Do you know why I love Autumn?

Two words: Hot cocoa. You just can't drink it unless it's chilly outside. Also, I'm a big fan of crocheted scarves, wool hats, big fuzzy blankets, and all the cozy things that have been stashed away for months. We're also blessed with new seasons of The Office and The Simpsons, and to top it all off: the evergreens in my backyard appear to be engulfed in flames.

Six things I intend never to accomplish

Six common voluntary activities I'd be happy to live my entire life without doing:

In no particular order...

1. Spend 3 figures on a purse or article of clothing

2. Smoke a cigarette (or cigar, joint, pipe, whatever)

3. Eat cheese full of writhing maggots, even if it is a delicacy

4. Bungee jump

5. Watch a Michael Moore "documentary," abominations to the genre

6. Own a minivan

What won't make your "been there, done that" list?

Flashback Friday: Origins, also Cootie Ghetto

Back in August, shortly after I created this blog, I found myself wondering what the heck I was going to write about week after week. My life doesn't seem very interesting most days.

At the same time, I was finally getting around to turning the guest room where our Japanese exchange student had lived for ten months back into the all-purpose storage/craft/gift-wrapping room that it was meant to be. I lack the capacity to simply shove boxes onto shelves without first establishing some semblance of order within them and determining their best organizational groupage category. Sifting through boxes of old photos and memorabilia, it occurred to me that my past is freckled with plenty of entertaining stories that would make great blog entries. Specifically, I was chuckling about some memories from church Girls' Camp in my teen years. But it seemed so random to just start writing about instances having no current relavancy. The solution to this conundrum, of course, would be to initiate a recurring flashback feature...possibly repeating on a regular day of the week. But I did not consider myself disciplined enough to establish the expectation to write a certain element each week, so I filed the idea away in my brain for future reference.

The very next day, I came across Bridget's first installment of her now well-established "Flashback Friday." And guess what: her first flashback was a story from the same Girls' Camp about which I was reminiscing when I had the same idea. I felt like I was in that twilighty show about that zone.

That was ten weeks ago. Now, with the help of NaBloPoMo forcing me into writing submission, I'm jumping on the Flashback Friday bandwagon (don't worry, Bridget invited others to participate, so I'm not stealing her idea (which she stole from me)).

So does that story count as today's flashback? It probably could, but I'd better keep the Girls' Camp tradition alive and tell you a story about a little piece of Heaven called the Cootie Ghetto.

All of us 16-year-olds were preparing to attend our 5th year of Girls' Camp, which is the year where for some reason we are allowed to be counselors--in relative charge of half a dozen or so impressionable pre-teens. Counselors work in pairs, and Bridget and I were a great match since we didn't take the whole thing too seriously and--while maintaining respect for the solemn--liked to gently push the boundaries of some of the more laughable processes.

A few months before camp, a meeting is held to announce the theme for the year, around which all camp activities, decorations, and lessons will be designed. Past themes included Wide World of Sports, Noah's Ark, and Saturday Morning Cartoons. The theme for 1997 would be...(drumroll)...The Game of Life. Each set of counselors must select the name of a board game by which their cabin group will be known. In order to avoid any hair-pulling brawls over the decidedly "best" games, we were assigned numbers and made our selections from their list in chronological order. Bridget and I were something like number 17 out of 18. As all the good choices were plucked from our grasp, we started thinking outside the box. There was no way we were going to try to create cool decorations and nametags etc. from a game such as Pick up Sticks or Backgammon when our friends had Candyland and Operation. It would be an exercise in futility, not to mention ensure that our campers would spend all their time with another (cooler) group. So we scoffed at their list and chose our own game: Cooties. The camp leaders weren't too supportive of our idea, but I guess we presented an acceptable argument.

Fast forward to our arrival at Camp Namanu. Before the girls who would be under our care arrived, Bridget and I had 9 hours to make our preparations, which mainly consisted of plastering our cabin with Cootie-related paraphernalia. To get the origins of Cootie Ghetto straight, I will forfeit my dignity and allow you to read directly from the embarrassing scrapbook I made:
The Camp leaders took issue with our haven of trash, and implored that we remove it. I recall we eventually reached a compromise where we cleaned up the actual garbage but were allowed to leave the more decorative duct tape and ghetto sign. Sometimes you have to make your own fun.

"COOTIES, Angela, COOTIES." I know this joke originated during our pre-camp preparations, but how? Help me out if you can, ridget.

----
Did you know that by replacing the word "choose" with "chews" you can create a catchy handout for almost any occasion? True. Just add any soft candy-type item and you've got yourself a winner.

This one was accompanied by a stick of gum. Very clever. Also good: "Chews" the Right with Snickers bar. If you want to make your handout extra cute, draw dots on the ends of every letter. And there's really no reason to over-think the rules of "quotation" marks. If you feel they are necessary, just "go" for it!

A conversation with an extreme lefty

I noticed her pick up the pencil with her left hand.

"Are you left-handed?" I asked, immediately wondering why I thought that a question worth asking.

"Yeah. VERY left-handed." She responded.

I blinked through my bewilderment as she related in detail the trials and tribulations of growing up as a south-paw in a world designed for the right-side dominant. My head bobbed as I contemplated why she qualified the degree of her left-handedness. Besides the occasional truly ambidextrous individual, I always figured a person was either left-handed or right-handed. I did not realize there were varying intensities to which one's hand-preference could be classified.

Her oration did not address this query, but finished by emphasizing, "VERY left-handed." Then she picked up her can of Diet Coke and took a swig. With her right hand.

Finally over

Now that America has named Barack Obama our new President-elect, I'd say the two results of this deicision that I am most excited about are:

1. The incessant Bush-bashing and criticism of the current administration should get quieter as we wait to see what will happen next.

2. There is no arguing that Obama's election marks a pivotal moment in US history. Due in part to my geographical location, and primarily to my age, I have witnessed very little in the way of racial injustice. I personally don't find the idea of a black president the least bit shocking, except in the context of its significant position along our country's journey out of prejudice.

Mostly, I am deeply relieved that the election hooplah is finally finished for a while. I need a little break before being ready to focus on my crucial responsibility of voting for our next American Idol!

My mailbox runneth over

It's probably been 5 or 6 days since we collected our mail. So the locked metal box was abnormally crammed with letters and bills and such today. And...this giant pile of political advertisements.

Obviously these pieces were perfectly timed to arrive in voters' mailboxes in the days leading up to the election. But these geniuses didn't count on us being so lazy about checking our mail, because we've already cast our ballots! We actually read the voter's pamphlet. Take that!

(Okay, mostly Gary read the pamphlet and gave me the highlights)

Happy Election-Day Eve

By now most people have cast their vote for the next US President, so these comments should not be construed as an attempt to sway any opinions. I simply thought I'd share a few intriguing tidbits I've come across in my explorations as an Independent Voter.

Here's a fun story to get us rolling:

Suppose that every day, ten men go out for dinner and the bill for all ten comes to $100. If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this:

The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing.
The fifth would pay $1.
The sixth would pay $3.
The seventh would pay $7.
The eighth would pay $12.
The ninth would pay $18.
The tenth man (the richest) would pay $59.

So, that's what they decided to do. The ten men ate in the restaurant every day and seemed quite happy with the arrangement, until one day, the owner threw them a curve. "Since you are all such good customers," he said, "I'm going to reduce the cost of your meal by $20."dinner for the ten now cost just $80.

The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes so the first four men were unaffected. They would still eat for free. But what about the other six men - the paying customers? How could they divide the $20 windfall so that everyone would get his 'fair share?' They realized that $20 divided by six is $3.33. But if they subtracted that from everybody's share, then the fifth man and the sixth man would each end up being paid to eat. So, the bar owner suggested that it would be fair to reduce each man's bill by roughly the same percent and he proceeded to work out the amounts each should pay.

And so:
The fifth man, like the first four, now paid nothing (100% savings).
The sixth now paid $2 instead of $3 (33%savings).
The seventh now pay $5 instead of $7 (28%savings).
The eighth now paid $9 instead of $12 (25% savings).
The ninth now paid $14 instead of $18 (22% savings).
The tenth now paid $49 instead of $59 (16% savings).

Each of the six was better off than before. And the first four continued to eat for free. But once outside the restaurant, the men began to compare their savings.

"I only got a dollar out of the $20,"declared the sixth man. He pointed to the tenth man," but he got $10!"
"Yeah, that's right," exclaimed the fifth man. "I only saved a dollar, too. It's unfair that he got ten times more than I!"
"That's true!!" shouted the seventh man. "Why should he get $10 back when I got only two? The wealthy get all the breaks!"
"Wait a minute," yelled the first four men in unison. "We didn't get anything at all. The system exploits the poor!"

The next night the tenth man didn't show up for dinner, so the nine sat down and ate without him. But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered something important. They didn't have enough money between all of them for even half of the bill!

And that, boys and girls, journalists and college professors, is how our tax system works. The people who pay the highest taxes get the most benefit from a tax reduction. Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy, and they just may not show up anymore.

David R. Kamerschen, Ph.D. Professor of Economics University of Georgia
For those who understand, no explanation is needed. For those who do not understand, no explanation is possible.

I read that analogy for the first time a few years ago, and I hate to admit that it initiated my education about our top-heavy tax system. I was actually ignorant to the fact that the percentage of taxes paid across the population was so drastically divergent. I knew that rich people paid more in taxes than poor people, but naively assumed that was just an effect of their relative income levels.


So how might our taxes be affected by the next administration? Here is a great visual summary from the Washington Post:

Notice that under Obama's proposal the top earners in our country will pay an average of over $700,000 MORE in taxes than they already do , whereas McCain's plan would reduce their amount paid by an average of nearly $270,000. As in the restaurant story above, I think many people vilify this tax break for the rich. Nay, I know they do, because you can read about it in newspapers and blogs ad nauseum. I'm certainly nowhere close to the top 1% of income earners, but I don't think it's fair that they paid 40% of all income taxes in 2006, whereas the the bottom 50% of taxpayers paid only 3%. This is all a very good way to disincent entrepreneurialism and achieving the American Dream.

Of course, reduce those taxes too far, and the national deficit will be grossly affected. So a flat tax isn't the answer either, but perhaps consumption tax deserves a fair look.

I am not a Republican. In fact, my views on social issues tend to be more liberal. But has anyone else noticed that the media seems to lean a little to the left? Well it's not just an opinion. A new independent study by the Project for Excellence in Journalism researched how different media have covered the election, and found that "In cable, the evidence firmly suggests there now really is an ideological divide between two of the three channels, at least in their coverage of the campaign."

There are many interesting data charts throughout the study, but I found this one particularly comical. Fox News is often criticized for being too conservative, but as you can see their percentage of negative, neutral, and positive stories for both candidates is nearly identical. On the other hand, 73% of MSNBC's stories about McCain were negative, with only 14% negative for Obama.

You might be thinking, "Well, there are simply more negative stories about McCain than Obama. MSNBC and my favorite newspaper(s) just report the news." Nope. That ain't it. According to the research, "MSNBC stood out for having less negative coverage of Obama than the press generally (14% of stories vs. 29% in the press overall) and for having more negative stories about McCain (73% of its coverage vs. 57% in the press overall)." So they reported only half of the negative issues surrounding Obama that the rest of the media felt were newsworthy.

Newspapers were found to "portray a more extreme version of the overall press treatment of both McCain and Obama...Indeed, of all the media sectors studied, John McCain received the most negative coverage in print. In all, 69% of the newspaper stories studied about McCain were clearly negative, while only 6% were positive, a ratio of about 11-to-1. (The press overall was 57% to 14%, a ratio of closer to 4-to-1.) Only MSNBC offered more negative coverage of the Republican nominee." Eleven to one? That's pretty sad.

I'm not feeling very eloquent tonight, so I'm borrowing one more quote to sum up my thoughts on the media bias. This one comes from Bernard Goldberg:

...There are a whole array of stories that conservative people in America are interested in that the big, mainstream media have little to no interest in. Reverend Wright, Bill Ayers, Khalidi, the Palestinian professor at Columbia, and ACORN, things like that. ...the New York Times and the other big organizations, they have their own news judgment. I get that. ...But when you ignore or virtually ignore stories that so many Americans, millions and millions and millions of Americans, care about, then I think that detracts from your stature as a big national news organization.

I'd like to continue musing--we haven't even touched war and socialist healthcare--but I realize most people probably got bored and stopped reading a while ago. And those who are still with me might be fuming and wondering how we ever became friends in the first place.

An assumption which brings me to my final point for this evening. Why is it that those of us with conservative views (at least in my area of the World) are forced into a sort of undercover secret society? The Democrats I know have no problem broadcasting their elitist opinions to a room full of acquantainces at best. The prevailing belief seems to be that any such room is filled with only two types of people: those who agree and those who are idiots. We--the latter, supposedly--keep our mouths shut in these situations because a respectful debate doesn't seem plausible. [Okay, that's the worst of my commentary, please forgive.] But there IS a wise argument for the other side of the issues. It has become increasingly less shocking for me to be tiptoeing through a sensitive conversation with someone, only to have it come to light that we hold similar political ideals, and the sense of relief is almost tangible. It happened to me just tonight! Perhaps a secret handshake or code phrase would simplify that delicate dance.

Once I boldly asked a new-ish friend, "So, are you a Democrat or a Republican?" She sighed and sheepishly (!) said, "Actually...I'm a Republican," possibly hoping the conversation would safely end with my "Oh. I see." Instead we examined why hers is a shameful confession mainly uttered in private.