Don’t lay no boogie woogie…
…On the king of rock and roll.
I heard Long John Baldry song (the full version, including the spoken intro) on a commercial radio station today. There is hope for the world yet!
Serpico on Reason
I sometimes think of this story, repeated in the movie Serpico, when I think the world is utterly insane.
LESLIE:
Did you ever hear the story of the wise king?SERPICO:
Nope. But I got the feeling I’m going to hear it.LESLIE:
Well, there was this king, and he ruled over his kingdom, and right in the middle of this kingdom there was a well, and that’s where everybody drank. And one night, this witch came along, and she poisoned the well.SERPICO:
Ah.LESLIE:
And the next day, everybody drank from that it except the king. And they all went crazy. And they got together in the street and they said, “we’ve got to get rid of the king, because the king is mad.”SERPICO:
Ah oh.LESLIE:
And that night, he went down and he drank from the well. And the next day, all the people rejoiced, because their king had regained his reason.SERPICO:
I think you’re trying to tell me something.
Indeed.
Yes on C & D
I’ve been meaning to tackle Colorado Referendums C and D.
I feel fairly confident about their passage. After all, they have bipartisan support from people like Republican governor Owens and Denver mayor Hickenlooper.
But I’d like to take on the philosophy that is causing many people to fight like crazy for their defeat. Organizations like FreedomWorks are calling Referendum C a “tax increase” although that it not altogether true. When Colorado voted the so-called Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights, Colorado was collecting more tax revenue than it was spending. Rather than save the surplus as would any individual with good financial sense, we decided to give ourselves a handout. We locked in the rate that government spending could increase and gave ourselves the difference. This difference is handed out as a tax refund. In other words, this money hasalready been collected and now we are just arguing over whether we should get it back or not.
Now, unless you’ve been living under a hole for the last few years, you know that certain things have become very expensive. Alas, hardest hit are things that our state has to buy a lot of. Petroleum and construction have both risen faster than inflation. So while we as citizens are paying more to fill our gas tanks, heat our homes and even cover housing costs, our state has been having an even harding time keeping up with things like road and school repairs. Frankly, our state needs the money more than we do.
Anti-C&D groups also are making the point that by giving more money to the government, we’re increasing their control. I hate to flatly deny the logic behind it. As you know, I’m not particularly fond of many things that government has been doing with money. However in this particular case, the need outweighs the potential abuse. Failing to pay for road and other infrastructure will cost us more in the long run (not only in terms of increased replacement costs in the future, but also in long-term damage to, for instance, our cars in the meantime. Failing to pay for school improvements and education will absolutely hurt us in the long run as lucrative jobs leave Colorado for states or even countries that did invest in education. Health care for the poor and elderly will also save us in the long run–preventitive maintenance always seems to be cheaper than the alternative.
Frankly, the idea of living in a state where education and especially higher education for the hard-up is not highly valued scares me. Has anyone seen what’s happening in Alabama, a state known for education spending, and I’d like to point your attention to the bottom of this page, which contains a great bit of wisdom: There needs to be limits on class size. Here, here! Especially in English class.
If you’re bored then you’re boarding
This opinion column introduced me to the reasonable-sounding idea of airplane boarding that United had dubbed “Wilma” for Window, middle, aisle. In this configuration, passengers would be boarded from the outside of the plane in. Christopher Elliot correctly surmises that this won’t work based on the human factor–there is no way you could realistically have groups of people who are going to sit together board at different times, and you probably can’t expect all people with window seats to board right when they’re called.
Alas, Mr. Elliot makes the same mistake when recommending that other carriers follow Southwest’s lead in abandoning assigned seating. Imagine the same group that didn’t want to board at separate times in the above scenario. They aren’t going to want to sit apart either. These groups are going to be scrambling around, trying to switch seats with smaller groups or singletons so they can all be together. You may well have seen this happen on flights even with assigned seating. And it will happen at the end of the boarding process.
A hybrid process might be even better: give groups seat assignments and then allow passengers who are flying alone to sit where they want on a first come, first served basis.
Elliot makes a good point as far as use of the overhead bins which cause annoying waits on boarding and deplaning. This may be a problem for another day. After all, I was on a plane just yesterday that didn’t board for 20 minutes because the airline couldn’t find a cleaning crew and didn’t deplane until after a few minutes delay because the jetway operator at LAX couldn’t find the hatch.
Notes from Kentucky
It’s been a crazy couple of months.
After getting married in September and taking two weeks off, I found out that the Engineering department at my office had decided they would like to offer me a job. This clearly set off a crazy set of reactions that has me this week in Kentucky visiting one of our production facilities for the first time. As you would expect, I’ve learned a lot in the past few days. For example:
- Refrigerated production lines are cold (clearly), as are their adjoining offices. You would think I might have gathered this from a lesson learned earlier in the year, to wit: Frozen warehouses are cold, as are their adjoining offices. But no. Despite the fact that this is Kentucky in early October, short sleeve shirts are not recommended. I’ve been wearing a smock as a jacket the past few days.
- You need to be proficient in several languages to rise in a multinational company. This being the US, business was done in English. But most of the participants had side conversations in French and/or German. And at dinner, two more ordered in Spanish. I, um, need to polish up moi Deutch.
- Alarm clocks at the Hampton Inn don’t stay armed. This is a good lesson to learn before your fourth day of work with a new manager.
- As important as engineering may be, supply and demand are still what drive the business. I’ve been officially separated from the supply chain side, but it’s easy to see that engineering depends heavily on insight from that group–at several points during high-level discussion about a new production line, we were shown familiar production/distribution documents. It almost made me homesick. It’s too bad supply and demand planners aren’t given opportunities to see just how important their work is.
- Southern accents are easy to pick up and hard to hide (as evidenced by the radio announcers here).
Apologies to my loyal readers for the slow postings of late. I hope to continue my diatribes at some point although travel makes that harder.
New lows for Colo Repubs
Three Colorado Republicans have just pushed the envelope on idiocy by suggesting Colorado subsidize the self-styled vigilante “Minutemen” in Arizona.
Ok, first of all, we’re in a BUDGET CRUNCH. One which the anti-tax wing of the Republican party got us into (although virtually half of that party is actually trying to get out from under). Sending money to plug a hole in a dike makes no sense at a time like this. Schultheis, Crane and Welker claim that illegal immigrants are straining state services but admit that they have no proof of this. And they also aren’t very good at math, which means they can’t fathom what adding 100,000 legitimate immigrant workers to Colorado’s tax base might do to alleviate such a strain.
I have an idea. Colorado has 1.1 million registered Republicans. I propose we trade them to various Latin American countries. I imagine the Latinos will work a whole lot harder, and although they may not generate as much tax revenue as the Republicans (but with all the tax shelters and money laundering, who knows?) But they’ll sure whine a whole lot less.
Bad food > bad politics > drums > bad food
Ever since I left Cleveland in 2001, I’ve been searching for a good local burrito place a la Coventry’s Que Tal. Here in Denver, burritos are virtually a phenomenon–both Chipotle and Qdoba, which have national reach, are based in the Denver area. (Actually, the entire casual, non-fast-food phenomenon seems to be based in Denver, which is also the home of Quiznos and Boston Market as well as up-and-comers Noodles and Company and Brothers aka Blokes Barbeque.) Chipotle torqued me pretty bad by moving onto Coventry Rd in Cleveland Heights as part of a long line of national companies replacing local shops in that neighborhood. Whereas my first meal in Cleveland was at Que Tal, Chipotle started an aggressive campaign to ensure incoming students from my University tried them first. It took me well over a year, even after moving back to Denver (where they could pass for “local”) to forgive them, but now I eat there frequently. Still, I’ve been keeping my eye on smaller local places.
And there has been one: Illegal Pete’s. Pete used to work for Chipotle, and he thought the idea was so great he started his own place, but added some ingredients and the phenomenon of “mixing” the burrito. Up until recently, the only places to find Illegal Pete’s were Boulder and downtown Denver. But in the last six months or so, they’ve opened a couple of locations that I can hit for lunch. Seeing as how the extra ingredients, mixed burritos and local flavor should make Illegal Pete’s a perfect substitute for Que Tal, I tried them out last week. And it was bland. I mean, Taco Bell is more flavorful. Taco Bell’s medium hot sauce is hotter. Taco Bell’s chicken actually has flavor. I’m exceptionally disappointed that a Colorado-based burrito joint that is about as derivative of Chipotle as you can get (complete with lawsuit) has less flavorful food that an Ohio based burrito joint, let alone Taco Bell. What’s the point?
Well, for some people, it might be the customer service. Pete’s is one of those places where your chances of getting hired are proportional to the amount of ink and piercings you have. Not that Chipotle avoids that type of employee, but they take some pride in hiring Mexicans and helping them thrive. If the service at Chipotle represents wholesome Americanism, Pete’s represents middle-class angst. And where else does that middle-class angst appear but in the form of three Republican lawmakers visiting Arizona to try and learn how to get medieval on the immigrants. They’re learning from the master, co-author of Arizona’s Proposition 200 Russell Pearce. Pearce shows that he’s a good guy at heart by saying:
“I don’t blame those folks seeking a better way of life. I blame our government for failing to … secure our borders.”
But he seems to miss something: Many immigrants aren’t seeking a better way of life in the US. They’re intention is to stay temporarily. It seems most would rather be back home. Mexicans, including those in the US, seem to have far more pride in Mexico than Americans do in the US. It shouldn’t be surprising that they don’t aim to stay.
The Colorado contingent seems to be missing something as well. According to the Post article,
The Colorado legislators blamed illegal immigrants for taking jobs from Americans, increasing health risks by bringing in diseases and not paying taxes. They claim undocumented immigrants get paid 25 percent less than what an American would demand from an employer.
The Republicans seem to miss the point on the labor issue, and they’re starting to sound like protectionist Democrats. What are immigrant laborers doing? They’re working on farms. They’re doing unskilled labor. Sure, there are probably plenty of Americans who could be doing this work. But they’d rather not. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, there were 7.4 million unemployed Americans in August. According to the article there are 10 million undocumented immigrants. So even if you didn’t included seasonal and transitional unemployment, if you removed all 10 million of the immigrants, you would have 2.4 million unfilled jobs. That’s a lot of fruit dying on the vine. So I don’t really buy the “they’re taking our jobs” line, especially from Republicans who, for chrissake, should be free-trade. As far as the “bringing in disease” line, well that’s a surprise as well. I haven’t heard that, and to the extent that their living conditions on farms may be conducive to disease, Americans in those same situations would be just as diseased. As for the final point, the non-payment of taxes, well, whose fault is that? I would say the government that discourages them from registering.
I’ll reiterate my position on immigration. While I think this is a problem that needs to be solved, it is a problem that needs a solution that is grounded in reality. While the contingent of Republicans in Arizona would like to severely restrict the flow of immigrant labor into the US, the reality is that this would be extremely harmful to American businesses that depend on the seasonal labor. Looser restrictions on immigration and specifically seasonal immigration will encourage more undocumented laborers to register with the US. Encouraging registration in this way will allow the US to better enforce labor standards as well as collect taxes from them. The Republican response to the damage the undocumented immigration is having is uncharacteristic of Republicans, and one wonders where they learned to fear Mexicans so much. It’s a good thing that the ones in Colorado, at least, can still get a bland burrito prepared by a angsty white kid.
