The trickle down economic policies of George W. Bush and John McCain are killing my small business.
My company, Singers and Stompers LLC, provides music education and live music entertainment for children. I market to daycare facilities and perform live shows at venues like the Portland Children’s Museum and at private parties.
Few would argue that music education for children is extremely important. But it’s cut from household budgets pretty quickly when people fear they’re about to lose their house or their car, or if they’re worried about paying down credit card debt, or if they’re worried about how they’ll pay for their next meal.
A tax cut for oil companies, John McCain? Really? A $700,000 tax cut for millionaire CEOs? That’s what you think is going to help small businesses and stimulate the economy?
Mr. McCain, let me tell you how it looks from where I stand. In order for my small business to be successful, I need customers. I need to keep existing customers and bring new ones on board. The only way existing and potential customers can afford services like mine, services that aren’t necessary for survival, is if they have a little money to spare after the groceries and bills have been bought and paid for.
That’s why Barack Obama is focusing his tax cuts where they’ll do the most good: on the middle class. Under the leadership of Barack Obama, millions of American households will see $1,000 or more in tax cuts.
Putting that $1,000 back into the hands of as many hard working, middle class families as possible is the best thing that can happen for my business. For many families that $1,000 might just mean the difference between being able to afford music classes or not – between being able to hire me to play at their child’s birthday party, or not.
But the good news for me doesn’t stop there. Not only will Obama stimulate the economy by getting money back in the hands of the middle class, where it belongs, he will also cut or freeze taxes for 99% of small business owners, including me. This will allow me to reinvest in my own company, create jobs, and do my part to help jumpstart this economy.
I just moved to Oregon from Arizona a few months ago. While in AZ, John McCain was my Senator, and by and large I respected him and his policies. I don’t recognize the man who is currently running for president under that name. His values are not my values and his economic and tax policies help the rich disproportionately. That’s wealth redistribution the wrong way.
I want to be financially stable. I want to provide for my family. I want to create jobs that pay a living wage and offer income and stability to hardworking Americans. The only way I can do those things is if we end the catastrophic economic failure that has been the last eight years.
Sincerely,
Ben Thompson
Owner and Co-Director, Singers and Stompers LLC
www.singersandstompers.com
(I just sent the preceding letter to over a dozen newspapers in Oregon as well as the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Chicago Tribune, USA Today, LA Times, and the Washington Post. You can send your own letter, quickly and easily here: http://my.barackobama.com/page/speakout/smallbusinesslet)
Saturday, October 25, 2008
Saturday, October 18, 2008
Review of the Oliver Stone film, W.
If you are hoping for an unrelenting, unforgiving, unapologetically scathing indictment of W's administration, then this movie will likely leave you feeling mildly disappointed. If, on the other hand, you're hoping for a film which stands as a glowing review of Bush's performance while in office and a lasting monument to his achievements as a president and an American, then...well I can't begin to conceive of how you could hope for something like that. And this movie will likely leave you feeling much more than mildly disappointed.
Josh Brolin's performance as W is convincing and engaging. He manages to capture that most inexplicable of Bush characteristics -- the down-home charm wrapped in a righteous celebration of willful ignorance. Watching Brolin's portrayal of Bush I found myself asking the same question I've been pondering almost daily for soon-to-be eight long years: How did someone that stupid become that powerful?
Richard Dreyfus also turned in a fantastic (ly creepy) performance as "Vice" Dick Cheney. What makes his portrayal work is that he isn't doing an impersonation; he is just being Cheney. You can feel the greed and deception oozing from his pores. I'm not sure how an actor captures that, but I say Dreyfus did it.
The same cannot be said of many of the other performances. Condie, Rummsey, Wolfie, Brother George -- their characters all felt forced by the actors portraying them. Like when Frank Caliendo goes for an impersonation that's just not quite in his bag of tricks. The mannerisms are all there, but it looks like an impression. You don't see the character because you're too distracted by the person playing the character.
If all else works then a forced impersonation is forgivable. They can't all be as solid as Tina Fey playing Sarah Palin. But in this context the weak impersonations are distracting and ultimately make parts of the movie feel like a too slow SNL skit without a punch line.
Many will say that this is a story about a son's haphazard attempt to please his father and live up to the legacy that was handed to him. To me this is a movie about the corrupting forces of religion, greed, and ignorance and how those forces, and the people corrupted by them, changed the world forever.
Josh Brolin's performance as W is convincing and engaging. He manages to capture that most inexplicable of Bush characteristics -- the down-home charm wrapped in a righteous celebration of willful ignorance. Watching Brolin's portrayal of Bush I found myself asking the same question I've been pondering almost daily for soon-to-be eight long years: How did someone that stupid become that powerful?
Richard Dreyfus also turned in a fantastic (ly creepy) performance as "Vice" Dick Cheney. What makes his portrayal work is that he isn't doing an impersonation; he is just being Cheney. You can feel the greed and deception oozing from his pores. I'm not sure how an actor captures that, but I say Dreyfus did it.
The same cannot be said of many of the other performances. Condie, Rummsey, Wolfie, Brother George -- their characters all felt forced by the actors portraying them. Like when Frank Caliendo goes for an impersonation that's just not quite in his bag of tricks. The mannerisms are all there, but it looks like an impression. You don't see the character because you're too distracted by the person playing the character.
If all else works then a forced impersonation is forgivable. They can't all be as solid as Tina Fey playing Sarah Palin. But in this context the weak impersonations are distracting and ultimately make parts of the movie feel like a too slow SNL skit without a punch line.
Many will say that this is a story about a son's haphazard attempt to please his father and live up to the legacy that was handed to him. To me this is a movie about the corrupting forces of religion, greed, and ignorance and how those forces, and the people corrupted by them, changed the world forever.
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
The right way to build a campfire
Your ultimate objective is a nice bed of coals, not a huge blaze. Towering flames are for bonfire kegger parties on your friend's uncle's farm. In camping situations, huge blazes are dangerous and disrespectful to your fellow campers. Coals are where the heat is, they produce no smoke (all the moisture has burned off), and once you have a good bed of coals you can allow your fire to burn down without adding fuel for up to 6 or 8 hours and still have enough heat to start a fire again just by blowing on it. Without coals your fire is a strong breeze or an ill timed wet log away from extinction.
It's all about preparation. Gather lots and lots of kindling. If you're not sure how much, then gather twice as much as you think you'll need. The smaller the better, the dryer the better, the more the better.
Use paper, birch bark, dry leaves, grass, or shavings from a dry split log to start a small flame. Slowly and carefully add more of this fire-starting material -- no sticks yet.
When your flame is a few inches high and a few inches around at the base you can start adding the smallest of your kindling. Make sure not to add anything too damp, too green, too big, or too much too fast. Keep adding small to medium twigs (nothing much bigger around than a pencil) until your flame is 12 inches high and 12" around at the base.
By now you have some coals going so you can be more generous and less picky with what you put on. Still nothing bigger than an inch around though.
If your flame begins to die down a little just throw on a handful of smaller stuff then throw more medium sticks on top of that. (Aren't you glad you had some small dry stuff "left over?")
Up to this point you've been adding wood in a more-or-less tepee shape. Now that you have a decent bed of coals it's time to make your log cabin. The log cabin allows oxygen to get to the whole fire. A tepee cuts off air to the middle, which is right where you need it most. Tepee is okay for the small twigs, which burn up in a flash, but for the bigger sticks and logs a cabin is the way to go.
I like working in threes. Three log splits -- quartered logs, or smaller -- placed on an X axis, then three more on a Y axis set 90 degrees to the X, then finally another three splits on the X axis.
If you have to use a stick put it between two splits. The splits will be flatter and less likely to roll and shift.
As your cabin collapses (every 15 to 30 minutes) just reshape it to a stable platform as best you can and add layers to the top as needed. I like to take a leather welders glove camping with me. It enables me to reach right into the fire to more easily manipulate the logs. The glove also works great for protecting your hand from hooks and or teeth while landing larger fish. (Ever tried to land a 40" Northern Pike in a canoe with no net and 8lb. test line on a bass rod? A leather glove really helps.)
Stop adding wood to the fire when you think you are 30 minutes or less from turning in. You will be dousing the fire with water before you go to bed and you don't want to leave the next camper one or more huge, wet, nasty, unburned logs in the middle of the fire-pit.
Got a better way to build and keep a campfire? Let's hear it!
Until then -- Happy camping!
It's all about preparation. Gather lots and lots of kindling. If you're not sure how much, then gather twice as much as you think you'll need. The smaller the better, the dryer the better, the more the better.
Use paper, birch bark, dry leaves, grass, or shavings from a dry split log to start a small flame. Slowly and carefully add more of this fire-starting material -- no sticks yet.
When your flame is a few inches high and a few inches around at the base you can start adding the smallest of your kindling. Make sure not to add anything too damp, too green, too big, or too much too fast. Keep adding small to medium twigs (nothing much bigger around than a pencil) until your flame is 12 inches high and 12" around at the base.
By now you have some coals going so you can be more generous and less picky with what you put on. Still nothing bigger than an inch around though.
If your flame begins to die down a little just throw on a handful of smaller stuff then throw more medium sticks on top of that. (Aren't you glad you had some small dry stuff "left over?")
Up to this point you've been adding wood in a more-or-less tepee shape. Now that you have a decent bed of coals it's time to make your log cabin. The log cabin allows oxygen to get to the whole fire. A tepee cuts off air to the middle, which is right where you need it most. Tepee is okay for the small twigs, which burn up in a flash, but for the bigger sticks and logs a cabin is the way to go.
I like working in threes. Three log splits -- quartered logs, or smaller -- placed on an X axis, then three more on a Y axis set 90 degrees to the X, then finally another three splits on the X axis.
If you have to use a stick put it between two splits. The splits will be flatter and less likely to roll and shift.
As your cabin collapses (every 15 to 30 minutes) just reshape it to a stable platform as best you can and add layers to the top as needed. I like to take a leather welders glove camping with me. It enables me to reach right into the fire to more easily manipulate the logs. The glove also works great for protecting your hand from hooks and or teeth while landing larger fish. (Ever tried to land a 40" Northern Pike in a canoe with no net and 8lb. test line on a bass rod? A leather glove really helps.)
Stop adding wood to the fire when you think you are 30 minutes or less from turning in. You will be dousing the fire with water before you go to bed and you don't want to leave the next camper one or more huge, wet, nasty, unburned logs in the middle of the fire-pit.
Got a better way to build and keep a campfire? Let's hear it!
Until then -- Happy camping!
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