Questionable Responses

If you're connected with me on Facebook, you've already seen this rant, so you can stop reading now if you like. If not, read on.

As faithful readers of this blog know, I greatly enjoy writing (and receiving) letters, and over the years I have become an occasional pen pal with some of you. Letter-writing is a dying art, and I'm doing my part to keep it on life support ... now that I'm retired, I've resolved to write more letters to family and friends. And to my elected officials, which brings me to my point ...

In February of 2017, I wrote letters to both of my senators (Mark Warner and Tim Kaine) and my representative (Don Beyer) to express my frustration on the lack of rational attention to the problem of immigration reform, and enclosed with each a copy of my proposed Immigration Reform Plan (which I have also shared with you on this blog ... see here for the latest iteration). In due time, I received replies from all three individuals, all variations on "thank you for your interest in this important topic" and none of them mentioning anything about my proposal.

It's about what I expected, but was still disheartening.

Last month I wrote to the same three elected representatives again, expressing my concern over the Trump "national emergency" and urging that they and their colleagues demand the White House produce hard evidence to prove the existence of such an "emergency."

On March 7th, I received a reply from Senator Kaine. When I read it, it seemed familiar, and so I went back to my files and dug out the 2017 letter from the Senator. Lo and behold, it was virtually identical to the one I'd just received, differing only in some formatting and updated statistics.

I find myself a bit cranked over this.

Now, I understand that my elected reprehensives are busy people who don't have time to read every letter they receive ... they need to spend a lot of time raising money, after all, and so they have staffs who read correspondence from lowly constituents and draft replies to those deemed worthy of response. That's fine. I suspect that what happens is that only a representative few (if any) letters actually make it to the Big Desks; if anything, the staffs probably condense them down into PowerPoint charts or Excel spreadsheets showing broad areas of public interest to be accommodated or ignored as needed.

What irritated me was not that I had received such an obvious a form letter, but that:

a) it was virtually identical to the first, which dated from two years before; and - most importantly,

b) it had no relation at all to the topic I'd written to the Senator about. I hadn't written about immigration and immigration reform, but about the need to push back against questionable presidential actions. I have to wonder if anybody read my letter any further than to see whether it contained certain words that would permit it to be shoehorned into a particular subject bucket that would trigger Form Letter A7 or D4*.

And to date, I haven't heard anyone in Congress really demand evidence.

So ...

I still love to write letters, and I'll keep writing them to my family, my friends**, and my elected reprehensives, but I'll only expect to get meaningful replies from the first two ... unless I enclose money.

Have a good day. Write more letters ... they may be the only way you'll be remembered many years down the road.

More thoughts coming.

Bilbo

* Thanks to my old boss, mentor, and friend Hank for this expression.

** I'll write to you, too ... you just have to agree to write back.

Of Governments and Problems

One of the touchstones of conservative Republican dogma is summed up in the famous quote from Saint Ronald Reagan: “In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.”

Although the full quote, heard in context, was a response to the poor economic conditions of the late 1970's and early 1980's, and Reagan's belief that misguided government policies were responsible for those conditions, only part of his comment is remembered and has been adopted as dogma by the Cut Government/Eliminate Regulations/Slash Taxes Right:

"government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.”

I think the recent Petulant Trump Shutdown™ of parts of the federal government showed pretty clearly that the government, for good or ill, is an essential part of our lives, and that recklessly closing it down causes vast damage to the nation. Consider that the preamble to the Constitution - the document piously invoked by elected officials who seldom seem to have actually read and comprehended it - states that the Constitution was "ordained and established" to

"...establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty..."

So, how well did the Petulant Trump Shutdown™ align with the intent of the Constitution? Let's see ...

1. "Establish Justice." Federal courts nearly ran out of money. Guards in dangerous federal prisons were forced to work without pay*.  

2. "Insure domestic Tranquility." There was no tranquility for the families of furloughed federal workers, federal workers forced to work without pay, federal contractors (who, unlike federal workers, are unlikely to be paid after the standoff), and millions of business owners whose livelihood depends upon the business provided by government workers.

3. "Provide for the common defence." TSA workers, responsible for securing our air travel against criminal and terroristic threats, were forced to work without pay. Members of the Coast Guard - the men and women who rescue those in danger at sea, and our first line of defense against drugs imported by sea - were forced to work without pay. Border Patrol agents - who defend the Trump Sacred Borders against vast, surging armies of illegal immigrants, drug smugglers, and vicious gangs that drag helpless, duct-taped women across the border and into sex slavery** - were forced to work without pay. FBI agents - who protect us from organized crime, espionage, and terrorism and who are unfairly and stupidly maligned and undercut at every opportunity by Trump and his loyalists and enablers, were forced to work without pay.

4. "Promote the general Welfare." It would be difficult to argue that the "general welfare" was promoted by the Petulant Trump Shutdown™ that cost the nation an estimated $11 billion - of which an estimated $3 billion is irretrievably lost. 

5. "Secure the Blessings of Liberty." I think you'd be hard-pressed to find anything secured by the Petulant Trump Shutdown™ ... except the reputation of an administration stacked with billionaires as being out of touch with the experiences and needs of average Americans.

If the Petulant Trump Shutdown™ proved anything, it proved that government is an essential part of modern America, and that it needs to work and work well. I don't like paying taxes any more than anyone else, but I appreciate that the taxes I pay ensure my air travel is safe, that my food and medicine are wholesome and safe, and that criminals are pursued, arrested, and punished***.

If, in mid-February, we endure a second Petulant Trump Shutdown™, the lesson will be that the problem is not the government, but a childish and incompetent president and his enablers who all need to be replaced by people willing to rise to the challenge of actually governing. One can only hope that Congress ... which has hitherto shown a complete lack of spine ... will rise to the occasion and do its Constitutionally-mandated job.

But I'm not holding my breath, and neither should you.

Have a good day. Expect better. More thoughts coming.

Bilbo

* "Forced to work without pay" is what we used to call "slavery."

** Just ask Trump. And consider where he may have gotten the story.

*** Unless, of course, they are wealthy and well-connected and able to hire the very best lawyers.

For Whom the Toll Tolls, Revisited

You may recall that back on November 16th I wrote a post fulminating about the insane "dynamic" tolls imposed as a "traffic management" measure on Interstates 95, 395, and 495 here in Northern Virginia. That post featured a photo of the toll warning sign near my home showing a toll of $20.80 for a local trip of about 10 miles ...

Well, that was so last month.

On Monday of this week, Interstate 66 inside the DC beltway changed over to a toll road with dynamic tolls, and here's an interesting photo from the morning commute:

In case you're having trouble reading the sign, it shows a toll of $34.50 for a trip of about 10 miles on I-66. On Tuesday, the highest recorded toll on the stretch of road was nearly $40.00.

If you think this is actually a traffic management feature, let me make you an offer on a slightly-used bridge. 

The Virginia state government originally claimed the tolls would max out at $7 for the morning rush and $9 during the afternoon rush; however, after the huge tolls recorded on Monday and Tuesday, state transportation officials said those projections were based on an "average" trip, and not on trips taken at the heaviest of peak traffic times. 

Get used to being screwed like this in more and more areas as your government discovers it's running out of money because of ill-considered and unnecessary tax cuts and reliance on dogma rather than good sense and effective planning.

I'm surely glad I don't have a daily commute any more ... but I still end up getting stuck with these outrageous tolls occasionally.

Have a good day. Avoid driving on the Interstates in NoVa if you can ... if you can't, get that second mortgage approved before you set out.

Have a good day. More thoughts tomorrow, when we air our first collection of Great Moments in Editing and Signage for the month.

Bilbo

Why I Hate Yogurt

Well, I actually don't hate yogurt ... what I hate is shopping for yogurt.

Last Sunday I decided to make a recipe which required plain, whole-milk yogurt as an ingredient.

At my local store I discovered that - although there are acres of shelf space filled with yogurt - there's almost no such thing as plain, whole-milk yogurt.

There's non-fat, low-fat, 0%, 2%, and 4% yogurt.

There's yogurt with vanilla, blueberry, strawberry, peach, guava, and every combination thereof.

There's yogurt made from cow, sheep, and goat milk.

There's yogurt derived from almonds, soy milk, coconut milk, and other stuff.

There's Greek, Icelandic, and Australian yogurt.

There's drinkable yogurt (Kefir).

All flavored yogurts may be purchased in single-serving cups or in small packages of a pint or so, but if you want plain, old, whole-milk yogurt, it comes only in single-servings (very difficult to find), quarts, or 55-gallon drums.

I just needed a couple of spoonfuls of plain, whole-milk yogurt ... is that too much to ask?

Evidently, it is. And it's not good for my blood pressure, either, which is another issue entirely.

Have a good day. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

For Whom the Toll Tolls

The Northern Virginia (or NoVa) area where I live is famous for it's horrendous traffic. Every workday morning tens of thousands of cars snail their way from points as far south as Fredericksburg, as far west as West Virginia, as far north as Gettysburg, and as far east as Annapolis, inching their miserable way to commuters' jobs in Washington, DC and its close environs. In the evening, the process is reversed, with all those cars headed in the opposite direction, carrying their owners the long distances to the homes they can afford*. Oh, and let's not forget the noontime rush hour, too ... between 11 AM and 1 PM, there's often another highway mess as people try to run errands in their lunch breaks.

Many things have been done to try to address the traffic situation, and none of them have worked out very well ... we have a Metro rail system that is chronically underfunded, grossly overcrowded, and plagued with safety issues; buses that end up stuck in the same traffic as everybody else; and a small but expensive streetcar system that will probably never amount to anything.

And we have toll roads.

The toll roads are the successor to our "High-Occupancy Vehicle" (HOV) lanes; now they're called "High-Occupancy Toll" (HOT) lanes. This means that if you have the right number of people in your vehicle (at least two on one highway, and at least three on others), you can use the road for free; if you have the right transponder, however, you can use these lanes whenever they're open in the correct direction if you pay the toll.

There are, from my perspective, two problems with this arrangement.

First, the toll is variable, and depends on the prevailing traffic conditions. If traffic on the main highway is light, the toll is small; as the traffic density increases, the tolls go up sharply, supposedly to help manage the flow of traffic by keeping the number of cars on the express lanes down. At the place this photo was taken on Interstate 95, not far from my home, the toll to the Prince William Parkway exit - a distance of about ten miles - is $20.80. At less-congested times, it can be $2.00 or less. On one occasion this past year, I had to suck up a toll of $13.65 in order to get Agnes to a medical appointment on time in Tyson's Corner ... a distance of 18 miles. For purposes of comparison, the toll for the 86-mile distance we travel on the Pennsylvania Turnpike** when we go to Pittsburgh is $12.10.

Second, the toll roads were constructed and are operated under a public-private partnership with Australian company Transurban. This means that the private operator that built and operates the roads takes a hefty chunk of the toll income, as well as interest and fees charged on motorists who don't pay the tolls***. Such partnerships are becoming more common as cash-strapped municipalities look for new ways to finance transportation infrastructure maintenance and improvements, but it appears to me that the ability of a commercial firm to levy and collect tolls and impose fines and penalties is ripe for abuse^†.

But that's just me, and it pisses me off to spend outrageous amounts of money on tolls when most of it goes to a company in Australia.

Have a good day. Ask not for whom the toll tolls ... it tolls for thee^††.

See you tomorrow for the announcement of the Left Cheek Ass Clown for November. More thoughts then.

Bilbo

* Around here, a miserable commute is the trade you make for a home you can afford.

** Between Breezewood and New Stanton ... not a stretch of road I recommend if you can help it.

*** It's been the subject of lawsuits.

† Of course, in the business-friendly Trump Era, that's hardly a problem.

†† With apologies to John Donne.

Satire and Disaster

We are all appalled at the scale of the natural disaster unfolding in Texas as Hurricane/Tropical Storm/Hurricane Again Harvey pounds the area with rain measured in feet rather than inches. The human and economic cost of this tragedy are almost beyond comprehension.

Such disasters reveal the best and the worst in us. Many persons are heroically coming to the rescue of their neighbors, even as a few take advantage of the situation to engage in looting and price gouging. And such disasters also provide us the opportunity to shine a light on the idiocy of some of our politicians and political views.

Yesterday, I reposted this satirical line from Gin and Tacos on my Facebook page:

"AP: Libertarian Party sends emergency shipment of 1 million bootstraps to Texas disaster areas."

To me, this was a classic, hilarious sendup of a political philosophy that has no place for compassion and sees no legitimate role for government - particularly the federal government - in disaster relief and mitigation. But not everyone saw it that way.

My friend Jeff, a proud and outspoken Texan (is there any other kind?), reacted with great anger. His comment on my Facebook post led off with an upraised middle finger emoji, and went on to say:

"Friends of mine lost their homes. Laugh it up and fuck off. Not a joke, Bill. Not a funny topic. Politics before everything I guess. Not with me along for the ride. You might reexamine your priorities, but that's your call. Bye."

Well, I guess I hit that nerve squarely.

Here's how I responded to Jeff's comment:

"You are right, Jeff. It's not a funny topic. I have friends in Houston that I care about as well. But whether you wish it or not, there's a political side to everything. For my part, I'm waiting to see if your Senator Cruz will be as insistent on offsets for federal disaster aid spending now as he was when Sandy hit New York. Pointing out the stupidity of various political points of view is something we both do, and it has nothing to do with the sympathy we have for those affected by this - or any - natural disaster."

Sympathy and satire are not mutually exclusive. Indeed, the way our leaders respond to human needs in the wake of a natural disaster - whether with compassion and open hands or with attempts to impose political agendas - suggests whether they deserve a standing ovation or satirical barbs. There's nothing wrong with lampooning those who exploit human suffering for political purposes, or political philosophies that are unfeeling and unforgiving.

My heart goes out to those whose lives and communities have been devastated by this terrible disaster. My brain will continue to point to the stupidity of politicians who use them as stalking horses for their concepts of the proper role of government.

Have a good day. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

Pet Peeves

We all have our pet peeves, and I have many. One of them is the prevalence of enormously long receipts.

Those of you who are my friends on Facebook saw a version of this rant a few days ago, when I groused about buying three items at the local Giant (a chain grocery store), and receiving a receipt that was 20 inches long. Here's how it broke down (figures are rounded):

8 inches for the actual itemized receipt (included the name, address, and store number of the store, phone numbers for the store and its pharmacy, and the date and time of the transaction);

1/2 inch for a summary of the savings from using my frequent shopper card;

2-1/2 inches to tell me that I can get 10 cents per gallon off gas at a local station;

2-1/2 inches to encourage me to sign up for diabetes prevention classes through the store;

1 inch to tell me I've "saved" $113.97 this year by using their frequent shopper card;

3/4 inch to show a truncated version of my customer number;

1-1/2 inches for the store manager to thank me for shopping at his store and suggest I visit their website for more information;

2-1/2 inches to encourage me to participate in an online survey; and,

2 inches to summarize the date, time, and other information about the transaction (all of it, except for the identification of the checkout terminal) already summarized in the first 8 inches.

Total: 20 inches for three items. Oy, vey.

My friend Charley asked if it was longer than the receipts I used to get from the CVS pharmacy in the Pentagon, which were notorious for their length*. Actually, I did get longer receipts from CVS, but they were longer because they added - on average - seven feet of coupons for stuff I'd never need, whereas the Giant has a second printer at each checkout that prints coupons separately (and in living color, no less) for every transaction. Another friend, Hank, called it madness, rhetorically asking how many helpless trees had given their lives for yard-long receipts. And my friend Shawna (for once not employing a pun, although that was surely an oversight) wondered why we aren't give the option for long or short receipts to save paper.

Of course, I always want to receive a receipt when I purchase something, so that I can have proof of the purchase, vet my credit card statement when it arrives, and exchange or return items when necessary. But a receipt nearly a yard long for three items? That, as Hank said, is madness.

But one wonders whether trees who gave their lives for receipts would feel better about it than trees who gave their lives for signs at Donald Trump rallies.

Have a good day. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

P.S. - I'm still on call for jury duty ... the next time I've been told to call for a status update is after 6:00 PM on Friday. Sigh.

* I never actually measured any of the CVS receipts, but I'm absolutely certain that many of them exceeded a full yard.

Independence Day

Happy Fourth of July!

Agnes and I are on the way home from a whirlwind visit to Pittsburgh to see our son, daughter(-in-law), four of our six grandchildren, and my sister and her family. It seems wrong to have to drive home on the actual holiday, but when you have to face the staggering amount of holiday traffic between Pittsburgh and NoVa, you do what you have to do in the vain hopes of maybe - just maybe - beating some of the rush. Keep your fingers crossed.

In the meantime, here's your thought for the holiday ...

Play safe and have a great holiday. More thoughts coming.

Bilbo

Ferrying Your Brain to Mental Hades

Those of you who have at least a nodding acquaintance with Greek mythology will probably recognize Charon as the ferryman who carried the souls of the newly dead to Hades across the River Styx ...

Probably not the Uber or Lyft driver you'd hope to pick you up, but it worked for the Greeks.

Which brings me, in my wordy and oddly-connected way, to the topic of today's post.

I recently ran across a new (at least to me) term similar to Charon - chyron. A chyron, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, is "an electronically generated caption superimposed on a television or cinema screen." The word is derived from the developer of the technology - the Chyron Corporation (now called ChyronHego). 

If you watch CNN or Faux News, or MSNBC or pretty much any television news show, you are familiar with chyrons, even if you didn't know what they were called. They're the big, showy blobs of shrieking verbiage marching across the bottom third of your screen, distracting you from what is going on on the other two-thirds. They tell you what you're supposed to be learning from whatever talking head is on the screen, along with spinning logos, all the other news of the day, the weather, the time, the latest bad news from Wall Street, the sports scores, and whatever else the network thinks you might want to know in addition to what you were trying to watch. The use of chyrons isn't limited to news channels, either, although they are the worst abusers - almost every network runs distracting animated ads for its other shows across the bottom of the screen during the shows you are trying to watch. Here are two examples of chyrons run wild, one from CNN ...

and one from Faux News ...

And when you combine chyrons with the flowing graphics running behind the speakers on the rest of the screen, it can make your head hurt from information overload.

Edward Tufte, an expert on the effective presentation of data and information*, describes such peripheral information, when added to a PowerPoint slide, as chartjunk ... distracting stuff that doesn't add to the value of your presentation and merely takes up space - things like company logos, slogans, ads, and so on. I'm not sure, but I think Tufte would describe chyrons as mediajunk - the chartjunk of the broadcast media. 

I think chyrons are a distracting, useless waste of screen space, and they drive me crazy**. They are the evil ferryman taking my brain to the underworld.

That's all. I just wanted to rant.

Have a good day. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

* My daughter and I took his one-day course on Presenting Data and Information a few years ago, and it was worth every cent.

** Okay, it's a short putt, not a drive. Just work with me on this, okay?

Beyond Disgust

The day before a special congressional election in Montana, GOP candidate Greg Gianforte, enraged by questions posed by a reporter that he didn't want to answer, physically assaulted the reporter, slamming him to the ground, breaking his glasses, and screaming that he (the reporter) should "get the hell out of here." Gianforte's spokesman spun the incident this way in a statement released later:

"It's unfortunate that this aggressive behavior from a liberal journalist created this scene at our campaign volunteer BBQ."

In the election the next day, Gianforte was elected by a comfortable margin.

Think about that for a minute: a man who who believes he should be elected to Congress physically assaulted a reporter doing his job. And the next day, a majority of the people of Montana decided that was okay.

This is the oath of office that members of the House of Representatives take* when assuming their positions:

“I, (name of Member), do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.” 

Mr Gianforte, his spokesman, and everyone who voted for him seems to have forgotten that freedom of the press is part of the Constitution he is supposed to support and defend ... but although everyone shouts about the Constitution, few actually read it, or understand that there are freedoms it enshrines other than the right to pack iron everywhere, for any reason. 

What Mr Gianforte did was beyond despicable. The statement issued by his spokesman which heaped blame on the victim was equally despicable and should have appalled anyone who seriously believes in the rights established under the Constitution. Things are bad enough when Donald Trump heaps verbal abuse on those he claims convey "fake news" - defined as that with which he disagrees. They've grown far worse when an elected official believes he can - without consequences - physically assault a reporter in front of a room full of witnesses.

This is not the country I loved and served in my Air Force career.

Bilbo

* Spelled out in law at 5 U.S.C. §3331.

What Are We Thinking?

Agnes and I have a lot of friends and relatives living in Europe, and we communicate with them often by phone, e-mail, and the occasional ink-on-paper letter. One of the most common comments we hear from them is some variation on what are you people thinking? Here's an example from one of our friends in Switzerland, who last week wrote,

"Ja, über eure neue Regierung spricht wohl die ganze Welt! Vielleicht wäre es wirklich besser, die ganze Welt würde den Präsidenten und seine nächsten Berater ganz einfach ignorieren, und niemand würde mehr das getwitter von Herrn Trump lesen! Wir fragen uns oft, wielang dies weitergehen kann????"

Translation: "Yes, the whole world is talking about your new government! Perhaps it would be better if the whole world would just ignore the President and his closest advisors, and nobody would read Mr Trump's tweets! We often ask ourselves how much longer this can go on????"

It's a question I often ask myself.

I must admit, with a certain amount of embarrassment, that I cannot bring myself to say, write, or type the words "President" and "Trump" together. I know he was legally and Constitutionally elected, and I know it sounds small and petty, but Mr Trump is a small and petty person who has made not the least effort to act presidential or look like a statesman and who, rather than reaching out to try to heal the nation's divisions, has spread gasoline on the fires with his baseless accusations, insults, and blatant lies and evasions.

Most observers believe Trump won the election because voters were angry. I get that. I'm angry, too. But never was the old adage about cutting off one's nose to spite one's face more appropriate. Why would you hire someone with absolutely no experience in government to fix the problems ... if there's a problem with the airplane you're riding in, would you want someone with no flying experience to land you safely? If your doctor has a heart attack in the middle of your open-heart surgery, would you want someone who'd never been to medical school to take her place?

There are a lot of very interesting articles out there about the psychology of the American voter, and why so many of them are willing to support a pathological liar like Donald Trump. All those theories are fine, but the bottom line remains what are you thinking?

I wish I knew. And so does the rest of the world.

Have as good a day as you can in this environment.

More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

After the Vice-Presidential Debate

Yesterday was the much-anticipated (and only) Vice Presidential candidates debate. It was moderately entertaining, but did nothing to illuminate the two candidates or help their campaigns. For what they're worth (and in this overheated political environment, not much), here are my observations ...

Democrat Tim Kaine offered more policy detail, but undermined his command of the issues with his nearly constant, impolite, and unprofessional interruptions of Mr Pence. Republican Mike Pence for his part remained calm and unflappable as he neatly dodged nearly every question and brushed Mr Kaine's attacks aside as if they were annoying gnats. Both men exhibited an annoying tendency to talk over each other, often making it impossible to understand what they were talking about ... as moderator Elaine Quijano said at one point, "Gentlemen, the people at home cannot understand either one of you."

Each man's focus was clear: for Mr Kaine, it was beating the drum of Donald Trump's tax returns; for Mr Pence, it was the "war on coal."

Mr Pence, for the most part, spoke only in the broad, black-and-white generalities that are the hallmarks of the Trump campaign. He proved himself to be a far better debater than Mr Trump, but did not clearly articulate policy positions and did not defend Mr Trump's more egregious statements ... in fact, in the fashion of the Trump campaign, he denied that most of them actually occurred. As comedian Paula Poundstone noted in tweets during the debate, "When Kaine simply quotes Trump, Pence says Kaine is slinging insults," and "Pence shakes his head when he hears Trump quotes. Have they met?"

As an adopted Virginian, I expected more of Mr Kaine than what he delivered. I think he had a great deal more to offer in terms of policy prescriptions - whether you agree with them or not - than did Mr Pence, but came across as hectoring and annoying rather than (vice) presidential.

Fact Checking. Look for yourself here, here, and here. Or at whichever politically-shaded fact-checking website you prefer.

Bottom line: I know nothing more now than I did last night. Ninety minutes of my life I'll never get back again. I can only wonder what will happen in the next Clinton-Trump "debate," coming up on Sunday. Oy.

Have a good day. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

After the Debate

Well, the first of the 2016 presidential debates is over. If you watched it, as Agnes and I did, you'll have formed your own opinions. I'll just provide a few comments based on what we saw and our interpretations thereof ...

1. In general, Mr Trump appeared angry and aggressive, and presented an apocalyptic view of a nation in hopeless decline; Secretary Clinton appeared poised, articulate, comfortable, and presented a more positive vision. Mr Trump repeatedly interrupted Secretary Clinton, which I - as an experienced public speaker - found offensive.

2. During the exchange on Mr Trump's failure to release his tax returns, Secretary Clinton said: "... the only years that anybody's ever seen were a couple of years when he had to turn them over to state authorities when he was trying to get a casino license, and they showed he didn't pay any federal income tax," to which Mr Trump replied, "That makes me smart." Clinton followed up with this comment: "So if he's paid zero, that means zero for troops, zero for vets, zero for schools or health."

As I've often written here, nobody likes paying taxes, but taxes provide the money our government needs to operate. Is it "smart" to legally pay no taxes? From a business perspective, probably yes. From a civic duty perspective, not so much.

3. Continuing on the issue of taxes, Mr Trump said this: "... if you want to change the laws, you've been there a long time, change the laws. I take advantage of the laws of the nation because I'm running a company. My obligation right now is to do well for myself, my family, my employees, for my companies. And that's what I do."

Point to Mr Trump. It's not illegal to take advantage of laws that work in your favor, and in Mr Trump's view it's good business. Do the laws need to be changed? It depends on whether you're a person who benefits from the current laws or one who has no opportunities to legally evade their tax burden. In my view yes, the tax laws need to be changed to ensure that all of us - individuals and businesses - share the burden. Will it happen? Not in my lifetime.

4. Mr Trump doubled down on falsehoods that have been repeatedly and thoroughly debunked - his role in the birther controversy, his position on climate change, and his claim to have opposed the Iraq war. While he and others have painted Secretary Clinton as a "serial liar," every reputable fact-checking organization has agreed that Mr Trump has only the most tenuous relationship with the truth, and is far ahead of his opponent in his repeated use of flagrant untruths. Secretary Clinton is a politician, and every politician spins facts and events to his or her advantage ... is this "lying?" In my opinion, there's a significant difference between spinning and deliberate falsification and denial of the proven record.

5. When attacked on the subject by Mr Trump, Secretary Clinton acknowledged that she made a mistake by using a private e-mail server while serving as Secretary of State. In my view, this was less a "mistake" than a serious error of judgement that could have compromised our security. This is my most significant problem with Ms Clinton.

Well, I could go on, but here's my bottom line: people who love Donald Trump still love him and believe he "won" the debate; people who love Hillary Clinton still love her and believe she "won" the debate. Every observer can find something in the transcript that supports their views of the candidates, whether positive or negative.

Now it's up to us. The facts are out there. The important thing is to weigh them carefully and cast a good, well-informed ballot on November 8th.

Have a good day. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

Placating Bullies

Warning: this post is going to be a noisy and angry political rant. If you're tired of those this election season, come back tomorrow and I'll write about something else. I promise. Otherwise, read on.

I was enraged by this article I read a few days ago in the Washington Post: Ambassador Confirmed, the Backstory Emerges. Take a minute to read it, and then come back. I'll wait.

In brief, this is the story of how the new US Ambassador to Mexico, Roberta Jacobson, was confirmed for her position 11 months after being nominated by President Obama. Her nomination had been blocked by two senators: Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio; the story is about what had to be promised to both of these "public servants" in order to get them to remove their objections to Ms Jacobson's nomination.

Spoiler: the objections had absolutely nothing to do with Ms Jacobson's qualifications for the position (she had been the Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs) or with the importance of the ambassadorship to a country which is - like it or not - critically important to our domestic affairs. It had to do with political grandstanding, pure and simple.

Senator Rubio opposed Ms Jacobson's nomination because he objected to the Obama administration's policies on relations with Cuba. Senator Cruz did not oppose her nomination per se, but as a result of a hold he put on authorizations for the State Department because of his opposition to the Obama administration's nuclear deal with Iran.

Here's what the odious horse trading looked like in the end:

Cruz got Rubio to support his effort to rename the street in front of the Chinese embassy in Washington in honor of Liu Xiaobo, an imprisoned Nobel Prize-winning Chinese dissident ... a move calculated to embarrass and anger the Chinese government. And by dropping his opposition to the State Department appropriations bill, Cruz agreed to support Rubio's push to require the State Department to produce 40 new reports a year on issues ranging from the autonomy of Hong Kong to religious freedom* and anti-Semitism, and to extend the authority of an existing bill requiring sanctions on Venezuelan government officials accused of human rights violations.

There are other things, but you can read the article yourself.

We Americans are irate when other nations try to meddle in our affairs ... and yet these two grandstanding Senators are perfectly happy to meddle in the affairs of other nations - regardless of their rationale. Senator Cruz wishes deliberately to poke a finger in the eye of China - a prickly nation at best and one with which, like it or not, we need to maintain a constructive relationship. Senator Rubio commits the State Department to invest limited time and resources to churning out reports that serve no purpose** other than to highlight his name and embarrass other nations with whom we need to maintain constructive relationships.

Is China acting like an odious bully in Southeast Asia? Of course it is. And, unfortunately, so have we in many regions over the years. Both we and the Chinese believe we have the moral and historical authority to behave as we do. Do we need to find ways to live with each other for the greater good? Of course we do. Do we have political and economic issues with other nations? Naturally. But will dozens of reports solve those problems? No.

I have nothing but contempt for grandstanding buffoons like Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio, who place their political agendas above the good of the nation and who, in the particular case of Senator Cruz, delight in being the sand in the gears of good government. Or any government, given how things are going. We need adult leadership in Congress, and in this year - when so many Senate and House seats are in play - we owe it to ourselves and to the country to elect responsible leaders willing to work with each other to chart our path to an uncertain future.

Have a good day. Expect better. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

* In places other than the US, where many equate "religious freedom" to "observation of Christianity rather than other forms of religious belief."

** As a veteran of many years serving on the Air Staff at the Pentagon, I had experience with helping to churn out the dozens of reports Congress requires on various topics every year, most of which were driven by some political agenda or another and served no useful purpose for defense planning.

Who Writes This Stuff?

Just a quick rant today ...

Yesterday morning at work, I booted up my computer and when my login screen appeared, I typed in my personal ID code. Instead of logging me in, the system popped up this message on my screen:

"Provider could not perform the action since the context was acquired as silent."

What??

After a while I figured out the system was telling me that I had not engaged the number lock on my keypad before typing in my ID code.

So riddle me this, Batman ... why couldn't it just tell me that? What IT ass clown figured that an ordinary computer user would understand this malarkey?

Who writes this stuff?

I don't know about you, but I'm ready to relocate ...

Have a good day. More thoughts tomorrow, assuming I can convince the network to let me in.

Bilbo

"Entitlements"

A few days ago Andrea wrote a post titled "Are You Entitled?" in which she loosed a minor rant about the subject of entitlements and what we are entitled to ... a list that included food, clean water, health care, and education. Her last line pretty much summed it up: "... there is very little we are really entitled to, without working for it, or trying to work for it."

I thought I'd piggyback on Andrea's post with a few comments of my own on the subject of entitlements.

In what passes for current political discourse, the word entitlements is usually spoken with a sneer of disdain by conservatives, who tend to define it as "something given by the government and paid for by a hardworking American to someone who didn't earn it and doesn't deserve it."

Not so fast there, bucko.

Social Security is considered an entitlement program, but I have paid into it my entire working life, and so yes, I believe I'm entitled to the monthly check I'll start drawing soon.

Medicare is also considered an entitlement program ... but because one pays premiums for its coverage, I believe they're entitled to it.

Some would consider my military pension an entitlement ... to which I'm entitled by paying 23 years of my life for it.

Things get more murky when we talk about things to which I think we should all be entitled, but are less clear in funding. I personally believe everyone is entitled to a basic education at least through high school, followed by either a trade school certificate or a collegiate baccalaureate degree. It's true that we'll always need dishwashers and mechanics and street sweepers, but a modern, high-tech world needs people with advanced education to drive the nation forward. I don't think there's a more important investment we can make than universal, free education for all who want it.

I also think we're entitled to air we can breathe, water we can drink, food that's safe to eat, and medicine that's safe to take. If your business pollutes the air, poisons the water, or provides the food we eat and the medicines our doctors prescribe, you should be required to bear the cost of treating your waste and keeping your products safe. Obviously, businesses aren't known for their altruism ... they will pass these costs on to consumers ... but they have to be borne one way or another, because free education doesn't mean much if you're dead.

I also think that everyone is entitled to free basic health care, and I like the idea of something like Bernie Sanders' "Medicare for All" concept, using a single-payer plan funded by a tax in the same way Social Security is funded. I can hear the howls of horror and outrage already as conservatives rail against socialized medicine (whatever that is) in which decisions about our health are made not by doctors but by ... gasp! ... government bureaucrats. The horror! Of course, one might ask what the difference is between decisions made by "government bureaucrats" and decisions made by the "insurance company bureaucrats" that make those decisions now* ... but obviously faceless insurance company bureaucrats represent the triumph of free enterprise, while faceless government bureaucrats represent meddlesome and incompetent government.

I know I've been rambling and sarcastic, but my point is this: there are entitlements and there are entitlements. They all have to be paid for somehow, and so if you're going to thunder about the fiscal horror of entitlements, make sure you understand what type they are, what their benefits are, how they're being funded, and what we get that we pay for.

And now I'm entitled to stop writing.

Have a good day. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

* Case in point: our dentist has gone through hell with our dental insurance company to get paid for the extensive work Agnes has had done in the past year. Over a period of nearly a year, the insurance company rejected our dentist's repeated requests for payment, insisting on more and more documentation, including additional copies of x-rays already submitted, and eventually paying its own estimate of what it thought was the right amount. In the end, our dentist wrote off a significant chunk of his bill ... good news for us, but he's a businessman, after all, and I'd rather he didn't remember having taken a loss on us the next time we go in with dental problems.

Happy New Fiscal Year

Yes, it is a relatively happy new fiscal year, as Congress pulled its head out of its collective backside and avoided stepping over the fiscal cliff.

For the time being, anyhow.

Instead of presenting a budget (as the Constitution requires them to do), our elected reprehensives have once again resorted to the dodge of a "continuing resolution" to keep the government lurching from one manufactured crisis to the next. What they've done is to ensure that the next manufactured crisis will come right at the beginning of the holiday season - an action that will surely endear them only to the most rabidly hysterical partisans of the anti-government fringe.

You may recall that just over a week ago Pope Francis reminded them (without evident effect on their behavior),

"Your own responsibility as members of Congress is to enable this country, by your legislative activity, to grow as a nation. You are the face of its people, their representatives. You are called to defend and preserve the dignity of your fellow citizens in the tireless and demanding pursuit of the common good, for this is the chief aim of all politics. A political society endures when it seeks, as a vocation, to satisfy common needs by stimulating the growth of all its members, especially those in situations of greater vulnerability or risk. Legislative activity is always based on care for the people. To this you have been invited, called and convened by those who elected you."

To reiterate the Pope's words,  Legislative activity is always based on care for the people.

Not the oil people. Not the big pharma people. Not the big business people.

All the people.

Not just the 1%.

We deserve better than than a Congress that bickers and argues and points fingers. We deserve better than a Congress that resorts to blackmail and useless gotcha votes intended only to show one side or the other in a bad light. And before you blame the President for the whole mess because he threatens to veto some legislation sent to him for signature, consider that he's announced what he won't approve ... if Congress goes ahead and sends it to him anyway, the result is likely to be pretty obvious, isn't it?

My conservative friends will strongly disagree, of course, and that's fine ... as long as they have better ideas and are willing to press their chosen representatives to negotiate in good faith rather than legislate by blackmail.

Happy New Fiscal Year. Let's see if we're still celebrating come December 11th ... which will be the next test of whether statesmanship and reason win out over partisan ass clownery.

Don't hold your breath.

Come back tomorrow for the latest collection of Great Moments in Editing. More thoughts then.

Bilbo

A Rant About Elevators and Rents

I haven't had a good rant lately, and I think I'm about due. Bear with me on this one for a while, because it's going to take a while ...

First off, there was an article a while back in the Washington Post about a DC hardware store, a longtime neighborhood landmark, that is closing after 35 years in business because of skyrocketing rent for the store space. The owner noted that his rent has nearly doubled in the last three years, and said that "When the rent is so high, it becomes very hard to make money."

Well, not for everybody. It seems to me that the person who owns the store space is making lots of money. He just makes it by soaking the hell out of his renters, who have to pass the costs on down to their customers who - being at the bottom of the economic food chain - have to eat it because they can't pass their increased living expenses on to anyone else.

Which leads us to my rant about rents and the failures of those who charge them ...

I rent a 10-by-10 foot, non-climate controlled storage space in a local self-storage facility that's part of a nationwide chain. I've been renting this space for a very long time, and one of the most reliable facts of life is that every July, the rent I pay for that space goes up. Last year it went up by $19 per month. This year it went up by $16 per month. Per month, that may not seem so bad, but it works out to a lot of money over the course of a year*.

Now, back in January, 2014, I was taking all of our Christmas decorations back to the storage unit to put away until the following season. I was riding up in the wheezing, creaking freight elevator and happened to notice that the elevator inspection certificate would expire at the end of that month.

I didn't think about that for a while, but when I needed to get some things out of the storage unit a few months later, I noticed that the elevator inspection certificate was still the one that expired the previous January. On the way out, I mentioned it to the on-site manager, who faithfully assured me that the elevator was safe and they were working the issue.

My rent having just gone up, I was a little upset that they couldn't handle something so ordinary (and legally required, per county ordinance) as an elevator inspection, and so I made it a point to check that certificate each month when I went in to pay the rent. Each month, I got the same response - a variation on "don't worry, it's safe, we're working on it."

I was pretty well fed up by the time January 31st of 2015 rolled around, the inspection certificate had been expired for a full year, and I was tired of getting stonewalled by the on-site manager. In March, I sent an e-mail to the company's district manager, asking when the elevator would be inspected and certified safe ... and I enclosed a picture I'd taken of the expired certificate.

I received no response to the e-mail. I told the on-site manager that if I received another rent increase notice and the elevator hadn't been inspected, I'd report the whole thing to the Better Business Bureau (BBB). She made all the right noises and assured me (as she had each month up to that point) that she was keeping the district manager informed, but nothing happened.

Sure enough, at the end of May came the post card from the company, announcing the usual rent increase, effective July 1st. I duly submitted a complaint to the Better Business Bureau, including a copy of my unanswered e-mail to the district manager and a copy of the photo of the expired inspection certificate ... now nearly a year and a half out of date.

The BBB promptly acknowledged receipt of my complaint, and then things went dark for about another two weeks ... at which time I got another e-mail from the BBB, telling me they had referred my complaint to one of their offices in California! I called the local point of contact at the BBB to ask why my local problem was not being handled locally, and he told me that their procedure was to refer all such issues to the BBB office located nearest the home office of the company concerned, which in this case was in Glendale, California.

The issue sat there for another week, at which time the California BBB office sent me an e-mail to tell me they'd assigned a case number, and referred me to their website where I could track the resolution of the issue. Two weeks later, the website announced that the case had been closed ... with no further explanation or information. And, needless to say, no contact from the storage company.

I managed to find a phone number for the local district manager of the storage company, and called him directly. There was, of course, no answer, and so I left a detailed message on the answering machine, giving a brief history of the complaint and noting that he had never responded to my earlier e-mail request for information.

A few days later, the district manager called me back. Here's what he said:

1. He'd only been in the job for a few months, so he couldn't tell me why things were the way they were and he wasn't to blame. He was working with a company to fix the elevator so it would pass the inspection, but the paperwork on display would probably continue to be out of date because the inspectors had to do that part, and he couldn't control how they did their jobs.

2. He had no control over the rent I was charged, which was set at the national level and depended on a lot of factors like the zip code, the space size, proximity of the space to the elevator, the phase of the moon, the latitude and longitude of the Playboy Mansion, and the value in Greek drachmas of five square yards of linoleum**.

3. He told me that although he didn't have the authority to reduce the rent I was being charged, I could pay less if I cancelled the contract for the space I have now, rented a different space of the same size in the same facility for the new renter's introductory price, and moved all my stuff.

I told him that was stupid. His response was the equivalent of a take-it-or-leave-it shrug.

And today - August 19th, 2015 - the elevator inspection certificate has been expired for more than a year and a half, in which time my rent has been raised twice and I've been casually farted off by both the storage company and the Better Business Bureau ... which is supposed to be looking out for my interests, ha, ha.

But that's life in a capitalist system. If the GOP should win the next election and keep kissing the backsides of big business interests, there'll be no point in complaining about rising prices, lousy customer service, or jobs shipped overseas, because when the ruling party worships at the festooned altar of the Holy Church of the Mystical Job Creator***, Joe Consumer is completely unimportant and beneath notice.

Unless, of course, he's late with his rent ... in which case he gets plenty of notice.

And my rent will continue to go up every July, whether or not that elevator is ever repaired and inspected.

End of rant. I'll let you know if the elevator is ever fixed.

Have a good day. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

* The obvious solution, of course, is to get rid of most of the stuff that's stored there. Unfortunately, for a lot of reasons that's not an option.

** He really didn't put it that way, but his explanations made about as much sense.

*** Let me hear you say, "Hallelujah!" ... then look around for all those jobs they're supposed to have created.

Things That Piss Us Off at Chez Bilbo

Agnes and I are pretty easy-going folks most of the time. Nevertheless, there are some things that really irritate us. Here are a few of them:

- Television news programs that look like 1960's-era disco shows. When the screen is so full of crawlers, flashing lights, fancy animated graphics, and other distractions that you can't concentrate on the news*, how do you learn anything? When the graphics are more important than the news, it's no wonder that the average American is so woefully uninformed**.

- Political robocalls. When the Caller ID says "Not Available" or "Blocked," and when you answer and hear a few seconds of silence before the recording kicks in, you know it's another useless political attack ad that tells you nothing except how stupid and lacking in original thought the sponsors are ... and how little they respect your intelligence.

- Charity solicitations by phone, especially when the local police association calls for donations, The person who calls is usually a police officer who booms out at you with his intimidating command voice: CAN WE COUNT ON YOU TO HELP THE BOYS OUT??

- Door-to-door political flacks who can't answer questions about their candidate's or party's positions and don't know anything that isn't on their script or list of talking points. Before the last presidential election, two ladies showed up at my door to drum up votes for the McCain/Palin ticket ... and couldn't answer a single policy or issue-related question I asked. All they could do was tell me (in so many words) that I was stupid and un-American for not enthusing over the GOP ticket, and for implying that the Democrats might have some ideas worth listening to. Don't tell me what a scum-sucking, bottom-feeding, ethically-challenged dirtbag the other guy is ... tell me - specifically - what your guy (or gal) will do if elected and why I should invest my vote.

- Hard-sell salesmen. And if you think that I hate hard-sell salesmen, you ought to see Agnes. Many years ago, we were shopping for a car for her, and went to a local dealership to see what was available. Within seconds, a salesman attached himself to us like a barnacle to a ship's hull. We told him very clearly that we were only looking and were not going to buy. He proceeded to follow us all over the lot at a distance of about six inches, and every time we stopped to look at a car, he launched into a rapid-fire hard sell routine ("what's it going to take to put you good folks in this car today?"). Within ten minutes, he'd pissed Agnes off so badly that she stormed off the lot ... at that point, he could have given her the car, thrown in free service, gas, and insurance for life, hired a chauffeur, and given her a perpetually paid-up E-Z Pass transponder, and she'd have still told him to go to hell and close the door behind him.

Trust me ... you do not want to see this side of my Very Best Beloved.

Okay, these are a few of the things that piss us off. How about you, Dear Reader ... what are the things that irritate you? Leave a comment and share the grouchiness.

Have a good day. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

* Which, given the news nowadays, may not be a bad thing after all.

** One might say, "stupid."

Countdown to Irresponsibility

Tomorrow morning at 12:01AM, barring a sudden and unexpected rush of sanity and adult behavior, Congress (mainly the far-right wing of the Republican Party) will partially shut down the United States government. Many thousands of government workers (including my son and daughter) and those whose livelihoods depend on their work will be furloughed, without hope of regaining pay lost during the duration of the manufactured crisis. The local and national economies will be damaged. Brainless wingnuts wearing tricorn hats will wave their Gadsden flags and trumpet their fidelity to concepts they do not understand, and the rest of the world will shake its head at our propensity for self-destructive behavior.

If you read the comments posted to online articles at CNN.com and Washingtonpost.com about the government shutdown, you will find some of the most amazing trolls you will ever hope to see, continuing the heaping of abuse on government workers that was begun by the GOP's extreme right wing. The people who keep you safe, ensure your food is wholesome, protect you from disease, allow you to fly safely, and try to prevent you from being exploited by your employers are derided as lazy, stupid, shiftless bums and jackbooted thugs^TM who "couldn't run a lemonade stand" (a quote from one amazing comment I read this morning) who all deserve to be thrown to the curb so that America will suddenly return to its imagined past paradise of untrammeled, unlimited "freedom."

This afternoon, Agnes's cousin Bernadette and her husband Richard will arrive from Germany for a visit. One of the things they'll ask me will almost certainly be the question I heard so often from people while we were in Germany earlier this month: What's wrong with you people?

Sadly, the problem is that the irresponsible and narcissistic people who are causing this needless crisis are impervious to logic and reason. A great quote from the film The Dark Knight applies ... Alfred, Bruce Wayne's loyal butler, is telling his boss a story from his experience searching for a bandit leader in the Burmese jungle. In the end, the search was unsuccessful because, as Alfred explained ...

... some men aren't looking for anything logical, like money. They can't be bought, bullied, reasoned, or negotiated with. Some men just want to watch the world burn.

And some men just believe so totally in their own righteousness that they're willing to take the whole country down with them.

I could go on, but I'm too angry and too ashamed of the ludicrous clown show that has replaced our government and the bizarre mouth-frothing that has replaced civil discourse. I wonder what sort of lesson we're teaching our children, and what kind of country we're leaving them.

Have a good day. Tomorrow I'll try to be more positive, and to tell you the story of this past weekend's visit to Chincoteague and Assateague Islands with the local grandchildren. Perhaps I'll be more centered, and my aches and pains a bit eased, by then.

Bilbo