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
Thursday, June 18, 2009
Friday, June 12, 2009
Politicians that Americans Want
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
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
Saturday, May 30, 2009
Push, Pull or Tug
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
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
Thursday, May 28, 2009
Order in the Court
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
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
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
'Til Death Do Us Part
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
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
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground
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
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
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
One Flu Over the Cuckoo's Nest
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
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
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