Let Them Eat Cake, God Knows The Unions Can Afford It.

The New York Times, under an article written by David M. Herszenhorn, reported today that the

'Deal to Rescue American Automakers is Moving Ahead'.


'.....Nancy Pelosi hoped', or threatened as you may see things, 'that Mr. Bush's appointee- or car czar, as the position has come to be known- would not need to be replaced by President elect Obama, raising the prospect that the outgoing and incoming administrations would cooperate in selecting someone.' It also raises the prospect that either Mr. Bush will toe the line or the Democrats would prevail, one way or the other since Ms. Pelosi has summarily dismissed the two prospective names proffered by the Bush administration for the post.

Irrespective of what will churn on in debate and accusations, I, for one am opposed to a rescue. I am singularly opposed to any bailout however structured that would provide taxpayer money to the big 3 or big 2, depending on how you read this. (Ford hasn't quite come off the wheels....yet.)

'...Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, in comments on the Senate floor on Monday nodded to' ..(my).. 'concerns'... when he said."As we consider new legislation this week, we must first ensure that we do no harm to taxpayers later in our efforts to help out any one particular industry now. Troubled automakers cannot expect taxpayer help without a serious commitment to change their ways-permanently."

Mitch, thank you,...that sounds like a responsible attitude. It also sounds to me as though you are describing the types of remedies and protections that would be imposed on the automakers by a Chapter 11 filing and I'm down with it Senator,...really. All of us out here in reality land call that 'bankruptcy' and Mitch, some of us are on intimate terms with those remedies. Been there, done that,...hell, I've even got a 'Tee' shirt stuffed away somewhere I think.

See those last four words up there in italics? Change their ways permanently,...renegotiate their contracts maybe. I like it.

If you tow the mark, it works and survival is possible because bankruptcy is a protection. We might even get fuel efficient cars, but automakers don't think it will work. They think we won't buy cars from a 'bankrupt' company. Why not? We fly on 'bankrupt' airlines. How bad can a 'bankrupt' car be?

After all, the United States is nothing if not a nation of whiskey drummers and bible salesmen. We are up to the task. Our children grow up reveling in the fruits of marketing programs, slimy PR campaigns and hucksterism of every single sort and for everything they touch or see or want or emulate. A 'bankrupt' automaker is just a bump in the road. You won't even feel it if you're driving a Buick. See how easily that rolled right out? And I'm a carpenter. Want to see what DDB+W could do with it?

Marketing, what a tool, you just can't beat it.

But as badly as the big 3 eschew bankruptcy as 'bad for business' due to their jaundiced perceptions of the marketplace, it is not all bad news. Bankruptcy would mean that the big 3 would have to answer to the courts. Yeah,...judges and stuff, real courts.

A bailout would mean that the big 3 would answer to Congress and you would have to be a complete idiot not to see that attraction that holds for the likes of Pelosi, Reid, Frank, et al. on the wrong side of the aisle.

(OK,...sorry, that sounded a little too,...uh, conservative (small 'c' ) and Joan is over there making noises with the paper shredder again. I admit,...I've promised the wife to 'watch it' ....and then there was that thing about bleeding in my profile....) Let's just say,...the other side of the aisle and let it go.

OK.

With the Democrats traditionally and almost perennially beholden to the unions, including the incoming administration it becomes clear why they are pushing this bailout agenda. The biggest losers from a structured Chapter 11 will undoubtedly be the cozening unions.

Now in examination of that statement realize that if Toyota or Nissan or even BMW notices their fat profits circling the drain due to a slowdown in sales, they lay workers off. It make good business sense to do that. Nobody likes it but it happens. It's life. Not so the case with the big 3. The UAW won't permit it and any attempt at fiscal responsibility from the automakers is met with the usual threats. Why?

Simple, when you bow your head and respectfully become a member of the UAW they promise to continue your benefits for life. That's right. Life. You put in your twenty five, they do the rest. (Kind of like the old Kodak slogan,...only different.)

So what, you say. It's always been that way. Why sure it has. Always, at least back to the inception of the unions. Know anybody else who gets benefits for life?.......Think hard.......

.....That's right, Congress does. Salary and benefits, for life, no matter how long you serve. See how it works? If the big 3 go bankrupt all of their contracts have to be renegotiated...the UAW too. How long do you think those union benefits would last? That's what I think too.

With those fat pork benefits for people who haven't done a lick of work in tears down the shitter automobile costs will come down and that will be good for all of us, even the big 3.

When we're all feeling better, we might even take a look at the other pork recipients. Senator for life, Congressman for life, President for life,___________________ fill in the blank with whatever you like (Duvalier is taken though).

Maybe if those people had to live out their days on social security or actually pay for health insurance we might really get some 'Change we can believe in'.

But then I'm forgetting something.

How could I be so stupid? President elect Obama has promised to put an end to pork. I'm sure he meant just that,...aren't you?

Pass the cake please.

Shameless Self Advertisement

'Messing about in Small Boats at the Bottom of the Known World' is an idea I am pursuing that combines the concept of an unlikely knight errant and modern times. In support of that statement, suppose for a minute that you were not a British subject, that you were a short time from achieving one of your life's goals and that you were requested to abandon that goal in order to rescue some one you didn't like very much. Suppose also that the person making the request was none other that the Queen of England. What to do?

Well what can you do?

Mike Burgess, a dedicated but less than top ranked ocean racer pretty much does what you might expect. It is the getting there that we are concerned with in this story.

As an aside, let me say that I could use a collaborator. Someone who will help me with 'Britishisms', ( If that is not a word, it should be. ) someone female and versed in operating a sailboat under adverse conditions, and someone with a sense of humour. ( My own choice would be Ellen MacArthur but unfortunately I do not know her.)

Authonomy or not to be...Is that really the question?

Well,.....maybe...

As a new author albeit one who has been writing for years (specifically on fiction since 2004) and is, as yet still unrepresented and unpublished, let me say this. Authonomy, while perhaps having moved the slush pile online has at least allowed authors such as myself an opportunity to expose new work to an audience beyond the ten second attention of a potential contributor to our own respective and daily increasing slush piles of rejection letters.

As an author, I am acutely aware that the discipline required to complete a manuscript requires more than the determination simply to sit down and write. It also requires encouragement and criticism, hopefully constructive but we take what we can get, chew several times and then swallow. If either that encouragement or criticism is available from others similarly engaged then no matter what personalities enter the equation both, as offered, are appreciated.

Yes, you are variably correct in your statement that much of what is on Authonomy is crap. Who would expect differently from any comparable venue but notwithstanding the implied objection, welcome to life. Much of that is crap too yet we persevere, (there again, at least partially due to encouragement and criticism).

I, for one, and as a contributing Authonomy author, congratulate Harper Collins for taking a pro-active stance amidst the morass of publishers vetting processes and as you have severally noted the site is relatively new. Perhaps with encouragement and criticism it will mature. For now, if any new author should learn that networking and popularity are requisite parts of any contemplated career in writing then that author may do well. After all, the United States is nothing if not a nation of whiskey drummers and bible salesmen. Our children grow up reveling in the fruits of marketing programs, slimy PR campaigns and hucksterism of every single sort and for everything they touch or see or want or emulate. If they are very lucky children, and I include myself in this category, they will learn a lesson from the hoopla and come to appreciate that everything worthwhile that they will ever achieve in life will ultimately depend on their ability to SELL, and first they must learn to sell themselves. Everything else literally follows from there.

In the interim, with day jobs beckoning we keep plugging away.

Yet, if I, as an author am limited to writing queries and waiting in a vacuum until Jesus comes back for a reply, then I will take the vagaries of Authonomy any day.

My best regards to you all.

English,....101...or somewhere thereabouts....

My wife sent me this.

Coming from the Internet, as was stated, its provenance is unknown but as an article it tickled a remembrance, a feeling or whatever you like as a characterization.

You see,...I am an English teacher of sorts. I say 'of sorts' because I am not a product of the educational system, no lofty arreviste nor parvenue of wisdom, no professional...only an amateur.

I volunteer as a tutor under the aegis of the Literacy Council of Upper Pinellas. That is as in Pinellas County Florida, and for any of you that do not know it is a part of ProLiteracy America.

We teach basic literacy and English as a second language to anyone who has the tenacity to stay with the program. That applies to most of the students who enter our sphere of influence and throughout the years (more than 20 now) I have met many memorable students. Many even like the woman who authored the text below.

Nowadays, the main need is for ESL but years ago in the Allegheny Mountains, the emphasis was on basic literacy and as a then young man, that was always a mystery to me. I had trouble believing that students could complete school right here in the United States and graduate without ever having acquired the ability to read. Sad but true.

As a young tutor and barely out of college myself, I was daily and perpetually amazed at the level of skills I found displayed. Some could read an rite but not cipher. Others could cipher some and read but not rite. 'Book larnin' was something reserved for days when chores were not pressing or families did not need food. Some others, from every age spectrum had skills that were even quite rudimentary.

What follows below is representative of that finding and yet, watch just how well this woman actually does communicate. You will understand all of her thoughts without editing and you will be able to look into her being, and her existence with something as simple as a read through.

Try it.


Years ago, a Tennessee grandmother gave a new bride the following recipe for washing
clothes. It appears below just as it was written, and despite the spelling, has a bit
of philosophy. This is an exact copy as written and found in an old scrap book:

sic.
1. Bilt fire in backyard to heat kettle of rain water.
2. Set tubs so smoke wont blow in eyes if wind is pert or airish.
3. Shave one hole cake of lie soap in bilin water.
4. Sort things, make 3 piles.
1 pile white,
1 pile colored,
1 pile work britches and rags.
5. To make starch, stir flour in cool water to smooth,then thin down with bilin water.
6. Take white things, rub dirty spots on board,scrub hard, and then bile. Rub colored don't bile,
just! rinch and starch.
7. Take things out of kettle with broomstick handle,then rinch, and starch.
8. Hang old rags on fence! .
9. Spread tea towels on grass.
10. Pore rinch water in flower bed.
11. Scrub porch with hot soapy water.
12. Turn tubs upside down.
13. Go put on clean dress, smooth hair with hair combs. Brew cup of tea, drink it and rock a
spell and count your blessings.

God Bless America

~ Author Unknown ~

That was it. Simple and to the point and if you follow these directions you will gain mastery of your laundry.

I know these people, their ways and their hopes. They are, some of them, a part of my ancestry. They were and are none, as a people, any different from you or me today. Strange accents maybe but who amongst us has not experienced that, be it 'down east' or 'down south'.

So if,...we might on some day believe that we are somehow superior beings, that we are in some way better for our elevated literacy, then that is the time to stop and take stock. That is the time to back up and read that last sign on the road signs of life, be it 'Burma Shave' or another prophet.

We are our brother's keeper,...all of us, and that is the simon pure. Let us least ways allow that English as a language is morphing daily. Let us allow that it has been doing that since well before Alfred the Great and let us grant some latitude on the strictness of our ken. (Old English, I know but Alfred would have been with me.)

You try to to be with me as well, and always remember;

Literacy, it ain't just for dummies!

Ahhhhh,....Winter..........

You know, about this time every year I stop and think about all my friends up north. All that sliding and sledding and shussing and schiing as you go about mundane daily tasks. It is quite a sight.

Florida though,...well Florida has its own way of winter and its own sights. Things are different here. We like that,...all of us do. From redneck to state house we all know what is important and we all know just where to find the best sights of all.

Why, they are right down by the pool of course. Right there where they always were. We call them,...

Pool Sights

Pretty Maids, ‘elle in ero’,
Bathing’s effervescent glow,
Morning chatter gently plays,
While the sun discreetly pays,
Homage to the ones who seek,
Glances from us all, who peek.

Time goes by, in fact it flies,
Drenching skin as each applies,
Special lotion for each face,
Spreading oil at every place,
Days of sun and southern skies,
Help to all erase the lies,
Of time spent under roof and tree,
Babes on Tan’s rotisserie.

Cold drink anyone?