Catching Up on Politics

Being away from the US for such long periods of time, we're always out of touch with politics and what's happening on the political front. Usually, that's not a problem, but here we are in a presidential election year and we need to learn a bit about the prospective candidates. We don't consider this blog an appropriate place for discussing politics (or religion for that matter...much too controversial for us laid-back sailors). But the process of catching up is an interesting exercise. We took a look at who was running first … Democrats and Republicans et al. There were a few familiar names … Clinton … Trump ... and some we didn't recognize at all. There's a pretty full roster of Presidential hopefuls out there. We're used to hearing about American politics through the eyes of people in the countries we visit. Amazing how much other countries know about American politics and how little we know about theirs (or ours). Can you name the Prime Minister/Premiere/President/Head of State of Great Britain? France? Germany? Australia? I'll wager most Americans cannot, yet most of the citizens of those countries know Barack Obama's name.

So, we searched on-line to find the major issues of contention and where individual candidates stood on each. Immigration, gun control, ISIS/terrorism, the federal deficit, health care, environmental issues … seemed to top the list. The issues are complicated. It's hard to figure out, sometimes, exactly what the candidates are advocating. They tend to spout about what's wrong and how they disagree with the other candidates … but they have a hard time defining exactly what would be right. Understandable … there are no easy answers, and to quote the 15th century monk and poet, John Lydgate, “you can't please all the people, all the time.”

We found several quizzes on line that matched up our political views with candidates. Sometimes I couldn't figure out the question; sometimes the questions were phrased in such a way, I couldn't answer. Then there were those questions, I'm sorry to admit, where I was totally ignorant of the topic, e.g. Do you advocate American exceptionalism? (Yikes, what the heck's that ... I had to look it up). Depending on the quiz you chose and the wording of the questions, it was possible to match up with a different candidate each time, even though my views hadn't changed. Just google “presidential candidate quiz” and see the results.

So, between now and November 8th, we'll stay tuned to the American political scene and try to figure out who best represents our own ideologies. We'll make a sincere effort to learn more about the issues and the candidates and vote accordingly. David and I certainly do not always agree on each issue. We do agree however, that it would be nice if the Democrats and Republicans could, perhaps work together for the good of the country versus their own political agenda. Enough said … let's move on to something even more controversial. Sail or motor? Stick or stinkpot?

PowerBall Mania - the Power of a Dream

The PowerBall jackpot was estimated to be about $900 million the other night. Every news program throughout the days leading up to the drawing showed long, long lines waiting for tickets. Believe it or not, Nevada is one of seven US states that does not allow a lottery. Therefore, if residents want to participate in a chance to win, they have to drive to Primm Valley, on the California line, to purchase tickets. Judging from this AP photo, I'd say lots of Nevadans made the trip.

The odds of winning aren't all that good … 1 in 292,201,338, except in our case. Since we don't buy tickets, our odds are nil, but really, that's not far from the folks who buy tickets. Admittedly, they do have a slight edge. I've read that there are ways of increasing your odds minimally … let the computer generate the numbers for you, buy more tickets, rely on Chinese fortune cookie lucky numbers, let your fairy godmother do the picks. In our case, buying a ticket would help, but again, only by a slight margin.

I got a charge out of reading what events had better odds of happening than winning the lottery. For instance:

• Being killed by a vending machine - 1 in 112 million
• Being hit by falling airplane parts – 1 in 10 million
• Being killed by flesh-eating bacteria – 1 in 1 million (really?)
• Being killed by a meteorite – 1 in 700,000
• Pigs flying – 1 in ?????

Who figures out these things?

Well, nobody won the $900 million jackpot. I checked the numbers first thing. Oh, my … now it's getting interesting. It's Powerball-mania. Estimated at $1.3billion, America's largest lottery jackpot ever is causing normally sane people to go wild. The already-crazies are beyond help. According to USA Today, the lottery is “a pipe dream Americans throw about $66.5 billion dollars at yearly. It’s a game that’s largely for poor people to lose, as numerous studies have shown.” Despite the odds, everyone thinks they're going to win. It's the dream … winning a billion dollars.

So what would we do with $1.3 billion. First of all, if we took a lump sum lower payment, it would only amount to an $806 million payout, then there's federal tax and maybe state taxes … so it would net out to significantly less. Still, that's a fair amount of money. Well, jeez … we can't quit our jobs … we don't have jobs. We can't buy a boat and sail off into the sunset … we already do that. We can't travel any more than we already do. We could buy a country, I guess … there are 10+ countries with a GDP below $800 million … which would still leave some change after purchase for supporting all our new friends.

All that said … we might be heading out of Nevada to a Powerball vendor in a nearby state in the next couple of days. You just never know … we might want to increase our odds of winning.

Time for a New Calendar

I haven't gotten around to buying a new calendar for 2016 yet. I just noticed that the one I usually make notes on is pretty much done for. Just a few days left of 2015 and I'm writing on the margin for stuff I need to do in January 2016. I've seen them in several stores, but I was holding out for one as an Xmas gift. Alas, Santa didn't come through, so now I've got to go out and buy one. Yes, I know I can use one on my iPad or laptop or iPhone, but it's not the same. I prefer to jot down notes the old-fashioned way sometimes. I like big, blank blocks I can write in for planning projects, remembering b-days and doing countdowns till our next sail date. Lin, on the other hand, uses her iPhone for all of her appointments, planning, etc. Still, it's traditional for me to buy her an annual Wicca calendar for her December birthday. She can keep track of Esbats and Sabbats that way and maybe learn a new spell or two. She refers to its “color of the day” reminder when getting dressed each morning, just to make sure she's in sync with the rest of her witchy world.

I've always been a bit confused by the Julian (named after Julius Caesar) versus the Gregorian (named after Pope Gregory VIII) calendar. Wikipedia explained that the Gregorian calendar in current use was developed in 1582 as a time adjustment to the Julian calendar amounting to a 0.002% correction in the length of the year. Evidently the motivation for the reform was so that the Christian Easter celebration stayed in sync with the spring equinox. Anyhow, people born around that time always have two birth dates, one according to the Gregorian calendar and the other according to the Julian. Two birthdays would be right up my alley.

There are at least 40 different active calendars in use throughout the world. For the Jews, for instance, it is now the year 5776. Their new year starts with Rosh Hashanah in September. The Muslims use the lunar Hijiri calendar beginning on July 1st and 2016 will be Year 1437 for them. The Chinese will celebrate their New Year on February 8th, 2016. The year of the Red Fire Monkey begins then.

I was planning to buy our new calendar soon or I could print my own. On second thought, we're heading to Las Vegas in a few days and Becky always gets several free calendars in the mail. I'm sure one of them will suit us just perfectly and the price is right. I can muddle through for a few days without knowing the date … we do that all the time on passage.

Whichever calendar you use, we wish you our traditional year's end happy holiday season and a prosperous and healthy new year.