New Harper’s Mews

Centrist-to-moderate political commentary; personal thoughts; humor, ramblings and foolishness.

Writing from Destin, Florida:

According to the story from the AP, California is been suffering from a budget fight since July, when the new fiscal year was supposed to begin.  The reason:  you guessed it.  Politics.  (Read the article for details, but it boils down to raise taxes vs. cut spending.)  As a solution to extend the state’s cash reserves, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is threatening to sign an executive order that would drop wages for state employees to the Federal minimum wage of $6.55/hour, over a dollar lower than California’s own minimum wage.  (Their pay would be reimbursed retroactively once the new budget has been passed.)  Schwarzenegger wants any budget passed to include reform plans, including establishing a rainy-day fund for helping the state through emergencies — such as this.

This is a new one to me in terms of solving budget deadlocks or other problems.  I recall from my youth in Michigan that, when the state threatened to overspend, the legislature simply ordered an extension of the fiscal year by a month or two.  I don’t recall if that shortened the next fiscal year, or if they simply altered the new starting date to accommodate.  I’m told that, in the early days of the republic, when Congress came up against budget arguments, someone would go to the big gilded eagle clock over the door of the Old Senate Chamber and stop it at 11:55 pm.  They would declare time “officially” stopped until the new budget was hammered out; then the clock would be restarted after the budget was passed and presented to the President.  Other governments have simply stopped paying salaries and bills until a new budget is made — remember President Clinton and the shutdown of the government during budget arguments in the 1990s.  And, of course, there’s always the ever-popular “emergency funding bills” that allow continued spending until the budget is passed, as well as raise the debt ceiling.

Gov. Schwarzenegger’s threat would not affect as many people and services as the Federal shutdown way back when.  But it will have a sting for a time on some thousands of California state employees who have built their personal budgets or paying schemes around the pay rate they’re getting now.  Yes, they’ll receive their back pay once the new budget goes into effect; but it could be some time before that happens if one side or the other remains intractable.  For their sake, I hope this gets fixed soon.

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Peace be to you.

Technorati Tags: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Budget, California, Payroll, State employees

Forget Iraq, Afghanistan or Eastern Europe. We need Jimmy Carter right here at home!

The Great Office War - Watch more free videos

Hmmm; any chance for a U. N. or NATO peacekeeping force…?

With thanks to The Daily Illuminator at Steve Jackson Games.

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Peace be to you.

Technorati Tags: Film, Humor, Movies, Nerf, Video, Water pistols

And so we again (just a few days ago) have presidential candidates raising fears about each other’s patriotism to one degree or another. Minds me of something the eminent Mr. Samuel Langhorne Clemens had to say on the subject — just one of his many pointed commentaries on flag-waving:

We have thrown away the most valuable asset we have — the individual right to oppose both flag and country when he (just he by himself) believes them to be in the wrong. We have thrown it away; and with it all that was really respectable about that grotesque and laughable word, Patriotism.

A thought for this July 4, perhaps. Patriotism is more than just “My country, right or wrong!”;* it is the ability to criticize the actions of your country, with the best of intentions, to correct what you perceive as gross defects in what its leaders are doing at that time. You do not discard your love of country, even in time of war, by criticizing it; rather, you show your love for country by wishing to make it known what you believe is a problem.

If we surrender that right — nay, that duty — then we are far from being patriots; we are, rather, mindless drones, surrendering to the whim of the tyrant.

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* A probable misquotation of the after-dinner toast offered by Stephen Decatur in the 1810s: “Our Country! In her intercourse with foreign nations may she always be in the right; but right or wrong, our country!” Decatur was merely saluting the United States, not proclaiming a jingoistic devotion to it.

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Twain quotation from Mark Twain’s Notebook, Chapter XXXV, in Hodge, David and Stacey Freeman, eds., Political tales and truth of Mark Twain (New York: 1992, MJF Books), p. 46.

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Peace be to you.

Technorati Tags: Independence Day, July 4th, Mark Twain, Patriotism, Samuel Clemens, Samuel Langhorne Clemens

The other night, my son went to wash his hands. His sister was using the big bathroom, so he went to the little one behind my bedroom. A few minutes later, he came to me and said, “Mom, I didn’t do anything and I don’t think Cathy didn’t do anything but we can’t get the water to turn off.”

Well, I knew that we’ve had problems with that faucet: Bruce has tried his hand at repair once already, and it worked, sort of, but you have to be careful or the knob will come off in your hand. I asked Rob if he had broken it. He was very adamant – he hadn’t done it!! In fact, maybe the cats had done it! I laughed, found a pair of pliers, shut the water off, and sat on the edge of the tub and asked again what had happened. I’ll give him this, when he makes up a story, he sticks to it – He had not done anything, the water was just running, he wasn’t going to blame his sister, but he didn’t know… etc. I explained to him that I knew the faucet had been broken, that his father had already made attempts to fix it, and that I knew he was the only one in here when the problem started. I also told him that lying to Mom is a bigger problem than a busted faucet.

In the end, he confessed, and for his lying, I made him eat something he wouldn’t ordinarily eat: a small can of Beanie-Weanie.

Technorati Tags: Children, Family, Home improvement, Home repair

What I have not mentioned on this blog until now is that, a little over 2 weeks ago, I was in a car wreck with my children.  We were driving home from the city pool with a few slabs of ribs as a treat for Kitt, when another car came out of a side road way too soon — or too late, depending on how you look at it.  Any road, though I tried to swerve around her, there wasn’t a chance of pulling it off. 

Her car, of course, had only damage to the left front quarter-panel and the associated wheel.  Ours, of course — a lovely 2005 Ford Focus wagon we’d just purchased used about 2 years ago — was toastier than bread in a broiler.  The good news is that the belts and air bags did their job; otherwise, of course, I would not be here writing these words now.  I was the only one in our car that took any real damage, and that was mostly bruising from a rather large person hitting locked seat belts.  (That’s mostly gone, aside from some good hematomas around my right arm that are taking their time to fade and reabsorb.  But man, did I have some fantastic bruises for a while!)

That put us in the market for a replacement car, and Kitt went right to work on that.  She’s the more consumer-knowledge oriented when it comes to capital purchases, I’ll freely admit, and she tracked down the best possibilities, as well as did spare-time shopping on a pair of Sundays while I was at work.  We rejected the Dodge Caliber wagon right off; it did not have enough room in back, no decent takeoff from a stop/park — it felt like a driver unfamiliar with standard transmissions was hunting for first gear — and the sight lines around the windshield pillars were just wrong.  I was given a Caliber as a rental car by the other driver’s insurance company for 5 days, and I also discovered that it ate gas way too much for the driving style we have to practice in this rural area.

But Kitt had located another 2005 Focus wagon in Atlanta on the Internet, and it was owned by CarMax.  These folks are a pleasure to deal with, or at least the rep we had here in Hoover was quite good.  He didn’t know as much about the vehicles he was selling as I would like, but he was supportive, and let us drive what we wanted to try out as much as we wanted.  When we settled on the Focus — this time in Harper blue instead of silver! — CarMax shipped it to Hoover free, and we went over it well and truly.  The end of the story is that, like Paddy said when he bought the pig, it was a done deal.  And at an interest rate half of what we were paying Ford Credit for the other car as well.  Throw in a 30-day fix-it guarantee, an 18,000-mile extended warranty that we purchased for a good rate (we won’t make it to 18 months, I can promise you that [grin]), and a good experience overall, and we came away from the purchase quite pleased.

If you’re in the market for a used car, you can do much worse than try out CarMax.  Give them a shot; you might be pleasantly pleased.

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Peace be to you.

Technorati Tags: Accidents, Caliber, Car wrecks, CarMax, Dodge, Focus, Ford, Personal, Used cars

To many, the world is slightly less funny today. George Carlin has died of a heart attack, aged 71 years. (Reuters, Wikipedia)

Of course, to Carlin’s viewpoint, the world hasn’t grown any less funny than it already was…in other words, it was already in the sewer, and his death hasn’t changed that fact. Carlin’s distinctly edgy, misanthropic view of the world had us all basically on the road to hell in a handbasket of our own making, and he was inviting us to take a look at the situation. I’d like to hope that he was trying to make us realize what was happening, and maybe repent and turn things around before it’s too late; but with George, you probably never knew.

The first I remember of Carlin was in the Seventies, on The Flip Wilson Show. He was doing his skit about the master sergeant of the Indian tribe before the battle with the cavalry, dealing with a bunch of screwup “privates.”  It was funny enough as it was; but, put into the context of the Vietnam War that was not that far back in the memory of the country then, the skit was even funnier.  I probably saw him several times on television after that, but I can’t remember for sure; the next that I’m sure of would be when Cathy was very young, and we sometimes watched Shining Time Station on PBS together.

It’s very strange to contemplate:  the intensely cynical comic taking the role of a kindly, magical spirit in a children’s show.  For all his misanthropy, I’d say George Carlin cared about the world, and tried to do things to improve it — whether helping to teach kids, or making us adults see what we’re doing wrong, where we’re misdirecting the energy we should be spending on more important things.

Just four days ago, the Kennedy Center announced that they were awarding Carlin the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor, one of the most prestigious lifetime prizes for American comedians.  According to Reuters Canada and the Kennedy Center’s Web site, the award will be given posthumously in November, the first time in the 11-year history of the Prize.

• NPR’s Talk of the Nation carried a special segment today on Carlin, with Lewis Black and Margaret Cho.

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Peace be to you.

Technorati Tags: George Carlin, Humor, Kennedy Center, Mark Twain Prize, Obituaries

…or, at least, from one of Garrison Keillor’s listeners, placed in his weekly “This Week on A Prairie Home Companion” e-letter:

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Build a man a fire, and he’ll be warm for an evening.

Set a man on fire, and he’ll be warm for the rest of his life.

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Peace be to you.

Technorati Tags: A Prairie Home Companion, Garrison Keillor, Humor, Pretty Good Jokes, Radio

Writing from Atlanta, Ga.:

At these prices, these sweaters had better be serious.

Specifically, E! news reports that Bill Cosby, favorite father of the Eighties and fashion guru for his choice in outer wear during that time, will be auctioning off sweaters worn by his character, Dr. Cliff Huxtable, on The Cosby Show.  The auction begins on eBay on June 2; currently, there’s a Flash placeholder there showing the choice in mind-blowing patterns worn by the comedian.  Proceeds will benefit the foundation set up by Cosby in memory of his son Ennis.

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Peace be to you.

Because I’m trying out a new theme, that’s why. It looks good for the moment, and I can change this header graphic once I decide what I want to use instead.

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Peace be to you.

Technorati Tags: Meta

On tonight’s Countdown on MSNBC, anchor Keith Olbermann noted the remarks made earlier by Sen. Hillary Clinton in talking to the editors of the Argus Leader in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. According to the Washington Post,

Clinton, asked during a meeting with the editorial board of the Argus Leader newspaper in Sioux Falls, S.D., about continuing to run despite long odds of winning the nomination, said that while the media and [Barack] Obama’s campaign have urged her to withdraw, “historically, that makes no sense.”

“My husband did not wrap up the nomination in 1992 until he won the California primary somewhere in the middle of June, right?” she continued. “We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California.”

Her advisers quickly explained that Clinton merely intended to note that this was not the first primary campaign to stretch into the summer, not to suggest that Obama might be assassinated. Clinton later apologized to the Kennedy family while speaking to reporters, saying she did not mean to offend anyone.

Ms. Clinton’s remarks are here in this YouTube video, at approx. 1:50 on the time bar. You should watch the entire piece to get the full context.

Mr. Olbermann reported about the controversy earlier in his broadcast, but then delivered up a stinging diatribe against Ms. Clinton in a nine-minute long “special commentary” at the end of his broadcast.

You can also watch this at MSNBC (with commercial inserted). I strongly encourage you to watch this and form your own opinions; but, in essence, Mr. Olbermann took the senator to task…for referring to a historical event. Worse, she used the dread word…”assassination.”

Come on, Keith! You used to be fun to watch; now you’re just foaming at the mouth…and this time for no reason at all. This writer saw tape of the comments in question; I have also read the transcript in the Post. Insensitive? That is a reach at the best of times. Okay; considering the closeness of the anniversary of Bobby Kennedy’s assassination, and throwing in the news that Ted Kennedy has a malignant tumor, then maybe — maybe — there is a minimal question of appropriateness. But that’s a very shaky maybe at the best of times. Myself, though I am not a Clinton supporter, I am not offended in the least by the reference, and I must wonder at anyone, left or right or center, who is.

Mr. Olbermann’s remarks are rather like the Amazon River, to adapt from a book I read back in middle school: extreme, far-flung, and with excessive runoff at the mouth. It is tempting, all too tempting, to say that he did this commentary for the sake of ratings, but I don’t think that’s Olbermann’s style. He should, however, rethink his reaction to a simple word. He has taken Sen. Clinton’s comment and inflated it into something that both supposedly causes pain to the Kennedy family and seemingly threatens her opponent, Sen. Obama. The only thing, Mr. Olbermann, that we should fear here is the fear of overreaction to words used in a historical context — a fear that all too often infects this country’s political dealings today. Sen. Clinton had every right, and perhaps good reason, to use the word “assassination” as a reference to a historical event, and we should not be afraid of such, especially 40 years after the fact.

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Peace be to you.

Technorati Tags: Bobby Kennedy, Commentary, Countdown, Elections, Hillary Clinton, Keith Olbermann, MSNBC, Primary elections, South Dakota