IRS: R.I.P.

I have long advocated the demise of the IRS in favor of a simple flat tax rate, one for businesses and another for individuals. But now, after getting one of those IRS e-file cards in the mail and trying to file online, I think criminal charges should be filed against the IRS before dismantling this out-of-touch, kickback-infested dinosaur.

IRS e-file is nothing more than a ruse for private tax preparers to squeeze money out of taxpayers who think they can file online themselves for free. That's why the IRS tele-file was scrapped. No profit there for the Republicans' good ol' boys.

Now a private tax preparer has my social security number and I can't cancel my account with them, I can't ask a question without using a credit card and I can't complete their tax form because the program is flawed. What a ripoff.

Heads up America! As a fiction writer, I have done more than spin stories to entertain people, make them think and make them laugh. I've exposed a lot of contemporary woes and offered solutions. You won't find that in genre sci-fi.

When Worlds Collide

Back in the early 1960s my father was on a winter business trip to New York City and did a night on the town with a few business associates that found them sitting in the famous 21 nightclub while a blizzard raged outside. The weather outside was, indeed, so "frightful" that there was only one other table being occupied in the club.

Inside, a man waved at my father and his friends, inviting them to join them at their table. They accepted. When Dad and his colleagues approached the other table they were shocked and intrigued by the man who had waved them over. It was Ed Sullivan. While the winter storm tore up the Big Apple, my father enjoyed cocktails with Ed Sullivan and his friends and watched the show and a good time was had by all.

Many years later (1983) both my parents were at the Dearborn Inn in Dearborn, Michigan where my father was attending a convention of the Society of Manufacturing Engineers, as President of the Harrisburg, PA Chapter of SME. A man they believed to be Robert Mitchum sat alone at a booth and my father ventured over to see if it really was the famous movie actor. It was Robert Mitchum, relaxing after a day of shooting Winds of War. This time my father did the inviting and Mr. Mitchum joined my parents for a round of drinks which he insisted on buying. They even had their picture taken with him and said that he was very cordial and quite friendly.

Neither of these stories is earth-shattering but such things do make me wonder. Do these worlds collide for a reason or is it just a small world, after all?

Red Sky At Night...

...no one's delight. One summer night nearly forty years ago I stood in my back yard and gazed at the star-studded sky, a teenager dreaming of far away places and distant worlds. Suddenly, a tiny red glowing dot appeared in the eastern sky about forty-five degrees above the horizon.

I watched in amazement as the dot quickly spread, covering the entire sky from east to west in a scarlet glow that blocked out all the stars. For ten or fifteen seconds Earth was like another planet with a bright red sky.

Then the blood-red vision faded in seconds to the diamonds-and-coal blackness of a clear Allegheny night and only the returning stars were my witnesses.

Post Updated for image 2-11-13