Been a Little Remiss

Unlike the APD, I've failed to take a potshot at anything in these blog pages for quite some time.  So let's get up to date.

The water authority apparently not only now plans to punish all of us conservation-minded water users for conserving too much water, but will also be raising rates just on general principles.  Now that's what I expect from a government entity.  There's always something they can do with your money.

The feds have decided that APD shoots too many people, particularly those who seem to be hell bent on getting shot.  I think they're jealous.  The feds want shooting people to be strictly a federal right.

The federal investigation of APD has a lot of people figuratively up in arms.  Not literally, or they might also get shot.  Protesters have staged at least two demonstrations demanding something be done about APD shootings, both of which have prevented something being done about APD shootings.

We've had a spate of warm weather, and we're still in a drought.  Luckily, the feds have come up with a plan to reduce global warming.  The power company says they are ready for the plan.  They've already printed the rate increases for the next 20 years and are covering the southwest with beautiful solar panels and windmills, and the wiring to string it all together.

And that's the latest update from the land of Alberkoikie.

The Price of Conservation

Or: Why did I turn off that sprinkler?

Here's a [link] for you "hug anything that Nancy Pelosi likes" folks.  It seems that water conservation is paying off (or failing to pay off) in good old Burque.   

It's paying off if, like me, you think that we of the Rio Grande Valley should not behave as though water is an unlimited resource.  It's clearly not.  Yet, for the years I've lived here, Albuquerque has boosted most of its prosperity from expanding urban sprawl and population--cut short by the Great Recession, which hasn't ended despite what the feds say.  City Quirky citizens have succeeded in reducing water consumption by so much that the Albuquerque Bernalillo County Water Utility Authority (ABCWUA--not to be confused with AMAFCA and MRCOG, a couple of our other interesting "authority" types) isn't taking in enough money!

So, to make water conservation pay off for the ABCWUA, they are "thinking about" raising water rates.  Now, whenever I hear about a political entity thinking about something that involves getting deeper into the pockets of us tax- and rate-payers, I know we've already lost the inning and probably the game.  It's like saying the Democrats are "thinking about" running somebody for president in 2016.  It's like saying the IRS is "thinking about" collecting taxes this April.  

The ABCWUA will want to soften the blow, of course.  So they announce the thought process to begin approximately 6 months before they know they'll actually impose the increase.  They will, undoubtedly, point out that those who conserved have been reaping the benefits of lower water bills, so they will just start paying closer to what they were paying before they conserved.  What a reward.  It's like your doctor saying you should eat better and keep your cholesterol low and you won't have a heart attack, but then telling you they are short on funds so they're going to do a bypass anyway.  They'll just charge you less for it.  

What about Me!?  I never had to conserve when asked, because I always conserved.  So I didn't reduce my bill.  I've been paying the same amount for water since Bill Clinton didn't have sex with That Woman.  (I think That Woman is Bat Woman's sister.)  I use six gallons of water to wash my car--two buckets.  I have low-flow toilets.  (Don't ask if my gut is low flow, too.)  So now me and so many of my friends are going to reap the coveted double reward:  Never got one for always conserving.  Now I'll pay increased amounts to compensate those who did get one for conserving.  Sounds more like the good old double screw to me.

Where's that leaky hose?

©2013 - C. A. Turek - mistertrains@gmail.com

All is Not Momentous

(Content first published on Medium.com.)

There are times when a lie is just a lie and the truth does not set us free; and neither is crucial enough to register on the meter.

For better and worse, we live in a world where those who can afford it can connect to everything, big and small, that happens in the world. Moreover, this can be done in a way that makes every event, no matter how inconsequential, seem crucial to our very existence.

I got to thinking about this when they recently re-opened the Statue of Liberty to visitors. I will gladly admit that I like this statue and I also like it being a symbol of freedom for America and those who would come here. As with every national symbol lately, an inordinate amount of time and effort—read money—is being spent to protect the statue from what a visitor might do. The imagination reels when thinking of what all of those things might be, and the idea of somebody damaging this symbol is suddenly elevated to the momentous, the crucial.

But America would be no less what it is without the statue. In fact, had it never been delivered to our shores, we would be able to designate any of a thousand other important symbols to stand in for her critical place in our national psyche. And elevate them to the absolutely crucial.

In today’s news: We should not care whether a magazine noted for its irreverence puts a mass murderer’s face on the cover. It is not crucial to the state of America that they do not. Nor is it particularly crucial for their circulations figures if they do. They counted on the media jumping right in with the rest of us and making the inconsequential into something consequential.

In similar fashion, one perceived miscarriage of justice—or unexpected serving of same—will not bring our judicial system to its knees; yet we believe that the tip of the iceberg is showing and that we cannot so much as look at it or our holy Titanic will sink.

There are crucial events. They come rarely. A train blowing up in Canada and decimating a small town is one of them. This will change the way important energy reserves are distributed to users for the rest of the century!

However, I am of the opinion that the mass media would not recognize a crucial event if it jumped out of a manhole under their figurative park bench and bit them in the collective nether regions. They are too busy aiding and abetting the politicians in turning everything into a critical mass, satisfying the snooze news cycle and keeping the ratings going. Come on! People! The small city where I live with less than a million population—one that still effectively rolls up the sidewalks at night, except those in front of the meth labs and DWI checkpoints—does not have to have an Evening News—with helicopters, no less—that lasts three hours. There just simply is not enough news of that import, meth labs or no.

Whether Rowling wants to write as a man or as a woman is not going to set literature back to the stone age. Snowden getting asylum in Russia will not restart the cold war. The races will learn to live with each other without show trials. And, oh! The features on the next iPhone will not be momentous, either.

Traffic Calming

An Op-Ed piece by City Councilor Roxanne Meyers published in the 3/28/13 Albuquerque Journal (about a so-called roundabout) got me thinking about this strange phenomenon we call traffic calming, and how our city has pursued some street alternatives that are incomprehensibly inconsistent with a reasonable goal of growing our city economy.  While there are more policies with specific goals in mind, I’d like to mention three that I think fall under this category.

The first is a trend that I began to notice during the Baca mayoralty in which street lanes are either reduced in width or eliminated altogether.  In some cases, bicycle lanes are added – via striping – but in general the area of pavement available to motor vehicles is reduced or eliminated.  Examples are Indian School between Wyoming and Pennsylvania and Morris north of Candelaria, both lane reductions.  I understand that it is green policy to promote bicycle use, but note how many bicycles actually use the allotted space compared to motor vehicles!  I have to wonder if this is a good or proper allocation of resources, when we should be more concerned about having a vibrant city with quick commutes and thriving businesses where people can get to their jobs in a timely and non-frustrating manner.  Slowing down traffic by eliminating lanes is not only counter to this, but it logically has to produce substantially more potential air pollution as a result of slow running (cars are more efficient at 40 mph than at 20mph) and increased stop-and-go traffic.

The second trend is what I call SpeeBuRBoo (Speed bumps, road blocks and one-way.)  Some of the most beautiful residential streets in the city have been reduced to ugliness by grotesque bands of bloated asphalt that only serve to throw the occupants of cars going above 20mph into the headliners and by amoeba-like shapes of concrete and curb topped by huge arrows, red slashed circles, and the stationary equivalent of orange visibility vests to keep residents and visitors alike in perpetual confusion and need to re-Google their routes.

Finally, there are the “roundabouts.”  Back in the day, we used to call these traffic circles.  In big cities, and I mean BIG cities, traffic circles historically have been part of grand designs for parks and vast open areas.  In theory, a vehicle in the circle could keep going around counterclockwise in perpetuity without ever having to yield to another vehicle, as depicted so memorably in one of the Vacation movies.  Therein is the humor.  Sticking a “roundabout” in the existing space of a small, non-vast intersection becomes hysterical as drivers attempt to figure out where other vehicles are actually coming from and going to in a confined space with less room than allowed a bumper car in a street carnival.  Both of the last two trends have got to have negative effects on the quality of life perceived by visitors and those businesses and individuals who might relocate to the Duke City. 

I realize there may be safety arguments for all of the above and more, but I say, “Educate.”  Using one of many possible metaphors:  Train the dog to heel rather than using a choke chain!  But education arguments are for a different piece.

Another Fine Mess - 2 Months Worth

Our fine legislature has been meeting for two months.  TWO MONTHS! The session ends tomorrow at exactly noon.  What have we got to show for it:
1.  A Budget.  The governor won't sign it, and rightfully so.  It does noting to promote job creation, or drag the public schools out from the muck they've been in for years, or really address the financial state of the State.
2.  No new taxes.  Inaction, I suppose, does have it's merits.
3.  Mariachi bands.  Yeah, that they had time for.
4.  New drivers license laws.  NOT!  The state appears to be rolling right along giving ordinary licenses (instead of specially designed ones) to people who are in the country illegally.  One day the Real ID act will kick in and all of the rest of us who voted for these inactive dolts in the legislature will be sorry.
5.  Last minute efforts to make the legislators look good.  We've got plenty.
6.  Special legislative session.  Likely.
At least we don't pay these guys and gals full time.  That would be too much like the federal government.
Bueno!

What's Important?

The last time I posted to this blog, before the holidays, I knew that another New Mexico State legislative session was coming up.  Since it started, it's been coming up and up and up.  I haven't seen something come up this often since eating a bag of Doritos after a half-gallon of moose tracks.  (Rimshot!)

Seriously, our local rag - newspaper to the folks back home - feels the need to give column inches to every crazy law proposed by every crazy lawmaker.  They may all be - both laws and lawmakers.  In any case, the most serious discussion occurring right now is over a statewide minimum wage to match that passed by Albuquerque voters last November.  (I was a voter but voted no for this one.)

'Snot that I don't like people getting paid a fair wage for a fair hour's work, but I do think that government shouldn't meddle.  Once upon a time, the worker had the choice of quitting a job for which he (or she - don't want to catch a case of mysogeny) was underpaid, and the worker had a reasonable expectation of finding a better one.  The politicians and the TBTF banks have done away with any reasonable expectations, particularly those of finding a job, even a badly paying one.

I feel for the struggling business owners running on a very thin margin.  How can this help their employees?  If you have 10 employees and raise the minimum wage from $7.50 to $8.50 an hour for each, then you have to come up with ten more dollars for every hour's work.  OR, YOU CAN JUST CUT ONE WORKER'S TIME AN HOUR AND YOU COME OUT AHEAD.  Business operators are not stupid.  Well, I've tried to run my own business and they may be crazy, but they're not stupid.

Then there are the protesters.  Boycott business A or B into compliance.  How does this help the worker?  Business A may say to hell with it and fire everyone, turning to his family for assistance in keeping the business going.  Business B may just try to keep on going, but are customers going to come in past the picket lines?  No customers, no money coming in, no tips.  I ask again, How does this help the worker?

If I get a chance to post again before the legislature adjourns - and I hope they do before they do more damage - I'll cover the drivers licenses for illegal aliens.

Shut Up Already

You can always tell when Progressives or Liberals (the two overlap like the circles on the front of a Mastercard) think they have won something.  They won't shut up about it.  They also won't shut up about what they think is wrong with the other side.  From advise to out and out criticism, they just keep going as if the election never happened.  Who are they trying to convince?

In fact, I've found that the biggest difference between the political left and the political right is not in social policy, economic policy, or environmental policy.  The left just won't ever, ever let you forget they have something to say.  The right, for the most part, will shut up until something can be said that will accomplish something.  Again, I ask, who are they trying to convince?

Perhaps themselves.