A real estate CEO moves to TX

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rex.com

Last Saturday, a CEO named Peter Rex published an opinion piece in the WSJ that attracted a fair amount of attention on LinkedIn.  The article is entitled, "I'm Leaving Seattle for Texas So My Employees Can Be Free"  . 

I believe you'll find the views expressed in this piece reasonable and factual -- but unfortunately -- not widely promulgated by traditional media.  

Read more about Mr. Rex here.  

The public courtesy award goes to Ricky Gervais

A few winners at the Golden Globe Awards on January 5th decided to espouse their personal political views to the public, even after host Ricky Gervais admonished them not to do so.

Freepik image 

The majority of us don't tune in to the Golden Globes to watch Stars advocate for a cause celebre.  It's not a free speech issue; it's a public courtesy issue.  Want to speak out about Abortion?  How about Gun Rights or Gun Control?  OK; but please choose an appropriate forum.  Actor Charlton Heston spoke out about protecting Second Amendment rights in 2012 but he made his Gun Rights remarks at an NRA convention, not the Golden Globe Awards.  Big difference.

There's no shortage of outlets to express one's political opinions on one's own time.  Golden Globe Award viewers deserve to hear from invited artists about their art and not by using that forum as polarizing crusaders.

Mr. Gervais is an intellectually honest Progressive who was speaking to his peers that evening because some of them insist on pontificating about matters having nothing to do with why they are being recognized.  He told them...

"So, if you do win an award tonight; don't use it as a platform to make a political speech."  

Then Mr. Gervais added....

"You’re in no position to lecture the public about anything," 

Bravo Ricky! 

  

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On 2/4/2025 Ricky Gervais posted this picture on X with a caption, "They're still not listening".  How right he is.

Holiday gifts for the American consumer

Have you read about the recent boost in U.S. consumer spending?  Of course you have and you know it is attributed -- at least in part -- to a steep drop in energy prices, particularly a drop in gasoline prices.   

Office.com clip art

This development is described by some in the financial press as a tax cut because the benefit accrues to the consumer in much the same way a tax cut does.  That is, by paying less at the pump, we automatically keep more of what we earn.  I wonder how Keynesians who routinely advocate for enormous government spending to stimulate demand are reacting.  Putting money directly in the hands of taxpayers can also spur consumption.  

Blessed with friends on the other side

Wikipedia image

This post contains excerpts from an April 10 e-mail response to a dear friend of mine (edited for emphasis and anonymity). 

“Dear Mortimer,

I’ll say hello to the guys for you and I’ll be thinking about you this evening.

As for politics, yes, we tend to gravitate toward sources that share our views.  However, I also read the New York Times Op-ed pages and watch MSNBC (as hard as those tasks are for me).  I suppose you watch Fox on occasion and I know you read the WSJ – so good for both of us.  We try.  The state-sponsored education you cite that we both benefited from, came largely from our parents' sweat equity – translated into tax dollars – that funded the University of Wisconsin system. True, my friend.  But, I'm not arguing for zero taxation, or zero government involvement in our lives. 

When Progressives argue in favor of entitlement programs, they'll sometimes cite Social Security (under-funded as it is) to bolster their case.  They'll ask, “Well do you think Social Security is a Socialist program too?”  They actually think it’s a great gotcha question for fiscal conservatives.

The bone of contention, gets down to whom you trust with your money.  Progressives wish to give more of it to government because they believe it helps society and folks like me say....

"I don’t trust you because of your history.  Not only do you choke economic growth with your tax and spending policies, but your programs fail and are fraught with waste, fraud and abuse."

Did the Community Reinvestment Act and scores of Democratic initiatives like it enable the American dream for millions of people who otherwise would have been shut out of home ownership regardless of their honest intentions, hard work, and best efforts?   

Of the millions of foreclosures we've seen during The Great Recession, I believe the majority were assumed by reckless borrowers or cheats who had no business assuming those loans.  They lost “their” homes, tanked the market and made the climate more difficult for honest Americans who now - despite their best intentions - remain shut out of the market, perhaps for years.

A primary cause of our trouble was state-sanctioned, predatory borrowing that the Left now calls predatory lending, because their munificent scheme blew up. They brought the system to its knees and they still want to try again and again.  Today it’s health care, tomorrow its education and so on.

Wealth redistribution is the Excalibur sword of most Progressives, Mortimer.  Howard Dean admitted as much recently.  Their vision is not what made this country great and what’s more, all the anger you see out there – overwhelmingly coming from good people  – will not fade away.

I deplore violence and lawlessness and I will not partake in it, but I fear that with the warmer weather and a relentless Pollyanna in the White House, you’ll see things boil over this summer.  I hope I am wrong, but things are going to get uglier because many see their way of life at stake - and a revolution of sorts, is already underway.  How many Americans can take another 2+ years of “hope and change?”   You might be surprised at how palpable the anger and frustration is among the Right and the Center.  That is what I mean about this time being a little different. 

It's not just the GOP or former John Kerry critics -- it's a cross section of Americana.  I believe that their feelings about this administration, stoked by the economy, dwarf the anti-Bush anger we remember.

One last item Morty…

I care about others, you know that and I believe most Progressives have a heart as warm as mine and I include you among them.  I simply view most Progressives as honestly misguided on these matters - and you see me the same way - I get it.  It's a draw.  OK.

We also agree there are Wing Nuts on both sides.  However, if life comes down to helping your fellow man, consider that Conservatives believe government is simply not the way to salvation and its very nature is to give what it does not have, in order to stay in power.  Fannie, Freddie, free Fed money, and the like, it was all government conceived, packaged and delivered.  They just needed a little help from a few reckless Wall Street titans to package and insure the mess, in order to bring the whole temple down. 

But back to helping the less fortunate.  Consider that as a percentage of income, many observers believe Republicans give a larger percentage of their incomes to charity than Democrats.  If you doubt the assertion, check out this link…   I have not made a rigorous study of the question, but I think at best it's another draw, Mort.

Either way, too many Dems pretend that they belong to the party of compassion and that the GOP doesn't care.  That stifles productive debate, so thanks for never playing that nauseating card.

Gotta run...

Your devoted friend,

John“

Julie & Julia reviewed

Julie & Julia is a new film starring Meryl Streep and Amy Adams. I watched the film yesterday alongside sixty or so other theater goers.

For anyone who loves Julia Child (as I do) the film is worth watching. Meryl Streep's depiction of the late great gourmand, is stunningly good. It's easy to replicate the oft parodied high-pitch voice, but Ms. Streep's cadence and accent on choice syllables is so faithful to the real deal, it's almost unsettling. It was a great performance.

The screen writer of this movie is Nora Ephron whose style I didn't care for before the film.  Before seeing the film, I listened to two separate Nora Ephron interviews. Her tone and lack of enthusiasm during both interviews left me with the distinct impression she felt she was doing us a favor by sitting for them. At least, that's how she sounded. However, while viewing the film yesterday I realized something else -- she takes cheap shots.

Example: In this movie, Amy Adams plays a character that works in a call center to help 911 survivors and takes a "sick" day to cook a Julia Child dish.  She then blogs about the experience to the dismay of her boss who calls her into his office to beseech her for writing the post. He ends his rant by saying, "a Republican would have fired you."

In my case, the theater audience was silent after hearing that little gem.  (Perhaps they cheered on the coast). Could Ms. Ephron have had any purpose other than to slam Republicans or Conservatives? Doing so is hardly unusual for Hollywood and inconsistent with the memory of Julia Child who was publicly apolitical. 

Finally, there is the weak ending to the film (which I won't disclose here) that leaves one wondering if Ms. Ephron was tired and decided to finish the script too quickly, or whether something else crippled her imagination before limping over the writer's finish line.

All this notwithstanding, the film succeeds on the strength of Meryl Streep's affectionate performance and the unique legacy of the woman she portrayed. On a five star scale, this blogger gives Julie & Julia three stars and a pinch of salt for the screen writer.

My dowdy prediction

A week has elapsed since I wrote about Maureen Dowd. I thought by now she would have acknowledged an intentional 43-word copy job, followed by a sorry-I-forgot-to-attribute apology.  I think that's all it would have taken to make this saga go away.

Ms. Dowd points out that she had indeed given proper credit to two other writers and so by her reckoning, she could not have planned to copy from a third. Two out of three isn't bad.

I'd have preferred to hear her say she was working too quickly, or she was distracted when a bird smacked into her office window, or whatever, but that after she used the work of another writer, she simply forgot to credit the author, but had meant to do so. I would have bought that, but it isn't what we are asked to believe, which is why this episode is extraordinary.

Maureen Dowd, Wikipedia

The essence of her account is this: After communicating with a friend about another person's work, she plopped some sentences in her column and then discovered she was using the same 43 words after bloggers told her.  Here's what she wrote to explain her actions (repeated from Michael Calderone's space at Politico.com): "i was talking to a friend of mine Friday about what I was writing who suggested I make this point, expressing it in a cogent -- and I assumed spontaneous -- way and I wanted to weave the idea into my column. but, clearly, my friend must have read josh marshall without mentioning that to me. we're fixing it on the web, to give josh credit, and will include a note, as well as a formal correction tomorrow."

My prediction that within a week Ms. Dowd would be finished if still bereft of a plausible explanation, was completely wrong. I misjudged how serious the matter would be taken by the New York Times.  I see reader and writer outrage and some scorn, but little from the Times itself. 

I think Ms. Dowd made a mistake, got rattled during the firestorm and then made more mistakes by blaming her quotable friend.  My reasoning is that she didn't need to take risks deliberately, so it probably wasn't theft. She's already a famous, award-winning columnist in little danger of losing her space, so she doesn't need to lift other people's work including the unremarkable 43 words she borrowed.

I rarely agree with her (save for the attention she aptly paid to Bill Clinton's peccadilloes in the 90s).  So I admit that my antennae went up easily when I learned about her ordeal.  Perhaps too easily.

However, I'd like to think that if a columnist I normally agree with like Noonan, Krauthammer, or Goldberg, had inserted 43 words written by another writer and then proffered such a lame excuse, that I'd have been equally critical.  When and if something like that happens, we'll see if I rise to the task.

It's over for Hillary Clinton

It's over for Sen. Hillary Clinton.

It doesn't matter what happens in Texas, Ohio, or elsewhere. Her presidential bid is finished. Forget your delegate counts (pledged or not) and your polling data.

Consider instead the NY Times blog today and posts under the story, "Clinton Sharpens Her Attack on Obama"

Try to find authors supporting Mrs. Clinton. Instead, overwhelmingly, you'll find items from Democrats, that sound like this one...

"I went to an ivy league college with a lot of people who remind me of Mrs. Clinton. Bright, articulate, driven, but with an off-putting sense of entitlement. A know-it-all attitude that brooks no dissent."

It's as if scores of the party faithful are now emboldened to express heretofore repressed criticisms of Ms. Clinton, because they no longer fear retribution. Maybe this is cathartic for them.  In any event, it is over.