Only Following Orders

Did you see former Attorney General John Ashcroft’s op-ed in this morning’s New York Times? My blood began to boil.

This is one of those stories where a very limited subset of the full facts are known to mere mortals like you and me. It seems the federal government asked the major phone companies for all sorts of data on phone customers. That would be people like you and me.

The phone companies rolled over like a collie waiting for a treat.

What kind of data? Who knows.

Did they allow the government to listen in? I wish I knew.

Whatever it was, it was probably illegal. The phone companies are now sweating because they’re being sued.

When the White House asks you to help in surveillance, do you say yes in spite of the law? What if you’re a big business and feel a significant portion of that will go away if you say no?

I say, “no.” Our personal liberties are among the most important rights granted in the Constitution.

Here’s what Ashcroft said:

Whatever one feels about the underlying intelligence activities or the legal basis on which they were initially established, it would be unfair and contrary to the interests of the United States to allow litigation that tries to hold private telecommunications companies liable for them.

You’ve got to suspect these telecom giants are lawyered to the teeth. They knew what they were doing. I was only following orders doesn’t work here… at least it doesn’t work for me.

I lived through the sixties and seventies. I still have a bad taste in my mouth about government surveillance, whether it be against Dr. Martin Luther King or war protesters.

Our government has worked so well for over 200 years because our rule of law is based on what’s written, not who is elected.

Oh… did I mention, John Ashcroft is now a lobbyists for the telecommunications industry?

My Creative Family

We are a very small family. Even then, I am only in touch with a smaller subset of my relatives. Outside my immediate family, my closest relative is Cousin Michael. He and his family live in California – in the OC.

Michael is our most educated Fox. He has a closet full of bachelor and masters degrees, plus a law degree and PhD.

When he was in high school, he wanted to be a farmer&#185. That’s not the normal career path for someone born within walking distance of the Flushing El, who could see the Empire State Building from the front steps of his Queens apartment building.

If I remember correctly (and he’s not shy about correcting) he then studied library science, and of course, law. I’m sure I’m leaving something out.

He ended up working for the federal government as a staff attorney for the Labor Board in Washington. I remember visiting his office in a government building so depressingly institutional, linoleum and green wall paint would have classed the joint up.

At some point in Washington, he got hooked on theater. I don’t know how that happened, because Michael and I were out of touch for many of those years, but he got the bug. Michael gravitated to directing.

Though he taught and occasionally did ‘lawyer work,’ directing was obviously his vocational passion.

I have never seen Michael’s work, but now I’ve gotten to read about it. His latest production, Samuel Beckett’s “Endgame” is in the midst of a short run in Santa Ana, CA.

The Orange County Register’s reviewer was very positive.

This could be some bizarre, post-nuclear world where everyone struggles for survival, or it could simply be the extreme result of societies that value ideologies or materialism over human life. The time, place and context are never specified because, as director Michael David Fox’s staging proves, Beckett’s ideas transcend such specifics, creating disturbing images while raising philosophical questions deeply troubling once dwelled upon.

Beckett means for us to dwell on these issues, and Fox and company oblige with a compact staging that, like “Godot,” can be achingly funny one moment, stark and bleak the next.

I wish I could pop on down to Southern California to see it. The show runs through May 20, Friday and Saturday evenings and a Sunday matin

The Subway Threat

Yesterday in New York all hell broke loose. Word came there was credible information suggesting a possible attack on the New York City Subway system. Mayor Bloomberg and other city officials gathered for a news conference spelling out as much as they wanted to spell.

Later word from the federal government played down the threat… or not. Who knows? We’re only being told what we’re being told and my guess is, that’s far from everything.

The problem isn’t that someone wants to create terror in the subway system, the problem is that’s one of a zillion targets in New York.

For no more than a threat, it is possible for a terrorist to create enough uncertainty to cause New York City and the United States, a significant amount of money. Cops get paid for those extra hours. Tourists stay home when they’re scared.

I’m not a security expert, and I won’t begin to say what should and shouldn’t be protected, or how. Still, isn’t everything in New York a target? Along with the subways there’s the George Washington Bridge, the Holland and Lincoln Tunnels, Statue of Liberty plus reservoirs, gas storage facilities and… well, you get the idea.

When it comes to targets, New York City has no shortage.

Is it even possible to keep a city safe? Does it make sense to concentrate resources in one spot, leaving the others vulnerable?

The September 11, 2001 attacks were accomplished in a way that wouldn’t be possible today. In fact, after the first three planes, it wasn’t even possible on 9/11!

That being said, we have built up a huge, clumsy, cumbersome infrastructure at hundreds of airports as if airplane hijackings were the only viable way to get at us. I wish I felt more secure because of it. I don’t.

I’d like to end this post with some uplifting ending, but I’ve got none. I just don’t think it’s possible to stop everything, all the time. That’s a problem if we have enemies willing to do everything all the time.

I’m More Pessimistic About Hurricanes

Recently I was interviewed for an article in Business New Haven concerning hurricanes. I’ve linked to the text.

Over time I’ve become more pessimistic of what might happen in a repeat of the hurricane of ’38 scenario for Connecticut. There would be little time for warning and difficulty explaining where the damage might occur.

Even in 2005, a tragedy seems unavoidable. That’s not what I want to say, but it is a realistic expectation.

I’m glad to see, though Dr. Mel Goldstein and I were interviewed separately (I didn’t even know he had been interviewed), we are in agreement with our concern.

Unlike Katrina where good advice was ignored, I’m not sure what we could do today to help prepare us for a hurricane approaching us at 60 mph. The entire East Coast would need warning. What good would that do?

Continue reading “I’m More Pessimistic About Hurricanes”

Where Is The Federal Government?

“Good afternoon…there is a desperate, desperate race to try to save those who made it through the storm, but may not survive the aftermath. This may be one of the saddest spectacles I have ever seen.” – Shepard Smith, Fox News Channel

I’m not in New Orleans nor the Gulf Coast. I only know what I see on television and read in the newspaper. I am not happy with what I’m seeing.

Times-Picayune

Wednesday, August 31, 2005

Looting on Tchoupitoulas Avenue

By Michael Perlstein

Staff writer

Looting in New Orleans was so widespread Wednesday that police were forced to prioritize their overwhelmed enforcement effort.

The officers were rushing to a break-in next door at the Sports Authority, desperate to secure the store’s stockpile of guns and ammunition.

“I think we ran them off before they got any of it,” said the commanding officer at the scene. The cops secured the store with heavy plywood before moving on to other emergencies.

There’s more, but it’s too depressing.

Where is FEMA? Where is Homeland Security? Where is the National Guard? Where are tents and cots and kitchens?

Why on Wednesday is this first being announced by President Bush&#185?

That Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast was no surprise. It was well forecast, both intensity and track. The predictions from the Hurricane Center were dire with some of the strongest cautionary language I’ve ever read relating to weather.

Wasn’t anything brought in to be ready?

As we have a moment to step back from this tragedy, maybe it’s time to question how the resources allocated for emergency services are deployed. If I were in New Orleans or the Mississippi and Alabama coastal towns, I’d be more than steaming right now. I’d want answers.

&#185 – Though President Bush is ‘in charge’, operational decisions should have been made at lower governmental levels.

My Trashy Story

Every week, on Friday, our trash goes to the curb. Every other week it’s supposed to be accompanied by recycling. It doesn’t work that way in our household.

Whether it’s our distance from the curb or the amount of recycled newspapers we have (we subscribe to both the New Haven Register or New York Times) or maybe all the boxes we get because of online shopping, going to the curb bi-weekly doesn’t work. So all of this recyclable material piles up in the garage. A few times a year we stuff it into the SUV and I drive it to the transfer station.

Transfer station, what a lovely phrase. It’s so much more genteel than town dump.

I drove up to the transfer station this morning only to find the new policy – no newspapers. I had an SUV full of recyclables, and of course, the supermarket bags of newspapers were on top!

I unloaded the 20 or so bags of newspapers to get to the cardboard and other material underneath. At this point the transfer station folks took pity on me and found a place… a transfer station loophole if you will… that allowed me to drop the papers off. From now on it’s newspapers to the street, I suppose.

I want to be a good citizen, but it is increasingly difficult to follow the rules. In fact, it would be much easier to hide the newspapers and cardboard and bottles with our weekly trash. I’m sure a lot of people do just that. It also always strikes me as a little ironic that the two most talked about recycled products are made from sand (glass) or grow on trees (paper).

I know this is supposed to be good for the environment, and I’m for that. But, is it really? Is this just a feel good exercise with no payoff… or negative payoff?

From “Recycling Is Garbage” – New York Times Magazine, June 30, 1996:

Every time a sanitation department crew picks up a load of bottles and cans from the curb, New York City loses money. The recycling program consumes resources. It requires extra administrators and a continual public relations campaign explaining what to do with dozens of different products — recycle milk jugs but not milk cartons, index cards but not construction paper. (Most New Yorkers still don’t know the rules.) It requires enforcement agents to inspect garbage and issue tickets. Most of all, it requires extra collection crews and trucks. Collecting a ton of recyclable items is three times more expensive than collecting a ton of garbage because the crews pick up less material at each stop. For every ton of glass, plastic and metal that the truck delivers to a private recycler, the city currently spends $200 more than it would spend to bury the material in a landfill.

I don’t know what to think. I want to do what’s right, but I am really not sure. Until I know otherwise, I will follow the rules.

In the meantime, part of our recycling life at home will have to change. Newspapers to the curb. I can hardly wait for the first really big rain on a Thursday night.

Continue reading “My Trashy Story”

It’s Tax Time

Helaine has been trying to rush me along and get me going on Income Tax 2003. And, of course, like everything else in my life, I try and procrastinate. Adding to my lack of motivation was the fact that I expected we’d owe money.

Wrong again – thankfully.

We began this afternoon. We’re using Turbo Tax Online, as we have the past few years. There are all sorts of advantages to doing it this way – not the least of which is, Turbo Tax ‘remembers’ what you entered in the years before, so addresses and common entries are already filled out.

I know there’s a certain amount of danger in putting all your financial info on someone’s servers. I’m hoping… no, I’m praying that Turbo Tax takes it all very seriously and has the best security. One can never be sure.

Everything I’ve ever heard about the tax laws is true. They’re complex, obtuse, and often counter to good financial policy. There are so many choices having to do with so many esoteric programs. It’s enough to make your head spin.

I’m sure there are good reasons why we don’t, but wouldn’t it be easier to stop all the financial contortions and eliminate deductions entirely?

When you look at how much tax liability a single dollar of deductions brings, it’s obvious why people pad. As it is, after all was said and done, we let Turbo Tax show us how we did versus other people with comparable income. We are way behind on deductions, charitable contributions, anything that would put more money in my pocket. We are honest – or at least try to be, and these numbers make it look like we’re removed from the norm.

At one point I was asked if I had spent money on post-high school courses. Mississippi State! Excellent! It’s deductible. Except, after 4 or 5 minutes of entering, Turbo Tax burst my bubble, telling me I made too much to deduct books and tuition.

It’s demoralizing to see in one place, as you do when you’re filing your taxes, how much you’ve actually paid! There are state and federal taxes, property taxes, property taxes on our cars (a Connecticut exclusive), and though not a tax, mortgage interest. I remember living comfortably on much less than I now shell out.

I think I did everything correctly, but who knows? Did I ascribe the proper reason for taking a deduction or classifying income? Was a bond I bought when Steffie was an infant tax deductible? I said no. Maybe it was.

I found it interesting that Turbo Tax rounded all the numbers to even dollars for Connecticut while keeping dollars and cents for the feds. To make matters more confusing, the method of writing dates is different for both. And, the program was unforgiving if you didn’t do it right for each one.

After going through all the numbers, it looks like both Connecticut and the federal government owe us money. They do every year. We plan it that way.

Within the next few weeks a financial genius will be on TV, telling me that overwitholding my income tax is a bad idea. He may be right. But, when the checks come from the government, in one big lump sum, it seems worthwhile.