The Angry Jew

The rantings of an Angry Jew in The Pacific Northwest

Frustration is mounting, and damn it something needs to be done. Sure I’m concerned about the economy and the upcoming election, but the pressing issue of the day has to be the pulling of tomatoes from the shelves of every store and restaurant in the city. A salmonella strain has been leaked to some tainted tomatoes and according to The Oregonian caused about 170 people, 3 in Oregon, to become ill. Mind you I say ill, not dead or hospitalized, just plain old porcelain hugging sick. So the FDA put out a warning not to eat certain types of tomatoes that come from states not listed as safe. Appreciated. If there was a small chance that a food could contain salmonella I would want a great big sign letting me know before I set it in my shopping cart. But that option has been stripped away from me, and every other tomato lover. As a precaution, every supermarket and restaurant has lifted the sale of the very slightly dangerous round red goodness.

I have a few bad habits; I smoke about a pack of cigarettes a week, I gamble on an almost daily basis, and on Sundays I take 4 dozen eggs and hurl them one by one at traffic passing down the interstate (okay I made that one up). But I also have a few good habits, one of them being eating pounds and pounds of tomatoes every week. In fact I would say that including salsa and pico, I have a $25-$50/month tomato habit, which so far I have found no 12 step program for. But now I am going through withdraws. I have nothing to put on my sandwiches, my burritos, my salads, or my potatoes (yeah potatoes, its awesome). And all of this because….. a few people threw up? I threw up the last time I ate a Double Whopper.

The Man is scared. The Government didn’t issue any ban, but afraid of lawsuits stores pulled them in the name of our own safety. How dare they. Let the consumer decided if they feel safe. The man has become so preoccupied with our safety that they have sacrificed our happiness. Making our decisions for us like this is just another example of the element of fear driving too much of our lives. Shouldn’t I be able to go down to the store and see my beloved 1 lb tub of pico on the shelf with two big stickers on it, one saying, “Caution, May Contain Salmonella” and another saying “ON SALE!! 80% OFF!!” Isn’t that how this country is supposed to work?

But perhaps this is a sign. Gas prices are soaring and its becoming more and more important to buy local. Maybe its time to give some deserved business to my local farmers market. Until then I just have to keep the nightmares out of my head of fields of tomatoes burning, and mass graves of salsa.

I was about to write this in the comments section of the open letter to the Tobacco Industry, but I have too much to say. First as a personal add-on to said letter, I would like to thank the Tobacco Industry for their efforts. While I know there is a bottom line in mind, you also are standing up for your customers trying to save us from an unfair tax. I hope it works.

So what about this measure 50? As my handy-dandy voters pamphlet that is sitting here on my lap tells me, the Oregon Legislature wants to amend the Oregon constitution and impose an eighty-five cent tax on every pack of cigarettes to fund the “Healthy Kids Act” and anti-smoking programs. Presumably it will raise $380 million by 2011 to help provide health insurance for the 115,000 poorer children of Oregon who don’t currently have any, as well as for some of the poorer adults.

This idea seems very clear, and the wording of the amendment doesn’t blur any lines, the increase in funds is to solely be used for health insurance and tobacco programs. But when I heard about the proposal some weeks ago, it didn’t just make sense, it made too much sense. Here is what I mean, try to follow me.

Picture a classroom; chairs, a chalkboard, short desks with gum stuck to the bottom, maybe a map of the United States on the wall. A 5th grade classroom where the wide eyed students sit for 6 hours a day learning about math, history, science and the most dreaded topic, social studies. Now make sure you insert into your picture one or two anti-smoking posters on the back wall. How long they’ve been there I don’t know, but every classroom I can remember had them. So right now in this 5th grade classroom the energetic and wise old teacher is giving her yearly lesson about the dangers of smoking. She has pictures of smokers lung, a 9 year old video presentation she has already seen 8 times, and she has an overhead slideshow comparing the lifespans of smokers vs. non-smokers, all or which are of course provided by some government funded anti-tobacco institution. Now at the end of all of this the teacher turns to her pupils and asks, “now are there any questions?” And cute little studious Cindy waves her arm in the air and asks, “Why can’t we just make people stop smoking if its so bad?” to which the teacher replies with a simple answer, “it would cost too much money.” Then she asks “But do think there are any other ways to get people not to smoke” and then little Billy raises his hand and exclaims, “Yeah, we could just make cigarettes cost way more money, and then less people would smoke, plus then we could give the extra money to poor kids!” Because here is another schooltime truth, the poor are exalted to the highest level. If you don’t believe me go up to a random student of the public school system and flash a Franklin in front of their face and ask them what they would do with it if they couldn’t spend it on themselves or anyone they knew, and I’ll bet 98/100 of them would say “give it to a poor kid.” If you find the kid who says donate it to a progressive scientific study then make sure you give his parents a big hug and thank you, then give the kid the hundred.

So now Billy has come up with quite a plan. More money from smokers to pay to poor kids. This is what I meant by too simple and making too much sense. This proposal was clearly thought up by a team of do-right save the whale type of kids who simply lack the mental capacity to see what such a proposal implies. Just look at the name, “Healthy Kids Act” HA! Noble indeed. If we think this ballot measure is good idea lets head back to the classroom and see what else the kids are coming up with. Hmmmm…Shut down all those icky factories, because they pollute our air. Okay! Young Jennifer has a good idea to stop cutting down trees because they are where all the owls live, and plus they make our air. Okay Jennifer, we’ll put it on the ballot for you next session. We may be out of a job AJ, but at least we have clean crisp air to freeze to death in.

Measure 50 is the ultimate question in “Are You Smarter Than A 5th Grader” and I’m really worried we are going to get this one wrong!

Now that is just the surface problem with ballot measure 50, but what about the real problems with it. What is it that young Billy wouldn’t be able to think through clearly, but a mature educated adult would?  There seemed to be a lot of fuss made over this being a constitutional amendment, but is that really the issue. The Angry Jew has this one spot on. Using a small fraction of society to carry the burden of all its poor is blatantly unfair.

First of all, really, why couldn’t the legislature manage to pass something called the “Healthy Kids Act” with its inflated 2007 budget. Really guys? My mind spins at all the excess trim that made its way through while this got put off to the side. Not that I am in any way for taxpayers flipping the bill for the health insurance needs of the poor, but come on, if you are going to mess it up, at least mess it up right.  So it wasn’t important enough to include in the 2007 spending, so why is it so important to create a ballot measure and amendment? Because they have found a loophole, a good looking loophole at that. Instead of doing actual work and finding a way to insure 115,000 kids in Oregon, the people of Oregon may decided to act like a bunch of 5th graders and throw the burden onto the backs of the smokers. Smokers. We who choose to smoke on average make less money, have more kids, and live shorter lives than those who choose not to. All smokers are aware that its a horrible thing to do. But we don’t care, because we are our own in a free country. And personally I love to smoke, LOVE IT! But why should my or anyone else’s choice to smoke make them somehow liable for 115,000 kids? Where is the logic!?

So sleep well non-smokers, that probably isn’t hard since most of you don’t snore. And it only will get easier, bedding down knowing you did your civic duty. Doing your civic duty not by paying a single cent out of your own wallet, but by voting yes on measure 50 and having somebody else pay out of theirs. Assholes!

I need a cigarette!

Good Times.

Once again thank you Angry Jew for setting me up for posting, I finally have something first hand to write about, so here goes.

My roommate awoke me this morning with a call from the shoulder of I-5. It seems her tiny red Honda and an eighteen-wheeler had an exchange of paint on her way to work, and she needed a car-jack to change her tire before she could get a  tow (this made no sense to me, but her blather is beside the point). I had a brief conversation with her before she finally hung up, crying heavily. While I was talking with her I asked the obvious question, “whose fault was it?” and she gave the even more obvious answer, “his.” but even as she was saying this, I already had a definitive answer that this was in fact her fault. My roommate happens to be an incredibly aggressive driver, one of those tailgating jerks who you can’t stand to ride shotgun with because they never stop verbally harassing the people ahead of them. You know that car on the freeway that muscles for rank like there is a checkered flag somewhere up the road, thats her.

With this being her second serious collision in the last 6 months, the other being her plowing over a bicycle that also was “not her fault,” the math is already done, somehow she caused this accident, or at least could have prevented it.  Although if you were to ask her, she would tell you she’s an excellent driver, and ask why do these things have to happen to her?

So the point I’d like to make is best summed up in one of my favorite quotes; “The One Thing That Unites All People Is That We All Believe We Are Above Average Drivers.”

There needs to be a big reality check for that large sector of society that thinks they are good drivers because they don’t run red lights and can parallel park,  but keep bumping into things.  Why do these things have to happen to you? Its because you risk it every minute you drive aggressively and worry more about shaving 90 seconds off your commute than to just get to work safely.  Think of it this way, unless you are big into mountain climbing, or work building high rises or maybe in a circus, driving is the most dangerous thing you will do during most of your life. Yet when are people more reckless?

First a co-worker, then my brother, now my roommate have busted up their cars in the last 3 months, and all I can do is shake my head and pay more and more for car insurance that I probably will not ever use. YOU’RE WELCOME