BM-24-8

I was working on a little Polish-made model of a BM-24-8 rocket launcher, which compared to the clunky old models of the Cold War era is actually pretty good. Who remembers VEB-Plasticart? I think that was the name of that outfit. I bought a model of a Tu-20 Bear that I'm pretty sure was a VEB reissue of a kit made by some grim Stalinist outfit, and it sucked! My refrigerator had better panel lines, but it was really the misshapen propellers that destroyed my enthusiasm for the project (and since a Tu-20 disposes of 32 propeller blades, bad propeller blades stick out like an infected tooth).

Anyway, while I was fiddling with this model, and determining that the spacers C17 (I think C17) are grossly oversized, I got tired of two species of TV commercials. One irritates me, the other outrages me.

The irritating one is the American Express commercial where the guy is paying for a business lunch, or buying a flight to a business meeting, and tries to pay for it with a charge charge adorned with a comic book character or kittens. The Krauts get all self-conscious and embarrassed and up and abandon the poor schmuck on the spot, despite the fact that the Germans were the ones that gave us lederhosen! What are they so uppity about all of a sudden? Or the woman at the airline counter has thugs come in and drag the guy away because his charge carge had kittens on it.

Puh-lease. Business is as a general rule grim and cheerless enough without American Express insinuating that any expression of individuality is a symptom of amateurishness. I think American Express should plan its future operations without including me, as I rather doubt I'll ever use their services again - and I just might get a charge card with kittens on it just to piss them off.

But that's nothing. That's just irritating piffle executed by business hacks, the same people who think "value-add" is an actual word. Here's the commercial that outrages me:

Some guys appears. "I owed a hundred and seventy thousand dollars to the IRS, but Peckerwood and Sloane settled my debt for only seventy-nine cents!" And there's a whole procession of these people, claiming they owed a jillion dollars to the IRS and got out of it for literally cents on the dollar.

I pay my income taxes every year, and I paid an outstanding IRS debt that wasn't mine, and I paid that thing in full. How dare these people act all excited about dodging a responsibility that everyone else in America seems to be able to manage! They might as well put on an eye patch and unfurl the Jolly Roger and exclaim "Arrrrrr, mateys, I dodged my responsibility to the tune of a quarter of a million dollars, yar, let the lubbers make up the difference, yar!"

It's possible to get into trouble with the IRS. I know people who have done it, but they were generally people at or near the bottom of the socioeconomic scale where the calculus is between feeding their kids or paying the IRS. But these doctors and lawyers and contractors? I doubt it's come to that - and how do you even end up owing $150,000 in taxes to begin with? How much do you have to make to run up that kind of tax debt in any kind of reasonable time? And how much sympathy am I supposed to feel for some schmuck who doesn't pay his taxes so he can make the payments on his Hummer and power boat? There are people who deserve some sort of tax relief, and then there are people who just don't. Liquidate the timeshare and sell the power boat and pay your damn taxes already. I do.

What's next? "I blew off my child support payments for 13 years, but Peckerwood and Sloane discharged my accumulated debt for twenty-seven dollars and a Home Depot gift card. Yar, ye lubbers!"

Isn't America great?