Category: Writing

Parkland

Another week. Another senseless loss of teenagers and teachers ⏤ this time 17 at a high school in Parkland, FL. Another community upended. Another set of families forced to pick a casket, to find a church to hold a remembrance service, and to choose a spot in the ground to lay their child, friend, teacher, or coach to rest.

3 weeks ago, it was two 15-years olds, killed in a Kentucky school, and an additional 12 students struck by flying bullets.

3 months ago, it was 26 people, killed at a church service in southern Texas, and an additional 27 injured.

5 months ago, it was 59 people killed at a country music concert in Las Vegas, and an additional 527 injured.

Our news cycles move so quickly, and the frequency of these shootings seem to be accelerating, such that it is hard to keep each tragedy straight. And yet, after each of these horrifying events, we’re told not to talk policy. ‘Out of respect for the victims’ and ‘there must be a time for mourning’ are just a few of the canned phrases we’ve heard. We’ll “be talking about gun laws as time goes by”, the President says. “There’s a time and place for a political debate, but now is the time to unite as a country…”, his Press Secretary says.

It’s striking though, that for tragedies of much less magnitude and frequency, we don’t seem to have much of a problem talking about and debating policy only moments after the breaking news banner scrolls across the screen.

Last October, at the Hudson River Park bike path in New York City, an alleged 29-year old immigrant from Uzbekistan drove a rented pick-up truck along the trail and killed 8 people, while injuring an additional 11 others. Mere hours after the attack, in a nod to his well-documented push to ramp up the country’s immigration screening policies, President Trump said that he had “ordered Homeland Security to step up our already Extreme Vetting Program.” Two days after the attack, officials from the city announced that cement barriers would be installed across several trail entrances in an effort to prevent similar attacks in the future.

In December, an Amtrak passenger train, traveling almost 50 MPH faster than the speed limit, derailed near DuPont, WA, killing 3 people and injuring 80 other passengers and vehicle occupants on neighboring roads. Less than 8 hours after the incident, President Trump tweeted, “The train accident that just occurred…shows more than ever why our soon to be submitted infrastructure plan must be approved quickly. Seven trillion dollars spent in the Middle East while our roads, bridges, tunnels, railways (and more) crumble!” In a preliminary report of their investigation, the National Transportation Safety Board noted that the specific stretch of track in which the accident occurred did not yet have “an advanced train control system mandated by Congress”, called Positive Train Control (PTC), installed. The system could have alerted the engineer of the excessive speed and even allowed for automatic braking if he did not respond. The report goes on to reiterate that railways have a deadline of December 31, 2018 to have the technology fully installed on all trains and tracks in the U.S. This specific mandate from Congress was signed into law on October 16, 2008, in response to, and 34 days after, a train collision in Los Angeles killed 25 passengers and injured an additional 125 others.

It begs the question ⏤ if in the span of a few hours and days, we can rekindle a debate about immigration policy, advocate for infrastructure investment, install countermeasures against attacks involving rented trucks, and pass a sweeping, mandated technology bill that costs railroad companies billions of dollars ⏤ all in the name of saving lives ⏤ why can’t we talk about gun safety? Why can’t we suggest ideas to save the lives of children at school or parishioners at church or music fans at a concert? Why can’t we even research the positive or negative effects such measures might have on this epidemic?[1] Why can’t we even talk about it? Why? This disingenuous, bad faith “waiting period” on doing something about the unfettered access to firearms in this country is veering into national absurdity.

We get it ⏤ there is a second amendment that reserves the right for the citizenry to possess a firearm. But consider these realities:

The point is this: the United States has a long history of regulating the ownership, sale, and use of firearms. It is only in recent decades that we have refused to continue to pass legislation that will serve the greater good, even as our peer nations have taken decisive action and seen dramatically positive results.[2]

There are so many sensible, practical, and relatively simple measures that could unquestionably limit the level of carnage seen in these incidents. The Las Vegas shooter, inexplicably, used a bump stock, which dramatically increases the rate of fire on a semi-automatic weapon, allowing him to spray more than 1,100 bullets on the crowd below. You can buy one for your AR–15 at the low, low price of $180. Want to stockpile a basically unlimited amount of ammunition? Follow in the steps of the 2012 shooter that wreaked havoc on an Aurora, Colorado theater and buy as much as you want (he bought more than 6,000 rounds online). Need a high-capacity magazine to hold all that ammo? 42 states still do not ban or restrict the purchase of them. Have a sketchy past and need to bypass a background check before the purchase of a firearm? “22% of guns are [still] obtained without one.”[3] Why are these things legal? They are beyond the scope of self-defense and recreational use.[4]

As with the other shootings over the past few years, I’m skeptical anything will change in the wake of Parkland. If the Sandy Hook shooting of 20 six-year olds and 6 of their teachers didn’t spur us into action, what will? If you can watch these videos of terrified Parkland students and not recognize the absolute, immediate need for legislative action, then you are the reason nothing will change.

As the status quo marches on unabated, know this:

  • The calls for legislative pause and restraint in the wake of these shootings are incredibly disingenuous. No other national safety crisis is treated as such a forgone conclusion.
  • We have a wealth of examples in which the generations before us met gun-related threats with new regulations that did not infringe on the second amendment. There is no constitutional basis by which we could not do the same in our modern age.

Until next time…

  1. In 1996, The Dickey Amendment stipulated that, “none of the funds made available for injury prevention and control at the Center for Disease Control and Prevention may be used to advocate or promote gun control.” The provision, which was added as a rider to a federal spending bill, has effectively halted all federally-funded, scientific study of the subject. The provision has continued to be included in other spending bills and an attempt to remove it in 2015 failed.  ↩
  2. Read this excellent recap of Australia’s changed opinions and laws on gun ownership by Philip Alpers. In addition, see Michael North’s recap of similar happenings in Great Britain. Lastly, see Antonio Bandeira’s summary of recent efforts in Brazil to curb gun-related deaths.  ↩
  3. But even if you submit to a background check, there’s a chance your previously violent behavior won’t prohibit the sale. In the case of the Sutherland Springs shooter, who had a history of domestic violence, the Air Force failed to enter his name into a federal database, which would have prevented his purchase of a Ruger AR rifle.  ↩
  4. If you need a bump stock to successfully shoot a deer, you need a new hobby.  ↩

My Favorites From 2013

Below is a list of my favorite books, articles, and tweets from 2013. Not all of them were actually written in 2013, but I read them in 2013 and since this is my site, I get to make that kind of illogical decision. Enjoy!

Books

A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide

Winner of a 2003 Pulitzer Prize, Samantha Power’s A Problem From Hell weaves through several cases of genocide in the 20th century and contends that America’s response to such mass killing was shockingly indifferent. Well-researched, insightful and painfully poignant, I found her arguments to be overwhelmingly convincing. Power was recently appointed as the United States Ambassador to the United Nations, which was what prompted me to read the book, and this is a great way to introduce yourself to her and the point-of-view she brings to that position.

Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity

A finalist for a 2013 Pulitzer Prize, Katherine Boo’s Behind the Beautiful Forevers tells the story of families pushing for economic advancement in Annawadi, a slum community in India. From beginning to end, the book had me absolutely captivated. The stories are raw and often times gut-wrenching. This is a highly-readable book by an accomplished author (Boo has previously won a 2000 Pulitzer Prize for work published in The Washington Post) and I could not recommend it enough.

Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln

I’m not usually big on history/biography books, but I had heard too much about this definitive book of Abraham Lincoln’s presidency to ignore it any longer. Written by Pulitzer Prize winner Doris Kearns Goodwin, Team of Rivals tells the remarkable (and unlikely) story of Lincoln’s rise to the presidency in the midst of a fractured political landscape. What I found most surprising about this book was how easy it was to read. It’s not at all stuffy or dense and Goodwin does an excellent job of connecting you to each of the characters surrounding Lincoln. As an aside, Lincoln, the 2012 movie directed by Steven Spielberg and starring Daniel Day-Lewis, is based on the second half of Team of Rivals and makes an excellent companion to the book.

Fight: A Christian Case for Non-Violence

I’ve done a lot of thinking about the issue of pacifism vs. just war theory in the past year or so and I found Fight by Preston Sprinkle to be incredibly helpful. With arguments rooted deeply in scripture, Sprinkle does a great job of making his case for non-violence without shying away from any of the prickly points that the topic presents, especially considering the amount of violence found in the Old Testament. Sprinkle’s humble and honest approach to an issue that typically inspires an unhealthy amount of heated rhetoric shines throughout the book – this isn’t the angry writings of a scholar unhinged from reality, it’s an even-handed presentation that you would expect from a thoughtful pastor.

Status Anxiety

Alain de Botton’s Status Anxiety explores a fear we all inevitably confront – what is our standing in society? De Botton tackles five causes of this ‘status anxiety’ – lovelessness, expectation, meritocracy, snobbery and dependence – and then presents five solutions – philosophy, art, politics, religion and bohemianism. Akin to my stereotype that history books are stuffy and hard to read, I thought this philosophy book would be the same. I couldn’t have been more wrong. De Botton effortlessly pulls from a wide range of sources, making each section fun and highly readable. It’s not a shallow, preachy, approach to the subject either. The final result is less a definitive answer to status anxiety and more like a fresh of breath of air that works to alleviate our concerns.

Honorable Mention:

The End of Our Exploring: A Book about Questioning and the Confidence of Faith

Jesus, My Father, The CIA, and Me: A Memoir… of Sorts

Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church

For a full list of books I read this year, click here.

Articles

The Prophets of Oak Ridge from The Washington Post

An amazing piece of investigative journalism and new media presentation by The Washington Post about three activists who break into a nuclear-weapons facility.

David Foster Wallace on Life and Work from The Wall Street Journal

An adaption from a commencement speech that David Foster Wallace gave at Kenyon College in 2005. Wallace was as insightful as they come and this was him at his best.

From Here You Can See Everything in The Morning News

Part commentary on David Foster Wallace’s book Infinite Jest and part evaluation on our culture of obsessive media consumption. Critical and rightfully poignant.

Why We Have Debt from Timothy McSweeney’s Internet Tendency

A direct quote from the article: “If a candidate for national office says that the deficit and Federal debt is a crisis and out of control, but does not provide a plan to rectify the differences in healthcare spending and revenues, that candidate is being disingenuous.” Read this before you cast your next congressional, senatoral and presidential votes.

Redeeming Holy Days from Pagan Lies — Hallowe’en: A Short History from The Brothers of John the Steadfast

A highly-detailed explanation as to why Halloween isn’t a pagan holiday to be shunned and cursed. A little dense, but ultimately worth your time.

Tweets

Getting Started With Credit Card Reward Points

Credit cards. They’re usually associated with bad spending habits that lead to unnecessary debt saddled with exorbitant interest rates − and this is certainly a warranted reputation. But for my wife and I, credit cards have actually proved to be a reliable source of disposable income. Since 2011, we’ve received $2,600 in cash and services simply by making purchases with our credit cards and then taking advantage of their respective reward point programs.[1] We haven’t paid a single penny in interest or hidden charges and we don’t pay annual fees. Below, I’d like to share our experience and give a road map for how you can start making use of the best reward programs out there. First though, a few ground rules that you absolutely MUST follow or this unquestionably will not work out in your favor.

  1. Without exception, you MUST pay off your credit card balances IN FULL every month. The moment you start paying any kind of interest on your balances, the whole idea of coming out ahead goes completely out the window. Don’t get me wrong, you can buy toys, fund hobbies and go on highly discounted vacations with the money received from reward programs, but only AFTER you’ve actually redeemed the points. If you use your credit cards as a means to pay for things that you can’t pay for in cash, I highly recommend that you stop reading now. This isn’t for you.
  2. With some exception, you need to have a good credit score. For those that don’t have a good credit score, there are still plenty of reward programs out there, but to get into the ones with the best returns, you’ll need to have a score of approximately 700 or better.[2]

Okay, with that out of the way, let’s get started.

Pick a General Rewards Program

The first step in this process is to find a credit card that offers a consistent rewards program and has no annual fee. To get the most out of your spending, I recommend a card that works off of some sort of “point” based system − as in, you are given “X” number of points for every $1 spent. This will allow you the greatest amount of freedom when redemption time comes around (also, they’re just easier to understand). To me, cards that strictly offer airline miles or free hotel stays are too narrow. These kinds of cards are excellent for specific use cases (which we’ll discuss a little later), but not as a true “everyday” card. For my wife and I, our general use card is the aptly named Chase Freedom card. It offers a modest starting bonus of $100 cash back after spending your first $500 on the card, has no annual fee and has excellent bonuses throughout the year (for example, from July – September 2013, every $1 spent at gas stations received 5 points, instead of the usual 1 point). To give you an idea for how your usual spending can add up over the course of the year, in 2012, we cashed in $513 worth of reward points and they all came from our Chase Freedom card – pretty sweet!

Pay for Everything and Anything With Credit

From now on, you have one mission when paying for normal expenses: pay with credit. Groceries, gas, cell phone, restaurants, medical expenses, auto insurance, gym membership, car repairs/maintenance, school tuition, cable TV and internet − it all goes on your credit card (not your debit card and not in cash). This ensures that for every dollar you spend, you’re building up reward points. For my wife and I, there are only a few things that don’t get paid with credit − our mortgage payment, monthly utilities and a charitable contribution to Compassion International. For our mortgage payment and monthly utilities, the respective providers do not accept credit.[3] Poo on them. For Compassion International, we prefer that our full contribution goes directly to them (credit card companies take a fixed percentage of every transaction run as credit – it’s one way they make money and how they can afford to give you and I free cash).

Take Advantage of Large Sign-up Bonuses

This is where you’ll see the largest rewards in the shortest amount of time. These are cards that offer massive sign-up bonuses when you meet a minimum spending requirement within a specific timeframe (a typical requirement is $3,000 worth of spending within the first 3 months of having the card). Some of the biggest sign-up bonuses are usually on credit cards with travel focused rewards – airlines and hotels. If you want to go on a highly discounted vacation or if you’re a frequent traveler, you’ll want to look at cards like the Citi® AAdvantage® World MasterCard, American Express Hilton HHonors or Southwest Airlines® Rapid Rewards Premier Visa. Two specific cards that I’d like to highlight and have personal experience with are the Chase Hyatt and Chase Sapphire Preferred cards.

The Chase Hyatt, as the name suggests, offers reward points towards free stays at Hyatt Hotels. The sign-up bonus offer is two free nights at any Hyatt Hotel in the world and only has a $1,000 spending requirement (within the first 3 months). Want to stay at the Park Hyatt in Paris (normally $880/night)? You can do that. How about the Park Hyatt in Tokyo (normally $420/night)? Yup, you can do that too. Basically, you’re looking at potentially $1,700 worth of rewards for a relatively low spending requirement. It’s an excellent card if you’re planning on visiting any city with a Hyatt Hotel.

The Chase Sapphire Preferred is another card with an excellent sign-up bonus and I particularly like it because its rewards are not tied to any specific category. The current offer is 40,000 reward points (which is $400 cash) with a $3,000 spending requirement (within the first 3 months). While $400 is certainly a great sign-up bonus, what’s really great is the 1:1 transfer program that this card gives you access to. This allows you to transfer points earned on this card to other reward programs outside of Chase. Some examples include Southwest Rapid Rewards, United MileagePlus, Hyatt Gold Passport and several others. Why would you want to do that? To maximize the value of your points. For instance, transferring 22,000 points to the Hyatt Gold Passport reward program gets you one free night in a Grand Club room at any “Category 5” Hyatt Hotel in the world.[4] That 22,000 points, worth $220 in cash, potentially becomes worth more than $300, depending on where you stay. You can find category 5 Hyatt Hotels in some really great cities – New York City, Las Vegas, Beijing and Singapore – just to name a few.[5]

This past July, my wife and I took a road trip that included a stop in New York City. If you’ve been paying attention, you can probably guess where we stayed. Using our two free nights from the Chase Hyatt card and a 22,000 point transfer from the Chase Sapphire Preferred card, we were able to stay at the Grand Hyatt New York (which sits between Grand Central Station and the Chrysler Building in Midtown Manhattan) for three nights at no charge – a stay that would normally cost over $1,000! There is no way we would be able to do that without reward points.

The one downside to these types of cards are that they almost always come with an annual fee. For the Chase Hyatt card, the annual fee is currently $75/year. I was lucky enough to find a deal that included the two free nights and an instant $100 statement credit after your first purchase, which covered the annual fee for the first year.[6] This card is also unique in that every year you pay the annual fee, you automatically receive one free night in any “Category 4” or lower Hyatt Hotel.[7] We’ll probably keep this card and use the free night towards a one-night getaway in Milwaukee, Madison or Chicago (stays in these cities would normally cost over $130/night). For the Chase Sapphire Preferred, the annual fee is $95, but it is waived for the first year. I will be canceling this card next year to avoid paying the fee. There are several cards that offer terrific sign-up bonuses, but because of their annual fees, should not be used on an on-going basis. I recommend using them for their sign-up bonuses and then canceling them before the annual fee is charged.

That’s pretty much it! No gimmicks, no hidden fees, no exorbitant interest charges – just a good chunk of free, disposable income! Getting into credit card reward point programs usually involves lots of questions though, so I’ve created a short Q&A below that address some of the immediate concerns that I had when I first started. Also, in a first for this website, comments are open! If you have any questions, feel free to leave them here and I’ll do my best to answer. Lastly, I would highly recommend heading over to a website called Million Mile Secrets. My good friend Ricky pointed me there a few years ago and it is pretty much where I learned everything I know about reward points.

Q&A

  • Won’t opening all these credit cards negatively impact my credit score?

Yes and no. Opening a credit card requires a hard credit check and this will negatively impact your credit score by a few points (usually 3 to 5). These points will slowly come back over the course of two years, at which time the hard inquiry drops off of your credit report completely. Depending on your situation, the points lost due to the hard inquiry might actually be offset by point gains from now having a greater total available credit (one of the many metrics used to determine your credit score). I’ve applied for 2 credit cards in the past 10 months and my credit score is still comfortably above 725. This isn’t license for you to go bonkers and open 10 new credit cards, but it’s okay to pick out a few that you really like and apply for them.

  • Won’t canceling a credit card after only 1 year negatively impact my credit score?

Again, yes and no. One metric used to determine your credit score is average account age. Having credit accounts open for 10+ years is better than having credit accounts open for only 1 year. This is why it is important to have a good, general rewards card with no annual fee that you can keep open for many, many years. In fact, rewards program or no rewards program, any credit card you currently have with no annual fees should never be closed – just put it in a drawer and leave the account open. It’s also important to understand that it is the act of opening a new credit card that negatively impacts your average account age metric. The act of canceling your card will not hurt your credit score per say, it will just halt the age of one card that is averaged with all of your other open accounts. Basically, you’ll take the hit in average account age when you open a new credit card, not when you close it. Also of note is that average account age is far from the most heavily weighted factor in determining your credit score. The single easiest way to negatively impact your credit score in a big way is to make a late payment. Don’t do that.

  • $3,000 is a lot of money. How am I going to spend that much in only 3 months?

If you’re a single, college student, this will probably be impossible (unless you can convince your parents to pay your school tuition on your credit card and then promptly pay it off!). But then again, if you’re a single, college student, you probably shouldn’t be doing this. It’s way too easy to spend money you don’t actually have at this point in your life. Trust me, I know from experience. That said, if you’re disciplined and want to get your feet wet, there are plenty of cards that offer much lower spending requirements. I’d recommend starting with something like the aforementioned Chase Freedom card or the American Express Blue Cash Everyday card, which has no annual fee and offers $100 in sign-up rewards after $1,000 in required spending (within the first 3 months). If you’re not a poor college-student, meeting a $3,000 spending requirement isn’t as hard as you might think. The key is to plan on getting a new card just prior to a large purchase that you would otherwise already make. Going to need 4 new tires for your car in 6 months? That’s a good purchase to kick off a new card with. Renovating the kitchen this winter? One, you’re crazy. Two, get a new credit card before you start. My wife and I have done two cards with the $3,000 spending requirement now and didn’t have any problems reaching it.

  • I’m not understanding the point-to-cash conversions. Is there a chart for this?

Every rewards program has it’s own nuances, but most of the point-based programs work like this:

1 point = 1 cent

So, 10 points equals 10 cents, 1,000 points equals $10, 10,000 points equals $100 and so on. Every program is required to disclose exactly how much a point is worth, so just make sure you’re reading that section of the terms and conditions. For airline and hotel reward programs, you will absolutely need charts. For airline chart links, go here. For hotel chart links, go here. Beware − they’re a mixed bag of crazy.

If you have any other questions, feel free to leave them in the comments!

Disclaimers:

  • Throughout this post, I have repeatedly made mention of Chase Bank as this is our primary financial institution. I have not been paid to write this, but I am a big, big fan of Chase. I’ve never had any customer service problems, their reward point programs are awesome and their website is easy to use. I can’t really ask for much more than that. If you pay off your credit cards in full every month, don’t overdraft your checking account, and don’t threaten any tellers with a gun, I’m pretty confident that you’ll also have a great experience.
  • If you use my link to sign up for the Chase Sapphire Preferred card, I will receive a 5,000 point referral bonus. None of the other links throughout this article are referral links.
  • I cannot guarantee that your experience will exactly mimic ours, but I think you can get pretty close, if not better.
  1. And this amount will climb to over $3,000 by January.  ↩
  2. To find out what your credit score is, I recommend CreditKarma. They will pull a soft credit check (meaning it will not impact your credit score) from TransUnion and show you where you stand. It’s pretty accurate, easy to use and best of all, free!  ↩
  3. There does exist a few services that essentially allow you to pay for things like a mortgage and utilities with a credit card, but they usually come at a cost. If you’re going to use such a service, do the math and ensure that you’re actually coming out ahead.  ↩
  4. The Hyatt Gold Passport program is free and does not require any kind of credit card.  ↩
  5. For a complete list of Hyatt Category 5 hotels, see here.  ↩
  6. The current, “hidden” offer is $50 after your first purchase. To get it, go to the Hyatt website and pretend to book any room in any city. After clicking “Book Now”, scroll all the way down to the bottom of the page. There, you will find a square advertisement offering the 2 free nights and the $50 statement credit. You don’t have to actually book the “pretend” reservation to get the deal.  ↩
  7. For a complete list of Hyatt Category 4 hotels, see here.  ↩

Death of the Fourth Amendment

It’s been quite a week for the 4th amendment.

First, the Supreme Court ruled that police are allowed to take DNA samples after an arrest, even if the individual has not yet been charged.

Then, The Guardian blew the whistle on a secret FISA order to Verizon that allows the NSA daily access to metadata for all calls made in the U.S. and abroad on Verizon’s network. The data includes the sending and receiving phone number, unique customer identifier, time of the call, duration of the call, and if the call was placed on a cell phone, location data. It is likely that every major phone carrier has received a similar order.

Then, to top it all off, The Guardian and The Washington Post simultaneously revealed the existence of a secret NSA program, dubbed “PRISM”, that allegedly collects user data from some of the top tech companies in the U.S., including Microsoft, Google, Apple, Yahoo, AOL, and Facebook.

Both the NSA and the aforementioned tech companies have vehemently denied that user data is being collected via “direct access”, but the existence of PRISM has been confirmed by James Clapper, the Director of National Intelligence.