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When I did my landscaping a couple years back, I put in some sour orange trees. They are very attractive in the landscape with shiny, dark, evergreen leaves, and bright orange fruit. Of course, I also had a culinary ulterior motive: marmalade. After some study I chose the Chinotto orange (Citrus aurantium var. myrtifolia), referred to as a “Myrtle-leaved orange” in English. While it is not exactly the same as the Seville orange of marmalade fame (Citrus aurantium 'Seville'), it is very close, and frankly it is a more attractive plant. Eventually my three trees were so heavy with beautiful orange fruit that I was afraid their branches might break. Time to cook!


I read over several marmalade recipes, but I wasn’t entirely happy with any of them. In the end I decided that I wanted to go with a no-added-pectin approach. I chose three recipes and picked the parts I liked from each. One was from David Lebovitz. The second appeared on the Simply Recipes site. The final recipe was by “The Marmalade Man” - he does call for added pectin, but hey, he’s “The Marmalade Man,” right?

There is much debate as to whether true orange marmalade is made with or without the peels’ pith. There are those that claim that keeping the pith will make the marmalade too bitter. Others say that is not true and that the pith is valuable for its pectin. A quick review of the recipes on PunkDomestics.com shows both sides of the argument. A year earlier I had tried making Kaffir lime sorbet that came out so bitter that it was borderline inedible - even after hammering it with sugar. So, for my marmalade I decided to take the advice of the “no pith” crowd.

The problem is that to make marmalade without added pectin and without pith, requires separating out all the parts of an orange, using what I wanted (zest, juice, and pectin from the seeds) and keeping the rest from the finished product. Unfortunately, the oranges had other ideas about being dismembered. To make matters worse, my oranges were clearly far smaller than those being used by the various recipes’ authors. In all of the images accompanying the recipes, the oranges appear to be a good two to three inches in diameter. My harvest had produced 50 or 60 oranges, ranging from ½ inch to maybe two inches across. This multiplied my challenge many times over.

Initially working from Lebovitz’s instructions, I cut all of my oranges in half and laboriously juiced them – keeping the juice in one container, the seeds and guts in another, and a hefty pile of shells in a third. This process took so long that I ran out of time to do anything else that day. I moved each bowl of citrus-parts into containers and put them in the fridge overnight.

The next day I soldiered on, intent on creating the best marmalade ever to grace a slice of toast. Lebovitz’s next instruction is to thinly slice the peels, but, since I was going “pith free,” I switched over to Simply Recipes for instruction. They merely say “Taking a clean juiced orange half rind, use a spoon to dig out as much of the white pith as you can.” OK. No problem. Well, actually, problem. It seems that my orange rinds were reluctant to part with their piths. I tried all kinds of spoons, including my favorite go-to spoon for scraping - a metal flat bottomed Asian spoon [Which is also my favorite spoon for tasting and a dozen other things]. No joy. I tried a melon-baller, but it was just a modest improvement.


I tried smooshing the halves flat and scraping with a knife. Nope. I tried slicing the rind from the pith with my chef’s knife and then with a mandolin. Even with a Kevlar glove that was a waste of time and potentially dangerous. Two hours later I had cleaned the pith from less than a quarter of the oranges and made a hell of a mess to boot. I gave up, put everything back in the fridge and cleaned the kitchen.


Returning to the task the following day – day three and I hadn't fired up the stove yet – I looked at the bowl of orange rinds with grim determination. Clearly this was a job requiring hardware - real hardware, not the delicate tools of the kitchen. This required power tools. I descended to my workshop to consider my options. Among my plumbing supplies I found my answer: a fitting and cleaning brush.


I cut the handle off with a hacksaw, fit the shaft into my nice, lightweight, compact Milwaukee lithium-ion drill, and headed back to the kitchen to do battle. I threw the container of orange peels into the sink and hit them my with homemade power reamer.


Good golly Miss Molly, the pith went flying. A half hour later the sink was caked with orange pith and the brush was ruined, but all of my orange peels were clean as a whistle.


All that remained was the relatively simple task of slicing the peels and cooking the marmalade to the right consistency:


A few hours later I had my first batch of homemade, home grown, home-MacGyerized marmalade. It only took 3 days, and I can honestly say that it is the best orange marmalade I have ever tasted.


I WANT
what?
I WANT
yes, I know. guess what... it's hard
YES, ITS HARD
it's hard work
I DON'T WANT TO DO THE HARD WORK
ok, then you don't get what you want
BUT, I WANT
what are you going to do about that?
I'M GOING TO HOLD MY BREATH UNTIL I GET WHAT I WANT
well, that's one strategy.


I WANT
i thought you were holding your breath.
I WAS
so, what happened?
IT DIDN'T WORK
are you surprised?


I WANT! I WANT! I WANT!
i don't think that is getting you anywhere
I CAN'T STOP WANTING
"can't." that is an interesting word to use
I WANT
why can't you stop wanting?
I DON'T KNOW
maybe you should find out
I DON'T WANT TO
maybe not wanting is a start.


WHY WON'T YOU JUST GIVE ME WHAT I WANT?
and then what?
AND THEN I WON'T WANT
do you really believe that?
I WANT TO BELIEVE THAT
i'm sure you do.

[I WANT, part 2]


Last February I went to see a performance of The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs by Mike Daisey at the Berkeley Reparatory Theater in Berkeley, CA. I had gone to see the play at the strong recommendation of my friends “Dick” and “Jane.” [Their real names? Hardly. Do you think I actually know a couple named “Dick and Jane”?] Jane had seen the performance with some of her friends and was so moved that she insisted Dick go to see it too. Dick invited me to join him – both because we are friends and because of my tech background. I haven't been to much live theater in recent years, but my favorite type of theater is monologues – notably Spaulding Grey and Dawson Nichols, and also the story telling of performers such as Laurie Anderson and Ivan Coyote. The combination of a monologue-performance, techie subject matter, and the opportunity to spend time with my friend Dick, made me readily accept the invitation.

I recall finding the first 15 minutes of the show rather hard to take. Daisey does a lot of shouting in this performance. I found myself feeling... um... shouted at. However, Daisey’s speaking rhythm became hypnotic and the story he was telling was mesmerizing. I was spellbound and transported during the performance. I stayed with him even through points when he was talking about historical tech events where I was present, such as the amazing work done at Xerox PARC developing the Altos computer in the early 1980’s. [Note: I did not work at Xerox PARC and had no involvement creating the Altos. However, I was close friends with two people who did, and I was a guest there on several occasions and had the opportunity to “play” with those early GUI machines.] At the end of the show the audience gave Mike Daisey a standing ovation – I am sure I was one of the first on my feet.

When I got home I immediately checked on the availability of tickets for either The Agony and The Ecstasy or The Last Cargo Cult (another play he was performing at the Rep.) Both were sold out. Oh well. I “friended” Mike on Facebook. I searched for videos of him on YouTube and watched all that I found, including interviews with him about several plays including this one, promotional material, and other short pieces he had done. I also checked his performance schedule for the rest of the country and contacted friends of mine living in his upcoming cities - vigorously recommending that they go to see this show.

The only person that took me up on the suggestion was my cousin in Washington D.C. He went with his wife, several friends, and his brother-in-law, “Fred”, who has been a computer magazine journalist for 20+ years. My cousin, his wife, and his friends were all deeply moved by the show. Fred wasn’t. He said that the story was full of holes. He had been to China and was familiar with Foxconn and the other players there. He wasn’t buying it.

Now I should mention that since marrying another of my cousins, Fred has become a friend of mine. [My cousin in DC is the eldest of my father’s brother’s three children. The youngest of the three is the same age as I am, and she married Fred. Thus, Fred is the brother-in-law of my DC cousin and my cousin-in-law. He is approximately my age.] I have always liked Fred and found him bright and interesting. I’ve also enjoyed many geek-talk conversations with him as a pleasant respite at family functions.

With that in mind, I have to admit that when I heard of Fred’s reaction to the play, I didn’t believe him. I didn’t believe my own personal friend and family-in-law. Daisey’s performance had been so compelling that I bought it hook, line and sinker.

One thing that Mike Daisy did that helped me disbelieve my own credible source is that he had thrown in what I call a “disbelief antidote.” He stated and implied, both during the play and in subsequent interviews, that going through ordinary journalistic channels he hadn’t been able to learn any more than the standard party line. But by going there himself, in person, not as a journalist, not through standard channels, using subterfuge and back-channels, he had learned the true story.

What an appealing notion! In the 1970’s a room full of White House reporters learned nothing of the Nixon administration’s “dirty tricks,” but Woodward and Bernstein found their “deep throat” and uncovered the truth. The Iran-Contra affair went on for years until it was exposed by an Iranian in a Lebanese magazine. PBS’s Frontline goes undercover to deeply investigate stories that the 24-hour mainstream media doesn’t seem to have time to research. Mike Daisey, a private citizen, breaks the silence of the Chinese propaganda machine. A very appealing story-line, and one that allowed me to disregard the opinions of my own journalist cousin-in-law. Clearly Fred had been fed the same party line that Daisey had cleverly gotten past. Ha ha!

So it was quite disturbing to learn more than a year later that the NPR program “This American Life” had determined that large parts of Mike Daisey’s show were fabrications and others monumental exaggerations. In particular, the most compelling and moving parts of the story were fiction. But why do I care? I went to the theater to see a performance, not a lecture. Yes, I was deeply moved and entertained by the show. Why should I care about its veracity? Do I expect Fiddler on the Roof, or Star Wars, or Law & Order to be factually correct? Of course not. Why am I upset to learn that The Agony is actually creative non-fiction, or perhaps fictionalized history?

The answer to my disappointment lies entirely within the context of the performance. Most fiction in print, on TV, in movies and in theater is obviously fictional. Sometimes there is an annotation that it is “based on a true story,” or more dramatically “ripped from the day’s headlines.” Daisey made no such disclaimers for The Agony. In fact, he was quite clear in presenting it as autobiography – he went to China to find out the truth about how his iPhone was made, then came back and told the story. He made this clear both in the performance itself and in interviews before and afterwards. He went so far as to call on the audience to write to executives at Apple, insisting that Apple change their ways.

In the playbill for the performance at the Berkeley Rep. there was an interview with Daisey. Here is one significant question from that interview:

Do you consider your work a form of journalism?

Given the state of journalism today I don’t know if I should be slightly insulted. (Laughs.) No, I do actually. I think that journalism should be part of most art that we make. Because we should know what is happening in the world, we should know it in our bones and it should inform our work. I feel like the impulse in the theatre, and in many other art forms, is to distance ourselves from the concerns of the day in an attempt to then get an overview of life, but I think that’s a false dichotomy. I think that actually being cheek by jowl with life itself, with things that are actually happening, affords us an opportunity to have a specific dialogue that doesn’t exist otherwise. It lets us find these charged elements that can pull us along like a magnet and pull us somewhere where catharsis is possible. So I do think journalism is a huge part of it. Journalism has a fantastic framework to live up to: the attempt to actually transmit the truth even despite all the difficulties inherent to that undertaking. I find it very inspiring. A lot of my heroes are journalists.

I have seen other monologues where the question of truth is irrelevant. I was fortunate to see Spaulding Grey perform several times. Each of his performances was presented as autobiographical. But in interviews, he was clear that they were performances – stories from his life, yes, but embellished and crafted to appeal to his audience. But even if he hadn’t fessed up to using creative license, why would I care? There is no consequence to Spaulding Grey fictionalizing his coming to grips with losing his vision to macular degeneration, or learning to ski, or performing in the movie The Killing Fields. He did not tell us a story and then ask the audience to go out and donate to macular degeneration research, or teach a child to ski. Ivan Coyote tells amazing stories about being a lesbian growing up in the Yukon. They’re great. They’re compelling. She takes the audience to the Yukon with her and shows us what it is like to grow up different. If it were to turn out that Ivan Coyote is actually heterosexual man from Hawaii, who cares? The stories told by Coyote don’t need to be true.

But Daisey framed his work as non-fiction. Autobiography. Journalism – and important journalism at that! The Agony was presented as an entertaining way to get across a major message about human rights violations in Chinese factories. So we all focused our attention on Chinese factories, looking to ferret out the evil that Daisey had uncovered. Finding out that the amount of abuse was wildly exaggerated, and reportage fictional, is a huge blow. It is especially problematic in a world where other human rights violations really are going on! Right now, today, children are bought, sold, and stolen in West and Central Africa work as slaves in the cocoa plantations of the Ivory Coast (no joke!)

So I am saddened. I feel tricked. Yes, I got my money’s worth from my ticket to see The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs; It was engrossing and entertaining. A wonderful performance. A tour de force. I just wish Daisey had been upfront that it was a work of fiction “based on a true story,” and was presented for entertainment, not education.



This past November I attended the Community Food Security Coalition Annual conference [note: this organization is now defunct.] On the final day of the conference, in the final couple of hours at the conference, I met a woman named Susan Youmans. It turns out that she has an online radio talk show called "What's for Dinner" on CyberStationUSA.com. At some point during our conversation I told her that I was a culinary historian. She said "Wow! We've never interviewed a culinary historian before." Before I knew it, we were doing an impromptu half-hour interview.

I made a few mistakes during interview. I really wasn't planning on doing an interview and much of the first part of the conversation focused on how I got interested in culinary history. As a result I ended up talking about a lot of topics which I haven't thought about for several years. So, I had to do a lot of remembering on the fly. Still, I'd say I did a reasonably good job representing culinary history.

[Update: The interview was available on "What's for Dinner", but the early interviews of that show are now gone. Click below to hear a copy from SoundCloud.]


By the way, part way through I was desperately trying to remember the name of a Mexican recipe, and I referred to it as "Alegaria", but the word I was looking for was "Alegría."


Some years back I was playing around with cooking with flowers. I made rose petal jam (the most beautiful jam I have ever made), lavender jelly (smelled of lavender but pretty much tasted like apple jelly), Rosolio (Italian rose liquor), various nasturtium recipes, and so forth. Of the flowers, I most enjoyed using roses as an ingredient. I generally used the flowers of a fairly common but rather old-fashion climbing rose called Rosa 'Cecile Brunner'. My neighbor at the time had a huge plant climbing into a tree that overhung my yard, so it was easy to harvest endless 'Cecile Brunner' flowers. They are quite pale, so they don’t impart much color (a problem for the Rosolio), but they have a nice smell and flavor. When I moved to my new house I planted a Rosa 'Cecile Brunner' vine of my own.

Eventually I decided to go “off the reservation” and start inventing. This “Rose-Lavander Pooh Bear” is my favorite creation from that time.

Ingredients:

  • Milk (I use whole cows milk)
  • Honey
  • Rose flower petals
  • Lavender flower heads

This is one of those recipes where everything is annoyingly variable based on the ingredients you have available and your personal taste. What kind of roses you are using, what time of day they are picked, how mature they are, and so on, will completely dictate the amount of flavor they produce. Similarly for lavender – varietal, time of year, weather, and so forth will create very different results. Finally the honey is dependent on the type of honey, how much sweetness you enjoy, and how much you want to have the honey flavor balance with, sit behind, or mask the flowers' flavors.


For a portion that I recently made I used about 12oz of milk. I added roughly1.5 Tbs honey, the petals from 6 Rosa ‘Cecile Brunner’ flowers, and 4 lavender flower heads.


Method:

  • Steep the rose petals (not the stems, sepals, stamens, etc.) and lavender flower heads in the milk over low heat until the flavor is infused into the milk. Probably about 10 minutes.
  • Taste the milk along the way to see how the flavor is progressing.
  • When the flower flavor is good, add honey to taste
  • Bring to a scald to get it nice and hot (do not boil)
  • Strain
  • [Optional] After straining you can froth it with an immersion blender if you like. I enjoy it that way, but it is one more piece of equipment to clean, so I usually only froth it for guests.

I used to garnish the drink with a rose flower or additional rose petals, but really they just get in the way. Now I serve it straight up in a coffee or cocoa mug.


Yummy, Pooh!

ÖÄKLÄND TOUGHENS IMAGE WITH UMLAUTS 

OAKLAND, CA, 11/4/2011 -- In a move designed to make their city seem more "bad-assed and scary in a quasi-heavy-metal manner," the City of Oakland, California officially changed their name Friday. "Much like Mötley Crüe and Motörhead, the City of Öäkländ is not to be messed with," said Mayor Jean Quan. An upcoming redesign of the city’s official seal will feature the new name in burnished silver wrought in a jagged, gothic font and bolted to a black background. A new city theme song is also in the works by composer Ozzy Osbourne, tentatively titled "Ripping the veins from the neck of Öäkländ (with my teeth)."

Said Sue Piper, Special Assistant to the Mayor for Communications, “Oakland has always had a well-deserved reputation as a bad-ass city. From the pirate logo of our Oakland Raiders football team to our best-of-breed riots, Oakland can't be beat for being tough. Add to that the BART Police shooting unarmed citizens, rampant gang violence, and dog fighting, and you can tell that Oakland is an exciting place to live. But the name ‘Oakland’ just doesn't express who we really are. The old name ‘Oakland’ makes people think of forests of oak trees and bucolic landscapes, so we are very pleased about this new re-branding that toughens up our name."

The City Administrators Office noted that all official stationary has been reprinted with the new name and logo, but they may be delayed indefinitely in replacing signs, seals, and banners around the city. This due to the ongoing Occupy Oakland protests making it impossible for public works to access certain buildings, and as a result of an unanticipated lack of funding.

<note: this is based on an old piece by The Onion, 04-30-1997 to whom credit is well deserved.>


Politicians (especially the candidates), pundits, and the media have been telling us lately that “Job Creators” won’t start businesses if taxes are too high. Uh, I deg to biffer.


Point!   I just spoke to a friend of mine that I haven’t heard from for a couple years. He is what is known as a “serial entrepreneur.” He starts a business, runs it for some number of years (usually about 10), then sells it for a ton of money and “retires,” only to start another business some while later. The last time we spoke he had just had a child and was “retired.” His “business” was raising his child. That’s what he said. But, just a few years later he has a new startup and is now up to almost 30 employees.

Did he start yet another company because he was concerned that he wouldn’t be able to afford to send his child to college? Hardly. At this point he can eat money for breakfast, lunch, and dinner if he feels the need to increase the fiber in his diet. No, he did it because he is a serial entrepreneur. He can’t help himself – it’s how he’s wired. My friend is a serial job creator and would do it for nothing if he had to.


Point!   In 1964 Warren Buffet purchased Berkshire Hathaway, a failing textile company that he subsequently turned into his famous investment powerhouse. That year the top tax rate for income over $500,000 was 77%. The rate for incomes over $250,000 was 76%. The rate above $100,000 was 66%. At the time Buffet was already a wealthy investor. He didn’t need to buy Berkshire Hathaway, and he didn’t need to grow it into the business it is today. If you believe the theory that top tax rates in excess of our current 35% stop “job creators” from investing, then you have to believe that 1964’s top rate of 77% would have sent Warren Buffet running for the nearest lounge chair with a Mai Tai.

Berkshire Hathaway has made Buffet wealthy far beyond what he possessed in 1964, but he could easily have retired at any point along the way. Since 1964 tax rates have come down considerably. However, only 14 of those 47 years have had a top tax rate at or below today’s rate. If top tax rates above the current rate drive “job creators” out of the market, how do you explain Buffet?


Point!   Goldman Sachs Group’s CEO, Lloyd Blankfein’s salary is now $2 million, plus he was granted a bonus of $12.6 million this year. That is on top of last year’s paltry $600,000 salary and scant $8.9 million bonus. Of course, one has to wonder why Blankfein would give a rats ass about his compensation package either last year or this, given that his 2007 bonus was – drum roll please - $67.9 million.

Now, I invite you to notice that Blankfein didn’t take his $67.9 million bonus in 2007 and run. He could have retired the day after the check cleared and never looked back. He could have retired and invited 10 other people to retire with him! To make the example even more absurd, let’s compare his 2010 compensation to 2007 - he effectively took a pay cut of $53.3 million. Since a $53.3 million pay cut didn’t make him call it quits, what makes anyone think that raising his top marginal tax rate by a few percent would make him say “Oh, forget it. It’s not worth it being the CEO of Goldman Sachs if the Federal Government is going to take a few hundred thousand more dollars from me. I quit!”

Put another way, the difference between his 2007 and 2010 compensation is 78.5%. So, accepting a measly $14.6 million this year is the same as if he had been taxed 78.5% in 2007. I have yet to hear that Blankfein is considering leaving Goldman Sachs for either a life of leisure or more a profitable position elsewhere in spite of having his income decrease by 78.5%.

If Mr. Blankfien calls me on the phone and personally swears to me on his mother that a 50% tax rate would make him hang up his spurs, I’ll believe him. But short of that, I stand by my claim that no tax rate, up to an including 100%, would convince him to give up the reins of power at the big GS.


Point!   In 1959 the top tax rate was… wait for it… 91%!!! Yup, 91%. In that year my father was a chemist working at a perfectly good job at a chemical company outside of Boston, MA. But in spite of having a fine 9-5 job, and in spite of the 91% top tax rate, he loaded himself up with debt and purchased a bankrupt chemical factory in what was (at the time) one of the worst parts of Boston. He rebuilt this bankrupt business, hired people, grew the company, and so on.

He is now 82 years old [in fact, today is his birthday.] He still works 5 days a week, 50ish weeks a year, and proudly states that someday we will carry him out of his office in a box. I think he is absolutely out of his freaking mind, but that is for another blog.

If a top tax rate of 91% didn’t inhibit my father from leaving a safe, comfortable job, taking on debt, and working his butt off for 52 years, I am hard pressed to believe that a modest increase in America’s current top rate will change the rate of job creation. He will no doubt piss blood when he reads this.


Point!   When I worked at Microsoft, I, and almost all of the “Software Design Engineers” that I worked with, were complete and total geeks. We loved writing software and would have done it even it if paid poorly. Hell, there are and have always been a lot of people that write “shareware” or “freeware” at home at night after working at some other job.

The people I know that left Microsoft quit for one of a handful of reasons: (1) Burnout (that was me,) (2) leaving to travel for a while, then ultimately returning to the software biz, either at Microsoft or elsewhere, or (3) starting a company of their own. Back in my day, Microsoft paid so well that after a few years people could easily leave. But guess what – I have friends that were there for years before I arrived and are still there years later. I won’t name names, but I promise you that they can afford to retire. But they don’t retire and almost no pay cut or tax increase will make them conclude that working at Microsoft isn’t worth it. A good friend of mine, who shall remain nameless, is currently the longest continuously employed person at Microsoft. If it were just money, he could have retired before I even started at the company.

Certainly Bill Gates could have retired decades before he finally did. The same can be said for Steve Jobs, Larry Ellison (Oracle), Bill Joy (Sun Microsystems,) etc., etc. I have to believe that even if their tax rate was 100% they would be at their desks every day (except for Steve, whom I’m sure would be at his desk today if he could be.)

But, OK, software engineers (other than the CEO’s listed above) aren't necessarily job creators, so let’s continue.


Point!   Bill “Papa Bear” O’Reilly stated on his Fox News show, The O’Reilly Factor, that if the tax rate hit 50% he might quit his job, because, he said, why work if the government is going to take half of it. Later, in an interview on The Daily Show, Jon Stewart called him on it, asking if that statement were really true. O’Reilly replied that of course it wasn’t – he was just making a point. O’Reilly is a celebrity with a huge following and enormous influence. I guarantee you that he would continue doing the O’Reilly Factor if he had to pay for the privilege. A 200% tax rate wouldn’t get him off the air.

[Aside: I personally have a very big problem with the anchor of a “news” show stating an untruth, even if it is hyperbole during an editorial commentary. If O’Reilly says something like “a 50% tax rate might make me stop doing this show,” and that isn’t true, he should be required to immediately state that it isn’t true as part of his commentary. Retracting it later on another program on another station doesn’t cut it.]


Point!    Celebrities – all of ‘em, just keep on going. You name it, regardless of the time period, regardless of the tax rate, movie stars, musicians, authors, painters, and celebrity chefs, down through the ages have performed their craft regardless of compensation or the need for additional income. W. C. Fields, Mohammed Ali, David Bowie, Jennifer Anniston, and Bruce Willis – not one of them ever quit because their taxes were too high. Does anyone think that Madonna bases her decision to release another album based on a top tax bracket of 35% vs. 36%? Did Leonardo DiCaprio consult with his accountant about how to shield his income from taxation before accepting the role of Jack Dawson in Titanic? When congress and the President were fighting over whether or not to raise the top tax rate last fall, was Frank Gehry poised to close his architectural firm in the event the rate went up?

I gotta say that the answer on all counts is “no.”


I see two main kinds of “job creators” in this country: (1) Individuals who are not rich who start small businesses for the first time, and (2) wealthy individuals who create new businesses or remain in positions at existing enterprises. Let’s look at them:
  1. People without considerable wealth start businesses in America all the time. From taco trucks to hairdressers to carpet cleaning companies to makers of high-tech widgets and low-tech widgets, American entrepreneurs are company-making machines. These people start their businesses for a variety of reasons – they have a dream of getting rich; they hate working for someone else; they see an unfilled niche and go for it; there isn’t a job available that fits their needs; and on and on. The suggestion that high tax rates on the ultra-wealthy would stop these entrepreneurs is ludicrous. They beg and borrow start-up capital from anywhere they can – friends, relatives, neighbors, and if possible, banks – throw caution to the wind, and go for it. They are not being held back by the fear that the taxes on their future incomes will someday be too high.
  2. Wealthy individuals, as I have already shown, start enterprises or remain at work for reasons that have nothing to do with making ever more money. Or, if it is about money, the dollars are just “chips” on the gaming board. They want more chips to prove their self-worth, not because they need to buy something they can’t already afford. They love the game, or are addicted to the game, or don’t know what else to do but play the game. But guess what, if the dollars are just chips in a game of who-has-the-biggest-schlong, raising the top tax bracket will affect everyone playing the game equally – the game will not be affected, and the players won’t stop playing.


So, come on legislators, journalists, and pundits, give me a break. If you want to have an intelligent discussion about fairness in tax rates, the appropriate roles of government, the effects of fiscal policy on the economy, interventionist vs. laissez faire policies, the past performance of the government in utilizing tax revenues, and so on, then I am all ears. But please, knock it off with the “increasing taxes on job creators will kill the economy” bunk. It just ain’t true and we all know it.


Facebook has announced that next week they will be launching the (drum roll please) New Facebook Timeline. There are those who say that the Facebook Timeline will be the most important innovation in computing since Lotus 1-2-3 gave businessmen a reason to buy PCs. That would be totally awesome if it is true, though I gotta believe there's one heck of a lot of hyperbole in that statement. Others say that the changes are so radical that they entire user-base will be completely pissed off and exit Facebook in droves. Undoubtedly the reality lies somewhere in between.

In any case, who the heck knows what's gonna happen to Facebook next week, and how you will feel about it. Maybe it will be love at first sight. Maybe you will run - not walk - to the exit. It is also possible that the upgrade will destabilize the system, making it unusable for some period of time. Or, hackers may be waiting with baited breath to exploit new, untested holes in the system. Or maybe, like Y2K (remember that?) it will be business as usual. Yawn.

Whatever happens, having your data backed up is a good idea. Its always a good idea for every aspect of your digital life. It is doubly important when you are upgrading or changing your system. It is triply important when someone else is upgrading or changing your system, as is happening next week with Facebook.

"But how," you ask, "do I backup my Facebook data?" It turns out that Facebook makes it very easy. They just don't publicize it very well.

Here's what you do:
  • Launch your favorite browser, navigate to Facebook, and log in as usual (if necessary.)
  • Go to "Account Settings." How do you go to your "Account Settings?"
    • At the left edge of the top, blue, "Facebook bar" next to the word "Home" there is a down-arrow. Click the arrow to drop the menu.
    • Click "Account Settings"
  • Below the box that surrounds all of your settings, in a nice small font that you would never notice, it says "Download a copy of your Facebook data."
It really is just that easy, but it would benefit from being presented in a nice 20point neon font with giant yellow arrows point at it.

At that point, Facebook will build a ZIP file full of all of your photos, videos, postings, notes, etc, and will email you when it is done. For my account it took over an hour and resulted in a file that was 14MB in size. When you get the email, click on the link, enter your Facebook password, and the file will download to your machine.

Voila.Your data is backed up and in your possession. Regardless of what may or may not happen to Facebook next week, you're covered.

As writer/actor John Hodgman says, "you're welcome."

Mark Zuckerberg is too young. Born in 1984, he was only one year old when the Coca-Cola Corporation created New Coke. During the three months between the release of New Coke and the reintroduction of Coca-Cola Classic, Zuckerberg was undoubtedly more focused on New Milk than New Coke.

For those of you who are as young as Mark Zuckerberg, I will give you a very brief recap. In April 1985 the Coca-Cola Corporation decided to reformulate their flagship Coke product, which they have been selling successfully for almost 100 years. I won't go into the reasons - you all have Google and can search for that if you care. The bottom line is that Coca-Cola decided to change the product that their customers loved, and then was forced to re-release the original formula due to very vocal (and in my opinion very correct) derision by customers and critics alike. The New Coke debacle has entered the canon of marketing lore as a lesson in what not to do to your product.

Recently, Facebook, Zuckerberg's baby, made another in a long line of sweeping (and seemingly pointless) changes. Since you are reading this blog online, it is safe to assume that you are aware of Facebook, the changes they just made, and the tremendous backlash by Facebook users – myself included. If Mark Zuckerberg were older, he would understand that his company has just released New Coke. He would also know that these changes are a gift to Google, who has just released their Google+ competitor. If you read the history of New Coke, you will discover that after the reintroduction of Coca-Cola Classic, Coke's sales went up dramatically. The net effect of the release and subsequent withdrawal of New Coke was actually very beneficial to the Coca-Cola Corporation. However, somehow I doubt that the customers abandoning Facebook for Google+ will go back to Facebook even if they make a very public mea culpa.

Much has been said about the new Facebook changes. I wont to bore you rehashing what others have covered so eloquently already. But I would like to talk about an e-mail I received from Facebook the day before New Facebook hit the fan. Here is the message:

Facebook will be sending you less email - learn why

We're trying out a new feature to reduce the amount of email you receive from Facebook. Starting today, we are turning off most individual email notifications and instead, we'll send you a summary only if there are popular stories you may have missed.

You can turn individual emails back on and restore all your original settings at any time.

Thanks, The Facebook Team

I think this message is illustrative of the fundamental problems at Facebook. In particular it demonstrates Facebook's spectacular hubris. For some time now users have been able to set their own e-mail notification options – I did so for my account some months ago. Someone at Facebook looked at customer feedback and found the people were upset about the amount of e-mail they are receiving. So they made this change and sent the above message. However, it never occurred to them to ask individual users if that's what they wanted. Every user that enjoyed receiving lots of e-mails now has to go into their account and turn those features back on. Every user that had already customized their email settings needs to go in and see how their settings have been modified.

Here is the message that I believe they should have sent (had they not been so paternalistic in their approach.)
Would you like to get less email from Facebook? We’ve made it easy.

A number of customers have told us that they don't like the amount of e-mail they are receiving from Facebook. We want you to have the best experience possible with Facebook. So, to make it easy for you to decrease the amount of e-mail you're getting from us we put together a quick, one button way to reduce your e-mail clutter.

Simply click here <button>, and we will automatically turn off most individual email notifications. Instead, we'll send you a summary only if there are popular stories you may have missed. Or, if you like your current e-mails settings, do nothing and they will stay the way they are.

If you change your mind you can go to the e-mail options in your Facebook account at any time to turn messages on or off.

Thanks, The Facebook Team

Now wouldn’t that have been easy? You learn that customers aren’t satisfied and give them an option to make the change that you think they want. Being so cock-sure that you know what's best for your customers, and foisting that upon them on your schedule, not theirs, is the utmost in hubris and a recipe for corporate disaster.


I've been a Verizon Wireless customer for many years. I like them a lot and don't understand why anyone (in the US) would use any other carrier. But, there is one thing that bugs the crap out of me - the so called "Robo-Gal" that insists on wasting the time of people that want to leave me a voice message.

My outgoing voice mail message is quick, concise, and to the point (concision is a virtue.) "Hi, you've reached Andrew. Please leave a message at the tone." It takes about 3 seconds, at which point the caller should hear "beep!" Unfortunately, they don't - they hear Robo-Gal (should be "Robo-Gall".) She then tells the listener "At the tone, please record your message. When you've finished recording you may hang up, or, press 1 for more options. To send a fax, press pound. To leave a callback number, press five." Then, finally, the beep. Whew.

Robo-Gal's completely unnecessary message takes about 5 times as long as my greeting, and there is no option to turn her off. I say "unnecessary," because, really, I don't want you to send a fax to my cell phone. Who sends faxes anymore anyway?  I have a smart phone - send me an email!  Geesh.  "Leave a call-back number?" You mean take a giant leap back to the early 1990's when people had pagers? (Can you still buy a pager even if you want one?)  Press "1" for more options? What options? Sending your message with "high priority?" Don't bother - if I like you I will listen to your message regardless of its priority. If I don't like you, I wont. Nuff said.

Fortunately, I have discovered 2 tricks to make things better, and I pass them on to you now. [Thanks to Elko Wireless for pointing me in the right direction.]

Trick #1 - For people who call any Verizon Wireless customer, at any point in the outgoing message, either the "real" greeting, or Robo-Gal, you can just press "*" to skip to the beep. This works regardless of whether you are calling from a land line or a cell phone, and regardless of your carrier. (You can find a list of the "skip" keys for all carriers in the New York Time's article Cutting Through Voicemail Greetings.)

Trick #2 - For people who have Verizon Wireless service and want to decrease the amount of time Robo-Gal spends annoying their callers, you can turn off the options to accept faxes and "callback numbers." With these turned off, Robo-Gal wont include them in her message, thus cutting the time in half. If you call Verizon customer support, they wont tell you about this - I assume that the average Verizon support associate doesn't even know about it. The steps are buried deep in the Verizon voicemail options. I am including the option numbers here, though I have no doubt Verizon changes this stuff with some frequency. Your mileage may vary.

  • Call your voice mail and log in
  • You can listen to any messages you may have, or not. Up to you.
  • Press 4 to change your "personal options"
  • Press 2 to change "administrative options"
  • Turn off the option of receiving faxes:
    • Press 3 to "establish or change" fax options
    • Press 3 to turn fax options on or off
    • Press 1 to turn the fax option on or off
    • Press 2 to turn faxes off (geesh!)
    • Press * to exit
  • Next, turn "callback numbers" off:
    • Press 1 to "change general options"
    • Press 7 to turn the callback number feature or prompt off
    • Press 1 to turn the feature on or off
    • Press 1 to turn the feature off
    • Press 2 to actually turn the feature off
    • Press * repeatedly to exit.
After all that rigmarole, the fax and callback features will be disabled and you're callers wont have to wait through that part of the message. Whew.

PS: I recommend calling Verizon and asking them to change it so that Robo-Gal is an option. Maybe if they hear it from enough people they'll do something about it (like The New York Times wasn't enough.)