July 2008

Cable, Bikes, and Podcasts

I cancelled cable Monday. I was amazed at how liberated I felt. Interestingly, the Brighthouse lady hassled me offering discounts if it was too expensive, asking if I had children and wasn’t I concerned about them, and what were we going to do with our time? We went to the library yesterday and checked out books. I am personally reading Ayn Rand “Atlas Shrugged” right now and that will keep me busy for a while. I plan to teach the kids to play chess and card games like cribbage.

For clarity, because I cancelled cable we did not give up television. Instead, we have Blockbuster.com and at thelibrary we found we can get DVD’s for free. Among those are entire television series like “Lost” which we never saw. So, we can watch 42 minutes of a single episode on our time with no commercials. If we ultimately tire of that I discovered that most of the major networks have archives so we can retrieve shows.

Most important – we are FREE!! Free from the time waster coming into our home. And, we save $100/month! Think about it, think about canceling cable.

Second, I started riding again. It feels good. I am training for the Spacecoast Freewheelers Century at the end of October

Third, podcasts. I have an iPod Touch (http://www.apple.com/ipodtouch/). I have subscribed to several podcasts such as: NBC Nightly News, CNBC Mad Money, Science Channel, and one I really wanted to share with you. This is the “KunstlerCast”. The details are: James Howard Kunstler, author of “The Geography of Nowhere” and “The Long Emergency,” takes on suburban sprawl, disposable architecture and the end of the cheap oil era each week with program host Duncan Crary.

You can visit his web site at http://www.kunstlercast.com/ and subscribe to the podcast. I subscribed – they are 15 minutes. The last two episodes from last week are Part 1 and Part 2. They are 30 minutes and 20 minutes each. He takes a tour of Saratoga, NY and describes main street America with a retreat from suburbia. Also, his personal blog is availble here http://www.kunstler.com/.

Last but not least, remember you are not tied to using your iPod. You can listen on your laptop with iTunes (which I do too). So, I balance out using my iPod and my laptop to listen to content.

JOHN

Death and Taxes.

Tonight I had to go to a funeral of a friend. As I drove on this cloudy, gray, evening, I reflected on how I knew him when we last visited, his last few months, and ultimately on death. Death is not a bad thing, I thought to myself, as our bodies seem to wear out for one reason or another. Thus, we so readily state the obvious and often recite, “Only two things are known; death and taxes.”

That basic assumption though, bothers me and caused me to further think how I cannot do anything about death. I know with certainty I will die, you will die, and everyone around me will die. Of course, the cause of death cannot be predicted but the risks associated with it can be minimized. Each of us tries to live with a goal of prolonging life as it is paramount to the survival of our species, and any other, to do so. With that in mind though, we must die as we scientifically understand death. We cannot change that one basic fact about our life.

However, taxes on the other hand are not an absolute. At some point in our ancestral history it appears that we evolved to accept taxes part of our being, just like death. Instead of continually working toward ending this other ‘absolute’ in our lives our society seems to willingly perpetuate this self-destructive mechanism upon ourselves. Taking a step back, maybe a better word for tax would be “privilege payment”. I am thinking that we pay for the privilege of living in a civilized society, and this argument could be made throughout human history. Most of us are willing to contribute a nominal amount of our individual efforts to support the purported common good of the society in which we live.

I accept there is a cost to the civilization in which I desire to live. I expect to have infrastructure to bring me water, carry away my waste, defend my country, and provide for me to move from place to place. In some instances, I do not object to contributing to a common indigent fund for those that cannot work or are suffering physically.

Arguably, there may be additional ‘common goods’ we may decide to support. For instance, we may agree, or disagree, on the need for a method to enforce rules and laws and thus pay the personnel needed to do those jobs. We may want workplace safety, trees planted along side boulevards, stripes down the middle of roads, and jails to house those that do not follow our rules. Some members of our society may decide to put money toward paying others not to plant crops, not to go to work, or to take care of doctor’s bills, to give some people meals, housing, and even access to the internet; all in the name of the common good of the society.

Regardless of the specifics of the individual line items that we agree to allow our taxes to pay, we should be asking if it is necessary. I choose to minimize the risks I take in my daily life and therefore am hopefully prolonging my life and cheating death. I argue that we no longer do the same regarding taxes and instead readily acquiesce to turning more benefits of our individual efforts to a common entity to control and disburse. When this happens, we no longer have our individuality and we have voluntarily enslaved ourselves to an entity that we may not be able to escape. In ancient times entire societies fled enslavement and they knew they had to for a better life.

Death is inevitable; the process of self-destruction through taxation is not. Taxes are acceptable when presented with a true cost and benefit analysis, a clear exit strategy from the tax, and a method to provide for checks and balances against a tax. If you were taking an inventory of your personal health in an effort to ensure you were prolonging your life you would question every risk, every activity, and eliminate those that are harming you. This same analysis must be performed frequently and regularly regarding taxes. We must question every dollar that is spent and be willing to take tough measures to eliminate waste, just as you would do personally.