Silly Word Games

 

Silly Word Games

 

    English is a language which can be confusing and difficult to learn for non-native speakers. There are numerous reasons for this, from words spelled identically, but with different usage, to a host of other oddities. In some cases, the afore mentioned results in a word being used in identical form as both a noun and a verb.

     “The bandage was wound around his leg to cover his wound.” Identical spelling. Usage and meaning unrelated

    Or: "No time like the present," he said.  "It's time to present her the present." Three usages - two parts of speech.  

    And then, even more confusing for the language learner: “John had to write to the right people to keep his rights during his rites.” One sentence, Four identical pronunciations (homonyms): a verb, two nouns and an adjective.

        Adding more confusion is the fact that English also has a fair number if “contranyms,” that is, words which are spelled and pronounced identically and used in opposite meanings. I might “sanction” your actions, meaning giving the OK, or the US might (does) “sanction” Iran economically, having quite a different connotation. Other such usages are: Sanguine: Confidently cheerful, or bloodthirsty, Wear: To endure, or to deteriorate, Overlook: To supervise, or to neglect, and many more.

        I said that to lead to my point, that being that the language is already hard enough without the additional bastardizations of lazy speech.  Begin with the execrable upward inflection syndrome. You know, “uptalking?” – the upward inflection at the end of a sentence which seems to have crept into everyday usage? It seems to have entered around the same time as the word “like” became the third or fourth word in every US teen’s speech. Adding the upward inflection would seem to be a sort of “verbal shorthand” for “do you understand?”

                The bastard cousin of the “uptalk” and gratuitous “like” is the equally meaningless verbal chaff, “I know, right?” Only you know if you know, so why ask me?

        Ok, now to different, but related issues: What defines “the next level?” Is there a chart somewhere? In the absence of such guidance, how would one even know if, or when, they reached it? This phrase joins another ad-speak favorite on the list of word and phrase usages, whose deletion would enrich our language. The word is “premium.” The word itself has two primary meanings per Mr. Webster. The first relates to money paid for a service, such as insurance. The second relates to scarcity.

        As overused in advertising, it is applied to almost any ingredient, simply as “filler” to imply high quality. In food applications it is undefined, therefore useless, joining the ranks of such bloviations as “real beef” (in dog food, God forbid we feed fido that artificial beef. “Hand trimmed” steaks (really, how else?”). “Curated” (when “chosen” or “selected” just isn’t quite pretentious enough?)

        Along those lines: While I definitely applaud efforts to buy locally and produce quality products, “locally sourced” might still be the shittiest tomatoes available on that occasion. Another: We see the equally undefined descriptor, “Home Style,” on everything from frozen waffles to dog food. Really? Whose home? What style? Analogous to that are blurbs like: “White Meat Chicken Florentine with garden greens in a delicate sauce.”  Gourmet Italian delicacy? Nope; just cat food. I doubt it would matter even if the cat could read, which, mine will not, being too busy sleeping to learn a second language.

        Finally: I love the Eagles’ entire musical catalog, but one line from “Lyin’ Eyes” still mystifies me. Is there really a specified “cheatin’ side of town?” Is it marked? Is it near, or synonymous with, the “poor” side, “bad” side, “wrong” side, “cold” side or “funky” side?  

        Oh well.

How Things Really Work

 

                                         Real world Econ 101:

        If you use your own initiative and intelligence to put an idea into practice which involves selling something at fair value for a fair price, that isn’t price gouging. If you raise the price in time of need, simply because you can and it makes more money for you, that is.

        If you have the personal drive and initiative to create a business plan which calls for expansion beyond the capability of the current economic structure of that business, you have several options. 1: Don’t expand.   2: Borrow from commercial banks.  3: Incorporate and offer (sell) stock to others for a share of the business.

        Many American entrepreneurs have chosen option three rather than enrich Commercial banks. This is a risk/reward situation, as the business may prosper or may eventually fail and go bankrupt, in which case the shareholders will see the value of their stock plummet.

         This isn’t new; The Virginia Company of London was a joint-stock company (the first) chartered by King James I in 1606 to establish a colony in North America. Jamestown, the first English permanent colony in North America was only moderately successful until John Rolfe became tobacco “pusher” to the old world. Others were not so fortunate.

         The “South Sea Company” (officially The Governor and Company of the merchants of Great Britain, trading to the South Seas and other parts of America, and for the encouragement of the Fishery) was a British joint-stock company founded in January 1711, created as a public-private partnership to consolidate and reduce the cost of the national debt. To generate income, in 1713 the company was granted a monopoly (the Asiento de Negros) to supply African slaves to the islands in the "South Seas" and South America. When the company was created, Britain was involved in the War of the Spanish Succession and Spain and Portugal controlled most of South America. There was thus no realistic prospect that trade would take place, and as it turned out, the Company never realized any significant profit from its monopoly. However, Company stock rose greatly in value as it expanded its operations dealing in government debt and peaked in 1720 before suddenly collapsing to little above its original flotation price. The notorious economic “bubble”` thus created, which ruined thousands of investors, became known as the South Sea Bubble.

        In current times, such Government/private concerns are seldom seen, with private investment the basis of funding for most startups or expansions. Private investors take the risk and either reap the rewards if the corporation prospers or take the loss if it fails.

        So what? So, if individuals choose to endorse a business plan by investing and accepting the risk as well as the potential reward, again, that isn’t “profiteering” or “price gouging.”

        When a product(s) is/are involved, then the consumer, whose choice it is to purchase said offering, is really a primary determinate of the success of such a venture. Usually, any merchant who provides a decent product at a fair price should expect to see the corporation prosper and the value of the company increase.

         I have been generally referring to tangible products, offered for purchase in a free competition. In such a market, consumers are the winners. If every grocer has bananas, bananas are cheap. In the former Soviet regime in what is now the Czech Republic, patrons stood in line for the opportunity to purchase 1 kilo of bananas when they were available. We don’t know that kind of shortage or quantity control except under extreme crisis conditions. (toilet paper anyone?)

        Corporations such as Microsoft, Amazon, and others have prospered (as have their shareholders) not from monopoly, price controls or limits in competition, but because they provided products the public demanded and bought at reasonable prices in a free market. In cases where they (Microsoft) stepped close to the line (briefly forcing Windows users to use a Microsoft browser), appropriate government regulation pushed back.

        Other sorts of non-tangible retail have been far more monopolistic and predatory, yet have faced far less criticism for their success than Microsoft Amazon, et al.  The National Football League, as a prime example, benefitted, until this year from “special” non-taxed status as had MLB and the NBA and NHL before it. The NCAA has, for decades, enjoyed what is essentially a self-created monopoly on control of major college athletics.

        I know, I know. Again, “so what?” Well, let’s look at actual compensation for those folks who deal in entertainment, not tangible products, with a special lens. That reality check is to acknowledge that if an individual has great personal worth because the company they created has prospered and the stock value of their shares has increased proportionally, that “wealth” only exists to the extent that they must sell those shares to extract that value, at which time they must pay a capital gains tax on the proceeds. This means that for billionaires, like Bill Gates or Jeff Bezos, both of whom, got that way (wealthy) due to their own initiatives and risk, you can subtract about a fifth of the number for taxes, unless they give it away which both generously do. On the other hand, Elon Musk’s Space-X is a privately held (at this point) concern, funded in large extent, by the success of Tesla which went public in 2012.

        I said all that to say this: When a Bernie Sanders, whose real estate investments’ appreciation (you know, just like stocks?) have made him a millionaire, bitches about tech companies making money during the pandemic he is a world class hypocrite.  If he wishes to posit that they should pay higher corporate tax rates, then he is welcome to do so. He may well be right. That is, of course, up to the point that it crashes the economy, when everyone suffers.

         Complaining about Jeff Bezos’ net worth increase because Amazon was/is a lifeline to hundreds of millions of Americans during the pandemic demonstrates one of two things, neither admirable in a US Senator: 1: Ignorance of economics, or 2: hypocrisy. Take your pick. Note: I am not speaking here of what Bezos takes in annual salary, but remember, his Amazon stock only becomes cash if sold. What I will say is that many in the top US salaried earners provide no tangible product whatsoever, yet……. (see for yourself:

Individual:       Position:                   Annual salary:

Jeff Bezos         Amazon CEO         $81,000

Joseph Biden    POTUS                   $400,000

Bernie Sanders US Senator             $174,000

Dirk McMahon Pres. United Healthcare)  $18.9 million

Mark Emmert       Pres. NCAA       $2.7 million

Roger Goodell     (NFL Comish)    $32 million

Nick Saban          football Coach    $9.3 million

Lebron James      NBA Hoopster   $39.22 million

Trevor Bauer       MLB pitcher      $40 million 

If I add 2020 charitable contributions to that above list, Jeff Bezos contributed, in 2020 alone, 70 times more than the others’ combined salaries. If the above individuals pooled their annual salaries, they’d have to work 350 years to earn the amount of  charitable giving (to date) of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. And on a final note, the heads of various US commercial banks whose principal raison d’etre is using other people’s money to make money at little or no risk to themselves, all make multi millions annually. Wanna hate on someone? Those are the guys who were complicit in the housing bubble disaster of 2008-9 and were, in several instances, bailed out with your money. Remember when Bill Gates or Jeff Bezos asked for a government bailout? Me neither.     

Angst

 

                I’ve been sitting (and obsessing) on this for about 5 months and have come to the conclusion that it will haunt me until I vent in writing.

        Several years ago, late 2017 to be more precise, a friend and fellow golfer said he had a friend who was writing a book related to submarines and had mentioned that he (the friend) was interested in finding someone with “hands on” knowledge to give it a “tech review.” I was more than willing to get involved and told him to give the author my contact data, which he did, and the author got in touch that very evening. We agreed that he could send me the manuscript, which was about half written in what the author felt was the “finished” draft, and I would check it for technical accuracy.

         Accordingly, I opened the Word doc and began, with a yellow legal pad for such notes as I felt were necessary. The book, entitled Shallow Water Predator, was (is) a techno thriller set against the background of a US attack submarine operating on a highly classified mission in the Persian Gulf. Two pages in, I had one page full of notes, none of them technical, and I realized that the author, (I’ll call him “W” for brevity from here on) whose only previous published work was a self-published children’s book, was out of his depth in more than just technical areas.

     While the macroscopic plot to the point he had written it, had great promise, almost Tom Clancy worthy, the minutia which would actually make it readable (or not) were worse than banal. His dialogue writing was mediocre and prosaic, and descriptive passages were as bad or worse. Later I would find that his lack of continuity was also an editor’s nightmare, as “W” would have key figures in Washington and Guam at the same time (yeah, really!)

        Within ten minutes of beginning, I realized that a rewrite within the document would be far easier than making notes, and realizing “W” might take some convincing, I began editing (rewriting, in essence) the first of 53 chapters of volume 1. After finishing the first chapter, I realized we needed a sit-down and face to face about how this would progress before I would give it any more time, or allow my name on it in any context, for that matter.

        We finally met, and I, as diplomatically as possible, went over the issues with the writing and, as I had read the rest of the 53 chapters, some technical issues and some suggestions for plot alterations, all of which, to my surprise, “W” welcomed. After our second meeting, “W” said I would be listed as co-author, which, considering the work done and remaining to be done I found entirely appropriate.

         We had evolved to the point where he would call me and say words to the effect of, “How about if we introduce an Israeli Submarine into the plot?” And I would write an entire chapter, along the way researching the Israeli fleet, propulsion systems, Israeli naval force structure, deployments, appropriate curse words in Hebrew, typical career paths, etc., inventing characters, and plot lines, and writing readable dialogue for tactical situations I invented. A day or so later I’d sent him the draft and with essentially no changes he’d add it to the document. This entire “new chapter” scenario happened eight or nine times and I discovered several things. First, I’m good at it, and secondarily, that I was (am) a far more thorough researcher than “W”.  I sent a “smooth” draft of the first half of the book to a former colleague and shipmate, a Senior Chief Sonar Tech for a quick consult on several sonar issues, His response was that he couldn’t wait for the book and it was a great read.

         Encouraged by that response I spent the next several weeks finishing (rewriting and inventing a ton of new material). Along the way, since much of the plot involves, not only the Iranian Navy force structure but also Iranian customs, political structures, I did, as I had with Israel, thorough research into the same areas, even including Farsi language phrases appropriate to situations. I invented several chapters (at “W” s suggestion) involving a SEAL team attacked by Iranian surface forces while medevac-ing  a sailor from a USA surface ship. I even researched where in the Gulf a facility with an MRI could be found.

        Finally "we" ended up with a document which read like Clancy and was probably the most accurate book on nuclear Submarining in print from a submariner’s experiential point.  I say that last, simply because, as an author, I also have the advantage of experience in every aspect of submarine operations, having been “in charge” at both ends of the boat. 

      I sent it off to “W,” who sent it to a female English teacher friend, who had zero issues with grammar, syntax, etc., but said it was “really technical.”  Rather than respond with the “No shit” which was my immediate reaction, I pointed out that middle school English teachers were not the typical audience for techno-thrillers. Hearing nothing for several months, as “W” had some health issues, he finally got back to me in late 2019, to tell me that his editor (a local hack writer who moderates a group here in The Villages) had suggested that it was “too difficult” (whatever that meant) to copyright the book in both our names as co-authors. I found later that he had removed his original front matter related to my contributions which I will past below:

 

          This (About the authors) is the way the final draft read.

 

                       About the Authors

 

XXXXXXXXX holds a Master of Business from Salve Regina University in Newport R.I. and has spent his career working in Naval programs. As a Program Manager, he supported the Surface Ship ASW Effectiveness Measuring Program (SHARM) developing tactical guidelines and publications to assist the surface community in localizing, tracking, and detecting, threat submarines. He developed and participated in at-sea training programs for SURFLANT, and worked at the Naval War College, Naval Lessons Learned library. During the latter part of his career, he supported the DDG 1000 Integration Verification and Validation (IV&V) program as a Software Test Engineer responsible for developing test procedures and verifying software dealing with Surface Ship Combat Operations.  Bill and his wife Margaret are enjoying their retirement in sunny Florida.

 

Mike Dorman, MMCM(SS) USN (ret) who served 26 years in the Submarine Navy on three different submarines, served as a Leading Engineering Laboratory Technician, Engineering Administrative assistant, First Lieutenant, Battle Stations Diving Officer and Chief of the Boat. He completed 17 strategic deterrent patrols and two reactor refueling overhauls on ballistic missile submarines. Shore duty assignments at Naval Nuclear Power School included instructor, and Class Director. Following a final shore tour as Nuclear Field "A" school Command Master Chief Petty Officer and having completed two baccalaureate degrees and a master's degree along the way, Master Chief Dorman retired and taught for 20 years at W. R. Boone High School in Orlando, Florida, teaching Advanced Placement US History. Mike and Emily, his wife of more than 50 years, now live in The Villages, Florida, where he blogs, writes, and generally struggles with his golf game. 

 

 The book cover as published doesn’t reflect the co-authorship, merely crediting Mr.XXXXXX. I am now simply listed inside with several others, who I have never met, as a “technical contributor.”

        While I agreed to help to make a better product, I feel cheated to a degree I have never before experienced. What “W” did, representing my work as his alone, is perhaps the most immoral thing anyone has ever done to me as an individual.  If I wished to, I could probably do something about it since I do have the dated files of the final drafts which include the joint attribution, but it’s not worth the effort. Now, if a movie with the same title should appear, I might reconsider (lol). At least It’s off my chest.   

I Love Language

 

                                  I love language

 

        Listen to any type of verbal media for even a small amount of time and you are sure to hear any number of reasons why English is a difficult language for some non-native speakers to learn, especially for those whose native tongue is fairly literal and spelling reasonably straight forward.  Because of the olla podrida into which English has evolved, we tend to find terms and combinations which, while the colloquial meaning may be  (but isn't always)  apparent, the origins are murky.

        Easy example. My computer has on occasion been "out of whack" or "out of kilter." But, can an object be "in whack?" or even "in kilter?"

        As generally used, we know what we mean but a learner might struggle with: Where is whack (or kilter)? Is it a commodity, such that if I have none I can be out of it? It is a state of being? Why, if my car is out of kilter, can't I get it repaired and back "in kilter"?  As it turns out, change the spelling to "kelter" which meant "good order or health" in the 17th century, and it makes sense.

         What might I get for my money it I approached a certain street vendor and ordered a "hot diggety dog?"  Hot, I'm pretty sure would still mean hot, but that “diggety” shit scares me! Perhaps like baluts (chicken or duck eggs with 18-20 day embryos) which are buried at times by Filipinos until "ripe" for eating) "diggety dogs" are stored underground until "adequately ripe."  Don't know, don't wanna know.    

        My Pennsylvania Dutch grandmother used to describe anything that wasn't even or level as either "cattywampus" or "sowickered" when she really meant they were "out of kilter". Go figure. Cattywampus always sounded to me like a broom one might use to "shoo" a cat.  The origins are lost, but best guess is that it comes from "quatre" as in French for "four" referring to four corners, or square. Sowickered? I got nuthin'. And, oh yeah, PA Dutch aren’t or weren’t “Dutch,” They were German (“Deutsche”)

        One which I find particularly evocative in meaning is the South Carolina euphemism for vomit - "cascade".  This, defecation and masturbation may be the three words with the largest number of referential aliases. I'll leave the other two alone, but in addition to the beautiful mountain stream image created by "cascade" my personal top ten include:

1) barfing

2) visual burp

3) blowing chunks

4) talking to Ralph on the big white telephone

5) yakking

6) to tumble groceries    

7) the liquid laugh

8) yawning in Technicolor

9) revisiting lunch

10) a tie between "3d shouting" and "chowder gargling"

honorable mention goes to:  "Induce an involuntary personal protein spill" (credit George Carlin)

I know we all have our faves, but these are mine.

        As a frequent viewer and fan of Australian cop shows, I have discovered several previously unknown (to me) euphemisms and phrases.  If you have been somewhere doing almost anything and it didn’t work out because of your actions, I might ask, on your return, “How’d ya go?” This connotes any action conceivable and substitutes for a host of longer and more involved questions. If you erred, and things went awry due to your actions your response might well be “I stuffed up.”

Apparently, by mutual agreement in all ANZAC media, if you mean to say “fuck”, “fucking”, “fuck it” (or you, or them or me) or “fucked,” you can’t say that on TV, but you can substitute “stuff.”, “get stuffed”, “stuff you,” “go stuff yourself”  “stuffing” or “stuffed” which everyone knows is synonymous with the “f bomb”, and boy do they ever. It is also used in adjective form such as “stuffing asshole” and one time “stuffing dickhead,” dickhead apparently also being fair game. I’m talking network broadcast TV here, not cable.

        In fact, Aussies have unique slang terms which can be almost as difficult to grasp as Cockney rhyming slang. Quick example”: “Saturday arvo, we was at the beach and went into a nearby bottle-o. This dag in a budgie smuggler hits me up for a durry.  I told him to get stuffed and rack off, bought me a rack of stubbies, some hot snags and a sanger, and left.  

Just in case you don’t speak Aussie, that translates as: “Saturday afternoon, we went to a liquor store near the beach. A nerd in a speedo asked me for a cigarette. I told him to fuck off and go away, bought a case of beer, some hot sausages and a sandwich and left.”      

 

        Finally, I'll leave you with several terms from our friends in the UK, which I guarantee would leave a non-native speaker in the dust. The first two are more Irish:

"Take the piss."  I know, sounds straightforward, like maybe you might do it in the loo? Not so fast my non-Anglophilic friend; it actually means to make fun of, tease or take advantage of a person, as in "are you serious or just taking the piss?" This one actually shows up in Brit TV dialogue frequently. Scots use it even more.

        The other, similar sounding in origin, but not meaning, is "Dry Shite."  Again, we might think we have a feel for the meaning and the posterior discomfort it implies but not so much.  It means " boring" or if leveled at someone, as calling them a bore. In usage:  Collum could either BE a "dry shite" or what he was speaking about was "dry shite."

        "Bob's your uncle," meaning "things are fine, or optimum." Its roots go back to a man named Robert, a British cabinet minister who appointed his nephew to a government job without the nephew’s being really qualified. So, if Bob was/is you uncle, you’re doing fine.

        A similar phrase in meaning is "Tickety- Boo".  This probably came back from India with the British army.  A common Hindi phrase “tikai babu,” which translates as “it’s all right, sir” became Tickety-Boo in English.

        Let’s finish with one derived from rhyming slang, and absolutely undecipherable if you don't know already. "Have a butcher's" comes from Cockney rhyming slang. Back in the day, butcher shops hung meat on hooks as display. "Hook" is a sound alike for "look" so "have a butcher's" means to have (or take) a look.

Hope this helps all my non-English speaking readers......oh wait, I only have one; so Leina, enjoy this and I hope the other Philistines will be amused as well.

Cryptids

 

                                          Cryptids

        Way off my usual track. But since Joe Biden refuses to f**k up, and I’m too sick of Republican Congressmen to write about them, here’s something, as the Pythons might say, “completely different.”

        “Cryptid” refers to an animal (such as Sasquatch or the Loch Ness Monster) that has been claimed to exist but never proven to exist.

        If you find yourself with time on your hands and no clue as to how to use it, but only if the loss of the time is of no consequence, try to find a TV show called Mountain Monsters. I watched part of one episode several years ago on a non-football Saturday, and still regret that I can’t get the time back. It’s hard to summarize all that’s wrong with this show, but even harder to believe that there have been 72 episodes made and it is still in production on the Travel Channel.

        I watched the last half of one first season episode based on the title which caught my eye. “The Wampus Beast of Pleasants County” features the series’ usual cast of fourth grade dropouts, sporting names like “Colt” and Buck” and, in this episode as in all episodes, they are attempting to capture or at least photograph a legendary (think “mythical”) critter who has been allegedly seen in or around the backwoods town of Devil’s Asshole, Kentucky (or Alabama, or West Virginia, or Tennessee, but never anywhere that more than 6% of the population have the majority of their adult teeth).

        They always start by interviewing some local who had a third cousin, once removed, whose daddy said he “Seen the Wampus Beast one night when he was sorta high on corn squeezins. Hit were big and black like some kinda giant cat, and its eyes glowed like they was on fire!”

        Armed with this description the boys then attribute every unexplained animal death in the region over the past ten years to this creature, or one similar. What follows is formulaic to every episode, whether the Wampus Beast, the bloodsucking Devil Dog of Logan County, Lizard Demon of Wood County, or the elusive (as they are all) Werewolf of Webster County.

        First, the interviews with rural imbeciles, followed by what passes as a “scholarly” cast discussion of “Where did it come from?”, “How can we find it?”  and then, as the show ends, the failure of whatever trap they set to contain the critter du jour. Never, ever, is the Cryptid actually seen except as perhaps, a vague shadow moving in the woods, or a screech is heard, perhaps the “call” of the “Waya Woman of Jackson County.”  (Note: the “Waya Woman” is a reputedly 7-foot-tall female werewolf who trashes corn fields without bothering to make crop circles. Her trap fails, as they all seem to do, in season 6.

        Along the way, as I read the history of this redneck tripe-fest, I noted that they spent an inordinately large portion of their time looking for Bigfoots.("Bigfeet?"). There are apparently more than one, scattered across America’s "snake handler belt", as well as the Pacific Northwest but none has ever been caught, or truly photographed, for that matter.

         Reading further I found that there was also a long running series, ludicrously referred to by the producers as a “documentary,” called ‘Finding Bigfoot.” Spoiler alert: they never did, in 9 seasons, even though they used “Lures” (Bigfoot dummies) and a ton of high-tech optics and audio gear. Oddly enough, they always got close. Only to have their hopes of a real sighting cruelly dashed at the end of the show. (The “juvenile Bigfoot captured on camera was a young bear with mange!) I recall having channel surfed (pre-streaming) across another one of these shows where the Cryptid Cops were in the afore mentioned Northwest, where they scoured the woods fruitlessly.

         These guys were apparently more intimately acquainted with Bigfoot, as they referred to him (them?, it?, she?) as a “Squatch” apparently their nickname for Sasquatch. Being a teacher, I feel compelled to pen several sentences related to the names. Sasquatch is of Canadian First Nations origin, meaning various large critters, but “Bigfoot” actually relates to two giant grizzlies, one in 1890s California and another in early 1900s Idaho in the Snake and Salmon Rivers area. Both were described as weighing in the area of 2,000 pounds and were trackable by their huge paw prints. Early references to Sasquatch and/or the Skunk Ape (apparently he doesn’t use good personal hygiene) mentioned huge foot prints, ergo the Bigfoot nickname. The Bigfoot hunters are eager to identify any noise in the Northwoods as “A Squatch.”

        And now to the anecdotal incident which led me to write this mess: In one episode of Bigfoot Hunters, deep in the Pacific North Woods, apparently one new ploy devised by the cast of stalwarts was to entice a “Squatch” into making themself known by making the “mating call” of a female. Yes, of course it’s ludicrous, but wait. When I read this all I could think of was “What if they succeed, and a randy “Squatch” engorged with passion, and obviously in the mood, bursts from the forest in search of love? Did the cast draw straws to choose the unlucky “girl friend?” Now that show I’d be forced to watch!   

What You Don’t Understand

 

What You Don’t Understand 

WARNING: You may not like the point of view expressed by me in this op-ed essay. Much of the impetus for it is my reaction to an article run in the Washington Post, to which I subscribe. The Post runs op-eds from both sides of the aisle, including some, like this, which are far less than favorable to the Post’s owner, Jeff Bezos. Bezos could, with the flick of a pen, kill or require prior approval for any such article. The fact that he doesn’t is part of what sets him, and the Post, far apart from Fox News and many US print journals.

        Let’s begin with a missive from Bernie (“no one is humbler than I”) Sanders, who is addressing what he sees as the wretched excess of successful US entrepreneurs.  

        “In my view, we can no longer tolerate billionaires like Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk becoming obscenely rich at a time of unprecedented economic pain and suffering,” Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said in an email to The Washington Post.

        For simplicity’s sake I’ll focus on Bezos. Sanders seems to feel that Bezos and the others have done something immoral related to the global pandemic. He also would seem to have us believe that the increase in their wealth is, somehow, ill-gotten gains. In implying this, I think he conflates inherited wealth (Bush 41 and 43, JFK, Mitt Romney) with economic success by personal effort. Along the way, he is careful never to include such icons as pro athletes or entertainment figures, also a new wealthy class.

        To begin with, Sanders apparently has never heard of the failures of the UK post WWII Socialism experiment, focusing narrowly on National Health Care, a clear success when facts are considered …but…After decades of ever declining economic growth and ever rising unemployment, Britain largely abandoned socialism and turned toward capitalism and the free market. The resulting prosperity in the U.K. vindicated free-marketers who had predicted that socialism would inevitably fail to deliver the goods. Of course, the UK was now in the newly minted EU, all of whose other members were far less than socialist in those areas where commercial competition is involved.

        My point? Sanders can be correct on National Health Care and then jump the track in other areas. But back to the wealth issue. Jeff Bezos inherited nothing except a head for science, Bill Gates, precisely the same. He (Bezos) was a scholarship student who actually used his brains and university training to create a company which was an immediate hit because it fulfilled people’s needs.

        His wealth is usually reported as an amount of billions of dollars, leading too many ignorant persons to believe, apparently,  that somehow he gets a huge check annually. The wealth of Jeff Bezos is the value of his stock in his own company (Amazon). It’s only “money” if he sells shares, at which time he is subject to capital gains tax. He didn’t write the federal tax code, but Sanders disrespects him as if he thinks he did. (Sanders, by the way, is worth more than a million because of the appreciation of real estate he owns)  

    When Bezos makes money, Sanders seems to view this as profiteering, but profiteering is what the loathsome John Stossell justified during the aftermath of the last Texas hurricane, saying that price gouging ($90 dollars for a 12 pack of bottled water) was just “market economics.” Meeting the needs of consumers at a fair price (Amazon, Microsoft, etc.) isn’t obscene and it isn’t profiteering 

        Amazon was, and continues to be, a veritable lifeline to multi-millions of Americans during the current pandemic. No prices were raised even as demand increased. That’s the categorical opposite of profiteering. Every year, Bezos, like Elon Musk, spends a billion dollars’ worth of his stock on space research, while donating millions to multiple causes, including one grant of $10 billion last year alone. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation gives away billions annually, and the couple have pledged to donate 95% of their total wealth.

         Amazon added 500,000 jobs in 2020, including 400,000 in the United States. Those jobs pay at least twice the federal minimum wage, and provide employees with benefits like health insurance, 401(k) company matching, and up to 20 weeks of paid parental leave. The company also offered extra hazard pay from March to May 2020.  In raw numbers, the average Amazon warehouse worker is paid about three times the federal poverty level for a single person.  

        Once upon a time, about 140 years ago, there was a class of American entrepreneurs who came to be labeled “Robber Barons.” They created trusts and monopolies, cornering the supplies of metals, meats, fuels and money.  The names are familiar still; Rockefeller (oil), Armour (meat products) Carnegie and Morgan (steel), Gould and Morgan (banking), Vanderbilt (shipping), etc.  With one notable exception, Andrew Carnegie, they established large family fortunes through dubious means and while doing some good works, passed the bulk of their wealth on.

         Carnegie, on the other hand, once said “The man who dies rich, dies disgraced,” and gave away the vast bulk of his estate.  The methods used by those men to gain and preserve wealth are primarily illegal today, but sadly the 2007-9 housing bubble collapse seemed to indicate that the new villains and economic malefactors are far more likely to work for “product-less” concerns like Bear-Stearns, Lehman brothers and a number of other commercial banks. These are the real modern financial bad guys, not Bezos, Gates, and the rest of the tech providers, who simply provide requested products at fair prices.

        Bezos does, via electronic ordering and postal delivery, what Wal-Mart has done for decades, but has done it better. The various Walton heirs are collectively the richest family in the world, with a net worth of more than $247 billion. The Waltons' wealth comes from their inherited, controlling stake in Walmart. While Walmart workers live in poverty, the Waltons rake in billions every year from the company in dividends and sales of their Walmart shares. How odd that Bernie Sanders lambasts the tech giants Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, et al, while never mentioning the Waltons.

     Bezos, in just one of over a dozen charitable donations in 2020, donated 5 times as much as the entire Walton family did in the five years from 2014 to 2018! Think about that, Bernie, and get back to me.       

The Lies We're Told

 The Lies We're Told

        Betsy McCaughey has a history of being active and critical of almost every healthcare effort put forth during the Obama administration, even those which had really been Bush 43 initiatives. She also has a history of lying and misdirection in these and numerous other areas. PolitiFact labels her “Pants on Fire” (complete fabrication) in every fact check related to her. She apparently subscribes to the “Big Lie” theory – that is, lie often enough and emphatically enough and some schmucks will believe it.

        Her latest Op-ed column which sadly, runs in the Villages Daily Sun, is entitled, “Nancy Pelosi’s Bill Would Rig the Election Process.” Now, there are several McCaughey tactics in play here. First is the use of the GOP’s favorite curse word - Nancy Pelosi. Mrs. Pelosi, while Speaker of the House, is not a sponsor or co-sponsor of the bill. It isn’t “her” bill! Actually, the Bill is sponsored by Congressman Paul Sarbanes of Md. So, with that first big lie out of the way, let’s continue. “Rig” is Donald Trump’s word, synonymous with “I lost, but I can’t ever lose, so it must have been “rigged.”  In truth, as Ms. McCaughey uses the term in the context of HR 1 (“the bill,” actually the “For the People Act of 2021,” it really means something more along the lines of “If we let all eligible voters have equal access to the ballot, then Democrats will win more.”

        In the aftermath of the election of 2020, Trump and his acolytes immediately began a massive and heavily funded disinformation campaign. The results? Nothing. Not a single verifiable instance of voter fraud by Democrats. In truth, this fact, alone, in the most heavily scrutinized election in history is what drives Ms. McCaughey and her ilk in the unreasoning premise that somehow, somewhere, since “everybody knows” the Republican candidates were nobler, more honest etc., the real reason for their defeat, where it happened, was that it was “too easy to vote” and sleazy Democrats were able to vote in greater numbers. Of course, as I mentioned, this is, simply put, a lie.

        If there was ever an election in which the GOP could prove widespread voter fraud instead of just imagining it, 2020 was it. Instead, Americans learned what experts had long told us. Election fraud is rare, and the kind of fraud that Voter ID would address - people going to a precinct and attempting to vote as someone else - is almost non-existent. The Trump campaign and other Republican interests  filed more than 30 election lawsuits in 6 states. No court found a single instance of fraud.

        In fact, the most notable threat to 2020 election integrity has come from not from voters or voting machines, but Republican officials. Like Lindsay Graham of South Carolina inexplicably asking the Georgia Secretary of State about tossing ballots to the president and his supporters pushing for the non-certification of millions of legitimate votes, it’s clear and shameful that officials in one party have no issue with disenfranchising voters if it will bring victory.  

    Oh yeah, I forgot; there were five cases of actual fraudulent and deliberate voting in Wisconsin. These were recognized and disallowed by local officials. All five were Republicans attempting to cast a second vote with false ID.

        HR 1 is an attempt by Democrats in Congress to deal with a number of state legislative initiatives to make it more difficult to vote. Remember, no evidence other than Democrats winning, motivates these efforts. Take it to the bank that if these states had “gone Republican” these attempts at voter suppression would not exist. But why attempt to assure voter rights at the Federal level? Well, being a historian, I could elaborate on the history, especially in the South, of attempts by law and by violence at keeping certain segments of the citizenry from voting. I could mention the Ocoee, Florida riots and deaths because one Black man tried to register to vote. We could consider the armed white thugs outside polling places in the Jim Crow South.

        Later, in the early 20^th century, there were the voter registration offices which were “closed” when Blacks tried to register. There were strategically located polling stations, poll taxes, and numerous other tactics, some deadly some simply administrative, whose sole aim was keeping “Those people” from exercising their rights as citizens. It also resulted in the deaths of white volunteers whose sole “crime” was helping others to vote (“Mississippi Burning”).

        What changed? The voting Right Act of 1965 was enacted. Signed into law on August 6, 1965, by President Lyndon Johnson, it outlawed the discriminatory voting practices adopted in many southern states after the Civil War, including literacy tests as a prerequisite to voting. It also allowed for federal supervision, where necessary/appropriate to ensure provisions of the act were met. The results were, as expected, immediate. In Mississippi alone, voter turnout among Black people increased from 6 percent in 1964 to 59 percent in 1969.

        However, recent elections and the Supreme Court's decision in Shelby County v. Holder, which struck down key enforcement provisions in the Voting Rights Act (VRA), have eroded oversight and enforcement. These have been seen in reduction in polling places and location of them. The New York Times summed it thus: “At the core of the disagreement was whether racial minorities continued to face barriers to voting in states with a history of discrimination. “Our country has changed,” Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. wrote for the majority. “While any racial discrimination in voting is too much, Congress must ensure that the legislation it passes to remedy that problem speaks to current conditions.” (My note: this implies that “things are better” so there’s less need for federal supervision)

        The decision had immediate practical consequences. Texas announced shortly after the decision that a voter identification law that had been blocked would go into effect immediately, and that redistricting maps there would no longer need federal approval. Changes in voting procedures in the places that had been covered by the law, including ones concerning restrictions on early voting, will now be subject only to after-the-fact litigation." Redistricting can radically change how votes are grouped; this is especially critical in Congressional races. A state, which wanted to, could redraw Congressional district boundaries to disadvantage a group. (gerrymandering)

        The apparent basis of the USSC decision was the assertion that most of the VR act of ’65 was overtaken by events since “now all citizens can vote” (until states, freed from federal supervision, alter the laws, back to the bad old days).

Results of the decision include: Since the Shelby County decision, local election boards and state governments have closed over 1,600 polling places. That is approximately 8% of total voting locations within jurisdictions affected by the Shelby decision. The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, a bipartisan independent study group, found that states claimed polling-place closures were intended to save money, centralize voting operations, and complying with Americans with Disabilities Act – but really the goal was reducing voter turnout, particularly among minority voters who were historically disenfranchised. Additionally, due to more polling places “strategically” closed, voters in majority black precincts were far more likely to wait longer than half an hour to cast a ballot than voters in majority white precincts. A study of the 2012 election found that the voters who waited in long lines paid, collectively, over half a billion dollars in lost wages. It was worse in 2020, but the stakes were high.

         Ms. McCaughey cares not a fig about elections as long as Republicans win. She is lying about this bill (HR1) just as she lied when she fed the term “Obamacare death panels” to Sarah Palin.