Did You Know? (Wealth)

Did you know that in the United States today, the income of the top 300,000 taxpayers is more than that of the bottom 150 million Americans?

Did you know that the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans own more than the bottom 95 percent, according to a Federal Reserve Study?

Did you know that the top 10 percent of income earners in the United States own 70 percent of the wealth?

Did you know that Congress passed a measure in 2003 to lower the tax rate on most dividends to 15 percent from as high as 38.6 percent and to lower rates on most capital gains from 20 percent to 15 percent.? That measure was set to expire in 2008 but will be extended through 2010 under an agreement reached in 2006, at a cost to the Treasury of $21 billion over five years and an additional $30 billion between 2011 and 2015.

Did you know that President Bush's tax cuts have given over 93% of their benefits to large corporations and well-to-do households with over $250,000 of annual income (about 10% of the U.S. households)? Moreover, President Bush's tax cuts are abolishing taxes on such asset-based income as stock dividends and capital gains. He is opposed to taxing management aristocrats' self-dealt stock options (salary payment in kind).

Did you know that since 1990, the overall CEO-worker pay gap in the United States has grown from 107-to-1 to last year’s 411-to-1? Minimum wage workers have lost 9 percent after inflation in the same 15 years. If the minimum wage had risen at the same pace as CEO pay, it would now stand at $22.61 per hour, almost four times the current $5.85.

Did you know that since the “War on Terror” began, CEOs at the top 34 military contractors have enjoyed average paychecks that are double the compensation they received in the four years leading up to 9/11?

Did you know that the federal government gives billion of dollars of tax breaks to corporations for the salaries of CEOs?

Did you know that 37 million Americans are living below the official poverty line of $19,971 a year for a family of four?

Did you know that the number of poor people in America has increased by 5 million over the past six years?

Did you know that more than 90 million Americans, close to a third of the nation, squeak by on incomes that are less than twice the official poverty line?
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Did you know that working a 40-hour work week, 52 weeks a year at the present federal minimum wage level earns a worker $12,168, which is $7800 below the poverty line for a family of four?

The United States in 2007 has become a very unequal place.

Only twice before over the past century has 5 percent of the national income gone to families in the upper one-one-hundredth of a percent of the income distribution - currently, the almost 15,000 families with incomes of $9.5 million or more a year. Such concentration at the very top occurred in 1915 and 1916, and again briefly in the late 1920s, before the stock market crash.

The "Gilded Age" in American history refers to the post-Civil War and post-Reconstruction era, from the 1870s to the 1890s. It was characterized by materialism, political corruption, a blatant display of wealth, and a growing disparity between the incomes of the wealthy and those of the working class.

Welcome to the New Gilded Age.

Remembering Superman

Comic-Con 2007 is concluding its four-day celebration today at the San Diego Convention Center. Originally showcasing comic books and related popular arts, the convention has expanded over the years to include a larger range of pop culture elements, such as science fiction, fantasy, horror, anime, manga, animation, toys, collectible card games, video games, television, and movies. The convention is the largest of its kind in the world, attracting well over 125,000 people from all over the world. Comic-Con affords adults an opportunity to dress up as their favorite character from comic books, science fiction, fantasy, video games, and films.

Yesterday morning, as I was reading about the event, I began to think about Superman and how he has changed over the years from the way he was first depicted in Action Comics in June of 1938. Since he was 31 years old at that time, that makes him 100 years old this year. Just think, Superman is now a centenarian. But one of the advantages of being a comic book character is that one never ages. So today, Superman is still 31 years old.

Created during the Great Depression by Joe Shuster and Jerry Siegel, two second-generation immigrant Jews, the wimpy Clark Kent, representing the isolationist United States, threw away his business suit to emerge as Superman, the new America which was to become a superpower. Superman was a US kind of hero - clean cut, saving the world from evil, super strong, etc. In fact, Shuster and Siegel included the colors of the American flag in Superman's costume. They had multiple reasons for identifying with American nationalism; deep in their bones, they felt that only a superpower could defeat Hitler.

When Superman first appeared in the comics, he was just a super-strong man. He couldn’t fly, and he didn’t have heat or X-ray vision. It was said that he was “able to leap tall buildings in a single bound.” Actually, he could only leap about an eighth of a mile, and he couldn't do more than pick up an occasional car or similar thing. Mostly, he just beat up the bad guys. As the years went by, however, more and more powers were added to Superman. He started actually flying in the early 1940s. He'd jump, and then glide on the air currents. And then he got strong enough to help troubled passenger jets. Contrast those earlier powers with those of today’s Superman who can lift a whole continent. My, how his strength has grown.

Now let us leave the fantasy world and enter the real one. In his book titled “The Sizesaurus”, Stephen Strauss writes: “If Superman, weighing 220 pounds, were standing on the ground and trying to stop a 55-ton runaway truck traveling at 67 miles per hour, the coefficient of friction would mean that, because his ability to stop the truck is limited by his weight, it would take 14 miles for him to halt the vehicle.”

An anonymous person started a Superman parody of The Iliad. Perhaps you would like to finish it:

Superman Comes To Earth

(Inspired by Dryden's Iliad)

The wrath of Superman, O Muse, resound;
Whose effects the mighty Lex Luthor has found,
And many a villain, crook, and fearsome foe,
Were sent to where the bad guys go:
To a place where for their crimes they paid,
And so was the force of justice obeyed.

From that ill-omened hour when strife begun
On Krypton, his parents knew their sun
Would issue soon forth in one mighty blast,
The race of the Kryptonites was not one to last.
But the father of Superman, and also his mother
Would not have their son's fate be like that of the others:
So in a capsule they sent him, like the womb before birth,
Towards the primitive world known to us as the Earth.

It traveled through space at astonishing speed,
And landed in Kansas, among the hay and the seed.
In Smallville, the Kents did discover,
This alien child, human on the cover,
And showed love for him, as if he were their own-
They named him Clark Kent and he entered their home.

QUESTIONS: When you were growing up, did you have any comic book heroes? What did you most admire about them, and why did you find those to be admirable qualiies?

Oh, Goody! Here’s Woody

Woody Allen’s first published joke didn’t show much promise of a three-time Academy Award-winning American film director, writer, actor, jazz musician (clarinet), comedian, and playwright. The joke, written when he was 14 and published in the gossip column of a newspaper, read “Woody Allen says he ate at a restaurant that had O.P.S. prices—over people's salaries." But by age 16, he was writing for Sid Caesar, and later, after attending New York University where he studied communication and film, began writing for Herb Shriner. At the age of 18, Allen was writing one-liners for Guy Lombardo, Danny Kaye, and Bob Hope; and by the time he was 19, he was writing scripts for the Ed Sullivan Show, The Tonight Show, and Caesar’s Hour on TV, making $1500 a week.

Noted for his cerebral film style, mixing satire, wit and humor, he later became one of the most respected and prolific filmmakers in the modern era. His films rely heavily on literature, philosophy, and psychology for developing the stories and characters. Allen was greatly influenced by the French philosophers such as Sartre and Camus who wrote scholarly and fictional works with themes associated with existentialism, which has its origins in the 19th century thought of Kierkegaard and Nietzsche. Kierkegaard focused on the deep anxiety of human existence - the feeling that there is no purpose, indeed nothing, at its core. Finding a way to counter this nothingness, by embracing existence, is the fundamental theme of existentialism, and the explanation for the philosophy's name. While someone who claims to believe in reality might be called a "realist," or someone who believes in a deity a "theist," someone who believes fundamentally only in existence, and seeks to find meaning in his or her life solely by embracing existence, is an existentialist.

In 1961, when Woody Allen became a stand-up comedian, he developed his persona: a comical New Yorker in nebbishy glasses, brainy, neurotic, nervous, and intellectual in outlook. This persona also permeates his films.

When Allen started out doing stand-up comedy in Greenwich Village clubs, young people sat in cafés reading books like Sartre's "Being and Nothingness," and debated man's fate late into the night. In the 1950s, when the French existentialists loomed large, philosophers like Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus argued that life has no God-given purpose, and that only man's choices and struggles give it meaning. Allen found himself turning to the same questions. "What if everything is an illusion and nothing exists?" he wondered. "In that case, I definitely overpaid for my carpet." In “Getting Even”, Allen has a man asking his uncle: "Could it not be simply that we are alone and aimless, doomed to wander in an indifferent universe, with no hope of salvation, nor any prospect except misery, death, and the empty reality of eternal nothing?" The uncle replies, "And you wonder why you're not invited to more parties."

Here are some of my favorite Woody Allen quotes:

1. I took a speed reading course and read “War and Peace” in twenty minutes. It’s about Russia.
2. Life is full of misery, loneliness, and suffering - and it's all over much too soon.
3. Most of the time I don't have much fun. The rest of the time I don't have any fun at all.
4. Basically my wife was immature. I'd be at home in the bath and she'd come in and sink my boats.
5. Bisexuality immediately doubles your chances for a date on Saturday night.

6. Eighty percent of success is just showing up.
7. I am not afraid of death; I just don't want to be there when it happens.
8. I believe there is something out there watching us. Unfortunately, it's the government.
9. I will not eat oysters. I want my food dead. Not sick. Not wounded. Dead.
10. I'd call him a sadistic, hippophilic necrophile, but that would be beating a dead horse.

11. I'm such a good lover because I practice a lot on my own.
12. My luck is getting worse and worse. Last night, for instance, I was mugged by a Quaker.
13. The food here is terrible, and the portions are too small.
14. Time is nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once.
15. You can live to be a hundred if you give up all the things that make you want to live to be a hundred

16. I took a test in Existentialism. I left all the answers blank and got 100.
17. His lack of education is more than compensated for by his keenly developed moral bankruptcy.
18. I tended to place my wife under a pedestal.
19. If only God would give me some clear sign! Like making a large deposit in my name in a Swiss bank.
20. A fast word about oral contraception. I asked a girl to go to bed with me, and she said, “No!”

21. I remember when I was a little boy, I once stole a pornographic book that was printed in Braille. I used to rub the dirty parts.

22. What if nothing exists and we're all in somebody's dream? Or what's worse, what if only that fat guy in the third row exists?

23. The only time my wife and I had a simultaneous orgasm was when the judge signed the divorce papers.

24. Nietzsche says that we will live the same life, over and over again. God - I'll have to sit through the Ice Capades again.

25. But she was so sweet, and we just walked in the park, and I was so touched by her that, after fifteen minutes, I wanted to marry her and, after half an hour, I completely gave up the idea of snatching her purse.

26. To love is to suffer. To avoid suffering one must not love. But then one suffers from not loving. Therefore, to love is to suffer; not to love is to suffer; to suffer is to suffer. To be happy is to love. To be happy, then, is to suffer, but suffering makes one unhappy. Therefore, to be happy one must love or love to suffer or suffer from too much happiness.

What favorite Woody Allen lines do you have to add to my post?

ADDENDUM:

To those bloggers who condemn Woody Allen as a child molester, here are the facts:

Woody’s Defense

If you know Allen is a “Child Molester” you better have something more concrete than Mia Farrow’s word. Just as relying on Jerry Falwell’s assertion that Bill and Hillary murdered a dozen or so people in Arkansas while running drugs out of Mena lacks corroboration.

Soon-Yi was 8 years old when adopted by Mia Farrow and the conductor Andre Previn during a trip to Korea.

Mia Farrow, who starred in many of Allen's films, was his companion for more than a decade, although, as Allen has pointed out, the couple never lived together, and spent their nights at separate homes. In 1992, the relationship between her adopted daughter Soon-Yi and Allen came to light when Mia discovered nude pictures of Ms. Previn, who was then 21, in Allen's apartment.

The messy aftermath centered on a bitter custody battle for Satchel, the biological son of Mia and Allen, and their adopted daughter, Dylan.

During the custody case, Mia accused Allen of fondling Dylan. Allen WAS CLEARED of all charges.

Moviegoers may be more willing to accept a married Allen, said former Mayor Edward I. Koch. "Like many, I had trouble with the fact that people thought that she was his unofficial stepdaughter," he said. "But with the passage of time, I don't feel that anymore. And I think this marriage will play well."

He added, "Who knows, maybe this marriage means that Woody Allen can get off the psychiatrist's couch."

Please note that after being accused of molesting Dylan, Woody Allen was cleared of all charges. Also, note that the nude pictures of Soon-Yi were taken when she was 21 years old.

Stop That Noise

The German philosopher Arthur Schoepenhauer wrote an essay in 1851 titled “On Noise”, in which he described some of the noises in his environment that tormented him. He claimed that intellectually-inclined individuals are disturbed by noise because it interferes with their ability to concentrate all their intellectual strength upon one theme. Noise tends to break in upon and distract one’s thoughts.

I find it interesting to note that his chief complaint was about the cracking of whips in the streets. He wrote, “The most inexcusable and disgraceful of all noises is the cracking of whips -- a truly infernal thing when it is done in the narrow resounding streets of a town. I denounce it as making a peaceful life impossible; it puts an end to all quiet thought. That the cracking of whips should be allowed at all seems to me to show in the clearest way how senseless and thoughtless is the nature of mankind. No one with anything like an idea in his head can avoid a feeling of actual pain at this sudden, sharp crack, which paralyzes the brain, rends the thread of reflection, and murders thought. Every time this noise is made, it must disturb a hundred people who are applying their minds to business of some sort, no matter how trivial it may be; while on the thinker its effect is woeful and disastrous, cutting his thoughts asunder, much as the executioner's ax severs the head from the body. No sound, be it ever so shrill, cuts so sharply into the brain as this cursed cracking of whips; you feel the sting of the lash right inside your head; and it affects the brain in the same way as touch affects a sensitive plant, and for the same length of time.”

Schoepenhauer was also bothered by hammering, the barking of dogs, and the crying of children. But the crack of a whip was, in his opinion, the most horrible of all noises to hear. In particular, he condemned the cab drivers of that day for using their whips on their horses as they moved at a slow pace through the streets looking for a passenger to pick up.

In his concluding paragraph, Schoepenhauer lamented, “How many great and splendid thoughts, I should like to know, have been lost to the world by the crack of a whip? If I had the upper hand, I should soon produce in the heads of these people an indissoluble association of ideas between cracking a whip and getting a whipping.”

Well, Schoepy, if you complained that bitterly about the sound of cracking whips in the 19th century, you should come to a large city in the United States in the 21st century. Then you really would have something to complain about. You lamented about the cab drivers of your day cracking their whips. Stand on the corner of a street today in downtown Manhattan during rush-hour traffic and listen to the incessant sounds of cabbies honking their horns as they try to negotiate through the noisy traffic with their fares. Listen not to the sounds of small hammers but the sound of jackhammers as workers proceed with their construction jobs. How about those loud jarring thump-thump-thump-thump-thumps emanating from the interiors of passing cars as their audio systems torture the ears of people who can still hear? The screech of the brakes on the subway trains will get your attention as will the auditory menace of the hip-hop music being performed on the station platforms as you wait for a train. Just the sound of general rush-hour traffic itself, Schoepy, would drive you to distraction.

Or perhaps you would find yourself living near a sports stadium, where the intermittent cheers when a team scores and the sudden boom of a cannon being discharged would drive you to distraction. So then you move near an airport where the huge jets taking off and landing every 30 seconds or so makes you scream in dismay.

Rest in Peace, Schoepy. If you couldn’t stand the noise of a whip cracking occasionally in the 19th century, the cacophony created by urban life in the 21st century would drive you insane.

What are some other 21st century noises that you think would have disturbed Schoepenhauer?
What do you find to be the most tormenting noise or noises in your environment?

Confucius and Jesus: Two Lives and Two Different Kingdoms

When many people in the Western world think of Confucius, they think of some wise old philosopher sitting atop a mountain somewhere dispensing wisdom to his followers. In reality, Confucius' thoughts have been developed and spread throughout the world for a long time, mostly in Asian countries like Vietnam, Korea, and Japan. Unlike religions, Confucianism didn't have any missionaries, monks, or pilgrims to help spread the influence. The influence of Confucius has lasted so long and spread so widely because it emphasizes the relationship between humans, especially the relationship between the ruler and the people.

The purpose of this post is to compare some of the life and teachings of Confucius with some of the life and teachings of Jesus, who is better known in the Western world. Since this is a blog post, it must of necessity be kept rather brief. I urge my readers to correct any errors I have made and to add comments of information pertinent to the post.

1. Confucius - lived about 2500 years ago.
Jesus - lived about 2000 years ago.

2. Confucius - born to a teenage concubine.
Jesus - born to a teenage virgin.

3. Followers of Confucius - believe that human nature is good, and the most important purpose of education is to prevent the good nature being affected by the environment.

Followers of Christianity - believe that human nature is inherently evil. “In Adam’s fall, we sinned all.” Men continually transgress God's Law—the Ten Commandments. Christians believe that God is a God of Justice; thus, a penalty must be paid for sin. "For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life.”

4. Confucius - began to travel from state to state as an itinerant philosopher to persuade political leaders that his teachings were a formula for social and political success. Eventually, his philosophies came to dictate the standard of behavior for all of society--including the emperor himself.

Jesus - did not travel over a wide area with his teachings. Instead, he concentrated on Galilee because it was on the caravan routes between the Mediterranean and Damascus and the East. It was a stop along the way for the foreigners, or Gentiles, who came and went with their exotic cargoes. It's likely that Galilee had an intellectual openness that would permit Jesus' teaching to flourish for a while. And the multicultural atmosphere of Galilee meant that word of Jesus' activities could spread far and wide.

5. Confucius - Confucius' teachings were later turned into a very elaborate set of rules and practices by his numerous disciples and followers who organized his teachings into the Analects. In the centuries after his death, Mencius and Xun Zi both wrote important books, and in time, a philosophy was elaborated, which is known in the West as Confucianism.

Jesus - Jesus’ teachings were later told by his numerous disciples and followers who organized his teachings into the New Testament. In time, the teachings of Jesus became a religion known as Christianity.

6. Confucius - His philosophy emphasized personal and governmental morality, correctness of social relationships, justice and sincerity. It prepared his followers to lead a moral life in the kingdom of this world. The center of attention in Confucianism is to " ... make people better during their lifetimes ... to guide them toward a virtuous existence ... (and) to help them choose the right and moral course to take regardless of consequences." There is no teaching of life after death.

Jesus - Although George W. Bush claims that Jesus is his favorite philosopher, there are some scholars who state that it is inaccurate to classify Jesus as a philosopher. Jesus, at least as he is portrayed in the New Testament, viewed himself as a dispenser of wisdom rather than a seeker of wisdom. Unlike philosophers, he perceived himself as already having the answers.

Those scholars who would count Jesus as a philosopher base their belief on the following criteria:

-He approached metaphysical issues pertaining to God, the afterlife, etc.
-He created ethical guidelines for people to live by. (Like Confucius, he had many parables.)
-He examined his own life and those around him which might qualify for philosophical thought.

In contrast to Confucius, Jesus said , “My Kingdom is not an earthly kingdom...” (John 18:36)

7. Jesus and Confucius had two things in common: Neither of them ever wrote anything--their followers recorded their words--and both of them spoke in analogies and parables.

Famous Quotations:

1. Confucius - “Never impose on others what you would not choose for yourself?"
Jesus - “In everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets." (Matthew 7:12)

2. Confucius - “Good is no hermit. It has ever neighbors.”
Jesus - “'Love your neighbor as yourself.”

3. Confucius - “Recompense injury with justice, and recompense kindness with kindness.”
Jesus - “Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you.”

4. Confucius - “Without truth I know not how man can live. A cart without a cross pole, a carriage without a harness, how could they be moved?”
Jesus - “And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. (John 8:32).

Confucius still stands for wisdom and authority in the modern world. Students can learn of his opinions from the Analects in school, and many modern people share his desire for a peaceful society, a balance between nature and humankind, honesty, and faithfulness. People have been trying to accomplish these goals for over twenty-five hundred years, since Confucius' time. Is it possible for these goals to be reached before another twenty-five hundred years passes?

Many Christians today believe that Jesus became the owner of their lives when they became a Christian, so they are not in charge of their own lives. "Self" is no longer in charge; God is. They believe that Christ knows better than they do what real life is about, and through Him they can discover the real purpose of living.