On the Contrary

“If the government is involved, it is screwed up.”  This is the mantra of the government hater.  Now we hear this a lot lately in the health care debate by the Republicans and Conservadems who are against the public option.  But politicians are not real government haters.  They are just gargantuan hypocrites.  They are the government and they love government because it gives them power and employment.  They just mouth the words we hate government to exercise the real government haters so they get their vote and then can then be held in the embrace of that thing they say they hate so much. Try to focus on the fact that they want health care reform if they can insert government into the decision about whether you can have an abortion, but want government out of health care decisions.  Remember Congress is the government at the very seat of power.

So what about that group that they are catering to?  Do they have a point?  The answer to that question is in the micro-sense yes, but no in macro-sense.  My experience with government haters is that they can cite you anecdotal instances where the government has made mistakes or created interference in their lives, but they never think about the big picture.  Here is a prime example:  I have a friend who is a farmer and hates the government and in a micro sense he has a point.  The government, in its interest to insure water quality, healthy employees, and a safe environment, has hung many onerous reporting and tracking requirements on farmers.  In my own case, I have to pay into a water district formed specifically for tracking pesticides in water even though I don’t use pesticides and didn’t cause the problem.  I have to report monthly any use of pesticides or herbicides, get a license every year, and the rules are staggering.  It is a pain.

But what he and others fail to see is the macro achievements of government.  He would not have water to farm if it weren’t for the government.  In California between the State and Federal Government, the projects they have built to supply water massively subsidizes water users.  He ships his fruit around the country and he fails to see that the Department of Transportation and the FAA as the institutions that make that happen, that allow Fedex and UPS to operate efficiently.  He got his degree from the University of California and does not see that without the government subsidizing his education, he could never have afforded it.  He fails to appreciate that regulation of herbicides and pesticides are what keep him from using effective, but deadly chemicals. It is the government that tracks pests around the state and institutes large eradication programs that keep his fruit safe.  He hates land-use restrictions by government and yet bemoans the loss of farmland.  And of course he would be the last to turn down Medicare when he is eligible.

In fact during the health care debate many Americans were saying keep government out of Medicare which was the ultimate example of this myopia about the effectiveness of government.  They have their eyes on their path in front of them, but they are not looking around to see who created that path or where it leads.  Of course government does stupid things, just like any organization.  Would we say those Master’s of the Universe, those paragons of capitalism, who ran the banking industry did not make major blunders?  Nobody is immune.  The problem is not government and regulations, it is stupid regulations which we can fix.

Here is a prime example.  The State of California is concerned about business and tax revenue lost to internet purchases that may have a cost advantage because many of the businesses do not collect or pay California sales tax if they do not operate in California.  So California did a stupid thing.  They decided to put the onus on the consumer to report and pay that tax.   Really?  Each of us is going to set up and auditing system so every time we decide to use Amazon.com, we are going to track that cost and report and send that tax to the State?  That is what is required by current law, and it is patently stupid.  But is all government bad because some misguided representative thought this was a good idea?  Fix the bad stuff and focus on all they do bring us that we need and demand.

The future is not less government, and those that think so have forgotten how we got to be the greatest nation in the world.  But as the world is changing and the role government needs to play becomes more and more important, we really have to start thinking about smart regulation.  We need to look at the interests served in regulation and apply them in a way that has less impact especially on those who can least afford that impact.  Example:  If California wants its sales tax, then guess what?  This is a national problem.  It is called Intra-state commerce and it needs to be regulated at the national level.  Trying to solve this by putting one more unobtainable requirement on its citizens is just stupid, not to mention ineffective.  Government by fear is never going to work.

So come on people.  You have to look at the big picture.  We need to fix government when it does stupid things, but without government to attack our really big problems, we are doomed.  Maybe in your little myopic world you could see how less government would make your life simpler, but then your little myopic world would not have been possible without government.  But government haters will never admit this.  It is too easily find someone else to blame for all their problems.  After all the market place will solve all our problems.  Who needs government?  Hallelujah!

I am sitting here with my leg in a brace, up on a footstool, looking at my medical bills and I can’t help thinking how this minor little incident could ruin someone without medical insurance.  I also am looking at the billing, paid for by my health maintenance organization (Kaiser), and marvel at how inefficient this whole system is. My little scrap with emergency medical care woke me up to why we need a single payer system. But let’s start from the beginning.

As many of you know, I am a small vineyard owner and there are always things to do in the vineyard.  Well about 5 weeks ago on a Monday, I went to play golf.  My plan was that a major storm (first of the year) was coming in, and although the cover crop (grass and clover) was well established to prevent erosion in the steep areas of the vineyard, there were some bare spots and I wanted to rake in some grass seed and straw.  So when I got home about 4 pm from my golf round with the storm moving in, I jumped on my ATV loaded with 50 pounds of grass and clover seed and went to work.  I was spreading and raking in seed and straw, and working my way up a particular steep area, when I turned and started to walk back down to my ATV, I slipped on the steep slope, and then the fun began.

When I hit the ground in a particularly violent way, I heard a loud pop and then I was kind of focused on pain in my knee for the next minute or two until it subsided.  I did not know it at the time, but this little slip resulted in a ruptured patellar tendon.  For those of you who are not anatomy majors, the patella tendon connects your lower leg (tibia) to the patella which is in turn connected to the quadriceps muscle through the quadriceps tendon.  In other words once it is ruptured (ruptured means either torn in two or completely torn off the bone), you have no way to extend your lower leg.  But after the pain had subsided I decided to try it and found that to be a very stupid idea.  So here I am sitting up now in my vineyard, my leg useless, it is starting to get dark, the rain is moving in, and I am immobile.  Now I tell you all this because I want you to understand that there was no way for me to get myself out of my vineyard.  So let the costs begin.

After a failed attempt to somehow get on my ATV after scooting down to it, I realized I had my cell phone, and for once in the vineyard I had reception so I called my wife who called 911.  I cannot say enough kind words about the fire and rescue team that showed up to get me out of there and to the hospital.  When they got there, they put me on a board, cut off my pant leg, pointed out that my knee cap (patella) was now up in my thigh, started an IV, and then pushed some morphine because as they said, I am going to need it when the shock wears off.  Then six of them carried me down to the ambulance and delivered me to the nearest hospital about 6 miles away. $593.78 ka-ching! And since these guys were county workers, I am sure that cost was heavily subsidized already.

I was delivered to the local hospital emergency room (Marshal Hospital in Placerville) where my knee was evaluated, x-rays taken, saline solution started along with something to control the pain.  They put my leg in a brace to stabilize it.  I was there about 4 hours until my primary provider (Kaiser) could send an ambulance there to transfer me to their main hospital in Roseville, about 45 miles away.  Cost for the emergency room care:  $6,055.20, ka-ching! Note costs are still rolling in with the latest being the radiology clinic so I am not sure this is the final number.

I should mention that it is common to send one home in a brace and then have surgery a few days later when it can be scheduled.  The nurse at Marshal said that this might be the case and went to get some crutches.  But when Kaiser decided to accept me and perform the surgery that evening, she took the crutches back and said that is good thing because they would be billed at $600.  I was looking to see where the DVD player must be installed on the crutches for that price.  As an aside, both my crutches and cane were manufactured in China.  Oh yeah, when these costs were billed, they were listed under OB/GYN.  I called Kaiser to make sure this billing to them was correct and they seemed unconcerned.  I wanted to confirm that my insurance wasn’t paying for somebody else’s baby, but I never did get a warm and fuzzy that they cared.  The cost were definitely billed to me and I had an accident on that day so it must be right.  Okay the ambulance showed up and they loaded me for the trip to Kaiser in Roseville, about 45 miles away.  $1532 ka-ching! I am being billed $50 for this as a co-pay which I think is a steal.

So by the time I had arrived at Kaiser’s emergency room at 1130 pm that night, about 6 hours after the initial little slip in the vineyard, I had incurred costs of a little over $8,180.98.  The rest of the real costs I will never see.  This included my surgery early the next morning, the full time recovery nurse they assigned to me in recovery, the drugs prescribed for pain, the crutches they gave me, the new flexible brace when they removed the staples, the physical therapy, the cane they issued me (I actually had a $4 co-pay on this one), or the follow-up visits with the surgeon.  Oh, I also had to pay a co-pay of $50 for my ambulatory surgery, and every time I show up for an office visit a co-pay of $15, and some similar fee for drugs, but the real costs are hidden from me and covered by Kaiser.

The final piece was a letter notification to call Kaiser’s Health Recovery office to see if someone is liable and they can recover their costs.  I wonder what this costs in administration costs and lawyer’s fees.  I was thinking they could sue the golf course since if I had done this earlier in the day, maybe I would have worn my work boots, and not have slipped.  Golf is a terrible addiction and someone ought to be responsible.

So what are the lessons learned here to be pondered while one has his leg elevated?  First, if you don’t have insurance, get somebody to drive you to the hospital.  That is a sad lesson isn’t it? I can imagine how painful it would have been to get into the car assuming my wife could have carried me there.  Second how much of all these costs were attributable to covering people that they have to treat in emergency rooms that don’t have insurance?  Third, what is the cost of all that cost accounting and billing?  Fourth, if we are not worrying about who is responsible, but getting good care, could not those costs pay for more people to be covered?  Finally, what would have the impact of these costs been on a typical vineyard worker who doesn’t have insurance and also probably can’t work for 12 weeks?  And that is assuming he could find someone to do the surgery for free.

I am very lucky.  I had excellent care every step of the way, and the kind of work I do can be done from home.  It was just a little speed bump in our very comfortable life.  But this minor little scrape in the vineyard could have ruined a less fortunate family.  Is this any way to run a railroad?

I been thinking which is always a dangerous thing.  Every time some nut job goes off on a shooting spree, the national media goes berserk covering mindless speculation and rumor the rest of the day, and news that is important to our future gets totally pushed off the airwaves.  Since the Republicans certainly don’t want us discussing our real problems because they don’t have any solutions, could this not be some conservative plot to distract us from the real issues of the day?  They certainly have enough nut jobs and guns across the country to pull this off.  I can hear it now, “Today in podunk  city a crazed shooter shouting ‘Bring back my country,” shot and wounded x bystanders at Chunky Cheese.  In a related story Michelle Bachmann said this was a real measure of the unrest in this country over the loss of the election to the Democrats.”

I don’t mean to demean those who have been killed or injured in these senseless attacks, but these kinds of news stories are kind of like rubber necking at a car wreck scene.  There is very little to be learned except to see carnage, and when this distracts us from our primary task, in this case driving the car, it leads to us to rear end the car in front of us because we are not paying attention to where we are going.  You get the analogy.  I am sure the press doesn’t.  If it bleeds, it leads.  If it is outrageous, repeat it over and over.

Maine is another state I will never live in. Hopefully all gay and lesbians will boycott the state. This country has a lot of really backwards and frightened little people who occupy it. Glad they weren’t around for writing the Declaration of Independence when we said, “We hold these truths to be self evident…”.

I have taken President Obama to task in previous blogs for what I feel is his failure to lead once he got into office (Skating on the Thin Edge of Disillusionment).  It seemed that once he arrived in Washington he was overcome with the conventional wisdom of what was politically possible instead of the reason so many supported him, to overcome that conventional wisdom.  Well this morning Arianna Huffington wrote a delightful piece in the Huffington Post about David Plouffe’s new book, The Audacity to Win, making the point that he seems to have forgotten all the lessons that got him to the White House (The Audacity to Win vs. The Timidity of Governing).

I hope he reads this because from my seat he is becoming just more of the same without the courage to take really tough positions and push through real change.  I am not alone in these feelings as a recent article in the New York Times about how Iowa voters who voted for Obama back in the primary are losing faith (In Iowa, Second Thoughts on Obama).  I hope this shakes him out of his slumber and realizes this is not about eight years, but about changing the mindset of America.  The eight years is just a byproduct if he can really do this.  Right now he and his team seem to want to take victory laps for baby steps.

Today is an off-year election as if you didn’t know and have not been inundated by the media that seems to have nothing better to cover.  I won’t pretend to know the local politics of these elections, but the kind of statements we are hearing out of the press is to believe this is a predictor of all future elections.  “History tells us….”, “This election will foretell the future for the Democrats in 2010…”, are the common things they are all bloviating.  To me it is all nonsense as Republican pundits tell you it is a referendum on the Obama administration, and Democrats tell you it is meaningless.  Depending on the outcome of these election they will probably switch positions.  They all have their agendas.

What is telling is that Virginia might elect someone who thinks women are second-class citizens, and New Jersey would reject a governor who made some hard decisions about funding government.  Meanwhile Maine will attempt to deny rights to gays and lesbians also as second-class citizens.  I know it is not that simple, but it does demonstrate that the nation still lacks some kind of vision about where we are headed and are reacting to their fears and selfish interests.  Until we get a holistic narrative about what we are about and where we are headed, these elections just reflect the refusal of most voters to make hard decisions about sacrifice for the future or have a shared set of values.  So much can happen between now and 2010 that these elections are meaningless for predicting the future.

One last extraneous thought:  David Kwak, co-founder of the Baseline Scenario, wrote a really interesting piece titled, Do Smart, Hardworking People Deserve to Make More Money? He was responding to a posting about a story of a family that was down on their luck and struggling with high credit card bills, including plenty of fees.  Apparently the story triggered a wave of posts blaming the victim.  What was on display was the same thought process that blames a rape victim for their rape.  What is really going on is that as a defense mechanism, people like to think that they can control their lives.  This control gives them piece of mind and what is really subconsciously going on is “that would never happen to me because I would make better choices.”  If you really want to understand why some people are utterly devastated when something bad happens to them, it is because they feel a total loss of power and control.  The world doesn’t make sense to them anymore because they didn’t deserve it.

But what Mr. Kwak takes on is a fundamental conservative belief that success and prosperity are the result of discipline and hard work, ignoring the impact of chance.  It’s is that being in control thing.  Many people work hard and don’t prosper.  Some aren’t as smart as others through the chance of DNA combinations or opportunities good parenting brings.  So he asks a fundamental question in terms of a philosophy foreign to conservative thought:

“If you are willing to acknowledge that chance determines who you are to begin with, then it becomes obvious (to me at least) that public policy cannot simply seek to level the playing field, because that will just endorse a system that produces good outcomes for the lucky (the smart and hard-working) and bad outcomes for the unlucky. Instead, fairness dictates that policy should attempt to improve outcomes for the unlucky, even if that requires hurting outcomes for the lucky.”

If you understand this reasoning you are a Progressive and if you don’t, you are a conservative.  It is the classic insight into why conservatives lack empathy for their fellow Americans and judge self-worth in terms of wealth.  It is because they do not believe that chance had anything to do with it.  They deserve what they got and do not need to spend any time pondering the fate of others, because they don’t deserve to share in their bounty.

Remember that our conservative friends were totally against the stimulus bill.  Then they loaded it up with tax breaks saying that only creating private sector jobs would do any good.  Now they are saying it failed to create the number of jobs promised.  Apparently all those tax breaks weren’t all that effective.  What was effective were the jobs that were not lost in each of the states, especially teaching jobs due to stimulus money.  So let’s just think this through.  You know, apply logic instead of emotion and ideology.  Remember that except for three Republicans, the rest wanted to do nothing.  “Let them eat cake.”

First of all let’s look at cutting taxes to stimulate the economy.  If we were in a mild recession, this might not be a bad idea.  If people weren’t loosing their jobs, then giving business an incentive to hire or replace equipment might be an effective way to stimulate demand.  But in the current situation, there is no demand because the economy is shrinking* and people are losing their jobs.  Why would I hire someone or replace equipment for demand that does not exist?  In other words, in an extreme recession, why would I take the risk on expansion when there is no one to buy my increasing inventory?  I would venture that if you made the tax rate 0% right now, it would not have any impact except on Wall Street where they bet on derivatives, not create capital for new businesses.

Let’s just take little old me as an example.  When I get a consulting check, I sock 37% away for taxes that I have to pay quarterly.  37% is what I have computed over the years to make sure I don’t owe anything come April.  Now if you reduced my taxes from earnings to zero I would have a nice chunk of change I could spend, and so the theory goes, I would stimulate the economy with this spending.  The trouble with this simple minded conservative thinking is I would not spend it.  Times are tough and I am not sure when the next job is coming so I want as much money stashed away as possible as a pad for the future.  No stimulus there. This is generally what economists will tell will happen with tax cuts in a severe recession, but if the only thing you know how to say is tax cuts, then, well, you prescribe it no matter what.  It’s all you got.

So if demand is shrinking, and tax cuts are not going to stimulate private spending, what you have left is public spending.  Oh how conservatives hate this.  The usual complaint is two parts.  It increases the deficit and government jobs are not real jobs that sustain the economy.  So let’s take one at a time:  It is very true that this spending will raise deficits, but so will tax cuts.  Either way the effect is the same on the deficit and our treasury.  Oh but private jobs are self-sustaining while government jobs are dependent on continued spending.  Well, yes and no.

First of all there are no private jobs to be had and they are shrinking.  So the government has a couple of choices.  It wants to stimulate the economy by giving the economy money that will be spent.  That means you give it to people that will spend it, people on the margins.  That generally means you fund state programs.  That is why the job numbers created are teacher’s jobs that would have probably been cut.  You also fund help for indigent (social programs) and that money is also spent.  Is that stimulative?   Of course it is since those people spend money that fuels private sector jobs.  Without it, many more jobs in the private sector would have gone away just further shrinking the demand and the problem.  Same result is achieved with construction/infrastructure projects.  The benefit of this kind of spending is that not only do you at least keep the economy working, you get something for your money, either in your kid’s education (teachers jobs), or needed infrastructure improvements.

To the question of are these make-work jobs that are dependent on continued government spending, the answer is not really.  The government is trying to maintain the services and infrastructure improvements to stimulate the economy until the tax base can once again support these critical services.  The private sector is moribund.  There is no other option.  Well that’s not quite true.  You can follow the conservatives lead and just let the economy collapse and sooner, or more likely later, things will restore themselves.  The collateral damage is not their concern.

Their concern and bogeyman is the deficit.  Okay it is a concern.  But they don’t bat an eye about billions for Iraq and Afghanistan, they don’t see the defense industry as a government program, and they wouldn’t hesitate to cut education, health care, or whatever to support these giant programs.  I don’t think it means a hill of beans to have the strongest military in the world if our economy is a shambles.  Is the deficit something we should worry about?  Of course, but right now we have to get things moving or the deficit is going to get much worse than what this spending will cause.  Later on we will have the fight with conservatives once again to set reasonable tax rates to pay off the borrowing we need to do today.  It is called shared sacrifice which is totally alien to their mind set.  They are on the wrong side of almost every issue because their ideology has constipated their brains and of course the status quo (those that got rich in the existing climate) pays them not to think.

And yes we need another stimulus, as the first one was too small and not targeted to things that would fuel the economy with spending.  Thank you conservatives for that.  That includes some of those moron conservative Democrats that the press continues to falsely refer to as moderates.  This stimulus package or whatever they want to call it, ought to be more focused, to help those out of work (extending unemployment) and real investments in tomorrow. Forget about bipartisanship because the conservatives will try to keep anything from happening.  They will scare the rabble with the fear of deficits while setting the country up to bankrupt the poor.  Nothing ever changes and you would think sooner or later people would wake up to going nowhere.

*While the economy grew 3.5%, most of that was due to replacement of inventory, reduction of workforce , and longer work hours, while unemployment continued to increase.  Even the Stock Market has figured this out as it fell on the weak outlook.  Things are going to get worse, not better without a new stimulus plan.

If polls are to be believed, the majority of Americans want a public option so that they have choice in their health insurance choices. But the plans in Congress that have a public option will apply to less than 10% of the population. Now the Republicans and Conservative (NOT AS THEY ARE MISS LABELED MODERATE) Democrats oppose even this token and one has to ask why. Hopefully in the debates to come, more Americans will become aware that this very small public option is not enough and will demand more, while the forces of the status quo and industry sycophants start to get shunned. We will see who is awake in America.

Joe Lieberman has told the Democratic Party he will not support overide of a filabuster and will side with the Republicans on the Public Option. Strip him of any Chairmanships and power he has and throw him out of the caucus. He is a Republican and when the Democrats finally realize that he has always been a wolf in sheep’s clothing, they will be stronger for it.

Health care, the economy, and Afghanistan are those topics.  On health care, what is really wrong with the United States was on display in AARP meetings across the country.  AARP, that organization that represents those of us over 50, apparently, according to an article in the New York Times (A Heated Debate Is Dividing Generations in AARP) is trying to educate their members on why the public option is a good thing and sadly those that have Medicare don’t want to share it with others.  One member, Mr. Don Nichols, who is 85 and has had Medicare benefits for 20 years, responded that those who complain about insurance premiums becoming too expensive have only themselves to blame. “If they quit their smoking and drinking, they would be able to afford it,” Mr. Nichols responded out loud.  He would make a good Republican.  I got mine and screw you.  Note the blame thing also.  It tells you all you need to know about the upcoming debate.

On the economy, I listened to the financial gurus saying that if economic growth looks strong this next quarter, we may be out of the woods.  On what planet are these people living on?  When will we separate the stock market from the growing unemployment problem?   I really don’t think the economy is rocket science.  Ask yourself this:  What is it we make that we can sell to rest of the world that they want and will start the cash flowing again?  Right now that answer is nothing and the stuff we want is made somewhere else.  Until that changes, nothing else will.  Until we invest in ourselves with our government as a major partner, we are doomed to the backwater of the world economy.  Swoosh!  That was China going by us.

Then there is Afghanistan.  If you want to keep this discussion simple, then bottom line is we simply can’t afford it.  The money we are wasting trying to make the world safe for Afghans needs to be spent here at home to put us back on our feet after years and years of Republican market place neglect.  If you are looking for a more nuanced view, I suggest you read the interview that Rory Stewart gave to the Bill Moyers Journal. Mr. Stewart simply states that what we want to accomplish probably can’t be accomplished, that we have muddled objectives, and we have a mindset that failure is not an option, so we will throw more and more resources at the problem and set ourselves up for a full pull out in about five years when things are no better.  This is a gross oversimplification of his argument and I strongly urge you to read it.

Politically, he believes that President Obama has tied his own hands and will have to send more troops, but he should draw a line and say no more.  When the interviewer asked Mr. Stewart if he is listened to by say Secretary Clinton, who he has advised, here was his description which I think is truly insightful:

“They listen politely, but in the end, of course, basically the policy decision is made. What they would like is little advice on some small bit. I mean, the analogy that one of my colleagues used recently is this: it’s as though they come to you and they say, “We’re planning to drive our car off a cliff. Do we wear a seatbelt or not?” And we say, “Don’t drive your car off the cliff.” And they say, “No, no, no. That decision’s already made. The question is should we wear our seatbelts?” And you say, “Why by all means wear a seatbelt.” And they say, “Okay, we consulted with policy expert, Rory Stewart,” et cetera”.

His best advice goes like this:

“My advice to President Obama is, you’re going to have to increase troops now. It’s too late for you, because you’re going to be destroyed politically if you oppose your general on the ground on something like this. But let’s think now six months, a year down the line. We’re going to have to decrease again. We can’t keep these numbers indefinitely. Cap it. Don’t go up any further. That’s it. If the military come back in six months and say, “By the way, we’d like another 50,000, another 60,000.” No. Say, “This is all you’re going to get. And furthermore, this is all you’re going to get, and the numbers are going to decrease.” Force the military to work out what they’re going to do with less. This isn’t an ideological point. It’s just a fact. They’re going to have less in two years, three years, five years than they have today. So, let’s try to frame the policy that works out what we can do to protect the United States and help the Afghan people with fewer troops. And hopefully, that’ll mean we can have a long-term sustainable relationship, instead of this boom and bust, in and out, that I fear is coming.”

So how are these related?  They all show how we are in denial about our real status and we are unwilling to work together to solve our problems.  In health care we like to say we are the biggest, richest country in the world and we can do anything if we put our minds to it.  But in fact, as Mr. Nichols demonstrated, we are just selfish little people who are hanging on to what they have with all their might, denying the reality of how that hurts everyone else.  We still live in some dream world where if Wall Street is doing okay, then the jobs will just follow, denying the reality of the suffering out there.  And of course in Afghanistan, we still think we can do anything if we just send in a few more Marines as though we could afford to do that or it would work.  Like an addict, until we face the reality of how far we have fallen, we will not accept our limitations and start to get better.

Sorry for the break in my mindless ramblings. Once again I am in Burlingame working on a proposal. They did harvest the Syrah (with the Viognier) on Wednesday and it looks like the Grenache with the Counoise will go on Saturday. That leaves the Mourvedre and it still needs some hang time so that will be probably mid to late October. Production was down this year and I am trying to figure out whether it is my irrigation scheme or if this is just symptomatic of this growing season. For those of you who said they would vote for me, Jared and Alice, I am not crazy. One last quick thought before I get back to work: Last night was “happy hour” at the Hog Island Oyster Bar ($1/Oyster). I didn’t think I could eat 2 dozen, but I was wrong. One other suggestion. If you go to a wine bar and you can tell the staff just loves wine, ask them to pour you a glass of what they think is really interesting. I had a wonderful Sangivoese/Grenache blend last night.