The World Is Flat.

Okay, I give up. The world is flat. There is no fiscal cliff looming over us or under us because there are no cliffs. The fiscal world is also flat. Therefore we do not need many of the services that the government has been trying to provide for us. Many government jobs are simply unnecessary and can be eliminated. I am ready to agree and would nominate the members of the House and Senate for that honor.

Time is much slower than we thought. Even though the Earth is billions of years old and we have evidence of life on the planet millions of years ago, authorities tell us life on Earth was created only six thousand years ago. The discrepancy, I assume, is caused by slow time.

I used to believe that my God lived all around me and in me, but Congress set me straight on that. According to the new Pledge of Allegiance that replaced the one I was born under, this nation is "under God." I'm not quite sure how Congress knows this. Such knowledge doesn't seem to be one of the qualifications for office. But there it is.

The citizens of Egypt seem to be in a similar quandary. Their new government is telling them that Shariyah law is the new law of their nation. The problem is that many of those citizens, including members of the judiciary, do not know Shariyah law. I hope they are fast learners. Or that time is slow.

Our local equivalent of Shariyah law is called the Constitution. I learned in school that it is a very wise document even though it, like the Pledge of Allegiance, has occasionally required amendment. The Constitution originally only allowed white males, called the militia, to vote and own guns. Now the voters, the militia and the guns have changed, and so has the Constitution. But the world is still flat.

Theater of the absurd.

The news is absurd. It doesn't matter whether I read it or watch it on TV. It doesn't matter what channel I watch or which newspaper I read. It doesn't matter what part of the world they are talking about. Examples:

• In December global warning brings us record cold in Europe and tornadoes in the US.
• The solution to avoiding the fiscal cliff is to (a) deny that it matters, (b) blame it on the other party, or (c) be rich enough to afford a parachute. Meanwhile we are about to hit the debt limit before we fall over the cliff. The fiscal cliff was created to force us to solve the debt problem. Is it time to consult the Greeks on how to solve our nation's financial problems?
• Iran is grounding all air travel during the five daily times of prayer, but that time varies all over the world. I guess Allah never intended us to fly.
• The solution to gun violence is more guns, according to the NRA. Others think it is fewer bullets per gun.
• Housing developers are finally figuring out that the problem with the housing market is that we can no longer afford mansions. Their solution is to construct mansions with two front entrances so that two generations can live in the same house.
• Toyota has agreed to dole out $1.1 billion (that's nine zeroes) and a "Sorry" to customers who had faulty floor mats in their cars.
• Russia is banning Americans from adopting Russian orphans. Meanwhile available orphans in America are ignored. What's the problem?
• "Homicides in NYC near 50-year low." Does anyone actually live in NYC or have they all moved to Connecticut?
• Gun owners in New York State are upset that a local newspaper published a map allowing people to identify homes where guns are registered. What's the problem? I thought the point of owning a gun was to scare the bad guys away.
• Stores are offering big post-Christmas discounts to shoppers whose expectations of those discounts stopped them from buying the stuff in the first place. Doesn't that sound like a scenario that could be applied to the fiscal cliff negotiations?

Toys Are Us.

I took my nine-year-old grandson shopping for Christmas. An enlightening experience. For his step-brother and age-mate Ben he bought the toy equivalent of an AK-47. From his discussion of the purchase I gathered that my grandson already has a similar weapon and wanted to equalize the arms race for better play.

The plastic assault rifle is a distinct upgrade. Last year on a similar safari my grandson bought Nerf swords for nearly everyone on his gift list. The world has evolved from sword play. But are we any safer with better weaponry?

My own experience with a rifle was limited to the U.S. Army in the late '50s. In basic training I came down with the flu when I was supposed to be on the rifle range. After a night in the hospital they sent me out to the range on a cold, rainy day. I don't remember firing my M-1 but it got dirty and I was in no condition to clean it that evening. The next morning I--my rifle, that is--failed inspection and I--me, that is--got latrine duty. Thus ended my love affair with my rifle.

I graduated from basic to a desk job. My only other experience with a rifle was a day of "qualifying" on the rifle range for us desk jockeys. This time the weather was decent and my aim seemed to be quite good.  I discovered the secret of my success when I went down to the pit to pull targets. My buddies instructed me in the use of the M-1 pencil. After each round of firing no target went unpunctured.

The M-1 fired a single shot with each pull on the trigger. Today no one should need a pencil at the target end. Assault rifles allow you to spray the target area with a fusillade of bullets. That removes the element of skill but, it seems to me, also removes a sense of responsibility for the outcome. It becomes more liking firing a semi-automatic plastic dart gun. If I happen to hit someone in the eye with one of those darts, is it really my fault? If I spray a schoolroom full of children with lead is it really my fault when I hit some of them? If I take my grandson shopping and there are guns all over the toy section, is it really my fault if I let him buy one?

The Arms Cliff.

At last the National Rifle Association (NRA) has spoken! Perhaps now the Arms Cliff can be avoided. We were about to lose our right to own and fire an assault weapon at marauding children. Instead we may now be able to become part of the "national school shield emergency program."

The problem is that our spokesman, Wayne Pierre, is a piker. He proposed that every public school in the nation be guarded by an armed police officer. One officer? That'e not nearly enough. What if the school is attacked by a street gang, the Taliban, or the KKK? That lone guard would need a machine gun or bazooka.

Here is my proposal: Every school should house a police station. We need neighborhood police stations just as we need neighborhood schools. Simply combine the two services under one roof. What kind of a nut would attack a school that has police cars parked in front of it and armed police swarming all around it? Certainly not our kind of nut.

An added advantage of this plan is that children wound daily witness the importance of being armed. They will ask their parents about protection of the home. The police and armed services will find it easier to recruit, as will the street gangs and the Taliban. The demand for guns will increase and this in turn will create jobs in gun factories. The NRA will be hailed as a major job creator.

There is still one problem we must confront. Too many gun users, like Adam Lanza, are committing suicide. We suspect that they fear retribution. Feelings of guilt and fear of punishment for gun use are mental health issues that must be addressed.

Old White Men.

I am an old white man (OWM). Well, at least I look like one. And today I am ashamed.

A couple of my fellow OWMs have publicly bullied, lied about and innuendoed a respected female public servant into withdrawing her name from consideration for a promotion. It is the sort of thing OWMs are good at. And we seem to feel proud of ourselves when we do it.

We won't name any names here but you know who they are. They have pushed themselves to the fore as defenders of our nation against the schemes of this younger woman who dared to try to speak to the American public as a representative of our government. So far as we know no one assigned these OWMs to do this and it was not a duty defined by their positions. But our media were used to seeing them on the center stage and were easily drawn into the plot. Now they too have egg on their faces but they will never admit it. It is the job of the media to expose other people (OP), not themselves.

OWMs have been displaying their propensities quite a bit lately. We have watched as the antics of American Generals and French and Italian politicos and a British TV personality have been displayed on our screens. OWMs all, and not what I would like to claim as members of the club. But politicos seem to be the worst. They are used to having cameras focused on them and microphones thrust in their faces. They seem to think that the public will believe them if only they can repeat their lies often enough. Aren't OWMs venerated the world over? Don't we own this planet? Can't I say anything I want to in this blog? You do believe me, don't you? I'm an OWM!

Revenue.

We hear a lot about revenue these days. The federal government needs it to pay for its services to the nation such as protection from enemies and management of federal lands. State and local governments need it to maintain roads and support good schools. Businesses need it to pay for supplies, equipment, and salaries. Individuals need revenue from employment or investments in order to pay for the necessities of life.

The word revenue in French means "return." When the government taxes its citizens and businesses it is seeking the return of some of the money it has put into circulation in the economy. Corporations and business owners seek a return on their investment in education, raw materials, transport, machinery, salaries and wages. Individuals are looking for a return on their time, effort, loyalty and expertise.

Do you notice a common denominator in this return concept? It has to do with the circulation of goods and assets in the economy. When the government needs revenue it typically seeks to grab a slice from somewhere in that circulation. It might tax the sale of goods, income from services, payment of dividends, import or export of goods, inheritance of property, value added, or ownership of land. It might (and does) spread the load by employing several of these forms of taxation.

Those who are taxed often complain about double taxation, as when businesses are taxed on profits and then the investors are taxed again on dividend income. The truth is that taxation is a never-ending series of snips taken out of the circulating dollar. If the rate of circulation increases, as it does in good economic times, the government gets more frequent snips and more income. Our current tax malaise, the deficit, is often attributed to a tax rate that is too low but it could just as well be blamed on sluggish circulation that makes tax events less frequent. To increase tax revenue it makes as much sense to stimulate the economy as it does to raise tax rates or devise new forms of taxation. If tax cuts actually act as a stimulus they might in fact increase revenue. Unfortunately, history does not support this particular theory.

An economist friend of mine, Daniel Farkas, argues persuasively that all federal revenue should be derived from a tax on land ownership. This would be an annual tax; thus in any year there would be no double taxation at the federal level. The rate of circulation of value in the economy would not matter, but developing the land would increase its value and thus the tax on it. Taxing only land value is a simple idea that would eliminate much of the partisan infighting about tax rates and their effect on the economy. Perhaps both sides in the current negotiation to avoid the fiscal cliff are focusing on the wrong variables.

Cliff Notes.

After hearing so much about the fiscal cliff I thought it might be a good idea to find out what is already at the bottom of that cliff. To avoid the fall I took the descendalator down. (There doesn't seem to be any elevator or escalator.)

I have discovered that there are a lot of people already down here. Some of them were born here and have never seen the top. Others slid down slowly, aided by alcohol, drugs, depression, or lack of a good education. Falling on top of them were people who lost their jobs or homes in one of the several recessions that have occurred in the last fifty years. I have also found quite a few military veterans who returned from the battlefields to find no jobs and a long delay for treatment of their PTSD.

The foot of the cliff is also littered with businesses. Most of them were small companies that had been under-capitalized and had lasted only a few years, but there are also the remains of some larger firms that were stripped of their assets by corporate raiders. There are also a few former financial institutions that thought they were too big to fail.

I have looked for signs of anyone who might provide assistance or leadership. There are a few former labor leaders, but hardly any losing football coaches, ousted office holders, defrocked clergymen or fired executives. They all seem to have found a way to avoid falling over the cliff.

The biggest problem facing dwellers at the foot of the cliff is not falling bodies but pollution. The water falling over the cliff is from sewers, polluted streams, and wells that have been poisoned by fracking. The cleanest source is water from melting glaciers, but it is raising the level of the waves that lap at the base of the cliff. Soon there will be no beach left for us to stand on.

Sending this report was easy, thanks to the electronic revolution that has put so many of us out of work. But scientists still haven't discovered the Star Trek knack of transmitting people electronically. So would someone please lower a rope to me? I promise not to let anyone else climb on it.

Going Non-Postal.

If the tea party insists on downsizing the federal government they should start with the Postal Service. It is easily the most useless, not to mention annoying, service of that government. Ninety-five percent of my snail mail is junk. It wastes paper and the fuel to deliver it. It piles up on my desk until I need the space, then it goes directly into my recycling bin. If I weren't so lazy that is the first place it would go. Unopened.

I am sure that some of the charitable organizations sending me this mail do good work. But they don't need to waste the money I give them by asking for a new donation every month. I'm an annual giver. When they keep wasting my money with monthly pleas I cross them off my list. There always seem to be replacements. Let them deluge me with email like everyone else. Save a forest!

Next the tea party should insist on removing the tax deduction for charitable giving. I am not the one being charitable when I declare deductions for those gifts. I am giving away the government's tax money. The government needs that money for its charitable work, namely its services to unemployed and impoverished citizens. And what happens to the separation of church and state when my tax savings from deductions end up in a donation to my church? And how are my gifts to my church charitable when they are being used to pay the pastor, the mortgage and the heating bill? The whole deduction business is a ripoff of our government's right to levy necessary taxes. I am certain our Representatives recognize that right. It pays their salaries.

If the tea party sees a need for something to replace the Postal Service for the five percent of my mail that really needs to be delivered, I recommend that they privatize the task. I'm sure they can handle that.

The Marriage Contract

Marriage in the United States is a business contract. Our government has made that clear by taxing married couples like a business partnership. For purposes of fair taxation all a gay couple needs to do is form a corporation or partnership. Even DOMA doesn't stop that.

No, the problem is marriage. Marriage is a failing institution. More than half of the marriages in America now end in divorce. Part of the problem seems to be that increasingly both members of the partnership are in business but not with each other. When the business was the family farm or the corner grocery they worked together and shared the fate of the business. Now they each work in separate office buildings with different co-workers, perhaps with different work hours. Often the marriage is a second or third try and the children may be "assorted" and/or "part-time".

The marriage contract has always been a problem. It is presumed to be the start of a family relationship but that often is not the case. I learned that the hard way when my brother pointed out to me that our parents were married only six months before I was born. My mother was a teacher and back in those days marriage and/or pregnancy were grounds for immediate dismissal, so my parents waited a bit before making it official. Big whup! Jesus' parents weren't officially married either.

That brings me to the question of whether it makes any sense to treat marriage as a religious matter. Aren't churches simply trying to coopt something that is really a legal matter? How did churches come to be in the business of writing marriage contracts? A contract with God I can understand, but that isn't filed in a government office. What I strongly suspect is financial motive. Marriage ceremonies are good business. And so we have come full circle.

Marriage is Gay

Headline: Supreme Court to hear gay marriage cases

When I visited The Netherlands to attend my niece's wedding I discovered that the official marriage ceremony was the one conducted at the Mayor' office. That was also where the pictures of the ceremony and attendants were taken. Later we went to the church where the religious ceremony was performed.

I immediately liked this arrangement for a couple of reasons. First, marriage has legal consequences such as taxes and custody of children. That is the basic point of one of the two suits being brought before the Supreme Court. Legal marriage should treat the couple as citizens. Yet the Defense of Marriage Act treats gay citizens as second class and denies them rights that other citizens have. That is what we used to do with women and African-Americans but I thought we had gotten beyond such unfair nonsense.

The second reason I like the Dutch arrangement is that it makes the church marriage optional. If you believe in marriage as an act of faith you are welcome to celebrate the wedding as you wish. If you don't believe, as is increasingly common in this age of reason, the ceremony in the Mayor's office is enough. And that is the underlying issue in the other case being considered by the Supreme Court, the legality of California's Proposition 8. That law tries to make marriage exclusively a religious act. Religions that view marriage as a matter of faith get to "protect" their faith by banning gay marriage. I'm sorry, you don't get to do that in a democracy. And the Supreme Court had better recognize that fact.

The economy, stupid!

Yesterday former Pres. George W. Bush called for a "benevolent spirit" toward immigrants, calling them the bedrock of the our nation's economy. I think I understand his point, but it depends on what economy he was talking about. Many illegal immigrants were "allowed" to enter our economy as cheap labor. Cheap labor may help some sectors of our economy but it undercuts other sectors. The agricultural sector, for instance, has profited from illegal immigrant labor but at the expense of many poor citizens who might not feel so benevolent.

Like many citizens the bedrock of my economy, until I retired, was a job. My job was teaching and immigration probably gave me more good students. But I am sure many of the immigrants I taught went on to take jobs from non-immigrants. For citizens who are entrepreneurs the bedrock of their economy is a thriving business. In their case immigrants might provide an economic opportunity, serving as cheap labor and additional customers. Or the the immigrants might become strong competitors.

What is "our nation's economy"? We can measure it in dollars, jobs, stock market averages, national debt, and percentages of improvement or loss, but these figures obscure the heart of it. The figures are simply averages or sum totals of millions of individual economies. The nation's economy is really the sum total of the well being of all our citizens, native born or immigrant. And--Supreme Court take note--it does not include the well being of our corporations. They are not citizens and, in fact, many of them are multinationals. If they can profit by hurting our nation's economy, they will.

Also in today's news we learn that corporations cannot even agree on how to avoid the fiscal cliff. Some corporations, particularly smaller ones, declare their taxable income as persons. If the fiscal cliff is avoided by increases in personal tax rates or elimination of personal deductions those corporations will suffer while larger corporations are unaffected. Pity the poor Senators and Representatives who must decide whose economy to ruin. Those lobbyists and constituents will not be happy.

Basically the whole battle about how to avoid the fiscal cliff revolves around the definition of our nation's economy. Both sides and many economists are worried that falling over the cliff will trigger another recession. But a recession is just one of those national averages. All of the various proposed fixes will benefit some citizens at the expense of others. Those choices cannot be avoided. The difference between good and bad choices is simply in the breadth and degree of hurt. Some people call this "fairness."

Cyberbullying

A new law in North Carolina has left me wondering if I was guilty of bullying back in high school when I publicly challenged my physics teacher on a fact of physics. I was right, of course, but according to the new law I might also be subject to punishment as a bully if I used a computer (e.g. cell phone) with the "intent to intimidate or torment" a school employee. Who is to say what my intent was? I don't even know. I was only fourteen at the time. But my teacher took it personally so I guess he felt he was bullied by the facts. The only thing that lets me off the hook is that I didn't use a computer. They weren't available yet.

Cyberbullying is certainly a problem. Part of the problem is that it can be anonymous if the bully uses a computer. But the new state law doesn't stop at anonymous bullying. And it doesn't stop at banning untruthful statements. It potentially jails teenagers for telling the truth, just because they cybered it. How does that differ from what I said aloud in front of a whole class? (And some of them laughed.)

Suppose that a school employee engages in an illegal sex act with a student and the student surreptitiously photographs the act with a cell phone and puts a picture of the encounter on Facebook. According to the new law that act--the Facebooking, not the sex--is punishable by a $1,000 fine and up to 60 days in jail.

Here is my thought on the matter. All of us live in a Brave New World brought on by the electronic revolution. Either we need to adjust to it or we need to ban computers. I don't think we are going to ban computers. The new law may be an attempt to adjust to the BNW, but banning free speech is not the answer. The new law seems to assume malicious intent, but intent is notoriously difficult to judge. Putting words and pictures on the internet doesn't even seem to require intent these days. My thumbs did it. So bug off with your stupid new laws.

Why Not?

According to today's news five states have proposed extending the school year, citing the fact that we are falling behind many other nations in the education of our children. Why not? In most areas it is no longer necessary to close the schools so that the children can join in planting or harvesting the crops, and most pools no longer hire life guards. Air conditioning takes care of the summer heat in school. And 99% of us can no longer afford to take vacations. Let's at least get our money's worth out of those school buildings and teachers. We can also extend the football and basketball seasons. And maybe our children will learn something so that they can earn a living.

Rep. Boehner says the Pres., by insisting on tax rate increases for the rich, is determined to take us over the fiscal cliff. Rep. Boehner, by insisting on cuts to entitlements, is determined to do the same. After all, what is an entitlement if you are not entitled to it? So why not just go over the cliff? It will get rid of those Bush tax cuts that never should have been passed in the first place. You don't cut taxes at the same time you are trying to fight two wars. What you end up with is the longest war in American history. But after the cliff we will be able to afford it. Oh, I forgot. The cliff also cuts the military budget along with our entitlements. Well, why not?

Israel is building more settlements in Palestine. The Palestinians are protesting. What the Palestinians need is an Occupy movement. Just thank the Israelis for the gift as you occupy those settlements. Why not? It is now your country. The United Nations has said so.

Once again our newspaper and TV confronts us with another murder/suicide. We all think "Don't do it!"  But if you are going to do it anyway my advice is "Try the suicide first." Why not?