The SoapBoxers

Last week a federal judge determined that proposition 8 was unconstitutional.  Proposition 8 is an amendment to the constitution of the state of Californian which forbids gay marriage by inserting the definition of marriage as one man and one woman.  This proposition and the judge’s ruling have created a firestorm of news articles.  Now I am a not a social conservative, therefore I do not really have a strong opinion as to whether a gay couple’s relationship should be labeled as a marriage, a union or any other term.  My concern is with the unintended consequences of this argument.

First, let’s look at the amendment.  It is rather simple and is focused on the definition; one man and one woman.  It was passed by a super majority of the people of California.  I am not a lawyer, but from what I can tell, this amendment only pertained to marriage in California and did not block the recognition of gay marriages from other states such as Massachusetts.  This presents a problem for the state at least at the tax level, as California does have separated tax tables for married couples just like the federal government.  How do your recognize something that could not have happened in the state?  That is just one of many ramifications.

Now let’s look at the Judge’s decision.  The judge stated that the amendment was discriminatory and therefore violated the United States Constitution.  This is interesting in that the United States Constitution has very specific things that are protected from discrimination, and gay marriage is not one of them.  I am not debating whether this is discrimination or not, I am just looking at the consequences.  IF we eliminate the definition, which was apparently not needed in the past, we have to consider what we do for other forms of marriage.  Does this decision mean that polygamy lays are unconstitutional?  Again, this is just one example.

In the past, we have had laws and constitutional amendments that now seem rather silly.  Until the 1960’s there were still laws forbidding interracial marriage.  Does this latest round of legal intrigue fall into this category?  If we look further into our history, we can see other laws and institutions that have been supported by majorities of the people and even upheld by the supreme court, later to be changed or thrown out.  I cannot predict the future, but these arguments which are so important today will at some future date seem rather odd to school children, if it is even mentioned at all.  I can predict that this issue will continue to be the source of many spiteful comments as each group believes that they are on the moral high ground.

The full text of the proposal is copied below from http://voterguide.sos.ca.gov/past/2008/general/text-proposed-laws/text-of-proposed-laws.pdf.

PROPOSITION 8

This initiative measure is submitted to the people in accordance with the provisions of Article II, Section 8, of the California Constitution.  This initiative measure expressly amends the California Constitution byadding a section thereto; therefore, new provisions proposed to be added are printed in italic type to indicate that they are new.

SECTION 1. Title

This measure shall be known and may be cited as the “California Marriage Protection Act.”

SECTION 2. Section 7.5 is added to Article I of the California Constitution, to read:

SEC. 7.5. Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California.

The full text of the Judge’s decision can be found at http://media.scpr.org/documents/2010/08/04/Perry_Trial_Decision.pdf.

Every time I have a bad customer service experience (which seems to be increasingly frequently these days), I am reminded of my worst customer service experience ever. We turn back the clock to the year 2000(ish), when I was set to ditch my 56K modem for DSL.  I contacted my local phone carrier, Verizon, to get the ball rolling.

Several days later, I had everything in place.  I fired up the DSL modem and … nothing.

I gave a call to tech support.  They couldn’t figure out the problem, so they gave me the number of someone else to call.  This cycle repeated itself for an entire weekend, at the end of which I had twenty different numbers for Verizon scribbled on a sheet of paper (I’m not exaggerating).  Once, someone referred me back to the same area that referred me to them – but used the acronym for that area instead of the full name and gave me a different number than the one I had.  I’m not sure if this was out of spite or incompetence.

This entire experience was frustrating for many reasons.  Some of the troubleshooters were apparently hired off the street five minutes before the shift began.  Yes, the DSL modem is plugged into the power outlet, just as it was when the last person asked me. I work in IT, so I wanted to bang my head against the wall in response to some of the possible root causes they suggested.

The most frustrating aspect was the obvious fact that they had no way to track problems.  Every time I called, I had to repeat every single detail of my experience to the new “customer service” rep – by the end of the weekend, this took a lot of time.  I work for a company that utilizes a tracking system for problems.  If I route your call to another area, the new person immediately has the entire history of the problem.  This is a very, very good thing.

At the end of a very long weekend, I told them to just forget it and cancel my account.  I was just going to stick with 56K.  I couldn’t even justify getting cable internet.  At that time, I received free cable in my apartment, and getting cable internet would have meant switching to a different provider – meaning that I’d be paying for cable TV in addition to cable internet.  Regardless, the joy of high speed internet was not worth the hassle of fighting with Verizon.

While I was on the phone, the customer service rep gave me two options to return the modem.  I could have them send me a postage paid box, or I could simply drop it off at my local Verizon Phone Mart.  In an attempt to make things easier for them, I said I’d drop it off at the Verizon Phone Mart.  Hey, why incur shipping fees when I could easily hand it back to a member of their organization?

Well, apparently the folks at the Verizon Phone Mart didn’t realize that they were being used as an outlet to return DSL modems.  They had no idea what to do with the modem.  I told them I’d call Verizon back when I got home and have those folks touch base with the brick and mortar store.  The Phone Mart people agreed to give this a shot.

When I called Verizon back, they assured me that they would touch base with the Verizon Phone Mart and process the return.  Wonderful – problem solved.

About ten days later, I got a call from the Verizon Phone Mart, wanting to know what to do with the modem.  I told them that a Verizon representative should have contacted them about the details of the return.  Unfortunately, the customer service rep hadn’t actually followed through and contacted them.  Again, this wasn’t a case of me randomly showing up at the Verizon Phone Mart with the modem – I had been given this option by a customer service rep.

I drove to the store and picked up the modem.  The people at the Verizon Phone Mart seemed to be as much of a pawn in this as me, so there was no point getting upset at them.  I called Verizon again and had them send me the postage paid box and finally sent the modem back.  Wonderful – problem solved.

Well, not exactly.  For about six months afterward, I kept getting charged for DSL service.  It took a lengthy phone call each month to finally get charge taken off the bill.  Each time, I was assure that the system showed that I did not have DSL service and would not be charged in the future.  Each month, the charge reappeared.

The story does have a happy ending, though.  One customer service rep managed to actually stop the charges from appearing.  However, even this was not mistake free.  When the representative applied the credits, she credited something twice.

At this point, I had an ethical dilemma.  I had money that rightfully belong to Verizon – around $20, I believe.  Should I call to inform them of their mistake, or just keep my mouth shut?

After six months of battling with them on billing issues, I decided to just keep my mouth shut.  I didn’t really want to waste more of my time arguing with them in an attempt to return their money.  Even worse, I feared that the process of reversing this credit would cause the whole mess to start up again.

To this day, I refuse to consider Verizon when I make purchasing decisions.  Over the past decade, I’ve also told this story to a great many people in order to explain my hatred for Verizon.

Malcom Newbury sat behind the great mahogany desk, waiting for the others to arrive for the meeting. The intern, Rachel Buxton, sat at Newbury’s right, pounding away at the keyboard as she answered the vast majority of emails that made it into Newbury’s inbox.

Buxton had been an intern at Newbury Industries for six months, but her ties to Malcom went back much further. Buxton’s parents had both been longtime domestic employees of Newbury.

Diana Buxton had been in charge of the inside of Newbury’s home. Among her chores were the cooking, cleaning, and trips to the grocery store. Where Diana’s realm ended, Thomas Buxton’s began. Thomas maintained the grounds, kept the two horses fed and exercised, fixed anything that broke, and served as chauffeur or butler when the occasion called for it.

When Rachel was fourteen, tragedy struck. Her parents were driving home from a rare night on the town when their car hit a patch of ice, slid off the road, and slammed into a tree. Diana and Thomas were killed instantly.

Diana and Thomas Buxton had no living family, so it was no great surprise that their wills dictated that Malcom Newbury be appointed as Rachel’s legal guardian. This was not a responsibility Malcom looked forward to. His own children had long since flown the coop, and he had no desire to raise another teenager.

Rachel was equally uncomfortable with the arrangement. However, she realized that remaining under the roof of Malcom Newbury was immeasurably better than landing on the streets, and she made every effort to ease the burden on him.

Over the years, Rachel had assisted her mother on many of the tasks around the house, and she quickly slipped into the role her mother had filled for Malcom – ensuring that the house was clean and that dinner was always ready on time. Malcom had hired a man to maintain the grounds, but Rachel took charge of the horses.  The fact that Rachel Buxton was able to maintain excellent grades with a grueling work schedule was a testament to the fortitude of the young woman.

Two years later, Malcom had suffered a heart attack while eating dinner. His trusty servant Rachel had immediately performed CPR and called 911. At the hospital, she maintained a vigil in his room, sleeping for only fifteen or twenty minutes at a time before resuming her watch.

It was during his convalescence that Newbury realized that he had taken the loyalty of Rachel and her parents for granted. This sixteen year old girl stood by him every step on his recovery, serving as his coach and urging him on. At the same time, not a single member of Malcom’s own family could be bothered to call or write.

Malcom decided that Rachel would have the opportunity to go to college, despite the fact that her parents had died nearly penniless. On her eighteenth birthday, Malcolm surprised her with the gift of a college education, completely paid for.

Three years into a stellar college career, it had been time for Rachel to embark upon an internship. She had initially balked at the prospect of an internship with Newbury Industries, insisting that she wanted to gain an opportunity on her own merits. Malcom had suggested that she analyze her resume more closely – her merits certainly qualified her for this opportunity.

For six months, she had been Malcom Newbury’s personal assistant. She had learned about the company from the founder himself. She was a natural, and was soon handling the majority of correspondence with minimal involvement from Newbury – allowing only the most complex issues to arrive at his desk. She was far and away the best assistant Newbury had ever had the pleasure of working with.

Rachel ceased her typing when the five vice presidents of Newbury Industries entered the office and took their seats. She sat with anticipation, waiting for the meeting of the power brokers to begin.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” began Malcom Newbury, “as you know, this young woman is Rachel Buxton, the intern. She has been doing an excellent job, and I would like to announce her promotion.”

Rachel broke into a broad smile at the unexpected news. Being promoted to a permanent position would be a great relief – no more running around trying to land a job before she graduated in May.

“As of this moment, Rachel will assume the title of vice president. Upon my retirement or eventual demise, she will become president of the company.”

Rachel sat in stunned silence. She noticed that she was the only one registering any shock – it was clear that this meeting was for her benefit.

Malcom turned and spoke directly to Rachel. “Over the years, I treated your parents very poorly. They put their very heart and soul into making me happy, and I rewarded them only with their wages. They gave me the great honor of raising their daughter, and this I also held in low regard. In my old age, I have come to realize that you are far more family that my own flesh and blood. I have enjoyed watching your successes over the years, and it is with great pride that I look forward to turning my life’s work over to you.”

When he finished speaking, Rachel saw a single teardrop land on his cheek. She stood to embrace him, the only living person that she could consider to be family. Their relationship had been forged by hardships – and as a result, was as strong as steel.

$862,000,000,000.  That is what $862 billion looks like.  That happens to be the amount of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.  We’ve all been concerned as we heard stories about where the money was going.  I did a little poking around and I found these items below:

• $233 million to UC at San Diego to study why Africans vote.
• $2 million to build fire station in Nevada but the county couldn’t afford the wages.
• $550,000 to replace windows in a Washington (state) visitor’s center that had closed in 2007.
• $1.9 million the California Academy of Sciences to study ants.
• $800,000 for a Georgia Tech assistant professor to study improved music by “jamming” with world renowned musicians.
• North Carolina schools received $4.4 million to hire math & literacy coaches FOR THE TEACHERS.
• $24 million to a contractor currently on trial for bribery
• $15 million to Boeing which was fined for polluting a creek—they were asked to monitor water quality.
• $650 million for digital TV coupons
• $600 million to convert the federal auto fleet to hybrids
• $400 million to local governments to purchase hybrid vehicles
• $9 million to Harvard University to research and assemble robotic bee
• $428,000 to design better video games for senior citizens

There are so many more reckless and foolish expenditures that I had to quite typing.  I stated to feel carpel tunnel and I was starting scream like the Angry Squirrel.

Pork, pork, pork.

Have you seen those highway signs on your way to work?  You know, the ones that read: “Funded by the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act” and “Putting America Back to Work”?  I have seen a few of them.  I drive past one on I-25 every morning and every night.  I had no idea that they cost so much though.  ABC News recently reported that Pennsylvania spent $157,000 for 70 of those signs.  That averages $2,242.86 per sign.  I heard an earlier news report that was even higher but I was unable to locate it now.  I also heard a news report that documented a large amount of money was spent to study the mating habits of bees.  However, I was not able to find the particulars.

I’m glad that we have a president that will not sign any bill into law that contains pork.  This is truly the kind of hope and change that people were voting for.

Squeaky…

I’ve been juggling a few balls lately – so what is the status?

I am happy to announce that Tip of the Iceberg and other Stories is complete!  The 99 page PDF will contain copies of every of my fiction stories this year, as well as a 5500+ word story Tip of the Iceberg.  Tip of the Iceberg will only appear in this PDF.  The only bad news is that this is one of the rare occasions when we will be charging for content.  However, our most loyal customers will receive a price break.

How long did it take to write Tip of the Iceberg?  About six months, I guess.  I started kicking around ideas for the anchor story for the 4th volume of my fiction around the time volume 3 hit the shelves.  I generated and abandoned quite a few ideas along the way.  While I’m confident that I settled on the right story for this volume, it’s conceivable that some of the other ideas will become the capstone stories in future volumes or that scaled down stories will find their way onto the blog.

I also finished the audio version of Tip of the Iceberg.  This is the audio for just the one story – not the entire collection.  The audio runs about 30 minutes and features Kosmo as the reader.

I will be selling this collection in three different ways:

• The PDF of Tip of the Iceberg and other Stories
• The MP3 audio version of Tip of the Iceberg
  
• A combo version that contains the PDF and the audio, at a reduced price

The official launch date will be on August 12.  As always, I’ll provide a few hundred words as teaser in order to lure you in and fork over a few of your hard earned bucks.  I expect the pricing to be about 15 cents per story.  So I’m trying not to nickel and dime you too much.  Oh, wait – 15 cents is a nickel and a dime.  So I guess I AM trying to nickel and dime you.

I’ve also been working on Mountains, Meadows, and Chasms, my entry for the Iowa Short Fiction Award.  The mountains, meadows, and chasms are not literal but rather metaphors for life – the good times, the bad times, and the everyday experiences.  Entries for the contest must be 150 pages, and I had no trouble collecting enough of my work to hit that page count.  After removing some stories that I wasn’t particularly proud of, the page count stands at 236.  This could fluctuate slightly, but at this point, I’m pretty much set on those stories being included.

During the next few months, I plan to scale down to six articles a week in The Soap Boxers.  This should allow me to focus a bit more attention on my novel, but unfortunately has been languishing lately.  I’d love to get more written in the novel, but I simply haven’t had time in recent months.  Hopefully skipping an article every week will free up at least a bit of time.

Saturday marked the passing of baseball’s trade deadline.  From now through the end of the season, players must pass through waivers before being traded.  The waivers process is to complex to fully explain in the midst of this article – suffice it to say that others team can claim the players during the process in order to mess up a trade. 

The Houston Astros went into full dismantle mode, crippling their offense and pitching by sending Lance Berkman and Roy Oswalt away in trades.  Berkman went to the Yankees, in a classic case of the rich getting richer.

The Oswalt deal was a head scratcher for me.  I don’t blame the Phillies for targeting Oswalt – lots of teams were pursuing the Astros ace at the deadline.  The aspect that had me scratching my head was that they had just dealt away Cliff Lee at the time they acquired Roy Halladay.  Why jumping through all the hoops of trading Lee away and then acquiring Oswalt when they could have just retained Lee.  At the time that the Phillies were rumored to be acquiring Halladay, I was very intrigued at the thought of Halladay and Lee in the same rotation, and was a bit puzzled when Lee was shipped out.  I wonder if this game of musical pitchers is going to end up costing them a playoff spot?  How many more wins could the Phillies have had in the first half with Lee in the rotation?  Having said this, I do think that Oswalt is the better pitcher.

The Yankees made a couple smaller moves, picking up veterans Austin Kearns and Kerry Wood for the stretch run.  Both are players who were once rising stars whose stars are now fading.  Nonetheless, the mention of Wood’s name always begs the question: How much wood could Kerry Wood carry if Kerry Wood could carry wood?  And that other question – did Dusty Baker ruin the acreers of Wood and Mark Prior by overextending them in games?

The Rangers were a team that pushed all their chips into the middle of the table.  Texas acquired the aforementioned Cliff Lee earlier in July to bolster their rotation.  At the deadline, they firmed up their infield by picking up Jorge Cantu and Cristian Guzman.  The Rangers might not play in the AL East, but look for them to be a tough out in the playoffs.

On Friday night, my Rockies hammered the Chicago Cubs 17-2.  The margin was just 5-2 entering the bottom of the 8th inning.  The first two Rockies got hits.  The next two hitters made outs.  Then the floodgates opened.  The Rockies got eleven straight, then two walks, before finally making the third out.  Eighteen batters came to the plate and the Rockies scored twelve runs.  The eleven straight hits were an all-time Major League record – and bear in mind that Major League Baseball has been around since 1876.

You may ask yourself – what are the odds of this happening in a game?  Well, with Kosmo in the house, you don’t need to ponder the answer.  Well, if you have a team consisting entirely of .300 hitters (which is virtually impossible), the odds of turning two consecutive at bats into hits is just 9%, or .3^2.  The odds of eleven straight hits would be .3^11 – or one chance in 564,503.  If your team consist of all .260 hitters (much more likely), the odds are just one in 2,724,540.

This does, of course, assume that each at bat is an independent event, which isn’t the case.  Subsequent batters may learn from the experience of the first batters, and pitchers may lose confidence in their breaking pitches and throw more fastballs.  This would cause these odds to shift a bit more in the favor of the hitters.

Of course, these are just the odds at bats turning into hits.  An at bat in a trip to the plate that results in either an out or a hit (statisically, a defensive error counts as an our for the hitter, which sucks).  The thing that made the Rockies hit parade even more unlikely was that it was not interrupted by any walks – the walks came later (a trip to the plate that results in a walk is not charged to the batter as an at bat, but is merely included in the more broad classification of plate appearances).  I can’t even calculate the odds of this happening – because the pitcher can easily stop such a streak by intentionally walking a batter.

On Saturday night, Carlos Gonzalez hit for the cycle against the Cubs.  This means that he had a single, double, triple, and home run in the same game.  Gonzalez completed the cycle in dramatic fashion – bashing a walk-off home run in the bottom of the 9th.

From time to time I wax poetic about emotions. Perhaps it is because I am aging, or perhaps everyone gets sentimental from every now and again. This is a discussion of love and the many forms it takes; I declare seven.

The first love that I can remember was so far back in my life that I cannot remember when it started. That love I shared with my parents. My mother’s embrace; caring, soothing, always there. My father’s protecting aura; constant, strong and safe. I live far from my parents now, but they are always close.

That love is enduring, it can never be broken.

The second love I recognized was the love of family. My brother, sister, grand parents; always part of my life, even when I wanted to get away. The family is strength. They build up and bring back down to Earth. The greatest joys of my life were in November of 1990, September of 1992 and January of 1996 with the births of my children. The heaviest loss in my life was the death of my brother. November of 1992 was the lowest month of my life.

That love is enduring, it can never fade.

Then I learned to love my friends. Voluntarily putting my emotions in the hands of other was a challenge. The relationships that I have enjoyed have been so fulfilling. Friends who I reconnect with time after time. Each time I have had to move, the separation of those relationships has been painful. When I moved in 1978 as a child, those pains were deep. I searched out several of those friends to reconnect through summer trips and eventually inclusion in my marriage celebration.

That love is enduring, it is a gift of self.

As I moved into the world, and became independent, I learned of self love. I thought I could stand alone. I fought the good fights, when I had to. I loved life and learned to believe in myself. The loss of that love is the loss of self.

That love has to endure, it is self fulfilling.

In the fall of 1987, I learned of a new love. I gave my whole being. In the summer of 1988, I learned what it meant to cleave to another, to cease to be two and become one. I love my wife so deeply that I do not know how we will go on when one of us has passed.

That love is enduring, it makes me complete.

Through out my life, I have learned why and how America is special. In the summer of 1969, I saw the courage, ingenuity and perseverance of an entire country come to fruition on the Sea of Tranquility. In the Fall of 2001, I saw what separated us from a large portion of the world. We care for strangers, we unite in disaster.

That love endures, it is what makes us great.

Although I have been Roman Catholic all of my life, it was only in name. The care of my children, the desire to separate wrong from right, the need for a higher authority, drove me back to the church. The love of God is all love combined. The stranger becomes you neighbor, your neighbor becomes your brother, your country becomes something to fight for.

That love is enduring, it is freely given, all you have to do is receive it.