The NEW Keystone Pipeline . . . April 15, 2015April 15, 2015 Some fanciful solutions are just too good not to share. With California in devastating drought and Chicago recently deluged, the clear win-win is for Chicago — fiscally strapped — to sell California water: fiscal problem AND drought solved. And we could call it the Keystone Pipeline and create loads of jobs building it, instead of the other one, and if there were leaks or spills . . . who cares? It’s just water! Political impasse resolved! Sounds nuts — is nuts — but they did reverse the flow of the Chicago River (did you know that?), so why is this any more fanciful? Here‘s why: Even from Alaska, which would make more sense than Chicago, it apparently makes little sense. (My favorite line: “Alaska is North, but not uphill.”) You’d need pumping stations every 150 miles. Something of this nature this was proposed 50 years ago at a cost then estimated to be $100 billion ($420 billion in today’s dollars). Still, we may yet have to give it another look. Janet Tavakoli: “In Iran, pre-Islam engineers tunneled qanats through mountains to bring water to the desert: . . . The qanat system consists of underground channels that convey water from aquifers in highlands to the surface at lower levels by gravity. The qanat works of Iran were built on a scale that rivaled the great aqueducts of the Roman Empire. Whereas the Roman aqueducts now are only a historical curiosity, the Iranian system is still in use after 3,000 years and has continually been expanded. There are some 22,000 qanat units in Iran, comprising more than 170,000 miles of underground channels. The system supplies 75 percent of all the water used in that country, providing water not only for irrigation but also for house-hold consumption. Until recently (before the building of the Karaj Dam) the million inhabitants of the city of Tehran depended on a qanat system tapping the foothills of the Elburz Mountains for their entire water supply. “Water is everything,” Janet continues. “Without it, money means nothing.” Bring on the solar desalinators! I have no clue whether WaterFX will succeed, but I bet someone will. “I would put my money on the sun and solar energy,” Thomas Edison told Henry Ford and Harvey Firestone in 1931 shortly before he died. “What a source of power! I hope we don’t have to wait until oil and coal run out before we tackle that.” And yet the real solution to California’s problem may be much simpler. Behold this CNBC commentary by Terry Tamminen, former secretary of the California Environmental Protection. Instead of letting rain water run off into the Pacific, catch and store it for later use, as he explains and illustrates: . . . About a decade ago, the blue-collar community of Sun Valley in Los Angeles County was faced with flooding that impacted homes and businesses during winter rains. The county had planned a $47 million storm sewer system to drain the flood waters from streets and dump it in the Pacific Ocean via the Los Angeles River (itself now a mostly concrete flood management canal). Instead, clever community planners decided to invest those funds in underground cisterns that would capture the water for later use. A dilapidated city park was remodeled with cisterns below, as were medians along broad boulevards that were themselves underwater during heavy rains. The result was a system, using ancient Roman technology (see photo above), that captures 8,000 acre feet of water each year, about twice what the entire city consumes, solving the flooding problem and creating a source of fresh water for thousands of residents. The investment also gave the city a new park with ball fields and picnic grounds and higher adjacent property values. But could something this simple be the solution for a thirsty state that is getting hotter, growing faster, and producing more food crops than ever before? . . . The answer seems to be . . . yes. Read on. (Thanks, Brian!) # IT’S APRIL 15. DON’T FORGET TO FILE YOUR 2014 TAX EXTENSION AND, IF YOU HAVE SIGNIFICANT INCOME FROM WHICH TAX HAS NOT ALREADY BEEN WITHHELD, YOUR FIRST QUARTERLY 2015 ESTIMATED TAX RETURN
Rent or Buy: Terrific Real Estate Calculator April 14, 2015April 12, 2015 The only things this terrific New York Times calculator seems not to take into account are the truly “soft” factors. Like: what psychic value, if any, do you place on owning your own home? Or, for that matter, on the freedom you get from not owning your own home? (Fewer responsibilities; easier to pick up and move.) Like: how much more, if at all, do you prefer the house or condo you are looking to buy to the one (with that great view!) you might rent? Like: how much will the discipline of a mortgage payment help you to save for the future (“forced saving”), as after 15 or 30 years, you’ll own the home free and clear? Will you really take whatever cash you save by renting and invest it for 15 or 30 years? Or will it go to a more lavish wedding for your daughter or a daily skimmed latte? The one “hard” factor perhaps missing is, “how much higher (or lower) will mortgage rates be when you ultimately do decide to buy instead of rent?” It’s impossible to know, of course — but so are several other relevant variables this calculator asks you to assign values to. And the answer could be, “a lot,” which would be one more reason to buy now, if there’s a reasonable chance you might be staying put for a long time. All that said, the Times has done a great job with this. Just answering its quesions is an excellent way to think through all the variables, even as “your gut” ultimately makes the call.
Plugging My Friends – Dinner Thursday? April 13, 2015April 12, 2015 [HILLARY: She would make a spectacularly qualified president and world leader if she were elected — I am neutral until we have a nominee — and, yes, it does look as though she will be the nominee, and, yes, I did like the launch video. But we have 575 days until the election — you think that 19-inning Yankees Red Sox game dragged on! — so no rush to say more now.] # My friend John had in mind a book of local color and characters set in a history-steeped, moss-draped Southern town. He had no idea where it would go, but kept working on it, year after year — I even visited him for a tour — and finally it was finished . . . but his big-time agent politely suggested he find a different agent (which he did) . . . and you can actually buy his book right now. I think it took him seven years to write. But I won’t plug it because he’s way past needing any help — it was called Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, longer on the New York Times bestseller list, at 216 weeks, than any other book book, ever. My friend Cyrus has been talking to me for seven years about the book he wanted to write . . . and then was writing . . . and writing . . . and writing. And guess what! He did it! And guess what! He sold it! And guess what! Library Journal just published this review: “Copeland’s book traces a personal, emotional, and ultimately satisfying journey of a son trying to discover who his father really was. Using journals, interviews with his father’s friends and former coworkers, and frank discussions with his mother, the author here puts the pieces together to find out if his father was a CIA agent in Iran during the revolution in the late 1970s. Born in Oklahoma, Max Copeland toured the world at a young age, married Shahin, an Iranian woman, converted to Islam, and moved the family to Iran to eventually become an employee of Westinghouse. Things turn as Max is accused of being a CIA spy and is put on trial for his life. The author weaves a tale full of uncertainty, tension, and drama. The character that shines the most is Shahin, who fights with all of her strength, intelligence, and will as she tries to save her husband and family, not knowing for sure if he is truly a spy or not. VERDICT: This brilliant, touching tale of espionage, discovering family, and balancing cultures is recommended for fans of memoirs, spy stories, and Iranian culture.“ If you are one of those fans, you can buy it right now: Off the Radar: A Father’s Secret, a Mother’s Heroism, and a Son’s Quest. Meanwhile, my friend Janet (Tavakoli, financial genius) married an Iranian and moved to Teheran in 1978 — the year before the hostage crisis — and recently published Unveiled Threat: A Personal Experience of Fundamentalist Islam and the Roots of Terrorism. Short, powerful, informative, and — like any account of radical Islam, let alone its treatment of women — deeply troubling. (By coincidence, as I was writing this, a letter came from my friend Dave . . . “I was cleaning out some old files recently and came across the enclosed” . . . the original invitation to attend our college Commencement in June of 1968, principal speaker at which was “HIS IMPERIAL MAJESTY MOHAMMAD REZA PAHLAVI SHAHANSHAH OF IRAN.” I remember clearly not going, not out of protest — although we now know that, as bad as he was and as bad as we were to install him, he was not remotely as bad as his Ayatollah successors — but because it was too embarrassing not to have a girlfriend when everyone else did, and not to be able to explain why.) # And now — on a note so different it could give you whiplash — wanna have dinner this Thursday as my friend Seth entertains at New York’s 54 Below? HuffPo tells his story (“After Years Behind The Scenes, Seth Sikes Brings His Love Of Judy Garland To The Spotlight”). I just read that “Judy Garland Put JFK to Bed at Night By Singing ‘Over the Rainbow'” — an interesting story in its own right — suggesting that (to shorthand it) you don’t have to be gay to love Judy Garland. Though it seems to help. If there are tickets left, get them here.
iPhone . . . As You Wish April 10, 2015April 10, 2015 I WANT ONE Here’s the story of how we got to the iWatch. This will be the first time I pay more than $50 for a watch in my whole life. (Charles, as you may recall my telling you, had a watch that cost THREE HUNDRED dollars . . . wait for it . . . wait for it . . . wait for it . . . to clean! Which he had to do every year or two. And is why he was the fashion designer and I was the guy telling you to buy cans of tuna in bulk on sale.) But I live for April 24 . . . which is to say, given the mayhem that will doubtless surround the launch, a minute after midnight Pacific time today, April 10 — when I presumably pre-ordered mine but didn’t tell you about this yesterday for fear you’d get in line before me. INCONCEIVABLE Could you never have seen “The Princess Bride“? I assume you have, and assume you loved it — as folks as disparate as Pope John Paul II and Bill and Chelsea Clinton did — in which case I commend for your weekend power-walking pleasure Cary Elwes’s As You Wish: Inconceivable Tales from the Making of The Princess Bride, read by Wesley himself. This may not seem like the manliest recommendation I’ve ever made in this space — I am a guy who insists his server bring him his pomegranate margerita in “a manly glass,” not one of those dainty martini glasses, because, as I explain to her, “I have masculinity issues” — but this is a movie about swordplay and pirates and giants — and rodents of unusual size — and, of course, about true love. What could be more manly than that? Have a great weekend.
Saving On Auto Insurance April 9, 2015December 27, 2016 The best way to save on auto insurance is not to own a car. With Uber and Lyft, Car2Go and others, that just might be you. But if you do have a car, there really does seem to be a war on for your business, so shop around and see if you can get a better deal. Here’s the latest site I’ve seen — Provide-Savings — and here’s a review of that site that lists a couple of its competitors. Suggestion: use a secondary email address with any sites like these, so as not to get your primary address flooded with offers and spam thereafter. A really good way to have saved on auto insurance would have been “Pay At The Pump No-Fault,” but that’s kind of ancient history by now. Yours for a penny, here. Once most cars are self-driving, and accidents rare as unicorns, the whole industry could disappear: the manufacturer (be it GM or Toyota or Google) would repair or replace your car automatically, as the accident was its fault; theft could be rendered more or less impossible (unauthorized drivers could be quickly driven to a nearby police-station even if they had intended to go somewhere else); and liability? That again would fall to the manufacturer.
Automatic Registration April 8, 2015April 5, 2015 WHAT IF THERE WERE A WAY TO MAKE IT EASY TO VOTE? Oregon has enacted just such a plan. Voting there was already “by mail,” so no missing work or waiting in lines. Now, every adult citizen with a driver’s license (for which proof of citizenship is required) will be automatically registered to vote. Read about it here. As you would expect, this was unanimously opposed by Oregon’s Republican legislators. What a bad idea: making it easy for citizens to vote. AL FRANKEN GIVES DAVID LETTERMAN CAREER ADVICE At the end of this three minutes. Very fun.
How We Got — and Get — To Mars April 7, 2015April 5, 2015 Six minutes on how we got there. Amazing. AMAZING. USA! USA! USA! And here’s how one TED talker thinks 80,000 of us a year will follow. I so don’t want to go myself — but I so can’t wait to watch it on TV. (The real housewives of Mars?)
Spring Cleaning April 6, 2015April 5, 2015 The first thing to say about storage bins is — just throw it all out instead. You’ll never get around to dealing with all that stuff, you’ll just be paying monthly rent for years . . . for decades . . . and if the monthy storage fee rises (and it will), what are you gonna do? Move it all? Where?! So you’ll stall and delay and procrastinate and before you know it you have a long grey beard and that $3,000 heirloom in your bin will have cost you $18,000 to store ($30,000 before taxes). You should have just given it to charity (saving you a further $1,000 in taxes). The second thing to say is that I, of course, have shown zero ability to follow that good advice, spending a fortune storing junk that I only now, finally, partially, have dealt with, paying several hundred dollars just to have boxes and boxes carted off to a dump. (Did I really need all my phone bills and cancelled checks and receipts from decades past?) But you can’t just throw everything out or you’d miss some of the stuff I found, such as copies of the Pennsylvania Gazette, from 1740, printed by “B. Franklin, Postmaster” and a bottle of 30 legally prescribed Quaaludes dated February 5, 1982 and a letter from Ronald Reagan correcting misimpressions of his views on welfare. (I collect “historic documents.” Not sure how the Quaaludes got in there.) The Pennsylvania Gazettes are fascinating in about a thousand ways. To think that 1740 was just three long lifetimes ago (or eight expired Quaalude prescriptions ago), and how far we’ve come — we’re going to Mars! TO BE SOLD A Dutch Servant Man and his Wife, for Two Years and Eight Months, a genteel riding Chair almoft new, a Ten Cord Flat with new Sails and Rigging, a Fishing Boat, and sundry Sorts of Houshold Goods. Enquire of the Printer hereof. A Likely Mulatto Girl, aged about 16 Years, has had the Small Pox, is fit for either Town or Country, to be disposed of very reasonable, enquire of the Printer hereof. SENEKA Rattlesnake Root to be sold at the Post Office in Philadelphia, with directions how to use it in the Pleurity, Etc. That was just the first thing that caught my eye, bottom right corner of the back page, June 12, 1740. So I’m certainly glad I didn’t throw those out. Or Reagan’s note, handwritten for his secretary to type: Jan ’67 Dear Miss Cerda I appreciate your letter and the chance you’ve given me to set the record straight. First of all I’ve never used the expression; “W.F. which my taxes pay for.” You’ve evidently been subjected to a distortion or mis-quote. My position has been stated repeatedly that the overwhelming majority of W.F. recipients want to work & should be helped so they can become self sufficient. I have attacked the red tape and excessive administrative costs of W.F. but never the amount rec’d by the recipient. It is my contention that W.F. should be directed at salvaging human beings without drying up their confidence and will to live independently. But for those unable to work I have flatly stated we must do even more. I hope you will soon be well & I wish you the very best. — Sincerely, RR Pretty sensible stuff, worth preserving. As is: THE BIBLE AND INDIANA Frank Bruni kinda nails it here in the New York Times.
Iran Kudos From Fox News April 3, 2015April 3, 2015 This is a big deal that even Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly thinks should be given a chance to succeed. Appearing on the conservative network just minutes after President Barack Obama held a news conference in the White House Rose Garden laying out the broad outlines for how the United States hopes to limit Tehran’s nuclear capabilities, O’Reilly — a harsh critic of Obama’s foreign policy — argued that conservatives should give diplomacy a chance. “You don’t want a war with Iran,” he explained. “You don’t want to bomb that country because the unintended consequences will set the world aflame. So if you can get something that’s decent, you give it a shot. I think that’s a legitimate point,” O’Reilly said to a surprised Gretchen Carlson, host of the network’s daytime show, The Real Story. It’s potentially a win-win for Iran and her negotiating partners, the U.S., China, Russia, the U.K., France, and Germany — and, by extension, the world. Huge kudos to the President and John Kerry for getting us this far, with the possibility of an agreement in June. The people of Iran, quite obviously, don’t want war — or death to America or Israel or themselves — their hard-right lunatic fringe notwithstanding. They want to buy Macbooks, tweet, and surf, like anybody else. (Full disclosure: I personally do not want to tweet or surf, and use a Lenovo. But you know what I mean.) As Ronald Reagan said of his deal with the Russians: “Trust but verify.” Maybe here we need to rephrase: “Don’t trust — verify!” But the general concept is the same: we should not let the hard-liners in Iran or the U.S. (or Israel or Russia or anywhere else) take us down the path to war when there’s a path to peace. THEY’RE PLAYING YOUR SONG You cannot fail to have fun with this site, which tells you the #1 hit song the day you were born — or, perhaps more tellingly, the night you were conceived . . . plays them for you . . . and (just because it was so easy for whoever programmed this to toss in), tells you the number of minutes you’ve been alive. My songs were “Heartaches,” by Ted Weems and His Orchestra, and “The Gypsy,” by The Ink Spots. Thanks, Mel! HOW GREAT IS THIS? To think how many kids once routinely killed themselves as preferable to living as gay or lesbian Americans . . . . . . and that today we have the CEOs of Walmart and Apple and the mayors of Little Rock and Indianapolis — and just about everybody else — the President! the Pope! — saying, in effect, “Lay off! LGBT folks should be welcome everywhere; love is a good thing; if you want to run a business open to the public, you need to welcome everyone.” Etc., etc. I use the phrase “etc. etc.” joyfully, in that this is by now so largely old news. How great is that? To a kid who centrally focused, from age 10 to 22, on never letting anyone know his true feelings — anyone! — the idea that we would have come so far in accepting — often embracing — our friends and relatives and neighbors and coworkers . . . and our “shared” friends like Ellen DeGeneris and Anderson Cooper and Elton John and Martina Navratilova . . . it’s just such a tribute to the good hearts and minds of the American people. With further to go, to be sure . . . . . . especially as regards the T in LGBT — transgender. But we’re making progress there, too. As previously noted, I love that the highest paid woman CEO in America last year, on the cover of New York Magazine for having made $38 million, is my pal Martine Rothblatt, born Martin. And I love Krystal Ball’s piece on MSNBC a couple of days ago concerning a nine-year-old in Virginia. Watch. Particularly powerful, to me, were the remarks of that nine-year-old’s dad. Amazingly, the school board voted against the nine-year-old. But it’s only a matter of time before hearts and minds open wide enough to do — if you don’t mind my shorthanding it (and claiming to know) — what Jesus so clearly would have done. AND HOW ABOUT THIS — IN CHINA! “ . . . Everyone is unique in some way, so let’s work to have society catch up with science,” People’s Daily, the Communist Party flagship news media outlet, wrote on its microblog account. “Respecting the choices of people like Li Yinhe is respecting ourselves.” Li Yinhe’s partner of 17 years is transgender. Li herself is (vaguely) the Dr. Ruth of China. Read it all here in the New York Times. Come on, Virginia: “let’s work to have society catch up with science.” Have a great weekend!
They’re Playing YOUR Song April 3, 2015April 2, 2015 You cannot fail to have fun with this site, which tells you the #1 hit song the day you were born — or, perhaps more tellingly, the night you were conceived . . . plays them for you . . . and (just because it was so easy for whoever programmed this to toss in), tells you the number of minutes you’ve been alive. My songs were “Heartaches,” by Ted Weems and His Orchestra, and “The Gypsy,” by The Ink Spots. Thanks, Mel! HOW GREAT IS THIS? To think how many kids once routinely killed themselves as preferable to living as gay or lesbian Americans . . . . . . and that today we have the CEOs of Walmart and Apple and the mayors of Little Rock and Indianapolis — and just about everybody else — the President! the Pope! — saying, in effect, “Lay off! LGBT folks should be welcome everywhere; love is a good thing; if you want to run a business open to the public, you need to welcome everyone.” Etc., etc. I use the phrase “etc. etc.” joyfully, in that this is by now so largely old news. How great is that? To a kid who centrally focused, from age 10 to 22, on never letting anyone know his true feelings — anyone! — the idea that we would have come so far in accepting — often embracing — our friends and relatives and neighbors and coworkers . . . and our “shared” friends like Ellen DeGeneris and Anderson Cooper and Elton John and Martina Navratilova . . . it’s just such a tribute to the good hearts and minds of the American people. With further to go, to be sure . . . . . . especially as regards the T in LGBT — transgender. But we’re making progress there, too. As previously noted, I love that the highest paid woman CEO in America last year, on the cover of New York Magazine for having made $38 million, is my pal Martine Rothblatt, born Martin. And I love Krystal Ball’s piece on MSNBC a couple of days ago concerning a nine-year-old in Virginia. Watch. Particularly powerful, to me, were the remarks of that nine-year-old’s dad. Amazingly, the school board voted against the nine-year-old. But it’s only a matter of time before hearts and minds open wide enough to do — if you don’t mind my shorthanding it (and claiming to know) — what Jesus so clearly would have done. AND HOW ABOUT THIS — IN CHINA! “ . . . Everyone is unique in some way, so let’s work to have society catch up with science,” People’s Daily, the Communist Party flagship news media outlet, wrote on its microblog account. “Respecting the choices of people like Li Yinhe is respecting ourselves.” Li Yinhe’s partner of 17 years is transgender. Li herself is (vaguely) the Dr. Ruth of China. Read it all here in the New York Times. Come on, Virginia: “let’s work to have society catch up with science.” Have a great weekend!