Wolff family tree

Many to do the work of a few

The last few days we've been hearing a lot about Gov.-elect Chrisite's plans to cut spending. The plan is to look for programs to cut and federal spending to tap. Yet I hear next to nothing about 1000 pound elephant in the room -- all the money we waste on administration. We have too much government. We have many doing the work that only a few are needed for.

New Jersey is so in love with "home rule" that any talk of consolidation is jeered down. I live within 10 miles of 6 towns municipal buildings (including donut towns). That is 6 mayors, 6 municipal clerks etc with their staffs. At least a few of the towns share schools (and we all belong to one regional high school district). That is a ton of duplicate jobs and a lot of extra salary and health benefits being paid out. Add in that more people means more people to potentially bribe (doesn't even have to be a big bribe -- perhaps the low level clerk who would have been weeded out in a bigger town accepts a gift from a contractor and unduly influences a contract) and it is easy to see where the money goes.

There is no reason all of these offices couldn't be combined into one huge office with one mayor, clerk, one school district etc. but for one -- home rule. Too many people use their offices as gifts for friends. Your high school drop out daughter can't find work? Well my friendly contributor, she can work in administration for $75k. Your Rutgers graduate can't find a job stranger? Sorry, the economy stinks for all.

The school districts would sooner cancel trips to museums then let one of their buddies go unemployed. The towns would sooner let potholes grow then let one of their buddies get laid off. The police departments would sooner stop cars for going 2 MPH over the speed limit, having snow on their plates or one of those dealer frames around the license plates than lay off an officer (happened in one of the donut towns near here).

We don't need to take money out of the classroom, we just need to get rid of our extra government overhead.

Whining

I'm tired of the GOP whining.

They keep crying how health care will be the end of America, yet they are the guys who screwed up the country. They are the ones who sunk us into the largest debt in history. They are the ones got us into two wars which they then botched. They didn’t stop al-Qaeda before 9/11 or nail bin Laden after. Millions of Americans were put out of work and hundreds of thousands of American homeowners out on the streetsthanks to their polices . They tortured prisoners of war and green lighted the torture of American POWs by the bad guys. They whined and moaned about abortion, gay marriage and morality while keeping their own mistresses, or boyfriends, on the side.

If it is a choice between a party trying to do something and a party that is trying to do nothing, and is somehow proud of that, I think I’ll take the guys who are at least trying to make things better, rather than sit around on their fat sex scandal ridden butts and whine that they lost the last election What the US really needs the Republicans to do now is get out of the way, sit down and shut up.

The government can't do anything right?

With all the fuss about the evils of government in the news lately, I thought this piece I found online was interesting:

This morning I was awoken by my radio alarm clock powered by electricity generated by the public power monopoly regulated by the U.S. Department of Energy. I heard the news without interference from another source on a frequency regulated by the FCC.

I then took a shower in the clean water provided by a municipal water utility.

After that, I turned on the TV to one of the FCC-regulated channels to see what the National Weather Service of the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration determined the weather was going to be like, using satellites designed, built, and launched by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

I watched this while eating my breakfast of U.S. Department of Agriculture-inspected food and taking the drugs which have been determined as safe by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

At the appropriate time, as regulated by the U.S. Congress and kept accurate by the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the U.S. Naval Observatory, I get into my National Highway Traffic Safety Administration-approved automobile and set out to work on the roads build by the local, state, and federal Departments of Transportation (for over 15 years I set out to work by walking on sidewalks built by local government to take a train or bus run by government to my office, or close to it, on a fairly timely basis), possibly stopping to purchase additional fuel of a quality level determined by the Environmental Protection Agency, using legal tender issued by the Federal Reserve Bank.

On the way out the door I deposit any mail I have to be sent out via the U.S. Postal Service and wait with the kids for the bus to take them to the public school.

After spending another day not being maimed or killed at work thanks to the workplace regulations imposed by the Department of Labor and the Occupational Safety and Health administration, enjoying another two meals which again do not kill me because of the USDA, I drive my NHTSA car back home on the DOT roads, to my house which has not burned down in my absence because of the state and local building codes and Fire Marshal's inspection, and which has not been plundered of all its valuables thanks to the local police department.

And then I log on to the internet -- which was developed by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Administration -- and post on forums about how SOCIALISM in medicine is BAD because the government can't do anything right.

Wishful thinking by the GOP?

Not even 9 months complete, some political handicappers consider President Obama's presidency to be such a failure that right now is not "will Republicans make gains at the midterm elections?" but "how large will those gains be?" I don't know about that. While the party in power almost always loses seats in midterm elections, a lot has to happen or not happen before next November for big changes. However, ignoring that incumbents tend to win in a very high percentage and that a number of somewhat moderate Republicans who could probably attract Obama supporters, have already announced they are not running again next year, the GOP has a bigger problem -- their leadership gap. In 1994 the GOP had Newt who, while out there, was somewhat rationale. He had a 10 point Contract for America plan and some of it made sense to Clinton supporters. Also, the purge of moderates that Reagan democrats could vote for hadn't begun yet. I don't see that with the GOP today. While there are those who do have good ideas they are being shouted out by the crazies whose main goal is just to obstruct. But even so, the GOP has other problems.

Just because they choose to highlight their celebration of ignorance and their passion for stupidity does not mean the rest of the country is going to follow that path. They point to the teabaggers as their new base but, if that is the case, why were the teabaggers not out demonstrating against the Medicare drug benefit, the Sarbanes-Oxley bill, and all the other pork-barrel spending that President Bush refused to veto -- much of which was passed when the Republicans held both houses of Congress? Are we seeing a real grass roots movement or just a bunch of Republican hacks in disbelief that they have been exiled from their seats of power?

If this movement was a majority, we would have seen rioting in the streets months ago. Instead we seem to have a few thousand hard-core individuals intent on destroying and undermining the man that a majority of Americans elected without any proposals of what they would do, aside from not doing what the President wants to try. That is not a grassroots uprising; that is a communication strategy, same as the ability of a very few people to mess it up for everybody because they can.

Instead of growing their base, they are appeasing their worst by chasing away Latinos, who Bush, in theory, was going to bring into the party as natural Catholic conservatives, at the same time their demographics continue to increase. Their embrace of the birthers who think the state of Hawaii was part of Kenya for a brief time in the early 1960s, and other crazy theories is also chasing away voters. Add in that many in what is left of the middle class may have finally come to the realization that the GOP doesn't always have their best interests in mind and it may be hard as sooner or later more will realize that they spent the Bush years working more hours for less dollars, at least until their jobs were outsourced so CEOs could enjoy the additional profits that their tax cuts failed to provide. Their only real hope is that President Obama continues to show the lackadaisical leadership lately that has helped to lead his poll numbers down. If the President stops speaking softly and starts using his big stick then that might be it.

Who do the GOP have now on the national scene? Rush Limburg? Glenn Beck? Sarah Palin? Screaming "you lie" is not leadership. Instead of grooming new leadership they have concentrated on chasing away all but the pure, who will just follow without question. The GOP's supporters may be loud but they are fewer in number then they were 16 years ago and coverage of some of their antics feels more like filler news because there is not much else interesting going on.

The GOP may gain some midterm seats, many if the healthcare war ends badly, or the auto and bank bailouts turn out to not have helped the economy and unemployment remains high. But unless they get the crazies out, like the Dems did over the last 25 years or so (with Kennedy gone are there any real liberals left?) they're going to set themselves up for a bigger disaster in 2012.

Justice, justice shalt thou pursue

Andrew Sullivan, author of the blog, The Daily Dish, among the most popular on the Web, was recently busted for smoking a joint on a federally owned beach on Cape Cod. Recently Sullivan, who is a British national, was to appear before a judge for disposition of his case. However, unlike three other defendants in front of the judge for the same crime, prosecutors chose not to pursue Sullivan's case in the interests of justice. This irked the judge who was upset that Sullivan was not standing equal in front of the law with his co-defendants (as if that never happens like, for instance, when someone with money is found not guilty of murder while a street kid, without the money to afford a good offense -- er I mean defense, is convicted despite being not guilty) but that he had no power to order prosecutors to pursue the case.

The judge's problem, and I generally agree with him that it should be either all get off or all face prosecution, is that Sullivan got special treatment. However sometimes there is a good reason why other people under similar circumstances are being prosecuted while one is being let off the hook. In this case a conviction of Sullivan could potentially lead to a deportation.Deportation for smoking a joint? Apparently the prosecutor thought that was a little draconian and in the interests of justice dropped the case.

But again, what really peeves the judge is that he can't legally do anything about this. Hogwash. There is plenty he can do. If the judge doesn't like the prosecutor's actions, he can get himself appointed federal prosecutor and prosecute. Or, if he feels that it is unfair that one man gets off while the other defendants are convicted, he can dismiss the charges against the other three in the interest of justice so all could be equal once again. He could even do something about our silly drug laws that could lead to deportation for something so trivial. Finally, the judge could get out of the law all together -- he seems like he'd be an excellent school principal who would sit on his brain and expel a first grader for bringing a butter knife or aspirin to school because the "law requires" him to do so and not to bother to consider whether the expulsion was true justice and/or it accomplished anything. What he can't do is over rule the prosecutor because he thinks that defendant should stand before him so the judge can convict him.

It is the prosecutor's role to determine what cases to pursue. It is the judge's role to rule on the facts of the case. If the prosecutor decides that in the interests of justice, whatever the reason outside a bribe or something illegal, not to pursue criminal charges, then that should be that. If the judge wants to both prosecutor and convictor, he could apply to be a principal in one of those school districts that punish children for possession of illegal drugs because they bought an aspirin into the school without appreciating the consequences because they are 12 and 12 year olds are not always known for their logical thinking patterns, without looking at the individual facts, such as this, for a legitimate reason to treat someone differently.

Prosecutors make decisions like this all the time. In this case it sounds like the prosecutor looked at the totality of the situation and realized that a conviction in a misdemeanor offense possibly leading to deportation was not in the interests of overall justice. The punishment for Sullivan could have been far greater than for you (assuming you are a legal US citizen) or me. Unlike some who like the safety of hiding behind rules so that every decision is made for them, some still have the courage to do what is right. The judge's inability to see this, that the penalty for Mr. Sullivan would potentially be far greater than that of his fellow defendants, is what has led to his complaint. I guess I shouldn't be surprised. It is a mentality like the judge's that has led us to be a country with vindictive laws where the punishment far outweighs the crime. We've become a nation afraid to use our minds to figure out the proper solution to the individual situation, instead preferring to be a martinet and hide behind firm rules and laws.

We've long had a justice system that is supposed to weigh the specifics of a case charge and make sure the punishment isn't overly oppressive for the crime. It is only recently that we've become a bunch of nipple heads afraid to do what is right. And, going back to the specifics of this case, as shown by the different penalties for crack cocaine, which is generally an urban problem, and for cocaine, which is generally a suburban problem, the war on drugs has had a double standard when it comes to prosecution for many decades.

Justice is not served by the enforcement of unjust laws. There is a long history in this country of citizens refusing to comply with unjust laws, and also of other citizens refusing to find them guilty for the violation of unjust laws. These actions are often the impetus for the work needed to change the laws in the face of an unwilling political establishment. Blindly complying with the demands of authority has little to do with the concept of justice.

The emotional illogic of yelling liar at the President

The Congressman who yelled liar at President Obama during his speech last night has already apologized but it may already be too late as donations to his opponent for Congress next year rose sharply overnight as he capitalized on raising money to run against "the man who yelled liar at Obama." However, no matter how impolite that shout was, the Congressman did raise a valid point when he yelled liar after the President noted illegal aliens will not be covered under his plan. What happens to illegal aliens if they can't get coverage?

Under EMTALA, emergency rooms must stabilize any patient that walks in the door regardless of coverage or citizenship. Does this mean illegal aliens will no longer be able to go into an ER and get care that is more expensive than it should be because they couldn’t get preventive care? If so, who will pay for their care? Us with that hidden tax mentioned that we already pay to cover the un-insured or is the plan just to let them die in the street?

I think the President mistakenly got caught up in the emotions running through this country that is anti anything good for illegal aliens. That is not looking at the big picture. If the President really wants to lower medical costs the illegal aliens must be covered. Call me a bleeding heart liberal instead of a fiscal conservative but I'd rather spend an extra $1 a month in taxes to cover their preventive care than pay an extra $10 a month in insurance premiums to pay for their emergency care.

This has been been the big problem with the health care debate. We are letting emotions get in the way of fiscal common sense. Too many concentrate on how we can not let the government be involved at all while ignoring the possibility that reform with a public option may save us money. And maybe that is what the President should focus on. Get away from the emotions of government death panels (in lieu of insurance company death panels) pulling the plug on Grandma (or worse, fat panels) and concentrate on the cool, fiscal logic of Spock.

I read an article that noted that a huge percentage of medical costs is due to doctors’ offices wrestling with the different paperwork of over a 1,000 different health care plans. Maybe in lieu of a forced public option for insurance there should be a forced public form option where all companies are forced to use the same forms. Maybe make them an automated form a little later, just fill in the different insurance company and have all their information populate the form instantly, including possible specialists etc. and move on from there.

If private insurance is so much better they should be able to compete with a public option. We already have that in our mail and package delivery system. The USPS is a perfect example of private industry doing better than the government and yet shows there is still the need for a public option. Fed Ex & UPS picked off the lucrative package business and email killed their private letter business model. Yet, while a private entity may be able to deliver 1st class mail to urban areas for 44 cents a letter they would never do that for rural areas so you still need to provide a public option for the crud no one else wants to deliver.

Meanwhile, if you're illegal, poor, and have diabetes, you'll still die a miserable death due to lack of care. However, fortunately for you, the emergency room will cut your leg off when it gets really bad, ensuring you become a dependent of the state for the rest of your days. We're still civilized enough for that at least.

A civilzed medical debate?

On Facebook today, there has been an update string stating, more or less "No one should die because they cannot afford health care, and no one should go broke because they get sick. If you agree, please post this as your status for the rest of the day." There have been a few variations such as "No one should die because drug companies need to suck up to politicians, rather than develop new drugs for the free market. No one should die because an official panel decides you're too old to be worth treating. If you agree, please post this as your status for the next 24 hours" from free-market type people or "No one should die because they cannot afford a Big Mac, and no one should go broke because they want fries with it. If you agree, please post this as your status for the rest of the day" or "No one should go dry because they cannot afford beer, and no one should go broke because they drink. If you agree, please post this as your status for the rest of the day" from people with a sense of humor, but the first post has been the main variation.

Of course, Facebook being Facebook, people are commenting on the status of those who post the first status update. However, as everyone reading and writing the comments is a friend of the status poster (or a friend of a friend) the debate has been fairly polite, even when posters are blasting each other's position. One person opinioned that no one is going to die because they cannot afford health coverage as all states already have a "welfare" system in place for those that can't afford it, and under EMTALA, emergency rooms must stabilize any patient that walks in the door regardless of coverage or citizenship. It was then pointed out that we the insured already pay for the uninsured through higher taxes to cover the uninsured and/or through higher costs we pay in insurance premiums and medical bills. If you ever get sick and look at your hospital bill and see you have been charged a small fortune for a band-aid (I wish I had my mother's last hospital bill handy) you will see we (through higher payments to our insurance companies) are already paying for the welfare for the uninsured. Another thread focused on how how some people have trouble paying whatever deductible they must pay before insurance kicks in and are forced to the emergency room for health care which is a pretty expensive way to go. Under my current plan, I go to the doctor and pay my somewhat reasonable co-pay and that is it, whether it is the first time I'm seeing him or the tenth (easy to do with kids). Now I can afford to pay the $75-100 (or whatever the cost of the office visit is) if I had to pay $X before insurance kicked in, but some can not. Those are the ones who can't afford health care. And I'm not talking about people with Dish TV, I'm talking about people who decide between heat or eat in winter.

Another person essayed "the problem is none of us (unless we're over 65) really have insurance. We are just led to believe we do. ... Let's imagine, despite exercising and eating right, you got cancer. No problem - you have insurance through your employer. Except you get too sick to continue working, and have to go on disability. You no longer have insurance through your employer and you are out on the open market. Except you have a pre-existing condition. You can get coverage, except not for what is making you sick, or you can pay astronomically for it. And remember - you are no longer able to work. What do you do next?"

Other posts were more touching. I had one uninsured friend remind me when he had to go to the hospital with a bad pain in his side a few weeks ago it cost almost $6,000 out of pocket. And of course I had my mother who had insurance (good insurance at as she was a retired teacher) and still had a medical bankruptcy at age 65. She lost her home and would have been in a nursing home a decade earlier than she went if she didn't have children who could help her out and pay for assisted living.

It's a mess all over and I'm not sure government can fix it. But what we have now is just a house of cards slowly collapsing on all of us one card at a time. I'm more of a fiscal conservative than a liberal and think the current situation is pretty lousy financially. I really don't care if an illegal immigrant, for example, gets free medical care for a dollar of my tax money if it means I don't have to pay $10 in extra insurance premiums to cover their ER visits due to EMTALA. However, while I don't trust the insurance companies to put health before profit, I don't think government is the complete answer either (I have sneaking suspicion there will be a bureaucratic nightmare when some entity tries to determine who does and does not have insurance and needs to pay a "fine"). Personally, I just want whatever is more efficient and costs less. If that is the government, then the private insurers can match. If it is the private insurers, after some streamlining and whatever else that they need to do to bring down costs and meet whatever minimal standards are set up, then they can do it. We are fortunate that we live in a time and in a country rich enough that can do this, if we want to. One thing I am pretty sure of though -- I'm not retiring to California.

Medical mess

In terms of finance, we force hundreds of thousands of Americans into bankruptcy each year because of medical bills. As my mother, who had decent health insurance, was one of the ones forced into medical bankruptcy, I am very aware of how bad the current system is. She lost her home, her savings and is now in a nursing home (where she at least gets decent health care -- her health is so poor now that she actually needs to be in a nursing home) She would have been in the nursing home years sooner if not for children paying her rent for a few years. Yet, she is one of the luckier ones. She had family to help her out. However, with our children still children, and my siblings with young families of their own, we know we may not be as fortunate if something were to happen to one of us that our insurance wouldn’t cover. Seeing my mother’s medical bills, I know that our assets (home, 401k etc) would go pretty quick. Other countries don't have this problem, yet we seem to be afraid to follow their lead. Why? Are we so worried about losing the freedom to die on the street and impoverish our loved ones or is there something else at play? Who would really lose, financially, if the public option came into play?

The health insurance companies are the problem, not the government. A real public option would open up competition and hopefully help the average American - maybe it would stop the bleeding of higher costs for small businesses forced to drop unaffordable health care plans for their employees. The government wants to increase competition, which usually in a capitalist society results in lower prices. Of course the insurance companies arefearful of this as this will cut into their profits.

Of course, part of this is the Democrat’s fault. A 500-1,000 page bill no one can wrap his arms around leads to many opportunities for those for want to keep the status quo to jump in and scare the public by filling in the blanks with made up stories about “death panels.” The real facts of reform are far too complicated for most lay people to read and understand but instead of letting the members of Congress explain or answer questions, they’ve allowed some of the most mob-like, hateful, ignorant, and self-centered people who show up to cause disruption make any civil discussion impossible. Exercising your constitutional right of free speech, right to dissent, to criticize, and to lay before the government grievances should not mean censoring the other side, but that is what seems to have happened.

Worse, they have let the Republicans come up with all sorts of claims as they try to defend the status quo in their own town halls. With a woman crying that her husband needs more care than she can provide, such as a therapist, to help her husband recover, or at least live a better life, the Republican Senator replies, to applause, that she should ask the neighbors for help because the government of the people should never be the one to help. Nothing for nothing Senator, but as nice as my neighbors are, if I had a traumatic injury like that woman's husband, I'd like to have professionally trained people, like doctors or therapists, help me out. Yeah, the neighbors would be down for watching the kids while my wife drove me to a doctor but I don't think they'd be able to perform the actual surgery.

Or, a better example, there is no way my brother, sister or I could have provided our mother with the therapy she needed after her stroke, plus the pacemaker for her heart, without going to med school first. And, if it weren't for medicare she would be dead several years now as we were sure not in the position to pay for her care out of pocket. Good thing she was 68 and not 58 when she had the stroke that ultimately put her in a nursing home.

For those who are worried about how it will be paid for: repeal the Bush tax cuts, the super wealthy have had enough breaks this century. Yes, there will be tough decisions and compromises, but reform is long overdue, unless you make $800,000 a day. The big problem is no one thinks something catastrophic will happen to their health. And when it does, it is too late. We deserve whatever health system we get.

Our clunker was only worth $50 and a six-pack

Part of my commute to work takes me past several car dealerships. The last few weeks the front of some of these dealerships have wrecked clunkers with the message "worth $4500" spray painted on them. With the cash for clunkers program ending today, that will end soon. Yet, as I see these clunkers during my drive, I think almost all of them look better than the clunker my mother used to drive in NYC.

In 1982 my mother was still driving around a rusting white 1965 Oldsmobile f85 sedan, which we had owned since 1970 when my mother's 1965 Ford Falcon got rear ended by a UPS truck on the Long Island Expressway. This car was the second family car, used primarily to drive my mother to whatever school she was teaching in and to haul us kids around Queens. It was almost always parked on the street as if my parents were embarrassed for that thing to be seen in our parking spot. Though it always felt like a bomb, by the end of it's run it was true clunker.

Unlike my dad's car, which we children couldn't even eat in, my mother's was a rolling mess full of food wrappers and discarded small toys. It had a certain mildew smell, probably due to thetrunk that was stuck closed and full of water. My mother refused to get the car washed because she was afraid the car would fall apart in a car wash. Duct tape held the rear window in and bumper stickers covered rusted holes in the body and probably improved the car's structural integrity. If you picked up the floor mats you would see the street. You knew to be careful if you had to sit in the backseat behind the driver, and not just because that door no longer opened, unless you wanted atetanus shot. Some days the car would start, other days it wouldn't. One day she went to signal a turn and her blinker fell off the steering wheel. Friends of us kids chose to walk over possibly riding in our bomb. At least the radio worked. And the air conditioning worked too, as long as you could roll down the windows (the car never had AC).

That car was a bomb by the late 1970s. However, those 1960s cars didn't go quietly into the junkyard. One day, my mother lost her brakes in the Midtown tunnel and slammed into a truck. Instead of being wrecked, the car still ran. The only body damage was a big dent in the fender. The only reason the car was in the shop for a week was because the mechanic had to wait for a new brake cylinder.

By the end, the car was slowly being stripped for parts on the street; one day the mirror was gone, another day a headlight. My parents got $50 for it when they "traded" it in for another used car. But even then the car did not go quietly to its grave. A few days before the trade in a neighbor rang our bell and asked my dad if any of us kids were in the car, partying and drinking beer. You see, the lock for the vent window had broken a while back and the car could easily be opened by popping the window and reaching in to grab the handle. My dad looked around, saw all of us and went with a bat to confront the intruders and make sure they didn't do anything that would cause us to get less than $50. As soon as the kids saw my dad approaching, they flew out of the car, even getting the door that wouldn't open to open. So, unlike today's $4500 rebate, my parents ended up with $50 and a six pack of beer for our clunker.

Gates and the law

Hopefully, the President's latest comments will put an end to the uproar over the arrest of Professor Henry Gates, a 58 year old black man, in his home. The reason for the officer arresting the professor is that, when responding to a possible breaking and entering call, Professor Gates, tired and ill from a recent overseas trip, was less then nice to the officer and insulted him. The officer decided Gates was disturbing the peace and arrested him. In a nutshell, this all happened because two men were having a really bad day and took their frustrations out on each other.

Some have been crying racism but has been ignoring the bigger question. Since when is it illegal for a man, white or black, to insult a police officer from his own home? If a police officer wants to come into my home or me to step out of my home for questioning, I am perfectly within my rights to ask him for his search or arrest warrant first. Of course, it didn't help when President Obama opened his mouth because, as the President admitted, he doesn't know all the facts and shouldn't have stepped in.

We probably won't ever know what really happened aside from an over reaction by both parties and even this blog entry may be proven pre-mature one day. My problem centers around the arrest, Even looking at it in its best light, it all sounds fishy. The officer, upon finding Professor Gates in his own home, sees an elderly man with a cane. He has a report of two armed men breaking in. He doesn't know if those men are still in the house and possibly holding a companion of Mr. Gates hostage and Gates is being hostile because he is under duress. Gates, ill and probably suffering jet lag, is being cranky. Fine. It is what happened next that is interesting and I find a problem with, not on race issues, but on constitutional issues.

I find it difficult to believe the police department doesn't have training to deal with cranky older people who don't want the police in their home without permission. One would think that a senior officer would have developed a thick enough skin by time he or she is promoted to sergeant. And I also find it difficult to believe that a police officer doesn't know about the 1st (free speech) and 4th Amendments (search warrants) to the US Constitution that let Professor Gates say whatever he pleased and to keep on saying it (or course all bets were off once Gates stepped outside his door). Once Gates presented ID proving the house was his and then confirming that he was the one who broke into his own home the emergency that would have allowed the officer to enter Gates house without a warrant due to the need for immediate action was pretty much gone, except perhaps for the officer the Professor was not saying all was well under duress. Once that was gone, the officer had no business in the Professor's house and that brings me to the second troubling issue: freedom of speech. Since when is it a crime to raise your voice in your own home to an unwelcome visitor? In my house I thought I was allowed to be as disrespectful to a visitor as much as I wanted (or as my wife will let me when a certain visitor comes over with her dog that forgets to go outside when it needs to go outside for some private time)? I would think a man's home is one place where he could definitely say what is on his mind without fear of peresecution by the government. Yet, according to the Professor, the officer who entered the Professor's home without a warrant to ultimately arrest him for yelling feels that is apparently not the case.

That said, I can also see how the Professor over reacted. I find it hard to believe that an officer who teaches officers about the evils of racial profiling and by all accounts is a good guy was really just looking to put a black man in his place. There was a report of a breaking and entering. The officer came to verify all was well which may have included an additional action beyond verifying the house was Gates's home. That is good police work, though, since things didn't go smoothly, it seems pretty clear the officer didn't do a good job in explaining that to Professor Gates (and here I am assuming that is what happened next as it seems logical). For all we know the officer, looking at an elderly man with a cane, wasn't convinced that Gates was the person whoi broke in and believed the emergency situation requiring swift action by him, including checking out the Professor's house for intruders wasn't gone? Now imagine the officer took Gates' word and there really was someone in the house. The next days headlines would have been something like racist cops don't care enough to really protect black people.

If I broke into my house, I'd hope the cops showed up too (more likely my neighbors wouldn't notice, the problem of the suburbs) and I think it would be fair for me to prove that I was the owner of the house and to prove I wasn't telling the officers all was well under duress. I somehow doubt that the officer, once he verified Professor Gates was the owner of the home and not some confused elderly person who broke into a stranger's home thinking it his own, really thought Professor Gates was a danger. But the officer could have felt it necessary to make sure all was well in Professor Gates house even if Gates didn't want him to. It is too bad for the officer that his own report doesn't show this.

An officer verifying an elderly man was in the right house and was not in danger was not a racial thing; it was a safety thing. I believe that the Professor really should have understood the officer was just doing his job, even if the Professor was tired and just wanted to go to sleep and didn't understand why the sergeant wouldn't go away. The sergeant really should also have understood that some people just want to be left alone and that is their right in their own home.

But, racism aside, how this could lead to the Professor being arrested in his own home for telling an intruder to leave is what is really baffling. Did the sergeant really forget he was in someone's home without a warrant, making a nonconsensual warrantless entry, and felt he couldn't be disrespected by a citizen no matter the cirmcumstances? I don't think being cursed at is one of those offenses so grevious that a warrantless entry for arrest is justified, but it has been many moons since I took Con Law. Did the Professor do something to the officer aside from tell him off or follow the officer outside his home and do something in public that caused the officer to really think an arrest was justified? Again, the facts are not out now and when they are it will probably be a sanitized version of all this.

However, for whatever reason, the sergeant and the Professor didn't exchange their views (making sure all is well v. go away and leave me alone) and then things got so strange that we somehow ended up with a citizen who, just moments earlier, had been minding his own business in his own home being arrested for disturbing the peace. There is sure some stupidity in there somewhere to share.

Work, work, work

Former GE CEO Jack Welch recently climbed out of his cave and told women who want a work-life balance to sew up their uterus as the only balance that matters is work-work. I agree and disagree with Mr. Welch and some of the people who were also quoted. Face time, in an age where many employees, including upper management, telecommute at least part of the time, is not what it used to be. Does it really matter if I'm answering emails at 6:30AM in my sweats at home or in my office 30 miles away? I can easily work and hour or two (depending when I get up) while waiting for the school bus before driving to work (with the added benefit of missing rush hour) and still make any meeting scheduled (and conversely I can attend late night meetings with the west coast office from my home too). The other thing is that a work-life balance is not just for mothers anymore. See, I'm not the mom, I'm the dad and I am fortunate enough to work for a company with a very flexible schedule. Our hours are flexible. We can work at home a few days a week. Some directors with small children are home based. It does help that my company has many offices and face to face meetings are rare even if all are in their particular office.

Of course I am aware that there is a trade-off for this flexibility. I am a highly skilled and educated employee and my compensation and career path are not what they could have been if I had devoted myself to moving up the ladder. I and those like me with young families have turned down promotions because they would have limited our work-life balance abilities. However, my hours are fairly regular and I rarely have to travel meaning we don't worry about child care or missing a school event (since I have the flexible hours and my wife doesn't I'm usually the one who goes to these type of events). I choose life over just work. So shoot me and members of my generation (Generation X for the record), but before you do, remember that this is only for a relatively short period of our career life and, at least for those of us who are highly skilled and talented, if an employer chooses not to place our skills sets back on the corporate ladder, there is usually somebody else who would

Real Americans

Here is another wonder American who thinks anyone who does not live in rural America and swear allegiance to Jesus, Sarah Palin and their version of conservative values is not a real American. Unbelievable. Not so much that he was able to say this on TV; this is America after all and I'm not into censorship. What I find unbelievable is that these evil people have such a following. Yes, evil.

All these "conservatives" who make their living turning one group of Americans against another should be taken out back and shot for treason. It is fine to disagree but to say someone is not a real American because they don't agree with you is a bunch of bull. These terrorists, hiding under the cloak of conservatism, who are busy dividing the country on the basis of religion, urban v. rural or education by pandering to the lowest common denominator, are our real enemy. Yet we allow them to vomit their hatred with barely a peep because "uneducated, socially conservative, gun-toting, Jesus freaks" are the real Americans and the rest of us are not (although we were apparently good enough in 2001 when two of our cities were bombed by terrorists) because we decided to better ourselves in school, have a let and let live attitude regarding homosexuality, don't feel the need to bring our guns to church and are friends with those who may have different religious views then us -- you know, that whole freedom from persecution thing.

As to Sarah Palin, I just don't understand the so called conservatives' love of this woman (not to mention their sincere embrace of Joe the plumber as a party symbol). Her experience as mayor of a small town and as governor of a state with a population smaller than many major US cities has already shown her limited abilities and leaves me with no confidence that she can be anything more than eye candy on the national scene. Is there nobody who has the same general conservative beliefs with a brain and a bit of gravitas? An Alito or Roberts type who wants to run for President? Somebody who can keep Obama and the Democrats from getting too complacent. Taking anti-intellectual (Oh no! Elitists!), anti-science stances to attract a segment of voters couldn't have sidelined all the intelligent conservatives, could it?

Feeling older

I'm a member of Generation X, meaning I'm in my early 40s. There have been recent events reminding me I'm not getting younger, such as the death of my uncle, the last survivor of my father's nuclear family, meaning, at least for that part of the family, mysiblings , cousins and myself are the elders. It is times like that where I realize I'm not a 15 year old anymore and I have to acknowledge that my youth is passing and I'm an adult. This week's events felt like that all over again.

It doesn't seem that long ago when I was driving home from my after school job, listening to one of Michael Jackson's latest hits on the radio, before crashing on the couch for a few minutes, listening to Ed McMahon laughing at Johnny Carson's monologue while I wound down so I could go to sleep in my room where the Farah Fawcett Majors poster used to be (that thing fell off the wall years before). And this week, all died.

To be honest, none of their deaths surprised me. McMahon was older and had been reported in poor health for some time. Rumors of Fawcett's impending death had also been circulating for a time. And let's face it, are any of us really surprised Jackson died at a relatively young age due to a possible perscription overdose? Additionally, unlike when older relatives and friends my own age have died, their deaths don't affect me personally. Carson's Tonight Show has been gone for almost two decades and, aside from clips when he was about to lose his home, McMahon had been out of the limelight of late. Same for Fawcett, aside from occasional appearances here and there. As to Jackson, it has been almost 20 years since any of his music appealed to me and I prefer to remember him as the entertainer of the 1980s and not this weird, sick creature he morphed into in the 1990s and 2000s. So why am I feeling a little sad today?

As a child of the late 1960s to mid 1980s, my childhood was one surrounded by cultural icons. And, for better or worse, Jackson, McMahon and Fawcett were the icons of my youth (along with Prince, The Brady Bunch, Lucille Ball, the original Star Trek crew etc), even if they had drifted in from the previous generation. Though I didn't know Robert Reed or James Doohan (though I did see him once at a Star Trek convention, funny guy) I remember being sad when I heard they had died. And though I remember being interested in the coverage of Presiden's Nixon's death, I was much more affected by President Reagan's death, though it was also somewhat expected, as I recalled his presidency and barely remembered Nixon's, aside from being confused at the time as to why the President of the United States would consider breaking into our home to steal my mother's scotch tape. Still I had never met Ronald Reagan so why should I have been affected? Probably because it simply marked the passage of time.

During Reagan's presidency, my parents were young and healthy (though I thought those old farts in their 40s and 50s to be ancient) and even most of my grandparents and their generation were still around (at least in 1981). By the time of Reagan's death, my grandparents' generation was all but gone and even many of the relatives of my parents' generation were dead or ailing, including both of my parents. With children of my own and a mother suffering one health crisis after another by then, it was as if another piece of my childhood had died. So maybe that is why now, when I am at an age I remember my father being and my children are at ages I remember being, these latest deaths just remind me that I am getting older. And that's the way it is.

Feeling Older

I'm a member of Generation X, meaning I'm in my early 40s. There have been recent events reminding me I'm not getting younger, such as the death of my uncle, the last survivor of my father's nuclear family, meaning, at least for that part of the family, my siblings, cousins and myself are the elders. It is times like that where I realize I'm not a 15 year old anymore and I have to acknowledge that my youth is passing and I'm an adult. This week's events felt like that all over again.

It doesn't seem that long ago when I was driving home from my after school job, listening to one of Michael Jackson's latest hits on the radio, before crashing on the couch for a few minutes, listening to Ed McMahon laughing at Johnny Carson's monologue while I wound down so I could go to sleep in my room where the Farah Fawcett Majors poster used to be (that thing fell off the wall years before). And this week, all died.

To be honest, none of their deaths surprised me. McMahon was older and had been reported in poor health for some time. Rumors of Fawcett's impending death had also been circulating for a time. And let's face it, are any of us really surprised Jackson died at a relatively young age due to a possible perscription overdose? Additionally, unlike when older relatives and friends my own age have died, their deaths don't affect me personally. Carson's Tonight Show has been gone for almost two decades and, aside from clips when he was about to lose his home, McMahon had been out of the limelight of late. Same for Fawcett, aside from occasional appearances here and there. As to Jackson, it has been almost 20 years since any of his music appealed to me and I prefer to remember him as the entertainer of the 1980s and not this weird, sick creature he morphed into in the 1990s and 2000s. So why am I feeling a little sad today?

As a child of the late 1960s to mid 1980s, my childhood was one surrounded by cultural icons. And, for better or worse, Jackson, McMahon and Fawcett were the icons of my youth (along with Prince, The Brady Bunch, Lucille Ball, the original Star Trek crew etc), even if they had drifted in from the previous generation. Though I didn't know Robert Reed or James Doohan (though I did see him once at a Star Trek convention, funny guy) I remember being sad when I heard they had died. And though I remember being interested in the coverage of Presiden's Nixon's death, I was much more affected by President Reagan's death, though it was also somewhat expected, as I recalled his presidency and barely remembered Nixon's, aside from being confused at the time as to why the President of the United States would consider breaking into our home to steal my mother's scotch tape. Still I had never met Ronald Reagan so why should I have been affected? Probably because it simply marked the passage of time.

During Reagan's presidency, my parents were young and healthy (though I thought those old farts in their 40s and 50s to be ancient) and even most of my grandparents and their generation were still around (at least in 1981). By the time of Reagan's death, my grandparents' generation was all but gone and even many of the relatives of my parents' generation were dead or ailing, including both of my parents. With children of my own and a mother suffering one health crisis after another by then, it was as if another piece of my childhood had died. So maybe that is why now, when I am at an age I remember my father being and my children are at ages I remember being, these latest deaths just remind me that I am getting older. And that's the way it is.

Blame Canada

We can blame our lovely weather of late on Canada, or more specifically a stubborn high pressure system over Canada. It is not so much that we've gotten a lot of rain, but that we've had a lot of cloudy, cool days with some rain. This whole spring has been nasty. I lost count of the number of little league games and practices that got rained out this year.

More recently, it has rained 18 out of the last 21 days (and I think the last week of May was cool and rainy too). In June we're usually cooking on the grill, eating outside, wearing shorts and going to the pool. This month I've cooked on the grill once, have not bothered to take the chair cushions out of the deck boxes since May, am still wearing a jacket and haven't been to the pool club in weeks.

I'm tired of being cold. Last Monday evening I mistakenly wore only a light wind breaker to my son's little league game and froze. My car has a feature where you set the internal temperature and a few days the heat has gone on instead of the AC. I guess the only bright spot is I haven't really had to use the AC in the house (it pops on now and then but not like a normal June). Bring on summer!

Thought control?

I can always tell when it is June, the weather warms up (usually), our day lilies bloom (a little late this year from all the rain) and school graduations seem to rule the day (last night our youngest had her pre-school graduation -- theceremony was mostly the children singing and eating cake, the kids gowns were their dads' white dress shirts backwards). So, of course, along with the ceremonies comes the annual article that college is a waste and our little snowflakes should enter the workforce right away so they can start contributing to increase our leaders worth.

Now the article itself, written by a college graduate of course, while making some valid points about some of the waste of college, has a whole lot of fail. The writer obviously wants to keep more surfs out of college because the uneducated are easier to control. Yes, not every job requires a college degree and there are plenty of skills that can be learned without it. And there are many people without a college degree that are able to think for themselves and learn on their own. I also agree that not every student is cut out for college and would do better to focus on where their talents lie (for example, a 4 year degree may not help a plumber, but a series of course related to his or her career in a 2 year school, such as business and writing so they have enough skills to control their fate might be better). However, the author's points missed out on many things.

The author uses two men as examples, Ernie, who went to work right out of school, and Bill who went to college. The author argues that at retirement Ernie will have more money because he will have been working longer, meaning he could invest longer, and not have the college loans to pay off that could delay Bill's investing start. However, the author glosses over many little troublesome facts.

Even during this recession, where more college grads are being laid off, high school graduates don't get promoted as fast as their college educated colleagues and usually suffer layoffs in greater numbers (For sake of argument, I'm going to exclude those not in the corporate world, such as smallbushiness people or other skilled workers). The lack of a college degree also hinders their ability to land another job for various reasons. High school graduates are typically paid lower wages, meaning they have less discretionary income to invest so Ernie may not be able to invest as the author suggested. Also, there is no law that says Bill must go away to a private school without a scholarship. Perhaps he stays at the public university and lives at the MommaPapaSister dorms and has less debt. Finally, there is more to life than money. Perhaps Bill takes a class that enriches his life in many ways that one would be hard pressed to put a dollar amount on.

I think philosophy was one of the best classes I ever took. It opened my mind to things I had not considered before and that has helped me more in life over the last 20 years then anything else I learned in college (and as to law school, it teaches you to think like a lawyer but you don't really learn to be a lawyer until you're out in the real world). That was the one college class that I think enabled me to learn how to learn. Perhaps I could have learned what I learned in that class on my own, but I suspect it would have been much later in life and not done me as much good as it did when I was 18 or 19. Though I'd be hard pressed to answer if someone asked me what business skills I learned in philosophy class (I can still remember the precise moment, when the professor was describing faith as how else can you believe someone walked on water 2,000 years ago), I feel that the ability to learn how to open my mind has paid dividends.

The college experience is simply the foundation for what a person will be. The college degree, for better or worse, has become the price of admission to the better jobs with, hopefully, evidence that your foundation is sound. And as to the sales clerk the author points to who still hasn't started college 18 months after he decided to go -- well, that clerk is still going to be 18 months older anyway by then anyway. If that clerk looks at the long term that 18 month wait is nothing. And if he or she is so eager to learn, there are plenty of online options, not to mention the good old public library, that the clerk can review to prepare for his or her formal education in the meantime.

Not everything you learn in college is for the furtherance of work. Much of the work I do now didn't even exist when I was in school and I learned the new skills as I needed to. Though my job title is the same, much of what I do today I wasn't doing even a decade ago. Sometimes there is a love of learning that is fulfilled in college that is not as easily fulfilled on your own. Perhaps you take a course that enables you to learn how history repeats yourself or heaven forbid, why the other side has a point in their argument that you never done on your own. Other times you learn something that opens your mind to new possibilities or allows you to see how you may be manipulated by those with an ulterior motive. Not all of that can be found by reading a book or searching the internet on your own.

While I agree that the current educational system that leaves graduates in heavy debt upon graduation leaves much to be desired, we live in a post-industrial world. Our greatest tool is the one in our head. Knowledge is power but, unless properly trained, may not live up to its potential. Properly focused knowledge is real power. A college degree is not worthless.

Goodbye Old Party?

An analysis by the PewResearch center shows that Americans are abandoning the GOP in droves. I disagree with that. Those people didn't abandon the GOP, the GOP abandoned them or out right kicked them out as were done to Colin Powell and Arlen Specter.

As a white middle aged professionals with a 6 figure income (both mine and my wife) tired of paying high taxes & generally conservative, my wife and I should be smack in their demographic. Yet, as we've aged, become parents and a tad more conservative, we look at them and see nothing that appeals to us. We feel we would not be welcomed because we don't pray to Jesus, have a live and let live attitude to homosexuality (it's none of the government's business), refuse to force our views on abortion on those who disagree with us, support affordable higher education and health care for all and ... gasp ... don't think every tax or government regulation is evil. 30 years ago, I probably would have been classified as a Reagan Democrat (with the exception of my live and live attitude about homosexuality). Today, for holding these views, I would probably be called a bleeding heart liberal by the "true conservatives."

When I look at what the GOP stands for, I don't see my views reflected in theirs. I have no problem with diversity. I think an educated society with a relatively healthy population that is free from worrying about the most basic needs is an overall good thing for the nation as a whole. I think some government regulation is a necessary evil, especially after recent events where the players took out innocent bystanders, but don't want the government telling me what to do when the only person harmed by my actions is me (if I choose to be an idiot and ride a motorcycle without a helmet than that should be between me, Darwin and whoever receives my organs). Much of this used to fit squarely within the GOP, but not today.

Instead the GOP is obsessed with sex and religion, particularly homosexual sex and those who don't accept Jesus as their Savior. The sex obsession, particularly their insistence that people don't have it, is kind of ironic considering the amount of conservatives caught in sex scandals. The religionobsession is the same one governments have been using for centuries. They use religion as justification to hold back free thought, free expression, sex, scientific discovery, and even potentially life saving research.

Worse, the GOP doesn't seem to have the nation's best interests in their hearts anymore as they try to make sure their friends get theirs and yours and mine as they try to return us to the boom and bust robberbaron economy of the 19 th century, ignoring all the prosperity the maturation of our capitalism brought to all because it contained a little socialism and regulation. They have forgotten what they used to stand for: fiscal responsibility and reasonable government.

Do I think there is too much government with their hands out? Yes (but then I live in NJ). Do I think government can solve all problems? No. This used to be the GOP's mantra but now it seems their mantra is to follow what the least educated want no matter if it is bad for our nation as a whole. The GOP has become the party of no and has run out of ideas. They have abandoned us.

Punish your best customers

The banks have come up with another brilliant idea to keep the money rolling in. Now that Congress is moving to limit the penalties on riskier borrowers, banks are looking to shoot themselves in the foot and are thinking of "reviving annual fees, curtailing cash-back and other rewards programs and charging interest immediately on a purchase instead of allowing a grace period of weeks," for customers who "who routinely pay off their credit card balances have been enjoying the equivalent of a free ride."

What a brilliant idea. Kill your business because you're having a temper tantrum. Give me a break. If you're going to bluff, at least make it a believable bluff. The banks make a ton of money from every little credit card purchase, something like 1 - 3% of each purchase. Even cash buyers pay for that in increased prices. They are not going to kill their golden goose by chasing away their good customers.

Do they really want consumers acting like they did in the past and, instead of using a credit card for everything, do what our parents did, and pay cash or write checks for everything with the added bonus of saying bye bye EZPass, online shopping and anything else people use credit cards for (debit card use online is not something I plan to do -- too much risk if something goes wrong)? I don't think so.

The banks and Wall St argue that their moves in bringing more money to the economy over the last few decades helped the US more then it harmed it. That includes loosening consumer credit. And while that may be true don't think they did it for charitable means. They made money hand over fist. They don't really want consumers to spend less and, through reduced consumer spending, bring the economy and their businesses down. They're just trying to scare Congress into letting them to continue to charge usury rates that should embarrass them.

The banks haven't learned their lessons and think the party should continue. They are not content to make a good living, they want to make a fabulous living. Call their bluff and tell them their interest rates on the money they've borrowed from us has just jumped and see what happens. And, if that doesn't work, raise the ante. With the increase in electronic payments credit cards are almost a default currency. Have the Treasury Department announce that they will now be distributing electronic currency cards that anybody can use in lieu of paper money, with the action the merchants give to the credit card companies going to the US Treasury instead. Maybe then the credit card companies will remove the gun they pointed to their heads and start being realistic.

There will always be a need for credit and a dollar to be made by banks. They will just have to lower their standards of what is an acceptable risk and what is a reasonable profit. And part of that will be not expecting money for their luxuries to come from extending credit and charging usary rates on high credit limits to those who can least afford it, settling instead for the hum drum small percentages they make from each merchant sale.

Will the GOP really become as relevant as the Whigs

You know times are tough for the GOP when the "liberal" NY Times feels the need to lecture them on how to defeat the Democrats. Well somebody needs to tell the GOP they better do something before they become as relevant as the Whigs. I'm over 40, married with children, white, have a family income in the 6 figures and am generally conservative -- smack in the middle of their demographic. Yet I'd be considered a flaming liberal by the party today because my views are moderate and would not find myself welcome in their tent.

Forget the negative attitude that current "leaders," such as Dick Cheney, offer in lieu of the optimistic attitudes of leaders such as Ronald Reagan. It's more then that. They seem to not want anybody who doesn't believe in no taxes, no gay marriage, no abortion, no regulations and no to schools not allowing Jesus in the classroom. Forget anything in the middle, such as a live and let live attitude on gay marriage and the necessity of some taxes and regulations to help us maintain our freedom, unless it is for weapons to bomb people we don't like to keep our military manufacturers employed. While I don't think government can solve everything, I see a place for it and sometimes think it needs to be more active then other times. Less active in the people's individual life choices, more active in keeping the country strong as a whole so I may remain free, even if it costs me a few extra dollars. For that, I feel unwelcome.

I think that some taxes are a necessary evil, as they pay for services that keep me more free. For example, paying taxes for school, welfare, police, fire etc is a lot cheaper then paying for those on my own and improve society as a whole. It benefits me if some government money is spent on stopping swine flu (or the next medical disaster) before it spreads and knocks out my employees or my children. It benefits me if my taxes educate my workforce so I don't have to (aside from basic training any new employee needs). It benefits all of us if our children can become contributing members of society, not just yes men or women to a foreign overlord because they have not been taught the skills needed for living in the 21st century. yet, according to some, raising taxes to pay down our debt and invest on potential domestic energy and manufacturing plants that may help us stay free and independent will enslave us, as if being forced to make policy decisions based on the wants of a foreign government who holds our debt will not. Personally, if I'm going to be forced to pay for something I disagree with, I'd rather it because a majority of my fellow citizens disagree with me and not because a foreign entity held a gun to my head.

Same with government regulations: I tend to think that my meat won't kill me because the government sent some regulators out and not because the free market works so well and I am incredibly pissed that a lack of government oversight let a few do so much damage to the economy that even innocent bystanders got taken down in the cross fire. I also don't think it is government's role to be involved with anything regarding the sex life of consenting adults, especially when they start enforcing their religious views on all. And I also don't like big deficits, at least when times were good. I can see a budget deficit in recession times, such as 2008 and 2009, when the government is trying to kick start the economy, but there is no reason to pile on debt when times are good and there is enough money available to pay for the government's costs (or at least come reasonably close).

There used to be Republicans (Reagan democrats) who felt as I did. A live and let live attitude for adults not bothering anyone, a pay as you go standard and a business atmosphere that allowed for savvy people to prosper without harming the economy as a whole. These days I see that on the Democratic side of the aisle (with the book still being out on pay as you go, I'll withhold judgment on that until the recession ends). The GOP is allowing a few hard cores to chase away those who could help it succeed in the 21st century. And unless we want another generation of one party rule, we will all be poorer for it.

Car free living? Not in my country

Though gas prices are down from their $4 a gallon high of last year, they have been starting to creep up lately and the idea of making neighborhoods car free or walkable is back in the news. Both articles mention that neighborhoods need to be designed to be pedestrian friendly and while I agree that design is key, but there needs to be a willingness too. The town has to do more then pay lip service, they need to want to be walkable.

We live in a development with sidewalks and near mass transit, school and the library. We also have several lovely parks a mile or so from our home. Yet we are constantly using our cars. Even though we want to walk or use transit, we find ourselves driving, especially if we have our children with us.

Walking to the stores and library from our home requires crossing a major 4 lane road with traffic lights. Though we live about 2-300 yards from the crossing as the crow flies, the sidewalks take a more circulatory path and require a 20 min walk. No biggie, but not so much fun when lugging books or groceries home. This road is about half the width of Queens Boulevard of death yet may be more dangerous as drivers, especially on the weekend, don't look for pedestrians, even those crossing in the crosswalk with a traffic light. One day, about a month after our son was born, and not too long removed from living in Brooklyn, we decided to walk to the library. When we got home there were several calls on our answering machine from my mother-in-law and one of her friends, complaining we did something no good parent should do -- cross the road in the crosswalk with the light. At the time I thought they over reacted, but after crossing that road, in the crosswalk and with a light, for the last 9 years coming home from NJ Transit and seeing drivers not paying attention, I can see their point.

One of the other things we looked for when buying our home was walkability to mass transit and thus we bought a house that gives me a less then 10 minute walk to the bus stop to NYC outside our development. What I didn't count on was the difficulty walking back from the bus stop in the evening. See the stop 10 min from our house is on that 4 lane road I mentioned above. The bus from the city stops directly across the road from the stop to the city. There isn't a crosswalk at the stop and the road is a divided road (grass median) with 55 MPH traffic, making crossing the street both dangerous and illegal. Fortunately there is a light about 200 feet up the road at the next stop. Unfortunately, there is no sidewalk along the road there making walking home from the stop challenging, especially as drivers, hoping to avoid traffic backed up for the light, drive on the shoulder where pedestrians walk. Adding sidewalks or a crosswalk (there is another development across the highway from us that haves the same problem in reverse) is laughed at, but not paying for police to ticket jaywalkers with nowhere to go. So that leaves the stop with the round about path (which is a no go for the development across the road as they don't have a way to walk there). After doing that a few times late in the evening when you're tired or cold, you either learn to pray that the drivers are paying attention when you get off at the closer stops or you add your name to the park and ride lists (well behind the telecommuting times, our town has plenty of monthly spots that stay empty but almost no daily parking for the commuters who go in only once or twice a week).

Finally, we live 2 blocks from our son's school, yet he is bused. While this may make sense in the newer parts of town, we live in an older part with a neighborhood school built right in the middle of our development of almost 1,000 homes. No matter. The children are not allowed to walk to school here anymore. They must be supervised at all times, either on the bus or organized before care in the school itself. Walking or biking to school with your friends, and then hanging out in the school yard until the bell rings is a no no.

And the parks I mentioned, well the roads that go them don't always have sidewalks along them (depends what, if anything is developed alongside) or even shoulders in some places, making walking or biking to them, especially with our children, less then desirable.

So in conclusion, while I and my neighbors live in a neighborhood with sidewalks, close to school (well grades 1-5 anyway), stores and mass transit, we have to use our cars more then we would otherwise due to the rest of those in the community not willing to live in a walking community. The feet are willing, but the community's mindset is weak.

Throwing good money after bad

Chrysler says they will not pay the US back the money we loaned to keep them alive, instead ghiving us some equity in their company. Oh joy. I didn't mind the government propping up the auto companies and banks to prevent their collapse from taking the rest of the economy with it but when will enough be enough? Sooner or later we'll need to stop throwing good money after bad and let the market take care of the weaker links like it should.

Some of it is already happening as talent and high performers have started bailing out of the bigger financial firms or banks for smaller ones. Once that is well underway, perhaps then it will be time for the plug to be pulled on those larger firms and we should let the chips fall where they may (I just hope the US is high up on the secured creditor list). The auto makers are a bit trickier as they will take many other manufacturers and small businesses if they go down too fast. Sooner or later we'll have to decide if $7B is worth the price to keep Chrysler around or to tell Chrysler we're selling our equity for whatever we can get (which, if all goes well, might be more then $7B at the end of the day).

Baseball, apple pie and a bank loan

Dennis Hamill, a columnist I generally like, wrote an interesting piece on how the average Brooklyn families are being squeezed out of going to Mets games at the new, expensive CitiField. Of course he has to take a dig at the yuppies for pricing out the old Brooklyn.So, before I offer my 2 cents on baseball, let me say this: Enough with the negative yuppie sentiments.

A lot of us "yuppies" are the children or grandchildren of the candy store owner who "tawked like dat," born and raised in Brooklyn (or surrounding boroughs and suburbs) and wanted to stay home. Sorry if going to school to make enough money to stay in the New York City area hurts your sensibilities, but that is life these days. Youshow me all the great paying blue collar jobs left in this city for the average person to go. Heck, show me all those greats across America. They don't exist, at least in numbers that they used to and, even if we weren't busy outsourcing everything overseas, those blue collar jobs wouldn't exist like they did back then due to automation. Knowledge is power and if that makes me yuppie scum, so be it.

And New York City, while always a great place, was not the best place to live in the later portion of the 20th century.I had a lot of fun growing up in the outter boroughs in the 1970s and 80s, but I don't miss the budget cuts that closed schools and libraries, let parks and subways fall apart and let police protection decrease so much that we stopped being surprised that the car was broken into or one of our bikes were stolen. And though many of us who grew up in the city during the lean days are priced out today (yes, even us yuppies), that is the price of progress. For every yuppie who pays $1M for a walkup in Park Slope, there is a long time resident weho makes out like a bandit (my mother included, who got 4x the price my parents paid 35 years earlier forour home).

That said, no way will I be taking my children to baseball games as much as my dad took my brothers and me. The cheapest tickets (those $11 tix are on weeknights, not a great time to go with small children), excluding parking (or mass transit) for our family of 4 will set us back about $100 (much more if I aimed for the mid level seats). Not a lot, but I can think of a lot more to do with that money then see a baseball game. With today's prices, my children will be lucky if I take them to one game a season. The stories my mother tells of walking over to Ebbets Field almost every afternoon after school to see the Dodgers will seem quite alien to her grand-children.

Back when I was a teen, it was not uncommon for my friends and I to run over to Shea at the spur of the moment on a Friday night to see the Mets for $5 (assuming they weren't sold out, they were pretty good then). Even with inflation making those $5 seats probably closer to $10 in today's money, the cheapest seats at Citifield are still twice that for a Fri night game. And again, forget about the better seats which we also used to buy tickets for. Some of my best baseball memories come from those games. All that started with the games my dad took us to when we were young. Sadly, I will not be doing the same, choosing instead to see minor league games. Though I am trying to raise my son as a Mets fan, the closest minor league teams belong to the Yankees and the Phillies. Ugh.