Influence and distance

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During my career in education:

• I had a great deal of impact on individuals as a classroom teacher.
• I had less direct impact on the entire student body and staff as a school librarian.
• I had even less direct impact on the entire school district staff and students as a technology director.
• I had still less direct impact on the entire library/education profession as a writer and speaker.

The bigger the group I was trying to teach or influence, the less the overall impact I had on individuals.

For some reason I have been thinking about this as it seems our government is crumbling. Cutting services to the poor, reversing environmental protections, lessening business oversight, turning our backs on our international allies, and no longer trying to help populations that have been historically marginalized are all actions that have made me wonder what I should be doing about these things which may not impact me directly, but will have a long term effect on my children and grandchildren and their peers.

It’s tempting to simply hunker down and believe “this too shall pass.” Take steps to personally prepare for a poor economy, an authoritarian government, and understaffed federal programs. But as Edmund Burke (and history) tells us that "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." 

So while it may have little impact when I as an individual do these things, collaboratively, enmasse, all of us who care should:

• Vote
• Contact our representatives in both the state and federal government
• Write letters to the editor
• Stay informed with credible news sources
• Donate to political parties
• Talk with others, not to persuade, but to learn

Were I younger and more energetic, I would participate in demonstrations and town hall meetings. Run for office. Attempt to influence others on social media. I leave those activities to my younger colleagues.

My circle of concern right now has grossly outgrown my circle of influence. Stephen Covey would not approve. But I will do what I can to bring them closer to alignment.

What readers are you doing to influence politics during this critical time in our country’s history?

I would make a terrible billionaire

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His servant picked up the spade and dug a grave long enough for Pahom to lie in, and buried him in it. Six feet from his head to his heels was all he needed. “How much land does a man need?” Tolstoy

Johnson's Rule for Winning at Life: Be the person in the nursing home with the best stories, not the most money.

Why does anyone making millions of dollars a year need a tax break? I sincerely do not understand this.

Congress is currently debating whether to extend Trump's tax cuts that are set to expire this year. While all taxpayers might be impacted, the richer you are, the more money you will save.

I don’t really care except that this tax cut seems to be coming at the expense of low income people: Medicaid, SNAPS, special needs students, and foreign aid recipients.

Way back when I was a high school English teacher, I had my juniors read the short story “How much land does a man need? by Leo Tolstoy. The gist of the story is that by trying to amass a huge amount of land, a peasant dies by over exerting himself. The lesson being that in the end, all the land anyone needs is enough for a grave. The classroom discussions that followed were always interesting, often revealing quite diverse values among the students. Money, service, family, leisure - what is the best thing for us to strive for in our lives.

It’s a question that in retirement I don’t need to ask myself much anymore. I long ago decided that enough income on which to live comfortably, not extravagantly, was enough. I’ve never yearned for a mansion, a yacht, a giant pickup truck, or a diamond studded Rolex. I am not envious of those with more money than I have. I value economic security, good health, positive relationships with friends and family, interesting books, and adventurous travel. 

This is not to say that I don’t in some ways empathize with those who would like the finer things in life and have the money to afford them. People do seem to enjoy their possessions. I like my “things” as well - it’s just that their value lies in the memories they stir, not how much they might bring at auction.

But to paraphrase Tolstoy, just how much money does a person need?

Here is what really puzzles me. A person with one billion dollars invested in an account that pays just 3% has an annual income of thirty million dollars. Geeze, just enough to scrape by. What this tells me, for these billionaires who are determined to lower their taxes, it isn’t about the money. Or privately redistributing the funds to good causes.

It’s about keeping score. It’s about power. It’s about compensating for insecurity. It’s about winning a game. It’s a mental illness.

And we seem to have these nut jobs now running the country.

PS. On a related subject, I am glad when businesses make good profits since the investments in my IRA tend to do well. So I am not totally lacking in empathy for those who want less regulation, lower business taxes, etc. But I don’t think the health of my mutual funds should come at the price of the health of low income people.

PSS. Should I ever win the lottery (slight chance since I never buy tickets), I would take the winnings and create a kind of universal basic income for as many of my relatives and friends as possible. A trust fund that paid out, say, $50,000 a year would, I calculate, keep a person off the streets, but not living so well they are disincentivized to work. And yes, I’d keep a little for myself as well.

Damned pennies

Each day when I was growing up, my grandmother put a coin in a small plastic piggy bank that sat on her kitchen counter. It looked somewhat like the one pictured above.

The coins were my college fund. For as long as I can remember, she insisted that I would one day attend college. And this was how she viscerally let know. When the bank was full, I would count out the change and, along with my small black account book, would head to the bank where the coins would be deposited and my balance increase. It was fun seeing the running tally rise over the years. 

By the time I graduated from high school, I had about $600 in the account - no small amount in 1970 when tuition at a state college was about $140 a trimester. I honored my grandmother’s expectations by getting not just a bachelors degree but a couple years later my masters. I was the first in my family to get a college education.

Now Granny did have one rule about adding to the fund each day. The coin deposited had to be silver - it could not be a penny. Even an entire bank full of pennies would not have amounted to much. Even in the 1950s and 60s, pennies were held in low esteem. A penny would buy you a gumball and that was about it.

While I am deeply troubled by nearly every action our current president has taken in his first few weeks in office, one initiative I can get behind is his move to stop the production of pennies which take over 3 ½ cents to make. I could get behind the elimination of nickels as well which cost nearly 14 cents to make.

Even more than the economic foolishness of continuing to make these small coins, they are simply a nuisance. I don’t remember the last time I put a penny or nickel in my pocket instead of the change or tip jar on a counter.

If Trump’s and Musk’s goal is to improve the efficiency and lower the cost of the federal government, I can get behind it. But if your windows leak, you don’t tear down your house; you fix the windows. If bureaucrats lose their jobs, fine. But if humans lose the needed services their departments provide, that’s quite another story. 

Getting rid of pennies is one thing; getting rid of entire programs that serve those in need is something quite different. I will keep looking for bright spots in the news over the next four years but I am not optimistic.