Tuesday, December 1, 2009

State of the Unions

Finally, after years of dark clouds, Michigan received some good economic news: General Motors announced yesterday it would be firing 2,000 autoworkers... In Tennessee. The Springhill plant, which helps produce the Chevy Traverse, is to be shuttered.

Some 800 of those employees will transfer to factories in Michigan. That means 800 more paychecks, 800 more taxpayers, 800 more homebuyers, 800 more shoppers driving demand in the state that has been hardest hit by the recession caused by former president Bush's domestic ineptitude.

As for Tennessee, they'll have to make do however they can. The people there should also really reconsider whether or not they want to be represented by conservative wing-nuts anymore, because the blame for the Springhill plant closing can be laid at the doorstep of one man, Senator Bob Corker.

Yes, elections have consequences. Back when Washington was cobbling together the bailout plans for the Big Three, Corker was one of the Senate's most vociferous obstacles. It was his moment in the spotlight; until then, nobody had much heard of him.

It's not hard to get attention when you're running around lying about how much union workers are making. Corker was one of those (along with Alabama's Jeff Sessions) who perpetuated the "$70-an-hour" myth. He chose to stand with foreign automakers whose employees enjoy a lower standard of living than their American counterparts.

No wonder. Tennessee is a "right to work" state. A red state. A scab state. This furthers the obvious notion that Republicans are just not as bright as the rest of us. Study after study has proven that scab states have median incomes that are 20 to 25 percent lower than states in which workers can bargain collectively with their employers.

Here in Arizona, we also have the "right to work", which really means the right to make less money. The only discernible union in these parts is the United Food and Commercial Workers Union, which upholds fair wages for grocery store employees. Only one grocery chain, Basha's, has resisted the union. And they're in bankruptcy.

Getting back to Corker, who used his 15 minutes of fame to call the bailouts "surreal", he may not find so many supporters when he comes up for re-election. Along with those 2,000 GM jobs goes a like number of supplier jobs, and votes become easier to siphon off (even if the result is just another dumb Republican).

It may have felt good to Corker to harden up and criticize the bailouts and the UAW, but in the end it cost his state dearly. Call it political science, or just plain science, whether conservatives believe in such things or not.

Hot air has consequences.

pH 12.o1.o9

Sunday, November 29, 2009

McCain v. Hayworth

Arizona's political scene, always a three-ring circus, is abuzz over the prospects of John McCain finally having to defend his senate seat against a viable opponent. This challenge comes not from any particular Democrat in the general election, but from a far-right conservative in the primary, that being former Congressman (and current talk-radio host) J.D. Hayworth.

McCain probably doesn't feel vulnerable, but he sure looks it, fresh off a stinging national rebuke from voters of all stripes. A recent Rasmussen poll confirms this; even though Hayworth has yet to officially announce his candidacy, the two are in a statistical tie.

Hayworth was once a moving force in the Republican Party. Blustery and unapologetic, his approach to decorum accurately reflected the sensibilities of his constituents. After a few years, though, a sense of disenchantment settled in amongst the public.

Hayworth's uncontrolled rants about illegal immigration quickly alienated him from Hispanic voters and their patrons in the business community. His connections to the odious Jack Abramoff didn't help matters. The final dagger came from the Arizona Republic, whose editors portrayed Hayworth in a most unflattering light when they endorsed his opponent in 2006.

The funny thing is that Hayworth summarily lost to Democrat Harry Mitchell, who is politically not that far removed from positions that John McCain claims to hold dear. In a primary race, though, he wouldn't have to worry about those pesky Independents. He could play to the baser natures of red-meat-eating conservatives.

If this insurgent candidate ultimately claims the seat once held by Barry Goldwater, McCain will have nobody to blame but himself. The retired Navy man has shown an unsettling penchant for re-rigging his sails to suit the prevailing winds so much that nobody can be convinced of his positions - not even himself.

Not so long ago, McCain would tell you that climate change is a pressing problem. His position has since shifted closer to the beliefs of collegiate troglodytes like Oklahoma's James Inhofe (who doesn't believe climate change exists). Immigrants were vital to our economy when McCain was running as a Senator; they were slated to go to the back of the line when he was running for president.

Just last September, you may recall, McCain said that the fundamentals of our economy were strong. Hours later he "suspended" his campaign to go back to D.C. to help George W. Bush rescue that same economy. Then, to top it all off, he voted against the stimulus package. I'm not suggesting my senator is bi-polar. At this point, he truly appears to be tri-polar.

Now John McCain says he wants to remake the GOP in his own image - thoughtful, considerate, bipartisan. In other words, he wants his Party to be stocked with people who are not like Sarah Palin... You remember Sarah Palin, his 2oo8 running mate, whose track record indicates she would be far more likely to endorse someone like J.D. Hayworth.

It's almost salacious enough to get a guy - or gal - to register Republican just to oust McCain from a post that he has held for far too long. At least with Hayworth, you know what you're getting. Just don't get too close to him, or what you'll be getting is a series of precautionary rabies shots.

pH 11.29.o9

Friday, November 13, 2009

Backyard Talk

November is always the month of surprises, and this one was no different, except that today is Friday the 13th. It should have been no big surprise (although it was) to field a phone call from the reclusive yet reliable Mick the Mechanic.

"Hate to bother you, but I thought I'd call you up and play Devil's Advocate."

Well, you've every right to do so. Go ahead.

"Okay. How come you haven't written anything about this crazy Army guy shooting up Fort Hood?"

Well, for one, everybody else seems to have it covered. Beyond that, some stories, you have to let them... Bake. Ferment. Gestate.

"Got it. So what do you think? Did he do it because he's a crazy Arab terrorist, like everyone's saying?"

I don't know. They ought to ask him. However you slice it, he's still crazy.

"Should the military ban Muslims?"

Only the gay ones... I'm kidding, of course.

"All right, man." (I could tell that the role of DA didn't much suit Mick.) "What's all this noise about the 9/11 terrorists being tried in a New York City courtroom? What happened to Bush's military tribunals?"

What happened to Bush? I don't disagree with what they're doing, and here's why. I was in New York a couple of weeks ago -

"You were?"

Yes. And our tour-bus guide twice mentioned the World Trade Center, and both times he referenced "the murder of 2,750 people." To the people of New York - the victims of 9/11 - it was a crime. Not an act of war; a crime. Besides, nobody has ever escaped from a Supermax prison, so what's the big deal?

"You went and saw Hair, didn't you? On Broadway?"

Yes. (Long, uncomfortable pause.) Anything else?

"Yeah. Does it seem to you that the Republicans are a little too focused on the terrorism stuff, and that the Democrats are kind of not focused enough?"

It almost seems like that. The only variable is that the concerns of conservatives are false. It's just political hay to them. Their only hope to garner any attention in the 2010 election is to frighten people. Good point about the Democrats, by the way.

"So you're saying that they're inflating the Muslim angle in the Fort Hood case, and inflating the terrorist threat in the 9/11 trials, saying their crimes are therefore more serious? That they should be punished more severely because of their religious nature?"

That's not what I'm saying. That's what they're doing. And it's really very funny.

"What's funny about it?"

Just a couple of weeks ago, they were against hate-crimes legislation. John McCain had the most to say about it. Quote: “If this amendment was to become law, police officers and prosecutors would be forced to treat identical crimes differently depending on the police officer or prosecutor’s determination of the political, philosophical, or even religious beliefs of the offender. This is absolutely wrong." But, then, that had to do with -

"There you go with the gays again. I gotta go."

All right, then. Good luck this deer season. Kill one for me.

"Oh, yeah. Or more, if I get the chance."

That's what I still miss the most about Michigan. Hunting. And long, pointless conversations with Mick.

pH 11.13.o9

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

On Veterans Day

There's a bumper sticker on my four-wheel drive that says it plain and simple: If You Love Your Freedom, Thank a Vet.

Every year I try to do just that. Notes go out to my father, who served in the Air Force, and to my baby brother, who drove tank in the Army. Something nice gets picked out for my girl, who worked on the mighty A-10 Warthog.

A litany of names gratefully plays through my mind. Bobby Lanier. Stacey DeGraff. Larry Haffner. Chris Davis. Mark Hartmann. John McMillan. Joe Cusack. Ralph Hill. Al Tolman. In peacetime or otherwise, active or reserves, short hitch or career stint, they all wore the uniform. They all shouldered a rifle. They all laced up their boots and answered a tough call.

To them, I say again, thank you. It's more than a bumper sticker to me.

In Arizona, we're all a little more aware of the veterans in our midst, because so many of them have retired here. The Greatest Generation now spends its time, as it should, puttering around Sun City in golf carts. They paid their dues.

But there's also a dirty little secret about the veterans of Arizona. We have a burgeoning homeless population here. No fewer than one out of four of those who have noplace to go served their country. One out of four.

In return, we serve them at soup kitchens south of the railroad tracks. And we'll throw a parade, just like we do every year.

Happy Veterans Day.

pH 11.11.o9

Sunday, November 8, 2009

Recovery Less Jobs

Gone are the days when a man or woman could step up bravely before his or her employer's big desk and declare, "Take this job and shove it." Long gone.

The latest unemployment figures are in, and they are not good. While the pace of firings by American companies has slowed to its lowest point in a couple of years, a sign that the tide is indeed turning, the jobless rate has climbed to 10.2 percent nationally.

Some would have you believe that this is somehow President Obama's fault. Yet the federal government has been just about the only entity to expand payroll this past year, and any junior economist can handily explain that employment is a lagging indicator when it comes to recovering from the kind of recession Obama's predecessor left us all in.

In fact, productivity is way up, meaning Big Business is happy to utilize fewer Americans to make their profits. Here in Arizona, the supermarket chain Fry's - which includes Safeway - is preparing to hire temporary workers, as it prepares for another round of good old-fashioned union busting.

Still, 10.2 percent, that's pretty high (and doesn't even come close to telling the story in places like Michigan), the highest it's been in 26 years. Some have been collecting unemployment compensation for nearly two years now. These figures reflect not only the number of workers who have given up - hey, wait a second.

Twenty-six years? Let's see, that would have been, well, it would've been 1983. So the last time this many Americans were suffering from joblessness, which really translates into hopelessness, Ronald Wilson Reagan was our president. And he was in his third year as such.

Funny how that works. Last year's gouging at the pump was the result of oil prices that broke all the records set in 1981... When Reagan was in office. The sub-prime collapse was the worst banking crisis since the S & L scandal of the late '80s... When Reagan was in office. The Dubya-era stock market swoons were the worst since 1987... When Reagan was in office.

Let's face it. There is no question that Ronald Reagan was a massive failure as a president. And Barack Obama is regularly assailed by those who would scrape dogshit off Reagan's bootheels with their front teeth, so in love are they with the false memories they have of his abysmal presidency.

(This is by no means the only indicator that right-wingers are delusional; it is only the most glaring.)

Think about that when you hear conservatives crying about Obama's deficit spending, the highest we've seen since Ronald Reagan, unless you count the fiscal nightmares endured under George W. Bush (they don't). When Clintonian job creation becomes the norm, well before Obama's third year in office, you can forget it all over again.

That seems to be the way we roll.

pH 11.o7.o9

Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Peas in a Pod

Ah, success. It breathes a sweetness that is borne not in and of itself, but rather from victory over an odious opposition. Simply put, American glory has always been remarkable because of the defeat of a clear-cut enemy - and the traitors in our midst.

Heroes need villains; always have, always will. Benedict Arnold worked hard to thwart the Revolution. The Rosenbergs delivered The Bomb to the Russians. Today, we have Joe Lieberman, who says he wants to derail health care reform.

"I can't see a way in which I can vote for cloture on any bill that contained a creation of a government-operated and run insurance company," he said, getting in the way of the very thing that Americans want and need in the face of a bloodthirsty insurance industry. Of course, that's who has always supported his political career, to the tune of millions of dollars in campaign contributions.

Without any Party affiliation (Connecticut Democrats rejected him in his last primary race only to see conservative voters push him back into office as an "Independent"), he represents only those bloated corporate interests. As such, his Senate colleagues can feel free to strip him of everything, including the key to the bathroom - to figuratively do him like some poor turkey in the background of a Sarah Palin interview.

To put this in alarmist right-wing terminology, Joe Lieberman is a danger and a threat to the public. His obstructionist stance is terrifying, as it will leave millions of people at risk of suffering and dying in this nation. We would all be better off were he to somehow wake up and fall into his coffin tomorrow morning.

He's almost as disturbed (and disturbing) as the man he endorsed in the 2008 election, my senator, John McCain. After all, Lieberman's just doing what he's done for four terms - whoring out his vote for cash. McCain's stance, however, is more predictable, since he is a Republican.

It is also far more hypocritical, since John McCain has received nothing but government health care since before he was born. The same goes for his kids. Today, he is insulated by three layers of taxpayer-provided subsidies.

As a Senator, he enjoys blue-chip coverage, the likes of which the average American could never afford. He's also eligible for Veterans Administration benefits. To top it all off, he's a senior citizen, so he qualifies for Medicare. It's a good thing he's so well insured, because he is truly a sick individual.

Of course, since he had the courage and convictions to dump his first wife in favor of a rich broad, he doesn't really need any of that. He could just pay out of pocket for his health care, the way 47 million Americans have to do every year, which he thinks is just fine - for them.

For John McCain to oppose meaninful health care reform, to block relief to the public which has always taken such good care of him, is an obscenity that borders on treachery. He and Joe Lieberman are peas in a pod, all right, a regular Aldrich and Alger comedy duo.

pH 1o.28.o9

Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Worse Than The Disease

The latest numbers are in, and it doesn't look good for the minority Party. Today only twenty percent of Americans identify themselves as Republicans. Since they have already displayed an amazing incapacity for shame, one can only assume that the GOP is splintering under the weight of the Rush Limbaughs of the world.

Such confused little people, these Republicans. They look up at a wooden cross and declare, Right to Life. Paint that cross red and the tune changes. Demonization becomes policy. Compassion goes out the window. Their health care plan could be coined Single Prayer.

In that regard, fright-wing media should be in line for the Medal of Freedom, with their suicidal tendencies sending conservatives scattering like billiard balls. Many will cling to Sarah Palin's skirts. Some will follow Ron Paul (not caring where he leads them). Others will go into their Libertarian shells. Any way you slice it, the Party's over.

And no wonder. Being stupid is one thing; not getting out of the way is another crime entirely. Find me a Republican plan. Health-savings accounts? Gambling. Not only does that idea amount to you paying out of pocket, it ignores everything we've come to know about capitalism in the past year.

They're clearly not interested in reforming health care in any fashion. The Party of No Way would rather see tens of thousands of Americans die each year than do anything to insult, or even annoy, the megabillion-dollar industry that uses our premiums to line their pockets every year. (The same can be said of the Blue Dog Democrats, who may have finally underestimated the mindset of their constituents.)

It's as though they're watching a person bleed to death in front of them, standing there and doing nothing while shrieking at those who are trying to stanch the bleeding, "You're doing it wrong! You're doing it wrong!"

Even the concept of a public option - a government-run, premium-supported non-profit with limited eligibility - causes them to react with the kind of feigned horror normally reserved for mimes. That's all they are, mimes with sound. Who needs that?

In 2001, the GOP found a trillion dollars to alleviate the tax burden on the wealthiest of Americans. In 2003, they found a trillion dollars to pay for a needless war in Iraq. In 2008, the Bush White House left the American taxpayers on the hook for a trillion dollars' worth of bank bailouts - all the while racking up record deficits year after year.

Ask them, though, for any measure of relief against a predatory industry that gets in between patients and their doctors and suddenly they've rediscovered fiscal conservatism. If you think the madness ends there, you know nothing of their ways:

http://www.dnforum.com/f254/30-republicans-oppose-frankens-anti-rape-amendment-thread-391419.html

They're a joke. They're a gag. And if they keep this up, they'll be extinct, and our nation can get back to the business that the Founding Fathers intended.

pH 1o.2o.o9

Saturday, October 17, 2009

No Sweat

A strange and fickle relationship exists between Arizona and the national media. The CNNs of the world tend to focus more on the exploits of crazy Sheriff Joe Arpaio, or the fact that we can bring guns into bars, than on anything of true importance. We're the state that had the governor who said "pickaninny". In the overall realm of current events, we usually land somewhere in between Mayberry and Lobster Boy.

The latest news coming out of Arizona - listed under "foreign studies" at Columbia University - is a tragic story involving at least two deaths at a tony Sedona resort called Angel Valley. It was there that a so-called financial guru, James Arthur Ray, conducted a "sweat lodge ceremony" that killed two people and sickened many more (one remains in critical condition).

What were 60-odd people doing in a sweat lodge with a financial guru? They were taking part in Ray's "Spiritual Warrior" seminar, for which they each paid a little under ten thousand dollars. White-collar victims of a red-collar crime.

The sheriff of Yavapai County has declared it a case of homicide. This sparked an indignant outburst from Ray's publicist in Los Angeles, one Howard Bragman. He's in the Arizona Republic today, calling the charges "purposely incendiary", crying about "finger-pointing".

Well, yes; contrary to the media legends, we in Arizona take such fatalities seriously. We don't simply dig holes in the desert and dispose of the corpses (that's actually Nevada). And for some reason, we no longer leave the perpetrators hanging from the boughs of mesquite trees, to be discovered at first light.

Ray is certain to be held responsible for the deaths of these people, and may well go to prison for this ridiculous stunt. As for Mr. Bragman and his blustery complaints, please remember that he is an L.A. publicist. You know who else is an L.A. publicist? Balloon Boy's huckster dad. Take it for what it's worth.

I don't mean to disparage the dead, or to antagonize their next of kin, but there might be a silver lining in all of this. Hopefully, this unfortunate news will carry Back East, where these rich flakes came from in search of (quite honestly) ever more money.

Let them now understand that Sedona isn't some psychic vortex location. It's just a seriously expensive, and apparently dangerous, tourist trap. Ask the locals - the ones who aren't hawking rose-quartz crystals and copper bracelets, I mean.

The supposed sweat lodge ceremony that Ray was attempting to recreate for these saps is based upon Native American spirituality. It means something more to them than selling tickets to quack seminars, otherwise there would be billboards all along I-40, like there are for geodes and blankets. They don't need, and likely don't appreciate, $nake Oil Guy exploiting their culture.

Let's face it. Sedona hasn't been a spiritual place since the Yavapai-Apaches were driven from the land, force-marched 180 miles in winter to the San Carlos reservation. Since then it has been nothing but a stunning geological cauldron that, to this very day, steams with the stench of greed and death.

pH 1o.17.o9

(Editor's note: A third victim died at a Flagstaff-area hospital on Monday, October 19, 2oo9.)

Saturday, October 10, 2009

Peace Out

Clearly, I am not getting enough irony in my diet. The last column I posted urged President Obama to win the war in Afghanistan (as opposed to abandoning it). Not too much farther down the road, he gets awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

It is unlikely that this prestigious honor will prevent the administration from following an honorable path with respect to the war that George W. Bush - himself a finalist for the Jonas Zavimbi War Prize - started and never wanted to finish. Never mind all that; the story's more interesting tangents lead into the murky world of right-wing media.

Even Obama acknowledged that he hadn't yet really accomplished so much as to be awarded the Nobel, so the conservative avalanche of disgust was easily anticipated. For them, any excuse to ridicule the president will suffice, but they went after more than just the man this time.

Conservative commentators, from Rush Limbaugh all the way down to the lowest intellectual termite, made the time to actually denigrate the notion of peace itself. They equate it with weakness. They label it appeasement. They consider it next to evil.

Okay.

Today, then, is a red-letter day in American politics. It means that there are no more so-called "Christian conservatives". Such a thing can no longer be. It would make no more sense than a "man fish", or a "dirt beverage".

Can't happen. Doesn't exist. It just... isn't. Why? Because a Christian believes in peace. Every single mass, regardless of denomination, is briefly paused so that the parishioners can greet everyone around them with a handshake (or, I suppose, a fist-bump) and the words, "Peace be with you."

Who are we honoring with this pacifist gibberish? Jesus Christ, that's who. The Prince of Peace himself. The man who reportedly said, "Peace on me the day I was born, and the day I die, and the day I shall be raised alive." If you go to any popular search engine and type in "Jesus Christ Peace", you will find some 38 million results.

Therefore, if you consider yourself a Christian, you cannot be aligned with conservatism. And those who identify with conservatism (and its most voracious partners in capitalism) cannot get into Heaven. But you already knew that. You just refuse to act on your faith and your beliefs.

Anyway. I really felt that Obama, as awesome as he obviously is, should not have received the award. He's just doing what he feels is right. The real credit should go to the one person most responsible for getting him into the White House where he could be most effective. That person is, without a doubt, Paris Hilton.

After all, Barack Obama was running neck and neck with John McCain last year, right up until the time that McCain put out that Obama-as-celebrity commercial (in which McCain strategists played up the images of Britney Spears and Paris Hilton). Britney did nothing more than smack her bubblegum in response, but Paris came back with an ad of her own.

In it, she put the devastating hit on Arizona's senior senator, calling him a "wrinkly white-haired guy." That was all she wrote for John McCain. Obama went into cruise control at that point, and the rest is history, right up to the point where "the guy who promised change" won the Nobel Peace Prize.

Paris Hilton may not exactly be royalty, but she's as close as we can get to that in America today.

Nobility.

pH 1o.1o.o9

Tuesday, September 29, 2009

Finish What We Started

Afghanistan. The Graveyard of Empires. Obama's Vietnam. That's the long and short of the chatter on the left, and pay no attention to the gyrations of conservatives as they try to use this conundrum to their advantage.

It doesn't matter to either side that Afghanistan is a mess of the previous president's making. The push for Barack Obama to pull out of that country, such as it is, has grown steadily since Inauguration Day. It should, and from all the signs will, be ignored.

Only those interested in political gamesmanship at any cost would argue the notion that George W. Bush completely neglected the Afghan conflict. The only time it appeared on his radar was when it served his own purposes to exploit the (friendly-fire) death of football star Pat Tillman. Yes, it's safe to say that we have never given Afghanistan much of a chance.

Iraq is a war we need to end. Afghanistan is a war we need to finish. It would be near unholy to leave those poor people in the same mess that Republican leaders left them in 20 years ago. When we did that in the post-Soviet era, the seeds of al-Qaida were planted, and 9/11 was the result. Listen to your history teacher.

If this puts me on the same page as some conservatives, well, ouch. I take this position with very little optimism. The Karzai government is damn near as corrupt as the Bush administration was. The military's top commander there, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, was chiefly responsible for the coverup in Tillman's untimely death. The poppy trade ensures that the "bad guys" will retain the power on the ground.

The Taliban are tough as nails, and the war-weary populace has grown indifferent (on a sunny day) to our presence. And it is, of course, the Graveyard of Empires. Our only real hope is to prove to them that America - despite the Dick Cheneys of the world - is no empire. We are not the Russians, or the British, or the Romans.

If they can be convinced of that, they may well cling to the democracy for which many of our troops have given their lives, and turn their backs on the extremism of our enemies. This administration has a very brief window of time in which to make that case to both Afghanis and Americans.

Something good could still come from our sacrifice if we try. By abandoning Afghanistan, we would guarantee the exact opposite.

pH 9.29.o9

Monday, September 21, 2009

Hammer and Stickle

Hey, you, psssst. C'mere. No, closer, so you can hear me whispering. That's better. Listen up:

DID YOU KNOW THAT BARACK OBAMA IS A COMMUNIST?

Surely you have heard. It is possible that the only reason this did not raise an alarm in your head is that you've already heard so many other things about our president. Depending on who's saying it, the man has also been labeled a socialist, a Marxist, even a terrorist.

While nobody alive can remember any Communist government ever wanting to "spread the wealth around", it is generally that obstinant minority of right-wingers among us who are spreading the unpatriotic slander around today.

It's interesting to note that Bill Clinton, too, was called such unflattering and inflammatory names. He only presided over the largest economic boom in our nation's history, wiping away nearly all of the debt we had incurred under Reagan.

Obama does not appear to be on such a strong fiscal projection, but nobody with a brain would expect such, considering the depth of the mud in which his predecessor left our economy. The actions he has taken so far, in as much as they have negated this recession already, smack more of pragmatism than Communism.

That will not matter to those who make this foul accusation. They are too foolish to understand that their behavior is so un-American as to make Aldrich Ames blush. When it comes to painting the town red, though, they really ought to take notice of their own conservative heroes.

There is but one great bastion of Communism left in the world, that being China, which really blossomed as a superpower during the last administration. When George W. Bush took office in 2001, the U.S. trade deficit with China stood at $83 billion. By the time The Great Manipulator shit-kicked his way out of the White House, it had swollen to $268 billion.

Last summer, when Beijing hosted the Olympics, Bush was the first sitting U.S. president to attend the games on foreign soil. I am sure his Communist hosts made sure he was very comfortable. But what could he say? After all, it was the Chi-Coms who were bankrolling his fraudulent war in Iraq.

China's Communist neighbor, North Korea, also went ballistic in the last eight years. Under the Clinton administration, their plutonium reactor was shut down, and inspectors were allowed to monitor their nuclear ambitions. With Bush on duty, Kim Jon-Il kicked out the inspectors and put together several nuclear weapons.

It was Bush, again, who so lovingly called his Russian counterpart "Pooty-Poot". It was Bush who claimed to have looked into the former KGB leader's eyes and taken measure of his soul. Apparently, Dubya liked what he saw, as he went on to make any dictator proud with his use of torture, wiretaps, renditions and gulags.

President Obama may do many unorthodox things during his tenure, but none of it will compare to all of that. So I chuckle out loud whenever some conservative struggles to spell these big words on their rally signs. I can only think of one thing to say to them.

Look in the mirror... Comrade.

pH 9.21.o9

Thursday, September 17, 2009

Thanks for Nothing

Now that the Senate health care bill has moved beyond the desk of Max Fuckus - sorry, typo - Max Baucus ("D"., Montana), it has a chance to be repaired, revamped and remade into something that the public actually wants. As it stands, all it needs is some gift wrap, and it can be stuffed into the insurance industry's Christmas stocking early.

That which came from the Finance Committee should be considered a form of misdemeanor treason. If these were the good old days, another Senator would feel compelled take stern measures against Baucus for this, such as a duel in the street.

In the Baucus bill, President Obama is given half of the loaf he wants, that being a "mandate" for all Americans to purchase health insurance. What isn't there is a public option for those whose employers do not offer health-care benefits and who do not make enough money to pay the exorbitant costs thereof.

Those of you who actually pay premiums every month don't use the system so much. Oh, you go in for your physicals, and you cash in a prescription now and then, but you're not the ones getting triple bypasses and whatnot. By and large, the people who utilize the system the most are 65 and older - and they have Medicare. So the money you send away every month isn't being transferred over to the medical professionals.

Rather, it gets stuffed under some CEO's mattress. Or it goes to organizations like Dick Armey's Freedom Works, which drum up phony town-hall outrage to cover said CEO's fat backside. Or it goes to people in Congress (like Max Baucus) who steer legislation in the health care syndicate's preferred direction.

You know what, America? The political system isn't working for you. Even someone as gifted as Barack Obama can't budge this thing. The Man's too big. The Man's too strong. The insurance companies are too powerful. They have too much (of our) money.

We cannot rely on, or trust, the government to pry this gigantic parasite from our backs. We have to kill the insurance industry ourselves. But how? It would be easy. All it takes is some faith and some courage. You could quietly win this fight in a matter of months if you had the guts to try:

Just Say No to Health Care. All Americans should, at this point, suck it up and unanimously cancel their policies. See who lasts longer. Absent your money, they would collapse in a very short time. Never mind the boost the economy would receive as a result of you (and your employer) getting to keep your daily bread.

If you say that's too frightening, I say you are a wimp, and you need to start acting like an American already. Come on. Walk the tightrope. Some may fall off, but that's what the emergency rooms are for. That's why bankruptcy protection exists.

At the very least we could all abandon one targeted company (United, Pacifica, Matria, somebody) and put them out of business... But we won't. We couldn't even do that with respect to the price of gasoline. We can't organize. We can't defeat the powers that buy our Senators and use them like golf tees. We can't.

Thus, we leave our hopes up to a president who will be brave enough to try but cannot possibly succeed, not with such monied interests for adversaries, and certainly not with the Republican Party mindlessly attacking him at every turn. We will be stuck with a system that requires us to be hooked up to a machine that sucks the very blood from our veins.

Do you think you deserve better? No, you don't. You don't deserve better because you won't demand it. So, after all this time and money having been wasted, this is what our health care system has been reduced to.

Leeches.

pH 9.17.o9

Thursday, September 10, 2009

George Wept

A glimpse ahead at the 22nd Century American Schoolbook:

On September 11, 2001, highly-paid and highly-skilled professional operatives - disguised and identified as Middle Eastern terrorists - were hired by the Bush administration to fly "hijacked" airliners into the World Trade Center, killing nearly 3,000 people. This allowed the Bush administration to launch an artificial "war on terror" which resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent people around the world, toppled a number of sovereign governments and profited the military-industrial complex to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars.

Why not? In today's political environment, conservatives have no problem whatsoever spewing out lie after lie after lie. There is a cable news channel dedicated solely to this endeavor of falsehood. 90 percent of the programming on AM radio is dedicated to deception. The Heritage Foundation and other right-wing think-tanks broker out deals with conservative publishers to buy and give (or throw) away tens of thousands of books, stuffed with vitriolic hokum, in order to push the most extreme of lunatics to the top of the New York Times best-seller list (even as they regularly excoriate the Times as a bastion of leftist doctrine).

What are they all lying about? The Democrats. The liberals. Obama. America. Same old stuff as always. Everything. Every day. Sundays. Holidays.

Now let's switch to physics class. If you take a metal rod and stretch it back to a 45-degree angle, and then release it, does it (A) stop back at the zero-degree point, or (B) does the impetus of its contorted composition force it beyond that point? If you guessed (B), then you're a smart kid, whose parents likely left you in school one-hundred percent of the time.

It is as undeniable as it is unfortunate: The seeds sewn by conservatives will come back to haunt them. Let's look forward to that schoolbook again:

In the ensuing chaos the U.S. government, which was led at the time by the now-defunct Republican Party, took advantage of the shock-stricken populace by passing the infamous USA Patriot Act. Akin to dipping the Constitution in a vat of acid, this resulted in the immediate dissolution of the Fourth and Fifth Amendments, and in effect curtailed nearly all other rights previously enjoyed by American citizens.

When South Carolina Congressman pro tem Joe Wilson hollered out, like a little kid, "You lie!" during President Obama's address on Wednesday night, it was as though a thick yellow line had been drawn across this problem with a Hi-Liter. The proper response manifested itself in the form of a half-million dollar donation windfall into Wilson's opponent's coffers - in less than 24 hours.

The attitude that was fomented by the town-hall meetings, this Bozo-as-kamikaze psycho-drama, has bled even into our representatives. If this were a mere stain on the decorum of government we could easily shrug it off. It's much worse than that, but even if it isn't, who's ever going to know?

In the ensuing shift to progressive liberalism, which began with the election of the first African-American president (Barack Obama) in 2008, the worst propagandists were rounded up and placed into permanent federal custody. Rush Limbaugh, addicted to prescription painkillers and the illicit foreign sex trade, was the easiest of the bunch to bring down. Also convicted were Sean Hannity (for encouraging hostility against the government), Michael Medved (for conspiracy to commit espionage on behalf of Israel) and Glenn Beck (same as Hannity).

None of this is helpful in any way. There has always been a sleight-of-hand kind of dishonesty in American politics, but now it is turning pathological. Nobody will ever understand why anything is being done in our name, and facts - history - will cease to matter. Or will cease to exist.

This will forever erase the very sacrifices upon which the foundation of our liberty rests. They already say that the New Deal failed, that the Civil War was a tie. Next they'll be saying that Jack Kennedy committed suicide. This erosion of the truth is a cancer, whether the lie is about "death panels" or weapons of mass destruction, that threatens to consume our nation.

It keeps us at arm's length from honor and tradition, turns our wine into water. It reduces 9/11 to Non-Eleven. It has to stop - no, that's too passive. It has to be stopped.

Somewhere in Heaven (I'm pretty sure) is a beautiful cherry orchard. Amidst the smell of the blossoms, surrounded by bushels of sweet bounty, is an old man in a powdered wig. He sits on a stump, hatchet at his feet, sobbing into his hands.

pH 9.1o.o9

Friday, September 4, 2009

What About the Children?

Wow. The President of the United States has finally gone too far.

Taking on the health-insurance industry is one thing. Winding down the war(s) is another. Propping up failing businesses with freshly-printed money, negotiating with countries that once were considered major spokes in the "Axis of Evil", where does the craziness end?

The answer: Right where it probably began... In elementary school. On Tuesday night, Barack Obama will give a speech to be televised to students. He is expected to strengthen the worthwile concepts of studying hard and staying in school. Why bother?

Apparently our new Commander in Chief has grown so tired of puerile Republicans that he figured he might just as well waste his time trying to communicate with actual children. To be sure, these pupils have absolutely nothing to offer at this point, so there is little benefit to Obama in the deal.

As is their wont, conservatives have recoiled in horror over the idea, as if Obama were not following in the footsteps of former presidents Ronald Reagan and George Herbert Walker Bush. Dubya appeared before schoolchildren once, and planes started smashing into buildings, so their fear would be understandable if they would just say that's what this is about.

Their objections, though, have been mostly limited to the notion that the White House is pushing an "agenda" on the kids. Some schools have refused to broadcast (see censored) the speech, or have issued permission slips for parents to sign. Others say they will first record the president's speech, okay, and review it to ensure its relevance to their curriculum.

Al Gore could have told Barack Obama that this would happen. Or maybe he did, and this is just another brilliant PR game that Obama is running, hoping that the bulk of the populace will notice the predictable right-wing hysteria. Such a spotlight might help cut through all the chaff that has littered town-hall meetings for the past five weeks.

The latest lunacy on that front, by the way, comes from Thousand Oaks, California. A conservative punched a liberal in the face (for invading his space, he said) and in the ensuing melee had his finger bitten off. Since he had Medicare, it was no problem to get it reattached.

We can surmise, then, that there are already more than adequate resources being directed toward dental health, and certainly not enough attention is being paid to mental health. As with most Republican causes, some balance is needed.

No wonder President Obama wants to meld minds with a five-year old.

pH

Wednesday, September 2, 2009

A Moving Experience

Everyone is familiar with the alleged phenomena of religious figures appearing in contemporary food products. It is not uncommon for (mostly) normal people to discover Pope John Paul II in a griddle-cake, or the Virgin Mary in a tortilla, or Jesus Himself in a slice of sourdough toast.

I used to find these events somewhat distasteful. After all, seriously religious people know better than to seek out graven images. Such behavior is nothing to admire. Obviously the public, private and parochial schools had all utterly failed to teach physics to Americans.

That all changed for me this morning. Actually, it changed last night, when I consumed several margaritas along with three baskets of chips, salsa, refried beans and guacamole dip. What came about this morning, then, was one of the more prolonged bowel movements of my adult life.

With the patience of a saint, I'll be damned if what I produced did not look exactly like Ronald Wilson Reagan. Call me a new believer, but now I'm forced to wonder just how long the 40th President of the United States has been circulating in my colon. I can only thank God that he is there no longer.

I tried to photograph this true miracle, but it didn't really translate into megapixels. Reagan didn't look like Reagan in 2D; he just looked like a regular old turd.

My only other option would have been to fish him out and have him preserved in laminate. There just wasn't time, so in the end I did what most people would have done without hesitation, and flushed The Gipper down the toilet.

Is there a moral to this fascinating story? Well, in the end, there must be (if nothing more practical than the importance of maintaining a healthy diet). We can look to the Heavens for the answer... Only to notice the gigantic thunderhead that looks suspiciously like Richard Nixon.

pH 9.o2.o9

Monday, August 31, 2009

Asking For It

Observing the celebration and commemoration of Ted Kennedy's life and death, one cannot help but notice a sense of unease rising up from the inside. It reminds us of the ways in which his brothers sought to change America and were cut down for it. Today's fiery political climate, far less civil than it was even in the radical Sixties, validates that sense of concern.

Everyone already knows how Phoenix was bristling with firearms at town-hall meetings and anti-Obama rallies. Fewer know about a Baptist "pastor", name of Steven Anderson, who preaches from his Tempe pulpit that our president "ought to be aborted". (Imagine that... A pro-choice Baptist.)

The assassination of John F. Kennedy, followed by the obvious Warren Commission whitewash, left a good and decent America in psychological tatters. As this happened a few years before my time, I had a very big question for my parents about this as soon as it passed through my academic transom.

Why? I kept asking. Why did you let them get away with it? The only way they could answer my question was with one of their own. "What," they asked me, "were we supposed to do?"

And that makes sense. My father was working on a professorial career at the time. My mother was an immigrant-bride from New Zealand. They had two baby girls. They had just lived through the McCarthy era, when the government viewed the most innocent of citizens with considerable suspicion. There was nothing they could do but accept it and move on.

It was a matter of faith, to be sure, for them to have three more children (the last one in 1974) after that. But barely four months after I was born, Martin Luther King, Jr. was shot and killed in Memphis. Two months later Bobby Kennedy was murdered in Los Angeles. I'm sure my folks wondered what kind of world it would be for us kids.

President Obama has received a four-fold increase over past presidents when it comes to death threats. Four=hundred percent. Some of it is fueled by racism; most of it is the result of ceaseless political jingoism from right-wing media. Conservative rage today makes the tenor of the 1960s seem as though it belongs in an elementary schoolyard.

This sudden knotting up of the past and the present makes me wonder about the future in very specific terms. It appears likely that, sooner or later, an attempt will be made on Barack Obama's life. This is the path of the mindless world-view that has been created for this nation's new true minority.

This is not my Dad's America, and I am not my Dad. I don't have a career; I have a job, and no kids to interfere with my decision. More than that, I was brought up with an understanding of American history that he came to know in real time. I asked this question of my father, so it's only fair now to ask it of myself:

If the worst parts of said history recreate themselves today, what am I going to do? Like my father, I can only answer that question with another one, Dear Reader.

What do you think I'm going to do.

pH 8.31.o9

Wednesday, August 26, 2009

The Lion Sleeps Tonight

I will introduce myself. I am Teddy Kennedy's brother, and I'm glad to be here tonight. - John F. Kennedy, speaking in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, September 20th, 1962.

Thank you, Senator Edward M. Kennedy, for a job so well done. Rest in peace, and enjoy the rewards of the hereafter.

I imagine it will feel pretty good to play a little football again.

pH 8.26.o9

Tuesday, August 25, 2009

...Lest Ye Be Tortured

America's biggest problem - conservatism - persists, now in the form of a fresh CIA torture inquiry, conducted by Attorney General Eric Holder. Republicans are left to decry this as a "no-new-taxes" brand of dishonesty by President Obama, who promised to maintain a forward focus in his administration.

Certainly they are the authorities when it comes to dissembling. This time, their rote cynicism might be accurately placed, as the White House is aware of erosion among far-left leaning constituents (disaffected by the apparent demise of a public option as a key part of health-insurance reform). A Bush-era investigation would be quite the hunk of red meat for them.

As for the question of whether or not the CIA tortured people, well, that much has long since been established. We also know that the highest levels of power signed off on "enhanced interrogation" techniques, which included waterboarding, an act of barbarism for which many Japanese soldiers were hanged after World War II.

(They had done it to American soldiers. It seems the winner makes the rules.)

Prosecution for torturing detainees, who were only captured because our bombs missed them in the first place, seems like a misplaced priority. George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and many other former top officials are guilty of far greater crimes than that - they started an illegal war.

They are unquestionably monsters, personally responsible for more American deaths than were suffered on 9/11, a tally that inches upward to this day. They don't deserve to face Lady Justice.

Make no mistake about it: Those would be easily-obtained convictions. Their own words boldly condemn them. We could arrest them and pack them off to the Hague's damp cellars, we could. Or we could drain their bank accounts to reimburse taxpayers for the hundreds of billions of dollars wasted because of their bloodthirsty folly. We could.

Such a response would signal the rest of the world that America does stand for, and by, the rule of law. It would prove that even our highest positions of power are not insulated from legal consequences, that there are no bubbles of impunity in our politics. It would send the right message. It would...

But I don't want that, because we were suckers for these neo-con thugs, and we have earned the shame of our time. We allowed ourselves to be frightened into giving up precious rights for which others have fought and died over the centuries. The mockery we made of those sacrifices is not something that should be so easily brushed off.

There's something to be said for wearing the scarlet letter. That's not to say, though, that these disgusting domestic despots should be let off the hook. Hell, no. I think they should be tortured, too.

Seriously. It ought not be against the law to do it to someone who says it isn't against the law. There's no need to do this in public, although the interest in doing so would be understandable. It can, and should, be a private experience. Whatever they authorized is good enough for them (I seem to remember something about "organ failure").

That'd be good enough for me. Like they say, a little water never hurt anyone. Bottoms up!

pH 8.25.o9

Friday, August 21, 2009

Scared to Death

Few things in life are as daunting as a confrontation with a cornered animal. That creature, out of time and room and options, will do anything to save its hide. It will not operate out of intellect or reason, but out of fear and desperation. I'm talking about conservative talk-show hosts.

For the last twenty years, supposed right-wing values have been regurgitated into microphones across the land, with their chief function being full-time demonization of all things liberal. Anyone who soaks in such a foul brew cannot help but absorb the bitter flavors of its content.

After the 2008 election, when all of these clowns were honking about the Fairness Doctrine, I pooh-poohed the notion that such would be reimposed. After all, these fake-media conservatives had thrown everything they had at Barack Obama during the campaign, and he still carried the day with barely a struggle.

After the inauguration, they changed tactics, transforming into a hideous gaggle of cowards. Since then, every single talk-show host has assumed the same fetal stance: They're frightened. Obama's scary. He's dangerous. Rush Limbaugh even claimed that the new president "spooks" him.

It's not as though these human corporations are sincere - oh, please. They aren't really peeing their pants every day for hours on end. But that's exactly what they want their listeners to do. Fear-mongering among conservatives is nothing new; now there are revelations that the color-coded terror alert system was used repeatedly in 2004 to keep John Kerry's poll numbers down as he tried to unseat the worst president we've ever seen.

What they're trying to do - and I'm hardly the first one to say this - is get President Obama killed. That's a touchy subject, sure, but they don't care. To them there really isn't any other solution to this popular and transcendant political figure. They know they can't stop him so they're whipping their base into a mindless froth (which doesn't take much... ask any dead abortion doctor's next of kin).

Look, if Barack Obama really is frightening and dangerous and all of that, then he's a threat to America. That's why you see these freaks at the town hall meetings, hysterically shrieking about wanting "their country" back. That's why Obama is continually compared to Hitler, over and over again, both on and off the airwaves.

Even to the impartial observer, every sentence that emerges from the muck of AM radio constitutes an attempt to subcontract an extemporaneous assassin, and that has to stop. They say the First Amendment protects them in their deadly quest, but that's a pretty thin argument.

If I were a deranged liberal, and felt that my president was in danger, I'd have to consider taking out a Limbaugh or a Hannity or a Savage (or a Beck or a Levin or a Medved). I'm a strong adherent to the Second Amendment. I'm a pretty decent shot, too, having killed and eaten a good many deer in my day.

(Trust me on this; a white-tail deer is a rather miniscule target compared to Rush, whose address can be found on the Palm Beach County Sheriff's website.)

Is there a law against protecting a president from an imminent attack? Might there be a precedent for picking off a clear conservative threat from 300 yards out as it practices its backswing? What do we call that again?

Oh, yeah, now I remember. We call that a "pre-emptive strike". Lawful or not, this sort of thing was thought to be a good idea when Republicans were in power. We called it the Bush Doctrine. And nobody cared.

pH 8.21.o9

Saturday, August 15, 2009

Senile Implants

It took a while, but finally, a Democrat holding public office came up with a fair and suitable retort to the hordes of wrinkly Republicans on their Town-Hall Freedom Ride to save America from health care reform. Senator Claire McCaskill (who says her teenage sons have prepped her well for these stunts) put the question directly to the mob before her.

She asked all those receiving Medicare to raise their hands, which about half of the audience did, and then she asked how many wanted their Medicare taken away completely. All lowered their liver-spotted claws. The senator did not really need to expound on that. It sent a shawl-tugging chill through the room.

If we are to take Republicans seriously, what she said makes perfect sense. It would be an easy thing for the Congress to simply take them at their word and chop out all entitlements and subsidies. Don't want socialized medicine? Okay...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ag6W2YQr63A&feature=related

In that logical sense, the government would also have to consider eliminating Social Security. That's what conservatives want, as they consider our national safety-net to be the bastard child of FDR, an internecine tendril that chokes off our liberty. Therefore, it must be done away with, along with foodstamps and whatever else will reduce wasteful government spending.

Americans could use the tax relief, quite frankly, reaped from ending these liberal social programs. The deficit would practically evaporate along with the aging population, which will allow more reasonable versions of such niceties to perhaps re-emerge in twenty or thirty years.

Of course this would expose a gigantic segment of our population to considerable risk. All those urban legends about the elderly having to eat dog food might well come true. Still, that's why private charitable institutions exist. I, for one, would have no problem dropping off a can of Alpo now and then at the donation center.

(Admittedly, the dry stuff's cheaper and more nutritious, but it's harder on their dentures. In these trying economic times, what we really need is compassion.)

If this seems unsettling, well, that's what happens when you follow bread crumbs through the forest - there's no loaf of bread waiting at the end of the trail. Ginned-up patriotism won't get you anywhere but lost if it's misdirected and professional political operatives are no different than the average telephone scam artist.

They know exactly whom to target for their exploits. It's easy for them to spot the mark. Easier still is getting the Blu-Blockers-and-Bermudas set to do their bidding. It's no more difficult than talking them into a reverse-mortgage.

Sound too good to be true? But wait, there's more. Or less.

pH 8.15.o9

Wednesday, August 12, 2009

Rally 'Round the Family

To paraphrase former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, there are knowns and unknowns (and there are unknown knowns and known unknowns, but for the purposes of clarity let's stop with the knowns and unknowns, lest we become as confused as he). What's known is that Democratic representatives in Congress have never been so eager to get back to work as they are this summer.

The unknowns are less comforting. How much uglier could these conservative invasions of town-hall meetings possibly get? That depends on the conservatives. Already a couple of meetings have ended fitfully due to the presence of firearms among some in the audience. That's a small step beyond the effigies and mock headstones displayed last week.

At first, it was easy to find a suitable axiom for this sort of paid-under-the-table lobbying by the insurance industry. Given the number of Viagra prescriptions doled out these days, one could presume, you are what you eat. Now, though, the debate has progressed into what the Supreme Court has defined as "fighting words".

Put aside, for now, the irony that most of the attention-seekers at these events are obviously in their golden years and are therefore eligible for Medicare (i.e., government health care, which they... oppose). Conservatives have determined that, since their First Amendment rights obviously aren't getting the trick done, they'll fall back on the Second Amendment.

That very sentiment was expressed by a woman in Oregon the other day. It is a tinny reverberation of what has been playing out for years now in the Evangelical set. A good number of Americans are convinced that the End Times are near. They don't want to get Left Behind when the Rapture hits, and like another well-known group of religious zealots, they feel that the best way to get a seat at His Right Hand is to kill the infidels (in Jesus' name, of course).

One of the worst perpetrators of this incivil disobedience has been Erik Prince, the CEO and founder of XE, which is the new name of Blackwater Security. Long known for killing innocent Iraqis in 'roid-rage combat maneuvers, XE is under investigation for all sorts of bad-apple stuff, from gun-running to the killing of potential witnesses. That's why Prince, when you look at him today, has "Prison Bitch" written all over his face.

If conservatives really feel that health care is the rallying cry for an armed revolution, well, that's scary for them. It means that the United States government, sworn to uphold and defend this nation against all enemies foreign and domestic, will have to show them what all those defense dollars were about.

With all due respect (Read: not much) to the folks at XE/Blackwater, I'd be willing to put my money on our troops over these neo-con paramilitary crusaders any day. I'm pretty sure Vegas would agree. The big wagers would involve how many hours - or minutes - it would take to put down a modern-day Whisky Rebellion.

If it's worth anything, there would also be a good number of Americans appalled enough by their actions to take up arms themselves, as well they should. If that's where this is headed, then you can count on about three-fourths of the people willing to be your hackle-bearer.

pH 8.12.o9

Monday, August 10, 2009

Odds Against All

With conservatives buzzing around the nation like angry bees, it shouldn't be too hard to figure out what they stand for. If anybody could get them to shut up for a second, that question might be put to them, but no.

Those in the spotlight (well, with the microphone) will tell you that their principles are founded in "Reagan conservatism". However, those ideas have had their day, and the result was an America that is divided and deep in debt. Voters, the last time anyone noticed, had rejected GOP policies wholesale.

That means nothing to the human bullhorns who have made themselves so noteworthy in the health-care debate. They have latched onto a certain set of false beliefs (foisted upon them by an army of misinformants), ranging from state-provided abortions to "Obama death panels", the latter irresponsibly uttered by renowned quitter Sarah Palin.

Perhaps, then, it isn't so easy to discern what the unbalanced few stand for, since they seem unable to articulate much beyond a level that only veteran kennel-keepers can decipher. Much clearer is the panoramic picture of what they are against:

Everything. Everything that the new president has proposed. Everything that the Democrats support. Everything that America has said it wants. Anything that doesn't line up with the neolithic, flagellant thought processes afflicting the roughly 23 percent of America that still identifies with conservatism.

The best example of the Ridiculous Right's pathological foot-dragging can be found in the "Cash for Clunkers" program. This gem of an idea, the subsidization of automobile trade-in values aimed at recycling older (and less fuel-efficient) cars, has created positive ripple-effects through the economy, touching everything from dealerships to steel mills to newspaper advertising desks. They're against it.

That's hardly the only place one finds this mindless opposition. Winding down the Iraq war and ramping up the one in Afghanistan in order to win it - opposed. Health care for all Americans - no way. Energy independence through renewables - impossible. Tax laws being enforced where corporations are concerned - preposterous.

They're against stimulating the economy. They're against bailouts (if that's what you want to call bankruptcy) for U.S. automakers. They're against a more well-rounded representation of the public on the Supreme Court. They couldn't even force themselves to be happy when Bill Clinton brought those two journalists home from North Korea.

This says nothing good about Republicans. Never before has our nation been disgraced by such a bitter and joyless pursuit of power. The object of a minority party in our government should be to help craft the laws with a modicum of input, not to thwart the duly elected majority's every move.

What they're doing (and many of them would proudly agree) is secession. Not a geographical secession, which was tried in the past, but an ideological one. The initial response is to say, fine, let them go; they're not exactly the life of the party anyway... But go where?

How terrible it must be for conservatives, to be trapped within the confines of this Hell-hole, these United States of America. If they just can't stand it, well, nobody's stopping them from leaving.

pH 8.1o.o9

Saturday, August 8, 2009

Urban Legend No. 57348: Conscience of a Conservative

The conservative traveling town-hall carnival has come to my neck of the woods. Not since the construction of Roosevelt Dam have so many jackasses been herded so closely together in such an organized manner.

Today there will be two gatherings. At nine o'clock in the morning, professional protestors will descend upon the office of Democrat Harry Mitchell. It was tempting, the idea of experiencing political thuggery at its ugliest, but my principles are keeping me away.

My views wouldn't matter to Harry because he isn't my Congressman. Republican John Shadegg is. His town-hall meeting is to be held at 11:30 a.m. just a few miles from the spot where Harry will be harrassed. Both will be graced by the presence of an insurance-industry-backed lobbying group called "Americans for Prosperity".

These are the people who have told their rent-a-mouths to "put the fear of God" into Democratic representatives, even if it means riding the bus from state to state, the outfit that compares the Obama health care plan - whatever that might be, since Congress hasn't produced it yet - to the Holocaust. Yup. The Holocaust.

(My brother married a nice German gal; I should ask her if that's the way it was presented to her in school, that the Third Reich was trying to provide health care to six million Jews. Maybe.)

In other words, these are not rational people, not far in spirit from that twisted religious cult from Kansas that went around protesting the funerals of soldiers because God killed them on account of He hates gays. Makes sense to some. I would sooner attend a Klan rally than be in the presence of such truly vile people.

It might be a different story if they had a point, but they don't. Between seniors on Medicare (39.5 million Americans), civilian federal employees (1.8 million), our fine military personnel (2.66 million strong), kids on SCHIP (about 7.5 million) and federal prisoners (all 206,576 of them), we already have as many folks receiving government health care in this country as we have without any health insurance at all...

Which means that we're already halfway through the Holocaust! Why, it's been taking place forever now, including the 12 consecutive years that the U.S. House of Representatives was controlled by the GOP. Heck, the most conservative president we've ever had in the White House watched it happen right under his powdery nose. And what did they say then?

So, when you see the footage of these right-wing lunatics disrupting the machinations of democracy, you understand that they're not doing it out of concern. They're doing it out of hatred for Barack Obama and nothing else. Why else compare him to the most extreme embodiment of evil in our time, Adolph Hitler?

In doing so - especially here - they have relegated the works and ideals of a great Arizonan, Barry Goldwater, to the children's fiction shelf in our national library. The conscience of today's conservative is but a fairy tale without a moral.

pH 8.o8.o9

Thursday, August 6, 2009

Doctor, Doctor (Give Me The News)

Health care in the United States, as debates go, is raging ahead full throttle. Health care in the United States, in practice, has been in a slow state of decline and decay and is just about at the point of unworkability today.

The numbers tell the story. One out of every six dollars spent by Americans goes to the health care industry, even with over 50 million uninsured among us. The cost of premiums has quadrupled in the last ten years. 80 percent of those polled want serious reforms, with nearly three-fourths favoring a "public option" to compete with Big Doc.

Of the two major political parties, only one has shown any willingness to take action with this runaway ambulance headed our way. Harry S Truman introduced the idea in 1945. Bill Clinton, God love him, gave it a whirl in the early '90s but was rebuffed by conservatives who were somehow scared witless by the likes of "Harry and Louise". (Liberals were more preoccupied with Thelma and Louise.)

Now Barack Obama is following through with his promise of reform, including a public option, whether the Republicans want to play ball or not. His plan will cost a trillion dollars over ten years - by most informed estimates - and has something in it to offend everyone. Even those who choose not to have health care may have to pay into the system to compensate everyone else picking up their slack.

It has become apparent that the GOP is at the beck and call of anyone making money off the illnesses of others: For-profit hospitals, HMOs, Big Pharma, they can all be found squirming around in the pockets of those who most vocally oppose the president's plan.

The health care industry can't reduce your costs and premiums, but it can spend millions of dollars on lobbying firms, which recruit the most willful of idiots to disrupt town-hall meetings in the most obnoxious of fashions. It's nothing new. One of those lobbying firms, Freedom Works, is headed by the appropriately-named Dick Armey (former Republican Speaker of the House).

This is the same circus-tent crowd that dug in their heels and pinned back their ears when Obama rolled out his recent economic stimulus plan. I guess they just wanted to see their mission (destroying the American economy through corporate deregulation) come to its inevitable conclusion; fortunately, cooler heads prevailed at the ballot box.

The Party of No hides behind an anti-spending argument that runs 180 degrees contrary to their behavior when Republicans held Congress. That's why only a paranoid minority believes or supports them. Spending is a serious enough issue, and that discussion should be left to serious enough people.

Let's look at it, though, since that's their stated scrimshaw of a position. One trillion dollars for health care, that's a lot of cabbage, all right. It's about as much money as we've spent fighting a fraudulently-conceived war in Iraq. A trillion and a half for the stimulus, why, that's just about the amount of the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans (less interest).

Really, if deficit spending needs to be explained, that's so easy that even right-wingers ought to be able to understand. We're putting all of this on the national credit card because it needs to be done. The public elected a president and a Party that expressed interest in doing just that. Who said that line about "will o' the people"?

The sad fact is that all of this stuff - the bailouts, the stimulus, health care - could have been paid for in cash had George W. Bush and the Republican Party not already pissed all of our money away. So it does not seem unreasonable to take that money back and put it where it belongs.

For our national malady, that would seem to be just what the doctor ordered. If conservatives want to refuse treatment, well, that's why modern medicine invented the feeding tube.

pH 8.o6.o9

Friday, July 24, 2009

Crazy Is As Crazy Does

There are two major currents swirling in American politics today. I'm just too old and tired to navigate them both at the same time. So I'm going to flip a coin.

Heads, the topic will be the Harvard professor who was arrested for breaking into his own house. Tails, it will be the lunatic fringe conservatives who still insist that Barack Obama is not an American citizen and therefore cannot be president of the United States.

Here goes. (Flip)

Okay, it was tails, so let's keep it short and sweet. Fact: President Barack Obama was born in the United States and is an American citizen. That's it. However...

If conservatives, like that barking baboon of a woman who was allowed into Republican Congressman Mike Castle's recent town-hall meeting, want to try and make yardage with that argument then by all means let them run with the ball. Please.

The public at large needs to know about these people, like that soldier who thinks he can dodge military duty because he hasn't seen his Commander in Chief's birth certificate (as noted on FOX News). Remember, son, you're still serving your country even when you're breaking rocks.

You know who wasn't born in America? John McCain. He was born in Panama. And the 18 percent of Americans who still believe that the sun revolves around the earth (or that Adam and Eve rode around on dinosaurs) undoubtedly voted for him anyway. With their support, and U.S. citizenship, he lost.

It's not too hard to see that a good chunk of the conservative movement is stark raving mad, and that such is becoming a serious drag on the Republican Party, but I say America needs those people. I want cameras in their contorted faces and microphones down their throbbing throats.

It will keep us safe from them for at least another generation.

pH 7.24.o9

Monday, July 20, 2009

Ask a Stupid Question

So far this has been one strange summer, which used to be the lazy season, a time for repose. Not anymore. Today's news stories have the look and feel of expensive movie scripts, or punches in the gut. The hits just keep on comin'.

Don't look here for answers. I'm stuck with a bunch of stupid questions. You tell me:

Could this glimmer of a revolution in Iran actually be a latent sprout of the Bush foreign policy? In other words - ones that make more sense - were the Iranian people inspired by a "free and democratic" Iraq next door? Or have they been Westernized in other ways?

With respect to Iraq, why didn't the world (meaning the United Nations) impose sanctions on the United States for its unilateral attack on a sovereign nation? Is open hegemony okay for big countries, but not for little ones?

Have they buried Michael Jackson yet? Why do I miss him now that he's gone when I pretty much considered him to be a freak when he was alive? Speaking of freaks, has anybody ever heard of Bruce Jacobs?

As the Obama administration hits the rapids of the health care debate, wouldn't it build confidence to tackle something smaller first, like the price of cable TV? Hasn't that issue languished in Congress for decades, like a baby picked up and dropped by John McCain?

With the highest incarceration rates in the world, don't we already have a damn good head start on the road to government-provided health care?

As for the stubbornly underperforming economy, why have prices come down but wages haven't gone up? Wouldn't increased wages spur demand? Or is it too late for anything that simple to overtake the business class in this country?

Why would Billy Joel have even wanted to sing, "I love you just the way you are"? Was that, like, a compliment back in the day? Was Joe Cocker even worse with, "You are so beautiful (to me)"? Was Steve Miller the only musician with any good lines?

Given that Bush and the GOP had eight years to screw this great nation into the ground, does it make sense for President Obama's critics to denounce him as a failure just six months into his tenure? And is anyone surprised?

So who killed the Republican Party? Without question, conservatives divided their house and so were easily conquered, but who did the dividing? Wasn't it actually Rush Limbaugh with his regular tirades against moderates, RINOs and "blue-blood" Republicans?

(Finally, an easy one. Still stupid, but easy.)

pH 7.2o.o9

Monday, July 13, 2009

Try To See It My Way

An Open Letter to the Marriott Hotel Chain:

Dear Marriott,

Just one month ago, I experienced your Desert Springs Resort and Spa in Palm Desert, California. Admittedly, it's a bit of a drive, as I live in Phoenix (home to many of its own fine resorts, including the Biltmore, just up the road from me) but I had the opportunity to spend a long weekend with my sister, who lives in New York, but was attending a conference there in mid-June. So I went.

I must say the resort there is quite beautiful, scenic and verdant. The golf courses also appeared to be splendid. The lobby was hip, exotic and ornate. These are the things I notice from the photographs I took while I was there, the things I could not actually see - in the moment as it were - because someone stole my glasses at the Oasis swimming pool within hours of my arrival on Saturday, June 13th.

I don't mean "sunglasses" or just plain "prescription glasses" that you get at the mall. These were prescription sunglasses, with Transitions lenses on rimless RayBan frames. Without those, I pretty much see things as shapes and colors unless I'm within about ten feet of what it is I'm trying to look at.

Further, I don't mean to say that the glasses came up missing or got misplaced or were lost or any other such thing. They got grabbed, along with a cooler-bag and a baseball cap (the tee-shirt and flip-flops apparently weren't so desirable). There were no other patrons around that end of the pool, only resort employees; several of them were running around scooping up towels and, apparently, my personal property.

The irony is that I was somewhat impressed, even irked, at the levels of security present at the pool, right down to the highlighter-yellow wristbands that guests were required to wear. In fact, a radio-wielding employee made me go back up to my room, on the 4th floor, to retrieve said wristband before I could get into the pool area. Stalwart.

Anyway, the front desk immediately assured me that nobody could do anything about my glasses. Noone was answering the phone at Lost and Found, so I would just have to check back in the morning - good night, now! Nobody had any information for me in the morning, so I went down to the front desk and asked for the police to be called.

Rather than going through the proper machinations of law enforcement, I was introduced to your Loss Prevention Supervisor, Ken. I was assured that a claim would be put in, and that Marriott's claims department was both "fair" - I'm quoting Ken here - and "giving". I then called my optometrist, Bruce Tager, and had him fax over the invoice for the new pair of glasses that I had to order.

So, needless to say, my golf clubs stayed in the trunk of the car and the money for greens fees stayed in my wallet. Pretty much, I either hung out in the room and listened to TV, or hung out by the Springs pool (although with a heightened sense of vigilance). I checked in with Lost and Found a couple more times to see if the glasses had turned up, as we all hoped they would, but to no avail.

On Tuesday, June 16th, I underwent the unhappy task of driving 280 miles back to Phoenix in a manner inconsistent with the requirements noted on my Arizona driver's license (i.e., blind). Now, at this time, it was still my belief that Marriott was one of the uppermost brands in the hospitality industry, and I was confident that this would all be taken care of in a forthright manner.

Now I am here, with substantial regret, to explain to you that such is not the case. After two weeks and two inquisitive e-mails to Ken, I got an e-mail response that only asked if I had "heard from Claims?" I summarily sent a more forceful e-mail indicating that this isn't exactly leading to a stellar online review from me. That prompted, finally, a phone call.

In that phone call, Ken kept saying that he wanted to make me happy, and went on to offer me "a bunch of points" or a free two-night stay at the resort (weekends excluded). I told him that those things would not make me happy, as I had to pay out of pocket to Tager Optical for replacement glasses, and that I was not likely to be out in Palm Desert again regardless.

Ken then told me that he would go ahead and submit the claim, which he should have done two weeks earlier, and that I should be patient because "the wheels move slowly". I withheld the obvious retort that this is the computer age already. I also wondered, not aloud, why he had earlier asked me if I had heard from Claims when he had not even contacted them yet.

I noticed that evening that Ken had also e-mailed his offer of "points" (which I know nothing about) or a complimentary stay at Marriott, a prospect which, frankly, dims more and more with each passing day. Another week or so went by before I would again hear from the J.W. Marriott Desert Springs Resort and Spa.

This time, it was Lorena on the phone, telling me that my claim had been authorized, but that it still had to be approved "by corporate". That sounded fine to me, three and a half weeks after the fact, and she said I should call her back if I didn't get a check within a few days... Which I didn't.

What I did get, however, was a W9 form along with a note from Marriott Business Services in Louisville, Tennessee, asking for my tax ID number, as they had "received your (my) request to add you to our vendor database for future payment of invoices". Further, the letter stated that I may be "subject to a $50 penalty imposed by the Internal Revenue Service under section 6723" if I don't provide them with my tax ID number.

That's nice.

It sounds like you want me to take you seriously. Well, I'd like you take me seriously, too. I know what a W9 is for. Seems to me that your guy Ken just doesn't want to present "corporate" with an invoice for property that was stolen on his watch, so maybe he's cooking this up to make it look like I did some sort of work for your hotel, and that I'm being paid for a good or service rendered, which is so very clearly wrong.

So I told myself this afternoon, it's been a whole month now, I don't care if there's a check sitting in the mailbox - I'm going viral on you people. I went to my computer keenly intent upon razing your reputation, and was kind of surprised to find that many of the online reviews of the J.W. Marriott Desert Springs Resort and Spa were quite complimentary...

Except for the one posted on TravelYahoo! on May 10, 2007 by someone whose glasses were swiped from her room there. Prescription sunglasses. With designer frames. Two instances of misappropriated glasses in a two-year time frame, that doesn't (necessarily) comprise a pattern, does it? Her complaint about the stubborn and unhelpful LP department, that doesn't (automatically) constitute a pathology. Does it?

But I'm not going to sandbag you on all those travel websites. Nor will I post my video, which I could call "A Den Of Thieves", on YouTube. Oh, you deserve it, but it's not my style, kind of beneath a person of my talents and resources. I'm more the type to take solace in the fact that the old wheel, she comes around regularly.

For instance, my sister that I mentioned, she was an event organizer for that convention she was attending that weekend. Of course that's not her profession; she's a rocket scientist just like the rest of the people who attended. (Hint: Not the yoga instructors.) She's just willing to put up with the process of fielding bids and whatnot for their conferences. They even gave her a little plaque for doing it. I don't know how much those conferences cost, but I do know that there is fierce competition to host them, or so she said.

My dear sister lived through my entire ordeal, even the part about sightlessly driving down I-10. She's already called me a couple of times, asking if I'd been reimbursed yet. (Nope.) Oh, the resort also tried to bill her $50 for valet parking, even though she didn't even have a car. And she was also late to a meeting when her wake-up call didn't happen. Minor annoyances, I say.

Well, I guess I've taken up enough of your time. No hard feelings, just bad ones. Good luck in the future, Marriott. I suggest you take a look at what goes on at your wonderful resort there in Palm Desert. The place has everything going for it... Or so I've heard.

(ADDENDUM: One month after posting this article, and fully two months after the incident, Marriott sent a check covering the full amount of the glasses. Much appreciated, albeit long overdue.)

pH 7.13.o9

Sunday, July 5, 2009

Requiem for a Lightweight

Another prominent Republican has fallen in the forest. Everyone heard it. Everyone shrugged. Sarah Palin, the meteoric loser who sank the McCain campaign (according to his staff) last November, has resigned as governor of Alaska as of the end of this month.

Ms. Palin had way more than fifteen minutes of fame. During her turn under the lights, just about every media entity took their swipes at her, from Katie Couric to Tina Fey to David Letterman. Mad or otherwise, at least she's going away.

Oh, she'll still be around for those cheerleading - sorry, fundraising sessions in Washington; she says she'll be focusing hard on issues like energy independence, national security and other things she didn't quite seem to grasp during the election. As for 2o12, well, you know what they say in Alaska.

(Don't you? Actually, I don't either. Oh, well.)

Out of all the angles to this story, the only real problem is the way the media handles it, as the governor would likely agree. Howard Kurtz of the Washington Post, for instance, got it wrong until the very end. From his recent column:

"And there was Palin firing the state public-safety commissioner, who happened to be embroiled in a bitter divorce and custody battle with the governor's sister."

See, that's the kind of lazy, uninformed journalism that has been eroding the Post's circulation for years on end: You don't ever start a sentence with the word "and". Beyond that, the public-safety commissioner was actually fired for refusing to dismiss a state trooper who was embroiled in that bitter divorce and custody battle with the governor's sister.

See? That's sloppy journalism, worthy of criticism. Stupid media, always trying to portray things in a negative light where Sarah Barracuda is concerned.

Or was.

pH 7.o5.o9

Wednesday, July 1, 2009

If You Can't Stand the Heat, Get Out of the... Hey, Where'd They Go?

Welcome to July, which is already the longest month of the year, but signally so for the Republican Party this trip around the sun. This is the hot and grumpy month in which Al Franken will be seated as the junior Senator from Minnesota.

Norm Coleman likely damaged his future chances at holding public office with his puerile struggle against Franken in the eight-month-long recount, but that's the least of the GOP's worries, since Franken's victory gives the Democrats cloture power in the Senate. That means they have enough votes to shut down any filibuster.

Incidentally, this is something that the Rabid Right desperately wished for when it held power, with Bill Frist and Dick Cheney openly pining over the "nucular option". They wanted to change time-honored Senate rules in order to eliminate the filibuster where judicial nominees were concerned - and so would have began their slippery slope:

http://www.hellermountain.com/h_051805.html

The American people gave that gift to the Democrats in response to such an open sewer of arrogance. Still, only a drooling optimist would ever believe that all 58 Donkeys, plus Indies Joe Lieberman and Bernie Sanders, could ever get on the same side of any issue (especially with Robert Byrd and Ted Kennedy in markedly poor health).

Seeing as Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is little more than a hand-wringing milktoast, this may not be an advantage for Democrats at all; it puts all the pressure on them to perform. How things have changed in the past 32 months.

In October of 2006, Republicans held solid majorities in both Houses of Congress (and of course had George Dubya in the Oval Office). But they'd been in charge for a good while, and things were going quite poorly, so the voters then took away their seats and by 2008 had buried them in a hole so deep that some describe it as a grave.

A finicky public, therefore, may not be willing to give the Obama administration as long a leash as it wants... Or, at least, that's the last thread of hope to which conservatives might cling. Indeed, this whole mess we call America is the Democratic Party's baby now. All but a few loud malcontents want to see them succeed.

Unfortunately for the Republicans, they now have a recent track record on which they shall be judged, something that was absent in 1994 when they took over the House of Representatives. On many levels, it was their incompetence, corruption and political self-indulgence that got Barack Obama (never mind Al Franken) elected.

In other words, short-term memory alone should prevent much in the way of electoral erosion, as conservatism has been relegated to an ever-shrinking minority. The rest of us, as has been so amply demonstrated, can actually think for ourselves.

pH 7.o1.o9

Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Cry For Mark Sanford, Argentina

It's a shame we can't afford to let up on the Republican Party because it's really looking bad right now. In two quick weeks, two major figures in the GOP have had to go before the media and apologize to their families, their constituents and anyone else who may have been offended over their (gasp) marital transgressions.

First it was Senator John Ensign of Nevada, considered by some conservatives to be a rising star. He didn't come clean with the public out of some epiphany; he was at the brink of being extorted by the husband of the woman with whom he had been cheating on his wife.

This week, it's South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford, who went AWOL for several days without anyone actually knowing where he was. After several stalls and clinches, his office told the press a genuine whopper, saying he was hiking on the Appalachian Trail (all by himself).

It turns out he was actually in Argentina, of all places, wrapping up what he said was a year-long affair with a mistress named Maria in Buenos Aires. He went through the stock speech and then some, even muttering something about "God's law". It would have been sad if it weren't so hilarious.

Once upon a time, the Democrats were known for being the womanizers in politics, starting with those (wink, nod) Kennedy boys. Then Gary Hart got his picture taken at a marina with Donna Rice on his lap. This all came to a head - I'm so sorry - with Bill Clinton's affair with Monica Lewinsky and continues to this day with the likes of John Edwards and former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer.

However, shortly after they ascended to prominence, Republicans began losing control of themselves. The dalliances of such notables as Newt Gingrich and Rudy Giuliani went largely unnoticed even though both lost their marriages as a result. In the last few years, though, things have gotten very wierd in right-wing circles... They seem to be embracing diversity.

Mark Foley, after all, was hot for teenage male interns. Makes you squirm, doesn't it? Larry Craig's offense makes you even more uncomfortable than that. David Vitter, like Spitzer, was into prostitutes. The common thread among Vitter, Craig, Ensign and Sanford is that they all had plenty of moral high ground to stand on when Clinton was the target of their outrage.

The real difference between Republicans and Democrats in this regard is that Democrats have mostly had the decency to be ashamed of their actions. Gary Hart lost his political career. Spitzer resigned within hours of being exposed. Not a peep has been heard from Edwards.

In the Party of family values, there are no consequences, even for those who refuse to practice what they so forcefully preach. Sanford apologized but didn't resign. David Vitter, Larry Craig, John Ensign, those creeps are all still in office. Giuliani's a contender to be Governor of New York. Gingrich is hailed as a conservative guru and may be a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination in 2012.

As for Foley, he slunk away from public life, coming out of the closet in 2007 and forgetting all about doing the people's business in Washington. He was the only one with even the slightest shred of integrity.

pH 6.24.o9

Monday, June 22, 2009

Strapped

Another lawmaking session is under way in Arizona. Today, representatives from all across the state had a chance to show their stuff. Since Republicans hold a solid majority, they control the agenda, so one would expect to see some rock-ribbed conservative principles on display. Did we get that for which we bargained at the ballot box?

No. In fact, government got even more intrusive, and in sillier fashion than we could have imagined. As of this writing the law now states that children who are riding in motor vehicles must do so in the confines of a booster seat until the age of eight years old. Eight. (The mandatory booster seat age, until we were rescued, had been but five years.)

Two other bills were defeated in Arizona's Congress today. One would've outlawed smoking in the car with children present. The other would have made it illegal to text-message while driving. Neither of these, apparently, crossed that somehow-Reaganesque threshold of rugged individualism.

It surely cannot be easy, and for girls it was probably different, but think back to your childhood. Remember how cool you were at that age, how smart, how tough? Spitting, swearing, defending your mother's honor on the playground... Jumping off the swings at the highest possible point... Eating potato chips while chewing gum... Rock fights, stuff like that.

That kind of bravado was essential to our development, and it was magnified to stressful degrees anytime a bigger kid was around, an older kid who was admired and emulated. Good luck now, Junior:

"Daddy, can you take me and Jimmy to the movies?" Sure, Ethan. Get in your booster seat.

I'm told that Arizona is not the most draconian state in this regard. Some places want to keep kids in automotive highchairs until the age of twelve; I can't see that happening. When we were twelve, we weren't listening to anything our parents said, and that was back in the day when we had corporal punishment to consider.

One kid in my neighborhood, Ron Ludwig, was shaving when he was twelve years old. Booster seat? Why? To keep him upright after he's had a few?

Everybody knows what this really is. It's a way for the state to collect more money, in the form of fines, which is a below-radar way for Republicans to raise taxes on working families. That'd be a hard ticket for a cop to write, though, since children generally aren't required to carry identification.

Just claim your offspring to be age nine, no matter how small he or she might be. You can always say that the child's growth was stunted, you know, from you smoking in the car.

pH 6.22.o9

Friday, June 19, 2009

... And Then There Are California Democrats

Just when folks thought it was safe to like Democrats again, Barbara Boxer reared her extraordinarily large head and blew that fantasy away, simply by being herself. Anyone who pays even cursory attention to current events has probably seen this, but for those who haven't, enjoy this link:

http://www.mydesert.com/article/20090618/NEWS01/90618024/-1/rss

While it isn't interesting enough to delve too deeply into the subject matter, Ms. Boxer was speaking with a gentleman from the Army Corps of Engineers who happens to be a Brigadier General. He was using accepted nomenclature by addressing the Senator as "ma'am", but that wasn't good enough for her. Ugh.

There probably isn't a lot of variance to public opinion on this. Whether you support her or want to chastise her for what is obviously arrogance to the extreme, this is what makes our country great, the fact that I have her e-mail right here:

http://boxer.senate.gov/contact/email/policy.cfm?CFID=627618&CFTOKEN=98650408

Unfortunately, bad politicians are like dandelions in California; there's never just one or two. They range in degrees of badness, from Gary Condit to Duke Cunningham, who stack up well next to the ones who are most prominent in our current Congress.

Jane Harman is an excellent example. She voted for the Iraq war and is generally regarded as a hawk on Capitol Hill. She also voted for warrantless wiretapping (which only bothered her when such technology revealed her dealings with Israeli spies in the notorious AIPAC case). Last year she backed a bill that would authorize domestic use of military force.

Basically, she's a House clone of Dianne Feinstein, who - like Harman and Boxer - was elected in 1992 and has much the same resume (with a couple of defense contractor connections to boot). She only co-sponsored the original Patriot Act. 'Nuff said.

The elephant in the room might well be House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, first elected in 1987, who may or may not have known about the Bush administration's Saddam-esque torture policies. Either way, she signed off on the thing, and that's the least of the cover she has provided that former regime's shady list of characters.

Perhaps the lowest of all California Democrats, though, is Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. I know, the GOP still thinks he's a Republican, and while he's certainly not the only Republican who happens to be a shameless womanizer, I'd bet he's the only one with a union card in his wallet.

Whatever he is, he needs to get a better grip on California's economy, because when California sneezes the rest of the nation gets a cold. Right now they're so bad off that the rest of us are at risk of something more along the lines of the swine flu.

It's sad to think that this needs to be said to California Democrats, as if they were from South Carolina or West Virginia, because they should be more savvy than this. Memo to the Golden State: You can vote for, y'know, someone else.

pH 6.19.o9