God N' Gays

So maybe I'm moonstruck, or maybe naive
But I know there's a God and a Devil
So maybe I'm crazy enough to believe
In love at first light

I propose a breakfast of coffee and aspirin
You laugh, suggesting a raw egg or two
But oh was it ever so good being bad
Like a couple of vampires, deliciously mad
Saying this is the best blood that we've ever had
So we drank it all night

And it we untangle the webs that we weave
Then maybe there's room for more laughter
'Cause just for a moment I almost believe
In love at first light
                              Joe Jackson 2003
 

          Most of the prohibitions in Leviticus are intuitive. We instinctively realize that killing your buddy and sleeping with your sister are not good things. The most controversial prohibition, however, doesn’t appear to make a lot of sense.

          The Torah says that homosexuality is an abomination. There’s no real getting around the plain meaning of the word. Unlike other seemingly strange passages that are explained differently than the plain text (for example, an eye for an eye is actually meant to refer to monetary compensation), there are no traditional commentators explaining homosexuality away. No one said that it’s OK if both partners are willing, or if society changes, or if someone is born that way.

           So for someone like me, an observant Jew, and I assume for Christians who consider themselves devout, it’s understood and expected that I would be against homosexuality and any laws legally establishing it.

          Before I get to that, let me just quickly throw in my take on the future of gay rights. The battle is completely, 100% over. As George Will said, the opposition to gay rights is literally dying out. I’ve lost count of how many states have legalized gay marriage; within a decade it will be everyone. Eventually I expect that homosexuals will be a federally protected class, such as those protected according to race, religion, etc. Ultimately the term "coming out of the closet" will die out, because the stigma will completely go away and no one will step in the closet to begin with.

           Back to me. If there was not a Torah prohibition against homosexuality, I would think any restrictions on it were nuts. Let’s use the old Martian example. If a Martian came to Earth and knew nothing about us, the controversy, or our sexuality, what do you think his reaction would be when he found out that one small group of people was treated differently according to who they wanted to have sex with. I think his reaction would be "Mmm, why?"

          For starters, as a member of a group that has spent large portions of its history being murdered, tortured, and raped by the majority population, I’m not exactly keen on discriminating against minorities. Second, I’m Libertarian and don’t really give a damn what you do if it doesn’t hurt me. Third, the arguments about the decline of civilization that would occur if gays were given the same rights as others really, really cracked me up. I know this is going to shock a lot of people, but the knowledge that homosexuals are starting to marry has not changed my sexual orientation or made me want to divorce my wife. Seriously folks, did you really think the American military was going to collapse if we let homosexuals in? Funny how you never hear about that one anymore.

           Look, I don’t want to go on about this like I did with Asians, but I hope you don’t mind if I stereotype just one more time. I tend to see areas with high concentrations of homosexuals go up in value. Trust me, I lived in Midtown Atlanta/the Highlands for a decade. The neighborhoods always seem to be hip, with plenty of art galleries, restaurants, etc. Also, although I’m too lazy to do the research, if I had to guess I would bet homosexuals have a lower crime rate and higher IQ than average. Okay, I’m done stereotyping. I’ll just say this: I used to joke to an Ex that America would be great if it were 1/3 Jewish, 1/3 Asian, and 1/3 gay (if you are not a member of one of those three groups, please understand that I am totally joking. If you are a member of one of those three groups, please understand that I’m totally serious).

           So now you see the conflict. I’m not giving up my observant Jewish lifestyle and I’m not giving up my libertarian leanings. At the end of the day, I kind of punt the issue. I live in a secular society, which is a good thing because theocracies in practice work out really, really poorly. I cannot think of one thing in my personal or professional life where knowing someone is gay would affect how I treat them. The part where it says it’s a an abomination? They have to make peace with that, I don’t. I’m only interested in the behavior and religion of five little people, and they are all under the age of 9.

            I won’t be the one out there marching for the right of gays to marry, even though it makes sense they be allowed to, because of the Old Testament. Then again, I won’t be marching against it either. There will come a time when a 13-year-old boy, with feelings he doesn't understand, will no longer blow out the birthday candles and wish for the quickest and easiest way to kill himself. And that will be a better world. I also think that world can completely coexist with religious individuals who do their best to follow the Torah, and desperately want their children to do the same.

          Have a good night everyone.

          JR

Retirement Party

It’s really good to see you rocking out
And having fun,
Living like you just begun.
Accept your life and what it brings.
I hope tomorrow you’ll find better things.
I know tomorrow you’ll find better things.

Here’s wishing you the bluest sky,
and hoping something better comes tomorrow.
Hoping all the verses rhyme,
And the very best of choruses to
Follow all the drudge and sadness.
I know that better things are on the way.

                                    The Kinks 1981

           I want to retire, but I can’t yet, for a very unusual reason; I don’t have enough money.  This is mainly because I traded Kash for Kids, which was the best decision of my life.  But I might be able to by the time I’m 50.  So the question is: Is it a good idea for a man to retire early?

           The main argument I always hear is that you’ll be bored, that you can only clean your garage so many times.  Although that may have been true decades ago, I don’t think that’s the case anymore.  Life is just a lot more fun now.  Virtually everything that I spend time doing either didn’t exist or is vastly better than in previous generations; TV, movies, sports, cars, exercise equipment, cell phones, computers, websites like Twitter and Facebook that suck me in, etc.  Maybe I’ll do the impossible and get through my entire Netflix queue and be bored to tears, but I’ll take my chances.

           How about the message an early retirement sends to your children? Considering that most of my behavior these days is directed toward setting a good example, this is one I take seriously.  Kids are smart, and when they start asking mom why dad is spending so much time around the house, there can be two possible answers:

           1) Daddy inherited a bunch of money and has never worked a day in his life;

           or

           2) Daddy worked hard to get good grades in school, got a good job, worked hard, and made enough money to be able to spend time at all your school plays.

           If your answer is number two, I think your teenage son will understand.

           Lastly, is retiring early a constructive way to spend your time? Will you start feeling that your life does not have the same purpose it did before? My gut instinct is to say I’ll worry about it then, as I daydream about not being exhausted all the time, reducing my stress level by 80%, getting ripped like I was in my late 20s, traveling all over the world, etc.  But it is a concern.

           The funny thing is, I really like my job.  But I like my hobbies more.  Ask yourself this: if you were not getting paid, how much time would you spend doing what you do at work?  I’m guessing your answer would be the same as mine, nada.

           At the end of the day, if given the chance, I’m guessing I will not want to retire forever.  I’m all in for a few years, though.  I’ll catch up on my sleep.  And my Laker games.  And my movies.  I’ll get in as good shape as a middle-aged guy can.  And then it’ll be time to work again.

           Or maybe not.

           Have a good night everyone.

            JR

Return of the Comics

Hey girl we've got to get out of this place
There's got to be something better than this
I need you, but I hate to see you this way
If I were Superman then we'd fly away
I'd really like to change the world
And save it from the mess it's in
I'm too weak, I'm so thin
I'd like to fly but I can't even swim
                         The Kinks 1989
 

          I’m running for King.  Of America.  In 2016.  I’m looking for a few wealthy backers; if you’re interested please e-mail me.  I’m cautiously optimistic about my chances.

          My first decree as King will be to radically simplify and change the school curriculum.  I’ll keep math, because business and financial success is so dependent upon thinking mathematically.  I’ll keep science, although since no one ever remembers what they learned in science class, I’m not sure why.  I think I would just feel guilty if I dumped it.

          The rest of the day will be spent reading comic books.

          Schools correctly figured out over the past few decades that kids learn much better when engaged in learning activities that are fun, as opposed to rote memorization from a chalkboard.  The trick, of course, is to come up with fun activities that actually teach the fundamentals.  Nothing does that better than comics.

          The main fundamental is reading, and everything associated with it, like comprehension.  The path to most advanced knowledge is the written word.  Everyone learns what to do on their job from either being told or reading about it.

          And that’s where comics come in.   Unfortunately, I have zero hard evidence that a diet rich in comics is good for children; I just have anecdotal evidence consisting of.....one person.  Me.

          Around age 7 or 8, I got a hold of a comic and became an addict.  My reading outside of school went from zero to all the time. I was soon reading many grades above my class level, along with massive improvement in comprehension, punctuation, sentence structure, etc.  This all happened without me thinking about it, and had nothing to do with any brainpower.  It was all the comics.

          I probably have 2,000 of them lying around my old house in Kentucky.   Within a few years I grew out of that stage, but the die was cast.  I still think that comic books were the single biggest factor in becoming a lawyer.  Or maybe it was my mom saying "You know, you should be a lawyer".

          A few other quick things before I go.  Young children don’t have the ability to look at the world in shades of gray.  Comics do a good job (at least the old ones) of painting the world in a nice black and white colored foundation of good versus evil.  Second, be careful when buying comics nowadays for kids.  Most of them are geared towards adults, and are really, really inappropriate.  You can download the old ones on your tablet. Try Comixology.com.  Lastly, comics lead to a lifelong love of science fiction. Based on the recent success of all the superhero movies, I guess I’m not the only one.

          Lastly and most importantly, we can increase our comic literacy in this world, and finally get answers to the most important questions in life, such as:

          -Can Batman fly? (no, he’s a poser);

          -How was putting on a pair of glasses enough to keep people from knowing Clark Kent was Superman?

          -Who would win in a fight, Thor or Ironman? (My son recently asked me this, help!)

          Have a good night everyone.

          JR

Best TV Show Ever?

          TV sucked when I was growing up.  This did not stop me or anyone else from watching it.  There were only 3 main networks, so to compete each one had to get at least a third of the American viewing audience, a huge number.  They therefore produced lowest common denominator television, dumbed down to appeal to the widest possible audience.  There was no real character development; everyone stayed the same year after year, with only the situations changing.

          Then cable came and changed everything, but the revolution to the current Golden Age of TV took another 25 years.  The cable channels came up with a profitable business model, which allowed them to make money from a far, far smaller audience than the networks had.  At first, the quality of the shows did not change much.  The movie channels like HBO and Cinemax were wildly popular, but only relied on movies and no original programming.

          Then, in the last 5 or 10 years, the cable networks made a shocking discovery: in a country of over 300 million people, there are enough highly intelligent ones to appreciate bold and complex shows.  They realized they were able to make a profit with a niche audience.  Seemingly out of nowhere came edgy shows, about edgy people, thinking edgy thoughts.  Even better, all the great shows started showing the characters changing and developing over time...you know, like how real people do.  Breaking Bad’s Walter White is just the latest example, although probably the most dramatic and bracing.

          In a very short amount of time, the quality of the writing has come close to equaling movies, so that all of a sudden great actors are returning to the small screen.  They’ve also realized the big advantage TV has over movies; time.  You just can’t develop a character in 2 hours in the same way you can in 5 seasons of a TV show.  If Tony Soprano would have been a character in a movie he would’ve been mainly forgotten.  But over the course of 6 seasons he became etched in our memory.

          Which brings me to Breaking Bad, and whether it is the best show in the history of TV.  Some critics think so.  I binge watched it, and came to work half-asleep too many mornings.  It seems to have the most rabid fans of any show.  Whenever anyone finds out I’m watching it, the next 5-10 minutes are always spent discussing how great it is, how unique it is, and how late we stayed up watching six shows in a row.

          But the best show ever?  My personal top four are the Sopranos, Lost, Battlestar Galactica (the 90's version), and Breaking Bad.  Overall I’m partial to Battlestar Galactica, mainly because I never got over my eight year old’s intense love of science fiction.  But Breaking Bad is the edgiest of all of them.  If you rate a show by how many times you rewind the DVR to watch a scene over and over, it would win hands down. There’s just a ton of epic, stunning scenes that demand repeated viewings until you’re fully satisfied.

          So at the end of the day I have to punt on what’s the best show of all time, mainly because I don’t have the time to watch a lot of TV, and when I do it’s usually after 11 PM (yet another reason I want to retire by 50).  The huge majority of shows I haven’t seen. I’m sure Game of Thrones and Homeland are great, but I haven’t seen the former, and have only seen a few episodes of the latter.  I’m also unfairly partial to fantasy, and I’m not exactly turned off by slightly more violent fare (for some reason my wife did not want to see a bunch of zombies graphically devouring the inside of a horse, while I’m enjoying The Walking Dead.  Crazy, I know).

          One thing I do know, though, is this is the Golden Age of TV and it will only get better.  Now that the best and the brightest are writing the scripts, and society is telling them to bring us whatever their brave, brilliant, and bizarre minds can think of, you ain’t seen nothing yet

          Have a good night everyone.

          JR

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Family Circus

I know a girl, mess with your mind,
She'll come to you in the summer sometime
She'll talk about things you don't understand
She is beautiful, she is small
She don't wanna play basketball
There's no tellin' what she might do
Before her doin' days are through
But right now she can't even crawl
Your brother and sister don't understand
How your tiny feet and your tiny hands
Could carry the weight of a thousand earths
Into our little universe
But, Georgia, we all think it's grand.

                                John Hiatt 1988      

“Dear Ethan, Justin, Landon, Gavin, and Hayden:

 Well, you made it.  You’re all grown up.  I brought you all together tonight to talk to you about probably the biggest decision that you'll ever make - how many kids to have.  Now to be honest, that decision is a personal one between you and your future spouses, and really even a parent should stay out of it.  But I’m going to ignore that and give you my opinion anyway.  Also, I could be politically correct and tell you that there are many people I know with small families who are perfectly happy, and for them that was the right decision (which is true).  However, since I went the other direction I'm going to ignore that also, and make my pitch for you all to have a bunch of kids.

Have you ever heard people say that “every child is a jewel”?  If I offered you a jewel (or a car or house) for free every year or two, at first you might say that you don't need it.  You might already have a car or house, and then you start thinking about the cost of maintenance, insurance, etc.  But if you thought a little harder about it, you would take me up on the offer.  You would figure it's an asset, that in one way or another it would be a net positive.  The difference is I never woke up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat because I had a nightmare about something bad happening to my house.  But I did with you all.  Every child will be a jewel for you.  Each one is the ultimate gift; take advantage of the opportunity.

And if you’re going to have a lot of children, I recommend doing it quickly so they can all be close in age.  You all were never bored; there was always another brother or sister to play with.  Yes it makes it much more challenging to do it this way, because you have so many toddlers and young children at the same time.  But it's worth it in the long run.  In my experience kids with a lot of siblings seem to be very close their whole lives, and after watching you all I can see why.

          Then there's the religious angle.  When I was growing up in Louisville, when I heard about a big family, you would always ask if they were Roman Catholic.  Now I think it's just Orthodox Jews.  I'm sure you all remember our neighbors, 5 kids, 7, 11, etc.  I won't bring up the Torah verse of “Be fruitful and multiply”, because you already know it, and to be honest, for me that was not the main reason I chose to have a big family.  I can just tell you that having you guys made me feel that I was straight with God.  I don’t know how else to explain it.

          But don't kid yourself, it's damn hard work.  But you know what? It's not exponentially hard. What I mean by that is it's not like having a second kid doubles your work and a third kid triples it.  You're already at the grocery store so you just pick up a little more food.  You're already giving a bath, you just give a few more.  Like most things in life, you adapt, this time to the workload.  You’ll sleep when you’re dead.

I'm not going to lie to you about the cost either.  It's brutal.  If you go the private school route, which you will, it's seriously punishing.  But you'll be fine.  No one starves.  You'll adapt to this too; of all the reasons not to have a big family, this is the one I would pay the least attention to.  Trust me, you'll be able to provide the physical necessities to have a healthy child; the things that are the most important long-term for them, like inculcating morality, intellectual curiosity, and teaching them how the world works, are all free.

          Look, here's the bottom line.  Whenever someone has a child, whatever the circumstances, once they're born they never want to give them back.  Once the kid comes into your life, you won't be able to imagine your life without them.  So take a swing.  And enjoy the Netflix”.

          Have a good night everyone.

          JR

Killer Inflation

You can’t hide your lyin’ eyes

And your smile is a thin disguise

I thought by now you’d realize

There ain’t no way to hide your lyin’ eyes 

                    Eagles 1975 

I knew they were lying but I couldn't prove it.  I just knew it.  For years now, especially the last few, the government has been telling us that inflation is low and totally in control.  Typically their numbers are coming in at 1 to 2%. 

My eyes were telling me the opposite.  With the possible exception of tech, I could not think of one product or service that I used that was only going up 2%.  I asked friends and family, and no one else could either.  My credit card bill was skyrocketing.  My health insurance premiums were going up 20% a year with no health problems, when the government was telling me that they were barely going up at all.  The price of gas doubled since Obama took over and every product uses fuel, whether in manufacturing, transportation, etc.  Yet I was supposed to believe that miraculously prices were barely moving when gas was rising rapidly.

          So I knew it was a lie, but I didn't have any real proof.  Typically when I write about finance I like to have evidence to back me up.  One friend, a strong Obama supporter, told me that I was a conspiracy theorist for saying that the consumer price index numbers were bogus.

          And then the brilliant Peter Schiff decided to actually do the research.  If you don't want to take the time to watch the full video here, the short version is that inflation is going up about 7 to 10% a year, minimum.  This was not rocket science; he simply went back in time and measured the price of items then compared to now.  Some of the numbers are shocking, not because prices have gone up so much, but because they have gone up so much when the government was telling us the opposite.

          A few takeaways from the numbers: First, this puts tremendous financial pressure on most people.  If you're not getting substantial raises every year, you’re falling behind.  If you're fortunate enough to have some money to invest, you better make sure you’re making at least 10% a year on them, or you're losing money.  Conservative investing no longer does the trick; you have to go for homers and not singles. 

          Most troubling is that people on a fixed income, like the elderly, are just getting destroyed.  Their cost-of-living increases are based on the phony government inflation numbers, so they’re barely getting any more money at the same time that prices are going through the roof.

          As Schiff noted in the video, more people are noticing and becoming concerned.  I think, though, that the reason that you're not seeing rioting in the streets (coming soon to a theater near you) is that inflation is an insidious, hard-to-see tax.  You go out to dinner and your meal is $9 instead of $8, and you barely notice.  Your $2 Starbucks is now $2.30, but you don't care because 30 cents isn’t going to break you.  We don't stop to think that all these little price increases are actually big price increases of over 10%.  At the end of the year that means you have 10% less money, and at the end of 5 years it's gotten really ugly.

          I feel like I need to say something happy to end this somewhat depressing blog.....hold on.....thinking.....at least the Starbucks keeps me awake so I can write my blogs.....that's not good enough.....forget it, there's nothing good to say about inflation.

Have a good night everyone.

 JR    

 

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Rise of the Phoenix

Got no place to go
But there's a girl waiting for me down in Mexico
She's got a bottle of tequila, a bottle of gin
And if I bring a little music I can fit right in

Oh, well happy New Year's baby
We could probably fix it if we clean it up all day
Or we could simply pack our bags
And catch a plane to Barcelona 'cause this city's a drag

            Counting Crows 2004

Phoenix is on my mind tonight.  I recently got back from a family vacation from there and the Grand Canyon.  First, the good:

-The people are extremely friendly, more so than in Atlanta.  Even the folks behind the cash registers are nice;

-The city is bizarrely clean.  I couldn't figure it out.  I just didn't see any trash, anywhere.  It's as if they instituted the death penalty for littering.  And now the bad:

-It is by far the ugliest major city I have ever seen.  The town is colorless.  It's a desert, so everything looks like it's about to shrivel up and die.  You see a lot of cactus, and very little grass.  In place of where the grass would normally be, like in medians, it's all gravel.  For some reason it reminded me of an ashtray;

-Within 10 minutes of being there I asked my wife for moisturizer.  I had always laughed at people who talked about “dry heat".  I just assumed they were like local newscasters, bantering about without really anything to say.  I was wrong.  Although the temperature was great for December (mainly in the 60’s), you just immediately dry out.  It's hard to describe; you don't sweat.  I couldn’t live there year-round.  And the miscellaneous:

-The demographics were unlike any city I've ever seen.  Atlanta is black and white, with sizable and growing Hispanic and Asian minorities.  Phoenix is Hispanic and white; I didn't see more than 10 African-Americans the whole time I was there.  After spending about a week there, and walking through the Super Target with large, bilingual Spanish and English signs, I realized something about the immigration debate (which apparently will be a major topic for Obama’s second term); it's irrelevant.

          I always think that immigration reform is really code word for “we don't want any more Hispanics in the US”.  Look, I'm for a very strong, tight, US border, but deep down I think that's how most people view the immigration debate.  I just can't see people getting so worked up if, for example, it was 12 million Jews or Asians who were illegal ("They're stealing all the accounting jobs! THIS MUST STOP!”). 

          In any event, when you're in Phoenix you realize that, well, it's too late folks.  Whether you’re happy about it or not, the amount of Hispanics in America will continue to grow.  They are the biggest minority group in the country already, with the highest birthrate.  It may make some people feel good to talk tough about deporting the illegal ones.  But it's irrelevant.  The horse has left the barn.

          -Did you know that the Grand Canyon is freezing in the winter? I didn't.  Don't make the same mistake I did.  It lives up to the hype, but it's challenging finding the right time to go.  I've been told it clears 100° in the summer. 

          -Uno is a fantastic game.  It's really a complex adult card game masquerading as a kid’s game.  Although it doesn't have the level of complexity and strategy as no limit poker, which I know a little bit about, it requires many of the same skills to be good.  My wife and I played a bunch on vacation, and still occasionally play (I'm guessing my single friends are cringing when they hear I took a vacation and played kids’ card games.  You know what I did on New Year's Eve?  The same thing I do almost every night of the year.  Enjoy your singlehood while it lasts).

Have a good night everyone.

JR