Tag: TBT

TBT: Gig Day II

The Portly Politico4 Comments

Tomorrow—Friday, 1 May 2020—Bandcamp is waiving the commission it takes on sales of musicians’ work.  That means every purchase made on the site from midnight to midnight Pacific Standard Time tomorrow goes completely to the musicians (other than PayPal processing fees)—another 15% in our pockets.

The Age of the Virus has really taken its toll on musicians.  As I wrote last Thursday, a substantial portion of my income in 2019 came from music lessons and gigs—nearly 17% of my gross income for the year.

With The Virus holding full sway over us, shutting everything down, there are far fewer opportunities for musicians to earn a living—except by way of online album sales.

As such, Bandcamp sacrificing that 15% commission is a huge act of charity for its users.  It also means that it’s the best time to support musicians you love—like me!

Bandcamp gives musicians the opportunity to sell their music in high-quality digital formats directly to fans.  One nifty feature is that artists can offer their entire discography in one go, often at a discount.

To that end, my discography—seven albums, EPs, and retrospectives, spanning fourteen years of artistic development—is on sale for $15.75.  All of it.  That includes my tour de force, Contest Winner EP and its hit single, “Hipster Girl Next Door.”

Another fun feature is that Bandcamp allows fans to pay more if they so choose.  Indeed, when I announced on my Facebook artist page that the full discography was up for grabs, two fans paid $20 for it.  Some artists have reported fans paying as much as $100 for a single album.  I don’t expect that kind of generosity, but, hey—dig deep.

Regardless, there’s never been a better—or more necessary–time to support indie musicians.  We can’t play gigs.  We can barely teach lessons (some folks are doing so online, but it’s just not the same).

So, any support you can offer is always welcome.  To purchase the full discography, you can view any of my albums (like Electrock EP: The Four Unicorns of the Apocalypse) and find a button/link that reads “Buy Digital Discography” (unfortunately, there’s no way to supply that link directly).

Of course, you don’t have to buy all seven albums—it’s just a good deal.  You can also buy individual releases, like 2006’s Electrock Music (ludicrously cheap at $1 for twelve tracks!) or 2007’s Electrock II: Space Rock (just $5!).

But enough soliciting for now—there will be more of that tomorrow.  Let’s get to the ostensible purpose of today’s post—TBT.

Read More »

TBT: End the Income Tax

The Portly Politico12 Comments

Last week I went through the annual ritual of paying my income taxes.  For the second year in a row, it’s been a painful experience.  I’m finally at the point in my life where I end up owing money to the federal government, which has only made me more conservative, if that was possible.

Part of the problem is that I slam so much money into my retirement (the legal annual maximum each year into my HSA, my 403(b), and my traditional IRA) that even with increases to my federal withholding, I still fall short.  It’s because a good chunk of my income in 2019 came from private music lessons, gig guarantees, tips, and merch sales at gigs.  I brought in around $9099 from those combined (with the lion’s share of that revenue coming from private music lessons).  My brother tells me I’m probably going to have to start filing quarterly, although The Virus has pretty much killed that side business for the time being.

My taxes took hours to complete, too, as I painstakingly recreated all the mileage I drove for lessons and gigs (now chastened, I am going to maintain a mileage log in my vehicle).  Combined, I drove around 6011.4 miles last year just for lessons and gigs.  WHOA!

Of course, the IRS is now privy to all of that information.  I keep a very detailed budget, and carefully track every transaction, cash or otherwise.  And, naturally, no good deed goes unpunished.

Wouldn’t a national sales tax be easier, and less invasive?  Or maybe a restoration of the old-school tariff regimes of the nineteenth century?  Sure, the congressional battles over tariffs nearly brought South Carolina’s secession in 1832-33, but I’d rather importers pay more (yes, yes—I know the costs will passed on to me, the consumer) than have to divulge my every move to the feds.  Plus, I’d gladly pay another couple of hundred bucks for my washing machine if it means an American worker gets a job and can have some pride in working.

Anyway, the tax man has gotten his share, and I’ve received a decent refund from the great State of South Carolina, so that eases the pain.  Of course, I’m still patiently awaiting my inflationary TrumpBux.  I suppose beggars can’t be choosy about their government’s preferred form of institutional shakedown.

With that, here is 15 April 2019’s “End the Income Tax“:

Today is tax day.  Despite President Trump’s signature tax reform, I ended up owing money to the feds for the first time in my adult life (although I’ll be getting a bit back from the State of South Carolina).

The income tax used to be unconstitutional in our Republic.  Indeed, the primary way that federal government gained revenue was from tariffs on imported goods and excise taxes on certain products, like whiskey.  Alexander Hamilton advocated for high protective tariffs to protect young domestic industries from British manufacturers, who were “dumping” cheap British goods into the infant nation (a practice China has taken up today).  Only during times of war, such as the American Civil War, did Americans have to endure a tax on incomes.

Like most odious, liberty-killing measures, the income tax was a Progressive Era project, ratified in the 16th Amendment (followed shortly thereafter by the 17th Amendment, which made US Senators directed elected, and the 18th Amendment, which prohibited the manufacture, sale, and distribution of alcohol).  Progressive reformers assured Americans that only a very small proportion of Americans would ever pay the income tax, which was graduated from the beginning.

That claim was true… for the first year.  Immediately, Congress began ratcheting up tax rates and requiring more Americans to pay it.  Governments are hard-pressed not to exploit a newfangled method of raising revenue.

The income tax is not all bad:  it’s a more stable source of revenue that tariffs, which depend upon foreign imports.  No imports, no taxation.  Advocates for the graduated income tax, like Tennessee Congressman and future Secretary of State Cordell Hull, argued that, in the event of a major war in Europe (which broke out a year after the 16th Amendment was ratified), international trade would fall, bringing collected duties down with it.  That was a prescient observation, and a strong argument in favor of some kind of domestic tax.

That said, the income tax is incredibly invasive.  Every year, I lament that the federal government has to collect so much information about me:  where I worked during the fiscal year, how I saved my money, etc.

According to Scott Rasmussen, 52% of Americans favor repealing the 16th Amendment.  Count me among them.  The income tax gives the government far too much influence over our lives, and the federal tax code is so byzantine and full of carve-outs and exemptions, it’s become the purview of the well-connected.  It’s become a corporatist monstrosity.

What would replace the income tax?  Given that it’s likely never to be repealed—governments don’t typically diminish their power (or access to other people’s money)—the question is largely academic.  Still, it’s worth considering.

While I think tariffs can serve a useful purpose (see also: bringing China to heel), and that there’s an argument for some mild protectionism, high protective tariffs like Republicans championed after the Civil War would be ruinous to trade.  The deadweight loss (destroyed economic activity) associated with tariffs—especially from the inevitable retaliatory tariffs other nations would pass in response—would do more harm than good, and could result in a Smoot-Hawley Tariff of 1930 situation (i.e., the Great Depression).

The only realistic alternative that I see currently (from my admittedly myopic position) is a national sales tax.  There are some serious drawbacks to this approach, to be sure, but it would be the cleanest, most efficient way to generate revenue.

A national sales tax would encourage saving and work, both of which are currently disincentivized under our current tax regime.  Instead, purchases would be disincentivized, which would hurt sales, but encourage people to hold onto more of their money.  Further, it would not require the government to keep elaborate tabs on every worker; the Internal Revenue Service could be greatly reduced, or even eliminated.

Of course, any tax is a necessary evil, and a national sales tax would make it more difficult for high sales tax States to raise revenue (as it would limit those States’ ability to increase their taxes if necessary).  It would also slow purchasing, and necessarily raise prices (by definition, especially if you’re tacking 15-25% on top of a good).  There’s also the question of whether a sales tax should just apply to consumer goods, or if it should be an uber-expensive value-added tax, with each economic transaction along the chain of production getting taxed.

Those are sticky questions for wonkier types than I to sort out.  But wouldn’t it be nice to build an economy on the production of real value—of stuff—rather than one built on ever-expanding sales, purchasing on credit, and debt financing?

Regardless, the federal income tax is a major imposition, an invasive intruder that enters our lives every April, borrowing from us (without interest!) throughout the year, and intimidating us with the looming threat of disruptive audits.  It seems everyone would be happier—even, in a way, the feds!—if it were eliminated.

Lazy Sunday LVIII: Spring Break Short Story Recommendations Recap

The Portly Politico15 Comments

Spring Break is (essentially) over, but that doesn’t mean you can’t keep reading fun stuff!  Today’s Lazy Sunday, perhaps predictably, is going to look back at my Spring Break Short Story Recommendations mini-series.  I’ll also include which of these stories was my favorite of the week.

These are strange times to be a politics blogger.  The Virus holds sway over every discussion, almost absorbing as much mental mind-share as President Trump.  It’s interesting that the same people who are obsessed with Trump are also the very same people that fetishize The Virus.  It’s the same kind of magical thinking:  just as Trump is the cause of all of their problems, so The Virus is the means by which they can exert more social and governmental control over the rest of us.

As such, writing about politics and The Virus has grown dull—and wearying.  Thus, this past week’s diversion into more harmless horror stories.

But I digress.  Let’s get on with the recap!

  • “Spring Break Short Story Recommendations, Part I: ‘The Judge’s House’” – The chilling tale of Malcolm Malcolmson, the diligent mathematics student in search of total isolation, the better to pore over his textbooks.  Malcolmson takes quarters in the titular house in a distant town, but runs afoul of a demonic rat with a “baleful” eye.  Very spooky mood setting from a true master of horror, Bram Stoker.
  • “Spring Break Short Story Recommendations, Part II: ‘Thus I Refute Beelzy’” – A short, skin-crawlingly creepy little story from John Collier.  In just five brief pages, this story depicts a troubled youngster—likely in league with Satan—and his overbearing, hyper-rationalist, abusive father.  The ending is satisfying, but the implication is even more horrifying.
  • “Spring Break Short Story Recommendations, Part III: ‘Seven American Nights’” – A non-horror entry in the week, this story is a bit of sci-fi travel fiction.  A young Iranian visits a post-apocalyptic Washington, D.C., that is grasping to hold onto a nation irreparably in decline.  It’s an eerie bit of role reversal, as the Third World is on top, and America sinks into mutated decadence.
  • “TBT: Rudyard Kipling’s ‘The Mother Hive’” & “Rudyard Kipling’s ‘The Mother Hive’” (Original Post) – This post is more of an “honorable mention,” as I wrote about it last summer.  But when you blog everyday, as I do, you’re not going to pass up the chance to reblog every Thursday (seriously, it saves a ton of time).  Regardless, this tale definitely fits the theme:  an insidious wax-moth begins filling the heads of vulnerable young bees with sweet, silky lies, much like a public school English teacher.  Soon, the once-proud high is on the verge of collapse, with mutated and invalid “Oddities” born in greater numbers.  It’s a shocking allegory—or Aesopian fable—that ends in flames, with a cautiously optimistic coda.
  • “Spring Break Short Story Recommendations, Part IV: ‘The Shed’” – I described this small-town tale as proto-Stephen King:  young boys work together to investigate the disappearance of a local dog—and to overcome a mysterious, malevolent evil, The Shadow.

Naturally, I recommend all of these stories—that’s why their recommendations, after all—but which one do I deem the best of the bunch?

Read More »

TBT: Rudyard Kipling’s “The Mother Hive”

The Portly Politico6 Comments

This week I’ve been highlighting some of my Spring Break reading recommendations (Part I, Part II, and Part III).  I’ve been reading quite a bit in the horror genre, as I love weird tales and ghost stories.

In that spirit, I thought I’d use this week’s TBT as another Spring Break recommendation—the chilling tale of a progressivist wax-moth infiltrating an unsuspecting hive of busy, but declining, bees.  I stumbled upon it while teaching my History of Conservative Thought class last summer, and immediately was taken with this macabre, yet hopeful, tale (which you can read in full here).

Literary short stories offer us many opportunities for exploring the human condition—even with bees.  One reason, perhaps, for our general social and cultural decline is that we usurped the literary canon—which sought to expose students of English literature to the best representative works—with the wax-moths of identity politics and watered-down standards.

Even my brightest students struggle to write grammatically, much less to write well.  And some of the canonical works I read in high school are conspicuously absent from the curriculum (although, of course, some of the greats still remain).  Summer reading has more or less become “read whatever you want” (a not entirely ignoble idea), rather than “read these excellent, challenging works” (why not some combination of the two?).

But I digress.  I’m treading into waters that are not, as history and music teacher, my own.  Nevertheless, I would encourage readers to seek out the best of what has been said or done, if for no other reason than to keep the wax-moths at bay.

With that, here is July 2019’s “Rudyard Kipling’s ‘The Mother Hive’“:

To start yesterday’s History of Conservative Thought class, I had students skim through Rudyard Kipling’s 1908 short story “The Mother Hive.”  I stumbled upon the reading in our class text, Russell Kirk’s The Portable Conservative Reader.

It is a grim little fable that warns about the perils of progressivism infiltrating a proud but weakened nation.  In the story, a deadly wax-moth sneaks into a large but bedraggled beehive during a moment of confusion.  She quickly steals away to the cell of the youngest bees, who have yet to take their first flight.  There, she fills their impressionable heads with gentle words and promises of a glorious future, all while covertly laying her eggs.

One young bee, Melissa, who has just returned from her first flight, is suspicious of the beautiful stranger’s soothing words, but the wax-moth plays the victim and insists that she’s only spreading her “principles,” not the eggs of her hungry future children.

The infiltration of the young bees’ minds pays lethal dividends.  When an old guard asks the young bees to construct pillars of wax to protect the entrance to the hive, they complain about the work, saying that pillar-building is a form of provocation, and that if they just trust the wax-moths, the wax-moths will return the favor.  When they reluctantly begin to build the pillars, they refuse to use chew the hard wax, and insist only on the finest, softest wax—and even then they balk at completing their work!

Needless to say, disaster is quick in coming.  The wax-moth’s eggs hatch and begin to devour the precious honey stored in the hive.  As they burrow weird, cylindrical tubes—an innovation that takes eight times the wax as a hexagonal cell—they expose the bee pupae to deformations.  Increasing numbers of bees are born as “Oddities”—missing legs, blind, unable to fly, half-breeds, etc.

As the number of lame bees are born, the dwindling number of “sound bees” must shoulder greater amounts of work to feed themselves, the aging Queen, the Oddities, and the wax-moth and her brood.  Sound bees work themselves to exhaustion as the Oddities sing merry working songs, unable to complete any work of their own.  The Oddities insist there is plenty of honey, saying it comes from the Hive itself.  One Oddity claims that each bee need only work 7.5 minutes per day to feed everyone, but those calculations—not surprisingly—come out to be overly optimistic.

Ultimately, the beekeeper—the “Voice behind the Veil”—finds his old, neglected hive in ruin.  He and his son break apart the hive panel by panel, revealing how weakened the structure has become due to the wax-moths’ infiltration.  The lame Oddities fall to the grass after struggling to ride on the remaining healthy “sound bees.”  Melissa, her old friend, and a secretly-birthed Princess—the dying act of the old Queen—along with the other sound bees escape to a nearby oak tree, where they witness the destruction and burning of their old hive.

One of the wax-moth offspring flies up, explaining that the promised, glorious “New Day” that was promised was miscalculated.  The proud new Princess boldly proclaims that it was the wax-moths, catching the old hive in a moment of weakness, that destroyed them, but that the bees will rebuild.

I was surprised that I had not heard of this little fable before this morning, while idly flipping through Kirk’s reader.  The parallels between the wax-moth and the social justice, Cultural Marxist progressives of today are stunning, considering Kipling wrote this tale about English Liberals and socialists 111 years ago!

Note the wax-moths beeline (no pun intended) for the younglings.  Having never seen even the bending of flowers in the breeze, these impressionable youngsters are already theorizing about the nature of the world and reality.  At that tender moment, the insidious outsider fills their heads with tales of her own morality, all the while laying her hungry eggs.

The sound bees are slow to act.  They’re tired and worn out, as the hive has grown large, and there are many bees to feed.  When the old Queen calls for a “swarm” to leave the hive, no one heeds her royal decree—why should they leave their comfortable lives?

There are two points here:  good people, especially when overworked, are slow to act (and, indeed, can get careless—the wax-moth slipped in when the Guard bee fusses at Melissa due to his frayed nerves from an overly long watch at the hive’s gate).  They are willing to give others the benefit of the doubt, and to ignore their own nagging gut instincts that something is amiss.

The other point is that good times and plenty made the bees soft and comfortable.  They are loathe to leave their comfort, and have come to believe that nothing bad could ever befall them.  Indeed, the wax-moth convinces the young bees that wax-moths never infiltrate beehives, and that such a notion is a fear-mongering myth.

The young bees come to resent and shirk off their work, preferring instead to theorize and hold rallies.  One young bee gives an impassioned, contradictory speech about the greatness of the hive, while also condemning the manufacturers of it.  Even as he contradicts  himself, the other bees—wanting to appear “in the know” and cool—cheer lustily.  He doesn’t even know what he’s said, but he enjoys the applause and the cheap accolades his fiery rhetoric brings.

The Oddities become an increasing burden on the hive, but the good, healthy bees continue to feed them.  I don’t think Kipling is making some point about unhealthy or deformed people here being a drain on society.  I think he’s employing the Oddities as metaphors for people with unhealthy or unnatural habits or worldviews, the people that project their derangement onto the world around them and expect a handout.  While it wasn’t an issue when he wrote this story in 1908, I couldn’t help but think of the various transgender and “alternative” weirdos that attempt to normalize their mental disorders, while expecting society to bend over backwards to accommodate them.

As for Kipling, it seems he’s using the Oddities as a stand-in for shirkers, Communists, and other forms of social leeches.  Their deformities are the result of the unhealthy hive and the twisted influence of the wax-moth infestation.  Similarly, the social justice thugs of the modern West are the result of Cultural Marxist infiltration—they are the bad fruit sprung from poisonous seeds.

Reading this short story was disturbing, but also a reminder that we must be ever vigilant to remain truly free.  That freedom only comes from discipline and order.  Further, good people must be willing to acknowledge that evil exists around them, and must be willing to confront it.

If we don’t, we’ll be the ones on the ash heap of history.

TBT: He is Risen!

The Portly Politico4 Comments

A Special Easter Notice:  Pick up my latest release, The Lo-Fi Hymnal, for just $4 (or name your own price).

Happy Maundy Thursday!  As I noted yesterday, it sure doesn’t feel like Easter right now.  That said, our present difficulties pale in comparison to the overwhelming sacrifice Christ made for us—and we didn’t deserve it at all.

The late Reverend Pete Cooper, who was once the ornery, cantankerous, and thoroughly lovable chaplain of my little private school, once made the point that Christ’s Crucifixion wasn’t merely excruciating in a physical sense.  In that moment, He took upon Him the weight of every sin ever committed, before or since.  Whoa—talk about a sobering realization.

Imagine—as impossible as it is—being completely without sin, and then assuming ALL of it—undeservedly.  It’s the greatest act in all of history.

So, let’s not let The Virus get us down.  Christ endured far worse.  Humanity has endured far worse, for that matter.  But we can be secure in our knowledge that our Savior watches over us, and is always with us.

Here is East 2019’s “He is Risen!“

Happy Easter to everyone!  Today’s post is another short one for this important holiday weekend (it also marks sixteen weeks of daily posts—shew!).

Jesus Christ died for our sins around 2000 years ago, and was resurrected three days later.  Today, Christians all over the world celebrate His death and resurrection, and eagerly await His eventual return.

According to Scott Rasmussen, 74% of Americans will celebrate Easter today, but only 40% of Americans will attend church (but, hey, that’s better than nothing).  He also writes that 67% of Americans believe Jesus Christ arose from the dead—one of the more heartening statistics I’ve read in awhile, considering Pat Buchanan’s recent piece about our declining public morality.

This Easter, I’m praying for national and spiritual renewal for America and the West.  Part of that is the need for revival across our nation.

Enjoy a day of fellowship and family.  And if you have time, check out my old “Lazy Sunday” compilation of pieces about Christianity.

Happy Easter!

–-TPP

Lazy Sunday LVI: Movies

The Portly Politico16 Comments

If you want to find these flicks on RedBox, use my referral link; you get some bonus points, and so do I!  Link is here:  https://www.redbox.com/refersignup?referrer=50892857667272)

As I wrote in the lengthy preamble to yesterday’s SubscribeStar Saturday post, in The Age of The Virus, we’re all being asked to make a sacrifice befitting our decadent age:  stay home and watch movies.  With that in mind, I thought this Sunday’s Lazy Sunday should look back at some of my movie reviews, which are fairly thin on the ground.

I’m not a professional movie critic—I like what I like—so take these reviews with a grain of salt.  My dad has a system for finding movies he enjoys:  if the average rating is around three stars (out of five), it’s going to be good.  After all, what critics look for in films is often quite different than what the average movie-goer looks for, which explains why you’ve often never heard of the annual Oscar Winner for Best Picture.

With that, here are my posts (at least, the ones that I could find) about movies:

  • “TBT: Transformers 2: Conservatives in Disguise?” – I wrote this review way back in the TPP 1.0 era, when the blog first began on Blogger/Blogspot.  The Transformers series now is a sell-out to Chinese audiences, but the plot of this second Transformers film highlighted the inefficiency of government bureaucracy, filled as it is with bean-counting busybodies who miss the big picture.  My preamble in the TBT version from last March draws a parallel to the EPA official in Ghostbusters (probably my favorite movie of all time, by the way), whose smarmy, toadying officiousness results in an apocalyptic outbreak of spooky apparitions in Manhattan.
  • “Slammed Holy Saturday: Captain Marvel” – It’s apostasy in conservative circles to say so now, but I actually enjoyed Captain Marvel when I saw it last year (also, with The Virus shutting everything down, I pretty much forgot that today is Palm Sunday—that’s the real apostasy).  Of course, what I didn’t like was the pandering “you go GRRRRRRLLLLLL!”-ism of the film, which went so far as to make the alleged titular hero into an unlikable feminist.  Even the other characters in the Marvel Cinematic Universe don’t like her!  But it was still a fun distraction, which is really what these superhero flicks are supposed to be.  It’s a shame they stained it with a bunch of SJW clap-trap.
  • “They Live: Analysis and Review” – I love John Carpenter.  I love the range of his films, and I love that he writes synthy, electric guitar-driven soundtracks.  This flick in particular has become a bit of a meme for the Dissident Right, as the main character finds a pair of sunglasses that expose that huge chunks of the population are actually aliens, and that humans are in cahoots with these would-be invaders.  It’s a sharp critique of mindless consumerism, globalism, and the elites who push both.  WATCH IT!
  • “Milo on Generation Joker” – If I love John Carpenter, I adore Milo Yiannopoulos, the cheeky, flamboyant British Greek with a penchant for mischief.  Little wonder, then, that Milo loved The Joker.  For a super villain movie, it paints a surprisingly sympathetic portrait of its subject, with parallels to the frustration of young men in our society today.  It’s another must-see; the They Live of the 2020s.
  • “SubscribeStar Saturday: Hammer Films” – Yesterday’s SubscribeStar Saturday post, in which I offer up brief summaries and review of five films from Hammer Films, the famous British film company known for reviving classic horror characters from nineteenth-century literature.  Hammer movies are iconic for their gratuitous subject matter and bright, vivid colors (a bit idiosyncratic for horror flicks, but it works).  These movies won’t scare you, probably, but they are great fun.

That’s it for this Lazy Sunday!  Do your civic duty and cuddle up with a bucket of popcorn and these movies (I’m sure you can stream most of them on RedBox).

Enjoy!

—TPP

Other Lazy Sunday Installments:

TBT: April Fool’s Day: A Retrospective

The Portly Politico3 Comments

Last year marked the tenth anniversary of my unceremonious lay-off/non-renewal of my teaching contract.  It was the height of the Great Recession, and jobs were lean on the ground.  “Entry-level” positions called four a four-year degree and two-year’s (minimum) experience, yet holding an advanced degree was considered “overeducated” and could potentially disqualify an applicant for work.

It was the worst of all situations for a young man barely out of graduate school and just one year into his teaching career.  I was lucky, though, to have a good dad with a background in human resources and local government, who helped me find a decent job with the City of Sumter.  I was only out of work maybe three months, and had parents who were able and willing to support me during that period.

Even then, I was anxious to get out on my own again, not because I was chafing under my parents, but because I was keenly aware I was not being a man.  Instead of earning my own way in the world at twenty-four, I was living off the generosity of my parents.  That’s one of the myriad ways in which an economic downturn can take a spiritual toll on a young man.

Now it appears we’re on the precipice of another major economic catastrophe, this time thanks to the coronavirus and the stringent public health measures taken to slow its inexorable spread.  Things were really started to rev up again.  Even though the economic recovery began even as early as 2009, it didn’t feel like we were in a recovery until around 2017.  Trump’s election didn’t just buoy the stock market; it brought a sense of renewal, hope, and optimism to the United States.

Americans, especially younger Americans, don’t remember how bad the Great Recession was.  I feel for young college students who are just about to enter the workforce—I was there, too, not long ago.  I wish you could have enjoyed at least a few years of the good life.

On the plus side, we will get through this downturn, although I suspect it’s going to be far worse than the Great Recession.  We’ve never tried shutting off the entire economy before, then plugging it back in two weeks—or maybe a month, or three months—later.  Two weeks we may have seen things roaring back; maybe we will after a month.

But I can’t conceive of a rapid return to normality if it stretches much longer than that.  Small businesses are going to go under once they burn through their cash reserves.  The restaurant industry, along with the hundreds of thousands of waiters, cooks, busboys, hostesses, etc., it employs, is going to be changed for a long time.  That’s just one example among many.

I’m already feeling the effects on my private lesson business, which was booming before The Virus (although it was down a bit from its 2019 peak).  Right before The Virus hit, I had six consistent students at $30 per lesson, per week.  That’s not bad for supplemental income (at my peak, I had ten students, one for a $45 lesson, though I was only charging $25/lesson at that point).  Most of those cancellations are for the duration of The Virus, but once the plague has passed, the damaged economy will remain.  Some of those students will resume, but belt-tightening budgets are going to eliminate piano lessons fairly quickly, if I had to guess.

That said, I am blessed to have a steady job now, and will hopefully avoid any repeats of 1 April 2019.  The Great Recession left a mark on me, and it’s made me more prepared for this next downturn.

With that, here is 2019’s “April Fool’s Day: A Retrospective“:

Today is April 1, 2019, popularly known as April Fool’s Day.  It’s a day for good-natured pranking and mirthful fun, a bit like a poor man’s Halloween.

This April Fool’s Day holds a particular resonance for me, however.  It was ten years ago today that, in the midst of the Great Recession, I lost my job.

Technically, my teaching contract was not renewed.  I still had an obligation to finish out the year, which I did as best I could, but I would not be coming back.

I remember it vividly:  my school’s former headmaster told me he wanted to speak with me.  I went into his office, and he told me a few things:  the school was consolidating my classes into fewer sections; the school desperately needed money (the enrollment was around ninety-five kids, and things were so tight they needed the $28,000 going towards my salary); and the economy was not conducive to private school fundraising and tuition.

He told me that, as I’d studied history (he, too, was a history teacher), I knew how these kinds of economic downturns went.  I thought he was mentioning this as a bit of cold comfort, a sort of, “don’t worry, it won’t last long, a[nd] you’ll be okay.”  Instead, he continued, saying, “this thing could last an entire decade!”  Yikes!  Way to kick a man when he’s down.

I knew (or, at least, I hoped—the day isn’t over yet!) that I’d never have the opportunity, grim as it was, again, so I said, “Wait a minute—this isn’t just some elaborate April Fool’s joke, is it?”  He said, stone-faced, “I wish it were.”

So, there I was, facing imminent unemployment in the worst job market since the Great Depression, with only one year of teaching under my belt and a Master’s degree in United States Trivia.

We forget, living in the wonderful Trump economy, how hard it was back then.  Jobs were not to be found.  Remember going to gas stations, and people would start polishing your hubcaps against your will so they could sell you the cleaner?  That’s how bad it was—people were hawking hubcap polisher at rural gas stations to try to make ends meet.  “Entry level” jobs required two years of experience, at minimum, which no one fresh out of college plausibly had (unless they’d wisely done some kind of internship or work study).

Fortunately, with some help and coaching from my dad, I landed a job at the City of Sumter, after only three months of formal joblessness.  I was quite fortunate.  I managed the Sumter Opera House, where I learned to run live lights and sound.  I also met some interesting people, including the comedian Gallagher (that used to be an impressive anecdote, but now few people under thirty know who Gallagher is; it’s a shame).  He was an odd bird, which isn’t that surprising, given he made a career out of smashing fruits with a sledgehammer.

That job turned into a grind—remember, if you had a job, you had to do pretty much anything your employer demanded, lest you face termination—but I learned a great deal, and it landed me back at my old teaching gig, under a new headmaster, in 2011.

That experience—being jobless in the Great Recession—left an enduring mark on me.  My first year teaching, I definitely phoned it in.  I worked hard on lectures, of course, but beyond a little club for musicians, I didn’t do much extra.

My first year back in the classroom, in 2011, was completely different.  I was teaching World History, Government, Economics, History of American Popular Music (a course I created), and AP US History.  I had to do prep for all of them.

I was astonished how much American history I’d forgotten since high school and college (a pro-tip:  studying American history in graduate school is more about reading overly-detailed monographs about obscure bits of the story of America; when I took my exams to finish my Master’s, I essentially used information I learned in my eleventh-grade AP US History class).  I would spend hours on Sunday afternoons at the Thomas Cooper Library at the University of South Carolina writing up lesson plans.

Then, I became the de facto sound guy for school events after a talented tech kid graduated (I named an award after him, which I give to students who assist with our concerts and plays on the tech end).  It’s the ultimate in job security—no one else knows how to do it—but it’s also a major obligation—no one else knows how to do it.

Since then, I’ve grown a decent side hustle teaching private music lessons.  I also teach courses at a local technical college, mostly online, but some face-to-face.  In 2014, I taught Monday-Wednesday evenings, first from 6-7:15, then from 9-10:15 PM.  I’d come home, exhausted, and fall asleep in my recliner.  Thursdays felt like Saturdays because, even though I still had two days at the high school, it was the longest possible point before a grueling sixteen hour Monday rolled around.

I save constantly for retirement—I make the legal annual maximum contributions to my IRA, 403(b), and HSA—and spend very little money.  I still drive the same Dodge Caravan that I’ve had since 2006.  I will occasionally splurge and buy digital piano, but my saxophones are falling apart (literally—my pawn shop alto sax has a key falling off).  I occasionally worry that, on that glorious day when I do retire, I won’t know what to do with myself if I’m not working.

All that said, I have done everything possible to position myself against another recession, bad labor market, etc.  April 1, 2009, seems now like a distant memory, but it could all come back.  I’m reminded of The Simpsons episode where some repo men are repossessing property from a failed Dot Com start-up.  One of them says, “It’s a golden age for the repo business—one which will never end!” as he lights a cigar with a $100 bill.

It’s easy to fall into that mindset.  I’m optimistic for the future, but I’ll never take prosperity or security for granted again.  Constant hustling—booking new gigs, picking up more students, getting more classes, working maintenance on the weekends, leading summer camps, collecting songwriter and publishing royalties—is what it takes.

TBT: New Mustang is a Sign of the Times

The Portly Politico1 Comment

From giraffes to tarantulas, the unofficial theme this week has been weird animals.  Other than my “Christmas Eve” blog post in 2019, I haven’t written much about animals, so this week has been a surprising turn even for me.  Politics has gotten stale again now that the Democratic primaries are on hold or delayed, and being cooped up inside has got me diving into some odd topics, apparently.

So, in keeping with the animalistic theme, I went to the closest post I could find to shoehorn into it:  my November 2019 piece on the new eco-friendly Ford Mustang.

Talk about some perspective.  Life was so good and plague-free just four months ago, I could gripe unironically about Ford ruining a classic car, as if that were a major problem.

Still, Ford should know better than to make a classic muscle car-for-the-masses into an electric hatchback.  That’s fruitier than Pete Buttigieg reading to children at a public library.

Hopefully we’ll soon be feeling the wind whip through our hair again as we rocket down the Interstate in our virtue-signalling e’Stang.  In the meantime, here’s 2019’s “New Mustang is a Sign of the Times“:

Before diving into today’s post, I’d like to give a YUGE “thank you” to Nebraska Energy Observer for reblogging yesterday’s post.  His commentary on my post and Leslie Alexander’s moving personal essay adds greatly to the discussion of modern alienation, and gives me some encouragement in these dark days.

Everything awesome goes to crap.  That’s the thought I had yesterday when reading fridrix’s brief post lamenting the new electronic Ford Mustang, the Ford Mustang Mach-E.

Electric cars are fine, although environuts shouldn’t delude themselves that driving these battery-powered vehicles are saving the environment (it’s pedantic to point out, but batteries require a great deal of mining to get the metals necessary to build them, and the electricity to charge them comes from coal-, oil-, and nuclear-power, so it’s not like you’re truly making an end-run around fossil fuels).  But a Ford Mustang shouldn’t be an  electric car; at least, it shouldn’t be one that looks like this iteration.

Ford has taken an iconic muscle car and turned it into a limp-wristed hatchback.  Look, I drive a thirteen-and-a-half-year old Dodge Caravan with dents and collapsing headliner, but I don’t pretend its four-cylinder engine and stocky frame make it a sports car (the 2006 Dodge Caravan actually has a fairly sleek design compared to modern minivans).  I like hatchbacks just fine; they seem practical and utilitarian—the exact opposite of what a Ford Mustang should be!

This mania for political correctness and efficiency is infecting every aspect of our society and our lives.  Yet another legendary brand has fallen to the fleeting faddism of our present age.  A car like a Ford Mustang—much like the Dodge Charger—should be a gloriously wasteful (in terms of fuel efficiency) affair, a blasphemous testament to the bravado of the engineers and the driver.

That’s what makes these cars cool.  They’re powerful, they’re in-your-face, and they’re all American—like Chuck Norris or the Die Hard movies.

Now, just like everything else masculine and dangerous, we’ve neutered this vehicle into a yuppie dad car.  Journalists are celebrating the fact that the vehicle wasn’t worse than what it is.  I can only imagine the whipped husband picking up groceries for his overbearing wife, escaping the oppression of his personal and professional life in fleeting moments of ecstasy while listening to classic rock in his… electric hatchback.

If—when?—I go through my midlife crisis, I want a car that gets 15 miles-per-gallon or less, with some kind of awesome and/or mythical animal on the hood—which covers a thunderous, gas-guzzling V8 engine—and that will wake up the neighbors when I drive in from late-night photo shoots for Hot Rod Magazine.

Well, nothing lasts forever, even cold November Mustangs.

TBT: Trade War with China is Worth It

The Portly Politico6 Comments

Amid this whole coronavirus situation—conundrum, crisis, globalist meltdown—we should keep in mind that it’s all China’s fault.  That’s why GEOTUS keeps calling it the “Chinese Virus” and the “Wuhan Flu,” because those names are completely accurate.  Of course, the media is having conniption fits about the supposedly “racist” intentions and implications of those names (which are quite mild compared to my favorite, “Kung Flu”).  It’s why the only real response to charges of racism—which are designed to make conservatives apologize in panicked fear—is to ignore them.

Regardless, it’s worth remembering that China is to blame.  Whether it was the result of abhorrent, unhygienic culinary practices (the infamous “bat soup“) or a malicious (or incompetent) leak of an engineered biological weapon, China unleashed this plague upon the world.  Perhaps the strongest argument against uncritical globalization is just that:  we made ourselves excessively dependent upon a regime that is fundamentally opposed to our very existence, and which rejects our deepest held values and beliefs.

In retrospect, then, President Trump’s trade war with China looks all the more prescient.  We’ve become so dependent upon and integrated with China, we’re running short on the ingredients for essential medicines because of China’s disease.  Supply chains have been seriously disrupted, and will continue to be, it seems, for some weeks.  Thank goodness the tariffs began moving production of some goods back to the United States.

That’s an important lesson to remember:  paying a bit more for your washing machine is worth the price of having domestic production.  We don’t need to make everything in the United States, but saving a hundred bucks or so on a major appliance isn’t worth gutting our industrial capacity and leaving our middle and working classes out of work.

Oh, well.  A lesson learned too late is still a lesson learned.  When this whole fiasco is over, let’s consider a healthy dose of autarky going forward.

With that, here is August 2019’s “Trade War with China is Worth It“:

There’s a lot of disingenuous scuttlebutt flying around about a looming recession, the inverted yield curve, and the costs of the trade war with China.  I can’t help but think such doom and gloom reporting is part of an effort to undermine President Trump.  Investor and consumer confidence are emotional, fickle things, based as much on feeling as they are on hard economic data.

As such, I suspect that major media outlets are attempting a bank-shot:  scare investors and consumers enough, and they panic into a recession.  President Trump’s greatest strength at present is the booming economy and low unemployment rate; take that away, and loopy, socialist Democrats have a much better shot in the 2020 elections.  With Leftists like Bill Maher actually hoping for a recession to unseat President Trump, that’s not a far-fetched speculation at all.

The inverted yield curve is a bit academic, though, and I don’t think it’s going to have the scary impact its prophets of doom hope.  Oh, a curve on a graph is inverted—scary!  Most Americans aren’t going to respond to that in any substantial way.

On the other hand, the negative media attention around the trade war with China could negatively impact perceptions of the president.  Trade wars, in which countries throw up tariff barriers against one another’s imports, often ratcheting up the duty levels, is a game in which both sides lose out over the long-run—that is, assuming they don’t have other viable trading partners, and that they’re both evenly matched economically.

And, yes, the trade war has had some drag on the American economy—but it’s been so minuscule, only a few sectors have really felt the pain.  Meanwhile, China is really struggling.  Getting Trump out of office would serve China beautifully, as narrow-minded neoliberal economists would likely push a Biden (or Harris—gulp!) administration to end the tariffs.  China has the dubious luxury of an authoritarian system that can direct its economy, while President Trump must survive reelection to keep his trade policy going.

The case for maintaining the trade war is compelling (and it pre-dates Trump:  one of Mitt Romney’s advisers in the 2012 election, Oren Cass, wrote an essay for National Review calling for a trade war with China in 2014).  The best recent summary for why the trade war is beneficial actually comes from my hometown paper, The Aiken Standard (kudos to my Dad for sharing this piece).

Greg Roberts spells out the case in “Facts behind the U.S.-China trade war“; I highly recommend you give it a read.  As Roberts points out, in a normal trading relationship, the price of each trading nations’ currencies would fluctuate based on its relative trade imbalance with its trading partners; this fluctuation would occur until some rough equilibrium in currency values is reached.

China—in violation of its agreement not to do so upon entering the World Trade Organization—has continually depressed the value of its own currency in order to encourage a trade imbalance with the United States.  Because the Chinese currency is held artificially low, it is cheaper for the United States to import Chinese goods than to export American goods to China.  Why?  Because the Chinese currency is cheaper, Chinese goods are less expensive, and can be bought and imported cheaply.

Because China is a currency manipulator, it is not acting per its agreement upon joining the WTO.  Further, Roberts points out other violations, including China’s requirement that firms wishing to manufacture in China turn over their patents, blueprints, and other intellectual property to the Chinese government as the cost of doing business.

Here are two relevant paragraphs:

Has China kept its promise? The answer is a resounding no, since the Peoples Bank in China, which is controlled by the Communist Party, routinely devalues its currency to maintain, in the case of the U.S., a positive trade balance, which, for us, means we have a trade deficit with China, now totaling more than $300 billion annually.

China agreed to many other provisions when it joined the WTO which the country has not kept, to wit not requiring the transfer of foreign technology as a condition of market access; enterprises in China that are owned or controlled by the government have expanded rather than diminished; foreign banks have not been given the access that had been agreed to; the theft of intellectual property has not abated; among many others.

Clearly, China has acted in bad faith repeatedly.  Further, the United States has a number of alternatives for trade in the region, including Vietnam.

Also, the goods China receives from the United States are the stuff of life—soybeans and other agricultural products.  Does the United States need more cheap plastic crap?

Give Roberts’s analysis a read.  It’s the best, most succinct summary of the trade war I’ve read recently, and it will convince you of the necessity of holding the line against Chinese economic aggression.

TBT: Hump Day Hoax

The Portly Politico2 Comments

Last year, my little town made national headlines when our mayor claimed that a mysterious, sticky yellow substance on her vehicle was evidence of a “hate crime.”  The investigation—which involved a Darlington County Sheriff’s deputy looking at the car—revealed it was pollen.

At the time, I thought that the mayor was pandering for headlines (even though what I wrote at the time was more generous).  But the likelier answer is she’s just stupid—sweet, to be sure, but stupid.

Also, it’s sad that many black Americans exist in a world so haunted by race-hustlers that they see hooded Klansmen committing acts of racially-motivated pollination around every corner.  That’s surely the vast minority of black Americans, but that such blinkered conspiratorial thinking is so prevalent is disconcerting (and that’s coming from someone with a conspiratorial cast of mind).

I decided to revive this piece for TBT because filing opens tomorrow for an open Town Council seat in Lamar.  One of our local councilmen resigned, so the town is holding an open election on 12 May 2020.  The filing fee is just $31.

Lamar Town Council Special Election

I’m still a newcomer to town, but for $31, my thinking is, “Why not run?”  I see a great deal of potential for my adoptive home town.  I also believe everyday citizens—not just well-heeled businessmen and attorneys—should run for public office.

We’ll see.  Regardless, here’s 2019’s “Hump Day Hoax“:

It’s that point in the semester where everything is coming to a head all at once, so today’s post is about 12-14 hours late to the party.  Indeed, it was only about fifteen minutes before writing this post that I stumbled upon an article with a local flavor.

It seems the mayor of my adopted hometown, Lamar, South Carolina, believes that a racial hate crime was committed against her.  Her vehicle was covered in a sticky yellow substance that resembled spray paint, she claimed.

After a brief investigation—it probably involved running a finger across the hood of the car—the Darlington County sheriff’s deputy determined the mystery substance was—GASP!—pollen.

You can read the full story here: http://www.gopusa.com/hate-crime-against-darnell-mcpherson-s-c-mayor-turns-out-to-be-pollen/

I’ve met Lamar’s mayor—my mayor—before, and Mayor McPherson is a pleasant and welcoming lady.  I met her when I went to town hall to setup garbage and sewage service at my home.

Lamar is a very small town—the population, according to the 2010 census, was slightly less than 1000—and it still functions on a timetable that is even slower than the rest of the South.  In true, old-school Southern tradition, local government offices shut down on Wednesday (as do some local businesses, if I’m not mistaken), and many folks get their mail at the Post Office, rather than a mailbox (my mail wasn’t delivered for about two weeks, until a neighbor told me I had to move the box across the street, otherwise our rural route carrier wasn’t going to stop).

Needless to say, it runs on a small staff, so Mayor McPherson was in there with the town’s two administrative assistants, processing water bills and the like.  I appreciated her dedication and friendliness, and she encouraged me to get involved in the community.

As such, it’s disappointing to see this kind of hysteria from her.  From the tone of the article, she sounds like she sincerely believes some misdeed was done against her—although I’m probably being overly generous.  The Jussie Smollett hoax was clearly too ludicrous to be true; maybe the Case of the Hooded Pollinator is the same situation.