Designer Dogs, Part II

There is a difference between a status symbol and a pet.

I wrote before, a long time ago, how my debit card was stolen as part of a complex scheme that involved selling French Bulldogs over the Internet.  My debit card was a small cog in the game - paying for online ads on a website in Ontario, Canada, to sell non-existent dogs to people who would wire money to Mineral Wells, Texas, where locals would be roped in as "secret shoppers" to act as mules to launder the money before it was sent to Russia.  Geez, for all that effort, I would think you could just have a regular job, eh?

But it got me thinking, at the time, about how some people view pets not as loving companions to share their lives with, but as objects to own to impress other people.  Now that I think of it, many folks look at spouses the same way.  Melania?  Is that you?

What drove this home to me were some recent articles about thefts of designer dogs.  In one incident, a delivery driver scooped up the family pet and "stole" it from their owners.  In other incidents, French or English bulldog puppies were stolen from their owners.  It defies logic, in my mind, why someone would want to steal someone else's pet - other than the mentally ill pet hoarder, who thinks they are "rescuing" an animal, instead of stealing it.

I realized that to some folks, having a "designer dog" or other pet isn't a matter of having a loving animal to care for, but to have a status symbol.  French Bulldogs are expensive - a puppy (inbred from a breeding mill) can cost thousands of dollars.   But you won't find them on the end of a leash on Rodeo Drive, but rather on the end of a chain, attached to an engine block, in front of a run-down trailer home.  Yes, the very poorest in society covet status symbols, and this includes designer dogs.

Part of this is the culture of belligerence - and as a result, the sort of pets favored by the poor tend to be vicious ones - attack dogs, guard dogs, fighting dogs - as well as carnivorous or "exotic" pets, such as large snakes and carnivorous fish.  I bought a kitten once, at a pet store, for 99 cents, not realizing at the time, that they were being offered as food for snakes.  Speaking of exotic pets and white trash - "Joe Exotic" - end of story!

But having an expensive or "desirable" pet is also part of it.  It is the idea of obtaining the unobtainable - which is why it is so easy to sell "collectibles" to the poor, whether it is Beanie Babies or Cabbage-Patch dolls.  The poorer a person is, the more they crave status symbols.

It always floors me that people talk about getting a pet and then talk at length about what brand of pet to get - and that is all breeds are, brands of pets.   They are less concerned about the character and nature of the animal than with having the latest-and-greatest brand of pet.  So they get a Rottweiler or a Pit Bull or a Jack Russell terrier and find out their temperament is anything but calming.  In some instances such pets are merely annoying - eating your shoes or your sofa.  In other instances, they eat small children or even their owners.  Small price to pay, I guess, for status.

And that is all these sort of dogs are, is status symbols - expensive status symbols at that, for the people who can least afford to pay.  But that is the nature of poverty, as I have discovered over the years.  The poor are not poor because they lack money - far from it.  A lot of money passes through their hands, but they manage to keep little of it.  They spend what little they have trying to imitate wealth.  To the poor, wealth is something you buy, not money you put in the bank.

It reminds me of that scene in Driving Miss Daisy where Hoak says, "If I had what you had, I'd be shaking it around for everyone to see!" to which Miss Daisy replies, "That's vulgar!"  If there is a lesson there, it is don't be vulgar.  Real wealth isn't bought at the pet store or the car dealer or the clothing store or the shoe store.

Of course, the sad part of this pet story is that once the novelty of having the latest-and-greatest brand-name pet wears off - or the pet in question goes out of style - they are found, in plenty, at the local shelter.  But that doesn't mean they are a "good deal" to adopt.  I've seen more than one elderly person on our island try to adopt one of these fighting-dog mixes, only to end up in trouble.  At the very least, they end up falling down as these powerful dogs yank on the leash to chase a squirrel or cat, and Grandma ends up with a broken hip.

Pets can be a very expensive proposition, particularly if you don't have a lot of money.  Even basic feeding and care can cost well over $1000 a year - which may represent the bulk of disposable income for someone at or near the poverty line - or even someone making the median or average family income in the USA.   Of course, in such cases, such as the homeless with pets, the animals are fed scraps and never receive basic care, and thus suffer from preventable conditions, such as heartworm and the like.

With regard to bulldogs, some folks claim that these animals are born to suffer.  Bred to have a collapsed muzzle, they struggle to breathe on a daily basis.  This is how evil humans can be - we bred several lines of dogs (French Bulldogs, English Bulldogs, Pugs, etc.) for their looks, even as those looks make it hard for them to even breathe.  We are a selfish species, it seems.

I am kind of surprised that nearly a decade after my debit card was stolen, that French Bulldogs are still a "thing."   It just saddens me that people want a pet not for the companionship, but because of how the dog looks or because it has a particular pedigree, or more precisely, how much it cost. Like I said, I think many folks choose spouses the same way - hence the so-called "Trophy Wife" that is merely another acquisition parked in the garage between the Lamborghini and the Mercedes.

Is that any way to live?  Are people like that even happy?  I find it hard to fathom.

What is Populism? What is Nationalism? Why Now?

Why are populism and nationalism surging worldwide?

A lot of ink has been spilled about Donald Trump and how he is a populist and has a rabid following. Perhaps this is true, but it brings up the question as to why populism has become so popular, if you'll pardon the pun, as of late.  And by that, I don't mean just in the United States, but worldwide.

What is populism? What is nationalism?  And why are both intertwined with the cult of personality? 

I think nationalism is easier to figure out.  It is the same feeling you have for your hometown team, or your home town.  It is the fans chanting "USA! USA!" at the Olympics, or any other international sporting event.  It is the idea of being part of something greater than yourself, of thinking your country - your "team" - is the best, and rooting for your team.

And perhaps there is nothing inherently wrong with this - every person thinks their country is better than others, even countries that, well, are not exactly great, in terms of poverty and crime levels.  Ask someone in Nicaragua what they think of Guatemala, and odds are, they will tell you their country is so much better.  And vice-versa.  National pride - often expressed by soccer fans - is still rampant, even in countries with failing economies and governments.

Trump pushed his "America First!" platform, and it seems the rest of the world followed suit - pushing their own national agendas.  Of course, this is nothing new - every country pushes its own agenda to the extent it can.  What is different about the last few years is how brazen and bold many countries are about asserting themselves, often to the detriment of the greater good, or even to their own detriment. There is a lot of flag-waving going on, worldwide, not just in the USA, but in Russia, Turkey, India, China - among others.

Why is this?  Well in America, I think it is a reaction to a lot of negative press that people have heard for years - decades, in fact.  America is bad because.... [fill in the blank].  Yes, we've done a lot of bad things - invaded other countries in pointless wars that have killed hundreds of thousands of people, if not more.  We've intervened in other countries and toppled elected governments to support the corporate interests of a fruit company - among others.  We've had a history of slavery, discrimination, and racial hostility.

Of course, so has everyone else. Russia and China are no innocent babes-in-the-woods. They've murdered millions as well, and intervened and meddled with foreign governments - including our own.  And those who haven't done these terrible things are not necessarily innocents, they simply didn't have the means to do so, but would if they had the power.

For many Americans, this constant criticism wears on them after a while.  It is akin to Germany after World War I.  Germans were told they were horrible people for their role in the war and had to pay crippling reparations which wrecked their economy for more than a decade.  The first person to come along and tell them to be proud to be German ended up in power.  People want to feel good about themselves, and they get tired, eventually, of people saying what a horrible country they live in, particularly when it isn't so horrible, or no more horrible than other countries are or have been.

That is what brought Trump into power.  The middle-class, mostly white, blue-collar Americans were tired of being told they were bad people for invading Iraq, burning too much fossil fuels, discriminating against minorities, and whatever other horrible thing the news is reporting this week. And make no mistake about it - the news always reports horrible things, because that is what is deemed "news" and what sells.   And in a free country, people are free to criticize their own government and country, so we do a lot of that here - it is our strength and it is our weakness, a weakness exploited by foreign powers, regularly.

Trump comes along and tells these folks they are "beautiful" and that America is "great" and that a little white supremacy isn't such a bad thing - and their monster trucks are just fine the way they are.  After decades of "you're a bad person living in a bad country responsible for all the world's problems!" this message resonated.   I said it before, a long time ago, Democrats have to get off this message of "you're a worthless piece of shit" because the masochist vote is a very slim demographic.

So, nationalism - root for our team.  Rah-rah!  Easy to understand.  And easy to understand why it has taken hold in other countries as well.  But what about populism?  What is it?  Why do people claim Trump was a populist?

Well, populism is a bit of a fraud, I think.  The idea behind it is that the needs and view of "the people" or the common people, come first.   The irony is, every politician who claims to be (or who was anointed as) populist, often only pays lip service to populist causes, and instead favors the interests of the "elite" or wealthy.   Yes, Donald Trump signed a tax bill that cut the tax rates of "the little people" by a few percentage points (15% to 12% - woohoo!) and doubled the standard deduction (while eliminating the personal exemption). Tax cuts for upper brackets were a lot more generous, and for corporations, simply astounding.  Trump's claim of winning the 2020 election wasn't the only "big lie" he told.

But people believe it - and believed it in the past.  One reason people compared Trump to Hitler is not that Trump killed six million people in concentration camps (not yet, at least) but that the political tactics both used are very similar.  Both used nationalism to get people to feel better about their country, and by extension, better about the candidate.  Both used populism to make promises to "the workers" while simultaneously screwing them at every turn.  National Socialism promised VW Beetles to the workers, and built vacation cruise ships and resorts for the "Volk" but at the same time, neutered the worker's unions in service of the large corporations.  And the "Volk" didn't have much time to enjoy their vacations or people's cars, before all were conscripted to a war effort that destroyed the country.

The other parallel between the two is the cult of personality - which we see worldwide today with charismatic leaders whose identity is conflated with the countries they lead.   Putin is Russia.  Modi is India.  Erdogan is Turkey.  Trump wanted to be America.  Many of these leaders would like to stay that way for life, which is why Trump still cannot accept he lost the election.  The fearless leader becomes like a mascot, or a shorthand recitation - meme if you will - of what the supporters see, or want to see, in their leader and their country.

So what's wrong with that?  Shouldn't people be proud of their country, their government, and their leaders?  To some extent, yes.  But nationalism, populism, and the cult of personality are dangerous things, as they allow leaders to go unchecked and unopposed.  Eventually, allowed to do just anything, they end up doing everything - everything wrong, that is.   These things are also wholly un-American in nature.

Many nationalists like to use our "founding fathers" (a relatively modern phrase) almost as religious icons or saints of a Constitutional religion - a Constitution that, like the Bible, many have not actually read in whole, or even in great part.   But an examination of these "fathers" reveals that they did not see themselves as populists, nationalists, or part of a personality cult.   George Washington was supposedly promoted by many to become the new "King" of our infant country - he refused the honor.  While he served two terms as President, he retired from politics after that - a tradition that has largely continued to this day.  We don't have perpetual leaders in this country - no "President for Life" as in Russia, or inherited monarchy as in the UK.  These things are repugnant to our very way of living.

Thus, it is ironic that the folks who follow the cult of Trump claim to be "patriots" and many even profess that they wish Trump to serve as President forever (even Trump admits to this ambition, claiming to want to serve three terms, Constitution or not).   And that is the second irony - many Trumpists claim to be saving the Constitution, but at the same time, wishing to violate its very foundation, in terms of overthrowing the election or merely overthrowing Constitutional processes.

So where does this all lead us today?  Well, I think one reason Biden was able to beat out Trump is that, unlike other Democrats, his message wasn't that "you're a worthless piece of shit."  Hillary went with that message and it didn't work.  She actually called people deplorable.  While they might not have voted for her in any event, it never pays to call people names.  Call out their actions and opinions, but not their underlying character.  It is akin to the tale of two Dads I related earlier.   It is OK and important to tell your kids their behavior is bad.  It only makes things worse to tell them they are inherently bad - there is no redemption from the latter.

And while right-wing populism is on the rise, worldwide, today, left-wing populism also exists (and existed, as illustrated by the vintage cartoon above).  Left-wing populism is more often disconnected from nationalism, however, or at least it is in our country, at the present time. Of course, what constitutes left-wing and right-wing is often muddied.  The Nazis were literally "National Socialists" at least in name, embracing what would be called left-wing "Socialism" today, while at the same time, right-wing fascism today.  Of course, as the German people eventually discovered, the socialism of National Socialism was merely a thin veneer used as a selling point to get the masses to swallow poisonous medicine.  Sort of like how Republicans use social issues and "Make America Great" to sell tax cuts for the rich, to poor voters, while simultaneously cutting their benefits.

These things seem to go in cycles.   Perhaps it takes six or seven decades for people to forget about the horrors of war and nationalism, populism, and the cult of personality.  It is like speculative financial bubbles - people forget about the last one, or a new generation comes up without personal experience with them.  So they pile on to "the next big thing!" which is a "sure bet!" and don't listen to their grandparent's lament about lost fortunes from the previous bubble.

Hopefully, we won't have to go through the excesses of the past to learn the painful lessons about nationalism, populism, and the cult of personality, once again.  And maybe with this last election, America is turning the corner - we'll see.  But what about the rest of the world?   It doesn't seem like things are going so well in Britain with Brexit (a nationalist movement if there ever was one) or in India with Modi, or in Russia, with Putin - just to name a few.

It still could be a bumpy ride.

The Path of Least Resistance (He Did The Best He Could)

We all follow the path of least resistance, at least sometimes.

I was thinking the other night - a dangerous preoccupation of mine - about a friend of mine who was commiserating about their parents, who were, to say the least, a little weird.  I understood where he was coming from, to say the least.  Anyway, he was trying to rationalize it all, and said "Well, I guess they did the best they could!" which is a phrase I hear a lot when people talk about folks who fail to live up to expectations.  They can't help it.  They did the best they could under the circumstances.  I guess they had to rob that liquor store.  You know how it is.

But it struck me, thinking about this phrase - which I hear a lot these days - that it is kind of a cop-out.  The folks we excuse for malfeasance (including ourselves) with the phrase "He did the best he could" often are merely taking the path of least resistance in life, rather than rising up and trying hard to do better.  The drug addict or the alcoholic "did the best he could".  The abusive father "did the best he could".  The spendthrift gambler "did the best he could" - the list goes on and on. But it raises the question, was that really the best they could do, or could have they done better?  Because when you come right down to it, the folks we are letting off the hook (including ourselves) with this platitude often could have done better and in many cases, without much effort on their part.

And in fact, by trying just a little bit harder, we can often improve our lives greatly - to the point where the rewards far exceed the effort involved. On the other hand, the path of least resistance leads to nowhere.  Every major religion sort of teaches this theory.   The Catholics, with their "Seven Deadly Sins" proscribe "Sloth" as being evil. Loafing around, doing nothing, taking the path of least resistance - it is all-too-easy to do, and while it seems like the path to happiness at the time, it often is the path to depression and misery.  Is the old good-versus-evil, Heaven-versus-Hell.

But that is a funny thing about humans.  We want to take the path of least resistance - or at least what appears to be the easy way - and that seems counter-intuitive in terms of a survival skill.  As complex beings, we don't just hunt and gather anymore. We farm crops, raise livestock, build shelters, make clothing - all tasks that require work that doesn't necessarily show an immediate reward.  The caveman who prepares and stores food for winter, lives to survive for another year.  The one who just goofs off, starves to death in the cold.

Or does he?  That caveman might just steal the stored food from the industrious caveman neighbor and end up surviving long enough to reproduce. Or perhaps the industrious caveman's wife thinks the slacker is a glamorous "bad boy" and is seduced by him, on the sly.  Maybe the playboy caveman doesn't survive the winter (or the spear thrust through his chest by other angry cavemen) but his DNA lives on.  And maybe that is why we have strivers and slackers in this world.  We have people who settle down and build farms and raise crops and create villages and even cities.  On the other hand, we have gypsies, moving from place to place, stealing what they can to survive for the day and not caring much about long-term thinking.

An interesting thought - at least to me.  And maybe today, we have far too many of the path of least resistance people, and far too few of the motivated folks who are willing to work toward far-off goals. We have a whole generation - it seems - whose mantra is pay off my loans, give me free money, and make college free (and guarantee jobs, make rent free, and so on and so forth).  The path of least resistance is a popular one, today.

In my own life, I have followed both paths - probably the path of least resistance moreso than I should have.  When I was a kid, I was pretty depressed - with a home life that was, well, insane quite literally.  I was bullied in school, and while I was above-average in intelligence, I could have gotten better grades than I did, mostly because of depression - and drug and alcohol abuse.  The path of least resistance seems appealing, when you are depressed.  But often, it leads to more depression.

I followed that path for a decade or so, before one day I woke up, as if from a dream, and had one of those "As God as my witness, I'll never be hungry again!" moments.  I realized that if I was to have any sort of life, I would have to get off my ass and make it for myself.  No one was going to hand me free money or pay off my debts.  It would be hard, it would be daunting, but it would be worth it.

What followed were some of the happiest days of my life.  I still had little, of course, although what little I had was pretty decent - a place to live, a car to drive, and a bicycle to ride.  I also had a job - several of them in fact.  I did everything from delivering pizzas, to working at Planned Parenthood, to tutoring calculus, to working at United Parcel, to delivering phone books - in addition to my regular job at Carrier.  It was hard work, and I went to bed exhausted every night, not from a cloud of marijuana smoke and cheap beer, but the relaxing exhaustion that only comes from a hard day's work.

It would have been easier to just keep my head down, keep my regular job, party with my friends on the weekend, and do little else. I shudder sometimes to think what would have happened to me - the factory eventually closed, and I would have to live with odd jobs or whatever, trying to scrap together a few dollars for some pot and fancy rims for my car.  It was not a good way to live.

But we all have choices, which is the best thing about America. We just returned from the grocery store, and the "path of least resistance" is well-evident there.  The end-cap displays were all for high-fructose soda pop and chips and snacks of various sorts. The path of least resistance was not hard to find - it always is, by definition, the easiest path to take.  But the cost of the snack foods, in terms of dollars, and in terms of long-term impact on your health, is very great. Take the easy way out, and you'll find yourself in trouble later on.  Maybe vegetables and fresh foods are harder to prepare and harder to find (and it takes some education as to what to look for and how to prepare them) but the long-term payback is far greater than the short-term rush of junk food.

But you have to make the better choice - the one that has delayed gratification, not the instant gratification and carbo-rush high of the snack food and soda pop.  We all have choices to make, and it is liberating to be able to make your own choices, but as part and parcel of this, we are also free to make bad choices.  Some argue that the government should protect us from bad choices  - or make choices for us. But if we go down that path, they really aren't choices anymore, are they?  Of course, the government already makes choices for us these days - there are some things too important that we can't just let people take the low road.  No, you can drain your used engine oil into the wetlands.  And yes, energy independence is a national security concern - so the government tells us how many miles per gallon we should be getting - and fines us for getting too few.

Motivating yourself to do better things isn't easy - it is hard, probably the hardest thing there is.  Quitting drugs and alcohol and going back to school, and then to law school, wasn't hard.  Deciding to do these things, was.  Once I made the decision and went down that road, it sort of bootstrapped itself.  Better things started happening to me, not all at once, but over time.  Funny thing, too, people want to see you succeed in life, provided they see you are making the effort to improve yourself and not just taking the easy way out.

Of course, many people take this sort of thought the wrong way - that somehow you can "think your way to success!" by thinking positive thoughts (books and seminars galore promote that nonsense).  No amount of "Successories" posters will change your life, to be sure.  And wild dreams that are impractical, are not the answer to anything.  Plans that are sure to fail are just as much the path of least resistance as doing nothing.  Buying into an MLM scheme is just squandering what little energy you have.

It is also important to realize that we all take the path of least resistance, from time to time, as no one is perfect, or even close to being perfect.  Human efficiency, in my estimation, is in the low single digits - 1-2% on a good day. Often far worse on others. So it makes no sense to beat yourself up for not studying medicine in your spare time or not learning how to split the atom in your basement.

On the other hand, I think that this "He did the best he could" slogan is little more than a cop-out.  It reminds me of a comment a sardonic friend of mine once made about the trend among overweight gays to call themselves "bears" and just accept morbid obesity as a lifestyle.  My friend said, "This whole 'bear' thing is just another way of giving up!"   And maybe he has a point.  It seems that today, unhealthy lifestyles are embraced, under the rubric that "body shaming" is akin to racism or sexism.  Calling someone "fat" is akin to tossing the N-word at them.

It seems on a number of levels, people are taking the path of least resistance and then crying they are victims and can't help it.  Whether it is drugs or the need to take an "emotional support animal" on an airplane, everyone wants the easy way - and the rest of us have to suck it up.  Someone goes to Party U, studies something idiotic and gets shitty grades and now can't get a job - he's the victim, and the rest of us have to pay for his four-year hangover.   Yes, even going college, which seems like the hard thing to do, is often the easy way out, particularly if you take the easy courses and don't think about the long-term consequences.

I could go on, but you get the point.   As a nation, we have become fat, bloated, and lazy, (and in debt) and cry that we are victims of greater powers and nefarious schemes.  It is the easy way out - far easier than looking at our own actions and figuring out what we did to get ourselves in the situations we are in.   No one wants to do that, because it is hard - the hardest thing you can do, in fact.

But once you do that very simple thing, oddly enough, everything else becomes much easier.

The alternative is to be the guy who everyone says of, "He did the best he could!"

Bingo!

One of my guilty pleasures is to play Bingo about two or three times a year, at campgrounds.  Maybe I have a gambling problem....

Some campgrounds we go to have Bingo on Friday or Saturday night.  Unlike some Bingo halls, these are mostly social events, although you can win a lot of money (or lose a little).   Last week, we won a combined $270, which paid for our trip.  I'd say overall, we've broken even on Bingo, which makes sense, as most campground Bingos are not-for-profit and thus return most of the money to the gamblers.  Statistically, over time, you would end up breaking even, or a large number of people would.

Not so much at the church hall.  Many church Bingos are fund-raisers for the church, so the money played is not all paid.  My first experience with Bingo was at the fire hall in Arlington.  These were church ladies and they were deadly serious about Bingo.   This was not a social event - no drinking, no talking, no nothing.  Most of the older ladies were playing four or more cards at a time, and brought their own "dotters" and sometimes a table full of "good luck charms" such as troll dolls and other talismans.

We, of course, were having fun and got "shushed!" a lot.   But it was interesting, the contrast between social gamblers and the hard-core addicted gambler.  At social bingo, there are plenty of jokes and catcalls and people having fun and maybe getting a little drunk.  No one says, "shush!" there.   The gambling aspect is secondary to the socialization - you meet new people in the campground or catch up with others you already know.

The compulsive gambler, on the other hand, is deadly serious about the process.  You've seen the ladies at the slot machines, mindlessly pulling levers (or today, pushing buttons) over and over again, as the number of quarters in their bucket slowly diminishes (or today, the balance on their gaming card declines).   There is little joy in this solitary exercise, just repetitive behavior like in a Skinner box.

The James Bond films make gambling seem like a social event.  People gather around the gaming table and cheer on the gamblers, or gasp with delight and applause when their hero wins.  That's a movie.  The reality is, you linger around a gaming table, you will be asked to leave, as they assume you are reading people's cards and maybe signalling others.   It is a deadly serious occupation, and the hard-core gambler doesn't get much in the way of "fun" out of it.  Like any other endeavor, the hard-core "serious" people suck the fun out of it, whether it is bicycling, car repair, boating, jogging, or whatever.  There is always "that guy" who ruins everything by saying, "This is serious business, people!"

The lack of social interaction is why I was never enthralled by casino gambling,  Despite all the colorful lights and the incredible noise levels, the people there are not talking or interacting with one another very much.  They are compulsive gamblers - going every weekend, rain or shine - or even every day of the week, slowly handing their wealth over to the casino owners.

Of course, there are other forms of "social" gambling, but these can often end up being anti-social.  I got roped into a "friendly game of poker" with people who I thought were friends (but ended up as coke-heads).  I noped out of that when I realized the point of these "games" was to get us all snockered and then take us to the cleaners - something I could not afford on my technician's salary.   Not only that, friendship is ruined when it turns into a financial transaction.  One of the schmucks roped into this game was an Engineer, and he was writing a three-figure check at the end of the night to my "friend".   I am not sure you can remain friends for long with someone who regularly takes you for $250 now and again.

Again, in the movies, "the guys" play poker, drink beer, and hardly keep score and just have fun. Maybe that can happen, too.  The movies also have this scene where the "secret" poker game is held in a hotel room or some underground lair, and everyone "wants in" on this game.  Either it is James Bond, trying to weasel his way into SPECTRE, or Robert Redford trying to take a "Mark" in The Sting.  What is funny is that this "secret" game is so well-known to everyone.  Not stated is why some Mob boss or drug kingpin wants to sit in some dank warehouse playing 'high stakes' poker, when he could be out having a good time.  I mean, it just doesn't look like much fun, and certainly not socialization.

We've won a combined $350 at a New York campground that had a "Drag Bingo Night" which was hilarious.  Think of David Spade's "Church Lady" calling Bingo - and calling out all the players.  We also won the 50/50 drawing of $600.  Ouch - people were hating on us that night!  "Didn't you just win already?"  Usually, you spend $20 on four "cards" and play a number of games, each having a different prize level (or physical prize) and usually progressing to the last sheet on your card, where whoever wins "cover-all" wins the grand prize, as I did last Friday.  I'd say, over the last decade, we've played maybe twice a year, spending $20 each time, so we might actually be a little ahead at this point.  Then again, gamblers always remember their "wins" and minimize their losses.  I could be lying to myself.

It is interesting what a rush it is to "win" and how your brain remembers this, which is why gambling is so addictive and insidious.  For me, it is like smoking.  I've tried cigarettes in the past, but never felt "compelled" to smoke them or even buy them.  One of the cruel tricks I used to play on my smoking friends was to bum a cigarette from them when they were down to 2 or 3 in their pack.  I would smoke just a little of it and then carefully put it out in the ashtray.  It was always amusing - and yes, cruel - to see how my smoker friends would eventually retrieve that butt from the ashtray, as they realized they were "out" of ciggys.  Their compulsive need for nicotine made them do this.  Probably why poor people are always driving - always going to the convenience store for a pack.

Maybe that is the nature of addiction. Some people are addictive personalities. Some people are addicted to certain things, but not to others.  Perhaps my addiction is blogging.  Or perhaps addiction takes a while to set in.  If I smoked a pack a day with my buddies in high school in order to "fit in" I probably would have developed the habit.   Similarly, if you go to casinos enough, well, eventually you will start playing the slots and other games, and this could turn into a habit.  One sure way not to develop the habit is to stay out of casinos.

Or Bingo halls!

The Problem With Trailer Park Livin'

Owning a house on a lot where someone else controls the rent is problematic.

We live on a leased lot in a Georgia State Park.   Fortunately, the lease extends about 80 years at this point, and we know how much the annual lot lease will be - currently about $500 a year.  The previous 99 year lease was renewed and extended by the Park Authority, so even 80 years from now, the odds are, the owners would not be thrown out.

Of course, there are other expenses we have, even with the house "paid for."  Insurance, property taxes, utilities, fire fee, and so on and so forth, come to about $800 to $1000 a month.  Pretty cheap living, but of course, we don't have a mortgage.

Mark has been looking at real estate in Florida, and is amazed how cheap some places are.  You can buy a modular home on a lot for not a lot.  Other places offer "mobile homes" for sale in a trailer park, where you don't own the lot, but rather rent it from some company.  And it can be an advantage to be beholden to some landlord like that.  Landlords can make decisions - hard decisions - that homeowner's associations or condo associations will dither and dicker about for decades.

On the other hand, as we've seen, trailer parks can get rundown, as the owners get older and lose energy.  They don't raise the rents on the lots, as they see the tenants as their friends. So their friends overlook the cracked pavement and worn-down swimming pool.  The owners die or retire and a new owner who took a course at Trailer Park U. buys the place and doubles the rent overnight.  Seniors living on Social Security and just getting by, freak out.  And those old trailers are so rusted they can't be moved - and the cost of moving one exceeds its retail value.  It can cost thousands to move a mobile home.

Mark saw one place with units for sale - in an over-55 community - and was amazed that the prices varied from under $10,000 to over $100,000.  The answer, of course, was that these were trailers, and trailers depreciate over time.  The $10,000 double-wide was from 1983.  The $100,000 modular was from 2018.   We drove by the place - totally by accident - and saw a line of 50 residents with protest signs, complaining about conditions, management, and lack of security.   What was going on here?

I googled the name of the park and the residents have been protesting since 2013, it seems.  I also looked for reviews online, and someone has been busy as there are many recent no-comment five-star reviews, or reviews from people who seem to do nothing but review things - giving everything all five-stars.  One reviewer admitted they didn't live there but had a friend-of-a-friend who does, and she said it was nice.  Grooming the Internet.   You are dealing with a clever landlord!

Now whether conditions are as bad as all that is up for debate.  I suspect the real issue is the monthly lot rent, which I read on one listing was $689 while one of the protesters claims it is closer to $900 a month - plus utilities and water, which apparently the latter of which was included at one time.   So you see why they are protesting - it is costing them more per month to live in a trailer than I pay to live in a three-bedroom house with a garage.

A lot of the complaints seemed trivial - worn pool loungers, the occasional pothole.  I think the money was the issue.  When someone says, "it isn't about the money..." it is about the money.

I wrote about trailer parks before and how they can be a trap.   You buy the trailer and then rent a lot to put it on.  Once the trailer is there, it isn't leaving - ever.  Some parks make you cut off the trailer tongue with a torch, just to make sure.   So if they raise the lot rent, you basically have to suck it up and pay, or walk away from the trailer you paid for.  Even the latter is problematic, as the landlord can charge you to have it removed or cut up and hauled away.   In a way, it is like a timeshare - a lifetime commitment.  You have to hope you can sell it to some other chump, which is why older trailers sell for next to nothing.

And maybe, if you are broke and need a place to say, buying an $8000 worn-out trailer is not such a bad deal, even though you are paying $1000 a month for lot lease and utilities and so on and so forth.   It is approaching the cost of an apartment, without the luxury of having a landlord pay for plumbing repairs.  Of course, that is just the problem - as these parks get older, they require refreshing.   The pavement cracks (paving sand is an exercise in faith) and the swimming pool needs an overhaul every ten years or so.   What seemed shiny and new to the original owners, starts to look run-down.  And $8000 trailers start to attract the wrong sort of people.  Pretty soon you have a crime problem, and run-down cars with no mufflers on them, racing through the streets.   It isn't an issue of poor management, but an issue of the inevitable process that occurs with trailer parks, as the parks get older and the trailers get older.

Contrast this with free-standing homes, which can last 50-100 years or more, and can be updated and remodeled (which of course, is a PITA as well).   Although, eventually, they too, will be bulldozed and replaced when the time is right.

And that could be another factor in these protests.  Since the park was built (apparently in the 1980's) the area has grown and the land is worth a lot more.   A builder would see that land as valuable building lots.  Evict the tenants, get rid of the trailers, and you've got a million-dollar home gated retirement community - or at least a $500,000 one.   So it could very well be that the landlord wants these people to get disgusted and leave - as it is cheaper than buying them out.   Could be - merely speculation on my part.  It has been known to happen, and is the battle-plan of the Trailer Park U. crowd.

Yes, we can argue it is "unfair" and that sumptin' should be done about it.  Problem is, what these park operators do isn't illegal, and indeed, to suggest that someone shouldn't be allowed to do something with land they own is sort of un-American (doesn't mean it isn't a popular trope in parts of the Northeast!).  The deal is, of course, that you can't get stung by these things if you don't sign up for them.  Mark marvels at "how cheap" these homes are in Florida, but then I point out to him that the yearly lot lease would exceed the purchase price of some of these units.   Better off to pay a little more and own a piece of land to dump your trailer on, if you have to.  Of course, some others don't have that choice.

But speaking of cost-of-living in Florida, insurance is the new big kicker (next to property taxes, which can easily be in five-digits in many parts).  Seems the lawyers pushed through legislation that allows them to collect huge fees by suing insurance companies on behalf of "clients" whose homes are damaged by hurricanes.   Roving roofing companies, affiliated with law firms, look for clients after a storm and convince them they are entitled to a new roof - at Cadillac prices - and then go after the insurance company, who refuses to buy a gold-plated roof when the damage is limited to two shingles.

As a result, insurance costs are skyrocketing in Florida - double-digit increases every year.  Bear in mind the wind policy on Mark's parent's house in Ft. Meyers Beach was over $4000 a year (in addition to the homeowner's policy) and you can see this becomes a major expense.

That is the problem with these "pro-teckt the Little People!" laws, such as rent control and tenants rights.  Sounds great in the abstract, until the bill comes due.  People today are protesting to have rent abolished entirely.   Gee, I wonder how that will work out?   Most landlords are small operators who have mortgages (such as I was) and with no rental income, will lose the property.  And by the way, in bankruptcy, your eviction protections are nearly zilch.   Oh, well, people never learn.

Maybe some day, we'll downsize to one of these trailer deals.  But quite frankly, it appears to me it would cost more than what we are paying now - and not be as nice.

There's no place like home!  And sometimes you have to leave home to find that out.