I have figured it out.

I am NOT overweight!

I have been using a shampoo that claims it will provide “more body.” Now, when I rinse my hair in the shower, the shampoo flows down all over me, and I am convinced that it is just living up to its advertised promise.

No, really. When I was a young woman, I always washed my hair over the sink and the shampoo never touched anything but my head. And I didn’t have anywhere near this much body.

This is not my fault! Blame the shampoo industry!

Posted by Sharon under Laughter | No Comments »

In 2007, a tornado wiped out Greensburg, Kansas.

This past Labor Day weekend, more than 20 Greensburg residents were part of a team helping to rebuild a Boy Scout camp in Little Sioux, Iowa, that had been damaged by a tornado this past June.

Nice.

Posted by Sharon under Observations | No Comments »

Here is my article for the July-August issue of TK Magazine
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Okay, okay, this is not the biggest problem facing our nation and our world right now. It is, however, something I’ve been wondering about for a while.

Whatever are we going to call the year that begins next January?

Approaching the millennium, I often wondered how we would name the years of its first decade. Two-thousand-four? Twenty-oh-four? People living exactly a hundred years ago would have typically referred to their year as “aught nine.” Fans of movie musicals might remember Professor Harold Hill, the Music Man, boasting that he was an alumnus of the Gary Conservatory of Music, Gold Medal class of aught five. But the word “aught” as a synonym for “zero” has, alas, pretty much disappeared.

In any case, we seem to have all agreed on two-thousand-whatever as the preferred form for naming the years in our current decade.

Ah, but what will we do in January? Will we continue as before and say “two-thousand-ten?” Or will we revert to the pattern of the last century, and say “twenty-ten?”

I’m even concerned about what we are to call this decade. We really do need names for them, you know. Otherwise we can’t say things like “Yes I made some foolish choices. But it was the 60s, after all.” Professor Hill’s “aught five” notwithstanding, I have no idea what that decade was called, nor what we will call the one we’re living in now. The Aughts? The Ohs?

And what will we call the decade coming up? The Teens?

I even came up with a pretty good pun about naming years. I decided 2002 should have been named the Year of Obligation. Aught two. Ought to. Har. Unfortunately, I didn’t think of it until about the middle of 2004.

Posted by Sharon under Reprints from TK Magazine | No Comments »

Here is my article for the May-June 2009 issue of TK Magazine
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A few minutes ago, as I sat down to write my column for this month’s issue of TK Magazine, the phone rang.

Well, the subject I had in mind will just have to wait for the next issue, because now I am mad, and you’re going to hear all about it.

My caller was a solicitor. He wanted me to donate money to a charity that had (probably) hired him to call me. And boy, was he insistent. Oh, he started out nice enough – wanted to know if I’m “gettin’ along okay,” and if I have any family members or friends with the specific problem helped by his charity.

No, I don’t. I’m very fortunate.

When he started into his pitch for a donation, I interrupted him to say that I have a policy not to make a commitment over the phone. If he would send me the information by mail, I would take a look at it.

What I did not want to take the time to tell him was that, the last time I successfully talked a charity into sending me their solicitation by mail, I looked them up on one of the many excellent web sites devoted to policing organizations that claim to help those less fortunate. What I found was that they had an absolutely dismal record. Some 93 percent of their proceeds are spent on administration and fund raising. A paltry seven cents out of every dollar donated goes to help the unfortunate people so pitiably shown in their literature. I printed out the information, added a handwritten note explaining that the enclosed explained why I was refusing to give them money, and sent it back in their own envelope.

After that, I will never again give anyone money without the opportunity to check them out.

But back to my caller. It was about then that he stopped trying to pretend he was my new best friend. He informed me that their mailings included a tax receipt, and it was against the law to send them out blank. Could he just put down a minimum amount, say $15.

No, I will not make a commitment over the phone.

Well, he had my record right there in front of him, and I had given $50 dollars last time.

I seriously doubt that. In any case, my policy is now that I will not make a commitment over the phone.

“Are you going to help these people or not?” he asked, loudly and rudely. “’Cause I can’t send this to you if you won’t promise at least a small amount.”

No, I will not make a commitment over the phone.

“Well, then I’m not sending this to you, ’cause we don’t want to lose two dollars of the transaction.”

And he hung up on me.

As a female child raised in the 1950s, I was taught that being nice was a great virtue, that cheerfully and selflessly acceding to other peoples’ requests would make me a good woman. So this sort of exchange upsets me a great deal, and produces large amounts of guilt. I think that’s what they’re counting on.

Believe me, I’m getting over it.

Posted by Sharon under Reprints from TK Magazine | No Comments »

 Here is my article from the March – April issue of TK Magazine

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April is coming. Income Tax. Oh, goody.

As a dedicated Libertarian I have many complaints about the IRS and the Income Tax, and its intrinsic invasiveness is right up there at the top of my list. Like the frog in the pot of water that gets hotter and hotter, humans seem to be able to get used to the most appalling conditions. We have become so accustomed to being required by law to hand over private information about our income, medical expenses, charitable giving, and investments that we see it as acceptable, even desirable. It’s not, folks. It’s just plain wrong.

As bad an idea as the Income Tax is as a means of collecting revenue for the government, it has become something worse: It has become a means of manipulating behavior. No matter what you, personally, may consider admirable behavior, your government has specified what actions it believes to be so special that they are deserving of financial favors. Charitable giving is one. Buying certain kinds of bonds will get you a tax break, as will adopting a baby. It’s not that we are not all better off because you donated to the Rescue Mission or took a child into your home – I truly believe we are. It’s just that the IRS list of commendable behavior is not exhaustive, and I resent my government trying to coerce me (or you) into doing something very specific by dangling money in front of our noses.

James Madison wrote:

It will be of little avail to the people, that the laws are made by men of their own choice, if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood….

And yet there is a thriving industry, headed by tax lawyers and tax accountants and software publishers and lots of companies advertising on television right now, that owes its existence to the fact that the average intelligent, educated citizen cannot figure out what her government wants from her in the way of income tax. These companies compete with each other by claiming they can find you more deductions than the other guy. The laws are so convoluted that their competitor can’t possibly understand them. And, of course, neither can you. This is just plain wrong, folks.

I learned something new when I filed my 2007 income tax. I got a letter from the Kansas Department of Revenue that began, “The Kansas Department of Revenue has determined that your estimated tax or withholding tax payments were below the level required by law…. Therefore, you are being assessed a penalty…”

In other words, I was being assessed a penalty not because I didn’t pay my taxes, and not because they were late (that was another issue), and not because I didn’t pay enough. I was being assessed a penalty because I didn’t pay enough AHEAD OF THE APRIL 15 DUE DATE. If my taxes are due on a specific date, I should be able to pay the whole amount on that date and not a minute before if that’s what I choose to do. Apparently the state DOR doesn’t see it that way.

And that is just plain wrong, folks.

Posted by Sharon under Reprints from TK Magazine | No Comments »