Isaac Laquedem

Isaac celebrates Tax Day with a traditional reading from A.P. Herbert

Tax Day is Isaac's annual reminder to dip into the works of the underappreciated British author, playwright, humorist, campaigner, and parliamentarian A.P. Herbert (1890-1971), for whom the Inland Revenue (Britain's version of the Internal Revenue Service) provided endless inspiration.  Today's reading comes from Herbert's story "Wear and Tear," framed in the manner of a decision of a court.  (He wrote more than 100 of these fictitious cases to illustrate absurdities in the common law.)  His protagonist Albert P. Haddock, a writer, has appealed to the High Court from a decision of the Tax Court that he could not write off certain expenses that he claimed were necessary for his business, and that he could not take a depreciation deduction for wear and tear on his means of production.  Mr. Justice Radish speaks:

Mr. Haddock asks for a declaration that he is, and has been for some years, entitled to certain allowances or deductions for income-tax purposes under the heading of  (a) Expenses and (b) Wear and Tear of Machinery and Plant; and on the assumption that he is right be claims that a considerable sum is owing to him in respect of past years in which the Commissioners have refused to grant him such allowances. 

Mr. Haddock appears on behalf of the whole body of authors, artists, and composers, and the position of a large number of creative brain-workers will be affected by our decision.

What expenses did the Inland Revenue disallow as deductions?  As the court says, "they have allowed him nothing for hospitality, entertainment, or travel, and they have invariably deleted from his list of professional expenses such items as champagne, Monte Carlo, night-club subscriptions, first-nights, Deauville, and hire of yacht at Cowes."  Haddock argued that those items were not luxuries or personal extravagances, but necessities for the diligent writer.  "How can a man write about Monte Carlo or Cowes unless he goes to Monte Carlo or Cowes?  How is he to study and depict the gilded life of Society without constant visits to the Saveloy Grill Room, to Covent Garden, to the Riviera, and other places where Society is to be found?"

As for depreciation, Haddock argued that "the author's machinery and plant are his brain and his physique, his fund of inventiveness, his creative powers.  These are not inexhaustible.  And if it is proper for the soap-manufacturer to be relieved in respect of the wear and tear of his machinery and the renewal thereof (which money can easily buy), how much more consideration is owing to the delicate and irreplaceable mechanism of the writer!"

Mr. Justice Radish allowed both the deductions for travel and experiences, and a deduction for expenses to keep the author in good health.  The writers of today might endorse Mr. Justice Radish's reasoning, but as he was the product of A.P. Herbert's imagination they should not emulate his line of thought and create their own fictions on their tax returns.

We will return tomorrow to our usual jovial support of the welfare state.

If Rudy Giuliani is convicted in Arizona . . .

. . . on any of the various counts that Arizona has indicted him for, the sentencing judge will have a dandy opportunity to order him to perform community service instead of serving a prison term, while furthering one of the stated policy objectives of the incoming Trump administration.  Arizona has 2.8 million acres (about 4,500 square miles) of national forest.  In his first term, Donald Trump famously told reporters that Finland rakes its forests and doesn't have any problem with forest fires.  (He had apparently misunderstood something that the president of Finland had told him.)

    It would be fitting for the court to order Mr. Giuliani to spend a month or two raking one of Arizona's national forests, perhaps in the Coconino National Forest at the campsite pictured here.  The folks at Four Seasons Total Landscaping might even be willing to give him a few raking lessons in appreciation for all that he's done for the business.

Portland in 1921: Professor Einstein yields to the Bolsheviks

Not all news stories wear well.  On December 13, 1921 the Oregonian printed this intriguing item:

ROTARIANS DITCH EINSTEIN. -- Because the Einstein theory of relativity has been knocked higher than a kite, according to the story published in The Oregonian yesterday morning, the Rotary club has seen fit to strike the subject from its programme this noon.  Dr. J.W. Daniels of the Hill Military academy was to address the club on the famous theory of relativity, but since the balloon has been punctured, M. Alexander Schwartz has been asked to talk to the Rotarians on "What Bolshevism Means to Civilization."  The remainder of the programme is unchanged.

The Oregonian had not, the day before, reported that Einstein's theory of relativity had been disproven.  It had printed a whimsical piece by William Bird that declaimed that "the full and frightful consequences of the Einstein theory are just beginning to be appreciated," awakening the casual reader to the news that Einstein "was patiently at work undermining the very bases of the solar system."  According to the author, the consequences of the theory of relativity (he did not distinguish between the special theory and the general theory) included the moon speeding up in its orbit, until in a few million years "we shall have two or three full moons every month and four or five tides instead of two every day."  Where, Mr. Bird asked, was Congress?  As he put it, "To look at the record one would think that our legislators were perfectly content to have the moon racing around in its orbit at a reckless pace, in defiance of all the laws of celestial traffic and astronomy."

Mr. Bird got the science backward -- the moon is not speeding up, but slowing down over time and receding from the earth, so the time between full moons will become longer, not shorter -- but he did conclude with a statement that remains true today, though not about Dr. Einstein's theories:

By and large, then, there is little to be hoped from our legislators, who, as usual, are too busy looking out for their own narrow political interests to concern themselves with the general welfare, and the only change of avoiding calamity lies in an aroused and awakened public opinion. 

I'm tempted to recast Mr. Bird's article and put it before Marjorie Taylor Greene and await her floor speech, except that Rep. Greene might not understand enough of the science or the nature of satire to rise to the bait.

Happy 96th birthday, Professor Lehrer

Tom Lehrer's combination of precocity (he entered Harvard at 15) and longevity (he turns 96 today) have combined to make him one of the very few living songwriters to have started his oeuvre during World War II.  (The product was this football fight song.)  Though he claimed in 1977 to have no unpublished works, in fact he had dozens.  One, "The Hospital Song," resurfaced as "I Got It From Agnes" in the 1980 musical revue "Tomfoolery."  He published the others on November 26, 2022 when he released all of his work into the public domain.  After the requisite legalese, he ended his statement with "In short, I no longer retain any rights to any of my songs.  So help yourselves, and don't send me any money."

Happy birthday, sir!

The hidden economics of working from home

As portrayed by Charles Peattie and Russell Taylor, the authors of the "Alex" cartoon, on February 20 of this year.

The Laquedem Plan to Improve the Discourse of Ideas - also, happy 20th to me

Today marks 20 years since I published my first blog post.  The Laquedem Plan to Improve My Small Corner of the Universe for the next 20 years is to write and publish more often, particularly in the Venn diagram overlap between analysis and amusement. 

Lament for Kevin McCarthy

Kevin McCarthy's nearly nine months in office (a full term in other contexts) deserves a ballad to commemorate his service.  Isaac has written one.

 

 

Lament for Kevin McCarthy

(to the tune of “Whatever Became of Hubert?” by Tom Lehrer)
Words by Isaac Laquedem (2023)

Whatever became of Kevin?
Does anyone even know?
Once he mastered the floor, then they showed him the door
When four of his core voted “no.”

It required fifteen rounds to elect him
And only one vote to eject him.
Watch Gaetz and his pals playing games
As the GOP throws out more names

We must amend the rules, ex-Speaker
Says each Fox News reporter
Your successor’s going to be even weaker
And serve a term even shorter.

Whatever became of you, Kevin?
Do you miss being at the top?
Can you keep a straight face
When erased from your place
While you wait for Matt Gaetz
To flop?

Does McConnell look down from the Senate with glee
And gloat to his friends that “it’s NMFP”?
Do you wonder what Nancy would do?
Kevin, what happened to you?

The Laquedem Plan to Relieve Our Supreme Court Justices from the High Cost of Vacations

The recent scandalous disclosures that Justice Clarence Thomas and his wife Virginia vacation not only in their 40-foot motor home but on lavish trips financed by billionaire Harlan Crow that have included flights on Mr. Crow's private jet and cruises on his 161-foot yacht were followed by the equally scandalous revelations that Justice Samuel Alito did not report his 2008 trip by private jet as the guest of hedge fund billionaire Paul Singer, to an Alaskan fishing resort where he stayed as the guest of real estate and mortgage servicing billionaire Robin Arkley.  The two stories brought to mind the death of Justice Antonin Scalia in 2016 at a resort in Texas.  "Resort" is a loose term for the 30,000 acre Cibolo Creek Ranch, owned by multimillionaire John B. Poindexter.  (We can't have our justices selecting their friends only from the billionaire class.)  You can book rooms there for $500 to $1200/night, or you can come as the guest of Mr. Poindexter, as Justice Scalia did.  

It's apparent from the examples of Justices Thomas, Alito, and Scalia that the justices of our Supreme Court cannot stretch their salaries, currently $274,200/year, to cover the cost of vacations that befit their status as the nation's senior interpreters of the Constitution and the law.  It's also abhorrent that owners of large corporations with business before the Supreme Court can give the justices over-the-top vacations without the justices thinking it improper to accept the gifts.  Hence the Laquedem Plan to Relieve Our Supreme Court Justices from the High Cost of Vacations.

The LPTROSCJFTHCOV is ridiculously simple, because the mechanism to remove the taint of impropriety already exists.  It's GoFundMe.com.  Let's start a GoFundMe to raise money that the justices and their families can use to pay for their own vacations.   If a million Americans will give just $1/year each, then each justice can spend more than $1 million/year on luxury travel without having to beg for hospitality from their billionaire friends.  If Justice Thomas had $1 million to spend on his vacations, would he still hang out with Harlan Crow?  Or would he and Virginia Thomas buy a larger motor home and hire a driver?  Either way, he could escape his ethical morass.

We already provide public funds to presidential candidates.  Let's offer our Supreme Court a way to escape from the convivial clutches of the kakistocrats.

The Laquedem Plan to Improve Continuing Legal Education and Honor a Legal Leader

The Oregon State Bar requires active lawyers to take a certain amount of coursework, called "continuing legal education" or "CLE," to renew their licenses.  Members report their education every three years.  New members must take nine hours of courses on practical skills, including at least four hours on Oregon practice and procedure.  After their first reporting period, Oregon lawyers must take 45 hours of accredited CLE every three years, including at least five hours on ethics, one hour on mandatory reporting of child abuse and elder abuse, and one hour on mental health and substance abuse.  In alternate reporting periods, Oregon lawyers must also take at least three hours on programs accredited for "access to justice."  The Bar's rules define "Access to justice" education as activities that are "designed to educate attorneys to identify and eliminate from the legal profession, from the provision of legal services, and from the practice of law barriers to access to justice arising from biases against persons because of age, culture, disability, ethnicity, gender and gender identity or expression, geographic location, national origin, race, religion, sex, sexual orientation, veteran status, immigration status, and socioeconomic status."

Recent news stories have given Isaac the idea that the Oregon State Bar should require providers of CLE to meld practical skills with access to justice, resulting in the Laquedem Plan to Improve Continuing Legal Education and Honor a Legal Leader.  Educators could teach lawyers how to organize luxurious hunting trips, expensive vacations, and cruises on private yachts, and then how to invite judges to be their guests.  Other material would cover how to establish political organizations under Section 527 of the Internal Revenue Code to funnel unreported money to a judge's spouse.  And somewhere in the mix would be how to ship rare wine across state lines to judicial incumbents.

The name of this hybrid CLE credit would honor one of its most ardent practitioners.  I suggest calling it "Access to Justice Thomas."

Isaac's 2023 Tax Day reading from A.P. Herbert

Each year at tax time we divert from our support of democratic socialism to think of Sir Alan Patrick Herbert (1890-1971), the British social reformer, member of Parliament from Oxford University (there really was such a post, elected by the alumni), lover of the Thames, playwright, and under the name of A.P. Herbert, a frequent perpetrator of light verse.  Some years, this one included, the tax bite is severe enough to quote from his work.  This month's assortment of impositions is painful not so much because of the amount but by the sheer number of the incoming mosquitos, each looking to take its little bite from the Laquedem thousands under the guise of making work for the post office and the Loyal Accountant.  The outgoing checks and the upcoming ballot measure to add another tax to the menagerie have put me in mind today of this early Herbert verse: 

Well, fancy giving money to the Government!
Might as well have put it down the drain.
Fancy giving money to the Government!
Nobody will see the stuff again.
Well, they've no idea what money's for --
Ten to one they'll start another war.
I've heard a lot of silly things, but, Lor'!
Fancy giving money to the Government!

Our genial support of the social welfare system will return on Tuesday.