I honestly couldn't believe it. I mean, I know they hate Obama, and, really, who is a fan anymore (other than those of us who can still appreciate a rhetoritician for his skill of language)? But we were talking about perhaps the most important event in modern history. How could something that happened less than four years ago, something that changed the global economic system, be forgotten already? I remember the bailout debacle unfolding in nightmare form those several months in 2008 and cannot imagine anyone forgetting the moments our economic hopes died. Let me postpone the arguments that it had died many decades previously. Let me focus on the almost universally accepted idea that giving money to corporations who had gone bankrupt due to bad business decisions was a lethal blow to the idea of capitalism. Let us also postpone the argument of capitalism's worth itself for a moment. The salient fact of the matter is that a competitive market cannot exist when risks for the largest entities are covered by the taxed populace. End of story. Also end of story is that this was enacted under none other than George W. Bush. How then did I find myself in a conversation over lunch where a much respected and much loved coworker of mine was adamantly claiming that this was all Obama's doing? The man was so convinced that he laid a good day's wages on the verity of his assertion. I felt myself gaping like an unwatered goldfish and my tact dissolving into the aether. We were all there weren't we? Not too long ago by any adult's standards even. Yet somehow this even has been removed from Bush's platter. Now, I find the Iraq debate to be just as obvious, but this at least we can all agree was a serious blow to what we like to call the American way. And it was on this deified president's watch. This is not a matter of opinion. This is not a statement of support for Obama. This is a fact that we all just experienced. Out of curiosity after this conversation, I asked my twenty-something brother-in-law if he knew which president had enacted the bailout. His response:"...Nixon...?" I know, I was hoping he was joking too. Unfortunately he's a big fan of being right too, and usually offers his best guess.
It may be too much to ask that our bipartisan society have real conversations about opinionated issues. Especially too much to ask that one "side" be seen agreeing with the other. I have seen already that it is certainly too much to ask that these conversations be had in as imperical fashion as possible. Idealism is a luxury we certainly cannot afford. The thing is, I really thought we could agree on the basics of shared experience. The very basics. Not the why or how. Just who and when. Unfortunately, even that is suspect and my insistence today might soon be reduced to the opinionated raving of an obvious liberal. The fact that lies are being sold as truth will not be sufficient reason for pause on my coworker's part. He will most likely be too busy stewing over the young brat who showed so much disrespect. Who am I to claim that the only disrespect is allowing such obvious deception to stand? I will not say sorry, but I also fully recognize that I scored no victory today. Remembering, apparently, can be so overrated.
Friday, April 22, 2011
Saturday, April 16, 2011
Bad beat...
I have learned the hard way that talking someone out of believing that poker is gambling is a losing battle. If you think the term "poker professional" is an oxymoron, then this blog is not for you. I know enough to not expect any pity for the situation that has just developed in our little world, but it is devastating nonetheless. In an era when the government as a whole is the subject of outright scorn from its populace and even the relatively uninformed can see the rampant corruption, the DOJ has been sicked on an easy scapegoat for an easy political win: online poker. The roots are in a 2005 bill that was attached to a homeland defense measure that basically outlawed the financial transactions between banks and international poker sites. Not blackjack or roulette or horse racing...just poker. The GOP was able to claim a moral victory to their constituents and a veritable drought was wrought in the online poker community. It was largely an empty win (as most political gestures are) as the bill was full of loopholes that banks and poker players and poker sites were happy to exploit, but it did have a stifling effect nonetheless. Such is the game anyway.
Unfortunately the three biggest sites overstepped and, most importantly, didn't pay off the right people in doing so. They committed bank fraud and money laundering and, even though these crimes are nothing relative to the condoned activities of banks and major corporations in this country, they are going to pay. Hundreds of thousands of players now have their accounts frozen because the U.S. Government needed a score. How our government can seize the assets of an international company, I don't know. The question of why is painfully obvious however. No one feels the need to protect the poker professional because they do not recognize the legitimacy of the field.
So our dream of freedom is officially in limbo. We have to figure out how to transition to a live game, which is a much softer proposition but requires a much larger bankroll. We have to figure out if it's even worth it. The skills that Tom especially has developed are applicable to nearly every field, but are not generally recognized on a resume. And besides, the jobs that require resumes are tantamount to admitting defeat. Not to say that it won't come to that, but hopefully we can maneuver through this nonsense of a situation and retain some of what we've fought for. Again, I'm sure many of you do not see the tragedy of the situation. It is normal in our society (and expected even) that both adults in a family will work at least forty hours a week and generally in separate occupations. The average American should expect to be doing this and still not be able to save hardly anything. Vacations are limited or non-existent and rest is a forbidden pleasure. The fact that Tom and I have attempted anything other than this lifestyle is generally seen as a negative statement of our personalities. It does not seem to matter that poker is essentially a simplified form of the basis of capitalism and modern business practices. It does not matter that our skills are a perfect match for the game. And it certainly does not matter that our sole motivation is to have the freedom to actually live together and freely.
I just hope that the implications of this move by the DOJ might have some impact at least. If nothing else, please ask yourself if your government has any right to dictate what you do with the money your able to keep out of their hands and for yourself. The thing is, we say that we are free; we fight wars in the name of this freedom; yet, how can we possibly make such a claim when we are not even free to do what we will with our resources. Does it not become apparent that such things as property and liberty do not actually exist anymore? Poker was an easy win for them, but the fundamental argument has and will lead them to whatever restricting of our resources they may find. They have only every incentive to do so, especially with the silence of their people.
Unfortunately the three biggest sites overstepped and, most importantly, didn't pay off the right people in doing so. They committed bank fraud and money laundering and, even though these crimes are nothing relative to the condoned activities of banks and major corporations in this country, they are going to pay. Hundreds of thousands of players now have their accounts frozen because the U.S. Government needed a score. How our government can seize the assets of an international company, I don't know. The question of why is painfully obvious however. No one feels the need to protect the poker professional because they do not recognize the legitimacy of the field.
So our dream of freedom is officially in limbo. We have to figure out how to transition to a live game, which is a much softer proposition but requires a much larger bankroll. We have to figure out if it's even worth it. The skills that Tom especially has developed are applicable to nearly every field, but are not generally recognized on a resume. And besides, the jobs that require resumes are tantamount to admitting defeat. Not to say that it won't come to that, but hopefully we can maneuver through this nonsense of a situation and retain some of what we've fought for. Again, I'm sure many of you do not see the tragedy of the situation. It is normal in our society (and expected even) that both adults in a family will work at least forty hours a week and generally in separate occupations. The average American should expect to be doing this and still not be able to save hardly anything. Vacations are limited or non-existent and rest is a forbidden pleasure. The fact that Tom and I have attempted anything other than this lifestyle is generally seen as a negative statement of our personalities. It does not seem to matter that poker is essentially a simplified form of the basis of capitalism and modern business practices. It does not matter that our skills are a perfect match for the game. And it certainly does not matter that our sole motivation is to have the freedom to actually live together and freely.
I just hope that the implications of this move by the DOJ might have some impact at least. If nothing else, please ask yourself if your government has any right to dictate what you do with the money your able to keep out of their hands and for yourself. The thing is, we say that we are free; we fight wars in the name of this freedom; yet, how can we possibly make such a claim when we are not even free to do what we will with our resources. Does it not become apparent that such things as property and liberty do not actually exist anymore? Poker was an easy win for them, but the fundamental argument has and will lead them to whatever restricting of our resources they may find. They have only every incentive to do so, especially with the silence of their people.
Thursday, March 3, 2011
First Impressions
There are few jobs that bring daily stories right into a writer's lap. I mean, ones that you don't even have to stretch for. Skilled writers can, of course, make even something as mundane as a bottle cap interesting...but I am not of that caliber. So I consider myself lucky and, up to this point, wasteful of the bounty that I receive in a constant flow. Don't even ask me why easy conversations with strangers happen so frequently over a generator, but so it is. So, for the next little while, I will try to capture the moments that make this manual labor occupation a feast of stories.
This morning brought us to the middle of nowhere north of Reklaw (the town that wanted to be Walker, TX but, since that was already taken, just spelled it backwards). Usually, we can find where we are supposed to go by looking for the biggest house in the area since these machines generally necessitate a certain level of wealth. This particular rural pocket, however, had no houses that even hinted at such luxury. The road was pretty typical of rural East Texas though: half the houses abandoned and falling down and yards filled with the bikes and tires and cars and trash of generations of hoarders. Right past one such hollowed-out clutter we finally saw the unit sitting right off the road and in front of a tidy pier-and-beam, patched up Craftsman kit house.
The customer came out her door as we drove up and beamed a smile of welcome to us that allayed the fears that tend to lace the backwoods of East Texas. I can no longer hold on my hand the number of times we've been told we better call before we come next time because we'll be shot first and asked questions later (almost the same wording every time). This woman had told my mom her disturbing tale of tragedy when she called for our service, so I already knew enough to imagine that she had every right to join the ranks of the paranoid and preemptively aggressive so common around these Texas backroads. But her smile and the colorful banners waving “Welcome” along her drive stated emphatically that she was fighting her demons in a different way. Her great-granddaughter skipped down the steps as we drove in, completing the picture of wholesome vitality in the midst of the surrounding decay.
I immediately looked to the house at the end of the line next door, since I had been told that this was the source of our customer's nightmare history. The unkempt shack had housed her husband's murderer. I looked back at her open radiance and tried to imagine her opening her door to the inch-deep blood she had described. The neighbor had been a young meth addict that came looking for money one midnight when this woman's husband was alone. When the husband told the man that he could have money but not for drugs, the man grabbed a pry bar and beat him to death. Looking at the little girl, she told us that her great-granddaughter was in her house down the road that night and she sat up in bed at midnight, looked out her window with her special-for-Grandpapa smile, and waved goodbye.
The old woman and the little girl planted flowers together as we worked on the generator. There were only moments where the agony bled through. “This is what keeps me going,” she said as she caught me watching the two of them, and her smile was the saddest joy I think I have ever seen.
***
In the afternoon, we went even deeper in the sticks to a family-run meat-processing business. Anyone who has read my Thanksgiving post (mostly about Eating Animals...as in, not eating them) will know that I was not terribly excited about doing any sort of maintenance for a business that I consider close to whatever evil there is. Usually these places have their own feed lot and the stink of misery and filth is overwhelming even from a distance. As we drove up to this place, however, the first thing I saw was a herd of pigs...outside. If you know anything about the pig (sorry...”pork”) industry today, you know that most pigs that are killed and eaten are not capable of surviving out of a highly regimented confinement. They do not breed; they do not root; they don't lay in the mud or the shade...No. They are kept in cells about the size of their body. The females are especially hated as they are kept in “gestation crates” (tiny cells in which they are inseminated, give birth, and almost unilaterally go insane). Often, the sows will gnaw on the bars as they lose their minds, the blood pooling on the ground. All of this is especially heinous when you consider the natural sentience of a pig. They play; they form intricate social bonds; they are also one of the few mammals that have sex for pleasure itself. So, having watched and read so much about these creatures' torture, to see them lounging under the pine trees was a pleasure I had not hoped for. Next to the pigs (10 acres we were later told), was a pasture for the cows. Not a feed lot. There was hay and grass and cows of all different ages grazing together. At this point, I started feeling greedy and began looking around for chickens or turkeys, but apparently the good of this business had reached its limit before the fowl. To my knowledge, there is still not a decent place to find one of these birds that lives a natural life and dies a humane and sanitary death. Still, there was plenty of reason for excitement, and none of the grime that covers our factory farm industry.
The butcher was everything you would think of when you imagine the butchers of two generations ago. He was rotund and red-cheeked and all smiles and Southern charm. He watched and talked as we set the valves and changed the oil on his sap-speckled generator. When we were done, he took us on a tour of his little slaughterhouse. It was a little shocking when he opened the cooler doors, pridefully showing us the rows of hanging carcasses. The smell of fresh blood was slightly nauseating, but I also was quick to appreciate the clean flesh of the bodies and the pristine floor of the cooler. The big question still loomed: how did he run the killing floor? He took us there next and, again, I was surprised by the lack of gore or even dirt. When I made this comment, the butcher smiled and said that they spent just about as much time cleaning as butchering. I saw the hoist for draining the bodies, but I couldn't find the killing tool which was my biggest concern. Finally, I apologized for being so curious, but I had to know what his slaughtering process was. “We shoot them. Well, I have a guy that shoots them. Just can't bring myself to do it.” He pointed to the metal gate behind me and told me that was where the animals were brought in and shot. It should be and is horrifying, but not when compared to the industry standard. Often the animal is not even unconscious when its throat is slit and it's hoisted up to bleed out. This can take minutes, for which the animal is aware and suffering. There are numerous stories of outright torture even (again, especially for pigs) where the killing floor employees cut off pieces of the animal before dealing any sort of lethal wound. So, yeah, a bullet in the calming confinement of the metal chute sounds pretty damn humane to me.
I was glad to shake this man's hand as we left. Who could have guessed that a butcher simply doing his job well could be a hero of sorts.
This morning brought us to the middle of nowhere north of Reklaw (the town that wanted to be Walker, TX but, since that was already taken, just spelled it backwards). Usually, we can find where we are supposed to go by looking for the biggest house in the area since these machines generally necessitate a certain level of wealth. This particular rural pocket, however, had no houses that even hinted at such luxury. The road was pretty typical of rural East Texas though: half the houses abandoned and falling down and yards filled with the bikes and tires and cars and trash of generations of hoarders. Right past one such hollowed-out clutter we finally saw the unit sitting right off the road and in front of a tidy pier-and-beam, patched up Craftsman kit house.
The customer came out her door as we drove up and beamed a smile of welcome to us that allayed the fears that tend to lace the backwoods of East Texas. I can no longer hold on my hand the number of times we've been told we better call before we come next time because we'll be shot first and asked questions later (almost the same wording every time). This woman had told my mom her disturbing tale of tragedy when she called for our service, so I already knew enough to imagine that she had every right to join the ranks of the paranoid and preemptively aggressive so common around these Texas backroads. But her smile and the colorful banners waving “Welcome” along her drive stated emphatically that she was fighting her demons in a different way. Her great-granddaughter skipped down the steps as we drove in, completing the picture of wholesome vitality in the midst of the surrounding decay.
I immediately looked to the house at the end of the line next door, since I had been told that this was the source of our customer's nightmare history. The unkempt shack had housed her husband's murderer. I looked back at her open radiance and tried to imagine her opening her door to the inch-deep blood she had described. The neighbor had been a young meth addict that came looking for money one midnight when this woman's husband was alone. When the husband told the man that he could have money but not for drugs, the man grabbed a pry bar and beat him to death. Looking at the little girl, she told us that her great-granddaughter was in her house down the road that night and she sat up in bed at midnight, looked out her window with her special-for-Grandpapa smile, and waved goodbye.
The old woman and the little girl planted flowers together as we worked on the generator. There were only moments where the agony bled through. “This is what keeps me going,” she said as she caught me watching the two of them, and her smile was the saddest joy I think I have ever seen.
***
In the afternoon, we went even deeper in the sticks to a family-run meat-processing business. Anyone who has read my Thanksgiving post (mostly about Eating Animals...as in, not eating them) will know that I was not terribly excited about doing any sort of maintenance for a business that I consider close to whatever evil there is. Usually these places have their own feed lot and the stink of misery and filth is overwhelming even from a distance. As we drove up to this place, however, the first thing I saw was a herd of pigs...outside. If you know anything about the pig (sorry...”pork”) industry today, you know that most pigs that are killed and eaten are not capable of surviving out of a highly regimented confinement. They do not breed; they do not root; they don't lay in the mud or the shade...No. They are kept in cells about the size of their body. The females are especially hated as they are kept in “gestation crates” (tiny cells in which they are inseminated, give birth, and almost unilaterally go insane). Often, the sows will gnaw on the bars as they lose their minds, the blood pooling on the ground. All of this is especially heinous when you consider the natural sentience of a pig. They play; they form intricate social bonds; they are also one of the few mammals that have sex for pleasure itself. So, having watched and read so much about these creatures' torture, to see them lounging under the pine trees was a pleasure I had not hoped for. Next to the pigs (10 acres we were later told), was a pasture for the cows. Not a feed lot. There was hay and grass and cows of all different ages grazing together. At this point, I started feeling greedy and began looking around for chickens or turkeys, but apparently the good of this business had reached its limit before the fowl. To my knowledge, there is still not a decent place to find one of these birds that lives a natural life and dies a humane and sanitary death. Still, there was plenty of reason for excitement, and none of the grime that covers our factory farm industry.
The butcher was everything you would think of when you imagine the butchers of two generations ago. He was rotund and red-cheeked and all smiles and Southern charm. He watched and talked as we set the valves and changed the oil on his sap-speckled generator. When we were done, he took us on a tour of his little slaughterhouse. It was a little shocking when he opened the cooler doors, pridefully showing us the rows of hanging carcasses. The smell of fresh blood was slightly nauseating, but I also was quick to appreciate the clean flesh of the bodies and the pristine floor of the cooler. The big question still loomed: how did he run the killing floor? He took us there next and, again, I was surprised by the lack of gore or even dirt. When I made this comment, the butcher smiled and said that they spent just about as much time cleaning as butchering. I saw the hoist for draining the bodies, but I couldn't find the killing tool which was my biggest concern. Finally, I apologized for being so curious, but I had to know what his slaughtering process was. “We shoot them. Well, I have a guy that shoots them. Just can't bring myself to do it.” He pointed to the metal gate behind me and told me that was where the animals were brought in and shot. It should be and is horrifying, but not when compared to the industry standard. Often the animal is not even unconscious when its throat is slit and it's hoisted up to bleed out. This can take minutes, for which the animal is aware and suffering. There are numerous stories of outright torture even (again, especially for pigs) where the killing floor employees cut off pieces of the animal before dealing any sort of lethal wound. So, yeah, a bullet in the calming confinement of the metal chute sounds pretty damn humane to me.
I was glad to shake this man's hand as we left. Who could have guessed that a butcher simply doing his job well could be a hero of sorts.
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