America's Most Wanted

My twelve-year-old stepson is not from America, and I wanted to teach him the time-honored, American tradition of kids making a few bucks selling lemonade. We modified our approach a little bit and decided to sell smoothies and green tea which we had brought from Japan after the earthquake. Yesterday, we went to the store near our house, and we bought watermelon, peaches, mangos, orange juice, apple juice, whole milk, ice, cups, and three poster boards for signs.

The two of us woke up early this morning and made our signs along with my two-year-old daughter, who indicated that she wanted to help with the drink stand as well. (She didn't understand that she was supposed to color inside the bubble letters I had written and spread pink crayon all over the board. But that's okay.) After some experimentation around the middle of the day, we created the perfect fruit punch with whipped cream on top and, in the early afternoon, we headed down to the end of our street, where we'd sell iced tea for two dollars and smoothies for three.

Almost as soon as we got down there, my daughter said she was hungry and wanted to go home to eat something. It wasn't the best timing in the world, but these things happen with little kids. My twelve-year-old stepson is quite mature for his age and he's experienced a lot more than most twelve-year-olds, so I had no problem leaving him in charge of the drink stand while I went home to make my daughter some food. Plus, he was just at the end of our street, so if I wanted to check on him, I could just walk out into the street from my front door a bit and have a look. 

After my daughter finished eating and as we approached the end of our street where the drink stand was, I could see from afar that the sign was pulled up and put away, the cooler was shut with everything which we had so carefully arranged on the tray table put away, and my stepson was huddled up and sitting on the rail, staring out between his knees at the ocean. 

"What happened?" I asked when I got down there. I wondered if he had gotten discouraged that no one was buying his drinks or maybe that no one could understand his accent. Or maybe he was just lonely down there by himself. 

"The police told me to pack up and go home," he said. Or, more accurately I discovered after making a few phone calls, the town police swung by and wished him good luck, and then afterwards, "someone in brown" came by and made my stepson stop selling drinks at the end of our street, because this required a permit, and my stepson did not have a permit to sell drinks.

After hearing a little more from my stepson and talking to the town police, I discovered that the drink stand was on land under the jurisdiction of the Massachusetts State Police. After attempting several times to contact the State Police, I reached only answering machines. Apparently, having someone on call on weekends is not in the Massachusetts budget (but breaking up lemonade stands is somehow cost-effective).

In what world is it acceptable to go around breaking up kids's drink stands? What are we teaching our children?

UPDATE 8/29/2011:

There has been some controversy over my assertion that it was the Massachusetts State Police that broke up my stepson's drink stand. I admit that I may have jumped to conclusions and apologize for my ignorance of Massachusetts state organizational structure and corresponding uniform color. I have amended the piece above accordingly. I wish to reiterate that I mean no ill will towards the Massachusetts State Police or law enforcement in general. This post is clearly not about demonizing any one police officer or policing entity.

Let me reiterate: this post is about how ridiculous - and how obviously ridiculous - it is that a twelve-year-old isn't allowed to sell green tea because it is in violation of some ill-conceived or ill-applied regulations.

Disney's Rent-Seeking: A Singularity of Suck

According to Alex Weprin at mediabistro.com, Disney has recently trademarked the phrase "Seal Team 6".  Seal Team 6 happens to be the name of the Navy Seal team that took down Osama bin Laden:

The trademark applications came on May 3rd, two days after the operation that killed Bin Laden… and two days after “Seal Team 6″  was included in thousands of news articles and TV programs focusing on the operation.

Disney’s trademark applications for “Seal Team 6″ cover clothing, footwear, headwear, toys, games and “entertainment and education services,” among other things...

...Of course, for all we know Disney has been working on an animated feature about a team of anthropomorphic seals in search of adventure, but given the timing of the application that seems… unlikely.

I'm not quite sure how to interpret this, but I know it needs interpreting.  The part of me that wants to be charitable doubts what this story implies - that Disney has bought the rights to the next FDNY hat in an effort to capitalize on and exploit suffering - as just too disgusting to possibly be real.  Another part of me is too shocked to be disgusted.  A third part of me sees this as affirming all the unsubstantiated horror stories I've heard about Disney from acquaintances who work in the film world.  A fourth part of me sees the burden as falling on the American people for creating a system that tolerates and even encourages this kind of (entirely predictable and inevitable) corporate behavior in the first place.  Finally, a last part of me perceives this as all of the major problems with modern America rolled into one event: the eponymous Singularity of Suck - an event that sucks so much that what kinds of things will suck in the future becomes qualitatively and fundamentally unpredictable.  

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Cash Rules Everything Around Me

I've written before that it's very important for America to learn to count past "one, two, many".  Case in point: BP's $25,000,000 fine for DPing Alaska's North Slope back in 2006.  From the New York Times:

BP will pay $25 million in civil fines to settle charges arising from two spills from its network of pipelines in Alaska in 2006 and from a willful failure to comply with a government order to properly maintain the pipelines to prevent corrosion, federal officials announced on Tuesday.

The fine is the largest per-barrel assessment ever levied against an oil company in a spill case and represents a new blow to BP’s corporate treasury and reputation.

The aggressive approach of federal prosecutors in this case could portend huge fines and penalties from BP’s much larger spill in the Gulf of Mexico last year.

I will eat my own arm if $25,000,000 dollars "represents a new blow to BP's corporate treasury and reputation".  BP's 2010 revenue was $309,000,000,000.  $25,000,000 represents 1/12360 (0.008%) of BP's 2010 revenue.

To put this figure in terms the average person can understand, the median annual household income in the United States in 2010 was just under $50,000.  0.008% of $50,000 is four dollars.  BP paying a $25,000,000 fine is like you or me paying four dollars.  (For comparison purposes, a typical bounced check fee represents a six to ten times greater economic burden on the individual than a $25,000,000 fine represents for BP.)  Surely a $25,000,000 fine is not "a new blow to BPs corporate treasury"; hence, I do not have to eat my own arm.

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Shame On You, Wisconsin

Russ Feingold was one of the few good men in Washington, but Wisconsin's liberty-loving Tea Party just removed the only Senator to ever vote against the USAPATRIOT act.  Feingold also championed campaign finance reform and was the recipent of the John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award.  He is a child of two immigrants, a champion of fair trade and civil liberties, immigration reform, ending capital punishment, cleaning up Washington pork-barrel politics.  Feingold actually returned money to the government that he considered wasteful.  He was the first senator to call foul on Iraq, and the first senator to call foul on President Bush's wiretapping.  Feingold was the poorest member of the Senate.  In other words, he was the closest thing we had to what the Tea Party claims to represent.  Yet the Tea Party actively targeted Feingold for removal.  

Hot Luntz

Political Consultant Frank Luntz is arguably the most influential man in the world.  His distinguished career as a director of focus groups for the Republican Party, frequent commentator on Fox News, consultant for conservative political parties in Australia and the United Kingdom, and author is tempered with the unapologetic dishonesty of his mission and that of his company, the Word Doctors.  The Word Doctors's work is, as Luntz himself describes it, "testing language and finding words that will help (our) clients sell their product or turn public opinion on an issue or a candidate."  In other words, Luntz is an unabashed propagandist in the grand tradition of Big Brother and Napoleon the Pig.

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