Categories
Government

Car registration

I am about to set off on a journey, an adventure through time and space. I’m about to enter…

The car registration zone

Since this is an even year, and my car is an even year car (though it was released for sale in an odd year) to renew my registration, I must have a safety inspection and an emissions test certificate. Having to get both is a pain; however, when I received my renewal notice, I also received a form that I can use to get a certificate through the mail. That’s how astonishingly good the people here in Missouri are: they can receive your certificate request in the mail, put their noses out the window in your general direction, and tell that your car is running fine.

The safety inspectors aren’t quite so sensitive, and therefore had to take my car down and have the brakes inspected and whatever else done. Simple enough. I took the car down to my favorite auto shop and even had time for a nice frozen coffee drink while I waited.

In addition to these forms, I also need a personal property tax receipt as cars are taxed as personal property here in Missouri, and they don’t want you driving it if you haven’t paid your taxes on it. However, simple enough: pay your tax, and a receipt is mailed to you.

Now, if I was one of those people, those organized people, this would be the end of the adventure. I would take my mailed personal property tax receipt, emmissions certificate, safety inspection, and renewal form and go to the handy online site and just renew the registration. The tags would be mailed to me and I would be done.

But you know what they say: organized in code, chaotic in real life.

I paid my personal property tax late this year because I’d never had to pay personal property tax and forgot to pay it, putting the bill aside until the last minute, as usual and promptly forgetting it. When something triggered my memory about it, it was already a few weeks late and I had to pay a small late charge, and never did receive a receipt. So now I have to go down to the country government office and pick up a copy of the receipt–unless my license office has a fax machine to do this, but I don’t want to wait in line at the office just to find out if they have a fax for this.

But first though, I have to stop by the auto place and get a copy of the safety inspection, as I lost the other one. I’m not scattered – really I’m not. But it’s a small slip of paper and I put it away for safety, and now I can’t find it in the place I put it. I did find the one for last year’s registration, but I don’t think this will be that useful.

Still, this gives me an excuse to get another nice frozen coffee drink, before heading to the government office to get a copy of the property receipt before heading to the license office to get my tags to put on my car, or I’m going to get a ticket next week.

(And I just realized that there’s a sticky for the emissions test I have to put on my windshield. I have one for the safety inspection on the upper left; the emissions goes on the lower left. I imagine this is so that police who pull you over know that you’re safe and smell good.)

But at least I did not lose my emissions certificate. Or my renewal form. Or my sense of humor (due in part to treating myself to anoher frozen coffee drink and listening to the new Norah Jones CD, the latter purchased from an Amazon gift certificate–the new global currency). But the last time I went to the license office, someone who was registering their car was in a hurry and forgot to set his brake, and it rolled across the parking lot, hitting a big pickup truck that had pulled into the parking slot next to mine, thereby saving my car.

So I’m going to be relaxed about all of this government foofrah; take my time, and enjoy the experience. Not worry about my hair cut. Set my brake. And park uphill.

Well, that went nicely. No problems, no dents in the car, and no lost forms. Nice, shiny new year tags, which means I can continue to drive legally next week.

The licensing place was very quiet so I asked the woman who was helping me about the emissions certificate. She told me that I had my emissions tested through a roadside random testing known as RapidScreen. Specially equipped vans sit by the side of the road and test the emissions of cars going past. If you’ve gone past these vans at least twice in the last ten months, that qualifies you for emissions testing.

Absolutely bloody marvelous! Now this is what I call extremely user friendly technology–non-obstrusive, efficient, and minimizing the effort of those impacted. This might be old hat to some of you, but I’ve only had the car since January of 2002, and my driver’s license since 2001–I’m still at the, ‘gee, new sparkly stuff’ stage.

(When I got back home and checked my weblog, Kevin Murphy, another St. Louis weblogger who has also been taking photos at the Gardens, mentioned how the emissions testing works. And may I say, Kevin – excellent use of those new tags I suggested. )

Categories
Government

Too many storms this last week

This week and last have been difficult weeks, starting with the storms and then the situation with the IRS.

Thanks to the Taxpayer Advocate’s office, we have established that a) I have done nothing wrong, and b) the revenue officer has gone way beyond standard operating procedure in her behavior. All forms that need filed, have been filed. As for the taxes I’m making payments on, I have fulfilled all my obligations to the IRS on this, as was confirmed by both the Advocate’s office and another member of the IRS yesterday. Both of whom, I want to add, were reassuring and helpful, as well as friendly.

Yet today I received a nasty letter that left me shaking by the time I was finished with it, especially after making sure everything was resolved yesterday. The Advocate says that I need to now file a complaint with the area supervisor, as these actions are inappropriate to take considering that the only problem was that they couldn’t find a copy of one of my forms.

When I talked with the Advocate, I told her that the letters and conversations have been both confusing and very intimidating. I liked what she had to say: The IRS is a servant of the people; I have done nothing wrong; I have a right to be free from intimidation; the IRS officer forgot this right.

But this has exhausted me, in addition to cutting into my work time, which is putting me badly behind schedule. What I need, desperately need, is a couple of quiet days in a cabin somewhere–to catch my breath as well as get caught up in my work. Unfortunately, I don’t know of anyone with a nice waterside place nearby; even if I did, it would probably be under water with the current flooding.

But once I recover from today’s IRS incident–a walk, and Ted Drewes frozen custard comes to mind–I have to focus completely on work. If I have energy, I’ll post another LAMP essay later— just for you folks who say you don’t “do” code. Once it’s online, it will be the last post for me for a time.


Not me

I thought about following Feministe’s approach of having ‘guest bloggers’ while I’m earning money to give to the IRS. After all, I liked what she had to say about the latest “where are the good women bloggers” fooflah:

Whether or not certain female bloggers are good is up to the reader and the reader’s worldview. You certainly don’t have to think that I’m good, but I’m here, I’m writing, and I will continue to do so whether you think I suck or not.

If you want to know where the women who blog about politics are, well, here we are. You don’t have to like us, read us, or respect us, but don’t deny our existence altogether.

I am writing, and will continue to do so whether you think I suck or not. We should all tattoo this on our fingers.

Anyway, I thought that I could invite Jeneane to pretend to be me, and have a lot of fun twisting your minds; but you might like her too much, and not want me back. My ego can’t deal with the risk.

Instead what I’m going to do is pull up some old, favorite posts from past glory days. I thought that it’s almost like having a guest blogger, because my writing has changed between then and now.

But then, so have all of you.

TTFN


Busted!

Categories
Government

I missed this

When I started reading references to the FBI and its new spying tactics, I assumed it had to do with the FBI spying on protestors against the Iraq war. I didn’t realize there was a second story, this one about the FBI’s expanion of powers through NSLs, or national security letters.

Seems the government not only wants to know about us when we protest, it also wants to know about us when we breath.

Here’s a solution to the St. Louis crime problem – if we can get half the city residents to attend an anti-Bush rally, we’d generate enough interest to probably result in a whole lot of FBI people being assigned here. Since we assume that they would actually act on a real crime, rather than just imagined ones, they should help cut the crime rate here. If nothing else, all those suits hanging around wearing dark glasses and peering into windows should make for an interesting time, and it can get kinda dull sometimes in the winter here.

See, my mama always told me to make the bad stuff work for you.

Categories
Government Weblogging

Shhh

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

During my break I made a decision not to talk about my financial affairs in this weblog again. I’m not sure why I did so before – this is not a topic I would normally bring up in a get together among friends; I have always been private about my finances in the past. I think the reason why I broke my own personal rules was that the anonymity of weblogging lured me into increasing exposure online. Even though I write under my name, and have even posted a personal photo, there is still something about not seeing your faces when I talk that gives the illusion of a priest’s confessional.

No more talk about job hunts, contracts, or money online. If I get a job, I won’t mention it, nor will I talk about an employer in any way. That part of my life is no longer pertinent to this space, and the only thing I’ll mention is public events, such as publishing a photo, story, or book.

(I mentioned selling my rock collection but that’s as much because I want the collection to go to a good home rather than be packed away in a box, hauled about by a permanent vagabond such as myself. And besides, my story on the rock collection will be public; the auction of the collection will also be in public, and I will have no hesitation about directing you all to it to bid, bid till it hurts.)

I made this decision because of personal reasons and internal discussions and various other factors. However, even if I hadn’t made this decision before now, I would have had to make it today because of a phone conversation this morning. This call now leads to my last story on the financial world of Burningbird, aka Shelley Powers. In fact, the only story on this subject that will remain in my weblog, as I spend the afternoon deleting entries on the subject in my archives.

I only write this today as a bit of heads up for those of you who, like me, sometimes get seduced into putting information online that you may regret someday.

I’ve had a corporation in the past, primarily created as a way of getting contracts with companies that are uncomfortable working with self-employed (1099) contractors. When the bottom fell out of our industry and I closed the corporation down, I found I couldn’t pay the tax bill for it. The short story is that I wrote the tax board a letter offering payments.

I talked with a very nice lady today from the tax board who was very helpful, but very upfront about how the tax laws work. Tax boards are not like creditors – they don’t have much leeway when it comes to taxes paid or not, or penalties, or actions taken if taxes aren’t paid.

I had told the board my situation, about not having the best of year(s), and she was very sympathetic. There were two ways the board could have gone in dealing with me, and she recommended the most compassionate way, and I am very grateful. Not only for that but also for how she managed the call today: putting a very real and very human face on what is a cold, unfeeling institution; treating me with dignity and respect.

However, lest you think that tax board employees are just going to take a person’s word for their current financial situation, think again. The person I talked today was compassionate, and extremely helpful, but she was also very thorough.

She mentioned that before calling me, she gone out to my weblog, this weblog, and read the entries scattered about in it where I talked about my financial situation. She mentioned about reading that thanks to unemployment, I can at least keep my car; about the other things I put online that I didn’t think I would hear back from the mouth of a member of a representative of a governmental tax organization.

I’m not faulting her or shouting out cries of ‘government invasion of privacy’ just because she was thorough. What privacy? I put all this online for anyone to read. Am I going to blame the government, or my creditors, or anyone else for that matter because they read what I write?

Gladly, she didn’t catch the posts about my Bermuda vacation and diamond bra purchase from Victoria Secret.

JUST JOKING!

The point to take away from this writing is that in addition to worrying about your family and your friends, your clients and your employer when you write online – you also have to worry about your local, state, and federal tax boards and other creditors.

You know, I liked weblogging a whole lot more when it flew under the radar.

Categories
Government

What’s next

I have been sending emails to groups that have and still are organizing marches for peace, basically posing to them the question: what’s next. Specifically, I sent emails to MoveOn and a more local organization Instead of War. The only email I’ve gotten in return from both is group emails for new actions.

Instead of War sent an email listing several new peace marches, some focused around the anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. According to the note, one of the marches is sponsored by the Martin Luther King Jr Holiday Committee. I’ll be honest that even if I were still marching to protest the war in Iraq, I would not march in a protest sponsored by a committee that considers the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr a ‘holiday’. I’m sorry, but I only commemorate Dr. King’s life. This march has a very confused message.

I’m not surprised that I haven’t received any response from Instead of War in regards to “What’s Next?” From my previous experience with protests against the Vietnam war and transporting nuclear waste across Washington state as well as several other environmentally and politically related issues, I have found that protest organizations are very conservative.

The MoveOn organization, though, sent an email that started with the following:

The war with Iraq continues. No one knows if it will last weeks, months, or years. Even after the fighting stops in Iraq, the fallout from this war could span decades. We can only hope that it ends quickly, with an absolute minimum loss of life.

The email addresses the question of What next? by starting a letter to the editor campaign focusing specifically on the issues that I find myself focused on — working against a US controlled occupation of Iraq:

Even as the troops march towards Baghdad, a big controversy is brewing over what will happen when the war does end. The neoconservatives like Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, and Richard Perle envision a longer U.S. occupation of Iraq, directed entirely by the Pentagon and with only minimal participation by other countries and the U.N. Their scheme calls for setting up a provisional government in which Americans head each of the 23 ministries. In essence, they want to win the peace the way the U.S. has pushed for war: alone.

The U.S. State Department, the C.I.A., Prime Minister Tony Blair, the major humanitarian relief organizations, France, Germany, and most of the rest of the countries in the world disagree with this plan. They’d like to see the reconstruction of Iraq as a collaborative, international effort lead by the U.N. And many of them believe the Pentagon plan is a recipe for disaster.

The decision on how post-war Iraq is to be managed will be made in the next several days, and the Administration is split. The consequences will play out in Iraq and around the world for generations. By writing a letter to the editor of your local newspaper, you can help to sway the balance away from the unilateralism that has done so much damage and toward a collective rebuilding process.

I’m not sure that a letter to the editor campaign will help sway the balance away from the unilateralism but it will start the conversation in that direction, and this is not a bad thing. In fact, the same letter should be sent to congressional members and local politicians, in addition to those who are campaigning for political positions in upcoming elections. Start the letters with, “I am a registered voter…”.