The B&B PWYW site

Sorry I've been so long away from Xcargo. I've been doing a bunch of things and they taken up most of my time.

I'll spare you most of the details. But here's one thing I'll mention. If you haven't already read about in one of many other websites (sigh), I'm a starting a new little project with Belfort & Bastion. It's the B&B Pay-What-You-Want (PWYW) website.

The idea is as follows: we post e-books, e-art, and so on to the site. You can download them freely, or simply read them on the site. If you like them, then you have the option of paying the creator what you think the material was worth—$0, $2, $50…whatever you decide.

So, if you get a chance, do check it out. You might find something you like.

Onward and upward.

Finally...

Tired. You'll recall that I had an author leave Belfort and Bastion. That meant I had to take all his material off my various sites.

Finally got it done. I have removed all his material...both the stuff he wrote under his own name and the material he'd done under pen names.

Lot of work.

Amusing, really. Takes as much effort to un-publish something as to publish it.

Maybe there is a moral there, somewhere.

First Data Problems Resolved!

So I'm happy to report that my problem with First Data Merchant Services have been resolved almost painlessly. A First Data person contacted me and within a day everything was neatly settled.

Ergo, kudos to First Data! Special thanx to Stacie W. 'Twas above and beyond.

Problems with First Data Merchant Services

So here's my tale of woe.

Early this spring, I thought I needed to have the ability to take credit cards for purchases on my tiny little company's website, BelfortandBastion.com. For companies interested in getting such a capacity, my web hosting providers, GoDaddy, offers a link to First Data Merchant Services a.k.a., First Data.

I filled out the necessary forms, including one that listed my bank account number and the routing number of my bank. However, when I did so, I must have mistyped one of those two numbers. Either way, something went wrong.

Then, in May, I received a note from First Data Merchant Services (or, more precisely, its collection department) saying that I was in default, that I had not paid the $30 a month processing fees, or start-up costs, and billing me $160. The note, by the way, was dated May 12.

I contacted First Data and some very nice person there explained what had happened. When First Data had been unable to collect its fees from my bank account (because I'd mistyped a number), my First Data account had been instantly closed. (She was unable to explain why no one attempted contact me before the account was shut down, but that's beside the point.)

I asked if that meant I no longer had an account with First Data. She said that was correct.

I was not concerned about that because I had realized I really didn't need credit card processing (just yet) for my company, which only sells a few items a year. I therefore said I understood, and was content that I no longer had an account with First Data. I then sent the company a check for what I owed, i.e., $160.

I thought the incident was closed.

However, yesterday, or June 30, I received a "second notice" from First Data's collection department saying that I now owed $235 and that failure to pay could negatively impact my credit rating.

But, of course, the problem is that I thought I no longer had an account with First Data, and so it seems as if I'm being charged credit card processing fees for credit cards that aren't, well, being processed.

So how on earth do I get out of this situation? I've left a message with First Data's collection department, but so far haven't heard back from them.


Thank you so much in advance.

mjt

So you say you want a revolution?

So you say you want a revolution?

Okay, here's what you do.

Step one: CEO pay is now genuinely breathtaking. As everyone knows, the average corporate chieftain (at least in America and to a lesser degree in Europe) earns many, many hundred times what their mid-level employee does. At the moment, boards of directors and stockholders are willing to put up with that because the former have close connections with the CEOs in question and the latter (particularly the smaller ones) don't have a lot of say in the matter.

But, suppose, you went out and gathered up and codified almost everything that a CEO needs to know to run a corporation. It wouldn't be that hard. In a sense, MBA programs have been trying to do exactly the same thing for years.

Okay, then, you take that information and roll it up as online databases, "expert-systems," "knowledge engines," and all the rest of it. Then, go out and license IBM's Watson or some other natural language technology and make that your user interface.

In short, you would then have a system with which almost anyone…anyone at all!... possessing a basic understanding of business could manage the biggest, badest, multi-national corporation on the planet.

Right, now envision the board of directors doing the math: pay multiple zillion-dollar salaries for a rock-star CEO, or offer $100K or so to some middling sort who may or may not even have an MBA.

Pretty soon, even the most incestuous board is going to get tempted…



*


Now…Step Two.

This is harder. It may not even be possible. But consider it…

Make the same system cheap enough to run on every PC on the planet. Make it available to everyone. Make it possible for any human being to have the same skills as the most talented (read "obscenely overpaid") executive on the planet.

Then sit back.

And watch it all change.

*

Onward and upward...

More on Memorial Day

I pick up where I left off.

I must confess, Memorial Day is one of those holidays which concern me—not because I object to the premise. Vets and our fallen deserve all the thanks and glory we can give them.

Rather I am concerned because those who most publicly and noisily celebrate (or denigrate) the holiday seem to do so for their own quite narrow ends, with the Vets themselves being left behind somehow in all the sound and fury.

I think this is true for both the political Right and the political Left. I find them both quite equally guilty.

Let me begin with the Left first. People on that side of the public debate tend to us Memorial Day to disparage War in general. ("What is it good for? Absolutely nothing.")

And that is good and fine. I agree. War is a waste, and evil. But, two things: first, in the process of disparaging war sometimes…sometimes… some members of the Left find themselves disparaging those men and women who have fought in themit In their dialogues there is expressed or implied the idea that soldiers are at best fools, and at worse imperialists and brutes, and either way not worth our sympathy or our support.

The second error of the Left is, I think, more humane, more subtle, but more dangerous. It is that War is not only inevitably wrong but easily avoided. They say that any war, any confrontation, can be escaped if only you make Nice-Nice. If only you are willing to negotiate, to seek compromise… if only you are intelligent enough to sidestep the oncoming truck…then bloodshed simply will not happen.

Ah, but there's the rub. That isn't the case. I don't care how intelligent you, how un-aggressive, how reasonable, how "un-testosteronal," how much on the side of the Angels…eventually you will encounter someone who isn't. Eventually, you will meet someone who simply wants to kill you, or harm your children, or enslave you, and nothing you can do will change their mind. Hitler was not going to learn to love Jews. Stalin would not have seen the error of his ways. European imperialists and slave traders were not going to abandon their wealth for Christian principles. Genghis Khan and his successors were not going to become gentle pastoralists in a day. (In case you're interested, the Khans' mostly unprovoked wars seem to have killed so many people that the world actually grew cooler, as the amount of CO2 in the air was reduced. Fewer people breathing, you see. Plus the fact that farmlands were being abandoned to trees and other carbon sinks.)

In such situations, violence is perfectly justified. It may, indeed, be the only moral course of action, if the alternative is the destruction or degradation of those near and dear to you. It may not be wholesale battle, with armies and warships. It may be a quiet assassination rather than a noisy artillery barrage, but it will be violence all the same.

That the Left does not understand this, is …troubling. And it explains much of why it was that on 9-11, even as the dead fell in rubble to the streets of New York, there were many of the Educated and the Elite who could think of nothing more to say than that "We brought it on ourselves."

Many among them are saying it sill.

*

The Right…

It is worse than the Left. Far worse.

The Right claims to honor the Fallen. To thank the Vet.

But have how you ever noticed how often there is an ulterior motive in what's said? How often the oh-so-pious platitude is accompanied by other things? By a subtext? By the implication that if you support the Vet, if you stand with her or him, then you must also support future wars?

The logic is bizarre, but you hear it time and time again. It is overt, it is covert, it is whispered or shouted from rooftops…but it is there. If you "stand with the Vets, with our boys (and, oh, yes, girls)," then you must also support the War. Any war. Any war on offer. Any war at any time.

It is all the more remarkable because the same people who say these things are so often (albeit not always, but often) the first to vote the cutbacks in services for vets, or their families…the first to cry boondoggle and pork…the last to notice that the men and women they claim to honor are sick, or homeless, or dying in the street…

There is something horrible about that. Something unforgivable.

*

I am appalled by this nation's treatment of its veterans. I am appalled by the numbers—the soaring number of veterans who commit suicide; who suffer from debilitating or deadly diseases that experts pompously announce do not, in fact, exist and therefore do not need to be treated at public expense ("Gulf War Syndrome" was just the first of many); whose lives and families collapse …

I read the other day that there are now more homeless female vets with their children on the street than at any other time in our history.

I find that fact uniquely horrible. There should not be any homeless vets, period. And there should certainly be no homeless mothers who have served in uniform.


*

Oh, an aside…regarding my concern for homeless female vets? I'm told by Those Who Know Best and Are Politically Correct that I've just committed an act of "Positive Sexism." It is, they explain, an act of "Micro-Aggression" which "Denies the Empowerment of Others."

I do not care. That any mother should be without a place for her children to rest their heads is intolerable. That the mother in question should also be a vet makes it all the more terrible.

And those Who Know Best? The Politically Correct?

They can jolly well go suck an egg.

*

Then there is the current VA crisis.

But, then, perhaps the less said about that the better.

It is too horrible.

*

I don't quite know how to end this piece. I've worked at it for a couple of days now. Nothing seems quite right. Nothing seems appropriate.

So, I suppose, I can do no more than default to the same sort of platitudes that I decry in others.

So… like it or not, war exists and always will, regardless of who might be in charge…or how benign that leadership might be. (Even the Second Coming, if you believe in that, is predicated on war.)

And, therefore, like it or not, we will always have among us those who must go to war. Who will die there. Who will suffer and be wounded in body, mind, and soul.

It will be, therefore, always incumbent upon us as a society to respect and care or those who fight for us…to heal their wounds, if possible, and to honor their memories if not.

For us to either proclaim them fools and "imperialists," or to make grand show of our love for them while in fact simply exploiting them for our own political gain, is grotesque.

Grotesque…and dangerous.

For, in time, if we do not support the fallen and the brave, they will begin to ask a very pertinent question.

Two wit, if we are not for them, then why should they be for us?

Memorial Day 2014

I write this on Memorial Day. As such, I use this entry to express my thanks to all the vets who lived and died in service to this nation and to peace everywhere.

Thank you.







*

One other thing…

I have been watching the VA scandal. You know the one I mean? The one that involves soldiers dying while the government stonewalled and falsified data?

And I have an idea.

We find out whoever is responsible. We take that person or persons, give them a full canteen, three days rations, and a sharp stick…

Then we airdrop 'em in someplace like, oh, I don't know, backwater Afghanistan, and let 'em walk home.

If they make it, no hard feelings. If they don't…well, that sort of solves the problem too, doesn't it?

Mother's Day

The first Mother's Day since her passing.

I am surprised by how little I feel. Or, rather, by how little I seem to be allowing myself to feel. I know the grief is there. I have had dreams in which I weep for her. More, I detect emotion…sadness…directly under the surface of my conscious awareness. It is like sensing the tremor of the fault under the apparently solid ground that supports your feet.

Why, then, do I feel, well, numb to it all? I suspect there are number of reasons. First, it is very soon. She died in March. That was only a few weeks ago. On some level I have not realized (emotionally) that she is genuinely gone.

Second, she spent two years in a state somewhere between life and death. In a way, I have already grieved for her. Or, at least, did so partially.

And, finally, I have been just so busy caring for my father and dealing with a thousand other matters that I simply haven't had time to explore my grief.

None of this, I know, is healthy. I know that, eventually, I will have to face my emotions regarding the death of my mother. It's only a question of time. Though, there's the rub. Who can say when that time will be?

*

There will be an interesting trial tomorrow. Martha has organized a small memorial service for her. It won't be large…just her, me, David, and the minister. But it will be difficult for me to repress my feelings in that setting. I hope I can, however. I do not want to weep uncontrollably in front of witnesses.

I will let you know how it works out.

Drones and Boko Haram

A lot of my friends have objections to the Drone Wars…that is, the use of Unmanned Combat Air Vehicles (UCAVs) for targeted killings.

I understand their reservations. And yet…

I'm reading about the abduction of all those poor girls in Nigeria. And about Boko Haram, the organization responsible. And about Abubakar Shekau, it's pathological leader.

And you know what?

I can't think of anyone on earth more deserving of a Hellfire missile up the left nostril.

And Last...

One last point about solar power.

I was walking to my father about all this. He made an interesting point.

Suppose, he said, you made it a law that every new home, new building, and new shopping center had to have solar cells on the roof.

It would make sense. It would move us yet further toward energy independence and a green economy. It would be inexpensive. It would not inconvenience homebuyers or builders more than a host of other, less sensible building regulations do already.

And…

And...

And can you envision the pure fury that such an idea would almost certainly generate? The calls of "Communism!" "Socialism!" "Totalitarianism!" "UnAmericanism!" and all the rest of it? The Swift-Boating and accusations of Treason and references to blue dresses (with stains) in the Oval Office? The not-so-subtle implications of Islamic Fundamentalism in the State House if not the White House?

And all of it coming from people who…surprise, surprise…just happen to have a vested interest in keeping things exactly the way they are? Even if it means making life worse for everyone else?

Rather takes the breath away.

Solar Power: Of Koch and Coal and (Pseudo)-Capitalism

So before I get started, I need to mention the Tea Party.

I need to, because I need to explain that what I'm about to talk about — solar power —isn't a Liberal vs. Conservative issue. It isn't a socialists vs. capitalists issue. It isn't even a Democrats vs. Republicans issue.

It's a people issue.

And to prove that, allow me to present Exhibit A: the Tea Party.

Yes, folks, the Tea Party, that bastion of traditionalism and conservatism, wants you to go sunny. Solar Power, it turns out, is a very big deal with the Tea Partiers. They think it is just terrific.

No. Really. They do. Go read this if you don't believe me: The Tea Party Wants to Help You Go Solar (http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2014/04/tea-party-wants-help-you-go-solar).

The Tea Partiers see it, you see, as a way for Americans to be even more independent that they are now.

So, if that's the case…if the Tea Party and the Green Party and the Tree Huggers and the Strip Miners and everyone in between is united on this…. who could be anti-solar?

Funny you should ask.


*

Suppose every home had solar panels on the roof.

It is really quite an attractive idea. If they invest in a few solar cells, homeowners not only don't have to pay …or at least not as much…for electricity but they even stand a chance of making a buck or two. The system as it stands requires that the utilities buy your unused power. You may not make a bunch, but a penny here and a penny there and eventually it adds up.

Truth be told, it's even a pretty good deal for the utility. The company isn't paying a huge sum for your spare watts. And since you're the one who shelled out for the solar cells in the first place, it doesn't have to pay for the infrastructure. And, again, while it may not be much, every erg it gets from its customers is energy it didn't have to pay for in terms of coal, gas, or whatever.

Still, even every roof had a solar panel, eventually…eventually!...this sort of thing would make the utilities far less important than they are now. And, hence, less profitable. Which was my father's point (see the previous posting).

I suppose, then, I could understand why utilities, oil companies, and so on would therefore oppose solar power. I could see why they would try to have laws passed making it difficult or expensive for someone to use their competitors' products. (Though, there is some irony in the fact that the same people and companies who are the first to preach the virtues of "free enterprise" when they're winning are the first to practice restraint of trade when they're not.)

What is a complete mystery to me is why companies and people who seem to have little or nothing to lose from solar power are, for some reason, dead-set against it.

Case in point: the Koch Brothers.


*


You know the Koch Brothers, of course. Specifically, you know of Charles G. and David H. Koch, rich and powerful 1%ers, terror of liberals everywhere (and a few conservatives, actually), sugar daddies to reactionary causes of every stripe, and sons of Fred C. Koch (who, in turn, was the builder of a vast fortune, briefly an admirer of the USSR, later a devoted anti-Communist and a founder of the John Birch Society. Fred C. was also didn't much care for folks of dusky hue. Or to put it another way, he was certain that African-Americans were just this side of being zoo-material.)

Okay, Charles and David between them control the vast Koch Industries. They also bankroll an enormous number of conservative and libertarian organizations. That, of course, is entirely within their rights. They are as free as anyone else to support candidates and express opinions…even though they do so with do with far greater force than normal people can.

But, in any case, they support or at least claim to support free enterprise. Unfettered, rough and tumble, no holds barred capitalism like mother used to make. Which is fine and dandy if you like that sort of thing.

Except…except…

Among the groups they support is something called Americans for Prosperity. They also fund something else called the American Legislative Exchange Council (Alec). Both organizations are dead-set against solar and doing their level best to keep homeowners from putting solar cells on their roofs. They are lobbying for laws and regulations to make certain it just doesn't happen.

Why? Well, now, that's a good question.

In theory, the objection is that homeowners who go solar are "freeloading." The solar power users are not, you see, contributing their fair share to the cost of the generators, transmission lines, etc.  Other customers, non-solar customers, have to pick up the slack.

Tsk. Tsk. Tsk. You dirty solar moochers, you.


*

The reality, of course, is that this is all ridiculous. Solar power users aren't mooching. They are electing to purchase smaller amounts of a particular commodity. If they decided not to water their lawns, they'd being doing exactly the same thing but with water.

If you believe in Libertarianism, and free enterprise, and say your prayers to Ayn Rand, and all that …then you have to say that a customer has every right to decide what and how much there are going to buy, and from whom they are going to buy it. If you don’t want to purchase power from your local utility, then by George, you shouldn't have too.

And, oh, by the way, in perfectly good capitalist logic, if that means one supplier or another has to figure out how to make its product more attractive or otherwise win back customers, that's their job. It's not up to the customers (or the tax payers, or state governments) to make life easier for private companies or privately owned utilities.

So logically, the Kochs, as defenders of all that free market stuff, ought to be keeping their grubby little hands off solar. They ought to be letting the Market Take Its Course.

But they're not. They're in there with everything short of flame throwers to try to take down solar wherever it rears its shinning little head.


*

So what's the real motivation for the Koch Bro's crusade against solar?

At first I thought it was that Koch Industries had a lot from solar. I thought maybe they own lots of utility stock and oil, gas, and coal companies.

And that may be true. Among Koch properties are Koch Carbon (coal) and Koch Exploration (oil). But, a little research reveals fairly quickly that the energy companies that Koch owns are often into things like gasoline and diesel (the brothers own Chevron, instance). Which means home heating and local electricity aren't as big in the Koch portfolio as you might think.

Besides, the Koch boys own a whole lot of stuff…as you know if you're a good left-winger and try to boycott Koch products. Pretty soon you find out that you can't even buy toilet paper without giving Koch industries its cut. Even if, somehow, solar power started to really eat into the Brothers' holdings, they could always simply rely on other parts of the empire to compensate. In other words, they'd still be rich as freaking Croesus no matter what the average homeowner does with his/her roof.

Besides #2, the Kochs are supposed to be capitalists. They are supposed to being looking ahead in time and dodging bullets. So solar is going to nibble a bit into their oil and gas holdings? Okay, now is the time to get into solar cell manufacturing. That's the sort of thing that capitalists do.

What they don't do is hire tame congressmen to pass laws against competition.


*

Well, then…


How do I answer my own query? How do I explain why a few really powerful people working so hard against solar power? If, that is, it really isn't that big threat to them?


Just a guess...

Could it be…could it just possible be…because they simply don't like it?

Because they don't like the idea that serfs and peasants can get uppity and unplug form the big, powerful, hierarchical, fossil fuel companies.

They want you to know your place…you pathetic little man who doesn't own a yacht, didn't go to expensive schools, and dare to think that your absurd little existence is as important as that of theirs.


*

I am not entirely certain that the above is the real answer to my questions. I hope it isn't.

But…

If it is anywhere near the truth, then we have all of us got a much bigger riddle to solve.


To wit: what the hell are we going to do about it?


*

My Sources

"The Koch Attack on Solar Energy," Sunday Review, New York Times, April 26, 2014. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/27/opinion/sunday/the-koch-attack-on-solar-energy.html?_r=1

Suzanne Goldenberg and Ed Pilkington, "ALEC calls for penalties on 'freerider' homeowners in assault on clean energy," The Guardian, December 4 2013 http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/04/alec-freerider-homeowners-assault-clean-energy

Lindsay Abrams, "The Koch brothers are going after solar panels," Salon, April 21, 2014. http://www.salon.com/2014/04/21/the_koch_brothers_are_going_after_solar_panels/

George ("Fish Out of Water") Birchard, "Now That Solar Capacity Is Soaring—Koch Brothers Demand Tax on the Sun," Daily Kaos, Alter Net, April 28, 2014, http://www.alternet.org/environment/now-solar-capacity-soaring-koch-brothers-demand-tax-sun

Evan Halper, "Koch brothers, big utilities attack solar, green energy policies," Los Angeles Times, April 19, 2014, http://articles.latimes.com/2014/apr/19/nation/la-na-solar-kochs-20140420.

Solar Power #3: More On Disruption

My father and I resumed our conversation the following day. This time we were on our way to coffee. I was driving him to the Starbucks up at the intersection of Academy and Tramway.

Consider the utility company, he said.

I considered.

Utilities, and power companies in general (he said) appeared at a very specific point in our civilization's existence. They came about when we could only generate electricity by making big metal things move around in a circle. Dynamos, generators, and so on are basically just that…enormous metal wheels that rotate in a magnetic field. That's how you get electricity.

And so we built and sheltered large companies which did nothing but that. They constructed wheels and turned them, using coal or oil or gas or nuclear power to do it.

Okay, but now we have cheap solar power. Suppose you had every house with a roof covered with such solar cells. Each home generates a certain amount of electricity, uses some, and whatever is left over it puts back into the power grid, where it is stored and used later on.

Okay, if that's case, my father asked, what do you need a utility for?


*

Of course, he said, there's always a need for the power grid, and for some way of storing energy, and probably for backup generation in case of emergency…

But, if you had enough houses producing their own solar energy, and feeding that energy back into the grid, then things get interesting. You start to ask why you have quite so many big companies building gigantic wheels and making them go around in circles. You wonder why you are paying …though your tax dollars as well as via your utility bills…for all that coal that's being strip-mined out of the earth. And the oil that's being taken out of increasingly dangerous places…like Iraq, where we seem to have fought a full-scale war expressly for the benefit of the oil industry. And the natural gas that's being gotten by means of fracking every piece of rock from here to hell and back again. And the nuclear reactors that are, somehow, sitting in the way of tidal waves like in a Japan a while back. And the enormous dams that contain mountains of concrete and take billions of dollars to construct.

Again, he said, that isn't to say you wouldn't have some of those things about. The utilities, the coal mines, the generators, the coal mines, the oil wells, and, yes, even the nuclear reactors would still exist.

But we wouldn't need quite so many of them.

Maybe we'd only need a very, very few.

Which would make things…complicated. And certain people…very important people…might be angry.

Because, you see, they might lose quite a lot of money.

And people fight over money.

Always.


*

We came to the Starbucks. I parked the car and we entered. We found a table and we had our coffees.

I asked him if he really thought powerful people might genuinely be willing to use certain measures …fierce measures…against those who would promote solar power.

He raised an eyebrow. He pointed out that I was the one with two degrees in history. What did I think? What had I seen in the past to indicate the future?

And…

Despite the hot coffee. Despite the warm weather of this desert state.

I was chill.

Solar Power #2: The Myth Of Subsidy, or, Where Are The Libertarians Hiding?

You remember I said that solar power was going to be a disruptive technology? Well, here's a little more background. And it's where my own father comes into the picture.

It's like this. I have heard for years…and you probably have too…that solar power would not be economical if it weren't for the fact that the government is subsidizing it. It gets special tax breaks and, in some cases, outright grants from Washington.

So, goes the logic, solar power doesn't really pay for itself. It is, in fact, a parasite. You hear it on talk shows. You see it in financial publications. If it weren't for your taxes going to those people (long haired hippie freaks and greenie weenies) then solar wouldn't exist.

Not like oil. Which is based on sound principles. And stands on its own two feet. Like a man. You betcha.

Except …except….


*

My father.

My father is an 85-year-old man. He's getting quite frail, now. He has trouble seeing. He no longer drives (thank God). He has trouble walking.

But, all the brains works just fine, thank you very much.

He's also a physicist. And, sometimes, when I take him out for coffee in the afternoons, we'll talk energy. A couple of days ago, while we were at Satellite Coffee down on Montgomery, the subject of solar power came up. He told me some of his thoughts. He mentioned the dropping costs of solar cells, and the rising costs of oil, and all the rest.

I was curious. I had never thought I'd hear such things from him…not the hardened realistist who told me how the solar tower at Sandia was basically useless.  So, as an experiment, I quoted back at him something I'd read in Forbes…about the "false economy" of solar power, and how it didn't work, and how it was only attractive because of government supports.

He gave me that smile of his. The one he reserves for moments when I've revealed a particularly endearing brand of stupidity.

"But," he said, "oil is subsidized, too."

"What? You're kidding."

"Oh, no. It is. Big time."

I whipped out the old smart phone and did a search. He was, of course, absolutely right. Big oil, big fossil fuel companies, consume government money like you would not believe. They get billions …and billions…of dollars. Either directly, or indirectly in the form of tax breaks.

I'm not sure if anyone even really knows how much the oil industry gets. I've seen numbers anywhere from $100 to $400 billion. But, if you're interested, here's some places to look. I found most of them on my cell phone that morning in the coffee shop:

*"America's Most Obvious Tax Reform Idea: Kill the Oil and Gas Subsidies," by Jordan Weissmann, The Atlantic, theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/03/americas-most-obvious-tax-reform-idea-kill-the-oil-and-gas-subsidies/274121/

*"As Oil Industry Fights a Tax, It Reaps Subsidies," by David Kocieniewski, International New York Times, nytimes.com/2010/07/04/business/04bptax.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

*"Fossil Fuel Subsidies in the U.S.," Oil Change International, priceofoil.org/fossil-fuel-subsidies/

Yes, folks, your taxes are going to the same vast fuel companies that are already earning jaw-dropping profits…while moving their operations and HQs overseas, the way that Halliburton moved to Dubai. Your money is going to the very same companies that announce sanctimoniously that solar and other renewable energy supplies are viable only because they get government subsidies.

Subsidies which look like peanuts compared to what the oil companies themselves get.


*

"So what I want to know," my father asked, over his triple espresso and cranberry scone, "is where are the Libertarians?"

Where, indeed?  Where are the Libertarians? Where are the Ayn Randers? Where are the defenders of free enterprise? Of less government and more freedom? Why aren't they out protesting? Why aren't they in the streets? 

Could it be they just don't know? Could it be that no one ever explained to them just how much money the fossil fuel companies were taking out of their paychecks and savings? Could none of their leaders have pointed this out to them?

Or, could it be that, in fact, their leaders have lied to them? That their leaders do not care about the free enterprise and the opportunity they claim to treasure? That, in fact, in their heart of hearts they believe that the welfare state is just fine, so long as the recipients of the monthly checks are rich and powerful corporations with many lawyers and more lobbyists? Not just ordinary serfs…like the ones they employ?

Just asking.


*


Does it make you uncomfortable to consider that thought? Perhaps you are a Libertarian and you value the power of capitalism to improve the world. Perhaps it seems to you that I am attacking the very concept of free enterprise.

I am not. I am, rather, defending it.

If it would make easier for you, remember the vast sums of money that the oil companies are getting from the government. With that in mind, it is easier to see them for what they are: not private enterprises but rather state-corporations, what the Europeans and South Americans used to call para-state or "parastatal" corporations. They look like private enterprises. Sometimes they act like private enterprises.

But they're not.

Not really.


*


The point is, if you really believe in free enterprise, in capitalism, and in opportunity for all, then government subsidies have to go…for the enormous oil companies as well as for the little solar power startups.

And if that ever happens (I know it is unlikely, but if) then it will be interesting to see who has the better chances of survival—the solar startups, tiny and new, or the fossil fuel giants, who have done so little and prospered so long.


*

But I have not explained why I said that solar would be disruptive.

For that, I must return to my conversation with my father. I asked him if I thought the oil and other fossil fuel companies would oppose solar, in whatever way they could.

He gave me that smile again. He reminded me of another news story. You probably saw it too. It seems that in Oklahoma there was an attempt by the state legislature, backed by utility and other energy companies to impose a special tax on homeowners who dared to put solar panels on their roofs (1). There were all sorts of glib reasons given for the move…it was unfair for some state residents not to pay as much for electricity as others, etc. …but come right down to it, the real reason for the law was obvious. Solar was a threat to certain special interests, and the measure was meant to punish those of us peasants who got out of line.

Need one add that a later New York Times article revealed the effort to establish such laws is being led by organizations associated with the Koch Brothers? I didn't think so (2).

My father then repeated my question to me. Would they resist? The oil companies? The fossil fuel giants? Using tactics both fair and foul, and often foul?

How could I not see…my father said… that it had already begun?

He brushed away the crumbs of the scone. "But," he added, again with the deadly smile, "that's a problem for your generation, isn't it?"

And then he suggested it might be time to leave.








*



(1) weather.com/news/science/environment/oklahoma-alternative-energy-taxes-20140423

(2) nytimes.com/2014/04/27/opinion/sunday/the-koch-attack-on-solar-energy.html?_r=0

I am a born again Solar Power Freak #1

I seem to be becoming a solar power freak. This is weird. This is very weird. This is downright alarming.

Here's the thing: many decades ago, in my long lost youth, when dinosaurs ruled the earth and people actually listened to disco (No. Really. They did), I paid a lot of attention to solar power. This was the 1970s and we were just getting our first taste of energy famine. OPEC had just screwed the tap down tight and it seemed pretty clear that it was a sign of things to come. (And it was.)

So I spent some time casting about for alternatives. What, I wondered, could take the place of oil. One of the things I looked at was solar power.

There are several ways of extracting electricity for sunlight. You can, for instance, focus the sun's rays on a boiler. Water turns to steam and turns a turbine. In the 1970s, I could even see such a system in operation. I was living in New Mexico in those days (as I am now) and Sandia Federal Labs had an enormous solar power program underway.

It was quite amazing, really. On some land south of the city, the scientists had constructed an enormous field of mirrors which focused the sun's light on a tower in their midst. You could see it from almost any place in town. And when it was in operation…Lord! The tower glowed like steel in a blast furnace.

As I say, impressive. The problem? It actually produced very little energy. Not really. Oh, it could turn water to steam and turn a turbine and all that, but it also consumed power, usually in passive ways. My father was working at Sandia at the time, and he put it simply and distressingly. "As near as I can tell," he told me, "it can produce almost enough energy to keep its own mirrors clean."

That was the kicker, you see. You don't just stick a mirror or lens out in a field and hope for the best. It gets dusty, particularly in a desert, and you have to polish it. Or it degrades in the environment. Ordinary mirrors lose their reflectiveness after a while, which is why antique mirrors often seem so dim and brown. So, you need to develop entirely new kinds of mirrors, things what will stay bright even after decades in the open. And, at the time, there were no such mirrors out there, or at least none that could be produced cheaply enough to make solar competitive with oil or coal.

*

Okay, that seemed to pretty well take solar boilers out of the game…at least in most parts of the world. So, I turned to photovoltaics…that is, solar cells, materials that turn sunlight directly into energy. It's what people usually think when they say "solar power."

Solar cells are quick and convenient. You could use them pretty much anywhere. You can plaster your roof with 'em.

So, why not go with them?

Because…in the 1970s, they cost a lot, and they weren't too efficient, and they tended to degrade (like mirrors) over time. I remember looking at the numbers. In those days, solar cells were proven money losers. They consumed more energy to produce and maintain than they could possibly generate.

And that, as far as I was concerned, put paid to that.

I decided (around about 1980), that solar simply wasn't in the cards. What we needed to do, I thought, was focus on developing some other means of power production…Fusion, in particular. And, until we got that problem licked, we'd need to rely on a combination of oil, coal, and gas.

Which was about where my thinking stopped.


*


Okay, now fast-forward about thirty years. Give or take a little.

I began, dimly, in my limited way, to notice some things.

Like, for instance: the cost of solar cells has dropped like a gawdamn rock. I meant it has freaking plummeted. New manufacturing technologies, plus the advantages of sheer scale as more and more companies have come into the solar cell business, has brought them way, way down in price. (As I write this in early 2014, I can get enough solar panels to almost power my whole house for under $2K, depending on the supplier.)

And they've gotten more efficient. New solar cells are getting damn competitive with oil, gas, and coal in terms of generating energy…and they're getting better every day.

But the real news isn't in the cells themselves. It is in lots of other stuff. Like that batteries are getting better now. And a lot of our electronics don't consume that much energy any more. Your cell phone does things that would put a mainframe computer of the year 1980 to shame…but consumes so little power that it can be charged in under hour from any outlet.

And then there's weight. Things don't weigh what they used to. Which means it doesn't require as much energy to move them.

Case in point: in New Mexico there's a company named Titan Areospace. It makes drone aircraft. Not the kind that blow up people. Rather, the kind that drift up to high altitudes and hang out there for, say, five years or so.

And guess what? They're solar powered.

Titan just got bought by Google which is interested in the aircraft as alternatives to satellites for the delivery of wireless Internet (take that, Comcast! And Verizon!)

But Titan's drones would be impossible were it not for a host of new materials, new batteries, and new everything else. They are so bloody light, and so energy efficient, that they can cruise the skies, and do it all without a drop of jet fuel.


*

It was ironic, really. For years I'd been waiting for a technological revolution in energy production…fusion, thorium fission, space-based power satellites…and all the while the revolution was coming from quite a different quarter, from materials science.

But, better late than never. I now more or less admit that "renewables" in general and solar in particular are going to be a major part of our energy future. I still think we ought to keep up work on things like fusion and space-based power and all that other stuff. I also still think that solar power advocates need to face up to just how hard it is going to be to build a solar powered economy. And I suspect that, yes, there will always be a need for big generators somewhere in the system, if only to provide for backup or to power industry.

But clearly, the sun is going to be a very big part of our energy future.

Now, that said…I also think that solar is going to be a disruptive technology. Maybe even as disruptive as computers were before them. Maybe more.

Which is to say that there will be people who fight it, and progress in general, tooth and nail.

But that's for next time…

I am not sufficiently arrogant to be happy

I was feeling a little depressed last night. All right, a lot depressed. And, of course, me being me, I then became depressed about the fact that I was depressed. A really ripping chap of stout build and firm mind would (you see) be able to overcome it. I should, by sheer force of will, make myself chipper regardless of my circumstances. By God, it's the American way.

Then…I got to thinking about it. What exactly is my situation at the moment? Well, my mother died a month ago after two long years in a succession of nursing facilities and hospitals. My father grows ever more frail. My wife is putting up with me (no easy task). My kid is in the middle of finals. My career continues its unconventional trajectory (i.e., upward, but by way of a swamp). And the world as a whole resolutely refuses to rotate in the direction I would prefer.

So…

Given all that, what right do I have to be a cheery little ray of gawdamn sunshine?


*

Actually, just as I finished typing that, I realized there is something serious in it. We are taught from the cradle that the optimum condition of life is to be happy, to be cheerful and bright. It is good for us, and pleasant for others.

Yet, everyone around me is not in a good place at the moment. My father is grieving, though (the boy from a former generation) he refuses to admit it, or speak of it. Martha, too, is dealing with her feelings, and with mine. And, besides, she wrestles with some of her own demons (she adjusts, not always easily, to being retired). My son is well, but he hurries to complete all his work for the semester, and it is a lot of work.

And I…well, I have all my own problems.

If I were to deny all that, to be chippy in spite of it, then I would be denying their pain, as well as my own. I would have to somehow not feel the sadness, concern, and sympathy which is normal and humane to feel in such conditions. I would have to be in other words, a sociopath.

There is something frightening in that thought. It suggests, you see, that to be Polyanna one must be not quite human.

And, maybe, rather terrible.

I err, I am ashamed

I had a curious experience. And a shaming one.

I run multiple blogs and sites for both my own purposes and my company's…i.e., Belfort and Bastion.

One of these blogs is based on Tumblr. That company allows you to "reblog" material you find on other Tumblr-based blogs. You just hit a button and, voila! it's on your own site.

I had come across a posting on a stranger's blog that happened to include the photo of a young woman—actually a girl, pre-teen or early teens. I was interested in the article not the photo, but when I reblogged one I reblogged both.

I also made some comments critiquing the article.

What I didn't know was that the photo had not been used with the permission of the young woman. Worse, a quick read of my one line comment could be interpreted as a criticism of the woman herself. And, even more of a problem, the young woman in question frequently Tumblr and came across my re-blogged entry.

She was, not unnaturally, offended and sent me a note to that effect.

I was aghast. I apologized, took down the photo, and un-reblogged the article as quickly as I could.

I hope the young woman forgives me. But the experience has taught me something. Or, rather, reminded me of it. To wit: no motion is free of unintended consequences. And some of those consequences may include the injury of the innocent.

It is not possible, surely, to foresee every such eventuality. But (and here is the lesson for the day), you may at least reduce their possibility by always keeping in mind that there is a world out there…beyond the keyboard, beyond the screen, beyond one's own little existence, outside of one's own skin…

And it is your duty, as a human being, to make that effort at empathy. Not just on the web, but everywhere.

For the alternative is to be cruel. First by accident, as I was. Then, all too easily, by design.

That is not a consummation greatly to be wished.

I censor myself...

There are drawbacks in being a public diarist. There is much which I could record in a notebook …material that is sensitive, embarrassing, crude, personal …which I cannot place here.

Which is unfortunate. It removes much of the power of a real diary. The role of a personal, handwritten journal (the kind that used to come with a lock on the cover) is often to be a kind of silent therapist. You place within it the darkest parts of your life. Your hatreds, fears, lusts…the name of the man you secretly wish to destroy (though you know he doesn't deserve it), the acts so foul that you cannot possibly admit you want to perform them. And it is safe to say these things in a journal. Safer even than it would be to speak them on the couch of the psychiatrist or in the church confessional. Because no one will ever know what you've written…save you, and God (assuming there is one).

And besides, some day, when the journal is full, you may toss it into the shredder. Or just pitch it into the trash. (Come, admit, no one will ever read the thing.) And then, those thoughts and sins are consigned forever to oblivion.

How different here in public. Here there is no oblivion. No genuine confession. No absolution. Here, sins would be forever enshrined. Perversions (of the body or the soul) would become your defining characteristic. People would remember you not for your attempts at the good but your admissions of the evil…evils which, truth be told, are present in us all. You would be different, and therefore damned, only because you were so gauche as to say that you had them.

So I restrain myself. I conceal. I censor. And that is for my benefit. But also for yours. You do not want to know.

Yet, I know, too, that mine is not really a popular opinion. As usual, I am the one who is out of step. I am the oddity, the crank, and the eccentric. I cruise the web and walk the aisles of my local bookstore, and I find there are many, many diarists and autobiographers for whom the barrier does not exist. They abandon the implicit privacy of the memoirist as easily as the progressive cartoonist breaks "the fourth wall," i.e., as though it were an act of daring.

And perhaps it is. Daring, I mean.

Yet, I wonder, at what point does confession become exhibitionism? Where does the diarist leave off, and where begins the dirty, sick old man in the proverbial raincoat, pants below his knees, for whom a sad fulfillment comes only in a flash, the pathetic shock, and the waving of his limp little willy at a cold and indifferent world?

The Rhythm Of Melancholy

I have begun to realize there is a kind of generational rhythm to melancholy. It has a predictable pattern.

To explain: a close friend of mine, a man almost exactly my own age, just lost his father…this after his mother passed on only a short time ago. As you know, my mother too recently passed away. In fact, virtually everyone I know who is also of my generation is in a similar situation. We all of us watch as our parents age, become frail, die…

Which is why I suspect that every generation has a certain cadence to its emotional life. We share with the majority of our peers common stages of our lives. We know together the extreme emotions of childhood, the extraordinary unease of adolescence, the confusion of the twenties, the triumphs and defeats that come after that.

When you are my age, and I'm 57, you share with your peers that moment in your life when you suddenly realize that they…your parents …won't be there forever. Or, are not there now.

And, no matter how good or bad your relationship was with them (and in my case it was very good), there is something unimaginably disturbing in that.  For you know that what seemed a fixed point in the universe, its pivot, does not exist any longer. It is wholly gone, forever.

You realize that now you have no choice but to attempt to be a pivot yourself.

Though, in some ways, that is the more dreadful, for you know that…in time…your children will discover in their turn just how unsteady a center you really are.

Easter 2014

To my friends who are Christians, happy Easter. ("He is risen.")

To my friends who are not, may you have a lovely time on this early Spring afternoon, when …at least here in New Mexico…the sun is out and the winds are not chill and everywhere there are the signs of new beginnings.

*

Interesting that both the Western and the Orthodox Easters fall on the same day this year. That doesn't happen often. We, you see, (i.e., the West) use the Gregorian calendar. They (the East) use the Julian.  There have been some rather serious quarrels about that.

Amazing thing, human nature. That we find even in the days of the week a reason to get into a good scrap.

Gabriel Garcia Marquez

A remarkable man...

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/18/books/gabriel-garcia-marquez-literary-pioneer-dies-at-87.html?_r=0

A bit of minor whining

Tired. A wee bit depressed, as I often become when I've finished some major project.

And I have completed one, by the way. A project. Although it isn't quite complete. I was working on the layout of a very demanding book. It has taken me two days to get it (I think) more or less in shape. I sent it to the author this p.m. for a final check.

Two things worry me: first that he won't like it and I'll have to make major revisions. Second, the printer. (Yes, for the first time, I am moving into hardcopy. More later.) I fear that when I send the files off to the printer I'll discover I've done something horribly wrong and need do it all over again.

Let's hope I'm wrong, shall we?

Fashion

I was bored and found myself cruising Tumblr.com blogs. These are interesting in that allow you "reblog" material from other people's Tumblr sites. It makes for an unusual form of social network in that like-minded blogs tend to link to one another. Fans of, say, photos of World War II fighter aircraft post each other's images. With a few clicks you are enmeshed in an entire community.

On this particularly day I somehow drifted into a linked collections of blogs dealing with high-fashion photography. People were scanning or downloading photos from Vogue, Elle, W Magazine, Town and Country, etc., and loading them to their sites for various reasons.

It had been years since I'd actually looked at a women's fashion magazine and I did so now mostly out of a professional curiosity. I am, after all, a former magazine writer and an aspiring publisher.

But, as I looked at the photos, I realized I was becoming more and more uncomfortable. They seemed odd somehow. At first I thought it was just because the women were so very thin. They had that concentration camp look that nutritionists and feminists so often decry.

Then I thought it was just because they were, well, creepy. The modern fashion model is not made up to conform to any traditional conception of beauty (and certainly not a heterosexual man's). Their skins were deathly pale, cosmetic bruises could be seen under eyes on cheeks, expressions were stern to the point of murderous, and there was way too much leather and lace.

Next, I thought that what bothered me was the age (or the seeming age) of the people involved. There were two sorts of model on display: thin, boyish women made to look very young, and girls…girls between the ages of 11 and 14. Both groups wore the same very suggestive outfits, clothing which concerned almost nothing (even though there was very little to conceal). Both were posed in positions that I can only call erotic, as though they were inviting the viewer to join them in bed, or as if they had recently shared one another's beds and we were there as an audience, peeping through keyholes, spying through windows.

It felt, well, perverted. I felt that I was supposed to be seeing children…highly sexualized children…girls, or even boys in drag, offered up for my voyeuristic pleasure, and suggesting that I cultivate a certain pedophilia.

This I found revolting and it was with a real feeling of illness that I left off browsing for the day.


*

The following morning, I took the dog for a walk. As we strolled through the sunlight of a New Mexican morning, I considered again my reaction to those photos. For a time, I believed I finally understood why they'd made me feel quite the way they did. I thought I was reacting as a father, someone who has a child (even if my son is now grown), and who was distressed to have these images floating about, possibly influencing the real behavior of real children. (Pre-teen girls do read this kind of magazine.) And, worse, possibly influencing the behavior of adults in their relations with children.

But just as we came around the corner down by the school, I realized that there was still more…something else was troubling me.

I recalled one picture in particular. It showed a girl of maybe ten. She was heavily made-up. She stood in some urban location and gazed at the viewer with an odd expression that seemed to combine disinterest and erotic availability. Though she was a child, she held a cigarette in one hand.

I later discovered that this picture was in fact "inspired" by much more famous images by much more famed photographers. There is, indeed, it seems a whole genre of them: the child presented as an adult, performing acts which are hazardous at best, and which are therefore somehow infinitely more alarming when they are done by someone so very young. So very vulnerable.

And it struck me. There is something here that is genuinely unhealthy. Something indicative of a sickness at the very heart of our culture.

But that sickness isn't in the threat it represents to children…or, rather, not just in that threat.

It is in what these photos say about our adults.


*

Consider, who is that child with the cigarette supposed to be? Who does she genuinely portray?

Well, there is a theory we humans prefer photos of things that resemble us. Confronted by a collection of strangers' images and asked to pick the most attractive, we select the men and women who most look like us…either our exterior self or our internal reality.

If so, then the images in the fashion magazines are in fact those of the adults who read, write, and publish those journals—our fashionistas, our Devils In Prada, our setters of style and makers of trends. It these people whose souls and whose inner-most selves are presented on the shiny pages.

These are powerful, powerful people. They are among the mightiest of our civilization has to offer. What they decree to be fashionable will determine the purchasing of millions, and the labor of millions more.

And who are these people? What do we see when we turn to their images in the glossy magazines?

Answer: a person who has all the superficial characteristics of extreme youth…but whose reality is vastly different.

That reality is exhaustion. It is corruption. It is the Bordello Madam somehow concealed within the body of an ingénue as she smokes her cigarette and contemplates heroin chic.

In other words, there is much in this child-hag to remind one of the corpse. Cunningly embalmed. The very picture of peaches and cream.

Even as the decay sets in.

A curse?

Seriously, I sometimes worry about that. I mean, curses. I am a rationalist, I do not believe in magic, etc.

Yet, some, primitive part of my brain does believe. Like the cowardly lion, it chants I do believe in spooks. I do. I do…

And that part of brain fears that someone or something has, at some time, cursed me. I was guilty of some unknown trespass. I offended someone. Perhaps it was when I was child…and a distasteful child I must have been. Always knowing the answer. Always putting up my hand with a comment in class. Always the Little Professor. (I deserve a curse, if that's the case.)

As I say, it is only that little piece in my head that believes any such thing. Normally, I ignore its shrill little voice.

But…

Well, let us hope that either it (that part of me) is entirely wrong, or that, somehow, by the intervention of some angel or kindly crone, the curse evaporates like winter's chill on a spring day.

Or a moment of night terror in the dark. Burned away by the rising sun.

A book...

Another worry. I have recently contracted to publish the book of a rather important individual, a man famous in his particular niche of the world. It should sell well.

But it hasn't. It's sold a couple of copies. Not more.

It is incredible. It is impossible. It is unthinkable. Yet it is true.

It may yet sell. Maybe it just needs time to get started. Let us hope so. But, if it doesn't, how do I explain the failure of the book? How do I explain it to my self, and to the man who wrote it?

How, indeed, do I explain it to the world? For it would suggest that I carry a remarkable curse. I am magically capable of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory regardless of the circumstances.

I trust that circumstance and sales will prove me wrong. And make it unnecessary to explain to the world.

Or anyone.

I forgot something

Realized I left out the most important part of my father's logic in my recent posting about his concerns for his children and grandchildren. That was the one on April 07, 2014.

I have rewritten to include the following:

Ah, but there is more. There were a great many Baby Boomers (that's why we were called the "boom"), but we tended to have relatively small families. Our children and grandchildren, in turn, had smaller families still—often one child or none. This means that a large and aging population has to be supported by a smaller and (in fact) dwindling one.

Alas, we are not finished yet. That smaller population of young people is in the midst of a vast social-economic-industrial transformation. For the first time ever, white-collar jobs are being automated. Machines are taking the place of "brain workers." Quite simply, as a nation we are not going to have many of the well-paying professional jobs that once guaranteed the existence of the Middle Class.

Question on the previous post

The question: is this modesty? Or breathtaking hubris?

On Being A Diarist

Still attempting to be diarist in my blog, which is to say that I am attempting to be as honest as possible. I am attempting to write only what is true.

This is not wise. This is not easy.

For one thing, you cannot record the whole truth. Much of what is true is not interesting. Worse, some of what is true cannot be shared without endangering yourself or others. If I were to faithfully report certain of my darker secrets, I would lose most of my friends and gain many enemies. Truth may be beauty and beauty truth, but not all of it is equally appealing.

Also, there is a practical issue. To anoint one's self a diarist is to abandon all hope of ever being published. The diary has no commercial appeal. It is too personal and my life too mundane. You, the reader, have no need of me. Your own journal (if you keep one), your own memories (if you do not) are every bit as thrilling. Probably more so.

So, why do I do it? Answer: because I can only hope that my writings, while not dramatic, still provide some value. They are the musings of an early twenty-first Everyman. They reflect our common mindset, the concerns of the age.

Thus, the paradox: I elect to write the most personal of all genres in hopes that it is the least unique. The least individual. That it states instead the mentalité of the mass.

Of us all.

Read this article by Sarah Kendzior. It explains a lot...

Surviving the post-employment economy 

I need a Jeeves...

I started Belfort and Bastion as a publishing company. But, come, let us confess. I am the last person on earth who should have begun a business. I have none of the characteristics required. I am not detail oriented, have few people skills, possess no games theory expertise, show little capacity for forethought or strategic thinking, and demonstrate almost no understanding of what customers actually want.

In fact, I became an "entrepreneur" only because I had no choice in the matter. I was unemployed, nearly a 1000 miles from any of the publications or schools which might have hired me, couldn't make a living as a freelance writer, and so…well B&B was born.

Sad, really. My talents are being unexploited. What I should have been, of course, was a creature rather like something out of a P.G. Wodehouse novel—an amiable idiot with a trust fund and a helpful Jeeves to get me out of the various pickles into which I blunder on a predictable (if maddening) basis.

Alas, things that might have been. Saddest words and all that rot.

another glitch

Once more I may be in tax trouble. The IRS has not yet said that it has processed our return, nor sent us the refund that our accountant said we would be getting. Don't know what that means. Hopefully nothing.

But, there is another issue. I am not quite sure what I am legally. I formed the company as an LLC because I was told it was safer. Then someone else (someone who was supposed to know such things) advised me to file as if I were a single proprietor. But now I'm not sure whether I've done the right thing. When I was filling out forms for Amazon.com, I came to suspect that I may have been required to file as company rather than as a person.

Let's cross our fingers that I get it all worked out.

Bluntly, I'm not the best the person in the world to have started a business. But for more on that, see the next entry.

My father is no longer optimistic...

Had a long conversation with my father the other day. At 85, he remains one of the most intelligent men I know, and the only one whose predictions about the future are consistently on the money. This is unfortunate because he is (for the first time since I've known him) no longer optimistic about the short-term future of the nation.

In particular, it concerns him that the Baby Boom generation (i.e., mine) is now cranking slowly into old age. As a result of the financial crisis of a few years back, very few of them have anything like the savings required to provide for them, or to pay for their medical care.

This means, he says, that society is effectively passing the bill for that care to the younger generation. Now, in prosperous times, that would not matter. If we knew something like the wealth of the 1960s or 1950s, then young people could afford to pay the tab without suffering themselves.

The problem is that we are not prosperous. We are in a Depression, even if we call it a Recession. Further, after decades of offshoring, downsizing, and "right-sizing" that Recession is simply not going to go away in a hurry.

Ah, but there is more. There were a great many Baby Boomers (that's why we were called the "boom"), but we tended to have relatively small families. Our children and grandchildren, in turn, had smaller families still—often one child or none. This means that a large and aging population has to be supported by a smaller and (in fact) dwindling one.

Alas, we are not finished yet. That smaller population of young people is in the midst of a vast social-economic-industrial transformation. For the first time ever, white-collar jobs are being automated. Machines are taking the place of "brain workers." Quite simply, as a nation we are not going to have many of the well-paying professional jobs that once guaranteed the existence of the Middle Class.

Then, finally, there are our wealthy. If the last few years have proved anything, it is that our economic leadership is incapable of seeing beyond its own bank accounts. Our wealthy will do anything to save themselves a few pence, even if that means the total impoverishment of the rest of the nation. (Yes, I know what Libertarians will say in response to that. But it is true all the same. Greed is not always good. Free markets do not inevitably lead to prosperity. Someday, travel through New England or visit Detroit and look at the abandoned mills, the shuttered buildings, and the shattered lives…the fruit of Neo-Liberal economies.)

All of this together makes my father …unhappy. He worries about the world his son and grandson will inhabit.

Which troubles me no end. I am used to being a bit despairing myself. But not him.

When a man of his vast spirit is daunted, I am afraid.

conclusion?

Later. I am, in theory, square with the insurance company. I say "in theory" because you can never tell. Some error might yet creep into the equation.

Rather a metaphor for life, don't you think?

Still on hold...

Still on hold with the insurance company. Actually, on hold again. I waited for 45 minutes the first time. Spoke to a representative who said she'd take care of the billing and address problem but had to switch me to someone else to restore my coverage. I have now waited another 45 minutes for the second representative.

Will I go mad or merely have a conniption fit? Stay tuned and find out.

taxes and now health insurance (oh, God)

One problem arises. Another eases, if it does not vanish.

The new problem. Blue Cross Blue Shield has just canceled my coverage. Apparently when I changed addresses, the change didn't get made with them. Now they (I think) have dis-enrolled me for non-payment of my bills.

As I write this, I am on hold trying to get through to them. They are saying I can expect a 45 minute wait.

Dear God. I hope I can take care of this quickly and easily.

The problem that is a little less pressing is my taxes. I finally heard from my accountant this morning. Apparently the error was theirs. They failed to tick the box on the return which said I was full-time resident of New Mexico.

The good news is that they should be able to correct the situation by simply refilling.

We'll see.

Meanwhile, cross your fingers for me on the insurance.

I am read by robots

Made an unnerving discovery today.

You remember I said that no one may be reading my blog? Well, I went back to the blog's dashboard and checked to see if it had any "comments." That is, I looked to see if anyone who had read the page had left remarks.

I was startled to find that there were far more comments than I'd thought. Several of my entries appeared to have been quite popular. It was amazing and I was delighted.

But, then I went and looked at the comments themselves. Some were real. I mean, some had been clearly left by real people who had really read the pieces and had some remark to make.

However, the vast majority were no such things. They were left by marketing software designed to search the web for any blog, post a canned comment to one or more of the entries ("Great Blog!") and then conclude with a link to some commercial site. ("Oh, and visit my webpage, 'IncreaseTheSizeOfYourPenis.blognot.XXX).

Thus I find that I may be read, but mostly by spambots.

Ah well. Maybe it is fitting. We see reports of how more and more news and non-fiction is being written by robots.

Maybe it is only fair that the audience, too, should be synthetic.

A letter from Hobbes

My small concern with the New Mexico Department of Revenue worries me for no good reason. I am simply a person who, well, worries.

But the other issue is that this comes on the heels of the death of my mother. Among the many things that astonished me was the vast number of forms that had to be filled out afterwards…and the amount of misinformation that comes from seemingly knowledgeable sources. We were told, for instance, that we had to phone the happy folks at Social Security to tell them my mother had passed and to find out where we should mail a copy of her death certificate.

Forty-five minutes waiting on hold later, I learned that there is no such requirement so long as the funeral home staff has notified the agency by electronic means. Which they had done. Which meant I had wasted my 45 minutes.

So it is that the letter from the tax people looms particularly large for me. It is a symbol for the System…

Not exactly Hobbes' Leviathan, but dreadfully near, and rumbling on…all seeing yet not seeing…

Perceiving everyone. Believing all to be in error or in sin. Crushing the unrighteous beneath its armored treads.

When, in fact, it alone is unrelieved in its ignorance.

Minor things...death and taxes

Small things have troubled me for the past few days. I've got tax troubles. The state of New Mexico is refusing to process my return. On what grounds I cannot understand. As near as I can make out from the (somewhat ominous) letter they've sent me, I think they think I am no longer a resident of the state.

But why? My correct address is on the return.

I fear it may be because I use a New England-based accountant and they assume that if he is in New Hampshire, I must be too.

Ironic. One of New Mexicans' fondest complaints is that ignorant Easterners don't realize that we are part of the United States of America.

Now we have the reverse. I am here. But the New Mexican government declines to believe it is so.

I have sent a copy of the letter to my accountant. I will let you know what we learn in due time.

Letters to the Wind

I consider beginning Xcargo the Blog again. I am not quite sure why. It has very little readership…nothing like the following Explosive-Cargo the ezine had…and I wonder sometimes if the whole blog scene isn't on the way out. There was a time when it was the means of self-publishing. But, now, so much of the web has been co-oped by the Great and the Powerful, and smaller voices (like mine) tend to be drowned out.

Yet I begin again. Partly that's simply because I (for once) have the time to do so. The past two years have been busy to say the least. The move here, the days watching my mother in various stages of unconsciousness, dealing with my father's smaller but real health problems, trying to start "the business," these and other things have consumed most of my waking hours.

Now I have a little space to breathe and to write.

But also I begin Xcargo because I wonder if it isn't what I'm made to do. If it isn't what my talent is…assuming I have any talents at all. I wonder if I am the sort of writer known as a "diarist."

Perhaps this is what I am meant to write. Perhaps I am destined to pen these small things, these moments in my life, half remembered, uncertainly told, offered up to a reader who may not exist. Who may never exist.

Well, there are worse callings. There is even something romantic in it. Like the poet who wrote letters to his vanished beloved and cast them to the winds.

To be received… by whom? By no one. By the world. Either one. It makes no difference.

Quick notice

To all my FB friends, B&B contributors, Xcargo readers, etc. Thanks so much for your support these last few weeks.

My mother passed away peacefully this morning at about 6 a.m. local time.

It is hard, of course, but we console ourselves in knowing that she had a long, full life that included some remarkable adventures. She grew up in the Depression-era south, married my father and came to New Mexico, got her Ph.D. in middle age, traveled the world, and, as a hobby, repaired homes and office buildings with my father as part of their real estate business.

Rather amazing woman. I am proud to be her son.

To the doctors we go (hi ho, hi ho)

We woke this morning with all the aches you expect post-car crash. Martha was actually in serious pain and when I suggested that she make an appointment to see her doctor, she did not object.

I then drove over to check on my Dad. He, too, hurt badly. I asked him if he would let me take him to the Doctor and to my amazement he actually agreed. (He must be really uncomfortable.) A short time later I had the two of them at Urgent Care. Much prodding and poking followed and finally they reappeared with the news that nothing was broken (cheer) but that Martha had bruised ribs and a sprained foot while my father had strained and bruised muscles in his chest (not so cheer).

I then took Dad to the Home where he could visit Mom while Martha and I went to make arrangements to have the car towed from a temporary lot to the place where it will be repaired (we hope).

After that, I took Martha back to the apartment where she has been sleeping most of the day. Around three, I picked up Dad and took him home. I suspect he will sleep rather well too.

As for me, I'm the least damaged of the three of us. I was farthest from the impact. I do have a bit of pain in the left arm, but I trust that will past soon enough.

Have you noticed? Life is just too damn complicated.

My day so far

The important thing first: we are all fine. A little bruised and battered, and we've all got muscle aches, but we're fine. And given what could have happened, that's significant.

Okay, now, before I get to what happened today, I have to give you some background. You know my mother was in a nursing home after she had her stroke. Well, we just finished moving her to another …and much better … facility after the administration of the first one announced that it did not want my father and mother being seen in the front end of the building (where there is a retirement community) because they might "disturb" the residents. I'm still thinking of suing them.

But, anyway, we got my mom moved to this other facility and things seemed to be working out fine. Then, my father needed to go to South Padre Island, TX, where he has some property that needed to be looked after. So, he and I head off and do several days of work but then he catches a vicious cold that soon turns into pneumonia. I end up taking him to the only clinic in the area and waiting for what felt like days and finally we got enough antibiotics to stagger a moose.

He feels better. We fly home. (This time, heaven be praised, he even lets me push him around the airport in a wheel chair so we don't miss any connections.)

But, then he gets worse again. He gets so bad, in fact, that I'm thinking of taking him to the hospital. But, after still more antibiotics, and enough codeine cough syrup to not only stagger the aforesaid moose but put him into a coma, my dad gets better. (Whew.)

But, about this time my mom takes a turn for the worse. She goes back into hospice care (still at the same facility, just a different program). Everyone is very concerned.

About the same time, my Dad says that he thinks maybe it is time for him to give up driving. Again, heaven be praised. We were spared having "the" talk with him. (Whew #2)

So, I'm driving him to and from the facility. He goes in every morning about 8:30 and stays until around 2:00 pm (that 1400 hours for those outside the US of A). He sits with my mom all that period, talking to her, holding her hand, and so on.

And she begins to rally. She's opened her eyes again and is eating well. (That's Whew #3).

Okay, now, today, Martha and I drive over to pick him up again about 1:45. We have plans to grab lunch with him and then do some shopping. We've just bought a house and he enjoys helping us find things to go in it.

Everyone is happy…

We leave the facility. Martha is driving and we are in her car. We come to stoplight. The light turns green. Martha moves into the intersection and…

Crunch.

A woman who tells later that she was "looking at the scenery" and didn't notice the red light, or the other traffic stopped at it, whizzes through the intersection and impacts us HARD broadsides.

Long story short: EMTs, fire truck, ambulance, police, etc., etc. and, of course, etc.

You see the irony. My father had given up driving to avoid accidents. Then we get creamed by a fully functioning adult who is just barely in middle age.

Amazingly, we are all in good shape. I was terrified …if the impact had been 12 inches a little further on, Martha could have been very seriously hurt. And my 85-year-old father is pretty frail. He was having a hard time breathing after the impact.

But, somehow, everyone came out okay. Dad's all right, Martha's fine, and I'm only a little more warped than usual.  (Whew #4, and last for the evening.)

That's my day so far.

As I say, I could complain, but since we're all walking and talking, I guess I won't. We could have been far less fortunate.

Still, if I don't complain, I may grumble a little. Under my breath.

Just pretend you don't hear me.

It begins...sorta

Well, maybe I'll back to blogging again. And, sigh, maybe I won't.

It has been an insane period in my life. Over the last few months we have had to move my mother from one facility to another, my father and I traveled to South Padre Island to check on his duplex there, he caught a serious cold which turned into pneumonia, then we came back here...

Oh, the good news, we bought a house. Closed on it yesterday.

Like I say, I will try to relate all my adventures. Sometime. Soon.

cheers
mjt

Haven't posted in forever

Like it says, I haven't posted in ages.

Lots of stories...

I will try to tell them over the next few weeks.

Weather

Things which have changed (2)

The Weather.

I had not originally planned to post the following entry this week. But, then, there were the tornados in the middle west…

One would think that the weather is, in its variable way, a constant.

And Albuquerque's weather is really rather nice. It is far warmer here than it is in the East—though, keep in mind, it is not tropical. The number of Easterners and Europeans who come here expecting it to be a kind of States-side Sahara—only to end freezing their tails off—is remarkably large. You see, the city is in a desert, but it is high desert…a mountain desert. It is dry, but it can get very, very cold. If you come here in winter, don't come in Hawaiian shirts and Bermuda shorts.

Still, winter here is better than in Boston if only because there is so very little snow. Most of the time, if simply doesn't appear, or it does, then it comes as dusting and is gone by mid-morning.

Hard on children, of course, and I can remember spending many a depressing morning trudging off to school when everyone in every neighboring state had the day off because of some happy blizzard or another. But, for me, after thirty years on post at Ice Station Zebra (a.k.a., the Northeast), it is quite welcome.

If I never see another snow shovel again, I'll be perfectly happy.


*

Actually, Albuquerque gets even less snow that surrounding areas in the state. The mountains on the eastside, and the volcanoes on the west, act like walls against the weather. Storm clouds tend to lose their punch on the way over them.

Locals call Albuquerque "the snow hole," because it will be dry when everywhere else in the state is under three feet of drift. Just this winter, for instance, the highway that leads east of the city was blocked by a massive storm. The police set up roadblocks and kept cars and trucks from going any further.

But, here, on this side of the Sandias, it was warm and sunny. We were walking about in shirtsleeves, or, at most, with a sweater.

Unfortunately, this can lead to problems. People believe the evidence of their eyes, not official reports. And so, every once in a while you hear tales of someone or many someones who come the road block and simply don't believe that things could possibly be so bad on the other side of the mountains. They will assume the authorities are being overcautious. They will proclaim to that those who listen to such warnings are cowards.

And so they've figure a way around the block. Maybe they'll even go back into the city, up the River on route 25, and then attempt the "unimproved" road that leads from the tiny village of Placitas through the National Forest and finally back down to the Valley.

And sometimes, they are not heard from again.


*

But I was saying the weather has changed In spite of what I've already written, I think it has. In small ways, yes, but changed.

Things seem minutely drier. The sage and the brush is ever slightly more brown…becomes brown sooner in the year, stays so into the spring. The "fire danger" level in the National Forests and campgrounds is now always "high," where thirty yers ago you might occasionally see a "moderate" or even a "low." Weather seems ever slightly more extreme.

I can only assume that I'm seeing the effects of global warming. And, by the way, I don't think anyone can pretend any longer that it isn't happening. The data are just too overwhelming.

Oh, perhaps, it isn't entirely 100% proven that climate change is the result of human activity—that I'll grant you. But to say that it is not underway is be an idiot or a liar. And, alas, we have so many both sorts among us, as well as various combinations of the two.

The latter point, the presence of fools and frauds, is the one I want to make. There is, you see, a danger here. To deny the obvious, to refuse to see it, to not prepare for what may be coming, is to court disaster.


*

I don't know what will genuinely happen. Prophecy is beyond me. And I don't think that climate science is now sufficiently advanced to offer any real predictions on climate change. The world may grow hotter, as the anti-CO2 crowd never tires of telling us. Or it may be grow colder. I've heard it suggested that, by releasing tons of super-chill water into the oceans, the melting of the ice caps might actually return us to a new period of world glaciations.

But change of some sort is coming. That is the one thing that history teaches about climate—the one thing of which we may be ABSOLUTELY certain—is that climate is variable. It changes.

And when it changes, it inevitably means that someone is adversely affected. It means that crops do not grow in places where they grew before. It means that rain does not fall where it was once plentiful. It means that some people in some place become hungry and desperate. It means those desperate hordes must go elsewhere to survive…regardless of the cost to themselves.

Don't believe it? Look at East Africa, which has known drought and famine for decades now.

Look at Somalia and Ethiopia, whose leaders saw the handwriting on the wall…knew what was happening as early as the 1970s…yet did nothing to prepare.

Consider the consequences.


*

I'll end with a personal experience. Or rather, one of my wife's.

I had warned her that during Spring, New Mexico is windy place. Fifty-six years ago, when my father interviewed at Sandia Labs, they told him, "In Spring, most of our scenery is mobile."

It was a joke but it was true. Wind and sand and dust are norm here in the space between winter's cold and summer's heat. If you wear contacts, you learn to also wear sunglasses even at dusk. If you have allergies, you resign yourself to sneezing.

But this year…my first Spring back…

We had gone out for lunch. We were at a little Italian restaurant on the North side of town. It was nothing special, but nice enough. And the place had huge glass windows that looked out into the street and the mountains.

Our meals had just come when I heard someone say, Look.

I turned. Martha turned. The window glass was shaking now. There was the sound of a million grains of hard sand striking the metal skins of the cars in the parking lot. Where before it had been bright and sunny, now the sky was brown with dirt, and boiling…

We watched. Everyone in the restaurant watched, speechless. Outside, the suddenly, inexplicable wind raged…

Later, Martha said to me, in a voice a little tinged with fear, "You didn't me it would be like that."

How could I tell her that no? No, I didn't. Hadn't.

Because I did not know.

And that my fear was every bit as real as hers.

Mother's Day 2013

I went across the street to see her. That is, to the Home. She was there in her chair. Her head was down. Her eyes were open. Staring. What was she thinking?

Does she think?

*

My father was there. He is always there. Always present for her. Never losing hope.

I spoke to her. She did not answer. I kissed her head. For a moment she raised her face. Her arm stirred. Her hand took mine. She held it. I could feel her fingers open and close.

Did she know what she was doing? Was there intent? Or was it only the spasm of muscle and nerve?

*


I sat on the bed. She raised her eyes to mine. What did she see? What did she perceive? How did she interpret her vision?

I visit her once a day. Usually for an hour. Sometimes, particularly on special occasions (as today) I am there a little longer.

She has good days. She has bad. On the good days, she speaks. She smiles. She will laugh. She seems to have no doubt who I am.

This is not one of the good days.

*

Today, I sat beside her. I stroked her arm. I spoke to her. She did not reply. But her gaze did not leave mine.

I have asked this before. I will ask it again. How much of her remains? How much is in there, behind those sad and beautiful eyes?

My father, in his infinite faith and immeasurable patience, assumes that all of her is there …somewhere… and that if we work hard enough and wait long enough, she will stir, awaken…speak and be as she was before.

Is this the case?

I do not know.

*

I have not my father's power. I do not have his steel and wisdom. But I will do my best to emulate him.

I will believe (I will force myself to believe) that she endures. I will believe that she is somewhere. That she exists. Maybe not in the form that sits in the chair. But someplace.

And that someday…somehow…


*

I will thus elect my reality. I will choose among the many options. I will select one rather than the others. I will operate on faith. Not facts.

I will believe.

I will believe that, eventually, she will return. Or, failing that… that her voyage and ours will once more…intersect.

*

I will believe that even in the worst possible case…

That, in some distant time, on that great bridge…that arch of white stone that spans the infinite distance…that she will hear…

That she will hear the footsteps behind her…the sound of running…the sound of those who hasten to join her.

She will hear. She will pause. She will turn.

She will greet us.

And smile.

Things which have not changed (1) -- continued

Crime (again)

An aside: if crime, per se, feels to me to be about the same (or even a little reduced), then the awareness of crime is heightened. People just seem to think about it more.

Why? I'm not certain. The media may report about it more aggressively now. Maybe that has something to do with it. And the 'Net means everyone knows everything the instant it happens. And, finally, there's Breaking Bad, the hit TV program set in this City, and which has to do with a chemistry teacher who becomes a methamphetamine dealer. (It's also going off the air shortly. Wonder how that will effect things.)

But one of the responses of the new awareness is that there are now gated communities here, which didn't exist when I lived in the city the first time. Now, you will find them all over Albuquerque, and particularly in the two eastern quadrants of the city.

One of them is directly across the street from my apartment. It is rather impressive, actually, a little reminiscent of a walled city, something out of the Middle Ages. A tall white brick wall circles it—over six feet tall in some places—and there are gates and guard posts at each entry way. Over the tops of the wall, or through the iron bars of the gates, you may glimpse the tall roofs of rather luxurious suburban homes.

So safe. So strong. So secure.

Yet…

*

The other day, I was out jogging. I saw ahead of me two teenage boys. Good kids. Just a couple of lads walking home from school or maybe the big Church just down the way. They were tall. I suspected they played basketball. But their sport of choice at that particular moment involved a small, hard rubber ball that they bounced between themselves as they walked.

The inevitable happened, of course. One of the boys threw the ball a little harder than he should have. It arced up into the sky and then over the white wall into the Gated Community.

Neither boy hesitated a moment. They simply hopped over the wall…as easily as if it were a curb…retrieved their toy, and hopped back over again. They headed on their way up the street, nodding shyly at me when I passed them and smiled.

Admittedly, they were athletic boys. Long legged boys. But, the point is the same. If they could get over the wall (and this was one of the places where it is at its tallest), then so could someone else.



*

But, the really interesting part of my story comes later.

Background: not long ago, the city had a bit of a scandal. A high-flying local real estate developer, Douglas F. Vaughan, was running a very lucrative business. He offered his family and friends, and wealthy customers, the opportunity to invest in his operations. And, at first, everyone seemed to profit. He was a magician, people said, at real estate.

Of course, it was a Ponzi scheme. People lost millions before it was all done and said. Vaughan went to jail and was duly dubbed Albuquerque's very own "Mini-Madoff."

The connection to my story? Well, before his fall, Vaughan built himself a palatial estate…a huge house, with bedroom upon bedroom, bath upon bath, garage after garage…all furnished, of course, in the best of taste.

And where was this estate? This house from which a genuine criminal mastermind directed the systematic looting of bank accounts across the city?

Where else? The very gated community that is across from me. It nestles in among the other homes of other (though more honest) affluent men and women.

And there, of course, is the irony. The good people of the Gated Community built their little city and gave it walls to seal away the contagions of the age.
Only, all along, a thief greater and more voracious then any they could have imagined…was right there among them.

Like the viper at the breast. The disease in the blood. The cancer in the cell.

Such is the illusion of safety. The true efficacy of walls.