Tuesday, July 27, 2010 at 20:29 Imagine my surprise - and howls of laughter - as I was coming home this afternoon and saw this:
Oh, please, may I have one for my front lawn? Please! Mr. Maven said it was alright. Pretty please?
This is one of the coldest but cleverest campaign signs to hit these parts in some time.
I love it.
Monday, July 26, 2010 at 21:02 Sunday’s Reno Gazette-Journal Fact Checker took on the worrisome - to Sharron Angle anyway - issue of the Estate Tax, uh, I mean the ‘Death Tax’, giving it a slightly false rating. At least I think that’s what the little needle, pointing ever so slightly to the yellow means. I guess that I’m a little slow, but I don’t quite get what neither false or true means.
Sorta one or the other?
I was generally wondering about Angle’s hysteria about estate taxes, so I emailed our family tax and estate attorney, asking if it was anything we should be concerned about here at Rancho Maven … should the unexpected happen.
Uh, not being gazillion-aires, ‘no’ was the answer. In other words, our due diligence in protecting our estate should do the trick and ‘pay off’ adequately.
First of all, as the RG-J notes, it doesn’t kick in until your estate reaches the $ONE MILLION DOLLAR mark. With the recent decline in home values many of us now have estates that look more like the Grapes of Wrath than Park Avenue these days. Secondly, anybody with even close to that amount of money is a complete idiot if they haven’t sat down with a tax attorney and planned for the uh, unexpected. That person deserves to lose it, and their estate will be better spent paying for Estate Planning for Dummies books.
The following, from Who Rules America, by G. William Domhoff, Dept. of Sociology, University of California at Santa Cruz, is very enlightening. The number of Americans who might actually have to worry about estate taxes is miniscule. The issue is being used by cynical pols like Sharron Angle to frighten her unenlightened Tea Party supporters.
“Figures on inheritance tell much the same story. According to a study published by the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, only 1.6% of Americans receive $100,000 or more in inheritance.
Sunday, July 25, 2010 at 20:59 “I think that’s a decision we’ll make in February or March,” Gingrich said on “Fox News Sunday” of a presidential run. “This is a very hard family decision because it’s such a deep commitment and it is so absorbing.” Newt Gingrich
Oh, promise me that you’ll consult one of your families, Newt. I’ll even try to help you decide which one - the wife with breast cancer that you were cheating on, or …. these things can become confusing, even for a ‘practicing’ Roman Catholic.
For Howard Dean, the former governor of Vermont and former DNC Chair, to come out supporting Gingrich, saying that he would add ‘intellectual’ depth to a Republican primary is rather like saying Mengele added dimension to the Nazi medical program.
What is Howard Dean smoking?
Saturday, July 24, 2010 at 23:24 Nevada is crumbling - along with America - as the anti-government/anti-tax zealots would have us believe that ‘starving’ the beast (government) is the answer all of America’s ills. Unfortunately, they don’t support their theories with any examples of how the free and unfettered market has ever seen it as their mandate or duty to create such things as interstate highway systems - not to mention maintain or repair them.
“The takeover of regulatory agencies by special interests and anti-government ideologues was an assault on public protections.”
It’s time to ask Sharron Angle how she plans to address this critical need while lowering taxes - and banishing the federal agencies and regulations that apply to our national infrastructure.
Nevada - and America - needs to grow up and realize that a government exists to promote and maintain the common good, above and beyond what we could ever achieve individually. Taxes are the price we pay - as a civilized country - towards this goal.
The American Society of Civil Engineers has a great website devoted to informing Americans about the critical dangers posed by an infrastructure that increasingly resembles a developing nation rather than a developed one.
For further reading about how America has been crippled by a deliberate conservative campaign to undermine and starve our critical regulatory environment, go to Government Is Good.
Saturday, July 24, 2010 at 16:35 Perhaps she is unaware that there have been more notable contributors to this - so far - successful experiment in Democracy than the Founders she’s so in love with.
“Oliver Wendell Holmes once said:
‘I like to pay taxes.
With them I buy civilization.’”
Friday, July 23, 2010 at 19:57 We lost two really good men this week, and I’m sad about both.
Kenny Guinn, the two term Republican governor of Nevada fell off the roof of his home in Las Vegas, Nevada while attempting some repairs. Guinn was the last Republican that I voted for. Hear that? I do vote for Republicans when they’re as decent as Kenny Guinn was. They don’t make Republicans like that anymore.
Guinn was the only governor in recent memory that had guts enough to be realistic about the budgetary needs for Nevada. He put forth the largest tax increase in the states history. For that he left office with an astounding 66% approval rating. He also declined to support Jim ‘No taxes’ Gibbons, who later won. Jim is going out with an embarassing approval rating of a negative percent. I jest, although it isn’t really very funny.
Republican who taxed is beloved. Republican who is a stubborn anti-tax horses’ behind is hated. You’d think Nevada Republicans would get a clue here.
Daniel Schorr, that familiar and authoritative voice on NPR, doing news analysis, passed today at age 93. I hung on his every word, for common sense, historical perspective and the last vestige of the Edward R. Murrow style of journalistic excellence.
Daniel Schorr rose above the likes of Andrew Breibart with quiet grace, integrity and a wealth of real world experience that few could ever hope to match.
With Breibart, Americans get cheesy, manufactured stories like the one that nearly took down a woman of integrity - Shirley Sherrod. There’s a world of difference there, and we are the poorer for it as consumers of reliable information. Kudos to the Atlanta Constitution-Journal for taking a deep breath and swinging back to the rational side of the truth meter - finally calling Breibart out for his obvious fraud. Hell, even Ann Coulter - long the right’s reigning queen of ‘the truth is what I say it is’ - said the heavily edited video was a sham. But you can still find Patrick Buchannan tap dancing around the facts, as a Breibart apologist.
Tuesday, July 20, 2010 at 16:47 And, that, gentle reader, should be an embarassment to all Americans. The measure, extending unemployment benefits to 2.5 million out of work Americans was passed 60-40 in the Senate, and will now go back to the House for a final vote on Wednesday.
Harry Reid said it right:
“It shouldn’t take a supermajority to help families afford the bare necessities while unemployment is rising,” said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) after the vote. “It shouldn’t take the slimmest of margins to do what is right.
Monday, July 19, 2010 at 15:29 There are some immutable truths in life. How did I learn this? The less than sympathetic mother-“life just isn’t very nice, is it?” or the under achieving teacher from grade school -“you’ll never learn this material, will you?”- made valiant, if sadly misdirected, efforts to clue me in. Then there were the bosses who put the icing on the cake -“That isn’t the way I would have written it.”. I believe we are born with a personal Greek Chorus nearby, ready to reaffirm our worst suspicions that it’s all for naught.
Some truths I learned on my own. You can’t make a cat chase a ball. You also can’t make a dog watch the romping puppies on the tee-vee screen. The cat thinks you’re an idiot for trying and the dog is an idiot. Horses can be led to water. Children can be forced to play a musical instrument against their will, but you will be the idiot - paying for your sin in so many clever but cruel ways.
Husbands will still be who there were when you married them. Only more so.
In this same theme, Tea Party followers will never be able to redirect their considerable creative sign making energies to doing the simple research or homework necessary that would undercut the whole premise of their gawd given but wildly inaccurate ‘theories’ of the Constitution or democratic governance.
We need to quit trying, rather like scrambling past the frozen faced passenger on the burning aircraft. You yell for him to get out of the seat, run for his life. But he can’t. You must leave him there. Focus instead on those with wit enough to climb through the smoke and out onto the wing.
Help them make the leap to the ground.
cats, dogs, husbands, tea party in purely maven Sunday, July 18, 2010 at 16:14 Is the world abuzz over the Sharron Angle feature in Sunday’s Reno Gazette-Journal? I’d be deeply concerned if it was, but I at least hope Nevadans are abuzz - atwitter - all shook up.
This was as fine a piece of recent political journalism as the RGJ has done for a while, and I commend them for their efforts. It may be too little, too late to pull print back from the precipice of irrelevance, but I’d like to think they’ll all go down fighting the good fight. This type of in-depth reporting is where print journalism shines a big bright light. This you can take out in the hammock under a tree and peruse, mull it over good and hard.
This is where I’d normally give you the link to the RGJ story. If I could. If the RGJ could put the big story on the website for all to see - since it was important enough to emblazon the front page with - without my fiddling around with passwords or a useless ‘search’. A boss of mine in the advertising agency back in the day, used to tell me “never put barriers in the way of a customer getting to the product.”
Okay. Now I’ll quit ranting.
If this story doesn’t give you - the rational person - pause, then nothing will. But the RGJ makes the good point that we’d all be very unwise to underestimate the grandmother from Tonopah, as she goes door to door selling grandmother-hood, the flag, a dash of Second Amendment hysteria and a pinch of that old timey delusional religious fever thrown in. When even the most stalwart of GOP, pro-business types can’t sign on to her wagon train, that should tell everybody sumpthin’.
Unfortunately, it only tells the true believers that guys like Mayor Bob Cashell have been converted to the dark side of the Harry Reid force, and soon, Che Guevera’s likeness will be up at City Hall.
Sheesh. The lunatics are loose.
elder fraud, jon ralston, sharron angle in Monday musings Saturday, July 17, 2010 at 19:47 I found it. Breakfast at 2:30 in the afternoon, and it was damn near perfect. It scratched that ‘itch’ I’d been searching for: an unhurried, sit down dining experience and eggs that weren’t the hash brown with bacon or sausage cliche.
Damn. It was good.
We were late getting lunch and the hunger pangs were happening. As I told you in my last post, I’ve gotta get out of the rut and start really trying other places. Mr. Maven and I had been to Vivoli Trattoria a couple times before and I left it ambivalent. The first visit was a nice surprise, the second left us cold- it was just ‘off’ somehow.
Our schedules being what they are, we are often late lunch types. This being the case, we tend to frequent places where that never seems to be a problem. They still have the soup, the servers haven’t evaporated to the nether regions, and even more important - you, the customer, are still treated with every bit of the same regard as had you dropped in during the more exciting peak times. I’ve gotten up and walked out of places where that wasn’t the case.
“Hello? Anybody home?”
Yikes. We were the only customers at Vivoli this afternoon. I don’t like that. It makes me feel on display in a creepy sense. This has been the case another time we came to Vivoli. They just don’t seem to do much of a mid-afternoon business, unlike Truckee Bar and Grill on Moana and Lakeside, where a steady supply of ‘regulars’ keep things interesting through off-peak hours. This is the location, in a small strip type mall. TRBG has a lot of apartments nearby to supply patrons for the bar and slots.
The waiter was right on top of things, and seated us toward the back so we didn’t feel like we were in a fishbowl. He remarked to my query about slow business, saying that they were doing some catering up at the Reno-Tahoe Open golf tourney, and perhaps that had drawn off some business. Hmmm. Maybe. But he smoothly seated us, and had water, bruschetta with an olive tapenade, and our drinks right out while we perused the menu.
Although I was thinking about a salad or antipasti, I was surprised - and very impressed - that they offered Brunch on Saturday and Sunday until 4 p.m. How very civilized. They must have known I was coming in.
mavenandmeddler | Comments Off | 1 Reference | Permalink | Print Article | Email Article Share Article vivoli, vivoli trattoria in cuisine, recommended by maven, restaurants Saturday, July 17, 2010 at 11:29 Mr. Maven and I had lunch out the other day with a friend at a favorite local restaurant as a sort of getting re-acquainted experience. The owners had noticed that I hadn’t been in lately or been blogging about their excellent product. There was no particular reason. Life simply gets busy and we get into ruts.
That’s not to say we don’t have our favorites, and there are definitely reasons for having those particular favorite dining spots. This whole thing got me thinking again about the experience of eating out and what qualities make for a good dining experience - or not.
Let’s get one thing out of the way now. I’m really fussy. I notice absolutely everything, and make a mental note - rather like points adding up on the plus or minus side of the ledger. I’m also always making some pretty stiff comparisons, having eaten my way around the world - from a hidden Parisian bistro with a knowledgeable local to the corner Italian joint in New York’s Tribeca to the best that Hong Kong has to offer - again with locals.
I see it this way, if you’re in the restaurant business to succeed, then it’s about wanting to be more tomorrow than you were yesterday. It is about passion. Everything else is just Fast Food.
Dining, TRBG., Truckee Bar and Grillm, bistro 7, eating, restaurants, tamarack junction in cuisine, purely maven, restaurants Friday, July 16, 2010 at 09:31 This arrived in this mornings email and sounds like a good thing - if you are already in or near the Las Vegas area:
Subject: Invitation to DemocracyFest
Message: Hi there,
I am writing to invite you to the 7th Annual DemocracyFest, which will take place at the Rio Hotel in Las Vegas on the evenings of July 23rd and 24th.
DemocracyFest is a political festival for liberal/progressive activists which features networking, speakers and entertainment; teaching people how to make a difference and have fun doing it! Previous DemocracyFests have been held in Massachusetts, Texas, California, New Hampshire, Virginia and Vermont. Over 4,000 activists have networked at DemocracyFest, making connections that have resulted in even more success though their campaigns and legislative activities.
We hope you will be able to join us this year in Las Vegas , please reserve your ticket through our website here:
Feel free to contact me if you have any questions. We’re very much looking forward to meeting you and the other activists in Las Vegas!
Jessica Falker
802-483-4330
P.S. We also offer sponsorships of the event if you are interested in having a table, or an insert in our welcome packet. More information about sponsorships can be found on our website. www.DemocracyFest.net
—
democracy fest, las vegas in politics, purely maven Thursday, July 15, 2010 at 16:13 The week is ending on a hot note. I hate …. yes, hate weather this hot. Anything beyond, say 90 degrees, saps the life right out of me, turning me into a lethargic slug. Yet, things have to be done.
Sigh.
I got my flat bike tire of the season this week. Let’s hope it’s the only one, since I only have one spare tube in the garage. But, I don’t much resent flats. They’re a part of bike riding, and it afforded me the chance to make the acquaintance of several Angus calves, who seemed to think I was more entertaining that I probably was in fact.
Once back at Rancho Maven, I turned the bike upside down in the backyard, under the giant sycamore tree, and went to work. I love getting my hands utterly filthy with grease and road dirt. I hum with joy at breaking out the tire wrenches. I delight in attempting to figure out “pinch flat, valve stem flat or puncture?” Hmmmm. I don’t try to hurry this process. I savor it.
Otherwise the cycling has been very enjoyable. Fairly early in the a.m., I’ve been riding up to Truckee Bar & Grill for a couple poached eggs and toast. It’s only 7.36 miles, which I do in 35 minutes, up the back roads (Holcomb, Lakeside and over Windy Hill). The trip back can take several different routes, all fairly scenic.
Why is it that the Tea Party Nation goobers can’t bring themselves to believe that Obama has a birth certificate, isn’t Muslim, and wasn’t born in Kenya - but they can believe in the invisible jesus spaceman that hasn’t done jack for them - healthcare or otherwise?
I want to post a note of appreciation about the folks out at the Patagonia Outlet in northwest Reno. They’re really very, very nice.
mavenandmeddler | Comments Off | 1 Reference | Permalink | Print Article | Email Article Share Article Al franken, blue lyon, carissa, now, patagonia, sprawling from grace, turtle, wall street reform in Friday Fish Wrap Wednesday, July 14, 2010 at 16:50 When Mr. Maven asked if there were any ‘good’ letters to the editor in todays’ Reno Gazette-Journal, I said, “oh yeah, here’s a goodie ….” then my eyes dropped to the name at the bottom.
OMG. It’s our neighbor.
I said to Mr. Maven, it’s somebody you know, but I’ll read and you guess who.
” I am a World War II veteran speaking for many other patriotic family members and friends who served America in the military to defend our freedoms. We stand for the moral standards espoused in the Bible for “God, Family and Country”!
I have worked with Sharron Angle in the Nevada Assembly for many years. Her family are patriots who live a moral lifestyle with the Bible as their guide. Sharron uses the Constitution of America as her guide in legislation. She is a God-fearing patriotic lady and a grandmother who honors her father (WWII vet) and mother. She is a great role model for her children and grandchildren!
Tuesday, July 13, 2010 at 22:39 I read this Huffington Post piece by economist Robert Reich today with disappointment and no small amount of alarm.
We’re within .4 percentage points of the 23.9 percent of the wealth of this country having gone to the top 1 percent of it’s citizens in 1928. It was 23.5 percent in 2007.
The Republicans, with a lot of help from DINO’s ( Democrats in Name Only), Wall Street and a sleepy American electorate have put us back to the economic inequality we had just before the Great Depression.
Now that’s progress?
Combine that with ‘too little, too late’ stimulus that went primarily to the Big Boys and not to Main Street, with an irrational Tea Party promoted hysteria regarding either deficits or further spending to lift Main Street out of this crisis and you’ve got the makings of a continuing disaster.
Americans are failing to connect the dots. It’s about wages. Hourly wages. We’re working for the same wages we were getting - adjusted for inflation - that we were in the 1970’s. And we’re doing it without the governmental and public safety nets we had then. The likes of Sharron Angle would take away what little safety nets - such as social security - that we have left.
The only thing that has lulled Americans into thinking the have ‘more’ has been the two-income family, real estate booms and dot com booms plus fast and easy, no holds barred ‘borrowing power’. From no collateral mortgages, credit cards for all to pay day loans - thanks to the gutting of any sensible regulation of the financial services industry.
The financial reforms currently winding their way from conference committee and through the Senate, are a pale imitation of the robust Glas-Steagal Act of back in the day.
We’re not making the foundational reforms necessary. We’re not insisting that wealth be re-distributed out of the bony fingers of that top one percent and back to the middle class.
Instead, we’re letting ourselves be drawn into assinine national arguments about The Founders intent, Constitutional originalism, gay marriage, family values, the Second Amendment and all the rest of the ridiculous ravings of a disaffected, confused and ignorant political subculture that would be king.
Why? Am I the only one who realizes that I had more dollar for dollar purchasing power in 1972 than I do now?
Sharron Angle would say that it’s not her job to provide jobs. That American’s should be happy to take any job they can get rather than be on ‘the dole’ - unemployment that they’ve actually paid into as taxpayers. Sharron Angle would argue against increases in the minimum wage, telling you that it will kill business.
She really doesn’t get it.
Read on:
The Root of Economic Fragility and Anger
by Robert Reich
Missing from almost all discussion of America’s dizzying rate of unemployment is the brute fact that hourly wages of people with jobs have been dropping, adjusted for inflation. Average weekly earnings rose a bit this spring only because the typical worker put in more hours, but June’s decline in average hours pushed weekly paychecks down at an annualized rate of 4.5 percent.
In other words, Americans are keeping their jobs or finding new ones only by accepting lower wages.
Monday, July 12, 2010 at 22:10 And Fox 5 gets it right.
Candidate Caught on Tape Contradicting herself on CityCenter After stating she would not have lifted a finger to save CityCenter and the 22,000 jobs
mavenandmeddler | Comments Off | 1 Reference | Permalink | Print Article | Email Article Share Article city center, fox 5, harry reid, sharron angle, stimulus in 2010 campaign, Nevada issues Monday, July 12, 2010 at 10:59 One of the sure signs of summer would be the daily temperatures toying with the 90 and 100 degree mark. Farmers’ markets are another sure sign. My elderly Jack Russell Terrier sleeps even more than usual, and is even crankier.
The surest sign of summer, however, is when Mr. Maven walks through the kitchen while I’m turning fat, lucious blackberries into jam and says “Gee, why don’t you pick a cooler day to do that?”
“Yes, dear. As soon as they invent berries that grow in the snow.”
I used to let stuff like this annoy me. Now, I understand that it’s another one of those touchstones, like a smooth pebble in your pocket, letting me know that all is well. It’s a reminder that so much ‘other stuff’ could be going on instead.
It’s also a reminder to me, and a cautionary tale to all you younger women out there waiting for the perfect man, that they are and will always be totally clueless about some things, no matter how many times you explain it. Focus on his positive attributes. Focus, focus, focus!
Nothing is more of a sure test of a relationship than buying and setting up electronics.
We finally purchased a Blu Ray player yesterday, after having returned the Wii. We’re in agreement on this: you shouldn’t have to completely unpackage something and read the instruction book to find out that a person with a pacemaker should not be using it.
That’s right. A Wii gaming device should not be used by anybody with an implanted pacemaker. Something about electromagnetic fields, the handheld device and proximity to your chest - where the pacer lives.
He wanted the Wii for the balance board fitness programs. I just wanted to watch Netflix instant movies. So we ‘compromised’ on a Blu Ray. As Mr. Maven remarked, it’s an expensive way to just watch movies, but I’m frustrated with not being able to satisfy the spontaneous need for a movie - usually an old classic. A depressing and frustrating trip through the local Blockbuster store the other night capped it for me.
We brought the Blu Ray home, with ideas of a fast and easy setup, followed by an evening of joyful family movie watching and pizza. We finally got the system linked to our network at about 10:00 p.m. after a lot of fiddling and forced civility.
“Yes, thanks, I DID read the instructions, and that’s NOT what it said to do.”
Final success couldn’t end without so much as a whimper, so we watched a favorite Hitchcock movie, ‘The trouble with Harry’. I totally spaced the Hitchcock cameo appearance in this one.
In this mornings Reno Gazette-Journal, in the usual collection of Op-Ed Letters to the Editor, was one of the best examples of ‘conservative’ vestigal thinking I’ve seen in a while. Read it first, then I’ll explain further.
“It’s very simple on how to improve the economy here in the United States and Nevada: Just bring back manufacturing factories that have been going overseas since the 1980s.
We can’t be a service nation anymore.
Tony Urso, blu ray, industry, jam making, pacemaker in Monday musings Friday, July 9, 2010 at 17:04 Finally, here’s some good news:
Jobs were created at five times the rate predicted by economists.
93,200 jobs created in June, 2010 alone.
Unemployment rates in spring 2010 fell from 8.1 to 7.9 percent.
Home prices rose on average 0.3 in May, 2010.
In fact, home prices could rise an average of 6.8 percent in 2010.
What? Not happening where you live?
No, it’s in that quiet bastion of Socialism to our north, Canada. You know, that place where the banks are still strong - because they were so well regulated and the whole country hadn’t succumbed to a frenzy of Ayn Rand-ism.
Thursday, July 8, 2010 at 22:09 It’s becoming more clear every day that any supposed income growth the likes of you and I have seen over the last 30 years has been largely due to an increasingly steady two-income family model, fanned by real estate and equally illusory stock market bubbles. In other words: smoke and mirrors.
This growing chasm between the after tax income of the wealthiest one percent and well, all the rest of us, is threatening to sink any kind of real economic recovery.
Thank the GOP (mostly) for this, and some of those fine DINO’s (uh, Clinton).
Read this from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities: (see originating site for graphs)
The gaps in after-tax income between the richest 1 percent of Americans and the middle and poorest fifths of the country more than tripled between 1979 and 2007 (the period for which these data are available), according to data the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) issued last week. Taken together with prior research, the new data suggest greater income concentration at the top of the income scale than at any time since 1928.
Thursday, July 8, 2010 at 11:29 First, let’s get this straight: I’m not talking about kids on the sidewalk with their cute pink bikes. I don’t expect them to see me or be aware of their surroundings. When that cyclist is truly old enough to get out on the street, however, and ride with the traffic they have a responsibility to drivers and other cyclists.
I put in between 10 and 20 miles a day on my bike during reasonably good weather. That can be everything from a trip to the store, a doctor appointment or a pleasure ride. I ride all kinds of surface streets with the understanding that I am a wheeled vehicle and subject to the same rules as a driver.
Up til now, I’ve harped on the bad manners of drivers. And, there’s still plenty of that to go around. A week or so ago, A couple drivers thought it smart to speed up to whip around in front of me to get on the freeway or make a simple right turn, when slowing down and easing in from behind would have been the right - and safer - thing to do.
The last few days, I’ve nearly been whacked by other cyclists.
