Cap’n Ken’s Homespun Wisdom

So CNN”s down in New Orleans for Mardi Gras - and doing a good job overall of not letting the world forget about the city - and this morning rounded up an interview with Mayor Ray Nagin.

Ray was getting ready for the Zulu parade and was all decked out in his costume.

General Ray Nagin

That”s right. Ray decided to dress up as a 4-Star Army General for Mardi Gras.

Now, dressing up in a costume for Mardi Gras is normal, even for city bigwigs. And Nagin told Soledad O”Brien his costume was a tribute to General Russel Honore - the “John Wayne dude” that saved the city and gave Nagin his one positive moment (praising Honore early) during the flood.

So why, then, does Ray”s “uniform” have the name “Nagin” on it? Call me cynical, but could this be the ultimate cheap trick of New Orleans politics? Does Ray think all those displaced New Orleanians who will cast absentee ballots in April will see him in that “uniform” and start thinking about him differently?

In his interview, Nagin claimed credit for the money Gov. Blanco has won for New Orleans and the reforms Gov. Blanco got through the legislature this month, so he”s obviously pulling out all the stops.

Is the General Nagin outfit the Hail Mary of his campaign?

I don”t know how Mardi Gras will end up shaking out for New Orleans this year - hopefully it”ll hit the reduced expectations and show tourism to be viable down there again - but the season ending at the six-month mark after Katrina makes it a good time to think about the city moving from “recovery” to “restoration”.

There”s a big distinction in my mind between those two concepts. Recovery gets the city back on its feet. Restoration is about truly bringing New Orleans back to its former glory. And in a city with such a rich and unique culture, a true restoration is critical. Nobody wants a shiny, bland, new New Orleans. We want old New Orleans back. The problem is that replacing the old New Orleans with a new New Orleans is the easier, cheaper route. Scrape away the flooded neighborhoods; build new homes and apartments outside of the flood plain and just chase away the part of the population that doesn”t fit the new model. With the federal government paying the tab and calling the shots, that could be the future New Orleans faces.

If the city is to avoid this fate and win true restoration, it needs a solid strategy and an unwavering focus on self-interest. I”d like to suggest an approach I call “Lie. Cheat. Steal.”:

Lie - Propaganda is the city”s best friend right now. The world needs to know Mardi Gras was great, Jazz Fest will be bigger and better than ever, hotels and restaurants are open and all the tourists are coming back now. The world also needs to know the levee failures were 100% the fault of the Corps of Engineers, the city and state are doing a great job and it”s the federal government that”s responsible for all those destroyed neighborhoods still looking like they do.

Cheat - Got a guy whose sister is your U.S. Senator? Make him the mayor. Got a guy who was your U.S. Senator for 18 years, has tons of connections in Washington and is generally regarded as a uniting force by both Democrats and Republicans? Make him your governor. Louisiana can”t afford to have an adversarial relationship with Washington, so stack the deck with these powerful insiders you have sitting around. Hell, you might even want to get your ex-governor out of prison and see what kind of cash he can raise from his Las Vegas and South Korean friends.

Steal - Louisiana doesn”t have the resources to restore New Orleans. And it”s really not the role of the federal government to cover all the city”s losses and put billions more into new flood protection systems, tax incentives and other cash infusions. But so what? This isn”t the time to worry about fiscal responsibility, fairness or precedents about federal relief spending. New Orleans should fight for every dollar it deserves and every undeserved dollar it can get. I”ll bitch about federal spending when Los Angeles falls into the ocean.

Personally, I”m putting my principles aside for the sake of New Orleans. I can”t defend this strategy on any grounds other than my selfish interest in New Orleans” future.

The fact is that Louisiana is a backwards, corrupt state that has squandered just about all of its opportunities in the past. Because of that, it really doesn”t deserve the faith of the federal government and probably won”t get much sympathy from the American public. And that makes “Lie. Cheat. Steal.” that much more important.

OK, this is minor in the grand scheme of things, but it irritates me that the media seems clueless as to some really basic concepts of income and taxation when it comes to this big Powerball jackpot winner.

On CNN and in papers across the country (thanks to the Associated Press story), the winner”s net take is being described as follows:

The winning ticket holder has the option of taking the money in one lump sum or installments over 30 years. The cash option is $177.3 million, or $124.1 million after taxes. On the installment plan, the first payment would be $6,507,986 after tax.

A little quick math shows that - according to the media - the winner will get 70% of the cash option payment “after taxes”. But wait. The federal tax rate is 35% on income over $336,500, and I”m pretty sure $177.3 million is more than $336,500. And the IRS treats lottery winnings as gambling income, which is taxed as regular income.

So what gives? It took me about 30 seconds on Google to learn that gambling winnings are subject to 25% withholding from the IRS and that Nebraska withholds 5% of lottery winnings for state income taxes. Withholding, of course, is how the government ensures some taxes are paid even if an individual would choose not to file a return and claim the income.

In reality, the winner will get about $107 million after taxes based on almost all of the lottery income being taxed at the 35% federal rate and the 4% state tax rate in Colorado (where the winner is apparently from).

But the media, as usual, took the lazy route. It would have been most correct to say the winner will receive a check for $124.1 million and will net about $107 million after taxes, but even saying they would “get $124.1 million after taxes are withheld” would have been closer to the truth.

That”s asking too much of the media, I guess.

The wife and I just watched WAL-MART: The High Cost of Low Prices, the much-acclaimed documentary about everybody”s favorite corporate bully.

What a supreme waste of an opportunity. Heavy on emotion, light on facts and completely devoid of analysis, the film surely painted Wal-Mart as a bad player - and it is. The company uses its size and power to strong-arm communities, squeeze its suppliers and screw its workers, all in the name of “Always Low Prices”.

But the heart of the Wal-Mart problem lies in a conspiracy - one between the company and its customers. Wal-Mart and the people who shop there benefit from this conspiracy at the expense of Wal-Mart workers, suppliers, local merchants and communities impacted by Wal-Mart”s operations. Simply put, if nobody shopped at Wal-Mart, Wal-Mart wouldn”t be a problem. There are, for sure, a good number of people who shop at Wal-Mart out of necessity. Those people who line up on “Black Friday” for $29 DVD players typically don”t have a lot of other options. Likewise, people living out in the middle of nowhere may have few choices about where to shop.

It”s hard to blame those with few choices (whether based on economics or geography) for choosing Wal-Mart. But the middle-class and better suburbanites who participate in this conspiracy are just as culpable as Wal-Mart for the sins of the world”s biggest retailer.

If you have a choice, choosing anyplace other than Wal-Mart helps keep the monster in check. It doesn”t have to be some mom-and-pop store. Shopping at Target helps the balance, too. Every dollar diverted from Wal-Mart is one dollar less of influence the company has. And as Wal-Mart tries to go more upscale, the choice becomes more important.

For my part, I personally spent $32 at Wal-Mart last year - for two pairs of cheap rubber boots because Target and Lowe”s didn”t have them and I couldn”t think of anywhere else to buy them. I bought $80 in Wal-Mart gift cards for my niece and nephews at Christmas (after trying to talk my sister into some other kind of card) and the wife and I spent $200 on a Wal-Mart card to help out friends after Katrina (figuring “Always Low Prices” and a huge selection was a good choice for friends who suddenly had next to nothing).

Otherwise, I refuse to participate in the conspiracy.

Judging from my conversation with a good-ole-boy exterminator today, Georgia rednecks have mostly adjusted to using the word “blacks” - rather than their former chosen derogatory term - when talking about “all the blacks around here” with a complete stranger.

However, they still don”t seem to have a problem using Asian slurs - such as “I just sold my house to a couple of Japs. Man, they”ll ask you for everything” - in front of another white person they”ve never met before.

A couple of months ago, the “replace lamp” indicator on my LG DLP televison came on, so I had Best Buy come out and replace it. [editor"s note: The Cap"n doesn"t normally buy "extended protection plans", but Best Buy covers lamp replacement on digital projection sets - a $100+ part - so I"ll get my money"s worth here]

But after getting the new lamp in, the “replace lamp” indicator never turned off. So yesterday Best Buy came back out to check out the problem. It was the same guy who came before, so he had apparently read up on my TV. When I told him what was up, he said “no problem” and pulled a remote control out of his pocket. I, of course, have a remote that came with the TV. But this remote was special - an “installer remote” the guy said. It opened the door to a ton of technical settings that consumers just don”t have access to. While he was cruising the menus looking for “Reset Lamp Timer”, I saw things like “Main Picture Size” and “Secondary (PIP) Picture Size” that cried out “HACK THE TV!!”

It makes sense, of course, that a digital TV is highly configurable. But I”d never considered that there”s this secret world of configurations that I - the consumer - am not supposed to have access to. You can only get there through this special remote, so I quickly borrowed it from the guy and wrote down some info.

“LG ADJUST REMOCON” is what it”s called, model number 105-201M. Apparently this is a closely-guarded secret, as “105-201M” yields only 96 results at Google. Fortunately, the first result is a TV repairman shop where you can order one of these beauties. So hopefully in about a week or so I”ll be able to alter the secret world of my TV.

The Best Buy guy wasn”t too concerned about my desire to hack the LG. He probably noticed the Mac Mini hooked up to the TV, the two 250-gig external drives behind it and the Powerbook and PC laptop sitting around the living room and figured I”m a guy who plays around with technology. So when I wrote down the info from his remote, obviously I was going to try some things. He did, however, give me some advice - before I start messing with a setting, write down the existing value, otherwise I might kill the whole thing.

Fair enough.