For the first time since I've been legal to do so, I'm skipping an election.
Arizona is holding a special election with one issue on the ballot: a proposition to raise the state sales tax by 1%. This tax will theoretically be used to raise $1 billion to preserve education, health care, and public safety money that will otherwise be axed. I'm normally a huge fan of education, health care, and public safety, but I still don't know how to vote on this issue, so I'll abstain.
I'm tempted to vote against this proposition for several reasons. Sales taxes are highly regressive, and I dislike that intensely. Further, I hate that the state legislature insisted on cutting taxes in every other area for the past twenty years and is now acting like this emergency situation sprung up on us out of nowhere. Further, I don't trust our state's leadership to actually use this revenue as promised (see: state parks fund).
I'm tempted to vote for this proposition for one big reason: the money is desperately needed.
Since I absolutely cannot resolve these two different viewpoints, I have decided to abstain from voting. It's an odd feeling, but I think it's what comes of not trusting my elected officials while knowing that something must be done.
17 May 2010
12 May 2010
The Kindness of Strangers
The other day, my wife and I and our two kids were out on the town, taking care of a few errands. When you live as remotely as we do, there is no trip to town that is less than two hours round trip, so errands always include a meal.
We decided to stop in at a Japanese restaurant that we have enjoyed in the past and sat down to a very nice meal. My wife ordered hand rolls, but I got to eat the spicy salmon one because it was a bit too spicy for her. I ordered a sashimi bowl which consisted of at least eight different types of seafood, all raw with the exception of the cephalopod and the shrimp, sliced into very generous pieces and laid on top of a bed of rice. Our daughter had food of her own, but we shared our food with her and our son.
At the end of our meal, my wife headed up to the register to settle our bill. When she got to the cashier, the lady apologized and said that we shouldn't have even gotten a bill. A man sitting behind us had enjoyed watching our family so much that he decided to pay for our food without letting us know. My wife headed over to thank him (I didn't yet know of the situation, as I was wrangling children), and barely got a first name out of him because he really didn't want it to be a big deal. After leaving a generous tip and walking outside, we decided that we wanted to pass on the generosity, so I went back in and asked the cashier to let me pay for another table's meal. The whole situation sounded exactly like something that ItStartsWith.Us would encourage.
At this point we left, but were so amazed by the kindness and generosity of that man that we intend to follow his example when we are able in the future. I'm sure there is no way for us to check, but I hope that the couple was informed of the story behind their bill being paid and that they continued to pass along the good deed.
We decided to stop in at a Japanese restaurant that we have enjoyed in the past and sat down to a very nice meal. My wife ordered hand rolls, but I got to eat the spicy salmon one because it was a bit too spicy for her. I ordered a sashimi bowl which consisted of at least eight different types of seafood, all raw with the exception of the cephalopod and the shrimp, sliced into very generous pieces and laid on top of a bed of rice. Our daughter had food of her own, but we shared our food with her and our son.
At the end of our meal, my wife headed up to the register to settle our bill. When she got to the cashier, the lady apologized and said that we shouldn't have even gotten a bill. A man sitting behind us had enjoyed watching our family so much that he decided to pay for our food without letting us know. My wife headed over to thank him (I didn't yet know of the situation, as I was wrangling children), and barely got a first name out of him because he really didn't want it to be a big deal. After leaving a generous tip and walking outside, we decided that we wanted to pass on the generosity, so I went back in and asked the cashier to let me pay for another table's meal. The whole situation sounded exactly like something that ItStartsWith.Us would encourage.
At this point we left, but were so amazed by the kindness and generosity of that man that we intend to follow his example when we are able in the future. I'm sure there is no way for us to check, but I hope that the couple was informed of the story behind their bill being paid and that they continued to pass along the good deed.
been a while...
It appears that I haven't written in this blog since September. There have been several times that I've considered pulling it out of mothballs, but it took my wife's prompting to examine why I haven't done much writing.
First, it is worth pointing out that I don't lack for opinions that I want to share. Any person who has been near me in the past few weeks knows exactly how I feel about what's been going on in Arizona and I haven't been holding back on my other opinions either. I still hate most of the music the kids these days listen to and I still think that 90% of the movies coming out are terrible and I still hate it when people are in positions of power without having the knowledge or training for those positions and I still wish I'd gone to school to be an audiologist so that I could get rich on the ears of millions of today's iPodded teens.
I think my problem is twofold.
The first part of it is a really good thing. I've discovered a number of excellent blogs that say much of what I'd like to say. The Mudflats, Blog For Arizona, and a pile of others that I follow publicly are extremely well-written and update frequently on national and Arizona politics. How can I possibly step in and fight the Goldwater Institute better than David Safier or Sarah Palin better than Jeanne Devon, or even the Prescott Daily Courier better than Steven Ayres?
My second problem is far worse. Quite simply, I'm demoralized. I was having a great time paying attention to the good work being done by people like Kyrsten Sinema and Dan Patterson on behalf of Arizona's taxpayers, but paying attention to what they were up to meant that I was guaranteed to also see what Jack Harper, Russell Pearce, and Judy Burges were up to. Of the three, Pearce is the only one with international notoriety right now (thank you, Rachel Maddow), but the rest of the AZ Senate and House have been up to some downright stupid (...or evil) work as well. Stealing the money that the state parks have earned and shutting down the parks, holding $1 Billion in funding for education, health care, and public safety hostage to force a sales tax increase, cutting several million dollars worth of children's health insurance thereby losing $7 Billion in Federal matching money in order to appease an ideological base, and numerous examples of state officials meddling in education are only starting points. Beyond that, the state legislature has voted to (unconstitutionally) ignore the will of Arizona's voters several times, has voted to (unconstitutionally) violate the Supremacy Clause of the US Constitution, and has voted to waste my money in numerous ways, all while cutting funding in the worst places possible.
It feels good to get all of those gripes out, but that doesn't change the fact that it's hard work to sit down and talk in detail about any of those problems. As someone who writes about what's on his mind, I really have a hard time putting these thoughts on virtual paper. It's not that my feelings are difficult to express. If anything, my feelings are exceptionally easy to express. There are numerous four-letter words (and varying declensions and conjugations thereof) that express my emotions quite clearly. The bigger issue is how difficult it really is to share the ideas behind those emotions because I get so frustrated that I just want to walk away in the middle of writing.
On a more positive note, I plan to write at least once a week again on this page, and look for things that are less oriented towards politics as soon as later today.
First, it is worth pointing out that I don't lack for opinions that I want to share. Any person who has been near me in the past few weeks knows exactly how I feel about what's been going on in Arizona and I haven't been holding back on my other opinions either. I still hate most of the music the kids these days listen to and I still think that 90% of the movies coming out are terrible and I still hate it when people are in positions of power without having the knowledge or training for those positions and I still wish I'd gone to school to be an audiologist so that I could get rich on the ears of millions of today's iPodded teens.
I think my problem is twofold.
The first part of it is a really good thing. I've discovered a number of excellent blogs that say much of what I'd like to say. The Mudflats, Blog For Arizona, and a pile of others that I follow publicly are extremely well-written and update frequently on national and Arizona politics. How can I possibly step in and fight the Goldwater Institute better than David Safier or Sarah Palin better than Jeanne Devon, or even the Prescott Daily Courier better than Steven Ayres?
My second problem is far worse. Quite simply, I'm demoralized. I was having a great time paying attention to the good work being done by people like Kyrsten Sinema and Dan Patterson on behalf of Arizona's taxpayers, but paying attention to what they were up to meant that I was guaranteed to also see what Jack Harper, Russell Pearce, and Judy Burges were up to. Of the three, Pearce is the only one with international notoriety right now (thank you, Rachel Maddow), but the rest of the AZ Senate and House have been up to some downright stupid (...or evil) work as well. Stealing the money that the state parks have earned and shutting down the parks, holding $1 Billion in funding for education, health care, and public safety hostage to force a sales tax increase, cutting several million dollars worth of children's health insurance thereby losing $7 Billion in Federal matching money in order to appease an ideological base, and numerous examples of state officials meddling in education are only starting points. Beyond that, the state legislature has voted to (unconstitutionally) ignore the will of Arizona's voters several times, has voted to (unconstitutionally) violate the Supremacy Clause of the US Constitution, and has voted to waste my money in numerous ways, all while cutting funding in the worst places possible.
It feels good to get all of those gripes out, but that doesn't change the fact that it's hard work to sit down and talk in detail about any of those problems. As someone who writes about what's on his mind, I really have a hard time putting these thoughts on virtual paper. It's not that my feelings are difficult to express. If anything, my feelings are exceptionally easy to express. There are numerous four-letter words (and varying declensions and conjugations thereof) that express my emotions quite clearly. The bigger issue is how difficult it really is to share the ideas behind those emotions because I get so frustrated that I just want to walk away in the middle of writing.
On a more positive note, I plan to write at least once a week again on this page, and look for things that are less oriented towards politics as soon as later today.
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