The Madness of Collecting

I miss the thrill of the chase, the hunting of that special piece to add to my collection. We would be up at dawn to hit yard sales all over town. Our favorite haunts were the street fairs and flea markets with food stands for the requisite doughnuts and coffee. But it was the sight of a searched-for collectible that caused my heart to pound. Those days are over. I no longer collect.

Most of my life I collected, starting with salt and pepper shakers and ending with Swarovski crystal. In between there were Irish Belleek porcelain, war ration books, cookbooks, Wysocki cat prints, Cat's Meow, and many others. But the one that brought on the most anxiety and a mad desire to acquire was the series of lighted houses made by Dept. 56.

I received a ceramic Snow Village house as a present from Clifton one Christmas. Next year another one, only that time he included a color brochure that showed how the little houses could be arranged in village formation, and there were people, trees, cars, even snow, with which to accessorize. That's all it took. I was off and running to replicate that charming little village. In about a year, I had acquired all of the pieces. Then it was on to Dept. 56 porcelain Alpine and New England Village series. I completed those two, but never could make whole Snow Village because too many houses were designed each year.

Eventually, the fever broke and I started selling my collections through secondary markets and eBay. I also sold off most of my Swarovski collection, the war ration books, half of the Belleek, and many more collectibles. Fortunately, I sold at a time when I made back as much as I spent, perhaps a bit more. I kept two Dept. 56 houses, just to remind me how crazy -- and happy -- I was for awhile.

Pacific Grove, California

Civil Disobedience

Bailout BS is right.

Thoreau wrote:

All machines have their friction; and possibly this does enough good to counter-balance the evil. At any rate, it is a great evil to make a stir about it. But when the friction comes to have its machine, and oppression and robbery are organized, I say, let us not have such a machine any longer.

Washington is saying to itself, "Kick this GM CEO out because he hasn't turned his sorry corporation around." In an economy like this, who has?! One of the pundits this morning called him the sacrificial lamb; that's exactly what he is, and I'm sure he knows it.

Imagine if we could use this method on the politicians in office. "You haven't turned this sorry problem around, so you're out -- starting MONDAY."

The foreclosure rate has spiked yet again, layoffs are continuing unabated, and even a cursory glance of the classifieds or the online job listings reveals in seconds that practically nobody is actually hiring. Public anger is profound and seemingly intractable.

In Civil Disobedience, the author also wisely noted the following:

I meet this American government, or its representative, the State government, directly, and face to face, once a year -- no more -- in the person of its tax-gatherer; this is the only mode in which a man situated as I am necessarily meets it.

Imagine the joy of being able to live out a year of one's life and having to interact with the State only once -- at tax time! Of course, things have sure changed since Thoreau's era. Our days are chock-a-block with dull, frustrating, unjust interaction with the long tentacles of the government. Just now, we're losing our jobs in droves, losing our homes, losing the money we've been saving for retirement. And what are they using our taxes for? A growing number of private-sector companies to stay in business -- regardless of whether we have any direct business with those companies or not. I don't want an American car. I haven't driven an American car since the first car I ever drove (a Buick Skylark). I just don't want a car from GM, or Ford, or Chrysler. It's my choice because it's my money. And I don't want to be forced to prop up, with my money, another company. That goes for all the government subsidies and corporate welfare plans of the past fifty years or more, too.

I'm just about inclined to do what I think Thoreau recommended: Stop paying taxes. As he discovered, the friction has overtaken the machine, and the mechanism is utterly out of control.

Bailout BS

Clive, I don't understand. The latest news about all of these bailouts is that GM's CEO Rick Wagoner is resigning as part of an agreement for the government (taxpayers) to give the car company even more billions. What will his resignation accomplish? Surely, this one man didn't cause all of the problems and a new CEO can't come up with the solutions needed to keep them in business. No matter who's in charge, GM will be back for more billions as long as anyone is willing to hand them out.

Now, Clive, I'm not an expert in economics, but there's something really slimy and disgusting about all of these bailouts. I can't believe that continuing to provide welfare for corporations will help the rest of us and not just the chosen few. We've been doing that for decades and look where we are now. What's your take on all of this?

And the "Star" System Helped Kill Them

The Star system. What is it? It's a management-instigated system of preference and prejudice under which big newspapers were -- and are -- operated. It affects primarily the newsrooms. Executive management encourage only their favorite reporters -- the stars -- to spend all their time researching and writing in-depth series -- successive articles that focus on malfeasance in government or Liberal social causes, and that seek to raise consciousness or social or political change. They're generally boring for newspaper readers, the vast majority of whom just want the relevant news, the movie reviews, stock trading, or the police report.

It's cyclical. The stars are given every opportunity (and a lot of money) to write award-winning journalism. They're given the time and the assistance to complete series that may require months or even a year or more of work. All the while, their non-star colleagues are expected to grind out daily news -- the life's blood of a newspaper. The more awards these stars win, the more opportunities they're given to write yet more grand series of investigative journalism -- in short, to pretend they're staffers at the New Republic or the Nation.

The stars are coddled by the executive management, who give them by far the biggest raises and the best working conditions. Execs often move from paper to paper, and they often take their stars with them. Imagine what that does to employee morale. A new exec moves in and shakes things up, which is bad enough, but he brings along his favored group of star reporters, who proceed to kick back and enjoy their preferential treatment, once again, in this new environment, under the frustrated, seething gazes of the rest of the longtime staff.

This poisonous environment in the newsroom -- calculated and engineered to foment jealousy, greed, and extreme dissension among the staff -- has a direct effect on newspaper quality. The staffers in the newsroom watch their "special" colleagues rise to the top of the newsroom hierarchy, with better salaries, greater status, more freedom on and off work, and more opportunity to build glowing careers in every way.

The staffers get their noses rubbed in it, and justifiably figure, "Why should I bust out the work year after year with little or no recognition or reward while these stars are coddled like Cinderella's step-sisters?"

Newspapers Were Killed From Within

Up until the mid-80s, newspaper publishers and editors valued their readers, their customers, the people who were counted for ad rates. Every meeting we reporters attended was filled with assignments to get the readers involved. Then the new breed came in, led by executive and managing editors who wanted, as they said, to shake up things. They brought in reporters and sub-editors from papers in the south and east. The new hires didn't know the area, in my case, all of northern California, The Sacramento Bee circulation zone. If a story was good enough for Louisville or Baltimore, it was good enough for Sacramento, they said.

As a further example of what happened to change the dynamics of newsrooms, at my first meeting with a new editor (1986), I said I had been writing columns and stories because the readers liked this and they looked forward to that. Her comment was typical arrogant yuppie: "I don't give a shit what the readers want. I know what's best for them and that's what you're going to write." It wouldn't have been so bad if she had been the only editor to think that way. Instead, it was a mind-set among the new editors. We were ordered to write with attitude and to hell with what anyone thought, especially our customers.

That was the beginning of the end, I think. Yes, the internet has had a dramatic negative effect on newspaper bottom lines. But I really believe that if newspapers had continued to think about their communities, giving their customers what mattered most to them, things might be different today. Sadly, the yuppies ran it all and ran the business into the ground.

Folk Song Noir

You Are My Sunshine was composed in the 1930s, but its style and theme are kin to the long line of traditional folk songs about false love, treacherous women, often violent crimes of passion, sadism, and ultimately death. I call the entire genre folk song noir.

Think of the corrosive, fatalistic lyrics and stories of some of our most beloved folk songs. In Plaisir d'Amour, the hapless narrator cries:

Your love for me seemed oh so perfect and true,
Yet here I am in my sadness, rememb'ring you.
A fool was I to think your love would remain,
Oh yes, your love had its pleasure, but more of pain.

The rich, broad melody of Shenandoah tells of a settler's undying love for an Indian chief's daughter:

Oh Shenandoah, she's bound to leave you,
Away, you rolling river,
Oh Shenandoah, I'll not deceive you,
Away, I'm bound away,
'Cross the wide Missouri.

Other popular folk songs tell of crimes of the heart for actual or perceived wrongs. In Banks of the Ohio, the narrator loves his woman with such an intensity that he murders her:

I held a knife against her breast,
And gently in my arms she pressed,
She cried: Oh please don't murder me,
I'm unprepared for eternity.

I took her by her lily white hand,
And placed her gently on the sand,
And when the tide was wide and deep,
I pitched her in to rest in sleep.

Had she but said she will be mine,
All would be well, all would be fine,
And now she's there, 'way down below,
Down by the banks of the Ohio.

Finally, consider the poisonous view of love in the hugely popular Kentucky mountain song On Top of Old Smoky:

A-courtin's a pleasure,
A-flirtin's a grief,
A false-hearted lover
Is worse than a thief.

For a thief, he will rob you,
And take what you have,
But a false-hearted lover
Sends you to your grave!

Do We Really Listen To Lyrics?

For almost all of my life, I've listened to the country favorite, You Are My Sunshine. Nice little ditty, innocuous, not special, just pleasant. Part of one verse caught my attention today. Here are the lines that caused me to bolt upright:

But if you leave me and love another,

You'll regret it some day.

I realize that each of us has a different interpretation about song lyrics. This is mine about those words. I hear a threat, the possibility of abuse. He's telling her that if she leaves, she's going to regret it one day because he's not going to let her go peacefully. Yes, I know that people who grew up in dysfunctional families look at things differently and perhaps that's at play here. Whatever, I hadn't really heard -- understood -- those lyrics before. Now that I have, I'll cringe every time I hear the song.

My husband, on the other hand, thinks the man's saying if the woman leaves him, she will see that she made a mistake and regret that mistake in the future. No abuse, no threat. I appreciate his interpretation. I just don't agree with it. What are your thoughts, Clive?

Cash and Carry

Neel Kashkari, Geithner's assistant at Treasury, is a Bush holdover and former Goldman Sachs honcho. As No. 2 man in the money department, he's in charge of handing out cash to the already rich via the so-called bank rescue plan that buys up toxic assets. Yes, he must check with Obama or Geithner before he sends the pallets of money to Wall Street. Still, I think Kashkari should be fired even before Geithner. Why? He's not doing the job for which he was hired.

Kashkari's sole requirement these days is to come up with solutions to myriad money problems and what does he do? Nothing other than give out cash (bailouts) to banks -- and his Wall Street friends -- to do with as they wish. What kind of intellect and experience does it take to underperform in such a way? I'll hand out cash for half of his salary, only $100,000 a year. I could call in the trucks to pick up the bucks. I even know someone at UPS so I might get discounts. President Obama, call me.

Was Singing in the Rain Really That Good?

What if the great Akira Kurosawa had made musicals?

The Bad Sing Well?

Seven Brides for Seven Samurai?

Yojumbo?

Traveling With Charlene

My husband and I love to vacation on the Pacific Coast. For years, we've taken our little black cat, Charlene, with us because she's a member of our family and we don't want to leave her to the care of others. She rides in her carrier in the back seat of the car, strapped in by a seatbelt. No problems taking Charlene with us except for the No Pets policy at most hotels and motels.

We do realize the need for designating only a few rooms to be made available for people traveling with pets. After all, there is the allergy problem and some people don't want to stay where previous occupants had been with their animals. We acknowledge such stipulations and we have lived with the quality, or lack thereof, of the pet-friendly rooms. Through the years, in order to take her with us, we have accepted rooms overlooking parking lots, behind dumpsters and next to check-in, and we've made do with obsolete furniture, equipment and decorating.

However, it's the No Pets places -- those that levy a $300 surcharge if you bring a pet into your room (they have cameras) -- that have been the most frustrating. We have requested that pets be accepted in a room or two at the very least. We've been turned down every time. (But that didn't stop us from sneaking in Charlene, covering her carrier with a coat and pretending it was a suitcase.)

With today's economic woes, managers of such establishments appear to be recognizing that we pet owners are a large bloc of the population -- translation: we spend money -- and are changing their ideas about previous restrictive policies. As an example of such a new way of thinking, consider an ad we saw last week in our local paper for a motel where we've always wanted to stay on the Oregon coast. This motel is right on the beach with full ocean views. Each time we visited the area, we'd drive by the place, but the sign Absolutely No Pets was always out front. But the quarter-page ad included the words, Pet Friendly. Yes! Now if they just won't stick us in a room next to the ice machine.

Don't Blame All Financial Advisors

You're overgeneralizing about all the financial advisors out there, Cassandra. Just like the range of talent in any profession, some financial advisors are good at their work & some aren't. It's unfair to accuse all advisors of doing nothing more than sitting around watching the values of their customers' accounts fall -- unless those customers keep a seven-figure amount in their accounts.

As far as being "conned" goes, caveat emptor. Every investor is free to invest aggressively or not. It's the responsibility of every investor to do a little legwork on his own investments. After all, it's his money.

Financial Advisors and Snake-Oil Salesmen

When did it start? Anyone could hang out a shingle and people would walk through the door and hand over their hard-earned money to be invested. We demanded no proof of experience or knowledge, yet when we go into a doctor's office with the flu we check out a nearby wall for diplomas to show he or she is qualified to make the important decisions. But we don't have a clue about the expertise of these so-called financial advisors, either in offices or on cable money shows. We just say, "We trust you and we'll give over our money, based on what you say." Suckers, all.

Each investment company has these salesmen ready and willing to take our money. We decide whether we want the funds to be invested in aggressive, conservative or moderate accounts. We receive statements showing what happens to the money and how much we're earning. We've learned lately -- think Bernie Madoff -- that those statements may be nothing more than pieces of paper. But now the snake-oil part -- it seems that these advisors don't really do much about moving our money around when things start going down. To get that kind of service, we must have a minimum amount of money in our accounts, most likely seven figures and over. The advisors really sold us something different from what we thought we were buying. We parted with our money for a fake product.

It's my thinking that most of the small-account investors wouldn't have lost so much money in the past few months if these advisors had acted on information available to them about what was happening in money markets. Instead, they sat on their butts and did nothing for most of us. I don't give them any breaks. I don't agree with those who say, gee, they were as surprised as the rest of us that the markets were going down so dramatically. That's not true. They should have known. What else are they paid to do? If it's simply taking money, putting it in accounts and letting it sit there, then hire a bunch of clerks.

We've been conned, folks. If there's one group of people who should lose their jobs, it's these financial advisors. The entire category of workers should be eliminated. And at least a few of them should be in perp walks.

TV: Does It Influence Our Behavior?

Two general views:

1) TV, especially TV violence, desensitizes human beings, especially children, to real violence and real suffering.

2) Parental influence plays a greater role in molding our behavior than TV plays (even in households in which parents have abdicated their authority by letting their kids watch too many hours of TV).

In my own case, I think I was influenced by good behavior on TV but not influenced by bad behavior. I didn't take violence on TV -- whether it was cartoon violence or live-action violence -- seriously (i.e., as anything more than something mildly entertaining), but I seemed, perhaps instinctively, to respond very seriously to shows like Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood, where I knew even at the age of 4 or 5 that people were behaving themselves and being kind and mannerly, and that this behavior was necessary in a civilized world.

What about books? Is reading dying, or being slowly replaced by TV and movies and video games?

Book reading may be making somewhat of a comeback in today's elementary schools. Resort hotels at Disney and elsewhere say kids often have books with them at the pool, inside the restaurants and on the trams to the park; and in school districts around here, kids are voluntarily reading books at night before bed more and more.

Of course, you still can't have a decent conversation with the little shits.

Stainless Steel Scam

When did it happen that stainless steel became so chic in kitchens? Maybe it was when food shows told us that we could cook as well as restaurant chefs, therefore our kitchens should look as utilitarian as theirs. So now kitchens around the country are filled with big, hulking stainless steel refrigerators (french-door styles, of course), eight-burner gas ranges (Wolf preferred) and two-drawer dishwashers. Some of the true "gourmet" kitchens even have two dishwashers, his and hers. With that much stainless steel in the kitchen, you'd better hope you don't have a slightly powerful magnet in your pocket.

Once manufacturers realized that homeowners were spending all their time wiping fingerprints off those stainless steel appliances, they came out with surfaces that are stainless-steel-like. They look rubberized and don't reflect the entire kitchen like the real stuff does. Still, the dark surfaces are there, not at all resembling the comfortable kitchens we had growing up.

While white appliances aren't particularly gorgeous -- after all, we are talking appliances here -- at least they sort of blend back into the woodwork. But have you ever noticed when you go into a kitchen filled with stainless steel, that's all you see? That and all of those granite countertops. I'll save them for another post.

Atheists, Back Off

I know you want me. I would be a very desirable person to have in your ranks. I don't believe in a god. But unlike you, I don't know for certain.

All of you atheists need to look elsewhere for a devotee. If I were to join the likes of you, I'd be part of a religion as much as if I were a Catholic or Baptist. Because you don't believe, you think others who don't believe should band together, form a church of non-believers. I consider that to be as religious as attending services each week. Besides, your exuberance to believe that there is no god rivals those who proclaim faith in a god. You are so sure of yourself. How do you know? Have you seen no god?

Same goes for all of you agnostics. Like moderates and middle-of-the-road folks in politics, you can't quite decide which way to go, therefore you stay out of the fray and never really contribute anything to the discussion. There are those who say I belong in this group, but I don't. I believe there is no god, no bouncing back and forth for me. I just don't claim to be so all-knowing to say I'm 100% sure about it like the atheists.

Simply put, I do not want to be labeled regarding my non-beliefs. I do not believe, period. When friends ask what they should call me, I remind them of my name.

Easy Cooking: Asparagus

Sometimes I don't feel like arguing with Clive. I love to cook and I thought I'd share my simple recipe for roasting asparagus. It's that time of year to get the best, freshest stalks. Wash and break each stalk off where it will. Or do it the lazy way -- break off one stalk, measure it with the rest and cut them at the same spot. (This doesn't work as well with the big stalks that come on later in the year. Those you have to break individually.)

Lay the stalks in a roasting pan -- 1 pound in a 9x13-inch, 2 pounds in a 15x10-inch -- drizzle them with olive oil and sprinkle with salt. Roast at 350 degrees about 10 minutes. Take them out as soon as the aroma of cooked asparagus escapes from the oven and they're a bright green color.

Fire Timothy Geithner

OK, first off, I'm a liberal. I live in a blue state and I supported Obama with my vote and contributions. I like him a lot, but what the heck? He's all over the place with his selections for guys to run his administration and they're not doing what I want them to do.

The president selected a man for Secretary of the Treasury who has almost as many ties to corporations and Wall Street as the Bushies did. Why did he do that? I want to give Obama a lot of slack here. I know he inherited a mess, but don't tell me there wasn't and isn't someone better than Timothy Geithner. His demeanor is that of someone who's afraid to say anything, fearing that he will offend those who are both bigger and meaner than he. C'mon, President Obama, fire Geithner and put in someone we can trust, someone who can tell us what's going on, and someone who can take on the big guys without being afraid of them.

And, most of all, don't look across the aisle. We've had enough of those Republicans for a long time to come.