What a Disaster!

Monday, January 3, 2011 by Dick.

Policemen police. Runners run. Writers write. And we all look over our own shoulders now and then.

This week I write about what I missed. And what I didn’t.

I cherish a few beliefs about myownself. This blog isn’t about me. These columns are what Faux News calls fair and balanced. And I AM™ never w-r-r-rong.

OK. Two out of three ain’t bad.

Last month, in writing about millionaires, I admitted that I’d rather be a millionaire than not. I’m not going to increase my personal wealth much by putting a Paypal button on this site. The week before that, I confessed that I now understand why liberals don’t geddit. And just two weeks before, I told the story of my mom at the corner of High and Gay.

This is my 333 entry since I started blogging in 2008. 220 of them have been in the op-ed category I call Random Access. Many of those (151) fell in the Politics and News category. I imagine you can figure out what topics I covered.

“Politics is like the weather,” I wrote in 2008. “Everybody talks about it. People think they can predict the weather. Or change it.”

The pieces that had more impact were more personal. 2010 was a busy year. Liz Arden sent me a family picture of herself with her parents and I riffed that into a story about my mom as an elderly woman who could have been slain by a taxi. We learned that “full” in a small town parking lot is different than “full” in Miami or New York. gekko and I wrote an ongoing series together.

My family didn’t have a lot of stuff when I was growing up. We had a boat but not a lot of cash. My dad’s job was the typical junior exec and we shared the homestead with my grandfather; we all had to work for what we did have. I came out of that feeling depraved but not deprived.

Rufus missed [bleep]ing Asbestos Dust back in May. He was amazed. The rest of us about died. A week earlier, I had written that “Kids aren’t allowed to eat dirt.” Number One daughter had been banned from classes because she wore a t-shirt to school.

I did spend some time wondering why my friend Swampy Swamtek, with all his brainpower, with all his education, with all his belief in conservation, can’t remember to turn out the lights when he leaves a room. I remembered that, since the heady days of Apollo 13 forty years ago, no man has had to walk twenty-five miles to school every morning, uphill, barefoot. Both ways. According to this president’s plan no American man ever will again.

And I took some time off from worrying about the claim that women’s hot flashes are responsible for Global Warming to reminisce about my sports car races in the 70s.

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I somehow missed the fact that the Mets did not make the World Series. I didn’t once write about the United/Continental airline’s merger that brought together 700 planes, dropped employment from 88,000 to 77,000, and shared 7 bags of 2003 peanuts among us. Airlines put fares up $20 across the board. I never once mentioned Christine O’Donnell’s Rhodes Scholarship in comedy which is at least as credible as her candidacy turned out to be.

I’ll keep hammering the small town politicians who want you to believe that paying twice as much for half as many police officers in your town is a way to save you (tax) money. And when Congress acts on H.R.6907, a measure to ban further activity at Eyjafjallajökull, you’ll hear about it here first. Most important, in the spirit of WikiLeaks, pretty much everything personal rattling around between my ears will sooner or later fall out on these pages.

Politics is like the climate. Everybody talks about it. People think they can predict the climate. Or change it.

Posted in Writing, Politics & News, PC, Media, Random Access | 2 Comments »

People’s Republic of Vermont

Wednesday, November 3, 2010 by Dick.

While North Puffin joined much of the country in leaning more to the right, Vermont Democrats won the guv’s office and will continue to strongarm the Legislature. Dems will control the Senate, 21-8, and have a 94-47 majority over Repugs in the House. The People’s Republic of Vermont, long envisioned by Howard Dean and Cheryl Rivers, has finally come to be.

Turnout was high across Vermont yesterday; towns around North Puffin posted record numbers of voters at the polls. It didn’t help.

You know about all the states banning ObamaCare? In Vermont, Peter Shumlin and Company’s first move will be to pass the entire 12,000 page federal act as a state law. They will make some changes, though. None of the namby-pamby “you have to buy private insurance” rules. ShumpleCare will ban private insurers.

Don’t be surprised if your taxes go up a skoch.

Posted in ShumpleCare, Taxed Again, Throw Da Bums Out, Politics & News, PC | 1 Comment »

No Cupcakes in Your School

Monday, October 25, 2010 by Dick.

Google™ has about 2,090,000 results for a search on cupcakes and school.

A Michigan elementary school has banned the classroom tradition of celebrating a child’s birthday with cupcakes.

The interestingly spelled Syndee Malek, principal at the South Redford elementary school, insists that birthdays be honored with “healthy foods.”

Schools, the first bastion of fat-kids-with-high-self-esteem over performance, have had gravy on the French fries instead of vegetables and soda machines in the halls for more than a generation. Now, in 2010, the same schools promote student nutrition and fitness. Lunch at Ms. Malek’s school is very different from most schools. Nothing is fried, hot dogs are made with turkey, and she thinks the kids love the fresh fruit and vegetable bar.

Cupcakes have a nutritiously terrible ingredient list: all purpose flour, sugar, baking powder and baking soda, a teaspoon of salt, some shortening, water, eggs, and milk. Chocolate cupcakes add a little vanilla and some melted, unsweetened, baking chocolate. For comparison, Hard Do Bread, a popular artisan bread sold in West Indian stores, has all purpose flour, white sugar, water, salt, vegetable oil and margarine, and yeast. Pasta has all purpose flour, baking powder, a teaspoon of salt, some butter or shortening, and eggs.

Cupcakes also have a long and momentous history. In 18th Century France, for example, Marie Antoinette was permanently enjoined from bringing them to school for having the audacity to tell the school administrators, “Let them eat cupcakes.”

Another Internet search turned up list after list of the significant benefits of cupcakes. Cupcakes apparently cure AIDS, arthritis, and autism. They alleviate eczema and emphysema. Certain special recipes ameliorate hair loss and headaches. They mend Parkinson’s disease by flushing toxic metals from the body. All cupcakes palliate stuttering. They sweat out viral and yeast infections. And, perhaps most important, they rectify low SAT scores.

My handy Roget’s Thesaurus shows us that cupcake also stands in for any number of terms of endearment for the fairer sex: angel, babe, bathing beauty, beauty queen, broad, bunny, centerfold, chick, cover girl, cutie, cutie-pie, doll, dollface, dream girl, dreamboat, fox, glamor girl, good-looking woman, honey, hot dish, hot number, peach, pin-up, raving beauty, sex bunny, sex kitten, sex pot, and even tomato.

Perhaps they have been banned out of political correctness after all.

Whatever the benefit, whatever the reason, you still can’t bake cupcakes to send to school with your kids for their birthdays anymore.

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For the record, I could have expanded this to 1,000 words or trimmed it to 100. Moderation in all things is important, so it is just 400.

Posted in Sociology, PC, Random Access | 6 Comments »

ObamaCare, 2012

Thursday, October 21, 2010 by Dick.

The Natural Miracle Cures Infomercial shows how using natural herbs and more can cure ObamaCare for just $39.95.

Posted in ObamaCare, PC | 1 Comment »

We Fed Them KOOK a COLA but They Drank the KoolAid

Monday, October 11, 2010 by Dick.

“It’s the economy, stupid!”

We’re back! There is no inflation. The Cost of Living has not risen yet again and seniors get stiffed for the second year in a row. I wrote this column in April but there have been developments:

The Associated Press reports that “the government is expected to announce this week that more than 58 million Social Security recipients will go through another year without an increase in monthly benefits.

“It would mark only the second year without an increase since automatic adjustments for inflation were adopted in 1975. The first year was this year.

“Based on inflation so far this year, the trustees who oversee Social Security project there will be no cost of living adjustment for 2011.”

Cost of living is by definition the cost of maintaining a certain living standard.

Employment contracts, pension benefits, and government payments such as your Social Security check can be tied to a cost-of-living index, typically to the CPI or “Consumer Price Index.” Federal law requires the Social Security Administration to base its Cost of Living Adjustment on the consumer price index changes in the third quarter of each year (July, August and September) with the same quarter in the previous year. Remember that.

The CPI reports the average price of a lot of stuff — what is called a constant “market basket of goods and services” — purchased by average households. According to Bloomberg Business News, the CPI wonks add up and average the prices of 95,000 items from 22,000 stores and 35,000 rental units. Those prices are weighted by assuming that you distribute your spending along strict percentages. Housing: 41.4%, Food and Beverage: 17.4%, Transport: 17.0%, Medical Care: 6.9%, Other: 6.9%, Apparel: 6.0%, and Entertainment: 4.4%. Taxes are exempt from the CPI totals so when your property tax or sales tax or income tax or ObamaCare health tax or gasoline tax or telecommunications tax or blue cheese tax rises, it doesn’t actually cost you any extra.

In calculating the CPI, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics uses a formula that reflects the fact that consumers shift their purchases toward products that have fallen in relative price. Although this substitution game means the BLS reduces what we pay by “living with” store brands instead of name brands, BLS says my analysis is incorrect. Their objective “is to calculate the change in the amount consumers need to spend to maintain a constant level of satisfaction.” As long as the BLS gets to define “satisfaction.”

Where, oh where is Mick when we need him?

The Social Security Administration writes, “Since 1975, Social Security’s general benefit increases have been based on increases in the cost of living, as measured by the Consumer Price Index. We call such increases Cost-Of-Living Adjustments, or COLAs. Because there has been a decline in the Consumer Price Index, there will be no COLA payable in 2010.” Or 2011.

Did your cost of living go down?

• Campbell’s Cream of Tomato soup costs between 80 cents and $1.29 per can in most markets today. Do you remember when it was 40 cents? I do. But the Cost of Living has declined.
• A five-pound bag of flour costs about $2.49 in most markets today. Do you remember when it was a buck? I do. But the Cost of Living has declined.
• Gasoline prices dropped in the third quarter but its cost is flying upwards again; it will be over $3 before I get back to Florida this year. Do you remember when it was $0.999? I do. But the Cost of Living has declined.
• According to USAToday, health insurance premiums cost about $13,375 per annum in 2009. (And despite the new law, insurers say they do not have to cover kids with pre-existing conditions.) Do you remember when a family policy cost $2,500? I do. But your premiums will still go up. And, of course, the Cost of Living has declined.
• Milk costs between $3.50 and $4 per gallon in most markets. Do you remember when it was $1.75? Or $1? I do. But the Cost of Living has declined.
• Property taxes on the Vermont house are $3,869.96 and $3,892.26 on the Florida house this year. Do you remember when they were each $900? I do. But the Cost of Living has declined.

The AP report continued, The stagnant Cost of Living Adjustment is “not seen as good news for Democrats as they defend their congressional majorities in next month’s elections.

“Last fall a dozen Democrats joined Senate Republicans to block an effort to provide a bonus payment to Social Security recipients to make up for the lack of a COLA this year.”

I wish stuff didn’t cost so much but even more I wish our “leaders” didn’t lie to us about stuff costing so much. Oddly, I still cannot vote myself a raise.

Bob reminded us last time this appeared that “taxes don’t go into the CPI” so I updated the list to include property taxes. I didn’t include the little increases in government programs “recovery” on the phone bill or the increasing number of cities and towns implementing local sales tax “options.”

44 million Americans subsist below the poverty line because the cost of things we buy has skyrocketed past our incomes. Guess how many of those Americans depend on Social Security?

It is likely that Medicare Part B premiums will remain frozen at last year’s levels but premiums for Medicare Part D, the prescription drug program, will rise.

Federal law requires that the Cost of Living Adjustment be based on the CPI changes in the third quarter of last year to the third quarter of this year. Well, Ollie, some of the items in the CPI haven’t changed much, so seniors are now behind the same eight ball as they were last year.

Except their taxes, insurance premiums, drugs, heating oil, and cable TV subscriptions are all going to cost more.

Good thing there is a sale on cat food down to Price Chopper, isn’t it? Mmmm. Cat food.

Posted in Throw Da Bums Out, Business, Politics & News, PC, Random Access | 3 Comments »

Scrap the Dinosaurs

Monday, August 30, 2010 by Dick.

The aesthetics police are alive and well in Vermont.

Vermontasaurus is (not really) held together with bubble gum and duct tape but nothing really is level or plumb. On the other hand, the Downing’s cross is straight, true, and well lighted. Really well lighted.

Vermontasaurus is a 25-foot-tall, 122-foot-long Americana folk art “dinosaur” that Brian Boland and a host of volunteers found in a scrap wood pile at the Post Mills airport in the town of Thetford, Vermont. The airport caters primarily to hot air balloons and gliders. The Town required a $272 permit for it. The state Natural Resources Board notified Mr. Boland he would need an Act 250 permit.

Richard and Joan Downing built a 24-foot cross outside their private chapel in Lyndon, Vermont. They light it during holy seasons. Lyndon’s development review board limited the number of days it can be lit. Officials now want the cross removed under Act 250 rules.

Blasphemy. Both cases.

Vermont’s Land Use and Development Act, Act 250 of 1970, created nine District Environmental Commissions to review large-scale development projects. The 10 criteria have changed little in 40 years; the reach of the environmental commissions has extended into everything from crosses to parades.

“It’s art, not edifice,” Brian Boland said. I agree.

Mr. Boland, a hot-air balloon designer and pilot, runs the 52-acre Post Mills airfield. He had a pile of broken wooden planks and other debris on the edge of his property. Volunteers spent nine days with splintered two-by-fours, half a bunk bed ladder, the rotted belly of a guitar, and one rule: no saws, no rulers and no materials other than what was in the scrap pile.

The result of random carpentry is a Shelburne Museum -sized slice of roadside American folk art that made the Smithsonian Magazine.

Lyndon’s Municipal Manager Dan Hill said that Act 250 decision came because the cross’ “aesthetics it did not meet the character of the neighborhood.”

Right. The Downings own about 800 acres of rolling Vermont land. They opened the chapel five years ago, in 2005, for their family of seven children and the 35 foster children. The chapel is open to the public. They added the cross two years later. Three other Dozule crosses have been built in Vermont.

The neighbors who apparently do not drive around looking at holiday lights in the neighborhood at Christmas, say the cross looks like a neon sign for a business.

“We just think that they’re infringing on our rights to practice our religion, and I think that they’ve gone a little too far in this case,” Mr. Downing told News Channel 5.

The state has not yet decided if a permit is required or, as Mr. Boland says he might have to dismantle Vermontasaurus entirely.

Lyndon expects a court ruling on the cross in November.

A man’s home apparently is no longer his castle in (liberal) Vermont where the neighbor and the state knows better than the landowner.

Here in Vermont, people believe the ultra-restrictive state land-use law can override the Constitution and that this is a good thing.

The Boland and Downing position is very simple. They have every right to do pretty much anything but spread bedbugs or shoot at their neighbors on their own land.

Posted in Sociology, Politics & News, PC, Big Thoughts, Random Access | 2 Comments »