Clever Title: Owen Allen's ramblings

I was looking through the Denver Post's opinion section a few days ago, and I stumbled across a letter to the editor about President Obama's economic policies. President Obama has asserted that his economic efforts have saved 150,000 jobs, but 1.6 million jobs had still been lost. According to the letter writer, this meant that the number of jobs saved was merely 0.09 percent of the total lost.

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that if you're reading this, you're probably decent at math. So I don't need to tell you that 150k/1600k = 0.09375 = 9.375%. I also don't need to tell you that a percent isn't entirely appropriate there anyway, since the 'jobs saved' aren't a portion of the jobs lost.

But seeing the letter there did make me wonder. The Denver Post got the letter, and either their editors are equally terrible at math, or they thought that the misrepresentation of data wasn't worth mentioning.

When did we, as a society, get to the point where not understanding math is okay?

So, had Sun been bought by IBM, the combined company could have been referred to as Blue Sun.

What's a good shorthand name for Sun-Oracle? Preferably one with a nerdy double meaning.

For the past two years, my wife has participated in National Novel Writing Month - generally abbreviated NaNoWriMo, or just NaNo - during November. Twice, she's written at least 50,000 words of a novel in that month. The last time she did it, she did it even though we were honeymooning for the first week.

But this post isn't just to brag about how awesome my wife is. There's also a script writing equivalent to NaNo, called Script Frenzy, which takes place in April, and this year I think I'm just crazy enough to do it. After all, it's not like I have any releases coming up or anything.

I'll try to chronicle my adventures here, as well as on my relatively disused writing blog. I believe that my script will be entitled "Macguffin Deliveries". I can't start writing until tomorrow, though, so you'll have to wait until then for more details.

I spent this weekend (and a bit of last week) flying out to Massachusetts for a friend's wedding. My wife and I knew Christine in high school, and we saw each other from time to time in college, and she was at our wedding last November.

Christine is terribly smart, a masterful planner, and good at picking guys. You could tell all of these things from the wedding. She's happy, and we're all happy for her. Also, her wedding helped me be more okay with the Catholic church, which I have trouble with from time to time.

A couple of things struck me, though. One of Christine's friends at the wedding, who also just got married, was talking about his college career, and it turns out that he roomed with two of my high school friends in college - two friends who hardly knew Christine at all.

Also, my brother gave me a call after the wedding. He'd been driving several fencing club members home from a tournament, and he saw a guy broken down by the side of the road. He was about to reluctantly drive past - he had a van full of fencers, it was late, it was the derriere-end of nowhere - when he noticed that the man was wearing a fencing jacket as well. He stopped, and the man turned out to be our good friend Chester, who graduated a couple of years ago.

My uncle used to say that there are only eighty people in the world and the rest is done with mirrors. Events like these do make me wonder. I don't think I'd say that the world is shrinking. But I think that, the more people we care about, the tighter we pull the whole world towards us.

For the past eight years, the average American's income has decreased slightly, thanks to inflation and mediocre growth, while the richest part of our society has seen a huge jump in income. Now that the economy's in trouble, we're all being asked to sacrifice, but our captains of industry are demonstrating, via huge bonuses for themselves, that while they're willing to take our money when they screw up, they aren't willing to chip in.

We are a relentlessly capitalistic society. So here's what I think: We're not getting our money's worth. We're paying for these people's salaries with our investments, our retirements, and now our taxes. And we've gotten s**t to show for it. As long as they can take as much of this money as they want, they have no financial incentive to improve things.

Here's my idea. For any company operating in the US, the salary of the CEO and other leaders - including stock options and such - should be capped at, say, 1000 times what the lowest-paid employee makes. So if you have minimum-wage workers, nobody at the company can make more than $13.6 million. If the CEO wants to raise his salary, he's gonna have to help the people on the bottom in order to do it. Also, any bonuses must be a percentage of total salary, and must be shared company-wide. The CEO wants an extra million, great, as long as the employees can get an extra thousand each.

I can foresee a few objections to this idea. Some might say that it's class warfare. The middle class has been getting shafted for a good long while here, while the rich get richer off of us. Isn't that class warfare? Besides, $13 mil isn't exactly the poor house. $13 thousand a year, which millions of Americans are supposed to be able to get by on, is in fact the poor house.

Some might say that this sort of plan would drive away talent. My first response would be, if what we've got on Wall Street right now is talent, then we can do with a bit less. But on a deeper level, it's a valid question. We do need smart people to run our businesses. But I suspect that $13 million a year (or more, depending on the company) could buy a certain caliber of talent. Those that wanted more money than that would leave, and those that were willing to make do with $6,000 an hour because they wanted a company to succeed would stay. And, in the long run, if the leaders who want more money go elsewhere, and the talented workers come here because things are good for workers here...I know which side I'd bet on.

I may be crazy here, but if I am, I'd appreciate someone explaining why.

So, I've been married for about two and a half weeks now. Being married is pretty cool, I have to say. Weddings are hella complicated, but that's just the first day that you're married. And even on the complicated days, being married is wonderful. That's what I've learned so far.

I'm going to be writing thank-yous from now until forever, though. I have an awful lot of people to thank, some of whom are probably reading this and wondering when I'm going to thank them. (Soon!)

Also, since I was honeymooning on the 4th, I haven't had a chance to say WOO PRESIDENT-ELECT OBAMA WOO! Such things should not go unsaid.

I'm getting married a week from Saturday.

It's sort of surreal. For most of this year, my fiancee Amanda has been living in Virginia, while I've been in Broomfield, CO. So it almost snuck up on me. For months, it's been an event of the distant future. And before that, it was something that only people older than me ever did. And now it's almost here.

This is the biggest thing I've ever done. I've never before made a step, a decision of this magnitude, and yet I don't find myself second-guessing a thing. I've known Amanda for a decade, we've been together for four years now, and I want to spend whatever time I've got with her. I'm usually a skeptic, not given to doubtless belief, but in this I find myself unusually fervent. I believe in her, I believe that I love her and that we can make this work, no matter what's thrown at us.

A lot of people, when told that we're webcasting the wedding, tell us that it's a wonderful and modern idea. But to us it's just a logical step. And really, so is the wedding itself. I found a wonderful woman, kind and nerdy and understanding, who loves me. Of course I want to keep her. Why wouldn't I?

I just got off the phone with the Sun tech support folks, who I must say are very helpful and friendly. But their automated call system said something that raises a sort of Zen question:

"All of our support staff are currently busy. We will answer your call in the order in which it was received."

If you receive one call, how could you not answer it in the order in which it was received?

I keep talking about politics these days. I promise, I'll stop in a month.

There are a variety of opinions about the two vice-presidential candidates being tossed around. Some people believe that Sarah Palin has been feigning Bushiness over the past few weeks in order to lure Biden into a false sense of security. I think that's pretty silly. I've seen some videos of the Alaska gubernatorial debates a couple years back, and Palin can hold her own pretty well on issues that are strictly ideological (abortion, gay marriage, other bogeymen), but issues like the economy and foreign policy require a deeper understanding, and I think that'll be hard to cram for.

Some people believe that this debate could change everything. It's possible, but I doubt it. Biden says stupid things sometimes, but I don't expect him to say something 7% worth of stupid. I think people are looking for economic and global reassurance in this debate more than they're looking for eloquence, and I think that Biden is better equipped to provide it.

Oh, and some people believe that Gov. Palin has been the victim of left-wing media bias and attack questions. These people watch Fox. Compared to Fox, everything is left-leaning. And compared to Sean Hannity's questions for Palin ('So, Governor, how much does your opponent suck?'), all questions seem tough.

We'll see, I suppose.

Some of you may have seen Tina Fey's portrayal of Sarah Palin on SNL this past weekend. Now, most politicians, upon being mocked by SNL, would laugh and let it go. But John McCain's campaign adviser has now made the rounds to explain that Tina Fey was being sexist. That's right - When one woman makes fun of another woman on a show known for making fun of politicians, McCain thinks it's sexism.

Congratulations, Senator McCain. Your campaign has officially jumped the shark.

It appears that John McCain's new campaign strategy is getting offended.

I don't know what you think about the candidates or their positions, but I am sick to death of mudslinging and character assassination. A campaign is not a duel, it's a job interview. McCain and Obama are trying to get jobs working for us. So if they want my vote, they need to tell me what they're going to do for me and for the country. And on the issue of issues, McCain and Palin have been mighty vague.

John McCain keeps calling himself a maverick. So tell us, then: What issues are you going to fight with your own party about? How are you going to be different from Bush? Don't just call yourself a maverick, malign your opponent, and hope for the best. Tell us what you'll do, and then let us make up our own minds.

When Adlai Stevenson ran for President, a supporter allegedly told him he "had the vote of every thinking man." He responded "Thank you, but I need a majority to win."

This quote came to mind when I was considering the media's analysis of the US Presidential campaign. Pundits have attributed McCain's recent surge to his predilection for simple, 'bumper sticker' answers. Fuel crisis? Drill offshore. When does life start? Conception. What should we do in Iraq? Keep fighting until I say so.

Now, there are certainly times when a President has to make simple decisions quickly. When Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, FDR didn't sit back ponder his options - he declared war and carrier rushed them. (When Bush said 'Let's invade Iraq', Obama said 'No, that's stupid.') Decisions like these are important, and they are also very rare.

But mostly the President has to deal with complicated, long-term problems. We're dealing with an energy crisis right now. We have 3% of the world's oil and we consume 24% of it, contributing mightily to global warming in the process. That's a problem. Do we need a solution? Hell yes. But offshore drilling is the equivalent of peeing on a forest fire. We're not going to solve the problem; we're just going to get burned in unfortunate places.

Problems with easy, quick solutions are certainly great. But they are also hen's teeth. American energy use, like many of the problems facing our nation, is going to require a lot of hard work and sacrifice to solve, and pretending that we can slap a bandaid on it is dangerous. John McCain ought to know better. And, after eight years of applying a simple solution to every problem, we ought to know better too.

My playwrighting group, Colorado Dramatists, does an event each year called No Frills where we stage semi-rehearsed productions of a number of our plays. This year, I'm doing a couple of my short plays ("Stars Fell on Alabama" and "How to Lie to Children"), and I'd love it if you could come.

It's on August 2nd, starting between 6 and 6:30. (It starts with a potluck dinner). The address is 659 Winona Court in Denver - the performance space is a converted garage. Here are the host's directions to the venue:

"From 6th Ave. Freeway, exit north on Sheridan. Turn right or east on 8th Ave. Go 4 blocks to second stop sign at Wolff St. Turn right or south on Wolff. Turn left or east on 7th Ave. At the stop sign, turn right or south on Winona Court. I'm 5 houses up on the west side, 659 Winona Court. I’m the house you can’t see because of all the trees. Look for the American flags in the pots next to the sidewalk, if the kiddies in the neighborhood don't steal them AGAIN."

So, yes. Also, I'm still looking for actors. The plays are less than 10 minutes long each, and they'd be rehearsed once or twice. "Stars Fell on Alabama" has three characters, and "How to Lie to Children" has five. If you're at all interested, let me know.

I do not need help bearing grudges. If I'm carrying one, I'm glad that you care. But if I set it down, just leave it there, just forget it and walk on. I'm not strong enough to carry a grudge and a smile, and I know which one I want.

Go on, try it.