Stevieslaw: Tom Corbett’s Lucky Socks

Posted on December 8, 2013 by stevieslaw

In his very successful effort to say something really stupid every day, Governor Tom Corbett tied raising the State’s minimum wage to changing the dynamic of the economic recovery. “The economy is starting to come back, Corbett said, I always worry about changing the dynamics when we’re starting to come out of…” As usual, we might add, huh?
Since it is really hard to imagine that giving 855,000 Pennsylvanian a more nearly livable wage and more buying power could be a threat to the economy, we can only assume that Tommy is superstitious about making changes now. He confirmed this by saying further, “I will also not change my lucky socks—no matter how badly they smell— until the economy is fully recovered.”
I have just ordered the Tom Corbett—Space Cadet TV series, which appeared on the major networks in the early fifties, from Amazon. Perhaps there is a clue in that series to what makes Tom tick.

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Stevieslaw: Tire Pressure–The LAGuide to Buying a Car

Posted on December 8, 2013 by stevieslaw

Tire Pressure: The LAGuide to Buying a Car
No one sane would ever accuse the male members of my immediate family of “poetic leanings,” yet each and every one of them certainly subscribed to a philosophy based to some extent on the poem by Oliver Wendell Holmes entitled the Deacon’s Masterpiece, or The Wonderful One-Hoss Shay.” You probably memorized parts of the poem as a child. It is about a carriage built so logically that “it ran for a hundred years to a day,” and “it went to pieces all at once.” That is, every single piece of the Shay broke down at exactly the same time. My father had a similar experience with a 1938 Packard that collapsed into gray dust on Hopkinson Avenue in Brownsville, Brooklyn in 1957 leaving just the cushion of the front seat behind. My dad considered it a highlight of his life and mounted that cushion on a wall in every apartment he and mom ever shared.
While Marvin next door and Joel around the block had parents that would buy new Chevys every three years, my parents—indeed all my relatives—would only buy cars when the ones they owned went completely to pieces. My memorabilia from childhood vacations consists mostly of post cards or photos from repair garages all across the Northeast. The roughly 200 mile trip from New York City to The Baseball Hall of Fame at Cooperstown, that might take most folks 4 hours, was a 9 day trip for us. My relatives’ cars were constantly breaking down. For that reason, they always went in a convoy of three or four cars, if attending to some serious business—like taking someone to the airport.
For those of us who buy a car every 20 years or so, the process of purchasing one is very serious business and that is the reason, we, at Stevieslaw are in the unique position to publish, “Tire Pressure: The Less-intelligent-than-average-American Guide to Buying a Car.” In the guide, we will hammer home the one overriding principle to buying a car—bragging rights. New car-used car, good car-bad car, gas guzzler-plug-in all pale in comparison to good deal-bad deal. If you can get the same lousy car that your neighbor did for fifty dollars less, you win! In the guide, you will learn how to:
1. Use Consumer Reports and the Highway Safety Agency Reports to zero in on the cars you should consider. Spend several careful weeks analyzing the reports and preparing spreadsheets. Pick the ten most likely models and schedule test drives at the dealerships. Then learn to throw all the research away and go with your neighbor Harvey’s offhand remark that “the Banshee Expanded SUV is a sweet ride and gets great gas mileage.”
2. Choose new or used by careful weighing the advantages and disadvantages of creating your own headache through a huge payment book to inheriting someone else’s headache—one that was clearly not just used by a gray haired grandmother to and from church on Sundays. For those of you choosing used, we have a how to kick the tires like a pro video; while for those choosing new, we provide a handy pull-out guide explaining what the sticker on the window might mean and why it doesn’t matter.
3. Although all the really cool people are buying hybrids, we analyze your driving habits and lifestyle to determine whether a gas engine, hybrid or plug in vehicle is best for you. Our sophisticated program uses over 100 variables from age and hair color to foot size and type of deodorant to determine what the best money saving choice will be. And there is no need for you to fill out a complex form with information you may find hard to recall, as every shred of information about you and yours is readily available to us from the NSA, Google and Amazon websites.
4. Find a dealer who believes you are a unique and special human being who deserves better than the best deal possible, because of your charming social skills and fierce bargaining abilities. This is the essential ingredient to your future bragging rights! In the guide, we will show you that the best deals are never in your town, even if it is the home to nearly fifty or sixty car dealerships. Finding the best deals, like finding Shangri-La, will require you to traverse Tibetan like mountainous regions around your home in mid-winter, so that you may find the near mythical dealer who has no overhead. (My cousin Alfred, after two years of searching, a divorce, and 450 gallons of gas at $3.50 a gallon, found a dealer willing to knock nearly $80 off the sticker price of a Nash Rambler. And, although he bought the car in 1953, he is still bragging about it.)
Drive by the Guide store and pick up the guide as soon as you can. For each purchase, we will place a bold advertisement in your local newspaper, informing all the people who know you—or wish they did—that you made the best deal in the history of mankind in buying your new car.

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Stevieslaw: Corbett Brief Defines Poor, Pregnant and Disabled as Icky

Posted on December 7, 2013 by stevieslaw

I’m certain that Marc Levy, writing for the Associated Press, did not intend to write a coma inducing article about Tom Corbett’s plan to bring Federal Medicaid dollars to Pennsylvania for the purpose of not using them. Writing sensibly about Tom’s plan is not possible as no one has been able to explain or understand it. Recall that the first Federal response to the plan was, “What the …?”
The essence of Tom’s argument is that it is important not to broaden Pennsylvania’s Medicaid coverage under the ACA, even though the Federal government will pick up nearly the entire cost. Who could argue with that? Corbett goes on to argue—try to stay with me here—that people who need Medicaid assistance are invariably infected with what is known medically as “moral deficiency cooties,” and are liable to infect the general population if the State doesn’t step in to prevent them from getting the help they need. Fortunately, the State can do that easily by creating restrictions and red tape as obstacles to the people who are least likely to be able to overcome them.
Got it now?

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Stevieslaw: Panic in the Streets as Hedge Fund Managers Strike

Posted on December 7, 2013 by stevieslaw

So you open up the local newspaper to page 4 only to learn that the
a. Farm workers,
b. Personal and Home Care Aides,
c. Food Preparation and Serving workers, or
d. Portfolio Managers at Large Hedge Funds,
are on strike. Choose the strike least likely to put a wrinkle in your day. Sure, I’m being a bit (willfully) naïve here, but workers in the first three categories make under $10 an hour, while those in category “d” are averaging 2.2 million a year. That is roughly a factor of 100 in annual salary, which should somehow translate into the value of the work to society. Sure, I know there are more food prep workers than hedge fund managers, and that hedge fund managers have gone to Harvard—but so have Astronomers, at about $100k a year.
Waddya say we raise the minimum wage to $20 an hour and take the hedge fund advantage down to about 50 to 1. Will it lead to the end of the free world? I’d have to say it’s worth the risk.

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Stevieslaw: Rover Spirit Unlocks Martian Mystery

Posted on December 5, 2013 by stevieslaw

NASA reported today that their Martian Rover Spirit had uncovered a treasure trove of documents from an ancient civilization. It has taken NASA and the best minds at the NSA more than two years to translate some of these documents—with the first group to be translated detailing the Martian’s handling of their growing atmospheric crisis
Two groups shared the stage during the crisis—the ecoworriers and the miraculousjobmakers. The vast majority of Martians apparently stayed on the sidelines, voting only on pocket book issues. All environmental decisions were entrusted to the elders of the miraculousjobmakers, chaired by a group from Kacht Industries. The tipping point to their environmental crisis was apparently the discovery that methane hydrate crystals, locked beneath the oceans of Mars and in its permafrost could be economically extracted and used to provide decades of energy for the planet.
In their decision, the miraculousjobmakers declared that there was no evidence that the atmosphere was thinning and that, moreover, their god—hewhoshinesthesunsometimes—would not have put the crystals there if he did not intend for the Martians to use them.
“Not burning the gas would be an affront to our god,” concluded Chairman David Kacht.
Back on the planet earth, Americans for Prosperity, a Koch Industries funded group, announced it would pressure legislatures to take a long hard look at NASA’s budget.

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Stevieslaw: The Continuing War on Xmas

Posted on December 4, 2013 by stevieslaw

The Grand Old Party will oppose a bid by Democrats to extend jobless benefits for the long-term unemployed, which are set to expire just a few days after Christmas. The loss of benefits will affect roughly 3.2 million people over the next six months. Hap Holiday, spokesperson for the House Republicans, would only say, “We have supported it since 2008 as it could be paid for by counterbalancing measures that made life easier for the rich.” “This year, we’d get nothing.”
Ms. Holiday said that Republicans were very upset with the timing of the loss of benefits. “This is just sloppy. Clearly, we’d much prefer to have the benefits stop on Christmas Day—having it stop three days after Xmas just diffuses the message we’d like to send to the poor.”

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Stevieslaw: Limbo Lower Now

Posted on December 3, 2013 by stevieslaw

Stevieslaw: Limbo Lower Now
Paul Kane, writing for the Washington Post, mistitles his piece “Critical Month awaits Congress”, which is appropriate only if the word critical actually means “of no importance.” In the article, Paul points out that this Congress has passed only 60 pieces of public law in their six month session—fewer than the 88 passed by the Newt Gingrich bunch in 1995. Clearly, this will make the 113th Congress the least productive ever.
What Mr. Kane does not realize, or at least does not express, is the kind of superhuman pressure this will put of the 114th Congress. Sure, the Republicans and Democrats in Congress still hate each other—with the mini-nuclear option employed against filibustering some judicial appointments, they hate each other more than ever. And sure, the average mental age of the members is still around two and a half. But can they get it done? Producing fewer than 60 new laws would be an incredible accomplishment for the Congress, if not so much for the nation. But how to do it?
Paul Kane puts his finger on a possible approach when he notes that although Congress is faced with a host of pressing problems to solve between now and the end of the year, not only will they be in session for only two weeks, but also their schedules are arranged so that the House and Senate will be in joint session for only three or four days. And our legislatures are right on top of it. Here, at Stevieslaw, we are happy to report, through our exclusive sources, that a joint blue-ribbon committee will meet before the end of the year to plan a 114th Congress in which the Senate and the House are never simultaneously in session. Breathtaking! Yes! Of course, problems abound—not the least of which the fact that the Democrats and Republicans refuse to communicate through other than trash talk. We have further learned that the two sides have agreed to send messages back and forth using a version of the popular game “telephone.” The phone chain is to be manned by revolving parties of twelve from the local fraternities and sororities, under the influence of free flowing kegs.
Can they get it done? Will the 114th Congress prove to be even more useless than its predecessor? Text “yes” to 800-359-005 if you believe it can happen and “no” to 800-359-006 if you believe it can’t. We hope some fees may apply.

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Satisfying the Critics

Posted on November 6, 2013 by stevieslaw

Stevieslaw: Satisfying a Host of Critics
Richway T. Windblows, spokesperson for the Obama administration, announced today that the president was introducing a bold new measure to satisfy critics in not one, but two areas. “With a single stroke of his pen, President Obama interchanged the personnel responsible for the logistics, operations and programming at the NSA with those of the ACA,” Windblown said. “We expect that as a result of this action, registering for health insurance through the Affordable Care Act will be seamless, while spying on American citizens and foreign dignitaries will become nearly impossible.”

Richway went on to hint that the Obama administration was taking a close look at competency in all areas. “Don’t be surprised if NASA is running the State Department sometime soon,” he concluded.

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The LAGuide to Saving Time

Posted on November 6, 2013 by stevieslaw

Hurry: The LAGuide to Saving Time
The average American now works 137.3 hours a week at 2.7 jobs. With the commute adding another 24.7 hours a week, free time has become, pound for pound*, as valuable as platinum. In fact in 1956, Time Magazine valued a minute of free time at $1.56, while today that same minute is worth $42,351.27. It would be higher still if even a few Americans made a living wage. It is no wonder that the kind of frantic speed we once associated with teenage drivers on windy country roads or middle age men with “Indianapolis 500 Syndrome” has now become a commonplace of our daily lives. Today, when someone blindsides you 85 mph, it is just as likely to be some gentle, white haired grandmother late for church on Sunday.
This came home to us last night when my wife and I went to visit Aunt Edna in the hospital. Edna broke her right wrist and collarbone in a horrific accident. She took full responsibility for the accident which involved four shopping carts and a woman using a walker at the local supermarket. ”The woman in the walker zipped to the right around the melons and I knew if I got stuck behind her I would miss Bingo” Edna said. “Unfortunately, two others tried to move around her at the same time. Apparently, all of us, including the woman using the walker, were speeding.”
Today, even our local supermarkets have become dangerous, in both the parking lots and the stores. The check-out lines have been relabeled fast, faster and blazingly fast. On the last line, anything in a plastic bag is charged as if it were broccoli to save time. And, have you noticed how even fresh items are now cut up in bite size, barely recognizable bits and then repackaged for rapid use? For the nimblest of us, shopping for two weeks—door to door– can be accomplished in under three minutes.
Clearly, we can no longer afford to waste time doing things. Yet our research failed to uncover a single book or magazine article that prescribed principles for saving time. It has never been discussed on daytime TV. For that reason we, at Stevieslaw, are proud to publish “Hurry,” The Less-intelligent-than-average- American Guide to Saving Time. In the guide you will learn a thousand time saving tips. The overriding principle is to
Multi-multi Task: Can you walk and chew gum? Drive and talk on the cellphone? Yes? Then, you can multi-multitask. Learn how any tasks you can string together in a sentence can be performed in tandem, even if your public school education has left you unable to spell the specific task or to understand what a sentence might be.
As samples, we offer:
1. Nutrition: Fast food is much too slow. Sandwiches are best and we will show you how to make multiple mystery meat sandwiches using precut deli products and various sliced cheeses hastily slammed between slices of precut white bread. Health nut? Slap on a piece of precut, prewashed iceberg lettuce and squeeze on some mustard if you must. With experience, you can make up to four dozen sandwiches—good for 16 days of breakfasts, lunches and dinners in less than ten minutes. A photo of the ten most common molds is included in the guide, so you will know when to move on to the next pack of sandwiches.
2. Hygiene: Showers are both time consuming and the enemy of mm-tasking. It’s hard to keep your electronics and sandwiches dry and soap free with water raining down. Bathe. Remember that only a small amount of water is necessary. The guide will introduce you to the clever concept of rarely refilling the bath tub. This is based on observing mother- nature, who never empties the ocean. Yet people bathe there all the time.
3. Birthdays and Anniversaries: Through the guide, you can buy life expectancy packages. Each pack will cover major life events for friends or loved ones over the entirety of their lives. Mail once and have their cards and gifts waiting for them, year after year!
4. Holidays: Holidays are a huge time expenditure, what with fireworks and special dinners and travel to and from places like Toledo, Ohio. In the guide, we will show you how to get it all over with quickly by bundling the holidays into a one hour slot before work on a Tuesday in October. Have a blast!
5. Health: First, understand that being perpetually frantic is the highly aerobic, so you are well on your way to good health. And fortunately, Medical schools are quickly revising their curriculums to fit in with the new rapid fire lifestyle. The next generation of graduates will be doctors, surgeons, dentists, and gurus all rolled into one and will be trained to care for all your needs while you sleep. Go to bed with a head cold and wake with a new hip!
The guide will be free this month at your local guide store. Just grab it and run. We know you can’t spare the time to pay for it and will never find the time to read it. And remember, if you find yourself enjoying something, you are clearly spending too much time on it.
*a meaningless comparison

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Shredding the Corporate Safety Net

Posted on November 4, 2013 by stevieslaw

Stevieslaw: Shredding the Corporate Safety Net
Spokesperson Sham Onus, speaking for “Corporations are People. Inc.” said yesterday that: “The reduction in food stamp benefits is outrageous and must stop. “What kind of country has this become, he added emotionally, when the working poor arrive at their stations so enfeebled from hunger that they cannot perform their functions adequately?” “Think what that might mean to your Walmart shopping experience!”
Sham went on to remind the government that the bedrock of compassionate conservatism, which has led to the incredible prosperity of a few of us, is the Corporate Safety Net.
“We do our part by providing a large number of workers a part-time employment at or below the minimum wage. This allows workers the freedom to sample two, three or even four different career possibilities simultaneously. It is the government’s traditional role—not ours— to provide some benefits, such as food stamps, for these workers so that they do not starve on the job.” Must we remind the government that these benefits are paid for by all taxpaying americans. That includes, of course, corporpeople who would be more than willing to contribute their fair share if only they were not owned by a fictitious presence through a post-office box in the Cayman Islands.”

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