Tax The Poor

Below is my column from the February 1, 2013 issue of the Sturbridge Times Magazine.  I take some vindication from the linked Christian Science Monitor article titled, New Tax Law will increase the burden on the poor. 

Anyway, the article is below.  Enjoy if you can.

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The fiscal cliff has come and gone and no doubt will come again.  As always, a deal was done, and the figurative can was kicked down the road.

A constant drumbeat during the run-up to the agreement was that if the exchequer could just put its hands in the pockets of the rich, why nirvana would ensue.  To cliché it, the tax the rich meme went viral.

I’m from a working class family and as resentful of my betters as the next guy.  The pitchfork is by the door and ready at a moments notice to storm the Bastille with me, at least rhetorically.

Certain segments of the wealthy should be fair game.  The ongoing crisis that began in 2008 had its origin in large banking institutions that are “Too Big To Fail” otherwise known as TBTF.  What that means is, as is said, that if they are allowed to sink, they crash civilization. 

In the recent presidential election, neither candidate addressed the too big to fail issue.  The incumbent never said that he had been working on the problem and the solution was in hand, because he hadn’t.  The challenger never suggested it would be a priority of his administration because he would have gargled razor blades rather than touch it had the votes had been counted in his favor.

We had a measure in place that kept the banks from getting TBTF.  It was called Glass-Steagall.  The Glass-Steagall Act of 1933, passed in a previous era of economic turmoil, prohibited Commercial Banks from engaging in the investment business.  What the act meant was succinctly put by economist and author of the book, Currency Wars.  James Rickards.  Rickards wrote on August 27, 2012 for US News and World Report, that under Glass-Steagall, “Banks would be allowed to take deposits and make loans.  Brokers would be allowed to underwrite and sell securities.  But no firm could do both due to conflicts of interest and risks to insured deposits.  From 1933 to 1999, there were very few large bank failures and no financial panics comparable to the panic of 2008.  The law worked exactly as intended.”

If life was not horrible under Glass-Steagall, why was it thrown overboard?  This can be explained by the nature of our party structure.  An anonymous Republican congressional staffer is credited with saying, “In America we have a two-party system.  There is the stupid party, and the evil party.  I am proud to be a member of the stupid party” The man then said, “Periodically, the two parties get together and do something that is both stupid and evil.  This is called bipartisanship.” 

Deep-sixing Glass-Steagall was bipartisanship at its most stupidly evil.  The people had not risen up and called for repeal.  Almost none of them had ever heard of it.  That’s what happens in a nation with a surfeit of laws.  No, it was the world of finance that used their influence to get what they wanted.  When they had sucked as much as they could out of the system, and it all started to go south, they went crying to the government for succor.  The bankers were all for profits staying privatized, but supported a healthy socialism when it came to losses.

So, a class of people did some looting on a vast scale and got away with it.  The cry has gone up, “Make them pay their fair share.”  To paraphrase the old western horse operas, “Taxing is too good for them.”  Unfortunately, they had gamed the system so that apparently the law, if not the force, is with them.  Of course, The SEC and the Department of Justice have been desultory at best in pursuing the wrongdoers.   There have been a few wrist slaps to pretend action, but nothing substantial.  We can’t even sentence them to having to listen non-stop to ABBA piped into jail cells for a few hours.  Okay, that is going overboard.

Taxing a class sounds like a fantastic idea.  Not all the rich were bankers and many provide honest employment for their fellow citizens.  Still, there is an argument that adjusting the tax rates upwards is a good thing.  The problem is, it is no panacea.  Most economists have admitted it can’t work magic. 

Taxing the rich inevitably reaches down into the pockets of the middle-class.  Don’t think so?  I have three letters for you, AMT.  They stand for Alternative Minimum Tax.  I don’t remember if it was Chet Huntley or John Chancellor or another newsreader in the 60s intoning in a serious talking head voice about an injustice.  The evil rich were getting away with murder.

By investing in municipal bonds, wealthy members of society were able to avoid federal taxes on the interest.  In doing this, they received a lower interest rate allowing governmental units to finance schools or bridges or other projects.  That did not matter.  Something had to be done.

What was done was the Alternative Minimum Tax.  In the early 1990s, the law was changed so the AMT could also tax people with lower incomes.  Our compassionate solons, troubled by the injustice, yearly “patch” it so most, but not all, of the middle class escapes.  Nothing permanent is ever done, though.

Adjusting the tax on the rich may raise a few dollars and make us feel good, but won’t solve the problem.  Taxing the middle-class other than the status quo is considered bad form.  What’s left?  Why of course, doing what has been done most consistently throughout history, taxing the poor. 

Unconscionable you say.  Balderdash.  We already tax the poor horribly, and couch it in terms of doing it for their own good.  The cigarette tax falls disproportionately on the shoulders of folks in the lower income bracket.  I have never heard a non-smoking fellow citizen decry this as an injustice though it raises the price of a small pleasure several times.  Taxes on alcohol are not light, but see how far you get proposing an excise that triples the cost of single malt out of compassion for the health of the wealthy.

Throughout history societies sooner or later get around to taxing the poor.  This can be fraught with danger.  Take the French aristocracy who had their heads handed to them.  No, a federal tax on the downtrodden will have to be done shrewdly.

Fortunately, there is a way to do it that, if not loved, will be embraced with enthusiasm.  In this the states have shown the way.  Many of us have stood in line waiting to pay for gas or coffee at a convenience store.  Often there is someone ahead of us taking what seems years to make several choices.  To the more highly evolved, they are wasting time, but to that man or woman, it is a momentous choice.  With each new day, it is the most important decision of their life.  If their choice of scratch ticket or lottery numbers is correct, the drudge job they hate is history, at least till the money runs out.

As a math professor once said, “The lottery is a tax on people who can’t do math.”  It is the shrewdest form of impost ever devised.  Why should not the federals use it to solve our ongoing fiscal crises?  A nightly national Powerball drawing will beat even Dancing With The Stars’ ratings.

Ah well, this may take a while to come to pass.  There are a few tricks left like a trillion dollar platinum coin so why worry.  After all the Congress saw it’s duty, came together and raised taxes on the elite, and while you were feeling good on you too, Mr. and Mrs. Two Earner Family.

Yup. The two percent increase in payroll tax will affect you more than anything that might have been done to Warren Buffett

My countrymen and women, you were like marks for a three-card monte dealer.  While the barker kept yelling beat the rich, he took your money.

Bipartisanship, ya gotta love it.

Our National Deficit

My  May, 2010 column from the Sturbridge Times Magazine and an observation on the Senate.

Our National Deficit

There was a recent video of a congressman that caused a lot of mirth all across the internet.  Representative Hank Johnson of Georgia was questioning the commander of the Pacific Fleet, Admiral Robert Willard. At one point, he inquired if there was any concern that the island of Guam could, due to overpopulation, “tip over and capsize.” In one of the most adroit displays of self-control, Admiral Willard completely retained his composure. On hearing Johnson, most normal folks would have said something like, “c’mon Hank, yer kiddin” after rolling on the floor. Nope, he wasn’t and the admiral knew it. Like any military bureaucrat, Willard has to worry about appropriations. Maybe Johnson was having some fun, but why take chances?

To be fair, the congressman is suffering from hepatitis C and this does affect judgment. Still, the lower house of our national legislature has not been known for a lack of interesting characters in its history.  Wilbur Mills would make the list. He served as Ways and Means chairman longer than anyone ever did. It is a position of immense power and in his tenure he had the respect of the congress. No one remembers that. As powerful as he was, he lived in relative obscurity until October 9, 1974. In the early hours of that fall morning, he was stopped by the police because his car lights were not on. No big thing, might have blown over except that someone ran from the car into the tidal basin.  It still might have gone away had it been, say, a doyenne of DC society. Unfortunately, it was a women whose professional name was Fanne Fox. She billed herself as the Argentine Bombshell. Her dancing was known for a progressive lack of clothing. Did ol Wilbur come to his senses?  Only if you call following her to Boston and climbing onto the stage at a burlesque theater sensible. Wilbur, who had studied constitutional law at Harvard, made Hank look like the soul of reason.

You probably think I am appalled by all of this. Not in the least. True, I don’t think the antics of the solons are in anyway positive, but that’s not the point. The framers of the constitution feared democracy, but they knew the average Joe must have a voice. The House of Representatives is that voice. When we elect its members, we are electing ourselves, and getting what we deserve, good and hard.

It is the Senate that bothers me. The framers of the constitution were trying to mimic a lot of what they rebelled against. A Senate was not meant to be democratic. The closest example the former colonists had was the British House of Lords. The lords did not have to pander for votes. Men who do not have to take into account public opinion should be more deliberative.

Supposedly, Washington told Jefferson that the Senate would be a cooling saucer against the passions of the House. The hereditary title business, however, was not going to fly. What to do?

The solution was to have the Senate selected by the state legislatures. Yeah, that worked. We all know that such bodies are composed only of persons of absolute rectitude. By the last quarter of the 19th century, numerous scandals had been exposed regarding corrupt elections of senators. David Graham Phillips, a muckraking journalist employed by William Randolph Hearst wrote a series of articles entitled The Treason of the Senate.  Sentiment for direct election of the upper house became a torrent.

Understandably, the senators were happy with the status quo. Only when the groundswell got so large that states were calling for a constitutional convention did the senate move an amendment. Even today, the thought of a constitutional convention scares sane people not to mention even some lunatics.

So what have we got for the great extension of the franchise? It takes oodles of cash to become a senator. Now, who will the victor in an election feel more beholden to, his constituents or the moneybags supporters? Of course, that begets election reform and when that is gamed, more election reform.

In the electronic age, elections are beauty contests. I met our senior senator during his first campaign. What I remember most about the encounter is not what he said, but his appearance. He was perfectly coifed and exquisitely dressed. I have never seen another man as well put together. Heck, I haven’t seen many women that well done up.

That senators are little more than reps with longer terms is probably not a good thing constitutionally. Ah, but the entertainment value is increased by an order of magnitude. Joe Biden has left the upper house, but all those gaffe skills he honed for years, he is putting to use as veep.  There is our own John Kerry being for a bill before being against, or was it the other way around?

Lest you think I only lampoon Dems, John McCain provided some mirth during the presidential debates. There is a Youtube mashup of the former candidate with Miss South Carolina. The beauty queen had been asked a question which she completely flubbed. When McCain was asked an economic question he dropped names and platitudes, but did not answer in any real sense. He was oblivious, and made the hapless lass from SC look like Cicero in comparison.

I don’t think a Lincoln and Douglas could run against each other today. They would not be photogenic enough and their logical presentation of issues would do them no good. I would love to say I could have followed their marathon debates, but I am a product of my times. I scare myself.

A Capital Idea

Below is my column for the November, 2012 issue of the Sturbridge Times Magazine.   


Ah autumn in Nova Anglia.  It’s election time as presidential and congressional candidates tell us how they love us and wish to serve us, but not here.  No, they want to go to D.C. because life is good.

Washington is America’s richest city.  The capital and adjacent metro region beat out even Silicon Valley.   That should not be.  Silicon Valley is where the research is done for all the gadgets we cherish.  Washington only produces laws, lots of them.

Why should “crafting” legislation be such a big problem?  Because, they never stop.  According to the Wall Street Journal in 2011, there are so many laws, no one has any idea what the count is.  Ronald Gainer had the task at Justice to get the number.  He said, "You will have died and resurrected three times," and still not have the total.

So is this a problem?  In a democracy, certainly.  Don’t take my word for it.  The Roman orator, Tacitus, put it elegantly,

Corruptissima re publica plurimae leges

Roughly translated, it means a corrupt state has many laws.  It is understandable that a country with the oldest operating constitution will have passed innumerable bills.  That the actual number cannot be known is a scandal.


So what can be done to stop or at least arrest the pace of legislation? Fortunately, my fellow citizens, I’ve done the research and have come up with a solution.

 Several decades ago, upon separation from the serious work of defending my country, I embarked upon a trip across country with a friend in late spring.  We visited all the comrades who frivolously invited me to stop by once I got out.  Lacking the money to stay at motels when not sponging, we camped.  It was for the most part not unpleasant.

Then we came to Wyoming.  I have not spent a worse night. Getting up in the morning was hell.  We would have to leave the cold of the sleeping bags to dress and then go wash.  The late June day did warm up to just below tolerable. The Rockies had their own beauty but it was stark and bleak. Riding through was interesting to see but not enough to linger and there was no way a second night was going to be spent. 



My friends, the above-mentioned experience has moved me to propose to the nation that the capital must be moved to Wyoming.  The current seat of government is too nice. Our legislators need a harsh climate so few of them will wish to serve and those who do serve will not want to stay as long and pass laws.

Life will not be easy for publicity seeking solons up in the Cowboy State.  It is one thing to want to speak to the media and get face time when you are in a lovely tailored suit with perfectly coiffed hair.  Quite another when you are wearing a parka and a hat with ear flaps and your usually mellifluous voice is muffled because of the scarf covering your mouth.

It will be a more curmudgeonly type who seeks office under those conditions, and thus, more honest of speech.  Think about it, perky little Caitlin the correspondent asks Jake the retired math teacher with a face for radio but not the voice about the new education bill.  Jake gives the truth, "Listen girly, I'm not for giving one cent to the schools.  In my forty-five years in the classroom, I had about ten kids capable of doing real math, most of the rest wanted to sleep through class.  The school department mandated that I give the majority Cs when most of them deserved Ds."  She then asks, "Jake, don't you think your constituents will be offended by your comments." Jake, "If they don't like what I say, let ‘em vote for someone else. The food here is terrible, it's cold and I get stupid questions from reporters."



And speaking of cute little reporterettes and smooth, serious reporters, we would have less of them.  Duty in the new national capital would not be looked upon as the pinnacle of a career, but as punishment.  "Sorry folks, we won't be bringing you handsome, suave Brett up at the Senate building as he is too hungover again.  We do have some film from Lichtenstein History Month being celebrated at the Lichtenstein-American Community Center.”  Poor little Brett and Caitlin would be forever campaigning to be sent anywhere else other than, maybe, Pyongyang.

Now, I understand just physically moving the seat of government is not enough.  There will have to be limitations.  Generally speaking, I am not in favor of eminent domain, but in this case there is reason for an exception.  We find a town with a high school gym large enough to seat on those uncomfortable benches the House of Representatives.  The auditorium must be just big enough to accommodate the Senate. No more great architecture to inspire their imperial dreams.  If there is a medium size bank in town, that can serve as the President's office. A local district court should be all that is necessary for the Supremes (unfortunately, I don't mean the three chanteuses). 



Housing and building regulations will have to be strict.  We can have no vast mansions.  No, we shall build our masters what we do for the aging citizens of this republic.  They can live in senior citizen style housing equivalent to that which they subsidize across the country.  It will be Spartan, but if it is good enough for Grandma, it's good enough for John Boehner and Nancy Pelosi.  Anyway, they won't be spending much time there.  The most oft spoken word in our new capital will be adjournment. 



One other benefit to the big move will be we get to give back the District of Columbia to Virginia and Maryland.  Not that they might want it.  No more Marion Barrys.  No large federal metropolis to be supported by the rest of the country.  The Washington Post Style section with nothing to report.  Georgetown a ghost town. 



All right, I know my reverie can never come to pass.  I know that it is too much to hope that that place that started out as a swamp could return to being a swamp.  Well, I guess in a way it has always been a swamp.

Chinua Achebe’s memoir of war

This review was first published in the December, 2012 issue of the Sturbridge Times Magazine 

There Was A Country A Personal History Of Biafra

By Chinua Achebe

The Penguin Press, 2012

Hardcover, 258 pages

ISBN 978-1-59420-482-1

List: $27.95 Amazon: $16.63

In the late 1960s, for a very short span, there was an episode that gripped much of the world’s conscience.  A small bit of land holding millions of people was surrounded.  The populace was being starved to death.  By early 1970 the war that precipitated the catastrophe was all over.  Without any orders from an Orwellian ministry, for most of the world the struggle was consigned to the “Memory Hole.”

If one should ask today who remembers Biafra, it is doubtful one in ten living during the period could answer affirmatively.  Probably no one born after 1970 has ever heard of it.

I am part of the first TV generation and yield to no one in shortness of attention span.  Yet the war between the secessionist state of Biafra and Nigeria is etched in my mind.  How is it that an average American thinks often about what is now an obscure moment in time?

When the events in question were happening, I was a college student.  Well, in truth, not much of one.  I did my best not to over exert myself, but had a weakness for a good lecturer.  Justin Vojtek, professor of history, was an artist and in spite of the required effort I would be in his class.

The course would be a departure from the regular curriculum.  Colleges were beginning to take up African history.  The assigned reading included four novels by a man from the eastern region of Nigeria, Chinua Achebe.  He would be intimately involved in the events of the war.

Achebe was an Igbo.  Of all the various ethnic groups the British met as they patched together Nigeria, the Igbo were the most enthusiastic about taking up what the colonial regime offered.  This does not mean they forgot who and what they were, but they were changed by the experience.  The assigned novels reflected that change and its impact on his people.

Two of the novels, Things Fall Apart and Arrow of God concern themselves with how two important men are done in by geopolitical forces they do not understand.   Ezeulu is a priest in the traditional religion, an arrow of god.  He is steadfast in his service to his deity.  His interaction with the colonial administration upsets the schedule that will signal the harvest.  Despite his faithfulness, the people turn to Christianity, as it will offer a dispensation.

Things Fall Apart is the story of a strong man also done in by the arrival of the English.  Okonkwo is a man of status among his people.  He wishes to face the colonialists fairly and with honor.  The cold machine that is the new regime does not understand him and his people.  His dignity taken, he ends his life.

The third novel is the story of a young man of promise, Obi, who has obtained a smart university education and yet that does not prepare him for all the perils of the greater world.  Nor is he able to escape the problems of the old as he falls in love with an Osu or outcaste women.

The last book of the assigned quartet, A Man of the People, may be his most known work.  This is because of his famous “prediction” of the first coup d’état.  The book chronicles the corruption that led to the military takeover.  It did not foresee the breakup of the country.

There Was A Country is not only the story of Biafra, as one cannot tell that tale without consideration of all that preceded it.  He describes the colonial regime and the Igbo’s enthusiasm for learning and achievement.  Also, the independence struggle and his people’s part in it are chronicled.  The leadership of the men of his ethnic group was integral, if not the sine qua non.

Unfortunately, the Igbo success in the independence movement as well as business, education and the arts bred resentment.  The envy of the other ethnic groups led to pogroms and an exodus of his people from non–Igbo regions.  Achebe documents the resulting decline in relations leading to the declaration of a Biafran republic,

“And the war came,” as Lincoln put it in his second inaugural.  Whether or not he intended it, Achebe’s account has the flavor of horrible inevitability.  With international collusion, Nigeria had overwhelming force.  They surrounded Biafra and squeezed it to the end.  Yet, despite bombardment and blockade and starvation, the Igbo built a republic that functioned as complete state until the surrender.

Poignant is Achebe’s account of the life and death of Christopher Okigbo.  An accomplished poet, among other qualities, he set up a publishing house with Achebe.  When the war started, he enlisted and yet continued to work with the publishing business when time and duty permitted.  Made a major, Okigbo was always in the thick of battle.  Though not a callow youth when killed, neither was he an old man.  Still, Yeat’s line about the death of a young friend comes to mind, “What made us dream he could comb grey hair?”

The war ended, but the suffering continued for a time.  Eventually, the author rejoined the political process to no great success.  The final part of the book outlines the situation as it is.

As a reader, the conclusion I draw is my own.  The suppression of Biafra was one of the great crimes of the last century and that is saying something.  Nigeria and Africa are mired in corruption and the plethora of resources makes it worse.  Maybe the Igbo would not have made Port Harcourt a banking center or another Singapore.  Certainly, they would have managed the oil wealth more efficiently and with less corruption than the Nigerian state does now, to the benefit of the whole continent.

Achebe is a fine stylist and his treatment of the subject matter is valuable, yet I suspect this book will be soon forgotten by an incurious public.

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A scholar's take on Haiti's painful history

This review was first published in the March, 2012 issue of the Sturbridge Times Magazine.

Haiti The Aftershocks of History

By Laurent Dubois

Metropolitan Books Henry Holt and Company, 2012

Hardcover, 370 pages

ISBN-13: 978-0-8050-9335-3

List: $32.00 Amazon: $18.88

It would be one of the greatest acts of moral vandalism in history. A man who had defeated the Ancien Regime in the service of the French Republic and held a territory in its name would die of betrayal by the new regime in a mountain fortress.  In real terms he had betrayed the state, as he was governing in the interests of the people.  Rare as that is in a statesman.

              I saw the picture of that man in a resplendent uniform with coal black face on a library bookshelf as a boy.  It was the cover art that fascinated me and led me to the reading of Toussaint Louverture’s biography.  The book was part of a series meant for young students.  It was the compelling story of a slave who started a nation.  That nation’s history has always been as compelling.  Some would call it tragic or even comic, but there have been instances of triumph and glory.

              Laurent Dubois has retold the story in his book, Haiti The Aftershocks of History.  There are more romantic books on Haiti. The Serpent and the Rainbow comes to mind with its alternative pharmacology and rural societal persistence.  Kenneth Roberts’ novel, Lydia Bailey, has an account of the battle of Crête-à-Pierrot that is as inspiring as his description of General Dessalines is menacing.  Even Black Bagdad, by the occupying Marine officer, John H. Craige, is a romance of sorts.   Of course, a book with the title, Best Nightmare on Earth can only be about a place of chaos and fun.

             Yet such books are each only a small part of the story.  All too many of my fellow citizens only know of Haiti as the place where the earthquake took place.  One would suspect that fewer than one in a thousand realize that the country is our oldest sister republic in the new world.  The great value in Mr. Dubois’ book is that all the players and actions are there in one volume.  The book is not written in a sensationalist style.  In listening to his interviews on radio, I thought it would be.  Even so, it goes along smoothly, not that he does not show his sympathies.  Obviously, he feels Haiti has been done hard by.  Any observer would find it difficult to avoid that conclusion.

               Laurent Dubois is not new to the subject.  A previous book, Avengers of the New World is a history of the Haitian Revolution. He has written other books about the country.  His official positions include Marcelo Lotti Professor in Romance Studies and History and Director of the Center for French and Francophone Studies at Duke University.  He occasionally dabbles in other subjects.  Well, more than dabbles.

               Villains abound.  First up are the French.  On the island of Saint-Domingue, the Gauls set up the most profitable plantation system in the Western Hemisphere, if not the world.  They ran it on the backs of Africans, worked so that more had to be constantly imported.  Cost control was such that the slaves not only had to toil in the fields for the planter, they had to grow their own food as well.

               When the French Revolution broke out, the slaves took the opportunity to end their bondage in alliance with the Republicans.  When Napoleon took power he tried to reinstitute slavery.  After a valiant resistance, the Haitians merely waited until Nap’s army was debilitated and gave it a push and secured their nation.

               France was not done.  Having lost the war, they demanded an indemnity.  Talk about bad taste.  Whatever happened to vae victis?  Hungry for recognition, Haiti gave in.

               Other European powers leaned on Haiti.  Germany was stalwart in applying force to get her way.  It appears our sister republic could not count on appealing for enforcement of the Monroe Doctrine.

               Uncle Sam’s hands are not clean.  Recognition was refused until the Civil War.  We were slow to the game, but played hardball when we got up to bat.  In 1914, a warship sent a detachment ashore to seize gold from the Haitian National Bank.  American bankers who had made bad loans had the US Government enforce their contracts in the grand tradition of privatizing profits and socializing losses.  Then, Marines would occupy the country.  We left eventually, achieving little as we usually do in our occupations.

               After Duvalier fils’ exile and some sub par elections, we came back to make Haiti a better place in 1994, again.  We brought some other do gooder nations with us.  With all the help the US and the international community had provided, the last thing the country needed was an earthquake.

               Haitian governments could meet the definition of a failed state, what with almost a constitution du jour with each new chief executive.  That does not mean a failed nation.  The Haitian peasant held onto the land won from the French with tenacity unrivalled in history.  The country folks on their smallholdings fed themselves and exported coffee.  Even the vastly powerful United States left after the Haitians tired of us earlier in the 20th Century.

               Mr. Dubois is a fine writer.  Aftershocks was difficult to put down. His book is a history and not a polemic.  Still, it is hard for a reader to avoid a conclusion.  Intervention well meaning or exploitive is colonialism.  The world should leave Haiti to its own devices.

               They may not build a tourism industry, but why would they want to be our playground?  Les Haïtiens may not split the atom any time soon, but neither will the hotshots at the Kennedy School of Government.  The message to bankers should be, take your chances and don’t expect a bailout.  Maybe we should have said that to Morgan and Goldman in 2008.

               Let Haiti be Haiti.

A Sunday trek to Howard's Drive-In

Below is my review of the West Brookfield institution, Howard's.  With one tweak, it is as it appeared in the August issue of the Sturbridge Times Magazine.

Summer in West Brookfield means Howard’s Drive-In.    It is possible that there is someone in town that has never participated in the seasonal ritual of al fresco dining, but it is hard to avoid.  Not that one would want to.  The true townie element, if they played sports as kids, celebrated victory or consoled defeat at Howard’s.  Mom and dad tagged along and even if not natives, usually became hooked. 

Another aspect of Howard’s charm is the time machine quality.  There may not be waitresses on roller skates as in the fifties, but Howard’s appears to have changed little.  Since I’ve been a West Brookfield resident, there has been no major alteration.  Oh, the menu has been tweaked and there is a tent out back, but in front, if there has been any perceptible difference, it has escaped me.  We all need a little constancy somewhere in life.

Still, as magical as that Norman Rockwell American nostalgia experience is, it can’t be enough.  What is on the bill of fare must satisfy the inner man and woman.  The quaintness can only work its magic for so long.

Fortunately, Howard’s does have what it takes.  Where it shines is Massachusetts soul food, clams.  Being from near the coast of the Bay State, I thought moving inland away from the land of the clam shack would leave me desolate.  The fried clams at Howard’s are as good as anywhere else.  If you are on a budget, the fritters will do.  If fried food is not for you, steamers are available.

All the other seafood is worth it and the servings are more than ample.  The Captain, as the fisherman’s platter is called is large and will suffice for two people with moderate appetites.  The Junior version will satisfy one.  Everything on the Captain can be ordered on it’s own.  Lobster is on order as a plate or roll.

The menu is not limited to what the ocean yields.  Steak, burgers chicken and even a veggie burger are on tap.  There is a generous selection of appetizers from potato skins to deep fried mushrooms.  Granted, a menu with such a variety will not be in the Michelin guide, but one can leave full and happy.

Then there is dessert, specifically ice cream.  There are lots of flavors.  To moi that is irrelevant as my choice is monster cookie dough.  My daughter would die for peanut butter Iditarod, but she is not full grown.  Hard and soft ice cream as well as frappes, sundaes and flurries are all there.  

It all seems to run smoothly, and customers get to see little of what it takes to keep Howard’s on track.  The man behind that is Mark Adams.  Mark is West Brookfield born and bred, and has lived in town his whole life. 

So why is Mark running Howard’s and not Howard?  Howard and his brother opened their drive-in in early post-war1947.  They would be ancient if they were still at the helm.  Mark purchased it from local entrepreneur, Melvin Dorman in 1980.  As venerable as Howard’s looks, it was demolished and rebuilt in 1985.

The building may not be original, but it is hard to think the business operation has changed appreciably.  Mark said that now and again he’ll add or drop something.  Why change a winning formula?

Mark is at Howard’s most every day during the season at 7:00 a.m.  When you meet him at that time of day, he is attending to details before the 11:00 a.m. opening.  It is a long and busy season.  He agrees, he must like it well enough or he would not keep at it.  It is many hours, but when it closes in autumn, no hours.  So, it averages out to the same as year round work. 

For us denizens of West Brookfield, season’s end always comes too soon, and opening day, never soon enough.

Dark Progress, Kurt Vonnegut and Technology

The book review below appeared in the November, 2012 issue of the Sturbridge Times Magazine. I was prompted to write it after viewing a TED talk that made clear the insight of Kurt Vonnegut.

Player Piano

By Kurt Vonnegut

Dial Press, 2006

Originally Published 1952

Paperback, 341 pages

ISBN 0-385-33378-1

List: $15.00 Amazon: $10.20

There's a great big beautiful tomorrow

Shining at the end of ev'ryday

There's a great big beautiful tomorrow

And tomorrow's just a dream away

The quotation above is the first verse of the theme for Walt Disney’s attraction “Carousel of Progress.”  Carousel of Progress premiered at the 1964 New York World’s Fair where I saw it.  I next viewed it about 17 years ago at Walt Disney World.  It captivated my then three-year-old daughter who demanded to see it many times.

Carousel of Progress captures part of the American spirit first noticed by Alexis De Tocqueville in the 19^th Century.  Progress was and would be a constant feature, if not defining characteristic of our nation.  Certainly, my baby boomer generation thought that way, at least until the Viet Nam War. It is also true that materially life has only gotten better.  What could go wrong?

Everything.  At least Kurt Vonnegut thought so.  Kurt Vonnegut was an American novelist of the last century who lingered on into this.  Not the least of his formative experiences was being captured at the Battle of the Bulge during World War II and living through the firebombing of Dresden.  Dresden was arguably as horrible as Hiroshima.  There is lingering controversy as to whether or not the raid was at all necessary.  Vonnegut did not believe it anything other than an atrocity.  In what is his most famous book, Slaughterhouse Five, he recounts his work recovering bodies.  The main character, Billy Pilgrim, becomes “unstuck in time” and is taken to the planet Tralfamadore.  Time and space travel are among the reasons Vonnegut was considered a “Science Fiction” writer.

Player Piano, his first novel, can’t be thought of as science fiction.  It is more the result of an acute sense of observation.  Vonnegut saw a technological advance.  He reasoned that more improvements would occur and compound.  The result would be a change in the status of man versus machine not to the advantage of our species.

In 1949, while working at General Electric, Vonnegut saw the future.  Machinists were expensively doing the milling of parts for jet engines.  A computer operated milling machine was built and took over from the skilled workers.  The men who developed the new equipment exulted about all the machines that could be “run by little boxes.”  The author agreed, but was not optimistic about what it meant for society.

Has constant technological improvement been a benefit?  Depends on whom you ask.  Cheerleaders are happy to point out that even with dislocation, there is a net increase in employment and standards of living after every advance.  Generally, an artisan craft is eliminated and lower skilled work expands.  Textile mills wiped out weavers, as a class.  Their higher paid employment was taken over by machines with lower wage armies replacing them to labor at work that took less if any skill.   Consumers got more, if not better goods at cheaper prices. To the weaver, this was no improvement.  Protests and sabotage happened but as it was only a minority harmed at any one time, they were not all that effective.  It was such that the term “luddite” is considered an insult by most.

This has been seen in many industries as technology changes a society, from the beginnings of agriculture to the computer.  What Vonnegut saw was the end of productive employment for most if not all of humanity. 

If the computer could do machining, what could it not do?  In Player Piano, all factory work is gone and even higher-level skills get eliminated as soon as machinery and programming is perfected.  A small elite controls everything.

Needless to say, class conflict is a problem.  What to do with all the superfluous workers?  In the novel the government employs them in a grand make-work scheme called the Reconstruction and Reclamation Corps. It is known by the slang name as the Reeks and Wrecks.

The army also absorbs a significant portion of the idle manpower.  Class conflicts are obvious as they are not trusted with weapons until overseas. 

Alas, when people have no feeling of being needed, as in Player Piano, there can be nothing but class resentments.  A revolution is attempted, but the masses do not really know what they want and it collapses.

So how does Player Piano hold up today?  Actually, the flavor is antiquated.  It’s as if the culture of the 50s did not end even though the society was turned on its head.  Dad goes out to work on Reeks and Wrecks and comes home to dinner with mom and the kids and then the family watches TV.  A woman’s place is in the home, other than maybe as a secretary.  The idealized domesticity of mid-century never stopped.

Vonnegut did not predict the digital revolution.  All the techno programming is done on magnetic tape.  This is understandable in the early 50s.  Had anyone predicted even the 8-Track revolution back then, he could be considered no less than a prophet.

So why should Player Piano resonate today?  The author may have missed the science, but as to the progress of technology, he was dead on.  Machines advance daily in areas previously the province of the human.  

Some improvements are devoutly to be wished and bring benefits many of us have experienced.  Robotic surgery is getting better all the time.  It will not be long before it is completely autonomous.  I assure you, we all want more precise, ergo less painful and invasive operations.

The bad news is good-bye jobs.  You may have heard that that JC Penney will be eliminating checkout clerks in it stores.  This is driven by the chain’s struggle to be profitable.  If the people versus machine question comes down to corporate viability, we lose.

Automated checkout is the visible aspect of job destruction.  Trades we might think safe are on the chopping block.

There is, on the web, a series of videos by speakers on their area of expertise called TED Talks.  TED stands for “bringing together people from three worlds: Technology, Entertainment, Design.” Some of the orations are brilliant and in others, at least all the words are pronounced correctly. 

One all too interesting talk, posted in September is by a Mr. Andrew McAfee. McAfee is principal research scientist at the Center for Digital Business, MIT Sloan School of Management.  His resume is hardly limited to that job.  He has been studying tech for a long time.

In his talk, there are two quotes that stand out.  First, “Just in the past couple years, we've seen digital tools display skills and abilities that … eat deeply into what we human beings do for a living.”  Second, “Within [our lifetimes], we're going to transition into an economy that … doesn't need a lot of human workers. Managing that transition is going to be the greatest challenge that our society faces.”  They should change his title to the Kurt Vonnegut Professor of Human Redundancy.

If those quotes don’t scare you, this one should.  The first decade of the 21^st Century “is the only time we have on record where there were fewer people working at the end of the decade then at the beginning.”  Andy is telling us the great job destruction has already started.  Next big quote, “We ain’t seen nothing yet.”

So okay, tech can’t do everything.  You might say over the road truck drivers are safe.  McAfee got to ride in the Google autonomous Prius.  The driverless car worked flawlessly on the highway.  Andy does not see it a long time from the Prius to the Mack Truck.  Maybe the young fellow thinking of driving the big rigs should contemplate another trade, but what?

After his scary discussion how jobs are toast, he ends with a mealy mouthed pronouncement how humans will be freed up to use our creativity to solve our problems.  Moi, I think trends that already exist will continue.

Like Vonnegut’s dystopia, we will move towards more made work.  Some of it might be continuous fixing of bridges and roads as in Reeks and Wrecks.  The bigger model is the wars we are now pretending to fight.  The War on Drugs will continue and expand.  A nation that is half drug users and half drug fighters sops up a large number of unemployed.  The War on Terror can do the same, fighting opponents real and imagined.  Does not the nation cry out for the TSA keeping kids safe as they get on the school bus?

I have not yet mentioned the most disturbing point made by Mr. McAfee.  Andrew noted an algorithmically generated piece published in the Wall Street Journal that he called "perfect."  Now, it was perfect in the sense that there were no mistakes.  It could not be called stylistically excellent.  H.L. Mencken does not fear from the grave for his reputation.  Still, where this is going is obvious.  I am sure the editor of this publication is thinking about the progress of that algorithm with every article I file.

To view Mr. McAfee’s talk, go to http://www.ted.com/talks/andrew_mcafee_are_droids_taking_our_jobs.html