Craig's Corner

Today is Boxing Day.   It’s doesn’t involve gloves, rings or a round that start and end with a bell.   According to Wikipedia ,    it is “traditionally the day following Christmas Day when servants and tradesmen would receive gifts from their bosses or employers, known as a ‘Christmas box.’ … It is believed to be in reference to the Alms Box placed in places of worship in order to collect donations to the poor. … This custom is linked to an older English tradition: since they would have to wait on their masters on Christmas Day, the servants of the wealthy were allowed the next day to visit their families. The employers would give each servant a box to take home containing gifts and bonuses, and sometimes leftover food.”   In modern day America the day is mostly when people flock to the malls to return or exchange gifts received.   Over the past several weeks the media has feasted on “The War Against Christmas.”   It is a notion perpetuate...

200 people on an enclosed metal tube chit chatting away on cell phones is one form of purgatory.   (It might even be more effective than water boarding.)  It’s hard enough for me to endure a flight when two strangers get seated together and one tries to pick the other up…or one decides to share their life’s story with another.   Shrinking personal space between seats and the ever creative fee structure makes getting from point a to point b more and more of an endurance test.   With the acknowledgement that cell phones do not interfere with flight operations, various government agencies began hearings last week   are considering lifting the ban on phone calls.   Congress has even voted to ban the calls.       Do we really need the U.S. Government to determine whether citizens can make a phone call?   Or where it's permissible to talk?  It’s bad enough that the NSA tracks the calls, who’s call who, for how long, etc. ...

Winter Wonderland hit much of the country this past week through various storms.   The first major snow and ice-storms of the season remind commuters of the inadequacies of the transportation system.   Having driving across the US over the past couple of years I found most of the roads in pretty lousy condition.   To help remedy the situation Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.) last week announced his sponsorship of a bill to raise the gas tax 15-cents per gallon and have those funds allocated towards road and highway improvement.   This would be a near-doubling of the current   18.4 cents a gallon.   Each State, of course, adds their own tax and fee.   Alaska boasts the lowest tax at 26.4 cents while New York charges 69.6 cents, just .6 cents more than California.   Combined with the Federal tax the NY and CA more than one-quarter of the cost of a gallon of gas is going towards the fee...and it doesn’t seem to be nearly enough.   ...

On November 27, 1978 Harvey Milk and George Moscone were murdered, vaulting Diane Feinstein from a Board Supervisor to the Mayor of San Francisco.   More than a political advance, the way that she handled the issues put her in the good graces of many – and allowed her to build a moderate reputation and the respect of many constituents.   She held that position for a decade, then after a narrowly lost Gubernatorial bid, was elected Senator for California and has been reelected four times.   In the 2012 election she claimed the record for the most popular votes in any U.S. Senate election in history, having received 7.75 million votes.   I voted for her in three of the four elections and even contributed to her campaigns.   At 80 she is the oldest currently serving Senator.   Despite her popularity and positions of power within the Washington establishment – her performance this past weekend shows that her time is up. On CNN’s “ State of the Union...