Sometimes Christmas comes early.
That was the sentiment as my sweetheart and I swept into Tombstone, Arizona for Helldorado Days. The weather was sweet, the town was packed, and we truly had nothing better to do.
It sure adds up, though. Four pairs of jeans out of the Shady Lady. Cigars at the Smoke Shop. Fudge and fishnet stockings from Madame Moustache (right next to Big Nose Kate's Saloon). A period-piece silk dress from Trash-E Tricia's, complete with gloves, bustle and feathered hair clip.
That's just the money we spent on the lady. Never mind the barbecue beef sandwiches and beers at the Silver Nugget. Or more beers at the Crystal Palace. Or the tee-shirts that you can only get at the Tombstone Epitaph. Or that nickel-plated double-barrel shotgun. I'm sure I'll find a use for it.
Yeah, this trip set us back a little bit, but Tombstone is always worth it. So is our economy. There are two false axioms at play in our current economic climate, two things that you hear people saying, to our nation's collective detriment.
The first thing: "The economy is bad; I don't want to spend any money." The absolute lack of logic in that statement is stunning. It makes just as much sense to say, "I'm dying of thirst. I'd better not drink any water."
The second thing is more pernicious. I use that word because it is a thing most often said by pernicious people. They say that they can't do any spending, or any hiring, or any investing, or any lending, because of uncertainty of it all. What are they uncertain about? They're not sure...
What they're really talking about is the unlikelihood of the Bush tax cuts being extended beyond next year. It's nothing more than an excuse to pinch those pennies that have never really trickled down the way we were promised they would.
How can there be any uncertainty in that? Simply assume the worst - from the wealthy side of the ledger - and deal with it accordingly. I know it must be daunting to stare those Clinton-era tax rates in the face again, but is that the reason for sewing shut the corporate sow's ear? Or is it something else?
The fact is that corporations have trillions of dollars in cash stuffed under their mattresses right now. Banks have long since rediscovered their liquidity and their footing in the stock market. Productivity in the workplace is at an all-time high, so there is indeed work to be done.
So where are the jobs? Where are the loans? Why is Big Business shirking its responsibility to every American out there who wants to play in this rigged game we call the American economy?
Because they're Republicans, stupid. They support the Republican Party and Republican candidates. The Republicans, you may have noticed, have been on the downslope of the political landscape just lately, on account of their policies wrecked our national finances in the first place.
Had anything remotely resembling a normal economic outlook emerged during Barack Obama's first two years in office, it would have been the death knell for the GOP, and rightly so. They knew this. That's why we all witnessed the incessant foot-dragging in Congress over the past two years.
Tax breaks to incentivize hiring? Can't have that. Money for loans to small businesses? No way. Infrastructure spending? Forget about it. Every good idea that the Democrats came up with flew through the House of Representatives, and then was sucked out of the womb by conservative Senate abortionists. This happened time and time again.
Having effectively thwarted a full-scale recovery in this manner, they now expect the voters to return them to office, since the Democrats couldn't (ahem) fix the economy. By the way, watch how much corporate cash gets poured into TV ads trashing Democratic candidates, as opposed to hiring, investing and lending.
That, too, is an expensive gift from Republicans. Five of them. They sit on the Supreme Court. They have a track record, a history, a file as thick as a phone book. They all do.
Conservatives have routinely made our lives a living Hell for their own gain, using our misery to shape their upside-down worldview, which has yet to actually work for anyone except for themselves. And they'll do it again if given half the chance.
Like I said, Christmas comes early this year. What are you hoping to receive?
pH 1o.18.1o
Monday, October 18, 2010
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
Sick in What Way?
It is a scant three weeks before election day and the gloves have come off in the Arizona gubernatorial race. That unhappy fact is not unique in modern (or even historic) American politics, so on its face, it isn't worth the ink that was spilled onto page 2 of the Arizona Republic's Valley and State section this morning.
The content of the exchange, however, makes it worthy of closer examination. It all began when John Dougherty, the respected rapscallion who dutifully (and fearlessly) typed for the Phoenix New Times for all those years, floated an unsubstantiated Facebook rumor stating that incumbent Jan Brewer "is seriously ill and may not be capable of finishing a four-year term."
Brewer flatly denied the allegation, claiming to have had "a complete checkup" prior to the start of the race. It should have ended there, but in keeping with what we know about Brewer's judgment, it didn't.
Her campaign's top man, Chuck Coughlin, launched a cyber-missile of his own, using his consulting firm's website as the launchpad. He dredged up a 20-year old court transcript in which an unidentified subject suggested that Terry Goddard, Brewer's Democratic opponent, might be gay.
Not there's anything wrong with that - Coughlin's point was that there is no more validity, or relevance, to such a rumor than there is to Dougherty's rumor about Brewer's health. The two things are equal on the scale of media scrutiny, he claims.
There are only a few problems with his thinking on this. First off, Goddard didn't float the rumor about Brewer's health; John Dougherty did. Then there's the fact that being gay does not in any way impede one's ability to hold public office, whereas the same thing cannot be said about being gravely ill.
Most important, there's the fact that impugning someone for being sick is in no way a form of discrimination, but decrying one's sexuality can only be seen as such. So, memo to Chuck Coughlin and his sick boss, there are a few differences between the two things.
And that's natural, because there is also a difference between the two candidates. One would possibly make a fine governor for Arizona. The other is Jan Brewer.
pH 1o.13.1o
The content of the exchange, however, makes it worthy of closer examination. It all began when John Dougherty, the respected rapscallion who dutifully (and fearlessly) typed for the Phoenix New Times for all those years, floated an unsubstantiated Facebook rumor stating that incumbent Jan Brewer "is seriously ill and may not be capable of finishing a four-year term."
Brewer flatly denied the allegation, claiming to have had "a complete checkup" prior to the start of the race. It should have ended there, but in keeping with what we know about Brewer's judgment, it didn't.
Her campaign's top man, Chuck Coughlin, launched a cyber-missile of his own, using his consulting firm's website as the launchpad. He dredged up a 20-year old court transcript in which an unidentified subject suggested that Terry Goddard, Brewer's Democratic opponent, might be gay.
Not there's anything wrong with that - Coughlin's point was that there is no more validity, or relevance, to such a rumor than there is to Dougherty's rumor about Brewer's health. The two things are equal on the scale of media scrutiny, he claims.
There are only a few problems with his thinking on this. First off, Goddard didn't float the rumor about Brewer's health; John Dougherty did. Then there's the fact that being gay does not in any way impede one's ability to hold public office, whereas the same thing cannot be said about being gravely ill.
Most important, there's the fact that impugning someone for being sick is in no way a form of discrimination, but decrying one's sexuality can only be seen as such. So, memo to Chuck Coughlin and his sick boss, there are a few differences between the two things.
And that's natural, because there is also a difference between the two candidates. One would possibly make a fine governor for Arizona. The other is Jan Brewer.
pH 1o.13.1o
Thursday, October 7, 2010
Mama Fizzlies
Two-thousand and Ten will go down in history as the Year of the Crazy Woman. Of course, the germination of this phenomenon took place back in Aught-Eight, when John McCain found the courage of his convictions and chose Sarah Palin to be his running mate.
The Palin factor caused mighty ripples to roll through the ranks of the Republican Party. It frightened away otherwise interested Independents, who prefer an even keel, but found no such thing in the rudderless McCain campaign. The current gaggle of would-be elected officials is almost certain to have the same effect.
This looks bad, very bad, for the GOP. Traditionally, a first-term president's Party will lose a considerable number of seats in Congress to the opposition. With that in mind, Barack Obama went for as many victories in his first two years as he could possibly get, with the ambition of his agenda equal to the pace of his pursuit.
This pushed many of those fickle Indies back to the fence upon which they so proudly straddle. Then came the primaries, fueled by the Tea Party activists, who rallied in droves at costume parties in which they alternately dressed up as Minnie Pearl and the distinguished-looking fellow of Quaker Oats fame.
The evidence bears out the fact that the Tea Baggers were not thinking with their brains. Exhibit A: Christine O'Donnell of Delaware. It's easy enough for a self-professed witch to win a Republican primary, just as it once was for a Grand Wizard to do so. In a general election for a seat in the U.S. Senate, though, she will pose more of a challenge to her own Party than she ever could to the Democrats.
In Nevada, Sharron Angle managed to wrestle the nomination away from another wild-eyed she-con, Sue Lowden, the one who seriously suggested that Americans could trade poultry to their doctors in exchange for health care. Angle is possessed with views so extreme as to make the John Birch Society collectively blush, all the way down to her "Second Amendment Remedies" rant. She has done the impossible - she made Harry Reid look palatable.
The madness, shockingly, has even infected California. There, Meg Whitman (of eBay fame) has spent tens of millions of dollars trying to rent the governor's mansion. Without delving too deeply into her psyche, consider that if one Googles the words "Meg Whitman Crazy", one will find roughly 400,000 results.
California Senator Barbara Boxer also faces a new dementian, another McCain girl, no less. Carly Fiorina, the hatchet-faced hack who ran the Maverick's campaign aground long before he squealed for Mama Grizzly's help, has also spent millions of dollars of her own cash in this race.
If you ever worked for Hewlett-Packard, chances are Carly Fiorina sent your job overseas. That's the zenith of her experience in life, firing the citizenry.
For conservatives, this should have been the season of incandescent hope, but it will instead be remembered as an electoral cycle of tremendous disappointment. Will there be some erosion in the bulwark of majority the Democrats have enjoyed for the last two years? Sure, but... but...
But a few months ago, there were expectations of a complete takeover of both Houses. With the current lineup of candidates standing before the electorate, they will probably end up with the smallest gains ever achieved in a first-term president's mid-term election. If it weren't such a good thing, it would be sad.
They will have only their fringe to blame. The American people may not know much, but they surely know better than to shoot themselves in the foot. Not when the other foot is still on the mend, still sore from the last time they stepped in that right-wing bear trap.
pH 1o.7.1o
The Palin factor caused mighty ripples to roll through the ranks of the Republican Party. It frightened away otherwise interested Independents, who prefer an even keel, but found no such thing in the rudderless McCain campaign. The current gaggle of would-be elected officials is almost certain to have the same effect.
This looks bad, very bad, for the GOP. Traditionally, a first-term president's Party will lose a considerable number of seats in Congress to the opposition. With that in mind, Barack Obama went for as many victories in his first two years as he could possibly get, with the ambition of his agenda equal to the pace of his pursuit.
This pushed many of those fickle Indies back to the fence upon which they so proudly straddle. Then came the primaries, fueled by the Tea Party activists, who rallied in droves at costume parties in which they alternately dressed up as Minnie Pearl and the distinguished-looking fellow of Quaker Oats fame.
The evidence bears out the fact that the Tea Baggers were not thinking with their brains. Exhibit A: Christine O'Donnell of Delaware. It's easy enough for a self-professed witch to win a Republican primary, just as it once was for a Grand Wizard to do so. In a general election for a seat in the U.S. Senate, though, she will pose more of a challenge to her own Party than she ever could to the Democrats.
In Nevada, Sharron Angle managed to wrestle the nomination away from another wild-eyed she-con, Sue Lowden, the one who seriously suggested that Americans could trade poultry to their doctors in exchange for health care. Angle is possessed with views so extreme as to make the John Birch Society collectively blush, all the way down to her "Second Amendment Remedies" rant. She has done the impossible - she made Harry Reid look palatable.
The madness, shockingly, has even infected California. There, Meg Whitman (of eBay fame) has spent tens of millions of dollars trying to rent the governor's mansion. Without delving too deeply into her psyche, consider that if one Googles the words "Meg Whitman Crazy", one will find roughly 400,000 results.
California Senator Barbara Boxer also faces a new dementian, another McCain girl, no less. Carly Fiorina, the hatchet-faced hack who ran the Maverick's campaign aground long before he squealed for Mama Grizzly's help, has also spent millions of dollars of her own cash in this race.
If you ever worked for Hewlett-Packard, chances are Carly Fiorina sent your job overseas. That's the zenith of her experience in life, firing the citizenry.
For conservatives, this should have been the season of incandescent hope, but it will instead be remembered as an electoral cycle of tremendous disappointment. Will there be some erosion in the bulwark of majority the Democrats have enjoyed for the last two years? Sure, but... but...
But a few months ago, there were expectations of a complete takeover of both Houses. With the current lineup of candidates standing before the electorate, they will probably end up with the smallest gains ever achieved in a first-term president's mid-term election. If it weren't such a good thing, it would be sad.
They will have only their fringe to blame. The American people may not know much, but they surely know better than to shoot themselves in the foot. Not when the other foot is still on the mend, still sore from the last time they stepped in that right-wing bear trap.
pH 1o.7.1o
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