Poor Mother Earth November 27, 2002February 22, 2017 ‘Why should we ask our military to die for cheap oil when the rest of us aren’t even being asked to get better mileage?’ – Molly Ivins, who writes this week, as well: ‘I think it is inarguable that this is the most anti-environmental administration since before Teddy Roosevelt.’ ‘The Bush administration, with remarkable single-mindedness, has set about undoing more than thirty years of work to protect the nation’s air, water, and shrinking wilderness.’ – Elizabeth Kolbert writing in last week’s New Yorker. ‘With President Bush and Vice-President Cheney – two oilmen – in the White House, and with lawmakers of a similar anti-regulatory outlook about to control both the House and the Senate, there has probably never been a greater government consensus on, or perhaps one should say against, the environment.’ ‘The oil industry tycoons who run the Bush presidency must be rubbing their hands with glee. The road to higher profits – and to accelerated environmental degradation – lies open.’ – Henry Garfield in (Maine’s) Village Soup last week. He goes on to say: Al Gore, a Democrat with solid environmental credentials, received more votes, despite the presence of Nader, the ‘environmental’ candidate. Put the Green and Democrat vote together, and you have a solid majority against Bush’s anti-environmental agenda. The irony of all this is that Nader’s candidacy has made the impending assault possible. Gore would certainly veto drilling in the ANWR and other odious anti-environment, pro-big business legislation. Nader’s assertion that there is no fundamental difference between the two major parties is about to be proven wrong with a vengeance. The consequences, in terms of polluted watersheds, despoiled wilderness and increased emission of greenhouse gases, will be felt for generations. Gore’s chief failing, in the eyes of voters who deserted the Democrats for the Greens in the 2000 election, seems to be that he is wooden on television and in debates. Granted, Bush’s malapropisms and linguistic manglings are more entertaining, but behind the regular-guy facade lies a cadre of wealthy businessmen eager to impose their agenda on a country that opposes it. This is just what Nader ran against, yet this is what his candidacy has wrought. The unvarnished truth is that Nader got Bush elected. If Nader had not been on the ballot, Gore would have won New Hampshire, and Florida would have been moot. You can yell all you want to about Jeb Bush and Katherine Harris and hanging chads and the Supreme Court, but none of it would have happened had not Nader split the majority, left-of-center vote. In a parliamentary democracy, minor parties make some sense, because ideologically close parties can form governing coalitions. In the American, winner-take-all system, splinter parties like the Greens are ineffective at best and counter-productive at worst. When drilling begins in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, President Bush ought to send a personal thank-you note to every Green voter in America. After all, they made it possible.’ The sad thing is that we were not able to hang on to the Senate in 2002, to blunt more of the damage. As in 2000, it was so close! Had one small plane not crashed (or had Garrison Keillor written his piece on Norm Coleman before the election instead of after), and had 41,000 or so votes been cast differently in Missouri and New Hampshire, three Senate seats that went R would have gone D. Big swing. They didn’t, so that’s that. But let us not forget that, despite the huge Republican financial advantage and their being able to schedule the war debate to fall between Labor Day and Election Day to crowd out issues like, well, oil and the environment, it was still very, very, very close. And on the environment, polls show, most voters do not favor the administration policies. But they won, so they’ll do what they want. Poor Mother Earth. Well, into our SUV’s (which could easily get better fuel mileage but don’t) and off to grandmother’s house we go. Onward and upward. Happy Thanksgiving!
Cleaning Like a Guy November 26, 2002February 22, 2017 Gary Krager: ‘I’m in the process of designing a new home for myself and have done a couple of ‘GUY’ things I thought you’d like. One is to have not one, but two dishwashers. One will always have clean dishes in it and the other will always be in the process of ‘being loaded’ to use. The other is to have two clothes dryers. I don’t want to sound like Andy Rooney here, but, did you ever notice how it takes twice as long to dry a load of laundry as it does to wash one? Well, with a second dryer that problem is solved.’ ☞ You will also want to add a second washer, for ‘colored’ fabrics. (If money or space or the environment are considerations, go back to plan A – eat and drink direct from the container; rinse your dish and silverware after use; allow to dry.) Bob Fyfe: ‘I was in Dallas recently and visited a friend who had two dishwashers, one on each side of the sink. He said that it is the latest thing in high-end homes in the Dallas area. There is also a two-drawer dishwasher that can be used for the same purpose. Here’s an excerpt from the site: ‘You don’t bend down and reach way in to get dishes out and put them in. You just open a drawer. And you get two dishwashers in the space of one.’ Some people keep clean dishes in one drawer while washing dirty ones in the other.’ REFEREES Toby Gottfried: ‘Analogies are well and good, but let us not forget one important difference between football and real life. Football is just a pure competition and the objective is solely to win. At some point the game ends 0and you start fresh with the new one]. On the other hand, real life doesn’t end, and ‘how you play the game’ has lasting effect. To take one example, a business might increase its profits by polluting, but the effects of the pollution might be far reaching and permanent; a far cry from cheating at football where once the final gun is sounded, what happened on the field matters not a whit.’ John Stone: ‘The comments about rule books reminded me of a new formulation I heard recently: Rich Libertarians believe that everything they have came from hard work. Rich Republicans believe they were favored by God. Rich Democrats believe they have been very lucky. Poor Libertarians believe they are victims of a conspiracy. So do poor Republicans and Democrats.’ NEVILLE CHAMBERLAIN DJ Heger: ‘Alex & David Smith didn’t even mention the biggest reason Chamberlain deserves history’s wrath – the Russians would’ve joined the British, French, & Czechs against Germany. The non-aggression pact between the USSR & Germany came about because Stalin knew he couldn’t depend on the British & French.’ Walter Willis: ‘In addition to the replies you published, the Rumanians threatened to cut off Germany’s oil, and the Russians were still trying to set up a collective security deal with the West Europeans to keep Germany in line. It was only Munich that persuaded the Russians and Rumanians to sign separate treaties with Germany. Without oil from Rumania or Russia, a German war with Czechoslovakia, France, and Britain would have been very unpleasant for the Germans. It was not merely in armor, artillery, aircraft, ammunition, and allies, that Germany was outnumbered. Raw material to keep Germany’s industry running was in even shorter supply. They had no significant stockpiles during the Munich crisis.’
Time to Rebalance? November 25, 2002February 22, 2017 Susan.Foster: ‘I have kept my eyes shut tight ever since September 11th when it comes to looking at my dwindling IRAs and 401ks. Most of my money was in stock market index funds, with about 20% in bonds. I know that it is out of whack now, but am not certain if I should balance it back out. I guess I have been hoping that while keeping my eyes shut I would gain back some of the losses. Should I open my eyes and rebalance?’ ☞ By rebalancing, you mean selling bonds (which have become more than 20% of your pie as they kept their value as the pie has shrunk) and using the proceeds to buy stocks ratio you at some point decided was right for you. The first thing to say is that when you open your eyes, you may be surprised to see that the Dow closed Friday just 8% below it’s close of September 10, 2001. It could have been much worse (and there’s no guarantee we’ve seen the bottom). The second thing to say is that, while rebalancing may indeed make sense, the only long-term bonds I’d be comfortable holding now are TIPS – Treasury Inflation Protected Securities (or a fund of them, a la Vanguard), because I worry that long-term interest rates may at some point rise. Stocks are surely a better deal today than three years ago, when the NASDAQ was nearing 5200 (Friday’s close: 1469). But with the indexes already up 20% in the last few weeks, this may not be the perfect time to buy stocks, either. I think we could have a lot further to fall. Bear markets always have rallies, sometimes explosive rallies, and this may be one of them. (Then again, it’s all but impossible to time the stock market with much success over the long run.) At least three things were killing stocks over the last three years. First: well, simply, they were wildly overpriced. The fever broke. Second: September 11 changed the world, and not – at least any time soon – for the more prosperous. Third: we had the accounting and ‘corporate governance’ scandals. How are we doing on these three fronts? The corporate governance concern may have run its course. (Did anyone every really care about accounting so long as stock prices were headed up?) But the reality is that where before we had a weak S.E.C., today we have a headless S.E.C., deliberately underfunded at that, along with a headless Accounting Standards Board. So the market may have grown bored with the problem, but it may be a little early to declare victory. We’ve bounced back very well, economically and psychologically, from September 11. But we are told that spectacular damage to our economy is still Osama Bin Laden’s plan. As to valuations, they are obviously far more sane than at the turn of the century. There are surely some bargains to be had (ask me in a year and I will tell you with assurance which they were). But the overall market – especially in the wake of the 20% run-up of the last few weeks – is still fairly rich. It’s now been nearly six years since Alan Greenspan, alarmed by the steady and, in his mind, unjustified, rise in stock prices, delivered his ‘irrational exuberance’ remarks. The Dow then was 6500, the NASDAQ, 1250. In the six years since, the Dow has climbed 35% (which works out to a little better than 5% a year, plus dividends) and the NASDAQ has climbed about 16% (which works out to more like 2.5% a year, with dividends few and far between). So one might say that if stocks as a whole were irrationally exuberant in 1996, they may be rich even today. Of course, interest rates are much lower, making any hoped-for stock market appreciation tempting (and those once-scoffed-at 2% dividends downright head-turning). But if interest rates stay low or go even lower, it could be for ‘bad’ reasons. (Look how low they’ve been in Japan.) And if the economy gets moving nicely, rates could go back up, which could blunt some of the otherwise-hoped-for rise in stocks. So I’m still worried about the stock market. Then again, bull markets ‘climb a wall of worry.’ Perhaps we’ll get lucky. If I knew, I’d charge more for this advice. In the meantime, no one says you must keep 100% of your money in stocks/bonds. You have alternatives. Two examples: Money parked on the sidelines for a while in cash (or short-term securities). Some will kill me for this suggestion, as they believe all long-term funds should be 100% invested in stocks at all times. If you believed that when the NASDAQ was 5200, don’t change your strategy now, when it’s 1469. I’m just saying it’s legal to keep some of your long-term money on the sidelines, in short-term instruments, until the bargains become compelling. Money invested directly in pipeline partnerships and real estate investment trusts that may yield 6% or 8% or more, some of it even tax-deferred. I would definitely not put all eggs in any of these baskets, but the BFS suggested here at around $16.75 on May 3, 2000 and then again November 27, 2000 has been paying its $1.56 dividend ever since. It closed Friday at $23.24, up 38%, which makes it less attractive now than it was then – and who knows what awful things could happen to real estate investment trusts if the real estate market collapses and/or long-term interest rates rise? – but even at $23.24, it still yields 6.7%. Or how about EPD and FGP, which yield just under 8% and 10% respectively? I just bought some of each (but have not bought more BFS). And how about diversifying a little overseas? Could the Templeton Russia Fund (TRF), which sells at a modest 9% discount to its net asset value (better a discount than a premium) be worth a small corner of your portfolio? Russia almost seems to be becoming a real country. You never know. I wish I did know. Then there’d be no need to be balanced at all.
Cleaning Like a Guy November 22, 2002February 22, 2017 Michael Adberg: ‘A friend (back when he was single) had a great idea about how to avoid unloading the dishwasher. He simply used it as his dish cabinet. He pulled out what he needed for each meal and then he put them back when he was done, and ran the dishwasher again. So the dishwasher was either on, or full of clean dishes. To make sure he wasn’t wasting too much water and power, he made sure to use the lightest cycle. And those dishes that he never used were really clean.’ ☞ This is an important idea. Please see my May 30, 2000 column. Note, though, that if you limit yourself to a single knife, fork, spoon and plate – and rinse them off immediately after each use – you will need none of this. As for a glass: sure, if company is coming. Otherwise: why would you need one? Monday: Time to Rebalance?
Of Peruvian Chickens and Referees Plus: Putting Neville Back in His Place? November 21, 2002February 22, 2017 Mark Kennet: ‘A couple of thoughts from down here in darkest Peru. First, let me say that I have been a vegetarian for over twenty years, and that I am one for purely philosophical reasons. However, my philosophical reasons are not just the ones you note, although I certainly believe in minimizing harm to other sentient beings to the extent reason permits. I simply believe that it is wrong to devote resources to feeding cows, pigs, and chickens when there are people who could eat basically the same food and thus be prevented from starving. The old adage that it takes about ten pounds of grain to put one pound on a pig, and ten pounds of pig to put one pound on a man, is approximately correct: If the grain goes directly to the person, only ten pounds are required to put the pound on, but if it has to go through the animal first, then 100 pounds of grain are required. Obviously, this argument is not 100% valid when you consider that in the case of free-range animals, much of the food consumed by the animals is matter that would otherwise go to waste: the animals graze on land that is not suitable for cultivation. Similarly, few would argue that fish caught in the wild are diverting resources that would otherwise be used by humans. Nevertheless, (a) at least in the US, relatively few animals – particularly chickens – are raised as free-range; and (b) even if the ratio needs to be changed to reflect those animals that are free-range, it is still less efficient in terms of the calories and protein to feed people meat than grains and legumes. Given that in many parts of the world there is still hunger, I believe that there is an ethical argument to be made against consuming meat.’ ☞ I had heard seven pounds, not ten, for beef and three for chicken. But whatever the ratios, the real comeback to this compelling line of thought (at least for those of us living in the U.S.) is presumably: Yes, but how does our feeding grain to pigs lessen the amount of grain available to starving people? Even with all our meat-eating, we can produce far more grain than we can sell. What’s needed are the networks to distribute it to the starving and, where those exist, someone willing to pay the bill. The really immoral (and stupid) thing is that we don’t devote more than one-tenth of one percent of our GDP to programs to help modernize the Third World. If we did, they could afford to buy our grain and perhaps even our tractors, and that would be a pretty great win-win. Mark continues: ‘As for your other recent topic, playing football with and without rules, I think my Peruvian experience backs up your point, but only somewhat. Walking the streets of Lima (or biking, as I do daily) leaves one longing for an ARMY of referees, if only to stop people from making right turns from the far left lane without signaling. Similarly, it would be nice to know that when one boards a taxi or bus that a referee has recently checked to make sure the tires, brakes, and other safety features are functional; and many people would be willing to pay a referee to ensure that the food they eat was safe (one of my colleagues is on medical leave because he contracted hepatitis from a restaurant) or that the buildings they enter conform to fire safety standards (the daughter of friends of ours was tragically killed in a discotheque fire a few months ago). ‘On the other hand, it depends on the rules. Rules against off-sides or fouls obviously make a lot of sense (and I suppose you would argue that the Republicans want to eliminate those rules, and that’s why they’re wrong). But what about rules that force a kicker to sign a permission slip before he is allowed to kick the ball? Or rules that force one team to give points to the other every time they get ‘too far’ ahead? And what do you do about the problem of corruption, where even when rules make sense, payment to the right person prevents their enforcement?’ ☞ As with most things, no extreme works well. Balance and judgment are needed. And it depends on the context. In 1920, we needn’t have worried much about motor vehicle fuel efficiency or pollution, let alone dependence on foreign oil. Today we do. So today, increased fuel efficiency standards make sense. But should they be sudden, radical or unreasonable? No. (Is it pathetic that the fuel efficiency of our fleet is lower today than it was 15 years ago? Yes.) One great, quick read for anyone who doubts the lunacy of some of our regulations (could there be even one doubter left?) is Philip Howard’s The Death of Common Sense. But it would be a mistake to brand all regulation bad or unnecessary. Indeed, as we become ever more crowded on this planet (6.1 billion of us now, up from 2.5 billion when I was born), and as life becomes ever more complex (automobile traffic, air traffic, airwave traffic), it takes generally more collective management, not less, to minimize the collisions and the road rage – and to keep from fouling our collective nest too terribly. WHERE IT ALL COMES TOGETHER: REGULATING CHICKENS Don’t miss Molly Ivins. # Maybe Neville Chamberlain Wasn’t So Smart, After All Alex: ‘I strongly disagree with Mr. Bonham’s defense of Neville Chamberlain yesterday. The Czechs had an excellent army that was thrown away at Munich and the Germans used the Czech industry to produce armored vehicles to overrun Europe two years later. The Allies were stronger relative to the Germans at the time of Munich than in September 1939 or May 1940. And a whole lot fewer innocents would have died in the concentration camps had the West been willing to fight earlier.’ David Smith: ‘Mr. Bonham’s comment is historic revisionism at its finest. France had the largest standing army in the world at the time Chamberlain et al signed over Czechoslovakia. Germany was viewed largely as dangerous but manageable due to their past economic troubles and the restrictions on their military imposed by the Treaty of Versailles (which, interestingly enough in light of current events in Iraq, Germany repeatedly violated as France and England watched and ignored). The unveiling of the Blitzkrieg concept to the rest of the world was still more than a year away when Czechoslovakia was abandoned by its allies. In addition, German insiders warned the allies repeatedly of Hitler’s intentions. France would not commit to Czechoslovakia’s defense unless Chamberlain did as well. They both backed down to Hitler rather than risk war. That’s appeasement. General Keitel admitted at the Nuremburg Trials that Germany would not have carved up Czechoslovakia had England and France backed Prague. In fact, despite being informed of a plot by German generals to arrest Hitler and his principal associates should he try to attack Czechoslovakia in defiance of France and England, appeasement won.’
Does Dave Need Life Insurance? November 20, 2002February 22, 2017 Dave: ‘I’m in a quandary. My brother is suggesting that I buy 30 year term insurance, to lock in lower premiums. I’m in my early 30’s now and not yet married. He rationalizes rates are lower now and I won’t have to worry about medically requalifying in the future. My instinct, initially, was that I don’t have anyone to provide for, yet. However, the appeal of lower premiums and no medical requalification when I’m older is compelling. Any thoughts?’ ☞ Your initial instinct was a good one. If you have no dependents, you don’t need life insurance. True, it’s conceivable that you will develop a chronic condition and then fall in love, marry and have kids (or decide that you want to provide for your aging parents in the event you should predecease them). But this doesn’t often happen. And even then your heirs would likely have benefit of Social Security survivors’ benefits and of the group life insurance coverage you may already have at work. If you do buy term insurance now, the other issue is whether to shop for a cheap annual renewable policy or pay a lot more now for a ‘level premium’ policy of the type your brother suggests. The latter is a form of forced saving that is not completely terrible – unless you are one of the large number of folks who let their policies lapse in the first few years. In that case, you’d have been paying more than you needed to in the early years . . . but never getting the ‘pay-off’ of relatively low premiums in the later years. If I were you, I’d start by fully funding a Roth IRA each year, if you qualify. NEVILLE CHAMBERLAIN Tim Bonham: ‘Hugh Hunkeler’s comment: << Think about Neville Chamberlain and appeasement >> does a disservice to Chamberlain. Think about what alternatives Chamberlain had – almost none. At that time, Britain (and France) were woefully under-prepared to meet the German military, so if he had stood up to Hitler they likely would have gone to war a couple years earlier, and most likely Britain would have lost the war within 12-18 months. As it happened, Chamberlain gained Britain two years in which they were able to build up their military enough to withstand Germany until the US came into the war. Note that Chamberlain came back and publicly said ‘Peace in our time,’ but privately started a huge military buildup. The government, the military, and probably Neville Chamberlain himself saw that Hitler was bent on conquest and that it was only a matter of time until they would have to fight him. But Chamberlain bought Britain a couple of years, which probably made all the difference in their eventual survival.’ LIBERTARIAN REFEREES Brian Annis: ‘Bob Ridenour wrote: ‘I think maybe the Libertarians would prefer to play football without referees.’ No, you’d have referees, but most of the rulebook would be missing.’
Your Thoughts – From Iraq to Carrots to Horse Meat November 19, 2002February 22, 2017 REFEREES Bob Ridenour: ‘I think maybe the Libertarians would prefer to play football without referees. The Republicans would prefer that the referees stay out of the game, but then follow you home and make offsides and illegal procedure calls in your bedroom. The Democrats want the referees to focus on the game, but they think that every player should be able to gain at least two yards, and the ones who are particularly skilled or lucky enough to gain 50 shouldn’t complain if the statistician marks them down for 30 and distributes the remaining 20 to those who were tackled behind the line of scrimmage.’ IRAQ Hugh Hunkeler: ‘One thing to think about when discussing the potential war with Iraq: It may be that being willing to go to war will make it unnecessary to do so. But being unwilling to go to war could back us into a corner where that becomes the only choice. Think about Neville Chamberlain and appeasement. The whole ‘Bush wants a war’ crowd really missed the point. I doubt that he or any of us *wants* to go to war. However, being unwilling to enforce the UN resolutions could lead to bigger conflicts later. On top of that, giving Iraq time to hide all the WMDs and evidence thereof may prove to be a mistake.’ ☞ I agree with most of that. I’ve bolded the part I think needs comment. I think this war was central to Karl Rove’s political strategy all along (don’t believe me – believe his own PowerPoint presentation) and that the timing – to have the debate fall precisely into the slot between Labor Day and Election Day – was not based on the national interest. Also, that the initial unilateral approach was rightly deserving of the large crowd of (bipartisan) criticism it got. FIRING GAY ARAB LINGUISTS Jim McElwee: ‘Maybe some semblance of sense can come of the perverse situation wherein the Arab-language students were discharged from the military because they were gay. Let the government hire these same people as civilians, send them to the same schools to develop the same skills they were learning, and finally assign them to sensitive locations as civilian intelligence analysts – and, of course, pay them ten times the amount they were earning in the military.’ ☞ This is indeed the obvious (interim) solution. President Clinton lifted the security-clearance ban on gays and lesbians, which affected not just federal employees but – far broader in its implications – employees of government subcontractors, so now IBM and hundreds of others that proudly include sexual orientation in their official nondiscrimination policies (and routinely offer domestic partnership benefits to their GLBT employees) can make some money selling the taxpayers what some young Americans who hoped to serve their country would have provided for much, much less. Rick Rood: ‘I cannot imagine that there is one family or one single survivor of 9/11 that would care if the person who could have prevented their loss were homosexual or heterosexual.’ ☞ While both Gore and Bradley called for fixing Don’t Ask/Don’t Tell, President Bush has said it’s OK as is. So – especially with a fundamentalist majority leader in the House who says he believes God put him on this Earth to promote ‘a more Biblical worldview’ – we are likely to have it a while longer. ANIMAL RIGHTS Bill Schwartz: ‘Regarding your November 14 column on the Pollan article, I’d like to suggest you take a look at an extremely elegant book on the subject, Animal Liberation by the philosopher Peter Singer. Though Singer has been viciously excoriated in the mainstream press, I think if you read his book (something most of his critics have obviously never done), you’ll see that he is actually quite rational and thoughtful. I’m a longtime vegetarian who loves every bite of food I eat. My take, in a nutshell, is that we should all be honest with ourselves about the moral compromises we make – and we all do make them. Torturing sentient animals is obviously wrong, no question. If we decide to eat meat or otherwise participate in that enterprise, we should honestly acknowledge that we’re not living up to our values, just as we do when we fail to invite homeless people to live with us (I don’t, though morally I should). Personally, I find that avoiding meat is so trivially easy that I can’t justify the moral compromise of doing anything else. I actually eat a much greater variety of food and enjoy it more than I ever did during my years of meat eating. Plus I feel far better and weigh a lot less. Other people draw a different line. In our culture, that line often stops at pets, not for any particularly good reason. But we all do draw a line. ‘What bothers me most are the intellectually dishonest apologists who actually try to morally JUSTIFY torturing animals and other obviously despicable behavior. The arguments are absurd, e.g. wild animals kill and eat each other, so why shouldn’t we? Well, wild animals sometimes kill and eat their own babies. Does that mean it’s morally OK for us to do that, too? Of course not: the whole point of morality is to help to behave better than we would if we just did what our instincts and desires tell us to, like animals. ‘P.S. I must thank you for the “Ask Less” link at upper left. As a result of reading Less’s comments there and in your column, I wound up hiring him for comprehensive financial planning. He’s been terrific, and I have benefited greatly.’ Kevin Brown: ‘I am conflicted about the idea of animal ‘rights.’ I certainly like a nice steak, and have worked on farms slaughtering animals. Not pleasant, but necessary. I guess it comes down to how much cruelty we are prepared to accept in order to save $1 per pound or whatever. And yes, when just getting enough food to live on is difficult these questions seem irrelevant. For another perspective, read Fast Food Nation if you haven’t already.’ Pete Costello: ‘The waste by-products from the meat industry are some of the more pervasive pollutants in the world – just look at the Mississippi River. We cannot afford to be so short-sighted not to realize by now that human health is inextricably bound together with the health of the planet. The environment in which we live would be much healthier if we ate less meat.’ CARROTS Jonathan Edwards: ‘After 40 years on this Earth, I learned from a newspaper article the other day that ‘baby carrots’ aren’t immature carrots – they’re simply normal carrots chopped into small pieces and put through some sort of screen to make the ends rounded. I haven’t figured out how they shrink a normal corncob to make baby corn, but maybe the newspaper will explain it next week.’ SALMON Jay Donnell: ‘Farmed salmon are raised in an environment that would surprise most people. (See this from Earth Times.) The farmed salmon have to be artificially colored to achieve the color of wild salmon.’ HORSE MEAT Robert Rogers: ‘It was the Harvard College Faculty Club that served horse meat. An issue that is unrivaled in insignificance.’ ☞ Not, perhaps, if you are a horse. Tomorrow: Does Dave Need Life Insurance?
Jury Duty: Not So Bad November 18, 2002February 22, 2017 But first . . . THE CHICKENS Some of you read Thursday’s column too quickly or else I didn’t write it very well (or both), because the part about pigs and chickens was intended to be pro-animal rights. But I adopted something of a Friends, Romans, Countrymen, approach, trying to make the 95% of our friends who order Big Macs without qualm nod their heads . . . and only then get to the point. Forgive me if I did not make that point clear, as I will forgive you if you got too angry to reach it. But – throwing any subtlety, irony, or black humor to the wind – I do think it’s terrible to perpetuate needless animal suffering. And I do hope people come to see what we are doing to chickens and pigs and such rather than look away, so they can at least make an informed choice. That’s why I thought the Pollan piece was worth highlighting. Steven Coultas: ‘I agree that if you’re going to eat other animals, why not cats, dogs and horses? I just take this the opposite way – since I wouldn’t eat cats, I won’t eat the other animals either.’ ☞ Exactly. I just thought it would be more effective to raise the inconsistency and let people spot it on their own. And, in truth, I haven’t fully taken it to heart, either. I rarely buy meat. But if it’s served, I enjoy it. And I eat a lot of fish – although I would imagine that most of a shrimp’s life, or even a salmon’s, entails little of the torture we inflict on chickens. More tomorrow – but don’t think you can get out of . . . JURY DUTY I don’t know how it works where you live, but in Miami they have actually figured this out. Indeed, I have only two suggestions. The first concerns the brutal, brutal time at which jurors are required to report. Eight in the morning! Who is even awake at eight in the morning? I finished posting my column around three, got three hours sleep, staggered into the shower, left a million dead skin cells on a freshly washed towel, staggered into my clothes, squinted blearily at the hundreds of other drivers I was shocked to find on the road with me at that hour – could this many people have been summoned for jury duty? – pulled into the parking lot, passed through the Dade County courthouse metal detector without even having to remove my shoes, found a seat as far from everyone else as possible, whipped the cushy blue eye-pad out of my cargo-pants pocket – these things could block out the flash from a tactical nuclear weapon – and went back to sleep. My first suggestion is that Court begin at nine, but that the first couple of hours be spent trying to settle cases without going to trial, so jurors wouldn’t be needed until eleven – earliest. This would make jury service significantly less onerous. My second suggestion is that some sort of friendly letter or brochure accompany the ominous jury-duty summons so people would be less apt to try to duck it. (A similar brochure should accompany appointments to have an MRI. You are not, it turns out, locked like a torpedo inside a torpedo tube – at least with the ones I’ve had, you could wriggle out if you absolutely had to. And the noises! It’s so cool! Five minutes of nyack-nyack, nyack-nyack, nyack-nyack, nyack-nyack, nyack-nyack, nyack-nyack, nyack-nyack, nyack-nyack, nyack-nyack, nyack-nyack, nyack-nyack followed by five minutes of rubba-dubba, rubba-dubba, rubba-dubba, rubba-dubba, rubba-dubba, rubba-dubba, rubba-dubba, rubba-dubba, rubba-dubba, rubba-dubba, rubba-dubba, rubba-dubba, switching to other other-worldly mantras until, completely relaxed, you emerge with a nice image of your torn rotator cuff and a bill for $800.) For Dade County Jury Duty, the pitch might go something like this. Hey, amigo! Just what you were hoping for – Jury Duty. But it’s not as bad as you think. Here’s what you should know: It’s very possible you won’t even have to do this. Just call in after 5pm the night before your service and a recorded announcement will let you know, based on your summons number, whether you need to report the next morning. If so (on the third night, my luck ran out), you’ll find a very large room with TV monitors hanging from the ceiling and reasonably comfortable seats . . . adjoining rest rooms and a snack bar (great tuna salad sandwiches and vanilla cappuccino!) . . . an introductory video explaining why good citizenship is important . . . free movies the rest of the day . . . a ‘Quiet Room’ for those who want to read or work with their laptops (yes!) . . . at least an hour for lunch (we got 80 minutes, so I went across the street and explored the Miami Historical Museum) . . . and a couple of nice guys with good people skills who manage the process in a relaxed, friendly way from a podium mike. If you’re not placed on a jury, your service will conclude at the end of the day. And if you are self-employed, you will be paid $15. But what happened in our case is that the 56 of us who had not been placed on a jury (out of about 80 called in that day) were given a choice shortly after we got back from lunch: Leave, but forfeit our pay; hang around until 5pm. All 56 of us left. Those with real jobs were told that must return to their regular place of employment for the remainder of the workday. A few doubtless did. That wasn’t so bad, now was it? This is the second time I’ve had to do jury duty. The first time, it was all phone – I never had to show up. The next time, I might even have to serve on a jury. But in that case, if it went past three days, my pay would notch up from $15 a day to $30.
I Don’t Want to See the Factory – Please Pass the Salt November 14, 2002February 22, 2017 So you start reading this past Sunday Times Magazine cover story on animal rights – chickens, pigs, chimps – and you are so pleased, if you enjoy a really crispy, crispy piece of bacon as much as I do, that the author, Michael Pollan, is not falling for any of the typical animal rights hogwash (pardon the pun, but if we’re washing the towels, we should surely wash the hogs). Which is I guess why the cover line for his piece is, ‘The Unnatural Idea of Animal Rights.’ (Eating dogs, which Lewis and Clark did with some relish, is, of course, beyond the pale, as would be eating cats – oh, the beating I took from some of you a year or so ago when I made a tasteless cat joke! Likewise, horses, which Lewis and Clark also ate, and which the Harvard Club of New York (or was it Boston?) used to serve but long ago discontinued. But those three – dogs, cats and horses – are about the only sacred cows, as it were, that spring to mind. Well, giraffe, and so on, but I’m talking populous animals. Cows themselves, outside the subcontinent – well, the thing about cows, and billions of chickens and pigs, for that matter, is that they wouldn’t even be alive, most of them, if we didn’t eat them, because if we didn’t eat them – or at least milk them and grab their eggs, both of which are hard to do with a pig – there’d be no reason to raise them in the first place. So most of them owe their lives to us.) OK, ‘pass on the sea bass,’ but not out of some goopy sympathy for the bass – they’re fish – but only because at the rate we’re devouring eating them, we’ll soon be one menu item poorer. Pollan’s is a long piece (though it does not extend to sea bass), as he takes us through all manner of moral distinctions between man and beast (beasts eat beasts, why shouldn’t we?), and then takes us on a tour of chicken factories and pig factories and shows us what the ‘lives’ of these creatures are like. I put ‘lives’ in quotes because unfortunately he goes into some factual descriptive detail and, well, yes, it does appear we are torturing these animals in the most horrific way, but he recommends that we ‘look away’ – because otherwise we will find ourselves searching out vegetarian cookbooks or, at the least, those more expensive ‘free range’ chickens. And this leads to a whole bunch of corollary thoughts. The first is that no way are we going to swear off barbecued chicken or pork . . . the world has much bigger problems than the treatment of chickens and pigs and, well, this is just silly. What’s next – vegetable rights? Have you seen the way those little baby carrots are skinned and suffocated in those plastic bags at the supermarket? Are we going to start picketing with ‘Liberate the Carrots!’ signs? The second is that, well, obviously carrots don’t feel pain – or at least don’t express it very well – and, even if they do, they don’t suffer all their lives until they’re harvested, the way factory chickens and pigs do; they only suffer (bending over backwards to give carrots the benefit of the doubt) when they are chopped up. So the third thought is that, well, actually, if you read the facts – let alone actually visit the factories (not me!) – you come away thinking that, hmmm, maybe it wouldn’t kill me to pay a little more for my chicken and bacon and burgers if that meant they could be raised more humanely. (Slaughtering them more humanely might be good, too, although that’s just a few seconds of their lives.) Maybe those folks in Florida weren’t so dumb to pass ‘Question 10,’ the Pregnant Pig referendum, a couple of weeks ago, after all. But the fourth thought is: Fine for us, who can afford it, to say – but what about the low-income folks for whom an extra $1 here and there means literally less or no chicken or ribs. Are you going to side with chickens over humans? Are we going to start passing ‘cruelty to animals’ laws now? First they make it illegal to smoke on airplanes, now they want something to protect dogs and cats and pigs and chickens? (You will correct me if I’m wrong, but I think we actually do have a body of such laws. They just don’t seem to cover the food factories.) The fifth thought is that, with proper labeling, we could make these choices voluntary. You could choose to pay somewhat more to do what you consider to be the moral thing – buying only humanely treated and slaughtered animals – just don’t you dare to try to force me to pay more for your idiotic bleeding heart liberalism. The sixth thought is that we could have used the approach with dogs and cats and horses. Treating them inhumanely could be legal . . . just something some would choose not to do . . . while others, either through lack of feeling or lack of funds, would let their animals suffer. The seventh thought is that, given price competition, and absent regulation, there is a race to the bottom. If one supermarket chain has its meat products consistently $1 a pound higher than another, guess who’s going to lose market share? Or if the chains can buy their meat a little cheaper from one supplier than another, guess which supplier is going to get the business. Which is why – eight – Peter Amstein’s pal Congressman Baird’s comment from yesterday comes to mind: ‘The Republicans think football would be a better game without referees. I’ve seen it played that way and I disagree.’ Forget the partisan part of that (although I’m guessing you’d find more Democrats than Republicans worrying about how chickens suffer) . . . the overarching point is this: without regulation, competition can take us places we don’t want to go. Because in many instances, one competitor can’t afford to do some socially desirable thing (pollute less, inflict less suffering on animals, pay its lowliest workers a living wage, provide clear product disclosure) unless all are required to do so. The irony of it – the game theory aspect of it – is that, individually, a majority of the competitors might actually want to do these socially desirable things. They’re nice people just like you and me. But until they can be sure their competitors all will, too, and that there will be some enforcement mechanism to discourage cheating, they can’t afford to. This is also the dynamic of ‘The Tragedy of the Commons,’ explained so importantly decades ago in the Garrett Hardin essay of that name that every high school senior should be assigned. And it’s why it’s dismaying that the administration would be cutting the proposed budget for the Securities & Exchange Commission. And be so adamant in opposing higher fuel efficiency standards, which are easily and economically attainable without loss of safety or comfort, in our vast fleet of vehicles. Yes, regulation run amok is always a danger. But so is insufficient regulation. The ninth thought (and I must report for jury duty in five hours, so if you’re lucky, this will be the final thought) is that it’s not just the suffering of animals we choose not to see. (Let’s be frank. Most of you will not find the time to click the link to read Michael Pollan’s long piece, because you’re not keen on knowing much about what sort of life your chicken led before being chopped into McNuggets. Most of you will not want to know that pigs are pretty intelligent, relatively speaking – they are not carrots – or hear what we put them through before slaughtering them.) The truth is, I am only moderately concerned about the animals. I’m more concerned than I used to be, the more so after reading Michael Pollan. But in a world of very limited resources, I do believe we should focus most of our attention on human suffering. I’d just ask you not to laugh too hard at the animal rights people – they are not suggesting animals be given the vote, only that they not be tortured. But – still on this ninth thought – it’s not just the suffering in chicken factories we choose not to see. It’s human suffering. I believe that Republicans and libertarians looking into the eyes of a human in difficulty are every bit as compassionate as Democrats or anyone else. But in the abstract, I think they are less willing to make the connections, or go out of their way to look. Take the minimum wage. Republicans generally resist raising it; Democrats generally favor raising it (within reason). Republicans don’t say they’re against raising it because they’re too selfish to pay a dime more for their fast food – and I don’t believe many actually feel that way. They say they don’t believe the government should interfere and regulate and that if we did raise the minimum wage – say, from $4.25 to $5.15, as was done early on in the Clinton administration – or if we passed the Family and Medical Leave Act, we’d wind up hurting the very people we want to help. Unemployment and inflation would rise as low-wage folks were tossed off the payroll and prices had to be hiked to pay the extra costs. Instead, of course, despite that long overdue hike in the minimum wage, we managed to enjoy the lowest unemployment and inflation in generations. I readily admit that there are limits to what can sensibly be done with the minimum wage – or with the earned income tax credit or with a Marshall plan for the Third World or with prescription drug benefits for the elderly or with a whole lot of other worthy things. But I believe that if our Republican and libertarian friends looked at the problems closer, they’d be less quick to fight these things. Instead of gargantuan tax cuts for the rich and powerful – which cut deeply into the revenue available to make a better world – they might decide that the plight of the rich should not be our top priority, after all, and that we shouldn’t shift what looks to be about $2.5 trillion over the next 15 years back into the pockets of those at the very top of the pyramid at the expense of other priorities. (Yes, I know: it’s their money! No one should have to pay high taxes! But I still feel this way.) Jeb Bush, governor of Florida, who is now being talked about as a Presidential candidate for 2008, cut in half the one Florida tax that applies only to the well off. And then, because of budget constraints, he eliminated 51 out of 55 prison drug treatment programs and cut the budget for programs outside prison by 34%. Sure, he’d like to see every kid have a happy life and grow up to be a productive citizen – who wouldn’t? But he campaigned against the Florida initiative that would put a cap on classroom sizes. (And he told one group of insiders, not realizing a reporter was present, that if the initiative passed – it did – he would find some ‘devious’ ways to keep from having to implement it.) These are choices. There is no right answer. I just believe that if we would force ourselves to look at the chickens in the factory, or at the human suffering around the world, we might make them a little differently.
Next You’ll Be Wanting Me to Clean the SOAP November 13, 2002January 23, 2017 I have this great column about chickens and taxes I am dying to write, but each time I get ready to fry it up, you distract me with your more-interesting e-mails and the clock runs out. Maybe tomorrow. In the meantime: CLEANING LIKE A GUY — NO WONDER NOBODY WOULD BE MY FRIEND UNTIL CHARLES STARTED WASHING THE TOWELS Randy Wolff: ‘Assuming your towel question was not a joke, the reason you should wash a towel is it has gotten wet. The moisture, plus some delicious skin flakes you left on the towel, make a great picnic lunch for billions and billions of microscopic living things floating around in the air, chiefly mold and mildew. They will establish vast civilizations on your hapless towel, and their waste products [there is no polite way to say it] will really stink.’ Randy Mahoney: ‘When you emerge from the shower, your skin is very clean, but also the stratum corneum (the outer layer) sloughs off quite easily. This detritus finds its way into every nook and cranny in that fluffy towel. Now think forward a few days, when each time you dry off, you are adding a great deal of moisture to that increasingly rich organic slurry on the towel. Pretty soon, things start to decompose, and you are now drying your clean body with a wet rag soaked in rotting flesh. (Sorry for the graphic description, but we in Dermatology tend toward the dramatic sometimes.) So THAT’S WHY you should wash your towel!’ Dana Dlott, Professor of Chemistry: ‘Maybe I should be embarrassed, but I have actually given some thought to this. When you wash a towel, it gets very clean. The laundry detergent is more powerful than the soap you use in the shower. The fabric softener gets the salts out that are left in by the detergent and the water. After you shower, you are only as clean as the soap and rinse water can make you and you are covered with the water. The water has dissolved salts. So the towel is cleaner than you are. The towel picks up the water, which dries out and leaves salts in the towel. This makes the towel get stiff. The towel also picks up whatever skin oils and skin flakes remain on you. After a while the towel gets dirty and stiff and you should wash it.’ ☞ Oh, all right! LINKABLE AFTER ALL Judy: ‘Here’s the link to the New Republic article you referenced in Monday‘s column about the Arab-language students who were discharged from the military.’ THE DEMOCRATIC MESSAGE Peter Amstein: ‘I spoke with Congressman Brian Baird yesterday. He’s truly one of the good guys. He instantly distilled my version of the message down to this: ‘The Republicans think football would be a better game without referees. I’ve seen it played that way and I disagree.”