Health Care Reform, Part 3: Preexisting Conditions

During our trip to New Hampshire, My Sweet Baboo and I spent some time visiting several covered bridges (this is the Coombs Bridge) in the area around Keene. The bridges are all restored, all on the National Historic Register, and all beautiful, but each is slightly different – long vs. short; lattice vs. closed in, and so on. They also have different restrictions on the height and weight of the vehicles that can pass over them.

We returned home yesterday evening and we were hanging with the kids last night, watching the news, and saw a commercial for a regional theme park which has several thrill rides. All of them have different restrictions for height, physical condition, and overall size of the people who are allowed on the ride. So you’re wondering, what does this have to do with health care reform? Well, the rules of the bridges and the rules of the rides are designed to deal with preexisting conditions - the condition of the user.

And, the concept of preexisting conditions is one of the more contentious issues in the health care reform conversation. There is one school of thought, supported by President Obama and many others, that there should be no exclusions for preexisting conditions – everyone should have coverage from day one for any illness or condition they may have, regardless of what it costs them or us to pay for benefit. There’s another school of thought which is that having waiting periods for pre-existing conditions is acceptable.

There is a mountain of horror stories from people who have been denied health insurance benefits for one of these conditions. Folks are always are quick to put the horror stories on the table, especially when cameras are rolling, or a reporter’s hovering nearby, but what’s not talked about quite so much is that there are protections for most of us under the HIPAA regulations, which have been in effect since 1996. For those of us who receive insurance through our employers, waiting periods are limited under these rules, as is the look-back period, which is the time period an insurer can go back into your health records to see if you’ve got any condition that may be considered preexisting.

In the big picture, consequences for preexisting conditions are everywhere in the insurance industry, not just in health insurance. Some of the obvious ones? Risk pools for bad drivers, who have to pay more for their auto insurance. Another example is with life insurance; if you don’t get a physical and disclose your medical history, your benefits may be limited, as with this AARP insurance. Logically, homeowner’s insurance would be more difficult to obtain or more expensive in areas prone to weather issues (hurricanes, tornadoes, or avalanches) or other risk factors - check out these questions. I did try to see if I could get any sense of the added cost if I had five or more smokers living in the house, a wolf hybrid dog, an all-wood home, no alarm system, 10 miles to a fire department, and 3 insurance claims in the past 5 years, vs. the reality (one smoker, darn him; no dogs; an alarm system; a fire hydrant across the street and a fire house five houses down; and no claims ever), but they don’t really offer a comparison online.

The point is, it makes sense, doesn't it, if you take the emotion out of it? Certain of our cars, houses, lives, and illnesses are more risky than others, and either they're going to cost more to cover, or there'll be a reduced benefit until the risk has passed.

Health insurance should not be a thrill ride. All health insurance carriers – mine included – need to follow the rules that govern waiting periods, just as they should follow all of the other rules that govern the industry; that’s a no-brainer. If they don’t, there are consequences, and there are layers of regulatory oversight designed to respond to cases where the carriers are not following the rules, and these should be enforced.

Consumers also should be prepared to follow the rules. Know what your policy says about preexisting conditions (and everything else); understand the consequences of not taking insurance when it's offered to you when you get a job, and also understand the consequences of not taking continued coverage if you're unfortunate and lose your job. If you follow the rules, and it doesn't seem like you're getting what you paid for, take steps to file an appeal, a grievance, an inquiry - whatever it's called under your contract.

Lastly, politicians should be prepared to discuss issues thoughtfully, with an understanding of legislation that's already on the books; they should pay a little less attention to reporters and cameras, and resort much less frequently to scary rhetoric which doesn't move the debate forward. That’s probably me asking for too much, as usual. But -- if the bar is being raised on consumers, and the insurance industry, and the financial industry, and the auto industry, I think we should raise the bar on the politics industry as well.

Health Care Reform, Part 2: The Devil's in the Details

I'll be out of town for the next couple of days -- a quick trip to New Hampshire -- which seems appropriate, in a cosmic kind of way. Spending a couple of days in the Live Free or Die state, while Congress works on health insurance reform, just seems like the right thing to do. Especially since, when they're done, we're not likely to be living free and in fact we may be dying sooner, or dying more, or something like that. I'm guessing the devil's in the details. And as usual, getting the details is proving to be a devil of a chore.

One version of a draft bill is over 1000 pages. Pretty safe to say that most of the folks in the House or Senate, whichever version this is, will not even read much less understand what's included at anything more than a 500,000 foot level. And I will say right from the get-go that I have no idea what's included in the bill either - I can only read, and listen, and try to learn. Naturally, anyone I want to read, listen to or learn from will have a partisan opinion, so there are not a lot of options for normal folks like us to really get a straight view of things.

That being said, here are some of the things that I'm catching wind of, through a whole host of outlets:

• Congress apparently is excluding themselves from the proposed government option. If you ask me, this is a bad sign. Not an uncommon one, I think, but a bad one.


• The House plan may prevent new private health insurance policies to be written after the full legislation is effective. Hmm... if the point is to merely offer a government option to promote competition, why does it sound like that may be the only option?


• Many of the people chiming in on the conversation have indicated that we need to stop having insurance company bean counters making health care decisions. Yet, if we listen to the President himself, he's looking for a plan that will not pay for multiple tests when one test will do; he's also looking to incent docs and other health care providers to provide 'the best care' not 'the most care'. If that's not 'bean counter' language, I don't know what is.


• We have heard a lot about the 'insurance exchange' where many different options will be available either for companies or even individuals. What I don't know is, how do we offer that marketplace of carriers, when each state has their own labyrinth of laws governing what carriers can offer coverage in which jurisdiction?


• End of life care is another hot topic without a lot of detail. What really will happen to older, sicker Americans? Is someone going to be doing a cost-benefit analysis on their care?

There are a number of questions that need to be asked, and answered, before anyone votes on a bill for health care reform. All of us need to be educated, so that we understand how whatever the end result is impacts our insurance coverage, our taxes, our benefits, and our livelihoods. If you have insurance, or you don't; if you work for an insurance carrier like I do, or a small business; if you make gads of money or something less than gads - you're going to be impacted by this legislation.

Clearly there are opportunities for reform - and I do support reform, even thought I work for an evil health insurance company. There's lot of room for improvement in costs, in quality, and in coverage. But if you think for a minute that we are going to get reform without having to pay for it, or if you think that reform will come free from painful cost-containment decisions, including denial of care under some circumstances, you're fooling yourselves.

The devil's in the details, and we have to make sure someone's paying attention to them. Why not have that someone be you?

Health Care Reform (Part 1)

Right now, Organizing for America is encouraging me to be among 1,000,000 Americans to publicly proclaim my support of the President’s plan for health care reform. The plan, you know, which was originally supposed to be a done deal before the August recess, but now looks to be done ‘better, rather than sooner’ in the political parlance, which means I can safely go to New Hampshire for a couple of days next week and not have the world be completely different when I get back.

Organizing for America is now a ‘project’ of the Democratic National Committee, but it’s really the backbone of the Obama campaign for President – the Internet donors, the Tupperware-style Obama parties, the email campaigns, the ‘let’s watch him on TV together’ meetings, and so on. Even today, every email I get from OfA includes a way for me to part with my hard-earned cash in support of whatever we support.

So, back to that 1,000,000 supporters of the President’s Plan thingy – did I sign myself up? Nope. Did I send any money? Nope. Do I know what I want to see out of health care reform? Nope...well, kinda. I think I know better what I don’t want to see out of health care reform: I don't want to lose my job.

You see, I have a confession to make. I’m an employee of an evil, untrustworthy insurance company that’s trying to derail health care reform . At least, that’s what my hometown newspaper thinks. To paraphrase Sally Field, "they don't like us, they really don't like us". It's apparently what my own Senator, Chuck Schumer, thinks of me too.. After all, “we don’t trust the private insurance companies left to their own devices, and neither do the American people” he said. It’s also what my President thinks of me too – he talks about “…force(ing) the insurance companies to compete and keep them honest…” in some of his remarks.

(For now, I’ll ignore the idiocy of politicians badmouthing anything – animal, vegetable, or mineral – on the trust factor. After all I’m admittedly jaded on this point. I live in New York, home of the most dysfunctional state legislature, and one where earlier this month the Dems pretty basically committed a felony by bribing one of their most ethically-challenged members to come back into the fold, after the Reps pretty basically committed a felony by bribing him to cross the aisle in the first place. Criminal charges are not likely – but they would be well-received, if anyone had the courage to file them. See here , here , and here for more of my humble opinion on this subject.)

Sorry, I digress…back to health care. I work for a regional not-for-profit carrier (yes, we’re Blue) that is actively trying to educate employees and our elected officials about the potential risk for our future if our government gets any further into the health care business than they are already. Clearly, a company of our makeup – again, we’re regional, and we’re not-for-profit – is not in the same position as, say, a United or an Aetna. And so, we have basically two options. Sit and do nothing, waiting on the sidelines for the shoe to drop, or we can try and get our view heard by our legislators, just as the huge national carriers can, and the American Medical Association, and AARP, and our BlueCross BlueShield Association, and a whole host of other organizations who are trying to have a say in how this plays out.

So, my company took the step of asking us to sign postcards to be delivered en masse to Senators Schumer and Gillebrand, suggesting that any health care reform bill the Senate comes up with strike a balance “between what government can do, and what private companies do best.” Pretty subversive, don’t you think? An employer trying to get a point across; trying to encourage us, as employees, to get engaged in the conversation? Oh, the humanity!

Was it a self-serving gesture? Probably. A lobbying effort? Sure – we’re not stupid. What would be stupid is the first option described above –sitting and doing nothing while the debate rages around us. I don't want to lose my job because of health care reform. It may not happen, but it might. And I hope that some one's at least thinking about that as they try to come up with a plan.

Woe are us?

The other day at work, we had what’s called a ‘close encounter’, which is an opportunity for folks to meet in small groups with one of our senior executives, get the view from the top, and ask or say pretty much anything we want. One of the things that made this one interesting was a comment made by one of my co-workers who had spent much of his life living in other places, both in New York and around the country. He didn’t have a solution, or really a question – just an observation - that of all the places he’s lived, Syracuse has the most downer attitude he’s ever seen. It’s as if we think we have nothing going for us – and so, sadly, we act accordingly.

Our group had some conversation on this topic; whether we thought it was true (we did); whether it was just our area, or if it included the other areas spanned by our parent organization (just our area); and whether we had any ideas about why. The local media was mentioned as a possible focal point; another was our blue-collar history, now facing tough times as we lose manufacturing jobs; and of course the weather – we are, after all, the perpetual winner of the Golden Snowball and have just come off our rainiest June in decades. The discussion then turned to how we deal with that kind of attitude at work, and the challenge from the executive to do what we could to combat it, individually, with our staff and with our peers.

Since we had that conversation on Wednesday, I’ve given it more than a passing thought. Was I personally guilty as charged? Did I perpetuate the negative even in the face of the many positives around us? I laugh quite a bit, find humor in things that others may miss; but even so, I decided that I’d try and keep myself honest on this at work, focus on the positive, and try and keep my innate sarcasm and cynicism at bay. I also decided I’d see what the world looked like if I were to keep a positive attitude for the entire weekend.

Can I tell you, I didn’t encounter a single miserable person the whole weekend? My Sweet Baboo and I spent hours Saturday at the Syracuse Nationals where we saw maybe half of the almost 7000 cars that made the trip. Not a single person was grumpy there – probably because it’s hard to be grumpy looking at cars of every old make and model, every color under the sun (and some that were made up, I’m sure), and every style of pin-striping and ghost flames you can imagine. Besides, many of the cars look like they're looking back at you - which makes it harder to keep from grinning at them.

On the way home, we stopped off at a local church festival to pick up some Middle Eastern food and sweets. There, a few teenagers were helping explain what the food items were, getting orders ready, being very patient with both young and old, with not a groan or mutter to be heard. We went grocery shopping today, and not a single person I interacted with seemed unhappy. We also hit Lowe’s for mulch and a couple other things, and again, not a disparaging word was heard, no frowns to be found. We even went to a dollar store for some shiny Mylar to scare deer out of the garden, and even there, everyone seemed to be in pretty good spirits. At the dollar store!

This seemed out of the ordinary – we never go through this type of weekend, with lots of public contact, without encountering at least one person who is abjectly miserable. Then I got to thinking, maybe people weren’t abjectly miserable because I was on my best behavior. If I’m being grumpy, that likely rubs off on others. If they’re being grumpy, that will inevitably shade my interaction with them. All the sudden, it seemed like there was something to this whole idea of positive thinking. Maybe I don’t need to carry a Taser when I go to the grocery store, which My Sweet Baboo’s sister BeeJuhTay suggested might make the trip go a little better. Maybe I only need to remember to bring my smile. Hmm…I hope it'll fit in my purse.

Here are some pictures from the car show. Viewers beware – you may find yourself smiling as you look at these!

PPOD 7/13/09: The 24% Solution

I'm guessing that most New Yorkers would have to think pretty long and hard to remember the last time (the first time?) we got a 24% raise...with six months of retroactivity thrown in. But that's exactly what happened, on average, for eleven Senate staffers. According to the New York Daily News, several senior staffers got nice raises at the same time the BiCauFoF seized power and became the short-lived majority.

Among the recipients of the raises was a legislative analyst who received a 51% increase, a special assistant (I guess so!) to John Sampson who got a 46% increase, two deputy secretaries who each got over 30%, the administrative assistant to John Sampson, a 28% bump, and oh yes - the counsel for Latino and immigrant affairs, who got a mere 10% increase.

While on the whole the raises for these staffers will cost us only about $200,000 in annual salary, it's really not the money that is my Pet Peeve of the Day. It's the audacity, and it's the particularly ridiculous comment of Austin Shafran, the press secretary, who likely said this with a straight face: "... because of the budget crisis and the general fiscal uncertainty of the state, the decision was made to delay the allocation of some of the salary increases." The entire story is here in the Albany Times Union's Capitol Confidential blog.

Seems to me that things aren't much different now at the All-Star break than they were back in June when these increases went into effect. The budget crisis, the overall fiscal condition of the state - pretty much the same as they were, except we're a month later in the year and have had to deal with the foolishness of our elected officials.

Amazingly, at a time when the Senate was not able to do any of our business, they managed to take care of their own. At a time when New Yorkers are losing their jobs, and unions are taking wage and benefit concessions to keep working, our senators find a way to give someone a 51% salary increase.

This could be my PPOD any day of the week.

Open Letter to all New York State senators

I’m willing to pretend for a minute that I don’t think you’re all self-serving, what’s-in-it-for-me-thinking, party- over-all, damn-my-constituents, full-speed-ahead goofballs; you pretend to be honest; and we’ll pretend to have a conversation.

Here are two simple questions for which only a yes or no answer is required:

1. If you are a Democrat, do you approve of Pedro Espada as your majority leader?
2. If you are a Republican, will you admit that your party is for sale to the highest bidder?

There, that wasn’t so hard, was it?

At this point, after the month of nonsense we've been subjected to, most of us in the Empire State are not really that concerned about who gets to bring bills to the floor, or who gets how big a legislative staff, or who has the biggest office. Truth be told, we don’t care who’s in charge of the playground that is our State Legislature. What we are concerned about are the budget, the economy as a whole, the unfair distribution of taxes, special deals for people who don’t need them, unfunded mandates, fees, and surcharges that are killing businesses large and small in our state, our backwards way of funding education through property taxes, whether or not we’ll allow gay marriage, health care, and so on down the line. These are the things that you were ignoring while you were pretending to work on 'reform'.

What many of us are dealing with, in case you’ve been so completely wrapped up in your games in Albany that you’ve forgotten, are the actual or potential loss of our jobs; temporary pay cuts; forced shortened work weeks; loss of current or future benefits; and of course the increased fees, taxes, and costs that you and your brethren are imposing upon us. I’m thinking you need to feel some of the pain that we’re feeling. So here are a few more easy questions, again a simple yes or no answer is all that’s needed:

1. Will you immediately and permanently give up your lulu, the added thousands of dollars you’re paid above and beyond your salary? The rest of us don’t get these types of payments; if we were lucky enough to be eligible for a bonus, most of us have lost them.2. Will you immediately and permanently give up the per-diem payments you receive for going to work? Again, your constituents don’t get this type of pay, particularly not for a volunteer job. Besides, with your salaries, you should be able to afford to buy your own lunch. Or, like us, you can bring it from home.
3. Are you willing to immediately reduce your staff and office costs by 20%, or furlough your staff for 20% of their work hours, without pay? This is the kind of thing that many New Yorkers have been forced to do.

And I have one last question for you. Your ability to ‘bring home the bacon’, something of which you all are pretty proud, is primarily a tool to ensure you get re-elected, but guess what? The money to pay for the bacon comes out of our pockets, and they’re pretty empty these days.
So: will you give up – completely give up – the so-called member items for your district, and include all requests for funding as line items in the State budget?

An honest, on-the-record answer to these questions is requested.

Thanks.

PPOD 7/9/09: I'm at a loss for words

They made him the majority leader.

PPOD 7/5/09: America's Front Yard

Last night while My Sweet Baboo and I were watching the news, filled with stories on how America celebrated our Independence Day, we watched in amazement a story about the National Mall and the fact that it needs $400-$500 million in repairs, at least a 10-year backlog of deferred maintenance. The last major overhaul was done for the bicentennial in 1976. That makes this my Pet Peeve of the Day (PPOD) - how can we let stuff like this happen?

About 25 million people visit the Mall each year – according to the National Park Service, this is more than Yosemite, the Grand Canyon, and Yellowstone parks combined. And that’s likely in a normal year, not an extraordinary year such as this, with 1.8 million attending the Obama inauguration alone. In addition to inaugurations, there’s the Cherry Blossom Festival, the July 4th celebration, Veterans Day ceremonies, and a whole host of other festivities occurring on the Mall.

The list of repairs is monumental (pun intended), ranging from additional bathrooms to supplement the 100+ that are already there; more food kiosks (natch), new sod; and something to stop the flooding at high tide near the Jefferson Memorial. High tide flooding at the National Mall? Never even occurred to me...

Beyond the repairs, the Mall suffers from the same overlapping jurisdictional issues that plague our country at every level. Both the House and the Senate have multiple committees with oversight; there are planning agencies, and review boards, and authorities – by the time you add them all up, there are some 30 or so different ‘overseers’ for the National Mall. This report outlines all of them, as well as some interesting plans to prepare the mall for the future.

The Mall is also politicized, which is not surprising given the fragmented oversight. Initially, there was quite a bit of TARP money – $200 million or so – for repairs. However, that’s been reduced to about $55 million, because of the usual barking that occurs when we talk about spending tax payer dollars. The needs for the Mall were trivialized -- as if the entire $200 million were to be spent on grass seed. And as far as jobs, who does this goofball think would be doing the work, the Keebler elves?

I’m with this guy - we can’t spend 1/150th of what we’re spending in stimulus funds on roads to fix up America’s front yard? Give me a break. Regardless of whether we end up with a master plan - which sounds logical - and fewer jurisdictions - which also sounds logical - we need to do something to bring the National Mall back to its rightful prominence and beauty. Otherwise, we might as well just build a WalMart.

Blooming Plants, Blooming Idiots

This is Michael T, nestled in his favorite hiding spot in the euonymus. I caught him settling down for a nap yesterday, which was a beautiful sunny day to be wandering around our garden.

Surprisingly, things still seem to holding up OK, given all of the rain we've had lately. I have to say, however, that things are not blooming according to plan. For instance, My Sweet Baboo has some 20-year-old mums, and they are already flowering. In June. Who woulda thunk it?

Here are some additional pictures of the garden.



But, as you know, my garden is not the only thing that's blooming. There are these guys, in Albany, who still haven't figured out who's in charge, what their BiCauFoF is all about, what they're in charge of, and they certainly don't remember why they're in Albany in the first place. All talk of reform aside, they're still goofballs, and we deserve better. Chalk these folks up as the blooming idiots of this post's title.

Sue

The Man in the Mirror

Day Three: the death of Michael Jackson. On your TV, radio, internet newsfeeds, blogs, magazines, newspapers, and just about everywhere else, we’re in King of Pop overdrive. Yesterday at Home Depot, a gentleman a few years older than My Sweet Baboo rang up my purchase, and as we were walking away, he said to another employee (of his same generation) “Hey Bill, it’s been what, 20 minutes since we heard a Michael Jackson song on the radio? That’s the longest they’ve gone all day!” The two of them chuckled, and to be honest so did MSB and I. It was pretty clear that the four of us fell on the ‘less is more’ side of MJ coverage, but it feels like we’re in the minority. Here's another illustration: later yesterday afternoon, sitting in the nail salon, everyone who was talking was talking about him – their favorite videos or songs, or what he meant to them. Some of the folks who were talking about him were only about 15 or 16 years old, yet they had their own very vivid ‘Michael memories’ just the same.

Thursday started out pretty unremarkably. I was on vacation, and MSB, Jim and Mare had all taken the day off. We visited a few west-shore Cayuga Lake and east-shore Seneca Lake wineries, stopped at a great place for lunch on a deck overlooking a beautiful little perennial garden, and then swung around through Watkins Glen and headed up the west side of Seneca for a few more stops. We got rain only at the very end – and a huge rain it was – but it ended quickly and the ride home was an uneventful end to a great day. It was only later that night, when I went online to check emails that I learned we had lost both MJ and Farrah Fawcett.

So what to make of these two now eternally-linked passages? Farrah had lost a lengthy battle with cancer, one made all the more maddening by the tabloid coverage that she fought almost as fiercely as she did the illness which eventually took her life. For some reason, I was more moved by scenes of her and Ryan O’Neal (taken from the recent documentary of her struggle with cancer) than I have been by any image or story of MJ that I’ve seen, including sentiments pouring in from all over the world; call me sentimental, but I’m a sucker for an endearing love story, I guess. Maybe it’s a blessing that she died the same day as MJ – her friends and family will be able to grieve outside the spotlight, in peace and surrounded by love, while everyone else focuses their attention elsewhere.

Michael Jackson also fought a lengthy battle – but he was his own worst enemy. Somewhere along the way, the cute little kid who sang and danced his heart out back in the late sixties and early seventies became a grotesque caricature. There’s no doubt that his was an extraordinary talent; we immediately recognize his songs, and his trademark dance moves, and the one glove and the short pants and sparkly socks. He inspired the same kind of devotion and fanaticism that the Beatles and Elvis did, and his death, in the way that only a handful could, has seemingly caused the world to stop for a bit.

He was the self-proclaimed King of Pop, but for the past 25 years or more, MJ has been as famous for making news as for making music. We immediately recognize the picture of him sleeping in a hyperbaric oxygen chamber; the face masks he wore as accessories; his ever-changing appearance; his ‘marriages’ to Lisa Marie Presley and to Debbie Rowe; his kids, always with their faces covered (as if they had something to hide); and Neverland. We remember the allegations of bad behavior, and we think (even though he was acquitted) that it’s likely he could have done what he was accused of because of the general weirdness of the life he lived.

I was not aware until only very recently that he was making a comeback – and I learned of that at the same time I learned that he had taken to wearing designer clothes...women’s designer clothes. Doesn’t make his attempted comeback any less impressive, it just shows to go you that he couldn’t help himself. In his own words, from my favorite MJ song, The Man in the Mirror: “I’ve been a victim of a selfish kind of love.” How sad that line seems now.

The More Things Change...

My Uncle David and Aunt Alice celebrated their fiftieth wedding anniversary on Saturday. My Sweet Baboo and I, my Mom and her sister, my Aunt Betty, represented the western branch of the family at the festivities.

Mom had come over to the Valley Garden Bed & Breakfast and Gardening Dude Ranch on Friday afternoon, while I was still working. She got to enjoy one side of an unintelligible conference call -- trying to figure out why I, as a high powered insurance executive and someone who can barely clean up cat vomit without gagging, would be performing 'triage' on anything -- but was almost certainly more amused by a female cardinal taking a puddle bath in the folds of a tarp, her bright red beak flashing, as I babbled with one of my counterparts in our Rochester office.

Saturday morning, we headed off to Fulton to pick up Betty and then make our way to the village Crown Point, which is on Lake Champlain north of Ticonderoga. I hadn't been in that neck of the woods since I was a kid; I have a vague recollection of being at Fort Ticonderoga with the family when we were younger, but likely 'remember' it from having heard about the trip over the years, rather than as an actual memory. The same was true for My Sweet Baboo -- he hadn't been there in probably at least 25 or 30 years either. For the older gals, they remember the area differently, as my grandparents had lived in the neighborhood at some point; Mom & Dad also had stopped in that neck of the woods on trips to or from their time-share in Vermont.

The party itself was held at the church, just down the road from my Uncle David's house. There was tons of food, lots of old pictures of Dave & Alice and the family, and of course there was lots of family too, which is what makes these things fun. Or agony. Or something in between.

The agony comes in the shape of old photographs. Anyone who knows me knows that I do not like having my picture taken - never have - and so there aren't a ton of pictures of me around. At least I don't think there are. Nice people don't pull them out. But - yep - you guessed it. David, who until this past weekend has always been my favorite Uncle (OK, he's still my favorite), managed to pull out an awful picture of me from the late 70's or early 80's. My glasses are the size of coffee mugs - not thick like Coke bottles, but HUGE in circumference. I can't imagine ever wearing anything like that, but apparently that was what was available at the time, and considered stylish. At one point. By someone.

Not by my cousin Gary; he informed me that he thought they 'might have been in style, for about three weeks, the month before I bought them.' We had some fun with the picture, and the giant glasses; in fact, we tried to find similar pairs on other people in the retrospective DVD that played in a corner of the room, or on people who were at the party, since everything old is new again...

The DVD presented another moment, one that in hindsight I should have been prepared for, but wasn't. While several of my generation were watching it and chatting, there was a close shot of my aunt & uncle, and then it pulled back a little and Mom was standing to the left, and it pulled back a little more and Dad was standing on the right. I don't know if I expected there not to be any pictures of him, or if it's because it was Father's Day weekend. All I know is, boy did it take me by surprise. Happy surprise, but two years later, even the happy surprises are still tinged with sadness.

It was fun to see my cousins. As with many families, I think, we tend to be an 'event-driven' gang. Weddings, graduations, anniversaries, and funerals are the reasons why we get together, but we always manage to find ways to pick up conversations again, even if it's been years since we last talked. It was also particularly good for Mom and Aunt Betty to be together with David, and with one of their childhood friends who came down for the party. Mom, who'll be 79 next month, Betty, who's 83, and David, who's 70 or 71, don't get to spend enough time together. After the party ended, the three of them went wandering off around town looking for the old farm and other points of interest from their past.

So. The more things change, the more they stay the same? When it comes to family, I think that is the case. We're still the same people we were when we were younger, all of us. Lives are different, don't get me wrong - but we're the same people. My uncle still loves me -- after all, he did give me the glasses picture, so at least I can control when it gets shown (never) and to whom (no one). He and Alice have been married for fifty years, and have renewed their vows in advance of the next fifty. My cousins are maybe married, and maybe divorced; they may have kids who are growing up and establishing themselves in their own right. Those of us that were irreverent as youngsters are still very much so; our familial sarcasm is at our beck and call just as it was some 40 years ago. And collectively, we clean a mean kitchen! Time apart doesn't really change things for us.

Those glasses, well, that was one thing that changed for the better!

Sue

The Value Proposition (part 3): The Land of Enchantment

Some of the fun of all this nonsense in Albany is trying to make sense of what everyone’s saying. After all, there’s nothing like a paper trail, or audio trail, to keep things on the up and up.

One of the comments I thought was interesting in the press release from Dean Skelos, the new Vice President Pro Tem and Majority Leader of the Senate and its new Bipartisan Caucus For Our Future (BiCauFoF) was the note that they’re not in this thing alone. Other states, including New Mexico, Alaska, Texas and Tennessee, are going the bipartisan route. So, just for fun, I decided to see what I could find out about these other legislatures.

First up was Alaska. They’ve had a coalition-governed Senate since 2006, when some Republicans joined with the Democrats. The President (Republican) and Senate Majority Leader (Democrat) are both members of the coalition, and the Minority Leader (Republican) is not. Interestingly, instead of only two rogues, Alaska looks to be much more of a coalition than what we’re passing off in Albany.

I couldn’t find a lot of details on how Texas is like NY’s new BiCauFoF but I did find information pointing to the recent successful session, including a balanced budget, increased funding for education, and tax cuts for small businesses. Admittedly this is likely a somewhat biased take on things, since it came out of the body that’s getting its collective back patted. Here’s another take on it, including reader comments expressing fears of Texas being “the laughing stock of the nation.” Rest assured, Lone Star Staters, that honor will be ours, I can promise you.

New Mexico proved to be much more interesting and very different from what we're used to here. My Sweet Baboo and I have actually been to the Round House (pictured above), the home of the New Mexico State Legislature, in Sante Fe. Not only is the building different, everything is different. Here's a little comparison between the Land of Enchantment and The Empire State. Much of this information comes from The National Conference of State Legislatures.

Legislator Salary:
New Mexico: $0
New York: $79,500 base, plus committee lulu

Per diem for showing up to work:
New Mexico: $144
New York: yep, they get one of those, too, in addition to the salary & lulu

Length of legislative session:
New Mexico: 60 days in odd-numbered years; 30 days in even-numbered years
New York: started this year on January 7th; scheduled to end soon (we can only hope)

Number of members in the Legislature:
New Mexico: 112
New York: 212

Here’s what they accomplished in New Mexico: cut spending in all state agencies, transferred money from other funds into the general fund, and closed a $454 million budget deficit for this year. Then, they balanced the new fiscal year budget through federal stimulus money and legislative restraint – something pretty much unheard of around here. And they passed a little bit of ethics reform, including limiting campaign contributions and opening critical committees to the public.

So what can we learn from all of this? Clearly New Mexico and New York are vastly different in terms of size, population, and issues. What the Legistatures should have in common, thought, is putting the best interests of the State first, then their own constituent interests somewhere further down the line, and at the very end of the line, their own self-serving interests.

This doesn't seem like too much to ask. And it doesn't seem to be the kind of thing that requires some manufactured 'majority rule' to make it happen.

A Perfect Weekend

I'm not at all sure what they were doing in Albany yesterday and today - probably working on the Bipartisan Caucus For Our Future (BiCauFoF), or at least working on Hiram what's his name (the one with the slashing charge hanging over his head) to make sure he stays in the fold. Last seen, he was walking out of the Senate leaving the BiCauFoF behind and the new reform majority in doubt.

My Sweet Baboo and I, on the other hand, spent two days in the garden and while we are exhausted, the fruits of our labor are clearly visible. Pruning, transplanting, weeding, mulching, watering, fencing (more him than me) putting a few last perennials, and getting the lawn mowed were our priorities.

We have roses, poppies, grasses, dianthus, coleus, geum, guara, coral bells, coreopsis, geraniums, sedums, spirea, peonies, brooms, flax, butterfly weeds, lilies, alliums, lavender, coneflowers, lupines, irises, spiderwort, red hot pokers, yarrow, bee balm, potentilla, veronica, salvia, poppy mallow, evening primrose, ferns, hostas, clematis, artemesia, yarrow, hollyhock, daisies, and I don't know what all else either here, on the way, or just winding down.

Here are the latest photos -- enjoy!

The Value Proposition (part 2): Sanctimony

Most voting-age New Yorkers, regardless of their politics, can identify with Sanctimony and his cousins Self-righteousness, Pomposity, and Hypocrisy. Sadly, we can do this because we’re so darn familiar with all of them coming to visit us from Albany, our capital and the home of America’s most dysfunctional state legislature. The Brennan Center report has been updated since it was originally issued in 2004, but sadly the performance of our Legislature has not. To wit, we have this week’s antics.

On Monday, two ethically challenged Democrats joined with the Republican minority to seize the State Senate and craft what’s being referred to as a bipartisan coalition. One of them is under investigation for campaign finance issues, possible misuse of taxpayer money, and he may not even live in the district he represents. There are additional issues with his proposed ‘member items’ and the fact that they were not approved by the party leadership, making him ripe for jumping to the other side. The other allegedly slashed his girlfriend’s face in an argument (although she says it was an accident). The fact that the two Dems were previously objects of derision by their new-found Republican friends (some even called for their resignation) apparently doesn’t matter when the value proposition is based on ‘what’s good for me must be good for New York’.

Another key player in the coup was the billionaire Thomas Golisano. Noted for his many significant charitable contributions as well as his unsuccessful political career, Golisano recently announced he was moving to Florida to save almost $14,000 a day in taxes. As a former New Yorker (and long-time backer of reform) he was frustrated with the lack of action on the part of the Dems he supported, as well as apparently miffed by a Crackberry in the hands of the Majority leader.

A non-player in all of this is our Accidental Governor, who has no choice but to sit back and hope that all of the dust settles, and quickly, so that the ctirical business of New York State can continue. He’ll be staying put in Albany until this all gets straightened out, since one result of the coup is a new lack of clarity around succession. Normally it would be the lieutenant governor, but he's currently the Governor because of the whole Client #9 mess. Next in line would be the president of the Senate, but now we don't know for sure who that is. Hope the Gov didn't have plans for the weekend.

So, with all of this nonsense, why do I think this value proposition is sanctimony? Let me count the ways.

1. The Republicans had control of the Senate for decades and failed to introduce any meaningful reform; the chances that they will do so now, and the emphasis is on meaningful reform, is slim given that it’s basically the same cast of incumbents, including our local Senator for Life who had the honor of swearing in part of the new leadership.


2. The new rules they released are hardly as bipartisan as they pretend, and hardly as fair as they pretend. For example, just about everything in the rules that refers to the minority party indicates that it will be ‘no less than 33%’. I think I saw only one mention stating anything about proportional distribution based on representation. Wouldn’t it have been nice to see something like 50-50? 51-49? Even 60-40? We’ve clearly seen that ‘majority rules’, regardless of party, doesn’t work for us; it controls (and by nature limits) debate, it discourages consensus, and it promotes retaliation against the dissenters. Just ask Mike Bragman.


3. They are professing that this coup is also about Latino empowerment, because of the ethnic background of the rogues. Sadly, I believe that’s merely a convenient accident, rather than a goal, of this new coalition. Two possibly indictable goofballs do not an empowered movement make. Latinos must demand better. We all should demand better.


4. While they do look to install term limits on the leadership and committee positions, there’s no mention of term limits as a whole. So, it looks like a coalition member can chair one committee for eight years – then chair another committee for eight years, and so on. Not seeing this as real reform; seems more like shuffling (and stacking) the deck – in other words, more of the same.


5. There’s been a complete lack of sincerity coming out of any of the players in the time since the coup; rather, it’s been a gloating, gleeful, chest-thumping noise that detracts from the professed goals.

Do I hope that eventually, somehow, we manage to get off the top of the Brennan Center list? Sure – all New Yorkers do. Would I express the same opinions if the shoe was on the other foot, and the Dems had coerced a couple of rogue Republicans to play Red Rover? Sure – because I doubt the sincerity of any of them.

I have a friend who uses the phrase ‘noodling around’ to describe the process of digging around, determining magnitude or root cause, or just doing some thinking on something. I don’t pretend for a minute that I have the intellectual wherewithal to figure this mess out – but I do have time, while we wait for the coalition to coalesce, to do some noodling around on some of the comments that have been coming out of Albany in the past couple of days. Next up: New Mexico…

The Value Proposition, Part 1

We had a seminar at work this past week, one in a continuing series of ‘Reality Training’ sessions led by some consultants we’ve been working with for the past few years. Like many companies, we rely on consultants to help us do things we know we should do, or may already have tried to do (but without success). Sometimes the added oomph of an outside expert is enough to tip the scales in success’s favor, I guess- I’m not sure. Either way, we individually engage fully with the consultants that the company has engaged en masse. I try to have fun and learn something from these engagements.

The ones who did our session on Wednesday are helping us transition from being ‘managers’ to being ‘leaders’, helping to change the company from the inside at the same time we manage to change the company on the outside for our customers. This is a lofty goal, of course – and one which they think we’re doing well at, which is good for the long term survival of our company and (hopefully) my continued employment.

One of the things we got to talking about in our session is customer service. It’s a cornerstone of our industry – we have call centers across upstate New York. At our place, another of our lofty goals is to offer ‘best in class’ Customer Service. That’s not the official name of it, but you get the picture. Customer Service (with capital letters) is all about the value proposition for each customer.

Pretend that I'm typical. As a consumer, I expect a great, if not invisible, experience in all of my interactions with my ‘partners’. My partners are my banks, my grocery stores, my hair and nail salons, my online shopping emporiums, and so on. For me, a great experience includes a few key components:

• I don’t want to have a problem doing whatever it is I’m trying to accomplish.
• I want to be able to self-serve as much as possible.
• I should be able to engage with my partners when it’s convenient for me (not just for them). Clearly there are exceptions, such as a wine tasting, for example, but generally I want to do things on my terms at my convenience.
• I really don’t want to have to ask anyone to fix something, because that means the first two bullets haven’t been met and those are the most critical for me.
• When I do need assistance I want the call, email exchange, or personal encounter to be friendly, helpful, efficient and complete.

Each customer has a different value proposition. Some people want to call every time they have a question; some want to call simply to rant and rave if something goes wrong; some (like me) never want to call at all. Clearly, the ‘value proposition’ for me is having everything either be perfect, be as close to perfect as possible, or at least close enough so I can live with it, otherwise I’m off finding a new place to do business. Happily, the vast majority of my customer experiences have been very positive; in fact, the majority of them are, otherwise I’d vote with my feet (or fingers) and find some new partners.

For a company like mine, learning all of the ins and outs of the value proposition, and managing those expectations, is a complex challenge, but one that’s critical if we’re to succeed. The same holds true for any business, and it also holds true in politics, whether on the local, state, national, or world stage. Not surprisingly, I have some thoughts on that…

Garden Therapy

My apologies - I've been neglecting you... and myself. My writing has taken a back seat for the past couple of weeks to my 'other therapy' - garden therapy.

As I mentioned back in February, both MSB and I spend the winter devouring catalogs from our favorite plant places, and then we separately place our orders for new perennials to fill in the gaps in our existing gardens, or to populate the new beds we simply must have. Then, spring comes, the boxes start arriving (much to the chagrin of the UPS and FedEx drivers). Typically we get the plants either while we're on vacation, or just when we return, and we have a flurry of activity trying to get everything sorted, watered and reconditioned after shipping, and then in the ground as quickly as reasonably possible.

Both of us had new beds to put in this year. I started mine on our last day of vacation, when it ended up being 92 degrees. That is not the best weather to dig a new garden, trust me - especially a bed for sun-loving perennials, and one that required removing roots the size of my arm and as long as my leg. By the time it was all dug, turned, and ready for planting, I was still waiting for plants. For almost two weeks, the garden sat there in anticipation, waiting for something to happen other than a constant bombardment with maple tree 'helicopters'. Eventually, everything arrived; we made a few side trips to local plant shops, and I had enough little ones in the garden to feel comfortable. Down went the mulch. And out came the sun. And more sun, and more sun.

Evenings when I would have been writing, or at least thinking about writing, were spent watering - carefully and conservatively, of course - so that all my hard work wouldn't go to waste. Fortunately, my new mini roses, scabiosa, dwarf delphiniums, geraniums, verbascum, and all the rest, are doing well - and of course we've just had several days of rain, so they're actually coming along nicely.

So are the other gardens. The new daffs were great this year, all 300+ of them; the tulips were pretty good considering they're a few years old and not as prolific as when they're new; and now the roses and lavender have buds, the salvia is blooming, and of course, it's iris season too. Seemed like as soon as I changed from the tulip porch flag to the iris one, I triggered the blooms.

Even with all the rain we've had, they're holding up pretty well. Hopefully you'll understand where I've been, and I'll be able to get back on track with the pastiche.

Sue

Charitable Giving

I got mail today from our local United Way, letting me know I was now a ‘Diamond Donor’. Apparently, I’ve been donating to the United Way for over 25 years. I had no idea.

I’ll never forget my first United Way campaign. I was a kid, home from college with my tail between my legs, living at home and grossing $140 a week working as a microfilmer at the headquarters of a local industrial laundry. The owner of the company, a self-made man, had a heart of gold from a charitable perspective, but lacked virtually all humanity as an employer. My favorite example was when he issued a memo to staff advising us that there were 168 hours in week (who knew?!) and frankly, if it took all of them for us to do our job, so be it – but we shouldn’t expect anything more in our paychecks. He once asked one of the VPs to fire an accountant because the accountant failed to deliver a necktie to the boss at his summer home in Massachusetts, causing the boss to have to wear for the second time a tie he’d already worn once to a charity event.

At the time, UW used to provide companies with a short movie that showed how our donations were used in the local community. As this was my first job, I didn’t know what to expect, but one of the accountants caught me beforehand and let me know that there was no talking during the movie, or there would be hell to pay. Well, sure enough – there was talking, and there was hell to pay. We had made it about half-way through, and someone in the back started talking, or snickering at something on the screen. A glare came from the front of the room, but the talking did not stop.

What did stop was the movie. So there we were -- us from the ‘upstairs office’, people from the plant office, and factory workers and truck drivers – standing in the dark, no one saying a word, afraid to move. We looked like a bunch of kids, waiting to get yelled at, staring at our toes. When it was completely quiet, somehow the old man gave the signal without saying a word, and the projector sprang to life. We were back at the beginning of the movie, and watched the entire thing through to the end without a peep.

The lights were turned on, the pledge cards distributed, and once we had marked our cards with our donation, we were allowed to go back to work. When it came to the United Way at that company, there was really no option other than giving. I know we had a choice – everyone has a choice – but at the time the choice wasn’t give or not, it was how much to give. I remember one woman did not want to donate (for valid personal reasons) and she had to meet with her boss, then his boss, then his boss and finally the executive vice president to explain herself. She didn’t stick with the company very long.

Donating has been significantly less memorable since way back in 1978 when I gave the first time. I’ve missed a few years in between – job changes and whatnot – but I’m still surprised that when it’s all added up, it’s over 25 years. Like gray hairs, I guess -- after the first memorable few, you just don’t pay as much attention to them anymore.

Speaking of which, it’s time for me to make a hair appointment!

Sue

Blue Ridge Memories, Part 3

Our house in the Valley was built in about 1905. Biltmore opened in 1895. We have multiple gardens. Biltmore has multiple gardens. And that’s about where the similarities end.

Biltmore, one of the homes of George Washington Vanderbilt, is a 250+ room mansion set on 8000 acres just outside the city of Asheville. According to the guide we had on our carriage ride, there were some 600 individual land purchases just in the Asheville area, and who knows how many others were required to amass the original 125,000 acres that made up the estate back in the day.

It’s hard to put the house into perspective; it’s so vast, and so imposing from the outside, and yet inside some of the rooms actually seem to normal scale, if that’s possible. Some are ornate, some are simple; some clearly feel as if they were well-lived in, and others look like they’re only for show. There’s a huge triple fireplace in the dining room, with a small table (for ten or so) set up in front of the fireplace for intimate family dinners, and a huge dining room table that seats 66 people in the main part of the room, along with a multi-story pipe organ at the other end. By comparison, when we have both families over for Thanksgiving, we have to use two rooms and borrow chairs from Mare and John. And we listen to the stereo in the living room.

We have the plantatarium, a room with generally southern exposure that’s filled with rattan furniture, lots of plants, and a cool ceiling fan with wooden blades shaped like leaves. Biltmore has the Winter Garden, my favorite room in the house, a glorious sunken room with a glass-and-wood ceiling to die for, sculpture, and huge plants. The room overflows with warmth and happiness; I don’t know any other way to describe it.

The basement is another great part of the house – swimming pool, bowling alley, the kitchens and laundry rooms – pretty cool to see all of that. But for us, the piece de resistance was the roof tour. Four stories up, high above all of the visitors; patting gargoyles on the fanny for luck; looking down on the Winter Garden room; checking out the servant’s quarters and some of the unrefurbished rooms, and getting to check out all of the craftsmanship in the house was amazing. The view is indescribable.

More pictures. Sadly, we were not allowed to take any inside – and the bulk of my house and surrounds shots were on the 35 not the digital, so these are mostly from the roof tour. Enjoy!

Sue

Blue Ridge Memories, Part 2

I’ve never been one of those people who had to retire near the ocean. Don’t get me wrong, I love an ocean beach as much as anyone, primarily when it’s early in the morning, the sun just coming up and the sand littered with shells that washed in with the tide. My second most favorite time on the beach is at sunset, watching the day slide away beneath the water in the same way that I snuggle into the covers at night.

My Sweet Baboo feels the same as I do about that. Can’t decide if our similar thinking is simply good fortune, or by design, but if we were going to retire somewhere other than here in the Valley, it would more likely be near some mountains not a beach. And the Blue Ridge Mountains are simply breathtaking.

We spent a little time wandering around the mountains one day, including a stop to Chimney Rock Park (CRP), above Lake Lure. People have been able to get to the top of Chimney Rock since 1885, although things are much more modern now than they were then. For starters, there’s a 30-second elevator ride that takes you 28 stories up so you can get to the actual Chimney Rock, or you can hike and climb stairs to get there. There’s also a beautiful trail that leads to the 400+ foot Hickory Nut Falls. Interestingly, part of The Last of the Mohicans was filmed here, even though the action actually took place in New York. For some reason the movie folks thought the Blue Ridge Mountains most closely resembled the Adirondacks. Hmm…

After spending quite a bit of time at CRP, we headed north and ended up on Route 80. Let me tell you, when I said that I thought Alternate Route 74 into Lake Lure was like our Thirteen Curves on steroids, I hadn’t yet seen Route 80. To continue with the steroid analogy, think the difference between A-Rod (Alt 74) and Barry Bonds or Mark McGuire (Rte 80). My vertigo was working in overdrive on this trip. The photo at the beginning of this post shows just one of the switchbacks (look for the road signs on the left and right about a third of the way from the top of the picture) and it seemed like we were on over 100 of these things during the day, between Route 80 and the Blue Ridge Parkway.

So where did we end up on this day? Well, we drove just about to the summit of Mount Mitchell, the tallest mountain in NC and the highest peak in eastern North America, other than some islands. At 6643 feet it’s taller by quite a bit than NY’s Mt Marcy (5343 feet) but getting to the top is an easy drive. We would have gone all the way up, if we had wanted to, but I found a bathroom before we got to the summit. Besides, the clouds were so thick at the top that we could barely see more than a couple feet in front of us. Maybe next time we’ll get to the new observation deck.

Here are some shots from the mountains. Enjoy!

Sue

Blue Ridge Memories, Part 1

My Sweet Baboo and I just returned from a week in the Blue Ridge Mountains in North Carolina, spending our nights at two very different (and wonderful) bed & breakfasts, and our days exploring the Asheville area.

We've been to the ocean part of North Carolina - that was our first vacation, the 'test', if you will, where he and I spent the week with most of his family in a rented house on Sunset Beach. Figured if we could make it through that without committing murder or mayhem, we'd probably be OK.

This trip marked our ninth out of state vacation, and we love getting away from work and stress and exploring places we've not been to before, or at least places we've not been to together. For me, this was my first visit to the Blue Ridge Mountains; MSB had been in the general neighborhood before. We had a full visit, and between us we took about 30 rolls of film and too many digital pictures to count. I'll be putting out some of the digital shots over the next couple of days.

Here's the first collection, taken in the Lake Lure NC area. You may have heard of Lake Lure -- it's the home of the 2006 HGTV Dream House (currently empty, we were told) and the site where the beach shots in the movie Dirty Dancing were filmed. The lake is beautiful, with around 2000 mostly seasonal homes surrounding it, including one where the owners allegedly bring in white sand from Florida for the beach in front of their estate. Two of the original camps are still on the lake, each of which is something in the neighborhood of about 600 square feet. The largest house (so far) on the lake is 12,000 square feet. Clearly, the definition of 'camp' has changed over the years!

One of the best parts of the side trip to Lake Lure is how we got there -- on Alternate Route 74, which is like our local Thirteen Curves on steroids -- there aren't thirteen curves, there are about one hundred thirty curves on the way into town. Rocking, rolling, greater than 90 degree curves, with drop offs or mountains about an inch off the road, or so it seemed to me. For My Sweet Baboo, this was a good thing - he was having a blast trying to keep it under 60 MPH (kidding) with a marked speed of 15 MPH (not kidding). For me, less of a good thing, as I have developed a bit of vertigo since I had LASIK surgery a couple years back. I think it's the enhanced peripheral vision or something, but I don't enjoy that kind of drive quite as much as I used to. Fortunately, we stopped in town so I could catch my breath, and that's how we discovered the tour boat, which led to a great interlude and a wonderful start to the vacation.

Enjoy the pictures!

Sue

Would You Like Some Food With That Wine?

The new budget passed by New York State's  elected representatives (and I use that term loosely) during one of their per diem trips to Albany did not include allowing grocery stores to sell wine. 

I think this is nuts, frankly, particularly in light of the fact that there are literally hundreds of wineries in New York, some big and many not so big, who could have benefited from the opportunity of having their products sold in thousands of outlets – again, some big and many not so big – who also could have had the opportunity to improve their bottom line as a result. 

There are competing opinions on this, of course. Wegmans, an award-winning regional grocery chain, came out strongly in favor and encouraged their patrons to do the same. Mom and Pop liquor stores came out against, and encouraged their customers to do the same. Politicians took the road most travelled and tabled the whole idea, instead of working to craft legislation that could have benefited both our growing wine industry and the liquor stores, and raised tens of millions for our cash-strapped state. 

I’m not sure we need to be Iowa, where you can buy wines in flower shops, but I think we can do more. I don’t believe we should have given carte blanche and just opened the floodgates and let the wine pour into the grocery stores. And I don't think we need every corner market selling wine -- there has to be a threshold, I think, of what’s considered a grocery store. If three quarters of sales are beer, cigarettes, lottery tickets, and snack foods, I don’t think that should count. Maybe the threshold could be the number of grocery carts – more than 10 you’re a grocery store, less than that you’re not? I don’t know; I think it’s kind of like the Supreme Court and obscenity – you know it when you see it. This holds true for grocery stores, too.

There should have been something in the law that guaranteed a high percentage of the shelf space in the grocery stores - say, 75% - would be devoted to wines produced in New York. This would have given a boost to the NY wine industry, much of which is at the ‘mom and pop’ level, just like the liquor stores. Ideally there would be an educated person who could help a consumer choose wines, and information available throughout the store (in appropriate areas, of course) suggesting food and wine combinations – again with a focus on pairing local foods with local wines. 

 And in fairness, it’s really pretty stupid that a liquor store in New York is not allowed to sell cork screws, glasses, wine glass charms, or a whole host of other accessories that grocery stores now can sell. This too could have been (and still should be) corrected if legislators had done the right thing, rather than running and hiding from an issue that could really be beneficial to wineries, grocery stores, liquor stores, and our state’s financial situation. 

 I’m not impressed with a local group of liquor stores, who protested loud and long that selling more wine would lead to increased alcoholism, DWI problems, mental health issues, and the need for more police to handle all of the above, at great cost to our budget. I complained about these guys in a letter to the editor of our local paper a while back, and I complain to My Sweet Baboo every time I see their full-page ad in the local paper pushing low-priced wine on the unsuspecting public. I don’t begrudge their right to make a living, but I have to laugh at how they contradict their own grave concerns about increased consumption through their attempts to cause exactly that. 

More importantly, in a recent ad, they dangerously advertised “more choices, lower prices” on twenty four wines: eight from California, five each from Italy and Australia/New Zealand, one each from Argentina, Chile, Germany, and Spain. And the other two? Oh, those were the New York wines. I’m pretty sure they can do better than that to support business in New York, particularly when the anti-'wine in grocery stores' trade group is in the middle of a ‘support NY wines’ campaign. 

Somehow, we’ve got to find a way to work together, to do better, to craft legislation so everyone can benefit.

What Were They Thinking?

I haven’t brought myself to read New York’s new budget, but I have read some of the overviews in various media outlets. That probably puts me on a par with most of our elected officials, who likely didn’t have time or courage to read it before they voted on it, and may not have had any reason to read it since it was passed, since there’s little they can do to change it, even if they were so inclined.

Some of the things I’ve read are encouraging. For example, expansion of our bottle bill legislation to include water bottles is a good thing. Walk through any office, down any street, or in any park and you’re sure to see plenty of empty or partially empty discarded bottles lying around; I usually get a couple each week in our front yard. Now, with a nickel deposit on these bottles as well as soda bottles, we’ll not only be helping the environment and the beautification of my yard, but we’ll be providing additional economic stimulus to the folks who collect the empties for cash.

I also support reforming the Rockefeller Drug Laws . When the mandatory minimum sentence for selling drugs is on a par with that of some murder charges, something’s wrong. I have a hard time believing that long-term incarceration, the cost of which we non-drug selling taxpayers have to bear, is more effective than treatment or shorter jail sentences. Some day we can have a conversation about legalization...

School aid is something in the budget (state and federal) that defies comprehension. It seems clear that reform is needed when one district receives an 11.51% increase when another just a few miles down the road gets only 4.58% . This is particularly true when the district receiving the greatest percentage of aid is a suburban one where the average home is worth about $145,000 and the average household income is around $65,000 and the district receiving less aid is the urban one, with an average home value and income of just about 50% of the other district, something like 1500 vacant homes, a deteriorating business district and a very high number of tax-exempt or -reduced properties. Something is wrong with this picture.

It’s particularly more galling when the same State Assembly that passed the budget with school aid disparities such as the one above, also passed a bill barely a week after the budget was approved called the Dignity for All Students Act , designed to provide students "a learning environment free of discrimination". The discrimination referenced in the Act includes the usual suspects – race, religion, color, national origin, and disability – as well as weight, both sex and gender, and sexual orientation. Apparently economic discrimination is not only OK, but government sanctioned.

What were they thinking?

Sue

A More Perfect Union? (part 2)

I didn’t know, when I wrote Part 1 of this series, that I’d be sitting here today wondering if My Sweet Baboo will be going to work Monday, or if he’ll be strolling on a picket line outside his office building instead. His company, a telecommunications giant, apparently is not seeing eye to eye with the union, and things are not looking good for the home team. It’s kind of funny, we met at the car on Friday after work, me with my laptop and work that I brought home to do this weekend, and he with a sparkling white shopping bag with red hand-written lettering on the sides proclaiming in big letters “Strike Prep Bag” and in much smaller letters his union’s initials.

I’ve never been a huge fan of unions in the modern era; I think they had purpose at one time, mostly to help ensure safe working conditions and a decent wage. What I don’t like about them conceptually is that there is no individuality in a union, no way for a good employee to be considered anything other than average and very limited ways for bad employees to be dealt with – they’re just as average as everyone else in terms of their wages, benefits, and prospects for continued employment.

My parents were both union, although neither of them really wanted to be. They were school teachers, and frankly I don’t think either of them ever really felt that unions were good for them, the schools or the kids. I remember them being on union committees not because they were really strong union believers, but because they wanted to lend a sane voice of reason to things like contract negotiations and curriculum planning.

They were both very good teachers, not just in my biased opinion but in the opinions of their peers and their students, and inspirational in many ways to a couple of generations of kids in my hometown. Other people became teachers because of my mom and dad, or volunteers because of them – but I’m pretty sure no one became a union member because of them.

I think I’ve been fortunate that no job I’ve ever had has been a union job. I’ve been evaluated my own merits, and have been rewarded on the basis of my own performance, not based on some contract negotiated by someone who’s never met me, doesn’t know anything about me, and only thinks of me as another contribution to the union coffers and a vote for the incumbent Democrat at every election. Had I been a union member, I would never have had the opportunities I’ve had to do new things, or work with some of the great bosses I’ve worked with over the years.

My non-union company is tightening its belt, just like most other companies are, and this year for the first time I’m going to get exactly the same salary increase as everyone else. I won’t be getting a bonus, because the company’s performance did not meet benchmarks, and frankly we didn’t earn it. We are all paying more for benefits now, and our pension formula has changed for time served after 1/1/2009. In these respects we sound sort of like a union shop, don’t we?

But here’s the kicker. My division, one of the largest in the company, is on record with all employees that we each control our own destiny. No one is guaranteed a job, but everyone knows where they stand, and if someone’s job is in jeopardy, the person knows it, they know why, and they have a specific plan to improve. If the time comes where layoffs are necessary, who stays and who goes isn’t going to be based on length of service, the way it would be in a union, it’s going to be based on a person’s ability and willingness to contribute. We want to keep the best employees, not just any employees.

To me, this is the more perfect union. I don’t have a driver’s license, but this is one driver’s seat I’m glad I’m in.

Sue

Pet Peeve of the Day - April 1, 2009

Happy April Fool’s Day, New York – to celebrate, let’s pass a budget, shall we?

New York has the country’s most dysfunctional legislative body, according to the Brennan Center, and no matter how hard we try, we can’t seem to shake that label.

Reform is promised election cycle after election cycle, and never delivered. In the recent past the reason why we haven’t had reform, according to those who have not been reformers, is because the wrong party had too much control and nothing would get better until that changed. So, old world, there were three men in a room – the Governor and the leaders of the State Senate and Assembly – who came up with a budget, shoved it under everyone’s nose (almost always after the constitutionally-mandated April 1st effective date), and the two houses would vote. Conference committees would ensue and eventually we’d have something that at least remotely resembled a budget.

Fast forward to this year, when the three men are all of the same party, and presumably of the right party (since they’re not the same three men as before) and what happens? Last fall, our Accidental Governor told everyone we were in a crisis and hard decisions had to be made. In December, a harsh budget was put forward for consideration, but apparently not a lot, because in March, the three men go into a room and come up with a different budget, somewhere north of 2500 pages, and present it as a fait accompli, to be thumbs-up’d by the majority in both houses. Sadly, at about $132 million, it's even higher than the one proposed just a few months ago, it relies on short-term stimulus money to delay long-term solutions, and generally doesn’t do much at all to improve our desperate fiscal condition. Lots of fees, lots of taxes, and lots of nonsense.

There was no lack of chest-thumping by the Assembly leadership on their contributions, with sixteen or seventeen press releases in the past two days related to the budget – more than they issued in the entire moth of February. As expected, there’s no lack of squawking by the minority party including one of the locals. His tune on the process is very different now that he's on the short end of the stick.

What this all boils down to is just another version of Albany’s April Fool’s Day joke. It’s certainly not as funny as some of these, but it’s the one we have to live with. And it’s my PPOD for April 1, 2009.

Sue