by Abe Sauer

The simple rhetoric of the Wisconsin budget battle is that the Democrats are just “thug” unions — and that Republicans are carrying water for wealthy corporate sleaze. It’s more complicated than that. For one, several teachers’ unions endorsed Wisconsin Republicans last year — unions are hardly the unthinking automatons of the left they’re now depicted to be. Why would they do that? Quite simply, those Republicans looked into the face of their constituents… and lied.

As the marquee battle over unions and Walker’s bill is happening in Madison, the true fight over changes to the state is happening elsewhere. The ransacking of Wisconsin cannot be done from Madison alone. Governor Scott Walker has furnished the tools, but who will wield them? We’ve sketched a blueprint of how state Republicans lied to their constituents and conspired with D.C.-based wealth-funded conservative think tanks to not only assemble the “tools” needed to dismantle progressive and middle class power in Wisconsin but also how those organizations trained “mechanics” to use those tools to get “free market conservatives” elected to local offices like city councils and school boards — so that then they can begin to dismantle them.

It all starts in Sauk county.

Walker’s budget targets education for the biggest cuts. The bill takes $900 million from K-12 education (about 9 percent of the budget). A property tax cap prevents districts from making up the money. The bill also cuts hundreds of millions from higher education, targeting everything from the University of Wisconsin system to technical education. It is the most drastic cut to education in Wisconsin history.

And those who support Walker’s bill have noted that the state elected Republicans in 2010 — so the current bill should have been expected and everyone should stop whining.

Sauk county, northwest of Madison, is a microcosm of the state as a whole. Farmers, progressives and social conservatives all mingle. While Dane county went for the Democrats in the 2010 governor’s race by more than 20 points, Walker won Sauk by single digits. (As well, Senator Russ Feingold won, also by single digits.)

While it’s true that the state elected a Republican majority, candidates were specifically asked about union concessions during their campaigns.

“He lied to us,” said teacher Jenny Fish, as she shivered in the 20-degree chill with 100 other protesters outside Reedsburg’s Voyageur Inn. Inside was the Sauk County Republican Party Lincoln Day dinner, held after its morning annual caucus and afternoon celebration of Ronald Reagan’s 100th birthday. (“Holding the line against Madison.”) Fish was in charge of vetting Representative Ed Brooks (R-50) last year for Three Rivers United Educators. His answers were in part what led the union to endorse him, a Republican, for election.

Three Rivers United Educators not only endorsed Brooks, it make a donation to his campaign. Brooks also took money from the Southwest Education Association and the Wisconsin Education Association Council, which is the state’s largest teachers union.

Only 3 of the 25 Wisconsin candidates that WEAC endorsed in the 2010 election were Republicans: Richard Spanbauer (R-53), Ed Brooks (R-50) and Dale Schultz, the Sauk county Senator who has been rumored to be breaking with his party. All three won.

Fish said that she asked Brooks if he supported removing collective bargaining for benefits. He said he did not. That answer directly led to his endorsement by the labor union.

Stephanie Hasler, a French teacher at Reedsburg High School, told me that she and a number of Reedsburg teachers visited Brooks in his office on February 18th of this year. At that meeting, Brooks admitted to not having read the budget bill — and he also insisted that the collective bargaining provisions were not in it.

After the bill was unveiled, including the union-busting provisions, Fish said she contacted Brooks. “He basically said he was helpless and could’t risk breaking with his party,” she said. “He told us, ‘Why should I vote no for a bill that’s just going to pass anyway?’”

On March 7th, Brooks sent out an email to constituents, defending himself by pointing out “my daughter is a teacher” and claiming that he actually made changes to the bill during a Joint Committee on Finance executive session, including inserting the language that “just cause is still required for termination.” Brooks said that changes like this made him “able to vote for Governor Walker’s budget repair bill.” His email threw some salt on the wound for good measure. He added: “And please note that unions still exist.”

(Over two days, I reached out, numerous times, to Rep. Brooks for comment. His office repeatedly said he would call back. He never did.)

This double-cross is what compelled Reedsburg residents to protest for three consecutive days over the weekend.

Stephanie Hasler told me that an impromptu demonstration sprang up on Main Street after negotiations with the Reedsburg school board crumbled. Counting on the new bill measures, the board refused the teachers’ offer of a pay freeze and agreement to the Board’s offer on retirement insurance from the previous contract negotiations, as well as paying the percentages of insurance and pension that the governor wants. Fearing what the Walker bill would allow the board to do, Hasler, along with a dozen other teachers in the district, chose an unplanned early retirement earlier in the week, so as to save their insurance benefits under the existing contract.

Reedsburg is a town of fewer than 10,000 people. And with all due respect to the thousands gathered in Madison, openly protesting in a small town, where everyone knows everyone, takes incredible guts. Generally, small-town Wisconsinites are much more comfortable grumbling under their breath about things until they die.

The Voyageur, a wonderful relic from the 1960s, is best known for its collection of hundreds of Normal Rockwell magazine covers, ads and portraits. Attendees of the Republican dinner walked by four of Rockwell’s 1940s covers for The Grade Teacher, the “Professional Magazine for Classroom Teachers of all Grades.” The special guest was U.S. Senator Ron Johnson.

In the Voyageur parking lot, Brooks’ arrival was met by a chant of “Recall! Recall! Recall!.”

Not in attendance: Dale Schultz, the moderate Republican Senator for Reedsburg who has still not confirmed how he will vote on the bill. As far as Wisconsin can tell, he has become a ghost.

* * *

Joe Hasler, Stephanie’s husband, a longtime state Republican, told me he is “appalled by the party’s recent hard turn to the right.” Joe isn’t just your everyday Republican. Joe was Tommy Thompson’s campaign treasurer — Thompson, who was praised and evoked in Walker’s budget address.

One of the reasons moderate Wisconsin Republicans have seen the party slide from their grasp is a massive influx of out-of-state money from groups such as the Koch-founded Americans for Prosperity and the Sam Adams Alliance.

Sauk county contains a perfect example of exactly how the corporate takeover on the state level will be implemented on the local level.

Walker’s fundamental change to the education system in Wisconsin via funding cuts, tax caps and charter promotion is not that damaging without local level implementation. As Walker has said, his bill is a “tool.” Tools need mechanics.

So, in Reedsburg, city officials have floated a solution. They want to move the town’s fire protection charge from tax rolls to utility bills. That frees up around $200,000. For Walker’s plans to be truly effective, there must be those at the local level, like in Reedsburg, who are willing to look people they’ve known all their life in the eyes… and fire them.

Enter the American Majority.

On Saturday, at about the exact moment Michael Moore was addressing 40,000 people at the Capitol (and comparing events in Madison to those in Egypt), about four-and-a-half miles away at the Vitense driving range and minigolf course, the American Majority was holding a sold-out day-long training event. The event, in partnership with the Sauk County Tea Party, consisted of lessons like “Implementing Freedom” which teaches “how to plan a campaign, fine tune your communication skills, and fundraise.” The event provided “an opportunity to meet other patriots in your community, the seminar provides an opportunity to network and learn from grassroots organizers with successful campaign experience.”

Now, is that “community organizing?” Because it uses the both those words and sure as hell sounds like community organizing.

American Majority brags that it trained 27 city council candidates in Oklahoma and saw 17 of them win. More importantly, the group claims that all but one of those 17 had never run for office before.

In an interview with WisPolitics, a co-founder of the Virginia-based organization, Drew Ryun said, “The letter behind that candidates’ name to some extent does not matter… What matters is are these folks at any level of government that are advancing free market conservative principals.”

(A note: When some political organization or think tank is identified in the press as “Virginia-based,” that means it’s in “Washington D.C.”)

But despite that claim, American Majority does not actually support Democrats. Currently the organization’s website features a large “Stand with Walker” banner, coincidentally the same motto used by the heavily funded ad campaign from Koch’s Americans for Prosperity.

American Majority does partner with such “nonpartisan” groups as Franklin Center’s new venture “Wisconsin Reporter,” which is a PR interest disguised as journalism to seed information — such as the recent poll that claimed 71% of Wisconsinites favor Walker’s budget changes. (See, it’s got “reporter” right there in the name.) The Franklin Center, in turn, is associated with groups such as the Sam Adams Alliance — an outfit that I ran into on Capitol Square a week ago. One of their “grassroots” surveyors was soliciting people in Starbucks for 20 minutes of their time, for which they would be paid $10.

Not clear enough? Scott Walker refers to his budget bill as a “tool.” American Majority refers to its local activists as “mechanics.”

American Majority was founded by Ned and Drew Ryun, sons of longtime Kansas Republican Representative Jim Ryun. (Yes, Kansas, home of the Kochs.) Jim Ryun’s federal campaign finance report reads like a list of tens of thousands of dollars from the Kochs, going all the way back to 1997.

American Majority was organized by, and receives a great deal of its funding through, the Chicago-based Sam Adams Alliance, which carefully protects the list of its patrons and has gone to pains (though not effectively enough) to remove evidence that it is in large part funded by the Kochs. American Majority is also partnered with Koch organizations that don’t hide the Koch connection at all, like Americans for Prosperity.

Sam Adams Alliance is very much funded by the Kochs — but even if they were not, Eric O’Keefe, the chairman and CEO of the Sam Adams Alliance, is also a board member at the Institute for Humane Studies, a group which has received millions from the Kochs and for which Charles Koch is the chairman. O’Keefe is also a board member at the Wisconsin Club for Growth, a state office of the organization funded by the wealthiest of Americans. The Club has become one of the most influential organizations in Wisconsin politics. (The CFG supported Ron Johnson over Russ Feingold and its to-date $320,000 in spending for the 2011 campaign of conservative State Supreme Court Justice David Prosser accounts for about 70 percent of total TV ad expenditures in that election).

And Eric O’Keefe lives in Spring Green, Sauk County.

* * *

American Majority chose the term “mechanics” because this was the name of the first intelligence network put together by independence-minded colonists. The group, whose most famous member was Paul Revere, gathered information on the British and conducted minor sabotage. Explaining the name, American Majority’s pull quote begins “In the days before the Revolutionary War, Paul Revere organized the Mechanics, a group of determined patriots that grew out of the Sons of Liberty.” The unattributed copy is lifted from Revolutionary-war-and-beyond.com.

As the CIA history of the period’s intelligence notes of the “mechanics”: “Their security practices, however, were amateurish. They met in the same place regularly (the Green Dragon Tavern), and one of their leaders (Dr. Benjamin Church) was a British agent.”

The questionnaire that American Majority uses to identify those who will, according to co-founder Ned Ryun, “organize their communities, hard-wire their precincts, learn how to become effective online, and to understand the system that we are confronting,” gives a hint of what the group is trying to weed out. The questionnaire, below:

American Majority Mechanics Eligibility Questionnaire
1. What do you believe the role of government should be in America?

2. Do you have any experience with public speaking and presenting?

3. How do you feel about the “Birther” issue?

4. Please list any and all current organizations you are presently associated
with.

5. What do you hope to get out of becoming an authorized American Majority Mechanic?

6. What terms do you best believe describe our government and leadership
today?

7. How well do you know the Constitution and Declaration of Independence?

8. What do you believe are the most important political issues this country is facing right now?

9. Who is your political hero and why?

10. Please list all websites, social networks, and blogs in which you have a presence.

11. How comfortable are you with public speaking and presenting on a scale of 1 to 10 (with 10 being very comfortable)?

12. How comfortable are you with technology on a scale of 1 to 10 (with 10 being very comfortable)?

13. How comfortable are you with social networks, including Facbook, Twitter, and YouTube on a scale of 1 to 10 (with 10 being very comfortable)?

14. Please list at least two professional references and their contact information so that we can talk with your peers.

The mechanics program is a bit like a franchise. American Majority “mechanics will receive 75% of the net from their trainings” and the 2010 program required mechanics to perform at least one training per month, for a minimum of 30 trainees through the end of 2010. At $20 per person, that’s a minimum take for the mechanic of $450 per month. I attempted to attend the $20 per head training in Madison on March 5th but it was booked solid.

The mechanics program was put together and began recruiting in February, 2010. Formal training took place March 24th to 26th, with American Majority flying recruits to Washington D.C., covering all travel and board. And then the Sauk County Tea Party was founded on June 17, 2010.

Later in 2010, the Sauk County Tea Party began linking to and endorsing strategy meetings with American Majority. In mid-December of 2010, the group took part in a strategy call with co-founder Ned Ryun to discuss the New Leaders Project.

On December 29th, Sauk Tea Party President John Meegan announced his candidacy for Baraboo school board.

Meegan’s ties to O’Keefe’s American Majority go beyond the training seminars. Just a few weeks ago, Meegan organized area counter-protesters to go to Madison, in the process telling the Baraboo News Republic that he was “working with a national group called American Majority.” The News Republic piece interviewed another counter-protester, Lori Mislivecek, noting she was a “Baraboo resident.” What it did not note was that she is also listed as one of 37 members of the Sauk County Tea Party. In anticipation of the trip to Madison, Meegan sent an email insisting “all signage should be supportive of the budget reform bill, Gov. Walker, conservative legislators, freedom, liberty, rule of law, etc. No partisan or violent signage allowed.”

Fight Back Wisconsin counts the Sauk County Tea Party as part of its “Prosperity Network.” Fight Back Wisconsin and Kochs’ Americans for Prosperity-Wisconsin’s share an address on South 70th Street in Milwaukee.

Asked about financial support for from the Wisconsin office of Americans For Prosperity to “grassroots” tea party groups within its coalition, such as the Sauk County Tea Party, or its ties to American Majority, Matt Seaholm, director of AFP-Wisc., told me there is no such official support “beyond a shared interest.”

Except, just after the 2010 election, Americans for Prosperity- Wisconsin announced that the “Wisconsin Prosperity Network” had “helped privatize the Center Right political processes with the development and financial support of Prosperity 101, First Freedom Foundation, The MacIver Institute, American Majority, and Americans for Prosperity.”

One more interesting detail about Meegan’s school board candidacy is that his one child, a teenage daughter, does not even attend school in Baraboo. His daughter attends IQ Academy, “a complete online middle and high school” based in Waukesha, over 100 miles away, near Milwaukee. IQ Academy benefits from Wisconsin’s unique open enrollment policies which redistribute vouchers from the school system (for which parents pay taxes). As advertised on IQ Academy’s website, for Wisconsin residents the school is “tuition-free.”

An open letter that Meegan wrote to the Baraboo School Board in Jan. 2011, well after working with American Majority and just before Walker’s budget introduction, outlines demands curiously similar to what Walker finally addressed, including “removal of all open enrollment limits related to virtual charter schools.”

In the February primary, Meegan received more votes than any other candidate. Next up, the April 4 general election.

* * *

So, to review: In 2010, the Club for Growth and the Koch Brothers heavily supported the election of Scott Walker. Union-busting legislation is written for Walker to submit in 2011. Meanwhile, Club for Growth and Koch Brothers trustee Eric O’Keefe’s Sam Adams Alliance launches the American Majority New Leaders Project, which, in 2010, partners with the Sauk County Tea Party, to train free market conservatives to run for office. Those candidates include Sauk County Tea Party co-founder John Meegan, who announces in December, 2010 that he is running for a seat on the Baraboo school board.

It’s almost a given that the John Meegan-Eric O’Keefe example is but one simple detailed example of something that is no doubt going on in all contested counties across the state… and more. Scheduled American Majority training events in the near future include Waxahachie, TX, Crowley, LA, Outer Banks, NC and Bowling Green, KY.

(Messages requesting comment from Eric O’Keefe, John Meegan and the American Majority were not returned.)

The new conservatives love to use the home budget metaphor when debating government spending. They argue that the government should have to watch its spending just like ordinary folk. Tea Party Review Magazine just published an argument from National Taxpayers Union’s Jordan Forbes: “Families balance their budgets’ Politicians must do the same.” In it, Forbes asks: “Why can’t Congress make a budget and stick to it? That’s something that most families across this country do all the time, year in and year out. It’s not easy, especially in hard times….”

Why does this favored metaphor disintegrate when it comes to targeting cuts to balance that budget? When “most families across this country” are faced with making spending cuts, the one cut they make last of all is to their children’s future. But that’s exactly what Scott Walker and Wisconsin Republicans are doing. In an attempt to balance the family budget, the governor is looking first at what he can cut from the children’s schooling, so that he can keep the premium cable channels.

Correction: This piece originally noted that the “New Leaders Project trained 27 city council candidates in Oklahoma and saw 17 of them win.” AM launched the “New Leaders Project” at the end of 2010 for the 2011/2012 election cycle. Those successes in OK were achieved through an unnamed program.

Abe Sauer can be reached at abesauer at gmail dot com.

Proposition M! Charter Amendment G! There’s so much to know to be an informed citizen today in Los Angeles, and yes, it is time for you to go vote. But look out, there’s a feud between the library and the police department! (If you like something more straightforward, here’s the League of Women Voters.)

“The award for most gruesome form of biological warfare goes to the Tartars. In 1346 they laid siege to Caffa, a bustling trading post on the north coast of the Black Sea. The relationship between Caffa’s Italian settlers and the Tartars, who inhabited the region, had recently soured, and the Tartars were out for blood. When their men began to die of the Black Death, they loaded the corpses into catapults and flung them over the walls of the city.”
 — While we were thinking about disease-ridden punk rock as it concerns the food supply yesterday, The Last Word On Nothing’s Cassandra Willyard was writing about the history of biological warfare. And reminding me to once again cue up The Plague’s “In Love.” Which has laid siege to my brain for the past 48 hours because it so awesome.

This in amusing in light of yesterday’s discussion: “R.E.M. is in one of the longest middle periods in the history of popular music. (I’d say it started in 1987, with ‘Document,’ four years after the group’s first album, ‘Murmur.’)” Oh yeah? Well, screw you, Ratliff, I’m calling the “middle period” at the 3:13 mark of “Talk About the Passion.” They were never the same band after that.

So it’s March (surprise!) and you may be thinking, “Oh man! Thank goodness winter is almost over!” In fact, you may even be THAT GUY, the one who grew up in Wisconsin or wherever who always, when there is just a little bit of sun outside and the temperature creeps into the low 50’s (despite it still being “feels like” mid-40’s with the wind chill factor), puts on shorts and a hoodie and walks around pretending like you’re not freezing, because you’re just so aggressive about transitioning into spring, or something — even as I write this I’m trying to understand the logic of this particular type of person but I really don’t get it at all. If you are THAT GUY, please stop doing this, it makes us all feel very uncomfortable. (For all of you who are not THAT GUY, bring THAT GUY up in conversation; you’ll find that he’s surprisingly very universal). Anyway, before you start putting away all your winter clothes, packing up your down jackets and whatnot to be bury in the back of your closet (Narnia?), let me make a case to you. A case for sweaters.

Now I know what you’re thinking (or maybe I don’t, I’m not really making the argument that I’m clairvoyant here): “I like sweaters already!” But sweaters, like the other things you take for granted in your life and don’t appreciate enough (other things in this category include: the crisper drawer in your refrigerator, hot water, and the alarm clock on your cell phone), deserve more credit, praise, and use than you’re currently giving them.

One of the best things about sweaters is how they really can accommodate any situation. I’m assuming you know that sweaters are warm and that wearing them as a base layer when it’s cold outside is in your best interests. I’m assuming you’re not an idiot. So moving on from their most rudimentary function, let’s look at some ways you could be using sweaters better.

Are you a guy? (SORRY LADIES.) Do you often not know how to dress in social settings aside from putting on some sort of striped shirt and denim with stitching on the pockets (maybe stop doing that btw) and dress shoes with a boxy toe in the front? Perhaps you should lose the blazer that you were going to wear on top of this “cool” ensemble and put on a sweater instead! In an informal survey of people on my gchat, a majority indicated that they appreciate a good sweater more than a good blazer. The two articles of clothing serve the same function, but one makes you look significantly less like a) a dick and b) everyone else. And you know what? If you love your blazer, great news! You can still wear a sweater underneath your blazer, and you will still look cooler than you would otherwise.

(Sidebar: if you ever find yourself dressed too much like someone who appears on “elimiDATE,” maybe take a step back, look in the mirror, and reevaluate. Are you being your best self?)

Are you a guy who misses the touch of people? Well, put on a soft fuzzy sweater, and I promise that (not like a real promise, but you know, the kind of noncommital promise someone who writes something on the Internet makes to a stranger) the next time you’re in a social setting, someone will touch your sweater, because they have nothing else to do, and be like, “Hey! That’s a really nice/soft sweater!” Make sure you have words planned for after this compliment, because if not, you will be the weird guy in a sweater, and sweaters don’t deserve to be ruined by someone like you.

If you’re a girl and wondering how to wear sweaters, the only real advice I can give you is that you’re not Felicity, and a big, chunky turtleneck sweater is not ALWAYS the answer.

So you’ve figured out how to wear a sweater. Congratulations! But what else are sweaters good for besides just you wearing them to make yourself look nice or be warm? That’s a great question. Do you ever find yourself perplexed as to what to get someone as a gift? Well, if it’s someone above the age of 15, you can get them a sweater! I know it might seem boring, but you know what never goes out of style? Sweaters. If you get someone a cool sweater, someone will always come up to them and be like, “Hey, you, nice sweater!” (Honestly, people say the weirdest things in social situations when they have nothing else to talk about. It is estimated that 73% of all cocktail party conversation is sweater-related.) And then you will forever be associated in their memory as the person who got them a great sweater and also a great compliment. Believe it or not, Arianna Huffington gets her entire staff sweaters every year for the holidays. I mean, should I even keep writing? Have you already left this tab to go peruse sweaters for all of your gift-giving needs?

Now that you’re into sweaters, go mix it up a little! This is a whole new world for you! Get excited! Maybe something with a nice pattern? Go crazy! (But not argyle. Don’t ever wear argyle. If you take anything away from today’s lesson, and you almost certainly will, it should be this: Argyle is to be avoided in any circumstance.) Sweater up, everyone. It will make all the difference in the world.

This content is brought to you by the new Hyundai Elantra which helps you “Snap Out” of your routine to live your best life.

Sponsored posts are purely editorial content that we are pleased to have presented by a participating sponsor, in this case the Hyundai Elantra; advertisers do not produce the content.

“Somali pirates may have reached their limit, at least for now. Security agencies have suggested that Somali pirates are willing to negotiate lower ransoms to release ships they have seized — because they are running out of room.”

How To Split A Check At A Restaurant

by Neel Shah

Eating dinner with a group of people at a restaurant can be fun. You know what’s not fun? Trying to figure out who owes what when the check comes — when Jenny, like, only got the roasted beet and goat cheese salad, but Freddy got some stupid $38 hamburger (THE MEAT IS FROM PAT LaFRIEDA, OKAY?!), but Jenny had three cocktails compared to Gabby’s single glass of Pinot, so maybe Jenny actually owes more than everyone else, because those cocktails were $16 each (THE BARTENDER, EXCUSE ME, “MIXOLOGIST,” USED ANGOSTURA BITTERS AND HAND-CHIPPED ICE, OKAY?!), but Franny says she owes less since she didn’t even order an entree on her own, even though she definitely took bites from half the main courses at the table, which was super annoying (ugh, such a Franny move), and everyone went to a stupid liberal-arts college so no one has the math skills to properly figure this out, and, you know what, this totally isn’t even worth the aggravation, the waiter looks like he wants to stab us with a salad fork, why didn’t I sit at home and get a pizza delivered, I don’t even really like you people! So yeah, splitting the check can be stressful. Here’s how to deal.

If you are under the age of 25…
You are probably poor! Because of this, it is OKAY to look at the bill and figure out exactly what you owe for the food and beverages you consumed, in addition to whatever tax and tip is appropriate. Some people will try to get you to split the check evenly because it’s tedious to go through and figure out that Johnny owes $24 whereas Lisa owes $32 or whatever, but that $8 difference is a drink at the bar later, so stand your ground.

NOT OKAY, however, is to be that person who got a $10 appetizer and a $20 entree and throws in $30 and hopes that no one else notices. People notice! Don’t be that person. Everyone hates that person. (Why is it always the same person?) In this day and age, tax and tip add 28% to the cost of the meal, which is not an insignificant amount. Do you really want your friends to hate you over 28% percent? If you don’t have the cash, that’s rough, but you’ll have to put it on your card anyway, even if you’re already behind on your payments.

(And I really hate to generalize/be sexist here, but young attractive females try to pull this off all the time. They’re all, “Oh, ha ha, I’m sorry I’m a little short, smiley face!” I’m glad you have a nice smile, I really am, but if you’re not even sleeping with me, why am I paying for you? Your less cute friends don’t pull this shit; they’re civilized and understand that not everything in life is handed out on a silver platter. This is one reason why there should be a law requiring YAFs to pass some sort of basic etiquette test before they’re allowed to hang out in public with the gen pop. Honestly, is there any sub-species of human more ill-behaved than a young attractive female? I don’t think so.)

Oh, and if you don’t have cash on you — which you probably don’t, because you are poor — you’ll probably have to ask the waiter to put different dollar amounts on different cards. Recognize how annoying this is and please leave a nice tip.

If you’re under 25 and not poor, you probably work as an analyst at an investment bank and make a magnitude of 5x-7x as much as your friends. If this is the case, throw them a bone and just pick up the tab every now and then? They’ll appreciate it.

If you are over the age of 25…
Did you not drink as much as everyone else? Was your pasta entree half as expensive as the steak? Did you not get dessert? I’m sorry, but no one told you to be a teetotaler, or to not get the steak, or to not get dessert, you pussy. When you agreed to go out to dinner with your friends, you implicitly agreed to the following social contract: “I, (your name), hereby agree that when the bill comes, I will pay my share of the bill, calculated as follows: Total cost divided by # of people, regardless of who got what and how many. I further agree not to publicly complain about this methodology, even if I get a little screwed, because there will be times in the future when what I end up paying is considerably less than the dollar value of what I eat/drank. It evens out over time. Sincerely, (your signature).” Granted, there are obvious exceptions — e.g., you showed up late and really did only order a glass of wine — when no one would expect you to pay a full share, yet even in these cases it’s generally polite to throw in some cash.

Now, the observant among you have read this, processed it and realized that in a group-dining scenario, one is effectively incentivized to order lavishly and imbibe irresponsibly, because not everyone else will, and thus what you end up paying will be disproportionate to what you actually owe, meaning that you make out like a bandit while your schmuck pals who exercise restraint in the name of fiscal responsibility end up subsidizing you. This is correct! The guy who behaves like a reckless asshole always wins, so long as there are people around to bail him out. Have you learned nothing from CNBC’s coverage of the myriad crises surrounding our financial-service industries?

So basically, when in doubt, go ahead and have another $16 Rum Swizzle. It’s practically free!

Neel Shah notices that you go to the bathroom every time the check comes.

Photo by VolaVale.

Now that you know Mardi Gras is today, it stands to reason that you receive your yearly warning to non-Christians: tomorrow is Ash Wednesday, so don’t be alarmed when you see the mark of Jesus on people’s foreheads. (I know! Every year, it catches me by surprise!) Anyway, be polite, don’t laugh and point, just roll with it: the Christians are a totally fine people, who believe in supporting the poor and loving neighbors, just as long as you don’t spook or provoke them… or try to control your own body. (Sorry! God bless!)

There’s plenty of blame to go around! I have been a “quit your job!” evangelist. I have hustled entrepreneurism in magazines; we even run a quit yer job column right here (and there’s a good interview coming later today!). I have a great rationale for this position: it is that working conditions have turned to a state of serious suck over the last decade and many employers have demonstrated that they don’t give a flying fig about workers, and the only way to even consider retirement in the future is either on your own dime or on the streets.

So yes, do it! And but also… The air in this bubble isn’t being recycled very well. The biosphere is a little stinky! No offense to a smart little idea, but LaunchRock is what did me in, and now the NYC Startup Bus is driving over my soul on its way to SXSW.

LaunchRock is a startup that services startups with a jazzy signup-for-beta-invite page and… no, wait, that’s it! LaunchRock is incredibly useful, in that you can keep track of all the startups that are about to startup! Like Elephant. What could it be? WHO KNOWS, let’s sign up. I hope it’s for dream journalling! Social networked dream journalling, man, I would almost pay money for that.

And if you’re not glued to the live updates from the Startup Bus that is on its way to Austin, you are missing out. They are starting startups on the startup bus! It’s been a tough morning, clearly:

8:57 a.m. — Buspreneurs are pitching their startup ideas, and other buspreneurs are trying to shoot them down. “The whole bar trivia thing isn’t really monetized yet.”

You know what I wish someone would start-up for me? A widget that would autorefresh that page in a window every 10 minutes so that I don’t miss a single absurd word.

There’s still good news about the bubble. Like, all my friends are going to get insane money to run their companies. Let’s hope some of them show a return! There’s going to be nothing sadder than a bunch of 34-year-olds that have given up and been worn down, wearing their kryptonite neck-irons of expansive bubble burn-rate in the isolation of their grey office cubicles.

Let’s hope they remember the fun of the crazy times! We’re living in a world where venture capitalists have the time to write blog posts about how to write email subject lines that will get them to open your email due to them not having any time.

Even the most zealous haven’t forgotten that something killed the dinosaurs, is what the people who are down on this fun little segment of upturn say. Terrorism, swine flu 2.0, war, a derivatives market disaster, the elimination of government-run services, President Palin, something something China, all the palladium gets mined, Google gets MySpaced — who can tell in advance? The fun thing about our modern age is that the meteor is always already about to hit the roof of the bubble, it’s just not identifiable until afterwards (hello, Nevada’s housing market!), when we’re picking up the pieces and working at Walgreen’s.

Or you know what else might happen? Nothing! People might just keep making money in one company out of eight or whatever, and everything just shuffles along. The free market, baby.

All that being said, I bet if you wanted to put a little money into a smart and successful editorial company, drop me an email, I bet we could work something out. Couldn’t we? While the incubators and angels are awesome — low-cost, high-adventure quotient, great schemes — the real future of startups isn’t investment money. It’s very little money, because the person with the big checkbook actually almost always turns out to be your boss.

Oh my. You have to feel for Miami Heat soon-to-be-former coach Eric Spoelstra. He’s been a calming influence during what has been a relatively tumultuous, but successful, season. He’s managed to help LeBron and LeDwyane from trying to split the ball with an axe, and has keep a relatively unhealthy team winning a high percentage of their games. Then on Sunday, after losing to yet another talented, balanced squad, this time the Chicago Bulls, he told a group of reporters that the players were back in the locker room crying like little babies, which no doubt they were. (He has subsequently amended that statement to say he noticed “glossy eyes,” which sounds like a weird makeup-y term.) Except you don’t do that. Ever. You never project your weaknesses to your opponents. By now it’s painfully obvious to everyone that the Heat have trouble playing against good teams, which is a little more than an Achilles heel; it’s more like an Achilles torso. When the playoffs start, it will be their opponents that’ll be talking the smack. And now that the coach has launched “Crybabygate,” he would do well to start packing his belongings up. Like, yesterday. (No, seriously, yesterday.) The circus is about to hit town. Now, weeping signs will be ubiquitous on the road; people will outfit their babies with Heat onesies, and at the end of games, cameras will slowly pan the team bench looking for signs of waterworks. Good thing, half of the team is fossilized and unable to produce any human tears.

So, here’s my prediction: By the end of this month, team president Pat Riley will become head coach again because only someone with that much ego and authority can get the guys to play together. At least that’s what the newspapers will say. The reality is NBA teams cannot win with two-and-a-half men. And Mike Miller and the ghost of Mike Bibby. When the Heat doesn’t win this season, “unnamed team officials” whose names rhyme with “Matt Miley” will claim that he needed more time to help the team gel, uh, jell and he’ll be back in 2011–2012. Expect player defections to begin two seasons hence, when the Big Three all have contract “outs.”

But enough about the Heat: I’d really rather continue my tour around the NBA and talk about the Central division, which was decimated in July by LeBron James’s defection. Last season, its most pressing issue was if King James would have enough steam left, after pounding the four other teams, to beat the Celtics. We all know how that turned out.

This season, the Bulls have become a powerhouse before our very (and LeBron’s teary) eyes and yet, although Derrick Rose is playing like an MVP, people wouldn’t exactly begin speaking in tongues if they flame out in the first round of the playoffs. As far as the other four teams go, if there was a Venn diagram of their relationship to the Bulls, it would resemble the four interlocked toilet seats.

Chicago (42–18)
I know people are on the Bulls’ jocks and feel like they could be the team to come out of the Eastern Conference. I could easily see that happening. On paper, the team is deeper, talent-wise, than anyone else. Derrick Rose is playing like an MVP… in a year when the bar is set chest-high. He’s an offensive powerhouse, but scoring point guards have a way of being contained in the playoffs, when opponents put that hyper, no-score small forward on them. What will protect against that is the Bulls do almost everything else well, too: Carlos Boozer and Joakim Noah are athletic and strong — with Boozer scoring more and Noah rebounding with greater frequency and hard-fouling with élan. Luol Deng is impossible to stop when he’s playing confidently; Kyle Korver hits 43% of his treys and 87% of his free throws and Kurt Thomas still has the crazy googly eyes that can hypnotize opponents. I can see them winning it all, sure, but they are relatively inexperienced (and with a rookie coach in Tom Thibodeau, to boot) and so, if the Celtics or Magic end up working them, I wouldn’t be shocked.

Indiana (27–35)
Jeff Foster is still in the NBA? Amazing. He should host an infomercial about the secret of longevity because he’s obviously figured something out. Good thing he’s not one of the Pacers more useful players. (As you can see, I’m stretching here, while I acquaint myself with their roster. Should only be a minute more.) Still, the guy plays 18 minutes a night and that’s all you need to know about the team. Danny Granger is the team’s focal point on offense and Darren Collison and Roy Hibbert are growing the kinds of NBA players that other NBA players mention prior to games, but their development won’t happen quickly enough to make a difference this year, or next, or the one after that. They’re good enough to beat the crappiest teams, but they only halve the games versus the middle 15. Like Mike Dunleavy Jr. himself, that’s not good enough. Playoffs? PLAYOFFS? No playoffs.

Milwaukee (23–37)
Brandon Jennings cannot be expected to play 33 minutes a game, and yet there he is dragging his perpetually healing bones for that amount every night. It’s a curious enough development since the team has had, over the course of the season, 14 guys who have averaged 10 minutes a game. Andrew Bogut’s low double-double average is as much as can be expected from him, after that injury last season, where just about every part of his body ended up bruised and broken. If the Bucks were in the Western Conference they’d be the Cavaliers. Right now, they’re just helping Milwaukeeans kill time before the sausage races heat up again in April.

Detroit (22–41)
When Phil Jackson, a guy who has kneecapped more than a few opposing coaches in his lifetime sticks up for you, things must be pretty bad. And they were for Pistons coach John Kuester, a poor sap trying to guide a weak team of malcontents through a miserable season. Not sure when Richard Hamilton and Tayshaun Prince became so disenchanted with making millions, but it’s time for Joe Dumars to blow this team up (and probably Tracy McGrady) and start fresh. If they win 25 games next season I’ll be shocked. Is this tour through the Central over yet? I’m becoming lightheaded.

Cleveland (12–49)
If the Cavaliers hadn’t recently beaten the Knicks on consecutive Fridays, I would express pity for them. But… oh, what the hell. They deserve better than what they have. Sure, they’ll win a few more games with Baron Davis at the point, but realistically, they just lost the best player in the game and the combination of Gibson, Jamison, Hickson and Sessions isn’t good enough to win at Pros vs. Joes. It’s going to take five years, minimum, for them to warrant any attention. Unless that crazy owner has another meltdown. Then they’ll get attention. Just not wins.

Tony Gervino is a New York City-based editor and writer obsessed with honing his bio to make him sound quirky. He can also be found here.

Photo by Keith Allison.