The Fire Next Time

Browsing about the blogs (as I often do) I came upon this little gem in which friendless midlife-crisis sufferer Neo-Neocon waxes nostalgic about the cCold War days of MAD:

So, we face a terrible dilemma: which way lies madness? Perhaps both ways. But the way of preparedness and deterrence seems to be the necessary way to go, as it seems to have been back in those Cold War days. I never thought we'd be feeling so much as a hint of nostalgia for the relative "rock-solidness" of their deterrence--but, regretfully, here we are.

Looking back on my comments, perhaps I was a bit harsh. I should've taken her reliance on an incredibly risky gamble for what it was, a message of comfort and hope. After all, what does it matter what the minimum wage is, whether women have abortion rights, whether there's democracy in the middle east etc. if all of us are going to be vaporized anyway? This is something everyone - white, black, gay straight, Jewish, Chistian, Muslim, conservative, liberal, and socialist can get behind. As Tom Lehrer once sang:

When you attend a funeral,
It is sad to think that sooner or'l
Later those you love will do the same for you.
And you may have thought it tragic,
Not to mention other adjec-
Tives, to think of all the weeping they will do.
(But don't you worry.)

No more ashes, no more sackcloth,
And an arm band made of black cloth
Will some day nevermore adorn a sleeve.
For if the bomb that drops on you
Gets your friends and neighbors too,
There'll be nobody left behind to grieve.

And we will all go together when we go.
What a comforting fact that is to know.
Universal bereavement,
An inspiring achievement,
Yes, we will all go together when we go.

We will all go together when we go.
All suffused with an incandescent glow.
No one will have the endurance
To collect on his insurance,
Lloyd's of London will be loaded when they go.

Oh we will all fry together when we fry.
We'll be french fried potatoes by and by.
There will be no more misery
When the world is our rotisserie,
Yes, we will all fry together when we fry.

Down by the old maelstrom,
There'll be a storm before the calm.

And we will all bake together when we bake.
There'll be nobody present at the wake.
With complete participation
In that grand incineration,
Nearly three billion hunks of well-done steak.

Oh we will all char together when we char.
And let there be no moaning of the bar.
Just sing out a Te Deum
When you see that I.C.B.M.,*
And the party will be come-as-you-are.

Oh, we will all burn together when we burn.
There'll be no need to stand and wait your turn.
When it's time for the fallout
And Saint Peter calls us all out,
We'll just drop our agendas and adjourn.

You will all go directly to your respective Valhallas.
Go directly, do not pass Go, do not collect two hundred dollahs.

And we will all go together when we go.
Every Hottentot and every Eskimo.
When the air becomes uranious,
We will all go simultaneous.
Yes, we all will go together
When we all go together,
Yes we all will go together when we go.

Amen to that, brother Tom.

NAK the Knife

Today is Tax Day, and for most unemployed college students, it doesn't mean anything. However, since I was employed last summer, it stood out to me in a number of ways.

Some of you may know (whether you want to or not) of a company called Vector Marketing. They're basically the front organization for the Cutco Knife Co, which (like it says) makes knives. And their selling model is this: they get young college students to go around to their friends and family and make sales demos. They guarantee a base pay of $15 per sales demo (following a rigid script), and a commission that depends on how much you've sold (it starts at 10% and goes up to 50% after you've sold $20,000 worth). With Bush's economic 'recovery' meaning that all the crappy service jobs I used to apply for are now going to middle-aged professionals, I signed up. How bad could it be?

Well, pretty bad. You become a nuisance to everyone you know, calling them up like some common telemarketer. And I'm not terrible at it; after a couple of months I'd sold $8,000 worth. And don't get me wrong; they are great knives. But not only am I not cut out to be a direct salesman, there are a few aspects of the company culture I disagree with:

- That wonderful base pay is only paid if you DON'T sell anything. It's not added to your commission.

- The attitude of the management staff. Call me a cynical teen, but nobody can be that enthusiastic and cheerful all the time without drugs. And I've never seen a serious business whose 'office' was full of trophies and blaring stupid music.

- They make a liar and an ass out of me. When you work this job, the 'flexible hours' become 24/7, because you are ALWAYS on the lookout for new customers. And that makes for an annoying person

- The constant 'team meetings' are a terrible waste of time. They're at unreasonable hours (8 AM on Saturday and 9 PM on Wednesday) and we're not a 'team'; I can do great and you can stink out loud and it won't affect anyone else. And they're basically 'pep rallies' for the sale of knives which involved heavy use of the word ‘rock’ (and variations thereof). Spare me.

- And they really do want to take over your life. After every team meeting they practically insist (though I always refuse) that everybody go and hang out. They call at least three times a day to make sure you’re busy finding people to sell to. Once, our manager said to us "Are we going to be the group that spends the summer hanging out with our friends and getting ready for college?" the answer he was waiting for was 'no'.

- The vagueness of the ad that brought me in. It just said 'summer work for students'. That was all. Not a hint of what was to come.

- When you call people to set up appointments, they recommend that you not say what you're doing. Seriously, if the potential customer asks what you're trying to sell, they (vector) recommend that you avoid the question.

- It's basically a pyramid scheme; since they don't pay you anything unless you find people willing to listen to the demo, they can hire as many people as they want and send them out to go sell, flooding the market.

- The customer base just isn't big enough for as many people as they have. After two months, of the two-dozen people who were hired at the same time as me, only two (counting myself) were left. Check out this site for someone else's experience.

So at the beginning of the school year, I quite, never intending to look back. When I would go home for various breaks, the Cutco people would still call me, but I always put them off.

Now, it turns out I’m not free yet. The bastards didn’t do withholding, meaning that I owe the government $250 for Social Security and Medicaid taxes.

First of all, it’s ridiculous not to do withholding. Why should I be given money that I can’t spend? Having it there at all is a useless temptation.

But this experience led me to believe two things: One, capitalism is hideous and soul-crushing. Two, we need to reform the tax system and raise the limit on those kinds of taxes. Why should I have to pay on my 2,000 worth of income but a millionaire only pays on the first $80,000, or whatever it is? Regressive taxes are the enemy of liberty.

Why, That’s Quite Interesting!

In September 2003, there was a story (linked above) about a cadre of scientists led by Daniel Gilbert who claim to have made a startling discovery: people don’t know what will make them happy, but since everyone thinks happiness comes from Big Things (love, money, etc.) they often end up disappointed.

In fact, says Gilbert, happiness comes from small satisfactions that stay with us longer, things that are often so subtle we barely even think about them. He explains:

When really bad things happen to us, we defend against them. 'People, of course, predict the exact opposite. If you ask, 'What would you rather have, a broken leg or a trick knee?' they'd probably say, 'Trick knee.' And yet, if your goal is to accumulate maximum happiness over your lifetime, you just made the wrong choice. A trick knee is a bad thing to have.

In other words, you’re better off with a temporary big loss – say, the loss of a loved one – than a long-lasting small one, such alienation from said loved one. Conversely, people who, say, get comfortable salaries for decades at a time are happier than those who win the lottery.

The political implications of this are obvious. There’s far greater merit in helping those at the bottom than giving more to the ones who already have so much.

Basic healthcare for everyone is better than the best healthcare for a few.

Public education for all does more good than private education for those who can afford it.

The guy who works at MacDonald’s gets a lot more joy from a $2 increase in the minimum wage than your average CEO would get from a new Ferrari.

As Gilbert says:

Windfalls are better than pratfalls, A’s are better than C’s, December 25 is better than April 15th, and everything is better than a Republican administration.

Words to live by.

Jungle Music and Classical Smut

Don Giovanni: Leporello, where are you?
Leporello: I’m here, worse luck. And you?
Don Giovanni: I’m here.
Leporello: Who’s dead; you, or the old man?
Don Giovanni: What a stupid question! The old man.
Leporello: Bravo! Two impressive feats; to rape the daughter and kill the father.
Don Giovanni: Don’t look at me, he was asking for it.
Leporello: And Donna Anna, was she asking for it too?

Zerlina:
Beat me, dear Masetto,
beat your poor Zerlina.
I'll stand here as meek as a lamb
and bear the blows you lay on me.
You can tear my hair out,
put out my eyes,
yet your dear hands
gladly I'll kiss.

- Mozart, Don Giovanni


Falstaff: Alice! Love calls you.
Alice: Sir John!
Falstaff: Come, I’m firm and fervid. We’re alone…
Alice: No, Meg followed me into the woods.
Falstaff: That doubles the game! She’ll join us!
Carve me up like venison at a banquet;
Tear me to pieces. Cupid is paying me back at last.

- Verdi, Falstaff


Scarpia:
Violent conquest pleases me more
Than soft consent.
I don’t care for sighs or the moonlight.
I can’t strum chords on a guitar,
or tell the future in flower-petals
nor make sheep’s-eyes
or hoot like a turtle-dove.
I desire. – I pursue
what I desire, I satisfy myself then throw her off...
in search of new pleasure.

- Puccini, Tosca


Cold empty bed...springs hurt my head
Feels like ole ned...wished I was dead
What did I do...to be so black and blue

Even the mouse...ran from my house
They laugh at you...and all that you do
What did I do...to be so black and blue

I’m white...inside...but, that don’t help my case
That’s life...can’t hide...what is in my face

How would it end...Ain’t got a friend
My only sin...is in my skin
What did I do...to be so black and blue

- Fats Waller


When that shark bites with his teeth, dear
Scarlet billows start to spread
Fancy gloves, though, wears MacHeath, dear
So there’s not a trace of red.

On the sidewalk Sunday morning
Lies a body oozin' life,
Someone’s sneakin' ‘round the corner
Is that someone Mack the Knife?

- Kurt Wiell, The Threepenny Opera


When your baby won't let you in
Got a few pennies, a bottle of gin
Just call your buddy on the telephone
Let's go get stoned

When you work so hard all the day long
And everything you do seems to go wrong
Just drop by my place on your way home
Let's go get stoned

It ain't no harm
You're takin just a taste
But don't blow your cool
and start messing up the place
It ain't no harm you're faking just a nip
But make sure you don't fall down bust your lip
Let's go get stoned

- Ray Charles, ‘Let’s Go Get Stoned’


Punk rockers encourage suicide, but even they don’t glorify it like Berlioz or Handel, and Leadbelly could certainly teach all these ‘gangstas’ a thing or two about getting away with murder.

So; sex, violence, rape, drugs, race, murder, sadomasochism... what is it, then, that makes modern music the scourge of parents and decent living? Is it because they use bad words? Have poor taste in clothes and jewelry? Actually say the things that used to be hidden behind catchy melodies?

I really don’t know. Someone enlighten me.

The Road to Stupid Comics

In 1944, WWII was fully underway. All around the world, governments had organized their economies to work in harmony for the war effort. This lead to such precipitous drops in poverty, crime, and unemployment that many people began to say that a planned economy might not be so terrible a thing to have around even in peacetime. In response, famed German economist and theoretician Friedrich August von Hayek published his magnum opus, The Road to Serfdom, in which he explained why government intervention in the economy - especially of the kind touted by John Maynard Keynes – would inevitably lead to fascism and totalitarian government.

people like Milton Friedman and Margeret Thatcher liked the book, but they found it had far too many ‘words’ and ‘pages’; they wanted something simpler. Finally, a new illustrated edition of The Road to Serfdom was released, explaining the natural progression from high government spending to Nazism. Some highlights:
















Well, it was better than Mallard Fillmore.