A Veneer of Certainty

The recent dust-up with the Edwards campaign and the Marcotte/McEwen entity has had me thinking:

Aside from wanting to the outreach possibilities to a specific voting bloc, what benefit is there to a political campaign hiring a blogger(s)? As we've seen, it's a high-risk play that appeals to an oh-so-narrow band of the voting spectrum. And did the Edwards bunch not vet Marcotte's previous work? He's going to be forever tainted by his association with her.

Why would a blogger - and one with a sizeable following, evidently - take a paid position as a political mouthpiece? This puts him/her in the unenviable position of having to explain to the netroots faithful why the politico in question is straying from the platform they want to see. She/he would be forever tainted by.... well, you get the picture.

I could see the utility of netroots as focus groups, so long as a candidate understand the demographic that is being represented. After that, nope, just don't see it.

Shameless plug for Haak Wines.

This is a local winery, not far south of Houston, that has some really rockin' wines. The Cabernet and Jaquez are particularly good, and I've got two of bottles of madiera that I'm saving for special occasions.

A few weeks ago I went to help with the annual Pruning Day. After a half-hour informational session from Raymond Haak and Vicki (the co-vinter or something) on pruning and vine propagation, they turned the group loose on the vines. (If it was me, I'd be pretty damned nervous about a bunch of rank neophytes with shears going to town on my precious livelihood like some swarm of demented, middle-aged locusts but they were pretty cool about it.) It was a cool & rainy day, and parts of the vineyard were flooded ankle-high, but a good time appeared to be had by all. I collected a bundle of vine cuttings for my brother then we split - after purchasing a few more bottles of that wonderful Haak wine.

As my profile mentions, I'm a dumbass. And when it comes to wine I'm especially a dumbass... but learning. I've read some books, watched the John Cleese movie on the subject, and kept an eye out for the food/wine pairings in cookbooks. It is slowly but surely making me more aware about all the aspects involved. In the coming posts I'll try not to make too much an ass out of myself on the topic.

What is it lately with batty women driving cross-country to hang with men who are ambivalent about them? First it was astronaut Lisa Nowak, then Amanda Marcotte. Were there diapers involved in Marcotte's case, too?

Re the Bloggergate women, they've been getting hate mail and threats. This is disgusting and unacceptable. Neither all the vitriol in the universe, nor any political, religious or ideological differences make it OK to threaten someone's family.

I truly hope the feds can/will track down these lunatics and put them away for a long, long time.

A news piece on CNN caught my eye this morning. Janet Hanson and her company 85 Broads seek to create and foster networks for women to mentor and support each other in business, learning and life. In addition to workplace programs, 85 Broads also has mini-internships, workshops, conferences and outreach programs for female students at the college and high school levels.

To me, all this sounds like a fantastic idea. As a man, it seems to me that women probably have a far better idea of what really helps women succeed and realize their full potential, and how to relay that information to other women. I hope this program really succeeds.

That being said, maybe it’s time for a similar coaching program for men. Not the “old boy’s network” type but one with similar goals and methods to help men reach *their* real potential. Many guys I know get complacent after reaching some goal or life situation, when they could be achieving much more. An effort like this for men might help shake them out of that, perhaps to become better men, both for themselves and for those around them. It’s worth thinking about.

Going to Las Vegas, 02/28 - 03/06. Have reservations at Bouchon, even. I might never make it to the French Laundry but this could be enough.

I'll let you know how the craps table action fared. I'd try the poker rooms but I've given up Texas Hold 'Em due to the Fickle Bitch of Fate and her predilection for shitty cards on the river. As a chess player it's galling to me that all the skill in the world can be up-ended by pure chance.

I try to live every day as if it's my last.

I wake up every morning and cry uncontrollably. I call friends and family and sob incoherently. Next I scour the newspaper looking for experimental drug trials. Then I curse God and His liquor and porn until the darkness comes.

After reading several of Amanda Marcotte's posts online , I’m left wondering if her outlook on of feminist theory is less about equality and more about a way of life, and whether she and those like her are doing feminism more harm than good.

NOTE: If you, gentle reader, are of the mindset that feels men should have no opinions on or critique of feminism, then stop reading now.

From its beginnings, “feminism” has never been an omnibus term. The women’s movement has seen differences in methods and goals on issues such as rights, sexuality, pornography, free speech and aspects of institutional reform. One central, common tenet has been to free women from the subordination of men in the social, political and interpersonal arenas without regard to class, age or religion.

From the posts that I’ve read, I can’t help but believe that Marcotte depicts feminism as only a constant state of victimhood. Her perceptions are as through a lens of the chronically oppressed, and the entirety of experience can be expressed in terms of a female/male struggle for dominance.

When a state of oppression becomes an article of faith then things go horribly wrong:

- It opens up the assumption that the victim is always right, so the focus of dialogue – if any – is on only one side of the dynamic. Plus, it removes any requirement for self-analysis on the part of the oppressed.

- It demeans the accomplishments of women who have achieved a measure of success on their own terms. Whatever progress a woman makes is automatically placed within a context of the male, ignoring the merits of her talent and effort.

- It paints men with an overly broad brush. Men have no real incentive to change because they’ll always be in the wrong.

There was, no doubt, a time when a strong, all-encompassing indictment of social structures was close to the truth. However, social structures and mores are always in a state of flux, and if feminism wants to achieve its core goals it needs to shrug off narrow and self-restricting ideologies like Marcotte’s and adapt to the ever-changing dynamic between women and men.

(As with each of my opinions or commentaries, I invite discussion. If you think I'm wrong then tell me why. Open dialogue and rational debate are hoped-for in this joint.)

The recent local flap about our governor's executive order requiring the vaccination of all girls entering 6th grade has really raised a ruckus with parents, health advocacy groups and even health care providers.

Doctors are having a hard time with the vaccine. The cost for the vaccine, Gardasil, is about $120 a dose, with a requirement of three doses. That total cost exceeds the typical reimbursement from HMO, and with the additional administrative costs of storage and filing then offering the vaccine has a very low financial return for doctors.

Parents object to the mandate nature of the vaccine and see it as a decision for parents, not government. Some have objected on concerns that the vaccine will encourage sexual activity in their daughters since it removes a disincentive in the form of an STD. And more than a few parents are balking at the vaccine's uncovered cost.

I'm not a parent, nor do I play one on TV, but I can understand the parent's concerns about their child's healthcare decisions being taken over by government edict. The slow encroachment of government oversight on the lives of individuals is something we've all seen over the past 10-20 years. Nobody wants the inept hand of bureaucracy intervening in their health care. And I think the parent's worries about the vaccine somehow turning their daughters into raging, randy beasts is overblown and a canard that ignores whatever values they might have already installed in their girls.

On the other hand, if this executive order is intended to stop a communicable disease and prevent avoidable burdens/costs on the healthcare system, then that's worth thinking about, too. In Texas, children are already receiving a range of required immunizations for the protection of themselves and society, and parents seem just peachy about that. Why not add the HPV vaccine to the list? And since the vaccine is a mandated by the state then the state should bear the burden of cost.

And: Does the vaccine also suppress HPV in males? If so, then boys should also receive this.

By fiat, our governor really botched the handling of something that could do a lot of good.

A few days ago I was commenting at another blog on the Bloggergate issue and was musing on the appropriateness of the term “media” where blogs are concerned. My worry was that because of a lack of ultimate accountability on the part of the blogosphere, that it had no incentive to be fair, accurate or disclose bias or conflicts of interest.

Today I was following some links and found this statement that touches on what Sara said in the “blog for food” comment stream, about bloggers holding themselves to a standard based on their perceived audience. The MediaBloggers statement sets a great standard to follow:

...When our members practice journalism, they have the same rights and responsibilities as any other journalist and must be accorded the same First Amendment rights and legal privileges as those who work for traditional media organizations. We accept the Wikipedia definition of journalism as "a discipline of collecting, verifying, reporting and analyzing information gathered regarding current events, including trends, issues and people."

The Media Bloggers Association encourages members to comply with commonly accepted standards of fairness and transparency. We believe that it is up to readers to develop their own trust relationships with bloggers and we ought not to interfere in that relationship. We believe our role is limited to presenting standards as aspirations and offering guidance on how to achieve those aspirations through education, robust discussion and mutual support.

The Media Bloggers statement is held out as “aspirations…and guidance”, which is all, I guess, anyone could really ask for. A suggested code of ethics for bloggers-as-media is better than nothing at all.

(to borrow a phrase from Carly Simon)

Great piece on the cyclical nature of taxation

Everyone who looks at the numbers knows that taxes must go up. If we do nothing at all, the years 2007 through 2016 will bring deficits of $3.5 trillion outside of the surplus in Social Security. But doing nothing assumes that all the Bush tax cuts will be allowed to expire as scheduled in 2010 and subsequently. If the tax cuts are extended, and spending remains generally unchanged, the 10-year deficit will total $7.8 trillion. To balance the budget under these conditions would require cutting defense spending by 67 percent, Medicare by 54 percent, or every other program by a third, something that no one in politics has shown any willingness to do. The current path leads straight into a severe economic crisis.

- Political: The AMT uses a progressive tax incidence; to fool with it - in its entirety - would also alleviate taxes on the richest Americans, something that flies in the face of one of the major complaints of the Dem voter bloc.

- Financial: If the AMT is eventually pegged to inflation then that drops the projected AMT tax revenue by a Saganesque billions and billions.

Economic populism has some wonderful benefits...in the short term. And the AMT probably should track with inflation, if just out of fairness of tax burden. But historically it ends up with higher inflation and unemployment. I hope the powers that be can learn from history and please, PLEASE listen to the advice of the Federal Reserve board.

Our intrepid local nutcase, Sheila Jackson Lee, wants to do the bunny hug with Venezuelan dictator, Hugo Chavez. What prompted this turn of events? Maybe she felt that Georgia’s favorite daughter Cyntha McKinney had gotten too much ink for her tiff with the capitol police? Or maybe she’s looking to improve her already legendary standing with Capitol Hill.

Setting aside her odd views on hurricane naming, what possible benefit is there in befriending an authoritarian lunatic like Chavez? Jackson Lee has spent considerable time & energy toward lifting a ban on sales of F16 parts to Venezuela, who allegedly now want to sell those F16’s to Iran, another nation we’re not too cozy with. I’m not particularly concerned with Chavez’ posturing, vis a vis his declaration of Bush as “the devil” or his offer of free heating oil to poor Americans. It’s his destabilizing influence on the region that bothers me. At the very least, the storm-lovin’ Jackson Lee should appreciate the irony that her Latin Pal shares a name with a Category 5 hurricane, but I wouldn’t count on it.

Do you think she flew Continental to Caracas? I’d have ponied up for a seat next to her, just for the show.

A friend recently blogged about the grassroots effort MomsRising, and as a hip, news junkie kinda guy I went to check it out. A number of their ideas are ones even I, as a non-parent, can get behind.

- Equal pay for equal work: Absolutely. Doing the same job for the same hours should be equally compensated, regardless of gender or parental status.
- Flexible work environment: A great idea wherever possible for both the worker and employer.
- After-school programs: Probably a good idea.
- Paid family leave: Maybe, provided that the cost is shared between parents, the employer and the state.
- Universal healthcare and childcare: Probably not.

Often when we see news of starving families in chronically famine-stricken parts of the world, the argument around the water cooler is “Why are they having children that they can’t feed?” That same argument could apply to some of the families mentioned in the MomsRising manifesto. What amount of family planning went into their decision to have a child, then realize at birth that they’ll be in dire financial straits with no access to childcare of a level of quality that suits them? It seems like irresponsible behavior for a parent to subject their child to the results of mom and dad’s poor planning. Maybe this is too simplistic a statement but: don’t have children you cannot afford.

Another issue for me is MomRisings’s reliance on Sweden as a role model for their goals. This strikes me as cherry-picking from a social mindset that is vastly different from our own. Sweden’s paid family leave policy is part of a larger block of social programs enacted as part of a collective agreement between employers and unionized labor, signed in 1936. Union labor gained political power in the form the Social Democratic Party, which mandated reforms for universal health care, education, paid family leave, full employment and project housing. These social welfare programs have become ingrained in Swedish society and are funded by high levels of taxation in the form of income tax and value-added taxes, for example. Yet, even the Swedes are finding such sweeping levels of social support difficult to maintain due to globalization and an influx of immigrants in the late 1990’s, and are scaling back pensions and health care for the elderly.

So it seems to me that implementing a number of the MomsRising goals will lead to great government intervention - and its ugly brother, ineptitude - at cost of higher taxes, all for dubious benefit. I'd also note that nowhere on the MomsRising.org site are cost/benefit studies on the economics of it all.

But in an attempt to offer some ideas along with my whining, I’ll put these out for consideration:

- Increase the amount of the child and dependent care credit.
- Increase the amount of the child tax credit.
- State & federal tax credits for employers who provide paid family leave.
- A non-taxable form of public short-term-disability coverage to compensate for unpaid family leave (similar to California’s State Disability Insurance program)
- State-funded after-school programs, preferably incorporating additional tutoring, time to complete homework, and some form of mandatory PE to help deal with the child obesity problem.

I’m all for the state providing a temporary safety net for those who are unable to provide for themselves due to unforeseen circumstances. A “No Productive Citizen Left Behind”, if you will. But I’m very leery of both government oversight and providing for someone else’s life choices. And if I’ve got to help pay for little Johnny’s/Jenny’s childcare, you can bet I’ll be giving you parenting advice when he/she is screaming at the top of their lungs during the movie or kicking the back of my seat.

To implement the government subsidization of childcare and universal healthcare - and to a smaller degree, family leave – would require a radical modification of our traditional American values of individualism, self-reliance and personal responsibility. Are we ready for that? Unless we are *all* ready to take on a welfare state mindset like that in Sweden then there will never be widespread acceptance of its burdens as well as its benefits. The balance between the economic growth of a free-market economy and the social benefits of a welfare state is something we’ll have a hard time finding.

A reader of the MomsRising post below had asked how an increase to the minimum wage could posibbly cause unemployment, reasoning that a better-paid worker is a happy worker, leading to greater productivity and profit for the employer. That could be true if we only looked at the worker side of the equation, but let’s break it into that old economics standby, the supply/demand graph.

In the panels below, the amount of labor demanded by employers for a particular wage is represented in blue; the supply of labor willing to work for that given wage is shown in pink.

In the first graph, we see the wage equilibrium point, the point where demand for labor balances out with the available supply at a wage level acceptable to both sides.

When a minimum wage is set, it creates a binding price floor for wages. If the minimum wage is below the wage equilibrium point, then there is no effect on supply and demand for labor. However, in the second graph, a wage floor has been instituted that is above the wage equilibrium.

Point A, where the minimum wage crosses the labor demand line, creates a theoretical limit on the amount labor an employer will demand. (“Theoretical”, in that an employer could still hire more workers at the minimum wage rate, but that changes their demand curve.)

At point B, we see that workers will accept higher wages but do not have to accept lower, pretty much negating the lower part of their supply curve. The difference between points A & B is considered labor surplus, or ….unemployment. There is more labor available than employers are willing to pay for.

Not all workers might be affected. Those earning wages significantly higher than the minimum wage typically are not, but workers closer to the minimum usually feel the effects. More often than not, these are lower-skilled, lower-paid workers that the minimum wage was intended to help.

The net effect of raising the minimum wage is that while it might improve the wages of labor already in the workforce, and also raising the cost of labor for employers, it creates a barrier to entry of new workers who might have otherwise accepted wages lower than the minimum. These potential new workers, combined with workers who may have lost their jobs due to the increased cost of labor, are the unemployment that we’re concerned with.