Andrew Cuomo--What can I say?

Sorry I haven't updated in a while. I just haven't been able to keep up with the pace of madness to write my thoughts coherently. Sometimes, though, the madness just writes itself.

On a day when when New York Governor Andrew Cuomo coerced state employees in major wage and benefit concessions, the sports section of the New York Times posted a literally groundbreaking story about dirt.

Apparently, dirt is big money. At least it is when it's the dirt that Derek Jeter stood on--but only on the night of his 3,000 hit. Any other day of the year, it's just dirt.

Sadly, New York voters had little choice in the 2010 election. Both Andrew Cuomo and his opponent Carl Paladino cling to the lunatic fallacy that state workers are making too much money--and we need low taxes to spur "innovation," so that private sector workers can prosper.

Perhaps if New York's state income tax where lower still, Steiner Sports might be inclined to sell Derek Jeter's underwear from the historic night. Or maybe the urinal cakes from the clubhouse bathroom could fetch top dollar. How about his athletic cup?

Even sarcasm is insufficient to describe the total idiocy of an economic policy that punishes university professors, welfare fraud investigators and environmental conservation workers in hopes that the Lloyd Blankfein's and Brandon Steiner's will "trickle down" wealth the the rest of us.

I just have one question for Governor Cuomo: If high taxes discourage worker productivity, do you really think that when Derek Jeter is standing on that valuable dirt, he cares about his tax rate?

Maybe we should ask Paul Molitor for a second opinion.

Remember, Governor, there's only one right answer. And there's only one thing a good ballplayer thinks about when he's in the batter's box. It sure as hell ain't taxes.

Traffic: There must be some kind of way outta here

Said Annie Lowrey to the thief. Hot right now on Slate.com is Annie Lowrey's blunt analysis of commuting to and from work. It's something that should be said more often: It's awful. And it's costing more than just money.

How much? Lowrey cites a study from a Swedish university that tied longer commuting to higher divorce rates. And that's just in Sweden. Our traffic is about a million times worse. Lowrey collects other evidence based on surveys in the United States that confirm the obvious. Workers who have longer commutes are less happy and less healthy than those who spend less time in a car (also known in rush hour as the isolated cage of immobility). And if you think being in rush hour contributes to immobility, there's also a disturbing correlation between these commutes and our nation's obesity crisis.

I do not think this is the utopia that Henry Ford envisioned.

What can be done to solve this problem? Lowrey puts the blame on homeowners. Apparently, we've just been duped by cunning real estate agents. Apparently, "drive until you qualify" isn't an obnoxious put-down, it's a clever ad technique!

There is a problem with this analysis. It ignores the fact that there are homes to be had at incredibly low prices not far from the urban core. They are called slums. Or Ghettos. But they are houses that can be purchased for the price of a typical down-payment on a suburban house. Understandably, most middle-class families don't want to live in high crime areas with over-crowded schools. Fair enough. That's why it's time for an aggressive policy change.

Places like Detroit, Michigan and Hartford, Connecticut cannot wait for the same kind of gentrification that Brooklyn was fortunate enough to encounter in the last ten years. These communities need to made livable now.

The United States should enact a tax on retail gasoline based on the concept of a price floor, such that the cost of gasoline will never fall below a certain amount. For the sake of argument, let's say that the cost of regular unleaded gasoline will be fixed at $4.50 per gallon. If gas normally costs $3.20 per gallon, the tax would be $1.30 per gallon. If gas were to retail to $2.75 per gallon, the tax would be $1.75 per gallon. If the cost of gas were to spike suddenly and gas were to retail at or above $4.50 per gallon, the tax would be suspended.

Finally! A practical use for the Canyonero!

Funds acquired from the tax would be set aside for the strict use of rehabilitating dilapidated houses. The Department of Housing and Urban Development could purchase the homes, employ contractors to make them safe and livable, then sell the homes back to the general public at the original cost, plus operating expenses. Simply put, if it costs HUD $30,000 to refurbish a house that cost $20,000, HUD would sell the house for $50,000.

The benefit of such a program is obvious. The United States was caught flat-footed in 2008 and again to a slightly lesser extent this year when retail gas skyrocketed, whereas European nations where more able to absorb the cost as they have been accustomed to better mass transit and more fuel efficient vehicles. This would also provide soften the blow at the gas pump in the event of future price spikes.

Brookyln, pre and post gentrification. A little elbow grease could rebuild other cities.

The other benefit is that our communities can be made whole again. You might not have noticed it, but Chicago lost 200,000 residents in the last ten years. To put that in perspective, 204,000 is the listed population of Richmond, Virginia. And these people didn't leave due to lack of affordable housing in Chicago (check out this 4 bedroom 2 bathroom for just $24,150). They left because they don't want their kids to get shot at on the way to and from school. Quite frankly, I don't blame them.

But we can fix this problem. We put a man on the moon for no other reason than because we felt like it (and to do it before the Russians did). Therefore, we can give jobs to inner-city youth to fix houses and sell these homes back to the public. It's a jobs program. It's a public safety program. It's an environmental conservation program. Virtually every Democratic core constituency would support such a program, and even General Motors expressed support for the concept of a price floor for gasoline.

The time to start such a program is now. And while Obama maybe too timid to actually start solving our domestic problems, such a plan could easily win approval at the state level.

Haste makes waste, let's get this party started!

Rift between political conservatives and mainstream values continues to diverge

Ah, Karl Rove. Keep talking. Your "Permanent Republican Majority" isn't coming any sooner than the Rapture.

The majority of Americans are okay with this.

Two news stories buried in the back pages were incredibly significant nonetheless. On the same day that Tennessee's State Senate voted to forbid any discussion of homosexuality in kindergarten through 8th grade classes, Gallup released a poll that showed a majority of Americans approving of same-sex marriage. That's right. More than half the country wants to hear to guys--or girls--say, "I do."

While I have no doubt that older generations of Americans felt a sincere reservation towards the subject, it was disgusting to watch crass individuals like Rove try to gin up opposition to equal marriage rights while timid Democrats timidly looked at the polls and failed to articulate the right thing. Six and half years later, public opinion has understandably shifted. Gay marriage, along with higher taxes on the rich,
a one-way plane ticket home for our men and women in Afghanistan, and increased regulation of the financial sector, is a majority opinion in the United States.

Just like the photo above, love is love

George McGovern better start filing his papers before it's too late!

Maureen Dowd faces conflicts with reality

Oh, Miss Maureen Dowd, how I once enjoyed reading your bi-weekly column until I realized it was just a waste of time.

I know that sounds harsh, over the top criticism, and maybe a little bit wrong. But so too is her column.

He's Bambi! No, Dr. Spock! Now he's Paul Newman!

I stopped reading her opinion pieces because she was just re-wording, or in some cases, reprinting the news on page 1 and adding adding clever nicknames to the various political players of the day. Problem was, these nicknames had a tendency to reveal her own misconceptions rather than illustrate the mixture of "politics and Hollywood," that she tries to portray. Case and point: Referring to Barack Obama and "Bambi," during the 2008 Democratic presidential primaries. In the aftermath of Osama Bin Laden's killing, he is now "Cool Hands Barack." Given that Barack Obama campaigned on attacking Bin Laden even if he was in Pakistan without consent of the Pakistany government, it is clear that he was never naive. Barack didn't change, but Dowd's opinion of him certainly did. And if Dowd bothered to watch or at least read about the President's appearance on "60 Minutes" last week, she would have learned that "Cool Hand Barack" doesn't exactly have ice in his veins.

Although these nicknames might be mildly amusing, it is hard to justify extending these nicknames into a 750 word essay. To phrase it another way, it's kind of like the Saturday Night Live sketch that should have ended after the first joke--but just goes on, and on, and on. And given that these nicknames tend to reveal Dowd's own biases rather than illustrate truth, what's the function of giving her a twice-weekly opinion platform in the New York Times--especially now that I'm paying for it!!

Yesterday's piece put me over the edge. The title was "Corsets, Cleavage, Fishnets." Wow. Is Joe Biden cross-dressing? Is this about the absurdity of Fox News anchors? The latest in the absurd parade of Mama Grizzlies? I thought it was worth reading. Alas, not so much.

Dowd instead took deep exception to popular culture. Fair enough, most of pop culture is garbage. But if you thought it was some fault to the American public, or the avarice of corporations appealing the the lowest common denominator, you were wrong. Apparently, there is a vast, male conspiracy in the entertainment industry to put women down, and she's got the scoop!

What evidence does Dowd utilize to support this claim? She quotes two unnamed television executives--one male, one female--who echo each other, each saying that men are confused. Gender roles have changed, and after watching Christina Hedricks' character on "Mad Men," the male sex can't get enough. Everything on television and the big screen is a male fantasy. Sort of. As usual in her columns, Dowd doesn't bother backing up her claims with evidence. "Mad Men" is in limbo because its contract wasn't renewed of creative differences between network executives and the show's creator, Matthew Weiner. The exec's wanted to eliminate characters and broadcast shorter episodes to save money. (Weiner should be commended for not bowing to such foolish demands, but that's another story).

Even Dowd herself has a hard time reconciling her logic when she writes about a redux of Charlie's Angels. "Sure, the angels of Charlie (Robert Wagner) look hot in thigh-high black boots, red vinyl minidresses and devil’s horns," writes Dowd. "But they have skills, like building car engines, cracking safes hanging upside down after drinking two Cosmos, and putting 'the cat in cat burglar.'"

Um, that's always been the nature of the original show. And the movie. Attractive women fight crimes. Was Dowd unaware of that? How can this be some sort of new trend? And yes, the women on television and in movies are attractive, but has Dowd ever noticed so are the men! 

Reading her loopy logic is like a train wreck. The Green Lantern, approximately the 15 billionth comic book-turned movie of the last ten years is another "recent example" of Dowd's newly discovered trend about male domination in the movies. Apparently, Dowd knows what men want, and it's the half-naked Ryan Reynolds. When Dowd writes that Hollywood is a male dominated business, she is presuming too much when she assumes that most of these men are interested in women.

Maureen Dowd makes a false assumption when she assumes
that most men in Hollywood are heterosexual chauvinists.

Maybe my expectations are a little high for Ms. Dowd, who, unlike David Brooks, was once an award-winning reporter who wrote about actual news. Then again, that makes her quoting of unnamed sources all the more inexcusable (see Miller, Judith).

And, in all fairness to Ms. Dowd, she also hasn't completely missed the mark. She grew up in a time when women weren't allowed to do anything (thanks Title IX)! As a result, when she sees attractive women on television, she cries foul, insisting that women are only appreciated for their bodies. Apparently, she forgot that the name of the show "Mad Men," is mad men! It's a scathing indictment of the male behavior of the past, not cause celebré. Don Draper is mad much the way the villains were in great works of Charles Dickens. Would anyone read Oliver Twist as hagiography to 19th century orphan industry?

Sadly, I think David Brooks would answer in the affirmative to that question (it's wealth creation! He would argue), but someone like Maureen Dowd would no know better. The same holds true for summer movies and television shows. Dowd should do a lot more research and back up claims with actual evidence before signing her name to it.

Based on the last 15 years of her career, that may be wishful thinking, but at least for the rest of us, we can retain belief in equal rights of men and women without seeing misogyny everywhere.