I grew up in a relatively poor family. As a consequence of my family's economic status (or lack thereof), I spent several years living in somewhat sketchy neighborhoods. It's no secret that our society hasn't reached the age of full equality and enlightenment of which many people dream, so in those sketchy neighborhoods you were bound to find plenty of minorities. Point the finger of blame wherever you like and explain inner-city social ills however you choose, but the fact remains that the black and Hispanic folks tend to occupy the lower rungs of the ladder, generally speaking.
It would follow, then, that I have never been a stranger to the minority races. I'm not going to pull the "my black friends" routine like your local newsman does whenever a racial issue arises. The truth is that I don't have many friends in general. Of the few with whom I associate these days, none are black. (My brother-in-law isn't exactly a friend of mine, and it's not like I chose him in any case.) There's no need to embellish my bona fides here. I have conservative political views so I'm automatically a racist, or so the conventional wisdom says. No truth to the assertion, of course, but I honestly don't give a shit. I've lived my life in all kinds of places and I've known all kinds of people. I never had a problem with anyone's skin color and nobody seemed to have a problem with mine.
The topic of "black leaders" has always been an intriguing one to me though, and one that nobody ever cared to discuss. I suppose that my intrigue stems from the bizarreness of the concept that a few self-appointed big shots could speak on behalf of everyone with a given skin tone. How could that make sense to anybody? No answer. Whether they were high school or college classmates, work colleagues, friends from the neighborhood, or employees, I never encountered a black person who had a single thing to say about the Jesse Jacksons and Al Sharptons of the world. Not a peep. If I brought it up, they would change the subject or ignore it entirely. Weird.
The subject came to mind again, in a tangential way, when I caught part of a radio discussion on one of the black talk stations in Detroit recently. The topic was the FDA's rules regarding flavored cigarettes. Flavors are introduced to target children, as the story goes, so the FDA needs to ban flavored cigarettes to save the kids. Is menthol a flavor though? This is where I tuned into the discussion. As many of you are likely aware, the black smokers of the world seem to enjoy menthol more than other groups of people do.
In predictable (to me) fashion, the most boisterous participant in the discussion went straight for the racism charge. In his view, the FDA was a racist organization for trying to ban a product used primarily by black people. Another participant had a different take. In her view, the ban might be a good thing because it would encourage more black people to quit smoking and become healthier. Without missing a beat, the first guy jumped back in and claimed that the cigarette industry was racist for developing a product that got black people addicted in the first place. I'm not making this up. It was amusing and sad at the same time. Amusing to hear the rhetorical gymnastics and the shouting from this guy, in an effort to cover a complete lack of intellectual depth. Sad to hear that, no matter which side of the issue one chooses, racism clearly explains the other side.
Which brings us to the topic of today's post - leaders. I don't think for a second that the goofball on the radio in Detroit was considered a black leader, any more than I'm considered a white leader. He was just one more guy with an (adjustable) opinion. As I continued northward and lost the radio signal though, I couldn't help but wonder when Al Sharpton would show up somewhere and start making the same charges.
Then this reminded me of one of the very few conversations about this topic that I actually did have with a black guy. (Yes. My mind zigs and zags and circles back around again. What are you gonna do?) Naturally the guy was a truck driver. I probably had already written my blog post for the day at the point when I met the fella, but we were in the little lounge area at the truck stop outside Warren, Ohio. I was looking at the little TV in the corner and the guy mumbled something about his son. I wasn't sure what he said or if it was directed at me, so I responded with the customary, "Excuse me?" His son was pissing him off, he clarified.
Then the old black guy sat down (uninvited, natch) and we had a pretty lengthy chat about this, that, and the other thing. Perhaps it was because I was a stranger or perhaps it was just in his nature, but this guy was interested in talking about all kinds of stuff. I later learned that he was from the Detroit area, so maybe my Tigers hat convinced him that I was a decent guy or something. I'm not a conversationalist by nature, as you've probably learned by now, so I did more listening. I can tell plenty of jokes and I can tell plenty of stories, but I'm not very good at pretending to give a damn about what someone else has to say. I didn't have to pretend when my counterpart got to Al Sharpton though. I was genuinely interested. I already told you that I find the topic of black leaders intriguing.
In what turned out to be a disappointment to me, the guy was no fan of Sharpton. He thinks that the "reverand" is an uneducated huckster who stirs up trouble to keep himself in business. In other words - we were in total agreement on the subject. That's all well and good in its own way, but it did nothing to help me understand how people can consider guys like Sharpton to be leaders. I would have preferred to hear some sort of support for Sharpton, purely so I could understand the subject a little better. Alas, the black truck driver was an independent businessman (or O/O to use the common parlance of the industry) and his attitudes reflected as much. He didn't accept the idea that anybody speaks for him.
I saw something in my e-mail when I got back from Tennessee last night that brought all of this to mind. "Uneducated huckster" was, if not a direct quote from my aforementioned conversation, a reasonable paraphrasing of what was said. My truck driving buddy was certain that ole Al was stupid. How stupid though? Well...
I'll have to excuse Donny Deutsch for his moronic comment here, not because I'm protecting the white guy but because Donny Deutsch is a fucking moron. Everybody seems to know this. Al Sharpton, on the other hand, is the country's chief trafficker in racial grievance. If he is going back to the tried and true 'Arizona is full of raaaaaacists' meme on a TV show discussing Martin Luther King Day, then he should at least be aware that the state has recognized the holiday, in full, since 1992. Jackass.
How are leaders chosen? I guess that's what I'm really trying to ask.
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
Friday, January 14, 2011
No justice from The Man
I don't read newspapers and I don't watch television, aside from an occasional episode of Jeopardy at my parents' house or a sporting event at a local tavern. I do listen to NPR on the radio quite a lot while I'm working. That network covers a wide array of interesting topics, but it sure as hell doesn't keep anyone well-informed. At least not beyond the news that a certain segment of the population wants to hear. So, to some extent, it's understandable that I'm not knowledgeable about all things under the sun. Who could be, right? I do make an effort to know at least a little bit about as many things as possible though. And I do have internet access, allowing me to review numerous sources of content in a fairly efficient manner. And money tends to be one thing that I know a lot about.
Knowing about money used to be the way I learned a living, in fact. People paid me some of their money in exchange for my advice on what to do with the rest of their money. I worked for a couple of outfits whose names you may recognize - American Express and then MetLife. As such, I was given access to vast amounts of research and analysis to help me do my job effectively. I was pretty good at what I did and I always kept myself educated about the topics that would matter to my clients... or so I thought.
I became eligible for the Quickway 401(k) program beginning on January 1st of this year. The company matches 50% of the first 6% of my income that I choose to defer (100% vested from Day One - nice), so obviously I defer at least 6% to get my 3% pay raise. (10% to be exact, mainly because the math looks nice and neat on payday. Stupid, I know.) I save a good deal more than 10% of my income overall anyway, so whatever. I may not live to be 100, or even 80, but I'm sure as hell going to enjoy whatever years I do get after I'm done working. It won't be cheap. Lord willing, we'll get some kind of tax reform between now and then and my gambit of deferring extra taxes and keeping less in my Roth IRA will look pretty smart in the end. Or maybe the liberal age of grace and enlightenment (and high taxes, natch) is really coming and I would have been better off staying with a 6% deferral now, booking more of my taxes at today's relatively low rates.
I'm getting sidetracked though. Where was I? The Quickway 401(k) - there we go. So I enrolled in the plan and received my info from our provider - John Hancock. I received an e-mail newsletter from them today. It contained all of the typical gibberish telling people to plan ahead and whatnot. One particular bit caught my attention though. The Saver's Credit? What in the hell is that? At least I'm not the only one. Apparently this was part of Ole Dubya's initial round of tax cuts in 2001, aimed at helping folks to save more money for retirement. Then a 2006 pension reform law made the credit permanent and indexed it for inflation. I have had more education regarding financial matters than probably 97% of the population, simply as a matter of licensing requirements and so forth, not through any benevolent quest for knowledge or anything. Yet I literally had no idea that this credit existed.
Alas, a review of the details...
No soup for me. Just another case of The Man trying to keep a brother down.
Easing my concerns over any prior professional malpractice, I didn't have any clients who would have qualified either. I had one or two married couples who weren't that far over the $56,500 mark, but they were all over it. Given the fact that I'm not much of a salesman, my clients tended to be people who weren't looking for a bullshit pitch. If someone didn't make much money, my assistance would have been of marginal value. I charged higher than marginal fees, so I wouldn't bother trying to acquire such clients. There are plenty of other people out there who will provide cut-rate service at cut-rate prices. That wasn't my niche.
I do wonder what other aspects of the tax code I may have missed. It is awfully archaic after all, but that's a topic for another day. For now, any of you who fit one of the categories listed in that graphic may want to make sure that you're using IRS Form 8880 to get a little boost on part of your retirement savings. If you're not saving currently, maybe the extra cash will give you some motivation to start. The maximum savings subject to the credit is $2,000 for an individual or $4,000 for a couple. So a married couple with a modest income could get a $2,000 boost (50% of $4,000). It's your money. If you can get a little of it back, then I say good for you.
Knowing about money used to be the way I learned a living, in fact. People paid me some of their money in exchange for my advice on what to do with the rest of their money. I worked for a couple of outfits whose names you may recognize - American Express and then MetLife. As such, I was given access to vast amounts of research and analysis to help me do my job effectively. I was pretty good at what I did and I always kept myself educated about the topics that would matter to my clients... or so I thought.
I became eligible for the Quickway 401(k) program beginning on January 1st of this year. The company matches 50% of the first 6% of my income that I choose to defer (100% vested from Day One - nice), so obviously I defer at least 6% to get my 3% pay raise. (10% to be exact, mainly because the math looks nice and neat on payday. Stupid, I know.) I save a good deal more than 10% of my income overall anyway, so whatever. I may not live to be 100, or even 80, but I'm sure as hell going to enjoy whatever years I do get after I'm done working. It won't be cheap. Lord willing, we'll get some kind of tax reform between now and then and my gambit of deferring extra taxes and keeping less in my Roth IRA will look pretty smart in the end. Or maybe the liberal age of grace and enlightenment (and high taxes, natch) is really coming and I would have been better off staying with a 6% deferral now, booking more of my taxes at today's relatively low rates.
I'm getting sidetracked though. Where was I? The Quickway 401(k) - there we go. So I enrolled in the plan and received my info from our provider - John Hancock. I received an e-mail newsletter from them today. It contained all of the typical gibberish telling people to plan ahead and whatnot. One particular bit caught my attention though. The Saver's Credit? What in the hell is that? At least I'm not the only one. Apparently this was part of Ole Dubya's initial round of tax cuts in 2001, aimed at helping folks to save more money for retirement. Then a 2006 pension reform law made the credit permanent and indexed it for inflation. I have had more education regarding financial matters than probably 97% of the population, simply as a matter of licensing requirements and so forth, not through any benevolent quest for knowledge or anything. Yet I literally had no idea that this credit existed.
Alas, a review of the details...
Easing my concerns over any prior professional malpractice, I didn't have any clients who would have qualified either. I had one or two married couples who weren't that far over the $56,500 mark, but they were all over it. Given the fact that I'm not much of a salesman, my clients tended to be people who weren't looking for a bullshit pitch. If someone didn't make much money, my assistance would have been of marginal value. I charged higher than marginal fees, so I wouldn't bother trying to acquire such clients. There are plenty of other people out there who will provide cut-rate service at cut-rate prices. That wasn't my niche.
I do wonder what other aspects of the tax code I may have missed. It is awfully archaic after all, but that's a topic for another day. For now, any of you who fit one of the categories listed in that graphic may want to make sure that you're using IRS Form 8880 to get a little boost on part of your retirement savings. If you're not saving currently, maybe the extra cash will give you some motivation to start. The maximum savings subject to the credit is $2,000 for an individual or $4,000 for a couple. So a married couple with a modest income could get a $2,000 boost (50% of $4,000). It's your money. If you can get a little of it back, then I say good for you.
Friday, January 7, 2011
Coffee
Plenty of you enjoy your daily coffee, right? Personally, I find that the stuff tastes horrible. A pretty good rule of thumb for me is that, whenever I need to add a bunch of shit to make something taste better, I probably should just drink something that tastes better in the first place. I'll take a good whiskey with no Coke in it, a good beer with no lime juice in it, and a good tea with no sugar in it. That's just me though. I know how people are creatures of habit and so forth. If you feel better after a cup of that nasty stuff, then good for you.
So I was driving up to Lapeer yesterday. I caught a Tennessee run on Monday, then spent my scheduled day off (Tuesday) sleeping and driving home. In return for my assistance with the Tennessee deal, I got a wicked easy assignment for the next day - one store in Lapeer and another in Imlay City. Five hours of work for my eight-hour minimum pay, with plenty of time for a nice nap before I hit the gym at night. Beauty.
The route that I take from Livonia to Lapeer tends to be a hit-or-miss deal. I run I-96 over to Telegraph (US-24). Then I go up Telegraph to Square Lake and cut across to I-75. I-75 dumps me onto Lapeer Road (MI-24) in Auburn Hills. Lapeer Road goes all the way to Lapeer, which turns out to be convenient when Lapeer is my destination. The hit-or-miss aspect comes into play when red lights and traffic are taken into consideration. Sometimes the trip takes an hour. Sometimes it takes an hour and a half.
On yesterday's trip I caught quite a few red lights. One of them was in the middle of Lake Orion. Lake Orion is an interesting town in its own way, since it grew largely around the local GM plant. Most of the local businesses came in to serve the auto workers and their families. Then, when many of those same auto workers either lost their jobs or got reassigned to other plants, the city had to adapt. One of the adaptations - the coffee shop.
I already told you that I have no beef with people who like coffee. Whatever floats your boat, man. I do, however, have a beef with a certain class of coffee drinkers. The people who think that the trendy hipster coffee shop is the center of society - I hate them. It's not a rational hatred. These may be fine citizens, after all. It's just a visceral disgust that I feel when I see some jagoff in his little girly jeans holding a venti latte (or whatever the hell it's called) while he prances down the street admiring the smell of his own farts. I hate that fucking guy.
Yeah, I saw that guy in Lake Orion yesterday. He and I were both waiting for the light to change and allow us to proceed to our destinations. I was driving and he was walking (with his little sissy cup held unnaturally high for the world to see). I couldn't help but feel sorry for the broad who was walking with him. Again, nothing rational here. Just my own impressions. Seriously though, what is in store for that poor gal? I don't know man. I just know that too many people seem to think that the show Friends was real. It has long been obvious that I was born in the wrong decade, but shit. There's no way John Wayne would go into some metrosexual coffee shop and pay $8 for a cup of sugary bullshit. He would boil some fucking coffee beans and suck down the shitty result. And he wouldn't dress like a member of Culture Club either.
That's enough, I guess. You get the point. I actually had a decent topic in mind for one of these posts, but I seem to have forgotten what it was. A case of beer and a comfy couch will have that kind of effect on a fella. Maybe that's why the coffee douchebags come to mind tonight. I don't know. Whatever. Back to work tomorrow, so I guess it's bedtime.
So I was driving up to Lapeer yesterday. I caught a Tennessee run on Monday, then spent my scheduled day off (Tuesday) sleeping and driving home. In return for my assistance with the Tennessee deal, I got a wicked easy assignment for the next day - one store in Lapeer and another in Imlay City. Five hours of work for my eight-hour minimum pay, with plenty of time for a nice nap before I hit the gym at night. Beauty.
The route that I take from Livonia to Lapeer tends to be a hit-or-miss deal. I run I-96 over to Telegraph (US-24). Then I go up Telegraph to Square Lake and cut across to I-75. I-75 dumps me onto Lapeer Road (MI-24) in Auburn Hills. Lapeer Road goes all the way to Lapeer, which turns out to be convenient when Lapeer is my destination. The hit-or-miss aspect comes into play when red lights and traffic are taken into consideration. Sometimes the trip takes an hour. Sometimes it takes an hour and a half.
On yesterday's trip I caught quite a few red lights. One of them was in the middle of Lake Orion. Lake Orion is an interesting town in its own way, since it grew largely around the local GM plant. Most of the local businesses came in to serve the auto workers and their families. Then, when many of those same auto workers either lost their jobs or got reassigned to other plants, the city had to adapt. One of the adaptations - the coffee shop.
I already told you that I have no beef with people who like coffee. Whatever floats your boat, man. I do, however, have a beef with a certain class of coffee drinkers. The people who think that the trendy hipster coffee shop is the center of society - I hate them. It's not a rational hatred. These may be fine citizens, after all. It's just a visceral disgust that I feel when I see some jagoff in his little girly jeans holding a venti latte (or whatever the hell it's called) while he prances down the street admiring the smell of his own farts. I hate that fucking guy.
Yeah, I saw that guy in Lake Orion yesterday. He and I were both waiting for the light to change and allow us to proceed to our destinations. I was driving and he was walking (with his little sissy cup held unnaturally high for the world to see). I couldn't help but feel sorry for the broad who was walking with him. Again, nothing rational here. Just my own impressions. Seriously though, what is in store for that poor gal? I don't know man. I just know that too many people seem to think that the show Friends was real. It has long been obvious that I was born in the wrong decade, but shit. There's no way John Wayne would go into some metrosexual coffee shop and pay $8 for a cup of sugary bullshit. He would boil some fucking coffee beans and suck down the shitty result. And he wouldn't dress like a member of Culture Club either.
That's enough, I guess. You get the point. I actually had a decent topic in mind for one of these posts, but I seem to have forgotten what it was. A case of beer and a comfy couch will have that kind of effect on a fella. Maybe that's why the coffee douchebags come to mind tonight. I don't know. Whatever. Back to work tomorrow, so I guess it's bedtime.
Monday, January 3, 2011
Godfather Movie Review: 'Yogi Bear'
In the interest of consistency, I'm going to post this one. I noted in my previous review that I don't see a lot of movies at the theater and, of the ones I do see, I'm not impressed with many. But I saw this one, so here we go.
I actually went to the show last week to see Yogi Bear, but I've been relatively busy and haven't devoted a whole lot of attention to this internet business, so I'm just now getting around to catching up on things. I spent Christmas Eve at my parents' house. Dinner with the family, gifts for my sister's kids, etc. Somewhere along the way I was chatting with my little niece. Since I had Mondays off at the time and she was out of school for the following week, we decided that we would go on a movie date. When I asked her what movie she wanted to see, she said, "Jack Black." She was referring, it turns out, to Gulliver's Travels. The previews looked prettty dumb to me but she's seven years old, so what are you gonna do?
Then I got a call on Sunday as I was heading back to Livonia to drop off my trailer full of empty milk crates. "Hi Uncle Joe. My mom told me which movies are playing and I want to see Yogi Bear." Okay then, Yogi it is. I picked up my niece on Monday afternoon and we headed to Southgate to check out the flick. Notwithstanding that there's some sort of pricing scam whenever these 3D movies are involved ($9 for me and $8.50 for her at 2:15pm), I was keeping an open mind. We got our glasses, grabbed some popcorn, and found our seats.
My review is as follows - dumb. Quite frankly, I'm not even sure that this movie would be worthwhile for a seven year old. The 3D aspect was worth no more than a few sight gags. Nothing in particular comes to mind but you know what I mean. A character spits out some water and it comes flying at you or whatever. In general, the movie should have been produced only in 2D.
The story line was a predictable adaptation of basically every movie in the last twenty years. Some sort of people want to screw the little guy/the environment/minorities/the innocent/etc. and our benevolent heroes are determined to thwart the greedy bastards. In the case of this movie, the forest is the intended victim. (I don't think this should serve as any kind of spoiler, given that you already know it's a movie about a bear.) The hero stumbles several times, as the template would require. Things look bleak for a moment or two and then the hero recovers to save the day. I know that it's only supposed to be a kids' movie, but it's paint-by-numbers storytelling at its worst.
Those of us who recall our childhood days will get a laugh or two from the pickanic-basket-thieving hijinks of Yogi and Boo-Boo. This isn't an essential theme to the plot but it's what Yogi does, after all. One 'smarter than the average bear' idea ends up helping to defeat the bad guys, as you may have guessed.
The human actors were not stars, which comes as no surprise. They were not undiscovered gems either which, in hindsight, also comes as no surprise. This movie wasn't made for the discerning audience. It was a cash grab designed to get people like me to buy tickets for people like my niece. I contributed my $17.50 to the cause.
The computer animated characters interacted with the real people fairly well for the most part, although some egregious offenses to my sensibility did occur. In particular, I'm thinking of a sequence where the humans were high-fiving the bears (Yogi and Boo-Boo). It was embarrassingly fake, beyond any sequence that you would have seen in Who Framed Roger Rabbit or Mary Poppins. In the year 2010 I expected better.
If I had bumped my head or something and decided to see this movie by myself, then no level of verbal disappointment expressed here could have been adequate. I didn't decide to see it by myself though. On the way out of the theater, my niece seemed to have had a decent time. I didn't get the impression that she really liked the movie but she also didn't seem terribly disappointed. She got a kick out of some of the gags and she hasn't been conditioned, as I have, with abject cynicism toward the lazy and generic good/evil story template. For this reason alone, we'll give this movie one and a half out of five strings.
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