To Hell - and back

the freaking fracking fiasco

2012-01-15T17:28:00.019-07:00

On December 17, 2011, the Senate approved a two-month extension of a payroll tax cut and a $1 trillion bill to fund the government, resolving the latest in a year-long series of tense political stand-offs, but setting up fresh battles for 2012.

Republicans used the tax bill to push for quick U.S. approval of TransCanada Corp's Keystone XL pipeline project, which is backed by labor unions but opposed by environmental groups. Surprisingly, even Fox News (which tends to favor the Republican point of view) thinks the pipeline is a "bad deal".

The legislation requires President Obama to approve construction of the pipeline from Canada to U.S. Gulf of Mexico facilities within 60 days or declare it is not in the national interest. Obama wanted to take a year, beyond November's elections, to review the project. Republicans argued the pipeline would create jobs at a time the nation is suffering from an 8.6 percent unemployment rate.

By now, we’ve all become weary of the bickering that has paralyzed Congress for most of last year, so let’s take a step back in time to gain a little perspective on the whole issue.

The modern oil industry was born almost exactly 111 years ago today.

Crude oil was first discovered in America in August of 1859 in Titusville,Pennsylvania, and led to a “spike” of prosperity. For a brief period of time, Titusville had more millionaires per 1,000 population than anyplace in the world, but oil production peaked in 1891, and other industries (primarily iron and steel production) become the engines of industry for the area.

The TRUE start of the modern oil industry was in Beaumont, Texas on January 10, 1901, when an enormous gusher of oil on Spindletop Hill erupted, resulting in an initial flow of oil at the rate of 100,000 barrels a day. It took nine days to cap the well, and the excitement generated by the gusher created a boomtown literally overnight. Oil production continued in the area for the next fifty years, but today only a few wells continue to operate in the area.

Until WWII, most homes in America were heated by coal. By 1950, fuel oil had replaced coal as the main source of home heating, and the explosion of auto sales after the end of the war increased the use of oil (as gasoline). Eventually, oil consumption expanded to the point that America needed to import oil from the Middle East and other sources. By the year 2000, we were importing roughly 60% of the oil that we consume. By 2005, that percentage had increased to 66%. Surprisingly, Canada is now the largest source of our imported oil, and Saudi Arabia is a distant second.

For a number of years, we’ve been trying to reduce our “dependence on foreign oil”. As a result, you may wonder why the top export of the United States in 2011 is …. fuel.

The one word answer to that question is "Bakken", which I'll explain to you in a few minutes (make sure that you read the hyperlink titled "North Dakota"). However, another reason that we can afford to export fuel is that the increased fuel efficiency of our cars, trucks, and planes has led to a decrease in demand for gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel. In 2008, overall demand for those fuels fell more than 7%, the largest drop in demand since 1950.

Eventually, all the goop from those old dinosaurs is going to run out, which is why forward thinking countries in the Middle East (like Qatar) have been concentrating on diversifying their economies. Although America has long had a very diversified economy, we’ve needed to find alternative ways to find oil due to the fact that our demand for oil far outstrips our domestic supply. One way to do that is through the use of hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking”,

Since this site is similar to a family newspaper, the question that you’re probably wondering at this point in this:

“What the heck is fracking?”

The petroleum industry first started using fracking in the 1940’s. The quick answer to the question is that fracking is the introduction of water, sand, and other chemicals into known areas of oil and gas deposits at high pressure in order to force the oil and gas to the surface. Is it safe? As always, it depends on who you ask.

According to the American Petroleum Institute (the folks who brought us the Exxon Valdez and Deepwater Horizon) the process is a proven and well-regulated technology.

The Center for Disease Control and Prevention feels that additional study on the topic is needed, and the EPA (which is preparing regulations to govern fracking) is continuing to study the issue. Some of the areas that will come under additional scrutiny are
groundwater contamination in Pennsylvania, and increased earthquake activity in Ohio.

Environmental groups, such as The Wilderness Society, are adamantly opposed to fracking, and the 1700 mile long Keystone pipeline, for a number of reasons.

With so much conflicting information, how do you figure out which viewpoint makes the most sense? Fortunately, the answer is pretty easy: Wikipedia. The advantage of this site is that it presents an impartial view of the topics it examines, and it takes a world (rather than a local) perspective.

Besides the United States, eight other countries have used fracturing. All of them currently have moratoriums on the practice including (most significantly) four provinces in Canada. The United States does not currently have a moratorium, in large part due to some “dirty tricks” by a guy named Dick Cheney in 2005, when he was Vice President of the United States. In case you‘ve forgotten, Cheney‘s prior job was CEO of an oil company called Haliburton, which recently had a bit of bad luck in the Gulf of Mexico.

For a variety of reasons (which I’ll explain later) Congress is unlikely to approve the Keystone XL pipeline at any time soon. However, if all the planets lined up wrong, and the thing actually got built, we’d have another “bridge to nowhere” if Canada put a permanent moratorium on the process.

(Sara Palin spent $26,000,000 of the taxpayer’s money to build a road to the non-existent Gravina Island Bridge when she was Governor, and there was still discussion in Congress about continuing to fund the project in 2011.If completed, the bridge would cost $398 million, and would provide service to an island with exactly 50 residents).

The most relevant reference point for the Keystone pipeline is the Trans-Alaska pipeline, which started construction in 1974, a full five years after the first permit was issued. Oddly enough, there weren’t any domestic bidders for the pipeline, so the Trans-Alaska pipeline was eventually built using the infrastructure provided by the three JAPANESE firms that bid on the project. Although there were definitely some environmental concerns about the project, the Arab oil embargo of 1973 forced the issue, even though only 7% of our oil came from those countries at that point in time. As of 2010, the 800 mile long pipeline has delivered 16 BILLION barrels of oil. Although there have been a few leaks in the pipeline itself, the most significant spill was from the Exxon Valdez, which had taken on a full load at Prince William Sound,on the southern coast of Alaska.

The Republicans contend that the construction of the pipeline will create tens of thousands of jobs. Some estimates have placed the total number of jobs that would be created to be as high as 100,000. As you might expect, those numbers are absolute fantasies. The most accurate estimate, which TransCanada (the pipeline company) agrees with, is a maximum of 6500 temporary jobs over a two year time period.

If the Republicans were REALLY serious about job creation, they would vote FOR investments in green energy technology, for starters,which would create a conservative 45,000 construction jobs over a five year period just to upgrade our power plants to current environmental standards. In addition, the Energy Departments loan guarantee program would create an ADDITIONAL 60,000 jobs in the solar and wind departments. In case you’ve forgotten, the Energy Department (which safeguards our nuclear weapons) is one of the three departments that Governor Bonehead would eliminate if he were elected President (God forbid). Fortunately, he couldn’t remember the department’s name at one of the Republican debates, so I think that the department is safe for now.

During 2011, House Republicans voted 191 times to either undermine existing environmental laws or reject Democratic efforts to strengthen them. In November, the same group of people voted against a bill that would have freed up $60 billion to repair our crumbling infrastructure and created MILLIONS of jobs. That estimate, incidentally, is from a REPUBLICAN Senator from Texas named Kay Bailey Hutchinson.

In view of the time that it took to approve the Trans-Alaska pipeline , it’s unreasonable to assume that 60 days is enough time to determine the fate of the Keystone XL project. More than likely, President Obama will determine that the pipeline “does not serve the national interest”, and will reject it. However, even if he DID approve the project, U.S. law clearly states that environmental impact statements have to be fully completed before a project can be determined to be in the national interest, and that’s definitely NOT going to happen in 60 days.

(Since a portion of the pipeline would cross the Ogallala aquifer, one of the largest fresh water aquifers in the world, an environmental impact statement on that portion of the route WAS completed in August of 2011.)

Even if the Keystone project goes away, fracking projects will still exist in our country.

Except for Sara Palin, and the oil industry, most people would agree that the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge should remain off limits for drilling. That leaves North Dakota (of all places) as the last remaining untapped oil reserve in the country. Unfortunately, the fracking procedure is the only viable method to get the goop out of the ground. Although estimates on the amount of oil below ground range as high as 503,000,000,000 barrels, the U.S. Geological survey estimates the true total is closer to 3.65 billion barrels. Although that is STILL a lot of oil, it represents about a one year supply of imported oil. In my opinion, it makes no sense to make thousands of acres of land in North Dakota, Montana and Saskatchewan Province unusable for decades in order to gain one year’s relief from imported oil. In addition, folks in Minnesota and Wisconsin aren't happy about the fact that their silica sand has suddenly become a hot commodity.

Who’s REALLY the main force in favor of fracking and the $7 billion Keystone XL pipeline?

The Koch brothers, but they won’t admit it. They're also getting a lot of help from Representative Cliff Stearns of Florida, who happens to be the chairman of the House Energy and Commerce subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations. Not surprisingly, he's also a Republican.

Their father (Fred) was one of the founding members of the John Birch Society, so it’s not surprising that they want as little government as possible. From 1999 to 2003, their company (Koch Industries) was fined $400,000,000 in fines, penalties, and judgments for environmental violations, which explains why all of their political benefactors (Governor Perry being one) are in favor of “rebuilding the EPA”.

Koch Industries is the second largest private company in America. Although the company earned an estimated $100 billion in 2009, it paid NO income tax. The company has spent more than $50,000,000 to lobby Congress since 2006, and its support of the Tea Party and Americans for Prosperity(which David Koch founded in 2003) are directly responsible for the stalemate in Congress that we all endured throughout 2011. The Supreme Court decision of January 21, 2010 will inevitably make lobbying efforts even more egrarious than they already are. A guy named Newt recently received a $5,000,000 check from a casino owner named Sheldon Adelson.

Fracking isn’t going to go away any time soon in the United States, but
starting February 1, drilling operators are going to be required to disclose what chemicals they use during the drilling process, as well as how much water they use. For the record, most wells use about 1,000,000 gallons of water a day, which is tough to justify in Texas, which just went through its worst drought since 1948.

To borrow a phrase form the “war on drugs” we should all just say “NO” to the Keystone XL pipeline. More importantly, we all need to write to our congressman, and demand that the discussion of the pipeline should be “uncoupled” from any other legislation, including the proposed extension of the payroll tax cut bill.

the moon landing was faked !

2012-01-05T08:58:00.009-07:00

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Most of us remember where we were when Neil Armstrong gave his famous speech from the surface of the moon on July 20, 1969. Despite evidence to the contrary, it is estimated that between 6 and 20% of the American population believe that the moon landing was faked. In Russia, that figure rises to 28%.

There are no shortage of people who most of us would consider to be “conspiracy theorists” (or conspiracists). In addition to the moon landing, there are a number of other facts that this group simply doesn’t believe:

1) Many of them don’t believe the Warren Commission’s report on the JFK assassination.

2) There are STILL people who believe that Barack Obama was born in Kenya, and many of them also believe that his parents are alive today, and living in a refuge camp somewhere in Africa.

3) There are also a LOT of ideas about the TRUE cause of the collapse of the World Trade Center buildings on 9/11, and there is still some confusion about who REALLY shot J.R.

Before I was born, a man named John Robert Fish built a simple carburetor that could produce phenomenal gas mileage. Strangely, the Fish carburetor never went into widespread use. Even when Michael Brown revived the idea in 1982, it continued to remain a footnote in automotive history.

Through the magic of Facebook , I recently learned about ANOTHER individual who was able to achieve tremendous fuel economy in a motor vehicle, but was unable to put his invention to greater use.

In 1978, a Texas high school dropout named Tom Ogle developed a “black box” that allowed him to achieve fuel economy of 100 miles per gallon on a 1970 Ford Galaxie, a vehicle that normally got about 13 miles per gallon. He was issued a patent (#4,177,779) by the United States government, and for a very short period of time, he received a nice income from some investors. Unfortunately, the money was short-lived. As a matter of fact, so was he.

On April 14, 1981, he was shot on the street by an assailant who “got away”, but he survived the attack. On August 18th of the same year, he died from a combination of Darvon (a prescribed pain killer) and alcohol. His death was ruled accidental, but there are many people who believe it was a cover-up for murder.

Mr. Ogle was not the first to achieve remarkable fuel economy and then disappear from the scene, nor was he the last. However, if you ask the general public if they have ever heard of Charles Nelson Pogue or Stanley Allen Meyer, you’re likely to get a blank stare.

I’ve never been much of a believer in conspiracy theories, but if a smart detective was able to find out what REALLY happened to Tom Ogle, that would be one small step for man, and one giant leap for mankind.

Once THAT mystery is solved, we can then move on to other important issues, like (1) does Bigfoot really exist and (2) what REALLY happened at Roswell?

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Take a tour of the UFO Museum
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guns on campus in Arizona?

2012-01-01T10:18:00.017-07:00

I'd be remiss if I didn't start out this memo with best wishes to you for a happy, healthy, prosperous and (most importantly) SAFE New year, which leads to the topic of the day.

One of the Arizona state legislators plans to re-introduce a bill to allow guns on campus in the State of Arizona. Although I have friends who are gun owners, and I support their right to recreational shooting and hunting, allowing guns on college campuses simply doesn't make any sense to me.

(Incidentally, the Kent State tragedy of 1970 (pictured above), which was caused by TRAINED members of the Ohio National Guard, resulted in a monetary settlement against the state of Ohio in the amount of $675,000. Adjusted for inflation, that would be equal to $3,792,257 in 2010 dollars. Arizona's 2010 concealed weapons law requires neither permits NOR TRAINING in order to carry a concealed weapon.)

For that reason, I sent the letter below this morning to Tom Horne, Attorney General of the State of Arizona, and asked him to bring felony charges if the Senator in question introduces the bill again when the legislature reconvenes. As a courtesy, I also sent a copy of the letter to the Senator involved.

Attached below is my letter (with minor adjustments for electronic publication purposes):

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Mr. Horne:

Our daughter, Kelly, graduated from Loyola University in Chicago in May of this year, but will be back on campus again (in Flagstaff, Arizona) in less than a month.

When I read in the Arizona Republic the other day that Arizona Senator Ron Gould planned to re-introduce legislation in January to allow guns on campus in the State of Arizona, I was appalled. For a lot of reasons, I feel that allowing guns on college campuses is the height of stupidity. Although he is a business owner, and may actually be a decent individual, I would like to ask you, as an Arizona tax payer, to bring felony charges against him if he introduces the proposal again.

The specific statute that is applicable to the proposed legislation is alluded to on the website of the law firm of Beresky & Fish. The key words on this page are these: “Under Arizona law, any reckless act that causes another person to be put in danger of injury or death may result in a misdemeanor or felony charge of endangerment."

In my opinion, allowing guns on campus falls under the category of “causing another person to be put in danger of injury or death”.

There are a handful of states currently that allow guns on campus. The Texas Senate passed a bill in May of 2009 to allow students to carry concealed weapons on campus, and the Texas House of epresentatives is currently considering approving the bill. The most compelling statement in the link listed in this paragraph is this one, by Senator Rodney Ellis:

“When there is an alcohol-related tragedy on campus, you don’t hear claims that giving students a 12 pack is a solution.” he said. “Yet, when it comes to gun-related incidents, we seem to think that putting more guns in the mix will lead to a good, rather than bloody, outcome”.

As of June of 2011, 275 colleges in 36 states have signed a resolution to keep guns off campus. Included in the list of colleges who signed the resolution are Arizona State University, Northern Arizona University, and The University of Arizona.

According to a recent UPI article, Mr. Gould has been working with the National Rifle Association to “tweak the wording" of the bill, which is another reason that it should NOT be passed.

The NRA no longer has the interests of its members at heart, or society as a whole. The article below provides additional information about the organization, which is one of the most powerful lobbying organizations in America:

it's time to pry the rifle from your cold, dead, hands

Arizona has already received worldwide ridicule for the decision of the Scottsdale Gun Club to have kids take their picture with Santa - and an AK-47:

why Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer is nervous

On top of that, the Republican Party in Tucson (where Representative Gabrielle Giffords was shot last January 8 with a Glock 19) held a fund raiser in September. First prize was a Glock 23, and second prize was a deer rifle.

how dumb can you get?

The argument by gun advocates that having more guns on campus would make kids safer is absurd. For further proof, listen to Archie Bunker’s ideas about how to eliminate hijackers on airplanes:

I miss Archie Bunker

State Representative Steve Farley, and Hildy Saizow (President of Arizonans for Gun Safety) are both quoted in the video below:

the voices of reason

America has the fourth highest rate of deaths by firearms in the entire world. The only countries that have higher death rates from firearms are Guatemala, Columbia, and South Africa.

South Africa, which leads the world in firearms deaths by a wide margin, has firearms laws similar to the United States. It also is home to an organization, the South African Gunowners’ Association, that has views similar to, and the support of, the National Rifle Association. To say the least, the information about the organization in the link in this paragraph should dispel any doubts about the idiocy of expanding gun ownership in America.

Additional information about my thoughts on gun control can be found at the link posted below:

bang, you're dead

There’s an old adage that guns don’t kill people. People do.

It’s also true that guns don’t pass irresponsible laws. People do.

Let’s start out the New Year on the right foot. Please do your best to prevent Arizona from making another mistake.

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As you should know by now, I'm not afraid to "stir the pot" on occasion.

It will be interesting to see how the State of Arizona reacts to my letter.

The ghosts of Christmas past ...

2011-12-21T11:00:00.010-07:00

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In Charles Dickens’ 1843 novella, A Christmas Carol, the miserly Ebenezer Scrooge is visited by a series of ghosts on Christmas Eve. The first one to make its appearance was that of his late business partner, Jacob Marley, who had died exactly seven years earlier. In quick succession, Marley’s ghost is followed by the Ghost of Christmas Past, the Ghost of Christmas Present, and the Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come. The experience makes Scrooge a changed man, much to the delight of the family of his near-impoverished clerk, Bob Cratchit.

I’ve long had a fascination with ghost stories, and have a number of related books on my bookshelf. In addition, I’ve also published three previous ghost stories on this website. Appropriately enough, they were written by someone else, which means that I have my very own “ghost writer”.

(The story that I published in 1995 for an insurance newsletter, which I titled “Ghosts and the insurance industry”, was entirely my own).

When we lived in Wisconsin, the kids and I participated in the YMCA Indian program. Twice a year, we went camping at the Phantom Lake YMCA camp, which is the second oldest YMCA camp in the country.

If you happen to be at the camp at 11:30 at night on September 2nd of each year, you can witness first hand how the camp got its name. If that’s not practical, you can read the full story below:

what’s that in the water, mom?

After a job change brought us to Illinois, I discovered that Chicago has more than its share of ghosts, and some of them continue to vote in local elections. If you’re looking for ghost tours in Chicago, there are LOTS of them. My favorite was the North Side tour led by Ursula Bielski, but you really can’t go wrong with any of them.

After moving to Flagstaff, I was delighted to discover that there are SEVEN haunted locations in downtown Flagstaff. So far, I haven’t taken the tour yet, but it’s definitely on my “to do” list.

Interestingly enough, even the village where we live (Kachina Village, just south of Flagstaff) also has an “other worldly” connection, a fact that is probably not known by the folks who started to move here from Phoenix in the 1960’s to get away from the heat in “the Valley”.

Flagstaff is surrounded by the six mountains of the San Francisco Peaks. Included in that group is Humphreys Peak, which is the tallest mountain in Arizona.

Humphreys Peak, and the San Francisco Peaks, are considered to be sacred and holy mountains to Native American tribes, including the Hopi, Zuni, Havasupai, and Navajo.

The Navajo consider the San Francisco Peaks to be sacred mountains of the west, and believe that they are held on earth by a sunbeam, which gives them their yellowish color.

The Hopi, who live east of the mountains, make frequent pilgrimages to them to leave items at sacred sites. They believe that mountains are home to the Kachinas, who are special beings that bring rain to the Hopi’s parched lands in the summer.

The San Francisco range was once part of a huge volcano that reached nearly 20,000 feet high. Somewhere between 400,000 and 1,000,000 years ago, the volcano blew itself up, leaving the peaks that line the edge of the blasted caldera.

Human beings didn’t inhabit this part of the world when the old volcano erupted, but if they had been, they would have seen something like this:

let’s watch Fantasia again

If you watch the entire 14 minutes and 47 seconds of this video, you’ll catch a glimpse of what the mountain range looks like today. However, if you’d like to climb Humphrey’s Peak without going through the sheer physical exertion, the link below will make it a lot easier for you:

blogging your way to the top

If you’re tired of reading ghost stories, and would like to get on with the rest of your Christmas shopping, I’ll leave you with one final thought:

“God bless us, everyone”.

Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition

2011-12-12T14:07:00.005-07:00

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John Elway, of the Denver Broncos, is the only NFL quarterback to lead his team to FIVE Super Bowl victories. Although he is not considered to be “the best of the best”, he DOES wind up on the list of the 10 best quarterbacks of all time. Interestingly enough, the lone Chicago Bear entry on the list is Sid Luckman, who got on the list because of a playoff game that was played BEFORE the start of WWII.

Elway is best known for “The Drive”, which allowed him to lead his team to a 23-20 overtime victory over the Cleveland Browns in 1986. A few of those passes were “Hail Mary” passes, which would most accurately be described as hopelessly long passes that somehow managed to get to the intended receiver.

The first use of the “Hail Mary” pass in the NFL was in 1975, when Roger Staubach of the Dallas Cowboys threw a 50 yard pass to Drew Pearson to beat the Minnesota Vikings, whom the Cowboys were trailing 14-10 with less than a minute remaining in the game.

Religion has recently returned to Denver football, in the unlikely person of Tim Tebow. He scrambles in a weirdly jittery fashion, throws one of the ugliest balls in the game, and completes fewer than half his passes, but he somehow manages to win football games.

On Sunday, December 11, the Broncos were trailing the Bears in Denver by 10 points, with less than 3 minutes to play. Ultimately, Tebow and the Broncos beat the Bears 13-10 in overtime. Their victory over the Bears was their sixth in a row, and they have won 7 of their last 8 (with 3 of those games coming in overtime).

Tebow attributes his success to his personal savior, Jesus Christ, and he has been known to frequently quote scripture when he is in the huddle with his teammates. To quote Frank Bruni of the New York Times the Broncos are the talk of the league, and a lot of folks are watching them just to see how far God can take a team.

The “ammunition” that a modern quarterback uses is superior athletic ability (he was a superstar at the University of Florida), talented teammates, and an awful lot of what is commonly called grit. I’m not about to say that Divine Providence is responsible for the resurgence in the fortunes of the Denver Broncos, but if their streak continues, Pat Bowlen (the owner of the team) may want to starting playing the song below at the rest of their home games:

praise the Lord and pass the ammunition.

What if the world were run by nine year old kids?

2011-12-07T19:31:00.007-07:00

TED 2011 was held this year in Long Beach, California from February 28 through March 4. If you’re not familiar with TED, the acronym stands for Technology Entertainment and Design. TED is a global set of conferences owned by the non-profit Sapling Foundation, which was formed to disseminate “ideas worth spreading”.

The first TED occurred in 1984, and was held in Monterey. Some of the earlier conferences were by invitation only, but they are now open to a larger audience, as long as the attendees are willing to part with $6000 to be in the audience. Starting in 2006, the conferences have been offered for free viewing online. As of June 2011, the viewing audience was approximately 500 million people around the globe.

One of the speakers at the 2011 conference was a teacher from Virginia named John Hunter, who talked about “The World Peace Game”. His talk lasted exactly 20 minutes and 28 seconds, but is definitely worth watching in its entirely (which I’d recommend). Before you start, though, make sure that you have a box of Kleenex handy.

here’s Johnny ..

Details on the World Peace Game Foundation can be found at the link below:

it sure beats watching Beavis and Butthead.

Strange as it may seem, the world would actually be a better run place if the nine year olds were in charge AS LONG AS THEY HAD THE PROPER GUIDANCE. The students in the World Peace Game video were unencumbered by the influences of lobbyists and special interest groups, both of which can hamper the efforts of even the most conscientious legislators.

Without the proper guidance, though, the nine year olds of the world potentially could follow the path of two young pigs named Snowball and Napoleon, who became leaders in the fictional world of George Orwell’s Animal Farm.

At a time in our country when the educational system itself is under attack (one Republican candidate actually proposed eliminating the Department of Education) it’s beneficial to consider how valuable education is to our country.

For starters, the G.I. Bill for returning WWII vets was the main impetus for the growing prosperity in this country during the eight years of the Eisenhower administration, but there are plenty of more recent examples.

In “The Lexus and the Olive Tree”, Thomas Friedman states that he has found that there are TWO main factors that lead to a high standard of living in the countries of the world:

1) the degree to which the countries are “wired” (how much broadband capacity, or megabits per capita, that the country has)

2) the countries that have the highest percentage of high school graduates, and spend the highest amount of their GDP on teacher’s salaries, will be the ones that have the highest standard of living.

During difficult economic times, it may be tempting to reduce spending on education, but that would be a foolish thing to do. Investment in eduction will ALWAYS be less expensive than the alternative. 51% of the inmates in the Illinois state prison system are high school dropouts.Since the cost of housing an inmate in Illinois is $22,000 per year, and the state has 46,000 people in prison, the prison population is costing the state slightly in excess of $1 BILLION a year!

Regardless of which source that you use (the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, or the CIA World Factbook), there is a high degree of consistency between the lists that show GDP per capita. All of the countries that are at, or near, the top emphasize education to a very high degree. Even the countries that wound up high up on the list due to income from oil production (Qatar and Norway) have diversified economies, and they spend a LOT of money on education.

Qatar, in particular, has made a concerted effort to expose its younger generation to “outside ideas”. As of today, there are ten universities from North America that have branches in Qatar, including Northwestern University of Evanston, Illinois, and they are there because they were invited in by the government of Qatar.

What if YOU were nine years old again. What would you think of the world today? Chances are, your thoughts would be similar to the kids below, who live in Orange County, California.:

California dreamin’

If you think that you’re a pretty good public speaker, the clip below (of a nine year old boy in Little rock, Arkansas) may put a new perspective on your speech making ability:

rubber baby buggy bumpers

Starting in 1998, Bill Cosby (inspired by Art Linkletter’s House Party) hosted a comedy series titled, “Kids Say the Darndest Things”

As long as kids remain kids, that phrase is always going to be true. However, if there enough teachers like John Hunter around to guide our nine year olds, the future of the world is in pretty good hands.

kill 'em all, and let God sort 'em out

2011-11-30T20:52:00.008-07:00

I read a lot of books, enough that I’ve actually set up an Excel spreadsheet to keep track of all of them. Generally speaking, I’m not going to write about them unless they’re absolutely riveting OR there’s a strong connection with current events.

A case in point is one of John Grisham’s latest books, titled, “The Confession”, and the topic is the wrongful execution (in Texas) of a fictional character named Donte Drumm. In yet another case of life imitating art, Governor John Kitzhaber of Oregon put a moratorium on the death penalty for the rest of his term a few days after I finished reading Grisham’s book. His reasons for the moratorium can be found at the link below:

kill ‘em all, and let God sort ‘em out.

My old home state of Illinois ENDED the death penalty altogether last spring, more than a decade after then-Governor George Ryan imposed a moratorium when it was discovered that over a dozen death row convicts had been wrongfully convicted. The 167 convicts on death row had their sentences commuted to life in prison. This time around, the 15 convicts still remaining on death row were scattered to various prisons around the state.

Governor Perry’s home state has executed more people, by far, than any other state in America. Since the death penalty was reinstated in America in 1976, the folks in the Lone Star state have executed 477 people. Although it would be nearly impossible to examine all of those executions, the chances are fairly good that not all of those 477 people were actually guilty of a crime, which should give Governor Perry (the longest serving governor in Texas history) something to reflect about, even though his denial of global warming (in the midst of the worst drought in Texas since 1948) tells us that he’s not exactly a deep thinker. As he recently demonstrated at a Republican candidate debate, though, he doesn’t seem to be very worried about the “justice” that his state is carrying out.

The majority of the states in America still have the death penalty, and roughly 60% of the population still favor the death penalty, but there are some important economic issues that really should be addressed, in addition to the fact that the death penalty isn't always a just sentence.

In 1944, the state of South Carolina executed a 14 year old black boy, even though the state had no written confession, no witnesses were called on his behalf, and the jury only spent 10 minutes deliberating his fate. George Junius Stinney Jr's story can be read at the link below:

a travesty of justice

The United States has the highest incarceration rate of any country in the world, with roughly 2.4 million people behind bars. Of that total, 1.4 million are locked up for non-violent crimes, such as the possession of marijuana. Depending on the state, it costs somewhere between $18,000 to $31,000 a year to keep each of those people in prison, which means that we (as a society) are spending between 43 and 74 BILLION dollars on our prison expenses every 365 days.

Meanwhile, the Republicans are worried about teacher pensions in Wisconsin.

According to the best estimates, California (which has over 700 people on death row) could save $200,000,000 a year by eliminating the death penalty, and changing the sentence to life in prison without parole. I'm afraid to do the math, but if all 3250 people that are still on death row in this country had their sentences changed to life in prison without parole, my guess is that all of our states (most of which are fairly broke) would save a lot of money.

I'm not doubting that the 1.000,000 violent criminals that are currently in our prisons should continue to be imprisoned, but I believe that our society needs to be a lot smarter about where we spend our scarce resources, and I'm not convinced that being "tough on crime" is always the right answer.

Virtually everyone has an opinion about the death penalty, but one of the most compelling statements that I’ve come across was given in 1995 by Sister Helen Prejean, who was portrayed in “Dead Man Walking” by Susan Sarandon(who won an Academy award for her role in the film):

“Government can’t be trusted to control its own bureaucrats or collect taxes equitably or fill a pothole, much less decide which of its citizens to kill”.

Her words were true then, and they are even truer today.

your Dutch uncle - in Dutch

2011-11-16T11:39:00.005-07:00

Als onze "baby girl" (die net gedraaid 32) ging naar de universiteit, woonde zij Grand Valley State University in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Hoewel ze uiteindelijk verhuisde terug naar de omgeving van Chicago, en studeerde af aan de Loyola Universiteit, haar jaren in Michigan gaf ons een kans om een aantal van de charmes van de centrale Michigan ervaring, waaronder Saugatuck (thuisbasis van Tabor Hill wijnmakerijen) en een heerlijk klein stadje genaamd Holland.

In 2006, Money magazine Holland als een van de in de Verenigde Staten. Hoewel Sharon en ik in het kort beschouwd als de stad als onze woon-en zorgcentrum, we uiteindelijk gericht op de # 1 en # 2 steden op de lijst, die Walla Walla, Washington en Prescott, Arizona. We bijna verhuisd naar Prescott, maar verrekend in plaats daarvan op de nabijgelegen Flagstaff, omdat van de beslissing van Kelly's om haar geavanceerde mate bij Northern Arizona University (NAU) in Flagstaff na te streven.

Holland, Michigan was eerst geregeld in 1847 door de Nederlandse calvinistische separatisten, die er verhuisd van hun geboorteland Nederland naar religieuze vervolging in hun vaderland Nederland te voorkomen. Het werd opgenomen als een stad in maart 1867, maar bijna brandde tot de grond op dezelfde dag als de branden in Chicago, Illinois en Peshtigo, Wisconsin.

Zelfs vandaag de dag, Holland is een vrij kleine stad, ongeveer 33.000 mensen, maar het heeft 170 kerken, dus het is niet moeilijk te raden waar de meeste van de stad zal worden op een zondag ochtend.

Hoewel Nederland vandaag de dag is een vrij klein land (ongeveer 16 miljoen mensen, niet veel groter dan de staat Illinois) was het op een bepaald moment een grote koloniale mogendheid. De eerste Nederlandse handel expeditie in het Verre Oosten was in 1595, en het rijk geleidelijk aan verspreid over de ter wereld. Zo recent als 2010 werden de Nederlandse Antillen als onderdeel van het Nederlandse rijk, maar vandaag de dag alleen maar Aruba en een paar andere kleine eilanden nog steeds een verbinding met "het vaderland".

Het "vaderland", door de manier, zou zijn geweest een stuk kleiner als het niet voor de daden van een man genaamd Arie Evegroen, die gebruikt zijn graan schuit in 1953 aan te sluiten een grote dijk breekt, net als de fictieve Hans Brinker heeft meer dan 100 jaar geleden.

Vanwege de omvang van het Nederlandse imperium , is het niet moeilijk om herinneringen van de Nederlandse cultuur vinden over de hele wereld, evenals tal van plaatsen in de Verenigde Staten. Als je woont in de omgeving van Chicago, Holland (Michigan) is ongeveer drie uur rijden van "The Loop", dus het maakt voor een leuke plek om te gaan voor een weekendje weg van "de stad", vooral als je een stop maken langs de manier waarop in Saugatuck.

Nu dat we leven in Arizona, het is een reis die niet langer praktisch voor ons, maar bijna elke staat in Amerika (inclusief Arizona) heeft een locatie of twee die kunnen een monster van wat "uw Nederlandse oom" geniet weer terug in Nederland.

Heb een goede dag

your Dutch uncle

2011-11-16T10:27:00.008-07:00

When our “baby girl” (who just turned 32) went off to college, she attended Grand Valley State University in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Although she ultimately moved back to the Chicago area, and graduated from Loyola University, her years in Michigan gave us a chance to experience some of the charms of central Michigan, among them Saugatuck (close to the home of Tabor Hill Winery), and a delightful little town called Holland.

In 2006, Money magazine named Holland as one of the top five places to retire in the United States. Although Sharon and I briefly considered the city as our retirement home, we eventually focused on the #1 and #2 cities on the list, which were Walla Walla, Washington and Prescott, Arizona. We nearly moved to Prescott, but settled instead on nearby Flagstaff because of Kelly’s decision to pursue her advanced degree at Northern Arizona University (NAU) in Flagstaff.

Holland, Michigan was first settled in 1847 by Dutch Calvinist separatists, who moved there from their native Holland to avoid religious persecution in their native Holland. It was incorporated as a city in March of 1867, but nearly burned to the ground on the same day as the fires in Chicago, Illinois and Peshtigo,Wisconsin.

Even today, Holland is a fairly small city, roughly 33,000 people, but it has 170 churches, so it’s not hard to guess where most of the city is going to be on a Sunday morning.

Although the Netherlands today is a fairly small country (about 16,000,000 people, not much larger than the State of Illinois) it was at one time a major colonial power. The first Dutch trading expedition to the Far East was in 1595, and the empire gradually spread around the world. As recently as 2010, the Netherlands Antilles were considered part of the Dutch Empire, but today only Aruba and a few other small islands still have a connection to “the homeland”.

The “homeland”, by the way, would have been a lot smaller if it weren’t for the actions of a man named Arie Evegroen, who used his grain barge in 1953 to plug a major dike break, much as the fictional Hans Brinker did over 100 years ago.

Due to the size of the Dutch empire, it’s not hard to find reminders of Dutch culture throughout the world, as well as numerous places in the United States. If you live in the Chicago area, Holland (Michigan) is roughly a three hour drive from “the Loop”, so it makes for a nice place to go for a weekend away from “the city”, especially if you make a stop along the way in Saugatuck.

Now that we live in Arizona, it’s a trip that’s no longer practical for us, but nearly every state in America (including Arizona) has a location or two that can provide a sample of what “your Dutch uncle” enjoys back in the Netherlands.

Hebben een goede dag

Immigration man

2011-11-08T11:22:00.018-07:00

On November 12, 1954, Ellis Island shut its doors, after processing more than 12,000,000 immigrants since opening its doors in 1892. It is estimated that more than 40% of all Americans living today can trace their roots through Ellis Island (named after a New Jersey merchant named Samuel Ellis, who owned the island in the 1770’s).

The first person admitted through the gates was a 15 year old Irish girl named Annie Moore. The last person admitted, in November 1954, was a Norwegian merchant seaman.

After its closure, Ellis Island was used as a deportation center for illegal immigrants, a hospital for wounded WWII soldiers, and a Coast guard training center. Starting in 1984, the location went trough an extensive (and expensive) renovation, and it reopened in 1990 as the Ellis Island Immigration Museum.

Prior to the opening of Ellis Island, immigration had been handled by the individual states. In New York, Castle Clinton (on the lower tip of Manhattan Island) operated from 1820 to 1920. From 1892 on (when Ellis Island was opened) Castle Clinton continued to admit immigrants, but they were the first and second class passengers on ocean liners. The “steerage” passengers were admitted through Ellis Island.

In addition to the immigrants admitted by the State of New York, the ports of New Orleans, Mobile, Savannah, Charleston, Boston, Philadelphia, Seattle, and Galveston also had immigration admitting stations.

In order to provide a more consistent approach to the influx of humanity from other countries, the Federal Government established Ellis Island processing center, and Annie Moore went through its doors on January 2, 1892.

Americans have long been conflicted about immigrants, even though ALL OF US (with only minor exception) are either immigrants from other countries, or descended from someone who was (my grandparents came from Ireland). The exception to the rule, of course, are the folks who were here prior to 1607, when the first permanent settlement of Europeans was established on May 14, 1607.

English, by the way, wasn’t the native language of North America, and it isn’t the official language today (because we don’t have one). If you have the patience to count them all, you’ll find that there were 296 different languages spoken in what is now the United States. If you add on the area north of the present Canadian border, the number balloons to approximately 1000. Eight of the Native American languages are still spoken today, with Navajo being the most commonly spoken. The United States Marine Corps found the Navajo language to be very beneficial during WWII, when the Corps used
400 North American Navajo Marines to thoroughly confuse the Japanese in the Pacific Theater.

Before the largely Christian Europeans took over the country, the Native Americans had their OWN set of 10 Commandments:

When the Statue of Liberty (a gift from France) was erected in New York Harbor, its welcoming plaque seemed to apply to everybody, but it got lost in translation on its journey to the West Coast. The Chinese Exclusion Act was signed into law on May 8, 1882, and would remain in effect until December 17, 1943. The message eventually faded in New York Harbor also, after Congress passed the Immigration Act of 1924, which greatly reduced the number of newcomers admitted into the country.

There has been a LOT of discussion lately about various flat tax proposals (all of which would exacerbate the income inequality in America) and “the need to curb illegal immigrants”, ignoring the fact that we actually NEED illegal immigrants (it has a lot to do with your grocery bill). There’s has also been TOO MUCH EMPHASIS on the national debt,but that’s a topic for a different time, since you’ll have to brush up on your Japanese to understand why.

あなたは人のナッツですか？

Before you get your dander up too much, though, it’s instructive to examine the problems that are ACTUALLY the things that we, as a country, need to address.

In his latest book, “That Used To Us”, “the most trusted man in America” spells out the the strategies that helped America become the largest economy in the world. He called them “The Five Pillars Of Prosperity”. They are as follows:

1) Providing public education to more and more Americans.

2) Building and modernizing our infrastructure.

3) “Keeping America’s doors open to immigration open so that we are constantly adding both the low-skilled but high-aspiring immigrants who keep American society energized, as well as the best minds in the world to enrich our universities, start new companies, and engineer new breakthroughs from medicine to manufacturing.” The same idea was also offered by the authors of "The Millionaire Next Door", who said, " .. this is why America needs a constant flow of immigrants with the courage and tenacity of .. the first generation immigrants ... ".

4) Government research for basic research and development.

5) The implementation of necessary regulations on private economic activity.

Due to the iron grip that special interest groups have had on this country, making progress on ANY of them is going to be difficult for the next year or two. Surprisingly, a lot of people in America have never heard of the Kochbrothers - and that’s exactly how they like it.

The problems that each area is facing are as follows:

1) Education -

Earlier this year, the school board of Providence, Rhode Island FIRED all 1926 of its teachers. Although it’s reasonable to assume that adjustments will need to be made to some of the benefits enjoyed by teachers (especially the defined benefit retirement programs) it’s UNREASONABLE to demonize America’s teachers at a time that they are needed most.

Arguably, the main reason for the increase in prosperity in America in the 1950’s and the 1960’s was the G.I. Bill, which allowed returning veterans to get a college education. Currently, there is a proposal to help former members of the military find work in a sluggish economy. Although the measure would require Congressional approval, the current administration has vowed to proceed unilaterally if approval is not received in Congress. (Even former Presidents have weighed in on the need to improve our educational system, “in the midst of a sour economy”.)

The timing of the proposal highlights another important issue: if the Super Committee can’t come to agreement on how to increase revenue for the Government by November 23, there will be an automatic REDUCTION of $454 billion in defense spending.

2) Infrastructure

The American Society of Civil Engineers two years ago gave a grade of “D” to the nation’s infrastructure. One example of WHY they did that can be viewed at the video below:

London Bridge is falling down

In spite of a strong need to improve our infrastructure, as well as a need to create jobs, some members of Congress recently voted to kill a bill to improve both situations because it involved a tiny tax increase on a tiny percentage of the American population (folks with annual income in excess of $1,000,000).

3) Immigration

In 1980, there were 73,000,000 people in the world with college or post-college degrees. By the year 2000, that number had increased to 173,000,000, but the number of H-1B visas that our country needs to issue to capture that talent has not increased proportionally. In fact, the trend has gone in the opposite direction.

The peak year for H-1B visas was the year 2000, when 195,000 visas were issued. Since that time, the number allowed has been decreased, and the current allotment is set at 85,000.

On the other end of the spectrum, there was a rumor circulating recently that the annual cost of illegal immigrants was $338.3 billion. To quote the famous line from the old Avis commercials, this total is “not exactly’ correct. In fact, if you carefully research all the details related to this “fact”, you’ll discover it’s completely FALSE. There ARE some costs related to illegal immigrants, but they are nowhere near the total shown above.

The most accurate answer to the question is this:

The U.S. Custom and Border Protection Department, a division of the United States Department of Homeland Security, has 43,600 sworn federal agents, and an annual budget of $11.84 billion. That’s no small amount, but it’s definitely a lot smaller than $338 billion!

It is estimated that nearly 30% of the agricultural workers in America are illegal immigrants. Although agricultural workers are a small percentage of the total for illegal immigrants, it’s logical to assume that their removal would lead to higher food prices (which it would) but not as much as you might think, due to the fact that only 7% of the cost of an agricultural item is due to labor costs.

In total, though, the number of illegal immigrants from Mexico has declined dramatically in the last 20 years, largely due to improved economic and educational opportunities in Mexico.

In recent months, there have been discussions of using alligators and electric fences , and suspending 36 environmental laws, in order to “stem the flow of illegal immigrants”. In reality, though, the solution is much simpler: improve living conditions in Mexico.

4) Government support for research and development

Federal funding for basic research and development began falling for the first time in 2005, after 25 years of growth, and has diminished since that time.

5) Necessary regulations on private economic activity

When Lehman Brothers filed bankruptcy on September 15, 2008, it was the largest financial bankruptcy filing in the history of the United States. The bankruptcy filing exposed some shady lending practices that cost investors millions of dollars. Although it had been assumed, fairly recently, that the financial services industry could police itself, Lehman’s failure exposed the idea for what it was = wishful thinking. In response, Congress passed a bill in May of 2010 that imposed further controls on an industry that needed them.

There’s also been some recent discussion about weakening environmental laws in order to create jobs, which simply isn’t a good idea.

In order to operate efficiently, businesses thrive if they face as few economic hurdles as possible, but it’s not smart to allow them to do whatever they want, because unbridled capitalism hurts ALL of us.

In 1972, Graham Nash (who was a British citizen at the time) and David Crosby recorded a song titled “Immigration Man”. When the sheet for the song was released, Nash chose a picture of earth from space because "when you look at a photograph of the earth you don't see any borders. That realization is where our hope as a planet lies."

Nash himself became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1978.

it’s a small world after all

Throughout the planet, there are differences in political outlook, race, creed, color, and national origin. When viewed from 200 miles up, though, we’re simply 7 billion people sharing a spectacularly beautiful blue orb floating in the vastness of space.

To quote a well known conservative talk show host, “ that’s the way things ought to be”.

Impeach the Cox-sacker

2011-11-02T15:41:00.005-07:00

On October 20, 1973, President Richard Nixon ordered his Attorney General, Elliott Richardson, to fire special prosecutor Archibald Cox because he (Cox) was getting too close to the truth about the Watergate scandal.

Rather than comply with the order, Richardson resigned. Nixon then ordered Richardson’s second-in-command (William Ruckelshaus) to fire Cox. He, too, resigned rather than carry out the order.

The next highest ranking member of the Justice Department after Ruckelshaus was Solicitor General Robert Bork. Although Bork also felt that Nixon’s decision was unwise, he felt that SOMEBODY had to comply with Nixon’s order, so he fired Cox.

The morning after “the Saturday Night Massacre”, the headlines in my local newspaper read “Impeach the Cox-sacker”, and bumper stickers with the same line appeared soon after. As we all know, Nixon’s attempt to circumvent justice was not successful, and he was forced to resign on August 8, 1974.

The story of “the Saturday Night Massacre” came immediately to mind when I read the headlines of the two major Arizona newspapers on the morning of November 2, 2011.

Governor Jan Brewer, and the GOP-controlled state Senate, fired Colleen Coyle Mathis, who was the chairwoman of the Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission, on the afternoon of November 1. The governor accused Ms. Mathis of “gross misconduct“, which is the only legal way she could have terminated her.

In the year 2000, the Arizona legislature passed Proposition 106, which gave the power for redistricting to an independent panel rather than to the Legislature. Since gerrymandering has been a problem in this country since 1812, it’s a little surprising that it took as long as it did to correct a practice that effectively takes power away from the voters and gives it to the political party that has the majority vote.

To quote Otto von Bismarck, “laws are like sausages … it is better not to see them being made .." In view of that fact, it’s probably amazing that our political system works as well as it does.

Up until very recently, I had lived in the Chicago area for 25 years. In spite of all of the efforts that have been made to clean up political corruption in both Chicago and the State of Illinois, even the “reform Governor” (Rod Blagojevich) was removed from office due to misconduct, and will likely spend at least some time in prison. If you want to see what “gerrymandering” looks like in practice, the map of the 4th congressional district of the State of Illinois will give you a very good idea.

Should Governor Brewer be impeached for her decision regarding Colleen Coyle Mathis? That’s not my decision to make, but next week’s recall election of Senate President Russell Pearce (the first recall election in the history of the State of Arizona) is a sign that the voters are tired of “business as usual” , both at the state and at the national level (the approval rating of the Congress in Washington D.C. is currently at 12%).

The late Joe McCarthy once said, “ if it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, and looks like a duck, then it must be a duck .. “

Although the governor gave a couple of reasons that she felt justified her position (which were quickly refuted by Ms. Mathis), I have to believe that there most be an awful lot of cheese someplace in the Capitol building ..

because I smell a rat.

The most trusted man in america

2011-10-26T19:55:00.000-07:00

.
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The late Walter Cronkite was an anchorman for CBS News for 19 years (1962-1981), and was often cited as “the most trusted man in America”. His signature closing line was, “and that’s the way it is”. Surprisingly, that famous closing line came about accidentally, and very nearly not at all, which he explains in the video below:

an interview with Walter

Unlike the broadcast industry that I grew up in (with just three major television networks and no FM radio stations), today’s news sources are highly fragmented. In addition to hundreds of cable TV channels, we also get our news from an endless variety of internet sources, as well as talk radio. The traditional large newspapers are still in operation, but have been forced to change dramatically in recent years in order to survive.

In December of 2008, the venerable Tribune Company filed for bankruptcy, and the Minneapolis Star-Tribune filed a month later. A month after the Star-Tribune filing, two major newspapers in Philadelphia threw in the towel.

In view of all the fragmentation and turbulence in the news industry, who IS “the most trusted man in America” today?

The answer to that question is the man pictured below:

That title was conferred on him in a number of polls, and he was also mentioned in The New York Times, which I would consider to be a very reputable news source.

The odd thing about Jon Stewart is that his show (the “Daily Show”) is broadcast on the Comedy Central channel, and isn’t even real news, which seems to underscore the degree of cynicism that a lot of folks in this country feel about the direction our country is heading.

If the decision to pick the most trusted man in America were left up to me, my choice would be one that would surprise a lot of people. His picture is shown below:

Thomas Friedman and I have a few things in common, because we were both born in Minnesota, and we both studied at the University of Minnesota. In addition, we've both spent far more time in China than most Americans have, even though our roles there were much different.

Thomas ultimately transferred from the University of Minnesota, and graduated from Brandeis University, summa cum laude. He earned his masters degree at the University of Oxford. After graduation, he went to work for UPI, but joined the staff of the New York Times in 1981, where he has been ever since. His work at the Times earned him three Pulitzer Prizes, and he was elected to the Pulitzer Prize board in 2005. Due to his expertise in the Middle East, he is one of the people that President Obama consults with when formulating policy positions in that part of the world.

In addition to his regular columns for the New York Times, he has also written SIX books. Although I have not read his first two, I HAVE read the four books after that, including the most recent, which I finished reading this afternoon. “That Used To Be Us” (co-authored with Michael Mandelbaum) is both frightening and inspirational.

The large print version (which I borrowed from the local library) is a daunting 685 pages in length. In spite of that, though, I would consider the book to be a “must read” for as many people as possible, ESPECIALLY the politicians who are running our country.

Even if you’re a slow reader, if you set aside 20 minutes a day to read it, you’d be finished in about a month’s time, and you’d have a much better grasp of where we are as a country, and where we need to be going.

Thomas Friedman may not be “the most admired man in America”, but that’s a distinction that may come his way eventually. For now, a number of sources have called him “the voice of reason”, and that’s a pretty good start. (The most admired man in America, by the way, is Barack Obama, followed closely by former President George W. Bush).

If the thought of reading a LONG book seems more than a little daunting to you, I’d recommend at least reading some of his thoughts on his blog or in his columns in The New York Times.

Tom Friedman may not have all the answers, but I can assure you that if gives you his opinion on pretty much anything, “that’s the way it is”.

The Natural

2011-10-17T22:23:00.001-07:00

On Wednesday of this week, Greece will still be on the verge of going broke, our leaders in Congress will still be bickering, wars will still be raging, and too many people will still be out of work.

However, the sun will rise in the East, and an important event in American history will begin again.

The very first professional baseball club in America, the Cincinnati Red Stockings, was formed in 1869, a mere four years after the end of the Civil War. A few years later, the short lived National Association of Professional Base Ball Players was formed, but quickly died out. The National League came into being in 1876, and the American League was founded in 1901. Although the two leagues were initially bitter rivals, a “peace treaty” (called the National Agreement) was signed in 1903.

The very first World Series was played in 1903, and Boston beat Pittsburgh. Boston won four more World Series titles between 1912 and 1918, but then had a “drought” until 2004. Although that’s certainly a long period of time, it pales in comparison to the record of the Chicago Cubs, who won their last World Series title in 1907.

The 2011 World Series pits the Texas Rangers (who have never won a World Series) against the St. Louis Cardinals, who have won the title 10 times, the most recent being in 2006.

Even if you have no allegiance to either team, and even if you don’t have much interest in baseball, it’s important to watch at least part of the event, and I’ll let James Earl Jones tell you why. In the movie, “Field of Dreams“, he described to “Ray Kinsella” (Kevin Costner) the magic of baseball:

“.. the memories will be so thick, they’ll have to brush them away from their faces .. the one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball ..Americans rolled by like an army of steamrollers .. they’ve been erased, rebuilt, and erased again .. but baseball has marked the time .. the field, the game .. It’s a part of our past .. It reminds us of all that once was good, and could be again .."

It’s been a few years since I’ve been to a professional baseball game, but I still remember the electricity that was in the air as play began on the carefully groomed field below me.

There have been countless movies made about baseball over the years, but very few of them capture the essence of the game as well as “The Natural”, which was released in 1984. To prove my point, set five minutes aside, and watch the clip below:

there’s magic in the air

If you’re like me, you were probably a little misty eyed by the time it ended, and that (by itself) proves a point.

Most of the movie was shot in a stadium that no longer exists (War Memorial Stadium), the main character (Roy Hobbs) never existed, and his team, the New York Knights, was a figment of a writer’s imagination. In spite of those details, though, “The Natural” reminds all of us that we, too, can overcome seemingly insurmountable obstacles with perseverance, luck, and a helping hand from forces beyond our grasp.

Roy Hobbs was no fluke. Throughout our history, we’ve borne witness to countless men who, in their own way, have provided their own brand of magic to make us forget life’s troubles, even if for only a while. Some of them are shown below:

yesterday’s heroes

Let’s play ball!

Marlboro Man

2011-10-13T11:14:00.000-07:00

Philip Morris & Company used the Marlboro Man in ads from 1954 until 1999. Although a number of different people portrayed the Marlboro Man during that time period, an ex-rancher named Darrell Winfield had the longest run, at 20 years. He was originally selected by the creative director of the Leo Burnett advertising agency because “he scared the hell out of him.”

In view of the tough image of the Marlboro Man, you would probably be surprised at the fact that Marlboro was originally introduced (in 1926) as a woman’s cigarette. The advertising theme for the cigarette was the less than inspiring “mild as May”campaign, and the brand faltered repeatedly for the next 30 years.

What saved the brand, ironically enough, was lung cancer.

During the early 1950’s, the first studies linking cigarette smoking to lung cancer were released. As a result, smokers started to switch from the favored brands of Camels, Lucky Strikes, and Chesterfields to the “safer” filtered cigarettes, like Marlboro.

Logic would tell you that an advertising agency would focus on these new-found health concerns, but the Leo Burnett agency took an entirely different approach, focusing instead on the Masculine Image of the New Marlboro.

When the campaign started, Marlboro sales were $5 billion a year. Two years later, Marlboro sales were an astonishing $20 billion a year, an increase of 300%. As a result, the Marlboro Man advertising campaign is considered to be one of the most brilliant advertising campaigns of all time.

Three of the men who portrayed the Marlboro Man (Wayne McLaren, David McLean, and Dick Hammer) all died from lung cancer. Strangely enough, their passing hasn’t put much of a dent in the popularity of smoking overseas. The Marlboro Man ads were used up until recently in both Germany and the Czech Republic, but cigarette sales in Asia have EXPLODED.

China is now the world’s largest cigarette market, with over 2 TRILLION cigarettes sold every year. The number of smokers in China exceeds the entire population of the United States, where 25% of the population smokes cigarettes. Amazingly, nearly 60% of the DOCTORS in China are cigarette smokers!

Who is the modern day Marlboro Man? One example is pictured below:

Although President Obama began an earnest attempt in 2007 to quit smoking Marlboro cigarettes, it’s rumored that the pressures of his job have caused a few relapses since that time.

By now, you’re aware of the fact that I’m a fan, but even his most ardent supporters will concede that he should have pushed a little harder, on occasion, to get what he wants. You’re never going to see him walking into a joint session of Congress with a cowboy hat on his head, a bullwhip in one hand, and a cigarette dangling from his lips, but he needs to somehow get tougher with the obstructionists in Congress for the good of our country.

By the way, if you’re still under the impression that all you need to herd cattle is a tough old cowboy on a horse (or a Harley) the video below will open your eyes:

the new cowboy

Enjoy the day!

Happy anniversary!

2011-10-06T07:05:00.001-07:00

On this day in 1996, country superstars Tim McGraw and Faith Hill got married.

Both of them were established musical performers before they teamed up for their “Spontaneous Combustion” tour in early 1996. At the start of the tour, Faith was engaged to another man, but she had a new fiancé (McGraw) when the tour ended., and they got married at a small family ceremony in his native Louisiana on October 6. They owe part of their marital longevity to the fact that they haven’t spent more than 3 consecutive days apart since that time.

Another well known performer ALSO got married on October 6, but five years earlier.

Elizabeth Taylor married her SEVENTH husband on October 6. 1991, a construction worker named Larry Fortensky. Due to the fact that the pair met at the Betty Ford Drug and Alcohol Rehabilitation Center, and he was two decades younger than she was, the pundits predicted that the union wouldn’t last, and they were right.

Elizabeth and Larry divorced in 1996.

Coincidentally, I married my first wife on October 6, 1972. Thirty nine years later, she is STILL my first wife, even though we are both older and grayer.

An organization called The Americans for Divorce Reform has estimated that close to 50% of all marriages in America will end in divorce. Interestingly, the divorce rate goes up for every subsequent marriage, which means that if you didn’t get it right the first time, you’re less likely to do so the next time around.

With the odds of a successful marriage being roughly equivalent to flipping a coin, what can ANY of us do to nurture our relationships through “for better or worse”?

One of my favorite books about relationships is “Why Men Don’t Listen, and Women Can’t Read Maps”. You can read the entire book on line by clicking on the appropriate link of my post of June 23

In view of the fact that men and women really DO think differently, it’s fairly amazing that we can live together at all. The Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that the demand for counseling services (including marriage counselors) will exceed supply for the foreseeable future. As a result, there will be plenty of opportunities for you to spend your money on professional help if your fairy tale wedding starts to tarnish a bit.

However, if you’d rather spend your money on a nice vacation (or a new fishing boat) there are THREE things that you can do to nurture your relationship in a much more cost efficient manner:

1) forgive and forget - holding grudges isn’t healthy for ANYONE

2) keep a stiff upper lip

3) laugh often, and laugh heartily

For further details on the last item, I’ll refer you to a comic strip that has become increasingly familiar to Sharon and me as we’ve gotten older (see below), and there’s a reason that I selected the strip from 9/11/11:

Pickles comic strip

A few years ago, Sharon joined the squirrel lovers club. Until she found out that it was illegal, she would feed the squirrels from the front porch of our place in Evanston every morning. Although she no longer “feeds the critters”, we still have squirrel statues scattered throughout our home. Since we both can be a little nuts at times, I guess that somehow seems appropriate.

Through the years, we’ve been through a lot of “thicks and thins”, and we’ve even been mad at each other on occasion (usually not for long). In the final analysis, though, we’d both have to admit that we’re still probably each other’s best friend, and this is what Tim McGraw would have to say about THAT:

my best friend

Happy anniversary, Sharon!

Why can't we all just get along?

2011-09-30T21:03:00.003-07:00

It’s been more than 20 years since Rodney King was arrested by the Los Angeles police for speeding on the 210 freeway in L.A., but his story has particular relevance for today’s society.

On the night of March 2, 1991, Rodney and two friends (Bryant Allen and Freddie Helms) spent the night drinking and watching a basketball game at another friend’s house. Later that evening, he reached a speed of 117 miles per hour while being pursued by the police for speeding. Five hours after he was stopped, his blood alcohol content was just below the legal limit, which meant that during the chase, his BAC was roughly 0.19, more than twice the legal limit.

When he was finally stopped by the police, he resisted arrest, and the police finally needed to use extraordinary measures to bring him under control. The “extraordinary measures” were captured on video by a man named George Holliday, and the video’s subsequent release to KTLA television created an uproar.

Ultimately, charges of police brutality were filed against the officers involved, and their trial was held the following March in a new courthouse in Simi Valley.

When the jury acquitted the officers involved, pandemonium erupted in Los Angeles. The Los Angeles riots lasted a total of six days. In the end, the damages included 53 deaths, 2,383 injuries, 7000 fires, damages to 3100 businesses, and roughly $1 billion in final losses. Businesses owned by Korean-Americans were hit especially hard by the riots.

Midway through the riots, Rodney King himself made a public appeal for a return to sanity:

can’t we all just get along?

Prior to his arrest on March 3, 1991, he had had two prior brushes with the law, which is why his defense team did not allow him to testify at the trial. More significantly, he has been involved with
NINE incidents since that night, the most recent being September 29, 2001.

After the riots ended, pressure mounted for a retrial of the officers involved. Ultimately, Rodney King was awarded $3.8 million in damages by the City of Los Angeles. He invested most of his money in a record label called “Straight-Alta Records”, which folded shortly after its founding.

We can all argue until the cows come home about the cause of the L.A. riots of 1992, but my opinion is this:

The irresponsible actions of a lone individual (King) indirectly led to 53 deaths and $1 billion in damages. To add insult to injury, the city that suffered significant financial loss due to his actions was forced to pay him $3.8 million dollars in damages, which he squandered.

At this point, let’s fast forward to 2011, so that we can tie the events of 1992 to our current political environment.

In April of this year, the irresponsible actions of a small number of our elected officials nearly caused the Federal Government to shut down. In August, the same group nearly caused a default on our national debt. Just last week, the recent debate over FEMA funding again pushed the government to the brink of shutdown, but a last minute spending bill pushed the day of reckoning back to November 18.

Even though I told you not to blame the Republicans on July 15 ..

it’s time to blame the Republicans.

The Republican National Convention will be held in Tampa on August 27, 2012. As of this morning, there are FOURTEEN declared candidates for the Republican Presidential nomination.

In addition, there are SEVEN more potential candidates, and 15 others who have declined to pursue the nomination.

The general consensus among most of the political commentators is that George Romney is the only adult in the room, but the list of candidates DOES include a few folks who would be interesting alternatives. The list of candidates, and my comments on each, is attached below:

Michele Bachman - current chair of the Tea Party caucus, which automatically disqualifies her as a serious candidate -

Herman Cain - former chairman of Godfather’s pizza - interesting candidate, but being a black Republican will probably be a liability -

Newt Gingrich - a total idiot, and a morally bankrupt individual -

Jon Huntsman - personal friend of Obama - another interesting choice, but not enough name recognition -

Gary Johnson - unelectable due to name recognition

Fred Karger- strong gay advocacy would be the kiss of death for a Republican -

Andy Martin - another total idiot - originator of the hysteria surrounding Obama’s birth status -

Jimmy McMillan - unelectable, but fun

Tom Miller - former flight attendant - unelectable due to lack of experience

Ron Paul - Libertarian views - not conservative enough for the Republicans - unelectable

Rick Perry - another total idiot - extreme right wind views - unelectable due to extreme views -

Mitt Romney - front runner - still doesn’t understand Obama’s Cairo speech, but still the front runner -

Rick Santorum - bigoted and opinionated, which will make him unelectable -

Vern Wuensche - no name recognition

Presidential candidates aside, it’s safe to say that the general public has become damn tired of the politicians who are more concerned about their own agendas than the welfare of the country. As of this morning, the Congressional approval rate is 12%, one of the lowest scores on record.

Fortunately, there ARE some solutions that can be put into place sooner, rather than later, to help fix the problem.

19 out of the 50 states allow recall elections on a mid-term basis. Wisconsin recently “put the screws” to nine elected officials in August, but only two were recalled. Both Arizona and Michigan will be having recall elections in November, and I’ve already registered to vote in Arizona.

Even though the state of Minnesota was actually shut down for two weeks in July of this year, no recall elections are planned at this point in time because, well, the folks in Minnesota are famous for being nice and polite.

In my opinoin, Barack Obama remains the person who is the most qualified to lead our country, but he’s been hampered by the efforts of extremists who seem determined to undermine everything that he is trying to accomplish.

If you haven’t read, or listened to, his recent speech in San Jose about the American Jobs Act bill, you’ve missed some very important information.

For the record, snopes.com has investigated an astonishing 274 rumors about Barack Obama. If you research all of them individually (as I’ve done) you’ll discover that 58 % of them are totally false, and another 20% of them are a mixture of true and false information. Although 19% of the rumors are actually labeled as “true”, fully HALF of those are simply verification that someone said, or wrote, something about the current President. That leaves a total of 11% of the total that are true, but NONE of them contain information that would be considered relevant by most people. Significantly, there also three links that would release a virus if you opened them up.

You’re certainly free to do your own research on any of the above topics if you’d like to, but here’s my advice:

If you receive any “Obama-bashing” e-mails from anyone, do the smart thing.

Hit “delete” without reading it.

I try to read 2 or 3 newspapers on a daily basis in order to get a balanced view of the world, but I can’t hold a candle to John F. Kennedy, who read ELEVEN newspapers on a daily basis. Included in that list are the following papers: the Baltimore Sun, Chicago Tribune, The Christian Science Monitor, New York Herald Tribune, New York News, New York Times, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, and the Washington Star.

You’re free to read whatever newspaper that you’d like, but if you’re not reading The New York Times at least once a week, you’re missing a lot of intelligent conversation.

However, if for some reason you don’t read ANY newspapers, and get all of your information from Fox News and/or talk radio, you need to be aware of the fact that Rupert Murdoch controls both of those venues, and they are NOT reliable sources of information.

If you’ve read John Grisham’s book, The Appeal, you’re aware of the fact that wealthy people with loose morals can be very effective at distorting the wheels of justice and the electoral process. Unfortunately, that is EXACTLY what’s happening in America today. I won’t mention any names (since I already did that back in March) but be assured that the three billionaires most responsible for our current mess don’t have your best interests at heart.

We’re too good a country to be held hostage by thugs who are determined to destroy our country in order to achieve their own narrow objectives.

We need to have thoughtful and intelligent conversations again, and to eradicate as much negative news as possible.

To paraphrase John F. Kennedy, we need to (once again) ask not what our country can do for us, but what we can do for our country.

Most importantly (to quote Rodney King) we simply need to find a way to just get along better with each other.

The wedding of the year

2011-09-27T18:43:00.004-07:00

On August 20, Kim Kardashian wed NBA star Kris Humphries

The guest list included a number of well known celebrities, who were driven to the reception in white Rolls Royces or Maybachs. In all, there were 450 guests at the wedding ceremony, which was held at a private estate in Montecito, California. All of the bridesmaids, and Kim’s mother, wore Vera Wang gowns. The six foot tall wedding cake (designed by Hansen Cakes of Los Angeles) cost $15,000, and Wolfgang Puck provided the rest of the food.

If you’re dying to see more of the wedding than you’ve already been exposed to, the wedding extravaganza will be aired in a two part special on E! on October 9 at 8 p.m. and October 10 at 9 p.m..

(When the "wedding of the year" disintegrated after a mere 72 days, Kim had a very solid explanation for its demise:

“I would never marry for a TV show, for money, for anything like that. And I think that’s really ridiculous, that I have to even, you know, kind of defend that, but, you know, I guess that comes along with what’s, you know — when you film your wedding for a reality show.”)

One of the many celebrity magazines on the market breathlessly proclaimed Kim’s wedding to be the “wedding of the year” on its cover, but CNN (in deference to the wedding of Kate Middleton and Prince William earlier this year) called it “the other wedding of the year”. In view of the fact that William and Kate had 1900 guests, and their wedding cost an estimated $70 million, a lot of people would consider the wedding across the pond to be the BIG EVENT of the year.

Being a contrarian, I beg to differ, since the REAL wedding of the year was held roughly 200 miles to the east of Montecisto, on September 24. In total, there were less than 200 guests, and the whole thing cost SIGNIFICANTLY less than either one of the weddings mentioned above.

To put a little perspective on WHY the wedding on September 24 was the REAL wedding, I’ll have to refer you back to a book that you probably read as a child. The Velveteen Rabbit was written by Margery Williams, and illustrated by William Nicholson. It was first published in 1922, and it has been republished many times since.

In the story, the much loved plush rabbit, in spite of the fact that he has become shabbier over time, eventually becomes real due to the fact that the boy in the story really and truly loves it.

The wedding in question was between my niece Alex and her long time friend Thom. It was held at Crazzy’s Wasewagan Summer Camp in Angelus Oaks, California. The location was deep in the woods of the San Bernadino Forest, and you had to drive through a stream to get to the actual site.

The bride wore a dress that was made by hand by a close relative, and the bride and groom wore custom rings that were made by the same relative. The proud father of the bride wore a rented tuxedo, a hand tied bowtie - and tennis shoes.

The presiding minister affectionately referred to them as “big red” and “angel man”. At the end of the ceremony, she pronounced them as “married”, rather than “man and wife”, a subtle (but significant) change that may cause consternation in some circles.

All of the food throughout the three day event was vegetarian, and the dessert for the wedding dinner itself consisted almost entirely of homemade pies instead of an elaborate wedding cake.

The setting for the ceremony was an open area on the side of the stream, with air above and dirt below.

Several dogs with bows tied around their neck wandered throughout the setting, and the late afternoon sun produced a magical glow that provided a perfect setting for picture taking. Tinkerbell was in the audience too, but the license plate on her Jeep actually read “”TYNKERBL”.

It’s unlikely that Thom and Alex will ever be as wealthy as Kim and Kris, but their marriage (a union of two genuine lovers) will provide them with riches that money simply can’t buy, which is why it TRULY is the marriage of the year.

The ghost of Tom Joad

2011-09-14T13:33:00.001-07:00

During the Dust Bowl years of the 1930’s, 200,000 impoverished farmers, primarily from Texas and Oklahoma, migrated west to California for a chance at a better life. Although that’s a large number of people, it’s only a small percentage of the 2,500,000 that moved out of the Plains states between 1930 and 1940.

One of those impoverished farmers was a fictional man named Tom Joad, who was portrayed in the movie, The Grapes of Wrath, by Henry Fonda. Fortunately for Tom, America had opened a new highway in 1926 that made his journey west a lot easier. The road was officially called Route 66, but for many people (even today) it is best known as “the Mother Road”.

If you’re not familiar with the movie, you can get a sense of the desperation and despair that the Joad family experienced by listening to the ghost of Tom Joad, which was recorded by Bruce Springsteen.

The road started at the corner of Jackson Boulevard and Michigan Avenue in downtown Chicago, and ended in Santa Monica, California. In total, it ran 2448 miles initially (it was down to 2278 miles by 1947), and its existence created thousands of new businesses along the way. The massive construction of the Interstate system in the mid 1960’s became the death knell for a lot of those businesses, since travel along I-40, and a few other roads, has made the trip west a lot quicker and more convenient. If you’ve seen the movie Cars, you’ll recall that a town called Radiator Springs was especially hard hit, but it has had a recent resurgence due to Walt Disney Pictures and Pixar Animation Studios.

Although nostalgia just isn’t what it used to be, you’ll be happy to know that the original Route 66 still exists, and can be driven on today. Just off I-40 in New Mexico, there are six different segments of the original Route 66 that are easily accessible from the Interstate.

Arguably, the town that pays the best homage to the Mother Road is my new home town, Flagstaff, Arizona. Route 66 still runs through the heart of downtown Flagstaff, and a fair number of the businesses that prospered during the heyday of Route 66 are still in business today. Since its decommissioning in 1985, the road is, by and large, simply a memory. In recognition of those old memories, it seems fitting that at least seven locations in Flagstaff (including the train station and the library) are considered to be haunted sites.

Most of us first became aware of Route 66 due to the adventures of a couple of guys named Tod and Buz , who traveled the road in a new Corvette.

The series ran from 1960 to 1964, and a LOT of people (including the Rolling Stones) have done updates to Nat King Cole’s original version of the song about the road. The liveliest version of the song is the one
that you can hear by clicking on the hyperlink in this sentence, but ALL of the versions are fun to listen to.

When Tom Joad packed up his family in his old Ford and moved west, he didn’t have any guarantees of a better life, nor did he have any guarantees of gainful employment. To a very large degree, Tom and I are kindred spirits, since my wife and I (and our daughter) moved to town without having any solid employment prospects. Unlike Tom, though, my wife and I DO have at least some guaranteed income each month, and we’re all working on some opportunities to supplement our base income.

When you embark on any new adventure, it’s inevitable that things don’t always go according to plan. We had a few anxious moments before we left the Chicago area, and we also had a few moments of hyperventilation once we got to Flagstaff. With the help of friends and family, we managed to get by the rough spots, and are now settling into our new community.

Apart from the sheer beauty of Flagstaff (we’re immediately adjacent to Coconino National Forest, and we’re surrounded by the San Francisco Peaks) the biggest change that we’ve noticed so far is an overwhelming sense of quiet and tranquility. All three of us endured an awful lot of noise on a daily basis in Chicago, so the change in location has already put all of us in a better frame of mind.

I also discovered, just yesterday, that riding my bicycle up and down the hills out here (elevation 7000 feet) is a whole lot different than riding the flat landscape of Chicago. Since 1968, Flagstaff has been host for elite endurance training. In 1994, Northern Arizona University opened its Center for High Altitude Training. Although it recently closed due to budget constraints, 16 of the medal winners at the 2008 Beijing Olympics did at least part of their training for the games in Flagstaff.

I lived most of my life in America’s Midwest. Although there are a lot of things that we all enjoyed about the states that we lived in, the best advice that I could give to a modern day Tom Joan is this:

“go west, young man, go west”.

the joy of socks

2011-08-28T17:21:00.000-07:00

Since we are moving out of state at the end of the month, I stopped my home delivery of the Chicago Tribune about a week ago. However, I’ll continue to read the online version every morning in order to keep abreast of the latest “breaking news” in the Windy City.

A little known fact is that the Chicago Tribune publishes a small parody newspaper called The Onion, which Wikipedia calls a news satire organization. Although I’m not going to be able to pick up a printed copy of the newspaper at the local news stand in Flagstaff, I’ll still be able to read it online when I’m truly in the mood for some goofy news.

Using the online White Pages directory this morning, I discovered that there are 99 people in America who have the last name of “Tongue”, and slightly over 100 who have the last name of “Cheek”.

So …

In the vein of the tongue-in-cheek editorial flavor of The Onion, the story listed below is an example of what could be the start of a series of related topics that The Onion might publish at some point in the future.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

The joy of socks

Socks have been in use much longer than any of us could imagine. The first known use of socks was during The Stone Age, when socks were made of animal skins and tied around the ankles.

The 2nd century Romans were the first people to sew socks from woven fabric, and the Egyptians of the 3rd century were the first to actually knit socks.

For centuries thereafter, silk was the most popular material used to make socks, but cotton finally came into use in the 17th century. By the middle of the 20th century, nylon became the most popular fabric.

In spite of their popularity, though, socks have always presented a problem for their wearers. If Arthur Conan Doyle were still alive, he eventually would have written The Case of the Missing Socks.

In my dresser drawer, I have exactly 13 mismatched socks that I continue to keep in the hope that its partner will mysteriously reappear in the dryer the next time that I do my laundry. Buying special socks (such as Gold Toe socks) helps the problem, but doesn’t cure it entirely.

Thanks to the U.S. Army, though, there IS a cure.

Most people are surprised to learn that the Bureau of Missing Socks began as a company in the Union Army during the Civil War in the States of America. It was formed on August 1st, 1861. The name of the founder was Joseph Smithson and he was a haberdasher by trade but quite a bad soldier. He was therefore put in full and complete charge of socks of the enlisted men and officers. He brought to the army skills of stock keeping, purchasing, accounting, and salesmanship He immediately instituted a cost control structure and created one of the most honest, tightly run purchasing sections serving the Union side during the entire conflict.

The Bureau of Missing Socks is the only organization in the world devoted solely to unraveling the mystery of the single disappearing sock. It is an arm of the United States government no less important than the State Department and Department of Defense.

Its headquarters are located on a bluff high above the Potomac River in Washington, D. C. in a twenty four acre office park divided into four distinct areas: administrative, research, data and laboratory facilities.

Incidentally, if you’d like to order your very own custom socks, the link immediately above can take you to a page that allows you to view some unique products.

If the above information seems like a (um) stretch, consider the words of one of our former Presidents:

tricky Dick

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Other than socks, the other topics that could eventually find their way into The Onion (in no particular sequence) are the following,

The joy of Sox - a brief history of “the South Siders”

The joy of six - Phil Jackson’s Chicago Bulls

The joy of slacks - when did WOMEN get to wear the pants in the family?

The joy of slicks - the evolution of the racing tire

The Joy of Sex - (not available in Middlesex, England)

The joy of snacks - (snack food rewind- a history of our favorite treats)

The joy of stacks - how to win at poker

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

The late Will Rogers had this to say about onions:

"An onion can make people cry, but there has never been a vegetable invented to make them laugh."

Since 1988, The Onion has been helping people to laugh, the first “vegetable” that’s been able to do that. If Will Rogers were still around today, I have no doubt that he’d be an avid reader.

Gas at 29.9 a gallon?

2011-08-18T14:29:00.000-07:00

When I was a recent high school graduate, way back in 1965, the Standard station across the street from the Corn Palace in Mitchell, South Dakota, was selling regular gas for 29.9 a gallon. Gasoline prices in other cities, even in California, weren’t appreciably higher.

Every time that gas prices jump, a certain percentage of our fellow voters contact their congressmen, and demand that action be taken to correct the situation. Often, there is talk of boycotting the oil companies in order to “force them to lower their prices.”

Even though gasoline prices are now, on average, about 20 cents a gallon less than they were just two months ago, and roughly 50 cents less than they were three years ago, one of the Republican politicians in Iowa last week promised to bring back gasoline that was priced at $2.00 per gallon.

For a lot of reasons, that simply doesn’t make any sense, and the link immediately above provides more details on exactly why it doesn’t. For starters, though, the United States actually has very little control over the price of oil, and even the expansion of off shore drilling will have little, if any, effect on the price of oil

If you need a reason to say “no” to more offshore drilling, read the article posted immediately below:

drill,baby,drill

The Deepwater Horizon oil spill in 2010 was the largest accidental marine oil spill in the history of the petroleum industry. Because the accident happened in the Gulf of Mexico, the cleanup efforts were somewhat easier. However, if it had taken place in a colder climate (such as near the Arctic National Wildlife Range) clean up efforts would have been much more difficult.

As a country, we consume 25% of the world’s oil, but have only 2% of the world’s reserves. No matter HOW much we drill, we’re going to be short of oil unless we starting using a LOT less than we are now.

The one component of gasoline prices that we DO have control over is the 18.4 cent a gallon Federal Tax, which is due to expire on September 30. The tax has remained unchanged since 1993, and it is used to support the Highway Trust Fund, which pays for road and bridge repairs, as well as mass transit systems. The Highway Trust Fund has been under a lot of pressure for a number of years, and currently has a backlog of $72 billion, and that’s just for bridge maintenance and repairs.

Even if you add in state taxes to our gasoline bills, the total tax per gallon works out to around 43 cents, considerably cheaper than the $4 a gallon tax that is levied in Great Britain.

To repeat myself a little, if you need a reason to not only extend but to INCREASE the federal gasoline tax, watch the video below, which was taken in Minnesota in 2007:

London Bridge is falling down

Speaking of taxes, though, there’s something else that you need to consider.

The last time that America DIDN’T have an increase in the National Debt from year to year was in the year 2000, when Bill Clinton was in office. During the eight years of the Bush administration, the Federal Debt increased by roughly $4.3 trillion dollars, and a sizable chunk of that debt was due to the tax cuts of 2001 and 2003. Officially, they were titled the Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001, and the Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2003. Although they seemed like a good idea at the time, they’ve left an awful nasty legacy. Total Federal Revenues in 2010 were $2.162 trillion, considerably less than Federal expenditures of $3.456 trillion. It’s naive, and irresponsible, to believe that you can close that kind of a gap just by trimming expenditures.

There are 10 countries in the world where you can still buy gasoline for less than $2.00 a gallon, and all of them are members of OPEC. The two cheapest countries are Iran ($.37 per gallon) and Saudi Arabia ($.61 a gallon).

Obviously, gas for less than $2 a gallon is pretty attractive, until you consider the other costs involved in living in those countries. The Islamic Republic of Iran is governed by a President who rigged the Presidential election two years ago. Although religions other than Islam are officially tolerated, members of the Baha’i religion (the largest minority religion) have been persecuted for more than 100 years.

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has the world’s largest oil reserves, and the revenue from all that black goo equals 75% of government revenues. Perhaps not surprisingly, both Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have repeatedly expressed concerns about the state of human rights in Saudi Arabia. Even today, it is illegal for a woman to drive a car by herself in Saudi Arabia.

King Abdullah is actually the most powerful man in the world. If you don’t believe me, watch the video below:

the old fart in the turban

In 1973, the price of a barrel of oil skyrocketed from $3 a barrel to over $5 a barrel in a short period of time, and the world panicked. As of this morning, by the way, a barrel of oil was going for $82.56, and the sky hasn’t fallen yet.

When George H.W. Bush was elected President, the price of a gallon of regular was $1.12 a gallon. The national debt was $220 billion, three times its size when Ronald Reagan was first sworn in. In 1990, the Republicans in Congress believed that the best way to cut the deficit was by decreasing spending, and the Democrats believed that the best way to cut the deficit was by raising taxes. Ultimately, President Bush worked out a compromise, but it made him a one term President.

According to Thomas Friedman (of the New York Times), George H.W. Bush is our most underrated President.

He never promised America that we would have gas priced at 29.9 per gallon, but he made some tough decisions that were based on what was good for the country, not what was good for the Party. He was still jumping out of airplanes when he was 85 years old. That proves, to put it politely, that he has a lot more “chutzpah” than pretty much everybody who is trying to unseat the current President.

“Poppy” is still alive and well, and he is now 87 years old. If there were more guys like him still around, I might actually vote for a Republican again, but don’t hold your breath. He’s the last of a vanishing breed, and the current “cast of characters” are a poor imitation of the man who defeated Saddam Hussein the first time.

In closing, I’d like to offer the following accolade to the 41st President of the United States:

we miss you, George

What's good for General Motors is good for America

2011-08-11T17:07:00.001-07:00

In 1953, President Eisenhower nominated Charles Wilson,
the CEO of General Motors, to be Secretary of Defense. During the Senate hearings about his nomination, he was asked if he could make a decision adverse to the interests of General Motors if his position as Secretary of Defense required him to do so. He answered in the affirmative, although his actual response is slightly different than the line quoted above, and can be read below:

what did “Engine Charlie” really say?

General Motors was founded in Flint, Michigan in 1908. Over the years since that time, General Motors Corporation experienced strong and steady growth. By the early 1950’s, General Motors was the largest corporation registered in America, in terms of revenues as a percentage of GDP.

From 1949 until 1978, the full size Chevrolet was the best selling car in America in all but three years.

In 1955, General Motors became the first U.S. corporation to pay more than $1 billion in taxes. That same year, the only employers in the world that were larger than General Motors were the combined Soviet state agencies.

In 1963, one out of every 10 cars sold in the country was a Chevrolet.

Since those heady days of yesteryear, GM has seen its fortunes tumble rather dramatically.

In the third quarter of 2008, General Motors reported a quarterly loss of $15.5 billion, one of the largest quarterly losses in the company’s history. At the request of the White House, Rick Wagoner resigned as Chairman and CEO on March 29, 2009. Since that date, GM has had three more Chairmen. The most recent one is Dan Akerson, who assumed the post on December 31, 2010.

In September of 2008, Congress worked out a loan of $25 billion to help the company avoid bankruptcy, and in December of 2008, President Bush authorized an emergency bailout of an additional $17.4 billion. Ultimately, GM filed for bankruptcy protection on
June 1, 2009.

Lately, though, things have been turning around for “the General”. Surprisingly, the resurgence didn’t come about because of a huge increase in sales in the land of ”baseball, hotdogs, apple pie, and Chevrolet”. It happened because of China, currently the largest holder (at 26%) of all foreign holders of United States Treasury securities.

In 2006, Buick sales in China surpassed Buick sales in the United States for the first time, and the gap has widened considerably since then. For the first nine months of 2009, Buick sold 312,798 cars in China, and only 72,389 in the United States. As a result, when Buick redesigned the Lacrosse for the 2010 model year, the design studio that did the work was in Shanghai, not in America.

General Motors recently unveiled a new brand of automobile in China called the Baojun 360. It’s selling price ranges from $9,760 to $11,470, considerably cheaper than the similar-sized Chevy Cruze, which starts at $16,5256. Although it initially will be sold only in China, it could (with slight modification) be sold in America as well.

In the first half of 2011, GM sold more cars in China (1.27 million) than it did in in America (1.26 million). If the Baojun 360 becomes popularly with the rapidly increasing affluent Chinese middle class, that gap will continue to widen.

It’s still too soon to tell if the Federal Government will recover the money that it lent to General Motors. The U.S. Treasury currently owns 500,000,000 shares of the “new” GM, roughly 33% of the company’s worth. As of this morning, GM stock was going for just around $26 a share. At that price, the government would lose roughly $12 billion if it sold all of its shares tomorrow.

That’s still an ugly number, but a lot better than the $42 billion (plus) that has already been advanced to the company. On the positive side, though, General Motors DID report a PROFIT for the first quarter of 2011, so there is actually hope for the future.

If the Chinese auto market continues to expand, we’ll have to modify “Engine Charlie’s” convictions from almost 60 years ago to the following phrase:

“what’s good for Beijing is good for America”.

Sex, lies, and videotape

2011-08-04T08:49:00.000-07:00

On August 4, 1989, the movie “Sex, lies, and videotape” was released to the public. The low budget film became a commercial and critical success, and it was the catalyst that led to other successes for the young director, Steven Soderbergh.

Exactly twenty five years to the day before “Sex lies, and videotape” was released, another “incident” occurred that would have an enormous impact on our country. Although the incident wasn’t technically a lie, the “threatening actions” of another sovereign nation were never actually proved, which didn’t stop our country from engaging in the longest war in our nation’s history.

Three days after the “attack”, Congress passed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, which led to the rapid escalation of military action in what became known as the Vietnam War, even though an act of war was never officially declared by the United States.

The seeds of our involvement in what used to be known as French Indo-China go back even further than the Gulf of Tonkin “skirmish“. On August 4, 1953, President Eisenhower, while speaking at a Governor’s conference in Seattle, warned that the situation in Asia was becoming “very ominous” for the United States. As a result of his concerns, he approved a $400,000,000 aid package to the French in order to prevent what eventually became known as “the domino theory”. When the French were defeated a year later, the first American “advisors” were sent to the region, and the first two casualties (both Navy pilots) were recorded.

Although the region didn’t have any “weapons of mass destruction“, or oil, it DID have large quantities of tin and tungsten, which the United States felt were valuable commodities.

Ultimately, 58,200 American troops were killed in Vietnam, and as many as 3,000,000 Vietnamese soldiers and civilians. Financially, the cost to us taxpayers was $111 billion dollars. Although that's an awful lot of money, it's still significantly less than the $341 billion we spent during WWII.

To date, there have been roughly 7000 coalition casualties in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. So far, we’ve spent $1.23 TRILLION, but the meter is still running, and will definitely go higher.

The irony of war is that “enemies” eventually become allies.

We’ve fought wars against England, Germany, Italy, and Japan at various points in time, and all of them are now strong allies.

China supported enemy troops in North Korea and North Vietnam, but measures to improve relations between the countries started as early as 1969. Today, China is the leading foreign holder (at 26%) of U.S. Security Treasuries. As a result, the recent brawl in Washington about the debt limit likely made the guys in Beijing VERY nervous.

We established diplomatic relations with Vietnam on July 11, 1995. Since I have six “work polos” in my closet that were made in Vietnam, it’s possible that Vietnam will eventually replace China as a supplier of low cost goods.

Sad to say, there will probably ALWAYS be an armed conflict going on somewhere in the world, but wouldn’t it be great if John Lennon’s dream came true, and we had a “brotherhood of man”?

It may never become a reality, but it IS good to imagine.

All in the family

2011-08-01T18:10:00.000-07:00

It’s already been 40 years since Archie and Edith first came into our lives.

Oddly enough, I thought of the Bunkers as I pedaled across Iowa this past week. In case you’ve forgotten, “All in the Family” was the #1 show on television from 1971 to 1976.

RAGBRAI (Register’s Annual Great Bike Ride Across Iowa) started out as a modest bike tour way back in 1973, but it has since evolved into the oldest and largest bike tour in the world. In order to maintain a sense of control, and to minimize the chance of injury, RAGBRAI officials limit the number of weekly riders to 8500 people. However, since RAGBRAI also permits "daily riders", the actual number of riders is significantly higher than that. The largest known daily count occurred in 1988, when 23,000 people completed the trip from Boone to Des Moines by 3 P.M.

If you’ve never been exposed to the RAGBRAI culture, there are a few facts that may surprise you:

1) It’s OK to “break wind” in mixed company

2) It’s also OK for men to wear tights

3) Iowa is NOT a flat state

4) The shear beauty of Iowa can take your breath away.

If the above items don’t make much sense to you, consider the following:

1) Throughout RABRAI, there are a number of “pace lines”. If you’ve ever watched the Tour de France, you may have noticed that the quickest way to get through the course is via the peloton. You need to be a confident rider to take advantage of the formation, but it’s amazing how fast you can go when you've got a few bodies blocking the wind for you.

2) If you’re riding long distances, padded biking shorts are mandatory, and a few of the folks on this trip were wearing “summer tights”, which (admittedly) sounded like an oxymoron.

3) The riders that participated on all seven days of the event were successful in climbing a total of 20,197 feet. Although that’s still a long ways from the 29,000 feet ascent that you’d face on Mount Everest, it’s still a hell of a climb, particularly for the paraplegics who used ARM POWER to get up the slopes.

4) As I passed some riders on a steep decline on day 2 of my ride, the “aroma” of an adjacent large hog farm literally took my breath away. Quite by coincidence, I met a couple a few days later whose business was converting “hog slurry“ into a replacement for foreign oil. The liquid residue from 10,000 hogs can produce 1000 gallons of oil a day, and there are an estimated 15,000,000 hogs living in the state, roughly seven times the "people population". Those same 10,000 hogs, by the way, produce as much waste as a town of 25,000 people.

The group that I went with this year was primarily the same people that I participated with last year. Without going into too much detail, let’s just say that many people would find us to be an "eclectic" collection of individuals. By the end of the week, there’s no question that “our tribe” was about as close to a family as you could get without actually being related.

The RAGBRAI organization, in cooperation with local Chambers of Commerce, also does a very good job of finding “host families” for you for your journey across the state. This year, our host families were Leon and Marilyn, Chad, Doug and Sheryl (backyard swimming pool), Linda and Jeff (the '69 Beetle owner), Marty and Deb, Randy, and Beth and Dan. Since we still live in the rough and tumble Chicago area, we continue to be amazed at the friendly nature of the people that we’ve met in the state of Iowa.

I'll be 64 years old at the end of the month, but there ARE a fair number of people over the age of 65 who participate in the event. Regardless of how old I get, though, I’ll always have fond memories of the “people of RAGBRAI”, who will bring to mind the following phrase:

“those were the days”

The flathead Ford

2011-07-17T08:42:00.000-07:00

Ford Motor Company introduced the “flathead” V-8 in 1932. It was used on Ford passenger cars from 1932 through 1953, 2 years longer than the Model “T” engine was used in production. After Ford stopped using the engine for its own purposes, it was utilized by other manufacturers until as late as 1990.

The original flathead engine of 1932 produced 65 horsepower, but by the time that Ford stopped using the engine in 1953, power had risen to 125 horsepower.

The flathead engine was enormously popular with early hot rodders, who discovered that they could increase power cheaper on a Ford V-8 than on any other engine. Even today, the flathead V-8 is still used in racing, and the Bonneville Salt Flats has a special class for flathead V-8’s. The current record holder managed to achieve 700 horsepower and 300 miles per hour using a flathead Ford, a feat that would likely astound Henry Ford.

The “little engine that could” is pictured below:

Until the Beach Boys released "Little Deuce Coupe” in 1962, very few of us really knew much about the Ford flathead. However, the lyrics posted below got us to starting thinking about it:

“Just a little deuce coupe with a flathead mill
But she’ll walk a Thunderbird like she’s standing still
She’s ported and sleeved and stroked and bored
She’ll do a hundred and forty at the top end floored
She’s my little deuce coupe
You don’t know what I got
(My little deuce coupe)
(You don’t know what I got)”

Truth be told, very few of the modern hot rods still use a flathead V-8 for motivation. The roadster pictured below is definitely a throwback to a bygone era.

Most modern hot rods use the latest Ford or (gasp) Chevy engines to get them down the road. The car pictured below is just one example,

but the MOST famous deuce coupe is the one that John Milner drove in “American Graffiti”

On the morning of July 11, 2011, a derecho storm hit the Chicago area.Wind gusts in a straight line were recorded as high as 80 miles an hour,and countless trees on the North Shore were toppled, which cut off electrical power to over 850,000 people.

One of the trees that was felled by the strong wind was a 23 inch diameter oak tree a block north of where I live.

When it fell, it landed directly on top of a Ford Taurus that was parked right across the street. The painful results of that encounter are pictured below:

My guess is the Ford pictured above would be considered to be a total loss, but that’s a judgment call that needs to be made by the owner’s insurance company.

Would this car qualify as a flathead Ford?

Since the pictures above make even ME wince a bit, I’d have to say yes.

Don’t blame the Republicans …

2011-07-15T18:19:00.000-07:00

In the fall of 2007, Warren Buffett (the 2nd richest man in America) went to Washington to ask Congress not to cut his taxes. He reasoned that since the effective tax rate of his staff was nearly TWICE what his effective tax rate was, he should pay MORE in taxes, not less.

As of this morning, the State of Minnesota has been shut down for roughly two weeks, and there does not appear to be any solution in the foreseeable future. In many ways, the political situation in Minnesota (and in many other states) is similar to the problems at the Federal level.

To a very large degree, the Federal government is on the verge of defaulting on its debt because the Republican leaders refuse to impose more taxes on the people who are best able to afford them, preferring instead to penalize the poorest members of society by cutting their benefits.

That intractable position has already triggered recall elections in Wisconsin, and there are sure to be more to come in the future. Earlier this year, the school board of Providence, Rhode Island fired ALL of its teachers, and the city of Detroit may have to shut down HALF of its schools in the fall in order to balance its budget. Due to those actions, the NEXT Boston Tea Party could very well mean that the Tea Party activists are “going to get their feet wet.”

To be fair, though, we shouldn’t blame the Republicans, nor should we blame the Democrats. Instead, we should blame US.

Our current national debt is a VERY big number, $14.46 trillion.

As a percentage of GDP, however, it’s a lot better than a number of other industrialized nations. Although Japan had a booming economy in the 1980’s, the EXACT problems that our country is facing today have led to a nearly 20 year period of stagnant growth in that country. As a result, Japan’s public debt (in relation to GDP) is the highest in the world, at 225.8%.

The national public debt of the United States, in relation to its GDP, actually isn’t all that bad. At the end of 2010, our debt was 58.9% of our GDP. At the height of WWII, it was 120% of GDP.. However, the chart above doesn't tell the whole story, since it does not include other debt held by the government (the largest of which is the Social Security Trust Fund). If the "other debt" is included, the percentage changes (rather dramatically) to 98.6% of our GDP.

China has one of the fastest growing economies in the world. Not coincidentally, China also has one of the highest savings rates in the world. At the end of 2010, the average Chinese household saved 38% of its income, considerably higher than the American savings rate of 4%, (which is actually an INCREASE).

China’s debt, in relation to GDP, is an astonishing low 17.5%.

Is there hope for the future?

Absolutely!

Since President Obama took office, the national savings rate has increased dramatically, and is now the highest that it has been since the 1950’s.

One way or another, the members of Congress will come to an agreement in the next few days so that America doesn’t default its debt, and that will be good news to the national credit agencies, like Standard and Poors

Love them or hate them, the members of the Grand Old Party will be with us for a long time in the future, but don’t blame them for our current mess.

Take a hard look at yourself in the mirror.

You’ll be surprised at what you see.