Maybe we're really going to do it this time

We've set dates for the move back north several times since first landing in Atlanta in 2007, but this is the first time I've started selling the furniture as that date grew closer. I'm advertising on an electronic bulletin board at work -- I was a little skeptical about how effective that method would be, but I think it's going to depend on the specific item. I tried selling a china cabinet that way a couple years ago and had no luck, but this time around a small chest of drawers had potential buyers in less than 2 hours. I had to scramble after work to get the thing emptied before the buyers came over to pick it up.

I'm going to try advertising the china cabinet again. It's not really my style, but, like most of our furniture, it was a yard sale find that I figured would serve its purpose until I found the mid-century modern cabinet of my dreams. If it doesn't sell this time around, it's going to Goodwill, along with a number of other items that we won't have a use for at the retirement bunker. Moving is always a giant pain in the ass, so the less that we actually have to schlep on to the U-Haul, the better.

Why are we Americans such sniveling cowards?

I know this isn't a new question -- I've posed it before, and so have quite a few other people. It's even the underlying theme of Michael Moore's movie Bowling for Columbine: the typical white American wanders around scared shitless most of the time, totally convinced the world is full of people whose only goal is to invade his home, steal his worthless tchotchkes, rape his womenfolk, and probably abuse his dog while they're at it.

I was reminded of this pervasive paranoia recently when I read an account on one of the blogs I occasionally wander through about an incident occurring on the opening night of the Wisconsin state fair in West Allis a few days ago. As fairgoers left the grounds, a group of young thugs began assaulting some of them. Depending on the news account, it was described as a flash mob, a mini riot, a group mugging, and so on. Bottom line: you had a group of young thugs briefly running wild. No one's sure just how many thugs there were because it was the middle of the night, it happened fast, and people's impressions were confused (aided, no doubt, by the fact the Wisconsin State Fair has some wonderful beer gardens). Overall, the experience was frightening -- no one expects to have someone try to snatch your purse or knock you down as you're leaving a fairgrounds in suburban Milwaukee -- but injuries appear to have been minor and the total number of victims rather small, especially considering some of the initial hysteria following the news reports.

So how did the blogger who relayed this story respond to it? He's going to make damn sure he's carrying a gun the next time he goes to Wisconsin. WTF? A one-time incident with a handful of young punks means the entire state, cows and all, is now too dangerous to enter without loaded gun in hand? Does he think he's going to get mugged at a rest stop on his way to the Dells?  I then found myself thinking about the young guy who was on jury duty with me back in 2009.

This was a young man, probably early 30s, who was at least six feet tall, not an ounce of flab on him (not quite a gym rat bod, but definitely physically fit), who in the world of potential targets for muggings might as well have had a flashing neon sign over his head screaming Not Worth the Risk. He was probably the least likely person in Atlanta to ever have to deal with some young punk demanding his wallet. But it came out in conversation that he was both a major believer in the right to concealed carry and nervous as heck about having to walk from his car to the courthouse unarmed because "you never know what type of people will be around a courthouse." (Yeah, like cops. Sheriff's deputies. Bailiffs. And maybe people in handcuffs.) He was afraid to walk half a block in downtown Decatur without a gun. In the middle of the day! He probably didn't appreciate me laughing at him.

He also treated us to a long monologue about how he'd absolutely never take MARTA any place because it's just too dangerous, and he and his wife live in a gated community and don't understand how anyone could live in some of the old neighborhoods in Atlanta where you're right on a public street and "anyone can drive right by." It was bizarre. He didn't look certifiable, but he certainly had a fine case of galloping paranoia.

I don't get it. What are people afraid of? If you look around, how many armed robbers or home invaders has the average person actually encountered? Answer: zero. Everyone interacts with hundreds, maybe thousands of people, on a casual basis every day -- passing them on the sidewalks in cities, seeing them in grocery stores and shopping malls, working in a building with many, many people -- and none of those strangers tries to rob you or make your life miserable. What are the odds that you're going to encounter the one lone nut who's going to want your wallet? Minuscule to nonexistent. And, if you do encounter that nut, what's wrong with just handing the money over? Why would you want to take a chance on channeling your inner Wyatt Earp and possibly dying in the process over something as replaceable as a few credit cards or some cash?

The thing that I find the strangest is that it's usually the people who have never had anything bad happen who seem to worry the most and want to carry the biggest guns. They've never been burglarized, but they're convinced their house is so full of good stuff that some one's going to want it. They've never been mugged, but they flinch every time they pass a stranger on the street. They live out in the middle of nowhere, some tiny town in a rural state, but are convinced "terrorists" are going to target the local feed store. It's bizarre, narcissism and paranoia in one neat package.

Reincarnation?

A week or so ago I finished reading Herbert Hoover: A Public Life. After learning more about Hoover, I found myself thinking that if the birth and death dates were just a little bit different, Barack Obama would have me believing in reincarnation. It would be such a handy explanation. Unfortunately, President Obama was born over 3 years before President Hoover died, so it's just coincidence they have so much in common.

Some of the similarities are obvious, although ideologically Hoover was a lot farther to the left than Obama. Hoover, for example, thought inherited wealth posed a major threat to the well-being of the country and pushed for high inheritance taxes to help break up great fortunes. He was against tax cuts for millionaires and pushed for lower taxes for workers on the low end of the economic scale. He supported unions -- he had the entire press run of a Republican publication destroyed when he learned it was printed in a nonunion shop -- and agreed with the concept of a minimum wage. He had an extremely dim view of banks and bankers, and was constantly battling Wall Street. He was a pacifist and not overly fond of the military -- one of his goals following World War I was arms reduction. He was, in short, an old-fashioned progressive Republican back when the Republicans were still sane.  If that was the aspect of Hoover that Obama was channeling, I think I'd be happy.

Unfortunately, Obama seems to have decided some of Hoover's other attributes are the ones to emulate. Hoover was a great believer in cooperation, especially after the great success he'd had with relief efforts in Belgium during World War I and in Europe overall immediately after the war. He truly believed that if you appealed to people's better natures, they'd come through. Businessmen would do the right thing because it was the right thing and not because they were forced to through regulation. As the Depression worsened and banks began to fail, Hoover resisted government intervention and instead appealed to the business community to think of the greater good of the country. The country was circling the drain, and Hoover was hesitant to take any direct federal action. Shades of Obama trying to be reasonable and craft a bipartisan agreement on the budget, the debt ceiling, and everything else.

The end result, of course, is that by the time Hoover left office he was thoroughly reviled. He'd been elected as a hero but went home to California 4 years later with his reputation in shreds. He'd had good intentions, he wanted to do the right thing, but most of his efforts can be summed up simply as "Too little, too late." Sound familiar?

I did find myself wondering if the similarities in their backgrounds had anything to do with similarities in their political style. Although Hoover did know both his parents, he was orphaned young -- his father died when Hoover was 6, and his mother passed away barely 3 years later, leaving Hoover totally dependent on the goodwill of various relatives. Obama didn't know his father, and his mother was absent for long periods of time in his youth. Like Hoover, Obama was dependent on the goodwill of relatives. If you spend your formative years feeling like you've got to keep everyone around you happy, maybe, just maybe, you're going to grow up to be someone with the negotiating skills of a marshmallow.

Incidentally, one thing that's always puzzled me about the Hoover administration was the debacle with the "bonus army." The US army commander, Douglas MacArthur, had been ordered not to march on the encampment. He did anyway, in direct violation of his orders, and Hoover failed to reprimand him. It left many people with the impression that Hoover had approved the brutal attack that left hundreds of civilians injured. End result, of course, is that over time it's Hoover's name that's become irrevocably linked with the mess, not MacArthur's. The book, unfortunately, didn't devote much page space to it -- I had to turn to Wikipedia for enough background to understand just what the issue was that caused the bonus army to assemble in Washington to begin with. Herbert Hoover: A Public Life provides a lot of detail about Hoover's life right up to the Presidency but then turns remarkably thin. Very strange, considering that one would think that the Presidency was the most important part of Hoover's career and it's Hoover's actions (or inactions) as President that are remembered today.  

Want to depress yourself really fast?

Read something by John Steinbeck. I can't say I wasn't warned -- following my last Pulitzer Project post, when I mentioned that The Grapes of Wrath was up next on the list, one commenter said he'd been unable to finish it. I think I can see why, and I haven't even gotten to it yet. I checked a collected works book, Steinbeck's output during 1936 through 1941, out of the library and figured I might as well read the whole thing.

The first section of the book is a collection of short stories, The Long Valley. It includes stories like "Flight" and "The Snake." I swear each one is more depressing than the last! The writing is great -- Steinbeck was indeed good with a pen -- but when your reaction to a story is, holy crap, that was really creepy, or, jeez, I need to read some Wodehouse immediately to get that out of my brain, you do find yourself wondering just how he managed to become a best selling author. Were things so bad back in the 1930s that reading Steinbeck could make people feel better because their own lives weren't nearly as bleak?

Why?

Cell phone tower masquerading as a pine tree. What's the point? It's behind a Walgreens and next to a Burger King in the middle of a heavily commercialized area. There are multiple other towers not far away, none of which are wearing disguises. Why bother hanging plastic branches on this one?

So what's the rudest thing anyone's ever asked you?

Are you an American?

What's your religion?

Is your mother Black or is it your dad?

How much money do you make?

I heard you're getting married. Are you pregnant?

What nationality are you?

Have you gained weight?

Do you have cancer?

Your kids don't look anything like each other -- do they have the same father?

I got to thinking about rudeness after reading a post over at the Field Negro about how often people with less than lily-white skin get asked about their ethnicity. I thought it was bad just getting asked occasionally if I'm Canadian, thanks to my Yooper accent. (Answer: No, but there are a lot of days when I wish I was.) It must truly suck to have people quizzing you about whether or not you're Haitian/Mexican/Native American/Samoan/whatever simply because you're not a blue eyed blonde.

So what's the rudest question anyone's ever asked you?

[The appropriate answer to all rude questions, of course, as all the advice mavens can tell you, is a simple "Why do you want to know?" followed, if they persist, by "It's none of your business."]

So what was the problem with Borders?

I went to the mall yesterday. Had some other shopping to do that was the real reason I was there, but could not resist stepping into the Borders Express store. It was packed. As far as I could tell, the major difference in the store's usual sales tactics was the huge "Going out of Business!!" signs in the windows. The stock was discounted, but not dramatically -- Borders did 20% off sales all the time before, it was just never on everything in the store. So why the stampede to shop there now? The illusion of bargains? If people really want to buy 6 or 7 books at a shot, why weren't they doing that back before the chain began going bankrupt?

More weirdness from bizarro land

I'm sort of watching Hardball, and they just broke to a quick statement from the Tan Man, his Orangeness John Boehner, who kept going on and on about the administration's unwillingness to "put anything in writing" when it comes to spending (or not spending) tax dollars. Just what the fuck do the Reptilians think the current federal budget is?! It's an annual exercise -- the executive branch provides a document to the Congress that lays out in great detail exactly where and how the administration plans to spend money. Congress argues it, pushes for changes, and eventually okays most of it. If that isn't putting it in writing, what is? The money the country owes now (and the teabaggers apparently don't want to pay) in fact reflects a document that Congress read and approved several months ago. So why aren't any of the moronic talking heads who get paid big bucks to pretend to know what they're talking about asking that question?

Densifying

Densifying. It's become the word du jour at Large Nameless Agency. The budget is shrinking, so what's one way to survive in these austere times? Eliminate leased office space and pack the human resources into the structures that LNA actually owns. Densify. Which in turns means figuring out how to fit a thousand people into a building designed for use by a third that number on a campus that is already chronically short of parking spaces and is inadequately served by public transit.

There has been much moaning and gnashing of teeth since the word came down a week or so ago that we would be relocating sometime shortly after the start of the new fiscal year. I view the relocation as a handy excuse for promoting telework for all the same reasons upper level management at LNA does: relieve pressure on office space, reduce the demand for parking, elminate stress from people's lives. Whether or not our manager (who really does not like the concept of telework, even though she works from home herself on a regular basis) will accept an increased level of telework by the peasants in her fiefdom is still debatable, but she may not have much choice.

In the meantime, I'll just keep looking at the countdown calendar and thinking quietly that no matter what happens, fairly soon it's not going to be my problem. Now if they'd only add technical writer-editors to the list of occupations LNA wants to offer buyouts to in an effort to entice people to retire, I'd be a happy camper.