Paying Taxes.
I have filed taxes since I was seventeen. However I am tired of paying taxes for the rich. My tax money has been used to pay for filling potholes in my little town and to buy M-1 Army tanks and railroads for America. Taxes also used to build vast ribbons of Interstate highways we all use. The same highways the very rich ride over in their luxury custom built buses and Silver Cloud Rolls. They also receive benefit of flying in private jets controlled by federal aviation. The same agency I pay taxes into. Except the rich pay very little or nothing at all. So why do I and many other pay for these government agencies And the rich pay nothing. Usually scoffing at the idea of paying taxes. Often poo pooing the notion and demeaning those lowly schmucks who do pay. And the lowly schmucks meaning you and me.
So yes! I want to tax the rich! They have no exclusive right to keep all their own money just for themselves. Everybody should pay and happily so.
Now here is the dirty little secret. Where do the very rich get their money. Yes, from you and me. Through products, services and investments. It’s all our money. TAX THE RICH!!!
Fuzzy yellow baby chicks.
So do you remember those Easter egg hunts? Finding plastic eggs with little toy fuzzy yellow chickies inside? However, my personal favorite was a chocolate Easter egg.
But speaking of fuzzy chickies, back when my family lived in East Los Angeles in the early 1950’s had a back yard full of Rhode Island Reds. A red russet colored chicken. Somewhere between fifty and a hundred chickens at any given time. Never the less, my dad would go to our local feed store in East L A and when buying a fifty-pound bag of chicken feed would received 25 little fuzzy yellow baby chicks. So without the plastic egg we had our little fuzzy yellow chickies. Easter and year around. Peeping and scratching. Given to him in a wooden orange crate. Our job was to keep the peepers warm. So we covered the wood crate with an old dish towel and placed the box full of fuzzies in front of our house’s only heater. A stand alone gas heater set back into our fake fire place in the living room. The houses only heating source. You must recall this was southern California where a sixty degree night was a bit of a chill. But anyway we kept those peeping fuzzies in that wooden box in front of the gas stove for about a week. Never mind the noise and the smell.
Then when the orange crate became a bit crowded we released the chicks into the chicken yard. A middle yard between our houses grassy backyard and the garden yard. The middle yard had a chicken coop where all chickens went to roost at night and lay eggs. Plus the chickens provided fertilizer for the three large peach trees. Peach trees that bore softball size peaches. To back up, my parents had moved from Oklahoma in 1941. Moving away from a dusty red dirt farm. So, having a herd of chickens was most normal.
Then finally came a notification in the mail from the county health department instructing my dad to get rid of the chickens. Possibly creating a health hazard. My dad conjectured one of our neighbors filed a complaint. Noise and smell. Fortunately not far from our home was a poultry rendering business that sold fresh dressed fryer chickens. So away went all our chickens and left our three peach trees to survive on their own. So, no more little yellow fuzzy chicks. Happy Easter.
A woman’s voice.
I am a sexist.
When it comes to listening, to someone deliver the news with authority on the radio or TV I prefer to hear a male with a medium range resonant voice. Someone with a bit of urgency that commands the listeners attention. A guy’s voice that cuts through the background noise. Someone you could easily hear on the radio while driving in traffic. Never mind my hearing loss. A female voice just does not have the frequency range that registers in my hearing devices. Yes devices. I have a bilateral cochlear implant. My processors just do not catch the female speaking range. Especially if she tends to speak softly.
I need Walter Cronkite or Chet Huntly or Dan Rather. Katie Couric never registered. She was more of a conversationalist not a news deliverer. Paul Harvey in his prime was perfect.
It also takes a bit of flair and panache. Peter Jennings of ABC news comes to mind. Robin McNeal on the PBS news hour was another.
There is this lady on NPR who presents the news during Morning Edition. Corva Coleman is her name. She comes pretty close to being a very good newscaster. Gets right in to the news without pretense of drama. However also on Morning Edition is a woman named Leila or Leala or Lulu. Not sure. I can barely understand her she has a very soft voice and ends of sentences seem to quickly fade. Leaving one to wonder what she just said. She is probably a very nice person and news writer but not a newscaster. NPR needs to put her somewhere else.
So there! I am a sexist. I have the right to be one. To prove my point, one would never expect Lady Gaga to become a Sumo wrestler. Right? So there.
Bang or Benoodled?
Bang or Beseech?
The Big Bang theorist claim the Creationist has no proof of the creation. The Creationist says the Big Bang theory is not provable.
Neither theory had any reporters documenting the extraordinary events or photographs taken at that time. No witness? No theory. Neither ten thousand years ago nor 500-million years ago.
Radiocarbon dating is only good up to 15K years as admitted by Bangist. All the Creationists have is Dead Sea scrolls.
So who is right? And how is it proven? Neither one is proven by empirical evidence. Just by conjecture or lore.
I suggest both should shut-up and learn to get along with each other. Both camps should concentrate on what we already have and how to make it better.
Instead Bangist tries to disprove the existence of God. While Creationist says Carl Sagan never really existed. He was just a PBS prattling quack. Fade to black.
Call the bum out.
It was a really nice mild spring evening 1962. My friend Ron and I were at Dodger Stadium to watch an early season baseball game. What a beautiful ball park the Dodgers have. The outfield grass trimmed nice and even with a lush field of green. Dirt infield raked and smooth. All just right for a weekday’s major league ball game. So the home plate ump yells “Play Ball!” Then the defensive players nine took the field, the pitcher threw a few warm ups and the ball was thrown around first to first and then to second and out to the left center and right fielders. And the batter was up to bat scratching around the turf at home plate. Then schoowop. Strike one. Then shoowop again. Ball one strike one. .
Then after a few innings of play a commotion began to erupt in the stands. A teetering man in a very drunken wobble began to slowly shuffle his way down the steps of our deck level. Yelling at the top of his lungs, “Free peanuts!” The man obviously bought the entire venders tray of roasted peanuts. Including the tray with shoulder strap and was tossing willy nilly peanuts to everyone. Free Peanuts! He yelled at the top of his voice. What a sight to see. A middle age man drunken and wobbling from side to side. But uh oh, here came the stadium police. Two of them and grabbing the drunken peanut tosser and escorted him out of the stadium. But after several visits to Dodger Stadium such an occurrence was not all that abnormal. Other crazy things had happened. I often wondered how that was described by the radio play-by-play announcers. If at all. Cue the stadium organist. Take me out to the ballgame. Buy me some peanuts and crackerjacks.
No need to go to the ER.
It has never been understood by others and myself why corporations and large businesses resist in helping to establish government sponsored health care. Medicare works quite well so why not have Medicare for all? It would take away such a heavy costly burden from businesses with hundreds enough thousands of employees. Just the administration and its costs of such a benefit is worth companies getting rid of self-insuring. Companies could spend more of their capital, time, and resources doing what they do best. Providing product and services at a minimum expense.
Plus, it helps those employees wishing to move on to other jobs at other companies. No matter if the new company could provide health care or not. Health care would not be a deciding factor to accept a new job.
Government sponsored health care in the meantime could help to lower hospital and doctor expenses. Yes, doctors and hospitals should also take the hit. I have no problem taking workers hard earned monies away from doctors and big fat hospitals.
But as we know, health care insurers would rather workers pay a middle man and its shareholders a much larger annual premium. Two to three times what other industrialized countries pay for their government sponsored health care. But as we all know insurance companies like to muddy the informational waters. Providing misinformation. Confusing the employee as well as the employer. While shoveling heaps of cash into shareholders pockets.
But as we already know large corporations and large businesses just seem to mottle forward providing minimal insurance coverage to employees at a much greater cost for themselves and their workers. Invariably Passing the inflated cost on to the company’s customers.
Economist after economist have proven without a doubt it would be far less costly to offer government sponsored healthcare. Where the citizen/worker along with rich and corporations would bare most of the cost. But at a far less annual expense. Call it Medicare, Universal care, single pay, socialized medicine or whatever you wish to call it. Government sponsored health care would save the individual hundreds of dollars per month plus provide care for people normally going without health care coverage. People who typically use the ER as primary care. And at the expense of counties and states.
It seems so simple. Good economic sense almost always suggests to cut out the middle open palms of profiteers. Thus, passing along the savings to the employer as well as the employee. This is not to say private insurers couldn’t compete. Of course.
Bring it on. Let’s try it. We might like it.
Book Report.
Book Report.
Author of this memoir was born near Baltimore not far from Washington, DC. He co-authored with Bob Woodward the bestseller ‘All the President’s Men.’ This autobiography starts off with sixteen-year-old Carl Bernstein armed with the suggestion from his father, a local union leader that had encouraged Carl to apply for a reporter’s job. Young Bernstein was off to an interview with the Washington Star newspaper. Outfitted in his brand-new cream-colored corduroy suit with a new green pickle colored tie. None the less he still appeared as a freckle face kid. Presenting works to an editor he wrote for his high school paper; Bernstein was eventually and solely hired based on his 90-word per minute typing skills.
The title of the book, Chasing History: A kid in the newsroom. Memoir by Carl Bernstein bestseller 2022. An event filled timeline from high school up to his hiring by the Washington Post.
Here is the Library of Congress annotation:
“The Pulitzer Prize-winning co-author of All the President’s Men, reflects on his formative years as a teenage newspaper reporter at the Washington Star and the subsequent trajectory of his career. He discusses covering grisly crimes, political rallies, the civil rights movement, and more.”All of this in spite of not having a college degree in journalism. So, he was refused advancement by the Washington Star due to no degree. However, later Bernstein was hired on by the Washington Post and as they say, the rest was history. Read it! You just might like it.
This must be correct.
Public notice:
As you know I am not one to create confusion or controversy. Right? So with my Ernest attempt to be politically correct and gender neutral, I am requesting my grandchildren to no longer refer to me as Pops, Papa, dear grandfather, or revered grandpapa.
Instead I request them to refer to me as Old Family Curmudgeon with zipper pants and Jockey shorts. Or possibly just call me Elderly Fart. Or just grand-x with coffee breath. Thank you. I’ll let Sheba the co-occupant in this house speak for itself.
My star on the walk of fame?
My season in Hollywood.
My cousin Don lived on Cherokee Avenue in an apartment just off Hollywood Boulevard. He was a postal worker at the Hollywood branch of the Post Office. At that time, I was in high school. Some weekends I would take the bus from my home in East L A to the downtown bus station and transfer to the Hollywood bus. During one summer vacation I bussed to Hollywood and decided to see some TV shows. Using my cousin’s apartment as home base. So, one weekday morning I found the ABC television office on Vine Street and picked up some free tickets to a taping. I was really interested in seeing how they produced and videotaped a TV program. So, one set of tickets was for the old “Queen for a day.” A program where four women would emotionally describe their sad story. All in hopes that the jQFAD people would provide any number of things or services women were in desperate need for their families or themselves. But some might wonder why an eighteen-year-old boy would go to the trouble to see such a TV program live. The QFTD host was an old guy named Jack Bailey a shortish man with black swept back hair and had an interesting sense of humor and knew how to interview each Queen candidate. Each woman had about three minutes to relate her predicament and request. Hanging over the main stage was a neon lit APPLAUSE sign and flashed when applause was desired by the producer/director. There were intermittent breaks here and there where commercials would be inserted by the local TV stations when the program was aired.
But anyway, after the women were interviewed and made their tearful requests the audience would be asked to applaud for each woman as Bailey held his hand over her head. An applause meter was used to register the loudness or intensity of the applause. The woman that garnered the loudest applause was the winner or Queen for the Day. I could only conjecture that someone or someone’s did some book or phone research to see where goods or services could be found and awarded to the winner. But in addition, the winner would get a host of kitchen ware and appliances.
Then later in the early evening I had tickets for another pre-recorded TV program. My cousin came with me for this showing. It was a rehearsed drama of “Divorce Court.” Several of us were asked to come in and be part of the courtroom gallery. Others were asked to sit in bleachers behind the courtroom sound stage. We were told by a gentleman to never ever look at the camera. There was a camera trained on the gallery where we sat The older man playing the part of the divorce court judge was a gentleman often seen on the local Channel 7 KABC. After going through the drama, we were told the airing of this program would occur two days later in the afternoon. So, on that day I made a point to watch “Divorce Court.” Just to see if I could see myself. Unfortunately, I did see myself. I must confess I have a poor sense of ‘Wardrobe.’ I was wearing a brown V-neck sweater over a white crew neck T-shirt. The Okie look I often wore to school. So what image was I projecting on television? The poor brother of the husband? Or an escaped lunatic curious to see people get divorces?
All in all, it was an interesting experience. Now I know how it was done. Discovering that TV work was not for me.
Brothers Grimm! Kiss my butt.
`Story time rewrite.
The original version of the story just does not work. The rough edges need some buffing and sanding down in order to present it responsibly to your grandchildren. Kids today just could never go for guts and gore. So, sanitizing the original story is most necessary.
But all of this is dependent on today’s kids getting the story from you first. Otherwise, they will know the difference.
I had narrated a story of the three bears to my then four-year-old granddaughter and came to a spectacular ending (I thought). Giving her the all-new up-to-date version. Thinking she would surely love my version. However, she said after I finished the story, “That’s not the way it goes Papa.” Obviously having heard the story once before from another source. More likely hearing the Brothers Grimm version with its graphic descriptions of blood and guts. For example, the scene in the Little Red Riding Hood story where the wolf eats grandma and later is extricated from the wolf’s stomach with a mighty whack from the Woodsman’s razor-sharp ax. So out steps grandma as the wolf is disemboweled. Possibly dripping in stomach gook and blood. Are you following me?
My version first sets the focus on the recipe for the cookies and then how the wolf runs off with the cookies after being sat at grandma’s doorstep.
The story that is most gross is ‘Snow White.’The evil queen asks the magic mirror who is the fairest of them all and the mirror responds ‘Snow White.’ So, the evil queen in response to this bad news has her woodsman go find Snow White and extract her heart and bring to the queen. But the woodsman finds a wild pig and rips out its heart and presents to the queen instead. Etc. etc. You know the story.
But anyway, my versions are more suitable for small children and possibly for older children as well. My re-written Brothers Grimm narratives are repackaged and Presented in a glossy early Hollywood sanitized sound stage presentation. Mine is not Silence of the Lamb but more like Leave it to Beaver.
So don’t give me that’s not the way it goes Papa! I know what I’m doing. I’m editor-in-chief. So there! Ha!
Chuck the Blogger Guy 