I Always Think of Joseph When I Hear People Whine About Their Cars

 “There are unpeeled tomatoes in my omelet!” the angry American exclaimed, “I peeled them myself, where are my peeled tomatoes!”

The man was correct, I’d seen him peel the tomatoes in the kitchen.  How insulted was the lady of the house at his actions on this beautiful lake in Colombia?  An ugly American coming into her kitchen and demanding peeled tomatoes in his omelet.  Unbelievably she didn’t understand English and he was forced to peel them himself.

He was as ugly an American as they come, retired, loud, and arrogant about his likes and dislikes.  Why in the world wasn’t Colombia like his native Georgia?

Somehow unpeeled tomato slices appeared in his omelet after all his work.  Did he miss something or was it done on purpose by a vengeful proprietress?  He looked at me indignantly shouting about his unpeeled tomatoes as if I should share his distress. His wife was obviously used to this and patted his hand knowingly.

When I was young I had the opportunity to study in Communist Poland, the People’s Republic of Poland was its official name, but one thing was certain, the Republic didn’t belong to the people.

I was one of seven Americans studying there that summer along with a bunch of others students from all over the world, but mainly within the Soviet orbit.  Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, and even Joseph from Ethiopia.

Joseph always wore a massive smile on his face.  While most Poles went grimly about the business of trying to survive in a Socialist Economy that struggled to provide the bare necessities of food, clothing, and shelter for its people, Joseph was the happiest person in the world, unaffected by the problems around him.  You would see him in the street and he always was beaming like he’d just won the lottery.

Over vodka in our dorm one night Joseph sat down and told us the story of how he ended up in Poland.  At that time Ethiopia was ruled by hard core Communists.  It’s hard to know what ruthless Capitalists the Communists were rebelling against as it was a poverty stricken nation.  I guess the small shopkeepers on the corner were the bad guys.

Between a drought and Communist governance they managed to produce a famine of biblical proportions so bad that the whole world was forced to wake up and do something about it, part of it being the Live Aid concert.

Joseph’s parents were professors at the University which brought them under suspicion by the government as they were part of the hated intelligentsia.  The government tried to be more Communist than Marx or more appropriately, than Stalin, with their only success being their own Red Terror that killed tens of thousands of people.

They passed a law that if anybody was ‘Anti-State’ you could kill them.  With the result that some poor lady standing in line for food who mumbled, “There’s not enough bread in the stores” would have an undercover officer walk up and put a bullet through her head as she was ‘Anti-State’.  Every morning the carts would come around to gather up the bodies of those unfortunates who had offended the government the night before.

Joseph’s father was the first arrested.  They returned his mangled body to the family with the excuse that he’s been shot while resisting, except there were no bullet holes.  A few weeks later the government didn’t even try and deny their crimes as his mother simply disappeared and the family was told she was executed for being ‘Anti-State’.  I presume it was because she screamed objections during her torture.

Joseph was desperate.  He knew the secret police would come for him next.  He applied for a Student Visa from Poland and somehow got one.  The Communist countries always made a big show of cross country Socialist cooperation with student exchanges, meetings, and great declarations of Socialist assistance to each other.  This made for good PR, but accomplished little except photo ops, especially since underneath the veneer of Socialist Unity, many of the countries hated each other.

Joseph spent the next few weeks moving from house to house with the secret police hot on his tail.

Luckily in those days there were no efficient government systems to keep track of people and one hand didn’t know what the other was doing, especially in a country like Ethiopia.  Unlike today where we have interlinked computer systems and cameras everywhere and can now ensure compliance with the most minor of government rules and regulations.  A mecca of government control where nobody will ever dare engage in any activities deemed unacceptable by our divine, all-knowing, leaders.

So while the police were chasing him he applied for a passport to leave the country to study in Poland.  He needed to give them the date of his departure so he purchased a plane ticket.  They told him to come pick up his passport 24 hours before his flight.

Going to pick up his passport was harrowing.  He didn’t know if somehow the police would get wind of his arrival and be there waiting for him.  Almost worse, when he arrived, he was told that the passport wasn’t ready, he should go to the airport and it would be delivered an hour before his departure.

He spent the entire night awake with the nerve wracking knowledge that his very survival on this Earth depended on what happened the following morning.

The next day he arrived at the airport long ahead of time, he didn’t want to miss his passport.  An hour before his flight there was no sign of his passport.  Thirty minutes, still no passport.  Ten minutes before his flight he was in tears.  His life was finished, he was now out of places to hide.  Everyone who assisted him was either arrested or warned not to assist him and threatened with arrest, he couldn’t put them in any more danger.

Then up walked someone with his passport, handed it to him, and he boarded his plane and flew to life and freedom, in the Communist dictatorship of the People’s Republic of Poland.

Cut irony with knife here --------------------------------------

We were struck silent when Joseph finished his story, he was grinning ear to ear.  Finally my friend, Jim, turned to me and said, “You know, after hearing that, it’s going to be really tough going back to the United States and listen to someone complain about the paint job on their Mercedes.”

Or about the unpeeled tomatoes in their omelet.

A Silicon Valley Fairy Tale

The story you are about to read is true.  The names have been changed to protect the guilty.  It was written at the height of the Silicon Valley bubble in 1999.

The characters in this Greek Tragedy are:
Dawn - Tax Consultant
Marie - Tax Director
Paul - Manager of something or other
Bill - Account Temp type person

Dawn, Marie, and I have been working together very well, they're both knowledgeable and hard working.  Dawn has been trying to extract herself from the company, as she was brought in for a 3 month project and has been there over a year.  A decision to bring in Bill to take over her routine tasks is made and that's when our little story begins.

When I meet Bill, he seems very nice and tells me he was central to his last company's Tax automation project.  I'm relieved, at least he has some experience, this should be cake.

When I begin the training classes, I notice that Bill has the usual problems of a person with no experience with a new system.  That's O.K., he just needs some time to practice.  But as time goes by, I begin to get the uneasy feeling that he's just not getting it.  What I didn't realize until too late, is that he didn't get ANY of it.  None, nada, nichts, keine, neima, ikke.

I went to great pains to create step by step documentation for doing major things.  I'm not talking outlines, I'm talking baby steps, and he's still tripping over his own two feet.

After about 6 weeks I've only been dealing with Bill about an hour a week, but alarm bells are ringing like the Chicago Fire.  Dawn and I begin to discuss our mutual issue, as it turns out she's frustrated because Bill can't do the tasks correctly.  All he has to do is file the tax returns, fairly straightforward considering his claimed experience.   However the day they are due he hands them to her all screwed up and she has to scramble to fix things.  She's tried to express to Marie that Bill can't handle the job.

Marie is just not dealing with the issue.  "Things will work out", she says.  Well they do, for Marie.  A week later she's on her way to a company about to go IPO.

Now Dawn is really upset, and with good reason.  Her credibility may be damaged, if there are big losses, people won't hire her.

Then one day during training, now mind you I'm only training Dawn and Bill at my desk, Bill falls asleep and begins snoring.

Whoop! Whoop!  "Captain!  Romulan Warbird decloaking directly a head!"

“That's OK”, I think, “He's not getting any less than if he was awake”.

By this time I'm beginning to call him Mr. Double Click.  He can't seem to master the art of double clicking his mouse.  He's clicking like mad, but the timing is all off and bizarre things are happening on the screen.  I'm seeing screens I've never seen before.  I'm incredulous.

One day the DBA, Vinod, stops me in the hall to tell me he spent a couple of hours assisting Bill.

"Mark", he says shaking his head, "He should not be allowed near a computer".  Yeah, tell me about it.

Whoop!  Whoop!  "Captain!  Romulan Warbird has fired a photon torpedo!"

But the Captain isn't listening.  Nobody really wants to be bothered, the company itself is going through an acquisition and spinoff to take advantage of the insanity of the stock market bubble.  Management is as limp as a noodle.  Everybody's too busy making money to think about the laws and the future.  What counts is the company's stock price today.  The excuses start, "Well maybe Bill needs more training.  We need to sit down with him and define expectations. Blah, blah, blah".

But now it becomes obvious Bill is not doing anything.  I know the month is over, but not a single question about the reports needed for his returns is forthcoming.  As this is his only job, what the hell is he doing with his time?

One day I come over and help Bill get some reports. He's clicking all over the screen.

"Where are your instructions?"

Bill roots through some folders and comes up with my step by step instructions.  He then proceeds to ignore them and is clicking wildly again.

"Captain!  We're hit!  Shields at 50%!"

"What do the instructions say", I ask.

He looks at the instructions, unseeing, mutters something, and begins clicking wildly again.

"What do the instructions say", I repeat, a bit louder.

"Captain!  Shields have collapsed!  We're at their mercy!"

"Oh, Reports-Run", he replies.  More wild clicking follows.

"WHAT DO THE INSTRUCTIONS SAY!"

"Captain!  We're hit!  We've lost Deck 6!  Shouldn't we respond?"

I'm now growling in rage.  Is it possible to be this stupid?  I begin to envision the 11 o'clock news...

"Reports say the victim was hit repeatedly from behind with a blunt instrument"

This is the last straw, Dawn mounts a full court press to put Bill out of our misery but is rebuffed by Paul.  I really don't get this, he's a contractor, that's why you hire contractors, so you can get rid of them easily.

Now granted there's not a lot of people out there to replace Bill.  I swear as I pass by the county prison on the way to lunch that some days I see corporate recruiters waiting outside the gate to get the latest available labor supply as they are released at noon.

"Do you speak English?  No?  How about computer skills?  None?  Okay, here's your offer, and you get 5000 options to start."

Finally I show up to speak to Paul to put in the word that I'm not going to spend my time babysitting his temp.  I also discover that the reports need to be re-run, so I pop into Bill's cube.

"Bill, we need to re-run those reports". I stop in my tracks.  There on his screen, open in a web browser, is a woman, naked, on her knees, leaning back on one hand in a most unattractive pose, grimacing at me.

Now I'm no prude, I think the massive prevalence of web porn is directly attributable to our Puritan founders and we just haven't been able to relax a bit about sex in 400 years, but you have to be a moron to surf porn at work.  And to top it off I found myself in violent disagreement with Bill’s taste in women.  Really guy?  All the free stuff out there and this is what you like?  You sick bastard.

Bill is surprised and embarrassed.  He tries to close the screen.  Furious clicking ensues.

I stand there speechless.

He can't do it.  The naked woman starts moving around his screen.  More clicks and more web browsers start and more porn pops up, it’s multiplying exponentially like an out of control wild fire. He's trying to close them as fast as they're opening, and having no luck.

I look away.  I just can't watch.  I'm not sure what is more disgusting, the porn, or the computer ineptness.  Seconds tick by as slow as molasses being sucked through a straw by an emphysema victim on one lung.

Waiting.

Waiting..

Waiting....

The clicking stops.  He must be done, we can now do the reports.  I turn back.  The bitch is still there in all her glory.  Mocking me.  Ug.

Bill finally decides to use the menus to close things up.  That's when I notice his toolbar.

Totally empty.

It's not like he was doing work and got distracted, he wasn't doing anything except cruising porn!

"Oh My God!", I realize,"He can't do anything right.  I'm working with George Costanza from Seinfeld!  That’s what this is, I'm in a sitcom.  This is a joke.  If given some more time he'll have a little bed built under his desk so he can take a nap unobserved."  I begin looking under the desk for an alarm clock on a shelf.

Not yet.  I turn around, looking for the video camera.  None to be found, this is real life.

We both act like nothing happened and he re-runs the report with me standing behind him like Dilbert with his boss, directing his actions.

"Now move the mouse left.  Up a little more.  A little moooorrrree...now click.  No, not there!  O.K. close that.  Move to that little 'X'..."

This goes no further.  I finally have a weapon which is unassailable.  I march into Paul's office and explain that normally I wouldn't complain about the web porn thing, after all people surf their stocks and kids stuff all the time, but the fact that the reports are all tucked away where they can't possibly be worked on ticks me off to no end.

Paul cracks up when I tell him the story.  It turns out that he's already talked to Bill about it once.  He was caught printing the pictures!  Paul finally agrees George Costanza, umm, Bill, must go.

What?  He's been caught once, talked to, and is still doing it?  How much more stupid can he be?  How much more stupid can you be Paul?  This is amazing!  This is identical to the episode where George kept trying to get fired by the Yankees and couldn't.  I am truly living a sitcom.  Sitcom Valley, that's what this is.

But in the end it turns out that this will be all for Bill.  He's gone over the edge.  Not because he's stupid, incompetent, and unable to perform the job, but because he's politically incorrect.

Well whatever, as long as he's gone.

Working in the fields

“Where’s everybody go?” I asked.

Someone pointed at the white van parked outside the giant shed, “Immigration”.

I was working out in the fields of Hollister as a very young man. My girlfriend Elvia was this chubby little Mexican girl I’d met at college, being Mexican in Hollister meant you had one skill set, manual labor. It didn’t matter how intelligent or educated she was. But to be fair, those were the jobs in in that area, it was also what she was used to doing, it was comfortable, and she and her family had been doing it their whole lives. She’d gotten me a job at Felice Farms cutting ‘cots with her. ‘Cots was short for apricots, it was an apricot farm.

Cutting ‘cots was hot hard work. There was a giant slab of concrete with all the machinery on it covered by a large tin roof. This kept the sun off you and was much preferable to being outside the shed. Teenagers and the young women would pop apricots into a slicer, it would slice the ‘cots in half, sending them down a chute where they would get dumped on large wooden slats. Older women would then turn the ‘cots face up and remove bad ‘cots. Then at the end of the line men would stack the wooden flats and take them to a shed to be bathed in a sulfur steam bath before being hauled out and spread in the sun. There the sun would dry them in about four hours. They would then be scraped off the wood slats into large boxes before being packaged for sale. The apricot pits were shipped to Mexico to be made into Laitrile, a dubious but understandably popular last ditch cancer hope.

That’s what I did the first day, spread ‘cots in the hundred degree Hollister heat. At lunchtime all of the Americans and green card holders working beside me quit. There was no way it was worth the money, only the illegals were left. The only reason I didn’t quit was I wasn’t going to be beaten.

The second day I was blessedly promoted to handing boxes to the cutters inside the shed and out of the sun. Each box held about 35 pounds of ‘cots and the cutters were paid 35 cents per box. I would remove the old box, give them a new box, and stamp their punch cards. At the end of the day the punches were added up and they were paid in cash. They could empty those big boxes in no time, so I had to move fast. I moved tons and tons of apricots that summer.

I didn’t get promoted because I was a gringo, I got promoted because I could count. The previous day the other guy had punched more cards than there were boxes processed. This was a game the girls would play, they always complained you forgot to punch their card. You had to figure out who was lying and who wasn’t.

I was one of only three gringo laborers, another guy my age on the other line, and a fourteen year old girl named Alice who’d just moved from Iowa and was making some extra summer pocket change. Everyone else was Hispanic, and 80% of those illegal. Who else would want to do that work? I talked with Alice a lot because I didn’t really know much Spanish, and teased her about being from Iowa.

“So Alice, what do you do for excitement in Iowa when you’re not watching corn grow?”

“Mark, you can hear it growing at night!”

“No kidding.”

Or

“Alice! What’s the state motto for Iowa?”

“I don’t know, what’s the state motto for Iowa?”

“Iowa, Gateway to Nebraska”.

One time the machinery had broken down and we were resting against a wall while they fixed it. One of the ladies came back in and started babbling at us in Spanish. I got up.

“What’d she say?” Elvia asked me.

“Get back to work” I answered.

Elvia looked at me quizzically, “How’d you know?”

“I dunno, seemed obvious”.

It was a good life lesson. I always tell people that ever since then with every job I’ve gotten paid more and worked less. But I always knew that no matter how hard the work was, (12 hour days in the heat and dust left my hands with callouses like bear paws), I was going back to college and a better life. I would come home every night and soak in the tub for thirty minutes or more. Even my young body had a hard time handling the backbreaking work.

The people I was working with, men in their thirties and forties, who looked older, had no such future. Tomorrow would be the same as today with no letup. They would pack up their entire family of six to eight kids and head off down to the next farm, following the crops. Their kids never got much schooling except wherever they set down for the winter; I wondered how they would turn out.

It was a hard life, but could be a happy one too. They didn’t know what tomorrow would bring, so they celebrated after work each day with some ad-hoc fiesta at a local park or sometimes right on the farm. They’d just pull up two buckets, lay a board on top as a bench, turn the car stereos up, pop a beer, and party. While I, a white middle class kid, saved and starved and hunkered down for the future. Then you realize the future is always insecure and they were right, live life for today; but my tight-ass middle class upbringing still won’t allow me to live that way.

I remember meeting my buddy Jose’s grandfather who had been a migrant farm worker his whole life, he was 100 years old and he’d had five wives and 162 grandchildren, and counting. He’d lived a good full life that should not to be besmirched by lily white liberals who anxiously wring their hands at his ‘impoverished’ existence. For some people money isn’t everything, or anything.

I learned how the other half lived. The women would all gossip and carry on while doing what I considered a mind numbing job, but to them it was fairly easy work. They didn’t have to think much and guess what, except for some cut fingers, they didn’t bring their work home to worry about every night. They didn’t get fifty e-mails on the commute home and have to attend conference calls at all hours of the day and night.

Our foreman was a guy named Mitch who’s claim to fame was his ability to fart the national anthem. Needless to say, I was not working with rocket scientists.

I looked at the guys from Immigration, they’d caught maybe a handful of people out of a hundred-and-fifty and were taking them away in the van. Like drops in the ocean. These guys would be shipped back to Mexico and the next day would come right back.

I wondered where everyone was hiding, it was an apricot farm and apricot trees are not that big, certainly not big enough to hide behind or up in the branches. And it seem silent, everyone just quietly slipped away. I found out later that the farm owners had hidden some of them under the crawl space of their house. Good guys for helping out those in need or ruthless exploiters looking out for themselves? With illegal immigration there is no black and white.

I’ve always said that no wall will keep out illegal immigrants. Plus there are ships outside the Golden Gate that drop off hundreds of Chinese illegals a week. Multiply that by all the other port cities and people from other countries and you see how big the problem really is. We would need a mile high Berlin Wall around the entire country, and a dome to boot.

There’s only one solution, if you put 100 business owners who employ illegals in jail, illegal immigration will stop tomorrow. As long as there are jobs waiting these poor people would be crazy not to come.

Politicians love to demonize each other about the subject, but there’s actually a conspiracy to continue this horrible game with people’s lives. Democrats love illegals (sorry, they call them ‘undocumented workers’ as a way to make it sound like it’s just a minor paperwork snafu) because they constitute an underclass that will vote for them someday when they will obviously be granted citizenship (you gotta let them stay, it’s only fair, they played the game by the unwritten rules we wrote), and Republicans love them because they provide cheap slave-like submissive labor for businesses and drive down American wages. An article in the Wall Street Journal a few years ago noted that illegals work in the chicken factories for $7 an hour while an American want’s $9 an hour for the same job. Over 20% higher wage costs for an American who knows his rights? You gotta be nuts to hire the American.

La Inmigración didn’t catch any of my new friends, and later one, a youngster named Dorotero, emerged from a cubby hole in the machinery smiling happily, he’d lived another day in America.

But Alice looked desperate, she watched the van as they loaded up, then she looked at me, fear covered her face.

“Oh Mark! Please don’t let them send me back to Iowa!”

Watching a Felony

I watched a felony the other day, I did nothing to stop it, and I’m not ashamed.  I was standing in line at the supermarket generally bored like everybody else when I noticed a guy come up to a girl in the line.  They were both in their early twenties, he was drinking a big soda through a straw and acting very nonchalant, he talked to her for a minute and they both looked around, then he walked off.  But he didn’t walk off like he had anything to do, he just kind of kept walking around the front of the store. 

They were both acting suspiciously un-suspicious so they caught my attention.

The girlfriend kept looking around, and over at him, but I noticed she didn’t have any groceries.  I thought that was a bit odd, but sometimes people just buy cigarettes.  When she got to the checker she asked for BART tickets.  I didn’t know you could buy BART tickets at supermarkets.  Then she surprised me by handing the clerk a bright shiny $100 bill.

Nobody but me carries cash anymore and these folks didn’t look like the kind of people who walk around with $100 bills in their pockets.  I was about 10-15 feet away, but the color of the bill caught my eye.

“That’s a counterfeit bill”, I thought.  This will be interesting.

The checker took the bill and ran a gold pen over it.  The bill passed and she gave the girl $100 in BART tickets.

I was still suspicious but figured the checker had done her store approved counterfeit test so I didn’t say anything.  The girl joined her boyfriend and they quickly walked out together.

Then I put 2+2+2 together.  The pen only checks if the paper is good.  Currency is printed on linen, not paper.  What they had done was ‘wash’ a $1 bill and then use a really good printer to print a $100 bill on top.  The clerk needed to look for the $100 stripe in the paper. No wonder the guy was avoiding being around her, he could run back to the apartment and destroy the evidence if something went wrong.  The reason they bought BART tickets is they are as good as cash.  Smart move.

I thought of turning them in, but then I remembered the Federal Reserve is printing $85 billion per month and handing it to rich people.  It’s called ‘Quantitative Easing’, it’s sold to Americans as a cure for the perpetual recession we’ve found ourselves in.  It’s the height of trickle down economics, hand the money to the rich and it will trickle down to the poor.  Except the rich are just pocketing the money.

They try and confuse people with Central Bank terminology and claim people just aren’t smart enough to understand what they’re talking about. 

“We’re just adding reserves, and buying bonds, we’re not really printing money”. 

Here’s their own confession that they’re printing money:

http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/BASE/

What’s really happening is the Fed is printing money, buying bonds far above market rates (i.e. paying more than they should), essentially handing $85 billion per month to Goldman Sachs and 20 other monster banks and saying “Trickle this down”.  Goldman’s goal is not to help the economy, it’s to get big bonuses for themselves and to help their allies.  So they don’t loan it to the Joe America, he’s already up to his eyeballs in debt and doesn’t want any more, Goldman buys stocks and loans the remainder to their hedge fund buddies.  The hedge funds then take that money and buy stocks with it too, they know another $85 billion is coming next month and stocks will go up again, so they can’t lose.

Sometimes the hedge funds, like Blackrock, take that free money and go out and buy homes defaulted on by Joe America, and then rent these homes back to him.  So they’re buying up all the real estate and the stocks and bonds with this flood of money, they own everything.

Meanwhile, Joe America who saved his hard earned money and one day hoped to buy a house, is in a bidding war he can’t win with the hedge funds and their dump trucks of money.  Joe America is also trying to start businesses, but if you’re a big corporation and your stock prices is getting goosed by the hedge funds, you cannot fail, and like a big fat tree who’s roots have wrapped around a broken water main, you crowd out all the sunlight for others.  To top it off they think they’re all geniuses and that their gains are coming by cutting even more wages and benefits, not from printing money.  The middle class can’t win.

The stock market is at all-time highs, the junk bond market is thriving, the real estate market is back bubbling again, but we still can’t create any jobs, everybody’s on food stamps, and young people are living at home with their parents. The head of the largest bond fund in the world who understands what’s going on says "The new American dream is to move out of your parent’s basement and rent a house from Blackrock".

We have been taught since the 1930’s that the worst thing in the world is a Depression.  Deflation, where prices keep dropping.  But really it’s just the stupid people who've made bad investments failing and defaulting their debts.  It has a cascading effect where everybody defaults and it levels out the playing field again.  Finally the wise and prudent are rewarded and the economy can grow again.

There’s nothing wrong with defaulting your debts.  People like to say ‘You made a deal, you have to pay your debts’.  But what about the other side of the deal, if a rich person is stupid enough to loan money to illegal aliens to buy big houses and big pickups, shouldn’t he lose out when the guy just gives up and disappears?  After all, that’s a free market, right?

“No”, said George Bush and Barack Obama, the rich should not pay for their mistakes, we need them to trickle down on the rest of us.  So they’ve bailed out the rich and distract everyone with tax cuts and tax increases and health care drama.

A myth was created about the Great Depression, that it was solved by Roosevelt or that it was solved by WWII.  But really it was solved by the last person defaulting on their debts and then the economy could grow again.  Roosevelt’s actions may have actually extended the Depression by slowing down the defaults.  WWII just happened to coincide with the last person defaulting and huge inflation from the war.

What’s happening now is that debt to GDP levels today (360%) are higher than they were in 1929 (270%) and the economy can’t take anymore.  The Federal Reserve is trying to inflate away the debt by buying it all up, but there so much they can’t, they probably need to print another few trillion dollars before we see meaningful inflation.

But here’s the thing, everybody didn’t die in the Depression.  Every American has seen this famous Depression era picture of the mother with her children in a migrant workers camp worried to about what the future holds. 

You might be shocked to learn that woman has a name, Florence Owens Thompson, and not only didn’t her family starve to death, she lived to be 80 years old, and those kids survived too, in sunny California no less.  The Depression steeled what was rightfully called ‘The Greatest Generation’ for the future.  They knew how to work hard and appreciate what they had.  The Banksters don’t work at all and act like they’re doing the rest of us a favor by stealing our money and our homes.

So what’s wrong with Joe and Jane America printing a little of their own money and getting $100 worth of BART tickets from a big corporation who’s CEO makes millions of dollars from hedge fund driven stock gains?

Go in peace Joe and Jane America. 

Oh, and by the way, you’re going to need to print eight-hundred and fifty million more of those every month just to stay even.

The Drunk

The other night we had a business dinner at a swanky place in Palo Alto on Sand Hill Rd.  The first thing they did was move us outside on the back porch bragging about the view overlooking the Santa Cruz Mountains.  Yes, the mountains were there, but so was Interstate-280.  Only in America can you brag about a view that overlooks the white noise of an interstate freeway.

We later realized they moved us out back because we were dressed like typical Silicon Valley slobs.  Everybody else in the place was dressed to the nines.  Dressing sharp is not allowed at the newer high tech companies, it’s a sign you’re part of ‘The Establishment’.  The Silicon Valley establishment all dress like slobs.  Purple hair and tattoos are symbols of rebellion.  Except they’re so common these days they strike me as establishment.

I’m the only one with no tattoos, wearing an Italian shirt and tie, sporting sharp three tone wingtips I picked up in Florence.  But I’m considered a conformist in the Valley.

Johnny is a colleague over from Ireland.  Really smart and hard working, but like me, you can tell underneath it all he has a temper.  He  regaled us with some stories about his temper and how he just would never tolerate anybody hitting him; or for that matter, anybody weak getting picked on by the strong.  Little did any of us realize he'd prove it within the hour.

Anyway, when we were leaving I stepped out in front of the restaurant and was waiting for others to catch up when this drunk guy fixates on me wearing my old banged up Australian cowboy hat and announces, “I’m not sure whether I like that hat or not!”  He’s wobbling about just like Homer Simpson drunk off his ass. 

He’s a really big guy with easily a hundred pounds on me.  I just look at him blankly, he’s a drunk looking for a fight.  I’m not going to give it to him, you can never win a fight with a drunk, but if he comes for me I’ve already timed my knee to the crotch, duck to the side, and push off to send him sprawling.  As a short skinny kid, all the bullies loved to pick on me, I know how to handle myself.  Just ask the two I sent to the hospital.

The drunk’s friend is trying to keep him separated from me, pushing him back and trying to get his attention focused on leaving.  His friend looks at me desperately, his eyes begging me to not to do anything to engage this fool.

The drunk is still eyeing me, wobbling, continuing his challenge, “I don’t know how I feel about that hat!”  This is all getting rather amusing, there’s easily a dozen people around right now, most not paying attention to what’s going on, but a few attuned to the danger lurking.  “That hat!  I just don’t know how I feel about that hat!”

Then out of the restaurant pour some more of the drunk’s friends.  In the middle is obviously his brother, they have the same build and look alike, and guess what, he’s drunk too.  He’d been inside and didn’t know anything of what had transpired, but you’d never know it.

Now the brother fixes on me, points his finger at me accusingly, and growls menacingly as he passes, “That’s a weird hat!  That’s a really weird hat!”  Oh lord, now his brother wants a fight over my hat too?  What is it, do these guys have a genetic disposition against hats?  Did their Germanic tribesman ancestors despise the helmets of the Roman Legion and that has stuck in their DNA ever since?

Following right on the heels of the brother is Johnny, he can tell there’s a fight a brewing and his back is up.  He doesn’t directly challenge anybody, but his blood is boiling and he is cussing a storm of expletives that would make Lenny Bruce blush.   He’s not going to tolerate any of this crap from these overage bullies.

I now have an ally.  Instead of teaming with the standard Silicon Valley geeks horrified at the sight of violence not under their control on a video screen, I’ve got a full blooded Irishman whose idea of a good time is a respectable fisticuffs on my side.

These guys have about 150 pounds on the two of us.  I quickly time it out.  The brother is closest; I figure he’s going to go for Johnny, who’s now between us, I’m sure Johnny can hold his own for a few seconds while I get the brother’s left flank.  Between the two of us he should be down in about three seconds.  But then I’ll have to whirl around quickly for the first drunk and that will have to be more of a catch-as-catch-can as Johnny will be behind me at that point and a lot can happen in that crucial second before he can bring some firepower to bear.  I figure we can take them in their inebriated state, however their friends are another problem.  If their friends join in we’ll be pavement dust.

I’m not sure how it all passed so quickly.  The drunks got moved along by their wiser friends and we went to our cars.  I half expected another encounter out by the cars.

I pondered that it had been twenty years since I had to deal with violent drunks, and I had to go to this swanky restaurant to do it, not to a roadside bar like last time.

Johnny himself said the next day that it could have been a disaster; he could have been arrested and barred from entry to the U.S.  Without entry to the U.S. it meant he really couldn’t work for an American company again and that would severely limit his employment opportunities.  He’d dodged a bullet.

All because of two drunk Americans who don’t like hats. 

But thanks anyway Johnny, it would have been a good fight.

The Baptism from Hell

This is an incident that occurred while I was living in England many years ago, and returned to the U.S. for Christmas. Everything I tell you is true, I have proof because it is all on videotape.

First a bit of background. My plane ticket back to the U.S. had me stopping in New York (old York being located about 200 miles north of here). My cousin's were having a baptism for their daughter and my dad was attending so I thought I'd stop by and visit.

Now you're probably wondering why I would willingly attend a family function, especially one with religious connotations. The reason is that my cousins are not related by blood. The baby is technically my father's step-mother's nephew's granddaughter. I think that due to the fact that there is no blood relation we get along great.

So let me introduce the cast of characters and set the scene. For simplicity sake I call them Uncle Bobby, Aunt Ilene, and my cousins Andy, Maribeth, Matthew and Jennifer. The baby in question is Maribeth's and her husband Charlie. Jennifer was the Godmother and their friend Chris was the Godfather.

Now Maribeth and Charlie are not particularly religious, but they had been raised Catholic, and with the child's grandparents of Italian, Irish, and Polish heritage, there was going to be a Catholic Christening, no questions asked.

So first of all Maribeth and Charlie had to go and have a meeting with the priest to discuss what I presume to be the meaning of the ceremony. The priest wanted to know if they practiced formal prayer and attended services regularly. Maribeth is not your traditional Pat Buchanan Catholic. In fact she is an ardent articulate liberal feminist type. She believes her daughter is also a feminist as she refuses to be breast fed, considering it to be a perpetuation of the enslavement of women. This is really too bad, because Mairbeth has quite a set of hooters.

So anyway, she told the priest that she thought it was more imortant that the child be brought up to perform Christ like acts (you know, mercy, love, giving, etc.). The priest was not impressed or amused. They were not off to a good start with this priest.

The day of the Baptism everybody showed up at the church. I should now mention that the cermony was to be held in a church in Riverhead on Long Island. Riverhead is a nice place, but it is at the far end of Long Island from New York City. Actually, all of Long Island is nice, but as my Uncle Bobby says it's only downside is that you can't get off the island without going through New York City. Long Island is really long, about 150 miles or so (thus it's name, 'Long Island'), so Riverhead is kind of at the end of the world.

The church was traditional Polish Catholic, they must even still conduct services in Polish, because there was a Polish hymnal. I wandered around and marveled at the idols all over the church. I've read the bible about 5 times, but I still can't find the part where Jesus revoked the 2nd commandment about making graven images. Being brought up spartan German Lutheran, we were always secretly a bit jealous of the pomp and circumstance the Catholics got away with. They always had such cool robes and glittery sparkely objects. We were always so dour and boring.

So anyway, out walked the priest to light the candles. He was about 70 years old, but easily looked 90. He had some fancy automatic candle lighter, but couldn't get the candle to light. I took it upon myself to make a joke, I quiped, "All this modern technology can't even light a candle". The priest was not amused. In fact he shot me a glare which was clearly designed to whither me in my tracks. Humorless priest, hmmm.

So now it was time to begin. Unusually there was only one batism to perform, so it was just the family and friends standing around talking. Luckily for me the service wasn't going to be a full mass. The priest gently tried to get things going by snapping, "Can we get started?!" Everyone took their seats and Andy began filming the ceremony.

The priest began speaking, but I was sitting in the second row and couldn't understand what he was saying. I then realized he must be doing the Latin ceremony! I was proved wrong after a couple of minutes when I recognized a few English words. I still couldn't figure out what was being said or what was going on. Bobby later told me that he was following along in the book, and the priest was only reading about every third word. Later it became clear to me that there were three people who didn't want to be there that day, me, the baby, and the priest. After all it was Sunday, and there was football.

When the priest said "Emilie Kulesa", Maribeth interrupted, "That's Emilie Ilene Kulesa". Then a struggle for supremacy at the alter ensued that went something like this:

Priest: "It says Emilie Kulesa on the baptismal certificate".

Maribeth: "Well that's wrong. Her name is Emilie Ilene Kulesa".

Priest: "We'll use Emilie Kulesa"

Maribeth: "No, She's Emilie Ilene Kulesa, you need to change the certificate."

Priest: "O.K. I'll just white this out and insert Ilene"

Maribeth: "No, you'll retype up another certificate"

The priest relented and was making some sort of note.  After all a Christening is supposed to be naming the baby, the least he could do was get the name right.  Maribeth turned to look at somebody in the crowd, I assume her mother, and gave that kind of look of those who are amazed, angered, and confused all at the same time. The look said, "Can you believe this?"

After this Charlie must have made some sort of comment because Maribeth kicked him, right in front of everybody.  Granted, it was just a side kick, she smacked her ankle against his shin, but a kick is a kick in my book.  The priest paid no mind.

The priest quickly finished the service in record time with the crowd struggling to keep up with the "Hail's" and "Let it be done" at the right places. Everybody was still standing at the alter kind of wondering what to do next when Maribeth's mother, Ilene, stood up and announced he'd forgotten the thus and such ceremony.  The priest said he didn't know that one. Whereupon Ilene took him into the office off to the side of the alter with the whole party in tow (Exit stage left). Chris tried to keep the crowd entertained while we all wondered what was going on. Inside the room, Ilene found the liturgy book, opened it to the correct section, and pointed out to the priest extactly what she was talking about.

The crowd shuffled back onstage (Enter from stage left) in front of the alter, and the priest, with book in hand, began the thus and such ceremony. Ilene, back in her pew, then stood up and interrupted again, "Not at the alter. In front of the Mother Mary". There was a shrine to Mary to the right of the alter. So the crowd now shuffled down to the shrine (Exit stage right) and the priest, again in record time, conducted the thus and such ceremony. When he was finished the priest looked at Ilene to make sure there was nothing else.

No wonder they don't alow female Priests.

So everything was finished and people exited the church in a sort of semi-shock and headed over to the reception. Bobby and Ilene rode with my dad and I and we all marveled at what had occurred. Bobby said he had never seen anything which so lacked spirituality. "No wonder the Babtists are doing so well!"

My idea was to take the child out before sunrise to a small meadow in some woods, lay her on the dewey grass and stand in a circle chanting her name while 7 white timber wolves sat outside the circle and howled a welcome to the sunrise. But my idea was considered far fetched.

Ilene proceded to tell us a story about how when she was pregnant with Maribeth in 1961(?), she was in church back in Smithfield (which is only a few miles from New York City)with her one year old Andy and a priest was giving a sermon. The sermon was about the starving children in Africa. He was very passionate about this and Andy clued into his emotion. Everytime this priest mentioned the starving children in Africa, Andy would let out a moan, "Ohhhhhh".

"The starving children in Africa!"

"Ohhhhhh!"

This happened a few times and the Priest was quite perturbed. Finally he halted his sermon and spake thus,"Will you please remove that child from the church? He's causing a disturbance!"

Ilene being the good obedient Catholic, akwardly (being great with child) grabbed Andy, waddled to the front of the church, genuflected, and exited. I forget, but I think it was really hot and humid that day just to add to her discomfort.

Well after the service the parishiners were outraged. They told the Bishop, "How dare he treat that poor pregnant woman like that!" The priest was never to conduct services there again. From that day forward he was banished to a church way out on the end of Long Island in Riverhead; never to be seen again until 34 years later when he would seek his revenge at the Christening of the family who had forced his exile, oh, so long ago.

The Golden Temple

This is just to check in your shoes

Mandatory foot bath

First glimpse of the Golden Temple

Baddest dude in India

Guards relaxing and chatting between skewering unruly tourists

People bathing

Download this one and zoom in on the artwork

Everybody eats for free

But it takes a lot of volunteers to feed them all

Baba Deep Singh Ji

Sikh Pope's House

Entrance to the temple. Download and zoom in to see the detail. Look how thick the gold is.

One last look

We arrived at Amritsar, parked, and the four of us piled into a couple of rickshaws and took off for the Golden Temple.

Once there I realized this place was far larger than I expected. So many people visit that they have a special place across the street to check your shoes. Also again we had to cover our heads so I had to buy a special gold scarf that says ‘Golden Temple’ on it. Somehow I didn’t feel very holy.

At the entrance you literally have to walk through water in order to clean your feet and properly respect the Temple. That’s pretty cool, as long as they keep refreshing the water.

We entered the Gurdwara and this vast square pond surrounded by large walls opened before us. It’s about a square mile in size and surrounded by high walled buildings. On one side is an isthmus which juts out onto an island in the center of the pond. On this island sits a temple covered inside and out in gold. This is the Golden Temple proper, the Harmandir Sahib. Now it’s not built OF gold, it’s gold sheeting, about three tons worth. Three freaking tons. And it’s not like the cute gold leaf you get in most churches, it’s more like an eighth of an inch thick. I’ve never heard of a Sikh taking a vow of poverty.

Right after us walked in a small, fierce, badass looking dude in a very fancy getup with a beautiful black hat and a sword about one third his size. He wasn’t big by any means, but his countenance was quite severe, this mofo was not to be trifled with. Rajeev told me he was from a special warrior clan of the Sikhs and dressed traditionally. I asked Rajeev if I could take the guy’s picture or would he get mad and run me through with that sword. After all, when you’re in someobody else’s holy place you’d best confirm before discovering you’ve made a faux paux that could cost you your life. “Another stupid tourist took a picture of a Sikh warrior, toss his body with all the other infidels on the other side of the wall”. I doubt I’d even make the news.

Rajeev said it was okay to take his picture, but I still kind of pretended I was just taking a bunch of pictures around the temple and only got one of the warrior. While he wasn’t very big, I’d still pick him in a fight with a Crip anyday.

Most of what Americans know about the Golden Temple is that this is the central place of Sikh worship. Okay most Americans don’t know jack about the Golden Temple, but a few are old enough to remember a religious zealot named Bhindranwale had taken over the Gurdwara in 1984 and hundreds of people were there. India’s Prime Minister, Indira Ghandi, had sent in the army to root him out, killed a few hundred people, and destroyed some buildings, including the Akal Takhat, the seat of government/religion for the Sikhs and home to what I incorrectly call their Pope (I can’t find his proper title). The Golden Temple itself sustained some damage from gunfire but was not destroyed.

What’s really amazing is that I can find no reliable sources of information about what really happened or how extensive the damage was. I ask again and again why it happened and I receive vague answers about how ‘complicated’ and ‘political’ it was, this from both Sikhs and Hindus. It would take hours to explain the politics involved they tell me.

The nearest I can make out is that Bhindranwale was a Sikh fundamentalist who would preach/hassle/attack (again depending on your point of view) against those who did not live up to the purity he wanted from Sikhs. He was definitely used by Indira Ghandi to strike at another troublesome Sikh group at one point and was implicated in a murder. The Sikh’s tell me he became a megalomaniac and decided to challenge Ghandi in the Golden Temple. He never openly declared for an independent Khalistan (Sikh homeland of the Punjab), he was probably too smart for that, but the implication was there. Indira Ghandi felt she couldn’t allow this and ordered the military operation.

But so many questions remain. Why in the world would she do something so obviously fraught with peril? Her own Sikh military commander resigned rather than approve the military action against the temple. Did Bhindranwale take pilgrims hostage or were they supporters? I can find no mention of hostages, even the government didn’t claim there were hostages, so they must have been supporters. Why did the Sikh Pope in the Gurdwara allow Bhindranwale to set up shop there? The Sikh Pope (I can’t find his name anywhere) has no problems with weapons in the complex as separating Sikhism and weapons is like separating Christianity and the Cross, but what was the ultimate goal?

To make matters worse, while there is a free press in India, I’m told there are 27,000 daily papers, they all are just different versions of Fox News, spreading lies and disinformation rather than rooting out facts and truth. It’s obvious the Indian government is hiding something and just wants the issue to go away. But the Sikhs have created their own campaign to downplay Bhidranwale’s fanaticism. I have a well educated Sikh friend who told me that Bhidranwale wanted to restore respect for the Golden Temple because people were leaving cigarette butts and trash in the pond. Automatic weapons are needed to fight cigarette butts.

I’ve only been to two Sikh Gurdwaras now, but I can say without hesitation that they were very clean. Gopi says all the Sikh gurdwaras are spotless, the Hindu temples are dirty. Considering he’s a Hindu that says something about what to expect. I can’t imagine anybody smoking in the Golden Temple or anybody leaving any trash around. I didn’t so much as see a candy wrapper in the pond. But then again, maybe Bhindranwale’s made his point.

This proved to be a huge miscalculation for Ghandi and it cost her her life when her two Sikh bodyguards assassinated her a few months later. The Sikhs smile proudly when they tell me that the Golden Temple has only been attacked three times in history and all three leaders who ordered the attacks were killed within six months.

While I don’t see any sign of Sikh’s seeking independence, whenever a discussion of the Golden Temple comes up, no matter how non-existent their English, the Sikhs make sure I understand their repulsion to the attack on their sacred shrine.

We ate at the Gurdwara first before going to the Golden Temple. At least 1500 people were being fed there. A sign hangs at the entranceway that I find to be very spirtitual. Remember this is a translation, I’m told the original language is very poetic.

The Lord himself is the farm
Himself is the farmer
Himself he grows and grinds the corn
Himself he cooks
Himself he places in on a platter
And Himself he eats too
Himself is the water
Himself the toothpick
Himself he offers a handful of water
Himself he calls the men to eat
Himself he bids them off
The Lord is merciful
He makes him walk in his will

This was eating on an industrial scale without industrial machines. Just hundreds of people pitching in. Tons of food being cooked, handed out, and platters being cleaned. All for free of course. It was a chaotic well oiled machine.

We walked around the Gurdwara and came to a place showing the story of a Sikh warrior named Baba Deep Singh Ji who had been fighting off enemies outside the Gurdwara. In the fighting his head was cut off but he held his head in one hand while continuing to fight with the other. He was determined to fight his way inside the Gurdwara before he died and he succeeded.

Rajeev looked at me, “This is possible you know”.

That’s nothing, the Christians popped a guy out of his grave after three days.

Up in the visitor’s center was more information about the Sikh Gurus, there were ten of them, and paintings of damage done to the Golden Temple. Hmmm, I bet the Indian government didn’t allow any pictures taken of the damage. In today’s YouTube world, that is now an impossibility.

But also, as befits a warrior religion, there are a dozens of large macabre photos of Sikh’s who have been killed in defense of their religion. The corpses are all cleaned and dressed with garlands around their necks, most I believe are from the 1984 battle. They died as holy warriors.

We got in line to get to the Golden Temple and it was packed. Indian’s believe that unless you can feel their nipples in your shoulder blades there’s too much space between you. What I didn’t find out until later is that most of the people were not Sikh pilgrims, most were Hindu tourists.

The Golden Temple is exactly what it looks like except up close the gold is all beautifully inscribed. Can you imagine being the guy writing in this gold? The gold is in sheets about three feet across. Odd corners and rounded edges are all covered with writing, every inch. St. Peter’s has some fantastic stuff, but nothing like this. Benedict should make a visit.

Inside, the Sikh’s holy book, called the Eleventh Guru, lies under a beautiful blue blanket while a bunch of guys play instruments and read from their scriptures. I’m told this is broadcast on the internet, but I couldn’t find it. People were throwing money on the floor, something about all that gold makes you feel rich and like giving more.

Upstairs there is another smaller room where people, Hindu, Sikh, and even some Western tourists, sit and soak up the atmosphere. All poshly laid out with brightly colored rugs and pillows. Up on the roof you can look out over the whole Gurdwara and touch the golden plastered domes.

“How about that!” Gopi stroked one of the gold domes. There’s something about touching gold to make you think that prosperity will rub off on you. He motioned with his hand at all the gold and the fantastic view of the entire Gurdwara, “Pretty impressive isn’t it?”

I looked out and had to agree, this was dang impressive, and worth a trip to India.