Apple! Rotten to its Core!

A week or two ago, I was doing some investment research on Apple (which defied my 2011 expectations and doubled its market cap with little more than a hop, skip and a jump.  Damn you, Apple, and good work!).  In the process, I stumbled across an article commenting on a WSJ article commenting on the ethics of Apple’s tax strategy.  Basically, Apple shuffled its taxes through a series of loopholes, crevices, secret passages, and one flaming hoop, and the result of all these baroque maneuvers is that it is paying $2.4 billion dollars less in federal taxes.  I think the topic of tax loopholes is a very interesting one, but I found the article commenting on it even more interesting:

According to the New York Times, Apple’s accounting methods and business structure — including subsidiaries in countries around the world — has helped it cut its U.S. tax bill by $2.4 billion.

The federal government currently spends approximately $6.9 million per second.

That extra $2.4 billion would fund the U.S. government for 348 seconds — or less than six minutes.

Six. Minutes.

For six minutes of spending, the New York Times tries to portray Apple as a greedy, selfish company that doesn’t care about education or the deficit…

Now, something about this just leaped out at me — that’s right, it leaped.  Out.  No, it’s not the dramatic sentence structure or the claim that Apple is a greedy, selfish company (really?  shock).  It was the math.  $6.9 million dollars per second?  Wait a second, that means…

After I’d done the math, I tried to register an account at NewsBusters.org so that I could comment on the article, challenging its factual accuracy (or, more precisely, pointing out its almost astronomical inaccuracy).

I would have been nice about it.  I wouldn’t even have said anything like, wow, I had no idea the federal government’s budget was more than three times the entire world’s annual GDP!  I would certainly have been cutting, but not rude.  I have yet to hear back from newsbusters about my account; the fact they haven’t responded almost certainly explains why *all* their commentary boils down to amen and hallelujah from the choir section.

At this point, I was annoyed but rather sympathetic for the author, a Mr. Matthew Sheffield.  Had I made the simple mistake of tacking two zeroes in where they didn’t belong, I would infinitely prefer some considerate reader inform me, without fuss or fanfare, that I had made an error.  So I penned this message:

Good afternoon –

I just skimmed your article about apple and something about the numbers struck me askew, so I crunched them myself.  I believe you are incorrect by a factor of 100 in your estimate of the impact of Apple’s tax differential on the American federal government’s effective “run time.”

Seconds per year: 60 * 60 * 24 * 365 = 31,536,000
Approximate Federal Budget: $2,400,000,000,000
Approximate expenditure per second: $76,103.50 (don’t forget the fifty cents)

$76K is plenty per second for emphasis value.  Thought you might want to update your text for credibility’s sake.

Cheers,
~K

I intentionally designed the wording in such a way that a spam filter would be unlikely to catch it.  I have not heard anything back from Mr. Sheffield.

So, let me hasten to point out the fact: newsbusters.com is a site dedicated to exposing the “liberal bias” of the popular media.  It exists behind a selective registration wall that allows no commentary from the general public.  A factual correction of the most amiable nature has been ignored (I can hardly have been the only one to note it; the article showed up in Google finance, and if you search for “liberal”, “apple,” and “tax” the article will be in the top few results).  No serious publication aiming to correct bias can seriously allow a numerical discrepancy of a factor of 100 to stand for almost two weeks, unchallenged…  can they?

Tsk, tsk.

WILL WORK FOR MAC N CHEESE

on Facebook, along with the charming and well-considered comment “liberals can’t seem to grasp this principle.”

Now, I’m not really a liberal…  not really…  but if there is one thing I cannot abide, it is [other people's] smugness.  In other words, I felt morally, ethically, and hormonally obligated to deliver a scorching, concise refutation of such reductive thinking.  Here is what I said, without reviewing the finished product:

There are no more liberals who have a hard time with that than there are conservatives who have a hard time with the idea that survival of the fittest is a lousy way to run a civilization.

Let this sentence stand as a shining example of how NOT to construct a sentence.  Boiled down, the idea is very simple:  X is not greater than Y.  However, when X is expanded to “liberals who have a hard time with the idea of working” and Y expands to “conservatives who have a hard time with the idea that survival of the fittest is a lousy way to run a civilization,” it turns into word soup.  Additional damage is delivered by clause ambiguity (“no more liberals” seems eager not to rub shoulders with the comparative that gives it its intended, and correct, meaning).  O!  Ainglish, thou lovest me not.

Back on topic, though: why do these stereotypes exist?  On the ground, almost all of the people I know are compassionate when faced with the misfortunes of their fellow humans, support themselves and their families by working — often in jobs that are less than satisfying — and give back to their communities in various ways without relying on governments or churches to do it for them.  Some of them are conservative, and some of them are liberal.  Most people, on both sides of the aisle, are both decent and responsible, period.

Why do we let the handful of extremists who violate this rule act as spokespeople for our ideas?

I just had the most vivid and pleasant dream of apocalyptic destruction by meteor strike.

There was a brief lull, and a maple tree ahead of me shattered into pieces. Half of it nearly fell on me and I thought with dismay that I may be crushed rather than consumed, but it dropped with an explosion of branches just to the side. The heat from behind was intense. And then the sky began to fall again, tearing up fresh clouds of stone and flame. The ground ahead of me was hammered into eruptions of magma. I ran towards it again, along with another man who was watching next to me, and then the ground at my feet ruptured up into a column of flame, and I through myself into it with such a profound sense of joy and release that I am still glowing now, ten minutes later, awake.

I do not typically have dreams that are as vivid or as visceral as this one was. Despite both of these qualities, it has left a strangely positive stamp on me for most of the day. If the end of the world is anything like it… sign me up.

The Culprit

I didn’t realize that the question of correct sentence spacing was… actually a question. When it came up, I nodded and laughed politely.  I’ve been told that it is stylistically unforgivable to leave a button-up shirt untucked, that wearing black socks with tennis shoes is a mark of absolute barbarism, and that one should never double dip in salsa at parties with people you know have herpes.  I immediately classified this stylistic choice with those: I have no qualms with your single space, friend, but for my own part, I’ll stick with the two that have treated me so well.

In the end, I did what any self-respecting gentleperson of the 21st century would do when confronted with some silly bit of arrogance: I moved for crowdresolution, asking my Facebook friends what they thought of the ridiculous idea that sentences in a paragraph should only be separated by a single space.

I hate Facebook.

After an exhaustive review of  at least 2 historical documents, the relevant Wikipedia article, and many long forum threads debating the relative correctness of the two policies (one space or two), and a comprehensive statistical cross-analysis of typographical tendencies with crime rates, I have come to a single critical conclusion:

Single-spacers are more likely to pick their noses in public than are double-spacers.*

Fortunately, this was not the only result of my research. I came up with two other conclusions as well.

There is no technological rationale

There are no clear logical or technological reasons why single spacing is superior to double spacing, or vice versa.  The preferential selection of one or the other as the correct method is a stylistic choice, similar to the so-called “Oxford comma” — but with a slightly less pragmatic axe to grind.  It is culturally preferred, not pragmatically dictated.

According to a gentleman named Thomas A. Fine who was apparently even more irritated than I was over all the fuss:

As I’ve read the various articles out there on this topic, I’ve seen it repeated quite often that typography experts have settled on one space between sentences as the only way to do things. And this or that typographer might be quoted. Although often people who are not typographers are also quoted. But what is the foundation of this bit of expertise? If they’re really in total agreement, or at least vast majority agreement, I should be able to look this up. However there’s nothing there to find. There is no basis for this bit of “expertise”. (In fact, I can’t even find evidence that typographers as a group are making this claim themselves.)

Neither the single spacers nor the double spacers are unequivocally vindicated by the history of moveable type.  The double space rule was an attempt to replicate the established typographical styles of the previous era in the age of the monospace typewriter; the current single space mandate sometimes incorrectly associates itself with 18th and 19th century typography’s single space, omitting to mention that those historical spaces were “special” spaces three to four times the size of today’s standard word spaces. I wish I’d found Hericlitean River’s article on this topic earlier — the historical evaluation there is extremely thorough.

Single spacers tend to be smug.

That’s because they know they’re right on the right side of fashion. The Slate article “Space Invaders” is an excellent example of this smugness. Note that Manjoo opens with the big guns — double spacing is “totally, completely, utterly, and inarguably wrong” — but then admits in a later passage

Is this arbitrary? Sure it is. But so are a lot of our conventions for writing. It’s arbitrary that we write shop instead of shoppe, or phone instead of fone, or that we use ! to emphasize a sentence rather than %. We adopted these standards because practitioners of publishing—writers, editors, typographers, and others—settled on them after decades of experience. Among their rules was that we should use one space after a period instead of two—so that’s how we should do it.

Of course, 70 years ago, double spacers were in exactly the same boat — certain of their correctness, and happily smug in expressing it. Oh, how tides turn.

Conclusion

One of the most enduring arguments for increased spacing (see Wikipedia’s History of Sentence Spacing) is a purely aesthetic one from De Vinne:

Printed words need the relief of a surrounding blank as much as figures in a landscape need background or contrast, perspective or atmosphere…  White space is needed to make printing comprehensible.

I find myself agreeing with this. I do not find dense blobs of undifferentiated text appealing; my eyes need the relief of whitespace to be comfortable. Unlike some others, I would never let my blog become an impenetrable block of 8 point sans serif. Just not happening.

At the most essential level, our practice defines protocol. So (not to be too banal in my moralism), I urge everyone to practice what feels right to them.

In Tom Fine’s perfect words:

Hopefully we can all just relax. If your boss or teacher demands two spaces then you can type two spaces without getting bent out of shape. If your publisher demands one space you can also please them with no loss of honor. And if you are writing for yourself, then you are free to follow your own aesthetic sensibility. You do not have to be oppressed by the conformists any more, no matter which side they are on…

Do what looks right.

Thank you and good night.

* Actually, I just made this up because I was annoyed.

I watched this movie for the first time out by the fire on a balmy day in February (it was one of Moppet’s last nights with me, and I smoked a really nice stogie).  I enjoyed it immensely, and this song — the end credit song — really rammed itself into my subconscious.  It feels to me like it came from an earlier time period — the early seventies, perhaps — and it has such an earnest sense of innocence to it that I can’t help but smile when it comes on my playlist.

La fille aux cheveux de lin, by Claude Debussy (featuring Richard Stolzman and the Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra)

Just beautiful.  Converted from a piano piece into a symphonic score, this reminds me a lot of some of the gentler passages from Ralph Vaughn Williams.  Sure to be a part of my summer playlist, if summer ever decides to drop in.

Yun Yun Nan Nan, by Sa Dingding

Harmony, Dingding’s most recent full length album, is brilliant and diverse and weird, contrasting traditional instruments (which she really does play) with electropop beats and gently distorted synths.  I really like it, and can’t wait for the next one.  If you want to see a sample with an actual video, check this out.

Miss Moon, by Jean Michel Jarre

Because, let’s be honest, anyone who can incorporate a rotary sprinkler as functional percussion (listen around 2:10) deserves a place on this list.  And check out the gross overamplified drums around 3:10!  I love this track, even though it makes me feel a little crazy.

Night Shift, by Siouxsie and the Banshees

This is the sort of music I always imagine playing at the end of the world.

Jed, with Hansa Yellow Medium on his cheek and burnt umber on his lips

Friday was Jed‘s last day at Vocus. I remember how I felt on my last day (that would be about 20 months ago now — feels like longer than that) and I wanted to share a little of his hour of completion with him (as he shared some of mine with me), so we arranged to meet for supper at the Copper Hog, right downstairs from where I work now.

Unfortunately, I had an incorrect phone number for him, and he transposed a 9 for a 6 in my phone number, and he evidently had his head down at the bar when I poked my head in to look for him.

We missed each other. I came home. I ate dinner. I settled down for an evening of writing.

At 8:30, Jed appeared on my front door, delirious with distilled products and a sense of liberation, and carrying two bottles of scotch. We popped open the Laphroaig and, after a while, retreated to the studio so Cathy could work without being distracted by our good spirits. And once there, the easel and the brushes were already warmed up, so Jed hashed out a painting features a whale swimming in front of the moon, two of his daughter Eloise’s favorite figures.

Between the scotch and the linseed oil vapors, I suspect the air in my studio was probably quite unbreathable, and we probably both sustained minor brain damage — totally worth it.

Jed, come back soon for more art therapy! The studio is usually a place of isolation for me, and it was pleasant to have good company in there =)

More pictures here.

His name is Cecil — technically. We found ourselves calling him a range of names, including but not limited to Kiki, Cicero, Charles, Chaz, Saucelito, Churchill, Winston, and Bob, in addition to the timeless “you filthy animal!”

Cecil has proved himself instrumental in several capacities.

Is your left nipple still chilly?

One thing only I know, and that is that I know nothing.

You guys should clean more often.

It

Hawt.

Cecil belongs to my sister Emma, and is only staying with us for a month. In fact, he’s going home on Friday — and we are going to miss him! However, we will not miss the little baby slugs that tend to stick to his fur when he’s prowling around out back, and which he insists upon dragging back inside with him. Ewww.

P.S. If anyone is concerned that I’ve done two cat-related posts in a row — don’t be. My next post will be either political, nihilistic, or both. So hang in there.

Moppet McNielsen

At first, I thought you were a rather troublesome inheritance. Obviously, one of your forebears had a romantic entanglement with a duck (or possibly a mallard or a loon) — that’s the only way to explain the fact that you quacked instead of meowed, and squawked instead of purring when you were happy. To be frank, you smelled bad most of the time. And also, you freaked us out: even when the wind was roaring down from the Frasier Valley and the temperature went into the single digits, you would come into the warm safety of the house only if we dragged you, kicking and screaming (or quacking). And we did, more than once. Twice we thought we’d lost you to frostbite, and once to coyotes, but you always proved us wrong.

Be still, sweet heart, and cease

But we learned to love each other, didn’t we? Cathy and I learned to speak duck in order to communicate with you, though we never could overcome our terrible American accents. And you learned to seek out our laps for warmth and companionship, in sun and frosty dark alike. We learned to endure a little rain and wind (and sometimes, but not often enough, snow) so we could spend a little time with you each week through every season of the year. And you learned to endure brief periods inside. If you smelled like poop, well… so do cigars. What better way to spend a Friday in December than sitting by the fire, with a cat in your lap and a stogie stinking up the winter nights? There was nothing better.

We loved you. I hope you will forgive us for capturing you against your will, drugging you, and stopping your heart.

I think you had a beautiful heart.  You were a wild animal in many ways, flirting with ferality, dreadfully terrified of enclosed spaces and loud noises.  Your hair exemplified wilderness: grown out and tangled, a rejection of the idea of domesticity and control. You were much more at home with raccoons, hungry hawks, freezing temperatures, and driving rain than any mere house cat.  You didn’t bury your shit because you didn’t have to — you were the queen kitty of 2709 Lynn St.  You could drive away even Abigail Thomas when you felt like it, even though she weighed three times as much as you did.

You were an awesome cat.  I will never forget our many, lengthy conversations by the fire.  I wish there had been time for more.

I will remember you like this.

Sleep tight, sweetie.

Madison puts that uppity boy in his place

So, I once again got embroiled in a facebook political diatribe *mostly against my will* because of this ridiculous cartoon. It immediately struck me as insulting — in part, because it mistakes sanctimonious asshattery for being funny.  Beyond this initial annoyance I found the bitter core of my indignation: it’s bloody well racist, that’s why (not the only racist attack in recent memory, I might add).

Before I tell you why, let me admit that I am not a raving fan of Mr. Obama’s presidency. I have nothing against the man himself: he’s broad-minded, well-read, genteel, moderate, and reasonable. But his presidency has certainly disappointed liberals almost as much as it has conservatives.  Given the hysterical historical timing of his election, I don’t believe this was really avoidable, and my critique is but a droplet of water amongst of sea of better argued ones (like this one).

That does not excuse this cartoon, which is guilty on two scores:

1. Factual inaccuracy: Obama never said these words. Many people have confused the idea of progressive taxation with “confiscation” or “class warfare.” In actually, Obama’s presidency has actually shrunk the federal budget for the first time since 1987. Better yet, the administration has done so in the midst of the mountain of debt created by his Republican predecessor. That’s right: the Government Accountability Office (surely a socialist or even a communist facade) calculated that GW’s Medicare Part D created a greater fiscal burden than Social Security.
2. James Madison owned more than 100 slaves for most of his life.  While he was a good owner (no irony intended) by most accounts, and critiqued the idea of slavery on principle, he didn’t do a damned thing to confront the institution while it burgeoned during the early days of the Union (in his defense, even Lincoln didn’t get behind emancipation until it aligned with his principle purpose of ending the rebellion).  Nevertheless, the fact of this history puts a different spin on this cartoon.  Here on the one hand, we have a man of compound heritage, a largely self-made man, who has had words of confiscation and theft artificially placed into his mouth.  On the other hand, we have a white slaveholder who was born to the richest family in Orange county and was raised as the primary heir of a Virginian tobacco farm.  Unlike Washington, he did not voluntarily free a single slave during his lifetime.

But the ultimate irony of misrepresentation is, as usual, found in the crinkles and recesses of historical context. Madison’s home state of Virginia (the land of tobacco and freedom!) was one of the most regressive in the union. It wasn’t until the constitutional revision of 1851 that Virginia even got around to dropping the requirement allowing unpropertied white men to vote — the poorer, Western half nearly seceded over this issue even before the Civil War.

To review the state of voting rights in Madison’s home state during the time of his political career:

Do you have a vagina? So sorry, you're disqualified.

You may actually be worth 3/5ths of a vote.

If your job description involves any amount of sweat, you should leave statesmanship to the pros.

Are your children obnoxious in restaurants? Sorry, but we don't grant political representation to your kind.

Do you smell bad or live with livestock, or even (god forfend) name your livestock? Sorry, you're out.

You're *sure* you're not the sparkly kind?

I’m not saying Madison was bad — he wasn’t at all, by any measure. Like Obama, he was broad-minded, well-read, genteel, moderate, and reasonable. He was, I think, more idealistic than Obama in his thinking — or at least his idealism had a broader scope — but that was coupled with a greater pragmatism in accepting the injustices of his time period. Those injustices were certainly greater than the ones we are confronted with in our own time period. That is why Madison was able to build a political legacy around the topic of “Freedom”, earn the title “Father of the Constitution,” and two centuries later be referred to as “an architect of Freedom” — despite the fact that he personally owned a hundred or more slaves, governed a population that systematically displaced the entire native population of an eastern quarter of North America, and lived in a state that didn’t universalize even white male suffrage until 15 years after his death.