Kudos, Kalifornia
Here we are, the first day of 2008. And the interesting thing is, for a New Year’s Day, I’m feeing modestly well-rested: at least compared to other January Firsts (or July Fifths, for that matter) in recent memory.
You see, for the past however-many years, I’ve been thoroughly bothered (and kept awake) by my neighbors’ New Year’s Eve antics, especially by their seemingly universal preoccupation with fireworks. During the New Year’s Eves of 1995 through 2006, whether it was Eugene, Portland, or Roseburg; irrespective of my type of residence (house or apartment); and no matter the kind of neighborhood; I was always subjected to the inevitable distraction of fireworks and firecrackers going off outside my bedroom window until well past midnight. (I haven’t stayed up to welcome the New Year in for years.)
The noise, omygod my friends, the NOISE!
But: this year was different! One thing that’s changed is the state where I’m living. So, I started to wonder today if, perhaps, California has some wonderful law that prohibits (unlike Oregon) the widespread sale and distribution of these irritating noisemakers?
YES! It appears to be so! (Click here.)
THANK YOU, California!
And, speaking of California laws, I’m reminded, in today’s San Francisco Chronicle, that we’re getting some new ones here. Effective today, it’s now illegal to smoke in a car with a passenger under the age of 18. And, although we have to wait until July 1 for this next one: it’s going to be illegal on that day, and thereafter, to drive while talking on a cell phone without a hands-free device (and prohibits the behavior entirely for anyone under 18 years old).
Way to go, California!
So, Here’s the Kicker
This week’s, perhaps this year’s, winner for the “head-up-your-butt” award is (drum roll, please): the State of Oregon. The evidence to support this distinction is, simply put, overwhelming.
To wit, I received a check in the mail last Wednesday. My dubiously-named “kicker” (tax-refund) arrived because, as you may or may not know, Oregon’s state constitution requires that when there is at least a two percent difference between the final revenue forecast for the biennium and the actual end of the biennium revenue, the surplus must be returned to the taxpayers.
Yes, that’s right, when there’s a difference between the forecast (the amount of revenue that is predicted; calculated in an entirely suspect and error-prone process) and actual revenue, taxpayers get rewarded. They call the refund a “kicker.”
Like a kick in the head, I guess.
This stupid, stupid, insanely-stupid law (!), the only one of its kind in the nation, was created in 1979 and added to the constitution in 2000. And 2007 is now the eighth time Oregonians have received their precious “kicker.” This year, on August 31, when the final revenue forecast was released, there was determined to be a $1.071 billion (yes, billion with a “b”) budget surplus. So, back it all goes to the citizens: to each of us who paid Oregon income tax for 2006, we receive 18.62% of it back.
This means 1.6 million Oregonians will receive checks just as the holidays arrive, with refunds averaging $600. My check, which appeared entirely unexpectedly (since I’ve not been following the news up there), came to $1,066.34.
Huge. Sigh.
Now, don’t get me wrong…really, I’m not totally nuts. I reluctantly admit that I’m going to be cashing it. The deal is, I didn’t want this friggin’ thing in the first place!
Consider this. Oregon’s budget has been in disarray for years. Perhaps forever. The tax structure in the state is a joke with no punchline. (Oregon, along with Alaska, Delaware, Montana, and New Hampshire are the five states with no sales tax.) I believe the anti-tax sentiment in the state to be a contagious, progressive, and ultimately-fatal disease. (Nine sales-tax initiatives have appeared on state ballots; all have been turned down. The most recent one, in 1993, was defeated by a 78 percent majority.) Although much of Bill Clinton’s (“It’s the economy, stupid”) Nineties were relatively stable and prosperous for Oregon (thereby masking the true and inevitable impact of 1990’s Measure 5), certainly since the turn of this century, there have been desperately-difficult financial times. State agencies have been in a state of constant crisis. To issue refund checks instead of creating a robust rainy-day fund (which does not exist), or, say, re-investing some of those dollars in the Oregon University System (or the Community Colleges, or the State Police, or the Oregon Health Plan, or the State Parks, the list goes on and on...), is complete and total folly.
I’m embarrassed for you, Oregon. For your lack of foresight and practicality. For your fiscally-irresponsible and tax-averse ways. For the selfishness and self-centeredness of your citizens.
This law, and this behavior, are a disgrace. You can do better.
Update on December 19, 2007:
Here’s something interesting: an article in today’s (December 18, 2007) Oregonian starts out…
A new group, the Revenue Restructuring Task Force, has been charged by the Legislature with studying Oregon’s tax system and submitting recommended policy changes to the 2009 Legislature.
The task force is the result of a bipartisan bill because many of us believe Oregon has the nation’s worst tax structure. And a few of us are convinced that if we don’t have the courage to radically change it soon, Oregon will be forever relegated to economic mediocrity.
For the full essay, by Scott Bruun (a Republican representing West Linn in the Oregon House), click here.
Sometimes I’m NOT Patient
Mostly, I believe I’m perceived as a patient person. Actually, it’s more than mere perception: I am a patient person.
I know things don’t happen right away. I believe that “all things in their own time” is a good motto to live by. I realize that others have skill levels arranged on a continuum – and that they have various, competing priorities in their lives that don’t coincide with mine. And I know that having low expectations is probably a good strategy to maintain one’s own mental and emotional health.
Yes, being patient is a good thing.
Still, there are some behaviors out there in the world that I have very little use for. For example, it wasn’t long ago that I went on a rant about cell-phone users. I have absolutely zero tolerance for people who believe that shouting out the trivia of their lives to the world is more important than respecting others’ rights (to a little peace and quiet). I was at lunch in a Chinese restaurant two days ago, with a couple of work colleagues, when one of those walkie-talkie-type cell phones sounded off (right next to us). I turned to the (totally-oblivious) guy who was speaking into his mobile device while, at the same time, shoveling fried rice into his pie-hole. I mouthed, in his direction, much to the surprise of my lunch companions, “will you shut the f#*k up?!?!” (This asshole neither saw me nor heard me. Unfortunately.)
Then, yesterday, I was at Kinko’s doing some photocopying, while all the time listening to an embarrassingly-personal conversation between a woman and (apparently) one of her girlfriends. Their discussion of a relationship gone bad was something that really should have been carried out in private. Really.
Ok, enough about cell-phone etiquette (for now). The topic of today’s rant is about punctuality. Or, more specifically, the lack of consideration some people show to other people when they arrive late.
Isn’t this, though, the same kind of thing as the cell-phone issue: lack of sensitivity to, and respect for, others?
Last Wednesday, I had interviews scheduled to start in the early afternoon. I was the leader of a small, three-person hiring committee. We had a few, back-to-back, forty-five-minute interviews on the calendar. Still, one of the other two on the committee didn’t show up until fifteen minutes past the anticipated start time, thereby throwing everyone’s schedule off for the rest of the day. Candidates who had been instructed to arrive fifteen minutes early to review the questions, instead ended up with a thirty-minute wait before I went to fetch them.
The next day I was scheduled into a committee meeting that was to begin at 11:00 a.m. I arrived on time and there were only two others present (of a twelve-member group). The remainder continued to dribble in, until finally at fifteen minutes past the hour, the chairperson arrived and the meeting was called to order.
These are only two examples of the kind of chronic, non-punctual behavior I encounter on a daily basis. And I find it maddening!
Here’s what I think you’re saying when you show up late: you’re the center of the universe. That no one, or nothing, is as important as you and your agenda. That the time of others doesn’t count. That others don’t count.
For the record, let me declare to all you loud cell-phone users and “running-late” people (and I know this will be news): IT’S NOT ALL ABOUT YOU!
(Really, honest-to-god, it isn’t.)
Baby Boomers: Citizens Not Seniors
Turning 60 is not an insignificant milestone. It sure has me thinking a lot lately, given that I’m now about three months into my seventh decade.
And it appears that I’m not the only one with the implications of baby-boomer aging on my mind.
Last month, in an op-ed piece entitled “Second Acts,” Boston Globe columnist Ellen Goodman told a small part of the Al Gore story…in essence arguing that, in the aftermath of his loss to George W. Bush, Gore was able to rediscover his true calling. Goodman believes that he “found himself by losing himself – literally losing – and being liberated from ambition.”
Further, Goodman suggests that Gore is blazing a new trail for the baby-boomer generation. “Consider the new sixtysomethings,” she says…
…Next Friday, Hillary Clinton turns 60 and her second act is running for president. And when the new Harvard president, Drew Gilpin Faust, 60, met with her Bryn Mawr classmates last summer? Many were talking about leaving their “extreme jobs” just as she was installed in hers.
Baby boomers are the first generation that can look forward to such a lengthy and (fingers crossed) healthy stage of later life. They are as likely to be talking about what they want to do next as about where they want to retire. Never mind all those declarations that 60 is the new 40. In fact, 60 is the new 60.
For me, at age 60, it’s certainly not the case that I’m talking about retirement. As always, in my life, it’s about what to do next.
Not that the question of “what to do next” is, I hope, going to come up very soon (given that I’ve, just recently, totally changed my life yet again). It’s just that, like Gore, in losing, I seem to have found a new direction. Hopefully one that will sustain me for some time to come.
As I’ve written about before, I was forced to reconsider my life almost from the moment the Governor of Oregon dismissed the entire State Board of Higher Education on November 13, 2003. With that single act, after nine years as a policy-wonk type, I needed to find someplace else to land, something else to do. As with our former Vice President, who found a different ladder to climb after some time in the wilderness (how’s that for mixing metaphors?!), I too spent some years out there in the wild, trying to come to grips with the realities of loss and seeking to find a way to let go. Specifically, my path of soul-searching consisted of three years and two temporary jobs at different dysfunctional institutions. Although they took a high personal toll, the growth-providing experiences I had from 2004 to 2007 laid the foundation for finding my version of the “extreme job” …which ultimately came within a month of my 60th birthday.
Not that my current place is the be-all and end-all. Surely it isn’t. When I was recently providing an outline of my non-linear, wayward life to the young woman who now cuts my hair, she seemed genuinely curious about all those twists and turns. At one point, I disclosed that I had very few regrets, but that “if I had it all to do over again,” I might try to focus my life more on writing and photography. When she suggested that “it’s not too late…”, I balked. I indicated that I can write and do photography and pursue my current professional path: that changing directions entirely, at this point, might just take more energy than I have.
But, who knows? I don’t know how long I’ll live. And if there’s one thing I’ve learned thus far, it’s that you can never know what tomorrow will bring. As Ellen Goodman states, “…under the old compact, sixtysomethings were supposed to get out of the way and out of work. They were encouraged by financial incentives and prodded by discrimination. Now we are drawing blueprints for people who see themselves more as citizens than seniors.”
In all honesty, I don’t have any idea when the next fork in the road will present itself to me. For now, though, despite all those aches and pains, I am a citizen, not a senior.
If you come to a fork in the road, take it.
Yogi Berra
Update(s) on November 24, 2007:
I just thought you might like to know…
Shortly after I posted this article, I received an email asking for permission to reprint it. The request came from Frédéric Serrière, editor of theMatureMarket.com website. I gave the green light, and today I discovered that this piece had, indeed, been published. You may find it by clicking here.
Another note…
I have also been mentioned on The Platinum Years Network blog: first here, then here.
The Society for HandHeld Hushing (SHHH!)
As far back as July 2006 I started talking about my aversion to noise, particularly the annoying cell-phone-user variety. I continually ask myself the question: where do I have to go, what, dear god, do I have to do, to get away from these inconsiderate, loudmouth assholes?
I’m sick. I’m tired. I’m totally frazzled with the “cell-phone voice” that seems to be everywhere. For example, say I’m in the local Starbucks (as I was just today), quietly sipping my cup of tea and reading a book, with the normal background hum of voices and activity. Then, a person a table or two away takes or makes a call, and before I even look up to confirm, I know that voice. Geez, it’s somebody talking on their damn phone. Of course it is. It’s happening all around us! Does she really think I care if she’s running late? Or that he’s hungover? Or that her sister is sick? Or that her husband-boyfriend-significant-other doesn’t “get” her? Or that his college won the big game yesterday? Or that, woe is me, the Dow lost 130 points last week? Or that she thinks “like, you know, whatever…”?
Tell me: how could I possibly give a rat’s ass?!
Well, I don’t.
But, enter: HOPE.
I recently discovered what I think is a “must-have” piece of modern technology: the cell-phone jammer. In a newspaper article last week entitled “Cell-Phone Jammers Can Zap All The Yap,” I learned of these wondrous little (often extremely small and portable) devices. I don’t need to go into how these things actually work, since, if you’re interested, you can read up on that yourself. Suffice it to say that, for not much money, you too can own a gadget that can zap the signal of cell phones in your immediate vicinity.
Think of yourself on a bus or commuter train, in the doctor’s waiting room, in the theatre, or, like me, in the coffee shop: and having actual control over the airspace! You just push a button and, whammo! …instant impotence (technologically speaking) for that useless, harebrained cell-phone user!
HA!
Of course, there happens to be a down side, as use of these miracle tools just happens to be against the law. Alas, cell-phone jamming is covered under the Communications Act of 1934, which prohibits us from “willfully or maliciously interfering with the radio communications of any station licensed or authorized” to operate. In fact, the “manufacture, importation, sale or offer for sale, including advertising, of devices designed to block or jam wireless transmissions is prohibited” as well.
Dang!
So, given this, of course I’m not advocating that you go out and buy one of these things. It just wouldn’t be right, would it? I would never, ever endorse any kind of illegal activity here on my website. That would be terrible of me!
So, how about if I suggest an alternative that IS totally legal?
It just so happens that I’ve discovered another way to start fighting back. I’ve become aware of a method that is neither illegal nor surreptitious, but, rather, totally above-board…and just may win the hearts and minds of those around you.
I suggest you go to the website introducing you to the (unfortunately fictional) Society for HandHeld Hushing (SHHH!). Once there, you will find a pdf file which you can download and print out that will furnish you with some little “business cards” you can cut up and hand to those loudmouths on cell phones.
Imagine yourself, if you will, handing a modestly-sized nicely-printed card to someone stating that:
The Rest of Us DON’T CARE What He Said To You.
or
The World Is A Noisy Place. You Aren’t Helping Things.
or
Just so you know: EVERYONE AROUND YOU IS BEING FORCE TO LISTEN TO YOUR CONVERSATION.
or
Dear Cell Phone User: We are aware that your ongoing conversation with (fill in the blank) is very important to you, but we thought you’d like to know that it doesn’t interest us in the least. In fact, your babbling disregard for others is more than a little annoying.
or, simply: