Dear pals and other people, is that not one hellishly handsome birthday cake? It was delivered at Windycon, a gift from Malcolm Phifer, and the only thing that isn’t exactly right about it is that I won’t actually turn 93 until the 26th of this month. But better early than never is what I always say — or more accurately, I’ve never said it before, but now for the sake of gratitude for a kind thought I’ll say it loud and clear. Thank you, Malcolm!
In fact, I’ll go further than Malcolm or anyone at Windycon may have intended. I take this cake to be a testimonial to the fact that people who live a long time and don’t lose the ability to recognize bunkum when somebody tries to sell it to them deserve to be listened to now and then.
Me, for instance.
Through this blog and every other way I have to communicate an opinion, I’ve been urging you guys to sniff what the employees of the Koch brothers have been handing you before you swallow any of it. They spent fortune after fortune on TV ads and hired “commentators” to try to make you and the rest of the American people believe that tax cuts equal prosperity. That’s not true, and anybody who has tried to understand our country’s history knows it isn’t true.
One of the most prosperous periods our country ever had was in the years just after WWII. There were a lot of reasons for that prosperity, but cutting taxes wasn’t one of them. Our highest tax rate now is 30%. The highest tax rate then was three times that — 90%! — and the prosperity sailed on.
Does anybody really believe in such other fictions as that making drastic tax cuts for the extremely wealthy helps anyone but the same extremely wealthy? Can you imagine that Mrs. Romney would have tripped down the White House stairs to where her husband was chuckling over the latest Wall Street Journal and said, “Oh, darling, thank you for that new tax cut. Now I can afford that fourth Cadillac, and maybe you won’t have to put Detroit in bankruptcy!”
Well, it isn’t good form to kick people when they’re down, although with all that money I can’t feel real sorry for the man. It’s an enjoyable sport, but I’m going to turn to other subjects, including a few ideas that I’ve been turning over in my mind.
For instance, there are a few hundred people scattered around the world who get up early every morning to try to save some of our wildlife. They check the ground around every skyscraper to take away the dozens, sometimes hundreds, of bodies of songbirds that have committed suicide during the night by flying head-on into the banks of fiercely bright lights aimed at the sky in almost every tall building. (If the seekers are very lucky, they may find a few birds that can be saved.)
So what do we do about it? We (1) create a tax on high-up lighting above a certain brightness which (2) gets more expensive every year, thus giving landlords time to make changes to lower the tax, at the same time (3) making our cities less deadly to wildlife as well as (4) slowing down the yearly increase in burning oil, coal and natural gas to generate electricity that has been increasing the carbon loading on the atmosphere and currently getting worse every year, and — oh, yeah (5), giving our mayors, governors and presidents what they’ve all been looking for so desperately, something new to tax.
You’re welcome,
Fred
Marte says:
Be of good cheer. The Koch brothers got caught sending the big bucks to meddle in California politics, and they did it through a couple of shell organizations. Which makes it money laundering. Which makes it a federal crime. The California attorney general (a Democrat like all other major California officeholders) has steam coming out her ears, and soon enough the rest of us are going to be able to sit back and watch the fur fly.
November 14, 2012, 7:28 pmLeRoy Pearle says:
Happy birthday to you! A friend of mine a while ago asked me whatever happened to those good old fashioned liberal science fiction authors, the kind who actually thought and wrote about a better future. I sent him a link to here.
November 14, 2012, 10:04 pmPaul Wolf says:
Dear Mr. Pohl,
I hope it’s a happy one (your birthday, that is)! And thanks for your thoughts and observations.
Paul
November 14, 2012, 11:43 pmStefan Jones says:
Happy Birthday in advance!
The real winner in this election was the Reality Based Community. The shock of losing seems to have thrown the conservative establishment for a loop.
Of course, we’ve got Romney telling his donors that Obama bribed his way into office with social aid programs . . . and nutters signing petitions for their states to secede . . . but the equanimity of the GOP has been shattered.
Hell, Grover Norquist actually suggested that a Carbon Tax might be a feasible and acceptable replacement for the income tax. Can you imagine?
I am hoping that the House leadership is looking for a way to save face.
November 15, 2012, 12:31 amGreg Costikyan says:
Once found a dead bat on the sidewalk in front of WTC 7. Pre-9/11, obviously. Saddening, though.
November 15, 2012, 3:08 amEtienne says:
Happy birthday mister Pohl!
Your idea seems very interesting, I’m going to check if we don’t have something like this in France, and we don’t, I’ll add it to my bag of wilderness-preserving-proposals !
November 15, 2012, 6:14 amSteve Davidson says:
Happy almost-birthday Fred.
For the record, I’ve been listening to you for at least 40 years. Receiving both entertainment AND insight.
November 15, 2012, 8:08 amWalt G says:
Happy birthday, Fred Pohl! You’ve given me much joy over many of those years.
November 15, 2012, 2:32 pmLars says:
Happy Birthday, Fred!
And there’s nothing wrong with kicking a man when he’s down, if it helps to keep him there.
November 15, 2012, 3:26 pmNestor says:
Happy birthday in advance, Mr. Pohl!
November 15, 2012, 5:21 pmJohn Traylor says:
Happy Birthday Fred and keep fighting the good fight.
November 15, 2012, 9:20 pmJim Flanagan says:
Fred
It was a privilege and a joy to share some of your cake Saturday. Happy early Birthday.
Also, Thank you for many years of both entertaining and enlightening reading.
Jim
November 16, 2012, 12:18 amH. E. Parmer says:
Happy almost-birthday, Fred!
Don’t worry: When it comes to this poster boy for oblivious, arrogant plutocracy and his soooper-genius sidekick I think a little schadenfreude is justly merited.
Besides, nobody needs to feel bad for Romney. He’s had his vanity campaign; even though he’s been rejected by all us moochers and parasites, he’s still got that $100 million IRA and whatever else he’s stashed away in Cuckoo Clock Land and the Caymans to console himself. (The rest of us should be so afflicted.) And Ryan is what passes for an intellectual in those circles: Whenever his congressional career fizzles, I’m sure he has a lifetime place reserved at the Right Wing welfare trough.
I have to admit, though, the blame-fest has also been great entertainment. So go ahead, enjoy!
November 16, 2012, 2:17 amWalter says:
Happy birthday, Fred.
Thank you for this blog, for the fannish history, for the
November 16, 2012, 10:14 ampolitical insight, for the science, for the ideas and bits
of opinion. Comfort, strength and happiness to you and yours.
Dan Gollub says:
How close is the technology which could create holograms of falcons or other predators to warn off birds from buildings?
November 16, 2012, 3:05 pmAnother way to help animals is the following. Fireflies tend to die off when their habitat is destroyed because they don’t seek new habitat. Perhaps a gene could be identified which would provide a dispersal inclination and perhaps fireflies could be mutated in this manner.
Scott says:
Happy birthday, Fred. Your writing has been a continuing source of joy and wisdom for decades.
November 16, 2012, 3:33 pmAce Lightning says:
Happy Birthday, Mr. Pohl! As I’ve mentioned before, I’ve been reading your writing for all but the first couple of years of my life – and I’ll turn 65 a couple of weeks after your birthday. May you enjoy many more beautiful and delicious birthday cakes, and thus many more beautiful and delicious birthdays!
About the tax on bright lights on skyscrapers, though. I sympathize with those who look for birds to rescue… but beams of light in the sky *are* beautiful and dramatic to look at. Perhaps there’s another way to create visual appeal, one that doesn’t confuse birds to death (nor require enormous amounts of electricity), which could be encouraged with a tax *credit*?
November 16, 2012, 5:42 pmBill Higgins-- Beam Jockey says:
I must say that Malcolm Phifer’s cake was the most delicious 93rd-birthday cake I have ever tasted.
November 16, 2012, 7:09 pmRichard Horton says:
“Astronomers world-wide are concerned with the disappearing stars in the night sky due to increasing skyglow from uncontrolled urban uplight.”
November 17, 2012, 6:20 pmMary Rose says:
Happy birthday, Mr. Pohl. You are a true treasure. You and James Gunn are two of my heroes! Be well -
November 26, 2012, 2:45 pm