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.

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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.

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 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.

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My article for the January-February issue of TK Magazine
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I have very recently begun my 66th year. A 65th birthday has great societal significance in our culture. I guess I am officially an elder now.

• There is, apparently, a great data base of people’s birthdays out there. I don’t know where it is or how to access it, but insurance people are well acquainted with it. During the 4 months or so before my birthday, I received literature and phone calls from just about every agent on this continent telling me of the marvelous things they could do for me when I enrolled in Medicare. I dutifully created a file and tucked it all away with the best intentions of studying it carefully. Two weeks before my birthday, having read several novels during what should have been my studying time, I called the company which has been handling my health insurance for the past ten years, and told them to send me whatever I needed to sign.
• It won’t be long now before they will have to send my all my Social Security payments, no matter how much I earn.
• The political, ethical, and social ramifications of a Libertarian collecting Social Security and Medicare are staggering, but that’s an entire column in itself. One which I will almost certainly never write.
• I can remember clearly my thoughts the first time it occurred to me that I might live to the year 2000. I was probably 8, and it went something like this: I’ll be – let’s see – fifty six years old! Older than my parents are now. Maybe even older than my grandparents! Does anyone really live that long? Will I still be able to move around? See? Hear? Will I be a grandmother? Me? (Answers to younger self: Yes. Pretty much. Yes and yes, for which you will be ever so grateful. Not right then, but soon after. Yes, kid, you.)
• Had I lived 200 years ago, statistics say I would have had a slim chance of living this long. If I had, I would have been considered really old, and would almost certainly have been toothless, crippled with arthritis and old injuries and hard physical work, and in pain a great deal of the time. As it is, I consider myself middle aged (no matter what anyone else thinks), and I feel pretty good most of the time.
• My dentist credits our increase in longevity to modern dental care. If you can’t chew your food properly, he contends, nutrition becomes problematic, and health declines rapidly. I know he’s biased, but he probably has a point.
• Bill Clinton’s inauguration marked the first time I was older than the President of the United States. In 2009, both my kids will be constitutionally old enough to be elected President.
• This is a great time of life to take a look at what you have been incubating, perhaps unbeknownst even to you, below the surface. My degree is in mathematics, after all. The first time I wrote anything of consequence, beyond a classroom assignment, was less than five years ago.

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This is an edited version of the column I wrote for the November-December 2008 issue of TK Magazine. It’s a true story. It’s too wonderful to be fiction. Alyse has given permission for me to use her and her mother’s names.
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For several years I was a member of Sweet Adelines, and even sang in a quartet. We were never very good, but we had a lot of fun, and have remained good friends ever since.

Alyse Stewart sang tenor in our little foursome, and her Mother, Helen, was our biggest fan. Helen loved and supported us, even when we were dreadful.

Alyse is the fourth-generation owner of Stewart Hardware in Valley Falls. Alyse’s great-grandfather opened the store in 1890, and it still operates in the same delightfully crowded building with a wall full of drawers containing every nail, nut, bolt, or screw you could want. Helen worked there 5 days a week until a few months before her death at age 89. If anyone could embody the concept “pillar of the community,” it was Helen Stewart.

Valley Falls (population 1260 or so) is one of those wonderful small towns where everybody knows everybody. When I go there to visit Alyse, people turn and look as I drive past, because they don’t recognize my car. There are two police officers and one stoplight. Alyse assures me the good folks of Valley Falls are more cautious now, but when this story happened most of them routinely left their keys in their cars.

Helen Stewart loved to fish, and Stewart Hardware carries some fishing gear. One day a young customer came in the store to buy an ocean rod, which was not something Stewart Hardware stocked. But Helen knew of a wholesaler in town who would have it; and, since Helen had help in the store that day, she offered to go with her customer to the wholesaler.

As they walked out the door, Young Customer said, “Would you like me to drive?”

“Well, yes, thank you,” said Helen.

Now, Young Customer thought he was offering to drive Helen’s vehicle for her, and Helen thought Young Customer was offering to drive her in his vehicle. So they sort of moseyed over to the curb, got in a truck that didn’t belong to either one of them, and drove away.

A few minutes later, the rightful owner of the truck came out of an adjacent business, and found his truck had been stolen. The police were called, and a description of the vehicle was taken. Policeman One set out to find the perpetrator.

By that time Helen and Young Customer were on their way back. As Policeman One was sitting at the stop light, the stolen truck pulled up going the opposite direction. Helen Stewart was driving. She smiled and waved at the officer.

Not wanting to go down in the Valley Falls annals as the person who arrested Helen Stewart, Policeman One made a surreptitious u-turn and quietly followed her back to her store.

As they pulled up and got out of the truck, Rightful Owner was hollering and gesturing; and Helen and Young Customer, in a move worthy of Abbott and Costello, turned to each other and said in unison, “You mean it’s not yours?”

Three minutes later, Helen, Young Customer, Rightful Owner, and Policeman One were all laughing over what had to be one of the best stories any of them would ever tell. Rightful Owner got in his truck and drove off.

Two blocks away he was stopped by Policeman Two because he was driving a stolen vehicle.

(You can see a picture of Helen behind the counter of Stewart Hardware.)

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Late in May I drove to Denver as a delegate to the Libertarian National Convention. Not only was this my first presidential convention, but it was the longest car trip I have ever taken alone. So I had my car checked by mechanics I trust, went to the library and checked out an interesting book on CD, printed out driving instructions and maps from the internet, made sure my mobile phone was charged, and set off on my great adventure.

Before I left, someone asked me if I had ever seen the wind farm at Ellsworth. In fact, I had not. But I have seen wind farms before, so how big a deal could it be?

When I see a house or a car or a person at a distance, I have a pretty good idea of its size and the distance between it and me, simply because I’ve had long experience with houses and cars and people. Wind turbines, on the other hand, are not something I’ve ever lived in or driven or hugged; and when seeing them at a distance, perspective doesn’t come easily. There they sit, atop distant hills, their blades rotating sedately, even slowly. Or so it would seem.

Traveling west on I-70, that’s the first impression the wind farm at Ellsworth presents. But maybe half a mile after sighting the first turbine, the highway rounds a slight curve, and there are two turbines, right there. And I do mean right there.

I gasped, and the bottom fell out of my stomach. It wasn’t that I didn’t know what it was. There was nothing rational about that feeling. Rather it was the visceral, fight-or-flight (Flight! Flight!) response that makers of science fiction movies spend millions trying to produce in viewers. Looming in front of me was something mechanical, obviously the deliberate product of an intelligent creature, unbelievably huge, and it was MOVING.

What a rush!

I have done a little research since I got back, and the source I found says the towers are 200 to 300 feet tall, with the blades ranging from 65 to 130 feet long. They rotate 10 to 22 times per minute. Even taking the slowest rotation of 10 rpm, and a blade length of 100 feet to make the calculations easier, I come up with a speed of just over 70 mph for the tips of the blades. Wow.

Coming back, I noticed something that had been hidden from my view when I was headed west. On the south side of I-70, downhill from the road and going mostly unnoticed, is a series of the common windmills we’ve all seen for years, dutifully pulling water up out of the ground and dumping it in tanks for the cattle. I hope some great photographer will go out there and capture that contrast.

And I have a suggestion. I hope that whoever makes these decisions will create a pull-off area right there. I wanted badly to be able to stop and admire that impressive scene, but there was no way to do so safely.

I bet I’m not the only one.

TK Magazine, July, 2008

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Some thirty years ago, I came across the word uncouth for maybe the hundredth time in my life. But that time it jumped out at me – if the word uncouth exists, so should couth. Or couthful. Logic dictates that negative words must have a corresponding positive, but that seems not to be so with uncouth. How strange.

It wasn’t a day later, still musing on the concept, that I encountered the word inert, and I was off and running.

I’m an inveterate list maker, and in my mind any two similar things do a list make. I grabbed a grocery receipt, wrote uncouth and inert on the back of it, and pinned it to the kitchen bulletin board, inviting my kids to add to it as they ran across more examples. The little list stayed pinned to that board for the next ten years, finally incorporating more pieces of paper and several dozen words. It was a source of learning, laughter, and discussions about the vagaries of this magnificent language we speak.

With that in mind, let me tell you a story:

Once upon a time, there was a little girl named Ina whose doting and supportive parents, Una and Ian, were determined that her childhood would be filled with positive experiences. The three of them lived in a kempt little house, where the tidy little girl always delighted in looking sheveled, and never let her room become macculate.

As she grew older and became more socially aware, Ina sometimes she worried that her manners were peccable, but her dignant and supportive mother Una assured her that she offended no one.

Feckful and ept, Ina’s father Ian worked hard to support his little family, but he never let the worries of his job interfere with his home life. He came home gruntled and traught every evening, and always treated his wife and child with dain.

All Ina’s schoolwork was good, but she excelled at writing poetry. Her work was consistently ane and sipid, and she won many awards because of the effability of her writings.

In Ina’s junior year at college she met Ivan. Ina had dated a number of other men, but she found many of them to be uninterested in their studies, prone to partying a little too much, and not always trustworthy. Unlike many of them, Ivan was always ebriated, ruthful, and ert. Ina was especially taken with Ivan’s shiftfulness, and they fell in love.

Ina and Ivan were married soon after they graduated and, evitably, had two great little kids. Una and Ian, of course, were delighted with their ruly and couthful grandchildren.

And they all lived positively ever after.

TK Magazine, May 2008

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I think I have too many beepy things.

A lot of the gadgets that beep at me do so at my request. The timer on my stove, for example, will beep when the specified time has elapsed.

My clock radio will beep or buzz or turn on the radio at a time of my choosing. A time of my choosing, that is, assuming I can remember that “AM” is an abbreviation for both “ante meridiem” and “amplitude modulation,” and that those two AMs should not be confused when choosing a time to get up and a radio station to listen to when getting up. I have to confess, also, that I have never asked it to do anything but turn on the radio. But it says right there on the front that it will also beep or buzz, so I count it among my beepy things.

There’s an alarm function on the calendar part of my PDA. When I set it, it beeps insistently every three minutes until I poke it in the face.

My security system is the all-time champion beepy thing. It beeps when I come home to remind me I have 30 seconds to punch in my code (more beeps) before it assumes I’m one of the bad guys and calls the authorities. It beeps when I leave to remind me I have 30 seconds to get out the door before it makes that same assumption.

But many of my gadgets beep at me, not because I have asked them to, but because their designers and manufacturers decided, once the device was in my possession, I would need specific pieces of information. For example, my cell phone beeps mournfully if it needs recharging. My oven beeps when it has reached the set temperature, and is switching from “preheat” to “bake.”

The smoke detector where I used to live would beep when the battery was low; that was, indeed, good information to have. The one I have now was installed when the house was built, and is wired into the electrical system. I used to wonder sometimes, on the rare occasion I thought about it at all, if the builder was ever tempted to put some dummy cardboard thing up there instead of the real thing. After all, it doesn’t have to beep, and the chances of its ever being needed are pretty small. That was before I set my oven to “self clean” with a small puddle of spilled grease in the bottom.

I no longer wonder if my smoke detector is fake. I did learn, however, that I don’t know how to turn off a smoke detector, and I don’t remember where I put the instructions.

About a month ago, walking across my bedroom, I heard a beep from the living room. It was a different pitch and a different beep pattern from any of the beepy things I’m familiar with. I stopped and listened, and the beeping wasn’t repeated. Unless it happens when I’m out of the house, it has never been repeated since.

I have no idea what it was.

Has something died from lack of recharging? If so, I don’t know what it is, since all my beepy things seem to be in working order. Is one of my beepy things programmed to sing a different song and in a key different from the usual when it has something extraordinary to tell me? If so, I don’t know about it. Is ignorance bliss in this case?

I guess I’ll find out.

TK Magazine, November 2007

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I’ve been paying most of my bills using my bank’s online services for a couple of years now. I like it a lot. The savings in time is not insignificant. And, since I have about a dozen accounts that are paid monthly and another ten or so store accounts that are paid only when I actually charge something, I figure the convenience of banking online saves me five or six dollars in postage every month. That’s not a huge amount, but you also have to figure the time and the inconvenience of stocking up on stamps. And checks aren’t cheap, either.

I have friends who would not touch online banking on a dare. It frightens them. Maybe they’re right – I know there is always the danger of some of the bad guys getting in there and stealing stuff. But, in my case, I’ve decided that the convenience outweighs the risk. Online banking, in my book, is right up there with garage door openers and cell phones.

A few days ago I got a letter from the Topeka Water Department. It was a fill-in-the-blank form letter addressed to “Dear Customer,” so right away I knew the problem it was dealing with was common to more than a couple of water users. It called itself a “friendly reminder,” and asked me, when I make online payments in the future, to make sure my account number has all the numbers in it and that the dash is placed properly. There was a blank where someone had written my account number, complete with the dash (properly placed).

Sure thing, I thought. That’s not too much to ask. I immediately went to my computer and pulled up my account on my bank’s web site. I found the Water Department information, changed the number, and hit the Enter key. “Not so fast,” said my bank via my computer. “The account numbers for the businesses to which you want to send money must be in one of the following formats….,” and there followed a screen full of configurations which my bank’s computer would recognize. Not one of them had a single dash in it.

I called my bank and talked to one of the friendly people who know about those things. Sure enough, their online services will accept only numbers and spaces – no letters, and certainly no dashes.

My next call was to the number listed on the form letter from the Water Department. The woman who helped me confirmed that my online payments could not be properly credited unless the account number contained a properly-placed dash.

“But my bank’s online service doesn’t allow dashes,” I told her.

“You can pay your bill from our web site. We accept credit cards,” she told me.

“I don’t want to put my water payments on a credit card. I want to use my bank’s online service.”

“Well, you just can’t pay your bill that way,” she replied.

“Since I’ve been paying my bill this way for a couple of years now, why am I just now hearing about this?” I wanted to know.

“We just recently changed banks, and the one we’re using now can’t do without the dash.”

Oh, okay.

So what do I do now? Whose fault is this? Whose responsibility is it to make sure that all these technologies line up properly?

As with so many newly-acquired conveniences, we can always go back to whatever it was we were doing before, but it’s painful. It’s like losing the use of the garage door opener in a downpour.

So I guess I will be writing, stamping, and mailing a check to the Topeka Water Department every month now. Or at least until someone figures this out. Once I’ve decided whose fault it is, I plan to let them know they owe me 39 cents every month.

Whoops, make that 41 cents.

TK Magazine, November 2007

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A year or two ago, on one of my favorite television programs, the main character deliberately broke his own hand to distract himself from the chronic and unbearable pain in his leg.

One of the other characters, also a doctor, mentioned (obviously for the enlightenment of the medically-untrained viewing audience) that the human brain can register only one pain at a time.

Is it true, I wondered. I called my younger son, who teaches college-level physiology, and he could neither confirm nor deny it. Frankly, that’s all the research I’m willing to do on the subject. (Now you know why I write columns in which I relate personal experiences and give my opinions, rather than do any real reporting.)

In any case, I tend to believe interesting phenomena mentioned on medical shows. I assume that if they were way off base, they would be rudely set upon by the hundreds of thousands of viewers who actually know about this stuff.

In April of this year I had knee replacement surgery. This is one splendid procedure our medical community has come up with. On April 2, I could barely get around without a cane; on August 2, four short months later, I am climbing stairs and walking farther than I have been able to in years, and I do it all with no cane and no limp – and no pain in my new knee. At my final checkup with the surgeon, as I waxed enthusiastic about the American medical establishment in general and his skills in particular, he agreed that this particular surgery has probably made more difference in the quality of more peoples’ lives than just about anything medical science has been able to offer before. I believe it.

But here’s the thing – before the surgery, I didn’t know I had so many other places that hurt.

Yeah, yeah, okay, I’m 63 years old. And more than a little overweight. Either one of those factors would easily account for a few aches and pains. It’s also true that, before the surgery, I was doped up on the maximum dosage of over-the-counter pain relievers a great deal of the time. But even when they wore off, the only pain I remember feeling was my bad knee. I just wasn’t aware of the kink in my other knee and something uncomfortable in the arch of my foot and minor arthritis in my thumbs and occasional twinges in my lower back.

I guess I could go get all these new little annoyances taken care of.

But I’m afraid to find out what else hurts that I don’t know about yet.

TK Magazine, September 2007

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