Jennifer Abel

Quitting cigarettes is no help to the state’s budget woes

Orignally published in the New Britain Herald and Bristol Press, March 15,2009 Do you find your wallet depressingly light compared to a year ago? If so, take heart in knowing it’s not just you; the whole state’s broke these days. Connecticut’s facing a budget deficit of $8.7 billion over the next two years, and that deficit will only grow deeper after what I did last week. Before discussing my responsibility for the state’s budget woes, I’ll point out that the human brain has a hard time grasping such abstractly huge numbers as “eight point seven billion.” Maybe this will help you picture it: If you made a million dollars a day, weekends and holidays included, amassing $8.7 billion would take almost 24 years. How did a rich state like Connecticut wind up in such a fiscal mess? Charles Dickens figured it out over a century ago, when he had Mr. Micawber tell David Copperfield: “Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen nineteen and six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery.” In other words, don’t spend more than you have. But if you change pounds to dollars and make the numbers exponentially bigger, you’ll describe what happened to us. During the go-go bubble years, when property values and the tax assessments on them reached the stratosphere, not one local government — neither the guys running my town, nor the guys running yours — thought “Hey! Let’s take this opportunity to pay down some debt and build up savings.” Instead, they spent every dollar they had and borrowed even more, with the vague idea of paying off this debt sometime in the future. Which would’ve been a fine plan, if not for the future’s nasty habit of eventually becoming the present. In Connecticut’s case, this happened at the exact moment the bubble popped. Now the state faces bills much higher than the twenty-ought-six Mr. Micawber warned against, and these revenue problems are compounded by my decision, last week, to stop paying state cigarette taxes. There’s multiple ways to do this. You can buy tax-free smokes on New York State Indian reservations (disclaimer: this is extremely illegal if you get caught), or you can buy tobacco and roll your own, but I took the simpler method known as “Buy nicotine patches and quit smoking altogether.” Naturally, this made my non-smoking friends turn Supportive with a capital S. “Congratulations!” they gushed. “Statistically speaking, you’ve just increased your lifespan by seven years!” Which, in turn, only intensifies the government’s budget woes. The problem with increasing your lifespan by seven years is that those years are added to the wrong end of your life. I won’t get to spend seven extra years in my 30s; instead, I’ll spend additional time in the “retired old person collecting checks from the government” phase of my existence. I did a quick calculation on the back of an envelope: assuming Social Security and Medicaid still exist, then between lost cigarette tax revenues and increased old-age payouts, my decision to quit smoking will cost the state and federal government over 600,000 dollars, not counting inflation. So, to all you people suffering in the wake of severe state budget cuts: I sincerely apologize for making your troubles worse. I was tempted to keep smoking, for the sake of The Children, but ultimately I’m just too selfish.

Somewhere between the Beach Boys and Slayer, there is The New Inertia

Originally published in the New Britain Herald, April 2, 2009

NEW BRITAIN – Walk through the streets of downtown New Britain, and in various places – streetlamp posts, the occasional car – you’ll see bumper stickers, white lettering on a black background, with the cryptic phrase “The New Inertia.” There’s no explanation but there is a MySpace address, and if you look it up you’ll discover a New Britain-based band with three members: Dave Waters as lead singer and guitarist, Matt McAllister on bass and Tommy Wagner on drums.

We met the band for lunch at the Miss Washington Diner. They look exactly as a struggling band should: all wearing black shirts, and McAllister with a bandana around his head.

“I love this place,” Waters said. “I’ve got the high score on the Ms. Pac-Man machine.” He reached into his pocket to pull out a “business card” – a guitar pick with the band’s name printed on it – before discussing the history of the band itself.

“I started a band called ‘Inertia’ in ’95. Matt joined in ’98 and Tommy in 2007. We became the ‘New’ Inertia in 2006.”

So what kind of music does the band play?

“It’s rock and roll,” said Waters. “Somewhere between the Beach Boys and Slayer.”

That doesn’t narrow it down much, but the band didn’t want to label themselves any more precisely than that.

They burned their first CD in 2007 – on their own, without working through any record labels. “We sold out our first pressing,” Waters said, and built up a respectable following on college radio.

“Things picked up from there,” he said. “We got a lot of gigs – we’ll do our hundredth show in April – and became a WCCC homegrown band.”

By the time they started work on their second CD, Waters said, things started picking up for them. “We got offers from indie labels,” he said, but the money would be about the same as they make recording their own discs and selling them directly to fans. “It’s too much work to go through the stores.”

“Which is why we sell on the Internet,” Wagner added.

“Same level of work,” Waters said.

McAllister rolled his eyes. “Too much. I hate him,” he said.

“I love him,” Waters responded. “It’s his guts I hate. His gut.” (McAllister’s is on the large side.)

They often exchange the good-natured insults guys do when they’re close friends, and are fairly tongue-in-cheek when discussing their music, their DVD and each other.

“We don’t have a ‘fan club’,” Water said. “We have ‘The Inertia Militia,’ people we hang out with, people who listen to our music and come to our shows.”

“Or they just want to drink,” McAllister shrugged.

None of the band members has formal musical training, or knows how to read music. “You don’t need to read music, you just do it,” Wagner said.

“I usually write the songs,” said Waters.

“And I tell him when they’re crap,” McAllister added.

The band is still in the “paying their dues” phase, playing almost any gig they’re invited to. “All kinds of places,” said Waters. “Bars with dirt floors, bowling alleys, elementary schools – we’ve played some whacked-out places.”

“We’ve played every dirt bar in Connecticut,” Wagner said.

“We look better in the dark,” Waters agreed with excessive gravitas.

But the band takes a more serious tone when asked about subjects they discuss in their songs. Waters motioned out the diner window to a nearby parking garage. “Me and Matt saw a guy jump off the parking garage one day, a few years ago. We never forgot it.” His face clouded. “What was going through his head? So we wrote 18 songs, almost all about struggle. We figured, let’s take all the bad things that happened in our lives ...most of our songs are true stories, or exaggerations.”

Rebirth fuels Trinity-on-Main

originally published in the New Britain Herald March 8, 2009

NEW BRITAIN — Wherever you walk in downtown New Britain, chances are your skyline view is dominated by the castle-like bell tower of the enormous stone building at 69 Main St., a former church now known as Trinity-on-Main. The history and future hopes of Trinity-on-Main closely parallel those of New Britain itself: fantastically wealthy when America was the world’s manufacturing powerhouse, declining in tandem with American manufacturing, and now hoping an artistic revival can fill the financial vacuum.

“Trinity United Methodist Church was built between 1889 and 1891,” said Anne Pilla, executive director of the performance center now occupying the building. “The annex [a beige cinderblock appendage jutting from the main body of the church] was built in 1963.” By the 1990s, further construction was far beyond the congregation’s means; simply maintaining what it had proved too costly to manage. 

“They were going to tear down the church and sell all this for salvage,” Pilla said of the ornate, stained-glass windows, elaborately carved wooden pews and other vintage architectural flourishes that would be impossibly expensive to build today. “They would’ve made a lot of money.”

But the congregation couldn’t bear to destroy the grand old structure, and local history boosters didn’t want to lose it either. Therefore, said Pilla, some local residents formed the straightforwardly named Group to Save 69 Main Street.

“When the Group to Save 69 Main Street started, they just wanted to save the building, but they didn’t know what for. They got a grant and hired a consultant, who said the best use would be a performing-arts center. Turning the church into housing or businesses wouldn’t be feasible.” In 2004, the group officially changed its name to Trinity-on-Main.

They bought the original stone church, and the Trinity congregation moved into the cinderblock annex before selling that to the performance center, too. Bob Mossmann, the last lay leader of Trinity Church, said the remaining congregants merged with an out-of-town church. “We had sold the old church to Trinity-on-Main, then sold the parsonage ... there was a church in North Canton in trouble, a big mortgage with a variable rate. We had a half-million dollars we couldn’t spend, which almost covered it.”

So the Group to Save 69 Main Street ultimately saved a historic Canton church, too. Meanwhile, there remained the question of what to do with the building in downtown New Britain.

“We did comedy nights, children’s programs, lots of shows,” Pilla said. But it wasn’t enough. “Turning profits on shows was happening, but not quickly enough. ... In 2008, when we went for another funding grant, we were asked to put another business plan together. We hired a consultant, who identified our product to promote or sell as ‘space,’ not entertainment.”

That’s how Trinity operates now: hosting its own performances from time to time, but getting most of its operating budget from the rental fees it charges other groups. Classrooms in the modern annex go for $10 or $20 per hour, while anyone wishing to rent the ornate Victorian structures would pay anywhere from $50 to $225.

“Many of our rooms need renovating before we can do anything with them,” Pilla said. “We need a rich benefactor. We have plenty of naming opportunities.”

People who have been to performances at Trinity-on-Main are most familiar with the auditorium and rotunda. The auditorium was formerly the sanctuary, with the stage where the altar once stood. (“The church has been deconsecrated. The congregation did that first thing,” Pilla said.) Stained-glass sliding doors separate the auditorium from the rotunda, where a decorative trellis blocks off the entrance to the bell tower. The tower still needs extensive renovations before it can be opened to the public.  

“There’s a lot to do here,” Pilla said as she pushed the trellis aside and started climbing the stairs. Though she said contractors have recently done clean-up work in the tower, it would be easy to believe nobody’s been there for decades. Peeling, faded paint obscures the ornate masonry, and in some abandoned areas, the stained glass windows provide the only color in rooms turned gray with dust.

“These were the Sunday school classrooms,” Pilla said, walking through rooms edged with child-height coathooks. The stained glass is lovely but the rest of the room is a mess; Pilla tore a peeling paint piece off the wall. “I always thought this would be a perfect office for nonprofits sharing space,” Pilla said. “This will all be rentable space once we fix it.”

She opened a small door leading into a cubbyhole with slanted ceilings. “This was the education minister’s office.” It was empty save for a dusty desk, and chair with decaying upholstery. Pilla opened the desk drawer. “I’m always looking for treasures,” she said, but found none.

An old ladder in the Sunday-school room leads to a higher tower room, which needs even more work than the classroom below it. Every step on the raw wood floor made creaking sounds throughout the room. “Water was pouring in like a waterfall,” Pilla said. But on a clear, sunny day, the view out the window, over the church’s gray slate roof and into downtown, is stunning. 

Beneath the tower is an entrance to the basement, which also contains many rooms in need of refurbishment. Directly under the tower is a large room filled with theater chairs, which Pilla said were donated by the University of Connecticut.

“We want to renovate this into a theater to show second-run movies,” Pilla said. “Just think! It would only cost about $25,000 for this, and what a naming opportunity! The ‘Your Name’ Memorial Theater.”

Not all of the basement rooms have working lights. A flashlight provided the only illumination in a small room where granite bedrock juts through the original flooring. A cool, dry storage room holds props for the Connecticut Virtuosi Opera (which operates out of an office it rents in the Trinity annex). Other basement rooms can’t be used for anything until someone fixes the leaky pipes that nourish permanent puddles on the floor.

“This will all be beautiful once we fix it up,” Pilla said. But that requires help. “When we talk about being self-sustaining, we’re talking about the operational budget. For capital projects, we’re still looking for benefactors, or federal, state and local grants.”

Who Gets a Raise? The Government

originally published in the New Britain Herald and Bristol Press, March 8, 2009

“Hey, you!” I said to my boss. “Yeah, I’m talking to you. You know the money you’ve been paying me? It’s not enough. I want more.”

“Sorry, no can do,” my boss said apologetically. “We can’t afford more than we already pay. You know how dismal the economy’s been.”

“Whether you can afford it isn’t my problem,” I insisted. “My problem is, I want more money and if you don’t hand it over I’ll put a lien on your house or revoke your driver’s license or something.”

These are serious consequences. Most people, when told “Gimme more money or give up your house and driving privileges,” have no choice but to pay. Not my boss, though. He only laughed, and after a few confused moments I realized why.

“Oops,” I said meekly. “Never mind. For a moment there, I thought I was a government worker and you were ‘My Boss’ only in the sense of being ‘The taxpayers who fund my salary.’ But I forgot: unlike a taxpayer, you have the right to say ‘no’ when folks demand more than you can afford, don’t you? Dang.”

I blame my mistake on geography. I live in Connecticut, where towns and cities get most of their money from “property taxes,” which is the tax people pay if they want to own property. Unfortunately, owning “property” doesn’t always mean you have actual “money,” especially in today’s economy.

For the past umpteen years, Nutmeg municipalities had the habit of passing annual tax increases equal to or greater than the rate of inflation. When the economy was expanding and people’s wages rose each year, this was merely an annoyance. But nowadays, taxpayers facing pay cuts or wage freezes (if not complete loss-of-job) simply can’t afford higher tax bills. Yet their local councils are inflicting them anyway.

Even worse, tax bills are an all-or-nothing proposition. Most living expenses can be cut one way or other; turn down the heat to lower your utility bill, or buy cheaper cuts of meat to slash grocery costs. But if your city assessor says “You owe $7,000 tax on your house,” you can’t counter with, “How about I seal off the den, and you knock a thousand off my bill?”

Municipalities don’t write budgets the same way you do. When you plan a budget, you count how much money you have and then decide what you can afford to spend. Government does it backwards: count how much money they plan to spend and then set tax rates so they can afford it.

And if you say “Sorry, I can’t give you any more,” the government (unlike me with my boss) really can tell you, “Whether you can afford it isn’t my problem. I want more money and if you don’t hand it over I’ll put a lien on your house or revoke your driver’s license or something.”

I’ve lost count, these past few weeks, of how many stories this newspaper has printed about city-government workers getting wage increases while their private-sector counterparts do without. The rationale seems to be, “A basket-case economy is no problem when we can force taxpayers to fill the basket with money.”

Enjoy your pay raises, guys! I’ll be subsisting on oatmeal and memories so I can afford to fund them.

Change Liquor Laws, But for Right Reasons

originally published in the New Britain Herald and Bristol Press, March 1, 2009

Behold what a badass I used to be: One weekend, back in my wild and tempestuous grad school days, I bought a bottle of bourbon at 9:17 p.m. And Scotch, and mixers too.

“I don’t get it,” you might say if you live in most parts of the country. “What’s badass about an over-21 adult buying liquor so early in the evening, then taking it home to share with age-appropriate friends?”

But if you live in Connecticut, as I do, you’ll recognize the rebellious nature of my youthful actions. Bottled alcohol sales here are illegal after 9 p.m., and all day on Sundays. Even 9 o’clock is permissive by historical standards; in my school days, alcohol’s witching hour fell at 8 p.m.   

Of course, you can still buy liquor until 1 or 2 in the morning, if you go to a bar and drink it there. You just can’t take the safer option of driving home before drinking what you bought.

That’s what made my student self such a badass party hostess by Nutmeg State standards: I bought those bottles an hour and 17 minutes too late.

But I’m not confessing to any crime here. I obeyed the letter of the liquor law even as I violated its spirit — I simply crossed the nearest state line to a still-open liquor store. That’s easy in a tiny state such as Connecticut, where the border is rarely more than an hour away and usually less than that. 

Ah, nostalgia. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the Good Old Days, when I was younger and the economy hadn’t started doing cliff-diver impersonations. Now with everything in free­fall, some Connecticut lawmakers — even the governor herself — are suggesting we dismantle certain laws, such as the alcohol ones, written solely to make it harder for in-state consumers to spend money — and pay sales tax — close to home.

To that end, three state representatives from the border town of Enfield have proposed legislation allowing liquor stores open on Sundays, while Gov. M. Jodi Rell suggested allowing Indian casinos to serve alcohol far into the wee hours of the morning.

Naturally, there’s opposition to both proposals. Some argue the state has a moral duty to prevent alcohol purchases at certain dates and times. Others say the law should be changed only if it makes money for the state, and there’s no evidence expanded alcohol hours would do that. Sunday openings are even opposed by liquor-store owners far from the border towns, who enjoy taking time off with no fear their competitors might make sales in the meantime.

I don’t really have a dog in this fight. I rarely drink, never gamble, and wouldn’t dream of doing anything as bureaucracy-intensive as getting a liquor license. But I support these proposals all the same: Let the stores open Sundays, let the casinos serve drinks all night. Heck, let bars and restaurants do it too, if they wish.

Would this make money for the state? Maybe. Maybe not. But that’s not the question to ask, unless you like the implication “Citizens should only do things if the state makes money off it.”

Of course, I belong to the demographic old enough to engage in nostalgia. Maybe that’s why I get all crotchety at the suggestion I’m just a revenue source for the government, rather than the ostensibly free citizen of a democratic republic.

Stimulate Me

originally published in the New Britain Herald and Bristol Press, February 22, 2009

You know those history-book photos of 1920s German housewives shoveling banknotes into their stoves? The captions explain that runaway inflation in the Weimar Republic made burning money cheaper than buying coal.

This will never happen to the American dollar, because anyone who tries burning it will have 15 environmental agencies write him up for pollution violations. Financial writers might discuss how dollar bills make an economical substitute for toilet paper, but there won’t be iconic photos for the history books.

Interesting times ahead, now that President Barack Obama has signed the stimulus bill. I personally couldn’t feel more stimulated if I wore a wet bathing suit and threw myself against an electrified fence. But I’m not bashing Obama for this. The stimulus proposal predates his administration, and a President John McCain would’ve signed one too.

Here’s how it’s supposed to work: Humankind has known for centuries that the world is round. Therefore, if the economy tumbles down after falling into a deep debt hole, the solution is to dig even deeper until you tunnel completely through the Earth and climb out the hole again.

If a principle works in geography class, it applies to economics too. Right? The stimulus builds upon last autumn’s Wall Street/banker/big-company bailout, which said the way to fix a trashed economy is to hand your money over to the folks who trashed it.  

I remember when then-President George W. Bush speechified the bailout. “It will help American consumers and businesses get credit to meet their daily needs,” he said.

“That’s how we got in trouble in the first place!” I shouted. “  ‘Get credit’ is a euphemism for ‘Go into debt,’ and consumers shouldn’t do that just to meet their daily needs!”

“Stop yelling at the television,” my roommate said. “The TV people aren’t listening to you.”

“I know,” I said. “If they did, we wouldn’t be in this mess.” Long before the terms “housing bubble” or “subprime mortgage” entered the zeitgeist, I smelled a problem when, as a recent college grad owing nearly a year’s salary in student-loan debt, I kept hearing from banks who wanted to lend me more money than I’d make in 10 years.

“Are you nuts?” I demanded. “I couldn’t pay down a mortgage that size unless I won Powerball.”

“Stop yelling at your junk mail,” said my roommate.

“Yelling at junk mail is healthier than taking its advice,” I pointed out. So I ignored those mortgage offers and stayed in my apartment while the bubble ballooned.

“Houses historically cost about three years’ salary for the buyer,” I thought. “I’ll buy when they drop back to that level.”

So I smiled when the bubble started deflating last summer. My debts are paid off, I thought. I’ve saved a big down payment. Soon I can buy a house of my own. 

But I didn’t reckon on the stimulus bill. Its backers think affordable housing is bad for America, so they’re spending nearly a trillion dollars to prop up house prices, whereas I’ll get up to $13 in tax rebates per paycheck.

I’ll use the money to buy an enormous novelty lollipop. This symbolizes what a sucker I was, rejecting a mortgage just because I couldn’t afford it. Turns out the smart move would’ve been going over my head in debt, crying victim when the bills came due and waiting for that sweet stimulus money to bail me out.

Safe at Last from Teen Terrorists at Taco Bell

originally published in the New Britain Herald and Bristol Press, February 15, 2009

People of America, rejoice! I passed my Homeland Security check with flying colors, which means you can safely read my articles without worrying that you’re endangering the security of the homeland or anything.

I’m serious. When I started working for this paper full-time, I expected the HR lady to hand me a thick pile of forms to fill out. And she did.

I did not expect one of the forms to feature the words “Department of Homeland Security” written prominently atop it. Yet it did.

Why, you might wonder, is the identity of the arts and entertainment reporter for a couple of central Connecticut dailies considered a homeland security matter? Good question. Turns out it’s not just my identity they’re worried about; that Homeland Security document is the standard citizenship form everyone in America must fill out to take a job.

It probably makes sense for Homeland Security to keep track of such folks as nuclear-plant operators and secret-weapon manufacturers. The wrong person in a job such as that could cause serious damage. But art reporters? Retail workers? Every single job in America? How does Homeland Security find time to root out actual terrorist threats when they’re keeping files on every teenage Taco Bell employee in the country?

I can’t answer that question; I’m still struggling to figure out why three ounces of shampoo in a flier’s carry-on luggage is fine, while four ounces is a terrorist threat worthy of confiscation. But I have a theory. Maybe “national security” is just a catch-all excuse to justify government involvement in even the most minute aspects of ordinary American lives.

Think I’m kidding? Then consider this: Ten years ago, I would’ve laughed at anyone paranoid enough to say the federal government would claim jurisdiction over the toiletries I take on vacation with me. Today they can laugh at me for doubting them instead.

But I’m drifting away from my original point, which is: My presence here at the newspaper in no way threatens the safety of our country. Though this has more to do with editorial vigilance than anything Homeland Security’s up to. Fact is, I’ve been trying to hide secret security-threat messages in most of the stories I write, but whenever I do this, the damned editor and his so-called “improvements” ruin it every time.

For example, I tried giving one recent story the headline:

popular WEekend

AT The blACK

hisTOry MOnth aRRt shOW

The editor changed this to “Art exhibit reports high Saturday turnout,” then called me into his office and made tsk-tsk finger gestures while he lectured me about brevity, spelling, proper capitalization and other things I’m professionally obligated to care about. I responded with a finger gesture of my own, though I waited until after he’d turned his back.

In other news, unemployment rates have risen again, as the American economy shed another few dozen thousand jobs last month. Which is a terrible strain for the newly unemployed, but consider the silver lining framing those dark economic clouds: with less jobs for the government to keep track of, maybe they’ll have time to pay attention when the next “Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside The U.S.” memo lands on some overworked security officer’s desk.

It's Time To Wake Up And Smell The Marijuana

originally published in the New Britain Herald and Bristol Press, February 8, 2009

Remember in “The Wizard of Oz” when Toto tugged at the curtain and revealed the fraudulent, unsustainable nature of Emerald City’s whole wizard-centric way of running things? For some reason that image occurs to me whenever our fine elected officials give their latest “My fellow Americans, regarding the economy, we’re screwed” speech.

Of course we are. Economies based on unpayable debts, rulers claiming fake magic powers — sooner or later, “Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain” stops working, so you witness the “Come out and fess up” stage instead.

It happened in Connecticut last week. Things are so bad here, our governor went on TV to speechify the state’s economic woes. (Note to out-of-staters: This was a big deal because it’s the first televised speech she’s given in her four and a half years as governor. M. Jodi Rell usually prefers communicating with the masses via more traditional methods, like parade appearances.)

State tax revenues dropped sharply because people have less money to tax, which means they can’t afford another tax increase. Rell, to her credit, said she recognizes that. No tax hikes, she says, but budget cuts will be “painful” and require “sacrifice.”

She later noted, “We can do with fewer laws on the books.”

Amen. I personally favor a constitutional amendment mandating zero-growth legal codes: For every law enacted, an old one must be repealed.

Meanwhile, we’d save lots of money with the proposal of state lawmakers Martin Looney and Toni Harp of New Haven, who suggested following Massachusetts’ lead in decriminalizing marijuana on the grounds that we can’t afford to keep arresting and prosecuting people who use it.

The monetary cost is high enough. There’s also the question of whether an ostensibly free country should have the world’s highest prison population. One-fourth of the world’s prisoners are serving time in the United States, and half of all American prisoners are incarcerated on drug charges. That’s one-eighth of the planet’s prison population whose only crime was using or selling intoxicants no worse — and in many ways better — than alcohol.

If you think marijuana should remain illegal, then repeat after me: “America should take more than 40 percent of its adults, and 50 percent of its high school students by the time they reach graduation, and put them in prison. They all deserve criminal records.”

Seriously, that’s a conservative statistic of how many Americans have violated marijuana laws. Generally via smoking it. Often more than once. Most of us turned out fine.

If full enforcement of a law requires arresting and prosecuting nearly half of a country’s 300 million people, does this suggest something inherently wrong with the law? Or does it instead argue for the selective enforcement we have now, where poor and dark-skinned offenders become “drug felons” while their paler and wealthier cousins largely escape police notice?

Now a practical question. If a decriminalization bill passes the legislature, will Rell sign or veto it? In 2007 she vetoed medical marijuana, which is why Connecticut still prosecutes and imprisons sick people for treating themselves with the “wrong” medicine.

But these prosecutions happened before the economy entered meltdown mode. The threat of statewide financial collapse might change Jodi Rell’s mind where simple human compassion did not.

Indignities of Winter Can't Be Accidental

originally published February 1, 2009 in the Middletown Press, Bristol Press and New Britain Herald

The theory of Belligerent Design states that the universe was created by an intelligent being with a chip on his shoulder, who takes his aggression out on hapless humans such as you and me.

This theory isn’t taught in schools, due to opposition from the so-called scientific community over the lack of so-called evidence, but there’s no reason science and belligerent design can’t co-exist. Science concerns itself with “how” things happen. Belligerent design explains “why.”

For example, a scientist can tell you how natural forces such as evaporation, wind currents and temperature gradients combine to make winter storms like the one we had last week, which started off with snowfall before switching to ice that froze itself onto everything it touched.

But science can’t explain why — this is true — the snow-to-ice switch happened at the exact moment I started shoveling snow off my car to get to work. Science is also silent regarding why, when I left work that night, I spent 20 minutes chipping my car out from a block of solid ice, and the second I finished, the temperatures rose above freezing so the remaining ice melted off all by itself.

This was not coincidence. These were the actions of a belligerent designer.

Another reason I wholeheartedly embrace the theory of BD is that the alternative — at least for me — is admitting my problems are my own fault.

I swear, leaving the Southland and moving to Connecticut specifically for the weather sounded like a great idea when I first conceived it, on a hot August night after college when I drove home from a friend’s party at 2 a.m. and the bank-clock thermometers read 92 degrees.

“I’d rather have cold weather than hot,” my deluded young self explained to her friends as she boxed up her worldly possessions and moved north. “If you’re too cold you can always put on another sweater, but if it’s too hot you can only strip down so far before you start looking indecent.”

Of course, there’s a lot more to winter than dressing for the cold. I thought I understood that. “There’s nothing more picturesque than a New England landscape after a fresh snowfall!” I gushed. “Not like the gray, dreary rain we get down here. I’d rather have the snow.”

Idiot. I based this theory partially on fond memories of living here as a child. Sledding downhill on white blankets of snow before coming indoors to drink steaming hot cocoa … turns out the best way to appreciate the beauty of a Connecticut winter is to move away from it when you’re 6 and then, years later, when you’re all grown up and living in Virginia and it’s 92 degrees at 2 a.m., you can dream of northern climes and make a terrible decision ultimately leading to indignities such as the ones I suffered last week.

Not until too late did I realize my 6-year-old self had always been too young to drive and too short to scrape ice off the windshield. What did she know of winter? Nothing of relevance to adults.

The moral of the story is, don’t base important life decisions on your memories of first grade. But if you do anyway, Belligerent Design theory teaches that this is the Creator’s fault, not yours, for belligerently designing the human brain to make childhood memories so untrustworthy.

Spending and Saving, Saving and Spending

originally published January 18, 2009 in the New Britain Herald, Bristol Press and Middletown Press

You know those free online e-mail accounts where you’re guaranteed no-cost access from every Internet connection in the world in exchange for being constantly pummeled by annoying flash ads, fluffhead celebrity news links and the occasional virus attack that crashes your entire hard drive?

I have one, and in recent days it’s been impossible to check my messages without seeing headlines raving about the hot new fashion trend gaining popularity in today’s pre-Depression economy: Shop your closet.

In other words, ladies (and a few gentlemen, too): Instead of buying new clothes, just wear the ones you’ve already got. It’s easy if you’re a grown-up who’s worn the same size for several years now.

Fashion writers didn’t invent “Shop your closet”; they gave the name to a trend already in existence. More Americans every day are shopping their closets, attics and even local food banks, because the economy keeps creating more people whose only choices are “shop your closet” and “don’t shop at all.”

I’m all set for clothes these days, so these articles tell me nothing I don’t know already. What would really help my finances is a story explaining how, if you’d like to save gas money and the Earth by driving a hybrid, you don’t have to spend tens of thousands of dollars because you can just “shop your garage.”

Except I don’t have one, since I live in an apartment. Even with a garage, I doubt I could reach in back and find some adorable little automotive ensemble I forgot I had. Neither can you, unless you belong to that tiny minority of Americans who own automotive junkyards.

But that’s good. If all car buyers could just shop their garage, the auto industry would demand more bailout money and when tax time came, you’d pay for it anyway. Since the garment industry hasn’t asked for a bailout yet, you can still safely shop your closet.

If too many people do this, however, our economy will sink even lower. Behold a paradox: You, personally, are better off if you have low spending, high savings and no debt. So is everyone else you know. But such habits provide none of the gasoline needed to keep our consumer-based economic engine running.

Picture two mirrors set up to reflect endless images into each other: one labeled “As more people lose jobs and investments, fewer can afford to buy things,” and the other “As fewer people can afford to buy things, more lose investments and jobs.”

It almost makes your conscience hurt, to think your economic survival runs counter to the common good. Is that an indictment of you or the system?

Things were easier after 9/11. Remember when Americans asked “What can we do as individuals to strike back against the terrorists who attacked our country” and the president said, “Go shopping?”

I bought socks the Saturday after the attack. I’d noticed, in the waning days of the pre-9/11 era, that my old socks were pretty stretched out, so when I replaced them it was very empowering to think “These socks won’t just keep my feet warm this winter, they strike a blow in defense of freedom and Western civilization. Take that, Osama!”

But there’s no way President Bush — or the President Obama we’ll have this Tuesday — can tell contemporary Americans “Buy more things and we’ll be fine.”

Meanwhile, I need warm socks because there’s a bone-numbing cold snap freezing my little corner of New England. I’ll shop my sock drawer to see if I have any old freedom socks left.