Get Rich Slowly recently ran an article explaining how the income tax bracketing system in the US actually works. I have to admit that I was under the incorrect assumption that you fell into a certain bracket and your income was charged at that rate, and if your earnings changed and you ended up in a different bracket, your rate would change. In reality, the system works in a much more logical way. You are charged the matching percentage for the amount of money you have in each bracket. In other words, if you are just a few dollars above a tax bracket boundary, reducing your taxable income to just below the boundary is only going to save you a couple of dollars in taxes, not a couple of percentage points. As that probably doesn’t make a lot of since how I am explaining it, you should probably just read the article.
While I am personally more in favor of getting rid of the income tax system we have now in favor of an entirely spending-based system, this makes the bracketed income system make much more sense. Rather than being a “you have more, so you pay more” system, the government is actually creating more of a artificial return on investment. Everyone keeps 90% of the first few thousand dollars, and 85 % of the next 20 thousand dollars, and 75 % of next 50 thousand, and so forth. Whether all this is good or bad, I leave for the reader to decide, but I at least like the truth better than my previously held, but incorrect, understanding.
There is something I am noticing in this political cycle that is really starting to annoy me. It might have been around before, but this is the first time I have really noticed it. Go and watch TV news outlets and take notice of what they are talking about. You will begin to notice that they are not actually ever talking about the qualifications or stances of the candidates. They never really get around to talking about exactly what the candidates are planning on doing for the economy or foreign relations or education. What we hear from the TV news outlets is how people are going to respond to their stances. They don’t talk about what McCain wants to do for the energy crysis. They talk about how rural Americans as opposed to senior citizen women as opposed to young white collar workers perceive McCain’s stance on dealing with energy. How do we expect to properly elect the right candidate when we aren’t ever hearing anything about who the candidates really are?
Add to this the fact that with their need to fill air time, news of outrage and terrible things have to be basically created from nothing, and sometimes from less than that. One person makes some comment. It is then taken out of context and twisted and then anchors around the country can get all up in a tivy and demand apologies from everyone and their mother. The newest example of this is based on a Wesley Clark statement. You need to just watch the video which plays his original comment, and then shows the media reaction to it. The media was trying to say we should be outraged by him, but in fact I found myself quite mad at them for completely misleading the American people. The condensed version of the video is that Wesley Clark, who is a retired general, actually praised McCain’s military service, but then, correctly in my mind, said that his military service is not automatically a qualification for being president. From this, we see anchor after anchor wondering, “How dare Clark belittle McCain’s service to the country?” To top this off, they then try to push this outrange on do Obama. Why is it that presidential candidates are now responsible for any and everything their supporters say? Clark is in no way connected with the Obama campaign, and there is no reason for his comments to be connected with Obama, as Clark himself said in his response.
Now that I have thought about it, I have seen this sort of political situation before. The race for American president has almost completely devolved to the level of high school class president elections. We have been divided into our cliches by the media so we can do our voting as a group. We just have older women, and middle class white men, and southern evangelicals instead of jocks, and nerds, and goths. And we are doing our best to ignore actual issues and instead go with the basis of class elections where all we hear is “I totally heard from the girlfriend of my best friends brother, that candidate A said that blah blah blah.”
May the most popular guy with the least controversal supporters win.
The Lexicographer’s Rules writes about the practice of people purposefully mispronouncing words. As far as I know, this is very much and English (as in language) thing, or possibly even just American. While its possibly that I do this from time to time, I can’t really thing of any that I do on purpose. I do know there are a lot of times that this really gets on my nerves. Words that fall in this category make up a large portion of the hypothetical words-that-I-don’t-like list. Examples include: preggo, compooter, and fo’ sho’.
What other examples do people know of? What do you hate, or dare I say like or use? Feel free to comment.
Has anyone noticed that we, as in society, have gone full circle in our favorite method of personal timekeeping? Go back a hundred years ago, and if you wanted to know the time without being bothered to look in the direction of the nearest courthouse/parlimentary building, you had a pocket watch, those delightful little analog watches on a chain. As we went forward, those watches eventually got strapped to people’s wrists. That has been pretty much the way of the things for the last few generations.
But now that all seems to be changing. The days of the wrist watch are coming to an end. More and more people, myself included, are largely putting aside the tan-line creating wrist-strap and are putting all of their time-telling trust in their cellphones. And why not? You are going to have the phone with you anyway. The time is automatically set to the atomic clock used to control GSP satellites, so it is always right and immune from time drifting, timezone changes, and daylight saving time. And, of course, you keep said phone in your pocket. So long live the pocket watch!
You know, now that I think about it, I really want a cellphone made to look like a traditional pocket watch, with the metal clamshell body and the little chain. That would be awsome. Someone make me one.
Someone mentioned something to me the other day, and I feel its worth commenting on. The statement was simply “Chiverly is dead today.” It should be mentioned that this person was female, and additionally that I don’t think it had anything to do with anything I did. This is actually a subject I have heard discussions/complaints about a lot recently. Usually the topic comes up in response to men not doing what women think they should, like holding a door open, or paying for meals, etc. The interesting thing about this is that these little acts that we collectively call “chiverly” today, I would suspect are rooted in a history that is more practical than polite. Today these practical needs have largely disappeared, leaving behind only the expectation of action for the sake of social grace.
Take for example the practice of opening doors for women. Door opening has never stuck me as being a particularly difficult task, nor does having a door held for me save me any significant effort or time. Add on to this the complications that arise with multiple doorways and such, and then everyone would get through the doors faster if they just held their own doors. Why then do we have this tradition of hold doors for women? My guess, which is backed up by none of that research people hold to, is that the practice game from the time when women had very large and somewhat rigid dresses. To open a door, you have to be reasonably close to the door, maybe even pushing on it with your body, however if your legs where surrounded by a 4 foot hoop, doing so would probably result in the embarassing display of a ladies ankles. To spare these ladies this public humilation, men would open their doors for them. Today, this couldn’t be farther from being an issue.
Now lets look at meal financing. In the not-so-distant past, the chances of a women having money of their own was pretty slim. Women didn’t hold paying jobs, they tended to live with their parents until they lived with a husband, and the only thing that made sense was for the man to pay for him and the woman. Women were basically cared for by the men around them, whether it be their father, husband, or courter. But the reason for this was that they didn’t have any money of their own. That was the system. In the more recent past, that changed. Women start working at the same time as men, and make roughly the same amount of money. Why then if they both have their own money, and the girl is just as likely to have initiated the meeting, should the guy be expected to foot the bill?
Basically, in all this I am not trying to say doing those things are bad. On the contrary, I practice a number of the “chiverlous”� manners, and other I see no problem with at least under certain conditions. What I am saying is that women today shouldn’t be too suprised to find the norms of 50 years ago practiced today. In fact if women, as a whole, have anyone to blame for the death calls of chiverly, it is themselves. The feminist movement has done a pretty good job of convincing us that the genders are equal and equalizing the opportunities and life situations of the both sides. Chiverly, by its definition, is the honoring of women. If everyone is equal, why should one group be expected to honor the other group?
Thoughts?
The English language, as a whole, contains many, many words. Most of them, I am rather indifferent to, some I really like, others I hate, and some were created (or so I am convinced) for the single purpose of filling up space on the SAT/GRE/etc. It should be noted that most of the words that I have any strong feelings for, are beyond my ability to spell, most words are, in fact, beyond my ability to spell. With that in mind, and with the help of Mr. Webster, I shall share with you my favorite and least favorite words in no particular order.
Good Words
- copaceitc – this is just a fun word, particularly since “fine” gets used so much, it is also part of the title of my blog
- stultify – not a word that I often find a use for, but none-the-less, one that I enjoy
- eclectic – good, despite the excessive use of the letter c (to be explained later)
- pneumothorax – I don’t really like this word in particular, but it is a fancy word that I know, so it needed to be included.
- incredulous – believe it or not, I like it
Not So Good Words
- pamphlet – I hate this word. I am not entirely sure why, but I think it may have to do with the “mfl” sound in the middle. Acceptable alternatives include: brochure, booklet, or flyer.
OK, so I can only think of one word I don’t like right now. Maybe I will think of others. Maybe I won’t.