Tax Time
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1 April 2011
April is going to be an especially busy month. As such, you’d think it might be an opportune time to finally enlist an accountant to do my taxes. But no, nothin’ doin’. I don’t know what it is – it’s not that I enjoy it. But I do find it interesting to shuffle through receipts, and bank and credit card statements, and walk down memory lane a bit. You confront that uncomfortable sense that you are what you spend.
Maybe there’s also something comforting there, something concrete, in the midst of a life that can sometimes start to get away from you and feel a bit out-of body. I spend, therefore I am. I think another reason I like seeing where it all went is that it gives me a tangible way of considering change and improvement for the coming year.
I’m also I suppose an honesty geek when it comes to paying taxes. I don’t want someone (an accountant) to tell me “what I can get away with.” I want to deduct what’s actually deductible, what’s actually “business-related.” I want to make those decisions on my own. What really happened during that $60 lunch date? How much of that Amazon purchase am I using for “work”? It’s not unlikely that for my entire working life I’ve been grossly over-paying in taxes. On the other hand, when you don’t make much, how much could you possibly overpay? As long as Mr. Obama is in office, I’ll pay my share; not exactly gladly, but willingly.
1 March 2011
Today, March 1, the NYC Council is holding a hearing on continued regulatory issues surrounding hydrofracking (the subject of the film GASLAND) – the Halliburton-developed process for extracting natural gas from shale. Why should you care? Because the process poses serious threats to the safety of drinking water, i.e. the entire New York watershed.
It was disappointing that GASLAND did not win the Oscar for Best Documentary. I hope you’ll go see it anyway; it’s educational, disturbing, and weirdly entertaining, in that “Are you kidding me?” kind of way.
The NY Times finally did a major article on the issue, published this past Sunday. Here is an excerpt:
High-volume horizontal hydraulic fracturing—or hydrofracking—carries significant environmental risks. It involves injecting huge amounts of water, mixed with sand and chemicals, at high pressures to break up rock formations and release the gas.
With hydrofracking, a well can produce over a million gallons of wastewater that is often laced with highly corrosive salts, carcinogens like benzene, and radioactive elements like radium, all of which can occur naturally thousands of feet underground. Other carcinogenic materials can be added to the wastewater by the chemicals used in the hydrofracking itself.
While the existence of the toxic wastes has been reported, thousands of internal documents obtained by The New York Times from the Environmental Protection Agency, state regulators and drillers show that the dangers to the environment and health are greater than previously understood.
The documents reveal that the wastewater, which is sometimes hauled to sewage plants not designed to treat it and then discharged into rivers that supply drinking water, contains radioactivity at levels higher than previously known, and far higher than the level that federal regulators say is safe for these treatment plants to handle.
Other documents and interviews show that many E.P.A. scientists are alarmed, warning that the drilling waste is a threat to drinking water in Pennsylvania. Their concern is based partly on a 2009 study, never made public, written by an E.P.A. consultant who concluded that some sewage treatment plants were incapable of removing certain drilling waste contaminants and were probably violating the law.
The Times also found never-reported studies by the E.P.A. and a confidential study by the drilling industry that all concluded that radioactivity in drilling waste cannot be fully diluted in rivers and other waterways.
As for me, I live part-time in Pennsylvania, 1/2 mile from a well site (they’ve already drilled the “test well”), which is very upsetting. See the movie – you’ll be glad to be informed on this issue!
2 February 2011
I was so moved by this video segment on Democracy Now this morning (forward to 15:50). It caught me off guard; I got choked up. Something about the confidence, the peacefulness, the calm and dignified truth-telling of the protestors. Their expressions about why they are there, what they want, are so deeply reasonable. They are cleaning up their trash in the square. They have claimed the inevitability of effecting this change. Men and women are all out there together.
One woman said, “I have nothing to lose now. I have already said ‘down with Mubarak’ on TV. If he doesn’t go, then we all go down; we go, as they say, behind the sun.” She said all this smiling, fearless. Another man said, “The relationship between Mubarak and the people has ended.” Simple as that, like lovers parting ways.
This was all yesterday, though. Today, a different story. What a thing to witness, what a time to be alive… our hearts are with the Egyptian people.
No Fracking Way
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8 September 2010
I’m pretty upset about what’s going on “in my backyard,” and I’m hoping you will be, too.
In recent years, it’s been discovered that regions rich in Marcellus shale have the potential to be the “Saudi Arabia of natural gas.” This includes parts of Sullivan County, NY and Wayne County and Susquehanna County, PA (as well as CO, UT, OK, AR). I live in Wayne County.
A Halliburton-developed drilling technology called hydrolic fracturing, or “fracking,” extracts the gas by injecting a complex cocktail of chemicals deep into the earth. A debate has arisen between citizens and drilling companies regarding the safety of the fracking process. Contamination of drinking water and other health hazards have been documented across the country where fracking is well underway. Reports include: brown/murky water, people being able to light their tap water on fire and explosions of water wells (due to methane leakage), pets and farm animals getting sick and losing hair, chronic headaches and other otherwise inexplicable illnesses.
Under the Bush administration, energy companies were allowed to drill without regulation; fracking was made exempt from the Safe Drinking Water Act. The 2009 Frac Act – which requires drilling companies to disclose the chemicals used in the fracking process — seeks to repeal the exemption. The good guys in Congress are currently trying to pass the Frac Act.
In the meantime, while the battle rages and legislators work to maintain a moratorium on drilling pending a thorough EPA study, the energy and drilling companies have found a loophole in what they call “exploratory wells.” Drilling for these wells employs pretty much the same process as actual wells, so the hazards are the same, but they are exempt from the moratorium or any other regulations/approvals; one of these loophole exploratory wells is being drilled right now 1/4 mile down the road from my house.
Josh Fox, a neighbor of mine who was offered $100,000 to allow drilling on his land, says it much better than I could, in his excellent documentary GASLAND. Please go see it. It will be playing Saturday, Sept 11 (outdoor screening) at FDR Drive and 23rd Street, 7pm; and at IFC Center from Sept 15-24. It will also be playing frequently on HBO over the next two years. It’s a terrific film (and very upsetting); I saw it outdoors in Callicoon, NY, where it was introduced by local residents/anti-fracking activists Mark Ruffalo and Debra Winger.
Here’s a link where you can send emails to your local legislators in support of the Frac Act.
18 July 2010
Posting this a bit late, but found it rather surprising: Marilynne Robinson appeared on “The Daily Show” on July 8.
Surprising that Jon Stewart invited her (nothing particularly funny to talk about here), and surprising that she appeared (she agrees to interviews somewhat rarely). Hmm… hoping perhaps this means we’ll hear a little more from Ms. Robinson via interviews in the future.
Her new book, Absence of Mind, is about, among other things, the “unnecessary division” between science and religion. “The gladiators from both sides are inferior representatives of both sides,” she says.
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| Marilynne Robinson | ||||
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28 April 2010
Firstly, thanks to Karen Tei Yamashita (author of three novels and the just released I Hotel, a collection of 10 novellas about the birth and rise of Asian American arts/activist movements) with whom I shared the stage at the Voices from the Asian American Literary Review Symposium this past weekend — for reminding me of the Galeano quote that is this week’s “quote of the week.” Here is the full quote:
Why does one write, if not to put one’s pieces together? From the moment we enter school or church, education chops us into pieces; it teaches us to divorce soul from body and mind from heart. The fishermen of the Colombian coast must be learned doctors of ethics and morality, for they invented the word sentipensante, feeling-thinking, to define language that speaks the truth.
– “Celebration of the Marriage of Heart and Mind,” from Galeano’s The Book of Embraces
When I started this blog, over a year ago now, I found the whole “online presence” thing to be obligatory, awkward, and a bit burdensome. But I’ve been surprised by how much I’ve missed posting here while on the road doing book events. I very much write to put my pieces together…
Ed Lin and Srikanth “Chicu” Reddy, yukking it up on stage
The Symposium was terrific, and I was honored to spend the weekend with not only Karen, but six other writers whose stunning work and generous spirits inspired me: so thanks also to Ed Lin, Peter Bacho, Srikanth Reddy, April Naoko Heck, Kyoko Mori, and Ru Freeman. I hope you’ll google these folks and check out their work. (And let me add here Marie Mutsuki Mockett, intrepid novelist-traveler, who came down from NYC with 4-month old baby boy, and whose work appears in the inaugural issue of the Review.) Our fearless leaders and moderators Lawrence-Minh Bui Davis, Gerald Maa, and Terry Hong also deserve a round applause.
Hyphen Magazine did a nice, and detailed, blog report on the event, read it here.
Lawrence-Minh Bui Davis & Gerald Maa, Co-Editors of the
Asian American Literary Review
Karen Tei Yamashita, giving a multi-media presentation on I HOTEL
Ru Freeman, novelist and essayist, author of A DISOBEDIENT GIRL
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By the time the Symposium events had ended, I was pretty pooped out. I had three classroom visits ahead of me, and I confess that a part of me wondered why the heck I’d agreed to do all of these appearances — did I think my introversion would somehow melt away and that some kind of literary-adrenaline would kick in? Not to mention the fact that transporting oneself around the DC area is kind of a nightmare; every Point-A-to-Point-B journey involves traffic, significant distance, expensive gas, parking, ugh. Spoiled New Yorker, I am.
But I am happy to report that each of the three visits — one to Montgomery College, two to the University of MD — was encouraging and energizing. I met revved-up and deeply caring teachers; smart, engaged students; bright-eyed, aspiring writers. A highlight was visiting a class that had read Long for This World and spent two full class sessions discussing it (my visit was to the second session). Hearing a group of intelligent, interested students talking, and even arguing, about the novel’s themes, intentions, meanings, as well as the characters’ motivations and transformations — was such a treat. I loved especially hearing students express conflicting allegiances to the characters. That’s exactly the kind of experience I would have hoped for the reader — to feel ambivalent about the characters, to understand them as both victims and perpetrators (and everything in between), to be immersed in the complexity of a polyphonic, polycultural family.
The report on Part 2 of my visit — the Border’s reading in northern Virginia, where I read for an almost-all-Korean audience! — forthcoming.
8 February 2010
How do I love thee, my President; let me count the ways…
2 February 2010
In case it wasn’t clear watching the Grammys the other night: hip hop/rap is at the dead center of the music industry. It’s still so bizarre to me watching kids in street gear riff and spit and spar on a gigantic, pyrotechnic, Hollywood stage in front of super-rich people in gala-wear. (I know the kids are rich too, now; but still…)
Even more bizarre… but in a totally different way… NPRs Planet Money covered a story about a TV producer and an economist getting together to make economics accessible and engaging. The result: a pretty-good rap song about Keynes and that other guy. Shmilarious. And impressively educational. Ya gotta see this.
