Ralph

Ralph is the inspiration for Cantankerous Old Coots and is our Grand Duke of Cantankerousness

Dear Alyson, about my speeding ticket..

Posted by Ralph at 01:38 Plain 'ol Cantankerous

Dec 232014

In case you missed it, I got a speeding ticket last summer and ever since I have been trying my respectful best to get an explanation for the itemized charges listed on my courtesy notice. With the size of the fine and the fact that nearly 50 percent of those still holding jobs in California work for the government, you would think that there would be somebody that knows the answer to my questions.

So far I have discovered that it isn’t the courts and so I am taking the question to my assembly member. I’m pretty sour on elected officials these days. Last year letters to my Senators were not answered. But I remain an incurable optimist, wanting to believe that the system works and that in Blue California, even Democrats feel some responsibility to their constituents since I live in a district where Republicans have won in the past.

I feel just like Charlie Brown with the football, but here I go again looking for an answer from the government.

Dear Assembly Member:

A citation for speeding on I-80 last summer left me confused about the components of the penalty assessed by the Solano County Superior Court. While not disputing the violation, I could find no explanation for the services itemized in the Courtesy Letter from the Court (attached copy) or the actual monetary amount for these unrelated services.

I wrote a letter to the Court (attached copy) requested details about these items and an explanation for why I should be paying for services not required or related to my citation. Specifically, I question the medical airlift which I did not require and the charge for court security which, by paying my fine and not appearing in Court, I should actually be saving the Court’s time and relieving the burdens of Court security. Additionally , it seems unreasonable to assess me for the officer’s efforts to determine that I did in fact violate the speed limit which is in my opinion is part of his normal duties whether he is assessing my behavior or any of the other drivers on I-80. I do not dispute the responsibility for the fine but it seems wrong to add unrelated costs and the regular working duties of the offices on top of the specified fine.

Marilyn, deputy clear at the Solano County superior Court, replied to my letter (attached copy) but unfortunately none of the check boxes in the pre-printed form applied to my questions and she provided no further help.

I feel that as a taxpayer, I am entitled to full disclosure of the cost responsibilities assigned to me as part of the Court assessed charges on the Courtesy Letter including the actual amount for each, separate from the violation itself and the justification for adding them onto the fines for a speeding violation.

If I can’t expect an explanation from the Court regarding this matter, then I would like to know who in the vast bureaucracy of California government has that responsibility. Perhaps I am clinging to naive and old-fashioned notions but back when they used to teach civics in the schools, I learned that the government worked for me and not the other way around.

In the hope that somewhere in the vast California government payroll, there is somebody who first of all knows the answers to my questions and second of all, can find the time in their busy schedules to answer the question of a taxpayer, I am sending this question to you. hoping that you will either pass my request on to the right people or let me know where to send the request.

Sincerely,

Ralph Carlson

So now I’m watching my mailbox again with eager anticipation. I really hope that someone knows the answer to my questions and feels responsible to sit down and write me a letter. With the amount of money I paid for the speeding ticket surely I am entitled to that. Don’t you think? Or am I really Charlie Brown?

Ralph

Ralph is the inspiration for Cantankerous Old Coots and is our Grand Duke of Cantankerousness

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Up with poetry!

Posted by Ralph at 11:48 Up With

Nov 262014

Oscar Wilde, three-quarter length portrait, fa...

Image via Wikipedia

Especially BAD poetry.

All bad poetry springs from genuine feeling. Oscar Wilde

When you are learning about blogging, you will listen to most anybody that seems successful. When I started out, that was anybody who had been blogging longer than I had. So I stumbled around quite a bit in the early days before I found my ‘voice’. I listened to all kinds of advice, particularly about improving my writing skills. Since I thought I was a pretty good writer, I tended to avoid the really hard stuff like writing serious pieces with structure and logic. What I preferred was the stuff you could just wing. One of the ideas I actually pursued was the suggestion that you could learn about writing by writing poetry, even bad poetry.

I have never in my life been very much attracted to poetry. I hate the kitschy rhyming cliches in greeting cards and I can’t understand the free flowing stuff from the ‘real’ poets. Sometimes Shakespeare gets through but mostly I’m a lost cause for poetry. So naturally the idea of writing ‘bad’ poetry was very tempting. How could I go wrong?

My preference is limericks. I know that they are lowbrow but they have the only rhythm that I understand and they are usually humorous. So that is where I started. I posted them on my blog feeling that I shouldn’t waste all that effort. Here is an example.

Blogger Jack

There once was a blogger named Jack

Whose writing was loaded with drack

His intelligence was shorte

For cliches were his forte

SEO kept Jack’s jack in the black.

If that isn’t bad enough for you I have a whole page full of bad poetry you can check out.

But even worse, earlier this year Justin got the hare brained idea that we weren’t high brow enough here at COC and he gave us one of his ultimatums. He demanded that we all write haiku for our weekly posts. Poetry wasn’t enough for Justin. He needed us to write in inscrutable oriental mode. He demanded haiku. Well one thing a Coot learns early on is don’t mess with Justin so whatever crazy idea he comes up with, the Coots deliver. So we wrote cantankerous haiku like the one below.

Boring, routine day

Take the road less traveled

Be cantankerous

So if writing bad poetry was any clue about good writing, the Coots would have a Nobel Prize or at least a Pulitzer. We’re still waiting for the phone call.

Ralph

Ralph is the inspiration for Cantankerous Old Coots and is our Grand Duke of Cantankerousness

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An Update on my Speeding Ticket

Posted by Ralph at 11:48 Plain 'ol Cantankerous

Nov 262014

A courtesy notice from the friendly Solano County Superior Court got my juices flowing and when you get to be my age anything that gets those juices flowing is a good thing. Still I’m not sure that protecting my safety is the prime directive here.

Anybody out there share my pain?

Ralph

Ralph is the inspiration for Cantankerous Old Coots and is our Grand Duke of Cantankerousness

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Down with Daylight Savings Time

Posted by Ralph at 11:48 Down with, Reflections

Nov 262014

I’ve written about daylight savings time before. In general I like it. Most of the time I’d rather have the extra sunshine at night than in the morning. But the transition is really a trial. Twice a year I have to set the clock and in these times when everything is electronic and programmable the number of clocks to set keeps growing. At least those electronic clocks are set and forget. It may take a half-hour to reset the oven, the microwave, the thermostat for the HVAC, the clock in the car, the sprinkler system, etc. but at least once you are done you can forget it. The bigger problem is resetting the clock in your head because that clock runs on automatic pilot. There is no convenient dial to change the settings or automatic adjustments that you can program. It’s got a mind of it’s own that resists.

Each six months when the time changes it takes at least a week for my internal clock to reset. During that week my body is pissed at the disruption and it lets me know. I either wake up early (Spring) or oversleep (Fall) and both times I get jumpy and irritable for no reason. I have trouble going to sleep, trouble waking up and a tremendous need to nap.

I have found no easy way to deal with the impacts of that one hour time change. It’s like jet lag in the way it messes up your life but without any of the mitigation. I’m fine with a bit of inconvenience to make a 4 hour time shift and wake up in Buenos Aires or a 9 hour time shift to be in Venice. I’m not fine when a measly one hour shift causes just as many problems and I’m still at home. Continue reading »

Ralph

Ralph is the inspiration for Cantankerous Old Coots and is our Grand Duke of Cantankerousness

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We need a new Thomas Paine!

Posted by Ralph at 11:48 principles, Problems and solutions, Reflections

Nov 262014

“The duty of a patriot is to protect his country from its government.”

― Thomas Paine

Thomas Paine; a painting by Auguste Millière (1880), after an engraving by William Sharp after a portrait by George Romney (1792) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I find myself channeling our founding fathers lately. What intrigues me is that while we recognize their names and credit their contribution to our country today, when they were founding our country, there was no United States of America. They made it all up. They probably wouldn’t recognize our country today. So much has changed. They would have no way to predict the power and influence of the USA or the way it saved the world from tyranny and stands as a beacon of freedom in an unfree and unappreciative world.

What they did know was the oppression of the greatest world power in the 18^th century on the insignificant colonies in North America. Most of the colonists were English by culture and, in England’s eyes were English subjects governing themselves but receiving the generous bounty of being part of the British Empire. To that end, England imposed a tax on the colonies and stirred up a hornets nest when free British subjects objected to taxation without representation. The end result was the defeat of the greatest world power at the time and the creation of the United States of America.

Thomas Paine was the conscience of the revolution.

He wasn’t an intellectual genius. He didn’t write the great documents upon which our country is based. But Thomas Paine was important none the less. Thomas Paine tapped the emotional spirit of the revolution and inflamed the passions for right and freedom that fueled the fight. He translated the intellectual clarity and wisdom of the founding fathers as they evolved their more perfect union into common sense, pithy axioms that resonated throughout the colonies.

One of greatest fears for the founding fathers was the power of government. They recognized that government was important and necessary to provide the framework for a free people to exercise their rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. They also knew that a government that is too powerful and infringes on those rights diminishes the individual. The problem was how to have the framework and limit the potential for excess.

The country the founding fathers created provided the greatest platform for individuals to thrive and created the most prosperous nation the world has ever known. Along the way, the government grew as well. In the guise of helping people and creating equality of result we compromised the balance of power among the branches of government which allowed unchecked overreach as the government- for our own good- limited our freedoms.

Laws and regulations limit our freedoms, our choices and replace common sense on the part of citizens. Regulation is one role of government. But regulation must be tempered by reason and under the direction of citizens who agree that the reduction in their freedoms is reasonable and good. We are way past common sense regulation for the mutual benefit of all when regulations are imposed by faraway unaccountable bureaucrats. When the citizen is no longer considered intelligent and responsible enough to manage his life, we have a government that founding fathers labored to prevent.

The government created at our founding was regarded by its creators as a necessary evil and they carefully crafted provisions to ensure that power be restrained. Two hundred years have eroded those checks and balances. Today we believe that we have the same freedoms and rights embraced by the founding fathers but we don’t. We have accepted the prison of regulation and social pressure. Our world is smaller and the human potential for each citizen diminished from our origins. We accept our smaller opportunities and ask the government to do more because we have been persuaded that we can’t do more; that we aren’t smart enough. We have stopped being citizens and accepted the role of subjects.

The bigger the government, the smaller the citizen.

We have come full circle here in 2012. The government we created to serve our country at its founding has morphed into the nightmare feared by the founding fathers. Today we need patriots more than any time since our founding because the citizens of our country become more and more dimished each year. This is no time for complacency. The balance of powers that protected us from government excesses is weakened and ineffective. Government has become an end in itself and a demanding master threatened by any attempt to restore freedom and protecting its power at all cost. As he said, “These are the times that try men’s souls……”

Today we need another Thomas Paine to lead the charge against the government that is destroying our country and what it stands for- life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

“The duty of a patriot is to protect his country from its government.”

― Thomas Paine