I’m apparently rich.

So say both of the leading Democrat contenders.

At least, that’s what I get from their plans for rescinding the “Bush tax cuts.”

Oddly, I make little enough that my family qualifies for the maximum of the coming prebate; but I earn enough that the government claimed a full 38% of a bonus my company gave me this year.

As one of my favorite radio voices would say, “for those of you educated in government schools,” that means I got to keep only 60-ish cents of each dollar my company intended to give me for putting in long days and finding ways to keep us running more leanly and meanly. Or should that be “leanlier and meanlier?” Regardless, there is something wrong with this picture.

Here’s a thought. When I go to Kroger, they give me a nicely itemized list of what I bought. I want one from the government as well. I want to see an actual breakdown of where each penny of my tax dollars went. I’m even okay with rounded dollars.

My guess is that “Administrative Overhead” would encompass a very large part of that ticket.

When investigating various charitable organizations, I’ve found multiple sources that give a percentage of how much of each dollar given goes to the intended purpose of the charity vs. the amount that goes toward administrative stuff. I want a similar rating on government expenses.

Oh, I know there are budgets out there. If I were a truly fanatical and bored, I might invest the time necessary to create my own receipt. But I have a life to lead and work to do.

After all, another day, another 62 cents.

Another politician has fallen prey to being human. Shock. Horror. Outrage.

Predictably, the chorus of the opposing party rose immediately in a righteous cantata, demanding resignation or impeachment.

Don’t get me wrong – I think the guy should go. I’m just noting that such is the way of politics. When the other side has some exposure, the instinctive reaction on both sides is to play it for all it is worth. And then play it a little more, if possible.

What differs is the reaction of the party of the offender. When a lefty strays, we see interviews on MSNBC and other MSM outlets where experts explain that prostitution is a victimless crime (please consult with the wife of a caught offender before you buy that line; especially where the offender couldn’t afford the $3,500 model), that it was strictly a personal matter (um, okay…but who was paying for that hotel room? And did this not open the door for blackmail, and show a tremendous lack of concern for his family and incredibly poor judgment?), and/or that government shouldn’t legislate morality (virtually every law legislates morality; it is just that there are some issues that are more or less agreed to as standards for all; murder and child molestation come to mind as examples). I don’t think I need to mention examples; we know the most prominent ones by heart.

On the other hand, what happens when a righty falls? Most of the voices on the right go silent. It’s like that moment in GI Jane where the troops who have largely been supporting their Master Chief in his relentless attempts to break O’Neill quietly turn their backs when they realize the Chief has crossed the line. Party loyalty prevents the GOPers from doing public hangings of their own, but neither do they rush to his defense. See Larry Craig as an example.

I give the rightists more points for consistency.

But there is another kind of prostitution that goes on in Washington that is quite legal, though perhaps more morally repugnant. In this red light district, we are standing still as the gigolos and gigolettes are aggressively pressing their flesh on us. “You know, for just a trillion dollars,” they coo, “I’ll keep you happy for the rest of your life. No more concerns about your retirement, no more concerns about your health care, nothing to worry about at all. Just show me the green stuff, honey, and I’ll take care of everything.“

It tempts us. But this is not a victimless crime.

American businesses are moving out of the country in droves. Why? Labor costs are too high. Taxes make it nearly impossible to please the owners (shareholders) and the workers. Regulation upon regulation have forced businesses to cut benefits so they can keep legal counsel and auditors to avoid imprisonment. When these companies move, nobody wins.

Despite Michael Moore’s assertion to the contrary, we do still have a health care system that brings people from around the world when their national (socialized) medical plans have failed them. People come here from Canada for cancer treatment. People come here from Britain for dental surgery. People flood across our southern border so they can get “free” treatment in hospitals where they won’t be turned away (free to them, maybe).

Our standard of living is the envy of most of the world. Travel abroad and you’ll see American faces, famous or not, in ads around the world. Nanchang, China was where Mao gathered his rag-tag army that routed the Nationalists and chased them to Taiwan; the Monument to the People stands in the shadow of a huge WalMart. Until recently, the only retail establishment built into the structure of Beijing’s Forbidden City was a Starbucks. The most popular restaurant on Gulangyu Island, just off the coast at Xiamen, Fujian province, is a McDonalds. We may not like ourselves much, and the world may have mixed emotions about our governmental policies; but they want to be like us.

But we don’t see ourselves in that light. We are seduced by the whispers and charms of those who would entice us, who would tell us that they can love us long, long time if the price is right. They have been seduced by power, and they want us to see how powerful they are.

But to buy what they are selling comes at too great a price.

I play guitar. Not nearly as often or as well as I used to, but still I play.

I was in high school in the late 70’s and early 80’s, and was influenced, for better or worse, by Dan Fogelberg. Laugh if you want, but the dude had some great music. As with most artists, his best stuff never got on the radio.

I snuck a tape recorded into a Fogelberg concert when he was touring for The Innocent Age, and the only audible thing I caught on the two hours of tape was the woman in front of me yelling, “Dancing Shoes” between songs, as if he would change his set list for the woman in row 54. The tape caught that, and the woman turning around to offer me and my friends some pot. We declined her kind offer.

The first time I sang at someone’s wedding, they requested “Longer.” More sap in that song than the maple syrup crop of ‘93, but I still smile when I hear it.

Arguably his biggest hit was “Leader of the Band.” I sat at my father’s bedside and played him that song the night before we checked him into the hospice; it was the last thing I ever sang for my father.

Fogelberg had been fighting cancer, and lost the fight yesterday. Today I’m listening to my Fogelberg collection, which includes albums on both sides of his popular years.

The chords struck at birth grow more distant,
But we strike them again and again
And we plead and we pray
For a glimmer of day
As the night folds its wings and descends
Exposing the loose ends.

Rest in peace, sir.

From an AP story anticipating the President’s press conference this morning:

The president is expected again to admonish Congress for not sending him spending bills, intelligence legislation and tax-law changes. Bush, taking advantage of his veto power and the largest bully pulpit in town, regularly scolds Congress as a way to stay relevant and frame the debate as his presidency winds down.

“As a way to stay relevant”? Hmm. Congress is letting the year end without sending anything through that he’ll sign. Who’s irrelevant?

Thought for the day: One definition of insanity is to do the same thing time and again and expect a different result. Isn’t that what Congress is doing with the military spending bills?

Some people who know me say I’m a prettty smart guy; but if I say something prepostorous, I don’t have an army of supporters who will yell down anyone who disagrees.

I’m a pretty likeable guy, really; but there are only three people who treat me like a rock star – and two of them are under the age of five.

On the other hand, the messages I give my kids don’t give them nightmares; they don’t wake up screaming in the night about how we’re all going to die in a ball of fire.

I drive an ugly old pickup truck with no A/C, and all of my global travel happens in coach seating; I don’t have a fuel-inneficient private jet to shuttle me wherever I want to go.

My daddy made his money by pounding the pavement and building relationships based on trust; I am not a trust-fund baby whose wealth was largely built on fossil-fuel companies profits.

If I try to motivate people to do something that serves my own selfish interests, I get called on it.

The awards I have received have been based on my own work, my own research, my own effort.

I found my God after a low point in my life…I guess that’s something we have in common; but I do question if his god is worth the carbon credits.

I live in the ‘burbs of Droughtlanta, and I’ve heard a lot of different points of view on how we can get through until the eventual deluge that will bring us the 16″ of rain we need all at once. There are plenty of suggestions floating (pun intended) around out there about who should be fined, taxed, or sued, but I like to live in the realm of the practical. So here I offer some tips on making the most of the water we have:

• Don’t waste your waste water. There are several hundred of our citizens who have been doing their part to help our financially-troubled public transportation system, MARTA. I thought they were being anti-social, but now I get it. By relieving themselves in the elevators at the MARTA facilities, they are saving the transit authority hundreds of gallons annually in mop water. After all, urine is sterile. If more of us would contribute, they could probably never have to fill a bucket for mopping again.
• Cut down on shower time. I read one person’s suggestion that you turn on the shower just long enough to get wet, then shut it off and lather up, then turn on again just to rinse. I can beat that. We are now borrowing the neighbor’s puppy, and having it lick the kids clean in the evening. Yes, we have had to rub some Alpo on the kids to get things started; but think of the water we’re saving.
• Dishwasher dump. We’ve stopped using the dishwasher. Instead, we just eat off styrofoam plates that we can just throw away. We do save the plastic spoons and forks for re-use though. See how we get the kids clean above for details.
• Do the Dew. I get up at 0-dark-thirty every morning to go work out. I used to fill up my water bottle from the tap to have something handy whilst getting sweaty (mental note – find a good way to recycle that); now I take a chamois out to the POS-mobile and wipe it down, then use the squeezin’s to fill the bottle. It is a little dirty, but with a packet or three of instant drink mix it becomes only mildly nauseating.
• Charge for Water. Some of the restaurants in town have started, so why not do it at home? The kids have stopped asking for water as much during the day since we started charging them for it. Sure, they are red-faced and panting by the time bedtime rolls around, but they can sleep the sleep of an honest person who has done his or her part to help in this time of crisis.

I listen to talk radio while I drive. I don’t always agree with the people I listen to, but it keeps me awake.

One of the questions I’ve heard them ask lately (especially since Hilary made the claim that she is “uniquely qualified” to be our next pres) is…what exactly are her qualifications? When you ask her supporters why they are supporting her, the answers tend to fall in very small categories:

• She’s not a rich white man. Ignoring the obvious response of “yes, she is,”  I have to ask if that is a qualification. I wasn’t aware that the color of my skin or my gender would qualify me or disqualify me from the race. Fact is, she is very rich. And she is painfully white. The man part is still debatable.
• She’s a good wife and mother. Well, let’s wait for Chelsea’s tell-all book to judge that. My recollection is that the former first daughter was more inclined to walk on her daddy’s side than on her momma’s, but that may have been part of the calculated image of him as a family man. I’d still be nervous about letting my daughter walk with the man. But back to the presumed President-elect. People seem to really believe that her capacity to stand by a philandering husband and have given birth to a daughter who hasn’t horribly embarassed the family yet is suitable training for the Oval Office. I suppose the motherhood thing has a certain appeal to a generation seeking to become totally cared for by a generous parent with a multi-billion dollar budget, but otherwise I don’t get the connection.
• She is an experienced Senator. Yep, she must’ve been through at least a dozen votes before she started her presidential run. That’s experience. Um, other than that, any practical experience I’m not aware of? DId she at least lead a Brownie Troop or something? Anyone? Beuh-ler?

We’re all ready for a change. I just don’t think another Clinton is a change. At least not for the better.

Sen. Craig has received a solid drubbing since the release of the information about his restroom arrest a few months ago. Poor guy, nobody wants to give him a break. Here he is trying to clear his good name, and he can’t even get his confession overturned.

For those who might think I’m using sarcasm or irony, let me assure you I’m not. The Dishonored Mr. Craig has been serving in Washington since 1981 (a much longer sentence than anyone should have to serve), and it only takes about three months of drinking the lead-enriched waters of the nation’s capital for one to start believing that anything said doesn’t count fifteen minutes later. Don’t believe me? Hilary was doing it back before she was even elected to anything.

No, poor Senator Craig is a victim. What people fail to take into account is that there are several rational explanations for why he was sitting in the bathroom tapping his foot.

• He had just seen the Broadway touring presentation of Bring On da Funk, Bring on da Noyz the night before. It features a great deal of tap dancing. It was a reflexive action, much like playing air drums when Phil Collin’s In the Air Tonight picks up the beat.
• He was listening to Jim Nabors’ Greatest Hits on his iPod. That’ll set your feet to tapping every time.
• The afore-mentioned lead in the DC drinking water affects motor skills. He was just trying to get something out of his pocket, and the wrong muscles responded.
• He was conducting an undercover sting operation himself, and became so flustered when the undercover cop showed a badge that he became confused…hence the confession.

I understand those who say he really should just resign and get out of the way, as he promised he would…but this is Washington. William Jefferson was videotaped taking a bribe – $100,000 – in late 2005, and he’s still in Congress. Barney Frank was brought up on ethics charges in 1990 for having a relationship with a male prostitute; today he is the Chairman of the Financial Services Committee. We could go on, but suffice to say that there doesn’t appear to be any problem with letting people serve who have benn caught, um, with their pants down.

USA Today quotes a classified report today (I wish just once they’d quote an unclassified report) regarding the failure rate of our nation’s airport security screeners. LAX screeners missed 75% of the fake bombs and bomb parts carried through by undercover personnel. O’Hare missed 60% or so. The brightest spot on the map for the screeners was San Francisco, where they only missed 20%.

San Fran, by the way, is not handled by the TSA. A private company does security there.

A TSA not-a-spokesperson said that San Fran did better because they get a lot of fakes there and are “more suspicious.”

Pardon me, but aren’t the screeners all supposed to be suspicious? Or at least vigilant?

This might seem a reach to some, but to me this is another fine example of what happens when the government becomes involved in things that are not within its constitutional mandate. Arguably, this might have something to do with securing “the blessings of liberty,” but the stats support the Libertatrian argument that government should stay the heck out of most things. Including airport security.

And now for something completely different.

The religious right has been flexing muscles lately, warning the GOP that they will bolt and vote independent if the party selects someone who isn’t kosher on the key issues (meaning abortion).

Hey, do what you want during the primary process…but once a nominee is chosen, ask yourself this: Who do I want sitting in that chair in the Oval Office? Would we be better off with someone who may not be “pure,” but at least identifies somewhat with the conservative half of the country, or is the “principle” more important than the damage Hilary would do?

Damage? Hilary? Well, let me explain what I mean. Here in Draughtlanta, we are looking at a period of a few months before our water supply reaches a point where the well has basically run dry. Literally. When Lake Lanier was completed in 1953, it took four years of regular rain to fill it to the brim, with the release gates completely closed. This body of water, which provides drinking water to a few million people, has a very small watershed (the water that feeds in and replenishes the lake).

So it is with our government’s funding. As taxes increase (as they must in order to keep up with any of Hilary’s bright ideas), the watershed gets smaller. We who represent the middle class are being squeezed, and a greater tax burden will push some of us right out of the category. The lake of funds that the government bathes in is a limited resource, and it springs only from the ability that you and I have to replenish it. As taxes rise, there are some who will no longer be able to do replenishment. They will then go from the category of “giver” to “receiver,” and the government cannot support the “receivers” it has now. Eventually, the lake will become a muddy hole in the ground surrounded by thirsty “receivers.”

Life can be hard. It is for me right now.

But it does not get better if the government takes care of you. If Big Brother is feeding you, he owns you. That ain’t what this country is about.

I have been back from China for a month. Seems like longer, much longer, than that.

As much as I hate the song, Michael W. Smith’s My Place in This World has been running through my head a lot lately. One of my teammates from my trip said it well: “I feel like a five-year-old trying to explain Beethoven” when I try to explain the impact of what we saw and experienced there. But I will try.

I really thought I knew China well from my previous experience there. I had read quite bit before going, and I think I was relatively aware for a Westerner. But I really didn’t have a clue.

Ever been somewhere and just felt you were “home?” That’s how it felt.

Ever been somewhere and felt totally out of place? Yeh, it felt like that too.

I saw some of the worst of inhumanity there – and I saw incredible kindness. I met a woman who was standing on a bridge a couple of years ago, about to jump with her two little boys, when she met God. I met a young man who has seen things no 9-year-old should ever see, but whose smile could melt a heart of stone. I saw a small group of people who are considered useless by their society, but who are proving their value one anguished step at a time.

I was also reminded that we aren’t really all that different over here. We don’t “mind” people in wheelchairs, but we are uncomfortable watching someone with cerebral palsy take a few excruciating steps. We would rather “those people” would be in a home or a program somewhere…but not in our faces.

We also seek to fill empty places with the wrong stuff. Parents there treat their one child as little Napoleons, granting their every wish to try to make them happy. Been out to eat in a “kid-friendly” restaurant here lately? We do the same thing, only often with more kids.

The city we were in is not visited as frequently by Westerners, but they are aware of us. In most of the town, the signs we saw were strictly in Mandarin; but there were signs here and there for “Sex Toys Shop”s, with the English part of the sign larger and more prominently displayed than the Chinese text. I don’t recall seeing many other signs in English. Wonder what that says about their impression of us.

I walked the streets of a town of two-millionish by myself at four in the morning, and didn’t feel any fear. I was propositioned by a couple of prostitutes, who very quickly ran from the local guys towards me. I guess most of the Westerners who are visiting don’t walk around at that time of the morning unless they’re looking for some “company.” I was just dealing with jet lag and insomnia.

I saw a lot of friendly faces, more than I see when I’m on the streets of Atlanta.

I was also aware that there probably wasn’t much I did that someone wasn’t watching.

I had a lot more trouble with my cohorts on the trip than I had with any of the locals. But then, the locals knew I was there for the short haul and none of them were rooming with me.

More later – just needed to break the ice and get some stuff on the page.