Wednesday, November 19, 2008

The Big Free

Up until now, I have listened carefully to the debate over whether or not to bail out the "Big Three". With executives from Detroit appearing today before Congress, the subject is finally worth weighing in on - not by me, but by my buddy, Mick the Mechanic.

Mick has worked at a Ford dealership in Michigan for a terribly long time now. Seeing as this is his brand of gainful employment, he has a vested interest in his company's future. So I called him up to see how he's been doing just lately.

As per usual, I had to wait while he scrubbed his hands before he could pick up the phone. By the time he got to it, he was fairly animated, and I was itching to get the inside story.

How's it going, man? Worried at all about your job?

"My job? No. The place where I work? Yeah, I'm worried about them, but I can turn wrench anywhere. No matter who makes 'em, cars will always break down."

I get you. So is your dealership actually in trouble?

"The sales department sure is, but that's the case at any dealership, any make or model. Nobody's driving new cars off the lot. It's down by, like, forty percent."

Ouch. Who's to blame for this mess?

"You're gonna have to tell me. I just work on cars."

Well, everyone says that U.S. auto companies are poorly managed, that they make products that people don't seem to want, and that they are hobbled by bloated Union contracts. But it still doesn't seem fair to me to say that they've shot themselves in the foot, not when the overall economy fizzled alongside them. People aren't buying cars because they can't afford them. If it's any consolation, they're not sending their kids to college, either.

"College tuition keeps going up, though. They're makin' money. Car prices have dropped through the floor, and they still just sit on the lot. What gets me is that every stupid banker in America, every idiot who gambled our money and lost, gets a bailout, but not the working man."

Right. And remember that those institutions, we were told, are too big to fail. But the Big Three... Who cares?

"About three and a half million people, that's who. Like we weren't hurt enough already. The goddamn government's willing to let us all die on the vine."

No, no. The government isn't rooting for you to fail. Conservatives are.

"Oh, come on, man. The Republicans aren't even in power anymore. They lost, big-time."

That's true but it doesn't let them off the hook. They're the ones who pushed the far-flung notion of being an 'ownership society', complete with long commutes. They're the ones who gave an 85 percent tax credit to businesses on full-size trucks, vans and Hummers. They're also the ones who deregulated commodities, allowing speculators to then have their way with the oil markets, all the while mocking conservation as a personal virtue.

"Okay, say it is their fault. They've already been punished by the voters. That doesn't mean shit to the car companies, never mind the workers who just want their daily bread. Is the government going to own up to any of that?"

They don't see why they should.

"Because this country owes the Big Three, that's why. There were a few years there, you know, where they didn't make one dime selling cars. They were too busy cranking out planes, tanks, trucks, jeeps and ambulances. If the Motor City hadn't stepped up in World War II, all cars today'd be either German or Japanese... Know what I mean?"

As per usual, my buddy Mick was right. We ended the conversation with stock pleasantries, said goodbye, and hung up. I know what he did - he went right back to work.

As for me, I sat there for a few minutes, just looking at my hands. My clean hands.

pH 11.19.o8

Thursday, November 13, 2008

In Vino Gravitas (or, "Look, Ma, No Drilling")

(Responsible Disclaimer: Some of you will read this and feel a strong desire, perhaps for the first time ever, to call PETA's hotline. Go ahead. It won't help.)

Anyone who filled up their gas tank this week knows one thing: The experts are full of beans. Earlier this year, we were told in no uncertain terms that the price of gasoline would never again go below three dollars a gallon, proper tire inflation be damned.

Well, it did, and AAA believes it will sink below two dollars a gallon this weekend as many Western states switch to the cheaper "winter blend." Funny, over the past few years, the experts have been wrong about a lot of things. But don't let that embolden your heart.

Just because we're getting a timely break at the pump doesn't mean that the commodities market is stable - anything but. They could easily roll out the barrel again where oil futures are concerned. For our part, we weathered this last bout of fossil-inflation quite well. It must be in our blood.

In the mid-1830s, Americans almost universally burned whale oil in their lamps. As the whale population declined (and as more people wanted to light their homes) the price of whale oil increased by roughly 540 percent. Then kerosene was introduced, and we were on our way to here.

What has worked in the past can work again, if not for our lamps, then at least for heating oil. Commercial whaling, in concept, could be viewed as a new form of renewable alternative energy. In practice, though, the more likely result would be the summary extinction of whales worldwide as Wall Street went Ahab on us all.

Given that, the next logical source of combustible blubber is the elephant, and not as in Hannibal crossing the Alps. I mean the logo on all the fear-and-smear mailers that jammed your mailbox last month. That's right. Republicans need to put their money where they put all that junk food.

Think of how many raw kilowatt hours are waisted on the likes of a Rush Limbaugh or a Dennis Hastert. Karl Rove would once more have some form of value. Tell me Bill O'Reilly doesn't need his chin sucked (perhaps, as a rare humanitarian exception, they could give it to Mitch McConnell).

Conservative fat cats serving hefty prison sentences could donate, as well, in exchange for a slight reduction in penalty; call it "lard time". I'm thinking Jack Abramoff, Duke Cunningham, guys like that. It wouldn't right all of the wrongs, but it would help them, and it would help society.

No doubt, there are some heavy Democrats out there, too. All should be encouraged - with yet another tax incentive if need be - to waddle on down to the nearest VA hospital for some bipartisan liposuction in the name of energy independence.

Come on, Butterworth, it's either this or you start buying American cars. Weigh in as part of the solution. If you could all just tighten up your belts a little bit, the other 95 percent of us wouldn't have to.

pH 11.13.o8

Friday, November 7, 2008

Sore Losers

Having spent the last two days listening to conservative talk radio (without medication), I can tell you that this has not been a fun week for right-wingers of all shades. For them, this election was about as much fun as throwing up in an outhouse.

What's going on is a bunch of fractious finger-pointing underpinned by shock and fear. The far-right blames the moderates. The moderates blame Sarah Palin. The libertarians blame everybody. The fiscals and evangelicals seem like they've had enough.

However, in a revealing display of their carefully-hidden selfishness, the voices of talk radio aren't interested in knitting the Party's broken bones. They're not discussing a filibuster strategy or plotting a House coup in 2010. Rather, they're crying about the Fairness Doctrine.

Official FCC policy since 1949 (and upheld by the Supreme Court upon challenge), the Fairness Doctrine more or less mandates that those license-holders who utilize the public airwaves must provide equal time for opposing views where strictly editorial content is concerned.

Conservative talk radio is strictly editorial content. The Fairness Doctrine doesn't really apply to, say, a sports station. It doesn't mean a religious station would have to book time for the Church of Satan. But those programs that pander to the base don't want these liberal fact-checkers in the next time slot - understandably so.

Really, though, the tone turned quite nasty this election. Violence has been done by people who are hooked on the line of thought that has for so long dominated the airwaves. Even so, I don't think the Fairness Doctrine, which has been squelched since the Reagan-Bush era, should be applied in this instance.

Admittedly, not imposing it would be a lot like letting Osama bin Laden slip away in Tora Bora, but I don't see these AM gas bags as a threat anymore. Given unfettered access to programming, they threw everything they had at President Obama. Every name in the book. Every card in the deck.

Hour after hour, day after day, week after week, month after month they hammered away. And their audience soaked it up. They bought every line, believed every word and obeyed every breathy, intoned instruction...

And got slaughtered.

Let these lemmings have their Pied Pipers (as if they need them). Leave them in their dark corners, their lower bowels of conservative media. It doesn't matter now. The Fairness Doctrine, alive and well, has just been enforced by the electorate.

pH 11.o7.o8

Tuesday, November 4, 2008

Thumpin' 2 (Electric Boogaloo)

(What I took from childhood sports.)

To my Senator and neighbor John McCain, and to Governor Sarah Palin, I say, good game.

Mr. Hannity, Mr. Limbaugh, Mr. Medved, Mr. O'Reilly: Good game, good game, good game, good game.

Yo, Rummy, Wolfie, Scooter, Grover. Good game, good game, good game, good game.

Hey, Rudy and Mitt, Huck and Fred, even Ron Paul; good game, man. Good game. Good game.

Jack Ryan, good game. Jeff Paulis, ditto. Bruce Jacobs, Todd Hartley, Andy the Janitor - good game, guys.

Phil, Aaron, Jim the Plumber, Al, c'mon. Good game, all of you. Especially you, Al.

So, that just leaves, eh, George. And, of course, Dick. Well, gentlemen, y'know...

That's it.

pH 11.o4.o8

Monday, November 3, 2008

Consider the Source

A sampling of what passes for recent conservative thought:

"How did Obama respond? He suddenly discovered that his grandmother, who had supposedly been released from her hospital a week ago, when he showed no interest in her, needed his immediate attention. Cool, calm, collected Obama suddenly suspended his campaign and headed for Hawai'i." - Conservative commentator Andy Martin, October 20, 2008

***

"We're gonna raise the question of why Obama is headed to Hawaii. He certainly wouldn't take the time out to visit an ailing grandmother all of a sudden -- it is for other reasons, it is being speculated across the Internet that he was born in Kenya and he is not a U.S. citizen... There are people arguing that Obama is headed to Hawaii not so much to visit an ailing relative but to fudge the birth certificate in question." - Conservative talk-show host Michael Savage, October 22, 2008

***

"Well, Mr. Liddy, I'm headed out to Honolulu. I am not convinced that Barack Obama is going because his grandmother is sick. I appreciate that his grandmother is sick and he wants to be with her. I do recall that Barack Obama's mother died of cancer, and he didn't go to be by her side when she died. He relates that in his autobiography, Dreams From My Father." - Conservative author and commentator Jerome Corsi, October 22, 2008

***

"If Obama's grandmother is deathly ill, why has this been announced days ago, and he's only going now or tomorrow or whenever it is? Now, I understand, folks, Snerdley's got-- he's buried his head in his hands -- I understand this, my friends -- anything said about Obama is gonna be turned into an unfair, racist attack on the man, but I -- am I not asking the obvious questions? Who announces days in advance they're rushing to the side of a loved one who is deathly ill, but keeps campaigning in a race that's said to be over, only to go to the loved one's side days later?" - Conservative talk-show host Rush Limbaugh, October 23, 2008

***

HONOLULU – Barack Obama's grandmother, whose personality and bearing shaped much of the life of the Democratic presidential contender, has died, Obama announced Monday, one day before the election. Madelyn Payne Dunham was 86. - Associated Press, November 3, 2008

***

I suppose they'll now say that Obama planned his grandmother's death in order to draw the sympathy vote... They and their followers are just low enough for that. Lord knows they've already tried everything else.

Do the right thing on Tuesday, please, and shut these classless cowards up for good.

pH 11.o3.o8

Saturday, November 1, 2008

Personality Test

Times are what they always were. In the waning months of the first Bush presidency, times were tough. Money was tight, jobs were scarce, the economy wasn't worth a damn. I distinctly remember hunting for my food back then, and gardening, not to mention selling my plasma.

So here we are again. At least this time - knock on veneer - I'm in a better employment situation. Back then, one took whatever one could find, even if it meant low pay and long hours. Because I had friends, I was able to get a foot in the door at Montgomery Ward Auto Express.

I applied to be a Tire Specialist. It would be impolite to repeat some of the other names that were used to describe that job. I changed tires on cars and trucks, and did lube-oil-filters, and swapped out batteries... All the dirty, unskilled work.

Tire Specialists were also responsible for dumping the trash barrels and scrubbing the floors. It was tough, dangerous and unsatisfying, but it was employment. To get this wonderful opportunity, which paid $4.75 an hour, I actually had to take (and presumably pass) a personality test.

Anyone who has ever endured one of these things is probably just as flummoxed about it as I was. The questions made no sense at all, so I could only guess as to what might be the "correct" answers:

Would you consider yourself a marathon runner or a cross-country skier? (Neither.) Is it better to steal from a relative or a friend? (Depends on what you're stealing.) Would you rather be a clown or a bricklayer? (I don't see why I couldn't be both at the same time.)

My responses did not disqualify me from working at Montgomery Ward, and I don't regret the experience. It was hardly gainful, but I learned a lot, and have saved plenty of bread since then using the skills I acquired there. I also worked with good people, mostly, and that at least made it fun.

The personality test, though, has always stuck in my mind. What was the point? It was a lousy job that nobody else wanted. The fact that I could fill out an application should've been sufficient evidence that I was up to the task. The only real qualification seemed to be a strong back and a willingness to show up every day.

Anyway. Today, we are all prospective employers, mulling over a couple of job applications for the most important position our government offers. We've seen their resumes. We've checked their references. More than that, the 2008 presidential race has been, yes, a personality test.

Now I think I understand. Somehow, some way, John McCain and Sarah Palin have taken this thing and absolutely flunked. Nobody guessed that was even possible, or that the answers mattered, but we recognize that it has happened. It's not something we can put our finger on. It's something else.

Which would you rather have as president, a crazy fighter pilot, or a crazier moose skinner?

(Neither!)

pH 11.o1.o8