Barry Goldwater’s View April 25, 2005March 1, 2017 It’s not followers of Islam who scare me, it’s ‘Islamicists’ – followers of Islam who, with the holiest of intentions, and only to please God, crash planes and kill innocent people. It’s okay with me (barely) if they crash their own planes and kill themselves. Or if people willingly drink their own Kool-Aid. But no fair, it seems to me, threatening the lives of moderate Muslims or anyone else. And so I read with interest these excerpts from Paul Gaston’s piece in Saturday’s Washington Post: People calling themselves Christians are gathering once again for a crusade against what they consider to be the secular humanist subversion of Christian values. . . . What these self-avowed Christians do not acknowledge — and what the American public seems little aware of — is that the war they are waging is actually against other people calling themselves Christians. To simplify: Right-wing and fundamentalist Christians are really at war with left-wing and mainstream Christians. It is a battle over both the meaning and practice of Christianity as well as over the definition and destiny of the republic . . . The assault on the judiciary is especially revealing. The vicious attacks on Judge George Greer, the Florida jurist who presided over the Schiavo case, reveal the bizarre nature of right-wing Christian fantasies. A regular recipient of hate mail and threats against his life, Judge Greer is a lifelong Southern Baptist, a regular in church and a conservative Republican. None of those credentials protected him from the assaults of fellow Christians, including messages saying he would go straight to Hell . . . Nearly all of the demonized judges are, in fact, practicing Christians, not secular humanists. Perhaps half of them are Republican appointees, and at least that many regard themselves as conservatives. In addition to Greer, most of the judges of the 11th Circuit who upheld his rulings, as well as most of the Supreme Court justices who declined to intervene, consider themselves Christian . . . And, lest we forget, Charles Darwin himself was a serious Christian. The history of a Christian church divided against itself is a long and bloody one. People calling themselves Christians have stood for war and peace, subjugation and brotherhood, communism and capitalism, privilege and equality, enslavement and liberty, imperialism and isolation. That is one reason Thomas Jefferson insisted on religious liberty in the new republic. In his Virginia Act for Establishing Religious Freedom, he wrote that “millions of innocent men, women, and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined, imprisoned; yet we have not advanced one inch toward uniformity.” The present war within the Christian fold is perhaps more threatening to the republic than any of the previous intramural disputes. Right-wing religious zealots, working in partnership with the secularists who have advised President Bush, are a threat to the most fundamental of American principles. The founders of our nation welcomed and planned for spirited debate over public policies, including the role of the judiciary. But as sons of the Enlightenment, they looked to found a republic in which the outcome of those debates would turn on reason and evidence, not on disputed religious dogma. They planned wisely for principles that are now under wide assault. All Americans, of whatever religious or non-religious persuasion, need to be on the alert to preserve those principles. The burden falls especially heavily on the mainstream Christians who are slowly awakening to the gravity of the challenge facing them. Too long tolerant of their brethren, too much given to forgiveness rather than to confrontation, they need to mount a spirited, nationwide response to what constitutes a dangerous distortion of Christian truths and a frightening threat to the republic they love. The writer is professor emeritus of southern and civil rights history at the University of Virginia. This is not to say for a moment that any significant fraction of America’s fundamentalist Christians advocate violence. But there’s not a whole lot of ‘judge not lest ye be judged’ going on out there, either; and reading the above elicits the quote below (thanks to Del Rickel for bringing it to my attention): BARRY GOLDWATER’S VIEW Per the Congressional Record, September 16, 1981: There is no position on which people are so immovable as their religious beliefs. There is no more powerful ally one can claim in a debate than Jesus Christ, or God, or Allah, or whatever one calls this supreme being. But like any powerful weapon, the use of God’s name on one’s behalf should be used sparingly. The religious factions that are growing throughout our land are not using their religious clout with wisdom. They are trying to force government leaders into following their position 100 percent. If you disagree with these religious groups on a particular moral issue, they complain, they threaten you with a loss of money or votes or both. I’m frankly sick and tired of the political preachers across this country telling me as a citizen that if I want to be a moral person, I must believe in ‘A,’ ‘B,’ ‘C,’ and ‘D.’ Just who do they think they are? And from where do they presume to claim the right to dictate their moral beliefs to me? And I am even more angry as a legislator who must endure the threats of every religious group who thinks it has some God-granted right to control my vote on every roll call in the Senate. I am warning them today: I will fight them every step of the way if they try to dictate their moral convictions to all Americans in the name of ‘conservatism.’ – Conservative Arizona senator and 1964 Republican presidential nominee Barry Goldwater
The Meek? They’re Just Lazy April 22, 2005January 18, 2017 But first . . . SPAIN Juan Jover: ‘The lower house of Spanish parliament yesterday approved full gay marriage. It is sad that the country of my birth, which is officially Catholic, has advanced human rights more than the country I chose to live in with my partner.’ TEXAS Cheryl Crumley: ‘The Republican-controlled Texas House today passed a last minute amendment to ban gays from being foster parents. I personally know 8 same-sex couples in Dallas and between us we have 24 foster children. Most of these are children with special needs, or children of color that ‘no one else’ will take.’ ☞ Some might argue these decisions are best left to social service professionals, case-by-case, based on what is best for each child. Not the Republican leadership in Texas. And now . . . THE MEEK? THEY’RE JUST LAZY Last Friday I ran Beth Shulman’s piece on what she called ‘the Oprah society,’ in which some make it big (or win a car), but a great many struggle to make ends meet. It’s one thing to admire those who beat the odds [she writes]; quite another to create a society which makes the odds nearly impossible to overcome. Tom: ‘So some person named Beth Shulman believes cradle-to-grave guarantees of security – presumably government guarantees – are what we should expect. That’s called socialism. Count me out. ‘I’m the product of a divorced parent who raised us with nothing – nothing that is, except a strong sense that our family should survive and a strong family to support her. Thanks to this strong woman – who worked two and three jobs to raise her sons and was far too proud to ever consider welfare, food stamps or government lunches, I graduated third in my high school class, went to college, graduated (up to my neck in loans each of which is paid off), started at the bottom with a big corporation, eventually started my own business and finally sold it for a tidy profit. Today, at 44, I’m semi-retired. All this with no silver spoon and no trust fund. According to Ms. Shulman, I’m no longer possible, so she seeks to make sure that’s true. ‘Please spare me the lament that America is no longer the land of opportunity. Opportunities abound in this land – far more so than anywhere else on the planet. Many of us who have succeeded constantly look for young people with the dedication, discipline and work ethic it takes to succeed. When we see those young folks, we mentor them. Too often, though, we see young people with little more than a sense of entitlement – and we know those young people will not work hard enough to succeed. If Ms. Shulman prevails, entitlement will become the norm. ‘The philosophy that we no longer live in the land of opportunity and our only salvation is government guarantees is not only simply wrong – it’s wrong headed. When and if we become that land where everyone relies on the government to see to their needs, then we will truly no longer be the land of opportunity.’ ☞ This country was built by people like Tom and his mom and the strong family he says she had supporting her. A deep bow to all of them. Really. But a few quibbles: First, Beth Shulman did not call for cradle-to-grave security or socialism. She wrote: We could offer quality child care to give all our kids a fair start. We could insist our jobs provide at least a week of paid sick leave. We could raise the federal minimum wage-as a start to $7.25 an hour, an option our Congress just turned down last month. We could insist every American have affordable health care. We could ensure that every qualified young man and woman can afford to attend college and graduate without mortgaging their future. And at the end of one’s work life, we could make sure that all Americans have enough to support themselves. I think there is a difference between a week of paid sick leave and socialism. Nor is adjusting the minimum wage for inflation socialism. And unless by Tom’s lights every modern economy in the world is socialist except ours, then affordable health care – which all the other first-world economies offer – is not socialism either. Subsidizing higher education – as Tom’s was subsidized – is not socialism. (If he went to a state school, his tuition payments did not cover the full cost. And if he went to Princeton, even if he got no financial aid, the accumulated beneficence of Princeton’s alumni was subsidizing the experience.) And that leaves us with the last piece, that, ‘at the end of one’s work life, we have enough to support ourselves’ – the bare bones Social Security safety net. Unless the U.S. has been a socialist country for the last 60-odd years, preserving Social Security doesn’t make us socialist either. So to begin with, I don’t think Tom is stating Beth Shulman’s case fairly. But beyond that, there are questions that must be asked of Tom. Tom . . . were you and your Mom below average intelligence? And with crooked teeth you couldn’t afford to fix? I ask because, as you know, for every above-average child or mom, there’s another on the other side of the bell curve below. For every IQ of 130, there’s one of 70. And not everyone was born with your winning smile. YOU didn’t need public school, perhaps, and your Mom didn’t need the floor of a minimum wage or the aid of unemployment insurance. But not everyone has your and your mom’s genes. When YOU had your tonsils out for $2,500 in 1967, your mom just rolled up her sleeves and worked another thousand hours to pay for it. (Thankfully, she was making more than the $2.15 minimum wage). During that period, she bought no food, paid no rent; you and your mom just toughed it out living under a bridge. Today, you and she have provided for her future such that, even should she live to 107, she would need no help from anybody. If the money did run out, you wouldn’t have second thoughts as, looking down from heaven, you saw her in her eleventh decade living in a large cardboard box, back under that bridge. ‘Tough luck, Mama – you should have saved more or invested better.’ But can we expect every kid to have had a mom like yours? And every mom like yours to have had, in your words, a strong family to support her? Can every kid graduate third in his high school class if he just works hard enough? Forgive me (I graduated behind Kenny Frisof and Gary Benenson), but by my math, only three kids in the class can do that well, no matter how hard the rest work at it. And someone, not always out of sloth, will be last. I don’t think Beth Shulman is suggesting that that last-in-class person should live as well as you. But how should he live if he needs help? In deep poverty, shame, and suffering? Or with some minimal level of dignity and comfort? How should we treat the least among us? To me, it’s a balance. In my view, the poor didn’t have it too easy under Clinton/Gore, nor the rich, too tough. Tom and the Republican leadership differ. They have made things tougher for those worst off and significantly better for those with net worths of millions or hundreds of millions or billions of dollars. One last thought. Tom’s underlying assumption seems to be that socialism is a four-letter word. I would agree that socialism doesn’t work as well as enlightened capitalism. But neither does unenlightened capitalism. Arthur Arfa: ‘Your argument that we had the balance about right in the Clinton-Gore years is nonsense. All of the things outlined by Ms. Shulman in her article were just as prevalent in the Clinton-Gore years. The minimum wage was still low, there was no national child care of health care provided, no pensions set aside for the poor. You give bush too much blame for the problems that exist. Bush has done nothing to alleviate these problems, but Clinton also did little.’ ☞ I disagree. There are certainly limits to what one can do – not least when you have a Republican Congress for six of your eight years. But President Clinton pushed through a hike in the minimum wage over Republican opposition, pushed through the Family and Medical Leave Act over Republican opposition, pushed through the Children’s Health Insurance Program over Republican opposition, pushed through a dramatic hike in the earned income tax credit over Republican opposition, and another in college tuition aid. He tried very hard to push through affordable health insurance. And he made his parting mantra ‘save Social Security first’ rather than blow the surplus on tax cuts for the very best off. So I think their records are quite different.
Comforting the Comfortable April 21, 2005January 18, 2017 MY DOG HAS TENNIS ELBOW Brooks Hilliard: ‘My 10 year old dog was having a terrible time until I began giving her a half-human-dose of glucosamine daily. Amazing. She’s puppy-like again. If she could write her own testimonial, I’m certain she would.’ ☞ Woof! Chris Petersen: ‘We adopted an 8-year-old Springer Spaniel who clearly had joint pain. We started adding glucosamine-and-chondroitin to his chow. He’s now 10 and has the body of a 5-year-old. Since Archie does not know how to lie (or at least to lie effectively), I took this as evidence G-C works and started taking it myself because of discomfort in joints in my hands. It has probably helped as I have ‘forgotten’ about the joint pain I once had. (But we may have to wait until November to know for sure.) ☞ Woof! Woof! CANCER IS NO EXCUSE Not to a compassionate conservative anyway. Give it up for Jonathan Alter, whose column begins: A Bankrupt Way To Do Business They put huge deficits on plastic for our grandkids to pay. They sell us out to predatory lenders. They’re the Credit Card Congress. By Jonathan Alter Senior Editor and Columnist Newsweek April 25 issue Let’s say Peter Jennings was named Jeter Pennings and instead of making more than $7 million a year, he earns $70,000, still comfortably middle class. Pennings has lung cancer, and he understandably wants the best treatment available. But his insurance company won’t cover experimental chemotherapy, so Pennings has an excruciating but familiar choice: he can charge the $25,000 chemo on his credit card or go without the cutting-edge treatment. If Pennings is like most people, he chooses to put his health first. With credit-card interest and late fees often totaling 100 percent a year, he’s now so deep in the hole he’ll never dig out. But under current law, he can file Chapter 7 and get on with what’s left of his life. Not for long. Last week Congress sent a new personal bankruptcy bill to President Bush’s desk, where he will eagerly sign it. The legislation, which is designed to make it much harder and more expensive to get out of debt, is not all bad. With 1.5 million personal bankruptcies a year, some change was necessary. But this bill, like so many others moving through Congress, comforts the comfortable and afflicts the afflicted. Worse, it provides for no distinction between those who get unlucky in Las Vegas and those who get cancer . . . THE 13TH Jeff Covey: ‘What happened on December 13, 2000 that would have marked it as ‘possibly the end of The American Century‘ instead of the 12th or 14th?’ ☞ Al Gore’s concession speech . . . the beginning of a new – and I hope short-lived -direction for America.
Is the News Bad in a Forest If No One Reports It? April 20, 2005January 18, 2017 MAC QUICKEN Michael Roth: ‘I have found MoneyDance is a pretty good alternative to Quicken on the MAC. They also let you download a free trial so you can give it a test drive.’ YOUR PARENTS’ ACHY JOINTS Mike Mattes: ‘Glucosamine with chondroitin has worked for me also. But (as a diabetic) I found that it raised my blood sugar levels to out of control. Had to stop.’ ☞ Oops. Bob Hunter: ‘Having heard similar stories about the success of glucosamine with chondroitin, I tried it a couple of years ago. After a year, I reluctantly stopped having seen no change. My orthopedist tells me it only helps about 10% of those who use it, which is great if you’re one of those 10%.’ ☞ Here‘s one somewhat more favorable assessment. Worth reading if you are considering this regimen. Dave Matson: ‘Some admittedly modest Internet research reveals that glucosamine and chondroitin may indeed have a positive effect, but as with most natural/herbal ‘dietary supplements,’ research into safety and efficacy is largely lacking. All such products on the market are courtesy of the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994 (DSHEA), one of the worst laws passed in the Nineties. This is the law that brought us ephedra and countless other dangerous products that are essentially completely unregulated. It’s long, but I highly recommend reading this synopsis of DSHEA.’ Emerson Schwartzkopf: ‘I started taking the stuff daily some 10 years ago when my joints sometimes got a bit sore on a daily basis (why not hedge against the arthritis that crippled my father?). I haven’t had joint pain since, and I don’t seem to suffer any side effects from long-term usage.’ David Ellis: ‘Glucosamine – I took it for two years, but never noticed a difference. Fish oil- with magic Omega3s did work. I started with 4 capsules and moved to 10. I don’t need my arthritis prescription any more. I used to crawl off the aikido dojo floor. Now I feel 20 years younger.’ Lynn: ‘Our dog, a Samoyed named Paddy, had a limp and had to take rather dangerous pain pills. We got him on G+C and, after a while, no more limp. They say he has arthritis and that stuff has done wonders. I always recommend it to people based on doggy evidence. He needs chewables which cost more, but he’s worth it.’ ☞ Our dog, a Golden named Tarzan, is fully limber but had a really persistent cough. They say laughter is the best medicine, so we sat him down in front of Seinfeld reruns for a week and it went away. OK, we have no dog, but I think it would work. TRANSPARENCY Dave Sirota pulls together an interesting list: President Bush has said that “in a society that is a free society, there will be transparency.” . . . But as the record shows, Bush is anything but pro-transparency. See the record for yourself: Knight-Ridder reports today that the Bush administration announced yesterday that it has “decided to stop publishing an annual report on international terrorism after the government’s top terrorism center concluded that there were more terrorist attacks in 2004 than in any year since 1985, the first year the publication covered.” When unemployment was peaking in Bush’s first term, the White House tried to stop publishing the Labor Department’s regular report on mass layoffs. In 2003, when the nation’s governors came to Washington to complain about inadequate federal funding for the states, the Bush administration decided to stop publishing the budget report that states use to see what money they are, or aren’t, getting. In 2003, the National Council for Research on Women found that information about discrimination against women has gone missing from government websites, including 25 reports from the U.S. Department of Labor’s Women’s Bureau. In 2002, Democrats uncovered evidence that the Bush administration was removing health information from government websites. Specifically, the administration deleted data showing that abortion does not increase the risk of breast cancer from government websites. ☞ Oh . . . and we are still waiting for the secret list of participants in Vice President Cheney’s energy policy – the one that even a subpoena from the Government Accounting Office could not pry loose. (And who blew Valerie Plame’s cover? And why won’t the White House be transparent about its pundit pay-offs, like the one to Armstrong Williams?)
It Gets Worse April 19, 2005March 1, 2017 OH, BOY And I don’t mean that as in, ‘Oh, boy!’ I mean . . . ‘OH, boy.’ I refer to the must-read excerpt of James Howard Kunstler’s The Long Emergency that’s been making the rounds. My own almost completely baseless view (but – Blink – we know more than we think) is that Kunstler’s scenario is way too dire. He underestimates our ingenuity! But there’s a long way from ‘way too dire’ to ‘no worries, mate.’ The concerns he raises strike me as very real. Indeed – while it is a thesis not specifically addressed in Kunstler’s excerpt – it seems possible to me that ‘the American Century’ ended almost exactly on schedule (who arranges these things?), December 13, 2000. (The last century, I need hardly remind purists, ended December 31, 2000, not December 31, 1999.) I hope I’m wrong and will be doing what little I can to make sure of it. But I’m holding my oil stocks, happy that I live a life that requires almost no driving. (It requires a fair amount of eating, however, and no small hum of air conditioning, hiss of heating – Kunstler is sanguine about none of this.) I think most of us will muddle through and adapt, and that there will be loads of ways to be happy with less oil. But the excerpt is worth reading. Click here. Tomorrow: Your Feedback on Glucosamine; White House Transparency
Dow Update April 18, 2005March 1, 2017 THE BEES KNEES Before I begin, I want to stress that I have the body of a 26-year-old (even if, in situations like this, the mind of a 12-year-old), and that I am not actually some old guy talking about joint pain. Not me! But let’s just say that a really, really close friend of mine was finding that his knees hurt when he’d crouch down to find something (manly and athletic) under the sink, or when he went out (on his manly one-speed Schwinn) for a ride, and so – filled with skepticism, but filled even more with dread of knee surgery – this friend of mine began taking three big ‘glucosamine with chondroitin’ tablets (as recommended on the bottle) each night before he went to sleep. That was (he tells me) several years ago now. And no (he readily admits) he is not a doctor, and bases his opinion on just a single case (his own). But, he says – even as you would expect that, with the years, his cartilage-worn joints would have worsened – instead, in fact, after a few months the pain just disappeared. The glucosamine-and-chrondroitin pills seem to have deposited new shock absorbers around his joints. I just hope that when I get to be an old guy, I remember this little hint. G+C is readily available in health food stores and even many supermarkets around the country. Or, cheap, by mail. The perfect gift for Mother’s Day, May 8? Father’s Day, June 19? (For Graduation Day, of course, you’ll want to get them this.) UPDATE The Dow is now about 5% lower than it was five-plus years ago when President Bush was selected and we went to more or less total right-wing Republican control. (This is not to tar all Congressional Republicans as rightwing; but you will not find moderate Republicans in the leadership.) In that same time, we have also lost the good will of much of the world and added 35% to our national debt. But at least we got Bin-Laden. WHERE TO PUT $5,000 Catherine Hogan: ‘I have a friend who is looking to invest $5,000 for the next few years and he was curious as to the best place to do that. I feel the stock market is pretty volatile right now and I wouldn’t recommend it. Any suggestions?’ ☞ Knowing only that much, I’d say: a savings account (assuming credit cards are paid in full each month, the attic is adequately insulated, etc.). This admirable but modest sum really is for a rainy day fund, not for investing – especially if his/her time horizon is just ‘the next few years,’ as you say, and not ‘the long term.’ The next few years could be wonderful. But based on current trends and leadership, I wouldn’t bet too heavily on it. SMALL CHANGE Bob Novick: ‘With EmigrantDirect.com you can get 3.25% on money market. It is a bit of a hassle to setup – but still that is 60% better return than your typical 2%.’ John Perko: ‘ING Direct now pays 3% on their accounts – no minimum, no fees, convenient links to your checking account.’ SMALLER CHANGE Dennis King: ‘Do you have any info or opinion about AmeriTrade IZone? I was all set to open a Scottrade account ($7 trades) when I came across their $5 trades. It apparently is a non-advertized division of Ameritrade.’ ☞ Amazing. I didn’t know about this (and I not only trade through Ameritrade, I own a few shares of the stock – shows you what thorough research I do). But gee, if you do so much trading that it makes a difference, you’re doing too much trading! To me, there’s no meaningful difference between the $5 commission you have uncovered, the $7 you were headed for, the $8 I pay at Fidelity, and the $11 that I pay at Ameritrade. All four are essentially equal when viewed beside the $300 or more I often pay for the exact same trade at Smith Barney (or would pay any other traditional broker).
Print Your 4868 Here April 15, 2005January 18, 2017 Thanks to TomPaine.com for this: The Oprah Society By Beth Shulman April 12, 2005 It’s inspiring to watch someone beat the odds. If you see the deck is stacked, their triumph is especially sweet. Day after day, in our made-for-TV society, that’s what we’re shown: inspiring exceptions-women and men who, by some miracle, overcome insurmountable barriers. They often weep as we do when we hear their tales of woe. Indeed, whether it’s addiction or affliction, layoffs or payoffs, their stories are meant to convince us ‘Hey, they made it, why can’t we?’ . . . So a few are chosen, and the rest of us are made to feel like we failed. If only we had tried harder, worked smarter, learned more, invested better, we’d be on TV for all to envy. It’s one thing to admire those who beat the odds, quite another to create a society which makes the odds nearly impossible to overcome. Whatever happened to the Land of Opportunity? To the melting pot that pulled millions from every corner of the world? Drawn by the American Dream, we were told that if you just worked hard, you could support yourself and raise a family, send your children to college, take family vacations, build a nest egg and retire? Today, one in four workers-30 million Americans-hold jobs that pay below $9.00 an hour, putting them and their families below the federal poverty line. The work is often grueling, dangerous or humiliating. Most low-wage jobs lack health care, vacation pay, sick leave or pension plans. They provide little flexibility or training. These jobs sentence child caregivers, janitors and pharmacy techs to a lifetime of poverty, and mock those who work in nursing homes, clean our hotel rooms and offices and process our food. Most of these workers are adults with at least a high school education who have families to take care of just like the rest of us. More and more middle-class jobs are taking on the characteristics of low-wage jobs, with little job security, stagnant wages and decreasing health and retirement benefits. In 1987, employers provided health coverage to 70 percent of workers, according to the Employee Benefit Research Institute, yet today that number has declined by 10 percent. At the same time, employees are picking up more and more of their health premium costs. Fewer than one-fifth of large and medium-sized companies now pay the full cost of employees’ health premiums. A similar shift has occurred with pensions. Nearly half of full-time workers were covered by traditional pensions 30 years ago. Today, that number has plummeted to below 20 percent. Then there’s job security: the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that today a middle-aged man is likely to be in his job for 71/2 years, down from 11 years just 25 years ago. These conditions are not an act of nature. We can make different choices. We could offer quality child care to give all our kids a fair start. We could insist our jobs provide at least a week of paid sick leave. We could raise the federal minimum wage-as a start to $7.25 an hour, an option our Congress just turned down last month. We could insist every American have affordable health care. We could ensure that every qualified young man and woman can afford to attend college and graduate without mortgaging their future. And at the end of one’s work life, we could make sure that all Americans have enough to support themselves. So what will it be? Will we remain content with a society that rewards the few and continues to erect roadblocks for most Americans, or are we going to live up to the ideals of the American Dream-that if you work hard, you will be able to take care of yourself and your family? The choice is ours. Beth Shulman is the author of The Betrayal of Work: How Low-Wage Jobs Fail 30 Million Americans (The New Press, 2003) and works with the Russell Sage Foundation’s The Future of Work and Social Inequality projects. ☞ It’s a matter of balance. I think we had the balance about right in the Clinton/Gore years. Today, we’ve tilted sharply in favor of the best off, and plunged our country dangerously into debt. SAVING FOR A CONDO David Andrusia: ‘I’m saving $ for a condo down payment. Since money market accounts offer such low interest rates these days, any suggestions for a good short-term place to store the dough?’ ☞ Better to keep it safe at 2% than risk losing 30% if things should unravel. This may be why God invented savings accounts. QUICKEN Frank McClendon: ‘I lament (almost) daily that MYM went away. I switched to Quicken a little over two years ago. Quicken stinks. Intuit doesn’t listen. They just do not care about improving their product.’ Brenda Boswell: ‘Linda is right, Quicken on the Mac is really bad. There’s a columnist I follow who, several years ago, helped publish a good Mac (and PC) finance program…do you suppose he could be persuaded to update it?’ ☞ Not a chance. But he still uses it. OH, AND AS ONE MORE PUBLIC SERVICE . . . Click here to print form 4868, the extension to file.
Energy Crisis? What Energy Crisis? April 14, 2005March 1, 2017 President Bush is an oil man. His pappy is an oil man. His VP is an oil man. His pals and his family’s pals are oil men. His virtual brother, Prince Bandar ‘Bush,’ and the Saudi Royal Family generally, to whom the Bushes are closely tied, are oil men. So when you say ‘energy crisis,’ what exactly do you mean? This is a great time to be an oil man! All those guests at the early Cheney energy meetings – the ones whose names the White House would not reveal even after a subpoena from the General Accounting Office? Most of them are likely reveling in this so-called ‘crisis.’ The solution to the ‘crisis,’ according to this administration, is to drill for oil in the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge, not to promote conservation. Drilling for oil is what oil men DO. Conservation hurts oil men two ways. First, they sell less oil. Second, because of that lessened demand, the oil they do sell fetches a lower price. With oil at $55 a barrel instead of $30, as I have pointed out before, the Saudis are making (roughly) an extra $250 million – extra! – a day. Meanwhile, that other ‘energy crisis’ that came and went – the one in California that was engineered in no small part by Enron (the President’s biggest campaign supporters), as told in The Smartest Guys in the Room – is about to hit the silver screen in a documentary by the same name. Don’t miss the part maybe two-thirds of the way through where the Enron guys come out to confab with Arnold before the recall process gets going. The crisis – which disappeared as soon as the manipulation stopped – sure helped to undermine the governor of the largest Democratic state in the country. My point is, you may think high gasoline or heating oil prices are becoming a hardship. But one man’s crisis is another’s bonanza. It is a grand time to be rich and powerful in America. Have yourself a double latte. STARBUCKS Brendan Segraves: ‘Just a quick confirmation that we’ve had a similar experience with our Starbucks machine (a Digital Italia). The seals busted after three months and they sent us an entirely new machine ($999 retail) instead of making us wait the standard 8-12 weeks to repair the machine. Oh, and the espresso is excellent.’ Jack Rivers: ‘And don’t forget Starbucks pays its workers a fair wage, gives even part time employees health insurance, and supports progressive causes. A Goliath maybe, but definitely not coffee’s version of Wal-Mart.’ Joanna: ‘I’ve never liked their coffee much, but in their defense, I cart off buckets of their used grounds every week for my gardening and composting attempts. Not only do they give me this “gardener’s gold” for free, but they also package the used grounds neatly back into the bags they came in, sealed with a cute sticker telling me what the grounds are good for and how to use them, and set the bag into a basket by the door. I walk in, pick up my bag of free grounds, and leave. And all those bags of grounds end up in my garden instead of in a landfill. I love them.’ ☞ Yes, but even at today’s prices, oil is cheaper.
Apples, Sprouts, and Coffee April 13, 2005March 1, 2017 APPLES Linda Tam: ‘I used to have Quicken 98 on the PC and it was everything I wanted it to be. When I got a PowerMac G5 last July I bought the current Mac Quicken and it’s true, it’s not as nice. Quicken 98 on the PC would make educated guesses about data entry (which were usually correct). For example, when reconciling a bank statement, it would automatically fill in the statement date (guessing based on the last statement date and how long this account usually goes between statements, I guess) – but the version on the Mac makes me fill it in myself. Blah! The point of a Mac (to quote my other favorite Andy blogger, Andy Ihnatko) is to be so awesome that the hair on the back of your neck stands on end. Quicken fails that, and how! I use it anyway, though. Whatcha gonna do?’ SPROUTS Ray Harney: ‘In the Two Thousand Year Old Man routine with Carl Reiner, the following occurs: Q. You’re two thousand years old; how do you look so good? A. Brussels Sprouts. Q. [astonished guffaw] Brussels sprouts? A. That’s right; I never ate them.’ COFFEE This saga comes by way of a retired financier who insists he be identified only as ‘Hal, the Croquet King of Canada.’ I like it because, in the end, it says we Americans sometimes do things right. Grab a mallet or, more appropriately, your morning brew, and off you go. Herewith, writing from Miami, Hal, the Croquet King of Canada: So I woke up one morning a couple of weeks ago, marched to my Krups $99 espresso maker which I’ve had for eons and went to have my morning crack. Sorry, espresso. Flipped it on, it burped, then died. Kaput. I had been expecting its death for weeks, given the random steam shooting out of it at odd times, but I was sad nonetheless. Great opportunity I thought to finally get one of those super-cool-Jetson-looking machines in a fabulous designer color. Orange would be really hot. Or lime green. Or maybe stainless steel. Marched to my IMAC, sitting next to my IPOD, and started to surf the net looking for consumer reviews of the latest and greatest espresso machines. I knew I had found the right spot when I got to coffeegeek.com and saw an online chat taking place regarding ‘Priming Your Pump.’ Scanned the reviews and noted to great dismay that 1) I would have to fork out at least $400 for something half decent and 2) Starbucks ‘Barrista’ kept getting rave reviews. Starbucks? Forget it. They are the enemy. I hate the fact that they have made a mockery of the simple ritual of great espresso (cappuccino for breakfast, espresso any other time) and turned it into a half-decaf/half-soy/low-foam-vanilla-moccacino experience. Not to mention that I would have to chisel off the Starbucks label emblazoned across the front of the machine and even worse, a 1-800 number on the water tank. Never. So I decided to go for the #2-rated machine – some super-duper Italian number with levers, spouts, and knobs that would clearly look to my friends as though I had hauled it back from my last trip to Positano. And it was orange. Hot. It arrived a week later. I opened the box and it looked as if it had been dropped off the back of a pickup and driven over. Twice. There was a sliver of bubble wrap and two foam chips. And it had been shipped like this from Italy. Please. It went back. Back to coffeegeek.com. This time the chat was about ‘Crema and Water Hardness.’ Hot. Picked the 3rd rated machine – again from Italy with lots of bells and whistles, but in stainless steel. Not so hot, but at this point I really needed my damn coffee. It arrived a week later. Foam chips were peeking out of the corners of the box so I felt confident. It was perfect. Set it up and then attempted to interpret the half Italian/half Spanish/half French manual. I gave up and just fired it up. All I could get was steam. And occasionally some light brown fluid. It went back. Now I was desperate. I needed my espresso. I was going through withdrawal and it wasn’t pretty. My housekeeper insisted she could put masking tape over the Starbucks label if I got that machine. Esthetics are not her forte. I relented and trudged down to the local Starbucks, wearing my designer shades in case any of my friends saw me. Walked up to the counter and asked to buy a ‘Barrista’ – how faux-Italian is that! Ughh! The young lass behind the counter said, ‘Just a moment, Sir; I’ll get the manager.’ Two seconds later, a perky young thing bounds out the swinging door and says, ‘Sir, I’m the manager and I hear you want to buy a Barrista – do you have five minutes by any chance?’ What the heck, I thought, just give me the damn machine before the meter runs out. But I smiled and said, ‘Of course’. So she hauls me behind the swinging door and takes me back to where she’s got one of the machines all set up, unpacked, plugged in with a pitcher of frosty fresh milk sitting next to it. She then proceeds to teach me step by step how to use the damn thing, steam the milk, clean it, descale it in case my water was hard (aha!) and prime the pump (aha!!). Then she asked me how I like my espresso and made me a cup. One of the best I’ve ever had. Then she tells me about the two-year return policy, about how she’s giving me $150 off because they’re about to have a sale, and then insists on carrying it to my car for me in the hot Miami sun. I love her. I want her to bear my children. The thing makes the best espresso I’ve ever had (other than that little café in Positano). I am willing to put Starbucks bumper stickers on my car. I am a convert. And I didn’t put masking tape over the name.
A Grand Time and a Grand Bargain April 12, 2005March 1, 2017 A GRAND TIME TO BE RICH AND POWERFUL IN AMERICA According to this in the L.A. Times, worker pay for the last 14 months has trailed inflation. In real dollars, workers have taken a tiny pay cut. But not to worry: In the same time frame, corporate profits hit record highs . . . and the tax rate on dividends paid out of those profits has been slashed by 62% since President Bush took office. (I know some of you think relatively little cash is involved, but $441 billion was paid out in personal dividends in 2004, most of it to those already best off.) The most outspokenly religious president in our history, Bush’s unique interpretation of Christ’s philosophy is to cut programs for the poor while slashing taxes for the rich. Which brings to mind a quote one of you kindly sent in: ‘A tyrant must put on the appearance of uncommon devotion to religion. Subjects are less apprehensive of illegal treatment from a ruler whom they consider god-fearing and pious. On the other hand, they do less easily move against him, believing that he has the gods on his side.’ – Aristotle Which brings to mind another quote one of you kindly sent me: ‘Why is this man in the White House? The majority of Americans did not vote for him. Why is he there? And I tell you this morning that he’s in the White House because God put him there for a time such as this.’ – Lt. Gen. William Boykin; New York Times, 17 October 2003 Not to say I believe President Bush is a tyrant (or sent by God). But he and the Republican leadership have unquestionably tilted the playing field even more heavily in favor of the best off. A GRAND BARGAIN And if you think religion and economic policy are unrelated in America, consider this (thanks, Gary). It holds that the religious right has agreed to support the President’s Social Security ‘reform’ in exchange for his pushing harder for the Federal Anti-Gay-Marriage Amendment. In part (from Americans United for Separation of Church and State): . . . the Religious Right leaders of the Arlington Group are playing hardball politics and have cast aside concerns about the economic well-being of citizens reliant on Social Security in order to score a big political victory – passage of a constitutional amendment to prevent legal recognition of gay marriage. If it seems callous to jeopardize the social safety net (and borrow trillions of dollars from the next generation) simply to be certain Charles and I can’t have the same rights other couples do – hang on. At least some men of the cloth have come up with the rationale: Douglas Barker, a Baptist pastor in Alexandria, Va., writing the series for BP News, argued that Social Security had weakened or undermined churches’ roles in helping the poor and elderly. Barker insisted that it is ‘disturbing’ that so many Christian leaders, citing scripture, supported the formation of Social Security when it began in the ’30s. ‘Yes, government has a role in protecting its citizens, but it should never come at the expense of the church abdicating its biblically mandated role,’ Barker wrote Feb. 9.