Bottle Deposits and Identity Theft

It took me a little time to figure this out, but New York State has a super annoying policy of charging 5 cents per bottle in deposits.  The amount is too paltry for people to fret about (less than a buck for a 12-pack), but just enough to encourage people to riffle through my dumpster looking for items that were thrown away.  Except, that they aren't thrown away - these are in the dumpster for our zero-sort recycling pick up.  The third night I was in my new apartment, there was someone, knee deep in cardboard and glass, looking for cans and bottles with the deposit labels on them.

Perhaps if recycling rates were lower, I'd be in favor of the program.  Or, if the deposit was so high that empty Coke cans were treated as currency and guarded until redeemed... so infrequently tossed aside that too few remained in the open for people to try to collect.  Instead, the middle ground finds me worried about what else I've thrown into the recycling lately.  Papers?  Important papers?  Needless to say, a criss-cross shredder was high on my list of purchases for the new apartment.

Back to Basics

I'm finding myself enjoying a lovely Sunday morning / early afternoon in Upstate New York.  It's a little adjustment (my local paper has no Sunday edition?  Seriously?), but all in all, I'm adjusting pretty well.

One thing I haven't quite gotten down is my eating habits.  I've been in my new home for a grand total of 32 days and have had my new work schedule for 11 days, but I still am not really cooking or exercising or doing house cleaning with any sense of regularity.  The cat is being fed, and I've gotten to church a couple times, but I'm not really taking care of myself very well.  Part of this is the uncertainty involved with moving, the other is the expense.  Having burned through a significant chunk of savings between security deposits, hiring movers, renting Uhauls, arranging new utilities, and the like, I really don't have a lot of money, but my routine is starting to settle down.

Last night, I found myself watching Julie and Julia, a tale of modern-day stalking and obsession.  Or, an endearing plucky young writer pays homage to her cooking heroine.  I grew up watching Julia Child on PBS, but I think that may be where this movie falls flat for me.  I liked her as a cook and a part of my Saturdays, but I wouldn't want to become posessed by her in the way that is depicted in the movie.  Julia's show was never really about what to make on a daily basis, but what to cook when company comes over or for a special event in the family.  The Frugal Gourmet was much more along the lines of what to cook on a Tuesday.  Those two, and Justin Wilson's Louisiana Chef, were my only real insights into how to cook growing up before the Food Network. 

Wondering if I could get some inspiration to rid myself of my current cooking cunnundrum, I'm watching the Food Network.  This is Food Porn.  I'm watching cuts between the chef and close ups of herb jars, and a slow pan over a pan of slowing sauteeing meat, over to a beautifully lit jar of McCormick's spices which will eventually be the key ingrediant to this recipe.  Then, you do have the shows that are about being in the kitchen cooking (not arranging flowers and setting tables that overlook the ocean), but the recipes are horrible.  Even post-diabetes, Paula Dean is cooking with butter and pork fat, and there is a curious lack of vegetables.  There's also no sense that people have food budgets.  I just watched someone burn through $5 worth of fresh limes when you could have bought organic lime juice for a fourth of the price.  So who today is cooking really healthy meals, quickly, and without burning through stacks of cash? 

It seems like we are in the middle of changing the food culture of the United States into something that celebrates local foods, fresh produce, and healthy food choices.  But, how do you do this in a budget-conscious way that does not become a full-time job?  Figure out how to combine these three competing interests, and you've created a show I want to watch.

What I really need is a 2003 IKEA Catalog

Planning a long distance move out of state is somewhat stressful.  Between calling landlords, hoping they'll return my calls, hiring people through Craigslist to check out apartments for me, and still trying to work and finish my certificate program, I really have little time.  I also have little money, which is why there will be no new furniture for the time being.

When I moved into my first apartment in Chicago after graduation, I went with the bare essentials: Bed, clothes.  However, the next apartment, my dream pad down the street from Wrigley, was fully furnished with matching furniture.  My bedroom set was lovely pine and grey wool upholstered items from IKEA.  While the various particle board stuff I've picked up here and there since then has broken and fallen apart, the solid wood stuff from IKEA remains, and is headed to Upstate New York with me. 

Not being able to buy new stuff, I'd really like to get another bedside table to make the next apartment slightly more functional.  When I purchased the line of bedroom furniture, there was only myself to consider.  Now, there's a boy in my bed.  I'd rather like to try to get another table, but I can't remember the name of the series.  I'm pretty sure there was a circle on one of the vowels?  What I need is a 2002 or 2003 IKEA catalog so I can find the name of the thing, then maybe have a chance of tracking one down online.  What I can't find is an actual copy of the darn catalog.  I guess IKEA wants me to just go to their store and buy something new, but not even a fan page of the discontinued items?  What is a poor IKEAn to do?

And now a word from Alan Simpson

Alan Simpson is my favorite retired senator.  Quick transcript of the highlights from today's Global Public Square on CNN, and yes, I had to rewind and make sure I was hearing this correctly:

I think my party and I have different views on a lot of things.  I guess I'm known as a RINO now, which means a Republican in Name Only, because, I guess, of social views perhaps, or [hehe] common sense might be another one which has escaped members of our party.  Abortion is a horrible thing, but for heavens sake, a deeply intimate and personal decision, and men legislatures shouldn't even vote on it.  Gay Lesbian issues, we're all human beings, we're all God's children, what is this?  And for heavens sake, you have Grover Norquist wandering the Earth in his white robes, saying that if you raise taxes one penny, he will defeat you.  He can't murder ya, he can't burn your house, the only thing he can do to you as an elected official is defeat you for reelection.  And if that means more to you than your country when we need Patriots to come out in a situation when we're in extremity, then you shouldn't even BE in Congress.

You can't cut spending your way out of this hole.  You can't grow your way out of this hole.  You can't tax your way out of this hole.  So, put that in your pipe and smoke it, we tell these people.  This is madness.  If you want to be a purist, go somewhere on a mountain top, pray to the East or something.  But if you want to be in politics, you learn to compromise, and you learn to compromise on issues without compromising yourself.  Show me a guy who won't compromise, and I'll show you a guy with rocks for brains.

And you know who will get hurt the worst in that process, when interest rates go up and inflation kicks in?  The little guy, the one that everybody on their hind legs talks about, "We're doing this for the little guy".  The most vulnerable, the unfortunate.  Well, Merry Christmas.  Those guys are going to get eaten when interest rates go up and inflation kicks in.

[On Romney proposed tax cuts, and Bush era tax cuts] I wouldn't have voted for them if I had been in Congress.  How would you have voted for a tax cut if you were doing two wars on the cheap?  You had two wars you were fighting, you had things that were... the Government, all the income for the Government was only taking care of Medicaid and Social Security, and you do a tax cut.  Every time there was a surplus, and the last time was when this fine gentleman was doing it in '96, you can't get there, but you don't have to do a tax cut.  Get that out of your gourd.  You get into the tax expendatures and you start knocking that stuff off, and that's where you get your revenue.

How much more fun would politics be if Senators would actually speak their minds again? 

Mr. Obvious

The New York Times featured an article on mathematical models of losing weight and obesity.  Turns out, to lose weight, one needs to eat less and exercise.  However, this group is all sciency and has charts.

As part of the 97% of American women who want to lose 10 pounds, this sounds familiar.  Can we somehow use math to figure out why it is so hard to eat less and exercise more?  A comprehensive, easy to follow plan would be the break-through of break-throughs.  Until then, I'll just feel mildly disappointed each time I skip the gym to run errands.

Moving on...

When I went to vote in the Indiana primary last week, I was saddened to think that the last time I would vote in the State of Indiana, I would be listed as a Republican.  However, I just couldn't think about Richard Mourdock being seated in the US Senate.  Therefore, crossed party lines, and voted for Lugar.  That's how much I love my country.

I'm leaving the state this summer.  Since the Right-To-Work bill passed, my weak union looks to be even weaker going forward.  Benefit costs have creeped up while pay has stagnated, decreased when looking at real dollars.  Each year that I stay, I make less money.  We finally hit the point last year where expenses were hitting our income.  Time to move on.

Sadly, I found a new opportunity, but not in the Midwest.  I'm off to Ithaca, New York.  We're taking our 5 college degrees with us.  I could make the argument that we're self-selecting.  Over-educated privilidged white kids move to liberal state, leaving Indiana behind to be governed by "Real Americans" who don't need no fancy book learning.  It's an easier equation... education gives us the ability to be mobile, and we're heading off to new opportunities.  Increasingly, they just are not available in the Hoosier State. 

This blog may get more of the tone of a Cubs fan dealing with Yankees fans, but I'll always remain a Midwestern Girl.  Meanwhile, we'll probably look to return to the region in a couple years.  Just not to Indiana.

Evolving

Rand Paul mocked Barack Obama about his views on marriage "evolving".  Really?  Your views on marriage don't evolve?  Because if I still held to the beliefs that I had about marriage on the day that I got married, I would have been divorced long ago.  Of course people's beliefs evolve!  If you are in a good marriage, you understand that the only real threats to your marriage come from within the marriage, not a shadowy, mystic spectre that resides outside of the marriage.  Marriage is not a zero-sum game.  Your happiness is not dependent on the misery of others.  Rather, the more happy people you surround yourself with, the happier you are. 

So, how does gay marriage ruin my marriage exactly?

Sunday Morning Politics: Radicals!

This morning on Face the Nation, Newt Gingrich called Barack Obama "The Most Radical President in United States History." 

Are you as disturbed as I am that someone with a Ph.D. in history has never heard of either Roosevelt?

I am one who defines her politics as liberal, using the term as FDR defined it (generally, protecting the citizenry from market failures, regulating key industries to create markets where players compete on equal footing, and trying to internalize the externalities).  While I had been an avid campaigner for Obama in 2008, I will not be this year, mainly because he is NOT advocating for radical policies.  Health care did not go far enough, tax policy remains skewed in favor of the rich, and the price of education means that those without wealth cannot afford college.

"Radical" refers to those who have considered breaking with past policies to create change.  In the business world, one might call them "Innovative".  You find them on both sides of the political spectrum.  Just a quick list of "radical" presidents that I could think of in five minutes is below.  No, I don't have a Ph.D. in history, but it casts serious doubts about the doctoral program at Tulane.

Radical US Presidents:

• Thomas Jefferson
• James Madison
• James Monroe
• Andrew Jackson
• James Polk
• Abraham Lincoln
• James Garfield (although, radical policies may have cause assassination)
• William McKinley
• Theodore Roosevelt
• Woodrow Wilson
• Franklin Roosevelt
• Harry Truman
• Lyndon Johnson (I'd choose LBJ over JFK for implementation)
• Richard Nixon
• Ronald Reagan
• George W. Bush

Not a bad list to be a part of... maybe Obama should try to be the most radical president in US History.

Rosie Can Be More Than A Rivetor

Soon, women in the Marine Corps and Army can attend Infantry School.  This may not sound like a big deal, but it is an important first step to address the institutional discrimination against women that is prevelent in the military.  (Seriously, stick with me.)

Women now comprise 13.4% of the Army, but less than 5% of its generals.  Even looking at the list of women generals in the Army, you'll see a trend: they are relagated to support functions: Information Technology, the Medical Corps, Judge Advocate General Corps (the lawyers), and Corps of Engineers.  General Cornum (Ph.D, MD) was a POW during the first Gulf War and wounded in combat... yet despite a shit-ton of medals for her combat service, combat roles remained closed to women.  Her combat experience was a result of being a flight surgeon in the wrong place at the wrong time, yet it highlights a problem with the organizational structure of the military in light of the changing nature of warfare.  No army will ever again fight the Battle of the Somme.  Front lines will never again be so well-defined, with "safe" areas and danger zones clearly able to be drawn on the map.  If support roles are likely to be performed under fire, then the military must provide the training to allow women nurses, doctors, engineers, and lawyers to defend themselves.  And, if they are able to defend themselves, then why limit their roles?  Why not allow them to move from supply chain management to management of a machine gun on the top of a tank?

While this is the argument that women are capable soldiers, there is a deeper issue at hand.  The Army stacks the deck in favor of those with combat experience over those without.  A basic look at a sample promotion schedule looks innocuous, but the structure of the point system highlights a covert bias against women.  The majority of the points are earned through Medals, Military Training, Civilian Education, and Military Education.  However, the greatest number of points earned in each category are for combat.  If women are prevented from training for combat or infantry roles, they have less potential to earn points in the military training or education categories.  Without training for the expectation of combat, their likelihood to earn medals for valor in combat situtations is diminished, both from the lack of training and the lack of opportunity.  (On a separate note, my father was a JAG officer in Viet Nam, but because he was originally assigned to infantry, he received combat training and did earn medals valor in combat, which pushed him up the ladder faster.  Or, maybe it helped him to survive the war.  Either way, I fail to see how additional education & training could ever be a bad thing when it may save lives.)

So, while I'm sure I'm going to have to suffer through a slew of pundits talking about how Americans will not like seeing wives, mothers, sisters, and daughters coming back from war in body bags.  It makes it sound like we're okay with husbands, fathers, brothers, and sons dying.  What opening the Infantry Schools to women does is level the playing field so that individual women can pursue this career path if they so choose it, rather than letting the rules of the institution dictate this for them.  If the military is supposed to be a meritocracy based on individual achievement, then it needs to remove the entrenched barriers that lead to discrimination.

Criminals have rights too

Last week, the Indianapolis Star reported on flaws on the state's registered sex offender database.  The Marion County Sheriff took steps to ensure the accuracy of the registry, and the Indianapolis Star wrote a piece on Sunday to congratulate themselves on forcing action to be taken and being awesome in general.  These are my least favorite articles, which is why I found myself reading it (after catching up on the Komen controversy... Hoosier-centric this week, I see).  Yet, this isn't really the point of the article.  Now, the Indianapolis Star is upset about the way in which the registry was updated.  Those who were convicted of sex crimes before the registry was created were simply removed.  Why were they there in the first place?
We have a long-standing tradition in the United States that laws cannot be applied retroactively.   You cannot be sentenced to death for stealing a pack of gum if this was not a potential sentence at the time in which one stole the gum.  How can one have a layer of punishment added to a crime which was committed before the registry existed?  The answer is a misguided Supreme Court decision in 2003 that declared that registries are regulatory in nature as opposed to punative.  Looking at the way these registries are used, it is hard to make the claim that sex offender registries do not serve to punish sex offenders after they have served their sentences.  This is a clear violation of Article 1 of the Constitution.

But what about the children?

What about them?  The problem with the sex offender registry is that it provides a false sense of security.  The registry only tracks convicted sex offenders, not all sex offenders.  Jerry Sandusky appeared on no sex offender registry when he [allegedly] molested young boys at Penn State.  It deludes parents into believing that if they stay away from certain neighborhoods and keep to others, then their children will be safe and sheltered.  It relieves the responsibility of preparing children to confront Stranger Danger, yet does not keep them from encountering known or unknown sex offenders during their daily lives.  I'm not sure what the point of such a registry is.