Month: October 2007

Bad senior, no donut

As most who make a habit of reading monoblogue know, I post something pretty much every day. I call this website my hobby/obsession and I feel I owe it to readers to place up a fresh post on a daily basis. Yeah, sometimes I cheat and write a couple in advance but one thing that drives me crazy about visiting websites is seeing the same post for days or even weeks.

Like all writers do, at times I get writer’s block and sometimes I just get tired of writing about the same old things in the same old way. So on occasion I come across news stories that aren’t necessarily time-sensitive but are ones I can use to make a point about political philosophy. Tonight is one of those times, and even though the story’s about 10 days old, I thought it was amusing and was one I could write something clever and provocative about.

It’s a story out of Putnam County, New York. According to this AP article by Jim Fitzgerald, a number of senior citizens in that fair county were miffed about a donut stoppage. While officials claimed that the halt was due to an overwhelming supply of donuts and other bread products being donated to the point of spoilage, some seniors complained about not being consulted in the decision. I suppose this is a good problem to have in that people there are the generous sort.

Be that as it may, to me this story illustrated a larger point about the nanny state. Here we have a group of people who have worked all of their lives and gotten to a ripe old age, most likely downing hundreds of donuts and pastries in their lifetime. All of a sudden, some outside person decides they know what’s best for these seasoned citizens and cuts off the sweet supply. I happen to be on the obese side myself and I know that it didn’t happen overnight, it comes from 30 years or more of poor eating habits. Honestly, I don’t think eating a donut a day is going to do these senior citizens a whole lot of harm at this point considering overeating has a cumulative effect that would have likely killed them sooner had they persisted in eating too much on a regular basis.

Another point illustrated by this article is that these seniors have put themselves in a position to be dependent on the good graces of others. Although I’m sure a number of them go to senior centers primarily for companionship, many seniors go to get the free food because they may not have enough to make ends meet being on a fixed, mainly government-provided income (e.g. Social Security.) The gentleman quoted in the story from the Center for Science in the Public Interest does have a point in that the seniors can go out and buy their own donuts. (You may want to mark this date down, I’m in agreement with the CSPI on something. But you know next thing is they’ll try to pull the donuts out of the stores, too.)

If you ask me, this story is all about respect. There are people in that part of New York who want to do good by the elderly in their community and make their life a little nicer by donating sweet treats to the seniors’ places of gathering. And senior citizens mostly have learned about doing things in moderation, perhaps due to their upbringing during the era of the Great Depression. It’s the nanny staters who are showing the lack of respect to both parties by sticking their nose into a situation where they truly don’t belong. And I’m glad at least a few members of the Silent Generation decided not to be silent about their treatment.

Pipkin’s at it again

Today I had forwarded to me an interesting e-mail. Awhile back, I talked about State Senator E.J. Pipkin grousing about the state’s budget. Now I receive word that the esteemed Senator has started a website (paid for by his campaign) called Stop Maryland Tax Hikes. On first read, the website does two things: asks the person stopping by to sign an online petition decrying the proposed increases (which I did) and acts as a clearinghouse of sorts with links to news articles pertaining to the tax increases and links to those in charge of state government (including one of the Delegates from my district, Norm Conway.) Or, to quote the website itself:

This site is an outgrowth of conversations with many Marylanders about their opposition to new taxes. They often ask “What can I do to stop these tax increases?” This is your opportunity to directly register your feelings through the online petition.  It is also a place to keep informed about these tax increases.

As pointed out by Senator Stoltzfus on Saturday, the increases sought will be more than enough to cover the deficit that mysteriously blossomed from $1.1 billion to $1.6 billion almost overnight. And I don’t think the idea here is to replenish the rainy day fund O’Malley took $1 billion out of this year to cover his budgetary needs. No, I think the idea is to spend all of that and more, thereby justifying further increases. Sometimes I think that it weren’t for the federal government, we might be the Michigan of the East Coast economically – and some may argue that we on the Eastern Shore are.

On a related note I was reading O’Malley Watch today and one of the commenters had a good link to a post by Thomas DiLorenzo on Lewrockwell.com. Called “Hillary in Drag?” the post comapred O’Governor’s initial year in office to Bill Clinton’s. But the paragraphs that hit me were these:

So in order to pay off his campaign debts with taxpayers’ money, O’Malley has proposed a surge of tax increases. His major objective, besides raising money, seems to be to incite envy and class warfare. With stern talk about the “unfairness” of “the rich” residing in the state, he has proposed increasing the state income tax rate from a flat 4.75% to 6% for families with incomes over around $200,000 per year and 6.5% for those with incomes above $500,000. In Maryland there is a state income tax and a local “piggyback” tax (isn’t that a cute and cuddly name for a tax?). The latter averages about 2.5%, which means that, for the families or small business owners with $200,000 in income, their tax rate will be 8.5%, much higher than in any of the surrounding states.

The people who drive Maryland’s private economy will be able to give themselves an immediate 8.5% annual pay raise by simply moving to one of the zero income tax states like Florida or Tennessee. (emphasis mine.)

It also seems to be the hot rumor in Annapolis that our governor doesn’t want to be long for the job because he has something higher in mind. But here’s the rub. It’s not like Hillary wouldn’t carry Maryland anyway (or more precisely, carry the city of Baltimore, Montgomery County, and PG County by massive margins) so adding O’Malley to the ticket doesn’t help her with a swing state and, if this tax increase really does prove hugely unpopular, could even put Maryland in play. Sorry, I’m not voting like Baltimore City did last November to make their problem the whole state’s problem. That O’Malley guy is a menace as governor to people who believe in actual freedom in the Free State but having him one heartbeat away from the presidency – the thought is scary.

Finally, I’ll shift gears to talk about a future post – well, now two. In starting to look at where Alan Keyes and Fred Thompson stand on the issues, it appears I’ll need a post each to evaluate them. So that will likely be Thursday and Friday’s work for me. It was something I promised in an e-mail I send out during the weekend highlighting some of what I’ll talk about over the next week. If you don’t receive it and would like to be put on the list just let me know. Yeah, shameless self-promotion on my part. But in glancing at these two I’d have to say that my people at the top of the list could have some company because I liked a lot of what Keyes and Thompson say.

Crossposted on RedMaryland.

Is baseball going the way of hockey?

I’m going to take another day off politics here and tell you about an experience and observation I had recently. I was looking to make my plans for the next few weeks as far as television watching goes – in other words, it’s time for the baseball playoffs. So I’m looking at where the games will be telecast and I see TBS. TBS? What happened to Fox?

Well, Fox picks things up starting with the League Championship Series. But the first round will be played exclusively on cable and satellite. While I do have cable (as most in the country do) and can watch the games it’s just another example of how baseball continues to squander its rightful position as America’s preeminent sport. A transition has happened in my lifetime, one that has seen baseball decline from America’s pastime to one of many summer sports. Meanwhile the NFL has become the top draw, with NASCAR passing baseball for second on the popularity scale.

In my eyes it compares to what’s happened to hockey. Once it was considered a “big four” sport with baseball, football, and basketball (NASCAR was pretty much a Deep South draw back in my youth.) But it couldn’t keep a TV audience and went through a series of network broadcast contracts relatively quickly (NBC had it for a short while in the 1970’s, then ABC and ESPN more recently gave NHL hockey a shot.) Now it’s on the Versus cable network and truly not many people care outside of the Northeast, Great Lakes, and NHL cities in other areas. If you look at Washington for example, the city loves its Redskins, followed by the Wizards, the Nationals, and then you have the Capitals – who might even trail the DC United soccer team.

It’s not like either sport isn’t attempting to expand its reach either. Similar to the National Hockey League getting an influx of European and Russian players over the last decade, baseball is trying to expand on a global scale as it cashes in on the growing number of Latino players in the sport along with an increasing Asian presence. It’s trying to be soccer in reverse – a sport that starts in America and conquers the world as opposed to the rest of the world following it and America being the last major world market to conquer.

To be honest, I’m not a big hockey fan although I do enjoy it when the Red Wings do well. But I see how that sport has been marginalized by not being able to compete with other winter into spring sports out there like college basketball, arena football and NASCAR for fan interest. Baseball faces a similar problem as its playoffs compete with the NFL and NASCAR on Sundays and college football many other days of the week.

And to make matters worse on my part, when it comes to baseball as a sport I am a traditionalist – well, tradition circa the 1970’s when I grew up. (Fortunately we’ve bagged most of the garish uniforms of the era.) I can’t stand interleague play, don’t care much for the wild card even though that’s how my Tigers got in the World Series last season and really would love to see the DH banished. To me, a well-pitched 2-1 game with a lot of managerial moves and strategy is far superior to an 11-10 slugfest with 8 or 9 home runs. Chicks may dig the long ball, but real fans like the double switch.

I have a few suggestions on how baseball can stop this trend of marginalizing itself. One is to go back to the traditional strike zone and make batters earn their way on base through hitting. That can start in 2008. More importantly, quit scheduling games to start at 8:30 or 9:00 at night and get back to 7:30 primetime games. Let the Fox stations bitch, it’s only 2 weeks a year. You’ll notice the primetime NFL games that used to start at 9:00 have gone back to 8:15 or 8:30. The idea in both of my suggestions is to speed up the action somewhat and allow games to be finished before the 11:00 news. Ideally a playoff game would get in at about 3 hours, even with commercial breaks.

It’s ironic that as baseball attendance in the parks increases, the ratings they draw on TV decrease or stay flat. That to me indicates a drop in the number of casual fans, and baseball needs to market itself a little more to them by making the action more appealing. Otherwise we’ll be watching Game 7 of the World Series on some obscure cable network on tape delay someday.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a ballgame to watch.