Jesus Misunderstood the Rich

Luke 16:19-31
"There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and lived in luxury every day. At his gate was laid a beggar named Lazarus, covered with sores and longing to eat what fell from the rich man's table. Even the dogs came and licked his sores.
"The time came when the beggar died and the angels carried him to Abraham's side. The rich man also died and was buried. In Hell, where he was in torment, he looked up and saw Abraham far away, with Lazarus by his side. So he called to him, 'Father Abraham, have pity on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, because I am in agony in this fire!'
"But Abraham replied, 'Son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, while Lazarus received bad things, but now he is comforted here and you are in agony. And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been fixed, so that those who want to go from here to you cannot, nor can anyone cross over from there to us.'
"He answered, 'Then I beg you, father, send Lazarus to my father's house, for I have five brothers. Let him warn them, so that they will not also come to this place of torment.'
"Abraham replied, 'They have Moses and the Prophets; let them listen to them.'
"'No, father Abraham,' he said, 'but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent.'
"He said to him, 'If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead!'"

Fortunately today our understanding of the benefits that the rich provide is much different than it was in ancient times. Now we know that they are benevolent beings, who if left unburdened by taxation and laws would bring prosperity to all. In this story Jesus fails to see that the rich man is a job creator. Lazarus, the poor man, might have benefited from one of these jobs if he had not made the poor choice of being a beggar.

Hopefully, Jesus has read the latest conservative research and philosophy and has revised his opinion in the case of Lazarus and the rich man.

Three Radios and a Rock-ola

I saw this radio at the Third Sunday Market in Bloomington IL a while back.  Other than the name Philco I didn't know anything else about this radio.  Fortunately if you want to find out about Philco radios there is an excellent site, Philco Radio .  There I was able to find that this radio is a Philco Lowboy 65.  It was introduced in the fall of 1929.  The model was very popular and is said to be easy to find today.  How this radio went from likely spending years with a central place in some families home to sitting in an open field at a flea market is a story I would love to hear.  I imagine this radio once carried the news of the early days of the Great Depression to the election of FDR. It may even have lasted through WWII and up to when it was replaced by a TV. 

The Westinghouse Model WR29 above was sitting in the same open area as the Philco Low Boy.  First made in 1934, the Westinghouse Model WR29 probably heard news of John Dillinger's bank robbing career and death. I wonder how this radio has managed to survive for 80 years?

The Philco Model 41-280X was introduced in 1941.  The original selling price was $69.95 which would be equal to $1076 today.  So for most people this was a major purchase.  And since this was one of the most popular radios of it's time it was a price that a lot of people were willing to pay.  The Model 41-280X is  more sophisticated than the two radios presented earlier.  In addition to the AM band the Model 41-280X has shortwave bands and police and aircraft bands.  There are also 8 preset push buttons like those that many of us can remember being on car radios.  Almost undoubtedly this is a radio that saw anxious faces listening for news of WWII.  And probably of the three it is the one most likely to have hung around long enough to be replaced by a TV.

The Rock-Ola Model 1458 was made in 1958.  By that time the three radios above had probably either been retired or moved to a less important place in the house. Unlike the older console radios for a price a jukebox the Rock-Ola let you pick the songs you wanted to hear. And the music that they played was often a kind that those from the days of the console radio found disturbing.  I was just a little kid when rock music was just catching on, however I can vividly remember the divide between those who thought it was music and those who thought it was noise.  And because of that divide the Rock-Ola Model 1458 was probably in the middle of more controversy than any of the three radios that I have talked about. 

One Reason Football is More Popular than Baseball

If you take TV ratings as a measure of popularity, football is of interest to a lot more people than baseball.  Even a regular season NFL game will draw higher ratings than baseball play-off games.  It seems like football fans will watch just about any game whereas baseball fans tend be interested in the one team that they follow.  I know that for myself I will watch the baseball play-offs when the Cardinals are playing, however I often have no interest if they are not. 

It seems like there are a lot more general football fans than there are general baseball fans.  Now football people will say this is because football is a lot more interesting game than baseball.  Still I think there is another reason that I don't remember hearing anyone talk about.  That reason is that football has always been very friendly to gambling whereas baseball dating back to the Blacksox Scandal is not. 

I remember as a child seeing odds-maker Jimmy the Greek talking about that days football games on the official NFL pregame show. I have never seen anything like that before a baseball game.  Point spreads and other info of interest to gamblers as long been an integral part of football pregame shows. And while not everyone who watches a football game makes a bet I do believe that the gambling aspect has done much to increase the general interest in football.  Baseball has never cultivated the gambling angle and possibly that is one of the reasons that it remains a game that is most tied to its local fans. 

Happy 48th Medicare

On July 30, 1965 at Independence MO President Johnson signed Medicare into law.  Present at the ceremony was President Truman who had first proposed national health care legislation in 1945. Truman received the first Medicare card.

Today around 50 million Americans rely on Medicare for some part of their health care.  It is estimated that Medicare has reduced the poverty rate for the elderly by 2/3rds. It is hard to imagine where a lot of our people over 65 would be without Medicare.  Not many people have the resources at that age to afford to pay for all of their health care. I suppose that one could say that if they can't pay than they can just suffer.  Myself I am glad that there is a program like Medicare, that while not being perfect does do a great deal to help reduce suffering.

I was only nine when Medicare was passed, however I can remember some people saying how it would ruin the country.  I suppose I remember because of how vehement the opposition was.  The emotional tone that I remember from that time reminds me of some of the current feeling about the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act - also called Obamacare. Myself I didn't care for the law too much since I tend to favor a single-payer system, since that seems to work in most every other developed nation.  Still I am willing to give it a chance in that it might be at least a start toward something better - and it wouldn't take much to be better than what we have now.  Hopefully things will work out as well as they did with Medicare.

I don't remember Medicare ever getting tagged with a name like JohnsonCare.  And maybe memories of LBJ would be kinder if he was more associated with things like Medicare and Civil Rights instead of the Vietnam War.  If the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act does become successful and popular than those in opposition may regret that the gave it the label ObamaCare.

Glory Daze Danville IL

Visited Glory Daze antique store for the first time on Saturday. Didn't find anything that I wanted, however that wouldn't keep me from going back.  The store is first rate with a nice variety of items.  On the stores web site it says it opens at 10:00 am, however the sign on the door says 9:00.  Which was a good thing since I was there at nine. The store is at 142 North Vermilion in downtown Danville Illinois.  Downtown Danville seems to be looking up.  It appears that there has been some streetscaping since the last time I visited. 

Glory Daze has a first floor and a basement.  Here are a few views of the first floor.

There also is a basement.

Garage Sales July 2013

 The woman above was out by the street promoting her garage sale.  First time I can remember seeing anything like that as part of a garage sale. 

So far it has been a fairly lackluster garage sale season for me.  I have not seen many cameras of any kind. Not even the cheap plastic give-away cameras that were once a frequent sight. 

Hopefully, things will pick up once August comes around.  The main town around here is a University town and things tend to be slow in June and July. So right now I am taking a few pictures at the sales, but not finding much of interest to buy.

I did find this radio at a sale, however I haven't found much info on it.  It was made by Marvel, a Japanese company not connected to the the maker of comic books.  It was probably made in the 1960's. This type of radio was popular when I was a kid in the 1960's. Stick one in your pocket and use an earphone, and you might get away with listening to the radio in class. It does still work on a 9 volt battery.  I would guess it is not valued at much more than the couple of dollars that I paid for it. Some of these small transistor radios are in fairly high demand especially when they have a pleasing appearance and are in good shape. Not many small items evoke the spirit of an era more effectively.

What the Drug Trade May Teach About Economics

Every since the days when Ronald Reagan decided to give up selling Borax I have heard a lot about encouraging the supply side of the economy. Part of the theory it seems is that we should make it as easy as possible for those who make goods and services. Taxes for these people should be low and hoops should be wide. If we do all this the economy will prosper and even the lowest of the low will benefit.  To some extent this plan has been followed at least at the federal level.  Today taxes on the higher tax brackets are much lower than they were in the 1950's and 1960's.  How much this has contributed to general prosperity isn't all that obvious to me at least.  It does seem to have succeeded in making the rich much richer than they used to be.  Which may have been the real plan all-along.

During this time one group of suppliers has been left out of the party.  Still it appears that they have done well anyway.  The suppliers of illegal drugs have received no encouragement from the government. Aside from the help that some suppliers got from the government with selling drugs to help raise money for Reagan's war against the Contras, the government has usually been very unhelpful to illegal drug suppliers.   And not only has the government not been helpful to this group of suppliers they have actively been fighting a war against them for decades.  Prisons in the US are bulging with former employees of the illegal drug enterprise. 

Still despite the best efforts of our government to ruin their business, the sellers of illegal drugs appear to be thriving.  They are pulling in enough cash to have destabilized and even gained control of substantial parts of many nations to the south of the US.  And probably in the US they may have more influence than most of us would care to know about. At least the illegal drug industry doesn't seem to need the government to get out of it way to thrive.  They have thrived in spite of the government spending billions and billions and then more billions to get in their way. 

And the key to the sellers of illegal drugs seems to be demand.  There are a lot of people out there with cash in hand wanting to buy what they have.  Because there is money to be made there is always someone who will step up to give people what they want.  One drug seller goes down and another steps in.  Such is the power of demand. 

So maybe we ought to rethink this idea of having to cuddle the "productive class".  It looks like if there is a demand for a product or service then someone will make it.  It may not be the ones who are currently doing so however if the demand remains someone will work to satisfy it.  So maybe the next time you hear someone whine about the government killing their business you should point to the example of the enterprising sellers of illegal drugs.  They get along okay while having the government interfere with their business more than the typical businessperson would envision in his worst nightmare.

So this is my first opinion post here. My hope is to put out some ideas as they pop into my head that seem to me to be outside the area where our minds often go.