Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Put me on HBO

Recently someone sent me something that Dennis Miller used on his HBO show. I don't get HBO, but I recall Miller from when I could watch him for free, and I recall that he has a sarcastic, politically incorrect and sometimes abusive sense of humor. I like that because I'm the same way.

Now, I do this blog, which doesn't bring me one red cent, and Miller, who is on TV, probably gets paid a few hundred bucks a week for saying the same kind of crap. Now, I ask you, is that fair? Oh, hell, quick thinking about it. I'll answer for you. No! It's not one damn bit fair.

I can insult your intelligence just as well as Miller, and I think I should get the same exposure, and maybe the same pay. Right now I'm only getting paid for my good looks, so you can see how desperate I've become.

Now, and this is just for those of you who are literate, if you think I'm every bit as obnoxious as Dennis Miller, take a few minutes to write to HBO or one of those other cable stations and say something like this: "Put Meade Fischer on your station. He's just as big of a loud-mouthed jerk as Dennis Miller."

That's all you have to do, and when I'm on, I promise to give whatever internet scam you're running a big plug.

Something to check out

I've recently been in contact with an old friend from college, a guy who has been trying to earn his living from the written word for better than 30 years, and if anyone has had that experience, they know that it's sort of a blissful state of Zen poverty.

Recently he's been another casualty of the recession, the one where the rich got tossed a lifeline, and the working people were sent a care, reading, "Having a nice recovery. Wish you were here."

Anyway, this guy, Scott, who also goes by Rusty and Mick, depending on which alter ego fits the occasion, has come up with a fairly novel idea. He sends out a weekly news letter, interesting bits and pieces gleaned from various media, along with his brand of commentary. http://nstar312.blogspot.com/

Anyway, he likes my blog (no accounting for taste), so I thought I'd send some of my readers his way. No obligation, so if it isn't your thing, so be it.

However, the novel idea was to put a Pay Pal button on this newsletter, so if you become a fan, and you want to keep electricity flowing to his computer, you can donate to him.

Anyway, I always assumed that Pay Pal was some big deal, and that you had to be a profitable company and spend lots of time to get into this. He said, "No; it's easy," so I added Pay Pal to my website, making it easier for my 6 or 7 loyal fans to buy my books.

I figure that if I suddenly start generating sales, I'll donate a bit of that to him, sort of a thanks for the tip kind of thing. I've come to appreciate the "You scratch my back, I'll scratch yours" philosophy, rather than my former, "You Scratch my back, and I'll pick your pocket."

Sunday, October 24, 2010

Get over yourself

By nature, we humans are self-involved, self-centered and just plain selfish. Self improvement is the struggle against these other "self" oriented tendencies. Unless we stop ourselves, we tend to get mired in our own needs, wants and problems.

It's like, "Poor me, I gained 5 pounds," or "Poor me, I didn't get that raise I deserved," or "Poor me, I earned an A, and the professor gave me a B," or "Poor me, the person I'm really hot for doesn't give me a second look," or, worse yet, "Poor me, my phone isn't as new as my friend's."

Well, my friends, get the hell over it. You ain't special. Actually you are special, but no more special than any other slob shuffling down the street with foul breath and bad hair.

But, you say, "What can I do about it? I mean, the world is out to screw me, even after my mommy spent years telling me I could be anything I wanted to be." Well, you could, and you did, and this is apparently what you wanted to be. I know it sucks, but it seemed a good idea at the time.

You want some advice? Of course not, but I'm going to give it to you anyway. If you're like 99 percent of us, you're too damn self absorbed, but there's a cure for that, or at least a treatment. Pay attention; this isn't brain surgery.

Get involved in something outside yourself and bigger than yourself. The best way is to volunteer your time for some good cause, something that will help others or the environment, but will not give you money, fame or fortune. The word, and you may have never heard anyone you know say it aloud, is altruism. It's great, and it's easy. Take a bit of it externally each day, and you'll find yourself saying "I," or "me" far less often.

Wednesday, October 20, 2010

Protests in France and flaws in democracy

The massive strikes in France, protesting raising the retirement age from 60 to 62, have highlighted some basic problems in a democracy. The general public isn't always deeply informed about the issues, and people often do not vote their best interests.

In France, protesters are "voting" personal interests in these strikes, but they are ignoring their collective interest. Sarkozy is doing the right thing, even though it is trashing his approval rate and may see him replaced. He knows the retirement system will not sustain itself, and he's taking an unpopular position. The people striking are not thinking beyond wanting their perks.

In this country, politicians are not always as brave as Sarkozy. Often they will pander to the loud voices, even though they know it's the wrong approach. Budgets are one example. When a state or the federal government is having trouble with the budget and is bleeding red ink, the people at the helm know that something must be cut and more revenue must be brought in. However, usually nothing much gets cuts, as Americans, just like the French, raise hell if their slice of the pie gets smaller. Also, new revenue doesn't come in, because people raise hell if their taxes go up.

Americans often vote against their collective interests, and they even often vote against their personal interests. While this doesn't seem to make any sense, we need to realize that ideology often trumps common sense, and that loud sound bites are easier to digest than complex political and economic realities. Quite simply, people often don't know enough to make an informed decision.

In the interests of being continually more democratic, we have placed a burden on the average voter that he or she may not be up to carrying. After all, anyone eighteen or older can vote, even if they have dropped out of school and are functionally illiterate, have never read a newspaper, know nothing about how the government works and know nothing about the issues and people on the ballot.

The wise folks who founded this country were aware of this. They provided some checks and balances. Among those was that senators were not elected directly by the people, but rather by state legislators, people who were assumed to be both better informed and cooler heads. Even the president was not elected directly, but by a body called the electoral college. The will of the general populace was expressed most directly through the house of representatives. Our founders trusted the people, but not completely.

Now we pretty much elect everyone directly, plus we pass legislation ourselves, though ballot measures. As a result, sometimes we get it right, and other times we are sidetracked by special interests with deep pockets or by our ideologies or even by sound bites coming from every direction.

What's the answer? I would opt for some balance, rarely achieved, between top down and bottom up government. I am certainly in favor of having citizens make political decisions, but if we expect them to be conversant in politics, economics and world affairs, perhaps we should teach those things in our schools.

Sunday, October 3, 2010

High Mileage Cars: no mystery

High mileage cars: not a mystery
Meade Fischer

There are plans to mandate 62 mpg standards for the cars of the future. Currently, we have the hybrid, a bit expensive, but capable of 48mpg. This is all exciting stuff, almost rocket science. Or is it?

High mileage cars are not a high tech mystery. We've had them before and let them slip away. In 1992 I bought a new Geo Metro, one of the least expensive cars on the market. A few years later, they were renamed Chevrolet Metro, had a bigger engine, poorer performance and less mileage. But the original was a wonder.

This little car, which held four people comfortably, had a three cylinder engine, displacing 1000 cc, about the same as an average motorcycle. People who didn't own them claimed that they were too underpowered for the highway and that the small engines would wear out in a few miles.

The week after we bought the car, my wife and one of her friends took off, along with lots of luggage for a week, to Ashland Oregon. They filled the 10 gal. tank in Gilroy, and after driving 70 mph up the interstate with the air conditioner going full blast, they still had gas when the arrived in Ashland, averaging 48mpg.

We drove the car for nine trouble-free years, never getting less than 45 mpg, even with a sixteen foot kayak strapped on top. Every ten or twenty thousand miles I'd have the brakes checked, figuring it was time to have them replaced, and each time the mechanic would shake his head and say they were fine.

at 120 thousand miles, we sold the car to a friend, who moved to Nebraska with all her belongings in it. Since then she married, and now her husband uses it for a work car. We visited them recently. The car, which now sits outside summer and winter, still looks the same. The husband says that there is a minor oil leak and that he finally did have to get new brakes, as well as a new clutch. The Geo now has 220,000 miles and gets a consistent 45 miles per gallon, down slightly from when it was new. Also, it never fails to start.

So, it's possible to build a fun, peppy, high mileage car that last indefinitely and is cheap to buy. Now, what's the problem with turning out a few million more like that?

Saturday, October 2, 2010

crocidle morality

A recent news segment showed a man with a very friendly croc, which one could call either a pet or a friend, although a 17 foot, 950 lb animal doesn't really fit the definition of a pet.

While I have no doubt that should I dive into that croc's favorite river, it would have me for lunch without the slightest hesitation, it was shown nuzzling the man who had found it as an injured baby and had taken care of it. It was clear these two vastly different creatures had bonded. This is just the most extreme version of many incidents of interspecies bonding I have seen, but that's a separate issue.

There is a fundamental and probably instinctive moral code at work here, and it is best summed up as, "don't eat your friends." After all, there is plenty to eat out there, but no creature has all the friends it can use.

Humans, not being exclusively predators and having much more complex minds and social systems, have nuanced this basic moral code and have extrapolated from the fundamental. From "don't eat your friends," we've evolved "don't kill your friends," and since we're social animals, we extend it to "don't kill members of your community, your tribe, your country and even your country's friends. We also extend it to not only don't kill them but don't kill their livelihood, thus, "don't steal." With a bit of effort, we could likely extrapolate the rest of our human moral code from this starting place.

The essential thing is that crocs, like humans, seem to need and value friends. We might also suspect that we can extend not eating friends to protecting them from someone else eating them. I would not want to attack the man in question in front of his croc friend in an effort to check this theory.

I'm becoming convinced that there are deep, fundamental principles at work in nature, principles that are independent of species. Apparently "don't eat your friends" is one of these.