Happy New Year! December 31, 2012December 30, 2012 This site is all about happiness. What better way to start the year? (Thank you, Evy.) Seriously. If you’re interested in psychology — or just in being even a little happier — a few minutes here could help get 2013 off to a great start. In any event, I give you, a few hours early — with a small drum roll and big thanks for your readership — * ! 2013 ! *
Bright Future December 28, 2012December 27, 2012 LES MIZ There are so many reasons to love this film. One of them is how starkly it reminds us: we have hot water. As much as we want, most of us, any time we want it! We can keep clean, we can keep warm or cool, we don’t smell bad (I don’t, do I? seriously: please tell me if I do), we have our freedom, and later today I will hurtle through the air reading a book, listening to a symphony, sipping a Virgin Mary (or, as my mother used to call them, a Bloody Shame), all for about the cost of a good pair of shoes. Okay? Things are heart-breakingly difficult for millions; but in the great arc of history, which is to say the last couple of seconds of cosmic time, the species has made astonishing progress . . . . . . even as we’re within another cosmic second of blowing the whole thing — as, by ignoring climate change, and in several other ways, we are all too capable of doing. 350.ORG DO THE MATH. Bill McKibbon’s video takes just 90 seconds to watch. See if it piques your interest. See if you want to help avert, or at least mitigate, the crisis. . . . Almost every government in the world has agreed that any warming above a 2°C (3.6°F) rise would be unsafe. We have already raised the temperature .8°C, and that has caused far more damage than most scientists expected. A third of summer sea ice in the Arctic is gone, the oceans are 30 percent more acidic, and since warm air holds more water vapor than cold, the climate dice are loaded for both devastating floods and drought. Scientists estimate that humans can pour roughly 565 more gigatons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and still have some reasonable hope of staying below two degrees. Computer models calculate that even if we stopped increasing CO2 levels now, the temperature would still rise another 0.8 degrees above the 0.8 we’ve already warmed, which means that we’re already 3/4s of the way to the 2 degree target. . . . SUNCOMMON It is undoubtedly an exaggeration to call this one the best little company in the world; but even though you don’t live in Vermont, and even if Suncommon can’t fully live up to its promises (I have no idea, I just was directed to their web site by one of you today), it is such a wonderful effort: installing solar panels for no money down — with union labor — that will power your home at lower cost than you are paying now. Good for your budget, good for national security, good for the planet. It’s worth taking two minutes to watch their video and three more to peruse their FAQ, because even if it’s a few years further down the road, the explosion in solar power seems by now to be really close at hand. There are already more Americans employed in solar than in coal — 119,000 versus 86,000. This is in no way a criticism of the brave, hardworking coal miners who’ve dedicated their lives to powering ours. But our needs are changing. We need their kids to learn to weatherize homes and install solar panels.
Prosecute! December 27, 2012 THE DECLINE OF AMERICA’S MERITOCRACY Peter Baum: “In case anyone thinks America is the best at everything, let me tell you that there’s nothing close to the ‘rest and relax’ area of the airport at Seoul (where I am now). Free beds, internet, wifi, showers (!), and a guy playing piano at the moment. But I digress. I somewhat agree with Chris Hayes about meritocracy, but I don’t see things being as bad as he paints them. I feel I’ve got a good vantage point on this as an SAT tutor to the very well-to-do in Silicon Valley. There is not the slightest question that the game has been rigged toward the wealthy. They assume that if a kid is smart and works hard, the kid will go to a top-flight university. Of course, there are way more kids fitting this description than there are slots at top universities. Yet as our system is set up, their kids generally do get all the slots they need — and the parents’ lack of awareness of this situation and sense of entitlement sometimes drives me crazy. But let me note: these kids work really hard. They play sports passionately (at a much higher level than we did), they take their studies seriously (far more than I did), and they volunteer for the community (which I never did). I point this out to contrast with elites from other countries with a very different ethos. I had a kid flown in from Pakistan just to be tutored for the SAT, and he was astonished that I expected him to work during the sessions. He was incredulous that he actually had to do the homework that had been assigned. And he felt he could do no wrong: Me (after he’d missed a math problem): ‘Take a look at the arithmetic there.’ Him: ‘So?’ Me: ‘Well, 3 x 9 is 27, not 24.’ Him: ‘Are you sure?’ I made him draw out sticks in bundles of three and count them. The point is: we must do everything we can to create equality of opportunity but should be aware that we’re only halfway on the slope to nepotism, corruption, and intractable problems.” PROSECUTE! From Congressman Barney Frank last week: Dear Mr. Attorney General: I note several instances recently in which Administration officials have proceeded civilly against blatant violators of our important financial laws, in part because of the difficulty of approving cases beyond a reasonable doubt, especially where the law may have been somewhat uncertain, but also because of a concern that the criminal conviction – and even indictment – of a major financial institution could have a destabilizing effect. This latter consideration does not apply, similarly, to individuals. It is, of course, the case that no corporation can have engaged in wrongdoing without the active decision of individual officers of that entity. I believe it is also the case that prosecuting individuals has more of a deterrent effect than prosecuting corporations. I am writing to you as well as to financial regulators, understanding that the decision to pursue criminal prosecutions rests with the Justice Department, so I ask that there be a series of consultations involving law-enforcement officials and regulators with the goal of increasing prosecution of culpable individuals as an important step in seeing that the laws that protect the stability and integrity of our financial system are better observed. Barney Frank This makes so much sense. Professor William Black, who knows whereof he speaks, elaborates, with a passion. I don’t know whether the election was an inhibiting factor, but with the election behind us, it’s high time to get moving.
Dancing Around the Planet December 26, 2012 ONE WORLD Ross Stapleton: “A Planet Full of Terrific People.” What’s so threatening about that? Enjoy these five minutes. BEST SUPER BOWL AD 2013 James Musters: “I thought this Renault commercial might amuse you.” ☞ Not sure they will actually pay millions to air this on the next Super Bowl, but it would get people talking about Renault more than they normally do. IN PRAISE OF TEACHERS John Leeds (in the wake of the Newtown tragedy): Sorry to write to you about so sad a subject. Although I’m a middle school teacher, I’ve had occasions to spend days in schools just like the one where the tragedy occurred. I’m not surprised the teachers and school personnel were out to save their students, even at risk of their own lives. Some in America portray teachers as looking to do less, as babysitters, as feckless workers who could not make it elsewhere in society-as people who aren’t dedicated to the ideal of work. But that’s not true for the majority of teachers, most of whom are scooped up by suburban systems as in Newtown, but who also find their way into the inner city and other poor areas. A friend who has taught at Hopi and Navajo says that teachers on reservations, the true third-world nations within the U.S, are either the best of the best or the worst of the worst. They come to poor areas to teach because they are either extremely dedicated, or, as society has stereotyped, because they truly can’t make it elsewhere. I think of that elementary school, a typical one, run and staffed by women, perhaps the lone male adult as a custodian. Sometimes the other male is the principal, though less so these days. The women tend to be young, as the system saves money hiring new teachers when retiring teachers leave. As baby boomers have been retiring in the past 7-10 years, the elementary schools are dominated more and more by women in their 20s. These are women with great talent, strengths and dedication. Women who could not imagine facing their own lives if they had not done their utmost to save the lives of the young innocents. What is strength? I know well as a male in our culture, I will impress few with my raw power by telling them I teach, especially when I explain I don’t teach high school or college. And yet we know that one can’t be stronger than those women were the day of the shooting. It is the kind of pure strength that is the height of human essence. And yet that strength was always there in the calm times, unrecognized, because it didn’t fit society’s concept of strength. I tell you I see that same strength in other teachers I know, at every level of teaching. One never knows until confronted with the choice, but I believe most, if not almost all, would lay down their lives in similar fashion if forced to by circumstances. Every time there is a shooting like this, and many times in between, I’ve thought about how I take my life in my hands at work in a way I never realized I would when I became a teacher. Sometimes on a fire drill, I wonder just what is waiting outside and say a little prayer. I wish I could say I look forward to going in this Monday, but I don’t. But I know that once class starts normally, we will begin anew, and the worst that will happen is a bored student or a tired teacher. Remember Saving Private Ryan? The platoon leader, savvy and shrewd, turns out to be a high school teacher. That’s what all the good teachers are made of: leadership, courage, sacrifice, the ability to motivate by example and with human understanding. So, I am so tired of hearing people dump on the profession. Everyone sees how brave these women were at the moment of crisis. When will they realize that this is truly the way of the teacher? I guarantee you the surviving teachers and staff – and in this let me mention school secretaries and custodians, who are just as brave and dedicated – will do whatever they can to help their students process the grief and horror and to move on, even as the teachers themselves attempt to process and grieve. For teachers like this, being a teacher is somewhat like being an older family member and a village elder rolled into one. Teaching students permeates the soul. Teaching surpasses a vocation and becomes a way of being. Long before the Sandy Hook staff was confronted by stark reality, the adults there were focused on protecting, saving and building lives, and they will continue to do so, as will teachers everywhere.
Chris Hayes’ New Book – Really December 24, 2012 But first . . . MERRY CHRISTMAS! I don’t believe in Santa Claus, or the other stuff, but I sure believe in Peace on Earth, Good Will To Men and Women. Here’s wishing you incense and mirth — demyrrh at your peril — and an even better 2013. And now . . . CHRIS HAYES’ NEW BOOK Chris Hayes is the brilliant and relentlessly fair-minded host of what may be the most substantive show on television – certainly it is among the top few – “UP With Chris Hayes” Saturday and Sunday mornings from eight to ten (which is why God invented TiVo). Full disclosure: we went to the same New York public school, decades apart; his amazing wife, Kate Shaw, worked in the Obama White House for a time; and we got to bond with the two of them over dinner on the high seas a couple of weeks ago. That — and the afore-apotheosized smoked salmon — were the highlights of the cruise. (Well, and the afore-swooned pat on the cheek from Joan Baez. And did I mention the sexta-lingual guy from Metz with the world’s second largest collection of cigarette packages – 92,000 of them?) The overarching point Chris makes in The Twilight of the Elites: The Decline of America’s Meritocracy, is that well-intentioned meritocracy leads to winners and losers . . . and the winners find ways to entrench themselves (and their sometimes less meritorious kids) and grab ever more power and wealth . . . and after a few decades the inequality becomes deeply corrosive, corrupting the political system and squeezing the middle class (who, as so cogently explained in this brief video I keep linking to, are the TRUE job creators) . . . and with the breakdown in competent, effective governance comes – in this era – our truly catastrophic inability to deal with the species-threatening climate crisis (thus far, at least, and time may already, to some degree, have run out). Chris’s view is a bit gloomier than mine. We agree on the problems and their gravity; but I am just chumpish or sappy enough to think that, in electing President Obama – twice now – we could, just maybe, be at the beginning of the sort of virtuous cycle we (desperately) need to get back on track. Imagine (in this season of miracles) that within the next month Senate rules are changed to require Senators who wish to block a bill or an appointment . . . to filibuster. To actually do it. To stand on the floor of the Senate hour after hour explaining why it’s so important not to have anyone head the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms (which has been leaderless for six years now). Etc. That alone would likely sweep away 90% of the filibusters, while still leaving open the opportunity for a minority of Senators to block something about which they feel passionately. And so imagine, further, that we are able to raise taxes on the best-off – and keep a robust estate tax in place on the enormously wealthy – using some of that revenue to reduce the deficit but some to invest in the infrastructure that will put people to work rebuilding our country and assuring our future shared prosperity. I could go on, but that’s the big idea: a decade or two of modestly higher taxes on the wealthy; modestly more public consumption (on things like bridges and sewage systems and dredging); modestly less private consumption (on a fourth car or a third home). Imagine a decade or two of smart incentives that lead to energy efficiency (weatherization, the smart grid, ever-falling alternative energy prices) which leads to prosperity, energy independence, and more robust national security. These things are possible, and with them come a growing pie — which would make compromise easier. It’s much easier to come to agreement on who gets what when there’s more for everyone. So a virtuous cycle is possible, I think, and may be in its early stages. And could serve, at least somewhat, to shrink the inequality of which Chris writes, even as the rich continued to get richer — just not as fast, and not at the expense of the poor getting poorer. But there’s a lot of repair to do. What the right did to demonize and destroy ACORN – a worthy advocate for poor citizens – based almost entirely on misinformation, was bullying of the worst sort. What the right have done and continue to do to destroy unions is another piece of this. And I say this as a guy who, growing up, saw unions destroy his family’s business and who thus knows that – as with most things – a balance is required. The unions were for a time too powerful (and themselves too often corrupt). But enlightened unions are a good thing, just as enlightened corporations are a good thing. (But not “people,” and very much in need of enlightened regulation.) Finally, what the right did to slash taxes on the millionaires and billionaires wrecked our national balance sheet and widened inequality. Will we now, finally, have a decade or two of enlightened self-correction and rebuilding? Of more competent, more vigorous enlightened regulation? A good start would be redrawing our electoral districts so that moderate, centrists once again have a chance to win and thus a reason to run for office. I would argue that’s what most Democrats already are: progressives in the center or slightly left of center (we have one Socialist? and boy does he — Bernie Sanders — ever make a lot of sense on most issues) . . . whereas, by contrast, most Republicans – with their few moderates retiring or getting primaried out — are not centrists. The whole political landscape has shifted dramatically to the right. Today, Eisenhower, Nixon, and even Reagan, could not win a Republican primary. Today, Andrew Sullivan — a lifelong conservative — says of the Republicans . . . . . . This party, not to mince words, is unfit for government. There is no conservative party in the West — except for minor anti-immigrant neo-fascist ones in Europe — anywhere close to this level of far right extremism. And now the damage these fanatics can do is not just to their own country — was the debt ceiling debacle of 2011 not enough for them? — but to the entire world. . . . Enough. This faction and its unhinged fanaticism has no place in any advanced democracy. . . . Whether or not they are comfortable acknowledging it, the positions of my moderate Republican friends are largely today’s Democratic positions. Welcome one and all. And pass the plum pudding.
Chris Hayes’ New Book December 21, 2012December 21, 2012 iPHONE TIP A libertarian friend who runs in alien circles recently discovered the unattended cell phone of one of Mitt Romney’s primary opponents. Appallingly, he could not resist the temptation to take a look and — as the phone turned out not to be password protected — perpetrated a truly massive, hour-long invasion of privacy. And discovered not even a trace of scandal or hypocrisy. Wrong-headed as this 2012 presidential contender assuredly is, he appears to be upright and completely sincere in his beliefs (which did not surprise me). But that got me to thinking how dumb it is for anyone with private content on his or her phone not to enable the password feature. And that got me to thinking that, as the iPhone uses a 4-digit key, your password is one of just 9999 possible numbers . . . so if it’s possible to enter 30 erroneous ones a minute — and it is — an evil-doer could correctly “guess” yours within five or six mind-numbing hours. Tops. At least with the iPhone and iPad (and perhaps your Android or Blackberry) there is a solution: enable the feature to “erase all data after 10 failed password attempts.” No matter how much you’ve had to drink, how fat your thumbs, or how bumpy your stagecoach, there’s no way you would enter the password wrong 10 times in a row. And even if you did, with your data backed up to the Cloud and/or your computer — who cares? To enable this feature, go to SETTINGS / GENERAL / PASSCODE LOCK. It’s the last option . . . you have to scroll down to see it. CHRIS HAYES’ NEW BOOK By the time I finally get around to writing about Chris Hayes’ Twilight of the Elites: America After Meritocracy (Monday!), you may already have read it. But no harm. It deserves all the teasers it can get. I thought I should use today to post your good thoughts on guns. GUNS Fred Johnson: “David Neal’s opinion and reasoning yesterday left me angry. He is wrong to lay our gun problem at the doorstep of inequality. The connection is terribly tenuous at best. I hope you read and perhaps quote Adam Gopnik’s newest piece at The New Yorker where his reasoning and references to David Hemenway’s research on guns is far more valuable in understanding and curing the problem.” Artie: “There’s a lot that can be laid at the doorstep of economic inequality, but I don’t think that massacres like Newtown are among them. Both the shooters in the Newtown and Aurora attacks came from well to do families.” Clare Durst: “I agree with David Neal that you won’t get rid of the violence by banning certain kinds of guns, but the question of the gun culture does need to be addressed. If only somehow it could be made as socially unacceptable to have ‘assault-type’ rifles, as it is to smoke. Not easy, but that is what is needed. Many years passed when people warned that the tobacco industry was invincible. It wasn’t.” Dana Dlott: “[Yes,] Mexico has strict gun control and massive gun violence. Does this mean gun control is futile? Mexico has an out of control neighbor to the North that floods their country with powerful weapons. Fortunately the US does not have this problem. I will take David Neal’s Roman army analogy more seriously when I start seeing headlines about drive-by broadswordings.” Joel Grow: “Gun control has worked very, very well for the Aussies since a similar tragedy. Huge drops in gun deaths, homicides in general, and no mass shootings…tougher ownership laws, assault weapon buy-back program. Here. (‘After a 1996 firearm massacre in Tasmania in which 35 people died, Australian governments united to remove semi-automatic and pump-action shotguns and rifles from civilian possession, as a key component of gun law reforms. … In the 18 years before the gun law reforms, there were 13 mass shootings in Australia, and none in the 10.5 years afterwards.’) Here. And here. (‘Australia has much in common with the United States. It was initially settled by teeming masses — in its case, largely convicts — fleeing England. Its identity was forged in the populating of its vast, empty spaces. And today it retains a considerable frontier mentality, and a considerable amount of ranching and hunting. But the similarities end when it comes to guns. While gun ownership has been a part of Australians’ way of life, they have a much more utilitarian view of their purpose…’)” John Leeds: “Found this immediately on searching about gun control in Switzerland [a fascinating brief history of Switzerland — if you have three minutes, read it! — A.T.] and this. While guns and ammo are widely available in Switzerland, according to , automatic weapons are not purchasable, and there are a host of rules governing gun ownership and possession of a gun in public. For 700 years, Switzerland has been a militia based country. Every male member of that nation IS the militia. I know from a Swiss friend that every male goes through basic training and has a period of time each year, perhaps a week or two, that he must serve actively. This means that every male is well-trained in the use and safe storage of weapons and ammo, and that each male is indoctrinated that guns are a responsibility to the nation, not the self. That is, they are for national protection, not self-defense. In the end, while guns are widespread and easy to obtain in Switzerland if you follow the rules, there are rules; i.e. there is gun control. And indoctrination into the rules starts in toddlerhood or before. Like Switzerland, we do need rules, and we need rules adapted to our populace.” Tom Martel: “How about this as a framework to solve the problem? First, consider what has changed in the last 30 years that has contributed to mass killing? A hundred fifty years ago boys were walking to school carrying their rifles and no one was killed. Sixty years ago High Schools sponsored Rifle Teams and no one was killed. Psychiatric drugs have become popular to treat a variety of behaviors in the last 30 years. Violent video game have become popular entertainment for young men in the last 30 years. . . . So how about this: (1.) Before a psychiatric drug may be administered to a male under the age of 50, the responsible adult (other than the recipient) must sign a statement indicating there are no violent video games or weapons in their home. In addition they must also be blacklisted on the background database for purchasing weapons. (2.) Before a violent video game can be sold, the buyer must sign a statement that all weapons in that home are secure under lock and key, and that the game will not be used by anyone using psychiatric drugs.” ☞ Regulation like that would drive some people crazy. And I suspect we don’t want to do anything to discourage potential mass murderers from getting the psychiatric drugs they need. But there is definitely food here for thought. Barry Basden: “An essay on our sad times: ‘This Is My Rifle.‘ ” ☞ Indeed.
BOREF December 20, 2012December 29, 2016 This video shows that WheelTug’s CEO will not make it as a stand-up comic but just might make us money. If I were an airline executive in that audience, I’d want to reserve an early WheelTug delivery slot for my fleet. So — with all the usual caveats — Borealis, parent of Chorus Motors, parent of WheelTug, remains, in my view, an astonishing lottery ticket. Heads you lose your money (which is why you can ONLY buy shares with money you can truly afford to lose); tails you make ten, or conceivably 50 or 100, times your money. Here’s how I justified a $100 share price seven years ago, when the stock was $3. It even more true today, with the stock at $8 and change. That makes the entire market cap $40 million. There are apartments in New York that sell for more. GUNS David N Neal: “I’d like to say something about gun control. The fanatics on either side (Brady bunch, NRA) will be drowning out the other conversation, but here goes anyway. Gun control laws will be of limited help. Mexico has very strict gun control and massive gun violence. Guns, per se, are not the real issue. Historically, the US has always had a large number of gun owners, and only at times is there widespread gun violence. The Swiss mandate military-style gun ownership in their civilian militia, and do not have significant gun violence. The real problems are the social issues and environment that leads to violence, not the method of the violence. Long before there were guns, there was murder. Cain and Abel for instance. The Romans, among others, slew vast numbers without a single firearm. Look at network TV any prime time night. Or movies. The good guys all have guns. The bad guys also. There’s tons of this stuff. I myself watch only three shows regularly: Hawaii 5-0, Person of Interest, and Elementary. Only Elementary is (relatively but not entirely) gun free. But I think the root problem in America today is the vast income/wealth inequality. If you look at Richard Wilkinson’s TED talk, you will be struck by how the US has, among the developed countries, far and away the worst record on all of the social problems he mentions. Is this because of guns? I doubt it. Given this backdrop, the gun control debate will be just another red herring.” Tomorrow — really! — Chris Hayes’ book.
High Hopes for 2013 December 19, 2012 GUNS Mike Bloomberg made perfect sense on Sunday’s Meet the Press. Rachel Maddow gave me hope we might really do something this time. Especially compelling: her two-minute Lyndon Johnson clip that begins eight minutes in. The need to act was as evident in 1965 as it is today. On one side, you have most of the country — even most NRA members — favoring common sense gun safety measures. Reinstating the assault weapons ban; closing the gun-show loophole; registering guns as we do cars; licensing owners as we do drivers. That sort of thing. On the other side, you have the gun manufacturers and religious nuts like those Michael Keegan quotes here. (“We’ve kicked God out of our public school system. And I think God would say to us, ‘Hey, I’ll be glad to protect your children, but you’ve got to invite me back into your world first. I’m not going to go where I am not wanted. I am a gentleman.”) I think 2013 could be the year common sense prevails. And that next month the Senate might change its rules to require that, to filibuster, you actually have to . . . filibuster. The two are related — and not just on matters of gun safety — because in its current form, the filibuster grinds the gears of governance to a virtual halt. Not least because there’s far too much money in politics. STAMPING MONEY OUT OF POLITICS Ben Everly: “Coincidentally, shortly after reading your post, I received a dollar in change stamped: A CORPORATION IS NOT A PERSON MONEY IS NOT SPEECH www.MoveToAmend.org “Naturally I signed their petition!” Ken Doran: “Really obvious fly in the ointment: If only one cause does this, maybe it is fairly harmless (although I am not crazy about it even for a cause I support). But if one can do it, so can two others, or five or ten, to infinity and beyond. Then maybe it does get made illegal, or people start fighting over accepting bills with stamps they don’t like. This is a road down which it is not wise to go.” Wayne Arczynski: “I don’t accept paper money that has been stamped. Stamping red ink over the serial number is defacing the currency. I don’t care what Ben’s lawyer’s opinion is. Hopefully, the Secret Service will shut down this organization. I would be personally insulted if you handed me a stamped dollar. I’m guessing you might have imbibed on your cruise and in high spirits thought: What a great idea! Once you get home and stamp a few bills (I’d suggest hundreds), you may have a change of heart.” ☞ I’ll be careful not to stamp over the serial number. FIXING OUR ELECTORAL MESS Money corrupts good governance. And our antiquated electoral system is an embarrassment. FairVote.org is working to fix that. Tomorrow: Chris Hayes’ important book.
Uber December 18, 2012December 18, 2012 So let’s say it’s raining a little and it’s late and, yes, you could take the subway and an hour or so later get home (if your city even has a subway) but you’ve worked hard to get to a place where you can afford this, so — since you haven’t spent $400 to hire a limo for the night (please tell me you have not!) — you pull out your smart phone, touch the Uber app, whether in New York or LA or London or Phoenix or Boston or Paris or Philly or wherever, and it sees where you are and tells you that a “black car” is 4 minutes away. (Unless there are a bunch of you and you prefer an SUV.) You say okay, and it tells you the name of the driver and his/her license plate and shows you the position of the car relative to yours and you watch as it draws near. As it does, you also have the option of calling the driver to explain that you’ll be standing out in front of Wicked Willies, by which time you’ll have retrieved your coat and said good-bye to your friends and actually be standing outside and — look at that! — up drives your car, you hop in, say where you’re going, and hop out when you get there. Uber already has your credit card. A couple of minutes later you see the receipt on your phone. This ride took 15 minutes and 7 seconds, spanned 4.26 miles, and cost you $27 including tip, or about $7 more than a cab would have cost if you had been able to find one in the rain. I love Uber. No sign-up fee, no monthly minimum — and even a little “green” in the sense that the 2,000 or so cars it has on call in New York (for example) are cars that used to spend a lot of their time empty, idling their motors, in between jobs. Now, the vehicles — and their drivers — have a much higher ratio of productive time, when they’re taking people where they want to go. I don’t own a car, which saves me perhaps $10,000 a year (parking, insurance, gas, and the amortized cost of the car itself), so to me, the occasional $27 Uber fee is not hard to justify. Tomorrow: even more substantive matters.
Ship’s Log III December 17, 2012December 17, 2012 My apologies for last weeks’ erratic posts. They should all be there now. My first-cruise-ever was pretty great, but a few final observations and a suggestion. First off, if “you are what you eat,” I am surely by now a smoked salmon. I spent a fortune on the cruise, but if you price out the smoked salmon I consumed — for breakfast, for lunch, for snacks for dinner — I made a profit on the deal. I can now swim upstream with the best of them . . . handy for a contrarian investor. (Show me a trout that ever beat the Dow and I’ll show you a trout who’s at least one quarter salmon.) Second, if your fellow cruisers are, like you, deeply concerned about their carbon footprints, then perhaps a cruise — we burned 33,000 gallons of diesel fuel a day — is not the best venue for the discussion. But what an amazing thing: a floating hotel, built in Italy two years ago, with a Dutch name (“the Nieuw Amsterdam”), flying a French flag, owned by a British-American firm, cruising in the Caribbean, staffed by 888 mainly Indonesians and Filipinos serving baked Alaska to the aforementioned Egyptian (and 2,110 others). And yet everywhere we went — 326 nautical miles to Half Moon Cay, the cruise line’s private island; 507 nautical miles to Jamaica; 251 to Grand Cayman (“Hey, hey! Ho, ho! Tax evaders have to go!”); 350 to an island off Honduras; 815 back to Ft. Lauderdale (where 2,111 of us disembarked by 10am so 2,111 fresh cruisers board two hours later) — was essentially the same: a crowded little beach packed with lounge chairs; rum funnies; a snorkeling option; and festive music that should not be playing before sunset, let alone at 11am. So here’s my suggestion. Steam to Half Moon Cay, have a nice day. Then, as the sun is setting, go a few miles out to sea, keep enough power on to churn the water a bit and make the boat rumble and vibrate — occasionally clank some stuff — and “arrive” in port the next morning, by which time the beach chairs have been swapped out for a different color, the signage has changed, and — well, you get the idea. Welcome to Jamaica, Mon! It’s basically what Disney does: all the rides are identical, as you sit in little tubs that travel around a track up and down and around through tunnels on whose walls are projected the dinosaurs you would see if you were a caveman, with appropriate narration and sound effects, the stars you would see if you were an astronaut, the dragons you would see if you were a Hobbit — whatever. Think of the fuel it would save! I’m on to something here.