State of Cape Cod

As the Song Goes, Don't Blame Me

“The federal indictment of former Massachusetts House Speaker Sal DiMasi — the latest, if convicted, in a long line of elected servants who have violated the public trust — is an indictment of every one of us…”

So began the lead editorial in the Saturday, June 13, 2009 issue of the Cape Cod Times. Well, Times, if you want to accept a share of the blame for the alleged misdeeds of Mr. DiMasi, or any other politician, then beat your breast all you like. Most of the rest of us will plead not guilty, thank you.

Not that there isn’t plenty of blame to go around, but in the end there is still, or should be, something called personal accountability. So Mr. DiMasi must face his tribulations on his own despite what we may presume are the well intentioned efforts of our local media to mitigate his responsibility. So, while no one else is truly responsible for the misdeeds of another, it is not beyond the realm of possibility that we, the voters of Massachusetts, are guilty of placing them, and keeping them, in temptations orbit.

There are many examples of instances where the legislature, our alleged representatives, were sent clear and distinct messages from the voters, and wilfully ignored them. Here are a few, in no particular order.

There is the overwhelming vote to roll back the state income tax to 5%. If you recall, Mr. Dukakis, noted tank commander, raised it as a temporary measure. Here is a direct quote from devalpatrick.com: “In 2000 the voters of the Commonwealth voted to roll-back the income tax to 5%, the level of taxation prior to Mike Dukakis' "temporary" increase. The legislature has not allowed this to happen. “

Were all, or any one, of those legislators who blocked the will of the voters sent packing at the next election? Not on your life. Or, if a few were replaced, you can rest assured it was by someone who takes orders from the same party leaders.

Of course, the more recent gay marriage fiasco is fresh in our minds. Everyone who circumvented our opportunity to vote on the issue should have been summarily impeached, let alone voted out of office at the next election. And what happened to the death penalty? Did the legislators who voted it down no less than three times in a five year span get voted out? You know better.

Then there are our own local pols, Mr. O’Leary and Mr. Turner, who voted to Keep Evacuation Day and Bunker Hill Day as holidays for a select few, and then offered weak explanations for doing so. Do you think there will be a hue and cry to unseat them when the time comes?

The editorial makes a number of accusations which are supposed to illustrate our culpability for official corruption. This is a palpably naive attempt to prove a point which, while idealistically appealing, has no basis in reality. Discussing each and every one of these blame-boosters would be an exercise in futility: a look at a representative few, however, might be enlightening. Here are those of us who the paper claims are responsible for official corruption, along with some opinions on this conclusion.

“those of us who fail to vote and wonder why there is little accountability.” There are several things wrong with this way of thinking. For one thing, we have the right to vote, not an obligation to vote. For another, by not voting we are, in fact, still expressing an opinion. Abstaining is, in a real sense, a vote. Don't legislators do it all the time? Perhaps neither candidate appeals to us. Why should anyone be forced to choose between two people he dislikes? Maybe some voters genuinely don’t care who wins. Voting just to cast a ballot accomplishes nothing for the country, and could skew the results. Most importantly, there are some people who honestly don’t know much about the candidates and feel unqualified to make an intelligent choice. These people should be praised for not voting.

“Those of us in school departments who hire a friend over a more qualified applicant;” or “Those of us in town government who treat a friend more favorably than another citizen;” Isn’t this what Affirmative Action is all about? Haven’t we been told that this is a good thing? Doesn’t the Cape Cod Times support Affirmative Action? The Supreme Court does.

“The next time you get disgusted about how our government works, and want to find the source of the problem, take a look in the mirror.”  What we ought to do is, next time we get disgusted about how government works, check through back issues of the newspaper in the candidates' districts and see if the official(s) in question were backed by that editor. Then we'd know where a share of the blame really lies.

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It's past time to dress up the old pastime…

Every sport needs serious Spring Cleaning

Let's shove politics, regionalization, taxes, crime, and the like into the background. It's time to deal with something really important.

After near-record snow falls and seemingly endless days of freezing temperatures, we are approaching the heart of yet another baseball season. Here it is, the middle of May, with the new pennant chase in full sway and the Cape Cod League not far behind. Unfortunately, amid the excitement of a new and promising campaign, a few things that seriously detract from the sport of baseball are painfully obvious. In a word, steroid scandals aside, the game itself is often very long and boring, and the officiating stinks.

The outcome of nearly every contest, in every sport, is too often controlled by the officials. In football, for instance, a penalty could be called on every play. There are so many rules and so many players on the field that it's impossible for an official not to see multiple infractions as each play progresses. Usually the doctrine of ‘No Harm, No Foul' prevails and the game is allowed to continue with relatively few interruptions, but there are too many instances where non-calls, wrong calls, or unnecessary calls can ruin games and change outcomes.

Basketball is out of control. Travelling, palming the ball, and hard contact occur constantly while infractions are called selectively, erroneously, or not at all. Isn't it odd that the home team routinely shoots more foul shots than the visitors? Don't visiting players foul out more often than those on the home team?

Expulsion after five fouls (six in the pros) should be eliminated. It isn't fair to the fans nor the teams. If memory serves, in the old ABA, after a player committed his sixth foul he stayed in the game but the team which was fouled retained possession of the ball after the free throws. It made for a better game. After all, if you paid big bucks to see a Paul Pierce or a Kobe Bryant perform, you don't want to watch him sitting on the bench with four or five fouls for most of the game.

Hockey is beyond mentioning. To the great detriment of the game, violence, condoned by the officials and beloved by the fans, has replaced skillful play despite occasional lip service to the contrary. As the saying goes, not without a grain of truth, "I went to the fights and a hockey game broke out."

Baseball has no instant replay and it's the only game in which one rule in particular is willfully ignored. Each umpire has his own strike zone. Everyone, fan and player alike, knows it and accepts it, even though an official strike zone is clearly and precisely spelled out in the rule book:" the strike zone extends from the batter's knees to the letters across the front of his uniform. To be called a strike, the pitcher must throw the baseball across home plate, an area 17 inches wide (0.4318 meters), and between the knees and letters as indicated."

While the height varies with the size of each individual batter, the width of the strike zone never changes. Today's technology could easily determine the position of the ball as it crosses home plate in relation to both the vertical and horizontal parameters of the zone. This would guarantee absolute consistency. Along with instant replay for all questionable play calls, it's high time organized baseball allowed balls and strikes to be determined electronically, at least in the major leagues and the high minors.

Die hard fans, local players, and coaches of my acquaintance won't accept these changes. They cite such nebulous nonsense as tradition, the human element, and the charm of the status quo. If baseball nabobs do nothing else they should implement at least this singular change. Everyone should play every game to the same standard. It would make pitching and batting statistics much more meaningful and each victory and defeat would be achieved under the same conditions. The outcomes would be far less controversial.

There are other, more or less minor, changes which would help make things more interesting. To relieve the boredom of four-hour games, for example, time-outs should be strictly limited. Every other sport does it: why not baseball?

We don't need those tedious conferences at the mound. Imagine a football coach walking out onto the field, talking to his quarterback for a while, then taking the ball from him and waiting until the replacement he summoned gets onto the field. Think of sitting there while that substitute player warmed up before the game could continue. In the same vein, no hitter should be allowed to step out of the batter's box once he enters it. There should also be a clock on the delivery of the ball to the plate by the pitcher.

The showpiece of the improvements would be the conversion to two platoon baseball - a major innovation whose time has come. The defensive team would consist of eight position players. That much is obvious. Except for a few exceptional two-way athletes, they need never come to bat. The offensive squad consists of six batters. Three men could be on base at one time, and three would always be ready to hit.

Since potential steals would add to the excitement of the game, pinch runners could be used at will with the batter for whom they ran remaining in the game. Pitchers, once removed from the game, would not be allowed back, in order to avoid constant righty-lefty pitching changes, which could actually lengthen games.

There it is. A relatively simple formula for taking the former national pastime out of the dark ages and into the Twenty-first Century. The term ‘former' is used advisedly. Baseball, once indisputably number one on the American sports scene, has been eclipsed in popularity by football. If attendance and television viewing statistics are any indication, golf and NASCAR auto racing will soon outdraw baseball as well, if they haven't already. If efficiency and excitement are not sufficient reason for making changes, declining popularity indicates that it's past time to dress the old pastime up a bit.

Keeping admission, refreshment and parking prices affordable for families wouldn't hurt, either, but that's for another time and applies not only to baseball but to all sports on the major league level.Let's shove politics, regionalization, taxes, crime, and the like into the background. It's time to deal with something really important. After near-record snow falls and seemingly endless days of freezing temperatures, we are approaching the heart of yet another baseball season. Here it is, the middle of May, with the new pennant chase in full sway and the Cape Cod League not far behind. Unfortunately, amid the excitement of a new and promising campaign, a few things that seriously detract from the sport of baseball are painfully obvious. In a word, steroid scandals aside, the game itself is often very long and boring, and the officiating stinks.

The outcome of nearly every contest, in every sport, is too often controlled by the officials. In football, for instance, a penalty could be called on every play. There are so many rules and so many players on the field that it's impossible for an official not to see multiple infractions as each play progresses. Usually the doctrine of ‘No Harm, No Foul' prevails and the game is allowed to continue with relatively few interruptions, but there are too many instances where non-calls, wrong calls, or unnecessary calls can ruin games and change outcomes.

Basketball is out of control. Travelling, palming the ball, and hard contact occur constantly while infractions are called selectively, erroneously, or not at all. Isn't it odd that the home team routinely shoots more foul shots than the visitors? Don't visiting players foul out more often than those on the home team?

Expulsion after five fouls (six in the pros) should be eliminated. It isn't fair to the fans nor the teams. If memory serves, in the old ABA, after a player committed his sixth foul he stayed in the game but the team which was fouled retained possession of the ball after the free throws. It made for a better game. After all, if you paid big bucks to see a Paul Pierce or a Kobe Bryant perform, you don't want to watch him sitting on the bench with four or five fouls for most of the game.

Hockey is beyond mentioning. To the great detriment of the game, violence, condoned by the officials and beloved by the fans, has replaced skillful play despite occasional lip service to the contrary. As the saying goes, not without a grain of truth, "I went to the fights and a hockey game broke out."

Baseball has no instant replay and it's the only game in which one rule in particular is willfully ignored. Each umpire has his own strike zone. Everyone, fan and player alike, knows it and accepts it, even though an official strike zone is clearly and precisely spelled out in the rule book:" the strike zone extends from the batter's knees to the letters across the front of his uniform. To be called a strike, the pitcher must throw the baseball across home plate, an area 17 inches wide (0.4318 meters), and between the knees and letters as indicated."

While the height varies with the size of each individual batter, the width of the strike zone never changes. Today's technology could easily determine the position of the ball as it crosses home plate in relation to both the vertical and horizontal parameters of the zone. This would guarantee absolute consistency. Along with instant replay for all questionable play calls, it's high time organized baseball allowed balls and strikes to be determined electronically, at least in the major leagues and the high minors.

Die hard fans, local players, and coaches of my acquaintance won't accept these changes. They cite such nebulous nonsense as tradition, the human element, and the charm of the status quo. If baseball nabobs do nothing else they should implement at least this singular change. Everyone should play every game to the same standard. It would make pitching and batting statistics much more meaningful and each victory and defeat would be achieved under the same conditions. The outcomes would be far less controversial.

There are other, more or less minor, changes which would help make things more interesting. To relieve the boredom of four-hour games, for example, time-outs should be strictly limited. Every other sport does it: why not baseball?

We don't need those tedious conferences at the mound. Imagine a football coach walking out onto the field, talking to his quarterback for a while, then taking the ball from him and waiting until the replacement he summoned gets onto the field. Think of sitting there while that substitute player warmed up before the game could continue. In the same vein, no hitter should be allowed to step out of the batter's box once he enters it. There should also be a clock on the delivery of the ball to the plate by the pitcher.

The showpiece of the improvements would be the conversion to two platoon baseball - a major innovation whose time has come. The defensive team would consist of eight position players. That much is obvious. Except for a few exceptional two-way athletes, they need never come to bat. The offensive squad consists of six batters. Three men could be on base at one time, and three would always be ready to hit.

Since potential steals would add to the excitement of the game, pinch runners could be used at will with the batter for whom they ran remaining in the game. Pitchers, once removed from the game, would not be allowed back, in order to avoid constant righty-lefty pitching changes, which could actually lengthen games.

There it is. A relatively simple formula for taking the former national pastime out of the dark ages and into the Twenty-first Century. The term ‘former' is used advisedly. Baseball, once indisputably number one on the American sports scene, has been eclipsed in popularity by football. If attendance and television viewing statistics are any indication, golf and NASCAR auto racing will soon outdraw baseball as well, if they haven't already. If efficiency and excitement are not sufficient reason for making changes, declining popularity indicates that it's past time to dress the old pastime up a bit.

Keeping admission, refreshment and parking prices affordable for families wouldn't hurt, either, but that's for another time and applies not only to baseball but to all sports on the major league level.
_______________________

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You Can't Win, But Try

This morning I caught someone in a lie. I got a call from a telemarketer. A home grown Cape Cod salesperson interrupting my breakfast. Not a representative of a large national company, nor one of those recorded, computerized messages which are especially vexing. After all, what good is recommending some rather difficult and somewhat unusual autoerotic acrobatics to a machine? With a machine, perhaps, but not to a machine. Make no mistake, I do so anyway, in very colorful and unambiguous Anglo-Saxon terminology, on the off chance that it will enliven the drab existence of anyone who might be charged with the unfortunate task of reviewing those responses.

But I digress. This morning’s call came from a local real estate agent. The phone rang and was politely answered, as is my habit until the identity and mission of the caller is ascertained. At that point there was no reason to suspect that a despicable liar was on the other end. The reprehensible individual proceeded to identify herself by name as a Cape Cod real estate agent who wanted to let me know that she had just sold the house down the street.

Alarms sounded. This was not a social call but a commercial communication - the kind that, if it were an email, would immediately and automatically be relegated to the Trash by my trusty Macintosh. In short, this message was Telephonic Spam. A telemarketer. Male bovine excrement personified. Not to be treated seriously but to be given the short shrift these rude communications so justly deserve.

After duly informing this perjurer (I know she wasn’t technically under oath but she might as well have been) that I had absolutely no interest in the changing ownership of any of the houses on my street unless Michael Vick was moving in and had been granted a kennel license. I demanded to know why this woman was calling someone who is listed on the Federal Do Not Call List. And then, at that precise moment, the prevarication sprang remorselessly from her venomous lips. “Your wife is on the Do Not Call List,” she lied, “but you are not.”

The clanging alarm bells were reinforced by wailing sirens. Could the list really be composed of names? How is that possible? A caller could not know who was going to answer the phone. Wouldn’t the mere attempt to call a listed phone by a telemarketer constitute a violation of the rules? It is, after all, called the ‘Do Not Call’ list, not the ‘If A Stranger Answers Hang Up’ list. Rather than names, the Do Not Call list has to be made up of phone numbers that telemarketers are forbidden to call. Nothing else would make sense. Time to boot up Google and find out.

First, the Massachusetts Do Not Call list. I typed in my phone number and got this message: “Your phone number is on the Do Not Call list effective 04/01/2003.” So much for “your wife is on it but you’re not.” An outright lie. Unless the federal list showed otherwise. So I opened the National Do Not Call list and learned that my number, not my name nor my wife’s name, was registered. So I checked to see whether any sort of renewal was required and got this message, “Telephone numbers on the registry will only be removed when they are disconnected and reassigned, or when the consumer chooses to remove a number from the registry.” 

So there it was. The lie was confirmed. But what to do about it? The first step was to find out who might be exempt from the strictures of the Do Not Call list. It turns out that there are lots of exemptions, maybe enough to make the list meaningless.

To quote the site, Calls from or on behalf of political organizations, charities, and telephone surveyors would still be permitted, as would calls from companies with which you have an existing business relationship, or those to whom you’ve provided express agreement in writing to receive their calls. Be careful to uncheck those little boxes at the bottom of the order blank when you buy something online.

Lots of leeway there, as you can see. You can get the details at their web sites, but there are plenty of loopholes. Political organizations alone opens a can of worms. “Hello. I’m backing John Schlub for School Committee and I want you to know that Defunct Autos is having a sale on new Yugos this month.” One need to just mention a political affiliation, no matter how nebulous, and the call is legitimate.

The same is true of all the other exempted categories. In the case of my call, all the lying woman had to do was to couch her call in terms of a survey. “Hello. I’m taking a survey. Did you know the house down the street from you at number 666 has been sold?”

As for companies with whom you have a business relationship? For me, that extends from Apple Computer to the Zinnia Growers of America. I made that last one up because I can’t think of any firm that begins with a ‘Z’ right now, but I’m sure there’s one or two out there. The point is, almost anyone who wants to annoy you can legitimately interrupt your dinner, favorite TV show, romantic interlude, whatever, by trying to sell you something over the phone.

Verizon abuses the system all the time. They constantly call with pitches for new products and services. Because I do business with them in that they provide my phone and internet service, they’re covered, even though their calls have nothing at all to do with those products and are merely blatant attempts to sell me something.

The system needs revising. If you choose to place your phone number on a Do Not Call list then no telephone solicitors should be permitted to call you at any time. Period. Political organizations, businesses, charitable groups, surveyors, solicitors of any kind should be required to make their pitches by mail, giving you the option of sending the missives directly to the trash. Before you say it, Caller ID is no help whatsoever. There are more exceptions to that service than to the Do Not Call charade.

But that’s a matter for another time. For the present, let’s deal with the telemarketers. Three simple rules govern my responses. If it’s a real person, abuse the hell out of them. I know the poor sap is only doing his job, but he’s the available target, he knew and accepted the risks, so blast him. If it’s a machine, do the same thing in the hope that someone will get the message, then leave the phone off the hook to run up the caller’s phone bill. And always, always, report abuses. There’s a better than excellent chance that nothing will happen, even in the unlikely even that your complaint ever gets seen by a human being, but do it anyway. Maybe the message will get through. Remember, though, that these are agencies of the government, an organization justifiably notorious for its inefficiency and self serving lack of concern for its citizens. Don’t expect anything but more frustration, but try anyway.

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Encouraging the Free Flow of (Mis)Information?

On Monday, March 16, the Cape Cod Times ran an Op Ed Piece entitled The Right to Public Information by one George B. Irish, vice chairman of the Newspaper Association of America and vice resident of The Hearst Foundations. As misnomers go, this is near the top of the list. I could find no link to this piece on the Times' web site, hence could post none.

The article advocates passage of the Free Flow of Information Act, a federal law which would protect “journalists” from being forced to reveal their sources, should they decline to do so. Mr. Irish claims that this legislation would be in keeping with a memo issued by President Obama in which he urges federal agencies to make more information publicly accessible. How, one wonders, does legalizing  the concealment of information encourage the free flow thereof?

The source from which the information was obtained, even the manner in which it was gathered, is just as important as the information itself. To quote Mr. Irish, “Reporters are losing their freedom and being threatened by fines merely for keeping their promise to protect their sources.” To put it bluntly, if they don’t have to reveal their sources, how do we know the source is reliable and, in extreme cases, if there really is a source?

The argument in favor of providing this protection is that “vital” information, which can only be obtained from sources to whom anonymity is guaranteed, will dry up. Fear of retribution might be the principal reason for the reluctance of informants to disclose their identities. Some might speculate that reporters, informants, or both, might be embarrassed at revealing themselves to be unethical individuals. The reporters, of course, claim that “they’re only doing it for the public", in order that we might be better informed than we might otherwise be. They’re all heart, aren’t they?

As it has in the past, the Cape Cod Times supports this really bad idea. One consequence of this legislation would be to render news media personnel immune from prosecution should they, intentionally or otherwise, file stories which are, shall we say, less than accurate. It could also protect undisclosed informants from investigation and possible prosecution should their information prove libelous, slanderous, or otherwise actionable.

News reporters should be required to provide the courts and law enforcement officials with the sources of any story that plays a role in any potential civil or criminal case. Protecting informants makes it too easy for unscrupulous media outlets and personnel, and they do exist, to embellish, even fabricate stories out of thin air, and pass them off as factual. If reporters are to be protected from prosecution or contempt charges for concealing the source of a story, how is anyone to know if there really is a source? Or a story? Think it can't happen? Here are some brief examples from the Disgraced Journalists Club by Eric Gillin. Check out his entire article for more details on these and other examples:

Janet Cooke won the Pulitzer Prize in 1981 while at the Washington Post for writing a very touching tale about an 8-year-old heroin addict. It turned out she made it up. Cooke resigned and found work at the counter of a Michigan department store.

Jonathan Broder, whose nomination for the Pulitzer in 1987 was withdrawn by his employer, the Chicago Tribune, resigned after a story about the West Bank contained passages and phrases from a similar account by Joel Greenberg of the Jerusalem Post. His career did not suffer any serious consequences as a result of his perfidy.

Stephen Glass masterminded the fabrication of many stories. In order to pass off his fiction as fact he "documented" his tales with false web sites and phone numbers. He ultimately profited from his duplicity. Hollywood turned it into a movie called (don’t choke) Shattered Glass starring Hayden Christianson as the perpetrator.

Doris Kearns Goodwin was accused in a story by the Weekly Standard of writing an article that borrowed passages from three different authors. That narative eventually found its way into The Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys, her opus on the presidential family. As a result she resigned her position on the Pulitzer committee. Her career, too, has been all but unaffected.

Patricia Smith, an African American, resigned from the Boston Globe after she admitted to making up most or all of four different columns. Some felt a double standard came into play because the Globe had protected Mike Barnicle, a white and politically connected columnist, from similar charges of plagiarism. The paper changed its position after a review showed that Mr. Barnicle “borrowed” jokes from George Carlin's book Brain Droppings, and may have fabricated a column about two cancer-stricken boys.

Julie Amparano was fired by the Arizona Republic for suspicion of fabricating sources. She denied the accusations.

Jayson Blair lifted sources and quotes from other reporters, and exaggerated others, while covering a wide variety of assignments for the New York Times over a period of years.
   
There have been many notorious as well as less well known incidents of plagiarism, embellishment, and out-and-out fiction passed off as news. These are just a very few of which we have knowledge. There was CBS’ Dan Rather and the forged documents on former President G. W. Bush’s National Guard service. Newsweek published a story, later proven to be false, about a Koran-flushing incident at Guantanomo. It must be assumed that the known cases are only the tip of the proverbial iceberg. It's reasonable to surmise that many have gone undetected.

At best, a shield law allows a journalist to get away with shoddy and careless research. At its worst it permits an unprincipled journalist to write whatever he pleases, on anything that might further his career or promote his particular agenda, and to easily avoid penalties by quoting an "anonymous source". If his material is later proven to be untrue the reporter need only claim that he was misled by someone who must remain unknown, and he’s off the hook.

A shield law will make it possible for an unscrupulous newsperson, indeed, perhaps anyone, to publicly accuse someone of any misdeed with impunity. The Sixth Amendment to our Constitution guarantees the accused the right to face, and challenge, his accuser. It isn’t hard to conceive of a circumstance in which an individual might be denied that constitutional right because a reporter who villified him in print can legally withhold the identity of that accuser.

With all of this in mind, remember: whatever the story, just because you read it in print, hear it on the radio, or see it on TV or the internet (is a blogger a journalist?), treat it with the utmost skepticism. Unless the reporter takes it upon himself to provide unassailable documentation, there will be no way to know if you’re being fed fact or fiction. If we’re going to shield the media from the law, who’s going to protect the rest of us from the media?

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It Only Gets Worse!

The tax situation, that is. We are in a recession, a deep one. The worst in eighty years. The economy hasn’t been this bad since the Great Depression of 1929. Or so we are told. Constantly. From every side. By government officials. By the media. By Big Business. Jobs are being lost. Homes are being foreclosed. Spending is diminishing. Retirement accounts are shrinking. Cars are sitting on dealer’s lots, unsold. Businesses of all types are suffering.

Services are being cut. Education is feeling the pinch. Even police and fire protection is not immune. Money is tight. Our esteemed national leaders have passed a humongous stimulus package. They have committed to pump some 780 billion dollars into the economy to help people pay their debts, save their homes and begin spending again. And yet, the picture appears to be skewed.

Government at every level is tightening its figurative belt. Around our necks, it appears. Right here in the premier revenue gathering region of the nation, the Commonwealth of Taxachusetts, amid all the weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth over the dire straits in which the economy finds itself, nearly all of our state legislators recently accepted an automatic raise and proposals for new taxes abound. Officials, from the president on down, who are pouring money into the economy with one hand, are raking it back with the other.  Talk about blood from stones!

Our governor, Tax ’em All Duval, in the face of already high gasoline prices, with the spring and summer driving season and its inevitable increases on the horizon, has proposed driving (pun intended) another stake into the heart of the citizens as well as the tourism industry so vital to the Cape’s economic welfare. He wants to raise the tax on that necessary commodity by nineteen cents, to the highest in the country. It’s either that, he tells us, or higher tolls on our roads but, in an unparalleled gesture of magnanimity, he promises not to increase both. Why, despite indications to the contrary, and with a new SUV purchased by the state for his use, the man appears to have a heart after all! Then there’s that little notion of putting an electronic chip in our inspection stickers to keep track of the miles we drive so they, too, can be taxed. Otherwise, to quote Mr. Clinton, he feels our pain. Or, perhaps more accurately, he is our pain. No need to specify the locale.

Let’s not forget the bill before the legislature that would impose a five cent tax on plastic bags at the supermarket, to rise to fifteen cents by 2014. There’s so much wrong with this that one hardly knows where to begin. Only a fool, or a politician, would have no compunction about adding another nickel per bag to a grocery bill that’s already risen steeply and shows no sign of reversing that trend. The rationale? Why, the environment, of course. That being the case, the alleged problem is already being addressed by various activist organizations. Reusable cloth bags are available at most supermarkets, although a more rational approach, if the government is truly concerned about the deleterious effects of plastic rather than simply vacuuming in more cash, would be to simply ban them rather than tax them. Or, perhaps, using reward instead of punishment as an incentive, give a discount to shoppers who provide their own bags. Then again, who can imagine our exalted rulers foregoing a tax in order to promote the public good? Look at cigarets.

One unanticipated effect of eliminating “free” bags would be its effect on garbage disposal. Many of us use the grocery bags to pack up trash. A paper grocery bag standing on the floor makes a very utilitarian disposable waste basket, as does a plastic one hanging from a knob on a kitchen cabinet. If they were to become unavailable, what would replace them? Would we have to buy small bags in which to store of our trash until it was time to pack it up in that big thirty gallon sucker in the garage? Or will that fall into disfavor, too, forcing us to revert to the old days and just toss our refuse, loose and unwrapped, into the garbage can for the trash collectors or dump personnel to deal with? Whatever our leaders, in their self proclaimed but otherwise undetectable wisdom decide, it’s sure to cost us more.

Also in the hopper is the meals tax. We already pay five percent on restaurant meals, or so we are told. That isn’t the literal truth in that it doesn’t apply, as you might suppose, only to eating places where you sit down and are served a meal. That tax is collected on just about any prepared food, from a large list of establishments that provide such fare, including but not limited to restaurants, vending machines, pushcarts, supermarket delis, and many, many more, either for on-premises consumption or take-out. The new proposal would, among other things, expand the list of taxable items to things like beer and candy, as if they weren’t foods. The carrot concealing the hook in this bait is that towns would be allowed to impose an aditional tax for themselves if they so chose. Here on the Cape, the knee jerk reaction might be to grab the bait in the belief that the tourists will wind up paying it. Only afterward will we feel the hook in our own throats.

Not only might it have a negative effect on tourism, take a moment to consider what we who live here regularly consume on which we’d be liable for this tax. Don’t think only in terms of sit down restaurants. Give a thought to that cup of coffee you pick up on the way to work. The pizza you take home occasionally. Fast food establishments of all kinds. Sandwich shops. Ready to eat deli items from the supermarket and convenience stores. Just about everything you don’t actually prepare or cook yourself is taxed. The list is, almost literally, endless and an increase would effect nearly all Cape Codders as well as visitors, particularly in the off season.

So if you find yourself thinking any proposed new revenue is just a small item and is not a bad thing after all, think again. Maybe you believe it will ’help the environment’ or ‘it’s for our own good’. If something is truly harmful, to people or the planet, ban it. To keep it around and make money on it, like cigarets, is beyond hypocrisy. If you think someone else will bear the brunt of the tax, forget it. There are so many tax proposals out there that few, if any, will miss you. If you feel that politicians truly act out of a deep regard for your well being, wake up. All they care about, beyond getting elected and reaping the perks of their office, is getting reelected, for the same reason.

What we desperately need are term limits. Since no legislature is going to put such a restraint upon its own members, maybe there should be a political party dedicated to voting out all incumbents, at every election, regardless of party affiliation. They must be reminded that they serve at our pleasure, and we ain’t very pleased right now. In the meantime, it’s our collective duty to do what we can to defeat any new tax bill that comes along. In the words of the immortal Dean Martin, “Keep those cards and letters coming!”

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