Republicants vs Dontacrats vs T-No! Party

There’s an old, old saying, something about you can’t get anything done if the decisions have to be made by a committee. I’ve heard it lots of times, but apparently, it’s not so old that the
Founding Fathers ever heard it. Well, after all, they were a committee, weren’t they?

I don’t think the truth of that saying was ever more evident than with the current Congress. I think we can even narrow it down to the current House.

Did anybody REALLY expect the House Republicants would manage to approve a 2-month
extension of the income tax reduction? No, of course not. They have been so recalcitrant and stubborn, so afraid that Obama might get something done, that they have stonewalled everything, missed every deadline. Even now, when the Senate Republicants finally saw enough light to pass a 2-month moratorium on that tax hike, expecting to deal with it in more depth in January, the House Republicants and T NO! Partiers said ... no.

Their reason for saying no? In their opinion, passing a two-month moratorium doesn’t really do any good. They should be voting on nothing less than a full year’s agreement, and if the Senate would just come back to town and do that, then there’s time to get it done before the end of the year.

Really? They’ve let every other deadline roll by, deadlines that gave them months to work things out, but they’re going to pull a rabbit out of the hat this time? And we’re supposed to believe they’re going to do it in the 10 or 11 days that are left in the year?

They must think I was born yesterday.

Electric Cars Are Not Electrifying

I've been researching electric cars, wondering if it was time to consider getting one to replace our older car. How long have the car companies been working on these? They've been saying they were around when cars were first being made, and the limitations then were the same limitations they've got now; only a few dozen miles per charge and long re-charging times. They haven't made much progress with those problems, they say, because electric cars were abandoned in favor of gas burning cars.

I was a little surprised to hear this is a second chance for electric cars; I was greatly dismayed to hear they haven't made any progress in eliminating those early problems. No, electric technology has not specifically been looking at being used in cars for the past hundred years, but hasn't it made any progress at all?

I even went so far as to look at re-charging stations that have been established for these cars. I was especially interested in the quick re-charging stations, which can recharge you to 90% in only half an hour. I was sadly disappointed. The closest recharging station of any kind was in Kansas City, and beyond that on the way to Florida, St Louis. There are none in Omaha, where I live. Since electric (and hybrids) get about 100 miles per charge, I could not use one to get even as far as Kansas City, which is not quite 200 miles away.

I like my traveling. I'd like to do a lot more of it while I'm still able to. But unless these people making electric cars get serious about it, I'm still going to have to burn gas to do it.

Bummer.

Stubborn Failure

Okay, so the Super Committee charged with figuring out how to balance the US budget didn't manage to figure out a darned thing. How many of us did NOT see that coming?

One side thinks that raising the taxes on the ultra rich people and corporations would not raise nearly enough money to do the budget any good. And then on top of that, they want to cut Social Security and Medicare/aid, which amounts to stripping away even more money from everybody, but especially the poor. The other side – having already negotiated away many of their 'wants' in the spirit of 'cooperation' – has now developed their own stubborn streak and want to increase the taxes on wealthy people and corporations to make a start on cutting the deficit. Increasing the load on the middle and lower classes is pretty unthinkable to them.

My first thought is, let's do the math. So let's take a family that makes $50,000 a year. That's not a lot of money, but according to my research, that's about the median amount for a household, so let's use that amount. Let's raise their taxes 1% per year, which would be an extra $500 for the government. And if there's 9 people in this category for every person in the next category, then that comes to $4,500 per year. A mere drop in the bucket compared to our debt, but apparently, it's a big enough drop to satisfy some members of Congress.

Now let's look at a family that makes $100,000 a year. To me, that's a lot of money, and my family could live very comfortably, but the top '1%' make much more than that. Still, let's look at raising the taxes on that amount that same 1% per year. That comes to $1,000 for the government. Comparing this $1,000 per household to the $4,500 per 9 households does not seem like it would provide much debt relief, does it?

However, based on what's been said recently, the one side that wants to raise taxes on the rich are talking about the 'upper 1%', not the upper 10%. Roughly, that means those making $1,000,000 OR MORE per year. 1% of $1,000,000 is $10,000, which is approximately 2 drops in the bucket of our debt. And $1,000,000 is the MINIMUM income of those who would see their taxes rise. No, it won't solve the debt problem all by itself. But if the middle and lower classes are expected to solve that problem all by themselves, it would be a giant step away from democracy ... towards slavery. And some of us already feel we're a slave to our job, particularly when the economy is bad.

I don't really expect it to happen, but I sure wish certain members of Congress would grow up and do what they were elected to do. And I don't mean 'toe the party line'. They're supposed to be logical beings, capable of thinking about the Greater Good, not What's Good for a Few.

History Lesson

Way back in school, I heard someone say, "Those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it." I thought it meant that those students who could not manage to memorize dates and names would have to repeat the class. So I diligently memorized names, dates and places, even though the part of history that really interested me was the people – What did people of that time period eat, drink, wear, own, think?

But for the most part, nobody seems to care about the people of any given period. Students might be given a dozen names to remember, but what they wind up knowing about those chosen individuals (long enough to take the test) is that this one was the general on Side A of this battle, that one was a political leader whose main policy was...

After school, I sometimes would pick up a book, an article, or some other form of knowledge about a particular era, looking for the 'social' history information I never really got in history classes. Still, I really don't consider myself as any more knowledgeable about history than the average person. And yet, even I can see a second meaning to that old saying, a way that history is now repeating itself, because the people 'in charge' have not realized they were ignoring important history lessons.

Let's take a quick look at 4 events throughout history; the Magna Carta, the French Revolution, the Great Irish Famine & Revolution, and the Russian Revolution. In all these cases, it's my understanding that the great majority of the population had been severely oppressed by their rulers for so long that, out of desperation, the masses rose up and declared that they'd had enough. Most of these were successful; the Irish probably waited too long. After several years of being left to starve, they wouldn't have had enough strength to effectively revolt.

Now let's look at 4 more recent events; the Egyptian Revolution, the Lybian Revolution, the Syrian Revolt and the Occupy America movement. Again, the great majority of the population has been oppressed for years. Again, they've had enough.

Those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it.

Future Cars

I was listening to NPR the other day, and they were talking about future developments for electric cars. I know, electric cars haven't been around very long. But as the people on the radio pointed out, they have a big problem – the electric cord that lets them recharge. If you forget to plug in your car at night, you might not be able to go to work in the morning. If your employer doesn't have a charging station for you, you might not get all the way home.

Indeed, I briefly wished I could get an electric car a couple years ago, as a means of taking trips. But as I understand it, a charge would last about 4 hours, and then – if I could find a place to recharge – I'd be sitting still for 8 hours. It didn't seem like a good method of taking long trips.

One development they talked about was the 'recharging mat', which isn't a mat at all, but a piece of machinery that would set up a magnetic field that would recharge a car's battery. They seemed to think this possibility might become available within 10 years, since there is already a prototype being tested and used. That would be great! Now, after my battery is charged, could I pick up this 'mat' and take it with me? I could maybe live with extending my trip by driving for 4 hours in early morning, napping or otherwise relaxing while the car recharged, then driving another 4 hours in the evening before getting a hotel room while the car recharged again. Or better yet, what would happen if I turned this 'machine' on while it sat in my trunk or backseat, while I was driving? Would it recharge my car as the charge was being used to move the car? As long as it didn't make my head blow up via magnetic resonance, that sounds pretty cool!

Another possibility they discussed was imbedding recharging machines in the roads, each one sending a small charge to your car's battery as you drive. But that method is far from perfected, would cost an arm and a leg to get the machines into the roads.... No wonder they didn't spend much time talking about that idea.

Okay, this is not a floating car like the Jetsons had. But it's better than what I've been driving for decades. Hope I'm still around and able to afford an electric car when at least one of these bright ideas becomes reality.

A Day in the Surgery Waiting Room

I recently spent a day - well, a morning - in a surgery waiting room at a local hospital. I half expected to see people pacing back and forth, chain smoking and making themselves even more jittery by drinking too much coffee. Boy, is that image out of date!

First of all, there’s no smoking inside public buildings in this state, so if they wanted to smoke, they had to go outside. Good, the rest of us could breath. Secondly, the hospital did provide coffee, but it was just regular or decaffeinated - nothing fancy - and I don’t think I saw anybody do more than sip it. It was almost as if they took it because it was there, it was offered, but they didn’t know what to do with it after they got it. Or maybe it was something to occupy their hands.

And lastly, nobody paced. I don’t think anybody had the energy, since they had to be there at 6 AM, meaning they probably got up no later than 5 AM. I saw lots of yawns, lots of closed eyes and heads canted to the side. I even heard a couple snores.

I was tired myself, and it was hard to concentrate on the story I had brought along to entertain myself. I found myself wondering about the people around me, about the way they dealt with their worry, nerves and concern. I people watched, trying to analyze their method of dealing.

Some came in family groups of 5 or 6, and perched in the chairs like a flock of birds, chattering away about highly important stuff, like how long it took them to reach the hospital from ... whereever they had been. Was this normal conversation for them? Did they ever delve into subjects of more substance, and this day’s stress made them resort to a long discussion of such fluff in an effort to keep their minds occupied? Or were such subjects the stuff their lives were made of?

Another such group planted themselves in front of the monitor that displayed which patient was in pre-op, OR, or recovery, and stared at the monitor as if only their presence and will power could get their loved one through this ordeal. When the nurse came to say that one of them could go in to see the patient in pre-op for a moment before he was taken to the OR, they debated among themselves for long moments before deciding the let the spouse go in.

Others consisted of a pair, usually a spouse and grown child of the patient. In these instances, I frequently saw the grown child trying to convince the parent to try his computer, or electronic book, or an app on his new phone ... as if it was the (grown) child’s responsibility to keep the parent from sitting quietly, lest s/he fall into utter despair waiting for her/his spouse to be repaired and returned.

And then there were the single people, probably spouses, sitting alone and occupying themselves as best they could. Some brought a book and at least tried to look like they were reading. Others brought a book but never made any effort to open it. Others stared at the television screen. There were two sets, one set on politics and the other on sports. Not something I would choose to watch, no matter how bored I was.

I hope everybody came out of that room with news at least as good as what I got.