Gratitude for lack of gratuity

I'm not one to write reviews of restaurants or hotels or any of the other myriad things that can be reviewed on myriad internet outlets. In large part, I don't perceive that my tastes and standards are necessarily such that they're really applicable to the general public (I'm not saying they're better—in fact, I'm implying that they're worse, but let's move on), and in even larger part it's because my brain doesn't tend to think of such experiences in terms that would make for a pithy assessment. And by eschewing reviewing things I also avoid my brain's tendency to overanalyze; you see how these posts go when I'm merely blathering on about whatever pops to mind, without specific focus when I start, so imagine how out of control attempting a review could get.

So what follows is not a review.

Actual view from our patio.

When recently we vacationed in Maui we spent the first two nights in Hana, at the only resort in that small town on the eastern side of the island: the erstwhile Hotel Hana (now called Travaasa, as it was just bought by that company which is now a chain of two—its other facility is apparently in Austin). I will note that we had a splendid time, and were I inclined to offer a review I would recommend it if one were considering a stay there. Spring for the extra bucks and get one of the cottages with the ocean view.

Passing along Freakonomics' Scionology to another generation

A recent Freakonomics episode from earlier this month (not the latest one), "The Church of Scionology," talked about the prudency of nepotism for companies. Was passing along the reigns to the company to a scion the best thing for the business?

Overall, the answer: It can be, but not always.

VMO from the VMA's

It's never been our inclination to watch the VMA's, but last night we did flip by and catch a little bit of the broadcast. A large part of why we don't watch it stems from how we don't really follow contemporary pop music like we used to, and don't feel the need to see a bunch of artists with whom we are unfamiliar accept awards for songs we never heard in the first place. That is not something we would actively choose to spend our TV-watching time on.

But still keeping up with pop culture to some extent we weren't above having it on in the background when there wasn't really anything else on.

Looking out for taxis

When I am a pedestrian (which I am with some frequency) I try to be assertive when crossing the street (when I have the right-of-way) but two vehicles I don't mess around with are buses and, even moreso, taxi cabs. Cab drivers tend to operate their vehicles with a recklessness that makes conceding to them—even if I'm the one with the green light—seem the prudent course of action.

However, when I am a passenger in a taxi, with the meter running, what I want is that maniac on the other side of the plexiglass who's just barely on the side of not killing anyone but keeping the fare from going any higher than necessary.

It's hideously inconsistent, I know.

It's fascinating how perspective utterly changes depending on circumstance.

Fixing the economy. Or not.

On a recent Dan Carlin "Common Sense" podcast (and I cannot help but suspect this latest listening discovery of mine is something that others who are better in-the-know have known about for a while, but such is the way things go; one knows of what one knows of), he talked about the erosion of the American middle class and how he believed in economic nationalism as the way to address that issue.

In a nutshell, that means each country should do what's best for its citizens economically, which he admits is viewed as naïve by those who understand the global economy that we have. It's not that isolationism is what we should do; the American legislature merely should be primarily looking out for America first. And by that what's suggested is doing what it would take to get American employers to pay their employees a wage that allows them to have a middle class lifestyle; having crappy, low-paying jobs that lift people only out of unemployment and into the "working poor" is not going to allow for the continuation of what has come to be seen as the "American way of life."