Archive for September, 2008

It’s not a contest between fat & skinny: The Best Elvis, like you’ve never considered him before.

September 29, 2008 at 4:28 pm · Filed under Uncategorized ·Tagged , ,

The Best of Everything finishes up Showdown September by presenting you with Two Elvises you’ve never considered:
*************
In my continuing quest to break down the barriers of space and time, to smash the walls that we construct that keep us from reaching our true potential, and to overhyperbolize every single thing that I do and conflate it into something of theoretical universal significance… in that quest, I will finish up Showdown September with the Ultimate Showdown, answering the question of which is The Best Elvis.

This Showdown marks the first time I’ve nominated a Best in a category which in theory contains only one person — but it contains only person only in theory, because just as science (real science, that is, the science that’s found in comic books and Mr. Hassemer’s chemistry class, not the “science” that “scientists” tell you about) teaches us that there are a multitude of universes, each similar to but not identical to the rest, so also does science teach us that there are a multitude of Elvises, each similar to but not identical to the rest. There is the Elvis who shocked America and wore black leather jackets, the Elvis who appeased America and wore sequins and sang The Battle Hymn of the Republic, there is the Elvis who appeared in movies like Blue Hawaii which I first watched in the gym of my middle school on “movie night,” sitting on a metal chair watching Blue Hawaii and developing a lifelong love for Elvis’ music and Hawaii, the Elvis who my Mom cried over when he died, crying about losing him and then moving on to a crush on Rod Stewart, and more: A multitude of Elvises spread across a multitude of minds.

So Elvis is one person and Elvis is millions of people — like Mangog — but Elvis is also two people, two Elvises. And here’s the part where I really break down walls and all the rest of that stuff, even though I’ve already done that by pointing out to you in just a few paragraphs how mystical Elvis really is, being one and millions, here’s where I really earn my pay and shatter all your expectations and delusions and like Morpheus reveal to you the truth of the world you inhabit:

I’m not talking about fat and skinny Elvis. Those are not the two Elvises of the Showdown — because those are not two different Elvises. Those are the same Elvis spread out over time. People who try to say there are two different Elvises, one fat, one skinny, reveal themselves to be living in a three-dimensional, as opposed to four-dimensional (or more!) universe, because they reveal themselves to be unfamiliar with the passage of time. Fat Las Vegas Elvis is not a different person than Skinny Leather Elvis; he is the same person in a different era. I am the same me I was at 5 and 15 and 25 and 35 — just with less hair, more weight, and different television shows to watch. Elvis is the same — substitute sequins for television shows, since Elvis died in 1978 (I think; and I’m not going to go Google it, so I’m just going to say it was 1978 and because I said it and it’s on the Internet, that’s now correct… that’s how Wikipedia and Yahoo! Answers works, so why can’t my website work the same way?)

No, I’m talking about the actual two different Elvises — not Elvis-Over-Time, but the Two Faces of Elvis. I’m talking about Cool Elvis, and Lame Elvis.

That’s right. I explained long ago how Lame and Cool can coexist, and Elvis embodies that dichotomy; Elvis is two sides of the same coin — lame and cool at the same time and over time being both lame and cool and always coexisting; the Many Elvises at various times emphasizing how Lame or Cool Elvis was (or is; I’m not totally on the side of people who think he’s dead) and showcasing everything that is great, or lame, about Elvis, and Us, and Life.

Elvis being Cool is the common explanation for why Elvis captivated us, and still captivates us: Elvis started (or popularized) rock and roll, Elvis shocked the world, Elvis had that sneer and those moves, and so on. But “cool” alone is not enough to carry on a legend for so long — to transfer that legend down over generations, to keep the flame burning bright. Think of other “cool” people, people who were pure cool, and when you do, you’ll realize that truly cool people don’t live forever in people’s imaginations.

Here’s some purely cool people: James Dean. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Saint Anthony of Padua. What do they all have in common? They’ve faded somewhat into obscurity or become symbols or two-dimensional creations. James Dean is now a leather jacket and a poster on a dorm wall. (Middle, going off to college next year, already has furnishings for her dorm room, including a poster of James Dean.) Mozart is a movie and the youngest composer. Saint Anthony, who captivated the world so much in his time that angels spontaneously rang the bells of all the churches when he died… is known for helping people find lost things. (And for this.)

Think, then, of people who are cool but also lame: John Travolta. Abraham Lincoln. Freeing the slaves and winning the war between the states? Very cool. But saying Fourscore? And that beard? Plus he was born poor? Lame. John Travolta, too: The dance in Pulp Fiction, being Danny Zuko: both extremely cool. Dancing with a puppet to amuse Bruce Willis as a baby? Not so much.

But who do you remember? Whose career has lasted longer? You remember John Travolta, not James Dean, and it’s not because James Dean died young, it’s because James Dean was only cool and had no lameness in him.

It’s that lame quality that endears us to people, and it’s that lame quality that is essential to a lasting image of cool; the lame quality in those icons that loom large over time is the equivalent of Cindy Crawford’s mole: it’s the tiny little flaw that only emphasizes just how great the rest is, and it’s also the portion that lets us like someone and finally, it’s the portion that lets us hope that we, too, could achieve that.

Purely cool people are like purely beautiful people: boring, and we hate them. With no flaws, they are uninteresting and we can never be like them; they are the angels in the universe, above us and inestimable, and ultimately not of great significance in our life.

But people who have a little lameness in them, like Abe Lincoln and like Elvis, are interesting to us and captivate us, because they are like us, to a greater or lesser degree. We are lame; we like BBQ Fritos and Battlestar Galactica and we played Dungeons & Dragons as kids and have Witch Doctor by the Chipmunks on our iPod (assuming that we are all exactly like me) and because we are lame, we want our heroes to be a little lame, too — because by being a little lame, then they are like us and we are like them, and they become our idols because of that.

Remember: God didn’t make angels in his image; he made man in his image. Angels are perfect, and we are not — and we are in the image of God; so we love not perfection, but imperfection. We are imperfect creations and want to see a little imperfection in those things we love, and believe that despite our imperfections, we can achieve that state, too, whether it be Heaven and an afterlife — or simply being cool.

So a little imperfection, a little lameness, is essential to rising above the masses and achieving Eternal Cool, as Elvis has done, because only when the cool person has that little imperfection can we truly idolize them. Elvis is not a god among man, but a man among men — a man who managed to become greater than all of us, but who is still like us and therefore gives us hope that we can achieve that status, too, and lets us like him for his humanity.

So there are two Elvises: the Cool Elvis, and the Lame Elvis, and it is because of those two Elvises that we love Elvis so much; without one, the other would not have lasted long at all. Take away Lame Elvis, and Cool Elvis is a poster on a wall. But take away Cool Elvis, and Lame Elvis spends his days getting beat up by the cool kids.

Which is better, then? To answer that, I first have to show which is which.

Lame Elvis is harder to define and more people will object that Lame Elvis doesn’t exist. So I’ll start off easy and give you Cool Elvis:

Cool Elvis is Elvis in black leather. Cool Elvis is that shot of Elvis in the sport coat, holding the microphone and shaking his legs. Cool Elvis is the sneer and the pompadour. But Cool Elvis didn’t end there. Cool Elvis is Elvis’ comeback special on TV — the first time ever that an entire TV show like that was devoted to a single person, and a show that was so cool itself that even though it is referred to as one show, it was actually more like two or three shows, total, by the time it got repackaged. Cool Elvis is Elvis in Vegas — moving Vegas, through Viva Las Vegas from mobster haven to middle America. Do you think that families would take vacations to Las Vegas today if Elvis hadn’t brought Vegas to them first, the way he brought Rock and Roll, gospel music, and jumpsuits to them, too? Cool Elvis is all about letting people know what they should like.

That was the easy part.

Here’s the hard part: Lame Elvis. Lame Elvis joined the Army. In the entire history of America, joining the Army was only cool once: World War II. When Elvis joined, enlisting wasn’t cool — resisting was cool, as Muhammad Ali showed. And Lame Elvis loved his mom; any teenager can tell you how much that sucked — Moms are great when you’re under twelve or over 25. Between 12 and 25, Moms are awful. They want your hair combed and your bed made and you to study hard and go to college, all things that will interfere with your showing your classmates how much of a rebel you are and playing Dungeons and Dragons. Lame Elvis is the Jungle Room and those big sunglasses and maybe being dead and maybe being alive — because it’s lame for us not to know whether Elvis is really dead. We know whether John Lennon is dead. We know whether Mozart is dead. You know who we’re never sure is dead or alive? Bad guys: Where’s Osama Bin Laden? You know who else we’re never sure is dead or alive? Abe Vigoda. And what’s cool about him? If you can mention a person in the same sentence as Abe Vigoda, then unless that sentence is He’s nothing like Abe Vigoda, that person is kind of lame.

Lame Elvis like Lame Songs, too: Cool Elvis somehow resurrected them, but the songs themselves were Lame. Take a look at one of the most famous hits from Elvis, Hound Dog.

Ever stop to think about the lyrics? Here they are:

You aint nothin but a hound dog
Cryin all the time.
You aint nothin but a hound dog
Cryin all the time.
Well, you aint never caught a rabbit
And you aint no friend of mine.

When they said you was high classed,
Well, that was just a lie.
When they said you was high classed,
Well, that was just a lie.
You aint never caught a rabbit
And you aint no friend of mine.

Is he talking to an actual hound dog? Or is he using hound dog as a metaphor for someone else, a friend or girlfriend or someone? If so, then what, exactly, is that metaphor? What would catching a rabbit be? If you were the friend or girlfriend Elvis is metaphorically chastising in that song, wouldn’t you, at the end of it, say What is it, exactly, that you want from me? Am I supposed to go CATCH a rabbit? If not, then what in the world SHOULD I be doing? And then, wouldn’t you say Would I be high classed if I HAD caught a rabbit? Because that’s kind of what it seems you intended.

If you Google “what is the meaning of ‘hound dog’”, having been too lazy to Google when Elvis died but not being too lazy to see if someone, somewhere, has also wondered whether that song means something, you’ll find out that, yes, someone has: Debbie did a music project on “Hound Dog,” so she asked Mel The Expert about what the song meant, and Mel The Expert, in an example of how I say that symbolism can be read into anything, said that it’s likely the song is about

an allegorical term for a useless, lazy husband who didn’t fulfil his initial promise and was no better than an old hound forever sleeping on the porch and getting under people’s feet

And to prove that Mel The Expert was reading too much into the song, I’ll do two things: First, I’ll note that Mel The Expert talks about a dog sleeping on the porch, but that’s not anywhere in the song — Mel The Expert has imported into the song his own experiences with Hound Dogs, proving the My Aunt’s Dog Theorem yet again.

Second, I’ll interpret Hound Dog in such a way as to make it an allegorical tale not about a no-good husband– which makes no sense because when Elvis sings it, he’d likely be talking to a woman, and would a woman be responsible, in 50’s America, for catching a rabbit? Women weren’t expected to bring home the bacon and fry it up in a pan until the 1970s; prior to that, they simply fried up whatever their husbands brought home — usually a roast– no, I’ll interpret Hound Dog so as to make it an allegorical tale about the Bank Panic of 1907.

The Bank Panic of 1907 was brought about largely by a guy named Otto Heinze, who tried to corner the copper market and borrowed money from a lot of banks to do that. Heinze’s bizarre attempt to become the Copper King failed, and then banks began to fail, apparently because people became aware that their banks were using deposits to finance this scheme — people back then were more aware of financial doings because they didn’t have Fantasy Football teams to manage and so they could read the newspaper — and runs began on the banks.

Into the fray stepped J.P. Morgan, who at that time was a single guy instead of the de facto Fourth Branch of the U.S. government; J.P. Morgan got all his banker buddies together and they solved the crisis using a method that I was not able to find out in my exhaustive research on this topic, but a method which, although mysterious, somehow led to the creation of the Federal Reserve System.

So, with that backdrop, let’s look at Hound Dog in the light in which Elvis intended it: as an explanation of the 1907 Bank Panic.

You aint nothin but a hound dog Cryin all the time.– This is Otto Heinze, whose efforts to corner the copper market were an obvious attempt to draw attention to himself, the way a hound dog howls.

Well, you aint never caught a rabbit And you aint no friend of mine.– Heinze failed to “catch the rabbit” by failing to corner the copper market; he’s no “friend of mine” because he brought about the panic.

When they said you was high classed, Well, that was just a lie.– Expresses how the public felt duped by the banks, and how the banks felt duped by Heinze.

Moreover, the repetition Elvis engages in, repeating certain lines, is an obvious parallel to the way the economy goes in cycles, repeating itself at times in boom and bust cycles that get better or worse but which we’ll see again.

So, could anything be more Lame than a song about the Bank Panic of 1907? I think not — and yet Cool Elvis saved that song and it lives on forever.

Lame Elvis, Cool Elvis. Lame Elvis, Cool Elvis: Having shown that the two exist, simultaneously, I now have to pick The Best Elvis… and close out Showdown September in doing so.

The answer, as it is so often, lies within ourselves, just as Yoda probably taught. That seems like something Yoda would say, doesn’t it? The answer in you lies. Yoda, in probably saying that, was right, and like so many teachings, and like Elvis, that advice has several levels, because the answer is both in us and is us: It’s Lame Elvis.

Lame Elvis is The Best Elvis because Lame Elvis is the part that’s like us; Lame Elvis is the part that allows us to see a little of ourselves in Elvis, and therefore not only identify with him but also hope that we could rise up, from the downtrodden masses of people listening to “Witch Doctor” while trying to remember our D&D character names, rise up from that to stand astride the American landscape, a towering monumental presence that will live for generations. Lame Elvis shows us not only that a little bit of lameness is essential for the coolness to transcend itself, but also that we can strive to achieve that transcendent level of coolness, too. So, Lame Elvis, for giving us hope, for giving us inspiration, and for giving us great songs that are definitely about the Bank Panic of 1907, I name you The Best Elvis.

Related posts: Want to know what the “My Aunt’s Dog Theorem” is? Find out here. And Lame/Cool month began with a discussion of Longitude…

Click here to see all the other topics I’ve ever discussed!

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Shame On America Sunday: Four Questions to Ask When Someone Asks For Money

September 28, 2008 at 3:58 pm · Filed under Uncategorized ·Tagged , , ,


NOTE: If you read all the way to the end, you will see my bailout plan that will not cost the taxpayers anything and will definitely work. But
you have to sit through some rhetoric, first.

Shame On America Sunday is about contrasts — about the comparing of two things that exist, side by side in America; the fact that those two things could exist, side-by-side, is why America, the richest greatest proudest country in the history of the world, should be ashamed of itself.

Today is no different. Well, today is a little different, because today, I’m starting with the little guy first. Usually, I begin where people’s attention is always focused: The rich, the powerful, the famous, the spoiled-brat-kids/Tonight Show hosts who waste money, the selfish greedionaires.

I’m going to reverse that today.
He owns a house:

Here’s Michael “J.B.” Schaffner of Nocona Texas. “J.B” is a trucker hauling for a small company. Back in May, “J.B.” was one of the organizers of a convoy to Washington D.C. to try to get Congress to do something about his ailing industry. “J.B.” at the time was fueling his truck in small amounts, trying not to spend too much at any one time. One day, in his words, “I woke up and said a prayer,” and began trying to do something to get some action about the high cost of fuel.

The trucking industry was in crisis before May, 2008; in the first quarter of 2008, nearly 1000 trucking companies went bankrupt.

Naturally, Congress went right to work, right? Of course they did: They introduced HR 6922, a bill to provide low-interest loans to companies hit hard by rising fuel costs.


They went straight to work on it, I said. They… introduced it to a committee where it sits to this day. HR 6922 is just a bill, sitting there on Capitol Hill — it went off to committee, where it sits there and waits.

So Congress leapt right to action, and then slept right back to inaction.

Nobody, in the end, paid attention to “J.B.” Did you hear about the convoy? Did you hear about HR 6922? Did Worst President Ever George Bush go on TV urging you to help the truckers?

No.

He owns two houses and is worth $700 million.
Here’s Henry Merritt Paulson, Jr. Odds are you’ve heard of him — but only in the past few days. The odds are that you know that Paulson is the current Secretary of the Treasury; he’s the guy that proposed the government give him $700 billion dollars with no strings attached and no oversight possible. When you propose someone give you $700 billion to do what you want with, that attracts attention.

Prior to that, Henry Merritt Paulson, Jr., attracted very little attention, which is odd because people usually pay at least some attention to the ultra-rich swank business leaders.

Paulson is ultra-rich. He was born in Palm Beach, Florida. He went to Ivy League school Dartmouth, and then Harvard Business School. He owns, at last report, two homes. (How many homes do you have? I have just the one.)

Henry Merritt Paulson, Jr., became a partner at Goldman Sachs in 1982. He had a leadership role of one sort or another at Goldman Sachs from 1982 through 2006; he ended his career at Goldman Sachs in 2006 when he came to join the Failed Bush Administration in its multiyear plan to destroy America.

Where else have you heard “Goldman Sachs” lately? You may be struggling to sort out all the financial news, so I’ll help you with some recent news quotes that feature “Goldman Sachs.”

From “The Economic Times.” Last Sunday marked the end of an era. That was the day Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, the last two of the original five big investment banks on Wall Street, became history.

From “The New York Times.” The beginning of the end is felt even in the halls of the white-shoe firm Goldman Sachs, which, among its Wall Street peers, epitomized and defined a high-risk, high-return culture.

Why are you smiling, Henry Merritt
Paulson, Jr.?
There are those who say that Goldman Sachs — whose employees earned an average of $600,000 per year in 2007 — will survive because of major changes it has made. Don’t connect those changes with Paulson, though. From that same NYTimes article:

GOLDMAN’S latest golden era can be traced to the rise of Mr. Blankfein, the Brooklyn-born trading genius who took the helm in June 2006, when Henry M. Paulson Jr., a veteran investment banker and adviser to many of the world’s biggest companies, left the bank to become the nation’s Treasury secretary.

Is it because your company helped create a
culture that led to this, while enriching you
to a ridiculous degree?

Blankfein took over because Henry Merritt Paulson, Jr., had moved to Washington, D.C., having earned $53.4 million in the previous two years as head of Goldman Sachs; with a net worth of over $700 million, Henry Merritt Paulson, Jr., could afford to take the pay cut from an average of $25 million per year to $191,300 per year — that’s what the Secretary of the Treasury is paid — and live off of savings.

Interestingly, I did a Google search to see if Henry Merritt Paulson, Jr.’s commitment to public service included not collecting some or all of his $191,300 per year government salary — he surely doesn’t need it– but found nothing to suggest that he returns that money back to the Treasury.

(By comparison, Wisconsin Senator Russ Feingold, whose net worth is very low, routinely refuses pay increases, and his office routinely cuts pay and returns money to the U.S. Treasury. In 2002, Feingold had negative equity in his home in Middleton, Wisconsin, and yet refused a $9000 per year pay increase, accepting only the $136,700 that was in effect when he was elected. In 2008, he listed less than $350,000 in assets and a liability that included his second mortgage.)

Henry Merritt Paulson, Jr., clearly has the ear of Washington, unlike Michael “J.B.” Schaffner. When Henry Merritt Paulson, Jr., went to Congress and asked for $700 billion, Congress went into round-the-clock negotiations; John McCain briefly and hyperbolically suspended his campaign to address the problem (and duck a debate with Obama). Failed Worst President Ever George W. Bush went on TV to urge Americans to support the cause.

Why would Washington, D.C., listen to Henry Merritt Paulson, Jr., so avidly, but pay no real attention to Michael “J.B.” Schaffner?

Why is the government prepared only to lend money, at low interest rates to struggling trucker firms but will hand money over to giant investment banks? The truckers did not make poor investment decisions trying to “epitomize[] a high-risk, high-return culture.” They weren’t creating poorly-understood financial packages that created money from nothing, like so many real-life Sherman McCoys; they were driving around the food and materials we need, and were hit hard by events beyond their own control — the high gas prices.

I don’t know, for sure, why DC listens to rich men but not truckers — but I suspect that it’s because the rich men contribute to campaigns and can give lucrative jobs to people once they leave public office — and that makes me suspect that the “bailout” is nothing of the sort, but instead a payoff or a bribe. If a bailout was a good idea, I suspect that Congress would have bailed out the trucking companies; or at the least would have voted on the idea in the past four months.

The haste with which the richest, best, greatest nation ever is bending over backwards to help millionaires stay millionaires, when contrasted with the way the richest, best, greatest nation ever has ignored for four months the poor struggling truckers, tells me that Congress is concerned less with helping businesses or the economy and more with helping itself get re-elected or land a cushy job. If you were hoping to stay employed and keep your house, would you rather have Henry Merritt Paulson, Jr., owe you a favor, or “J.B.?” No offense, “J.B.” — you’re probably a nice guy, but Congress would rather suck up to Henry Merritt Paulson, Jr., and the investment bankers.

So on that bailout: Every single time the government tells you that a business is too big to fail; ever single time the government tells you that intervention in the marketplace is necessary, every single time the government says we need to do this, why not call your congressperson and ask them which trucking companies were “too big to fail?” Why not ask them why trucking companies are allowed to go bankrupt but investment banks aren’t? Why not ask them why it costs more to get your children’s cereal to the store, making you pay more for your children’s breakfast, while the government is subsidizing Wall Street bankers who averaged $600,000 per year?

Ask them why their plan is to use your money to help out people who earn, on average, $600,000 per year, people who gambled that money — and why your money isn’t used to help out businesses like “J.B.’s” trucking company?

I suspect Congress’ plan won’t work, and I suspect that Congress is instituting the plan for its own gain rather than the country’s gain, because not only is Congress disingenuously insisting that the government must help businesses, insisting that about the business of millionaires while ignoring the business of common folk — not only that, but also because Congress has not yet stopped to ask the four questions it must ask.
On the foreclosure block: People’s houses.
The Fix: Whenever someone asks me for money, I ask them four questions: How much do you need? What is it for? How’d you end up here? And how can I make sure you don’t come back next week?

Those four questions are not being asked. Specifically, the last two are not being asked. The banks are failing because they engaged in two basic, flawed practices, and then engaged in a third.

Not on the foreclosure block: the Goldman Sachs Building.
Banks began subprime lending as the housing market exploded, fueled by cheap money from low interest rates. “Subprime” lending means lending to people who were not good credit risks. That is, banks took more risks with their money; in roulette terms, instead of betting on “red,” they bet on “Red 23.” At the same time, banks began “securitizing” loans. “Securitization” is a complicated process, but it amounts to this: No one bank owns your mortgage loan. Instead, a variety of investors and banks hold pieces of your loan; they all make money based on various factors that have very little direct connection with whether or not you pay your loan.

That led to two problems: First, people defaulting on their loans — not unexpectedly, given that they were poor credit risks in the first place. To qualify some debtors, loans began with deceptively low payments, payments that didn’t even cover the accruing interest, which meant that every single day, these homeowners owed more on their loan than they did the day before.

At the same time, the housing market became saturated; how many homes do you think people can buy? After a time, a slump will always occur, as everyone who wanted to or could buy a house did, and you have to wait for another upturn.

So it began: People began defaulting, and housing prices slumped. At the same time, too, there was nobody on the other end of the mortgage who could make responsible choices. When people defaulted on their loans, there was nobody on the other end of the line who could cut a new deal, try to cut their losses, or otherwise deal responsibly with it. Mortgage servicers and lawyers were turned loose with one direction: Foreclose.

All those foreclosed houses end up on the market, an already depressed market, creating a housing glut, and further cutting into the bank’s profits.

If you loaned money to someone, and they came back and said I can’t pay you in full, you’d have a couple of choices: Forgive the debt. Enforce the debt. Or modify the debt. You could say “Tough, I want all my money now” and sue and try to get it all, running the risk that you get nothing and increase your expenses. Or you could say Well, pay me what you can and we’ll see if things don’t get better. You could say If you pay me 60% of what you owe me, we’ll call it even, so that you get money today without further risk or expense.

All of those might be viable choices depending on your circumstances and the particular deal. But you would be able to make those choices and determine which is best.

Securitized loans don’t have that. Lenders sell the loan and there’s nobody out there, no one person, who can make or not make a deal, in almost every case.

That’s a longwinded way of introducing my own bailout plan, because I had to answer those two questions that nobody is asking: How’d you end up here? And how can I make sure you don’t come back next week? Those are the two most important questions.

We ended up here because of securitization of loans and bad loans. We can make sure they don’t come back next week by addressing those loans.

So here is my bailout, which costs the government next to nothing; some parts of this were suggested to me by people and I liked them, so I’m taking their ideas:

1. Tell states that to get federal highway funds in 2009 and 2010, they must institute an immediate 12-month moratorium on foreclosures. This costs no government or taxpayer anything; the federal highway funds will be paid or not, regardless, and states gain or lose nothing from stopping foreclosures. No state ever bucks the federal highway money threat. By doing this, the housing market depression is stalled, and mortgages that are or would soon be in foreclosure are frozen — giving lenders a powerful incentive to begin working on some other package. (Thanks to Bill Clinton and A Guy At Work for this suggestion.)

2. Allow any person to receive a government guarantee on their loan, in an amount up to the median value of homes in that county, by converting the loan to a nondischargeable, fixed-rate lower-interest obligation. This program would work like the guaranteed student-loan program; borrowers would agree that their loan would be a personal obligation and nondischargeable in bankruptcy, as student loans are, and in exchange for that, the government would guarantee payment to the lender, but the interest rate would be reduced to just above the current prime rate. Borrowers who owe more than the median value of homes in their area would not qualify; only primary residences would qualify. The government might take a short-term hit as they pay off banks on defaulted loans, but would be able to collect against the borrowers in the long run. Banks would lose some income by trading sky-high adjustables for lower fixed-rate mortgage — but would avoid defaults and have a guaranteed income stream. (Thanks to A Gal At Work for this suggestion.)

3. Encourage investment in troubled banks on a long-term basis by eliminating taxes on certain investments. The government would encourage wealthy individuals — like Warren Buffett, who just took a huge stake in Goldman Sachs, and like the Forbes 400 — to bailout the companies using private money; this encouragement would be given by first developing a list of troubled companies that need a bailout — including unglamorous trucking companies. The goverment would then announce that anyone who purchases stock in a company on the list would receive all dividends from that stock, if any, tax-free for 10 years, provided they held the stock for 10 years. In addition, any capital gain on the stock, if held for 10 years, would be tax-free. Any tax deductible loss after 10 years would be doubled, if the stock was held for 10 years. The government could do the same things for bonds issued by those companies: allow the companies to issue 10-year or longer bonds, bonds that are not tradeable but must be held, and make the interest earned on those bonds tax-free. (Thanks to ME for this suggestion.)

That prong, if the companies do well, costs the government nothing; it must forego EXTRA tax revenue on the income earned, but does not spend any additional money. If the companies do not do well, the government, in 10 years, will suffer some reduced tax revenues from the doubled deduction for losses.

Simple: Three Steps, and it stops the problem. The housing market can rebound; people who bought affordable homes will be protected, while people who borrowed, or lent, money foolishly will have a year to try to resolve the problem and then will be left in their own boat; and private money will solve private companies’ problems, with some government encouragement.

What you can do until the Fix is in: Contact Your Congress Person! Tell them No Public Money for Private Companies! Urge them to ask those four questions and adopt my plan — or suggest a plan of your own.

Clicking on this link will take you to a map of the US; click your state and get easy access to your congressperson and senators. I’m going to email this link to mine; you can do the same.

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Worst Presidency Ever: A Closer Look At Shame On America Sunday: $18 per second.

September 25, 2008 at 2:52 pm · Filed under Uncategorized ·Tagged , , , ,


Just this past Sunday, I pointed out that Bill Gates can spend $18 per second for 100 years, and have money left over. I also pointed out that if you took all but $1 billion away from each person on the Forbes 400 list this year, you’d have $1.1 trillion to do some good with — and each person on that list would still have $1,000,000,000 dollars.

Little did I know that the $1.1 trillion figure would become even bigger news this week, as the government continues robbing the poor to pay the rich. The Bush Administration, which has officially become the Worst Presidency Ever — seriously, if Bush had set out to deliberately destroy this country, and I’m not so sure he didn’t, he could not have possibly damaged the country more — the Worst Presidency Ever proposes to write a check for $1 trillion– that’s $1,000,000,000,000 — and give it to the Bush Administration to hand to investment bankers.

Now, first of all, that will do nothing for average people. Nothing nothing nothing nothing. If you do not work for an investment bank, mortgage security house, or other high-finance institution, then this proposal will not help you in the slightest. So if you are in favor of the Worst Presidency Ever’s proposal and you do not work for an investment bank, mortgage security house, or other high-finance institution, then you are a fool. The proposal being talked about so far would not give struggling homeowners any money; it would simply buy up ’securities,’ meaning that the government would hold your mortgage. You would keep paying.

But second of all, the plan will be financed not by money we have now and not by taxes to raise that money; it will be financed by borrowing. Borrowing money means issuing government savings bonds, and that means paying interest on those government savings bonds, and that means that borrowing $700 million now (the initial price tag) requires paying back much much more than that over time.

The current interest rate on a 30-year treasury bond is 4.36 percent. I’m not even going to do the math. You do it. Figure out what 4.36% interest on $700,000,000,000 is.

That money will be paid back, if at all, by taxes. It will have to be paid back by taxes. Taxes that you and I will not pay. Those are taxes that our kids will pay, taxes they will pay on top of the taxes they are already paying.

Take the income tax you paid last year, and then add to that the amount equal to pay back $700,000,000,000 plus 4.36% interest for 30 years.

Run to Canada, boys — then the Worst Presidency
ever can’t pickpocket you.
Then go hug your children and tell that you’re sorry we’re going to do that to them, and you’re ashamed of America, too.

The Fix: Either (a) let the companies weather the storm, which would encourage banks to deal realistically with the problem they’ve created by reworking problematic mortgages and reducing exorbitant interest rates, and would avoid this trouble in the future by punishing not only the people who took out mortgages they should not have but also punishing the banks that should have refused to lend the money, or (b) institute a one-time luxury tax on all holdings over $1 billion and use that to fund the bailout; the bailout money will be paid to companies in which the billionaires hold stakes, anyway, so the government is in effect using the billionaires’ money to pay off the billionaires’ mistakes.

Oh, and (c) rue the day we elected George W. Bush. At least I never voted for him. I don’t have to apologize to my kids for that.

What you can do until the fix is in? Contact your congressperson and tell them that you are AGAINST using your children’s money to bailout corporations. You can do it easily, and here’s how: This link will take you to a map of the US. Click your state and you’ll see a list of your congressional representatives– emails and phone numbers. Call and email them now and tell them:

I don’t want my children’s money used to bail out billionaires.

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Once a loser, always a loser (I’ll expect to see that written on ESPN in 14 days)

September 23, 2008 at 6:21 pm · Filed under Uncategorized ·Tagged , , , , , ,

Nonsportsmanlike Conduct! is the sports blog for people who love sports! or blogs! or Gisele! or exclamation points!. This appeared there first:
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Just two quick thoughts today, things that are on my mind.

First, in last night’s Jets-Chargers game, in the fourth quarter when the Jets still had an outside chance of pulling the game off, Favre threw a pass into the end zone and initially, the refs threw a flag. Then they waved it off, saying that the pass was “uncatchable.” The announcers looked at the tape and declared that the refs should have called either defensive holding, or illegal contact downfield — either of which would have advanced the ball and given the Jets a new down closer to the end zone.

The refs didn’t call that, though. The refs made a mistake. The refs made a bad call near the end zone in a Chargers game, a call that affected the outcome of the game.

So naturally, Norv Turner and the Chargers immediately marched onto the field to demand that the refs make the right call, didn’t they? The Chargers, after all, are insistent that a bad call can affect the outcome of the game — and they are people of integrity, so they did not want to benefit from an obvious bad call.

Okay, so they didn’t do that. But they certainly after the game reflected on how they were lucky with that call, and how in retrospect, bad calls are a part of the game and teams have to live with them, right?

Okay, so they didn’t do that. I’m sure, though, that they at least acknowledged that they benefitted from an obvious bad call that cost the Jets a down and yardage at a time when the Jets were hoping to make a comeback.

What’s that? They didn’t even do that? Well, then, what is one to make of this turn of events? What is one to assume? Should one assume that Norv Turner and the Chargers are hypocrites? Or that they were simply looking to scapegoat and make miserable an otherwise-good referee when really, it was the Chargers’ fault they lost that game?

For my part, I will assume both. Again, the Chargers lead the league in hypocrisy and immaturity, demanding respect without earning it, and accepting the benefits of bad calls while making a ref’s life miserable when the call doesn’t go their way.

If you as a fan are wondering With all that talent, why do the Chargers never win a big game… well, you know. It’s because once a loser, always a loser, and the Chargers are hypocritical losers.

On a slightly different note: last year, I followed what I call the Quest for Immortality, tracking teams that could go 0-16 and rooting them on to do so. This year, I’ve been doing it again.

And ESPN has noticed, and decided that is a good topic for conversation– on their Page 2 today, the poll asks which team is likely to go 0-16.
I already knew that Mike & Mike in the Morning were avid readers of mine, and that Mike Ditka loves this column; but I had no idea that ESPN was basing their Page 2 ideas on what I write here.

So remember: Read it on Nonsportsmanlike Conduct! today, or on ESPN’s page 2 two weeks from now!

Wisconsin

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Shame On America Sunday: 18 bucks a second

September 21, 2008 at 10:30 pm · Filed under Uncategorized ·Tagged , , , ,

I hope that all of the people who decry me as a socialist are frantically writing to any elected officials they can, and saying For God’s sake, I am opposed to socialism of the type that I decry when The Trouble With Roy espouses it, so please, Mr. Government Official, do not in any way interfere in the marketplace by, for example, bailing out Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and AIG. I’m willing to let all my insurance premiums be for naught because I’m opposed to socialism!

All the “you’re nothing but a socialist” types, you’re doing that, right? Or are you NOT, because you think government intervention in the marketplace is okay when you want them to do that? If so, then line up with the people who tell me It’s their money and that I shouldn’t tell people what to do with their money … yes, yes, over under the sign that reads “Hypocrites.”

If you’re going to disagree with me about what I write, in Shame On America Sunday or anything else, you should at least make sure you’re being consistent. Don’t say “It’s their money, they can do what they want with it” unless you are also intending to say “it’s okay to buy and sell human beings,” because if it’s their money to do what they want with, then there are no limits. That’s what you’re saying. if, on the other hand, there are limits, then I’m free to say that those limits should include not wearing a $313,000 outfit and you can’t respond that it’s their money because we agree that there’s limits.

I bring those two points up in advance because I’m going to hear a lot of that today as we look at people who have more money than the law should allow them to have.

The Forbes 400 list came out this week; the big story about that was that for the first time ever, if you have only $1 billion, you are not among the 400 richest people in America.

Only $1 billion. There are 400 people who have more than One billion dollars. That’s one of the main stories about the list. There were a lot of stories, but that was one that got the most attention.

A lot of attention was paid to this list, and I followed that attention, and not once did I hear anyone even remotely approach the notion that it is disgusting, it is contemptible, for people to have that much money.

It is contemptible, moreover, regardless of how much the greedy rich person gives to charity.

I’m comfortable saying that, and here’s why: Just as there can be limits on how much money you spend on something, there should also be a limit on how much money you need in a lifetime.

Now all the hackles just went up again, as people get ready to tell me You can’t just take away their money and they give a lot to charity.

I can, though, just take away their money. Well, I can’t. But politicians can, and they should do so. They should do so for the same reason they already do so — they should take away the money because the greedy billionaires do not need it, and other people do.

The government already takes the money it figures you do not need, and gives it to the people and institutions it thinks do need that money; that’s what taxes are. People, too, take money that they do not need, and give it to institutions and people that do need it; that’s called charity.

The government should take away most of the Forbes 400’s money, and give it to people who need it.

It should do that even though those people may already pay a lot in taxes and may give a lot to charity. They have more than they will ever need, more than they should have, and it does not matter how much they give to charity; it’s greedy of them to keep the amounts they have.

The Forbes 400 multibillionaires, regardless of how much they give to charity, are hoarding wealth, hoarding wealth and using it for selfish purposes — and doing so when it cannot possibly gain them any more in terms of luxury, comfort, or material gains.

In other words, they’re keeping money they will never have any need for and cannot use now — while keeping that money from people who could use it. That’s why I say they’re greedy, and that’s why the government should take it away from them, as much as the government can.

And, as I said, I don’t care how much they give to charity. They still have too much. Most people will disagree with that, but I’m right. People will think they can’t have too much because it’s money. But they can have too much, because they have more than they could ever use and are keeping it from those who could use it. Keeping something that you have no need for, keeping it and keeping others from using it, is greedy and selfish and hoarding.

Let me give you an analogy. Suppose I’m talking about food. Suppose I stockpile enough food in a warehouse for me to eat for my entire lifetime; food enough that I would never be hungry, even if I lived to be 150 years old.

At that point, I don’t need more food, do I? I don’t need more food stockpiled.

But suppose that I’m the nervous type. Suppose I say what if my needs change, and I suddenly require double the calories each day? Or what if my first food supply gets nuked? So I decide to be safe. I stockpile enough food for three lifetimes, in different locations.

At that point, I don’t need more food, do I? Shouldn’t I quit stockpiling food?

If I keep stockpiling food, despite having enough for three lifetimes, then that is only justifiable if everyone else everywhere has enough food, too — because otherwise, I’ve got three lifetimes worth of food that I will never eat, while people are starving.

Suppose, then, that I keep my three lifetimes worth of food, and keep stockpiling more — but now I take 1/2 of all the new food I gather up, and give that away. So after a few years, I’ve given away a lifetime’s worth of food, but I have four lifetimes worth of food stockpiled, and there are still people starving.

What do you think of me now? Is it right that I have four lifetimes’ worth of food, food I’ll never ever eat, while people starve? Is it right even though I gave away a whole lifetime worth of food?

Of course it’s not.

That’s why it’s wrong that the people on the Forbes 400 list have that much money. That’s why it’s greedy and selfish of them. That’s why our country should not countenance that. I’m not against people being rich — even though nobody anywhere needs to earn more than $200,000 per adult in their household– but I am against people hoarding resources (money is a resource) and using resources foolishly while others go without.

Let’s take the top person on the list. Bill Gates is worth $59 billion dollars. I’m not sure that anyone can really take in the scope of $59 billion dollars, and writing it like that doesn’t help.

Here’s $59 billion dollars in numeric form: $59,000,000,000. Looks like a lot more there, doesn’t it?

Here’s how $59 billion dollars measures out over a human lifespan. If a person lives to be 100, he or she could spend $589,999,900 every year he was alive, and still die with $10,000 leftover to cover funeral expenses.

That $589,999,900 per year breaks down like this: That selfish billionaire could spend $1,616,438.08 per day, each and every day of his life from the moment he’s born until the day he dies — and still have $10,000 left over.

That person — Bill Gates — could spent $67,351.58 per hour of his existence, living to be 100, and still have $10,000 left over. That’s $1,122.52 per minute, with money left over.

$18 per second. That’s what $59 billion is, over 100 years of existence, a person with $59 billion can spend $18 per second; $18 per heartbeat… and never run out of money.

In other words, Bill Gates cannot spend all of his money. If he set about trying to do just that… short of giving it away… Bill Gates could not spend all of his money — and if he even came close, he would either be vastly overpaying for the things he bought, or he would simply be accumulating wealth and things he does not need and should not be allowed to own (like private islands — which I’ll get to someday, but not today)

I don’t mean to pick on Bill Gates alone; his hoarding of $59 million is the tops on the list of the Forbes 400, but by no means the only example of a rich, greedy person withholding resources from people when he himself cannot use those resources.

The top 10 people on that list of people who should be ashamed of themselves, and who should hope that the population of the U.S. doesn’t listen to me and realize that they could simply vote to take away that money, have together a net worth of $271.2 billion. In numeric notation, that’s:

$271,200,000,000.

That’s just the top 10. The entire list of 400 is worth $1.54 trillion; and again, it looks less evil to write it that way, so I’ll write it out numerically:

$1,540,000,000,000.

Supposing– just supposing, that each greedy billionaire on the list were to simply give away all of their assets except $1 billion. Suppose they gave it all away, but each of those 400 people kept $1 billion for themselves.

That would leave each billionaire with $1,000,000,000. Is that enough to live on? Again, do the math. If you lived 100 years and had $1,000,000,000, you could spend $10,000,000 per year, or $27,397 per day, each and every day of your life.

I think they’d make do. I think a billion dollars would manage to help them muddle through.

Doing that — having them give it away, or taking it from them, would keep $400 billion in the ranks of the Forbes 400, but would free up … $1,140,000,000,000.

Over 100 years, the money that would be taken from them would allow the US to spend $11,400,000,000 per year.

Assuming that we didn’t invest that money and get some interest, of course. I wonder how much better a place to live the US would be with an additional $11 billion dollars per year for schools and social programs and roads?

Bill Gates has net worth of $59 billion dollars; reducing that to $1 billion dollars would not in any way change his lifestyle, but would help countless people in the United States achieve something a little more than they thought they could. It could, for example, help someone pay for, say, a kidney transplant.

That’s what Jay Menhennet III is trying to do. Jay is getting his second kidney transplant, from a kidney donated by his sister. Jay’s body rejected the first one; he’s struggled all his life with diabetes and has had part of his right leg amputated.

A kidney transplant costs $250,000 (So Bill Gates could buy himself 236,000 kidney transplants! Or he could buy himself a new kidney every four hours for the next 100 years!), and there are additional costs beyond that, costs that are not always covered by insurance. The medications cost $2,000-$5,000 per month (so the average selfish billionaire on the list could use about 3 minutes’ worth of his money to pay for a month’s worth of medications!)

Jay, and his family and his friends don’t have $59 billion dollars. They can’t spend $18 per second every second of their lives for a 100 years. Because of that, they have to find a different way to pay for a kidney for Jay. They are trying to raise money to defray those costs; they’re having a pasta dinner pretty soon, and they’re asking people to pay $6 per ticket (or 1/3 of a second worth of Bill Gates’ existence; Bill Gates could treat 9 billion of his friends and have money left over!) to try to help cover the costs, and they’ve also set up a fund to help, and they’ve listed him on the website for the National Foundation for Transplants.

They have to rely on donations, you know. Donations for money and time and even for an organ. But luckily for Jay, not everyone is like the Forbes 400; not everyone takes resources that are precious and keeps them from other who need them. There are, instead, people like Jay’s sister, who realized that she only needs one kidney, so she’s giving Jay her other one. Even one of Jay’s nieces offered her kidney.

Total number of kidneys offered by the Forbes 400 to help Jay? Zero. Total number of kidneys offered by people who can’t spend $18 per second? Three.

But, then, hoarders don’t give up anything valuable, do they? So we can’t expect that the Forbes 400, who are so intent on keeping resources they could never need or use in their lifetime, to give up anything they’ve hoarded.

Lucky for Jay, he’s not relying on the goodness of the Forbes 400; he’s relying on people like me and you. We may not have $18 bucks a second, but we do have some spare kidneys, and we do like pasta.

You can donate money to Jay — it’s a tax deduction just like the selfish billionaires get — by sending it to: NFT Ohio Kidney Fund, 5350 Poplar Ave., Suite 430, Memphis, Tenn. 38119.

Read more about Jay by clicking this link.

The Fix: The highest marginal level of income tax should be raised to 60% of annual income over $1 million dollars; there should be a federal property tax leveled on property and assets held above $1 million dollars. Those, plus the remedies I advised to keep celebrities from owning 160 cars, would help.

What You Can Do Until The Fix Is Done: (1) Make sure your license okays you to be re an organ donor — you certainly can’t use them after you’re dead, and (2) make a contribution to The National Foundation For Transplants to help someone like Jay afford the basic necessities of life (Yes, I’m counting “a functioning kidney” as a basic necessity of life; if that makes me a socialist, I’m okay with that) until such time as voters get their act together and start voting for politicians who understand that it’s okay to tax the rich because the rich will have more than enough left over, and (3) voters, get your act together and start voting for politicians who understand that it’s okay to tax the rich because the rich will have more than enough left over– and demand that they do so!

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San Diego Had It Coming…

September 19, 2008 at 3:08 pm · Filed under Uncategorized ·Tagged , , ,

If you like sports!, Gisele! or exclamation points!, then Nonsportsmanlike Conduct! is for you!. This appeared there first.
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Shut up, San Diego.

And shut up, Houston Astros fans, for that matter.

And all you other fans out there complaining about a blown call or dumb decision “losing a game” or “costing a team the season” or otherwise wrecking something… well, you know what’s coming. Shut up.

The call by Ed Hochuli didn’t lose the game for San Diego. San Diego lost the game for San Diego. Just like the Houston Astros blew their season and the Cubs, a couple of years back, didn’t make it to the World Series because they weren’t good enough (so let Steve Bartman come out of hiding.)

San Diego fans, and players, and coaches, want to say that Ed Hochuli’s bad call blew the game for them, and why not? The alternative to blaming Ed Hochuli is blaming themselves, and nobody in sports blames themselves. If blame were placed where blame needs to be placed in America, Ned Yost would have a job, John McCain wouldn’t be talking about firing the SEC chairman, and the Chargers’ defense would come out and say “Yeah, I guess maybe we could have tried a little harder to stop them, especially when they ran the exact same play on us twice in a row to win the game.“

To which the Chargers’ offense would say “Well, maybe we could have scored a few more points, too.“

While all this was going on — while the Chargers were losing a game that was apparently one play long — since that’s the only way one play decides who wins or loses a game — the Houston Astros were playing a game at Miller Park in Milwaukee… against the Chicago Cubs; Major League Baseball (which should be called “Four Major Teams and 28 Minor Teams League Baseball“) moved the game from Houston to Milwaukee, a “neutral” site, because of the hurricane. Houston promptly got no-hit by the Cubs, and promptly complained that the neutral site was the problem. “If the Astros miss the playoffs by one game,” said one commentator “Look at this game as the problem.”

See, the problem is not that Houston couldn’t get a single hit; the problem is not that Houston couldn’t stop the Cubs. The problem is not that Houston has lost (as of today) 71 other games, 71 other games that were not all played in Milwaukee. The problem is that Partially-Major-League Baseball made them play some games in Milwaukee instead of at home.

Well, shut up.

If Houston had gone 161-1, and missed the playoffs by one game, then they might have a leg to stand on. But they didn’t. Houston had to win 13 of 14 prior to the Neutral Game just to be considered to be on the outskirts of the wild card race. And after going 13 of 14, Houston then lost five in a row as of today. Were all of those games played in Milwaukee, too?

And if the Chargers had converted on more than 60% of their third down attempts, if the Chargers had not given up an average of six yards per carry, if the Chargers had not let Denver possess the ball for 34 minutes, if LaDainian Tomlinson had not averaged 2.6 yards per carry, if the Chargers did not have a game plan that called for passing 2/3 of the time, and if the Chargers had covered Eddie Royal on the 4-yard TD pass and then the 2-yard conversion pass…

…well, then Ed Hochuli’s bad call might not have mattered, would it have?

You know who never complains about bad calls? Teams that win by 30. Of course, teams that win by 30 probably have good game plans and players who play well and don’t commit the kinds of mistakes that lead to more referee calls in the first place– whereas teams that complain about bad calls are teams that are relying mostly on luck to win games.

This same week, the University of Wisconsin played Fresno State, escaping with a 13-10 victory; later, WAC officials admitted that a ref blew a call in the game. The Badgers were ahead at the time 13-7 when a receiver appeared to catch a ball, turn, and then fumble… and Wisconsin recovered. Only the officials ruled it an incompletion; Fresno retained possession.

Team on the road, playing in a tough environment, clinging to a narrow lead when the home team is suddenly the beneficiary of a blown call that leaves it with possession of the football and a game on the line… sound familiar, San Diego?

Here’s the difference: The Badgers decided to keep playing defense, holding the Bulldogs to a field goal and winning the game.

San Diego Chargers: are your players more mentally fragile than the college footballers at the University of Wisconsin? They were able to soldier on after a bad call; but you Chargers, who demand respect without having earned it yet, you Chargers who feel you got gypped in the past few years and aren’t given credit for being good– you can’t tough it out after a bad call and stop Denver?

You know what’s missing from all those stories about how the Chargers were robbed? What’s missing is what happened after the call. I’ve already touched on it a bit. Here’s the official play-by-play after that call:

On 3rd and 10, Denver ran up the middle for 4 yards to get 4th and 4 at the 4-yard line.

Then, on 4th and 4, Jay Cutler passed to Eddie Royal for a touchdown. Then, on the 2-point conversion, Denver ran the exact same play for a 2-point conversion to take the lead.

Even after all that, the Chargers had time left and possession. They had three more plays, and went completion, incomplete, incomplete. The latter two passes were incompletions from their 43-yard-line, so San Diego had one or two shots to complete a pass to about the Denver 35-yard-line — a 17-yard completion, on a day when they averaged 18 yards per completion — and failed.

In all, the Chargers had three chances to stop Denver from scoring, and then three chances to score a field goal or touchdown and win the game, even after the bad call.

But, sure. It was Ed Hochuli’s fault.

Just shut up, will you?

And now, on to The Nonsportsmanlike Conduct! Incredibly Accurate Predictions for NFL Games, Week 3!

Record last week: 9-6.
Record for the year: 18-12.

Chiefs at Falcons: Chiefs are doing their best to uphold my decision, after they gained nothing in four tries from the 5-yard-line with the game on the line, to name them this year’s worst team in the NFL. Falcons.

Raiders at Bills: Buffalo is only 18 games away from being the first team to go 20-0 in a single season. From the Raiders side, Al Davis will keep Lane Kiffin but he has to coach from a dunk tank; players who score touchdowns get three throws. Bills.

Buccaneers at Bears: Actual football commentary: After the loss last week, Bucs’ coach Jon Gruden said it was his fault for calling a bad game. Actual joke: A day later, he said “No, wait, it’s Ed Hochuli’s fault.” Bucs.

Dolphins at Patriots*: Bill Parcells, Front Office Genius? A while back, a really smart commentator said “Bill Parcells had mediocre coaching skills and terrible personnel skills.” Turns out I’m smarter than you look. And you thought all I did was make jokes and point out that NASCAR isn’t a sport. Wait, that is all I do. Yes, this stuff is far easier than it looks. Patriots*.

Panthers at Vikings: Like, for example, I’ve never bought into the Vikings, the way all the sports “commentators” did this year. That’s because I know, invented, and remember the Immutable Rules of Football, the overall premise of which is that your team is not going to be very good this year. See? Easier than it looks. Panthers.

Bengals at Giants: Especially if your team is the Bengals. Giants.

Texans at Titans: Or the Texans. Titans.

Cardinals at Redskins: Oh, wait, the Cardinals are 2-0 and let’s all get excited because they’re clearly up to great things this year and we knew it all along because… wait, what? They began the season 3-2 last year and missed the playoffs? That’s why they’re called IMMUTABLE rules. Redskins.

Saints at Broncos: To my reader who said the 2006 Saints were about much more than simply football… no, they weren’t. They were about 2 games better than .500. Instead of having millionaires who play games as symbols of hope and rebuilding, why don’t we just go actually help rebuild? Broncos.

Lions at 49ers: Don’t be too slow to jump on the bandwagon, sports commentators. You may have been terribly wrong about the Vikings, but it’s never to early to declare that the 49ers are for real and will “really surprise you,” as you all have said this week, right? What if, instead of reaching each week to find some sort of claim that will hold viewers’ interests, you just… reported? Speculation is neither analysis nor reporting, and wishful thinking is just speculation. 49ers.

Rams at Seahawks: Actual football commentary: It’s nice to see Koren Robinson getting a chance to play football again. No jokes about this one. Commentators could have spent less time claiming Arizona and San Fran would be good this year, and more time reporting on the inspiring story of Koren Robinson overcoming, for quite some time now, his own personal problems. Koren Robinson may just be about “so much more” than football. Go, Koren! Seahawks.

Browns at Ravens: Remember Homicide: Life on The Streets? That was set in Baltimore, just like this game. Weird! Ravens.

Steelers at Eagles: Like the Chargers-Broncos game, commentators breathlessly reported that the Eagles-Cowboys game last week all came down to one snap — the fumbled exchange between McNabb and his center. Wait, were the three interceptions per team, the four sacks Philadelphia gave up, Dallas’ 108 yards in penalties, the Eagles’ 47-yard punt return, and the Cowboys 98-yard punt return all completely irrelevant? Sounds to me like that game all came down to roughly 118 snaps, plus special teams’ plays. As for the Steelers-Eagles, I predict this game will all come down to 102 snaps plus special teams’ play — but those 102 snaps plus special teams’ play will absolutely decide this game. Unless there’s a bad call that does that for them. Eagles.

Cowboys at Packers: Did you know the Cowboys have never won in Lambeau Field? That is an amazingly significant statistic except that this statistic is even more amazingly significant: Not a single one of those Cowboys who have never won in Lambeau will be playing in this game. Do Romo’s Cowboys know, or care, how the 1971 Cowboys fared in a trip toLambeau? I doubt it. But you will hear, at least seven times, on Sunday, someone telling you that the Cowboys have never won in Lambeau Field. Never. Not even in prehistoric times. Packers.

Jets at Chargers: To save Norv Turner time, I’m going to list the scapegoats he should call out at his post-game press conference explaining why they lost: Still upset over Ed Hochuli’s call, longitude, traffic on the way to the stadium, NFL favoring Brett Favre, Marty Schottenheimer (because, why not?), unfair double standard scrutinizing him and Sarah Palin because she’s a woman running for high office, and gypsy moths. Not to blame: play-calling and lackluster efforts. Next question! Jets.

Update on The Quest For History: This week’s loveable loser is William Jennings Bryan. William Jennings Bryan ran for president three times, and lost each time — once was because Ed Hochuli blew the electoral college count — but is remembered as “the Great Commoner,” a title he held because he stuck up for common people even though he himself was in no way a “common man.” Kids today in school learn more about William Jennings Bryan and the silver standard than they do about all the presidents from 1900-1932 combined, just going to show that you can lose the contest but win for history…

… a valuable lesson for the ten teams standing at 0-2, ten teams who still have a chance to make history by being the first team ever to go 0-16. Anyone can win a lot of games; these teams stand to make history in reverse. Let’s handicap their chances to be the NFL equivalent of William Jennings Bryan. In order of likelihood to go 0-16, here they are:

1. Chiefs: I can’t say it enough. No yards gained with the game on the line in week 1. Pathetic, and now they’re switching QBs again. Herm Edwards likely has vacation plans for the first week of January, 2009.

2. Rams: Just really, really bad.

3. Dolphins: Ditto. But Parcells is working wonders, right?

4. Texans: Mike Sherman still in the front office? They’ve earned the 4th spot.

5. Browns: The Immutable Rules!

6. Lions: Hoping that Ed Hochuli will ref all their games, so they have an excuse.

7. Vikings: Hear that whooshing sound? It’s the sound of the vacuum created by all the so-called sports commentators backing away from preseason predictions of Vikings’ success. Nature abhors a vacuum, but not as much as the Vikings abhor winning.

8. Bengals: Everyone hates Ocho Cinco, but if it wasn’t for him, would we even pay attention to the Bengals anymore? Why is he tolerated? Because football is a business, and Ocho Cinco is good for business.

9. Chargers: Norvism! Thanks to it, you San Diegans have a shot at immortality.

10. Jaguars: They’re only here on a technicality. They’ll win one.

11. Seahawks: Ditto. They may be off to 0-2, but they’ve got a good QB and a good coach.

There you have it: Chiefs, put a bust of William Jennings Bryan and Charlie Brown up in your locker room, and begin to not go for it!


Great Mistakes:

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Admit You’re A Cult: A Closer Look At A Previous Showdown Between Two Freaky Cults That For Some Reason Are Used To Sell You Things.

September 17, 2008 at 2:55 pm · Filed under Uncategorized ·Tagged , , ,

The Best Of Everything not only tells you what’s The Best in any category, but sometimes takes a closer look at a previous Best, like this one, which appeared on that site yesterday:


As everyone who reads TBOE knows, Our Opinions Are Righter Than Yours. That’s not just some advertising slogan; it’s a responsibility I shoulder for the world, to always be righter than everyone else in the world including myself. I take that responsibility seriously; I spend hours and days and weeks making sure that I am parodoxically righter than everyone in the world including myself.

I don’t take it so seriously, though, that I bother fact-checking or researching anything beyond sometimes googling something to find out if a couple of sketchy websites back up whatever theory I’m propounding that day; let’s not be ridiculous here.

Because I take that responsibility so seriously, I was dismayed this morning when I intuitively realized that one of the September Showdowns was, in fact, no longer a showdown!

Just about two weeks ago, I picked The Best Freaky Hippy Cult That For Some Reason Is Used to Sell You Stuff. At the time, I was only aware of two possible freaky hippy cults that for some reason were used to sell you stuff, and so I was free to use that as a showdown because showdowns are only between two possible contenders, and I only knew of two possible contenders. And you know, or should know my motto: If I don’t know about it, it doesn’t exist.

That, by the way, is an awesome way to live life. If I don’t know about something, it doesn’t exist. Just like if I don’t immediately recognize someone, they’re not famous and if I don’t like a song, it sucks. Trust me on all of these; they’re correct because I’m correct.

Since, at the time I posted that nomination, I only knew of the two freaky hippy cults, I had no difficulty deciding that there were only two freaky hippy cults that were for some reason used to sell you stuff.

Then, this week, I learned about I’m From Barcelona, and particularly the song We’re From Barcelona.

And I also learned, then, that I’m From Barcelona‘s song We’re From Barcelona was used in an ad for JCPenney.

And I also learned, then, too, that I’m From Barcelona is some kind of eclectic 29-member band of people that play kazoos and banjos and are all friends and who all got together and recorded an album and then caught on and recorded more albums, and I don’t know about you but that all proves a couple of things to me:

First: It proves they’re a freaky hippy cult, because who has 29 friends that all play instruments and just drop by to record albums? Come on, guys. ‘Fess up. You’re trying to convert people, right? You don’t admit it, but you are, aren’t you?

Second, it proves that I was right: The banjo is so lame it’s cool. If it wasn’t cool, why would a freaky hippy cult use it as part of their master plan to convert you and sell you Wrangler jeans?

As for the Showdown? Well, I might put I’m From Barcelona in the running for that nomination, but they first have to admit to me that they’re a freaky hippy cult.

Also, click that link above to hear “We’re From Barcelona.” This isn’t that song:

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Some people are better than others: The Best Sneetch.

September 15, 2008 at 7:07 pm · Filed under Uncategorized ·Tagged , , , ,

The Best of Everything really does set out The Best of Everything; this appeared there first:


It’s still
Showdown
September!

For someone who generally doesn’t read this blog, Sweetie is a fountain of ideas for me. When she propounded her “Second Banana Theory,” she gave me the premise for the showdown between Andy Richter TV shows with “Andy” in the title; then, for today, she also gave me the actual Showdown.

Imagine how much better my life, and this blog, which is a part of my life, would be if I were to listen to Sweetie more often? Or at all? I’m going to start trying to remember to want to listen to Sweetie instead of just sitting silently during our conversations waiting for a break so I can insert the cool joke I thought up during our previous conversation.

Anyway, today’s Showdown is one that is both incredibly tough and incredibly relevant: Deciding who is The Best Sneetch.

Everyone remembers The Sneetches, right? They were the birdlike creatures that lived on beaches and ran into trouble when Sylvester McMonkey McBean came along with his Star-On/Star-Off machines and messed up their whole society. Before McBean came along, they had a system of telling who was better or worse than the others — stars vs. no-stars. After McBean came along, there were Sneetches who had stars, who had no stars, who had multiple stars, who had stars in weird places, and the whole Sneetch society was destroyed.

There are people who will argue with me about that last sentence. Those people will tell me you can’t say their society was destroyed, because that’s not the case and because that makes it sound like the ending was a bad thing. Those people who raise that argument are, in a word, wrong. They are, in two words, wrong and misguided.

Those people who don’t think that Sneetch society was destroyed, and/or who think that destroying Sneetch society was not a bad thing, are bad for our society, because they don’t want people to be better than others, ever, even if there is a good reason for deeming one person to be better than the other.

That’s the truth about our society, and about humans in general, and possibly about Sneetches: one person frequently IS better than another. The McBeans of the world don’t want that to be true, but it is true, and it’s not necessarily a bad thing.

Let’s review The Sneetches, which I’ve read a lot in the past two years because the Babies! just turned 2 and I read to them almost every night, although many nights I read them the books out of order and in parts, because Mr F usually sits on my lap as we read, and he likes to flip pages randomly, so as we read, he will skip ahead and back and jump whole sections and then return to the beginning. If you imagine a collaboration between Dr. Seuss and Kurt Vonnegut, you’ll get the general idea of what it’s like to read a story with Mr F in charge of the pages.

Still, in one order or another I’ve read the Sneetches a lot in the past two years, and I’m very familiar with the premise, and I’m also very familiar with some things that were left out of the premise, and that is this: Dr. Seuss never tells you what purpose the stars served or how they got there or how Sneetch society ended up that way.

Yeah. Chew on that for a while. All our lives, we’ve all thought The Sneetches was about how we’re not supposed to judge people based on appearance or about how people are not necessarily better or worse because of their appearance — but that is just an assumption we’ve made.

This assumption proves yet again, the My Aunt’s Dog Theorem, since generations of people have blithely assumed this: The stars on their bellies serve no purpose and are merely cosmetic. That’s what you have to assume, if the moral of The Sneetches is that we can’t judge people merely by appearance; you have to assume that the stars are cosmetic and have no purpose whatsoever because if the stars have a purpose, then we have no basis for assuming that they’re a good or bad thing.

The stars, in most people’s view, are something akin to skin color or hair color or eye color — a superficial trait that denotes nothing, really, about the person/Sneetch underneath the skin color/hair color.

But Dr. Seuss never says that.

Nothing in The Sneetches ever says the stars are superficial markings. And why do we assume that they are superficial markings? Most animals do not have superficial markings; most animals’ markings serve a purpose of one sort or another. Take the peacock tail. The peacock tail seems to be among the most superficial-seeming flourish an animal can have. But it serves a purpose — attracting a mate. It serves a purpose so powerfully that despite generally being a liability to the peacock, the tail has continued to be a feature of the peacock instead of being slowly bred out over time.

Markings in animals serve to attract mates, or discourage predators from attacking, or to blend in to surroundings, or a variety of other purposes. But despite that, we humans simply assume that the stars the Sneetches had on their bellies served no purpose, that they were simply ornamental. We assumed that because human beings are the only animals who in fact do have superficial markings — but we actually have very few superficial markings, when it comes down to it.

Humans have superficial markings that don’t bear directly on our ability to survive or mate or attack or otherwise interact with the world around us; skin color and hair color and eye color in particular have nothing to do with a human being’s worth or lack thereof. But we have other markings that everyone assumes are superficial and yet they’re are not. These are markings like earrings, and haircuts, and clothing, and tattoos. We assume these are superficial, because they can be changed, but they’re not superficial. They in fact tell something about you, or me, or the person with the tattoo/earring/nose ring/mohawk.

Look around, wherever you are right now, unless like me you are sitting in an office at “work” staring at your computer and nobody else is in your office because you’ve cultivated a curmudgeon attitude, or at least you hope it’s deemed to be “curmudgeon,” because the alternative is “antisocial loner,” and that’s not as nice-seeming. If that’s the case, go mingle with your coworkers or the people around you, and then look around.

When you see people around you, ask yourself what their outward, “superficial” appearance tells you. Do they have a nose ring? Long hair? Short hair? Earrings? Can you see a tattoo? Are they wearing jeans? Or a tie? Do they have their sleeves rolled up (like I do) and their tie loosened (like I do), or are they buttoned up?

All of that says something; all of that is intended, consciously or subconsciously, to send a message. Sleeves rolled up/tie loosened, for example, means more than my sleeves are always a little short for me and my neck is kind of chubby (which is what it mostly means for me); it also means I’m working hard and I need to be formal for the office but I’m really an informal kind of guy. I roll up my sleeves and loosen my tie to let you know that you don’t need to call me “Mr. The Trouble With Roy,” you can just call me “Roy.”

Nose rings tell people you’re a hipster who wants people to think you don’t t care what they think. A crewcut tells people you’re ex-military, or that you don’t give much attention to your apperance, or that you’re too cheap to get haircuts by a barber and instead choose to clip your own hair (me, again.)

I won’t elaborate on all possible non-superficial markings that humans have; you get my point, and my point is, as usual, the correct point, which is that seemingly superficial markings on human beings serve to set your status in the world and also to show you whether that person can be trusted or is a threat or whatever other message needs to be sent.

So why, then, do we assume for no reason whatsoever that the stars on the bellies of some Sneetches had no point? That they were purely superficial, artificial markings? Why do we think that?

It’s because we want to think that, of course. That’s why we think everything that we think: Because we want to think that.

We want to think that the stars on the Sneetches bellies were superficial markings that served no real purpose because otherwise the story is a much more complex story with unsettling ramifications in our real lives.

Here’s our version of the story, and how it applies to us: The stars don’t mean anything, so those star-bellied Sneetches shouldn’t have been so uppity, so it was a good thing that the plain-bellied Sneetches challenged the society, and ultimately it’s a good thing that no Sneetches were better than any other Sneetches, which is comforting for me because it tells me in my life that nobody is actually better than me.

Here’s a more complicated version of the story with unsettling ramifications for us and our lives: The stars mean something; I’m not sure what. But when the plainbellies got stars on their bellies, it messed up the system, so the starbellies had to do something to make sure that society wouldn’t collapse, only things got all screwed up and now, even though they needed a way to tell whether some people were better than others, they can’t, and Sneetch society is in trouble. Also, in my own life, that means that people might actually be better than me.

That latter one doesn’t make for a very good kids’ book, does it? Or a very nice thought to ponder while driving home from work. That’s why everyone wants to assume that the first version of the story is the “real” version of the story.

But here’s the thing: society is made up of people that are better than other people at things. And here’s another thing: it needs to be that way. And here’s yet another-er thing: We need ways to tell who is better than someone else.

Maybe McBean wasn’t such a great guy after all. Why, even, do people assume that he was? I think he was kind of a troublemaker and con man. He upsets society for money and then drives away, leaving everything in a bind, and we think maybe he did a good thing? Dr. Seuss never said that, either, and I got the distinct impression that Seuss thought maybe McBean wasn’t so great.)

In society, we need people to be better at some things than other people, and some people are better at things than other people. We need, for example, some people to be better at surgery, and we need those people to be surgeons. We need people to be better at leading, and we need those people to lead. We need people to be better at cooking, and we need those people to cook.

Having everyone be equally good at everything is only a good thing if (a) the level of skill that everyone has is a high level of skill — it doesn’t do much good to have people all be equally good at heart surgery if our level of skill is terrible — and (b) despite being equally good at everything, people still went into different professions. One of the things that led me to become a lawyer is that I wasn’t terribly good at math and science; originally, I was pre-med in college but I lacked skill in math and science, so I went into law instead. If I’d been as good at math and science as everyone else in the world, I might have become a doctor, and we’d have one less lawyer in the world.

No jokes, please.

Okay, fine, make those jokes; but if you do, send them to me so I can enjoy them, too. Still, while having fewer lawyers in general might be good, having me not be a lawyer might be deemed to be a terrible thing by my clients, who have generally been pleased with my services and who I’ve done some fine things for.

It’s also true that some people simply are better at things than others. Tiger Woods is simply better at golf than other human beings. Brett Favre is better at quarterbacking than other human beings. Bill Gates is better at selling computer programs than others. Tom Hanks is better at acting than others.

There’s nothing wrong with people being better than other people at something. There’s also nothing wrong with recognizing that some people are better at things than others, and giving them their due credit for it. That’s a basic part of society: People compete to be better at something than others, on a variety of levels and in a variety of fora. People compete to be better at parenting, better at getting married, better at getting promoted, better at staying married, better at life. That competition is healthy and good for society. It makes us better to try to be better.

Now, having proven that it’s both normal and good for society to both have people be better at things than others, and to recognize that, let’s move on to the next level: It’s okay for society to assume that some people are simply better people than others.

Provided, I’ll add, that you’re judging based on good qualities. If you provide that, then it’s perfectly acceptable, and good, for society to say that some people are simply better people than others — and we have to do it.

Your first instinct was no doubt to react in horror and be ready to denounce me, but hold on a second; don’t hit the denounce key just yet. Instead, stop and think, and you’ll realize it’s true. Some people are better than others.

Start with the easy ones. Pretty much everyone is better than Hitler, right? And Stalin? We can all agree that everyone we all know or have run into is generally better than Hitler and Stalin. Then throw in Ted Bundy and the Unabomber. Everyone I know is better than Hitler, Stalin, Ted Bundy, and the Unabomber. I don’t even have to think about it very long. They’re just better, because they haven’t committed genocide and started world wars and blown up or murdered innocent people.

As you start thinking like that, then, you can sort people into “better” or “worse” categories. “Better” people include people who are good parents and good family members and good coworkers. “Worse” people are people who embezzle money or torture animals or drive too fast on the highway and keep me from making my exit.


As you start doing that, you’ll sit back and take your finger off the denounce key because I’m right: some people are better than others. There is a universal set of values that we can all agree on, values that exist in every society and have always existed, which helps us to rank and sort and judge people, and by that universal set of values that exists, values that insist that we should not harm others and should try to coexist peacefully, we can rank people based on how well they uphold those values in their lives, and the better people are at upholding those values, the better people they are.

So you see? I didn’t base it on athleticism or medical skill or money; I based on it on the universal core beliefs that all human beings hold, beliefs that tell us inherently that some people are better than others.

If Thomas Jefferson had been more accurate, he’d have written that all men and women are created equal but then they by their actions demonstrate that they are better or worse than each other. (Then again, he was concerned about declaring independence from England, and not concerned about declaring which Sneetch was The Best, so I’ll let him off the hook.)

Now, having come all this way, go back and look at the original questions that led us down this path — why we assume that the stars were superficial markings, and why we want to believe that people are all equally good. The answer to both is the same: We generally assume in our lives, until required to do otherwise, that everyone is equally good and that the separations between us are simply superficial societal markings that do not inherently denote worth because that’s the simplest way to go about life; and that’s the simplest way to go about life because it doesn’t raise unsettling questions like maybe I’m not as good a person as I could be or why am I hanging around this person?

And, we assume that everyone is good, etc., while at the exact same time making judgments about how good (or bad) other people are, and then not acknowledging that we’ve made those judgments.

We do all this because it’s simple.

It is simpler to say I believe everyone is equally good and valuable to society than it is to say I believe that some people are better than others and here’s why… because the latter invites thought and controversy and people hitting the denounce key. The society we’ve created is one that wants to insist (while not actually believing) that everyone is not just created equal but remains equal throughout their lives, that our actions cannot move us up or down in human esteem even though just the opposite is true: we all start at the same starting line, but finish where we end up because of our actions, and how you run the race determines how much respect you should get.

It is simpler to say I believe everyone is equally good, etc. and then make value judgments based on seemingly-superficial qualities like whether someone is wearing a tie or not while not acknowledging the internal contradiction because we don’t want to acknowledge the internal contradiction — that’s uncomfortable — and, again, because our society (all around the world) demands that we not acknowledge that some people are better than others.

And it is simpler to say I believe that some people are deemed better than others because of their superficial qualities rather than their inherent goodness or badness because we would all rather believe that other people got ahead on luck or looks or lucre than on good or bad qualities. We’d rather believe that because if people got ahead on good qualities, it makes us wonder whether we are doing the right thing and measure up; who wants to be all wrapped up in self-doubt? But if people got ahead on bad qualities, that’s worse: who wants to live in a society where people get ahead by lying, cheating or stealing?

We cover the contours of our society and our belief with a mental wallpaper that declares that all people are equally good, and we hope then that nothing punches through into the nooks and crannies we’ve covered up, and then, when we read The Sneetches, we quickly mentally decide that the stars on their bellies are simply superficial markings that mean nothing because if we don’t do these things, we might be beset with self-doubt and controversy and continued questioning.

All of which leads to this: which Sneetch was really The Best?

If you’ve been following, you know the answer: It was the Plain-Bellied Sneetches.

The Plain-Bellied Sneetches, who had none upon thars, were The Best Sneetch, because The Plain-Bellied Sneetches did not simply sit back in their society and accept it for what it was. The Plain-Bellied Sneetches did not meekly decide that it was okay to be locked out of weenie roasts and games, and did not go off and form their own separate society of weenie-roasts and games.

No, the Plain-Bellied Sneetches looked at society and questioned it and asked why? Why is it that we are excluded? Are they really so much greater than us? Have we been judging the elite in our society — for all societies have an elite, and sometimes several depending on which facet of society you look at — have we been judging the elite in our society by the right criteria?

The Plain-Bellied Sneetches asked whether it was right and just that some members of society should be entitled to more than their fair share, whether the measure of who gets what and why was being done right. Should we be distributing the rewards of society based solely on these stars? they asked. Or is there a better way to do it?

All societies have to distribute their rewards one way or another; they can do it equally or unequally. They can do it based on one, or many, factors. Distributing rewards is not wrong; it is a function of society.

But society has to do that, has to distribute its rewards, in a way that is fair. It has to do that in a way that rewards the kind of behaviors and values and traits that society wants to encourage, and punishes the behaviors and values and traits that society wants to deter. A society could, for example, distribute most of its rewards to those people who are born into the right family, or to those people who marry the right person, or to those people who are lucky enough to catch the attention of the media and hold it.

A society could even, if it wanted to, give most of its rewards to those lucky enough to be born with a star on their belly.

But when a society begins to distribute its rewards the wrong way — when it gives more to people who do not contribute as much, when it heaps riches on those who do not appreciate it or who use it selfishly or otherwise abuse their rewards, when society takes a wrong turn– then it’s time for the Plain-Bellies to begin questioning things.

That will never happen in the Plain Bellies keep tricking themselves. Society will never correct itself if the Plain Bellies, instead of asking why things are the way they are and whether there’s not a better way to do things, if instead of doing that the Plain Bellies simply hope that they, too, will be invited to the weenie roasts or go start their own weenie roast, society will never fix itself and nobody will be making sure that we’re encouraging people to be better and not worse.


The Star-Bellies weren’t the villain. McBean wasn’t the villain. The villain in The Sneetches was the initial unquestioned acceptance of the status quo by the Sneetches; when things got offtrack on the beaches, nobody at first was going to do anything about it. Nobody until the Plain-Bellies got it into their heads to mess with the system using McBean’s machine — and everyone began to question the values they’d internalized, and everyone began to ask what really made a Sneetch worthwhile, and everyone began to look for an answer to that question that was based on something other than the system they’d used to get into the mess in the first place.

The whole Sneetch society was destroyed, ultimately: Sneetches were no longer judged on whether they had a star or not. The Sneetches took a good hard look at themselves as they passed through McBean’s machine, and decided that there was a better way to do things.

We should be so lucky as to have our own Plain-Bellied Sneetches,who, because they questioned their society and challenged it and made it a better place, are The Best Sneetch.

Related: Want to know what the “My Aunt’s Dog Theorem” is all about? Find out by reading about The Best Song in A Language Other Than English. Think this is all too much meaning to ascribe to a simple kid’s book? Then get away from all this junk and read why The Pigeon Finds a Hot Dog was The Best Children’s Book.

Click here to see all the other topics I’ve ever discussed!

Showdown
September is an entire month of categories in which there are only TWO possible nominees! Categories like

The Best Song From the One/Two Hit Wonder “The Kings” First Single

The Best Show Andy Richter Starred In That Also Had “Andy” In The Title

The Best Man To Claim a World Record Score on Donkey Kong

The Best Song That Talks About Whether The Singer Of The Song Feels Like Dancing Or Not

theBest of Two Freaky Cults Trying to Sell You Something or

The Best Celebrity Who Remains Unspeakably Cool No Matter What He Does.

Nostalgia Mug:


Rachel’s not sure where she came from or what she’s supposed to do, unless she really is trying to take over the world with a little help from her Octopus, a Valkyrie, and her lover Brigitte. Read Lesbian Zombies Are Taking Over The World!

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Shame On America Sunday: Celebrity Cars

September 14, 2008 at 9:13 pm · Filed under Uncategorized ·Tagged , , , ,


Each time I post one of these, each time I point out that somewhere in America, some rich person who is selfish and doesn’t care about others is spending money frivolously, money that could be used to help others — and should be used to help others, I get, out of the many comments and emails, at least five of each of these responses:

First, someone (or someones) will say But they do a lot for charity.

Then, someone (or someones) will say It’s their money to do what they want with.

Let me address those both briefly, taking the second one first:

What do you mean, it’s their money to do what they want with? What do you mean by that? do you mean that whatever they choose to do, it’s okay? If it’s their money, it’s okay no matter what they do?

Here’s how to point out the flaws in an argument like that : take it to extremes; by doing that, the flaws in an argument will be exposed. So let’s do that with it’s their money to do what they want with. Let’s expose how dumb that argument is.

Suppose, instead of pointing out that Cindy McCain shows disdain for human beings by wearing a $313,000 outfit, prompting people to say it’s her money to do what she wants with, suppose instead of that I said Cindy McCain spent $313,000 paying surgeons to extract kidneys from kittens so that she could turn them into her own personal anti-wrinkle cream.

Then, I’m sure, everyone — even those it’s-their-money people, would say that’s horrible. Even the it’s-their-money people suddenly say well, we can’t let her do that. Suddenly, even the it’s their money people are with me: let’s limit what can be spent.

So we can agree, then, that there is a limit on what people can and should do with their own money. If we all agree that Cindy McCain should not be allowed to buy kitten kidneys, then we all agree that it is perfectly acceptable for society to draw a line on what people can spend money on, even if it’s their money. We just disagree on where that line should be drawn. (And while my argument was absurd, it’s also true: we already as a society tell people there’s limits to what they can buy. You can’t buy human beings, or parts of human beings. You can’t buy endangered species. So don’t give me it’s their money unless you are out lobbying Congress to allow people to traffic in endangered species and organs, in which case I’d just as soon not hear from you at all.)

So don’t say it’s their money. If you feel it’s okay for Cindy McCain to wear an outfit worth six years of your hard-earned pay and show how little regard she has for human beings, then just say that. Say I and Cindy McCain feel it is appropriate to rub people’s noses in how little they have and how much SHE has.

On the other, harder question, I have the same response. To people who say well, they do a lot for charity, let’s take the same argument. If Cindy McCain’s charity does a lot for people, then is it all right if Cindy McCain uses what’s left of her money to buy kitten kidneys?

No, of course it’s not. Doing something good doesn’t then make it okay to do something bad. It just means that you’ve done something good and something bad. Giving money to charity is good; but it doesn’t make it okay to then go spend $313,000 on an outfit. That’s wrong, no matter how much money you give to charity. It’s wrong for Bill Gates to own an island and I don’t care how much money his foundation gives to charity. It’s still wrong for him to own an island.

Celebrities, though, are almost revered for owning things; instead of our society properly pointing to celebrities owning foolish things because they have so much money they don’t know what to do with it, and because it’s beyond them to think Instead of spending it foolishly, I should help someone. So instead of helping someone, they spend it foolishly. Like on cars.

Celebrities love their cars, and most of America loves celebrities for it. We smile and nod approvingly when Miley Cyrus does what all 15-year-olds wish they could do and buys herself a car, and only I wince when it’s reported that the car she bought cost more than $75,000.

Why does anyone, celebrity or not, need a $75,000 car? How much nicer is a $75,000 car than the Saturn Vue ($13,995 used) I drive? Do CDs sound better in a $75,000 car? Does the exhaust smell like chocolate chip cookies?

I guess the only reason you’d want a $75,000 car is so that it wouldn’t look out of place among the 20 cars– all Porsches, apparently — you park in your $1.39 million carpeted garage, isn’t that right, Jerry Seinfeld? Or should I say: what’s the deal with people who park their cars on cement? Don’t they know luxury cars are meant to be pampered? Pampered, it seems, at the expense of neighbors, who had to have jackhammers going for a year in their building so that Jerry’s cars could have a luxury garage, complete with kitchenette.

It is apparent to me that once one becomes rich, one also loses the ability to ever be more than 10 feet from a kitchen. I look forward to winning the lottery and then creating the first mobile kitchen (with 24-hour staff) so that I, too, can be constantly within rich of some Brie cheese.

But 20 cars isn’t all that much, when you stop to think about it. Why, you couldn’t even drive a different one every day for more than 3 weeks. Jerry can’t — one of his cars, one worth $700,000, can’t even be driven on the street (because it can’t be emissions and crash-tested; Porsche wouldn’t release any for testing, so they created a whole line of cars costing $700,000 each that can’t be used.)

You certainly couldn’t, if you only had 20 cars, feature them on a website that allows us, the commoners, to marvel at your collection, like we can with Jay Leno’s car collection, which Jay Leno (America’s buddy!) helpfully features on its own website, which I’m not going to link to because he doesn’t need the help.

Something that just jumps right out at me, though, as I look around that website and think what kind of a jerk needs this many cars AND a website to show them off? — something that jumps out at me besides the fact that it is a really awful kind of jerk who can’t just collect cars but who has to also show them off– what jumps out at me is the “Community” link. What community is Jay talking about, I wonder. The community of superwealthy losers who can’t conceive of helping people and who instead have to show off how superwealthy they are? The community of people who would, if they could, engineer their cars to run on kitten kidneys simply because they can afford to do so?

It can’t be our community, I think, can it? It can’t possibly be a link to our community, the community of people who don’t collect cars because to us a car is a major purchase, one that will probably be the second- or third-most expensive thing we’ll buy in our life. So I click on it…

And it’s not! I wasn’t wrong. Jay isn’t thinking about our community — he’s linking to ways you can tell him he’s more awesome. You could, if you want, share a photo of your car. I thought about sending in a photo of “Bluey,” the car we let the kids drive. It’s a 1997 Ford Taurus with about 115,000 miles. It’s been in the shop twice this year. It has no hubcaps and the license plate is held on by screws we got from my toolbox. The power locks have stopped working but in our house, we only repair those car parts that are necessary to keep it running — which is why my Saturn Vue glove compartment is held closed by duct tape. I thought about sending in a picture of Bluey; I bet Jay has a car just like it.

In fact, I could even ask him. I could ask Jay a car-related question! and check back soon for his answers!

So I did; I submitted a question. Here’s what I asked Jay, verbatim:

Jay, how can you justify owning all of these cars and wasting all of this money when there are people in the world who have to scrimp and save simply to get bus fare so they can get to work each day? Don’t you think it would be better if you would donate all of these cars to a worthy charity, like the Rawhide Boys Ranch, which you can find at http://www.rawhide.org/? Sorry– that was actually two questions. But I’ll check back soon for your answer!

Let’s keep tabs on what Jay says, okay?

It’s hard to understand why Miley Cyrus needs a $75,000 car. It’s hard to understand why Jerry Seinfeld needs 20 pampered Porches. It’s hard to understand why Jay Leno needs God-only-knows how many cars. (According to the most recent report I found, it’s 80 cars, 80 motorcycles, and a fire truck — for “the kid in him,” Jay Leno jokes.)(And isn’t it great that Jay Leno has a funny little quip about how he owns a fire truck for the kid in him? Doesn’t that show how compassionate Jay Leno is?) It’s hard to understand why celebrities need these fleets of vehicles.

It’s not hard, though, to understand why the Rawhide Boys Ranch needs cars, though. The Rawhide Boys Ranch is a ranch in central Wisconsin that serves as a residential care facility for troubled boys. It’s been around for 40 years, and is supported by Bart Starr, among others. It gets in funds, in large part, through donations, and one of the donations suggested is cars and other motor vehicles; at the Ranch, they have the boys work on these cars and refurbish them, then the cars are sold to help provide funds for the Ranch.

The cars donated can be written off as a tax deduction, so in addition to getting a good feeling about helping others, you could actually save a little on your taxes by helping others. And only 16% of the funds Rawhide takes in are used for operating expenses; the remaining 84% goes to the programs.

Imagine, if you will, how well Rawhide could be doing if, say Miley Cyrus had bought just a $30,000 car, and donated $45,000 to Rawhide. Or if Jerry Seinfeld donated, say, 13 of his Pampered Porsches. Or if Jay Leno gave up all but seven of his classic cars and motorcycles. Would their lives be different in any meaningful way? Would they be suffering, driving a car that is only worth $30,000? Or having only one car per day of the week?

Imagine how much good could be done if Rawhide could sell off 153 cars and motorcycles, a fire truck, and 13 Porsches!

I guess we’ll never know, though. Nor should we care, I guess. I guess we shouldn’t care that there is a massive amount of money, money that could be helping people, instead being used to store cars in carpeted garages for childish billionaires (at least Miley has an excuse for being childish) who want us to laugh at them but who appear to be laughing at us. I guess we should care, because it’s their money, right?

The Fix: There should be a tax credit for charitable donations, a credit that increases inversely compared to your income. That is, if you earn less than $100,000 gross income per year, charitable donations should earn you a $3 income tax credit for each $1 you donate. At $100,001-$500,000, it should be 2-1. From $500,000-$1,000,000, it should be 1-1, and then dropping correspondingly above that to a low of 1-4. At the same time, the marginal income tax rate should be increased to a high of at least 50%; estate taxes should be significantly increased, as well; estate taxes could be offset by a 2-1 credit for charitable contributions that the contributor chooses to make and defer — that is, Jay Leno could make a $100,000 charitable contribution now, but opt to defer it to use it as a 2-1 credit against estate taxes instead of taking a reduced credit now.

What you can do until it’s fixed: Refuse to buy any product created by or endorsed by a celebrity who spends money foolishly. You’ll save a lot. And donate money or goods to the Rawhide Ranch for Boys; click this link to find out how.

The Trouble With Roy firmly believes that no adult should be allowed to earn more than $200,000 per year, that health care is a basic right that should not be denied anyone, that celebrities are grotesquely overpaid, and that America can do better.

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Then I Saw Her

September 13, 2008 at 1:34 pm · Filed under Uncategorized ·Tagged , , , ,

AfterDark is the home of excellent, serialized short horror stories. This excerpt from “Temporary Anne: Famished” appeared there first:
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It went on like that for I don’t know how long. I traveled, ever more slowly, and found people, people who reeked of good and people who were probably bound for Heaven, before they met me… and people who I then leapt upon, or grasped, or simply touched, and they were transported, with me, to Hell.

I watched as a little girl, barely six years old, jumped rope outside her house early one morning while her mother gardened in the backyard. I walked up to her, boldly up the path, the bones of my heels making grinding noises on the concrete of the walk she jumped on. I stepped through her hopscotch board and she looked up and saw me, and she screamed, but I was too quick, even in my weakness and hunger, and I grabbed her by her long, straight, honey-blonde hair and almost instantly we were in hell: I, holding her by her hair, she, still screaming and shrieking and starting to cry and holding her jump rope in her hands. She wailed louder as the heat and acid-feeling and torments of Hell began already, and she wailed loudest of all when tiny minions, tiny creatures that looked like inside-out bugs, landed on her and began digging out bits of her flesh, and I left her there.

I climbed up a flight of stairs to an apartment in the poor part of a city I had wandered to. The door was not locked and I let myself in to where an elderly man lay on his bed, with pneumonia. I had followed him from the doctors and then up the stairs. He wheezed and lay there, clutching a rosary and praying. He looked up at me and his eyes quailed; I wondered what he saw because in the reflection in the mirror near his bed I saw mostly tattered rags and bones held together by strips of flesh. He held up the rosary, and I took it from him and flung it out the window.

“No,” he gasped, and I heard the rattle in his lungs. He would have died in moments, died while saying the rosary and gone to Heaven. I poked my fingers into his eyes and as he howled Hell formed around us. 10 minions awaited us. I will not describe them all because my attention was focused on the one that was an amorphous, gelatinous mass that burbled and shifted and enveloped him so that the suffocation he had only glimpsed as a sick, elderly man became his first experience in Hell.

The years dragged on and on and I grew more and more tired. I lost track of how many people I brought to Hell with me. I lost track of the minions I saw there, waiting to take my prizes away. I never again saw Mephistopheles, no matter how much I desired to… or how much I feared to.

I was hungry.

I was famished.

Mephistopheles’ torment for me was too perfect. I could not eat. I could not feed. I no longer needed to avoid him — but I still needed energy and I still needed sustenance and I still missed the glorious feeling of hot blood in my throat, the chewy stringiness of muscle and tendon, the way an eyeball pops when I bite into it. I missed gnawing the bones of the ribs, pulling a warm heart out and sucking the blood from it before crushing it in my hands.

I was existing solely on malice and fear, and I was starving.

Then, I found her.

And I became more hungry than ever.

click here to read “Temporary Anne: Famished” From the beginning

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