Spanx, iPads and The End of the World: Random Snippets from the News

I don’t watch the news on TV anymore. I get it from my radio and from Google. It’s effortless, I don’t have to look at preening news anchors, and I can click it away when it gets to be too much. What follows filled my till for the day.

Politics

Rick Santorum called the Mitt Romney campaign’s attempt to paint the day as a victory for itself “very desperate for a man who supposedly has it in the bag.”

Yes, it was beyond desperate for Romney to ask the front singer of the band Alabama for a rendition of “Sweet Home Alabama,” a song actually written by the group Lynyrd Skynyrd. Fortunately, though, we were spared Romney singing it in that Wonderbread, generic-man tone of his. He has as much rhythm as a dripping faucet.

But they’re all desperate. They shriek the most outlandish, the most intemperate nonsense to gain attention and votes. Yet, one huge constituency is leaving, apparently sick of the noise and the intrusion into their lives—women.

The fragile gains Republicans had been making among female voters have been erased, a shift that has coincided with what has become a national shouting match over reproductive issues, potentially handing President Obama and the Democrats an enormous advantage this fall.

You see, you white men: You get all paternal, controlling and up in our faces, and we get all uppity and leave.

Sports

We’ve reached the fifteenth season of the ultimate fighter and it’s starting to look as if we’ve seen enough. Every show comes to an end whether it’s good or bad and it seems as if The Ultimate Fighter has reached that point.

And the end of Ultimate Fighter would change your world how? I know some people like this “sport,” but to me it’s all a bunch of kicking, slapping, and punching. It’s a bit like the Republican primaries but much less annoying. We could do away with all these ridiculous primaries if we just put the whole lot of them into a cage and let them kick, slap and punch their way to victory. Callista would have to stand in for Newt, though. My bets are on her.

Science

Scientists at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory have put out a new video to address false claims about the “Mayan apocalypse,” a non-event that some people believe will bring the world to an end on Dec. 21. 

There’s nothing conspiracy theorists and end-of-the-world prophets hate more than being told their voyage to never-never land is a non-event. You’ve just given away all your money and property to an old white guy with wrinkly wrinkles and bad teeth, and now you’re told that you’ll be able to hit the sales on December 26, 2012. Too bad, so sad.

Health

An online petition urging the government to stop the use of “pink slime” — the scrape and waste meat products that are treated with ammonium-hydroxide — in school food has collected almost 20,000 signatures over the last several days.

After reports that school districts around the country were serving kids hamburgers containing up to 15 percent of the processed product known in the meat industry as “Lean Finely Textured Beef’, parents and consumers poured online to express their disgust.

Yet adolescents (and many adults) continue scarfing this stuff up routinely at their favorite hamburger franchises, but won’t eat Brussels sprouts? Is “Lean Finely Textured Beef” the same as “puree”? How about “emulsify”? I’m imagining some very hefty industrial-sized blades in blenders that can finely texture hooves and bones and the occasional metal nose ring off a cow. Yummy.

Entertainment

 A North Dakota newspaper columnist sat down to review her town’s hot new Italian restaurant, rhapsodizing about the chicken Alfredo, crisp greens and “two long, warm breadsticks.” But because the restaurant was the Olive Garden, Marilyn Hagerty’s earnest assessment swiftly became an Internet sensation, drawing comments both sincere and sarcastic from food bloggers and others.

For Hagerty, 85, the response was bewildering – and it threatened to make her late for a bridge game.

People are so pompous, aren’t they? I call it the Bourdain Effect, for the chef who has made it his life’s mission to whisk Paula Deen off into the halls of cooking shame. Come on, people, it’s North Dakota! You expect a boutique-sized, snobby, expensive bistro to spring up among the corn and wheat fields? Don’t be ridiculous. And lay off this busy elderly woman who just wants to finish a column and then get to her bridge game on time. I bet when you’re all 85 you’ll be wishing you had a great job like hers, a social life, and a few teeth left to chew on breadsticks.

Technology

Apple has sold out of initial supplies of the new iPad in every country where it will launch the tablet on Friday, and is now telling buyers that orders will not ship for up to three weeks.

I have an iPad 2, which I purchased just a little more than a year ago. Now we’re up to iPad 3. I’ve only gotten a year’s use out of mine! I can’t imagine what an iPad 5 might be able to do, but it better be worth the money. If it can’t teleport me to other locations, then I’m not laying down a single dime for it.

The tech industry creates a bizarre economy doesn’t it? IT engineers who should have thought of advancements and new features before the product launch, but were too busy congratulating themselves during the pre-launch party, say, “Okay, that will be in the next version.” This practice justifies and ensures their jobs, fuels an industry that develops products with no end point in sight, creates new, angry customers who wait for the product delivery, and guarantee retail prices much higher than the previous ones. We’re all a bunch of hamsters on a wheel.

Business

Sara Blakely, 41 year old billionaire, spends a lot of time jetting around Asia, laying the groundwork for Spanx in countries that don’t obsess about their posteriors quite as much as Westerners do. She and Blakely plan to open stand-alone shops, first in Atlanta, then slowly worldwide. They’re pushing their cheaper diffusion line, Assets, and adding new categories— swimwear, activewear, men’s underwear—as customers demand more options and competitors like Yummie Tummie, Dr. Rey Shapewear, Skweez Couture and Body Wrap (as well as Victoria’s Secret and Maidenform) flood the booming shapewear market.

It all sounds just so tiring (pulling on something akin to a sausage skin!) and constricting (where does that square of dark chocolate go?) to me. What special form of lingerie hell it must be to wear this body gear underneath clothing in a hot, humid, summer climate. At the end of an oozy, saturated day in South Carolina or Alabama, the voluptuous woman peels away her Spanx and out pours a biblical flood. Ah, we are so vain.

Last Random Snippet

Just a thought: The people among us who decry and disdain politics the loudest might just be the same people who practice politics the most, and the most often, at our workplaces. Call it adapting, being a loyal minion, sucking up or whatever, it still seems awfully inauthentic to me. But, I suppose, it’s a form of survival.

Have a wonderful Sunday!

Romney’s Offshore Tax Haven, My Offshore Tax Shoebox

I wish I had an offshore tax haven. I wish I had an offshore tax storage unit or an offshore tax shoebox buried under a palm tree on a remote island.

Romney finally revealed that he has an effective tax rate of 15%. In other words, he ought to have a top tax rate of 35% but because he’s got an infinite supply of kraft paper, boxes and packaging tape, he’s able to box up his investment-derived millions and send them to a nice bank in the Cayman Islands. Well, he doesn’t actually package his Ben Franklins and McKinleys. He’s got people to do that for him in a virtual way—by making a phone call to a bank in the Caribbean.

And because his millions can sit there in a place where there are more businesses than actual humans, the moolah remains untouchable by Uncle Sam.

We Americans want intelligent people to run for President of the U.S. When did we start demanding that our candidates be filthy rich? Oh, we didn’t, did we?

What happened? Did TV and radio spots become so expensive that only rich people could run for office? Did gas prices drive up the cost of traveling by large bus from city to city so that only the well heeled could afford the gazillion appearances during campaign season?

I try to imagine myself sitting down with an extremely wealthy person trying to have a conversation about some mutual interest. I can’t think of a topic I’d speak about to Romney, Gingrich or any of the other candidates. Never mind that they’re Republicans and I have little in common with them and their views. If I brought up the issue of how expensive dog treats have gotten, would that resonate with any of them? Does Romney even have a dog? If he does, does he know he has one? I bet he’s got a dog walker, the only human interacting with his pooch and handing out dog treats.

How would I talk to a person who has four homes spread in states across the country? Only 46 to go, Mitt!

What topic would get Gingrich’s attention long enough to get past the lecturing? I haven’t got a $500,000 line of credit anywhere on this planet, much less at Tiffany’s. I don’t even have a line of credit at PetSmart.

As House speaker, Mr. Gingrich preached the virtues of fiscal conservatism; now he is struggling to explain how spending large sums on jewelry fits in with that philosophy.

I could ask him that, I suppose.

Plutocracy: Government by the wealthy.

The candidates we get are the ones with the wealthiest donors who pour money into campaigns—obscene amounts of money. It seems all so very wasteful to me. All that money, used to bring someone forth who shares little in common with, or cares very little about, we, the average citizen, and others, the forgotten, invisible, and poor.

Al Franken tried to change the landscape a bit with his “American Elections Act of 2010″ — a law that would have kept foreign interests out of our elections by banning:

Election contributions and spending by corporations that are controlled or highly influenced by foreign nationals (foreign governments, companies, and persons).

This includes:

•  Corporations that receive most of their financing from foreign nationals.
• Corporations where foreign nationals hold a controlling share of stock (as defined under leading corporate law) or a majority of the Board of Directors.
• Corporations that allow foreign nationals to control or participate in their political activities – including ad spending, donations, and political action committees.
• Requiring all corporations to certify, before giving or spending in elections, that they are in compliance with these requirements.
• Requiring all corporations to disclose in their political advertising how much of their company is controlled by foreign nationals, or if this isn’t possible, how much of their financing comes from foreign nationals.

But this bill never became law. This bill was proposed in a previous session of Congress.

Another attempt was made in 2011:

The Fair Elections Now Act (S. 750 and H.R. 1404) was re-introduced in 2011 in the Senate by Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and in the House of Representatives by Reps. John Larson (D-Conn.), Walter Jones, Jr. (R-N.C.), and Chellie Pingree (D-Maine). The bill would allow federal candidates to choose to run for office without relying on large contributions, big money bundlers, or donations from lobbyists, and would be freed from the constant fundraising in order to focus on what people in their communities want.

“The American people deserve a better government than they are getting. The big banks and drug companies have way too much influence in Washington.  If they want to invest in our government, let them pay their fair share of taxes rather than paying for politicians who’ll write them special tax breaks.  It’s time to get corporate money out of politics and put elections back in the hands of ordinary Americans.”


Rep. Chellie Pingree (D-Maine)

Fortunately, some people give a damn.

Do you?  http://fairelectionsnow.org/

Some Reading:

How Rich Are the Presidential Candidates?

Most Presidential Candidates Aren’t the 99%

NOTE TO MY READERS: There’s an error in the second paragraph. The tax rate is not the same as a tax bracket. I knew this, but forgot when I wrote this piece. There’s a good discussion on it here.