Thursday, December 21, 2006

The Chauffeur's Dilemma

I was reading Michael Lally's latest post on his blog concerning the absence of any significant working class/middle class outrage at the widening disparity between the rich and poor in this country. It reminded me of one of the most perceptive and accessible essays I have ever read on the subject: The Chauffeur's Dilemma by Arlie Hochschild.

Here are the first two paragraphs of the essay:

Let's consider our political moment through a story. Suppose a chauffeur drives a sleek limousine through the streets of New York, a millionaire in the backseat. Through the window, the millionaire spots a homeless woman and her two children huddling in the cold, sharing a loaf of bread. He orders the chauffeur to stop the car. The chauffeur opens the passenger door for the millionaire, who walks over to the mother and snatches the loaf. He slips back into the car and they drive on, leaving behind an even poorer family and a baffled crowd of sidewalk witnesses. For his part, the chauffeur feels real qualms about what his master has done, because unlike his employer, he has recently known hard times himself. But he drives on nonetheless. Let's call this the Chauffeur's Dilemma.

Absurd as it seems, we are actually witnessing this scene right now. At first blush, we might imagine that this story exaggerates our situation, but let us take a moment to count the loaves of bread that have recently changed hands and those that soon will. Then, let's ask why so many people are letting this happen.

Tom says read the whole article, especially in this "holiday" season.






Saturday, December 16, 2006

The Best of Youth

Yesterday I finished watching "The Best of Youth" a six-hour saga produced for Italian television. I recommend it highly. I learned of its existence about a year ago when I started seeing it on virtually all of the "top ten" lists, which is rare for a subtitled foreign film. I ordered the first disk from Netflix way back in June, but never had the time or inclination to sit down and watch it. Time and inclination finally crossed paths and I was able to see it at last. This has got to be one of those "trust me" reviews, because the story spans 37 years from 1966 to 2003, with oodles of rich, complex characters and deep dialog (even though conveyed by subtitle), which would take me pages and pages to cover. It's got everything: family, love, sex, radical politics, mafia assassinations, flawless film making, stunning location shots in Italy, Sicily, and Norway, and so on. Suffice it to say, when it was all over, I was sad to leave the characters and their milieu behind. Tom says five out of five stars. Check it out.

Monday, December 11, 2006

Cool, very esoteric tee shirts

Oh, I just have to hip you all to a great tee shirt site. The deal here is that artists submit designs and the people using the site vote on the designs. The top vote-getters are then commercially produced and sold in limited runs. I have bought about 5 or 6 for myself and a couple as gifts. One of my favorites is a guy in a chicken suit holding the chicken head of the suit on his arm. But the hook is that the being inside the chicken suit is a chicken! In other words, where a human head should be sticking out of the suit, it's a chicken. Never ceases to crack me up, and I get lots of positive feedback from people when I wear it.

They have new releases every couple of weeks so you're sure to find something that strikes your fancy eventually. And, sometimes they will do a second run on really popular designs.

~~ Tom

Thursday, December 7, 2006

Disposable Email Address

I was using Stumble Upon to surf the Web and found out about disposable email addresses. The idea here is that when you are requested to provide your email address you can create one that is disposable. Thus, your real email address is protected from spammers. The simplest but most efficient one I found was Mailinator. It allows you to create a disposable address "on the fly," which is good for a "few hours." I tried this out and it works like a charm. It does have some limitations, which are well described in the FAQ.

Something equally cool is Spamex. For a measly $9.95 a year you can sign up and create up to 500 separate email addresses. When someone sends email to one of the addresses, Spamex forwards it to your real email. What's cool is that by giving a different email address to different senders, you can find out who is giving out your email address to spammers and still never have to reveal your real address. Then, you can literally turn off that particular address. Very slick. Just to give it a test, if you want to send me an email, try DoubtingTom@spamex.com.

Gratitude

Yesterday, I held my new-born Grandson. The joy I felt was so intense I could not help but well up with tears.

Today I opened my newspaper to be greeted with a picture of an Iraqi father holding his dead baby who had been killed in a suicide bombing. The immense sadness and anger I felt was so intense I could not help but well up with tears.

I have so much to be grateful for.

~~ Tom

Friday, December 1, 2006

Waiting for snow at Squaw Valley
































Hey, Eileen and I are waiting for snow! We usually get in 30 - 40 days a year of skiing in, mostly at Squaw Valley where we have season passes. At present, there is not enough snow for quality skiing, but I thought that posting some ski photos might help bring on some serious snow. Also, this is my first attempt posting photos. I haven't figured out how to move the photos around (if that is even possible) or how to order them but I'll keep working on it. In the meantime, I'll just annotate them as they appear.

Top: Eileen, my cousin Paul, and his sons, David and Matt, standing at the top of the Siberia run at Squaw Valley, March 2004. Look to the right of Matt's left shoulder and you can see Lake Tahoe below the far ridge line.

Next: That's me at Park City, Utah, last year.

Next: A shot of a portion of the Squaw Valley ski area taken from the Palisades during the summer of 2003. My son-in-law and I hiked up there on a gorgeous July day. Fools actually jump off these cliffs in the winter!

Bottom: Eileen at Park City, last year