Dirty Cup Part II

Seems like I'm not the only one who believes in crusty tea cups. Julian, a follower of this blog, says disgusting habits like mine are traditional in Asia--and here reprinted with his permission is his own "dirty cup" story: 

About your "dirty" cup: it happens that the tea residue on teapots is traditional in Asia, and supposedly adds to the flavor. So, once upon a time, in my rolling stone years, I carried with me a little green porcelain teapot that I stole from my mother and that I never washed. It got nice and brown on the inside. I brewed tea very strong and drank a lot and had my little rituals. 

When I left England to start a new job at Oakland University, my little pot, broken and mended several times, but still nicely brown on the inside, made its second trans-Atlantic voyage and sat on my new office's bookshelf. And then I came in to work one day and the sweet mid-Western woman who was the department secretary had taken pity on the new twenty-something male instructor with the beard and odd habits, and scrubbed his filthy teapot!! It's never been the same since. In fact, I disposed of it a few years ago after yet another break. It never acquired the same patina. 

As for the secretary, we became good friends. She was about 10 years older than I. The former department head, who had hired me en passant, so to speak, as he left, had been a bit irascible and she missed him. So when I started writing very biting letters to various people, she really enjoyed typing them up. Then we would keep them for a day, and write something a bit more more subtle (and polite). She was the one I miss most there when I left. I even forgave the clean teapot, although for the rest of my life, I have never had one as good. 

This cup hasn't been washed in 8 years

Every afternoon at work I have a cup of green tea after lunch to help avert a mid-day stupor. This is the cup I have been using for nearly the past decade. It has never been washed!

I got the inspiration for not washing this cup from an old Ironside TV show in the late 1960s starring Raymond Burr (aka Perry Mason) as the crippled Chief of Detectives Robert T. Ironside. Though a brilliant crime-solver, he had a nasty temperament and very strong opinions about most things. He was notorious for making his coffee in a beat-up tin pot and insisting that the pot never be rinsed or washed between makings.

Of course this grossed out his fellow detectives and became a running joke thoughout the series and you could count on Ironside's explosive temper getting the better of him if anyone came near the pot with soap and water.

Yes, my cup has gotten the stink eye from several co-workers and some suggeset that it could be harboring all kinds of nasty microbes. I counter with the fact that I seldom get sick, which may be attributable to the resistance I've built up against nasty microbes in general based on drinking from a filthy cup.

But here's the news. I have retired the cup. Recently my group moved to a new building--a brand new building in Newark. A spanking clean, pristine high rise with ultra modern conveniences and state-of-the-art amenities. As the most veteran member of my department, I'm not sure that his dog quite fits in at our new digs. But I do know that my cup doesn't.

I guess its time to make changes. I have a new cup for my daily tea, and I'm not sure if I'll wash this one either. If I don't, it might be a little charming to have a grungy little fixture in my current antiseptic environment. Or maybe I should get on the stick and make it as sparkling clean as everything else around me.

I'm torn.

As for the old cup, I was thinking of a ritual smashing. But it has served me well and it still doesn't leak. At this point it is unclean-able. Maybe I should plant something in it. A mini tea-tree?

My new cup

Our Kids are Being Left Behind

As made clear in this article in the NY Times, the millennial generation, those between the ages of 18 and 34, are on track to endure less prosperity and more insecurity in their lives than preceding generations.

As the writer points out, despite being better educated, more socially connected, and just as energetic as previous generations, millennials have lower earnings, higher debt, higher unemployment, and fewer career opportunities.

As the article states, this generation is "faced with a slow economy, high unemployment, stagnant wages and student loans that constrict their ability both to maintain a reasonable lifestyle and save for the future." The days of paying for college with part-time jobs and summer work that many in my baby boomer population were able to depend on are long over. Also, jobs out of college pay less on an inflation-adjusted basis compared to prior generations.

So what can be done? First, the economy needs real growth, which isn't happening now. There must be more investment--in infrastructure, education, and research--all of which could lead to jobs, and higher paying jobs--especially for this generation. And with interest rates as low as they are, there's never been a better time to spend.

What the article gets wrong is its focus on the national debt "problem," which is not really a problem. The solutions mentioned above will help grow the economy and will pay for themselves through a broadened tax base, especially from better-employed millennials.

But taxes will have to go up (mostly on the wealthy) given the level of government participation needed to jumpstart the economy. As it is, Americans pay much less per capita than other first world countries, despite what the Grover Norquists of the world say, and much less than what we paid during the glory years of President Reagan.

And, once again, there is no need to make cuts in Social Security and Medicare, which are on reasonably sound financial footing (except for SSI disability) and require only minor tweaks over the next 15 years to remain so for the next 50 years. The article's author, of course, is a Wall Street guy and Wall Street guys just hate so-called entitlement programs--especially those like Social Security and Medicare, which are self-funding.

I have two kids in the millennial generation, and like any dad, I want to see my kids to better than me, at least from a financial standpoint. The situation they face today is unfair and not of their doing. But there are clear-cut answers at hand.

The Mystery of FIOS

I'm one of the millions of disgruntled Comcast customers who are sick and tired of erratic Internet performance, over-priced TV packages, balky reception, interminable waits for telephone assistance, and constant price creep in my monthly bills whenever they find a "mistake" and incorrect charges that always seem to be in Comcast's favor.

I am also located in a part of town that provides zero competition for my business--unless you call satellite dishes and Verizon DSL "competition." So imagine our joy when my wife went on the Verizon website and discovered that FIOS was finally available in our ZIP code. We spontaneously broke out in the dance of joy at the news! Everyone I know who has FIOS expressed maximum bliss over FIOS service, speed and reliability.

But when I dug a little deeper, I was crestfallen to discover that my particular block was not yet wired for FIOS, even though neighborhoods in my ZIP code have had FIOS for years.

So what gives? I called Verizon, and over the course of being passed around by a half dozen different drones in the call center over the course of about an hour I found no one who could give me a straight answer as to why my town has FIOS but my street does not--or whether FIOS would ever come to my street.

So I called City Hall, trying to find the party responsible for CATV negotiations. The gentleman who administers such things said FIOS is contracted to provide services in my town, but it's up to Verizon to decide when and where to string the blessed fiber optic cables that are behind the magic.

"Did you try calling Verizon?" he suggested. I thanked him and hung up.

The whole FIOS thing is a mystery and I know what you're thinking. Just unplug the cable, buy a digital antenna and get local HD for free and stream NetFlicks, Hulu, Amazon or whatever. Yes, but I'm a sports fan and it's impossible to stream YES to get the Yankees and Nets or MSG for the Knicks. And my wife likes a bunch of cable channels that currently don't stream, so we're stuck.

As we're slowly bled by the Comcast cartel, I'm left to wonder what exactly are the benefits to consumers when industries consolidate to the point of virtual monopolies like Comcast and Verizon? And don't get me started on the airlines industry!

Perhaps one day we'll wake up and FIOS will have magically made its way into our neighborhood. One can dream.

Gone Girls

As of June 21, 2015, my wife and I became empty-nesters. We married off the last of our two daughters to a very nice guy, which followed by nearly five years the evacuation of her older sister to the joys of marriage, again to a very nice guy.

The literature indicates that many parents facing this milestone in life find it unendurable and search out the nearest bridge from which to make a flying leap. So far, the adjustment for us has not been quite that intense, though we did moon about for the first week or so. My wife took it pretty hard and even I was less stoic than I had expected.

We both know that there will be certain traditions and rhythms that will change by not having the kids around as much. I imagine there will be fewer Chipotle Fridays and evenings of riotous dinner banter. But we'll adjust.

My wife, a wise person, has sensibly made it a point to establish some new traditions. We will go out to eat at least once a week, spend more time with friends, try to make new friends (a thought that makes me cringe), and be more open to last minute spontaneous activities. Things like that should help fill the void of fewer Erica and Natalie encounters.

Of course I had big plans. Two vacant bedrooms to work with. My vision was a music studio in one and a writing room in the other. Unfortunately, those bedrooms remain fully occupied by our kids' stuff for the indefinite future, so that means that neither my wife nor I can repurpose those spaces more effectively.

In the end, I guess we are all better off. Erica and Natalie are off to a great start in the more permanent parts of their lives, and Micky and I can return to the days of pre-kid bliss that we enjoyed for a decade before becoming model parents.

Still, the eerie silence of our Gone Girls will probably still be an issue every now and then. In which case, maybe the best move is to turn up the music a little louder and make the martinis a little colder.

Weighing in on Chris Christie: Presidential Candidate

(Sorry for the somewhat insensitive title--but the governor himself often makes light of his heavy!)

So let's see, New Jersey still has among the highest property taxes in the country, which Christie promised to fix six years ago; our infrastructure and highways are crumbling from total neglect and the governor's refusal to raise the the NJ gas tax--the nation's lowest--to pay for repairs. Three years after Superstorm Sandy people are still trying to get federal money to fix their homes; Christie cancelled the tunnel project to Manhattan in the teeth of the recession, which cost thousands of jobs plus an easer commute to NYC; lost millions in federal education aid because his people didn't file the correct forms on time; and illegally refuses to fund the state pension obligations after promising to fix that situation in his first term.

And... his administration paid $6 million to a contractor buddy from out of state to chop down a bunch of trees along the Garden State Parkway because he owed him a favor. He's also presided over an unprecedented nine state credit rating reductions and the highest foreclosure rate in the country (in Atlantic County). Not to mention the fact that he hasn't brought in much in the way of new business to NJ, which is still well behind most other states in terms of economic recovery and employment. And let's not even get started on the Geo. Washington Bridge lane closure fiasco perpetrated by his lackeys to punish a small-town mayor for refusing to support the governor's reelection.

So Christie's answer to all this? Run for president! I'm thinking he's doing it because he just may want to get out of Dodge!

Sure, he's a horrible candidate and doesn't stand a chance, even among an extremely weak slate of Republican candidates--most Republicans hate him anyway. But what really interests me is how some people have mastered the art of failing upwards. Christie was no better in his first term than he's been in his second, yet NJ voters reelected him in a landslide. The same could be said about Bush II, who trashed the economy and got us mired in an endless war in Iraq in his first term, but still got reelected. 

I wish I could be rewarded for such poor performance.

The same thing happens in business. You've probably worked with people who seemed to always get promoted even though they were clueless about the business or incapable of producing anything of value. It happens at all levels. Carly Fiorina messed up at Lucent, only to be handed the CEO job at Hewlett Packard, which she proceeded to run into the ground, which got her fired. So what does Carly do? Runs for president. If she's good at anything, it's her ability to fail upwards.

The same thing happens in sports: lousy baseball managers, football coaches, and NBA head coaches fail repeatedly but are constantly recycled to different teams a year, or even months, later. These people fail upwards and laterally and get rewarded. How do they do it? It's a mystery to me. Who hires these people? Who votes for these people. What is in their brains? Haven't they heard that overworked Einstein quote in which he said "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results?"

There's a lot of insanity going around. For today, let's mark Chris Christie as Exhibit A.

Boycott Disney--The Story Continues

Seems like the NY Times story on the tech worker layoffs hit a nerve with millions of workers and a vindictive Disney corporation is forced with dealing with a PR nightmare. Read this highly enjoyable follow-up story and marvel how highly successful U.S. corporations are raking in the profits at the expense of its workers. Maybe the the U.S. should institute an H1B program to replace the greedy expletive CEOs that run things in this country.

Incidentally, my wife and I were planning a Disney trip next year; however, companies that follow such heinous employment practices are now dead to us and will not benefit from our tourist dollars.