The Onion Rules

I got your fair and balanced right here.

Happy Holidays

Each year goes faster than before,

They’re past before you know it,

So now it’s time for me to rhyme

And prove that I’m no poet.

This year began, as winters do,

With cold and lots of snow,

I’ll not complain, but ‘twere snow rain,

We’d had to learn to row.

The holidays last year did bring

A guest to share our rooms,

‘Twas Kaitlyn, Corky’s grand-daughter,

We hope she’ll be back soon.

Then dormant lay us all till May

When action came exploding

With news and schmooze and trips to Stu’s

All fun, with no foreboding.

We started off in Wilmington,

(That’s in North Carolina)

For Kaitlyn’s mother’s birthday fete,

And few trips have been finah.

Then later in that very month

We flew to Colorado,

Niece Aspen graduated there,

Amid much broo-ha-ha-do.

And in between the two I had

A story writ in print,

An honest-to-Faulkner printed book

With my words dropped right in’t.

(In case you all are wondering,

The plot line dealt with crime,

As this note has made very clear,

I’ll ne’er be paid for rhyme.)

In June I went to Chicago

To celebrate with Stu

His birthday, yes, the Big Five-O

With sightseeing and blues.

The summer’s end saw Corky back

In Flint to see old friends

With Suzie Ovick Diebolt Kna-

pinski her time did spend.

With Eric and with Aaron, too

Some hours she did share,

‘Twas fun, but they were too quick passed,

She sees them both so rare.

With fall came yet another feat,

In Rachel’s sophomore term,

Distinguished scholarship award

Her hard work thus affirmed.

As you can see from in your mail,

Beloved Spouse has been

Creating individual cards,

This poem to put within.

Unique they are, yours and the rest,

None has a perfect twin,

Hand-made and summoned with much thought

The craft she placed herein.

For all these things—and many more—

Our anniversary

Was special, even one day late,

Because we’ve learned to see

How everything must fit its place,

All undue stress be barred,

With friends and family like you,

That’s really not too hard.

We all hope you’ve enjoyed yourselves

As much as we’ve this year,

Now Rachel, Corky, and your scribe

Extend our annual cheer.

To each and every one of you

To find some small delight

For every time you rise from bed

May all your days be bright.

The Airing of Grievances

It's December 23, and Festivus is upon us again! Stop admiring your pole (hmm, that didn't come out right), digest the Feast, and build up a good head of resentment for the Feats of Strength. That's right, it's time for the Airing of Grievances.

My grievance list:

Politicians who allow others to do the heavy lifting, negotiate against themselves to accommodate the other side, then claim a momentous accomplishment. You know who you are, Fredo.

Not using the serial comma.

Selfishness without consideration of its consequences to others.

Allowing the top marginal rate to return to pre-2000 levels would not be income redistribution any more than what happened to the tax code from 1980 - 2000 was.

And, so what if it is. All taxes are income redistribution at some level, because some activities that pertain to the common good cannot, by their nature, be self-supporting.

The Designated Hitter.

The 24-hour news cycle, which has made the word "verification" as obsolete as latin.

The sun should be up before I am. Every day.

People who are belligerent about putting the "Christ" back into the pagan solstice festival they usurped back in the Middle Ages.

Glenn Beck.

Keith Olbermann.

Athletes and coaches who can't craft an intelligible English sentence who act like what they do is too complex to explain to an intelligent layman.

Using race as a way to keep the lower classes too busy distrusting each other to pay attention to the people who really are screwing them.

Ah, hell. Politicians in general.

Those of any political description who refuse to look more than one step down the road from any decision, thus allowing the entire nation to be governed by the law of Unintentional Consequences.

The Washington DC area's reaction to snow and cold weather.

Chainsaw Dan Snyder.

Now that you're convinced I'm an embittered, cynical, old bastard (note proper use of serial comma), stay tuned for tomorrow's post. You're not wrong about the Embittered, cynical, old bastard part, but we have our moments, too.

It's Not the Destination, It's the Ride

I work at home most of the time now, thanks to a new assignment. It's a mixed blessing. The commute is great, and frees up over two hours a day for my personal life. The lack of other people around can make it hard to feel connected to the job, and it's easy to forget how long you've been staring at the screen before a headache and the knots in your shoulders remind you. Those little interruptions that can be so frustrating at work serve an under-appreciated purpose.

Among the better benefits of working at home is the ability to listen to whatever music I want. As a reformed musician, I have a large and varied collection of CDs and LPs, divided about evenly between classical and jazz, with some R&B and country thrown in. I don't have as much time as I used to for listening to the classical CDs. They tend to distract me when writing--when I need to apply my right brain elsewhere--but can be helpful in passing the time when working. I decided last week to re-acquaint myself with my classical collection by listening to two or three CDs a day, skipping through the racks so I wouldn't OD on some of my more popular composers.

Beethoven's Fifth Symphony hit early on. My Music Literature teacher in college told us Beethoven 5 was often considered to be the most perfect piece of music ever written. The Ninth might be greater, but any change made to the Fifth diminished it.

I was lucky enough to get to perform Beethoven 5 twice during my musical days. It might seem corny to a non-musician, but it truly is an elevating experience, the kind of thing I experienced occasionally when playing in orchestras, and nowhere else. I found myself remembering what that was like while I listened the other day, waiting for what came next, hearing inner parts most listeners experience only as part of the texture but are clear as a bell to someone who has sat close to the instrument playing it. It was the most serene work day I have ever spent.

I spent almost twenty years--college, the Army, graduate school, and free-lance--trying to make a living as a musician. I'm not sorry for a second of it. Even if I set aside all the things I learned about life and myself, the people I met, became (and remain) friends with, the places I've gone, and experiences I've enjoyed that would never have been possible but for my musical life, it would have been worth it for that feeling.

Beethoven has been dead almost 200 years, but his music lives, and is important in people's lives. This is made possible by living musicians who have spent uncountable hours in poorly ventilated practice rooms perfecting their craft as much as their talents will allow, for the privilege of bringing such music into the present day. Most do it for little or no money, not even the hope of it. The reward of the performance is enough.

I was fortunate to enjoy such privileges for much of my adult life, and I do consider it a privilege to have been allowed to do so. I counsel young musicians against trying to make a living at it, as it can be hell on personal relationships and so few can ever make a decent living at it. Only those who reject my advice have a chance. Anyone who accepts it would have come up short sooner or later; they didn't want it badly enough.

As for me, I came up short later, rather than sooner. So it goes. I ended up in a far different place than where I set out for. Every second of that early musical detour was worth it, if only for the feeling I got when I listen to Beethoven 5 on my computer's speakers, knowing that twice in my life, for about 25 minutes each, others were able to hear it live, without any electronic intervention, in part through my participation. That's quite a legacy to be a part of.

A Brief History Lesson

European history is a drag, right? All those small countries and shifting borders and allegiances and unpronounceable names. Impossible to keep anything straight. Fear not. The Home Office, in its never-ending quest to make this a better world for me to live in, can now show you how World War I was exactly like a bar fight, courtesy of The Economist and The Sole Heir.

The Line of the Day

From Call Me Fishmeal, discussing current TSA policies:

If you hired a security guard to watch your house, and 10 years later your neighbors said, “Hey, several times now dudes have tried to steal your shit, but we came over and stopped them each time after your security guy let them through,” would you continue to employ him? Especially if every time you tried to enter your house, he grabbed your nuts and took naked pictures of your wife?

Parts of the post are a little unfair to TSA, but the general tone is apt, and that quote was dead on.

Thanks to the Search Engine Correspondent for pointing this out.

Who Pays?

Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles have made their initial recommendations on how to cut the deficit. The legislation that comes of this, if any, will look very much different, but what they presented may serve as a blueprint, especially for those areas where there is not a hard and fast constituency.

The way it looks now, I'll take a beating. They recommend eliminating the home mortgage interest deduction, and my employer-provided health benefits--which my employer has reduced each of the past few years--will become taxable. I don't like it, but I can live with it. This country rode the gravy train for too long, and even though i wasn't one of those who overextended himself and defaulted on a credit card or mortgage, I understand everyone will have to pitch in.

Just so long as everyone does.

I don't mind if my tax obligation increases twice as much as someone who makes half as much. Hell, I don't mind if it increases more than twice as much if that guy's still raising small children, with the million expenses kids accrue. I just want to make sure the guys who make twice what I make--or ten times, or a hundred times--get nicked, too.

Conservatives complain about the "redistribution of wealth" every time a new tax is proposed. What has been done since 1980 with every tax cut? Those, too, have been redistributions of wealth, though in the other direction, taking money away from those who didn't have as much and giving it to those who already had more.

I'll pay my extra share willingly, so long as those above me on the income ladder pay theirs. If not, then I'm going to get belligerent about this. Enough's enough.

How We Got Here

As usual, The Onion nailed it. The greatest strength of a democracy such as ours is the potential to have the government we want. The greatest weakness is that we get the government we deserve.

Let’s leave aside how many people do or don’t vote. Voter levels aren’t really the problem. I’ll all for making it a little harder to register to vote in the first place, as someone too lazy to do even that probably isn’t going to extend himself when it comes time to have his say. Too many sheeple (as the Beloved Spouse calls them) on both sides of the aisle do this.

Disagree? That’s your right, but I dis-disagree back atcha. Consider health care reform, probably the most controversial law passed by the current Congress. The people are about evenly divided. About 47-48% are for it, and 47-48% are against it. (The other 5-6% don’t understand the question.) Here’s where it gets complicated. Individual components of the law are overwhelmingly popular, ebven with those who want to get rid of it.

Should your insurance provider be allowed to drop you because you actually got sick? No one wants that. How about doing away with lifetime caps? People like that, too. Allowing children to remain covered under their parents’ policies up to age 26 if the kids’ employers don’t pick them up? Sounds good to most folks. How about lowering health care costs by standardizing forms and lowering administrative overhead? No one complaining about that.

No one thinks kids should be denied coverage due to a pre-existing condition. People who are trying to eat healthier want to be able to see the nutritional information on what they’re considering at a restaurant. Despite overwhelming approval of these (and other) aspects of the law, the polling numbers show many of the people who like these things still want to repeal the law that provides them.

There are people today who are paying for, or reluctantly doing without, end-of-life planning, who know it’s a good thing, and yet screamed foul words at their congressman two summers ago because of the “death panels.” These folks didn’t realize the death panels they were so upset about were the same end-of-life care and advice they’re so worried about now. All they knew was that attention whore Sarah Palin told them these were bad. I don’t know what to say about those who became hysterical over the idea of the government running Medicare; Medicare is, and has always been, a government program, and, as the level of vitriol indicated, a highly popular one.

People argue there will be fraud. Of course there will; it can’t be helped. There has never been a large program, in either the public or the private sector, that didn’t have fraud. There’s Social Security fraud, and we know well how people feel about shutting down that government program. (Socialist government program, no less.) The trick is to weed it out as well as we can, while understanding you can’t eliminate it. No one is served if 99 people are hurt just so one guy can’t get over.

American voters aren’t bad people. They are short-sighted and gullible. Looking two steps down the road seems to be beyond most of them. They see Problem A and Glenn Beck proposes Solution B, and no one cares that it will not only not eradicate the problem it was intended to solve, but will also create Condition C, which is almost as bad as A, but just not to me personally.

Think, people. Others can advise you, but only you can do the actual thinking. And it’s way past time we got busy about it.

Truer Words Never Were Writ

I'll have more to say on this later, but it seems appropriate to point to The Onion for the 500th post here. Thanks to both of you for reading.

Election Post Mortem

The election is finally over. Wow, that sure was fun.

The Democrats, always suspect for their political acumen, passed three pieces of legislation more important than anything since the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts, and still got their asses handed to them by the Republicans, whose entire platform was, “If they want it, we’re agin it.” Senate Minority Leader (And I use the word “leader” with trepidation, due to my respect for the English language) Mitch McConnell has publicly stated the Republicans’ sole policy goal is to get Barack Obama out of office. (More on McConnell later.) These were the cornerstones of an historic election reversal of fortune.

The Democrats’ errors were legion. Their presumed leader, the President, invested exactly none of the political capital he’d earned from the 2008 election. The stimulus? Enough (barely) to keep the ox from falling completely into the ditch, but not enough to turn things around. This was no secret, yet he acceded to the advice of political gurus like Rahm Emanuel, who told him a stimulus that was 2/3 of what had been recommended was all he could get votes for. It probably was. That’s not the point. Negotiating against yourself is always a bad idea. Obama should have come out asking for the $1.2 trillion, rolled it back as necessary to get passage (which might still have been more than he got), and showed the Republicans to be the obstructionists they were, wholly unconcerned with the fact that people were suffering. He then compounded the error by saying this was the package he’d always wanted—presumably so he wouldn’t appear to be weak for rolling over too easily—which made it impossible to go back for more when it proved to be inadequate.

He let Max Baucus and Harry Reid do all the heavy lifting on health care, then came in at the last minute to push it over the top, acting like this was the bill he’d wanted all along. Baucus got rolled by his alleged friend Chuck Grassley while Obama stood idly by, refusing to draw any lines. Again, the only interpretation that makes sense is that he didn’t want to appear weak by losing a battle. Instead, he proved he was weak, by exercising no leadership.

Political capital works much the same as financial capital: it has to be put to work to be worth anything. Obama’s unwillingness to invest any of his is akin to putting your life savings in a mattress. Sure, it looks like the same amount of money, but as inflation eats into it the real value grows smaller all the time. Obama became president in a time of spiraling political inflation; his mattress stash is about worthless. His efforts before the election to spin this into a failure of the voters, knowing he had so alienated his base they wouldn’t support him like they had two years ago, bankrupted him.

I said I’d get back to Mitch McConnell. He wins the Hypocrite of the Week award, no mean feat in an election week. On Wednesday, Mitch pointed to the election results and said his job now was to enforce the will of the American people, as expressed at the polls on Tuesday. His interpretation of this will matches exactly with what he has wanted to do since he got the job. (I’m sure this is entirely coincidental.) Funny, two years ago Mitch and his Republicans were on the other end of a not dissimilar butt whipping, and he had no such regard for the expressed wishes of his beloved American people.

More on those astute Americans later.

Another Milestone

The Sole Heir™ voted today for the first time. Texted me right after, and she was jazzed. I voted during my lunch break, more out of a sense of duty than enthusiasm. Until I got to the polling place, that is, when I got the same feeling as I have for the last 34 years. It’s just a cool thing, knowing the direction and future of a great nation—and, yes, I do think it’s great, no matter what I bitch about here—is determined wholly by tens of millions of individual decisions, all made in the privacy of a voting booth.

You don’t think so? You think money and big companies run the show? Sure they do, because we allow it. No matter how much money is available, or how distasteful the ads are, no one gets to be a senator, congressman, governor, president, alderman, councilman, delegate, whatever, unless more people vote for him—one at a time—than vote for the opponent.

It’s humbling to think about. I always feel great when I leave the polling place, no matter how I felt about the current situation or the voting choices I had. If you’re reading this on Election Day and haven’t voted yet, get your ass out there. You’ll be glad.

Yes, We're Pussies

Weather.com has posted a severe weather alert for my area. We’re in danger of frost until 9:00 AM. That’s right, frost. Pretty soon they’ll start naming dew.

Maz

Most people can tell you their first identifiable memory, distinct from the amorphous images that preceded it. They can tell what they did, or where they were, or what stood out. I’m lucky; I can place it distinctly in time.

Thursday, October 13, 1960. My father was driving my infant brother and me up Garver’s Ferry Hill toward the house my parents had bought just a week or so earlier. (They still live there.) At 3:35 PM Eastern time, Jim Woods announced as Bill Mazeroski hit a one ball, no strike pitch over the left field wall at Forbes Field to win the World Series. Fifty years ago today.

I had some help with the time. On the wall of The Home Office hangs a photograph taken from near the Pirates’ dugout. Mazeroski is in his follow-through, the ball is in the air, and Yogi Berra is turning to give chase to a ball he’ll never catch. The big Longines scoreboard clock is dead center.

It was announced last month that a full kinescope of the game was found in Bing Crosby’s basement, the only known video recording. MLB will broadcast it (announcers Bob Prince and Mel Allen) and make it available for sale to the public. All I’ve ever seen of one of the greatest games ever played (the final score of the back-and-forth game was 10-9) is the movie newsreels, part of which may well be stock crowd footage. Soon I’ll be able to watch it, and remember, whenever I want.

Sweet.

Fair and Balanced

Lest you think I'm a lefty all the time, here's the most compelling evidence I've seen yet to Vote Republican!!

Danger is Where You Find It

This is not from the Onion.

Thanks to J.D. Rhoades for bringing this to our attention.

Not Balls, Chutzpah

So the real problem here is that Democratic voters aren’t loyal enough? This from the guy who let the stimulus, health care, and financial regulation bills get watered down because he was too concerned about offending any Republicans to get out in front on anything until the last minute?

Where was this scolding tone when Harry Reid postponed the debate and vote on extending the Bush tax cuts until after the November election? Where has he been on Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell or any number of things that would have rallied his supporters and could probably have been done with a mere stroke of a pen?

He says he’s met about 70% of his campaign promises, as though all campaign promises are created equal. How many were watered down, just so he could check the box? Does the Executive Order to prohibit texting while driving count the same as not doing anything about climate change?

Democrats have been accused in the past of taking their core constituency for granted, taking the attitude, “Who else are you going to vote for?” Well, in my case, not this arrogant prick. He’s already talked me into voting for only local candidates in November, and I’ll sign on for any primary challenger in 2012.

Not Enough Balls Among Them To Shoot Pool

I should have known Harry Reid couldn't keep it up.

Republicans have handed Democrats what could be a key to maintaining control of the Senate and House in the upcoming election: their steadfast support for keeping all of the Bush tax cuts in effect, including those for people making over $250,000. Imagine the sound bites to be obtained by forcing these guys to give floor speeches to support this porition just a few weeks before the election, especially since many of those same Republicans are willing to let the cuts expire for the poorest American if they can't get their way.

All it would have taken was for Reid and the Senate leadership to stand up and call their bluff. As the title of this post implies, that was its downfall; Reid has postponed debate and the vote until after the election, which shows he's as stupid as he is cowardly.

The upcoming voting includes three elections to fill Senate seats that are currently interim positions. By law, whoever wins these elections on November 2 must be seated immediately, which could well cost Democrats three seats they may desperately need for the lame duck session.

Now watch these chickenshit bastards whine about voter turnout if they lose in November.

Two Gifts

I got a phone call out of the blue from The Sole Heir last week. These are not unusual occurrences; she’s good about making The Old Man™ feel like he’s still at the party with random calls and appearances.

This particular call was prompted by her having to walk through the practice room wing of the music building to get to a professor’s office. Every room filled, different music in different keys on different instruments all filtering into the hall as she walked by; Charles Ives’s idea of heaven.

Her response? Call The Old Man™ to tell him what she’d done, and that it occurred to her, “This is what it must have been like for Dad every day.”

That’s Gift One; to have the thought and take the time. Not too many nineteen-year-olds would do either. Made my day.

Gift two? She got me to thinking about it, how it felt for that to be an everyday occurrence. How it was the most energized time of my life, waking up knowing I was going to learn things I didn’t even suspect at the time, and that everything I learned would make me aware of fifteen other things I needed to know and had better find out. It was intimidating and exhilarating at the same time, the intimidation overcome by the exhilaration and the mindless confidence of youth.

Then I got to thinking of how much better my life has been because I made one decision: to change majors from Medical Technology to Music Education. I would have made a nice living in Med Tech, and enjoyed it. Music allowed a working class boy from more or less rural Pennsylvania to be exposed to a lot of things he had no business expecting, contrasting life experiences a lot of people don’t get.

I’ve played with the Pittsburgh Symphony Chamber Orchestra and German beer bands. Played in Heinz Hall and Meyerhoff Hall and a corrugated metal building that housed a private school built so white kids wouldn’t have to school with Nigras. I’ve played the Fourth of July at Stone Mountain in front of 250,000 people and dedicated a tree. Attended receptions in homes worth several million dollars and eaten homemade Brunswick Stew off a paper plate while sitting under a tree. Played football games in sub-freezing temperatures and parades where I wrung the sweat out of my jacket afterward. Performed next to players now working in major orchestras and high school students now working at Popeye’s.

A lot of extremes I would not have had a chance to experience otherwise. The downside is that I rarely feel fully at home in most places. My blue collar upbringing meant I was never truly comfortable in the chi-chi settings, but my education and experience made it hard to listen to some of the conversations taking place in the American Legion when I went home. It forced me to think about things I likely would not have thought about, and to examine positions in a more detailed manner. It taught me the power of self-discipline and perseverance, and how to pick my battles and to know when to quit. Made me a better father than I would have been, and a better son than I had been.

What it didn’t make me was enough money to live on, so I moved on. No shame in that, and no time wasted. Learning to live a more fully examined life is never a waste of time, and it was nice to be reminded of that.

Thanks, Bink.

Rules of Engagement

I just finished reading Lone Survivor, The Eyewitness Account of Operation Redwing and The Lost Heroes of SEAL Team 10, by Marcus Luttrell with Patrick Robinson. Luttrell earned the Navy Cross for his efforts in what was envisioned as a relatively risky—but not impossible—mission that turned into a cluster fuck of immense proportions, resulting in the deaths of not only Luttrell's three teammates, but their entire rescue team when the Taliban shot down their helicopter. ("Cluster fuck" is not meant as a pejorative; the best plans can fall apart due to an inopportune breeze.)

Despite Luttrell's repeated liberal bashing, this lefty finds it hard to believe anyone could fail to find the story of SEAL Team 10 unmoving. While Robinson is inclined toward purple prose in places (notably when describing Taliban, the "liberal media," or other "lefties"), the battle sequences are told in a straightforward way that makes them even more effective. The duty and honor displayed by everyone involved is humbling; all three NCOs won the Navy Cross, and their leader later was awarded the Medal of Honor. (It says something about the esprit de corps of SEALs that when displaying their awards, the Medal of Honor falls below their SEAL insignia.) Luttrell doesn't appear to have much regard for those who agree with me politically, but my respect for his courage, loyalty, and endurance is unbounded.

What he lacks is a sense of irony. The limiting effects of the Rules of Engagement is a constant thread throughout the book. His team had a chance encounter with three Afghan goatherds as they were settling into position on their mission. There was debate about whether to kill the supposed civilians to keep them from talking to the Taliban. They were allowed to live and sent on their way—according to Luttrell—so the SEALs wouldn't have worry about what the media would say if it ever rolled back on them. To him, there was no question the military situation called for their deaths.

Of course, the goatherds did tell the Taliban, and operation Redwing was a catastrophe from that point forward. Luttrell bitterly blames this on liberal politicians who set the ROEs. Let's think about that for a minute. The events in Lone Survivor took place in 2005. Rules of Engagement are presumably set by the Department of Defense, in coordination with the State Department, and, presumably, the White House. That would have made the three principal players Donald Rumsfeld, Condaleeza Rice, and George W. Bush. The Bush Administration was not well-known with suffering a lot of input from liberals. The Rules of Engagement were, for better or worse, Bush's responsibility.

But are the ROEs essentially wrong? Luttrell understandably sees them as responsible for the deaths of his team and their initial rescue force. He advocates turning the SEALS loose, and trusting them to make the right decisions. That would have sufficed in World War II, where the ROEs were, essentially, "engage and destroy the enemy." The Afghan War is more of a "hearts and minds" affair. Every civilian killed might spawn two more terrorists, who might—might—eventually kill more people than were lost in Redwing. It's impossible to say, but not unreasonable to assume that earning trust among the locals will be made considerably more difficult if they think you'll kill them if they become inconvenient.

The irony comes in because Luttrell actively undermines his own position. The Pashtun village that sheltered and cared for him for several days took him in under their custom of lokhay, which requires a village to defend to the death anyone given sanctuary. The elders placed their entire village under threat of death from the Taliban to protect Luttrell, not because he was an American, but because it was what they do. (Many in the village found themselves in this position in spite of the fact he was an American.)

The Taliban did not eliminate the town to take Luttrell, though he would have been quite a prize. As the author himself says, they couldn't afford to wipe out the whole village, as it would have denied them the support of other villages for miles around, support the Taliban could not do without. In essence, the Taliban's own Rules of Engagement were largely responsible for Luttrell's eventual rescue, as they could have taken him well before the Rangers got to him.

Make no mistake; I am not in any way equating the Taliban with our military. I am merely pointing out what Luttrell, and many conservatives, fails to grasp: winning a war is not just winning all the battles. It means creating a sustainable peace. In this case—to paraphrase Casey Stengle—it means keeping the 60% of the population who are on the fence from joining the 20% who will hate you no matter what. I mourn—as should we all—SEAL Team 10, and those who died trying to rescue them. We can ever repay that debt. The best we can do is to try to pay it forward, to ensure valor and sacrifice such as theirs is requested only when absolutely necessary.

From the Archives

The idea of being an opinionated asshole didn't just jump into my head when I learned about blogs. I'd been doing pretty much the same thing via email to a select of people who used to be my friends for several years. A Facebook comment from a friend brought the following to mind, from July of 2003, titled "Location, Location, Location."

There has been a certain amount of culture shock since The Home Office relocated to the People's Republic of Maryland last March. On the plus side, traffic in Maryland, bad as it is, is better than in Virginia. The risk of being shot in a public library is also greatly diminished. (For those of you who are not local, the Virginia House of Delegates voted down a bill that would have made it illegal to carry a firearm into a public library. No point in being unprepared if you happen onto a terrorist reading the Koran.)

Living in Maryland has its down sides. Living in Prince George's County has even more. Here are a couple of indications, provided solely as a public service, should anyone consider moving to this area.

I recently took the Sole Heir Correspondent to a local Taco Bell for a cold drink in the midst of an errand-running expedition. Our order was taken by a young woman who I do not wish to unfairly disparage, so I will use her real name, since she is probably as incapable of reading this as she is unlikely to make the effort.

Nicole gave us the standard PG County fast food greeting, which consists of not quite making eye contact while silently waiting for me to decide she's ready to take my order. Taco Bell offers three drink sizes. I ordered a small and a medium. No flavor was required, all Nicole had to do was give us the cups; the soda dispensers are self-service.

The conversation went something like this:

 

Me: We'd like a small and a medium drink, please.

Nicole (still not looking at me): We ain't got small.

Me: You're out of small cups?

Nicole: Ain't no small.

 

A brief period of silence followed, broken by the Sole Heir telling me sotto voce, "Dad, I think they just have medium, large, and extra large."

Finally catching on, I told Nicole I want the smallest size, and the one in the middle. She handed me two identical cups, which Taco Bell describes as "large," and I would call "medium," seeing as how they were of the intermediate size of the three options. As she handed me the cups, she asked if the order was for here or to go.

Huh? Her entire contribution consisted of handing me two cups, one of them incorrect. I had to get the drinks, lids, and straws. What earthly difference could it have made to her, or to Mr. Bell, where I drank them? I was tempted to order one for here and one to go, but I was afraid we'd get into a discussion about which was to stay and which was to go, even though they were both the same size.

Prince George's County has the well-earned reputation of being the metropolitan Washington area's equivalent of a third world nation. Proof of that was found in a call to the cable company that same week.

The cable call was prompted by a promotion the company was running when I ordered my original service back in March. Comcast would provide free installation and three free months of every channel Showtime offers if I signed up for digital cable. If I didn't want to keep the Showtime, I could cancel after the third month. I had tried to cancel a couple of weeks earlier, but they wouldn't let me, saying it was too early to cancel, and that if I cancelled too soon they would have to charge me for the installation after all. When the valid cancellation window opened, hesitation would require paying for a month of Showtime I could live without, since I had watched it exactly zero times since moving in.

I called the number I saw on a televised ad the previous night and was immediately directed to a pleasant young man who looked high and low for my account information without finding it. It was finally determined that I had called the Montgomery County number, and he couldn't help me. He could, and did, transfer me to the Prince George's County number.

I didn't get a human right away on the PG County number. First I had to choose the language in which I wanted to transact my business. Fortunately, English was the first choice. Immediately after pressing "one" for English, I got to listen to a thirty-second spiel informing me of Comcast's Cable Amnesty Program. It was not thought to be necessary to inform Montgomery County residents of the illegality of cable theft. In PG County, it opens the conversation.

Welcome to Prince George's County, Maryland, where the showcase high school offers a course in Japanese to show its advanced and cosmopolitan makeup. All it really does is teach its illustrious graduates to ask "You want fries with that, motherfucker?" in a sushi restaurant.