Here We Call It A Pop Tax, Ya Jagoffs

I am no picture of perfect health. I weigh more than I should. I do not get enough exercise. I do not get enough sleep at night. I am your typical office worker and your typical out of shape American. But, I am also a pseudo Pittsburgher. That could be a bad label. Look, I was born in Southwestern Pennsylvania, grew up to bleed black and gold and even liked the Pirates until the mid 90s. I went to school at the cities namesake University and still love the area and would love to have more interaction with the burgh. But, I do not live or work in Allegheny County. That’s why I call myself pseudo Pittsburgher. So, even though my zip doesn’t run through the streets of The Golden Triangle I feel as much connection to the city as the next Yinzer.

That is why I am so utterly peeved that the mayor is trying to implement the soda tax. First off, it’s pop, you jagoff. The only soda around here comes with the either the word ‘club’ in front of it or ‘bread’ behind it. Secondly, how bad is that budget if you have to come at us from all sides? A few years ago you instituted a drink tax, or should I say Dan Onorato did and you know he’s keeping his mouth shut right now because he’s running for governor. That was supposed to help the Port Authority System by adding 10% tax to alcoholic beverages sold in Allegheny County. The argument was either this tax or raised property taxes.

The bitterness of this tax has been stuck in the craw of Burghers for a few years now and then when the mayor tried to redirect some of the overflowing funds, collected from said tax, towards the city’s pension fund which is anemic at best. But he was given the dolphin on that one and after roughing it out at Seven Springs during Snowmageddon he came up with a new plan. Well, I should say he “borrowed” a plan from the mayor of Philadelphia. Listen, if you want to start looking at other cities for best practices on how to run yours I’m all for it, but Philadelphia? This is a town that should consider changing its motto to “Philadelphia: Come for the crack!” The one in the liberty bell? Nevermind.

So, here’s how, I imagine, the meeting went down. The mayor is sitting there fragging his frat buddies in a Halo 3 deathmatch and after his ninth Diet Pepsi he has the greatest idea. “How about a soda tax to help the pension fund?” As everyone around the room sat there and wondered what the hell a soda was he clarified. “You know, sugar in pop? High Fructose Corn Syrup? The stuff that makes you fat…” as he chugs his 10th or 11th Diet Pepsi. Let’s add a tax on the sale of sugary drinks and reap the benefits.

“But why?” One of the meeting attendees asked. The mayor grabbed his nerf basketball and made jump shots into the waste basket with the little suction cup net above it. “Because the city is fat. Too fat. I’ve got three city projects going on to fill the potholes from the snow we had and I suspect that the fat people contributed to the holes as much as the snow. Also, I know I told everyone I couldn’t enjoy going to Steelers games because of the press but really it was just that I kept getting elbowed by fat people next to me. Maybe if we tax the hell out of sugary drinks we can get some of them to lose weight.” The idea of the soda tax is to collect the revenue on sugary drinks at $0.02 an ounce and then use the funds to bail out the pension fund. But it’s in our own best interest to lose the weight, right?

No, it’s not. Look, if you propose a tax, a sin tax, as it were to curb sinful or risk behavior, how do call it successful? Does everyone stop drinking sugary drinks or do you have a fully funded pension plan. I don’t think we even need to vote for the right answer to that one. Now, it’s not that I have a problem with a sin tax per se. I am not a smoker and when the whole smoking ban and higher taxes on cigarettes happened I didn’t care. Sorry. I didn’t. But I also don’t drink regular pop or soda, in this case. Yes, my body is saccharine. According to a friend, the saccharine in my Diet Pepsi is turning to plastic and binding to my nerves and will never leave my body. If that’s true I should look like Heidi Montag in a coupld of years. And yes, studies show that drinking diet sodas are more harmful because of the emptiness you feel, prompting you to eat more. And the rationalization of “Hey, I’m drinking diet. I can drink as many as I want” is questionable. To that I also admit I do drink 64 ounces of water a day, but that’s just for the Prozac and Viagara added in at the treatment plant.

My big issue here is when government, local or federal, institutes some tax that is supposed to be health conscious and all it really does is get more money to pay off something that shouldn’t have been a problem in the first place. Here’s my suggestions on the whole scenario.

If you think that we, as consenting adults, cannot make healthy decisions about diet or any other thing that someone considers bad for us, then make it go away. Cigarettes. Take them out of the store. Beer. Get rid of it. Jolt Cola and Sugar Shock Soda and Five Hour Makes-Me-Fart-But-I’m-Awake-To-Hear-It-At-2:30-In-The-Afternoon Energy Drinks. Shit can them. If you truly think we need outlet covers plugged into the receptacles of vice in our lives then treat us like infants and put the good stuff on higher shelves.


OR


Balance Your ‘Effing Budget Better.


Which sounds like a better idea? I’ll take a seat right here and call Dominoes for a Big Ass Pie, two liter of Mountain Dew Code Red, and a pack of unfiltered Marlboro Reds while you to think about it. Jagoffs.

Seven Sins For Seven Virtues Part 3: Diligence vs. Sloth

A continuation of the Series Good vs. Evil: The Internet

Can you just see where this one is going to play to?

Writing school papers were always a burden to me. I would get the assignment and pretty much put it off to almost the last possible minute. There was always something better that I would rather do then to sit at my old 286 PC or Apple IIC and pound out a four page paper on any subject. Still, I had hopes of being a writer and that kind of procrastination is evidence as to why I am not one today. However, when I would sit down and begin to write, I could get in the zone and within a couple of hours, I had five to ten pages of my paper written. I could bullshit with the best of them but at times the gas tank would run dry and I'd find myself adding some margin space or extra words to fill up the page. But, I made sure I followed the advice of Dr. Meredith from Real Genius who said, "Always... no, no... never... forget to check your references" So, I kept musty old books and MLA style guides riding shotgun as I fluffed my paper. Then, during my junior year I had to perform a mighty task, an electrical outline. Simply put, our crazy Physics teacher had us do a huge paper on chapters from our Physics textbook. This was the same assignment that my brother had done when he took the class six years before. The teacher was so behind with the times that he used the same tests for years and made students covert all the metric units into English in order to take the test. So, when it came time for me to write my outline I figured if his tests hadn't changed maybe his electrical outline hadn't either. I asked my brother for his copy and I reproduced it on my computer. The teacher thought he was keeping us honest by marking every page with a pen so that we couldn't simply change the name and submit one he previously graded. All I did was follow the work of someone else and typed it out word for word. I got a B. He docked me because the printer ink was a little lighter than his liking. It was all worthwhile since I made a $100 selling it to another student the next year.

Now, I told you that story as a basis for how the Internet can help to blur the lines between diligence and Sloth. In 1991, the United States went to the Persian Gulf to liberate Kuwait from Iraqi occupancy. Gone were the days of going to the movies to see Moviola reports on the Allied efforts during WWII. Now, we could watch up to the minute reports on CNN. We could see grainy black and white POV footage of missiles as they flew through windows and exploded. News and information just became an instantaneous commodity. One the Internet would take to new extremes.

In the race to be first and grab the audience, the Internet has made it possible for news and information to be available 24/7. However, there are casualties in the war for information supremacy. Diligence has become one of those casualties. Newspapers and other media outlets want to be first and its hard to compete with the Internet for first place in the race to report. An example is something I mentioned in my last 7 for 7 post, the Sago mine disaster. While the the reports came in unchecked that all but one miner was alive, the news outlets scrambled to report the good news. What they didn't do was check their facts and wait to see if there was a mistake in the chain of information. It turned out that all but one died in the tragedy and the devastation to the families was second only to the confusion at how a mistake like that could have been allowed to happen. For that matter, how could it have made it half way around the world before it was caught?

Now, before you start throwing fits, I don't believe that the Internet suddenly became sentient and started telling everyone bad information. Anderson Cooper was right there and he got the word, too. But with the Internet as a player in the game, everyone wants to scoop everyone else and to beat the Internet means you have to be quick. Facts be damned. One hand washes the other. There's even been times where the legitimate, and I use that word loosely, have relied on the Internet as a source of information, only to discover it was a prank. In fact, now, there are times when I watch the news where stories or images are credited to websites, like TMZ.com or Smokinggun.com instead of actual reporters. Sometimes, a lackey with an itchy trigger finger and too much Red Bull has pushed the button prematurely on a story before the facts are all there. In an attempt to be the first to prey on the grief of the world, templates are even prepared for obituaries of prominent people and Joe Intern has accidentally left the door open. The interchangeable obituaries leave room for nasty errors like "Dick Cheney was the 'UK's favorite grandmother.' One quick edit could drop the grand and have been accurate. For the record, Elvis is still dead, but Abe Vigoda is very much alive.

The other side of the coin being Sloth. I'll have you know that I'm writing this post from work right now. Remember when I said I would rather find something better that sit and do a paper or any work. I've re watched movies, bad ones, more than once even though I have work to do. I am a professional procrastinator. There is nothing I can't do that the Internet can't help me to do in the act of avoiding work. Although, I do make an effort when I am on the clock. I only stray towards an open browser during lunch or when I'm waiting for my little SAP or Sharepoint window to load the next screen. Usually, it's checking alternate email accounts or reading news. Of course, my work has blocked most fun sites. Oh you name it and it's blocked, most radio station homepages, Facebook, myspace, Youtube, Lottery sites, and anything mp3 or streaming music related, and so on and so forth. I'm surprised eBay is still active as well as ESPN.

When I first started in Customer Service in 2001 I was on a team of four, who were responsible for all orders for the west coast. We handled maybe 35-40 calls on an average day. Since I was the new guy, I had to work most shifts from 11:30 am - 8:00 pm. This usually meant that around 6:30 pm the phone went silent and I was alone in the office with one or two credit analysts. Since the phone wasn't ringing I was surfing. Pogo, Iwon.com, iwin, CNN, eBay, everywhere. My usage probably made IT's head spin as I commandeered the bandwidth pipe and went nuts all to keep myself busy until my shift was over. As I gained tenure, my hours became more regular and the work load became more. My usage became less, still whenever there is a lull, I was out slacking around the net. Today, since most of my favorite sites are blocked, I have to wait until I'm home to do some fun stuff.

My wife asks me what the hell I'm doing. I say, "Getting a third of my $156.00 worth of money spent on cable." I play casino games, scrabble, and other little goofy aps on Facebook, check the job sites of various companies and catch up on email. If I have some time, I even try to finish up a few blog posts to build up my library so that I don't have to scramble at the last minute to keep up with my three a week commitment.

I am not much different than, well, anybody. I get up for coffee or to go empty out my recently ingested coffee and I see numerous screens. Doing a search of "Work Internet usage" in Google News returns a lot of results from Canada and the UK. The Internet has even been a part of a few lawsuits in employee termination cases. Diversions from work are a part of everyday life and the Internet, or more importantly those who create and market sites on the Internet, know it and use it to make billions of dollars a year. What would happen if it all just went away? No more penguin tossing or flying a paper airplane through the office. Go read Richard Clarke's Breakpoint. Of course, his novel is more about terrorism and government networks, but just think of it in terms of slacking. First there would be complete and utter chaos followed more or less by increase of productivity. Maybe, that would be a good thing. Then again, if that happened, how would those 2.5 people who actually read my blog see it? I discovered the .5 was someone who just scanned through and didn't actually pay attention to any posts. Go figure.


Therefore it is the judgment of the Mongo Municipal Magistrate that the Internet isn't evil in terms of diligence vs. sloth.

The Internet isn't out to get you or make you lazy. You are. "It's PEOPLE!"

Seven Sins For Seven Virtues Part 2: Purity and Lust

Purity vs. Lust

A continuation of the Series Good vs. Evil: The Internet

When I first decided to tackle this idea I didn't give it much thought. There's Seven Deadly Sins and Seven Virtues. How hard could that be? Yeah. Not everything on the Internet be boiled down to seven ideas. I knew what I wanted to say against the Internet as far as Lust but I really don't have a clue how to show the Purity side of the Internet. I guess in terms of Chastity or Purity there's websites for every single religion out there. In fact you can get yourself ordained as a minister of an online church like the The Universal Life Church of Modesto California. I did. Seriously, I did. Back in 1995, The ULC made it easy for anyone who wished to be a member of the church the right to be ordained. Their thought process is that we are all in this world together regardless of race, creed, or gender. It shouldn't matter what you believe in as long you seek to provide a fuller life for everyone, eternal progression, and that you live and help live. As long as you are doing what is right without infringing on the rights of others you are getting the message correctly. According to their belief we are already ordained by a higher power, they are just recognizing it. In other words, it's just as real as any other religion out there. It's not what you believe as long as just believe.

Of course all religions have gone online to spread their message and provide clarity to their cause. In a world where decisions and information are dealt out in a matter of seconds, sometimes the message needs a little clarification. Case in point, during the Democratic primaries a lot of people refused to vote for Obama because they thought he was a Muslim. Granted his ancestors may have been raised Muslim even though he is Protestant, but the issue is that the Internet and the 24 Hour News Cycle has let information slip past the editors before they have all the facts. Remember the Sago mine disaster. Every one glued to a monitor got to share in the pain and suffering as the reports of alive miners flooded the airwaves before the family members were told of the mistake. By then papers were printed and the mistake was made.

However, this part of the post isn't about what is wrong, but what is right. As short and useless as it is, there are points to be made. If you are unsure which path to follow, I highly suggest going right to the source of the religion and read what they have to say. Stay away from the news sites and political sites. Use an ounce of common sense. If I want to know about Methodists or Presbyterians, I'm not going to Fox News or other slanted media outlets. I'll go to http://www.umc.org/ or http://www.pcusa.org/. Although, I highly recommend checking out the Church of the Subgenius or my personal favorite, The Flying Spaghetti Monster also known as Pastafarianism. Of course those are parody religions but organized religion is itself a parody of the actual message that has been lost over time.

Now onto a topic that is a little easier to comment on in terms of the Internet, lust. It used to be for someone to see images or movies of a certain nature, you had to visit a particular store, theater, a section of a magazine stand, or even perhaps the saloon style swinging doors at your local video store. Now, you can literally type any childish or clinical term into Google and hit search and everything is one click away and there is no embarrassment of having someone see you or your car at a retailer of ill repute. And if you click the Image tab, look out. Now there is even a video tab, too. In fact, the more we try to filter stuff from innocent eyes and minds, the more technology and the rampant nature of website creation slips past the radar and your ten your old is asking you what 2girls1cup is. But were just talking about you alone with the lights off in your home.

What if you're thinking about straying from a relationship? In the pre-Internet days, you had to cruise a bar or a place that had people. Maybe you searched the papers for personals. Either way, you had a lot of tracks to cover and intentions to conceal. Sneaking around had a sense of stealthiness to it. With the Internet, it has become so much easier and there is a wider pool to choose from. Chat rooms, myspace pages, adult websites, and even craigslist can find you someone to keep you warm at night. Granted, with all that convenience there is a modicum amount of evidence of your deeds. Cell texts, emails, Internet cookies and history can all expose you for the devil you are. The Internet has made cheating a lot easier to do but also a lot easier to get caught. Even famous people get caught with their hands in the cookie jar thanks to the net.

The Internet leaves a nice little bread crumb trail for the authorities to find you..or at least your significant other. It doesn't even have to be cheating in your spouse. Just ask Mark Foley. Most people involved with sex scandals are lucky if they end up just divorced. The real scum are the ones who troll myspace or seek out underage kids. Those guys mostly end up having a blind date with Chris Hansen. Trolling message boards and chat rooms for underage kids, these sickos end up meeting with the Dateline crew instead of their intended victim. What kills me about that show is that people still get caught. They even admit to watching the show.

"Are you OneUglyMutha22?"

"Yes. What the hell are you?"

Although, do you really want them to wise up or do you want these bastards caught and prosecuted? The name of the game hasn't changed but the types of equipment have. I do believe the Internet is a gateway drug for Lustful actions because of its high tech whiz bang gadgetry and accessibility. I even think that in the fight between purity and lust, lust wins out in a heartbeat. It's easier to find porn than religion on the Internet. But is it inherently evil? If you are dumb enough to want to cheat or commit crimes of a sexual nature be prepared to end up divorced, on Megan's Law websites, or even in jail.

In this matter, the Internet is only slightly evil, yet makes us profoundly dumber.