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Showing posts from November, 2013

President Obama's TVA Proposal

Fortune Magazine recently ran an article on the TVA (“Uncle Sam’s River”, Oct, 28 th .)   As a native Tennessean, I read the article with great interest.   In the President’s most recent budget proposal, TVA apparently was put on the disposition block. Probably the vast majority of Americans have no idea that they own a utility company, or that it borrows with government-backed debt.   The Tennessee Valley Authority is a vestige of the Roosevelt administration’s efforts to end the Great Depression.   It brought electricity to great swaths of the rural South. I propose that we Americanize TVA: 1.        Convert TVA to a “C Corporation” with approximately 350 million shares; 2.        Give each holder of a Social Security number one share; and 3.        Seek a listing on an exchange. The American taxpayer has bought and paid for TVA and should own it directly.   And this would provide numerous benefits: Americans would feel a little richer, TVA would no longer be a cr

Sue Grafton and the Alphabet Series

I occasionally write book reviews, which I post here, or on Amazon, or on another of my websites. This really isn't a book review, but more of a commentary on Sue Grafton and her "alphabet series". First, I wish Sue Grafton a very long, healthy, vigorous life.   According to Wikipedia, Ms. Grafton is 73.   While I do with her well, this, of course, is solely selfish.   I want to read her Kinsey Millhone “Alphabet” series for a long time.   I’m sure that I’m not the only fan who hopes she doesn’t retire after “Z”. (She is through the letter W currently). In the protagonist Millhone, Grafton has created a self-reliant, disciplined, organized terrier of a private detective.   She lives a very modest lifestyle, is fiercely independent and very self-aware.   By-the-way, the series is set about twenty-five years ago, and has maintained that relationship to the current period.   Kinsey is generally a good, quick judge of character, is smart but not dazzlingly so, and solves