Taxation, with Representation

Here in South Carolina the state tax on a gallon of gas is not quite twenty-one cents. Pull in to refuel your 2006 Chevy Silverado or your 2016 BMW X5 and the state tax per gallon is the same. We drivers are using the same roads, so fair and square all the way around most would think.

By the way, this tax is a regressive tax, which means the tax is not set upon the economic ability to pay. But I am headed elsewhere topic-wise in this post.

Imagine for a moment that our state legislature decided by law that your primary vehicle—you only get one—would pay a tax of 16 cents per gallon and other vehicles, and commercial and leased vehicles, would pay 24 cents on the same gallon.

I’m thinking a lot of folks would cry foul, not fair, or they can’t do that. Well of course they can.

My property tax on my home—my principal residence—here in Spartanburg County is as mandated by state law 4%. For simplicity’s sake, I’m setting aside Fair Market Value and millage rates.

My property tax on a rental house I own in Dorchester County is set at 6%. Glance back at my state gasoline tax example. See, it can be done.

To keep the math simple, the tax on $100,000 owner-occupied house is $400, $600 when a rental. So, in effect, renters are subsidizing homeowners. (The landlord-owner isn’t covering the difference most likely.) Nice.

Well, if you are the homeowner across the street from a renter. Imagine both have 2 kids in the local public schools. The renter is kicking in 50% more than the homeowner. Nice.

So the tax rate turns on your willingness to be a homeowner or—here the kicker—your financial ability to be a homeowner. Nice.

Renters…. I’m thinking. College kids living off campus, folks waiting for a home to be built, the poor, people transferred into an unfamiliar location and cautious about buying until they get the lay of the land, the elderly who may not be able to maintain a property, twenty-somethings digging out from under college debts. Feel free to expand the list.

According to Federal Reserve Economic Data, as of 2017 home ownership in SC was 72.8%. Now I’m thinking—uh-oh—that not taking into account our homeless population in the state, just about everyone is under a roof, owned or rented. So more than one in four are taxed more heavily because they rent rather than own that roof they are under.

Of course, you know that whole needs thing. Food, water, shelter.

What do I want? That the rate be unified at 4 or 5 or 6%. And then the hassle of millage rates and Fair Market Value can begin.

Dang, there is that word again. Fair.

Own a home? Hug a renter.

Another by the way, once upon a time in our fair land, the right to vote was limited to white male property owners. The last state to abolish the property requirement for all nearly white males to be enfranchised? North Carolina, 1856.

Sorta-Science

While surfing YouTube videos, I stumbled into a short speech from Jane Goodall. As far back as I can remember nearly, she has been part of the landscape at Gombe, studying her beloved chimpanzees. Fifty-eight years so far of observations and notes and studies and lectures.

So when I mention that last week I saw two eider ducks on the lake after an absence of 2 years—nearly—my report is not much weightier than a passing cloud. Several pairs of eider ducks spent the late winter of ’16 here, along with five or six pairs of mallards, and the nearly ever-present geese. However, last winter, no eider ducks, no mallards.

Of course, my observations come by way of happenstance, not from the disciplined, daily, hours-long effort of a Goodall. No, I catch sight of the comings and goings as I work in the yard, or stand at a window, or walk the dog out beyond the fence.

I do note some of the behavior to share with family or a neighbor. I just don’t write it down. The peculiarities stay with me. In July, four white egrets flew over the lake and after a lap disappeared beyond the trees. The next day, a pair repeated the same flightpath. The next day, again a pair as if sightseeing. The fourth day, a solo bird made the lap.

Then the next afternoon a pair of the white birds settled in the Grandfather Tree. And that same evening they returned—I assume the same pair—and circled the lake multiple times close together before settling for the night on some deadfall across the way.

What all that activity meant, I don’t know. But, to me the show was entertaining and interesting.

The last six months I have been slowly reading through Thoreau’s journals (1837-1861). His reputation as a naturalist, of course, has long been confirmed. He makes little drawings, notes first blooms and last leaves, rain and snow, plantings and harvest, all while making observations about the human condition as well the wildlife.

I could start today with a more careful effort, and onward to 2042. I would be 91.

Coincidentally, the current issue of National Wildlife chronicles the saga of Joseph Grinnell’s mission to produce a complete survey of California’s vertebrates. Begun in 1904 and concluded in 1940, Grinnell and his team from Berkeley assembled 74,000 pages of detailed notes that are so well-constructed the approach is referred to as the Grinnell Method, the standard for field biologists.

That sort of science—the dedication, the perseverance—I am unlikely to duplicate.  No, my sorta-science may be keeping an eye out for the eider ducks, or noting two dozen doves pecking at seeds in a small area of my garden without any attendant feuding. And, maybe, some babies to report come next spring.

Trudging Respect

What slowed me down while reading a report on the asylum-seekers was a story that cited a Honduran man who was traveling with two Chinese men. Now there is a long way from home, and then there is a long way from home.

Perhaps the Mind-in-Chief would want to vet the caravans for Chinese. Quite the propaganda coup. But, of course, they may Chinese. Because they are from China.

The trek from Tegucigalpa to Tijuana is just about 2898 miles as the road goes. Curiously, the trip is 3 miles closer by cutting through the U.S. on the way. Of course, that ain’t happening. Either way, it’s a damn long walk.

Like me taking off from my doorstep and heading to Vancouver. Except that trip would be a little shorter. Less a caravan, more a pedi-van I. Nor can I really process setting off on such a journey. I can claim, in fact, walking several miles in a blizzard, both ways. Canoeing and portaging dozens of miles. Trekking 53 miles over 9 days above 11,000’. But trudging heroically and perhaps hopelessly for weeks on end? Nope, can’t fathom the will to do so.

Part of the story turns on violence in Honduras. How parents want their children raised in a safer environment. I get that—plenty of family members and friends to demonstrate by example such commitment. The standard murder rate statistics cite murders per 100,000 population. The latest I could find was 43 per for Honduras.

In the US, that rate nestles between New Orleans at 42 and Detroit with 44. Just FYI, Baltimore last reported 55, and St. Louis 59. Imagine parents in Baltimore also leaving for Vancouver. To escape the carnage. As if those moms and dads could be blamed. Does beg a question or two at least. Like, WWVD?

Oh, and bloody Chicago? That would be 18 per 100,000. Surprised? Yep, our Propagandist-in-Chief has a quite a way with perceptions. And, no, I am not making light of any murder at any rate for any individual or family or community. I just haven’t caved to the post-curious era yet.  

The self-exiled, really to no surprise, are being reviled along the way. In Tijuana the manmade fires of hatred and bigotry are well stoked. I try to imagine being loathed and harassed for weeks on end while plodding forward toward a distant hope, an idea—an ideal. And along the way, the unrelenting venom, the invectives, the violence.

Those of us who have never, will never, tread in such shoes—all I can say is we ought to get down on our knees, daily. Hourly.

Bird Notes

A friend asked how dog Max responds to the blue heron. Easily answered, with hackles up and roaring bark. Each and every time. Started with the inaugural flyover that sent Max chasing to the fence. Continues with the heron’s morning takeoffs and evening glides home to roost.

Perhaps it’s a size issue, maybe it’s the noise—even that word a kind descriptor. Somehow the heron pushes out a sound both a croak and a gak. A croaking gak, a gakking croak, I could not say. Even the three offspring this year drew Max’s ire. Young or adult, herons be damned.

Max gave chase when the first geese came in over his head, but now he rarely acknowledges their comings and goings—sometimes 50 in a flight. Even the noisy launches don’t rouse his interest.

Something there is about herons, to Max at least.

At this moment a blackbird is fluttering around a Cooper’s hawk in the Grandfather Tree. I mention this non-skirmish only to explain how it is I spend so much time watching birds. It’s the vista out back, not that I am any kind of birder.

I did, however, take part in the local Audubon Society’s fall count. Nothing particularly interesting on that one day here. No bald eagle, no anhinga, no red-tailed hawk. In fact, the next day I saw a red-tail out here for the first time. And a tufted titmouse. Go figure.

Rarely a day passes without some action on the bird front. A lot of squabbles. Mockingbirds getting into with mockingbirds. Bluebirds getting into with bluebirds, jays with jays, cardinals cardinals. And they all antagonize other species, some days relentlessly.

Sometimes it seems more play. Watched one afternoon two mockingbirds chase each other around the small trees in my yard as if they were racing pylons. Not once or twice, but dozens of times.

Guess that is what catches my eye so often, the chasing. Watched three crows one morning chase a red-shouldered hawk out of a pine and across the lake, and as they neared the tree line on the other side, the hawk reversed course and chased the trio back to the same pine.

The babies, too, will stop me mid-chore. Baby mockingbirds, cardinals, jays, geese, and the herons. One in particular stood me up—first sighting in my life I am mostly sure—a baby dove.

I never see the doves act aggressively. Do remember seeing an adult mockingbird jousting with a big male cardinal. While their little ones were pecking in a neighbor’s raised bed, the adult birds couldn’t have been louder or more violent in their flight.

I went back to digging—startled at some point by the quiet. Happened to look up. On the roof from left to right, mockingbird, dove, cardinal. Made me wonder. Oh, I know, instinct, always, only instinct.

The babies? Were in the bed still, all just fine in their little world.

Pity 'tis 'tis True

According to the official record, the last American combat fatality in WWI occurred at 10:59 a.m. the morning of November 11^th, 100 years ago. With fixed bayonet, the soldier ran at a German machine gun team that repeatedly called out for him to stop his charge. He did not, and so he was killed.

Any number of media outlets today will report the nearly mystical time stamp ending the war-ending war of wars, that of 11:00 a.m. on the 11^th day of the 11^th month.

Peace negotiations began five weeks earlier at the request of Germany. During that period combat continued along the Western Front. The ongoing battles claimed 500,000 additional casualties. Half-a-million men, killed or wounded during the peace talks.

When the agreement was finally set, a 5 a.m. order with the terms went out via radios and telephones, signifying peace was at hand. In the 6 hours that followed, 2,738 soldiers were killed and 8,206 wounded as scheduled attacks continued according to plans.

That number killed is greater than Allied deaths on D-Day in 1944.

The 92^nd Division, an African-American unit, charged the German line as ordered at 10:30 a.m. that final morning. Seventeen men were killed and 302 were either wounded or declared missing.

On both sides, before the armistice became official, artillery gunners continued firing rounds, all the better to avoid transporting heavy shells back home. Some harmlessly fell short, some brutally targeted enemy positions.

With each battle, with each war, someone will be the last to die. In the final minute before an end, even sometimes after the proclamation of peace.

Around 15,000 US combat troops are in Afghanistan today. This ongoing war since 2001 claimed another American, this time the mayor of a small town in Utah who was serving his fourth tour as part of the Army National Guard.

Of course, I cannot predict the future—his death, the last? Peace, and our troops out of harm’s way? Two years? Five? Ten? Twenty? One more death? And one more? And one more?

Regardless, truly, I am sorry for his family. I am sorry for his friends. I am sorry for his community. I am sorry for his unit.

One more.

A Blue Heron

A Great Blue Heron settled on a log across the lake this morning at 6:45. Of course, yesterday’s clock would have read 7:45. Most likely no matter to the heron just as of little matter to my dog. Each morning Max and I walk just before sunrise, weather permitting, hours and days be hanged.

I suspect for many tomorrow morning will be the lurch in time that matters more. A kind of stealing of time when lives are more likely to be scheduled—school or jobs for my neighbors. That stolen hour will rise to bite next March as clocks are set forward.

Not sure how much clock setting is done these days—an exercise ever quainter by the minute. But, a lot of folks will register that difference as drastic. To many the weekend whipsaw of changing sleep hours drums in this point over and over and over again. As new parents understand. Very much so, I suppose.

An odd human construct, our time measurements. Anyone who has flown west multiple time zones by jet understands the oddness of landing somewhere five hours away within three hours plus local arrival time. For me, the most unnatural sense of moving through time—and space—came by flying east from Bangkok to Los Angeles and so experiencing two sunrises and crashing—metaphorically—into the same day I left behind.

Perhaps our thinking time a commodity tinkers too much with internal clocks. Medical experts seem to have much to say on the issue. More crassly, the notion that time is money underscores the point.

Established in 1883, our four standard time zones here in the US smoothed out an intricate system of train timetables as our railroads reached from sea to sometimes shining sea. The transcontinental system was completed in 1869, so for more than a dozen years town by town, minute by minute, precise arithmetic was of the essence to monitor trains coming and going.

California became a state in 1845—I had to check this date as well. But if no one could get there with any kind of speed then, I guess no one cared too much about the exact time of day relative to the Atlantic side. Except for a job interview perhaps. After all, time is money, some say.

Oh, the heron? Flew off—let me be deliberately imprecise—shortly before seven.