A Mule In Red Petticoats Is Still A Mule

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And dressing it up in them in the first place is a BAD idea. Just as bad as the idea that PBS is now floating, according to a New York Times newspaper article I read in Friday's Omaha World-Herald, which also reported that the idea was broached last week to PBS member stations.

It's bad enough that (1) the "sponsor blocks" at the beginning and end of each program are looking ever more like broadcast TV ads [and indeed, some of them actually ARE those ads--Ed.]; (2) those "sponsor blocks" are taking up ever more time out of each hour's programming; (3) we have to endure pledge drives that used to run once a year, then twice, and now seemingly every other month. What's worse is that the smooth narrative flow of PBS programs would be hopelessly compromised, thus making PBS indistinguishable from any other network's programming.

Maybe this is an April Fool's Day joke by a procrastinator, though I doubt that. Maybe this is an idea the PBS executives are floating to scare member stations and members into giving more money as a result of the renewed vigor of the Republican Party's push to defund PBS. A more plausible notion, but rather more Machiavellian than I'd hope PBS executives are. Maybe we really ARE at the "end of days" and this is one more sign that the apocalypse is nigh. No . . . that's too paranoid, even for me. Most likely, however, it's the GOP's recognition that what cannot be done directly can be done indirectly. If the GOP cannot neuter PBS by defunding it, it can neuter PBS by making its programming indistinguishable from everyone else's, and further inure us to having microscopically short attention spans, to boot.

Whatever else it may be, however, it is definitely one thing: it's a BAD idea. So much so that, in a beautifully ironic twist, it ought to be the subject of a Geico automobile insurance commercial.

If PBS is going to make me watch sponsors' ads in the middle of PBS programming, I will stop watching and stop contributing to PBS. I'll just wait till PBS sells the programs to cable networks like the Discovery Channel, and watch them there. I can put up with pledge drives. I can put up with commercials. I will NOT put up with both during the same program.

Welcome to the Corporate States of America

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The Los Angeles school district, one of the largest and (overall) most cash-strapped in the country, has approved a proposal to allow corporate names to be posted on school buildings, school district vehicles, and other places, possibly including sports fields. Nothing is to be allowed in classrooms, and companies are to be thoroughly vetted so that no age-inappropriate or other unseemly (e.g., alcohol and junk food manufacturers) companies will be approved for participation. The school district spokesperson said that this still would not end the district's financial woes, but it would make it possible to "avoid further cut-backs in services and programs." Nor is Los Angeles alone in this; Milwaukee's school district started a similar program in 2009.

I'm not the only one who sees what's wrong with this picture. At least one of the parents of a Los Angeles school district fourth-grader noted on NPR's "Morning Edition" today that "there's no such thing as free." There will be a quid pro quo.

What is wrong with Americans? We apparently have become so indoctrinated by corporate and right-wing double-talk that we think it's safer to have businesses, each of which has its own agenda, run our school systems than it is to make sure the government has the funds to do what it needs to fulfill one of its most basic missions, to provide high-quality, free, public education to our youth. The right-wing has succeeded in making "taxes" such a dirty word that we have forgotten Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes's profound observation that "[t]axes are the price we pay for civilization."

Yes, government can take our money and spend it in ways we do not like--but WE are the government in this country. We have the power to change what we do not like. Besides, government in this country has systems in place to appeal abuses of the system. If a corporation treats you unfairly and there is no law [read that "government"--Ed.] which provides you access to redress, you are SOL.

I absolutely do NOT understand how so many Americans can mistrust their own government so much that they prefer to turn control over much of their lives to businesses whose sole purpose for existing is to maximize their own bottom line--even if that be at the expense of the rest of us.

But at the rate we are abdicating our duty to each other to make sure we have the best government on Earth, it won't be long before our kids begin each school day pledging their allegiance to "The Corporate States of America."

How Much Is 2+2? How Much Do You Want It To Be?

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Some days I wake up grumpy . . . and some days, I let him sleep. No, no. Seriously, some days I wake up grumpy, and it usually has something to do with what's on the radio news as I am coming to in the wee hours. This morning, I am beyond grumpy. I am positively curmudgeonly.

NPR's "Weekend Edition Sunday" aired an interview this morning with Fank Newport of Gallup Polls, discussing public reaction to the passage of the health care reform bill. The general tenor of the discussion was that once the bill passed, a plurality of the public indicated support for the bill according to Gallup's own poll from last Monday. Mr. Newport added that even other polls which showed more people didn't like the bill than did like it constituted not "a vast majority of the American people," contrary to GOP talking points, but only a bare plurality of about 3 points [which, I note, statistically is within the margin of error--Ed.].

I have no quarrel with that. I do have a quarrel with the way all the polls discussed seem to have been formatted. If I understand the recap correctly, the polling was to learn the level of support for the bill. But it seems that what was asked was along the lines of "do you support the legislation, yes or no." That is no way to determine support for the bill. The only thing it indicates with any reliability is whether someone supports what s/he thinks the bill entails, and due to the months and months and months of negative spin spewed out by right-wing talking heads, what people think the bill entails and what the bill actually does are two very, very different things.

The only legitimate way to measure public support for the bill is to ask a series of questions about each key provision of the bill, to wit: do you support or oppose ending the ability of health insurers to deny coverage for "pre-existing conditions"? Do you support or oppose ending the ability of health insurers to drop your coverage if you get sick? Do you support or oppose allowing families to carry their adult children on their parents' policies until those children reach the age of 26? Do you support or oppose eliminating the so-called "doughnut hole" in Medicare's Part D prescription drug coverage? Do you support or oppose reducing the federal budget deficit by billions of dollars over the course of the next 10 years, as the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office has determined this bill will do?

I could go on, but I'll spare you. I will say that I am aware that the way I've phrased some of the questions I listed may not be "value-neutral." But I do not claim to be a pollster. I do think a pollster worth his or her salt could frame the questions in a valid value-neutral way. My point is not about the framing of specific questions in any event. My point is about the way to get the most accurate snapshot possible of the public's true opinions about the legislation, by asking questions about each of its provisions as opposed to asking a meaningless question about the bill as a whole.

Heck, even the overly broad question about the bill as a whole would be instructive IF there had been follow-up questions to determine what people actually think is in the bill in the first place. Without those follow-ups, the poll as it stands is meaningless. Anyone can take its results and twist them into whatever shape suits one's purposes, just as the CPA in the classic joke said "What do you want it to be?" when he was asked "What's two plus two?"

Mark Twain was right: there are three kinds of lies. Lies, damned lies, and statistics.

Quick And Cogent Observations

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Observation the first: the governors of the fifty states have been meeting this weekend. Liberal or conservative, Democrat or Republican, they all seem to oppose the "intrusion" of the federal government into their lives and statehouses. I am not unsympathetic; I don't have a great deal of love or respect for unfunded federal mandates, myself.

However, I must take issue with the governors' assertion that the states are 50 laboratories which can each do experiments and find solutions for their own pressing problems. (What works best for West Virginia may not work best for Utah, as it were.) True enough, and tailored clothes always fit better than off-the-rack ones. But when it comes to issues like the problems with our current healthcare system, implementing 50 solutions is like shooting 50 BBs at a rampaging grizzly bear. Ain't gonna stop him--only gonna make him madder.

National problems require national solutions. In the case of healthcare reform, BBs won't work. Only high-powered rifle bullets will have any lasting effect. Besides, just because one is buying one's clothes off the rack, it doesn't mean that they don't fit or suit [pun intended--Ed.] their intended purpose. It just means one is wearing a brand-name and not a designer original.

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Observation the second: two weeks ago, an associate professor of politics at the University of Virginia, one Gerard Alexander, wrote an op-ed piece for the Washington Post wherein he decried the condescending attitude of liberals toward conservatives. As a female who follows certain sports diligently, I have been on the receiving end of condescension, and I agree, it's no way to behave. However, Prof. Alexander failed mightily to prove his point. He kept saying that conservatives have good ideas, but he didn't spell out any of them. Thus one must look to what other conservatives are saying to determine whether Alexander's point is well-taken, and in light of the healthcare reform debate alone, the paucity of Alexander's complaint becomes glaringly clear.

So far, the conservatives' "good ideas" consist of "death panels" (a/k/a "killing Grandma"), "socialized medicine," and "higher costs to you, the consumer." The size of the cost is a legitimate concern, but what the conservatives spouting that bit of "wisdom" fail to address is just how much higher the costs of doing nothing will be than will be the costs of doing something. "Death panels" and "socialized medicine" repeatedly have been shown to be outright lies. "Death panels" are what we have NOW, when corporations whose profits depend on denying coverage decide what level of care policyholders will get; "socialized medicine" is impossible under the current plan being debated, seeing as how it is a public "option." Nor does providing the public option put us inevitably on the road to socialized medicine. One would think that our over 40 years' experience with Medicare adequately demonstrates that.

One of the first things that law students learn is this hierarchy of argument: when you have the facts on your side, argue the facts. After all, facts are the strongest possible support for your case. When you don't have the facts, argue the law. Laws already on the books frequently bolster an argument that is unsupported by the facts, so it's the second-best line of attack. Only as a last resort should you make blatant emotional appeals, because resorting to the same demonstrates that you have neither the facts NOR the law on your side . . . and thus is an indication that you have no case.

Yet the conservatives in this country present their "ideas" in terms of distortions and even outright lies, as the second paragraph of this essay-in-miniature demonstrates. Their tactic of first--not last, but first--resort is to incite fear and anger. That's a blatant emotional appeal, which by its very existence proves that conservatives have no case (except their own greedy self-interest). It is hard not to be condescending toward that.

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Observation the third: I am beyond being sick unto death of conservatives claiming that only they love and revere the US Constitution, as the editor of The National Review [whose name escapes me at the moment. My apologies.--Ed.] claimed during the NPR broadcast of All Things Considered which aired locally last night (starting at 4 p.m. CST). I love and revere the Constitution just as much if not more than any of them. I daresay I know it better, too, having taught college-level courses on the history of same and having studied it as one of my fields of particular interest all my adult life.

What conservatives revere is their own interpretation of the Constitution, which is designed to protect and defend their own advantages, too often at the expense of the vast majority (by sheer numbers) of us in this country. Anyone who wants to pooh-pooh that idea must first consider this: if there were only one way to interpret the Constitution, we wouldn't NEED the Supreme Court at all, because there'd never be any disagreements about what the Constitution means and thus how it applies in any given situation.

And don't even get me started on "original intent." I've covered that ground before in this blog, in great depth and detail, so I will not bore you by repeating myself--at least not beyond saying that just because Shakespeare didn't know of, use, or even invent the term "psychological drama," it doesn't mean that he didn't write any.

As The Stomach Churns

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I have had a lot to say about a lot of subjects, but the real world has kept me from being able to take the time to say it . . . at least, so far this year. But I do have to make a few quick observations about subjects I'd normally like to cover in depth.

(1) I don't know why everyone is reporting with such sturm und drang about how terrible it is that the Democratic Party has lost its "60-vote, filibuster-proof" majority in the US Senate. If the current debacle surrounding the proposed health care legislation has shown us anything, it has shown us that while the Democrats may have had 60 votes in name, they NEVER had them in actual fact. So get over it, already! A change that makes no difference is really no change at all.

(2) Let's hope the Democrats learn the correct lesson from this, however, and start acting like Democrats again, instead of trying to be the GOP-lite. The minority Republicans who have been crowing that the results of the Massachusetts special election Tuesday show that the country wants the Democrats to practice "more inclusive" politics are full of W%R^&%^**&&^$%. The real Democrats, the true progressives in the party, according to all the post-election polls I've seen, largely stayed home. They want Democrats to be Democrats, not start from the center and move right to try to accommodate a minority that thinks it's still the majority.

(3) Nonetheless, I am not surprised by Martha Coakley's loss in that Massachusetts special election to fill the seat formerly occupied by the late US Senator Ted Kennedy. Rule Number One in politics is: NEVER take anything for granted. The Democrats, at both state and national levels, forgot that. Senator-elect Scott Brown did not. While I find him and his views on the issues of the day odious [let's just say that Keith Olbermann is right and leave it at that.--Ed.], I have to give Brown credit for his political savvy. So far.

(4) My disappointment in former US Senator (and erstwhile Vice Presidential nominee and Presidential candidate) John Edwards is now at 100%. I heard on the news this morning that he finally 'fessed up to being the father of the child that his videographer had in 2008. Way too late and several billion dollars too short, sir. You had an eloquent, effective, and persuasive voice on the twin issues of health care reform and poverty in this nation, and you squandered all of it for the sake of your ego and what you couldn't keep in your own pants. Now that voice has been silenced, and the good you could have done, especially in the wake of Ted Kennedy's death, is squelched. Not to mention the fact that your newly-acknowledged daughter is going to have to grow up knowing her own father denied her for the first two years of her life. Way to go, Daddy-o, she said, sarcasm spewing from her lips.

(5) I'm all for Rush Limbaugh continuing to rant his rabies-froth-tinged rants against all relief efforts to Haiti and against the Haitian people. Maybe he's finally stepped over a line even the tea-baggers and ditto-heads won't cross, and made his racism and selfishness and inhumanity so blatant that even those idiots will no longer follow him. So if his ravings on this subject finally break his apparent stranglehold on the GOP, all to the good. Anything that will contribute to a return to the politics of "we can agree to disagree, but we are going to work together to move the country forward" is a wonderful thing. This petulant, childish, and immature "if I can't have it 100% my own way, I'm picking up my ball and going home" approach to the nation's business must stop, before we find America relegated to irrelevance--or worse--by the rest of the world.

A-Courtin' We Will Go

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United States Supreme Court Justice David Souter has announced his retirement effective the end of the Court's current term. I will be sorry to see him go. He was not some closet flaming liberal, as many on the right of our political spectrum would have you believe. He was an academic, an intellectual, and his guide was the law, not the passions of men--or of women.

Though President Obama's nominee to replace Souter will not change the current philosophical unbalance of the Court's members, it will be an important signal for the future of the country. Souter was a George H.W. Bush appointee, but he never cast his vote based on politics or ideology. He voted based on his understanding of the law. His understanding, as his devotion to the idea of a "government of laws and not of men," was often profound.

Many names of potential nominees to replace Souter are already being bandied about by the pundits. Most of them seem to be of women who have extensive experience in our legal system, be it as practicing attorneys or as academicians (there's at least one law school dean's name in circulation, I believe).

I am hoping against hope that Obama does not do the expedient thing and nominate someone whose nomination can be confirmed relatively easily. I hope he also doesn't pick his nominee from the ranks of people already holding judgeships. The vast majority of judges at all levels of our legal system started their careers as trial attorneys. Trial attorneys make excellent TRIAL court judges. Their knowledge of procedural rules and the rules of evidence and of what being "in the system" does to people stands them in good stead--on the TRIAL bench.

However, being a judge or justice at the appellate level requires different skills. The Constitution does not require any particular career background of Supreme Court justices--indeed, the Constitution doesn't even require them to be lawyers. I hope Obama nominates someone who has great depth of experience and education in widely diverse areas of life; someone who emphasizes how to think, not what to think; someone who is less likely to get hung up on the niceties of procedure and more likely to uphold not just the technical letter of our laws, but the animating spirit behind them.

Given his already-expressed desire to find a nominee who has compassion and empathy, I think the president is off to an excellent start.

Footnote: for all you idiots out there who scream about how judges should not make law, here's a news flash. ALL judges make law. It's inherent in the nature of the job. If judges didn't make law, we wouldn't need a judicial branch of government in the first place. You only dislike judges making law when the results go against your vested interests. But just because they are your vested interests doesn't mean they are correct, or in line with what all our most fundamental documents say America should be. So get over yourselves, shut up for once, and get out of the way. Until you can offer truly constructive, thought-out and on-point criticisms, all you're doing is poisoning the atmosphere. I, for one, am sick of you.

Call The Grammar Police!

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(and with apologies to Monty Python for the oblique reference to the Church Police sketch)

A European product called Bio-Oil is being marketed on American TV ads during weekday soap operas. It allegedly reduces the obviousness of scars, stretch marks, and uneven skin tones, which is a most useful product innovation, indeed. [If it works as advertised, of course.--Ed.]

Normally, I'd be willing to cut non-native speakers of English a little slack when they make grammatical errors. English as a language is positively fiendish and difficult to master, even for native speakers. However, in this case, I don't feel quite so generous.

The error? An incorrect preposition: a woman in the commercial says she is "embarrassed with" her stretch marks. One can be "embarrassed by." One can be "embarrassed about." One can even be "embarrassed for." One cannot, however, be "embarrassed with." Not properly, that is. I'll be among the first to admit that prepositions in English are especially tricky. Most of them grew organically, before people got the bright idea to make language make sense; thus, prepositions are hard to explain in nice, neat, comprehensive-but-simple rules. The vast majority of them are idiomatic. [Hey--I said idiomatic, not idiotic.--Ed.]

So why am I reluctant to be kind? The woman doing the speaking doesn't sound like a non-native speaker of English. She sounds 100% American. If the company marketing Bio-Oil could go to all the trouble of finding an American to read its advertising copy, it could have found someone capable of editing that copy correctly.

The underlying reason I'm cranky about this is that every day, I see more examples of people misusing prepositions, which makes what they are trying to say incomprehensible--and which furthermore makes it nearly impossible to teach our impressionable, TV-guzzling youth to do, say, or speak any better.

T.S. Eliot was correct when he wrote "This is the way the world will end, not with a bang but a whimper." Alas for us, the whimper is going to be "But I didn't understand what you meant . . ."

Two Questions

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Question the First: When someone is testifying under oath, the attorney doing the questioning normally tells that witness to let the attorney know if s/he doesn't understand a question, so that the attorney can rephrase it. So what happens later when it's clear to everyone in the room except the witness that the witness is so utterly clueless about the meaning of the question the attorney just asked that the witness doesn't even realize s/he doesn't get it--and thus is incapable of recognizing the need to ask that the question be rephrased?

Question the Second: What is it about ESPN's "This is Sportscenter" ads and the St. Louis Cardinals? The single funniest "This is Sportscenter" ad of all time is the one wherein Mark McGwire beats the crap out of a computer (with a baseball bat, of course) after ESPN's Y2K test goes very, very wrong. But the one airing now, featuring Albert Pujols, is a close second. Two Sportscenter anchors are teasing Albert about being "The Machine" while Albert is making photocopies. As seen from Albert's perspective, his mechanical brain is evaluating what they are saying and deciding NOT to eliminate them while he verbally is denying being a machine. After the anchors leave the room, the photocopier asks Albert why he didn't eliminate them, and Albert tells the photocopier to shut up. Hilarious!

It's been a slow week. Either that, or I am so out-of-sorts from watching the current crop of local and national political shenanigans that I want to avoid serious subjects. At least for a while.

Two Little Words--Thrice

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Whatever happened to "you're welcome" as the proper response to "thank you"? On the now rare occasions when I hear it, I nearly jump with surprise and joy. I am sick of hearing "Thank YOU" as a response to "thank you." It sounds like a Gaston and Alphonse routine: an ever-downward spiraling do-loop of "After you," "No, after YOU," "Please, I insist: after YOU" . . .

Yet another example of how we Baby Boomers collectively have failed our children and our children's children by not teaching them proper manners.

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Call the Grammar Police, Part II. The next time I hear or see someone using the words "from whence," I am going to scream, pull out my hair, and run around frothing at the mouth. (Not really, but it's a definitive image of the intensity of my feelings about this bit of grammatical atrociousness, don't you think?)

Since "whence" literally means "from where," to say "from whence" is to say "from from where," which is--unless one stutters [and possibly even then--Ed.]--redundant. "Whence" all by its little lonesome is enough, people! Where's a decent copy editor when you need one, anyway?

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And now, the question originally prompting my title for this post. I have listened to and read the reporting about the AIG bonuses and resulting outrage with a mixture of resignation and astonishment.

Resignation, because at some deep level I know the "geniuses" [think "Wile E. Coyote"--Ed.] in the financial industry who took the bonuses under AIG's circumstances, along with the idiots who defend them [again, think "Wile E. Coyote"--Ed.], honestly believe that they deserved those payments and that they did nothing wrong, so they have no reason to give the money back. We talk about people "inside the Beltway" in Washington DC as being out-of-touch, but the Wall Streeters and their publicity toadies are just as much in their own little worlds, divorced from any sense of reality.

Astonishment, because two words fundamental to ANY such discussions and reports and analyses have been entirely absent from the playing field. Those two little words? "Fiduciary duty." This one is axiomatic. It's a "taught in the very first day of law or business school" principle. Anyone who takes responsibility for handling someone else's money kas the fiduciary duty to care for it with more diligence than that person would with even his own funds.

The reckless trading behavior of those in AIG's derivatives division didn't just breach their fiduciary duty to AIG's investors--they demolished it. Therefore, they breached their contracts first; thus, requiring them to forego their bonuses would not breach any contracts; therefore, they should not have received the money; thus, the taxpayers should have no trouble getting it--all of it--back.

Why is no one talking about "fiduciary duty"? Or has that, too, like responding to "thank you" with "you're welcome," gone completely out of style?

I Want Answers, Mister!

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If Bernie Madoff were really as sorry as he claims to be for bilking thousands of people out of billions of dollars, wouldn't he be doing everything he could to provide restitution to his victims, instead of what he is doing, which is not saying a word about where all the money went?

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If we really do believe in "government of the people, by the people, and for the people," why are all politicians who pay attention to polls automatically considered to be bad, evil, craven, or otherwise unprincipled?

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Does anyone out there know where I left my keys?

W W J(osiah) D?

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And an Unhappy New Year to you, too. I just read an AP report that says Waterford Wedgwood UK has filed for bankruptcy. I am in mourning at this news, but not really in shock. For, you see, when I worked for Wedgwood some 17 years ago [it can't really have been that long, can it?--Ed], I saw it coming. Yes, way back then.

Sit back and get comfy, and I'll tell you the story. Waterford purchased a controlling interest in Wedgwood in 1986, which was implemented at the retail level in 1990. Talk about Jonah swallowing the whale! At the time, Wedgwood was the much bigger company of the two, any way you compared them: total assets, market share, physical size, worldwide presence, you name it. But the deed was done, and Jonah's had indigestion ever since.

Unfortunately for all of us who love the high quality and tradition of fine things made in the British Isles, the ownership of the combined company put ex-auto company executives in charge of restoring profitability. Their solution was to lower labor costs. [Where have I heard THAT before?--Ed.] How did they do that? They fired all the most experienced master cutters and craftsmen and women.

I was not the only American working for Wedgwood in Europe who screamed bloody murder at this, but I probably was the loudest. Every one of us who worked in the Army and Air Force Exchange Services Wedgwood concession shops (located on bases in West Germany, Belgium, Italy, and Greece) tried to explain to the "powers that be" that while Americans in particular love a bargain, they also have a keen appreciation for quality--and are willing to pay more so long as they perceive they are getting excellent (not just good) value for their money. Just as the Frugal Gourmet explained that the cheapest was not always the most frugal, and that quality entered into any calculation of "value," I tried to tell anyone in the hierarchy that Wedgwood's prices in and of themselves were not the problem with Wedgwood's declining sales.

As long as buyers perceived that the quality of their purchases was extremely high for the money they spent, they'd be willing to pay more and buy more. On the other hand, since Americans in particular live and die by the word "sale," I also noted that Wedgwood's sales might actually improve thusly: if prices were raised, then cut back a bit less than the increase, and the decrease was called a "sale," Americans would buy--happily. Repeatedly.

Well, no one in the hierarchy liked that. They were of a mind that the word "sale," in and of itself, "decreased the value of the brand." I was reasonably disgusted by this. People who do not understand to whom they are marketing are not going to have long-term success. And they didn't.

The problems increased in succeeding years. For as the manufacturing of both china and crystal was outsourced to less expensive labor markets (in places like Poland and Hungary), the buyers' perception of the quality of the merchandise went down. The prices, however, did not. I do not denigrate the craftspeople of Poland, Hungary, or anywhere else where WW UK outsourced labor. All those places have long and honorable crystal-cutting and china-making histories of their own. But they are not Wedgwood. They are not Waterford. The cachet of place cannot be underestimated in trying to sell fine china and crystal to buyers all over the world.

The upshot? Customers became increasingly unhappy with the quality of the merchandise they were being asked to buy. I cannot tell you how many emails and phone calls and in person conversations I've had with people who said they weren't going to buy any more Waterford unless it could be proved that what they were buying was MADE IN IRELAND. Ditto for Wedgwood and MADE IN ENGLAND.

Heck, I had that reaction myself. My biggest Wedgwood china set used to have the floral border motifs painted by hand. Every piece had three-dimensional texture; every piece matched; yet every piece was unique. However, it took me a long time to complete my set. The last few pieces I have were made after production had switched from hand-painting to applying lithographs--just a fancy word for "decals." You may or may not be able to see the difference, but I assure you: I can. And do. And I don't like it, not one bit. So I don't use those pieces except in dire emergencies. They don't look right. They don't look like, well, Wedgwood.

Worse, though production costs decreased greatly, the retail prices never did. So I feel as though I got ripped off merely because I wanted to complete my set. [It's moot now, anyway, as the pattern went entirely out of production about a year after I bought my last plate. And the prices on the secondary market, especially for the older, hand-painted pieces, are exorbitantly more than I can afford.--Ed.]

This is truly a sad day. Not only is the Waterford showroom in Waterford Town, Ireland, closed--which will have a ripple effect on the entire Irish economy, because tourism is what put Waterford Town on the travelers' agendas--Wedgwood itself may be sold off, piece by piece, if a reorganization plan cannot be implemented, or a buyer willing to keep running the company cannot be found.

I know how to fix it. I wonder whether Warren Buffett would loan me the $2-4 billion it would take to do so. Probably not. Damn.

As to WWJD ("What Would Josiah Do?")--well. Let me first note that in England, Josiah Wedgwood is regarded the way Thomas Edison is in the USA. He wasn't just a master potter and craftsman. He was a scientist, an inventor, and a shrewd businessman. He is largely responsible for the rise of the stable middle class, for he gave them things to buy with their new, Industrial-Revolutionarily-earned wages. He created AND satisfied increased aspirations. He's probably doing at least 78 RPM in his grave right now. If he were here, I daresay he'd be taking off his wooden leg and beating the lunkheads who so richly deserve it for running such a fine and storied company into the ground.

"Higher" Education?

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I heard something on NPR yesterday that practically had me screaming at my radio. An otherwise bright and articulate college student urged President-Elect Obama to make "getting everyone who wants one a college education" the number one priority of his administration.

Now, anyone who knows me knows that I swear by the value of education. But this is ridiculous! The USA and the world have other issues that must be tended to first, as a purely practical matter--little things like the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the economic meltdown at home and abroad, and global climate change, just to name a few.

What really fried me about what this college student said is that his family was having trouble (due to the economic meltdown) putting him and his two siblings through college--all in Ivy League schools, no less. He thereby proved my point about Obama's need to address the economic meltdown first, by the way.

Beyond the internal contradiction of the student's statements, however, I was [for lack of a better term--Ed.] totally POed by his attitude. Why the hell should his parents have to pay for his and his siblings' college educations anyway? Why do he and his siblings have to attend Ivy League schools? The quality of one's education depends almost entirely on what one is willing to put into it, so why can't he and his siblings attend a less expensive state university instead? And hasn't he ever heard of [gasp!--Ed.] getting a JOB?

Maybe I am reactionary about this. I don't particularly care. I was the first child of any of the branches of my family in my generation to go to (and finish) college, and I practically paid my own way. I earned an scholarship that covered four years of tuition and fees so long as I kept my grades up, which I did [I was on the Dean's List every semester, and I graduated "with honors"--my school didn't use the Latin "cum laude"--too elitist, I suppose--Ed.]. I earned several small, one-semester stipends (a total of 8 times) that covered the cost of most of my books (I had a double major in history and in English lit, so my book-related expenses were substantially higher than average). I worked both during school and in the summers to cover my personal expenses. My agreement with my parents was that as long as I did those things, they would cover my room and board in the dorms and keep me on their car insurance (which was cheaper than my having my own policy at that age). So I covered the vast majority of my expenses myself. The total amount my parents spent for four years of room and board (and car insurance) came to about 3 semesters' worth of my tuition bills.

I thus finished four years of undergraduate education with absolutely NO student loan debt. When I went on to law school, I won another tuition and fees scholarship that lasted as long as my grades were good, and I also continued to work to cover many of my other expenses. I finally did have to take out my own student loans to cover apartment rent, groceries, gas, and the like. Still, I got my J.D. "with distinction" [a little more classy than the undergrad designation, but still not truly elitist Latin--Ed.}. Indeed, I was in the top 10 [not top 10%, top 10--Ed.] in my class. I therefore got seven years of post-high-school education at a total loan cost to me of only about $15,000.

True, that was 26 years ago. Everything is much more expensive now than it was then. The principles don't change, however. Anything someone earns is worth a helluva lot more than everything that is handed to him/her. So I have NO sympathy for these whiners who are distressed that their Ivy League rides are no longer free to them.

I remember the very first time I heard from a co-worker that she and her husband worked to put their 8 children (yes, they were Catholic) through college. I was shocked. She was still working at the age of 70-something to pay off all the loans they took out over the decades it took to get all their kids through college. I could not for the life of me see then why the kids couldn't pay off their own damn loans, and today I still can't.

I guess the child psychologist John Rosemond was right. Our total approach to parenthood has gone upside down. Not that the kids should be catering to the parents, but the parents for sure should NOT be catering to the kids, especially once they are of college age. How are they ever going to grow up for real if they aren't forced to cope with making some tough choices for themselves?

My Body Detests Daylight Savings Time

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As I have mentioned in previous posts, I am not, never have been, and never will be a morning person. If left to my own devices, my body would prefer to sleep until the mid-to-late afternoon, crank all night, and go to sleep in the wee hours (usually around 5 a.m.). Where I am in the world makes no difference. I've lived in Europe; I've lived in Southeast Asia; I've lived in all 4 times zones in the continental USA. In each and every place, I am a night owl when left to my own devices.

However, I have taught my body to adapt to the "normal," "9 to 5" world, if for no other reason than to function within it. Even so, there are some adjustments my body simply will not make--the most irritating of which is the adjustment to Daylight Savings Time. Bad enough that we have to have DST at all. Worse, that our powers that be have extended it to cover nearly 10 months of the year. If I have to live and function in the "9 to 5" world, my body insists that it at least coordinate with the changes of season throughout the year.

As of September 21, the first day of fall this year, my body went off DST. My sleeping patterns are now abiding by Central Standard Time, even though DST still has over a month more to run. This is messing seriously with my ability to adjust my routines to the demands of the clock. I am running an hour behind at all times. Changing time zones wouldn't help, either, as my body is merely complying with the signals of the rising and setting sun, no matter what the clock says.

The only good thing about Daylight Savings Time is going off it. I'm just not sure I can cope until the clock and the calendar revert to my circadian rhythms.

I Want To Eat Lunch, Not Play Golf

As I age, I find myself increasingly distressed by people (who should know better) who mispronounce words. This despite the fact that I'm not perfect. "Poinsettia" always gives me trouble. I was raised to say "Poinsett-a," and for a long time thought it was an acceptable regional variant. "Poinsett-i-a" is correct, but so many say it the other way that I feel like a pretender or a snob if I say it correctly. But saying it wrong (i.e., according to habit) doesn't feel right, either. So I tend to avoid saying it at all. When I must say it, I tend to slide a "y" sound in the middle: "Poinsett-ya." Not pretty; not elegant; but workable. I hope.

Anyway, the current Wendy's ad wherein an animated Wendy says she doesn't like "gray areas" in her chicken is bugging the heck out of me. She also says "sand-wedge" instead of "sand-wich." She may not want any gray areas in her chicken sandwich, but I sure don't want to clamp my teeth down on a golf club in the middle of mine!

I'm not sure why it irritates me so much. Maybe it's because I tend to equate pronunciation laziness with mental laziness. This is the same reason that when otherwise intelligent, educated people like Keith Olbermann say "li-berry" instead of "li-brary," I go through the roof. It's worse than fingernails scraping a blackboard. It's worse than having aluminum foil and a stainless steel fork tine hit a dental filling at the same time. It is supremely discomforting.

Which is not to say that I still won't make mistakes. But at least I know better than the sociology professor [yes, the professor--Ed.] who repeatedly in his lectures said "ep-i-tome" instead of "e-pit-o-me." Yes, it was Sociology 101, with well over 250 students in the lecture sessions, and yes, it was the fall of [gasp!--Ed] 1975, and yes, the professor obviously was well on the way to "emeritus" status . . . but still! I was 18, barely out of high school, and I knew better than a Ph.D. with several books published how to pronounce an important word. What really scares me however is that no one else seemed to notice. Either they didn't know the word or they didn't know any better, either.

Here's hoping college broadened their horizons.

If You Vote For McCain, You Deserve What You Get

Let me get this straight: Sen. John McCain, the presumptive GOP presidential nominee, says the government will never again fail Americans the way the the Bush administration did after Hurricane Katrina. He also says the government cannot help you, really. The entire point of his "It's Time for Action" tour thus seems to be "it's time for YOU to take action, because I'm not going to." Just more of the same crap that's been spewing from the White House for the past eight years. So where is this change he's claiming he's going to bring to Washington?

Oh, I get it--it's like "compassionate conservatism!" "We really do feel sorry for you while we're screwing you over, but since you brought your troubles on yourself, you have no one to blame but yourself, and it's not our job to help you."

He also says we need to have "a conversation" about whether to rebuild New Orleans' Lower Ninth Ward or tear it down . . . where has he been the last 3 years?!?

And then he says he doesn't remember saying that. (1) When you're 71 and running for President, "I don't remember" is NOT a good thing to be saying. (2) If he's saying that just because he doesn't want to admit what he did say, how does he think he can get away with it? Hasn't he heard of things like YouTube? And the nightly news? And Countdown?

I used to think McCain was the best of a bad bunch of candidates for the GOP nomination. Now I'm not so sure. I'll give him this: he knows how to say one thing but do another just as well as does Sen. Hillary Clinton. Furthermore, the press isn't challenging him on his crap any more than they have challenged Sen. Clinton on hers. We are in serious trouble here, people!

I propose we start a "Draft John Edwards" movement at the Democratic Party's National convention.

Irony Of Ironies

An audio tape has been released. It plays what her staff has confirmed is Hillary Clinton's voice attacking MoveOn.org during one of her fund-raisers, claiming it is almost solely responsible for how poorly she has shown in the various state caucuses this primary season. As you may know, MoveOn.org was started to support Pres. Bill Clinton when the GOP was impeaching him (its name at that time was CensureAndMoveOn.org).

So Hillary could play King Lear. "How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is to have a thankless child."

And John McCain today released HIS tax returns last for the last two years, but not his wife's . . . except for their mutual charitable contributions. Well, she does run her family's Budweiser distributorship, and is worth a high seven figures. I wonder if McCain thinks this makes plausible his attacking Barack Obama for being "elitist." It doesn't. We all know McCain comes from privilege and is wealthy in his own right.

I love politics and I love my country, but the tenor and course of this primary season is making me want to puke. Don't know how I'm going to last until November.

Will Shakespeare said it best: "A pox on both your houses!" And to think, I used to LIKE irony.

Tricks Of The Tirade

The single biggest trick of the tirade is the tirade itself. The second biggest trick is judicious use of irony. The third is rampant speculation. Fourth is the use of haughty contempt. I can illustrate all but the first with recent baseball events. The first, I can illustrate with a recent event, but it's in the current American pastime, political scandal.

First, regarding the DC Madame--how in the world can she say that she ran a "legal" sexual business but have no records of any customers' names? (All she has is telephone numbers. Hmmm . . .) As Graham Chapman would have said, "Stop that! That's silly!"

Second, regarding Alex Rodriguez's current wonderful stats at the same time the Yankees are playing crappy baseball--has anyone but me considered whether A-Rod has to play badly for the Yankees to do well? The moral of the story here is "Be careful what you ask for . . ." George Steinbrenner wanted the most expensive players to guarantee his Yankees even more World Series championships than they already have . . . but (1) just as there is no crying in baseball, there are no guarantees in baseball; (2) when A-Rod played (relatively) poorly, the Yankees won . . . it stands to reason that when A-Rod finally gets the hang of being a Yankee, the rest of the team goes south. Anybody out there remember Rowan and Martin's "Fickle Finger of Fate"?

Third, the reports are already coming out that St. Louis middle reliever Josh Hancock, who died in a one-car accident last Sunday, was seen drinking heavily late Saturday night . . . in the realm of rampant speculation, I suspect a lot more evidence is coming about his drinking habits, to the point of his being an all-too-young alcoholic. Frankly, I am surprised that the media have restrained themselves as much as they have regarding this possibility to date. That won't last much longer.

Fourth, in the realm of haughty contempt: how in the world could anyone for a moment take seriously (and report it as truth) the rumor (which turned out to be a joke) that Curt Shilling's infamous bloody sock from Boston's World Series winning season held just paint and not blood? I remember seeing the camera close-ups of the sock as the game progressed, and it was perfectly obvious that what was on that sock was blood. Geez, haven't any of these reporters ever looked at a Band-Aid of their own paper cuts? Journalistic standards have plummeted, judging from this debacle. Apparently the current standard is to be the first to report--and who cares if it's true, let alone take the time to verify? A pox on them all, I say!

Two other baseball notes for good measure: regarding the Cubs, who spent ridiculous amounts of money on the wrong players and the wrong new manager, and whose starting pitching staff is again on disability, plus ca change, plus le meme chose. They still stink. Why do I do this to myself every year?

On the other hand, it is nice to see Sammy Sosa back in the swing of things, literally, even if it is in a Texas Rangers uniform.

The World Is Getting Entirely Too "In Your Face" For Me

This has nothing to do with anything, but am I the only person in the world who is offended by both the title of the new fall show "Ugly Betty" and by the Dairy Queen commercial for its chili double cheeseburger that ends with the woman telling her male significant other to "pull my finger"?

Hardly anyone seems to grasp the concept anymore that subtlety has its uses, and that you actually can get more attention by being "low key" than by being "in your face."

Why else do you think women who are considered sexy tend to speak in a breathless whisper?

OK, I admit it. I tend to speak in a breathless whisper, but I am not sexy. I'm just out of breath.

Even some of my favorite programs are on occasion too intense for me. Whenever "Meerkat Manor" shows a dead/dying baby meerkat, I have to look away--and even then, I often cry. I am too soft-hearted for this world, I guess.

And Notre Dame just got its collective butt kicked by Michigan. No wonder I'm so upset!

How can it be the middle of September, with college semesters already into their fourth week, college football games of major importance already airing on TV, and the afternoon high temperatures still getting into the 80s? And as if that all weren't bad enough, some local businesses actually put signs up this week predicting that Nebraska would LOSE to USC tonight.

That is simply unheard of around here. I wonder whether anybody in Lincoln was so daring. Probably not, but one never knows . . .

Maybe it's not so much that I am too soft-hearted as it is that I am suffering a major disconnect from this strange conjunction of events.

I know I don't at all feel like putting up my Halloween decorations yet, and the stores are already cramming Christmas down our throats.

I heard the other day that Dubya says America is in its third Great Awakening of religious fervor. I know that he and Iran's President Ahmadinejad share the belief that the "End of Days" is coming . . . although I am quite sure their takes on its details differ radically from one another's.

If Nebraska manages to upset USC tonight, I just might have to agree with them that the End of Days is coming. Soon.

Gloriosky, Sandy! Arf!

Blame it on the dog days of summer. It's just too darned hot to think. Or more correctly, to think sensibly.

Ferinstance: I just saw a news headline about Fidel Castro saying, "He walks, he talks" and all I could think of was the old side show spiel: "He walks! He talks! He crawls on his belly like a reptile!"

It's even too hot to laugh, though the mental image of Fidel I got from that connection was certainly amusing. Snakes with beards. On a plane--or not. [Snakes. Why'd it have to be snakes?--Ed.]

* * * * * * * * * *

In a small act of personal political rebellion, I refused to watch the televised debate between US Senator Ben Nelson (D-Neb) and his challenger, Pete Ricketts (R-Exceedingly Rich Right Wing). It's too hot to put up with all that "sturm und drang." Or, as a wit I know translated into English, "storm and dreck." Besides, I can pretty much predict what happened, based on the ads both campaigns have been running lately. Much mud was flung, started by Ricketts. When Nelson responded in kind, Ricketts claimed "Ben started it!" and flung more of his own, all the while protesting his innocence. Any resemblance between this and the behavior of very small, very spoiled children should be remembered.

My favorite bit of misinformation, a/k/a mud, flung by Ricketts is his trying to color Ben as being a "Clinton-Kennedy" liberal Democrat. Boo! Are you scared yet?

Anyone who has spent more than a microsecond in Nebraska knows Ben is no such thing. Indeed, the main complaint around here about Ben comes from Nebraska Democrats: he is a DINO [in case anyone out there doesn't know, DINO means "Democrat in name only."--Ed.] Ricketts has nothing but contempt for the intelligence of the average Nebraska voter, however, as he seems to think that if he scares Nebraskans enough by making that accusation, he'll not only make it true, he'll win the election.

God, I hope not!

Actually, the Nebraska Democratic Party is supporting Ben by slinging the worst of the mud coming from that campaign . . . and technically, it isn't mud because it's true. Ricketts wants his million-dollar-plus home tax valuation reduced. The valuation went up recently, based on the purchase price Ricketts agreed to pay for the home. The tax is still less than what it would have been if the valuation had been based 100% on the actual sale price--it's somewhere in the range of 90% of the actual sale price, as required by state law, and which Douglas County has been overly lax in enforcing until recently. But Ricketts says it is still too high, and the home is worth much, much less. [OK, I'll bite: then why the heck did he pay so much for it?--Ed.]

To a degree, shouting about this has backfired: Ben has tried to get the tax valuations on his DC and Nebraska homes reduced, more than once, which Ricketts' campaign team has in turn advertised in the most lurid fashion possible.

But if Ricketts believes that he can sling mud and then claim that Ben is the one doing it, I hope the voters in November prove Ricketts wrong.

Besides, Ricketts keeps saying he's not a career politician, he's a business man, who will "work for conservative change in Washington. " First, as anyone who pays attention knows, everything in the US Senate is based on seniority. Even if Ricketts were to win (now THAT'S a scary thought), he wouldn't be able to do much of anything until he became the dreaded "career politician" he claims to be running against.

Second, would you really want to trust the public's funds to someone who can't negotiate a sensible price and who thus pays too much for his own home?

Third, some of Ricketts' actual ideas to promote "conservative change" are downright nasty. As Nelson's campaign has in turn publicized, one of Ricketts pet projects is to get a national sales tax passed and get rid of the IRS as we know it. That ad has been running for weeks with no response at all from Ricketts' campaign team. Maybe none of them have figured out that most of us see that a national sales tax is a BAD idea.

Where Ben got his "it will add 30% to the cost of everything you buy, including food" figure, I do not know. But I like that his campaign staff is pointing out that (1) even Ronald Reagan's chief economic advisor thought a national flat tax was a dumb idea, (2) the present mortgage payment and home mortgage interest payment tax deductions would disappear under such a scheme, and (3) that we average folks would pay a lot more in under such a system than we do now, while the super-rich like Ricketts would pay a lot less.

Don't let the right wing fool you with all its talk about how we shouldn't be promulgating an economic class war. They already been waging war on the true middle class. They just don't want you to notice. The most horribly short-sighted aspect of their stand is that no democracy can survive or even remain stable without a secure middle class. The way things are going under current Republican-driven policies, a few are getting super-rich, a lot are getting much poorer, and the middle is literally being squeezed out of existence. I wouldn't be surprised to see a shooting war come to this country once the middle is gone. It's already frightfully insecure.

To wit: Nebraska recently adopted a concealed weapons carry law. Here's my question about that: if you must carry a gun, what's the big deal about keeping it concealed? Why not just carry it in plain sight? If you say it deters criminals when they don't know whether you are packing heat, I say that if you carry openly, there's no room for doubt. So why all this push for "concealed carry"? I don't get it.

Anyway, don't let the rich right wing extremists fool you by their definition of what is "middle class," either. I hate to inform them of this, but anyone making a six-figure income is NOT middle class. Anyone with that much income is UPPER class, economically speaking, at least. [I make no representations as to those folks' class in aesthetic or humane terms.--Ed.]

By the way, the real reason Dubya wants to let illegal immigrants get some kind of work permits to validate their status in the US is that they will work for less than a US living wage. It's still more than they could make at home. They send most of it back to their homes of origin anyway. They thus are better off taking the risk of being illegal than they would be if they just stayed home in the first place. Dubya's business buddies like the idea of very cheap labor more than they care to help their fellow US citizens. It makes it easier for them to keep their profit margins up. [I can see it now: Economic Viagra!--Ed.]

So, the only way to stop illegal immigrants from flooding this country is to make it UNPROFITABLE for the businesses that employ them to continue doing so . . . and the only way to do that is to enact some whopping fines (like millions of dollars per hire)--and even more importantly, to enforce those same fines. But business owners don't want that. Once they find themselves making 50% profits, they can't seem to scale back to even 45% profits. They all bought into Wall Street's "Greed is Good" mantra.

That also demonstrates why those who say the free market is the "be all and end all" of everything are wrong. Not everything is--or should be-- a commodity. Were you as grossed out as I was about the news reports that women are selling their breast milk to companies who are reselling it at a profit?

The fact that these women were compelled economically to do it is bad enough. That companies can and do turn a profit on it is disgusting. But we can't have stem cell research, oh no! That would be wrong! [Sarcasm most definitely intended.--Ed.]

If you had any kind of unpleasant gut reaction to the breast milk sales story, you know that society is about more than a financial bottom line. If we are to reestablish our country as a civilized beacon of light for the rest of the world, we need to relearn that.

However, as long as people like Pete Ricketts think they can get away with scaring us by wearing Hillary Clinton or Ted Kennedy masks [I dread Halloween this year, I really do.--Ed.], we aren't going to make any progress on undoing the damage that's been done by those who worship the Almighty Dollar. Don't let them fool you with that "prayer of Jabez" crap, either. They all have forgotten what Jesus said about it being "easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than it is for a rich man to get into heaven." Someday, they'll be in for as much of a surprise as they think the fundamentalist Muslims suicide bombers and their sympathizers will be.

I hope.

Flash!

Herewith some updates and clarifications on the Bare Bottom Bandit story (and, yes, the pun in the title was intended).

First: he didn't catch his pants on the broken glass; he caught it on the security bars he squeezed through after he broke the glass.

Second: he didn't pull up his pants because he either knew or feared that a motion detector alarm would go off with that much activity on his part. That's also why he crawled on the floor, to stay "below the radar" as it were.

Third: the fact that the Tobacco Hut's advertising slogan for years has been "The Best Butts In Town" had absolutely nothing to do with it. Too bad.

Fourth: he was arrested Thursday, and in an interview on Friday with one of the local TV stations admitted he was drunk out of his mind at the time. He said he'd had an entire liter bottle of rum. He says he drinks like that frequently. He's 21 years old. This moves the story from the silly to the sad. The very, very sad.

Fifth: he will return the money he took. I am sure the judge will further order him to make restitution for the property damage he caused. The total for both is in the neighborhood of $1,000.00 according to the Tobacco Hut's owners.

Finally: Just don't smoke!