* * Thinking about stealing

Pedro Loza is my newest friend.  He’s from La Paz, Bolivia.  Not long after we met, he asked me a question that caused me to struggle for an answer.

I was selected by representatives of Rotary International a few months ago to lead a team of four young people on a GSE (group study exchange) trip to Bolivia.  We leave in two weeks.

Because this is an exchange, a team of Bolivians was chosen to come here.  They arrived 3 weeks ago and Pedro is the leader.  He stayed for several days as a guest at my house.  After several days here, I asked him what surprised him about our country and about Southwest Virginia.  He said he was surprised by all the things that everyone left outside all the time, things like lawn chairs, yard art, and potted plants.  “Aren’t you worried about them being stolen?”  He explained that in his nation, which is very poor, the people of means typically have walls around their yards to prevent things from being stolen.  “You have poor people here, too. Don’t they steal things?”

My first reaction was to think about the things we routinely leave outside.  We have some old, broken and patched plastic Adirondack lawn chairs. We have a few pots, awaiting the coming summer season’s flowers.  But who’d want to steal that stuff?  I said, “Most of this stuff outside is so cheap I don’t think even poor people want it.”

Then I began to reflect. 

A decade ago, my life was rocked with the discovery that the long-term bookkeeper at our company had been embezzling from us for years.  The aftermath was the most interminably stressful and unhappy period of my life.  The thief was a grandmotherly woman who I hired and worked next to for years.  Until her arrest, I liked her and never considered for an instant that she might be crooked.  After her arrest and months of agony, the act of thievery became increasingly repulsive to me.  I thought many times to myself that it would be impossible for any fair-minded person to wear a priceless piece of jewelry or show a fine painting in their home if they had stolen it. Most of us would feel guilt or remorse every time we saw it.  How could other people not feel this way?

Finally, I said to Pedro, “In my experience, it has been no more likely for a poor person to steal than a wealthy one.”  Bernard Madoff (What a great name for a thief: he “made-off” with the money.) is the most notorious thief in recent memory.  He was wealthy before his thievery and he victimized seemingly everybody, from old friends to charitable organizations.  He is what my grandfather would have called, “a real piece of work.”

Pedro pulled up his pant leg and showed me a cloth pouch tied to his calf.  It had a zipper closure. He used it to store his money and precious papers.  He was using it in my town, where bodily theft is unheard of. 

I was a victim of a serious crime because I was naïve and trusting, and never believed that someone I knew personally and always treated with kindness and respect would ever do anything as malevolent.  Still, my guard has dropped again and I’m more likely than not to trust each new person I meet.  How else could I allow Pedro or any other guest to stay in my home?

Our system of business and personal relationships throughout my culture is based upon trust.  Where would we be if it were gone?

Three days ago, Japan was devastated by an earthquake and tsunami. It’s something they have always been susceptible to.  Our Gulf Coast routinely gets hammered by hurricanes. My cousin’s son was attacked by thugs as he walked the streets of Washington, DC.  People learn to live – or sometimes die – with the threats around them.  I’d hate to have the constant threat of theft looming before me.  And yet I can never again be so naïve to the possibility if it.



* * Walking in the rain

I just returned from a walk.  Five miles.  In the pouring rain.
Preparation was intensive, like dressing to play a football game.  From the bottom up:
I put on a pair of SmartWool socks and then my new Keen boots.  They’re lightweight and are advertised to be waterproof.  I would know soon.
I wore lined tights over my legs, then Frog-Tog rain pants.
Over my torso, I put on a poly-pro shirt, then a wool shirt, then my Mountain Gear parka.
On top, I wore a fisherman’s style hat from Columbia sportswear.
(This is starting to feel like a product endorsement!)
I parked the car at the intersection of the Huckleberry Trail and Mabry Lane, near the entrance to Warm Hearth.  This part of town was developed after municipalities decided that sidewalks weren’t necessary any more.  So walking the road to the trailhead isn’t fun, especially in the rain.
Immediately upon leaving the car, I could see how much rain had been falling since it began last evening.  The trail is paved with asphalt but there were large puddles in and beside it.  For much of its distance in the Merrimac area, it parallels Slate Creek. Wherever possible, The Huckleberry uses an old railroad grade. Trains like to hug watercourses, as the topography is easier.  The Slate is a modest creek of clear, meandering water, easily jumpable over mid-stream rocks. But on this day, it was a churning, roiling thing, with water the color of milky coffee.  Leaves and twigs rode the rapid waves downstream to the New River and the Gulf of Mexico.  Intermittent streams and gentle gullies were roiling with coffee water as well.  Water streamed off the leaves of the rhododendron.
I had no competition for the single parking space, but at ½ mile in, a runner passed me.  He had gazelle legs, uncovered, and wore only a long-sleeve shirt, shorts, and running shoes.  He looked to be a teenager. 
I crossed Hightop Road into the wooded section, listening to the rain pounce on the fallen leaves.  Between that and the churn of the creek and the spatter of drops on my hat, it was loud on my chilly ears.  Raindrops danced on the shoulder of my parka, but no water seeped inside. 
A mile into the walk, a second runner passed me, similarly dressed to the first.  He appeared to be older, surely old enough to know better than to spend this much time soaking wet.  From my outdoor experience, rain is colder than snow.   Snow gets brushed off, but rain, when it seeps through and hits the skin, transfers drastically more body heat away than air alone. 
Onward I walked.  In the Merrimac Mines section, there was nobody else around.  There were places where the trail was overwhelmed by the water, with streams an inch high flowing over it.  I could feel the fabric in my boots becoming damp, but it didn’t feel like the water was seeping in.  Just beyond the big bridge over the active rail line, I stopped at the covered shelter and had a drink from the water bottle I was carrying.  Even the metal benches under the canopy were wet, so pervasive was the rainfall.  My gear was holding up well.  I was warm and dry.
The obvious question of why I was walking on such a miserable weather day dawned on me.  The best answers I could come up with weren’t too different from why I’d do this on any day.  First, of course, is the exercise.  Everybody needs to work his or her muscles, and the infusion of fresh air is therapeutic regardless of our age or fitness level.  Second, I suppose, is the communion with nature.  Nature isn’t always pretty or fun.  But it is what it is, and we’re part of it.  Surely there were people losing their houses and possessions in floodwaters somewhere in our area.  This was my genuflection to the power of nature.
The second runner had done his turn-around and passed me again, going back to his starting point. I smiled and said hello, and he indicated he was doing fine, in spite of the graying hear matted to his forehead.  A few hundred yards later, the first runner passed, too.  His cheeks were as red as an apple.
Through the cut, I paused for a moment at the “Bob bench.”  When Dad turned 70, my siblings and I pooled some money and bought a bench in his honor. It is a sturdy thing with metal supports and 2-by-4s for the seat and back.  Some years later, a vandal smashed the wood and threw the piece with the metal plaque into the woods.  I found the plaque and salvage it. I bought and installed new wood and re-attached the plaque.  It’s in good shape now.  The original installation was 13 years ago; dad turns 83 in May.
I had planned to turn around there, but my body heat had warmed me and the rhythm of the rain beckoned me further.  I walked another half-mile and turned around where a railroad spur still reaches the Corning plant.  I was in sight of the mall, the Sears store specifically, where I guessed many people were spending the rainy day in our county’s temple of consumerism.
Back by the big bridge, I stopped to watch some sparrows play in and through the links of a chain-link fence.  A blue jay cackled in a pine tree nearby.  I leaned over to re-tie my boot and water streamed off my shoulder onto the ground.
On my way back, I thought to take an alternative trail for a few hundred yards.  A new, unpaved trail linked several remnant sites of the old coalmine that operated in the area decades earlier.  A wooden, low-level bridge over the creek was marked by the supremely self-evident sign, “Do not cross bridge if under water.”  It was still a few inches above the water, so I crossed.  Not 30 feet on the other side, a huge puddle swamped a 20-foot section of trail, so I retreated.
In the swampy areas, the rising water had caused numerous discarded water bottles to surface.  There was much trash of all kinds in the creek and near the trail, particularly where it paralleled Merrimac Road, where drivers could easily pitch their drink cans and other rubbish into the woods.  Roadside trash is disgraceful; one of our area’s most shameful characteristics.
As I approached my car an hour and a half after I left it, the puddle I’d parked near when I began had grown to surround two of the four wheels.  Slate Creek continued to churn.  My socks felt damp.  It continued to rain.
I stashed my wet parka on the back seat floorboard and started the car. As I pulled away, Creedence Clearwater Revival played on the radio,

I hear hurricanes ablowin'

I know the end is comin' soon

I fear rivers overflowin'

I hear the voice of rage and ruin'

Don't go around tonight

It's bound to take your life.

There's a bad moon on the rise...

* * Pondering taxation

Taxes are a necessary evil of running a government. All governments spend money, ostensibly to benefit the citizenry by providing defense..., measured security, and the “general welfare.” To obtain that money, they tax. Simple.
All money is created from “scratch” and loaned into existence, and except for the rare occasion where it finds its way to a collector, and is ultimately destroyed. Since we de-coupled it from the gold standard, it has no intrinsic backing, either. Money is an exchange on human labor and is only valuable by virtue of the promise it holds in the minds of the people who exchange it. Why will a store exchange lots more merchandise for the piece of paper you give them with “$100” on it than they will for the same looking piece of paper with “$1” on it? Because they believe the former is worth 100 times as much. Otherwise, there is no value in a small piece of paper other than perhaps the BTU value if you burn it (in which case I’d surely rather have 100 pieces marked “$1” than one piece marked “100”).
So the question then becomes, who pays the taxes and how much?
There have been periods in our history when tax rates were higher and lower than now for all income brackets. A friend wrote on a blog, “From 1950 through 1980, the tax rate for the top bracket was 70% or higher.” This chart shows taxation rates for the last hundred years or so: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Chart_1.png
As you can see, the taxation rate for the wealthiest is near the historically lowest levels.
Much of today’s zeitgeist regarding taxation began with the doctrines of Ronald Reagan. I’m beginning to read this book:
http://www.amazon.com/Man-Who-Sold-World-Betrayal/dp/1568584105
about how Ronald Reagan, through his personal magnetism, sold our nation on the notion that feeding riches to the top would “trickle down” and benefit everyone. His soon to be running mate, George H.W Bush called Reagan’s policies “Voodoo Economics.” I think it is a fair statement that the money we’ve channeled to the top hasn’t benefited everyone because the money has trickled not down but rather out – to the rest of the world.
President Obama said when he ran for president that he was in favor of greater taxation to those people in society making more than $250,000. But congress won’t let that happen. The amount of money flowing from the richest Americans to the political process is increasing and appalling. The uber-wealthy have used their focus groups and their market research studies to learn how to manipulate public opinion to the point where it astounds me how many millions of people in this country habitually vote against their own economic well-being. Last year’s “Citizen’s United” Supreme Court decision that gives corporations unlimited ability to influence the political process is likely to mean nothing less than the end of democracy.
Illustrative of the power now held by the uber-wealthy is the bail-outs of Wall Street in the past 3 years. I was furious when Bush did it and was furious when Obama did it. The masters of Wall Street, through their own ignorance, mischief, greed, and in some cases illegal malfeasance, slit their own throats. Then the federal government, with out tax money, bailed them out and made them rich again! And what did we get for our money? We likely saved the economy from complete collapse. But as the narrative goes, a crisis is a terrible thing to waste. AIG never put food on my table, a roof over my head, or educated my child, but I bailed them out because they were “too big to fail.” If they were too big to fail, then they were too big, and we should have used the opportunity to split them into 20 separate operating units to compete with one another. We should have insisted all the firms that received bail-out money paid back the taxpayer, with interest. We should have brought criminal prosecution against the criminals. We should have installed meaningful and significant regulations to prevent the next collapse. It is my impression that little of this was done. We’re back to business as usual; the rich are even richer and the system is as vulnerable as it was before.
This recession has been hugely damaging to millions of people (myself included), but the uber-rich have emerged almost unscathed.
The strength of this nation has always rested on the fact of a significant middle-class. Not only does this enhance our notions of fairness, equality and self-esteem, it builds stability. Where nations have a small group of hugely wealthy people and millions of impoverished people, mayhem and turmoil are inevitable (See Egypt and President Mubarek.).
The “Robin Hood Doctrine” of taking from the rich and giving to the poor doesn’t work well, either. The rich don’t want to work because their wealth will be taken from them. The poor don’t want to work because they will be fed anyway. So there needs to be a balance.
In my humble opinion, the pendulum has swung too far towards a system that benefits the uber-wealthy, in agreement with the essay that spawned this thread. Our nation will be stronger if it starts swinging the other way for awhile. Asking the wealthy for a greater sacrifice seems entirely fair to me. For the reasons I indicated earlier, I’m not optimistic.

* * Hosting our new friend Pedro from Bolivia

It has been an exciting week!  We have a guest staying with us from Bolivia.  Here’s the story.
I have been selected to lead a GSE (group study exchange) team to Bolivia, leaving in four weeks and staying there for five weeks.  This is a program sponsored by Rotary International to foster international good will. The experiences range from cultural to recreational to vocational. My team is comprised of four teachers who live in Lexington, Elkton, and Front Royal.
The exchange means that a team from Bolivia comes here.  They’re here now and Jane and I are hosting the team leader, Pedro Loza.  Pedro is a family man with a wife and three boys, ranging from 25 to 17.  He is a quiet man, polite, with a subtle sense of humor.  His native language is Spanish, but his English is very good.  He’s working hard to help me improve my Spanish.  He is very close to his wife and he communicates via computer every day. He’s repeatedly tried to drag me to Wal-Mart with him, unsuccessfully.
Our local Rotary Clubs are showing them around Blacksburg, taking them to many of the tourist sites and businesses tours that we who live here would enjoy if we could ever find the time and the contacts.  They’ve been to:
    The Virginia Museum of Transportation in Roanoke
    The National Weather Service
    The Virginia College of Osteopathic Medicine (VCOM)
    The Floyd Country Store
    The big Kroger warehouse in Salem
We’ve taken them to our best restaurants and to several Rotary Club meetings.
Pedro is an electronics engineer specializing in medical equipment.  He’s been to the states before. I asked him what he found most surprising and interesting on this trip. He said he was impressed by the level of technology we have in town, something he expected only to find in the larger and more prosperous cities.  At VCOM yesterday he saw high-tech mannequins used for allowing the students to get true-to-life experiences with patients without the fear of killing anybody. The mannequins breathe and have a pulse. Their eyes respond to light.  The have simulated pregnant women and infants.
At the Weather Service, he learned how they receive data and photos from satellites and weather balloons they send aloft each afternoon.  He told me the computers generate several models for what may occur in the coming days but the meteorologist still makes his best judgement based upon earlier experience to forecast what he expects to happen.
Aside from all the site visits, we’re spending time together simply building friendships.  Pedro and I drove to Lexington (VA) on Sunday to meet with my team.  We had a chance to discuss the political and economic situations in each country.  Cultures vary wildly around the world, but I find whenever I meet people from elsewhere that there is more that binds us than separates us.
On Saturday, I had a ticket to the basketball game between our Virginia Tech Hokies and the Duke Blue Devils. Duke was the top ranked team in the nation and the defending national champion.  Our Hokies won the game!  I went by myself but I didn’t have a ticket for Pedro, so he watched on TV from the house and became a Hokie fan.  The last game of the season is tonight and I have found a ticket so he can go with me.
Tomorrow we say goodbye and he and his team leave for Nelson County, their next stop.  Jane will say goodbye to Pedro and his team likely forever, but I will see them all again when I visit their country next month.  It will be wonderful to see familiar faces when we arrive in each new city. 


* * Watching the world's riots

Today my thoughts are in Tunisia.  And Egypt.  And Wisconsin. And Blacksburg.

Several weeks ago, an angry fruit vendor in Tunisia set himself afire.  Within just a few weeks, the country’s ruling dictator fled for Saudi Arabia. 

Not long thereafter, the people of Egypt arose in anger and kicked out Hosni Mubarak, a virtual monarch who had ruled the country for 30 years. 

These events have us considering several societal trends and asking ourselves several questions, which are either exciting or disquieting, depending upon the lens through which they are viewed.

First, it is undeniable that social media played a huge part in this and the current state of upheaval in the Arab world.  The ability of sites like Facebook to connect, commiserate, and organize played a significant role in the success of these social movements. In fact, some people are calling this the Facebook Revolution.

Second, people are angry at declining standards of living.  With the advent of peak oil, the inevitable, predicted rise in prices of just about everything is now underway.  In the United States, people typically pay around 10% of their income on food.  But in many other places elsewhere around the world, people may pay upwards of 50%. So even small increases in the prices of food can have dramatic negative impacts and push many families into malnutrition.  When they see their leaders basking in wealth and privilege while they starve, it is a recipe for discontent and mayhem.

Can this happen here in America?  Are people angry enough here to take to the streets in protest?  If so, who or what are they angry at or about?  And if they did go to the streets and demand change, in what form would that change occur? And if change did occur, would it really improve things?

Today in Wisconsin people are protesting the state capital over proposed cuts to the compensation package of state employees.  There is a general strike of teachers, policemen, and public safety professionals.  The Republican governor is determined to cripple their union.

I remember a defining moment from my teen years.  I lived in Christiansburg.  On the campus of Virginia Tech nearby in Blacksburg, students had taken over some academic buildings in active protests of the Vietnam War.  Classmates were being sent off to die in the jungles of Southeast Asia for no apparent defense purpose.  I rode in our car as my mother drove past a motel on the south end of town whose parking lot was filled with scores with state police cars.  These troopers were in town to contain the rioting students.  I assumed at the time that college campuses always had riots and that scores of policemen were routinely assigned to monitor them. I grew up believing civil disobedience was an acceptable and common means for balancing corporate and governmental power.

Contrary to the views of many of my countrymen, I don't believe that America is exceptional or that Americans are different in their core needs and values from most people around the world.  All of us want to live with health, security, and the opportunity to achieve prosperity.  We like to live peacefully but we get riled up when pushed too far.

There seems to be plenty of anger in America today.  People in the tea party movement seem to have made a lifestyle of their anger.  A bumper sticker says, “If you are not outraged, you are not paying attention.”  But somehow I think many Americans are angry over the wrong things.

In short order it seems as though the United States Supreme Court will make a decision about the legality of the health care plan many people are calling Obamacare.  A socialist takeover to some and a reasonable attempt to provide health healthcare security to others, this legislation has become a flashpoint for anger.  However, the real issue in this country, like in many other countries, seems to stem from the fact that there has been a decades-long transfer of wealth and power from the bottom and middle of the economic food chain to the very wealthiest. Decades of public policies and laws have made it easier for the uber-rich to prosper at the expense of everyone else.  “Everyone else” may not take it much longer.

According to Georg Lakoff, writing on the Common Dreams website, says Conservatives want to change the basis of American life, where people take care of themselves rather than each other.  He says, “The individual issues are all too real: assaults on unions, public employees, women's rights, immigrants, the environment, health care, voting rights, food safety, pensions, prenatal care, science, public broadcasting, and on and on.”  He continues, “Taxation is thus seen as taking money away from those who have earned it and giving it to people who don't deserve it. Taxation cannot be seen as providing the necessities of life, a civilized society, and as necessary for business to prosper.”

Liberals (lest I even use that word, a word so vilified that the politically correct version is now “progressives”) believe that not everyone gets a fair shake or opportunity for prosperity, accidents (both personal and widespread) do happen, corporations won’t regulate themselves, and people have a right to organize to share their grievances publicly and take action against those who would subjugate them.

It seems clear that with the end of cheap energy, worldwide standards of living are at peak.  Cheap and abundant energy allowed the population of the world to increase from 1 billion 200 years ago to 7 billion now.  As energy scarcity ripples through worldwide markets, everyone will have to pay more for everything.  How will declining resources, monetary and conventional, be shared amongst rich and poor, black and white and yellow?  Things are about to get really interesting.