Heller Mountain

The Fall Lineup

2011-12-04T05:21:00.000-08:00

Hey, Republicans, how's that nominating process goin' for ya? Isn't life fun when you let the Tea Party know-nothings run your primary election process? All together now - Wheeee!

Seriously, right-wingers. Look at the Murderers Row of candidates who have stood before their anxious, statesman-starved constituents and struck themselves out one after the other.

Batting lead-off was Michele Bachmann, who seemed like a very polished and skilled politician until she began speaking. Then Rick Perry swayed boozily to the batter's box, fanning away at every grapefruit-league softball pitch, even forgetting his own talking points. Next up was former pizza magnate Herman Cain, and after several weeks of reports of his behaving like a pimp around women, he gave up (long before, it is worth nothing, the conservative electorate ever did).

Now, predictably, Newt Gingrich is rolling in his role as clean-up hitter. So what if he divorced his first wife while she had cancer? John McCain did something very similar, and he was an old white-haired guy who was good enough to lose to Barack Obama. Who cares if Newt can't handle money? We need a leader, not a calculator. What difference that Newt shut down the government in 1995? Saved us taxpayers some money, didn't it?

Surely, Vern Wuensche is waiting in the on-deck circle. Or Jimmy McMillan. Forget Jon Huntsman - far too reasonable of a human being, and besides, he worked for Obama. Poor Rick Santorum must feel like the last guy in line in the Red Light district.

All through this process (which has been painful to watch but good viewing nonetheless) is Mitt Romney, yelling, "Put me in, Coach!" He was actually an okay governor in Massachusetts - made sure everyone had health care, looked out for gay rights, wasn't crazy about abortion - but that may well be the thing that startles the base about him. Or it might be something else... Let's just say that the Evangelicals don't view Mitt's religion as something exactly out of a Norman Rockwell painting.

Whether or not Republican primary voters are capable of making an intelligent choice (please, God, Ron Paul) remains to be seen. With unemployment sighing down and consumer confidence having nowhere to go but up, any GOP standard-bearer will be the cake in Obama's 2o12 cakewalk to re-election.

All the economy really needs is for the banks to lighten up on the indebted, for corporations to pull some of the cash out from under their golden mattresses, and for the super-wealthy to pay a little more in taxes. All of that adds up to... What?

A solid second-term agenda. (Who would have guessed that Obama would be impenetrable on defense issues?) See you next year, Republicans. If you drink too much at the New Year's party, believe me, everyone will understand.

pH 12.o4.11

Ding!

2011-09-19T08:50:00.000-07:00

Finally, the excruciating game of Rope-a-Dope ends. President Barack Obama has stopped ducking, stopped weaving, stopped laying back against the Republican Party and the professional pugilists who do its dirty work.

Obama, seemingly content to jab his way through his first thousand days in office, has at last thrown a punch, and aims to follow it up with a few quick combinations before leaving his opponents flat on their faces, a Jackson Pollack impression of themselves left on the canvas in November of next year. That's the plan, anyway.

The First Haymaker has been unleashed, with Obama's $1.5 trillion deficit reduction plan allowing the cream of the Bush tax cuts to expire. "This is not class warfare," stressed the POTUS. "It's math."

His plan is a guaranteed non-starter among the right-wing elephant herd in Congress, which wrongly perceives and portrays the closing of upper crust loopholes and the expiration of said tax cuts (restoring them to those draconian Clinton-era levels) as a tax increase.

The GOP may as well be the NOPE when it comes to tax increases, even on the Soroses, the Buffetts and the Gateses. They have chained themselves to the human anchor that is Grover Norquist and his sociopathic Club for Growth cronies. Tea Party bacteria has infected the Republican Party, and most Americans are sick of it. In this economy, it's hard to drum up sympathy for millionaires anymore.

The amazing thing is how far conservative lawmakers have stuck their chins out on this. Non-Tea Partiers, like Speaker John Boehner, were amenable to revenue increases during the debt ceiling showdown, but they were drowned out by all the uneducated hollering in the House. The few remaining realists in the Republican Party (mostly residing in the supposedly adults-only Senate) had their frustration summed up by John McCain, whose recent crack about "Hobbits" incensed the new conservative base.

Yet they will defend the uber-wealthy to the hilt, against a ginned-up so-called tax hike, because they have to - they're all-in now. The Obama plan (also generating savings from troop pullouts in Iraq and Afghanistan) should also renew the faith among his own party, which has grown weary of his propensity for using the wrong end of the olive branch... No more.

Any semi-seasoned political hack can tell you how to finish off the conservatives now that their arms, exhausted from endless flailing, are hanging limp by their sides: Link them to the Abramoff-esque lobbyists whose pork-barrel projects have pushed our nation to the brink of bankruptcy, like the $700 billion Medicare drug plan, passed by Republicans and signed by President George W. Bush in 2003. Or TARP, which gave almost a trillion dollars to banks that had already proven themselves to be irrational and irresponsible, which was drummed up over a weekend by Bush's henchmen on their way out the door. Or, y'know, the war in Iraq.

From Big Agriculture to Big Pharma, from Big Oil to Big Defense, Republican pockets are stuffed with pork. Which makes them hypocrites. That doesn't matter to the radio-zombies out there, but it does to Independents, not to mention those woefully addled voters who somehow still describe themselves as "undecided".

Obama's path to re-election looks blessedly easy at this point. The electorate is on his side on the tax issue. His approval ratings, while slackening, are still better than most of his predecessors had at this stage of their first terms. And the field of opposition candidates is so laughable as to raise the image of them all showing up to the debates in the same small, brightly-colored car.

Swing away, Mister President. By all means, swing away.

pH 9.19.11

Checking In (Before Checking Out)

2011-08-03T19:49:00.001-07:00

Now that the debt ceiling mess is out of the way, we can address the issue of... Well, let's see, football season is under way... You know, I can't think of a thing. For good or otherwise, I have seriously lost my passion for the political fights anymore.

Maybe it's because I'm back in the Big Mitten, Michigan. I feel safer here. It's a blue state, a union state, a place that has water you can drink and air you can breathe. Very different.

It's also a socially progressive state, despite the presence of a Republican governor and a legislature dominated by some of the smaller fish to be found in the GOP's hatchery ponds. I don't feel the need to respond so much as I used to when I lived in a Red state - Arizona, where Democratic congresswomen are shot through the head every once in a great while; thank God and everyone else, Gabrielle Giffords cast her vote as the debt ceiling bill passed in the House. Amazing.

Up here, things are a little different. Medical marijuana, for all the public spasms of certain public officials, is a fact of life now. Care providers are growing some glossy magazine cover material, and patients with medical cards are smoking marijuana, legally, in their homes. See? Progress. Takes a long time, but there it is.

It's not just a Michigan thing. Voters in Arizona, too, passed a medical marijuana law. That state, however, is doing everything it can to not implement the law's provisions, or to do so as inefficiently as possible (everybody's got to have goals, I guess). Then there's the issue of gay marriage. They're doing it in New York now; it's not just a Massachusetts thing.

All across the land, "liberalism" is continuing its inexorable march, as it has since the Dark Ages, through the Enlightenment, and the Renaissance, and the Victorian era. The natural desire for the expansion of human rights, the push for an end to exclusion, has seen civilization evolve through lethal, oppressive historical warts such as imperialism, fascism, communism... Mmmm.

Conservatism?

Regardless of whether or not such Beck-esque comparisons are accurate, or even necessary, social conservatives continue to do nothing but hold back our society (it is, after all, the dictionary definition of their movement). The next battle they win in the hearts and minds of the majority of the American public will comprise their first one, because they've basically been wrong about everything, and clearly aren't looking to make any dramatic course corrections anytime soon.

In the process of being obtuse and obstinate, they've aligned themselves with the Top One Percent that has been hoarding the fat of the economy for over 30 years now when it comes to profits, CEO-to-employee pay ratios and, let's face it, wages against inflation. All while essential human needs like housing, health care, food and energy have become the playthings of billionaires. Declaring oneself a conservative these days is nothing about which any sane person can take any measure of pride.

They just proved that when they put a gun to the head of the world economy in the name of "princibbles" that have been whipped up by wealthy profiteers and the smear-merchants who work for them, punching the daily time clock, settling their rich, fat arses into comfortable chairs, perching like the parrots that they are in front of their cameras and microphones.

Really, though, it's not my problem. Or at least it doesn't feel that way anymore. I'm out. It's summertime, as they say, and the living's easy.

pH 8.o3.11

The Boehner of Our Existence

2011-05-10T07:34:00.001-07:00

(The following is published against the best advice of Napoleon Bonaparte: "Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.")

U.S. Speaker of the House John Boehner (R., Ohio) gave a speech on Monday, May 9th, 2011 before the Economic Club of New York, in which it appears that his will and his sanity have crumbled before the Joshua-like trumpets of the Tea Party:

"It's true that allowing America to default would be irresponsible," he said in reference to the upcoming House vote to raise the ceiling on our national debt, "But it would be more irresponsible to raise the debt limit without simultaneously taking dramatic steps to reduce spending and to reform the budget process."

No, invading and occupying a country that posed no threat to our national security would be "irresponsible". If the debt ceiling isn't hoisted up in time, and the U.S. defaults on its credit obligations, it would be financially even worse than that (which is obviously hard to fathom).

"If America were to default," says Roger Altman, a former Treasury official under President Clinton, "even for 24 hours, that would have an unprecedented and a catastrophic impact on global financial markets and on American markets." Yup. It would.

Does anybody wonder where Speaker Boehner's outrage about spending was during the previous administration? Those books didn't seem to cause so much panic without the funding for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan included in the bottom line. Funding these conflicts through separate (ahem) spending bills that were excluded from the regular budget maintained deficits that were only in the half-a-trillion-a-year range. This was perfectly acceptable to conservative lawmakers and voters alike.

What's changed, then? Some say it was the alarming influence of the Tea Partiers, comprised largely of little old people who don't want to ever see their taxes go up (although they're happy to cash their inflated Social Security checks whenever they get a bump). They see President Obama as one whose policies will increase their share of the burdens that we all, as Americans, face.

Never mind that they wouldn't be the targets of the Democrats in that regard, even if the average tea-bagger is either already on Medicare or coming in for a landing. And while Boehner lip-synced a few sentences about reducing Medicare, he also said (as he always does, probably even when saying Grace), "Tax hikes should be off the table."

Those who are now so eager to slash spending are beginning to notice that the same old folks who are bull-horning about the deficit are actually the ones who benefit the most from government spending - excluding, of course, defense contractors. These sacred (consider that a typo if you must) cows can only dodge the meat axe for so long.

Republicans in office have to appeal to those same Margin of Error voters even as they take aim at their entitlements, so they'll propose trillions of dollars in cuts knowing that the Democrats in the Senate would never let such a deal reach the Oval Office, shielding Obama from having his veto signature attached to a government default. Whichever way the ball bounces, they figure they'll have something to hang on the liberals.

However, in playing chicken with the debt ceiling, the GOP has spooked an even more important constituency of theirs: Big Business. The U.S. going into default would upset the apple cart on a global scale, and these captains of industry are still bailing out their yachts from the last financial disaster (see Bush). Although they are fewer in number, the CEO-set whose signatures adorn so many checks to the Republican Party have a little more clout than a bunch of suddenly-wannabe-patriots rallying on government property - in the warmer months - and a hell of a lot more to lose.

The Republicans chose this devil's dance, and they are poised to find out exactly what happens after violating one of humanity's oldest social norms... The one about not biting the hand that feeds you.

pH 5.1o.11

Anozira: Birther of a Nation

2011-04-15T05:58:00.001-07:00

Arizona just can't leave well enough alone. First came SB 1o7o, their attempt to create their own foreign policy where immigration is concerned. The federal courts had to intervene and restore some sanity to the misguided and misdirected law.

Next up in court will be the Grand Canyon State's new and improved interpretation of the 14th Amendment, which has only been on the books for about 150 years now. They say that they know, they just know, that when the 14th Amendment says that those who are born on U.S. soil are U.S. citizens that it doesn't really mean it. It means... something else if one or both of a baby's parents are in the U.S. illegally when said baby is born. It means that a naked infant, having committed such a heinous crime in his or her first few moments of life (which begins whenever Arizona says it does), is denied U.S. citizenship, damn the torpedoes and the U.S. Constitution.

Arizona welcomes, these conservatives say, a court challenge to this bill, similar to the court challenge that immediately came down on SB 1070. Even though they lost that one.

The regressive apes who have controlled Arizona's laws and purse strings for far too long have now gone the extra mile in making themselves look idiotic. They've officially joined the "Birther Movement" by passing a law saying that President Barack Obama - or (ahem) any other presidential candidate - must prove his citizenship, or else Arizona won't put their names on the ballot.

All that's left is for Governor Jan Brewer to sign this official act of quackery into law - and she's done worse during her time in office, so there's no reason to think she won't. After all, Arizona's "no permit required" law allowed Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords's assailant to legally walk right up to her with a gun under his shirt. A scant seven weeks after that atrocity, in which 6 people lost their lives and Giffords was shot through the brain, the Arizona legislature passed a bill - figuratively, I'm assuming - that allows students to carry firearms on college campuses. Very educated.

As an expatriate Arizonan (still using that license plate), I look at all this through the grainy prism of personal experience. To my way of thinking, this Birther Bill comprises a third strike against the state of Arizona. SB 1070 was an act of secession - a throwing off of Constitutional law. Ditto for the bill denying 14th Amendment rights to Americans who have the bad luck to be born in Arizona. Now, refusing to put the incumbent president's name on the ballot, denying millions of Americans the right to vote for the candidate of their choice in a federal election?

Strike Three, Arizona. You're out.

The confederate cabal of legislators who make the laws in Arizona do not respect our Constitution. They have passed law after law that runs directly afoul of it. These are outright acts of secession, several of them in a row, in fact. Should the United States of America wait for Arizona to start lobbing shells at Fort Huachuca? Or should they get out the map and the scissors?

Because of its treachery, the state of Arizona should be either (A) dissolved, with its lands and its debts divided up among its contiguous neighbor-states and Mexico or (B) simply spun off to exist on its own. I personally favor 'B' because New Mexico, California, Nevada and Utah should not have to bear the burden of dealing with those people, and Mexico has enough problems already with Arizona gun hawks whose sales are fueling a narco-civil war south of the border.

Simply put, Arizona should be left to fend for itself, because that's what it wants. That's what it should get. If the state can fund and operate the Grand Canyon, let it do so (fat chance, since most of the state parks have been defunded by the Republicans in power). If they think they can get by without Colorado River water, they should be allowed to try. Or electricity from the Hoover Dam. Or federal highway money. Or military bases. Their people should have to carry passports if they want to get back into the United States.

Membership in this Union is a privilege, not a right. Puerto Rico can replace Arizona as the 5oth State so we wouldn't have to spend the money on new flags.

Of course, John McCain (who was born in Panama, don't you know) will feel entitled to be the de facto president of the new nation called Arizona. Actually, they should be forced to change their name to Anozira instead. It would make perfect sense for a place in which everything else is so amazingly backward.

pH 4.15.11

Postcard From Home

2011-02-07T09:45:00.001-08:00

Hey, Arizona, remember what I said? You're too dumb - statistically speaking - to fathom how far I went to get away from you, and I'm glad I did. You're a Red state, a Christian Conservative state, a Confederate state that believes in Ronald Reagan's rugged individualism and whatnot. So you'll understand when I explain it to you in the most Biblical of terms:

Be content with your lot. You asked for it. I don't begrudge you it. And I hope (actually, I know) that you'll choke on it.

To the good people in Flagstaff and much of Tucson, bastions of sanity in an otherwise bedlam-racked place, I say good luck. Fight the good fight for as long as you can, until you come to (your senses) the same conclusion I came to. And then leave. It's the best thing, the only thing, you can do. Pick up your skills and your earning potential and your good intentions and bring them to places where they will be appreciated. Where others will benefit from them. Where they can make a difference.

Just leave, like the Anasazi did almost a thousand years ago. Leave behind the state of Russell Pearce and Jan Brewer and Joe Arpaio and Ben Quayle and Jon Kyl and your other Senator there, the senile guy who graduated 5th from the bottom of his class in Navy pilot school, the guy who got his pasty old ass whalloped in the last presidential election - what was that loser's name? McPalin? Something like that? You know, the confused crustacean who's been giving Barry Goldwater's senate seat a bad name for the last twenty-odd years? That one.

Say goodbye to him and all the other low-life conservatives who make their living demonizing immigrants. Those would be the same immigrants who serve the agriculture and hospitality industries from whom the Republicans take campaign contributions, to the tune of millions of dollars, year after year. Say goodbye to all of them, and to those beautiful red sunsets, too...

I'll let you in on a little secret, although I suspect you already know: It's the smog, not God, that makes those Arizona sunsets so blushingly beautiful. Kiss her goodbye because she doesn't really exist. I speak from experience: The only parts you'll really miss are immovable, inanimate objects: Mountains, canyons, saguaro, the sky. Don't worry. They won't miss you, not one bit.

Trust me. In a hundred years, it'll be like you were never there at all.

pH 2.o7.11

Absolutely Senseless. Business as Usual.

2011-01-08T12:12:00.000-08:00

Twenty minues ago it was reported that Arizona congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords (8th district) has been shot in the head at a Safeway store in Tucson where she was conducting a constituency meeting. Eighteen people were shot and six have been killed in the indiscriminate attack, one a federal judge, another one of Ms. Giffords' staff members. The most horrific fatality was that of a nine-year old girl.

Ms. Giffords has survived surgery and is in ICU at Northwest Medical Center in Tucson at this time, despite earlier reports that she had already died.

Gabrielle Giffords? What did she ever do to anyone except try to provide them health care? Or affordable housing? Or food stamps? Or unemployment benefits? Or a tax credit to trade in their old car, or another tax credit for buying your first home?

Whether or not this was a politically motivated shooting, that doesn't matter to Congresswoman Giffords or her family. It doesn't change the fact that this is symptomatic of another problem altogether, an infection in my chosen State. It isn't getting any better. It isn't going to change. It isn't going away.

I used to think it was just crazy here. Now I understand that it is, in fact, just an evil place. A beautiful, terrible place. And I want nothing more to do with it.

Bonam Fortunam, Gabrielle Giffords. You were cut down in the midst of doing the right thing, trying to make Arizona and the United States a place in which I could proudly say I live. I join so many others in praying for you and your loved ones.

Good bye, Arizona. I'm so done with you.

pH 1.o8.11

Live and Learn

2010-12-26T07:04:00.001-08:00

T'is the day after Christmas, and all through my head, not an issue is stirring, living or dead.

I gave Doc a copy of my book for Christmas last week. I still have a box full of them - vanity lives on for years - so a few people got one. It's a core sample of the articles that were posted on the old Heller Mountain website between the events of 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina. You can still find remnants of some of those rants, like this one:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=103x28998

Doc is a good guy. He ran for the Arizona legislature last November as a Democrat, which means he lost, but he at least developed a pathologist's view of American politics. There is no room for discourse, at least in Arizona, he says. It bears mentioning that there is also no room for a time machine here, and for the same reason: No such thing exists.

Our beloved "discourse" consists of like-minded people screaming inside their own echo chambers. Back-and-forth dialogue, with which the Founding Fathers had hoped to replace flying lead, is in no way a part of the game anymore.

Doc shakes his head when he talks about it. He's enjoying the book, though, calling it "stream of consciousness" and comparing my work to that of Hunter S. Thompson (who committed suicide). Good enough for me.

"But you don't blog anymore," he said. It wasn't a question. I half-agreed. Very little, I told him, and that prompted Doc to ask me why.

"Because I no longer feel sorry for the American people," I said. "They're getting what they asked for." Doc absorbed that by folding his arms, frowning and nodding his head in affirmation.

Back in the day, I wrote fifteen, twenty columns a month. Every day there was something to bellow about. It seemed to me that the American people were victims of something awful that was being done to our country. I wanted to warn them.

Maybe I just wanted to be able to tell them, later, that they had been warned. Well, here we are. It brings me no joy at all to say it: I told you so... Only now, I actually consider the American people complicit in the situation at hand.

It's no secret who the bad guys are in this passion play, this winding down of our once-well-intentioned empire: Conservatives, under the leadership of George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Tom DeLay, Bill Frist and a whole host of others, wrecked this country to the point where it may not be salvageable.

In response, the public shrugged, and put the GOP back in power. Has anything changed among those people since the crumbling of the nation all those (two) years ago? If anything, they've only gotten worse - louder, dumber and uglier.

Somehow, national amnesia (or something worse) caused the electorate to restore insanity to politics. I'm supposed to feel sorry for that?

Okay. Keep checking back in this space to see if I ever lament again for the citizenry the way I did when it mattered the most. And keep checking.

Merry Christmas, Doc.

pH 12.26.1o

Ah, What Did They Know?

2010-11-24T06:30:00.000-08:00

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized. - The Founding Fathers

***

One can only wonder what George, Ben, Tom and the rest of that rabble would have thought of the TSA where their treasured Fourth Amendment was concerned. Only in our airports, atop the slippery slope, can a government agent unreasonably search a person's effects and papers without a warrant. They do this to every single person in line.

This somehow did not bother most Americans until this year, when the airport security apparatchik added "optical scanners" to their arsenal of efficiency. These full-body, big-screen X-ray vision machines have made people uncomfortable even in this high-definition Internet era.

But this is a free country, some still say, so one always has the option of not being bombarded with the equivalent of cancer-causing CT scans; one can opt for a "pat-down". Only it isn't a pat-down. It's the kind of frisking that most citizens only see on re-runs of NYPD Blue...

Except that such hands-on treatment is usually reserved for bad guys, or suspected bad guys. Not for someone who's just trying to get to a wedding in Florida. That's all a Michigan man was doing when a recent TSA "pat-down" caused his urostomy bag to break, spilling his urine all over him.

More disturbing is the selection of children to suffer this freakish anti-Bill of Rights ignonimity. Who wants to look at a little kid in full-body, big-screen X-ray vision? Worse than that, who's looking to feel up a little kid in an office just off the concourse?

All of this has caused something of a backlash. The public is, after all, a mighty and forgotten thing. We have the ability to screw things up just by acting like the sheep the authorities believe us to be. An online movement sprang up in the past week, with today being the busiest travel day of the year.

Everyone has been urged to take a pass on the optical scanner, to insist on a mild mugging from a blue-gloved security guard instead. This could potentially slow the lines down to the point where people would miss their flights, creating the kind of logistical nightmare that normally would only afflict the airlines on Sundays, Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays.

Sojourners, you have my blessing, and the blessings of the Framers of the Constitution. Force them to reconsider their ways. And anyone who whines that "this is all for our safety", well, I would call you a slimy, un-American coward who has no place left in the land of the free and the home of the brave, so why'n't you make your next flight a one-way?

Check it out: A crime is committed every day in this country involving a car and a gun and a dead body left behind. Do we have checkpoints at every intersection and freeway exit? No, we don't.

Read it again, and please try to understand. Try to understand that your rights are being violated every time you get on an airplane. Try:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

It doesn't say, "Except..." And it sure as Hell doesn't say accept.

pH 11.24.1o

Lock, Stock and Both Barrels

2010-10-18T05:15:00.000-07:00

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

Sick in What Way?

2010-10-13T07:48:00.001-07:00

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

Mama Fizzlies

2010-10-07T05:51:00.000-07:00

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

Another Case of the Typical

2010-09-08T17:19:00.000-07:00

"We are seeking to incite the (Islamic) nation to rise up to liberate its land and to (wage) jihad for the sake of God." - Osama bin Laden, June 1999

Somewhere in the swamps of Florida, a man of the cloth named Terry Jones is working hard, working very hard indeed to do the work of the world's most wanted terrorist. With the good sense of a snake-handler, and the righteous vigor of a snake-oil salesman, Jones has managed to thrust himself and his... gosh, scores of followers into the media limelight. How?

By announcing the first annual Koran Burning Day. Imagine that... Osama meets Hitler. It doesn't get a whole lot more Christian than that, does it? Naturally, this feel-good event is scheduled for September 11th.

With the clock ticking, the conservative movement is calving on this issue, with several notables now asking Mr. Jones to please not do that. This phenomenon took place after the revered Gen. David Petraeus mentioning that burning the Koran would likely incite considerable violence against our troops in Muslim countries.

Many Republicans, however, are not concerned with the sensitivies of Muslims in the United States or around the world. They play the little-kid card, conflating this lunacy with the Islamic community center that may someday be built two blocks from Ground Zero in Manhattan. It's about what one would expect from Grand Obstruction Party.

America was founded on freedom of religion. The concept was so important to the Founding Fathers that they listed it first on the Bill of Rights. The same amendment gives cover to people like Terry Jones, almost, since burning Korans could easily be construed as the equivalent to burning crosses - another Southern tradition that didn't pass free-speech muster.

So we all get to enjoy watching this utterly offensive freak show, this display of our worst behavior, this embarrassing insult to all those who have died (and will die) protecting a nation that used to value anyone's religious views, or non-views, for that matter. This is Terry Jones' contribution to our ever-evolving American discourse.

By the way, he'll also be in violation of the city's fire-safety code, so the YouTube crowd might be treated to hysterical images of the little church cookout being doused by the fire hoses of authority. Amen to that.

pH 9.o8.1o

Broken Branch

2010-08-22T06:05:00.001-07:00

A man's home is his castle. That's about as conservative a mantra as you'll ever find. It puts a nice capsule around the trinity of American ideas that were so cherished by the Founding Fathers - life, liberty, property (some silly liberal actually changed that last one to "pursuit of happiness", whatever that means).

My castle has been invaded. Twice now, both times during what we used to call dinner hour, my phone has been blown up by a robo-call. Was it a sales call? No. Dial-a-Prayer bugging me again? Not that, either. It was a recorded message from Bob Branch.

Bob Branch is (I now know) running for Congress, hoping to represent the great state of Arizona. He made sure to mention, numerous times, that he's a Christian conservative. Because I can read and understand the establishment clause, it occurs to me that Bob may as well be a Shinto anarchist where the First Amendment to the Constitution is concerned.

He has no other credentials. Bob Branch lays out all of his inexperience on a website for us to read. Based on the number of fingers he has, Bob Branch lays out his ten-point plan for the United States.

Homeland Security: It starts with securing the border, of course. Never mind that all 19 of the 9/11 hijackers were in the country on visas. And he quotes "President Regan" (sic) as having said, "Government's first duty is to protect people, not run their lives." Perhaps President Regan was speaking of the Iraqi people; who knows?

Transferring terrorists to the United States: Don't do it! Of course, without actual trials, we don't really know if the detainees at Guantanamo Bay are terrorists or simple goat herders. Following Bob's path, we never will.

Education: Bob, a college professor with one of those elitist degrees with lots of letters in it, wants to eliminate summer vacation for the kids. And he wants to rearrange the timeline for completing their education. It is worth noting that the state he wishes to represent is dead last in education funding per pupil and leads the nation in dropouts.

Health Care: Bob, himself a rather overweight fellow, knows how to handle this one. His advice is to get a job. If you lose that job, you should be able to pay both your end and the employer's end of the bill to keep your health insurance until you get another job. The health care bill that was signed into law by President Obama is errantly referred to as "socialized medicine".

Balanced Budget: Bob wants to balance the budget. His many position papers, railing against the record deficits run up year after year by the Bush administration - which didn't even put the funding for two wars into the equation - can be found at... Hang on... I'll find it... Ah, never mind.

Same-Sex Marriage: Anybody want to take a stab at Bob's position on this one? He's against it, because he believes that the sanctity of marriage (and the joy of divorce) is reserved for one man and one woman. He also believes that marriage is a union blessed by God, further exposing his ignorance of (or contempt for) the separation of church and state.

The Right to Life: Bob doesn't agree with the 1973 Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion in America. He refuses to acknowledge that abortions have been declining for decades as a result of better birth control (which he also opposes). Wonder what other Supreme Court decisions he doesn't like?

Energy: Bob's first step to energy independence is literally taken from his website. "Drill, baby, drill". So original... With no more than 3 to 5 percent of the world's oil supply in our hands, and with the BP oil spill plaguing the Gulf Coast, Bob may as well take a Sharpie and write the word "Moron" on his own forehead.

Cap and Trade: Bob says that cap-and-trade legislation (effectively a tax on corporate polluters based on the amount of carbon they emit) "will kill us as a nation". So Bob Branch is either entirely delusional about this, or he's hoping to attract some corporate polluter money to his campaign. Or both.

The War on Terror: I actually expected him to say, "Kill 'em all and let God sort 'em out", but Bob's logic is even hazier than that. Clearly define our goals, he says, without doing so. Then provide the troops with the resources they need (while balancing the budget, mind you). Once the goals are achieved, we can bring them home to a grateful nation. In other words, he would do what Barack Obama has already done.

Looking at this raw tripe, anyone can see that Bob Branch is in no way fit to represent any state other than Arizona. For us, he's a true par. One thing, though, struck me as odd each time my dinner was interrupted by his telephone solicitations. The phone number that popped up on my caller ID came out of North Dakota.

Bob Branch, in his bid to represent Arizona, outsourced the job to North Dakota. Arizona has one of the highest unemployment rates in the country. North Dakota actually has the lowest, at 3.9 percent, and now we know why.

Bob Branch for Congress, anyone? Anyone? That's what I thought. You never know, though, as elections are funny things. He may yet win one for the Giper.

pH 8.22.1o

Hard Hat Area

2010-07-29T17:50:00.000-07:00

"Obama lacks leadership," my friend said, and it was not a criticism so much as it was a statement of dismay. "Where is he?"

That's a fair question. Not an hour has passed without our nation's 44th president being assailed like no other before him, in every form of media available, and from our Republican elected officials as well. There hasn't been one decision that has been met with anything so positive as a shrug. No matter what he does, it's either too much for one side or not enough for the other.

That's not exactly an environment conducive to grand-marshaling a national parade. There's also the matter of style to be considered. Barack Obama has proven to be a bit aloof, above the fray, cool and calm when others feel as if their heads are about to explode. That's just how he is.

Look at the situation in Arizona, where a federal judge has gutted the infamous SB 1o7o. This is one of the biggest stories in the country; why hasn't Obama come down here to see it for himself before having his Department of Justice throw Arizona into the defendant's chair?

Finally, decades after he left the scene, it seems as though Americans are pining for Lyndon Baines Johnson. His penchant for Capitol Hill skullcrackery was legendary. Everyone assumed that, because BHO came out of the rough-and-tumble political junkyards of Chicago, this president would be an ass-kicker along the lines of LBJ.

Even conservatives seem taken aback by his unwillingness to pull the gloves off. They are enboldened by his lack of bloodthirst. If leadership is measured by the same metrics as accomplishment, Obama is right up there with Kennedy, Roosevelt and Roosevelt. If it's measured by his left jab, then he's left his own base wanting.

Again, using Arizona as an example, just ponder for a moment what LBJ would have done to any state guilty of pushing a stick into his eye. Punishment would have been swift and certain and terrible. From civil rights to Medicare, he built a legacy that no Democrat since has wanted to rival. Can't we all just get along?

Were Obama to channel Johnson, the retribution would be righteous and personal. First, he'd head off these crazy Arizona confederates - sorry, conservatives by granting outright amnesty to every undocumented immigrant in the United States. It could be called the "Ronald Reagan Memorial Taxpayer Creation Act".

(He could embellish this properly by imitating George W. Bush's WMD farce, looking under the rostrum and saying, "Nope, no illegals there!")

Then he'd announce that Luke Air Force Base is no longer needed, because the F-16 is an obsolete fighter plane, and that we can just outsource the training to whatever countries have already purchased most of our F-16s. Davis-Monthan Air Force Base would be relocated to New Mexico, because they need the jobs more, and have more available land to boot. He could call it the "John McCain Honorary Base Re-alignment Act".

After that, he might consider laying federal hands on the Colorado River, nixing the Central Arizona Project Canal (which brings water from the river all the way to the Valley of the Sun). This only makes sense - the "American Riparian Conservation Act".

Closing the Grand Canyon would be the next logical step. It's expensive to operate such a vast national park. The 'Zonies can't say anything, because Jan Brewer and the GOP-led legislature have already closed most of the state parks. This would be known as the "Size and Scope of Government Reduction Act".

In fact, all federal funding could be halted, since Arizona has long been home to such conservatives as John McCain and Jeff Flake, who rail against earmarks as if they really mean it. As a result, we're already last in federal spending per capita. Call it the "This is What You Ingrates Can Expect Act".

Then, if President Obama were truly to channel President Johnson, he'd have Governor Jan Brewer audited by the IRS. Extensively. Same goes for Russell Pearce. And Cindy McCain.

As it stands, LBJ would probably be proud to see an African-American in the White House, no matter how he pulled the levers of power. His legacy stands, even against the kinds of stiff racist winds blowing today in places like Arizona.

It's been too long in coming for the man who had the decency to neither seek nor accept his Party's nomination in 1968: Hail to the Chief. It's just that... Where did he leave that billy club?

pH 7.29.1o

Letter to the Duh

2010-07-24T10:42:00.000-07:00

I just got an e-mail, from someone who loves me, depicting a local Letter to the Editor. The tag line went, "What Has America Become". It was drearily predictable right-wing screed, hardly deserving of a response, but that's never stopped me before. So I replied.

***

Hey. I got your e-mail containing the hysterical rant about "what has America become", and just thought I'd take the time to refute some of this paranoid crap. To wit:

"If we lie to Congress it's a felony and if Congress lies to us it's politics."

Bank executives were less than forthcoming in Congressional inquiries about the ways in which they bankrupted our economy. Then they took bonuses straight from the taxpayer purse. BP's ability and willingness to dissemble has also been on recent display. But if we think our representatives are lying to us, we can easily un-elect them.

"If we dislike Blacks we're racist, but if Blacks dislike us it's their First Amendment right."

Blacks have historically not been merely disliked, but also enslaved, whipped and raped. Harry Truman desegregated the military in World War II; the South didn't follow suit until 20 years later, and only then under the gentle supervision of the National Guard. Blacks are routinely sentenced to longer terms of incarceration than Whites who commit identical crimes. By the way, Native Americans aren't so fond of us either, so maybe it isn't a Black thing after all.

"The government spends millions to rehabilitate criminals while doing nothing for victims."

Every single state has victim compensation laws, and has had them for decades. California's was enacted, for example, in 1965. We also have the highest incarceration rates, and recidivism rates, in the free world. Much of our prison system has been turned over to private-sector profiteers, who donate heavily to the GOP at election time.

"Schools can teach that homosexuality is OK, but they can't mention God in the process."

The Pledge of Allegiance is still recited in schools, and it still includes the phrase 'One nation, under God, indivisible'. The Declaration of Independence, also part of the curriculum, begins by saying that all men are created equal, and that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights. It does not say, 'unless they're gay'.

"You can kill an unborn child, but executing a mass murderer is wrong."

We are one of the only civilized nations that still executes people. For instance, Christian conservative Timothy McVeigh (the Oklahoma City Bomber) killed a good many born children, and was executed shortly thereafter. Beyond that, the state of Illinois had to put a moratorium on the death penalty because of the shocking number of innocent people found on Death Row. Meanwhile, pharmacists are allowed to refuse to fill prescriptions for birth control (because it offends their morality), resulting in obviously unwanted pregnancies.

"We don't burn books in America, but we re-write them."

Conservatives, actually, burned Dixie Chicks CDs when that group disagreed with the Bush administration's misguided and illegal invasion of Iraq. Meanwhile, in Texas, schoolbooks are being written by conservative school boards that do not mention the name Thomas Jefferson. Wonder why.

"We got rid of Communist and socialist threats by renaming them as progressives."

Our trade deficit with Communist China increased tenfold under the Bush administration, which granted them Most Favored Nation status. This was long after Mao Tse-Tung had rid his country of artists, teachers, scholars and the like. Stalin killed over 30 million of his own people, chiefly through starvation. He also turned Siberia into a prison-state. Progressives tend to build HUD homes, give health-care to people, stuff like that. See the difference?

"We can't close the border with Mexico, but we protect the 38th Parallel in Korea."

The Mexican-American War ended with the Treaty of Hidalgo, in which we awarded ourselves the states now known as Utah, Nevada and California. Nevertheless, Mexico remains one of our biggest and most important trade partners. The Korean War never ended, but resulted in an armistice. North Korea (which developed nuclear weapons in the Bush-43 era) routinely threatens the U.S. and its allies in the region, and in March torpedoed a South Korean battleship, killing 46 sailors.

"If you protest Obama's policies you're a terrorist, but if you burned a flag or George W. Bush in effigy it's your 1st Amendment right."

Again the disdain for the First Amendment... Anyway, no protestors of President Obama's policies have been charged, to date, with terrorism or anything like it. Bush protestors, however, were penned up miles away from his public appearances in what were laughably called 'Free Speech Zones'. Many were arrested, and some were shot in the face with rubber bullets.

***

I could keep going, but reading this rote, redundant missive makes my forehead feel fat. Suffice it to say that he made absolutely not one single point, good or otherwise, but did reinforce the widely-accepted notion that conservatives are uninformed, backward, bigoted morons.

There's a lot to be said for the company you keep.

pH 7.24.1o

Long Hot Summer Nights

2010-07-21T17:42:00.000-07:00

It's summertime, and the living's easy. This is especially true in Arizona, where the brutal desert heat actually wafts through your transom like a comfortable breeze compared to the hot air that erupts regularly from our public officials.

State Senator Russell Pearce, in between social engagements with white supremacists, remains active in the only game in town (immigration). The architect of the infamous SB 1o7o now trains his sights on newborns, to whom he would deny birth certificates if their parents happened to be undocumented aliens.

Got that? They would literally remain in the ranks of the unborn - the only form of childhood that seems to concern any conservative.

I know... The Fourteenth Amendment states very clearly that anyone born in (and subject to the jurisdiction of) the United States is an American citizen. Pearce apparently either cannot read or cannot comprehend the words at which he stares with slackened jaw; flip a coin.

He and other local right-wing yokels argue that, for all this time, we've just been misinterpreting that particular section of the Constitution. Those Framers who wrote it, they opine, did not intend to bestow citizenship upon the offspring of illegal immigrants.

I suppose they believe that. So what if the Supreme Court has historically disagreed? Chasing down their scattered logic, one might present the same case against much of the Bill of Rights.

The Second Amendment should be limited to flintlock muzzle-loaders, because the Founding Fathers could never have predicted the obscene power of the machine gun. The First Amendment should be scrapped, as well, because someone who merely discovered bifocals and electricity could never have envisioned the spectacle of the Internet.

The Fourth Amendment can go out the window, because hey, the signers of the Declaration didn't know squat about wiretapping. The Fifth Amendment, well, that just mollycoddles these obvious criminals in a manner unforeseen. And we don't need any of the other Amendments, either, because we're just too stupid to understand them.

This explains, in advance, why SB 1o7o will be found un-Constitutional in the coming days by a judge reviewing numerous claims against the State. We'll say she's an activist jurist. We'll say she doesn't understand. We'll say she's a liberal. And we'll devise a solution that ventures even further off the charts - Latino concentration camps, something.

The only jewels to be found in all of this garbage can be found in our demographics. A decade from now, hundreds of thousands of loony white-haired bigots (we've built entire cities in which to house them) will be dead. Replacing them at the poll booths will be young Hispanic voters, who will have grown up watching this ugly stage play.

Slow or not, it's suicide on the part of the Republican Party, and they don't want to be bothered while they're doing it. Let's all do them a big favor and oblige.

pH 7.2o.1o

Off With Her Head

2010-06-22T05:05:00.000-07:00

It's hard to know, at this point, more of which has been spilled in the Gulf of Mexico since April 2o: Oil or ink. An impartial observer would have to say the former. The quantity of reporting has not left us wanting so much as the quality.

BP security guards have routinely turned away the press from public beaches. This is a first-rate affront to the Fourth Estate, which doesn't seem to mind, as it was trained so meticulously by the Bush adminstration. It is disappointing to see that the sons of the South have become so lax in repelling agents of a foreign country from our soil.

Southern spigotry is still alive and well, though, with all manner of regional Republicans trying desperately to blame BP's mess on President Obama. One lawmaker, Joe Barton of Texas, even had the gall to apologize to BP for the indignities they have endured by being asked to pay for their mistakes.

Through it all, the arrogance of BP has been personified by CEO Tony Hayward. First he said he wanted his life back. Then he said that Americans were inherently fraudulent and would try to weasel unwarranted money from the oil giant. His latest whereabouts: Sailing on a yacht in a race 'round the Isle of Wight, sponsored by the good people at J.P. Morgan.

So it becomes clear, what the proper response should be by the United States as it responds as best it can to the worst disaster to face us as a nation, worse even than 9/11. We must sack England.

These bloody snarky bastards have had it coming for a long time. Never mind that they "sexed up" the war in Iraq; they've been rather nasty to us ever since the Revolution. Look at the War of 1812. And whose side did they take in the Civil War? Only in World Wars I and II did they make nice, and that's because they were on the brink of defeat.

World War II would have been the optimal time to bring the Mother Country into the Union fold. They were beaten up. We were strategically placed. Churchill was too drunk to notice. Nobody would have cared. That doesn't mean it can't be done today.

A quick review of global defense spending tells us that any conflict would be brief, to be sure, but it would more likely be a bloodless coup. It's like our filibuster.

Whenever the Republicans don't want something to pass in the Senate (pick any example), they merely threaten to filibuster said legislation. They don't actually have to filibuster. Just the thought of Mitch McConnell speaking without end is enough to make the Democrats cave.

In the event that the British actually wanted to engage us in battle, well, it would be mercifully quick. It's not like they have any friends left in the world. Who would intervene? Ireland and Scotland? Those would be our forward operating bases. Germany? Please.

France would let us launch the big invasion from their side of the Channel. Only Australia would pose a problem, and they've already demonstrated their loyalty is for sale.

We'd be able to buy plenty of it, too, with all that royal plunder. How much is the House of Windsor worth these days, anyway? That would be the pound-sterling silver lining in all of this. Our economy needs the cash (especially at today's exchange rate).

Annexing the United Kingdom might just be the shot in the arm that America needs right now. We could easily absorb the real estate inventory. Our culinary institutes and schools of dentistry would thrive. And it would give us a much-needed island upon which to deposit our nuclear waste as we cruise out of the fossil-fuels era.

This is the Bush Doctrine. The people of England would no doubt herald us as liberators as we drove our tanks the wrong way down their streets. We could blast it from the bullhorns to our new citizens: Sam's your Uncle. We have killed your queen and you are free.

History would treat us kindly. Diplomats the world over would greet us with warm smiles on their faces. The tragedy in the Gulf would remain unresolved, but the military-industrial complex would be pleased. Everybody wins... Or at least everybody that matters.

pH 6.22.1o

BIg Oil Wins

2010-06-02T05:24:00.000-07:00

Experiment: Go to your local auto parts store and pick up a case of motor oil. It could be Quaker State, Pennzoil, Valvoline, it really doesn't matter which brand. Actually, make it two cases. Take all of this motor oil down to the beach. It could be the ocean, the Great Lakes, the nearest river or local watering hole - it makes no difference.

Pull out a bottle of oil, unscrew the cap, and dump the oil all over the ground, right at the shoreline. Now do it again. And again. Until all of the oil is gone. Now wait for the authorities to arrive and see what happens.

There will be fines, oh, yes. There might even be jail time; if not that, then certainly community service. Littering and polluting, it turns out, are fairly serious crimes in communities all across America. Unless you're a corporation.

British Petroleum, a foreign company, has destroyed the Gulf of Mexico. Let's not be gentle about this anymore. We're fucked. The environment is fucked. The seafood industry is fucked. The charter fishermen are fucked. The sea turtles and dolphins and brown pelicans, they're all fucked, too.

"Corporate America" isn't just a catchy slogan anymore. It's a reality that tops all horror movies. The Supreme Court has ruled that corporations are actually people, you see, extremely wealthy people to whom the laws of the land do not necessarily apply.

For instance, BP was ordered by the EPA to stop using the dispersant known as Corexit 95oo, which has an unpleasant toxicity to it that will certainly be deadly to marine life, perhaps to a greater extent even than the crude will. BP replied with a memorandum that read, essentially, "No, thanks".

When a major network sent a news crew out to report on the extent of the damage being done to the Gulf Coast, they were turned away by the Coast Guard, who explained that they were protecting the interests of BP. All of the cleanup data is being vetted, as well, through the watchful abacus of the giant energy company.

The ripple effects have been enough to elicit short barks of laughter through the tears. Blowhard conservatives, stuck for so long in their anti-big-government gear, are now blaming the feds for not managing BP's mess. Anyone else would get dizzy from such a thing, but not them. By now they are immune to their own hypocrisy, as if they had never chanted Drill, baby, drill.

Now it's the government's turn to drill. In the ultimate act of lip service, Attorney General Eric Holder has announced criminal probes into the explosion that caused the disaster, as if there were still a crime scene thereabouts to investigate. Still, even the threat of such an inquiry caused energy stocks to tumble.

The fact is, though, that our government is beholden to corporations. No other donors can cough up the kind of money needed to buy the television ads (from broadcasting corporations) that get politicians elected. You and I do not have lobbyists with briefcases stuffed full of cash to give to our representatives. Corporations do, and have been given the green light to bribe freely.

It is a guarantee, therefore, that oil gouting from the ocean floor will seem insignificant compared to the damage that will be done by corporations down the road. There is nothing to stop them. There is noone to hold them accountable. Ask the people of Prince William Sound. Big Oil doesn't care about wildlife or people or ecosystems or anything except their profit margins. Nobody disputes this.

Certain things, in the face of this atrocity, would seem to make sense. Nationalizing the oil industry makes sense. Putting BP into receivership makes sense. Breaking up the petroleum industry into separate categories (gas stations, refineries and drilling outfits) makes sense. None of it will happen.

Short of turning loose the Unabomber, there is no way for the American people to attain any measure of justice against our corporate masters. Slavery was abolished a century and a half ago, on the eve of the Industrial Revolution, and old John Brown lies a-mouldering in his grave. They might as well have wrapped his corpse in the American flag.

pH 6.o2.1o

Little Crow Peep

2010-05-25T17:26:00.000-07:00

Frustration has given way to disgust in Arizona's great immigration debate. Basis for argument aside, any criticism is met (by conservatives mostly) with the same 18-letter response. It's like dealing with sheep. They all flock in the same direction. They all bleat the same thing.

"Ha-a-ve you read the bi-i-ll?"

Oh, I've read it. On paper, meaning without regard to the behavior and motives of each rugged individual out there, one cannot definitively say that SB 1o7o is a racist bill. No. It is, however, a stupid bill.

I understand its proponents when they say that illegal immigration has cost Americans their jobs, even though so many more have been lost to corporate outsourcing. Seldom is that concern followed logically, or we'd see more business licenses revoked, a thing rarer than a bighorn in these parts.

As with the war on drugs, conservatives have it backward on this issue, focusing on demand (people who want work) instead of going after supply (employers who willingly hire them). The new law mandates - sans funding - that any city, county or otherwise politically incorporated entity question the citizenship of anyone upon reaching the point of "reasonable suspicion" during any "lawful stop" or arrest.

Ask any cop how far he or she has to follow you before finding a reason to lawfully stop you. The one I asked said half a mile. As for what comprises "reasonable suspicion", we may as well ask former Bush administration attorney Kris Kobach of Missouri, who wrote the bill for the Republicans in the Arizona legislature (we know this because it was not written in crayon).

An accent. Fluency in English (or lack thereof). Certain clothing. The number of people in a vehicle. Stuff like that. Never the color of their skin, no. Or their national origin. Why would a cop need to consider one's national origin when determining one's status as a citizen? All of this takes place "when practicable", according to Kobach's legalese.

"Practicable", by the way, has two definitions. One is capable of being used or done. The other refers to a theater prop that is a workable part of a stage set. Alas, SB 1o7o doesn't specify.

These are not the only problematic vagaries in the bill - not hardly. The section allowing citizens to sue any agency they believe to be running afoul of the new law is meritless on its face. In order to sue anyone, one has to have legal standing. One has to prove one has been damaged. Judges will rightly consider this to be a waste their time, and worse.

The provision that denies any sort of plea bargain for an illegal immigrant is an outright assault on the judicial branch. It does provide a 20-30 day jail sentence for a misdemeanor offense of being here illegally (read: Three hots and a cot on the taxpayers' dime). It's ridiculous to the point that Esquire Kobach should be called before the Bar and made to answer for himself.

Even if this joke of a law somehow passes Constitutional muster, it creates layers of legal nightmares across the state, twisting the knife already buried deep into our economic aorta. The burdens that SB 1o7o places on the Attorney General's office should also be filed in the basket of really bad ideas. Like it says on the money, e pluribus unum - one out of many.

SB 1o7o makes it a misdemeanor for an illegal immigrant to apply for a job. It makes a criminal out of ordinary citizens for soliciting work from a non-citizen. How were you to know that worker's legal status? Doesn't say. Employers, however, will only be prosecuted (snort) when they "knowingly" hire an illegal immigrant.

If you get caught transporting illegal aliens, your vehicle will be impounded. It does not say anything about impounding your animal. To borrow a few peas from J.D. Hayworth's brain, one can just as easily smuggle immigrants in on horseback... Maybe that's just another corporate loophole.

(And why not? There are vast expanses of language throughout the bill that threaten to do what has never been done in Arizona before. The only thing left out by the lawyers were the actual words "wink" and "nod" in parantheses.)

SB 1o7o is filled, however, with lines that boggle the minds of even junior varsity legal scholars. Section 2, Title 11, Chapter 7, Article 8 explains that an officer may transport an illegal alien to la Migra, "notwithstanding any other law" (rape, murder, what have you). It does not allow us to sue said officer if we come become victims of a crime (rape, murder, what have you) while he or she is wasting his or her time doing that.

Section 6 begins with the words, "Arrest by officer without warrant". This is why those textbooks out of Texas don't put the words "Thomas" and "Jefferson" next to each other.

So, we can ask, is it fair to label Arizona's new law Jim Crow? Perhaps not. Still, it doesn't reflect well on us when the state pulls the wool over our eyes, fleecing us all with sheer stupidity. We should all be sheepish when asked, "Ha-a-ve you read the bi-i-ll?"

As for the poor folks who just want a better life than what they left behind in their home countries, well, they're on the lam now.

pH 5.26.1o

Drunk Legislating

2010-05-16T11:06:00.000-07:00

It is an astonishing act to shoot oneself in the foot. It is another thing entirely to shoot oneself in the foot while standing in a rowboat. That has been the net effect thus far of Arizona's infamous Senate Bill 1o7o, which was signed into law by Republican Governor Jan Brewer, and has been the talk of the nation ever since.

It has been commonly referred to as the "Papers, Please" law, drawing overblown comparisons to Nazi Germany. Some have likened it to apartheid. Others label it ethnic cleansing. Whatever the analogy, this is not the stuff that travel agents' dreams are made of.

Indeed, the hole blown in our economy has been considerable. Hotels and convention centers are bracing for the worst. Los Angeles and San Francisco have both slapped boycotts on the state, costing Arizona tens of millions of dollars.

Even the GOP has decided to hold the Republican National Convention elsewhere; the event is believed to have the same regional impact as the Super Bowl. They must be worried about the Hispanic vote, and they should be: Statewide, 67 percent of Hispanics oppose the law.

Here in the 'Zona, the people and the press are suffering from denial. They consider criticism, boycotts and relocations to be meddlesome. They wish the money good riddance. Perhaps we could annex Blythe from California and change the spelling - not that many of us would notice.

So who comes riding in to save the day for Governor Brewer? Who else but Sarah Palin and her goodies-grubbing entourage. What advice could she possibly have given to our beleaguered Governor? Quit?

Whatever else she said, Palin expressed the need for Americans to say, "We are all Arizonans now." She also called the Grand Canyon State "ground zero" on the illegal immigration issue. Might as well be... We're already ranked at zero in that danged education category. We're dead last in annual personal-income growth.

Moreover, it would indeed be a shock for all Americans to suddenly be turned into Arizonans. First of all, we'd all have to carry concealed weapons. We'd have to ride motorcycles without helmets. We'd have to be able to tolerate (and function in) 120 degree heat.

We would all have to be able to "hold it" for long distances, as our rest areas on the highways have been closed. We'd all have to be content to lose hundreds of thousands of dollars in the real estate market. And we'd all have to vote for Sarah Palin with the expectation that she might actually be able to win.

On top of all that, we'd also have to excommunicate ourselves from California. Not only are we on bad relations (which can only get worse with the Suns-Lakers series on the horizon), it is also understood that the California Highway Patrol will be pulling over all vehicles bearing Arizona license plates in order to conduct mandatory sobriety tests.

It's not profiling. It's called "reasonable suspicion".

pH 5.16.1o

Divine Introspection

2010-05-10T05:41:00.000-07:00

As the first gooey blobs of oil hit the Gulf Coast beaches this week, one cannot help but wonder, why does God have it in for those Red States? After all, there are Republican governors in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida. The only other state to ever suffer from an oil spill of this magnitude was Alaska (not exactly a bastion of liberalism).

The real obstructionist ass-hats in the Senate and the House also hail from those Southern states, which are also prone to hurricanes. And floods. And tornadoes.

It's funny how hurricanes never seem to strike New England. How flooding happens in Tennessee and North Dakota (Red States) but not water-rich Minnesota or Ohio (Blue States). How tornadoes will bedevil Texas and Oklahoma (Red States) but not so much Iowa or Illinois (Blue States).

Despite the fact that California exists on a shaky fault line, it has relatively few earthquakes. Hawaii, in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, only very rarely suffers from a tsunami. So how could Alaska have suffered both in 1964, when an earthquake felled its cities and caused a tsunami that swept every stick of furniture off of Kodiak Island? Red State, Blue State.

Even the industrial accidents seem to plague those states than lean more conservative. They have coal mines in Pennsylvania and Maryland, but the bad accidents seem to happen more often in places like West Virginia and Kentucky. Red States. Blue States.

You hear of school shootings in places like Arkansas, Montana and Colorado, but not so much in Vermont, Rhode Island or Oregon. (Granted, Obama won Colorado in 2oo8, but Colorado was Red at the time of the Columbine tragedy, which occurred in an affluent Denver suburb.)

Doesn't anyone ever wonder why the temperatures in Arizona routinely reach the 120-degree mark in the summer - yet in next-door New Mexico, they don't? To break it down, one has to ask, why does God hate Republicans? I'm not saying that's so... I wouldn't presume. I'm saying it appears that way.

I can hazard a guess as to why. It's due to the fact that conservatives tend to take God's name in vain. That Commandment, by the way, doesn't mean "don't swear". It means not to seek your own glory with God on the front of your shield. When has any Democrat done such a thing? Every time you turn around, some Republican or other is doing exactly that.

Prayer might help. It didn't during the Civil War, though, when the Blue States had to quell the rebellion of the Red States. God let Sherman burn his way through the South with impunity despite the pleas and prayers of every plantation owner who ever flew the Stars and Bars.

Why doesn't God like Republicans? I could expound upon that but it wouldn't further my point. If you really want to know, ask Him.

pH 5.1o.1o

An Open Letter to Gov. Jan Brewer (R., AZ)

2010-04-28T18:32:00.000-07:00

Dear Governor Brewer,

I know you've received a great deal of correspondence in regard to your position as our state's Racist in Chief. That must be taking up an awful lot of your time, but I hope you'll fit my letter into your busy schedule, because this isn't about that.

This is about the special election you wanted, the one wherein the citizens of Arizona get to decide whether or not to impose upon themselves a one-cent sales tax. With the threat of even more cuts to education and public safety held over our heads, it doesn't seem so much like a vote as participation (from the bad end of things) in an overt act of blackmail.

I'm actually one of those lucky people who gets to send in an early ballot. I just wanted you to know that I filled out that ballot today and will be sending it in tomorrow, a good two weeks ahead of schedule.

I voted 'no'. It's not just that, as a guy with no kids, I have no skin in the game. My decision was based more on principle than greed; I am, after all, not a Republican.

First of all, it's not as though Arizona is doing a very good job of educating our children, regardless of how much we spend (or don't spend). We're what, 49th overall? Thank God for Arkansas, I guess. I also believe we are over-policed, with multiple layers of law enforcement, each with bloated budgets and too much power.

The other thing is that I don't believe that you, or any of your conservative cronies in the state legislature, would really be so stupid as to cut education funding even deeper than y'all already have. It would be - even in a state with such a large retiree population - political suicide. If that would shorten y'all's reign of idiocy in Arizona, well, I'm all for that.

On the other hand, it almost seems as if you want to further slash scholastic appropriations, which would explain why you would foist this sales tax vote upon a public that is notoriously averse to taxation. But that would be giving y'all way too much credit.

I figure if the majority of voters agree with me, and I suspect they do, that you'll find that money elsewhere. Maybe it will come from property taxes, maybe it will come from an increase in corporate taxes, maybe you'll turn I-10 into a toll road. I don't really care how you do it, or if you do it at all.

Arizona already has one of the highest sales tax rates in the country. Now the City of Phoenix has implemented a 2 percent sales tax on food, I hardly think that now is the time for you Republicans to ride in on our backs to save education and public safety funding from the perilous position in which y'all have put them.

I hope this letter has, at least momentarily, taken your mind off the fact that the anti-immigrant bill you signed has made our beautiful state appear to be so terribly ugly on the national stage. And, ah, good luck in November.

Don't worry. It'll probably be okay. Thanks to generations of GOP efforts, most of us are just as dumb as you are.

pH 4.28.1o

Notes from Hell

2010-04-23T17:26:00.000-07:00

Here in Arizona we like to say we have "taken our country back", but we never finish that sentence. More to the point, we have taken our country back about 50 years, with a new immigration law that places all people of non-White ancestry under an unnecessary - and probably unconstitutional - microscope.

By the way, beyond Charles Keating, this is the only way we've ever made the national news. It takes a governor, such as Evan Mecham, dumb enough to utter words like "pickaninny". Or a Senator, like John McCain, nasty enough to vote against Martin Luther King Day. Or some gun-toting nut at a protest.

That's macro, though, a bird's eye view of Arizona as seen by the rest of the Union. If one looks at it from the inside, one will notice that we're actually much more of a basket case than we seem on the surface. For instance, we've closed many of our state parks and rest areas, hoping to shave a few hundred thousand dollars off our $2 billion state budget deficit.

Yes, this is the home of Congressman Trent Franks, who called President Obama "an enemy of humanity". It's also the state that recently passed a bill requiring the president to present his birth certificate (cuckoo, cuckoo) in order to be on the ballot in 2o12... There go those precious 11 electoral college votes.

The same good ol' boy who brought us this immigration bill, Russell Pearce, recently wrote up a bill that did away with the need for Arizonans to have a permit to carry concealed weapons. Governer Jan Brewer signed that one into law, too; this stroke of genius came on the heels of a cost-cutting meausure that released some 17,000 mental-health patients onto the streets.

Brewer had a tough choice to make with this immigration bill. Sign it and she loses the bulk of the Latino vote come November. Veto it and she gets buried in the primary and November never matters. She made a choice based on political survival and nothing more. And she's the least of our worries.

We have a less-than-civic-minded Sheriff, Joe Arpaio, who wants to supplant her as governor. We have an ethically challenged former County Attorney, Andrew Thomas, who dreams of being Attorney General. We have a mentally challenged former Representative, J.D. Hayworth, aspiring to replace McCain as our senator.

In Arizona, the idiots get promoted. How do you suppose Brewer made it this far in the first place?

There's plenty more, but just from the few things I've mentioned, most reasonable people will come to the conclusion that Arizona has the greatest level of dysfunction among all 50 states. Politically speaking, it may even be worse off than our two occupied countries, Iraq and Afghanistan.

One consistent thread runs through these horror stories: The Republican Party. All of this and so much more can be laid directly on that sorry doorstep. Is Arizona an accurate reflection of unbridled conservatism?

Yes. But it's not like the usual one you'd find in a mirror. It's more like a reflection of the desert sun itself. Look at it long enough and your eyes will burn right out of your head - not so much physics, in this case, as a defense mechanism of the soul.

pH 4.23.1o

Flat Tires and Gun Rallies

2010-04-20T05:15:00.001-07:00

Yesterday was another angry day in America, almost. On the 15th anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing the media was abuzz with interest in the rancor that has gripped this country since Barack Obama was elected some 500 days ago.

The bigots and malcontents that make up the so-called Tea Party were out in force, playing make-believe at "Second Amendment" rallies in and around Washington, D.C., even though there aren't really any Second Amendment issues to be heard in government these days. They showed up with their guns anyway, perpetual adolescents that they are.

Not a single hour has passed without a bombardment of bitter (and often hateful) criticism directed at our nation's first African-American president. It isn't going to stop, not until the FCC wakes up from its Rip van Winkle slumber, and realizes that there is a public-interest clause in all of those broadcasting licenses.

With the steady conservative drumbeat of anger, anger, anger (in the Bush years it was fear, fear, fear) pulsing in our heads, Americans have grown nervous. The breathy intonations of paranoid conservative pundits has driven us too far. The squealing minority with its faux Klan rallies has hindered our economic recovery as well.

Bill Clinton, finally, had much to say about this. He has expressed a fountain of concern just lately, using the McVeigh massacre to drive home the point - the fact - that stoking unbridled hatred of government can lead, and has led, to a level of violence that touches everyone. It might be too little, too late, but at least he can sleep at night knowing he tried.

Only the Republican Party has anything to gain from Americans rattling their sabres at each other. There have been no demonstrations conducted by left-wingers spewing acid about socialism, communism, Marxism, Maoism, statism, fascism and even terrorism. Conservative lawmakers have not been targeted with death threats and fake anthrax envelopes.

Most likely, the 82 percent of the population who refuses to be identified with the GOP has noticed, and will not reward the conservative movement with any augmentation of power in Congress. You have to earn such a reward, and they have been irresponsible in ways never seen before in our history, at least not since the Civil War.

And all of this is academic. I say that because of something I saw yesterday in the parking lot of a boring little shopping center in Mesa, Arizona. In the course of my busy day, as I backed out of my parking space, I noticed a Hispanic woman hunched down next to the right front wheel of her beat-up old minivan. She had a flat tire.

Her kids stood by, looking bored, as she fiddled with the plastic caps covering the lug nuts. The jack lay on its side next to the vehicle, waiting to be put to use, and it was a nice day for it. I have very few rules in life, but one of them is that I don't let women change tires in front of me.

I was just getting back into my parking space when a younger guy came cruising in on a bicycle. He was an African-American who wore his hair in dreadlocks. He stopped on a dime, hopped off his bike, and strode purposefully to the back of the minivan to retrieve the spare. With no hesitation, he crouched down in front of the disabled wheel, and proceeded busting the lug nuts.

That's when it occurred to me that America will be fine. We're going to come together and solve our problems. I have seen it with my eyes. The ordinary people will take care of things. The young people. The real people. Not the freaks on television and talk-radio.

The Tea Party is a creation of conservative media. It is a megaphone for the clueless. And it will soon enough fade into history, like hoop skirts and bobby socks, like 8-track tapes, and any violence that takes place will be forgotten because it will have made no difference. In another generation we will look back and wonder what the big deal was.

If you love your country you should act like it. If you don't, you'll have to pardon the rest of us as we swim around you on our way forward, paying you no more attention than you really ever deserved.

pH 4.2o.1o

Some Records Were Made to Be Broken

2010-04-13T05:10:00.000-07:00

Humanity seeks. Our endless quest for knowledge and understanding has led us out of the primordial pudding and into every corner of the Earth and into the outreaches of space. We have tracked Bigfoot, cleaned out the Pyramids and hunted for D.B. Cooper's cash. Even with our Smithsonian bent we have yet to discover one great and elusive mystery:

Republican leadership. Where is it? A recent gathering of high-ranking conservatives in New Orleans brings us no closer to the answer. Judging from that pep rally, there are three basic categories of Republican leadership. There are the pea-brains, there are the broken records, and there are the shrieking shrews.

Newt Gingrich is a good example of a broken record. Glenn Beck is clearly a pea-brain. Sarah Palin is a shrieking shrew. Michelle Bachmann, that rare jewel, is an amalgam of all three.

One really has to wonder who the next presidential candidate will be. So far, the roster of hopefuls reads like a list of B actors, washouts and losers of past races. Mitt Romney couldn't get past the rudimentary stages of the 2oo8 Republican primary. Sarah Palin sank the McCain ticket like the human torpedo that she is.

Rudy Giuliani isn't interested because he knows America isn't interested in him. Gingrich has more baggage than an airline conveyor belt. Mike Huckabee is what the U.S. Navy would call an LST (large, slow target). Bobby Jindahl fumbled and fidgeted like a fifth-grader in his last turn in the national spotlight.

Mike Pence of Indiana? Okay. Eric Cantor of North Carolina? He'd be the embodiment of the Washington Generals against Barack Obama's Harlem Globetrotters. Am I missing anyone? Could a write-in candidate (say Porky Pig or Mickey Mouse) actually do better than this collection of misfits?

John Boehner is a blubbering mess. Mitch McConnell is one of the more confused people you will ever find holding public office. In any case, neither of them wants to leave their cocoons of Congressional power, and no wonder. That's why they're quietly recruiting Gen. David Petraeus - his record doesn't automatically paint him as a lunatic.

The GOP simply lacks leadership. Their most effective spokesmen happen to be talk-radio show hosts who seem more beholden to the masses than to the stuffed suits who hope to get elected despite their decidedly non-mainstream views. That's a good strategy for getting ratings and selling commercials, and that's about all.

Pea brains. Broken records. Shrieking shrews. Our endless pursuit of information cannot turn over anything other than that in the world of right-wing politics. That's why they're out of power today, and will remain so until they come up with something more to offer to the American people.

Who knows how long that could take? We may well find the Lost Dutchman's gold before then. At the rate they're going, conservatives would be lucky to elect a representative from Area 51. Or Loch Ness, which may be in another country, but can allegedly be seen from certain parts of Alaska.

pH 4.13.1o

The Best of Times, the End of Times

2010-04-07T18:14:00.000-07:00

The end is near, I hear, and this time the doomsday prophets might just be right. Look at the spate of earthquakes lately and it's easy to conclude that God might indeed be angry with us. Lord knows He's got enough reasons.

I'm a Catholic, actually, and we have a direct line to God on matters such as this. So I checked it out, and He said, yes. The world's going to end. Soon. Of course, Heaven time isn't the same as Eastern Standard, or exactly in lockstep with the atomic clock. So "soon" could mean anything.

It's all over the place, this Rapture crap, taken out of the Book of Revelation (which was penned a century or so after the crucifixion of Christ). It amounts to the angry rants of an offshoot sect of Christianity, not unlike the Book of Jubilees, which was not allowed into the Bible by the men who produced it.

Since they'll apparently believe anything, conservatives who say they're ready to go "home" should know that they're off the hook now, all kinds of hooks in fact. You've already stopped paying your mortgage... Now it seems as though you don't really have to pay for anything anymore. Because, you know, these are the End Times.

Who would pay their bills if they really believed the apocalypse was upon us? That kind of eliminates the need to pay taxes, too; it's not as though the heathens and blasphemes in Washington are going to do anything good with that money anyhow. To hell with the law.

If you think about it long enough, you'll realize that the Ten Commandments today are just as obsolete as the tax code. After all, not paying your mortgage and bills amounts to stealing, so there goes the one about not doing that. And down the whole thing tumbles.

Ask David Vitter or John Ensign (or a host of other good GOP family men) about Thou Shalt Not Commit Adultery. Conservatives admire those people and champion them as their leaders. Basically, with the Big Ten out of fashion and the End Times upon us, you right-wingers can feel free to cuss out your parents, carve Buddahs from soap and violate your neighbor's donkey.

Oh, and you'll get to kill, because that's the real message of Christianity anyway. No more prohibition on that, and just in time, right? It's so much easier than building an ark...

That must be what was going through the head of Charles Wilson, 63, of Selah, Washington, who was arrested for making multiple death threats against Sen. Patty Murray. That's absolutely what was in the minds of the Hutaree militia in southeast Michigan, which planned to murder police officers in hopes of starting some sort of revolution.

Word to the wise: For those who would revolt, it will surely be the end of the world as they know it. This is not Bill Clinton's national defense. The last administration made a blunder of Biblical proportions in the Middle East a while back, and as a result, the National Guard is kind of on the hard and edgy side now.

Take your chances if you must, in Jesus' name I suppose. Have fun. And don't forget your Saint Christopher medal.

pH 4.o7.1o

Republican National Clowns

2010-04-03T10:17:00.000-07:00

Has anyone noticed the civil war going on in our midst? Not in the country. In the Republican Party. Right-wing pundits have worked the extemists of the Party into a teetering mess, bordering on the brink of terrorism. No tactic is considered off the chart because no candidate is conservative enough.

Then consider the embarrassing foibles of the Republican National Committee, with its donors' money spent curiously in bondage clubs and clothing boutiques, at liquor stores and on power-raves. As a result, the war chest is nearly empty, and the election cycle has barely just begun.

Even if RNC chairperson Michael Steele resigns (as many top Republicans have, ahem, suggested), what gives rank and file conservatives any confidence that their next hire won't be worse, say Liz Cheney or Bozo the Clown?

It all speaks to judgment and character. The GOP has displayed neither and shows no signs of doing so anytime soon.

Neither the daffy RNC nor the crazy Tea Party inspires much in the way of faith, and in those circles, faith equals money. In the minds of conservatives, God is mamman. That's why the money dried up.

The dip in private donations probably won't matter since the Supreme Court has ruled that corporations are actually people, albeit ones dispossessed from - again - judgment and character (to say nothing of a conscience). So the cash will flow in to conservative coffers this summer, and their constituents will be even less served than they were before.

No matter what, political observers expect Republicans to pull in fewer seats than the usual minority resurgence allows in a midterm election. Democrats in November will be facing a roster of broke and tattered candidates following vicious primary races fueled by Tea Party hysteria.

Besides that, they're are saddled with a track record that didn't exist in the hallowed year of Nineteen Hundred and Ninety Four. Americans pretty much understand what was done to them in the first eight years of this millennium. Putting the GOP back in power would surely beget another war, further encroachment upon our civil liberties and a complete re-collapse of the financial system.

That's why not many Democrats, in or out of office, seem overly concerned as the calendar pages turn. The opposition has spent the last year and a half offering and doing absolutely nothing. Imagine these were your employees... Oh, wait; they are. Does anyone really want to support this bunch?

Be my guest (and, unlike the telephone numbers on various RNC begging letters, I swear this is not a porn connection):

https://secure1.gop.com/site/apps/ka/sd/donorcustom.asp?c=ouITL8MRJrE&b=5403197

Go ahead. I'm sure Michael Steele could use another rack of designer clothes, or some more whips and ball-gags, perhaps a few more gallons of booze. Or, most needed of all, a colorful little car to take him and all of his friends to the center ring one more time.

pH 4.o3.1o

The Roundup

2010-04-01T00:07:00.000-07:00

Well, it came in the mail today. They always said it would, and it did. I was one who scoffed at their wild-eyed predictions, their doomsday scenarios, their dungeons in the sky. I would listen with a very small grin on my face as they spoke, picturing the obligatory tin-foil hats atop their pointy heads.

It came in the mail. How innocuous; really, what a paltry approach to this sort of thing. Give the bad news to a letter carrier and have it dropped in my mailbox. I didn't see it coming. I didn't see it arrive. And here it is in my hands, an order from my government.

Turn in your guns. By the end of the month. Not even a "please".

That's dicey for me, because I've bought and sold (or given away) an awful lot of guns in the past fifteen years. There was the 9mm I pawned, the .38 that went to the plumber as payment for service rendered, that horrible .41 magnum I sold to Tommy the Pressman. Then there was the .22 I gave to Roy for Christmas, the other .22 I swapped to Greg for a guitar, and the other .22 that went to...

Well, you get the picture. And those were just the handguns (the rifles - oh, God). Kind of hard to turn all that stuff in now. I sure hope Uncle Sam understands.

April Fool, by the way. But you knew that, didn't you? Seventeen months into his first term, President Obama hasn't bothered to take away my guns. Or your guns. Or anyone else's guns. Wait, let me guess; he just hasn't done it yet. Here's your tin foil.

The notion - no, the fear that a Democratic president is out to confiscate our weapons has been fomented by right-wing lunatics for decades now. Did Bill Clinton take our guns? No. Jimmy Carter? Nah. How about LBJ/JFK? Nope. Truman? Please. Roosevelt?

Anybody?

Never happened. It turns out that the same people who have been throwing that boogeyman under your bed every night are the same ones who told you that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. That stem cells were evil. That the rich needed tax cuts.

Now they say that Obama is a socialist. That he's not an American citizen. That health care is tyranny. That global warming is a hoax. And that the rich, of course, need even more tax cuts. It's so evident as to sting like a slap in the face.

Everything conservatives think, believe and know is wrong. That's why I support the new Obama initiative to open re-education camps for those in the minority who are so clearly headed in the wrong direction (and would like to take the rest of us with them).

Say, I did it again, didn't I? That's two pranks in one column - no fair. Oh, well. For some people, for some reason, it seems like every day is April Fool's Day.

pH 4.o1.1o

Re-peel

2010-03-30T18:38:00.000-07:00

In the wake of health care reform, Republicans in Congress have drifted into a state of arrested development, a condition not likely to change anytime soon. It is doubtful, as well, that their constituents understand what that means.

Now that the health care battle is over, the losers have discovered a new mantra, which they hope will bolster their lagging fund-raising efforts: "Repeal Obamacare." Out of sheer common courtesy, let's examine that utterly senseless idea and see where logic leads us.

In order to repeal existing law, House Republicans would have to get a dozen or so Democrats to flip their votes on something they just passed. So, taking divine intervention into account, let's assume they do so. The bill would move on to the Senate, where one out of every six Democrats would have to also change their minds.

Assuming a 16-plus percent insanity rate, let's entertain that notion, too. The bill to repeal would then find itself sitting on President Obama's desk.

"Hmmmm," he might say. "Should I sign this bill, or veto it? On the one hand, it would... But on the other, I could... Uh, no." So he would veto the bill to repeal. Conservatives would be stunned, as they so often are.

At that point, in this wonderful system of government set up for us by the Founding Fathers, the Senate would then have the opportunity to override the president's veto. That would only take 67 votes.

The fact that every single Republican in Washington is pushing this idea, that the health care reform law could possibly be repealed, shows us one of two things. They're either insincere or they're stupid.

Whichever the case may be, these people are not to be taken seriously as the nation moves forward out of the economic malaise left behind by the previous administration. Neither insincerity nor stupidity can justify a policy focus that consists of a fantasy and nothing more.

pH 3.3o.1o

I'm Trying, Ringo

2010-03-25T18:49:00.000-07:00

With health care reform in the books, one would think there would be a great American desire to move on to the next big thing, such as regulating banks or modernizing the electricity grid. While that has historically been our nature, one faction of the citizenry - conservatives - refuses to go forward with the rest of us.

I'm not talking about the GOP's lockstep opposition to, well, anything that the majority wants in this country. Such is bad enough unto itself, but the behavior of right-wing rank-and-filers has reached a screeching crescendo. Or so we had better hope.

Certainly even the most news-averse among us has heard of the mindless conservative rage being directed at Democrats for wanting us all to have health insurance. Bricks have been thrown through windows, racist and homophobic epithets hurled at lawmakers. Depictions of nooses (if not actual ones). Spitting. All of that was just on the day President Obama signed the bill.

Since then, things have gotten progressively worse, with the ugliness extending far beyond the usual threatening communiques. Just ask Rep. Tom Perriello (D., VA). Some Tea Party member, a 27-year old who still lives with Mom and Dad, posted what he thought to be Perriello's home address.

It was actually the address of the home owned by the Congressman's brother. And his brother's wife. And his brother's four little kids. It wasn't too very long before someone - a well-meaning pro-lifer no doubt - cut the gas line leading into their home.

They're sure to get plenty of sympathy from Rep. Anthony Weiner (D., NY), and his staff, and everyone else in his office building. All had to evacuate, and some had to be decontaminated, after an envelope showed up there today packed with white powder and a note saying (among other niceties) "Drop Dead".

This is strictly the stuff of Klansmen and second-tier terrorist outfits. That is what the tea-baggers have become, probably all they were to begin with. Is anyone surprised? Republican leaders in and out of Congress don't seem to be. Neither do they seem particularly interested in halting this stampede of idiocy. Sarah Palin (R., Nowhere) knows what I mean.

Then there's the case of Rep. Bart Stupak (D., MI), who held up the reform process for as long as he possibly could in the name of the unborn. Once he had secured an executive order from the White House that suited his tastes where federal funding of abortion is concerned, he abandoned his position of obstruction and voted for the bill.

His life has since become a living hell. His home and office have been bombarded with worst manner of televitriol. We're talking about the kind of language that would make Joe Biden blush. One gentleman caller went so far as to wish rectal cancer upon the Representative.

Yo, Bart. When you lie down with dogs, you come up with fleas. Nasty, bloodsucking fleas, who have the nerve to call themselves Christians.

I'm watching all of this take place, and I am mindful of the fears expressed by the African-American community long before the 2008 election, fears which have been justified by the manifold increase in death threats against our president. And I am reminded of a line uttered by Samuel Jackson in the classic Tarantino film Pulp Fiction:

There's this passage I got memorized. Ezekiel 25:17. "The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the iniquities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men. Blessed is he who, in the name of charity and good will, shepherds the weak through the valley of the darkness, for he is truly his brother's keeper and the finder of lost children. And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who attempt to poison and destroy my brothers. And you will know my name is The Lord when I lay my vengeance upon thee."

I been saying that shit for years. And if you heard it, that meant your ass. I never gave much thought to what it meant. I just thought it was some cold-blooded shit to say to a motherfucker 'fore I popped a cap in his ass. But I saw some shit this mornin' made me think twice. See, now I'm thinking, maybe it means you're the evil man, and I'm the righteous man, and Mr. Nine Millimeter here, he's the shepherd protecting my righteous ass in the valley of darkness. Or, it could mean you're the righteous man and I'm the shepherd and it's the world that's evil and selfish. I'd like that. But that shit ain't the truth. The truth is, you're the weak, and I'm the tyranny of evil men. But I'm tryin', Ringo. I'm trying real hard to be the shepherd.

Real hard.

pH 3.25.1o

Rush and Roulette

2010-03-23T05:21:00.000-07:00

What is it that they say? "Dittoes"? Or is it "mega-dittoes"?

Whatever it might be, America owes AM deejay Rush Limbaugh and his lost and lonely listeners another round of gratuitous applause. Thank you, sir, for leading your conservative audience and the Republican Party to a crushing defeat - again.

It's quite remarkable, this man's ability to motivate so many people to stampede in the wrong direction, a gift he never tires of demonstrating. Remember the 2oo6 election run-up, in which he mocked Parkinson's patient Michael J. Fox? Sheer brilliance. It only helped remove the GOP from power in Congress.

That was nothing compared to "Operation Chaosss". For those who choose to remain out of the loop, that was Rush's attempt to bleed Barack Obama in the Democratic primary, with conservatives registering as Democrats in order to push Hillary Clinton over the top. It was an abject failure.

Now he has achieved what was once thought to be impossible. Health-care reform had languished in the halls of Washington for a century before the Obama administration and the Democratic Party "rammed it down our throats". Rush fought on behalf of the insurance companies day in and day out whenever he wasn't on vacation.

Hope had actually dimmed after the election of Massachusetts Senator Scott Brown, but there was Rush, pushing it over the top with his soulless remark to an 11-year-old boy: "Your mom would have died anyway." Barely a week later, the Senate bill was approved by the House; talent on loan from God, indeed.

Today, that landmark legislation will be signed into law, and the conservative movement's hysteria has been well-documented along the way. Reports of racial and sexual epithets being hurled at lawmakers, of protestors spitting on them, of a brick being thrown through an office window, all icing on the cake that Limbaugh baked halfway.

Look, he's just an entertainer, once described as a "circus clown" by John McCain. That roughly 2.9 percent of the country is entertained by this sort of thing tells you a little bit more about a society that slows down to gawk at traffic accidents. Still, I really have to ask his listeners, those pathological losers that call themselves "ditto-heads", a couple of quick questions:

Do you really consider yourselves in the mainstream anymore, considering the fact that you have followed this corporate shill into defeat after defeat? Considering that this man's views were (twice) deemed too conservative even for the National Football Leauge, do you believe that your world view - meaning Rush's world view - jibes at all with reality?

And, by the way, how would you know?

pH 3.23.1o

The Trappings of Office

2010-03-05T17:24:00.000-08:00

Old John McCain is finally facing a serious challenger in the Republican primary. That's not to say that J.D. Hayworth is a serious person; not at all. He does, however, pose a legitimate threat to the Senate seat which McCain has occupied since Barry Goldwater left office.

As noted in a previous column in this space, Hayworth would not have much of a chance against the Maverick in a general election. The primary is a different beast altogether, dominated by the hardcore blood-drinkers of the conservative movement, the ones who have long considered McCain a RINO - Republican in Name Only.

In the past year, with the help of highly-paid lobbyists and GOP powerbrokers, those folks coagulated into a "grass-roots" movement known as the Tea Party. They strongly favor Hayworth and other candidates like him, whose anti-government and anti-immigration fervors mirror their own.

McCain is a wily creature, though. Just as he navigated to the center-left in hopes of staving off hope and change in the 2008 race against Barack Obama, he has spent the last few months listing to the right, burnishing his conservative bona fides ahead of a contest which (however illogically) he may well be destined to lose.

A funny thing happened on the way to the ballot box, though. Two of the most revered Tea Party heroes, Sarah Palin and newly-elected Senator Scott Brown of Massachussetts, have both endorsed John McCain. This is bad news for both Hayworth and the tea-baggers who love him.

The Tea Party had just shelled out over a hundred thousand dollars to Palin to deliver the keynote address at their convention. They loudly took the credit for Brown's victory over Martha Coakley, which broke the supermajority the Democrats had enjoyed in the Senate.

Palin's support for McCain was easier to rationalize; after all, for ill or for good, she was on the McCain ticket. What was she supposed to do? Brown, though, has already incurred the wrath of these so-called populists when he voted for a recent jobs bill (some were so incensed as to call him "Benedict Brown" on his facebook page).

Combined, the rejections of Hayworth by Sarah Palin and Scott Brown amount to acid being thrown in the faces of the Tea Party people. If they were just a little bit smarter, they'd have the good sense to feel used, in the seamiest sense of the word.

Oh, well. In all their brilliance, they'll no doubt take out their frustrations on someone like RNC Chairman Michael Steele. All they have to do is find out who's running against him in the next election.

pH 3.o5.1o

Bunning Scared

2010-03-02T04:12:00.000-08:00

The word "arrogant" has been aimed like a dart at President Obama's back by conservative pundits thousands of times since he took office. It's a synonym for "uppity", of course, but it doesn't really stick. If conservatives (or anyone else) would truly like to see a walking, talking example of arrogance, they can look to Republican Senator Jim Bunning of Kentucky.

It is Bunning, after all, who has put a hold on a Senate bill that would extend unemployment benefits to some 400,000 American workers. Bunning's obstruction has also laid off 2,000 federal highway workers. The same bill he stands athwart also delivers satellite signals to those in rural communities. And his stance cuts off COBRA recipients whose health insurance went out the door with their jobs.

There are ways around Jim Bunning. He doesn't actually possess the sort of muscle he's trying to flex in Washington. This is an expedited bill that would have dovetailed the new benefits with the ones that have just expired. When the entire bill goes before the Senate for a vote, he's going to be on the "yea" side, just as he was last time.

So what's his deal? Kentucky is a state that suffers from unemployment to the tune of 10.7 percent, higher than the national average, so why is he doing this to his own constituents? Nobody really knows, not even him. He'd like us to believe that he wants this spending bill to be deficit-neutral, but when the Senate wanted pay-as-you-go rules, Bunning was against that.

Whatever his problem might be, he's certainly not going to exhibit even an ounce of class as he works it out. On the floor of the Senate, while under pressure from his Democratic colleagues to release his stranglehold on the bill, Bunning responded with words that would have made Dick Cheney proud. "Tough shit," he said.

Got that? Tough shit.

On Monday, ABC News caught up with Bunning, who ducked into a "Senators-only" elevator to avoid the scrutiny which he has brought solely upon himself. The questions asked by reporters were not complicated. They just wanted to know why he was holding up the bill. He would not answer them, repeatedly yelling "excuse me" instead. As he made his escape he extended to them his middle finger. Everyone knows what that means.

Fuck you. Understand?

That has been the message from Jim Bunning, and all Republicans, to the American people for well over a year. Some will say Bunning's just a gruff guy, made so by his years in Major League Baseball (back before there were lights in stadiums). That's a hard case to make, though, since his fellow Kentucky Senator is Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.

If Bunning's approach wasn't the strategy of the GOP, McConnell would tell him to knock off the playground antics and let the bill proceed. That isn't happening. This is all a very calculated game that they're playing with our livelihoods. Lost your job? Tough shit. Don't like it? Fuck you.

These next few elections, like the last few, have come to represent more than just which Party should govern from the pilot's seat. The politics of the moment are really nothing less than a struggle for America's soul.

One Party wants to care for the sick, wants to feed the hungry, wants to shelter those who have no home. The other is the Party of Tough Shit. The Party of Fuck You. The Party of No.

As always, both Parties would like you to reward them for their actions, or punish them, accordingly. There's an old tradition in American politics. It's called voting your conscience. It only applies if you have one. Take yours for a test drive today: Jim Bunning's phone number in Washington is 202-224-4343.

pH 3.o2.1o

Shaking the Speare

2010-02-10T04:33:00.000-08:00

"Reagan proved deficits don't matter." - Dick Cheney, 2004

Tell that to the tea-baggers. While you're at it, explain to them that Ronald Reagan's deficit spending represented a far greater percentage of GDP than today's cost overruns. Of course, then you'd have to explain what GDP is, and you'd soon be wasting your time.

So what's with these people, anyway? Who the hell do they think they are? That's not a rhetorical question; they literally don't seem to know. On any given day they're apt to describe themselves as independents, conservatives, libertarians - whichever hat suits them at the time.

They're not honest, whatever they might be. If they were, they'd face certain truths, like the fact that our economy boomed under marginally higher tax rates on corporations and wealthy individuals. If they were, they'd appreciate that President Obama is keeping an honest accounting of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, unlike his predecessor.

So far, the best assessment I've heard of this self-described movement is that the tea-baggers are "angry at government". I can hear a smattering of beads rolling around in all the heads that are nodding at that one, so if you are a tea-bagger, I'd like to take this opportunity to ask you a few easy questions.

Where was this anger at government when George W. Bush was in office and his Republican cronies were in control of Congress? Where was the anger when they rolled out tax cuts for the top one percent? Where was the anger at the runaway deficits of the last decade?

Where was this single-minded fury when Bush's Treasury Secretary presented a three-page explanation for a policy that gave nearly a trillion dollars to the same investment gurus who had just driven our economy into bankruptcy? Did it hide in the same place it hid when Bush used signing statements to effectively legislate from the Oval Office?

Why was there nary a peep of discontent when the greatest failure of national security in U.S. history took place on September 11, 2001? Where was the anger when the response to said failure was to attack the wrong country in Iraq? Where was the anger when thousands of American troops were killed in that ghastly mistake of a conflict?

I wonder where the anger went when the executive branch wiretapped our phones. Or when it sifted through our e-mails. Or when they asked us to spy on each other. How much ire was raised when Bush pushed for the greatest expansion of government ever seen in this country in the name of "homeland security", ripping the 4th Amendment right out of the Constitution?

Who got pissed off when Bush slipped (not one but) two activist judges onto the Supreme Court, thereby tilting it toward corporate supremacy? Who was peeved when Bill Frist and the GOP wanted to blow up the filibuster, which has since been employed a record number of times by the same GOP?

Whose nose got out of joint when a conservative government attempted to step in and make all the health care decisions for Terri Schiavo? Or when Bush limited the kind of stem-cell research that might have helped that poor woman? Where was this anger then?

Where was the anger when the Republican Party created the largest prescription-drug giveaway in history, which was signed into law without any funding mechanism whatsoever by a Republican president? Now you're all of a sudden angry?

I guess there was no anger back then, only madness, despite all of those foibles and a few dozen more I haven't bothered to mention. So what's different today? Anything? Can you name one thing that has changed since the disastrous era of George W. Bush and Republican rule? I think most people can.

For centuries, humanity has looked to William Shakespeare for guidance in times of trouble. It doesn't really help matters, but it gives us a point of reference, a sense that we've probably seen all this before. I hope old Bill won't mind my paraphrasing one of his finer points as I make it to every one of the tea-baggers today:

Methinks thou dost protest too much... racist.

pH 2.1o.1o

Making the Grade

2010-01-29T04:03:00.000-08:00

Like so many others, I enjoyed President Obama's State of the Union address, wherein he established himself once again as the smartest person in the room (especially that room). He took his time, chiding Congress as much as he chided the banks, with an unexpected extra dollop of attention paid to the Supreme Court.

He looked very much like a man engaged to his job. Unlike Ronald Reagan, he did not dwell on the horrific mistakes of his predecessor in his first Address, although he did mention them a couple of times. It's not his saying it that makes it so - the United States is considerably better off today than it was when Obama was sworn into office.

For those both left and right of center this may be a bitter pill to swallow, but his one-year grade as president has to be an A-minus.

The economic cliff we were approaching has been averted. Yes, we have deficits, but they amount to a smaller percentage of GDP than did Reagan's or Papa Bush's deficits. And Jimmy Carter didn't plop two wars down on the Gipper's desk, either.

One of those wars is winding down. The other has received something it has desperately needed from the outset - a shot of dedication in the arm.

Obama also gets high marks for having at least lanced the boil of health care reform, a windmill at which American presidents have been tilting since the days of Harry S Truman. He has done this by staying out of the fight, insisting that Congress do the hard work. For good or ill, in the process, more public input has affected this legislation than any other of its kind.

At no time has he allowed his critics to hit the mark; unlike Bush, Obama has no inner dictator. All we've heard from the shrill voices of conservative media is Obama's penchant for Chicago-style politics. If anything, he has been too hands-off, with many Democrats yearning for the skull-cracking style of LBJ.

Through all of this, he has borne with dignity and grace the ceaseless nagging of his opponents, as well as the constant second-guessing by those who should be his biggest supporters. His commitment to bipartisanship (despite the fact that no such thing exists) is commendable and indicative of his character.

On its own, his first year looks like a neat trick, but an even better year is in front of him. Despite what you've been hearing, 2o1o is poised to be pretty good. In the State of the Union address, Obama said that jobs would be his top priority. There are four good reasons to believe that considerable job creation is forthcoming.

First is the census, which anticipates hiring 1.4 million people this time around. Second is the stimulus, which still has about half of its funding to distribute, with more than a few construction projects scheduled. Third is the growing demand for green technology.

The fourth engine of employment comes in the form of the 2o1o political campaigns themselves. This was already going to be the case, with Republicans hoping for a resurgence that belies their track record of governance. With the Supreme Court decision allowing unlimited amounts of money to be poured into campaigns, we are assured of a robust mid-term election.

And why not? Dreaming is free. Let the GOP think they're going to make up ground. They can't. Look at their performance at the Address. They sat on their hands at the mere mention of anything that the American people want and need. The Republican Party isn't just the Party of No. It's the Party of No Way, of No Ideas, of No Decency.

Yes, they've always been that, but this year is different. Conservatives have been divided by a Tea Party movement that threatens to irreparably fracture the Party. They have resorted to frat-boy tactics (only without the benefit of exposure to collegiate academics). Look no further than the recent "Phonegate" scandal in Louisiana for an example.

Anybody who wants to throw in with that crowd is welcome to do so. Go ahead. Hitch your wagon to a star. Or, at the rate they're going, a black hole.

pH 1.29.1o

Haymaker (Or: "I Got Your Free Speech Right Here, Bitch")

2010-01-25T15:10:00.000-08:00

The question was already being asked, even before the Supreme Court decided to unravel the Bill of Rights, which it did when it ruled that corporations in America have the same rights as do human beings: When do we break out the pitchforks and torches?

I got the question from a blue-collar worker about those crooked bankers and their obscene bonuses. I heard it from a small-business owner regarding conservative media that won't stop obsessing about Barack Obama. It was asked by a trans-national tech guy upset by GOP-managed state budget cuts that are aimed strictly at those on the bottom rungs of society.

They're asking me because, hey, I care about this stuff. I pay attention. I stay involved. I shine this cyber-flashlight into the dark corners that they don't dare notice. They figure I would know... When? Soon?

My answer has been, until this recent emasculation of century-old campaign finance laws, "Not yet". There's always got to be a better way, I have supposed, than to go dragging out the powerful and reducing them to fertilizer. Now I don't know.

The tea-baggers have shown us all that it's okay to get as riled up as we've been since the Civil War. Guns at town-hall meetings? That's acceptable behavior today. Screaming down elected officials? Just playing the game. Punching your ideological foes in the mouth to the point where they feel compelled to bite off your fingers? It's all good.

Five Supreme Court Justices who were appointed by Republican presidents have stepped into this imbroglio. Rather than merely ruling on the merits of a case involving a Hilary Clinton hack film, Justices Roberts, Kennedy, Alito, Thomas and Scalia decided that corporations have First Amendment protection allowing them to give as much money as they like to political campaigns.

Given the types of judges that Republican presidents have been keen to appoint, this day was predictable, and may be irreversible. Their actions are worthy of impeachment by Congress; fat chance. Whatever the case, these five are never to be taken seriously again when they claim to care (or even know) about the Constitution of the United States.

The decision is as ridiculous as it is subversive. Simply put, corporations are not people. They aren't born. They have no life span. They can't be imprisoned or executed for the crimes they commit.

In the past few years, many of them have received billions of dollars in taxpayer bailout money. We pumped their profits into our gas tanks. That money will be turned back on us in the form of campaign contributions which will be used to squash anyone who opposes them. Anyone.

Republicans, of course, have no problem with this because Big Business generally throws the money their way. That's what happens when they know a Party can be bought and sold for a mere pittance. Everyone else is calling it the end of democracy. Some are even comparing it to Mussolini's Italy - where the fascists also wore black shirts.

Maybe it is. If so, one can take solace in the pages of history, since Il Duce's grotesque experiment didn't last more than a few years and, anyway, it all ended quite badly for him:

http://www.pierretristam.com/images/110606-mussolini.jpg

Have we been driven that far? "Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God," said Thomas Jefferson, and he meant it. But we don't have Jefferson's gumption. Not yet.

Can't we simply use our magnificent social network technology - Twitter, for instance - to organize a punitive boycott of, say, Home Depot if that corporation uses its profits to wipe out a pro-union candidate (as it surely will)? Wouldn't that work?

It seems like Americans sure hope so. If not, then all I can tell a fellow citizen is that pitchforks only cost about thirty bucks these days, and you can still find them at most any hardware store. Like Home Depot.

pH 1.25.1o

The End of Health Care Reform as We Know It

2010-01-20T04:20:00.000-08:00

Even as President Barack Obama celebrates his first year in office, a political beanbag comes flying out of right field, as the Democrats have lost Ted Kennedy's senate seat to a Republican. This guarantees that the struggles of the past year will soon be looked back upon as the good old days.

Scott Brown is the new senator from Massachusetts, having Hailed Mary over his Democratic opponent, one Martha Coakley. Now, glum liberals are left to ponder what might've been, with their "filibuster-proof" majority rendered to the footnotes of history. Gleeful conservatives, at the same time, find their sails filled in a way that must seem unfamiliar to them.

Each side will spin the results of this special election to their own liking. Is it a referendum on the Democrats? Or on health care reform? Or even on Obama himself? The left wing will say no; it's just a sign that it wasn't really Ted Kennedy's Massachusetts anymore. The right wing will say that it is, and they'll gyrate to country music while saying it.

The Tea Party types will try to take the credit for Brown's unexpected victory (as will the RNC) and will trumpet this as America's return to conservative principles. Progressives will try to diminish this by blaming Coakley herself for not trying hard enough. Neither is entirely true. Both are right.

Can it be that America, after all the Bushies put her through, is still a center-right nation beholden to conservatism? Or is it something that she is afflicted with, the way a dog has fleas whether it wants to have them or not? Once those questions have been put through the sifter, an even harder one will have to be addressed by all:

Is health care reform dead? This is about the united stakes of America. The bill that has been churning in the sausage grinder all year long is not, when you really look at it, that good for anyone except the big insurance companies. Sure, it would have made them accept folks with pre-existing condtions, but it didn't cap premiums and it didn't give us a public option.

Nobody liked it, not from the time it burst forth from Max Baucus's Finance Committee, and for various reasons. The biggest afront it posed came in the form of The Mandate. Only the most dedicated of liberals didn't get squeamish in the face of that. In a free country, the government doesn't issue mandates, at least not where matters of choice are concerned.

With a year of hard work likely frittered to the wind, we are much more likely to see something done in reconciliation, where existing programs can be tweaked by Congress without a 60-vote majority. In other words, they'll lower Medicare's eligibility age to zero, putting those insurance companies completely out of business.

Then you'll hear some howling from Republicans and the insurance companies they so love. And they'll still be too stupid to realize they have only themselves to blame.

pH 1.2o.1o

Arizona: In a Nutshell

2010-01-09T07:06:00.000-08:00

As red states go there aren't many that can match the particular shade of crimson found in Arizona. Despite its national torment, the GOP has maintained a stranglehold on our state legislature for time immemorial, which makes for an excellent case study, as Democrats are literally (and continuously) blocked from participating in the budget process.

How have the Republicans fared? Not well, if you can believe such iffy indicators as bookkeeping and arithmetic, which project a budget deficit of around $2 billion. The only thing more telling than past performance is their laundry list of solutions to the economic morass that has materialized on their watch.

Republican governor Jan Brewer, who has been on the job for well over a year now, keeps saying the solution lies in a "temporary" one-cent state sales tax. Given that most Arizonans already pay about eight cents on the dollar, this would represent a net tax hike of 12.5 percent across the board, recession or no recession.

Meanwhile, the governor is pushing - well, pulling - for a "phased reduction" in corporate income tax rates, even though Arizona ranks in line with other states of similar scale, such as North Carolina, Oregon and Virginia, and far lower than such places as Indiana, Minnesota or Pennsylvania. She says this will lead (somehow) to job creation.

It's as if Reaganomics hadn't already fallen flat on its face, as George W. Bush's wetnursing of Big Business yielded just 4.8 million jobs over an eight-year period, and bled red ink the whole way. (Compare that to the tenure of Bill Clinton, whose tax-and-spend policies created some 23 million jobs, and balanced the federal budget at the same time.)

As usual, conservative lawmakers have also reached for the meat axe, hoping to chop their way out of the shortfall they created. The latest trimming came to $100 million, but the legislature wanted to hack off much more, with Brewer vetoing more than double that amount in proposed cuts to K-12 education.

They've also slated no fewer than eight state parks for closure. This is not merely a travesty for the locals, or a reduction in fees collected; it also makes Arizona less of a destination for tourists and the money they spend. How much sense does that make when tourism impacts our economy to the tune of a million dollars a day?

ADOT had its workforce cut by one-third, and will close 12 of its MVD offices this year, mandating that some residents travel 100 round-trip miles for services. Arizona Department of Public Safety (i.e., highway patrol) saw a budget reduction of 15 percent. State university funding shrank by $141 million.

In the meantime, many municipal services are being slashed, including public transit. Arizona has lost a greater percentage of jobs than most states, even Michigan. A good many states are in the same leaky boat, but only here do the attempted fixes amount to a game of Blind Man's Bluff.

All in all, nobody seems to be particularly optimistic about the near future, and yet they also seem quite content to keep sending Republicans back into their elected offices. Mental health experts will readily identify this behavior as sadomasochism.

In Arizona, we just call it business as usual.

pH 1.o9.1o

The Last Mindbender

2010-01-05T05:10:00.000-08:00

Yes, I know. I wrapped up my year early. Haven't written a damn thing since December 1st of 2oo9. You've been ignored, neglected, left in a small dark room on your own. What got to me? Was it a medically-induced coma due to the horrific effects of H1N1 flu? (No... I beat that on my own, actually, long before 12/1.) Did Homeland Security finally decide enough was enough and send out the cloaks to bring me in? No... Well, what then?

It was nothing. I got tired of swinging away on the 565-yard, par-6 hole that was 'o9 and so, like that other golfer you may have heard a lot about lately, I picked up my ball. That's what you have to do sometimes. Just pick up the ball and go on to the next hole and hope you'll have better luck there.

Besides, you know how holiday weekends are, filled with obligations and parties and shopping and shipping and writing out cards and wiping ear sweat off the screen on your cell phone. We're all bound by the same ties, at least for this certain part of the year, right? Hell, without you readers, I even made time to go see a movie at the theater, which is a rare treat for me.

We went and saw Avatar. Nobody hasn't heard of Avatar, the super-digital 3D smash hit by James Cameron, which is still selling out IMAX screens weeks after its release. It was every millimeter as stunning as you've heard it was. So amazing are the special effects that the fairly pedestrian plot and the three hours in a theater seat are so easily forgiven as to go unnoticed.

On the way home, though, Avatar begin to strike me as something different. The themes contained in the movie were, well, pretty liberal. Extremely, in fact, liberal. I'm not one of these sadists who wants to ruin the movie for everyone, so I'll generalize as much as possible in my agenda-checklist:

- The first line of narrative dialogue disparages the Veterans Administration and its care of wounded soldiers. Hello, Walter Reed.

- The human militia that protects the corporate interests on Planet Pandora are made up of former troops just looking to make a buck. Goodbye, Blackwater.

- Corporate greed causes a shocking disregard for anything that might be remotely considered sacred in pursuit of profits driven by untapped planetary resources. There are too many Earthly comparisons, but oil may suffice as the most obvious.

- Fear of other races versus acceptance of other races.

- Destruction of the environment as opposed to preservation of the environment.

- The notion that people with disabilities can (and should) still contribute to causes greater than themselves.

- The belief in Earth (well, Pandora) as God and God as Earth (or Pandora).

Cameron did everything but advocate for an Avatar abortion. That's probably because he was unable to have an affair with any of the actual Avatar actresses (see Titanic). These are the least of things which have already offended conservative bloggers, although the mainstream media has clearly turned the other cheek and acted as if they had seen nothing at all.

For the distinct minority's part, their mechanized responses have been joyous to read. I haven't even mentioned the parts about socialized medicine, populist unity or conservative rejection of the scientific method. But it's all in there, trust me. And it's all aimed at - you guessed it - the children.

Is Avatar indeed a progressive splinter that will cause the minds of young people to ooze out the liberal agenda for as long as they live? Is it subliminal indoctrination to the extreme? Yes, it is, and that leaves me just one more thing to say about it.

Good!

pH 1.o5.1o

State of the Unions

2009-12-01T04:26:00.000-08:00

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

McCain v. Hayworth

2009-11-29T08:29:00.000-08:00

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

Backyard Talk

2009-11-13T16:20:00.000-08:00

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

On Veterans Day

2009-11-11T05:06:00.000-08:00

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

Recovery Less Jobs

2009-11-08T03:25:00.000-08:00

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

Peas in a Pod

2009-10-28T10:23:00.000-07:00

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

Worse Than The Disease

2009-10-20T17:51:00.000-07:00

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

No Sweat

2009-10-17T09:17:00.000-07:00

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.)

Peace Out

2009-10-10T08:28:00.000-07:00

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

Finish What We Started

2009-09-29T16:41:00.000-07:00

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

Hammer and Stickle

2009-09-21T05:41:00.000-07:00

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

Thanks for Nothing

2009-09-17T05:36:00.000-07:00

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

George Wept

2009-09-10T17:38:00.000-07:00

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

What About the Children?

2009-09-04T17:31:00.000-07:00

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

A Moving Experience

2009-09-02T09:00:00.000-07:00

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

Asking For It

2009-08-31T17:44:00.000-07:00

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

The Lion Sleeps Tonight

2009-08-26T17:47:00.000-07:00

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

...Lest Ye Be Tortured

2009-08-25T18:13:00.000-07:00

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

Scared to Death

2009-08-21T04:58:00.000-07:00

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

Senile Implants

2009-08-15T08:48:00.000-07:00

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

Rally 'Round the Family

2009-08-12T05:45:00.001-07:00

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

Odds Against All

2009-08-10T19:09:00.001-07:00

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

Urban Legend No. 57348: Conscience of a Conservative

2009-08-08T08:28:00.000-07:00

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

Doctor, Doctor (Give Me The News)

2009-08-06T05:22:00.000-07:00

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

Crazy Is As Crazy Does

2009-07-24T16:41:00.000-07:00

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

Ask a Stupid Question

2009-07-20T17:28:00.001-07:00

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

Try To See It My Way

2009-07-13T20:35:00.000-07:00

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

Requiem for a Lightweight

2009-07-05T06:47:00.001-07:00

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

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

2009-07-01T17:40:00.000-07:00

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

Cry For Mark Sanford, Argentina

2009-06-24T17:19:00.000-07:00

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

Strapped

2009-06-22T17:37:00.000-07:00

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

... And Then There Are California Democrats

2009-06-19T18:50:00.000-07:00

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

And Away She Goes

2009-06-18T17:59:00.001-07:00

For a great many Arizonans there was but one silver lining to Barack Obama's stunning victory over John McCain last November: The new president took our Democratic governor with him to the White House.

Janet Napolitano had no problem getting elected, or re-elected, governor despite a clear advantage for Republicans in voter registration numbers in Arizona. It must have been those pesky Independents who turned the tide for her (twice).

While she did not govern as a liberal in the classic sense, she was still a Democrat, and her sheer presence in office was enough to curb the most rabid of conservative sensibilities in the state legislature. There was a tacit understanding that Janet's pro-business stance insulated her from becoming a target for the usual ideological attacks. Some on the left considered it a flaw, actually.

Now she serves as our nation's third Secretary of Homeland Security. One of her first acts as a federal employee was to issue a report saying, in a nutshell, that right-wing militant groups were growing in number and that violence was a likely prospect for our future. Republicans across the dial went ballistic.

They accused Napolitano of trying to "chill" freedom of expression and whatnot. They took umbrage with the perceived stereotype of the GOP as a bastion for Klansmen and the like... And then came the killing of a Wichita abortion doctor - while he was in church - followed by a deadly armed rampage at the Holocaust Museum in D.C., heinous crimes committed by conservative extremists.

Napolitano's prescience will be missed by all Arizona voters, and if she can keep her head above water, her blinders-off method of dealing with reality will serve the nation well. She certainly takes the notion of homeland security more seriously than either of her predecessors.

Her gubernatorial substitute, Jan Brewer, has already tilted the lance against her own Party with a couple of tax increases - something Janet studiously avoided. More recently, she had to file a lawsuit against the legislature for failing to forward to her the latest budget, in accordance with the state Constitution.

Brewer already seems tired of the gamesmanship that always goes on in Arizona (it seems we just don't pay our lawmakers enough) and isn't likely to run for office in 2010. Nobody knows what sort of fruit will be borne by the next electoral season. We have before us a blank canvas, a terrifying thing in any red state, to be sure.

As for Napolitano, she's already used to the potshots, and won't have the time to deal with such trivia anyhow. She'll be lucky if she can even get around to reforming our color-coded terror alert system. Hurricane season's just around the corner.

pH 6.18.o9

Politicians that Americans Want

2009-06-12T15:43:00.000-07:00

As two of the Big Three U.S. automakers have slid into bankruptcy, drastically altering the domestic market forever, a dispute has arisen over "cars that Americans want." Conservatives seem to believe this means gas-guzzling trucks, SUVs and sports cars while most Democrats (certainly those in power today) think we'll all be better off in more fuel-efficient cars.

The Republican penchant for rugged individualism somehow translates into more pistons and more gallons of gasoline being burned per mile. But they also have emitted quite a bit of hot air talking about energy independence, which logically runs afoul of their hatred for "putt-putt" vehicles.

Asking them to make sense is foolish, since nobody has ever succeeded in deciphering their schizophrenic views, and voters have long since lost interest in trying. Therefore, only factual data is required to assess and answer this question, and there is plenty of that.

One needs only to review the top-ten selling cars in America. The vehicle most often purchased in the United States in 2008 was the Ford F-150 pickup truck. Solidly in second place was the Chevrolet Silverado pickup truck. With a nearly 50-50 split between rural and urban populations, that makes sense.

Only one domestic car made the grade, the Chevrolet Impala, a mid-size sedan which ranks eighth among cars sold in this country. Just one other pickup truck was listed - the Dodge Ram, ranked ninth. Only one SUV made the roster, at number ten, the Honda CR-V (one of the most fuel-efficient SUVs on the market).

The rest of the list reads like the index of Consumer Reports. Third is the Toyota Camry. Fourth is the Honda Accord. Fifth is the Toyota Corolla. Sixth is the Honda Civic. Seventh is the Nissan Altima. No matter who tells you what, those are the cars that the public wants.

The Big Three doesn't really make cars like those. When American automakers do put out fuel-efficient cars, those seem to lack in either real or perceived quality. It is worth noting, though, that two of Ford's econo-boxes are ranked among the top ten models sold in Europe.

When one looks at things with agenda-free glasses it becomes clear: Unwavering production of the vehicles that conservatives say Americans "want" put these once-mighty companies out of business. It's no surprise that similar defects in thinking have put the GOP in much the same position.

pH 6.12.o9

Push, Pull or Tug

2009-05-30T07:51:00.000-07:00

Having never been particularly adept at story-problems, Republicans seem absolutely vexed as to how they should approach President Obama's nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court. This goes well beyond the racially tinged spitting-up that has come all week from a full-throated conservative punditry.

Anti-abortion groups immediately sounded the alarm, as they always do, even though Roe v Wade has been decided case law for about 35 years now. This is hardly the most egregious of pro-choice candidates; even groups like NARAL are worried about the fact that Sotomayor would be the sixth Catholic on the Supreme Court.

(Which is preternatural unto itself, given that America has only elected one Catholic president in all its history, that being John F. Kennedy.)

Tracing this judge's legal footsteps doesn't reveal an overt bias one way or the other. As anyone could have guessed, Obama wasn't about to nominate someone who isn't a centrist, a tendency reflected in most of his Cabinet picks. It means nothing to religious conservatives - whose representatives routinely oppose healthcare for children - as they urge their Christian soldiers onward.

Another group of single-issue voters, those who value the Second Amendment above all the others in the Constitution, is incensed by the selection of Sotomayor. They point to several of her opinions (including those expressed while in college) which held that gun ownership is not a states-rights issue, or even necessarily an individual right.

It turns out her findings were based upon law that had since been superceded by the Fourteenth Amendment, so she was indeed wrong, as the Supreme Court summarily ruled. She'd have to recuse herself, the way Antonin Scalia often does, from ruling on any case that had already been before her in the appellate court. Furthermore, the Supremes are not closely divided on the matter; hers would be a lonely point of view among the nine Justices.

Then there are those, like the Judicial Conference Network, who profess concern about Sotomayor's brand of "judicial activism". They act like Terri Schiavo had never lived or died, or had her good name kicked around in the press for weeks, with a bunch of taped-mouth lunatics packed in front of her hospice while Republicans ran from judge to judge in order to keep that poor woman alive - and a vegetable.

This criticism also comes from the same legion of yawning ideologues who did nothing when Judge Thomas Hogan jailed a reporter from TIME magazine, even though he (and they) knew all along that it was the Bush administration that had leaked the identity of CIA operative Valerie Plame. There's no questioning their insincerity.

One thing has become clear in all of this, early in the game as it may be, and it is an illustrative thing at that: No matter what else happens, no matter who throws what kind of mud, Sotomayor is a lock to get confirmed. Everybody knows that. So what does it teach us?

It teaches us that special-interest groups don't have nearly as much influence, for which they paid millions and millions of dollars over the years, as they believed. In the end, the only thing any U.S. Senator cares about is remaining a U.S. Senator, and they're not about to risk the votes of every Hispanic (regardless of gender) and every woman (regardless of race) in their home states.

It also turns out that none of these wannabe powerbrokers - not the pro-lifers, not the NRA, not whatever anti-judicial-activists might be - none of them represent mainstream issues or ideas. If they did, their Senate servants would go to the mat for them, but in Sotomayor's case they simply won't do it.

This phenomenon may result in a dramatic (and long overdue) calving of these champions of zealotry from the GOP. All that's left, really, is the kicking and the screaming. That's the story, and for Republicans, it's a problem.

pH 5.3o.o9

Order in the Court

2009-05-28T05:58:00.000-07:00

Barack Obama's nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court has quickly been acknowledged, by all segments of the political spectrum, as sheer political brilliance. When she is confirmed (and she will be overwhelmingly), it will mark only the third time in American history that a woman holds such a position, and will be the first such occasion for a Hispanic.

Republicans don't dare put up too much of a fight against the nominee. While their national "leaders" would love to see that happen, these Senators have to go home and face their electorates at some point or other. With the odd exception here and there, like Jon Kyl of Arizona, the process should be rather meek.

What opposition has been raised centers not on the usual abortion litmus test but on the idea that Sotomayor would be more of a policy-maker than a jurist. Conservatives also claim to dislike the entire "identity politics" factor in this nomination process - not that such was a concern when Ronald Reagan appointed Sandra Day O'Connor to the bench.

Another soft gripe will be that Sotomayor is not a "strict constructionist". That might hold water had ultra-right-winger Antonin Scalia not made that famous speech in which he actually compared the Constitution to "Plasticman", saying that the document does indeed "morph" before his very eyes.

They'll also despise her, even as her confirmation sails through the Senate, for not being a corporate robot like the two Justices installed by George W. Bush and the GOP, John Roberts and Samuel Alito. Her less-than-priveleged upbringing will add a slice of common sensibility that has been absent for far too long in our highest court.

Other than all of that, it's not much of a story, and that is the beauty of Obama. He has just taken the most daunting task that any president faces in domestic politics - the nomination of a Supreme Court Justice - and reduced it to about the same degree of difficulty as baking cookies.

He is as formidable a political figure as we have ever known. Thank God he's on the side of the American people, unlike those conservatives who still think they have a place at the ideological table, a concept that grows more laughable with each passing week.

pH 5.28.o9

'Til Death Do Us Part

2009-05-20T18:54:00.001-07:00

Thou shalt not kill. (Anonymous)

This week the Arizona Department of Corrections, at its Perryville Prison, violated perhaps the most important of the Ten Commandments. The state killed an inmate, and for once, they did it in the light of day. Straight from the local radio station's website:

PHOENIX (AP) Arizona corrections officials are investigating the death of a female inmate who collapsed after spending nearly four hours in an outdoor holding cell on a day when the temperature hit 103. Marcia Powell, who was serving a 27-month sentence for prostitution, was put in the uncovered chain-link cell at a state prison in Goodyear about 11 a.m. Tuesday. She collapsed about 2:30 p.m. Tuesday and died at a Phoenix-area hospital early Wednesday.

Never mind how much sense it makes to incarcerate someone for more than two years for prostitution. Is ADOC in some kind of twisted competition with uber-sadist Joe Arpaio, the killer Sheriff of Maricopa County, in whose custody too many inmates have turned up deceased? He's only cost the taxpayers about $14 million in wrongful-death payouts... so far.

How many times do we citizens have to read about these horrors? Sometimes it's children who die. Ask the relatives of Nicholaus Contreraz. He was just 16 when he collapsed and expired in the tender care of the state-run Arizona Boys Ranch in 1998. At the time, he was being forced to carry a bucket of his own vomit.

Of course, sometimes law enforcement (or what passes for it around here) doesn't even wait to place a subject in custody before rendering him a corpse. Nothing can really justify the 24 bullet wounds that brought down another teenager, Julio Valerio, in 1996 - not the meth in his system, not even the bloody knife in his hand. Or the 30 shots that struck Rudy Buchanan, out of the 89 that were fired, just the year before.

Prior to those cases, the gold standard was that of Edward Mallet in 1994, a double-amputee who was strangled to death in the street by Phoenix Department of Public Safety officers. That only cost the city $45 million.

How lucky, then, was Ray Krone? That poor guy was convicted of a murder he did not commit. He was scheduled for capital punishment when DNA absolved him of the crime and he was set free in 2002, the 100th American since 1973 to experience such a thing, after ten years and four months on death row. It sure beats dying like a dog in an outdoor kennel in the sweltering desert heat.

Incidentally, the NRA was in town last week, holding a convention that drew tens of thousands of concerned Arizonans. I don't subscribe to the paranoia about the gub'ment wanting to take away our guns - that's just unadulterated right-wing nonsense.

They do have a point, though, that the citizenry needs to keep and bear arms. I get it. To defend ourselves against the bad guys. Of course, everyone knows that when the Founding Fathers hammered out the Second Amendment, they considered "the bad guys" to be agents of tyranny - authority gone bad.

Now, we're all left to scratch our heads and wonder, what's wrong with the State of Arizona? It seems we're dying to find out.

pH 5.2o.o9

Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground

2009-05-19T05:48:00.000-07:00

With the knowledge that it's been said before, honestly, I might have to hang up my spurs. The Republican Party, after failing for so many years now to connect with the majority of Americans, is now hanging its battered fedora on a most ridiculous peg. They're trying to pin the Bush administration's torture policies on Democrats.

Specifically, they're asking the very tired question of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, "What did she know and when did she know it?" Pelosi has fired back in a fit of anger. Her flypaper story is that the CIA told her that "enhanced interrogation techniques" had been used on detainees, but that waterboarding was not one of those techniques.

Conservatives say otherwise, intimating that Pelosi understood fully that people were being tortured, so Bush was cleared on this. Never mind that Pelosi's Party lost the Senate in a matter of weeks following her debriefing. Never mind that the Bush torture policies continued through the next six years (as did wiretapping). All that matters is that Pelosi knew.

If she did, and if she approved of such un-American activities, then she should be driven from her Speakership if not from the Congress altogether. And she can take the monstrous Jane Harman with her. Pelosi hasn't been reliable since committing her first public sin in 2oo6 when she refused to consider impeaching Bush, Cheney et al for any number of Constitutional crimes.

In the meantime, GOP attack dogs like Michael Steele (not to mention the circus clowns of right-wing media) have continued to flail away at President Obama, making the same failed arguments that lost them the last election. They are the Party of panic; when they're not beset by it, they're instilling it in others.

Looking at the nation through reality-colored glasses one realizes that so many things have not happened in the past six months since the election. The Democrats didn't take our guns away. They haven't dined with terrorists. They didn't reinstate the draft. They didn't blow our taxes through the ceiling - they didn't even rescind the Bush tax cuts.

Republicans, although they did try to suck the life out of this country, are not one-hundred-percent vampires. Their fangs have been extracted by a public that took way too long to become concerned. Could they come back? Absent due vigilance on our part, sure, they could.

So could I?

Absolutely.

pH 5.19.o9

One Flu Over the Cuckoo's Nest

2009-04-28T17:45:00.000-07:00

Out of all the things that have cost America plenty, tops on the list would have to be the 24-hour news cycle. One of the most precious items that has been strip-mined from our national conscience is the ability, or even the desire, to say, "Let me sleep on it."

First it was the war in Iraq. Then it was your mortgage. Later on came the bank bailouts. Now it's the swine flu.

Hospitals and clinics are bracing themselves for the onslaught of a brand new virus, the likes of which hasn't afflicted this country since the Spanish Flu in 1918. Schools are being closed. The disease has broken containment from Mexico, where it began, and is now considered a global threat.

It's a big deal, worthy of a massive government response, right? C'mon, right? Yesterday, this was cause for quite some concern. Rather than fading into the next day's fare, however, I found it came out of an overnight gestation with something of a cynical twist.

Having slept on it, I conclude, bring it on. I grew up in Michigan, where you exchange bodily fluids with about five thousand insects each week during the summer. I've been immersed in - have swallowed - Great Lakes water with its varying degrees of mercury and atomic slurry. I ate cafeteria food, for two years, at Milwood Junior High School.

So, then, influenza. Something that comes around every year, we're in a fit of panic over that, the flu? People, our enemies are watching, and carefully. They study our every move, and ask themselves, what can we do that will really freak the Americans out this time? Now they know.

If we were in a movie, the leading role would more likely be played by Dustin Hoffman, or maybe Rick Moranis, than say Clint Eastwood or John Wayne. Was this subject not covered on an episode of Leave it to Beaver? Or was it Family Affair? Was it even remotely alarming back then - when we were CHILDREN?

More worrisome than the bug itself is the fact that Janet Napolitano, formerly the governor of Arizona, is now the head of Homeland Security. Given a full-blown pandemic, something on the scale of 1918, could she quarantine entire cities such as Tucson or Phoenix?

Sure she could. But so far all she's told us to do is wash our hands and cover our mouths when we cough or sneeze. (Translation: We're already dead.) And she sees no point in closing the border, noting with an official shrug that this strain has been identified everywhere from Canada to New Zealand.

Even in Mexico, where there have been nearly 200 deaths already, the response is just a bit surreal. Thousands of drug-related homicides last year didn't faze those poor people, but the flu has emptied the streets.

Anyway. The point is that a person can often get a better - or least a different - perspective on the big issues if he or she takes the time to sleep off the initial emotion. Letting the dust settle, however you make time for doing so, can be a good thing...

So tomorrow would be a much better day to tell you what I really think of Arlen Specter.

pH 4.28.o9

Seceding Hairline Fracture

2009-04-23T06:14:00.000-07:00

The past is not dead. In fact, it's not even past. - William Faulkner

***

Did you notice the so-called Tea Parties held across the country on April 15th? Or were you too busy filing to care? In some locations, thousands of Americans responded to the sirens of conservative media... In other places it was more like dozens.

These folks were protesting things like federal spending, big government and (of course) taxation. Never mind that the corporate tax rate is today what it was in the 1950s, or that the Bush regime spent us into the largest expansion of government in history. It's not sense they're looking for.

That puts them in a peculiar category, and at long last it must be said: The Republican Party is the Confederacy, geographically, demographically and practically. This would be a particularly intense perversion given that Abraham Lincoln was the first Republican.

This could explain why right-wingers have become so intensely agitated by the presidency of Barack Obama. This comes after the South actually did rise again - but said resurrection only lasted for eight years (about as long as the Third Reich).

In all of modern New England - the cradle of our nation and the place where our freedom was won - and in nearly all the original Colonies, nary a conservative lawmaker exists. To find them you have to go to places where the Stars and Bars once were, and sometimes still are, flown.

Look at where the Republican Party resides today. In the South. Across the Mountain West - Texas, Utah, Idaho, Wyoming, Arizona, the Dakotas. That's the Trail of Fears trod by the Rebel diaspora who could not stand to remain in the South during the horrors of Reconstruction.

Remember George Allen, with his "real Virginia" remarks aimed at "Macaca", a person of Central Asian descent who happened to work for Jim Webb (who won the election)? Look and listen; the mantra of the GOP today is precisely what the mantra of the Confederacy was 145 years ago.

Secede. That sharp word was proudly uttered in a recent public speech made by Texas Governor Rick Perry. It all but oozes out of the ground in Alaska where Sarah Palin's husband was, for years, a card-holding member of a party dedicated to secession from the United States.

What has changed? Instead of bombing Union railways or Black churches, Southern nut-cases like Eric Rudolph turned their deadly habits upon abortion clinics. What would inspire someone to commit such acts of terrorism?

Same thing that was used to justify slavery not so many generations ago, that staple of GOP fundraising, the Bible. Clearly this proclivity for twisting existing doctrine (such as a major political Party or the Constitution) is nothing new.

It's glaring in our history. We've dealt with it before. But that sure as Hell doesn't mean it's past.

pH 4.22.o9

Franken Buries Coleman

2009-04-17T16:25:00.000-07:00

Hey, Minnesota, have you had enough yet? Truly, can there be any greater assault on the manhood of a State than to say, "You've only got one nut (in the Senate)"? I bet that stings almost as much as the fleeting memory of a certain Little Brown Jug.

As former Saturnday Night Live! comedian and duly elected representative Al Franken waits for the will of Minnesotans to be put into full effect, Republicans everywhere are wailing and gnashing their teeth, and they don't mean to stop anytime soon.

Even with the Minnesota Supreme Court validating the election results, other odious members of the GOP continue to push former Senator Norm Coleman to take his fight to the U.S. Supreme Court. In their wild-eyed desperation, they're also leaning on Governor Tim Pawlenty not to certify the election results - never mind his aspirations for national office.

Conservatives mask their raw obstructionism by invoking the rights of every voter to cast, and have counted, a ballot. Such concern was nowhere to be found shortly after the election. Back then, with an apparent lead, Coleman called on Franken to concede in order to save the taxpayers the cost of a recount even though such was mandated by state law.

Coleman lucked into that seat anyway, as he stood little chance against incumbent Democrat Paul Wellstone in 2oo2, but Wellstone died in a plane crash just weeks before the election and the Democrats inexplicably countered with Walter Mondale. Since he didn't exactly arrive with a mandate, getting dumped for Franken shouldn't be so shocking.

Whenever Franken gets seated (the opposition threatens to somehow filibuster even that) the Democrats will have little need of Republican support in order to pass any sort of legislation they like. Conservatives have thus abandoned all manner of pride in this venture. They realize this is embarrassing but they can't afford to care.

Neither, then, can the good people of Minnesota. Recent polls tell us that nearly two-thirds of them want Coleman to concede already and get this past election over with before the next one begins. They're probably not very happy with Pawlenty's mime act, either.

Keep in mind, based on the weather alone, that these are not fickle people in Minnesota. Remember Jesse Ventura? Don't laugh; save it for your first encounter with Michelle Bachmann.

Eventually this current charade will come to a halt, and Norm "God Wants Me To Serve" Coleman will be tossed out with the rest of the of 'o8 Republicans. So Minnesotans can take solace in two things. One is that Barack Obama genuinely wants to avoid any further bridge collapses in your state (and every other).

Better yet is this: At least you're not... quite... Alaska.

pH 4.17.o9

Confidence of a Conservative

2009-04-08T06:05:00.000-07:00

So, Republican, are you over it yet? Barack Obama soundly defeated John McCain nearly six months ago. He's been in the Oval Office for a full ten weeks. He's submitted his first budget, held his first news conference, made his first visit to the troops in Iraq. Still the right-wing din has yet to subside.

This president's every move, every word, is grist for the mill - which is fine. Political discourse is the keystone of our freedom and always has been. The stuttering, apocalyptic gaggle of talk-show hosts has to earn their pay like everybody else. Every stable requires men with shovels.

On a personal level, though, many people are still very angry and upset about their fortunes trending forward. The latest polls indicate that barely 20 percent of Americans now trust the GOP to solve our nation's economic woes. As a wise man once said, childrens do learn.

This means that the confidence of conservatives has sunk even below the levels they felt in the closing days of the Bush administration. This statistical impotence is easily explained by a vast body of evidence; what exactly did they achieve in all the time they held power?

That doesn't explain the anger, though, the rage that so many on the right still harbor toward our new president or any other Democrat they can think of. For said explanation, one need only turn on one's radio. The airwaves are full of stock derision if not outright hostility.

That's not really a surprise to anyone who has ever listened to more than one segment of talk-radio. Every other monologue (parroted by caller after caller) is laced with incendiary diatribes and wild-eyed rhetoric, most of which boils down to "liberals are destroying America".

Their other most favorite thing to say is that "Obama is dangerous". That's a strong word, alarming, meant to elicit an emotional response... Like the man's going to start a war, or wiretap the citizenry, or something.

Some would say the unending assault on our highest government officials, elected as they were by a clear majority to put this country back together, constitutes an obscenity. We may not be able to define it, but we know it when we see it. Or hear it.

Delivered day after day, such language does not constitute dissent; it is the equivalent of hollering fire! in a crowded theater. Fighting words are designed to keep conservatives from cooling off already. Whipping them into a frenzy seems designed (or at least destined) to send the mentally weak over the edge. It's nothing new.

Such is not protected free speech. Should some deranged conservative, unable to control himself (or herself), take these people just a bit too seriously... Well, obviously, someone ought to be held responsible as an accessory. Let the punishment fit the crime.

pH 4.o8.o9

Thank You For Your Service

2009-04-04T08:17:00.000-07:00

Any serious analysis of our current economic condition requires a point of origin wherein all sides can agree. Right? Okay, then: In this day and age there can be no lower forms of life on Earth, microbial or otherwise, than banks.

Marie, a cosmetologist by trade, served in the United States Air Force during the Cold War. She worked on the air conditioning units for the vaunted A-10 Warthog, serving overseas in the mid-1980s, when Ronald Reagan was rattling his saber at the Evil Empire on nearly every public occasion.

Marie left the Air Force in 1988 with an honorable discharge after having attained the rank of Staff Sergeant. Along with her DD-214 came a VA loan guaranty, which she filed away, content to let it ride until she needed to buy a home.

All through the housing run-up, she rented whatever place she wanted to live in, with her commute to work being the primary factor in her decision-making process. That made sense, what with mortgages skyrocketing to $2,500 a month or more, and gasoline prices going absolutely (and unnecessarily) nuts last year.

Now, in a more realistic housing market, Marie's interested but she's having a hard time finding any lender willing to service her VA-backed loan. They have other loans, sure, but the idea is that the government vouches for her, which should open things up as far as interest rates and down payments are concerned.

One lender wanted to charge her fifteen hundred bucks to process such a loan. Real estate agents won't deal with her at all if she mentions the VA guaranty. They all try to steer her in a different direction (one that surely must be more profitable for themselves).

And aren't these the same people who are responsible for our current economic crisis, the ones who spent the last few years giving over-inflated loans to anyone with or without a pulse, whose foreclosures are now dragging down our property values? Lately, those same banks have been slurping up hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars, and still haven't righted their own ships.

Even Marie's credit union (supposedly a less nasty breed of banker) refuses to grant her a loan under the terms she wants, that she fought for. So the priveleges of membership don't seem to mean any more to those slugs than does her service to our country.

(She requested that I not name her credit union online, but if you e-mail me, I'll happily tell you which one it is.)

I'm sure it would take about five seconds to elicit, from any white-collar finance guy, an expression of support for our troops. Hoo-ah. They just won't grant them loans that they've earned through their service to our country. Nationalizing the banks, then, doesn't sound all that radical but rather like a long-overdue step in the right direction.

Again - because we all agree this stuff matters - Marie was discharged in 1988 with full honors, as have been millions of other good Americans. All they want to know is why they are being dishonored by the lowest forms of life on Earth.

pH 4.o4.o9

Wagoners East

2009-03-30T16:28:00.000-07:00

Without getting into too much (if any) statistical analysis, it just feels as though America is getting busy again. New-home starts jumped last month, fewer jobs have been lost than usual, consumer confidence is rising - heck, even our level of personal savings has increased since Barack Obama took office.

It appears, then, that the recovery will be taking place from the ground up. Wall Street still suffers, loudly, and without shame. The banks are still feigning credit paralysis despite all the injections of taxpayer cash. Now even the wealthiest among us are feeling like targets, and some are, like Rick Wagoner.

Wagoner, the former CEO of General Motors, was more or less forced to resign over the weekend. Great government pressure is being brought to bear upon GM (and Chrysler) as the wheedling automakers keep coming back to Washington with Prada hats in hand.

Conservatives are aghast at this development, but then, they've never seen a failure they didn't like. Wagoner managed to lose about $70 billion for GM over the past two years; it's a wonder shell-shocked shareholders hadn't demanded his ouster before with pitchforks and torches.

For all the predictable right-wing protest, the White House is doing exactly what we elected them to do, which is to clean up this financial mess. Bailout money means at least partial public ownership, and nobody in this country should have to pay Rick Wagoner or any other fiduciary flop another dime.

The only regret is that financial institutions are not being forced to choke down similar medicines. As well as losing some degree of control in the operations of their companies, GM and Chrysler may well end up in bankruptcy court, which is perhaps where they belong.

Reorganization would allow them to dissolve their contracts with the United Auto Workers - an outfit despised by conservatives even as they say they want everyone to make as much money as they can. But even that unhappy prospect isn't enough to make these people feel good.

All of this merely demonstrates that Obama and the Democrats are taking a responsible, non-ideological approach to the problems that have vexed Detroit for so long. And it proves again that conservatives are consistent only in their duplicity and their scorn for American labor...

Which doesn't matter one whit. The American worker doesn't care about the GOP any more than the GOP cares about them. Republicans and their greedy little fistful of core constituents can enjoy the view and wait for the recovery to trickle up.

As for the hefty minority of suckers supporting that whole cabal with their mindless voting habits, well, there's always a talk-show host around who'll take their call. Why not? It's toll free. Here at the end of the age of excess, it's the only thing left that they can afford.

pH 3.3o.o9

Damn, We're Generous

2009-03-16T18:30:00.000-07:00

So, citizen, are you enjoying that four-fifths of a big-league insurance company that we all own now? That $165 million bonus package that AIG executives just received (which the government says it will block) shouldn't shake your confidence too much. Overall, we've pumped more than $170 billion into that sinkhole so far.

Hard feelings, dirty looks and rampant indignation can be found on both sides of the aisle. This white-collar bloodbath topped all other stories in today's newcasts, and it's easy to find an opinion on the subject no matter where you look or listen.

What's scarce is any constituency that supports, or even likes, AIG. The Web is alive with gripes about auto insurance claims, or old folks bitching about not being able to access their annuities... Can't get too sympathetic about that, I guess, but there is a grim side to to the AIG story.

Way back in '92, the company denied claims on homes that had been damaged by smoke when a nearby Safeway store (insured by AIG) caught fire in Richmond, Virginia. Smoke damage, they said, was actually a form of air pollution. In 2007 AIG had to be sued in Florida by PSCU Financial Services over identity theft claims to the tune of $2.4 million.

AIG recently refused to pay for a spinal fusion for mixed-martial arts fighter Tito Ortiz after a back injury, and they were in court earlier this year for not paying on a policy taken out by the Catholic Diocese in Brooklyn against pedophile priests. What won't these guys insure?

I suppose when you don't really intend to pay on a policy you'd be likely to write one up for damn near anything. So one can understand how insuring globally-dispersed mortgage-backed securities in a bubble market wouldn't make them flinch. Nothing really does.

In 2000, AIG went after a homeless man named Jesse Maxwell in Massachusetts for $9,000 worth of workmen's compensation, going so far as to pay an investigator to follow him around. Maxwell attempted suicide in 2001. But then AIG never claimed to be a good neighbor.

That's what we're in bed with, citizen, like it or not. Good night. Sleep tight.

(Don't let the bedbugs bite.)

pH 3.16.o9

Israeli Gears

2009-03-15T12:26:00.000-07:00

The Israeli pot has boiled over again, this time in the White House kitchen, although most of us missed it. The story did not involve any missile strikes, or suicide bombers, or homes being bulldozed. There were no sensational claims of war plans being handed over to Jewish spies. Not this time.

What happened was rather low-key: A man named Charles Freeman was appointed by President Obama to be chairman of the National Intelligence Council. AIPAC and others in the pro-Israel lobby raised all manner of opposition, on account of Freeman's past views on the Middle East, specifically on Israel's role - or lack thereof - in the peace process.

Before too long, Freeman had to withdraw from consideration, but not without firing off a public letter decrying the nature of his own high-tech lynching. So the story isn't really about Freeman, but about the way in which most any criticism of U.S.-Israeli policy inevitably results in a cry of anti-Semitism, whether such is warranted or not.

When I was just a kid, I saw a photograph in the newspaper that blew me away. An elderly Palestinian man was on his knees in the street with his hands bound behind his back. An Israeli soldier was swinging a baton toward his head.

Clearly, I thought, They Have Forgotten. Over time, as the situation evolved (mostly for the worse), it became apparent that the people of the Jewish state considered this to be a struggle for survival. Geographically and demographically speaking it is precisely that.

The Palestinians have gone two generations now living in the kind of desperation that leaves them open to the radical influences of religious fanatics. It doesn't take much more than the obvious to convince them that suicidal martyrdom makes sense. The sheer paucity of their existence fuels those hellish fires.

Freeman's sin was his belief that Israel has utilized "high-handed and self-defeating policies". Does that make an anti-Semite out of him, or out of Jimmy Carter, who goes so far as to define the current situation as a form of apartheid? Doesn't the overuse of that accusation in dealing with differences of opinion dilute the very horrific and shameful nature of the historical persecution of Jews?

Ironically, a much more liberated discussion of this subject takes place every day in Israel, where the population is closely divided as to which path to choose. This was demonstrated in the recent election in which Tzipi Livni, the candidate more likely to pursue peace by actually peaceful means, was narrowly defeated by the hawkish former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

But we've seen this 'Yahu before, after Yitzhak Rabin (the only man to ever seriously pursue peace with his neighbors) was assassinated, in Israel, by a right-wing Jewish militant. "Bibi" was less than effective then, and was replaced by the more concession-minded Ehud Barak, who also got nowhere with the Palestinians.

The story remains the same. Only the writers have changed. No solution is in sight, and even the pursuit of one is tinged with suspicion and hostility, wherever it takes place. The hearts, minds and souls on each side have hardened to the point where neither can agree on anything, to the point where none of them have any business living in what they so sincerely call the Holy Land.

pH 3.15.o8

Lost in the Woods

2009-03-07T10:47:00.000-08:00

It is an old expression, yes, but one that has not lost its value or luster through the ages: Never interrupt your enemy when he is in the process of hanging himself. That should really be a private experience.

At the same time, though, one cannot help but laugh out loud as the Republican Party keeps slipping on banana peels. Look no further than Louisiana Senator David Vitter, who continues to excoriate the values of Democrats, and whose name was found in the D.C. Madame's little black book. He is, and always will be, a microcosm.

President Barack Obama has also taken note of these little ironies that keep popping up out of right field. He is absolutely correct when he says that these are simply not the folks to be lecturing anyone about economics (or much of anything else) these days.

Legislatively speaking, the GOP is dead in the water. Their titular heads, RNC Chairman Michael Steele and talk-show host Rush Limbaugh, have tilted lances several times. After standing united for so long, such divisions have become major weaknesses, with no light at the end of the tunnel.

Their Next Big Thing, Louisiana Governor Piyush "Bobby" Jindal, laid an egg in his televised response to Obama's recent address to Congress. Think Mister Rogers, only without a nice bone in his body.

Other young Turks include Florida governor Charlie Crist, House Minority Whip Eric Cantor and, of course, Alaska's own Sarah Palin. For her part, Palin will always be considered the cleavage of the Republican Party, bringing nothing more to the table than an ideological quarterback controversy.

It is obvious that "The Base" loves her (in a way that is perhaps not entirely healthy). They think she should have been the nominee instead of John McCain last year. The Party leadership considers her to be poison. They believe she dragged the ticket down with equal parts inexperience and schlock.

Somewhere in between those two camps lies the forest in which conservatives are doomed to wander for at least the foreseeable future. Their stances against the environment, the economy and the working people of this country aren't helping their image, either.

Are there any solutions for them? Of course there are, but I'm not about to start giving them advice. It's not what they want to hear. And besides... They're busy right now.

pH 3.o7.o9

Taking Inventory

2009-03-02T21:48:00.000-08:00

Scarcely forty days have passed since Barack Obama took the oath of office, replacing George W. Bush as president of the United States. Whereas most presidents are given about a hundred-day honeymoon, Obama had to prove a little more, and spared no feelings out of the gate.

One of the higher priorities of the new administration is the federal funding of embryonic stem-cell research. Another is the development of "green" technology. Right off the bat we understood that Obama's progressive credentials were not exactly tin stars.

Belief in science: Restored.

Then came Obama's Rooseveltian plan to provide debt relief to people who are in jeopardy of losing their homes. Refinancing at lower interest rates will soak up bad mortgages, suturing the foreclosure artery and freeing up consumer capital. His designs on universal health care (basically an extension of Medicare benefits to all Americans) are also aimed at preventive medicine, which experts believe will save us billions of dollars.

Fiscal responsibility: Restored.

Obama, coming from a large midwestern city, understands the problems that have beset the rust belt for so long, problems that were abjectly ignored by the Republicans when they were in power. After months of pounding that cold pavement, two of my siblings are finally getting call-backs, from Barack Obama's Social Security Administration.

Worker confidence: Restored

One of the more recent - and controversial - moves that the new Commander in Chief has made involves the returning mortal remains of our soldiers who were killed overseas. Under Republican rule, photographs of this somber reality were forbidden, so the public never had to confront the consequences of our actions. Obama lifted that rule (provided the families of the deceased give their permission).

First Amendment: Restored

Equally noteworthy is the fact that Obama has repeatedly stated that America does not torture. Combined with his aspirations to close the detainee prisons at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, our policies are changing at a rate of 180 degrees.

Our good standing in the world: Restored.

Now the president has laid out his plan to remove U.S. forces from Iraq by the end of August 2011. This would, after so many lives and years have been lost, signal the reversal of the worst foreign policy blunder ever to plague this great nation. This will allow us to focus on more troublesome Afghanistan in hopes of preventing it from becoming the next Vietnam.

Hope for peace (if handled properly): Restored

That's an awful lot of forward motion, which was absolutely necessary, in less than six weeks. Stay tuned, unless you happen to be a conservative, in which case we'll come along once in awhile and water your head which is stuck so firmly in the ground. With any luck, one day, it will bloom.

pH 3.o2.o9

In Black And White

2009-02-23T17:56:00.000-08:00

It was only a matter of time, really, before some member of the far-right fringe performed an overt act of racism in their mindless fury about Barack Obama. Who could have guessed it would have oozed from an outlet owned by Rupert Murdoch?

On the left, pundits are incensed (and somehow shocked) about the New York Post's depiction of Obama as a chimpanzee that had been shot by police, conflating the stimulus package with a news story out of Connecticut. It is disturbing.

Cartoonist Sean Delonas made the usual half-assed apology, in the event that anyone was offended, and tried to say the chimp actually represented, um, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Mere words cannot adequately sum up what sort of man Delonas is; some bodily functions will suffice.

Conservatives, on the other hand, are up in arms about remarks recently made by Attorney General Eric Holder, who called Americans "cowards" for not facing up to whatever aspects of race relations he has in mind. This is also disturbing, but for all the white noise, it still does not make racism a two-way street.

In school, we were asked to consider whether America was truly a melting pot, the stuff sociologists' dreams are made of, or whether it was more of a "salad bowl" - a bunch of ingredients tossed together in hopes of well-roundedness. We still don't know.

Lost amidst it all is everything that matters. Racism is alive and well... Look at the recent jump in Klan enrollments. It's nothing new. Even so, Obama's election itself shows that the majority of the country has progressed to a better place, as one might expect seven score and four years after the Civil War.

Both Delonas and Holder would do better to lean in the direction of those prevailing winds. There is no need for Americans of any background to go kicking and screaming into the post-racial era. Fortunately, this ugly societal affliction seems to be fading with each generation, as most ugly societal afflictions tend to do.

It can't end, however, without a scuffle. The NAACP is now coming after Murdoch, not only to spank his Big Apple tabloid, but to break up his monopoly on television and radio as well. Again, opinions will differ as to whether this constitutes an attack on free speech or a long-past-due correction in media balance.

Looks like we're about to find out.

pH 2.23.o9

The Splurge

2009-02-18T14:54:00.000-08:00

President Obama was in town today, to the delight of the minority of Arizonans, to discuss his plan to resuscitate the housing market. This bothers some conservative commentators, who accuse of him of continuing his campaign, as opposed to staying in Washington. They cluck about the burden on the taxpayers who have to pay for this whistle-stop American tour.

As usual, they have their shoes on the wrong feet. After all, Obama's predecessor did set the record for the most vacation time ever taken by a sitting president; at least the gentleman from Illinois is getting some work done.

However you may feel about his policies, Barack Obama has achieved one remarkable thing, that being the way we no longer think about the war in Iraq. Bush had "the surge". Obama has "The Splurge".

Whether the surge worked or not, Republicans will always seek to claim credit for success in the war in Iraq. (If a kid flunks third grade three times, should his parents throw him a party when he finally graduates?) Conversely, to the extent that it works, Democrats will be able to own The Splurge. The GOP, remember, wanted no part of it.

With this first stimulus bill being signed into law, the United States has committed more money to our flagging economy than we've spent on the war in Iraq in nearly six years. The shock and awe of that reality ought not distract us from Bush's disastrous errors.

Our troops are still being forced to act like cops, kicking in doors, handcuffing the bad guys. That's a waste of resources - let the Iraqis do that. The surge worked, remember? Get out of there already, and if their society can't deal with freedom after this much time has passed, is that really our fault anymore?

We should not be slogging through our seventh year of a pointless occupation of Iraq, and Afghanistan's significance is fleeting as well (at least as far as our national consciousness is concerned). Let the neighbors of those countries bear responsibility for their respective regional security, with clear consequences attached.

Whatever else Obama does with regard to our military, another thing should also be clear: The Commander in Chief calls the shots. Anyone in uniform who wants to argue policy differences with the White House, even if his name is David Petraeus, should be shown the door.

Americans overwhelmingly support a drawdown of troops in Iraq. We're funny that way. Call it "The Urge", and put in on top of the pile in our new president's in-box.

pH 2.18.o9

Death By a Thousand Cuts

2009-02-13T15:52:00.001-08:00

As the last round of voting on the economic stimulus bill drew to a close, Americans came to realize that the Republican Party was perfectly satisfied with a broken economy. No matter how the majority bent to their childish will, it would never have been enough, and that might also be the case by the time the rubber hits the road.

The Democrats carefully negotiated their steamroller through the obstacle course, relying on three Senators from across the aisle to put the deal together. One was Arlen Specter, who just thinks there's a magic bullet for every problem. The other two were Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe, both moderates from Maine, who must have enjoyed the limelight after being kept in the dark for so long as to sprout growths.

The House vote reflected a familiar trend, with all 176 Republican members refusing to be part of the solution, just as they did in the first go-round. However, they bristle at the notion that they are the "Party of No". They're standing on their principles, they say, and they sound as sincere as they did about weapons of mass destruction all those years ago.

What they clearly stand for, in debate after debate, is tax cuts. That's what makes the stimulus vote such a curiosity since it was loaded with all sorts of procuratory relief. It must not have been the "right" kind (i.e., tax cuts for big corporations and top-one-percenters).

Observing their actions over the years, one can see that this elephant herd wil go to great lengths to reduce the amount of revenue collected by the federal government. For instance, over a million Americans have lost their jobs in the last couple of months. That's a tax cut. And wages have lost considerable ground to inflation in the last three decades. Shing!

Moreover, home values across the land have fallen, by more than half in some markets. That means lower property taxes. More than four thousand American troops have been killed in Iraq. That's a tax cut as well as a reduction in military spending. (Smaller government, remember?)

Closing the detainee prison at Guantanamo Bay will also save the taxpayers a bit of pocket change, but Republicans really don't like that. Forgive their discombobulation. It was a change election, and by their nature, they don't handle that well.

Americans, therefore, will be more likely than ever to tune out their loud and tired arguments. There's really no reason to listen anymore. These people refuse to compromise - they see it as a sign of weakness. They have no ideas other than the bad ones that put us in the hole in the first place.

The Democrats reached out so much that they had to have their tailors extend the lengths of their sleeves. Having been met with sheer obstruction and disdain, they can feel free to ram any legislation down the wide throats of the opposition, who simply will not have it any other way.

pH 2.13.o9

Waiting to Inhale

2009-02-07T06:38:00.000-08:00

One has to wonder what will be the next inculcation from the bluenoses of America. God knows they're going to have a hard time selling anything like "Winners Don't Use Drugs" anymore, with that pothead Michael Phelps having won 14 gold medals in just two Olympiads.

By now the photo of Phelps sucking on a bong at a party somewhere in South Carolina has been viewed worldwide. He had to apologize, of course, especially with so much cash on the line in the form of endorsements.

The people at Kellogg's, though, are not into forgiveness. They were the first company to sever their relationship with this exceptional athlete. That's fine as long as Kellogg's understands that, with some 40 million Americans guilty of the same thing as Phelps, they might well be facing a boycott of their own.

After all, this is a company that produces sugary foods, like Froot Loops and Pop Tarts. They market these things to little kids in the exact same fashion that put Joe Camel in purgatory - colorful cartoon characters pushing stuff that's bad for you. They've also been reprimanded repeatedly by the U.K.'s Advertising Standards Agency for overstating the health benefits of some of their products.

Half of those who compete in professional sports, by the estimates of some athletes, partake in reefer madness. Standing tallest among them would be Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, with six championship rings and six MVP trophies, the highest-scoring player in NBA history. What was that line about "winners"?

It bears mentioning that our last three presidents each smoked marijuana (as did, in all likelihood, many of the Founding Fathers). Bill Clinton was a Rhodes scholar. Barack Obama graduated first in his class from Harvard Law. Dubya, well, two out of three ain't bad.

None of this helps Phelps, who has been slapped with a token three-month suspension by USA Swimming. This comes just six months after they basked in his glory as he stood on a pedestal wrapped in freedom's flag.

They're probably worried about what the International Olympic Committee thinks. That'd be the same IOC that has been wracked by fraud and doping scandals in the recent past, whose list of corporate sponsors includes such prominent health-nuts as McDonald's and Coca-Cola.

And now the local redneck sheriff in this particular segment of South Carolina (the 7th unhealthiest state according to the latest CQ Press study and whose paramount cash crop is tobacco) wants to prosecute the world's greatest competitive swimmer. It is senseless, ridiculous, like the entire argument against cannabis has always been.

All of these people who are throwing stones at Michael Phelps today should really make better use of their glass houses. I'm thinking indoor gardening.

pH 2.o7.o9

Note to McCain: Stimulate This!

2009-02-03T15:13:00.000-08:00

Here's an interesting clip:

“This compromise is being blocked by the Senate (Minority) Leader who has refused to allow Senators to move forward and vote on amendments to this bill,” said the president. “I call on the Senate Minority Leader to end his blocking tactics and allow the Senate to do its work..."

Does that sound at all familiar? Perhaps Barack Obama is taking his struggle with the GOP over the stimulus package directly to the people, hmm?

No, that was actually George W. Bush a couple of years ago, when the 109th Congress was trying to get a comprehensive immigration bill passed. It was ironic then, given the roughshod treatment of Democrats through the first six years of his reign, but it's something worse than that in today's context.

Most folks already know this, but in case the paper-boy can't reach your penthouse, let me be the one to tell you that the U.S. economy is stuck in the privy. The important work at which our representatives now toil is being held up by those same Senate Republicans. The worst offender, naturally, is John McCain.

Like many of his partisan colleagues, Arizona's senior senator whines that Democrats are ignoring the reservations of his Party. He also accuses them of using the stimulus bill to go hog-wild on spending, and claims to be working on an online petition, cheerfully titled, "Vote No On The Stimulus".

It seems to me, as a constituent of his, that Americans already signed a big petition last year, called, "Vote No On John McCain" (and, by association, the Republican Party). He means well, but Obama is reaching out to a pack of snarling dogs - who don't have to be fed if they don't like the hand that does the feeding.

Sure, everyone wants to feel wanted, but being human speed bumps is at this point in time unacceptable. Since every overture is met with insincere conservative melodrama, the Democrats should go ahead and give them a trillion or so things to really cry about.

As for McCain, if his deliberate stonewalling bothers you (and it should), go ahead and tell him about your frustration. Ordinarily, I would advise you to be respectful to anybody in public office, but he's a Navy man. He can take it.

His office telephone number is (2o2) 224-2235.

pH 2.o3.o9

Big Government is Back

2009-01-29T15:10:00.000-08:00

"The era of big goverment is back."

That sentiment is being universally bandied about - in the news, on Capitol Hill, in the blogosphere. It is said across tables in every kitchen, coffeehouse and watering hole in the country these days.

That may indeed be the case, but one can hardly blame Barack Obama for it. Big government has been back for years, after arriving on the point of a Republican spear. Even their eventual candidate, John McCain, long ago excoriated his colleagues for spending "like drunken sailors".

Everyone recalls how George W. Bush presided over the most swollen budgets, the deepest deficits and the greatest expansion of the federal government in American history. His largesse was so embarrassing that the funding of our war(s) couldn't be accounted for in the regular spending bills.

And how seriously could he be taken even in that somber endeavor? On October 4, 2001 Bush gave a speech in Washington, D.C. in which he actually said, "We need to counter the shock wave of the evil-doer by having individual rate cuts accelerated and by thinking about tax rebates." Really.

His fellow Republicans bring to bear the same amount of pomp and gravitas as they always have, with House members voting in unison against Obama's economic stimulus plan. Ironically enough, in doing so, they rejected one of the biggest tax cuts ever to pass in Congress - which it did, even without their support.

Some right-wing stooges have proclaimed this to be the moment at which conservatives lawmakers "rediscovered their manhood". They think (well, they try to think) that Obama wanted them on board so that they would be anchored to the eventual failure of the stimulus.

That's just not so. All the new president is doing is standing over the economy that the GOP killed, scraping together the paddles of a financial defibrillator. He asked for their support, didn't get any, and is now free to call his opponents stubborn obstructionists (which comes as no surprise to over three-fourths of the public).

This passion play will be repeated in the Senate. Republicans will wail and gnash their teeth, and we can move on to the business of doing the same thing with every other major challenge before us. The minority party is free to go home if they like...

They just need to understand that it isn't their bat and ball anymore. The era of responsible government is back.

pH 1.29.o9

Place Your Bets

2009-01-24T07:12:00.000-08:00

If there's a great and common point of wonderment among the American people today, it would have to be, "What now?"

What is there to do with such solid majorities in both Houses of Congress except watch? Who is there to rail against? What dastardly issues could possibly assume the front burner? These questions are all fair even if the answers, like life, are not.

Don't know.

I will certainly miss the greatest political foil ever devised, George W. Bush, now that he's left office. (And I mean left it - this guy isn't like Jimmy Carter or Bill Clinton or even Nixon. You won't see him making speeches or hammering nails; Dubya's gone.)

Don't care.

Still, there's something to be said for grinding the old bootheel into the back of your opponent's neck while you've got him down, and you'll find a lot of that here, if only because of principle. I forget but I don't forgive.

Don't look.

Look, this isn't a movie. It's nowhere near as simple as driving a wooden stake through the GOP's heart. It's not enough to sever the head, stuff its bloody mouth with holy wafers, and bury it in consecrated ground. That, in and of itself, would never work.

Don't mind.

It's funny to me that an insurance company will not sell you a policy to protect you against the Republicans, to make you whole in the event that their policies devastate your life. Such would be textbook bad business, a fool's wager, akin to picking the Detroit Lions to win a football game.

Doesn't matter.

Think about that. They'll sell you homeowners insurance if you build in a flood plain, or on a muddy hillside, or in a brushy desert canyon. They'll sell you auto insurance even though there are thousands of car accidents every day in this country. Indemnification from right-wing lunacy?

Some chances are just not taken.

pH 1.24.o9

Coin Flip

2009-01-19T14:05:00.001-08:00

With an historic moment looming on the calendar, the pundits are now scrambling to sum up the Bush presidency, which poses quite the challenge. This was no ordinary president so bringing his legacy into focus is no small task.

Bush, Cheney and their small, unhappy band of supporters would love for us to believe that Dubya's legacy is that He Kept Us Safe (unless we count, y'know, 9/11). It is doubtful that anyone will be buying one last whopper from these charlatans.

What's a legacy anyway? We know that Ike was grandfatherly. We know that Nixon was crooked. We know that Lincoln was steadfast. We know that Ford fell up a flight of stairs. It's all nice, but none of that sufficiently explains the dynamic between those men and the nation they led for better or worse.

It would take an awful lot of beans, but those who inhabit the world of high finance could count them all up and tell you what the statistics say about our 43rd president, so his impact can in fact be quantified. That's just evidence, however, and does not adequately illustrate the whole story.

George W. Bush needs something more symbolic, and more permanent, than any of the usual stuff. Otherwise we may as well just chisel his visage into a melting glacier. Recapitulation of this particular Chief Executive calls for drastic and lasting measures.

The United States mint should retool its extrusion presses and impose his image upon the penny. (Lincoln wouldn't mind - after all, he's still got the five-dollar bill.) This would be a fitting and lasting tribute.

Remember, it actually costs 1.3 cents to produce each small copper-plated zinc slug that is worth one one-hundredth of the dollar, which means that pennies are less than worthless. They only represent, as Bush does, a net loss for our country.

That doesn't merely embody Bush or his administration, but also the Republican Party, and all of conservatism as it has existed for the past eight years. A true legacy deserves more than effort, ink and bleached tree pulp.

Let his profile be stamped onto our coinage so that the world can know that we understand. That we have finally figured out our heads from our tails.

Bye, George. I think we've got it.

pH 1.19.o8

Carp on a Hot Tin Roof

2009-01-14T04:43:00.000-08:00

Yes, I take requests, and here's a good one from Gina in the Big Easy: "What's the deal with all the Washington carp?"

Had the question come from a less serious person I would have assumed she was being cheeky about Helen Thomas and the rest of the White House press corps. However, this is a subject about which I happen to know quite a bit.

Those aren't carp you see in every other Beltway water feature, be it at a hotel or a restaurant or an office building or wherever. Those are actually coi, a far-East cousin of the mighty American carp (which is considered a nuisance fish by anglers on this side of the pond).

Long prized as beloved pets in the Orient, a batch of them were once given to Teddy Roosevelt by the Emperor of Japan. Unfortunately, without the necessary prior knowledge of their significance, TR had them smoked and served to his staff - but then it's the thought that counts.

Another great civilization, Rome, used the carp to protect their nautae (Latin for "sailors") while they were in foreign ports. Selective breeding allowed the Romans to raise these majestic creatures to nigh half a ton, making them imposing guardians of the Empire. It was at that time that they coined the expression, carpe diem, or "seize the carp".

Even in the wild, more than a few people been saved from drowning, with stampeding schools of carp carrying them on their sleek backs to the shallows. Tales of man-carp associations (often of an intimate nature) are sporadically noted in early American lore, but that was back in the day, when they roamed our navigable waterways the way the buffalo once covered the Great Plains.

My own experience comes from my misbegotten youth up in Michigan, where we would venture into streams in the Springtime, hunting for suckerfish (very similar to carp) with nine-tine spears. The miracle is that nobody ever got speared in the foot by a drunken fishing buddy.

See, Gina? The only dumb question is the one that isn't asked. Wait... What? No, I saw the e-mail, and it said "carp". Yes, I can read perfectly well, thank you. So you really wanted to know what's the deal with all this Washington crap? Why didn't you Spell-Check it?

(Oh. You did.)

I'm afraid there's not really time enough in the day for that one. I'll get to work on it, though, and hopefully I'll have an answer by Inauguration Day. Carpe Diem.

pH 1.14.o9

Roland Out The Barrel

2009-01-09T03:10:00.001-08:00

If I may be so bold as to inquire of the Democrats as embodied by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid: Are you done looking stupid yet?

Here they have conservatism on the ropes, exhausted, clinching at every exchange. The GOP is now almost small enough (as Grover Norquist might say) to drown in a bathtub, but instead of preparing a smooth and successful transition to the Obama presidency, Reid has chosen to insert himself into Illinois state politics.

Just last Sunday, he was on what's left of Meet the Press, telling David Gregory that the Senate gets to seat whomever it so pleases. Said he just wanted to make sure that the man appointed to fill Barack Obama's Senate seat, Roland Burris, isn't tainted by the running scandal that is Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevic.

This is pure hubris, arrogance unchecked, as if grafted straight from the scaly livers of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney. That's all. Nothing to see here...

Reid immediately had to fend off charges of racism from Black-Panther-turned-lawmaker Bobby Rush, and he's been pussyfooting hard ever since California Senator Dianne Feinstein broke ranks and supported Burris. In the meantime, the Land of Lincoln remains under-represented in the Senate.

And for what? Blagojevic (execrable as he may be) has not been indicted, has not been impeached, and has every legal right to make this appointment. For his part, Burris will have to face the electorate in 2o1o, and the people will be the final arbiter in the matter. It's nothing new for him since he's been winning statewide elections since the 197os.

The Republicans obviously hope to make a comeback in a couple of years, and Reid's brand of fecklessness is exactly the sort of wind that fills their sails. An opportunity to gain vital legislative momentum is being wasted amid the Burris tussle, a fact that seems to be lost only on the Democrats.

The nation may indeed see some dramatic changes in the Congress next election, only it won't be Republicans regaining power (we've learned our lesson, thank you very much). It will be new liberals replacing old ones.

With the average age of a U.S. Senator at a near-zenith of 63 years, this transition will seem natural to all except those whose shirts will be so unceremoniously unstuffed.

pH 1.o9.o9

Sheereverence

2008-12-31T14:15:00.000-08:00

We may as well close out the year with some degree of sheer irreverence. Web Guy, however, wants me to tear into a certain City of Phoenix peace officer who just screwed the PR pooch, or something like that. From the duly diligent (though pulseless) Arizona Republic:

An ongoing neighborhood squabble about a cat stuck in a tree led a Phoenix police officer into a flurry of public criticism Tuesday for confronting would-be rescuers in his pajamas with his gun drawn.

The officer hustled outside, flashing his badge, worried for a moment that an intruder interrupted his afternoon nap by climbing a ladder into his backyard near Bell Road and 12th Street.

Boiled down to salt, it looks like two things have happened here. Foremost, a cop cracked under the mildest of strain, cause enough for reasonable concern. Beyond that, it would seem these pet-people have apparently gotten under the wrong person's skin, and no wonder.

The media got involved because the Humane Society got involved, and so the dominoes fell. It bears mentioning that anyone who witnessed the scene - a man in his pee-jays running out into his yard waving a firearm - could've shot that officer in defense of any innocent bystander who might be in immediate life-threatening danger; so sayeth Arizona law.

The same lawbook also calls the policeman's actions a felony. You can't run outside your home brandishing a pistol, even if you happen to carry one at work. But, don't worry, nothing is going to happen to the policeman. The department is actually defending him in (or against) the press, saying that pet rescue isn't their job anyway.

This really isn't a bone I want to pick. Not with the Phoenix Department of Public Safety. Not after documenting the blatant racial profiling that took place in front of my home last year. Not after having once described their actions as terrorism for shooting a dog in Maryvale. Not after loudly deriding motorcycle patrolman Larry Peterson as "an asshole" and "a prick" a few years back...

Some fights, you walk away from. This might be one of them.

The problem is that I told Web Guy that I would say something about it. Specifically I vowed to urge those poor folks whose cats, God forbid, may happen to expire in the near future to dispose of the bodies in this particular cop's front yard. It's a form of social justice and it will save them money besides.

But I can't do that. Besides, the Blue Shield won't release this bozo's name and/or address. They're covering for him, because they know he's created this unnecessary mess. It's nothing new, nothing pretty, nothing worth looking at twice. It's a slice of reality. You suck on it like a lemon wedge, make a face, and move along.

What I really wanted to write about - Happy New Year, by the way - is how one can often tell what a particular State is like by it's shape. Michigan, for instance, is shaped like a mitten so you can easily guess that it's cold there. Florida rather resembles a flip-flop, so one could rightly expect sandy beaches, palm trees, sunshine, stuff like that.

Nevada is shaped like a funnel (or a guillotine blade, depending on how you look at it). Alaska looks like a Rorschach test. Texas and Oklahoma, on the other hand, look not at all vaguely like toilets, so you can probably guess what you're going to find there. Is that not fair?

See you in O-Nine.

pH 12.31.o8

Say Cheese

2008-12-26T06:59:00.000-08:00

By now, most people have seen the video on the Internet, evidence that we have gone a bit loco here in the desert. They reveal themselves now and again, these little idiosyncrasies that separate us from the rest of humanity.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T43LtGNFLPw

Yes, that was Santa Claus, wrapping up a surveillance camera in Tempe, Arizona. Apparently, a group of extremists from the North Pole has declared war on the "Surveillance State". In the spirit of Henry David Thoreaux, I say, well done.

There are places on Earth - such as Belfast, Ireland - where people are under far more scrutiny than we are here in the Valley of the Sun. We're catching up, though, with every other intersection equipped with cameras to monitor our speed and red-light compliance.

As a parting gift, Democratic governor Janet Napolitano has installed cameras on most all Arizona freeways. In their first two months of operation, they generated some 40,000 citations, to the tune of over $6 million in fines. Damn right you're on Candid Camera.

In the latest example of why ballot initiatives ought to be banned in a representative government, another radical wingnut movement is picking up steam. Now the mad petitioners want the public to be able to vote on whether or not to keep said cameras.

Nobody expected this. They don't care about the number of lives and limbs spared by a sane flow of traffic, or the reduced costs of collision and infrastructure damage. Forget the millions of gallons of fuel saved when we all back off the throttle. This is, they will tell you, a privacy issue.

More disturbing than the presence of automated shutterbugs is the latest news from the City of Phoenix Department of Public Safety, which is now training its patrol officers to draw blood in the event of DUI suspicion. Yes, people with guns are being given that kind of power.

So what kind of power do we have? You want to go to war with Big Brother? Do you really? I only ask because I know how to do it. And if you honestly want to head in that direction, I'd be happy to help, but I doubt you've got the guts.

As a matter of function, traffic cameras use flash-bulbs, which tend to *pop* in the periphery of one's vision. As medical science has been telling us for years (just read the inside cover of any modern video game), such peripheral flashes can cause seizures, even in people who have never suffered from them before. It's rare, but it happens.

So go get 'em. Zoom past a camera, and when you get flashed, take your car into the barricades at 75 miles per hour. Roll it over if you can. Upon being taken to the emergency room, tell the doctor that you're not sure what happened... Last thing you remember was a bright flash out of the corner of your eye (drooling will help your cause).

The rest is up to any decent lawyer. What's known for sure is that the government did set up equipment which did elicit your seizure, which did result in the horrific accident, which does necessitate considerable monetary compensation. That would shut down the cameras without canvassing for a single signature.

Then again, we are talking about a law-enforcement mindset that rationalizes the use of cute little hand-held cattle prods, and nobody squawks about that. In a free society, we get the policing we deserve. They were given an inch. They took miles at a time.

The funny part is that this has been going on at the federal level for about seven years now, and the good people of Arizona never gave a damn. We are consistently represented by Republicans who have done nothing but undermine the Constitution while George W. Bush rubberstamped every page.

Maybe more of us would have noticed if the White House had been sending out $200 tickets in the mail. That's all it takes to get your attention anymore, concerned citizen that you are.

pH 12.26.o8