Economic Warfare

The financial news these days is largely disheartening, unless of course you are a journalist. It’s become my firm belief that the media lives for this kind of shit, to the point getting worked up into such fervor that a change of underwear is soon required. For my part, unless it’s at the point of breaking down my goddamned door, I prefer to push such matters to the darkest recesses of my brain. Call it foolishness if you like, but I find that I have more urgent things to burden my mind with.

But, as it so happens, the end result of such dire straits has begun to tap, tap, tap at my chamber door. As your average suburbanite slob (to quote Dennis Leary), I’ve become the game in the newest open season, preyed upon by companies desperate to preserve a shrinking bottom line. This kind of distinction pisses me off to such an extent that I am in dangerous risk of becoming reckless.

Here is an example: As a homeowner, it’s inevitable to wake up to a day when something is in desperate need of replacing. It’s also inevitable that that something is going to be expensive as hell. This has been the byline of the last year for me, starting with replacing my floors. A new washer/dryer, AC unit, and Television later, I now face the fact that several of my windows need replacing.

Yet, it’s become a necessity, and while I was less than thrilled about the prospect of spending yet more money, I agreed to it. We made a deposit with a (at the moment) unnamed company. From that point, the familiar fun and games of waiting to be contacted, wondering why we haven’t been contacted, and getting pissed about not being contacted began. When we finally did get a phone call, it was after the financial bomb, at which point both my patience and my comfort level with the entire prospect had expired. My inclination was to nix the entire idea and approach it later.

Now here is where things start getting nasty. We have been told by this company that we are under contract, and that the deposit we paid is non refundable. Bear in mind, nothing has been ordered, no work has begun. We have effectively paid for nothing, and been threatened with legal action if we insist on not letting them replace our windows.

I am pretty sure you can imagine my mood right about now…

This long diatribe serves to illustrate something that I am noticing more of the last couple of weeks. Companies have gone from wanting to serve their customers to doing everything in their power to eat them. They feel the pinch of economic tumult just as we do, only in different ways. As consumers, we feel a need to protect ourselves. Companies also feel a need to protect themselves, but by screwing us.

The media loves a crisis; it gives them something to write about. In the end, they only serve to perpetuate or prolong said crisis. The inherent greed of man (and by extension, companies) picks up on it this, and does whatever they can to grab as much cash as they can, regardless of who gets broken in the process. This carnivorous position only serves to irritate people like me, which can and will result in said company losing customers.

I don’t live or die by my reputation, not like companies who are in the service industry do. You can come after me if you want, but in the end, win or lose; you are going to seriously wonder whether or not it was worth it.


November 10, 2008 | Filed Under Rants - Leave a Comment  

Politics isnt War…

Or at least, it shouldn’t be…

Unfortunately, it’s impossible to reverse that statement and have it be true…

Surprisingly enough, I am paying VERY close attention to politics now that the election is over. Perhaps its curiosity, or possibly the result of several politically oriented conversations with a friend of mine. Regardless of the reason, I am interested to see if the rhetoric that is being tossed around about change and new directions will actually stick this time.

As a general rule I tend to not believe very much of what comes out of a politician’s mouth. Yet I am somehow inclined to give Obama and the Democrats a very tenuous benefit of the doubt. The first benchmark I have for whether or not I choose to believe them is what will wind up happening to Joe Lieberman. So far, everything I have heard has words like revenge and punishment in their statements. I have to say this is not an encouraging sign.

Apparently it doesn’t seem to matter that he chose to support the person he felt was the best candidate for the presidency, as is his right. It also doesn’t matter that he voted in line with his party on most of the issues. The fact that he made the taboo of supporting the enemy is what has many Democrats up in arms.

Politics should be about leaders making decisions based on how they (and by extension their constituents) feel about the issue in question. It should not be about manning the front lines of a battlefield, standing firm against the onslaught of an opposing army. For each individual politician, it should be about what they believe, not what their party believes.

It’s the same us vs. them mentality that destroys progress when it comes to politics. As a result, he will likely be punished in some form or fashion. Chances are he will lose his chairmanship of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, which is being described as the least that could happen.

This doesn’t feel like change, this feels like the same old brand of politics that we have come to know and despise from Washington.

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November 7, 2008 | Filed Under Politics - Leave a Comment  

A little fantasy in my reality, please…

I didn’t write this, it was written by Aaron Sorkin, reprising his creation of Jed Bartlett, President on the show The West Wing.  It was published on the NYTimes website.  However, given my earlier references to the show and the fact I enjoyed the following so much, I had to re-post it:

BARACK OBAMA knocks on the front door of a 300-year-old New Hampshire farmhouse while his Secret Service detail waits in the driveway. The door opens and OBAMA is standing face to face with former President JED BARTLET.

BARTLET Senator.

OBAMA Mr. President.

BARTLET You seem startled.

OBAMA I didn’t expect you to answer the door yourself.

BARTLET I didn’t expect you to be getting beat by John McCain and a Lancôme rep who thinks “The Flintstones” was based on a true story, so let’s call it even.

OBAMA Yes, sir.

BARTLET Come on in.

BARTLET leads OBAMA into his study.

BARTLET That was a hell of a convention.

OBAMA Thank you, I was proud of it.

BARTLET I meant the Republicans. The Us versus Them-a-thon. As a Democrat I was surprised to learn that I don’t like small towns, God, people with jobs or America. I’ve been a little out of touch but is there a mandate that the vice president be skilled at field dressing a moose —

OBAMA Look —

BARTLET — and selling Air Force Two on eBay?

OBAMA Joke all you want, Mr. President, but it worked.

BARTLET Imagine my surprise. What can I do for you, kid?

OBAMA I’m interested in your advice.

BARTLET I can’t give it to you.

OBAMA Why not?

BARTLET I’m supporting McCain.

OBAMA Why?

BARTLET He’s promised to eradicate evil and that was always on my “to do” list.

OBAMA O.K. —

BARTLET And he’s surrounded himself, I think, with the best possible team to get us out of an economic crisis. Why, Sarah Palin just said Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac had “gotten too big and too expensive to the taxpayers.” Can you spot the error in that statement?

OBAMA Yes, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac aren’t funded by taxpayers.

BARTLET Well, at least they are now. Kind of reminds you of the time Bush said that Social Security wasn’t a government program. He was only off by a little — Social Security is the largest government program.

OBAMA I appreciate your sense of humor, sir, but I really could use your advice.

BARTLET Well, it seems to me your problem is a lot like the problem I had twice.

OBAMA Which was?

BARTLET A huge number of Americans thought I thought I was superior to them.

OBAMA And?

BARTLET I was.

OBAMA I mean, how did you overcome that?

BARTLET I won’t lie to you, being fictional was a big advantage.

OBAMA What do you mean?

BARTLET I’m a fictional president. You’re dreaming right now, Senator.

OBAMA I’m asleep?

BARTLET Yes, and you’re losing a ton of white women.

OBAMA Yes, sir.

BARTLET I mean tons.

OBAMA I understand.

BARTLET I didn’t even think there were that many white women.

OBAMA I see the numbers, sir. What do they want from me?

BARTLET I’ve been married to a white woman for 40 years and I still don’t know what she wants from me.

OBAMA How did you do it?

BARTLET Well, I say I’m sorry a lot.

OBAMA I don’t mean your marriage, sir. I mean how did you get America on your side?

BARTLET There again, I didn’t have to be president of America, I just had to be president of the people who watched “The West Wing.”

OBAMA That would make it easier.

BARTLET You’d do very well on NBC. Thursday nights in the old “ER” time slot with “30 Rock” as your lead-in, you’d get seven, seven-five in the demo with a 20, 22 share — you’d be selling $450,000 minutes.

OBAMA What the hell does that mean?

BARTLET TV talk. I thought you’d be interested.

OBAMA I’m not. They pivoted off the argument that I was inexperienced to the criticism that I’m — wait for it — the Messiah, who, by the way, was a community organizer. When I speak I try to lead with inspiration and aptitude. How is that a liability?

BARTLET Because the idea of American exceptionalism doesn’t extend to Americans being exceptional. If you excelled academically and are able to casually use 690 SAT words then you might as well have the press shoot video of you giving the finger to the Statue of Liberty while the Dixie Chicks sing the University of the Taliban fight song. The people who want English to be the official language of the United States are uncomfortable with their leaders being fluent in it.

OBAMA You’re saying race doesn’t have anything to do with it?

BARTLET I wouldn’t go that far. Brains made me look arrogant but they make you look uppity. Plus, if you had a black daughter —

OBAMA I have two.

BARTLET — who was 17 and pregnant and unmarried and the father was a teenager hoping to launch a rap career with “Thug Life” inked across his chest, you’d come in fifth behind Bob Barr, Ralph Nader and a ficus.

OBAMA You’re not cheering me up.

BARTLET Is that what you came here for?

OBAMA No, but it wouldn’t kill you.

BARTLET Have you tried doing a two-hour special or a really good Christmas show?

OBAMA Sir —

BARTLET Hang on. Home run. Right here. Is there any chance you could get Michelle pregnant before the fall sweeps?

OBAMA The problem is we can’t appear angry. Bush called us the angry left. Did you see anyone in Denver who was angry?

BARTLET Well … let me think. …We went to war against the wrong country, Osama bin Laden just celebrated his seventh anniversary of not being caught either dead or alive, my family’s less safe than it was eight years ago, we’ve lost trillions of dollars, millions of jobs, thousands of lives and we lost an entire city due to bad weather. So, you know … I’m a little angry.

OBAMA What would you do?

BARTLET GET ANGRIER! Call them liars, because that’s what they are. Sarah Palin didn’t say “thanks but no thanks” to the Bridge to Nowhere. She just said “Thanks.” You were raised by a single mother on food stamps — where does a guy with eight houses who was legacied into Annapolis get off calling you an elitist? And by the way, if you do nothing else, take that word back. Elite is a good word, it means well above average. I’d ask them what their problem is with excellence. While you’re at it, I want the word “patriot” back. McCain can say that the transcendent issue of our time is the spread of Islamic fanaticism or he can choose a running mate who doesn’t know the Bush doctrine from the Monroe Doctrine, but he can’t do both at the same time and call it patriotic. They have to lie — the truth isn’t their friend right now. Get angry. Mock them mercilessly; they’ve earned it. McCain decried agents of intolerance, then chose a running mate who had to ask if she was allowed to ban books from a public library. It’s not bad enough she thinks the planet Earth was created in six days 6,000 years ago complete with a man, a woman and a talking snake, she wants schools to teach the rest of our kids to deny geology, anthropology, archaeology and common sense too? It’s not bad enough she’s forcing her own daughter into a loveless marriage to a teenage hood, she wants the rest of us to guide our daughters in that direction too? It’s not enough that a woman shouldn’t have the right to choose, it should be the law of the land that she has to carry and deliver her rapist’s baby too? I don’t know whether or not Governor Palin has the tenacity of a pit bull, but I know for sure she’s got the qualifications of one. And you’re worried about seeming angry? You could eat their lunch, make them cry and tell their mamas about it and God himself would call it restrained. There are times when you are simply required to be impolite. There are times when condescension is called for!

OBAMA Good to get that off your chest?

BARTLET Am I keeping you from something?

OBAMA Well, it’s not as if I didn’t know all of that and it took you like 20 minutes to say.

BARTLET I know, I have a problem, but admitting it is the first step.

OBAMA What’s the second step?

BARTLET I don’t care.

OBAMA So what about hope? Chuck it for outrage and put-downs?

BARTLET No. You’re elite, you can do both. Four weeks ago you had the best week of your campaign, followed — granted, inexplicably — by the worst week of your campaign. And you’re still in a statistical dead heat. You’re a 47-year-old black man with a foreign-sounding name who went to Harvard and thinks devotion to your country and lapel pins aren’t the same thing and you’re in a statistical tie with a war hero and a Cinemax heroine. To these aged eyes, Senator, that’s what progress looks like. You guys got four debates. Get out of my house and go back to work.

OBAMA Wait, what is it you always used to say? When you hit a bump on the show and your people were down and frustrated? You’d give them a pep talk and then you’d always end it with something. What was it …?

BARTLET “Break’s over.”

Yeah, we need a guy like Jed Bartlett….

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November 7, 2008 | Filed Under Politics - Leave a Comment  

How on earth did this happen?

California has long been considered a stronghold of liberal opinions.  How is it that something as blatantly ultra-conservative as this managed to make it through?

On May 15, the California Supreme Court ruled gay marriage legal, calling the ban discriminatory and unconstitutional. Same-sex couples were legally allowed to wed June 16. Some 18,000 gay and lesbian couples did by Tuesday, according to the Williams Institute on Sexual Orientation Law and Public Policy at the University of California, Los Angeles.

The “Yes on (Proposition) 8″ campaign — calling to recognize only heterosexual marriage — had raised $35 million and sent out some 100,000 volunteers to fan the state, said Chip White, co-campaign manager. “Momentum continues to be on our side as California recognizes the serious consequences if gay marriage remains legal,” White said.

The “No on 8″ side had raised some $38 million and had about 10,000 volunteers, Smith said.

Dueling rallies often involved shouting and arrests. Election night was no different in Alameda, across from San Francisco.

<name hidden> stood on the corner of Otis Drive and Park Street hoisting a sign approving the ban in the moments before the polls closed Tuesday. Across the street stood those approving same-sex marriage. “I have two kids and a beautiful wife at home, and I believe in a marriage that’s going to create happiness for the family,” said <hidden>, of Sacramento. “Only one man and one woman can make that happen, because the Bible said so.”

California approves gay marriage ban - USATODAY.com.

I don’t see any dire consequences in letting someone marry whoever they want.  In fact, I see dire consequences in letting them NOT.  For one, allowing what is essentially a discriminatory act be made law hearkens me back to my history books when such laws were common, but no less contrary to the spirit in which this country was formed.

The second problem I have with this has to do with the last statement of the above quote:  “Only one man and one woman can make that happen, because the Bible said so.”

Because the bible said so?  Well, lets see… *

- I want to sell my youngest daughter into slavery, as sanctioned in Exodus 21:7. What would a good price for her be?

- Lev. 25:44 states that I may indeed possess slaves, both male and female, provided they are purchased from neighboring nations. What’s a reasonable price for a Mexican? How about a Canadian? 

- When I burn a bull on the altar as a sacrifice, I know it creates a pleasing odor for the Lord (Lev.1:9). However, when my neighbors complain, should I smite them?

- Most of my male friends get their hair trimmed, including the hair around their temples, even though this is expressly forbidden by Lev.19:27. How should they die?

- According to Leviticus 11:10, eating shellfish is an abomination, but a lesser one than homosexuality. I don’t agree. Can anyone settle this?

- My wife occasionally insists on working on the Sabbath. Exodus 35:2 clearly says she should be put to death. Am I morally obligated to kill her myself? Or is it okay to call the police?

- Touching the skin of a dead pig makes one unclean. Leviticus 11:7. If they promise to wear gloves, can the Tennessee Titans still play football?

- Can I burn my mother in a small family gathering for wearing garments made from two different threads? Is it really necessary for me to get the WHOLE town together to stone my father for cursing or blaspheming? (Lev.24:10-16)

Uh huh… that’s what I thought…

The bible is not a sacred tome penned by the hand of the almighty.  It was written by men.  Small minded, fearful of everything, ignorant to a fault men.  Taking something like the bible so literally should be considered foolish.  Allowing it to be a basis for which law is created should be a crime in itself.

* points quoted from an episode of West Wing and a now famous letter to Dr. Laura…

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November 6, 2008 | Filed Under Politics, Rants - Leave a Comment  

Rush Hour Politics

If you have a steady job it’s become inescapable that you’ll find yourself spending countless hours fighting rush hour traffic. I consider it to be just part of the process, something that gets factored into the entire “having a steady job” experience. My patience for this particular status quo waxes and wanes depending on my current mood.

Occasionally I will get so frustrated with a particular traffic jam that I break with the norm and take a route I would not normally take. Even if I know the alternate route will add minutes to my drive and potentially take me to places I have never wanted to go, I do it anyway just for the illusion of progress. It’s as though the physical act of movement gives me the feeling of actually accomplishing something.

I pondered this concept this morning while (surprise, surprise) sitting in traffic. I realized that politics are comparable to this. Today the country is either reveling or mourning at having elected Barack Obama as our 44th president. A good number of people are happy with this result, believing this will lead to some real change. However, others are sitting in dark rooms, gnashing their teeth and placing bets on when said changes will cause the sky to hit the ground.

I don’t believe in the Republican Party’s brand of politics any more than I believe in the Democratic Party’s. I prefer to lean more towards sane government. Problems concerning small business owners, religion in schools, union worker rights and gay marriage should take a number and have a seat. When I look around, what I see are issues with health care, education, crime and poverty. If you put a politician in front of me that honestly wants to fix those issues, he can be a mouseketeer for all I give a damn.

The problem in the past has been the partisan pissing contest that never ends in Washington. It didn’t matter if the idea or proposal at hand was a good one, it would more than likely be land-mined by the opposing party. Typically the reason for this is that because it was the other guy’s (read: the enemy’s) idea. Meanwhile the common population grows confused, wondering why on earth the government is unable to get anything done. Both parties share in this particular guilt, yet somehow it’s the sitting President who gets judged based on these outcomes.

People wonder why I am disenchanted with our entire political process…

A few days ago I wrote a post indicating my belief that neither McCain nor Obama would be able to effect any real changes, and that neither one was strong enough to sit in the President’s chair. I am prepared to recant some of those statements based largely on the results of the Senate and Congressional races. Hopefully now that all three are controlled by the same political party, the chance of political gridlock has been reduced to the point of actually allowing the government to move again. While I am a believer in having one party act as a sort of restraint to the other, when taken to excessive levels there reaches a point of diminishing returns.

Partisanship that exists purely for the sake of beating the opposing party, regardless of the issue, is counter productive. While I won’t describe myself as a fan of Obama, this election’s outcome may represent the route taken to avoid the jam. It’s entirely possible that it will take us longer to get where we need to, but at least its movement.

Now, if Obama can do something about the traffic on I65 at 440, I’ll give the man a damn medal…

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November 5, 2008 | Filed Under Politics - Leave a Comment  

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