Mailbag

With all that’s going on in the country today it’s hard to sort the facts from the truth. Sure the virus released by Europe is easy to understand because its’s all about hard, irrefutable science like Cardi B’s explanation of pH balance. Other things are very nuanced like the whole Russian collusion shit storm which happened last election. Best I can tell it all had something to do with Russian prostitutes dropping lemonade in Michelle Obama’s bed. At least that's what was in the Steele dossier, the opposition research compiled by the former head of the Russian Desk for British Intelligence.

Christopher Steele wasn't exactly high up enough on the Russian desk to have access to any real intrigue. In fact, it sounds like to me he just answered the phones. He supposedly compiled the information from "a Russian subsource" close to Putin, but it turned out he got most of it from a guy named Igor Danchenko. A Russian economic analyst who works in the US, Danchenko's network of sources turned out to be four drinking buddies who after too much cheap vodka and too little imagination ginned up the opposition research Steele was seeking.

The largely unverified dossier, paid for by Hillary's campaign and the Democratic National Committee, was leaked to the press by an associate of the late Senator John McCain who delivered the document to the FBI himself. James Comey, the head of the bureau at the time, briefed Trump on his first day in the White House. Comey is the tall guy. He was certain Trump was going to lose the election so he directed the FBI to investigate the Trump campaign. When the only thing they found linking Trump to Russia had to do with salad dressing, an FBI lawyer, Kevin Clinesmith, altered an email from the CIA that was used as supporting evidence for a warrant to wiretap Carter Page, Trump's foreign advisor and sometimes golf caddy.

The warrant was issued by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, (FISA), the secretive court used by law enforcement to spy on citizens by associating them with a foreign person suspected of doing anything from ripping a tag off a mattress to terrorism. A warrant from FISA allows investigators to ignore complex legal issues outlined in the Constitution like probable cause and actually having any evidence.

Then there is this FBI guy, Peter Strzok. After leading the investigation called “Crossfire Hurricane," Strzok volunteered to testify before Congress about text messages he exchanged with his colleague, Lisa Page, (no relation to Carter other than being screwed by Strzok). Peter and Lisa were playing Mr. Wobbly Hides his Helmet even though they weren't married. Actually, they were married, just not to each other. During the investigation, the two exchanged texts that included an overt distain for Trump. Strzok insists his deep belief that Trump is a fat, orange, billionaire, antichrist in no way biased the manner in which he conducted the investigation. He no longer works for the FBI. After spending months in his pajamas watching reruns of Dragnet on a black and white tube TV in his studio apartment while eating Captain Crunch from a bowl without milk, Strzok pulled himself together and wrote a book about what a great honor it was to be an FBI agent and how Trump is working for Putin. It comes out just before the election.

Comey, the tall guy, was shit canned by the President who said he bungled the investigation of the private email server Hillary had in her living room in Chappaqua. Comey had arranged for a friend to leak to the press some memos he wrote which chronicled the discussions he had with the President in the Oval Office. He's an author as well since he wrote a book called "A Higher Loyalty." I didn't read it so I don't know what the higher loyalty Comey aspires to, but I'm sure glad we have unelected career federal public servants who go above and beyond the call of duty to mobilize a federal agency to investigate someone running for president.

Trump was eventually impeached by Congress for a phone conversation he had with the President of Ukraine for allegedly withholding money appropriated by Congress unless they investigated why Hunter Biden was on the board of an Ukrainian energy conglomerate even though Biden has trouble finding Ukraine on a map of the Ukraine. He's the son of Joe Biden who was nominated by the Democratic Party to pick Kamala Harris for president. Like I said, it’s hard to keep it all straight.

The latest scandal that is receiving media attention is that President Trump is having mailboxes removed to sabotage the election. He knows that mostly Democrats use the postal system so if he has them removed, voters will get confused and check the wrong box on the mail-in ballot and inadvertently vote for him. The Postmaster General, (they’re gonna have to change his title to something less offensive), said that the pictures of trucks loaded down with blue mailboxes were just replacing worn out boxes. If that is true then why are they taking all the mailboxes in front of Applebee’s? Because those are the ones used by Democrats that’s why!

I saw that mailbox removal is trending on social media, most of the users of which never actually mailed a letter. When the story broke, @politico_guy152 tweeted,

“So that’s what those blue R2D2 things r for."

If we don’t make a stand against mailbox removal, then how will we be able to enter the Publishers Clearing House Sweepstakes? First they take away our ability to mail a letter, then next they’ll take the pay phones. I was planning on voting by mail-in ballot because every time I cast a vote in person a senior citizen shakes me down for my identification then lines out my name from a list. They know who I’m voting for because I have one of those signs on my front lawn that reads,

Sully Sullenberger or Tom Hanks for President.

Either One. I Don’t Care.

All they have to do to suppress my vote is pencil a line through my name, and just like that I’m disenfranchised. Also, I was planning on voting by mail and in person just to make sure my vote gets counted.

I don’t mind that the government sent me to my room and made me wear a mask to protect you from me when I venture outside for food. I’m okay with restricting the size of magazines too. I always thought some were way too big anyway, especially Life. I also don’t care that certain speech is being banned in favor of ideological conformity. People talk too much anyway. I couldn't care less about bronze statues either. No one in the country knows how to make them anymore anyway.

But when they take our mailboxes, now that’s going too far.

A Solar Solution

Ray Kurzweil

Back in 2010, I was a presenter at the JavaOne Conference in which author, computer scientist, and futurist, Ray Kurzweil, was a keynote speaker. He talked about how scientific knowledge grows at a measurable rate. Specifically, Kurzweil believes that technology advances exponentially as seen with cell phones, televisions, batteries and solar panels.

Technological developments have made many things once thought to be impossible a reality today. You can buy a very sophisticated drone for a little over $200 primarily because electric motors have become so lightweight while delivering superior thrust, driven by equally light and powerful batteries. Twenty-five years ago, I bought my first cell phone. Back then comparatively few people had a mobile phone. Now everybody has a smart phone from which we access the internet, email as well as a host of apps. The most remarkable thing Kurzweil said at the conference was that the worldwide energy production from solar doubled every two years and that there was only ten more doubling left before all the energy needs of the entire planet will be met by the sun.

Forget about what I was presenting or anyone else for that matter. I was floored. One of the foremost thinkers of our time just stated that in my lifetime photovoltaic cells would provide all the energy we need. That was ten years ago. The increase in production of solar energy tracked just as Kurzweil predicted and can be seen in this logarithmic plot. 

Geometric or exponential growth is defined by increases in something depending on the amount of the thing you have. Population growth is often sited as a common example of geometric expansion. The birthrate depends on the number of people at any time. The nature of geometric growth can be very misleading. Initially the growth rate seems insignificant. When you are in the 0.1% region and you double to 0.2% in some number of years, it's easy to think that this is no big deal. Many people erroneously form opinions about a technology in its infancy at the low end of the curve. This is what gives rise to opinions like "solar is too expensive." What matters is the rate at which a given technology is growing, not where it is at any given moment.

For example, if I give you a penny and double the amount each day for a month, how much will you end up with?  After the first week you'll get 1 cent + 2 cents + 4 cents + 8 cents + 16 cents + 32 cents + 64 cents =  $1.27. Not that much. In a month, you'll have $10,737,418. This is why Albert Einstein said the most powerful force in the universe is compound interest.

I live in the most energy efficient home in my state. Forty-eight ground mounted solar panels generate 82% of all the energy we use which includes heat, air conditioning, lighting and hot water. Our home has a carbon footprint of about 700 square feet. A geothermal unit provides climate control even over the cold New England winters. A heat pump hot water tank dehumidifies the basement while making hot water. The basement becomes a cold sink of cool dry air which is circulated about the house by an Energy Recovery Ventilator (ERV). The ERV exchanges air with the outside while passively supplementing air conditioning in the summer.

The small local solar company that installed our panels was bought out twice over, eventually coming under the ownership of a national solar firm. The big renewable energy conglomerate gutted out the little company because their business model involved leasing, not owning. Leasing solar equipment is an extremely profitable business because the government allows companies to depreciate the amount of money the leased system generates instead of the actual amount it costs to install. You get a moderately lower electric bill after you pay the monthly leasing fees while the solar company gets to avoid paying any taxes all while appearing altruistically green. Companies leasing solar equipment appeal to your sense of conservation and concern for the environment while they pitch you "a more affordable solution." In reality these entities are credit companies making money by legal but dubious accounting. 

Upon seeing the solar panels in my backyard, people often ask,

"When will you pay them off?"

The higher costs associated with renewable systems usually prompts people to consider how long it will take to recovery the initial investment. Oddly, you never pay off an oil fired or natural gas heating system since consumable fuel is a reoccurring cost so why should you require a renewable system to pay for the installation investment? In any event, the answer is 12 years which was achievable partly due to attractive incentives my state offered years ago to promote solar development. Most of the state tax breaks to homeowners have been replaced by federal programs that favor leasing companies. Additionally, there is talk in my state of removing "net metering" which allows people with solar panels to receive credit from the local electric company for excess power supplied to the grid. I was watching the news this morning over my cornflakes when an energy expert came on. He declared,

"Solar technology isn't there yet."

He was an advocate of nuclear energy even though nuke plants occasionally malfunction and spew radioactive debris into the environment. When they do work as intended, nuclear energy generates radioactive sludge that has to be stored for millions of years. The expert added, "Worldwide energy production from solar is only at 1%." This dude needs to update his data because that output was seen twenty years ago.



When I was a kid, cars really sucked especially the one's built in the US. The vehicles my father owned used to fall apart by 60,000 miles, but over time things got better. Technological advances driven by market competition led to higher quality products. The same thing is happening in the solar industry. As collection panels become more efficient large arrays will be replaced with smaller and fewer units. Just as my parents experienced the internal combustion engine refine into a reliable and affordable means of locomotion, our generation will experience the electric motor, driven by batteries charged from the sun, emerge as the dominate means of transport. In the future there will be no dependency on oil for fuel which will forever alter the political and physical climate of the planet. Cheap renewable energy will raise the standard of living in every country, most notably the poorest.

The pandemic has allowed us to get a glimpse of the future. With fewer people driving on the roads, pollution from automobile exhaust dramatically reduced. Less contaminated runoff led to reports that some riverbeds are visible for the first time in a hundred years. With fewer coal fired power plants and internal combustion engines, the effects of atmospheric warming will reverse without the need for radical legislation.

A better world is coming, one we may be proud to pass down to our children. Today as some focus on the failures of our society to uphold the virtues of the founding principles equally and with malice to none, over the past two centuries there's never been a time in human history when there was such a far reaching effort by so many to try to treat everyone equitably. We are not the sum of our faults. I know this because what we truly are is in our books, our art, our music, our hearts. It's all there.

All you have to do to be a part of it is to reach out and embrace it.

Editor's Note: Originally posted on August 1, 2017.

So Long Benny's

Benny's started out as a small tire stand in 1924 in Providence, Rhode Island and grew to over thirty retail establishments throughout New England. The store had something different for every member of my family. For me it was a trip on Saturday mornings to look at Tyco train sets and Revell scale plastic models while my father searched for the cheapest garden hose or smallest bag of grass seed. My mother would use Benny's for her art supplies when she didn't want to drive the extra five miles to the craft supply store, Carson and Ellis, just north. She would emerge from Benny's with all sorts of things she didn't need as she did whenever she went grocery shopping. Eventually, my father took over all the household purchasing because as he put it,

"Your mother would go grocery shopping and come home with a broom handle and a soap dish."

He would ask her, "Where's the milk?"

"We're out of milk?" she often answered.

In the mid '70's, my father worked at the Benny's on Park Street in Cranston as a second job. He wasn't squirrelling away money for retirement, going out to dinner or taking us on family vacations with all the extra dough he earned selling chaise lounges for Benny's at night. He was using the money to pay bills. In 1976, he went on strike from his primary job at Gorham Manufacturing Company, a silver design and fabrication company established in 1831. That was a tough year. We were poor, but none of us kids knew it until the Catholic church we attended printed our name in the newsletter under the title "Delinquent Families" for not keeping up with our weekly donations. My father took on a low paying piece work factory job, far beneath his skills, and expanded his hours at Benny's. That year we consoled ourselves that meatloaf on Thanksgiving was a welcomed change.

Benny's on Park Avenue

My father would rush home in his beat up Ford Country Squire with simulated wood panels, take a quick shower, don a burnt orange button down shirt complete with a white pocket protector topped with "Benny's" scrawled in red script. He would shovel down his dinner then head out the door. Often I wouldn't see him again until the next day. To get my father to stay longer I would ask him to tell us a "Benny's story." He always had time to make people laugh. Once he recalled,

"Some guy came in looking for a 'snaffle wrench'."

The sales associate told him, "We don't have those?"


Ford Country Squire

The customer was insistent, "I know you have snaffle wrenches."

"I'm telling you, we don't have snaffle wrenches," the sales guy explained.  

"I know I've seen them in here before."

"I'm tellin' you we don't have no snaffle wrenches."

As the customer turned and headed for the door, my father, never passing on an opportunity to mess with someone, yelled to the sales clerk,

"Hey Ted! When you're done with that customer can you unload that crate of snaffle wrenches in the back?"

The first rule of sales is to never let the customer out of the store empty handed, and my father's boss was fond of shouting this lesson. Retelling his boss's sage advice, my dad would say,

"If someone comes in here looking for shit in a brown paper bag, you ask them how much they want!"


 

My dad said that Benny's would close at 8 pm on Christmas eve. The store didn't take credit cards for years, preferring merchandise to be put on layaway. Many people were members of the Benny's Christmas Club which required a monthly payment paid to the store as a means to save for Christmas. My father recalled that every year some dude would run up to the door at five past eight to get his kid's Christmas presents. The guy was usually shitfaced from an after office party. He would bang on the door until someone would let him in. My father was always the advocate for the procrastinator drunk businessman because as he put it,

"Some snot nose kids wasn't going to have a Christmas if I didn't open the door."

Once in her early twenties my sister went into Benny's for hardware to fix the latch on the hood of her green Capri, her first car. She walked into the store and said,

"I need a three inch screw."

A young sales clerk exclaimed, "Boy, you're not very picky."

"I need some help," she whimpered.

The guy went out to the parking lot to see what was wrong with my sister's car. He selected the bolt she needed and installed it for her. Benny's was good for that. When you bought a battery, they would install the new one and recycle the old battery for you. They were very helpful. Those days are gone replaced with the vacant stares of Wal-Mart associates and the deflected glances of Lowe's floor workers.

My father and I would kid around when we were in Benny's. Once time my dad was ahead of me in the checkout line. I acted annoyed as he pulled out a check to pay for his merchandise. I said,

"Come on ole man! I ain't got all day."

My father stood upright while saying, "I'll knock your block off."

"You must have missed your Geritol," I quipped.

"I rocked with the best of them in the Big Apple. I'll mop the floor with you," my father continued.

"You've been watching too much Lawrence Welk," I retorted.

My father would flex his biceps and say, "See these guns, sonny? They won World War II."

When my father commuted with a friend to Benny's after dinner, my

Ross Apollo 12 Three Speed

mother had to pick him up later in the night at closing. Many times in the winter my mother would pack up us kids in our pajamas and winter coats for the cold ride to the outskirts of town to retrieve my father. Once in milder weather, I recall being allowed to go into the store and pick out a toy. A memorable event, the Matchbox car I selected sits atop my desk to this day.

All our bicycles were purchased at Benny's. My Ross Apollo 12 three speed came from the store as did my sister's purple and white Columbia balloon tire with the matching handlebar tassels. My kid's bikes all came from Benny's as did all our inflatable beach toys, Frisbees and boogie boards. Each year our "back to school" supplies were purchased from Benny's even though the selection was better from the big box office supply chain. All this came to an end in 2017.

Fan Wall at Electronic Sports
League's Counter Strike Competition
in Brooklyn in 2017

Progress often implies things get better, but that's not always the case. Married couples no longer register for a silver service set. In the past people used to pick up one place setting each year, but that is no more. Over the last two decades ornate sterling silver hollowware slipped out of vogue, and Gorhams Manufacturing Company moved their skilled jobs out of the country to save money. Steam engines gave way to diesels which yielded to electricity ironically returning train travel back to coal since the majority of electricity today is generated from lumps of the black fuel. Today, steam engines are a nostalgic sight to those that remember their widespread use and an anomaly to the younger generation.

So too is Benny's. People like me experienced the closure of the family operation as the loss of an old friend. Like steam engines, Benny's was abandoned on a siding as purchasing moved forward online through major commercial retailers. Just as my parents experienced the demise of Woolworth's department stores, my generation endured the closure of their fond childhood memories. It's doubtful that our kids will mourn the loss of Wal-Mart.

For most my life, experience has taught me to believe that change invariably brings about improvement, but now I'm not so sure. Sometimes the wheels of progress don't always carry us to a better place.

Editor’s Note: Originally posted on September 21, 2017. Three years later I still miss Benny’s.

Banana Republic

A few years ago I was watching a show on television about primates. To study the behavior of chimpanzees the researchers put out bananas to draw them in. They introduced a limited amount of food as they wanted to observe their natural interaction in the wild. The researchers noted that when only a few bananas were offered, the chimp who discovered the food would share the cache with the entire troop. If a load of bananas, enough for everyone, was dropped off the first chimp on the scene would vehemently guard the horde from the rest of the group. As members darted in to snag a banana, the defender aggressively lunged at them in attempts to keep the pile of bananas for himself.

The researchers reasoned that sharing a sparse food source was a sound survival tactic which preserved the most animals. The monkey doling out the meager supply was wagering that the next time there was a dearth of chow someone would share with them. The researchers also suggested that pandemonium erupted over an excessive amount of food because the chimp who found the pile of bananas was thinking,

"Screw everyone else. I'm set for life."

All this science concerning primates and bananas got me thinking about our political system. On one hand, we have liberals who mostly have less money and stuff wanting everyone to share. On the other hand, there are conservatives, who have more than they will ever need, holding onto every bit for themselves. It's a tad more complicated than that, I know. Some democrats have a shitload of assets that they hide from the government all while calling for the wealthy to "pay their fair share." Others that identify as republicans want less government except when they tell women what to do with their bodies. Like the chimpanzees who were baited with bananas, survival depends on finding common ground.

Partisan conflicts cause an aberration of facts which is heightened during an election year. Each side wants their candidate to win so their bread will continue to be buttered. Both are exceedingly biased while claiming the other has a proclivity for selective hearing. Democrats are devoted to the late Ted Kennedy even after he let a woman drown. Republicans unabashedly support George W. Bush even though he committed the country to a war against Iraq in which tens of thousands died by falsely claiming they had weapons of mass destruction. Today, the only common ground our legislators embrace is that republicans want to keep their own money while democrats want to keep republican's money too.

This bias is certainly getting worse as President Trump calls for a delay in the election because of a largely unsubstantiated claim of fraud associated with mail-in ballots all while Biden describes Trump as the first racist president despite his own history of making racially insensitive remarks, not to mention several former presidents were slave owners. The process of being elected to the highest office is so full of partisan bullshit that the only people who want the job must be, by definition, somewhat nuts.

So I have an idea.

Instead of voting in the next presidential election, let's assign the position to someone at random like is done with jury duty. You get notified by mail that you have to report to the White House on a particular date and time. Unable to refuse or offer up excuses, you can't claim financial hardship since a yearly salary of $450,000 draws down more scratch than most people make in a decade. The random selection process will ensure a fair and equitable chance that anyone can be, whether they want to or not, the President of the United States. After opening the notification letter, recipients will say,

"Oh shit! I got presidential duty."

This will eliminate most if not all of the partisan bickering since people will actually feel bad for the president who will always be able to express that he or she never wanted this shit job in the first place. When the media discovers that the president once smoked pot in high school, he could say,

"I was at a bake sale packing a bowl with purple strain when I got the letter."

If a faction of legislators organize to impeach the president, she could declare,

"My job in the financial sector was more rewarding. Do me a solid."

The president's main job would be to sit at the Resolute desk daily and sign their name to random inconsequential papers. They would also be responsible for pardoning a turkey. The State of the Union address would consist of the president saying,

"Same as last year."

Assigning the presidency to a random person would ensure that occasionally we'd draw a smart, competent, respectable candidate as opposed to what we've been getting lately. In the end, everyone would get the same chance to be president, and every so often we'd land the likes of Sully Sullenberger or Tom Hanks. Of course that also means we'll have an equal probability of having to soldier through four years of President Bieber.

One other thing. If we do randomly assign people to the highest office in the land, I won't be able do it. I suffer from meleagrisphobia. I do like bananas though.