Even a blogger needs to eat. This blog is primarily Charles' hobby. But if he is intent on continuing to woo the Hooter's waitresses
in Chatanooga he needs something that pays.... wings don't come free you know. Here's a link to his
day job where he works the education beat
and, assuming he can't annoy enough people that way, is sometimes allowed to write opinion pieces.
Need perspective? Watson offers readers all they could possibly eat. For a unique view on current events, namely how they look from
orbit, here's Chuck's Real-Time(ish) Satellite Imagery of Areas of Interest.
Whenever it strikes his fancy, and there's good telemetry, Chuck will
process and post near real-time images of locations in the news. Eminently engrossing.
Wanna get into the head of a Japanese salaryman? Why, for Chis'sakes?! Well, assumin' you do, feel welcome to check out
the on-line journal of
Campbell's English class. Everyday, a group of disaffected salarymen are required to spill out their inner-most thoughts about life, the universe
and everything in broken English. Amazingly prosaic.
Sunday, April 10, 2005 Crazy. According to at least one survey, Pueto Ricans are the most satisfied people on earth. That may have something to do with the weather and the scenery. Or maybe it's just the high rate of mental illness on the island.
Saturday, April 02, 2005 FDR Responsible for Prolonging - Not Ending - Great Depression. Harold L. Cole and Lee E. Ohanian, two economists at the University of California, Los Angeles, reached that conclusion in a new study published in the Journal of Political Economy.
Specifically, they blame New Deal policies explicitly aimed at raising prices and wages.
"High wages and high prices in an economic slump run contrary to everything we know about market forces in economic downturns," Ohanian said. "As we've seen in the past several years, salaries and prices fall when unemployment is high. By artificially inflating both, the New Deal policies short-circuited the market's self-correcting forces."
Without those policies, they contend, the Depression would have ended in 1936 instead of the year when they believe the slump actually ended: 1943.
Several media outlets picked up the results of Cole and Ohanian's research, and they treated it as if it was shocking news.
It shouldn't be.
There's a wealth of data and economic analyses that shows FDR's policies extended the Great Depression and made it worse. This latest study is just one more piece of evidence in the case against the New Deal.
Saturday, March 26, 2005 Misunderstanding Their Base? I live and work in an area that's highly Republican (78% of all votes cast in the last general election were for the GOP), very anti-abortion and where the vast majority of the people are evangelical Protestants.
Terri Schiavo just wasn't an issue before congress stepped in. I don't recall any letters to the editor. I didn't hear it discussed in the cafes or on the street.
Since Congress stepped in, I've written a little about the issue, and I've kept my ears open for discussion of the case.
I haven't heard anyone who supports the move. Most people I've talked to think it was politically motivated.
And most people are just perplexed by the whole case. "Why won't they let that poor woman die?" is a something I've heard from just about everyone, but that's typically followed by, "If her parents want to keep her alive, why doesn't her husband just give her to them and walk away?"
Many of the people I've talked to have some personal acquaintance with end-of-life issues. I don't know how many people – Sunday school teachers, deacons, etc. – have told me that one of their biggest regrets was allowing a feeding tube to be put into their parent or spouse or child.
I don't get a sense, however, that the GOP is going to pay a big price for trying to stop Schiavo's death. Contrary to Peggy Noonan, no one I've talked to seems upset that the efforts to put the feeding tube back in have failed. And contrary to Andrew Sullivan, I don't get a sense that many people are outraged by Republican hypocrisy on federalism, the sanctity of marriage or other issues.
As I said earlier, confusion, not anger, is the dominant state of mind here.
Saturday, March 12, 2005 A 51-Year-Old Grandmother Who Stands About 5 Ft. Tall. Many people, though seemingly none in Atlanta-area law enforcement, are asking how such a person came to be guarding a 6 ft. 1 in., 210-pound 33-year-old weightlifter and former college football player on trial for a very violent crime, especially after he was previously caught with shanks on him.
Wednesday, February 23, 2005 The Original Mr. T.The Chattanoogan has a nice interview with the widow of long-time area broadcaster Harry Thornton.
Harry's Morning Show was very good local TV. But to be blunt, he was a lousy wrestling announcer. After decades in the business he never learned even the basics of wrestling and -- unlike Jim Ross or Ed Capral or Gordon Solie -- never could sell what was going on in the ring as a true sporting event. (Which was what the promoters were trying to do.)
Worse, he constantly inserted himself into what was going on. He was especially bad about standing up to and even physically confronting the bad guys, robbing them of their "heat."
Still, he and partners Nick Gulas and Roy Welch put on some entertaining shows for years on WDEF-TV and at the Memorial Auditorium.
Social Insecurity? Domenic points to this piece on Social Security privatization. I must admit I haven't given much thought to the subject, mostly because I really don't think we'll see any significant changes to the system in my lifetime. (Okay, we'll see payroll tax increases, benefit cuts or -- most likely -- some combination of the two in my lifetime, but that's not a fundamental change in the system.
Saturday, February 05, 2005 A Belated RIP To Max Schmeling. He was indeed a class act.
He was also a modest man. Joe Louis's family didn't reveal how he'd supported Louis until long after the Brown Bomber's death. Schmeling didn't want to embarrass his old opponent. Similarly, the Lewin brothers, the two Jewish children Schmeling sheltered, didn't step forward to tell how he'd saved their lives until 1989 because Schmeling wanted no praise.
Schmeling was long known for his philanthropy, but it really wasn't until the last couple of decades that the extent of hsi giving to charitable causes became know.
Those Small-Government Objectivists. Over at the Mises Institute blog, S.M. Oliva delivers a much-deserved bitch slap to second-hander Nicholas Provenzo.
Thursday, January 27, 2005 Those Small-Goverment Republicans. Today's editorial in The Daily Citizen shows what they are up to now that they control the General Assembly.
