Summertime,
And the livin’ is easy
Fish are jumpin’
And the cotton is high…
—George Gershwin
So there I am on a hot Sunday afternoon, rockin’ in my hammock,
listening to Avi Nelson on WRKO, just taking a sip of my diet Dr
Pepper, when I hear Avi say… “As you’re in your hammock, sipping
your beverage of choice, listening to the show, you can call in at…”
After 40 years of
listening to ’RKO I know the number. I called immediately on my
cellphone, demanded to know how he knew I was in my hammock, sipping
my beverage of choice! Avi insisted it was just a wild guess; he
didn’t really know where I was. But I told him I don’t believe
anyone anymore: The National Security Agency is watching me! Through
the leafy branches of the maple tree!
It was otherwise a good
show, as usual when Avi is the host. And I felt better later when we
all learned that the NSA couldn’t find what airplane whistleblower
Edward Snowden was on, going to what country.
But imagine my dismay
when I got a letter to Citizens for Limited Taxation from the IRS on
Monday! You may recall I wrote a negative column about that agency
recently. I took the letter to Chip to open while I cowered in the
corner of his kitchen.
Well, silly me. It was
just a nice note telling me that although I had not submitted our
quarterly taxes “correctly” in April (I think I got busy ranting
about “Tax Freedom Day” and filed electronically a day late), “we
decided to waive the penalty for this period,” which would have been
2 percent of what was owed. I am truly grateful and will be nicer to
the IRS in the future.
Now, back to
criticizing the NSA. I recently taped a drawing of the Liberty Bill
(from the package of U.S. postal service Forever stamps) over the
video camera on my laptop. But the computer is just the beginning of
my privacy problem. Congressman Michael Capuano was interviewed by
Joe Battenfeld on NECN last week about his bill to control the
ability of our television set to watch us watching it.
Capuano, whom I have
known for years and believe is genuinely concerned about these
privacy concerns, said he laughed when he heard this one because he
thought it was a joke. Then he learned that several large companies
(he didn’t name them but one is Verizon) have tried to get a patent
on this technology. The idea is to tailor commercials to what we are
doing; holding a cat, eating a Big Mac, clearly in need of a new
shampoo. Michael says he wouldn’t try to block any new idea, but his
bill will insist we be told that our television can do this, our
provider will allow us to opt out of the “service,” and, he’s only
half-kidding, will require a ticker across the bottom of the screen
that says, “You are being watched.”
Never mind, back to
chilling out in summertime. Wait, did I just hear an ad from the
U.S. Chamber of Commerce saying that U.S Senator Rand Paul
(R-Kentucky) is supporting the “Gang of Eight” immigration reform
bill? You can’t say that, Chamber guys; it isn’t true! Sen. Paul
proposed an amendment to grant Congress an annual vote on whether
the border is secure or not, mostly because he distrusts the White
House to follow through. The amendment failed, and Sen. Paul said on
CNN’s “State of the Union” last weekend, “Without some congressional
authority (to oversee, and without border security first), I can’t
support the final bill.” BTW, he is planning to sue the NSA to
restore our privacy rights. I stand with Rand.
As I write this, I’m
watching the C-SPAN Senate session on the latest version of
immigration reform, called the Border Surge bill, as senators slowly
vote to end debate. Sen. Paul just voted “nay”: the final vote is
67-27 to move forward. It looks as if another 1,000-plus page bill,
like ObamaCare, with broad-ranging consequence to America, will pass
soon.
We were told in 1986 by
the Reagan Administration that if amnesty passed, the border would
be defended; it wasn’t. The government hasn’t become more
trustworthy since then.
Which reminds me, we
also had welfare reform in the last century; now we have abuses of
the Electronic Benefit (EBT) cards. However, the Massachusetts
Senate just passed a bill to deal with this, and it’s pretty good,
requiring photo IDs for card users. I don’t understand why it would
take over a year to implement this, though. Rep. Shaunna O’Connell
(R-Taunton) and other House reformers are still working for the best
possible final bill.
So that’s good news. We
must enjoy the summertime, where my summer diet is easy: light
eating at breakfast and supper, rushing to the curb for the ice
cream truck, which now has several flavors of soft-serve. Or,
running errands, I stop at Coffey’s for real ice cream, Sizzles for
frozen yogurt, Dunkin’ Donuts for an iced butter-pecan coffee.
Better than jumpin’ fish and high cotton ….
