Proposed 2015 Calendar of the Seven Deadly Sins

Around the year-end holidays, consumers purchase calendars. Some of them feature popular travel destinations. Some showcase either domesticated or wild animals. Certain others flaunt the bodies of domesticated or wild humans. The calendars from non-profit enterprises tend to be dull commercials for their worthy activities.

However, I propose a new product for 2015 calendars: the Seven Deadly Sins. Here's a list of these universal vices:

• avarice
• envy
• sloth
• pride/vanity
• wrath
• lust
• gluttony

The Seven Deadly Sins and Four Other Things
by Hieronymus Bosch

Selected months or days would be associated with a particular deadly sin. My list is hardly thorough, but it's a start.

Avarice -- December. That's the bonus month for many firms, including some hedge funds, Wall Street banks, and private equity firms. Second place goes to the United States Congress. Images of individual members or a team shot are available for all 12 months of the year.

Envy -- Pick any repellent celebrity gossip television program, magazine, blog, or book for the usual and unusual suspects. Again, this delivers 12-month pleasure.

Sloth -- Summer months seem best suited for this vice. Local television newscasters provide ample subjects for this underrated vice.

Pride/Vanity -- The Academy Awards are made to order for the calendar's thematic concept. That takes care of March, when the Oscars are shown to a worldwide audience.

Wrath -- This is best associated with birthdays. Former vice president Dick Cheney, for example, celebrates his birthday on January 30th. New Jersey governor Chris Christie blows away birthday candles on September 6th.

Lust -- Bill Clinton has his birthday candles blown on August 19th. Former president Jimmy Carter, who once acknowledged having lust in his heart, will clebrate his 90th birthday on October 1st. And who could let a year pass without acknowledging Charlie Sheen's contribution to vice?

Gluttony -- Feel free to double down on Chris Christie's sins, thanks to his evidently excessive interest in food and drink. Also, movie director and XXXL fellow New Jersey native Kevin Smith receives "honorable" mention for his well-publicized hassling of Southwest Airlines in 2010 for its "Customer of Size" policy.

The beauty of the Seven Deadly Sins calendar is that each month brings a new, worthy member of vice's poster children to one's attention. Now that's much more fun than associating photographs of penguins or pinup models with a specific month!

The Seven Deadly Sins
by Pieter Bruegel the Elder

Trio Instrumental in Genetically Modified Food Development Win World Food Prize

Do you knowingly and willingly consume genetically modified food? Whatever one's position on that proposition, agribusiness heavyweights have relentlessly promoted the virtues of scientifically altered crops. Since some of the United States' principal exports are agricultural, such as corn and soybeans, the controversy over GM food becomes important to American national interests.

As Beijing discovered when a Chinese firm made an offer to acquire US pork producer Smithfield, corporate agriculture has many, many friends in Congress who see a security parallel between agribusiness and our country's defense. (No jokes about Congressional pork, please.)

Image: worldfoodprize.org

A few days ago, the State Department and the World Food Prize Foundation announced the winner of -- you guessed it -- the World Food Prize (WFP). As a Mother Jones piece notes, the foundation's funders include major nonprofit players, the state of Iowa (ok, I would not have guessed that one right away) and agribusiness interests. Winners in recent years tend to reflect the idea that bigger is better, that data-driven approaches to yield management are sacrosanct, and that technocrats, MBA suits, and scientists know more about farming than family or community-based farmers.

This year's WFP winners, according to the New York Times, include Robert Fraley, Monsanto's chief technology officer and strident advocate of the benefits of genetically modified food. The two other co-winners are scientists instrumental in developing GM food and genetically modified organisms.

If you eating a meal, having a beverage, or grabbing an energy-boosting snack, ask yourself whether you're consuming something based on plants the ancient Chinese, Pharaonic Egyptians, or pre-Columbian native Americans would have recognized, or something dreamed up by a team of self-assured scientists in a closely guarded laboratory.

Bon appetit!

Former Members of Congress Speculate That Aliens Have Visited Earth

Was this discussed at the hearings?
(Photo: dvdbeaver.com)

We've often wondered what was in Washington, D.C.'s water supply, when we learn about the foolish Earthlings known as the United States Congress. A story in today's New York Daily News makes me want to bring bottled water on my next trip to the District.

The article recounts sponsored hearings in which former Congresspeople speculate on UFOs and alien visits to our planet. It's as if these former representatives of the people watched X Files reruns and let their imaginations accept the scripts as proven fact.

I'll say this for the Daily News article: you can't make this stuff up.

Congress Shares Romney's Reluctance to Reveal Tax Returns

First Page of Mitt Romney's
2010 Federal Income Tax Return
(from Washington Post)

There's little doubt Mitt Romney has screwed the pooch on his tax return release. The feeling the presumptive GOP presidential candidate has something shocking to hide just won't go away.

Ironically, some of Romney's harshest Congressional critics have also avoided sharing their tax returns with the voting public. According to a story in today's online edition of The Miami Herald, virtually no member of Congress will offer a detailed revelation of their tax history. The laws regarding Congressional tax transparency are unsurprisingly opaque. They effectively make it difficult to determine what areas of the tax code a House representative or US senator might be sensitive to.

Some of the Democrats' loudest anti-Romney voices hide behind these convenient laws. Among them are Nancy Pelosi, whose husband is a significant Bay Area venture capitalist and real estate owner. Another is South Florida's Debbie Wasserman Schultz, the Democratic National Committee's chairwoman.

Gary Ackerman, a New York Democrat who is not seeking re-election, stated the matter in bitter terms.  "'First your publishers and editors and execs should publish their tax returns. They have great influence over public policy,'" he suggested. Meanwhile, a spokesperson for a GOP House member from South Carolina complained that reporters were not demanding Barack Obama's college records. Some people just don't get it.

The response from Senator Jay Rockefeller's office was characteristic of the attitude of the nation's 100 senators and 535 congressional representatives: "Thanks, but we will not give you Senator Rockefeller's tax return. Good luck with your project."

Luck you, too, senator.