Author Archives: Dick

A (Baker’s) Dozen Reasons to be Left

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As Paul Dirac almost said, In science one tries to tell people, in such a way as to be understood by everyone, something that no one ever knew before. But in political science, it’s the exact opposite.

“So-called ‘Liberals’ want to shove their one true enlightenment down your throat and mine,” Rufus told me.

I can’t speak for the Left so I asked my friend Fanny Guay to feed me the dozen or so most important concepts in her ideological world. I’ve known Ms. Guay for nearly 50 years. I can say that not because I’m far enough away to drop the age word safely but because she is proud of her experiential learning. She was a second generation member of Helen and Scott Nearing’s back-to-the-land movement in Vermont. The Nearings bought an old farm house and built a simple, self-sufficient lifestyle here, far from big government and rampant consumerism. Their descendants are now the power brokers and consumers of Montpelier.

“I will, as long as I can be earnest in my comments,” she said.

Sure. And I’ll be frank in my response. So here we go. Ms. Guay will supply the definitions. I’ll translate back into English as we go.

Today’s liberalism developed in large part from the progressive thinking, she wrote. We hold that the state must supply needy individuals with their most basic needs if they are unable to fend for themselves. We created the policies of government intervention in the economy, the creation of social welfare, the safeguarding of science, and protection of human rights. We teach that in the schools, implement it in the courts and in war, and guide and finance it through taxation. Some of our ideas were first incorporated in the New Deal.

Translation: American Liberals rejected the Divine Right of Kings in favor of the Divine Right of the State.

1. Mores, the law, and even the constitution are “alive.”

Translation: There are no absolute facts, only what our common agreement proclaims as truth. In other words, the end justifies the means.

2. People are inherently good but when they go astray, we can change them back by reasoning with them.

Translation: Laura Silsby, Mahmoud Imadinnerjacket, and even Glenn Beck, listen to reason and will change whenever the reasoning is liberal.

3. People are inherently good but when they go astray and reason doesn’t work, we can change them back with legislation.

Translation: If you fall from the path of true belief, we will tax you until you return. If that doesn’t work, we will regulate you back. If that doesn’t work, we will jail you.

4. The best way to help the poor is to tax those who can afford it. It counters all understanding that anyone could think otherwise.

Translation: We need to give away our financial future and our means of productivity. We will take fish from the fishermen to give to those who do not fish instead of teaching those who do not fish how to fish for themselves.

5. We need to pay more taxes to afford to lift our neighbors up by their bootstraps.

Translation. YOU don’t pay enough taxes to fund all the things I want to spend money on.

6. We value holistic education and assure that every child in school is treated well and passes every grade with his or her peers.

Translation: Today’s “educators” promote empathy over science because feelings are more important than the data that shows American schoolchildren are falling behind in every international measure.

7. Because we give everyone’s opinion equal weight, we are the most culturally advanced.

Translation: Our fellow travelers are always right because we can change our ways to accommodate their point of view; anyone who disagrees with us is at best misguided and at worst a threat to our way of life.

8. I do not believe we have enemies. We have people who do not trust us. We just need to learn everyone’s point of view to find why they do not trust us.

Translation: We could be wrong and, since they hate us they must have a reason. Perhaps we should change our ways to accommodate their point of view.

9. We must stop trying to bully the world to force everyone else to adopt our way of life.

Translation: The fact that we developed public education, built the world economy, support the world with our farms, perfected “labor saving” tools, and put a man on the moon is a bad thing and we must apologize for all of it. The Apologetic President, Mr Obama apologized to the Special Olympics, apologized to the Muslims, apologized to the Cambridge police officer, apologized to the UN, apologized to Europe, apologized to “Sin City,” all to make up for those transgressions. He apologizes in a major speech about once a month.

10. I do not trust our doctors and scientists to get important health issues like vaccinations right.

Translation: I completely trust all the doctors and scientists who match our common perception but not the ones who contradict my deeply rooted beliefs.

11. We are the world stewards. For example, we know that we have to fix Global Climate Change in our lifetime or our planet will be ruined.

Translation: Once upon a time, we called it Global Warming. Since the political scientists (the very same scientists who determined that Carbon Dioxide threatens human health and welfare and are always right) changed the name, no right-thinking Far Greenie calls it “Global Warming” anymore.

12. Our government moves fast, eliminates waste, and wipes out fraud.

Right. Translation: With our guys in charge, government will never again be so slow, wasteful, and criminal as it was with the other guys in charge. [Editorial note: There has never been a candidate who didn’t promise to root out sloth, waste, and chicanery nor a politician who didn’t see them rise on his watch.]

13. All knowledge should be free.

Translation: We must give away our country’s hard-earned intellectual property.

Ronald Reagan said, “The trouble with our liberal friends is not that they’re ignorant; it’s just that they know so much that isn’t so.” That and the fact that they haven’t yet been mugged by the reality that, sooner or later, Other People’s Money runs out.

Good Business Plan

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This is very disappointing. I tried to create a site account for YourOnlineEverythingCheapStore; it bounced me because their software did not recognize our municipality-issued, official 911 street address. There are darned few roads in North Puffin and each one has far fewer than six names. Couriers, common carriers, and fire trucks all have no trouble finding us.

OK, the fire department still needs directions that include “the locust tree we cut in 1976” but everyone else uses the official 911 street address.

I called the EverythingCheap customer service line.

“It’s a computer problem,” Rachel told me. “We use a service to check for delivery addresses.”

I told her I tried my 911 address and every permutation I could think of. “Can you override the system,” I asked.

“No,” she said. “If we can’t guarantee delivery, we can’t enter it into the system.”

Even if I accept responsibility?

“No.”

I asked if that meant YourOnlineEverythingCheapStore didn’t want my business.

“I guess not,” she said.

Maybe they got enough stimulus money that they don’t need a customer like me. Or maybe they just don’t want customers.

Too bad, isn’t it?

Fix ‘R Right Up

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Missy and Biff spent a couple of days with us last week. They drove up from North Carolina in Missy’s prized 1993 Cadillac Allante, one of the last to roll off the world’s longest assembly line.

The Allante was Cadillac’s first try at building ultra-luxury roadsters in decades. Pininfarina designed and built the bodywork in Italy. GM loaded the completed bodies, 56 at a time, into 747s for the 3,300 mile trip to Hamtramck, Michigan, for final assembly. In the end they built only about 3,000 of the cars each year. Missy’s has the potent Northstar V8, “road sensing” suspension, and vastly better brakes. Unlike the earlier models, it handles reasonably well in addition to being easy on the eyes.

We all went honky tonking in upstate New York on what should have been their last night here. Missy and Biff had driven up so we could all attend a friend’s sixtieth birthday party across the Lake, a fund raiser for a good cause, in a Grange Hall out back of beyond. Our friend has built a life around music so there were great bands and lots of impromptu music making.

We caravanned over. Upstate New York has some towns that even Google Earth has never found. We had to drive on back roads, the Northway, more back roads, over a snowmobile bridge, and through a couple of fields to get to the Grange Hall. Plowboy Willie Lindner was there, doing the mashed potato on the dance floor, and everyone had brought a dish to share. Many of the folks who came to sing and dance are vegetarians. Many of the entrees were beans, the musical fruit.

We drove back to North Puffin after the party; Missy and Biff grabbed a motel room and expected to drive South the next day. They awoke to find a pool of green anti-freeze melting the snow around the Allante.

Triple A towed them to the Bubba Brothers’ Garage.

The Bubbarage had been an upstate institution for three generations. Started by George and Sam Bubba when they mustered out in 1946, the two-bay garage built a strong following among returning vets and hot rodders. They added two bays when George’s sons joined them. The “boys,” George Junior and Billy Paul, brought the four bay into the computer age and sent Junior’s kids to ASE classes. The youngest Bubbas, George III (known as “G”) and Bobby Sam are both ASE certified Master Techs; they learned hot rodding from Grampa George and tractor repair from the farmers down the street. Best shop upstate.

New York Assemblyman Vinnie Alonso (D-Lehman Brothers) finessed the Motor Automotive Fixed Inspection Access Retirement Fund Act of 2009 through the state legislature. The Act required that all state inspection licensees and the associated repair facilities accept state-redistributed TARP money to assure each operation had sufficient capital to maintain vehicle safety and to bring the stations up to state standards. The new law also mandated that the state take a majority position in each station or that each station be held by an approved owner as designated by the legislation. The current Bubba Brothers wanted no part of that so their family garage changed hands (to Mr. Alonso) last fall.

Here is Missy’s note about what came next.

“The tow truck guy didn’t know the garage had changed hands, so he was praising these guys to the roof. I should have known something was really wrong when a one-eyed mechanic showed us to this broken down camper-trailer he used for a waiting room.

“About three hours after we got there, Mr. Alonso came out wiping his hands on a greasy shop rag. I found out later that he used the rag the same way that woman uses flour in the Rice Krispy Treats commercial. He never actually looked at a car. Anyway, he said it surely looked like we had a cracked block and we’d have to replace the engine.

“‘I can give you a good deal on a nice Chevy engine,’ he told us. ‘Probably have it in the car and running by Thursday.’

“Biff had popped the hood at the motel. He wiggled the water pump shaft and saw that the pump housing was cracked. He told Mr. Alonso to check that first. Mr. Alonso wrung out his shop rag and disappeared for three more hours. We were looking at another night in the motel and were about to call you to come get us.”

‘I think you may be right about the water pump.’ Mr. Alonso said when he came back. ‘I’m not sure exactly what kind of car it is, ma’am, so I just don’t know how long it will take to get the parts.’

“We told him it was a Cadillac.”

‘That’s American, right? Good. I have a friend with a junkyard up the road a piece. Maybe he’ll have the parts.’

I called the Bubba household for some insight into the story. Fortunately, they still did a little shade tree work so they were able to have the AAA truck bring them the Allante. The Cadillac dealer had a pump in stock; they got Missy and Biff on the road a couple of hours later. Their total bill was less than $400 including welding the motor mount Mr. Alonso’s wife’s nephew had broken disassembling the water pump.

“That weasel Vinnie Alonso’s a politician, ya know. Doesn’t even know how to fill his own gas tank. There must be a moral in this story somewhere, doncha think?” G. Bubba asked me.

A Novel Idea!

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Hilary Clinton had apparently never heard of it before but better late to the party than to miss it all together. “We actually think it’s a novel idea to do the needs assessment first and then the planning and then the pledging,” she said during an international conference on aid to Haiti in Montreal today.

From her mouth to the U. S. Congress collective ear.

I think I’ve heard of needs assessment before.

Haiti wants $3 billion forever to rebuild their country. Congress wants $2 trillion each and every year to rebuild health care here.

Despite the “needs assessment” rhetoric, and concerned about corruption and wobbly leadership in Haiti, Ms. Clinton agreed to a 10-year plan that would “create a better capital city and will cost $3 billion” anyway. Ms. Clinton spoke out of both sides of her mouth and threw us under de bus.

We is doomed.

Who Put These Guys In Charge?

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Last March, Time Magazine noticed that, “Over the past few weeks, the U.S. newspaper industry has entered a new period of decline.” Past few weeks? Anyway, Time reported on 10 major metro dailies that are gone or going. Meanwhile, even the New York Times has dumped hundreds of jobs as employment at newspapers keeps reaching new lows.

Obviously, nobody reads newspapers anymore.

Except I do. As do 44 million other Americans every day.

I wrote op-ed columns for the Burlington Free Press back when Dan Costello was Editorial Page Editor. We also subscribed to that paper for years and I read it regularly. We stopped subscribing, though, not because they stopped publishing but rather because they stopped delivering. They kept billing us, though.

That seemed like a poor business model to support.

The Freep certainly wants my business back. Or someone’s. They used the U.S. Postal Service last fall to mail a beautiful 4-color tri-fold on legal size card stock to “R Harper or anyone else more-or-less breathing at” my North Puffin address. The flier offered 52 weeks of Sunday newspapers delivered for just $22. That’s less than they pay the carrier. [Editorial note: that may not be true. It is true that they tack more than $22 on to subscriber bills for motor route delivery.]

But wait! There’s more! Sign up now and get the Thursday and Friday papers as well!

All for just $22.

The promotion worked.

I was in South Puffin when the flier arrived, so I waited until just before Christmas to take them up on it. I mailed them a check a month ago. I didn’t include an email address on the registration form, but they emailed me at my most private address a couple of weeks ago anyway.

Thank you for subscribing to The Burlington Free Press.

You will receive your newspaper 3 days a week. We’re sure you’ll enjoy everything we have to offer.

And they cashed the check.

The Christmas offer I took advantage of expired 12/27/09. I just received a new one in the mail with the same pitch. The new offer mailed this, the first month of 2010, expired 12/27/09, too.

A month has passed. I looked for the paper religiously every Sunday. OK, I skipped 1/3/10 since we weren’t here but I looked on the 10th, the 17th, and again yesterday. Between the first of the year and today, I figure that makes about 11 newspapers. That makes quite a pile of fish wrap. Or fire starting material. I tried the link to my account they sent in the confirmation email. There was no login button anywhere on that page, on the “contact us” page, or even on the front page of burlingtonfreepress.com. I called their 800 number.

“I show that service started on the 21st,” the Customer Service rep said.

Of this month?

“I’ll send a note to the carrier, Mr. Harper,” she promised. “Let me check the details of your order.” She confirmed my street address, phone number, and zip code and asked me to sign up for automatic billing. I declined. When she read off my very private email address, I asked her to remove it from the system.

“I can do that,” she said.

I reminded her that we hadn’t had a roadside newspaper delivery “tube” since the firebombing incident.

“Do you want me to request a tube?” she asked.

No, I think it would be more productive to schedule an air drop down my chimney.

We both hung up. I puttered a bit. And the computer announced, “Sweetheart, you’ve got mail.” The computer has a little bit of a lisp and sounds remarkably like Humphrey Bogart.

Thank you for notifying us that you did not receive delivery of your newspaper on Thu, Jan 21, 2010, Fri, Jan 22, 2010, and Sun, Jan 24, 2010. We have notified your carrier to ensure proper delivery in the future. Your account has been credited for the missed delivery.

The email came to my very private email address, the one that Customer Service assured us is no longer in the system.

A month has passed since I placed the order. I used to wonder why people think newspapers are failing. I haven’t received a paper. I don’t wonder anymore.