A Touch of Class

Let's bring back a touch of class. And restraint. And modesty. And _____ . License to say and do anything ain't working.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not suggesting we all start behaving like the characters in a good old fashion mainstream American movie or TV show restrained by good old fashion American censorship. I am suggesting that we walk the culture back a step or two from the edge. If anything goes, nothing is edgy anymore. When nothing is edgy anymore all that's left is to try and be more shocking and/or disgusting than the next guy. Embrace your inner infidel.

[In an effort to promote cultural tolerance, gentlereaders, I offer up the phrase inner infidel. I see it as a bridge that will help us to connect Muslim culture to the other major cultures on the planet. It also sounds way cooler than barbarian, which is somewhat played out, as a word I mean. Sadly, there's no shortage of barbarism loose in the world.]

"A man got to have a code," Omar Devone Little: A fictional character in The Wire, played by Michael K. Williams in the third best television show ever made. Mr. Little was a charismatic, gay, Honey Nut Cheerios-loving thug that made a nice living robbing, and if necessary, shooting, drug dealers until he was killed in the shows last season. In spite of his occupation, he had a strict personal moral code that included not working on Sundays and not harming innocents.

When the baby boomers tossed out the tot out with the jacuzzi water and upended the traditional (and yes, often hypocritical) moral standards of the West, we began the Age of Relativity. It's like, all relative, dude.

From urban DICTIONARY (.com): "It's All/Everythings Relative means the world is in the eye of the beholder; all people look at things from a different perspective... Everything is quantifiable in terms of individual perception.

You can have your code, I can have my code. We can choose not to have a code. Who needs a code? If it feels good, do it, you only live once!

I wrote a column, well, two columns actually, I'm Glad I'm Old, parts one and two (1.23 & 1.30.16). I could maintain an ever growing list of reasons of why I'm glad I'm old but (cognitive dissonance alert) I'm more glad that I'm still alive and prefer to dwell on that. Note, I didn't say I wish I was young. No well adjusted Sexy Senior Citizen should, but that's another column, and, I strive to be nonjudgmental, so I won't bring it up.

[Could we move on please? asks my imaginary gentlereader as Marie-Louise pokes me in the ribs.]

Fine. One of the many reasons I'm glad I'm old is because I'm so ancient that I was raised by two members of the Greatest Generation and up until the age of 13 or so I was steeped in a cultural consensus that vanished in a remarkably short time. I do not long for its return. It wasn't a utopia and I'm very much a seize the moment kind of dude.

However, my childhood provided a firm foundation to build a life on as well as a feeling of being a part of something bigger than me, an organizing principle, however flawed, that I could join, or try to change, or even try to destroy. But if there's really nothing to join, change, or try to destroy, because anything goes, and to declare that one value system is superior to another makes you a hater, well, I'm glad I'm old.

If adolescents have nothing real to rebel against you wind up with a hookup culture where making love is just having sex, just another easily dispatched biological need. Where allegedly liberated young women have to worry about being labeled prudes if they don't use their smartphones to distribute soft porn (or worse) starring themselves. And about not getting enough likes if they do.

This is why I understand and respect where traditional religious believers are coming from, even fundamentalists, assuming they reject violence as a legitimate tool for spreading their faith. I not only was raised to be a believer, I sorta/kinda still am, in a very non-traditional way. I'm a meditator, a philosophical Taoist, and I find there to be much wisdom in Stoicism. (Fear not, I couldn't hope to explain myself adequately even if I were so inclined.)

However, I emphasize with traditional believers primarily because I suspect that an anything goes philosophy is repugnant to any more or less well-adjusted grup, it's not just because of their religious beliefs. They would feel this way even if they weren't religious. The organizing principle they've chosen, or take for granted because that's the culture they were brought up in, and it works for them, just makes things seem that much worse

[That organizing principle thing again? Define your terms sir! sayeth the gentlereader. Marie-Louise is scratching my back, she understands.]

It means exactly what you think it means. Wikipedia: "An organizing principle is a core assumption from which everything else by proximity can derive a classification or a value." Or, the framework or the grid you use to make sense of the world and decide on how to make your way through it.

I also understand and respect where atheists are coming from; I'm a staunch ex-catholic. However, I define myself as agnostic because I'm a firm believer in maintaining as open a mind as possible to counter the scientifically documented phenomenon called confirmation bias. Or, don't confuse me with facts, my mind is made up syndrome.

George Will, one of my intellectual heroes, describes himself as an amiable, low-voltage atheist. I mention this because of the stark contrast between his position and that of snarky, self-righteous arrogant atheists that feel the need to make fun of believers, and run to court over world-shaking issues, such as prayers at public school football games, at every opportunity. Yikes! atheistic fundamentalists. And more than a few atheists will tell you that while Stoicism might be OK, Taoism is definitely out there in the goofy zone.

Flexibility and a willingness to update your organizing principles are required for a life well lived. Too much flexibility, particularly if built upon the shifting sands of political correctness, or even worse, no framework beyond if it feels good do it, will result in a hot mess. Fine lines.

"A man got to have a code."

Have an OK day.

©Mark Mehlmauer 2016


If you wish to like, react, leave a comment or share -- please scroll down. 

Mobile gentlereaders, if I've pleased you, there's additional content to be found via laptop and desktop.      

Utopia

As a slightly younger man, all right, as a much younger man, I sorta/kinda believed in utopia. I say sorta/kinda because even as a somewhat idealistic callowyute my head was not far enough up my, um, tailpipe to believe that a utopia of any sort was actually possible. It was just a case of yutefull idealism coinciding with the societal and cultural upheavals of the late sixties.

It began early on. In the course of my eight years of Catholic grade school, I was constantly being reminded that God wanted me, no, required me, to help the less fortunate -- even the pagans -- if I expected to have a chance to get my sinful butt into heaven. (I was never directly told that other alleged Christians who weren't Catholic were essentially pagans, but it was implied.) However, I was also taught that going to heaven was just the cheese on the fries. It was just as important that I do all in my power to establish a heaven on Earth. For example, the church fully supported the civil rights movement and the abolition of the obscenity that was/is Jim Crow. It was made abundantly clear to me that this should be, no, was, my position as well.

It wasn't just talk, we were expected to walk the walk, literally. Seemed like we were always going door to door peddling something to raise money for this, that and the other charity. It occurs to me that my grandkids, who attend public schools, are also peddling something or other every time I turn around. However, it's always about raising money to pay for some extracurricular activity they're involved in that's not covered by taxes or the seemingly endless fees for this, that and the other thing. Hmmm...

This eight years of my life referenced above coincided primarily with the early sixties but slopped over into the late sixties. I point this out because making reference to "the sixties" is a very common phenomenon. And while most of you that hadn't been born yet are justifiably tired of the dated cultural references (sorry...), I rarely hear anyone talking about the fact that the early sixties was a radically different era than the late sixties.

See, the early sixties was mostly the fifties, part two. But the seeds of the late sixties had been planted and were starting to sprout. Fear not, I'm not going to belabor this point with a lengthy thesis, that would not serve to get me where I'm headed. If you were there, or at least have a working knowledge, compare and contrast "I Want to Hold Your Hand"/ "Helter Skelter," or, Martin Luther King/Black Panthers. If you weren't, or don't, sorry, your gonna' have to do some homework. I...

[Is this rambling bonkercockie going somewhere? inquires Marie-Louise. She's in a foul mood today and has yet to scratch my back, not once.]

Patience, ma cherie, patience. I'm just laying out the groundwork necessary to make the first of my two points. First point: I get it, I understand why Bernie Sanders is so appealing to callowyutes. Also to limousine liberals, many of whom have never made the transition to grouphood.

I had/have (but it's evolved) an idealistic ethical system that began when it was pounded into me (sometimes literally) from the age of 6 to the age of 13 by the Sisters of Charity. By the time I had reached the end of what I thought, at the time, was my sentence, it was officially the late sixties. As I slowly but steadily drifted into another large sect, people who used to be Catholic, I simultaneously got caught up it the secular religion of the moment, what for lack of a better term, I'll call the yute movement.

I use the term yute movement (a phrase not original to me), an ideology that included several different strains of thought, some of which contradicted each other, because it was powered by callowyutes. Teenagers (a group invented by America in the fifties) and twenty-somethings rose up and sank their orthodontically coddled teeth into the hands of their enablers. "Don't trust anyone over thirty."

[Reminder, if my slightly unconventional vocabulary proves confusing, the Glossary tab of The Flyoverland Crank might help.]

So, though I don't feel the Bern, I get it. Many of us coddled boomers, flush with the untested knowledge every new generation has that they can and will do a better job than the previous one, were let loose on the world oblivious to the fact it was (relatively) free market capitalism that made possible the unprecedented affluence that we took for granted, due to our shallow grasp of history and economics. Many of us became socialists and armchair revolutionaries -- for a minute. Most of us got over it. To quote something Winston Churchill didn't actually say, "If you're not a liberal when you're 25, you have no heart. If you're not a conservative by the time you're 35, you have no brain." Though he didn't actually utter the words the misquote lives on because there is wisdom in it. Yutefull idealism is, fortunately, still a common, though not universal phenomenon.

Unfortunately, some didn't, get over it I mean. For example, Bernie Sanders, a professional outsider who has been a member of a very powerful club that has only 535 members, for 25 years. I believe Mr. Sanders believes what he says. I also believe I'm still a sorta/kinda idealist, but I'm a grup, and grups face facts. Free market capitalism, with all its flaws, and despite the warped versions of it practiced in places like China (where they cross out the word free), has lifted, and continues to lift, literally billions of people out of poverty. Democratic Socialism has given us Greece (remember Greece?) and an economically stagnant Eurozone a half step ahead of recession. Which is my second point.

Have an OK day.



©Mark Mehlmauer 2016



If you wish to like, react, leave a comment or share -- please scroll down. 

Mobile gentlereaders, if I've pleased you, there's additional content to be found via laptop and desktop.    
  

Random Ramblings of an Old Crank

- I don't put links in my posts. If you've read what you'll find under the Please Read This First tab on my blog site then you  already know why so I hate to bother you... But, I'm not saying that it won't ever happen, also, I'm thinking about creating a links tab, a sort of repository for links I think you might find useful. I shy away from placing them within the body of my posts primarily for the following reason. Personal experience and a bit of research lead me to believe that multi-tasking doesn't work very well, that we're at our best concentrating on one task at a time.

Now, many writers would slip a link in here somewhere that would send you to an article about the downsides of multitasking. You click on it, start reading, then encounter another link that looks interesting and click on that. A half an hour later you come to and find yourself reading an article about why people find comfort in picking their noses. You notice that it's getting late. If you're going to get out the door in time to meet some friends for lunch, you better get it in gear. One of the subjects that comes up for discussion at lunch is the frantic pace of life in the new millennium. You all agree that the internet can be a wonderful navigational aid, literally and figuratively, when you're trying to find the right path and stay on it. But you also agree that the firehose of information made available by clicking a button can knock you on your ass.

Then your cell phone makes that neat little noise you recently downloaded that signifies an incoming message. As you reach for your phone, the ringtone you've chosen so that you know your snifigant other is calling sounds off...

- Two great ideas for fixing the mess in Washington, neither of which are original to me. First, congressional term limits. Your future king's (me) detailed thoughts on the matter, can be found by clicking on the Essay-Before You Vote tab. This won't be easy, it requires a constitutional amendment and amending the constitution is hard, as it should be. It's worth the effort though.

Our democracy was set up as a republic (we choose somebody to vote yea or nay for us), fortunately for us, because the dead white guys that designed it were well versed in history. I'll spare you the specifics of their reasoning because the vast majority of Americans, of course, are already familiar with it. This is why we're so proud of the fact that we can be counted on to vote, and conduct our lives, ever mindful of our deep sense of history and the lessons we've learned from its careful study and consideration.

For that small minority of you that found/find the subject boring and would/will do something about it, if only you had the time, think of it this way. Modern technology could easily make it possible for us to have  a direct democracy, that is, we could all log in and vote on anything/everything. So, your next door neighbor, the 400-pound alcoholic drug addict on disability that subscribes to the National Enquirer and Weekly World News and belongs to a cult that worships the Mother Goddess, Kim Kardashian, could gleefully directly vote yea or nay on all the important issues of the day while waiting for the flying saucer from the planet Tralfamadore to show up and offer a free ride to utopia.

That's why we have a republic. However, without term limits, an incompetent fool, who's just smart enough to steer enough (enough of other people's) money back to the citizens (or the powers that be) of their district - to buy another 2 years - might hang around 'till they drop dead. And, since congress runs on a seniority system, the longer they're in congress, the more (of other people's) money he'she or she'he can steer back to the citizens (or the powers that be) of their district -- to buy another 2 years.

[Aside: I've just figured out how to overcome (some of) my angst and confusion as regards personal pronouns. More than one enlightened feminist in the world objects to the convention of using him, his, etc. as the pronoun of choice in certain situations. Some writers have even resorted to always choosing the feminine form (pun intended) in such situations so that the reader will be impressed with the writers enlightened viewpoint. Example: When God created, um, people, she... I've done this myself but if I'm ever hauled into the Court of Political Correctness I'd have to confess that my motivation was that of a smart-ass, and not as an attempt to strike a blow for women's rights. Having seen the error of my ways, it's now my official policy to use he'she as a generic pronoun for any and all of my fellow humans that happen to look like they might be male (not to impose judgment or to imply, well, anything really). That goes for chicks too. We ran it through Mr. Peabdoy's Visa-Versa machine and we got she'he.

The second great idea for fixing the mess in Washington (admit it, you thought I forgot that I promised you two) wouldn't require an amendment, but we should pass one anyway so that's it's tough to get around it, is a requirement that all laws have a sunset provision. That is, at a certain date in the future, congress must reauthorize the law, or it's outta' here. Fool us once, shame on you, fool us twice, via that bogus piece of, um, legislation you snuck through the last time, shame on us.

I'm sorry this post turned out to be mostly political in nature, that wasn't my intention. Even I'm starting to find the endless stream of political news a bit tedious. However, if I were forced to define my writing style I would describe it as edited stream of consciousness, and my muse insists that this is the way to go. That's why you find me to be so fascinating and/or stupid.

- Some questions:
Almost every time I happen to catch a clip of Hillary Clinton giving a speech, she'he's yelling, why?

Am I destined for hell because if I ever meet God I'm going to ask him'her (crap, that's not gonna work...) why men have nipples?

Is it just me, or does Ted Cruz look like he'she's related to Lyndon Johnson?

London who?

Have an OK day.


©Mark Mehlmauer 2016



If you wish to like, react, leave a comment or share -- please scroll down. 

Mobile gentlereaders, if I've pleased you, there's additional content to be found via laptop and desktop.     

Memories

Our memories are often wrong. We are capable of vividly remembering stuff that never actually happened and/or wildly distorting something that did. I'm not going to offer up a single example of the many scientific studies that prove these notions because there are so many of them out there it would be like saying that science has proved conclusively that it occasionally rains. As far as your DAT (dilettante about town) has been able to determine, there are no rogue scientists, not even any of the ones with bogus Ph.D.'s that make a nice living writing books and appearing on talk radio shows, that claim otherwise -- at least as far as I can remember.

However, you're semi-fearless DAT (I'm not afraid to admit that I'm often afraid, but would remind you that often the only thing we have to fear is fear itself) is prepared to offer himself up, on the altar of science, via a personal example.

I vividly remember driving my '72 VW bug (back in 1972, the only brand new car I've ever owned), with the special paint job that my friend Waltah (Walter, he had a speech impediment), who worked in a body shop, had provided for me, along with a nice discount (thanks Walt), through Valley Forge National Historical Park one day...

[Real quick -- I use a spelling/grammar checker that often wants me to place commas in places that I don't want to, like between thanks and Walt for example. Even when I know it's (the software) technically correct (or more likely, suspect it might be) I tend to ignore it because, well, because I can. I apologise to anyone this may offend as I apologise to anyone offended by my mention of Waltah's speech impediment. Waltah also used to say plobaly instead of probably, which he and I both found to be hilarious. But you must remember political correctness was just a baby back then, and I must also point out that Waltah had slyly developed a few techniques for using his so-called problem as a way to charm the ladies. This was in addition to his awesome sideburns, a grooming technique that was quite popular at the time.]

...And I was following the much dreaded (by many of us at least) annual broadcast of the draft lottery, listening to it on my cars AM only radio (geeze I'm old). This method was only actually used in '69, '70 and '71 to determine who would be drafted, and possibly wind up in Vietnam. Prior to 1969 local draft boards determined who would be called up. The lottery was an attempt to make the process fairer because it was perceived that the draft board's power to hand out deferments that could keep young men out of what was, by this time, the highly unpopular Vietnam war, was often a rigged process.

For those of you who don't remember, or those of you too young to care, this was a RBFD (real big, um, freaking deal). Blue plastic capsules, one of which contained your birthdate, were chosen at random and matched to the number that determined the order in which The Gubmint would discover that you existed and send you a friendly note to ask you to stop in and see them because they were having trouble finding enough volunteers to fight the Godless Commies in a smallish country in S.E. Asia.

See, these tough little bastards, who had been at war with the round eyes (and each other) since they kicked their French colonial overlords out of the pool in 1954, after nine years of war that started after WW2 (you can't make this stuff up) were now at war with us in a proxy war that was actually the USA vs. the USSR. We actually won -- and then couldn't get out of there fast enough because by the time we did we had been there for two decades and almost 60,000 kids had died and a few hundred thousand more had been wounded, taken prisoner or are still missing. After we left, the tough little bastards that the USSR backed kicked the asses of the tough little bastards that we had backed, and whom we told to kiss off when they requested the help we had promised would be forthcoming if just this sort of thing happened. Then the now not necessarily happily united tough little bastards went to war with the tough little bastards in other smallish S.E. Asian countries and that continued, more or less, until 1989.

Fortunately for us, we (the USA) learned many valuable, costly lessons from the experience that have served us well right up to this very day. For the record, I regard the previous sentence as my all time personal best as concerns sarcasm. If there was such a thing as the National Sarcasm Awards, and there just might be once I become king, I'm certain I would be nominated for the coveted Smar' Tass of the Year award.

Anyway, I remember the day in question quite vividly...

[Day, what day? asks the gentlereader that peers over my left shoulder. What the hell are you...]

The draft lottery! You should start taking some of that ginkgo Biloba stuff. I was talking about the draft lottery. Don't you remember?

Sheesh! It was a warm spring day, my number was twenty-something, and I was in shock. I remember thinking/feeling that I would probably be cut down by Charlie (in the fall) as I was handing out melting Hershey bars to adorable Vietnamese kids, dripping with sweat as my feet rotted away in my combat boots.

Thirty seconds of research on the 'net reveals that my lottery took place on 2/2/72. You may have heard about what winter can be like in Valley Forge. Suffice it to say that even in the midst of a relatively mild winter, no one would actually experience a given day in February as a warm spring day.

Turns out my lottery number was 76. Turns out, If I had been drafted, I probably wouldn't have been called up until '73, but no one was drafted in '73. Turns out, Tricky Dick had been slowly but steadily pulling out troops since '69. Turns out, a tentative agreement had been reached to end the war by October of '72. Turns out, a cease-fire was announced in January 1973.

However. What I remember is a couple of years of daily checking the mail to see if Uncle Sam had sent me the inevitable greetings that I was convinced were, well, inevitable.

I gotta' go. It's time to take my gingko Biloba but I can't remember where I put It.

Have an OK day.

©Mark Mehlmauer 2016

If you wish to like, react, leave a comment or share -- please scroll down. 

Mobile gentlereaders, if I've pleased you, there's additional content to be found via laptop and desktop.    

Dilettantes & Geezers/Geezerettes

There is a new tab to found on my blog site labeled Glossary that may be of help, and not only for newer gentlereaders, but also those seeking clarification about various words and phrases that I've made up, corrupted, found laying around the internet, stolen or ...

[Well duh! exclaims Marie-Louise and my imaginary gentlereader, since this is your blog site it's painfully obvious to everyone that..]

Shush you two! Some of my gentlereaders read my posts via email subscription and others access me via my Facebook and Google+ pages. They have no way of knowing about updates to the blog site without me telling them. And by the way, I'll update the glossary as needed.

Anyway, as I was trying to say...


- I, your D.A.T. -- or -- Dilettante About Town (Merriam-Webster's online dictionary defines a dilettante as, ": a person whose interest in an art or in an area of knowledge is not very deep or serious"), find all sorts of subjects interesting. For the record, I find M-W's definition a bit harsh but I understand it. In my experience, dilettante is usually used as a pejorative. Think rich (inherited money) twit with minimal talent being humored/patronized because someone(s) in a given art or area of knowledge would like a share of that money.

While it's my fervent wish that this was an accurate description of my situation -- and it would be had I not been kidnapped from my wealthy but dissolute family by gypsies as an infant, setting in motion a series of events that culminated in my being won by my "father" in a poker game in the Gem Saloon in Deadwood, SD. -- sadly, it's not.

I'm sort of stuck with the word dilettante because although I would much prefer a word like polymath (: someone who knows a lot about many different things), or a phrase like Renaissance man (: a man who is interested in and knows a lot about many different things), these terms don't accurately apply to me for two reasons.

First, in my semi-humble opinion, although I think that I'm slightly smarter than the average bear, most people think they are as well. Second, I definitely don't know a lot about many different things.

However.

I've decided to come out of the closet and proudly embrace the fact I'm a dilettante and renounce any and all of the words potentially negative connotations. I'm not a rich twit. I'm a sort of downmarket version of a polymath or Renaissance man. I urge others to also proudly step out of the closet and declare themselves to be interesting (and/or interested) people who haven't been blessed with inherited wealth or genius.

- I'm on the cusp of geezerhood, a status I hope to maintain indefinitely, preferably right up to the moment I die peacefully in my sleep, because once you're a full blown geezer, that becomes your defining characteristic.

While my short-term memory has definitely deteriorated, I've done a great deal of research and soul searching and have come to the conclusion that it's within normal parameters for someone my age. By this I mean that this happens to everyone and it's not (hopefully) a symptom of some form of impending dementia. Since this state of affairs is highly unlikely to improve, however, I go to great lengths to maintain the status quo, as this is an important component of my plan to remain on the cusp of geezerhood. See, a geezer, or a geezerette, is an individual who has crossed a fine, not easily discernable line. The more noticeable the mental/psychological/emotional deterioration the more likely it is that you have crossed the line, dementia or not. I don't count physical deterioration because there's only so much to be done about that unless you have enough dough to pay for having yourself mannequinized, which comes with its own set of problems (have you seen Marie Osmond's lips?).

The most telling sign that you've crossed the line into geezerhood, and the most difficult to detect and acknowledge, is that you've turned into a caricature of your youthful persona. Unfortunately, while this may be obvious to almost everyone but you, you may be the last to know. After all, you don't see a geezer/geezerette looking back at you when you look into the mirror. While you may not be as pretty, or as energetic as you used to be, you don't look and feel half bad for your age. You're still reasonably sharp. A geezer/geezerette looks and acts like that mentally/physically wrinkled old uncle/ aunt you dread having to deal with at family gatherings. You're a sexy seasoned citizen.

An exhaustive list of the warning signs that you are, or are becoming, a caricature of your younger self, would fill a book. As a public service, I'm going to just mention two, one for males, one for females, that are of particular significance. If you're a man over the age of _____ or so (fine lines again) and you have a ponytail, an extremely obvious combover of some sort or poofy hair that's not nearly as poofy as it appears upon closer examination, careful, you may have started down the path of self-caricature. If you're a woman over the age of _____ or so, that regularly wears a flimsy tie-dyed (real or print) top without a bra, in public, you may have started down the path of self-caricature. It's  not for me to judge, but...

Please do yourself, and the rest of us, a favor and settle on some sort of style that's age appropriate. It doesn't matter if you're  a bit on the grungy side or striving for a haute couture look, as long as you look like a grup. Comfortable is a priority. Ladies, you don't, or should you strive, to look like your daughters or your ex-husband's trophy wife. Gentlemen, strive for just enough style to not embarrass your snifigant others. If you should have a trophy/noticeably younger wife, under no circumstances should she determine your look. Your risk looking like the result of a grup version of someone playing Barbies.

Have an OK day.                                                                                

©MarkMehlmauer2016

                                                                             

If you wish to like, react, leave a comment or share -- please scroll down. 

Mobile gentlereaders, if I've pleased you, there's additional content to be found via laptop and desktop.     

Republicrats v. Depublicans (Part Three)

Let me begin by apologizing for the second political post in a row. In my defense, though most of my posts have a central theme, they do tend to wander around a bit to keeps things interesting and avoid pomposity. For example, last week's Poh-LIH-Ticks & Stickies was about politics, my grandkids, and revealing a bit more about what your life will be like once I become the king of America. But mostly it was a thinly veiled attack on limousine liberals and socialism.

What follows is an attack on the corn lobby and I've deliberately waited until the Iowa cauci are behind us because this serves as an illustration of how special interests get away with spending other people's money. They keep a relatively low profile and don't get so greedy that they attract unwanted attention. Oh, and this post is also about economics.


Economists spend a great deal of time and effort studying the effect of incentives on people's economic behavior. When I decided to study economics in depth by taking a class in both macro and microeconomics at my local community college I encountered the word, defined variously, waiting for me around many corners and often hiding behind  rocks, trees, hedges and the like. The most fundamental definition of the concept I encountered was when my fellow aspiring scholars and I were taught, early on, that all things being equal, higher prices = fewer sales, lower prices = more sales. Who knew?

Being economics, this lofty notion was explained and elaborated upon (at great length) via a concept called the demand curve. The phrase, all things being equal, in economic speak, is ceteris paribus, which sounds way cooler. Well, at least until you discover that ceteris paribus, when explained and elaborated upon (at great length), is only a sort of logical place marker, a fictional convenience, because all things are never equal. It's a highly condensed way for economists to acknowledge, as a weather forecaster will if cornered, that while something is generally or probably likely to happen, all things considered -- we admit that one variable, many variables, variables that no one has discovered yet, or known variables interacting in ways they never have before -- could result in a tornado (or an economic depression).

But all things considered, at least the ones we've thought of/are aware of, it won't rain today, unless it does.     

Discovering and reading "Economics In One Lesson," by Henry Hazlitt (see my post, Macroeconomics, 8.19.15) saved me from taking any advanced classes in the field. I wouldn't call it light reading exactly, but, it is compared to taking a class taught by an economist. Or at least an instructor that someone's deemed qualified to teach economics. Don't get me wrong, I developed the highest respect for my instructor for both macro and micro... the day he finally got around to telling us that the he thought much of the mainstream economic theory in the textbook we were using was bonkercockie. From then on I ...

[Please forgive the interruption. The gentlereader and my muse, the ones that peer over my shoulders as I write, both of whom I've been ignoring despite their repeated attempts to interrupt me because they think I've wondered down the wrong path -- considering the title of this post -- debased themselves by administering simultaneous wet willies in order to get my attention. However, I was just carefully laying the groundwork before pointing out that...]

... Politicians from both sides of the aisle, many some of whom may have started out as idealists, are as subject to incentives as everyone else. The recent Iowa cauci unambiguously prove my point.

The Republicratic party is the party of small government and maximum freedom. Think rugged individualism personified by a proud Iowa farmer sitting on the front porch of his rustic but meticulously maintained farmhouse. He's sipping coffee from an ISU coffee mug and watching the sun rise over the seemingly endless acres of corn fields that have been worked by his family for generations. He's a happy man. Being on the receiving end of the high corn prices guaranteed by The Gubmints byzantine tangle (google ethanol subsidies and try to make sense of what you find, I double dog dare you) of subsidies, programs and regulations will do that for a fella. He, his lovely wife Connie, his all-American family and almost everyone he knows personally, vote for republicrats. Hell, his dog would vote for republicrats if it was legal to do so. Unless, of course, the republicrat in question was one of the poor misguided souls that don't understand the ethical nuances involved and objects to the fact that everyone that eats corn is helping to pay Juniors tuition at ISU (it's a family tradition). If you're unaware of Iowa's popular republicratic governor, Terry Branstad (recent beneficiary of 15 minutes of national fame) and his son, Eric Branstad (that works with a group called America's Renewable Future), googling will provide a much more entertaining and easily understood narrative than trying to make sense of the ethanol debacle.

The Depublican party, the party of ginormous gubmint and Gubmint and tossing all the money into a giant pot to then be divvied up equally by all the kids on the playground (some kids are more equal than others) also stands with the corn farmers. The Billary, who opposed subsidizing corn farmers when she was in the senate, has since seen the light. Interestingly, the Algore, once a supporter, now stands in principled opposition. Having FU level wealth, squared (net worth estimated by Forbes to be at least $300,000,000, even richer than the party's 2012's designated poster boy of greed, Maleficent Mitt), and no longer interested in running for public office, affects some people that way.

Here comes the best part.

There's a big, honkin' fly in the bipartisan ointment love lube. Even the Algore acknowledges that ethanol creates more carbon emissions than fossil fuels. The Gubmint not only chooses to ignore this inconvenient truth, it's decided to do what it can to increase the use of ethanol. How? Well, since all cars manufactured prior to 2012 can't use gas that contains more than 10% ethanol without damaging the engines, and, since less than half of all cars manufactured since can, and, since blends that contain more than 10% ethanol also damage gas stations, The Gubmint gotta do what The Gubmint does. The Department of Agriculture has stepped up to the plate and is spending a $100,000,000 of other peoples money in the form of grants to the gubmints to enable them to help gas stations upgrade to equipment that can pump gas with more ethanol in the mix.

What have you learned Dorothies gentlereaders? The Gubmint teat corrupts us all. As for me, please contact me if you'd like to invest in my plan to form a consortium and buy up as many farms suitable for raising corn as possible.

Have an OK day.                                                                                

©Mark Mehlmauer 2016 



If you wish to like, react, leave a comment or share -- please scroll down. 

Mobile gentlereaders, if I've pleased you, there's additional content to be found via laptop and desktop.      

           

Poe-LIH-Ticks & Stickies

Since there's so little political news at the moment (GRIN) I thought this would be a good time (this is being written the day after the New Hampshire primaries) to post a few thoughts on Bernie Sanders. Incidentally, when I become the king of America I plan on ordering that everything you'll find under the Glossary tab (which does not exist yet, but will, any moment now) on my blog site is to be officially adopted by dictionary publishers, grammarians and the like. One of the changes, which I'm introducing for the first time in this particular post (you heard it here first folks!), is that the pronunciation of politics will be po (as in E.A. Poe) -- LIH (as in literature) -- ticks (as in ticks), accent on the second syllable. This is because I like the way it sounds, and changing the pronunciation signals that we need to try and get away from business (or politics) as usual so that my grandchildren (the Stickies) aren't forced to grow up in a socialist workers paradise.

[Real quick -- the Stickies, a name that I use for my grandkids as a group, comes from the fact that when they were younger they, like all newish callowyutes, exuded  a general stickiness, to one degree or another, that transferred to any and all substances with which they came in contact with remarkable efficiency. Fortunately and unfortunately, they seem to (mostly) no longer exude this mysterious substance and the small fortune I expended trying to duplicate it in the lab (the potential commercial applications are legion) led nowhere, the seed money is gone and my investors are threatening litigation. If anyone reading this is inspired to pick up the baton, you have my blessing. Here's hoping that you might throw a couple of bucks this old farts way if you're successful. Suggestion: Forget the private sector and seek funding from the gubmint or The Gubmint, both of whom are well-known for investing in cutting-edge research that the private sector is leery of.]

As I was saying...most importantly, the last syllable will serve as a reminder that all politicians, at every level, should be term limited as even idealists that stick around too long often become ticks, not only living off the blood of the citizenry but also occasionally infecting the host. And, even if they manage to remain uncorrupted they are often prey to arrested development, Which brings us to Bernie Sanders.

Larry David's brother by another mother clearly means well.

BIG BUT.

Socialism, excuse me, democratic socialism -- Mr. Sanders is quick to point out there's a difference, and he's correct -- is not supposed to be scary (just don't google the following phrase, Greek financial crisis) because we already practice it to a limited extent. It's not particularly difficult to make the case that programs such as Social Security or Social Security Disability, Medicare, Medicaid, Food Stamps and no shortage of other programs offered by the gubmint and The Gubmint can be classified as democratic socialism, and many have. The vast majority of us, including me, have no desire to implement (or experience) a wholesale gutting of the safety net, and I'm a member in good standing of the vast right-wing conspiracy.

I'd tell you how to join us but then it wouldn't be a conspiracy anymore and where's the fun in that? However, on behalf of the VRWC, I'd like to thank Hillary Clinton for standing by her man and claiming that Slick Willie wasn't the Pedophile and Chief (stainer of dresses) and that it was all just a plot of a VRWC. See, up until that point there was no such organization but she inspired a bunch of us to get together and start one. We have a really cool clubhouse with cold beer on tap and I'd invite you over but we'd have to kill you afterward if you didn't agree to join our club.

Sorry, as I started to say, economists, who rarely agree on anything, almost all describe the USA as having a mixed economy. That is, part welfare state, but mostly a free market (to pay the bills). I agree and I heartily endorse the concept, but as always, the devil is in the details.

Mr. Sanders, the Washington outsider, has made a nice living as a professional politician for 35 years. He has faithfully served the citizens of the Green Mountain State, in Washington, for 26 of those years. Labeling him an outsider makes about as much sense as members of the establishment current obsession with calling each other members of the establishment without bothering to specifically define establishment, or why being a member is a bad thing, while the establishment media gleefully covers it all without bothering to specifically define establishment, or why being a member is a bad thing. And speaking of the Donald, ain't it amazing that an MBA from Wharton who clawed his way to lower level moguldom (despite four bankruptcies, and casinos that never made money and...) after starting out with a $100,000,000 dollar real estate empire his daddy turned over to him has managed to remain a member in good standing of the anti-establishment?

Excuse me while I interrupt myself again, but this is important. While most baby boomers will immediately grasp the significance of the "establishment" kerfuffle, most of the rest of you will not. When we boomers were adolescent and twenty-something callowyutes, The Establishment was your mom and dad. It technically referred to the evil system and its evil minions, those dopes that survived the Great Depression and won WW2. In actuality, it was your mom and dad, especially dad, and in a pinch, just about anyone that wasn't officially cool. The fact that it's become a thing is testimony to the arrested development briefly referenced above. Also, it explains the plethora of classic rock stations. How old were you when your life stopped (musically speaking)?

Gadzooks! I'm running low on words and I still haven't explained why Mr. Sanders is not my candidate. Long story short (too late), Mr. Sanders, a professional politician that's worked in Washington DC for 26 years without becoming an insider while the national debt went from roughly $3,000,000,000,000 to $19,000,000,000,000 bucks wants to spend $18,000,000,000,000 bucks, more or less, of other people's money on his Freebies for the Folks program. I wonder if that includes Obamaphones? Bernie hasn't mentioned that by 2027 (of course that's 11 long years away) The Gubmint will be on the hook for roughly 100,000,000,000,000 (the exact number depends on whom you choose to believe) in unfunded Gubmint mandated programs. These numbers just don't work for me.

Perhaps he should seek advice from his buddy and fellow non-member of the establishment, Ben Cohn, co-founder of the legendary ice cream company, Ben and Jerry's. Ben definitely understands the significance of numbers that include lots of zeros. He recently created a new flavor to honor Mr. Sanders called Bernie's Yearning in honor of Mr. Sanders. Unfortunately, you can't purchase it because he signed a non-compete clause when he and Jerry sold their cute little anti-establishment ice cream company to the ginormous food conglomerate Unilever (gross sales, 2014 -- €48,400,000,000 euros, which is, um, a lot of bucks) back in 2000 for $326,000,000 bucks and Mr. Cohn became a Unilever employee.

Have an OK day.                                                                                  

©Mark Mehlmauer 2016


If you wish to like, react, leave a comment or share -- please scroll down. 

Mobile gentlereaders, if I've pleased you, there's additional content to be found via laptop and desktop.