Monthly Archives: September 2010

Anger Management

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There, I said it.

Come to think of it, I am downright vexed. See, everywhere I look, people are trying to exasperate me and that just pisses me off.

BP, the company so many Americans have come to hate. They screwed up. The government screwed up. And the public got screwed. Meanwhile, 153 days of media coverage exacerbated the anger and fanned the flames. BP blamed the government which aggravated everybody. People on the ground blamed BP which antagonized BP but pleased pretty much everyone else. The media blitzed the scientists by offering conflicting reports, then blaming the experts for not knowing the answers. They took science down another notch which irks me. Lot of anger in that paragraph.

Anybody been to court lately? When our Visigoth neighbors decided some of our land was their land, they dragged us before the local zoning board, then sued us in both Vermont’s Superior and Environmental courts. They lied which inflamed me. I resisted which affronted them. Lot of anger in that paragraph.

“The only litigation more contentious than a divorce is a boundary line dispute,” our lawyer said. He, at least, was happy.

It goads people (“goad,” not “goat,” although it probably gets some goats, too) when I say this but Islam galls us. Some Muslims enrage us. One of the reasons they do, aside from claiming “religion of peace” status whilst trying to kill us, is simple: raving Muslim terrorists stir up embittered Muslim illiterates to blast unsuspecting Americans while ruffled rank-and-file Muslims stand idly by. Lot of anger in that paragraph.

Jealousy. There’s a biggie. In another arena gekko said “jealousy became more important than the relationships I craved.” Proverbs reminds us that Anger is cruel and destructive, but it is nothing compared to jealousy. Still, when Anthony Lozano threatened, bound, and tortured his girlfriend who eventually escaped the home they shared, all allegedly because he found a post on her Facebook page from another man, he certainly acted out his exasperation, irritation, and temper.

Take politics (sounds like a Henny Youngman joke). Here in Vermont, Demorat Peter Shumlin is riling his supporters (and the opposition) to a full boil over the Repuglican Brian Dubie’s hateful stand to renew the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant license. Mr. Dubie has maddened his supporters (and the opposition) by calling Mr. Shumlin a liar and a liberal. Lot of anger in that paragraph.

I’m a political junkie. I have chaired political committees, sat in political booths at field dayses, and walked the streets registering voters. I have run for office. I am now a “Librarian” but I started out as a Republican. I stuck it out until the party started to rant and rankle. I generally like the ideas individual Tea Party peeps discuss, but the Tea Party as a whole scares me because they monger anger. Their invective leverages agitation, outrage, and seething, steaming umbrage to whip voters into the mob frenzy independent of the thought process.

All extremists favor those tactics. The media who know that if you bleed, it leads. The lawyers who charge by the infuriating hour. The religious freaks who bristle over a Bris. The control freaks who flip over Facebook. And the politicians, whether they be home grown “officials,” terrorist fanatics, miffed militia men, or radical revolutionaries.

Provocation pays.

Here’s my plan for the 43 days until November 2 (and all the days in the future):

  • If you are in the media and you pump out lies designed to get on my nerves, you will succeed and I will not buy from your sponsors.
  • If you belong to an extremist religion and continue to support the people who want to kill me, it will offend me and I will ask that you lose your tax exempt status.
  • If you are a politician seeking my vote, stop. If you name your opponent it will anger me and I will write my own name in on the ballot.

Breaking News:
I am just sooooooooo tired of these airheads: The NYTimes reports that, “Democrats are deploying the fruits of a yearlong investigation into the business and personal histories of Republican candidates in an effort to plant doubts about them.” !@#$%^ing !@#$%^ers.





The Aftermath, Part II

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Or why poly marriage is so tough.

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Monogamists and polyamorists agree that home cooking is marvelous but polyamorists also like to dine out with close friends.

“At least 95 percent of married and cohabitating Americans expect sexual exclusivity,” said Judy Treas, professor of sociology at UC-Irvine, told ABC News .

“If only we could all free ourselves from the cultural brainwashing — almost put cultural brainwishing, and now I think, yeah that too!” correspondent Becky Sue wrote.

Last week, I changed our correspondents’ names to protect their Internet anonymity. Many polyamorists do not publicize their relationship status and many monogamous folks do not want to publicize their comments online.

Also last week, Anne told us she has not accepted my relationship with Nancy although she, Anne, originally gave it her blessing. We all hoped that she, Anne, would see this as an opportunity for growth, a way deepen our marriage and our friendship and not simply a way to “go screw [somebody] and get her out of your system.”

1. But what if you’re not married? How can you have any stake in the outcome?
Anne certainly has a stake in the outcome.

“When we became friends,” correspondent Jamie wrote, “we were both at points in our lives where we were on the precipice of major decisions.” Those choices included “whether to do marriage, kids, conventional careers.

“I think we both were doing something at the time that was completely counter to any of that,” she continued. “The research project was something just for us, something that fed us. The draw for both of us was that neither one of us would be directly affected no matter what we decided to do with our lives, so it was safe to dither about them to each other. It allowed us to relax, I think. It allowed us to let that part of our brains develop in a safe place.”

But there was no stake.

“For me, later, it also gave me a place internally to go when I feel like all that creativity and spark is gone and remind myself that it’s always there. That’s a powerful thing. And the fact that there’s a person out there who kind of has a stake in that, or had a part in helping me develop that, is helpful.”

That’s a stake in the creation but no ownership in the outcome.

That isn’t enough.

A stakeholder /n/ is a person who affects or can be affected by changes in a relationship.

2. Why should poly people marry?
I can answer that question only for a civil marriage, not the religious ceremony. If God expects you to marry to sanctify your relationship, do so. It will make you, your spouse, and God, happier. The fact is that marriage in and of itself has little or nothing to do with love.

a.abcnews.com/images/US/polyamory_090618_mn.jpg

Perhaps you want personal or spiritual growth, to stabilize a relationship, to conform to your religious or political beliefs, a sexual guarantee, or you simply fall in love. Those are pretty much the same reasons people offer to explain any marriage.

Readers might expect age-related answers. People of child-bearing/child-rearing years have certain needs. People our post-child age have some different needs but I was surprised by the similarity of their lists:

Commitment: This state of being obligated or emotionally impelled or pledged to a partner raises the stakes that each spouse will celebrate the bad times as well as the good with you and whatever family you create.

Continuity: Discontinuity is the Victorian standard (grow up, break away from your family, marry, have kids, divorce, marry again, perhaps divorce again, die alone). Most people crave continuity (stay connected to family, school friends, political systems, jobs, and lovers). A marriage contract offers the appearance of continuity. And the expectation of growing old together.

Financial Security: Two cannot live a cheaply as one but they can come close. My parents grew up “making do” in the Great Depression; I moved to a state, Vermont, where making do is the warp of the fabric of life. Sharing expenses is as natural as fixing a tractor here. The economy of scale, even a scale of two, ranges in everything from a single roof over two heads to buying better cuts of meat to sharing health insurance.

HIPAA: The Privacy Rule under the U.S. Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act regulates the disclosure of medical info held by health care clearinghouses and providers, health insurers, and the like. Protected Health Information (PHI) is interpreted very broadly and generally excludes non-family members from receiving any information about a critically ill loved one. Not to mention the fact that (“unrelated”) loved ones generally never get to see or help an ill partner.

Mandated sex: In marital law in some states, constructive desertion defines spousal misconduct so extensive that it makes marital relations impossible. The essential definition is one spouse leaving the marital relationship without leaving the marital home. The willful refusal of sex is often cited. Nagging is usually not legitimate misconduct.

If withholding of sex is grounds for divorce, the opposite argument must be true: the state mandates that sex must be part of a legal marriage.

Sharing: The marriage(s) in this example need not be group marriages where three or more adult partners live together in one household with more than one or two incomes going into keeping the home (the typical American struggle is a husband and wife fighting to pay the mortgage with one or two incomes, or with zero or one in this recession). The partnership adds playmates or supervisors for the kids and someone else to hold the ladder during home maintenance projects.

“In marriage you just have to learn the rules,” Jeff Foxworthy says. “Rule number one is, If she ain’t happy, you ain’t happy!”

Get married to be happy, not to be in love.

3. Why should poly people NOT marry?
“The other question I have [is] if you desire this lifestyle, why be married?” correspondent Charlie asked some time ago.

“You shouldn’t unless you want to,” Nancy said.

Some, like me, probably do want to. That and my innate desire to share the things that bring us great joy, to shout from the rooftops, “I love this person!”

Some, like Nancy, may not want to. That doesn’t negate her innate desire to share the things that bring us great joy, to shout from the rooftops, “I love this person!”

Economics may put the kibosh on marriage today.

The economics of retirement can force our elders away from marriage and the marital advantages. Matrimony can screw up retirement benefits, inheritances or wealth preservation, and interactions with adult children. And, while I approve of pre-nups and particularly Nancy’s proposal of a specific contract of financial and end-of-contract obligations, I suspect a marriage that needs the responsibilities for who pops the popcorn spelled out in triplicate is doomed.

The economics of state and Federal taxes means some couples actually send more money to their various governments when “married filing jointly” than as “single” filers.

Government policy drives living in sin. Imagine that.

4. Commitment issues: Should poly people have ‘civil unions’ or ‘domestic partnerships’ instead?
A civil partnership, civil union, or domestic partnership is a legal relationship between two individuals who live together and share a common domestic life but are joined by neither marriage nor a civil union. In California a Domestic Partnership possesses all of the rights and privileges of a Marriage.

Neither chicken dance nor birdseed required.

The advantage to a legal partnership is that it offers the commitment, continuity, financial security and medical benefits, and sharing of a legal marriage without some of the baggage. The disadvantage to a legal partnership is that not many states have it for heterosexual couples and no state allows “group partnerships.”

There is another, personal, reason for making a marriage or other partnership. While I don’t feel a sense of ownership in marriage, I do like the sense of belonging.

[Editor’s Note: gekko and I shared a four-part polylocution plus these Afterglow posts. Please visit her companion piece, In Jealousy There Is Self-Love, and use The Poly Posts index for the entire series and for other resources.]


Sculpture by Ania Modzelewski




Vermont Most Expensive

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Vermont is the most expensive state in the Union in which to do business.

A dollar’s worth of manufactured goods costs 95.9 cents to produce here, waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay above — like 15% more than — the national average of 83.3 cents. In contrast, the cost is 93.5 cents next door in New Hampshire, 93 cents in Rhode Island, and 79.3 cents in 43rd-ranked Connecticut. Oregon, where it costs just 70.6 cents to produce a dollar’s worth of manufactured goods, is the least expensive state for manufacturing.

A new University of Connecticut study, High Wages, Low Costs: A Connecticut Paradox, calculated the costs of labor and materials used in production, taxes and license fees, and annual capital costs such as depreciation, rental payments and interest, for every state.

“The November election will bring a new round of claims about Connecticut’s high wages, exorbitant rents, burdensome taxes, overall lack of competitiveness and resulting job losses,” the study claimed.

Greg Hayes, United Technologies CFO, told investors “any place outside of Connecticut is low cost.”

Although Connecticut voters incorrectly accept the mantra of their “unfriendly” business environment as fact, Vermont workers, struggling with years of rising taxes and rising costs, are not so lucky.

The two selling points for building boats in Vermont were the “Made in Vermont” branding and the access to one-third of the U.S. boating market within 600 miles.

One of my clients, a small foundry with operations in the U.S. and Canada, has shut down most operations in Vermont. “It’s just too expensive,” the owner says.

The study showed that Mr. Hayes was partly wrong but that my own analysis and my clients are right.

The extra $151,000 in cost for a small business like mine to manufacture a million dollars worth of goods here generally comes right out of the owner’s pocket. And that, in a dragging economy, hurts Vermont workers.

Small businesses create more jobs even than the Feds but even the New York Times has noticed that ObamaNation tax policies will at best not help small business and will actually make it more difficult for them to grow. And that just piles on top of what happens here in Vermont. Bye bye jobs, doncha know.

A business can cut jobs, cut the cost of labo(u)r, and cheapen up on materials. When building costs, rental payments, and interest get out of hand they can move. What do they do when they have done all that?

http://erin-m-flynn.com/2010/01/sailing-away-nautical-trend-4http://www.posters.ws/18681/popeyeTaxes and license fees, and tax policies such as depreciation write offs are political. Too bad that we have J. Wellington Wimpy at the helm of a government that believes in raising taxes, raising the debt limit, and (by the way) raising spending, all when we don’t have the money for even one cheeseburger.

I wonder. What would Popeye do?