On U.S. Rep. Charles Rangel, The New York Times reported today that “The [House Ethic Committee] report said Mr. Rangel had shown “a pattern of indifference or disregard for the laws, rules and regulations of the United States and the House of Representatives.” It also documented the major charges,” which included “his improper use of his office to solicit donations for a City University of New York center to be named in his honor; his failure to report rental income from his villa in the Dominican Republic and to pay taxes on it; his omission of some $600,000 in assets on his House financial disclosure forms; and his acceptance from a Manhattan developer of four rent-stabilized apartments, one of which he used as a campaign office.”
And for this, the Ethics Committee Chairman has recommended a “reprimand,” which the Times describes as being “considered a moderate punishment, more serious than the minor sanction of admonishment but not especially severe.”
And yet Congress continues to be perplexed as to why it’s approval rating is general less than 20 percent and disapproval rating more than 70 percent by “likely voters.”
Change won’t be effected by Washington, only by you and me, the voters. It is a pity we seem to be so apathetic.
And Charlie Rangel, of course, will keep his job.
It is finally Friday. I suppose I’m grateful to be through another and to be through it above ground. However, I’m not sure that Friday’s, or the inception of the weekend means what it once did to me, as I work for myself.
What then does it mean? That I’ll spend less time in front of this screen? Probably, but I’ve got a laptop, so, weather permitting (meaning that it’s not 90+ outside), I’d take it outdoors, or use it in the family room. Even if I didn’t, I’ve still got an iPhone, on which I check my email almost incessantly.
All of this brings to the point of connection. It seems to me that most of us (okay, a great generalization) are too well-connected. We carry multi-tasking cell phones, tablets, iPads all for the purpose of never being “out-of-pocket.” Of course I’m “guilty” of a “connection obsession,” or at least close to it.
When I consider “connection,” it comes to me that we have far less time for quiet reflection, or even thought in general.
Cell phones, 24/7 cable news and television in general and the loss of those great all music FM stations – I wonder if they aren’t all, in some way, responsible for our current human condition; one that, to me, lacks an overall contentment and from which we once derived a sense of well-being we seem to lack today.
On other posts, I’d discussed the shining faces of new families, all ostensibly “happy,” even gleeful.
But are they? Do they not worry about their employment, finances, the continuing wars and, in general, the deteriorating condition of our nation and society?
I do wonder.
An admission and apology. I have been thinking recently about President Obama and came to the realization that I was wrong in my consideration that he’s done little or nothing.
No, I don’t think the Health Care Legislation is the best we could have had. I wanted a “Public Option.” And I don’t think that Financial Regulatory Reform is the best we could have had, but it was a start.
I thought back to a time, 1964 I think, when I was a Summer Intern in the U.S. Senate. At the time Medicare was being fought out vigorously on the Senate floor. In fact, one of my duties was was to monitor the filibuster on the Senate floor; mostly between midnight and 5 AM. It wasn’t the greatest bill we could have had, but it was a start of legislation from which I benefit today; perhaps the best healthcare I’ve ever had (and I’ve had some great health insurance packages from major companies).
He’s passed the Economic Stimulus, a subject of great debate, but without it, the so-called “conventional wisdom” is that we would have seen a major depression.
There are many other accomplishments:
- Ordering the closing of Guantanamo Bay military detention facility and abolishing “enhanced interrogation techniques.”
- Setting a fixed timetable for withdrawing U.S. combat forces from Iraq.
- Ordering 21,000 additional troops to Afghanistan and enlisting, with modest new assistance, European allies in a new multi-layered strategy there and in Pakistan, and setting a timetable for a drawdown of our troops.
- “Returning science to its rightful place” by lifting the Bush restrictions on federally funded embryonic stem cell research.
- Signing laws to expand children’s health insurance (financed by a 61-cent per pack increase in the federal cigarette tax the adviser did not tout).
- Signing a law meant to improve the ability of women who allege pay discrimination to sue their employer.
- Lifting travel and remittance restrictions for Cuban Americans who seek to travel more frequently to the island and send more US currency to their immediate family.
- Appointed the first Latina to the US Supreme Court
- signed a law supporting increased financial aid to severely injured war veterans, and their caretakers.
- Banned offshore drilling until parameters for deep well safety procedures are clarified.
- Put a hold on Artic oil exploratory digging until environmental impacts are clear.
- Passed health care reform.
- Signed a hate crime bill .
These are real, palpable, tangible accomplishments; ones made, notwithstanding a fractured Democratic party, with the most partisan Congress I can recall.
Sure, President Obama may be a bit too cerebral for some; and the target certainly of racists in this nation. He is a thoughtful man would considers, in my view, not only what is in the best interests of you and me, but the nation as a whole and the unintended consequences of his decisions, weighing carefully the, to use the vernacular, “risks and rewards.”
Moreover, he’s an engaging fellow, with a wit and a thick skin, who won the Presidency following a man who was arguably the worst President in our history leaving detritus behind that will probably take more years that President Obama, even with re-election, has time to sort out and resolve.
I think I’ve referred to this lawyer friend of mine in past posts; an incident today with him prompted this post.
By way of background, this fellow, in his late 50s, is clearly an alcoholic in heavy denial. He’s all but completely ruined his once brilliant career through booze and the apparent inability to maintain a zipped fly.
Has he lost everything yet. No, he owns a lovely home, albeit three months behind on the mortgage and family interests in three houses in a major metropolitan area.
Yesterday he called me asked for some help with email problems, virtually all the fault of his hosting service. I suggested he switch providers and I’d walk him through it; you know, repointing the domains and setting up the email on the hosting service.
“I don’t understand computers,” he protested loudly over the phone as I pointed out to him that it’s not a matter of “understanding” them, it’s a matter of typing in what I tell you. “In fact,” I said, “it’s automatic from the hosting provider.” Just email me a list of the email address and passwords and I’ll take care of it.
By this time I had spent at least three hours on this project, enduring his bombastic attitude and divergence into other subjects, as well as the constant protestations about his lack of computer capability.
He called about a half hour ago and said, “I have the email address, take them down.” I responded “Just email them to me.” “I don’t type,” he said. My response was, “I’m not your secretary and if you’re able to send an email you type every day. Either send them to me or handle the rest of the project yourself.”
Now, I’ve got time to blog, but that’s my time; time I choose not to write or effect billable work for clients, but I’ve not the time to be a secretary.
It’s hard to believe this fellow has such a sense of entitlement, notwithstanding an all but devastated reputation as an attorney and few friends left in the world, one of them, me, disengaging today.
It had been a bad day. In the history of my bad days, it may have been the worst. I don’t remember what the hell caused it. It doesn’t matter. I had just returned from Washington and it was the end of the day. Janet had been a pain in the ass through the day, calling with minutiae.
“Ben, your wife’s on Line 2,” Maggie called through the intercom.
“What now?” I asked her in a voice that was strained with this fourth call of the day.
“How much chlorine should the poolman put in the pool?
“Huh?”
How much….”
“I heard you. Why are you asking me this?”
“I don’t want him to do it if it’s not right.”
“It’s his fucking job,” I said hanging up the phone.
“Ronald, a doddering member of the “man’s” kitchen cabinet popped into my office.
“Let’s chat about the news release,” said the unctuous, badly graying short fellow who was a constant boil.
“Hello Ronald, what’s up?”
“Your punctuation is all wrong and you need to have the ‘man’ make this announcement, not the company.”
“Why does he have to announce the company’s selling a limo and a Piper Tri-Pacer anyway? Who the hell is going to run that?”
“You missed the whole point. He’s selling them to enhance the company’s value to the shareholders.”
“You mean that the hundred grand is going to fall to the bottom line and have an impact on a company with $9 billion in sales.”
“Oh yes.”
Zelda, the bitch of an office manager who had been there since day one and had probably been sleeping with the chairman since that time wandered in. “Oh, hi, Ronald,” she creaked, neither expecting nor receiving an answer.
“Thanks, Ronald, I’ll work on it, call you later,” I said, dismissing him.
“Yes Zelda.”
“I’ve got the 20,000 golf balls monogrammed with the company logo and the 10,000 Zippo logo’d lighters too. Where should I put them?”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“I thought they’d be good PR to give out to reporters.”
“There aren’t that many reporters in the world…”
“Your wife’s on line 4,” called Maggie.
“Just a second, Zelda.”
“What now?” I asked, slumping down, trying to hide from everything.
“Do you know Wanda Ryberion lives on our street.”
“Who?” I responded, falling into it now.
“The movie star.”
I punched line three, disconnecting the whale.
“Zelda, did you buy tees, flints and fluid also?”
“No, but I will.”
“Oh God. Look, don’t do anything. Don’t buy anything else, nothing.”
“But…”
“I’ll talk to you later.”
The phone calls and people kept coming, like a string of claymore mines, filled with absurd queries, along with memos, letters and the walk-ins to “just get a handle on what you’re doing.” Five straight hours of tedious jabber for which my response was never correct. And it had been going on for weeks, since the first day.
There was clearly a cabal of old-timers at the company who were on my ass for whatever power they perceived I had after only a few months. There was no power, of course. I was a newcomer with a green beret and ostensibly close to the man. Coming from the news business I wasn’t particularly political enough to notice that they were anything more than one of those gnats or fleas Churchill had talked about and responded to them in my usual blunt, oafish manner. You know, fuck you and leave me alone to do what I have to do. It really didn’t matter at that point because the whole gig was hell to me, from the daily suit to the work which seemed pointless. When I put it together with trying to figure out how I was going to get a divorce, Maggie who buzzed in my head every moment for reasons I tried to figure every moment, and that second guessing that comes when you’re so out of place you’ve no idea where the hell you are, I felt beaten.
That beaten that wrings your body and tells you every fuckin thing you’ve done, maybe ever, was wrong. Looking back, though, it may well have been the best day. And maybe it’s even the beginning of everything. Or at least what everything is now and has been for better than 20 years. It may well have been the baddest day then, but it may have the best day, because I can now think of worse days.
“Maggie, come in for a moment,” I called through the intercom or phone or however we communicated in what I assumed passed for a businesslike fashion back then.
I can’t remember what she was wearing. That’s strange for me, because if I am certifiable, and hell, most will tell you that they’re hopeful it’s only a severe eccentricity and not clinical psychosis; if I am certifiable, it is that obsession with Maggie. Now it’s not a bad obsession, I don’t think. In fact, it’s a pleasant one, but one that drives me crazy when it’s flawed and it’s flawed when I can’t remember something about her. And that’s a function of remembering too much about her, and more than 50 years. Everything she wore, everything she said, the way she moved, the way we made love the first time, the 50th time, the way she ate, the way…hell, you know what I mean. But on this bad day which may have become my best day to that point, I can’t remember what she was wearing. And I should. And I can’t remember what she did with her kid that night either.
But I remember her walking into my office and I remember thinking, trite as it sounds, that she was the single most beautiful woman I’d ever seen. It didn’t matter. There was something else and I was about as confused as the first time I read Chaucer in Middle English, or in any English.
According to the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, the gaps in after-tax income between the richest 1 percent of Americans and the middle and poorest fifths of the country more than tripled between 1979 and 2007 (the period for which these data are available), according to data the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) issued last week. Taken together with prior research, the new data suggest greater income concentration at the top of
the income scale than at any time since 1928.
While the recession that began in December 2007 likely reduced the income of the wealthiest Americans substantially and may thereby shrink the income gap between rich and poor households, a similar development that occurred around the bursting of the dot.com bubble and the 2001 recession turned out to be just a speed bump. Incomes at the top more than made up the lost
ground from 2003 to 2005.
The new CBO data – the most comprehensive data available on changes in incomes and taxes
for different income groups – also show the following:
- In 2007, the share of after-tax income going to the top 1 percent hit its highest level (17.1 percent) since 1979, while the share going to the middle one-fifth of Americans shrank to its lowest level during this period (14.1 percent).
- Between 1979 and 2007, average after-tax incomes for the top 1 percent rose by 281 percent after adjusting for inflation – an increase in income of $973,100 per household – compared to increases of 25 percent ($11,200 per household) for the middle fifth of households and 16 percent ($2,400 per household) for the bottom fifth.
- If all groups, after-tax incomes had grown at the same percentage rate over the 1979-2007 period, middle-income households would have received an additional $13,042 in 2007 and families in the bottom fifth would have received an additional $6,010.
- In 2007, the average household in the top 1 percent had an income of $1.3 million, up $88,800 just from the prior year; this $88,800 gain is well above the total 2007 income of the average middle-income household ($55,300).
I don’t often talk about computers, as there is some mystery to them for me, notwithstanding that I had a PC 1 in IBM’s “First Day Window,” and wrote a book on…, well, it doesn’t matter so as it was so long ago. I can get around my system fairly well, though I don’t like to admit it, and can’t recall ever calling a tech to come to my office.
The point here is that computers continue to surprise me. I use two displays, for various reasons, not the least of which used to be to run MSNBC or CNN at on one while I working and not listening to music. Several months ago, mysteriously, I could no longer get the TV tuner to work, so I let it go.
Today, I gave it try so I could watch commentary on the Arizona immigration court decision and lo and behold, it worked.
Does it matter “why?” to me? Not at all. It’s just nice to see things work without questioning why…and leaving a bit of mystery in my otherwise unmysterious life.
A federal judge has blocked key provisions of a controversial Arizona law aimed at illegal immigrants. The judge blocked a requirement that police have to check the immigration status of detainees they reasonably suspect of being in the country illegally, and stopped part of the law that makes it a crime for immigrants to be in the state illegally.
Years ago, my employer and I went to New York on business. During the trip, I invited my oldest friend to dinner, who I always considered to be the smartest fellow on Wall Street, Mike Metz.
Mike was an affluent fellow, certainly an understatement, who himself was understated, generally opting for the subway to work from his midtown home and carrying a simply manila envelope as a brief. My employer, as we used to say in my family, was one of the nouveau riche, and according to Mike Metz defined Oscar Wilde’s definition of a cynic, knowing the price of everything and value of nothing. However, my employer was never smart of to be cynic; a chameleon yes, as he could “cozy” up to any prospect or client and seal the deal.
At dinner, my employer pulled up his jacket and showed off his new $20,000+ watch, point out that he got a “great deal on it.” Mike, with the proverbial wry smile, pulled up his sleeve and proudly said, “This is my Co-RUM [with great emphasis on the last syllable; I got for $10 from a vendor in front of Gucci’s.” A $20k watch might have represented part of a week’s income from my modest friend, however, my employer went on about his homes and other acquisitions until Mike nodded to me.
Several months later, I left the firm I was with at time. This all comes to mind because I read an article discussing my former employer and his new coop in New York, quite pricey.
I was reminded of better times when society wore neither their wealth nor their religions on their sleeves.
The sun had long since set and whiskey laden as he’d been so often in the past, he wound up sleeping outside by the pool. It was the better part of a bottle of bourbon. In the morning he showered and shaved and threw on a seersucker suit, blue shirt and one of the three or four ties he had. That’s the way it had been, two seersucker, two corduroy, all shirts were blue and three or four ties…he always matched, rumpled beyond belief, but moderately coordinated. There was no question that he was out of place, but he had no idea how out of joint he would be politically. It was foggy when he geared up the TR6 and headed for the freeway. God, he loved the car and felt like Fangio when he tried to drift through the curves going down the hill to the freeway, which he hit going a suicidal 80.
He was taken aback when he pulled into the garage in Westwood and an attendant asked him if he’d like his car “detailed” regularly. The garage attendant explained that once a month he would not only wash and wax his car, but clean the crevices with a toothbrush and “work up” the leather. Each week, he said, he’d wash the car and each day “dust” it. Back in Washington he hadn’t washed his car once a year, but for $25 a month, it seemed like a good deal and would put him more into the Los Angeles milieu, something he clearly needed. The divorce, of course, would be his coronation into Los Angeles society.
I felt unusually good walking into my office that morning and reading the papers, an essential ritual and something that apparently set me somewhat apart from the rest of this corporate empire, unless, of course, there was an item about the company. I never could shake the disheveled look; hair like a Brillo pad, jacket tossed on the couch, tie loosened and sleeves rolled up. I was reading the dregs of Watergate when Maggie walked in and asked me if I wanted coffee.
Maybe I got it myself or she brought it to me, I don’t remember. I do remember that I put away the papers and asked her to sit down. She was exquisite, almost ethereal, and I hadn’t the slightest idea what to say.
As I didn’t know what I was supposed to do to fill the day, we talked more about her job, figuring that would give me a clue.
“I’m an editorial assistant on the company magazine,” she explained.
“Company magazine? What the hell is that?” was my response, when we were interrupted by Rosemary, the Chairman’s executive assistant who summoned me to the 15th floor and a meeting with the man. As I left the office, Maggie said, “You ought to put on your coat and tighten your tie, he’ll expect that.
I smiled, said “Thanks,” left the coat on the couch and went on my way. I never made particularly good first impressions anyway, figuring my charming eccentricities would carry the day.
I’d seen it all before, I thought, as I entered his office. Custom desk, expensive paintings and appointments, small man, big office, no soul.
“You should go to Washington for a couple of days tomorrow,” he said, “and solidify your contacts there. Jimmy suggested it would be helpful to what we’re doing.”
“What are we doing?” I asked.
“Take an early flight, when it’s appropriate, I’ll tell you what’s going on,” was the answer as I was obviously dismissed.
Back in my office, the flight had already been booked by corporate travel and Maggie said the tickets were on the way down. I did my part, calling my old poker buddies to set up a game for the following night at the Watergate, where I would be staying. What the hell, I thought, I could expense the losses.
Any respite from Janet was a positive, but I found myself not wanting to leave. I’d loved travel in the past, anywhere away from the house and the whale, even Newark, was a plus. But I didn’t want to go. I didn’t resist. It would be a break. It would be buddies. It’d be poker and booze. But it wasn’t comfortable.
