Monthly Archives: August 2010

Michael Hiltzik says that Social Security is in much better shape than its detractors would like to admit.

If you are a member of the Screen Actors Guild or certain other Hollywood trade unions — or related to a deceased member — you owe it to yourself to do a little research. SAG alone is sitting on $17.5 million in unclaimed residuals, either because the intended recipient cannot be located or is deceased. Look up the relevant name in this database and see if they have money. I just looked up a few friends and found them listed. I also looked up some classic performers. Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy are owed money. So is Bud Abbott but not Lou Costello. So are Joe DeRita and Larry Fine.

I'm going to call a few friends and let them know they may have bucks waiting. In some cases, the amounts may be trivial but someone should give them the chance to find out.

So yesterday I go to a Costco…and it was really a new "low" for me in that I got out for (barely) under a hundred bucks. Usually, I go in to buy just paper towels or just peanut butter and I wind up leaving with eight computers, six snow tires, twelve birdbaths and enough Eucerin to moisturize a rhino into having the skin you love to touch. But this time, I pick up just a few goodies and then head for the rear of the store to get one of the yummy, plump prepared rotisserie chickens to take home. I can live off one of them for a month.

Usually, they have a dozen or so out and in the back, you can see the expert setup where the staff is rotissering (is that a word?) more and it's all timed out so that just as customers have grabbed up the last batch, the next flock comes out. Today however, the procedure hits a snag. Two men, working in tandem and each pushing one of those Hummer-sized Costco shopping carts, come in and denude the display. With the expertise of the Ocean's 11 team cleaning out the Sands, they grab up all the available chickens that are left over from the previous output…and they're there as the latest ones are put forth so they seize all of them, as well.

They have about 23 chickens plus about a half-dozen orders of BBQ ribs in their two carts as they head for the checkout, leaving zero chickens for the rest of us. I am among about a dozen shoppers who are left to stare longingly at empty shelves. One of us inquires how long it might be before there are more available and the answer turns out to be about 40 minutes. This is dangerous, at least for me. If I hang around a Costco for 40 minutes, I will buy thirty crates of A-1 Sauce, nine more computers, enough blouses to clothe Paraguay and at least one Goodyear Blimp, except it will say "Kirkland" on the side.

Others around me are outraged. Most expected to carry home a hot Seasoned Chicken to feed the family that evening and their plans are awry. They begin demanding immediate chickens and the beleaguered rotisserer (that can't be a word) is having trouble explaining that he cannot furnish more cooked hens on demand; that they require a certain amount of prep time. One lady in particular — our Self-Appointed Spokeswoman — proclaims she speaks for us all. We are all good, loyal, longtime Costco patrons and we are incensed that our dinner menus are inoperative. I don't recall voting for her and I don't think she has the proper outlook on the situation. She seems to think that if one is loud enough and angry enough, Costco can make fully-cooked poultry instantly appear.

Over comes a manager or some other official who's heard the shouting and also noticed that customers who couldn't care less about barbecued fowl are crowding around to watch the dinner theater. He tries to placate this woman who will simply not be placated. He explains that it simply takes X number of minutes to cook more of what we want. This does not satisfy the Orly Taitz of barbecued chickens. She insists that he grovel a bit, admit that the system is seriously f'ed up and in dire need of correction, and then present her with an immediate chicken-to-go. Or else.

The Costco boss-person insists the system works fine, 99% of the time. It just doesn't work if two guys come in and buy 23 chickens all at once, which in all his years of managing has never before happened. He explains that Costco sells no chicken that is more than two hours old; that once a hen has gone untaken that long, it's removed from the shelf and either discarded or stripped of its meat to make Costco's chicken soup. With the patience of Job or maybe even an Obama supporter, he tells her that it's all expertly timed for the normal traffic and that if they made more than they do, they'd wind up throwing out too many unsold chix and have to raise the price. And of course there's no guarantee that if there had been ten more chickens there, those two fellows wouldn't have purchased 33 chickens.

He is just explaining why Costco couldn't limit the number of chickens per person when I notice that standing next to me among the amused spectators, is a man with about fifteen Kirkland Seasoned Chickens in his cart. It's one of the two gents who'd bought out the available supply and it looks like he's returned to the scene of the crime to see if and when more might be available. I turn to him and say, "See what you caused?"

The man chuckles, then hears our unofficial spokeswoman start to ratchet it up to yelling and insulting the manager's sanity and parentage. Out of some combination of guilt and peacekeeping, the man with all the birds takes one from his cart, thrusts it at the lady and says, "Here…go home and feed your family." Then before other chicken-cravers can pounce on his stash, he turns and pushes his cart away. As he passes me, he says, "You want one, too?" I say yes and he hands me one and then gets the hell outta there. I look at all the unfulfilled folks who desperately wanted what I now have, see the expression on their faces and decide to also go and pay.

In the checkout line, I find myself standing behind the loud lady. She is still outraged in a manner that suggests to me this is how she is about everything in life. At the moment, she is outraged that she had to make a fuss to get what she should have had all along…but to me she looks kinda proud of herself.

I start to think, "I don't know how people can go through life being that rude, especially about something as mundane as a rotisserie chicken." But then I slap and correct myself: They do it because it works. For some people, getting your way is more important than what you get, and "winning" can justify any means. Even though her rudeness indirectly got me what I wanted, I wish it hadn't turned out like that.

Then again, as I'm writing this, I'm lunching on a damn fine sandwich made out of leftover chicken.

Stanley Kurtz is a prominent writer in the Conservative punditry. During the last election, he was a major proponent of the notion that if we elected Barack Obama, then we'd be turning the White House over to William Ayers, Reverend Wright, and any other radical who was ever in the same room as Obama. He's now out with a book that makes the case that Obama is a Socialist, which is a claim that many of the president's foes are desperate to believe and/or sell.

It seems like a silly charge to me. Obama's the guy who didn't fight for the public option, didn't nationalize the auto industry, etc. He still won't come out strongly for Gay Marriage and seems to me to barely qualify as a "slightly left of center Democrat," which is how William Kristol characterized him on The Daily Show. (Betcha Kristol never said that on Fox News.) But I do understand that some people are so far to the right that even the middle of the road looks Marxist from their vantage point. I also understand that some folks are so horrified to have a guy in the Oval Office who's a Democrat and/or Black that they want to throw every possible insult at him…so he's Hitler, he's the Anti-Christ, he's not an American Citizen…and he's a Socialist.

Enter Eugene Debs…and this is not the Eugene Debs who helped start the U.S. labor movement. This is a current Democratic activist writing under a pseudonym over at the website run by Conservative strategist-pariah David Frum. Frum is kind of a fascinating figure in the punditry these days. He wants to achieve most of the same things that other right-wingers crave but he thinks they're going about it the wrong way; that while the goals are right, the popular strategy as to how to get there is wrong. There are some folks out there who hate Obama…and hate Frum as much if not more for suggesting that throwing every possible handful of mud at the president is not going to drive him from office. Anyway, Frum has been publishing articles that "Debs" is writing to argue against Kurtz.

If you want to follow the exchange, here's the first round by Kurtz. Then here's Debs' reply and a supporting argument by Frum. Then here's Kurtz's reply to Debs. Then here's Debs' rebuttal to Kurtz and here's Debs continuing his argument.

Obviously, I think Kurtz is full of it. His position seems to come down to "If Obama does X, he's a Socialist and if he doesn't do X, then he's still a Socialist…and if anything he does seems to prove he's not a Socialist, it's obviously a smokescreen to cover up the fact that he's determined to do Socialist things to us." Still, I found the exchange interesting and I leave you to make up your own mind who's winning, not that it matters a lot. Those who believe Obama is a Kenyan-born commie-fascist are going to believe that forever. And Kurtz will sell a lot of books to them.

On August on BBC Two, a show called Home Movie Roadshow will be running old home movies that Terry Jones shot of the early days of Monty Python. You may not be able to watch that broadcast but you can see a little preview of it here. Thanks to Andrew Littlefield for letting me know about it.

Jacob Weisberg, who has a thriving practice going as an aggregator of stupid remarks that come from political leaders, writes about why Sarah Palin says the inane things she says. The way I see it, he's way overthinking the question. I think it's a matter of just playing to her audience, saying what the people who flock to hear her like.

Years ago, a female stand-up I knew had a routine in her act that I thought was sexist (from a male POV) and stupid and while audiences howled at it, it was the kind of laughter a guy could get by coming out and dropping his pants — a cheap, easy laugh. It was so out of tone and character with the rest of her material (and her as a person) that I asked her one night why she did it. The answer was, "Because people laugh" and that was literally all there was to it. She did it because it seemed to be advancing her career and no, she didn't pause to ponder if she agreed with that message or the philosophy it expressed. It just worked and that, by God, was that. I think of her when I hear Sarah Palin.

I've written enough about Five Guys burgers on this blog so here's Equal Time for something healthy. After my Gastric Bypass Surgery, I had to subsist for a time on protein drinks, which was a problem for me. Most are loaded with artificial sweeteners. I'm agnostic on the question of whether things like Aspartame or Sucralose are harmful to most people but I am of the belief that my body doesn't like them…my body and my taste buds. The times I've had them, they reminded me of something gross like animal urine or swamp water or cole slaw.

Anyway, avoiding artificial sweeteners took about 75% of all available protein drinks out of consideration. Avoiding high sugar content eliminated another 20% or so. I only found two brands that worked for me, both of which are flavored with Stevia, which is not an artificial sweetener but is sometimes employed in the same way. The Healthy N Fit line was rather decent but I finally decided I had a slight preference for the Jay Robb brand, which I gather is an industry leader. It deserves to be. They fib a little to make it sound like their product is utterly delicious but most of their protein powders, when mixed with some liquid, are highly drinkable. Some folks add milk or fruit juice but I go commando with plain ice water.

Jay Robb has protein powders made with egg whites, protein powders made from whey and protein powders made from brown rice. I tried all of them and immediately scratched the rice ones from my shopping list. One sip and I did a spit-take so grand, I think I owe royalties to the Danny Thomas Estate. The ones made with egg whites or whey are pretty similar in taste but I have a tiny preference for the whey, which is also lower in Sodium.

All three kinds come in vanilla, chocolate and strawberry, plus you can also get the whey in pina colada and tropical dreamsicle, and the egg white protein in an unflavored version. I haven't tried the pina colada flavor because I never had a real pina colada, and I have no use for the unflavored. The tropical dreamsicle, which is kind of a creamy orange, was okay mixed with water and would probably be grand if swirled into orange juice, which I no longer drink. Much better are the vanilla and chocolate flavors, which I think are a lot better than the strawberry. You may, of course, feel otherwise. Mostly, I alternate vanilla and chocolate.

You can buy Jay Robb protein powders online and there's lots of info at the Jay Robb website plus, as you might imagine, prices that are buck or three higher than other sites. I found my best price by going to an outlet of The Vitamin Shoppe but wherever you buy, don't start with a whole cannister of the stuff; not until you decide what you like. For around $2.50 each in many stores, you can buy one-serving packets of each variety.

Some tips. If you mix with water, the colder the better. A blender also helps. I use the Magic Bullet, the same product you're sick of seeing on every third infomercial and it's perfect for this. I also use a little less water than the Jay Robb folks suggest. It makes for a more flavorful shake and you can drink it faster. The longer it sits, the less wonderful it tastes.

And that's about all I have to say on the topic except this. In the last few years since my surgery, my sweet tooth has gone away. My doctors can't explain quite why it happened but one day, I suddenly had no craving for cake, candy, ice cream, etc. Naturally, one can't help but get some sugar in one's diet but I'm no longer interested in the dessert category or anything that's supposed to be sweet so I get a lot less than I once did, like maybe 5% of my previous consumption. This has somehow reconfigured my taste buds such that the Jay Robb protein drinks now taste better to me than they used to. (Conversely, most fast foods taste worse. One of the reasons I gush so much over Five Guys is that it's a puzzling exception.) I don't know if any of you reading this feels the need for a protein drink in your life but if you do, these have been my recent experiences. L'chaim.

Paul Krugman on the Paul Ryan proposal for slashing taxes for the rich and benefits for everyone else. If you'd like to see Rep. Ryan's idea as he presents it, this page will make his case. I think it's double talk that skirts past a lot of specifics. Like, he exaggerates the financial woes of Medicare, then suggests replacing it with a plan that would give seniors vouchers that would enable them to pay for "quality, affordable [private] health plans." How much would his plan give them? How would anyone be sure that the amounts would cover the costs of a decent health plan? He doesn't say.

Dahlia Lithwick analyzes the Gay Marriage decision. Just as a lay person, it seemed to me that the lawyer defending Proposition 8 put up an awfully feeble argument. Actually, I've long thought all arguments against letting gays marry were pretty feeble but the folks who put up the $$$ to defend 8 didn't even get their money's worth.

Lithwick explains why it was a sound decision but that really won't matter. The losing side in any such battle these days always think that every court decision that doesn't go their way has to be morally bankrupt, possibly crooked and certainly the work of an "activist judge." I remember when O.J. Simpson was acquitted there were folks who thought he was guilty but who said, "Given what was presented in court, I completely understand why the jury voted the way they did." That never happens when political issues are involved. Everyone thinks their view is so overwhelmingly just and valid that no one could possibly come to another view via honest means.

David Corn reports on the about-to-be-unemployed South Carolina Congressguy, Bob Inglis. Why is Mr. Inglis about to lose his job? Well, to hear him tell it, he tried to give his constituents responsible Conservative and Republican representation and they didn't want that. They wanted hysterical and crazy.