, is a big bold 'D.' There must be another devilishly handsome, generously endowed man named Richard who resembles me wandering the office from time to time. It's really the only explanation.
I am half-tempted to let this one go too. Not because I can't be bothered to correct her... well, not entirely for that reason... but because I want to explore why she calls me by someone else's name. She hasn't looked at me once when she's using the wrong name, so I suspect she doesn't really know my name, and is using the wrong one to prompt me to correct her. And if that's the case I absolutely cannot. It's the principle of the thing.
I'm thinking of it as a science experiment. Sure... let's go with that.
Sunday, August 14, 2011
Hobby Shopping
I've decided I need a hobby.
Writing doesn't count because that's an avocation, I'm talking about a hobby, something that sucks up precious cash and occupies precious time. My father used to build things out of wood, my sister used to scrapbook, one of my friends collects Star Wars stuff. A hobby takes up space, requires you to purchase tools that you can use nowhere else, and usually produces things that also take up space. And that you load in the back of the station wagon and try to sell at craft fairs.
While I was pondering my next hobby I realized that although a cellar full of canned tomatoes does count as a hobby - assuming I had a cellar - what I really needed was a DANGEROUS hobby. Something that adrenaline junkies would look at and say 'whoa, dude, you may want to re-think that one...' So here they are:
Nude Beekeeper - bears are nude when they forage in tree stumps for honey, can I do any less?
Noisy Rattlesnake Handler - and I mean I would be noisy, not the snakes. I figure I'd stomp around, play the cymbals, anything to make the snakes angry.
Robot Builder - not the 'Battlebots' kind of robots, though, as much as I appreciate circular saw blades on remote-controlled vehicles. I mean I'd create robots that could think, and that would develop souls. Or Skynet, I haven't decided yet.
Nude Lion Tamer - this is pretty much the same as nude beekeeping, except I'd replace the bees with lions. And lions don't make honey. But they make great rugs.
Ghostbuster - this isn't dangerous for the ghost hunting so much as for the copyright infringement. But who you gonna call?
Rocket Car Valet - as tough as it is to keep these things in a straight line on a salt flat, how difficult would they be to jockey into a standard parking spot? And do they even have keys?
Graffiti Librarian - aside from having to lurk around railroad rights-of-way and underpasses, taggers don't generally like outsiders taking note of their work, much less trying to find the appropriate Dewey Decimal classification.
Writing doesn't count because that's an avocation, I'm talking about a hobby, something that sucks up precious cash and occupies precious time. My father used to build things out of wood, my sister used to scrapbook, one of my friends collects Star Wars stuff. A hobby takes up space, requires you to purchase tools that you can use nowhere else, and usually produces things that also take up space. And that you load in the back of the station wagon and try to sell at craft fairs.
While I was pondering my next hobby I realized that although a cellar full of canned tomatoes does count as a hobby - assuming I had a cellar - what I really needed was a DANGEROUS hobby. Something that adrenaline junkies would look at and say 'whoa, dude, you may want to re-think that one...' So here they are:
Nude Beekeeper - bears are nude when they forage in tree stumps for honey, can I do any less?
Noisy Rattlesnake Handler - and I mean I would be noisy, not the snakes. I figure I'd stomp around, play the cymbals, anything to make the snakes angry.
Robot Builder - not the 'Battlebots' kind of robots, though, as much as I appreciate circular saw blades on remote-controlled vehicles. I mean I'd create robots that could think, and that would develop souls. Or Skynet, I haven't decided yet.
Nude Lion Tamer - this is pretty much the same as nude beekeeping, except I'd replace the bees with lions. And lions don't make honey. But they make great rugs.
Ghostbuster - this isn't dangerous for the ghost hunting so much as for the copyright infringement. But who you gonna call?
Rocket Car Valet - as tough as it is to keep these things in a straight line on a salt flat, how difficult would they be to jockey into a standard parking spot? And do they even have keys?
Graffiti Librarian - aside from having to lurk around railroad rights-of-way and underpasses, taggers don't generally like outsiders taking note of their work, much less trying to find the appropriate Dewey Decimal classification.
Friday, August 12, 2011
Creepy From The Heat
It's hot in Texas right now. Matter of fact, it's been hot for weeks, looks to be hot for weeks more. Everything's bigger in Texas, even natural disasters.
The upshot of all the heat is a surge in electricity use, mainly for air conditioning. In Texas, as opposed to Southern California, the hottest part of the day usually arrives about 5 PM, which is that sweet spot when offices are still occupied and yet people are going home and turning up the home AC. You can imagine how far into the red the power dial goes at 5:15. Luckily Texas is its own power grid, but with temperatures at 110 in Dallas, even the best Texas-built power grid is going to get some heavy usage.
At work they've asked us to conserve electricity during the day. Since we don't store the electricity we don't use - no huge capacitors on the power grid - saving electricity at 9 AM doesn't help at 5 PM, but somehow I know if I point this out I'm going to be the asshole, the guy who's not the team player. So I shut up.
The things they want us to do are for the most part things I do anyway, like turning off the lights in the bathroom and break room, turning off the computer monitors when I go home, that kind of thing. But they've also asked for more austere measures. Like turning off hall lights. Or even working in your office with the lights off during the day.
I used to work around programmers, and some of them wanted the overhead lights off. They claimed it reduced eye strain. So does standing up and stretching for ten minutes every hour, and stretching isn't creepy. See, there's something gross and awful about sitting in a room with no lights on. I don't like it. My father used to sit in the living room with the lights off and watch TV and it just creeped me out to no end. It's what serial killers do, I'm convinced, in between luring college coeds into their windowless vans. Where there are also no overhead lights, not coincidentally. It brings to mind those horrible movies where the bad guy waits in the dark for the good guy to get home. Even cavemen brought torches into their caves, for God's sake, asking me to work with the lights off is asking me to flout fifty thousand years of civilization and common sense.
Work has changed because of the dark hallways. The whole place is subdued now, and you never know when you walk past an office if the person isn't there or if they're just creeping out with the lights off. Makes me uneasy, like I'm the doofus in the horror movie who goes into the basement without a flashlight to check the fuse box. You just know the slasher is going to gut him like a perch.
Maybe I'll bring a flashlight to work next week...
The upshot of all the heat is a surge in electricity use, mainly for air conditioning. In Texas, as opposed to Southern California, the hottest part of the day usually arrives about 5 PM, which is that sweet spot when offices are still occupied and yet people are going home and turning up the home AC. You can imagine how far into the red the power dial goes at 5:15. Luckily Texas is its own power grid, but with temperatures at 110 in Dallas, even the best Texas-built power grid is going to get some heavy usage.
At work they've asked us to conserve electricity during the day. Since we don't store the electricity we don't use - no huge capacitors on the power grid - saving electricity at 9 AM doesn't help at 5 PM, but somehow I know if I point this out I'm going to be the asshole, the guy who's not the team player. So I shut up.
The things they want us to do are for the most part things I do anyway, like turning off the lights in the bathroom and break room, turning off the computer monitors when I go home, that kind of thing. But they've also asked for more austere measures. Like turning off hall lights. Or even working in your office with the lights off during the day.
I used to work around programmers, and some of them wanted the overhead lights off. They claimed it reduced eye strain. So does standing up and stretching for ten minutes every hour, and stretching isn't creepy. See, there's something gross and awful about sitting in a room with no lights on. I don't like it. My father used to sit in the living room with the lights off and watch TV and it just creeped me out to no end. It's what serial killers do, I'm convinced, in between luring college coeds into their windowless vans. Where there are also no overhead lights, not coincidentally. It brings to mind those horrible movies where the bad guy waits in the dark for the good guy to get home. Even cavemen brought torches into their caves, for God's sake, asking me to work with the lights off is asking me to flout fifty thousand years of civilization and common sense.
Work has changed because of the dark hallways. The whole place is subdued now, and you never know when you walk past an office if the person isn't there or if they're just creeping out with the lights off. Makes me uneasy, like I'm the doofus in the horror movie who goes into the basement without a flashlight to check the fuse box. You just know the slasher is going to gut him like a perch.
Maybe I'll bring a flashlight to work next week...
Tuesday, August 9, 2011
Dear Mr. Rich Person
Dear Mr. Rich Person:
I’m not writing to people who are just reasonably well-off, or to people who simply have more money than I do. No, I’m writing to you, the fabulously wealthy individuals who are in charge of our economy. I know, I know, it makes you uncomfortable to hear that, and some of you may not even understand it completely, but you are the straw that stirs the drink, if the straw were your out-of-all-proportion influence in politics and the economy and the drink were the fate of every American who does not share your incredible good fortune. You know who you are, you’re the multi-millionaire on your way to being a billionaire, you’re the person who needs to find ways around campaign financing laws to contribute to your candidate – of either party. You’re the person who is part of the one thing our Founding Fathers loathed more than anything else and tried with all their might to keep from growing upon our shores: an hereditary aristocracy. Multi-generational wealth, unearned and undeserved, has given you a kind of leverage and influence not seen since the Robber Barons of the late Nineteenth Century. It’s you I’m talking to.
You’re treading a thin line, you have been for the past few decades, and you’re courting disaster. The thin line is the tissue-thin space between dissent and anarchy, and the disaster you’re courting is the breakdown of the very system that made possible the circumstance you were born into.
You see, America needs a strong middle class. It’s vital to everything we’ve come to expect from our modern economy. A large, thriving middle class not only makes the goods that your company sells, they buy the goods other companies sell. For the most part people don’t need much, but when they feel comfortable in their situation they’re more than willing to part with a few of their hard-earned dollars and line your pockets with even more filthy lucre. A strong, large, vibrant middle class provides the grease that keeps the American economy turning, which provides you the fabulous wealth you in no way deserve.
When you break down the middle class, as you have done in the past three decades by keeping wages stagnant and eliminating jobs and generally ignoring the fates of most of the human beings in this nation, you erode the very base of the pyramid you teeter atop. This is a lesson the French aristocracy learned too late back in the Eighteen Century – power to govern always derives from the consent of the governed. And if you think you’re not governing just because you haven’t run for or been elected to office you’re making another mistake.
Mr. Rich Person, if for no other reason than enlightened self-interest, you absolutely must start paying attention to your responsibilities to preserve American society. It’s not all about you, despite everything you’ve come to expect over the past three decades. When the haves get most of the economic pie and the have-nots fight for crumbs, sooner or later the have-nots are going to realize there are far more of them than you, and they can just take as much pie as they want. Mr. Rich Person, you need to realize that we really are all in this together, and in a very tangible sense your continued safety and prosperity requires tending to and assuring the safety and prosperity of those less fortunate than you.
Don’t worry, even though this newfound and unfamiliar civic responsibility means you’ll make less money than you did before, you’ll still make far more than you can possibly spend in your lifetime. But you’ll enjoy the added benefit of not being the first against the wall when the revolution comes.
Sincerely,
-- your friend Don
I’m not writing to people who are just reasonably well-off, or to people who simply have more money than I do. No, I’m writing to you, the fabulously wealthy individuals who are in charge of our economy. I know, I know, it makes you uncomfortable to hear that, and some of you may not even understand it completely, but you are the straw that stirs the drink, if the straw were your out-of-all-proportion influence in politics and the economy and the drink were the fate of every American who does not share your incredible good fortune. You know who you are, you’re the multi-millionaire on your way to being a billionaire, you’re the person who needs to find ways around campaign financing laws to contribute to your candidate – of either party. You’re the person who is part of the one thing our Founding Fathers loathed more than anything else and tried with all their might to keep from growing upon our shores: an hereditary aristocracy. Multi-generational wealth, unearned and undeserved, has given you a kind of leverage and influence not seen since the Robber Barons of the late Nineteenth Century. It’s you I’m talking to.
You’re treading a thin line, you have been for the past few decades, and you’re courting disaster. The thin line is the tissue-thin space between dissent and anarchy, and the disaster you’re courting is the breakdown of the very system that made possible the circumstance you were born into.
You see, America needs a strong middle class. It’s vital to everything we’ve come to expect from our modern economy. A large, thriving middle class not only makes the goods that your company sells, they buy the goods other companies sell. For the most part people don’t need much, but when they feel comfortable in their situation they’re more than willing to part with a few of their hard-earned dollars and line your pockets with even more filthy lucre. A strong, large, vibrant middle class provides the grease that keeps the American economy turning, which provides you the fabulous wealth you in no way deserve.
When you break down the middle class, as you have done in the past three decades by keeping wages stagnant and eliminating jobs and generally ignoring the fates of most of the human beings in this nation, you erode the very base of the pyramid you teeter atop. This is a lesson the French aristocracy learned too late back in the Eighteen Century – power to govern always derives from the consent of the governed. And if you think you’re not governing just because you haven’t run for or been elected to office you’re making another mistake.
Mr. Rich Person, if for no other reason than enlightened self-interest, you absolutely must start paying attention to your responsibilities to preserve American society. It’s not all about you, despite everything you’ve come to expect over the past three decades. When the haves get most of the economic pie and the have-nots fight for crumbs, sooner or later the have-nots are going to realize there are far more of them than you, and they can just take as much pie as they want. Mr. Rich Person, you need to realize that we really are all in this together, and in a very tangible sense your continued safety and prosperity requires tending to and assuring the safety and prosperity of those less fortunate than you.
Don’t worry, even though this newfound and unfamiliar civic responsibility means you’ll make less money than you did before, you’ll still make far more than you can possibly spend in your lifetime. But you’ll enjoy the added benefit of not being the first against the wall when the revolution comes.
Sincerely,
-- your friend Don
Sunday, August 7, 2011
It Was An Accident, I Swear
I haven't had the television on in about three days.
I swear it's an accident. Not planned. Last time I had the idiot box* up and running was Thursday night. It was the 'So You Think You Can Dance' results show. Yes, I do watch that, wanna make something of it? I didn't think so...
Anyway, Friday I was in Austin and after I got back that night the TV just didn't come on. I read the Silmarillion (I have a first edition). Last night, Saturday, I was busy with busy work and whatnot and before I knew it the clock showed 9:30 PM and COPS was good and over. Crap, I missed my favorite show. Or favorite non-dance related show. And today, Sunday, there's just nothing to watch in the first place, aside from me getting busy writing and more busy work. So no TV today so far either.
I think it's the longest stretch I've gone without TV, without either being on an international flight or being stuck somewhere awful. And you know what? It doesn't bother me. Except for missing COPS and shirtless meth addicts trying to escape officers of the law, that's always good for a laugh. Oh, and NASCAR is on cable for 2/3 of the season, so I'm missing that too. I think I may have been a rum runner in a previous life, it's the only explanation I have for why I like to watch cars making left turns for 500 miles.
I got rid of cable going on two years ago, haven't missed it except for Cartoon Network - I loves me some Venture Brothers - and I don't get ABC or PBS here at my house. So very slowly I've been involuntarily weaned from the vast wasteland.
I think I'm better for it. But, honestly, I think it's good to have time alone with your own thoughts. I think too many people are uncomfortable with what's running through their heads and they find it easier to find external validation. But when you spend quiet time with yourself you learn what's important to you, and what's important at all. Kind of scary, actually, which is why people would rather avoid it. I think I'm going to jump in with both feet.
The TV's staying off more often than it's coming on.
* which is actually an idiot flat panel, but that doesn't roll off the tongue quite as elegantly
I swear it's an accident. Not planned. Last time I had the idiot box* up and running was Thursday night. It was the 'So You Think You Can Dance' results show. Yes, I do watch that, wanna make something of it? I didn't think so...
Anyway, Friday I was in Austin and after I got back that night the TV just didn't come on. I read the Silmarillion (I have a first edition). Last night, Saturday, I was busy with busy work and whatnot and before I knew it the clock showed 9:30 PM and COPS was good and over. Crap, I missed my favorite show. Or favorite non-dance related show. And today, Sunday, there's just nothing to watch in the first place, aside from me getting busy writing and more busy work. So no TV today so far either.
I think it's the longest stretch I've gone without TV, without either being on an international flight or being stuck somewhere awful. And you know what? It doesn't bother me. Except for missing COPS and shirtless meth addicts trying to escape officers of the law, that's always good for a laugh. Oh, and NASCAR is on cable for 2/3 of the season, so I'm missing that too. I think I may have been a rum runner in a previous life, it's the only explanation I have for why I like to watch cars making left turns for 500 miles.
I got rid of cable going on two years ago, haven't missed it except for Cartoon Network - I loves me some Venture Brothers - and I don't get ABC or PBS here at my house. So very slowly I've been involuntarily weaned from the vast wasteland.
I think I'm better for it. But, honestly, I think it's good to have time alone with your own thoughts. I think too many people are uncomfortable with what's running through their heads and they find it easier to find external validation. But when you spend quiet time with yourself you learn what's important to you, and what's important at all. Kind of scary, actually, which is why people would rather avoid it. I think I'm going to jump in with both feet.
The TV's staying off more often than it's coming on.
* which is actually an idiot flat panel, but that doesn't roll off the tongue quite as elegantly
Saturday, August 6, 2011
Flat Earther
I had a brief 'discussion' on Facebook today. A friend posted some ignorant right-wing comment about being glad Florida was requiring drug tests for welfare recipients. I posted my objections, chief among them being the patronizing and racist assumption that all welfare recipients are drug users, or at least potential drug users. I mean, really, when you hear 'welfare' is the image that comes to mind 'Good Times' or 'Waltons'? Be honest.
My friend's friend posted how she was happy about the legislation, what do you have to be afraid of if you're not using drugs, things like that. I responded with the proposition that testing for drugs before you can get public assistance assumes that you are taking drugs in the first place and need to be caught, it's a presumption of guilt. Which is against the 5th, 6th, and 14th amendments to the Constitution. She argued that it's common knowledge that people on welfare wear designer clothes and drive new cars, completely avoiding addressing my point and perpetuating yet another racist sterotype. The discussion degenerated from there.
Every fact you can find on the Web, every statistic from governmental sources, every actual study posted shows that people are on welfare for two years or less, they're usually single mothers in dire straits not drug dealers gaming the system, and that most never go back.
Yet this myth persists of the welfare cheat getting rich from public assistance, and some people will not be dissuaded from it, no matter how reasoned the discourse. It's like trying to convince a flat-earther that the world is, in actual fact, round. No matter the evidence you place in front of him, he's still going to insist that his version of things is the right one.
This is the problem we face in politics and society today. Willful ignorance. Flat-earthers. People who are so invested in being right that they refuse to entertain the possibility that they might be wrong. It's childish, really, and divisive. Why try to understand the larger societal problems that create the need for welfare, when you can just repeat ad hominem attacks that would make Archie Bunker blush?*
We need to get past this, we need to stop insisting we're right and start listening to why we might be wrong. Then we might get something accomplished.
* seems I'm on a 70's TV kick today, just go with it.
My friend's friend posted how she was happy about the legislation, what do you have to be afraid of if you're not using drugs, things like that. I responded with the proposition that testing for drugs before you can get public assistance assumes that you are taking drugs in the first place and need to be caught, it's a presumption of guilt. Which is against the 5th, 6th, and 14th amendments to the Constitution. She argued that it's common knowledge that people on welfare wear designer clothes and drive new cars, completely avoiding addressing my point and perpetuating yet another racist sterotype. The discussion degenerated from there.
Every fact you can find on the Web, every statistic from governmental sources, every actual study posted shows that people are on welfare for two years or less, they're usually single mothers in dire straits not drug dealers gaming the system, and that most never go back.
Yet this myth persists of the welfare cheat getting rich from public assistance, and some people will not be dissuaded from it, no matter how reasoned the discourse. It's like trying to convince a flat-earther that the world is, in actual fact, round. No matter the evidence you place in front of him, he's still going to insist that his version of things is the right one.
This is the problem we face in politics and society today. Willful ignorance. Flat-earthers. People who are so invested in being right that they refuse to entertain the possibility that they might be wrong. It's childish, really, and divisive. Why try to understand the larger societal problems that create the need for welfare, when you can just repeat ad hominem attacks that would make Archie Bunker blush?*
We need to get past this, we need to stop insisting we're right and start listening to why we might be wrong. Then we might get something accomplished.
* seems I'm on a 70's TV kick today, just go with it.
Saturday, July 30, 2011
Like Sand Through The Hourglass...
I'm getting old.
I know that I've lamented my impending old-man-ness* from time to time... all right, I've done it frequently, but the process is speeding up. I can feel my dewy youth slipping away like the orderly who steals your pills from your dresser when you're just resting your eyes. I've noticed my slide by several factors:
I listen to NPR almost exclusively. All right, I admit I've been doing that for over a decade, but that just shows you how early I began my descent into advanced old-man-ity.*
I harbor a secret longing nostalgia for 70's AM radio. Which I guess isn't secret any more. I wasn't old enough to have any say in what we listened to in the car, and my parents really, really, really liked lame music, so that's what we listened to. Lame AM 70's radio. Lately I've been appreciating Abba and Hall and Oates. I may need someone to put me out of my misery before I discover Leo Sayer again.
I do a killer Fred Mertz impression. I did it just this afternoon, dead-on perfect. It's only a matter of time before I too wear my pants rib-cage high like Fred, and not in a mocking way.
I talk to myself in the grocery store. 'Big deal,' you say, 'lots of people do that to remember what they need to buy.' But talking to myself while running errands is the preliminary stage before I start muttering all the time. And start chewing an imaginary mouthful of something. And get huge tufts of hair growing out of my ears.
Sweet things are too sweet. I understand there is more sugar in prepared food now than there used to be, but I'm losing what used to be an epic sweet tooth. When I was in the full bloom of youth I could almost polish off an entire pie. So maybe aging prematurely isn't entirely bad.
I understand how governmental policies from twenty years ago have shaped the society we have now. If that doesn't make me an old man before my time, I don't know what else would. Reganomics is directly responsible for the mess we're in now, and if you want I can tell you exactly why. And get off my lawn, you stupid kids!
I have a lawn.
I know how escrow works.
I know how to navigate State and Federal bureaucracy to establish a business and pay taxes.
I go to the post office at least once a week.
There's nothing I can do about it. I'm done. Gone. Might as well get me a Hoveround and a helper monkey. Really. At least the helper monkey, I've always wanted a helper monkey. His name would be Mr. Chimps, which is a reference to a 72-year-old film. Old men fondly remember old films.
ADDENDUM: I think Saturday Night Live is funny again. For years, decades, it was definitely not at all funny, in any way. It's funny again. I think maybe it's because they stopped trying to do 'Saturday Night Live' and just started doing funny stuff again. Or maybe I'm just old...
* old-man-dom? old-man-itude?
I know that I've lamented my impending old-man-ness* from time to time... all right, I've done it frequently, but the process is speeding up. I can feel my dewy youth slipping away like the orderly who steals your pills from your dresser when you're just resting your eyes. I've noticed my slide by several factors:
I listen to NPR almost exclusively. All right, I admit I've been doing that for over a decade, but that just shows you how early I began my descent into advanced old-man-ity.*
I harbor a secret longing nostalgia for 70's AM radio. Which I guess isn't secret any more. I wasn't old enough to have any say in what we listened to in the car, and my parents really, really, really liked lame music, so that's what we listened to. Lame AM 70's radio. Lately I've been appreciating Abba and Hall and Oates. I may need someone to put me out of my misery before I discover Leo Sayer again.
I do a killer Fred Mertz impression. I did it just this afternoon, dead-on perfect. It's only a matter of time before I too wear my pants rib-cage high like Fred, and not in a mocking way.
I talk to myself in the grocery store. 'Big deal,' you say, 'lots of people do that to remember what they need to buy.' But talking to myself while running errands is the preliminary stage before I start muttering all the time. And start chewing an imaginary mouthful of something. And get huge tufts of hair growing out of my ears.
Sweet things are too sweet. I understand there is more sugar in prepared food now than there used to be, but I'm losing what used to be an epic sweet tooth. When I was in the full bloom of youth I could almost polish off an entire pie. So maybe aging prematurely isn't entirely bad.
I understand how governmental policies from twenty years ago have shaped the society we have now. If that doesn't make me an old man before my time, I don't know what else would. Reganomics is directly responsible for the mess we're in now, and if you want I can tell you exactly why. And get off my lawn, you stupid kids!
I have a lawn.
I know how escrow works.
I know how to navigate State and Federal bureaucracy to establish a business and pay taxes.
I go to the post office at least once a week.
There's nothing I can do about it. I'm done. Gone. Might as well get me a Hoveround and a helper monkey. Really. At least the helper monkey, I've always wanted a helper monkey. His name would be Mr. Chimps, which is a reference to a 72-year-old film. Old men fondly remember old films.
ADDENDUM: I think Saturday Night Live is funny again. For years, decades, it was definitely not at all funny, in any way. It's funny again. I think maybe it's because they stopped trying to do 'Saturday Night Live' and just started doing funny stuff again. Or maybe I'm just old...
* old-man-dom? old-man-itude?
Friday, July 29, 2011
Were I A Billionaire...
Everybody wants to have lots of money, and most of us don't want to have to do anything to get it. That would be the best, tons of cash in a Scrooge McDuck-style money bin just free and clear. I'd dive and cavort and everything else Scrooge McDuck does but without all the bother of actually having to manage my money.
There are, according to Forbes Magazine which tracks these things, 1,011 billionaires in the world. Aside from being a complete socio-economic travesty and an insult to hard-working people across the globe, the fact that there are over one thousand billionaires means it's becoming increasingly common. The possibility exists, is what I'm saying. I could be one of them.
But what do you do with $1 billion in assets? I mean, really. When you have more than enough for any ten lifetimes, what do you do with it? You could endow libraries, like Andrew Carnegie, or you could support crackpot political movements that pretend to help the very people they're screwing the most, like the Koch brothers. So I sat and pondered what I would do if I had the money to do anything at all.
Build a Chitty-Chitty Bang-Bang car. One that really flies.
Endow pure scientific research projects. But the scientists have to call me 'Uncle Moneybags' on weekly video conferences broadcast over the web.
Punch Alan Greenspan in the nose. And kick Phil Gramm in the nuts. Bastards ruined our economy for no good reason...
Go to Vegas and procure midget hookers, then make them carry my luggage.
Buy lots of ranch land and raise gigantic armadillos, ones big enough for kids to ride, then take over the kiddie-ride industry.
Go to clown college. Then flunk out.
Teach an army of gorillas sign language, then send them all to school to get their MBAs. Then get them jobs at every major US corporation. And then when anyone at that corporation puts forward some illegal, immoral, or just plain stupid idea the gorilla gets to rend them limb from limb. That ought to cut down on the shenanigans in corporate America.
Make a Summer blockbuster that doesn't completely suck.
Learn how to mambo. Because 'mambo' sounds funny.
Start a World Family Reunion, that everyone has to attend, all six billion of us. We're all related, after all, if you go back far enough. People don't remember that enough.
Buy up all the TV air time for one day and just turn it off. All of it, every channel. You people need to figure out what to do without the idiot box flashing at you every two seconds.
See? My wants are few, my needs even fewer. I could probably do all that with just a couple of billion dollars, no need for $50 billion or anything outrageous.
There are, according to Forbes Magazine which tracks these things, 1,011 billionaires in the world. Aside from being a complete socio-economic travesty and an insult to hard-working people across the globe, the fact that there are over one thousand billionaires means it's becoming increasingly common. The possibility exists, is what I'm saying. I could be one of them.
But what do you do with $1 billion in assets? I mean, really. When you have more than enough for any ten lifetimes, what do you do with it? You could endow libraries, like Andrew Carnegie, or you could support crackpot political movements that pretend to help the very people they're screwing the most, like the Koch brothers. So I sat and pondered what I would do if I had the money to do anything at all.
Build a Chitty-Chitty Bang-Bang car. One that really flies.
Endow pure scientific research projects. But the scientists have to call me 'Uncle Moneybags' on weekly video conferences broadcast over the web.
Punch Alan Greenspan in the nose. And kick Phil Gramm in the nuts. Bastards ruined our economy for no good reason...
Go to Vegas and procure midget hookers, then make them carry my luggage.
Buy lots of ranch land and raise gigantic armadillos, ones big enough for kids to ride, then take over the kiddie-ride industry.
Go to clown college. Then flunk out.
Teach an army of gorillas sign language, then send them all to school to get their MBAs. Then get them jobs at every major US corporation. And then when anyone at that corporation puts forward some illegal, immoral, or just plain stupid idea the gorilla gets to rend them limb from limb. That ought to cut down on the shenanigans in corporate America.
Make a Summer blockbuster that doesn't completely suck.
Learn how to mambo. Because 'mambo' sounds funny.
Start a World Family Reunion, that everyone has to attend, all six billion of us. We're all related, after all, if you go back far enough. People don't remember that enough.
Buy up all the TV air time for one day and just turn it off. All of it, every channel. You people need to figure out what to do without the idiot box flashing at you every two seconds.
See? My wants are few, my needs even fewer. I could probably do all that with just a couple of billion dollars, no need for $50 billion or anything outrageous.
Thursday, July 28, 2011
Food Confidence
Have you ever had a sandwich prepared by a surly food service worker?
How did that make you feel about the meal you paid for? Because today I felt suspicious, which kind of made me surly myself.
When you walk into a restaurant or fast-food joint, usually you're greeted with a smile, perhaps an over-enthusiastic one or a sarcastic one, but still a smile. When I was a waiter it was my job to be friendly even if I hated your guts from the moment you walked in. Especially if I hated your guts.
Obviously this was part of our training, if for no other reason than a smile prompts bigger tips. It really does, I made an experiment of it one weekend.
But there's a better reason why food service workers are friendly. It gives the customer confidence that no one's going to do something to their food. A meal prepared by a surly worker is inherently no better or worse than a meal prepared by a similarly-skilled friendly worker. But if the guy making your sandwich isn't smiling you're pretty sure he's up to something. With your food. That you're going to put in your mouth.
All this ran through my head today as I watched the frowning lady at Schlotzky's make my sandwich. I couldn't see her hands, which totally bothered me. What kind of morning did she have that made her that frowny? Was it her kids? Her dog? Her husband who I might resemble closely enough that revenge on me would be revenge on him? Why wasn't she happy making my meal? Or at least less upset? What was she doing back there? To my Deluxe Original?
I'm not ashamed at all to say that when I got back to my desk at work I double-checked my sandwich before I took a bite. Nothing amiss so I proceeded with the eating. But it's only maybe the second or third time I've ever felt the need to do that. If she'd just smiled a little, tiny bit, even for a moment, I would have been more at ease.
So smile, food service workers, if for no other reason than to give the rest of us false hope you're not doing anything weird with our sandwiches.
How did that make you feel about the meal you paid for? Because today I felt suspicious, which kind of made me surly myself.
When you walk into a restaurant or fast-food joint, usually you're greeted with a smile, perhaps an over-enthusiastic one or a sarcastic one, but still a smile. When I was a waiter it was my job to be friendly even if I hated your guts from the moment you walked in. Especially if I hated your guts.
Obviously this was part of our training, if for no other reason than a smile prompts bigger tips. It really does, I made an experiment of it one weekend.
But there's a better reason why food service workers are friendly. It gives the customer confidence that no one's going to do something to their food. A meal prepared by a surly worker is inherently no better or worse than a meal prepared by a similarly-skilled friendly worker. But if the guy making your sandwich isn't smiling you're pretty sure he's up to something. With your food. That you're going to put in your mouth.
All this ran through my head today as I watched the frowning lady at Schlotzky's make my sandwich. I couldn't see her hands, which totally bothered me. What kind of morning did she have that made her that frowny? Was it her kids? Her dog? Her husband who I might resemble closely enough that revenge on me would be revenge on him? Why wasn't she happy making my meal? Or at least less upset? What was she doing back there? To my Deluxe Original?
I'm not ashamed at all to say that when I got back to my desk at work I double-checked my sandwich before I took a bite. Nothing amiss so I proceeded with the eating. But it's only maybe the second or third time I've ever felt the need to do that. If she'd just smiled a little, tiny bit, even for a moment, I would have been more at ease.
So smile, food service workers, if for no other reason than to give the rest of us false hope you're not doing anything weird with our sandwiches.
Wednesday, July 27, 2011
An iPhone Failure
You know what I do with my iPhone?
I make phone calls.
Yup, kickin' it old school. I actually like to talk to people instead of typing at them. I do send and receive the occasional text message, I'm not a complete Luddite, but I really do prefer to talk with a real human being.
I have a game or two to while away the odd free moment or two, but I haven't paid for a single app and I probably never will. And, no, one of those games is not 'Angry Birds.'
I don't like being tagged in pictures and I don't tag anyone else, I don't take pictures with my phone because I don't want anyone to know where I've been. I don't use the compass or the GPS or anything on my iPhone that has the remotest possibility of talking back to me.
I just want a freakin' phone.
And before you start in with the 'so why did you buy an iPhone, you big hypocrite?' I can tell you it's an old one, which I got for $49 from ATT when I moved. Fifty bucks for a new phone and I'll take what they give me.
If you need to reach me, give me a call, I may not answer any text messages.
I make phone calls.
Yup, kickin' it old school. I actually like to talk to people instead of typing at them. I do send and receive the occasional text message, I'm not a complete Luddite, but I really do prefer to talk with a real human being.
I have a game or two to while away the odd free moment or two, but I haven't paid for a single app and I probably never will. And, no, one of those games is not 'Angry Birds.'
I don't like being tagged in pictures and I don't tag anyone else, I don't take pictures with my phone because I don't want anyone to know where I've been. I don't use the compass or the GPS or anything on my iPhone that has the remotest possibility of talking back to me.
I just want a freakin' phone.
And before you start in with the 'so why did you buy an iPhone, you big hypocrite?' I can tell you it's an old one, which I got for $49 from ATT when I moved. Fifty bucks for a new phone and I'll take what they give me.
If you need to reach me, give me a call, I may not answer any text messages.
Monday, July 25, 2011
Things That Worry Me Which Probably Shouldn't
I'm concerned that I might suddenly develop see-through vision.
I don't mean x-ray vision, not like I can see bones or spleens or what have you. I'm concerned that I might suddenly develop the ability to see people as if they had no clothes on, like the X-Ray Specs they used to advertise on the back of comic books.
On first consideration that might seem to be a pretty cool thing, especially when you think of supermodels or Playboy playmates or the hot chick checking groceries. But then, after a moment's consideration I realized that I've never actually seen a supermodel in person, and the only Playmate I've seen was a coked-out wreck fifteen years ago at the Dallas Fantasy Fair, and though she had a booming bod her face looked like what you'd expect a coked-out Playmate stuck at the Dallas Fantasy Fair would look like. Not good. Not good at all.
Then you consider all the homeless guys and truckers and transsexual-looking people you see in a week (or at least that I see in a week) and the opportunity to see the occasional MILF or college cheerleader with no clothes on doesn't seem like a very good trade-off.
And the thought of going to the local Wal-Mart and seeing the sagging, jiggling, varicose-veined train wrecks there would make me want to claw my eyes out.
God invented Indonesian sweat shops so that we Americans could have the clothes our flabby bodies need to hide our excesses and indiscretions. And I'm fine stopping right there, no need to look any further.
I just don't see how Superman does it...
I don't mean x-ray vision, not like I can see bones or spleens or what have you. I'm concerned that I might suddenly develop the ability to see people as if they had no clothes on, like the X-Ray Specs they used to advertise on the back of comic books.
On first consideration that might seem to be a pretty cool thing, especially when you think of supermodels or Playboy playmates or the hot chick checking groceries. But then, after a moment's consideration I realized that I've never actually seen a supermodel in person, and the only Playmate I've seen was a coked-out wreck fifteen years ago at the Dallas Fantasy Fair, and though she had a booming bod her face looked like what you'd expect a coked-out Playmate stuck at the Dallas Fantasy Fair would look like. Not good. Not good at all.
Then you consider all the homeless guys and truckers and transsexual-looking people you see in a week (or at least that I see in a week) and the opportunity to see the occasional MILF or college cheerleader with no clothes on doesn't seem like a very good trade-off.
And the thought of going to the local Wal-Mart and seeing the sagging, jiggling, varicose-veined train wrecks there would make me want to claw my eyes out.
God invented Indonesian sweat shops so that we Americans could have the clothes our flabby bodies need to hide our excesses and indiscretions. And I'm fine stopping right there, no need to look any further.
I just don't see how Superman does it...
Friday, July 22, 2011
If I Were A Blues Musician...
If I were a blues musician I'd have a great nickname. Because all blues musicians have great nicknames, like Blind Lemon Jefferson, T-Bone Walker, or Lightnin' Hopkins. If you have a cool nickname people treat you better, they move aside when you pass by, they hold doors open for you. Mostly, though, you get that cool nickname on your tombstone so people 100 years from now can pass by your grave and wonder how cool that guy was to get a nickname like 'Jelly Roll.'
So I decided to cut out the middleman - and, coincidentally, all the tragedy and pathos of being an actual blues musician - and come up with my own blues nickname. I tried to think of things that define me, or at least that others might think define me.
Scratchin' Don H.
Needs a Shave Hartshorn
Junk Food Hartshorn
Don 'Cut the Damn Grass' Hartshorn
Knee Poppin' Don
Old Man Groan Hartshorn
Don 'Too Much Mayonnaise' Hartshorn
The Bellybutton Lint Kid
White Guy Rhythm Hartshorn
Bad Haircut Don
Don 'Pays Bills On Time' Hartshorn
Sullen Resentment Hartshorn
Inappropriate Mutterin' Don
One of those just has to fit. I'll go to local jazz clubs and get the emcee to announce me over the microphone, see which one has the right reverb.
So I decided to cut out the middleman - and, coincidentally, all the tragedy and pathos of being an actual blues musician - and come up with my own blues nickname. I tried to think of things that define me, or at least that others might think define me.
Scratchin' Don H.
Needs a Shave Hartshorn
Junk Food Hartshorn
Don 'Cut the Damn Grass' Hartshorn
Knee Poppin' Don
Old Man Groan Hartshorn
Don 'Too Much Mayonnaise' Hartshorn
The Bellybutton Lint Kid
White Guy Rhythm Hartshorn
Bad Haircut Don
Don 'Pays Bills On Time' Hartshorn
Sullen Resentment Hartshorn
Inappropriate Mutterin' Don
One of those just has to fit. I'll go to local jazz clubs and get the emcee to announce me over the microphone, see which one has the right reverb.
Thursday, July 21, 2011
Feeding The Five-Year-Old In Me
Guess what I had for dinner? Go on, I'll give you three guesses and I'm positive you're never going to figure it out.
A hot dog wrapped in a tortilla with cheese and some salsa?
Jeez... first try...
Yup, I ate a tortilla-wrapped hot dog for dinner. With some cantaloupe and grapes on the side. For lunch I had lemonade and yogurt and some bread pudding (not really sweet, but it's very good. From Sun Harvest.) For breakfast I had iced tea and Pop Tarts, the chocolate chip kind, which are much more honest than the fruit-flavored kind which pretend not to be the candy they so obviously are.
I'm regressing back to my childhood. When I was five this was what I thought it would be like to be an adult and to feed myself. Not junk food, not really (except for the Pop Tarts and hot dog), but not the most nutritious day I've had in my life either.
I don't know, lately I just can't be bothered. Either I'll go days subsisting on fruit and vegetables because I just can't quite make it to the grocery store for animal protein, or I end up raiding the pantry for whatever's in there that might go well together. No middle ground. I'm waiting for the 'leftover lemon chicken - ranch style beans' night that will inevitably happen some time soon.
I can cook meals. Really. I used to be a cook, years ago. I can make fifteen pans of lasagna and four-hundred-fifty hand-breaded cheese sticks and work the ovens and stoves on the line. And still have time to read to orphans. I'm good. But I'm terribly, terribly lazy, especially when the meal is only for me, myself and I. I dread what's going to happen to me next. When I was five I thought a stellar breakfast would be Lucky Charms but with all the pesky cereal bits taken out. I pined for a bowl of just Lucky Charms marshmallows but my mother foiled my efforts to bring my dreams to life.
Now that I'm good and grown I might just need to make that happen. Although maybe that's a cry for help...
A hot dog wrapped in a tortilla with cheese and some salsa?
Jeez... first try...
Yup, I ate a tortilla-wrapped hot dog for dinner. With some cantaloupe and grapes on the side. For lunch I had lemonade and yogurt and some bread pudding (not really sweet, but it's very good. From Sun Harvest.) For breakfast I had iced tea and Pop Tarts, the chocolate chip kind, which are much more honest than the fruit-flavored kind which pretend not to be the candy they so obviously are.
I'm regressing back to my childhood. When I was five this was what I thought it would be like to be an adult and to feed myself. Not junk food, not really (except for the Pop Tarts and hot dog), but not the most nutritious day I've had in my life either.
I don't know, lately I just can't be bothered. Either I'll go days subsisting on fruit and vegetables because I just can't quite make it to the grocery store for animal protein, or I end up raiding the pantry for whatever's in there that might go well together. No middle ground. I'm waiting for the 'leftover lemon chicken - ranch style beans' night that will inevitably happen some time soon.
I can cook meals. Really. I used to be a cook, years ago. I can make fifteen pans of lasagna and four-hundred-fifty hand-breaded cheese sticks and work the ovens and stoves on the line. And still have time to read to orphans. I'm good. But I'm terribly, terribly lazy, especially when the meal is only for me, myself and I. I dread what's going to happen to me next. When I was five I thought a stellar breakfast would be Lucky Charms but with all the pesky cereal bits taken out. I pined for a bowl of just Lucky Charms marshmallows but my mother foiled my efforts to bring my dreams to life.
Now that I'm good and grown I might just need to make that happen. Although maybe that's a cry for help...
Tuesday, July 19, 2011
Shuttle Down
It's the last NASA Space Shuttle mission. And you know what? I'm glad.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not a flat-Earther or one of those people who thinks that all space exploration is the next worst thing to searching for extraterrestrial life. On the contrary, I think manned exploration beyond our tiny planet is humanity's manifest destiny. It's what we do, exploring. It's what we as a species have always done and it's what's going to take us, inevitably if far too slowly, out into the Solar System and then beyond.
This is the reason I'm glad the Space Shuttle program is ending. We're meant for bigger and better things, and when the Short Bus to Orbit finally stops being a viable option, we'll focus on what's really important. The Shuttle was really only meant to help build the International Space Station (ISS), and it's done that. As George Bush said, Mission Accomplished. Time to move on.
Low-Earth orbit - the ISS is only about 200 miles up - isn't even getting your toes wet in the cosmic ocean. It's not even at the high tide mark it's waaaay back in the dunes where the sand fleas get into your swim trunks. We need to go farther, go deeper, get out there into the Cosmos and see what happens. The Shuttle was all about playing it safe, baby steps, nothing too risky or adventurous. Sure, we lost fourteen astronauts, but only the second lost shuttle was really an accident, the first was caused by entirely preventable bureaucratic mismanagement. Which is what you get when you play it safe instead of committing to something truly monumental.
We need to cut loose, blaze a trail to the next frontier, get our people out there and make things happen. When Christopher Columbus set out for the Western Passage to India, he was... pretty sure... he was going to find it. But he miscalculated severely and found nothing. His crew almost mutinied, and then - voila! - he hits land. Not India, but something much, much better. The same thing will happen when we really commit to space exploration. We'll go looking for one thing but we'll find something far better. I guarantee it.
Yes, people will die, but they'll die actually doing something worthwhile instead of busy work ferrying satellites into orbit and garbage back down to earth. The Shuttle was nothing more than an extremely expensive delivery van. I'm glad we're done with it.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not a flat-Earther or one of those people who thinks that all space exploration is the next worst thing to searching for extraterrestrial life. On the contrary, I think manned exploration beyond our tiny planet is humanity's manifest destiny. It's what we do, exploring. It's what we as a species have always done and it's what's going to take us, inevitably if far too slowly, out into the Solar System and then beyond.
This is the reason I'm glad the Space Shuttle program is ending. We're meant for bigger and better things, and when the Short Bus to Orbit finally stops being a viable option, we'll focus on what's really important. The Shuttle was really only meant to help build the International Space Station (ISS), and it's done that. As George Bush said, Mission Accomplished. Time to move on.
Low-Earth orbit - the ISS is only about 200 miles up - isn't even getting your toes wet in the cosmic ocean. It's not even at the high tide mark it's waaaay back in the dunes where the sand fleas get into your swim trunks. We need to go farther, go deeper, get out there into the Cosmos and see what happens. The Shuttle was all about playing it safe, baby steps, nothing too risky or adventurous. Sure, we lost fourteen astronauts, but only the second lost shuttle was really an accident, the first was caused by entirely preventable bureaucratic mismanagement. Which is what you get when you play it safe instead of committing to something truly monumental.
We need to cut loose, blaze a trail to the next frontier, get our people out there and make things happen. When Christopher Columbus set out for the Western Passage to India, he was... pretty sure... he was going to find it. But he miscalculated severely and found nothing. His crew almost mutinied, and then - voila! - he hits land. Not India, but something much, much better. The same thing will happen when we really commit to space exploration. We'll go looking for one thing but we'll find something far better. I guarantee it.
Yes, people will die, but they'll die actually doing something worthwhile instead of busy work ferrying satellites into orbit and garbage back down to earth. The Shuttle was nothing more than an extremely expensive delivery van. I'm glad we're done with it.
Monday, July 18, 2011
We Shall Know Them By Their Fruits
For those of you not personally acquainted with me, I’m coming clean: I’m a bit of a nerd. No, really, don’t look so shocked, it’s true. Case in point - I like sci-fi. I’m not just talking Star Wars* or Star Trek, my sci-fi doesn’t have to include spaceships and laser blasters, it can be near-future or historical or parallel universe, doesn’t matter. I like Captain Nemo just as much as I like John Connor or Flash Gordon. It’s all good, and sometimes I like my sci-fi best when it’s ludicrous yet takes its premise a bit too seriously. Think Pitch Black or Mansquito.
One thing’s always bothered me, though. The aliens in sci-fi are either completely benevolent – the grays from CE3K** - or out to kill every last human being on the planet – the bugs from Starship Troopers. I think that should we ever meet real extra terrestrials the truth is going to be a bit muddier than we’d like it. I think they’d have mixed motives and mixed emotions about meeting us. I mean, let’s face it, we’re kind of a filthy species, any aliens we meet are going to want a lot of hand sanitizer. Or tentacle sanitizer. Or three-lobed appendage sanitizer. Whatever, you get the idea.
So I thought there might be a quick way to use our own culture to tell whether an alien species are good guys or bad guys. We lay it all out for them, one-hundred-fifty channels of cable, all the People magazine they can stomach, enough internet to choke a horse, block parties, gangster rap, the whole enchilada. When we see which of our creations has caught their eye – compound or laser-blasting – then we can determine their intentions.
Aliens will be good guys if:
They love Adam West’s Batman.
Their spaceships look like what people in the 50’s thought spaceships would look like.
They like dogs, and dogs like them back.
They think Citizen Kane was a fine bit of cinema indeed.
They're horrible at basketball but they still want to play.
Aliens will be bad guys when:
They agree with anything espoused on Fox ‘News.’
They like broccoli.
They think toll roads are a good idea.
They harvest us for our tasty organs.
They like Jar Jar Binks. Or, God help us, they look and act like Jar Jar Binks.
They start wearing hipster fedoras like a bunch of tentacled douchebags.
Aliens will be hopeless wrecks and want to sleep on our couches and eat our groceries and never get a real job if:
They like Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
They wax rhapsodic over the ouvre of Keanu Reeves.
They believe that such a thing as Highlander 2 ever existed. Which it did not.
They think cosplay is anything but a colossal waste of time and energy.
They like pineapple on pizza.
* Only the first three movies, the last three abominations don’t exist in my space/time continuum
** Nerd shorthand. No, I’m not going to translate for you.
One thing’s always bothered me, though. The aliens in sci-fi are either completely benevolent – the grays from CE3K** - or out to kill every last human being on the planet – the bugs from Starship Troopers. I think that should we ever meet real extra terrestrials the truth is going to be a bit muddier than we’d like it. I think they’d have mixed motives and mixed emotions about meeting us. I mean, let’s face it, we’re kind of a filthy species, any aliens we meet are going to want a lot of hand sanitizer. Or tentacle sanitizer. Or three-lobed appendage sanitizer. Whatever, you get the idea.
So I thought there might be a quick way to use our own culture to tell whether an alien species are good guys or bad guys. We lay it all out for them, one-hundred-fifty channels of cable, all the People magazine they can stomach, enough internet to choke a horse, block parties, gangster rap, the whole enchilada. When we see which of our creations has caught their eye – compound or laser-blasting – then we can determine their intentions.
Aliens will be good guys if:
They love Adam West’s Batman.
Their spaceships look like what people in the 50’s thought spaceships would look like.
They like dogs, and dogs like them back.
They think Citizen Kane was a fine bit of cinema indeed.
They're horrible at basketball but they still want to play.
Aliens will be bad guys when:
They agree with anything espoused on Fox ‘News.’
They like broccoli.
They think toll roads are a good idea.
They harvest us for our tasty organs.
They like Jar Jar Binks. Or, God help us, they look and act like Jar Jar Binks.
They start wearing hipster fedoras like a bunch of tentacled douchebags.
Aliens will be hopeless wrecks and want to sleep on our couches and eat our groceries and never get a real job if:
They like Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
They wax rhapsodic over the ouvre of Keanu Reeves.
They believe that such a thing as Highlander 2 ever existed. Which it did not.
They think cosplay is anything but a colossal waste of time and energy.
They like pineapple on pizza.
* Only the first three movies, the last three abominations don’t exist in my space/time continuum
** Nerd shorthand. No, I’m not going to translate for you.
Friday, July 15, 2011
Wouldn't That Ruin Your Pants?
I was in Lowe's this morning, buying ant poison and a flashlight* and when I was checking out I noticed a laminated sheet posted by the register that listed the most shoplifted items in the store. They call it 'shrink' but they mean 'five-finger discount.' There were the expensive things, like drills, and easily-concealed things, like drill bits, but I'll give you one guess as to the fourth-most-shoplifted item in that particular store. Go ahead, you'll never get it. I'll stand right here while you decide ... not gonna even try? Okay, fine, be that way. I'll just tell you.
Circular saw blades.
Ouch. Talk about your dangerous items to steal. I can think of two reasons these would be a challenge to shoplift: they're big and they're sharp. Really, really, really, really sharp. They're freakin' saw blades, they're designed to cut wood or ceramic or melamine or whatever is unfortunate enough to get in their path. Plus they're eight-inch diameter rigid steel disks, they're not going to fold up and slip in your back pocket, they'd have to fit on your chest like one of those discs from Tron.
Think about it. Who's going to shoplift a circular saw blade? My mother? Well - she actually might, but my point is women aren't the ones stealing these things. Guys are. Contractors who come into Lowe's in paint-spattered jeans and sweat-soaked t-shirts. Not carrying a purse to slip the random saw blade into, and nothing extra to conceal a stolen item. Just the jeans. Can you imagine trying to walk out of a store with a circular saw blade shoved down your pants? You'd have not just the paranoia of getting caught, you'd have the paranoia of that saw blade getting loose and slicing your butt to ribbons. Your butt if you're lucky...
And yet, it happens enough that circular saw blades feature prominently on the list of 'shrink.' I guess when you're desperate enough you'll find a way to steal almost anything.
* two entirely unrelated projects
Circular saw blades.
Ouch. Talk about your dangerous items to steal. I can think of two reasons these would be a challenge to shoplift: they're big and they're sharp. Really, really, really, really sharp. They're freakin' saw blades, they're designed to cut wood or ceramic or melamine or whatever is unfortunate enough to get in their path. Plus they're eight-inch diameter rigid steel disks, they're not going to fold up and slip in your back pocket, they'd have to fit on your chest like one of those discs from Tron.
Think about it. Who's going to shoplift a circular saw blade? My mother? Well - she actually might, but my point is women aren't the ones stealing these things. Guys are. Contractors who come into Lowe's in paint-spattered jeans and sweat-soaked t-shirts. Not carrying a purse to slip the random saw blade into, and nothing extra to conceal a stolen item. Just the jeans. Can you imagine trying to walk out of a store with a circular saw blade shoved down your pants? You'd have not just the paranoia of getting caught, you'd have the paranoia of that saw blade getting loose and slicing your butt to ribbons. Your butt if you're lucky...
And yet, it happens enough that circular saw blades feature prominently on the list of 'shrink.' I guess when you're desperate enough you'll find a way to steal almost anything.
* two entirely unrelated projects
Wednesday, July 13, 2011
There's Your Problem Right There
I was just in Sears, where I haven't been in quite a while. The last time was, I believe, before December 2006. I can't exactly remember why I was in Sears then, but I know I visited right before I went to Australia, and that was December 2006. So it's been a few years. I know that the company is facing financial problems and management problems, and I think I may have found the root cause.
Their clerks are clueless.
This is not to say they were impolite, quite the contrary, the three I talked to were very pleasant, and even eagerly helpful. They just didn't know what was in the store. I went in looking for one esoteric, rare thing - a deep root feeder for trees - and one ridiculously easy thing - an air compressor. I talked to three people because the first guy didn't know home and garden, and the home and garden guy didn't know hardware, not even enough to know an air compressor isn't hardware. So I bounced around from clerk 1 to clerk 2 to clerk 3, only to find - eventually - that neither of the things I wanted was in the store right then. I'm still not sure what clerk 1 did besides direct people to the other clerks.
Time was you went into Sears and dreaded asking a question because the clerks would quiz you about things you weren't prepared to answer. 'I'm looking for a deep root feeder.' 'Oh yeah? What kind of tree? How tall? What kind of soil do you have? What's your water pressure like? Is the tree on the North or South side of the house?'
But I gotta tell you, getting the third degree from guys who knew waaaaay too much about deep root feeders was one thousand times better than Blank Stare Larry, who had never heard of a deep root feeder in his online chat room, much less seen one in person.
Is this a problem with Sears' hiring practices, with its training, or with the quality of people available to work? I'm thinking it's a combination of all three, but mostly probably the hourly rate, which has to be supremely crap-tacular. You get what you pay for after all, and if you're not paying much you'll get exactly that.
Another part of the problem might be that people these days don't know how to do anything. By the time I was fifteen I'd changed tires, framed storage sheds, used a chainsaw (probably a little too much), rigged a rope bridge, replaced an exhaust system, changed oil, hammered shingles, run a roto-tiller, chopped down trees, etc. etc. etc. I think Blank Stare Larry couldn't recognize a deep root feeder because he had no idea that such a thing was possible, let alone that people had been doing it since the 50's.
This has to change. People need to know stuff and they need to know how to do stuff. I guess it's up to me...
Their clerks are clueless.
This is not to say they were impolite, quite the contrary, the three I talked to were very pleasant, and even eagerly helpful. They just didn't know what was in the store. I went in looking for one esoteric, rare thing - a deep root feeder for trees - and one ridiculously easy thing - an air compressor. I talked to three people because the first guy didn't know home and garden, and the home and garden guy didn't know hardware, not even enough to know an air compressor isn't hardware. So I bounced around from clerk 1 to clerk 2 to clerk 3, only to find - eventually - that neither of the things I wanted was in the store right then. I'm still not sure what clerk 1 did besides direct people to the other clerks.
Time was you went into Sears and dreaded asking a question because the clerks would quiz you about things you weren't prepared to answer. 'I'm looking for a deep root feeder.' 'Oh yeah? What kind of tree? How tall? What kind of soil do you have? What's your water pressure like? Is the tree on the North or South side of the house?'
But I gotta tell you, getting the third degree from guys who knew waaaaay too much about deep root feeders was one thousand times better than Blank Stare Larry, who had never heard of a deep root feeder in his online chat room, much less seen one in person.
Is this a problem with Sears' hiring practices, with its training, or with the quality of people available to work? I'm thinking it's a combination of all three, but mostly probably the hourly rate, which has to be supremely crap-tacular. You get what you pay for after all, and if you're not paying much you'll get exactly that.
Another part of the problem might be that people these days don't know how to do anything. By the time I was fifteen I'd changed tires, framed storage sheds, used a chainsaw (probably a little too much), rigged a rope bridge, replaced an exhaust system, changed oil, hammered shingles, run a roto-tiller, chopped down trees, etc. etc. etc. I think Blank Stare Larry couldn't recognize a deep root feeder because he had no idea that such a thing was possible, let alone that people had been doing it since the 50's.
This has to change. People need to know stuff and they need to know how to do stuff. I guess it's up to me...
Monday, July 11, 2011
The Thai Menu Guy
There are a few things I miss about SoCal, right now I mostly miss the temperate climate, and of course I miss Trader Joe's - the two nearest to me are in Santa Fe and Albuquerque, not even really close enough for a road trip, that's a three-day excursion. I do miss the weirdos too, though I suppose I'm just used to my Texas weirdos so they don't seem all that weird to me. But yesterday I found myself missing the most improbable thing, something I would never have dreamed had found a spot in my heart.
I miss the Thai menu guy.
Not the guy himself, because, as my SoCal friends are well aware, you never actually see the Thai menu guy. You look away for one moment and when you turn back - BAM! - your bare door knob has become a place to hang the menu for a Thai restaurant. He's a ninja, that Thai menu guy, a shadow moving in the darkness, a whisper on the wind as he passes.
And it's not just the Thai menu guy, although he certainly does leave more than his share. There was the local pizza place menu guy, and the Mexican restaurant menu guy, and the soba noodle place menu guy, and the Cuban menu guy, and even the Jamaican menu guy. It was kind of comforting to come back to my apartment and find a batch of menus hanging on the front gate. It was like menu Christmas. Well, maybe more like Chanukah, where you get presents they're just not amazingly great presents. Menus are good but they don't solve the financial crisis.
I don't get menus on my door here in Texas. From time to time I'll get a folded card for someone who wants to mow my grass or power wash my driveway, but no menus. No friendly reminders that I don't have to cook for myself, and no half-heard swish as the menu ninja escapes into the moonless night.
I miss the Thai menu guy.
Not the guy himself, because, as my SoCal friends are well aware, you never actually see the Thai menu guy. You look away for one moment and when you turn back - BAM! - your bare door knob has become a place to hang the menu for a Thai restaurant. He's a ninja, that Thai menu guy, a shadow moving in the darkness, a whisper on the wind as he passes.
And it's not just the Thai menu guy, although he certainly does leave more than his share. There was the local pizza place menu guy, and the Mexican restaurant menu guy, and the soba noodle place menu guy, and the Cuban menu guy, and even the Jamaican menu guy. It was kind of comforting to come back to my apartment and find a batch of menus hanging on the front gate. It was like menu Christmas. Well, maybe more like Chanukah, where you get presents they're just not amazingly great presents. Menus are good but they don't solve the financial crisis.
I don't get menus on my door here in Texas. From time to time I'll get a folded card for someone who wants to mow my grass or power wash my driveway, but no menus. No friendly reminders that I don't have to cook for myself, and no half-heard swish as the menu ninja escapes into the moonless night.
Thursday, July 7, 2011
Under My Skin
Maybe I'm a little sensitive, maybe a little touchy, or maybe - just maybe - I'm a touch too polite. Living the Golden Rule and all, it just aggravates me when people don't think of others when just a moment's consideration would go so far.
Here, in no particular order, are various impolite things that have gotten under my skin lately.
In the car:
The douchebag in the Cadillac Escalade in front of me flicking his cigarette ash out the sunroof.
Same douchebag veering across three lanes of traffic to make an exit.
The battered green LeBaron making a right turn from the left lane. Just go a few blocks down, turn around and come back. Nothing you have on your agenda is more important than my life.
The flattened aluminum cans falling like raindrops from the flatbed trailer pulled by the wheezing and laboring Ford utility pickup. You can't be environmentally conscious about recycling if you're littering for miles on your way to the reclamation station.
In the grocery store:
Every woman who's ever pushed a grocery cart in a grocery store. The place is packed full of people, you're not alone. Get the hell out of the center of the aisle. Watch the men, see how they stay out of each other's way? Do that.
Morbidly obese people elbowing people out of the way to get to the diet soda. You're not fooling anyone, and you're only making your condition worse.
Serving sushi in the middle of a South Texas Summer, right at the front of the store. So many things wrong with this idea it's hard to know where to begin the list.
The person who forgets his coupons until he's already paid for his groceries with his debit card, so the clerk has to give him cash back. Seems like some sort of scam to me.
At the Post Office:
The passport office is that one over there. With the big label that says 'Passport Office.' Don't get snippy with the clerks because you waited in the wrong line.
Mr. Impatient who shows up at the Post Office at noon on a weekday and is put out when he has to wait more than two minutes. Of course if all the passport people weren't in the wrong line...
The same Mr. Impatient who gets testy when the postal clerks run through their list of added services. It's their job to ask, so don't get all pissy about it, just say 'No, thank you' like your parents taught you when you were three.
In the gym:
Mr. Smell-Good. The slightest spritz of Axe body spray makes you smell like an Armenian pimp, practically drowning in it clears the room. Just take a bath like a normal person, Junior.
The Chatty Kathies on the treadmill. It's a gym, not a coffee shop, and you're yelling to be heard over the whir of the machines. I can hear every icky detail of your lady-parts surgery story, and I'm twenty feet away.
The Creeper standing by the water fountain, trying to be slick while he watches the hot chicks on the eliptical machines. Gonna get yourself arrested there, Peeping Tom.
Here, in no particular order, are various impolite things that have gotten under my skin lately.
In the car:
The douchebag in the Cadillac Escalade in front of me flicking his cigarette ash out the sunroof.
Same douchebag veering across three lanes of traffic to make an exit.
The battered green LeBaron making a right turn from the left lane. Just go a few blocks down, turn around and come back. Nothing you have on your agenda is more important than my life.
The flattened aluminum cans falling like raindrops from the flatbed trailer pulled by the wheezing and laboring Ford utility pickup. You can't be environmentally conscious about recycling if you're littering for miles on your way to the reclamation station.
In the grocery store:
Every woman who's ever pushed a grocery cart in a grocery store. The place is packed full of people, you're not alone. Get the hell out of the center of the aisle. Watch the men, see how they stay out of each other's way? Do that.
Morbidly obese people elbowing people out of the way to get to the diet soda. You're not fooling anyone, and you're only making your condition worse.
Serving sushi in the middle of a South Texas Summer, right at the front of the store. So many things wrong with this idea it's hard to know where to begin the list.
The person who forgets his coupons until he's already paid for his groceries with his debit card, so the clerk has to give him cash back. Seems like some sort of scam to me.
At the Post Office:
The passport office is that one over there. With the big label that says 'Passport Office.' Don't get snippy with the clerks because you waited in the wrong line.
Mr. Impatient who shows up at the Post Office at noon on a weekday and is put out when he has to wait more than two minutes. Of course if all the passport people weren't in the wrong line...
The same Mr. Impatient who gets testy when the postal clerks run through their list of added services. It's their job to ask, so don't get all pissy about it, just say 'No, thank you' like your parents taught you when you were three.
In the gym:
Mr. Smell-Good. The slightest spritz of Axe body spray makes you smell like an Armenian pimp, practically drowning in it clears the room. Just take a bath like a normal person, Junior.
The Chatty Kathies on the treadmill. It's a gym, not a coffee shop, and you're yelling to be heard over the whir of the machines. I can hear every icky detail of your lady-parts surgery story, and I'm twenty feet away.
The Creeper standing by the water fountain, trying to be slick while he watches the hot chicks on the eliptical machines. Gonna get yourself arrested there, Peeping Tom.
Wednesday, July 6, 2011
The Haircut Indeterminacy
I may have complained about this before, but it's been a while - probably a long while - since I mentioned it. My cross to bear. My public shame. The thing that keeps me awake at night as I silently sob. What could get me as emotional as a spinster watching Brian's Song?
I cannot get a good hair cut.
Which is not entirely true. I have gotten good hair cuts once in a great while, which is how I know that a good hair cut and my head can exist in the same place at the same time. What I mean is I cannot usually get a good hair cut most of the time. Like right now, if you could see me you'd see a mushroom-y sort of thing, where the top is disproportionately longer than the sides so my head looks like I'm sprouting a Portobello above my eyebrows.
Other times, when I've been subject to the tender mercies of a different butcher with scissors it can look like I've sprouted wings above my ears or like I've got the beginnings of a mullet working on my neck.
I don't get it. These guys go to barber school. They're licensed. They've been in business for years, decades even. And yet when I sit in their chairs I know that no matter what I say my hair cut is going to look good for a day or two, maybe inside of a week, before it all goes to shaggy Hell.
There was one barber who never gave me a bad hair cut. JB. Had his own shop down on Austin Highway. He used to cut my father's hair when my father was in high school, no lie. When I started going to see him JB had largely retired, so I had to choose my days carefully. Now he's almost certainly retired, maybe passed on to that Great Barbershop in the Sky. And with him goes my chance of ever getting a good hair cut regularly.
This is why some guys shave their heads, I'm convinced. My problem is that if I shaved my head I'd look like a mental patient or a serial killer. Or a serial-killing mental patient. I have a lumpy head underneath my mushroom hair.
Which, now that I think of it, might be the problem.
I cannot get a good hair cut.
Which is not entirely true. I have gotten good hair cuts once in a great while, which is how I know that a good hair cut and my head can exist in the same place at the same time. What I mean is I cannot usually get a good hair cut most of the time. Like right now, if you could see me you'd see a mushroom-y sort of thing, where the top is disproportionately longer than the sides so my head looks like I'm sprouting a Portobello above my eyebrows.
Other times, when I've been subject to the tender mercies of a different butcher with scissors it can look like I've sprouted wings above my ears or like I've got the beginnings of a mullet working on my neck.
I don't get it. These guys go to barber school. They're licensed. They've been in business for years, decades even. And yet when I sit in their chairs I know that no matter what I say my hair cut is going to look good for a day or two, maybe inside of a week, before it all goes to shaggy Hell.
There was one barber who never gave me a bad hair cut. JB. Had his own shop down on Austin Highway. He used to cut my father's hair when my father was in high school, no lie. When I started going to see him JB had largely retired, so I had to choose my days carefully. Now he's almost certainly retired, maybe passed on to that Great Barbershop in the Sky. And with him goes my chance of ever getting a good hair cut regularly.
This is why some guys shave their heads, I'm convinced. My problem is that if I shaved my head I'd look like a mental patient or a serial killer. Or a serial-killing mental patient. I have a lumpy head underneath my mushroom hair.
Which, now that I think of it, might be the problem.
Monday, July 4, 2011
George Washington Walks Into A Bar...
Hey there, pal, nice waistcoat. Snappy breeches too.
Hale and well-met to you, my good sir.
You're looking glum.
Aye, naught that a ration of posset might not cure, though.
Sorry?
No posset then. Cider, perhaps?
Nothing with any kick to it. How about a hard lemonade?
A tickle to an otherwise Puritan drink. Something Old Ben Franklin might have invented when he was done whoring or tinkering with his stove. A cup of that, innkeeper.
Harvey.
George.
I figured I'd seen you before. Like on money.
I asked them not to do that. I don't like the way I look printed.
So what's on your mind, George?
The state of things. The state of the State, as it were. How far this generation has strayed from our intent.
That's not necessarily a bad thing. You were a slaveowner after all, and we don't do that any more.
Aye, that was a product of the times, as were I and Jefferson and that wee rascal Madison. I meant the impracticality and burdensome nature of your government.
Don't you mean your government?
By the least measure, sir! I know we founding fathers all had different ideas and opinions regarding the nature of the people and of the government formed by their consent, but none of us in our worst nightmares could have imagined the state of affairs now. Pointless bickering, empty political maneuvering, keeping score for a game destined to have only losers. Madness.
You guys had your share of political fights. Fistfights even.
Aye, but fistfights for a reason. For a cause. Not for show. I fear for the safety and continuation of our dear, fragile Republic.
I think we'll be okay. We lived through Grant, Hoover, and Bush 43. We're still kicking. We'll make it another 200 years.
Point taken, fair innkeeper. Yet still... has word reached you of a portly knave called Limbaugh?
Oh yeah. You know for all his bluster and ignorance and vitriol, I think his heart's in the right place. He does actually care for this country. He just has a mental patient's way of showing it.
A fair assessment well said, Harvey.
So... just between you, me and this bowl of pretzels, what would you change?
You're familiar with the High Court justices Scalia and Thomas?
Mmm-hmm...
Abuses of power and severe lapses of ethics demand restitution. And that an example be made.
Do tell.
You're familiar with the stockade, perhaps?
Hale and well-met to you, my good sir.
You're looking glum.
Aye, naught that a ration of posset might not cure, though.
Sorry?
No posset then. Cider, perhaps?
Nothing with any kick to it. How about a hard lemonade?
A tickle to an otherwise Puritan drink. Something Old Ben Franklin might have invented when he was done whoring or tinkering with his stove. A cup of that, innkeeper.
Harvey.
George.
I figured I'd seen you before. Like on money.
I asked them not to do that. I don't like the way I look printed.
So what's on your mind, George?
The state of things. The state of the State, as it were. How far this generation has strayed from our intent.
That's not necessarily a bad thing. You were a slaveowner after all, and we don't do that any more.
Aye, that was a product of the times, as were I and Jefferson and that wee rascal Madison. I meant the impracticality and burdensome nature of your government.
Don't you mean your government?
By the least measure, sir! I know we founding fathers all had different ideas and opinions regarding the nature of the people and of the government formed by their consent, but none of us in our worst nightmares could have imagined the state of affairs now. Pointless bickering, empty political maneuvering, keeping score for a game destined to have only losers. Madness.
You guys had your share of political fights. Fistfights even.
Aye, but fistfights for a reason. For a cause. Not for show. I fear for the safety and continuation of our dear, fragile Republic.
I think we'll be okay. We lived through Grant, Hoover, and Bush 43. We're still kicking. We'll make it another 200 years.
Point taken, fair innkeeper. Yet still... has word reached you of a portly knave called Limbaugh?
Oh yeah. You know for all his bluster and ignorance and vitriol, I think his heart's in the right place. He does actually care for this country. He just has a mental patient's way of showing it.
A fair assessment well said, Harvey.
So... just between you, me and this bowl of pretzels, what would you change?
You're familiar with the High Court justices Scalia and Thomas?
Mmm-hmm...
Abuses of power and severe lapses of ethics demand restitution. And that an example be made.
Do tell.
You're familiar with the stockade, perhaps?
Sunday, July 3, 2011
Building A Mystery...
There's a question I've been pondering for years now - YEARS - and I still don't have an answer. I'm a fairly smart guy, so this lack of a solution has me troubled; is it something I'm just not seeing, or is there some veil the truth is hidden behind. I don't know, and the longer this goes on the more I think there are some things man was just not meant to know. What's the question? Glad you asked.
How does Radio Shack stay in business?
Seriously, have you been in a Radio Shack recently? Or even in the last ten years, because they haven't changed at all. They stock store-brand RC cars, terrible off-brand cell phones, grossly overpriced TV and stereo cables, batteries and... that's about it. Every time I've had to buy something at a Radio Shack* there's been one guy working and nobody else in the store. I felt I was interrupting his day, or perhaps a pending drug deal, with my petty commerce. Like going into that suspect hamburger joint, you know the one, that never seems to be open except late at night or early in the morning, and then you find out from a neighbor that Armenians own the place and are using it to launder money from whatever fraud they're perpetrating.
Radio Shack bothers me and yet intrigues me at the same time. Bothers me because I strongly suspect there's something crooked going on, either at the stores or at the corporate level or both. If you can't reconcile their reported profits with the fact that the stores are mostly empty all day long, then somebody somewhere is fudging the numbers or completely making them up. Intrigues me because, on the off chance they're not totally lying then they have a magic business model, something other corporations would do well to copy.
But I'm putting my money on the lie. You just can't sell enough batteries and cables to keep a store like that afloat.
Now... what about the Sunglasses Hut? They're always devoid of customers, so the fact that they're still in business seems kind of shady. HA! Get it? Sunglasses... shady... hooo boy... that's comedy right there.
* cell phone charger, cell phone battery, and cable TV adapter. And, with the cell phone battery, I bought a gorilla-shaped flashlight. Really.
How does Radio Shack stay in business?
Seriously, have you been in a Radio Shack recently? Or even in the last ten years, because they haven't changed at all. They stock store-brand RC cars, terrible off-brand cell phones, grossly overpriced TV and stereo cables, batteries and... that's about it. Every time I've had to buy something at a Radio Shack* there's been one guy working and nobody else in the store. I felt I was interrupting his day, or perhaps a pending drug deal, with my petty commerce. Like going into that suspect hamburger joint, you know the one, that never seems to be open except late at night or early in the morning, and then you find out from a neighbor that Armenians own the place and are using it to launder money from whatever fraud they're perpetrating.
Radio Shack bothers me and yet intrigues me at the same time. Bothers me because I strongly suspect there's something crooked going on, either at the stores or at the corporate level or both. If you can't reconcile their reported profits with the fact that the stores are mostly empty all day long, then somebody somewhere is fudging the numbers or completely making them up. Intrigues me because, on the off chance they're not totally lying then they have a magic business model, something other corporations would do well to copy.
But I'm putting my money on the lie. You just can't sell enough batteries and cables to keep a store like that afloat.
Now... what about the Sunglasses Hut? They're always devoid of customers, so the fact that they're still in business seems kind of shady. HA! Get it? Sunglasses... shady... hooo boy... that's comedy right there.
* cell phone charger, cell phone battery, and cable TV adapter. And, with the cell phone battery, I bought a gorilla-shaped flashlight. Really.
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