February 29, 2008

Leap year! I was born in a leap year, 1944, but not on February 29. Am still in the process of preparing my 2007 income tax returns, a process stalled while I wait for more forms. I was distressed to discover that we will owe the state of Maryland $616, and that we were assessed a penalty of $11 for not having enough withheld. What kind of bullshit is this.

Yea, that’s right Maryland sucks! With all the taxes assessed on its citizens this putrid state still has a budget deficit. We paid the state and the county $5000 in income taxes in 2007, not to mention the nearly $6000 we paid in real estate taxes. What the hell do the idiots in Annapolis spend this money on? The Inter-County Connector? The Purple Line? New schools? The only thing they can agree on is that nobody should smoke cigarettes, which is really ironic since the state of Maryland’s main product for 150 years was tobacco.

While we are talking about taxes, has anybody seen the assessed value of their house go down? All you hear about in the media is how the housing market is depressed and people are loosing their shirts because the value of the family home is in the tank. But not one word about property taxes going down to reflect the depressed market. I propose a moratorium on the payment of salaries to all elected officials in the state and county until the budget deficit is eliminated.

Yesterday, February 20, 2008, I witnessed, on TV, the greatest putting performance I have ever seen. Tiger Woods was two strokes down with five holes to play in a match against J. P. Holmes in the World Golf Championships Match Play tournament. Two weeks earlier Holmes had defeated Phil Mickelson in a one hole playoff to win the FBR tournament by sinking a ten foot birdie putt after Mickelson missed a 25 footer for birdie. In the Match Play tournament Woods sank birdie putts on the 14th hole, the 15th hole and the 16th hole, then on 17 he sank a 35 foot eagle putt. No other golfer I have seen can putt like this man. The putts he made to win this match were not gimmies, they were 15ft, 18ft, 20ft and 35ft putts. In comparison Mickelson, a good player, could not make a single 25ft put in a playoff. Much is made of Tiger's strength and his short game prowess, but he wins tournaments with his putting. I wonder if this is the year he wins all four grand slam championships? The only thing standing in his way is himself.

Jack Hoxie Selected films of this star available for viewing: Lightning Bryce (1919) Back Fire (1922) Riders of the Law (1922) Desert Rider (1923) The Back Trail (1924) Border Sheriff (1926)

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I have been doing a little research lately on the Hoxie Family, and one of its most famous ancestors, Jack Hoxie, the 1920s silent film star. Jack appeared in literally hundreds of films from 1910 to 1933, but is best remembered for the thirty-six he made for Universal Studios between 1923 and 1927. These films were immensely popular with the public and made Jack one of the top cowboy box office attractions along with such other notables a Tom Mix, Ken Maynard and Hoot Gibson.

So far I have been able to find little information about Jack or his father Bart in the seminal book on the family, The Hoxie Family, Three Centuries in America, by Leslie R. Hoxie, published in 1950. This is not surprising since the family tree is extensive covering three-hundred years and scores of branches ranging from Massachusetts to California. There is little doubt, however, that Jack Hoxie is descended from the same common ancestor of all Hoxies (including the various spellings of the name, e.g. Hoxsey, Hoxsie) Lodowick Hoxie. Lodowick arrived, it is believed from Scotland, at the Plymouth Colony in what is now Massachusetts sometime around 1650. Leslie Hoxie traces all of his decedents through the various branches of the family from Lodowick’s nine children (seven males).

Jack Hoxie’s father Bart was a veterinarian originally from the east cost. He went west like many other Hoxies and settled in Oklahoma, where Jack was born. Jack’s father died when he was young, less than 12, and his mother remarried a man named Stone. The Stone family lived on a ranch in Idaho which Jack left, due to a dispute with his stepfather, when he was about 18 years old. He became a real cowboy working on ranches herding cattle and eventually went to Hollywood and became a stuntman. Jack’s real life reads like a movie as he apparently lived for a time with the Nez Perce Indians in Idaho and was known as Red Elk.

This cartoon is from Politico.com one of my favorites, and it sums up my feeling about the Clinton campaign. I wonder what they have in store for Obama? I like him and will vote for him on Tuesday in the Maryland Primary, but if the Clinton's concoct some way of screwing him out of the nomination McCain will be the next president.

That makes sense

According to a new poll, just out, the national approval rating for Congress is just 22%, equaling the all time record low rating. So, of course, we as a nation are about to elect a member of Congress as our next President. That makes sense. It makes one wonder, what hath God wrought?

"Mass Transit is a Pipe Dream"

I read a lot about oil dependency, traffic congestion and air pollution and I wonder what if anything can be done about these issues.

I found a new blog by Brock Yates who used to write for Car and Driver and also race cars. In his first posting he talks about traffic congestion, oil dependency and America's love of cars. I saw another blog, On Day One, which talks about what the next president should do on his first day in office. Yates thinks that mass transit is a "Pipe Dream" which reminded me of an article I saw last year "Mass transit does not reduce congestion" by Wendell Cox, author of a book titled "War on the Dream: How Anti-Sprawl Policy Threatens the Quality of Life". He claims that congestion and mass transit are completely different subjects. He also claims that "No level of transit investment, anywhere in the world, has materially reduced traffic congestion." If you look at the DC area he would appear to be correct.

Yates' claim that "...Americans continue to lead the way into a dark future of more emissions, oil use and wasted time. And here comes the third world, as India, China and other Tiger nations of the Far East start producing millions of private cars for a wildly eager population." is scary when you think of a billion plus Chinese driving gasoline powered cars. I have no solutions since I admit I am not willing to give up my car. But I really think the On Day One people have a point, American can deal directly with at least one issue, oil dependency, if our leaders have the guts.