Since tomorrow is Halloween…

Comments: 0 - Date: October 30th, 2011 - Categories: random

Most people who know me know that I am the easiest person in the world to scare. I’m very jumpy. If you say something and I didn’t know you were there, I jump. If there’s a noise, I jump. If I see something I wasn’t expecting, I jump. You get the point. The only person who might be easier to scare and be more vocal about being scared is my big brother (who ran from the room, shrieking, while we tried to watch Pet Semetary).

In spite of knowing that I’m a big sissy, I love watching scary movies, reading about scary things and watching shows about ghosts. I’m obsessed with ghost stories. I love them. I love reading about them and hearing them. I like to imagine where they started. I think that today’s legends have a grain of truth somewhere in their history, but like the telephone game, it gets distorted and blown up.

I’ve never seen a ghost. I’m not entirely sure I believe they exist, though I believe other people when they say they’ve seen them (in other words, I believe they believe). I love hearing ghost stories, though. I even watch the tv shows with other people telling their ghost stories (A Haunting, Celebrity Ghost Stories, etc). And some of those shows scare me. Big time. Like, I turn off the lights and sprint upstairs before a ghost gets me. So why do I watch them? Why do we all watch them? I know I’m not alone in this, look at how many people saw the Paranormal Activity movies.

I’ve heard theories that people find comfort in ghost stories. They find the idea that spirits go on after death comforting. I personally don’t find that idea comforting, but I guess I understand the thinking behind it. Some people use ghost stories as morality type stories, like A Christmas Carol. Some people tell the stories to be scared, just for the sake of being scared. To feel that adrenaline rush, but in a safe environment.

According to the History Channel’s Web site, one of the first notable ghost stories was recorded in the first century A.D. by Pliny the Younger, a Roman author and statesman. He wrote about the ghost of an old man with a beard and chains (like Dickens) haunting about his house. Other Greeks wrote ghost stories, too.

Also according to history.com, the first poltergeist was reported in 856 A.D. in a farmhouse in Germany. Clearly, we have enjoyed hearing and telling ghost stories for a long time.

Whether we do it for comfort, for the rush or out of curiosity I guess depends on the person. But tomorrow, we’ll be dressing up in costumes, getting candy, watching scary movies and telling ghost stories. A day where we celebrate life by acknowledging death and speculate that perhaps the dead are still here, not just in our hearts and minds.

Have you ever seen a ghost? What’s your favorite ghost story? Does your town have a famous ghost?

I grew up in a small town called Montross in Virginia. Population 300 or so. There’s a road in Montross called Wild Sally Road and there was a ghost story attached to that road. Like most small town legends, there were about three versions of the ghost story. In one version, Wild Sally was an escaped slave, in another story she was a hermit who lived alone in the woods and was tormented by the townsfolk and in another version she was a high school student who died in a car crash on that road on her way to the prom. My best friend told that story the best, at the end, she would lower her voice and say, “If you’re driving down Wild Sally Road at night and you’re going too quickly, she’ll try to stop you and if you’re going to slowly, she’ll try to get in the car with you.” Of course, there’s no telling what the optimum “Wild Sally speed” would be. I would usually hear the story while we were walking through the woods off of the road named for the legend. I was always the first one to suggest that we head home : ).

So, share your stories! I’m dying to hear them.

Job creators…

Comments: 0 - Date: October 2nd, 2011 - Categories: Uncategorized

If I were to look at a list of the richest people in America, I could guarantee that none of them created my job. No. My current job was created by an immigrant who came to this country about 20 years ago from Soviet Russia. It’s very American dream, if you ask me. Before this job, my job was created by a small family who ran a newspaper.

My point is this, according statistics by the Small Business Administration, small business have created 64 percent of net new jobs over the past 15 years. While small businesses do get tax breaks, I doubt they’re in the same stratosphere as the breaks the super-wealthy receive.

According to Warren Buffet’s recent editorial, he paid a lower percentage than the other 20 people in his office. He has also said that he pays less in taxes than his maid. Obama, Buffet and others have come up with a rather ingenious solution: close tax loopholes and raise taxes on the wealthiest one percent. This has been deemed “Class warfare.” And the super-rich are now called “Job creators.” I’ll let the CEO of Berkshire Hathaway take that one:

Back in the 1980s and 1990s, tax rates for the rich were far higher, and my percentage rate was in the middle of the pack. According to a theory I sometimes hear, I should have thrown a fit and refused to invest because of the elevated tax rates on capital gains and dividends.

I didn’t refuse, nor did others. I have worked with investors for 60 years and I have yet to see anyone — not even when capital gains rates were 39.9 percent in 1976-77 — shy away from a sensible investment because of the tax rate on the potential gain. People invest to make money, and potential taxes have never scared them off. And to those who argue that higher rates hurt job creation, I would note that a net of nearly 40 million jobs were added between 1980 and 2000. You know what’s happened since then: lower tax rates and far lower job creation.

Barbara Ehrenreich wrote an editorial for The Washington Post about the “demonization” of the uber-wealthy. One of the points she touched on was how to middle class america, the upper tax bracket seems woefully out of touch. She interviewed a crisis-management consultant in Washington named Eric Dezenhall, who talked about a “gazillionaire” client who didn’t think people would picket his house after he ran his company into the ground. “Because the super-rich live in a bubble,” Dezenhall said. “They’re concerned about what a small circle of peers think of them, like the guys they play golf with, but nobody else.”

With record unemployment, high foreclosure rates and millions of people struggling to make ends meet, no one is pitying Representative John Fleming for only having $400,000 left after taxes and “feeding his family.” How will he ever survive?

So, let’s follow Warren Buffet’s advice once again. Let’s remember that right now, the real job creators are small business owners. Perhaps we can give them a bit of a break, instead of the billionaires.

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While the poor and middle class fight for us in Afghanistan, and while most Americans struggle to make ends meet, we mega-rich continue to get our extraordinary tax breaks. Some of us are investment managers who earn billions from our daily labors but are allowed to classify our income as “carried interest,” thereby getting a bargain 15 percent tax rate. Others own stock index futures for 10 minutes and have 60 percent of their gain taxed at 15 percent, as if they’d been long-term investors.

These and other blessings are showered upon us by legislators in Washington who feel compelled to protect us, much as if we were spotted owls or some other endangered species. It’s nice to have friends in high places (Warren Buffet).

Oh North Carolina, don’t do this

Comments: 0 - Date: September 18th, 2011 - Categories: Charlotte, editorial, News Analysis, politics

For the past four years, I have called North Carolina my home. It’s true, I’ve spent the past two years trying to move away from it. However, there are things about this state that I have grown to love. Mostly the scenery, especially in the fall. I’ve also eaten some amazing barbecue down here and met some amazing people. Sometimes while eating barbecue.

So, I’m a little more than heartbroken that next May my state will be voting on a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage. As many people who know me know, I am a proud and fierce ally of the LGBT community. I have a gay brother and I love him dearly. Luckily, he lives in New York, where he can now legally marry (though he swears he’ll die alone). I have made many friends in the LGBT community here in Charlotte, as well. I even wrote to my state senators, begging them not to let this bill pass. I wanted it to end in the Senate. I didn’t want a state referendum. My Senator, (Daniel Clodfelter, a democrat), responded to my e-mail giving me the names of two republicans who were “on the fence” about the vote (to be fair, his aide did, but that’s something). So I sent the same e-mail to those two republican senators. One responded, saying:

Thank you for your email regarding the Marriage Amendment which was recently considered by the General Assembly. Hearing from my constituents is an integral part of the legislative process and I heard from more of you on this issue than on any other in my nine years as a Senator.  After listening to a great number of people on both sides of this issue, hearing the debate among my fellow legislators and recognizing that this is an issue that people have a strong opinion about, I decided that you—the citizens of North Carolina—needed the opportunity to vote on this amendment.

I encourage all of you to go to the polls to vote on the Marriage Amendment.

Sincerely,
Senator Richard Y. Stevens

Kind of cowardly, right? The subtext says to me, “I didn’t want to take a stand, so I’m letting you guys duke it out.” So, will our state decide to make discrimination a part of its constitution? Will it stand on the wrong side of history? Will it forget that constitutions work best when they enumerate freedoms, not when they restrict them?

Who knows.

There was an article in today’s Observer about how the religious community is split on the issue. As posh and liberal as Charlotte may seem at times, this is still the home of Billy Graham and many people still take their cues from religious leaders.

Equality NC and many other groups are out lobbying against the proposed ban. According to an article from that group, there is more at stake than just banning same-sex marriages. The wording could also impact heterosexual unmarried couples. The bill states that, “Marriage between a man and a woman is the only domestic legal union that shall be valid or recognized by this State.”

There are a few Facebook events where people plan to vote against the amendment. The one I have RSVP’d to has more that 44,000 other people in attendance. I know that isn’t a reliable prediction and I know other polls will be more accurate. But it gives me some hope. Perhaps the people of North Carolina will rise to meet the challenges of recognizing humanity, instead of falling prey to fear and prejudice.

In a state that not so long ago was scarred by the memory of Jim Crow, we cannot allow discrimination to become a part of the law of the land again.

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