Wayne's (Dystopic) World

Where to start? So much has been written about the school shootings in Newtown, Connecticut that it is hard to marshal my thoughts and write anything coherent. After the shootings I tried to push the horror  into a mental "box" where it was solely an intellectual problem, but it wouldn't stay there. I saw a picture of my lovely grand-niece, old enough to have been in that school, and felt consumed by anger and fear for her safety, and the safety of so many children.

Predictably the debate about guns began almost immediately. Most of the arguments from Littleton, Jonesboro, Virginia Tech, Tuscon, Aurora, Portland were re-hashed. It isn't the guns, it's the video games, the culture, the lack of God in the schools. You knew they were coming.

I am happy to acknowledge that mental illness, and video games and violent television and movies play a part. I also think that corrosive public discourse, in which any disagreement equals "fightin' words" and people who don't get their way at the polls try to deligitimize democratic processes.

One of the more rancid bits of paranoia suggested that the attack was "staged" or organized by the government. This played to NRA Executive Vice president Wayne Lapierre's pre-election predictions that Obama was coming for America's guns if he got reelected. In Wayne's world, President Obama's unwillingness to address gun issues isn't because he is uncomfortable with the Constitutional issues associated with confiscating billions of dollars worth of legal property owned by American citizens. No, it is because Obama was lulling us into a false sense of security. Now that he has been reelected he will come for our guns while black helicopters swoop down on our cities and neighborhoods.

A number of folks have gone on television to decry the "politicization" of the tragedy by suggesting it is time to talk about guns. Fortunately, they were able to exercise their indignation the week before on Bob Costas who pointed out that Jovan Belcher had some serious problems that, when combined with a gun, turned deadly for his girlfriend and himself, and that maybe it was time to talk about the gun part of the equation. The dawn came up like thunder.

If it is politicization to suggest that guns are part of the problem and that we ought to talk about them, is it not also politicization to insist they should be off-limits? Aren't political discussions about limits and compromises by their very nature? If saying something is off-limits isn't politicizing the something, then I don't know what is.

Let's think about what happened a week ago. A disturbed young man named Adam Lanza killed his mother in her house. then he took her guns (2 pistols and a Bushmaster .223 semi-automatic carbine) to a school where his mother worked. He entered the school premises and began shooting people. He killed 20 school children, six adults, and himself. We don't know why he did it. We don't know if he planned it or acted on some sort of impulse. Among all the unknowns, I think it is fair to conjecture that -- if he had not had the guns -- a lot of those children and adults would be alive today.

Some folks have made the argument that it wasn't the guns, per se. They make comparisons to an event in China earlier in the week, in which a man entered a school's premises, armed with a knife, and attacked 22 children; implying some sort of equivalence. None of the children in the attack in China died however.

The argument that if "they" can't get a gun, they'll just use something else like a knife or pipe-bomb, or baseball bat is to be blunt, crap. Using a knife to kill a large animal (including a person) is hard, tiring work. You can slash at your victims, which cause painful lacerations but is likely not going to kill them. But if you do want to kill, you have to close with your victim and drive the knife in deep through bone and muscle and then get it back out again. Again, it is hard work. It takes time and potential victims can either run away or attack you.

The same general conditions apply to baseball bats. They too take a lot of work and give potential victims time to flee or attack you.

Pipe-bombs and other improvised explosive devices could be used for mass-murder but they tend to require an expertise that isn't common in the general population. They also require procurement of specialized ingredients that alert authorities to the danger you may represent. Still, they have factored into the plans of some mass-killers. The Columbine killers planned to set off propane bombs, and the Aurora movie theater killer booby-trapped his apartment with bombs, probably to kill investigators who followed up on his crimes.  But pipe-bombs and other IEDs require an element of planning that isn't consistent with what we see in a lot of these instances.

Mass-killers like guns with rapid rates of fire and large capacity magazines because they are highly effective for doing what the killers want to do.  Is it politicizing the issue to acknowledge that reality?

Another ludicrous idea that pops up during these "debates" is that the tragedy in Newtown could have been prevented if only the principal, or a teacher, or maybe the janitor had been armed. As of yesterday, Wayne LaPierre elevated this particularly dystopian vision to the NRA's organizing principle for their "response" to the tragedy, using the pithy equation that "the only thing that will stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun."

In Wayne's world, every school that wants one, should have an armed guard who is trained to shoot it out with the legions of bad guys that Wayne imagines are waiting in the dark to storm our schools. Of course his proposal won't help the customers in movie theaters or shopping malls, or churches. Wayne thinks more of them should pack heat so they can gun down bad guys on an as-needed basis; such as in a dark movie theater filled with panicked movie-goers and smoke and a shooter who is spraying the audience.

You see, if Wayne has any idea how difficult very experience police and SWAT officers consider that kind of scenario, he isn't letting on. And it is difficult. It is a nightmare to even think about. Or take it out into the light; imagine a shooter in a busy mall (not too hard, since it happened in Portland in the last two weeks). Imagine trying to fix the shooter while the crowd rushes past you in a panic. Imagine also what the police will think of you wielding a weapon as they respond to the site and have to decide (in less than a second) whether you are a threat or not.

Wayne isn't really interested in armed good guys shooting armed bad guys. He is just interested in armed guys, period. He is interested in putting as many weapons in peoples' hands as he can.  In the last two decades, the NRA has gone from an organization that was dedicated to teaching responsible and safe gun use to one that is a lobbying group for gun makers (a transformation I am not sure a lot of NRA members realize has happened) and Wayne LaPierre earns his daily bread.

Well-made guns last a long time, so in Wayne's world the way to sell more guns is to scare people into buying them; by saying that "the government" is going to take your guns (and the rest of your freedom while they're at it). Wayne has been waving this bogey day in and day out for twenty plus years in the finest tribute of imitation ever paid to Josef Goebbels.

Wayne has the perfect bogey-man in Barack Obama. He is a Democrat (bad enough) and he's black, which means he must be the leftiest of the left. The fact that in his first term never indicated the slightest interest in confiscating guns is certain proof of his bad intentions because it means he is going to seize them once he is reelected (see rancid paranoia above).

Yesterday, Wayne shared his vision of the future for those who survive to inherit it. It is a world in which citizens are armed and ready, confident that their guns (as many as they want and can get their hands on) are secure and in which they and their children live in a cross-fire.

It shouldn't be our vision and it sure as hell should not be our future.

 

So, Ryan....

So, its Paul Ryan. What does choosing him mean for Mitt Romney and the remaining presidential campaign? Now that the commentariat have had their say, and the cliches have all been dispensed with, some thoughts:

• Barack Obama now has the "mandate election" he wants. Romney wanted the election to be a referendum on Obama. The problem with that tactic is that Obama turned the tables and made the election a referendum on Romney.  Romney was losing that race. Romney talked about the race as a choice for America, "its about the economy;" but by making it about Obama's fitness to occupy the office, he personalized the race and opened his flank to an attack he was ill-equipped to counter. So now it really is about a choice for America. This is where Obama wanted to be. If Ryan takes the lead in explaining his (and now Romney's) budget plans, he will have to meet Obama on ground that the President is very comfortable on. Moreover, Ryan will have to persuade voters of the merits of policies that they haven't shown much approval for, yet. If Ryan adopts the traditional posture of attack dog, the Democrats will be able to define Ryan's economic plans and ideas in whatever manner they choose. 
• This is high-risk for Romney -- and potentially high-payoff; high-risk for reasons stated above, and a few that will follow, and high-payoff if Ryan is able to energize younger, idealistic voters for whom, Ryan's libertarian views resonate. Ryan has made much in the past (and much less recently) of the influence Ayn Rand has had on him. Rand retains a high degree of popularity among younger voters who don't necessarily buy 100% into Rand's objectivist philosophy, but buy enough that they would -- ideally -- like to see some of the her ideas enacted. A lot of these voters live in states like Colorado (a crucial swing state) and Oregon and Washington, states that are thought solid for Obama; if Ryan can soften those states up, then Obama will have to spend resources that can be better spent in Ohio, Virginia, Colorado, etc.
• Romney risks being upstaged by Ryan. If Ryan emerges as the "ideas" guy on the team, then what role does Romney have? Does he take on the attack dog job? It is a cliche that people don't vote for a ticket because of the VP choice. The VP may make them more comfortable about voting for the presidential candidate, but if they really don't like number one, they won't vote for number two. Right now, Romney is deeply disliked. If he allows Ryan to take the high -- ideas -- road and assigns himself the low road, his chances will crater.
• Ryan is probably a better campaigner than many critics think. He is a likable guy. He has a lot of energy and exudes the kind of confidence that goes with being an introverted person who has thought long and hard about something, mastered it and, in doing so, is comfortable in his own skin. This is an appealing trait to many Americans. It sort of reminds us of Jimmy Stewart in Mr Smith Goes to Washington. Guess who else has this trait? Barack Obama.
• Romney (and the Republicans) are playing long-ball. The Republicans are better at long-ball than the Democrats. Their public rhetoric has it that this is Romney's election to lose. That has never been true. In addition to the incredible powers that incumbency gives any President, Obama has always been a tough proposition for any Republican to beat. Why? because for all purposes and intents, Obama is governing as a Republican. His signature measure, Obamacare, is Republican in its DNA. His approach to financial reform would have fit nicely in just about every Republican administration from Ike to Bush 41. Running against Obama's record is like running against your parents'. In Romney's case that is literally true. So, this race has never been the Republicans to lose. They are likely to lose it. So they have to plan for 2016. What better way to do so than to launch their 2016 candidate now (yes, the Republicans are that hierarchical) . And, if lightning strikes and they win this year, then Ryan will be in position as the 2020 candidate.

Health Care Reform and Flu (and the Zombie Apocalypse)

In previous posts I have argued that health care reform is not just a "right," but a public good; sort of like police, fire and ambulance services. I'd like to revisit that idea, specifically regarding the nation's preparedness for a severe epidemic of swine or avian influenza or other fast moving communicable disease. Not sure what put this buzzer in my brain; maybe it was watching The Walking Dead and thinking about zombie apocalypses.

Anyway, starting shortly after 9/11 and the anthrax letters over the following month, the United States began really thinking about how it would handle a widespread epidemic of infectious disease. Actually the thinking began during the Clinton Administration, but it took 9/11 and the anthrax letters to spur serious action and planning. A few years after 9/11, SARS, followed by avian influenza in Asia and and swine flu in Mexico further propelled interest in planning for severe epidemics.

As the Departments of Homeland Security, Health and Human Services, and Defense, and state and local governments think about preparedness, some things need to be taken into account.

For instance, what do Americans do now if they feel ill? People who have jobs that provide sick leave will likely stay home until they feel better. If they have health coverage, they may go to their doctors or primary care centers--often relatively soon in the course of their illness. On the other hand, people who don't have jobs with sick leave or medical benefits will likely stay at work until they either get better or until they are so ill that they have to seek care, likely at a hospital emergency room; at which point they may be highly infectious, and will have been highly infectious for a while.

Remember, we are talking about the status quo, what people do now, under "normal" circumstances.

So, think about what the national and state and local governments want people to do in case of an avian or swine flu epidemic (or zombie apocalypse, if that works for you). They would like them to stay at home as much as possible. They would like them to contact their physicians and primary care clinics for advice and not congregate in hospital ERs--which would likely serve as an accelerant for disease transmission. In other words, the governments would like Americans (and may plan to compel them) to behave in a manner that they have not been conditioned by their health system to behave.

Our governments spent billions of dollars planning and preparing for attacks with biological agents in the weeks and months following 9/11. We spent billions more planning and preparing for severe flu epidemics. But we have paid little or no attention to the health care systems that Americans will use in the event; or how Americans of all stripes will interact with those health systems. Americans who have little or no health coverage, or whose employers do not provide sick days -- or will fire them if they stay home sick, or with sick children -- are not incentivized to do what the authorities would like them to do should we ever face a serious communicable disease epidemic.

A key virtue of the current health care reform--call it Obamacare or Romneycare--is that workers will have options to staying at work, sick, until they can't stand it and go to an ER where they can mingle with infected and uninfected persons in great numbers and close quarters.

Yet critics of health care reform complain of the cost, or of government intrusion, not realizing the cost that a modern day Spanish flu would wreak on our economy, or the extent of government intrusion that would be needed to keep millions of Americans away from work and emergency room care and at home in quasi-quarantine.

Mostly, I find the rhetoric of "job-killing health care reform" ironic, if not a bit obscene. Let us have a good outbreak of avian or swine flu, and it won't be jobs that are killed. It will be the people who worked at them.

Another modest suggestion

The Occupy movement has done a lot to draw attention to the problems of income inequality and the flush of big money in politics. But in some ways they remind me of cardiac fibrillation; the effects are impressive on the surface, but little blood actually gets pumped and the patient eventually dies. 

So may I humbly suggest that my friends in the Occupy movements consider some alternatives or adjuncts. 

First of all, check out Occupy the Voting Booth. 

Get behind a candidate that shares your values, such as Elizabeth Warren.

Register as Republicans and get behind Buddy Roemer who is the only Republican presidential candidate to come out in support. Move the poll numbers and demand he be allowed join the follies otherwise known as Republican presidential debates.

One last thought: join the Republican Party and get active at the state, local and precinct level. Take the GOP back from the crazies and return it to the party of Nelson Rockefeller, Everett Dirksen, Dwight Eisenhower, William Scranton, John Love, Jerry Ford, even Goldwater and Reagan (who were both too far to the left for the current crop of "conservatives").

Street theater is lots of fun, but sooner or later someone will go to Washington and affect our lives for better or worse. Lets try to make it better in the voting booth.

What is all this about teleprompters??

One of the attack themes from President Obama's stronger critics (dare I call them haters?) is his use of teleprompters. It is a ready chestnut that they grab onto at the first opportunity. Given that every president, presidential candidate, and many other political figures and speakers in general use teleprompters, what is the big deal?

There are a lot of things that Obama can be criticized for, that are substantive. But honestly, from the unhinged I don't hear much substance, just snark-- and of course unmitigated hatred. But why teleprompters? Why a device that every other pol uses too? Heck, even the politicians that the Obama-haters say they like use teleprompters. 

So, I figure that it is because it is the only way that they can rationalize the fact that the man is a pretty good speaker much of the time. The assumption then, is that he is a good speaker when he has his teleprompters and an inarticulate boob when he doesn't. Of course that isn't true, as any observation of Obama at the podium will reveal. Some of his lamest speeches have been with teleprompters, and some of his better speeches have been without. 

Personally, I think  the damn things degrade the quality of speeches and rob them of spontaneity. Bill Clinton's best speeches were when he blew off the teleprompters or didn't use them at all. 

I think that Obama's haters -- and I draw a distinction between critics and haters -- lock in on the teleprompters because they are so invested in the idea that this particular man cannot successfully speak on his own, that they truly believe he can't give a speech unless someone else wrote it for him and feeds it to him on a spoon -- or teleprompter. It is that simple, and that hateful. 

This sort of criticism has never been leveled at another president. That it is leveled at this president says far more about the haters than the hated. 

Remembering Flight 93, Remembering Their Gift

Yesterday, 10 September, I watched the live broadcast of the ceremony dedicating the memorial at Shanksville, Pennsylvania, where United Airlines Flight 93 crashed after its passengers and crew tried to seize control of the airplane so that Al-Qaeda hijackers could not crash it into their likely target of the US Capitol Building.

The ceremony was simple and dignified. The audience consisted largely of people from Shanksville and surrounding Somerset County, families of Flight 93's passengers and crew, United Airlines employees, US Park Service personnel and people who were involved in raising funds and working to make the memorial a reality. The media kept a respectful distance and resisted the impulse to chatter during periods of silence; at least MSNBC's Chris Matthews resisted at any rate. I can't speak for other media outlets.

The day and the location demand thoughtful reflection. What happened in the skies over Shanksville saved hundreds of lives in Washington DC and may have avoided what was to be the coup de grace on that day 10 years ago, destruction of the symbol of American government and democracy.

Sarah McLachlan performed two songs, "I Will Remember You" and "In the Arms of an Angel" and the Navy Band performed "O Danny Boy" as a recessional. A solitary bagpiper seemed to have difficulty overcoming his emotions, giving his performance the poignancy of the bugle performance at President Kennedy's graveside.

Poet Robert Pinsky recited poems by Brazilian Carlos Drummond de Andrade, "Souvenir of the Ancient World" and Polish writer Czeslaw Milosz,"Incantation" (see link here). The first poem imagines a quiet world, at peace, and on the cusp of cataclysm. The second poem celebrates human reason:

"It says that everything is new under the sun,

Opens the congealed fist of the past."

The speeches were exceptional.

Preside Bush's speech was solemn and simple and reflected the sensibilities of a man who remembered his entire world changing in a blink, and the awesome, crushing responsibilities he has undertaken coming sharply into focus. He recounted the events of the day in a somber narrative and then reflected on the spirit of national unity that immediately followed the attacks; and seemed wistful for that sense that we are one nation, calling on politicians to remember that we are Americans before we are red or blue.

President Clinton recalled his wife coming home red-eyed the night before. As Senator from New York she represented the firefighters and policemen who died in the towers, along with the employees of Cantor- Fitzgerald and so many more. He spoke of the importance in our common memory of people who bravely face certain death that others may live and thrive, mentioning the defenders of the Alamo and Thermopylae who bought precious time with their lives and allowed Texas liberty and Athenian democracy to survive.

President Clinton also noted a crucial difference with the passengers and crew of Flight 93. The defenders at the Alamo and Thermopylae were soldiers. They knew what was expected of them. The passengers and crew of Flight 93 simply boarded an airplane. They were getting on about their lives. Yet with only minutes to decide, they chose not to be victims in a mad act of terrorism, but to fight back and prevent the slaughter of other innocents. They fought, not as soldiers but as citizens, with carafes of hot water, their fists, and a drink cart. And they won.

Vice President Biden's speech may have been the most personal and powerful. He opened by noting that he too had received the telephone call that is a bolt out of the blue, that ends your old life and sends you stumbling forward, unsure of your own future. He commended the families for their courage in coming to the place where their loved ones had died, and risking reopening wounds. He also noted that Flight 93 was the beginning of our nation's counterattack against terror, quoting militia Captain John Parker at the Battle of Lexington, that if war is what they want, "let it begin here." Nothing, he went on to tell the audience, can replace loved ones; sons, daughters. wives, husbands, fathers, mothers, friends. But those who came to Shanksville should know that their loved ones' sacrifice mattered, and that the nation will always be grateful.

One of the most moving moments came when those who were present in the Capitol and White House (the other likely target) that day were asked to stand; Joe Biden, Laura Bush, John Boehner, and a number of other folks in the audience stood, and the gravity of what those 40 passengers and crew did sank in.

They are worthy of their memorial. May we be worthy of them.

A "must-read" column on today's Republican Party and toxic politics

Goodbye to All That: Reflections of a GOP Operative Who Left the Cult | Truthout

This column is a bit long, but worth the reading. Should be required reading for every Democrat in the House and Senate, and for the one in the White House.

Good essay; the problem *is* us

Five Governance Problems That Contributed to the U.S. Credit Rating Downgrade

Good essay from Brookings. Bottom line for me is that voters don't participate in the electoral process until the general election, if then. The general election is not the time to bemoan the quality of candidates or the process that gave them to you.

Some modest suggestions

1. If you are an independent--by which I mean that you are not formally affiliated with either the Democratic or the Republican party--reconsider. I assume you are independent because you are fed-up with the candidates that the parties put forward, or the extremity of the positions they seem to take. If that is the case, then you are part of the problem. If your are not in a political party then you have surrendered to the very forces that create the polarization that grieves you.

So join one of the parties, vote in primaries for candidates that represent the moderate views of the 80 percent of party-members who tend to ignore primaries, instead of the 20 percent of "base" voters (read crazies on the right, or left) that do vote in primaries.

2. Next time some hack copies a party's talking points, calls it journalism, and hopes you won't challenge the underlying assumptions, disappoint the lazy SOB. Next time some talk show host's guest spouts crap about job-killing tax increases, or job-killing government health care takeover, demand of that network that the host do his or her job and challenge the statement. How will closing tax loopholes of oil companies kill jobs? How does it help the economy to incentivize--through the tax-code--U.S. based multi-nationals to move jobs overseas? And, how--in either case--do those qualify as tax increases. How does it hurt auto-manufacturers in Detroit to reduce the amount they have to pay out in health care premiums for employees by more intelligent and centralized management of health insurance programs? In an age where we worry about pandemic flu and biological agents in the hands of terrorists, does it make any sense to not have robust, well-funded, public health systems and primary care clinics available to all? If that is socialism, then what are police and fire departments?

More suggestions to follow

Saturday Morning Coming Down

So. The debt limit crisis rolls on. The House voted for a poison pill, which the Senate rejected. The President bemoaned the lack of bi-partisanship. The public is angrier.

I would like to take note of something that is kind of important to remember. Only one party is really culpable here. One party has made it a key principle that big business and the wealthiest Americans should not lose their tax breaks (tax breaks that are not enjoyed by all Americans) and has resolved to bring down the economy instead. The other party is trying to govern.

Paying taxes (and blogging) is hard!

Well folks, the blogging part is hard anyway. I work, I commute, I sleep and eat. Sometimes there just isn't the time or energy to log in, keep coherent thoughts in my head and get them written down. And then there are those times when I hear oil companies and other multi-nationals caterwauling about their tax "burden" -- and hear their amen corner (otherwise known as the Repub party) chime in with a load of pseudo economic BS about job-killing taxes, and, well, blogging gets easy.

Let's start with the oil companies, because they are on my hit parade of BS slingers this week. Oil company execs went in front of Congress the other day and talked about how asking them to pay their taxes would do everything from kill the economy to giving aid and shelter to terrorists. Mind you, I am not talking about hitting them with burdensome, higher taxes than everyone elses taxes; I am talking about asking them to pay the same taxes every other American corporation is supposed to pay. Of course the Repub chorus tripped all over themselves to find microphones from which to decry Democratic grand-standing, politics-playing and job-killing.

So lets back up a minute and recall why the oil companies have those tax breaks anyway.

Back in the distant past, the United States Government told the oil companies what they could charge Americans for a gallon of gasoline. That was why gas was so cheap for so long and why we never got serious about fuel economy until outside forces (OPEC) took a 2 x 4 to our back-sides. Even after the oil shocks of the 70s, it took us a while to turn loose of gasoline subsidies to Joe the Plumber and every other American that pulled up to a gas pump. The same thing was true about home-heating oil, by the way.

Our pay-off to the oil companies was that they got tax breaks to make it affordable for them to explore and develop new oil sources and build new refineries. We also let them write off taxes paid to other countries to explore for oil in those countries and then gave them a break on the cost of tankers to ship the oil back to our shores. It was a fair exchange because they were holding down the cost of what we paid for gas.

Well, times changed and the oil companies joined the chorus of deregulators, environmentalists, and free-marketeers who said that it was wrong to subsidize the cost of gasoline at the pump and that the U. S. Government shouldn't do that anymore. The process started under Jimmy Carter and completed under Ronald Reagan. A lot of folks didn't notice because, in 1986, the Saudis cut the price of oil to the bone and basically dumped it on our markets (and put a lot of domestic oil drillers out of business).

And there it was. Big Oil was free of price controls and they still had their tax breaks. In the mid-90s the Saudis and OPEC started to turn the screws, new competitors came on line demanding oil and gas for their cars, and the prices started up. And the oil companies profits went along for the ride; helped, of course, by some sweet corporate welfare paid by you and me.

Does it make you a little sick and a little mad, maybe? Keep that in mind next time you hear some Repub bleating about how asking Big Oil to pay its fair share will cost jobs. But there is another problem; the Repubs may be economic fantasists (or liars), but the Democrats too often are economic ignoramuses. In all the posturing, from either side of the aisle, I didn't hear a single voice point out the simple, shameful history of how we got here with Big Oil, and how they have ripped us off. Maybe its one thing to feign indignation and another thing to do something about it.

See, the blogging part can be easy, if you get mad enough.

She's Back (Christine, the Teenage Witch, that is)

See link: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/02/08/christine-odonnell-christinepac-gop-george-soros_n_820381.html

She has set up ChristinePAC, to help her fight "establishment" Repubs, and George Soros too. Maybe also to help her pay her rent?

She who must not be named

So. Sarah Pain has trade-marked herself. While that might make sense for Bristol Palin, it is un-democratic and possibly (hopefully) self-defeating for Sarah Palin.

It is un-democratic because she will try to restrict who, when, and how people talk and write about her. Imagine Tina Fey getting sued for damaging the Palin "brand."

It is self-defeating because, well, why would any pol want to generate questions about when it is appropriate to use her name?

Here is a modest suggestion: stop using her name, period. If she wants to restrict how her "trade mark" is used in a free society that she aspires to lead, let's go her one better and stop using the name all together.

SWMNBN (She Who Must Not Be Named) is a good handle. We could even pronounce it "swim nubbin." That has a folksy feel to it.

What a Speech Evokes

In last night's State of the Union Speech, President Obama evoked the American spirit with the words "We do big things." It was poignant because it was true -- and it may be true again.

The President hit the nail on the head last night. We do big things. It is our legacy, our birthright. But, we have had a national case of the grumps that seems as much the result of constipated imaginations as any financial or spiritual failings.

I'd ask you to think big again, dream big and do big if you can. And remember and honor those whose big things are today known as the United States of America.

In 1943, Stephen Vincent Benet published the first volume of what he meant to be an epic poem of the nation's founding and settling, Western Star. Benet died before he could finish the work. He was warded a Pulitzer Prize posthumously for the first volume.

From the Invocation to Western Star, he offers these lines, an elegy for those who came here--and were here.

You shall remember them. You shall not see

Water or wheat or axe-mark on the tree

And not remember them.

You shall not win without remembering them,

For they won every shadow of the moon,

All the vast shadows, and you shall not lose

Without a dark remembrance of their loss

For they lost all and none remembered them.

Hear the wind

Blow through the buffalo-grass,

Blow over the wild-grape and brier.

This was frontier, and this,

And this, your house, was frontier.

There were footprints on the hill

And men lie buried under,

Tamers of earth and river.

They died at the end of labor,

Forgotten is the name.

Now, in full summer, by the Eastern shore,

Between the seamark and the roads going west,

I call two oceans to remember them.

I fill the hollow darkness with their names.

There is much, much more. The poem is well worth a trip to the library. And, as we are called back to our destinies, it is worth remembering those who answered their calls long -- and not so long -- ago.

Sunday morning musings

One of my favorite books in Only Yesterday by Frederick Lewis Allen, who was the editor of Harper's and The Atlantic. Allen wrote a contemporaneous account of the 1920s, and an excellent analysis of the Big Bull Market of 1928 and 1929, and its crash on September 3rd, 1929.

I have known for years that Allen wrote a volume on the 1930s, titled Since Yesterday, and thanks to the magic of e-reading and the Internet, I down-loaded it yesterday and started reading.

In the book, Allen takes another look at the Big Bull market and the crash, and with hindsight not available to him in Only Yesterday, he analyzes the Little Bull Market that followed in the winter of 1929 and 1930 , President Hoover's performance, Congress's behavior, and the attitudes of the well-to-do. It is, in a word, fascinating -- and scary.

Economists and historians of the crash often assure us that the parallels between the crash of 1929 and what is happening now are more imagined than real. Perhaps. But there are similarities that should give anyone caution. Great caution.

In 1929, unregulated financiers rigged a system that was guaranteed to collapse. They allowed -- encouraged -- margin buying in the stock market and extended credit to anyone who could ask for it. When the stock market hit snags - -as any market will -- the margin calls wiped out the overextended buyers, sent prices crashing and set off waves of other calls and sales. In the years leading up to the collapse of 2008 and 2009, people who had no business purchasing houses and real-estate valued far above their means to pay, were encouraged to line up for the asset that "never loses value" -- until it does.

Starting in 1980 and really taking off after the Repubs took control of the House and Senate in 1994, American finance has been characterized by the dialectic of privatizing profit and socializing risk. As taxpayers, Americans are on the hook to make up for wreckage caused by out of control and unaccountable financiers. The financiers, on the other hand, have insisted that anything that curtails their greed, such as paying taxes, is bad for America.

Actually, tax policy for the last two decades has worked against Americans investing in their own businesses in their own country. But the financiers -- and their Repub partners -- push on, insisting that tax cuts (particularly capital gains tax cuts) are just the thing for stimulating a slow economy, moderating an over-heating economy, jump-starting a stalled economy, or sustaining a booming economy. To listen to them tax-cuts will also cure the common cold.

What we know now -- after fighting two wars for 10 years, and giving out huge tax-cuts -- is that we are broke, in hock to other countries, and have the greatest income disparity we have seen in over 100 years. In 2000, much was made of Karl Rove's appreciation of William McKinley's policies and William McKinley's America. Rove has just about gotten us back there.

And what of the current President? When Barack Obama appeared on the national stage in 2004, I liked him. I liked him through the next 4 years and supported him whole-heartedly for President in 2008. All the while however, I had a nagging concern that he could be a Jimmy Carter; intelligent, far-sighted, and far better equipped to manage than lead. As I read Since Yesterday, it occurs to me that that description also applied to Herbert Hoover -- and in this economic instance, that is not an encouraging thought.

Hoover did his best after the crash and as the economy sludged to a stop in 1930 and 1931. Some of his programs to resolve the savagery of the depression became features of the New Deal. But Hoover did too little, too late. And I find the parallels with Obama frightening.

Hoover offered platitudes and reassurance that all would be well. Roosevelt offered assurance that we could overcome our troubles if we were willing to take the chances and make the changes needed.

Roosevelt had a Congress that was ready to do whatever it took, at first. In the later years of his administrations, the Congresses were more fractious. Obama had a more cautious Congress, but has missed multiple opportunities to call the Repub's bluffs. He has tried to hard to be be bi-partisan -- as if that were an end unto itself -- when he should have called Repub tactics for what they are; holding a gun to the head of the American people.

President Obama finally called the tactics for what they were when he called them "hostage-taking" -- as he pushed Democrats to accept the compromise he had just struck with the hostage-takers.

It may be that the tax compromise is a good thing. I suspect it is a trap. If Obama is to avoid the trap, and Hoover-dom, he will have to come out of the corner in this next round as the FDR we hoped he might be on a January morning in 2009.

Inconceivable!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/12/17/house-republicans-block-child-marriage-prevention-act_n_798382.html

The House Repubs -- perhaps in a show of things to come -- defeated in a near party-line vote, a measure meant to combat child marriages. The measure passed unanimously in the Senate, but the House Repubs were having none of it. They cited cost as the reason, until one of their own (and one of the few who supported the measure) noted that there would be no additional costs, the money would be redirected from other expenditures. Then it was about "abortion," because the bill might result in some NGOs who support abortions getting funds. Again, the Republican supporter and sponsor scoffed (see link above).

Here is an explanation for consideration: The House Repubs pride themselves on being close to "the people" -- unlike their out of touch, hoity-toity Senate colleagues. Do some of the the people they are in touch with include folks who think they have a right to rape children? Do they vote in primaries? Do the House Repubs know shame?

Whose "Derangement Syndrome" is worse

I started this post in July of this year. I'm not sure why I didn't finish it then. But in the cold dawn (or early morning) after the mid-terms, it is time to wrap it up.

I am told that Bush Derangement Syndrome has given way to Obama Derangement Syndrome -- and they they are equally bad -- or equally meaningless. Or, that the Obama Derangement Syndrome is just payback for Bush Derangement Syndrome; which was really payback for Clinton Derangement Syndrome, and it doesn't really matter because "they all do it."

For the record, I think it does matter, I think the various syndromes are not the same, and I think "They all do it" is one of the worst lies perpetuated on the American people in many a year.

One of the worst problems we have in this country is that most voters have abdicated their responsibilities as voters. When less than 20 percent of registered party voters participate in primaries, they surrender their parties to the extremists and wing-nuts. Then they complain about the candidates they are stuck with, and about political polarization, and bemoan the value of participating in the process at all.

Who benefits from such cynicism? The extremists, or the special interests that manipulate the special interests? You decide.

Are the folks that hate Obama just paying the Democrats back for the way the Democrats treated Bush? And didn't the Democrats make Bush's life miserable as payback for the way Republicans treated Clinton? I think not.

A lot of Democrats were upset at how the 2000 election turned out, and a lot of them intended to use the ambiguity of Bush's election to their favor in 2004. But I don't remember many of them expressing a desire that Bush fail in his duties as President; certainly not in the manner that Mitch McConnell or John Boehner have done in Obama's case -- leave aside the "patriots" of Fox news who are paid bomb-throwers.

I also remember that Democrats rallied to President Bush's side after 9/11, and stayed there until the 2002 election when Rove and company used fear and loathing as synonyms for patriotism. (where I left off...)

Since 1968 the Republicans have demonized their opponents as un-American, treasonous, god-less, etcetera, as a staple campaign strategy. The Democrats have challenged Republicans' view of America, and what a "City on the hill" should look like to its followers, but they have not -- as a matter of routine -- challenged their fitness to live amongst us.

It isn't the same and they don't all do it. One party has chosen to divide the country. The other tries, however ineffectually, to make the country work. Or to put it another way, the Democratic Party wants to govern, the Republican party wants to win.

It isn't hard to choose which one is better for the country -- if you happen to love America.

Denis Pictures

This rather lonely and abandoned house in Martinsburg, WV just seemed to be calling out to have its picture taken.

Colorado October 2010

Flatirons, from Chautauqua Park, Boulder, CO

One view of the Flatirons...

Halltown Memorial Chapel, Halltown, WV

This is a tiny private chapel between Charlestown and Harper's Ferry, WV

St Barnabas Episcopal Church, Leetown WV

St John's Lutheran Church, Davis WV

More in a series of country church photos....

Ballooning, near Boulder, CO

St Malo Chapel, near Estes Park, CO

St Malo Chapel, near Estes Park, CO

St Malo Chapel, near Estes Park, CO

St Malo Visitor Center, near Estes Park, CO

10 Things You Must Believe to Oppose Health Care

A friend sent me the following in an email. It is a great example of the cognitive dissonance that has taken over the Republican Party and is too good not to pass on:

In order to oppose Universal Health Care (UHC) and support Corporate Profit Based Health Care (CPBHC), you have to believe the following statements to be true:

1. With my private insurer, I can select any doctor I want and there is no one between my doctor and me when it comes to decisions My doctor does not have to consult with my insurance provider to see what medications or procedures are allowed. I can get whatever my doctor and I want, whenever I want it and where ever I want it. It is only with UHC that someone is in between me and my doctor. It is only with UHC that I am limited to my selection of doctors.

2. The poor citizens of Appalachia who stood in the rain for hours to receive limited health care from compassionate doctors and nurses who examined them in animal stalls because there were no suitable medical locations nearby, were receiving "The Best Health Care in The World".

3. The family that goes into bankruptcy because one of their members is gravely ill and their insurer denies payment because of a technically in the fine print, are also getting the "Best Health Care in the World".

4. Hospitals spend millions of dollars a year advertising their services to us because they want us to know where to go when we get sick. These millions of dollars are not added to the cost of our hospital visit. We ought to do the same with our police and fire departments.

5. Drug companies also spend billions of dollars a year in marketing (more than they do in research) because they want us to remember what medication we should take when we are ill and these billions of dollars are not figured into the cost of the medication.

6. The citizens of Germany, France, Canada, Belgium, The UK, Norway, Portugal, Iceland, Spain, Italy, Austria, and others with UHC have awfulmedical care but they are not allowed to protest it and their systems of democracy forbid these people from electing representatives in government to overturn UHC and switch to CPBHC.

7. The medical and insurance corporations in the USA are spending a million dollars a day to lobby against UHC because they really care about our health and they know their system is better for us. It has nothing to do with protecting their massive corporate profits.

8. Medical and insurance corporations care about their customers first and their investors second. Every medical and insurance corporation in America puts a patient's health ahead of the interests of the shareholders. All of them. They are saints. Money means nothing to them.

9. We need to end Medicare and Medicaid and VA hospitals immediately.

10. All of the studies from all of the research of all of the nations with UHC that prove that they spend less and live longer, are lies. All of them. It's a conspiracy.

I have been a fan of John Stewart. Not the Jon Stewart of Comedy Central, but the John Stewart of Signals Through the Glass, California Bloodlines, The Lonesome Picker Rides Again, Wingless Angels, etc. I have just finished listening to the last album he recorded before his death in January 2008, The Day the River Sang.

As with all his albums, John Stewart reminded us of an America that we remember faintly in the past and dearly hope still exists. His songs often had contemporary themes, but he presented them through eyes, voice, and values that have grown rare.

His look backward was wistful, never revanchist. John loved Bobby Kennedy, campaigned with him up and down the valleys and coasts of California, and was with him that night in the Ambassador hotel. He never lost the hope for and love of America that he shared with Bobby--and so many of us--that summer. Even when he sang of contemporary tragedy--as in the amazing "New Orleans"--which mourns the city's loss after Katrina, he knows we will come back. And we know it too, as a result.

I am writing this tonight because, until a couple of weeks ago, I did not know we had lost his voice. We have his songs still, but that most American voice is gone. I used to follow him around the Denver area in the early 70s, catching his performances whenever I could. Somewhere along the line I got too busy to look up his concert schedule. Even when he regularly appeared at the Birchmere, a mere 90 minutes from my house. Then he was gone.

I remember John in his 40s, tough, rowdy. In his last appearances (I looked them up on YouTube) he was an old man in failing health but still writing, recording and performing. His voice was still real, if not so strong. I feel older and America is poorer for his absence.

Paynes Chapel

One of my hobbies is photographing litttle country churches. Where I live--in West Virginia's eastern panhandle--means I have a lot of photo opportunities.

This is Paynes Chapel, near Ridgeway, West Virginia.

The Czars are coming! The Czars are coming!

Years ago, R. Emmet Tyrell, conservative pundit and prankster, described the '70s as "The Great Silliness." Tyrell didn't know for nothin'.

The "naughties" (as our British cousins like to call this decade) are truly the silly season. How else to explain the wing-nuts parading in Washington DC, waving signs decrying our "socialist" President--or "Nazi" depending on who is waving the AstroTurf banners--who just happens to be slightly to the right of Dick Nixon. How else to explain the current obsession with "Czars" roaming the halls of power. If not silliness, could it be calculated cynicism, based on the premise that the American population really is the booboise that H. L. Mencken accused us of being? Could it be that the press--who are supposed to check their facts and not just regurgitate stuff they are fed--are failing miserably at their jobs? You decide.

The Czar issue has been booming around the echo chamber otherwise known as talk radio and Fox News for a while now. Glenn Beck has cautioned that we are soon to be stripped of our freedoms by these Nazgul, no doubt ferried in black helicopters.

There are 32 of them we are told, with extraordinary authorities to menace our liberties. According to Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas, the 32 (an unprecedented number she intones) are, by their existence, a walking constitutional crisis. Representative John Boehner, House Minority Leader (whose name makes me wish Don Imus was still broadcasting on DC area radio) is equally alarmed.

Sheesh!

If 32 Czars is "unprecedented" it is only because George W. Bush blew past that number on his way to appointing 36. I don't remember an outcry back then.

"Czars" have been around at least as long as the Nixon administration. Actually they aren't really called Czars, except by media types who want to call them something snappy. Who after all wants to talk about a special advisor for automotive industry restructuring when you can say "Car Czar."

So the press creates the term, gets it into widespread use, and then trumpets "concern" about it implications...

By the way, Bush actually had more than 36 if you count up the "Assistants To" running around the Pentagon. By naming someone an Assistant to the Secretary of Defense, his administration could get around limits on the number of sub-cabinet level positions he could fill, and he could avoid Senate confirmation. Sort of like an "assistant to the regional manager," only with real power.

Oh yeah. Of Obama's unprecedented 32 Czars, nine were confirmed by the Senate. Their positions were fully vetted, as were their qualifications.

Like I said, Tyrell don't know for nothin'.

More on the Health Care Debate

One of the --frankly--sillier things I have heard from critics of a government health program is: "I don't want a government bureaucrat coming between me and my doctor."

As opposed to an insurance company bureaucrat?

Let us examine the presumption that a government bureaucrat (as opposed to an insurance company bureaucrat) is not competent to adjudicate billing and fee issues between physician and patient.

First of all, the government bureaucrat will likely know what he or she is doing. To get a job, a government employee must describe and document KSAs (Knowledge, Skills, and Aptitude) for the job in question. Getting promoted also requires either documenting KSAs or performing elements of the job at a higher level of performance to the satisfaction of a superior; just ask anyone who has ever applied for a federal position. By the way, the federal KSAs are public record.

On the other hand, the insurance company bureaucrat may have no experience whatsoever. There is no way to tell.

The government bureaucrat has little incentive to deny a claim for cost reasons, because his or her job performance is not measured by bottom-line considerations. Rather the government bureaucrat's work performance is measured against performance-based objectives including speed of processing claims, accuracy, judgement, client satisfaction.

The insurance company bureaucrat is very much judged on how much money he or she save the company (read; number of claims denied).

In our current system, you have an insurance company bureaucrat between you and your doctor; who may have worked at a Kentucky Fried Chicken last week and is, in any case, not working for you but for the company's bottom line.

I'll take the government bureaucrat.

40 years along...

Before I forget. I joined the U. S. Navy 40 years ago today. I was 17 years old, getting off a bus at Naval Training Center, San Diego, and scared stiff. The sailors who met the bus made my high school gym coaches seem like weenies.They were loud, coarse, and scary. What the hell had I gotten myself into? It didn't take long to decide that I had made the biggest mistake of my life (all 17 years of it!).

I had no idea--I could not have conceived--that 20 years later I would look fondly on that day as the day I first put on the uniform that I was about to retire.

Today, 40 years later, I still smell the salt air at Nimitz Island, I still hear the martial music blaring from loud-speakers as seaman recruits learn to march to John Phillip Sousa's cadences, and I remember a lot of 17 and 18 year old kids setting out on their greatest adventure.

Health Care; Go Big, Go Long, Go Single-payer

Well, I have been on hiatus for a few months. Once the elections were over, the creative juices sorted of slowed; work picked up; the energy and concentration needed to opine--well--sort of dissipated.

But, I've been listening to the debate on health care; on television, radio, street-corners, my sister's kitchen, anywhere people get together with differing views on the subject. I though, what the hell...

For starters. Obama needs to go big and go long. Go straight to single-payer. Tell Americans the truth. Single-payer is cheaper, it allows cost containment (without which no health plan will work), care will improve, it will be a boon to business, and Americans who want Cadillac care can still get it through their choice of insurance plans.

The difference will be that health care will no longer depend on employers -- and will no longer burden employers. That should translate to higher wages; since money that could have gone into wages has been sidelined into paying for the spiraling increases in health plan costs. It should also translate into lower prices for goods and services because the cost of providing employees' health care should no longer be a factor in setting prices for said goods and services.

What is single-payer? It is the big "government-run" health plan that the Republican leadership in Congress is doing their best to scare the wits out of Americans with. It is, in fact, Medicare for all Americans, regardless of age. Medicare is one of the most effective and cost-effective programs this country has fielded. With an approximate 4 percent administrative overhead, it is one of the cheapest to operate. Doctors point out Medicare's success in cost-containment every time one of them quails at taking on a new Medicare patient -- because Medicare sets limits on what can be charged and scrutinizes treatment and testing options.

It is late and I am drooping, but I have more to write on this topic and I hope some will be there to read it.

Sidewalks; a family value

So, I am sitting in a Starbucks in Boulder, CO, contemplating election withdrawal. I am too much the sloth to know if this is what it feels like to finish a marathon and wonder where the buzz went; but I surmise it is. Well there is always the cabinet to speculate about...

As I sit in this coffee shop that didn't exist when I lived in Boulder, some thoughts do pop into my head that don't have to do with who will be in Obama's cabinet. Boulder is a lefty sort of town. I like lefty towns. I lived in Takoma Park, MD on weekdays for three years. Takoma Park epitomizes lefty towns.

These are places that send the "family values" crowd through the roof. And I find that curious to say the least. If I see family values anywhere I see them in the lefty, red-diaper baby towns like Boulder and Takoma park. I don't see people walking their kids and dogs in the evening along sidewalks that bound neatly mown and cared for lawns in places like Colorado Springs or Frederick, MD. I am sure they do, I just don't see it the way I do in Boulder and Takoma Park. One reason is that you can't find sidewalks in many parts of the Springs, or Frederick, or pick your suburb/exurb that was thrown up in the last thirty years.

Forty years ago, Boulder passed a green belts proposal that set aside green spaces around the city, to protect much of its nature and quality of life. The developers at the time accused the city of council of communism and any other ism they could think of. Today, Boulder is not a huge strip mall, which can't be said of many nearby towns. It has a vigorous outdoor culture, trails, bike paths, and sidewalks.

It is amazing the difference sidewalks can make in a town. People who take walks sometimes stop to talk to people who live near-by and thus become neighbors. Next thing you know, people start to talk about their neighborhoods. Next thing you know, they form a community that looks out for its own. Sort of like: it takes a village to raise a child; and enable families to act like families and neighborhoods to act like collections of neighbors.

A lot of developers don't like sidewalks because they cut into profits. But they do something else, that--until housing collapsed as an inflatable commodity--was undesirable. People who live in neighborhoods, as opposed to tracts, don't move as often and aren't as susceptible to the impulse to "buy-up" which is (or was) the developers answer to crack cocaine.

But then, to the "family values" crowd, as opposed to those families who have values, money trumps all.

So, if you are anywhere near a sidewalk, give thanks -- and maybe jump over a crack.

Bye, bye, Bradley effect

If John McCain has done nothing else this campaign season, he may have well and truly banished the Bradley effect from our politics and lexicon.

The Bradley effect pertains to (African American) Los Angeles Mayor, Tom Bradley's defeat in 1982 when he ran for Governor of California. Bradley was considered well ahead of his Republican challenger, George Deukmejian. But once the polls closed he had lost by a slim margin. Pollsters theorized that, when interviewing likely voters, they were lied to by people who didn't want to appear racist, but who could not bring themselves to vote for a black man.

So what has McCain done to end the Bradley effect? Simple. By providing the racists reasons to not vote for Obama, other than that he is black (Socialist, Terrorist, Muslim, etc) he has give visibility to would have been a hidden, racist-caused undercount. The racists will still be voting against Obama because of his race, but the Obama campaign knows better than Bradley's people did, who is voting against them, and how many there are.

McCain gets a good campaign line

I think that Barack Obama will win next Tuesday. But, if he doesn't it will be, in no small part, due to the campaign argument that John McCain trotted out last week.

McCain is arguing that Americans should vote for him to prevent the Democratic party from getting their hands on the Congress and the White House.

I suspect that, had John McCain started with this argument a month ago, I might be predicting the likelihood of a McCain victory right now. I don't know if the 40 watt bulbs that have run the McCain campaign hit on this themselves or if they had help, but it is a fiendishly clever argument. I just hope it is too late.

The argument accomplishes one big obvious thing, and a few not so obvious things. Obviously, it appeals to a lot of independents who are afraid of Democrats "gone wild" in Washington and lukewarm about Obama -- even if they are cold to McCain and Palin. We are a center-right country and a lot of "Reagan Democrats" might be willing to shift towards McCain if they were sufficiently concerned about a left-ish version of the the first term and a half of George W. Bush; which brings us to one of the less obvious benefits of the argument.

The Democrats can't answer it.

Any response Democrats make to the argument reinforces its merit. What can they say; look how well it turned out when the Republicans had both houses and the White house? That just reinforces McCain's point; which leads me to my last point.

It allows McCain to run against his own party; which appeals to independents and Reagan Democrats.

By talking about the perils of one party dominance, he implicitly criticizes the Republicans for their behavior from 2001 to 2007 when they pretty well dominated the Congress and White House (there was an 18 month period when the Senate was Democratic by one vote). John McCain gets to run away from Bush, tout his Maverick credentials, and dare the Democrats to say anything.

I am really glad it took him this long to figure it out.

Great Blog

Check out Helen Philpot's blog here: http://margaretandhelen.wordpress.com/.

Helen Philpot is an 82 year old woman who acknowledges a sailor's mouth, and I think has a razor wit.

John McCain is a good and honorable man...

... which came through today in Minnesota. The tone of his audience towards Barack Obama was past bitter and hateful. It bordered on scary, and this was one of the milder crowds in recent days. John McCain apparently had enough of the hate that his audiences were spewing and called on them to show some respect. He was booed. By his own supporters.

So, I give McCain credit for trying to call off the crazies. But he is responsible to no small extent for sparking the madness in the first place. McCain did authorize the "Obama hangs out with terrorists" line that Sarah Palin has been using. He did promise a speaker at one of his townhalls that he would step up the attacks on Obama's character.

Someone once wrote about Al Gore that he really didn't like the slash and burn campaigning he found himself doing in 2000. As a result he didn't have a good sense of when he went too far. Sort of like a kid who never eats spinach, he doesn't know when he has a mouthful of rancid leaf because it is never "supposed" to taste good anyway. I think John McCain shares the same attribute. Because he doesn't like or approve of the character assassination his campaign has indulged in, he doesn't know when they have gone too far. Until yesterday when someone yelled "kill him!" when Obama's name was mentioned, and McCain's face registered shock.

I think there is another "thing" in play. John McCain has likely never seen race hatred in full flower. Few white Americans have actually. Make no mistake, many of the people who call Obama an Arab, or a Terrorist, or a Muslim, or a Socialist really are calling him a N*****. They are just too "polite" to do so in front of a TV camera. I believe that John McCain, when he decided to use the Karl Rove/Swifties playbook, didn't realize how race hatred would combine with those already vicious tactics to form a truly explosive mixture of hatred and violence.

John McCain now realizes what he and his running mate have unleashed. You could see it in his face today and yesterday. I hope he can put this evil genie back in the bottle. If not I hope the Secret Service is working overtime.

What my dogs can teach Henry Paulson

I was just watching Secretary of the Treasury Henry Paulson on MSNBC. His news conference reinforced a suspicion I began courting a couple of days ago. Then, he went before the press to explain how additional actions that the government was taking would ease the credit crunch and get money moving again. The Dow took a nosedive. Today (maybe it was yesterday, it is hard to keep these things straight anymore) Bush told the media that the economy was going through a rough patch but that his administration were getting things under control. The Dow took another nosedive.

My wife, who trains dogs, is always after me not to coddle our dogs when they are spooked by something. When I reassure them that everything is okay, they conclude that -- if I am worried enough to reassure them -- they must really have something to worry about.

Investors can't be less rational than dogs can they?

Investing is ultimately an exercise in confidence. When our leaders keep telling us that everything will work out -- when these leaders, particularly, tell us that -- then we get spooked. And when they try to explain things while doing their best Alan Greenspan imitation it gets really scary.

So here is a modest suggestion for Mssrs Paulson and Bush: Shut. Up.

Kathleen Parker on why Sarah Palin should step down

This is from Kathleen Parker, a usually reliable promoter of the Republican line, hook and sinker. If Parker has turned on Palin, McCain is in trouble.

The Palin Problem
Kathleen Parker
Friday, September 26, 2008

WASHINGTON -- If at one time women were considered heretical for swimming upstream against feminist orthodoxy, they now face condemnation for swimming downstream -- away from Sarah Palin.

To express reservations about her qualifications to be vice president -- and possibly president -- is to risk being labeled anti-woman.

Or, as I am guilty of charging her early critics, supporting only a certain kind of woman. Some of the passionately feminist critics of Palin who attacked her personally deserved some of the backlash they received. But circumstances have changed since Palin was introduced as just a hockey mom with lipstick -- what a difference a financial crisis makes -- and a more complicated picture has emerged.

As we've seen and heard more from John McCain's running mate, it is increasingly clear that Palin is a problem. Quick study or not, she doesn't know enough about economics and foreign policy to make Americans comfortable with a President Palin should conditions warrant her promotion.

Yes, she recently met and turned several heads of state as the United Nations General Assembly convened in New York. She was gracious, charming and disarming. Men swooned. Pakistan's president wanted to hug her. (Perhaps Osama bin Laden is dying to meet her?)

And, yes, she has common sense, something we value. And she's had executive experience as a mayor and a governor, though of relatively small constituencies (about 6,000 and 680,000, respectively).

Finally, Palin's narrative is fun, inspiring and all-American in that frontier way we seem to admire. When Palin first emerged as John McCain's running mate, I confess I was delighted. She was the antithesis and nemesis of the hirsute, Birkenstock-wearing sisterhood -- a refreshing feminist of a different order who personified the modern successful working mother. Palin didn't make a mess cracking the glass ceiling. She simply glided through it.

It was fun while it lasted. Palin's recent interviews with Charles Gibson, Sean Hannity and now Katie Couric have all revealed an attractive, earnest, confident candidate. Who Is Clearly Out Of Her League. No one hates saying that more than I do. Like so many women, I've been pulling for Palin, wishing her the best, hoping she will perform brilliantly. I've also noticed that I watch her interviews with the held breath of an anxious parent, my finger poised over the mute button in case it gets too painful. Unfortunately, it often does. My cringe reflex is exhausted. Palin filibusters. She repeats words, filling space with deadwood. Cut the verbiage and there's not much content there.

Here's but one example of many from her interview with Hannity: "Well, there is a danger in allowing some obsessive partisanship to get into the issue that we're talking about today. And that's something that John McCain, too, his track record, proving that he can work both sides of the aisle, he can surpass the partisanship that must be surpassed to deal with an issue like this."
When Couric pointed to polls showing that the financial crisis had boosted Obama's numbers, Palin blustered wordily: "I'm not looking at poll numbers. What I think Americans at the end of the day are going to be able to go back and look at track records and see who's more apt to be talking about solutions and wishing for and hoping for solutions for some opportunity to change, and who's actually done it?"

If BS were currency, Palin could bail out Wall Street herself.

If Palin were a man, we'd all be guffawing, just as we do every time Joe Biden tickles the back of his throat with his toes. But because she's a woman -- and the first ever on a Republican presidential ticket -- we are reluctant to say what is painfully true.

What to do?

McCain can't repudiate his choice for running mate. He not only risks the wrath of the GOP's unforgiving base, but he invites others to second-guess his executive decision-making ability. Barack Obama faces the same problem with Biden.

Only Palin can save McCain, her party and the country she loves. She can bow out for personal reasons, perhaps because she wants to spend more time with her newborn. No one would criticize a mother who puts her family first.

Do it for your country.

Copyright © 2008 Salem Web Network. All Rights Reserved.

A Random Thought...

We are in a financial crisis. The government has taken some bold and controversial steps to resolve some of the problems and they don't seem to be working. The latest step is the proposed $700 billion bailout package. The problem is that few if any institutions are willing -- particularly in the last three weeks--to risk their capital by lending it to anyone else. In short, they are afraid and have lost confidence in the government and finacial sector.

No news there.

But why are they so afraid?

The steps the Fed has taken thus far should have calmed many worries. Opening the lending window made capital available to banks to cover potential losses from the mortgage melt-down (assuming it doesn't suddenly get worse). The government's judicious handling of Lehman Brothers vs AIG should boost confidence that Washington is applying reason to its moves (unless they stop applying reason).

Why so little confidence?

Maybe, about three weeks ago, the people who run these institutions saw something happen that led them to believe that the recent years of fiscal and monetary imbecility might just continue.

Maybe, they watched the Republican party nominate an utterly unqualified small-town mayor with seriously goofy ideas to be the Vice President to a 72 year old Presidential candidate who has had two episodes of melanoma already.

Maybe, after watching that spectacle, they ran home, slit open the proverbial mattress and started stuffing their cash inside.

Economists and financiers do a lot of analysis based on reams of data, but it all comes down to confidence in the end. And, frankly, Rocket J. Squirrel and his trusty sidekick Bullwinkle don't inspire confidence.

More on those double standards...

This election year candidates' personal lives and families are fair game for Republicans as long as the candidate in question is not a Republican.

My niece sent this in an email. It was too good not to post.

" I'm a little confused. Let me see if I have this straight.....

" If you grow up in Hawaii, raised by your grandparents, you're "exotic, different."

" Grow up in Alaska eating moose burgers, a quintessential American story.

" If your name is Barack you're a radical, unpatriotic Muslim.

" Name your kids Willow, Trig and Track, you're a maverick.

" Graduate from Harvard law School and you are unstable.

" Attend 5 different small colleges before graduating, you're well grounded.

" If you spend 3 years as a brilliant community organizer, become the first black President of the Harvard Law Review, create a voter registration drive that registers 150,000 new voters, spend 12 years as a Constitutional Law professor, spend 8 years as a State Senator representing a district with over 750,000 people, become chairman of the state Senate's Health and Human Services committee, spend 4 years in the United States Senate representing a state of 13 million people while sponsoring 131 bills and serving on the Foreign Affairs, Environment and Public Works and Veteran's Affairs committees, you don't have any real leadership experience.

" If your total resume is: local weather girl, 4 years on the city council and 6 years as the mayor of a town with less than 7,000 people, 20 months as the governor of a state with only 650,000 people, then you're qualified to become the country's second highest ranking executive.

"If you have been married to the same woman for 19 years while raising 2 beautiful daughters, all within Protestant churches, you're not a real Christian.

"If you cheated on your first wife with a rich heiress, and left your disfigured wife and married the heiress the next month, you're a Christian.

" If you teach responsible, age appropriate sex education, including the proper use of birth control, you are eroding the fiber of society.

" If , while governor, you staunchly advocate abstinence only, with no other option in sex education in your state's school system while your unwed teen daughter ends up pregnant, you're very responsible.

" If your wife is a Harvard graduate lawyer who gave up a position in a prestigious law firm to work for the betterment of her inner city community, then gave that up to raise a family, your family's values don't represent America's.

" If your husband is nicknamed "First Dude", with at least one DWI conviction and no college education, who didn't register to vote until age 25 and once was a member of a group that advocated the secession of Alaska from the USA, your family is extremely admirable.

"OK, much clearer now. "


Seriously folks, we are voting for someone to lead our country during perilous economic and political times. We aren't drawing straws for who buys the next keg.

Bad jokes and fake outrage; thanks, John McCain

About ten years ago, John McCain told a joke to some Republican fund-raisers. It went, "Do you know why Chelsea Clinton is so ugly? Because Janet Reno is her father."

Today McCain and his crowd are accusing Barack Obama of misogyny and demanding he apologize to Sara Palin. Obama's offense: He said McCain's claims to "change" amounted to "putting lipstick on a pig."

You see, when Republicans are in full attack mode they leap at lame stuff like this. Sarah Palin talked about lipstick in her convention speech, therefore any mention of lipstick is now off-limits as far as they are concerned.

Is John McCain such a hypocrite that he can tell a slimy, hurtful joke then sanction his aides going after Obama with feigned outrage over a non-insult?

Is Ms Palin so precious that she cannot handle criticism, even when it is not aimed at her?

Politics ain't beanbag folks. Get real or get out.

Lipstick, Lipstick, Lipstick!

During a campaign event in Virginia today (9 September 2008), Barack Obama described John McCain's claim that he will change things in Washington as putting lipstick on a pig.

Okay, it is an old line. I have heard it for years before this. But the McCain camp had a fit, thinking it a slam on Sarah Palin. They have, of course, demanded an apology.

Give me a break.

The McCain camp has told us that Palin's family is off-limits. Her personal life is off limits. Do we start saying "The L-word" instead of lipstick now? Is anybody allowed to criticize Sarah Palin?

Can you imagine if the Democrats tried to coddle their candidate in this manner? The Republican attack machine would tear itself apart in their eagerness to heap ridicule on the Democratic ticket. If Barack Obama gave a speech about Sarah Palin that was half as snarky as the one she gave about Barack Obama, the Republicans would be completely beside themselves with feigned outrage.

This is pure crap.

Sarah Palin is not qualified to be Vice President or President. And by putting her on the ticket, John McCain disqualifies himself as well.

It is Barack Obama's duty, and Joe Biden's duty--and the duty of every American who realizes what a cynical and un-American path John McCain is ready to take us down--to denounce this travesty. And it is the duty of every American to demand that the press and media call the McCain camp's double-standards and hypocrisy for what they are.