A recent discussion got me thinking. A person was criticizing Pope Pius XII for what many have perceived as not taking a strong enough stand against Nazi Germany during WWII.
I tend to agree. Granted, there were some realities involved. Namely, that the church was headquartered in a virtually undefended city/state in the middle of an Axis power. The criticisms of Pius XII are pretty well documented, and in my opinion, relatively well-founded.
This has become a bit of a hot-button issue as he is now being considered for canonization.
However, people all too often don't hear about his predecessor, Pius XI.
If ever there were a model of principled opposition to the practices of the Nazis, it was Pius XI. It started with the 1937 encyclical, Mit Brennender Sorge. It was, I believe, the first encyclical ever written in German. It was published and distributed throughout Germany and the church read it aloud to Roman Catholics.
The result? Numerous Catholics were rounded up and thrown into concentration camps for it. Why? It was basically a direct opposition to the practices of the Nazis.
It included such statements as:
"Whoever exalts race, or the people, or the State, or a particular form of State, or the depositories of power, or any other fundamental value of the human community—however necessary and honorable be their function in worldly things—whoever raises these notions above their standard value and divinizes them to an idolatrous level, distorts and perverts an order of the world planned and created by God; he is far from the true faith in God and from the concept of life which that faith upholds."
Basically, that you can be a good Christian, but you cannot reconcile racism or despotism or the excesses of nationalism with your Christian faith.
It was as close as anybody came to punching Adolph Hitler in the nose.
Keep in mind the political climate at the time, too. The entire world was a group of Hitler appeasers. Neville Chamberlain was perhaps the most notable, but frankly, nobody wanted to oppose the Nazis.
As if bopping der fuhrer in the nose wasn't enough, he went even further in a public address in the Vatican to Belgian pilgrims in 1938: "Mark well that in the Catholic Mass, Abraham is our Patriarch and forefather. Anti-Semitism is incompatible with the lofty thought which that fact expresses. It is a movement with which we Christians can have nothing to do. No, no, I say to you it is impossible for a Christian to take part in anti-Semitism. It is inadmissible. Through Christ and in Christ we are the spiritual progeny of Abraham. Spiritually, we are all Semites".
A person once asked me if Jesus would have told his followers to be true to Christian teachings if the result were that they would be rounded up and thrown into jails by the Romans.
I think we all know the answer to that question.
Because of this, Pius XII may be rationalized as bowing to the political realties of his day. I consider him the equivalent of Switzerland. This is not something I say as a compliment.
However, Pius XI was the true hero, virtually alone in the entire world at the time. Speaking out against a grave injustice and continuing to do so, even when the consequences were dire. Even when the rest of the world clearly did not have his back and gave a collective yawn when Catholics were rounded up and sent to their doom.
Not every man is a great man. Not every era produces one. However, they do come along now and then. All the more important that we recognize them when they come.
Sunday, December 27, 2009
Saturday, December 26, 2009
Adventure in the Land of Remote Control
I really didn't have a killer present in mind for Logan this year. In past years, I'd be the one buying the one major, gonzo present, like a ride-on electric car, or a 50cc mini-bike, or a 50cc four-wheeler.
Really, I can't think of many other things for him. Really, until he gets into musical instruments, which may take a few more years (or EVER), there just isn't that much that he wants or needs that he hasn't got or is getting.
So, a few days before Xmas, I saw a TV ad for a local hobby store where they showed all their remote control stuff.
I figured I'd get him a really nice car. Remote control cars are a tricky gift because the stuff you can buy at Wal-Mart or Toys R Us is inexpensive (relatively), but the stuff breaks. So, it's a very non-durable toy. Works great until the first thing goes haywire, then you have to throw the whole shebang away.
We've seen it all, from toys where wheels feel off on Christmas day, to toys with proprietary battery packs and chargers that, once misplaced, rendered the toys useless.
So, I figured I should spring for something that may at least outlast the current year. Previous r/c purchases usually didn't meet that criteria.
I went to the store and after asking a lot of questions, got Logan a Traxxas Slash, which has a lot of advantages to it. The main one is that it is relatively waterproof. So, it can be used outdoors, year-round.
These are, apparently, meant to be raced against each other, and can attain speeds in the 20-30 mph range. With optional brushless motors, they can go as fast as 40 mph+ according to the salesman.
I figured we should get our feet wet with a relatively standard model. So, I bought the standard 2WD Slash.
It included a charger and battery. I charged the battery overnight and the next day, it was ready to roll.
Worked awesome... until the battery wore out. They only last about 20 minutes or so. Did some research, and the charger that came with it takes literally about 20 hours to charge the battery.
So, went back and bought a better charger. It cost about $44. Brought it home and at max charging speed, it can charge a battery in 45 minutes. With two batteries, that means Logan can play with this thing essentially until he loses interest if he starts with two charged batteries.
That part went really, really well. I'd recommend one of these cars for anybody interested in a remote controlled car. They're a bit pricey (over $200), but as the video on my Facebook page shows, they run really fast and unless you smash them into something, are relatively indestructible.
The next thing I got was an R/C flight simulator, bundled with an actual R/C controller. This is a Phoenix R/C simulator and a Spektrum DX5E transmitter.
Frankly, they didn't work worth a damn. For some reason, they bundled the software with a controller that requires an extra adapter. I seldom got it to work right and eventually the adapter broke. Also, the software requires a USB dongle for security purposes. As any IT person can tell you: never, if you can help it, buy a product that involves a dongle.
So, anyway, this is broken, doesn't work, and before it broke, only worked intermittently. (The reason it broke was that it only worked if you pressed the dongle and adapter really hard into the side of the transmitter... eventually one press too many at the wrong angle and it was broken.)
The distributor (who created the bundle) is closed for the weekend. So, I'll be testing their customer support on Monday. The hobby store said that if things don't work out, they'll see what they can do to get the store owner involved and see if they can get the issue resolved.
Now, the transmitter, itself, works just fine. In fact, I bought a little indoor helicopter called a Blade MCX E-flite. Looks a lot like those little Air Hogs you see for sale for $30.
If you have a controller, these cost about $90. (The store charged me $100... lucky me.)
These are a lot of fun to fly, but the batteries literally last only about 8 minutes. The included charger works off of 4 AA batteries. No, seriously, it uses batteries to charge batteries.
Went back to the store to see if they had a charger that plugs into the wall. Being the day after Christmas, their shelves were pretty much picked clean.
However, the guy did tell me how I could take an old cell-phone charger and a soldering iron and solder up the charger so it works off the cell phone charger instead of batteries. I did it, and it worked flawlessly.
Then, I got a little too cocky and tried to fly the chopper down the stairs. It crashed and a little part broke. They ordinarily stock it. It costs only $6.00. Again, being that this is the day after Xmas, they were sold out. I ordered one and it should arrive this week.
This, to me, is the real value of buying the slightly more expensive stuff. They have parts for them and they can be repaired. So, yeah, the R/C car was over $200, but a cheapo would be between $50 and 100 and I've seldom seen one last more than a month.
You can buy Air Hog helicopters that look a lot like the Blade I bought, but when those break, they're done for.
I really wasn't intending to get into a new hobby. I'm debating buying another car so I can race Logan with it (or his friends can), or an R/C airplane, which is something I've wanted since I was a little kid.
I'll try to shy away. This hobby is expensive and time-consuming. Though it is tempting to get into flying for just a few hundred bucks, versus the thousands upon thousands to actually fly a real aircraft. Though, flying a real aircraft has the advantage of actually being able to transport you somewhere.
So, overall, thumbs up on the little chopper and two thumbs up on the r/c car. Thumbs down on the crappy flight sim and controller bundle, even though the sim and the controller are fine. They just didn't bother to bundle together a bunch of stuff that works well together.
Really, I can't think of many other things for him. Really, until he gets into musical instruments, which may take a few more years (or EVER), there just isn't that much that he wants or needs that he hasn't got or is getting.
So, a few days before Xmas, I saw a TV ad for a local hobby store where they showed all their remote control stuff.
I figured I'd get him a really nice car. Remote control cars are a tricky gift because the stuff you can buy at Wal-Mart or Toys R Us is inexpensive (relatively), but the stuff breaks. So, it's a very non-durable toy. Works great until the first thing goes haywire, then you have to throw the whole shebang away.
We've seen it all, from toys where wheels feel off on Christmas day, to toys with proprietary battery packs and chargers that, once misplaced, rendered the toys useless.
So, I figured I should spring for something that may at least outlast the current year. Previous r/c purchases usually didn't meet that criteria.
I went to the store and after asking a lot of questions, got Logan a Traxxas Slash, which has a lot of advantages to it. The main one is that it is relatively waterproof. So, it can be used outdoors, year-round.
These are, apparently, meant to be raced against each other, and can attain speeds in the 20-30 mph range. With optional brushless motors, they can go as fast as 40 mph+ according to the salesman.
I figured we should get our feet wet with a relatively standard model. So, I bought the standard 2WD Slash.
It included a charger and battery. I charged the battery overnight and the next day, it was ready to roll.
Worked awesome... until the battery wore out. They only last about 20 minutes or so. Did some research, and the charger that came with it takes literally about 20 hours to charge the battery.
So, went back and bought a better charger. It cost about $44. Brought it home and at max charging speed, it can charge a battery in 45 minutes. With two batteries, that means Logan can play with this thing essentially until he loses interest if he starts with two charged batteries.
That part went really, really well. I'd recommend one of these cars for anybody interested in a remote controlled car. They're a bit pricey (over $200), but as the video on my Facebook page shows, they run really fast and unless you smash them into something, are relatively indestructible.
The next thing I got was an R/C flight simulator, bundled with an actual R/C controller. This is a Phoenix R/C simulator and a Spektrum DX5E transmitter.
Frankly, they didn't work worth a damn. For some reason, they bundled the software with a controller that requires an extra adapter. I seldom got it to work right and eventually the adapter broke. Also, the software requires a USB dongle for security purposes. As any IT person can tell you: never, if you can help it, buy a product that involves a dongle.
So, anyway, this is broken, doesn't work, and before it broke, only worked intermittently. (The reason it broke was that it only worked if you pressed the dongle and adapter really hard into the side of the transmitter... eventually one press too many at the wrong angle and it was broken.)
The distributor (who created the bundle) is closed for the weekend. So, I'll be testing their customer support on Monday. The hobby store said that if things don't work out, they'll see what they can do to get the store owner involved and see if they can get the issue resolved.
Now, the transmitter, itself, works just fine. In fact, I bought a little indoor helicopter called a Blade MCX E-flite. Looks a lot like those little Air Hogs you see for sale for $30.
If you have a controller, these cost about $90. (The store charged me $100... lucky me.)
These are a lot of fun to fly, but the batteries literally last only about 8 minutes. The included charger works off of 4 AA batteries. No, seriously, it uses batteries to charge batteries.
Went back to the store to see if they had a charger that plugs into the wall. Being the day after Christmas, their shelves were pretty much picked clean.
However, the guy did tell me how I could take an old cell-phone charger and a soldering iron and solder up the charger so it works off the cell phone charger instead of batteries. I did it, and it worked flawlessly.
Then, I got a little too cocky and tried to fly the chopper down the stairs. It crashed and a little part broke. They ordinarily stock it. It costs only $6.00. Again, being that this is the day after Xmas, they were sold out. I ordered one and it should arrive this week.
This, to me, is the real value of buying the slightly more expensive stuff. They have parts for them and they can be repaired. So, yeah, the R/C car was over $200, but a cheapo would be between $50 and 100 and I've seldom seen one last more than a month.
You can buy Air Hog helicopters that look a lot like the Blade I bought, but when those break, they're done for.
I really wasn't intending to get into a new hobby. I'm debating buying another car so I can race Logan with it (or his friends can), or an R/C airplane, which is something I've wanted since I was a little kid.
I'll try to shy away. This hobby is expensive and time-consuming. Though it is tempting to get into flying for just a few hundred bucks, versus the thousands upon thousands to actually fly a real aircraft. Though, flying a real aircraft has the advantage of actually being able to transport you somewhere.
So, overall, thumbs up on the little chopper and two thumbs up on the r/c car. Thumbs down on the crappy flight sim and controller bundle, even though the sim and the controller are fine. They just didn't bother to bundle together a bunch of stuff that works well together.
Sunday, December 20, 2009
The End of a Decade...
Hard to believe the decade is ending. I must be getting old because I come to the end of this year with no anticipation of this historic milestone.
Folks don't seem to be that excited about it, either. The decade saw the real purchasing power of the middle class actually decline (adjusted for inflation) for about the first time since the great depression. It saw the institutions of our government used to give a lot of money to bankers who really don't deserve it, and left the tab to be paid by our children, who clearly don't deserve it.
I came of age when Viet Nam was wrapping up. We were out by the time I was 9 years old. Since then, America has enjoyed an unprecedented period of peace and prosperity. However, we have lost both in the past 10 years. My son doesn't know what it means to live in a nation that is not at war. Prosperity seems like a dream of a bygone era, with nobody really knowing how we can find it again.
Lots of stuff to be depressed about, really.
Still, I have to admit, as decades go, this one wasn't all that bad for me.
First and foremost, I have a son, now. A product of this decade, born just a few months before the attacks of 9/11. I couldn't be happier with the blessings that fate has bestowed upon me in regards to Logan. He's a good looking, smart, athletic, kind hearted little man who is rapidly growing into a fine young man.
Professionally, I started the decade with a promotion to divisional IT management with a company I loved. 4 years into the decade, I left my comfortable corporate nest and into pursuing my life's work as an entrepreneur. I've never been happier. I've enjoyed more success as an entrepreneur than I ever could have as a corporate guy. Mostly, I'm doing something I love and my life is exactly what I had always hoped it could become. I just need to keep doing what it takes to grow my business interests.
If I ever had to work a job again, it wouldn't be the worst thing. However, nothing can compare to these last 5 years as head of a company that I own.
My life took an unexpected turn with me joining the military again. This time as an officer in the Navy Reserve. Go figure. I am honored and blessed to have the opportunity to serve.
Beyond that, what now? I think we've got our share of challenges ahead of us. The Obama team has proven that they were no more ready for the job than most presidents. The past year of bungling was, actually, to be expected from a team of rookies, but I think they'll get better at it.
One thing that I don't think will stay with us for much of the next decade is the Democrat Congress, which is giving the American people every reason to boot them unceremoniously to the curb.
Our nation is spending like drunken sailors and a lot of people, myself included, are dissillusioned with how the priority has been to preserve mutlimillion dollar bonuses, then make a token effort at the sufferring of the middle class.
We are in an economic hole. I am loathe to say that things are worse than ever. I think that's an easy head-fake to fall for. We've been in bad shape before. One advantage of having grown up in the 1970s is that I have some passing familiarity with what it's like to live in a country with a crap economy that shows no sign of ever recovering, meanwhile being told to accept that the US will soon become an also-ran economic power of no consequence.
When I was a kid, we were hammered constantly with how the Japanese and Germans were kicking our butts and how their kids were smarter and harder working than we were.
We raised the stakes, became the hardest working people in the world, and innovated a PC revolution, followed by an internet revolution. Both of them became not just engines of economic prosperity in the US, but a true gift for the betterment of all mankind.
Germany and Japan? They're still there, but their accomplishments are virtually non-existent next to ours. The prognosticators sure got that one wrong.
Just as I'm dead certain that they've got it wrong when they tell us that China and India are going to start eating our lunch. Sorry, but it's easy to get 10% economic growth when you are transitioning from an economy based on 10th century agriculture to 21st century manufacturing. However, both societies have no respect for intellectual property, are incapable of paying market-rates for medicine, and are so fearful of our ability to kick their butts technologically that they prohibit us from owning anything in their countries.
You just don't need to get apoplectic about economies where the per capita gdp is the same as that in sub saharan africa.
The only thing I see that's totally different now is that our deficit spending is absolutely unprecedented. Democrats rightly chastized Dubya for being the most irresponsible president, ever, on fiscal issues, then proceeded to produce a president who makes Dubya look like Hoover.
So, what is in store? I see more cause for optimism for myself than pessimism. I'm fortunate in a lot of regards. While I believe the Democrats just threw the entire country under the bus on health care, at least for the time being, I've got employer-sponsored health care that's the best I've ever had, at a cost that's amazingly affordable.
The democrats have hastened health care armageddon, but once it comes, we'll be forced to deal with it. They were well intentioned, but like Democrats have been for the entirety of my life, they're too stupid to lead. I shouldn't have expected anything else.
The budget deficits? Sheesh, what to say about that. I don't see how that won't be a train wreck, but who knows what the world will look like 50 years from now.
All in all, though, I'm hopeful that things will improve. I am always loathe to criticize politicians since there's no way in hell I'd want to be one. Given the realities of the job, it's small wonder we get the corrupt dimwits we get.
Maybe we'll have a true leader emerge. I haven't seen one since Reagan and before him, the last ones were probably Kennedy and Johnson. Clinton was competent, but no leader. Dubya was neither competent nor a leader. Obama is considerably less of a leader than Dubya was.
In the mean time, I get to do work I love, which is meaningful to me, and that provides a lot of good in my community. I get to raise a child who has brought me nothing but joy. I have a fabulous family and circle of friends.
My blessings are many. So, I face the new decade with hope. One of those hopes is that the decade is good to all of us.
Folks don't seem to be that excited about it, either. The decade saw the real purchasing power of the middle class actually decline (adjusted for inflation) for about the first time since the great depression. It saw the institutions of our government used to give a lot of money to bankers who really don't deserve it, and left the tab to be paid by our children, who clearly don't deserve it.
I came of age when Viet Nam was wrapping up. We were out by the time I was 9 years old. Since then, America has enjoyed an unprecedented period of peace and prosperity. However, we have lost both in the past 10 years. My son doesn't know what it means to live in a nation that is not at war. Prosperity seems like a dream of a bygone era, with nobody really knowing how we can find it again.
Lots of stuff to be depressed about, really.
Still, I have to admit, as decades go, this one wasn't all that bad for me.
First and foremost, I have a son, now. A product of this decade, born just a few months before the attacks of 9/11. I couldn't be happier with the blessings that fate has bestowed upon me in regards to Logan. He's a good looking, smart, athletic, kind hearted little man who is rapidly growing into a fine young man.
Professionally, I started the decade with a promotion to divisional IT management with a company I loved. 4 years into the decade, I left my comfortable corporate nest and into pursuing my life's work as an entrepreneur. I've never been happier. I've enjoyed more success as an entrepreneur than I ever could have as a corporate guy. Mostly, I'm doing something I love and my life is exactly what I had always hoped it could become. I just need to keep doing what it takes to grow my business interests.
If I ever had to work a job again, it wouldn't be the worst thing. However, nothing can compare to these last 5 years as head of a company that I own.
My life took an unexpected turn with me joining the military again. This time as an officer in the Navy Reserve. Go figure. I am honored and blessed to have the opportunity to serve.
Beyond that, what now? I think we've got our share of challenges ahead of us. The Obama team has proven that they were no more ready for the job than most presidents. The past year of bungling was, actually, to be expected from a team of rookies, but I think they'll get better at it.
One thing that I don't think will stay with us for much of the next decade is the Democrat Congress, which is giving the American people every reason to boot them unceremoniously to the curb.
Our nation is spending like drunken sailors and a lot of people, myself included, are dissillusioned with how the priority has been to preserve mutlimillion dollar bonuses, then make a token effort at the sufferring of the middle class.
We are in an economic hole. I am loathe to say that things are worse than ever. I think that's an easy head-fake to fall for. We've been in bad shape before. One advantage of having grown up in the 1970s is that I have some passing familiarity with what it's like to live in a country with a crap economy that shows no sign of ever recovering, meanwhile being told to accept that the US will soon become an also-ran economic power of no consequence.
When I was a kid, we were hammered constantly with how the Japanese and Germans were kicking our butts and how their kids were smarter and harder working than we were.
We raised the stakes, became the hardest working people in the world, and innovated a PC revolution, followed by an internet revolution. Both of them became not just engines of economic prosperity in the US, but a true gift for the betterment of all mankind.
Germany and Japan? They're still there, but their accomplishments are virtually non-existent next to ours. The prognosticators sure got that one wrong.
Just as I'm dead certain that they've got it wrong when they tell us that China and India are going to start eating our lunch. Sorry, but it's easy to get 10% economic growth when you are transitioning from an economy based on 10th century agriculture to 21st century manufacturing. However, both societies have no respect for intellectual property, are incapable of paying market-rates for medicine, and are so fearful of our ability to kick their butts technologically that they prohibit us from owning anything in their countries.
You just don't need to get apoplectic about economies where the per capita gdp is the same as that in sub saharan africa.
The only thing I see that's totally different now is that our deficit spending is absolutely unprecedented. Democrats rightly chastized Dubya for being the most irresponsible president, ever, on fiscal issues, then proceeded to produce a president who makes Dubya look like Hoover.
So, what is in store? I see more cause for optimism for myself than pessimism. I'm fortunate in a lot of regards. While I believe the Democrats just threw the entire country under the bus on health care, at least for the time being, I've got employer-sponsored health care that's the best I've ever had, at a cost that's amazingly affordable.
The democrats have hastened health care armageddon, but once it comes, we'll be forced to deal with it. They were well intentioned, but like Democrats have been for the entirety of my life, they're too stupid to lead. I shouldn't have expected anything else.
The budget deficits? Sheesh, what to say about that. I don't see how that won't be a train wreck, but who knows what the world will look like 50 years from now.
All in all, though, I'm hopeful that things will improve. I am always loathe to criticize politicians since there's no way in hell I'd want to be one. Given the realities of the job, it's small wonder we get the corrupt dimwits we get.
Maybe we'll have a true leader emerge. I haven't seen one since Reagan and before him, the last ones were probably Kennedy and Johnson. Clinton was competent, but no leader. Dubya was neither competent nor a leader. Obama is considerably less of a leader than Dubya was.
In the mean time, I get to do work I love, which is meaningful to me, and that provides a lot of good in my community. I get to raise a child who has brought me nothing but joy. I have a fabulous family and circle of friends.
My blessings are many. So, I face the new decade with hope. One of those hopes is that the decade is good to all of us.
Saturday, December 19, 2009
Avatar, the Short Review...
Three notes:
1. This review contains spoilers.
2. I recommend seeing this movie.
3. If you haven't seen it already, none of this will make sense.
That having been said, there's an old expression, "amateurs borrow, professionals steal." James Cameron is perhaps the most professional movie maker, ever.
The basic premise for this movie traces strong roots back to the Matrix, where people plug themselves into a machine to control a version of themselves elsewhere. It gets even more Matrixy because the blue people have pony tails that let them jack-in to everything from trees to flying lizards.
Second, if you removed all the special effects and blue people, this movie is Dances With Wolves.
Third, what is James Cameron's deal with giant humanoid robots? Robots which, by the way, look a lot like the weaponized robots in one of the Matrix sequels.
Fourth, why does everybody's blue avatar look like a cat, but Sigourney Weaver's looks like Sigourney Weaver. It was creepy... and keep in mind, it was creepy in comparison to gigantic blue cat people.
Fifth, how convenient that this particular planet revolves around a tree that can take a person's consciousness out of a human body and put it into an artificially constructed cat person's body... um... how much need was there for that prior to the humans arriving? And how did anybody know the tree could do this?
Sixth, if the whole point of these movies is to show how meaningful and spiritually wonderful the lives of indiginous savages is, and how superior they are to us, why is it that it always takes a white guy entering the society to provide the leadership to save it. That sort of argues that we ARE actually better, doesn't it?
Seventh, in the final scenes, with the music, the plot and the cat people, I felt like I was watching the Lion King.
Eighth, dude had a flying lizard that could f-up a helicopter. Why did he only do it once? Shouldn't he have kept at it?
Ninth, "unobtanium"? Seriously? Why not call it "Bling fo' shizzle"? The word has been around and it's used facetiously.
Tenth, this movie is bad sci-fi. Science fiction doesn't fabricate fantasy, it extrapolates on feasible technology. The movie is chock full of scientific black holes, such as how these folks achieve speed-of-light interplanetary travel, etc. So, if you're waiting for the best sci-fi movie of 2009, it's still "District 9". This one is firmly in the fantasy camp.
Eleventh, it borrows pretty heavily from the fantasy genre, too. The flying dragons that bond with only one rider? Wasn't that from Dragonriders of Pern or something?
Okay, so, was it a good movie? Yes. Not worth a second watch, though, IMHO. I don't understand all the hubub about how this is James Cameron's long-awaited masterpiece or that it was the most expensive movie ever made, etc.
It's basically a really good cartoon. Really, really good, but still had the feel of a fantasy cartoon to me.
Is anybody else a little intrigued by how many blockbusters are animated these days? Our pop music sounds fake as all get-out and our movies look the same way. There's got to be a social commentary in there somewhere.
As a final note, when folks started talking about this movie, I thought they were talking about the M. Night Shayamalan movie, "Avatar, the Last Airbender". Apparently, they changed the name of that movie to, simply, "The Last Airbender" to avoid confusion with the movie "Avatar". I used to catch the Avatar cartoon once in a while when Logan would watch it on Nick. I'm actually looking forward to that movie moreso than this one.
1. This review contains spoilers.
2. I recommend seeing this movie.
3. If you haven't seen it already, none of this will make sense.
That having been said, there's an old expression, "amateurs borrow, professionals steal." James Cameron is perhaps the most professional movie maker, ever.
The basic premise for this movie traces strong roots back to the Matrix, where people plug themselves into a machine to control a version of themselves elsewhere. It gets even more Matrixy because the blue people have pony tails that let them jack-in to everything from trees to flying lizards.
Second, if you removed all the special effects and blue people, this movie is Dances With Wolves.
Third, what is James Cameron's deal with giant humanoid robots? Robots which, by the way, look a lot like the weaponized robots in one of the Matrix sequels.
Fourth, why does everybody's blue avatar look like a cat, but Sigourney Weaver's looks like Sigourney Weaver. It was creepy... and keep in mind, it was creepy in comparison to gigantic blue cat people.
Fifth, how convenient that this particular planet revolves around a tree that can take a person's consciousness out of a human body and put it into an artificially constructed cat person's body... um... how much need was there for that prior to the humans arriving? And how did anybody know the tree could do this?
Sixth, if the whole point of these movies is to show how meaningful and spiritually wonderful the lives of indiginous savages is, and how superior they are to us, why is it that it always takes a white guy entering the society to provide the leadership to save it. That sort of argues that we ARE actually better, doesn't it?
Seventh, in the final scenes, with the music, the plot and the cat people, I felt like I was watching the Lion King.
Eighth, dude had a flying lizard that could f-up a helicopter. Why did he only do it once? Shouldn't he have kept at it?
Ninth, "unobtanium"? Seriously? Why not call it "Bling fo' shizzle"? The word has been around and it's used facetiously.
Tenth, this movie is bad sci-fi. Science fiction doesn't fabricate fantasy, it extrapolates on feasible technology. The movie is chock full of scientific black holes, such as how these folks achieve speed-of-light interplanetary travel, etc. So, if you're waiting for the best sci-fi movie of 2009, it's still "District 9". This one is firmly in the fantasy camp.
Eleventh, it borrows pretty heavily from the fantasy genre, too. The flying dragons that bond with only one rider? Wasn't that from Dragonriders of Pern or something?
Okay, so, was it a good movie? Yes. Not worth a second watch, though, IMHO. I don't understand all the hubub about how this is James Cameron's long-awaited masterpiece or that it was the most expensive movie ever made, etc.
It's basically a really good cartoon. Really, really good, but still had the feel of a fantasy cartoon to me.
Is anybody else a little intrigued by how many blockbusters are animated these days? Our pop music sounds fake as all get-out and our movies look the same way. There's got to be a social commentary in there somewhere.
As a final note, when folks started talking about this movie, I thought they were talking about the M. Night Shayamalan movie, "Avatar, the Last Airbender". Apparently, they changed the name of that movie to, simply, "The Last Airbender" to avoid confusion with the movie "Avatar". I used to catch the Avatar cartoon once in a while when Logan would watch it on Nick. I'm actually looking forward to that movie moreso than this one.
Friday, December 18, 2009
In Defense of Participation Awards
I just read a quote from Glenn Beck. Let's just get straight past the obvious question, here, which is why a person apparently has to be of little to no discernable talent or accomplishments to be a right-wing icon. I don't have an answer for that... or at least not one that's inoffensive to conservatives.
The quote was this: "When we refuse to allow our children to receive a trophy for participation, we are on the road to restoring the meaning of merit in our Republic."
This is what I'll call the "Let's all kill for our meals" school of conservative thought. Now, not to be unkind to Beck, but in a world where only the fittest survive, I don't think there'd be much future for a pasty, chubby kid with a severe case of ADHD. (No, I'm not referring to myself, I'm referring to Beck... though I could just as easily be referring to myself.)
My son is now 8 and all indications are that he's more athletic than most. Fortunately, he got a liberal dose of his mother's genetics, which is why, when he runs, he's the fastest kid on the field, and looks like a gazelle. Versus looking like a charging penguin stumping around with arms flapping and stubby legs pounding the ground into submission, which is what he'd look like if he had taken after me.
These days, he's at a point where he has opportunities to play at both the recreational level, but also the competitive level. For instance, he plays on a city-wide travel baseball team that drew 12 of the best players out of a rec league of about 150 players.
Yet, he also plays rec. league football and basketball. The difference is this: rec. leagues are supposed to encourage participation and they emphasize equal playing time for all kids, regardless of skill.
That's not all bad. Parents bring their kids to play sports for various reasons. Some of the kids, frankly, you can tell won't be playing very long. Their parents want them to grow up to be well-rounded, well-adjusted people. They know full well that their kid is not the next Pele or Shaq. They just want the kid to have fun, to gain social skills, and to get a little bit of exercise.
Yes, these kids get little trophies at the end of the year, usually. Does it water down the meaning of an award? I honestly don't think so. The kids on the team all know who the better players are. The kids who play less well are aware of it, too.
None of the kids is so delusional that they think that the trophy means they're the best player on the team. However, it's a nice little pat on the back for everybody. The seasons can be long. Practices take a measure of devotion and effort. All the kids deserve a token of their accomplishment.
Every year, the rec leagues get a little smaller. A lot of the first graders who played soccer won't play in 2nd grade because they're already realizing that they aren't at the level of many of their peers. By the time you reach middle school, there really aren't many people playing sports just for the fun of it.
Baseball is something every 6 year old can experience. However, it's something that only very skilled 12 year olds tend to do. By the time High School rolls around, not every football player is an elite caliber athlete, but there aren't any of them who are weak or uncoordinated.
So, I say, any encouragement for kids to play sports is a good thing. You also don't know which kids will bloom at which point in their lives. A child who is clumsy at age 6 may grow into his or her body and be very coordinated at age 9. No need to cull them out early on.
I'm also reminded of the military. For instance, the Army has participation awards. Lots of 'em. You get a badge simply for being able to fire a rifle with any proficiency at all. You get the National Defense Ribbon simply for enlisting. You get a good conduct medal for serving for 3 years without a major screw-up.
The point being that not every pat on the back needs to be for extraordinary effort. People aren't stupid. They know the difference between a good conduct medal and the Medal of Honor. But that doesn't mean there isn't a place for the good conduct medal.
We're dealing with kids, here, not Wall Street bankers. You don't treat a child the same way you treat an adult. I think one of the greatest mistakes in child-rearing was the short-lived movement that you treat small children like responsible adults in order to get them to grow up to be responsible adults.
They're little kids. They should have lives full of fun and laughter. They should have a lot of activities where they can run around and expend some of their youthful energy. They SHOULD have times where they receive a small reward for things that seem trivial by adult standards.
They're not adults after all.
The quote was this: "When we refuse to allow our children to receive a trophy for participation, we are on the road to restoring the meaning of merit in our Republic."
This is what I'll call the "Let's all kill for our meals" school of conservative thought. Now, not to be unkind to Beck, but in a world where only the fittest survive, I don't think there'd be much future for a pasty, chubby kid with a severe case of ADHD. (No, I'm not referring to myself, I'm referring to Beck... though I could just as easily be referring to myself.)
My son is now 8 and all indications are that he's more athletic than most. Fortunately, he got a liberal dose of his mother's genetics, which is why, when he runs, he's the fastest kid on the field, and looks like a gazelle. Versus looking like a charging penguin stumping around with arms flapping and stubby legs pounding the ground into submission, which is what he'd look like if he had taken after me.
These days, he's at a point where he has opportunities to play at both the recreational level, but also the competitive level. For instance, he plays on a city-wide travel baseball team that drew 12 of the best players out of a rec league of about 150 players.
Yet, he also plays rec. league football and basketball. The difference is this: rec. leagues are supposed to encourage participation and they emphasize equal playing time for all kids, regardless of skill.
That's not all bad. Parents bring their kids to play sports for various reasons. Some of the kids, frankly, you can tell won't be playing very long. Their parents want them to grow up to be well-rounded, well-adjusted people. They know full well that their kid is not the next Pele or Shaq. They just want the kid to have fun, to gain social skills, and to get a little bit of exercise.
Yes, these kids get little trophies at the end of the year, usually. Does it water down the meaning of an award? I honestly don't think so. The kids on the team all know who the better players are. The kids who play less well are aware of it, too.
None of the kids is so delusional that they think that the trophy means they're the best player on the team. However, it's a nice little pat on the back for everybody. The seasons can be long. Practices take a measure of devotion and effort. All the kids deserve a token of their accomplishment.
Every year, the rec leagues get a little smaller. A lot of the first graders who played soccer won't play in 2nd grade because they're already realizing that they aren't at the level of many of their peers. By the time you reach middle school, there really aren't many people playing sports just for the fun of it.
Baseball is something every 6 year old can experience. However, it's something that only very skilled 12 year olds tend to do. By the time High School rolls around, not every football player is an elite caliber athlete, but there aren't any of them who are weak or uncoordinated.
So, I say, any encouragement for kids to play sports is a good thing. You also don't know which kids will bloom at which point in their lives. A child who is clumsy at age 6 may grow into his or her body and be very coordinated at age 9. No need to cull them out early on.
I'm also reminded of the military. For instance, the Army has participation awards. Lots of 'em. You get a badge simply for being able to fire a rifle with any proficiency at all. You get the National Defense Ribbon simply for enlisting. You get a good conduct medal for serving for 3 years without a major screw-up.
The point being that not every pat on the back needs to be for extraordinary effort. People aren't stupid. They know the difference between a good conduct medal and the Medal of Honor. But that doesn't mean there isn't a place for the good conduct medal.
We're dealing with kids, here, not Wall Street bankers. You don't treat a child the same way you treat an adult. I think one of the greatest mistakes in child-rearing was the short-lived movement that you treat small children like responsible adults in order to get them to grow up to be responsible adults.
They're little kids. They should have lives full of fun and laughter. They should have a lot of activities where they can run around and expend some of their youthful energy. They SHOULD have times where they receive a small reward for things that seem trivial by adult standards.
They're not adults after all.
Thursday, December 17, 2009
Ringing the Bells, Getting over bacterial yuckiness, etc...
A week before Christmas and I still don't have a gift for Logan. I was thinking a really nice fooseball table, but the ones at dick's weren't that nice, and the nice ones at the Pool and Spa places were a bit more than what I wanted.
I'm not that determined to get him a fooseball table, but we'll see. I honestly don't know what to get. Any ideas? For an 8 year old athletic boy who loves games? If we had any room for one, I'd get him a ping pong table. He learned to play when we were in AZ and he loves it. He's darned good for an 8 year old, too. As always, I'm completely objective about my son.
:)
Tomorrow night, I'm doing a two hour shift of ringing the Salvation Army bell at Cabela's in Dundee. Stop by and say hello if you're in the area. I'll freeze my face off and I'm not necessarily looking forward to it, but it's one of very few good deeds I do throughout the year.
I'm still recovering from that bacterial yuck I had. I think I'm probably recovered except for a residual sore throat from all the coughing. Right now, I've got my typical seasonal rhinitis. (Basically, the cold doesn't do me any good and produces an allergic-type reaction.) Someday, I need to move to Florida or maybe Cayman Island, but until my son graduates from school, I'll probably be here. Just 10 more Winters and I can move.
I do wonder if I got hit with something else, too. I know part of it was a bacterial sinus infection, but I wonder if I might have gotten nailed with a mild strain of influenza or something. I know one thing: I haven't been that sick for that long in a looong time.
I just got back from Athens, GA, where I passed the FS2 exam after failing it twice. I really love that place. Getting past FS2 is quite a relief. I stand an outside shot at graduating with my class in March and frankly, I'm ready to. I'm getting a little tired of being in training status for the Navy and am ready to do something a little bit more productive.
I'm trying to prepare for the FS3 Exam (food service 3) for the Navy, and this thing is going to suck. It actually looks worse than the FS2 which I flunked twice and almost got kicked out of the program for. Yeesh. I'll do what I can. With any luck, I'll eeke out a passing grade. I'm driving to Columbus to take the exam next Wednesday.
It doesn't help that my study skills are pretty much shot at my age, and they weren't so hot back when I needed them, either. I still think it's a mistake to have gone to as much school as I did. Looking back, though, it's a minor miracle that I finished.
Logan is out of school next week and I'm thinking of maybe taking him to one of the gozillions of indoor water parks around here. There are some incredible ones in Sandusky, an hour away. Probably worth the drive: they're farging huge.
Bought a new over-the-counter microwave oven the other day. That pretty much completes our appliance swap-out for 2009. We started the year by losing our fridge, then our dishwasher, and now the OTC microwave. The oven is still in good shape, but that's not so surprising given that it isn't ever really used. It's more ornamental than anything. I do warm soup up on it now and then.
If I'd known these things were all going to die, I'd have switched to stainless steel appliances, which are in style these days. Instead, we still have all white applicances. Oh well.
The new microwave is bigger and more powerful. So, for those of us who are so impatient that we stand in front of a microwave screaming "HURRY!", this is a good thing.
Things at work are interesting these days. We're down to a very small staffing level. Just 7 employees from our peak of 13 in the Spring. Almost half size. This year has been a real kick in the cajones. We just got no cooperation from the weather at all. Still, we'll finish down just slightly from our sales from last year. So, we marketed our way through the crisis. It could have been so much worse.
With a little cooperation from mother nature, next year should be a really good one. My focus is going to be on broadening our business services offerred so we can keep people busy if we get another slow season like this ever again.
With a good sales year, we may be in a cash position to buy an Ohio territory. I guess we'll wait and see.
So, wish me luck tomorrow. I'll be wearing a lot of layers of clothing. One thing they're doing different this year is that they used to have 2 people working at Cabela's, but this year, it's just one. So, I'll have to make sure I have an empty bladder because 2 hours is a long time to go without a break.
Merry Christmas everybody!
I'm not that determined to get him a fooseball table, but we'll see. I honestly don't know what to get. Any ideas? For an 8 year old athletic boy who loves games? If we had any room for one, I'd get him a ping pong table. He learned to play when we were in AZ and he loves it. He's darned good for an 8 year old, too. As always, I'm completely objective about my son.
:)
Tomorrow night, I'm doing a two hour shift of ringing the Salvation Army bell at Cabela's in Dundee. Stop by and say hello if you're in the area. I'll freeze my face off and I'm not necessarily looking forward to it, but it's one of very few good deeds I do throughout the year.
I'm still recovering from that bacterial yuck I had. I think I'm probably recovered except for a residual sore throat from all the coughing. Right now, I've got my typical seasonal rhinitis. (Basically, the cold doesn't do me any good and produces an allergic-type reaction.) Someday, I need to move to Florida or maybe Cayman Island, but until my son graduates from school, I'll probably be here. Just 10 more Winters and I can move.
I do wonder if I got hit with something else, too. I know part of it was a bacterial sinus infection, but I wonder if I might have gotten nailed with a mild strain of influenza or something. I know one thing: I haven't been that sick for that long in a looong time.
I just got back from Athens, GA, where I passed the FS2 exam after failing it twice. I really love that place. Getting past FS2 is quite a relief. I stand an outside shot at graduating with my class in March and frankly, I'm ready to. I'm getting a little tired of being in training status for the Navy and am ready to do something a little bit more productive.
I'm trying to prepare for the FS3 Exam (food service 3) for the Navy, and this thing is going to suck. It actually looks worse than the FS2 which I flunked twice and almost got kicked out of the program for. Yeesh. I'll do what I can. With any luck, I'll eeke out a passing grade. I'm driving to Columbus to take the exam next Wednesday.
It doesn't help that my study skills are pretty much shot at my age, and they weren't so hot back when I needed them, either. I still think it's a mistake to have gone to as much school as I did. Looking back, though, it's a minor miracle that I finished.
Logan is out of school next week and I'm thinking of maybe taking him to one of the gozillions of indoor water parks around here. There are some incredible ones in Sandusky, an hour away. Probably worth the drive: they're farging huge.
Bought a new over-the-counter microwave oven the other day. That pretty much completes our appliance swap-out for 2009. We started the year by losing our fridge, then our dishwasher, and now the OTC microwave. The oven is still in good shape, but that's not so surprising given that it isn't ever really used. It's more ornamental than anything. I do warm soup up on it now and then.
If I'd known these things were all going to die, I'd have switched to stainless steel appliances, which are in style these days. Instead, we still have all white applicances. Oh well.
The new microwave is bigger and more powerful. So, for those of us who are so impatient that we stand in front of a microwave screaming "HURRY!", this is a good thing.
Things at work are interesting these days. We're down to a very small staffing level. Just 7 employees from our peak of 13 in the Spring. Almost half size. This year has been a real kick in the cajones. We just got no cooperation from the weather at all. Still, we'll finish down just slightly from our sales from last year. So, we marketed our way through the crisis. It could have been so much worse.
With a little cooperation from mother nature, next year should be a really good one. My focus is going to be on broadening our business services offerred so we can keep people busy if we get another slow season like this ever again.
With a good sales year, we may be in a cash position to buy an Ohio territory. I guess we'll wait and see.
So, wish me luck tomorrow. I'll be wearing a lot of layers of clothing. One thing they're doing different this year is that they used to have 2 people working at Cabela's, but this year, it's just one. So, I'll have to make sure I have an empty bladder because 2 hours is a long time to go without a break.
Merry Christmas everybody!
Monday, December 14, 2009
The War Wind-Down, and Jimmy at the Crossroads
I'm back from repeating a 4 day training session ("the midpoint") at Athens, GA for the Navy. I already took the instruction in July, but then proceeded to spend the next 5 months failing an exam known as "FS2". It is probably the hardest of all the exams, but it was ridiculous for me to have so much difficulty in passing it.
I'm confident I passed it this time, but that's the way it goes when you fail it twice and know exactly what to key into during the lectures. Unfortunately, I'm pretty far behind and will not likely be able to graduate with my class. Tentatively, I'll be graduating with the next class in August.
Down at school, the mood was totally different than it was when I did the midpoint in July. In July, the basic gouge was that we were all still going to mobilize, either immediately upon graduation, or most likely within a year of graduation. ("Gouge" is Navy-speak for "essential truth of the matter.")
I honestly felt as though this must have been what it was like to attend a military school knowing you were going to fight a war in the Pacific, or in Vietnam, etc. I felt a closeness and comaraderie with my classmates because we were going to war together. There was even a significant chance that some of us would not come back.
I honestly feel that it drew me closer to my classmates. That I wanted to get to know them. That I wanted to hang out with them after class.
Well, what a difference 5 months make! Right now, the gouge is that almost nobody is deploying. The mission in Iraq has drawn down, and with recruiting and retention of the active-duty force through the roof due to the bad economy, they're able to handle most of the requirements in Afghanistan.
Didn't have the same feeling at all. In fact, I've seen e-mails where they're asking for volunteers for mobilizations, and the current trend is that all the mob billets are being filled by volunteers. Figure if somebody is unemployed, $100,000 a year, tax-free, as a deployed O-3 starts looking pretty good.
The folks from California have said that when they're notified of mobilization opportunities, that they're seeing guidance like, "preferrence is being given to people who are currently unemployed."
Again, what a difference! We went from an environment where folks were being deployed no matter what, to one where so few people are deploying that folks are fighting for the opportunity.
Which brings me to some serious thinking on my own situation. As some of you know, this entire process started for me in 2003, when I was still employed at Parker. I tried to get into the National Guard as an infantry officer, and they worked with me a little bit, but then basically informed me that there was no way it could happen fast enough for me to meet the age deadline. (All training, through OCS had to be complete before my 40th birthday.)
Then, in 2005, I got a letter from a Navy Reserve Officer Programs recruiter and immediately submitted my packet. After that, they lost my packet for 8 months. Finally, they found it, and I was selected for a direct commission.
However, I had no idea the training would drag out for so long! I submitted my packet in the middle of 2005, and I won't be deployable until the middle of 2010! Literally, 5 years from the time I submitted my packet is when I'll be fully trained and eligible to deploy.
(And 7 years from the time I started trying to get back into the military! The time-frame is insane. I joined, served and was discharged from the Army in less time than it has taken me just to go from submitting paperwork to getting fully trained in the Navy Reserve! I honestly considered enlisting, again, in the Army back in 2005. I even had the MOS picked out: 13F, an artillery MOS. I sometimes regret that I didn't. I'd already be discharged by now!)
As for my motivation for doing this, as I've made abundantly clear to everybody, I wanted to do this to give back to a nation that has given me so very, very much. I struggled financially as a young man, but pretty much from about 1998 onward, I've been "over the hump" so to speak. Although some folks find it distasteful to use the word "wealthy", I consider myself wealthy in a world where most people barely scrape by.
It could have only happened for me in the United States of America, and it could only happen during an era like our current one. What chance would a person of mixed racial ancestry have had at almost any other time during our history?
For instance, I'm an Army paratrooper, but when you watch Band of Brothers, you'll notice... they're all white. That was the policy back then. Italians and Jews were okay, but Asians and blacks?
My modest success in life is only because I've stood on the shoulders of giants. Giants in the fields of civil rights and giants who stood to defend the country so it could become what it is, now.
My original goal was to go one tour of Individual Augmentation with the Army to Iraq or Afghanistan, and then request transfer to the VTU. (Which means I'd still be technically with the Navy reserve, but would not be drilling. It would be in the ballpark of submitting a resignation.)
I rehearsed the words I was going to say when I was ready for an assignment. "I want an IA with the Army, and not one in the green zone. Put me with a transportation company or an MP unit or some unit that is in harm's way. My preferrence would be that I don't spend much time behind a desk."
For a while, there were a ton of billets available as embedded trainers with the Afghan National Army... that would have been perfect, but we got the news sometime early this year that this mission was drying up as far as mobilization opportunities for Navy O's. In fact, they had a bunch of guys ready to go ETT to the ANA, and they cancelled the mission, the last time they were thinking of doing it.
This would be a winner in almost every conceivable way. I would get to do what I really want to do. I could serve with the Army, where I am most comfortable. With my parachute wings on my uniform, I could move past a lot of the typical hazing a Navy Officer might expect with an Army unit. Another Navy Officer, who might not be so happy about being with the Army, wouldn't have to. Ultimately, an Army officer, who probably has already got a combat tour, maybe two, could stay home because I'd be filling his place.
As a Navy Officer on loan to the Army, I couldn't work in a combat specialty, but fortunately, Navy Supply Corps covers a lot of different areas, including transportation.
There was also a selfish motivation behind wanting to serve. I have admired combat vets my entire life. From my grandfather who flew bombers for the Army Air Corps in WWII to my uncle Gary who died during the Tet Offensive in '68, to the millions of nameless and faceless many who answered the nation's call to service.
I want, quite selfishly, to be able to say that I did my duty and served my time just as they did.
When I left the Army in 1987, I did so with the belief that I'd always come back if the country needed me. It just never really needed me until this decade. The country managed to stay at peace until I got pretty long in the tooth for a military guy.
Now, the opportunity is still there, but in much smaller measure, and the door appears to be closing.
It has left me to wonder if I really want to keep doing this at all. The money is unimportant to me. With Logan turning out to be the biggest jock in my family in a generation, Saturdays mean a lot to me.
A funny thing happened on the way to leaving though. The first, which wasn't entirely unpredictable, is that I love drilling. I love participating in the reserve. I love serving with other servicemembers. I look forward to each drill and enjoy every moment of it.
On top of that, reservists are now eligible to get health-care insurance at what I consider an insanely low rate. I'm able to buy coverage for my entire family for less than $200 a month. It is, without a doubt, the best coverage I've ever had. My copays and deductibles are negligible. Of all the possible benefits they could offer, this one really hits the target with me.
So, I think I may have inadvertently found something I'll probably stick with. I love being part of the world's greatest Navy. Among my many blessings, I count the fact that I have been priviledged to serve in both the world's greatest Army and the world's greatest Navy. I am honored to serve.
A lot of folks will be relieved that my chances of an IA are now greatly reduced. It's not all bad for me, either. This gives me a chance to affiliate with a Navy unit. Navy units still deploy, but it's more likely that they'll deploy to someplace like Bahrain, not Bagram. And the deployments are shorter: 7 months, versus 13.
I had put a lot of my life on hold in anticipation of over a year overseas with the Army. Now, I can start focusing on some other aspects of my life. My business is launching a lawn-care business unit next year. If profitability is good (knock on wood) in the other business units, I'll finally be initiating the aircraft lease business unit.
I can get back to working on my golf game. Next year is the year where I'll teach my son how to golf. I've been holding back, afraid it'll mess up his baseball swing, but he's already one of the best players in the city. He'll figure out how to separate them both. I figure he'll probably play baseball until he's 18, but if I can teach him to golf, he can probably do that his entire life.
Honestly, the thought of not immediately deploying came as a substantial shock to me. I guess now I have to go about living a life that I'd been furiously putting on hold for the past two years.
Okay, those are my major thoughts for the day. Here are some minor ones:
1. The Navy screwed up my promotion paperwork. I'm supposed to be a Lieutenant Junior Grade, not an Ensign right now. However, when processing my security clearance, they saw I was born overseas and said, "Whoa! We need proof of citizenship." Ummm... yeah, the top of that birth certificate? Yeah, the part that says, "Consular Report of the Birth of a United States Citizen Abroad"... yeah, that's sorta the proof that I'm a United States Citizen... Anyway, the security clearance got straightened out, and I have my clearance, now. However, that caused a delay in the processing of my promotion paperwork. For those unfamiliar, this is pretty much an administrative promotion based on time in grade / time in service. Promotions for officers don't really get competitive until you go up for O-4 (Major in the Army / Air Force / Marines, or LT Commander in the Navy.)
2. Got my statement from my country club and man, it'll be nice once I pay off my stock fee. Basically, to belong to a country club, you have to become an owner of the club. These clubs are all owned by the members. In my case, I needed to buy several grand worth of "stock" in the country club in order to belong to it. Now, they made it painless by giving me an interest free loan, but it does suck to have to write out a biggo check every month when you can't even golf. I'll have it paid off in July. Once you pay off your stock fee, frankly, it's a bargain if you golf at all. For a guy like me with a boy who will start golfing, it's ridiculously cheap. I think I pay like $200 a month for my family to golf there. That pays for my locker and for them to keep track of my handicap, and for anybody in my family to golf as much as they want. If you're a golfer, you just can't beat it. Plus, the club is within walking distance of my house, and I'd much rather have Logan spending his Summer days out on the course than in somebody's basement smoking pot and playing video games. The club also has a gorgeous clubhouse and pool which is included in our membership as well.
3. I'm at the tail end of the worst sickness I've had in decades. I really got nailed hard. It was probably a sinus infection that went a little too far before I got meds, but now, I think there might have been a little of something else mixed in there, too. Two interesting notes: once you start blowing out day-glo yellow snot, that's actually a good sign. That's the final stage of your body killing off the last of the bacteria. Second, if you start having "digestive trouble", that's probably because the antibiotic killed off all the bacteria in your intestines. A lot of that bacteria is beneficial, and a lot of it is stuff you need in order for your plumbing to work correctly. I remembered some advice I heard a long time ago: to eat a yogurt the day after your antibiotics run out. Did it and honestly, it cured me within an hour or two. Amazing how sometimes the right cure is just a good diet.
4. Logan woke me up today to tell me that the Browns beat the Steelers. Huh? Really? Man, I feel so bad for the kid. He's the biggest home-town loyal sports fan I've ever seen. I just hate to see him have to go through the hardship of being a Cleveland sports fan. I've always said, "You wanna be a sports fan in Cleveland? You gotta be tough." When we were at Disney, he wore an Indians or Browns uniform item every single day. As always, I'm proud of my little man for being so tough... I just hate to see him suffer. I hope the Cavs do it this year.
Now, time to go in to work. It's been so depressing for so long, I just really need to get re-motivated. We started the year like gangbusters, with record sales and record profitability. However, the last half of the year has blown chunks. We've basically been a nonprofit since June. Time to turn that around. Those Country Club dues ain't gonna pay themselves!
I'm confident I passed it this time, but that's the way it goes when you fail it twice and know exactly what to key into during the lectures. Unfortunately, I'm pretty far behind and will not likely be able to graduate with my class. Tentatively, I'll be graduating with the next class in August.
Down at school, the mood was totally different than it was when I did the midpoint in July. In July, the basic gouge was that we were all still going to mobilize, either immediately upon graduation, or most likely within a year of graduation. ("Gouge" is Navy-speak for "essential truth of the matter.")
I honestly felt as though this must have been what it was like to attend a military school knowing you were going to fight a war in the Pacific, or in Vietnam, etc. I felt a closeness and comaraderie with my classmates because we were going to war together. There was even a significant chance that some of us would not come back.
I honestly feel that it drew me closer to my classmates. That I wanted to get to know them. That I wanted to hang out with them after class.
Well, what a difference 5 months make! Right now, the gouge is that almost nobody is deploying. The mission in Iraq has drawn down, and with recruiting and retention of the active-duty force through the roof due to the bad economy, they're able to handle most of the requirements in Afghanistan.
Didn't have the same feeling at all. In fact, I've seen e-mails where they're asking for volunteers for mobilizations, and the current trend is that all the mob billets are being filled by volunteers. Figure if somebody is unemployed, $100,000 a year, tax-free, as a deployed O-3 starts looking pretty good.
The folks from California have said that when they're notified of mobilization opportunities, that they're seeing guidance like, "preferrence is being given to people who are currently unemployed."
Again, what a difference! We went from an environment where folks were being deployed no matter what, to one where so few people are deploying that folks are fighting for the opportunity.
Which brings me to some serious thinking on my own situation. As some of you know, this entire process started for me in 2003, when I was still employed at Parker. I tried to get into the National Guard as an infantry officer, and they worked with me a little bit, but then basically informed me that there was no way it could happen fast enough for me to meet the age deadline. (All training, through OCS had to be complete before my 40th birthday.)
Then, in 2005, I got a letter from a Navy Reserve Officer Programs recruiter and immediately submitted my packet. After that, they lost my packet for 8 months. Finally, they found it, and I was selected for a direct commission.
However, I had no idea the training would drag out for so long! I submitted my packet in the middle of 2005, and I won't be deployable until the middle of 2010! Literally, 5 years from the time I submitted my packet is when I'll be fully trained and eligible to deploy.
(And 7 years from the time I started trying to get back into the military! The time-frame is insane. I joined, served and was discharged from the Army in less time than it has taken me just to go from submitting paperwork to getting fully trained in the Navy Reserve! I honestly considered enlisting, again, in the Army back in 2005. I even had the MOS picked out: 13F, an artillery MOS. I sometimes regret that I didn't. I'd already be discharged by now!)
As for my motivation for doing this, as I've made abundantly clear to everybody, I wanted to do this to give back to a nation that has given me so very, very much. I struggled financially as a young man, but pretty much from about 1998 onward, I've been "over the hump" so to speak. Although some folks find it distasteful to use the word "wealthy", I consider myself wealthy in a world where most people barely scrape by.
It could have only happened for me in the United States of America, and it could only happen during an era like our current one. What chance would a person of mixed racial ancestry have had at almost any other time during our history?
For instance, I'm an Army paratrooper, but when you watch Band of Brothers, you'll notice... they're all white. That was the policy back then. Italians and Jews were okay, but Asians and blacks?
My modest success in life is only because I've stood on the shoulders of giants. Giants in the fields of civil rights and giants who stood to defend the country so it could become what it is, now.
My original goal was to go one tour of Individual Augmentation with the Army to Iraq or Afghanistan, and then request transfer to the VTU. (Which means I'd still be technically with the Navy reserve, but would not be drilling. It would be in the ballpark of submitting a resignation.)
I rehearsed the words I was going to say when I was ready for an assignment. "I want an IA with the Army, and not one in the green zone. Put me with a transportation company or an MP unit or some unit that is in harm's way. My preferrence would be that I don't spend much time behind a desk."
For a while, there were a ton of billets available as embedded trainers with the Afghan National Army... that would have been perfect, but we got the news sometime early this year that this mission was drying up as far as mobilization opportunities for Navy O's. In fact, they had a bunch of guys ready to go ETT to the ANA, and they cancelled the mission, the last time they were thinking of doing it.
This would be a winner in almost every conceivable way. I would get to do what I really want to do. I could serve with the Army, where I am most comfortable. With my parachute wings on my uniform, I could move past a lot of the typical hazing a Navy Officer might expect with an Army unit. Another Navy Officer, who might not be so happy about being with the Army, wouldn't have to. Ultimately, an Army officer, who probably has already got a combat tour, maybe two, could stay home because I'd be filling his place.
As a Navy Officer on loan to the Army, I couldn't work in a combat specialty, but fortunately, Navy Supply Corps covers a lot of different areas, including transportation.
There was also a selfish motivation behind wanting to serve. I have admired combat vets my entire life. From my grandfather who flew bombers for the Army Air Corps in WWII to my uncle Gary who died during the Tet Offensive in '68, to the millions of nameless and faceless many who answered the nation's call to service.
I want, quite selfishly, to be able to say that I did my duty and served my time just as they did.
When I left the Army in 1987, I did so with the belief that I'd always come back if the country needed me. It just never really needed me until this decade. The country managed to stay at peace until I got pretty long in the tooth for a military guy.
Now, the opportunity is still there, but in much smaller measure, and the door appears to be closing.
It has left me to wonder if I really want to keep doing this at all. The money is unimportant to me. With Logan turning out to be the biggest jock in my family in a generation, Saturdays mean a lot to me.
A funny thing happened on the way to leaving though. The first, which wasn't entirely unpredictable, is that I love drilling. I love participating in the reserve. I love serving with other servicemembers. I look forward to each drill and enjoy every moment of it.
On top of that, reservists are now eligible to get health-care insurance at what I consider an insanely low rate. I'm able to buy coverage for my entire family for less than $200 a month. It is, without a doubt, the best coverage I've ever had. My copays and deductibles are negligible. Of all the possible benefits they could offer, this one really hits the target with me.
So, I think I may have inadvertently found something I'll probably stick with. I love being part of the world's greatest Navy. Among my many blessings, I count the fact that I have been priviledged to serve in both the world's greatest Army and the world's greatest Navy. I am honored to serve.
A lot of folks will be relieved that my chances of an IA are now greatly reduced. It's not all bad for me, either. This gives me a chance to affiliate with a Navy unit. Navy units still deploy, but it's more likely that they'll deploy to someplace like Bahrain, not Bagram. And the deployments are shorter: 7 months, versus 13.
I had put a lot of my life on hold in anticipation of over a year overseas with the Army. Now, I can start focusing on some other aspects of my life. My business is launching a lawn-care business unit next year. If profitability is good (knock on wood) in the other business units, I'll finally be initiating the aircraft lease business unit.
I can get back to working on my golf game. Next year is the year where I'll teach my son how to golf. I've been holding back, afraid it'll mess up his baseball swing, but he's already one of the best players in the city. He'll figure out how to separate them both. I figure he'll probably play baseball until he's 18, but if I can teach him to golf, he can probably do that his entire life.
Honestly, the thought of not immediately deploying came as a substantial shock to me. I guess now I have to go about living a life that I'd been furiously putting on hold for the past two years.
Okay, those are my major thoughts for the day. Here are some minor ones:
1. The Navy screwed up my promotion paperwork. I'm supposed to be a Lieutenant Junior Grade, not an Ensign right now. However, when processing my security clearance, they saw I was born overseas and said, "Whoa! We need proof of citizenship." Ummm... yeah, the top of that birth certificate? Yeah, the part that says, "Consular Report of the Birth of a United States Citizen Abroad"... yeah, that's sorta the proof that I'm a United States Citizen... Anyway, the security clearance got straightened out, and I have my clearance, now. However, that caused a delay in the processing of my promotion paperwork. For those unfamiliar, this is pretty much an administrative promotion based on time in grade / time in service. Promotions for officers don't really get competitive until you go up for O-4 (Major in the Army / Air Force / Marines, or LT Commander in the Navy.)
2. Got my statement from my country club and man, it'll be nice once I pay off my stock fee. Basically, to belong to a country club, you have to become an owner of the club. These clubs are all owned by the members. In my case, I needed to buy several grand worth of "stock" in the country club in order to belong to it. Now, they made it painless by giving me an interest free loan, but it does suck to have to write out a biggo check every month when you can't even golf. I'll have it paid off in July. Once you pay off your stock fee, frankly, it's a bargain if you golf at all. For a guy like me with a boy who will start golfing, it's ridiculously cheap. I think I pay like $200 a month for my family to golf there. That pays for my locker and for them to keep track of my handicap, and for anybody in my family to golf as much as they want. If you're a golfer, you just can't beat it. Plus, the club is within walking distance of my house, and I'd much rather have Logan spending his Summer days out on the course than in somebody's basement smoking pot and playing video games. The club also has a gorgeous clubhouse and pool which is included in our membership as well.
3. I'm at the tail end of the worst sickness I've had in decades. I really got nailed hard. It was probably a sinus infection that went a little too far before I got meds, but now, I think there might have been a little of something else mixed in there, too. Two interesting notes: once you start blowing out day-glo yellow snot, that's actually a good sign. That's the final stage of your body killing off the last of the bacteria. Second, if you start having "digestive trouble", that's probably because the antibiotic killed off all the bacteria in your intestines. A lot of that bacteria is beneficial, and a lot of it is stuff you need in order for your plumbing to work correctly. I remembered some advice I heard a long time ago: to eat a yogurt the day after your antibiotics run out. Did it and honestly, it cured me within an hour or two. Amazing how sometimes the right cure is just a good diet.
4. Logan woke me up today to tell me that the Browns beat the Steelers. Huh? Really? Man, I feel so bad for the kid. He's the biggest home-town loyal sports fan I've ever seen. I just hate to see him have to go through the hardship of being a Cleveland sports fan. I've always said, "You wanna be a sports fan in Cleveland? You gotta be tough." When we were at Disney, he wore an Indians or Browns uniform item every single day. As always, I'm proud of my little man for being so tough... I just hate to see him suffer. I hope the Cavs do it this year.
Now, time to go in to work. It's been so depressing for so long, I just really need to get re-motivated. We started the year like gangbusters, with record sales and record profitability. However, the last half of the year has blown chunks. We've basically been a nonprofit since June. Time to turn that around. Those Country Club dues ain't gonna pay themselves!
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
In Defense of George W. Bush
This isn't going to be MUCH of a defense of George W. Bush. He has the distinction of being the only Republican candidate for president I ever voted against. I think he was a man of limited ability, with few discernable accomplishments in life that weren't related to being politically and economically connected.
He campaigned dirty... I know this because John McCain's illegitimate black baby told me so. He had no qualms about besmirching the military service of a decorated war hero, like John Kerry, while soft-pedalling his own lack of service in combat.
He was fiscally liberal and socially conservative, whereas I'm fiscally conservative and socially liberal. He was, basically, everything I didn't want in a politician.
Those are his faults, which have been pounded on again and again by the press. However, he wasn't without some redeeming qualities, and in contrast to the Obama administration, those qualities stand out more starkly.
First, he took his job and took responsibility for it. The statistics show that 9/11 wasn't actually much of an economic calamity. In fact, it was just the low point of the internet bubble implosion. Bill Clinton had the advantage of having the bubble of his presidency implode just a few months after he got out of office. I don't remember the Bush administration, once, blaming the difficulties they faced on the previous administration.
The Obama Administration? A year later is still blaming the Bush Administration. If you're not man enough to take ownership of the job, you don't deserve the job. Bush was man enough. Obama isn't.
Second, he won wars. With the smallest fighting force in generations, Bush deposed a murderous dictator, and changed regime in a country that facilitated the terrorist attacks of 9/11. When the Democrats screamed that the surge wouldn't work, Bush plowed ahead, anyway, and brought Iraq under control. When Bush left office, Iraq and Afghanistan were both under control, only waiting for an end-game that would tie up the loose ends.
Obama has actually managed to put the victory in Afghanistan in peril. That was the war Obama thought was a JUSTIFIED war! Imagine if Iraq hadn't been brought so soundly under control.
There is nothing more disheartening to a combat troop than to be half a world away, with your life in peril, while those at home do all they can to undermine your success. Bush won wars. Obama was handed two theaters of operation that were under control and has lost control of one of them, with little progress in the other.
Third, Bush knew how to run the congress. When Bush wanted something, he put his machine in gear and got it. A completely unfunded Medicare prescription bill? Against almost everything the Republican party stands for? He got it. Any vote related to Afghanistan or Iraq? He got it.
Right now, people are rightly frustrated that the Democrats control both houses of congress and still can't get anything done. The Democrats are basically offerring that yeah, numerically they control both houses, but they can't get the disparate political interests within their party to agree on anything. Bottom line: Democrats can't lead and they can't get things done.
Some older members of the Democrat Party speak wistfully of the time in 1980 when Ronald Reagan came into town and rolled the Democrat congress. Obama is no Reagan. In fact, he's not even George W. Bush. He can't even get his own party in line.
Want further proof that Bush could manage politicians? When the current economic crisis hit, he called McCain and Obama into the Oval Office, briefed them and both of them left, determined to continue Bush's policies in regards to the crisis. Now, I disagree with the handling of the crisis since all we did was mortgage our kids' futures to provide bankers bonuses, but you can't deny: on this issue Bush controlled McCain, and he rolled Obama.
Fourth, Bush was brutalized in the press, but ignored it. He plowed ahead. Never complained, never explained. The Obama administration, despite a completely gaga-infatuated press that loves him dearly, goes beserk any time anybody criticizes anything.
I recently read a very well-informed opinion by an auto industry insider that spelled out how the cash for clunkers program actually cost the taxpayer about $24,000 for every additional new car that got sold.
http://www.edmunds.com/help/about/press/159446/article.html
The Obama administration's response? Attacked the the piece, directly.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2009/10/29/busy-covering-car-sales-mars-edmundscom-gets-it-wrong-again-cash-clunkers
I was astounded. These guys are so used to the press simply rolling over and giving Obama anything he wants, they lose their minds when actual investigative journalism takes place.
(As a final note on the topic, here is Edmonds rebuttal:
http://features.csmonitor.com/politics/2009/10/31/edmundscom-fires-back-at-white-house-cash-for-clunkers-slam/ )
Maybe not the same as Nixon's "Enemies List", but... well... along the same continuum.
Bush was able to accomplish all he accomplished in spite of an unfriendly press. Obama controls the media and can't tolerate dissention or analysis by the press.
Fifth, Bush had the good sense not to try and inflate his unearned accomplishments. Near as I can figure, his actual accomplishments in life were that his father got him into the Air National Guard and he got his pilot's license. He got legacy admission to Yale. He got into Harvard based on wealth and political connections. He used his family's money to run an unprofitable oil company. He used his family's money to buy the Texas Rangers. He was apparently, a competent governor of the State of Texas.
Of all those opportunities, he got in the door based on family connections and not because of merit. Yet, you never heard him mention anything about any of those things. Really, regardless of how he got those things, they're all pretty impressive. Fighter pilot. Yale / Harvard. Oil man. Baseball team owner. Governor.
Obama? Honestly, the way the guy wears his laurels is bordering on shameless. Bush may have gotten his leg-up in life the old-fashioned way, by buying it, but Obama came up during a time of the most eggregious uses of affirmative action. Obama is a Columbia / Harvard man. However, it's pretty clear that he was nothing but an underachieving pothead at Occidental college before being accepted as a transfer student to Columbia. That's a heck of a leg up in life.
Obama doesn't appear to have ever demonstrated any real professional success, but was given book deals as a law school student and as soon as he was elected to the state legislature, he was on speaking tours all over the country. America needed a poster boy, and Obama was it.
Even when he won the Nobel Peace prize, he and his followers shamelessly acted as though it was somehow based on merit. Months later, when he sent an additional 35,000 combat troops to Afghanistan, the irony escaped them.
Seems to me that both men got a lot of advantages in life that they didn't earn. One was based on wealth and political connection. The other was based on the color of his skin. Thing is, Bush never pretended that he earned the things he's gotten.
Sixth, Bush lowered taxes and that didn't contribute to the deficit. Yes, these insane Bush tax cuts that everybody complains about actualy INCREASED revenues. Throughout the Bush years, tax revenue kept pace with inflation. As a fiscal conservative, that's all I want tax revenues to do. It wasn't the tax cuts that caused the Bush deficits, it was profligate spending.
Obama has finally realized that small business is the key to full employment, yet his stated tax objectives will absolutely brutalize small business owners. You simply can't get people to put 100% of their financial and emotional well-being on the line if the only one who benefits is the government.
Bush understood: the money belongs to us. Obama thinks the money belongs to the government.
So, was Bush perfect? Good lord, no. I don't think he was a great president, or even a good one. However, he was, in many respects, a much, much better president than Obama is turning out to be.
I do feel that Obama is a much more intelligent man, but then, so was Jimmy Carter. I can only hope that Obama gets better as time goes along. So far, though, what I see is almost all the worst aspects of the Bush years. We're still bailing out the rich.
Under Obama we're rewarding the irresponsible at a far greater rate. Sorry, but we all have tight finances and things we want to buy. If you weren't smart enough to read or ask a few questions when you got your mortgage, or you treated your HELOC like a winning lottery ticket, you need to lose your house. The government shouldn't be rewarding your stupidity.
If you ran your car company so badly that you're going out of business, the union's pension and medical funds should be bailing you out, not the taxpayer who doesn't want your cars.
Yeah, this is change we can believe in. We're losing wars, now. Raising taxes. And yet still doing most of the bad stuff we did under Bush... like spending like there's no tomorrow.
There's time. Obama can get better and I think he will. So far, though, he'd have to improve to be as good as the man that many are considering the worst president since the Great Depression.
He campaigned dirty... I know this because John McCain's illegitimate black baby told me so. He had no qualms about besmirching the military service of a decorated war hero, like John Kerry, while soft-pedalling his own lack of service in combat.
He was fiscally liberal and socially conservative, whereas I'm fiscally conservative and socially liberal. He was, basically, everything I didn't want in a politician.
Those are his faults, which have been pounded on again and again by the press. However, he wasn't without some redeeming qualities, and in contrast to the Obama administration, those qualities stand out more starkly.
First, he took his job and took responsibility for it. The statistics show that 9/11 wasn't actually much of an economic calamity. In fact, it was just the low point of the internet bubble implosion. Bill Clinton had the advantage of having the bubble of his presidency implode just a few months after he got out of office. I don't remember the Bush administration, once, blaming the difficulties they faced on the previous administration.
The Obama Administration? A year later is still blaming the Bush Administration. If you're not man enough to take ownership of the job, you don't deserve the job. Bush was man enough. Obama isn't.
Second, he won wars. With the smallest fighting force in generations, Bush deposed a murderous dictator, and changed regime in a country that facilitated the terrorist attacks of 9/11. When the Democrats screamed that the surge wouldn't work, Bush plowed ahead, anyway, and brought Iraq under control. When Bush left office, Iraq and Afghanistan were both under control, only waiting for an end-game that would tie up the loose ends.
Obama has actually managed to put the victory in Afghanistan in peril. That was the war Obama thought was a JUSTIFIED war! Imagine if Iraq hadn't been brought so soundly under control.
There is nothing more disheartening to a combat troop than to be half a world away, with your life in peril, while those at home do all they can to undermine your success. Bush won wars. Obama was handed two theaters of operation that were under control and has lost control of one of them, with little progress in the other.
Third, Bush knew how to run the congress. When Bush wanted something, he put his machine in gear and got it. A completely unfunded Medicare prescription bill? Against almost everything the Republican party stands for? He got it. Any vote related to Afghanistan or Iraq? He got it.
Right now, people are rightly frustrated that the Democrats control both houses of congress and still can't get anything done. The Democrats are basically offerring that yeah, numerically they control both houses, but they can't get the disparate political interests within their party to agree on anything. Bottom line: Democrats can't lead and they can't get things done.
Some older members of the Democrat Party speak wistfully of the time in 1980 when Ronald Reagan came into town and rolled the Democrat congress. Obama is no Reagan. In fact, he's not even George W. Bush. He can't even get his own party in line.
Want further proof that Bush could manage politicians? When the current economic crisis hit, he called McCain and Obama into the Oval Office, briefed them and both of them left, determined to continue Bush's policies in regards to the crisis. Now, I disagree with the handling of the crisis since all we did was mortgage our kids' futures to provide bankers bonuses, but you can't deny: on this issue Bush controlled McCain, and he rolled Obama.
Fourth, Bush was brutalized in the press, but ignored it. He plowed ahead. Never complained, never explained. The Obama administration, despite a completely gaga-infatuated press that loves him dearly, goes beserk any time anybody criticizes anything.
I recently read a very well-informed opinion by an auto industry insider that spelled out how the cash for clunkers program actually cost the taxpayer about $24,000 for every additional new car that got sold.
http://www.edmunds.com/help/about/press/159446/article.html
The Obama administration's response? Attacked the the piece, directly.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2009/10/29/busy-covering-car-sales-mars-edmundscom-gets-it-wrong-again-cash-clunkers
I was astounded. These guys are so used to the press simply rolling over and giving Obama anything he wants, they lose their minds when actual investigative journalism takes place.
(As a final note on the topic, here is Edmonds rebuttal:
http://features.csmonitor.com/politics/2009/10/31/edmundscom-fires-back-at-white-house-cash-for-clunkers-slam/ )
Maybe not the same as Nixon's "Enemies List", but... well... along the same continuum.
Bush was able to accomplish all he accomplished in spite of an unfriendly press. Obama controls the media and can't tolerate dissention or analysis by the press.
Fifth, Bush had the good sense not to try and inflate his unearned accomplishments. Near as I can figure, his actual accomplishments in life were that his father got him into the Air National Guard and he got his pilot's license. He got legacy admission to Yale. He got into Harvard based on wealth and political connections. He used his family's money to run an unprofitable oil company. He used his family's money to buy the Texas Rangers. He was apparently, a competent governor of the State of Texas.
Of all those opportunities, he got in the door based on family connections and not because of merit. Yet, you never heard him mention anything about any of those things. Really, regardless of how he got those things, they're all pretty impressive. Fighter pilot. Yale / Harvard. Oil man. Baseball team owner. Governor.
Obama? Honestly, the way the guy wears his laurels is bordering on shameless. Bush may have gotten his leg-up in life the old-fashioned way, by buying it, but Obama came up during a time of the most eggregious uses of affirmative action. Obama is a Columbia / Harvard man. However, it's pretty clear that he was nothing but an underachieving pothead at Occidental college before being accepted as a transfer student to Columbia. That's a heck of a leg up in life.
Obama doesn't appear to have ever demonstrated any real professional success, but was given book deals as a law school student and as soon as he was elected to the state legislature, he was on speaking tours all over the country. America needed a poster boy, and Obama was it.
Even when he won the Nobel Peace prize, he and his followers shamelessly acted as though it was somehow based on merit. Months later, when he sent an additional 35,000 combat troops to Afghanistan, the irony escaped them.
Seems to me that both men got a lot of advantages in life that they didn't earn. One was based on wealth and political connection. The other was based on the color of his skin. Thing is, Bush never pretended that he earned the things he's gotten.
Sixth, Bush lowered taxes and that didn't contribute to the deficit. Yes, these insane Bush tax cuts that everybody complains about actualy INCREASED revenues. Throughout the Bush years, tax revenue kept pace with inflation. As a fiscal conservative, that's all I want tax revenues to do. It wasn't the tax cuts that caused the Bush deficits, it was profligate spending.
Obama has finally realized that small business is the key to full employment, yet his stated tax objectives will absolutely brutalize small business owners. You simply can't get people to put 100% of their financial and emotional well-being on the line if the only one who benefits is the government.
Bush understood: the money belongs to us. Obama thinks the money belongs to the government.
So, was Bush perfect? Good lord, no. I don't think he was a great president, or even a good one. However, he was, in many respects, a much, much better president than Obama is turning out to be.
I do feel that Obama is a much more intelligent man, but then, so was Jimmy Carter. I can only hope that Obama gets better as time goes along. So far, though, what I see is almost all the worst aspects of the Bush years. We're still bailing out the rich.
Under Obama we're rewarding the irresponsible at a far greater rate. Sorry, but we all have tight finances and things we want to buy. If you weren't smart enough to read or ask a few questions when you got your mortgage, or you treated your HELOC like a winning lottery ticket, you need to lose your house. The government shouldn't be rewarding your stupidity.
If you ran your car company so badly that you're going out of business, the union's pension and medical funds should be bailing you out, not the taxpayer who doesn't want your cars.
Yeah, this is change we can believe in. We're losing wars, now. Raising taxes. And yet still doing most of the bad stuff we did under Bush... like spending like there's no tomorrow.
There's time. Obama can get better and I think he will. So far, though, he'd have to improve to be as good as the man that many are considering the worst president since the Great Depression.
Monday, December 7, 2009
Sometimes you just gotta stick with what works...
I've been fighting off a nasty, nasty, nasty sinus infection. I'm basically sicker than I've been since I was in my 20s. In fact, of the times I can remember being sicker than this, twice, I ended up being hospitalized.
How did things go this far? Oh, it's an interesting little story. My son came down with a cold, and while we were at Disney, he went mega-boogery. Seemed to me he had a sinus infection.
In the old days, when we had thick, green mucus, we went to the doctor to get antibiotics and we got well.
Now, the prevailing wisdom is that green mucus doesn't necessarily mean a sinus infection. So, as I was reading on the internet trying to figure out whether to trade a half-day at Disney for a half-day at some medical clinic to get Logan some meds, I decided to wait and let things run their course before going and getting antibiotics.
Now, I do think that antibiotics are overprescribed. People get them for common colds, and doing so just makes the bacteria we have that much more difficult to cure. Ultimately, it's how we get antibiotic-resistant strep and other bad, bad things.
In the past, I figured I knew the difference between a sinus infection and a cold. However, that was based on the thick green mucus diagnosis.
Logan would get better, then worse, then we'd pick up some OTC drugs and he'd get better. On the flight home, his ear started hurting terribly, and he complained that it had shut completely and he couldn't hear out of it.
So, on the way home from the airport, we stopped by the ER, which was the only thing open, to have them look at him. He had two infected ears as well as his infected sinuses. They gave antibiotics. He got better almost immediately. 2 days later, he was doing just fine and halfway through the course of his antibiotics, he was 100%.
Me? I had similar symptoms, and halfway through the day on Friday, the telltale green mucus showed up. I should have figured I had the same thing as Logan and gone to the doctor immediately. However, I wondered if there might be something to the new common wisdom and decided to wait and make sure it wasn't a common cold.
It wasn't. By Saturday night, I was sicker than I've been in a long, long time. I threw in the towel when not only had both ears started to close, but mucus started coming out of my eyes. Went to the ER at 2 in the morning, came home with a scrip.
Now, in hindsight, it is clear to me that I should have followed my instinct in both cases. Stuck to what has worked for me my entire life, and gotten scrips at the first sign of the green mucus trouble.
Sorry, but the new prevailing wisdom is wrong.
Which brings me to a couple of problems. Granted, I did this in the most cost-ineffective way by going to the ER, but that was pretty much my only option at the hours I needed care. Why couldn't I just get antibiotics on my own?
The answer, obviously, is that doctors want to control access to antibiotics to prevent superbugs from developing. And that, I'm afraid, is probably why they came out with this new "prevailing wisdom" on green mucus.
People, by and large, are pretty stupid, and left to their own devices, some things you'd probably take for granted, like the ability to determine if mucus is thick and green, is something a suprising amount of the population will screw up given the chance.
The only reasonable explanation I've seen for abandoning the thick green mucus diagnosis is that sometimes mucus can sit in your sinuses for a while before you expel it. So, even with a common cold, you might blow out thick green mucus first thing in the morning.
However, if that's not it, and you're consistently and constantly blowing out thick green mucus, it's an infection.
So, from now on, screw 'em. They don't know what they're talking about on this. If it's thick green mucus, it's a danged sinus infection. If I'd just stuck with what I already knew, I wouldn't be as miserable as I am now (3 days after getting the scrip) and my son wouldn't have been in excruciating pain on the flight.
It goes without saying that I'm not a doctor, and that this should not be considered qualified medical advice. I'm just saying that the next time I'm blowing frogs out my nose all day, I'm going to the doc, and if I don't walk out with a scrip, the doc is going to have a fight on his/her hands.
How did things go this far? Oh, it's an interesting little story. My son came down with a cold, and while we were at Disney, he went mega-boogery. Seemed to me he had a sinus infection.
In the old days, when we had thick, green mucus, we went to the doctor to get antibiotics and we got well.
Now, the prevailing wisdom is that green mucus doesn't necessarily mean a sinus infection. So, as I was reading on the internet trying to figure out whether to trade a half-day at Disney for a half-day at some medical clinic to get Logan some meds, I decided to wait and let things run their course before going and getting antibiotics.
Now, I do think that antibiotics are overprescribed. People get them for common colds, and doing so just makes the bacteria we have that much more difficult to cure. Ultimately, it's how we get antibiotic-resistant strep and other bad, bad things.
In the past, I figured I knew the difference between a sinus infection and a cold. However, that was based on the thick green mucus diagnosis.
Logan would get better, then worse, then we'd pick up some OTC drugs and he'd get better. On the flight home, his ear started hurting terribly, and he complained that it had shut completely and he couldn't hear out of it.
So, on the way home from the airport, we stopped by the ER, which was the only thing open, to have them look at him. He had two infected ears as well as his infected sinuses. They gave antibiotics. He got better almost immediately. 2 days later, he was doing just fine and halfway through the course of his antibiotics, he was 100%.
Me? I had similar symptoms, and halfway through the day on Friday, the telltale green mucus showed up. I should have figured I had the same thing as Logan and gone to the doctor immediately. However, I wondered if there might be something to the new common wisdom and decided to wait and make sure it wasn't a common cold.
It wasn't. By Saturday night, I was sicker than I've been in a long, long time. I threw in the towel when not only had both ears started to close, but mucus started coming out of my eyes. Went to the ER at 2 in the morning, came home with a scrip.
Now, in hindsight, it is clear to me that I should have followed my instinct in both cases. Stuck to what has worked for me my entire life, and gotten scrips at the first sign of the green mucus trouble.
Sorry, but the new prevailing wisdom is wrong.
Which brings me to a couple of problems. Granted, I did this in the most cost-ineffective way by going to the ER, but that was pretty much my only option at the hours I needed care. Why couldn't I just get antibiotics on my own?
The answer, obviously, is that doctors want to control access to antibiotics to prevent superbugs from developing. And that, I'm afraid, is probably why they came out with this new "prevailing wisdom" on green mucus.
People, by and large, are pretty stupid, and left to their own devices, some things you'd probably take for granted, like the ability to determine if mucus is thick and green, is something a suprising amount of the population will screw up given the chance.
The only reasonable explanation I've seen for abandoning the thick green mucus diagnosis is that sometimes mucus can sit in your sinuses for a while before you expel it. So, even with a common cold, you might blow out thick green mucus first thing in the morning.
However, if that's not it, and you're consistently and constantly blowing out thick green mucus, it's an infection.
So, from now on, screw 'em. They don't know what they're talking about on this. If it's thick green mucus, it's a danged sinus infection. If I'd just stuck with what I already knew, I wouldn't be as miserable as I am now (3 days after getting the scrip) and my son wouldn't have been in excruciating pain on the flight.
It goes without saying that I'm not a doctor, and that this should not be considered qualified medical advice. I'm just saying that the next time I'm blowing frogs out my nose all day, I'm going to the doc, and if I don't walk out with a scrip, the doc is going to have a fight on his/her hands.
Thursday, November 26, 2009
The 5 Year Business Plan
It's universal that during times in my life when I planned extensively, I made the most progress. The progress wasn't always in the direction of the plan. However, without a plan, it's easy to let inertia take hold. Once you're leaving yourself to the charity of the prevailing winds, you've relenquished a lot of control in your life.
Ever since my current business got off the ground, I really have lost a lot of fire in the belly. However, I'm a bit young to be retired in place and it's time for me to set some goals so that I won't be sitting here 10 years from now, in the same shape, business-wise, that I'm in right now.
I've decided that I need some very tangible goals for the next 5 year business period. Here they are.
1. To be debt free in my Servpro business. I've made what I consider prudent use of debt in my business. We grew quickly, from revenues of over $200,000 in year one, to revenues of almost $900,000 in year 4. As much as I tried, I simply could not acquire the necessary equipment using ongoing revenue as my only source of capital. However, from here on out, my goal is to pay for everything in cash and to pay off the notes I have remaining.
Part of me doesn't think this goal is very important. My debt service isn't that substantial, really. All told, maybe $3,000 a month. But to paraphrase an old saying, a thousand here, a thousand there, and pretty soon you're talking about real money. There are better things I could think of to do with $36,000 a year. Over a 5 year period, that's enough money to buy a house.
2. I just took some baby steps to establish a lawn care business unit. In 5 years, I want to make sure that thing is cash flowing enough that it would be a reasonable stand-alone business operation, even if I weren't trying to take advantage of synergies with Servpro. I have several contingencies based on how well this business unit performs, but I'll need to see what happens before I take it in any specific direction. This could just be a way to absorb overhead during down-times in my Servpro business. Or, it could take off and be something I could scale up. I won't know until I get in it, full-time.
3. Servpro has a level of operations that earns an operator a Rolex. Right now, it's given for $1.5 million in revenue in a calendar year. I suspect they'll change it (probably right before I hit $1.5 million), but sometime in the next 5 years, I want my Servpro revenues to be at whatever the prevailing Rolex level is.
4. We are currently leasing our warehouse. I love the arrangement. The rent is cheap and the warehouse meets all my needs. However, I would like to have some commercial real estate, and I think sometime in the next 5 years is a reasonable time-frame to reach that goal.
5. I want to establish an asset lease business unit that leases various vehicles (like the commercial trucks and vans we use in the business). In the next 5 years, I want to establish that as a separate business unit and include things such as aircraft leasing and disaster restoration equipment leasing under the same corporate structure.
If I can do all those things, the next 5 years will be really great. My son will also be 13 years old, then. So, the 5 year plan after this one will take up the years until his 18th birthday. Not long after that, I am looking forward to a business plan that brings him in as a partner in the business and transitions operations to him so I can retire.
Ever since my current business got off the ground, I really have lost a lot of fire in the belly. However, I'm a bit young to be retired in place and it's time for me to set some goals so that I won't be sitting here 10 years from now, in the same shape, business-wise, that I'm in right now.
I've decided that I need some very tangible goals for the next 5 year business period. Here they are.
1. To be debt free in my Servpro business. I've made what I consider prudent use of debt in my business. We grew quickly, from revenues of over $200,000 in year one, to revenues of almost $900,000 in year 4. As much as I tried, I simply could not acquire the necessary equipment using ongoing revenue as my only source of capital. However, from here on out, my goal is to pay for everything in cash and to pay off the notes I have remaining.
Part of me doesn't think this goal is very important. My debt service isn't that substantial, really. All told, maybe $3,000 a month. But to paraphrase an old saying, a thousand here, a thousand there, and pretty soon you're talking about real money. There are better things I could think of to do with $36,000 a year. Over a 5 year period, that's enough money to buy a house.
2. I just took some baby steps to establish a lawn care business unit. In 5 years, I want to make sure that thing is cash flowing enough that it would be a reasonable stand-alone business operation, even if I weren't trying to take advantage of synergies with Servpro. I have several contingencies based on how well this business unit performs, but I'll need to see what happens before I take it in any specific direction. This could just be a way to absorb overhead during down-times in my Servpro business. Or, it could take off and be something I could scale up. I won't know until I get in it, full-time.
3. Servpro has a level of operations that earns an operator a Rolex. Right now, it's given for $1.5 million in revenue in a calendar year. I suspect they'll change it (probably right before I hit $1.5 million), but sometime in the next 5 years, I want my Servpro revenues to be at whatever the prevailing Rolex level is.
4. We are currently leasing our warehouse. I love the arrangement. The rent is cheap and the warehouse meets all my needs. However, I would like to have some commercial real estate, and I think sometime in the next 5 years is a reasonable time-frame to reach that goal.
5. I want to establish an asset lease business unit that leases various vehicles (like the commercial trucks and vans we use in the business). In the next 5 years, I want to establish that as a separate business unit and include things such as aircraft leasing and disaster restoration equipment leasing under the same corporate structure.
If I can do all those things, the next 5 years will be really great. My son will also be 13 years old, then. So, the 5 year plan after this one will take up the years until his 18th birthday. Not long after that, I am looking forward to a business plan that brings him in as a partner in the business and transitions operations to him so I can retire.
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
There but for the grace...
I have lived my life with very little empathy in most cases. Maybe I'm just hard hearted, but I've never been one who could look at various states of misfortune and think, "Oh, I'm lucky I'm not in those shoes..."
I mean, what are the odds that I would look at a drug-addict and think, "Wow, that could have been me!". The reality is that it couldn't have been me. I have too much respect for the rules. I have too little enthusiasm for tying one on. I don't even drink. Not that I never did, but these days, maybe once or twice a year, at best. I don't even finish all the pain meds the doctors give me. They do nothing for me. Even the ones that folks say are "the good stuff".
So, this plea has fallen flat on me for all my life. It means little to me. However, there is one exception. When I see a small businessperson fail, it tears me apart.
For some reason, seeing a business go under, and knowing the folks involved, is a hard emotional experience for me.
When I first bought my franchise, I became acutely aware of other small business owners. I struck up conversations with the guy who owned the local UPS store. I bought lunch at the local Roly Poly, not because the food was good (even though it was), but because I liked the owner who had told me a lot about his business and himself.
As I participated in various community organizations, I got to know folks who owned, say, the local car dealership.
I remember the time I talked with the guy who owned the Roly Poly and he said his store wasn't doing well. I could sense that he felt like there was a slow moving train bearing down on him. He just didn't know what to do about it. I ate there as often as I could, but it takes more than a $7 purchase to rescue a floundering restaurant. I doubt the total of the meals I bought there in a month amounted to more than 1% of his rent, alone.
I also remember the time I went there and the signs indicated that he was closed. Gone. I didn't even have a chance to say goodbye to him.
I felt so awful for him. He wasn't that different than me. He had a severance from GM and bought the restaurant with it. Now, it was all gone. A once in a lifetime windfall, gone in the blink of an eye.
That could have been me.
Back when GM was going through its bailout request and they announced that they would be cutting their dealership network, I never, ever imagined that the local Chevy dealer would be on the block. He had a large, succesful dealership, or so it appeared.
In the days after the closures were announced, he would say he was selling more cars than ever! He was upbeat and happy. I presumed he was spared the ax.
I would scan his inventory of Cadillacs and Corvettes and say to myself, "someday, when I buy one of those, I'll buy it from Tom."
With the current incentives, I figured I'd go there and get a new pickup truck and maybe an HHR for my business tpo help with my '09 tax bill. Not quite a caddy or vette, but combined, they cost about the same.
As I walked around waiting to speak to his son, the internet sales manager (who had stepped out for a moment), it became blatantly obvious that they had no new cars on the lot. Just used ones.
So, I came right out and asked what happened. He said that they were in arbitration trying to get their dealership back from GM. I'm guessing that's not going to happen, and even if it does, if enough time elapses, they'd be building their dealership up from zero.
He had a perfectly profitable business that employed his whole family. Of all the Chevy dealers to close, his seemed an unusual fit since there weren't, as far as I knew, any other Chevy dealers in Monroe, MI. I have never met a nicer person in all my life. Out of nowhere, his business is gone.
Such are the frailties of hanging out a shingle and going into business, yourself.
Once I returned from the dealership, I was so depressed I had to leave my business and go home.
It doesn't help that I'm an hour out of Detroit. California may have comparable unemployment, but hey, it's California. It'll bounce back. I just can't think of any driving force that will bring back Ohio and Michigan.
There's a feeling here like we're being picked off one by one. Even my business is having some tough times. Not so much because of the economy, but because of some extended, unusually mild weather.
It's just not much fun being in business right now. I'm just hoping that a harsh Winter can save us.
Small businesspeople are not a sympathetic lot. Half the folks think we're rich and the other half aren't aware that we exist. When times are good, we benefit disproportionately, but when times are bad, we suffer disproportionately.
Small business has been an endeavor where I can make 5 figures in a single month... and lose 5 figures in a single month just as easily.
More often than not, we finance our businesses with our life savings and the equity in our homes. Most small business people I know, myself included, financed at least part of their business with a credit card at one point in time or another. We have no financial backstop. When we run out of money, it's game over.
When we run out of money, it isn't like a person with a job who runs out of money. We don't run out of money until after we crater. When we crater, it can take a lifetime to dig out.
So, when I see a shuttered business, I see a memorial of one of my fallen brothers or sisters.
I also take a moment to say that, at least so far, I'm glad it isn't me.
I mean, what are the odds that I would look at a drug-addict and think, "Wow, that could have been me!". The reality is that it couldn't have been me. I have too much respect for the rules. I have too little enthusiasm for tying one on. I don't even drink. Not that I never did, but these days, maybe once or twice a year, at best. I don't even finish all the pain meds the doctors give me. They do nothing for me. Even the ones that folks say are "the good stuff".
So, this plea has fallen flat on me for all my life. It means little to me. However, there is one exception. When I see a small businessperson fail, it tears me apart.
For some reason, seeing a business go under, and knowing the folks involved, is a hard emotional experience for me.
When I first bought my franchise, I became acutely aware of other small business owners. I struck up conversations with the guy who owned the local UPS store. I bought lunch at the local Roly Poly, not because the food was good (even though it was), but because I liked the owner who had told me a lot about his business and himself.
As I participated in various community organizations, I got to know folks who owned, say, the local car dealership.
I remember the time I talked with the guy who owned the Roly Poly and he said his store wasn't doing well. I could sense that he felt like there was a slow moving train bearing down on him. He just didn't know what to do about it. I ate there as often as I could, but it takes more than a $7 purchase to rescue a floundering restaurant. I doubt the total of the meals I bought there in a month amounted to more than 1% of his rent, alone.
I also remember the time I went there and the signs indicated that he was closed. Gone. I didn't even have a chance to say goodbye to him.
I felt so awful for him. He wasn't that different than me. He had a severance from GM and bought the restaurant with it. Now, it was all gone. A once in a lifetime windfall, gone in the blink of an eye.
That could have been me.
Back when GM was going through its bailout request and they announced that they would be cutting their dealership network, I never, ever imagined that the local Chevy dealer would be on the block. He had a large, succesful dealership, or so it appeared.
In the days after the closures were announced, he would say he was selling more cars than ever! He was upbeat and happy. I presumed he was spared the ax.
I would scan his inventory of Cadillacs and Corvettes and say to myself, "someday, when I buy one of those, I'll buy it from Tom."
With the current incentives, I figured I'd go there and get a new pickup truck and maybe an HHR for my business tpo help with my '09 tax bill. Not quite a caddy or vette, but combined, they cost about the same.
As I walked around waiting to speak to his son, the internet sales manager (who had stepped out for a moment), it became blatantly obvious that they had no new cars on the lot. Just used ones.
So, I came right out and asked what happened. He said that they were in arbitration trying to get their dealership back from GM. I'm guessing that's not going to happen, and even if it does, if enough time elapses, they'd be building their dealership up from zero.
He had a perfectly profitable business that employed his whole family. Of all the Chevy dealers to close, his seemed an unusual fit since there weren't, as far as I knew, any other Chevy dealers in Monroe, MI. I have never met a nicer person in all my life. Out of nowhere, his business is gone.
Such are the frailties of hanging out a shingle and going into business, yourself.
Once I returned from the dealership, I was so depressed I had to leave my business and go home.
It doesn't help that I'm an hour out of Detroit. California may have comparable unemployment, but hey, it's California. It'll bounce back. I just can't think of any driving force that will bring back Ohio and Michigan.
There's a feeling here like we're being picked off one by one. Even my business is having some tough times. Not so much because of the economy, but because of some extended, unusually mild weather.
It's just not much fun being in business right now. I'm just hoping that a harsh Winter can save us.
Small businesspeople are not a sympathetic lot. Half the folks think we're rich and the other half aren't aware that we exist. When times are good, we benefit disproportionately, but when times are bad, we suffer disproportionately.
Small business has been an endeavor where I can make 5 figures in a single month... and lose 5 figures in a single month just as easily.
More often than not, we finance our businesses with our life savings and the equity in our homes. Most small business people I know, myself included, financed at least part of their business with a credit card at one point in time or another. We have no financial backstop. When we run out of money, it's game over.
When we run out of money, it isn't like a person with a job who runs out of money. We don't run out of money until after we crater. When we crater, it can take a lifetime to dig out.
So, when I see a shuttered business, I see a memorial of one of my fallen brothers or sisters.
I also take a moment to say that, at least so far, I'm glad it isn't me.
Thursday, November 19, 2009
Jimmy's General State of Things 11-19-09
The biggest thing hanging over me right now is that the weather has remained phenomenally nice up here. This has pretty much been a year without bad weather. We haven't even had big rains.
Business-wise, that's been a killer. We started off the year like gangbusters, but are limping in to the end of the calendar year. Overall, we'll gross the same as we did last year. Considering the weather conditions, that's not so bad. However, we worked twice as hard for it and I ended up with about 40% less profit as a result.
I still see huge reasons for optimism, despite our losses in the 4th quarter. For one thing, we stayed steady despite the economy and lack of help from the weather.
So, when the weather breaks bad, we should do fantastic.
I finally submitted my paperwork to the State of Ohio to become a minority owned firm. It won't matter much as far as getting our disaster restoration work. However, it may come up huge when it comes to pursuing commercial cleaning and construction contracts.
One thing I'm doing to try and even out the cyclicality a bit is launching a lawn-care business in the Spring. There, the minority-owned thing may be a help when bidding on larger commercial accounts.
I'm not that convinced that it's a great idea from a stand-alone business model standpoint. However, it has nice synergies with my current business.
For instance, houses that pay to get their lawns mowed are also good candidates to have their carpets cleaned every now and then.
The main idea is to keep people on the payroll, and to engage them in something that at least covers the cost of their wages and perhaps absorbs some overhead.
We just got our brand-new John Deere 840 with the grass-catching system. The thing is a monster. It is capable of delivering a quality cut at 17 miles per hour and has a 60" mowing deck. Basically, it mows a swath that's almost as wide as I am tall, at a speed faster than I can sprint.
Like virtually all credit I get, this one came with 0% down, 0% apr, and a 42 month amortization period. It is sorta funny, when I think about all the debt I've accumulated, very little of it has been at an interest rate of over 3%.
I'm getting a little bit spoiled.
I may see about getting a pickup truck here soon so I can get the tax-writeoff. And yes, even those are coming with 0% terms. I'd really like a new Toyota Tundra extended cab, but since this will probably be used primarily for lawn-care, I'll probably be looking at something more like a Ford F-150, spartanly appointed.
For the Navy, I'm going back to Athens, GA to repeat my last 4 day midpoint worth of instructions. There are 3 food service tests. I passed one in July in Athens, but have failed the 2nd one, twice now. One more failure and I could be dismissed from the program and although that would mean no trip to the desert, it would also mean I would no longer be an officer in the Navy. Service to my country means too much to me, and serving with my fellow sailors has really been a great part of my life. I'm going to do all I can to keep up. The Navy isn't making me do this: I suggested it, myself, even if I had to go unfunded (meaning I wouldn't get paid for any of it.)
Next week, Logan and I leave for Disney so he can have some fun with all his Phoenix cousins.
And that's all I have to say about that.
Business-wise, that's been a killer. We started off the year like gangbusters, but are limping in to the end of the calendar year. Overall, we'll gross the same as we did last year. Considering the weather conditions, that's not so bad. However, we worked twice as hard for it and I ended up with about 40% less profit as a result.
I still see huge reasons for optimism, despite our losses in the 4th quarter. For one thing, we stayed steady despite the economy and lack of help from the weather.
So, when the weather breaks bad, we should do fantastic.
I finally submitted my paperwork to the State of Ohio to become a minority owned firm. It won't matter much as far as getting our disaster restoration work. However, it may come up huge when it comes to pursuing commercial cleaning and construction contracts.
One thing I'm doing to try and even out the cyclicality a bit is launching a lawn-care business in the Spring. There, the minority-owned thing may be a help when bidding on larger commercial accounts.
I'm not that convinced that it's a great idea from a stand-alone business model standpoint. However, it has nice synergies with my current business.
For instance, houses that pay to get their lawns mowed are also good candidates to have their carpets cleaned every now and then.
The main idea is to keep people on the payroll, and to engage them in something that at least covers the cost of their wages and perhaps absorbs some overhead.
We just got our brand-new John Deere 840 with the grass-catching system. The thing is a monster. It is capable of delivering a quality cut at 17 miles per hour and has a 60" mowing deck. Basically, it mows a swath that's almost as wide as I am tall, at a speed faster than I can sprint.
Like virtually all credit I get, this one came with 0% down, 0% apr, and a 42 month amortization period. It is sorta funny, when I think about all the debt I've accumulated, very little of it has been at an interest rate of over 3%.
I'm getting a little bit spoiled.
I may see about getting a pickup truck here soon so I can get the tax-writeoff. And yes, even those are coming with 0% terms. I'd really like a new Toyota Tundra extended cab, but since this will probably be used primarily for lawn-care, I'll probably be looking at something more like a Ford F-150, spartanly appointed.
For the Navy, I'm going back to Athens, GA to repeat my last 4 day midpoint worth of instructions. There are 3 food service tests. I passed one in July in Athens, but have failed the 2nd one, twice now. One more failure and I could be dismissed from the program and although that would mean no trip to the desert, it would also mean I would no longer be an officer in the Navy. Service to my country means too much to me, and serving with my fellow sailors has really been a great part of my life. I'm going to do all I can to keep up. The Navy isn't making me do this: I suggested it, myself, even if I had to go unfunded (meaning I wouldn't get paid for any of it.)
Next week, Logan and I leave for Disney so he can have some fun with all his Phoenix cousins.
And that's all I have to say about that.
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
The Big Question on Bailouts: Why?
Why?
The government is only now starting to realize that the AIG bailout was a stupid idea, poorly executed, to the detriment of the taxpayer.
This, of course, was obvious last year to anybody who wasn't bought and paid for by special interests.
AIG should be out of business right now.
They're not.
They're rich.
You're not.
These banks? The ones complaining that they have compensation limits? The limit should be zero. Nobody in those companies should make anything because they should all be unemployed.
The banks that paid back the TARP money and are now back to giving multimillion dollar bonuses every year? They should be bankrupt, too. The AIG bailout was for their benefit.
So, I'm left to wonder, "Why?"
Why do I do it? Why do I have the sleepless nights owning my own business? Why do I stress on months when I lose money? Why do I take cash advances out on credit cards to keep this thing afloat?
It's not like rescuing the banks helped me. In fact, I'm worse off now than ever as far as the help I get from banks.
Small business lending is a joke. It's nearly non-existent and the terms are absurd. Yeah, you can sometimes get an SBA loan if you're willing to put up all your assets and the equity in your home. Seriously, giving somebody a loan at double digit interest and demanding that it be securitized at 300% of the value of the loan isn't exactly doing anybody a favor.
Our home equity loans have all dried up. That's how most business owners I know financed their businesses. No bailout for HELOCS for entrepreneurs, though.
So, why? I mean, yeah, I know the macro-level "why?". The macro-level "why?" is that Wall Streeters are rich and connected. Because of that, they own the government, and they tell the government to steal our money and give it to Wall Street.
No matter how much pain is endured on main street, Wall Street will use the government to step on our heads to make sure their party doesn't ever end.
But why? Why?
Why could nobody see that just giving money to the country's worst businessmen was a stupid idea?
Why could nobody see that it was morally wrong to give wealthy people the taxpayer dollars paid in by millions upon millions of middle class people struggling to get by?
In a country that decries partisan rancour, the only thing that both democrats and republicans could agree on was the fact that the little guy should get totally annihilated in order to benefit rich folks on Wall Street.
So, why?
I joined the military a few years ago as a reservist. I felt it was my obligation to a country that has blessed me so greatly. Now, I honestly wonder, why did I do that?
Why am I going to risk losing my life? Why would I subject myself to absence from my family?
To represent a corrupt government whose only purpose appears to be to victimize the citizenry for the benefit of the wealthy?
Why? Why pay taxes just to see the money go to Wall Street? Why support a system that has already bankrupted my son's and countless future generations in order to give millions and billions to people who were already multi-millionaires?
Why did I spend my life thinking that my government was basically good when in reality, it's just a corrupt means by which the struggling middle class is taxed to death for the benefit of the lazy and the greedy?
It is a testament to the civility of our population that we aren't taking to the streets with pitchforks right now. In any other age, these Wall Street bankers would be hunted down and beaten to death by angry mobs.
Sometimes, the modern, civilized ways aren't the best ways.
Ultimately, I'm left to wonder, why doesn't anybody, anywhere in government, care about anyone other than Wall Street bankers?
It is said that the East Germans, after the fall of communism, would say:
"Everything we were told about Communism was a lie. Everything we were told about Capitalism was true."
Recent times have borne this out.
However, this past episode was not a product of capitalism. In capitalism, those banks would have failed. Those Wall Streeters would have sufferred the financial consequences of their decisions.
If we were going to engage in socialism, why did we only do it for Wall Street bankers? For god's sake, we've got the worst of both worlds.
Where the working person suffers all the financial problems inherent in capitalism, but politically connected people are allowed to do anything and never have to suffer the consequences of their actions because the government will victimize the population in any way necessary to support the system.
Why?
The government is only now starting to realize that the AIG bailout was a stupid idea, poorly executed, to the detriment of the taxpayer.
This, of course, was obvious last year to anybody who wasn't bought and paid for by special interests.
AIG should be out of business right now.
They're not.
They're rich.
You're not.
These banks? The ones complaining that they have compensation limits? The limit should be zero. Nobody in those companies should make anything because they should all be unemployed.
The banks that paid back the TARP money and are now back to giving multimillion dollar bonuses every year? They should be bankrupt, too. The AIG bailout was for their benefit.
So, I'm left to wonder, "Why?"
Why do I do it? Why do I have the sleepless nights owning my own business? Why do I stress on months when I lose money? Why do I take cash advances out on credit cards to keep this thing afloat?
It's not like rescuing the banks helped me. In fact, I'm worse off now than ever as far as the help I get from banks.
Small business lending is a joke. It's nearly non-existent and the terms are absurd. Yeah, you can sometimes get an SBA loan if you're willing to put up all your assets and the equity in your home. Seriously, giving somebody a loan at double digit interest and demanding that it be securitized at 300% of the value of the loan isn't exactly doing anybody a favor.
Our home equity loans have all dried up. That's how most business owners I know financed their businesses. No bailout for HELOCS for entrepreneurs, though.
So, why? I mean, yeah, I know the macro-level "why?". The macro-level "why?" is that Wall Streeters are rich and connected. Because of that, they own the government, and they tell the government to steal our money and give it to Wall Street.
No matter how much pain is endured on main street, Wall Street will use the government to step on our heads to make sure their party doesn't ever end.
But why? Why?
Why could nobody see that just giving money to the country's worst businessmen was a stupid idea?
Why could nobody see that it was morally wrong to give wealthy people the taxpayer dollars paid in by millions upon millions of middle class people struggling to get by?
In a country that decries partisan rancour, the only thing that both democrats and republicans could agree on was the fact that the little guy should get totally annihilated in order to benefit rich folks on Wall Street.
So, why?
I joined the military a few years ago as a reservist. I felt it was my obligation to a country that has blessed me so greatly. Now, I honestly wonder, why did I do that?
Why am I going to risk losing my life? Why would I subject myself to absence from my family?
To represent a corrupt government whose only purpose appears to be to victimize the citizenry for the benefit of the wealthy?
Why? Why pay taxes just to see the money go to Wall Street? Why support a system that has already bankrupted my son's and countless future generations in order to give millions and billions to people who were already multi-millionaires?
Why did I spend my life thinking that my government was basically good when in reality, it's just a corrupt means by which the struggling middle class is taxed to death for the benefit of the lazy and the greedy?
It is a testament to the civility of our population that we aren't taking to the streets with pitchforks right now. In any other age, these Wall Street bankers would be hunted down and beaten to death by angry mobs.
Sometimes, the modern, civilized ways aren't the best ways.
Ultimately, I'm left to wonder, why doesn't anybody, anywhere in government, care about anyone other than Wall Street bankers?
It is said that the East Germans, after the fall of communism, would say:
"Everything we were told about Communism was a lie. Everything we were told about Capitalism was true."
Recent times have borne this out.
However, this past episode was not a product of capitalism. In capitalism, those banks would have failed. Those Wall Streeters would have sufferred the financial consequences of their decisions.
If we were going to engage in socialism, why did we only do it for Wall Street bankers? For god's sake, we've got the worst of both worlds.
Where the working person suffers all the financial problems inherent in capitalism, but politically connected people are allowed to do anything and never have to suffer the consequences of their actions because the government will victimize the population in any way necessary to support the system.
Why?
Friday, October 30, 2009
Show Biz Parenting or Lack Thereof
8 years old is proving to be a very, very interesting age. I had just gotten used to the last iteration of Logan, Logan 4.0, and now comes Logan 5.0.
He's got a crush on a little girl at school. Also, for the first time in his life, he's taken an interest in music. That is something I am excited about. However, I'm leery of smothering his interest and turning him off.
The other day he was doing some windmill air-guitar and I told him that was something Pete Townshend used to do. I was astounded when he actually showed interest as I went upstairs and got my Concert for NY DVD out and played 3 Who songs for him.
He loved it all. The angry, windmill style of Pete, the microphone swinging antics of Roger Daltrey. He had to understand the sheer reverence I had for the guys as I described their greatness. I explained the tragedy of Keith Moon and how he was a great, great musician.
He asked how he died, and I used it as an opportunity to explain how drugs ruin people.
Logan is genuinely interested in seeing "This Is It". He's been a Jackson 5 fan for as far back as I can remember. I've played "ABC", "I Want You Back" and "The Love You Save" for him since he was very, very small.
It has also given me some teaching opportunities. I've explained that Michael was performing when he was Logan's age. I've also explained that Michael was a messed up person.
And the "messed up" part is why, with all my might, I am trying not to be a show business parent.
This is the first year Logan has shown an interest in learning an instrument. He can play a few notes on guitar. He's learning to play the recorder at school. Today I'll move my keyboards down into the basement with the electronic drums so he can noodle.
Although he has the beginnings of a spark, I don't want to put it out by putting too much on him.
In the back of my mind, though, nothing could please me more than seeing him take an interest in music.
A few of his friends are forming a band of some sort. I don't want to push Logan too much. He's got access to guitars, a bass, keyboards and drums. I'll just leave them around and give him time to explore.
He finishes baseball and football this weekend. So, that will give me 2 months where he won't have any sports on the schedule.
I think the key to both happiness and success in life is to do what you love. So far, he has shown a passion for sports. Music? I hope one develops, but again, I'm trying not to push too hard.
Music is a much better fit for me to mentor him, since it's something I know a little about. I got a late start in life, trying to teach myself guitar, off and on, until I broke through with the help of the old book "the Beatles Compleat" that was given to me by Stu Kemper.
(It was an obscure book that was nonetheless the rage among the guitar players I knew in school. It actually ended up teaching a bit more than a good collection of Beatle transcriptions because about every other song was transcribed in a different key, usually meant for piano, like Eb.)
16 was too late to ever really be any good at guitar, and my lack of skills, despite years of effort, attest to that.
Logan, on the other hand, has the ability to really accomplish something if he picks it up sometime before his teen years.
Sports? I'm of much less help, other than being willing to take him to/from practice. He already has exceeded my ability to coach him in baseball, and will exceed my ability to coach him in football and basketball, probably in the next couple of years.
I am reminded of a time when he was very little and he said, "Dad, if I'm ever in a band, I'll need a better guitar".
All I could think was, "Boy, were you born in the right house, son."
So, the keyboards go up today and after this weekend, I'll see if I can spend some more time showing him a thing or two on the guitar.
If nothing else, I'd like to see him be able to play songs with me someday, for fun. Best-case, if he could be in a band in High School or College, all the better.
I'll probably see if I can show him the Beatles appearance on Ed Sullivan. Now that he likes girls, he might make the connection between the screams and being the guy on stage with a guitar.
He's got a crush on a little girl at school. Also, for the first time in his life, he's taken an interest in music. That is something I am excited about. However, I'm leery of smothering his interest and turning him off.
The other day he was doing some windmill air-guitar and I told him that was something Pete Townshend used to do. I was astounded when he actually showed interest as I went upstairs and got my Concert for NY DVD out and played 3 Who songs for him.
He loved it all. The angry, windmill style of Pete, the microphone swinging antics of Roger Daltrey. He had to understand the sheer reverence I had for the guys as I described their greatness. I explained the tragedy of Keith Moon and how he was a great, great musician.
He asked how he died, and I used it as an opportunity to explain how drugs ruin people.
Logan is genuinely interested in seeing "This Is It". He's been a Jackson 5 fan for as far back as I can remember. I've played "ABC", "I Want You Back" and "The Love You Save" for him since he was very, very small.
It has also given me some teaching opportunities. I've explained that Michael was performing when he was Logan's age. I've also explained that Michael was a messed up person.
And the "messed up" part is why, with all my might, I am trying not to be a show business parent.
This is the first year Logan has shown an interest in learning an instrument. He can play a few notes on guitar. He's learning to play the recorder at school. Today I'll move my keyboards down into the basement with the electronic drums so he can noodle.
Although he has the beginnings of a spark, I don't want to put it out by putting too much on him.
In the back of my mind, though, nothing could please me more than seeing him take an interest in music.
A few of his friends are forming a band of some sort. I don't want to push Logan too much. He's got access to guitars, a bass, keyboards and drums. I'll just leave them around and give him time to explore.
He finishes baseball and football this weekend. So, that will give me 2 months where he won't have any sports on the schedule.
I think the key to both happiness and success in life is to do what you love. So far, he has shown a passion for sports. Music? I hope one develops, but again, I'm trying not to push too hard.
Music is a much better fit for me to mentor him, since it's something I know a little about. I got a late start in life, trying to teach myself guitar, off and on, until I broke through with the help of the old book "the Beatles Compleat" that was given to me by Stu Kemper.
(It was an obscure book that was nonetheless the rage among the guitar players I knew in school. It actually ended up teaching a bit more than a good collection of Beatle transcriptions because about every other song was transcribed in a different key, usually meant for piano, like Eb.)
16 was too late to ever really be any good at guitar, and my lack of skills, despite years of effort, attest to that.
Logan, on the other hand, has the ability to really accomplish something if he picks it up sometime before his teen years.
Sports? I'm of much less help, other than being willing to take him to/from practice. He already has exceeded my ability to coach him in baseball, and will exceed my ability to coach him in football and basketball, probably in the next couple of years.
I am reminded of a time when he was very little and he said, "Dad, if I'm ever in a band, I'll need a better guitar".
All I could think was, "Boy, were you born in the right house, son."
So, the keyboards go up today and after this weekend, I'll see if I can spend some more time showing him a thing or two on the guitar.
If nothing else, I'd like to see him be able to play songs with me someday, for fun. Best-case, if he could be in a band in High School or College, all the better.
I'll probably see if I can show him the Beatles appearance on Ed Sullivan. Now that he likes girls, he might make the connection between the screams and being the guy on stage with a guitar.
Monday, October 26, 2009
Why Andrew Speaker really is a bad, bad human being... even though it's not as cut and dried as it may appear at first blush
Remember that hysteria about the jet-setting TB slip and fall shyster, Andrew Speaker back in 2007?
It got a lot of publicity. Probably because... oh... the possibility of a person flying around, after they've been told, by the CDC no to fly around, with a drug-resistant form of tuberculosis isn't something that happens every day.
He's back, now, trying to sue the CDC because he feels his privacy rights were violated when they went public about the fact that he was defying their orders and had exposed hundreds, if not thousands of people to a disease that is a global health concern.
The interesting thing about this case is that usually, the media sets up a frenzy and zooms in on a private citizen, and the private citizen doesn't really have a chance to get their story out.
The part that's unusual, here, is that the private citizen did a great job of getting his story out. It's the CDC's side that's under-reported. Partially because the CDC isn't commenting on the case. In fact, other than reporting that he was jetting around despite their request that he not, they really haven't said much, publicly about this case.
In fact, it was the media that broke the identity of this spoiled, horrible little self-absorbed shyster. It wasn't the CDC. They really were trying to protect his identity, yet also balance that against their need to protect the public health.
So, what really happened?
It would appear that Mr. Speaker was diagnosed with tuberculosis. He had several tests, and some of them came up negative, but at least one indicated that he had the disease.
He was, unfortunately, also planning on travelling to Greece to marry his Fiancee in the months following his diagnosis.
A few months after his initial diagnosis, and a few months before he is scheduled to fly, he was informed that he had MDR-TB. Multidrug resistant tuberculosis. At this point, his doctors began expressing to him that he should not travel.
This is where things get very, very cloudy. It does not appear that he was ordered by the government or a law-enforcement agency that he COULD NOT travel. He was merely told by his doctors that he SHOULD NOT travel.
Apparently, at least he and his father continued to ask questions such as, "Am I contagious?" and "Why are you saying we should not travel?" and "Is this because of some real risk, or are you just covering your butts?" (Not actual quotes. Just imagined quotes based on what I understand of the story.)
It would appear that they had already made plans for Mr. Speaker's wedding in Greece and were very, very resistant to following the doctor's request that they not travel.
There is zero doubt: the doctors were resolute throughout that Mr. Speaker should not travel.
However, the Speakers assert that they were told repeatedly that Shyster-meister Supreme, Andrew Speaker, was not contagious.
So, in asshat move #1, they decided to ingore the doctor's requests.
In fact, proving that the shyster never falls very far from the scheize, Speaker's father hid a tape recorder which they claim has a doctor saying something to the effect of, "we don't want you to travel... it's not because you're contagious, we're just covering ourselves".
Trouble is, that's just one statement, by one doctor. It hardly means that was the overall gist of what was being communicated. In fact, what was being communicated appears to have been substatial enough that Sheister Senior was going to record a conversation to try and win a game of "gotcha".
It appears at this time that the public health officials were attempting to draft documents making it explicit that they were demanding that Speaker NOT TRAVEL.
They assert that they were going to hand-deliver this letter to him.
Unfortunately, they couldn't reach him. He had changed his flight plans to travel to Greece earlier than had been planned.
Now, did he do this knowing they were going to unambiguously demand that he stay in the country? There's not, as far as I know, a way to know this from the public record. Suffice to say, he changed his travel plans at the last moment which coincided with the precise time-frame when public health officials were trying to hand-deliver a request to him NOT TO TRAVEL.
Coincidence? Maybe. However, personally, I'm skeptical.
While in Europe for his vacation, a test result comes back that indicates that Speaker may actually have XDR-TB, which is even worse than MDR-TB.
They called him in Europe. Instructed him not to fly on commercial aircraft and turn himself in to Italian health officials.
At this point, Speaker begins outright defying all requests from the CDC. He flies travels via public conveyance through several European countries, then enters the US, from Canada, by car.
He claims that he couldn't afford a hundred grand or more for a private jet to get him back to the states. He claims that the CDC said they would not pay to transport him back home.
When he went to enter the US, the border agents got a notice on their computer screen that he was a public health risk, and they deliberately ignored the notice let him into the country anyway. Literally, they had identified him as THE TB PATIENT, and decided they didn't need to do anything about it and let him in anyway. (And these asshats are supposed to protect us from terrorists? They won't even bother to protect us from tuberculoid attorneys!)
In their defense, they claimed that he "looked healthy".
Now, it turns out that Speaker didn't have XDR, "just" MDR. Personally, I think that's neither here nor there.
So, why is it that, even though it turns out that he probably wasn't contagious, that I still think he's a disgusting example of humanity?
1. If somebody told you that you have a disease that is exceptionally difficult to cure (and in the majority of cases, impossible to cure), and that you should report to health authorities, would you then expose yourself to hundreds of people on public transit?
I'm glad it turned out that this guy doesn't have XDR-TB. I'm glad his wife doesn't have it. Thing is, if there were even a CHANCE that I might have something like this, I would never do something that would endanger the public, against the advice of public health officials.
That's the main beef, here. Yeah, the diagnosis was incorrect. But it doesn't take much to see that these tests, in isolation, aren't that reliable. Near as I can figure, Speaker had as many tests tell him he DIDN'T have TB as he had tests that said he DID. This doesn't appear to be a 100% accurate and reliable science.
However, any decent human being would not have risked infecting others. Had he complied with their requests, continued testing would have shown he could travel. Instead, he took matters into his own hands.
He basically decided that he was going to do what he wanted to do to benefit himself. If he killed others, well, then that was just too bad for them.
2. How many times did we have to hear that he probably contracted TB while working with poor people in Vietnam? Gosh, the guy was practically mother theresa. How could we say he was a very, very bad man. Trouble is, that's a bit of an exaggeration. He went over there briefly as part of a Rotary club project. This isn't a guy who lived in a leper colony for 3 years as a man of medicine and compassion. This is a guy who went there for 5 weeks.
Noble? Sure. Good thing to do? Yep. A crappy deal that he may have contracted TB there? Sure was.
Get out of jail-free card for willingly throwing as many other people under the bus as you need to in order to save your own ass? Not in a million years.
This is just an attempt to wrap himself in a cloak of decency to try and mitigate the fact that he basically acted no better than a murderer during one highly publicized part of his life.
3. On his law firm's web-site, Mr. Speaker proudly points out that he attended the Naval Academy. What he omits is that he didn't graduate. I have a special disdain for people who want the kudos associated with military service, but who can't be bothered with... oh... actually performing any military service. What this guy got was a year or two of free education at taxpayer expense, after which he decided that either the school was too hard, or that he was too good to serve his country and he walked. Or maybe he was rendered unfit for military service due to some physical, psychological, or emotional problem.
No harm, no foul. The Navy doesn't want him, either. However, putting this as some sort of achievement on his resume just highlights how craven he is to try and strap-hang on the sacrifices of actual servicemembers. He didn't SERVE your country. He took advantage of a good deal, then walked when he would have had to give something back.
Like I said, no harm, no foul, but if this is an example of things he's proud of, frankly, he either has a distorted sense of pride, or he's never actually accomplished something he can be proud of.
4. After trotting around Europe following his wedding in Greece, Scummy McSleasemeister then cried poor that he couldn't afford the cost of a charter plane to get himself home.
Now, six figures is a heck of a sum of money to pay. However, I'm left to wonder two things:
First, what kind of personal injury attorney is he? Personal injury attorneys should make money. Where is his?
Second, sorry dude... wedding in greece, honeymoon in Europe? I'm not buying the "I just can't afford it" argument. In fact, in later interviews, Speaker did say something to the effect of, he could have probably found a way to come up with the money, but it would have been exceptionally difficult.
Understandable. That's a lot of money. However, what does it say about the guy that money for a wedding in Greece is perfectly okay in his value system, but money to make sure he doesn't murder a few dozen people is entirely too inconvenient?
And what about his shyster dad? Are they both crying poor? Practice of the law isn't particularly noted for low salaries. Especially when one abandons all human decency to become a slip-and-fall attorney.
5. At some point, clearly, the wedding in Greece became more important than listening to the CDC.
I can't say the exact time when it happened. However, sometime between being diagnosed with garden variety TB and the time when the CDC was trying to hand-deliver a letter, the CDC stopped merely suggesting that this guy not-travel and was clearly trying to tell him that he REALLY SHOULD NOT travel.
Speaker's argument basically boils down to: Well, they suggested it, but at no time did they tackle me and throw me in a prison.
And until they did something that legally prevented him from travelling, this guy was going to Greece. In fact, it appears that he was deliberately changing his travel plans to keep them from contacting him to keep him from going.
Again, the heart of the real problem here: he was in it for himself. Period. Didn't care what the doctors said.
He seems to think it is a defense that he didn't get quarantined by the fed. (He was, upon his return.)
Basically, he's saying that basic human decency wasn't a good enough reason.
He's saying that the way the world should work is that doctors shouldn't say things like, "don't travel". That's not enough. If they were serious, they need to do something other than say, "don't travel".
What does he think they should do? Put a gun to your head, say, "don't even f***ing move" and call in a SWAT team?
In any event, this jerk is doing exactly what you'd expect some third-rate shyster slip and fall scumbag to do. He's suing the CDC.
So, yeah, there's more to this story. There almost always is. However, none of it seems to erase the main problem that folks have with this guy: when he thought he could benefit himself at the cost of potentially killing dozens of other innocent people, he helped himself.
It would be as if somebody said, "Hey man, that machine gun you've got. It's not a toy. We think it may have live ammo in it".
Then, instead of putting the machine gun down, I say, "Well, screw it. I'll just open fire on this bunch of pre-schoolers playing soccer".
I mean, yeah, if it turns out afterwards that the machine gun was, indeed, not loaded, that's a good thing.
But it sure as hell doesn't excuse me for thinking it was okay to kill a bunch of innocent people.
Lucky for all of us that the threat wasn't as bad as the CDC thought at the time. However that doesn't excuse this guy's behavior. Are we supposed to be angry that the CDC acted in a very conservative fashion to try and ensure that this guy didn't needlessly infect untold numbers of people? I mean, yeah, they errored on the side of caution. Go figure. Avoiding the possibility of creating a mountain of corpses will make some people error on the side of caution.
I consider it a supreme injustice that this guy should enjoy any kind of life at all.
He displays the ugliest of the ugliness of human spirit and sank to depths no decent human being would ever sink to.
He represents all that is evil and wrong in humanity.
He is, simply put, a very, very bad person. No amount of PR spin will ever change that.
This is a timeline by NPR of the events of Mr. Speaker's scumminess:
http://www.npr.org/news/specials/tb/
This is an article about his current difficulty in practicing the law. He thinks it's because people are afraid of TB. I'd be more afraid that he'd throw my ass under the bus the first second he thought it would benefit him. that's sorta the way it goes: people don't want to do business with people who would kill you before they'd inconvenience themselves.
http://www.law.com/jsp/law/sfb/lawArticleSFB.jsp?id=1189587766087
This one doesn't even fall into the news category. But if you want to read about what a 3rd rate lawyer does, after essentially attempting to manslaughter a few dozen people, when he has the opportunity to sue:
http://www.nydailynews.com/lifestyle/health/2009/04/30/2009-04-30_andrew_speaker_quarantined_for_tuberculosis.html
It got a lot of publicity. Probably because... oh... the possibility of a person flying around, after they've been told, by the CDC no to fly around, with a drug-resistant form of tuberculosis isn't something that happens every day.
He's back, now, trying to sue the CDC because he feels his privacy rights were violated when they went public about the fact that he was defying their orders and had exposed hundreds, if not thousands of people to a disease that is a global health concern.
The interesting thing about this case is that usually, the media sets up a frenzy and zooms in on a private citizen, and the private citizen doesn't really have a chance to get their story out.
The part that's unusual, here, is that the private citizen did a great job of getting his story out. It's the CDC's side that's under-reported. Partially because the CDC isn't commenting on the case. In fact, other than reporting that he was jetting around despite their request that he not, they really haven't said much, publicly about this case.
In fact, it was the media that broke the identity of this spoiled, horrible little self-absorbed shyster. It wasn't the CDC. They really were trying to protect his identity, yet also balance that against their need to protect the public health.
So, what really happened?
It would appear that Mr. Speaker was diagnosed with tuberculosis. He had several tests, and some of them came up negative, but at least one indicated that he had the disease.
He was, unfortunately, also planning on travelling to Greece to marry his Fiancee in the months following his diagnosis.
A few months after his initial diagnosis, and a few months before he is scheduled to fly, he was informed that he had MDR-TB. Multidrug resistant tuberculosis. At this point, his doctors began expressing to him that he should not travel.
This is where things get very, very cloudy. It does not appear that he was ordered by the government or a law-enforcement agency that he COULD NOT travel. He was merely told by his doctors that he SHOULD NOT travel.
Apparently, at least he and his father continued to ask questions such as, "Am I contagious?" and "Why are you saying we should not travel?" and "Is this because of some real risk, or are you just covering your butts?" (Not actual quotes. Just imagined quotes based on what I understand of the story.)
It would appear that they had already made plans for Mr. Speaker's wedding in Greece and were very, very resistant to following the doctor's request that they not travel.
There is zero doubt: the doctors were resolute throughout that Mr. Speaker should not travel.
However, the Speakers assert that they were told repeatedly that Shyster-meister Supreme, Andrew Speaker, was not contagious.
So, in asshat move #1, they decided to ingore the doctor's requests.
In fact, proving that the shyster never falls very far from the scheize, Speaker's father hid a tape recorder which they claim has a doctor saying something to the effect of, "we don't want you to travel... it's not because you're contagious, we're just covering ourselves".
Trouble is, that's just one statement, by one doctor. It hardly means that was the overall gist of what was being communicated. In fact, what was being communicated appears to have been substatial enough that Sheister Senior was going to record a conversation to try and win a game of "gotcha".
It appears at this time that the public health officials were attempting to draft documents making it explicit that they were demanding that Speaker NOT TRAVEL.
They assert that they were going to hand-deliver this letter to him.
Unfortunately, they couldn't reach him. He had changed his flight plans to travel to Greece earlier than had been planned.
Now, did he do this knowing they were going to unambiguously demand that he stay in the country? There's not, as far as I know, a way to know this from the public record. Suffice to say, he changed his travel plans at the last moment which coincided with the precise time-frame when public health officials were trying to hand-deliver a request to him NOT TO TRAVEL.
Coincidence? Maybe. However, personally, I'm skeptical.
While in Europe for his vacation, a test result comes back that indicates that Speaker may actually have XDR-TB, which is even worse than MDR-TB.
They called him in Europe. Instructed him not to fly on commercial aircraft and turn himself in to Italian health officials.
At this point, Speaker begins outright defying all requests from the CDC. He flies travels via public conveyance through several European countries, then enters the US, from Canada, by car.
He claims that he couldn't afford a hundred grand or more for a private jet to get him back to the states. He claims that the CDC said they would not pay to transport him back home.
When he went to enter the US, the border agents got a notice on their computer screen that he was a public health risk, and they deliberately ignored the notice let him into the country anyway. Literally, they had identified him as THE TB PATIENT, and decided they didn't need to do anything about it and let him in anyway. (And these asshats are supposed to protect us from terrorists? They won't even bother to protect us from tuberculoid attorneys!)
In their defense, they claimed that he "looked healthy".
Now, it turns out that Speaker didn't have XDR, "just" MDR. Personally, I think that's neither here nor there.
So, why is it that, even though it turns out that he probably wasn't contagious, that I still think he's a disgusting example of humanity?
1. If somebody told you that you have a disease that is exceptionally difficult to cure (and in the majority of cases, impossible to cure), and that you should report to health authorities, would you then expose yourself to hundreds of people on public transit?
I'm glad it turned out that this guy doesn't have XDR-TB. I'm glad his wife doesn't have it. Thing is, if there were even a CHANCE that I might have something like this, I would never do something that would endanger the public, against the advice of public health officials.
That's the main beef, here. Yeah, the diagnosis was incorrect. But it doesn't take much to see that these tests, in isolation, aren't that reliable. Near as I can figure, Speaker had as many tests tell him he DIDN'T have TB as he had tests that said he DID. This doesn't appear to be a 100% accurate and reliable science.
However, any decent human being would not have risked infecting others. Had he complied with their requests, continued testing would have shown he could travel. Instead, he took matters into his own hands.
He basically decided that he was going to do what he wanted to do to benefit himself. If he killed others, well, then that was just too bad for them.
2. How many times did we have to hear that he probably contracted TB while working with poor people in Vietnam? Gosh, the guy was practically mother theresa. How could we say he was a very, very bad man. Trouble is, that's a bit of an exaggeration. He went over there briefly as part of a Rotary club project. This isn't a guy who lived in a leper colony for 3 years as a man of medicine and compassion. This is a guy who went there for 5 weeks.
Noble? Sure. Good thing to do? Yep. A crappy deal that he may have contracted TB there? Sure was.
Get out of jail-free card for willingly throwing as many other people under the bus as you need to in order to save your own ass? Not in a million years.
This is just an attempt to wrap himself in a cloak of decency to try and mitigate the fact that he basically acted no better than a murderer during one highly publicized part of his life.
3. On his law firm's web-site, Mr. Speaker proudly points out that he attended the Naval Academy. What he omits is that he didn't graduate. I have a special disdain for people who want the kudos associated with military service, but who can't be bothered with... oh... actually performing any military service. What this guy got was a year or two of free education at taxpayer expense, after which he decided that either the school was too hard, or that he was too good to serve his country and he walked. Or maybe he was rendered unfit for military service due to some physical, psychological, or emotional problem.
No harm, no foul. The Navy doesn't want him, either. However, putting this as some sort of achievement on his resume just highlights how craven he is to try and strap-hang on the sacrifices of actual servicemembers. He didn't SERVE your country. He took advantage of a good deal, then walked when he would have had to give something back.
Like I said, no harm, no foul, but if this is an example of things he's proud of, frankly, he either has a distorted sense of pride, or he's never actually accomplished something he can be proud of.
4. After trotting around Europe following his wedding in Greece, Scummy McSleasemeister then cried poor that he couldn't afford the cost of a charter plane to get himself home.
Now, six figures is a heck of a sum of money to pay. However, I'm left to wonder two things:
First, what kind of personal injury attorney is he? Personal injury attorneys should make money. Where is his?
Second, sorry dude... wedding in greece, honeymoon in Europe? I'm not buying the "I just can't afford it" argument. In fact, in later interviews, Speaker did say something to the effect of, he could have probably found a way to come up with the money, but it would have been exceptionally difficult.
Understandable. That's a lot of money. However, what does it say about the guy that money for a wedding in Greece is perfectly okay in his value system, but money to make sure he doesn't murder a few dozen people is entirely too inconvenient?
And what about his shyster dad? Are they both crying poor? Practice of the law isn't particularly noted for low salaries. Especially when one abandons all human decency to become a slip-and-fall attorney.
5. At some point, clearly, the wedding in Greece became more important than listening to the CDC.
I can't say the exact time when it happened. However, sometime between being diagnosed with garden variety TB and the time when the CDC was trying to hand-deliver a letter, the CDC stopped merely suggesting that this guy not-travel and was clearly trying to tell him that he REALLY SHOULD NOT travel.
Speaker's argument basically boils down to: Well, they suggested it, but at no time did they tackle me and throw me in a prison.
And until they did something that legally prevented him from travelling, this guy was going to Greece. In fact, it appears that he was deliberately changing his travel plans to keep them from contacting him to keep him from going.
Again, the heart of the real problem here: he was in it for himself. Period. Didn't care what the doctors said.
He seems to think it is a defense that he didn't get quarantined by the fed. (He was, upon his return.)
Basically, he's saying that basic human decency wasn't a good enough reason.
He's saying that the way the world should work is that doctors shouldn't say things like, "don't travel". That's not enough. If they were serious, they need to do something other than say, "don't travel".
What does he think they should do? Put a gun to your head, say, "don't even f***ing move" and call in a SWAT team?
In any event, this jerk is doing exactly what you'd expect some third-rate shyster slip and fall scumbag to do. He's suing the CDC.
So, yeah, there's more to this story. There almost always is. However, none of it seems to erase the main problem that folks have with this guy: when he thought he could benefit himself at the cost of potentially killing dozens of other innocent people, he helped himself.
It would be as if somebody said, "Hey man, that machine gun you've got. It's not a toy. We think it may have live ammo in it".
Then, instead of putting the machine gun down, I say, "Well, screw it. I'll just open fire on this bunch of pre-schoolers playing soccer".
I mean, yeah, if it turns out afterwards that the machine gun was, indeed, not loaded, that's a good thing.
But it sure as hell doesn't excuse me for thinking it was okay to kill a bunch of innocent people.
Lucky for all of us that the threat wasn't as bad as the CDC thought at the time. However that doesn't excuse this guy's behavior. Are we supposed to be angry that the CDC acted in a very conservative fashion to try and ensure that this guy didn't needlessly infect untold numbers of people? I mean, yeah, they errored on the side of caution. Go figure. Avoiding the possibility of creating a mountain of corpses will make some people error on the side of caution.
I consider it a supreme injustice that this guy should enjoy any kind of life at all.
He displays the ugliest of the ugliness of human spirit and sank to depths no decent human being would ever sink to.
He represents all that is evil and wrong in humanity.
He is, simply put, a very, very bad person. No amount of PR spin will ever change that.
This is a timeline by NPR of the events of Mr. Speaker's scumminess:
http://www.npr.org/news/specials/tb/
This is an article about his current difficulty in practicing the law. He thinks it's because people are afraid of TB. I'd be more afraid that he'd throw my ass under the bus the first second he thought it would benefit him. that's sorta the way it goes: people don't want to do business with people who would kill you before they'd inconvenience themselves.
http://www.law.com/jsp/law/sfb/lawArticleSFB.jsp?id=1189587766087
This one doesn't even fall into the news category. But if you want to read about what a 3rd rate lawyer does, after essentially attempting to manslaughter a few dozen people, when he has the opportunity to sue:
http://www.nydailynews.com/lifestyle/health/2009/04/30/2009-04-30_andrew_speaker_quarantined_for_tuberculosis.html
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