Speed Gibson

Losing Weight Like a Liberal

While I'm very close to a new lowest weight since high school, I still am just not satisfied with my approach.  After 4 plus years in Weight Watchers and a heart attack, I've been trying various plans and approaches with some overall success, losing about 15 pounds a year since April 2006.  But it's been a roller coaster, my weight graph looking like seismograph fluctuations.  And even when the numbers are good, I am still mindful and unhappy with the deprivation.

My approaches have all been very analytical, right-brain solutions, everything by the numbers: weight, calories, nutrition, and exercise.  Even Weight Watchers has its point systems.  And it all generally works - until it doesn't.  Pizza, parties, overtime at work, boredom, and accumulated thoughts of deprivation sooner or later push me off track.  Sooner or later I'm back with another plan, some success, then failure.  Is this insanity - trying the same thing repeatedly expecting different results?  Or am I more like Thomas Edison, working his way through his legendary hundreds of failures on the way to discovering tungsten for his light bulb?

I won't truly know until that light bulb lights, but I think I am making progress in sorting out what works for me and what does not.  For example, most weight loss experts advise weighing only once or twice a week to avoid the frustration of our normal day to day weight fluctuations.  But I seem to thrive on daily readings, letting a spreadsheet do the averaging.  I need that daily reminder, that daily feedback.  In fact, when my once stalwart home scale suddenly gave out last month, I once again started drifting, depending on the scale in our office fitness center.  But I now have a new home scale and I started fresh again yesterday.

But I have to fix something more fundamental, and to that end I have started Renee Stephens' six week program in her book Full-Filled (with Samantha Rose).  I first became aware of her concept of "changing your relationship with food and your life from the inside out" from her podcasts, over 200 episodes on Personal Life Media dating back to 2007.  Her book distills this into a six week program in the book that I will likely take 8 to 10 more probative weeks, for I like what I have heard and read.  Here's the basic truth she has made me confront:

"Associating weight loss with enjoyment may be an idea that's a bit hard for you to swallow, but the two must actually go hand in hand.  In fact, they must go hand in hand to get positive results.  If your weight loss program is easy and enjoyable, it will last a lifetime.  If it's hard, it won't work for the long term, which is exactly why "successful" dieters usually aren't successful for long.  Generally, within one year, 95 percent of dieters regain the weight they lost.  And within five years, a staggering 99 percent are right back where they started."

In that context, I suppose I am in the "1 percent" that the Occupiers would claim are making the other 99 percent fat.  But the overall satisfaction isn't there, largely because my success to date is uneven and tenuous, always at the edge, always mindful of the deprivation.  Stephens would argue that's because I'm working at it from those edges, not confronting the core issue, not "losing from the inside out" as she says.

And that requires some serious left brain work, dealing with my core emotions.  We put on weight despite our conscious desire not to because at some level, weight and/or overeating works for us.  It's not rational but there it is, and there the battle must be won.  In fact, the battle must be stopped as she says.  So for the next few weeks at least, I am going to have to think more like a liberal, getting in touch wih my emotions, figuring out just what it is I do want and how to feel good getting there.  Like a liberal, the theory is that with the proper intent the numbers will take care of themselves. 

So please forgive me me if I post quite a bit on this the next few weeks.  It's part of my therapy!  But food and politics seem to be increasingly linked these days, so this might be the start of a new focus here on my blog.

Beirut 55104

Out walking this Saturday (5/11) I again heard the saddening, maddening story of how Caribe Bistro was put out of business by the Central Corridor Light Rail project construction.  Hearing Mitch Berg again use Beirut as a metaphor for the current state of University Avenue, I drove it the from Rice Street near the Capitol to the University of Minnesota, about six miles.  It was worse than even Mitch and the owners described, end to end chaos.  Mile after mile I wondered, was it necessary to devastate the entire Midway for the entire length of the construction?

Those of you who have had your neighborhood streets redone know the frustration of seeing a lot of digging, then nothing, then some sewer work, then nothing, then some concrete curbing poured, then nothing, then finally the paving.  It roughly corresponds to baseball season, starting early and sometimes extending well into October.  And like baseball, the "arena" sits idle the majority of the time while the loose sand and the uneven surface wear on the undercarriage and suspension of our cars.

The explanation is that it would cost more to break up contracts by street.  Instead, the same crew goes from street to street in the affected area, which is why you don't see them on your street the majority of the time.  But frustrating as that is, all is forgiven and forgotten once it's done, especially when doing it "our" way would have raised our property tax assessments significantly.

Apparently the same concept is being used here.  The three miles east of Snelling are dug up and nothing more.  There's maybe a mile of finished track to the west amidst the mounds of dirt, and some framing for four station stops.  There's no sign of any electrical work anywhere, like for the overhead lines to come, not even any poles or towers.  We're still basically in the "dig" phase, and judging by what the restaurant owners were initially told, this six mile portion of the project is significantly behind schedule.

This phase by phase end to end approach doesn't work here.  It's a multi-year project, in a high traffic corridor, and unlike a neighborhood repaving project, can have fatal consequences for the businesses located there.  It's Interstate 394 all over again, which didn't come close to meeting either its budget or schedule, putting several businesses under who couldn't weather the additional delays and disruption.  The Central Corridor could be built such that only 1 mile at a time is disrupted, much like when repaving a highway.

And besides, since when does the Metropolitan Council worry about how much something costs?  Exhibit A is the Northstar Commuter Rail Line, losing $13 million a year carrying fewer than 1,000 passengers, but nowhere in their portfolio of operations is there any significant evidence of frugality.

There is one more problem, of course.  That neighborhood project leaves the neighborhood better off which is why the complaining generally ends when completed.  On University Avenue, the legacy will be fewer lanes, less parking, less business, gutted bus service, and of course, more traffic congestion.  I saw that several semaphores have already been modified to include those "your heart attack or burning house will have to wait" indicators.

This is a clear downgrade if not de facto destruction of the Midway.  There are no upsides.  None.  And wait until the crime shows up, like it did at the Lake Street Hiawatha station.

Quality Matters

Passing through Dallas - Fort Worth, we stopped to gawk at Cowboys Stadium in Arlington.  It was easy to imagine something comparable at the Arden Hills site.  It has abundant but convenient parking all around on this 140 acre site.  And apparently there is no public transit.  If we must have a publicly financed stadium, cannot we have something the fans really want like this?

No, the limited space downtown and DFL big city politics will control the design.  We have experience with this concept.  It's called the Metrodome uncomfortable and inadequate from year 1.  Target Field was a rare exception, a masterpiece of architecture whose designers deserve high praise for making something better than everyone had any right to expect out of one of the smallest, most awkward ballpark sites in America.  We would be foolish to expect another such rabbit to appear from the magic hat of urban planning.  That's the problem in fact: the Urban Planners are in charge.

The best way to waste money is to spend it on something you really don't want.  Whether you're buying a house, a car, or a dishwasher, it usually works that a little often more buys a lot more functionality. 

If we have to have a stadium imposed on us, I'd rather spend $100-200 million more and put it where we want it, offering tailgating like we remember it, and actually designing it for football.  The art supply stores, fair trade coffee shops, and starving artist galleries can still have the old Metrodome site, including its convenient light rail station.

Market Failure

We're on the road again, now deep in the heart of Texas near San Antonio.  We spent two nights in Branson along the way, seeing Dick Clark's Legends show and Dolly Parton's Dixie Stampede.  The latter was excellent and I think a marvelous illustration of the free market in action.  No government "artists" could possibly put together such an enjoyable and expertly executed show, including a huge dinner well above your typical dinner theater fare.  I highly recommend it.

We stay at "Super 8" class motels along the way give or take $20 a night, then stay at the upscale places at our destination.  And once again I find while you do get what you pay for in terms of beds, plumbing, and amenities, you also get Third World internet service.  I tweeted this last night, and soon saw John Hinderaker (Powerline) and Chad the Elder (Fraters Libertas) confirming my observation.

There I was in a small town in Iowa pulling down podcasts at warp speed only to wallow like a garbage scow as Scotty would say here in a major city at a national hotel chain.  It was all but dead after 9 pm last night, maybe overloaded by kids streaming.  But trying various times just to see what happens, never have I reached 150 kbps downloading, even from the Rush Limbaugh site, the fastest I know.  More typical is 50-100 kbps no matter how many Wi-Fi bars of signal strength I see.

So I put it to the group: assuming you agree with our thesis, that dollars/night is inversely proportional to bytes/second, why this obvious market failure?

Linked In

Can we agree there is a concept whose time is past if it ever was: dedicated funding, linking specific taxes to fund specific activities?  Here we are again raising taxes in a special way to fund a new Vikings stadium.  And a Target Center remodel.  Probably still more money for the Minneapolis Convention Center.  Maybe freshen up Xcel Center.  Possibly even a new Saints stadium.

But ultimately there is only one checkbook.  If one "dedicated" fund dries up, another fund is tapped, or more typically, the General Fund which is increasingly less general every session.  In the case of the Vikings stadium, the redirection precedes the new spending, diverting "dedicated" hospitality taxes from the Convention Center to the Vikings, via the Legislature to avoid (so far) the local referendum requirement of the Minneapolis City Charter.

Then we have outright slush funds like that of the Legacy Amendment.  Even the gas taxes supposedly for roads and bridges is raided for showy public transit projects and bike paths.  It's time to end the charade.  When politicians - of either party - wants to spend a perceived surplus in an unrelated fund on their pet projects, the way is always found.  Watch MInneapolis Mayor RT Rybak on Almanac this week as he dallies and he gathers and he plucks and he shines, all but lying characterizing his solution as a net tax decrease.

Maybe we need a Constitutional Amendment here.  All revenue goes into the General Fund.  Period.  In effect that will be the result of the Vikings bill.  When the gambling money comes up short as it so obviously must, the General Fund (us!) will again be saddled with the deficit.  With "structural" deficits looming in the out years, in effect the whole bill is coming out of the future General Fund, as it should in the first place, in the light of day.

City #21: Falcon Heights

Today I finished walking Falcon Heights (MN), 2.2 square miles that includes the Minnesota State Fairgrounds I have walked end to end so many times before.  It also includes much of the University of Minnesota's St. Paul campus, home of the Andrew Boss Laboratory of Meat Science!

My main focus is actually Roseville (#22) which I expanded to include nearby Lauderdale (completed December 2011) and Falcon Heights that in turn border St. Paul, city #23.  The full list is on the sidebar at the right.  Roseville is about half done and I'm hoping to finish it by the end of June.

A Taxing Solution?

In my prior post A Taxing Problem? I entertained that there may indeed be an uneven playing field between local stores (e.g. Best Buy) that must charge sales tax and remote sellers (e.g. Amazon) that generally do not.  An otherwise unlikely coalition of big retail and big government wants to "fix" this problem.  The locals won't lose business.  The government gains revenue. 

The government of course needs no additional revenue given the large amounts of money spent on mere amenities like Light Rail.  So assuming the final result is revenue neutral such as by lowering the overall tax rate, I wondered if some solution or workable compromise could be found.  After several days, I don't think so.  And revenue neutral is a non-starter in any case.

It's like when the "War Games" WOPR computer tried to find a winning global nuclear war strategy.  It concluded there was no way to win and the same is true here.  With sales taxes, the fundamental problem is jurisdiction: who "owns" the taxpayer and you know how each side will vote.

Sales taxes were born in the era when not only all politics were local, almost all commerce was as well, the exceptions being the catalog operations like Sears.  It was not designed to work across state lines, where enforcement generally stops.  It was designed for us to pay at our local Rexall drug store, Warner Hardware, or Red Owl grocery store.  The "who owns the taxpayer" question was moot.

These days, it's not even an either or, what with the various local options like the Minneapolis extra half cent, the Twins tax, the transit tax, the legacy amendment and all the extras like for the Convention Center.  There are endless situations where the taxpayer is in no way connected to what a specific levy supports. 

Life isn't always fair.  Taxes seldom are either, it seems.  And taxing the internet isn't going to change any of that.  Or save Best Buy, a company (and/or CEO) already too resistant to change.

A Taxing Problem?

In my circles, Best Buy is the big box retailer we love to hate.  We have watched dumbfounded as they outlasted Circuit City, Highland, and Ultimate Electronics, supposedly their betters.  Now it's Best Buy's turn, having to watch Wal-Mart cherry pick them while Amazon undercuts them on price, partly because online retailers do not have to charge sales tax.

Losing $ 1.2 billion last year, it will close 50 stores and eliminate 400 headquarters positions this year.  Maybe more than that many think.  Maybe a lot more some of us think. Can this big box be saved?  Or will the Internet kill them off like Blockbuster and Borders?

Best Buy has some retail 101 problems, like under-trained, overbearing salespeople.  I once sought out the manager after being hassled by no less than eight different employees each reciting the same script as I went from aisle to aisle.  Even their newest stores are, well, boxy and boring.  But even if they fixed all that, can they still overcome the sales tax disadvantage?

First off, understand that you are legally obligated to pay that tax on qualifying purchases totaling over $ 770 each year.  So, if you bought a $ 1,770 TV from Amazon, you would owe at least $ 65, to be paid with your income tax.  Yeah, right.

Second, understand that you at least have a moral problem if you shop Best Buy to pick a TV then buy it online, as Salem Radio host Dennis Prager has articulated more than once.  But even if you had your own secret showroom, the tax difference remains or so says the brick and mortar lobby.  Proposals to collect sales taxes on electronic and mail order commerce come forward from time to time, then die in committee as all tax increases should.  Many consider this a Federal problem as it actually is Interstate commerce, but Congress seems indifferent.  It gains them no money, only angry voters.

But if it could otherwise be revenue neutral, dropping the rate a little for example, would you be OK with charging sales tax on Internet purchases?  Is it truly fair the way it is now?  It's a little different with a large hometown business involved.  Chances are good that you know at least one of their employees as I do.  And it has me rethinking.

 

Annual Traditions

With spring comes the severe weather season.  As I write this I'm finally catching up with the first episode of Dancing with the Stars, from Monday March 19.  You may remember a brief but intense cell passed through, resulting in some power outages.  In fact, one of my work PC's took a hit, finally rebuilt today.  Regardless, it was very normal weather, just earlier than usual.

But of course, KSTP must shrink my HD experience by 30%, so that they can tell me I should stay indoors.  I should stay away from windows.    Why, I should even consider postponing travel until it passes!  After all, this is a severe thunderstorm warning.  And I was sure the crawl will remain until the cell is no longer a threat, like when it crosses into Michigan.  Actually no, but the control room struggled for a good two minutes before regaining the signal and then restoring full HD.

It's an annual ritual, really of little value even when North Minneapolis was torn up by the freak wind/tornado last year.  Only it's worse as I must again post in my own annual tradition.  It's crying wolf that will sooner or later cost someone, granted a foolish someone, their life.  In this age of time shifting (DVR, On Demand, Internet, ...) and smart phone apps, surely our local stations can figure out a more local, timely solution.

With Democrats Like These

On March 21, the Minneapolis Star Tribune urged their City Council to kick start the stalled Viking Stadium process by at least getting out of the way.  On March 25, dissident Council Members Betsy Hodges and Elizabeth Glidden fired back claiming the current proposal was doomed from the start.  But on March 26 we read that another Council Member was sufficiently accommodated to change her vote, giving stadium proponents the needed Council support.  And today, March 27, for the reasons Hodges and Glidden detailed, the bill is again stalled in the Legislature.

Just as many Democrats are unhappy with the DFL's leadership on this issue, many Republicans are even more nonplussed by the stadium supporters in their own ranks, like State Senator Julie Rosen.  How odd that Hodges and Glidden stated what should be the GOP position better than any Republican so far.  Let me paraphrase their many points.

1. The Stadium Bill was dead on arrival, lacking votes from the start, leadership making decisions to keep it that way.
2. Knowing that raising $600 million would be unpopular, leadership pretended they didn't have to.
3. Instead, state leaders helped themselves to Convention Center revenue and charitable gambling proceeds.
4. The sales tax portion would have landed entirely on Minneapolis, not the area or the state.
5. The financial plan had numerous "gaping holes" like over-estimation of pull-tab revenue.
6. Minneapolis voters clearly want a referendum this time.
7. The whole deal is just too big, a record setting slice of corporate welfare that otherwise neglects existing regional assets.

They imagine some conspiracy between the GOP and the Star Tribune Editorial Board is behind all this while ignoring the grandstanding and bluffs of Mark Dayton, Ted Mondale and others.  Hey, they're Democrats.  But damned if they didn't otherwise get this one just about right.

With Democrats like these, who needs Republicans to get our message out?